NXR Podcast - THE CONFERENCE - Panel 2 - Isker, Garrett, Robles, Berkholder, Conn, Engel, Achord, and Webbon
Aired: 2025-06-28
Duration: 01:25:21


=== Why Nationalism Is Not Dead (15:03) ===

[00:00:00]  Leave us a five star review on your favorite podcast platform.
[00:00:04]  I get it.
[00:00:04]  It's annoying.
[00:00:05]  Everybody asks, but I'm going to tell you why.
[00:00:07]  When you give us a positive review, what that does is it triggers the algorithm so that our podcast shows up on more people's news feeds.
[00:00:16]  You and I both know that this ministry is willing to talk about things that most ministries aren't.
[00:00:21]  We need this content for the glory of God to reach more people's ears.
[00:00:27]  Okay, we don't want to spend 90 minutes on introductions because that would be a waste of your time.
[00:00:30]  So, first name only we have Andrew, we have Ben.
[00:00:34]  Myself, Adam, AD, CJ, Eric, and Dan.
[00:00:41]  Okay, so we've got Ogden, Contramundum, Right Response, the Reasonable Latino, we're all here.
[00:00:48]  AD will keep us in line.
[00:00:50]  So this is who we have for the panel, and as I said, we do have one special surprise guest, and this is kind of my flair, my introduction, and I'll keep it brief, but when the left,
[00:01:05]  whether they be just Your typical leftist, or whether they be, you know, Christians that may, you know, truly be Christians and regenerate, we're going to worship with them in eternity in heaven, but they're still, for whatever reason, functioning with, as a leftist would, you know, appealing to leftist framework in order to cancel their own and those kinds of things.
[00:01:31]  When the left, be it the Christian left or the non Christian left, comes for you, comes for us, Comes for whatever we want to call it, Christian nationalist, the new Christian right, whatever it is, the response, the right response, if you will, when they come for their.
[00:01:54]  I've seen what you cheered for.
[00:01:56]  Your booze mean nothing.
[00:01:59]  When they come for their pound of flesh, I really believe that the Christian response is to say, pound sand, you cannot have a single man.
[00:02:12]  Not one.
[00:02:15]  We can't throw members of our team to the alligators in hopes that, well, then maybe they'll eat us last.
[00:02:25]  That's cowardice and it's immoral and even practically it doesn't work.
[00:02:30]  You still get eaten.
[00:02:31]  You just get eaten last.
[00:02:33]  We do have standards.
[00:02:35]  We have a higher ultimate standard above us, the Word of God.
[00:02:39]  And so everything I just said, the final caveat or disclaimer is this that should be the Christian response.
[00:02:46]  When it comes to any man that the left is demanding we hand over, our response should be you can't have him if, here's the contingency, if he's a repentant man.
[00:03:00]  Either innocent, they're charging him for some made up sin, or actually a sinner, but a repentant sinner.
[00:03:09]  And so I humbly ask you if you would give a standing ovation to our surprise panelist, Mr. Thomas Acord.
[00:03:30]  All right.
[00:03:31]  Please be seated.
[00:03:33]  So, now in true Christian fashion, we do this in our liturgy every Lord's Day, right?
[00:03:38]  There's an acknowledgement of sin, assurance of pardon, and then you move on.
[00:03:44]  So, that's it.
[00:03:45]  Not going to talk about it.
[00:03:46]  That's it.
[00:03:47]  We believe the gospel or we don't, and we happen to believe.
[00:03:50]  So, panel, we're going to start with our first question, which is Is Christian nationalism dead?
[00:03:59]  And let's start.
[00:03:59]  We'll go down the line with Mr. Acord.
[00:04:03]  No.
[00:04:07]  Flesh it out a little bit.
[00:04:11]  No, it's not dead.
[00:04:12]  Christ wants all the nations to worship him and bow down to him.
[00:04:15]  The scriptures say this everywhere.
[00:04:17]  He made the nations.
[00:04:18]  He formed them.
[00:04:19]  All the nations he calls to himself.
[00:04:22]  The great commission is to go out and bring the gospel to the nations.
[00:04:26]  He says, go disciple the nations.
[00:04:28]  The nations is the direct object of the verb, of the command.
[00:04:32]  And he says, all the nations, pantata ethne.
[00:04:35]  It's not some.
[00:04:37]  He wants them all.
[00:04:38]  And there's a beautiful book about this by John Piper.
[00:04:42]  It's called Let the Nations Be Glad.
[00:04:44]  And in that book, he explicitly argues that the nations, in his reading, they should be understood as ethnic peoples.
[00:04:54]  And he makes the argument that missionaries, for a long time in Christian history, have sought this, and they've gone on mission trips, mission journeys, they've sacrificed themselves toward this end to bring the gospel to all ethnic groups, to Pontata Ethne.
[00:05:11]  And we have a rich heritage of people thinking this way.
[00:05:15]  And so in my opinion, Christian nationalism is the idea that the nations ought to be Christian.
[00:05:24]  And God wants it so.
[00:05:25]  And Christians have labored towards this end.
[00:05:27]  And so in my opinion, it's not dead because the gospel is not dead.
[00:05:32]  Amen.
[00:05:39]  Oh, you want me to talk too?
[00:05:41]  Yeah, I mean, I don't think so either, obviously, for all the reasons Thomas says.
[00:05:49]  But, I mean, the question to, I mean, when the people are saying that, like, oh, it's dead, Christian nationalism is dead, what exactly are they talking about, right?
[00:05:58]  Do they think it's like some kind of movement, some kind of political block or something like that?
[00:06:04]  And, you know, people have always asked me, well, what is Christian nationalism?
[00:06:08]  What is that?
[00:06:09]  And,.
[00:06:10]  I mean, I look at it, it's like, okay, the Dobbs decision happened in 2022, and the left decided to start attacking any Christians, especially evangelicals, who were this last remaining bulwark, if you will, against moral insanity, right?
[00:06:31]  And they start attacking evangelical Christians for supporting Trump, for being pro life, all of these things.
[00:06:40]  Trying to lump them in with white nationalists.
[00:06:42]  That was the play.
[00:06:45]  Every headline about me on the news is like, he's a white Christian nationalist, which I have never once described myself that way.
[00:06:55]  So they wanted to lump those things together.
[00:06:56]  And so what people did, like what I did, what Stephen did, what many others did, is defend them and say, no, Christians could care about politics, they can care about their nation.
[00:07:07]  And then it goes a level deeper because the question of, What is a nation?
[00:07:11]  Well, America is an idea.
[00:07:14]  It's not a nation.
[00:07:16]  It's not a people.
[00:07:17]  And you saw at the Republican National Convention the now Vice President of the United States give a speech and say America is not an idea, not merely an idea.
[00:07:31]  America is a people, it's a place, it's a people's home.
[00:07:37]  It's not an economic zone.
[00:07:39]  And that idea is winning.
[00:07:42]  That idea that we are a nation, and on top of that, among Christians, that it was a nation founded by Christians, built by Christians, and should be for Christians, should be ruled by God's law, should be ruled by God's word.
[00:08:02]  That's not an insane thing because that's how it was founded.
[00:08:05]  And so, no, I don't think it's dead at all.
[00:08:07]  I think it's just beginning.
[00:08:11]  Well said.
[00:08:11]  Thank you.
[00:08:16]  Hey Ben, by the way, if the Nephilim don't make it into this comment, fail.
[00:08:25]  I think you're going to be disappointed.
[00:08:26]  Yeah.
[00:08:28]  No, no, Christian nationalism, at least from where I'm sitting, is definitely not dead.
[00:08:33]  Nations are good.
[00:08:34]  Nationalism is good.
[00:08:36]  It's a strong God that's making a return at the end of the long 20th century.
[00:08:40]  It is still from Renault.
[00:08:43]  And I think it's worth forcing by sheer force of will.
[00:08:48]  I think that nationalism is worth it.
[00:08:50]  And if nationalism is worth it and we're Christians, then Christian nationalism is even more so.
[00:08:56]  And so we're strengthened by not only the revelation of nature that tells us that this thing is very good, but we're also, I mean, Deus Volt, God wills this.
[00:09:08]  And so by sheer force of will, both divine and human, Christian nationalism is not only dead, but it will continue to rise, and I believe it will come to fruition again.
[00:09:19]  Amen.
[00:09:21]  I'll just say this.
[00:09:22]  You've got to consider the people that are saying Christian nationalism is dead.
[00:09:28]  They want it to be dead.
[00:09:31]  It's a wizard's spell.
[00:09:33]  This is how they operate.
[00:09:34]  They say the same thing over and over again, and eventually people believe it.
[00:09:38]  And so, you know, this question is almost a dumb question.
[00:09:43]  You know, it's.
[00:09:44]  I was told to ask this question.
[00:09:48]  Yeah, that's why I told them dumb.
[00:09:51]  But obviously, you're exempted because you don't believe it's dead.
[00:09:54]  But the people that are asking this or saying this, they try to beat you down, they try to demoralize you.
[00:10:01]  And if they can kill the momentum, that's like their strategy to actually kill it.
[00:10:07]  And so you just got to cut all that noise out.
[00:10:09]  You know, every single person who says it's dead or wants to ask, they're just asking questions, you know, they do that too.
[00:10:17]  They all are against Christian nationalism.
[00:10:19]  You got to consider the source when you're getting that kind of black pill.
[00:10:25]  Yeah, the reason I don't think it's dead is because I think the phrase itself represents like the embodied antithesis of everything the left wants us to believe, right?
[00:10:35]  So they've declared war on Christendom, our Christian heritage, and all of these things.
[00:10:40]  And they've created a body of people in the West that want to do whatever they can to be the opposite of what the regime wants them to be.
[00:10:48]  And so Christianity represents a punch to everything that they tell us that we ought to be.
[00:10:54]  And nationalism, too, of course, it reminds us of who we are, that we are a people, that we have a place, and that we came from somewhere.
[00:11:02]  And because it's an embodied antithesis of what the left wants us to believe, and because there's a revolution from the middle of America, I think that we have time on our side, and I think we have momentum on our side.
[00:11:13]  And there's nothing the regime can do about it.
[00:11:16]  Yeah, amen.
[00:11:19]  Yeah, I mean, you guys honestly nailed it.
[00:11:23]  I think that's true.
[00:11:24]  I think the Longhouse particularly fears Christian nationalism.
[00:11:28]  It really is driven by men, which I think is terrifying to them.
[00:11:34]  But the other thing is, what I look at is, is there polarity, right?
[00:11:38]  Do people oppose it vehemently?
[00:11:40]  And if it was dead, you would just forget about it, right?
[00:11:44]  You wouldn't have all these people attacking it.
[00:11:46]  So, when you have enemies, a lot of times you're over the target.
[00:11:51]  Yeah, absolutely.
[00:11:52]  I agree with that.
[00:11:53]  You wouldn't have all of the propaganda, essentially, to trying to convince people that first this is some sort of white supremacist, Nazi movement.
[00:12:04]  You know, look out in Tennessee, all the hit pieces that are coming, like you guys are in danger.
[00:12:09]  You know, look out, scare tactics.
[00:12:11]  You wouldn't have that if it wasn't actually working, if there wasn't momentum.
[00:12:16]  You know, the enemy is going to try to frame this whole conversation.
[00:12:21]  Through fear.
[00:12:22]  And so, even some of the articles that have been written about the Tennessee guys, the related articles are all like Nazi resurgence and neo Nazi movements and everything like that, trying to poison gas cloud, you know, some of the momentum that the guys in Tennessee have.
[00:12:38]  And all of us have had attacks.
[00:12:41]  I'm sure you've all experienced some of this, even locally.
[00:12:44]  As you go about the work of building your homes, your businesses, your churches, you're getting a lot of pushback because it's actually working and the enemy is scared.
[00:12:54]  And so, no, it's not dead.
[00:12:56]  We're just getting started.
[00:12:58]  And I think God does will it.
[00:13:00]  Good job, Dan.
[00:13:01]  Dave's fault.
[00:13:02]  Dave's fault.
[00:13:03]  Amen.
[00:13:04]  God wills it.
[00:13:06]  Okay.
[00:13:08]  Keeping in this thing, but getting a little bit deeper, let's talk about.
[00:13:13]  Certainly, this is a synonym in many ways of Christian nationalism, but let's talk about the new Christian right.
[00:13:20]  And CJ, you mentioned in your response momentum, and we talked about that offline a little bit.
[00:13:25]  And you've got some great thoughts, so maybe you can.
[00:13:28]  Can start this portion of our conversation.
[00:13:31]  What and why is there this momentum and buzz and force behind the new Christian right?
[00:13:39]  Why is that unique and we should be excited?
[00:13:41]  CJ started white pilling recently.
[00:13:43]  I did.
[00:13:44]  Yesterday.
[00:13:44]  It's crazy.
[00:13:46]  Yeah, you've never done this before.
[00:13:47]  How do you feel?
[00:13:48]  It feels all right.
[00:13:49]  Okay.
[00:13:51]  But then he saw a Tesla driving down the road and it was so over.
[00:13:53]  So it was over.
[00:13:56]  Yeah, so I came.
[00:14:01]  To this whole place, not from the same place as a lot of these other guys.
[00:14:04]  I actually came from it from much more of a student of the right wing, the secular right wing, if you will, in America.
[00:14:11]  I look at things over the course of the 20th century.
[00:14:14]  What happened to that old right that tried to repel the New Deal revolution, the managerial revolution?
[00:14:20]  What happened to the voices of old middle America before the rise of the post war consensus and the civil rights revolution and all of these things that transformed the way that America thinks about itself?
[00:14:33]  So I looked at these things and I saw these people on the margins.
[00:14:37]  I saw these prophets, if you will, who recognized where all of this was going and they were right.
[00:14:42]  They've been totally vindicated in every way.
[00:14:47]  But when I see these people in the 90s, they were pushing hard.
[00:14:50]  They were pushed to the wayside.
[00:14:51]  They didn't have the internet really to be an outlet for them.
[00:14:56]  They crashed and burned.
[00:14:57]  And the dissident right, the alt-right, whatever phrase you want to use, it's in shambles.

