The Tucker Carlson Show - Andrew Isker： Building a Christian Refuge to Fight Wokeness, Transgenderism, and Paganism

00:00:00.000 So, Andrew, thank you for doing this. So, you're so controversial. I love that. Yeah, married man with six kids who pays his taxes. You're so controversial.

00:00:11.800 Controversial would be not paying your credit card bill and putting the banks out of business, convincing other people to do the same, not paying your federal taxes, forcing the U.S. government to pay attention to its own citizens. You're doing none of that.

00:00:22.220 So, as far as I'm concerned, you're a non-controversial law-abiding man, but you are doing one thing that's pretty wild, which is participating in the building of a new town.

00:00:31.960 It sounds almost like a Christian utopian experiment in Tennessee, but I don't really know. Can you tell me what it is and why you're doing it?

00:00:39.840 Yeah, so it's not quite that.

00:00:44.020 It's not the Oneida community?

00:00:45.920 Yeah, yeah. We're not building some kind of Anabaptist community.

00:00:49.620 Okay, you're not the Shakers.

00:00:50.520 No.

00:00:52.220 No, really, it's a company.

00:01:15.420 Ridge Runner is purchasing land and sort of facilitating a lot of things.

00:01:21.840 Like, you're familiar with the big sort where people are leaving, you know, blue states to go to red states and things like that, where it's along those lines where people are leaving.

00:01:32.460 Like, I left Minnesota, a very blue state.

00:01:34.860 Everyone's now familiar with our governor in that state, Tim Walls.

00:01:41.180 Don't hire him to babysit.

00:01:42.600 No, I would not.

00:01:44.340 He would be the last person.

00:01:45.500 Yes, I think so.

00:01:46.300 And, you know, so we wanted to leave there.

00:01:51.060 Many people want to leave places like that.

00:01:52.820 My friend CJ left California, Gavin Newsom State, to come to Tennessee.

00:01:57.760 And so it's a platform to be able to, you know, draw all of your friends together.

00:02:05.080 It's like, well, we can kind of live anywhere.

00:02:07.980 Why don't we all live in the same kind of place and bring our families, bring our businesses and build things together?

00:02:15.900 So it's sort of a platform for drawing people that are, you know, spread out all throughout the country and can leave these places that are not great, you know, living in large cities or suburbs where you're just totally disconnected and, you know, really isolated, alienated from normal life.

00:02:37.240 And you can have the American small town experience once again.

00:02:43.880 It's so sad to hear you say that about Minnesota as a Scandinavian.

00:02:47.480 I always thought of it, was told, you know, it's like where all the Swedes are and it's kind of, you know, lots of saunas and, you know, red-cheeked children and it's clean and reasonable.

00:02:58.240 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:02:59.380 Not the case anymore.

00:03:01.000 Why did you leave there?

00:03:03.180 You know, for us, it was—

00:03:05.740 Are you from there?

00:03:06.460 I'm from there, yeah.

00:03:07.540 Born and raised in Waseka, Minnesota.

00:03:10.520 My children were the sixth generation of our family that lived in that town.

00:03:15.800 Oh, gosh.

00:03:16.740 And—

00:03:17.940 In the town?

00:03:18.620 In that town, yeah.

00:03:19.940 In the town of Waseka.

00:03:21.780 Are your ancestors buried there?

00:03:23.740 Yeah, there's six generations that are buried there.

00:03:26.500 Even one of my own children that passed that, you know, all their—like, we lived, you know, a couple blocks away from the cemetery where all of my hands were.

00:03:36.460 My ancestors were buried.

00:03:37.520 Oh, gosh.

00:03:38.240 Yeah.

00:03:38.480 Oh, that's very heavy to leave a place like that.

00:03:41.240 Yes.

00:03:41.500 And it was, you know, after the 2022 election where the Democrats took control of the state Senate, finally, and Tim Walz could do whatever he wanted to do.

00:03:56.680 So, he—the first thing he passed was, in the wake of the Dobbs decision, full abortion allowance, even up to birth.

00:04:07.840 Like, you know, there were the stories during the election about, you know, even, like, post-birth abortions that took place in Minnesota.

00:04:12.880 I went to the state capitol and spoke to the first committee when that bill was being heard, and I—I mean, maybe, you know, later you guys can pull up that video.

00:04:24.800 But I just went there and said, like, hey, you think you won an election.

00:04:29.400 You think you can do this and just murder children.

00:04:32.820 But God is not mocked.

00:04:34.860 Like, he's—he's going to come with vengeance about what you're doing.

00:04:39.100 And, of course, they—

00:04:39.640 The consequences.

00:04:40.540 Yeah.

00:04:40.740 They—they're like all these, you know, 60-year-old liberal ladies, senators, you know, are looking at me, scoffing at me, and just staring daggers at me and hating what I'm saying.

00:04:49.120 How dare he come—this Christian nationalist come here.

00:04:52.900 Lots of luck to them.

00:04:54.440 Yeah, and so that's the first bill that they passed.

00:04:56.400 The very—the second bill that they passed, and these are the first two legislative priorities that they had.

00:05:01.280 The second one was a trans—a trans rights bill, which allowed the state to take your child out of—out of their custody—or your parents' custody if you opposed a transition.

00:05:16.660 And my oldest child is 12—

00:05:20.240 A minor child.

00:05:20.940 Minor child, yeah.

00:05:21.660 My oldest son, he's 12 years old.

00:05:24.560 He has autism.

00:05:25.900 We homeschool all the rest of our children, but we don't have the resources to be able to educate him with his autism.

00:05:33.360 And so he goes to special ed.

00:05:35.460 And I'm well aware, especially if you see the things that happened in 2020, 2021, all of the activism, trans stuff in the schools, right, all the libs of TikTok kind of stuff.

00:05:46.660 Yes.

00:05:47.660 That the majority of, like, trans children are on the autism spectrum, right?

00:05:53.560 These children are targeted, right?

00:05:55.620 And I'm thinking, okay, he doesn't talk about school.

00:06:01.540 He doesn't talk about home at school.

00:06:02.660 He categorizes all of his life.

00:06:04.540 He just won't do it.

00:06:05.940 So I would have no way of knowing, like, what is going on there.

00:06:09.300 They could be putting him in a dress and calling him a girl name, and I would have no idea.

00:06:15.720 And then when I find out and I oppose it, right, boom, CPS comes, takes him out of our custody, and he's gone forever.

00:06:22.120 And they can chemically cast him.

00:06:22.560 So that's when you go Randy Weaver at that point.

00:06:25.000 Oh, at that point, yeah.

00:06:25.780 For sure.

00:06:26.520 And you don't want to go Randy Weaver.

00:06:28.080 Like, it didn't end well for Randy Weaver.

00:06:30.040 No.

00:06:30.440 It doesn't end well for anybody.

00:06:31.560 No, I don't want to go down that road.

00:06:34.780 No, nobody does.

00:06:36.060 Nobody does.

00:06:36.860 And so it's like we need to get out of here, right?

00:06:39.340 We cannot trust the whole system with our child.

00:06:44.500 They could steal him from us, right?

00:06:46.420 This could happen.

00:06:47.080 I don't want to be the test case for that.

00:06:50.000 I don't want to go through the legal battles and do all those fights.

00:06:52.860 I want my son.

00:06:54.360 I don't want to live in a place where that's even conceivable that that could happen to you.

00:06:59.320 It's insane.

00:07:00.680 And so it was at that moment, I'm like, we need to get out of this state.

00:07:04.220 This is not a place where I can raise my children.

00:07:08.780 And I'm thinking, like, long term, right?

00:07:11.760 Yeah, we've been in this place for six generations.

00:07:14.620 And it's a wonderful town.

00:07:16.540 You know, amazing place.

00:07:19.140 I mean, it's home.

00:07:19.940 I love the people there.

00:07:21.680 And many of them are going to be watching this.

00:07:24.760 Well, you must know all of them.

00:07:26.820 From my youth.

00:07:28.580 You know, you go to the store and you see, you know, my wife and children hated when I would go to the store

00:07:33.960 because it would take, you know, an hour to get a thing of milk because I'd just stop and talk to people I've known my whole life.

00:07:40.860 Oh, I love that.

00:07:41.700 And it's a wonderful play.

00:07:43.020 Like, it's hard to leave that, right?

00:07:45.080 Because you know it.

00:07:46.420 You're familiar with everything and all of the people and just the way of life.

00:07:52.320 And...

00:07:52.640 Gosh, it's where your family's buried.

00:07:54.120 Six generations.

00:07:55.120 That's just...

00:07:55.720 I had no idea.

00:07:56.700 That's so much to give up.

00:07:58.620 It must have been...

00:07:59.580 But I can't.

00:08:00.500 Like, it would...

00:08:01.640 I can't stay in a place like that.

00:08:04.100 It's...

00:08:04.820 There's no future for my children, for my family in a place that's that far gone, right?

00:08:11.180 That has been destroyed.

00:08:12.480 And you see so many of these other states, you know, California, Washington adopted all the same things that Walls' Minnesota did.

00:08:20.460 Why?

00:08:21.500 I want to get back to the Ridge Runner and the town that's being built, which I assume is a fascist Christian theocracy.

00:08:30.220 That's what the TV news in Nashville has said.

00:08:34.820 Yes, Mr. Phil Williams, the journalist.

00:08:36.980 Little Iran, except Christian.

00:08:39.120 Yeah, that's right.

00:08:39.260 Okay.

00:08:39.460 But why do you think...

00:08:42.800 So, the three...

00:08:43.680 I mean, I have my own theories, but you've lived it much more personally than I have.

00:08:47.760 So, you tell me, why do you think states like Minnesota, Oregon, Washington, California, have gone to a place that, I think, by any objective global standard, there's no country in the world that would nod and say that's okay, except maybe the UK.

00:09:04.180 Yeah.

00:09:05.380 How did they get there?

00:09:06.500 I think, I mean, for all of them, the political power was captured by the left, political and cultural power.

00:09:16.840 I mean, I went to college in Minnesota in the early 2000s, and you could see the seeds of all of these things, right, beginning to form.

00:09:24.960 And so, all of the institutions were captured, and especially culturally in Minnesota, people are very nice, right?

00:09:34.880 It's not a myth.

00:09:36.380 Minnesota nice is very real, and the ethos is if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all, which I just swim completely against that tide.

00:09:45.700 But it's true, I mean, not to point to genetics, but it's real, it's Germans, it's Scandinavians, Norwegians, Swedes, some Finns.

00:09:53.860 It's like, these are gentle, non-confrontational people for the most part.

00:09:57.480 Yes.

00:09:58.060 Yeah, they're very kind, people that are, to a fault, unwilling to give offense.

00:10:06.400 Yes.

00:10:07.000 And very, very tolerant of other people.

00:10:09.840 Yes, they are.

00:10:10.440 And that gets taken advantage of, right?

00:10:12.640 So, you can have—

00:10:13.440 So, they take our best qualities and subvert them against us.

00:10:15.500 Yes.

00:10:16.080 Yes.

00:10:16.800 And you can see that in other places, too, like on the West Coast as well, right?

00:10:23.000 That, and especially with, like, Christians, this is done all of the time.

00:10:31.860 I know.

00:10:32.120 Right?

00:10:32.640 Where you're told, well, we need to love other people and be kind and be Christ-like.

00:10:37.820 Like, and that ethos gets subverted and used to these ends, right?

00:10:42.280 Where, well, how dare you, you know, talk about these things?

00:10:45.820 Like, how dare you talk about these things from the pulpit, these things going on?

00:10:50.180 Like, it offends a lot of people.

00:10:52.020 No, it does.

00:10:52.660 I mean, I come from a family like that with some of them have strong views, but they would never impose their views on you under any circumstances.

00:10:59.860 They're just not in them.

00:11:00.980 Mm-hmm.

00:11:01.500 It's a very specific Northern European culture where they just don't want to, don't want to get in your face.

00:11:07.260 No, never.

00:11:08.280 But it leaves them defenseless a little bit, I think.

00:11:10.980 Yes.

00:11:11.080 Yeah, yeah.

00:11:11.920 And, you know, I, I mean, maybe I'm, maybe I'm unique.

00:11:17.580 You know, maybe my personality type is such that I just, I can't do that.

00:11:22.460 I can't see, like, evil stuff happening, taking place, and not say something about it, not say, this is, this is insane.

00:11:29.740 Like, how, how, how could we, I mean, just think a hundred years ago, and that's, that's sort of, you know, my book is, right, if you go back a hundred years, and you think about your, your great, great grandfather, and you told him, hey, they're, they're going to take little kids and little boys and remove their genitals and turn them into, to girls, right?

00:11:50.060 Are you, are you okay with that?

00:11:51.300 Do you think that's, that's all right?

00:11:52.380 Like, what would they do if that was even proposed?

00:11:55.060 Like, they would.

00:11:55.220 I thought Unix went out with the Ming Dynasty.

00:11:57.260 That's right.

00:11:57.740 I can't believe we have that.

00:11:58.720 Yeah.

00:11:59.220 Yeah, we're, we're bringing that back.

00:12:00.400 Like, they, they would go insane.

00:12:01.580 They would, they would, they would fight.

00:12:02.800 They'd become violent if, if that were happening.

00:12:05.020 And, and we're like, well, you know, I, I really want to keep my job, so I'll, I'll put the, I'll, I'll put the pronouns in my email signature and on my LinkedIn.

00:12:16.300 You know, I'll, I'll just, you know, just go along to get along.

00:12:18.540 I have contempt for them.

00:12:19.660 Yeah.

00:12:20.360 So, um, my theory is that those are the most secular states.

00:12:24.680 Yeah.

00:12:25.840 And Maine is another one of the most secular states, unfortunately.

00:12:28.720 And those trends are rising there as well.

00:12:31.660 Yeah.

00:12:31.940 Famously.

00:12:32.800 And there's something about the, you know, there are lots of left-wing ideas that are liberal ideas or socialist ideas that like, well, I don't disagree with all of them, honestly.

00:12:41.980 But some of them I did, a lot of them I really disagree with.

