In this episode of Theology applied, Pastor Toby Sumter talks about Tucker Carlson, the rise of the American Caesar, and the government's secret plan to take our kids. He also talks about the possibility of there being an American dictator arising within the next generation and the judicial plan of our government to ultimately usurp the authority of parents when it comes to ownership over our own children.
00:01:50.500my wife is jenny we have four kids i'm a pastor of church in moscow idaho a king's cross church
00:01:57.940a sister congregation to christ church and um i uh am a co-host of cross politic uh show and
00:02:06.260podcast uh the kind of flagship show the fight laugh feast network and um i know what else i'm
00:02:14.260connected with logos school i'm one of the the founding um classical christian schools in the
00:02:19.460country and I'm also a graduate and now a board member of New St. Andrews College also here in
00:02:26.260Moscow. Great. Awesome. Tell us a little bit about your conference that you got coming up.
00:02:33.260Yeah. I assume you mean the Fight, Laugh, Feast conference. There's a lot of conferences.
00:02:38.820There are a lot of conferences. Conferences are always coming up.
00:02:41.720Fight, Laugh, Feast Conference is in Kentucky this year, October 11th through the 14th at the
00:02:49.120Ark Encounter. So Ken Ham has been working really, really hard for decades to remind
00:03:00.720believers and the world, for that matter, that God created the world in six days,
00:03:06.240that his word is true, that there really was a worldwide flood, that God saved Noah and his
00:03:10.860family and a bunch of animals through it and so he built this life-size ark uh in kentucky in the
00:03:16.820middle of nowhere kentucky it's this massive museum though dedicated to uh demonstrating
00:03:23.780the truth of the bible and so there's and there's a conference center right on the the grounds there
00:03:29.380um uh and uh so we're doing our annual fight life feast conference the theme is the politics of six
00:03:35.300day creation. So I think one of the central places where Christians in this country really,0.62
00:03:43.660I think, got behind the eight ball and began losing and giving ground culturally was particularly in0.68
00:03:52.600the matter of God's authority in the realm of science and in the origin of the world. How do
00:03:59.180get to a point where, you know, an unborn baby is just a clump of cells, doesn't have a human
00:04:06.300dignity, the right to be protected by law? How do you get to the point where we don't know what a
00:04:09.420man is, what a woman is, what marriage is? All these things are rooted in creation, the created
00:04:16.500order, and in the authority of God's Word. And so there'll be talks from Ken Ham, Dr. Gordon Wilson
00:04:23.580from Right in the Dance, Pastor Doug Wilson will be there giving talks, Joe Rigney will be giving
00:04:31.240a talk, Ben Merkel will be giving a talk, we'll do a live show at the end as well with guests to
00:04:38.460be announced, but it's a Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and bring your whole family and see the
00:04:48.220Ark, see the Creation Museum, and hang out with a bunch of your friends from all over the country
00:04:53.100who are fighting, um, uh, all the woke craziness. Great. Awesome. Uh, speaking of six day
00:05:00.800literal creation, are you, are you, and then also I'm curious about Ken Ham, if you have knowledge
00:05:07.740of this, are you a Nephilim guy or do you take the Sethite view? What's your position on Genesis
00:05:14.060chapter 6, verse 4. Yeah, I don't know Ken Ham's view. I cannot figure out how to get
00:05:27.380the sons of God to mean angels in Genesis 6. So I don't think that that's what's going on in
00:05:37.940Genesis six, but, um, I have no problem, um, with the, the idea of angels doing weird things
00:05:48.160with people and us getting crazy superhuman people out of that. Um, Jude talks about angels
00:05:56.100going after, after strange flesh. Um, there's, uh, there's enough stories in the ancient world
00:06:02.540about um angels you know gods raping women and things like this and creatures coming into
00:06:09.440existence that i actually don't have a problem with that so cosmologically i'm fine i i believe
00:06:14.860probably something like nephilim um really did exist um and did weird things and messed up our
00:06:21.640world uh i just don't see it in genesis 6 so sons of god in genesis genesis 6 4 do you see that as
00:06:28.240like tracking back the genealogy adam son of god so sons of god being right like um this line of
00:06:34.860seth the you know the messianic lineage or do you see it like some guys you know would say sons of
00:06:39.240god is used to like for kings and so you have you know like attila the hun with a ton of you know
00:06:44.580posterity because he's trying to further his line so do you see it as just seth his line or do you
00:06:49.400see it as kings mighty men yeah i see it as the lines of the line of seth um who were uh i think
00:06:57.700mighty men but i think primarily i mean given the context it's it's hard to go from genesis 5 where
00:07:04.820you've got adam the son of god and his children and then all the all you know the that that
00:07:11.120lineage and then genesis 6 who are the sons of god in that context uh i think they're the sons
00:07:15.700of Seth, but, um, but in Job, the sons of God are angels. Right. And, uh, I don't, um, so I,
00:07:23.360I get the, uh, I get the argument. And I also think probably something like that happened.
00:07:29.220We got giants from somewhere and we got a bunch of knowledge from somewhere. I'm just not sure.
00:07:34.040I just don't see it in Genesis six. I'd love to be wrong, but yeah. All right. Well, that's a
00:07:39.480boring view. The Seth eye view could be right, but it's the boring view, the fun view. It may
00:07:44.340not be true, but the fun view is hybrid half fallen angel. That's the view I take, but0.77
00:07:50.440go ahead. What are you saying? You cut out a little bit for me. Say it again. No worries.
