Antisemitism, The Antioch Declaration, & Ogden

That meeting arose because the elders of our church sent a nine-page letter to the elders of Christ Church detailing our concerns with Pastor Wilson's involvement in and handling of the Joel Webben-Tobias situation , as well as his use of the May blog to damage the reputation of other faithful pastors , including Joel Webben .

Our goal in this was to clarify motives and actions taken by Doug and to give him a chance to respond before we said anything publicly . Our desire was to promote peace if possible .

Sadly , before and after our meeting , doug continued to attack the character of Joel , stephen Wolfe , eric and others whom he called pastorally inept in a May blog for failing to properly police what he calls Dankanons and for engaging in revoice for Nazis . More on that later . Doug confirmed in the meeting that he does in fact believe those charges are true .

Yesterday Doug released another blog post stating that quote Much like Revoice attempted to keep the door of flamer sympathy cracked open in the PCA . The leadership in Ogden continues to conduct a sympathetic bromance with the cancers of racial spite , malice , vainglory and pagan tribal hate . We believe these charges are reckless , uncharitable and false .

The bottom line is that we simply don't agree about the greatest needs of the hour , a fact which became clear over the course of our lengthy conversation .

While Doug and his friends believe that one of the greatest threats to the conservative movement right now is alleged anti-Semitism and Nazism , we believe it to be , on a much more significant scale , the subversion of our historically Christian and Protestant American culture , with the slow rot of Gramscian Marxism no-transcript from happening , by fomenting anti-Semitic rage

within the conservative movement . We simply disagree that this is a likely course of future events .

We don't see Jews in America suddenly turning from deeply ingrained political action like their support of transgenderism , political action like their support of transgenderism , lgbtq , open borders , free pornography , government censorship of social media and all the rest , to the politics of Christian conservatism , let alone Christian nationalism .

This to us seems like magical thinking on a near-absurd level . Even worse , it's not just that we disagree with the likelihood of this outcome .

It seems , rather , that anyone acting on the sincerely held belief that this is a highly likely outcome in the near future is in grave danger of being subverted , of living under a leftist gaze , tailoring their actions to ingratiate themselves with one of the most liberal groups in America . Has this kind of tactic worked in the past ?

Let's test this thinking with a recent example . 83% of black voters punched their ticket for Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election . This is consistent with their voting patterns in the previous three elections and beyond .

Over this time period , a huge amount of energy on the right was spent supporting DEI programs , hunting down white racism and virtue signaling to the black vote . Just a few examples of this would include Alabama Governor Robert Bentley's 2017 authorization to remove a plaque commemorating Jefferson Davis from an Alabama courthouse .

Republican Governor Tate Reeves' 2020 legislation retiring the Mississippi state flag for its inclusion of the Confederate battle emblem and Mitch McConnell's support for an initiative to rename military bases previously named after Confederate heroes . Did this turn the tide for Black voters ? Did they suddenly begin to vote Republican , softened by our national self-flagellation ?

Of course not , and politicians on the right who tried to pander to the black vote in this way only ended up aiding and abetting in the creation of a culture where men like Daniel Penny and Kyle Rittenhouse would be dragged through show trials for the crime of being white men in America who tried to do their duty .

Here's the problem with this tactic To embrace witch hunts for racism and anti-Semitism is to embrace the left's frame from the outset . All it serves to accomplish is the enforcement of leftist cancel tactics on the right .

So , to summarize , doug Nate and others in Moscow are convinced that the deep state is attempting to prevent Jews from teaming up with conservatives of what that means in the first place and otherwise make sure everyone knows that . We think all those people noticing things are probably feds sent by the deep state to keep the Jews liberal .

This belief is driving their online anti-Semitism witch hunt . We don't share that belief , and so we have behaved accordingly . Rather than accepting this leftist framing , we've instead opted to do what is often the most potent action one can take when faced with idols and their attendant blasphemy laws Make fun of them . False gods hate it when you make fun of them .

Now , none of this , of course , means that our behavior amounts to anything like a sympathetic bromance with the cancers of racial spite , malice , vainglory and pagan tribal hate . That is slanderous nonsense which we reject with prejudice . As just one example from a recent piece of alleged evidence of our raging anti-Semitism , doug points to a video I shared on X .

It was a Christian-themed montage , contrasting the hateful attacks of leftists against our Protestant and Christian heritage in America with moving scenes of Anglo-Protestant culture . One of the cuts in the video shows one such example of leftist perversion a brief scene cut from the 2005 black comedy slasher film Santa's Sleigh .

The conceit of the movie , written and directed by Jewish filmmaker David Steinman , is as follows After a millennium of spreading Christmas joy , due to losing a bet with an angel , santa Claus who in the movie is Satan's only son , by the way reverts to his demonic self and gives the gift of evil and fear .

Following this plot , the demon Santa then goes on a killing spree , murdering lots of people , including a Jewish guy with his own menorah . Now , to be clear , none of this violent stuff was in the video I shared . Instead , it was a brief cut from a scene where the demon Santa walks past a small group of men who are obviously Jewish .

In the montage I shared , this scene is immediately followed by a clip of actor and director Mel Gibson from a totally different movie , a scene where he looks back over his right shoulder as if he's noticing the clip that went before and giving it a knowing look . And now to the point what does this mean ?

Well , mel Gibson is quite famous for pointing out the Jewish subversion of Christian culture via the Hollywood film industry , or infamous , I suppose , depending on who you ask . Anyway , put the two scenes together and the point is obvious . We see what you're doing , Jewish Hollywood , and we won't let you get away with it .

Christmas belongs to Christ , not blood soaked Jewish slasher films aimed at blaspheming him and subverting American culture to leftism . Doug's summary of this clip was , let's just say , different . Here is his conclusion about the lay of the land in light of the clip Quote .

We now find ourselves in something like that scene in Prince Caspian , when Nicobric and the Black Dwarves want to ally with ghouls and witches and Jew-killing Santas Like Truffle Hunter and Trumpkin . We won't do it . What fellowship does light have with darkness ? 2 Corinthians 6.14 .

There it is , guys , because I shared this video and think it made an important point about our culture and the battles of our time . I'm Nickabrick , the black dwarf , who wants to resurrect ghouls and witches in necromantic ceremony . I am allied with Jew-killing demon Santas .

While it might seem like the charity is about as dried up as it could possibly be at this point , doug ends with a dark prophecy over our little town , church and publishing house .

Quote within a few years , ogden will have either fully succumbed and been torn apart by the poison they are currently declining to resist , or , by God's grace , they will eventually stand and fight and triumph over this toxic nonsense . In the latter case , if and when that time comes , we will rejoice to have gained wiser and more battle-tested allies . End quote .

It's hard to resist the conclusion that to Moscow , unless we agree with them on their read of the political landscape , their theory of the Jewish vote , their definition of the Jewish vote , their definition of antisemitism , the propriety of sharing or not sharing , campy white boy summer memes , basically all of their views all the way down the line .

Then we are poison drinking knaves teetering at the edge of the abyss . We are deep state stooges feasting on toxic nonsense . The only solution is to flee to the safety of their positions on all these things . The simple problem is that we don't agree with that either . We think there's plenty of room for nuance , disagreements and all the rest .

On basically all of these issues we don't begrudge Moscow for their read , even if we think it's off . I literally don't care if Doug never wears pit vipers or chuckles at a white boy summer meme . Such a thing doesn't keep me up at night .

So if I might make a simple request at the end of these introductory remarks , it would be something like this how about we agree to disagree without the name-calling and prophecies of doom ? We recorded the episode that follows prior to our meeting in Moscow .

We had withheld its release in hopes that the tactics and issues we describe in what follows would be effectively addressed in private . In fact , our hope was that our concerns would be allayed and subsequently that the episode need never be released at all .

We believe we were fair and charitable in the episode , particularly in contrast to the name calling and , frankly , wild accusations of the aforementioned Mayblog . If you've followed us throughout this escalating war of accusations , epithets , debates over anti-Semitism and all the rest over the last months , you know that we've tried hard to avoid unnecessary brother wars .

This hasn't been easy , as accusations and epithets have been publicly attached to our names by several prominent leaders , but in consultation with our session , it seems necessary to exercise patience . However , in light of these continued and very much public attacks on our good names , we believe it necessary to release the episode now In what follows .

We hope you'll discover that , much to the disappointment of our assigned federal agents , we are neither Nazis nor men content to live under the leftist gaze . In this episode of the King's Hall podcast , we want to ask and answer three important questions why aren't we signing or supporting the Antioch Declaration ?

What is the vision for Christian nationalism we're promoting ? And , finally , what are we hoping will come from this episode ? We'll delve into those questions in just a moment , but first this is , after All , the King's Hall . We'll begin with a story . In 1925 , william F Buckley Jr was born in New York to a millionaire Texas oil baron .

He would receive the most lavish of upbringings thanks to his father's massive wealth , as the family occupied multiple residences in England , france and Connecticut . He received his early education from private tutors and an English all-boys school , then later a prep school in New York .

After a year of studies at the University of Mexico , buckley would serve three years in the US Army during World War II as a second lieutenant . After the war , buckley enrolled at Yale where he was a member of the secretive and all-powerful Skull and Bones Society , an odd group shrouded in dark mystery and cultic ritual . Founded in 1832, .

The secret society is also known as Order 322 and the Brotherhood of Death . Stories about the society abound , from rumors that they met in a tomb near campus to initiation rites that induced loud wailing and the drinking of blood from a skull , and even a fixation with the occult .

As for the meaning of 322 , it is said to be the date of Demosthenes' death , 322 BC , a man known for his brilliant intellect and political savvy . The society also worships Eulogia , the goddess of eloquence .

Its members , known as Bonesmen , have been connected to various conspiracy theories , largely because they have always formed an interconnected network of America's most powerful elites . Bonesman alumni include men like Buckley , george HW Bush , john Kerry and many others who have occupied roles in the State Department , white House , judiciary and CIA .

In 1951 , buckley signed on at the Central Intelligence Agency and worked in Mexico . While at the CIA , he published God and man at Yale and later the Road to Yenon , which told of a communist conspiracy to obtain world domination .

In 1954 , buckley wrote another book , this time defending Joseph McCarthy and his purge of communists Then a pivotal moment that would shape the landscape of conservative politics for decades . In 1955 , Buckley founded National Review , a right-wing journal with tremendous influence on the elite ruling class .

Because of his work at National Review , buckley would become a conservative icon . Later , in 1962 , buckley's column On the Right would appear in more than 200 newspapers nationwide . He would also serve as host of the PBS television show Firing Line . In the late 1960s , he supported Barry Goldwater and later launched Ronald Reagan into the political stratosphere .

Buckley met Reagan before he had entered politics and helped jumpstart his political career , first as governor of California , then for the presidency . Buckley's career was not without controversy , as he weaved together powerful relationships between an elite class of politicians , statesmen and the intelligence community .

For example , on September 18 , 1976 , a Chilean foreign ambassador was killed in a car bomb . Several of George HW Bush's agents were connected to the assassination and so , as director of the CIA , bush quickly sought to cover up the incident by spreading disinformation . Buckley also took part in the disinformation campaign .

In fact , he ran disinformation campaigns for Chilean factions as early as October 1974 , according to investigative journalist Donald Freed . He also discovered that Buckley's brother James had met with the assassin , michael Townley , a week before the assassination . Townley later confessed to the killing .

Buckley also played a somewhat controversial role as editor-in-chief at National Review because of the way he used his position to gatekeep the right , which led to his extremely public fallout with several of his longtime friends and writers .

One of those men was Joe Sobrin , who wrote for National Review for years but came into Buckley's bad graces because of his stance on Israel , critical of US foreign policy in relation to Israel . Sobrin was a decorated journalist , devout Roman Catholic commentator on CBS radio and regular columnist for the Los Angeles Times and Chronicles magazine .

He was also a media fellow at the Mises Institute . In 1993 , buckley took Sobrin to lunch and told him to stop criticizing Israel's domestic and foreign policies because Buckley said , quote , we need these people . End quote , referring to the Jews . Sobrin refused to budge on the issue , resulting in his abrupt and unceremonious firing .

Buckley reportedly returned to his office after their lunch and sent his old friend a fax informing him of his termination . What brought about Buckley's ultimatum was that Sobrin had written a column in which he said Buckley was quote jumpy about the Jews . He hadn't just touched the third rail of Jewish influence in America . Sobrin had grabbed it with both hands .

It would spell the end of his time at National Review Of the incident , sobrin later said quote , end . Quote . Once loyal friends and fellow Catholics . Buckley would indeed publicly smear Sobrin and Pat Buchanan , also a writer for National Review , as anti-Semites . It wasn't a new initiative for Buckley .

After starting the magazine , he took it upon himself to ensure that anyone critical of the Jews or a Jewish state would not be welcome in the conservative ranks . It became part of his key mission to root out those who'd taken the wrong side on Israel .

In the end , he would politically and economically destroy anyone who opposed pro-Israel foreign policy , including old friends . Although conservative , buckley was also squarely within the 1950s liberal consensus , or what has been lately called the post-war consensus .

Even as communism , with its death toll in the hundreds of millions , stood threateningly off to the left , buckley's conservatives also began to fear the re-emergence of a right-wing threat in the form of fascism with its attendant companions , religion and nationalism .

Buckley's anti-communistic bent was a major feature of the direction in which he ultimately took the conservative movement as a whole , and in this he would play a leading role in reducing the right to a monolith based not in true conservatism but in the left liberal consensus .

As long as someone was an avowed anti-communist or , more particularly , an anti-Stalinist or anti-Sovietist , buckley was generally willing to welcome them into the conservative ranks .

From the 1930s to the 1950s , the conservative movement was dominated by the old right , with its emphasis on opposition to the New Deal policies of FDR , the Federal Reserve and globalist intervention on the foreign policy front .

But then in the 1960s , with National Review , buckley started purging right-wing ranks of what he considered radicals , which largely meant the old right .

Buckley would in turn welcome Trotskyites , new Deal Social Democrats , truman , humphrey , liberals and others from the quota-loving , advanced , victimological left , and this group would become what we now call the neoconservatives .

As Murray Rothbard pointed out , buckley has effectively purged the conservative movement of the real right and allowed it to be taken over by enemies . Why did Buckley , the self-appointed pope of conservatism , do it ? After helping Reagan get elected in the 1980s , buckley was ready to take his movement to the real places of power in America .

To do this , he judged that conservatives had to rebrand themselves in a way that gained them respectability with liberal centrist elites . He was constantly concerned , for example , about what the editorial board at the New York Times thought of him .

As Paul Gottfried wrote , quote like many other American journalists , in the second half of the last century , buckley moved periodically to the left to remain relevant . He also moved in that direction during the second half of his life because of his extensive involvement in New York social life end quote .

Gottfried concluded with an anecdote from his interactions late in Buckley's life . He wrote quote as a final memory I recall my correspondence with Buckley in the late 1990s when he asserted that he had never changed his political or moral principles . I only wish that were true . End quote .

Buckley's strategic maneuvering was controlled effectively by the gaze of those to his left .

Rothbard explains quote Buckley was almost ready to take power in America , but not quite , because first all of the various heretics of the right , some left over from the original Society , all of whom represented that old right , the Birchers , were out not because they were anti-Semitic , as Buckley claimed , but because they opposed US intervention in the Vietnam War and

the global proxy wars in general . But it's also important to understand how these opponents of Buckley were attacked and where Buckley would dig deep into the left's playbook for his official excommunications . Again , rothbard writes quote .

They would trot out the old psychobabble as well as the old smears of bigotry , anti-semitism , the specter of Franco and all the rest . End quote . Most especially , they would accuse Buchanan of being psychologically unstable , full of negative emotions , including anger and resentment .

Buckley and the neocons managed to establish the notion that anyone to the right of them was , by definition , the representative of forces of darkness , of chaos , old night racism and antisemitism . Chaos , old night racism and anti-Semitism .

The basic method Rothbard went on was to divert attention from the content of the radical right message and direct attention instead to a personal smear of groups on the right . End quote Radicals on the right , buckley and others would claim suffered from what they called quote politics of resentment . End quote .

It's worth pointing out that the same strategy is in play today . Instead of engaging the arguments of the so-called radical right , liberal gatekeeping conservatives will charge that their opponents are seething with hatred or crackling with envy . Buckley chose the media as his battleground for the purge of radicals on the right . But why ?

Clearly Rothbard said because the media , especially the respectable and influential media , begin and continue with a strong left-liberal bias . End quote Virtually every conservative in the mainstream media is what Rothbard called an establishment liberal conservative .

The motivation Rothbard returns to time and again for Buckley is respectability and , through it , access to mainstream platforms and power .

