Brad speaks with Tim Whitaker of the New Evangelicals about what he saw and heard at the TPUSA Pastor's Conference in Nashville - a gathering of 1100 pastors from across the country. They discuss three main themes:
COVID denial and the way it created momentum for an anti-government, anti-"woke" church movement
Trans hatred and the dehumanizing rhetoric that TPUSA encourages pastors to use
Christian nationalism - the various factions and debates manifest at the conference and why they should scare us all.
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Welcome to Straight White American Jesus.
My name is Brad Onishi, faculty at the University of San Francisco, and I'm here today with a return guest, somebody a lot of you are going to be familiar with and know from many places, and that's Tim Whitaker from the New Evangelicals.
So, Tim, good to see you.
Hello, Brad.
Good to see you as always, and thanks for having me on to talk about this.
It's going to be a good time.
So I always just appreciate you in the sense that you, like when I think of you, I think of somebody who does things and you're like, what does that mean?
I just feel like you're the kind of guy who's like, hey, there's an Asbury revival happening.
I'll just get on a plane, go see what's going on.
And you did that this past week or week and a half ago at Charlie Kirk's Pastors Conference.
So Let's just start here.
Charlie Kirk is the founder of TPUSA.
I call Charlie Kirk America's Christian Nationalist Youth Pastor.
He's done everything he can to kind of get the 21-year-olds, the 25-year-olds, the 28-year-olds involved in a movement.
He's really the kind of outreach minister With the Gen Z and like very, very young millennials.
But now he's holding a pastor's conference and this is a little different.
I mean, if you don't follow Charlie Kirk all the time and you're not, you know, you may think, oh, this is just what he does, but it's not.
So where was the conference?
How many people were there?
You know, was it a convention center?
Was it a room?
What was happening?
Yeah, so let me just give the audience kind of the breakdown.
There's Turning Point USA, which is kind of like the mothership.
That's what Charlie Kirk started 11 years ago now.
I'm 34.
I think he's a little bit younger than me, so maybe he's 32, 33.
he's a little bit younger than me, so maybe he's 32, 33.
And then in 2020, and we'll get into this, Because of the pandemic, they started a wing of Turning Point USA called Turning Point Faith that has its own director, its own staff.
Obviously, yes, it's still Charlie's brainchild, but it's not really managed so much by Charlie.
But Charlie was there at this event.
They started doing these pastors conferences.
This is the second one that they had.
They said that they pretty much doubled in size.
So they claim to have 1,100 people in a room.
It was in the Omni Hotel in Nashville, Tennessee, which makes sense because there's a pretty good stronghold of like this right wing media there.
I think that's where the Daily Wire is, et cetera.
And they were really – they really aimed it at pastors.
I mean, even when I applied, I had to say, hey, yeah, I believe I am a digital pastor of sorts doing the work that I do.
I mean, I didn't want to lie and be unethical, so I told them who I was.
I had to register.
It was totally free.
As a pastor, you don't pay anything.
Even the rooms were free if you were able to get a room.
So they were really trying to make this as accessible as possible for those 1,100 people.
So that's kind of the overview.
And this was a Turning Point Faith event sponsored, of course, by Turning Point USA.
So I just want to pause there because what you just said may seem like a minor detail, but it's not.
So, friends, this thing is so well funded that they booked a whole event at the Omni in Nashville.
That's not inexpensive.
OK, then they invited eleven hundred people and they had a block of rooms.
Now, not everyone got a room, but if you did, it was free.
I just I want you all to think about conferences you've gone to for work or I mean, I go to conferences all the time, Tim, and it's like, 300 bucks to register your room tonight, $204 parking, $66 tonight.
By the time you get out of there after three days, it's a couple of thousand dollars.
They're just footing the bill.
So I just want to pause there.
They have that much money.
And that also includes, that also included lunch and dinner on the main day.
So that was all provided for.
I did, I was not able to get a room.
So I said, okay, let me look into see how much it would be.
It would have been $700 for the two nights.
So I booked a real cheap Airbnb like that.
A mile down the road and said, I'll just walk because it was it was in the middle of Nashville.
But yeah, I mean it was and Charlie did say that like that he said from the stage or at some point in the event that there were people who funded this for them to come.
So there definitely is funding behind this for sure.
All right, so let's just start at the very beginning of this conference.
We have 1,100 pastors.
We have TPUSA Faith.
The goal here is to really get a message across to faith leaders.
They want to basically teach them things they think are really important about politics in the United States, about our civic square, and about what they should be doing as faith leaders.
