WEBVTT 00:00:37.040 --> 00:00:39.520 Welcome to the Stone Choir Podcast. 00:00:39.520 --> 00:00:40.720 I am Corey J. 00:00:40.720 --> 00:00:41.360 Mahler. 00:00:41.680 --> 00:00:44.400 And I'm still woe. 00:00:44.400 --> 00:00:48.240 On today's Stone Choir, we're going to be discussing something that has 00:00:48.240 --> 00:00:52.560 been going on in the world, something that's been accused against us 00:00:52.560 --> 00:00:58.560 repeatedly, including very recently, as the subject of violence and the advocacy 00:00:58.560 --> 00:01:02.880 of violence versus the incitement of violence and various other forms. 00:01:02.880 --> 00:01:07.200 So today we're going to be talking for a couple hours entirely 00:01:07.200 --> 00:01:08.400 about violence. 00:01:08.560 --> 00:01:12.800 And we're gonna have a somewhat lengthy preamble here to be very 00:01:12.800 --> 00:01:16.320 pedantic about what it is that we are and are not saying 00:01:16.640 --> 00:01:18.800 because people are sloppy with words. 00:01:18.800 --> 00:01:22.640 And so there are times when we will get into things definitionally 00:01:22.640 --> 00:01:26.320 where some people think that we're being autistic, which is a stupid 00:01:26.320 --> 00:01:29.920 criticism. We're being precise because the words matter. 00:01:29.920 --> 00:01:34.240 And so I didn't even realize that this was going on until 00:01:34.240 --> 00:01:39.760 this past week, until the controversy that arose that precipitated initially the 00:01:39.760 --> 00:01:42.160 thought, and we'll get into a little bit of the details, but 00:01:42.160 --> 00:01:43.040 not too much. 00:01:43.040 --> 00:01:47.920 But I realized that in the past couple years when lying pastors 00:01:47.920 --> 00:01:52.960 and other false Christians have slandered and accused Corey and me of 00:01:53.600 --> 00:01:59.360 advocating slavery or advocating genocide or advocating this or that. 00:01:59.360 --> 00:02:04.560 It never occurred to me that in one very, very narrow sense, 00:02:04.560 --> 00:02:08.480 they were not lying, but what they were doing was lying 00:02:09.520 --> 00:02:11.440 by connotation. 00:02:11.440 --> 00:02:12.960 And so here's what I mean by this. 00:02:12.960 --> 00:02:16.160 That's not an admission of anything evil, by the way. 00:02:16.160 --> 00:02:18.560 And so this is going to be an episode where you could 00:02:18.560 --> 00:02:22.160 very easily clip probably any sixty seconds and turn us into the 00:02:22.160 --> 00:02:25.280 bad guys because we're talking about something very difficult. 00:02:25.280 --> 00:02:28.400 But when you take the whole argument it's like, well yeah, that's 00:02:28.320 --> 00:02:31.360 clearly what's actually going on. 00:02:31.360 --> 00:02:38.560 Advocacy is different than incitement, is different than encouragement. 00:02:38.560 --> 00:02:42.240 So one of the things that we do on Stone Choir very 00:02:42.240 --> 00:02:45.360 frequently, we encourage people to go to church and to read the 00:02:45.360 --> 00:02:49.120 Bible. We We exhort people to do the same. 00:02:49.120 --> 00:02:49.360 You 00:02:49.360 --> 00:02:50.000 might even say 00:02:50.000 --> 00:02:52.720 that we incite people to do the same. 00:02:52.720 --> 00:02:58.320 And those three words all have slightly different connotations, but at the 00:02:58.320 --> 00:03:00.000 same time, they're synonyms. 00:03:00.000 --> 00:03:00.640 They are 00:03:01.600 --> 00:03:05.040 overlapping in some portions and they're separate in others. 00:03:05.040 --> 00:03:07.280 And so when you only use one word, you get all the 00:03:07.280 --> 00:03:10.720 baggage of the connotation, even if you just want to mean the 00:03:10.720 --> 00:03:11.280 one thing. 00:03:11.280 --> 00:03:14.320 So I wouldn't typically say that I'm inciting you to read the 00:03:14.320 --> 00:03:16.960 Bible, but I would say absolutely that I exhort you to read 00:03:16.960 --> 00:03:20.240 the Bible, even though it's basically synonymous. 00:03:20.240 --> 00:03:23.680 And I realized as I was thinking about the remarks I would 00:03:23.680 --> 00:03:27.840 give here today that my prose and my speech is very often 00:03:28.000 --> 00:03:30.320 what is called in in literature turgid. 00:03:30.320 --> 00:03:33.440 It's I I go over the top with my synonyms, I'll just 00:03:33.440 --> 00:03:36.080 kind of layer them on, I'll say like two or three things 00:03:36.160 --> 00:03:38.720 that seem like they mean almost exactly the same thing. 00:03:38.720 --> 00:03:40.960 And I realize that this is precisely why. 00:03:40.960 --> 00:03:43.280 It's because when I layer on, I know I start with the 00:03:43.280 --> 00:03:44.800 first word, like incite. 00:03:44.800 --> 00:03:48.640 So I incite, I exhort, and I encourage you to read the 00:03:48.640 --> 00:03:52.080 Bible. It's over the top, and I know that some people think 00:03:52.080 --> 00:03:54.400 I'm a buffoon and I don't understand the English language and I 00:03:54.400 --> 00:03:56.400 do that stuff, and I'm fine with that. 00:03:56.400 --> 00:03:59.760 The specific reason that I have that very particular weird kind of 00:03:59.760 --> 00:04:04.800 annoying habit is that by layering different words over each other each 00:04:04.800 --> 00:04:06.720 other. You know, you lay down insight. 00:04:06.720 --> 00:04:08.800 I'm inciting you to read the Bible. 00:04:08.800 --> 00:04:10.960 You have the complete definition of that word. 00:04:10.960 --> 00:04:14.640 And then when I add exhort, well exhorts off by like 15 00:04:14.640 --> 00:04:20.480 degrees. So it lays on top of insight and the junction of 00:04:20.480 --> 00:04:22.400 those is really what's left. 00:04:22.400 --> 00:04:25.520 If you imagine there are different shapes layered on top of each 00:04:25.520 --> 00:04:30.720 other, once I have insight, exhort, and encourage all layered stacked up 00:04:30.720 --> 00:04:32.720 on top of each other, there can be bits and pieces of 00:04:33.040 --> 00:04:35.360 those definitions hanging off the edges. 00:04:35.360 --> 00:04:38.960 And the junction in the center is what I'm actually talking about. 00:04:38.960 --> 00:04:43.280 So that annoying verbal tick seemingly is just me trying to really 00:04:43.280 --> 00:04:46.480 narrow down what it is that I'm communicating. 00:04:46.480 --> 00:04:50.160 And the reason for that is that words mean things. 00:04:50.160 --> 00:04:54.480 The precision with which we use language is vital to communication. 00:04:54.480 --> 00:04:56.560 And one of the very common things we do on Stone Choir 00:04:56.960 --> 00:05:01.440 is complain about and try to illustrate how lazy and sloppy people 00:05:01.440 --> 00:05:02.640 are with words. 00:05:02.640 --> 00:05:07.200 Because if you only say one of those, it leaves peripheral questions. 00:05:07.360 --> 00:05:09.200 If I say I encourage you to read the Bible, well, how 00:05:09.680 --> 00:05:10.320 strong is that? 00:05:10.320 --> 00:05:13.120 Encouragement. Like it's kind of a take it or leave it thing. 00:05:13.120 --> 00:05:15.840 If I say that I exhort you to read the Bible, that's 00:05:15.840 --> 00:05:17.040 much more emphatic. 00:05:17.040 --> 00:05:21.520 I'm basically kind of burdening your conscience to some extent, again, depending 00:05:21.520 --> 00:05:22.160 on context. 00:05:22.720 --> 00:05:24.000 If I exhort you to read The Bible. 00:05:24.000 --> 00:05:26.880 It's kind of like I'm somewhere between begging and grabbing you by 00:05:26.880 --> 00:05:28.000 the lapels. 00:05:28.000 --> 00:05:30.320 And if I say that I'm inciting you to read the Bible, 00:05:30.320 --> 00:05:32.000 well, that's even a slightly different thing. 00:05:32.000 --> 00:05:34.480 But all of them mean that if you listen, you're going to 00:05:34.480 --> 00:05:35.920 go read the Bible, right? 00:05:36.240 --> 00:05:39.360 So the different terms that we use 00:05:40.320 --> 00:05:42.480 are an important part of a conversation. 00:05:42.480 --> 00:05:44.400 And one of the reasons I do it, like I love the 00:05:44.400 --> 00:05:45.280 English language. 00:05:45.280 --> 00:05:48.000 I love how incredibly rich and deep it is. 00:05:48.000 --> 00:05:51.280 There's a video from an old interview with William F. 00:05:51.280 --> 00:05:55.760 Buckley and a Spanish author named Borges, where he says something absolutely 00:05:55.760 --> 00:05:59.760 wonderful. He's a Spanish speaker natively, but he says he prefers writing 00:06:00.080 --> 00:06:03.440 and speaking in English because it's a much richer language. 00:06:03.680 --> 00:06:06.080 It's funny because Buckley's trying to argue with him and trying to 00:06:06.080 --> 00:06:08.400 talk about how rich his native language Spanish is. 00:06:08.400 --> 00:06:09.600 He's like, no, it's better. 00:06:09.600 --> 00:06:13.200 And the specific point that he makes is that the English language 00:06:13.200 --> 00:06:20.480 is simultaneously synthesized and derived from Anglo Saxon language, from Latin via 00:06:20.800 --> 00:06:23.840 in some parts French, and there are dribs and drabs in Greek 00:06:23.920 --> 00:06:25.440 kind of at the periphery. 00:06:25.360 --> 00:06:29.120 There are multiple ways for a native English speaker to say anything. 00:06:29.120 --> 00:06:32.960 And in some cases, because they're coming from completely different languages. 00:06:32.960 --> 00:06:35.680 And one of the examples that he gives is the Holy Spirit, 00:06:35.680 --> 00:06:38.400 which is a Latinate word, it's a very light word, you know, 00:06:38.400 --> 00:06:39.920 spirits. It's light. 00:06:40.160 --> 00:06:43.440 You just kind of instinctively know that there's an ephemerality and a 00:06:43.440 --> 00:06:45.520 gentility to a spirit. 00:06:45.520 --> 00:06:49.120 Ghost, on the other hand, he describes as a good dark Saxon 00:06:49.120 --> 00:06:51.920 word. When you say the Holy Ghost, it gives a very different 00:06:51.920 --> 00:06:54.320 impression than the Holy Spirit, even though it's the same thing. 00:06:54.640 --> 00:06:57.840 And so both of those are used in the English language, but 00:06:57.840 --> 00:07:00.800 you can choose which one you use for emphasis. 00:07:00.800 --> 00:07:04.320 And for me as a native English speaker, one, I'm eternally grateful 00:07:04.320 --> 00:07:07.200 to God that I know this language natively because I would never 00:07:07.200 --> 00:07:08.240 want to learn this mess. 00:07:08.240 --> 00:07:09.280 It's confusing. 00:07:09.280 --> 00:07:12.960 I have tremendous respect for those of you who are English second 00:07:13.040 --> 00:07:16.960 language speakers who are become fluent because this is a mess. 00:07:16.960 --> 00:07:19.600 But it's an incredibly rich mess once you master it. 00:07:19.600 --> 00:07:21.760 So like I just kind of got that for free by being 00:07:21.760 --> 00:07:22.960 born here. 00:07:22.960 --> 00:07:28.160 When we're using various words, it's very easy to mislead by using 00:07:28.160 --> 00:07:30.400 one and being sloppy about what it means. 00:07:30.640 --> 00:07:36.320 When we are a falsely accused of advocating slavery or advocating violence, 00:07:36.320 --> 00:07:38.640 what they actually mean is incitement. 00:07:38.640 --> 00:07:41.760 And you can always tell that whenever the accusation is leveled, that 00:07:41.760 --> 00:07:43.840 they mean incitement to violence. 00:07:43.840 --> 00:07:48.640 When I say that we are advocating things like slavery, we're talking 00:07:48.640 --> 00:07:51.680 about it in the sense that the Holy Ghost, one of his 00:07:51.840 --> 00:07:53.600 names, is advocate. 00:07:53.600 --> 00:07:56.160 The Holy Ghost is our advocate to God. 00:07:56.160 --> 00:07:58.800 If you have an attorney, he is your advocate in the courtroom. 00:07:59.520 --> 00:08:01.040 Well, what does advocate mean? 00:08:01.040 --> 00:08:03.760 To speak for, you know, vocal, advocate. 00:08:03.760 --> 00:08:07.040 It's basically mean one who speaks for another. 00:08:07.040 --> 00:08:12.400 And so to advocate for a position is not to say, you 00:08:12.400 --> 00:08:15.440 know, in a specific example of slavery, and we said this in 00:08:15.440 --> 00:08:16.320 that episode. 00:08:16.320 --> 00:08:19.920 It was a two hour Bible study about the subject of slavery. 00:08:19.920 --> 00:08:21.200 And we advocated for it. 00:08:21.200 --> 00:08:26.000 We said, look, slavery has been accused of being a per se 00:08:26.000 --> 00:08:28.480 sin, of being the greatest evil in the history of the universe 00:08:28.560 --> 00:08:30.080 until the Nazis. 00:08:30.080 --> 00:08:33.920 And anytime you see slavery, you see absolute wickedness. 00:08:33.920 --> 00:08:39.040 And we advocated for the scriptural position that is completely false. 00:08:39.040 --> 00:08:42.960 And yet simultaneously, we said that we are not inciting slavery. 00:08:42.960 --> 00:08:45.840 We're not saying that we want anyone to be enslaved. 00:08:45.840 --> 00:08:49.760 It's simply to advocate for a position and say, look, the thing 00:08:49.760 --> 00:08:52.560 that's being said about this is false. 00:08:52.560 --> 00:08:56.320 And so we have advocated for things that are controversial. 00:08:56.320 --> 00:08:59.840 And it's not to be controversial because as we talked about in 00:08:59.840 --> 00:09:04.800 the recent target selection episode, when Satan's global religion is coming after 00:09:04.800 --> 00:09:08.800 things and saying this is the great threat, that piques our attention. 00:09:08.800 --> 00:09:10.160 That piques our curiosity. 00:09:10.160 --> 00:09:14.400 What is it that Satan is threatened by in this subject area? 00:09:14.400 --> 00:09:17.680 And so one of the things that Stone Choir exists for is 00:09:17.680 --> 00:09:21.200 to advocate on behalf of those things when there's a scriptural basis. 00:09:21.200 --> 00:09:26.320 Now it's not simply rote defiance of whatever, like I'll always look. 00:09:26.320 --> 00:09:28.880 You know, if slavery were evil, we would say it was evil. 00:09:28.880 --> 00:09:29.680 I don't care. 00:09:29.680 --> 00:09:31.600 I don't have a vested opinion. 00:09:31.600 --> 00:09:34.240 Because I'm not trying to incite anything. 00:09:34.240 --> 00:09:38.800 I benefit not whatsoever, not one wit to say these things. 00:09:38.800 --> 00:09:42.720 It's only to been to our detriment to advocate for controversial positions. 00:09:42.720 --> 00:09:44.240 And we don't do it to be controversial. 00:09:44.240 --> 00:09:47.440 We do because that's where the fire is, that's where the smoke 00:09:47.440 --> 00:09:52.160 is. So today, when we're talking about violence, in one very narrow 00:09:52.160 --> 00:09:56.000 sense, we are going to be advocating for violence in that very 00:09:56.000 --> 00:09:57.280 specific sense. 00:09:57.280 --> 00:10:01.120 Violence is not per se that is in and of itself at 00:10:01.120 --> 00:10:04.400 all times and in all places evil. 00:10:04.400 --> 00:10:07.200 In this world, and we're we're gonna get into the the times 00:10:07.200 --> 00:10:11.440 and places where in in the moral sense that whether violence should 00:10:11.440 --> 00:10:14.800 exist at all in the universe and what God's nature is and 00:10:14.800 --> 00:10:17.920 how it relates to that, because it's a very complicated question. 00:10:17.920 --> 00:10:20.240 But part of the reason we're doing this lengthy preamble is that 00:10:20.720 --> 00:10:24.320 we are not inciting any form of violence. 00:10:24.320 --> 00:10:28.400 We would never do that because A, it is per se illegal 00:10:28.400 --> 00:10:34.560 to incite violence, it is retarded to incite violence, and it's ineffectual. 00:10:34.560 --> 00:10:39.520 To go do something violent and illegal is dumb, it's not gonna 00:10:39.520 --> 00:10:42.640 work, it's gonna backfire, and then you're gonna go to hell for 00:10:42.640 --> 00:10:46.800 it. You won't find Cordy or me in any situation where any 00:10:46.800 --> 00:10:48.080 of those things are in play. 00:10:48.080 --> 00:10:50.240 We're not gonna be evil, we're not gonna be stupid, and we're 00:10:50.160 --> 00:10:51.600 not gonna be impotent. 00:10:51.600 --> 00:10:56.400 So the notion that we would ever incite violence or incite slavery 00:10:56.560 --> 00:10:58.880 or anything else, it's just it's a lie. 00:10:58.880 --> 00:11:03.920 It's a slanderous lie that is a necessary type of defamation to 00:11:03.920 --> 00:11:06.800 ensure that no one will ever consider any of these subjects. 00:11:06.800 --> 00:11:08.800 You know, in the case of the slavery episode, we made the 00:11:08.800 --> 00:11:12.720 case that you cannot have the Christian religion without a proper understanding 00:11:13.280 --> 00:11:15.040 and respect for slavery. 00:11:15.120 --> 00:11:16.800 If you don't remember that, go back and listen. 00:11:16.800 --> 00:11:18.480 I'm not saying something wild. 00:11:18.480 --> 00:11:22.480 It's we make the case that you cannot have Christianity without slavery. 00:11:22.480 --> 00:11:26.160 And the attack in the world, in the new global religion against 00:11:26.160 --> 00:11:29.440 these things is for precisely that reason. 00:11:29.440 --> 00:11:32.000 As soon as they take something off the table that seems very 00:11:32.000 --> 00:11:34.880 peripheral, you know, it's it's not even a going issue anymore, so 00:11:34.880 --> 00:11:36.240 why would we talk about it? 00:11:36.240 --> 00:11:38.240 Well, why does Satan care? 00:11:38.240 --> 00:11:40.480 If it's a dead issue, why does it matter? 00:11:40.480 --> 00:11:44.640 It matters because if you take that off the table, if no 00:11:44.640 --> 00:11:49.200 one is any longer advocating for that subject in a manner consistent 00:11:49.200 --> 00:11:53.360 with the Christian religion, Satan can kill Christianity. 00:11:53.360 --> 00:11:57.280 And almost all the polemics, all the apologetics that exist for the 00:11:57.280 --> 00:12:00.720 last five centuries, don't look at these things because these are new 00:12:00.720 --> 00:12:04.160 attacks. We say very often, a lot of the stuff that's happening 00:12:04.160 --> 00:12:06.720 today has never happened in the history of the church. 00:12:06.720 --> 00:12:09.920 So we don't have good theology sitting on the shelf to say, 00:12:09.920 --> 00:12:12.160 uh, this is exactly how to deal with this. 00:12:12.160 --> 00:12:13.920 I have some historical example. 00:12:13.920 --> 00:12:17.200 In many cases, you're gonna have brand new attacks doing brand new 00:12:17.680 --> 00:12:19.120 damage to the Christian faith. 00:12:19.120 --> 00:12:21.760 And we're going to give you a few examples here today where 00:12:21.760 --> 00:12:25.440 if you neglect the thing that seems like a minor peripheral matter, 00:12:25.440 --> 00:12:30.000 you have undermined the faith months, years, centuries, millennia down the road 00:12:30.160 --> 00:12:33.280 because you gave up something that was scriptural and godly. 00:12:33.280 --> 00:12:36.640 And Satan doesn't care about any given generation. 00:12:36.640 --> 00:12:40.160 He might just let that lie sit there for a thousand years 00:12:40.160 --> 00:12:41.600 before he had exploits it. 00:12:41.600 --> 00:12:44.560 And sometimes some of his most effective work has been doing that. 00:12:44.800 --> 00:12:47.120 He makes a lie, he puts it in the timeline, he gets 00:12:47.120 --> 00:12:49.680 everyone to repeat it, and it doesn't seem to do any harm. 00:12:49.680 --> 00:12:53.360 It just sits there quietly, and a thousand years later it's activated 00:12:53.440 --> 00:12:56.640 because someone else comes along and they derive some new conclusion Inclusion 00:12:56.800 --> 00:13:00.240 on top of that lie, on top of that foundation of quicksand. 00:13:00.240 --> 00:13:03.040 And very quickly it's layered up and layered up and layered up, 00:13:03.040 --> 00:13:06.000 and soon you have a full blown attack on Christianity. 00:13:06.000 --> 00:13:08.720 And it was made possible by that one lie a long time 00:13:08.720 --> 00:13:13.040 ago. So the necessity of advocating for things which are scriptural and 00:13:13.040 --> 00:13:17.280 godly and very often go directly to the nature of God Himself 00:13:17.280 --> 00:13:18.560 are for these reasons. 00:13:18.560 --> 00:13:22.400 Neither Cory nor I want to see any violence anywhere at any 00:13:22.400 --> 00:13:23.840 time and any place for any reason. 00:13:23.840 --> 00:13:26.880 That's never a desirable outcome. 00:13:26.880 --> 00:13:30.880 However, we live in a fallen world and violence exists. 00:13:30.880 --> 00:13:34.560 And so in that fallen world where violence exists, where evil exists 00:13:34.560 --> 00:13:40.640 all by itself, If Christians, as many are today, concede that all 00:13:40.640 --> 00:13:45.120 violence is always per se evil, Satan is going to win. 00:13:45.120 --> 00:13:49.200 Because we'll get into this, pacifism is anti-Christian. 00:13:49.200 --> 00:13:51.520 Pacifist Christian is an oxymoron. 00:13:51.520 --> 00:13:53.040 There is no such thing. 00:13:53.040 --> 00:13:57.520 You cannot refuse at all times and all places to ever exert 00:13:57.520 --> 00:13:59.680 any form of violence against another man. 00:13:59.680 --> 00:14:01.120 That's not Christian. 00:14:01.120 --> 00:14:02.960 And the law always recognizes that. 00:14:02.960 --> 00:14:04.640 That's not a scandalous position. 00:14:04.640 --> 00:14:06.640 We'll get into some of those details as well. 00:14:06.640 --> 00:14:09.600 Because we have to be very precise about what we're saying so 00:14:09.600 --> 00:14:14.000 that everyone understands Corey and I are not inciting violence. 00:14:13.840 --> 00:14:16.880 and we're not even advocating violence in the sense that, well, now 00:14:16.960 --> 00:14:18.320 here's a license. 00:14:18.320 --> 00:14:20.080 Yeah, it's another crucial part of this. 00:14:20.080 --> 00:14:24.480 You know, if we talk about polygamy or slavery or violence, it's 00:14:24.480 --> 00:14:27.600 not license for someone to say, oh, well, that's I really wanted 00:14:27.600 --> 00:14:28.720 to do that anyway. 00:14:28.720 --> 00:14:31.120 And now somebody gave me license to do it, so I'm gonna 00:14:31.120 --> 00:14:31.920 go do something. 00:14:31.920 --> 00:14:32.960 That's BS. 00:14:32.960 --> 00:14:34.400 That's not what you should do with the Bible. 00:14:34.400 --> 00:14:36.640 It's not what you should do with anything that you hear. 00:14:36.640 --> 00:14:39.200 It's the exact opposite of our intent. 00:14:39.200 --> 00:14:44.640 The advocacy is very, very narrowly scoped, specifically to the case where 00:14:44.800 --> 00:14:49.840 this is actually scriptural and anyone who is attacking the subject itself 00:14:50.000 --> 00:14:52.960 per se as evil is actually attacking God. 00:14:52.960 --> 00:14:54.160 And that's our concern. 00:14:54.160 --> 00:14:56.880 That's our principal spiritual concern. 00:14:56.880 --> 00:15:01.920 Additionally, and downstream from that, there are also very real political concerns 00:15:02.240 --> 00:15:05.680 from men saying no, there can never possibly any violence under any 00:15:05.680 --> 00:15:09.360 circumstances. Because as we see in the world, the very same men 00:15:09.360 --> 00:15:13.840 saying that are simultaneously enacting violence against us. 00:15:13.840 --> 00:15:17.440 They cry peace, peace, as the bullets whiz past your head. 00:15:17.440 --> 00:15:20.480 And then when you stand back up bloody, they say, Calm down. 00:15:20.720 --> 00:15:22.400 we need to have a conversation about this. 00:15:22.960 --> 00:15:23.760 don't get angry. 00:15:24.000 --> 00:15:25.360 there's no violence. 00:15:25.360 --> 00:15:28.960 That is a ratchet effect like we see everywhere else, where it's 00:15:28.960 --> 00:15:33.280 it's a fundamentally dishonest argument coming from people who want to kill 00:15:33.280 --> 00:15:36.880 us. And we have to acknowledge that. 00:15:36.880 --> 00:15:39.040 We can't just pretend that everything's fine. 00:15:39.040 --> 00:15:42.320 No one wants to do any physical harm in the physical world. 00:15:42.320 --> 00:15:43.760 We are physical creatures. 00:15:43.760 --> 00:15:45.600 God has given us our bodies. 00:15:45.600 --> 00:15:47.440 Our lives are not our own. 00:15:47.440 --> 00:15:49.040 They are bought with a price. 00:15:49.040 --> 00:15:51.760 And we have a duty to God, to self and to neighbor 00:15:51.840 --> 00:15:55.600 for God's sake, to preserve that which God has given us. 00:15:55.600 --> 00:16:01.040 And there are certain narrow circumstances where violence is necessary. 00:16:01.040 --> 00:16:05.120 And Corey's gonna give his legal disclaimers, he's an attorney, he's a 00:16:05.120 --> 00:16:08.160 very competent attorney, he's a brilliant attorney, I'm a layman. 00:16:08.160 --> 00:16:10.560 Neither one of us is gonna give you any legal advice. 00:16:10.560 --> 00:16:13.600 But just know that every state, every country has different ways of 00:16:13.600 --> 00:16:14.880 treating these things. 00:16:14.880 --> 00:16:17.440 Nothing that we're saying here is legal advice. 00:16:17.440 --> 00:16:19.280 That duh that's obvious. 00:16:19.280 --> 00:16:21.520 You need to talk to an attorney if you want to know 00:16:21.520 --> 00:16:25.440 what the law is in your area area, but there are principles 00:16:25.440 --> 00:16:29.360 that are also involved, and the principles are generally held everywhere. 00:16:29.360 --> 00:16:33.040 So we're going to talk about the principles, how they intersect with 00:16:33.040 --> 00:16:36.560 faith, with scripture, with history, and with reality. 00:16:36.560 --> 00:16:40.880 Because right now in this moment, this current year, this week, all 00:16:40.880 --> 00:16:44.560 those things are coming together in one place from all different directions. 00:16:44.560 --> 00:16:48.880 And so this subject was kind of both handed to us and 00:16:48.880 --> 00:16:51.920 forced upon us by events in the world. 00:16:51.920 --> 00:16:56.640 And it's critical for someone to be speaking about it faithfully. 00:16:56.880 --> 00:17:00.880 At the same time, part of our exhortation to you as listeners 00:17:00.960 --> 00:17:03.360 is you shouldn't go around talking about violence. 