00:07:57.160No, I was just saying that's the, that's the, uh, that's the view that I think is true,
00:08:00.420but I know it's the view that is fun. It's the fun view. So, um, all right, well, let's go ahead
00:08:07.120and, uh, hop in. I was thinking we could, um, play this clip that's been circulating around
00:08:13.100in regards to tucker carlson some guys have done some takes on this but i think that it would be
00:08:18.040interesting to hear your take um and basically it's just him you know drawing i think a fairly
00:08:25.100good balance between uh human agency responsibility of man and he doesn't explicitly come out and say
00:08:32.680it but really what he's describing is the sovereignty of god so let's go ahead and play
00:08:36.520that clip nathan and uh me and toby will will give our thoughts most important election of our
00:08:41.620a lifetime how do you explain well i'm clinging to the hope that elections still matter i really
00:08:46.880want to believe that because i'm american in a very fundamental way and so i believe in in the
00:08:51.660in the actual mechanics of democracy like the people should rule you know um so uh but leaving
00:08:58.360aside even elections i think it's clearly a pivot point in history and i don't think the issues that
00:09:03.400we debate and really are in some ways distractions are the core issues at all i mean it really there
00:09:09.460are forces unseen forces acting on people um it's funny in february i was like trying to think about
00:09:18.140what to do for land i'm not a particularly faithful or virtuous person but like you're
00:09:21.760trying to do something i already quit smoking so like what's next and i thought well i'm just
00:09:25.740going to read the bible and no i'm not going to do a bible study i'm a protestant so i feel like
00:09:29.320i have a right to kind of read it myself and i know i'm sorry i feel that way and uh and so i've
00:09:38.480been reading it since february and i'm like about halfway done and and i haven't talked to anyone
00:09:43.440about it and i haven't been in just been myself reading it and and i've all got it's like the
00:09:48.660most interesting thing i think i've ever done it's unbelievable the amount of drama in those books
00:09:54.800that has been hidden for me as a regular churchgoer in the episcopal church like wait why
00:09:59.400didn't you ever mention this is like unbelievable what but the two things i have come away with
00:10:05.720after reading the entire New Testament and I'm up to Deuteronomy and the Old Testament
00:10:09.080is the every part with exception of Jesus every figure is like really flawed big time like flawed
00:10:17.520in a way where you'd be like I don't know if I could be friends with that person you know what
00:10:20.300I mean Abraham enters Egypt he's like oh it's my sister actually take her what I was saying to my
00:10:27.680wife who was a who was a religion teacher I was like what why didn't anyone what is that and she's
00:10:33.000like maybe the point is that god takes people who are not perfect people not only not perfect people
00:10:37.380like they're so imperfect again i don't think i can have dinner with them and uses them for these
00:10:42.040grander purposes that's the first thing i noticed the second thing i notice is that people while
00:10:46.840they have free will of course and they can make decisions and they live with the consequences of
00:10:51.440those decisions they're not really in charge of the arc of history at all they are being acted
00:10:56.920upon a lot. Amen. Okay. And I never really appreciated that because I'm American. And so
00:11:02.480I grew up with this feeling that we're the sum total of our choices. Well, that's not what I'm
00:11:07.120reading at all. Yeah. People's choices matter. You need to do certain things and not do other
00:11:11.940things. On the other hand, you are not in charge. You are being acted upon by a world you can't see.
00:11:18.800And that, by the way, is consistent with my life experience. Like I've seen that I've lived that
00:11:23.020i'm 54 and so i feel like it's really important to approach politics with that in mind like a lot
00:11:30.400of these issues are symbols of this much larger battle and and the final thing i will say is i do
00:11:36.660think we should approach these questions with humility amen you know we don't always know
00:11:41.160i was at dinner last night at 801 which i strongly recommend surprisingly good lobster kind of weird
00:11:46.780for iowa i'm like is this from the coast of iowa no but it was good but anyway we were talking about
00:11:53.980candidates and i was eating with someone who's a christian and i and i said i can't honestly i
00:11:59.140can't tell if this person is a tool of light or darkness you know what i mean um so we don't
00:12:05.560always know actually at all and we should always admit that you know i've got very strong feelings
00:12:11.120about all kinds of issues but it's so important to be open to the possibility that i'm completely
00:12:15.560wrong and that what i'm espousing is actually destructive not constructive um so just to
00:12:22.320approach it with with humility there you have it pretty interesting what do you think tucker
00:12:29.420carlson's a calvinist yeah that's what it sounds like he's definitely i mean notice too that he's
00:12:36.000just like straight reading the bible no commentaries no no you know i mean you know
00:12:41.800Maybe even to an extreme, but like, you know, like, hey, I'm going to read my Bible and I'm going to see what I see.
00:12:46.640And if you read the Bible and you have not been contaminated by a lot of, I don't know, church people, a lot of maybe, you know, theologians or theological controversies, I think he's absolutely right.
00:13:03.560That's what you come away with. You come away with the flaws of people, the fallenness of man,
00:13:11.020and we're not really in charge. God is in charge. And then even the last point, humility.
00:13:21.860You know, not too long ago, a newer person to the congregation somehow ended up in our church,
00:13:29.720And after about six months, came in to meet me, and she said, I just heard recently that our church is Calvinist.
00:13:39.020And she said, I've always heard that that would mean that, you know, you guys think you know who the elect are, who the saved are, and you're sort of like judgmental of everyone.
