The Tucker Carlson Show - April 15, 2024


Pastor Doug Wilson

Topics
Christian nationalism control of mind Christian nationalism credit card fees and legislation tyranny and authority separation of church and state unbridled immigration secularism tools
Hosted by
Tucker Carlson
Mentioned
Russell Moore David French Sabbath Francis Schaeffer Pastor Wilson Thomas Sewell Stephen Wolf Doug Wilson Canon Press Joe Biden Shadrach Tucker Brewer William F. Buckley George Whitefield Mere Christendom Thomas Jefferson Roger Marshall John MacArthur Holy Trinity and 17 more
Naomi Wolf Pavel Durov

Episode Stats


Length

1 hour and 8 minutes

Words per minute

158.27

Word count

10,795

Sentence count

1,035

Harmful content

Misogyny

3

sentences flagged

Toxicity

21

sentences flagged

Hate speech

48

sentences flagged


Summary

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

Doug Wilson is the author of a book called Mere Christendom, The Case for Bringing Christianity Back into Modern Culture . He's one of the rare American Christian pastors who is willing to engage on questions of culture and politics . Pastor Wilson: I'm sincerely confused by the phrase Christian nationalism, which seems like an attack on Christianity .

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 The Greeks invented democracy, so if you like democracy, you're Greek. 0.96
00:00:05.060 If you've ever voted for a candidate, voted someone off an island,
00:00:08.920 left work early to go to the polls, or lied about going to the polls so you could leave work early,
00:00:13.760 that's good enough. You're Greek. 0.71
00:00:15.900 So eat like it. That means ordering delicious and fresh chicken souvlaki with tzatziki from Jimmy the Greek.
00:00:22.220 You deserve it, you pillar of democracy, you.
00:00:25.560 You're Greek. Eat like it with Jimmy the Greek. 1.00
00:00:28.760 Hashtag Gimme Jimmy.
00:00:40.820 So if you're Joe Biden standing for re-election at the age of 81,
00:00:43.820 the obvious question is what exactly are you going to run on?
00:00:46.640 You're not going to run on the state of the economy.
00:00:48.180 You're not going to run on the state of the world, which is increasingly chaotic.
00:00:50.800 You're not going to run on lengthening life expectancy
00:00:53.560 because actually life expectancy is declining in the United States under his watch.
00:00:58.000 So what are you going to run on?
00:00:58.920 Well, you're going to run against.
00:00:59.960 And the main thing Biden is going to run against is Christianity, running against Christianity.
00:01:05.020 He's already put people in prison for praying, so it's not a stretch. 1.00
00:01:08.040 But of course, you're not going to say I'm running against Christianity, the world's largest religion.
00:01:11.320 You're going to say I'm running against something called Christian nationalism, 0.76
00:01:14.180 which was a way of making traditional Christianity seem like a threat to the country rather than the principle upon which it was founded.
00:01:21.780 So that is their plan.
00:01:22.860 They can run against something called Christian nationalism.
00:01:25.660 And in this, they have the full cooperation of Hollywood and the media outlets,
00:01:30.980 which are whipping up the population into a frenzy over this threat called Christian nationalism.
00:01:36.660 Well, most of us, even those of us who pay some attention, aren't really sure what Christian nationalism is.
00:01:41.840 Is it a product of what it sounds like, which is some branding meeting in the basement of the DNC
00:01:46.420 designed to make Christians seem really scary if they believe in God?
00:01:50.460 Maybe.
00:01:51.580 We decided we would ask the person most closely identified with that phrase Christian nationalism.
00:01:57.720 He's one of the rare American Christian pastors who is willing to engage on questions of culture and politics.
00:02:05.300 And for that, he has taken a lot of grief, but we are honored to have him.
00:02:08.080 His name is Doug Wilson.
00:02:09.180 He's the pastor at Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho.
00:02:12.320 He is the author of several books, including a book called Mere Christendom,
00:02:16.320 The Case for Bringing Christianity Back into Modern Culture. 1.00
00:02:20.320 And Pastor Wilson joins us now.
00:02:22.120 Pastor, thank you very much.
00:02:23.000 It's an honor to be here.
00:02:24.100 Thank you.
00:02:24.640 Thank you.
00:02:25.620 So I'm sincerely—that was not opposed.
00:02:27.680 I'm sincerely confused by the phrase Christian nationalism, which seems like an attack on Christianity to me.
00:02:34.420 What is it to the extent you understand it?
00:02:36.300 And are you a Christian nationalist?
00:02:38.180 So I'm willing to be a Christian nationalist because—
00:02:41.300 Okay.
00:02:42.320 Because I prefer that phrase to the phrase I usually get called.
00:02:46.620 So—
00:02:47.020 What do you usually get called? 0.52
00:02:48.220 White supremacist. 0.99
00:02:49.560 White supremacist. 1.00
00:02:50.660 Slave advocate. 1.00
00:02:51.620 Oh. 0.95
00:02:52.400 You know, racist. 0.98
00:02:53.940 You know, all the theofascist. 0.99
00:02:56.160 So the left really does hate Christianity. 0.83
00:03:00.500 Yes.
00:03:00.880 And with the phrase Christian nationalism, even the part of it that's coming from the left,
00:03:06.040 trying to wrap that around our necks, that's something I think I can explain.
00:03:11.140 I can say, yeah, yes, but—and then explain it inside of two minutes.
00:03:15.460 May I just ask before you—and thank you for doing that, and I will listen rapidly because I really want to know.
00:03:19.900 But just to clarify the terms, is that a phrase that you or people with your beliefs came up with, or was that a phrase that was leveled against you?
00:03:27.540 Well, both.
00:03:29.880 Canon Press, located in Moscow, Idaho, has a streaming service called Canon Plus.
00:03:37.160 Canon Press published The Case for Christian Nationalism by Stephen Wolf.
00:03:41.820 So that was our embrace of the term, okay?
00:03:45.220 And Stephen Wolf wrote a defense, a scholarly defense of the whole thing, the history of the whole thing.
00:03:51.200 So we embraced it to that extent.
00:03:52.920 But then on MSNBC just a few weeks ago, there was one of the talking heads there that said,
00:03:59.340 anybody who believes that rights come from God and not from Congress and not from the Supreme Court is a Christian nationalist, right?
00:04:07.360 So anybody who—you know, making Thomas Jefferson a Christian nationalist, endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights.
00:04:15.640 So anybody who believes that, according to the left, is a Christian nationalist.
00:04:21.080 And there is a developed set of arguments in defense of that phrase that can be, I think, pointed out in short order. 0.93
00:04:30.640 You can't—there's no—trying to defend other things they call you is like putting lipstick on a pig.
00:04:37.080 It's just—you're not—it's not going to be any—
00:04:39.540 No.
00:04:39.780 All right.
00:04:40.560 But this is something that people can say, oh, I love my nation, and I'm a Christian.
00:04:46.720 Why can't these—
00:04:47.580 Well, that's how I feel about it.
00:04:48.960 Right.
00:04:49.060 I don't know what it is.
00:04:49.920 So how would you define it?
00:04:51.400 So it's, I think, very simple.
00:04:54.760 If there is no God above the society, if there is no God above the state, take God away.
00:05:00.880 Yes.
00:05:01.360 The state is God.
00:05:02.500 Yes.
00:05:03.340 Okay?
00:05:03.680 If there is no God above the state, the state is God.
00:05:06.780 The state becomes God.
00:05:07.740 And it assumes the prerogatives of deity.
00:05:11.020 You know, cameras at every intersection, aping omniscience.
00:05:17.200 Yes.
00:05:17.880 Omnipresence.
00:05:19.360 Big brothers watching you.
00:05:21.240 Control of your mind.
00:05:22.140 Control of your mind.
00:05:22.960 They want to control absolutely everything.
00:05:25.140 Every keystroke, they want to control everything because they're aspiring to deity.
00:05:29.360 The reason they're aspiring to deity is because they don't recognize any God above them.
00:05:34.980 Okay?
00:05:35.240 Now, this is where everybody, I think I'd be with, most people would be with me up to that
00:05:40.980 point.
00:05:41.780 All conservative, believing Christians.
00:05:43.760 The state is not God.
00:05:44.980 The state is not God.
00:05:45.980 Yes.
00:05:46.520 Okay?
00:05:46.760 And the early Christians were persecuted, not because they worshiped Jesus, but because
00:05:51.300 they would not worship Caesar.
00:05:53.760 All right?
00:05:53.940 The whole issue of Christians being thrown to the lions had to do with who they wouldn't 1.00
00:05:58.340 worship, not who they would.
00:05:59.720 Right.
00:06:00.360 Okay.
00:06:00.860 The Romans were more than happy to add Jesus to the pantheon.
00:06:04.080 Yes, exactly.
00:06:04.760 Okay.
00:06:05.340 But the claims of Christ are exclusive, and Christians would not recognize Caesar as Lord. 0.55
00:06:12.000 Jesus is Lord, is the fundamental Christian confession.
00:06:15.260 So most Christians are with me right up to that point.
00:06:17.340 But then the immediate comeback question from our antagonists would be, okay, if you want
