JOHN COOPER | How Truth Can Save America from Utopian Destruction (Ep. 526)

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0:59 This is Undaunted Life, a man's podcast.

1:21 I'm your host Kyle Thompson.

1:23 Let's get into it.

1:24 All right, guys.

1:25 We've got a special return guest on the podcast.

1:27 That's one of my favorite guests I always love having him on.

1:29 That's John Cooper.

1:30 He's the lead vocalist and bassist for the twice-grammy nominated and 12-time platinum

1:34 band Skillet.

1:35 If you're not familiar with Skillet, I don't know where you've been, but they're one of

1:38 the best-selling, in most stream rock bands of the 21st century.

1:41 He's the host of the Cooper Stuff podcast, and he's also a podcast alum.

1:44 He's been on episode 187 and 441 of this show, but we're having him on today because he has

1:49 a new book out now.

1:51 If you're listening to this on time or whenever in the future, he has a new book out called

1:54 "Wimpy, Weak and Woke, How Truth Can Save America from Utopian Destruction."

1:59 You might be thinking to yourself, "Why in the world is a rock star talking about things

2:04 like wokeness and why is he digging into critical theory and why is he digging into transgenderism

2:09 and all the things in society?"

2:11 It's because he's one of the few guys in modern Christian entertainment that is willing

2:16 to put his career and reputation on the line to stand up for biblical truth.

2:21 If you don't like that, John doesn't care.

2:24 He's a, John's more of a natural feeler, so he wants people to like him.

2:28 He wants to please people.

2:29 That's why he's a musician.

2:30 He wants to have most of the population like and consume his music.

2:34 But when it comes to biblical truth, he has drawn a line in the sand that says, "Look,

2:38 I am not going to talk to you in a way that is not biblical.

2:43 I'm not going to defend things that are not biblical to appeal to some random supposed

2:49 third-way approach."

2:51 So in this particular podcast, we talked about why he wanted to write the book.

2:54 We talked about the third-way approach.

2:56 We talked about the tone police.

2:57 We talked about people trying to be winsome.

3:00 We talked about why Christians are not wanting to be divisive and where that comes from.

3:04 Cowardly pastors, how we're basically lacking in modern-day prophets, how we bought into

3:08 the lie that Jesus of Nazareth was a wimpy person, and now we see wimpiness as a virtue.

3:15 And guys, we talk about a whole lot more stuff, and again, we couldn't even cover a tiny portion

3:19 of what he covered in his brand new book.

3:21 But I think it's going to be a great primer for you before you go out and get your book

3:25 it yourself.

3:26 That will be in the show notes.

3:27 It can only be bought at johnlcooper.com.

3:30 So he's trying to work it out with Amazon and some other places.

3:33 But johnlcooper.com is where you can get the new book, but let's not keep this interview

3:37 from you any longer.

3:38 So without further ado, let's get into it.

3:41 John Cooper, it's always good to see your face, but is it as good for you to see my face?

3:45 Because my my beard's maybe not as cool as yours, but you know, do you get excited whenever

3:50 I pop up on the screen like it helped me understand.

3:52 I absolutely do.

3:54 You know, I do, man.

3:55 And in fact, just this week at a concert, somebody came through a VIP line and they're

4:00 like, man, I love watching you and Kyle.

4:03 So I don't know what exactly what episode I don't know if he met us together or if he

4:09 just met separately, but we have those fans that come through.

4:14 They have their undaunted gear on and I give them a high five.

4:17 Heck yeah.

4:18 I mean, well, hey, whenever we see each other here next month, maybe we have to bring back

4:22 undaunted Cooper life stuff.

4:24 So maybe we have to bring my life people demand it.

4:26 That's right.

4:27 We got to have that.

4:28 Well, hey, we got a lot of ground to cover today, but I do have a skillet based question.

4:32 If that's okay for me to ask, I remember when you and I were talking privately months and

4:35 months and months ago, and then I guess it's decently public now.

4:39 But for the first time since y'all were basically a band playing in garages, y'all are an independent

4:46 band.

4:47 Y'all are not on a label.

4:48 You were on the same label for over two decades, sold a lot of records, saw the world a million

4:52 times over.

4:53 But now y'all are doing your own thing.

4:56 So I know y'all are still kind of figuring out what that looks like from a touring perspective

5:00 or recording perspective, all that.

5:02 What's that feel like though?

5:04 Yeah, it's really interesting.

5:10 Obviously, the world has changed a lot in 20 years.

5:11 The music business is also changing and trying to just to try to reshape and know where to

5:19 go.

5:20 And so I think that it's an exciting time for us.

5:23 I mean, I personally feel pretty excited about it because it's kind of nice to have any strings.

5:29 I mean, no strictures and the truth is, we're a pretty self-contained group anyway.

5:36 We do a lot of our own videos or artwork.

5:40 We do a lot of the things that we used to, like when you were in the 90s, I'm like, man,

5:45 if we get signed to a label, that's going to be great because they can do a real music

5:50 video and a real recording.

5:52 We kind of do all that on our own anyway now because things have changed a lot.

5:55 So I feel like the future is bright and clear.

5:59 We're actually writing new music right now and feeling really good about it.

6:04 So I don't know.

6:05 I'm pretty excited about the next chapter.

6:07 Okay.

6:08 So let's talk about the new music.

6:09 So sometimes when people leave a label, so for instance, one of my favorite bands is

6:13 not a very popular band, but they're a Christian death core band called impending doom.

6:19 So they've been signed to like solid state or something for a really long time, but now

6:22 they're releasing an independent EP, and it's a, it's a more like razor sharp version

6:29 of everything that they've done.

6:32 And so it's like, it's a bit heavier.

6:33 It's a bit beefier.

6:34 The lyrics are a little bit more aggressive.

6:36 So for you guys, as you're writing, are you trying to stay kind of that, that similar

6:40 skillet sound, which has evolved a lot over 20 years, obviously, are you all going to maybe

6:44 do some experiments that the label wouldn't have been super big on?

6:48 Like, what is the, what are we expecting the sound to be like?

6:52 You know, that's a great question.

6:54 That makes sense to me that a lot of bands would do that they, they, they sort of now

6:58 have artistic freedom and sometimes they, sometimes they go to like really wild places

7:03 and people are like, yeah, I don't, I don't really like that.

7:06 It was better.

7:07 It was, you know, kind of commercial.

7:10 I mean, the truth is, we've been kind of self-contained doing what we wanted to do the

7:16 last couple of record cycles.

