Weekly Roundup: “Kill the Enemy”: Iran War Lies, "Killing" Talarico, + Calls For Political Violence

Welcome to Straight White American Jesus, I'm Brad Onishi, author of American Caesar,

How Tech Lords and Theocrats are turning America into a monarchy, coming in September,

founder of Axis Moody Media, here today, with my co-host.

I'm Dan Miller, professor of religion and social thought at Lamar College.

With a little bit of a cold, I sound like Brad Onishi when we recorded like five in the morning.

I've got like, I've got that going, so, you know, yeah.

All right friends, we're going to talk about Iran and Joe Kent, the counterterrorism official

who resigned this week by saying that there was no threat to the United States on the

part of Iran and he cannot support a war with Iran.

We'll talk about the fallout from that and what it means.

We'll then get into some pretty startling, new footage from Pete Hegses pastor and another

podcaster who say that they want, sorry, it's a lot, James Taylor Rico to be crucified

and to die and we'll tell you what that means.

We'll then get into a little bit more on the Atlantic piece on Christian nationalism

and James Taylor Rico and sort of clarify some comments and thoughts and analysis there.

Give Dan a chance to weigh in after I did so earlier this week.

Lots to cover.

Let's go.

All right Dan, here is Joe Kent.

Joe Kent is the counterterrorism official who resigned this week and he immediately went

on Tucker Carlson and that should tell you about Joe Kent and I'm going to give you

a little bit of background on Joe Kent in a minute.

But here's what he said about Iran and there being no plan in there on their part for

having a nuclear weapon.

Was Iran on the verge of getting a nuclear weapon?

No, they weren't, you know, three weeks ago and this started and they weren't in June

either.

I mean, the Iranians have had a religious ruling, a fatwa against actually developing a

nuclear weapon since 2004 that's been in place since 2004, that's available in the

public sphere.

But then also we had no intelligence to indicate that that fatwa was being disobeyed or it

was on the cusp of being lifted.

The Iranian strategy, it's actually pretty pragmatic.

The Iranians are obviously aware of what's taking place in their region and their strategy

was to not completely abandon their nuclear program because they saw what happened to

Muammar Qaddafi in Libya when he said, hey, I've got no more nukes.

I'll do what you say.

I'll give up my nukes.

And we gave them a little peace prize.

Yeah.

The regime changed him and he was executed by his own people in the most horrific way.

Okay.

So this is a guy as opposed to Donald Trump as opposed to Mike Johnson has actual battle

experience.

He was in combat.

He lost his wife to combat.

He's what's called a gold star husband.

That in itself doesn't mean anything except for he has seen what war is like up front

is what I think that means, which a lot of us have not.

He then says, look, there was no plan for them to have a weapon, but then now not any

time soon.

It's just not what they're doing.

Mike Johnson then said, let me read you the quote here.

He says, we all understood there was clearly an imminent threat that Iran was very close

to the enrichment of nuclear capability.

I don't know where Joe Kent's getting his information.

The president felt felt felt feelings feelings.

The president felt he had to strike first to prevent mass casualties.

I got a lot of thoughts, Dan, but I'll throw it to you first.

What do you make of the Joe Kent resignation and Mike Johnson's comments and so forth?

Yeah.

So I mean, Mike Johnson, he does the same thing that you got that comment, however many comments

that they've made trying to like gin up a rationale for the Iran thing, but it always

remains slippy, slippery, slippery as to what that rationale was, like what the timeline

is.

Imminence is always a great word for these folks because like, what does imminent mean?

Is that like, I don't know, half a decade from now is that tomorrow?

We've been at war with Iran for 47 years, Dan.

Yeah, exactly, right?

So there's that and he's going to do whatever Trump tells him to do.

The resignation was really, really interesting and Joe, I think neither one of us also thinks

Joe Kent's like probably a great guy either.

So you know, he posted his letter of resignation on on X on Twitter and part of it said this,

he said, I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran, Iran pose, pose no

imminent threat to our nation.

And now if you just stop there, I mean, I think number one, that's the important thing.

And then he goes on to say, it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from

Israel and its powerful American lobby.

So there's like the sort of anti-Semitic piece of the maga American first, America first

wing floating around in there.

But even so, and acknowledging that him coming out and saying there was never a threat

and so forth is really significant and probably me, I think probably the highest profile

sort of thing like this that's happened so far in the most direct sort of shot at the

Trump administration and their rationales for this.

And he got the typical administrative dismissals, you know, from the Trump administration.

Donald Trump said this, he said, when somebody is working with us that says they didn't think

Iran was a threat, we don't want those people.

They're not smart people or they're not savvy people.

I'll just point out like Trump appointed the guy, right?

And this is like standard Trump thing that I don't understand how the Trumpers don't

get bothered by this that every time one of his hand-chosen people like does something

that he doesn't like, he says that they were idiots and dumb and bad at their jobs and

you're like, dude, you're the one who appointed them.

But the standard dismissals and I think on one hand, you know, it's a further challenge

the administration.

But I think by now, everything's in kind of plain sight.

I think it's really, really clear that there was no clear rationale for this.

They have not been able to articulate one.

There was no clear end game like, you know, here are our set objectives.

And when we achieve these, we're done.

There clearly wasn't planning for contingencies like the straight of hormones and everybody

has talked about this and Trump is still trying to get people and other countries to come

in and help and so forth.

So I think it's significant, there's this kind of high-profile defection and then it

feeds into like, you know, we talked about whether or not there's really fragmentation

in MAGA about Iran.

And so what does he do?

He goes straight on to Tucker Carlson and, you know, he valorizes Charlie Kirk.

He floats a, you know, kind of conspiracy theories that Charlie Kirk was assassinated because

he opposed military action in Iran.

So I think there's a lot of interesting pieces there I think in terms of like revealing

anything new.

It confirms what most, I think most observers, including Mike Johnson and including most

Republicans know, which is that there was no clear rationale for this.

There was certainly no rationale for why now.

And when I say that, if you're the Republicans right now, you've got to be asking like, why

did this not happen in like October or November, like, like, get past the midterms and then

do what you want or whatever because this is a huge distraction, you know, from that,

on and on and on.

So it was, it was really interesting and really telling, but also I think not revealing

in that sense.

Yeah, a couple of points here.

One is, I, I, last week we asked a question, is there really a split in MAGA over Iran?

And again, there's poll numbers.

Again, there is popular sort of sentiment on the ground and that I think is ever changing

and, and we have to kind of ever monitor it.

But this is to me a kind of sign.

When you start to see people like this resign, now, Joe Kent is somebody who ran, is, is

from the Pacific Northwest is, is kind of Portland, born, makes his way over the, the river

to Southwest Washington, runs for Congress and loses in an upset twice.

He lost and then he went again and lost to Maria Glucon, sound Perez, who is the person

who made some waves recently for voting for funding for ice as a Democrat.

A lot of people frustrated with her, but she's the one who beat Joe Kent in the third

district of Washington.

He lost that first matchup with her for many reasons, but one of them was he was ultra maga

and he went on Nazi adjacent podcasts.

