The NXR Podcast - November 08, 2022


THEOLOGY APPLIED - Christian Nationalism & The Chaos Of Female Leadership

Topics
Christian nationalism and Billy Dee live Christian nationalism women's rule in Christianity altruism and social media interpretations
Hosted by
Joel Webbon Harrison Smith Antonio Griffith Dale Partridge Wewsley Todd Calvin Robinson
Mentioned
Joel Webin Canon Plus Adam Martin Luther King Jordan Peterson John Brennan Dane Ortlund Jesus Christ David French Jamie White Joseph Boot Gary DeMar Twitterverse Politica Audible David
DAILY TRUTH - Fight The Good Fight DAILY TRUTH - Pray For Your Pastor

Episode Stats


Length

1 hour and 11 minutes

Words per minute

176.72

Word count

12,552

Sentence count

347

Harmful content

Misogyny

12

sentences flagged

Hate speech

33

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode, Pastor Joel Webbin sits down with Stephen Wolfe to discuss his new book, "Christian Nationalism: The Case for Christian Nationalism". This book is a companion to Dane Orlund's "Gentle and Lowly" and is very similar in many ways to that book.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00 Hey guys, real quick, before we get started, I have a small request.
00:00:03 If you've been blessed by our content and you like this show,
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00:00:18 All right, welcome, welcome, welcome to another episode of Theology Applied.
00:00:21 I am your host, Pastor Joel Webbin with Right Response Ministries.
00:00:24 I'm excited about this episode because we have in this episode,
00:00:28 Stephen Wolfe. Stephen Wolfe is the author of just a very mild, meek book. This book is probably
00:00:36 what you would want to buy for a Christmas gift for your family members to go right along with
00:00:41 Dane Ortlund, Gentle and Lowly. It's really in the same vein as that book. It's the case
00:00:46 for Christian nationalism. Obviously, I'm being facetious. This book, what I've read so far, 0.92
00:00:52 I just got an advanced reader copy a couple of days ago from recording this episode. But
00:00:56 by the time we launch it, I think the book should be public. November 1st is when it's airing.
00:01:00 And what I've read so far is fantastic. He's not pulling any punches. Stephen is,
00:01:05 he's not just talking about the theory or the idea of Christian nationalism in some abstract
00:01:10 ivory tower, you know, intellectual sense, but he's actually down to earth and saying,
00:01:16 no, we can do this guys. If we just had the resolve to trust the Lord and read his word
00:01:23 and be obedient in all of life. If we just had the will to honor God and love him and love our
00:01:29 fellow man, we could do this whole Christian nationalism thing. We could have a nation that
00:01:33 honors God and it would be a nation that's prosperous, a nation that's blessed. But
00:01:37 one of the things we talk about the interview is that sadly, it seems as though at this current
00:01:42 juncture that America simply has a will to die. We've just lost the will to live. Whether it's
00:01:51 in our altruism or whatever it might be, the West in general, European countries, it's almost like
00:01:56 the Western civilization just is suicidal out of guilt, out of apathy, out of empathy,
00:02:06 all these different misguided feelings. But we just seem to have lost the will to live.
00:02:13 And that's what Stephen's trying to address is, no guys, let's rally the troops. We should live
00:02:18 and that's not selfish. There is a way to do what is good for our nation that pleases the Lord
00:02:23 and is good for all people by starting in our affections, in our love right here at home. So
00:02:29 tune into this episode. It's a real treat. Oh, hi. I didn't see you there. Thanks for sticking
00:02:35 around. I've got an important announcement to make. That's the Theonomy and Postmillennialism
00:02:39 Conference. 2023, May 5th, 6th, and 7th, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, Theonomy and Postmillennialism.
00:02:48 We've got the speakers that we've already had lined up.
00:02:50 That's Dr. James White, Dr. Joseph Boot, Dr. Gary DeMar, non-doctor, Pastor Joel Webbin.
00:02:55 But we also have a bonus speaker, and that is Dale Partridge from Real Christianity.
00:03:01 Perhaps you've heard of him.
00:03:02 If not, you should start listening to his podcast.
00:03:04 It's fantastic.
00:03:06 Dale Partridge is going to be joining our team.
00:03:08 We're going to have live panels on Friday night and Saturday night where you'll be able
00:03:12 to write in questions and get them answered.
00:03:14 We're also going to have a catered barbecue, Texas-style barbecue meal on Friday that's
00:03:19 a part of your registration fee.
00:03:21 All that is covered.
00:03:22 So you need to get that.
00:03:24 This is how you do it.
00:03:25 Go and register right now at rightresponseconference.com.
00:03:29 Again, that's rightresponseconference.com.
00:03:33 God bless.
00:03:34 Applying God's word to every aspect of life.
00:03:38 This is Theology Applied.
00:03:44 All right, welcome back to another episode of Theology Applied.
00:03:48 I'm your host, Pastor Joel Webbin with Right Response Ministries.
00:03:51 And in this episode, I'm very privileged to have joining me Stephen Wolfe.
00:03:55 Stephen Wolfe, thank you for joining us on the show.
00:03:59 Yeah, thanks for having me.
00:04:00 All right, well, we're going to go ahead and dive in.
00:04:01 So for those of you who've been living underneath a rock, you may not be aware,
00:04:04 but for everybody else, you've probably seen this in the Twitterverse.
00:04:08 This is Stephen's brand new book that's going to be coming out to the public on November 1st.
00:04:13 Is that right, Stephen?
00:04:14 Yes.
00:04:15 So I've got one of the advanced reader copies, Canon Plus, was kind enough to send me one,
00:04:22 or I guess just Canon, Canon Plus being the app, but sent me a copy.
00:04:26 And so I'm starting to dive into it.
00:04:27 And I wanted to just talk about this conversation of Christian nationalism.
00:04:32 So I'll start with this.
00:04:33 What inspired you to write?
00:04:35 What made you think, hey, we need a book about Christian nationalism?
00:04:40 Yeah, I mean, it was a term of derision.
00:04:43 I mean, it actually was used in the 19th century, a little bit in the civil rights era.
00:04:51 It's been used by kind of black Christians, mainly heretical ones, but it was used also in the UK.
00:04:58 It was used by some Chinese Christians.
00:05:03 But recently, yeah, it was a term of derision.
00:05:05 But I think our conservative impulse is to be accused of something and then instantly say, I'm not that.
00:05:11 You know, so we go through a kind of series of these like disclaimers and disavowals and all that. 0.93
00:05:18 But once we started being accused of Christian nationalism, the more I thought about it was, well, this is precisely actually what I am.
00:05:26 I am a Christian, love my nation, and I'm nationalist.
00:05:32 So what does it mean to bring all those together?
00:05:34 And so that's that was my as you know, I initially started thinking about this more and more and I realized, you know what, actually what Christians need today, particularly in the West, is we need a sort of Christian nationalist approach because nationalism tends to emphasize national will.
00:05:54 that's kind of historically uh just in 19th century and another thing it just had this
00:06:00 emphasis on the kind of national will um kind of a will to live and it seems to me that the
00:06:05 the west is in a position where it's kind of has a will to die right uh westerners have this sort
00:06:11 of self-hating self-loathing malaise that it leads them to want to kind of implode and commit self
00:06:17 suicide you know national suicide uh so this i think the nationalism i is a i think a response
00:06:26 a principled response to both the our heritage as protestants but also it's good for the moment
00:06:33 and that moment is to kind of reinvigorate revitalize uh our our will to live um and and
00:06:40 not just will to live in a you know to have just have have food and and shelter but a will to
00:06:46 actually order our lives and our society towards the highest things. So eternal good. And that's
00:06:53 what inspired me. And that's why I think the book, even though there's a lot in there that's old,
00:06:58 I think it's kind of unique in the approach. Yeah, great. I like the way that Wilson put it
00:07:05 on one of his blogs, but just basically saying we kind of have six choices, three categories and
00:07:12 in two subcategories underneath each of the main three headers that, you know, we can be tribalist,
00:07:17 we can be nationalist, we can be globalist. And we don't want to be globalist because for one,
00:07:22 just biblically, the Bible speaks of distinct nations. The nations are Christ's inheritance.
00:07:27 The Bible emphasizes sovereign nations and distinctions between them. And then tribalism
00:07:32 may sound good. Localism is a good thing. We should care about our county, you know, and the 0.88
00:07:37 place that God has put us most immediately in working out from that. But that doesn't really