00:13:54.360And I was like, actually, it's, you know, I mean, I'm sure there are some, you know, people who call themselves Calvinists who have said crazy things like that, but they got it upside down and backwards.
00:14:04.940Did you ask her if she had been listening to Leighton Flowers?
00:14:12.580I mean, she's obviously been listening to someone who does not like Calvinism.
00:14:16.860But in fact, I mean, if you think about the flawed nature of people, your own flaws, your own sins, your own fallenness, and then God's electing grace from before time, there's nothing about that that leaves anybody puffed up or arrogant, much less understanding what God is up to.
00:14:42.060But it leaves you in a dramatically humble place, just grateful, worshiping God, full of joy, full of humility, like Tucker says.
00:19:30.040I mean, I haven't thought of him quite like that, but I think, you know, he is ever since he's left Fox, I think he seems happier than ever.
00:19:44.360Just like, I mean, he's got a good sense of humor regardless, but it seems like everything I've seen him in since then seems happier and he's even more free.
00:19:53.660He's just saying what he thinks. And and I think that's the thing that, you know, for all the for all the flaws and warts of of somebody like Trump, that was the thing that I think a lot of people appreciated about him is like there's there's no canned speech here.
00:20:08.700like he's just saying he's just saying what he thinks and he doesn't really care and you know
00:20:13.520for good and for ill um and but i i like a lot of what um uh tucker says i i think uh there's
00:20:20.880there's places where i've i've taken issue with him and and uh but i think uh but on the whole
00:20:26.840um a uh you know a nominal ish maybe recovering episcopal who reads his bible um is uh probably
00:20:35.720a vast improvement over most of what we could get these days. Right. I completely agree. Uh,
00:20:42.300that brings me to another question. So some guys have been talking a little bit about, uh, Caesarism
00:20:47.880and the idea of, uh, that actually, you know, seems like a impossibility, um, with the United
00:20:54.840States of America, uh, just given our history. Um, but a lot of times, you know, you'll have
00:21:01.260one major charismatic figure rise to almost total power in the context of where there's
00:21:10.440just a high degree of chaos, division, uncertainty.
00:21:16.600And, you know, I'm still holding out hope that God would be merciful, that people will
00:21:22.040repent, that the church first and foremost will repent, that God might send revival,
00:21:27.760that there'll be more regenerate hearts, that they would repent, that we could actually hold
00:21:33.720to this constitutional republic in a way that honors the Lord. But I think that if we don't
00:21:40.840turn the tide, that if repentance is not brought about, it does kind of feel like our nation is on
00:21:49.020its last leg, like there's going to be some major change, whether that's imploding from within or
00:21:54.080whether that's being so weakened by our own division and our own sin and chaos that we're
00:22:01.480taken over by some form, you know, foreign power, like China or whatever, or that our government
00:22:07.420just transitions entirely from, you know, constitutional republic, which we haven't
00:22:12.640really been much of one lately to something like, you know, a Caesar who's ruling with an iron
00:22:18.580scepter. Do you think those kinds of things are possible? Do you have any prediction for us?
00:22:22.040um i don't know about predictions but yeah it's absolutely possible i mean when you know
00:22:27.220never never say never never say that's impossible i mean you know and and and the you know the era
00:22:34.680we're living in is is proof of that i mean you just you know you think just when you know the
00:22:39.700crazy clown car can't get crazier um you know one of the clowns does something else so um absolutely
00:22:48.480And I think we have history to back up that concern, that fear.
00:22:54.920In fact, the founders of our country, they, for the most part, despised the notion of democracy.
00:23:05.340The word democracy, the notion of democracy was, for many of the founders of our country, synonymous with anarchy.
00:23:16.600And so remember, the American Revolution and the French Revolution were very, very different animals.
00:23:24.840The American Revolution was a war primarily of defense, seeking to protect the English common law system.
00:23:33.600And they fought a defensive war against the crown of England that was breaking covenants that they had made with the colonies, particularly that the king had made with the colonies.
00:23:46.600um and so they were fighting in defense of the english common law christian um form of government
00:23:53.480the french uh french revolution was throwing that all down it was revolutionary it was anarchy and
00:23:59.680remember one of their primary uh slogans was democracy democracy democracy democracy um and
00:24:07.440but the the founders of america they read um deeply particularly into greek history
00:24:12.920and and they knew number one uh they were christians they knew the old testament and the
00:24:17.960old testament um uh government that god set up in israel was a republic a representative republic
00:24:24.520constitutional republic not a democracy but secondly if you read um the history of the
00:24:30.900greek democracies uh the the american founders thought that they were all cautionary tales
00:24:37.000um every time you had a democracy form in one of the city states in in greece it lasted a
00:24:44.020generation maybe two and then it devolved into chaos anarchy and then in came a dictator right
00:24:51.460in came a caesar in came a tyrant and um and so the um and so that was that was the the repeated
00:24:59.260pattern and then of course in rome you have a roman republic for a while and then under the
00:25:04.320caesars julius caesar and then augustus caesar you have uh the the the republic crumbling and the
00:25:12.120and the empire um emerging and then the same thing happened during the french revolution
00:25:17.760you had democracy democracy you know so-called um blood in the streets um the hierarchy you know
00:25:24.780guillotined uh the leaders of the revolution many of them getting guillotined and then in the midst
00:25:30.720of that chaos, out comes Napoleon Bonaparte. And so we've absolutely seen this many times,
00:25:39.960and it frequently begins in the name of democracy. But the founders of America said democracy is the
00:25:48.080first movement of anarchy, chaos, mobs, and then in the context of mobs, everyone's desperate for
00:25:57.580some kind of order and then some kind of charismatic military leader um arises who
00:26:04.120says i can give you order um i can bring i can bring things back into order and um and that's
00:26:11.000what happened again with napoleon um it's what's happened um it's it happened in the um uh even
00:26:17.240even uh frequently what happens is those um the the communist um marxist move is to actually
00:26:24.160foment that chaos foment that revolution that chaos and then um and then in the midst of that
00:26:30.960um hey i've got a solution it's this it's this caesar it's this napoleon it's this charismatic
00:26:37.320leader this dictator um and so i think it's absolutely um a possibility um i i think um
00:26:45.460i think that i think i i i have a lot more hope that we're not on the um on the cusp of that
00:26:53.560But I also think that if things don't change, that is, I think that is the direction things will go. If the liberal elites can get what's going on in the big cities on the coasts to bleed into middle America, then I think, you know, that would be what we're headed for.