One of the first sessions or maybe the opening is with Jack McCoy from Godspeak Calvary Chapel.
Rob McCoy.
Jack McCoy is a different guy.
Excuse me.
Jack Hibbs.
Yeah.
So sorry.
Anyway, there's a whole story of why I'm thinking about somebody named Jack McCoy.
I'm not going to tell everyone about it though.
Sorry.
So Rob McCoy is from Godspeak, which is in Ventura, California.
It's kind of It's kind of in my old backyard.
He's become kind of one of the big players in TPUSA.
He's somebody that's really risen the ranks, and he rose the ranks a lot during COVID.
When Rob McCoy gets up there with Charlie to start, or he's opening and talking to the audience, what is one of the first things that he starts saying to these 1,100 pastors?
I mean, so the question is, if you have 1,100 pastors in a room, and they're, by the way, it's important to note, before I tell you what they are centered around, why they are going as wide as possible.
So they had to acknowledge, hey, there are some charismatics here, there are Reformed here, even some clergy here, right?
They're pitching a very big tent because they're uniting around not theology.
I mean, Charlie essentially said, we believe in the inerrancy of scripture and like the sufficiency of Christ.
I mean, that's as basic for evangelicals anyway, as you're going to get.
And so if they're not there to talk about theology at a pastor summit, and they all know that there's some pretty big disagreements in the room, What are they united around?
Well, I mean, Turning Point is a right-wing media organization.
And so Rob McCoy, who self-described himself as like the pastor to Charlie, and there is a thread to at least consider that there is at least a rumor, I should put, that Rob is the one who really kind of convinced Charlie that, hey, you have to get a little more political with your faith.
Because he was, Charlie in the beginning was kind of libertarian.
That's important to know before he kind of made this shift.
Okay.
So the first thing Rob says, I mean, this is like 60 seconds into night one at the event, is he brings up how the COVID restrictions, um, during the pandemic were tyrannical towards the church.
He refers to Governor Newsom of California as Governor Newsellini.
Uh, you know, the crowd laughs and that was kind of setting the stage of like, we believed essentially that what happened during COVID was an attack on the church.
Um, and that if we don't, if we don't do something, we're going to be thrown in prison and preaching from prison.
That, that sentiment was said that directly multiple times over the course of this three day event.
So I was thinking about this because I've seen some of the things you've posted about it, and in some ways you think, well, wouldn't they open with issues that are things that we see in the headlines all the time?
Issues we'll get to in a minute.
Issues about trans rights, issues about Christian nationalism.
But he starts with COVID, and I think it's actually really smart.
And hear me out.
I mean, I don't think it's good, but I think it's really smart and effective.
Why?
Because he's saying COVID was the time that the government showed their cards.
They're coming for you.
So, hey, everybody, like you just said to him, your theologies may be different.
Some of you might be Reformed from Michigan.
Others, you might be Pentecostal from Florida.
When we go to church on Sundays, maybe our churches don't look exactly the same.
All right.
Who cares?
You know why?
Because you live in a time when the government wants to put you in jail for being a Christian, and COVID is the example.
And it's just really smart, because if you want to get everyone united from minute one in the conference, here it is.
We can all agree they tried to shut down the church.
We're living in a time of tyrannical overreach by a government that hates God.
Here's the proof.
And McCoy is a really good person to give this sermon because he's somebody who flouted COVID law.
I mean, he really rose the ranks because he was like, I'm not closing my church.
So anyway, this really seems effective to me.
And I want to bring up a couple of important points that I think is good for the audience, because I'm a big believer in trying to understand and see how they see things so we can better, you know, learn how to resist it.
I mean, that's how we learn, right?
And so I understand that maybe for some people in the audience, it's like, oh, that's ridiculous.
Now, listen, I get that.
I would agree with you, to be clear, right?
But the reason why they see it this way is, A, because they saw it from their vantage point, hypocrisy during COVID.
We all saw politicians, Republican and some Democrat, who were doing things like, actually, you shouldn't be able to do that while we're in lockdown.
Or maybe this place was open and this place wasn't.
And therefore, because the church had to shut down, but this place couldn't shut down, it's hypocrisy.
I'm not telling you that you have to agree with that assessment.
I'm just telling you they used those examples as a justification to then say they were coming after the church.
Whether that's right or wrong is besides the point.
It's the fuel they use to give the example, right?
It's also important to note that they see themselves as people who rebelled against the typical church narrative.
I'll give you an example of this.
Charlie Kirk, in his opening speech right after Rob McCoy came on, said that he made the most wrong prediction in his life ever on podcasts during the pandemic.