=== Voices From Old Middle America (15:30) ===

[00:15:03]  And how is it possible?
[00:15:05]  That a reformed Christian community can draw a thousand people?
[00:15:10]  What is going on?
[00:15:11]  That's the question that I'm fascinated by.
[00:15:13]  I've studied the rise and fall of the conservative movement.
[00:15:16]  I've studied the recovery of the right, of a right wing consciousness, of a counter revolutionary gestalt.
[00:15:23]  I've looked at all these things, and it was completely dead five years ago.
[00:15:28]  And yet we have a thousand people here today, Christians, that are thinking in terms of political strategy.
[00:15:35]  That's something that just blows my mind.
[00:15:37]  And so I've been grappling with this.
[00:15:40]  You know, for probably a couple years.
[00:15:42]  And the thing that came to me was you can't have a recovery if it's not based in anything transcendent.
[00:15:49]  And I think that was the failure of the secular right, right?
[00:15:52]  After you're gone and dead, and there's no more you, and there's no more purpose, and I think that's what makes the Christian ethos different.
[00:16:01]  It's sustainable because it's not for us in the here and now.
[00:16:04]  We have a duty to do things, regardless of white pill or black pill, that's actually irrelevant to our obligations to our people.
[00:16:11]  And that's what Christianity brings to the table because we look forward.
[00:16:15]  We don't just look back, we look forward.
[00:16:17]  And I think that is the exact answer to this question.
[00:16:20]  Why did the secular right fail?
[00:16:22]  And why is the Christian right on the ascendant?
[00:16:24]  And it's because of that reason.
[00:16:25]  We have time on our side.
[00:16:27]  Amen.
[00:16:31]  That was like post mill CJ.
[00:16:34]  What?
[00:16:34]  That was like post mill CJ.
[00:16:35]  All right, Iskar, you want to piggyback on that?
[00:16:40]  Yeah, what was the question again?
[00:16:41]  Well, we're just talking about the new Christian right.
[00:16:43]  It has momentum.
[00:16:44]  There's so many things, you know, politically on the right, yesteryear, that were unsuccessful.
[00:16:50]  Why?
[00:16:51]  Yeah, I mean, I was just floored by CJ being optimistic.
[00:16:56]  I was not ready for that.
[00:17:01]  Yeah, I mean, I think what CJ is saying is absolutely true.
[00:17:05]  I mean, I've paid attention, you know, online to so many different things for years.
[00:17:13]  And.
[00:17:14]  And, I mean, even like the Trump phenomenon and the dissident ripe that happened around the same time, there was so much optimism with it, especially in 2016, 2017.
[00:17:30]  A lot of that optimism was dashed in 2020.
[00:17:34]  And the people who picked it up were Christians.
[00:17:40]  Like I said earlier, the reason the media attacked the Lone Bulwark in 2022 is.
[00:17:47]  It's not just the Dobbs decision, right?
[00:17:51]  But also, right, the fact that it was only Christians really left, right?
[00:17:58]  And regular, not Big Eva, not their leaders, not any prominent pastors at all.
[00:18:04]  It was just regular people in the pews that cared about their country, were active in politics, and like tens of millions of them, right?
[00:18:13]  That was all that was left.
[00:18:16]  And from that, like, those are the people that have.
[00:18:19]  Bought my books, bought Stephen's book, that come to conferences, that subscribe to your YouTube channels.
[00:18:27]  They are out there and they have not had any discipleship in this area.
[00:18:34]  They don't have any pastors or leaders telling them, hey, actually, if they've had anything talk to them about politics, it's that you are too earthly minded.
[00:18:45]  You need to be heavenly minded.
[00:18:46]  You need to think about spiritual things.
[00:18:49]  And it's like, well, My country is being destroyed.
[00:18:54]  Joe Biden is importing tens of millions of illegal immigrants here.
[00:18:59]  The price of everything is going through the roof.
[00:19:02]  The economy is garbage, even though the stock market is going up.
[00:19:05]  Did you notice that?
[00:19:06]  Everyone's like, oh, the economy was so great under Joe Biden.
[00:19:10]  It's like, no, the stock market was.
[00:19:12]  The economy was trash.
[00:19:14]  And so people felt this, like all these problems, and they cared about the politics of it.
[00:19:21]  They just went through COVID.
[00:19:22]  They just went through the Most secure election of all time.
[00:19:26]  And they're angry about everything that had happened.
[00:19:31]  And finally, a handful of voices out there among Christians that know things, that know what they're talking about, that know how Christians used to think about politics 100 or 200 years ago, are there to tell them about it, there to reassure them that, no, you're not a bad Christian if you care about what is happening to your country.
[00:19:57]  And so I think it is going to continue to grow.
[00:20:00]  I think that every attack that there is on each of us actually just amplifies what we're doing.
[00:20:12]  More and more people don't trust the media, so when the media attacks, all the people that don't, it's like, well, everything they're telling me is the opposite of the truth, so these guys must be awesome.
[00:20:22]  And then they subscribe to your YouTube channel, they follow you on Twitter, they buy your books.
[00:20:26]  And they're like, oh, actually, it turns out everything they're saying totally makes sense.
[00:20:32]  And that is going to continue and continue to build and grow.
[00:20:36]  And it isn't just like a handful of leaders that are doing cool stuff, it's that regular people are now able to think about the future and, like, orienting, like CJ said, to future generations, right?
[00:20:51]  Building things for their children.
[00:20:53]  Like, I mean, I've talked to so many people who are like, you know, five years ago, I was just kind of like a normie evangelical.
[00:21:00]  And then, you know, I read your stuff, I watched Joel, I watched, you know, I watched Ogden guys, and, you know, I started a business, I, you know, I got married, I've got kids now.
[00:21:12]  Like they're building things.
[00:21:14]  And so that's the thing that gives me hope.
[00:21:16]  Isn't it like, oh man, I got to go on Tucker Carlson and I got to do cool things.
[00:21:20]  It's like meeting all the people here that tell me the things that they are building and seeing all of it multiply, right?
[00:21:28]  Seeing tangible, real things for the kingdom of God growing is the biggest white pill of all.
[00:21:35]  Amen.
[00:21:36]  Thomas, you want to address the topic?
[00:21:41]  Sure.
[00:21:42]  The first thing I really resonate with the idea that you're over the target if you're being attacked.
[00:21:47]  And it's also true if you're not being attacked.
[00:21:50]  You're not so much over the target, no matter how much you like to posture that you are.
[00:21:55]  And there are a lot of people who say that, I call them avant-garde evangelicals, that they pose as brave and courageous, but they're never attacked by the regime, and that should tell you something.
[00:22:06]  But to the other point, we're living through a time where we all feel that there's a change to what's going on in the world, to our nation, to the West.
[00:22:17]  And we often liken ourselves to Rome, and when Rome collapsed, the church survived.
[00:22:22]  The church thrived.
[00:22:23]  And of course, they had different circumstances, but the fact is that it did happen.
[00:22:27]  And you see a new life being born as something old is dying.
[00:22:32]  And Augustine wrote his City of God to sort of explain this as it was happening.
[00:22:35]  He was living through it himself.
[00:22:37]  And I think that we're not exactly Rome.
[00:22:40]  History doesn't repeat, but as someone said, it does rhyme sometimes.
[00:22:44]  And we're living through a time of change, if not collapse, great change.
[00:22:48]  And you're seeing a new energy arising out of that collapse.
[00:22:51]  And it just so happens to be largely inside the church.
[00:22:54]  And I think there are a lot of parallels there, and we should definitely study that.
[00:23:02]  Great.
[00:23:04]  Ben?
[00:23:04]  Yeah.
[00:23:04]  When I think about the new Christian right, I like to look at just the words that make up that whole label, new Christian and right.
[00:23:12]  From my perspective, the kind of modern left really found its genesis in the French Revolution and then its final form really after World War II.
[00:23:23]  And the right, because that's true, The right was supposed to be the inheritor of the great Western myth, the great Western ethos, these things that made the West great and made the West what it was as an idea and as a place.
[00:23:40]  And so the new right is kind of trying to pick up the pieces of where the secular right, like what CJ was saying, really failed and had no transcendence.
[00:23:52]  And so the new right is looking at the transcendence of the inheritance we were supposed to build on.
[00:23:57]  with the Western myth and the Western ethos.
[00:24:00]  And because y'all are right too, where it's really starting in the church, and especially the Reformed Church, where it's now Christian.
[00:24:07]  So it takes this transcendent thing of myth and these athotic principles that pass down almost soul to soul from Westerner to Westerner.
[00:24:17]  And then it makes it Christian.
[00:24:19]  It redeems it and kind of gilds it.
[00:24:22]  So I like to see the new Christian right seriously as this cathedral that's being built.
[00:24:29]  that is all of the greatest parts of the Western tradition glorified, made better.
[00:24:36]  Not to immanentize the eschaton, but just to say, like, we must improve.
[00:24:40]  If time's on our side, then who are we to just settle for merely what was, the glory what was?
[00:24:47]  No, we have to make it better.
[00:24:49]  And that's why I think the energy is so great at places like this and with this crowd, is it's a lot of young men in particular, and they have the zeal to do that.
[00:24:57]  You know, the glory of young men is their strength.
[00:25:00]  And so I'm very excited about the new Christian right because I'm excited to reclaim the Western ethos and make it great again.
[00:25:08]  And even, you know, somehow that I can't really comprehend, make it better.
[00:25:12]  Make it better than Charlemagne.
[00:25:14]  Make it better than Gregory.
[00:25:16]  You know, these great men, we can be better.
[00:25:19]  We can be greater.
[00:25:21]  But we have to put the work in.
[00:25:23]  Amen.
[00:25:25]  Adam?
[00:25:28]  Yeah.
[00:25:29]  Yeah, I'm excited as well, obviously.
[00:25:32]  I mean, I'm here.
[00:25:34]  But what's really striking to me is just the amount of confidence that people have in the Lord and the possibilities of what is possible when the Lord's on your side for the future.
[00:25:45]  It's not just, listen, like, you know, most of us here are reformed.
[00:25:49]  And, you know, I don't know if your experience is like mine, but to me, when I was growing up in reformdom, you know, how you grew up as a Christian is you studied more theology, you read more, you know, books, you did more podcasts, whatever it was.
[00:26:04]  And that was how you advanced.
[00:26:06]  You know, and we're a lot of people are still doing that, but we're also thinking about so many other things.
[00:26:13]  You've got Curious Consulting back there, you know, talking about real estate and building real estate portfolios.
[00:26:21]  You know, the Reese Fund, they're thinking through how to fund the right kinds of businesses in a Christian way.
[00:26:29]  These are people that they wouldn't be doing that if you ask them why they're doing it.
[00:26:33]  Of course, they want to make a profit, but all of these people are thinking about the future generations and what we're going to need.
[00:26:41]  If we are going to win the nation, if the Lord, Thomas says the Lord's going to win the nations, right?
[00:26:48]  That is going to happen, but it's not going to happen just magically.
[00:26:52]  Like, there's effort that needs to be put in by God's people, and we're finally thinking through what that looks like.
[00:27:00]  You know, David Reese is investing in businesses because he knows that we're going to have to have a certain infrastructure, certain institutions in order to not make that happen, but to prepare for that to happen.
[00:27:16]  And so people are thinking through that.
[00:27:17]  I'm a recruiter, so I talk to people always about what they do.
[00:27:21]  The amount of talent that Christians have in the bank is overwhelming.
[00:27:28]  In every area, I talk to Christian clothing designers, and they're not making gay clothing.
[00:27:35]  They're making quality clothing, functional clothing, and we need that kind of stuff too.
[00:27:40]  I would never have thought about that.
[00:27:42]  What does that mean?
[00:27:43]  A Christian clothing designer?
[00:27:45]  But people are thinking through every area of life, and it's amazing.
[00:27:49]  And I talk to people all the time, and the truth is that we have the talent, and as long as we have the confidence and the will to actually do things, we can make massive moves and a lot quicker than you think we can.
[00:28:04]  Yeah.
[00:28:06]  I think we'll all be surprised.
[00:28:07]  I love what you said at the end the speed.
[00:28:11]  The speed could surprise us when all of a sudden, for the first time, we experience some tailwinds when it's been.
[00:28:19]  40 years of headwinds.
[00:28:21]  So don't underestimate what the Lord can do.
[00:28:23]  CJ, you want to get to, you have the rare experience of getting to answer the same question twice.
[00:28:28]  You want a second term?
[00:28:29]  Got anything else you want to add?
[00:28:31]  No, not really.
[00:28:32]  I mean, just reflecting back on what you guys have said, like another thing that strikes me about this new Christian right, I think that's unique among all Christians, evangelicals have been involved in politics in the 20th century a lot, but I think that one thing that we have that they didn't have is we recognize how fragile.
[00:28:54]  Our country actually is.
[00:28:57]  A lot of people can get hopeless, and one of the things that I reflect on as just a student of political movements in the 20th century, it's important to remember that the left that currently runs everything was basically on the complete margins of societies in the 1960s.
[00:29:11]  They had to think about how exactly do we exploit Christendom?
[00:29:16]  That's a powerful heritage.
[00:29:17]  How do you exploit something like that?
[00:29:19]  Well, our current regime has only been around for 75 years, and if the left did it, how much more obvious is it that we have the resources?
[00:29:28]  And we have things within our history that we can grab.
[00:29:31]  I always tell my friends that there's nothing that any of us have ever said or done or even thought about that is even close to as bold and courageous as the very people that laid the groundwork for us a thousand years ago.
[00:29:47]  There's nothing, any media hit piece that comes against us, anything that they say about us, nothing comes close to the, if people are concerned about us, think about how concerned they would be about Charlemagne right now.
[00:30:02]  Right, there's nothing that we will do that will compare to what he did in the building of the infrastructure that we inherited.
[00:30:09]  And so, the situation seems hopeless in the 80s and the 90s, but this regime has only been around for 75 years.
[00:30:17]  We have 2,000 years of Christendom to look back on, it's just a blip.
[00:30:22]  CJ is just the ray of sunshine up here.
[00:30:26]  Yeah, look at you go tossing out white pills everywhere.
[00:30:29]  Yeah, to put a fine point on that, it's almost like we have three things one, we the Lord can win by many or by few.