7:18 I think that for us, it might not, I mean, it could, it could be in the way it changes,

7:24 but I think that for us, it might just be a lot less strife if I can just be a hundred

7:28 percent honest just without having so many cooks in the kitchen.

7:33 So many people say, no, I don't think you should try that.

7:35 No, that's been, no, you should do it.

7:37 It's just a headache to be honest.

7:40 And so I'm very grateful for what we, what God used with Atlantic.

7:44 They were great to us and all of that, but at this point in our career, I think skill

7:49 it knows how to make music.

7:50 We know how to make music that our fans connect with, our fans connect with us.

7:55 And I think that at this point, the label is sort of, I just, I kind of feel like they

8:00 were kind of in the, I don't want to say they're in the way because that means that nobody

8:04 was doing anything good.

8:05 That's not true.

8:06 They were helping some things, but it's a lot of unnecessary strife.

8:11 So I think that we're going to come out with something really great.

8:13 I think the fans will be like, Oh, wow, I really, I really dig this, you know, one, being around

8:18 all four of you as much as I have, um, y'all are very genuine people.

8:23 And so there are people that hate the music that they perform.

8:27 They hate the music that they write and put out there.

8:29 They're wanting to do other things.

8:30 I don't really get that sense with y'all.

8:31 I think y'all like the music that you've written.

8:34 You like the response that you get from the crowd, but you also know where your bread

8:36 is buttered.

8:37 And so you're not going to also release like a skillet, the jazz album, or, you know,

8:42 skillet, we're going to, you know, have a bunch of tambourines and it's going to turn

8:45 into a charismatic show.

8:46 Like, I don't think that's, that's what we're going to hear.

8:48 It's going to be skilled and it's going to rock the house.

8:50 So as much as I'd love to keep talking about music, we need to talk about something that

8:54 is super, very, very super duper exciting.

8:57 It's the fact that you as of today, as of the listening of this podcast, if you're listening

9:01 on time, you have a brand new book out.

9:03 So you wrote "Awaken a Life to Truth" a few years ago, and I just got to be honest with

9:07 you, the new book, which is called, "Week" or "Wimpy, Week in Woke," got to get it correct,

9:12 "Wimpy, Week in Woke."

9:14 I think that you've done something that is kind of unique to where everyone's heard

9:18 about the sophomore slump.

9:20 So there's that band that releases the debut album and it sells a trillion records, and

9:23 then they release their second album, it's like, "Ah, this kind of sucks."

9:26 I feel like this you've had the first book "Awaken a Life to Truth" was just a primer,

9:32 right?

9:33 It was the pre-show for the pre-show for a week, "Wimpy" or "Wimpy, Week in Woke."

9:37 I keep getting it out of order.

9:38 But I thought that you did such an incredible job of continuing some of the narratives from

9:42 the first book, but sending it basically to the moon.

9:46 And so just generically, and then we'll dig into the content of the book, the whole title

9:51 is "Wimpy, Week in Woke," how truth can save America from utopian destruction.

9:56 As a rock star, as a family man, as a father, why take the time to write another book?

10:00 Why take the time to write a book that had hundreds of citations in why week, why wimpy,

10:05 why woke, why should we focus on those words?

10:08 Well, I appreciate it, Kyle.

10:10 Thank you so much.

10:11 You're actually the first person that has, I think, sort of maybe made that connection

10:16 in that you don't need to read the first book to read the second book.

10:21 It's not really like that, but the first book was more like, "All right, Christianity 101."

10:28 So everybody looks at the world and is going, "Oh my gosh, I wrote that in 2020."

10:33 What's happening?

10:34 We had the pandemic.

10:35 We had the BLM riots.

10:36 We have all the racial talk stuff.

10:38 We've got Christian deconstruction.

10:40 We've got pastors saying some of the weirdest stuff that all of us Christians have ever

10:46 heard, and we're all asking each other, "What in the world is going on?"

10:51 Awakened life of truth was sort of like, "Here's what's going on.

10:54 It's postmodernism, it's relativism, and let's just keep it simple.

10:58 Here's the simple truth.

11:00 It was sort of a 101, but I feel like things have gotten weirder since then, and I got

11:06 to be honest with you, my naivety in 2020, I didn't think it could get weirder.

11:13 I know that I'm a moron.

11:16 I'm such a naive moron.

11:19 I did not think it could get weir, because I remember 2020 towards the election, I spoke

11:26 at a church, and well, actually, just to be honest, for the first time, because I know

11:34 that you'll get mad at me if I'm not honest on this show, I actually did a thing at my

11:38 own church.

11:39 Anybody that's listening to Cooper's up knows I love my church, I love my Pat, nothing but

11:44 love and respect.

11:45 I've been there for nearly 30 years.

11:48 Love it.

11:49 But they had me do a little thing.

11:50 We did like a weekend on politics.

11:52 I was explaining the progressive worldview, and I was talking about trans ideology, and

11:58 I was explaining that this is what is going to be, is being taught in school, and they

12:04 are going to ramp it up, because the truth is, is that the progressives, they really do

12:10 want, they don't want to just teach your kids what transgender ideology is.

12:15 They want your kids to be transgender, or queer, or LGBT.

12:20 They want them on the LGBT spectrum, they celebrate it.

12:24 And I had somebody, they've gone to church with for 25 years, really upset.

12:29 She was like, you sound like a flat earther, a conspiracy theorist.

12:34 She's like, there's no such, I don't believe that there's even such a thing as transgender

12:39 ideology.

12:40 And even if there was, there's no way they're teaching this at schools.

12:45 And I was thinking, okay, this is as weird as it's going to get.

12:47 But let's be honest, Kyle, it's way weirder now, and now it's gotten so weird that even

12:55 Christian pastors and institutional leaders in the church who were saying strange things

13:00 in 2020 are saying even weirder things, nobody's covered the Andy Stanley stuff more thoroughly

13:06 than you have.

13:08 It's even weirder.

13:09 So I wanted to do this book laying out what I believe how drastic what we're talking about

13:18 is.

13:19 I truly mean it.

13:20 Not being alarmist, I believe it with all my heart.

13:22 We are on the precipice of the end of America, of the end of, I believe we're at a civilizational

13:29 crisis, sort of like industrial revolution style, or like when some sort of empire completely

13:37 takes over another empire and they demolish it to the ground and they build a new civilization

13:44 with a brand new worldview.