00:27:13.240At the moment, though, I think there's a really good, strong reaction taking place.
00:27:22.200I think there's a lot of, even amongst those who aren't necessarily Christian or Bible-believing Christian, but at least sort of old-school American, red state, conservative, whatever, I haven't even listened to it.
00:27:37.100but I hear there's something going on about, you know,
00:27:39.140there's some country song about not in our small town or something like that.
00:27:44.620You know, but that sentiment, I think there is a bunch of that,
00:27:47.400like seeing videos of smash and grab in San Francisco,
00:27:51.020smash and grab on the coastal cities and kind of this chaos breaking out
00:27:56.080and these homeless cities and everything else.
00:27:59.120I think there's a bunch of people saying, no, you're not doing that in my town.
00:28:02.640We saw some of that even during the BLM riots in 2020, where in Seattle, there was a little, you know, Chaz, Chop, whatever, something, city.0.68
00:28:14.080And it started bleeding over in Washington state.0.63
00:28:18.000And, you know, Idaho's were right on the east border of Washington.
00:28:23.180And it was bleeding over in Washington.
00:28:25.400And people were driving, BLM protesters were driving to other cities trying to spread that.
00:28:31.060and i got like i think 15 minutes out of seattle and ran into a bunch of red-blooded washingtonians
00:28:37.760with their ar-15s um who incidentally were lined up with local sheriff and police officers
00:28:44.320and and there were stories of these cars you know pulling into a town these you know crazies
00:28:52.820getting out looking around seeing you know officers and and and god-fearing citizens
00:28:58.540standing there with their firearms getting back in their cars and driving away um and uh and i
00:29:04.500think i think the same thing happened up just north of us in coeur d'alene idaho um but uh i
00:29:09.800think there is a um there's a decent chance with the drag queen story hour thing and the um and
00:29:17.480the sex change operations on kids and the um and giving uh minors these uh hormone therapies and
00:29:24.780stuff, I think there's a really good chance that the hard left has really overplayed their hand
00:29:31.060and we're in the process of a strong pushback to saying, no, we're at least a broadly Christian
00:29:41.120republic, and I'm hopeful. Yeah, me too. Yeah, I like what you were saying in terms of, you know,
00:29:49.780just citing other places within history. It was about one generation of a raw democracy
00:29:54.660And then it would birth some kind of dictator or Caesar.
00:29:58.980And, you know, for us, we're about, you know, a quarter of a millennium into this, you know, this American project, you know, about getting at the 250 year mark.
00:30:10.660And and it's not like we've had 250 years of raw democracy.
00:30:15.600You know, we had a constitutional republic, you know, representational government.
00:30:20.140There is a vote of the people for elected officers, but it has not been a democracy in the way that, you know, our founders spoke so negatively of.
00:30:29.020And so and so it seems like to me, from my perspective, that we're really that that that switch is is pretty recent.
00:30:37.560If this and even then, I don't know if the switch has fully been made, but of moving from a constitutional republic to more of a raw mob rule democracy type thing.
00:30:48.240if, if there has been any switch at all, which I think there's been at least some degree of a
00:30:53.000transition to that it's been recent. So it seems like, you know, in keeping, you know, with the
00:30:58.060pattern of other places, if it was going to be a full generation, it seems like we would probably
00:31:02.580be about 40 years out from, uh, from that happening, but maybe even longer, you know,
00:31:08.940Lord willing with, um, with hitting the brakes. And it seems like, you know, the last three years
00:31:14.100has been, um, on one hand, it's been, you know, things ramping up, but on the other, uh, side of
00:31:19.540the coin, it's, it's been a big stomp on the brakes because I think, uh, if everything just
00:31:24.700went according to plan, uh, we'd be in more trouble than we are. But the problem I think for
00:31:29.820the left was that 2020, uh, gave them just kind of like, um, it's like they took a shot of liquid
00:31:36.080courage and, uh, and overplayed their hand. And I think that the brakes, uh, people stomping on
00:31:42.860the brakes, uh, in flyover country, you know, and the heartland of America, the, the stomp
00:31:48.780on the brakes has been harder than, uh, than the push on the gas, uh, that 2020 caused
00:31:53.900them to kind of, you know, like the, the old illustration analogy of a frog, you know,
00:31:58.840slowly being, you know, water heated up and then it's eventually boiled alive.