And he said, I made the prediction that churches were not going to go along with these tyrannical mask and COVID mandates.
And they all did.
And I was shocked.
So COVID is really a divisive moment in the church history, right?
Because you have people like me who were evangelical at that time and we're like, this is great.
I think it makes sense.
We should follow the orders.
We should wear the masks, right?
Then you have people like Sean Foyt and Rob McCoy and others who are like, this is tyranny.
And then you have people like Charlie who think that the general church consensus will say this is tyranny.
But statistically, most churches, you know, definitely they shut down.
Even my conservative church did.
But these few beacons of hope in their mind or freedom were the ones who were kind of ahead of the time.
And they used that for the summit as proof that, you know, hey, we survived a tyrannical overreach with the government.
And we were on the right side while the church in general was cowardly and succumbed to government pressure.
That's how they would see it.
But it's classic.
It's classic because what they're really able to do there is basically say, hey, everybody in this room, you know, we're the ones Who see that not only did we stand up to the government, but we're not the lukewarm Christians.
I don't know about you, Tim, but when I was in evangelical, this was just like, we're not the lukewarm Christians.
We're not just the pretenders and the people that go through the motions.
We're the real church.
We're the real remnant.
We're the real chosen ones because we've stood up to Caesar.
We've stood up.
Yes.
Yeah.
Yes.
I mean, that is nail on the head, right?
And this is why this whole evangelical culture feeds on this kind of idea, right?
No compromise.
You don't compromise your faith.
You want to be a serious Christian.
That's interpreted not as, you know, how do we take care of the poor or fight for the oppressed?
It's taken as, look, the government told us we had to not have mass gatherings during a pandemic that killed three million people.
And because we don't we don't trust the science and think that vaccines are the jab and think that masking is is useless it turns out that was just a ploy for them to really show their cards that they are a deep-seated anti-christian government that wants to destroy the church.
That's kind of how those pieces work together.
Yeah.
All right.
So we got 1,100 pastors in a room.
This is how it starts.
And it's Pride Month.
We have a lot of LGBTQ folks, trans and queer people whose lives are under threat in our country at the moment.
So that leads us to something that's really important.
What was the messaging around trans issues at the conference?
Were there various speakers who mentioned this?
Was there one main kind of idea?
Were people concerned with it?
Was it in the air?
What was going on?
Yeah, so I should tell people that this event was over the course of three days, but really the middle day was the day of all the major speakers.
Now, this is my second time going to an event like this.
I went to Turning Point's AmericaFest back in December.
One of my jobs when I go here is to talk to people and understand.
It's important for me to understand what I'm dealing with so we can better tell people what's going on.
So I was not in every single session.
A lot of my days were spent talking to people, trying to understand perspective.
They knew who I was.
The organizers knew I was coming.
They know what I do.
There was no false pretense.
But they talked to me, so I'm going to talk to them.
Well, I can say, though, that one of the sessions that they had was a surprise session.
They actually had Michael Knowles show up, which makes sense because he's in Nashville.
And he did a Q&A.
Who is Michael Knowles?
Tell everybody.
Yeah, right.
Michael Knowles is probably most viral for saying at CPAC recently that we have to eradicate transgenderism.
So he's another one of these like daily wire talking heads that is just kind of on that Matt Walsh, Ben Shapiro bandwagon.
And so he came to the event, he did a sit down Q&A with Charlie, and he's Catholic, which again shows how evangelicals actually are going to compromise theological doctrine when they need to.
And we'll get into more of that with James Lindsay in a little bit.
But essentially it was all about how this we essentially the mantra is this trans people are living a delusion as Christians.
We have to tell the truth in love wink wink and therefore we cannot affirm their delusion and then Michael went on to say how we should not take it super seriously.
It's good to make fun of this stuff.
It's demonic.
It's a pathogen trying to take over the minds of our children.
What concerns me?
Maybe most in these kinds of spaces is the level of dehumanization that they'll tolerate as people claiming to represent Jesus or claiming to be an authority over other people spiritually.
Because don't forget pastors, especially in evangelicalism, are seen as gatekeepers, they're seen as protectors, people who are speaking on behalf of God on the pulpit because they understand God's Word better than someone else does.
So to have them sit in a room like that laughing along With someone like Michael Knowles, not just saying, hey, maybe we have disagreements theologically, maybe we're concerned, but saying, no, this is demonic, we should laugh at this, it's a joke, they're trying to destroy the lives of children.
It's like, wow, where is the fruit of the Spirit in this?