13:46 I think that's what's happening in Western civilization now.

13:49 I think it's going to be very detrimental to Christianity, to our ability to speak about

13:55 the faith in terms of freedom of speech, freedom to associate, freedom to go to church and

14:02 preach the truth of Christ and the moral implications of the Bible.

14:06 I think we really are at that point, and I think if people understood how evil the ideology

14:13 was, I think Christians would go, okay, if I hear it from the horse's mouth, if Karl

14:19 Marx really said that, then I'll agree to hate it.

14:22 I think that Christians just haven't taken the time to read the material.

14:25 So that's why I covered it so thoroughly.

14:28 Hey guys, real quick, the financial status of most American families is not great.

14:32 Doesn't that make you sad?

14:33 It should make you sad.

14:34 This is going to blow your mind, according to a recent Gallup poll, 88% of non-retired

14:39 Americans are very worried about having enough money to retire, and in that same poll, only

14:44 19% of non-retired Americans even think that they will have enough money to retire comfortably.

14:49 That's 19%, not very much.

14:51 So the thing is, though, the reality is much worse than that.

14:55 So I've seen estimates that claim that roughly 95% of non-retired Americans are currently

15:00 not on track to be able to retire, 95%.

15:03 And that is only concerning savings and investments.

15:06 That doesn't even account for people that are exposed to serious financial problems if

15:10 they were to get too sick or to hurt to work.

15:12 And God forbid, if they pass away without having a plan to keep their family financially whole,

15:16 it's just, it's a crazy mess.

15:18 And that's why I want to introduce you to my friend and my financial advisor, Mike McCall

15:22 with Bluecrest Financial.

15:25 Mike can help you reach your chosen financial goals by helping you develop an overall plan

15:29 to ensure you and your family's financial success.

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15:39 Now, just imagine the peace of mind that comes with knowing that you're taking proactive

15:43 steps towards financial security for you and your loved ones.

15:46 Think about the legacy you could leave behind, and it's really going to be something that

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15:55 I trust Mike McCall with my financial planning, so I think you should give him a shot as well.

15:59 So to receive your free personal and/or business financial assessment, go to the link in the

16:04 show notes in this episode to book a 15 minute Zoom call with Mike.

16:09 Do not try to piecemeal your own financial plan, let an expert help you again.

16:13 Go to the link in the bio, just click that link in the bio to get your free assessment.

16:18 And just a quick note on that, guys, we're not even going to be able to cover like a tenth

16:23 of the stuff in the book because there's so much detail, so we're going to kind of hit

16:26 some highlights today, but I say all the time, in order for these ideologies to permeate

16:31 throughout a society, you need two types of people, you need conscious nefarious actors,

16:35 and you need useful idiots.

16:36 So the conscious nefarious actors know what they're doing, they know that they're [inaudible]

16:40 in the pool, they know all these things, but then you have these useful idiots that just

16:43 want to go along to get along these third way people, which we'll talk about these people

16:47 focus on winsomeness that we'll talk about.

16:49 And these are the people that allow these types of things to happen.

16:53 And those are the people, so Camille Paglia, she's since passed away, but she was, she

16:57 did a lot of research into great dynasties or empires that fell apart.

17:02 So the Greeks, the Romans, and towards the end of those empires, they became completely

17:06 obsessed with sex and gender, right?

17:09 So as much sex as possible with whoever you want, the gender of people and gender expression,

17:14 and we're going to ruin gender norms and things like that.

17:16 And the thing is that she's like, those things were signs of their downfall because of the

17:20 continuum of hard times, make a strong men, strong men make good times, good times make

17:26 weak men, weak men make hard times.

17:28 And we've had good times for a long time, which kind of brings up C.S. Lewis's chronological

17:32 snobbery.

17:33 These people that were born in 2001, they think that history started with them.

17:38 They didn't experience 9/11, maybe they didn't experience war themselves and all that.

17:42 Anyway, I'm kind of getting preachy.

17:44 We need to really dig into the book.

17:45 I will say the pre show your book, which is like the prologue for a lot of people or the

17:50 introduction for a lot of people, we could spend our entire time today, John, just talking

17:54 about the stuff from that, but we will skip around and jump around a little bit.

17:58 But from the very beginning, and this goes to your descriptions of your own naivety in

18:02 your own like, you know, just well, meaning this and you just took people at their word

18:07 and you just assumed things were going to work out.

18:09 Okay.

18:10 You thought you were going to do three things your entire life.

18:12 And that was to write the hits, rock the mic and spread the hope.

18:16 That's what you thought you were going to do.

18:18 But now later in or, you know, well into your established career and what you're doing,

18:24 you've added a fourth thing to what you're going to do.

18:26 And that's telling the radical truth.

18:28 And it's because you talked about you just learned a huge lesson that silence will not

18:33 be tolerated by the progressive left.

18:35 That's a direct quote from the book.

18:36 So I guess, John, why didn't you just plug your ears and cover your eyes and just, you

18:41 know, keep going on tour, keep releasing albums every two to three years?

18:45 Why are you deciding to throw a grenade more than a wrench, a grenade into the equation

18:50 this well into your career?

18:52 Yeah, you know, you just said it, rock the hit, sorry, write the hits, rock the mic, spread

18:59 hope.

19:00 I want to be in.

19:01 Look, I'm in a band.

19:03 Bands are supposed to be winsome.

19:05 We were not supposed to make people mad because we want everybody listening to our music.

19:10 I mean, nobody starts in a band is like, I really hope I make at least 60% of the population

19:15 hate me so bad.

19:16 They would never listen to my life, you know, um, the winsome thing.

19:23 The third way the, the, Hey, guys, we need to be unifying and be nice to people.

19:29 I feel that.

19:30 And I would, I just want to say this to people.

19:33 I don't know if anybody like that would even listen to this show anymore.

19:36 But if you're listening, I want you to know, I feel you.

19:39 I want that, but you have to put yourself in the perspective of less pretend is 1840.

19:46 And let's pretend that you're right.

19:49 We're right in the middle of like Chateau's Chateau slavery in, in, in there's somebody

19:56 that's speaking out against slavery.

19:58 Let's say there's an abolitionist saying, Hey, I'm a Christian and it is wrong for these

20:03 people to have human beings as slaves, right, separate them from their families and to own

20:10 them as properties, absolutely evil.

20:13 Imagine that you have a Christian pastor come up and say, guys, don't be so mean.

20:19 There's a third way.

