The NXR Podcast - THE INTERVIEW - We Had A Republic, But We Couldn't Keep It - @AuronMacIntyre - ICYMI

00:00:00.000 All right, welcome back to another episode of Theology Applied. I am your host, Pastor Joel

00:00:04.260 Webin with Right Response Ministries, and in this episode, I am welcoming for the very first time

00:00:09.420 to the show, Oren McIntyre. He's a contributor with The Blaze. He's got a podcast. It's really

00:00:15.340 good. You should check it out. And what we're discussing in this episode is why we should

00:00:19.580 constitution even harder. Classical liberalism. Just kidding. Oren is a realist, and by God's

00:00:27.400 grace, so am I. And so we're not talking about that. What we're talking about instead is how

00:00:32.200 America has not been a constitutional republic for a very long time. And if you think we are

00:00:37.020 currently still a constitutional republic in terms of how we actually function, then I've got some

00:00:42.180 oceanfront property in Kansas that I would love to sell to you. It's time to wake up. It's time

00:00:47.940 to grow up. A constitutional republic is wonderful, but we don't have it because that was designed for

00:00:54.540 a moral and religious people. And currently, all we have are a bunch of degenerates. So can we get 0.97

00:01:00.900 back to the Constitution? And if so, how? Or is this a storm that we just have to go through?

00:01:06.400 And if so, what's on the other side? And are we prepared for that? That's the episode. I think

00:01:12.060 you're going to like it. Tune in now. Applying God's Word to every aspect of life. This is Theology

00:01:18.880 Applied.

00:01:24.540 All right. Welcome to another episode of Theology Applied. I am your host, Pastor Joel Webin

00:01:30.040 with Right Response Ministries. And in this episode, I'm privileged to welcome to the show

00:01:34.000 for the first time, Oren McIntyre. He is a contributor with The Blaze. He has great

00:01:39.620 political commentary. He is a Protestant Southern Baptist. Oren, thanks for coming on the show.

00:01:44.680 Thank you so much for having me, man.

00:01:46.520 All right. So you've got a new book coming out. Let's go ahead and plug that first and give us

00:01:51.260 a brief synopsis for the listener of why did you write the book? What's it about? Sure. I think

00:01:56.780 like a lot of people who probably watch this, I grew up as a talk radio conservative standard GOP

00:02:03.020 neoconservative type of guy. And I went to school for politics. I ended up being a political

00:02:09.320 reporter, worked a little bit in politics. And then 2016 and 2020 happened. And like a lot of

00:02:15.320 people, I just learned that politics doesn't work at all the way that I thought it was power in the

00:02:20.220 united states actually does not conform to the constitution it doesn't restrict any of the

00:02:25.160 things that i thought it did and this kind of threw me for a loop and so i kind of went on a

00:02:29.940 journey of exploring political theory trying to understand what had happened why we were in the

00:02:35.940 situation we were in and how power really works here and as i did that i started to kind of collect

00:02:42.760 all of that and put it into youtube essays and eventually that turned into the book and so the

00:02:47.760 total state is really my journey to understand how the land of the free the you know suddenly

00:02:54.940 transformed into this place where lockdowns and cancellations and the end of free speech seem to

00:03:00.580 be everywhere that's really what the book's about right so the title of the book is uh the total

00:03:05.740 state its release date is may 7th may 7th and basically what you you're just pulling back the

00:03:14.600 veil that God and his providence pulled back for you, you know, at a personal level over 2016 and

00:03:20.380 2020. And just realizing, I think, you know, like, you know, one mutual that you obviously know,

00:03:26.240 and that I've had the pleasure of getting to know Steve Dace. How does he say it? We're not a nation

00:03:31.940 of laws and never will be. We are a nation of political will. Do you know what I'm referencing?

00:03:37.100 Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And he's exactly right about that. That's a deeper insight that I think

00:03:41.220 a lot of people realize of what what a nation really is at the end of the day it's not a

00:03:46.300 constitution it's not a piece of paper it's a people with a particular way of being and that's

00:03:51.340 that's certainly something that i learned on my journey when writing that book right the people

00:03:55.460 and uh and their political and moral religious will i always i think back to covid um the

00:04:03.040 restrictions and the lockdowns and the mask mandates and all those things um it ended

00:04:08.860 precisely at the moment that the american people said we're done

00:04:12.780 that's that's when it wasn't that the science did not change the political science changed

00:04:18.580 and what changed the political science was um the critical mass of the american people saying okay

00:04:24.500 that's enough we're done and then it just was over yeah it was the elites realizing that there

00:04:30.000 was a limit to how far they could push people how far they could manipulate people and they got away

00:04:35.120 with too much and they push them too far but there was a natural limit and you're exactly right

00:04:38.980 well all of a sudden we got a scaling down oh you don't have to be six feet away you could be three

00:04:42.960 feet away actually you can be right next to each other maybe you need a mask well maybe you don't

00:04:46.700 need it at all maybe it doesn't really do anything yeah how many vaccines we kind of lost count we're

00:04:52.000 not sure it really was just commiserate with people saying we're done yeah when people said

00:04:57.780 we're done all of a sudden the rules changed um yeah so let's let's talk about the constitution

00:05:03.180 briefly. So I, you know, I'm one of the guys who's, you know, willing to wear the label

00:05:12.680 Christian nationalist. Like I wouldn't have, you know, Doug Wilson says, I wouldn't have chosen

00:05:16.880 that label for myself. I wouldn't have picked it, you know, out of a hat. But there's lots of

00:05:22.220 pejoratives that will be thrown at the conservative Christian right. And it's somewhat rare that they

00:05:30.100 they pick a pejorative that you can actually work with. It's like, well, yeah, I can, I could work

00:05:36.060 with that. I know that some of your hesitancy with that label is, and I think you're right

00:05:41.960 about this, is recognizing that Christian nationalists is really just a placeholder

00:05:45.740 for white Christian nationalists. That's what they mean. That's what the left means,

00:05:50.000 this ethnocentric, you're a racist. When they say you're a Christian nationalist, 0.94

00:05:53.640 they mean you're a racist, right? Exactly. Yeah. It's a way for them to go ahead and

00:05:59.380 link Christianity to their anti-fascist crusade, which is the animating ideology of our current

00:06:04.920 regime. To be very clear, people are confused about what ideology binds this very diverse

00:06:10.500 coalition of the left together. And it's really that they think they're putting Red America

00:06:15.120 through denazification. That's insane, of course, when you look at Red America and its beliefs and 0.94

00:06:20.820 its level of tolerance, but they don't care. That's what animates them. That's what puts 0.99

00:06:24.800 them together and so when they tried to coin the phrase christian nationalist of course it had

00:06:29.500 existed before them it was not something created wholly by the media however it was certainly

00:06:34.960 thrust on to people who want to see uh christians take a more active role in the government do you

00:06:42.020 want to see a return to the idea that biblical values should be reflected and that there's

00:06:45.300 no problem with basing your law on the law of god that these things are in no way mutually exclusive

00:06:51.660 they went ahead and thrust that title on them for a reason because they knew for better for worse

00:06:57.780 that white evangelicals are one of the largest and most powerful forces in the united states

00:07:03.540 and one of those that are most likely to continue to have christian values and so they wanted to

00:07:08.340 single them out they wanted to demonize them and they wanted an easy catchphrase to go ahead and

00:07:12.860 sweep them into this crusade against hate racism all these things right right uh so within the

00:07:20.720 christian nationalist banner there there are lots of variations and lots of different definitions

00:07:26.220 lots of you know um but i think you know that that's part of the difficulty um but that's also

00:07:30.740 i think part of the um one of the pros is that it's uh it's meant to be a big tent uh where guys

00:07:37.320 of different persuasions can partner together um and work towards you know a common cause uh but