Of Buckley's role in policing and purging the right , john Miller wrote in National Review quote in his pivotal role as doyen of the American right , buckley ensured that anti-Semites had no place in the pages of conservatism's flagship publication , national Review . But as the Cold War came to an end , right-wing anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism reappeared .

As the writings and statements of men like Pat Buchanan and Joe Sobrin became even more hostile to Jews in Israel , buckley again stepped into the breach In a special issue of the magazine and then in a fuller and annotated book . Buckley set out in search of anti-Semitism , though he said it pained him to accuse his longtime friends and allies .

Buckley ultimately concluded that men like Sobrin could not be defended from the charge of anti-Semitism that ought to have no place on the right end . Quote Miller is right to point out that Buckley had been involved with purges from the beginning . But it was not primarily because of anti-Semitism in the early days .

Mainly it was because these voices , many of them Jewish , were against US military intervention on a global scale . Buckley's purge of anti-Semites would take full force in the late 1980s and 90s . In the early 1990s , just as Pat Buchanan announced his presidential run , a special issue of National Review hit newsstands . Its focus was on anti-Semitism .

Buckley's keynote article set the tone . It was titled In Search of Anti-Semitism . Buckley's keynote article set the tone . It was titled In Search of Anti-Semitism .

In the essay , which later became a book by the same title , buckley charged Pat Buchanan , joe Sobran and Gore Vidal with anti-Semitism because of their views on Israeli foreign policy and their contention that American Jews had divided national loyalties . It was quite obviously a well-timed political hit job , with the old right ascendant in the person of Buchanan .

It was an opportunity for Buckley to parade out his old bag of tricks and smears Again . Rothbard writes quote it was time to trot out the old master , the prince of excommunication , the self-appointed pope of the conservative movement , william F Buckley Jr . It was time for Bill Buckley's papal bull end quote .

The problem for Buckley was that he wasn't up to his old form . Again , rothbard describes the essay In Search of Antisemitism in this way , quote the first thing to say about Buckley's essay is that it is virtually unreadable . Gone , all gone is the wit and the sparkle . Buckley's tendency to the Rococo in elaborately ornamental style has elongated beyond measure .

His prose is serpentine , involuted and convoluted , twisted and qualified until virtually all sense is lost .

Reading the whole thing through is doing penance for one's sins , and one can accomplish the task only if possessed by a stern sense of duty as one grits one's teeth and plows through a pile of turgid and pointless student term papers , which indeed Buckley's essay matches in content , in learning and in style . End quote .

Buckley may have lost his touch in later years , but in his prime he was a master wordsmith with an extensive vocabulary and sharp wit . He was also often quite clever and subtle in how he accused Sobrin and Buchanan of anti-Semitism . He often left himself a path of escape should pushback to his claims arise . For example , in In Search of Antisemitism , he wrote .

If you ask , do I think Pat Buchanan is an antisemite ? My answer is he is not one , but I think he said some antisemitic things . Oddly enough , as Sobrin pointed out , my old boss Bill Buckley wrote an entire book called In Search of Antisemitism , without bothering to define antisemitism . End quote .

After reading what Buckley had written , sobrin said quote at the time I thought his inclusion of me was an oversight . I was wrong . The word antisemitism would lose its utility for Buckley if it were defined as I observed in the book . An antisemite used to mean a man who hated Jews . Now it means a man who is hated by Jews . End quote .

Ironically , the use of ill-defined labels like anti-Semitism to smear a man is actually straight out of the Soviet playbook . Sobern explains , quote the very word anti-Semite is reminiscent of the term anti-Soviet . It serves a similar function of facilitating imputations of ill-defined guilt . The strength of Western law has always been its insistence on definition .

Clear definitions put a burden of proof on the accuser , and properly so . If you falsely accuse a man of murder or burglary , not only is he apt to be acquitted , you may pay a heavy penalty yourself as a result . Few of us are afraid of being charged with murders and burglaries we didn't commit .

Likewise , sobrin pointed out that a term like anti-Semitism is useful for character assassination because the accuser never actually has to define or prove anything . He writes , quote if you want to distinguish between the innocent and the guilty , you define crimes precisely .

If , however , you merely want to maximize the number of convictions , increase the power of the accuser and create an atmosphere of dread , you define crimes as loosely as possible . We now have an incentive system that might have been designed to promote loose charges of anti-Semitism . End quote .

Of course , sobrin did not hate the Jews and had exhibited exactly zero hostility toward them . He simply saw a problem with an Israel-first foreign policy strategy and happened to notice , like many others , that Jewish control over media and politics was substantial . He wasn't the first conservative to say this sort of thing and get in hot water for it either .

Russell Kirk , for example , said on multiple occasions that neoconservatives mistook Tel Aviv for the capital of the United States . Outrage ensued . In any case , the accusation from Buckley against Sobrin was enough to damn him in the press . Ironically , sobrin said that Buckley , his longtime mentor , once shared the same criticisms of Israel .

He had simply changed with the prevailing political winds . Sobrin wrote , quote In my 21 years at National Review , I had a front row seat . I watched closely as Bill Buckley changed from a jaunty critic of Israel to what I can only call a servile appeaser .

In its early days , the magazine published robust editorials blasting politicians who sacrificed American to Israeli interests in order to pander to the Jewish vote . In those days , it was considered risque to suggest that there was a Jewish boat .

Today , bill's magazine supports Israel with embarrassing sycophancy , never daring to intimate that Israeli and American interests may occasionally diverge . It has forgotten its own principles . Today , it would never dare to publish the editorials written by its great geopolitical thinker of those early days , james Burnham .

End quote Noticing Jewish influence in the media had become , according to Sobrin , a career-ending taboo . He said , quote the fear of the label anti-Semitic is a fear of the power that is believed to lie behind it Jewish power . Yet this is still pretty much unmentionable in journalism .

It's rather as if sports writers covering pro basketball were prohibited from mentioning that the Los Angeles Lakers were in first place . End quote . Soberin hasn't been the only one to recognize that you aren't allowed to talk about Jewish influence .

Take , for example , the more recent instance of Dave Chappelle , who said on Saturday Night Live quote Early in my career I learned that there are two words you should never say together . Those words are the and Jews Never heard someone do good after they said that , end quote .

He went on to say , quote If they're black , then it's a gang , if they're Italian it's a mob , but if they're Jewish it's a coincidence and you should never speak about it . End quote . But if they're Jewish , it's a coincidence and you should never speak about it . End quote .

Not surprisingly , his monologue drew widespread blowback in the media , including the ire of the ADL . Buckley , for his part , had learned how to apply the anti-Semitic label effectively . Pat Buchanan against the charge that what he said and did during the period under examination amounted to anti-Semitism .

Whatever it was that drove him to say and do it most probably an iconoclastic temperament . End quote . What had Pat said , you may wonder . Among other things , buchanan made televised remarks criticizing US involvement in the Gulf War . He said quote Soon afterward , buchanan referred to the US Congress as Israeli-occupied territory .

Later , buchanan predicted that the men fighting in the Gulf War would be quote kids with last names like McAllister , murphy , gonzalez and Leroy Brown .

End quote Of this Buckley said quote there is no way to read that sentence without concluding that Pat Buchanan was suggesting that American Jews managed to avoid personal military exposure even while advancing military policies they uniquely engineer . End quote .

Buckley's policing of the right-wing camp by way of vindictive smear campaigns that fed its members to the left liberal mob has been a long-standing strategy for many gatekeeping entities on the conservative right .

It's one of the reasons the right is so rarely victorious in its opposition to the left , because elements on the right are constantly being destroyed by their own .

Given Buckley's association with the Skull and Bones Society and the elites who controlled the White House , state Department , major banks and the CIA , as well as connections to men like George HW Bush , one has to wonder if Buckley functioned as some sort of controlled opposition within the conservative ranks Of this gatekeeping tendency on the right .

Paul Gottfried once wrote , quote conservatism Inc has a long history of purging undesirables who challenge its party lines , but those in charge of the movement typically hide this practice . When the movement can no longer conceal the obvious , it provides justifications for its actions , hoping that such will play well in the court of liberal public opinion .

Thus the movement has lied about its early expulsion of Jewish libertarians and then its later campaign against the John Birch Society , pretending in both cases that it was distancing itself from racists and anti-Semites .

The real reason for these excommunications , as far as I can determine , was that those who were expelled did not share the aggressively anti-Soviet and anti-communist foreign policy that William F Buckley Jr and other editors at National Review were then promoting .

After the neoconservative takeover of the movement in the 1980s , those isolated few who resisted lost their access to conservative funding and were removed from the mastheads of conservative publications .

This blacklisting was in line with the movement's earlier history of expulsions , and such events became even more prevalent in the 1990s as paleoconservatives were pushing back hard against the neoconservative takeover of the authorized right end . Quote Buckley's motives for canceling Sobrin , it turns out , were not purely ideological so much as pragmatic and political .

In the end , buckley was pressured by outside forces to get rid of Sobrin . He sought both donors and respectability , and he saw the paleoconservatives as a threat to the attainment of those ends . As Jack Trotter wrote in Chronicles Magazine in 2020 , quote Sobrin was fired in 1992 after charges were leveled at him by Midge Dechter and her husband , norman Potoretz .

Editor at Commentary , the crux of the matter was that Sobrin's columns criticizing the Israeli lobby were deemed by Podoretz and Dector hypersensitive to perceived anti-Semitism as they were to be scurrilous . In Dector's words , sobrin himself was little more than a crude and naked anti-Semite . Podoretz and his wife , midge Dechter , maiden name Rosenthal , were both Jews .

Podoretz's parents immigrated from Poland present-day Ukraine and settled into the Jewish New York culture as staunch leftists . He gained acceptance to Harvard , but instead attended Columbia University and then later the Jewish Theological Seminary of America .

He never intended to enter the rabbinate , but his father wanted to ensure that his son was nonetheless conversant in the intellectual tradition of his people as a non-observant New World Jew who treasured the Hebraic tradition . End quote .

In other words , outside pressure from Jewish influence and other donors caused Buckley to detonate his relationship and decades-long friendship with Sobran . Again , he succumbed to the left liberal gaze and burned one of his friends to the ground to satiate detractors and donors . Today we face similar problems on the right .

Right-wing gatekeepers are often willing to broker for greater platform exposure through deals with centrists and leftists in exchange for eliminating extremist elements on the right . Often , as Gottfried pointed out , right-wing gatekeepers will do this without ever being asked .

Those who do the policing of the ranks gain more power by destroying other right-wing opponents in the media , which is left-controlled space . One of the easiest ways to do this is to accuse those on the right of the kind of things the left-liberal consensus finds most appalling , racism , anti-semitism and Nazism being the epithets of choice .

To cancel , denounce or dox someone isn't fundamentally about engaging with their arguments . Cancel , denounce or dox someone isn't fundamentally about engaging with their arguments . It's about attaching some unforgivable sin to them in the form of a slur that triggers public outrage .

Like Sobrin , the goal is that the doxed become unemployable , untouchable , anathema , so that they're left driving FedEx delivery trucks A respectable profession , to be sure , but not one generally associated with the kind of political and social power needed to lead the national conversation .

This type of behavior is largely what prompted Charles Haywood to weigh in with his principle no enemies to the right , which was later amended to no enemies on the right . Haywood noted that for the right to gain victory , it had to stop destroying its own by feeding them to wolves on the left .

Yes , corrections to the camp should be made , but they should be made within the camp . The principle is simple Settle disputes privately . Save your strength for destroying the real enemy on the left .

Where there are genuine and acceptable disagreements and strategy and cultural political engagement , right-wing groups should agree to pursue their ends without trying to destroy or constantly countersignal one another .

Haywood's original Netter proposal came in an interaction about Rod Dreher , because Dreher had often spoken softly about the left , saving his fiercest attacks for those on the right Of this tendency . Haywood wrote quote guys like Dreher complain endlessly , complain about the left , saving his fiercest attacks for those on the right Of this tendency .

Haywood wrote guys like Dreher complain endlessly , complain about the left and its evils , but never do they wield actual power against the individuals about whose behavior they complain , which could advance their claimed goals . Instead , they only wield what power they have against individuals whose beliefs they regard as to their own right .

These are the same individuals as those targeted by the left , and the more so they show any tendency to become leaders or network nodes on the right . Dreher is a prime example of this tendency . On the supposed right , he always talks lovingly about his friends on the left , notably the odious David Brooks , and defends them to the last gasp .

He does not seem to realize , or will not admit to himself , that his friends would gladly throw him to the wolves if he ever did anything , such as , say , use a slur to refer to homosexuals or state the obvious , especially in light of his obsession with the scandals surrounding Catholic clergy , that many homosexuals are created by homosexual abuse of children and

that homosexuals abuse children at a vastly greater rate than normal people . Yet never , ever does he say anyone to his right is a friend . He runs from them in horror and hurts them when he can . In fact , the absolute limits of all acceptable rightward behavior for Dreher is set by reference to Dreher himself .

Anything to his right is ipso facto unconscionable , disgusting evil for all three . End quote . By becoming a compliant gatekeeper for the left and drawing lines around conservative orthodoxy , dreher had secured for himself an untouchable seat at the table , but at what cost ?

Again , haywood writes , quote we can see the results of his compliance with the left dictates in the arc of Dreher's career . Dreher is never substantively attacked by the left because he is regarded as not a threat , despite his notable prominence on the right . His defenders respond that his contribution is converting the normies . This is false .

If he were converting the normies , he would be regarded as a threat and targeted .

Rather , he is lecturing the already converted who are unhappy about left victories surging ever higher , advising them to be angry about the left but never , never to take any determined action against the left and always , always to police your mind and speech to purify it of anything that the left might find too objectionable .

If Dreher were honest and he looked at himself , he would realize that his actions show that for him , beginning with the end in mind means seeking the eternal domination of the left . End quote . As men like Dreher prove , the greatest obstacle to building a formidable movement on the right is actually vicious gatekeepers on the right , not the left .

As these gatekeepers inevitably drift left , they publicly anathematize anyone to their immediate right , which drags the conservative movement further left and makes it impotent . The removal of actual conservatives on the right only solidifies a sure victory for the left .

Unfortunately , many conservative Christians have also employed this strategy pander left , punch right In 2021, . Doug Wilson helpfully described this type of dynamic in his blog post Kevin DeYoung and the Taxonomy of Conflict .

In that article , wilson describes a scale from one to four in which fours speak most courageously on cultural hot button issues and ones simply agree with the left's framing . The threes are DeYoung Big Eva types who will be friendly in public discourse with twos but and here's the key point always distance themselves from fours To the threes .

The fours represent the dangerous right that will cause them to lose influence with the twos normies , which is their main aim . The problem is that by destroying the fours , with whom threes actually have more in common , they also eliminate the people who would actually contribute to a decisive victory for the right .

The left , on the other hand , is successful because it doesn't throw its most extreme elements to the wolves . Instead , it sees them as useful tools for advancing its cause . They are the hinge that swings the Overton window left and opens the door for progress by more moderate leftists .

Nancy Pelosi had a strong personal distaste for AOC , for example , but never tried to destroy her publicly . Unlike the right , the left embraces a no enemies on the left strategy and is largely victorious because of it .

The reformed camp let's call the majority threes has often followed the Buckley-esque instinct to distance itself from and or destroy people to its right fours . Why ? Because its goal is to gain approval with the people to its left . Twos , the ones who guard access to larger platforms .

They always do this while claiming , like Dreher , that they're converting the normies . People to the right fours are considered flight risks because their edginess jeopardizes the three's ability to partner with twos . This is why , when the TGC crowd talks about winsomeness , they only mean being winsome to their left , not to their right .

In their view , danger to their camp basically always comes from the right . This is also why Kevin DeYoung would actively try to create a poisonous gas cloud around Doug Wilson with his article on culture war , doug Wilson and the Moscow mood . This also helps explain what has been going on in reformed camps for the past few years .

After COVID , there's been a major shift . With the fall of many big Eva players , threes from prominence . Former fours have switched seats with the threes because they saw an open door to larger platforms they previously had no access to . As Wilson noted about his own camp in Moscow , the embargo had finally been lifted .

In a game of political musical chairs , the formerly edgy fours are now jockeying for seats vacated by the old threes . Their message has shifted and softened . In turn . A new four has emerged on the right and the new threes feel like they have to do something about this because these new fours are a real threat .

Moscow , it seems , was an old four that moved to three . In turn , others filled their seats as fours Webin , ogden , isker Wolf let's call them the new Christian . Right Now the threes feel seats as fours Webben , ogden , isker , wolf let's call them the new Christian right Now .