20:20 What we have to recognize is that these slave owners, they do have, there is something true

20:25 about what they're saying.

20:26 They're providing a good service.

20:28 They are feeding these people, you know, they're giving them shelter.

20:32 Imagine you heard that now we're in hindsight.

20:35 So everybody goes, well, yeah, I'd never say that.

20:38 But then why do you make a third way when it comes to abortion?

20:42 You know what I mean?

20:43 Why do you make a third way when it comes to radical gender theory and the gender mutilation

20:48 of teenagers?

20:49 It's the most demonic thing I've ever heard in my entire life.

20:54 As I said, two years ago, most Christians didn't even believe it was real.

20:58 So that is why it came to this is realizing that I did, I do want to be that unifying.

21:05 I want to sing music, let people draw their own conclusions about what my songs mean.

21:10 I'll let the Holy Spirit do his work as I'm singing my songs.

21:14 I throw seeds out.

21:15 God is bringing some people to faith and I get to be the nice guy, but the progressive

21:22 left will not let you do that.

21:25 And I think that's the shift.

21:26 You see, you said the people born in 2001, in 2001 and 2005 and 2008, we can all just

21:33 kind of agree to disagree.

21:35 And it was fire.

21:36 Everybody's like, Hey, it's tolerant.

21:37 Everybody agree to disagree.

21:38 Oh, you're into Jesus.

21:40 Okay.

21:41 I'm not.

21:42 No, no big deal.

21:43 It's not that way anymore.

21:44 Now the progressive left has full on taken on the mantle that they are the righteous ones.

21:51 That's different than 20 years ago, 20 years ago, it was just more like, like neutral

21:55 world.

21:56 Everybody's ideas are sort of neutral.

21:58 You talk about Jesus.

22:00 They talk about whatever.

22:02 Now the progressive left is said, no, actually, we think that the killing of the unborn is

22:08 love.

22:09 The killing of the unborn is actually better for the earth.

22:12 If we're going to save the earth by killing babies in the womb, we are the ones that show

22:17 mercy because we know that some people just aren't ready to be moms and we're going to

22:21 help them slaughter their unborn children because we're the nice people and Kyle, people

22:26 like you are the bad, the bad ones because you hate women and you want them to suffer

22:31 because you're a patriarchal homophobe, transphobe, sexist, misogynist.

22:36 What's wrong with you, Kyle?

22:38 Why are you such a bad person?

22:39 Well, and John, what I think that does is I think that exact ideology that you're describing

22:46 there causes Christians to be on their heels because they think by definition, Christians

22:51 are not divisive, but to go back to the third way approach, because I do want to ask you

22:54 a question about divisiveness, on the third way approach, guys, you know, this is, this

22:58 is easy language, but when someone's like describing a third way, whether explicitly

23:03 or implicitly say, great, will you please explain to me what the third way is on abortion?

23:10 Will you please explain to me what the third way is on transgenderism?

23:14 Because now we're talking about preferences.

23:16 Well, I would prefer for us not to kill babies that are 16 weeks and older, but hey, you

23:22 know, I'm not a, I'm not a politician.

23:24 It's like, no, no, if you're a politician, you have to learn how to legislate and what's

23:28 possible within the law.

23:30 But as a person standing up for biblical truth or something like that, you should be able

23:34 to unequivocally say at any point of gestation that it is wrong, it is immoral to end an

23:40 innocent human life.

23:42 But again, it gets back to this whole idea of divisiveness.

23:45 So I want to read a quote from the pre-show where you're talking about the divisiveness

23:48 of people that hold to the Bible and where we've kind of accepted this worldview.

23:53 These days is as a person who is devoted to biblical truth, who is accused of being divisive.

23:58 Those who hold fast to the inspired and errant and infallible word of God are treated as

24:02 outdated and retrograde.

24:04 We are viewed as the religious leaders of Jesus's day who rejected him.

24:08 The irony, of course, is that woke pastors don't understand what the sin of the Pharisees

24:12 actually was so they flipped the truth on its head.

24:15 They insist that since Jesus spoke his harshest criticism to the religious leaders of the

24:19 day, then that means that Jesus was displeased with religious people today who take the Bible

24:25 too seriously.

24:26 They attribute to the pejorative Pharisees to people who are a little too zealous about

24:31 believing that the Bible is the authoritative word of God.

24:35 So we're shifting out of the realm of culture a little bit, John, and now we're shifting

24:38 a little bit over to the church where we have these pastors.

24:41 That will not just simply stand on the word of God and then gird their loins.

24:46 They want to do everything they can to be seen as winsome.

24:50 So they will come up with these third way approaches that basically disregard scripture

24:54 because that's kind of icky and we can't always understand it and all their stuff in

24:57 the Bible that's probably shouldn't be there anyway.

24:59 But just talk to me a little bit about Christians, professional Christians like ones at work

25:03 of the church, but even just regular old Christians that, you know, work a job and go home after

25:07 five o'clock about them just trying to avoid divisiveness at all costs.

25:12 Yeah, it's really crazy.

25:15 It's like it's the reason in the book, I have these things called Bible binaries and what

25:22 I mean by Bible binary.

25:24 And the reason I wrote it that way is because right now I'm constantly hearing it's usually

25:30 people on the Christian left, but just evangelicals in general are saying it now, you got to stop

25:36 being such binary thinkers.

25:38 It's almost like they're saying that we are making things too simple because we're always

25:42 binary, meaning there's only two choices.

25:44 You can either choose this way or this way and there's nothing else.

25:47 They think that we're being too reductionistic and too simple minded because things are much

25:52 more complex than that, you see.

25:54 So I'm sort of taking with, I'm taking what they're saying and I'm owning it and I'm saying,

26:00 okay, you know what, you want to play that game?

26:02 I'm, the Bible is pretty binary about a lot of stuff.

26:05 God says, I put before you life and death, choose which God you're going to serve.

26:12 God says, I want you to choose life, choose life so that you can live, but there's two

26:17 choices here.

26:18 And this whole third way stuff, I think, look, I think a lot of these institutional church

26:25 leaders that we're talking about, and I always want to be clear about this, I am not talking

26:29 about the amazing, godly, faithful church pastors that you'll never hear of that are

26:39 being faithful, like my leaders at my church, they're amazing.

26:42 They never write op-eds in the New York Times.

26:45 They're never going to be asked to go and do all the big stuff on all these big things.

26:50 They don't get to do it because they're too faithful.

26:53 There's thousands of faithful ministers.