00:07:43.640 one of the if i think of you know well what's the the lowest common denominator um that pretty much

00:07:48.960 every Christian nationalist would agree with. Um, I think one is, um, that, you know, uh, most of

00:07:56.740 the Christian nationalists that I speak to, uh, believe that, um, that God could change the nation,

00:08:02.240 um, not just in one way, but, um, but in one of two ways and, um, the two ways being, uh, he could

00:08:09.760 send revival. There could be a mass move of his spirit across the land and through preachers and

00:08:14.540 churches and, you know, gospel heralding that, you know, that people are born again and that

00:08:19.940 there's, you know, mass conversion and regeneration. And there's, you know, we just have more

00:08:24.840 Christians and that these Christians then, you know, exercise their political will. And, you

00:08:30.980 know, if we have numbers on our side, then, you know, things start to get better. And I absolutely

00:08:35.300 think that that's something God can do. I see as a drawback there, though, I think, you know,

00:08:40.740 some would say, well, we've never had the numbers on our side. You know, the Southern Baptist,

00:08:44.960 you know, boast of, you know, 14 million or whatever, you know, but you can only find

00:08:48.840 six or 7 million on a Sunday in the pews. You know, so we've never really had the numbers on

00:08:54.160 our side. And even if the numbers are there in terms of church attendance at, you know,

00:08:57.900 Protestant evangelical churches, you know, half of the people aren't truly born again. They're

00:09:02.600 not really regenerate. And I'm more of the persuasion where I actually think we have had

00:09:06.360 the numbers. I think that we have had many Christians, truly born-again Christians,

00:09:11.280 but that there's just been so much theological and cultural and political ignorance that the

00:09:18.320 numbers, even with the numbers, it wasn't enough. So I think God could change the nation bottom-up,

00:09:24.620 mass move of the Spirit, revival, whatever you want to call it, renewal. But I also think that

00:09:29.920 the Christian nationalists are unique from other evangelicals who have an aversion towards the

00:09:35.940 Christian nationalist label, in the sense that Christian nationalists seem to be comfortable

00:09:40.840 with not only a bottom-up change, but also, if God chooses, a top-down change. And when I look

00:09:47.900 at scripture, I look at Israel, bad king, bad king, bad good king, and it's not because he

00:09:54.240 was elected. It's not because God sent revival and there was 50% of the population of Israel

00:09:59.320 now with regenerate hearts plus one, and they voted in Josiah. No, it's just in the province

00:10:05.440 of God, you get a Josiah. Josiah begins to legislate and enforce righteous laws and tear

00:10:11.760 down the high places. And that functions as a tutor that begins to righteous laws enforced with

00:10:19.060 power begins to disciple the people and the hearts of the people change. And then, you know,

00:10:24.540 that's Old Testament, but then over the last 2000 years of church history, not just the history of

00:10:28.740 Israel under the old covenant, but you look at whether it's King Alfred or Constantine or, you

00:10:33.780 know, Charlemagne, or all these different examples, I feel as though, yes, God has sent

00:10:41.140 revival, but often if we're looking at the chronological order, it does seem as though

00:10:46.220 in the province of God, it's a small percentage of the population that's strategic and organized

00:10:52.480 and that accrues power, which power is not inherently evil, it depends how you wield

00:11:00.320 it. It's a tool like a sword and they accrue power and then they use it righteously. And then

00:11:05.580 that righteous legislation and enforcement of God's laws then begins to tutor and disciple

00:11:11.860 and shape a people. And even if the people are unregenerate, righteous laws, one thing that they

00:11:17.140 do is they reveal to the people that they're lawless and therefore in need of a savior who

00:11:22.460 fulfilled the law in their place. And that becomes the backdrop, the context. It doesn't save people,

00:11:27.920 but it becomes a context for gospel preaching, which does save people. And so I think that one

00:11:33.740 thing that I appreciate about the Christian nationalists is it seems like all of them, 0.91

00:11:37.160 one common denominator, are perfectly comfortable in saying, well, the Homo Jihad with less than 0.97

00:11:44.480 3% of the population over the course of 40 years replaced the American flag with a rainbow. 0.71

00:11:50.000 Why can't we do that? What do you think? I think that this is a huge shift and an

00:11:56.360 important shift i think that it's important for people to realize as you're saying that civilizations

00:12:02.580 are usually led by organized minorities i tend to focus on the political italian elite school

00:12:09.520 off the machiavellian strain this is also known as political realism and it recognizes the fact

00:12:14.900 that all culture tends to be derived from elite attitudes and elite preferences that actually

00:12:23.000 it doesn't tend to come from the bottom

00:12:25.440 and up but as you said from the top down

00:12:27.140 I think it's really easy to observe as you

00:12:29.360 say if we just look at the changes

00:12:31.420 for say gay marriage and

00:12:33.320 trans ideology these things were

00:12:35.320 wildly unpopular not very

00:12:37.280 long ago the gay marriage was voted

00:12:39.360 down in California

00:12:40.780 in Proposition 8 not that long

00:12:43.520 ago Barack Obama and Hillary

00:12:45.380 Clinton had to disavow it in their

00:12:47.460 presidential runs had to say no

00:12:49.280 I'm for the traditional definition of a man

00:12:51.500 and a woman that's how unpopular this was just a few decades ago and now you get fired for

00:12:56.780 disagreeing with it now you're you're completely unable to be uh even employed at a large company

00:13:02.920 if you happen to disagree with this if you have a basic biblical view a natural view of what

00:13:07.980 marriage has been for its entire existence and somehow people still think that this is all about

00:13:13.040 some kind of marketplace of ideas or popular opinions that will rise from the bottom no this

00:13:17.480 is top down again look at look at the speed at which it's become normalized to feed puberty

00:13:22.680 blockers to eight-year-olds try telling anyone that 10 years ago they'll think you're insane

00:13:27.520 the westboro baptist church wouldn't have warned you against this kind of stuff right they would

00:13:31.260 have said no that sounds a little extreme man like i know things are bad but it's not going to get

00:13:34.520 that bad and now this is just the reality we live in so i think there has to be a real awakening i

00:13:40.400 think a lot of people on the right had what i like to call boomer eschatology which is just well

00:13:46.140 Well, America is a Christian culture, and it'll always be a Christian culture. 0.68

00:13:49.760 And if the Christian culture ends, it can only be because it's the end of the world. 0.94

00:13:53.940 They tied American institutions and biblical truth one-to-one and assumed that they would exist side-by-side in perpetuity, 0.95

00:14:02.240 and the only thing that could possibly rend them apart would be the literal end of all existence.

00:14:07.540 And so they never thought that they needed to impose that.

00:14:11.320 They never thought that they needed to maintain Christendom.

00:14:13.740 Christendom was just an assumption that would always exist.

00:14:16.960 It was not something that we needed to go ahead and maintain.

00:14:20.460 And so I think—

00:14:21.160 It wasn't just assumed.

00:14:22.200 I think Christendom was despised. 0.87

00:14:24.780 And when you talk about boomer eschatology, we call that dispensational premillennialism, 0.62

00:14:30.000 because that's what it is. 0.61

00:14:32.140 The idea that Jesus is going to come back next Thursday and that God has destined.

00:14:37.380 It's written in the stars that things will progressively be worse and worse until he does.

00:14:42.520 And then you look back to a Christendom of yesteryear, and you look back at it with shame, regret, even hatred, despising it, thinking that the thought, I think, for a lot of evangelical kind of boomer theology is that Christendom lends towards weaker pulpits, weaker doctrine, weaker gospel preaching, and false conversions.