The threes feel that the fours are too vocal about patriarchy and Christian nationalism , a bit too friendly with historical revisionism concerning World War II , too hostile to the post-war consensus and propositional nationhood and a touch too antagonistic towards Jewish influence in America and global politics .

The threes feel this compromises their chance for mainstream influence on platforms controlled by other twos and soft threes . Wilson said as much in a recent blog in Mayblog , when he claimed that anti-Semitic elements to his right would potentially compromise Pete Hegseth's confirmation as Secretary of Defense .

Remember , hegseth is a CREC member and a pro-Israel guy , just like the majority of the Republican Congress , despite disagreements surrounding some of his views on Israel . The fours in this scenario are not generally opposed to Hegseth . To be clear , most are actively in support of his confirmation .

The point to see is the pattern Gatekeeping the more radical fours out of concern for mainstream , centrist , left-approved acceptance for those on the right .

This same concern is also why Wilson said he had to distance himself from Isker and Webben over their views on Jewish influence and their intention to do a podcast series against Zionism and dispensationalism that Wilson considered unwise To the threes . The primary danger is to the right .

This framework helps explain why the new threes have been going so hard at the fours over the last couple of years . When Pastor Webben four didn't put a church member under church discipline for sharing a meme in the summer of 2024 , prominent pastor's threes turned it into a public spectacle Rather than dealing with it behind closed doors .

It was widely publicized . Eric and I Fours were specifically and publicly smeared by Tobias Reimenschneider as leaders of an anti-Semitic and racist movement in America , along with Joel , who was also called a re-voice for Nazis leader on cross-politic . Videos were made by both sides and a street brawl among the threes and fours broke out on X .

This is a working theory , of course , and can't be stretched too far , but it is a theory that has some substance to it . We really do have to ask are Buckley's instincts still alive and well on the right today ? Are these same tactics being used in an ongoing intramural reform debate ?

In an April 2022 blog in May , blog Doug Wilson sang the praises of Buckley , whom he listed as one of the most influential men to have shaped his life . He said that he had been reading National Review for 53 years , since he was in high school .

Of Buckley's style of cultural engagement and writing , wilson said , quote I really want to fight that way and I never want to forget where I first learned it . End quote . However warranted you may think it is , wilson , like Buckley , has been convinced that his camp has a widespread anti-Semitism problem . This name could be said of Nazism .

The problem is that this has never been demonstrated , let alone carefully defined so that it could be demonstrated . What evidence has been given so far ? They've pointed to one churchman in Webben's church who , by the way , has said explicitly that he does not hate the Jews and has even repented of previous off-color comments made privately .

It's important to note that it was the supposed Revoice for Nazis , pastor Joel Webben , who actually pastored this young man through these issues effectively . Additionally , there was a White Boy Summer video that showed the lighting of the torch from the 1936 Olympics and other Nazi or Nazi-adjacent imagery .

While we too would offer critiques about some of the images used , it hardly demonstrates a widespread problem or actual ethnic hatred , particularly when most of those who shared it including me , by the way didn't even notice the imagery in the first place .

In any case , wilson and James White have made a concerted effort to publicly and relentlessly call out white boy summer , or , as they call it variously , white boy dumber , white soy bummer , non-meme lords and even certain pastors like Joel Webben and us , I suppose , for allegedly sympathizing with neo-Nazi content , which none of us do .

By the way , eric found himself in the crosshairs for retweeting something Aristotle said about the negative effects of multiculturalism on democracy .

Putting a bow on the messaging , wilson literally lit a prop bridge on fire in his recent no Quarter November video , a bridge emblazoned with a sign reading White Boy Dumber , indicating his apparent desire to burn the bridge once and for all between himself and anyone who enjoys the pit vipers and campy memes of the White Boy Summer crew .

Wilson clearly thinks that antisemitism is a threat to the reformed church and , like cancer , must be cut out . White , for his part , has said that men who traffic in dark MAGA profile pictures , put too much stock in Jewish influence and entertain alt-right histories of World War II are beyond pastoral shepherding .

As I mentioned a moment ago , a big problem embedded in this discussion is that anti-Semitism , like racism , has never been well-defined or demonstrated at a wide scale , even in the Moscow camp . It's been defined in different but still unsatisfactory ways .

In his book American Milk and Honey , wilson defines anti-Semitism as quote the notion that Jews are uniquely malevolent and destructive in their cultural , economic and political influence in the world . It is not antisemitism to believe that Jews are sinful , but antisemitism does believe that Jews are uniquely sinful and particularly destructive , end quote .

One problem with this definition of antisemitism is that the scriptures themselves speak of the Jews who received God's revelation but rejected it as being particularly hostile to Christ and his kingdom .

Paul , for example , told the Thessalonian church that they quote suffered the same things from your own countrymen as they did from the Jews , who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets and drove us out and displeased God and oppose all mankind . 1 Thessalonians 2 , 14-16 .

Likewise , in Ezekiel 5 , the prophet says and Judah hath changed my judgments into wickedness , more than the nations , for they have refused my judgments and my statutes . The point is that Scripture often speaks of degrees of wickedness with different peoples , and a greater degree of hardened wickedness is ascribed to those who reject God's special revelation .

Thus it is completely inconsistent with Scripture to say that assigning a greater or even unique degree of wickedness to a certain people is sinful . Between Islam , buddhism and Judaism , only Judaism blasphemously claims that Jesus is burning in hell in a vat of excrement and that Mary is a harlot .

The phrase uniquely malevolent doesn't seem to me to be particularly controversial in light of politically incorrect facts such as this . Think about this for a moment .

When Buckley charged Buchanan with anti-Semitism , for example , it clearly had nothing to do with supposed sinful partiality in a biblical sense , but more to do with Buchanan's America First foreign policy , in recognition of Israel's powerful lobby in Congress and the policies that lobby promoted , which is , by the way , completely true , as was confirmed last summer by

Thomas Massey , among others . Wilson has said that laughing at certain kinds of memes reveals dark sulfur in the heart . But the truthfulness of that claim has not been demonstrated from Scripture or elsewhere , only asserted or assumed . We should not be assigning hateful motives in such cases without good evidence .

Further , if we are sinning by assigning malevolent characteristics as generalities to certain groups , how was the Apostle Paul justified in saying that Cretans are always liars , evil beasts , lazy gluttons ? The same could be said of accusations related to so-called Nazism . The left , after all , has been telling us that Trump is literally Hitler for years .

What does that accusation even mean ? It's an attempted character assassination , plain as day . The reality is we have not seen a surge of folks trying to resurrect a defunct political party from the 1940s . We certainly aren't Nazis . Here in Ogden . Not a single one has been found yet , and we've searched our whole building at least twice .

Likewise , none of our friends are Nazis to our awareness . So what does the Moscow contingent mean when they say Weben is doing the re-voice for Nazis thing ? What makes a person a Nazi today ? This has again never been clearly defined , and yet it is being weaponized to destroy the reputations of good Christian men and pastors .

Now to get ahead of a few common objections . Before we continue , it's worth noting that none of those present in this room here are fatherless basement dwellers with daddy issues . We do not believe Jewish involvement in the pornography industry excuses even one white person who sinfully indulges in those wares .

Nor does Jewish influence in Hollywood excuse even one person for enjoying the Twilight movies . Another way of putting it would be that we don't believe every problem on earth finds its genesis in the Jews , or that the involvement of Jews in any actual problem exonerates anyone else from responsibility concerning their own problems .

Everyone must answer for his own sins . Further , we are not envious of the Jews for their high performance in the economic or political arenas and merely emoting at them from a position of culpable inferiority . Nor are we seething with malice and genocidal hatred toward them .

We believe that Jews may be truly converted to Christ , forsake the idols and sinful ways of their forefathers and come into the kingdom . We don't believe these issues depend on a particular view of the future conversion of the Jewish peoples or its preterist alternative .

Finally , we would most definitely discipline anyone in our church who exhibited sociopathic behavior related to puppy torture . Even so , the problem remains . If woke Wars 1.0 was about systemic racism and the racism hidden in the deep recesses of every white person's heart . On a supposedly structural level . Woke Wars 2.0 is about doing the same thing with antisemitism .

You don't have to actually demonstrate real hatred toward Jews , you simply have to laugh at the wrong meme or think the wrong thoughts about the historical narrative . In that case , we're doing little more than policing ill-defined thought crimes in ways that does little more than serve to reinforce the left's framing of all of these issues .

You are allowed to notice Jewish influence , according to Wilson , but you aren't allowed to attribute to it what E Michael Jones has called the Jewish revolutionary spirit or any other kind of malevolence .

Yuri Brito , presiding minister of the CRAC , said on X that different kinds of noticing aren't equal , and some noticing related to Hitler quote immediately places us in an existential position of hatred toward an entire people group . End quote . In other words , the lines between noticing and possessing seething hatred are unclear .

On the Chris Arnzen show , a Scottish pastor said that quote even if you say you don't hate the Jews , we know that you still hate the Jews . End quote . How can a man even defend himself against such a self-contradictory and unfalsifiable charge ? Against such a self-contradictory and unfalsifiable charge ? Now , I've previously called some of the tactics at play .

The poison gas cloud fallacy a rhetorical pattern I believe is driving a significant amount of discord at the moment on many of these issues . The fallacy goes like this Person A says something about the Jews or the Talmud that is clear , true and relevant to our times and culture , but it's outside the Overton window of discussion on the topic .

Person B responds with something that is also true in a general sense , typically a warning against sinful behavior or some sinful inward condition toward the Jews , but which is , at the least , implying that person A is likely guilty of this sinful behavior merely for saying the true thing they said . Importantly , they never demonstrate this guilt in person A .

The result is that person B has dropped a poison gas cloud over person A , implying that person A is a sinful anti-Semite seething with Jew hatred and perhaps a side order of crackling envy . But they've done this in a plausibly deniable way which always allows the retreating move . Oh , I never said that you were an anti-Semite .

I was just warning about it generally . But it is kind of odd that you're getting pretty defensive right now about it . In fact , such defensiveness strikes me as the kind of response an anti-Semite would give . Now , interestingly , you can currently swap out Jews for women and anti-Semite for misogynist and get largely the same result .

You could also swap out Jews for insert other race and anti-Semite for racist and get the same result . This is the kind of thing that makes me think that we're dealing with the blasphemy laws that typically surround an idol in at least some of this debate .

Instead of these tactics , we need to with the blasphemy laws that typically surround an idol in at least some of this debate . Instead of these tactics , we need to practice the courtesy of specificity when it comes to accusations and public controversy among brothers .

If you have a problem with someone , if you believe that they hold a sinful or erroneous belief that is appropriate to address publicly , then it's helpful to name the person , describe what you believe their position to be in terms you think they would affirm , and then explain why you believe them to be an error .

I call this a courtesy because it allows the person you are disagreeing with to defend themselves . They can change their mind , persuaded by your argument . They can disagree , providing counter arguments . They could even call you names and dismiss you altogether .

I suppose that would be their prerogative , but you have provided them with the courtesy of specificity rather than casting a plausibly deniable poison gas cloud over them and everyone associated with them . To be clear , we do think that there are elements on the right that should certainly be dealt with in this kind of specific and intellectually rigorous manner .

We're Christians and that certainly means that sin must be dealt with biblically and thoroughly . It also means that we ought to care about truths , whether that be historical , theological , sociological , political , interpersonal , ecclesiastical or any other category of truth .

The disagreement right now generally concerns the scope of certain problems and how those problems should be dealt with . There really is some sinful stuff floating around X from bona fide Absaloms and our young men should be warned about it . But it seems to us that the scope of these things is being wildly exaggerated .

In our pastoral experience , we've never had to counsel a single person about a case of actual ethnic hatred or malice , despite wide-ranging discussions of many of these topics , with literally hundreds of churchmen over the years Knowing a thing or two about podcast downloads and audience size .

The reach of something like the Stone Choir podcast , for example , is relatively narrow when compared to this or other podcasts we make here at New Christendom Press and where we've spoken with people who listen to the podcast , by far the most common refrain has been something to the effect of some of what they say is interesting and has caused me to dig into

different sources , but I disagree with this or that aspect of their shows and certainly have been turned off by their social media posts . Speaking of Stone Choir , it would probably be helpful to make an application of some of the things I've just explained .

If the problem is Stone Choir , as is often claimed when these questions are pressed , it's entirely inappropriate to go after Pastor Webben by proxy , particularly when Pastor Webben has actively warned his people about aspects of their specific content .

When Pastor Webben has actively warned his people about aspects of their specific content , name them I mean Stone Choir accurately describe the positions they're publicly defending in a way you believe they would affirm and then present robust arguments contradicting those claims , but certainly don't make a vague cartoon caricature of their position that ends up seeming to

describe everyone , from guys who like white boy summer memes to actual skinheads intent on genociding non-whites , as if they're in the same tribe . Be specific Name names . Give others the courtesy to defend or clarify their positions .

Don't make it seem as if there are only two possible camps Camp 1 , people who agree with my exact framing of every question related to World War II , the Jews , the post-war consensus , anti-semitism , etc . And camp two , the fatherless Nazis with hearts full of Jew hate .

If you really want to burn the bridge between your community and Stone Choir , then don't label the bridge you set aflame . Something much , much broader like , for example , white boy Dummer After all , which is more prevalent in our culture today ?

Anti-white policy propaganda and prejudice , carefully cultivated white self-hatred or actual Nazis trying to find the Fuhrer somewhere in Argentina ? We can't forget what old Jack said about fire extinguishers and floods .

Additionally , if you disagree with Webben's pastoral strategy in dealing with young right-wing men , shouldn't that be an in-house discussion rather than a public spat ? As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6 , we shouldn't parade our conflicts out into the pagan courts , and that includes the court of public opinion .

Regardless of intention , this attempt to publicly purge the reformed world of alleged anti-Semitism has not united forces for the rebuilding of Christendom . Instead , the net result has been increased infighting and discord among good Christian brothers . It has led to an incredibly foolish and unnecessarily divisive Cold Civil War .

We've spoken about this kind of intramural reformed pugilism before , including our recent episode entitled no More Brother Wars and we'd stand by the points made in that episode . At this point it would be helpful to offer some of our thoughts about the Antioch Declaration , its context and some of our issues with it .

After months of feuding between various camps , the Antioch Declaration was released in November .

While the drafters of the Declaration claimed it was a completely separate matter from the ongoing conflict , the document not only addressed all the issues at the heart of the various disagreements , it also featured the same collaborators who had been publicly opposing Pastor Webben .

Not a single member of the camp with allegedly opposing views was invited to the table for discussion , which is odd if you want to call something a consensus document . It's obvious that the declaration and the conflict were part of the same storyline , with the same purpose of purging the camp of alleged anti-Semites .

Blaze commentator Oren McIntyre , who had watched the debacle from afar , described the public declaration as an ill-conceived purity test of the highest order . He said he was incredibly disappointed to see an in-camp dispute from the right turned into a public shame fest and called it absolute loser behavior and disgusting .

The point of such actions , he said , was clearly to shame people into agreement by exposing them to public ridicule . This is a common strategy of the left and shouldn't have a place among Christians . As Pastor Wilson once wrote concerning Buckley , quote we're in the thick of a desperate fight , but we need to fight like cavaliers and not like thugs .

Never like thugs . We need to be light horse cavalry , not an armored tank division . People justify fighting in thuggish ways because they say that the situation is dire . They say that we cannot afford the niceties and so it is dire . End quote . We agree . We should not be fighting like thugs or political operatrix .

Now , there's a long history behind the document and its collaborators More on that later in this episode . But at the end of the day , it represents one right-wing group threes , unable to build consensus with or force conformity on another group fours within its own ruling mechanisms .

That same group of threes then took the document and all its baggage public in an attempt to consolidate loyalties and purge opponents from its own ranks . This is fundamentally a Buckley-esque maneuver . Whatever the intent , the declaration set off a powder keg of growing hostilities within the reformed camp , as McIntyre pointed out .

If you win this way , you win with Saul Alinsky-style tactics . You win fundamentally by bowing the knee to the left's framing . Congratulations , he said , the left thought you were the safest option . They will allow you to have a platform because you pose no threat to them . You are now owned by them .

The cost Burning your own popsicle stick village to the ground , bridges and all . As we said earlier , correction and consensus must happen within the camp . There are real problems and we have to deal with them , but we should not be trying to settle in-house disputes by appealing to leftist cancel strategies and poison gas cloud techniques .

We have to be able to make friend-enemy distinctions , not gas bomb entire villages full of innocents . To make our point , we'll win by handling things within the camp , proving that our internal polity is capable of handling such disputes . Doxing is absolute loser behavior and it really needs to stop . You may ask , then , why we're addressing this publicly .