26:55 I'm not talking about those people.

26:57 I'm talking about the institutional folks.

26:59 They constantly punch people like me and you in the face, metaphorically.

27:04 They punch towards us and they placate towards the left with their third way.

27:09 These are smart people.

27:10 They're not dumb.

27:11 They know all of my arguments way better than I know them.

27:15 They're intellectuals, but they are compromising the truth so that the world will like them.

27:21 Maybe they're trying to be winsome and they refuse to choose a Bible binary.

27:27 One of the other things that really frustrates me is you know and conservatismism.

27:31 What is the conservative worldview?

27:33 The conservative worldview understands that we cannot build utopia.

27:38 There's no perfect world.

27:40 You have to have trade-offs.

27:43 The third way approach to me is nothing more than a utopian refusal to trade-off and that's

27:50 what they do with abortion because people like me and you go, "I'm going to be honest."

27:56 A 13-year-old girl that was raped by her father or her stepfather or something like that.

28:05 This is a terrible thing and she got pregnant.

28:09 It's a terrible thing and I grieve over it.

28:12 My heart breaks over it, but we got to make a tough decision here and there's a trade-off

28:17 and we are not willing to trade off the innocent life of the unborn child because of this incredibly

28:25 satanic demonic act that this guy did.

28:29 We recognize that because we go, "Well, there's a binary approach.

28:33 There's death and there's life," and these third way people are just not willing.

28:38 They're such unclear thinkers or else they're fipping.

28:42 They're such unclear thinkers.

28:43 They will not make trade-offs and that is why in the book I say that they are actually

28:47 men of utopia disguised as men of the kingdom.

28:52 They say, "Oh no, I'm doing this because I just love people and the kingdom of God is

28:56 for the poor and the oppressed, but they know better."

28:59 They're just nothing more than men of utopia.

29:01 They're unwilling to face the facts.

29:03 You've got to make a trade-off sometimes.

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31:05 I think some of them know better, John, but I think some of them are just cowards.

31:10 I think that they act very cowardly because here's the unique thing, John, about the

31:14 third way approach.

31:15 And I think you may have pointed this out in the book, isn't it so interesting that the

31:18 third way is always left of center because you would think there's a left, there's a

31:22 right and there's a center so that center must be the third way.

31:25 But the it's always to the left.

31:27 It's not a third way approach that is to the right.

31:29 It's always to the left.

31:31 And also with the abortion example that you just brought up, what's the only way to make

31:35 that situation, that horrible, awful, satanic situation worse, killing the baby, adding

31:39 a murder on top of the incestuous rape is the only way to make that situation worse.

31:46 But again, we can't think that way because it's icky and also we are very clumsy in our

31:51 thinking because we think that there isn't a way where this could be something where this

31:56 baby can be valued and this woman can be valued and the man can be punished.

32:00 But I tell people all the time, look, I think rapists and people that perform incest and

32:05 people that take advantage of children sexually should be castrated and then killed.

32:10 But I don't think the baby should get the death penalty for something that its father

32:13 did.

32:14 Like that doesn't make any sense at all.

32:16 But we have these, we have these pastors that won't do the thing that they need to do,

32:21 which is just to stand on scripture and then just deal with the slings and arrows that

32:24 come their way.

32:25 But there's also modern day prophets.

32:28 There's a lot of people that like to think of themselves as a modern day prophet.

32:32 But you know, as my buddy, Joby Martin says, he's a big, big pastor down on Florida.

32:36 He's like, Kyle, I'm a shepherd.

32:38 You're the prophet.

32:39 You get to throw their grenades in the flame throwers and I have to lead sheep in a particular

32:43 direction because that's what I'm going to have to give an account for.

32:46 But you talk about the weakness of these modern prophets in chapter one of the book called

32:50 the death of naivety.

32:51 And here's the quote, in biblical times, it was the prophets who would rebuke the king

32:56 and remind him that God owns the world.

32:58 In our day, I wonder if the prophets need a good thorough rebuking.

33:03 I guess the problem with that, John, is they're not actually prophets if they're not doing

33:07 the rebuking because the only time I think it's appropriate to use the phraseology speak

33:12 truth to power is in this context.

33:15 When you have your, your overlords or your overseers doing things that are completely

33:20 outside of the morality of God, that's the time when you should be a prophet in the culture

33:25 that you, that you're in and point that out as something that is immoral and ungodly.

33:30 What say you?

33:31 Yeah, absolutely.

33:32 I mean, the Old Testament gives us the thing is this shouldn't be shocking because the Old

33:38 Testament keeps telling us this is what happens.

33:42 I mean, there's several examples in one instance, God is rebuking the prophets because he says,

33:49 you go around saying peace, peace, but there is no peace.

33:53 This is the Lord talking.

33:54 In other words, the prophets are supposed to be saying no peace.

33:59 You are ignoring the law of God.

34:01 You need to repent and go back and obey the Lord.

34:04 But instead the prophets are like, ah, I don't want to do that because every time I do that,

34:10 I get in trouble or we get stoned or we get burned or we get killed.

34:14 And it's just not worth it.

34:15 I'm just going to tell people what they want to hear.

34:18 And so what do they do?

34:19 They go to the people and they say, hey, the Lord says there's peace.

34:23 The Lord says that, why can't we all just get along?

34:26 The Lord says you're fine the way you are.

34:28 The Lord says this, let's just unify.

34:31 That's all that matters.

34:32 And God is saying, peace, peace, but there is no peace.

34:36 There's also another time when God says that the prophets are blind dogs, which is meant

34:44 to be in such a huge insult.

34:46 In other words, the prophets are supposed to be sort of like in Old Testament pictures

34:51 on the watchtower.

34:52 They're on the watchtower.

34:53 They're climbing the watchtower so they can see very far away.

34:56 They can see the danger that is happening.

34:59 And in some, of course, in some cases, of course, the prophet has prophetic sight.

35:03 So they see what the darkness is doing, of course.

35:07 So you're supposed to be seeing what the enemy is doing so that on the watchtower, you can

35:13 raise the alarm.

35:15 That's what the watchdogs, they're supposed to be barking.

35:18 And now we have all the prophets, just silent dogs.

35:21 They're fat and lazy dog.

35:23 That's what the Bible says.

35:24 They're fat.

35:25 They're lazy.

35:26 They just drink all the time they eat.

35:29 They just don't want to be uncomfortable.

35:31 And that's where I think the church, I think that's where our church leaders are at.