00:12:44.120 Yeah.

00:12:44.320 But the transgender thing, the abortion thing, human sacrifice and turning your children to eunuchs, those are so clearly expressions of cultish religion.

00:12:56.840 Yeah.

00:12:57.000 That like, I can't turn away.

00:13:00.600 I'm like, the Canaanites did this.

00:13:02.340 Yeah.

00:13:02.400 Like, I know what's going on here.

00:13:03.900 This is not, you claim you're secular, you're not secular at all.

00:13:07.220 These are religious rituals.

00:13:08.400 Yes, they are.

00:13:08.680 That's the way it feels to me.

00:13:09.560 Yes.

00:13:10.640 Absolutely.

00:13:11.260 It is.

00:13:11.780 And that's part of it too.

00:13:14.700 I think the things that happened, like when I was in college in the early 2000s, you know, you had the new atheism and everyone was like, it was just cool to be an atheist.

00:13:24.900 Like, oh, I'm agnostic.

00:13:25.940 I don't, I don't really believe.

00:13:27.340 Who is that?

00:13:27.900 There's like a really absurd person posing as like a genius who was one of the leader.

00:13:34.220 There are probably a bunch of, but who was the most famous one?

00:13:36.960 Oh, like Richard Dawkins or Daniel Dennett or Christopher Hitchens.

00:13:40.640 I knew Hitchens well.

00:13:42.900 He was a marvelous guy, but totally wrong on this.

00:13:45.580 He was legit smart.

00:13:46.960 Yeah.

00:13:47.160 No, there's another one, whatever, who's always running around.

00:13:50.120 Like today, like James Lindsay is one of those types.

00:13:52.900 Who's James Lindsay?

00:13:54.440 He is a, this atheist guy that opposed wokeness and things like that, but wants just a free liberal society.

00:14:06.700 Like it's 1995.

00:14:08.100 Yeah.

00:14:08.640 Yeah.

00:14:08.900 I'm all for a free liberal society.

00:14:10.900 It's just that there, there isn't one.

00:14:14.020 Either you're moving quickly toward, I mean, I, I will never give up my views of, I will never stop being liberal on the most basic level, which is I actually don't want to control you or your beliefs because I don't think you're a slave.

00:14:26.440 I think you're a human being because God made you.

00:14:28.440 Absolutely.

00:14:29.120 That's my view.

00:14:29.900 Yeah.

00:14:30.100 And so I don't want to break down people's doors to make sure they're adhering to what I believe at all.

00:14:35.920 I hate that.

00:14:36.460 However, it, you're either moving toward order or you're moving toward chaos.

00:14:41.640 You're moving toward, you know, a society rooted in some sort of transcendent belief or you're moving toward trannyism, which is another like transcendent belief.

00:14:51.100 It's like you pick a religion.

00:14:52.920 Yeah.

00:14:53.060 It's not whether, but which there, there, there will be one.

00:14:55.780 And that's, that's part of it is like the, the new, like the new atheism, all of those things that broke down, you know, Christian morays and, and, and, and Christian, you know, just cultural Christianity.

00:15:06.960 That was imbued all, all throughout the American public life takes all of that down, but then there's a vacuum and that vacuum gets filled up.

00:15:16.600 And what's it been filled up with insane stuff like this child sacrifice, you know, all of it.

00:15:21.940 Like it is, it is a new religion.

00:15:23.460 It isn't, it isn't a question of like, well, we're just going to have pluralism or not going to have any dominant religion.

00:15:29.220 It's no, there will be one, there will be a God that you serve.

00:15:33.260 And, and the one that we are serving now is some kind of demon.

00:15:36.960 Well, I think that so much better put than I could have, than I could have formulated that, but yes, exactly, perfectly put, exactly.

00:15:44.740 You're going to worship something.

00:15:45.980 Yeah.

00:15:46.260 And now we're worshiping something really, really dark as a society, but it's, it's particularly pronounced in the states that have abandoned Christianity the most aggressively and just come up with this new pagan religion.

00:15:57.620 So, okay.

00:15:58.280 So this is going on in your state.

00:16:00.320 You're the six generations in one town.

00:16:02.800 Boy, that's gotta be pretty rare right now.

00:16:04.860 Yeah.

00:16:05.040 You've got six children, you have a child buried in the cemetery along with all your ancestors and you leave all of that.

00:16:12.580 What, what's going on in your church?

00:16:14.080 Were you a churchgoer at the time?

00:16:15.600 Yeah, I was, I was pastoring a church.

00:16:16.980 Oh gosh.

00:16:17.460 Yeah.

00:16:18.200 Yes.

00:16:19.100 You're literally, okay.

00:16:20.740 Yes.

00:16:21.340 So you're involved in church.

00:16:22.560 Yes, I am.

00:16:23.200 Yeah.

00:16:23.380 And it's a church with wonderful people.

00:16:26.480 And, and, you know, they're, they're there because they, you know, more or less think like I do.

00:16:31.980 They like, like hearing what I preach.

00:16:33.600 You know, they like, they like all of these things.

00:16:36.860 And, and so it's extremely difficult to leave them as well.

00:16:42.060 Um, but it, it was, it was difficult because it was very small church and, and the things that I'm, I'm preaching, right?

00:16:49.300 So I, I take the pastor there in 2021.

00:16:52.860 So after the lockdowns, after all of these things, and there's, there's an incredible amount of, of, of discontent among Christians because their church has been shut down.

00:17:01.380 Their leaders have, have failed them.

00:17:03.300 And so we had, we had many families join us, you know, after that.

00:17:07.320 Um, but, you know, overall, right, the people, you know, in, in Minnesota, right, they don't, they're not used to, um, the, the kind of preaching that, that I do.

00:17:20.040 The kind of, um, Christianity that I have where it's like, I, no, I, I believe the Bible, like, like God is real and he has spoken.

00:17:29.140 He's revealed himself to us in the Bible.

00:17:32.180 And therefore I believe all of it.

00:17:34.400 And I'm not embarrassed by any of it.

00:17:36.600 I'm not going to like tiptoe around the things that might be controversial.

00:17:40.020 Um, if anything, I'm going to lean into those things and, and I'm going to preach all of it.

00:17:44.880 And that's, that runs totally against the evangelical Christian ethos in America today.

00:17:52.560 It's really, uh, the, it's, it's all about, you need to be nice.

00:17:56.940 You need to, you know, make, make Jesus very inoffensive to people.

00:18:00.740 And that's how you bring people into your church.

00:18:02.740 So I'll, I'll, I'll say I'm not an evangelical.

00:18:04.860 I've always liked the evangelicals.

00:18:06.920 I've always defended them.

00:18:07.920 I'm very sympathetic as an, I'm not even exactly sure what an evangelical is.

00:18:12.240 It seems more like a cultural descriptor, but, um, I'm completely opposed to abortion.

00:18:17.620 So that has been, for me, the reason that I've always defended them.

00:18:21.600 But I always thought that the evangelicals were really forthright about their faith.

00:18:26.540 Another thing that I liked.

00:18:27.700 Yeah.

00:18:28.280 And we're way more on the kind of fire and brimstone side, which I'm for, by the way.

00:18:33.700 Well, good.

00:18:34.540 Yeah.

00:18:34.900 But you're saying that they're not.

00:18:37.080 Um, that, that was certainly, I, you, you look at like, you know, the eighties and even

00:18:41.980 in the early nineties, like you have the moral majority where, where they very much were

00:18:45.660 that kind of fire and brimstone.

00:18:47.020 And they've, they've been vindicated by everything that has happened.

00:18:49.860 Oh, I'd say.

00:18:51.660 I'd say.

00:18:52.520 That's hilarious.

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00:21:03.480 Don Jr. here, guys.

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00:21:33.560 But throughout the 90s and early 2000s, they really changed course, right?

00:21:39.200 And as the cultural trajectory is changing, they adopted, you know, very seeker-sensitive

00:21:46.960 movement where it's like, well, people are-

00:21:49.480 I'm sorry, what did you call it?

00:21:50.060 Yeah, seeker-sensitive movement.

00:21:51.360 What does that mean?

00:21:52.300 It was, right, the big movement in evangelicalism in the 90s and early 2000s where we're going

00:22:00.740 to make it as easy as possible for people to come into the church and believe in Jesus.

00:22:07.320 And so we're not going to focus on things that might offend them.

00:22:11.620 We're not going to focus on sin and repentance and things like that.

00:22:15.100 We're just- just come on in and have a good time and know that you're welcome here, right?

00:22:20.820 Come as you are.

00:22:21.960 We'll meet you halfway.

00:22:23.180 Like that was more or less the-

00:22:25.120 Why do you think they did that?

00:22:27.520 I think, you know, a friend of mine, I think I could call him a friend, Aaron Wren, he's

00:22:33.500 written about this like neutral world or negative world, neutral world, positive world where,

00:22:39.500 you know, in the 70s and 80s, Christianity is generally understood culturally as a positive

00:22:45.600 thing.

00:22:46.060 Like if you said, oh, I go to church, I'm a Christian, I go to that church, people think,

00:22:49.060 oh, that's a good guy.

00:22:50.080 He's an upstanding, decent person.

00:22:52.340 But by the mid-90s, it was sort of neutral, right?

00:22:57.320 It was sort of, oh, well, that's just a cool thing that you do, right?

00:23:01.360 Just like collecting stamps or building model trains or being part of the Lions Club.

00:23:06.200 But by the, you know, by the Obama years, by like 2015, you're in negative world where

00:23:13.160 if you're an evangelical Christian, you are suspect.

00:23:16.320 You're probably a Nazi.

00:23:18.140 You're probably a bigot.

00:23:19.460 You're probably a white supremacist, right?

00:23:21.300 That's the attitude that people have.

00:23:22.420 Can I just ask you to pause just to state for the one millionth time, the Nazis were

00:23:25.720 not Christians.

00:23:26.840 No.

00:23:29.660 They were not Christians.

00:23:31.120 But they love to throw those things around.

00:23:33.200 Nazis were Christians?

00:23:34.400 No.

00:23:36.600 Yeah.

00:23:38.140 More Christians were killed by the Nazis than any other group.

00:23:40.640 Just a fact.

00:23:41.220 But so anyway, no, the Nazis were not Christians.

00:23:44.860 So I just, I'm sorry.

00:23:45.400 Oh, yeah, yeah.

00:23:45.800 I had to say that.

00:23:47.240 Good to make, you know, yeah, because they'll clip this and they'll say, yeah, oh, Andrew

00:23:51.200 Isker is saying that the Christians are Nazis.

00:23:53.400 But so that period of time, like there's these widespread cultural shifts in the country.

00:24:02.480 And so I think a lot of it is just in response to that, where you're in that neutral world.

00:24:06.280 And so you had figures like Rick Warren or Tim Keller, who sort of adapted these things.

00:24:13.880 So Tim Keller is in New York City and he tries to adapt, you know, Christianity to your, you

00:24:23.560 know, upper middle class, you know, striver people in New York City to make it easy for

00:24:29.660 them to come to church.

00:24:30.360 So he wouldn't ever, you know, talk about homosexuality or if he did, it would be, well,

00:24:35.760 that's not so good for human flourishing, but we're not really going to talk about that

00:24:40.240 too much.

00:24:41.560 There's the former president of the Southern Baptist Convention, J.D.

00:24:46.260 Greer, you know, famously said in a sermon, well, the Bible just whispers about sexual sin,

00:24:52.880 but it shouts about, about like financial sin or greed, right?

00:24:58.020 So they want to downplay.

00:24:59.460 It shouts about both of them.

00:25:00.880 It does.

00:25:01.320 And the two are connected, right?

00:25:03.220 Yeah.

00:25:04.040 Right.

00:25:04.480 If you're, if you're, you know, greedy for money, you're also going to be lusting after

00:25:07.860 the flesh like that.

00:25:08.920 The two go hand in hand.

00:25:11.720 And, and so, but it's to downplay things that the culture does not want to hear, right?

00:25:17.800 Because you'll be branded as, as a bigot, as intolerant, as a bad person.

00:25:21.480 If you're just like, well, this is what the Bible says, like this, you know, fornicators,

00:25:25.500 adulterers, sodomites, they will not inherit the kingdom of God, right?

00:25:28.360 If you say, yes, I agree with that, well, you're a bad person, right?

00:25:32.360 You're, you're, you are outside of polite society if you say those things.

00:25:36.980 And, and you can reject it.

00:25:38.640 You can reject Christianity itself.

00:25:40.460 Yeah.

00:25:40.560 And you're certainly welcome to in this country and in all countries, actually.

00:25:43.160 Of course.

00:25:43.300 But it doesn't just say this parenthetically.

00:25:47.340 No, it's like included in a sidebar.

00:25:49.420 It says it again and again and again.

00:25:51.640 And in the church I grew up in, they're like, well, there are only four times where, you know,

00:25:55.660 in the scriptures where people, you know, where Christian, where homosexuality is attacked.

00:26:00.200 And, and it's like, since no one ever read it in my church, no one, no one knew, but like,

00:26:06.720 I finally read it.

00:26:07.940 What the hell?

00:26:08.680 Why not read it?

00:26:09.380 And I did.

00:26:10.540 And, and I've never been anti-gay or anything like that.

00:26:15.440 But by the end I was like, oh, there's a really clear message.

00:26:18.660 Yeah.

00:26:18.940 From like the Hebrew scriptures all the way through the Christian to the new Testament.

00:26:25.420 And like again and again and again.

00:26:27.720 So, you know, again, you don't have to believe it, but if you're a believing Christian, it,

00:26:32.000 it, it's not whispered at all.

00:26:33.820 Yeah.

00:26:34.000 You do.

00:26:34.360 You do have to believe it if you're a Christian.

00:26:36.580 Exactly.

00:26:37.020 If you claim that you, that this is the Bible, that God spoke to this.

00:26:40.340 Right.

00:26:40.620 And, and so they're, they're very fearful of those kinds of things.

00:26:45.000 But, um, I mean, the interesting thing now that we're in, you know, what Ren calls negative

00:26:51.520 world is, um, is that young men, um, who, who were kind of, who were raised, most of

00:27:00.420 them like raised secular, right?