The answer is simple Our good name and that of our friend Joel has been maligned , and we believe we have a right to give a public defense .

When you have good evidence that people are warning about you privately and via whisper campaigns , as well as making claims about you publicly , for example the one that Eric and I are leaders of a racist and anti-Semitic movement the only way to clear your name is with a public response , since you can't possibly know how far the whispers have spread , and state

your case individually to all involved parties . Now we've done our best to stay out of this publicly , in hopes that Christian Brothers would come to a peaceful resolution . We've called both sides to conduct themselves more respectfully , but that hasn't seemed to happen .

We've been in contact with Moscow James White and Tobias privately and have intentionally sought peace as well as an airing of our specific concerns . That will continue , but sadly this has not brought an end to the conflict or the efforts to damage the reputations of good men and faithful pastors .

At the very least , we are convinced that these public matters require our public clarifications and statements of issues . As we asked for earlier , we've tried to be specific about where we have problems and with whom , such that those men may defend themselves publicly . Our claims are falsifiable and disputable . We may be wrong , and we've certainly been wrong before .

This is also a pastoral issue for us . We've benefited richly from our brothers in Moscow , as have our people , but this public dispute has brought serious accusations about us in public , which has in turn led to confusion among our own congregation about what we believe .

We've had dozens of phone calls and messages from people around the country asking variations of the question . It seems like Pastor Wilson thinks you guys are racist and anti-Semites . Are you Given these things ? The need arose for this kind of episode and public engagement with these questions .

We know that many of you are frankly , tired of talking about this situation , and you know what we are . Too Many people are caught in the middle , many friends of ours . They've asked us I like them and I like you why is there so much infighting ? It's draining just keeping up with all the latest details of a public feud or to unravel its lengthy backstory .

We get it . It's our hope that this episode will provide you with the clarity you need so that we can all return to the great work of building that's set before each one of us .

To that end , in this episode of the King's Hall podcast , we'll address some important issues , including the Antioch Declaration and what we consider to be the public smear campaign against us and our friend , pastor Joel Webben .

But more than that , we want to call you to something far greater , and that is the work of building the new Christendom , a work of lasting legacy , far beyond the petty issues of any online moment . We have building to do . There's no time to come down from the good work , to answer every Sanbalat , tobias and Gashmu .

We'll continue to fight for the unity of the body of Christ Brothers . There's never been a better time to build , so let's get to work . The future's never been brighter . The King's Hall podcast exists to make self-ruled men who rule well and win the world .

I would head personally , if it was me , to newchristendompresscom slash Cosmos and I would pick up Haunted Cosmos doing your duty in a world that's not just stuff , so that I could learn about the taxonomy of God's seen and unseen world and how to do my duty in it . I would , that's what I would . That's just . That's just one guy's opinion .

Dan , we'll start with you because you're big brain and you're brilliance .

This has been a problem historically you see this with the Buckley story that we told but this has really been , especially in modern conservatism , which is kind of an ironic statement when you think about it .

But in modern conservatism or in the modern conservatism movement , you see , this gatekeeping is often detrimental to actually taking power and wielding it for the good of the people to punish your enemies . But the left has no problem in doing that .

That especially highlighted since 2020 , to where if you didn't do what the left said , then you would absolutely be punished . They would ruin you , they would end your career .

You were labeled as a murderer for not taking certain substances inside your body or not wearing certain articles of clothing on your face , and so we see that in the left , they have no problem with wielding power to actually punish their enemies , and they even know how to use their radicals like Nancy Pelosi and AOC . Nancy Pelosi does not like AOC .

From what I understand I haven't had personal conversations with her , but you don't see her publicly criticizing AOC the Green New Deal that AOC was a contributor for some years ago . You didn't see the Democrats , the leftists , come out and say , yeah , I mean , some of it's good , but most of it is complete garbage .

I don't think the world is actually going to end because of methane gas from cattle .

Right , it was useful to them to push the Overton window , but on the right it doesn't seem like we have the same stomach for utilizing power in the way that the left does , and so often you see that gatekeeping by taking the farthest right elements , some of them problematic , some of them actually really good and courageous men that are actually willing to push

the Overton window , and instead the allure of the power and the money of the left , who holds most of the power in the media and in institutions and in the government and things like that .

The allure is too much , and so , instead of pushing the Overton window in the way that the left does , the right has determined the soft middle right has determined that power and having a seat at the table is a worthy compromise than it is to push the Overton window and to actually gain power that you would actually wield against your opponents who are wicked ,

and to punish or to reward your friends . So , yes , absolutely that , yes , absolutely that's still happening .

It's an anomaly right now , particularly with the Trump administration , but we've even seen cracks of that with some of his more recent nominations for some of his cabinet to where he seems to be throwing some bones back to the left , but that wasn't the case immediately when he was elected .

So I don't know if you guys have seen the same thing or if you'd push back on any of that , but that's what I see .

The things that they held in common were things who typically are the radical right now , so things like opposing FDR's New Deal , getting away from a welfare state .

Actually , they were talking a lot about things like ending the Fed , getting back to some sort of like gold-based currency , stuff like that , but then over time , it was just we're going to weed all those elements out . The 80s , really buckley , opened the door for neoconservatism and I think as a whole , brian , it weakened the movement .

It's interesting to me , though , as we've read the history and gone through it , you sort of and I want to get your take on this , but I've sort of had this kind of recognition of like , wow , none of this stuff is actually new . You know , and readers of scripture and people who love history , you know there's nothing new under the sun .

We should really believe that . But just kind of , how does it help us understand the moment looking back at the past in that ?

When we look at , you know , whether it's a large swath of history or the history of a nation or the history of some specific influential person , all the way down to that , you'll often notice patterns that do repeat in other figures and movements and you learn political tactics and all of a sudden you say , oh , you know , that was kind of Machiavellian before

Machiavelli , that was . You know , like you start to notice patterns Machiavellian before Machiavelli , that was . You know , like you start to notice patterns . And it can be there's a danger there where you can , all of a sudden you're a hammer that sees a nail everywhere . Like you discover something you're like , oh , everything's driven by envy .

And then lo and behold , everywhere I look , I see envy , it's all . There's a . There's a danger there as well .

But in this particular case , with the story in the cold open and some of the background of the old right and the neocon movement , it's important not just for the patterns we see repeating today in terms of the left's playbook and how the left has successfully gotten the left to gatekeep the right and the right to gatekeep the right , while nobody gatekeeps the

left . We also have to understand that this isn't just an old story that rhymes with current events , but current events are a continuation , another chapter in the same book , right . So we're where we are today , politically , in the state of the right wing , the state of the left wing . Because of this story we're still in . It is another way of putting it .

Like Pat Buchanan isn't ancient history . No , pat Buchanan is like 2000s , writing some of the most influential books on some of these subjects . Yeah , Death of the West , yeah Death of the West , which I'm reading right now and it's making me want to reproduce just frankly , irresponsibly .

Uh , somebody asked me why on X , I referred to the neoconservatives as the Trotskyite right . They were anti-Soviet many of them and many of them have like basically conversions politically speaking .

But it also helps frame something that's central to this story , which I think is you know , buckley wanted to say I never moved , and Gottfried essentially calls him out on that . He said you did move and all the people knew him best said no , you did actually move .

I think for all of us just being aware that none of this is really static , like the Dan from today is not the Dan from 10 years ago .

So nobody , I think , actually honestly can say I've never moved on anything , and certainly I think you know Doug has said this before but the fall of Big Eva and the embargo being lifted , situations change and it seems like the wise thing Dan would be to recognize okay , we always have to be going back and saying what are my principles ?

Any of us could be tempted to change based on external circumstances . So how do you think through that in terms of maintaining principle in a world that is dynamic ? It's changing .

Obviously , if you don't have success and there's not opportunity , your principles aren't really tested , because you can have your principles all to yourself and you don't really have any challenge to them .

But as you gain more success and more opportunity , then your principles really are challenged , because there are going to be times when you're asked to sacrifice your principles , maybe for something that is sold to you as the greater good or something like that . But as soon as you lose your principles , you actually lose your distinctiveness .

The thing that actually got you to where you are and so that's one of the things that we all have to be aware of is that , as these opportunities come , that you actually maintain your principles , and it also tests your principles to make sure that they're the right principles , the right vision for the future , and so that's more of an ethereal comment , but it

is actually quite important when you start applying it to what you do on a day-to-day basis . So if you look at I'll just use us for an example If you look at what we're doing with the school and the church New Christendom Press . There are other businesses that we're involved in or businesses that our church members are starting or have success in .

As more opportunities come and you have , for example , maybe a bigger platform , you could actually have a show on some of the mainstream conservative platforms , but you just can't talk about X , Y or Z , or you have can't talk about X , Y or Z , or you have to punch back at X , Y or Z and make sure that you gatekeep .

You know these people on your right , because they could be a real problem to your platform , though that's where your principles are actually tested and when you actually have to examine what is my vision for the future , what does God say in his word , and what are the hills that I have to die on , and so these are some of the things that you definitely have

to look at when you're moving , because you would hope that when you're moving , you know , as you said , like the Dan of 10 years ago is not the Dan of today . That's 100% true . The Dan of 10 years ago didn't have any kids .

The Dan of 10 years ago , I had to repent of not having any children , and so the way I view the world , the way I view the future , what I'm working for , everything that exists within me not to make this all about me , but has actually changed to a degree .

The foundational faith , my theological stances and things like that have remained relatively similar , with some changes . But I guess the hope would be that you're going deeper into your principles Exactly Yep Further up and further in Exactly Yep .

And as you mature and as you grow and you get clarity , you sharpen your vision , you sharpen your principles to be a man that's actually unwavering in those principles , that will not bow to any pressure to , to waver on your principles , to capitulate , you know , to the , to the culture or or to whomever is asking you to , to , to change .

You know we talk about the leftist gaze . You know the , the , the allowable narrative . You know the things that you can talk about and the things you can't talk about . Why do those things exist ? Well , a man of principle doesn't really care .

A man of principle doesn't care what the leftists think , what their enemies perceive them as , as long as they're acting righteously with that vision in mind , a biblical vision of the future , they should just build and just say you know what ? I don't have time to come down from the wall , the work is too great .

It seems like if you're talking about the Jews , if you're talking about historical questions about World War II , like , for example , if we go back and we question the history of the Battle of Vienna in 1683 , nobody cares .

But it seems like particularly there's a list of subjects right now that you can get in a lot of trouble whether it's a historical question , whether you're trying to determine , like you know , genetic , genealogical questions about the Jews , whatever .

I know that as you delve into them on social media , you just you have the sense that you're like are we walking on thin ice here Because culturally it's so unacceptable ? So my question for you is how do you think through ? Okay , does that mean we just shouldn't address those things ?

We certainly have to make value judgments on , you know , importance level that we put on them , but how do you think through that ?

I'll give you some examples and one of the fallacies I think can come into play that we see played out and we all have to be aware of you , think about the transgenderism and some of the sexual madness and gender madness that's been ascendant in the last 20 years . Madness and gender madness that's been ascendant in the last 20 years .

Really it goes back quite a bit further than that , to Gramsci and Marxist strategy to undermine the natural family and kind of slowly march through the institutions to dissolve the Christianity of the West , to make them a conquerable foe to some modified form of communism or socialism . So that's the long play .

But when you think about what that's been like experientially for us , it meant that when you , maybe when you're an 11th grader in public school , as I was and you , you know , maybe want to say , you want to notice something about the difference between men and women and their strength , or something like that , and say , like you know , I really the , the , the

air force or the Marines or whatever , they just kind of said let's open up standards to allow women to serve in combat , in certain roles or things like that , and you might want to notice . You know Well , but hang on , Women aren't strong in the way men are strong . Physically , they don't seem to be suited in their nature to combat .

Maybe you don't even cite a Bible verse , but you're just noticing , sort of there's a check in you that knows just—and it's sometimes visible , sometimes invisible , sometimes opaque , sometimes transparent .

You've been discipled to be careful about saying something like that out loud , and in that case , there really is a blasphemy law operating , which is egalitarianism and feminism , where we're trying to dissolve all distinctions of hierarchy , because hierarchy is highly problematic to a Marxist worldview or a worldview that's attempting to flatten everything .

So it's like , you know , one big I've said before and all the Kansans get mad at me to make everything like one big Kansas . Sorry guys , Nebraska's flat too . One big Nebraska . So there's real blasphemy laws operating there .

You could give many , many examples of this , where the blasphemy laws are surrounding an idol or an opposing ideology , a god and his opposing ideology . Now we do need to be careful , though , of what I've seen called the YouTube comment , or fallacy , which is that it's basically a two-step argument , and it's you know .

Imagine somebody commenting on YouTube and in the first pane of the meme they notice whenever I say the truth about such and such subject , everybody gets mad at me . And so then , in the second pain , they conclude and this is fallaciously . They conclude .

Therefore , anytime anybody is mad at me or pushes back against something , I say I must be right which is not actually true .

You can say something dumb and also have people mad at you or disagree with you , and I bring that up because what that then requires is that we have sobriety when we approach these issues and we have to be thinking in terms of truth . So we talked in the cold open about steel manning your opponents .

You know we called it the courtesy of specificity , but that's basically just steel manning , which , which is a ? It's for your opponent , but it's also for you , Cause when you're able to present somebody else's argument in a way you think they would agree with , that is what I'm saying and then say , okay , and here's why I think you're wrong .

Reason , reason , reason , reason , reason . That protects everybody from fallacious , emotional kind of reasoning that's steered by the gaze of some God and its attendant blasphemy laws . Now , what's dangerous about that is that it can lead you into some places that are , let's say , politically incorrect , where you , you know .

Maybe you start doing this and you're going down a rabbit hole and you know all of us who went to public school to the previous illustration , know what this is like . All of a sudden , you're like the people who are supposed to be teaching me .

They actually don't know what they're talking about , Because even when I steel man their position , it's nonsense , it's word salad , it doesn't make sense , it's emotional , it's blustering , it's unfair , it's straw man . It's not driven by reason , it's not driven by data , it's not internally consistent or it's not coherent and consistent with the external world .

It's valid but unsound . It's invalid and unsound . You start going through that and that puts you in a dangerous place where you can be in a position to be the guy . That's like .

I think that this thing is true , and yet I know if I say that it is true , this thing is true and yet I know , if I say that it is true , many people will want to not just disagree with me but destroy me by any means possible , Right ? So there's like landmines all around and it calls for sobriety . I think it calls for care .

So you fairly represent this kind of goes to the gas cloud fallacy , as you've called it , one of the other things I've seen in play . We've kind of described as like a Kafka trap . This is a logical fallacy that occurs when someone is accused of something and their defense is used as evidence of their guilt . So I actually found this helpful .

Jd Hall had posted this on Twitter and he said I've seen this argument in Woke Wars1 and it seems like it's being used again . So he says step one call someone a racist , bigot or anti-Semite . Step two say whatever you want about them , no matter how dishonest , because that's how you're allowed to treat racist , bigots and anti-Semites .

Step three when you're called out for this , ask why they're defending racism , bigotry and anti-Semitism . So these are , I think , variations . They're not all the same thing , but the Kafka trap is a little bit the same way .

Like I know that you're seething with hatred or crackling with envy , and the best way to identify someone who has that envy is they'll deny it . So then you're like , well , if I deny it , it just in their way they set up the argument . Well then , I'm guilty of it . It seems like Brian now asking about the gas cloud fallacy .

Why would this be particularly harmful ? I mean just thinking about Christian communities and Christian brothers , I guess . Two questions why is it harmful and where have you kind of seen this ?

We just have to admit , as uncomfortable as it is because of the wiring we've all received from our cultural upbringing .

Just the stuff in the air receive from our cultural upbringing , just the stuff in the air is that arguments about racism and anti-Semitism are left-framed to begin with In stepping into those debates and treating them as existential threats and as one of the most serious things that's happening in the world today is there's a bunch of white racists going around who are

going to destroy everything . That is the leftist frame . It's why we brought up the . Remember old Jack CS Lewis and what he said about fire extinguishers and floods . If you look at our culture today and you were just to ask on an objective level , what are some of the biggest problems related to race , ethnos , all of these various tangled nest of problems .

What is a bigger problem ? Racist people destroying the world who come from evil people , who have a kind of privilege that was built on the back of black evils ?

Or is a bigger problem that white people are likely to , in sinful ways , go out and mistreat blacks , latinas , some other races or ethnicities out in the world , and I would argue that it's not even close the far , far bigger problem . You just read a book like Jeremy Carl's Unprotected Class . I got that right , right . Yes , something in my head .