=== Building A Church That Has Your Back (05:04) ===

[00:30:34]  Few.
[00:30:34]  So, first and foremost, we have the Lord on our side.
[00:30:36]  Second, we have tradition on our side.
[00:30:39]  They have 75 years, we have 2,000.
[00:30:40]  That's well said.
[00:30:41]  And three, we also have nature on our side.
[00:30:45]  Like, we saw with, you know, USAID.
[00:30:48]  It's like, it's important to remember that, like, the left did it so quickly.
[00:30:52]  Sometimes we can give them more credit than they deserve.
[00:30:55]  You know, you can actually shake in your boots, you know, like when Goliath is out there prancing, you know, and you're a lot more afraid than you really should be because it turns out.
[00:31:05]  It's not that people were so malleable and the left had such wonderful intrinsic arguments that just made so much logical sense that people were like, of course it's a lump of cells.
[00:31:16]  Of course a boy can be a girl.
[00:31:18]  Of course.
[00:31:19]  No, it took billions of dollars.
[00:31:22]  It took billions.
[00:31:23]  It was all artificial.
[00:31:25]  It was all manufactured.
[00:31:26]  It was all manipulated because they had to swim upstream.
[00:31:32]  They had to go against not just God, which is already quite the task.
[00:31:37]  But they had to go against God's world.
[00:31:39]  They had to go against nature.
[00:31:41]  We actually have the benefit and the advantage of going with tradition, 2,000 years versus 75, with the Lord versus demons, and with nature versus that which is unnatural.
[00:31:53]  What they did in 75 years, not because of us, no presumption, but because of God, if it be his will, we could do in 15 years.
[00:32:05]  It really could happen.
[00:32:06]  Eric?
[00:32:07]  Yeah, I think one of the biggest encouragements to me is that, you know, a lot of these guys on the panel represent people doing work in political theory.
[00:32:16]  This is something that Stephen Wolf has talked about.
[00:32:19]  But more and more, what I'm seeing is that you actually have pastors who are willing not to betray their own people who are doing that work, but they're actually, you know, sending the guys out and saying, yeah, you need to go do that work.
[00:32:32]  It's been slow.
[00:32:33]  I think there's been sort of a changing of guard on that front.
[00:32:38]  But I would just encourage the pastors, like, you don't have to be a political expert, but you definitely have to be courageous on the behalf of your people.
[00:32:47]  And because, you know, for a Stephen Wolfe or a Thomas, even what you guys are doing in Tennessee, a lot of pastors will actually attack you for that, right?
[00:32:58]  And so when you have the regime against you, and this would be an encouragement too, if you're one of the guys and you're like, I want to get involved in politics, you need a church that has your back, right?
[00:33:08]  Because it's going to get heated.
[00:33:09]  And when the city or the state or the military is trying to kick you out and they're coming after you, you actually need people on your team.
[00:33:17]  And fortunately, I think we're seeing a lot more of that.
[00:33:19]  Let me just say something here, too.
[00:33:21]  I talk to a lot of people because of what I do, and they ask me about advice for their church situation and stuff like that.
[00:33:27]  And obviously, I can't really give good advice because I don't know your church situation.
[00:33:32]  But let me just add to that, Eric.
[00:33:36]  You don't necessarily need a pastor that is going to be as based as you are, as red-pilled as you are.
[00:33:43]  That's very rare.
[00:33:45]  You don't necessarily need that.
[00:33:46]  What you need, though, is someone who's got your back.
[00:33:50]  My pastors are not on the same page with me.
[00:33:53]  And when they watch my videos, you know, their face is like this sometimes, you know?
[00:33:58]  But they've got my back.
[00:33:59]  You know, they're not going to throw me to the wolves.
[00:34:02]  They have my best interests in mind.
[00:34:04]  You know, and they do things and they say things to me that are mind-boggling, but they're in my corner.
[00:34:11]  That's all you need.
[00:34:12]  That counts for a lot.
[00:34:14]  That kind of loyalty, someone that actually cares about your soul, someone that cares about your family.
[00:34:21]  That's enough.
[00:34:22]  So don't feel like you have to find Eric Kahn as your pastor because there's one of him.
[00:34:28]  You know, we got Joel.
[00:34:30]  I mean, he's the best we got.
[00:34:31]  You know what I mean?
[00:34:32]  You don't need to find Joel.
[00:34:33]  He keeps reminding us of that.
[00:34:35]  Let it go.
[00:34:36]  I've heard that he's the best guy.
[00:34:38]  Let it go.
[00:34:40]  You don't need to have Joel as your pastor.
[00:34:42]  It would be great if we had tons of guys that were on the same page.
[00:34:46]  It's not realistic, though.
[00:34:48]  If you've got a good pastor who has your back, that is enough.
[00:34:53]  And you can work with that and you can get to work.
[00:34:55]  The left can't actually cancel you.
[00:34:57]  Your people are the only ones who can truly cancel you.
[00:35:00]  That's right.
[00:35:01]  Every person who's been canceled by the left, if you're accurate about it, if you're honest about it, the left pressured your people and your people said you can have him.
[00:35:15]  And if they, it's only because of that that a guy actually gets canceled.
[00:35:20]  You could just deny them that.
[00:35:21]  Exactly.
[00:35:22]  It's not because, oh, but it was a million people on the left.
[00:35:24]  Nope.
[00:35:25]  What true cancellation comes down to is not the million people on the left in the Twitter streets.
[00:35:31]  It comes down to the three people in your church.
[00:35:34]  Those three elders, they actually have the decision to hand you over.