00:15:09.640 because everybody will think that they're, you know, culturally Christian. They'll just assume

00:15:14.560 that the nation is Christian, the culture is Christian, and therefore that they as an individual

00:15:18.480 are Christian in the proper sense, capital C Christian, that they're regenerate and born again

00:15:23.440 and going to heaven when they die. And therefore, you know, it's going to be a net loss. Christian 0.96

00:15:29.080 culture is a net loss because you don't have transient kids, but you have millions, you know, 0.99

00:15:34.880 people by the millions um going uh you know bound for hell while thinking that they're bound

00:15:40.840 for heaven which i just i i think that that's a false dichotomy i i completely reject the notion

00:15:46.480 i forget who it is but some major atheist one of his main right hand guys you know during covid

00:15:52.180 you know was trying to escape all the lockdowns and things like that moved to some tiny little

00:15:56.260 rule red red dot on the map and uh after being there for six months he and his wife you know

00:16:01.500 they had no friends, they wanted community, they asked around the town, you know, where do we find

00:16:05.040 relationships and friendships? So they, oh, well, we do that at church. So they started going to a

00:16:08.540 cowboy church. And then, you know, this cowboy church just had a simple, you know, gospel

00:16:15.220 proclamation and they got saved. And now he, you know, identifies as a Christian and tells his

00:16:21.240 testimony. And the point being that you get him, this guy who's a radical atheist and hates God,

00:16:28.060 get him into a conservative Christian context. And it doesn't make him further averse to

00:16:37.800 Christianity. It makes him Christian. And so will there be false conversion? Sure. Will there be

00:16:44.080 people with false assurance? Sure. But I think that Baptists especially, sadly, and I am a Baptist,

00:16:50.780 but Baptists have this weird relationship with persecution. They're deathly afraid of it. So

00:16:56.440 they think that if we were a christian nation uh that the presbyterians would drown the baptists

00:17:00.840 and then at the same time they're afraid of persecution and they also are secretly wishing

00:17:06.880 for it because they think that persecution is the only tool in god's arsenal to purify the church

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00:18:20.220 yeah there tends to be this idea that at some point if things get really hard for christians

00:18:28.500 we'll we'll have real christianity right and that just obviously is not the case i think when we

00:18:34.000 look around this we see that the you know culture is falling apart for a reason and you can't just

00:18:40.080 pretend that if you retreat as christians that you know well as long as my kids are fine you know as

00:18:46.720 long as my my kids are watching the right things or listening to the right things they're they're

00:18:50.200 They're in the church when the doors are open.

00:18:52.440 Everything will be okay.

00:18:53.220 It's like, no, your kids have to go to school or at the very least, even if you homeschool, they have to meet people.

00:18:58.720 They have to live in this world.

00:19:00.580 And they will follow incentives.

00:19:03.100 The average person will follow incentives.

00:19:05.680 And so the culture that you had was hard fought for by your ancestors.

00:19:10.900 You are the posterity that is benefiting from the trees they planted that they did not get to sit under.

00:19:15.980 And then you sit around saying, well, it'll be best for my children to bake in the sun.

00:19:19.760 It's like, no, you just were born on third base, and you assumed that it would always be the case.

00:19:25.380 And that's a terrible way to live.

00:19:26.900 It's incredibly entitled, and it's beneath people who should know better.

00:19:32.340 So talk to us about the Constitution.

00:19:35.860 Are we a constitutional republic?

00:19:39.140 No, we couldn't keep it.

00:19:41.080 And that's a hard thing for a lot of people. 1.00

00:19:44.280 When we look at the United States, I think that most Christians have gone ahead and substituted the Constitution for American identity.

00:19:53.960 They said, well, we don't really know what to base our identity in anymore.

00:19:57.740 We've had so many waves of immigration and transformation religiously and culturally and all these things.

00:20:03.780 The only thing that can bind us together is the Constitution.

00:20:05.900 So they've kind of deified the Constitution and the founders to make that the political theology that goes ahead and drives us as a nation.

00:20:16.320 And because of that, they've made this kind of legal positivism the core of their belief in kind of who we are as a people.

00:20:24.940 And so they've lost this understanding.

00:20:27.420 Joseph de Maistre is a guy I like to pull from a lot.

00:20:29.460 He was a French political theorist, and he talked a lot about what makes a Constitution.

00:20:35.500 And he explained that all constitutions are written by God.

00:20:39.220 There's never been a constitution that's been written by men, because constitutions are only the reflections of the way of being of a people.

00:20:48.220 The constitution does not create people.

00:20:50.920 People create the constitution.

00:20:52.820 It is simply an instantiation of what has already been written onto the hearts of people by generations and generations of traditions that God has placed amongst them.

00:21:02.480 And so we never actually are defined by a constitution. It's only the words on the paper

00:21:09.900 that are kind of formalizing what we are already doing as a people. And so the constitution can

00:21:15.680 never bind us together because it's just a shadow of the people we are and the people we have to

00:21:23.720 continue to be. And while we don't seem to know this in the modern world, the founding fathers

00:21:29.200 totally did. They were very explicit about what the Constitution was. It was a document that was

00:21:34.140 only capable of ruling a virtuous and religious people. And if we ever walked away from that 0.98

00:21:40.060 identity, if we ever walked away from that kind of shared Protestant Christian understanding

00:21:44.840 of what the nation was, then we would not be governed by the Constitution. And we no longer 0.59

00:21:49.660 are those people. And so therefore, we are necessarily not governed by the document made

00:21:53.640 for them right yeah adams right was a moral and religious people um yeah we're we're degenerates

00:22:01.940 we're not even close to we're degenerates the constitution is not um it's not suited for

00:22:10.660 governing degenerates uh for governing governing degenerates and i'm curious your thoughts on this

00:22:17.580 if you agree disagree um but i i think for our population that is degraded uh morally

00:22:26.180 and culturally as far and religiously as far as we have um you need power um men must be governed

00:22:34.900 you need you need a caesar type you know uh so so for me i i would say if if we're talking about

00:22:43.680 you know does the bible prescribe a certain form of government um there are guys in the theonomist

00:22:50.340 camp and and i would be a general equity theonomist theonomy just means you know god you know theos and

00:22:56.040 and uh it's just god's law that's that's all it means and so i am of that persuasion that's i

00:23:01.440 believe the confessional position both in the westminster and the 1689 um a general equity

00:23:06.440 theonomy which means the moral law endures forever think 10 commandments decalogue exodus 20

00:23:11.000 um and then all these judicial laws uh you're you're just extracting the general equity you

00:23:16.220 know what's the main moral so parapet on the borders of the roof um okay well we don't sleep

00:23:21.560 on the roof because we have hvac you know so but that means you know to preserve human life the

00:23:25.620 dignity of human life so seat belts and speed limits you know whatever so that's you know that's

00:23:31.120 that's how we do it uh so general equity theonomy yes i'm on board uh but some of the old school

00:23:36.180 reconstructionist, theonomic, you know, pureblood guys who I appreciate and respect immensely,

00:23:43.040 they would go so far as to say that the scripture actually dictates not just laws, but a particular

00:23:49.800 form of government. And they, of course, being guys from, you know, the 60s and the 70s and the

00:23:55.160 80s, predominantly in American context, lo and behold, shocker, the type of government that the

00:24:01.740 bible absolutely dictates is a constitutional republic um and and i would say i i don't know

00:24:08.380 um now if you're asking me my preference that that would probably be my preference would be

00:24:12.700 a constitutional republic um but i think the um the the conditions for that is a moral people

00:24:19.820 so i think you can you can work towards that in the future uh but i don't think um constitutioning

00:24:26.660 even harder is going to get us out of our current mess. I don't see us getting out of this

00:24:34.400 apart from things getting worse and worse. And then eventually like a Caesar type rising through

00:24:42.780 the ranks of populist, you know, figure in the people, you know, the political will, the people

00:24:49.080 that the people are desperate and they're like, yes, do it. So-and-so. And then so-and-so

00:24:55.060 constitution be damned just rules with an iron fist and uh and you know like a cromwell type 0.72

00:25:02.120 and then and then you you know hopefully don't get his son maybe then you're able and then you

00:25:06.740 maybe it's just a one generation one guy kind of thing and then you you have to move back to

00:25:11.760 you know aristocracy or or some other form what do you think yeah it can be very complicated when

00:25:19.160 you look at the historical cycle of regimes it would seem like we're at the point as you say

00:25:24.820 where Caesar figure often rises we're really in that moneyed oligarchical period of existence

00:25:30.800 and it feels like the you know that you can feel that pressure building as to you know the only

00:25:36.900 way through that to cut through that Gordian knot that that grid work gridlock and kind of

00:25:41.720 restore order would be someone who could take the reins but but it really of course depends

00:25:48.300 Joseph Demestre again said that every people will have a different form of government that

00:25:54.560 But it's not that there is no right form of government, but it, again, will align with the way of being of the people.