00:17:03.440 --> 00:17:06.240 We're not trying to put this on the table and say, okay, 00:17:06.240 --> 00:17:09.200 we're gonna have a lot of people talking about violence now. 00:17:09.200 --> 00:17:13.120 The premise of Stone Choir episodes is to lay down a library 00:17:13.120 --> 00:17:17.920 that tries to treat an individual topic in a somewhat complete fashion 00:17:18.160 --> 00:17:20.640 where we lay out the argument and someone can go back and 00:17:20.640 --> 00:17:23.280 listen and say, okay, I have a better understanding now of what 00:17:23.280 --> 00:17:25.520 the moving parts are for this subject. 00:17:25.520 --> 00:17:28.480 That is not trying to make anything a live it's you. 00:17:28.480 --> 00:17:31.440 It's just saying that if someone layer comes along and tries to 00:17:31.760 --> 00:17:34.720 you know say, you know, Bonhoeffer was a really great saint. 00:17:34.720 --> 00:17:36.240 He was a wonderful Christian. 00:17:36.240 --> 00:17:39.280 You can point to the episode on Bonhoeffer and say, well, actually 00:17:39.360 --> 00:17:42.800 he was a murderous assassin who hated God, and the things that 00:17:42.800 --> 00:17:45.840 he did were motivated by this very same sort of hate that 00:17:45.840 --> 00:17:47.120 we've seen this week. 00:17:47.120 --> 00:17:50.960 So there are interlocking pieces here, but this isn't the core of 00:17:50.960 --> 00:17:52.000 the Christian faith. 00:17:52.000 --> 00:17:55.440 It's not the core of what should be discussion or discourse. 00:17:55.440 --> 00:17:56.480 We don't think that. 00:17:56.480 --> 00:17:59.840 Like this is not we don't want mentioning this or discussing it 00:17:59.840 --> 00:18:03.600 to be any sort of paradigm shift, but it's absolutely crucial and 00:18:03.600 --> 00:18:07.920 vital there actually be Christians talking about it somewhere And we hope 00:18:07.920 --> 00:18:10.400 that we can lay this down and offer it to our listeners 00:18:10.400 --> 00:18:14.640 and to others, say, okay, I now understand the basis for some 00:18:14.640 --> 00:18:18.160 of these things and what people do with that in their own 00:18:18.160 --> 00:18:21.840 lives in other places and other times should be informed by what 00:18:21.840 --> 00:18:23.920 God wants above all else. 00:18:23.920 --> 00:18:28.080 And the law, the written law in the world, will dictate what 00:18:28.080 --> 00:18:29.680 the consequences will be. 00:18:29.680 --> 00:18:34.000 So everyone should be obeying the law after they're obeying God and 00:18:34.320 --> 00:18:37.680 never wishing violence in any circumstance. 00:18:37.680 --> 00:18:40.800 Yet when it comes, we can't say no, there's no such 00:18:40.800 --> 00:18:41.680 thing. 00:18:42.320 --> 00:18:47.360 So before we turn to violence as a general subject and as 00:18:47.360 --> 00:18:51.680 a scriptural subject, and as a moral subject of course, I want 00:18:51.680 --> 00:18:55.760 to go over it briefly as a legal subject, because of course 00:18:56.080 --> 00:18:58.960 the law is tied up in all of this. 00:18:58.960 --> 00:19:01.760 I am going to go over it for a US perspective. 00:19:01.760 --> 00:19:05.200 Obviously, if you are listening somewhere else in the world, your laws 00:19:05.200 --> 00:19:09.920 will differ to some degree, perhaps radically in some places, but in 00:19:09.920 --> 00:19:13.920 the Western world, this is sort of generally how the law works 00:19:14.640 --> 00:19:15.280 for this. 00:19:15.280 --> 00:19:22.400 There are definitely some nuances, some differences in most European systems, but 00:19:22.400 --> 00:19:26.320 this is still a general overview of how these moving parts work. 00:19:26.800 --> 00:19:31.360 with regard to violence, with regard to incitement. 00:19:31.360 --> 00:19:36.080 And so the general law in this area, the most important case, 00:19:36.080 --> 00:19:39.120 and of course as Wo said, this is not legal advice. 00:19:39.120 --> 00:19:42.080 If you need legal advice in this area you should speak to 00:19:42.080 --> 00:19:43.600 an attorney. 00:19:43.600 --> 00:19:49.200 But the most relevant case is Brandenburg V, Ohio, which deals with 00:19:49.440 --> 00:19:55.200 what qualifies as incitement to violence. 00:19:55.200 --> 00:19:58.960 And so in order to qualify some statement, in order for it 00:19:58.960 --> 00:20:04.000 to qualify as incitement, there are two elements. 00:20:04.000 --> 00:20:06.400 I am going to of course simplify this area of the law 00:20:06.400 --> 00:20:10.320 to some degree because there are other cases that come in and 00:20:10.960 --> 00:20:14.560 nuance some of this or explain it, but this is the general 00:20:14.560 --> 00:20:16.880 law, this is the overview. 00:20:16.880 --> 00:20:21.680 The two elements it must be directed to inciting or producing imminent 00:20:21.680 --> 00:20:26.480 lawless action, and it must be, as the second element, likely to 00:20:26.480 --> 00:20:30.480 incite or produce such action. 00:20:30.800 --> 00:20:35.760 There are a number of requirements in those two elements, of course, 00:20:35.760 --> 00:20:40.480 and so you should think of it as intent plus likelihood. 00:20:40.480 --> 00:20:43.920 You have to have the intent to produce the lawless action, and 00:20:43.920 --> 00:20:48.160 it must be likely that what you did will produce such lawless 00:20:48.160 --> 00:20:50.320 action, imminently, incidentally. 00:20:50.320 --> 00:20:53.360 It can't be five hundred years in the future that would not 00:20:53.360 --> 00:20:56.880 fulfil the imminent requirement. 00:20:56.880 --> 00:21:02.960 So that is the general law with regard to incitement. 00:21:02.960 --> 00:21:07.040 I want to also go over the issue of fighting words, because 00:21:07.040 --> 00:21:11.520 fighting words are are very much related to this area of the 00:21:11.520 --> 00:21:16.160 law, and obviously they act as a sort of defense if you 00:21:16.160 --> 00:21:18.480 do something violent in response to them. 00:21:18.480 --> 00:21:21.600 That's essentially how fighting words work in the law. 00:21:21.600 --> 00:21:26.240 But fighting words are words that by their very utterance inflict injury 00:21:26.400 --> 00:21:30.880 or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace, again that 00:21:30.880 --> 00:21:33.040 aspect of imminence or immediacy. 00:21:33.040 --> 00:21:35.680 It can't be in some distant future. 00:21:35.680 --> 00:21:38.400 And so if someone looks up something you said in the past 00:21:38.400 --> 00:21:42.240 and comes and beats you up, that doesn't qualify, that's not immediate 00:21:42.240 --> 00:21:44.880 breach of the peace. 00:21:44.880 --> 00:21:49.680 Now some of you may be thinking I can think of some 00:21:49.680 --> 00:21:57.360 naughty words, some inappropriate or words that are unacceptable socially currently, 00:21:57.360 --> 00:22:01.840 that would qualify under that general definition, but they don't, generally, and 00:22:01.840 --> 00:22:04.640 there's a reason for that. 00:22:04.640 --> 00:22:07.040 A law that prohibits 00:22:07.920 --> 00:22:13.360 the utterance of certain words would be a prior restraint, and prior 00:22:13.360 --> 00:22:16.720 restraint requires the highest level of scrutiny in our laws. 00:22:16.720 --> 00:22:17.760 That's strict scrutiny. 00:22:17.760 --> 00:22:21.360 I'll go over how that works in a minute, just briefly. 00:22:21.360 --> 00:22:24.800 But the reason you cannot do that typically in the law is 00:22:24.800 --> 00:22:28.560 because it's prior restraint and it is content-based. 00:22:28.560 --> 00:22:35.440 And so for instance, racist statements would typically not qualify as fighting 00:22:35.440 --> 00:22:41.120 words because to prohibit them would be a content-based prior restraint of 00:22:41.120 --> 00:22:43.840 speech. And again, that's strict scrutiny. 00:22:43.840 --> 00:22:46.400 You have to have a very high level for that because it 00:22:46.400 --> 00:22:49.200 violates the First Amendment in the US context. 00:22:49.200 --> 00:22:51.760 Obviously, in other parts of the world that do not have a 00:22:51.760 --> 00:22:56.800 First Amendment, you may very well have these sorts of restrictions, this 00:22:56.800 --> 00:23:00.560 sort of prior restraint of certain kinds of speech. 00:23:00.560 --> 00:23:04.400 For instance, certain European countries still have laws on the books that 00:23:04.400 --> 00:23:08.400 prohibit insulting foreign heads of state. 00:23:08.400 --> 00:23:13.120 Basically, a carry-over from when you had nobility and royalty, some European 00:23:13.120 --> 00:23:16.800 states obviously still do, but it's a carryover from that. 00:23:16.800 --> 00:23:19.920 And so we don't have that in the US. 00:23:19.920 --> 00:23:23.040 You don't get arrested for insulting the President. 00:23:23.040 --> 00:23:25.520 That's not a thing in our system, at least is not supposed 00:23:25.520 --> 00:23:26.160 to be a thing. 00:23:26.160 --> 00:23:29.200 Legally it is not a thing in our system. 00:23:29.200 --> 00:23:32.800 But the elements for fighting words are that they must be aimed 00:23:32.800 --> 00:23:36.160 at a specific individual, so for instance, not just a class of 00:23:36.160 --> 00:23:40.960 individuals, they must be likely to provoke an immediate violent response again 00:23:41.120 --> 00:23:46.000 that element of immanence or immediacy, and of course for the analysis, 00:23:46.000 --> 00:23:49.600 context and circumstances are vital. 00:23:49.600 --> 00:23:52.800 That is going to be a very big part of the analysis 00:23:52.800 --> 00:23:56.080 of any court with regard to fighting words. 00:23:56.080 --> 00:23:58.240 But I said I would go over strict scrutiny, and so I 00:23:58.240 --> 00:24:00.560 will go over strict scrutiny briefly. 00:24:00.560 --> 00:24:03.200 The standard for strict scrutiny, as any attorney will be able to 00:24:03.200 --> 00:24:07.040 tell you, because all attorneys are familiar with these levels of scrutiny, 00:24:07.040 --> 00:24:10.720 assuming they remember their constitutional law courses at all. 00:24:10.720 --> 00:24:16.560 The law must be narrowly tailored to achieve a compelling government interest. 00:24:16.560 --> 00:24:20.000 And so narrowly tailored basically just means it has to be the 00:24:20.000 --> 00:24:25.200 least restrictive means to achieve the compelling interest. 00:24:25.200 --> 00:24:29.440 And there must be a strong connection between the law as written 00:24:29.680 --> 00:24:33.120 and that interest without overreach. 00:24:33.120 --> 00:24:35.920 Which is to say the law must be not overbroad. 00:24:35.920 --> 00:24:41.920 It must not encompass behavior that is outside of this compelling interest 00:24:41.920 --> 00:24:46.160 of the government, that is not part of this least restrictive means 00:24:46.160 --> 00:24:48.160 to achieve the interest. 00:24:48.160 --> 00:24:51.920 The reason that's relevant again is because when dealing with fighting words, 00:24:51.920 --> 00:24:54.800 when dealing with these matters, you have the issue of prior restraint, 00:24:54.800 --> 00:24:57.280 of the government saying you cannot say. 00:24:57.440 --> 00:25:00.160 That's all prior restraint means. 00:25:00.160 --> 00:25:05.920 If you are punished after the fact for saying something, and it's 00:25:05.920 --> 00:25:08.160 not according to a law that said you couldn't say it in 00:25:08.160 --> 00:25:10.320 the first place, that's not prior restraint. 00:25:10.320 --> 00:25:13.200 What prior restraint is is a law that is in place that 00:25:13.200 --> 00:25:15.040 says you may not say say. 00:25:15.040 --> 00:25:17.920 And so before you said it, you have been told you are 00:25:17.920 --> 00:25:19.280 not allowed to do so. 00:25:19.280 --> 00:25:23.520 That's prior restraint, that's subject to strict scrutiny, again because of the 00:25:23.520 --> 00:25:25.360 First Amendment. 00:25:25.600 --> 00:25:28.880 So that's the general law in this area. 00:25:30.720 --> 00:25:34.400 This is not, again, as Woe said, this is not license. 00:25:34.400 --> 00:25:38.240 This does not mean that you go in and yell some inappropriate 00:25:38.240 --> 00:25:41.680 word, whichever one happens to have crossed your mind while I was 00:25:41.680 --> 00:25:45.360 going over fighting words, and go in and yell it in a 00:25:45.360 --> 00:25:49.360 building full of the people who would be targeted by that word. 00:25:49.360 --> 00:25:52.000 Would that necessarily constitute fighting words? 00:25:52.000 --> 00:25:53.040 Perhaps not. 00:25:53.040 --> 00:25:56.400 But it would certainly constitute immense stupidity. 00:25:56.320 --> 00:26:01.520 Which again, as we always say in these sorts of episodes, some 00:26:01.520 --> 00:26:03.040 of this is a matter of wisdom. 00:26:03.040 --> 00:26:05.040 Much of this is a matter of wisdom. 00:26:05.040 --> 00:26:11.360 Just because you legally may say something without suffering legal consequences does 00:26:11.360 --> 00:26:13.600 not mean it is wise. 00:26:13.600 --> 00:26:16.880 Just because what you said doesn't rise to the level of fighting 00:26:16.880 --> 00:26:20.800 words doesn't mean the other man won't punch you in the face. 00:26:20.800 --> 00:26:24.000 Is he legally in the wrong if what you said did not 00:26:24.000 --> 00:26:25.440 constitute fighting words? 00:26:25.440 --> 00:26:26.720 Of course. 00:26:26.720 --> 00:26:29.440 But you still got punched in the face. 00:26:29.440 --> 00:26:33.440 And so some of this is again a matter of wisdom. 00:26:33.360 --> 00:26:36.880 whether or not you say these things is not simply a matter 00:26:36.880 --> 00:26:40.960 of whether or not you're legally entitled to say them. 00:26:40.960 --> 00:26:44.720 This is a general moral statement. 00:26:44.720 --> 00:26:45.680 Not just in this area. 00:26:46.080 --> 00:26:49.840 Just because you are legally entitled to do something does not mean 00:26:49.840 --> 00:26:52.000 that you should do it. 00:26:52.000 --> 00:26:55.280 There are many things under our legal system to which you are 00:26:55.280 --> 00:26:59.280 entitled. You may do them, it is entirely legal. 00:26:59.280 --> 00:27:01.520 That does not mean that you should. 00:27:01.520 --> 00:27:05.920 As a Christian, you certainly should not do some of those things. 00:27:05.920 --> 00:27:10.640 Legally in our system, you may view pornography, you may go to 00:27:10.960 --> 00:27:12.240 a strip club. 00:27:12.240 --> 00:27:15.920 In certain parts of the United States, you may hire the services 00:27:15.920 --> 00:27:17.120 of a prostitute. 00:27:17.120 --> 00:27:19.920 These things are legal under our system. 00:27:19.920 --> 00:27:23.520 It does not mean that you should do them, and it does 00:27:23.520 --> 00:27:26.080 not mean that it would be moral to do them. 00:27:26.080 --> 00:27:29.920 So just because something doesn't rise to the level of fighting words 00:27:29.920 --> 00:27:33.760 and is therefore illegal under the current state of our law and 00:27:33.760 --> 00:27:37.280 historically as well, because this all comes from Anglo Saxon common law 00:27:37.280 --> 00:27:40.240 when it comes to fighting words and things like that. 00:27:40.240 --> 00:27:43.920 Just because it is legal does not necessarily mean that you should 00:27:43.920 --> 00:27:46.160 do it. 00:27:46.160 --> 00:27:53.040 That in essence covers the overview, the 30,000-foot view of the law 00:27:53.040 --> 00:27:54.400 in this area. 00:27:54.400 --> 00:27:58.240 The law's not our focus for this episode, of course, but it's 00:27:58.240 --> 00:28:02.480 necessary to address it because we all live in the real world. 00:28:02.480 --> 00:28:02.800 And 00:28:04.240 --> 00:28:08.560 There are very real legal consequences if you get these things wrong, 00:28:08.560 --> 00:28:11.600 at least if you get them wrong in public. 00:28:11.600 --> 00:28:16.480 And so it is necessary to know at least the outlines of 00:28:16.480 --> 00:28:19.520 the law, how the law works, what is illegal and what is 00:28:19.520 --> 00:28:23.920 not. So again I will go over the test in Brandenburg just 00:28:23.920 --> 00:28:26.240 to drill it into your head as it were 00:28:27.360 --> 00:28:30.160 It's intent plus likelihood. 00:28:30.160 --> 00:28:35.920 So directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and likely to 00:28:35.920 --> 00:28:38.720 incite or produce such action. 00:28:38.720 --> 00:28:40.720 Again, exercise wisdom. 00:28:40.720 --> 00:28:43.760 Just because that's the standard doesn't mean that you should come as 00:28:43.760 --> 00:28:45.280 close as possible. 00:28:45.280 --> 00:28:48.000 This is similar to what we've mentioned before. 00:28:48.000 --> 00:28:49.920 Think of certain things as a cliff. 00:28:49.920 --> 00:28:52.960 You do not walk as close to the cliff as possible. 00:28:52.960 --> 00:28:55.920 That is the legal standard, that is the bleeding edge as it 00:28:55.920 --> 00:29:00.880 were. That is the absolute furthest bound of what is permissible under 00:29:00.880 --> 00:29:02.240 the first Amendment. 00:29:02.240 --> 00:29:04.480 That doesn't mean that you have to go all the way up 00:29:04.480 --> 00:29:07.280 to that line and try to stick your toe just barely not 00:29:07.280 --> 00:29:07.840 over it. 00:29:07.840 --> 00:29:11.520 Don't do that, that is unwise. 00:29:11.520 --> 00:29:14.160 The reason I've gone over the law is so that you are 00:29:14.160 --> 00:29:17.280 aware of the law, not so that you can try to do 00:29:17.280 --> 00:29:19.920 as much as possible without violating 00:29:19.920 --> 00:29:20.880 it. And 00:29:20.960 --> 00:29:25.120 And just to be explicit, this is a legal defense. 00:29:25.120 --> 00:29:27.760 This does not keep you from being prosecuted. 00:29:27.760 --> 00:29:31.120 If you run your mouth and you say things that get anywhere 00:29:31.120 --> 00:29:34.720 near these lines, you are very likely in the current environment to 00:29:35.200 --> 00:29:38.880 be prosecuted for it, and you may well be convicted for it, 00:29:38.880 --> 00:29:42.320 even though there's a first amendment, and even though there's the Brandenburg 00:29:42.480 --> 00:29:45.760 ruling on the books, it may be a banner of appeal, and 00:29:45.760 --> 00:29:46.640 you may still lose. 00:29:46.640 --> 00:29:50.800 You get the wrong prosecutor, the wrong jury, the wrong town, the 00:29:50.800 --> 00:29:52.960 wrong appellate division. 00:29:52.960 --> 00:29:55.840 You could spend the rest of your life in prison for some 00:29:55.840 --> 00:29:56.720 of these things. 00:29:56.720 --> 00:30:01.840 So talking about the legal aspects is very narrowly to uh explain 00:30:01.840 --> 00:30:06.400 that here is how not remotely close to anything like this we 00:30:06.400 --> 00:30:07.200 are going. 00:30:07.200 --> 00:30:09.920 We would never say anything remotely like this. 00:30:09.920 --> 00:30:12.720 As far as we're concerned, to the extent that we can forbid 00:30:12.720 --> 00:30:15.840 anything, we would forbid forbid you as a matter of binding your 00:30:15.840 --> 00:30:18.880 conscience not to go anywhere near that for the sake of your 00:30:18.880 --> 00:30:21.680 soul, for the sake of your butt, and the for the sake 00:30:21.680 --> 00:30:22.640 of your reputation. 00:30:22.640 --> 00:30:28.080 Like this is just it's not remotely what Christians are doing. 00:30:28.080 --> 00:30:31.840 So So this this whole preamble is because people are gonna try 00:30:31.840 --> 00:30:35.840 to misconstrue as they have routinely defamed us in the past, say, 00:30:35.840 --> 00:30:37.920 Oh, those guys are advocating violence. 00:30:37.920 --> 00:30:40.160 We will never incite violence. 00:30:40.160 --> 00:30:45.120 We will advocate scripturally for any position that has a moral basis. 00:30:45.120 --> 00:30:48.480 That's a crucial difference. 00:30:48.480 --> 00:30:50.320 Absolutely true. 00:30:50.320 --> 00:30:54.800 You may very well win on appeal if you are charged and 00:30:54.800 --> 00:31:02.000 convicted for something that the prosecutor says violates the law, but does 00:31:02.000 --> 00:31:06.720 not violate the actual law, which is to say Brandenburg, and related 00:31:06.720 --> 00:31:10.800 cases. And you may very well eventually wind up before the Supreme 00:31:10.800 --> 00:31:14.800 Court and win, because these are the sorts of cases that will 00:31:14.800 --> 00:31:18.160 get taken by various legal aid societies and similar. 00:31:18.160 --> 00:31:22.320 However, that will absorb years of your life in the process, and 00:31:22.320 --> 00:31:24.720 it will not be a pleasant process. 00:31:24.720 --> 00:31:28.480 You do not want to drag your family, your loved ones, or 00:31:28.480 --> 00:31:33.440 yourself through this process, so do not come close to the line. 00:31:33.440 --> 00:31:35.920 It is not worth the risk. 00:31:35.920 --> 00:31:41.920 And just as a frank matter, most men are likely to overstep 00:31:41.920 --> 00:31:44.640 if they're trying to come close to the line. 00:31:44.640 --> 00:31:47.840 This is This is a technical area of the law. 00:31:47.840 --> 00:31:49.280 It is complicated. 00:31:49.280 --> 00:31:52.320 There is more nuance, obviously, than I have gone over in this 00:31:52.320 --> 00:31:56.160 introduction. Do not come close to the line because you will probably 00:31:56.160 --> 00:31:59.520 step over, and even if you don't, your life can be made 00:32:00.160 --> 00:32:03.520 miserable by those who are currently in power. 00:32:03.520 --> 00:32:06.560 Again, the only reason for going over the law is because it's 00:32:06.560 --> 00:32:08.480 relevant and because it is the law. 00:32:08.480 --> 00:32:11.600 So the law of the land does matter because we are indeed 00:32:11.840 --> 00:32:15.680 living in the land under these laws. 00:32:15.680 --> 00:32:17.120 Don't come close to the line. 00:32:17.120 --> 00:32:21.120 That's the bottom line recommendation here. 00:32:21.120 --> 00:32:24.160 But to return to the issue, or really to turn to the 00:32:24.160 --> 00:32:28.240 issue, of violence and related matters 00:32:29.200 --> 00:32:32.560 on a grander scale, on the moral scale, the scriptural scale, how 00:32:32.560 --> 00:32:35.280 are Christians supposed to view these things? 00:32:35.600 --> 00:32:39.840 I would like to start with just defining what violence is, because 00:32:39.840 --> 00:32:43.360 if we don't have a definition of the term, well, we could 00:32:43.360 --> 00:32:44.720 be talking about different things. 00:32:44.720 --> 00:32:47.440 You may not know what exactly we mean, and so it's important 00:32:47.440 --> 00:32:51.520 to define our terms when we are dealing with these technical sorts 00:32:51.520 --> 00:32:53.040 of matters. 00:32:53.040 --> 00:32:56.560 And so for the sake of this episode and just generally for 00:32:56.560 --> 00:33:00.720 the sake of when we are discussing these and related matters, violence 00:33:00.720 --> 00:33:07.200 is the application of physical force to achieve some end via infliction 00:33:07.200 --> 00:33:09.680 of harm or injury. 00:33:09.680 --> 00:33:13.120 That specifically is what we mean. 00:33:13.120 --> 00:33:19.680 Now, the second, not really element, because elements are necessary parts, just 00:33:19.680 --> 00:33:21.440 another quick legal thing. 00:33:21.440 --> 00:33:26.000 Elements with regard to a law are necessary things that you must 00:33:26.000 --> 00:33:29.760 fulfill to have a violation or a finding with regard to that 00:33:29.760 --> 00:33:32.960 law. Factors are more of a balancing test. 00:33:32.960 --> 00:33:36.480 And so technically the second part of this isn't an element because 00:33:36.480 --> 00:33:37.840 it could be absent. 00:33:37.840 --> 00:33:41.840 There are men out there Who pursue violence for the sake of 00:33:41.840 --> 00:33:46.320 violence. Or just pursue violence just because. 00:33:46.320 --> 00:33:50.240 One could quibble and say that that is itself an end, but 00:33:50.240 --> 00:33:52.960 that's just to set that issue aside. 00:33:52.960 --> 00:33:56.880 This specifically is the definition with which we are working, and a 00:33:56.880 --> 00:34:02.320 related matter is intimidation, which is the threat of violence. 00:34:02.320 --> 00:34:04.480 Distinct issues, not the same. 00:34:04.480 --> 00:34:07.760 Kind of how assault and battery are different in the civil law. 00:34:08.160 --> 00:34:12.720 Related matters, but not identical. 00:34:12.720 --> 00:34:18.400 The central claim really that we are making in this episode is 00:34:19.040 --> 00:34:24.800 a refutation of those who would say that violence is always impermissible, 00:34:24.800 --> 00:34:27.040 is always immoral. 00:34:27.040 --> 00:34:30.640 And the reason we are doing that, the reason we are advancing 00:34:30.640 --> 00:34:35.120 that claim, is the same reason that we did the slavery episode, 00:34:35.120 --> 00:34:39.680 it's the same reason we've addressed polygyny and other related issues. 00:34:39.680 --> 00:34:43.840 These are things that are in scripture that God says are morally 00:34:43.840 --> 00:34:46.640 permissible, or things that God himself did. 00:34:47.600 --> 00:34:50.960 And so if we say that they are per se sin, if 00:34:50.960 --> 00:34:55.760 we say that violence is per se sin, we are accusing God 00:34:55.760 --> 00:34:58.960 of sin, and we cannot do that as Christians. 00:34:58.960 --> 00:35:06.080 What God has done or what God has commanded cannot be sin. 00:35:06.080 --> 00:35:10.640 And I would like to highlight, with regard to the issue of 00:35:10.640 --> 00:35:15.840 violence, something that is glossed over in Scripture, something we just read 00:35:15.840 --> 00:35:20.400 and pass by it, ignoring it totally. 00:35:20.400 --> 00:35:26.400 The first act of violence in Scripture is committed by God Himself. 00:35:26.400 --> 00:35:31.040 Because the first act of violence in Scripture we will set aside, 00:35:31.040 --> 00:35:33.760 as it were, the issue of the rebellion of the angels and 00:35:33.760 --> 00:35:39.920 Satan's fall, because Scripture only gives us very little information about that, 00:35:39.920 --> 00:35:44.480 really. But with regard to creation, the first act of violence in 00:35:44.480 --> 00:35:47.120 creation is by God. 00:35:47.120 --> 00:35:48.640 After the fall. 00:35:48.640 --> 00:35:54.080 Because God kills animals to create clothing for Adam and Eve. 00:35:54.080 --> 00:35:56.560 Could be one animal, could be a number, we don't know. 00:35:56.560 --> 00:35:58.720 That is not mentioned in Scripture. 