So that sort of tipped it over the edge there.

So this is not Mitt Romney.

This is not Adam Kinzinger.

This is not, this is, this is, this is, this is who this guy is.

However, I did mention that he lost his wife to war in the military and military service.

So I'm not going to sit here and I don't know.

Is this a play?

Is this publicity?

Is this him looking past Trump to sort of align himself with the Tucker Fuentes America

first wing that is growing in maga?

Is this him acting on principle?

Like, I know what war is and I cannot support this.

I'm not going to let Americans die in war.

I don't know.

What I do know is that it's, it's one more thing, one more sign of at least some internal

division.

Okay.

So I think that's, that's number one.

Number two, I, we've talked on the last couple of weeks about the death of expertise.

This is an administration that views expertise as an incumbrance, something that slows down

men of action who act without thinking, who don't need others.

They don't need to invest in relationships, nah.

Joe Kent was running for Congress and lost.

Trump said he's amazing.

I love this guy on March 17th.

He said like this on three days ago on, on St. Patrick's Day, I always thought he was

weak on security very weak.

It's a good thing.

He's out.

My Johnson.

I don't know.

Yeah.

Good thing you said he was the best thing ever when he was running for Congress.

Moreover, my Johnson says, I don't know where he's getting his information and it's like.

I've now reached a place, I, if I zoom out, Dan, and, and this is going to feel like

a 30,000 foot kind of perspective, it's just really disheartening to live in a world where

there is so much misinformation that someone like Mike Johnson can basically say about

one of the top counter terrorism and, and other officials in the country.

Yeah.

I don't know where he's getting his weirdo information.

It's like he's getting them from classified info, Mike.

That's his whole job.

He appointed him like the president appointed him to get information that is highly sensitive,

classified, and to analyze that so that he can advise the president on what we should

do in cases like Iran.

So to just say, well, I don't know where he's getting the information is such an indication

of like, well, if somebody disagrees with you, either say their weak or say, well, their

information's bad and I did my own research, I have my own facts and this is what it is.

And here's Mike Johnson sort of just peddling that line.

It's really disheartening to live in that kind of world.

There is a world where this would have mattered.

It would have mattered when Nixon or Bush or Reagan or Clinton were president that a top

official like that basically comes out and says about the president's war, you know what?

There's no rationale for it.

There was no threat.

I have all the info.

I'm the guy that was hired to do the job.

And you know, there's no way for us to justify that.

So I think that's a takeaway for me.

I do want to talk about what he said about Charlie Kirk, but any other thoughts here on Kent

and his resignation and what it means within MAGA.

Just like one really basic thing, about that 30,000 foot view thing, but like, it's really

weird.

And every now and then I'll get a student who will ask this, she's probably like all

the Christian nationalism and blah, blah, blah, blah, like, yeah, and like, what is

that?

And when they lay it all out, they're like, so like does it bug them to lie like all the

time?

And you're kind of like, yeah, there is that, there is that basic like, you know, I don't

know the nobody wears their Christian, their good old Southern Christian identity on their

sleeve like Mike Johnson does.

And the dude is an inveterate liar like for a living.

That's all he does is lie and spin ship or Trump.

And I don't know.

It's just another thing that's like maybe so been all we're so far past it at this point

that like, it's, it's maybe not that no worthy, but it's just it really is sort of bizarre

too.

And, you know, people sometimes ask like, I don't know, was the Christianity you grew

up in different?

And I'm like, well, like, one like we were supposed to be honest and stuff like that was

a thing.

But yeah, just the constant disinformation and misinformation and just open, bald face

lying and deception is, yeah, it's disheartening.

So Joe Kent does say in his interview and I don't, I'm actually not going to play the

clip.

And I, I was thinking about it.

He says that he was prevented from investigating Charlie Kirk's murder now.

And the FBI wouldn't let him in this kind of stuff.

So I, you know, I don't know.

It's hard because on one hand, there is part of me that thinks that that rings true.

There's another part of me that's like, there's a lot of, as you said, Dan, there's a lot

of wink, wink here to anti-Semitic America first, Maga, who's like, or, or whatever

it's called because he's basically saying.

He's going somewhere that Tucker really wants to go, which is that Israel, order to hit

on Charlie Kirk.

He wants it.

There's sort of giving feel to that fire that the Nick Fuentes and Tarko Carlson's want

to, want to stoke.

And so anyway, that's what he said.

Let's just, before we take a break and go to the Talleriko Christian assassination stuff

from this week, let's go to this fact.

Donald Trump and Pete Hexeth want $200 billion for this war in Iran, okay?

And here's, here's Pete Hexeth explaining why we need that.

$200 billion, I think that number could move, obviously.

It takes, it takes money to kill bad guys.

So we're going back to Congress and our folks there to ensure that we're properly funded

for what's been done, for what we may have to do in the future.

Ensure that our ammunition is, everything's refilled and not just refilled, but above and

beyond.

As he said, rebuilt the military in his first term, didn't think he'd use it as dynamically

in his second buddy had.

So thank goodness he did that.

And an investment like this is meant to say, hey, we'll replace anything that was spent.

And now that we're reviving our defense industrial base and rebuilding the arsenal of freedom

and cutting deals like our great deputy secretaries here is doing, long lead times on exquisite

munitions, we're going to be refilled faster than anyone imagined.

And I think, you know, we're also still dealing with the environment that Joe Biden created,

which was, which was depleting those stock holes and not sending them to our own military,

to Ukraine, which is when every time we reach back and look at any sort of a challenge

we have, it goes back to, well, send it to Ukraine.

Ultimately, we think this should be these munitions are better spent in our own interests

at this point.

And this kind of funding bill is going to ensure that we're properly funded going for it.

We'll take out what's going on.

Dan, he literally says it takes money to kill bad guys.

And we're going to refill our ammunition.

There's just times, man, like when you look at, when you look at this around war and Trump,

or you listen to petexf talk, you're like, I know that these guys are narcissists.

They have plans and schemes to get power.

They are manipulative and smart.

And they're, they're hungry ghosts like nature for power makes them smart in a way that

it allows them to strategically conquer others, okay?

I don't think you can just say Donald Trump, what a stupid person.

Well, he's clearly conned the whole world, his entire life.

He is smart in ways that are insidious, petexf, say, crafty, right?

And there's, it doesn't mean that he's virtuous.

It doesn't mean that he's wise.

But you can't tell me that there's not ways that he hasn't found to conquer the world

with no repercussions.

But there's other times when you listen to hexes say this, it takes money to kill bad guys.

And we're refilling our ammunition like it's a water, it's like my kid's water bottle

or my gas tank.

Watching this clip, I was like, this is one of the stupidest moments to be alive ever.

And I want you to comment on that.

And then here's what Mother Jones, great piece, appreciate Tim Murphy, Jeremy Shulman,

Yineo.

Here's what 200 billion could get us.

You ready?

2.8 million public schoolteacher salaries.

Man, I would love it if we just sent 200 billion to public schools.

378 years of federal public broadcasting.

500 more White House ballrooms, Donald, if you're listening, you can get a much more of those if you want it.