It's very easy to pull Bible verses up here and apply them, and for some reason they just don't consider that, right?
That was, for me, one of the more disturbing parts of the event.
So, I think it's worth noticing a change in rhetoric.
Now, when I was in ministry in the early aughts and as I followed things along over the course of, say, the Obama years, there was always this mantra of welcoming but not affirming.
Now, I want to be very clear.
I think that mantra is in itself dehumanizing.
I think it does mean asking queer people, people who are not cis or straight to basically change who they are if they wanna be part of a religious community.
And I thoroughly disagree with it.
And I think it's dangerous and it has had tragic consequences.
What I'm trying to point out though is there is a way that 15 years ago it was, "Hey, we wanna welcome you." How are you?
What's your name?
Okay, you're, you know, you are a trans person.
Your name is such.
Great.
You're welcome here.
You know, you want some coffee?
What's going on?
Okay, no, don't get me wrong, friends.
Like, hear me out.
Tragic, dehumanizing, not good.
But what we've arrived at is, from welcoming and affirming to, you're a demon and I'm going to laugh at you.
That's right.
And that is an acceleration.
And it's an acceleration in terms of the dehumanization and in terms of the rhetoric.
And it's getting pastors on board with that kind of mode.
You see what I'm saying?
This is a very important point to bring up.
Because first, just to your audience, if you don't know who we are as an organization, we are fully inclusive and affirming.
We make no bones about it.
We are totally on that.
That's our position publicly.
So I'm with you, Brad.
I'm not one of these like, oh, you're welcome, but kind of not.
But you can easily see the progression because when people like Westboro Baptist used to be seen as like the crazy fringe, but really people in these spaces are saying things that Westboro Baptist would really applaud.
Right?
You can see the progression of the level of rhetoric has only gotten worse.
I mean, one more example of this would be watch the change in Mark Driscoll.
Think about who Mark Driscoll was even 10 years ago, 15 years ago, right?
He was not nearly as political.
He was much more reformed.
Now he's doing stuff with Sean Foyt, using terms like the demonic, you know, whatever it is, it's evil, it's vile, the woke joke is his big thing.
You can see the change even in him of stepping up that rhetoric that ultimately will lead to violence, if it hasn't already, towards our queer neighbors.
No, I mean, it already has.
I mean, the violence is real, the violence is happening, and people are suffering, and people are scared.
You make a good point in some of the things you've posted after the conference, and I thought it was worth talking about.
You point out that At the conference, people are saying it's laughable, it's demonic to be a trans person.
And then they say they're trying to destroy Christianity.
The kind of steps are like, it's laughable and demonic.
We need to be aware of it because they're trying to attack us or they're trying to destroy us.
And then you point out that the response is, so, it's laughable, they're trying to attack us, therefore we should do everything we can to, what, push forward laws that make it really hard to be a trans person, really hard to get gender-affirming care, really hard to take care of your kids if they come out as trans.
And the point you make is like, it seems as if One side is doing all of the attacking.
Can you unpack that whole thought for us?
Even today, there was an article from CNN that detailed how, essentially in the first quarter of 2023, there were 413 anti-queer bills trying to be passed through all state legislators.
I'm not aware of, and I don't have the data on this, but I have no problem saying I'm confident that most of them were pushed by evangelical or conservative Christians.
Like, I'm not going to pretend that somehow, maybe or maybe not.
It most likely definitely is.
However, I'm not aware of one trans person introducing legislation to make sure that Christians can't go to church.
I'm not aware of anyone on the other side introducing one piece, let alone hundreds of pieces of legislation that reduce their right to healthcare.
Or their right to go to church on Sunday or to erase their nonprofit status as a church.
And so, and I, you know, for those of you who grew up in this world, you know, exactly what I'm talking about, because it is a, they're really good at spinning things to always be the victims yet.
They're so often in action, the victimizers, right?
So their language is we are under attack.
Their actions are, we are attacking.
That's that.
And they, they, for them, they, they see no incongruence.
It is just one in the same.
I can't tell you how often I heard at this from the stage, my in-person conversations were different.
We can get to that, but on the stage, I can't tell you how often I heard.
If we don't stand up now, if we don't stand up now, we'll be doing this from prison.
And, and again, for those of you who grew up in these spaces, like me, I I'm 30 years in to hearing this language.
30 years, at least.
In fact, I talked to one of the speakers off the platform, and I asked him, I said, listen, I gotta be honest with you, because he's really big on the whole Marxism thing, which we can get into with James Lindsay.
I said, I gotta be honest with you, so-and-so.