00:07:42 work as a form of government. Tribes are just, you know, you exist and maybe it's peaceful for
00:07:47 six months and then you get taken over by another tribe. And so it just doesn't seem to work. And so
00:07:51 that leaves us with this nationalism piece. And then the question is really, do we want to be a
00:07:55 pagan? Do we want pagan nationalism, you know, secular humanistic nationalism or Christian? So
00:08:00 it's the six categories mean, you know, secular tribalism versus, you know, Christian tribalism,
00:08:06 secular globalism, Christian globalism, and then secular nationalism versus Christian nationalism.
00:08:13 It seems like as a nation, we've been heading towards certainly secularism for quite a while
00:08:18 now, but then more recently, kind of secular globalism. And that doesn't seem like it's
00:08:24 panning out well. And so it seems like a return to a focus on nations, individual sovereign,
00:08:31 distinct nations and um patriotism and those kinds of things and then and then looking to god um as
00:08:37 the you know the question is by what standard um how do nations function and what is is it just the
00:08:43 will of the people is demas god or is or is there a theos a god above the state and um and so yeah
00:08:50 christian nationalism is you know it's not the term that necessarily we would have chosen for
00:08:54 ourselves. It is a pejorative. But Puritan was a pejorative of sorts. And there's been many times
00:09:02 when faithful Christians over the centuries throughout church history have been labeled
00:09:05 something by the opposition, but it worked. And they worked with the term because it actually
00:09:11 had biblical merit. And so I think that's what you and many other guys are doing. And so
00:09:15 any thoughts on that before I move on into some more questions?
00:09:20 well i you know i i would just say that uh i i'm not i'm not just taking the term because
00:09:28 as a way to troll you know the uh i'm not saying implied this but i actually think it's a good
00:09:34 good term for a moment and so in a way i'm like grateful for the people who came up with it
00:09:39 thinking that it was going to be as a pejorative it's going to be down these christians are called
00:09:43 christian nationalists i mean in a way i'm thankful because i think it's just a it is the
00:09:48 right term for the moment and i mean i think it's the right term for for all moments but i think in
00:09:54 particular this one the the things that are emphasized in nationalism uh particularly that
00:10:00 that sense of drive that will that's saying we are going to seek and after our good we're going to
00:10:05 act we're going to have resolve that that is what is kind of inherent to this the emphasis of the
00:10:10 term nationalism and to say it's christian national to say that we're not only going to
00:10:14 be concerned about, you know, our mash and our, you know, our temporal life, but also for our
00:10:21 eternal life as well. And so we're going to order ourselves to that. So I think it's just a good
00:10:27 term. Yeah. Yeah. Amen. All right. So one of the quotes that you highlighted, I believe, this was
00:10:34 in a chapter, I believe, chapter six, it says, what laws can and cannot do, civil law. The very
00:10:43 first citation that you have is the laws and liberties of Massachusetts, 1647. I just want
00:10:50 to read that and then let you comment on it. I just thought it was profound and really helpful.
00:10:54 It says, for when the authority is of God and that in a way of the ordinance, Romans 13, 1,
00:11:01 and when the administration of it is according to deductions and rules gathered from the word of God
00:11:09 and the clear light of nature in civil nations, surely there is no human law that tendeth to the
00:11:16 common good according to those principles, but what is immediately a law of God, and that in
00:11:23 way of an ordinance, which all are to submit unto, and that for conscience sake, Romans 13.5.
00:11:33 What are your thoughts on that? It seems like that kind of set the tone for this chapter,
00:11:37 and uh and you worked from that quote well i mean it's essentially a summary of standard uh reformed
00:11:44 uh i mean i mean it's also tomista i mean it's just it's just a christian it's a classical
00:11:50 christian conception of the law which just kind of shows you that even the puritans had the same
00:11:56 kind of conception of law as just um as christians probably did um but yeah that basically summarizes
00:12:02 that chapter uh you know usually you will kind of kind of want a pithy quote in the front right i
00:12:06 thought well you know what i'll just throw in one of these hard to read uh 17th century quotes
00:12:11 that's a long one but but yeah i mean that that is it's saying that that civil law uh civil law
00:12:18 is something that binds our conscience to action because uh because it's rooted in the the law of
00:12:25 god or the natural law the moral law of god and so this means that a magistrate who says do this
00:12:32 or don't do that he he can only say that uh he can only actually command you that and you're only
00:12:37 you're compelled to obey only if that command is uh is derived from god's law right and in this
00:12:47 sense in this sense a just law is as an ordinance of god it's like god it's essentially god telling
00:12:52 you to do something right though it's mediated through the determination of a civil magistrate
00:12:57 and you would say with that that like all human authority is delegated authority it's you know
00:13:03 all like there's no such thing as inherent human authority it's all vested from from gone whether
00:13:08 it be familiar yeah so we so none of us have a like a natural uh power to command our fellow
00:13:16 man to do something so uh yeah we we can't and we can come i guess i suppose we command him not to
00:13:23 you know, commit some moral offense against us. But we can't say, hey, you got to do this,
00:13:27 you got to drive on the side of the road, you got to, you know, we don't have that power
00:13:30 inherently, that has to be something God, in a sense, grants someone to then serve as a sort
00:13:41 of mediator of civil law. So that this mediator, which, you know, has been called a magistrate,
00:13:46 or prince, or whatever, you can call them just a civil government or legislative authority,
00:13:51 can legislate law
00:13:53 that says do this and do that
00:13:55 but only because it's derived from God
00:13:57 himself
00:13:58 so in this sense it's like
00:14:01 a just body of law
00:14:03 is in a way
00:14:05 divine law
00:14:06 even though we wanted separate categories
00:14:09 but it's something
00:14:10 on that basis we ought to do
00:14:12 in obedience to God
00:14:13 I wish that a lot of pastors had that understanding
00:14:17 two and a half years ago when COVID hit
00:14:19 You know, and I think, you know, so many misuses when it comes to Romans chapter 13.
00:14:25 You know, a lot of people would read Romans chapter 13, would you have no fear of the
00:14:29 one who rules over you, then do what he says.
00:14:33 But that's not what the text says.
00:14:34 It says, do what is good. 0.61
00:14:36 And the question, I think that that begs for the Christian is good according to who?
00:14:41 Good as defined by what?
00:14:44 Is it do what is good?
00:14:46 Simply meaning do what this individual human civil authority says,
00:14:50 or is it do something that is transcendently good?
00:14:54 Do you have any thoughts on that?
00:14:56 Well, I mean, you ought to do what a civil authority says.
00:15:01 But with this understanding, the power that they have to command,
00:15:07 truly, is a power that they can only command actually what is good for you.
00:15:13 right and that's and that's and what this means then is that if they can if there's a command
00:15:18 that is just then it's a it's a way it's in a sort of like mediated ordinance of god you ought to do
00:15:25 it um and and they're then in that sense they're they're actually acting as like god's deputy in
00:15:30 a way exactly but the moment they command what is unjust they no longer serve as god's deputy but
00:15:38 as just the man commanding you because again the power that's invested with these people
00:15:42 is only for good if it's for evil then they're actually not commanding with that power itself
00:15:48 and this is why this is why it's you can with good principle disobey it unjust
00:15:53 civil command or civil law is it's really no law at all and that's because law can law is the
00:16:00 creation of legitimate power and power is only for good um so so yeah again if it's an unjust law
00:16:07 you're not disobeying the magistrate you're just you're disobeying disobeying a man who's telling
00:16:11 you to do something unjust right that that's a really important distinction um though there is
00:16:17 a sense in which uh like with christ you know like christ says that you know someone takes your tunic
00:16:24 and then or someone has to go for a mile there's a sense in which an unjust law you could obey it
00:16:28 for some other reason and and part of that you know part of his command about you know obeying