00:26:01.100 And no people is static.

00:26:03.480 So the people will change over time.

00:26:05.940 Their needs and desires will change over time.

00:26:10.000 And so, therefore, their governments will change over time.

00:26:12.860 In the United States, we kind of do this little trick.

00:26:15.320 See, we don't number our republics the way that, say, like France does.

00:26:19.040 And so we pretend like we've had this one homogenous rule, the entire existence of the United States. Of course, that's not true at all. We started under the Articles of Confederation. We dissolved those improperly. We didn't take a vote. We didn't follow the rules of Articles of Confederation. Our elites just said, all right, we're going to pass the Constitution now.

00:26:38.420 and even inside the constitution we've had a very radically different ways of governance so for

00:26:45.100 instance the president presidencies of say fdr and abraham lincoln are very close to dictatorial

00:26:51.620 i mean people don't remember the fdr literally stole all the gold in the united states he just

00:26:56.260 took it he said you can't own gold anymore and he put it in fort knox and we just pretended that's

00:27:01.940 a normal thing that presidents do we didn't declare that the you know the constitution was over we just

00:27:07.640 let the president steal all the gold. And then we moved on and we pretended that we had the exact

00:27:11.920 same government we had before. And so the United States has had strong men. They've had dictatorial

00:27:17.440 Caesar-like rulers in our history. In fact, they're often the people we revere the most,

00:27:23.180 despite pretending that we care very much about separation of powers and checks and balances and

00:27:27.800 control of the executive office. It's not really the case. We kind of allow these people to rise

00:27:32.720 as necessary. And so as De Maester predicted, we kind of allow our form of government to change

00:27:38.820 in time, even though we technically keep the storyline, the continuity of the people as if

00:27:44.760 we've been one continuous republic this entire time. So will we see a formal change out of the

00:27:51.060 republican form of government? I don't think so in the same way that Augustus did not formally

00:27:57.980 change Rome into an empire. No one came by and

00:28:01.800 banged a gong and said, the Republic is done, and now Rome is an empire.

00:28:05.660 He simply slowly acquired the powers of the Principate and put them

00:28:09.980 together, and a couple generations later, no one could imagine

00:28:13.740 that a Caesar didn't have all these powers, even though there was

00:28:17.900 no formal declaration of this imperial title

00:28:21.620 for Augustus. He was simply the first citizen. And so I

00:28:25.960 I think that's probably the situation we're heading towards, assuming that America holds together as one political entity.

00:28:31.960 I'm actually a little skeptical that that will continue.

00:28:34.740 But if it does, I don't think we'll see a formal announcement that we've moved to the American imperium.

00:28:42.120 Right. I think that's fair.

00:28:43.520 So talk about that for a moment.

00:28:45.020 Talk about the nation splitting.

00:28:46.320 What do you see is make your go ahead and pull out your crystal ball and give us some predictions.

00:28:53.400 Well, a lot of people talk about national divorce, right? We hear this phrase thrown around a lot. Now, I'm skeptical again that we're ever going to get some official secession. I think the question of secession, for better or for worse, was kind of answered in the 1860s, and we're probably not going to see any official move in that direction.

00:29:13.060 However, I think we can all feel that the competency of our current state is collapsing. We can feel that competency crisis and what's happening there. And it's also becoming very clear that states like Florida that completely ignored what the federal government demanded that they do during COVID fared much better than those that complied with everything that the central government demanded of them.

00:29:34.700 We're also seeing this with things like immigration.

00:29:37.020 We see guys like Greg Abbott and now probably Ron DeSantis with possible mass migration from people fleeing the Haitian Civil War have being tested.

00:29:46.180 Like, will you protect your state from an invasion?

00:29:48.960 Because the federal government isn't doing it.

00:29:50.600 In fact, they're actively importing it.

00:29:52.720 They're facilitating it.

00:29:54.380 Are you willing to take independent executive action?

00:29:57.280 And as we saw with Greg Abbott, when he started to lock down Eagle Pass, the federal government threatened him and said there was going to be a lot of retaliation and then nothing happened.

00:30:07.340 Right. And every time there's a check on sovereignty like that, every time the federal government has to go head to head with somebody and loses the battle and there are no consequences, people start to notice and they say, hey, man, would you rather live in a state where your borders are protected and people are allowed to go outside, even though the news is telling them that they're dying from a pandemic?

00:30:28.260 Or, you know, do you want to constantly be waiting for the 19th booster and, you know, keeping your kids home from school because you have to house the next wave of illegal immigrants in their classroom and people start making their choices? 0.94

00:30:41.580 You know, my state, Florida, is now currently flooded with people who, you know, came from New York and these other New Jersey, these other places that had these wild COVID lockdowns. 0.97

00:30:52.420 And so what I think we're going to see is probably that people simply start ignoring the federal government more and more, that they're going to fail these tests of sovereignty and power is going to accumulate in these regions.

00:31:04.940 And like many empires before, the United States will probably just slowly come apart, not with any official declaration, but simply because the different territories realize that it's better to govern themselves than to continue to kick authority back up to Washington.

00:31:20.060 Right. Yeah.

00:31:20.940 My family and I and seven other families, we left at the end of 2020.

00:31:25.520 I was born and raised in Texas, but I had moved in 2009 to California to plant a church in Southern California and handed the church over in 2020.

00:31:37.720 And at the end of that year, my family and seven other families, we all moved to Texas, back to where I grew up.

00:31:45.800 and um and i wrote this little book i've got it next to me but uh fight by flight which is a

00:31:52.160 glorified blog um you know with uh just massive font to to get to 100 pages but basically it's a

00:32:00.020 simple concept but just saying that um i don't think it's just you know one of two choices that

00:32:04.700 i stay and fight fight the good fight in my blue state um or i surrender and quit and give up and

00:32:11.260 lose by leaving um i i think one of the ways that um that people can fight blue states is uh and i

00:32:18.360 think one of the more effective ways is to leave um to stop propping them up with uh your business

00:32:24.840 your taxes you know um that uh one of the you know california if you know six 16 million professing

00:32:32.180 christians and you know a state of 42 million population um six million voted for trump you

00:32:39.120 know so like six million people took their vote flushed it down the toilet because it was 12

00:32:43.600 million for biden um so not even close uh when you know at the electoral level is less than 50 000

00:32:49.760 votes and you know like three or four states respectively uh that would have flipped you know

00:32:55.180 trump uh winning the presidency and so um i i really do think that that's that's one of the

00:33:00.440 ways that you know a practical way that you can fight back and i know that's not for everybody

00:33:03.900 you know some people there are uh extenuating circumstances some people really are missionaries

00:33:09.100 So that's one, you know, like we send people to the Sudan, but we don't send everyone to

00:33:14.820 the Sudan.