Four years of fully funded NIH National Institutes of Health.

Let's see here, 16.9 TSA budgets.

200 years of free New York City buses.

How are we going to afford that?

Who knows?

247 consumer financial protection bureaus.

I know you're interested in this, and 1.4 billion pairs of floor-shime shoes for men like Marco Rubio to wear.

Okay.

6.6 years of fully funded school lunches for every kid in America.

Not just kids who are underprivileged, but every kid, rich kids, billionaire kids, whoever.

Okay.

Three years of dental coverage, as part of Medicare, 1.4 years worth of annual ACA subsidies.

90% of Americans roughly 220 billion in medical debt.

Those are all the things 200 billion could get us.

I sometimes think that we need to expand and not allow reductive analysis and narratives

to take hold in our public sphere.

And then sometimes I think there's so much information and misinformation that we have to compress.

And I just want to compress something for everyone, Dan.

Donald Trump is stealing from you.

He is stealing your country.

I know that the Republicans and Maga and Trump want you to think that immigrants and trans

people and Muslims are stealing your country.

He is literally stealing your country.

And I'm not saying literally in the sense of like, you know, the character from Parks and

Rec who doesn't know what literally means, Rob Lowe.

I mean, literally they are taking your money.

They are taking your taxpayer money.

They are giving it to themselves and they are using it on wars to kill others.

Wars that have no purpose and make no sense.

They are stealing from you.

They are stealing your health.

They're stealing your education.

They are stealing your wellbeing.

They are stealing your safety.

They are stealing your way of life.

That is what they're doing.

They are stealing from you.

All right.

200 billion Pete Hegseth.

Any thoughts on this stuff?

Yeah.

I mean, I don't think we've used this term for the Trump administration for a while, but

it still holds and it's just nihilism.

Like Hegseth revels in death that he does, man, like, that's all it is.

Like you listen, listen.

I mean, people can go and listen.

Things he's ever said about the militaries.

It's amazing.

It comes in.

It's all lethality and killing and we're going to get like get rid of like the parts of

the jag core that aren't directly about like basically giving legal cover for military

operations and just sort of on and on and on and on.

It's just like lethality and killing and death and destruction and that's what the military

is supposed to be.

Everything that's considered quote unquote woke for him that he wants out of the military

basically like everything that is at narrowly focused on killing people, right?

That's all the military is for him.

He's one of those people that like probably gets super upset that you have like navy

hospital ships that are sent on humanitarian missions, you know, and things like that.

Like that's that's this guy and you pair that with Trump for whom the military is just

a bunch of toys.

It's just like that's why he wants his parade on his birthday.

I just want to see the military go by because like look at all of our planes and look

at all of our jets and you know, that's all it is.

These toy soldiers to him, it's not real lives hours or anybody else's.

And so like all of that that callous disregard not just callous disregard for life, the celebration

of death.

That's what I'm just going to say.

It's just the nihilism of this and to take that long list that people compile of like

all the let's call them the things that could be done to provide life to provide flourishing

to make lives better for people.

Yeah, when we tie a few themes in here and we talk about that, you know, the culture

of life language that the right likes to use now is a culture of death.

We want $200 billion to go blow more stuff up just so we can.

There's no we've talked about.

There's no reason for it.

There's no rationale that's given for it.

There's no end point to it.

Hegs set just wants to kill people and Trump just like using the military and hiding

from the Epstein files and the other things that this does for him.

And I think all of that just comes through in this this kind of culture of death and nihilism

that I think is at the heart of the Trump administration.

I agree.

I agree with you about Pete Hegseth.

I think for a lot of us, it's really hard to think ourselves into someone's shoes who's

understanding of like what is good and exciting because there's people in this world like Hegseth

for whom death is actually exhilarating.

And I think for me, I'll just speak for myself.

I think a lot of people agree with me.

It's really hard to put myself in shoes where I'm like going to bed at night where I'm

like, you know what, felt great today?

We just killed a lot of people.

That was fun.

Had a good time.

Really excited about it.

Enjoyed watching the videos of it, a really gory, morbid, disgusting destruction of flesh,

just really into that.

Yeah.

Can't wait to do it again tomorrow.

I just, it's really, you don't, you ever feel alive, Dan?

You don't like, you ever feel just like, you ever, you ever have moments where like something

feels really good.

You go whitewater rafting or bungee jumping or you see an old friend or you run a marathon

or you Dan Miller's case, you bench press like 700 pounds or whatever it is, you know,

what I think you're saying about Hegseth is true and it's, it's actually really terrifying

and we'll get into this in a minute about why it's really terrifying.

But anyway, I think that's right.

So we're going to take a break and we're going to come back and talk about Pete Hegseth's

pastor.

Okay?

And this is a perfect segue, Dan, it's like we planned it, you know, that Pete Hegseth

really into death.

Well, Pete Hegseth's pastor, Brooks Pottager this week was on a podcast where he and his

podcast host talked about James Taylor Rico needing to die.

And maybe that would be what God wants.

We'll be right back.

This week Brooks Pottager, Pete Hegseth's pastor, the man who runs a church that Pete Hegseth

moved his family to Tennessee in order to attend.

That guy went on Joshua Haymes's podcast to talk about James Taylor Rico, the Senate

candidate from Texas, who is in a vowed Christian and is now an obsession of the American

right of Christian nationalists because he has made Christianity his brand as a politician.

So here is Pottager and Haymes talking about James Taylor Rico and why God needs to kill

him.

Public enemies, these are the orcs at the gate.

You are not called to love the barbarian horde that is planning to break into your city

and, you know, pillage, ponder rape and mutilate you and your people.

You don't love that horde.

That is your enemy.

And you pray.

This is where you have imprecatory Psalms.

This is where you pray strongly.

The psalmist is not shy.

God.

Destroy them.

Long on the ground, right?

So but Madison and I were talking about that.

And so I say, even in the debate, I think you might have seen it, but that I had on campus

the other day, I pray that God kills him ultimately.

That means killing his heart and raising him up to new life and Christ.

That's the first thing.

We want him crucified with Christ.

That's exactly right.

I want him to be, I think, a Saul of Tarsus, a Rico of Tarsus.

Yes.

That's what I wanted.

Who would say I was holding the garments while they stoned Stephen.

And now I'm the, yeah, that's what we want.

Yes, we want death and new life, right?

And if it would not be within God's will to do so, stop him by any means necessary.

Oh, God.

Dan, potager and Haynes here basically say, we really want God to crucify him and kill

him in Christ.

So he will be raised from the dead.

He'll be born again.

Okay.

But then right at the end, their Haynes is like, but, but, but if that doesn't happen, whatever

God will needs to do to stop him, we hope that happens.

Okay.

And if you're like, well, Brad, just come on, you're, you're reading to everything.

You're just, this is the cat.

There's no way he means that.

Come on.

Okay.

Let's just, let me look on the, the Twitter machine here, pulled up the Joshua Haynes Twitter

machine.

December 31st, 2024.

In the year of our Lord 2025, may God raise up a host of Godly Christian men like Stonewall

Jackson.