00:06:24.460 to have a God above the state, smart aleck, which God?
00:06:28.840 Okay?
00:06:29.220 And that lands you right in the middle of theological debate, which is the last place in the world
00:06:33.000 a lot of people want to be.
00:06:34.960 For sure.
00:06:35.620 Okay?
00:06:36.740 Is it Allah? 0.90
00:06:37.840 Is it Shiva, the God of destruction?
00:06:41.480 Is it the Unitarian God?
00:06:43.580 Is it the Christian God? 0.99
00:06:44.980 What do you, you know, what God is it?
00:06:46.940 Is it Satan of the Church of Satan?
00:06:48.840 Right.
00:06:49.240 And incidentally, if I could put here, our current rulers don't believe in God, but they
00:06:55.840 do believe in the devil.
00:06:57.260 All right.
00:06:58.240 And their belief in the devil is why they want to ascend the sides of the north.
00:07:03.300 They want to be as the most high.
00:07:05.480 That was the initial temptation in the garden.
00:07:08.000 You shall be as God.
00:07:09.220 Yes.
00:07:09.500 Okay.
00:07:10.340 So, our current rulers are very ambitious, and they want to aspire to that height.
00:07:17.060 We don't want to resist them in the name of Christ, because we don't want to launch another
00:07:22.880 series of interminable religious wars.
00:07:25.500 Right.
00:07:26.040 Okay.
00:07:27.200 Because we don't want the Muslims fighting with the Jews, fighting with the Christians,
00:07:31.360 fighting with, you know, all of that.
00:07:33.720 All right.
00:07:33.980 So, that's the most reasonable question.
00:07:36.120 When they say, which God, the Christian, and here's the answer to your question, the Christian
00:07:40.740 nationalist is the one who's willing to answer that question and speaking into the microphone,
00:07:46.320 the true God, the living God, the one who exists.
00:07:50.180 Yes.
00:07:50.720 Not the one, not the God on our money.
00:07:54.640 You know, now, there's a corrective there.
00:07:57.560 The God on our money used to be the Christian God, because that was put there when there was 1.00
00:08:01.960 a robust Christian consensus in this country.
00:08:05.540 All right.
00:08:05.780 So, we had an informal establishment at the founding of the United States, where the religious
00:08:12.040 differences that we were willing to acknowledge and work with were the differences between
00:08:16.860 Baptists and Presbyterians and Anglicans.
00:08:19.800 It was not the difference between Muslims and Hindus, and it wasn't the whole entire 0.95
00:08:25.800 landscape, because all law, and this is the next principle, all law is imposed morality.
00:08:36.100 By definition.
00:08:36.980 By definition.
00:08:37.820 It's not whether but which.
00:08:39.580 It's not whether you're imposing morality.
00:08:42.660 It's which morality you're imposing.
00:08:45.160 Okay.
00:08:45.960 And if someone says, well, you're going to wind up imposing morality, I say, well, yeah.
00:08:51.880 That's what law is.
00:08:53.200 Right?
00:08:53.440 You can't have a structured, ordered society without the imposition of morality.
00:08:57.600 Law is judgment.
00:08:58.540 Right.
00:08:59.060 But then that leads to the question, which morality?
00:09:02.040 Every moral system arises out of the worship of a God.
00:09:08.360 All right?
00:09:08.720 So, in Saudi Arabia, you're going to get a moral system that is distinctly different
00:09:13.720 than a moral system that arose out of a country with a Christian history and census.
00:09:19.000 All right?
00:09:19.200 So, the God you worship, this is a principle you see all through the entire Bible, and that
00:09:26.720 is you become like what you worship.
00:09:29.900 People begin to be conformed to the image of what they consider to be the highest good.
00:09:37.440 You become like what you worship.
00:09:38.660 In Psalm 115, it says, they make idols that have eyes and see not, ears, but they hear
00:09:45.000 not, noses, but they smell not.
00:09:46.600 And then it says, those that make them are like unto them.
00:09:50.140 You become like what you worship.
00:09:52.300 All right?
00:09:52.520 So, if you worship a God who is Allah, does not reveal himself. 0.85
00:10:00.420 He reveals his will.
00:10:02.100 He's a God of power, coercion, force.
00:10:05.060 All right? 0.92
00:10:05.980 That's why Muslim societies are the way they are, because you become like what you worship. 1.00
00:10:11.140 The Christian heritage has, unlike anything else in human history, has a balance of form
00:10:17.460 and freedom, structure and liberty together.
00:10:21.880 Okay?
00:10:22.640 That, I believe, is the unique contribution of Christian theology.
00:10:27.400 Um, we worship, we worship God who is one God, Christians are monotheists, who is triune, 0.96
00:10:34.580 Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
00:10:36.240 And so, when you're tackling the ancient philosophical problem of the one and the many, what's, what
00:10:42.740 is ultimate?
00:10:44.160 Diversity?
00:10:45.100 Like Heraclitus taught, you can't step into the same river twice.
00:10:48.860 Uh, history is just 10 tons of confetti dumped into a tornado.
00:10:53.240 So, yes, that's chaos.
00:10:55.700 That's Heraclitus.
00:10:56.920 Then there's Parmenides.
00:10:58.280 Everything's frozen.
00:10:59.260 Everything's a big unit.
00:11:01.080 Right?
00:11:01.500 Monism or chaos.
00:11:03.620 Whirl is king if you're Heraclitus.
00:11:06.140 Parmenides, everything's frozen and stuck.
00:11:08.860 Uh, and they wrestled with this for centuries.
00:11:11.060 And then the Christians came along in the history of ideas. 0.98
00:11:13.780 And you Christians, what is ultimate? 1.00
00:11:15.540 The one or the many?
00:11:16.640 And the Christians said, yes. 0.98
00:11:18.180 Yes.
00:11:20.380 Yes.
00:11:20.820 And Christians have room, have mental space, have theological space for ultimate unity
00:11:28.200 and ultimate division, the fellowship between the three persons of the Trinity.
00:11:34.120 And we become like what we worship.
00:11:36.520 And so, consequently, Christians are the ones who can respect order and form and structure.
00:11:42.180 We like order and we love liberty.
00:11:46.160 Well, where does that come from?
00:11:48.180 There's a certain kind of person who loves liberty, and they just want to do whatever
00:11:53.400 they want to do, and no one can tell me what to do about anything.
00:11:57.040 Libertine.
00:11:57.900 Libertine.
00:11:58.540 And then there's the person who wants structure.
00:12:00.660 They want to live in a tyrannical North Korea type of thing where every move is dictated. 0.78
00:12:05.840 Yes.
00:12:06.300 Right?
00:12:06.640 They want structure, structure, structure.
00:12:09.780 The Christian faith provides the balance between form and freedom.
00:12:14.300 And this is something that has been discussed for decades in the modern setting.
00:12:19.580 Francis Schaeffer, the late Francis Schaeffer, was really good at spelling this out.
00:12:24.220 We want form and freedom together.
00:12:25.960 So, when we say Christian nationalism, there are only three basic ways of organizing human
00:12:34.080 society.
00:12:34.900 There's tribalism.
00:12:36.120 There's nationalism.
00:12:37.580 And then there's globalism.
00:12:39.000 I don't want globalism.
00:12:41.040 I don't want to eat bugs.
00:12:42.620 Okay?
00:12:43.040 I don't want tribalism because nobody wants to live in a failed state, Somalia, with warlords.
00:12:48.480 Nobody wants to live in Thunderdome.
00:12:51.320 Okay?
00:12:51.760 So, I don't want tribalism, and I don't want globalism.
00:12:55.140 And we have a national structure now.
00:12:58.340 Okay?
00:12:58.800 So, as a Christian, I would like that national structure to conform to the things that God
00:13:04.680 wants and not the things that man wants.
00:13:08.060 That's Christian nationalism.
00:13:09.300 Thank you.
00:13:39.300 Let the court rise above the mire of politics at SupremeCoup.com.
00:13:44.260 Tucker says it best.
00:13:45.820 The credit card companies are ripping Americans off, and enough is enough.
00:13:50.460 This is Senator Roger Marshall of Kansas.
00:13:53.120 Our legislation, the Credit Card Competition Act, would help in the grip Visa and MasterCard
00:13:59.000 have on us.
00:14:00.360 Every time you use your credit card, they charge you a hidden fee called a swipe fee, and they've
00:14:05.400 been raising it without even telling you.
00:14:07.440 This hurts consumers and every small business owner.
00:14:11.360 In fact, American families are paying $1,100 in hidden swipe fees each year.
00:14:17.240 The fees Visa and MasterCard charge Americans are the highest in the world, double candidates,
00:14:23.160 and eight times more than Europe's.
00:14:24.680 That's why I've taken action, but I need your help to help get this passed.
00:14:29.220 I'm asking you to call your senator today and demand they pass the Credit Card Competition
00:14:35.580 Act.
00:14:36.020 But may I ask, of course, I agree vehemently with everything you've said.
00:14:51.000 Let me pose the maybe two problems that people might have hearing the phrase Christian nationalism.
00:14:56.000 The first and most obvious is, well, what if I'm not Christian?
00:14:58.480 Right.
00:14:58.680 How do I fit into that?
00:15:00.220 All right.
00:15:00.520 You would fit in better than you're fitting in now.
00:15:04.940 Okay.