00:35:58.720 --> 00:36:02.960 But God creates clothing out of animal skins. 00:36:02.960 --> 00:36:05.040 That required an act of violence. 00:36:05.040 --> 00:36:08.080 Now, of course, we usually think of violence, and when we speak 00:36:08.080 --> 00:36:14.000 about violence, we usually mean interpersonal, violence committed by one man upon 00:36:14.000 --> 00:36:18.720 another. But violence encompasses more than that, and so killing an animal 00:36:18.720 --> 00:36:20.800 is an act of violence. 00:36:20.800 --> 00:36:23.360 It is the application of physical force. 00:36:23.360 --> 00:36:25.680 You are doing it to achieve some end. 00:36:25.680 --> 00:36:28.640 In the case of the clothing, God did it to make clothing 00:36:28.640 --> 00:36:29.840 for Adam and Eve. 00:36:29.840 --> 00:36:32.480 If you are a hunter it is perhaps for the purpose of 00:36:32.480 --> 00:36:36.400 providing food for your family, or the leather for various goods, or 00:36:36.400 --> 00:36:39.440 any of a number of other uses of the carcass of the 00:36:39.440 --> 00:36:46.000 animal. And that physical force is applied to inflict harm or injury 00:36:46.080 --> 00:36:47.440 because you're killing the animal. 00:36:47.440 --> 00:36:49.920 That is certainly harm and injury. 00:36:49.920 --> 00:36:51.840 And so that is violence. 00:36:51.840 --> 00:36:53.520 We gloss over that in scripture. 00:36:53.520 --> 00:36:54.800 We just read that and keep moving. 00:36:55.600 --> 00:37:00.880 The first act of violence in creation was committed by God himself. 00:37:00.880 --> 00:37:05.520 And so if we say that violence itself is per se sinful, 00:37:05.520 --> 00:37:10.240 we have accused God right here in the beginning of being a 00:37:10.240 --> 00:37:14.880 sinner. And as Christians we absolutely cannot do that. 00:37:14.880 --> 00:37:16.480 We must not do that. 00:37:16.480 --> 00:37:19.600 Because to accuse God of sin is sin itself. 00:37:19.600 --> 00:37:23.840 In fact, it is blasphemy, it is high handed sin. 00:37:23.840 --> 00:37:26.880 It's something the modern world tells us, because the modern world tells 00:37:26.880 --> 00:37:28.640 you, oh, you can't be violent. 00:37:28.640 --> 00:37:30.160 Violence is always wicked. 00:37:30.160 --> 00:37:31.280 Violence is always wrong. 00:37:31.280 --> 00:37:33.200 It's always a sin. 00:37:34.320 --> 00:37:36.880 Usually that is two things. 00:37:36.880 --> 00:37:40.480 One, it's a novel morality. 00:37:40.480 --> 00:37:43.680 Somewhat novel, it's straight from the pit of hell, but it's also 00:37:43.680 --> 00:37:45.680 because of sloppiness. 00:37:45.680 --> 00:37:49.760 You have many men who use these words in a very sloppy 00:37:49.760 --> 00:37:53.840 way. They are not careful with how they use the various terms 00:37:53.840 --> 00:37:57.040 in this area or really anywhere else when they're speaking. 00:37:57.040 --> 00:38:00.720 But if you are sloppy with these terms, you are going to 00:38:00.720 --> 00:38:03.200 wind up saying things that are not Christian. 00:38:03.200 --> 00:38:05.920 You'll also wind up saying things that are not wise and may 00:38:05.920 --> 00:38:08.080 very well be illegal. 00:38:08.080 --> 00:38:11.120 But it is that highest concern that we are focusing on in 00:38:11.120 --> 00:38:15.120 this episode Is what you are saying Christian, is what you are 00:38:15.120 --> 00:38:18.400 advocating Christian, or is it against God? 00:38:18.400 --> 00:38:20.800 Is it against Scripture? 00:38:20.800 --> 00:38:24.560 And so you cannot say that violence is per se sin. 00:38:24.560 --> 00:38:29.040 We're not saying that violence is always moral, because of course it's 00:38:28.960 --> 00:38:33.360 not. The end toward which it is aimed is relevant. 00:38:33.360 --> 00:38:37.840 And so killing an animal to provide food for your family is 00:38:37.840 --> 00:38:39.120 morally permissible. 00:38:39.680 --> 00:38:43.680 That is morally permissible violence. 00:38:43.680 --> 00:38:48.960 Rising up in anger and striking down your neighbor is murder. 00:38:48.960 --> 00:38:52.240 That is morally impermissible violence. 00:38:52.320 --> 00:38:55.520 The end matters. 00:38:55.520 --> 00:38:58.880 And the very next thing that happens in the end the Genesis 00:38:58.880 --> 00:39:02.960 three is two more acts of violence, although on a slightly different 00:39:02.960 --> 00:39:06.800 timescale Then the Lord God said, Behold, the man has become like 00:39:06.800 --> 00:39:09.600 one of us in knowing good and evil, now lest he reach 00:39:09.600 --> 00:39:12.720 out his hand and take also the tree of life and eat, 00:39:12.720 --> 00:39:14.240 and live forever. 00:39:14.240 --> 00:39:16.960 Therefore the Lord God sent them out of the garden of Eden 00:39:16.960 --> 00:39:19.120 to work on the ground from which he was taken. 00:39:19.120 --> 00:39:21.680 He drove out the man, and at the east of the Garden 00:39:21.680 --> 00:39:25.760 of Eden he placed the cherubim in a flaming sword that turned 00:39:25.760 --> 00:39:28.560 every way to guard the way to the tree of life. 00:39:28.560 --> 00:39:32.480 So, as part of the curse, God sends Adam and Eve to 00:39:32.480 --> 00:39:35.200 death, sends us to death. 00:39:35.200 --> 00:39:38.880 That is delayed violence, but it is violence nonetheless. 00:39:38.880 --> 00:39:41.200 And then you put a cherubim with a sword there. 00:39:41.200 --> 00:39:43.600 If Adam had tried to go back into the garden, what would 00:39:43.680 --> 00:39:44.400 have happened? 00:39:44.400 --> 00:39:46.320 The sword wasn't there for show. 00:39:46.320 --> 00:39:48.320 That was a sign that you will be killed if you try 00:39:48.320 --> 00:39:49.600 to get back in. 00:39:49.600 --> 00:39:54.640 So from the very moment of the fall, God is unleashing both 00:39:54.640 --> 00:39:57.280 short and long-term violence against man. 00:39:57.280 --> 00:40:01.600 As Corey said, that's one of the crucial parts of this seemingly 00:40:01.600 --> 00:40:05.440 small matter of Christians especially, but everyone in the world. 00:40:05.440 --> 00:40:08.560 And it's notable that everyone in the world is unified with most 00:40:08.560 --> 00:40:11.520 Christians and saying there's never any place for violence. 00:40:11.520 --> 00:40:13.680 Violence is always and everywhere evil. 00:40:13.680 --> 00:40:18.640 The global religion says that, and most of the Christians say that. 00:40:18.640 --> 00:40:22.240 As in every other case where that happens, you're dealing with enemy 00:40:22.240 --> 00:40:24.560 action. You're dealing with Satan. 00:40:24.560 --> 00:40:26.800 What was the first thing that Satan said to Eve? 00:40:26.800 --> 00:40:28.880 You will not surely die. 00:40:28.880 --> 00:40:30.560 Well that's what the world is saying. 00:40:30.560 --> 00:40:31.920 Tay, peace, peace. 00:40:32.320 --> 00:40:33.040 Don't worry about it. 00:40:33.200 --> 00:40:34.480 There's gonna be no violence. 00:40:34.480 --> 00:40:35.360 Tikon alarm. 00:40:35.360 --> 00:40:37.520 We're gonna we're gonna take care of this thing, we're gonna perfect 00:40:37.520 --> 00:40:38.560 this world now. 00:40:38.560 --> 00:40:41.200 No one will ever die, there will be no more violence. 00:40:41.200 --> 00:40:43.360 That would be desirable if it were true. 00:40:43.360 --> 00:40:45.040 That's certainly my wish. 00:40:45.040 --> 00:40:48.320 But scripture makes clear that that is not only not possible, but 00:40:48.320 --> 00:40:50.080 is not going to happen. 00:40:50.080 --> 00:40:55.760 Because until judgment day, evil will persist, men will persist in evil, 00:40:55.760 --> 00:40:58.000 and there will be death and violence. 00:40:58.000 --> 00:41:01.360 Wars and rumors of wars are one of the signs of end 00:41:01.520 --> 00:41:04.800 times and they're one of the echoing ones that's always there. 00:41:04.800 --> 00:41:07.200 It's like when you read a headline that says, oh there's a 00:41:07.200 --> 00:41:09.200 war. Oh, well, check my watch. 00:41:09.200 --> 00:41:11.120 It must be the end of days. 00:41:11.120 --> 00:41:13.200 No. It's a call to repentance. 00:41:13.200 --> 00:41:18.240 But it's also separately God saying there's always going to be violence, 00:41:18.240 --> 00:41:19.920 especially in the end. 00:41:19.920 --> 00:41:22.480 When we look at the nature of God, I think a part 00:41:22.480 --> 00:41:26.000 of this discussion needs to be from the perfect hatred episode that 00:41:26.000 --> 00:41:27.280 we did last year. 00:41:27.280 --> 00:41:30.640 We talked for the entire episode the fact that hatred, which is 00:41:30.640 --> 00:41:35.280 another one of these things that is completely condemned, no hate here. 00:41:35.280 --> 00:41:38.640 That is something that most so called Christians and the entire new 00:41:38.640 --> 00:41:41.840 global religion are in complete agreement. 00:41:41.840 --> 00:41:44.560 There can be no hate anytime anywhere. 00:41:44.560 --> 00:41:46.640 It's exactly the same argument. 00:41:46.640 --> 00:41:48.880 We advocated for hate. 00:41:48.880 --> 00:41:50.960 Now we didn't incite hate. 00:41:50.960 --> 00:41:54.080 We simply said there is a time and a place where not 00:41:54.080 --> 00:41:58.800 only is hatred morally licit, but it is required of the Christian. 00:41:58.800 --> 00:42:04.240 It's required of every good man in certain circumstances to hate. 00:42:04.240 --> 00:42:05.440 That's not incitement. 00:42:05.440 --> 00:42:10.480 That is saying this thing is from God, and when we obey 00:42:10.480 --> 00:42:14.240 God, there are times when we're going to do God's things. 00:42:14.240 --> 00:42:18.640 When we look at the specific subject of violence, we find that 00:42:19.280 --> 00:42:22.480 God is not only the author of violence, he was the first 00:42:22.480 --> 00:42:27.920 one that committed violence, he's repeatedly committed violence on a global genocidal 00:42:27.920 --> 00:42:32.560 scale, and Judgment Day is nothing less than the complete obliteration of 00:42:32.560 --> 00:42:37.120 creation. It is a scale of violence that defies description. 00:42:37.120 --> 00:42:39.680 It is effectively infinite violence. 00:42:39.680 --> 00:42:45.680 And typologically we have the flood, where God killed everyone is the 00:42:45.680 --> 00:42:49.280 greatest act of violence in the history of the universe. 00:42:49.280 --> 00:42:50.720 And God did it. 00:42:50.720 --> 00:42:53.120 He did it not at the drop of a hat. 00:42:53.120 --> 00:42:56.640 He did it when he realized that he regretted having made man 00:42:56.720 --> 00:43:01.120 because they were turned ever ever against him and towards wickedness. 00:43:01.120 --> 00:43:04.800 And so God enacted global violence. 00:43:04.800 --> 00:43:09.760 He literally reshaped this planet with a flood that killed everything. 00:43:09.760 --> 00:43:13.840 But I think this is one of the crucial aspects of Of 00:43:14.240 --> 00:43:18.720 the intersection of violence in God's nature. 00:43:18.720 --> 00:43:23.680 When God was disgusted with what man had done in creation, God 00:43:23.680 --> 00:43:25.920 did not unmake. 00:43:25.920 --> 00:43:29.120 You know, unmake is something that is kind of a science fiction 00:43:29.120 --> 00:43:31.360 thing. It's it it doesn't exist. 00:43:31.360 --> 00:43:34.880 We have the concept of something being unmade, in the sense that 00:43:34.880 --> 00:43:37.600 it simply vanishes as though as though it never existed. 00:43:37.600 --> 00:43:39.920 And God And God could certainly have done that. 00:43:39.920 --> 00:43:43.040 That could have been God's judgment, to say, I made these people, 00:43:43.040 --> 00:43:45.840 they're evil, I'm going to unmake them. 00:43:45.840 --> 00:43:51.920 God, in his infinite wisdom, chose instead to enact global, unmitigated violence 00:43:51.920 --> 00:43:52.960 against them. 00:43:52.960 --> 00:43:55.440 He didn't unmake them, he didn't make them vanish. 00:43:55.440 --> 00:43:57.040 He killed them where they were. 00:43:57.040 --> 00:43:59.680 And not quickly, he killed them slowly. 00:43:59.680 --> 00:44:04.000 They drowned in sheer terror, begging for their lives, and he did 00:44:04.000 --> 00:44:05.760 not hear their cries. 00:44:05.760 --> 00:44:07.680 That is our God. 00:44:07.680 --> 00:44:12.640 And so when the world, the global religion, and the so-called Christians 00:44:12.800 --> 00:44:17.360 who share that religion cry out against all violence, they are crying 00:44:17.360 --> 00:44:18.480 out against God. 00:44:18.480 --> 00:44:22.480 Just as those unbelievers, those wicked men who were destroyed in the 00:44:22.480 --> 00:44:25.840 waters of the flood, they're saying God is evil. 00:44:25.840 --> 00:44:27.520 And they're also saying, have mercy. 00:44:27.760 --> 00:44:28.400 no, no violence. 00:44:28.400 --> 00:44:29.920 We don't mean violence here. 00:44:29.920 --> 00:44:33.680 God's like, no, unlimited, unmitigated violence against evil. 00:44:33.680 --> 00:44:35.520 Is it because God is hateful? 00:44:35.520 --> 00:44:38.640 No. It's because they were contrary to God's will. 00:44:38.640 --> 00:44:44.640 And so when licit violence exists, and there's a clear distinction between 00:44:44.640 --> 00:44:49.120 licit violence and illicit violence, as Corey said a minute ago, much 00:44:49.120 --> 00:44:53.040 of this is a matter of us understanding there's a time and 00:44:53.040 --> 00:44:56.720 a place for violence, and there's a time and a place for 00:44:56.720 --> 00:44:58.000 not violence. 00:44:58.000 --> 00:45:02.160 And violence is always and everywhere destructive. 00:45:02.160 --> 00:45:05.440 And economically and personally 00:45:06.800 --> 00:45:10.480 Because things can't be unmade, they can't simply vanish. 00:45:10.480 --> 00:45:16.400 When there's violence, when there's destruction of life, of property, of whatever, 00:45:16.400 --> 00:45:18.880 there is one sense in which that's evil. 00:45:18.880 --> 00:45:21.120 We've talked in the past about there there are places in the 00:45:21.440 --> 00:45:26.080 Bible where God talks about authoring evil actions. 00:45:26.080 --> 00:45:29.760 Not that the thing itself was evil, that the impetus was evil, 00:45:29.760 --> 00:45:35.440 but that the fact that such things would exist is itself evil. 00:45:35.440 --> 00:45:39.280 The fact that violence exists is evil in a narrow sense. 00:45:39.280 --> 00:45:42.560 Not in the sense that God sinned in the garden or in 00:45:42.560 --> 00:45:45.520 the flood or on judgment day, but in the sense that the 00:45:45.520 --> 00:45:49.360 fact that there is violence anywhere is because of evil in the 00:45:49.360 --> 00:45:55.280 world. And so it is God's violence redeeming and fixing those things. 00:45:55.280 --> 00:45:58.720 Now the redemption at the cross is eternal, but it is not 00:45:59.200 --> 00:46:02.480 temporal. That's one of the big challenges that we have with the 00:46:02.480 --> 00:46:04.560 faithful remnant inside the church. 00:46:04.560 --> 00:46:10.960 It's trying to differentiate between God's redemptive action on the cross, which 00:46:11.120 --> 00:46:15.280 redeemed the whole world in eternity, but only those who have faith 00:46:15.360 --> 00:46:19.120 who are elect to receive it are going to actually benefit from 00:46:19.120 --> 00:46:20.640 that redemption. 00:46:20.640 --> 00:46:24.960 And at the same time, that redemptive work does nothing to fixed 00:46:24.880 --> 00:46:25.920 the world. 00:46:25.920 --> 00:46:27.520 People didn't stop dying. 00:46:27.520 --> 00:46:28.800 Jesus died on the cross. 00:46:28.800 --> 00:46:33.040 The other two men hanging beside him died, justly so. 00:46:33.040 --> 00:46:34.800 And one of them confessed that. 00:46:34.800 --> 00:46:37.840 It's a it's a very interesting example when you talk about crying 00:46:37.840 --> 00:46:38.960 out against violence. 00:46:39.280 --> 00:46:42.640 against men saying that the death penalty is wicked. 00:46:42.640 --> 00:46:46.320 The thief on the cross who confessed Christ confessed that the death 00:46:46.320 --> 00:46:48.000 penalty was entirely illicit. 00:46:48.000 --> 00:46:49.920 He basically said, We deserve to be up here. 00:46:49.920 --> 00:46:53.040 And he chastised the murderer on the other side of Jesus, saying, 00:46:53.040 --> 00:46:54.960 How can you run your mouth at God? 00:46:54.960 --> 00:46:56.640 He's done nothing to be up here. 00:46:56.640 --> 00:46:58.320 We deserve to die. 00:46:58.320 --> 00:47:00.880 And then he turned to Jesus, said Lord, remember me when you 00:47:00.880 --> 00:47:02.400 come into your kingdom. 00:47:02.400 --> 00:47:06.320 That was an expression of faith, and it was simultaneously an expression, 00:47:06.320 --> 00:47:10.880 an entirely Christian one, that he deserved to die. 00:47:10.880 --> 00:47:15.200 And Jesus' death on the cross, right beside him, did not save 00:47:15.200 --> 00:47:15.840 him from that. 00:47:15.840 --> 00:47:19.280 It didn't save him save him from the temporal consequences. 00:47:19.280 --> 00:47:21.360 It saved his eternal soul. 00:47:21.360 --> 00:47:25.840 And that thief will be restored in the new earth. 00:47:25.840 --> 00:47:28.720 He will be raised from the dead, along with all the rest 00:47:28.720 --> 00:47:31.040 of us, and he will go with the sheep and now with 00:47:31.040 --> 00:47:31.840 the ghosts. 00:47:31.840 --> 00:47:35.600 We're all going to be raised bodily after we're all killed. 00:47:35.600 --> 00:47:39.440 God kills everybody, and on the on judgment day, he's going to 00:47:39.440 --> 00:47:41.360 wipe away everything. 00:47:41.360 --> 00:47:44.800 And leading up to judgment day, incidentally, not that we want to 00:47:44.960 --> 00:47:48.640 get eschatological all the time on this podcast, but when you look 00:47:48.640 --> 00:47:51.760 at the signs of the end times, God's very clear that it's 00:47:51.760 --> 00:47:53.040 going to get so bad. 00:47:53.040 --> 00:47:55.360 He says he's going to cut those days short only for the 00:47:55.360 --> 00:47:58.720 sake of the elect, because it's going to be so bad, there's 00:47:58.720 --> 00:48:01.840 going to be so much violence and so much evil that if 00:48:01.840 --> 00:48:05.920 God did not cut the last days prior to judgment short, the 00:48:05.920 --> 00:48:07.520 elect too would apostatize. 00:48:07.520 --> 00:48:10.560 Everyone Everyone would fall away because it's going to get so evil, 00:48:10.560 --> 00:48:15.760 so violent, so wicked. 00:48:15.760 --> 00:48:19.120 The fact that God tolerates and permits these things is one of 00:48:19.120 --> 00:48:22.240 the greatest challenges in the Christian faith, because we have these things 00:48:22.400 --> 00:48:25.280 that are evil that God is clearly opposed to, and yet he 00:48:25.280 --> 00:48:28.160 permits them, and in some cases he uses them. 00:48:28.160 --> 00:48:32.480 The things that man intends for evil God intends for good. 00:48:32.480 --> 00:48:36.320 And so God absolutely uses man's evil in the world, he doesn't 00:48:36.320 --> 00:48:38.960 prevent it, he doesn't cause the evil man to wink out of 00:48:38.960 --> 00:48:40.960 existence before he can commit a sin. 00:48:40.960 --> 00:48:42.320 He lets it play out. 00:48:42.320 --> 00:48:45.040 And then God uses it to his purposes. 00:48:45.040 --> 00:48:47.280 The flood is a crucial example of what we're talking about 00:48:48.320 --> 00:48:50.720 here, in particular, because 00:48:51.840 --> 00:48:57.120 not only is the flood the most catastrophic example of absolute violence 00:48:57.120 --> 00:49:01.680 in history until Judgment Day, which was exacted by God. 00:49:01.680 --> 00:49:05.920 But it's another one of these examples where it's a small detail 00:49:05.920 --> 00:49:06.800 in the scripture. 00:49:06.800 --> 00:49:08.720 There's not a lot of talk about the flood. 00:49:08.720 --> 00:49:10.160 It's just sort of sitting there. 00:49:10.160 --> 00:49:11.440 And it pops up occasionally. 00:49:11.520 --> 00:49:14.080 You know, Noah pops up, the flood pops up once in a 00:49:14.080 --> 00:49:17.840 while. But the whole Christian faith doesn't hinge on it. 00:49:17.840 --> 00:49:21.360 Satan uses that fact, the fact that there's not a lot of 00:49:21.360 --> 00:49:26.240 ink spilled in scripture about the flood after it happens, to permit 00:49:26.240 --> 00:49:29.920 men today to say, well, that was in the olden times, no 00:49:29.920 --> 00:49:31.120 one knows what really happened. 00:49:31.120 --> 00:49:32.960 Maybe it wasn't a global flood. 00:49:32.960 --> 00:49:34.640 Maybe it really didn't happen like that. 00:49:34.720 --> 00:49:36.480 You know, there's no one there to witness it. 00:49:36.480 --> 00:49:40.000 So we we just have this account, and all these other pagan 00:49:40.080 --> 00:49:44.080 religions, these pagan places have their own accounts of a global flood 00:49:44.240 --> 00:49:45.120 or a local flood. 00:49:45.120 --> 00:49:46.800 You know, there's a lot of water and a lot of people 00:49:46.800 --> 00:49:50.880 died. Yeah, maybe something happened, but it's a story, it's a myth. 00:49:51.120 --> 00:49:54.640 The problem The problem with that sort of dismissal of a detail 00:49:54.640 --> 00:49:58.080 in scripture, just as violence is a detail in scripture, there's a 00:49:58.080 --> 00:49:59.600 lot more violence than there is the flood. 00:49:59.600 --> 00:50:02.320 You know, the flood is one example of violence. 00:50:02.320 --> 00:50:04.960 If you were able to just paper that over and say, Well, 00:50:04.960 --> 00:50:06.960 I'm just focused on the gospel. 00:50:06.960 --> 00:50:08.480 I'm I'm gospel centered. 00:50:08.480 --> 00:50:11.040 I don't I don't think about these mean things. 00:50:11.040 --> 00:50:12.640 Here's what happens. 00:50:12.640 --> 00:50:16.320 In first Peter three it's recorded When God's long suffering in the 00:50:16.320 --> 00:50:19.040 days of Noah while the Ark was being prepared, in which a 00:50:19.040 --> 00:50:24.560 few, that is eight souls, were brought safely through the water, baptism, 00:50:24.560 --> 00:50:27.840 which is the anti type to this, now saves you. 00:50:27.840 --> 00:50:30.320 Not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an 00:50:30.320 --> 00:50:33.520 appeal to God for a good conscience through the resurrection of Jesus 00:50:33.920 --> 00:50:36.320 Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand 00:50:36.320 --> 00:50:40.960 of God with the angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to 00:50:40.960 --> 00:50:42.080 him. So 00:50:43.040 --> 00:50:46.640 the New Testament makes very clear, not everywhere, but it makes clear 00:50:46.640 --> 00:50:51.840 in First Peter, the flood, which is a real historical event, is 00:50:51.840 --> 00:50:57.440 typological of our salvation, and that baptism, the sacrament, is the delivery 00:50:57.440 --> 00:50:59.680 of that salvation for all man. 00:50:59.680 --> 00:51:04.320 Just as eight men were saved through the waters in the ark, 00:51:04.320 --> 00:51:06.800 God explicitly says it's typological. 00:51:06.800 --> 00:51:08.640 The word there is anti type. 00:51:08.640 --> 00:51:09.600 That's where we get it. 00:51:09.760 --> 00:51:12.400 the Greek word there is is it literally anti type, so that's 00:51:12.320 --> 00:51:15.600 how I why I use that word instead of saying according to 00:51:15.600 --> 00:51:16.640 or anything else. 00:51:16.640 --> 00:51:17.760 To make it clear. 00:51:17.760 --> 00:51:21.600 God says the flood is the anti type to baptism, which is 00:51:21.600 --> 00:51:22.960 the means of salvation. 00:51:23.440 --> 00:51:26.000 The Baptists in the audience totally disagree with that. 00:51:26.000 --> 00:51:28.640 Go back and listen to the baptism episode again. 00:51:28.640 --> 00:51:30.320 That's why it's so crucial. 00:51:30.320 --> 00:51:33.600 So if you go into scripture and you say, Well, I don't 00:51:33.520 --> 00:51:36.080 know about you know there's it was a long time ago, nobody 00:51:36.080 --> 00:51:36.720 was there. 00:51:36.720 --> 00:51:39.440 I don't know if the flood really happened or didn't happen like 00:51:39.440 --> 00:51:42.720 that. When you crack that or door open, what do you do? 00:51:42.720 --> 00:51:48.720 You undermine the baptism sacrament and you undermine salvation itself. 00:51:48.720 --> 00:51:53.040 God calls it an appeal to Himself for a good conscience through 00:51:53.040 --> 00:51:55.600 the resurrection of Jesus Christ. 00:51:55.600 --> 00:51:57.120 That is salvation. 00:51:57.120 --> 00:52:01.040 That is the beating heart of salvation, and the flood points to 00:52:01.040 --> 00:52:05.520 it. So in the very act of unmitigated violence well, it wasn't 00:52:05.520 --> 00:52:09.360 completely unmitigated, because the Ark actually m mitigated it. 00:52:09.360 --> 00:52:11.520 That was the only exception to the violence. 00:52:11.520 --> 00:52:14.720 Within that arc all the men were safe from the waters And 00:52:14.720 --> 00:52:19.600 the difference is that although baptism washes away our sin and is 00:52:19.600 --> 00:52:24.320 not a violent act, the water that occurred in the flood washed 00:52:24.320 --> 00:52:25.200 away everything. 00:52:25.200 --> 00:52:27.680 I guess in a sense it did wash away the sins by 00:52:27.680 --> 00:52:29.600 washing away the sinners, didn't it? 00:52:29.600 --> 00:52:32.000 So it really it really is kind of more direct. 00:52:32.000 --> 00:52:34.400 But what was violent then is very peaceful now. 00:52:34.400 --> 00:52:36.400 And so we look at it and we don't really think it's 00:52:36.400 --> 00:52:40.640 anything. If Satan can take the flood off the table for Christians 00:52:40.720 --> 00:52:43.200 and say that was we don't really know what happened, it doesn't 00:52:43.120 --> 00:52:43.680 really matter. 