00:32:02.500But it's, it feels like 2020 and God's providence was, um, the, what looked like the right set
00:32:08.820of circumstances to go ahead and, and skip, you know, 10 degrees in a minute when ordinarily
00:32:15.020that, that adjustment would have been made slower over an hour. And so the left took advantage of
00:32:20.060that. It was like, Hey, we could, we can, you know, we could speed things up right here. And,
00:32:24.360and people noticed, which is a kindness of the Lord. And so, so things did speed up for a second
00:32:31.920there, but in some ways I feel like they've slowed way down to where I, I think that just
00:32:38.700thinking of like the Overton window and acceptable discourse and ideas and those kinds of, I think
00:32:44.300that you can talk about more, um, fundamentally conservative ideas openly today in 2023 than you
00:32:52.120could before 2020, like in 2019. Um, that, like the, that, the, um, the attempt of being more
00:33:01.380progressive in 2020, uh, not only was it unsuccessful, I think it backfired. I think
00:33:06.440that um that yeah that god was merciful two two two things on that one is i think probably one of
00:33:13.940the most biggest fails um of 2020 um was um having the kids home so long uh in so many states and
00:33:24.520then doing online classrooms uh for so many kids i think i think a whole bunch of normal parents
00:33:31.480all of a sudden got this front row seat into what was actually happening in classrooms and um and
00:33:38.480and the and the and the absolute craziness of the woke agenda and the sexual revolution um trying to
00:33:44.900get the kids um and then i think also just um there's something um god used something that was
00:33:52.940you know really evil in many respects um both you know the the natural evil of whatever this
00:33:59.860virus was oh my light just went out yeah i saw that there we go um i'm not moving enough i need
00:34:07.280to move more um uh but also the uh i think just the evil of these governments trying to seize
00:34:13.220control and uh you know and dictate to us um uh life and business and worship and all these things
00:34:19.980And and all of a sudden, you have all these families together. And I think there was probably a lot of harm and difficulty that happened.
00:34:26.940But I think also God did something with that. I don't know about you. I'm curious what it was like down in your neck of the woods in Texas.
00:34:34.140But I would just say even as a very anecdotal, this isn't like the scientific evidence at all.
00:34:40.200But I think this last Pride Month, 2023 Pride Month, was the most muted I've seen in a while.
00:34:52.000You know, there was still rainbow flags around here and there, but I would say it was a lot less in your face.
00:34:59.200My wife had noticed, I'm sure like it probably varies some sort of store, but my wife noticed last year,
00:35:05.780our local walmart here in moscow had rainbow flags at every single register walmart and this
00:35:13.740year she said there might have been one or two up in the whole store but it wasn't at every single
00:35:18.320register like it was definitely it was pulled back dialed back um and uh you know i just i wonder
00:35:24.960what you saw down there but it seems to me like again a similar kind of not gone but maybe a
00:35:30.180little more muted. Yeah, no, I think you're right. Rainbow fatigue is real. I think people just sick
00:35:37.340of it. Like I think, you know, started off strong, like some companies, June 1st, you know, came out
00:35:42.700with, you know, um, their logo, you know, re re done with the rainbow colors and those kinds of
00:35:49.420things. And a lot of major companies, um, by like day two, day three, day four, like very early on
00:35:55.820in the month of june retracted that went back to the original logo because they got so much
00:36:00.380uh pushback i think people were just kind of people are done you know and it's not just because
00:36:05.980of 2020 but it's now three years running compounding of uh people just realizing okay like
00:36:12.060we've been played the the idea of um well we just want the same rights as as you have which was
00:36:18.120always a lie you have the same right you have the right to marry someone of legal age of the
00:36:22.520opposite sex right you have the right to get married what you're asking for is a right that0.63
00:36:27.520nobody has it's a thing that's not marriage you don't have nobody has a right to not marriage
00:36:32.600everyone has a right to marriage so it's always always a silly thing um but you know but a lot
00:36:39.680of people fell for it you know and and i think you know misguided sense of empathy you know and
00:36:44.800um and so a lot of people fell for it but i think at this point a lot of the people who fell for it
00:36:49.940just to speak plainly. I think, um, plenty of men fell for it, but I think a lot of women,
00:36:55.100uh, fell for it. But then those same women, uh, started watching the LGBT jihad, you know,0.83
00:37:01.660be shoved down their little Susie and little Johnny's throat when they stayed home, you know,0.64
00:37:06.640we're doing class online and, and finally, you know, kind of got the memo and realized, Oh,
00:37:11.600you don't want to just live your private life. Um, you want to be able, uh, for, uh, naked men
00:37:18.420to be riding bicycles downtown in a parade in New York in front of children. That's what you0.55
00:37:24.700were fighting for. The two dots drawing a line from Obergefell to naked men riding their bicycles
00:37:34.980downtown New York in front of children, there's barely even a line there. Those two dots are
00:37:39.520basically right on top of each other. And the moment that moms especially, I think it's some
00:37:44.900level. A lot of dads always kind of knew that the dads were like, no, that's gay. Nah, we don't want0.74
00:37:50.440to do the gay thing. But the moms are like, well, but the gays, you know, need love too. And, um,0.97
00:37:55.180but then when they realize, oh, but they're destroying our children, no, nevermind. And
00:38:00.300all of a sudden the empathy dried up real fast and, uh, rainbow fatigue, um, has become real.