00:15:06.280 One of the things that a nonbeliever—basically, I trust the Christians.
00:15:11.180 This is, I'm speaking historically.
00:15:13.160 I trust the Christians to take better care of a secularist's liberty than I trust the secularist 0.96
00:15:19.980 to take care of mine.
00:15:22.720 Nicely put.
00:15:23.600 But, okay, I think we're—
00:15:25.860 You have the last 2,000 years to back you up on that.
00:15:28.840 Correct.
00:15:29.300 And that's not to say that there weren't warts and sins and blemishes in Christian history. 0.95
00:15:32.920 There really were.
00:15:34.500 But you take the worst, you know, take the worst of the worst in Christian history, 0.99
00:15:39.460 something like the Spanish Inquisition.
00:15:41.640 Right.
00:15:42.040 Okay, some terrible, terrible thing, which I'm not carrying water for at all.
00:15:46.760 Terrible thing.
00:15:47.980 But the Spanish Inquisition killed a few thousand people over a few centuries.
00:15:53.600 That was Stalin on a slow afternoon. 0.52
00:15:56.300 Yes.
00:15:57.120 Okay.
00:15:58.020 The commies have killed 100 million people in the last century or so. 0.96
00:16:03.760 All right.
00:16:05.520 Tens of millions of people.
00:16:06.820 And yet, they go on serenely as though their copybook is not blotted and ours is.
00:16:15.540 All right.
00:16:15.860 How long have they been dining out on the Salem Witch Trials or on the Spanish Inquisition or the Fourth Crusade or, you know, different things like that?
00:16:25.900 Yeah, those were horrific, evil, bad things.
00:16:29.900 But the Christian theologian, the Christian preacher, has a book of God's revelation with which to condemn these things.
00:16:37.500 We can say that's inconsistent.
00:16:39.220 That's not what God wants.
00:16:41.100 Yes.
00:16:41.300 And we should conform to what God wants.
00:16:43.700 That's Christian nationalism.
00:16:45.380 All right.
00:16:45.580 So Christian nationalism doesn't mean disobeying God's will in the name of Jesus.
00:16:51.540 Christian nationalism means conforming what we're doing to God's revealed will in the name of Jesus.
00:16:57.380 It means obeying him, not disobeying him.
00:16:59.480 So Christian nationalism does not imply forced conversion.
00:17:03.280 It does not.
00:17:03.760 Or a reduction in the rights of non-Christians.
00:17:06.560 No, it's an expansion of the rights of non-Christians. 0.95
00:17:09.580 I believe an average—my standard joke picked up somewhere is if I were president, and what a glorious three days that would be, we would get a lot done in those days.
00:17:22.480 But if I were in control of this, I believe the average non-believer would not know what to do with all the additional liberty he would have.
00:17:31.180 Yes.
00:17:31.680 Okay.
00:17:32.080 I believe—
00:17:34.460 Can you give me an example of the liberties non-Christians would gain under such a structure? 0.92
00:17:38.520 How many of our chains have we gotten used to?
00:17:41.920 Right.
00:17:42.560 Too many.
00:17:43.260 Too many.
00:17:43.980 So one of the common things that the people who are trying to scare people with Christian nationalism, like we're going to go back to the handmaid's tale type of thing, are trying to spook us with that sort of thing.
00:17:57.220 And they say, we need to keep the government out of our bedrooms.
00:18:00.140 Keep the government out of the bedroom. 0.98
00:18:01.260 Well, I had the privilege a number of years ago building my own house, and I know exactly how many screws the government required to be in the sheetrock in my bedroom, how big the windows had to be for egress in my bedroom, how thick the sheetrock had to be in my bedroom.
00:18:16.440 What do you mean keep the government out of my bedroom?
00:18:18.820 I can't remove the mattress tag from the mattress because the government is in my bedroom.
00:18:25.420 Literally.
00:18:25.900 So one of the things that would happen is that you would have a great deal more practical liberty, as opposed to the kind of liberty that the leftists want you to have, the kind of liberties that you can exercise in a six-by-eight prison cell.
00:18:45.480 You can read porn in a prison cell.
00:18:47.400 You can have dope smuggled into you in a prison cell.
00:18:51.040 You can get high in a prison cell.
00:18:52.820 You can be a moral.
00:18:54.700 But may I ask, though, I mean, there's no question that the right, as a general, broadly speaking, offers a vision of greater personal liberty than the left, which is totalitarian.
00:19:03.540 I think that's pretty clear.
00:19:04.360 But what about Christianity would inspire you to offer more liberty, as opposed to, like, your dedication to Hayek?
00:19:13.960 But why Christianity? 0.96
00:19:17.060 I'm a biblical absolutist.
00:19:20.020 Some people would call me a fundamentalist.
00:19:22.120 Like, I take everything in the Bible literally.
00:19:24.740 When Jesus says, I'm the door, you don't look for a doorknob.
00:19:28.680 You don't have to go lie down on a green pasture to be a good Christian.
00:19:31.620 So I don't take the Bible literally.
00:19:33.840 I take the Bible naturally, the way it presents itself to be taken.
00:19:37.480 Poetry is poetry.
00:19:38.760 Vision is vision.
00:19:40.060 History is history.
00:19:41.620 But I'm a biblical absolutist.
00:19:43.640 So what the Bible says, I just take to the bank.
00:19:46.560 And I have a very dim view of human wisdom.
00:19:51.160 We are a piece of work.
00:19:52.460 The human race is messed up.
00:19:54.700 All right?
00:19:54.860 And so consequently, I only want to allow coercion, which is what the magistrate does.
00:20:02.500 I only want to allow coercion if there is black letter biblical justification for it.
00:20:09.140 Okay?
00:20:09.580 It's sort of like a, I don't have a problem prosecuting rapists.
00:20:15.160 Because I can show you in the Bible where that should be done.
00:20:18.520 I don't have a problem prosecuting murderers.
00:20:21.080 Because I can show you in the Bible that this is something that God entrusted to the magistrate to do.
00:20:27.260 To keep order by punishing rape and murder and so on.
00:20:32.720 But I don't, I can't find anything in the Bible that allows the government to dictate the temperature of the water that comes out of the showerhead in my bathroom.
00:20:44.440 Consequently, the government has no business doing that.
00:20:47.300 It's none of their business.
00:20:48.540 They have no authorization.
00:20:51.100 Right?
00:20:51.600 So we have gotten, they, William F. Buckley once joked that a liberal is someone who reaches into your shower and adjusts the temperature for you.
00:21:00.280 They, they know better.
00:21:03.020 Of course.
00:21:03.560 Thomas Sowell's great book, The Vision of the Anointed, is, I think the subtitle is something like self-congratulation as the basis of public policy.
00:21:14.300 And that's the way it goes.
00:21:15.800 They feel serenely above it all, and they want to boss everybody around.
00:21:20.020 I don't want to boss anybody around unless I have authorization in the book from, from the Lord.
00:21:27.700 And, and you, and you look at the Ten Commandments, it fits, you could fit the Ten Commandments on a postcard, and then you could fit the Old Testament in one volume on the shelf.
00:21:39.260 Go to a local library and ask to look at the, the code for your state.
00:21:44.660 Shelf after shelf.
00:21:46.280 Right?
00:21:46.660 The Federal Register of Laws.
00:21:48.820 Shelf after shelf after shelf.
00:21:50.060 All right, that, that kind of tyranny, right?
00:21:53.480 Somebody has a website, I think, called Three Felonies a Day.
00:21:56.340 The average American is guilty of trespassing.
00:21:59.480 They can always get you for something.
00:22:00.940 Of course.
00:22:01.500 Right?
00:22:01.880 Because they've got so many rules that you're always transgressing.
00:22:05.160 And then when they decide to pull the switch, they can just come scoop you up and take you off.
00:22:11.480 Right?
00:22:11.840 And make it happen.
00:22:13.900 In a, in a biblical law order, you have Ten Commandments, and then you have the commentary on those Ten Commandments, which would be the rest of the Old Testament and the New Testament.
00:22:22.620 And if it's not there, right, if, if, if, if someone says, we need to prosecute this guy for hate crimes.
00:22:30.360 Right?
00:22:31.060 As I say, oh, as opposed to the ordinary love crimes.
00:22:34.680 What are you talking about?
00:22:37.360 Why, why are you punishing him for an attitude?
00:22:41.460 Right?
00:22:41.980 You have no, you have no authorization for, you can, you can hit it, get it, you can get him for taking the guy's bicycle or smashing in his windows.
00:22:50.900 You, you can, you've got authorization biblically to punish the wrongdoer.
00:22:55.600 That's Romans 13.
00:22:56.860 The God gives the sword to the magistrate to reward the righteous and punish the wrongdoer.
00:23:01.460 But then the Bible defines what is that wrongdoing.
00:23:04.980 And certain things are, people think that if it's in the Bible, it, we can enforce it.
00:23:11.400 Well, no, in the Bible, there's a difference between sins and crimes.
00:23:15.000 Right?
00:23:15.480 A crime is something that the Bible identifies as evil, and there's a civil penalty attached.
00:23:21.700 But in the Ten Commandments, the Tenth Commandment, covetousness, there's no penalty attached.