00:16:33 of sort of injustice but then there's a very complicated history with that i'd recommend
00:16:38 reading calvin on it or augustine um so you're not actually bound to do whatever is unjust based
00:16:43 upon those verses but it could be a prudential uh way to um to demonstrate maybe uh maybe your faith
00:16:51 or or to for whatever reason so right but but according to actual principles of law and power
00:16:58 uh an unjust law is no law at all and therefore does not bind your conscience to action
00:17:02 yeah yeah you wrote um on page 249 unjust laws are not laws properly speaking and so they do
00:17:09 not bind the conscience to obedience and i would say yes and amen it reminds me of john knox that
00:17:14 you know uh resistance to tyranny is obedience to god and i think you're right in terms of
00:17:19 the category of prudence um when a law is unjust according to god's um higher universal law then
00:17:26 we're we're not required we're not obligated morally to obey it but there may be times that
00:17:31 we may choose within our conscience to obey something that doesn't directly. It's a commandment
00:17:38 that doesn't forbid what God commands or command what God forbids. It's still not just, but it's
00:17:46 something that we could actually acquiesce to without sinning against God's law, and we may
00:17:51 choose at certain times within prudence which hills we're going to die on, which fights we're
00:17:56 going to fight. I personally feel like you can make a fairly strong argument from the scripture
00:18:01 that um that any taxation uh that rivals the tithe so 10 or higher which we're way past that
00:18:07 point um is unjust uh but then the question is um does do we want to counsel every single christian
00:18:14 um to pursue tax evasion and i would say no i don't think that's probably the fight that we
00:18:19 need to fight um i think i think there are you know there are other battles that that we should
00:18:24 we should prioritize and so anyways i just i thought that that was a really good point of
00:18:28 just saying that unjust laws are not actually laws. And so you're, it's not that you're
00:18:33 disobeying, you're not disobeying the civil magistrate as he functions as a God's deacon,
00:18:40 God's servant. You're just, you're disobeying a rogue individual man who is, who is, yeah,
00:18:47 he's, he's at that moment, he's gone rogue. He's, he's operating outside of the authority
00:18:51 that God's vested within him. Any more thoughts on that?
00:18:54 well so in the military uh that the the state empowers officers with the ability to command
00:19:03 anything that is like uh you know moral ethical um yeah moral legal ethical is you know what they
00:19:11 say uh and so that means that that if you're a soldier and you're and uh your uh commanding
00:19:16 officer says do this and it's moral legal ethical then go do it that's what you have to do uh and
00:19:22 they have the power to do that and you have the you have the duty to obey but if the officer
00:19:28 commands something that is not legal or it's unethical it's immoral well then he's exceeded
00:19:33 his power uh and and in fact as you as a soldier you are obligated not to obey uh that that officer
00:19:41 because for those reasons and and disobeying him you're disobeying him not as he is an officer but
00:19:47 just as he is a guy telling you something unjust so you're not i mean he is like he in that moment
00:19:52 he has the appearance of officership, but he's actually commanding you just as a man
00:19:55 to do what's unjust. So it's the same kind of thing. And, and yeah, it's the same type
00:20:02 of thing for you in relation to civil magistrates.
00:20:05 Right. And your disobedience to that individual really is, it's, it's flowing out of your
00:20:10 obedience to a higher authority. So, you know, so that if you have, you know, a lieutenant
00:20:16 who's given you, you know, a certain set of orders that are objectively immoral, your
00:20:23 disobedience to that lieutenant is actually reflective of your commitment and obedience
00:20:28 to the authority above him, that the moment they find out what this guy is doing, they're
00:20:34 going to thank you for it.
00:20:35 So, you know, within Romans 13 and, you know, submission to the civil magistrate and these
00:20:40 kinds of things, part of that, you have to understand that in light of God and his transcendent
00:20:46 authority, but you also have to understand that within the nation that you live in and
00:20:51 within the parameters of your civil magistrate and how it functions.
00:20:54 And we have multiple levels of civil authorities in our nation, and our highest authority in
00:21:03 our nation, civil authority, is not a human official by design, but rather a document.
00:21:08 There are times where you may be resisting the tyranny of one individual, lower level
00:21:15 individual. And it's not just disobedience, but your disobedience with that person is actually
00:21:20 reflective of your obedience towards a higher authority. So the Christian is never acting in 0.96
00:21:24 rebellion. The Christian is always supposed to be acting in submission to true God-given authority 0.78
00:21:34 and able to discern between good and evil and when certain human authorities are out of line.
00:21:40 Yeah. Would you agree with that? Yeah. Yeah. I think it's all right. Yeah.
00:21:43 um it's all right it's it's not great but we'll take it um all right so let me ask you another
00:21:51 question so you talked to um already just so far in our conversation about natural law and i just
00:21:57 want to pick your brain on on that um when when you're talking about christian nationalism and
00:22:03 and natural law and these kinds of things um if we're talking about moral law being being the
00:22:10 the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments, do you see natural law as distinct? Do you see that as
00:22:16 simply the second table of the Decalogue? Or do you see that as all Ten Commandments falling
00:22:22 within the parameters of natural law? How would you define natural law? Because different guys
00:22:26 have, we use that phrase a lot, natural law, but there are different ideas of what natural law is.
00:22:32 Yeah, well, I mean, if anyone's saying that the natural law is only the second table,
00:22:38 then that is the extremely novel position in fact i don't know anyone who's ever said that
00:22:44 and if someone's saying it now then then they're they are quite the innovator so no one's ever
00:22:50 said that uh calvin didn't say it aquinas didn't say it no one i mean uh so it'd be bizarre um i
00:22:58 and to to say that it would be pretty weird uh because the first table simply acknowledges
00:23:04 what's what what's owed to god and uh so yeah it would be and in fact it would kind of approach a
00:23:11 sort of roman catholic position in a way um but i mean we don't have to go there but it was just
00:23:17 the the idea of natural law is that you have these duties to god and to fellow man and uh those
00:23:23 duties are are summarized and inscripturated as in as the decalogue and uh the the first table
00:23:30 is the first because it's not only the most obviously your duty to god is first but also
00:23:35 that your duty to man flows from your duties to god uh so there's a sort of logical progression
00:23:41 uh the first first commandment essentially in a positive sense says worship only you know only
00:23:46 through god and it flows from from there that you ought to you know honor your father and mother and
00:23:53 and and uh not murder which positively means support the life of the well-being of those
00:23:58 around you so i mean there's just uh yeah and so the natural law can be defined as the the rule or
00:24:06 standard by which man uh will achieve his natural end and that natural end is his is his happiness
00:24:14 so obedience to god leads to leads to happiness or you can say it is happiness and god's uh man's
00:24:20 natural end is a sense of more than earthly it's heavenly as well so obedience to god in the natural
00:24:25 law uh would would in a way um point to i mean this kind of getting into like really technical
00:24:32 uh theology but in a way that what's embedded in natural law is this this this sort of higher life
00:24:38 this this sense of that that earth is not uh was was never meant to be your only uh place but you're
00:24:47 actually meant for something higher uh and and the natural law in a way of of obeying it was going to
00:24:53 be the way to achieve that life that's originally for adam but i mean i think just generally speaking
00:24:58 it's a standard by which man achieves his his end so which yeah okay um that makes any sense
00:25:07 yeah no that makes sense so you know like what i always teach as a local pastor uh with my
00:25:13 congregation you know in just in our liturgy we we have a reading of god's law where we read
00:25:17 Exodus chapter 20, all 10 commandments. And we have a corporate confession of sin and an assurance
00:25:23 of pardon and a confession of faith. And one of the things I always say is I'm teaching on the
00:25:28 law of God because we want to preach both law and gospel. And one of my concerns is that much of the