Okay.

Great.

He then followed us up with, he realized that God gave Moses, the law that God gave

Moses did not abolish slavery after the Exodus.

The institution itself is not inherently sinful.

Let's play a clip, Dan, of him saying this very thing, one we covered a few months ago.

The institution of slavery is not inherently evil.

I know some of you guys are upset by that.

Some of you guys are saying, I've been saying that for years.

Okay.

I'll take it a step further.

It is not inherently evil to own another human being.

I know.

Just wait.

Some of you guys are really upset, but let's talk through this because it is very important

that every Christian affirmed what I just said.

And not only should they affirm it, every Christian in today's society should be able

to defend what I just said.

Okay.

Every Christian should be able to defend it.

Big, Eva, big evangelicalism has been getting this wrong for years.

Basically, since the Genesis, since the advent of big Eva, they haven't had a good

answer for the slavery issue.

All right.

Christians in America have been led astray on this topic.

They've been led to believe things that the Bible doesn't teach.

And when we go beyond the Bible, there are dire consequences.

He goes on to say abortion is more wicked than slavery.

There were masters who truly loved their slaves and honored their humanity.

There are no babies who are thankful for being torn apart in their mother's room.

Whom, if you are pro-choice today, you would have almost certainly been pro-slavery

in the 1860s.

We have reached a place where Pete Hicks has passed her, a man with direct links to Doug Wilson,

a man who has been assigned to lead a church, Brooks Potter, in the heart of Washington,

DC, where Pete Hicks has the 10th church.

So everybody stop.

This is not a fringe pastor.

This is not a guy with no following.

This is not a guy that I dug up to cover with on this podcast, so Dan and I could have

some titillating material.

When Pete Hickseth goes to church Sunday, the guy that you just heard on the podcast

is the man preaching, okay?

To me, this is a direct outcome of a certain kind of theology, but I'll shut up, Dan.

Initial reactions to this whole idea that James Tyler Rico should be crucified spiritually

or physically if needed.

Yeah.

Part of what he does, it's weird.

There's this kind of like back and forth in his rhetoric, and people know I've been

talking about Josh Hawley's book.

He does the same thing.

He's the kinder gentler version, but the same kind of thing where you start with something

in the Bible that it's the whole, we need to be more aggressive.

The Bible is not nice.

God isn't always nice, like liberals think, or whatever.

So he sites what he calls the imprecatory Psalms, and for people who aren't familiar,

the Psalms are these like songs, like poetry written in the Hebrew Bible, and they cover

all kinds of things, but some of them are really, really dark and very violent and like

celebrating God, casting down people's enemies and punishing them and killing them in

grotesque ways and killing their children, killing their children, and just really pretty

tough stuff to kind of square morally with a lot of other people's understanding of what

Christianity is about.

So he's citing the imprecatory Psalms to do this whole like God, you know, God celebrates

or you know, people celebrate the death of God's enemies, and he says the calorie because

the enemy at the gate, the orcs at the gate, he's got some weird, you know, token stuff

in there.

These guys love, they love token, and the dehumanizing that comes with that and everything

else, this howling word of monsters at the gate.

But then like you get that little bit of a softening of it, because you can just hear

somebody be like, wait, wait, wait, wait, you're saying that we should kill him?

He's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, spiritually kill him.

It should kill his heart.

You get this reference to Paul who says I've increased the fight with Christ, and you

know, it's obviously a metaphor because Paul wasn't crucified, you know, and so like

they turn it into a metaphor to try to make it feel like maybe more spiritually acceptable.

So like they have this, the Psalms that are like really violent and then they're like,

oh, but we're making it a metaphor, but then at the very end, he can't let it go.

Like he can't just let it go, and Haynes kind of tries to, he's like sort of on this

way out.

Like we're we're outroing here, we're getting getting on our way out, and he's like,

yeah, but if it's not God's will, stop him by any means necessary, he's just going

to throw that out and be like, nah, I'm going to circle back around to the imprecatory

Psalms.

That's where we're really at.

And so it's this weird kind of serpentine movement, but I think it's, the reason it

stands out to me is I think it's typical of a lot of of the ways that the right wing

Christians talk, where they'll say these things, and then like you'll call them on it,

and they'll be like, what?

I'm talking like spiritually, what's your problem?

Like tea, you know, but if the spiritual part works, like it kind of this back and forth,

and I don't know if any of that is, is making sense because it's very, very slippery and

hard to kneel down, but I think it's a, it's a really defining feature of a way a lot

of those folks on the, on the right talk, and especially when they're citing the Christian

stuff, when they, they want to have enough wiggle room to say that they're being good

Christians and they're talking about spiritual things, but they're really just advocating

violence and political assassination.

It's basically what he calls for at the end of that.

If you think that this is isolated, it's not.

So here is a direct quote, worship is warfare.

That's Jared Longshore, the executive pastor of Christ Kirk, Doug Wilson's church in Idaho.

And he said this from the pulpit of their church plant in Washington, DC, likely with

Pete Hexeth and attendance, because that is where Pete Hexeth goes to church every

Sunday.

So worship is warfare, he says, now why, you know, why is this a big deal to me?

It's a big deal to me for a number of reasons, but I agree with everything you just said.

There's this wink, wink, nod, nod.

It's like when the fascist is like, oh, I was just kidding.

I was just joking.

It was a joke.

Trump was joking.

No, no, no, no, Elon didn't really give a Nazi salute.

God, you guys are ridiculous.

You guys have no sense of humor, OK?

But just like you hit on something, Dan, I think it's such a through line for today.

He's like Hexeth likes violence and death, OK?

And there is a sense among this crowd of Christian nationalists that just loves violence.

Doug Wilson talks about violence as sacred.

It's like a man's duty to engage in what he calls sacred violence.

One of the things that I've maintained for a long time is that, and so is Matthew Taylor.

If you lose to Matt Taylor's charismatic Ravaffiri, if you read his book, read any of

his work, he's really great on this.

When you emphasize spiritual warfare over and over and over again.

Oh, this is demonic.

Oh, that's demonic.

Oh, that's that that's a spiritual assault.

That's spiritual, you know, battle.

There's demons.

There's enemies of God.

There's bad spirits here.

And these guys talk about that all the time, OK?

Everybody in the Doug Wilson universe, along with the New Apostolic Reformation universe,

is very into spiritual warfare.

We have to pray out to demons.

CJ Engel, one of one of the other guys who's in this universe,

talks about how like Halloween lit like he's dead serious.

He's like Halloween literally unleashes demons on the earth because so many people

like dress up and engage in scary costumes.

And I mean, I have no idea what he would say, Dan, if he saw a picture of you going to

one of your metal concerts, man, who knows what he would talk about there.

Because they really think and advocate for this idea that we are always in warfare.

One of the, I mean, these spiritual head of patriarch, the progenitor of this, of

this tradition, R.J.

Rush Duny said that he thinks that thinking theology is warfare.

Either human thought recognizes God's sovereignty or does not.

And that's Michael McVicker, his biographer writing about R.J. Rush Duny.

Here's my point.