00:23:27.860 I don't want covetousness police.
00:23:29.860 I don't want lust police.
00:23:31.840 I don't want, there's no penalty attached.
00:23:34.220 I have no authorization to arrest someone for looking longingly through a catalog too long.
00:23:40.760 That's, that's beyond our capacity.
00:23:44.760 So we, we should have nothing to do with that.
00:23:46.880 And, and you find that if you were strict with this, you're going to, you're going to find, um, in, there's a wonderful title of a book, The Emergence of, Emergence of Liberty in the Modern World.
00:23:58.200 And it's a history of the Protestant Reformation and how a lot of our, uh, practical, substantive liberties grew out of certain theological assumptions that, uh, that were established and reaffirmed.
00:24:13.640 Some inherited from the Middle Ages and some, uh, established a new, some, some established at that time.
00:24:20.000 So people think that, uh, Christians are going to bring in this handmaid's tale hellhole sort of thing.
00:24:26.360 But there was in 1892, there was a Supreme Court decision, uh, and it was exquisitely named Holy Trinity versus the United States of America.
00:24:37.920 Um, and it was, Holy Trinity was the name of a church and Congress had passed a law forbidding, uh, uh, merchants, uh, contractors to import a bunch of foreign labor, uh, pay for their passage and then release them into the country.
00:24:54.540 So it was, uh, there was, there was a law against paying for the passage of a foreign laborer and that was meant for these big construction projects.
00:25:02.720 Uh, well, a church, I think in New York, named Holy Trinity, uh, called a British minister to be their new, uh, pastor and they paid for his passage over.
00:25:13.800 And so, of course, some zealous prosecutor charged, you know, went after them, uh, over this affront to, to the laws of the United States.
00:25:25.060 And the case went all the way up to the Supreme Court and it was Holy Trinity versus the United States of America.
00:25:30.780 The chief justice was a man named Brewer at the time.
00:25:33.720 This was 1892.
00:25:34.940 And in 1892, they handled the case itself in a common sense way, deciding for the church.
00:25:41.540 Look, the law wasn't talking about that.
00:25:43.680 They didn't.
00:25:44.300 And then Brewer said, and while we're on the subject, let's take this opportunity to remind everybody that the United States is a Christian country.
00:25:52.600 Okay.
00:25:53.000 And then he went through the history of the United States, the fundamental orders of Connecticut, the founding documents, just walk through.
00:26:00.120 He was historically literate, and he said definitively, in this Supreme Court decision, the United States is a Christian country.
00:26:08.540 Now, the thing I want is to be living in 1893.
00:26:13.460 That's what, that's what I want, uh, in terms of the judicial setup.
00:26:17.480 I don't want, um, to capture this, the, the bad guys' Orwellian apparatus that they're setting up and then turn it to Christian ends. 0.94
00:26:27.940 Because I don't, I don't want to butt into their lives the way they want to butt into everybody's life.
00:26:33.780 Well, that's for sure.
00:26:34.420 And what, and what you're describing is a country that as it has become less Christian has become more authoritarian. 0.56
00:26:39.620 Correct.
00:26:40.140 And that's obvious and demonstrable.
00:26:42.060 But, but for saying what you just said, you will be, and have already been, by Russell Moore most recently in Christianity Today, described as a theocrat.
00:26:50.520 And what you just described will be called theocracy.
00:26:54.820 Right.
00:26:55.240 How is what you just described different from theocracy?
00:26:58.640 Okay.
00:26:59.020 What, what people, when people say, uh, Russell Moore said, aspiring theocrat.
00:27:04.420 He didn't think I'd made it yet, but he, he said that I wanted to, that deep in the dark recesses of my heart, I wanted to be a theocrat.
00:27:11.580 But, um, the, here's the difference between, this is what they're, they're thinking of.
00:27:17.340 When they think of theocracy, they're thinking of ecclesiocracy.
00:27:22.720 Right.
00:27:23.340 They're, they're thinking.
00:27:23.940 Ruled by priests.
00:27:24.800 Ruled by clerics.
00:27:25.700 Ruled by priests.
00:27:26.760 Okay.
00:27:27.080 And they're thinking of something like Iran.
00:27:29.580 Right.
00:27:29.940 With a bunch of reformed weird beards issuing.
00:27:34.260 Weird beards.
00:27:35.520 You know.
00:27:36.300 Yes.
00:27:36.620 They're doing their thing.
00:27:37.720 They, they're thinking of a cabal of, uh, clerics and holy men and shamans and whatever, uh, issuing decrees on the basis of a religion that the populace doesn't accept.
00:27:49.340 And, and we just jam it down their throats.
00:27:52.760 Well, we don't jam things down people's throats.
00:27:55.060 That's what they do.
00:27:55.780 That's what they're doing now.
00:27:57.840 Okay.
00:27:58.560 That what they, uh, when, when Roe was first established, there were, most of the states had laws restricting abortion. 0.97
00:28:04.840 They jammed their, uh, ungodly dictate down everybody's throat.
00:28:09.680 They, uh, when, in the Obergefell decision, uh, what they did is they jammed it down everybody's throat.
00:28:14.600 They said, this is what we must progress waits for no man.
00:28:19.120 We're going to, we're going to do it, do it now.
00:28:21.240 Sure.
00:28:21.560 California passed a referendum restricting marriage to a man and a woman, and it was overturned.
00:28:26.900 Right.
00:28:27.080 So much for democracy.
00:28:28.200 Right.
00:28:28.740 So, um, we are not wanting to, um, on the basis of some clerical decision, have the clerics rule and decide, like in Iran, only a Christian.
00:28:41.780 We don't want the Christian ayatollahs doing that sort of thing. 1.00
00:28:46.580 That's what most people think, what most people call a theocracy is actually an ecclesiocracy.
00:28:53.680 Okay.
00:28:53.820 Christian, Christian, the historic Christian doctrine is when people say, well, Pastor Wilson, you need to affirm the separation of church and state.
00:29:03.980 Uh, this is the sort of thing that makes me want to dance in place because Christians invented the doctrine of separation of church and state. 0.99
00:29:11.360 That's our doctrine.
00:29:12.580 That's, that is something that came from us.
00:29:15.080 We're the ones who developed it and separation of church and state is crucial because there are two governing institutions.
00:29:23.240 The church governs men in a certain sphere and the state governs men in a certain sphere because they're both forms of government.
00:29:30.220 You can keep them separate.
00:29:31.640 You can keep the apples and oranges separate in two bowls on the counter because they're both fruit.
00:29:36.680 Right.
00:29:37.540 But what, when, when people say separation of church and state, and they mean separation of God and state, separation of morality and state, separation of ultimate truth claims and state, I would say, stop, wait, wait, just a minute.
00:29:52.440 Are you really telling me that you want to live in a state that is utterly disconnected from morality?
00:29:59.040 Is that what you want?
00:30:00.120 Where the, you, you protest and, and your protest is a moral one, uh, and they say, well, we, we believe in the separation of morality and state.
00:30:11.280 But, but as you noted at the outset, that's, that's a nonsensical proposition that has never existed and can't exist.
00:30:16.080 I know, because all moralities arise out of a moral consensus.
00:30:20.200 Of course.
00:30:20.720 Okay.
00:30:21.000 Which is overwhelmingly religious.
00:30:23.900 So, consequently, you can separate church and state, but you can't separate ultimate truth claims and state.
00:30:31.820 It cannot be done.
00:30:33.160 Every people needs to know who they are.
00:30:35.200 They need to know what they are.
00:30:36.580 They need to know where they came from.
00:30:38.340 They need to know how we're supposed to behave on the way.
00:30:45.140 Hillsdale College offers many great free online courses, including a recent one on Marxism, Socialism, and Communism.
00:30:52.000 Today, Marxism goes by different names to make itself seem less dangerous.
00:30:56.720 Names like critical race theory, gender theory, and decolonization.
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00:31:16.180 That's Tucker, F-O-R, Hillsdale, dot com.
00:31:22.000 I don't think any honest, rational person would disagree with what you just said, that all laws are judgments about how people should live, and they're moral judgments, and that there's going to be a system for deciding what's right and wrong, because there always is.
00:31:38.840 And it's going to be, if it's Marxism or Christianity, one's clearly superior. 0.98
00:31:42.440 I guess the question, though, is how do you affect or bring back such a system in a country that has no working majority of anything?
00:31:52.280 Yeah. So when you have a cacophony of laws, it reflects the cacophony of opinions among the people.
00:32:04.200 And this is where unbridled immigration comes into the picture. 0.79
00:32:09.940 You can't just import floods and floods of people with different assumptions about everything into one spot and say, play nice, children.