00:25:34 church I think today is antinomian, at least in the technical sense of a rejection of the third
00:25:40 use of God's law. If there is any preaching of God's law, it's in the gospel-centered, centered
00:25:44 gospel gospel centered tribe that's you know where it's just it's only the first use of the
00:25:48 law here's god's commands here's the the imperative here's how you failed um thank god for jesus he
00:25:53 fulfilled it and um don't you love jesus and so yeah i do love jesus and the law it is um um the
00:26:00 law functions in its first use it drives us the law no man will be saved by works as done unto the
00:26:05 law but the law does reveal uh the holiness of god the sinfulness of man and the need for a savior
00:26:10 and it drives us to Christ who can save.
00:26:13 But the law also functions as a light unto our feet.
00:26:15 David delighted in the law of God.
00:26:17 It was something that he loved
00:26:19 and it leads towards blessing.
00:26:22 And I think there's so much of a fear,
00:26:23 maybe an overreaction to the prosperity gospel
00:26:26 and what we might deem as legalism
00:26:28 and these kinds of things that we,
00:26:30 I think there's a lot of Christians,
00:26:32 what I'm getting at is,
00:26:33 I think there's a lot of Christians
00:26:34 that don't even want to mention the law of God,
00:26:36 the first or the second table in its third use
00:26:39 as a light unto our feet, as a way to live, not a way to salvation, to earn salvation,
00:26:43 but a way from salvation in gratitude for the free grace that we have through faith in Jesus
00:26:48 Christ. And so I think that right now, the case that you're making and the case that other guys
00:26:54 are making, there seems to be kind of this rising movement of sorts. And I think there's a lot that's
00:27:00 going to need to get ironed out. But I guess what I'm saying is to make a case that states,
00:27:06 that nations at the civil level should be lawful according to God's law, natural law, moral law.
00:27:15 I'm coming off of the past few years as a local pastor, and I don't even think churches
00:27:19 are convinced of that. Not that states should be that way, but that churches should even preach
00:27:24 the law of God in its third use as a light unto our path. Have you experienced that? I feel like
00:27:30 the culture because the church culture and then just the culture at large is is very afraid of
00:27:36 legalism very antinomian very lawless and uh and and in addition to that i think very um not just
00:27:43 the antinomian piece but that you know just i don't know what are your thoughts on that well
00:27:49 i mean yeah i think that we we have failed to distinguish nature and grace and uh we've allowed
00:27:55 grace to essentially destroy nature to kind of invade uh that that natural i think i think we
00:28:02 have i think man has a natural drive for a sort of dominion um to be assertive in the world and
00:28:10 i think we've allowed grace to make us very passive i think there's there's also some
00:28:15 feminization the church going on with this as well but um i but there is a sense in which
00:28:20 the gospel has become a means for us to have kind of this uh like uh sort of cognitive well-being
00:28:26 or psychological well-being um while just being you know fat on the couch watching marvel movies
00:28:32 you know so that's kind of um so instead of actually being uh and um the gospel being
00:28:37 something that restores us to activity to doing things to organizing um or just to activity
00:28:44 generally to be assertive and and demeaning oriented we've allowed it to be the opposite
00:28:48 through grace kind of destroying nature and so i think that when we understand the gospel i mean
00:28:54 we can separate justification sanctification um justification is a sort of is like your
00:28:59 is in a way your title to eternal life so the merit the merit of christ you can kind of claim
00:29:06 for yourself a title to eternal life but sanctification involves is a sort of restoration
00:29:13 so it's adam was was was given these gifts and these gifts empowered him to exercise be a very
00:29:21 active person to exercise dominion in the world under god okay so that means as i argue in one
00:29:27 chapter is it basically means that there'd be nations there would spread have distinct nations
00:29:31 and all that but but the point i'm getting here is that he was empowered to with sets of gifts
00:29:37 with his the completeness of his gifts to to achieve that end because of course that was part
00:29:41 of his the covenantal conditions was him do that so he had to have the power to do it um in the
00:29:46 fall adam lost not not all his gifts he didn't lose ability to kind of reason according to
00:29:52 principles and he'd lose his sight and strive to have some kind of society and community
00:29:56 he did lose this uh one his ability to achieve heavenly uh good uh he adopted vicious habits
00:30:03 and and um so he's unable to fully uh seek dominion under god though he still had to drive
00:30:10 obviously, because you see men have done virtuous things in ways, but in the actual restoration,
00:30:20 in sanctification, what you might call a definitive sanctification, we've gone from a sort of total
00:30:25 depravity to a total sanctification, by which I do not mean that we've become perfected in every
00:30:31 practical way, but that we've been re-equipped in a way. We've been re-equipped with the sort
00:30:35 of things Adam had, which includes this desire for heavenly life, but also the gifts pertaining
00:30:42 to his work in dominion under God. And so these were natural, and in a way they're supernaturally
00:30:51 kind of grafted in, but they're the same in substance, the same sort of things that Adam
00:30:56 had to achieve his end. So I think part of sanctification, part of kind of working out
00:31:01 your salvation in the sanctifying the sanctification sense is having this natural drive
00:31:07 for to complete the sort of things adam would have done though not for not to achieve eternal life
00:31:14 but as a matter of just being a fully human being so that is achieving what you ought to have done
00:31:21 as a natural human being not not not so much as like a being of grace it's not a command of grace
00:31:28 to exercise dominion it's a restoration of grace that you can naturally do it uh and so i so i i
00:31:34 think that the the what's antinomian to my sense is not not just that that we don't put you know
00:31:41 that we don't have kind of civil law doesn't reflect on natural law uh but that we don't have
00:31:47 that that spirit meaning like the spirit for action that we should have given our sanctification
00:31:54 in Christ. And that should give us this active, activity-oriented, dominion-oriented life
00:32:03 with others to kind of realize on earth these institutions and communities that are under God.
00:32:16 So what does this mean practically? This means that there ought to be Christian schools,
00:32:21 there ought to be christian governments or out to be christian magistrates you know christian
00:32:26 civil societies and that sort of thing so that that's kind of how i go from yeah that's why i
00:32:33 think like the importance of sanctification and and also just natural law uh we we are natural
00:32:38 beings and we have natural drives and we ought to order those properly which means activity in the
00:32:46 world to place the things of the world under god yeah um so we talked a little bit about you know
00:32:53 what is your reason for writing the book why did you write it let me ask you now um not why did
00:32:59 you write the book but what are you hoping the book will do yeah i mean i mentioned this earlier
00:33:06 i think i hope um several things one i hope that for the individual men yeah i wrote the book i
00:33:13 I mean, if someone reads it, they'd probably know this.
00:33:16 I wrote the book for men in mind.
00:33:19 It's not a self-help book.
00:33:20 It's more of an exhortation, I guess.
00:33:23 And that would be to realize that your masculinity,
00:33:28 the things of power that drive to exercise dominion
00:33:34 is actually true and good and not destroyed.
00:33:36 It's natural and it's not destroyed by nature.
00:33:38 So that's one thing, not just on the individual level.
00:33:41 But on the broader level, it's about realizing that you're a people and you have a place.
00:33:49 And if you're Christian, you want that to be a Christian place.
00:33:54 And in order for that to happen, it's not a matter of reading the times, you know, reading the signs and talking about eschatology all the time and saying like that post-mill.
00:34:07 People used to do that online.
00:34:08 you know it's not it's about no you have to do it like you like you know you people have to do it
00:34:14 it's not just like bringing bringing about stuff into existence in reality to make christian
00:34:20 institutions public institutions it's not just simply it's not simply divine providence it's you
00:34:27 actually acting in the world to do it it's like a synergistic thing it's not monergistic it's just
00:34:31 it's just like sanctification is something you have to like you have to act you have you have