00:38:06.120And I, I hope my prayer is that each year that goes by, um, that we'll see, uh, less and less
00:38:13.420tolerance, that we would be able to end love for our families first, our natural affections,
00:38:20.680love for biblical marriage, our spouse, our children, love for Christians who are persecuted
00:38:28.000by unjust laws, but then also love for those who are struggling with same-sex attraction,0.62
00:38:36.800which I do believe is a sin, love for them even, that we would usher back in the grace of shame,0.70
00:38:42.520uh, that, that at the end of the day, it's not weather, but which, uh, something is going to
00:38:46.640be in the closet. It's either going to be Christian children hiding in the closet.0.95
00:38:51.780Um, so that they're not indoctrinated by the state, um, or it's going to be the homosexual1.00
00:38:57.280man hiding in the closet. Um, so I'm not advocating that we need to go and search any closets.0.73
00:39:03.080That's not my position. Um, my position though, is that, uh, if the naked men are in the streets
00:39:09.020of New York, uh, then the children of Christians will be in the closet. I'd rather the naked men1.00
00:39:14.840be in the closet and the children be able to go, um, to school. So what do you think?
00:39:19.820Yeah. One of the things that, um, is connected to all this that, um, our, our friend, uh, Jeff
00:39:26.220Schaefer, he's the, um, um, as a former ADF lawyer, um, is now, um, at new St. Andrews college here in
00:39:33.980Moscow, running the Hale Institute, H-A-L-E, which is a law and policy institute kind of
00:39:41.440connected now to New St. Andrews College, providing lectures and electives for students
00:39:47.980in the community to understand how our country has established the history of English common
00:39:56.440law and how to get involved again in the public square.
00:40:00.800But one of the things that he's done in several places, writing and speaking, that has been incredibly helpful to me is him explaining, particularly through judicial precedence, what Obergefell means, which I think it's important, actually, to say exactly what you just said a minute ago, which is that two dudes getting married means dudes naked, gyrating in front of little kids,
00:40:29.780coming into your school and trying to get to corrupt your little kids. It's really important
00:40:35.380to say that, because it's absolutely true. But part of what's always going on is you've got,
00:40:43.900you know, Proverbs says, as a man thinks, so is he. We're always incarnating what we believe.
00:40:50.560Our theology and our philosophy, our cosmology, all these things are always coming out in what
00:40:56.120we do and what we what we what we say. And, and part of what he's pointed out, Jeff Schafer's
00:41:01.880pointed out is that with Obergefell, but it was beginning prior to that, in some of the Roe versus
00:41:08.500Wade and Casey decisions, and so forth. One of the things that the Supreme Court has been slowly,
00:41:15.380but surely, you know, speaking of frogs getting boiled, what what the Supreme Court has been
00:41:21.020slowly but surely doing in various landmark decisions is um is separating um the natural
00:41:28.580gift of children from marriage and right and the thing that um we we have missed in this so it i
00:41:36.960think it actually would go back as far as um jeff would start with um some of the early rulings um
00:41:43.400on on birth control for example in the supreme court um but then um and then working their way
00:41:48.980up. And the point is primarily about if marriage is not defined as that natural union between a
00:41:59.780man and a woman, which ordinarily results in them bearing children, if that is not what marriage is,
00:42:07.520then you end up with children appearing and there's no legal accounting for them.
00:42:14.720right where do children come from now most normal red-blooded americans i can tell you where kids1.00
00:42:21.300come from and but but if if two dudes shocking up if two women uh getting together is a marriage
00:42:28.460then the ability to bear children isn't no longer legally entailed in that in that covenant well
00:42:36.500now then who then will tell us now now add to this you know people like uh um you know the
00:42:44.040our, our friends, uh, our so-called, um, conservative friends that, um, just the two
00:42:48.960dudes that just got married and bought a, what's his name? I forgot already. Um, yeah,
00:42:55.720Dave Rubin, uh, you know, Dave Rubin and his so-called, um, husband and they, you know,
00:43:01.380went through a catalog and purchased eggs from some, uh, women or women, and then rented some
00:43:08.380other woman's womb and have purchased breast milk from other women and, you know, all this stuff.
00:43:14.040But, um, legally who is going to tell us, um, who that, those, that child, those children,
00:43:22.360I remember how many there are, who they belong to. Well, the state is going to tell you which
00:43:29.340children belong to which parents, which means that what you have done by this redefinition
00:43:35.780of marriage is you have now made the state, the Lord of the family. You've made the state,0.52
00:43:42.240the lord of children the masters of children the real all all children now at least judicially0.99
00:43:48.140speaking are bastards all children the the supreme court is officially agnostic the the supreme court0.98
00:43:57.420is officially judicially says we don't know where kids come from all children are child are fatherless1.00
00:44:02.780all children are bastards illegitimate according to the supreme court because we don't know0.93
00:44:08.380judicially where children come from anymore um and that means then that since we don't know where0.99
00:44:15.420they came from the supreme court now and the and our state is the one that isn't has has taken upon
00:44:20.640themselves the right and the authority to say who they belong to um and this is why then you
00:44:27.100the um you know that i think um you end up though in that place where well why can't we um you know
00:44:35.080like california's done you know if a young young child thinks they need to transition and their
00:44:39.180parents won't let them and uh then the state says well we know what's best um for the children um
00:44:46.600even even our our horrible divorce laws playing into all of this uh because um when now because
00:44:53.520we don't have biblical standards for divorce and remarriage and custody and so forth um over and
00:44:58.720over again of course courts rule um and one of the standards that the courts rule is what's in the
00:45:04.080best interest of the children well the best interest of the children is being decided by
00:45:10.380the state um and um and if that that means that they think that um you know you've been spanking
00:45:17.440your children too much they think that you're not letting your little girl become a boy um you're
00:45:22.680not letting your little boy become a girl whatever uh well in the bet you know they can rule in the
00:45:26.960best interest of the children and take your children um and put them where they think um is
00:45:32.240best suited anyways that's all connected um and it's um it is um i think um i think the fact that
00:45:41.080roe versus wade got overturned recently is a massive win not just in terms of overturning
00:45:47.140that precedent um allowing states uh the ability to begin protecting the unborn but it's also
00:45:52.700overturning that whole complex of precedents um one of the worst things that roe versus wade said
00:46:00.060was not merely that it's okay to murder babies.