I think it's a point we made on the show a bunch of times, but I think it's worth making

again today.

When you talk about your political or cultural nemices as demonic, when you treat them as

orcs, when you treat them as like enemies of God who have spiritually possessed by different

demons, you are really, really, really at the erasers edge of advocating for them being

hurt or killed in actual warfare.

Like you're just one step away, okay?

So if you listen to the Christian nationalist, you will hear Erica Kirk talk about things

that are demonic.

That's such a demonic thing.

She'll talk about that with people in the American left.

If you, I saw an interview with Candace Cameron Burr, this is really sad.

Damn, do you know how sad my life is?

This is my algorithm.

Candace Cameron Burr is like the Christian actor, like the daughter, daughter, the sister

of Kirk Cameron, you know, growing pains, anyway.

They're like very Christian.

And she went on a podcast recently and like told the host, oh yeah, my husband and I

got tricked into going to an SNM party.

Sure you did.

I love this story so much.

It's like, oh, Josie called and said she wanted to go get a shake shack.

You know, we ended up in a dungeon or she's everywhere.

It was just not what I, what I really planned for, for our Thursday.

But she, she says in this like interview, oh, I went down to this like dungeon and there

were people doing things and it was just demonic, okay?

And don't get me wrong.

I have no idea what she saw.

I hope no one was being abused or being hurt on, you know, in ways that they blah, blah,

blah, blah, blah.

But when you talk about people as demonic, you're justifying treating them not as human.

Let me say that again, you right?

When you, when you say somebody is demonic, you're justifying treating them as not human.

And if you don't have to treat them as human, then you can say, well, it's okay if they

get hurt or killed or maimed as, as Pete excess is like, give me 200 billion dollars.

I just want to kill as many people as I can because that's what God wants.

And in this case with Talleriko, like these guys are like, well, he's an enemy.

He's God's enemy.

He's, he's clearly God's enemy.

So we hope that he is spiritually dies and crucified and is born again.

But if that doesn't happen, well, we'll see maybe God has to stop him another way.

Who else does that apply to, Josh Haymes?

Who else does that apply to?

Does that apply to every immigrant trying to cross the border?

Every person who's fleeing violence in their home country, who is trying to get his

islam, every refugee who has to leave a place because the US was involved in a war there

and made their life un insecure?

Who else?

Is that every person who advocates for abortion or gets an abortion?

Is that every, is that every person who doesn't worship your God in the way you want?

Talleriko is a Christian and you still want this to happen to him.

What about Mom Donnie?

What about Buddhist, Hindus?

What about people who don't, who don't worship any God?

Like this rhetoric leads there.

It goes from, oh, yeah, maybe, maybe God needs to stop him, wink, wink, wink,

clever mustache guy on a podcast.

And then it goes to, like if you see Josh Haymes, he looks, he looks like a, like a hipster

from 2012.

You don't like the, it's like he like, you know that his closet has like a suspender

corner?

Like there's like, it's not, he doesn't have, there's no way he's not wearing pattern

socks.

No, yeah, there's pattern socks and then there's definitely a whole section of the closet

for the suspenders.

It's not just he has a pair.

It's like, okay.

He only drinks out of like Mason jars.

Anyway, it's okay.

Whatever.

Oh, the memory is Brad, the memories.

I only drink Moscow mules and I only drink them out of Mason jars, okay.

This rhetoric goes from, oh, yeah, maybe God needs to stop Taloriko, wink, wink,

to, oh, maybe God needs to stop Muslims and Jews, atheists, people, women who get abortions,

refugees, everyone who's against God's chosen people, all the orcs that to gate.

Anyway, Dan, further thoughts on this?

Well, just, so if you come further down, so you've got, let's call like the leading lights

of the main figures in this and they talk about the spiritual warfare and so forth.

And I can hear somebody saying, okay, I get it, I hear it.

They talk about that.

It's scary, it's bad, whatever.

But not everybody out in the audience actually takes it that way or not every church that

talks about spiritual warfare is being this kind of militant or kind of literalistic about

it or whatever.

And I've talked to my brother-in-law who uses this language and I've said, you know,

do you really think this?

He's like, you know, it's at the end of the day, it's a metaphor.

It's a way of speaking.

Of course, I don't hate people.

Of course, I don't want to exercise violence against them and so forth.

And you'll hear that kind of thing, that kind of dismissal of it of, you know, it's just

a figure of speech or it's just, you know, just using biblical language.

Or whatever.

And the trick that's always there is, okay, but like, even if you do that, why that metaphor?

Like why that metaphor?

Why not?

I don't know.

Some other way of viewing the people that you disagree with.

I don't know.

We don't call them our debate opponents.

We don't call them the competitors on the opposing team, you know, or something like

that.

You know, I'm a football fan and like, teams can really hate each other.

You don't usually call each other demons or orcs or like whatever.

They recognize that, you know, they're the opponent, but they don't like have to hate

them or dehumanize them or maybe they want, you know, whatever, you get the point.

I think it's really significant because again, it's easy, I think, for people to take

the critique that you're making and that I completely agree with of the people who use

this language and kind of box it off and say, well, yeah, those, those people are

extremists though.

But the Bible uses the language of spiritual warfare and when regular people do that, they're

not saying that, they're just, they're just using a biblical metaphor that helps them

like express something spiritual or something.

And that's my point is that the metaphor still matters.

You're still like, okay, so why that metaphor?

Why that image?

Why not something else?

And if some, and next time somebody comes to me, like, I just, I don't know how many times

in my life, I've heard the fact that it's in the Bible is a justification for the metaphor.

But it's in the Bible that cool to start reading a different book, like find a different

metaphor, like do something else, like the metaphor sucks unless you want to revel in

violence and dehumanize people and legitimize their death and their destruction and make

that a part of your, your spiritual vision, which is exactly what these folks want to

do.

Well, I want to, I want to bring in something that may feel like it's, it's going a field,

but I actually think it's directly related to the steam today of, we are led right

now by men who revel in violence, not in democratic dialogue, not in negotiation, not

in working together, not in trying to help when they can.

Rand Paul went directly at Mark Wayne Mullin in his Senate confirmation hearing this week

about the fact that Mark Wayne Mullin challenged people to violence in the Senate chamber,

which we've talked about already on this show.

But Mark Wayne Mullin also talked about how when Rand Paul was like hurt and, and beat

up, supposedly by his neighbor, that Mark Wayne Mullin said it was great and, you know,

he left, he basically laughed at Rand Paul and, and made fun of him.

And Rand Paul was like, I, I'm sitting right here, say it to my face.

And Mark Wayne Mullin was like, well, this is character assassination.

And Rand Paul's like, I'm just reading your words.

What do you, what are you talking about?

But what's the point of that?

Rand Paul's comments on Mark Wayne Mullin as the leader of DHS or like, we cannot have

a man leading ICE agents who thinks that there is no check on violence.

How can you ask ICE agents to act appropriately with people?

How can you ask law enforcement to not use excessive force, to not shoot people in their

car through a window when you have the man in charge of DHS who is challenging people

to fights in the Senate chamber.