00:33:15.260 And I think that as we move more into like Aaron Wren's conception, you know, of negative

00:33:20.480 world, I think as the America becomes more hostile towards Christ, I think we're going

00:33:27.900 to need to start thinking about certain states in the way that we previously have thought

00:33:31.540 about certain countries when it comes to missions that, okay, these people, these places still

00:33:37.080 need the gospel.

00:33:38.180 They still need churches.

00:33:39.100 they still need ministers um but but we would we would look for certain qualifications we want to

00:33:45.480 send just anyone right like there's 16 million professing christians in california um i don't

00:33:51.120 think all 16 million of them are missionary caliber i think you know that a lot of them

00:33:57.560 probably should consider uh leaving and then maybe newsom finally has to lie in the bed that

00:34:05.720 he's been making for years um maybe he actually has to take a spoonful of his own medicine you

00:34:13.140 know that he's not bailed out and maybe not you know maybe that that's ineffective maybe it doesn't

00:34:17.160 work um but all that being said you know to your point echoing your point of um yeah a lot of people

00:34:23.880 are are moving and balkanizing you know some of the guys on twitter like no don't balkanize

00:34:31.420 live near the coast to save that state and also go on a cruise and pay money um you know i i just

00:34:39.800 think that's insane to ask christians to sacrifice their kids because that's what you're asking you're

00:34:44.200 asking christians to um very with a you know not a guarantee but but a very high likelihood

00:34:50.440 of uh their children if they remain in that state with those schools and those laws and that culture

00:34:57.580 they're basically saying, in the name of evangelism, would you give up your kids?

00:35:03.460 And people make that trade because that's literally what we've been doing, I think,

00:35:06.460 for like six decades. That is Southern Baptist. Personal evangelism. Meanwhile, all your kids

00:35:12.140 grow up, you put them in public school, and they're all atheists now. But do you have any

00:35:15.660 thoughts on that? Yeah, no, I mean, I think that's exactly correct. We have this idea that we have to

00:35:21.160 win everywhere all the time. And if we aren't constantly evangelizing, if we aren't constantly

00:35:26.560 changing the culture everywhere then we're not doing it anywhere and this is i think a failure

00:35:31.460 on a lot of levels to understand human organization i think we have a very serious problem of scale of

00:35:38.520 civilization involved here where we have adopted the idea that we must convert the entire empire

00:35:46.420 and you need to understand america as an empire not as simply a nation if you if you if you think

00:35:51.300 of it as a, as a nation, you will fail this test. But you, we have to win the whole empire once or

00:35:57.160 not at all. And that's just a terrible way to understand things. One of the hardest problems

00:36:03.080 with Christian nationalism, and I think, I think Christians attempting to involve themselves in

00:36:09.900 politics, is we have lost the idea of what a nation even is. We can't even define it. We don't 0.76

00:36:15.900 understand it. One of my problems with the phrase Christian nationalism is not that I disagree with 0.93

00:36:20.920 pretty much anything that Christian nationalists want to do in general,

00:36:24.360 but that it avoids the more difficult question of what a nation really is.

00:36:29.760 And I know Stephen Wolf talked about this somewhat in his book.

00:36:32.080 I haven't read it yet, but I've been told that he did address this. 0.63

00:36:35.720 But until we understand that and understand that, yes, America is a Christian nation,

00:36:41.660 but Armenia was a Christian nation.

00:36:44.280 Ethiopia is a Christian nation.

00:36:45.800 That's not sufficient to explain what you are as an American.

00:36:49.240 And not to say that Christianity or Christ is not sufficient, but this is simply not what defines in its entirety what people are.

00:36:57.960 And so for us to be a people first, we must be geographically concentrated.

00:37:02.400 That's what defines a nation.

00:37:04.900 That's why, for instance, one of, I think, the top priorities to create any kind of understanding and shared identity as Americans is closing the borders.

00:37:12.340 Because unless you have a set population that can understand their relationship with each other, you can never bind into one people that you can't constantly have this massive turnover and still create an identity and a shared moral vision, you know, cemented in Christianity or anything else, because you're constantly changing who is involved in your society.

00:37:32.880 And this constant renegotiation makes it impossible for you to understand this. And so I think geographic concentration is critical, especially as the culture becomes more hostile. Like you said, I had Aaron Ren on recently. And one of the things that both he and I have talked about is that we have to start looking at this as people who are in a minority situation.

00:37:54.880 situation. When the Catholics or the Jews came to America, they created their own schools. They

00:38:01.120 didn't let Protestants raise their children because they wanted to have their religion

00:38:05.600 and their culture continue, even though the majority of that culture was not Catholic or

00:38:10.520 Jewish. Protestants used to be able to just assume that if your kid went into a public school

00:38:15.480 classroom, they were going to get a generic Protestant education. We called it American

00:38:19.820 education, but that's not what it was. And we can't do that anymore. And so we have to start

00:38:24.500 thinking more like people who do not live in a culture that is default assigned with their values

00:38:31.440 and their identity. Right. No, I think you're absolutely right. A nation is not an economic 0.94

00:38:37.500 zone. It's not merely a set of moral principles. It has to be at some level, at the most basic

00:38:43.800 level it has to be uh people in place so it's actually land um it's actually people um a

00:38:51.280 particular people and uh multiculturalism is not your friend um we you know we have to have borders

00:38:58.880 or you don't have a nation and you know if we had borders and a generation passed we probably would

00:39:05.840 over time um have a lot more unity diversity has not been our strength um and and that's not to

00:39:13.620 I say, you know, everybody hears that and they're like,

00:39:15.420 oh, so you just want the nation to be 100% white people.

00:39:19.520 No, I want the nation to be people who have the same culture.

00:39:23.100 I don't particularly care what color the people are,

00:39:26.280 but I want them to have the same culture.

00:39:28.400 I want them for certain to have the same religion, culture, cultists,

00:39:32.560 the Latin word worship.

00:39:34.000 I want us to have the same culture to where, you know, 0.68

00:39:38.420 if we shut down the borders today and held that tightly,

00:39:42.760 um then you know my grandkids could live next to their black neighbor and um and they'd be able to

00:39:52.700 share in common uh that their fathers and grandfathers uh fought in the same wars

00:39:58.740 hold the same traditions um have the same religion the same theological convictions at

00:40:05.420 least generally so like you're still going to have denominations and different variations but um

00:40:10.080 but yeah you can't you can't do that when when your nation has no borders and it's just

00:40:17.980 an economic zone that you just move in and move out you know at free will and it doesn't so yeah

00:40:24.640 we um we're yeah we're not much of a nation uh these days but i think we can be and uh and that's

00:40:32.120 everybody you know again back to the christian nationalist thing that they try to make it a

00:40:35.720 boogeyman. Christian nationalism is really just, it's just racist. You know, they just want it all 0.92

00:40:41.060 to be white people. No, I, but I do want America to be uniquely Christian and beyond that, because

00:40:49.380 you're saying, well, okay, but what if Japan's Christian? And what if, you know, Argentina is 0.87

00:40:53.520 Christian? And what if, you know, then what makes America unique? Well, the geographic center,

00:41:00.600 its borders, its land. But in speaking of its people, I would say what makes America unique

00:41:07.160 is, as opposed to other European countries, is that America was uniquely Protestant.