00:46:30.060And we need to continue to overturn that precedent. And again, I think the momentum is promising. Conservatives just have a really bad habit of winning a small victory and then hoping that the liberals will leave us alone.
00:46:46.700But this is like being in Canaan. If you don't drive out all of the pagans, it's going to come back and haunt you. And so we really have to be on the offensive. We can't rest until every knee bows and every tongue confesses.
00:47:05.540Right. Well, if a 50 year precedent can be overturned by the grace of God with the, um, the court that we currently have, then I think a 10 year precedent, um, certainly could. So, you know, when, when you've got a, when you've got a line of heinous criminals that all need to be executed, but only one guillotine, uh, somebody has got to be last in line.
00:47:28.260And so, um, that's my hope is that, uh, you know, a burger film, um, will be overruled
00:47:49.660I think one of the things that we still haven't done, which we've got to figure part of the
00:47:53.580system that we have been given in the American system is checks and balances. But some of that
00:47:59.440checks and balances is between the states and the federal government. And that's one of the
00:48:04.420balances that really needs to be recovered. And so I'd love to see, you know, states doing this
00:48:10.600with abortion law. Of course, now that Roe versus Wade is gone, I mean, we should, Lord willing,
00:48:15.480be able to just outlaw abortion completely in our state by state. But we should be doing the same1.00
00:48:20.580thing with marriage. We need to have conservative Christian states with backbone saying, we don't0.99
00:48:29.000care what you said about Obergefell Supreme Court. We serve the living God. He created the heavens
00:48:34.540and the earth. He made male and female marriages between one man and one woman. And no, we will0.98
00:48:39.440not issue marriage licenses to homosexual couples. Right. Yeah. And the same way that each state1.00
00:48:45.440should have always ignored Roe. Exactly. They, they also need to ignore a Bergefell and, uh,
00:48:51.480yeah, I, I completely agree. And even, you know, even Dobbs, I'm not sure what your take on this0.92
00:48:56.900would be, but I have some, you know, I'm grateful. Um, but I have, you know, some problem with that
00:49:02.320in the sense that I feel like it's, it still says, um, that, um, that a state has the right
00:49:09.580to murder babies, which is still, um, I think a wicked law that, uh, that it should go further
00:49:15.960and say, uh, no, no, nobody has a right to murder any babies. Right. The only just law that I can
00:49:21.280think of is the law that says no one can murder any baby at any time. That's, you know, that's
00:49:28.180the law that I want. But, uh, but Dobbs is a vast improvement from Roe and I'm grateful for that.
00:49:33.180And, uh, I'm hoping that each state, uh, really States could have done it all along. And, um,
00:49:38.140but it's still a mercy of the Lord to, uh, even if it was just an excuse, it's a mercy of the Lord
00:49:44.640to remove the excuse from each of these States, even though they, they never had to bow the knee
00:49:49.640to row. Uh, well now they can't pretend that row is, you know, that, because that was the line
00:49:54.380was a, well, our hands are tied and, you know, I'm a conservative so-and-so, and I really want
00:49:59.260to save kids. I really do, you know, but, uh, it's the law of the land and it never was actually
00:50:05.180the law of the land and and now you know we don't have to do that little dance and we can go straight
00:50:09.320to and say all right are you going to serve god or not yeah yes the the one of the heresies that
00:50:14.900has gotten into the you know into the the bloodstream of america actually early on is the
00:50:19.500one of judicial supremacy and so we we don't originally the supreme court was to interpret
00:50:24.780the law but the supreme court was was not the highest um power in the land that we have three
00:50:30.820bodies of government and three branches, and they were to balance one another out.
00:50:38.120The states were also to be another balancing power. And when it comes to moral issues like
00:50:45.640life, you're absolutely right. I think this is why Clarence Thomas didn't write
00:50:48.820the majority opinion. He, as the senior member of the court, he had, he, we know that since he
00:50:55.880didn't write it he declined to write it and and i believe the reason why he declined to write it
00:51:01.560is because he knew that his version uh the other was was going to be too was going to burn the
00:51:06.700whole thing to the ground um right um and so he he i think strategically knew alito can write
00:51:13.260um a strong one that most of us can sign off on and and at least strike row down uh but you're
00:51:19.800absolutely right uh the the godly um decision would have been uh to recognize that our constitution
00:51:27.740insofar as it recognizes the right to life right and it does um it does then where does that life
00:51:36.060come from it comes from the living god it comes from the creator god and it begins at conception
00:51:40.300and no one has the right to take a life unless god has given express permission to do so
00:51:45.940And so, yes, the right for little babies to live without being attacked in their mother's wombs is something that the framers of our Constitution recognized, and it has been recognized in English Christian common law for centuries, which is rooted in biblical law itself.