That issue seems prevalent . It is very prevalent . So one of the problems right now with the poison gas fallacy the imprecision is that one of the things it's trying to do is adopt this left-framed gatekeeping of a conversation itself .

And what you're fundamentally doing I think I see this a lot out of Doug's work in American Milk and Honey and some of the conversations surrounding this are that what it amounts to is to say you have to adopt my definitions On the definitional level , you have to adopt my arguments or you are very likely one of these anti-Semitic or in danger of being

anti-Semitic , black-hearted seething kind of person . And so the tactic is like dropping a big gas cloud that's sort of imprecise in its defining characteristics over a whole conversation , and the tactic is flee the gas cloud to the only acceptable position in the debate , which is mine .

And if you don't , then I'm not saying you're an anti-Semite , but you probably are or you're somehow sympathetic . So the problem with this is it's not precise enough and it doesn't allow for genuine disagreement on the definitional level to actually say like , as we did in the cold open well , hang on .

Some of this language on the defining level is it's too it's , you're proving too much , it's too broad .

But one of the tactics of the left is let's define them very loosely so we have a lot of power to condemn people and then people go around in this existential dread . Well , I don't want to be called that , so I need to stay away from any list of topics that are even associated .

One of the other things I think that's interesting and we'll probably at some point , I think , do a more in-depth review on , say , like American milk and honey , some of the things we disagree with .

But one of the things Doug says in there is he said I think the Christian position on the Holocaust should be X , y and Z , and again , I think it's a blurring of categories where you're like , wait , wait , wait , I didn't realize there was a Christian position , like an Orthodox position , in other words , on a historical narrative .

Well , that really makes people to Brian's point . I think you're like , wow , I really don't want to question too much about the historical narrative , because it sounds like , if I do , I no longer have the quote-unquote Christian position .

One of the reasons we went through them and have gone through many elements of the Crusades and saying , well , the cartoonized version of the Crusades that the West basically adopted in its own self-reflection concerning its Christian tradition and history was to say the Crusades were unjustified wars of aggression by greedy Christians who were just going and destroying

peaceful Muslims who were just trying to invent calculus , and we just wouldn't leave them alone . And so we committed atrocities and oh , by the way , against a lot of Jews along the way .

Now Christians sin in the Crusades , but the point is that it's actually a lot more complicated than that , and so when you get again with the blasphemy laws attending an idol or some sort of ideological blasphemy law issue when you start to say things like that about any historical event , I'm immediately suspicious .

I have a red flag going up in my mind saying there's something ideological happening here , there's something political and ideological that's less based about the actual truth of the events themselves than about the utility of this version of events for political reasons . Today , so to be clear , people are like , wow , they love the Nazi . No , that's not .

The point we're making isn't to all of a sudden assert our own cartoonized version of World War Two . That's like Hitler was an unqualified Christian prince and you know , the Nazis were unqualifiedly the good guys and Churchill was just this black hearted thug who never did anything right and he secretly tortured puppies in his basement .

Like the point is no cartoons anywhere . Let's do the difficult work of history and also just recognize that there's a reason that more than one book is written about any historical event . One of the reasons is because even professional historians disagree about the nature of different events .

When somebody says this must be your position on the Ashkenazi Jews and I'm like well , but even the geneticists , who are many of which are not Christians , even they don't agree with something like that .

But you have to distinguish then between different layers of the Christian approach to a thing , the ethical approach to something like let's take World War II Christians should all agree , or at least there should be a really robust conversation about the ethics of firebombing civilians . Agreed .

We should not be—Christians should not be in the business of intentionally murdering women and children in combat . Okay , now that principle I just laid out . First of all , there's a debate that would happen historically concerning the horror of war and the ethical calculation of that claim . It comes into the Crusades World War . I like all of the wars , all right .

But the question I would have that would immediately arise from that on a historical level is then , let's say that we agree , some hypothetical group of Christians and pastors or whatever agreed on that ethical claim I just made .

Well , then we would be forced to say the allies were therefore extremely wicked and sinful in their approach to the war , in firebombing Dresden , at least at many points , and the Axis powers were extremely sinful in their actions in rocketing London and blitzkrieg . So we could say something like that London and Blitzkrieg . So we could say something like that .

We could also say as an objective ethical fact that the Darwinism that was in the air at that time , that affected Germany , but also America , england , this absolutely ascendant Darwinism at that time and its child , which is eugenics , led to some absolute evils and atrocities , for example hitler's I think it's the t4 , basically extermination eugenics program where he

ordered this is undisputed where he ordered the liquidation , the murder of a million , basically like mental ward patients in Germany , and they had carried out this to the tune of at least hundreds of thousands . By the time , some church leaders in Germany , within the party , actually said , hey , you need to stop doing that , that this is actually just plain murder .

And then he halted that program at some point . So we say that's evil . And then we could also say , and all of similar programs like that everywhere in the world , that they were because of this Darwinism in the air . All of those were evil .

And what we've just done is some like not super complex , but a little bit more complex than a cartoon version of ethical analysis , treating history on its different layers of truth the historical fact , the ethical fact .

And this is the kind of thing that happens when you don't get emotional and try to shut down the whole conversation with left-coded epithets from the beginning .

You can then have that conversation where people can get in the same room or they can exchange books , articles , podcasts , whatever , and have a robust debate about some of these topics , but when you see that debate can't even be had , you're not even allowed to have that debate and anybody having that debate , on any level , is an anti-Semite or is a racist , or

is that screams Saul Alinsky , gramsci and Marxist left coded framing that all right wing people should agree . Let's get rid of that . Let's actually just jettison that whole mode of exchange of ideas .

What's interesting with this leftist tactic that you were talking about , brian , is that I actually experienced this firsthand . A lot of us have , especially millennials . I'm graduating from college around the 2008-2009 time period and for you , zoomers , the economy was really bad . That was a housing crisis . It was actually really unemployment numbers were really high .

So I'm getting out of college , I have college loans to pay off , you know , and I'm trying to start a household , and all this . And I'm in my college classes business school I had to take some HR classes , which is quite unfortunate , but I had to take some HR classes and you had affirmative action at the time .

So they had certain hiring quotas based on race and gender and things like that that they had to fulfill , and so , even if you graduated with good marks and you had a lot of experience , it didn't necessarily mean that you were going to be the best qualified person for the job , because they had to fill their quotas .

So that was what I was dealing with at the time and if you noticed , like I may or may not have at my public university , that that was actually unjust and it was actually a form of racism , you got a lot of pushback Like , no , I'm not saying anything bad about any of these people that are within the quotas that they have to fill , but don't you think

that we should just hire someone based upon their merit for the position and not necessarily just based upon their skin color and automatically because of the loose terms that they're able to control the dictionary and to divine things ?

You're actually a racist for that sort of noticing because you actually have privilege and we've seen this played out time and time again over the years into this self-loathing that is encouraged and shame for just simply being a white person and the privilege that you have that you don't even understand why you have it , but it's because of that you're actually an

oppressor , that you have the privilege that you have , and so you see this trap that was laid out for us in that sort of noticing , but it's just being reapplied now in this topic of anti-Semitism , where even certain types of noticing is sinful , and you are the Nabal that Abigail should definitely be warning their pastors against Just because you notice , like in

the example that Pastor Sauvé gave about this historical narrative being actually history is really complex , gave about this historical narrative being actually history is really complex , and so it really is , I think , a war over the dictionary .

And so I think that those not being able to define your terms very tightly but intentionally having the loosest form of a definition you can for a sin is really problematic , to the point where you're saying there are certain pastors that need to step down and certain church members that need to be put under church discipline just for laughing at the wrong thing or

noticing the wrong thing .

It's in American Milk and Honey I've seen it on the blog and the Doug has repeated it like in the cross politic episode , where he he said the problem is Stone Choir , and then he went on to describe Joel as re-voiced for Nazis , which , and then the most of the show is actually about Joel , so it really seems to be a gas cloud kind of attack .

But what's interesting about this is you have this dynamic where you're kind of lumping all these things together , you're using pretty charged language and then there's , as Brian said , there's always kind of an escape hatch of what didn't specifically say . It's kind of like the Buckley , like what didn't say . Buchanan was an anti-Semite .

I just said he said and done some anti-Semitic things . As you look at some of this , though , brian , I do want to specifically ask about the revoice for Nazis . We talked about that in the episode . What is revoice ? First of all , what's the connotation , denotation there , and how do you think that's being used ?

okay . Yeah , they could form like a covenant with another man and live with them and have a celibate , cuddle , friendship . They could have , you know , a lot of that stuff .

And we would obviously say , along with the Reformed tradition on concupiscence , that the desire itself is sinful and needs to be mortified and so you absolutely can't be carving out this side . B gay , I identify as gay , but I just don't sodomize another man .

It's like identifying as a thief or a greedy man and I just continue to use the label but I don't actually go and do the thing . I just carve out this space where it's not sinful for me to want to .

So the revoice for Nazis tactic is to say that us and Joel Webben are doing that same play with men who are sinfully partial against the Jews or sin in , I guess , some ways that the Nazis did . So they it's usually like the hatred or the envy .

Yeah , they hate and they envy the Jews , but as long as they don't actually go and beat up Jews , nobody needs to address the state of the heart . That's fine . The behavior is really all that matters .

That is not what we're saying .

You'll know that in glory , one of the ways to see that these sinful desires are sins in themselves is that in glory we will no longer desire to commit sexual sin or greed or murder or whatever it may be . So some of the problems that surround this sort of language is that , again , it's not a steel man , joel , nor us .

Nobody would say that if somebody really wanted to , let's say like deep in their heart they absolutely wanted to commit genocide , we would just say that's fine , as long as you don't .

I would say , for any rate for any people group , if they were like , really , guys , I just have a problem with black people and I would , I want to murder them all , like I see a black person , little kid up to a grown man , and I just really want to kill them , and they'd come to us with that sort of thing and I would say , okay , we have some work

to do , we're going to establish it , you know , we're going to start talking through the desires of the flesh , the murderous desires of your flesh that are rising up .

We've smuggled into the premises the conclusion that a person is anti-Semitic by defining it very loosely in ways that , before we even get to the conclusion , we've already rigged the game to say that somebody is sinning these left-framed antisemitism as sinful .

Partiality is fundamentally a tautologous definition , because partiality is not sinful in its absolute sense , like we can be partial in ways that are not sinful . I could prefer one thing over another , I'd be being partial . I prefer Kiwis to plantains . I am partial , but I'm not sinfully partial .

I'm Italian and maybe as a young I'm not Italian , but I don't know why I made myself Italian . Whatever I'm me , and let's just say , growing up I , you know , had a certain preference for my spouse , and in this case you can see the preference by who I married .

I was really into a light-skinned blonde woman and I was attracted to her , and there were other things too . But the physical played in and I had a preference .

I was partial to that in a way that maybe I wouldn't have been attracted on the level of wanting to marry somebody , even of a different racial characteristic , and it didn't mean that in my heart I had any kind of like sulfurous .

I wanted to murder them or I thought they were less than or something Like I would do the thing that James is talking about when he talks about dealing with the poor and the rich in church , where the rich man comes in and you say , here , take this good seat , poor guy , you go sit over there in the corner .

I wouldn't have had that sinful desire of the heart to treat another person that I didn't want to marry in that way . I just wouldn't have married them . So when we define racism or antisemitism or these things as sinful partiality , the problem is it's tautologous , it's like saying that it's sinful because it's sinful .

We actually need to define what delineates ordinary partiality from sinful partiality , and so that actually doesn't move the debate forward . And this is where I think just real quick , I know I'm monologuing- yeah , no , it's good .

But this is where I think the revoice thing comes in and some of the fine again , the fine-tooth comb distinctions that need to be made to define these things or refute them . Is that so ?

If you say that the sinful partiality like , if you argue in that way , you're not being specific enough to refute the claim that the sinful motive , that we're not harboring these sinful motives or allowing them in a way where , like , let's say that somebody has a position about Jewish influence in politics or something like that , right , if we define that as sinful

on its face , holding that belief , oh , you're being sinfully partial against the Jews for holding that belief .

Well , now , of course you're being revoiced for Nazis if , like Joel , you wouldn't discipline somebody merely for believing whether they were right or wrong or to the extent that Jews have a strong control of some aspect of government or culture or whatever . Because you've , on a definitional level , cooked the books , you've smuggled your conclusion into the premises .

There's no fair debate possible . No one can ever excuse themselves until to the poison glass thing . They flee to your exact position and framing .

It's kind of the same deal where I've said to people , okay , define for me what is a Nazi , define for me anti-Semitism , and I've usually gotten those tautologies in response . Well , we just all know it's sinful art . Come on , you know what it is . And I said no , no , no , let's define it carefully .

I have never once gotten a clear , helpful , accurate definition of the terms People think you're being pedantic . Yes , but no , I'm actually trying to say no . As Christians , we shouldn't be charging people with thought crimes or any crimes , and charging them as sinful if we can't even define what the sin is . It's like misogyny .

So the problem is now they haven't done the work to demonstrate that your treatment of women is hateful or denigrating . They're assuming it in the premises . It's begging the question . Of course you're going to conclude someone is a misogynist .

If you just get to own the dictionary to Dan's point about what defines a misogynist in the first place , instead of defining it in a way that can , then the actions and words and deeds can be actually examined under the light of reason .

Doug said something in the Cross Politics show that I thought was interesting . He said we never want to call somebody a Nazi who doesn't call themselves one . And he uses the Samuel Holden video because there was a 1936 .

And I think the main point from my understanding was they were trying to offend the post-war consensus sensibilities .

He said they're saying to themselves look , we're just a bunch of C words and I don't have , I guess , the stones of Doug to say that word in public or in private , honestly , because it's a gross word . But what he was doing is he's intentionally outraging the God .

What we've called what I call the Sunday school class Once this was an actual Sunday school class Was it the call on calling things gay . Yeah , this was an actual Sunday school class . Was it the call on calling things gay ?

Yeah , the virtue of calling these gay , because what you're doing is you're looking the idol square in the eyes and you're poking it in both eyes . Yes , and when you poke something in both eyes , you know there's going to not going to be like an oh . Your arguments were persuasive to me . They're going to be like outraged , they're going to be hysterical .

So there's a tactical thing there where I think you can judge the tactics . Those are public actions , they're open for public debate , but you have to at least , in charity , say , oh , in terms of the play , that's what you were doing when you did this thing .

But one of the questions that I get is I wish you guys would just be clear about what you believe about Nazism , anti-semitism , but particularly Stone Choir and it's interesting because I've made numerous comments about it . Brian's made numerous comments about it . I know that it's like this the gas clouding . You've been gas clouded so a lot of times .

I haven't said anything because , number one , I've actually never listened to a stone choir podcast . Um , so I'm like , well , I feel kind of stupid weighing in on a conversation that I'm not an expert in and have no experience , experience with how can I possibly denounce it ?

Um , now I will say I've seen a lot of tweets , uh , from Corey and the other , uh , is it well ? Uh . And the other , uh , is it whoa ? Uh , the other host . I've seen the tweets , uh , I think one this week was uh hitler hating the jews or attack . Whatever he said is proof that he was a christian and I read that and I thought that is idiotic .

None of the people that I've talked to are , you know , ready to become Nazis , or there's no hatred of the Jews . I don't . I'm just not seeing that . And we pastor a lot of people .

We've talked about World War II , nazism , way that you know , you get a bunch of nerds together who all play like the same video games or whatever , and they're like oh , have you know , did you see the glitch at ? You know , if you up down , left , right , x , y , jump , you know , did you see that and this ?

Like our guys are tismed out on a lot on on all sorts of , but you go through the stuff and you're like , what do you think about that tweet of cory mauler ? Like , oh , that was dumb , that was stupid . Yeah Well , I don't know what he's doing with that . Like , our guys aren't , um , influenced in the sense of like .

Again , you said I I've never listened to even a minute of stone choir podcast . Um , not even one minute , not even 10 seconds . I've never hit play on a stone choir podcast . So it's not as if we haven't discussed some of these things with our guys , but we talked about it in the cold open . If we ask any of our guys .

What do you think about this popular conversation that's happening , you know , surrounding Stone Choir and these guys and our stuff and Stephen Wolf and Doug Wilson , all this stuff ? Most of them will say like 80 to 95% of them will say some variation of . You know , I really disagreed with this . I , you know , I agreed with this .

I thought there'd be more nuance here . Hated that . But you know , none of them are like yes , ick bin ein Nazi . I don't even know what that means . I believe it means I am a Nazi . Okay .