00:27:01.720 They went through the, the whole new atheism thing.

00:27:05.100 Um, they never went to church.

00:27:06.680 They never grew up.

00:27:07.420 I mean, I, I, I talked to so many guys, so, so many young men, you know, I see, you know,

00:27:11.980 connect with me on, on X and, and places like that, where they're like, Hey, I was not part

00:27:18.240 of the church at all.

00:27:19.040 I was not a Christian and I see all of the evil everywhere, right?

00:27:26.140 I see the things like you're talking about, like they, they are sacrificing babies.

00:27:30.020 Like it's the, they, they care about this more than anything else.

00:27:32.200 The, the ability to murder a baby, um, they see things like the Ukraine war where it's like,

00:27:37.820 um, our rulers just decided to have a war, uh, and kill millions of people for absolutely

00:27:46.720 no reason.

00:27:47.560 And our proxies have banned the majority Christian faith.

00:27:50.380 Yes.

00:27:50.940 Banned.

00:27:51.500 Yes.

00:27:51.860 Majority Christian faith, majority faith, which is Christian in Ukraine.

00:27:55.600 And I just wonder just to go back to the atheists for a second.

00:28:00.060 Um, what do they make of this?

00:28:02.380 Like it just, I understand, certainly understand being agnostic.

00:28:05.600 Like, I don't know, you know, I get it.

00:28:07.320 Yeah.

00:28:07.580 I can see why someone would have that view.

00:28:09.320 For sure.

00:28:10.020 Yeah.

00:28:10.360 Um, I think that's a pretty normal, you know, place to be.

00:28:13.980 I think it's wrong, but I don't think it's crazy.

00:28:15.900 Yeah.

00:28:16.080 But to be an atheist, to have determined that there is no God, like, what do you make of

00:28:20.800 the things you see around you?

00:28:22.200 Have you never hold, held someone's hand while he dies?

00:28:24.300 Like, what do you think that is?

00:28:25.660 Yeah.

00:28:26.200 You've never felt anything that is clearly outside of what science describes?

00:28:31.340 Like, how determined are you to ignore your life that you become an atheist?

00:28:40.100 Like, what is that?

00:28:41.000 Do you know any?

00:28:41.900 Yeah.

00:28:42.140 I mean, it's funny because most of the people that you talk to are like, when they espouse

00:28:46.880 kind of atheist ideas, right, they'll retreat.

00:28:50.520 It's kind of a Mott and Bailey thing where they'll retreat to, well, really, I'm agnostic.

00:28:55.060 I don't really know for sure, right?

00:28:56.440 So, there's very few people, very few, especially now, that are like, you know, I'm an atheist.

00:29:01.700 There definitely is no God, right?

00:29:03.560 Okay.

00:29:03.800 Well, then, why is murder wrong?

00:29:05.680 Yeah.

00:29:05.960 Yeah, exactly.

00:29:06.880 Well, because it is.

00:29:08.260 Because it is.

00:29:09.120 Well, okay.

00:29:09.540 I think it's right.

00:29:10.620 Yeah.

00:29:10.920 So, how can you tell me it's wrong?

00:29:13.140 By what authority?

00:29:13.880 Yeah.

00:29:14.360 Yeah.

00:29:14.580 Because you feel that way?

00:29:15.800 Yeah.

00:29:15.940 That's your authority?

00:29:16.760 Yeah.

00:29:16.960 Your emotions?

00:29:17.540 And you would see this.

00:29:18.520 I remember.

00:29:19.180 So, like, the people you were saying who are atheists, like, are they ever, some of them

00:29:21.940 are smart, I assume.

00:29:22.880 Yeah.

00:29:23.360 Yeah.

00:29:23.600 What do they say to that?

00:29:24.560 I remember, I remember watching, you know, a previous guest of yours, actually, the man

00:29:30.820 who trained me in ministry, Doug Wilson.

00:29:32.740 Yeah.

00:29:33.680 Debate.

00:29:34.100 Wonderful man.

00:29:34.780 Nice man.

00:29:34.820 Christopher Hitchens.

00:29:35.720 Yeah.

00:29:35.940 Oh, yes.

00:29:36.940 And they had that discussion, right?

00:29:39.340 And it was, it was shocking to watch Hitchens say, well, it's, you know, it's common human

00:29:44.860 experience, you know, you know, solidarity with mankind.

00:29:48.600 That's why I think murder is wrong.

00:29:50.480 And of course, Doug says to him, well, you know, well, if you saw someone being like murdered

00:29:54.460 on the street, you think that's bad, right?

00:29:56.080 Well, why?

00:29:56.720 And he goes into his whole spiel and he's like, well, what if, what if it's a pregnant

00:30:02.320 woman and her baby's being murdered, right?

00:30:04.680 You would just say, well, no, no, you need to have a medical license for that to kill that

00:30:09.020 person, right?

00:30:10.020 And like, he got.

00:30:10.920 What did Christopher say?

00:30:11.940 He's like, oh, you're being flippant.

00:30:13.440 You know, you wouldn't go down that road.

00:30:15.540 Yeah.

00:30:15.660 What's so sad is I knew Christopher very well and always liked him enormously for his erudition.

00:30:21.380 His ability to recite long passages of Oatree, you know, Philip Larkin and Orwell.

00:30:27.300 And, you know, he was just a, you know, he's a reader, like a real, a dedicated lifelong

00:30:31.400 reader and a wonderful dinner and lunch companion.

00:30:34.160 I had many, many highly drunken dinners with him before I quit drinking.

00:30:39.680 And, uh, but he was such.

00:30:43.180 And so I love Christopher, but he was a moralizer.

00:30:46.480 Whoa.

00:30:47.200 Yeah.

00:30:47.640 And I never, I was much younger, 25 years younger than I am now.

00:30:50.920 And I never sort of put it to my mind, like, how can an atheist be a moralizer?

00:30:55.480 Yeah.

00:30:55.940 It doesn't even make any sense, actually.

00:30:57.920 Yeah.

00:30:58.240 And I agreed to them on some things and disagreed on others, but he was always like in the pulpit,

00:31:02.660 actually.

00:31:03.340 Yeah.

00:31:03.820 Yeah.

00:31:04.200 And a lot of the atheists are.

00:31:06.040 Yeah.

00:31:06.360 What is that?

00:31:07.900 Well, I think so much of it is, is atheism really is.

00:31:12.140 An atheist moralizer.

00:31:13.140 It's hilarious.

00:31:13.900 Well, it's, it's a Christian heresy.

00:31:15.120 Like they want to, they want to have all the things of Christianity just without, without God

00:31:19.420 there, right?

00:31:20.200 So they, they want to be able to, uh, pursue all of these things, right?

00:31:24.260 They, they want to be able to say, this is right.

00:31:26.320 And this is wrong, but have no, no authority to ground it on, right?

00:31:31.100 Just, just by their say so.

00:31:32.680 Right.

00:31:32.920 It's, it is such a conundrum.

00:31:35.180 Yeah.

00:31:35.500 Yeah.

00:31:35.640 What?

00:31:36.480 It's wrong.

00:31:37.720 Well, and you can, you can see why.

00:31:39.420 Yeah.

00:31:39.800 You can see why it's breaking down though.

00:31:41.840 Um, today.

00:31:42.940 Under the weight of its own silliness.

00:31:44.240 Yeah.

00:31:44.660 Yeah.

00:31:44.920 It, it, it, it, it creates this vacuum and it's being replaced by something.

00:31:48.980 So all of the, all of the moralistic energy is still there.

00:31:53.160 And now it's gone to, to things like transgenderism, abortion, um, you know, Gaza, whatever, whatever.

00:32:00.640 Like it goes, it goes to all of those routes.

00:32:02.880 It goes to, you know, BLM and, and rioting.

00:32:06.900 Yes, that's right.

00:32:08.120 And, and so it's, it's highly religious.

00:32:10.380 It's in us.

00:32:10.800 Yeah.

00:32:11.200 It's in us.

00:32:11.980 We can't get away from the conviction, the true conviction that some things are right

00:32:17.000 and some things are wrong.

00:32:17.760 Yeah.

00:32:18.240 Yeah.

00:32:18.440 It's, it's, it's fundamentally human.

00:32:20.400 Absolutely.

00:32:21.160 So, but an atheist would have to, by definition, be utterly nonjudgmental about everything.

00:32:26.580 Like, you would think they should be, but they're the most judgmental people.

00:32:31.380 It's unbelievable.

00:32:32.300 I mean, Christopher at dinner was always lecturing about the Kurds and, um, I'm nothing against

00:32:37.640 the Kurds.

00:32:38.120 I don't know much about the Kurds.

00:32:39.120 I ran into them in Iraq.

00:32:40.460 I, they were the most bloodthirsty people in Iraq.

00:32:42.360 I did notice that.

00:32:43.240 But, um, but he was so, um, again, I'm not against the Kurds, you know, I'm not an expert

00:32:47.200 in Kurdishness, but, um, he, man, he would like lay down his life for the Kurds.

00:32:54.100 Yeah.

00:32:54.900 I remember thinking, what is this?

00:32:56.240 And it was the need to sort of find a good guy and a bad guy and put yourself on the good

00:33:00.660 guy's side.

00:33:01.380 Yeah.

00:33:01.800 Yeah.

00:33:02.160 And that's, that's human.

00:33:03.600 Like we, it's human.

00:33:04.400 We want that.

00:33:05.100 That's totally true.

00:33:06.020 So what did you say to your church when you left?

00:33:09.120 Um, that was, that was one of the hardest days of my life.

00:33:12.960 I believe it.

00:33:13.720 Tell them I'm, I'm leaving.

00:33:16.080 I'm going to Tennessee.

00:33:17.760 And, um, it was, it was difficult.

00:33:20.920 Um, I mean, I still, um, have a connection with them, relationship with them.

00:33:25.180 Uh, still, I'm still trying to find them, uh, a pastor to replace me.

00:33:28.860 Right.

00:33:29.140 It's hard to, it's, it's hard for me to do that because like, well, you left Andrew.

00:33:32.520 Why do you want me to go there now?

00:33:34.080 Uh, but they, they need one and, and they're wonderful, wonderful people, um, who have,

00:33:40.320 have blessed me immensely.

00:33:42.980 And, and I, I just told them that, um, no, I, I have to leave Minnesota.

00:33:48.300 Um, there is, um, there's a place for me there in, in Tennessee and, um, it's, it's ultimately,

00:33:57.480 you know, what is best, uh, for my family's future, right?

00:34:00.540 There, there's a place where, where my children, you know, can grow up because part of it too

00:34:06.000 is, it isn't just the things that, that we're leaving, you know, the political, cultural

00:34:09.740 things that we're leaving in Minnesota, but it's also, you know, overall the things that

00:34:13.580 have been done, uh, to the Midwest, to, to everywhere where, uh, my, my children grow up.

00:34:21.100 And if, if they want to have, you know, a career and, and a life and a family and a

00:34:27.480 success of their own, there just isn't much for them in, in small town, uh, Midwest.

00:34:33.100 Um, and, and, and so they'll all just fly the coop.

00:34:37.600 Like, I mean, this is what happened.

00:34:38.940 Um, like when I graduate from high school, most of the people that I, I grew up with,

00:34:43.640 they all, they all left, they went to the twin cities, they went to other, other cities,

00:34:47.240 uh, for work and, and for, for careers.

00:34:50.800 And, uh, and so that, that same thing was likely going to happen with, with my children.

00:34:55.740 And I, I look at it and I think, well, my family's been here for six generations and

00:35:00.160 whether it's going to end here, right?

00:35:04.620 And I want, I want to be in a place where we can continue that, where we can be rooted,

00:35:10.540 where, where my children have the ability to stay in a place.

00:35:14.840 And, and so, so many, so many friends are, are coming to, to Tennessee where, where we

00:35:20.740 are, they're bringing businesses there.

00:35:22.480 And once you, you know, build things at scale, like the more stuff you're able to do, the

00:35:26.140 more businesses you're able to have, the more opportunity is for, for young people.

00:35:30.880 And, and so, right, if, if my children want to stay where we are and continue that on, uh,

00:35:36.340 generation after generation, like we, we actually will be able to do that, right?

00:35:40.100 That's, it isn't, it wasn't so much just, okay, we need to leave Minnesota, but it's

00:35:45.160 also, we're being drawn to a place for a particular reason.

00:35:48.760 The Tennessee dream.

00:35:49.700 There's a future there.

00:35:50.500 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:35:51.500 The, the, the hope of refugees from time immemorial.

00:35:55.320 Yeah.

00:35:56.180 What did the other churches in the state say as the state itself became a place that

00:36:02.440 faithful Christians couldn't live?

00:36:03.900 I mean, there, there are a handful of, of churches there that are, that are very strong,

00:36:08.700 right?

00:36:08.840 There are, there are Christians there that, that oppose these things, but they're so,

00:36:12.980 so vastly outnumbered.

00:36:15.000 Like when I went, when I went to the state Capitol to, you know, oppose the abortion bill,

00:36:20.900 um, there were, there were lots of activists on, on both sides, uh, pro-life activists and

00:36:25.460 pro, uh, uh, ritual sacrifice activists.

00:36:29.160 Uh, but there were, there were no other pastors there.

00:36:34.040 I think the, one of the Catholic bishops, um, did a Skype call, zoom call.

00:36:38.940 Um, but, uh, beyond that, there were, there were no other pastors.

00:36:43.260 And I'm thinking like, my church is, is like 30, 40 people.

00:36:46.140 I'm a, I do this, you know, it's, it's, I tent make, I do, I do a full-time job and then

00:36:50.940 do this.

00:36:51.320 I, I, we're tiny.

00:36:52.500 I, I'm, I'm small, I'm insignificant.

00:36:55.040 And, and there are churches with 15, 20,000 people, prominent men in, in the twin cities.

00:37:03.440 And, and all I had to do was just send an email to the, the clerk of the committee, like,

00:37:07.840 Hey, can I have two minutes to speak?