00:52:43.680 --> 00:52:46.400 It doesn't have anything to do anything anyway, because I like the 00:52:46.400 --> 00:52:49.280 spirit of it, but I don't care about the facts. 00:52:49.280 --> 00:52:52.000 This is how these attacks work. 00:52:52.000 --> 00:52:55.600 Satan will take a long time to pluck some seemingly small thing 00:52:55.600 --> 00:52:59.040 off the table because it can be used later to attack the 00:52:59.040 --> 00:53:01.120 beating heart of the Christian faith. 00:53:01.120 --> 00:53:04.400 And obviously violence is not the beating heart of the Christian faith 00:53:04.400 --> 00:53:06.480 in the gospel sense, but 00:53:07.520 --> 00:53:11.040 how do you have the Christian faith without judgment day? 00:53:11.040 --> 00:53:14.880 Judgment Day is unlimited, infinite violence. 00:53:14.880 --> 00:53:16.720 That's God's violence. 00:53:16.720 --> 00:53:18.560 How do you have the Christian faith without it? 00:53:18.560 --> 00:53:23.360 You lose the creeds, you leave you lose scripture where it's described. 00:53:23.360 --> 00:53:26.560 How do you still have God if you don't have violence? 00:53:26.560 --> 00:53:30.240 To this point, the scriptural portion is talking about God in the 00:53:30.240 --> 00:53:34.480 beginning and the end and these big miraculous and that there're supernatural 00:53:34.480 --> 00:53:38.000 events, even though they're occurring in the material world. 00:53:38.000 --> 00:53:41.440 If these are sin, if violence is sin, as we're told, no 00:53:41.440 --> 00:53:42.640 hate, no violence. 00:53:42.640 --> 00:53:44.880 Well, God hates and God's violent. 00:53:44.880 --> 00:53:48.400 As we said many times, we're gonna say repeatedly here, this is 00:53:48.400 --> 00:53:49.440 not license. 00:53:49.440 --> 00:53:51.760 If in your heart you want to be violent and you want 00:53:51.760 --> 00:53:54.560 to be filled with hate, we're not exhorting you to either of 00:53:54.560 --> 00:53:55.280 those things. 00:53:55.280 --> 00:53:58.880 This is a condemnation of your sinful desire to do those things, 00:53:58.880 --> 00:54:01.360 because that's not in accord with God's nature. 00:54:01.360 --> 00:54:03.760 The very fact that there would ever be violence in the world 00:54:03.760 --> 00:54:06.800 is a result of the fall, and it's always sorrowful. 00:54:06.800 --> 00:54:10.720 Even men who have the duty and the vocation to go and 00:54:10.720 --> 00:54:14.960 commit violence because it is proper and godly for them to do 00:54:14.960 --> 00:54:18.560 so. And in our current system that involves, you know, men like 00:54:18.960 --> 00:54:23.840 policemen, military, in your own home, in the case of an intruder, 00:54:23.840 --> 00:54:29.840 given local laws, there are various circumstances where an individual man, either 00:54:30.080 --> 00:54:36.800 according to an organization or according to his legal and moral rights, 00:54:36.800 --> 00:54:38.240 is able to commit violence. 00:54:38.240 --> 00:54:40.640 There's never a desire for such thing. 00:54:40.640 --> 00:54:44.320 There's a recognition that there are some men who will not be 00:54:44.320 --> 00:54:46.640 stopped by anything else. 00:54:46.640 --> 00:54:51.600 If someone is charging a cop with a with a firearm. 00:54:51.600 --> 00:54:54.160 They're making it very clear they're gonna kill the cop, and then 00:54:54.160 --> 00:54:56.800 the cop kills them so that they don't. 00:54:56.800 --> 00:54:59.600 Somehow this has today become a controversial thing. 00:54:59.840 --> 00:55:02.320 that should be the least controversial thing in the world. 00:55:02.320 --> 00:55:05.680 If someone is attempting to commit violence against an agent of the 00:55:05.680 --> 00:55:10.480 state, the presumption is always, you know, absent any other facts. 00:55:10.480 --> 00:55:13.440 The presumption is that that was per se evil. 00:55:13.440 --> 00:55:14.720 You just don't do that. 00:55:14.720 --> 00:55:17.040 Even if you argue you you disagree with what the cop is 00:55:17.040 --> 00:55:19.840 doing, that is a matter to be settled in court. 00:55:19.840 --> 00:55:23.200 You figure it out later, you don't figure it out violently. 00:55:23.200 --> 00:55:25.280 And yet there's some men that don't care about that. 00:55:25.280 --> 00:55:27.600 They don't care about the reason, they don't care about the future, 00:55:27.600 --> 00:55:28.960 they don't care about morality. 00:55:28.960 --> 00:55:30.880 They're just gonna be violent. 00:55:30.880 --> 00:55:35.840 And the circumstances, the the world today has been very carefully crafted 00:55:35.840 --> 00:55:38.880 to make sure that there's an entire segment of our population, a 00:55:38.880 --> 00:55:41.200 huge segment, that thinks that's okay. 00:55:41.200 --> 00:55:44.560 When they see people going after cops violently, they cheer it on. 00:55:44.560 --> 00:55:47.360 They think, yeah, you know, the cop did something, get the system, 00:55:47.360 --> 00:55:48.720 get the pigs. 00:55:48.720 --> 00:55:51.680 That's stuff that's so common that like people say it and no 00:55:51.680 --> 00:55:53.200 one thinks anything. 00:55:53.200 --> 00:55:54.800 It's crazy. 00:55:54.800 --> 00:55:55.520 It's evil. 00:55:55.520 --> 00:55:56.880 I shouldn't say it's crazy. 00:55:57.520 --> 00:56:00.560 it's a figure of speech that's become so common now because we 00:56:00.560 --> 00:56:04.560 can't even cope with the degree of wickedness embodied in that sort 00:56:04.560 --> 00:56:06.400 of view. 00:56:06.400 --> 00:56:10.000 It's always in a sense, wicked that there's violence because nothing like 00:56:10.000 --> 00:56:11.360 that should ever happen. 00:56:11.360 --> 00:56:13.600 But at the same time, you're a fool if you think that 00:56:13.600 --> 00:56:16.560 that means, well, I'm just gonna opt out of violence. 00:56:16.560 --> 00:56:18.240 There's no such thing. 00:56:18.240 --> 00:56:21.520 Evil exists, and evil men are going to do violent things. 00:56:21.520 --> 00:56:25.600 And there are times and places just as God must enact violence 00:56:25.600 --> 00:56:31.120 at various times in the historical timeline, men have a vocation under 00:56:31.120 --> 00:56:35.440 certain legal circumstances to enact violence because it's literally the only thing 00:56:35.440 --> 00:56:37.920 that's going to stop another man from doing evil. 00:56:37.920 --> 00:56:41.600 And when a man who's obeying God and who's following the law 00:56:41.840 --> 00:56:45.520 enacts violence, it is not evil. 00:56:45.520 --> 00:56:50.720 Genesis 9:6 specifically says that if a man sheds blood, by man's 00:56:50.720 --> 00:56:53.600 hand shall his blood be shed. 00:56:53.600 --> 00:56:57.840 God says before the Litical Law has nothing to do with the 00:56:57.840 --> 00:56:59.920 people of Israel who came much later. 00:56:59.920 --> 00:57:03.440 God says if you kill a man you must die. 00:57:03.440 --> 00:57:06.560 Not you can, there's no rules of engagement there. 00:57:06.560 --> 00:57:10.000 God says if someone kills a man, that man must be put 00:57:10.000 --> 00:57:11.760 to death by other men. 00:57:11.760 --> 00:57:16.640 That is God expressly directing men to commit violence. 00:57:16.640 --> 00:57:19.920 And the same people who say today there's no place for violence 00:57:19.920 --> 00:57:23.840 in politics, there's absolutely no place certainly for anyone in religion to 00:57:23.840 --> 00:57:28.400 ever talk about about violence, they hate the God of Genesis nine, 00:57:28.560 --> 00:57:32.960 six. They hate God, because they hate the God of Judgment Day. 00:57:32.960 --> 00:57:36.800 On Judgment Day they're gonna be standing there screaming at God that 00:57:36.800 --> 00:57:39.600 He can't be violent, just as those who were dying in the 00:57:39.600 --> 00:57:41.040 flood said the same thing. 00:57:41.040 --> 00:57:44.960 Those are the two sides, and the one who has violence is 00:57:44.960 --> 00:57:49.360 not necessarily the one that's evil. 00:57:49.520 --> 00:57:52.800 A key point in all of this when discussing violence 00:57:53.760 --> 00:57:59.760 is that violence itself is not an unqualified or an unmitigated or 00:57:59.920 --> 00:58:01.840 inherent good. 00:58:01.840 --> 00:58:04.000 It is a qualified good. 00:58:04.640 --> 00:58:08.560 And what I mean by that is essentially that it's a fact 00:58:08.640 --> 00:58:15.040 specific analysis to return to the legal speak again for a moment. 00:58:15.040 --> 00:58:17.280 The circumstances matter. 00:58:17.280 --> 00:58:19.360 The intent matters certainly. 00:58:19.360 --> 00:58:21.440 The end matters. 00:58:21.440 --> 00:58:26.720 For instance, if you shoot a man for no reason, or because 00:58:26.720 --> 00:58:32.080 you felt like it, that is morally impermissible violence. 00:58:32.320 --> 00:58:34.560 That is not a good. 00:58:34.560 --> 00:58:37.120 That is wicked, that is evil, it is a sin. 00:58:37.120 --> 00:58:38.480 It's murder. 00:58:39.760 --> 00:58:45.120 If, however, you were to shoot an intruder who broke into your 00:58:45.120 --> 00:58:47.760 house to assault your wife and children 00:58:48.640 --> 00:58:50.800 that's still violent. 00:58:50.800 --> 00:58:56.000 But now it is a good, because it is sufficiently qualified. 00:58:56.160 --> 00:58:58.160 It is warranted. 00:58:58.160 --> 00:59:03.280 If you have adequate moral warrant for your violent act, the act 00:59:03.280 --> 00:59:05.760 itself is good. 00:59:05.760 --> 00:59:11.440 Which is to say that violence itself, violence qua violence is really 00:59:11.440 --> 00:59:14.720 morally neutral in our fallen world. 00:59:14.720 --> 00:59:20.720 As Wo mentioned, in sort of an absolute or higher level moral 00:59:20.720 --> 00:59:25.280 sense, violence itself is an evil. 00:59:25.280 --> 00:59:28.800 It's not always evil in our fallen world. 00:59:28.800 --> 00:59:33.680 Because why you are committing the act, what you are seeking to 00:59:33.680 --> 00:59:36.080 do with the act matters. 00:59:36.080 --> 00:59:39.760 Because there are times when violence is required of men. 00:59:39.760 --> 00:59:42.720 The best example, and it's the reason that we've used it, is 00:59:42.720 --> 00:59:45.600 when a man is defending his own family. 00:59:45.600 --> 00:59:49.360 But the same thing applies for the police officer who is maintaining 00:59:49.360 --> 00:59:55.200 order, who is dealing with the various men in society who cause 00:59:55.200 --> 01:00:00.640 problems, typically those who are engaged in impermissible violence, and so violence 01:00:00.640 --> 01:00:03.920 must be used against them to stop them. 01:00:03.920 --> 01:00:07.840 But also, of course, of the soldier who is defending his nation 01:00:07.840 --> 01:00:09.920 with violence. 01:00:09.920 --> 01:00:13.680 It depends why the violence is being used. 01:00:13.680 --> 01:00:18.080 It's not that violence itself is good, or that violence itself is 01:00:18.160 --> 01:00:21.680 in our fallen world evil, even if it may be in that 01:00:21.680 --> 01:00:26.000 higher order sense, an evil thing, because it should not exist. 01:00:26.000 --> 01:00:27.920 It should not be part of creation. 01:00:27.920 --> 01:00:31.680 It was not part of God's design for creation. 01:00:31.680 --> 01:00:36.000 It was introduced into creation by the fall. 01:00:36.000 --> 01:00:39.760 So the necessity of violence in the fallen world is a function 01:00:39.760 --> 01:00:44.080 of the fall but just because something is a function of the 01:00:44.080 --> 01:00:49.040 fall in that way does not mean that it is always wicked. 01:00:49.040 --> 01:00:52.560 So there is no evil on the part of the soldier who 01:00:52.560 --> 01:00:56.080 kills another man in defense of his nation. 01:00:56.080 --> 01:00:58.960 Assuming, of course, the cause is righteous, that gets to be a 01:00:58.960 --> 01:01:03.600 little complicated, but as a general matter, holding all else equal. 01:01:03.600 --> 01:01:07.440 He is defending his nation, what he is doing is not wicked. 01:01:07.440 --> 01:01:10.880 The man who kills in defence of his family against a violent 01:01:10.880 --> 01:01:15.840 intruder, what he is doing is violence, but it is not wicked. 01:01:16.160 --> 01:01:18.320 Again, these are things that should not be 01:01:19.440 --> 01:01:24.480 part of creation, but they are necessary because of the reality of 01:01:24.480 --> 01:01:26.880 life in a fallen world. 01:01:26.880 --> 01:01:31.760 Because we're mortal, we're sinful, we're fallen, we live in a world 01:01:32.320 --> 01:01:37.040 full of wicked men who would do any amount of evil if 01:01:37.040 --> 01:01:38.160 not stopped. 01:01:38.160 --> 01:01:41.520 It is one of the reasons that God entrusts the sword to 01:01:41.520 --> 01:01:45.520 the prince, should be a Christian Prince, but it is the reason, 01:01:45.520 --> 01:01:50.080 one reason that God entrusts the sword to such men, because the 01:01:50.080 --> 01:01:53.360 evil must be restrained. 01:01:53.360 --> 01:01:58.000 That is, the curb use of the law. 01:01:58.000 --> 01:02:02.000 It's not showing you your wickedness so that you can recognize you're 01:02:02.000 --> 01:02:03.520 a sinner. 01:02:03.520 --> 01:02:07.920 It's not guiding your life, it is curbing the wicked. 01:02:07.920 --> 01:02:10.720 That is one of the uses of the sword, it is one 01:02:10.720 --> 01:02:14.800 of the uses of God's law, and the Christian prince who does 01:02:14.800 --> 01:02:21.280 not do that is no Christian prince, because the rightful ruler, the 01:02:21.280 --> 01:02:28.800 good authority, keeps order, maintains society, enacts 01:02:28.800 --> 01:02:32.720 God's laws and God's vengeance on the wicked. 01:02:32.720 --> 01:02:35.520 That is the rightful role of the sword. 01:02:35.520 --> 01:02:39.680 You have a minor version of that, as it were, with regard 01:02:39.920 --> 01:02:43.360 to the house father, with regard to the man who is head 01:02:43.360 --> 01:02:47.120 of his household, because he has the duty to maintain order in 01:02:47.120 --> 01:02:50.400 his home, no you don't kill your children when they act up. 01:02:50.400 --> 01:02:53.920 We'll leave aside some of the Old Testament cases of when and 01:02:53.920 --> 01:02:58.000 where that is appropriate, it's not the focus of this episode. 01:02:58.000 --> 01:03:02.400 But you do use the sword in a smaller sense to defend 01:03:02.400 --> 01:03:03.040 your family. 01:03:03.920 --> 01:03:07.360 Because in a very real way, your home is your castle. 01:03:07.360 --> 01:03:10.880 You are king of your home, if you are the house father, 01:03:10.880 --> 01:03:15.360 and so if someone comes into your domain to cause harm to 01:03:15.360 --> 01:03:19.600 your subjects, it is incumbent on you to defend them. 01:03:19.600 --> 01:03:22.800 And we would rightly call the father who is unwilling to use 01:03:22.800 --> 01:03:27.200 violence in defence of his wife and children an evil man. 01:03:27.200 --> 01:03:29.040 The pacifist is wicked. 01:03:29.920 --> 01:03:34.320 There is no pacifist who is a morally good and upright man. 01:03:34.320 --> 01:03:36.080 They are all evil. 01:03:36.080 --> 01:03:40.320 They are all high handed impenetent sinners. 01:03:40.320 --> 01:03:45.200 Because what they're saying, effectively, is I am more moral than God. 01:03:45.360 --> 01:03:48.960 I am unwilling to engage in violence, I am unwilling to defend 01:03:48.960 --> 01:03:52.080 the things God has entrusted to my care, not least of all 01:03:52.080 --> 01:03:52.720 your own life. 01:03:52.720 --> 01:03:54.640 You don't have to have a wife and children. 01:03:54.800 --> 01:03:58.080 Because again you do have a duty to preserve your own life. 01:03:58.080 --> 01:04:01.520 You are a slave of God, you are his property, and so 01:04:01.520 --> 01:04:04.400 you have a duty to defend yourself as well. 01:04:04.400 --> 01:04:08.320 Self-defense is moral and a moral duty. 01:04:08.320 --> 01:04:11.920 But if you say I am a pacifist, you are saying that 01:04:11.920 --> 01:04:16.160 I will not use this means that God Himself uses and that 01:04:16.160 --> 01:04:20.400 God Himself has commanded us to use, because I am better than 01:04:20.400 --> 01:04:22.400 God. I know better than God. 01:04:22.720 --> 01:04:25.840 I will not engage in violence because it is always wrong. 01:04:25.840 --> 01:04:29.200 God was wrong when he wrote this and did that. 01:04:29.200 --> 01:04:32.880 No Christian can say those things and mean them. 01:04:32.880 --> 01:04:36.560 Because it isn't Christian, you cannot accuse God of sin. 01:04:36.560 --> 01:04:41.680 You cannot say the things God did are sin. 01:04:41.680 --> 01:04:49.120 And to highlight something that Woe said, God's authority does rest on 01:04:49.120 --> 01:04:54.960 violence. Because God's authority rests on his power. 01:04:54.960 --> 01:04:56.080 His infinite power. 01:04:56.080 --> 01:04:57.920 God is omnipotent, of course. 01:04:57.920 --> 01:05:03.440 But as I said before in last week's episode, God's authority in 01:05:03.440 --> 01:05:08.240 a very real way rests upon his infinite ability to bring infinite 01:05:08.240 --> 01:05:11.920 violence upon his enemies. 01:05:12.000 --> 01:05:15.520 If he could not do that he would not be God. 01:05:15.520 --> 01:05:19.040 If he did not visit that upon them, he would not be 01:05:19.040 --> 01:05:23.760 God, because to fail to oppose such evil, to oppose such wickedness, 01:05:23.760 --> 01:05:28.080 and in God's case certainly to destroy it, would be to be 01:05:28.080 --> 01:05:33.760 immoral. Everything God does is always perfectly moral, of course. 01:05:33.760 --> 01:05:37.520 God is the source of morality, he is morality itself. 01:05:37.520 --> 01:05:40.800 And so what God does is moral. 01:05:40.800 --> 01:05:46.000 It's not in the divine command sense of it's moral because God 01:05:46.000 --> 01:05:47.040 said it. 01:05:47.040 --> 01:05:50.240 No, it's moral because God did it because it flows from his 01:05:50.320 --> 01:05:52.960 nature, and so all that he does is moral. 01:05:52.960 --> 01:05:57.120 It's important to get that direction of causation, as it were, correct 01:05:57.280 --> 01:05:58.720 in this. 01:05:58.720 --> 01:06:05.600 But the central point of that is that God has used violence 01:06:06.160 --> 01:06:11.680 throughout history, God will use violence in the end times at the 01:06:11.680 --> 01:06:18.160 last judgment, and God's authority rests on that violence. 01:06:18.160 --> 01:06:21.840 Because he has the power to do any and all things. 01:06:21.840 --> 01:06:25.280 If he didn't have that, he wouldn't be God. 01:06:25.280 --> 01:06:29.520 And so when we say, as fallen men, well, you can't use 01:06:29.520 --> 01:06:31.520 violence because it's immoral. 01:06:31.520 --> 01:06:34.320 You're accusing God of sin. 01:06:34.320 --> 01:06:38.080 You're trying to be more moral than God, which is so often 01:06:38.080 --> 01:06:42.400 the case when we go over these issues where modern morality so 01:06:42.400 --> 01:06:46.160 called butts up against what scripture says. 01:06:46.160 --> 01:06:49.600 Modern men are trying to be more moral than God, or at 01:06:49.600 --> 01:06:52.880 least they're trying to convince you that you can be more moral 01:06:52.880 --> 01:06:53.520 than God. 01:06:53.520 --> 01:06:56.880 Because as Will mentioned, often the very men who tell you, well, 01:06:56.880 --> 01:07:01.920 you can't be violent will use every single aspect of state power 01:07:01.920 --> 01:07:05.120 to enact violence against you. 01:07:05.120 --> 01:07:07.600 All while telling you that you can't be violent. 01:07:07.600 --> 01:07:11.200 Because of course, the goal is to destroy you. 01:07:11.200 --> 01:07:13.520 Because they're children of Satan. 01:07:13.520 --> 01:07:17.200 They are liars like their father, who was a murderer from the 01:07:17.200 --> 01:07:20.560 beginning. They just seek to act in the same way that he 01:07:20.560 --> 01:07:23.040 acts. That is their nature. 01:07:23.040 --> 01:07:24.400 That is what they have become. 01:07:24.400 --> 01:07:26.480 It is what they are making themselves into. 01:07:26.480 --> 01:07:31.760 It is what they are reinforcing day by day with their actions. 01:07:31.760 --> 01:07:34.320 Some will be tempted to say, well, that's just hypocrisy. 01:07:34.320 --> 01:07:37.600 Hypocrisy is neither here nor there in this really. 01:07:37.600 --> 01:07:38.640 Is it immoral? 01:07:38.640 --> 01:07:39.120 Of course. 01:07:39.120 --> 01:07:41.200 Does hypocrisy matter in that sense? 01:07:41.200 --> 01:07:46.480 Yes. But when you're dealing with those who are using the levers 01:07:46.480 --> 01:07:50.400 of power in order to enact violence against you, all while telling 01:07:50.480 --> 01:07:53.280 you, well, you can't use violence as a Christian because that would 01:07:53.280 --> 01:07:54.640 be wrongful. 01:07:54.640 --> 01:07:56.240 This is politics. 01:07:56.240 --> 01:08:00.960 Hypocrisy and politics you could almost say they're one and the same, 01:08:00.960 --> 01:08:04.480 but it's really the one is irrelevant to the other. 01:08:04.480 --> 01:08:05.840 Different consideration. 01:08:05.840 --> 01:08:08.240 Morally it matters politically. 01:08:08.240 --> 01:08:11.920 Anyone who tells you hypocrisy matters politically is trying to deceive you 01:08:12.080 --> 01:08:13.200 or harm you. 01:08:13.680 --> 01:08:17.200 Just a practical matter with regard to politics. 01:08:17.200 --> 01:08:21.360 And sometimes it's difficult for the Christian to make some of these 01:08:21.360 --> 01:08:26.000 calls. Again, this is a matter of wisdom, as we will continue 01:08:26.000 --> 01:08:32.960 to repeat, just because something is political, does not mean that Christians 01:08:32.960 --> 01:08:37.280 are absolved of all moral demands, of course, not all means are 01:08:37.280 --> 01:08:43.200 moral. But there are different considerations in the political sphere versus 01:08:44.080 --> 01:08:48.880 the purely private sphere, say, or the right hand kingdom versus the 01:08:48.880 --> 01:08:50.560 left hand kingdom. 01:08:50.560 --> 01:08:53.200 It is a matter of wisdom, and we're not going to give 01:08:53.200 --> 01:08:56.720 you any hard line rules for some of these things, because there 01:08:56.720 --> 01:09:02.240 aren't. These are going to be fact specific analyses, which we continue 01:09:02.240 --> 01:09:04.640 to say with regard to these matters, just as whether or not 01:09:04.640 --> 01:09:09.520 something Or not something is a fighting word in a particular circumstance. 01:09:09.520 --> 01:09:11.440 Well, the circumstances matter. 01:09:11.440 --> 01:09:12.880 The facts matter. 01:09:12.880 --> 01:09:14.800 You have to analyze those things. 01:09:14.800 --> 01:09:17.520 You have to look at the context. 01:09:19.440 --> 01:09:25.200 But to return to that issue of the nature of violence in 01:09:25.200 --> 01:09:31.120 the fallen world, I want to say again and emphasize that violence 01:09:31.120 --> 01:09:35.040 itself is not an inherent good, but it is also not an 01:09:35.040 --> 01:09:37.280 inherent evil. 01:09:37.280 --> 01:09:40.560 We're going to set aside that sort of higher level analysis because 01:09:40.560 --> 01:09:42.640 we live in the fallen world. 01:09:42.640 --> 01:09:44.720 We're not making an assessment of 01:09:45.680 --> 01:09:48.400 this or that with regard to a perfect world. 01:09:48.400 --> 01:09:50.880 We do not live in a perfect world. 01:09:50.880 --> 01:09:54.720 We can have that discussion when we get to paradise, where there 01:09:54.720 --> 01:09:56.800 will be no violence. 01:09:57.040 --> 01:10:02.800 But in a fallen world, if you say I will never engage 01:10:02.800 --> 01:10:08.160 in violence, there are no circumstances under which I would be willing 01:10:08.160 --> 01:10:11.840 to be violent or to support the use of violence. 01:10:11.840 --> 01:10:14.880 I say that there should be no military, we should all be 01:10:14.880 --> 01:10:21.360 pacifists, etc, etc Od nauseum in this case. 01:10:21.360 --> 01:10:25.360 What you are saying is, of course, as I have repeated a 01:10:25.360 --> 01:10:29.520 number of times, God sinned, because you're saying that Genesis 9:6 is 01:10:29.520 --> 01:10:34.000 sin, you're saying that many places in the Old Testament are sin. 01:10:34.000 --> 01:10:36.960 You're saying that what God will do at the final judgment is 01:10:36.960 --> 01:10:43.840 sin. But you're also saying that nothing actually matters to you. 01:10:43.840 --> 01:10:46.720 You're saying I don't care about my wife. 01:10:46.720 --> 01:10:50.560 I don't care about my children, I don't care about my city, 01:10:50.560 --> 01:10:53.840 I don't care about my church, I don't care about my nation, 01:10:53.840 --> 01:10:55.520 I don't care about my country. 01:10:55.520 --> 01:10:58.160 None of these things matter to me because I am willing to 01:10:58.160 --> 01:11:01.360 stand by idly and watch them all be destroyed. 01:11:02.800 --> 01:11:08.640 It's not that violence is the first weapon, it's not the first 01:11:08.640 --> 01:11:12.320 tool in your bag, but it has to be there. 01:11:12.320 --> 01:11:15.360 And the reason it has to be there is because it is 01:11:15.360 --> 01:11:15.840 the ultimate 01:11:16.720 --> 01:11:20.800 tool. Everything else before that is 01:11:21.920 --> 01:11:25.440 based on that threat of violence. 01:11:25.440 --> 01:11:31.120 Everything else before that has force only because at the very bottom 01:11:31.360 --> 01:11:33.600 there is the threat of violence. 01:11:33.600 --> 01:11:38.160 This is the same in interpersonal relationships, and I'll come back to 01:11:38.160 --> 01:11:40.880 that to explain exactly what I mean there. 01:11:40.880 --> 01:11:44.960 But it's the same from there all the way up to nations. 01:11:44.960 --> 01:11:50.480 If you have two nations dealing with each other, an international level, 01:11:50.480 --> 01:11:54.880 if one makes a threat against another, whatever it happens to be, 01:11:54.880 --> 01:11:58.240 economic, sanctions, whatever. 01:11:58.240 --> 01:12:01.040 That's backed by the threat of violence. 