They're being transgressive , they're being whatever , and you will never get to the bottom of denouncing them because they will keep making that . More new ones will keep happening , right ? So our approach to these things has generally been it's not as if our positions are kind of mysterious .

We are in the habit of recording multi-hour podcasts for years now , talking about stuff , including controversial stuff , where we just tell a well , hopefully well-researched historical tale , talk about the issues , apply them to our current day . That's our approach .

The thing that you're not like , the thing you're just not gonna find if you want it from us , I'm sorry you're not gonna find it is constant discernment media , you know type of tactics , constant denouncements and really allowing anybody to steer our denouncements through demands .

It's just like not going to be a thing that we do and the reason is because it's left coded and if you do it , you've just adopted their frame .

And why are you and by which they mean like , why is eric ? You know it was on the may blog this week , but you know why . Why is eric sharing , uh , white boy summer meme , campy memes with 80s synth vibes . And you know what I would say to that is I I think it's kind of cool because we like them . It's , it's not .

Nobody in that movement is like again .

But then I also think this is a genuine strategic difference , pastorally Um that when I see young men particularly and , by the way , a lot of these Anons are guys with businesses and family , men with more than five children and good churchmen and good churches . But let's talk about young men .

If I see young men who are interested in this sort of subject matter , I say well , we're Christians , let's engage in debate and argumentation . As Brian mentioned earlier , let's present the cases . What I won't do is a left-coded denouncement , having never even listened to some of the content .

Now you mention a person , there's like a whole lore where the denouncement thing again , you're like but , but did you know that jd hall once sinned ? You're like , okay , whatever , um , the whole thing was , it was so . It was a brilliant tweet .

He basically said um , you know , this is how you should deal with subversive or conspiratorial or edge like fringe conspiracy type of thinking or anything that has the reputation of that . He's like a guy you know asked me , maybe he's in his church or something asked hey , what do you think about the earth ? Like , do you think the earth is around ?

You think we've been a space ? Do you think , like the earth is flat ? And JD Hall was like you know , no , I've been , but I've never heard .

And the guy , for like 20 minutes , explained why he believes the earth is flat and as one of the hosts of haunted cosmos , let me just say that both Ben and I have been in these conversations multiple times and instead of 20 minutes , it's been two hours of just , and we've done the exact same thing JD Hall describes which was .

He listened and then he gave like a couple . He was like , wow , that's , that's really dumb . Um , and the guy was like , well , am I in trouble ? For like could I be in your church and believe that ? And he was like , yeah , what do you ? What does that have to do with anything ?

To use the sports analogy , oh , everyone knows that I am , like I know of the king's hall , like very apt to reach for you know it reminds me a lot of um , you know that one quarterback , that one time for the dolphins yes , who am I thinking of ?

One of the things I think that's interesting is with Buckley in his story , jack Trotter brought this up right , that he had outside influence upon him , ironically by some Jewish people to get Joe Sobern fired . So it seems like , as wise Christians , one of the things we ought to do is also think through differing motivations .

We should think through , okay , could there be political mechanisms at play ? And this one I want to ask Dan .

But Dan , you mentioned something that I thought was really interesting James White and we'll get into the timeline , by the way , in just a minute but James White and Doug Wilson At the end of July July 22nd is the first Mayblog and then the dividing line shortly after , addressing the meme situation and anti-Semitism , and oh my gosh , there's a huge problem .

And guess what ? Doug just wrote a book and to his statement I've defined it envy . And then what do you know ? I go looking for it , I find it . But think about the political situation that's going on in America in July . That's interesting . So I'm going to ask you about that in just a second .

It's also interesting that this second wave of attacks publicly came , I mean on the heels of the presidential election , november 2nd . Right , and you would have to kind of at least wonder and say are these politically motivated , these you know publicizing of these events ? So talk to me first about July . No those .

But what is interesting about the timing of this whole situation that we'll get into is that um Joel Webben was made aware of this , this meme that was sent from his church member back in February , and so it began working with his this church member towards repentance , reconciliation . You know , I'm sure he was examining like , where is he ?

Standard counseling protocol , right ? You ask a lot of questions , try to get down to the root of sin , get the facts . Yeah , make sure that you've got a right perspective before you start calling someone to repent or or put them under church discipline and things like that .

But then I don't know exactly when Doug Wilson and James White received the meme , but it was around July I think it was July 22nd when Doug published his May blog , and that just happened to be the day after it was announced that Joe Biden was stepping down from the presidential race .

But it was just really interesting timing that right around the almost pinnacle of Trump's lead in the presidential polls that that was published and and then , like you said , after , the election .

The timing would seem to fit with that theory , simply because if you're trying to secure political power for yourself , or for your friends or for someone , then you would actually have to distance yourself from these problematic elements , the fours , like we said in our in our cold open , the fours that are rabble rousers and speak most courageously to cultural issues .

You'd have to distance yourself for the sake of political platforming , and so it does make sense as far as the timeline , but who knows , doug would have to answer for that himself , and that's why another point to clarify there this is why we're trying to be clear , direct and offer a falsifiable claim that can be refuted .

Because at that point it becomes really easy for Doug to say actually that was just happenstance , it was just just timing , Didn't think about it , wasn't a motivation ? There's actually an easy out , uh , which is important for a righteous man to be able to defend himself . But if it's an unfalsifiable charge , then there's no escaping it .

So that's why , just to reiterate , what you said .

We should be seeking power and leveraging it for righteous ends in the political sphere . Obviously it's not obvious to everybody , but obviously that's one of the great needs .

Think about somebody , though , running for like SBC president , maybe in 2018 or whenever , and that person let's say that they liked Doug Wilson in the past and that Doug Wilson had talked positively about them before . Now that person's running for SBC president . That guy might have a political calculation where he goes . That's not going to help me .

I need to denounce Doug Wilson because he's this radical , crazy guy who's like federal visionist and heretic , and he's , you know , stephen Sittler and all this stuff , and he's got all this baggage . So the SBC guy who's previously friendly all of a sudden might go . You know , start criticizing Doug . There's a similar temptation to , I think , for , in Moscow .

This might be a new sensation for them , honestly , because they've been forced like throughout for most of their lifespan and but now there's like the embargoes lifted on Moscow and they go . Oh , we actually have mainstream , like Tucker has dug on , amazing and the and I'm I'm for it .

I want them to have mainstream influence and but there might be a calculation in there where they go . Ogden has said a lot of . Joel Webben said a lot of good things about us and like signaled our way and like we shared their stuff . Maybe once or two there's been a signal , you know .

So I need to make sure that , like we put some distance just to say , hey , other people watching those guys , like they're crazy , we're not with them and I'm not saying that's their words , I'm just saying look at the , look at the pattern and just understand that this is , this is a part of politics that the right actually needs to figure out .

Is that there's a reason . Politics is like you say . People are being political . It has a certain implication . It's because the art of politics really does include power , calculus and image , and image related to association . It's important we make it's not whether , but which . You can't escape that .

You're going to have those calculations , but we need to be careful that when they're doing them , we're doing them righteously and that we're being accurate .

This seems to be a misunderstanding of Netter , where people think that we're saying or it's been Doug has attributed to me or somebody else in our camp saying like well , eric apparently is fine with all these really , you know , really actually sinful things happening on the right . I'm not fine with them .

That is completely not what I'm saying , but I am saying in a 1 Corinthians , chapter 6 type way we ought to prove the viability of our internal polity by proving that we can deal with these things internally in a way that doesn't destroy us in front of the left .

Two , when I have relationship with somebody who says something I think is off , first thing I'm going to try to do is actually talk to them and say tell me why you said that . What do you think ? Am I wrong or are you wrong ?

But if you notice like , oh man , I think we have a problem in our camp , it would probably be wise to sit the major players down and say , hey , I process or destroy our friends , then I think that's a fine conversation and a wise conversation to have .

He said that a lot , um , but the issue that we were presented with the , with the strategy that was deployed , was actually it was the gas cloud fallacy , it was the Kafka trap or whatever , and it actually took something that was probably a minuscule issue within our camp and an inflamed it by just attacking men's character with this unfalsifiable charges .

And so especially younger men who had looked to Doug as somewhat of a father figure in the faith , as a man who's courageously leading in the front , who's fighting the cultural battles , who's actually doing the fatherly work of saying son , let me tell you , even if it's through books or blogs or his Twitter , let me tell you how to order your home .

This is what a good father should do . This is how you should discipline your kids , this is how you should relate to your wife , this is how you should relate to the church . So men that look to him as somewhat of a father figure all of a sudden has turned on them and has given this inescapable charge of sin .

That actually damages their reputations to the point where he's saying , or others in his camp are saying , that you actually shouldn't be a pastor , you should be put under church discipline as a member of a church if you believe this thing .

That's not exactly in line with what I believe , and so that caused a very small , minuscule issue to actually become inflamed to where you see a lot of young men who are very zealous and they fall into this trap quite frequently , where it's like as soon as you you , you tell a boy or a young man uh , don't do this thing , you're going to be tempted to do

it , don't do it . The first human instinct is to want to do the thing right , but then you do it in a way where there's no escape You're going to be guilty of the sin , whether you committed it or not , in that person's mind . By the way that they frame the argument , it could be that you're actually creating Absalom's .

That's right , and so instead we have this poison gas cloud fallacy and the bait is laid out there , and a lot of men have taken the bait right Before . They were like ohemite , then I am actually going to own it . We've seen this on the right many , many times , especially from younger men .

That's actually a part of the reason why Trump won is because , finally , guys were like you know what ? Yeah , I'm white .

And I want to point out that one of the one of the criticisms has been well , you know , guys , you say that you don't agree with some of these Anon tweets , or this one or that one , and if we give an example of a really egregious one , you guys would also be like hey , I don't like that , but they all seem to love you guys and they seem to consider

you like I like Ogden , not those guys . So they seem to be your guys . And I would just say , okay , let's back up a couple years when Doug in Moscow was going hard against the gospel coalition culture and against Big Eva correctly , and leveling a lot of these charges . That's when a lot of us were one .

There were absolute rabbles and crowds following them everywhere . They went ratioing everything that any of these big Eva guys would do that would criticize Doug . Most of those guys were running these plays on Doug . They were like being imprecise , they were gas clouding him . They were you know . They were being very political and there'd be rabbles of like .

We have successfully ratioed the gospel coalition into irrelevance . Their Twitter account is defunct . It has like 300,000 followers and the engagement of a person with 20 . Okay , they are nothing . They are gone , and the rabbles were a huge part of that . The meme lords , the edgy Anons they would go out and fight .

They would tilt at every single TGC guy and fill in the blank with any of Doug's controversies the race one concerning blacks , and slavery and Southern slavery , any of these things . There's been an army and I just suspect that if you went back in history and you analyzed all of their communication channels , from social media to blogs to , etc .

You wouldn't find moscow spending an enormous amount of their time counter signaling or policing that crowd , because they were , generally speaking , like there were bad actors in there , probably said sinful things about kevin de young or someone else yeah , but but it didn't . I'm saying doug didn't need to do that . I'm not faulting him for that .

He was right Not to . But why do we have to do it now ? We , you don't . You actually don't like it's enough to be to to state your positive case . People should be charitable and not assuming that the behavior of the conversation I had with James White ongoing .

They were courageous men , guys like Ben Franklin . They were courageous to a large extent , so I'm not going to do that . But it was interesting because in one of our exchanges a very prominent Anon posted in response to me , siding with James . He was like yeah , I totally agree with you , eric and Brian and the guys in Ogden .

They don't preach the gospel , they don't love Christ . This is a great case in point . He goes off .

And so I texted James , I just screenshotted and I texted him and I said , okay , if I have to denounce the people in my feed whom I don't agree with , who are , you know , making really rude comments or whatever it is , or just false comments , I feel like you should have to say something to this guy . And he responded to me .

He said well , how can I be held responsible for this guy ? I mean , I didn't say it and I thought okay , this seems to be like complete hypocrisy . Now , what I would also say is this One of the things that has been a common question is why don't you just submit to these older guys they're clearly the more mature party , blah , blah , blah .

And what I've said throughout to both camps you'll remember I had posted on the Westminster Confession of Faith superiors and inferiors . Each of us have duties in this thing . If you're the old men and you want to claim the mantle as the mature , older , wise men , you should probably act like older , wiser , mature men .

And in many cases I've not seen that to be the case . People have said well , why don't you just communicate with them ? We are communicating with them . We're communicating with them repeatedly through text , through phone calls , through letters to elder boards and all sorts of other things .

To Brian's point in the cold open that's gone almost nowhere to this point and it's , and also it's ongoing and there's a .

Well , partly because if you wait until the process of communication between parties privately ends , you'd never say anything publicly , because those things can never like there is a sense in which they can just keep going forever and at some point you have to come out and just say these are some public things that are said , these are specific things we have an

issue with . Here's our actual position Just clear your name and even if you're leveling charges , accusations , whatever , they're falsifiable , like we've said .

In the last two weeks there's been three Mayblogs written specifically about me that are very strong any type Mayblogs . Doug is clearly fine going public about these issues . He did not contact me about any of those . He didn't reach out via text and say , hey , let me set up a call with Eric , maybe we can clear something up .

And we're in the midst of communication process and he's still going public . So at some point I feel like it's fine to say well , yes , matthew 18 is really important , we are doing those things .

However , when there's public comment on public record , why would you require that one person can keep speaking publicly but the other has to be quiet and to be clear , I'll look at the camera to be clear .

We're not going to and we don't do this . We don't say like , why didn't you email me first ? Because I said it publicly . Right , it's like a politician giving a stump speech and then expecting his opponents to like send him a letter before they post on Twitter . I'm not voting for that guy . And here's why . Like it's public , this is public discourse .

Yes , so there is a point . Some of our friends were worried , like you guys , you didn't release this episode earlier , the first version of this episode , because of private talks with Moscow and all this kind of stuff .

Like , I'm worried that you're never going to release anything and if you believe this false standard that you can't ever say anything publicly until it's all resolved to the bottom privately , we don't believe that we're trying to make distinctions between what we would and wouldn't address publicly versus privately .

That's true , but something like this , I think , is necessary Just Again , even just for the fact that , even if Pastor Wilson or none of these men intended to call us anti-Semites and they might say that the reality is , we have dozens and dozens and dozens of calls both in our community and out , saying guys , doug Wilson thinks you're racist anti-Semites , are you

really ?

But it is to say , public statements have been made , people are having certain assumptions . We can respond fairly , directly , and then , um , you know they're , they're free to re-engage as well . Uh , gentlemen , one of the things I want to do is jump into the timeline and then we'll have a few more discussion points after that .

We have made many calls with many of the parties involved to verify claims , timeline of events and each party's involvement . We've also listened to the relevant podcasts and read the relevant blogs in order to seek greater clarity surrounding the situation .

As many of you know , we've addressed our concerns with Doug Wilson , the elders at Christ Church , james White , tobias and Joel . Some of these conversations remain ongoing . Let's begin with the key players involved in the recent online drama . First , tobias Riemenschneider is a pastor in Germany .

One of his church members moved to Georgetown , texas , where he became a member at Joel Webbins Church . Joel is the lead pastor at his church and runs Right Response Ministries , a large reformed online media platform .

Doug Wilson is a pastor at Christ Church in Moscow , idaho , writes the Blog and Mayblog and publishes books , videos and other media through Canon Press . Dr Joe Boot oversees the Ezra Institute . Dr James White runs Alpha and Omega Ministries and is an elder at Apologia Church in Arizona . We'll begin in the spring of 2024 .

Consider this pertinent background information . Joel Webben invited Doug Wilson , as well as our crew from Ogden , to speak at the Right Response Conference in early March .

While at the conference , doug privately addressed some of us about his need to make a public statement calling for a ceasefire between us and Allie Beth Stuckey regarding an online back and forth we had been having on X . Doug released such a statement during the conference , taking Eric .

The reason he gave privately for his need to make such a statement was that he had done an interview with the Blaze and they had threatened to round file the interview if he didn't say something publicly . Doug also spoke with Joel about an upcoming podcast series Joel was planning with Andrew Isker about Zionism and dispensationalism .

In that conversation , doug told Joel that if he did the series with Isker , the doors of Moscow would be closed to him . Joel moved forward with that project and posted it to his Patreon channel In February . Before the conference , the church member from Joel's church had been texting with his former pastor , tobias from Germany .

One of the things he'd sent was a text message with a meme that featured a Holocaust-related joke . Tobias reached out to Joel and at some point sent the meme to James White and Doug Wilson . On July 22nd , doug Wilson mentioned this in his blog titled A Rejoinder to the Internet , randos on the Jews , natcon 4 , and a Couple of Hindus .