00:37:10.160 No one showed up, right?

00:37:11.680 No one is there.

00:37:12.340 And that's like, no, they're going to like murder babies up to birth, like enshrine this

00:37:17.080 in, in our law, try to make a constitutional amendment for it, all of these things.

00:37:21.600 And, and no one is, is opposing it.

00:37:24.580 Like I, I'm the only one that, that came, I, I quoted the Bible, I, and, and opposed

00:37:30.220 it as a Christian, right?

00:37:31.640 They, there, there's just so little fight there.

00:37:36.580 Christians built your state.

00:37:37.900 Yes.

00:37:38.600 And all of it and every bit of it.

00:37:41.260 And it's so telling when you go to the twin cities, I think of them as Protestant and Catholic.

00:37:46.320 Yeah.

00:37:46.900 Yeah.

00:37:47.100 I think of them as Scandinavian in Minneapolis and Irish.

00:37:50.840 Yeah.

00:37:51.360 And others in St. Paul.

00:37:53.200 Yeah.

00:37:53.440 Um, but both of them, especially St. Paul, uh, just littered with churches and schools

00:37:58.580 and it's just like the infrastructure of those cities was built by Christians.

00:38:01.880 Yeah.

00:38:02.500 Yeah.

00:38:02.700 And so it's a little bit crazy that, first of all, it's been taken over by people who,

00:38:06.960 who have made a point.

00:38:08.920 Yeah.

00:38:09.660 Just, you know, to stick a finger in the eye of Christians to make it impossible for them

00:38:12.620 to live there.

00:38:13.200 It's like you're being driven out of your own homeland.

00:38:15.960 Six generations.

00:38:16.980 Yeah.

00:38:17.000 I mean, this is what happened, uh, with, with my, my wife is from St. Paul.

00:38:20.340 Um, her, uh, you know, father's side of the family is Polish Catholic.

00:38:26.060 Yeah.

00:38:26.180 Went to St.

00:38:27.300 Kazimers church.

00:38:28.660 That's exactly in my mind.

00:38:30.160 What I think.

00:38:30.600 In the neighborhood that they, they were in, it was all, all Polish people.

00:38:34.120 Yeah.

00:38:34.300 Um, but now it's all, it's all Hmong.

00:38:37.080 Right.

00:38:37.400 It's all Hmong and Somali and everyone there just left over the last two or three generations.

00:38:44.680 What happened to their churches and parochial schools and, um, like, well, St. Kazimers church

00:38:48.160 is there, but it's, it's largely empty, right?

00:38:50.780 We went there for a funeral a couple of years ago, but there's, I mean, people still attended,

00:38:55.080 but it's not like it, not like it was.

00:38:56.900 Most of the, most of the parishes there have shut down the church, the church schools have,

00:39:00.960 have shut down and, and they've moved out to the suburbs.

00:39:04.180 And so that, I mean, it was, that was a Polish neighborhood.

00:39:08.280 It was, it was, uh, right.

00:39:10.780 This ethnic enclave.

00:39:12.200 If I can just say, showing myself to be an ethnic, uh, nationalist, the pole, they're

00:39:18.220 just like some of the greatest people I've ever met.

00:39:20.900 I don't think I've ever met.

00:39:21.640 I have to say that married one.

00:39:23.180 So yeah, I just think they're great people.

00:39:24.680 I don't know.

00:39:25.480 I've met many.

00:39:26.100 I don't like, but, um, just salt to the earth, smart, hardworking, serious about faith

00:39:31.040 and family.

00:39:31.560 Yeah.

00:39:31.780 Great people.

00:39:32.520 Yeah.

00:39:32.740 Um, I doubt it was an improvement, the change to St. Paul.

00:39:36.080 In fact, it wasn't.

00:39:36.720 I've been, no, it's, um, like when, when her parents finally moved, like the, the whole

00:39:40.980 area is, is just, is run down, lots of crime, you know, and it's, and it's sad because it

00:39:47.540 was, it was, you could see the, the, uh, the remnants of what was like the, the, you drive

00:39:54.380 through St. Paul, you see some of the old buildings and how beautiful they were, how much care

00:39:58.600 people put into these places.

00:40:00.300 And now they're just falling apart, bars on windows everywhere.

00:40:03.640 Factory workers, like basically tithing to build the infrastructure of church, of churches

00:40:08.880 and schools.

00:40:09.640 Yes.

00:40:09.960 And their own homes.

00:40:11.060 Yeah.

00:40:11.280 You know, people with no money giving the maximum amount to build all this stuff for

00:40:16.040 their families.

00:40:16.660 And then it's just some politician decides, oh, this is too white.

00:40:21.380 So we need to.

00:40:22.200 Yeah.

00:40:23.000 Yeah.

00:40:23.480 Destroy it all and destroy all the people.

00:40:25.400 It, it's a crime on a level that only historians will be able to assess clearly.

00:40:30.000 But, um, yeah.

00:40:31.240 Okay.

00:40:31.540 Sorry.

00:40:32.140 So, uh, so can we just, before you get into what's happening in Tennessee, I'm so discursive.

00:40:37.320 It's my fault.

00:40:37.860 But what, why aren't the fearsome evangelicals who I will still defend?

00:40:43.880 Absolutely.

00:40:44.380 I'm just saying that.

00:40:45.100 The laity absolutely defend them.

00:40:46.380 Well, the laity.

00:40:47.080 Yeah.

00:40:47.640 Know a million of them.

00:40:48.880 Yeah.

00:40:49.120 And I love them.

00:40:50.800 Um, in fact, there's some working here right now in this office, but, uh, the, the preachers,

00:40:57.200 like, where were they during all of this?

00:41:00.600 Oh, I mean, I think it's, it's, it's largely, uh, the, the contemporary evangelical mode of

00:41:07.660 being is, is, I mean, so much of it, I look back to it, um, being, you know, going all the

00:41:15.640 way back to something like the second great awakening, right.

00:41:18.060 Where, um, the purpose of, of, uh, the major change that took place there is it, it, it's

00:41:25.680 all about conversionism, right.

00:41:27.380 Uh, and, and it becomes a big show and, and marketing and, and all of that.

00:41:33.040 And that's where you got the 10 revival.

00:41:34.720 Yeah.

00:41:35.040 Yes.

00:41:35.540 Yeah.

00:41:35.800 Charles Finney, those, those kinds of things.

00:41:37.720 Well, that, that's kind of in the DNA, at least somewhat within evangelicalism.

00:41:42.000 So to put a finer point on what you're saying, the point became the more souls we convert,

00:41:46.820 the more people who, who profess faith.

00:41:49.160 Yeah.

00:41:49.460 That's like the scorecard that we use.

00:41:51.100 Yeah.

00:41:51.280 That's the metric that, that, um, that everyone follows.

00:41:55.640 And, and so you look at it and you think, well, if we just, if we just water it down a

00:42:00.340 little bit more, make it more palatable to people, you know, just get more, more butts

00:42:05.280 in the seats, right.

00:42:06.420 Then that's the metric of success, not right.

00:42:11.280 The internal development, discipleship of people, not, not actual repentance.

00:42:16.440 And conversion, uh, not, you know, fundamental life change and so forth, um, that traditional

00:42:23.560 Christianity always was, um, it's, oh, if we just get them here.

00:42:27.440 And of course, if they put some money in the plate and, and they're attending, that's what

00:42:32.880 matters.

00:42:33.200 So you see churches where it's like, okay, we have amazing production values.

00:42:37.480 We have a great band and all of these things.

00:42:39.520 And it's, it's all of these entertainments to get people in or, or the sermon is, is

00:42:43.820 sort of like a self-help talk.

00:42:45.320 There isn't really Bible in it at all.

00:42:47.300 Or if it is, it's like tangentially related to, to something that the pastor wants to say.

00:42:52.380 It's not, all right, we're going to go through a chapter of Leviticus today and explain what

00:42:56.780 the sacrifices are about.

00:42:57.780 Well, there's no, there's none of those things.

00:43:00.200 And so you, you see, you know, many evangelical people, right, have not been taught really

00:43:05.620 any Bible or theology at all.

00:43:08.000 And you see this in like surveys, like the Barna group does surveys and, right, what people

00:43:12.300 believe about different things.

00:43:14.120 And, and they just, they haven't been taught any Bible.

00:43:16.840 They don't, they don't know it.

00:43:17.820 And so then when, you know, when the, the liberal says, well, the Bible condemns eating

00:43:24.640 shellfish and pork and in the same way it condemns homosexuality.

00:43:28.880 So what do you have to say about that?

00:43:29.840 And they have no idea how to explain that, what that is about.

00:43:34.080 And, and their faith is shaken or.

00:43:36.740 God didn't destroy two cities with sulfur and fire because people were eating pork.

00:43:40.540 That's right.

00:43:41.720 He destroyed them because they tried to commit gay rape on an angel.

00:43:46.400 Yeah.

00:43:46.900 That's just, yeah.

00:43:47.440 And they'll just say that with, well, the sin of Sodom was in hospitality.

00:43:51.720 No, it wasn't.

00:43:52.740 Well, I mean, I guess.

00:43:53.600 It was gay rape.

00:43:54.240 Yeah.

00:43:54.580 I mean, the least hospitable thing you could do.

00:43:56.960 I mean, just read it if you want.

00:43:58.100 It's like.

00:43:59.140 Yeah.

00:43:59.380 It's pretty out there.

00:44:00.480 Yeah.

00:44:00.680 It's like, well, yeah, the least hospitable thing you could do to a guest is to anally

00:44:04.940 rape them.

00:44:05.620 Yeah.

00:44:05.900 So.

00:44:06.280 All the men of the town came out.

00:44:07.720 They demanded.

00:44:08.820 Yeah.

00:44:08.980 We need to know these angels.

00:44:10.360 To have sex with these angels.

00:44:13.080 And then lots like, um, I've got some daughters in here.

00:44:15.780 Take them.

00:44:16.620 Yeah.

00:44:16.980 Which kind of takes a lot off my Christmas card list for saying something like that.

00:44:20.300 But whatever.

00:44:21.040 He does that.

00:44:22.020 It's in Genesis.

00:44:23.000 And they're like, no, we want to rape the dudes.

00:44:25.600 It's like, it's like, it's, these are not euphemisms.

00:44:28.940 No.

00:44:29.080 It's pretty straightforward.

00:44:29.860 Yeah.

00:44:30.120 Yeah.

00:44:30.260 I mean, I actually, I just read Genesis 19 to my children and there were some questions

00:44:34.140 from the kids.

00:44:35.080 It was funny.

00:44:39.180 I read that a couple of years ago for the first time.

00:44:41.180 I'll admit it.

00:44:42.440 And my wife, who's a very serious and wonderful person, but a serious Christian.

00:44:48.040 We were on a walk and I was, I was told her like what I had read the night before.

00:44:51.440 And she's like, what?

00:44:53.480 What?

00:44:54.360 You know, she's, I mean, she's just like, she's the model for me as a faithful person,

00:44:59.560 but she was like, no, that's no way.

00:45:02.060 And I was like, it's in there.

00:45:03.260 That's what happened.

00:45:04.300 Yes.

00:45:04.920 Yes.

00:45:05.640 Yeah.

00:45:06.460 And, and, and so I think about that and it's like, I mean, it's funny.

00:45:10.140 Like even at my little, little church, I, I, I just preach through the Bible.

00:45:16.720 Right.

00:45:17.020 So I'll just take a chapter and I'll talk about it.

00:45:19.840 I'll explain what's going on, all of these things.

00:45:21.960 And I mean, I have, I have some, you know, wonderful people there.

00:45:27.100 Older people that have been Christians, you know, their entire adult lives and they're

00:45:30.480 in their seventies.

00:45:31.600 And, and one of them said to me, you know, Andrew, that's, that's the first time someone

00:45:36.380 has ever preached from the book of judges in a church service.

00:45:41.400 It's a good one.

00:45:41.860 I went through the entire, entire book and then, well, let's do Ruth.

00:45:45.980 And then first Samuel and second Samuel and, and, and, and it's like, well, there's so

00:45:51.200 much there, so much there.

00:45:53.500 I mean, I had, I had friends come down that were sort of, you know, new and, and becoming

00:45:59.740 Christians out of being secular their whole lives.

00:46:02.180 And they're like, whoa, the Bible is extremely metal.

00:46:06.880 This is, this is wild.

00:46:08.280 Like there's so much like political intrigue happening in first and second Samuel.

00:46:12.260 Yeah.

00:46:13.140 And, and I'm like, yeah, I'm, and I'm, I'm explaining it, you know, sort of in like this,

00:46:16.980 you know, meershymery, real politique way.

00:46:20.000 Like, and they're just like at the edge of their seats, like, whoa, oh, that's crazy

00:46:25.040 that, that happened.

00:46:26.340 And, and, and so I love it.

00:46:28.160 And I can see why I, I don't claim to understand a lot of it, particularly the Old Testament,

00:46:33.760 starting to figure out the New Testament more, but just having read it cold a couple of times,

00:46:38.380 just like a book, like you would read Anna Karenina or Moby Dick.

00:46:42.040 It's like the wildest, coolest, most interesting, most profound, like those are not overstatements

00:46:48.020 at all.

00:46:48.700 Yeah.

00:46:48.880 And I think everybody should, it's the basis of Western civilization.

00:46:52.580 I don't know why people don't read it.

00:46:54.120 There's obviously a reason.

00:46:55.620 Or even if you're an atheist, how could you not read the Bible?

00:46:58.040 Like everything we have is founded on the ideas in this.

00:47:02.940 And like, you're basically illiterate if you haven't read it.

00:47:05.700 Oh, I know.

00:47:06.080 I mean, you even, you can see this.

00:47:07.480 It's, it's, it's so funny.

00:47:08.620 Like when journalists write about the Bible and they're like, oh, there's this weird illusion

00:47:15.400 here that, that, and it's like, he's talking about a, a, a whale.

00:47:19.020 Swallowing a man.

00:47:19.820 I don't really know what's going on.

00:47:20.900 And it's like, that's the book of Jonah.