01:12:01.040 --> 01:12:05.360 Because if there is no threat of violence, the sanction doesn't mean 01:12:05.360 --> 01:12:08.640 anything, because it can be safely ignored. 01:12:08.640 --> 01:12:12.480 So for instance, if a pacifist tells you, if you don't do 01:12:12.480 --> 01:12:15.120 X, what? 01:12:15.120 --> 01:12:20.240 Where is the actual backing to what he is saying? 01:12:20.800 --> 01:12:23.840 To some degree, women are not going to understand this as much 01:12:23.840 --> 01:12:25.840 as the men in the audience. 01:12:25.840 --> 01:12:29.600 And this is returning to the interpersonal comment. 01:12:29.600 --> 01:12:35.120 Because everything for men, every single interaction, has a background threat of 01:12:35.120 --> 01:12:40.240 violence. It's not that men are necessarily always violent, or they were 01:12:40.320 --> 01:12:44.560 always two steps away from a fist fight or whatever negative construction 01:12:44.560 --> 01:12:47.200 or connotation some could take from this. 01:12:47.200 --> 01:12:48.880 That isn't the issue. 01:12:48.880 --> 01:12:53.520 The issue is that men know in every interaction there is some 01:12:53.520 --> 01:12:57.360 line that could be crossed, and it's going to differ from one 01:12:57.360 --> 01:13:01.120 man to another, from one context to another, particularly one culture to 01:13:01.120 --> 01:13:05.040 another, because for instance fighting words are going to be very different 01:13:05.040 --> 01:13:10.000 for Scots Irish versus Germans or Norwegians. 01:13:10.000 --> 01:13:13.040 Some cultures you can get away with saying more than others, some 01:13:13.040 --> 01:13:14.560 you can get away with far less. 01:13:14.560 --> 01:13:15.520 It depends. 01:13:15.520 --> 01:13:20.560 These things differ from one context to another. 01:13:20.560 --> 01:13:27.440 But at base, foundationally, fundamentally, between men, there is always that background 01:13:27.440 --> 01:13:33.120 threat that this could devolve into a physical altercation. 01:13:33.120 --> 01:13:36.160 It's one of the reasons that it has often been said that 01:13:36.160 --> 01:13:39.520 an armed society is a polite society. 01:13:39.520 --> 01:13:44.640 Because when you have that threat of violence, there's a necessity of 01:13:44.640 --> 01:13:48.720 a certain code of behavior to which you must adhere to avoid 01:13:48.720 --> 01:13:50.560 that violence. 01:13:50.560 --> 01:13:55.760 Because ultimately all order, all of our stability, all of these things 01:13:55.760 --> 01:13:59.920 in society upon which we rely, and which make our lives as 01:13:59.920 --> 01:14:03.040 pleasant as they are, and would be more pleasant if things were 01:14:03.040 --> 01:14:07.840 better enforced, They rely on violence. 01:14:08.160 --> 01:14:09.120 The state 01:14:10.080 --> 01:14:12.720 is a construct of violence. 01:14:12.720 --> 01:14:16.560 When the state tells you you may not steal. 01:14:16.560 --> 01:14:19.920 If you steal, we will do X, Y, and Z. 01:14:19.920 --> 01:14:23.920 X, Y, and Z depend upon violence. 01:14:23.920 --> 01:14:26.720 Well, if they send the police after you, that's the use of 01:14:26.720 --> 01:14:27.920 physical force. 01:14:27.920 --> 01:14:31.920 Up to and including killing you, if necessary, in order to arrest 01:14:31.920 --> 01:14:33.840 you. They have to kill you, they don't have to arrest you 01:14:33.840 --> 01:14:34.560 any more. 01:14:34.560 --> 01:14:37.280 But that's physical force to arrest you. 01:14:37.280 --> 01:14:41.760 If you're convicted, it's physical force to imprison or otherwise punish you. 01:14:41.760 --> 01:14:44.160 All of these things rely on that. 01:14:44.160 --> 01:14:48.720 And for men, it starts with that interpersonal relationship of one man 01:14:48.720 --> 01:14:50.320 to another. 01:14:50.320 --> 01:14:54.400 Now, most of the time, it is a very distant matter. 01:14:54.400 --> 01:14:57.680 If I were just talking to woe, there's no real threat that 01:14:57.680 --> 01:15:00.960 it's going to devolve into a fist fight there. 01:15:00.960 --> 01:15:04.880 It is very distant and practically a non-issue. 01:15:04.880 --> 01:15:07.920 But if you're dealing with a stranger, or you're dealing with someone 01:15:07.920 --> 01:15:12.160 who is truly adversarial, it is a different matter. 01:15:12.160 --> 01:15:15.600 And so that scales all the way up from that one man 01:15:15.600 --> 01:15:17.200 with regard to another man 01:15:18.720 --> 01:15:21.440 all the way up to nations, all the way up to nation 01:15:21.440 --> 01:15:21.680 states 01:15:22.960 --> 01:15:26.400 That is the reality of living in a fallen world. 01:15:26.400 --> 01:15:28.480 It is inescapable. 01:15:28.480 --> 01:15:33.120 And so someone who says that he would never resort to violence, 01:15:33.120 --> 01:15:36.880 or that he would never support the use of violence, is saying 01:15:36.880 --> 01:15:39.680 that he rejects all of this. 01:15:39.680 --> 01:15:44.000 That is a level of apathy and indifference that might even make 01:15:44.000 --> 01:15:45.920 Satan blush. 01:15:45.920 --> 01:15:51.360 That is wickedness on a scale that is practically incomprehensible, and to 01:15:51.360 --> 01:15:53.840 a depth you cannot plumb. 01:15:53.840 --> 01:15:57.760 Which is something that is alien to most modern thought, to most 01:15:57.760 --> 01:16:01.040 modern men when they think about it, and particularly, again to modern 01:16:01.040 --> 01:16:04.480 women, because men and women are very different with regard to this 01:16:04.480 --> 01:16:08.560 matter. And the reason for that is that most have been programmed 01:16:08.560 --> 01:16:12.640 to think that violence is some sort of pinnacle of wickedness or 01:16:12.640 --> 01:16:17.040 nadir of wickedness, however you want to think about that one. 01:16:17.040 --> 01:16:21.760 The worst thing you can do is support or advocate or engage 01:16:21.760 --> 01:16:23.600 in violence. 01:16:23.600 --> 01:16:28.880 Because that's Satan trying to sneak his morality into the world. 01:16:28.880 --> 01:16:31.520 Because what he wants to do is he wants you to accept 01:16:31.520 --> 01:16:35.360 this new morality because then what have you done? 01:16:35.360 --> 01:16:40.800 You've abandoned all of your duties and you've accused God of sin. 01:16:40.800 --> 01:16:44.720 And so part of this is just fundamentally restructuring the way we 01:16:44.720 --> 01:16:46.400 think about these issues. 01:16:46.400 --> 01:16:50.080 Because again, violence is not per se wicked, and it is not 01:16:50.080 --> 01:16:51.280 per se good. 01:16:51.280 --> 01:16:53.280 The context matters. 01:16:53.280 --> 01:16:55.280 Who is committing the violence matters? 01:16:55.280 --> 01:16:56.800 Why he is doing it matters. 01:16:56.800 --> 01:16:58.960 Toward what end matters. 01:16:59.840 --> 01:17:03.040 You have to apply wisdom, you have to look at the context 01:17:03.040 --> 01:17:06.160 and the circumstances, but you cannot accept from Satan 01:17:07.040 --> 01:17:11.280 his proffered morality, which is that violence is always immoral, that it's 01:17:11.280 --> 01:17:15.600 always wrong, because one he doesn't believe it and two, he's trying 01:17:15.600 --> 01:17:19.680 to make you a blasphemer by hoping that you will believe it. 01:17:20.400 --> 01:17:24.800 There were two back-to-back issues in quick succession last week that forced 01:17:24.800 --> 01:17:27.680 us to tackle this issue, even though we haven't really thought about 01:17:27.680 --> 01:17:28.880 doing one before. 01:17:28.880 --> 01:17:33.200 And again, despite the fact that we've been routinely for several years 01:17:33.520 --> 01:17:39.440 called the authors and inciters of violence by slanders, defamers, and blasphemers, 01:17:39.440 --> 01:17:43.280 it's one of the most important charges against Stone Choir is that 01:17:43.280 --> 01:17:44.560 we're violent. 01:17:44.560 --> 01:17:47.680 And so there's an inherent risk to us talking about this because, 01:17:47.680 --> 01:17:50.880 like, look, they got us, they they said we're violent, and here 01:17:50.880 --> 01:17:52.960 we are saying the violence isn't evil. 01:17:52.960 --> 01:17:54.720 Obviously, they were right. 01:17:54.720 --> 01:17:56.720 The complete opposite is true. 01:17:56.720 --> 01:17:59.680 What brought this to a head initially last week? 01:17:59.680 --> 01:18:02.560 I'm sure all of you listened to the last week's episode that 01:18:02.560 --> 01:18:06.000 was a different one where we were playing someone else's show. 01:18:06.000 --> 01:18:07.280 We were on Will's show. 01:18:07.280 --> 01:18:08.640 He invited us on. 01:18:08.640 --> 01:18:10.400 We talked to him for over seven hours. 01:18:10.400 --> 01:18:12.160 It was a six and a half hour recording. 01:18:12.160 --> 01:18:13.920 It was a fantastic interview. 01:18:13.920 --> 01:18:16.560 And he gave us permission to have the first two hours. 01:18:16.560 --> 01:18:19.040 I think he's going to give us a second two hours. 01:18:19.040 --> 01:18:23.760 He on Wednesday, when we normally publish Stone Choir, we published We 01:18:23.760 --> 01:18:26.160 put the first two hours up at 3 p.m. 01:18:26.320 --> 01:18:29.360 He put it up on his substack about noon, even though he 01:18:29.360 --> 01:18:32.160 normally typically would publish on a Friday. 01:18:32.160 --> 01:18:32.480 And 01:18:33.440 --> 01:18:36.800 as was said in the intro to that episode, for him to 01:18:36.800 --> 01:18:42.000 be do interviewing us was him going into kind of riskier waters 01:18:42.160 --> 01:18:46.400 cause he wanted to tackle more controversial subjects and authors and it 01:18:46.560 --> 01:18:49.680 sort of get down into the nitty gritty and and stret spread 01:18:49.840 --> 01:18:52.640 his wings in terms of his interviewing style. 01:18:52.640 --> 01:18:55.600 And he wanted to put the episode behind the paywall because we 01:18:55.600 --> 01:18:59.120 were so controversial that obviously only the the very most hardcore people 01:18:59.120 --> 01:19:02.800 would be willing to even engage with a couple of quote neo-Nazi 01:19:02.800 --> 01:19:03.840 podcasters like us. 01:19:03.920 --> 01:19:06.720 Some way he called us, but it yeah, if you Google our 01:19:06.720 --> 01:19:09.920 names, that's what comes up, neo-Nazi podcasters. 01:19:09.920 --> 01:19:11.440 Because those are killing words. 01:19:11.440 --> 01:19:14.480 To say that someone is a Nazi or a neo Nazi is 01:19:14.480 --> 01:19:17.120 quite literally incitement to violence. 01:19:17.200 --> 01:19:20.240 We'll get to that in a bit. 01:19:20.240 --> 01:19:24.160 So he posted at noon, we posted at three, at about six 01:19:24.160 --> 01:19:27.760 or seven, he DM'd me a number of screenshots. 01:19:27.760 --> 01:19:30.320 Now tell me if this sounds familiar. 01:19:30.320 --> 01:19:36.080 Screenshots of things that Corey had posted on Telegram specifically related to 01:19:36.080 --> 01:19:38.480 violence in varying ways. 01:19:38.480 --> 01:19:43.600 And he said someone sent me these in an anonymous accuser, as 01:19:43.600 --> 01:19:47.200 far as we're concerned, sent him screenshots of something that one of 01:19:47.200 --> 01:19:49.120 us said somewhere on the internet. 01:19:49.120 --> 01:19:52.000 And he said, if I had known about these things, I never 01:19:52.000 --> 01:19:54.320 would have talked to you guys. 01:19:54.320 --> 01:19:54.640 And 01:19:55.520 --> 01:19:59.840 okay. So I he deleted the tweet that he had that pointed 01:19:59.840 --> 01:20:01.680 to the episode that I had retweeted. 01:20:01.680 --> 01:20:04.400 So I posted a screenshot of the deleted tweet just and I 01:20:04.400 --> 01:20:07.360 said no comment at the time because you know if he wants 01:20:07.360 --> 01:20:09.520 to pull it down, it's his interview on his site, he can 01:20:09.520 --> 01:20:10.320 do whatever he wants. 01:20:10.320 --> 01:20:12.720 We're not taking it down because we have the rights to publish 01:20:12.720 --> 01:20:13.840 the first two hours. 01:20:13.840 --> 01:20:16.400 The rest you'll never hear because he doesn't want you to hear 01:20:16.400 --> 01:20:21.040 it. What happened in the subsequent hours after that was he was 01:20:21.040 --> 01:20:25.280 he put up a new tweet where he reiterated those screenshots and 01:20:26.160 --> 01:20:29.120 again basically said that if I had known these things I never 01:20:29.120 --> 01:20:31.040 would have talked to those guys in public. 01:20:31.040 --> 01:20:36.640 He functionally disavowed both Corey and me and Stone Choir, and very 01:20:36.640 --> 01:20:39.440 effectively accused us of advocating violence. 01:20:39.440 --> 01:20:43.280 And that was the whole problem, that we're advocates of violence. 01:20:43.280 --> 01:20:47.280 And he threw us under the bus, he defamed us, and he 01:20:47.680 --> 01:20:52.560 said that he was guilty by association of things that we said 01:20:52.560 --> 01:20:54.400 that we didn't say on his show. 01:20:54.400 --> 01:20:56.960 Which again, tell me if you've heard this one before. 01:20:56.960 --> 01:21:00.880 This exact pattern has happened seven or eight times to multiple men 01:21:00.880 --> 01:21:05.600 associated with Stone Choir, myself, Corey, and anyone who's publicly interact with 01:21:05.600 --> 01:21:07.600 us. This exact thing happens. 01:21:07.600 --> 01:21:11.040 Someone interacts in public, and then there's a secret accuser behind the 01:21:11.040 --> 01:21:15.440 scenes that goes to somebody's pastor with screenshots and says, Look how 01:21:15.440 --> 01:21:17.280 violent and evil these men are. 01:21:17.280 --> 01:21:18.480 You must disavow. 01:21:18.480 --> 01:21:21.600 And every time that's what happens, not every time, almost every time. 01:21:21.600 --> 01:21:23.200 It's what happened this time. 01:21:23.200 --> 01:21:25.920 So you'll never hear the rest of that interview, which is unfortunate 01:21:26.000 --> 01:21:27.040 because it was great. 01:21:27.040 --> 01:21:30.640 The hilarious part is that in the intro, which you can go 01:21:30.640 --> 01:21:33.760 back and listen to, when he introduces us, he makes very clearly 01:21:33.920 --> 01:21:35.440 he's not endorsing everything that we say. 01:21:35.440 --> 01:21:37.280 He just wants to have a conversation. 01:21:37.280 --> 01:21:40.160 And he said that when he talked to us and he when 01:21:40.160 --> 01:21:42.800 he listened to us, it was very clear that we were faithful 01:21:42.800 --> 01:21:46.800 Christian men who had good hearts when we were addressing these subjects. 01:21:46.800 --> 01:21:51.360 And then somebody emailed him screenshots that were nothing that was secret. 01:21:51.360 --> 01:21:52.240 It was from Telegram. 01:21:52.240 --> 01:21:53.920 It's the same stuff Corey tweets. 01:21:53.920 --> 01:21:56.000 It's the same stuff that we talk about. 01:21:56.000 --> 01:21:59.520 And yet somehow it was so scandalous because somebody said the word 01:21:59.520 --> 01:22:01.600 violence. And so that was the end of it. 01:22:01.600 --> 01:22:04.960 So I got pulled and the thread was a disaster for him 01:22:05.040 --> 01:22:08.720 because he got dogpiled, not because we instigated anything, but because it 01:22:08.720 --> 01:22:11.920 was such a shameful and cowardly thing to do, particularly in the 01:22:11.920 --> 01:22:13.920 face of the very context involved. 01:22:13.920 --> 01:22:16.160 And so I went and and we got a clip of the 01:22:16.560 --> 01:22:20.720 exact like seven minute clip in the first two hours where we 01:22:20.720 --> 01:22:22.800 addressed violence explicitly. 01:22:22.800 --> 01:22:26.400 The very things that were in the screenshots that he clutched his 01:22:26.400 --> 01:22:29.520 pearls about, pretending you had no idea and this is just so 01:22:29.520 --> 01:22:30.720 far beyond the pale. 01:22:30.720 --> 01:22:33.920 We literally addressed it in the first two hours of the episode. 01:22:33.920 --> 01:22:36.720 So you can go back and listen starting by the 38-minute mark. 01:22:36.720 --> 01:22:39.440 There's a bit of back and forth between Corey and Will. 01:22:39.440 --> 01:22:42.960 And Corey gives a several minute explanation for what we mean when 01:22:42.960 --> 01:22:44.960 we're talking about violence. 01:22:44.960 --> 01:22:48.400 And it was clear that there's both the aspect that involves God 01:22:48.400 --> 01:22:51.440 directly and then there's the aspect that involves the world. 01:22:51.440 --> 01:22:54.240 The state does not bear the sword for nothing. 01:22:54.240 --> 01:22:56.800 That's not just metaphorical. 01:22:56.800 --> 01:22:59.840 It means exactly what it means everywhere else. 01:22:59.840 --> 01:23:04.560 There are men who are empowered by God to exact violence against 01:23:04.560 --> 01:23:07.520 other men in this life, and that is political violence. 01:23:07.520 --> 01:23:12.160 And not only does God allow it, God commands it in certain 01:23:12.160 --> 01:23:16.160 cases. And so the only discussion for Christians is when is it 01:23:16.160 --> 01:23:18.320 moral? Not all violence is moral. 01:23:18.320 --> 01:23:20.160 Some violence is absolutely wicked. 01:23:20.160 --> 01:23:22.400 And all violence is, yes, undesirable. 01:23:22.560 --> 01:23:25.280 I'm thankful to live in a world where violence is not the 01:23:25.280 --> 01:23:29.040 norm. The life that I've led I would not fare well had 01:23:29.040 --> 01:23:30.000 that been the case. 01:23:30.000 --> 01:23:32.240 Now, if it were a violent world, I would have led a 01:23:32.240 --> 01:23:35.680 different life when I was better equipped for that, but the fact 01:23:35.680 --> 01:23:39.040 remains that we benefit from having a peaceful world. 01:23:39.040 --> 01:23:42.720 That's part of the reason that Corey and I tackle subjects like 01:23:42.720 --> 01:23:45.440 race and the series we did on the Jews and all these 01:23:45.440 --> 01:23:50.000 other things is specifically to try to preserve life. 01:23:50.000 --> 01:23:53.200 Because all of the things that are happening politically in the world 01:23:53.440 --> 01:23:57.920 where these population groups are being moved around like chess pieces, knowing 01:23:57.920 --> 01:24:00.320 that there are inherent properties to those groups that are going to 01:24:00.320 --> 01:24:05.120 naturally manifest when they go to places, those are acts of political 01:24:05.120 --> 01:24:09.520 malevolence. And it's very clear to everyone who's looking, and is it 01:24:09.520 --> 01:24:12.160 very clear to anyone who's listening to the people responsible that they 01:24:12.240 --> 01:24:14.960 That they know that those outcomes will be the case. 01:24:14.960 --> 01:24:17.360 It's only the people who are like, oh no, there's no such 01:24:17.360 --> 01:24:19.680 thing as violence in every person as an individual, and you can't 01:24:19.680 --> 01:24:20.560 judge groups. 01:24:20.560 --> 01:24:23.840 Those are the people who are crying peace, peace when there is 01:24:23.840 --> 01:24:25.280 no peace. 01:24:25.280 --> 01:24:30.640 So Corey, very very calmly and adroitly dealt with the very thing 01:24:30.800 --> 01:24:33.920 the the next day turned into some stink. 01:24:33.920 --> 01:24:36.000 It wasn't stink as far as I'm concerned. 01:24:36.000 --> 01:24:37.920 We stand by every word that we said. 01:24:38.080 --> 01:24:41.200 It made us look better because we were effectively blameless. 01:24:41.200 --> 01:24:43.920 So this episode is not sort of some sort of response or 01:24:43.920 --> 01:24:45.200 a defense. 01:24:45.200 --> 01:24:49.200 But the very next thing that happened on Saturday was that a 01:24:49.200 --> 01:24:53.600 leftist murderer killed a man, shot another, and he shot the president. 01:24:53.600 --> 01:24:57.040 Donald Trump was shot, and if he had not turned his head, 01:24:57.040 --> 01:25:00.240 he would be dead right now, because someone who listened to the 01:25:00.240 --> 01:25:03.760 cries Nazi, Nazi, Nazi, kill 'em, get 'em. 01:25:03.760 --> 01:25:08.480 Anytime someone says this man is a Nazi, they are inciting violence. 01:25:08.480 --> 01:25:12.480 It is defamatory and it is an incitement to violence against that 01:25:12.480 --> 01:25:17.040 man. It is attempted murder to call someone a Nazi because everyone 01:25:17.040 --> 01:25:21.920 knows. Beginning Beginning with Saint Bonhoeffer, to kill a man who's a 01:25:21.920 --> 01:25:25.040 Nazi is no crime at all. 01:25:25.040 --> 01:25:28.400 Those are the terms of the late twentieth century. 01:25:28.400 --> 01:25:31.200 It wasn't the case in nineteen forty-five. 01:25:31.200 --> 01:25:32.880 That's not what anyone in the United States thought. 01:25:33.520 --> 01:25:35.680 That was invented later on. 01:25:35.680 --> 01:25:39.360 And yet today it is the new morality, the new global religion 01:25:39.440 --> 01:25:42.640 has Nazis as the most evil, wicked thing on the planet. 01:25:42.640 --> 01:25:45.120 And so if you call someone a Nazi, you can do anything 01:25:45.120 --> 01:25:45.920 you want to him. 01:25:45.920 --> 01:25:48.560 That's exactly what happened to Donald Trump. 01:25:48.560 --> 01:25:48.880 And 01:25:50.000 --> 01:25:54.240 one of the examples in that moment when the shots rang out 01:25:54.240 --> 01:25:58.480 from that man who killed someone, the man that was killed, his 01:25:58.480 --> 01:26:00.560 name was Corey Comperatori. 01:26:00.560 --> 01:26:03.360 He was a firefighter from western Pennsylvania. 01:26:03.360 --> 01:26:08.560 And incidentally in the butler uh farm ground where this occurred, I'd 01:26:08.560 --> 01:26:09.120 been there. 01:26:09.120 --> 01:26:11.760 I used to live the next county over in Mercer County for 01:26:11.760 --> 01:26:13.520 four years when I was a kid. 01:26:13.520 --> 01:26:17.360 We went to ice cream socials every year on the very grounds 01:26:17.360 --> 01:26:20.880 where the murder and the attempted assassination took place. 01:26:20.880 --> 01:26:25.440 As a very semi rural state, semi-rural part of the state. 01:26:25.440 --> 01:26:26.960 It's extremely red. 01:26:26.960 --> 01:26:28.720 Everybody's a gun owner. 01:26:28.720 --> 01:26:32.240 Everybody is conservative in the sort of old school sense. 01:26:32.240 --> 01:26:35.040 There's a lot of union people there, but like at this point, 01:26:35.040 --> 01:26:38.400 union is almost more conservative than the left wing. 01:26:38.400 --> 01:26:40.480 Because they're just like this was the Rust Belt. 01:26:40.480 --> 01:26:40.960 It used to be. 01:26:41.040 --> 01:26:42.640 It's just north of Pittsburgh. 01:26:42.640 --> 01:26:45.920 It was hit hard fifty years ago by the destruction of the 01:26:45.920 --> 01:26:48.800 economy that has since played out in all these other ways for 01:26:48.800 --> 01:26:50.000 the rest of us. 01:26:50.000 --> 01:26:52.240 But the Rust Bell was one of the first places to be 01:26:52.240 --> 01:26:54.800 destroyed, including this area. 01:26:54.800 --> 01:26:55.120 So 01:26:56.800 --> 01:27:00.800 the reason that Cori Comparatori right now is dead is that when 01:27:00.800 --> 01:27:05.200 the very first shot rang out, his instinct, the thing that he 01:27:05.200 --> 01:27:09.280 did without hesitation, without even thinking, was to throw his body in 01:27:09.280 --> 01:27:11.280 front of his wife and his daughter. 01:27:11.280 --> 01:27:12.640 They were right next to him. 01:27:12.640 --> 01:27:14.800 He didn't know where the shots were coming from, but he knew 01:27:15.280 --> 01:27:18.080 where Donald Trump was and he knew where his family was. 01:27:18.080 --> 01:27:21.120 He put himself between Trump and his family. 01:27:21.120 --> 01:27:24.000 And in the time that it took him to put his body 01:27:24.080 --> 01:27:26.880 between what turned out to be the sniper and his family, a 01:27:26.880 --> 01:27:31.600 two two three round passed through his head and he was killed. 01:27:31.600 --> 01:27:34.640 This was an act of sacrifice. 01:27:34.640 --> 01:27:38.160 This was the greatest act of love that a man can commit 01:27:38.160 --> 01:27:41.120 for another, and he had a duty to his wife and daughter 01:27:41.120 --> 01:27:42.000 to do that. 01:27:42.000 --> 01:27:44.480 He might not have had a duty to other people around him 01:27:44.480 --> 01:27:46.400 to die, but for them he did. 01:27:46.400 --> 01:27:49.520 And so without hesitation, he put his body in front of him, 01:27:49.520 --> 01:27:50.720 he provided cover. 01:27:50.720 --> 01:27:53.200 So that if if a bullet were to come, it was gonna 01:27:53.200 --> 01:27:55.280 hit him and not them. 01:27:55.280 --> 01:27:57.120 And that's exactly what happened. 01:27:57.120 --> 01:28:00.960 And so he's dead today because of that act of love. 01:28:00.960 --> 01:28:05.040 Now I think this is a vital example in the discussion of 01:28:05.040 --> 01:28:05.360 violence 01:28:06.480 --> 01:28:10.880 because there's some who will look at what Corey Comparatori did as 01:28:10.880 --> 01:28:15.360 an act of pacifism, as an act of of love and of 01:28:15.360 --> 01:28:19.680 non-aggression. He was he was passively shielding his family. 01:28:19.680 --> 01:28:23.840 I think that that is a malevolent misreading of what happened. 01:28:23.840 --> 01:28:27.280 What he did was in a sense it was an act of 01:28:27.280 --> 01:28:29.440 violence. That was warfare. 01:28:29.440 --> 01:28:31.200 He did the only thing that he could do. 01:28:31.440 --> 01:28:34.720 He was unarmed, he didn't know where the attacker was coming from. 01:28:34.720 --> 01:28:37.840 The only option that he had was to use his body as 01:28:37.840 --> 01:28:40.320 cover for his family. 01:28:40.320 --> 01:28:43.040 The reason that I say that that was an act of violence 01:28:43.040 --> 01:28:45.280 was that Corey was a violent man. 01:28:45.280 --> 01:28:48.000 Not in the sense that he was a criminal of any sort, 01:28:48.000 --> 01:28:49.600 but he was a firefighter. 01:28:49.600 --> 01:28:50.960 He was a solid guy. 01:28:50.960 --> 01:28:52.480 He was very conservative. 01:28:52.480 --> 01:28:53.440 He was on Twitter. 01:28:53.520 --> 01:28:54.400 He's pretty funny. 01:28:54.400 --> 01:28:55.680 He was a good poster. 01:28:55.680 --> 01:28:58.960 Certainly for a guy who like isn't in the dissident right. 