00:34:36 a you have a peace in this the same is true when you do political theology like if you're post
00:34:41 millennial i know not not all post-millennials think this way but but there can be this tendency
00:34:47 of thinking oh that that you know it's prophesied it'll come like i believe this will come no but
00:34:52 if it does you're you got to do it so that that's part of the thing is not like we have to have the
00:34:58 will for it to happen it's not gonna if we don't will it into existence it's not going to happen
00:35:02 because it's necessary for man to actually act for it to happen.
00:35:06 So that's kind of what I – that's why I emphasize the will throughout the book.
00:35:11 Yeah.
00:35:12 Yeah, that's great.
00:35:14 In the epilogue, let's talk about that for a moment. 0.99
00:35:18 One of your portions in the epilogue talks about being ruled by women, 0.74
00:35:23 which I completely agree with you.
00:35:25 I've said this on my show before, so I don't know, so that you're not nervous.
00:35:28 I'll show my hand ahead of time and let you know where I'm at.
00:35:31 But I've mentioned multiple times on our podcast that I think few things have caused more suffering than women's suffrage.
00:35:39 So I think that men should vote.
00:35:45 And so that's my position with that.
00:35:48 I don't think that that's, you know, there's any problem with that. 0.81
00:35:50 But I do think that it's extraordinary that we really do live in a society where even just the implicit laws, right, the cultural laws that aren't even civil laws, but just cultural guidelines and directives are, they're all feminine.
00:36:08 So anytime a man tries to take initiative and tries to actually carry out what God has called him to, taking dominion in his various arenas of life and the responsibilities that God has given to him as a husband, as a father, in his vocation, in his local church, in his local town.
00:36:27 Maybe he runs for city council and these kinds of things.
00:36:31 A lot of times men just get blasted for being misogynist or being, this is toxic masculinity.
00:36:38 This is aggressive.
00:36:40 And then, you know, we have any book within Christianity, you know, that sells really well and that, you know, people are like, oh, this was so good.
00:36:50 It always focuses on, you know, Jesus, meek and mild, you know, gentle and lowly. 0.98
00:36:57 You know, Jesus, you know, it's the most feminine qualities that you could imagine. 0.75
00:37:04 And those, I'm not saying those are objectively feminine qualities.
00:37:07 Jesus is meek and mild, and Jesus was and is a man.
00:37:12 But that's not the only, that's not the whole of Jesus and his attributes and who he is.
00:37:18 And so anyways, can you talk a little bit, why did you include that in the epilogue?
00:37:23 And what are you trying to get across to the reader?
00:37:25 yeah so i mean i when i wrote this book it's not just like an academic exercise it's not just
00:37:32 trying to be precise for my fellow academics or you know whatever high-brow thinkers
00:37:37 i actually want it to happen uh and i i mean people might be surprised when they read the
00:37:45 epilogue what's in there but what's in there is just again it's mainly written for men and it's
00:37:52 saying it like what what's going to what's going to prevent us from being christian nationalists
00:37:59 well what's to bring i mean to bring it in a christian nation that follows kind of principles
00:38:03 of christian nationalism and i think one of it is going to be i don't think it could happen when
00:38:08 women are generally kind of in charge and and rule things that's and that's because women tend not to
00:38:14 they tend to have they have they're empathetic uh they tend to be more inclusive and men tend 0.95
00:38:21 to be more exclusive uh and they they they tend to yeah so i there's there's these there's these
00:38:30 different traits that you see between uh the sexes and in order to have a christian nation
00:38:37 where some some uh where blasphemy is punished by someone who seems well-meaning and nice and
00:38:43 smiles big you're gonna have to have a guy who says no you're going to jail i mean or whatever
00:38:48 it is you're fine them i mean because yeah i'm all for blasphemy laws by the way um if if you're
00:38:53 going to suppress atheism i mean there might be some very nice guy has a big smile loves atheism
00:38:58 like no atheism is crushed uh it's not going to be tolerated um you you have to have this kind of
00:39:05 firm hand where it says you just say no we're not going to do this and uh and what i mean there's 0.91
00:39:12 study after study coming out today about women-dominated fields in academia where that 1.00
00:39:19 the sort of traits you see coming out of those departments are the exact opposite of that of 0.55
00:39:26 sort of assertive saying kind of saying no to these things that are going to be damaging
00:39:33 and I so I think that there's what I call kind of a gynocracy which is a term that I didn't make up
00:39:42 it's been around uh but one of the one of the things that you see is this because of empathy
00:39:50 uh within within gynocracies uh you have this very strong egalitarian appeal uh egalitarian
00:40:01 like a following a very egalitarian principle and what happens then within these groups is
00:40:06 everything becomes very institutionalized very proceduralized
00:40:11 uh a lot of times the the men who are very assertive and agonistic who want to actually
00:40:17 compete with one another um kind of are suppressed and everything has to be extremely cooperative
00:40:23 and equality driven and in the end you don't actually have the naturally superior people
00:40:30 arise to the top and the the benefit of like a masculine leadership uh to my mind is that
00:40:37 men can compete aggressively with one another and they can debate and they can fight each other
00:40:43 and they in a way can self-sort into hierarchies through this activity so like on the playground
00:40:50 i mean growing up you can see in the playground different people different guys tend to kind of
00:40:55 lead the pack right and sometimes there was conflict but it eventually everyone kind of
00:41:00 sorted out where they were in this hierarchy and everyone figured out what they did well and what
00:41:05 they what they you know how they relate to everyone else and everyone in in general was was kind of
00:41:10 fine with that uh with some some problems at times but uh what like with gynecratic uh system
00:41:17 that sort of thing cannot happen so you get you get a lot of mediocrity um and it suppresses a
00:41:23 lot of those kind of masculine virtues that can really inspire greatness so that's one thing but
00:41:30 i think just just just broadly speaking you're if you have a very kind of feminine led institutions
00:41:37 you can't have christian nationalism because you're going to have a sort of empathy run amok
00:41:42 you're going to have untethered empathy and i think i mean i'm bashing women here a lot but
00:41:48 i'm just saying that women are essential to dominion they're essential to the work we have
00:41:54 in this world uh but the the excesses of empathy can actually destroy societies yeah i can create 1.00
00:42:03 these it can create these contradictions so who supports homosexuality the most tends to be women 0.88
00:42:10 who supports transgender kids uh you know transitioning all that and be that insanity 0.81
00:42:15 tends to be women who supports uh uh the the um often like criminals on on the streets and want 0.82
00:42:23 lower lower crime sentences uh uh more more prosecutor prosecutorial discretion tends to be
00:42:30 women and and who is this well i mean think one of the most reliable voting blocks for democrats 1.00
00:42:35 is actually college educated white women right uh and so you see these kind of like these i call 0.99
00:42:42 them gynocratic contradictions where like an untethered empathy when it becomes realized in
00:42:48 policy can actually literally destroy not uh not only destroy societies but it comes back and harms 0.99
00:42:54 women as well i mean just see that the the in sports women can train their entire teenage their
00:43:01 their young lives for to compete in some sport and then they're beat by this mediocre guy who
00:43:07 claims to be a girl so anyway i mean that that's what i was trying to get out but the main point
00:43:11 i've talked a lot about this i'm gonna get in trouble for it all um the the main point is that
00:43:16 we're not going to see a christian nationalism happen because because women are are not able to
00:43:25 as easily kind of stomach the exclusivist posture you need towards people in society
00:43:33 yeah uh the old testament um i think it may be isaiah it might have been ezekiel but
00:43:40 talks about the civil majesty, like the state, the government, and speaks of it in animalistic
00:43:48 terms as bears or like with claws, sharp claws. And, you know, and that goes right along with,
00:43:58 you know, Romans 13, like he bears the sword. And, you know, and these are masculine things.
00:44:04 He bears the sword, you know, or a bear or things like that. And I, you know, I think of like