=== The Tip Of The Spear Generation (09:55) ===

[00:35:39]  They actually have that decision.
[00:35:40]  And if you have elders who don't even necessarily agree with you, but who will not make that decision, then you're bulletproof.
[00:35:50]  And bulletproof men and women can do a whole lot of things.
[00:35:54]  Yeah, we were talking about the new Christian right, correct?
[00:35:58]  Yeah.
[00:35:59]  I'm going to delve into political theory for a minute, which is dangerous.
[00:36:03]  I'm a pastor that went to business school, which is a gross combination.
[00:36:06]  But he did stay in a holiday inn last night.
[00:36:10]  That's right.
[00:36:11]  It was a Fairfield inn.
[00:36:12]  Was it?
[00:36:13]  It was a Fairfield inn.
[00:36:13]  Oh, man.
[00:36:14]  It's a really classy joint.
[00:36:16]  Anyway, I think looking back, why did the left win over the last 75 years or so?
[00:36:22]  Well, they actually had a vision for the future that transcended more than just one generation, right?
[00:36:29]  Saw the slow march through the institutions, you know, to the point where it's like there's going to be a pride flag in every business.
[00:36:35]  We're going to make this place as gay as possible.
[00:36:38]  And that was the vision for generations.
[00:36:41]  That's going to be the vision.
[00:36:42]  We're going to make sure that everybody loves liberalism and loves the gays.
[00:36:46]  You can't just, you know, tolerate it.
[00:36:48]  You actually have to love it.
[00:36:51]  That's what their vision was.
[00:36:52]  And so for many years, conservatives were essentially just saying, well, just slow down.
[00:36:59]  Like, there wasn't really a positive vision.
[00:37:01]  They were just saying, like, just not so fast.
[00:37:04]  And we get to the point where even the Republican Party is like, yeah, gay marriage, yeah, that's great.
[00:37:09]  Yeah, that's one of the things that we do.
[00:37:11]  So the new Christian right, why is it actually potent?
[00:37:13]  Why is it actually winning?
[00:37:15]  Why is it going to win?
[00:37:16]  It's because it has a positive vision for the future that will actually transcend our own lives.
[00:37:23]  And ultimately, what are we saying?
[00:37:25]  Like, what is the vision?
[00:37:27]  was to make America a Christian country.
[00:37:31]  Every knee will bow.
[00:37:32]  And so that means each one of the cities that we represent, each one of the churches we represent, all of the businesses that are represented, all of the families and households will all bow the knee to Christ and will make their cities Christian, will make their businesses Christian, will make their states Christian, and will make the country Christian.
[00:37:51]  And that's a work of generations.
[00:37:53]  You know, CJ said we have time on our side.
[00:37:57]  And that's true because this is a work of generations.
[00:38:00]  And so right now what we're doing, though, is the foundation work.
[00:38:04]  We're doing the foundation work.
[00:38:05]  That's why we get pushback is because when you're challenging the regime and you're actually getting momentum, they're not going to let you win.
[00:38:14]  You will have more enemies.
[00:38:16]  And, you know, when you're over the target, you're going to get enemies.
[00:38:19]  When you're getting momentum, you're going to have enemies.
[00:38:21]  You're going to have city councils that actually are your enemies.
[00:38:24]  You might even have elders in your own churches that are your enemies.
[00:38:28]  But don't lose heart because this is the work of generations.
[00:38:32]  And so continue to walk in repentance, you know, continue to build in your communities.
[00:38:37]  Another thing that we talk about in counseling quite often, Eric, Ben, and I, is that the temptation of raising your eyes too high, David repents of this in the Psalms, you know, forgive me for raising my eyes too high.
[00:38:48]  You know, you look at the project and you're like, yeah, we have some momentum, but look at the country.
[00:38:54]  Like even with Trump in, they're still murdering babies.
[00:38:57]  Like this is not great.
[00:38:59]  You know, our assets are still going up and our wages are still going down.
[00:39:04]  A lot of young men that moved to Utah.
[00:39:06]  have a really hard time buying a home.
[00:39:07]  Like, it's really hard.
[00:39:09]  It's still really hard.
[00:39:10]  But just remember that there's time on our hands.
[00:39:13]  And so don't raise your eyes too high and just build where you are, you know?
[00:39:17]  So when the news media comes out with something that's, like, really disappointing or, you know, there's a bunch of, who knows, Zionist stuff that comes out and you're like, oh, man, this again, like, don't be discouraged.
[00:39:29]  Just go home, lead family worship, go worship God in your churches, and just keep building where you are.
[00:39:36]  Yeah, I was going to say too, Dan, just to piggyback on that.
[00:39:39]  I think that a lot of us just have to get comfortable with the reality that we will be the tip of the spear, right?
[00:39:46]  This is sort of the tip of the spear generation.
[00:39:49]  And you're going to be out front, many of you, and you're going to be hated and rejoice.
[00:39:55]  I said this yesterday, but rejoice when you're persecuted because it's a good work and you're doing it for your sons.
[00:40:01]  Yeah.
[00:40:02]  We who cut stones envision cathedrals.
[00:40:05]  So this is foundation work.
[00:40:06]  It's the ugly work.
[00:40:07]  It's the hard work.
[00:40:09]  That hopefully our sons will stand on our shoulders and continue.
[00:40:13]  Amen.
[00:40:15]  Well said.
[00:40:16]  Shifting gears a little bit, one of the questions that I have, and we'll start back over here on the left, but do you envision, Thomas, starting with you, do you envision more over the next four years, thinking of the last four years?
[00:40:31]  Because I think this is a question that many in the audience would probably maybe not think to ask, but be subconsciously wondering.
[00:40:42]  There's been a lot of division and fracturing, particularly not just the new Christian right, but particularly within the Reformed Church.
[00:40:49]  Over the last few years.
[00:40:51]  So, if you think the last four years, divisions within the Reformed Church, do you think the next four years that it would have less fracturing than the previous four or more?
[00:41:04]  What do you think?
[00:41:06]  Well, I appreciate being two-year left.
[00:41:10]  Geographically.
[00:41:11]  Yeah, I'm a moderate centrist.
[00:41:19]  Thank you.
[00:41:20]  I believe that.
[00:41:21]  I like being the right-wing extremist.
[00:41:25]  Vlad the Impaler.
[00:41:29]  I think there's a point here, though.
[00:41:30]  The last four years has seen a shift rightward.
[00:41:33]  And some of the things that were extremist a few years ago, right-wing extremist, are now mainstream.
[00:41:40]  They're being said by politicians in high places.
[00:41:43]  They're being legislated.
[00:41:46]  And I've kind of been off the scene for a little while, so I haven't been in it.
[00:41:49]  But it feels like I've been watching things move in a direction that sometimes I feel is is beyond some things that I've seen in the past and there have been divisions and I think there will be more divisions in the future but I think with divisions there's also reorganization.
[00:42:05]  There are people joining together.
[00:42:08]  Some of my friends just, I mean it's anecdotally, I have more friends now than I did several years ago even though I lost friends a few years ago.
[00:42:19]  But the friendships I have now are tighter and stronger.
[00:42:23]  The bonds of loyalty, trust, community are stronger.
[00:42:27]  The movement that's happening now, the right-wing movement across the entire Western world, is the sort of energy that creates new institutions.
[00:42:36]  I don't like creating new denominations, but it is the sort of thing where you would see new denominations rise.
[00:42:41]  It's that sort of world historical turning where something like that happens.
[00:42:45]  New universities, new political parties.
[00:42:48]  We see this with the Republican Party, the complete realignment of things.
[00:42:52]  The Democratic Party's absolute failure to actually put forward any viable candidate or sentient being. in the past several years.
[00:42:59]  Sorry.
[00:43:00]  I'm trying to find out.
[00:43:05]  Don't apologize.
[00:43:07]  But I think there will be more fracturing because the church is an institution.
[00:43:12]  The church institution here, not the church universal.
[00:43:15]  It's an institution.
[00:43:16]  It's in the world.
[00:43:17]  And it moves sometimes, even though it doesn't like to admit it, it moves sometimes with the currents.
[00:43:23]  And sometimes it moves against them.
[00:43:25]  And you will see some fracturing and splitting.
[00:43:28]  And I think that people who are able to perceive that, to plan for it, and to strategize, Will be able to guide Christians through it.
[00:43:35]  And those are the sorts of men and leaders that will arise during this movement.
[00:43:39]  Yeah, well said.
[00:43:41]  Risko.
[00:43:46]  Yeah, I think I agree with all of that.
[00:43:49]  I think, I mean, so much of this, like the conflicts and divisions in the Reformed world, I mean, for one, like the Reformed world has, like, I've been in it a long time, it's always been this way, right?
[00:44:06]  It has always been, wait, you believe that about justification?
[00:44:11]  You are a heretic?
[00:44:12]  And it's like, I just quoted Calvin.
[00:44:13]  What are you talking about?
[00:44:16]  And so it's always been that way.
[00:44:18]  But I think this current iteration of the fighting perfectly parallels what's going on culturally and politically in the country.
[00:44:27]  That there has been a significant rightward shift in the last five years that has made it into the mainstream.
[00:44:36]  I think JD Vance represents that.
[00:44:41]  When he's tweeting about the Ordo Amoris, for instance, it's like, Only I knew about that like a year ago, and now the vice president just told millions of people this is incredible.
[00:44:53]  Not only me, yeah, I got it from smarter guys than me, but like CJ.
[00:44:58]  But, like, you see that happening, and so the new Christian right is ascendant, right?
[00:45:07]  It's growing, people are discovering new and exciting things that you know used to be totally forbidden.
[00:45:16]  And what is going to happen?
[00:45:19]  Is like five years from now, the guys, many of the guys who are saying Eric Kahn is going to hell because he's mean on Twitter or something, like, what are the things they say about you?