I listened to your whole session.
I get what you're saying.
But if you look through American history, it was the people who didn't want integration who were calling things Marxist or communist.
There were people saying integration is communism.
And so when you think about that, and then you think about how in my life, all the talk radio I grew up on and my own church culture was all about fighting Marxism, and I'm still waiting to see who these Marxists are and what they're trying to do.
So forgive me if I have a hard time buying The Sky is Falling.
Marxism has infiltrated our education system.
I'm like, Okay, like again, I don't want to not take claims seriously, but this has been a mantra for a long, long time.
But the reason why it is, is because it's incredibly effective, right?
It works really well.
You make a really good point that I want to just...
Resummarize, and that is you start by claiming you're the victim, and then you go victimize.
And that, you know, when people talk about family values, the argument I make in my book is that that's what happened with pro-slavery theologies in the 1850s.
That is what happened with the quote-unquote rise of family values in the 60s and 70s and 80s.
When I hear family values, I often hear people start by saying, my family and my way of life is under attack, and therefore I need to go attack.
And, you know, the way you put it with the trans legislation and the bills that are being, you know, the anti-trans legislation that's being put forward is right on the money.
I have not seen any bills that are like, yeah, let's close churches.
Let's, you know, let's do things that make it hard for you to worship or to pray.
And, you know, they would get into like, oh, prayer in school and all this stuff.
But again, you can pray at school.
It's just not going to be coming from your principal or your teacher or anything else.
Anyway, it's a really good point.
And I think you made it really well.
Can I bring up one more thing here really quick?
So, in some of my off-the-record conversations with people, and you know, integrity is big to me, so I'm not going to share names or break that trust, because they allowed me to come.
They knew I was coming.
They said, yes, you're more than welcome to.
Just respect what we're doing in the sense of, if we have an off-the-record conversation, keep it that way.
I talked to many people and I would ask them, help me understand, like, where's this attack coming from?
And a lot of the view is, well, because I'm seeing, I'm going to use the words here.
Okay.
These are not my words because I see so much gay stuff, like in the media.
You know, like I have to watch out like I have to watch what my kids are watching now and there's Pride Month and everything's all about the gay people and Target.
And I'm like, oh, so recognition of another people group in public life is an infringement for you on your right to not see that even though you don't have to shop at Target.
You don't have to watch those TV shows.
There's a whole Christian Empire of media that you can consume.
So it's for them, for people I talk to, I should say, I don't want to be overly generic, but the people I spoke to, even the reality of other people groups, especially queer people, being recognized or God forbid celebrated right in the public square is seen as an infringement on their right to control the public square.
Which really is evidence for me of their Christian privilege.
They're just used to everything revolving around them.
That the second they're even asked to give up some of that privilege for equity, it's now seen as an attack on their rights.
So that's a very important point to point out here.
No, it's a great summary once again, and the example you give is really good.
Hey, I went to Target, I saw a shirt that was celebrating pride, and therefore my what?
My rights have been taken away?
My liberties?
I'm somehow under attack?
What's the deal?
It's just a really good way to articulate it.
Let's talk about, you mentioned James Lindsay, so tell us who James Lindsay is.
Talk about the ways that like, and I think everyone listening will know this, that the idea of being woke is usually just used interchangeably with the idea of being a Marxist or a Communist.
How are they using that also?
I'd love to just get into schools.
I think people listening know that we talk about public schools all the time here, but how are they connecting all those threads straight from the horse's mouth?
Yeah, so let me just preface.
I'm not an academic.
That's why I'm talking to Brad.
Brad's the academic.
So Brad, anything I'm missing, you can just fill in the blanks because you've done so much more research on some of the stuff than I have.
James Lindsay is an atheist.
Let's start there.
Now, for those of us who grew up in evangelicalism, we know that atheists can do no true good.
They purposefully deny God.
They cannot be fully moral.
Yada, yada, yada, yada.
Now, this is the second time James has been to a pastor summit, and it has caused some ripples in the Christian conservative world, which we can unpack later on.
It was fascinating to watch James Lindsay at this event.
Why is he there?
Because he is their foundation.
He's really their token academic, because he has a PhD in mathematics.
Therefore, he's the expert on CRT and Marxism and how this whole thing fits together.
Now listen, I'm not going to debate James Lindsay on any of this stuff because he's probably read more than I have and he has a PhD in mathematics.
Okay, so I'm not saying he's not intelligent.
I'm just saying they use him as the person to give this some kind of academic grounding, which again is ironic.
Considering these spaces are so anti-higher education.