35:36 It's a really incredibly sad thing.

35:38 Well, it's sad because we bought into the lie that in order to be a godly person, that

35:44 you need to be a wimp.

35:46 And I mean, that's why you start off the title of your book is wimpy, weak and woke.

35:51 And so obviously the wimpiness that we think we are supposed to model is the supposed pseudo

35:57 Jesus, the wimpy version of this Jesus.

36:01 This is the Jesus was softer features that never really ruffled any feathers, which doesn't

36:05 really align with the Jesus of the Bible.

36:07 So I want to read a quote again from chapter one of the book guys, if it's a shock to you

36:11 that we're halfway half hour in here, we're still in chapter one, that's how dense this

36:14 book is.

36:15 So let me read this quote here.

36:16 It's somewhat lengthy, but it's great.

36:18 We have embraced wimpiness as a virtue, a and then a little bit later on the same page.

36:22 I just have to read this whole thing because it's gold to put it simply.

36:26 We are wimpy because we believe that Jesus is wimpy wimpy Christianity's Jesus would

36:30 be in danger of choking on his own H&M scarf that he's wearing in the summer and spilling

36:35 his Starbucks latte while turning a tables over in the synagogue.

36:39 Actually, I'm wrong because wimpy Christianity would object to the entire premise saying

36:44 something like Jesus wouldn't turn over tables.

36:47 He would set a table up for real conversations about belonging at wimpy Christianity is imaginary

36:52 table.

36:53 Jesus doesn't talk about sin.

36:55 He may or may not believe in hell, but either way, he does not mention hell because that's

36:59 not nice and it might give people the sads.

37:03 Someone at this table begins to share his truth about how he is oppressed by the people

37:07 at the synagogue.

37:09 Perhaps there were no social workers to help him with childcare because of this he was

37:12 forced to work barter and steel in the synagogue on the Sabbath.

37:16 For this emotionally driven story, wimpy Jesus says, thank you for that honest conversation

37:21 and for your authenticity.

37:23 I feel your pain.

37:24 And though I don't fully agree that my father's house should be made into a den of thieves,

37:29 I can learn from this because we are all stronger together.

37:33 The thing I love about that quote, John, is you weaved in so much culturally relevant,

37:40 but nonsensical garbage into one thing because that's exactly what we think Jesus would do.

37:46 We forget the part that Jesus embraced the center while pointing out his sin and saying,

37:52 don't do that anymore.

37:54 Why?

37:55 Because it separates you from the father and I haven't provided you a way to make yourself

38:00 righteous before the father yet.

38:01 So can you please stop it?

38:03 So tell me just a little bit more about that because this is obviously the reason why we

38:07 launched on Dante Live to begin with is because there was this dichotomy between the manliness

38:12 and the godliness of Jesus, and it shouldn't be there.

38:16 Yeah, it's funny hearing somebody else read that I've never heard anybody else read it.

38:21 And it's it's even funnier when I hear you say it.

38:24 It's a really it's just an hilarious picture, Jesus choking on his H&M scarf in the summer

38:31 time.

38:32 But when you read it, when you read it, I'm like, yeah, I mean, I feel like I could almost

38:38 hear, I can, I'm not trying to be rude, but I feel like I could almost hear pastors saying

38:44 these things.

38:46 Jesus want like these, these, these guys just are so feminine.

38:51 Jesus wants to set a table where you belong.

38:54 You're just like, Oh my gosh, it makes me sick.

38:58 And I mean, you've been, you've been ringing this bell a lot longer than me.

39:02 But we are wimpy because we think that that's who Jesus is.

39:07 We just think he's a really like wimpy guy.

39:10 And that, that, you know, I see this even, I mean, going back to the prophecy, let me

39:17 say this, I've been rebuked just this week.

39:20 I get rebuked every week by people who I think believe that they are Christian prophets.

39:25 I got rebuked this week because I spoke out of against drag, drag, quote unquote Christian

39:32 drag queens coming to the dove awards and I get rebuked because I'm being divisive.

39:38 I'm not being like Jesus.

39:39 They are describing wimpy Jesus as you just read from my book, wimpy Jesus who's choking

39:46 on his H and M scarf is like, don't be mean to the drag queens coming into the synagogue.

39:51 It's insane.

39:53 I think that these people really truly have created a new Jesus that is so unlike the Jesus

40:02 of the scriptures and basically all that, all that their version of Jesus is, is basically

40:08 a modern Metro guy.

40:13 And so I think some of this comes, that is who they want him to be.

40:16 I think some of it comes from the, the true, the true, I have to say hatred that our culture

40:21 has for men.

40:23 Our culture hates men.

40:24 Our culture wants the only masculinity that our culture has is when a woman is acting

40:30 like a man and that's it.

40:32 And if a woman's acting like a man, then she's like a, a she queen.

40:36 But if a man is acting like a man, it's just, it's hateful and it's just, it's a, it's

40:41 perverse.

40:42 So I'm going to say about that's perverse.

40:44 Well, John, it's hard to have a revolution when manly men oppose you.

40:48 And so you can get it done, but if you have a bunch of manly sheepdogs stepping up and

40:54 making your job harder, you may not be able to accomplish the supposed utopia that you're

40:58 shooting for.

40:59 And the problem is, is the, the so, so-called cultural prophets aren't doing us any favors

41:05 are effeminate, pastors aren't doing us any favors because here's the thing.

41:08 If you're effeminate in your wiring and in your nature, you want Jesus to be like that.

41:13 So you feel more mainly because you'll say things like the ultimate man was Jesus and

41:18 he didn't fight.

41:19 He died.

41:20 So you should never throw your wimpy little fist at anybody.

41:23 You should just take it.

41:24 You should just bend over and take it whenever anything comes your way.

41:27 It's like, have fun living that out as an actual worldview.

41:31 But there's something more nefarious afoot that you cover in your book as well.

41:36 It's that a lot of pastors aren't just wimpy.

41:39 They're not just weak.

41:41 It's that they're actually secular humanists posing as pastors.

41:45 So short quote from the book here.

41:47 So many of our Christian leaders are proving themselves to be secular humanists with Bible

41:52 degrees and nothing has proved this more than their reaction to the overturning of row.

41:57 Now, we're talking about this on the heels of the midterm will technically the midterm

42:03 elections, the off year elections instead.