In the blog post , doug posted the meme and described an incident in which , quote a parishioner periodically gets drunk and starts spewing hatred towards the Jews . End quote . He also said quote I have a pastor friend who had a parishioner move away who then came under some bad influences and started sending around memes like Mom , what's the Holocaust ?

It was the one time Jews had to do manual labor , so they claimed it killed them . That's the kind of thing that requires cold law and hot gospel . You can't fix it with sunglasses and a joke about white boy summer . The task is to keep these people from going to hell . End quote .

As an important point of clarification , pastor Webben has confirmed that the church member was not getting drunk while sending text messages to Tobias . Doug also said that what drives this sort of thing is envy . He went on to say , on the basis of Paul's argument about the Jew-Gentile relations , quote I look for envy and sure enough , I see it .

End quote , though he didn't mention Joel in the post by name . Several people began asking Joel if this was about his church , given he'd been a speaker at the New Christendom press conference . At the time , christchurch deacon and cross-politic host Gabe Wrench had been attacking White Boy Summer on X , and so naturally , people were starting to connect the dots .

On July 31st , james White went on the dividing line to talk about the same meme and a concern with the alleged anti-Semitism it represented , and in that episode he threatened to start naming names . He also called for church discipline for both the church member and the pastor , whom he said should not be a pastor .

James later told Joel that he did not know who the situation was about when he threatened to name names . On August 7th , a Zoom call took place between Tobias , joel , the church member and other parties Unbeknownst to Joel or Tobias . The church member had recorded the call on a separate device .

In the call , tobias made repeated calls for excommunication and or church discipline . He also said that there was a contingent of pastors forming an alliance against Joel Brian Eric , andrew Isker and Stephen Wolfe and that that contingent was made up of James White , doug Wilson , joe Boot and others .

The church member from Joel's church repented for any offense he had given , as well as previous things he had said about the Jews and the Holocaust . The call ended with Tobias stating that no further action was needed and that he would talk with Joel and the church member if any further steps were to be taken by him .

But on September 13th , tobias appeared on the Chris Arnzen show Iron Sharpens Iron . In that episode , tobias specifically named Joel , brian Sauvé and Eric Kahn as pastors leading a racist and anti-Semitic movement in America . He elaborated that Eric had retweeted a quote about Aristotle which said that multiculturalism was detrimental to a healthy democracy .

Tobias said that Eric was supporting quote race segregation by retweeting the Aristotle reference . On October 2nd , joel recorded and released a podcast about the situation . He did so because he was told by Eschatology Matters that they were releasing a podcast with Tobias in which he would be giving his narrative of the situation .

Joel's intent was to get ahead of the narrative , which is why he recorded and released the episode . He wanted to reiterate that the church member had repented for past comments , was in good standing with the church and that Tobias' calls for excommunication and or church discipline were unwarranted .

On October 29th , eschatology Matters posted a video response from Tobias about the whole situation . In the episode , tobias claimed that he never called for church discipline or excommunication when talking to Joel .

It's also important to note that before publishing this video , and according to multiple sources close to the situation , doug Wilson and James White had consulted on a Zoom call with Tobias about what he would be saying in his video recording . When this episode came out , joe Boot , james White and Doug Wilson helped promote it on X .

The same day , october 29th , chris Arnzen sent an email to a redacted recipient and in that email , chris shared the recent podcast episode from Eschatology Matters with Tobias and said that he had been in contact with James White and Doug Wilson prior to the date of the email .

He wrote , quote I've been involved in a group discussion with fine men of God like Doug Wilson , james White and others , who all agree that this assessment of Joel Webben is completely accurate . End quote .

The assessment , arzin went on to say , was that , quote Joel Webben has clearly adopted sinful anti-Semitic views that at best trivialize the Holocaust and at worst deny it completely and contain revisionist understanding of the depth of sin which Hitler and the Nazis were guilty . End quote .

The next day , on October 30th , joel sent the Zoom call recording to Eschatology Matters , who promptly removed Tobias' video . On November 1st , eschatology Matters issued a full retraction of the video .

The statement reads as follows quote Finding yourself caught in a conflict between two parties who have both benefited you is terrible , and that's the situation we created when we released a video regarding Tobias Riemenschneider and Joel Webben . We regret this deeply .

Our regret isn't only due to the conflict it's brought to the body of Christ , but also because we didn't have all of the facts . There may still be more information needed to resolve it fully . We recognize that our actions led to the unnecessary slander and speculation against a fellow Christian pastor , joel Webbin and Covenant Bible Church .

We repent and ask for forgiveness . The issue and facts in this situation are complex and private in nature . We hope for peace and resolution between the parties involved . For our part , we've decided to step back from this conversation , praying that everyone involved can continue to bless the body of Christ .

They also went on to say Nothing in our video that we pulled down should be used in any way against Joel . It is filled with mischaracterizations and falsehoods . If there is any evidence to the contrary of this statement , it is on Tobias himself to provide it . We fully retract the video as unreliable and false . End quote .

We also spoke with a source close to the situation who said it appeared there was a concerted effort by a coalition of men , including Wilson and White , to destroy Joel . Later , tobias would respond again and state that the team at Eschatology Matters was divided on the decision . However , this is not the case .

One contributor , not a controlling partner , disagreed with the decision , but the two men in charge at Eschatology Matters were unanimous in their agreement that Tobias' video included falsifications and misrepresentations . They released another statement later which said as much and misrepresentations . They released another statement later which said as much .

On November 25th , doug Wilson went on the Cross Politics Show to give his version of the timeline about the conflict between Joel and Tobias . In the show , wilson said that Joel had recorded the phone call without Tobias' knowledge in an attempt to set him up . Doug said it was unfair that Joel knew the call was being recorded but Tobias didn't .

However , as we have already shown , joel did not know the call was being recorded until after it had taken place . The only person who knew it was being recorded was the church member . On that show , doug also claimed that Joel was doing the quote . Re-voice for Nazis . End quote thing by supposedly going soft in the sin of anti-Semitism .

Doug went on to say that Joel unfairly withheld the Zoom call from Tobias . He made it sound as though Tobias hadn't received the call for a lengthy period of time .

But after Joel shared the call with Eschatology Matters and a few other contacts to get counsel , it was leaked via Eli McGowan from a group chat to Tobias , who had the full video only a few days after Tobias' video on Ascotology Matters was pulled on October 30th .

The reason Joel didn't want to share the video with Tobias was because the church member was then in the middle of an immigration process and he didn't want that process to be disrupted by publicizing his name Further . Doug said on CrossPolitik that Joel was the one to take the matter public , but as our timeline has shown , this is false .

In July Doug and James White had addressed it publicly without naming Joel but strongly alluding to his church , and then Tobias explicitly named Joel on September 13th on the Chris Arnzen Show .

James White had also threatened to name names in the July airing of the Dividing Line , which would indicate that he did in fact know who it was about , namely Joel Webben . On November 28th Tobias responded again via YouTube .

In his response he repeated arguments that Doug had made , including the fact that the Zoom call was a setup and had wrongfully been withheld from him . He did not back down from his earlier comments made on the Chris Arnzen show about Joel .

He criticized Eschatology Matters for their statement and said they had no right to make such a pronouncement about the veracity of his previous claims . He said the team at Eschatology Matters was divided in the decision , which Eschatology Matters has strongly refuted . After reviewing the timeline , some serious questions arise .

Why was a private matter between pastor and congregant paraded before the eyes of the public in the first place ? Why wasn't this handled privately ? Why were Doug Wilson and James White coordinating behind the scenes with Tobias throughout this process and why didn't their involvement end by encouraging Tobias and Joel to seek personal , private reconciliation ?

If Doug and James were not a part of a concerted effort to publicly attack Joel or form a coalition against him , why haven't they come out to dispute Tobias' claims that such a coalition was being formed ? If the heart of the matter is a difference in opinion on pastoral strategy , why wasn't that handled among gentlemen privately ?

Do you think that's a fair assessment to ask that question of this situation ? Oh , absolutely .

You have a man in a church who shared a meme that somebody was offended by , and maybe there were other texts in there that gave this pastor concerns his former pastor , and so the former pastor contacts his current pastor , where he's in membership at a church , and says I received this from a member in your church and I think it's worth bearing a dress , and

so I'm willing to help walk through this process . But you're the authority , so I will just submit to your authority and will just aid in whatever way I can .

That should be the end of it as far as the circle of knowledge , because part of church discipline , by the way , is that the escalation you see this in Matthew 18 , is that you begin to involve more parties , right ? So if your brother sins against you , go to him . If he repents , you've gained your brother .

If he doesn't take witnesses , you know two or three , and so you see , it expands all the way to the church . And so , you see , it expands all the way to the church .

But what we have in this situation , as it appears , is that you have the one-on-one with Tobias going to Joel and to this church member and then getting repentance , but for some reason that wasn't satisfactory and they're just going to use him to essentially show this underlying issue of this horrible envy that's underlining the entire Reformed world and just use this

poor church member as a spectacle . I mean , it's hard to actually imagine anybody that's been sinned against more than this church member who actually , by Joel's own mouth , saying that he's actually repented of whatever sins he committed . Well , it's interesting too because , brian , one of the things that this whole .

So one of the dangers could be that you whether this was the motivation or not , it was certainly a prominent theme in no Quarter November . There were bridges burning , they were about all these topics . There's a public statement At the end of no Quarter November , doug ran a post on the May blog and he was like yeah , it's been a great month .

You know , we've had lots of traffic . That more pastorally , probably because to that point we hadn't even addressed it publicly or anything like that , weren't actually interested , uh , in doing so until , as brian's mentioned , we kind of had to . Um , but , brian , it seems like that could be .

A real danger is that you get in this cycle of clicks and likes and engagement and then you start publicizing things that really ought not to be publicized .

He says stuff professionally and he says stuff all day , every day , online . He does multiple videos a week , so there's no shortage of things where you could just take Joel's words and if you wanted to make a critic , a critique of them , you could steal man him and say this is what Joel said .

I'd like to critique Joel Webben for Joel Webben's views on this view that Joel Webben holds . I'd like to critique Joel Webben for Joel Webben's views on this view that Joel Webben holds , even if it's a form of engagement .

It'd be totally fine , joel , like and to the thing we already said , public speech is open to public repudiation , refutation , argumentation , whatever . So that would have been totally fine . We wouldn't be making this episode .

My read , like my , my back of the of the cereal box read , or like my napkin math read of this situation is people wanted to attack joel and maybe us too , based on some of the stuff that um Dan went through in the timeline , and instead of doing that they just doing that directly .

They made kind of a case in point that ended up like in in their defense . It ended up being super unwise . I don't think it was well thought through and I think they picked a bad guy to try to do it through like this sort of proxy through Tobias . I think that was a mistake and I think that should just be owned by the parties involved .

But I was just like we . We said we'd ask at the very end of the episode like what do we want to see happen . I would love to see guys just say that was a miss . We wanted to critique joel . We think he's been flirting with nazi stuff , and so here's our argument yeah and maybe a .

And then when it was handled and the person repented of whatever sin they said they had in their heart or something that should have been the end of it . This is Pastoral Ministry 101 . Absolutely in no case should the subsequent stuff have been said publicly , right ?

And that doesn't mean that you can't make a critique of Joel or us or whomever Seriously , like if you go on a show and you say Brian , as whatever his name is did and said Brian and Eric are leading an anti-Semitic and racist movement in America , okay , cool , go say that .

I would love to see the receipts for why they think that's true so that we can refute them . But don't like drag in a random guy from Joel's church , right , that's pretty pastorally negligent .

One of the things that you know was the reason why this was delayed , why we didn't just jump in right away , was because I wanted to do what I felt like hadn't been done , which was kind of to put some old journalistic skills to the test and also pastoral skills of like , well , let's just call everybody , let's talk to all the involved parties , let's see if

we can't get the story straight . So the narrative and the timeline is really what everybody affirmed . So everything you know , again , journalistic fashion . You got to have two sources , you got to make sure that that stuff is verified . So we did that .

And one of the things I think , dan , to me that came out of the timeline was this looks like it was a concerted effort , meaning Doug and James White were involved from the beginning and at multiple points along the way , the two Zoom calls before Tobias's recordings .

I'm sitting there thinking , you know , I don't know their precise motives , but I'm sitting there thinking , well , why wasn't there counsel at that point ? Like , no , you're not going public , you're going to go back to Joel , we're going to handle this privately . We don't need to drag a churchman through this , do you agree ?

But then you also have confirmation from Tobias , who said in the Zoom call that there's a coalition pastors that included James White , doug Wilson , jeff Durbin , joe boot and others that are being formed that in in being formed against us , and I can't remember the exact quote , so I'm just going to stop there , but there was a coalition and they are opposed to

Ogden Well , specifically Eric and Brian .

We have actively tried to fight this instinct to be ruthlessly territorial . And instead to say , hey , it's a big pie . Christendom wins when we have multiple platforms and multiple voices doing , let's be honest , very different work , like it's not a zero sum game . You know , james White is doing apologist stuff with Muslims .

That's very different than what we're engaged in . Doug has his sphere , joel has his . We tend to look at it as I'm not in competition with Canon Press Absolutely not . No , we want to support them . We've enjoyed a lot of the stuff that they put out , but what could be the danger of seeing it as just a ruthless game of territorialism ?

Like I actually want all of the churches involved to flourish , I want lots of different publishing houses to arise . Guys that came to our conference , even you know recently , and they were like hey , we're doing a , a publishing house .

Like a lot of what we're doing is basically we just looked at what you guys did and we're doing all that same stuff and we were actually happy to share a lot of trade secrets Like here's how we've done it .

Yeah , okay , what we're not saying is like with group chats GCs for me , but not for thee . Yeah , all of us are in group chats with guys where we talk about stuff happening in the Reformed world or like what do you think about this thing James White said ? Or what do you think about this thing Cannon did , or what do you ?

You know , I just saw your episode guys , let's talk about it . Let's talk about John Harris . Like , we're all in group chats with a lot of different men from across the Reformed world .

One of the main group chats I'm in has got Baptists , presbyterians , it's got all sorts of guys and we talk about stuff all the time and you know , if you were in it , you could tell , based on like posting in social media , that we're all talking about something and then all of us are posting our various thoughts on something .

You can even coordinate things in a group chat where you say we have this concern , how do we address it ? All of that is licit . Feel totally free to do that . I'm not saying that Pastor Wilson and James White and Tobias Riemenschneider , and whom these guys can't have a group chat where they say hey , do you think this issue is an issue too ?

How should we address it ? The main thing , the problem I have , is just coming back and saying someone in that chat should have said whoa , whoa , whoa , whoa , whoa , not this . If we disagree with Joel , let's just go disagree with Joel . Great , Do you guys have any evidence of like ?

Yeah , here's a link to where Joel said this or where Brian and Eric said this . Here's a tweet . Let's analyze it . I'm going to do a podcast about it . You write about it . I actually don't care if people do that . No , gcs for me and not for thee . No , that's not what we're saying . Gcs for all of the these .

You can all have GCs , have fun , talk , be friends , shape culture , form coalitions Totally great . I just want to make sure we're arguing Christianly . Yeah , I think that's really good .

So we'll start with Dan . Do you think that's true ? And how did it frame , kind of how we're thinking about the document ?

One of the points was that because you can't untangle it from the timeline because the contributors are the same , just maybe by chance , as the people who are in this supposed faction or group that's coming against us and it's not a consensus document like they claim , and so it's really hard to untangle it from the timeline .

And so even some of the pressure that was received privately to sign it maybe it was genuine , from motives that were completely righteous , but within the timeline of events and with everything that's going around , with the information that we've received , even that still feels like a coercion to actually participate in this , to just capitulate on our principles .

Quite honestly .

Aristotle was a good example of that the Aristotle stuff or whatever it was . I read through it and I thought for a document that's aiming for clarity . I read through it and I thought for a document that's aiming for clarity . It really needed to be written in a more journalistic or theological style instead of like a drunk Chesterton .

And then , lastly , I didn't mean that to be like that's genuinely what it came across . It was like did a drunk Chesterton write significant portions of this ? Because that's kind of like it's trying to be quippy . It's like that's not where you it it's trying to be quippy . It's like that's not where you . It's not where you go equippy you know ?

It's like no , actually it's not the words that I have a hard time with , it's the way that they're arranged that makes things unclear .

The way he writes in Case for Classical Criticism , it's systematic , and the last problem I have we talked about it , but just to make it very clear is that for a document like this that's aiming to bring people together , lest it be a poison gas , clouding of everybody else and saying flee to my exact position or you're an anti-Semite .

It ought to have been a document that was collaborated on by multiple different views .