=== Holding Contrary Positions Today (02:19) ===

[00:45:35]  Deeply wicked and idolatrous.
[00:45:36]  Yeah, or Stephen Wolfe is an ethno nationalist heretic.
[00:45:40]  Like, things like that.
[00:45:41]  Like, guys saying that five years from now are going to pretend they believed all the same stuff we do right now.
[00:45:48]  Is this the same as COVID?
[00:45:50]  Everyone changed their opinion 18 months in, but notice you have to understand human nature, right?
[00:45:54]  We're reformed, total depravity.
[00:45:57]  What did they do?
[00:45:58]  All your friends, your family members who said that you were an extremist and said all these things, 18 months later, when they realized that it was kind of stupid to wear three masks simultaneously in the shower alone, what did they do?
[00:46:09]  They came back to you as true Christians and they apologized and said you were right, right?
[00:46:13]  No.
[00:46:14]  What did they do?
[00:46:16]  They found a way to thread the needle to say, I now agree with the position that you've been holding all along.
[00:46:21]  And I now hold the right position.
[00:46:23]  And when I held the direct contrary position 18 months ago, I was also still right then.
[00:46:29]  And also, you're still a heretic for other reasons.
[00:46:32]  That's right, exactly.
[00:46:34]  So they would thread the needle however they had to to say, I'm right to agree with you now, and I was also right to disagree with you then.
[00:46:42]  And they would say something like, well, the scientific data changed.
[00:46:51]  And that's why it was right then, but also now holding the directly contrary position is right now.
[00:46:56]  But really, the science didn't change.
[00:47:00]  The medical science didn't change.
[00:47:02]  The political science changed.
[00:47:04]  And the second that America had the will to resist and said, we're done with COVID, all of a sudden the scientists got in line and said, oh, yeah, it's okay.
[00:47:12]  Go.
[00:47:13]  You had something to say?
[00:47:14]  No, I was going to say otherwise, they were wrong in the right direction.
[00:47:21]  This all sounds so familiar.
[00:47:23]  Welcome to the Rose Store.
[00:47:24]  I'm Joe Robin.
[00:47:25]  I'm so white pilgrim.
[00:47:26]  He's still white pilgrim.
[00:47:27]  Well, so what I was going to say is you're all totally right.
[00:47:33]  I mean, we've all seen this, right?
[00:47:36]  And the difficult thing there is we will have a needle that we have to thread there as well, where you want to give people off ramps when they realize that they're wrong.
[00:47:48]  You don't want to just be bitter where it's like, I am right, I'm always right, you're all stupid.