01:28:58.960 --> 01:29:00.720 He mostly had his head on straight. 01:29:00.720 --> 01:29:03.680 He was a brave and honorable man. 01:29:03.680 --> 01:29:08.080 In slightly different circumstances, if the geometry of that attack had been 01:29:08.080 --> 01:29:11.600 slightly different and he had been armed, and his family had been 01:29:11.600 --> 01:29:14.480 safe, he would have been running towards a gunman with a with 01:29:14.480 --> 01:29:15.440 his own gun. 01:29:15.440 --> 01:29:17.600 He would have been going towards a danger. 01:29:17.600 --> 01:29:20.480 Because as a firefighter, that's what he did professionally. 01:29:20.480 --> 01:29:23.600 He put his body in danger to save others. 01:29:23.600 --> 01:29:26.240 Not only their lives, but their property. 01:29:26.240 --> 01:29:29.360 And so the act that he performed for his wife and his 01:29:29.360 --> 01:29:34.320 daughter that saved their lives undoubtedly by sacrificing his own, it wasn't 01:29:34.240 --> 01:29:35.200 a passive act. 01:29:35.200 --> 01:29:37.600 It was an active act of defiance. 01:29:37.600 --> 01:29:41.120 And he's the sort of man who would have acted violently against 01:29:41.120 --> 01:29:42.720 the sniper. 01:29:42.720 --> 01:29:47.280 Not out of rage, not out of malice, not out of hatred, 01:29:47.280 --> 01:29:51.200 out of an desire to end evil and to preserve life. 01:29:51.200 --> 01:29:53.840 So in that moment, situationally, the only thing that he could do 01:29:53.840 --> 01:29:57.360 to preserve life was to potentially lose his own. 01:29:57.360 --> 01:29:59.200 That's exactly what happened. 01:29:59.200 --> 01:30:02.080 And Corey Comperatori's name should always be remembered 01:30:02.960 --> 01:30:06.160 because what he did was heroic, what he did was honorable, and 01:30:06.160 --> 01:30:08.880 he what he did was what every man should do. 01:30:08.880 --> 01:30:13.680 We are ultimately, in a sense, disposable in that realm. 01:30:13.680 --> 01:30:16.640 He had raised a good daughter, he had loved his wife. 01:30:17.520 --> 01:30:21.520 You know, at any age, when given those circumstances, it was his 01:30:21.520 --> 01:30:24.640 job to put himself between them in danger. 01:30:24.640 --> 01:30:28.080 But under very slightly different circumstances he wouldn't have been faced away. 01:30:28.080 --> 01:30:31.920 He would have been faced towards danger and himself armed to kill 01:30:31.920 --> 01:30:36.480 whatever man was trying to inflict that grievous bodily injury against the 01:30:36.480 --> 01:30:39.360 crowd. The guy was spraying bullets. 01:30:39.360 --> 01:30:42.640 I I shouldn't say that's the sort of thing that CNN says. 01:30:42.880 --> 01:30:44.800 The guy was an incompetent shooter. 01:30:44.800 --> 01:30:50.240 And incidentally, the fact that an AR-15 was used is complete BS. 01:30:50.240 --> 01:30:53.600 That part of Pennsylvania, everybody has a bolt gun. 01:30:53.600 --> 01:30:59.440 A bolt action in a higher caliber is in every every truck, 01:30:59.440 --> 01:31:01.760 every house in that part of Pennsylvania. 01:31:01.760 --> 01:31:03.840 And incidentally, AR-15s are illegal. 01:31:03.840 --> 01:31:06.080 Semi autos are illegal for hunting. 01:31:06.080 --> 01:31:09.600 So anyone who is a hunter, which mo is almost everybody there, 01:31:09.600 --> 01:31:12.000 like when I was a kid and I think to this day, 01:31:12.000 --> 01:31:14.880 on the first day of deer season, the schools close. 01:31:14.880 --> 01:31:17.280 The middle school closed, not only high school. 01:31:17.280 --> 01:31:20.640 That's how much of a red rural area it is. 01:31:20.880 --> 01:31:24.240 The fact that he used an AR-15 in part saved the president's 01:31:24.240 --> 01:31:27.920 life because another heavier bullet would have done what he intended to 01:31:27.920 --> 01:31:30.880 do. The whole thing is a setup, the whole thing is a 01:31:30.880 --> 01:31:33.440 stink. We're not here to analyze that. 01:31:33.440 --> 01:31:34.960 But the one-two punch of 01:31:35.840 --> 01:31:42.720 us being accused of exhorting political violence when it's BS and actual 01:31:42.720 --> 01:31:47.440 political violence playing out in the most evil horrific manner possible pretty 01:31:47.440 --> 01:31:49.600 much made this the obvious thing to discuss. 01:31:49.600 --> 01:31:53.600 And so last couple days I've been visiting with someone and driving 01:31:53.600 --> 01:31:54.960 around the car more than usual. 01:31:54.960 --> 01:31:58.320 And so I was listening to NPR to hear their coverage of 01:31:58.320 --> 01:32:01.040 this thing because I knew that the worst possible takes in the 01:32:01.040 --> 01:32:03.440 world were going to be coming from NPR. 01:32:03.440 --> 01:32:06.800 And they did not fail to deliver. 01:32:06.800 --> 01:32:12.640 They were extremely concerned about political violence, about toning down the rhetoric, 01:32:12.640 --> 01:32:14.800 about reducing the temperature. 01:32:14.800 --> 01:32:17.520 They weren't concerned about that, you know, the week prior when they 01:32:17.520 --> 01:32:19.600 were calling all of us Nazis. 01:32:19.600 --> 01:32:22.880 When they were telling the whole world in dog whistle terms, in 01:32:22.880 --> 01:32:26.240 coded terms, these are the people who need to be killed. 01:32:26.240 --> 01:32:28.400 One of the very interesting things one of the guests that they 01:32:28.400 --> 01:32:30.880 had on I can't remember his name, he's a professor at the 01:32:30.880 --> 01:32:36.320 University of Chicago, has been analyzing data for survey data for the 01:32:36.320 --> 01:32:40.240 US for a number of years, and his focus is basically on 01:32:40.240 --> 01:32:45.200 what these people call radicalization, on the desire to use violence to 01:32:45.200 --> 01:32:49.920 achieve political ends, which is incidentally one of the definitions of terrorism. 01:32:49.920 --> 01:32:51.120 No argument here. 01:32:51.120 --> 01:32:55.680 We're not neither inciting nor endorsing nor advocating that. 01:32:55.680 --> 01:32:58.960 I don't want to see violence to address political problems. 01:32:59.360 --> 01:33:00.000 it's bad. 01:33:00.000 --> 01:33:01.280 It's bad for everyone. 01:33:01.280 --> 01:33:02.720 It's evil. 01:33:02.720 --> 01:33:06.720 One of the fascinating things that he mentioned was that in the 01:33:06.720 --> 01:33:10.160 most recent survey data, which was from just a couple months ago, 01:33:10.160 --> 01:33:16.720 when interviewing the left, 26 million Americans, about 10% of the voting 01:33:17.200 --> 01:33:22.960 populace say that they consider it to be acceptable to murder to 01:33:22.960 --> 01:33:26.080 prevent Donald Trump from becoming president again. 01:33:26.080 --> 01:33:27.840 Twenty-six million people. 01:33:27.840 --> 01:33:32.720 And so that is the result of NPR and CNN and all 01:33:32.720 --> 01:33:36.880 the churches calling us Nazis, calling anyone with a red hat a 01:33:36.880 --> 01:33:40.400 Nazi, saying that it is a threat to democracy and the end 01:33:40.400 --> 01:33:42.480 of the world if these people are not stopped by any means 01:33:42.560 --> 01:33:43.920 any means necessary. 01:33:43.920 --> 01:33:45.040 Those are fighting words. 01:33:45.040 --> 01:33:46.400 That's incitement to violence. 01:33:46.400 --> 01:33:49.680 It's saying here's a target class, here's what they're gonna do if 01:33:49.680 --> 01:33:52.000 we do not stop them by killing them. 01:33:52.000 --> 01:33:56.240 They've been doing that for years with complete impunity because the discourse 01:33:56.240 --> 01:33:56.960 is like, that's fine. 01:33:56.960 --> 01:34:00.560 Like obviously Nazis need to be killed and obviously these guys are 01:34:00.560 --> 01:34:04.160 Nazis. And if you know some twenty-year-old with a gun puts two 01:34:04.160 --> 01:34:07.520 and two together and takes care of business, well, you know, then 01:34:07.520 --> 01:34:09.200 we can say tone down the rhetoric. 01:34:09.200 --> 01:34:12.080 That's precisely what played out. 01:34:12.080 --> 01:34:13.520 All this is wicked. 01:34:13.520 --> 01:34:15.040 None of this should exist. 01:34:15.040 --> 01:34:17.440 But the fact that twenty six million people say yeah it's fine 01:34:17.440 --> 01:34:20.160 to kill people to make sure that that man doesn't return to 01:34:20.160 --> 01:34:23.520 the White House is is the state of politics. 01:34:23.520 --> 01:34:24.960 And it shouldn't be. 01:34:24.960 --> 01:34:26.720 I don't want that to be the case. 01:34:26.720 --> 01:34:29.200 And that's part of the reason why Corey and I talk about 01:34:29.200 --> 01:34:30.240 these things. 01:34:30.240 --> 01:34:33.440 Is to make sure that there are Christian voices who are faithful 01:34:33.440 --> 01:34:35.120 to scripture talking about them. 01:34:35.120 --> 01:34:39.200 Because almost everyone in the church is joining with NPR and CNN 01:34:39.200 --> 01:34:43.600 and MSNBC and the World Economic Forum and everybody else saying peace, 01:34:43.600 --> 01:34:45.360 peace where there is no peace. 01:34:45.360 --> 01:34:49.760 They say that political violence is never appropriate, and in a sense 01:34:49.760 --> 01:34:56.800 that is true and is desirable, but it's also specious. 01:34:56.800 --> 01:34:58.960 You've all heard of the name Aaron Burr. 01:34:58.960 --> 01:35:02.800 You know him because he shot and killed Alexander Hamilton. 01:35:02.800 --> 01:35:05.040 They had a duel in eighteen oh four. 01:35:05.040 --> 01:35:07.840 And it was illegal for them to duel, both in New York 01:35:08.000 --> 01:35:11.680 where they were, in New Jersey, where they stepped across the line. 01:35:11.680 --> 01:35:14.560 They had a duel there because they had been going back and 01:35:14.560 --> 01:35:18.080 forth accusing each other things, slandering each other, at least you know, 01:35:18.080 --> 01:35:20.080 those are the traded accusations. 01:35:20.080 --> 01:35:23.600 The men were depriving each other of their perceived reputations, and it 01:35:23.600 --> 01:35:24.800 went on for so long. 01:35:24.800 --> 01:35:28.880 They mutually they decided to mutual combat to the death. 01:35:28.880 --> 01:35:30.240 And one killed the other. 01:35:30.240 --> 01:35:31.280 And it's a very famous story. 01:35:31.280 --> 01:35:35.200 It's why you know the name Aaron Burr now. 01:35:35.200 --> 01:35:38.400 The fact that it was illegal didn't make it weird that they 01:35:38.400 --> 01:35:38.960 had done it. 01:35:39.280 --> 01:35:41.680 Because for a very long time in the West and in other 01:35:41.680 --> 01:35:44.320 cultures, dueling has been normal. 01:35:44.320 --> 01:35:47.200 Now, I'm happy to live in a world where dueling has gone 01:35:47.200 --> 01:35:52.560 away, but to say that political violence is always unacceptable is simply 01:35:52.560 --> 01:35:57.200 to lie about the fact that for most of human history that 01:35:57.200 --> 01:35:58.560 sort of thing happened. 01:35:58.560 --> 01:36:02.160 Now it's not political in the sense that it was, you know, 01:36:02.160 --> 01:36:05.840 red versus blue, but it also kind of was, because they were 01:36:05.840 --> 01:36:07.040 political opponents. 01:36:07.040 --> 01:36:09.520 They didn't incite each other's followers. 01:36:09.520 --> 01:36:11.840 They did it like men face to face. 01:36:11.840 --> 01:36:14.000 And that was it was traditional. 01:36:14.000 --> 01:36:16.480 It's been traditional in many countries. 01:36:16.480 --> 01:36:16.800 And 01:36:17.760 --> 01:36:20.560 that is normal male violence. 01:36:20.560 --> 01:36:23.440 Now, when I say normal, I'm not saying that I approve of 01:36:23.440 --> 01:36:24.480 it as desirable. 01:36:24.480 --> 01:36:27.520 This is not incitement to returning to dueling. 01:36:27.520 --> 01:36:32.960 Once again, there's a difference between incitement incitement and advocacy to advocate 01:36:32.960 --> 01:36:37.840 for the historical norm in most places and most times is simply 01:36:37.840 --> 01:36:39.920 to deal with reality as it is. 01:36:39.920 --> 01:36:43.680 And the simple fact is that in most places, men have violently 01:36:43.680 --> 01:36:46.240 settled their disputes when words fail. 01:36:46.240 --> 01:36:51.200 And And as more and more women entered into the political sphere, 01:36:51.200 --> 01:36:57.280 all that vanished, at least on the surface, but the underlying impetus 01:36:57.280 --> 01:36:58.320 didn't go away. 01:36:58.320 --> 01:37:01.360 And that's part of what has created a powder keg today is 01:37:01.360 --> 01:37:05.840 that there's some times where men naturally will settle things by squaring 01:37:05.840 --> 01:37:08.320 off. And it doesn't need to be a fight to the death. 01:37:08.320 --> 01:37:10.800 I don't want to see that because it's wasteful. 01:37:10.800 --> 01:37:14.560 They were like, I despise Hamilton, I don't know much about Burr, 01:37:14.560 --> 01:37:16.240 but they were intelligent men. 01:37:16.240 --> 01:37:18.800 You know, they could have been doing good things instead of killing 01:37:18.800 --> 01:37:20.480 each other trying to. 01:37:20.480 --> 01:37:24.560 It's never desirable for someone who's lived a life and has potential 01:37:24.560 --> 01:37:27.120 to have that snuffed out over an argument. 01:37:27.120 --> 01:37:28.480 That's stupid. 01:37:28.480 --> 01:37:31.200 I would put that in the category of retarded, whether or not 01:37:31.200 --> 01:37:32.240 it's legal. 01:37:32.240 --> 01:37:35.840 And I think it've only fairly recently been made illegal there. 01:37:35.840 --> 01:37:40.640 As Corey was saying, there's always an inherent violence underneath any interaction 01:37:40.640 --> 01:37:42.000 between two men. 01:37:42.000 --> 01:37:44.320 And I've said this before on Stone Choir, and I mentioned it. 01:37:44.320 --> 01:37:48.560 I did another interview last week with uh MetaPrime on uh tax, 01:37:48.560 --> 01:37:51.600 where I specifically talked about you know this whole scenario playing out 01:37:51.680 --> 01:37:54.560 and talked about violence and Christianity. 01:37:54.560 --> 01:37:59.200 And I mentioned that when I'm interacting with other men on the 01:37:59.200 --> 01:38:02.640 internet, when I'm hiding behind a keyboard, as you know I'm always 01:38:02.640 --> 01:38:07.040 accused, as we're all accused, especially if we're pseudonymous, when I'm interacting 01:38:07.040 --> 01:38:09.440 with a man that I know is bigger and stronger than me, 01:38:09.440 --> 01:38:13.760 that's more martially competent than me, I am less likely to say 01:38:13.760 --> 01:38:18.720 something Aggressive to him, something, you know, something that could potentially rise 01:38:18.720 --> 01:38:22.320 to the level of fighting words, than I would if I didn't, 01:38:22.320 --> 01:38:25.520 if I knew that he was, you know, my size or whatever. 01:38:25.520 --> 01:38:29.520 And that is I realized just as Corey was saying his comments 01:38:29.520 --> 01:38:33.360 a few months ago, that was specifically out of respect. 01:38:33.360 --> 01:38:36.240 It's not cowardice being afraid of them. 01:38:36.240 --> 01:38:40.480 It's that I will not say something online that I won't say 01:38:40.480 --> 01:38:41.360 face to face. 01:38:41.360 --> 01:38:44.560 Um I'm not hiding behind a keyboard or behind a microphone. 01:38:44.560 --> 01:38:47.600 I'm not hiding behind an avatar instead of using my face and 01:38:47.600 --> 01:38:48.320 my name. 01:38:48.320 --> 01:38:50.480 The things that I say here are the things that I would 01:38:50.480 --> 01:38:51.680 tell you directly. 01:38:51.680 --> 01:38:54.640 And so when I know that a guy might beat me, if 01:38:54.720 --> 01:38:57.760 you know, nice guys like I don't really typically talk to people 01:38:57.760 --> 01:39:02.160 who are both mean and, you know, whatever, but like if I 01:39:02.160 --> 01:39:05.120 know that a guy could kick my butt for saying something, I'm 01:39:05.120 --> 01:39:07.680 not gonna say out out of respect, because I wouldn't do it 01:39:07.680 --> 01:39:08.560 to his face. 01:39:08.560 --> 01:39:12.560 That's an inherent recognition that's just in the background in my mental 01:39:12.560 --> 01:39:13.200 thought process. 01:39:13.200 --> 01:39:14.000 I'm sure I fail. 01:39:14.000 --> 01:39:16.800 Like I'm sure I've mouthed off the guys who would absolutely beat 01:39:16.800 --> 01:39:19.440 my ass if I stepped out of the line. 01:39:20.080 --> 01:39:22.640 But my principle is not to do that. 01:39:22.640 --> 01:39:25.680 I don't want to I don't want to be a punk. 01:39:25.680 --> 01:39:27.200 I am not a coward. 01:39:27.200 --> 01:39:32.560 I might occasionally be stupid, but it's not an act of hypocrisy. 01:39:33.360 --> 01:39:38.480 It is entirely reasonable and in fact natural for men to interact 01:39:38.480 --> 01:39:42.960 with each other in such a fashion the violence is always an 01:39:42.960 --> 01:39:46.800 option. I've said before, I'm a big fan of the UFC and 01:39:46.800 --> 01:39:48.240 of MMA in general. 01:39:48.400 --> 01:39:52.640 I think the the existence and the presentation of mixed martial arts 01:39:52.640 --> 01:39:58.000 and the combat sports is really the last bastion of masculinity in 01:39:58.000 --> 01:39:59.600 our society today. 01:39:59.600 --> 01:40:02.000 Yeah, I know there are a lot of guys who are listening. 01:40:02.000 --> 01:40:04.960 Corey disagrees with me to some extent about this. 01:40:04.960 --> 01:40:08.880 Most guys who don't like it see it as blood sports. 01:40:08.880 --> 01:40:09.840 I don't. 01:40:09.840 --> 01:40:13.760 I see it as two men who are entering mutual combat. 01:40:13.760 --> 01:40:17.760 They're locked in an octagon together, they're locked in a cage together, 01:40:17.760 --> 01:40:21.600 and the fight is over when one man is either incapable of 01:40:21.600 --> 01:40:24.560 continuing to prosecute the fight, time is up. 01:40:25.440 --> 01:40:27.120 Or he submits. 01:40:27.120 --> 01:40:30.080 And submission doesn't necessarily need to be a chokehold or an arm 01:40:30.240 --> 01:40:31.200 bar or something. 01:40:31.200 --> 01:40:32.720 The man could simply say, you know what? 01:40:32.720 --> 01:40:33.520 I've had enough. 01:40:33.520 --> 01:40:35.120 You're the better man than me. 01:40:35.120 --> 01:40:37.280 I I don't want to get punched in the face anymore. 01:40:37.280 --> 01:40:38.080 I quit. 01:40:38.080 --> 01:40:41.200 So So when they enter into the ring, it is with a 01:40:41.200 --> 01:40:45.520 mutual understanding that they're going to do their very best to best 01:40:45.760 --> 01:40:50.720 the other man, martially, physically, with violence, and whoever wins wins. 01:40:50.720 --> 01:40:54.000 And one of the reasons that I appreciate the spore so much 01:40:54.000 --> 01:40:57.440 is the tremendous sportsmanship between the men. 01:40:57.440 --> 01:41:00.800 Even men who have mouthed off for weeks and months leading up 01:41:00.800 --> 01:41:05.040 to some of the big fights, sometimes they're it's extremely acrimonious. 01:41:05.040 --> 01:41:08.720 Sometimes the men really, really hate each other, and they say some 01:41:08.720 --> 01:41:09.840 really nasty stuff. 01:41:09.840 --> 01:41:11.600 And they're fighters from all over the world. 01:41:11.600 --> 01:41:13.040 So we talk about fighting words. 01:41:13.040 --> 01:41:16.560 There have been some Risa cases where a man from one culture 01:41:16.720 --> 01:41:20.560 said something particularly vile about the mother of a man from another 01:41:20.560 --> 01:41:24.800 culture not recognizing that even though that's something that, you know, it's 01:41:24.800 --> 01:41:28.000 not really acceptable in our country, but you don't die for it, 01:41:28.000 --> 01:41:30.800 their countries, well you'll die for that pretty much on the spot. 01:41:30.800 --> 01:41:34.080 You don't insult a man's mother, you should expect to die. 01:41:34.080 --> 01:41:36.560 So the guy that he was saying that to, he was just 01:41:36.560 --> 01:41:39.680 talking trash, and he was being mean, he was being insulting. 01:41:39.680 --> 01:41:42.400 He didn't realize the level to which those words rose. 01:41:42.400 --> 01:41:44.480 So there was a lot of buildup to that fight. 01:41:44.480 --> 01:41:46.800 I can't remember which one it was, but like it's always a 01:41:46.800 --> 01:41:48.480 risk. You run your mouth. 01:41:48.480 --> 01:41:52.160 But the beautiful thing, and the reason I appreciate the MMA, UFC 01:41:52.160 --> 01:41:55.840 in particular, is that when they meet in the ring, however pissed 01:41:55.840 --> 01:41:58.400 off they were when they face off with each other, and usually 01:41:58.400 --> 01:41:59.360 there's not anger. 01:41:59.360 --> 01:42:01.120 Usually it's just two professionals. 01:42:01.120 --> 01:42:05.040 There's usually a lot of respect from the the opening bell. 01:42:05.040 --> 01:42:08.080 But even in the cases where they hate each other going in, 01:42:08.080 --> 01:42:11.520 in almost every case, they end up respecting each other at the 01:42:11.520 --> 01:42:12.640 end of the fight. 01:42:12.640 --> 01:42:15.600 Especially if they go all three or five rounds. 01:42:15.600 --> 01:42:18.800 When you hate a man so much that not only are you 01:42:18.800 --> 01:42:22.000 fighting him for money, but because you genuinely want to hurt him, 01:42:22.000 --> 01:42:23.680 which isn't really a good motivation. 01:42:23.680 --> 01:42:25.760 Sometimes it's a detriment in the ring. 01:42:25.760 --> 01:42:29.760 But even in that worst case, when those two men meet and 01:42:29.760 --> 01:42:32.720 they beat the crap out of each other and then the final 01:42:32.720 --> 01:42:35.040 bell rings, it doesn't matter who won. 01:42:35.040 --> 01:42:38.000 They respect each other as men in a way that will last 01:42:38.000 --> 01:42:39.760 the rest of their lives. 01:42:39.760 --> 01:42:41.520 That's how men work. 01:42:41.520 --> 01:42:44.720 It doesn't matter who wins as long as you can go to 01:42:44.720 --> 01:42:48.400 toe to toe with another man and demonstrate the you also are 01:42:48.400 --> 01:42:49.040 a man. 01:42:49.040 --> 01:42:50.400 This is inherent to us. 01:42:50.400 --> 01:42:52.160 It's inherent to a man's nature. 01:42:52.160 --> 01:42:53.680 Even a man who can't deliver. 01:42:53.680 --> 01:42:56.160 Most men can't do what those guys can do. 01:42:56.160 --> 01:42:57.200 I certainly can't do it. 01:42:57.200 --> 01:43:00.240 And so I respect the fact that they're so good at something 01:43:00.240 --> 01:43:02.560 that's incredibly difficult. 01:43:02.560 --> 01:43:06.400 The masculinity is that they face off against each other knowing that 01:43:06.400 --> 01:43:09.280 they're gonna be hurt and that they're gonna try to stop the 01:43:09.280 --> 01:43:10.240 other guy. 01:43:10.240 --> 01:43:14.320 And the respect that comes out of that is something that women 01:43:14.400 --> 01:43:15.920 frankly can't understand. 01:43:15.920 --> 01:43:18.240 There are a lot of women who are fans now for various 01:43:18.240 --> 01:43:19.920 reasons, I'm sure. 01:43:20.000 --> 01:43:23.840 The only way to actually fully understand and r to respect what 01:43:23.840 --> 01:43:27.040 goes on in the in the MMA ring is to be a 01:43:27.040 --> 01:43:29.280 man and to be a man who can put himself in that 01:43:29.280 --> 01:43:30.800 sort of martial mindset. 01:43:30.800 --> 01:43:34.400 To understand that in a sense, violence can be neutral. 01:43:34.400 --> 01:43:37.440 There are times and places where men say, well, you know, less 01:43:37.440 --> 01:43:39.840 settle this like men. 01:43:40.160 --> 01:43:43.600 the notion of dueling, pugilism, doesn't need to be with guns and 01:43:43.680 --> 01:43:45.360 doesn't need to be to the death. 01:43:45.360 --> 01:43:49.280 The notion that one man would square off against another man is 01:43:49.280 --> 01:43:53.440 interpersonal, as Corey was saying earlier, and it's also the essence of 01:43:53.440 --> 01:43:54.720 the political. 01:43:54.720 --> 01:43:59.600 When two neighboring states are quarreling, they always know that it may 01:43:59.600 --> 01:44:01.760 well get to the point that one of them, you know, it's 01:44:01.680 --> 01:44:03.040 called saber rattling. 01:44:03.040 --> 01:44:05.760 And although that's a metaphor, it's not much of one, because it 01:44:05.760 --> 01:44:08.640 used to be it was actual sabers that were gonna come out. 01:44:08.640 --> 01:44:12.240 Today it's guns and bombs and artillery and the whole line yards. 01:44:12.240 --> 01:44:14.000 It's lethal force. 01:44:14.000 --> 01:44:16.240 But the communication is the same. 01:44:16.240 --> 01:44:19.120 We can talk about this or we can settle it by other 01:44:19.120 --> 01:44:23.600 means. And as Corey said, violence is always a political option, not 01:44:23.600 --> 01:44:25.280 for us as individuals. 01:44:25.280 --> 01:44:30.240 So to once again beat the dead horse to belabor the point, 01:44:30.240 --> 01:44:35.360 to advocate this narrow sense in which political violence is sometimes permissible 01:44:35.360 --> 01:44:36.640 is not incitement. 01:44:36.640 --> 01:44:40.160 I don't want to see it, because it's destructive and because it's 01:44:40.160 --> 01:44:40.960 often evil. 01:44:41.040 --> 01:44:42.640 See it's almost always evil. 01:44:42.640 --> 01:44:45.360 But that doesn't mean that it's per se evil. 01:44:45.360 --> 01:44:48.720 There's a time and a place where sometimes that's the only option. 01:44:48.720 --> 01:44:52.320 And we see it play out in criminal episodes where somebody's running 01:44:52.320 --> 01:44:54.080 around committing crimes. 01:44:54.080 --> 01:44:56.640 You know, almost no one is crying about the fact that the 01:44:56.640 --> 01:44:59.920 sniper on Saturday was killed by a counter sniper. 01:44:59.920 --> 01:45:01.280 That was an act of violence. 01:45:01.280 --> 01:45:03.280 You had an evil act of violence and you had a good 01:45:03.280 --> 01:45:06.480 act of violence a couple seconds later. 01:45:06.480 --> 01:45:11.600 It is entirely rational and coherent and not hypocritical to condemn one 01:45:11.760 --> 01:45:13.280 and to applaud the other. 