42:06 But the off year elections in Ohio where question one was approved, which basically enshrined

42:12 a row type of abortion thing into the Ohio Constitution basically since row on a state

42:18 level, every single state for the most part that is put a vote to the people, including

42:22 states like Kansas, those have been roundly rejected because the law teaches morality

42:29 and for 50 plus year, the law has been, Oh, it's a good thing.

42:34 If women choose to kill their babies because, you know, it's their bodies ultimately.

42:38 So why in the world would we judge these people?

42:41 That type of immorality has infiltrated conservatism has infiltrated the church has infiltrated

42:47 all kinds of things, but these pastors are showing us that they are just secularists.

42:53 They know a lot about the Bible, but they don't believe it that they know a lot about

42:57 the gospels, but they don't believe that that's true for them and that the gospel is a good

43:01 enough answer to any cultural problem.

43:04 So how did this happen, John, or why do you think that this is continuing to happen?

43:09 And how do we as as the flock root out the secular humanists that are purportedly trying

43:15 to be our shepherds, man, it's such a great question.

43:19 Did you?

43:20 Did you see?

43:21 Let's see.

43:22 Do you know Brit leatherwood is?

43:25 I believe he's he's one of the head of the ERLC, you know what the ERLC is?

43:29 Oh, yeah.

43:30 Yeah.

43:31 I know what you're going to talk about.

43:32 Yeah.

43:33 Okay.

43:34 Yeah.

43:35 The ethics, religious, liberty, count, whatever.

43:36 The ERLC is the sort of civil arm of the SBC.

43:42 So just so people know, SBC biggest denomination in the nation, or maybe the world, bad, Southern

43:48 bad, just convention, they fund the ERLC, which is civil liberty and stuff.

43:54 But the ERLC is just a leftist organization.

43:59 And so people in the SBC, I'm not saying you shouldn't be in the SBC.

44:04 There's a lot of faithful churches in the SBC, but you need to understand your tithe.

44:09 What are your tithe is going to fund ERLC, which is a leftist.

44:14 It's just a weighted organization, but they say they're not.

44:16 So they pose as they are the third wayers.

44:20 They call themselves concerned, but they're clearly not.

44:23 So Brit leatherwood is the head of that.

44:24 This week he came out.

44:25 All right.

44:26 So we were the Nashville shooter of the Covenant school in March.

44:31 Remember that was a trans identified person that shot that remember she wrote a manifesto.

44:37 They weren't going to release the manifesto.

44:39 She's gotten leaked and people are really mad about it.

44:44 So Brit leatherwood of the ERLC is really mad that the manifesto got leaked.

44:50 And he did a press conference that I would say is probably literally the most vomit inducing

44:59 pathetic feminine vile thing I have ever heard a quote unquote man of God say never

45:09 seen anything like it before.

45:11 People should go up and look.

45:12 I think Joel Barry from Babylon B tweeted it out.

45:15 Go check it out.

45:16 What you're dealing with are people who are not ashamed to say the name of Jesus, but

45:22 they are ashamed of the character of Jesus.

45:26 That's what makes them weak.

45:28 They think that God's kind of mean.

45:31 And they think that if God says that you should not kill that baby in the womb, there's, there's

45:38 a little bit of that that could be mean, depending on the circumstance.

45:42 That's what's going on.

45:43 They are secular humanists.

45:44 How did this happen?

45:45 Part of the reason it happened, frankly, is because we live in an amazing country.

45:51 We live in a country that has the benefits of much better men than we are who fought,

45:59 bled, died, philosophized, worked and honored God to create a country who built our system

46:09 of laws and ethics on the Bible.

46:12 And so we're living in the benefit of it.

46:15 And then we take it for granted that all countries agree with all of these certain things.

46:20 And so we all agree on justice.

46:21 You know, there's a quote at the end of the book.

46:23 I quoted Pastor Tim Keller, Pastor Tim Keller saying, guys, everybody, all people, Christians,

46:32 Jews, Muslims, atheists, rapists, everybody in the planet has common intuitions about

46:40 justice.

46:41 That's what Tim Keller said.

46:42 We all have common intuitions about justice.

46:45 So we should act like the Christians have some like unique idea about this.

46:49 We got to come together.

46:51 Well, that's just not true.

46:54 And I would say that Tim Keller was probably the most influential Christian philosopher

46:59 of the last 30 years, I would say, since Shafer probably.

47:04 So what we're dealing with is truly a group of Christian leaders who wanted to be more

47:10 accepted by the world and wanted to say, guys, we're all the same.

47:14 We all want the same things here and we're going to show you by our winsomeness that

47:20 we're all on the same page and we need to come together.

47:23 And they didn't understand that we're really not on the same page.

47:26 And if you take if you take Christianity out of the worldview, you're going to devolve

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48:12 When I feel like going back to the winsomeness, it's like these people have forgotten that

48:13 the tiger will eventually eat them.

48:14 So they keep feeding the tiger.

48:15 They keep cleaning the tiger's cage.

48:17 They keep petting the tiger and the tiger will purr and the tiger will respond to them.

48:21 The tiger may even do some tricks, but one day that tiger is going to remember it's

48:25 a tiger and it's going to eat you from your butt hole up.

48:28 And so that's the thing for a lot of these people that they just don't really understand.

48:32 And that's what you talk about in chapter seven of the book is where you get into critical

48:35 race theory.

48:36 And Christianity deals with truth and critical race theory deals with ideology and you do

48:41 a great job in the book of breaking down critical race theory, critical theory, the Frankfurt

48:46 school all the way back to Marx and you go all the way back so you show your work.

48:52 But when you talk about the SBC and you talk about some of the propositions that they put

48:57 up a couple of years ago when JD Grir was kind of heading some of these things up and

49:01 they're like, no, no, guys, guys, critical race theory, you know, it's not Marxist.

49:05 It's just a lens.

49:07 It's a lens through which we can view the plight of the Christian of color in America.

49:12 And this all also goes back to lived experience quote unquote and standpoint epistemology.

49:19 And so when you put all these things, it ends up being this witches brew of nonsense that

49:23 the church is all but willing to just throw a sugar cube in and just take it down the

49:28 hatchet.

49:29 So there's not really a question in their job, but just talk to me about, you know, critical

49:33 race theory, how that's kind of snuck in the back door of these churches and how that really

49:37 relates to standpoint epistemology and lived experience.

49:41 Man, you just said something I want to go back to.

49:44 Let's talk about the lion or the tiger.

49:46 You just say there's the tiger and you get this is perfect because it also answers the

49:51 last question probably better than I did, which was the, how did how did our leaders

49:55 become secular humanists?