00:44:10 kentonji brown jackson um you know supreme court um and you know some of the things that as she
00:44:17 was going through you know getting grilled and those kinds of things you guys are bringing up
00:44:20 you're soft on on crime and particularly you know um cases of you know where the um pedophilia
00:44:28 you know and um and i think you know the the instinct is um well man you know like even with
00:44:35 putin when when things like that were just starting out with russian uh invasion of of ukraine you
00:44:41 know like one woman i forget her name but wrote um a poem like if um if only i were your mom
00:44:47 you know and i think like women think in those terms so it's like here's a pedophile you know
00:44:52 who's being tried in court and um and the woman if she happens to be the judge is thinking um
00:44:57 gosh i i you know um how come this poor guy you know he's he's messed up he just needs help
00:45:03 uh whereas men i think um uh this guy should be hung publicly um that he's a he's a what he's a
00:45:12 pedophile like no we're not thinking we're not thinking in sympathetic you know terms and so
00:45:17 there's just there's different roles for men and women in the ways that god has designed us but
00:45:21 when you're thinking of you know at home caring for um three-year-olds you don't want bears doing
00:45:26 that you you want you want nurturing you know uh so anyway so i i completely agree with you and i
00:45:33 think that you know there was one study that said uh if women weren't able to vote i think that we
00:45:39 wouldn't have one uh democrat um president for the last 50 years um that you know if only men
00:45:45 were voting and and you even see within marriage like statistically when women do get married
00:45:50 there's a higher likelihood that they begin voting more conservatively um after entering
00:45:56 into marriage and having children and i'm sure some some influence from their husbands and so
00:46:00 um i i just thought that that was a bold thing for you to add but it's uh somebody we need to
00:46:06 talk about um that that i think that's part of the issue and it's not just with the state and
00:46:10 it's not just with the culture but um i i think there's so much feminization of the church uh to
00:46:16 where um there's a reason why the church doesn't appeal to men um and i think it's because we've
00:46:21 said in many ways that uh church isn't for men and uh the sad thing is nothing is for men anymore
00:46:27 all society is for women and i think that that's that's one of the reasons why there's soft on
00:46:33 crime policies that are that are driven by women but there's also just exasperated men i think
00:46:38 that's why jordan peterson has launched into the stratosphere because he had the audacity just to
00:46:43 say you know that we need a place for men you know and and um and and that resonates you know
00:46:49 with with many people so um what yeah i mean that there yeah i would just say there's
00:46:54 yeah i mean what you see is like in academia you see that women tend to be more kind of social
00:47:00 justice oriented uh less less dispassionate within the academic their field i mean this is
00:47:08 an aggregate this is not of course there are exceptions and all that but uh and so what you
00:47:13 get um what you get is this this uh push towards more uh egalitarian policies more egalitarian
00:47:21 activism and uh and this leads to essentially the smothering of the the the people who are naturally
00:47:31 uh going to rise to the top and are not going to do that because they're they're beat down because
00:47:37 they they agonistically and with competition pursue that and you're going to get uh people who
00:47:43 are um have a propensity for criminality you're going they're just going to kind of run run free
00:47:50 so you have this the the egalitarian um principle uh that is kind of governs their thought and it
00:48:01 actually governs our thought now it has for a long time it just it just leads to a society that
00:48:07 will smother essentially pathologizes masculinity you know so it's it you have to wonder what what
00:48:14 are men for um in a society that is dominated by kind of a very strict egalitarian governing
00:48:20 principle yeah um what do you think it is so you said like we've lost it's you said something
00:48:27 like this so i'm paraphrasing but that we've lost the will to live right it's like um i don't know
00:48:33 if you ever read, uh, the, the fate of empires, uh, grub something, um, it's just a collection
00:48:40 of like two essays and talks about, you know, he tracks like how empires on, on average tend to
00:48:45 live about a quarter of a millennia, you know, through 250 years, give or take. And, um, they
00:48:51 enter into, you know, their later, uh, stages enter into decadence. And then, you know, there's,
00:48:56 um, there's a, a lethargy and, and laziness, you know, apathy that comes, but then also it's not
00:49:01 just that but there's also um a mixture uh that begins to happen like they um it's you know it's
00:49:07 like they fought to take over the world and they finally did and and they become so strong that
00:49:11 really there's no they've neutralized all outer threats and so they usually implode from within
00:49:17 and um and it's usually because of apathy laziness uh empathy is a big thing and so like starting to
00:49:23 you know where positions of leadership in society become a charity rather than merit and um but then
00:49:30 also in mixture in terms of um in terms of you know everybody wants to be a part of the empire
00:49:35 everybody wants to you know there's a lot of times prosperity and opportunity these kinds of things
00:49:40 and and over time you know um there's all of a sudden there's there's a bunch of people who
00:49:46 are are living in this particular place that don't really identify with a place who don't
00:49:50 it's not really their home and and and so you know i another thing that i've heard you say
00:49:56 on this topic is saying that we need to figure out who we are as America. And it's not just
00:50:04 that we need to deal with illegal immigration, which we most certainly do immediately. That's 0.89
00:50:09 a huge problem. I mean, you can argue that it's a full-scale invasion that's happening
00:50:15 with our nation. But then even with legal immigration, that needs to be mitigated 0.97
00:50:21 drastically, at least for a time for us to let the dust settle and have this corporate, you know,
00:50:28 national identity. And there has to be history, right? A shared history with each other to be
00:50:35 able to say, yeah, our grandparents worked together or fought in this war together. And not
00:50:39 just, you know, you arrived 15 minutes ago. There's always going to be some level of immigration,
00:50:44 people who arrived 15 minutes ago. But if you start talking about a significant portion of
00:50:50 the population of a nation is people who just just arrived um then and then that nation is is
00:50:56 in serious trouble and so i guess my question is what what what why what is it that that americans
00:51:02 have just it really does seem like um like a like slitting your wrist in the bathtub or something
00:51:08 like like a will a death wish like a will to die like do you think i i feel like some of it is
00:51:13 laziness and decadence but i think some of it also is just guilt like like winners feel guilty for
00:51:19 winning or what do you think it is that that america is just because i mean we're really
00:51:23 like trying to uh to lose yeah i i think the the west generally uh is is in a sense tired
00:51:35 has lacked has lost self-confidence um is self-loathing uh self-hating uh and and and
00:51:45 it's to it took i mean that's all pathological but to kind of this intense like perverse degree
00:51:51 where uh i mean you can see this in a way is more in europe well they'll take in uh you know so-called
00:52:00 refugees and those refugees will begin to practice their culture as they came from and which violates 0.65
00:52:09 different various western norms uh but then they don't do anything about it so the the country 0.98
00:52:15 uh blames them they blame themselves um for so the germans will blame themselves for the problems in
00:52:21 the immigrant community and they'll say well you know it's you gotta just just learn to live with
00:52:25 it it's kind of the common phrase that you hear in all the european countries now you just got
00:52:29 to learn to live with the new normal uh and it's it's this uh i mean if if a bunch of people came
00:52:37 into your community and um and then all of a sudden sexual assault sprang up i mean you saw
00:52:42 this this is i'm not there's not some conspiracy this is documented in a place like sweden and
00:52:48 germany and all throughout the the europe the spike of sexual assaults if people did that in
00:52:54 your community and you had kind of a will to live you'd kick them all out right um but uh and 0.99
00:53:00 i mean just like the millions of migrants that came into europe uh a few years ago in 2016 2017 0.99
00:53:07 whatever that was that they kept talking that the media would show pictures of of families but the