00:32:21.200 Societies have to function on the basis of a shared moral consensus.
00:32:26.380 Exactly.
00:32:26.700 Okay? If there isn't a shared moral consensus, then what you're going to get is anarchy and disruption and conflict.
00:32:33.460 Wait a second. I have read many Episcopal bishops and Russell Moore, not to beat upon poor Russell Moore, who's living in agony already, but say, make the claim that it is anti-Christian if you don't let anyone who wants to move to your society move here.
00:32:49.000 Right. That's like saying to a godly, sweet Christian couple who has three foster children, and they're taking good care.
00:32:56.540 They have four kids of their own. They've taken in three foster children, and they're taking good care of them.
00:33:01.420 And then you show up one day with a short bus with 28 new foster children, and you say, we're depositing them here.
00:33:07.840 And we, wait, wait, the couple says, we didn't sign up for that many. What kind of a non-Christian attitude is that? Refusing to take these 28 new foster children.
00:33:19.900 Well, the dad who was taking good care of three foster children should be able to say, look, I'm taking care of three, and I think I'm doing a good job taking care of three.
00:33:32.100 But if you drop off 28 more, I'm not going to be taking good care of anybody. It's going to swamp the system. Right.
00:33:39.140 You can't say we need to kick the doors open wide in the name of hospitality without the capacity to process them.
00:33:48.400 You have to assimilate those. Right. And it's got to be orderly. So if people say, do I object to immigration? Of course not.
00:33:55.820 I object to anarchy. I object to chaos. So I object to the lawlessness that's operating on the southern border.
00:34:04.840 Orderly immigration, all about that. And that would be wonderful. 1.00
00:34:09.560 So I'm sorry, I've sidetracked you. I had to ask you that. But you were in the process before I interrupted you of answering the question,
00:34:17.160 how do you go back to a system based on Christian assumptions in a country that's no longer Christian?
00:34:22.480 What you do, and this is, you invite a preacher onto your show, you're going to get some preaching.
00:34:30.200 Hope so.
00:34:30.780 All right. So there's no way, there's no way to do it outside of God raising up preachers who preach a hot gospel and church planting.
00:34:40.280 There's no way to do this politically.
00:34:43.380 You've got to make the country Christian again. 1.00
00:34:44.920 That's right. Basically, we're in such a mess that there is no political solution.
00:34:50.080 All right. We're beyond hope. There is no political solution.
00:34:54.360 The next election, however happy it might make us for 10 minutes, is not going to fix everything.
00:34:59.540 That's right.
00:35:00.200 Okay. Our disease is radical and it's spiritual.
00:35:04.540 We've got a radical leprosy and the United States needs to repent of its sin, to use an old fashioned term.
00:35:13.620 We need to repent of our sins, our arrogance, and turn back to God.
00:35:18.000 That's what is necessary.
00:35:19.780 And we need preachers who are willing to tell them to do that, to proclaim that this is what you must do.
00:35:25.800 And they must not do it in terms of law, like thou shalt, thou shalt, thou shalt.
00:35:31.040 The law condemns, but the gospel liberates.
00:35:34.920 So the law brings in judgment.
00:35:37.280 The law makes us aware of the rich young ruler, is made aware of his lack.
00:35:44.580 He's made aware of his sinfulness by the law.
00:35:48.120 And then you turn to Christ.
00:35:50.380 And what Christ offers is full, free forgiveness.
00:35:53.600 But forgiveness with him now in charge.
00:35:57.360 So forgiveness, it's not what Bonhoeffer would call cheap grace.
00:36:01.020 It is a radical death, burial, and resurrection.
00:36:04.460 So this is what the Easter season is all about.
00:36:07.440 Death, burial, and resurrection.
00:36:09.520 And the Bible tells us that when we look to Christ, we are crucified in faith.
00:36:14.740 We're crucified with him.
00:36:16.320 We're buried with him.
00:36:17.480 And we rise again from the dead with him.
00:36:20.020 And we ascend into the heavenly places with him.
00:36:22.280 That we are made participants of the virtue of Christ by virtue of his death, burial, and resurrection.
00:36:30.740 So America needs Jesus.
00:36:33.480 America doesn't need to turn over a new leaf.
00:36:36.700 America needs a new life.
00:36:38.680 And new life is only given on God's terms as the sheer grace of God.
00:36:44.120 That's how it's got to be.
00:36:45.300 And so what we need is preachers, Christian preachers, who will stop being ashamed of the name of Jesus and preach the gospel.
00:36:53.760 And preach the gospel as though it's supposed to spread out into the streets after the service.
00:37:00.220 So too many churches are Jesus boxes.
00:37:03.400 Where you go in, you have your meeting with Jesus in your box, and then you go out and live pretty much like everybody else. 0.75
00:37:10.900 You try to keep your nose a little bit cleaner than the average guy, but you still fit right in out there.
00:37:17.980 But the claims of Christ are total.
00:37:20.160 And the thing that we try to emphasize in our ministry is all of Christ for all of life.
00:37:27.200 I'm fond of saying theology needs to come out your fingertips.
00:37:30.840 Whatever it is you take in theologically needs to be enacted and done.
00:37:35.400 And if theology comes at your fingertips, and if preachers are preaching the gospel, and there's a great religious reformation and revival, then—and I'm seeing some stirrings of this.
00:37:48.100 I am too.
00:37:48.760 Okay.
00:37:49.760 So I'm not beyond hope, but I'm beyond political hope.
00:37:53.180 There is no political solution, no political hope.
00:37:55.960 But that doesn't mean that there's no hope.
00:37:58.240 So in the—I can point to two great—the Reformation, the Great Protestant Reformation would be one. 0.58
00:38:06.220 And then the evangelical awakening in the 18th century in England was another one.
00:38:11.540 According to, I think, prudent observers, England was headed for their own version of the French Revolution.
00:38:19.520 Things were awful in the spiritual condition of the country was in tatters and in ruins.
00:38:25.880 We sometimes think of the Victorians, 19th century Englishmen, as the buttoned up tight.
00:38:33.900 But the previous century, they were anything but buttoned up tight. 0.76
00:38:36.880 They were lewd, lascivious, immoral, oppressive, and they were headed for a revolution.
00:38:44.520 The working man there was downtrodden and oppressed, and it was really, really bad. 0.78
00:38:49.660 And the Wesleys and George Whitefield revival preachers, I think, were God's instrument for saving England from their French Revolution.
00:39:00.980 That's the kind of thing we need.
00:39:03.120 We need God—
00:39:04.200 Do you think we're headed towards something—I'm not saying French Revolution, but do you think we're headed towards some sort of real chaos?
00:39:11.680 Yes, I believe that apart from repentance, deep repentance, I believe that we're headed for real chaos.
00:39:21.320 I think that the future is not going to be evenly catastrophic all over, but I believe it's going to be bumpy and chaotic in places and violent and bloody in places.
00:39:32.420 And I believe that the only thing that's going to head that off is preachers who stop being ashamed of their religion.
00:39:41.160 But there are only like three of them in the whole country.
00:39:43.400 Like, how can that happen?
00:39:44.620 Yeah.
00:39:45.140 There are maybe five.
00:39:48.720 Why are there so few?
00:39:49.940 Well, there are so few.
00:39:51.840 There's two things.
00:39:53.620 Elijah, in a moment of despondency, said, I'm the only one left, and they're trying to kill me.
00:39:59.180 And God says, well, no, I've reserved 7,000 who have not bowed the knee to Baal. 0.92
00:40:05.260 So I believe that there are thousands of faithful preachers.
00:40:09.380 One of the things that happens is that the media, which is in the tank for the devil, doesn't cover that sort of thing.
00:40:19.340 There could be lots of faithful ministries.
00:40:21.320 I believe there are thousands of them.
00:40:23.000 But they don't get coverage, and they don't get highlighted.
00:40:27.320 They don't get reported.
00:40:28.520 You remember the Tiananmen Square protest?
00:40:32.300 Of course.
00:40:33.140 Tank man.
00:40:34.240 Tank man, right.
00:40:35.440 But do you remember all the reporting on how many thousands of baptisms happened in the square?
00:40:40.720 No.
00:40:41.560 Thousands of baptisms.
00:40:43.060 Christian baptisms?
00:40:43.780 Christian baptisms in the square, Tiananmen Square.
00:40:46.100 And our media turned it into a great high-five moment for Jeffersonian democracy, and that element was there, but there was a hard Christian element right at the center of that. 0.59
00:41:01.520 I've never heard that in my life.
00:41:02.620 Okay?
00:41:03.100 Thousands of baptisms in the square, in Tiananmen Square.
00:41:07.040 Now, the thing that—and it's that sort of thing that you could have something similar happen here.
00:41:13.000 And is MSMBC going to report on it?
00:41:15.880 Is CBS going to report on it?