So it's not a consensus document .

That was more clear , but at that point it was like , look , we're just not going to play the whole statement game , just going to keep being positive about what we believe , engage with these issues and also , there doesn't need to be a rush to figure out every single thing to where everybody agrees all the time right away .

When there's dispute , people can have different emphases . One of the things that Stephen Wolf said on the panel at our conference that was really , I thought , compelling and insightful .

He was talking about the criticism that , like , some guys just seem obsessed with the Jews and they seem obsessed with whatever , and he basically just said look , people are allowed to be interested in things . Stop , jesus , jew King .

Yeah , like people could be interested in golf and talk a lot about that , or they could be interested in like Pol Pot and talk a lot about that , or they could be interested in some is Pot and talk a lot about that or they could be interested in some . Whatever , that's fine . It doesn't mean they're idolaters about that thing .

That's a TGC-coded argument , right , like if you love your wife and you think a lot about your kids and you're an idolater . The whole thing came across to me as a strong-arm political play to attempt to force consensus . Draw a line in the sand , that's fine .

If you want to draw a line and say this is what I believe and I don't want anybody on my team who is not within this circle I've just drawn . But again , draw a circle , not a series of squiggles .

Maybe it could be wrong , but if that's the case , one of the dangers of a zero sum game philosophy , as you enter into the , especially the Christian world is that when you fight , then it's not actually to come to truth , right , it's actually not to come to truth , it's it's to gain whatever it is you want .

And so , james , I think this is really apt as far as what could be going on . James says what causes fights and quarrels among you Isn't it your passions within you ? You murder because you do not have , you covet and cannot obtain . You fight and quarrel you do not have because you do not ask and you do not .

You ask and do not receive because you ask wrongly , to spend it on your own passions . And that's really the danger of like this tribalistic zero sum game . Maybe that's not what's happening , but just looking at the evidence , it's really hard to come up with other motivations .

One of the things that could be a real problem here is it seems like the distrust among pastors and their people could actually go up , which Doug screenshotted and put in a May blog , but I think he's from Canada , a young guy was , you know , arguing with me repeatedly on multiple posts .

You know Anons they need to in their handle , they need to have their pastor's contact information and they need to submit .

Like we're busy , we have a lot of real issues to care for , lot of real issues to care for , and if a guy wants to go on X and talk about like flat earth or whatever it is , I'm like I don't have really time to actually monitor all of that .

So it seemed like kind of a ridiculous play , but I'm just curious if you see the potential that this erodes trust even further between pastors and their people . Yeah , you have real , real problems where like between pastors and their people .

We'll give an account for every careless word we speak , and that includes what we write online , of course . And so when it you know , if , if we had an issue with a church member and and they were sinful in their speech , in whatever direction , we would address it with them in a appropriate way , pastorally , and that sort of thing .

The , the , the , the hidden play , though , in the whole thing is like therefore , if a non seem to be on your team and they're sinning , you're , then their position becomes a part of your position and you're responsible to deal with it .

That's the play that we need to reject out of hand and say , no , we've already talked about that , but I'm against people sinning . I know this is going to be really strong . I'm against people sinning . And so I would , of course course , want to address sin wherever it lies .

But the thing is , there's nothing special necessarily about social media that wouldn't apply to . Why wouldn't I , as a pastor , want to monitor all of their conversations at work or in private , or with their friends ?

We're shepherding our people . We're trying like people can hide stuff , whatever but we're doing that and we're not doing it under a cloud of ignorance where we're just . Well , if I ask them about their views on this stuff , then I'll have to find out what it is and maybe correct them . It's more that we're already having all these conversations with these folks .

And the second thing is , I do want to be careful about the scope of pastoral authority and say that it's to the flat earth thing . It is not within the realm of my pastoral authority to discipline someone for holding a wrong view about the shape of the earth . Now , if they were doing certain things like saying the Bible , flat earthers do this .

The Bible demands that you be a flat earther and if you're not , you're a heretic , and they were starting to be schismatic in the church .

Maybe some of this is just being careful with speech . But later Toby had said well , I mean , I look at the document . This is just boilerplate orthodoxy . I'm like whoa , whoa , whoa , whoa , whoa , whoa .

It's that if you think that you would be contrary to the document if you thought that Aristotle was the picture of the ideal man , not Jesus Christ , now of course you'd be outside Christian orthodoxy if you thought that .

But the problem with that being included in a statement like this is again the implication is that there are people who are saying this and they happen to be all our opponents on all this stuff . It's a subtle implication .

But to say that in a statement implies that there's a widespread need to correct this erroneous view , view and what it does is it ?

Just in a very ham-fisted and rhetorically unsophisticated way , it associates people who are positive about Aristotle with that view that no one holds , which , ironically , would end up refuting NSA , since they've hosted talks about how to use Aristotle .

Yeah , that's the problem .

Um so , brian , I guess , if you want to expand on that first of all , do you agree with that ?

We're like , no , let's just say positively , here's what we would defend and the ideas that we're kicking around and thinking through and in debating , and all this is like generally , yeah , what Dr Wolf wrote in the case for classical Christian nationalism , published by Canon Press .

That's a pretty good summation of the kind of Christian nationalism that we are interested in promoting and discussing and even expanding , which is why we invited Stephen to come out to our conference last June and we were very careful about asking him .

We would like you to give this talk addressing this question the failure and danger of multicultural pluralism , this kind of thing , and what we should build instead because we were interested in his ideas and we wanted him to expand them into another question , not just rehash the book , but give us and he took an extraordinary amount of time and put together a very

helpful lecture over an hour of well-reasoned discussion on this question . So what kind of Christian nationalism are we promoting ? Well , one reason you shouldn't try to nuke Ogden is , if you're Moscow is because it's the thing you publish , that's the thing that we're promoting .

So maybe there are other wings of Christian nationalism that have other views and maybe they find some of those problematic or something . But it really does come back to like , if you end up denouncing us , what you're denouncing is Dr Wolf .

What was interesting is that as we discussed it , it was pretty much like hey , what do you guys think about this ? Is Hitler a Christian prince ? No , okay , we don't think so either . What about ? And we pretty much agreed on almost all of these .

There's probably nuances and different or undeveloped thoughts that develop more later , but pretty much in those conversations it was like oh yeah , cool , same team . Yeah , well , that's that's cool .

Like , um , I I joked to the , to those guys at one point like you know that you're , you've , you've run into the like the far wall of the right wing when you're denying the Holocaust happened , but you think it should have . You know , like that , that's the level of it . But none of us have seriously ever promoted anything to that effect Nobody there .

So if , if anybody needed clarity , I don't think they really did . I think we've been pretty clear on all this stuff from the beginning , but it's pretty like it's kind of a letdown of an answer , because we're not like transgressive edge Lords .

At the end of the day we're kind of like boring guys entering middle age who are interested in a lot of this stuff .

I'm doing a political work here and I think there's actually something to be said where I could say the same thing . Like I'm not a geneticist , I'm not a sociologist , I don't spend all my time thinking about how genetic traits transfer across , you know , races , cultures , ethnicities , whatever , and so to be able to say this is probably a great discussion .

It's not the main focal point on a lot of these issues for ministers of the word , but I think because you know , doug will write a book like American Milk and Honey , and it sort of gives the impression that pastors have to have an opinion on everything .

So he's giving his take on , like you know , the history of the nation of Israel and whether or not that's justified , and it's like okay , that's fine If you're interested in that and you want to write something about that , but please don't present it as like the definitive Christian position .

If you don't believe a certain historic narrative outside of the death , burial , resurrection of Jesus Christ , outside of King David and the events that happened you know surrounding King David , or if Samson existed , or you know Adam and Eve , like those things are , are , that is orthodoxy .

The formation of Israel , world War II , like those things are not in the realm of orthodoxy . I mean , you could have something that's just an absolute , uh , complete lie , that is there's evidence of and you could be convinced , and somebody is believing a lie . That's a different thing than orthodoxy .

An example would be you know what , if there's a lot of Christians in Palestine , palestinian Christians imagine you were to make the position that that no , but no Palestinian Christians can be Christians really , unless they agree with what Dennis Prager believes about the state of Israel . It would .

It would just be an a priori absurd position to take , and a lot of it when it's stated very positively and very confidently , without people thinking through some of these issues . Like concretely , you can go , oh yeah , that's right . If you don't agree with that , you know basically you're not a Christian .

But then when you start like I don't want , I don't think we're the guys who are known for being like we need a ton of nuance all the time . But you know , like let's actually have some nuance when we're talking about whether someone is inside or outside of the faith . I think that's a pretty important question .

Just to start that off , I would say you know , okay , we've addressed Tobias on this privately , but it would be nice to have a retraction and repentance on calling us leaders of an anti-Semitic , racist movement in America . That would be nice . Yeah , that'd be great , I think , for Doug and James in particular .

We should not have pushed this public in the way that we did , whatever our role was in it .

If that is pointed out to me , I would love , I'd be delighted to do that . So it's not just I want everybody else to repent and agree . Well , if there's anything that we've done or said that needs to be repented of , I'd love to repent of those things or have the opportunity to refute that they are sinful . So that's absolutely a big thing .

The other thing that I would love is , out of this , to just be able , like I think we're trying to lead the charge a little bit in this episode with just doing this let's bring all the stuff into the light , let's talk about it directly , so that everybody can stop sort of proxy warring and shadow warring and shadow boxing .

We're just going to say all of the stuff we've been thinking and talking about and have it open to correction or debate . I would love to see these kinds of debates continue in that spirit , with a more surgical approach to who I am anathematizing on one edge to just disagreeing with on another , like that sort of thing .

So , for example , I would love to see Dr Boot and Stephen Wolfe talk about theonomy versus the classical two kingdoms . Let's have a long-form thing where we actually go through the positions , relying less , I think , on instantaneous rhetorical devices on Twitter , because these are actually important discussions .

Yeah , totally , as I said at the conference , I think actually the theonomists and the classical Two Kingdoms guys can get along and work together .

But quite honestly , first of all , who knows what God will do , like it's all in his hands ? You know the spirit will move and bring people to repentance . We're doing what we can Convict convict people of of their own sin and , you know , helping them to repent for us included , as well as all other parties .

But quite honestly , let me give you my prediction as to what's going to happen . We're going to publish this episode and it may get some attention . It may not , and I think there will be a lot of hand waving and dismissal .

Just judging on the timeline and based on the facts , I think that is probably the most likely scenario , but I really truly hope , for the sake of really God's people in the church , that that's not what happens . Because you know , eric , you asked a question a little bit earlier and we kind of missed a little bit of the answer for that .

But through a lot of this , I think a lot of trust was lost in pastors in the office of elder . I really do think that that was one of the biggest hits . Was that okay ? So first you have a church member that was caught in sin , whose sin was paraded before who knows how many thousands , tens of thousands , a hundred thousand people I don't know .

That his name is , his probably out there , right ? I do think Tobias used his first name , at least on a on a podcast , and so that really undermined a lot of trust . Like it's one thing to have a pastor give an illustration from the pulpit , using somebody in counseling their sin as an example that's like kind of immodest for a pastor to do that .

But then to do that on a platform with as many eyes as could see believer , unbeliever , just paraded out for all the world to see , I mean that's on a whole nother level . And then just the infighting that has resulted from this , the contention forcing people to actually take sides instead of just saying .

Brian said this at the New Christendom press conference in his talk . We've said it elsewhere . It was really good where he said , instead of saying I appreciate pastor so-and-so or this person and I , I really respect their views . I disagree with them on these things but I am for them and want them to succeed , like that would be great , but that didn't happen .

Instead it's been just absolute all out war of tarnishing reputations in this zero-sum game to where it has undermined the trust of all parties involved .

Because the thing with wrestling with pigs is that you get muddy right , and that seems to be what has happened is that all parties that have been involved their reputations have actually been tarnished , and so it really has created a lack of trust amongst many Christians or has actually firmed people into some small sin that they may have had in the recesses , that

they barely entertained and should have repented for not to say that they shouldn't , but has really inflamed that to the point where now there might actually be real malice and hatred and unrighteous anger towards men of God .

And so that has been a real problem , and I would love , absolutely love , to see resolution and repentance and for people to come together in this to at least clear their names to make this easier for the people that we've been charged by God to give an account of the state of their souls to God , like that's what we've been charged to do , because we're not

just , you know , media personalities or whatever . We're pastors first and foremost , and we have a task , a lofty task , ahead of us to actually do that work .

And so this has made it very challenging for a lot of the congregants , a lot of church members , to actually trust pastors , and so , at least for the sake of the people , it would be wonderful if these men would repent and call us to repentance .

I think this about the question of Jewish influence in politics , Hollywood , whatever , and not this position , and I know they take a different position . That's great . They're still Christians . I think they're doing good work . May the Lord bless and keep them .

One of the things we do on Sundays in our liturgy is to pray for a different church every Sunday their church , their officers , by name , you know that sort of thing , and I can say the last , every single one I remember praying for , because I usually do the pastoral prayer Eric , you did one recently Um , every single one of them .

I could list manifold areas of theological , cultural disagreement , about significant things even , and yet there's nothing inconsistent with holding those and saying Lord , please bless this church in this other state , or please bless this church near us , that they would be strengthened in faith , that they would be refined by the Lord , like we can do that and I want

even people who are interested and invested in some of these things to be able to do that , to have permission from us . Like you have my permission , you didn't need it , but you just know you have my permission to say I like Joel Webben , I like the King's hall , I like stories are soul food , I like cross politic . I love these books from Doug .

I like the haunted cosmos book available now at new christian cosmos , and I don't agree with everybody and everything , and that's cool . I want everybody to be able to .

So that's part of the reason for the contention .

One other thing that I would throw out there , and we can all do a better job of this but I think , especially when you're disagreeing with a Christian brother for whom you share so much theologically in common , probably picking the most incendiary names to attach to people like Revoice for Nazis , because let's be real , we all everyone in our camp thought Revoice

was a disgrace , it was terrible , it was awful . So it's kind of like if I was like you know , moscow was kind of like BLM for Jews , if I was going to use that rhetoric , do you think it would broker peace ? And I've asked a lot of the parties this , like could we back down from some of the rhetoric ?

And I've equally called the young men like stop with all the like disrespectful language and you know just everything is about how fat somebody is . It's like , okay , all right .

If you want peace and that's a big if if you do want peace , deciding not to use the most inflammatory rhetoric possible will probably help your cause . Now , this is a big question that I've had in this situation and I know a lot of people think that we're stupid and they're like oh , you guys are being played or whatever .

No , we're trying to pursue a Christian process for reconciliation and we genuinely mean it . We want peace and there are times and there are situations in life where you can want peace and not get it .

Guys , we're not being played , we're not dumb , we have things we keep to . Well , sometimes we're dumb . But we have things we keep to ourselves and a lot of it is like .

For example , one of the reasons we haven't written like relentless numbers of blogs about the subject is because I actually consider some of the things we're trying to do positively and that these other parties a lot of them are also involved in are consider some of the things we're trying to do positively and that these other parties a lot of them are also

involved in are about 100 times more important than this particular debate .

Yeah , I think building Christian institutions , parallel economy , that building Christian churches with a spine , raising up men to leadership , fixing the Christian family I think all of these things are of such high importance that we would be absolutely stupid to spend a significant amount of our time arguing about the finer points of World War II or the Nazis or

something like that . That would be an all-time sidetrack in my view .

But I mean we're not going to start and then like comb through them and pull clips and again , like I've told you guys this before , but my soul would die , I would quit the King's hall If all of a sudden we had to either become a discernment ministry or or stop . I would just stop Cause I think that's all it would take .

You appreciate the content we've made in the past , for whatever reason you've connected with it , and I want to urge you to just remember that . I'm not saying that you're a sinner and idolater if you're interested in these things or whatever nothing to do with that .

But do make sure that you are in your soul before the Lord , loving your wife and your children well , serving your church well , being excellent in your vocation and whatever you do , and being careful in guarding your mouth whether that's digital or out loud , from sinning .

We're all going to give an account for the words that we say , and that's a sobering thought for us . It should be a sobering thought for you . Make sure that one of the variables that you include in your calculation is Christian unity across disputes like this , because this isn't the first one .

It's certainly not going to be the last one that all of us occasionally have to pull the sword from our scabbard and do some jousting , even with brothers and friends . So you don't joust with a sword , but you know what I'm talking about .

So I'd encourage you guys whatever you do , do it with all of your might for the glory of the Lord , for the sake of his people . Give your life for your brothers and for the Lord , and you won't go astray . So Lord bless you guys . Keep pressing on . We see the work you guys are doing and we pray that the Lord would bless you richly in it .