00:53:12 vast majority were fighting age young men who came across and this was again documented many times
00:53:20 uh but people they just kept telling themselves but essentially lying to themselves that it's a
00:53:24 bunch of families coming across the border like no it's it's actually the it's like 20 something
00:53:29 year old men who could could be fighting for their country back home so they fled
00:53:32 to come here and take advantage and exploit the system and all that so but we have this we have
00:53:39 this um extremely um the west tends to have uh be very altruistic uh especially the anglo
00:53:48 the anglo tradition is very altruistic and so we tend to think that you know those those
00:53:54 immigrants they were legitimate refugees they're all of them 100 down to every single one
00:53:59 and they're not coming here to exploit our system they're coming here to be frenchmen and german
00:54:04 and dutch and that's why they're coming here they want to be one of us so no i mean that's why
00:54:09 uh the the suburbs of paris are full of people who've never uh assimilated into to becoming
00:54:15 french and they resist becoming french because why would they i mean they're not french uh they
00:54:19 you know so um they're just these lies from from these these all these altruistic principles that
00:54:26 we flow from i think in america uh that there's a lot of people do come here to be americans
00:54:32 and i you know i believe that uh very seriously so i think there is some there's some difference
00:54:38 uh you know here and i think many people go to england for that to become british um but i think
00:54:44 there's there's the majority at least in continental europe i don't think that was the case
00:54:48 but in united states we tend to have a more like a geographic that like this universalistic notion
00:54:56 that we just we just live in like geographic space and uh and where it's a any human could
00:55:03 come here and be here and that's enough like you're within the borders you're american like
00:55:09 so there is there's a sense in which we just the united states is a geographic space for like
00:55:15 everyone all humans and so um and i mean this this it's a very complicated discussion i'm not
00:55:20 to make it simplistic but because of like what what is you know uh what is america or what does
00:55:25 it mean to be americans very complicated but but i think that's our our universalistic very
00:55:31 humanistic mindset that this this space is just for for everyone so anyway anyone can come here
00:55:37 and i my problem with that is that okay this is a very diverse country but like like you mentioned
00:55:43 we have to you have to live life in generations here with others you have to like i bring up this
00:55:51 idea like your grandfather you mentioned in wars like so in that big national events and national
00:55:56 struggles that tends to bring people together there's the uh if your grandfather went to the
00:56:03 same high school and that mean i just or your grandfather father worked at this shop and my
00:56:08 my grandfather already came in or we would go into that shop there'd be stories and
00:56:12 wasn't that fun when you know this there would just be these this sense of sense of community
00:56:17 based in generations but if you have people continuously coming in just millions of people
00:56:22 always coming in they don't have uh like this sort of collective communal memory in this place
00:56:29 and it's like constantly restarting it like if we just stopped we just theoretically say we stopped
00:56:34 everyone from coming in and all all we have is the people here here right now it would take
00:56:40 would take several generations before we could all i think come together as like as a people right um
00:56:47 not not only be not knowing like through inter intermarriage it doesn't have to be
00:56:50 intermarriage we have shared experience in this place together right and uh
00:57:00 yeah and so i mean that's why i oppose immigration for america but yeah it's it's a very it's hard
00:57:04 We're never going to become an actual nation, given our current level diversity, if we keep importing from mass immigration.
00:57:15 It's just not going to happen. 0.99
00:57:17 So it's, yeah.
00:57:20 Yeah, no, I agree.
00:57:21 I think, yeah, so I think there's guilt, there's apathy, there's empathy, you know, that's a twisted sense of thinking like we're, you know, being overly altruistic and, oh, we're helping, you know.
00:57:34 and this, and this is what it, what it means to be, you know, compassionate, all these kinds of
00:57:38 things. And I think, you know, the last thought that I kind of had as you were talking was,
00:57:42 I wonder if social media, you know, just the rise with technology, those kinds of things has
00:57:47 anything to do with, because there's such a vested interest for individuals today to,
00:57:55 for their, for their lives and their achievements and, and their, their interests and all these
00:58:00 different things um to to simply be optics and not necessarily tangible not not necessarily real
00:58:06 um to just to have you know like like everything you're you do is is to broadcast out to as many
00:58:13 people you know wanting so much uh um approval from from the masses and i wonder just like as
00:58:19 the world has gotten smaller through through various technologies and these kinds of things
00:58:23 that you know caring more about you know what what america looks like on the world stage
00:58:28 Does, you know, does the UN like us or do other nations think we're nice enough?
00:58:33 You know, like, whereas, you know, like when your whole focus is oriented in who's physically
00:58:39 in front of you, you know, it's just like your whole life, right?
00:58:43 You don't know, you don't have 30,000 fans, you know, or a million.
00:58:47 Your whole life is, I know about 50 people, you know, by name that are in my life.
00:58:52 And I've got my wife and I've got my children and I've got my job and I have my church.
00:58:55 And so, yeah, so I'm going to do what benefits them because they're the only approval that I'm looking for. 0.69
00:59:03 I'm not looking for the approval of someone in Ukraine, you know, like by having, you know, supporting them with this flag, you know, in my bio on my social media page.
00:59:15 So I guess my question is there's altruism, but do you think altruism is kind of ramped up on steroids because of social media to the point where we just,
00:59:23 We care more about appearances and global approval than actual tangible growth and productivity and benefit.
00:59:35 I mean, yeah, I think that a lot of the social media presence is sort of kind of framing an identity.
00:59:46 It's usually an opposition.
00:59:48 I tend to think when I say the Ukraine flag in a bio, I usually think that they really just mean they don't like me.
00:59:55 That it's really not, it's less support for Ukraine and more that they just don't like conservatives or right wing people. 0.89
01:00:01 It's actually a flag for them to signal their support for crushing us. 0.79
01:00:06 That's how I interpret the flag.
01:00:08 And I think that's probably right.
01:00:11 Given the sort of people who have the flag and what they say.
01:00:14 um yeah i i i think that there is this that they can't people have their i call this like the
01:00:23 marvelification of reality i think this is actually my co-host from podcast but
01:00:27 thomas says this but it's a it's like a marvelification of reality where the the media
01:00:32 captures you with who's the baddie it's like the two minute hate from uh night the orwell's 1984
01:00:40 for where they present in front of you who's the bad guy today and then you have heroes along with
01:00:47 it you have uh you know captain ukraine and you have uh zelinski and you have you know these guys
01:00:54 are like the the heroes the the ones with the the capes and fighting the bad guys and you have the
01:00:59 evil one pudin and so that's why you had all like when this was happening and you still see this
01:01:06 like marvel characters in these scenarios in these situations it's like this we're instead of watching
01:01:14 like a marvel movie we're watching the news but it's the same kind of thing and it's it's portrayed
01:01:19 as as like reality to us when it's really just feeding our just more consumption consume consume
01:01:26 consume and it but it frames who we think is bad and good and that's like our entire reality so
01:01:32 So people are able to get out there because, again, they're just fat on the couch and want to watch Marvel movies.
01:01:38 They want to get out that aggression.
01:01:41 And so that aggression is channeled through the Marvelication of through the news media of who's good and who's bad.
01:01:47 And it's Twitter and social media feeds into this as well.
01:01:51 And so, yeah, I mean, I think there certainly is this.
01:01:55 It's appearances, but I mean, but it's more I think it's psychological.
01:01:59 I think we're just so unable to do anything realistic or, um, tangible and meaningful, uh, in this world that we can just try to get, um, brought into this, this fantasy reality of, of, you know, good and bad and hate and love and hate.