00:41:17.020 No.
00:41:17.620 They are combatants.
00:41:19.760 They are referees in the basketball game who are dribbling and shooting with the other team.
00:41:24.120 May I ask—I have so many questions.
00:41:27.100 A couple quick ones.
00:41:28.300 In—throughout the Old Testament, maybe even in the New, nations are punished for their sins.
00:41:35.100 Not just individuals, but corporate, right?
00:41:37.900 The nation.
00:41:39.600 Does that still happen?
00:41:41.140 Do you believe?
00:41:42.440 And second, you've made reference a couple of times to America's—America, not just Americans, but America as a nation, its need to repent of its sins.
00:41:51.100 What sins?
00:41:52.000 Okay.
00:41:52.420 So, yes, God still judges.
00:41:54.200 Nations.
00:41:55.000 Nations.
00:41:56.160 God still judges.
00:41:57.180 God is the sovereign of all the earth.
00:42:00.520 He still does right.
00:42:02.220 Wickedness still offends him.
00:42:04.280 Of course.
00:42:05.100 But maybe a lot of Protestants, or maybe just me, think of that as taking place just on an individual level.
00:42:11.500 I think that there's a good book called The Civil War is Theological Crisis by Mark Noel, who said that the idea that God judges corporately is an idea that for Americans,
00:42:25.040 Americans, died with the American Civil War, died with the American Civil War, because both sides were Christian, professed faith in the Christian God.
00:42:32.680 Both sides were praying for victory, and both sides concluded after the war, well, that did a lot of good.
00:42:38.400 What was the meaning of that, right?
00:42:41.520 So we became, in the aftermath of the war between the states, we became sort of agnostic on whether God ever takes sides or intervenes on behalf of righteousness or unrighteousness in a particular nation.
00:42:57.440 But I believe he does.
00:42:58.640 So I believe that if our nation were destroyed for our arrogance and conceit by fireballs from heaven, you know, if God were to do that, it would be not unjust.
00:43:10.440 It would be a just judgment.
00:43:11.860 We have been arrogant in the extreme.
00:43:15.940 And I would say the central arrogance, there's fruits of this arrogance downstream, the 60 million children who were aborted, the various things that we do, the going around the world, preaching at people how to get their life together. 0.98
00:43:30.280 Threatening them, killing them.
00:43:31.240 When we don't know how to live our lives, all of that, that's the fruit of the central sin. 0.99
00:43:37.780 The central sin is secularism.
00:43:39.580 The secularism is that we can live decent, orderly lives without Christ.
00:43:47.960 We don't need God in order to live placidly the way we did in the Eisenhower years with black and white sitcoms where father knows best.
00:44:00.520 And, you know, we can do that.
00:44:02.700 And I'd say, yeah, okay, how's it going?
00:44:04.240 We, the grand secular experiment is now at a point where they don't know what a girl is.
00:44:11.040 That's because secularism is not a biologist, right?
00:44:14.020 They can't tell you what a girl is. 1.00
00:44:15.840 They can't tell you what a human being is.
00:44:18.020 And if they can't tell you what a human being is, how can they tell you what human rights are?
00:44:22.180 Well, they can't.
00:44:24.840 And more than that, they don't want to, because they want to move us around as though we are just pieces on the board that they, you know, to gratify their whims and their theories.
00:44:37.720 So, secularism is the idea that we can establish agnosticism or atheism as the official faith of the country and govern ourselves decently without reference to God.
00:44:50.780 That is radically false.
00:44:53.060 We can't do it.
00:44:54.040 Has it ever been achieved anywhere in the history that you're aware of?
00:44:56.940 No.
00:44:57.720 And here's another mistake that, and you alluded to this, the crossover between individuals and countries.
00:45:03.920 So, we all know, you know, there's an atheist friend or an atheist neighbor who is a sweet guy, and you wouldn't mind him taking in your mail when you go on vacation.
00:45:14.220 And you don't think his atheism is going to make him run over and burn down your house as soon as you're around the corner, right?
00:45:20.400 Because he's a nice guy.
00:45:22.640 Anyway, there are nice guy atheists here and there throughout believing countries, but there has never been an atheist country that wasn't a hellhole, okay? 0.79
00:45:38.880 That's because man is collectively consistent.
00:45:42.680 Individually, we have the capacity to be inconsistent.
00:45:45.640 Yes.
00:45:45.920 Okay.
00:45:46.800 Individually, someone might have been brought up, gone to Sunday school, been taught not to steal, but then he loses his faith in college.
00:45:55.060 But he keeps all the apparatus of his upbringing, right?
00:45:58.500 He still wants to be a good citizen.
00:46:00.160 He drives on the right side of the road.
00:46:02.180 He does all those things because individuals have the ability to be inconsistent.
00:46:09.260 But when godless types are running the show, and they are making all the decisions, and they don't answer to God at all, the countries that they rule are always hellholes.
00:46:23.180 Always.
00:46:26.100 So secularism is the sin, and that gives rise—you've used the word arrogance two or three times.
00:46:32.880 Right.
00:46:33.040 Will you describe what you think that arrogance is?
00:46:35.700 Yeah, the arrogance is things like, we can come in and take your children away.
00:46:41.400 You didn't use the right pronoun.
00:46:43.060 But let me be more precise.
00:46:45.160 Why does secularism, do you believe, lead to arrogance?
00:46:49.460 Yeah, because if I'm in charge of everybody, and I believe I answer to no one, there is no judgment.
00:46:55.880 You know, just imagine there's no heaven, no hell below us, above us only sky.
00:47:03.460 Just imagine that.
00:47:05.360 And above Buchenwald, only sky.
00:47:09.160 Above Auschwitz, only sky.
00:47:11.920 The universe doesn't care.
00:47:15.100 The universe doesn't care.
00:47:16.400 If I'm in charge, if I have political power, if I'm Mao, and I know that power grows out of the barrel of a gun, and there's no one above me that I'm ever going to answer to, if that's my framework, I have absolutely no reason not to do whatever I please.
00:47:32.880 There's no accountability.
00:47:34.260 And that's what secularism leads to.
00:47:36.420 It leads of necessity.
00:47:38.300 And this is why in the old order, in the Christian order, there used to be laws against taking testimony in court from people who wouldn't take an oath in the name of God.
00:47:49.940 You couldn't testify in court if you didn't believe in a final judgment.
00:47:57.020 Because there'd be no constraint on your lying.
00:47:59.080 Yeah.
00:47:59.520 No reason to not lie.
00:48:00.800 No reason to not lie.
00:48:30.800 More freedom to make their own decisions about what they believe and how they want to live.
00:48:35.760 You're against arrogance and hurting people.
00:48:37.800 I mean, these are not crazy views.
00:48:39.700 So why are you so hated by some, obviously by the left, but also by a lot of Christian leaders don't like you and are always attacking you?
00:48:48.520 What is that?
00:48:48.980 Well, the left hates what I'm talking about, I think, because I'm about to touch the thing with a needle.
00:48:57.020 I'm going for the sore spot.
00:48:58.720 But the sore spot is this radical disease of secularism.
00:49:04.260 They want to continue to govern their affairs without any kind of accountability.
00:49:09.160 Yes.
00:49:09.560 They want to be left alone as they are running the show.
00:49:13.380 And they will give the treatment to anybody who crosses them. 0.82
00:49:18.520 All right?
00:49:19.100 You've gotten the treatment before.
00:49:20.640 I get the treatment.
00:49:22.060 They know how to rough somebody up.
00:49:24.440 Okay?
00:49:24.700 And there are Christians who distance themselves from me because they see that.
00:49:30.040 All right?
00:49:30.460 But, right.
00:49:31.160 But if they're self-described Christians, again, I don't want to use his name once again, but the guy who edits Christianity Today is fixated on you.
00:49:38.140 So, David French is a New York Times columnist who calls himself a Christian.
00:49:44.140 And they really go out of their way to attack you.
00:49:46.780 Why?
00:49:47.980 Well, basically...
00:49:50.200 Your theology doesn't sound so different from, like, kind of conventional Christian theology, as I understand it.
00:49:54.380 Right.
00:49:55.540 Here's the...
00:49:56.260 This is the...
00:49:57.060 I think the distinction.
00:49:58.660 I mean it.
00:50:01.100 Okay.
00:50:02.700 There's that.
00:50:03.760 Okay?
00:50:05.520 We ought to acknowledge God, and I mean that we really should.
00:50:08.880 Right?
00:50:09.020 So, there's a difference between that and wanting a place at the table.
00:50:13.840 So, David French and Russell Moore and people like that, what they want to do is they want to operate in this secular republic.
00:50:22.980 And they want a place at the table.
00:50:26.460 Okay?
00:50:26.980 They want a place at the table.
00:50:28.360 They want to be treated with respect.
00:50:30.160 And in return, they say, we will treat all opposing views with respect.