01:45:13.280 --> 01:45:17.120 The sniper that actually managed to do his job from 488 yards 01:45:17.120 --> 01:45:20.720 away, whatever else went on, like the fact that that roof was 01:45:20.720 --> 01:45:22.560 open, beyond a conspiracy. 01:45:22.560 --> 01:45:24.800 That was that was a deliberate act of malice. 01:45:24.800 --> 01:45:26.400 That was a setup. 01:45:26.400 --> 01:45:26.720 But 01:45:27.840 --> 01:45:31.280 for the very narrow like three seconds that the gunfire was going 01:45:31.280 --> 01:45:34.160 on, you had an evil shooter and you had a good shooter. 01:45:34.160 --> 01:45:38.800 They were both doing functionally the same thing, with entirely different intents. 01:45:38.800 --> 01:45:43.120 One wanted to commit political violence to commit murder in Mayhem, and 01:45:43.120 --> 01:45:47.280 the other wanted to end political violence and commit murder in Mayhem, 01:45:47.280 --> 01:45:52.400 wanted to end the threat To say that violence is always impermissible 01:45:52.480 --> 01:45:54.480 is to condemn the counter-sniper. 01:45:54.480 --> 01:45:56.240 And that's an essential part of this. 01:45:56.240 --> 01:45:59.840 The same people who say that necessarily have to be pacifists. 01:45:59.840 --> 01:46:02.880 If you believe that the police should be armed, that the military 01:46:02.880 --> 01:46:07.360 should be armed, you believe the violence is sometimes politically necessary. 01:46:07.360 --> 01:46:08.960 Full stop. 01:46:08.960 --> 01:46:13.120 The presence of a gun is always the threat of violence. 01:46:13.120 --> 01:46:14.080 That's true. 01:46:14.080 --> 01:46:18.640 Now there are degrees, but there's the potentiality for violence and so 01:46:18.640 --> 01:46:21.680 one of the other things that exists in the law is the 01:46:21.680 --> 01:46:26.480 notion of brandishing or of assault, where if someone is open carrying 01:46:26.480 --> 01:46:30.160 a firearm, there's no immediate threat to anyone. 01:46:30.160 --> 01:46:32.800 That's perfectly legal illicit. 01:46:32.800 --> 01:46:37.120 If you square off with someone and you are armed, or they're 01:46:37.120 --> 01:46:38.560 armed, doesn't matter. 01:46:38.560 --> 01:46:42.240 If one party has a gun and there's a back and forth, 01:46:42.240 --> 01:46:45.520 it's acrimonious, and the man who has a gun, or perhaps both 01:46:45.520 --> 01:46:49.120 of them are armed, if a man touches or even reaches for 01:46:49.120 --> 01:46:51.200 his weapon, that's called brandishing. 01:46:51.200 --> 01:46:55.040 It's an escalation because it's gone past the point where a man's 01:46:55.040 --> 01:46:58.640 arm, but there's no immediate threat to brandishing your weapon. 01:46:58.880 --> 01:47:02.400 the assault of the threat or the perception that you are going 01:47:02.400 --> 01:47:06.720 to potentially use that weapon is itself in some cases a criminal 01:47:06.720 --> 01:47:11.600 act. And it's something guys get into trouble with when they're carrying 01:47:11.600 --> 01:47:15.360 firearms legally, but they don't understand their local laws because every law 01:47:15.360 --> 01:47:17.040 is different in every state. 01:47:17.040 --> 01:47:20.320 It's really vital if for anyone who's a gun owner, a legal 01:47:20.320 --> 01:47:23.760 gun owner, you must know the law backwards and forwards. 01:47:23.760 --> 01:47:27.360 The typical responsible gun owner honestly knows these laws better than a 01:47:27.360 --> 01:47:28.400 lot of the police. 01:47:28.400 --> 01:47:31.360 The police don't have any consequences if they get that stuff wrong. 01:47:31.360 --> 01:47:34.720 The man who is charged with a crime, whether guilty or not, 01:47:34.720 --> 01:47:36.400 has to sort it out in court. 01:47:36.400 --> 01:47:39.600 And so the simple act of reaching for a gun or of 01:47:39.600 --> 01:47:44.560 touching a gun is itself in some circumstances seen as a criminal 01:47:44.560 --> 01:47:48.480 act because there's an escalation of the potential for violence, which can 01:47:48.480 --> 01:47:49.520 be reciprocated. 01:47:49.520 --> 01:47:51.600 And so part of the reason for a lot of laws around 01:47:51.600 --> 01:47:55.600 fighting words and brandishing and these other things is that we don't 01:47:55.520 --> 01:47:56.400 want to see violence. 01:47:56.400 --> 01:47:58.400 We don't want to see intentional or accidental violence. 01:47:58.400 --> 01:48:02.640 And so you draw concentric circles around the subject so you don't 01:48:02.640 --> 01:48:03.600 go there. 01:48:03.600 --> 01:48:06.240 But at the same time there's a recognition by the fact that 01:48:06.240 --> 01:48:09.600 it's legal now in most states for men to carry firearms, either 01:48:09.600 --> 01:48:13.360 open or concealed, that it is not only the state that has 01:48:13.360 --> 01:48:17.680 the right and the duty to enact violence, but their circumstances, legal 01:48:17.680 --> 01:48:21.760 circumstances and moral ones, where individuals may have the same duty. 01:48:21.760 --> 01:48:24.560 So none of this discussion is about legal advice. 01:48:24.480 --> 01:48:27.600 you need to look at up your local laws, but it's also 01:48:27.600 --> 01:48:31.440 important to acknowledge that if you say there's no place for violence, 01:48:31.440 --> 01:48:34.960 you must absolutely be for the abolition of firearms. 01:48:34.960 --> 01:48:38.400 You must be for the abolition of firearms, not only for civilian 01:48:38.400 --> 01:48:40.800 populations, but for militaries and everyone else. 01:48:40.800 --> 01:48:43.920 You must be for the abolition of all weapons if you say 01:48:43.920 --> 01:48:45.840 that there's no place for violence. 01:48:45.840 --> 01:48:49.200 I'm saying this specifically because it's an incoherent, retarded statement. 01:48:49.200 --> 01:48:51.840 There's always a potential place for violence. 01:48:51.840 --> 01:48:53.680 And it's not an incitement to violence. 01:48:53.680 --> 01:48:56.160 It's saying that it exists because men are evil. 01:48:56.160 --> 01:48:58.800 And so good men must respond to evil men. 01:48:58.800 --> 01:49:01.440 And they must in some cases respond in kind. 01:49:01.440 --> 01:49:04.080 And that in kind is what we call the rules of engagement. 01:49:05.200 --> 01:49:10.720 In the case of the sniper-counter-sniper incident in Pest Pennsylvania with President 01:49:10.720 --> 01:49:16.080 Trump, allegedly, and this blows my mind, but allegedly the latest The 01:49:16.080 --> 01:49:19.440 latest information as this recording was that the rules of engagement for 01:49:19.440 --> 01:49:22.240 the secret service was if they saw a man with a gun, 01:49:22.240 --> 01:49:24.320 they couldn't do anything until he shot. 01:49:24.320 --> 01:49:26.000 That's completely insane. 01:49:26.000 --> 01:49:28.720 Even the normal police don't have those rules of engagement. 01:49:28.720 --> 01:49:31.840 If a man's brandishing a gun and approaching you, a cop is 01:49:31.840 --> 01:49:32.880 able to shoot them. 01:49:32.880 --> 01:49:36.000 In most states, it's typically the case that an individual can as 01:49:36.000 --> 01:49:36.960 well. Why? 01:49:37.200 --> 01:49:39.440 There's an imminent threat to bodily harm. 01:49:39.440 --> 01:49:43.360 And so violence is on the table licitly because violence is already 01:49:43.360 --> 01:49:45.280 on the table illicitly. 01:49:45.280 --> 01:49:49.520 And that's the reason why prohibition of guns is evil on its 01:49:49.520 --> 01:49:54.560 face. Prohibition of the existence of self-defense is evil on its face. 01:49:54.560 --> 01:49:56.880 That sort of view can only ever serve evil. 01:49:56.880 --> 01:50:00.640 It cannot serve good, because men are always going to be evil. 01:50:00.640 --> 01:50:04.320 Even in total absence of weapons, men can still kill each other. 01:50:04.320 --> 01:50:09.120 Things like karate were developed specifically because the certain classes of people 01:50:09.600 --> 01:50:10.880 were disarmed. 01:50:10.880 --> 01:50:13.120 Only certain classes were allowed to carry weapons. 01:50:13.120 --> 01:50:16.400 And so what they do, they develop martial arts that open hand. 01:50:16.400 --> 01:50:17.840 That's what karate means. 01:50:17.840 --> 01:50:21.600 There's no you're not carrying a weapon, you're just you're unarmed. 01:50:21.600 --> 01:50:23.920 But you can still be lethal with your body. 01:50:23.920 --> 01:50:26.080 A man's body is itself a weapon. 01:50:26.080 --> 01:50:28.880 And this is something that plays out, particularly for guys who've trained 01:50:28.880 --> 01:50:32.080 MMA or boxing or any other, you know, if you've trained any 01:50:32.080 --> 01:50:36.480 sort of combat sport, you can be prosecuted differently than someone who 01:50:36.480 --> 01:50:38.720 hasn't simply for using your hands. 01:50:38.720 --> 01:50:42.560 Because under the law in many jurisdictions, your body is treated as 01:50:42.560 --> 01:50:44.960 a lethal weapon because you've been trained. 01:50:44.960 --> 01:50:48.160 So the fists of a boxer are treated the same way as 01:50:48.160 --> 01:50:49.680 a gun or a knife. 01:50:49.680 --> 01:50:54.160 That's an acknowledgement under law that the violence that a man carries 01:50:54.160 --> 01:50:58.160 around by virtue of being a man is something it's a tool. 01:50:58.160 --> 01:51:01.680 It's a weapon that has to be held in reserve for only 01:51:01.680 --> 01:51:03.600 when it's necessary to use. 01:51:03.600 --> 01:51:06.160 And there are a lot of guys who've who've trained golden gloves 01:51:06.160 --> 01:51:09.120 and other things who later on punch and kill someone in a 01:51:09.120 --> 01:51:11.840 bar fight or something and they end up in prison because of 01:51:11.840 --> 01:51:16.080 this. Even if the fight itself was justified, they get hung up 01:51:16.080 --> 01:51:19.440 because of their training, because their body itself is treated on their 01:51:19.440 --> 01:51:21.360 law as a weapon. 01:51:21.360 --> 01:51:25.440 The fact that violence exists is undesirable. 01:51:25.440 --> 01:51:28.080 I d none of us want a world with violence. 01:51:28.080 --> 01:51:29.680 We want a peaceful world. 01:51:29.680 --> 01:51:32.400 But when we look at the world in a fallen state, we 01:51:32.400 --> 01:51:34.320 have to acknowledge that there are men who are going to be 01:51:34.320 --> 01:51:38.000 violent no matter what, and they're going to prosecute their violent acts 01:51:38.000 --> 01:51:40.080 until someone stops them. 01:51:40.080 --> 01:51:44.160 And fundamentally, that's why it's crucial for this subject to not be 01:51:44.160 --> 01:51:48.240 taboo. It is necessary for Christian men, for every man to realize 01:51:48.240 --> 01:51:52.160 that when there are violent acts occurring in the world, there are 01:51:52.160 --> 01:51:56.880 times and places where violence is the only possible response to them. 01:51:56.880 --> 01:51:59.840 And so we're never going to discuss the rules of engagement or 01:51:59.840 --> 01:52:00.400 what to do. 01:52:00.400 --> 01:52:01.520 That's not our place. 01:52:01.520 --> 01:52:03.600 It's not our expertise or purview. 01:52:03.600 --> 01:52:07.200 But as a moral matter, to say the violence is never acceptable 01:52:07.360 --> 01:52:09.280 is feminine screeching. 01:52:09.280 --> 01:52:11.040 It is literal hysteria. 01:52:11.040 --> 01:52:14.080 It has no place in political discourse. 01:52:14.080 --> 01:52:17.120 And any man who says that is a liar and a hypocrite 01:52:17.200 --> 01:52:19.040 unless he's also a pacifist. 01:52:19.040 --> 01:52:21.840 And if he's a pacifist, he's already damned, so he's off the 01:52:21.840 --> 01:52:23.680 table. Those are the stakes here. 01:52:23.680 --> 01:52:27.520 This is not something that's desirable, but it exists, and so we 01:52:27.520 --> 01:52:30.560 have to deal with it as it is. 01:52:30.640 --> 01:52:33.520 So we're gonna end this in scripture because obviously that's the most 01:52:33.520 --> 01:52:36.800 crucial thing for Christians to deal with. 01:52:36.800 --> 01:52:40.720 And this is also gonna be a teaser for a couple upcoming 01:52:40.720 --> 01:52:43.840 episodes who here pretty soon, I hope. 01:52:44.160 --> 01:52:47.840 One of the verses that comes up when you look for violence 01:52:47.840 --> 01:52:50.240 in the Bible, if you're just like looking for proof text. 01:52:50.240 --> 01:52:53.120 I want some verses either I I already know what what I 01:52:53.120 --> 01:52:54.080 think about violence. 01:52:54.080 --> 01:52:56.320 Where can I find a Bible verse that's going to tell me 01:52:56.320 --> 01:53:00.320 what how I can justify what God says to hold my position? 01:53:00.320 --> 01:53:03.360 And so Psalm eleven is going to come up. 01:53:03.360 --> 01:53:07.840 There's a particular line in Psalm eleven that says, the Lord tests 01:53:07.840 --> 01:53:11.360 the righteous, but his soul hates the wicked and the one who 01:53:11.360 --> 01:53:12.960 loves violence. 01:53:12.960 --> 01:53:15.360 And so if you're a proof texter and you just want one 01:53:15.360 --> 01:53:16.480 line, there you go. 01:53:16.480 --> 01:53:17.840 The Lord hates violence. 01:53:17.840 --> 01:53:22.880 Obviously those stone choir guys are liars, evil, wicked blasphemers, we're twisting 01:53:22.880 --> 01:53:24.640 scripture to do evil things. 01:53:24.640 --> 01:53:28.880 So everybody says it's necessary for you to believe that to ignore 01:53:28.880 --> 01:53:30.000 what God says. 01:53:30.000 --> 01:53:30.880 We're not God. 01:53:30.880 --> 01:53:32.080 God is God. 01:53:32.080 --> 01:53:34.800 The beautiful thing about looking is Psalm 2 is that it proves 01:53:34.800 --> 01:53:39.120 two simultaneous points that I didn't even see coming. 01:53:39.120 --> 01:53:42.320 Since discovering what's going on or what has gone on for the 01:53:42.320 --> 01:53:45.840 last two thousand years with the Septuagint, whenever I look at the 01:53:45.840 --> 01:53:49.360 Old Testament, I'll look at whatever Bible I have at hand, but 01:53:49.360 --> 01:53:52.880 I always look at what the Septuagint says, because in many, many 01:53:52.880 --> 01:53:58.080 cases there are subtle or profound differences in the way it represents 01:53:58.080 --> 01:53:59.040 the subject. 01:53:59.040 --> 01:54:01.600 In some cases, entire things are missing or added 01:54:02.720 --> 01:54:08.240 in the Septuagint that were censored or changed in the Masoretic text. 01:54:08.240 --> 01:54:12.480 So Psalm seven Psalm eleven is great for two reasons. 01:54:12.480 --> 01:54:17.120 One, it's a microcosm of what BS proof texting is. 01:54:17.120 --> 01:54:21.040 Because if I just as I just said, the text says, God 01:54:21.280 --> 01:54:24.080 hates the one who loves violence, paraphrasing. 01:54:24.080 --> 01:54:25.360 Obviously game over. 01:54:25.360 --> 01:54:27.120 This is a wicked episode, delete it. 01:54:27.120 --> 01:54:28.960 We're bad, going to hell. 01:54:28.960 --> 01:54:31.920 Unless you read it in context, and it's a very short Psalm. 01:54:31.920 --> 01:54:34.240 Psalm eleven's like seven verses. 01:54:34.240 --> 01:54:38.480 The very next verse says of God, let him rain coals on 01:54:38.480 --> 01:54:42.160 the wicked, fire and sulfur and a scorching wind shall be the 01:54:42.160 --> 01:54:44.400 portion of their cup. 01:54:44.400 --> 01:54:47.440 So see what just happened to someone who wanted to use this 01:54:47.440 --> 01:54:51.440 verse in Psalm eleven to say that violence is always bad? 01:54:51.440 --> 01:54:55.440 Literally the next line says, May God pour out violence upon those 01:54:55.440 --> 01:54:57.040 who oppose him. 01:54:57.040 --> 01:55:02.640 So again, there's no Christian desire for violence never to happen. 01:55:02.640 --> 01:55:06.800 Christians cry out for violence against God's enemies, which as we've said 01:55:06.800 --> 01:55:10.720 in numerous other episodes is distinct from our enemies. 01:55:10.720 --> 01:55:14.080 I have personal enemies who've done horrible wicked things to me. 01:55:14.080 --> 01:55:15.920 I don't pray for violence against them. 01:55:15.920 --> 01:55:17.520 I don't plot violence against them. 01:55:17.520 --> 01:55:18.800 I don't discuss it. 01:55:18.800 --> 01:55:19.920 I don't want it 01:55:21.200 --> 01:55:24.880 in some ways that's almost more hateful than if I did, because 01:55:25.360 --> 01:55:25.680 I 01:55:26.560 --> 01:55:28.880 know that those men who have done those wicked things that they're 01:55:28.880 --> 01:55:32.000 unrepentant for are going to answer to God in eternity. 01:55:32.000 --> 01:55:35.200 They're going to be cast bodily into hell unless they repent. 01:55:35.200 --> 01:55:38.880 And God is going to torture them violently for eternity in their 01:55:38.880 --> 01:55:41.280 bodies for what they did to me and all the other things 01:55:41.280 --> 01:55:42.800 they've done to everyone else. 01:55:42.800 --> 01:55:46.640 Because for all the things I've done to whomever my entire life, 01:55:46.640 --> 01:55:50.160 all the sins I've ever committed, I deserve exactly the same kind 01:55:50.160 --> 01:55:51.200 of punishment. 01:55:51.200 --> 01:55:54.880 I deserve to be cast bodily into hell and it be tortured 01:55:54.880 --> 01:55:57.040 violently by God for eternity. 01:55:57.040 --> 01:56:00.000 That is the price for sinning against God. 01:56:00.000 --> 01:56:01.840 God doesn't annihilate us. 01:56:01.840 --> 01:56:03.600 There is no annihilationism. 01:56:03.600 --> 01:56:04.800 That is blasphemous. 01:56:04.800 --> 01:56:06.320 It is anti-Christian. 01:56:06.320 --> 01:56:07.920 God could do that. 01:56:07.920 --> 01:56:09.440 He could have chosen to do that. 01:56:09.440 --> 01:56:10.160 He does not. 01:56:10.160 --> 01:56:11.280 He does not annihilate. 01:56:11.280 --> 01:56:15.760 He preserves bodily, and he tortures violently for eternity. 01:56:15.760 --> 01:56:18.240 That's God's righteous judgment. 01:56:18.240 --> 01:56:22.640 So when I say that I don't want men to reserve to 01:56:22.640 --> 01:56:27.520 receive in this life the just punishment for their sins. 01:56:27.520 --> 01:56:31.680 I'm saying let God take care of it, but I try to 01:56:31.680 --> 01:56:34.080 be Christian about it, but I know it's far better for them 01:56:34.080 --> 01:56:37.440 if they were to be have suffer harm in this life than 01:56:37.440 --> 01:56:39.360 to suffer harm in eternity. 01:56:39.360 --> 01:56:41.760 Because at least the harm that they would suffer in this life 01:56:41.840 --> 01:56:44.720 justly for the things that they've done would end. 01:56:44.720 --> 01:56:47.840 The suffering they're going to face in eternity will never end. 01:56:47.840 --> 01:56:51.600 So my heart is not as Christian as it should be in 01:56:51.600 --> 01:56:53.040 my treatment of them. 01:56:53.040 --> 01:56:55.360 To be explicit, the things that have been done to me I've 01:56:55.360 --> 01:56:58.160 said in the past, for my sake, I forgive them. 01:56:58.160 --> 01:56:59.600 I I truly do. 01:56:59.600 --> 01:57:04.800 And so Christian doctrine says that just as when Job interceded for 01:57:04.800 --> 01:57:09.360 his friends and God blotted out their sins for the sake of 01:57:09.360 --> 01:57:12.720 Job, I believe that they will not be punished for what they 01:57:12.720 --> 01:57:14.400 did to me for my sake. 01:57:14.400 --> 01:57:18.720 That doesn't change the punishment for what they did against God. 01:57:18.720 --> 01:57:21.200 And God was ultimately their target. 01:57:21.200 --> 01:57:21.520 So 01:57:22.400 --> 01:57:26.560 again, how do you have total prohibition of violence without dealing with 01:57:26.560 --> 01:57:27.760 who God is? 01:57:27.760 --> 01:57:31.840 When we look at this verse, when we look at Psalm eleven, 01:57:31.840 --> 01:57:36.400 we see that yes, God hates violence, but it's in a specific 01:57:36.400 --> 01:57:39.360 case. it's in the case of those who are violent. 01:57:39.600 --> 01:57:41.840 Because the very next thing that says is May God pour out 01:57:41.840 --> 01:57:43.360 violence against those men. 01:57:43.360 --> 01:57:46.480 It's just like the sniper counter sniper situation. 01:57:46.480 --> 01:57:49.360 Only it's it's an infinite and eternal one. 01:57:49.360 --> 01:57:53.200 God is the eternal counter sniper against the wickedness of man, and 01:57:53.200 --> 01:57:56.480 he doesn't miss and it lasts forever. 01:57:56.480 --> 01:58:00.400 So it's a great microcosm of proof texting because it's such nonsense 01:58:00.400 --> 01:58:03.360 for a man to try to cherry pick one line when literally 01:58:03.360 --> 01:58:05.840 the next line calls him a liar. 01:58:05.840 --> 01:58:08.560 But that's typical when you deal with that sort of proof texting. 01:58:08.560 --> 01:58:10.080 And you can look at all the other passages. 01:58:10.080 --> 01:58:14.960 There's so many places in scripture where violence is prayed for by 01:58:14.960 --> 01:58:17.200 the godly against God's enemies. 01:58:17.200 --> 01:58:18.560 That is a righteous prayer. 01:58:18.560 --> 01:58:20.240 Those are called the imprecatory psalms. 01:58:20.240 --> 01:58:20.720 They're dead. 01:58:20.640 --> 01:58:22.480 There are dozens of them. 01:58:22.480 --> 01:58:25.920 And it's not only eternal violence, but it's violence in this life, 01:58:25.920 --> 01:58:29.280 where men are to cry out for God to destroy the wicked. 01:58:29.280 --> 01:58:32.640 That is how God teaches us to pray. 01:58:32.640 --> 01:58:35.520 It's not Christian not to believe that. 01:58:35.520 --> 01:58:39.600 The second parallel point, unrelated to the first, and it's entirely fine 01:58:39.600 --> 01:58:41.840 for you to look at the that version of scripture and to 01:58:41.840 --> 01:58:45.360 say, well, here's why violence is XYZ. 01:58:45.360 --> 01:58:47.760 As I said, I always look at the Septuagint now because I 01:58:48.080 --> 01:58:51.760 know that it differs materially in ways that change doctrine, that change 01:58:51.760 --> 01:58:54.720 Christian doctrine, often in small ways. 01:58:54.720 --> 01:58:57.280 And this is a case where it's a small way, but it's 01:58:57.200 --> 01:59:00.400 a way that can have profound knock on effects downstream. 01:59:01.120 --> 01:59:05.520 So here's what that same verse says in Greek transliterated. 01:59:05.520 --> 01:59:08.160 The Lord is in his holy temple, the Lord's throne is in 01:59:08.160 --> 01:59:11.680 heaven, his eyes look upon the poor, his eyelids examine the sons 01:59:11.680 --> 01:59:12.160 of men. 01:59:12.160 --> 01:59:16.240 The Lord examines the righteous and the ungodly, and he who loves 01:59:16.240 --> 01:59:19.200 unrighteousness hates his own soul. 01:59:19.520 --> 01:59:22.320 So note what was missing there, the word violence. 01:59:22.320 --> 01:59:26.720 The word that's used in Masoretic text in the Hebrew, so-called for 01:59:26.960 --> 01:59:31.600 for violence does not even appear in the inspired Greek. 01:59:31.600 --> 01:59:36.560 What it says is he who loves unrighteousness hates his own soul. 01:59:36.560 --> 01:59:41.760 So again, Psalm 11 in the Masoretic text in all your Bibles 01:59:42.160 --> 01:59:44.960 doesn't even make the point that someone would like to make because 01:59:44.960 --> 01:59:49.840 Psalm eleven refutes the notion that God hates violence in the sense 01:59:49.840 --> 01:59:51.200 that they're trying to pretend. 01:59:51.200 --> 01:59:55.200 And yet when you look at the original Greek scripture of the 01:59:55.200 --> 01:59:58.640 church, from the very first days of the church, it doesn't say 01:59:58.640 --> 01:59:59.600 anything about violence. 01:59:59.600 --> 02:00:02.240 This is one of many examples where there are very small changes 02:00:02.240 --> 02:00:03.760 have occurred that that 02:00:04.880 --> 02:00:08.240 you know, the way it's written in the Masoretic, it's fine. 02:00:08.240 --> 02:00:09.360 It's defensible. 02:00:09.360 --> 02:00:10.720 It's not inspired. 02:00:10.720 --> 02:00:13.280 But it is not wicked. 02:00:13.280 --> 02:00:16.720 But the true version in the Greek cannot even make the point 02:00:16.720 --> 02:00:18.240 that they're trying to make. 02:00:18.240 --> 02:00:21.120 Now what's interesting about the word that he uses there, the word 02:00:21.120 --> 02:00:24.720 for unrighteousness, is that that word is a word that comes up 02:00:24.720 --> 02:00:28.720 in numerous places in the New Testament, and it's usually translated as 02:00:28.720 --> 02:00:32.320 unrighteousness as well One example would be Romans one. 02:00:32.320 --> 02:00:36.560 The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and 02:00:36.560 --> 02:00:38.400 unrighteousness of men. 02:00:38.400 --> 02:00:41.840 So again, just like in Psalm eleven in the Greek, it's pointing 02:00:41.840 --> 02:00:47.120 at God, pointing to the unrighteous to the wicked man and condemning. 02:00:47.520 --> 02:00:50.880 John five, all unrighteousness is sin. 02:00:50.880 --> 02:00:54.000 And Luke thirteen was one of I thought the most interesting ones. 02:00:54.000 --> 02:00:58.320 Depart from me all ye workers of iniquity, or sin or unrighteousness 02:00:58.400 --> 02:01:00.000 or wickedness. 02:01:00.000 --> 02:01:02.640 It's wickedness, it's sin that God hates. 02:01:02.640 --> 02:01:04.400 It's not violence. 02:01:04.400 --> 02:01:09.040 So see, the word that is used in Greek doesn't even come 02:01:09.040 --> 02:01:14.080 close to contravening the next verse because it says something entirely different. 02:01:14.080 --> 02:01:17.440 So we're gonna do a few episodes coming up here hopefully pretty 02:01:17.440 --> 02:01:20.320 soon. There's something that's beyond our control we're waiting on. 02:01:20.320 --> 02:01:22.640 When we're able, we're gonna deliver a multi-part episode. 02:01:22.880 --> 02:01:25.120 We haven't decided yet if it's going to be two or three. 02:01:25.120 --> 02:01:27.920 It's going to be the most important thing we've ever done because 02:01:28.080 --> 02:01:31.680 the scope, the volume, and the import of the changes and the 02:01:31.680 --> 02:01:36.480 history behind them of the Christian Bible, when a thousand years ago 02:01:36.640 --> 02:01:40.720 the Jews replaced it with something that they called Hebrew has left 02:01:40.720 --> 02:01:42.960 us all in a worse shape. 