01:02:23 That makes a lot of sense.
01:02:25 Okay.
01:02:25 Well, do you have any final thoughts for our listeners that you'd like to leave us with?
01:02:30 I mean, the only other question I have in the back of my mind is, you know, from a little bit of, you know, talking with you with some other guys, like-minded, you know, offline, and then watching you already doing some interviews, talking about the book, and then a little bit of the book that I've read so far.
01:02:46 I've only had it for a couple days at the time that we're recording right now.
01:02:49 But I, man, I just, I don't understand why Christians would not be for the case that you are making.
01:02:58 It's, I mean, it's, it's a, this is a historic, this isn't even like a radical, you know, it's, it's just not, it's not that extreme.
01:03:06 It's just, it's, it's a confessional, you know, reformed Protestant case for, it's Christianity and, and just its natural outworkings in all of our various spheres of life.
01:03:19 And yet, it's not like you're just going to have a bunch of purple-haired, liberal, progressive people not liking it, but there are apparently, allegedly, conservative Christians who are also not really a fan.
01:03:37 What do you think that is?
01:03:39 What do you think the outcome of it?
01:03:41 Do you think that the church can rally behind something like this, that we could be Christian nationalists?
01:03:47 Or are we just going to splinter?
01:03:49 I feel like, I guess what I'm trying to say is I feel like over the last two and a half years in the providence of God, in his mercy, the veil has been lifted to where, you know, American Christianity is just slowly heating up like the frog in this boiling pot of water.
01:04:03 And it's like the enemy got too arrogant and turned up the temperature all of a sudden real quick.
01:04:10 It's like, oh, we were almost to boiling point.
01:04:11 Let's just go ahead and knock it the rest of the way.
01:04:13 and the temperature rose quickly and the frog finally felt it and jumped out of the pot.
01:04:18 And it's like you have half of the evangelical church that finally is awake and realize 0.60
01:04:23 CRT and intersectionality and wokeness and civil tyranny and transing kids in schools 0.68
01:04:30 and all the, like, this is a bad idea. 1.00
01:04:32 We're not doing this.
01:04:35 But so it's like we had half of us and it really felt like for a couple of years, like
01:04:39 We have a team here, and now it feels like the team's getting really narrow because we agreed on the problem, but I'm quickly finding that even within the Christian conservative world, we don't agree on the solution.
01:04:51 Guys who I would have thought even just six months ago, like that guy for sure, he'll be on the team, and they're not.
01:04:59 What do you think is going to happen?
01:05:04 I don't know.
01:05:04 I hope I convince a lot of people. 0.83
01:05:06 I think one thing that's going to happen is they're going to try to use the kind of social justice cards to attack Christian nationalism. 0.95
01:05:15 So I made the choice to talk about gynocracy in the book. 0.65
01:05:19 And so they're going to say that I'm misogynist. 0.97
01:05:22 And that's going to be what they're going to try to divide women from this. 0.68
01:05:28 Of course, many women will not. 0.99
01:05:29 They'll actually agree with what I say, but given the state of the world, it'll probably be fewer than we'll be offended. 0.99
01:05:40 There's going to be racial stuff.
01:05:41 They're going to try to divide along that.
01:05:42 It's kind of a divide and conquer.
01:05:45 That's going to happen.
01:05:46 But I think that the main thing that people don't like, the way they'll resist, is we've been trained in passivity. 0.91
01:05:57 We've been trained to be passive with regard to Christian political action. 0.84
01:06:04 And this has been going on for a long, long time.
01:06:07 I think that it's, I don't know when it started, but the example of it would be the civil rights movement with Martin Luther King.
01:06:17 So I'm not going to bash anything related to any of that or him.
01:06:21 but his his movement and the civil rights movement was was largely kind of this passive thing of
01:06:29 course it was active there in the streets and all that but it wasn't it was more like it was
01:06:33 passive in the sense that it was a a sort of performance to get like white sympathy so then
01:06:38 you know people would see the hoses and the dogs barking and and all that they'd have sympathy and
01:06:44 they'd say no more and then segregation's ended so that that was a it was a path it was like a
01:06:51 passive in the sense that you're appealing you're not achieving it yourself you're actually doing
01:06:56 something to then get other people to do something for you in a way okay christians kind of have that
01:07:03 same mindset that if we have good moral witness if we if we show ourselves to be passive and
01:07:10 submissive and kind and winsome all these all these things is is meant to try to passively
01:07:19 perform in front of now secular overlords to kind of get what we want we the idea is we can't achieve
01:07:26 anything by our own self-assertion by bringing about by our own action it has to be passive
01:07:31 this is like david french's basic political theology which is a incoherent mess doesn't
01:07:36 make any sense but that's basically what it is it's it's it's passivity passivity passive
01:07:43 performance to get the other people to like you to let you kind of have your little space in the
01:07:47 the world that that's what it's all about um and i i don't know how i mean it's it's frustrating
01:07:54 because it's like yeah well you're presbyterian do you even know your own tradition i mean you're
01:07:58 here you know so even baptizing anyone any protestant like do you even know your own
01:08:03 heritage like that's not this passive thing is not you know there's an element of that but it's
01:08:09 active so the point here is that's not the christian nationalism the christian yeah the
01:08:16 christian nationalism is saying you should be assertive and active so that you in your own will
01:08:22 and action bring about what you want bring about what ought to be about what ought to be in
01:08:27 existence not passively not perform not this uh oh please overlords give us what we want no it's we
01:08:35 say we this is what we ought to do and we act and achieve it and i'm just hoping that people
01:08:41 will um see that i'm hoping men in particular will see that they should do things and not
01:08:48 uh not concern themselves with the school marms who want to look down upon that and say no you
01:08:55 can't violate the rules it's not that's not inclusive enough no like you should insert
01:09:00 assert yourself and say yeah no you're not going to blaspheme god anymore it's done you're done
01:09:05 i mean that's that sort of thing we should have that that assertion and do it enact it and it's
01:09:11 just uh um so anyway that that's that's what i would hope to go fight win yeah yeah i agree all
01:09:21 right well um where where can people get it let me hold up the book again so everybody can see it
01:09:25 It's coming out November 1st, The Case for Christian Nationalism by Stephen Wolf, and
01:09:30 I believe that it'll be available through Canon, but then also Amazon, is that right?
01:09:36 Yeah, I mean, you can pre-order it now, and yeah, and eventually Canon will have it available.
01:09:41 Yeah, I don't know what the timetable on that is.
01:09:44 And will they have like a hard copy?
01:09:46 Will it be on the Canon Plus app in terms of like an Audible format?
01:09:50 So I understand that someone is reading it now, and so it should be on Canon Plus app.
01:09:55 Yeah.
01:09:55 I don't know about hardcover.
01:09:56 I think that is that might happen, but they wanted to get it out now and had to paperback.
01:10:01 Okay, great.
01:10:02 All right.
01:10:03 So here it is once more, The Case for Christian Nationalism by Stephen Wolfe.
01:10:06 Thanks so much for coming on the show, Stephen.
01:10:08 I appreciate it.
01:10:09 And last thing, where can people follow you online?
01:10:13 I think you said you had a podcast that people can tune into.
01:10:17 Yeah.
01:10:17 I mean, with the Thomas Acorn and I, we do a podcast called Ars Politica.
01:10:21 Ars Politica.
01:10:22 Okay.
01:10:23 So we've been doing that for a couple of years.
01:10:25 So you can find us there.
01:10:26 All right.
01:10:27 Yep.
01:10:28 When the name of your podcast is Ars Politica, then you know that you've been working on
01:10:34 a doctorate.
01:10:35 That's his idea.
01:10:38 It was his idea.
01:10:40 Okay.
01:10:40 We'll blame it on you.
01:10:41 Okay.
01:10:41 Cool.
01:10:42 Well, thanks again, Stephen.
01:10:43 I really appreciate you coming on the show.
01:10:44 God bless.
01:10:45 Thanks so much for listening.
01:10:46 But real quick, before you go, do us a small favor, take a moment, and leave us a five-star
01:10:51 review if you enjoyed the show.
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01:11:00 Thanks so much.