There's no way for us to have a functioning law enforcement with the, but this is who's

who's in charge.

Pete Hexeth takes money to kill bad guys.

His pastor goes on a podcast where the host is like, we might need to, James Salarico

may need to die.

Cash Patel is like, there's a historic opportunity for our FBI to be trained by UFC fighters.

Okay.

Yeah, that's, ah, yeah, yeah.

Okay.

Like we, this is who we are led by.

They're stealing from you.

And they have no interest in anything, but if you disagree with them, violence is the

answer.

That is where we are at this moment.

I just want to make sure we all see that and, and, and understand that this is a pattern.

Mark Wayne Mullin, Pete Hexeth, Donald Trump, Cash Patel, like, this is what this administration

wants to do.

So all right.

Let me give you a couple, just a couple more quotes.

I just wanted to drive home this point and then I'll leave it alone.

Drew Isker, also part of this whole kind of theobro, says, you must learn what to hate.

That's a direct quote.

Joel Weben, another part of the Doug, Doug Wilson universe, Josh Haynes universe, they

hang out together.

I want Christians to have power and with that power, I want it to be wielded righteously.

What does that mean?

It means crushing our enemies and rewarding our friends.

CJ Engle also hangs out with them.

This just goes back to the whole Jewish question with the Joe Kent and Tucker Carlson.

The Jews as a collective have largely operated at odds with the old American wave life.

Who rooted as it is in European Christendom, European Christendom, meaning the way of life

were Muslims and Jews and infidels and barbarians were seen as an enemy that needed to be

approached with violence.

That's where we are.

Okay.

Let's take a break.

We'll come back and talk about the Christian nationalism piece at the Atlantic that I talked

about earlier this week.

We'll let Dan chime in and really reflect on why it matters.

Be right back.

All right.

Dan.

Can I throw something at you that we did not prepare for?

Yes.

Throw away.

I got to get it out of my system.

One of the things that the American right is obsessed about right now is a quote from

James Talleriko where he said God is non-binary.

Okay.

I just want everyone out there to have the tools to respond to that at the barbecue this

weekend.

So when somebody's like, whoa, James Talleriko says, God's non-binary.

Come on, bro.

I want you to look that person in the face and say, please describe for me God's penis.

I want to, can you draw God's, if you can draw that for me or describe it, I would really

appreciate that.

And when they're like, come on, man, you quit being gross, that's God you're talking

about.

Then ask them what is a man and say, well, a man has an X and Y chromosome.

Okay.

Does God the Father have that?

No, yes or no.

Okay.

Do men have a penis?

They do.

Then show me.

In the Bible, where God's penis is described or pleased, draw it for me because I'd love

to understand how God's penis works.

There are descriptions of God's face, there are descriptions of God's hands in Exodus,

but there's not descriptions of God's penis.

So are those metaphors or not?

I mean, how come his hands are described in his head?

I mean, are you saying God's a man with no penis?

That's weird.

Because I've looked in the Bible, have not found no descriptions of the penis.

Can anyone either show me that or just tell me that God is a man with no penis, which

sounds like not a man?

Not a real man has, you would describe it.

Or maybe we just need to get away from the fact that God is male and this whole thing,

what do y'all think, man?

Like, either God has penis and you can't find it.

God has no penis.

Not a real man or this whole thing is silly and you're just an insecure little masculine

baby who can't deal with the idea that maybe the divine gender doesn't align with yours.

Okay.

I got it out, Dan.

If you want to respond, go ahead.

Otherwise, let's just take a moment and brief reflection and quiet time and reset.

What do you want to do?

I mean, you can go that direction.

You can also go, I mean, even with the other language, God's hands, you're like, well,

God is everywhere.

Yeah.

He's doing things everywhere all the time.

Everything that happens happens.

Yeah.

So like, how many hands does God have?

Like how, how anthropomorphic do we even want to make God?

Do they not end?

Like, are they infinite hands?

Yeah.

What kind of...

Can hands be infinite?

Yeah.

Kind of person, quote-unquote, is God if God is, you know, you're going to have this humanoid

description of God, then I don't know, Brad, I can't do everything with my hands.

I only have two.

I don't know how many humans typically have, like, as you're saying.

An infinite number of hands to be omnipresent doing things everywhere.

If that's true, then I don't know how many penises God has to have to, like, be symmetrical

and so forth.

The point is it's absolutely absurd, and that's the point.

It's, people get so worked up on these things, but if you probe it just a little, they're

like, oh, I don't know.

And then they'll be like, well, I don't know about all of that, but, and then they'll

just, you know, default to whatever their standard position is.

Are God's hands everywhere, yes or no?

Yes.

So God's hands are everywhere.

Okay.

It starts sounding like a Hindu deity, Brad.

It starts, yeah.

That's true.

This is getting.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

This is getting pantheistic.

No.

Do you just say pansexual?

I don't think so, dude.

Nope.

It's not what I said, Jimmy.

All right.

Calm it down.

James.

Are God's hands everywhere?

Yes or no?

Yes.

Great.

Is his penis everywhere?

Is God's penis here right now?

Can you show me where it is?

Guiding our meal?

Is it leading this prayer time?

I just want to know what is involved?

What parts of God's body are involved in the prayer time today, Jimmy?

His hands, his heart, his head, his testicles, his anus.

I'm just trying to figure it out.

Please.

Okay.

I just want to know.

That's directum.

Is that somewhere?

Okay.

All right.

I'm done, Dan.

I'm sorry.

Remember that whole seminary class on God's anus?

I do.

Oh, wait.

Yeah.

I don't.

I don't either.

That's okay.

At the Atlantic 10, 12 days ago, Heath Carter wrote a piece about Christian nationalism and

it was about how people should Americans stop, should stop using the term Christian

nationalism.

I did a whole episode about this earlier this week.

I've heard from a lot of people about that episode.

It stirred up a lot of interest.

I want to recognize from the start, Heath Carter is an American historian, has done a lot

of great work in the field.

This is not a chance for us to make fun of Heath Carter to personally attack Heath Carter.

I've no interest in that.

I don't know Heath Carter.

I've never met him.

I have interacted with him at times on social media and other ways professionally.

I'm not here to talk about Heath Carter in a personally denigrating manner.

This is a purely intellectual sort of situation where I highly and vehemently disagree with

what he wrote, but I want to give you Dan a chance to chime in.

So I'll summarize the piece and then you take it away.

It really says that James Taylor Rico and others from American history are also Christian

nationalists because they dream of a more Christian nation and they are Christians who want

power.

There are suggestions in the piece that people like Frederick Douglass or Walter Rauschen

Bush or any Christian who wants to build a society that more resembles what they would

take to be a Christian society are also Christian nationalists.

Therefore, Christian nationalism as a label does not make any sense and everyone should

stop using it.

To me, there are lines in the piece that are somewhat mocking of Taylor Rico as like he

says that it verges on irony.

The Taylor Rico is still against Christian nationalism when he's a Christian who wants

to have power as a senator.

I have said my piece about this.

I have way more thoughts, but I'll defer you.

You take it away.