00:47:23.140 How do you not, how do you not know what that's about?

00:47:25.500 But they had no idea.

00:47:26.800 It's just so compelling.

00:47:28.280 Yeah.

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00:49:51.200 Even Leviticus, which I ran on a flight to Europe when I had made myself, because, you

00:49:54.960 know, I had eight hours on a plane.

00:49:57.520 And I texted my wife on the plane.

00:49:58.660 I was like, this is excellent, actually.

00:50:00.700 It's just excellent.

00:50:01.800 I thought it was going to be all like sacrificing doves because you have your period that's

00:50:04.940 in there.

00:50:05.600 It is in there, yeah.

00:50:06.780 But like 95% of it made sense to me.

00:50:09.600 Well, and it's real.

00:50:10.680 Like, it's tangible, right?

00:50:13.520 It's, you know, in theological terms, incarnational.

00:50:16.060 Like, it's the real tangible world that people interact with, right?

00:50:20.800 That's there.

00:50:21.480 And people always ask me, like, well, Andrew, what's your favorite book of the Bible?

00:50:25.100 And I love to, I mean, sometimes I love to get a rise out of people.

00:50:28.640 But I tell them, well, Leviticus is.

00:50:32.960 And they're like, what?

00:50:34.760 Really?

00:50:35.400 And I'm like, yeah.

00:50:36.780 Like, I mean, I'm a pastor.

00:50:38.060 My calling is to preach the gospel and to lead worship.

00:50:42.140 And that book right there, all of it is about how do sinful people draw near and approach

00:50:50.960 the presence of a holy, just, righteous God that cannot bear sin at all.

00:50:56.740 And there it's laid out for us, all of it.

00:50:59.380 And even like you look at Leviticus chapter nine, like you read that and maybe you remember

00:51:05.420 reading it.

00:51:05.900 But I'm actually going through this with my church right now in Tennessee.

00:51:10.820 But Leviticus chapter nine is the entire liturgy of the church right there.

00:51:16.940 Each of the sacrifices and all of the like Western liturgy for 2000 years basically follows

00:51:23.480 it, right?

00:51:24.180 You, you're called into the presence of God.

00:51:26.920 You, you confess your sins.

00:51:29.860 I mean, you may probably like your Episcopalian upbringing book of common prayer.

00:51:33.520 Like you, you probably track with this, right?

00:51:35.720 You can never, they never admitted that at our church.

00:51:37.900 Yeah.

00:51:38.760 Maybe they didn't have a confession to sit at yours, but, uh, but there's a confession

00:51:41.840 of, of sin, right?

00:51:43.680 Then there's an ascension, right?

00:51:45.160 The ascension offering in chapter one of Leviticus, right?

00:51:48.760 The entire, the worshiper puts his hand on the animal, right?

00:51:51.800 Saying like this animal's me.

00:51:53.140 And then the entire thing is, is consumed, is burned up, right?

00:51:56.460 Ola, right?

00:51:57.160 Where the word Holocaust comes from.

00:51:59.460 Consumed, burned up, goes up to God in, in smoke.

00:52:02.800 And that's you, right?

00:52:04.240 That's when, and, and then the New Testament where it says, right, the word of God is living

00:52:08.800 and active sharper than any two-edged sword.

00:52:10.520 Well, it's the sort of the priest that cuts the animal and puts it on the altar and burns

00:52:14.520 it up.

00:52:15.160 Well, that's what's happening when the church hears the Bible read and hears it preached,

00:52:19.420 right?

00:52:19.560 You're being cut up by the word of God and ascending up to God in smoke.

00:52:23.520 And then the next part of the service is the peace offering.

00:52:27.600 Well, that's communion, right?

00:52:29.080 You sit down and have a meal with, with God, and then you're sent out, right?

00:52:32.740 The entire liturgy is right there.

00:52:34.280 Like our actual worship that we do now, right?

00:52:37.140 After the death of Jesus and resurrection of Jesus, right?

00:52:40.380 Sacrifice is done away with because he, he is that sacrifice.

00:52:43.440 And we're going through all of that each time we worship and, and renew the covenant with

00:52:49.940 God.

00:52:50.900 And, and like, you see that in Leviticus and it's like, whoa, actually there's so much to

00:52:56.280 learn here in this book about what we are doing every, every Sunday when we, when we worship

00:53:01.300 God.

00:53:01.680 Uh, so I'm like, yeah, this, of course it's my favorite book, right?

00:53:04.780 Not just because I'm autistic and like lots of rules and regulations, right?

00:53:09.600 It's like reading the, uh, reading the instructions on a, on the monopoly game, you know?

00:53:14.300 Like, no, it's, it's, it's, it's there.

00:53:16.580 Like so much is happening.

00:53:17.780 It's, it's, it's beautiful.

00:53:19.020 Um, and, and the prescriptions or the prohibitions more precisely are surprisingly like sensible.

00:53:28.400 Yeah.

00:53:29.120 Yeah.

00:53:29.420 And one of the challenges to atheism is to explain why the atheist would agree with the

00:53:34.260 overwhelming majority of what's prohibited.

00:53:36.240 Yeah.

00:53:36.820 Because it's, it's in him.

00:53:38.420 He knows that's wrong.

00:53:39.260 Don't have sex with your sister.

00:53:40.480 Okay.

00:53:40.620 Okay.

00:53:41.620 And most people, most atheists would be like, yeah, well, obviously, but of course he has

00:53:47.820 no grounds upon which to say that.

00:53:49.580 Yeah.

00:53:49.840 There's literally no law he can appeal to, to say that.

00:53:51.680 He says that obviously because like he grew up and was, is reared and, and absorbs by

00:53:56.760 osmosis like Christian culture where that's prohibited.

00:53:59.300 I think that's right.

00:54:00.380 But I also think in primitive cultures that have never had exposure to Christianity, I mean,

00:54:05.620 I don't know that there are many cultures where most of the prohibitions in Leviticus would

00:54:11.280 be considered crazy or esoteric or like, why would you ban that?

00:54:14.740 It's like every one of them are like, of course.

00:54:16.960 Well, even like you, you think about this, there was, there's a pastor, theologian, a

00:54:24.160 brilliant guy, Peter Lightheart, who wrote a book delivered from the elements of the

00:54:27.820 world.

00:54:28.720 And, and in that he shows, I mean, there's tons of just amazing stuff in this book, but

00:54:35.400 one of the things that he shows is that, right, God makes these restrictions for, for

00:54:40.340 Israel in the old covenant that sets them apart as, as this holy people, as the priestly

00:54:46.240 people.

00:54:47.580 And, but elsewhere in the world, right, they all have something like that, right?

00:54:52.560 All, all throughout the ancient world, right?

00:54:54.660 Their gods had something like a fun house mirror version of Leviticus where it's like,

00:54:58.500 okay, right, here's all these rules about sex and, and what makes you clean and unclean

00:55:03.300 and food you can't eat and can't eat.

00:55:05.040 Like the Egyptians had this, the Babylonians, the Persians, the Greeks, all of them have these

00:55:09.700 kinds of, the, the, the Mayans, the Incas, the Aztecs.

00:55:12.320 The Norse German, like my ancestors, the, the Germanics, like they all had these, these

00:55:16.180 rules.

00:55:16.440 And it's, well, it's because in the ancient world, right, they're all under their own

00:55:20.180 particular gods, right?

00:55:22.180 And, um, what, what Jesus does is he comes and he, he takes the world back from Satan

00:55:30.180 and from all the demons that ruled over the ancient world.

00:55:34.080 And, and now he's reigning over heaven or that, that's actually like the book of revelation.

00:55:39.520 Um, right.

00:55:40.620 That's actually like what's going on in that book.

00:55:42.640 The much maligned book of revelation.

00:55:44.660 Yeah.

00:55:44.760 Like I, I know you had, uh, you had John rich on, you know, last year and he's talking

00:55:49.620 about dispensationalism and things like that.

00:55:51.940 And I was like, Oh, Oh, I'm going to be in Tennessee.

00:55:54.340 I need to meet him and talk to him about this.

00:55:56.460 Did you?

00:55:56.900 I, I haven't, no, I'd have no way of getting in touch with me.

00:55:59.460 Maybe after this, uh, if, if you watch it, yeah, he's a good man.

00:56:02.740 Oh, I love, I mean, he was like the soundtrack of my youth of country music.

00:56:07.260 Like he wrote all those songs, right?

00:56:08.960 So on that basis alone.

00:56:10.340 Right.

00:56:11.040 But, um, or he's talking about like dispensationalism and what has happened.

00:56:14.760 in, in American Christianity for the last 130 years, how it's actually a novel new thing.

00:56:20.740 Um, and, and for me, it was, it was like, yeah, I, I looked at that.

00:56:27.060 I mean, I remember, you know, growing up and that's just everything like left behind and,

00:56:30.960 and the rapture is coming and all of that.

00:56:33.620 And when I missed all of that, I don't know what you're talking about.

00:56:36.860 Yeah.

00:56:36.960 It's, it's a thing like, like, especially, and of course, like I'm, I'm very critical of

00:56:42.260 it.

00:56:43.080 Um, but like, these are the, these are the best people in America that believe it.

00:56:48.020 Like the, the people that have like six Trump flags on the back of their truck.

00:56:52.000 I totally agree.

00:56:52.780 Like they, they also believe that, well, the rapture is coming tomorrow.

00:56:56.300 We need to be ready for it.

00:56:57.260 And so I'm, anytime I'm critical of it, I'm like, okay, I'm not critical of the people.

00:57:01.780 Like there's not a moral defect that they believe these things.

00:57:04.000 Um, I, I totally, first of all, thank you for saying that.

00:57:07.340 Second, I, I feel what you're saying, especially with evangelicals.

00:57:11.100 I, I look at these, you know, greaseball preachers who I, I honestly, I find disgusting.

00:57:16.060 And then I see the people who go to their churches and I'm like, oh, I love you.

00:57:19.000 You're exactly my kind of people.

00:57:20.300 You're the most decent people in this country.

00:57:23.280 You're trying your very hardest against headwinds that are so unfair and you're doing a great

00:57:28.720 job anyway.

00:57:29.320 And I just love that.

00:57:30.280 I really mean it.

00:57:30.920 I love them.

00:57:31.420 So I never want to criticize, right?

00:57:34.060 Because yeah.

00:57:35.040 Yeah.

00:57:35.620 Yeah.

00:57:35.880 And so like, and so like whenever I'm, I'm critical of that theology, I'm like, I have

00:57:40.540 to make sure people know, like, I'm not criticizing you because you're great, awesome people.

00:57:45.300 Like even when I, when I first went to the, the town in Gainesville before we decided to,

00:57:49.040 you know, before we made our move, uh, it was right after the hurricane, which it wasn't

00:57:53.420 far from there.

00:57:54.500 And, and this is a town that like, they don't have a whole lot.

00:57:57.200 The median income is not very high in this town, but I'm, I'm driving around and every

00:58:00.780 gas station, uh, Gainesboro, Tennessee is in Jackson County.

00:58:04.440 It's like North central Tennessee.

00:58:06.740 Okay.

00:58:07.140 And yeah.

00:58:08.420 And so every gas station, every gas station has like signs up like, Hey, we're going to,

00:58:13.440 we're going to Western North Carolina to go help out.

00:58:15.600 And it's like, like people that don't have a whole, like they're, they're taking their

00:58:19.120 time and what little money they have to go help people.

00:58:22.080 And meanwhile, you know, the Biden administration is sending billions more to Ukraine and to,

00:58:27.220 and to Israel and everything.

00:58:28.980 And they're taking their time.

00:58:30.380 It's like, these are wonderful people.

00:58:32.040 They are.

00:58:32.500 And I will say for Trump, whatever people think of Trump, I know Trump well enough to

00:58:36.380 have talked to him about this kind of stuff and, you know, away from cameras and his affection,

00:58:42.300 love, gratitude toward those specific people is totally real.

00:58:45.800 Yeah.

00:58:46.660 And you can argue about whether, you know, which policies serve those people best or whatever,

00:58:50.400 but it all, the leadership begins with love.

00:58:53.040 And if you don't love the people you lead, you'll mistreat them.

00:58:54.940 And you see it reciprocated, right?

00:58:57.000 But it's totally real.

00:58:58.840 Yeah.

00:58:59.160 And yeah, completely real.

00:59:00.760 And it's emotional.

00:59:01.700 Yeah.

00:59:01.880 And he's like, I love those people.

00:59:04.240 Yeah.

00:59:04.560 And he eats McDonald's in private.

00:59:08.020 Yeah.

00:59:10.060 So that is, I just want to say that because I know that for a fact, you know, a lot of politics

00:59:13.720 is obviously fake and yeah, but that part, that specific part of Trump, like loving people

00:59:19.680 like that, oh man.

00:59:21.500 Well, and it's the people that are, you know, the most maligned in our country.

00:59:25.500 Like, like the, if the only people you can make fun of are like rural Southern Appalachian

00:59:31.340 people, right?

00:59:32.440 That's free game.

00:59:33.280 You can criticize them all you want and mock them.

00:59:35.840 Like, you know, Jimmy Kimmel can, can make fun of them all day long on his show.

00:59:40.820 No other group of people can you do that for.

00:59:42.640 And, and they're the people that have been, have been dispossessed of their country the

00:59:47.600 most.

00:59:48.940 And, and you, I like, that's just a big reason why we moved to this place is these are the

00:59:54.360 people that are hated.

00:59:55.300 I want to go live with them.

00:59:57.140 Yes.

00:59:57.300 I want to be around these because they're great people.

00:59:59.840 With the despised and cheerful too.

01:00:01.820 Yeah.

01:00:02.620 Wonderful people.

01:00:03.300 Yeah.

01:00:03.460 I live in a place with a lot of people like that.

01:00:05.360 And, you know, every third person has a child or grandson who's died of a drug OD and like

01:00:10.220 there's no year round work and there's just a lot of problems.

01:00:13.800 And these are like, you can pull into their driveway on a Sunday and they will just, they'll

01:00:18.760 have a six pack and they'll give you two of them.