=== Navigating Increasing Divisions Gracefully (15:25) ===

[00:47:54]  No, it's like everybody comes along at a different rate, and you want to be gracious to them to the extent that you can.
[00:48:02]  But at the same time, you don't want people that have been completely wrong for a decade and attacking everybody who is right now to get to be at the front of the stage and say, All right, everyone listen to me now.
[00:48:15]  Because, I mean, like the Lord says, if you're faithful in little, be faithful in much.
[00:48:20]  And they were unfaithful when they were wrong, and now you're not going to hand them much.
[00:48:25]  Now it's like, Okay.
[00:48:27]  You can, you could come along and be with us now, but like, you don't get to like, tell us how it's gonna go right, so that's it.
[00:48:32]  But that's a difficult needle to thread, because when the people like, like with Covid right say well, I was right then and i'm actually right now um, then they want to just retain the influence and prominence and everything else that they had and they're like they've demonstrated.
[00:48:49]  Well, I don't know if we could totally trust, trust you anymore and your judgment, um and so.
[00:48:56]  But it's difficult because you want to win people, You don't want enemies.
[00:49:01]  I don't want guys saying nasty stuff about Eric and Stephen and everyone else.
[00:49:06]  I defend them.
[00:49:06]  I say that these are actually good guys.
[00:49:08]  You should listen to them and be more patient.
[00:49:14]  And I want our enemies to be friends.
[00:49:17]  And God promises this.
[00:49:19]  If a man's ways please the Lord, he makes even his enemies to be at peace with him.
[00:49:24]  We should be living that way.
[00:49:26]  And I think we.
[00:49:28]  I think we have the opportunity to do that, right?
[00:49:31]  To be bold, to be courageous, but also to be extremely gracious when people are willing to bite the bullet and say, I was wrong, right?
[00:49:41]  If they are.
[00:49:42]  And to not attack them and keep the bitter feuds going.
[00:49:47]  I've never met anyone who does that, but I'm hopeful.
[00:49:52]  I was wrong.
[00:49:53]  Okay, Benjamin.
[00:49:54]  Yeah, I really like what Thomas said.
[00:49:58]  My answer, by the way, is that we will see more division over the next four years.
[00:50:04]  I think that's very clear.
[00:50:05]  But to Thomas's point, you don't want to negate the connections that are formed over the next four years, the real friendships, the real relationships that are very, very good and that kind of keep you rooted in a thing.
[00:50:16]  But to kind of piggyback off of something AD said much earlier and then what Isker just said, this is actually a very practical question.
[00:50:25]  If the belief is that there will be more division over the next four years, then the natural follow-up question is, what do you do about it?
[00:50:33]  in your local setting, in your local church, in your business, in your family, because when you're trying to tether yourself back to something as strong as the deep root of the Western tradition and the Western ethos, it will mean that you're repulsing everyone else around you that's not trying to tether themselves to that.
[00:50:52]  So how do you handle that?
[00:50:53]  And my answer would be, and this is especially on the church front, don't be a schismatic autist.
[00:50:59]  That's right.
[00:51:00]  Be a well-adjusted human being that is pleasant to talk to, that can have a normal conversation with normal people, even when they're not breaking out calculators when you bring up World War II, even when they're not talking about the gynocracy all the time.
[00:51:15]  Be a well-adjusted human being.
[00:51:16]  Be kind, be charitable, be gracious, and be respectful.
[00:51:21]  Especially when your pastors aren't as with you, aren't as far to the right with you, they still, you know, you salute the office, not the man.
[00:51:29]  Be respectful, be honorable to your pastors when they still have your back despite disagreeing with you.
[00:51:34]  That is a very honorable thing.
[00:51:36]  that they're doing.
[00:51:37]  So just make sure that you're being kind and normal and not being crazy.
[00:51:43]  That's helpful.
[00:51:44]  And the normal one.
[00:51:49]  All right.
[00:51:50]  So as you all know, my favorite word is nuance.
[00:51:53]  So, I'm going to be nuanced.
[00:51:55]  There's that Puerto Rican coming in right there.
[00:51:57]  Very reasonable.
[00:51:59]  So, yeah, I think the division will appear to increase.
[00:52:03]  And when I say appear, I mean the leadership of the evangelical church, and maybe even especially the Reformed church, the division's going to be more intense.
[00:52:15]  But I don't think it's necessarily the case that that's going to be the case for the people in the pews, necessarily.
[00:52:20]  I talk to people all the time where they have a pastor who's very antagonistic towards me and all the guys on this stage.
[00:52:27]  And their church is filled with people that watch and listen to and love all of our content.
[00:52:34]  And so there is a disconnect.
[00:52:36]  And I think what's going on there, sorry, Andrew, I'm going to talk about baseball for a second.
[00:52:42]  There's a great scene in Moneyball where.
[00:52:45]  I love that movie.
[00:52:46]  I love that movie.
[00:52:46]  It ruined the sport, but I love the movie.
[00:52:48]  Yeah, totally ruined the sport, right.
[00:52:50]  I agree with you on that, yeah.
[00:52:53]  It's a new way to evaluate players and build your teams and whatever.
[00:52:57]  And so he gets a lot of pushback.
[00:52:59]  All the other general managers hate him.
[00:53:02]  His staff hates him, but he ends up doing really well with his team.
[00:53:05]  And the owner of the Boston Red Sox wants to hire him.
[00:53:09]  And he says, Look, the reason why everybody hates you is because you're threatening their livelihood.
[00:53:14]  They've built their entire life on doing things a certain way.
[00:53:17]  And you're telling me that, no, there's a better way.
[00:53:20]  And it's more effective.
[00:53:23]  And the way you're doing it is wrong.
[00:53:25]  And I'm going to beat you with less money.
[00:53:28]  So that's why they were so aggressive, right?
[00:53:31]  And so the leadership.
[00:53:32]  Is very aggressive.
[00:53:34]  I never make these lists that you guys, you know, the black lists.
[00:53:36]  It's always Eric, it's always you guys.
[00:53:39]  Joel, you're always on that list.
[00:53:41]  Well, one point, like, if you've read the book Moneyball, have you read it?
[00:53:45]  Michael Lewis, like, he makes the point that Moneyball was actually attacked in the media several times as racist, right?
[00:53:54]  Literally.
[00:53:55]  And I remember reading that like 10 years ago, and I'm like, wow, that sounds familiar.
[00:54:00]  Yeah.
[00:54:02]  Yeah, it's so interesting.
[00:54:03]  It's like they have the same playbook for everything.
[00:54:07]  It's totally universal.
[00:54:08]  Yeah.
[00:54:08]  Everything.
[00:54:09]  Yeah, it's amazing.
[00:54:11]  So, that's kind of what's going on here because the people in the pews that watch our content and love it and they get it, their livelihoods aren't at stake.
[00:54:19]  It's the people that have built a career talking about the five solas, and that's the pinnacle of theology and everything we need to think about.
[00:54:28]  Those are the ones whose livelihoods are at stake.
[00:54:32]  So, you'll see an increase in rhetoric, you'll see an increase in division on the top levels.
[00:54:38]  But I don't think you should get black-pilled.
[00:54:40]  I don't think you should stress out about the divisions that much because for regular people, I mean, they get it.
[00:54:48]  It's hard to argue that the nation shouldn't be Christian.
[00:54:53]  I've had these arguments before, and they're just shocking to me the way that they go.
[00:54:58]  It's very difficult to argue that.
[00:54:59]  But, you know, when your livelihood is at stake, you will argue that.
[00:55:03]  And you'll try to make it sound really good.
[00:55:04]  And usually, you know, you're an effective communicator.
[00:55:07]  You're an evangelical leader.
[00:55:07]  That's why you're there.
[00:55:09]  So you can trick some people.
[00:55:11]  And here's the thing everyone has their sycophants too, right?
[00:55:14]  There's always going to be the James White sycophant.
[00:55:16]  So no matter what he says, they're going to go with it.
[00:55:18]  But that's a very small percentage of people.
[00:55:21]  So don't stress out about the divisions.
[00:55:22]  They're going to increase, but I think it's going to be superficially.
[00:55:27]  Well said.
[00:55:27]  CJ.
[00:55:32]  Yeah, I would also give sort of a nuanced answer, but as I'm known to do.
[00:55:39]  As one does.
[00:55:40]  As one does.
[00:55:41]  He made the distinction between the leadership and the pews.
[00:55:43]  My distinction might be the old guard and the new guard.
[00:55:46]  What I would say is don't think of the reform community or the new Protestantism as a static pie where it's the same size as it was 20 years ago.
[00:55:56]  It's actually growing exponentially.
[00:55:58]  It's massive.
[00:55:59]  And so what's going to happen is the factions are going to be there, but the number of people that are creating a united front is actually much bigger.
[00:56:08]  And so the new guard, they are ready to stand together because they've been on the receiving end of a regime, of a media, of a corporate class, of a moneyed class.
[00:56:17]  that hates them and they know that and they're ready to stand together.
[00:56:20]  I tell my sons all the time that loyalty is the preeminent virtue of our age and I think that that's what this seriously, loyalty is you should get a standing ovation.
[00:56:30]  Yeah, please.
[00:56:32]  At least one.
[00:56:33]  Please clap.
[00:56:34]  All right, all right.
[00:56:36]  All right, thank you.
[00:56:42]  I need the white pill juices every once in a while.
[00:56:45]  Andrew scolded me before and he's like, you better be optimistic.
[00:56:48]  I need to sell books.
[00:56:51]  So, yeah, Go Pie Boniface Option by Andrew Isker, Ghost Written by CJ Engel.
[00:56:57]  No, but to continue my.
[00:56:59]  That is not true at all.
[00:57:01]  He's never even read it.
[00:57:05]  Why would he read something he already wrote?
[00:57:10]  For premium subscribers, we'll duke this out later live.
[00:57:15]  All right, so, yeah, to continue my answer, I think that the new coalition is much bigger.
[00:57:20]  The factions will be there.
[00:57:22]  but a lot of it is just going to be this inability by the old guard to cope with the rising generation.
[00:57:28]  I think that's what's going to happen.
[00:57:30]  So the factions will be there, but I really have this sense that these rising Protestants that are self-consciously pro-Christendom, I think they're ready to stand united together.
[00:57:44]  As we saw on the panel last night, I mean, this is a civilizational battle.
[00:57:50]  The media is not reporting on people that disagree over the five points of Calvinism.
[00:57:54]  Right?
[00:57:55]  That's not where we're at.
[00:57:56]  Who cares?
[00:57:57]  Those books have been written.
[00:57:58]  These are civilizational questions.
[00:58:00]  And I think the new guard, the much bigger pie, is ready to stand together.
[00:58:04]  And I don't think the factions will be very obvious among that crew.
[00:58:08]  Yeah, CJ, before Eric goes out, butt in.
[00:58:13]  As I want to do.
[00:58:14]  But no, I mean, like, the point that you're making, though, is absolutely right.
[00:58:18]  Like, so much of the fighting and division that has happened maybe since the Reformation within the Reformed world.
[00:58:27]  Is like this fight over this tiny little pie of like market share of Reformed Christians, right?
[00:58:33]  And they're just stealing from each other's churches, and that's, you know, I mean, it's basically it.
[00:58:39]  And there are millions of people, especially young men, that are open to the gospel.
[00:58:49]  And the door that they're open to, and what makes them this field white for the harvest, is they see the civilizational question right before them.
[00:58:59]  Nobody has an answer to it at all other than Christians, and particularly Christians that are rooted in the experience of Christendom.
[00:59:12]  And so offering that to them grows the pie so much bigger, where it's not like, oh, I'm going to fight over the people that listen to this podcast so I can win the podcast bracket, which we almost did, which is also important.
[00:59:25]  Yeah, it's very important.
[00:59:26]  Make sure you vote early and often next time.
[00:59:28]  Yeah, I was going to say, did we win?
[00:59:31]  Who won?
[00:59:31]  Who won last year?
[00:59:32]  Who won that?
[00:59:32]  I don't even remember.
[00:59:33]  I think there's a trophy.
[00:59:35]  We weren't in age last year.
[00:59:36]  But anyway, yeah, I'm just not funny enough.
[00:59:43]  It was the Big Baptist guy.
[00:59:45]  Yeah, yeah.
[00:59:46]  I think I'm funnier than he is, but whatever.
[00:59:49]  Anyway, like, the pie is going to grow.
[00:59:54]  Nobody laughed at that.
[00:59:57]  I'm sure your wife did.
[01:00:00]  Yeah, yeah.
[01:00:01]  Maybe my mom, too.
[01:00:03]  Like, the pie is going to grow, right?
[01:00:07]  There are millions of people that are seeing the stuff that we're saying.
[01:00:12]  I mean, I look at like Joel's YouTube channel.
[01:00:14]  What's it, 130,000 subs?
[01:00:17]  125.
[01:00:18]  Like, how many of them three years ago were Christians?
[01:00:22]  Oh, that's the most common email I get is, I just became a Christian.
[01:00:28]  Yeah.
[01:00:29]  I found you because of either based political content or because you had Ben come on so that you could talk over him.
[01:00:38]  But no, but for real, it's like Ben and Brian, and I'm picking on myself.
[01:00:43]  Yeah, that's my bad.
[01:00:44]  But Ben and Brian, it's either Nephilim or political stuff.
[01:00:48]  But the point is, in either case, they weren't Christian.
[01:00:51]  It was like, I mean, Haunted Cosmos, you talk about a gateway drug to South Asia.
[01:00:56]  It's evangelistic.
[01:00:57]  Yeah.
[01:00:57]  It's evangelistic.
[01:00:58]  100%.
[01:00:59]  Yeah, so yeah, a lot of people getting saved.
[01:01:01]  And I mean, in a much smaller, we only have 3,000.
[01:01:05]  Yeah, but you guys, much smaller.
[01:01:07]  You're going to get there.
[01:01:08]  You're killing it.
[01:01:09]  We're much smaller.
[01:01:10]  Like, the conversations I have with people, it's the exact same thing, where it's like, Uh, three four years ago, I wasn't a Christian.
[01:01:17]  Uh, I see all these things going on, and um, I am now, uh, because of guys like up here and many others.
[01:01:26]  Uh, and praise God, by the way, yeah, praise the Lord, He's saving people.
[01:01:31]  We want to win the country, but we'd like these people that we're winning to also go to heaven, and God is saving people, amen.
[01:01:37]  Yeah, God's saving people, and and and so it's like, you know, and people will criticize it like, oh, well, there's you're just doing secret sensitive Christianity, but with politics, and it's like.
[01:01:46]  No, I'm not.
[01:01:47]  I'm just trying to tell the truth about stuff.
[01:01:50]  And these people want to hear it.
[01:01:52]  And then they also hear the truth that Jesus Christ became a man and died on the cross and was risen from the dead and ascended to heaven for your salvation, right?
[01:02:03]  They hear that.
[01:02:05]  And that's like always the criticism that we get, you know, is like, they don't share the gospel at these conferences.
[01:02:10]  They don't have an altar call.
[01:02:12]  And it's like, well, I mean, pretty much everybody here is already Christian.
[01:02:14]  The gospel will be sufficiently.
[01:02:17]  Preached on the Lord's Day tomorrow.
[01:02:18]  Yeah, amen.
[01:02:20]  So, anyway, the pie is growing.
[01:02:22]  That's my point.
[01:02:23]  That's, I think, CJ's point, and I'll shut up and let Eric talk.
[01:02:26]  Eric, thank you.
[01:02:27]  That was good.
[01:02:28]  Yeah, it's really good.
[01:02:29]  I think, especially in the Reformed world, the thing that we have to get over is the crab barrel that we live in, right?
[01:02:35]  And that's going to be really hard, I think, because as Andrew pointed out, that's just been the modus operandi for so long.
[01:02:41]  So, especially for, I would say, like the 40 to 50 year old pastors, maybe the younger guys too, we talk about things like being boomer coded.
[01:02:51]  Right?
[01:02:51]  And you're talking about not all boomers, but you're talking about the bad ones, right?
[01:02:56]  But the problem is, when you look at that, it's like there's also a lot of younger guys who follow that lead.
[01:03:03]  And what you have to do is you have to actually say to the young guys, like, again, you don't have to play the cancellation game.
[01:03:10]  There's this thing, and reform people don't know this, so I'm going to let you in on a little secret.
[01:03:14]  You can disagree with people and be their friend.