00:41:14.200 You know, so different expressions, theological expressions of Christian thought. I think that

00:41:21.560 America these days, you know, we were kind of, it started in many ways as a Presbyterian revolt,

00:41:26.100 you know the black robe regiment and um i think that if we could get back to a christian center

00:41:32.140 america would actually be uniquely um protestant and particularly baptist that might be american

00:41:39.120 culture is uh americans are baptist that's what they are and that would be great i don't think

00:41:45.860 there'd be anything you know bad about that but but it would have to be shared it would have to

00:41:49.900 be common among the people it can't just be all these splintered factions um or you just

00:41:56.100 you can't keep a country that way. Yeah. When we look at the geographic

00:42:01.940 size of America, obviously, if this was a European country, yeah, it's funny. Go to England and it's

00:42:08.440 like, yeah, this entire country, which is not a small country by European standards,

00:42:13.160 is the size of my state, right? And so if we were a European country, we'd be many different

00:42:19.300 countries. We would be very recognizably an empire anywhere else. And the size of America

00:42:24.920 has always had a very distinct impact on its identity we always had multiple different you 0.62

00:42:31.320 know types of protestants even catholics and others uh in the colonies they all kind of broke

00:42:37.420 out into their own you know most people don't know that the separation of church and state isn't in

00:42:41.780 the constitution and still the incorporation of first amendment you were allowed to have

00:42:46.160 state churches and we did right uh you know and these things were very common that this is part

00:42:51.680 of the american experience in a way that we've kind of cleansed from a history so we can pretend

00:42:56.340 that this is some kind of secular nation and always has been and so these different identities

00:43:02.400 existed regionally people in in new england were very different from people in north carolina or

00:43:08.520 georgia but they all shared this this kind of general identity as americans and that was okay

00:43:14.980 because we used to be these united states and that regionalism allowed us to have significant

00:43:21.060 cultural and even religious differences, while still binding together in a way that allowed us

00:43:26.780 to cooperate and have a shared identity. And in a weird way, we kind of destroyed that post-World 0.68

00:43:33.180 War II, especially, right? After the Civil War and then World War II. Ironically, the radio and

00:43:39.140 shared public education kind of just attempted to homogenize the entirety of American identity.

00:43:45.580 And it's created a very weird scenario where everyone had to fit into this cookie cutter box

00:43:50.180 of what america was going to be because it got piped in through your television set and we're

00:43:55.040 kind of seeing that come back apart right now so i don't think there's anything wrong necessarily

00:44:00.080 with different states or different regions having very different ways of being and different

00:44:04.660 understandings but like you said there has to be an overarching thing that gels the country together

00:44:10.760 and that was most assuredly protestant christianity but with the abandonment of that we've we've gotten

00:44:16.820 this heretical version of it in wokeness. And it's all of the most radical universalist strain

00:44:24.440 of Protestantism without any of the God. And so obviously, it's doing its best to be this

00:44:31.160 kind of gutter religion that binds the country together, but in the most horrific way possible.

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00:45:59.760 link in this episode's show notes. America is a country that was founded for the purpose of

00:46:03.920 allowing Christians to do their duty before God and not to have their consciences ruled by the

00:46:07.640 doctrines and commandments of men.

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00:46:34.600 yeah it seems like if there's anything that america now you know a universal

00:46:41.320 thing that like what is america what it's um anti-racist yeah that's that's what america is

00:46:48.680 which really um if you if you want to you know spell that out more more accurately um america

00:46:56.860 is a country that hates itself uh that i mean that's that's really what it is japan doesn't

00:47:02.860 hate itself japan isn't losing sleep you know um you know burdened by guilt um they're they're

00:47:10.700 perfectly comfortable being japanese and china is perfectly comfortable um i feel like we're

00:47:16.480 we're only you know one of the few countries that um that that you know uh is ashamed of our past

00:47:23.740 um hates ourselves you know and i you know i've been telling people um i feel like two things

00:47:30.140 that you need in terms of like a positive vision if you if there's going to be any hope is um honor

00:47:35.440 for your fathers and hope for the future uh whereas i feel like we have uh disdain for our fathers

00:47:42.880 and um and you know doubt and despair for the future and uh if if you don't and i think a lot

00:47:51.760 of that actually is religious i think a lot of that is dispensationalism i think a lot of that

00:47:55.800 is you know boomer theology like you said like there's no hope for the future and we've all been

00:47:59.980 taught that um our founding uh not just for our nation but but you know the last 2 000 years of

00:48:05.920 christianity is mostly bad um that the features are all the bad things and the bugs are you know

00:48:12.000 every now and then we got it right you know so that we're marked by the spanish inquisition and

00:48:17.340 um you know all these you know terrible terrible things and so if that's if that's the the frame

00:48:23.540 of mind for the people is that, um, that our past was bad and our future is, uh, bleak, then, um,

00:48:31.580 there's not much, there's just not much that you can do. Um, so I, I don't know. I think people,

00:48:36.780 I, you know, a lot of the things that have been helpful for me over the past few years

00:48:40.360 is, you know, continuing to read theology, but realizing just how, um, how weak my understanding

00:48:48.060 was of history like i've had to read a lot more history um and and trying to read you know about

00:48:55.060 history that's not just uh revisionist you know um trying to find primary sources and what actually

00:49:02.100 happened um you know what were the crusades all bad what you know was this good was this bad

00:49:07.540 so um do you think there's any hope uh for americans to be to relearn to to be to be taught

00:49:14.220 Or do you think that the post-war consensus has just done irrevocable damage?

00:49:20.320 I think the post-war consensus probably has done some pretty serious damage.

00:49:24.280 And I think that at this point, we're in a scenario where the only way out is through.

00:49:29.800 I think that you have an honorable history of America.

00:49:35.900 I think there is a lot to rescue from this.

00:49:39.180 But I think that we're we're in we're really through this postmodern setting at this point where people have lost that continuity of history and you're not going to probably go ahead and just revivify that by giving everyone more intense civics lessons.

00:49:58.440 You know, Cicero said that to not know history is to always remain a child and that the purpose of a man's life is to be woven into the great chain of being into the tapestry of their ancestors.

00:50:12.280 And we have completely abandoned that.

00:50:14.460 Like you said, we've rejected our ancestors.

00:50:16.640 We cast them down.

00:50:17.980 One of the things that even probably most Christians, most conservatives, you know, Baptists and many have done is they've they've followed the, you know, replaced the story of the founding fathers with the story of the civil rights revolution. 0.87

00:50:30.800 America was a country born in sin and iniquity, and it's only through the constant, you know, remission of racial sins that we can go ahead and, you know, become something new and better. 0.61

00:50:43.340 That's that's a terrible way to live. 0.90

00:50:44.820 Like you said, that's a that's a doctrine of self annihilation.

00:50:46.800 annihilation. And we have to have an identity that is something that we can be proud of,

00:50:51.320 something that we can care about, something we can hand proudly to our posterity. And that means

00:50:56.360 probably reestablishing a way of being. I mean, what do we have at this point? C.S. Lewis predicted

00:51:02.320 the abolition of man because he said eventually the social engineers would figure out everything

00:51:08.440 about kind of what makes a man a man, and they would strip them out and reconfigure it. And if

00:51:14.520 If that's not what we've done through our advertisements, through our social media and everything else, simply stripped the human down to its constituent parts and reprogrammed it to consume things, then I don't know what else has happened.

00:51:28.580 And so if we're going to be human again, if we're going to return to being a real people grounded in an identity, in a history, being connected to our God and worshiping, that necessarily requires us to go back to an existence where we're probably, you know, again, geographically concentrated, building a tradition.