00:50:33.920 And what we ask is you treat us with respect.
00:50:36.500 And we would like a place at the table, please.
00:50:40.540 Now, I don't have any illusions about this.
00:50:43.560 When we're all rounded up and taken off in cattle cars to the camps, David French and Russell Moore are going to be in the next car over.
00:50:50.000 Right?
00:50:50.320 Actually, I think they'll be guarding you.
00:50:53.900 Well, I think the left hates its tools.
00:50:57.380 Yes.
00:50:57.700 Well, that is true.
00:50:58.660 Okay.
00:50:58.980 That's deep.
00:50:59.520 And I believe that, let's say David French and Russell Moore are, to take the most charitable take on it, they would be tools.
00:51:09.440 Oh, they're definitely tools.
00:51:10.580 Yeah.
00:51:10.780 Okay.
00:51:10.900 And the tools, the left breaks them and throws them away when they're done with them.
00:51:16.020 And right now, but what is the use of the tool?
00:51:19.100 The tool is to say, hey, we will give you respect.
00:51:23.380 You're the kind of Christian who could write, get an article accepted by The Atlantic.
00:51:28.100 You're the kind of Christian who could write for The New York Times.
00:51:30.740 You're the kind of Christian who does that, as opposed to these extreme guys out here.
00:51:36.220 But the extreme guys are saying things like, well, let's love God and love our neighbor and build a Christian community and worship God faithfully.
00:51:44.480 And what's radical about this?
00:51:47.960 Well, we actually believe all of it.
00:51:51.560 We believe that Christ really is Lord of everything.
00:51:55.780 And we should live and pray and love as though we actually believe that.
00:52:02.420 And that takes us back to the earlier point.
00:52:04.760 To confess that Jesus is Lord is to confess that Caesar isn't.
00:52:10.200 Right?
00:52:10.660 That's the issue.
00:52:11.580 Going back to the early Christians, would not worship Caesar. 0.98
00:52:14.480 And I'm not going to worship the state.
00:52:17.400 Right?
00:52:17.580 If there is no God over the state, the state becomes God.
00:52:20.440 And they proclaim themselves God.
00:52:22.120 I'm going to be like Nebuchadnezzar, like Daniel's three friends who refused to bow down. 0.97
00:52:26.940 Shadrach.
00:52:27.880 I've got a grandson named Shadrach.
00:52:30.640 Wow.
00:52:31.420 Yeah.
00:52:31.740 So we want to pass that legacy on, refusing to bow down.
00:52:36.880 And Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego said to the king, our God is able to deliver us.
00:52:41.700 But, whether he does or not, we fear him and not you.
00:52:47.060 And that's the thing, that's the challenge that the secular state cannot abide.
00:52:53.120 Another great Thomas Sowell quote, I'll paraphrase it.
00:52:56.360 He said, it's amazing how much panic can be thrown among people by the behavior of one honest man.
00:53:03.140 It's true.
00:53:03.640 One honest man can throw people into a state of consternation and panic because you're willing to say, look, this is the way it is.
00:53:12.780 We need to love God, hate sin.
00:53:17.060 Boy, that is the truest thing.
00:53:18.640 So let me give you the sincerity test or the ultimate test.
00:53:23.960 Okay.
00:53:24.340 And I'm asking this on the basis of the following assumption that people, particularly preachers, ought to have lives that reflect what they preach.
00:53:34.080 You know, you can judge the tree by the fruits.
00:53:36.200 So how many children do you have?
00:53:37.780 I've got three children.
00:53:38.960 How many grandchildren do you have?
00:53:40.060 Eighteen grandchildren and two great-grandchildren just lately arrived.
00:53:45.740 So 23 descendants plus your wife.
00:53:47.540 Right.
00:53:48.100 How many of those 23 are Christians?
00:53:50.460 All of them.
00:53:51.680 All of them.
00:53:52.560 All of them.
00:53:53.300 How often do you see them?
00:53:55.240 On average, weekly, if not more.
00:53:58.900 They all live in Moscow. 0.84
00:54:00.660 Some of my grandkids are studying out of Moscow.
00:54:04.900 But they all live near you.
00:54:06.000 They all live in Moscow. 0.84
00:54:07.500 They're all centered out of Moscow, and the ones who are studying away are likely to wind up back in Moscow.
00:54:13.860 We have a Sabbath dinner every Saturday night to kick off the Lord's Day to prepare for worship in the morning.
00:54:20.460 Your family does?
00:54:21.040 Our family does.
00:54:21.700 The extended family.
00:54:22.500 So all of us gather for a Sabbath dinner.
00:54:26.660 And then extended family, some sure-tailed relatives and any company that is in town.
00:54:32.580 So on a weekly basis, there's like 50 or 50 or so.
00:54:37.780 At dinner?
00:54:38.300 At dinner.
00:54:39.180 And so we have this Sabbath dinner, and we begin with prayer.
00:54:44.580 I ask some catechism questions of the grandkids.
00:54:48.320 We sing, and then we have a meal together.
00:54:52.780 How did you do?
00:54:53.980 How did you pull that off?
00:54:55.440 Well, we didn't.
00:54:57.260 The Lord has been very, very kind to us.
00:55:00.240 But in 1 Timothy 3 and in Titus 1, Paul says, if a man doesn't manage his family well, how can he manage the household of God?
00:55:10.320 How can he work in the household of God if his own family is not in order?
00:55:15.500 So that is the most—I mean, well, you just cited the verses.
00:55:19.320 It's obviously part of Christian theology.
00:55:22.420 Teaching.
00:55:22.900 Teaching.
00:55:23.500 But it also comports with common sense.
00:55:26.020 It's obvious.
00:55:27.260 Why do—but that is not the rule in Christian churches.
00:55:31.060 Right.
00:55:31.440 Preacher's kid is an epithet for a reason.
00:55:34.100 Right.
00:55:35.340 PKs for a reason, and MKs, missionary kids, the same.
00:55:39.280 So, but why isn't that—I don't know if enforced is the word, but even acknowledged as a really important principle.
00:55:45.100 If I'm going to follow you, I have to see as the leader of my congregation or my spiritual guide, then I have to see that the people in your care, your family, have respect for you and love for you and are listening to you.
00:55:57.960 Like, that seems so obvious to me.
00:55:59.760 Do your children love God like you do?
00:56:02.520 Yeah.
00:56:02.980 Right.
00:56:03.460 And one of the reasons—
00:56:05.080 When do we give up on that standard?
00:56:06.380 Well, I think it's always been a challenging one.
00:56:08.960 And I—but I suspect that one of the reasons why congregations give ministers a pass on this is it helps them to feel better about how their kids are doing. 0.94
00:56:23.040 Your kids are screwed up, too. 0.97
00:56:24.920 Yeah. 0.99
00:56:25.900 Our Johnny is not the top of the line, but at least he's better than the preacher's kid, or he's in the same league as the preacher's kid.
00:56:32.700 And so there's a difference between Christian forgiveness and cutting slack.
00:56:39.520 Right.
00:56:40.040 Right.
00:56:40.620 So we have confused the one with the other and began cutting slack where we ought to have been forgiving.
00:56:47.720 So we have—we're Presbyterian.
00:56:50.940 We're—our church is Presbyterian.
00:56:54.180 We're not Lesbiterian.
00:56:56.000 We're Presbyterian.
00:56:56.700 We're the kind of Presbyterians who believe the Bible.
00:57:00.180 And—
00:57:00.440 They're two branches of the church, correct?
00:57:02.260 Yeah.
00:57:03.040 So they're—yes.
00:57:04.240 And we're in another denomination, C-R-E-C. 0.98
00:57:07.340 Um, and we are—that means the Greek word for elder is Presbyteros.
00:57:12.800 Uh, that's where Presbyterian comes from.
00:57:14.660 And we have a body of elders that govern our local church.
00:57:19.100 And we have this standard of family and order for the elders of the church.
00:57:24.160 And—and one of the things we ask an elder who's coming on to serve is if, uh, one of your kids, if, if there's a wobble develops, um, will you bring it up to us so that we don't have to chase you?
00:57:37.820 Uh, we have given leaves of absence, uh, to an elder.
00:57:43.000 Why don't you take a leave of absence from eldering duties for six months so you can pay attention to your kids so you can—
00:57:48.480 Yes.
00:57:48.940 So you can shepherd your family first.
00:57:50.860 Yes.
00:57:51.340 All right.
00:57:51.620 So shepherd your family first.
00:57:52.980 And by God's grace, uh, that's a standard that we have been, uh, pursuing for years now.
00:57:59.080 Does it work?
00:58:00.000 Uh, yes.
00:58:00.640 We have a body of elders whose kids walk with God, whose kids love God.
00:58:06.500 And if, um, and if, you know, a child rebelled, um, and walked away, that elder would resign from the elder board because we hold—that's the teaching of the Bible.
00:58:19.860 Yeah, if your own kids don't believe you, why should I?
00:58:22.000 Now, at the same time, I, uh, I don't want to water this down.
00:58:25.620 I want to say we believe that we're evaluating character, not counting rocks, right?
00:58:30.580 So let's say, let's say you had an elder who had four kids of his own, and they're all walking with God, and then his brother, who was an atheist, got killed in a car wreck, and they adopted a 12-year-old girl.
00:58:43.320 I get it, right.
00:58:44.160 You know, you say, okay—
00:58:45.680 Trying to assess it on the merits.