00:52:07.000So we need to get to that point. But at the very least for right now, grateful for the reprieve. And yeah, no more excuses for so-called pro-life politicians and pro-life states. We need to end all abortion in our states.
00:52:25.540But again, same thing with regard to marriage. If you really want your children to belong to you, then you have to insist that your state only recognized marriage as what God created it to be. That's part of the sovereignty of the government of the family.0.75
00:52:43.700And I know you spend a lot of time talking about this too, Joel, but the governments of church and family are other parts of the checks and balances in our system.
00:52:53.600But the sovereignty of the family government depends upon, in a great degree, on the fact that when a man and a woman come together under God, exchange vows with witnesses, and are united sexually, that's where God gives children.
00:53:14.060The power of procreation is central to the authority that we have and responsibility that we have for our children.
00:53:22.820Uh, but if you, if you divorce those things, um, someone's going to come in and say who,
00:55:42.540we get to live in these years, and we get to fight these dragons. And so we ought to be
00:55:49.060really full of joy, gratitude, back to, you know, again, the humility of God is sovereign. He has
00:55:55.480allowed these particular enemies to arise. He's allowed these particular difficulties to be in
00:56:02.660our land. And he's done this, why? Well, for his glory and for our good. And so I think there's
00:56:10.880a great cause for us to be, um, uh, rejuvenated, uh, full of joy, full of humility, uh, trusting
00:56:17.060him because, um, he's, he's Lord, he's King. He knows what he's doing. Amen. It was either you
00:56:23.160or it might've been, uh, Wilson, which that's always a safe bet. Um, Doug Wilson saying something,
00:56:28.800but, um, it was just, you know, the, the sentiment of, you know, like, well, I feel bad for my
00:56:33.640children as a parent. I'm concerned. I struggle at times, you know, that the word tells me not
00:56:38.460to be anxious for anything, but I'm, I'm struggling with the temptation to worry about my kids and the
00:56:42.660world that they're entering. Um, and all that, um, we can sympathize with that, but at the same time,
00:56:48.060like what you said about slaying dragons, um, it seems, uh, silly that we would raise our children
00:56:54.300to, uh, to be dragon slayers, uh, in a world where there are no dragons. Um, we, you know,
00:57:00.000we're, we're raising our kids, um, to slay dragons precisely for the point of slaying these dragons.0.72
00:57:05.460And, and on that point, the, the thing that I thought of is, um, you'll also always have a Christian dragon slain LARPers who, uh, they don't actually want to slay the dragons of their day. They want to slay the dragons that have already been slain, um, of their fathers.0.67
00:57:21.800And so they'll, they'll take that dragon corpse, unbury it, um, prop it up, even maybe get like a puppet, you know, like sticks and stuff to make it look like it's still alive. And they'll hold ceremonies and plays, you know, and old productions. And someone will dress up like a knight and like, I'm going to slay the dragon of slavery.
00:57:42.000right i mean it's like well but there's this dragon of feminism that's actually alive and
00:57:47.660just it just ate a whole town yeah you know you don't want to deal with that one no no no this
00:57:52.800one is like and you know so i that's that's something that i've realized is in terms of
00:57:57.500courage um courage one of the ways that it could be defined is it's uh like killing living dragons
00:58:05.540not not kicking the corpses of already slain dragons so everybody wants to be a dragon slayer
00:58:12.180like i think we we all agree universally on the inherent goodness of killing dragons
00:58:16.680the question is are we going to kill the dragons of our day and recognize that god providentially
00:58:21.340placed them here and now and that he's raising up you know knights for such a time as this and
00:58:26.480equipping us to uh to do the task or are we going to pretend um to you know to to just uh to reenact
00:58:34.160the the dragon slains of the past so right so so so you asked you started this whole conversation
00:58:39.940with a bible question so i have a bible question for you okay in numbers 21 were they dragons
00:58:45.900that were biting the people of israel right i got you um i don't know i i think you could
00:58:54.020probably render it that way these serpents but i don't think it's a coincidence that we have on
00:59:00.080the side of our you know ambulances a snake looks like a snake and that comes historically from
00:59:07.340certain images of uh so i don't know it seems like the the actual picture that worked its way
00:59:14.080down was a snake and not a dragon obviously that's kind of it's kind of a boring interpretation
00:59:18.560joel yeah it is boring it is i do believe in dragons i just don't know if they were
00:59:23.620in the wilderness at that time but i certainly believe in dragons in fact i think that
00:59:28.480there may still be some living dragons and not just the komodo dragon but like some sea dragons
00:59:33.800we we've only explored like five percent of the ocean and we think we know everything
00:59:38.120we don't know everything right so you think it was you think it was dragons they had feet
00:59:43.000yeah the word in numbers 21 is seraph and a seraph is a dragon the the word seraph in hebrew means
00:59:51.140to burn with fire and uh and so i think there were fire breathing dragons at least they might
00:59:56.580have been small flying dragons and maybe even very serpentine but um but they also um they're
01:00:04.540some kind of dragon i think so i'll go with it all right cool all right thanks for coming on
01:00:09.960toby appreciate it you bet thanks for having me joel