00:51:51.880 but you know we have to start that culture again anew because what was before has been more or less

00:51:58.800 made unaccessible to us it's hard for many people to even grasp what that would mean and so i think

00:52:05.520 that that that starts again i think with scaling things down not trying to convert the entire

00:52:10.940 country or the entire world but first looking to your neighbor and being like do i know them

00:52:15.860 can we hold each other accountable can we share our faith together you know do our families grow

00:52:20.580 together like that that's a much more important task right now than you know getting your jesus 0.98

00:52:26.440 commercial on the super bowl right especially if your jesus commercial sucks yeah um yeah no that's 0.81

00:52:32.800 really good uh as you were talking it just made me think about you know again um dishonoring your 0.89

00:52:38.880 fathers being you know being taught this revisionist history that they were all bad and that we just

00:52:42.920 basically need to atone for the sins of our fathers and that's our entire existence um it makes me

00:52:49.360 think, you know, it's, it's almost feels like too on the nose, but I, you know, but I think it's

00:52:55.800 just because God's word is living and active and relevant and applicable. So I don't, I don't think

00:53:01.000 it's too obvious. I think it's exactly true. The fifth commandment, you know, the apostle Paul 0.96

00:53:07.060 brings it back up in Ephesians and says, you know, this is the first commandment with the promise.

00:53:12.280 And the, and the promise is the fifth commandment to honor thy father and mother. The promise is

00:53:16.760 that you would live a long life, but particularly that you would live long in the land. And I think

00:53:23.740 that nations that dishonor their fathers will not last in the land. And I think the Bible means

00:53:31.780 that, it's like, well, what's the deep, you know, secret metaphorical meaning? No, I think it's just

00:53:36.000 that. I think you get kicked out of the land, literally. If you hate your founding, hate your

00:53:42.400 fathers hate your history um if if a generation whole cloth is taught to um despise their heritage

00:53:54.460 uh then they will lose it they will they will give it up um you know they'll they'll give it

00:54:01.700 away and and that really is you know like thinking um that our our forefathers were terrible people

00:54:09.000 that's one way that we've dishonored disobeyed you know broken the fifth commandment dishonored

00:54:13.280 our fathers but another way is um is through immigration um our great grandfathers and great

00:54:20.900 great grandfathers and beyond um and mothers for that matter uh they paid an immense price

00:54:28.580 some of them gave their lives um they didn't do that for strangers and that's not because

00:54:35.800 we hate strangers. That doesn't mean that, you know, that somebody from another nation is bad.

00:54:41.120 We're not saying that, but what we're saying it like right now, I'm working my butt off

00:54:45.100 as a pastor. And then in addition to that, you know, making right response ministries.

00:54:49.400 I'm with a couple of guys, members in my church, we're working on starting a soap company.

00:54:53.560 It's like, why are you doing, you already got enough going on. Why the soap company?

00:54:57.880 Because I want to leave an inheritance to my children's children because the Bible commands

00:55:01.820 me to do so. And that inheritance can be nothing less than a spiritual inheritance, teaching them

00:55:07.200 the truths of Christ. But I would be shocked if it's not more. I don't think it's merely a

00:55:13.180 spiritual inheritance. I think that inheritance is spiritual and I think it includes cash.

00:55:18.740 I just think it does. And so my point is I'm working my butt off, but here's the deal.

00:55:25.260 I am not working my butt off for a child in Uganda. And I think children in Uganda are great.

00:55:33.860 Love them. But I don't love them like I love my kids. Not even close. Our forefathers died. 1.00

00:55:42.420 They died for their posterity. And when their posterity gives away a legacy that we didn't

00:55:51.220 earn but but that our forefathers died for two strangers we are breaking the fifth commandment

00:55:57.740 and not honoring our father and mother and the fifth commandment is the first commandment that

00:56:02.200 comes with the promise that you will live and specifically in the land and yeah right now i

00:56:07.840 think we're in the process of of losing the land shocker yeah no i would 100 agree i think what

00:56:14.560 happened um is that we told ourselves a story because it allowed us to not have to work very

00:56:22.360 hard and the story was this america is a land of individualism we are individuals the the capable

00:56:28.100 individual is the key building block of of kind of liberty and freedom and so therefore i don't

00:56:34.140 have a duty to my children or my children's children i have a duty to the generations that

00:56:39.040 will follow me in my posterity because well they need to learn how to do all this on their own i

00:56:44.220 don't want to spoil them right i don't want to and so it's okay if i go ahead and go on my 19th

00:56:49.940 cruise or whatever and it's okay if the borders open because i get me a really cheap labor

00:56:55.100 because ultimately like my kid will just have to find it out and i mean aren't people from other

00:56:59.260 nations just as good as my kid and there's no reason for me to go ahead and prefer this what

00:57:03.320 we did is we allowed uh ourselves to abdicate our responsibilities the truth is that sovereignty

00:57:10.180 lies in duty and reliance, right? The ability of one to trust others and the duty of one to care

00:57:19.660 for others is what actually binds a society together and what gives a group its sovereignty

00:57:24.720 and its continuity. And if we abandon those things, then they don't just go away. People

00:57:31.040 don't stop being dependent. I hate to break to everyone listening to this, but you're not an

00:57:36.180 island you're not self-sufficient like you need a lot of things including your church and your

00:57:41.080 family your community and everything around you and so do your children and if they don't get it

00:57:46.280 from you they'll get it from someone else and the people they're getting it from is the government

00:57:50.300 one of the reasons that we have the kind of government we have now the reason we have the

00:57:54.960 total state as i call it my book is because we abdicated all of those responsibilities uh the um

00:58:01.680 The different intermediate institutions that stood between the individual and the all-consuming government, governments didn't used to be able to wield the level of control they have now because they didn't teach your kids, because they didn't take care of your parents when they got old, because they didn't provide you their health care.

00:58:19.680 These are all things your community did your family did, but it's a lot easier to tell ourselves. Oh, well, I don't want to spoil my cat. I don't want to make them dependent on me. So I'll just turn them loose, which means I'll just turn them over to the government is actually what you're saying.

00:58:33.840 and so if we if we have this idea that everyone is american everyone can become an american anyone

00:58:41.060 can walk in at any time and just become an american then it absolves us the duty to our

00:58:46.540 neighbor because who's our yeah i had phil fisher the guy from veggie tales uh telling me this on

00:58:52.300 twitter everyone's our neighbor and it's like phil if everyone's our neighbor then nobody's our

00:58:57.080 neighbor there is no duty to anyone we can't have a duty to everyone there's no such thing as a duty

00:59:03.000 to everyone. No one is capable of that. We are only able to be bound to a certain number of 0.92

00:59:09.860 people and hold a particular duty to a certain number of people. And if we don't have an idea

00:59:13.740 of who those people are, then we just don't take care of anyone.

00:59:17.920 You're right. Yeah, Bob the Tomato has been sorely disappointed with Phil for a very long time.

00:59:23.080 But with that, it's just such theological ignorance. So theologically, that's the whole

00:59:28.460 point. When Jesus is talking about the Good Samaritan and he's talking about love for

00:59:32.780 neighbor. Well, who is my neighbor? Um, and then he tells, you know, like this parable of the Good

00:59:36.880 Samaritan and it's the guy that you least expect. Um, and, and there is theologically, I mean,

00:59:43.160 theologians have hold this, held this forever and long before the reformed tradition for 2000 years,

00:59:48.520 Augustine, plenty of guys, um, that there is a sense in which we have a universal neighborhood,

00:59:53.580 um, that every human being created in the image of God is our neighbor. However, Augustine and

00:59:59.480 the Reformed tradition after him and everybody else has also argued the order of loves, that

01:00:06.740 everyone may be our neighbor, but we are not equally obligated, morally obligated to all

01:00:14.820 of our neighbors. Every child is my neighbor. But if I clothe children on the other side of the

01:00:23.860 planet and neglect to clothe my own, then the Bible has very harsh words for me. The man who

01:00:29.280 doesn't provide for the members of his own house has denied the faith and is worse than an 1.00

01:00:36.340 unbeliever. He's an apostate. And I think American evangelicals, this is a general large swath 0.99