01:00:20.400 I mean, they really are just the most generous, kind, hilarious, wise, just good people.

01:00:26.340 Yeah.

01:00:26.480 The best, the best that this country's ever produced in my opinion.

01:00:29.740 Yeah, absolutely.

01:00:30.400 And I'm not, I'm not from those people at all.

01:00:32.860 So I'm like coming at this like, wow, these people are incredible.

01:00:36.200 Yeah, absolutely.

01:00:37.260 And, and so I, you know, I think about that, right.

01:00:40.120 And I think about the theology that has been, that has shaped, you know, their outlook and

01:00:46.840 it's understandable because like you're, especially in the midst of like serious decline, it's

01:00:50.860 like, well, actually it's sort of attractive to have this eschatology where everything is

01:00:57.120 coming to an end, right?

01:00:58.580 You can understand why people would, would eat that up.

01:01:00.660 Um, but the people that actually built America, right.

01:01:04.760 You know, the Puritans and, and all of the, the settlers of this country, you think of

01:01:08.620 even like the, the founding generation that, that theology did not exist yet.

01:01:12.640 That wasn't until the middle of the 19th century that it came into being, like they were actually

01:01:16.960 optimistic, right.

01:01:18.220 They, they viewed, right.

01:01:20.060 This continent as, as a place for, for Christians to, to build, to, to grow, to have a future.

01:01:27.020 Um, what an interesting point.

01:01:30.800 Well, I've never thought of that before.

01:01:32.340 So dispensationalism, for those who haven't followed it, is normally criticized and defended

01:01:37.260 because of its interpretation of what biblical Israel is now.

01:01:43.280 Yeah.

01:01:43.500 Okay.

01:01:43.760 Yeah.

01:01:44.720 So it's like, it's a super electric topic, both theologically and politically.

01:01:51.180 Absolutely.

01:01:51.800 And, um, people get utterly hysterical about it and start calling you names or whatever.

01:01:55.820 Yeah.

01:01:56.220 So there's that, but you're saying that the deeper or a deeper problem with it is that

01:02:03.480 it makes people pessimistic.

01:02:06.060 Yeah.

01:02:06.420 Can you flesh it out a little bit?

01:02:07.780 Yeah.

01:02:08.080 So I think if, I mean, if you think, if you go your entire life believing that any minute

01:02:15.220 the world is going to come to an end, that I'm going to float up into heaven and my clothes

01:02:20.600 will be here and, and everything, everything, we, we're gone, it's, it's done, it's over.

01:02:25.860 Um, right.

01:02:27.860 Well, that, that takes a people that ordinarily are, are very low time preference that, that,

01:02:35.120 um, build things for the future that, that delay gratification and all of those kinds

01:02:39.640 of things.

01:02:40.280 And it flips it around and makes them very high time preference where it's like, well,

01:02:44.040 if the world's not going to be around tomorrow, why invest in anything for today?

01:02:48.220 And you can even see this in terms of architecture, right?

01:02:50.740 You think of the, the buildings that, that churches have, well, they, they, they're in

01:02:55.120 strip malls or they're, you know, just, um, they're kind of ugly.

01:02:59.580 Yeah.

01:02:59.620 It's garbage.

01:03:00.040 Yeah.

01:03:00.300 And, and you look at the buildings that.

01:03:01.900 It's like a former, former pet store in a strip mall.

01:03:04.060 Yeah.

01:03:04.320 Yeah.

01:03:04.600 And you look at the buildings that Christians had before this was the dominant theology and

01:03:09.540 they're gorgeous.

01:03:10.120 They're beautiful.

01:03:10.560 And there were very poor people that made them, like you said earlier.

01:03:13.520 I know.

01:03:13.620 And, and it's like that, that, that right there, like you see it tangibly that, um, and

01:03:20.780 you think about that in terms of all of life.

01:03:22.560 That is so smart.

01:03:23.240 And what, what was the phrase you used?

01:03:24.520 Low time preference?

01:03:25.500 Yeah.

01:03:25.720 Low, low time preference.

01:03:26.620 So it's like an economic phrase.

01:03:27.940 Right.

01:03:28.320 So, right.

01:03:29.480 Your, your preference.

01:03:30.580 Please respect my ignorance.

01:03:33.800 Yes.

01:03:34.420 It just means that, um, you, um, you're going to wait longer for things.

01:03:41.900 It's, it's sort of like the marshmallow test with little kids, right?

01:03:44.880 Where, where the one where like in five minutes you'll get two marshmallows or you can eat

01:03:49.120 this one right now.

01:03:50.000 Right.

01:03:50.400 Well, the, the, the child that says, oh, I'll wait.

01:03:52.760 I want to, right.

01:03:54.180 Well, he's going to go on and have more success and, and, and so forth, uh, versus the one

01:03:58.260 that has, that immediately grabs the one and eats it.

01:04:01.000 Right.

01:04:01.240 Well, that's, that's low time preference.

01:04:02.860 It's, it's, it's a people that will delay gratification who will save and invest and, and build things

01:04:10.300 for the longterm, for the future.

01:04:12.480 And for future generations.

01:04:13.680 Yes.

01:04:14.320 Yes.

01:04:14.580 They plant oak trees.

01:04:16.140 Yes.

01:04:16.660 Who plants oak trees?

01:04:18.100 Yeah.

01:04:18.340 Well, I mean, we're going to, in Tennessee, we want to have, bring back the American chestnut

01:04:21.900 in, uh, in Tennessee.

01:04:23.960 We want to bring that back.

01:04:25.160 Are you putting in evergreens, please?

01:04:26.880 Oh, I think everything.

01:04:28.040 Yeah.

01:04:28.320 I mean, there's, there's pines.

01:04:29.800 Yeah.

01:04:30.040 There's, uh, please don't neglect the pine.

01:04:31.700 Oh yeah.

01:04:32.540 Yeah.

01:04:32.820 I know it's a fast growing tree, relatively speaking, but it's, it's beautiful.

01:04:36.500 It's the answer.

01:04:37.080 And cedars, if you can, if you have water.

01:04:39.960 Yeah.

01:04:40.140 I don't, I don't know if we'll be able.

01:04:41.280 I mean, there are some cedars.

01:04:41.920 Okay.

01:04:42.320 Okay.

01:04:42.340 Now we're going to get into.

01:04:43.260 Since you're a preacher, Old Testament scholar, what was the inside of the temple clad

01:04:47.880 with?

01:04:48.340 Ah, cedar.

01:04:49.000 Yeah.

01:04:49.160 From Lebanon.

01:04:49.780 Exactly.

01:04:50.600 Yeah.

01:04:51.000 Yeah.

01:04:51.300 God himself said cedar.

01:04:52.540 That's right.

01:04:53.240 Yeah.

01:04:53.420 An accident.

01:04:54.040 He was pretty specific about it.

01:04:55.240 Yeah.

01:04:55.580 Yeah.

01:04:55.920 It smells great.

01:04:57.940 Maybe there's a reason my sauna has cedar on the end.

01:05:00.200 That's right.

01:05:00.620 That's right.

01:05:01.860 I always tell my kids that.

01:05:03.160 Just think of it like the temple.

01:05:04.040 It's my cedar church.

01:05:05.080 Yeah.

01:05:05.140 That's right.

01:05:05.700 No sacrifices, however.

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01:06:29.940 I'm sorry.

01:06:30.360 I've gone so far afield.

01:06:31.540 But so your point is that dispensationalism not only has specious theological elements,

01:06:38.600 which I think very obviously it does.

01:06:41.960 Yeah.

01:06:42.020 By the way, the whole theology was like laid out in the end notes.

01:06:48.820 It's not actually in the Bible.

01:06:50.340 No, no.

01:06:50.780 It's like interpretation in that version of the Bible.

01:06:53.100 John Nelson Darby and Cyrus Schofield, and they'll claim that they're antecedents from

01:06:59.340 the early church.

01:07:00.080 Well, this guy believed in something like the rapture, and it's like, well, it's always

01:07:04.680 very, like you say, specious.

01:07:05.800 Yeah, that's my read as a non-theologian, but it does seem incredibly silly, but sincere.

01:07:13.700 So, okay.

01:07:14.320 Yeah, exactly.

01:07:15.440 People sincerely believe it, so I don't want to mock them.

01:07:16.600 A hundred percent, and a lot of people I really like and respect believe it, so I just want

01:07:20.700 to say that.

01:07:21.680 But you're saying that the cost is even deeper because it changes your worldview and makes

01:07:29.260 it very difficult for you to engage in the labor of, like, for example, loving people

01:07:33.820 around you and building something beautiful, which are also Christian imperatives.

01:07:37.180 Is that what you're saying?

01:07:37.800 Yeah, I think so.

01:07:38.540 And it also, yeah, so it forces you into an immediacy, right?

01:07:45.920 We've got to do everything right now because there isn't going to be a future, right?

01:07:49.240 There's not going to be, I mean, and I heard this all the time growing up.

01:07:52.400 Well, you know, we're not going to be around.

01:07:55.400 We're going to be raptured.

01:07:56.540 So why plan for the future?

01:07:58.220 Why build things for the future?

01:07:59.540 Why plan?

01:08:00.000 You heard that growing up?

01:08:00.700 Oh, yeah, this was just everywhere in evangelicalism.

01:08:04.640 Did you grow up in that?

01:08:05.580 Yeah, yeah, yeah, I did.

01:08:08.220 And I remember in college when I was first getting into more historical theology or thinking,

01:08:15.860 like, what did people believe before the 19th century about things?

01:08:20.920 For the first 1800 years?

01:08:22.880 Yeah, what did they, well, there were various different eschatological schools.

01:08:27.220 Like, there's all sorts of different views of how the end works.

01:08:31.820 But when I first get into that, I'm thinking, like, oh, I don't know if I actually believe in the rapture.

01:08:35.600 And I remember being in college and in campus ministry and telling people this.

01:08:38.700 Like, I don't know if I actually believe in that.

01:08:40.940 I mean, it was like I just uttered the greatest heresy of all time.

01:08:46.540 Like, I could have said, I probably could have said, well, you know, just denied the Trinity or something, right?

01:08:52.100 And they would have been like, oh, cool, that's interesting.

01:08:54.520 But saying, I don't think there's a rapture.

01:08:56.160 What?

01:08:56.920 Are you serious?

01:08:58.540 Right?

01:08:59.080 Like, that is central doctrine to many Christians.

01:09:03.140 And it has this deep emotional connection.

01:09:07.320 Because, I mean, if you've grown up your entire life hearing this, and it's just assumed by everybody, right?

01:09:13.360 It's hard to break out of that, even though the everybody of the historic church of millions or billions of Christians, right, it's actually a tiny minority in the history of the church that has believed that.

01:09:24.360 But presently, it's a majority of evangelicals.

01:09:28.200 Yeah.

01:09:28.360 It seems like that theology is dying.

01:09:30.100 That's just my sense.

01:09:30.880 But I'd be the last to really know.

01:09:32.560 No, I think your instincts are correct.

01:09:35.080 But I think some of it is, I mean, some of it, too, especially in the latter half of the 20th century, right, after Israel is formalized as a state in 1948, well, that gives, like, big confirmation that, okay, things are happening.

01:09:48.960 Like, there's an Israel in Revelation and a temple in Revelation.

01:09:52.480 So, it's happening, guys.

01:09:54.560 So, we've got 40 years, right?

01:09:56.420 1988, that's the end.

01:09:57.700 Well, then that doesn't happen.

01:09:59.020 And then people make all sorts of other guesses.

01:10:01.560 I wasn't even aware of that.

01:10:02.820 So, the idea was 1988, the end of the world?

01:10:04.740 Yeah, 40 years after 1948, right, that that's when the rapture is coming.

01:10:09.400 That was a, you know, I think it was, there was a book, like, 88 Reasons Why Jesus is Coming Back in 1988, right?

01:10:16.360 And I'm sure it sold a lot of copies and then, of course, didn't happen.

01:10:21.520 Wow.

01:10:22.700 Mike Takakis lost.

01:10:24.240 Yes.

01:10:26.400 No, I mean, that's not obviously the rapture, but, you know, whatever, we'll take it.

01:10:30.600 For people in Massachusetts, maybe it was.

01:10:32.520 But, yeah, it's, you know, it's just so interesting because, like, I look at it, like, you look at Matthew 24, right?

01:10:42.540 That's the big, you know, the big text that people point to.

01:10:47.580 What does it say?

01:10:48.580 Where Jesus says, well, there, you know, there's going to be wars and rumors of wars and earthquakes in various places and plagues and things like that.

01:10:55.780 But right before it, right, well, Jesus is in the temple and he's fighting with the chief priests and he's telling them, you know, he's just, he's fighting with them at Passover.

01:11:06.960 So thousands of people surrounding them, he's embarrassing them in the temple.

01:11:12.280 And...

01:11:12.640 His boldness is really shocking.

01:11:15.260 Yes.

01:11:15.640 To people who haven't read it before.

01:11:17.040 Yes.

01:11:17.280 The rage that he displays at the leadership, the religious leadership is just like...

01:11:23.740 Like nothing else.

01:11:24.980 It comes right off the page.

01:11:26.220 And, which is so ironic because you see evangelicals who are like, you need to be more Christ-like, right?

01:11:31.000 You need to be, which means, like, wimpy and weak and inoffensive.

01:11:33.680 Sweeping into the temple and knocking over tables and driving people out with a whip.

01:11:37.560 And then going into the temple and giving this parable, right, where, of the vineyard, right?

01:11:43.480 He's like, first, I sent this servant, you beat him and stoned him, and then you killed another one.

01:11:51.120 Well, I'll send my son.

01:11:52.900 They'll respect him.

01:11:54.780 And then it's the heir, right?

01:11:57.440 If we kill him, we could take the vineyard for ourselves, right?

01:12:00.180 And he asked them, what's he going to do to these people?

01:12:02.440 Well, he's going to come and he's going to destroy all of them.

01:12:05.740 And it's like, and they knew, right?

01:12:09.560 The hilarious thing, I think, like reading the Gospels is, right, Jesus is giving parables.