02:01:42.960 --> 02:01:45.360 This is a small example of the fact that this stuff is 02:01:45.360 --> 02:01:45.680 going on. 02:01:45.680 --> 02:01:47.600 And like I said, like you can look at both and like, 02:01:47.920 --> 02:01:50.000 they're both Christian, it's a minor point. 02:01:50.000 --> 02:01:53.040 The fact that you would try to make an argument against violence 02:01:53.040 --> 02:01:57.440 impermissibly isn't even possible if you use the Christian Greek. 02:01:57.440 --> 02:02:01.280 So that's just a sneak preview of what's coming in the future. 02:02:01.280 --> 02:02:04.880 The changes you've heard about in the Septuagint, they're not small, and 02:02:04.880 --> 02:02:07.040 they're not just about a few prophecies. 02:02:07.040 --> 02:02:08.560 They're all over the place. 02:02:08.560 --> 02:02:11.200 And there's there's a lot more to say about that later. 02:02:11.200 --> 02:02:14.480 So just as we're looking at scripture, when you look at the 02:02:14.480 --> 02:02:17.280 history, when you look at what God does, what he promises to 02:02:17.280 --> 02:02:20.480 do in scripture and in the creeds, he's coming on the last 02:02:20.480 --> 02:02:22.640 day to judge both the quick and the dead. 02:02:22.640 --> 02:02:28.000 And that judgment is the beginning of either eternal reward or eternal 02:02:28.000 --> 02:02:33.120 punishment, eternal violence against the bodies of the wicked, which is most 02:02:33.120 --> 02:02:34.960 men who've ever been born. 02:02:34.960 --> 02:02:37.840 God is not going to annihilate them, they're not going to vanish, 02:02:37.840 --> 02:02:40.160 they're going to be resurrected in the dead too, and they're gonna 02:02:40.160 --> 02:02:42.320 be violently tortured for eternity. 02:02:42.320 --> 02:02:43.680 That sounds really nasty. 02:02:43.760 --> 02:02:46.480 Doesn't sound like the loving God that we're told about, but it 02:02:46.480 --> 02:02:48.320 is the loving God that we're told about. 02:02:48.320 --> 02:02:50.960 We've been lied about God's true nature. 02:02:50.960 --> 02:02:54.640 And the only possible way to come up with a God that 02:02:54.640 --> 02:02:57.920 has no violence and that forbids violence is to come up with 02:02:57.920 --> 02:03:01.120 a satanic God, one who's not in scripture at all. 02:03:01.120 --> 02:03:03.920 That's why it says a stone choir episode fundamentally. 02:03:03.920 --> 02:03:07.200 It is it is absolutely not incitement to violence. 02:03:07.200 --> 02:03:11.760 It's only barely advocacy of violence, except narrowly in the sense that 02:03:11.840 --> 02:03:16.320 yes, it's permissible, yes, it's sometimes necessary, and by the way, violence 02:03:16.320 --> 02:03:18.320 is in fact a property of God Almighty. 02:03:18.640 --> 02:03:22.240 When you condemn violence per se, you're damning God. 02:03:22.240 --> 02:03:23.600 How often does that come up? 02:03:23.600 --> 02:03:26.480 Every time we look at this crap, we find that the world 02:03:26.480 --> 02:03:28.480 religion is damning God. 02:03:28.480 --> 02:03:32.080 At some point, the Christian listener who's capable of discerning patterns will 02:03:32.080 --> 02:03:35.680 think, huh, maybe all these morals that I'm getting from the world 02:03:35.760 --> 02:03:39.280 and I'm hearing in most pulpits are not remotely Christian. 02:03:39.280 --> 02:03:40.880 Maybe they have another source. 02:03:40.880 --> 02:03:42.560 Maybe they're teachings of demons. 02:03:42.560 --> 02:03:46.160 And maybe believing them is gonna separate my soul from God in 02:03:46.160 --> 02:03:50.560 eternity. And judgment day when it comes will be bliss for us 02:03:50.720 --> 02:03:52.880 and will be eternal violence for them. 02:03:52.880 --> 02:03:56.000 I wish that for no man, but it is promise that that's 02:03:55.920 --> 02:03:57.280 when it gonna happen if they don't. 02:03:59.440 --> 02:04:03.920 Before I turn to the three sections of scripture with which we 02:04:03.920 --> 02:04:07.680 are going to close out this episode, I want to make a 02:04:07.680 --> 02:04:10.880 brief philosophical comment. 02:04:10.880 --> 02:04:16.240 For those who are paying attention, Woe mentioned twice the possibility of 02:04:16.240 --> 02:04:22.080 someone or something more pertinently someone being unmade. 02:04:22.080 --> 02:04:26.640 The alternative view to that would be that God cannot unmake something 02:04:26.640 --> 02:04:29.760 for various reasons we won't get into in this episode. 02:04:29.760 --> 02:04:33.280 You are not bound to believe one way or the other on 02:04:33.280 --> 02:04:39.280 that. Christians can disagree on whether or not God could have unmade 02:04:39.280 --> 02:04:42.320 people instead of damning them to hell for eternity. 02:04:42.320 --> 02:04:48.080 Scripture does not necessarily speak precisely and explicitly to the point, so 02:04:48.080 --> 02:04:50.560 again, you are free to believe one way or the other. 02:04:50.560 --> 02:04:53.600 We're not saying you're bound to believe one or the other. 02:04:53.600 --> 02:04:56.240 And I'm not going to lay out the argument for the other 02:04:56.240 --> 02:04:59.120 side in this episode because that is not the topic we are 02:04:59.120 --> 02:05:04.080 covering. But to turn to the conclusion, as it were, of this 02:05:04.080 --> 02:05:07.600 episode and the three sections of scripture I would like to cover, 02:05:07.600 --> 02:05:12.400 I will be starting with a section of Joshua. 02:05:13.680 --> 02:05:17.040 And it happened as Joshua was at Jericho, and looking up with 02:05:17.040 --> 02:05:20.640 his eyes, he saw a person standing before him, and a drawn 02:05:20.640 --> 02:05:22.160 sword was in his hand. 02:05:22.160 --> 02:05:26.080 And approaching Joshua said to him, Are you an ally or from 02:05:26.080 --> 02:05:27.040 the enemy? 02:05:27.040 --> 02:05:30.480 He said to him, I the commander of the army of the 02:05:30.480 --> 02:05:32.560 Lord, now am here. 02:05:32.560 --> 02:05:35.760 And Joshua fell on his face upon the earth and said to 02:05:35.760 --> 02:05:39.280 him, Master, what do you command your servant? 02:05:39.280 --> 02:05:43.760 And the Lord's commander said to Joshua, Untie your sandals from your 02:05:43.760 --> 02:05:49.760 feet, for the place upon which you are now standing is holy. 02:05:49.760 --> 02:05:53.760 A few things about this particular section of Scripture 02:05:55.760 --> 02:05:59.840 One This is Christ here. 02:05:59.840 --> 02:06:01.920 This is a Christophany. 02:06:01.920 --> 02:06:04.480 Christ is the commander of the army of the Lord. 02:06:04.480 --> 02:06:07.360 This is the angel of the Lord, uppercase A. 02:06:07.360 --> 02:06:11.200 Sometimes in the Old Testament the angel of the Lord is Christ. 02:06:11.200 --> 02:06:14.800 Sometimes the angel of the Lord seems to just be an angel. 02:06:14.800 --> 02:06:18.240 You have to pay attention to what is being done and what 02:06:18.240 --> 02:06:21.760 is not being done in the passage to know which is which. 02:06:21.760 --> 02:06:25.360 Here Here, Joshua falls down and worships. 02:06:25.360 --> 02:06:26.640 That's what he's doing. 02:06:26.640 --> 02:06:31.920 Some versions of some translations in English say worship. 02:06:31.920 --> 02:06:36.720 If he were instead of dealing with the angel of the Lord, 02:06:36.720 --> 02:06:41.040 uppercase A, simply dealing with an angel, he would have been rebuked 02:06:41.200 --> 02:06:42.160 for doing that. 02:06:42.160 --> 02:06:45.920 You can think of Revelation, where John is told, do not do 02:06:45.920 --> 02:06:50.720 that, because we are not permitted to worship angels, we are not 02:06:50.720 --> 02:06:54.960 permitted to worship saints, we are not permitted to worship anyone but 02:06:54.960 --> 02:06:56.160 the Lord God. 02:06:56.160 --> 02:06:58.240 So this is Christ. 02:06:58.240 --> 02:07:01.440 And what does Christ have when he appears? 02:07:01.440 --> 02:07:03.200 He has a drawn sword. 02:07:03.200 --> 02:07:06.720 Not just a sword, he has a drawn sword. 02:07:06.720 --> 02:07:09.680 And of course I would point to the fact the ground is 02:07:09.680 --> 02:07:12.000 holy, that adds into the fact that you can conclude this is 02:07:12.000 --> 02:07:15.920 the age of the Lord, he's appearing in the context of war, 02:07:15.920 --> 02:07:19.920 but to go back and focus on that drawn sword. 02:07:19.920 --> 02:07:23.440 Culturally many today are going to miss what that means. 02:07:23.440 --> 02:07:25.840 And the reason they're going to miss what that means is because 02:07:25.840 --> 02:07:26.800 we are so disconnected 02:07:27.680 --> 02:07:31.920 from cultures in which this was more of part of the culture, 02:07:31.920 --> 02:07:34.240 and we could debate whether that's good or bad. 02:07:34.240 --> 02:07:37.440 In some ways it's good, and some ways it's bad. 02:07:38.160 --> 02:07:41.840 But in cultures where everyone, or at least the upper classes, are 02:07:41.840 --> 02:07:46.080 carrying a sword, so for instance in Japanese culture in the medieval 02:07:46.080 --> 02:07:48.960 era, it would have been the upper class carrying the sword, because 02:07:48.960 --> 02:07:53.920 the lower classes were prohibited from owning them as wo referenced earlier, 02:07:53.920 --> 02:07:59.440 if you draw your sword, it is at the absolute minimum a 02:07:59.440 --> 02:08:03.040 threat. In the Japanese context it was expected that if you drew 02:08:03.040 --> 02:08:05.120 the sword you would also draw blood. 02:08:05.120 --> 02:08:09.200 That was the case in certain times at certain places, in Europe 02:08:09.280 --> 02:08:12.560 and in the Middle East, but not always in the latter two 02:08:12.560 --> 02:08:17.040 cases. Sometimes it was simply a threat, but a very real one. 02:08:17.040 --> 02:08:22.720 A drawn sword means I am ready and willing to draw blood. 02:08:22.720 --> 02:08:26.480 Christ appears here with a drawn sword. 02:08:26.480 --> 02:08:27.680 He is going to war. 02:08:27.680 --> 02:08:32.000 He is leading his people, his army to war. 02:08:32.000 --> 02:08:36.560 He is called the Lord of hosts, and not without warrant. 02:08:36.560 --> 02:08:41.280 And so to reject violence is to find this image of God 02:08:41.280 --> 02:08:44.880 here utterly incoherent, it's to deny this is God at all. 02:08:44.960 --> 02:08:47.360 To deny that God could do this. 02:08:47.360 --> 02:08:52.800 And so again, you cannot possibly conclude that violence is per se 02:08:52.960 --> 02:08:58.640 wicked or per se sinful, and have the God of Scripture. 02:08:58.640 --> 02:09:02.880 Another passage from the Old Testament this time from Psalms. 02:09:03.040 --> 02:09:06.000 Sing to the Lord a new song, his praise is in the 02:09:06.000 --> 02:09:07.760 assembly of the holy ones. 02:09:07.760 --> 02:09:10.800 Let Israel be cheerful in the one who made him, and let 02:09:10.800 --> 02:09:14.080 the children of Zion rejoice exceedingly in their king. 02:09:14.080 --> 02:09:17.920 Let them praise his name and dance, with tambourine and harp, let 02:09:17.920 --> 02:09:21.120 them sing psalms to him, because the Lord is well pleased with 02:09:21.120 --> 02:09:24.800 his people, and he will raise up the humble in salvation. 02:09:24.800 --> 02:09:28.880 Holy ones will boast in glory, and they will rejoice exceedingly in 02:09:28.880 --> 02:09:32.960 their beds, the heights of God in their throats, and double edged 02:09:32.960 --> 02:09:37.840 swords in their hands, to enact vengeance among the nations, reproof among 02:09:37.840 --> 02:09:42.000 the peoples, to bind their kings in fetters, and those held in 02:09:42.000 --> 02:09:46.640 esteem among them in iron handcuffs, to enact among them written judgment 02:09:46.960 --> 02:09:51.840 This is glory to all his holy ones. 02:09:51.840 --> 02:09:56.720 Very often, when dealing with issues like this, you will have those 02:09:56.720 --> 02:09:59.200 who will argue, well are you King David? 02:09:59.200 --> 02:10:00.560 Well are you Joshua? 02:10:00.560 --> 02:10:01.040 Well are you 02:10:02.160 --> 02:10:07.040 XY or Z man from Scripture? 02:10:07.040 --> 02:10:10.080 In a fundamental way what they are arguing is that Scripture is 02:10:10.080 --> 02:10:13.280 not applicable to anyone except for those in Scripture, which is a 02:10:13.280 --> 02:10:15.840 denial that it is the word of God, of course, and its 02:10:16.000 --> 02:10:19.360 denial of what scripture says about scripture, that it is fit for 02:10:19.360 --> 02:10:23.120 reproof and for training for teaching. 02:10:23.120 --> 02:10:27.200 However, it's also obviously mercenary. 02:10:27.200 --> 02:10:30.880 But here we have in the previous passage that I read from 02:10:30.880 --> 02:10:36.240 Joshua, Christ dealing with Joshua leading the Israelites in the conquest, the 02:10:36.240 --> 02:10:39.360 genocidal conquest of Canaan. 02:10:39.360 --> 02:10:40.880 Well here we just have a reference 02:10:41.920 --> 02:10:43.360 to the holy ones. 02:10:43.360 --> 02:10:44.800 That means Christians. 02:10:44.800 --> 02:10:46.880 That means those with faith. 02:10:46.880 --> 02:10:51.520 And they have double edged swords to enact vengeance among the nations, 02:10:51.520 --> 02:10:56.160 and that is the glory to all his holy ones Ones. 02:10:56.160 --> 02:11:03.360 Scripture is saying that the use of violence against the unbelievers, 02:11:03.360 --> 02:11:08.080 against the wicked, is part of God's plan for the holy, for 02:11:08.080 --> 02:11:10.640 the righteous, for Christians. 02:11:10.640 --> 02:11:14.800 Not just for Joshua, not just for David, not just for Solomon, 02:11:14.800 --> 02:11:18.800 not just for these great men, these warriors, in some of those 02:11:18.800 --> 02:11:22.160 cases more so than others, but not just for these warriors in 02:11:22.160 --> 02:11:26.880 the Old Testament, but also for Christians more generally. 02:11:26.880 --> 02:11:30.240 Violence is part of God's plan, and this is another thing we 02:11:30.240 --> 02:11:34.000 tend to gloss over, we tend to miss in Scripture. 02:11:34.000 --> 02:11:37.920 The conquest of Canaan could have been accomplished by God with a 02:11:37.920 --> 02:11:40.080 snap of his fingers. 02:11:40.080 --> 02:11:44.400 In some ways he did use specific miracles that did not involve 02:11:44.720 --> 02:11:46.400 the Israelites directly. 02:11:46.400 --> 02:11:50.160 He sent, for instance, hornets before them, to drive some people out 02:11:50.160 --> 02:11:55.520 of their cities so that the Israelites could simply occupy them. 02:11:55.520 --> 02:11:56.640 But God by and large 02:11:57.520 --> 02:12:04.240 used Israelite men with swords and bows and slings to slaughter the 02:12:04.240 --> 02:12:10.560 Canaanites. God used men to enact his violence against his enemies. 02:12:10.560 --> 02:12:12.400 He didn't need to do that. 02:12:12.400 --> 02:12:15.840 He could have done any of a number of other things, but 02:12:15.840 --> 02:12:18.320 that is the means that he chose. 02:12:18.320 --> 02:12:21.920 And so if we want to say today that God cannot use 02:12:21.920 --> 02:12:25.280 violence or Christians cannot use violence. 02:12:25.280 --> 02:12:29.520 We are denying Scripture in many places. 02:12:29.520 --> 02:12:32.240 I am using just a few examples here to close this out, 02:12:32.240 --> 02:12:34.560 but this is all throughout Scripture. 02:12:34.560 --> 02:12:37.280 I recommend you go and read Joshua and Judges. 02:12:37.280 --> 02:12:38.320 You could listen to them. 02:12:38.320 --> 02:12:39.680 I did that this morning. 02:12:39.680 --> 02:12:42.560 It took an hour and forty-five minutes to listen to the book 02:12:42.560 --> 02:12:43.520 of Joshua. 02:12:43.520 --> 02:12:46.080 It's quite quick. 02:12:46.080 --> 02:12:48.880 But if you say that God cannot use violence or that Christians 02:12:48.880 --> 02:12:53.200 cannot use violence, you are denying the word of God, you are 02:12:53.200 --> 02:12:59.120 calling God a sinner, and quite frankly what you're doing is apostatizing. 02:12:59.120 --> 02:13:00.880 But there are those of course who will say, well, that's the 02:13:01.120 --> 02:13:03.680 Old Testament, this is the New Testament, it's a new covenant, it's 02:13:03.680 --> 02:13:08.160 different. Of course, ignoring the fact that that's Marcianism, we can point 02:13:08.160 --> 02:13:11.360 out no, this is in the New Testament as well. 02:13:11.360 --> 02:13:16.480 Because that was Christ standing with a drawn sword before Joshua. 02:13:16.480 --> 02:13:20.960 The same Christ, who in the book of Luke speaks, but as 02:13:20.960 --> 02:13:24.160 for these enemies of mine, who did not want me to reign 02:13:24.160 --> 02:13:30.240 over them, bring them here and slaughter them before me. 02:13:30.240 --> 02:13:36.880 That is a command from Christ, to his followers, to Christians, to 02:13:36.880 --> 02:13:39.840 slaughter his enemies before him. 02:13:39.840 --> 02:13:43.600 And just to be clear about that word, I would think that 02:13:43.920 --> 02:13:48.560 the English is sufficiently clear slaughter, perhaps for those who are removed 02:13:48.560 --> 02:13:51.920 from any sort of rural area or farm life, it's a little 02:13:52.000 --> 02:13:53.760 more distant. 02:13:53.760 --> 02:13:59.360 But But that verb in Greek is katasphazo. 02:13:59.360 --> 02:14:02.960 Yes, SP is a thing that the Greeks think go well together, 02:14:02.960 --> 02:14:09.120 but that aside, that word, the core verb there, means to kill 02:14:09.120 --> 02:14:13.600 by violence, specifically, to kill by violence. 02:14:13.600 --> 02:14:17.120 And that is what Christ says to Christians, what he commands to 02:14:17.120 --> 02:14:20.000 Christians, of his enemies. 02:14:20.240 --> 02:14:22.960 That is what Christ will do on the last day when he 02:14:22.960 --> 02:14:24.480 stands on the earth. 02:14:24.480 --> 02:14:28.240 He will destroy those who opposed him, and he will destroy them 02:14:28.240 --> 02:14:29.680 by violence. 02:14:31.280 --> 02:14:33.680 God is not a pacifist. 02:14:33.680 --> 02:14:34.160 God does 02:14:35.040 --> 02:14:37.920 not eschew violence. 02:14:37.920 --> 02:14:41.440 He may abhor violence to a certain degree. 02:14:41.440 --> 02:14:44.720 Because, as we mentioned a number of times in the episode, there 02:14:44.720 --> 02:14:48.640 are really two levels to this, and perhaps the best way, the 02:14:48.640 --> 02:14:52.160 most constructive way to think about them would be the abstract and 02:14:52.160 --> 02:14:53.520 the concrete. 02:14:53.520 --> 02:14:58.480 In an abstract way, removed from all considerations, all reality All reality 02:14:58.640 --> 02:15:03.040 untethered from the world, violence is bad. 02:15:03.040 --> 02:15:05.360 Violence is an evil. 02:15:05.360 --> 02:15:07.520 Because it should not be part of the world. 02:15:07.520 --> 02:15:10.160 It was not part of God's design. 02:15:10.160 --> 02:15:14.960 If Satan had not fallen, if man had not fallen, there would 02:15:14.960 --> 02:15:16.320 be no violence. 02:15:16.320 --> 02:15:17.840 That is a better world. 02:15:17.840 --> 02:15:20.960 That is the world he will restore on the last day. 02:15:20.960 --> 02:15:23.840 That is the new creation, that is paradise. 02:15:23.840 --> 02:15:27.520 But the second level, and quite frankly for us the most important 02:15:27.520 --> 02:15:30.800 level, because it is the level that is relevant to us today 02:15:31.040 --> 02:15:32.480 in this life. 02:15:32.480 --> 02:15:35.440 We could discuss the next life, and so that first level is 02:15:35.440 --> 02:15:39.520 relevant, but there's nothing to discuss because violence will simply be gone 02:15:39.760 --> 02:15:43.280 with regard to the elect, with regard to those who are in 02:15:43.280 --> 02:15:46.800 paradise, who ran the race successfully. 02:15:46.800 --> 02:15:48.640 But that second level 02:15:49.520 --> 02:15:50.640 is this world. 02:15:50.640 --> 02:15:54.320 It is our life in a fallen world, in a sinful world, 02:15:54.320 --> 02:15:58.960 in a world in which violence is a reality, a constant reality. 02:15:59.200 --> 02:16:02.720 Perhaps go back and listen to the episode on normalcy bias. 02:16:02.720 --> 02:16:06.000 Everyone walks around in this world and thinks, well, violence is some 02:16:06.000 --> 02:16:09.280 distant thing it's something that happens over there, or back then, or 02:16:09.520 --> 02:16:13.040 despite the fact that we still have a decent amount to abuse 02:16:13.040 --> 02:16:15.840 the term perhaps, but a decent amount of violent crime in certain 02:16:15.840 --> 02:16:18.960 parts of the country, and increasing Increasing. 02:16:18.960 --> 02:16:23.840 By historical norms we have almost no violence today. 02:16:23.840 --> 02:16:27.520 But that's normalcy bias to think that that will persist, to think 02:16:27.520 --> 02:16:28.480 that that will continue. 02:16:28.480 --> 02:16:32.160 That is not the reality of life on this earth. 02:16:32.160 --> 02:16:36.320 The reality of life on this earth historically throughout the entire history 02:16:36.320 --> 02:16:39.600 of man has been almost constant warfare. 02:16:39.600 --> 02:16:42.080 There are wars happening right now in certain parts of the world. 02:16:42.080 --> 02:16:45.120 Just because they aren't happening here doesn't mean they aren't happening. 02:16:46.080 --> 02:16:49.920 But that second level is this life in the fallen world and 02:16:49.920 --> 02:16:53.520 violence is a reality, it is a part of it, and it 02:16:53.520 --> 02:16:57.760 is necessary with regard to the righteous, with regard to the good, 02:16:57.760 --> 02:17:02.480 with regard to the Christian prince who wields the sword, because the 02:17:02.480 --> 02:17:07.520 wicked will always engage in violence, just as they will always engage 02:17:07.520 --> 02:17:12.880 in all sorts of destructive sins, it is necessary to oppose that. 02:17:12.880 --> 02:17:15.920 And sometimes that requires violence. 02:17:15.920 --> 02:17:18.240 The example that we have given a number of times, and I 02:17:18.240 --> 02:17:21.520 will give it again: if a man breaks into your house and 02:17:21.520 --> 02:17:24.720 intends to harm your wife and children, it is incumbent on you 02:17:25.200 --> 02:17:27.600 as a man to oppose that with violence. 02:17:27.600 --> 02:17:30.080 That is your moral duty. 02:17:30.080 --> 02:17:33.600 Yes, there are some legal niceties and some specifics as to how 02:17:33.600 --> 02:17:36.560 you're permitted to do that or not do that with regard to 02:17:36.560 --> 02:17:40.000 the positive law in the state in which you live, but your 02:17:40.000 --> 02:17:44.400 moral duty remains regardless of what that positive law says. 02:17:44.400 --> 02:17:48.640 Because your moral duty as a man is to put yourself between 02:17:48.640 --> 02:17:50.800 the shooter and your wife and child. 02:17:50.800 --> 02:17:54.160 Your moral duty as a man is to die if necessary. 02:17:54.160 --> 02:17:58.400 It is to enact violence, the violence that is necessary, to defend 02:17:58.400 --> 02:18:01.440 the things God has entrusted to your care. 02:18:02.720 --> 02:18:06.240 That is the reality of living in a fallen world. 02:18:06.240 --> 02:18:09.600 That is the reality of what Scripture says. 02:18:09.600 --> 02:18:12.640 If you have a pacifist God, if you have a God who 02:18:12.640 --> 02:18:17.600 simply says that violence qua violence is is wicked, is evil, is 02:18:17.600 --> 02:18:19.440 always wrongful. 02:18:19.440 --> 02:18:22.000 You may very well have a God, but you have a different 02:18:22.000 --> 02:18:24.960 God from the one found in Scripture. 02:18:24.960 --> 02:18:29.120 Because you do not have the God, who stood before Jericho sword 02:18:29.120 --> 02:18:33.920 in hand, and told Joshua to destroy that city. 02:18:33.920 --> 02:18:37.440 You do not have the God who speaks in the Psalm, and 02:18:37.440 --> 02:18:40.960 says that it is the glory of his holy ones to execute 02:18:40.960 --> 02:18:45.040 vengeance on the nations, with double edged swords in their hands. 02:18:45.040 --> 02:18:48.880 You do not have the God who says in Luke, but as 02:18:48.880 --> 02:18:51.760 for these enemies of mine, who did not want me to reign 02:18:51.760 --> 02:18:56.560 over them, bring them here and slaughter them before me. 02:18:56.560 --> 02:19:00.480 Because the god of Scripture is not a pacifist. 02:19:00.480 --> 02:19:07.040 The god of Scripture uses violence when and where it is warranted. 02:19:07.040 --> 02:19:09.920 Because violence is a part of the fallen world. 02:19:09.920 --> 02:19:12.000 It is something we cannot avoid. 02:19:12.000 --> 02:19:15.200 It may be something that we oppose and hate. 02:19:15.200 --> 02:19:17.760 We wish that it were not part of this world, because of 02:19:17.760 --> 02:19:20.800 course we wish that the fall had not happened. 02:19:20.800 --> 02:19:24.080 But just wishing that something were the case does not make it 02:19:24.080 --> 02:19:29.440 so because we live in this world, and this world is fallen 02:19:29.440 --> 02:19:35.760 and sinful, and the reality of that necessitates certain responses. 02:19:35.760 --> 02:19:39.840 God wants no one to spend eternity in hell. 02:19:39.840 --> 02:19:43.360 But all of the sinners who do not repent, who are not 02:19:43.760 --> 02:19:47.680 covered by Christ's blood, will spend eternity in hell. 02:19:47.680 --> 02:19:51.200 He will torture them for eternity in hell. 02:19:51.200 --> 02:19:57.440 He will enact violence against those men his enemies, for eternity, unsatisf 02:19:57.440 --> 02:20:00.800 torment. That is the Lord God. 02:20:00.800 --> 02:20:02.400 That is what he does. 02:20:02.400 --> 02:20:05.840 If you have a different God, then I don't know why you're 02:20:05.840 --> 02:20:08.800 listening to this podcast, and I don't know why you'd pretend to 02:20:08.800 --> 02:20:10.880 be Christian. 02:20:10.880 --> 02:20:15.280 Because the Lord God is a God of peace, but it is 02:20:15.280 --> 02:20:19.040 a God of peace, and it is a peace that is backed 02:20:19.040 --> 02:20:21.120 by infinite violence