=== Disagreeing While Remaining Friends (09:39) ===

[01:03:19]  Have you seen it done?
[01:03:21]  Heretic.
[01:03:23]  Heretic.
[01:03:24]  Yeah, so this is the thing.
[01:03:25]  It's like you can have a conversation, and it could be about a range of political things.
[01:03:30]  And you could say, Yeah, I think that's a pretty dumb opinion, Andrew, whatever it is.
[01:03:35]  You never said that to me.
[01:03:36]  Well, I know you and CJ probably said this all the time.
[01:03:38]  All the time.
[01:03:39]  All the time.
[01:03:40]  And then you move on and you say, yeah, and we're going to keep building together.
[01:03:43]  And so I think tied with that is also just, Brian talks about this all the time, but this idea that there's not a fixed pie of glory.
[01:03:52]  Right.
[01:03:54]  Right.
[01:03:54]  Like, I don't look at Joel and say, wow, his conference is big, then mine won't be.
[01:03:59]  And ours will be big too because Joel will be there.
[01:04:03]  So, way to go, Joel.
[01:04:04]  And he will walk up on the stage.
[01:04:07]  With zero notes.
[01:04:09]  And crush it!
[01:04:11]  Joel, in his own words, brings all the boys to the yard.
[01:04:14]  And that's a direct quote.
[01:04:16]  True story.
[01:04:17]  It's funny.
[01:04:18]  I witnessed that.
[01:04:18]  But Ben helped point out it's also super gay.
[01:04:22]  And I need to find a different way to say it.
[01:04:25]  Yeah, CJ has no idea.
[01:04:26]  There's a rap song.
[01:04:29]  I'm so black pilled.
[01:04:33]  He just careened back into the black pill.
[01:04:35]  Under Christian nationalism, rap will be done.
[01:04:38]  But what about Christian rap?
[01:04:40]  I said rap.
[01:04:41]  Yeah, so I just think escaping that mentality where it really does in the reformed world, it can turn into turf warfare.
[01:04:52]  And so, one of the best practical things to do is just like when your friends are winning, celebrate the victories with them.
[01:04:58]  It's really that simple.
[01:05:00]  When Andrew's on Tucker, I mean, every human being has a temptation to say, Well, I wish I was on Tucker.
[01:05:07]  Right?
[01:05:07]  But instead, you say, Dude, this is a win for all of us.
[01:05:10]  God is doing amazing things.
[01:05:12]  I don't know if you guys heard that interview, but I think the gospel is going out on the largest podcast in the world.
[01:05:20]  I mean, praise God.
[01:05:21]  Amen.
[01:05:22]  You don't get envious.
[01:05:24]  What you do instead is you text both Andrew and CJ right before the recording and beg them shamelessly please tell Tucker my name.
[01:05:33]  That's what you do.
[01:05:34]  You're not envious, you grovel.
[01:05:37]  I did use his bathroom.
[01:05:38]  Yeah.
[01:05:41]  Golden toilet, probably.
[01:05:43]  Oh, yeah.
[01:05:43]  Yeah.
[01:05:46]  Dan Burke, hold on.
[01:05:48]  Battles on the right.
[01:05:49]  Okay.
[01:05:52]  I really like what Andrew said earlier about noticing that there are going to be people that have disagreed with us for a long time and then pretend like it didn't happen.
[01:06:00]  And here's the thing.
[01:06:02]  Just because fights are happening doesn't necessarily mean that's a bad thing.
[01:06:09]  It's inevitable.
[01:06:10]  Actually, Eric said something to me a little while ago.
[01:06:12]  He said, the primary battles are going to be on the right.
[01:06:16]  It's shifted because the power dynamics are shifting.
[01:06:20]  The main battles are on the right.
[01:06:21]  And the temptation, though, is to let guys who, I don't know, instead of attacking you personally, decides to say that your church and the people you've been ministering to almost a decade have been laboring with, have done funerals for their children, say your church is laced with poo.
[01:06:41]  And then pretend like that doesn't happen.
[01:06:42]  That cannot be tolerated.
[01:06:45]  Subversives will come and they will try to steal.
[01:06:49]  Whatever movement and whatever unity that we actually have, and I don't think it can be tolerated.
[01:06:55]  And so that would be the warning is like, I understand forgiveness if there's repentance, absolutely.
[01:07:03]  But if there's no repentance, you can't just pretend that none of this happened and just continue and try to take over any momentum that we have, any unity that we have, because the enemy will always seek to divide.
[01:07:16]  And so, I mean, we're united.
[01:07:18]  Like, we're, you know, you're my guys, we're on the same team.
[01:07:23]  And nothing would give the enemy more joy than to see us fighting.
[01:07:28]  So that would be the warning.
[01:07:29]  It's like, just because there are fights doesn't mean that there shouldn't be.
[01:07:33]  Yeah.
[01:07:34]  Laced with poo.
[01:07:35]  That sounds like a Twitter account with 13 followers.
[01:07:39]  Nobody talks like that.
[01:07:41]  Nobody.
[01:07:41]  Now, maybe it was oddly specific.
[01:07:43]  That was a hypothetical example.
[01:07:44]  That can't be true.
[01:07:45]  Yeah, all right.
[01:07:46]  All right, Joel.
[01:07:46]  So, my answer to my question, if I'm allowed to do that, Joel, no, you're not.
[01:07:51]  We're going on to the next one.
[01:07:53]  I'm doing it.
[01:07:54]  I'm doing it.
[01:07:55]  So, we were talking about this on Wednesday night in the parking lot with me and the Ogden guys.
[01:08:02]  And this is my thought, you know, in the simplest way that I can say it is divisions.
[01:08:09]  The encouraging part, and I think this has been a surprise.
[01:08:12]  I feel like every single guy on this panel has been super optimistic.
[01:08:15]  And so I hope that you guys feel hopeful and feel encouraged.
[01:08:18]  Even CJ, especially CJ.
[01:08:20]  It's actually because of CJ.
[01:08:22]  Yeah, came optimism.
[01:08:24]  Way to go.
[01:08:26]  So, in keeping with that spirit of optimism, division is really encouraging because, I mean, you'd like to not have it, but it's inevitable.
[01:08:35]  And Dan's right.
[01:08:37]  But what it signifies, so it's not that you rejoice in the division itself, but what it signifies. Is victory.
[01:08:45]  Divisions are a luxury.
[01:08:48]  Divisions are the luxury of having experienced some kind of meaningful, significant victory, right?
[01:08:56]  You don't get Church Row.
[01:08:58]  You know what I mean?
[01:08:59]  Church Row, like every town, some old southern town, there's a street.
[01:09:04]  It's not just that the town has 20 churches, there's one street in a town of like 8,000 people with 20 churches on Church Row on the same street.
[01:09:14]  Street, you've got the Methodist Church and the Baptist Church, and then another Baptist Church, and then another Baptist Church that doesn't admit that they're Baptist.
[01:09:21]  We're non denominational, which, just for the record, every non denominational church is a Baptist Church.
[01:09:26]  And then, you know, and then you've got the Presbyterian and the Anglican and Episcopalian, you know, and you've got, but do you know what that means?
[01:09:33]  That is actually, that's yesterday's fruit of Christendom.
[01:09:41]  You can only afford the luxury of being that particular, because those divisions, they're divisions over very particular things.
[01:09:49]  Right?
[01:09:49]  Particular Baptist.
[01:09:51]  It's literally in the name.
[01:09:52]  In the name of Baptist.
[01:09:53]  But what the particular Baptist is saying is he's saying, the Presbyterians were so successful and the Anglicans that I can now afford to be particular.
[01:10:04]  That's what that means.
[01:10:06]  And I am a particular Baptist, but that is what it means.
[01:10:08]  And I recognize that and I'm grateful for that.
[01:10:11]  I'm grateful for the Presbyterian revolt and the Black Robe Regiment and all these guys that paved the way so that Baptists could still pretend to be persecuted but not actually persecuted.
[01:10:23]  I'm grateful for that.
[01:10:26]  And I don't do that, but a lot of Baptists do.
[01:10:29]  And so my point is this, division is luxury, and it signifies, it's the proof that you've won.
[01:10:36]  And because of that, here's my point.
[01:10:38]  Steve Dace said this, and he was so right.
[01:10:42]  I thought it was the most profound thing that he said on the panel yesterday.
[01:10:45]  He said, I'm almost like secretly hoping for another COVID or something.
[01:10:50]  Because what he's saying, and it's wise, what he's saying is that that united us.
[01:10:56]  Having a common, formidable enemy is unifying.
[01:11:02]  Having a massive victory is actually fracturing.
[01:11:08]  Because you've had enough victory where you now can afford to specialize.
[01:11:16]  And so I actually think, and I'm not happy about this, but I just want to be realistic, okay?
[01:11:22]  So the white pill is it's because we're winning.
[01:11:24]  That's the optimism.
[01:11:25]  But now, on not pessimism, but just realism, on the realistic side of the equation, I think we're naive if we think that all of the fracturing and the divisions are behind us.
[01:11:39]  I actually think four years under Trump creates the conducive environment out of a luxury for actually more divisions than the dark ages, the true dark ages, which was 2020 through 2024.
[01:11:56]  Because we didn't have the luxury, because we were the underdog, because we were actually the ones who were experiencing being ostracized, we couldn't afford to be so particular.
[01:12:10]  And so I think now that there's the luxury of winning, you're going to see more divisions, but I'll say this so that the hope is, the excitement and encouragement is we're winning.
[01:12:21]  The realistic statement is because we're winning, there's going, I think, to be more, not less, fracturing.
[01:12:29]  I think in 2020, we all kind of felt like, okay, this was the litmus test.
[01:12:34]  Everyone's rearranging accordingly.
[01:12:36]  Now we know our teams.
[01:12:38]  And I thought that.
[01:12:39]  And that was dumb.
[01:12:40]  That was stupid.
[01:12:42]  You don't get off the rails for 75 years and then fix it in six months.
[01:12:46]  That doesn't happen.
[01:12:47]  And so for us to think, well, now it's happened, I think would also be naive.
[01:12:52]  And in some cases, more naive because fool me once, shame on you, but fool me twice, you know, three times a lady, as George Bush would say.