01:12:15.000 And the point of the parables is actually to conceal what he's saying.

01:12:18.200 And people are like, whoa, what's that?

01:12:19.620 Even his own disciples are like, what?

01:12:21.200 What's that about?

01:12:21.960 I don't really know.

01:12:22.780 Like, it doesn't make any sense.

01:12:24.220 But he's telling parables to the chief priests and the Pharisees and all the leaders of Israel.

01:12:27.580 And they're like, oh, that's about us.

01:12:30.020 I think it says they understood it was about them.

01:12:32.420 They knew.

01:12:32.740 And they decided to kill him.

01:12:33.720 Yeah, so the parables are like obscure to everybody else.

01:12:37.180 But when it's about them, like, oh, he's talking about us, right?

01:12:41.800 But talk about speaking truth to power.

01:12:45.140 I mean, like, I don't know how that Jesus was kept for me as a lifelong churchgoer.

01:12:53.140 I have no idea.

01:12:54.380 Yeah.

01:12:54.880 But you just read it.

01:12:55.840 I would recommend everyone read it, non-Christians alike.

01:12:58.180 But he's there.

01:12:58.920 He's right there.

01:12:59.980 And especially the Gospel of Matthew, I love it because it is.

01:13:02.680 But Mark too.

01:13:03.220 Yeah, all four.

01:13:04.140 I mean, obviously, all four of them.

01:13:05.440 But like Matthew in particular is so cool to me because like you read it and the way it's organized is Jesus is recapitulating the entire history of Israel, right?

01:13:16.500 So right in the very beginning, he goes out into the wilderness for 40 days and 40 nights, right?

01:13:23.280 Just like Israel's in the wilderness for 40 years, right?

01:13:25.920 It's tempted by Satan.

01:13:26.840 He comes, right?

01:13:27.760 He comes, right?

01:13:29.220 After he crosses or goes and is baptized in the Jordan, is like crossing the Red Sea, goes into the wilderness.

01:13:35.840 Then after that, right, he is preaching a sermon on a mountain expounding the law, which is Moses on Sinai, right?

01:13:44.560 And after this, he's telling parables of the kingdom like he's David or like he's Solomon writing Proverbs, writing Psalms.

01:13:52.360 And then he begins all of these excoriations of the high priesthood and the Pharisees and all the leaders of Israel.

01:14:00.860 Well, what's that like?

01:14:01.440 It's like the prophets, right?

01:14:03.000 So he's reliving the whole history of Israel in his lifetime.

01:14:08.600 What's Matthew doing there?

01:14:09.800 What's the Holy Spirit doing there?

01:14:11.260 It's showing that Jesus is Israel, right?

01:14:13.380 He's the true Israel, right?

01:14:14.600 He is the, as the Apostle Paul says, he's the chosen seed of Abraham, right?

01:14:19.560 He's the one that carries out Israel's mission, which is, you know, Dove Bill, I'm kind of doing the weave too, like doing the weave.

01:14:29.740 It's Trumpian.

01:14:30.580 It is.

01:14:31.820 People, I mean, when I'm preaching, people are like, Andrew, you're doing the weave like President Trump.

01:14:36.080 But like Trump, it's interesting.

01:14:37.460 I try not to do the hand motions and things like him too, but we all have our own rhetorical style.

01:14:43.760 But it's interesting because, right, like the whole dispensational thing where it's like, okay, right, the old covenant still somehow sort of exists and there's still this, you know, this distinction between Jew and Gentile out there.

01:14:57.720 Well, like the Holy Testament talks about this, that no, right, that separation that existed in the old covenant, right?

01:15:07.100 They're brought together as one in Jesus who is the true Israel, the successful Israel, the Israel that's obedient and goes to the death and is vindicated by being resurrected, right?

01:15:18.940 Right. And that old covenant, it's done. It's over, right? Those distinctions between Jew and Gentile, they're gone.

01:15:24.120 It says that only about a thousand times in every book of the New Testament.

01:15:28.860 So to come to the opposite conclusion does make you sort of wonder, like, have you read it?

01:15:32.960 Yeah, exactly. And whether you believe it or not, that's just not what it says at all.

01:15:39.640 Yeah. And so you think about that and it's like, okay, these two are brought together.

01:15:43.460 I mean, the whole book of Acts is about this, right?

01:15:46.440 That the Holy Spirit not only goes to the apostles and the Jews in Jerusalem, but the Gentiles get it too.

01:15:54.280 Like Peter goes to Cornelius and he believes.

01:15:56.460 And now here is this Roman, right? This Gentile. And the interesting thing about that too is there's this misconception that the only people in the Old Testament that believed in God were Jews.

01:16:08.440 But it's like everywhere they go, there are these Gentile God-fearers that believe in God. And Cornelius is one of them in the New Testament.

01:16:15.440 Well, it's all through the New Testament. And in fact, Jesus calls out repeatedly Gentiles as the most faithful.

01:16:23.820 Yes.

01:16:24.060 Repeatedly.

01:16:24.680 Yes.

01:16:25.080 The Roman officer.

01:16:26.000 Yes. Yes. Again, like, I mean, he says this in the Gospels, like he's talking about, right, the faithful or faithless and adulterous generation, right?

01:16:36.600 He's talking about Israel. And he's saying in the resurrection, right, Sodom and Gomorrah and Tyre and Sidon, they'll rise, right? Sodom, destroyed for trying to rape angels.

01:16:50.980 They will rise up in judgment on this generation because if the things that I'm doing, right, if the Son of God appeared to them and preached to them, they would have repented, right?

01:17:02.280 And Nineveh, right, this Gentile city in the Old Testament of Assyrians, right, brutal, bloodthirsty people, right?

01:17:11.120 Jonah shows up and he preaches.

01:17:17.480 And his only message is, in 40 days, Nineveh is going to be destroyed, right? He's gleeful about this. And the king hears about it. He repents. He makes all the people in the city wear sackcloth and ashes.

01:17:31.800 And it's like, well, I don't really know what's going to happen, but this looks serious. We better repent.

01:17:38.920 And, I mean, we're going to go in the deep weeds here if you let me. You know, this is – I'm not filibustering like President Putin did.

01:17:46.720 But, right, you look at the book of Jonah in particular. He is – he flees not because he's afraid of the Assyrians, right?

01:18:01.620 Like that's the – what people think is like he's scared to go there. No.

01:18:05.640 Like you read the end of the book of Jonah and he's arguing with God at the end and he's saying, I knew that you would show mercy on these people, right?

01:18:15.460 I knew you would show them mercy. That's why I didn't want to go, right?

01:18:18.600 He's trying to – he was trying to outwit God, like trick God into not being gracious to these Gentiles because he knows in the law, right, in Deuteronomy, right,

01:18:31.080 one of the signs that Israel is about to be cursed is that he is going to call nations, right, the Gentiles, right,

01:18:38.480 nations that do not know him to himself. He's going to go to the Gentiles and away from Israel.

01:18:43.900 And that means judgment is going to come upon Israel. So Jonah knows this.

01:18:48.320 He's like, I am going the opposite direction. I'm going to Tarshish, to Spain.

01:18:52.680 Because I am not going to let God judge my people, right? That's why he's angry about this.

01:18:57.940 And it gets even more interesting because Jesus talks about the sign of Jonah to Israel.

01:19:03.680 And people think, oh, well, Jonah's – he's talking about the resurrection, being in the ground for three days and three nights.

01:19:10.580 And it's like – I mean, that's symbolic. That's typological. He's drawing on the typology.

01:19:16.780 But it's not about that. It's that what's going to happen? Gentiles are going to hear the gospel and not you, right?

01:19:24.940 And that judgment is going to come on Israel, right? Judgment is going to come on this generation.

01:19:29.820 And that's what Jesus says at the beginning of Matthew 24 is these things are going to happen in this generation, right?

01:19:36.140 He's walking with the disciples in the temple, and they're marveling at the – we would marvel too.

01:19:41.400 I mean, beautiful – like the whole thing is clad in gold on the outside. It's gorgeous, beautiful, giant, massive stones.

01:19:47.420 It boggles your mind how human beings could move these things and build this stuff without, you know, modern power tools, right?

01:19:54.540 They're marveling at the temple. And Jesus is like, what are you looking at, right?

01:20:00.780 Do you not know that not one stone is going to be left upon another very soon?

01:20:05.860 And they're like, oh, boy. When's this going to happen?

01:20:09.280 Well, 37 years later, actually.

01:20:11.020 Yeah. Well, I think it's – we can debate, you know.

01:20:13.300 Well, whenever.

01:20:13.820 40 years later, but –

01:20:15.340 Okay, 40 years later, but I mean –

01:20:17.260 I'll be autistic on that point with you.

01:20:18.640 The second revolt, it's normally said to be 70.

01:20:22.240 Yeah, I think the resurrection is in 30. I mean, we're coming up on 2,000 years for that.

01:20:26.160 The point is, the Romans, it's actually crazy the effort that they – I mean, I'm sure you've been there to the site.

01:20:34.580 I haven't – maybe one day.

01:20:36.260 Oh, you should go. Jerusalem is the most amazing city, and they've – anyway.

01:20:40.420 But they just went to such a great effort to separate every stone.

01:20:46.060 Destroy everything.

01:20:47.000 So how much – they didn't just burn it and sack it, okay, got it, but they actually dismantled it.

01:20:52.580 Yes.

01:20:52.940 Piece by piece. How many slaves did that take?

01:20:55.660 How much money did that take?

01:20:56.980 How much effort, human effort did – why would you do that?

01:20:59.380 Why would you bother to do that?

01:21:00.580 So, okay, I just want – and I'm so sorry for the discursions, but I want to get to your destination, which is Tennessee.

01:21:10.960 Yeah, yeah.

01:21:11.860 Can you be a lot more specific about what you're doing there?

01:21:15.540 I know there have been attempts to paint this as some sort of white supremacist enclave or theocracy or whatever.

01:21:22.900 What actually is it? Can you describe it?

01:21:24.480 No, so really it's a real estate venture to build communities, to build – and I'm even hesitant to call it like subdivisions.

01:21:36.080 Because it's not subdivisions. It'll be – it's large properties, you know, two, three, ten-acre lots where people –

01:21:43.180 Has someone already bought the land?

01:21:44.440 Yes, yes.

01:21:45.160 So Ridge Runners bought the parcels. It's being divided up and sold, you know, as we speak.

01:21:48.920 Like, and one of them, you know, my church is going to build a church, like, right at the center.

01:21:55.000 And so it's – so imagine, you know, so there's kind of two kinds of development that happen, or really just one kind.

01:22:01.360 It's just build massive cul-de-sac subdivisions, houses for black rock, that kind of thing.

01:22:08.880 And, like, that's not how America was built, right?

01:22:12.940 Like, my town, you know, is founded in the middle of the 19th century, and, like, the first thing that gets built, like, everywhere else, were churches, right?

01:22:21.900 And then schools.

01:22:23.280 And that's not featured anywhere in any, you know, subdivisions or real estate developments at all.

01:22:29.580 There's no place for people to congregate and have an actual community.

01:22:32.480 Yeah, yeah. Like, you see all of these ones.

01:22:34.300 I mean, I've seen some of the plans in, like, places around, like, the Dallas-Fort Worth area where it's, like, they have a lazy river and they have all these nice amenities like that.

01:22:43.240 There's never, like, a church, right?

01:22:45.460 There's never anything that the old America once had.

01:22:50.300 And so, yeah, my church is going to build, it's building there.

01:22:56.140 Families from all over the country, some of them, you know, know me, I've known them, and they've been dying to get out of their blue state, city, you know, horrible existence out of the traditional subdivision into a place where they can have land, where they can have, you know, have some chickens, maybe a cow, like, live like Americans, you know, used to.

01:23:18.960 And be out in nature and enjoy beautiful things, right?

01:23:25.360 To build something like that, because that's happening, like, everywhere, like, it's development, right?

01:23:30.140 Especially in Tennessee, like, it's like here in Florida, just exploding, right?

01:23:36.120 So many people moving there because they're trying to get out of these places.

01:23:40.720 And so what gets built, right?

01:23:42.420 Black rock style subdivisions and just hideous buildings.

01:23:46.380 Hideous.

01:23:46.480 Yeah, and very anti-human.

01:23:48.320 Right, right.

01:23:49.180 And so this is development that is human scaled.

01:23:53.020 It's built for people to enjoy actual life, right?

01:23:56.600 For people to congregate in the same area where they hold, you know, similar values, right?

01:24:04.000 You don't want to live in a place where everybody hates you and hates what you think and hates that you love Donald Trump, you love your country, you love your God.

01:24:14.000 I've done that.

01:24:14.540 Yeah, you don't want that.

01:24:17.340 And tons of people, it was like, oh, wouldn't it be great if I had neighbors that, you know, we pretty much agreed on everything.

01:24:23.860 We, you know, agree on everything politically, culturally, all of that.

01:24:28.080 And then you don't even have to talk about it.

01:24:29.940 You just have normal life together, right?

01:24:32.580 Your kids can play with their kids and grow up together, right?

01:24:36.040 That's the kind of thing that, you know, that's being built there in Tennessee.

01:24:40.120 And so I'm, I'm so excited to be a part of it.

01:24:44.320 The fact that there's a church at the center of it is, is a red flag for the authorities in most places and certainly for the cultural commentators and the, and, and the media.

01:24:55.440 And if it was any other religious institution, of course, it would be, it'd be great.

01:24:59.040 That would be your community.

01:24:59.740 They're praising the Muslim communities in Texas, for instance.

01:25:04.260 Right.

01:25:04.620 Or the illegal alien communities in Texas or whatever.

01:25:07.380 But a Christian church is, and I don't think any Christians should be surprised.

01:25:11.120 I mean, the Bible says you're going to be persecuted for believing this.

01:25:13.980 So, and they are.

01:25:15.560 All right.

01:25:16.200 Prediction come true.

01:25:17.380 But tell us the response to this, this dangerous venture of yours.