Charlie Kirk had a booth selling his new book called The College Scam, while then using James as proof that what they're talking about is rooted in some kind of academic language, right?
So, it's very interesting to watch even my own faith tradition, which is conservative evangelicalism, Again, jettison their own theological convictions or beliefs about atheists and welcome him in because he's telling them the right political things that they want to hear, right?
So even these so-called biblical fundamentalists actually will jettison things about their fundamentalism if the political rhetoric fits, which I think Is another indication, at least from my vantage point, zooming out 30,000 feet, that evangelicalism is turning more and more around, it's centered more around who's in politically more than who's in theologically, and there's other evidence of that.
But this was a really good example of that.
Let's just hover there for a minute because you started by saying, hey, we're in the room, there's Pentecostals, there's Reformed, there's Catholics.
So, you know, I think this is a good moment to say this is about Christian nationalism and a certain Christian political agenda.
It's not about denominations and it's not even just limited to evangelicals, right?
There's a lot of Pentecostals that may or may not be evangelical.
Those are debates that can be had another time.
Right.
Right.
Yes.
certainly Catholics.
And I just want to say that bringing in James Lindsay as an atheist, it's exactly what you're saying.
This has been done over and over again.
When I was growing up, there was C.S. Lewis, there was Francis Schaeffer.
When the smart guys help you, you want to read the smart guys.
When the smart guys don't, education is bad, education is demonic, and who needs it anyway?
Right.
Yes.
No, that's exactly right.
So James did a couple sessions essentially giving them the way of understanding that everything about wokeism, quote unquote, and everything about what's happening, queer theory, is all linked to Marxism that's coming to take over America essentially.
And also the World Economic Forum, the WEF.
This is another big talking point.
The WEF is run by elites, one world government.
Again, We both know, Brad, we could be here for hours pulling each little strand out that's tied to some kind of evangelical boogeyman, right?
End times theology, Antichrist theology, Marxism, etc.
James is the guy who will give them the narrative about how this is all Marxist.
And I spoke to James a little bit off the platform, but I listened to his session.
And I'll tell you what, and I do not claim to be an expert on Marx, okay?
As someone who does not very much, if I didn't know better, I'd be like, wow, this guy makes a very compelling case, right?
He just kind of goes through it, and he talks and uses so much language that sounds, at least to my ears, more academic, that most people, I don't even know what he's talking about, but because it sounds so intelligent, they're like, yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense.
He'll be like, yeah, this person, that person, Vatican II, back in the 60s and the 30s.
And then everyone's like, yeah, sure, Vatican II, whatever the hell that is.
It's that kind of conversation where it's like an overwhelming tidal wave of information.
And essentially it ends with, and therefore, liberalism is bad, queer theory is bad, critical race theory is bad, and essentially right-wing Charlie Kirk is fighting for freedom.
That's how that kind of works with James Lindsay.
I, that description was so good.
Hey, we're just going to like tidal wave of, uh, let me tell you about this Pope and that this Vatican council and all these things.
Yeah.
I mean, that's just so good.
And, and I, you're right.
I mean, it's not about actually fact-checking or verifying what he's saying.
It's just about, this sounds so smart.
And his conclusion is like, it's basically like this.
We already know the answers we want.
This guy's doing all the long division that we don't know how to do.
Exactly.
There's a huge equation on the board and all of us are like, nah, we don't know how to do that.
But he just did it.
He showed us all the work and as he did all the work and he did all the long division on the board and it got more and more complex, we were like, yeah, still don't get it.
But Impressive.
And look, the conclusion at the end is exactly what we wanted.
This guy's the best.
And unless you know what he's doing, how do you even challenge it, right?
Even if you're suspicious, I wouldn't know where to start talking to him.
Like, so James, yeah, Vatican 2.
I think your take is wrong.
I know nothing about Vatican 2.
So it's even hard to even fact check because they say so many things so quickly that it takes a long time to pull out every single thread.
But yeah, he was definitely there.
He was welcomed.
I've tweeted at him many times and said, James, I hope you know under Christian nationalism, atheists are the first to go.
Like, I just hope you're aware of that, dude.
I think he's being used for a certain political gain.
And if they ever take that power, I promise he ain't going to be thrilled.
I just want to stop and say that I'm going to finish this interview and then probably send in an application to teach mathematics at UCLA, because I have a Ph.D.
in religious studies and therefore I think I'm qualified because and I make that example in jest, but it shows you how ridiculous that is that, hey, this guy's a Ph.D.
in math.