What did you think of this and what were your issues with the piece or maybe you loved

it and you have no issue.

I don't know.

I want to reiterate what you said that this is not a not any kind of criticism against Carter

as a person.

I don't think I've ever met Heath Carter or engaged, but I think it's a really problematic

thesis.

I think there's a few fallacies that are going on here and I think I just wrote, as you

were saying this, I didn't even have this in my notes, but I just sort of noted this

that I could be interesting to hear a definition of what he thinks nationalism is, like just

nationalism because everybody who runs for political office is not a nationalist, desiring

to how to hold a political office does not make you a nationalist, like you need more

than just that.

So just being like, oh, a person is a Christian and wants political power, air go there are Christian

nationalists.

That doesn't, it doesn't fly.

But I think another part of the thesis, I think is just this, this sense that, and he's

not unique in this and what's interesting and for me problematic and I suspect maybe

for him problematic, I don't know, is that the logic that he uses here is the same in

some ways as some of the super right wing, and I'm going to say Christian nationalists,

where they'll come along and say, well, Christian nationalism isn't a thing, you're just trying

to tell people that they shouldn't bring their faith into the public sphere.

And if they do, you denigrate them, you bunch of secularist elites and so forth and you're

just trying to mock people or keep people out of the public sphere if they vote their

conscience or bring their Christian morality or whatever it is.

Alibeth Stuckey says that and lots of other people says to say that, people like Charlie

Kirk said that, you know, and Carter kind of says the same thing and I think it just doesn't,

it doesn't line up.

He also does this thing that's sort of interesting where he's like, he's like saying like, basically

I guess every committed Christian in American history who engaged in politics or social

activism out of their Christian identity is somehow a Christian nationalist.

I think that's the claim.

And I just think it's far too big a concept of Christian nationalism.

I think that's the concept that doesn't then have any bounds or have any coherence at

all.

He also seems to oppose qualifiers like he'll talk about how on some measures, and this

is true on some like survey data that you could get of like beliefs that people might

have about America and it's Christian heritage or whatever, lots of African American Christians

will answer some of the same things that like lots of white Christians will do.

And then he'll, you know, and he'll do things that I would do and say, well, okay, let's

talk about white Christian nationalism then, except he dismisses that.

He's like, well, that's just adding a qualifier or whatever.

But I'm like, okay, you know, your American religious history, the bifurcation of white

Christianity and black Christianity in this country goes all the way back to like before

the founding.

It's a fundamental defining feature of American Christianity is how it has been racialized

literally since the origins of the nation.

So yeah, if you want to distinguish it and say, okay, contemporary white Christian nationalism

or I just did it with contemporary, I've got no problem with like the qualifications.

So he does that weird thing that sometimes people do where they're like, well, you can't

use the term Christian nationalists.

It's too big and you're like, okay, well, okay, how about like contemporary white Christian

nationalism?

Oh, well, why are you qualifying it?

I'm like, I'm qualifying it because you just said that like there could be other forms

of Christian nationalism and that I should be aware of that.

So there's that sort of move.

But then what he highlights are some other things that I think just historically don't do

the work and needs them to do.

And this gets back around to that question of concepts like nationalism, populism, and

so forth.

So he talks about, you know, what we're known as, you know, the people that advocated

the social gospel.

This is like, say late 19th century into the early 20th century, I know you've talked

about this and others have talked about this.

You know, they supported, you know, things to help the poor and to alleviate poverty.

Many of them were sort of anti-capitalists.

They were more socialistic or social democratic in their economic thinking and so forth.

He notes the, what was called the federal council of churches and how they supported the

new deal and the things that came through out of this and so forth.

And basically he says essentially that these were sort of more politically left Christian

nationalists.

And I disagree with him and here's why number one, the federal council of churches and

it's later, you know, it's later ancestor of the national council of churches.

Those, what we're known as modernists, what would now be known as liberal Protestants,

they were much more ecumenical.

They were willing to work with Jewish Americans.

They were willing to work with like progressives who were not Christian or who didn't identify

as Christian.

They were very sort of eclectic in their alliances.

They were not defined by a narrow Christian identity.

And so if somebody says part of what makes Christian nationalism, Christian nationalism,

that's going to be a piece of it for me.

You're not a real American if you're not Christian.

That was absolutely not the position that they were advocating and many of them were explicit

that God didn't have a nation.

God didn't play favorites with nations.

That the kingdom of God as they envisioned it was transnational.

That it transcended all forms of nations and so like how do you have a nationalism that's

a transnationalism that says there's no such thing as nation.

God doesn't play favorites with nations.

At the same time, Christian conservatives at the time oppose the federal council of

churches.

Why for exactly that reason?

They were too open.

They were too ecumenical.

They felt they were giving up their Christian identity.

It's the same reason why conservative Catholics and conservative Protestants who drive

white Christian nationalism at present have always hated the national council of churches.

They say it's not Christian enough.

Excuse me.

They say it's not Christian enough.

It doesn't maintain its Christian identity.

It's too broad and so forth.

So I think all of those things just like undermine this notion that everybody who acts out of Christian

values in the public sphere is somehow a Christian nationalist partly because I think it is different

to say I as a Christian have a vision of what a good and just society would be and I'm

going to try to make my society look like that.

And saying this is a nation or society that God has chosen and only Christians can be

part of it and then you get the nationalist populist piece of it and I think that there's

a difference between populism which I've talked about a lot is about exclusively defining

who the real people are and it's about excluding and marginalizing others and a form of popular

Christianity which these were that were about expanding the services of the government.

They were about expanding and helping those they would yeah they would have said it's

our Christian vision.

We're going to serve the least of these and the poor and the oppressed and the downtrodden.

But absolutely not in a nationalistic or populistic way the contemporary Christian

nationalism.

So I think it's a real distinction.

I think it's an overbroad thesis to say that all all Christians who are engaged in politics

are Christian nationalists and yeah.

Here's why this got under my skin so much is that and I don't think Heath Carter intended

this but I do think it is happening is Ali Beth Stucky, William Wolf, vehement Christian

nationalists on the right are using this tactic.

Hey, James Taylor Rico is just a Christian nationalist but on the left he's more Christian

nationalists than us but nobody calls him that because Libra media and I think when you

read Carter's piece here you basically get the same sediment and it's really not helpful

in the current setting.

I'm not saying he's Carter meant to do that and I'm not saying he has any you know sympathy

for those people and just saying that's what happened here.

Here's why we can we can I can pick this apart.

I got three more hours and you know my wife will tell you that I just you know once my blood

gets going it takes my while to come down but here's what really matters at the end of

our episode today.

James Taylor Rico is a Christian who does not believe a couple of things you ready.

Here's a couple of things I do not think he believes.

I can't speak for him but examining so much of his statements here's what I have taken

away.

He does not think you need to be a Christian to be a real American.

He does not think you need to be a Christian to be a good person and he does not think

that there should be a distinction in the ways that Christians love, care for, treat others

depending on if they are Christian or not.

Meaning if you elect him as senator or state rep, he does not think you need to be a good

person to be a Christian, a Christian to be a real American and he's not going to treat

you differently because you're not a Christian.