=== Winning Creates More Fracturing (07:05) ===

[01:12:59]  You know, something like that.
[01:13:00]  And so, my point is, I don't think that the cement still hasn't dried.
[01:13:05]  Things are actually still shifting.
[01:13:07]  We should expect that and not be discouraged by it.
[01:13:09]  Part of the increased shift is a luxury of the victory that the Lord has given us.
[01:13:15]  And my counsel, it's not even a warning, but my counsel is the divisions are going to still happen, but I think we can divide better.
[01:13:25]  We're going to divide, but we don't have to divide laced with poop.
[01:13:30]  So, you know what I mean?
[01:13:31]  So, I think we're going to have more divisions as a signifying of the fact that we've had more victory.
[01:13:38]  Praise the Lord.
[01:13:39]  And with these more divisions, they don't have to be mean divisions.
[01:13:43]  So, we had a bunch of divisions.
[01:13:45]  I think we're going to have more, but I think we can divide better, I guess, is what I'm saying.
[01:13:49]  Joel, could I make an observation real quick here?
[01:13:51]  The people who talk about how they have much in common with fellow Christians than their actual neighbors, you often see these people who they're the ones. who are burning bridges, who are kicking people out of their friend groups or social groups, who are hurting churches.
[01:14:08]  And it's a funny meme online that shows some left-wing girl and her friend group, she says she loves the world, and her friend group is everyone who looks just like her.
[01:14:18]  And then it's some right-wing guy who's a really bad guy.
[01:14:22]  And all of his friend group is like people from all over the world who are just like, they're like, yeah, we're all together, we're all friends, even though we're supposedly these really ethnically particular people.
[01:14:32]  And I think last year, as I was kind of watching things from the sideline, there was a discussion about netter, no enemies to the right.
[01:14:42]  And it seemed like there was a lot of fighting over that.
[01:14:44]  And to me, I was kind of not blackpilled, but I was disappointed because that was just a discussion to get to a place where we merely don't fight each other on the right.
[01:14:53]  But even if you can get there, that's not enough.
[01:14:55]  You actually have to befriend people on the right.
[01:14:58]  And someone, I did not come up with this, but someone said better, befriend.
[01:15:02]  Everyone to the right.
[01:15:04]  Now I'm not saying do that.
[01:15:05]  Not everyone.
[01:15:05]  A little corny, but it's good to do that.
[01:15:08]  But the point is, you actually have to form friendships.
[01:15:11]  And fighting is, men fight.
[01:15:12]  That's what we do.
[01:15:13]  Iron sharpens iron.
[01:15:14]  It's not a pleasant process for the iron, right?
[01:15:17]  You're actually rubbing things away.
[01:15:18]  It's fighting.
[01:15:19]  And when you get into a fight with someone, you know more about yourself and that person when that happens.
[01:15:23]  You learn something about your enemy.
[01:15:25]  We go overseas in the military and we fight with them.
[01:15:27]  We learn their language.
[01:15:28]  We dress like them.
[01:15:28]  We start to talk like them a little bit to get involved with them.
[01:15:31]  This happened with Vietnam.
[01:15:32]  It happened with Germany many other times in history.
[01:15:35]  The Germans came over here and fought in the Revolutionary War and they ended up staying here.
[01:15:38]  So anyway, when you get into a fight, there's a lot of good things that grow out of that.
[01:15:42]  This is what some of these guys are saying.
[01:15:43]  And further, if we could merely stop fighting each other, that's good.
[01:15:46]  That's neutral.
[01:15:47]  But you have to actually form friendships as well.
[01:15:49]  You have to form relationships.
[01:15:50]  So we have a lot of work to do and I'm just trying to encourage us.
[01:15:53]  I'm not trying to blackpill there.
[01:15:55]  You're right.
[01:15:55]  That's really good.
[01:15:56]  And I think right now, everyone's going to be making their individual calculus because of that victory.
[01:16:00]  Some guys, it's like we all fought together and we pushed because we had to, and there was a common enemy.
[01:16:05]  But at this point, some guys are going to be like their calculus personally is going to be okay, but from here on, moving forward, my goal is I'm just trying to win over normies in the SBC.
[01:16:17]  Well, if that's your goal, that's a noble goal.
[01:16:20]  There's nothing wrong with that.
[01:16:21]  We shouldn't disparage that.
[01:16:22]  But if your goal is to win normies in the SBC, you can love me.
[01:16:26]  And we can have phone calls and be friends, but you probably aren't going to have me on your podcast.
[01:16:32]  So it's a division, but it's a calculated division and it's not a relational division.
[01:16:37]  It's a strategic division.
[01:16:39]  You know what I mean?
[01:16:39]  So, like, there are guys who two years ago, they would have been on stage.
[01:16:45]  And some of those guys, you know, there was some of the mean division that I talked about, but some of those guys, there's no mean division.
[01:16:51]  They're still our guys, but for their purposes and what they're trying to achieve privately, we're still friends.
[01:17:01]  Publicly, they're not necessarily gonna, you know, hey, let's get Joel on the pod, you know, to talk about repealing the 19th Amendment.
[01:17:08]  It's like, we love you, Joel, but it's like, my goal, that's not super helpful for my goal, and that's okay.
[01:17:15]  And I think on both sides, that guy needs to not publicly try to shame me.
[01:17:20]  And then I also need to not be petty and offended by that.
[01:17:24]  I need to be wise enough to recognize, I know what you're doing, and that's good, and I'm not, and I don't take that personally.
[01:17:30]  That's a really good point.
[01:17:31]  Michael Jordan, and I took that person.
[01:17:33]  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[01:17:35]  I think that's a really good point.
[01:17:36]  There's a lot of times where there'll be conflict, and whatever comes of the conflict, there may be the tactical division, and in the best way.
[01:17:46]  But a lot of men will also blame their cowardice on tactics.
[01:17:50]  They'll cloak over their own cowardice with saying, well, I'm just being tactical, you know?
[01:17:56]  And that's sin, because cowardice is sin.
[01:17:59]  However, for those that are actually being above board, They're good men, and they are actually being tactical.
[01:18:07]  There should be a level of respect and understanding between people that are made for different things.
[01:18:13]  So when God makes people, he doesn't make them all the same, and he makes them for different purposes.
[01:18:19]  And so the one who's the pastor should maybe have a tactical division at times with the one who's a political theorist, right?
[01:18:27]  Not a mean division, but a good one.
[01:18:29]  And he's not being cowardly, but he should still respect to the utmost the nobility of what the political theorist is doing and vice versa.
[01:18:37]  Like hypothetically, well said, there could be, like, hypothetically, a Christian prince who is a state senator and who loves you, and personally, you have a relationship with him, and he's praying for you and encouraging you.
[01:18:50]  And yet, at the same time, he could be up for reelection in the near future, and it just might not be advantageous to do something crazy publicly together.
[01:18:59]  And you can understand that calculus, and you say, you know what?
[01:19:03]  You're smart, and I respect you, and I love you.
[01:19:07]  I was just going to say, you even see this in the Bible.
[01:19:10]  I always talk about Ezra and Nehemiah.
[01:19:12]  They approached the same exact problem.
[01:19:14]  The problem was the Israelites were intermarrying with the pagans.
[01:19:19]  And Ezra, he's a priest.
[01:19:22]  He prays to God.
[01:19:23]  He tears his clothes.
[01:19:24]  He pulls his hair out.
[01:19:26]  You know, he's in anguish.
[01:19:27]  And then Nehemiah sees the same situation, and he's not a priest.
[01:19:33]  And so he doesn't pull his hair out.
[01:19:34]  He pulls their hair out.
[01:19:36]  And he beats them.
[01:19:38]  And he forces them to, you know, swear they're not going to do it again, you know, that kind of thing.
[01:19:42]  And both of those men are praised in the Bible, and they don't fight each other.
[01:19:46]  Ezra doesn't have to join Nehemiah in pulling out people's hair.
[01:19:51]  And Nehemiah doesn't have to, you know, tear his own clothes.
[01:19:53]  He doesn't have to do what Ezra's doing.
[01:19:56]  But they're both necessary.
[01:19:58]  They're built for different things.
[01:19:59]  That's what you were just saying.
[01:20:00]  Not everyone's built the same.
[01:20:02]  And not everyone has the same job either.

=== Lessons From Moses And Nehemiah (03:42) ===

[01:20:04]  Yeah.
[01:20:05]  Even within the same lane, there can be differences of disposition.
[01:20:09]  Another good example would be Moses and Phinehas.
[01:20:12]  So you have this man leading a Midianite woman into his tent.
[01:20:15]  Moses kind of stands by, and he's sorrowful over it.
[01:20:18]  He's weeping before God for the sin of his people.
[01:20:22]  Phinehas just goes and kills them.
[01:20:24]  And God says, you will make a great priest.
[01:20:26]  You've atoned for the sins of the people by the spilling of blood.
[01:20:30]  And so you have two priests there, more or less.
[01:20:32]  Moses is a prophet, but he's very priestly in his work.
[01:20:35]  And they respond differently, tactically, sincerely, and they respect each other for it.
[01:20:41]  And God also commends both.
[01:20:44]  Well said.
[01:20:45]  We're going to go ahead and wrap it up.
[01:20:47]  CJ, I've enjoyed your friendship, getting to know you.
[01:20:51]  And you're super gifted and super sharp.
[01:20:54]  And you didn't get to go on Tucker.
[01:20:57]  But you got to go on Joel Webbin.
[01:20:58]  It's not the same.
[01:21:00]  I was chaperoned.
[01:21:01]  I want to give you unchaperoned.
[01:21:05]  I will physically, I can't physically do this, but I would attempt to hold Andrew down if he interrupts.
[01:21:10]  Why don't you close this out with a final word?
[01:21:13]  Yeah, doesn't someone control his mic this time?
[01:21:15]  Yeah, that's a way easier solution than me trying to.
[01:21:20]  All right, close this out.
[01:21:21]  Let's see.
[01:21:23]  Well, there you go.
[01:21:24]  All right.
[01:21:25]  Do you mind coming into the studio with us?
[01:21:28]  I'd be honored.
[01:21:29]  Okay.
[01:21:31]  Yeah, close this out.
[01:21:32]  Let me just say this.
[01:21:37]  The fight is long and we will see great victories and we will see and experience tactical defeats.
[01:21:46]  And I would say in the midst of the optimism and the momentum and the energy and all of these things, I think the regime is not something that's just going to let go and they're going to say, okay, there's a popular will to change things and we're no longer popular and that's just the way it is.
[01:22:02]  I think that we need to be prepared to go through the pit together.
[01:22:07]  And I think that's one of the lessons that we're only seeing the tip of the iceberg of.
[01:22:12]  All the little attention that we're getting, I mean, Andrew being on Tucker, that's a symbol that there's a tidal wave coming.
[01:22:18]  And with your boys in the trenches, they are your lifeblood.
[01:22:24]  And I know I already said this, and I tell this to my boys all the time.
[01:22:30]  One of the things I get them in trouble for, and they're listening, so this is good.
[01:22:34]  One of the things they get in trouble for is tattletaling.
[01:22:36]  Okay, keep your friends accountable don't let them sin but reprimand them privately and you don't come in tattletale to me because you are loyal to the death and and I tell them this all the time and I you know and I Andrew and I tease on on here and and I and I hope but I always tell him and he knows this too unless he buys a Tesla I am with him to the bitter end Yeah,
[01:23:00]  but I actually I actually own a Tesla But the point is, I think that's the lesson of the new Christian right.
[01:23:10]  And I think that's one of the things that explains the failure of the secular right, is they really, they ate themselves alive.
[01:23:17]  When they came into conflict with the ideology, the money, the tensions of being on the wrong side of history, so-called, they really turned against each other.
[01:23:29]  And they got bitter toward each other.
[01:23:31]  They took advantage of each other.
[01:23:32]  They were jealous of each other.
[01:23:33]  They were envious of each other.
[01:23:35]  And they actually were their own worst enemies.
[01:23:37]  And I think that's one of the things that we have to take to heart.
[01:23:41]  And this is one of the reasons that the left won, actually, because they were no enemies to the left.

=== Loyalty In The Coming Decades (01:34) ===

[01:23:46]  And that's what they did for 75 years.
[01:23:48]  And we need to remember that, that loyalty.
[01:23:51]  Is something that's very clearly laid out in the Bible as something that we ought to pursue relentlessly, and that's what I would say.
[01:23:58]  Yes, energy is on our side yes, we have a lot of optimism ahead of us, but as we enter the trenches, you look to your brother and your sister in Christ and you say, I am here for you to the bitter end, and I think that's the lesson that we need to take to heart in the coming decades amen.
[01:24:17]  My friend John Phillips.
[01:24:19]  He's here serving at the conference and he said last night, there are friends Joel, And then there are a few friends that are willing to help you bury the body.
[01:24:27]  Those are your friends.
[01:24:29]  All right, let's pray real quick.
[01:24:31]  Father, thank you for this conference.
[01:24:33]  Thank you for these men on stage with me, Lord.
[01:24:37]  But thank you for the men and women and even the children who are attending this conference.
[01:24:44]  Our success is in many ways their success.
[01:24:46]  It's because of their prayers, it's because of their encouragement, it's because of them entering the fray on X and helping to defend us.
[01:24:56]  Their financial support and giving and all these different things.
[01:25:00]  And so, Lord, I pray that you would bless these men.
[01:25:03]  But I pray, Lord, that you would especially bless all the people who came and drove and flew from all over the world to be here.
[01:25:11]  I pray that there would be a rich blessing.
[01:25:14]  Lord, I pray that you would give us wisdom and you would give us courage, all for your glory.
[01:25:18]  In the name of your Son, Jesus, amen.