Therefore, he knows all about the religious history of Vatican II and cultural criticism.
So anyway, I'll leave that there.
We're going to run out of time.
Here's what I want to get to as we close.
Charlie Kirk is playing a weird game about the label Christian nationalism.
So let me set it up.
Charlie Kirk has supported Sean Foyt.
Sean Foyt, and you have a great clip on your YouTube channel at the moment that shows this, openly says, yes, Christian nationalism.
Do we want Christians in charge of everything?
Yes.
Do we want only Christians to be in government?
Yes.
So if that's Christian nationalism, call me a Christian nationalist, right?
Charlie Kirk is more like, hell yeah, I'm a Christian and I'm a nationalist, but don't call me a Christian nationalist.
So why, why is Charlie Kirk resisting that label while supporting people who are advocating for the label?
What's in it for Charlie Kirk to kind of be weird about this?
Any indication that you got?
Yeah.
Okay.
I'm going to take a minute here and kind of parse this out because it's really important for the audience who I know is already well-informed to only be more well-informed.
And this is people like Matthew Taylor, as you know, and all those folks have done great work here.
So part of what I'm going to say is drawing from some of them.
So here's, here's the thing.
Charlie made an opening statement saying we're not Christian nationalists.
It's used as a slur to make us seem like we're just crazy, whatever.
And then, and then literally the next breath.
But I am a Christian and I am a nationalist.
And I'm like, alright, I'll write that one down for a video later on.
Questions, right?
Now, here is why many of the people I spoke to off the platform are actually, some of them, concerned about Christian nationalism.
Can I break this down?
You have two major Christian nationalist factions, okay?
You have people like Sean Foyt, they're drawing on more of the NAR, New Epistolic Reformation type of theology, the Seven Mountain Mandate idea, you know, we have a divine mandate to take over the seven spheres of influence, yada yada yada.
You also have, though, this other like river of Christian nationalism that's more called like theonomy.
This is someone named R.J. Rush Dooney, who pioneered a lot of this in I think the 70s and 80s, prolific writer, more based on replacing America's constitution and laws with quote unquote biblical law.
Now, these are people like Doug Wilson would be a good example of this, who just wrote a new book called Mere Christendom, or Stephen Wolf, who has said publicly that atheism is crushed under Christian nationalism, women can't lead because they're too empathetic under a Christian national society.
And his book has come under fire by even some conservatives as being dangerously, if not blatantly racist for advocating for keeping ethnic lines separate.
Now, you have these two major streams.
There are people in this Charlie Kirk stream that don't think people like Sean Foyt are Christian nationalists because people like Sean Foyt aren't like Stephen Wolfe.
So they're looking at Stephen Wolf and Doug Wilson and going, oh, we don't want to replace U.S. law with the Bible.
Now, they would say that.
I'm not sure they actually believe that.
Therefore, we're not Christian nationalists.
In fact, one person I spoke to said he's actually really concerned about theonomy because he wants freedom for all.
Now, take that for what it's worth.
This was behind the scenes.
He had no incentive to lie to me, but he really sees it that way.
So I think for a lot of them, that's how they think about Christian nationalism is the racist Stephen Wolf of the world who Doug Wilson has said on our we interviewed him for a segment.
And he said to us, I want Christ is Lord in our constitution.
Flat out.
I'm not sure if Charlie would necessarily say that.
He might believe it, but he would never say that as publicly.
So I think that's why there seems to be this rift of like, well, we're not Christian nationalists, even though, like to your point, if you go to Turning Point Faith's website right now, the first thing that pops up is Kingdom at the Capitol tour.
Well, that's Sean, that's Sean Voight's spiritual worship tour going to every Capitol in the U.S.
demanding that God take over.
So it's still Christian nationalism, but because it's not the theonomy version, they don't see it that way.
Yeah, so first of all, great, great summary.
Let's just say a couple things, and I know some of you listening already have your spidey senses up.
Rush Dooney is someone who is always lurking behind the scenes, is this kind of like figure that has way more influence than people ever expect.
Julie Eringer's book, Building God's Kingdom, is just, if you are not familiar with this stuff, just go pick up Julie's book, because it's a really great resource.
So let's start with there.
So there are, and I'll just say it, there are people in the NAR who have been influenced by Rush Dooney in various ways.
We don't have time to flesh all that out.
So if you're mad about this and you want to email me and say we didn't get it right, that's fine.
I'm just going to say I have 10 seconds to mention that the Rush Dooney influence crosses many lines and it goes various ways.
So let's just hang out there.