That is the exact opposite of all the other Christian ashes we've talked about today.

They say if you're not a Christian, you can't be a good person, you can't be a real American

and we might need to punish you or you might need to die according to what we talked about

earlier.

The Democrats cannot win and I know some of you are atheistic, agnostic and humanists

out there and I just I hope you'll hear me for a minute.

We have too many Christians in this country.

But de facto, I'm just describing, we have so many Christians in this country, the democratic

party cannot win unless it appeals to people of faith.

I'm sorry.

Doug Padgett came on the show and we disagreed on some stuff, but I think Doug is absolutely

right about that.

The Democrats don't have religious groups at their convention.

They don't have booths.

If you go to the RNC, they're everywhere.

I would argue James Tyler Rico is the only national profile Democrat in decades whose brand

is Christianity.

I don't know if you agree with that, but like, I'm not saying he's the only Christian.

So don't don't don't email me, okay, don't.

I will not answer that email.

Joe Biden, Christian, Pete Buttigieg, Christian, okay.

Like where I fly a war knock, Christian, all Christians, yes, their brand is not Christianity,

their brand is something else.

Tyler Rico is different because that's his brand and you might be like, well, I'm a humanist,

I'm an atheist.

I don't want to vote for a Christian and it's like, okay, then what are we doing?

This is a democracy.

I have a really complicated history with Christianity.

I want to vote for people who think that we can work together to create human flourishing.

I want to vote for atheosagnostics, humanists.

I want to vote for Hindus and Muslims, Buddhists and Christians.

That's what it means to live here.

So if we're not going to do that, then I don't know what we're doing.

And if this is the guy that's running on this kind of, you know, ticket and he's able

to do something then I think you and I can sympathize with so much, which is use theological

language to destroy his, the arguments of his Christian opponents.

Like Biden rarely takes on other Christians using theology.

Buttigieg, he's really good rhetorically, but it's usually about transportation or budgets.

When Tyler Rico speaks, he's like, here's why from a Christian theological perspective,

posting the Ten Commandments on the classroom wall, is on Christian.

And it's really hard to argue with him because he's stoked, theologically astute.

We haven't seen that in forever, Dan, right?

So when Heath Carter published this, I was like, this doesn't help.

And it, one of the things that I think folks outside of the Northeast Ivy League bubble

need to realize is like when the, the Atlantic is seen as like a sweater vest bow tie magazine

by most people, Princeton is seen as a sweater vest bow tie university filled with white

Anglo-Saxon Protestants.

So when you write stuff like this, it feels like you're looking down on the rest of us as

like the Hoi Poloi masses who are trying to do like what we can with what we've got.

And Tyler Rico is not Mr. Dead Handsome rolled up my sleeves beddo, you know, he's not dripping

with sex appeal beddo.

I don't know.

Maybe that's just me.

I'm like, we're feeling how I feel about beddo.

I don't know.

Okay.

He's like a Jimmy Carter.

You ever look at a picture of Jimmy Carter and James Tyler Rico, so by side, they look

like he looks like his son.

It's kind of, you know, I don't know if he's done 23 in me, but it's weird.

He kind of talks like Mr. Rogers and somehow he's the Texas them Senate candidate.

This is what we got.

Why are we like writing this stuff that doesn't help?

Anyway, that's why I got under my skin.

Any more thoughts here?

You want to go to Reasons for Hope?

Well, too.

You want to talk more about God's rectum?

I don't know.

Whatever you choose.

It's your choice or whatever.

I will say that the one point that the Carter makes that I agree with broadly is that

there is a segment in a, you know, sometimes in some places, a significant segment of people

on the left or a certain kind of intelligence here that are overly dismissive of anything

religious.

They have, they have are absolutely the religion is always oppressive, religion is always

people who are religious are always ignorant, people who are really, or whatever.

And it's, it's, it's not true and it's, it's also not helpful.

And I think, I think, I think that that is a point worth holding on to.

I don't think that that means that everybody who's Christian, who engages in politics or

something is a Christian nationalist.

And I, I think that just doesn't work.

And I, I think again, I, I absolutely agree.

I, I cannot imagine that the, the Heath Carter is like, oh, I hope this gets picked up by

people on the far right or something.

But it's, it's the kind of thing that will get cited by somebody when they want to look

academic and be like, oh, they did.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Free tweeted it.

I saw him.

Here's what the Princeton, here's what the Princeton professor said, because they're all

anti Ivy League until somebody in the Ivy League says something that they like or that

they can use.

And then they'll, they'll, they'll cash in on that.

I think one last point about this, and then I'll get to my reason for hope is Carter

also makes this point.

And it's one of these, these points, I don't actually know what it achieves where he says,

you know, you're not really upset about Christian nationalism, you just upset about that kind

of Christian nationalism.

Yeah, exactly.

Just to pose a certain kind of Christian nationalism, to which I'll be like, happily.

Yes.

Cool.

All right.

Let's say the Walter Roush and Bush is a Christian nationalist, we want to call him a Christian

nationalist.

Oh, okay.

I would rather have that kind of Christianity than whatever is peddled by all the other people

we've been talking about for the last hour.

I'm not sure what that criticism is really supposed to do, besides unless it's some sort

of weird both and kind of thing or like, you know, if they're Christians and you'd say

you don't hate all Christians, you have to have room for everybody.

Nope.

I don't.

And I think that that's like another problematic element to the piece.

My reason, excuse me, my reason for hope comes from the state of Washington, Brad, which

passed a law banning law enforcement face coverings.

And this was significant.

California tried to do this recently and it got blocked in court, but the reason it got

blocked in court was it specifically targeted federal law enforcement.

And the judge in that case said that it was essentially sort of discriminatory that you

couldn't like single out federal law enforcement.

Most people read that as kind of a pathway to saying, okay, like so we're just going to

ban face coverings of all law enforcement at all levels.

And that's what Washington did.

Several other states have similar legislation in the works and, you know, different stages

toward passage and so on.

This is obviously aimed at, it's aimed at ICE and the tactics and the terror and all

the other things.

And I thought that that was great to see that happen.

We've been kind of waiting to see where it would happen after the California law was blocked

because it was only a matter of time before, before it passed somewhere else.

We got a bunch of great reasons for hoping our discord.

So Nathan put in one about a week ago, Indiana judge says states abortion ban violates

religious freedom.

Yep.

So that's great.

One from Dawson, sorry, lost my place here.

The federal appeals court upholds the injunction against Montana's drag ban.

So there's a drag ban in Montana and the federal appeals court said, nope.

This is just from earlier this week, the last protestor in immigration detention after

Trump's campus crackdown, a Palestinian woman was released.

And so that is good news.

And there's one that I love and this is going to feel silly, but I just, I do love it.

I'll put this in our discord kids in hospital, help penguins, woo mates with painted pebbles.

So kids in the hospital are painting pebbles and it's part of like penguin Twitter

patient falling in love.

It's springtime.

Everyone needs to fall in love in springtime, including penguins.

And that's fun.

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Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

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Thanks, Brad.