01:25:21.380 Well, you know, like locally, the people in town are, and in the surrounding area, even despite like the news attacking us and things like that, the people that I, that I've, I've spoken to, the people I've met in the town are, are very, you know, they're, they're like, like, very enthusiastic, actually.

01:25:43.540 That, especially when they see, you know, see the things that I do, see the podcast I do or various things.

01:25:50.160 Like, oh, like, you're not at all like the TV man said you are.

01:25:55.360 And, of course, these are people that, you know, that we've been describing.

01:25:58.300 Like, they don't trust the media.

01:25:59.660 They don't trust journalists.

01:26:01.120 So, they're already, they're already distrusting of that.

01:26:04.720 I'm like, oh, it just seems like you really like Donald Trump and the United States and Americans and the Constitution and our freedoms.

01:26:13.700 And, like, you seem like a just normal, you know, conservative kind of guy.

01:26:17.940 And I'm like, yeah, I, I am.

01:26:20.740 That's, I'm an open, open book.

01:26:22.420 Like, there's no, you know, what you see is what you get.

01:26:25.500 What I, what I believe, I earnestly believe.

01:26:28.580 And so, so people are very, have been very, very kind.

01:26:33.500 But the state legislature hasn't tried to.

01:26:35.800 No, no.

01:26:36.700 Mess with your zoning permits or anything like that.

01:26:38.640 No.

01:26:38.720 And, and, and the, the thing is, it's like, well, the, the company itself is not saying, well, this is a community, like, that would, you know, violate the Fair Housing Act, right?

01:26:47.260 To say this is a Christian-only community.

01:26:50.540 It's just that my church is allowed to build a church there, right?

01:26:54.400 Um, there's no law against that at all.

01:26:58.040 And, um, and I can, I can call up friends and say, hey, you want to move here and be part of our thing that we've got going on?

01:27:05.440 What are the costs like?

01:27:06.480 Oh, the cost of living is extremely low.

01:27:09.120 Like, there's no, there's no income tax in Tennessee, just like, like Florida.

01:27:13.620 And, and so, it's, it's, especially compared to large cities, you know, much, much cheaper place to live.

01:27:22.000 Uh, so a lot of people are like, oh, wow, that's only going to cost me this much for a home?

01:27:26.160 Uh, it would cost me two or three times that if I were to build something like this and I get land to have.

01:27:31.820 Are, are houses being built there?

01:27:33.480 Uh, they're starting to be.

01:27:34.600 Yeah, yeah.

01:27:35.100 My, my, my friend CJ actually is right in the, uh, right in the beginning stages of, of building his, uh, his dream house.

01:27:42.060 Uh, he's going to be one of the first ones.

01:27:45.080 That's quite a concept.

01:27:47.240 Do you think that, and you've written a book about this called the, the Boniface Option, which, um, was controversial, but also loved, uh, like all good things.

01:27:57.740 That's right.

01:27:59.500 Maybe you're speaking self-referentially, but, uh, or.

01:28:02.160 No, no, no, no, no, no, I'm not.

01:28:03.980 No, I was just saying like, you know, it's pistachio ice cream, you know, like not everyone loves it, but the people who do really do.

01:28:10.000 They really do.

01:28:10.440 Yeah.

01:28:10.600 So, um, but I think you suggest that, that like, it's, it's time for.

01:28:16.640 Yeah.

01:28:17.240 For, for sincere Christians to be in fellowship with each other, like physically.

01:28:21.380 Yeah.

01:28:21.680 Yeah.

01:28:21.920 Especially because, you know, you see, you know, sort of like online communities where, where people are like, oh, I, I, I like this pastor.

01:28:29.880 I like the, you know, sermons that he preaches.

01:28:32.040 Or I, I, I, I agree with this theology and I'm being formed in shape.

01:28:37.440 And you kind of, you band into, into groups online where you, you sort of self-sort and, and there are these massive communities on, on the internet.

01:28:46.280 And it's like, well, what if, what if we took that, this like digital community that exists and what if we made it in real life?

01:28:53.880 Right.

01:28:54.080 What would that, that be like?

01:28:55.560 Right.

01:28:55.900 And, and that's kind of sort of what, at least, at least for me, uh, what I'm trying to do is what if we, we bring people together in real life?

01:29:05.620 What, what kind of stuff can we do?

01:29:06.820 Like, I'm trying to just make it on my own, right?

01:29:09.300 Just eke out an existence.

01:29:10.900 But what if we all did that together and multiplied, you know, our, our respective bandwidths, right?

01:29:18.780 What kind of stuff would we be able to accomplish?

01:29:20.440 And you would have businesses there too?

01:29:22.360 Yeah.

01:29:22.600 People are already moving their, their businesses there.

01:29:25.540 Yeah.

01:29:25.980 And, uh, and the, the exciting thing is, um, and it wouldn't be just like the people moving in right there.

01:29:31.740 The only ones working at these businesses, like it will, it will help, uh, the people that are from there, the local community, which is, you know, throughout the, you know, because of macroeconomic forces, geopolitical things, uh, things that were done to our country, all, all the manufacturing and, and real good jobs.

01:29:48.780 Jobs that used to exist in a place like this, those are all mostly gone.

01:29:52.880 And so what would it look like if we brought those things back, right?

01:29:56.620 How would it, how would it bless the people in that area?

01:29:59.680 Right.

01:30:00.120 That's, that's a major part of it.

01:30:01.820 Yeah.

01:30:02.580 Um, and, and so, uh, that's, that's the exciting thing is, well, we can, we, we come to a place like this.

01:30:10.800 Uh, we bring our, our friends that have, you know, some of them have remote jobs and, and, and good incomes.

01:30:15.360 Um, they can, they'll, people will spend money locally and businesses will spring up because of that.

01:30:21.760 Uh, people will bring businesses and need employees and, and the, you know, the people in the area will, will flourish in a way that they haven't for, for quite a while.

01:30:32.840 That's the pioneer spirit.

01:30:34.100 For people who are interested, what's the name of it, this again?

01:30:36.720 Uh, Ridge Runner.

01:30:37.580 So the Highland Rim Project.

01:30:40.140 Highland Rim Project.

01:30:41.700 Highland Rim Project.

01:30:42.480 Yeah.

01:30:42.880 So the website is, uh, RidgeRunnerUSA.com.

01:30:47.700 Uh, to look at that.

01:30:48.680 Yeah.

01:30:49.180 So I have one last question for you.

01:30:50.420 Do you expect, I mean, what you described in your home state, in your hometown, it's basically the persecution of Christians, the people who built the United States.

01:30:59.220 Um, and that is a trend.

01:31:01.020 Do you expect, where do you expect that trend to go to the extent you can predict it?

01:31:05.060 That's the most difficult thing, of course, always making predictions.

01:31:07.520 It is, of course.

01:31:07.900 But, um, I, I think it will go in, in two directions.

01:31:12.440 Um, so, you know, you have, uh, the left, I mean, you see this right now, just how violent they are.

01:31:18.620 They're just itching to destroy things, destroy people.

01:31:22.020 Um, they're burning Teslas.

01:31:24.140 They're, they're, they, they, they shot, uh, President Trump, right?

01:31:28.400 They, um, they're very, very, very violent people.

01:31:31.840 And, of course, like, the political apparatus on their side loves that, right?

01:31:35.260 They never condemn it.

01:31:36.060 They never say these things are bad.

01:31:37.260 Of course, of course.

01:31:37.820 Um, and we saw the same thing.

01:31:39.240 They're youth brigades.

01:31:40.320 Yeah.

01:31:40.680 They're militia.

01:31:41.320 They're militia.

01:31:41.360 In 2020, right?

01:31:42.300 The same, the same exact, exact thing.

01:31:45.120 And so I think, you know, and there have been, you know, instances of, of churches being, you know, shot at and burned down and, and, and bombed and things like this.

01:31:53.540 I think those kinds of things will, will continue to happen and continue to get worse, um, especially in blue states and blue cities where it's basically allowed, you know, George Soros just handpicks all the prosecutors and they're not going to enforce these laws.

01:32:08.300 Um, and, but on, on the flip side, um, they're, they're, they're still like tens of millions of Christians, very conservative evangelicals and, and the like.

01:32:20.480 Like, uh, they, they just got president Trump elected.

01:32:24.620 Right.

01:32:25.120 Um, and, and political power is being wielded.

01:32:28.900 Um, and that, and that's always, that's always the thing is like for, for so many years we were told, um, that no, no, no, we, our enemies have all this political power, but we, we're going to restrain ourselves.

01:32:40.980 We're going to follow the constitution and we're just going to expect them to disarm themselves for reasons.

01:32:46.800 Um, and, and that, um, you know, sort of way of thinking among conservatives is quickly being discarded that the only, the only thing you could do is confront power with power.

01:33:00.540 Right.

01:33:01.140 Um, and, and president Trump and vice president Vance, they're wielding power and, and that wielding of power is going to defend Christians in this country.

01:33:11.140 Yes, it will.

01:33:11.780 And, and, and so I, I think like that conflict will continue to become more stark, right?

01:33:17.960 The two visions for the country, um, will, will become more black and white, right?

01:33:24.580 It will become more obvious that, um, that Christians need to, uh, band together, um, to leave places where they have no protection whatsoever, where people like Tim Walls or, or the, the next governor of Minnesota, probably Keith Ellison, who is an Antifa Muslim.

01:33:43.480 Um, like they, I mean, that was a terrifying thing too.

01:33:47.080 It's like this guy probably, maybe he knows who I am and what, what could that guy do to me, right?

01:33:52.020 Um, uh, to leave a place like that where you will very likely be persecuted, right?

01:33:58.040 They, they want to have a foil, like the, the whole thing on, on Christian nationalism.

01:34:02.180 I mean, this is why, why I wrote a book on that is in 2022, the media is just attacking like normal, decent, evangelical people that happen to like Donald Trump and have skepticism about the election, the vaccine, everything.

01:34:16.080 And, uh, and make them the boogeyman.

01:34:18.400 And they, they would always say white Christian nationalism.

01:34:20.600 They always put those things together because they happen to be white.

01:34:23.520 And even though they espouse no white nationalist tendencies at all.

01:34:28.340 They have no race theology whatsoever.

01:34:30.260 Whatsoever at all.

01:34:31.180 Like they're, they're like, well, I'm totally colorblind.

01:34:32.900 They have a universalist theology.

01:34:34.500 Absolutely.

01:34:35.140 Right.

01:34:35.540 Unlike the fascists who run the U S media who are like Nazi race mongers.

01:34:40.260 Totally, totally.

01:34:40.840 How many people of color?

01:34:42.020 We're going to count you by race, which they literally do in this country.

01:34:45.040 Who's the Nazi.

01:34:46.820 I know.

01:34:48.040 They don't see that in church.

01:34:49.820 When people come to your church, you're like, how many blacks do we have today?

01:34:52.020 How many Hispanics?

01:34:52.660 How many Pacific Islanders?

01:34:53.640 Don't you're like, we have Christians.

01:34:54.880 Well, the evangelical leadership definitely does.

01:34:57.020 Right.

01:34:57.220 They, uh.

01:34:57.860 Well, they've fallen for this stuff.

01:34:59.140 Yeah, of course.

01:34:59.560 But, but never forget how poisonous it is.

01:35:02.380 Absolutely.

01:35:03.100 Yeah.

01:35:03.540 I think.

01:35:04.080 Yeah, it is.

01:35:05.020 It's like, well, no, we just have Christians.

01:35:06.520 Right.

01:35:06.780 Um, and so, no, I think, I think those, those trends will continue and, and, but I'm, I'm

01:35:14.140 hopeful.

01:35:14.660 I'm optimistic, right?

01:35:15.500 I'm espousing this optimistic eschatology.

01:35:18.460 Uh, so of course I'm, I'm optimistic.

01:35:20.760 I'm always, always hoping for, uh, the very best.

01:35:24.480 And I, I think that especially if, if the kind of, um, evangelical Christianity, right?

01:35:31.320 Historic Christianity, the, the Christianity that built Christendom, that built the West,

01:35:35.440 that built America, uh, if that comes back, right?

01:35:39.400 The kind of, of Christianity that, that sees Jesus in the gospels, like we were talking about

01:35:43.100 earlier and sees a man, right?

01:35:45.420 A man that is on a mission and is totally courageous and, and attacking God's enemies,

01:35:52.840 right?

01:35:53.220 To their face, knowing it's going to get him killed, right?

01:35:56.600 That kind of Christianity that preaches like that, that speaks like that, that, that sees

01:36:02.700 a God that is real and is, is, is your God.

01:36:07.460 And he is, he, he loves you and he, he loves what's true and good and right.

01:36:13.240 And there's justice.

01:36:14.440 And he is going to bring justice to all of his enemies, right?

01:36:19.120 To all of the people that hate him, all the people that, that do just monstrous evil,

01:36:23.340 right?

01:36:23.940 That kind of Christianity, that makes it come back in America.

01:36:26.640 Well, that's, that's an America that has a future.

01:36:31.540 I have to say, I think that the hallmarks of courage among them are cheerfulness and

01:36:36.960 optimism.

01:36:38.100 I do think that, and, um, you have that, you know, for a dangerous theocratic fascist, you

01:36:44.540 seem very optimistic and cheerful.

01:36:46.940 So thank you for spending all this time.

01:36:48.740 I really appreciate it.

01:36:49.780 Thank you so much for having me.

01:36:50.920 It was great to meet you.

01:36:51.960 Yeah.

01:36:52.160 It's nice meeting you as well.

01:36:52.980 Thank you.

01:36:53.940 We want to thank you for watching us on Spotify, a company that we use every day.

01:37:01.320 We know the people who run it, good people.

01:37:03.280 While you're here, do us a favor, hit follow and tap the bell so you never miss an episode.

01:37:09.300 We have real conversations, news, things that actually matter.

01:37:12.460 Telling the truth always, you will not miss it if you follow us on Spotify and hit the bell.

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01:37:17.980 Thanks for watching.

The Tucker Carlson Show - March 31, 2025

Andrew Isker： Building a Christian Refuge to Fight Wokeness, Transgenderism, and Paganism

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