00:58:46.680 You assess it on a case-by-case basis.
00:58:48.740 But as a general pattern and a general rule, uh, the quality—I wrote a book on this called The Neglected Qualification.
00:58:57.640 Really?
00:58:58.280 Yeah.
00:58:58.660 I didn't even know that when I asked you.
00:59:00.080 Oh.
00:59:00.180 So, yes, that—I think that this matters, and I believe that it's, um, um, Christianity—when I said theology flows at your fingertips, it's supposed to flow out first to the people who know you best.
00:59:14.620 Yes.
00:59:15.360 The people in your household, the people in your family.
00:59:17.080 I just can't tell you how much I agree with that, more than anything.
00:59:23.140 Um, thank you for saying it.
00:59:24.880 Uh, so, I just want to end with your vision of where we're going, and I think you have probably disarmed your critics by saying, as you did very clearly, I'm not calling for a political solution to this.
00:59:37.600 The country itself has to change and be worthy of living the way that you hope that it does.
00:59:42.860 Um, what are the—and then you said, well, but I see signs of that happening.
00:59:47.440 What are they?
00:59:48.340 Right.
00:59:48.900 So, I've been talking about these things in varying—to varying degrees for 30 to 40 years.
00:59:57.080 And I can see the difference between how this message resonates now versus how it resonated with Christians 30 years ago.
01:00:09.080 Okay?
01:00:09.600 So, there are a lot of hungry Christians who were awakened—not woke, but awakened—
01:00:18.300 Yes.
01:00:18.680 —by the COVID fiasco.
01:00:21.020 And their pastors flaked.
01:00:24.540 They're—
01:00:24.860 Oh, in such a disgraceful way.
01:00:27.480 And they—the state said, your services are not essential.
01:00:32.480 Pot shops are, and abortion clinics are, and pornography shops are, but church is not essential.
01:00:37.460 Were Christian leaders who were afraid to die themselves?
01:00:40.320 Yeah, it was not—
01:00:41.340 What was that?
01:00:42.020 If you're a Christian leader and you're afraid to die, maybe you're not telling the truth about what you believe, right? 1.00
01:00:46.020 Right.
01:00:46.100 Isn't there a whole religion about this?
01:00:47.480 Right.
01:00:47.960 It was a—God says—it says in Hebrews that God shakes down—that God sends an earthquake.
01:00:53.160 He shakes things so that that which cannot be shaken may remain.
01:00:56.600 So, there's a pressure test, or there was a crisis that happened a couple years ago, and two, three years ago now.
01:01:05.020 And in that crisis, it revealed the instability and the frailty of a lot of evangelical Christian leadership.
01:01:13.060 And it awakened in a bunch of Christians a hunger for the kind of leadership that was now apparent they didn't have, right?
01:01:22.900 And so, we have seen our influence grow and explode.
01:01:30.020 There's been a refugee column of sorts, a massive influx of people moving to Moscow, Idaho, for the last couple of years.
01:01:39.140 And we've—it's hard to keep up with—there was a long stretch where every week at church, I'd meet somebody new, and they'd say,
01:01:47.880 Well, we're here now, and people are hungry, hungry, hungry for someone to speak the Word of God.
01:01:54.760 This is what God would have us do.
01:01:57.560 So, the people are hungry for it in a way that I've never seen before.
01:02:01.320 And I hear from friends around the country similar sorts of stories.
01:02:07.880 And there were a number of men who didn't fold, John MacArthur in California being the most notable of them.
01:02:15.300 And those pastors who didn't capitulate, who didn't bend, have seen explosive growth.
01:02:24.540 And growth is not its own justification.
01:02:28.400 Right.
01:02:28.620 Cancer grows, morning glory grows.
01:02:30.240 Right.
01:02:31.520 But in this setting, people who love Jesus, being attracted to people who are willing to proclaim the name of Jesus,
01:02:38.340 whatever the state says about it, is, I think, nothing but a good sign.
01:02:43.540 So, it sounds like you feel hopeful, or I don't want to put words in your mouth.
01:02:48.220 No, I'm very hopeful.
01:02:52.200 I mean, what do you think—and this is my last question—what is going on in the world?
01:02:57.940 And I know that everybody famously feels like they're in the middle of some historical reset,
01:03:03.700 and it's the fall of Rome or the end of times or whatever, but this doesn't feel like a normal moment.
01:03:09.020 No, it's not a normal moment.
01:03:12.100 One of the reasons—this is sort of a practical, pragmatic, almost carnal observation, 0.99
01:03:17.700 but I'm hopeful because in the long run, stupidity never works. 1.00
01:03:21.480 Yeah. 0.99
01:03:22.520 You can proclaim all you want, but you can't make the world be a different—you have to live in the world God actually made.
01:03:30.740 You don't get to live in the world of your own imagining.
01:03:34.620 You have to live in the world that God made, not the world that you want to make.
01:03:39.120 And consequently, you have to obey its rules.
01:03:41.560 Yes.
01:03:42.000 Right?
01:03:42.260 We used to call this natural law.
01:03:43.500 Yeah.
01:03:43.960 I saw a great T-shirt once.
01:03:45.420 Gravity.
01:03:45.980 It's not just a good idea.
01:03:47.840 It's the law.
01:03:48.660 So with all this, I'm hopeful because I believe the promises of Psalms, the promises of Isaiah,
01:04:00.820 the promises given to Abraham, through you all the nations of the earth will be blessed.
01:04:07.220 I believe that God's plans for this world are for good, not evil.
01:04:11.280 I believe that God sent His Son to be the Savior of the world, not to attempt to save the world.
01:04:19.460 Jesus didn't come to give saving the world the old college try.
01:04:24.340 The most famous verse in the Bible, John 3.16, is followed by God did not—3.17—
01:04:30.740 for God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.
01:04:36.340 So Jesus is not only the offered answer that will be rejected.
01:04:40.440 Jesus is the answer that will be accepted.
01:04:44.660 So consequently, this is another rabbit trail, but our eschatology, our view of the final things, is what's called post-millennial,
01:04:55.680 which is we have a very optimistic view of the future.
01:04:59.760 We believe that the gospel is going to continue to grow and expand.
01:05:03.700 The church is going to be victorious.
01:05:05.800 The Great Commission is going to be fulfilled.
01:05:07.680 It's going to be fulfilled, and we win, and then the Lord comes back.
01:05:14.100 So—and that doesn't mean we win the game, and it's got four quarters, and we're 10 minutes into the first quarter.
01:05:23.020 Right?
01:05:23.320 And the first quarter can go badly while we're learning how to play the game, learning what to do and not do.
01:05:30.900 But, you know, it's—you can't take the microcosm and expand out from that.
01:05:38.180 You might have a soldier pinned down by enemy fire on Normandy Beach, and he knows his mission is to get to the top of the next ridge,
01:05:46.960 and he can't even get out from behind a sand dune.
01:05:49.800 He could be mightily discouraged because of his position.
01:05:52.640 Well, at the same moment, General Eisenhower is looking at the map with satisfaction.
01:05:57.820 Right?
01:05:58.260 Yes.
01:05:59.660 All right.
01:06:00.060 So we zoom out.
01:06:01.320 Zoom out.
01:06:02.040 Take the long view.
01:06:03.840 What's human history like?
01:06:06.060 How long do we have left?
01:06:08.240 I don't believe the world is going to end in the next generation.
01:06:11.500 I believe that the Christian church is going to—the prophet Habakkuk says,
01:06:20.100 the earth will be as full of the glory—the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.
01:06:24.820 So we have great hope that the gospel in its potency is going to be proclaimed and is going to take root and flourish.
01:06:34.140 So we might lose our lives.
01:06:37.040 You know, you can lose your life in a winning battle.
01:06:39.880 Right?
01:06:40.320 A soldier on the winning side can lose in his little segment.
01:06:47.320 But that's all right because Christ is Lord.
01:06:51.000 Are you afraid of anything?
01:06:53.340 I'm afraid of me.
01:06:56.400 That is the best place to start.
01:06:59.140 I always say to my wife, the one person I really don't trust is me.
01:07:02.980 Yeah.
01:07:04.100 So basically, one of my prayers is don't screw up.
01:07:08.940 No, don't screw up.
01:07:09.780 That's right.
01:07:10.320 Yeah.
01:07:10.960 Because basically, that's—there's a great story where Chesterton was asked, along with a bunch of other men, to submit an essay on what's wrong with the world.
01:07:22.400 You know, they were running a series in the newspaper, what's wrong with the world.
01:07:26.020 And Chesterton wrote a two-word essay.
01:07:28.060 It was I Am.
01:07:28.960 That's wisdom.
01:07:33.460 That is wisdom.
01:07:34.480 How does one get an invite to your 50-man Sabbath dinner?
01:07:38.380 One chats with me after the show.
01:07:42.700 You'd be most welcome anytime.
01:07:44.780 I'm definitely going to do that.
01:07:46.680 Pastor Doug Wilson, thank you so much for spending all this time.
01:07:48.880 Oh, happy to do it.
01:07:50.220 Thank you.
01:07:50.540 Appreciate it.
01:07:50.980 Thank you.
01:08:12.180 Thank you.