Now the second I want to break down what you said, and I think it leads to why Charlie Kirk is trying to tiptoe a line.
So on one hand, Sean Foyt would say, along with Marjorie Taylor Greene, hey, I want to get Christians elected to the U.S.
government so that we can have a Christian nation through a president and a congress and others that are Christian people.
And mayors and state representatives.
Okay, good.
That's great.
That's one way to be a Christian nationalist.
We want Christians in government.
We want to take what we have and control it.
You know, that is every branch, the legislative, the judicial, the executive.
We want armed people in the spots.
There's another, I think, more radical wing, and I've read Stephen Wolf's book.
Unfortunately for me, I have read the book.
I've read Doug Wilson's stuff and Rush Dooney and Julie's book on reconstruction and the whole thing.
There's a reconstructionist wing that would say, we want to basically rebuild the United States.
Like we want biblical law, not necessarily the existing American structure where we are the people in charge of it.
We want a whole new structure.
Like if you read Stephen Wolfe's book, He's basically talking about a Christian prince who leads the nation with people under him who are Christian magistrates, okay?
That's different than saying, let's elect Christians as president, Christians as congresspeople, Christians as whoever.
I think what Charlie Kirk is trying to do, if I hear you right, is not anger either one.
Hey, if you're in that kind of Doug Wilson, Stephen Wolf camp, I'm not saying you need to leave and I don't want you to turn your back on me.
But if you're in the Sean Foyt, Marjorie Taylor Greene kind of group, yeah, let's just try for everybody to stay in the same room and not cannibalize.
So does that sound like why he would try to tiptoe this line and be kind of weird about it?
No, we're not Christian nationalists, but I'm a Christian and I'm a nationalist.
I think first off, I think your breakdown is really helpful even for me, so thanks for putting it that way because you're totally right.
And yes, I think that is a very fair assessment to make.
Like I said earlier in the beginning of this, Turning Point Faith is casting the widest net possible with reformed people there, with charismatic people, and I think that they are highly aware of that, and also I do think Again, behind the scenes, they are concerned about that reconstructionist side of things.
I do think that.
Now, I can't speak for Charlie, but for the people I talked to, some of which spoke from the platform, they didn't seem exactly thrilled about having a theonomy in America.
So again, take that for what it's worth.
I'm not trying to say, oh, look, that means that they're automatically not doing harm, but they even seem to have their own limits, and Doug Wilson might be one of them.
Well, and I think we need to close, but I think one of the reasons that I think someone like Charlie Kirk might not want to go down the Doug Wilson road is I think there's a world where Charlie Kirk's like, okay, I'm 32.
I'm going to hang out here and do my thing for the next four years.
And then I'm going to run for Senate.
And then I'm going to run.
You know what I mean?
Like you can kind of see Charlie Kirk being like, The next step for me is not just to be Rush Limbaugh 2.0.
Maybe I get to be senator of blank state and then maybe I'm, you know, I mean, I can see this guy having very wild dreams.
Like if you're Marjorie Taylor Greene and somebody comes along and is like, hey, let's get rid of the government and just rebuild the thing after a huge war, part of you might think, okay, yeah, maybe I'm on board, but part of Marjorie Taylor Greene's probably thinking, I kind of want to be Donald Trump's vice presidential candidate.
I don't, if you guys get rid of the whole government, what do I get to do?
Exactly.
At some point, power wants to cannibalize other threats, even if it's on their own team, you know what I mean?
Yeah.
All right.
We're out of time.
There's so much more, and I'll just plug it.
I know you'll plug it.
If you go over to the YouTube channel for the New Evangelicals, Tim has a great video on the conference and the pastor's summit that he attended, but give us all the other places people can find your content because you're creating stuff all the time every week.
Oh, thanks.
Yeah, we have a podcast, the New Evangelicals Podcast.
We're on TikTok, Instagram.
I'm most active in Instagram.
That's where a lot of our content flows out of, and of course, the weekly podcast.
So Brad, again, it was great talking to you.
Thanks for letting me vent and get some of my thoughts out to the people, and hopefully this is helpful.
No, I appreciate it.
And I'll admit, I'm really glad you can go to these things as a person who grew up in evangelical spaces because I do go to them sometimes, but my body is like, wow, what are you doing here?
Why did you come back to this?
Go to the bathroom and hide.
Please just go to the bathroom and hide.
So I appreciate you doing it.
All right, friends, catch us at Straight White JC, and I'm at Bradley Onishi on Twitter and Instagram.
Can always use your help.
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We'll be back later this week with It's in the Code and the weekly roundup.