01:00:43.500 comment I'm about to make, but in a general sense, American evangelicals are apostates

01:00:48.740 per the apostle Paul. They have denied the faith and are worse than unbelievers because they have 0.88

01:00:55.140 cared more about the children in Uganda than the children at their dinner table. And so yes, 1.00

01:01:03.720 in a technical sense, theologically, everyone is our neighbor, but nowhere in scripture are we told

01:01:09.160 to treat every neighbor with an equal devotion, with an equal love and affection. I love all women,

01:01:18.340 but I love my wife more and if I didn't then I wouldn't be a lover of women in a biblical sense 0.99

01:01:26.140 I would just be a womanizer I would be a pervert I'd be a loser I'd be some red pill you know guy 0.99

01:01:32.440 who you know says get a vasectomy at 20 and never marry and I repeat myself a loser so I you know 1.00

01:01:39.100 that's that's not the way it works and with the Samaritan people say oh but he's a Samaritan he's 0.51

01:01:43.800 not even related. And so this is the foreign, you know, immigrant kind of thing going up. No,

01:01:48.940 there's an argument for proximity. Part of the Good Samaritan, theologically what's baked into

01:01:54.380 the equation there, is this is not a Samaritan on the other side of the world. This is a Samaritan

01:01:58.860 who is literally walking right next to a guy who's been beaten up and left for dead. And why

01:02:05.720 is he obligated? Because of their genetic ties? No. Because of religious ties? No. He's obligated

01:02:12.720 because he's there. He's right there. He's right next door. And the guy is right next to him,

01:02:20.940 bleeding out, about to die. And if he doesn't stop, no one else, no one else, it's not just

01:02:27.020 that no one else will, no one else can, no one else is around. And so there is something to be

01:02:31.540 said for, in terms of familial bonds, national bonds, you know, so kin is part, it comes into

01:02:39.800 the equation. Everyone's my neighbor, but there's something to be said for family in terms of

01:02:44.620 prioritizing one neighbor above the other. There's also something to be said spiritually. So Galatians,

01:02:49.420 Paul says, as often as you have opportunity, do good to all, but especially, that is prioritize

01:02:54.320 the household of faith. So I'm called to, with my finances, practically, spiritually, at every level,

01:02:59.960 emotionally, relationally, to prioritize my brothers and sisters in Christ above, you know,

01:03:05.120 Jesus even says, whatever you do for the least of these, and evangelicals have misinterpreted this

01:03:08.900 for decades. Oh, well, who's the least of these? Who are the people on the margins? Oh, well, it's

01:03:12.560 the illegal immigrant who's being paid pennies on the dollar to do the work that, you know, white 0.91

01:03:16.700 Americans don't want to do. And no, no, no. Jesus specifically says, whatever you do for the least

01:03:21.320 of these, my brothers. If you visited, when I was in prison, you came and visited me. When did we

01:03:27.120 visit you? When you visited the least of these, my brothers. The implication there is not that

01:03:32.240 the Christians went and visited a rapist in jail. No, the implication is they visited a Christian 0.91

01:03:39.560 who was imprisoned for preaching Christ. And the least of these, my brothers among Christians,

01:03:46.160 and as often as you do that, you've done it for Christ himself. We've lost the thread. We've

01:03:53.240 entirely lost the theological thread of the order of loves, which neighbor we... Everyone's your

01:04:01.520 neighbors, sure. But there is a hierarchy. There's a hierarchy of obligations to neighbors. So I have

01:04:07.460 familial ties. I have church ties, you know, spirits to my fellow believer. And then I have

01:04:13.660 national ties to my countrymen. And then if there's anything left over, then yeah, sure.

01:04:21.400 Then maybe I also support some mission agencies or institutions in a third world country that's

01:04:28.620 helping with poverty or something like that, I can consider that as well. That's not wrong to do.

01:04:34.100 But we put the cart before the horse. We just, we turned the whole thing on its head, where it's

01:04:39.940 like, my flesh and blood kids, I don't want them to be spoiled so they can fend for themselves.

01:04:45.620 And then the neighbor that I've never even met. And part of it is exactly what you said, Oren.

01:04:51.420 It's not because we grew in love. We became less loving. It's because it was easy. It's easy to

01:04:58.080 love in theory. It's easy to love the people that you've never met, right? Plenty of people love

01:05:04.520 the children in Uganda, but they can't get along with a roommate, right? Yeah, I love all people 0.73

01:05:10.540 except for the people that I happen to meet. And then I realized that I'm actually not too good

01:05:15.760 at love. And that's, I don't know. Any final thoughts? I know we need to land the plane,

01:05:21.020 but any final thoughts about your book or about what we need to do to fix this mess? Is there any

01:05:26.700 hope what do you think like i said i think we really are in the in this kind of the only way

01:05:32.540 uh out is through scenario and so i do think that i i've said this i'm long on americans

01:05:39.360 but i'm probably short on america as it stands now the u.s as a as it's constantly is it's

01:05:45.860 currently constituted as a political entity i think that basically civilization was just never

01:05:50.660 meant to scale this way i think we've lost sight as you say of the the condition of our neighbor

01:05:56.120 because we've decided that everyone else is one and so we we cannot take care of ourselves our

01:06:02.040 community uh and we cannot provide for uh and and share an identity and that will kind of move our

01:06:08.920 community forward and so i think like like i said what is necessary really is to bind ourselves

01:06:14.720 back into those tighter communities uh you know that we have to go ahead and be you know

01:06:21.220 do you graphically? Yes, at first, but in every other way, reconstruct those intermediate

01:06:27.900 institutions. When de Tocqueville came to America, he wrote democracy in America. The reason he said

01:06:33.240 it worked was because there are all these voluntary associations, all these, these different

01:06:38.980 social clubs and churches and everything else that Americans spent a lot of, a lot of their time,

01:06:46.020 you know, they didn't spend a lot of time watching television, obviously it didn't exist,

01:06:48.880 But they didn't spend a lot of free time just idling away.

01:06:52.660 They bound themselves into these social institutions that created these different mutual aid societies and things that meant that the government didn't have to do this kind of thing for them.

01:07:03.040 And so it's that reinstantiation of virtue.

01:07:05.720 But virtue, as Aristotle told us, can only be practiced inside a tradition, inside a community.

01:07:10.580 It can't be in some vast, abstract way.

01:07:14.020 It has to be person to person inside, again, bounded inside that shared understanding and identity.

01:07:21.420 And so that means if we're going to go ahead and create those intermediate institutions again that will allow us to devolve power away from the state and once again be a community, we have to take the responsibility on to ourselves.

01:07:34.740 We have to build stronger families.

01:07:36.040 We have to build stronger churches.

01:07:37.320 We have to be willing to go out and care again for specific groups of people and ensure that their their well-being will continue before we can then expand that and share that with others.

01:07:49.960 And I think that's really the key to getting rid of much of what we're going through now is scaling things down, becoming local again, becoming personal again, and recognizing that we can't share.

01:08:02.580 there is no liberty without virtue and that virtue can again only be practiced once we are in a

01:08:09.320 community again right that's great well thanks for coming on the show your new book the total state

01:08:15.240 may 7th it'll be available and people can follow you on twitter i assume twitter youtube uh sub stack

01:08:23.920 or in mcintyre of course i'm on the blaze as well right on the blaze with uh your podcast and is it

01:08:30.000 just the oren mcintyre show or mcintyre show i'm on blaze tv and and the podcast as well all your

01:08:35.360 favorite podcast platforms cool well oren thanks again for coming on the show appreciate it thanks

01:08:40.060 for having me

The NXR Podcast - September 23, 2024

THE INTERVIEW - We Had A Republic, But We Couldn't Keep It - @AuronMacIntyre - ICYMI

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