49:57 Here's the thing, utopians believe that the tiger you're talking about, you said, you

50:02 can't just keep feeding the tiger and clean his teeth and having fun with them.

50:06 They believe that the tiger is actually oppressed.

50:12 If the tiger wasn't oppressed, then he would never eat you.

50:16 If you never treated the tiger poorly, then he would never do anything like that because

50:21 that's not actually what tigers do.

50:23 This is what utopians believe because they do not believe that mankind is evil.

50:29 They do not believe that every intention of man's heart is to do wickedness, like the

50:35 Bible says, even the Christian ones.

50:39 And that's why the progressives go as long as we just give everybody everything they

50:44 need that tigers never going to eat you.

50:49 That is precisely why they are secular humanists because they don't believe what the Bible says

50:54 about that.

50:55 That's why Tim Keller is saying, no, no, no, everybody agrees on justice.

50:59 The tiger, the tiger will agree with us.

51:01 We just got to find common ground with the tiger.

51:04 So when it comes to critical race theory in the church and what we saw happen and it really,

51:10 it began in Big Eva, in the evangelical world, more like in 2014.

51:17 But by 2020, the mask was off.

51:21 Everybody was like, what's going on?

51:23 Why are they kind of like embracing critical race theory?

51:27 That's their third way approach.

51:28 And it's the reason in my book that I go into such detail because Kyle, I'm sure you've

51:33 had this discussion, probably a hundred times, I know I have 2020, 2021.

51:42 You're arguing with a Christian person who is on the opposite side.

51:47 And they are mad at people like me and you.

51:50 And they say that me and you don't know what critical race theory is.

51:55 They're like, yeah, you don't even know what critical race theory is.

51:58 That's just like a talking point on the right.

51:59 It's like one of those things you say, but you don't even know what it is.

52:02 It's not being taught in schools.

52:04 It's a legal theory that it's impossible for the teaching kindergarten because it's just

52:07 nothing but law school.

52:09 I've had that conversation a thousand times, not literally, but dozens.

52:15 And every single time I find my head exploding because as I'm talking to the other person,

52:20 I realize, wait a minute, I have read critical race theory.

52:26 They don't understand what it is, but they're accusing me of not understanding what it is.

52:30 So that is the reason I went into death.

52:33 This is what these people mean because once you hear it, I mean, let me just say something

52:38 shocking, Kyle, for everybody listening, you need to understand this.

52:44 Every one of these people that are coming up with these ideologies that are normal to

52:50 us, they are the norm now.

52:52 Every one of them is an atheist.

52:56 Every one of them has a burning hatred of God.

53:00 I don't even mean an unconscious one.

53:03 So I'm not talking about Christian worldview like, well, if you don't love Jesus and you're

53:06 against him and you hate him, whether you know it or not, I'm not talking about that.

53:10 I'm saying they know they hate God.

53:13 They say they hate God.

53:14 They say they want to tear down Christianity.

53:17 They believe Christianity is the reason human beings are suffering.

53:22 That's the reason the tiger wants to eat people because of Christianity.

53:25 So Karl Marx hated God.

53:30 His partner in crime angles hated God.

53:33 Freud, Freud thought that Christianity was infantile, Christianity is giving you infantile

53:39 sexual repression, which is why your life is really terrible.

53:43 So in order to get rid of your sexual repression, you need to become an atheist and reject Jesus.

53:51 The critical theorists, excuse me, the neo-Marxist, Mark Hughes, all these people, they believe

53:57 that the reason that there are oppressed peoples in their neo-Marxist world, the oppressed

54:03 people of course are the poor, the downtrodden, sexual minorities, racial minorities, they

54:10 only exist because of Christianity.

54:13 Christianity built the world that caused their oppression.

54:16 Better do it with Christianity, all the way up to the critical whiteness studies people.

54:21 They all hate Christianity to see these SBC people and big eva say, well, we can learn,

54:31 we can learn from the ideas of these people who said they hate a Christ, want to tear down

54:36 Christianity, created brand new ideologies that give us an alternative totalizing world

54:43 view and then say, well, let's open it up and see which parts of those things that we do

54:47 agree with.

54:48 That is insanity.

54:51 Don't maybe get started, bro, I'm going to make you get started, but we're coming to

54:55 the end here within not that long, but the thing that people don't realize is these people

54:59 that hold this world worldview, they don't believe in God, but they hate him.

55:05 You see what I'm saying?

55:06 It's like they don't believe in it, but they hate the world that that has been created.

55:09 And you know, when you have these people again, useful idiots that are like, Oh, the critical

55:13 race series, not a thing.

55:15 Look, I looked at all the curriculum and my kids public school and I searched for the

55:19 words critical race and theory and it didn't even show up.

55:22 And I was like, yeah, you moron because it's called social emotional learning.

55:25 That's why.

55:26 So when when your teacher is separating the white kids to one side of the class and all

55:30 the non white, well, white kids and Asians on one side of the class, and then all the

55:34 other kids on the other side of the class, and then they start talking about oppressor

55:37 oppressed dynamics, what the hell would you call that?

55:40 Because if you actually understand the writings of the critical theorists, you would understand

55:43 that that's exactly what they want.

55:46 They want the whites to feel like the victimizers and everyone else to feel like the victims.

55:51 And then we have this victim Olympics where it's like the more you are a victim, the

55:55 better it is for you.

55:56 But I was reminded of a story where there was, again, you're just letting you're letting

56:00 the enemy in the back door.

56:02 There was this woman that had a python or it was a python or a constrictor or something

56:06 like that.

56:07 But I think it was a python.

56:08 And she kept it as a pet and she treated this thing like we would treat a dog.

56:11 So she would pet it.

56:12 She would take it with her places.

56:13 She would let us sleep in her bed.

56:15 And I forget some of the details at the end of the story, but what scientists figured out

56:19 that this python was doing is this python stopped eating.

56:22 And the woman thought, you know, my python sick, I don't really understand what's happening

56:25 with this python.

56:26 I can't get it to eat.

56:27 And then finally, a really smart veterinarian or animal behaviorist said, this python is

56:32 getting ready to eat you.

56:34 That's what this python is doing.

56:36 Like it is clearing enough room in its body so that it can swallow you and digest you.

56:43 And so many Christians and so many organizations like the SBC or other denominations that are

56:47 going the way of the woke, that's what they're doing.

56:50 They don't realize that the, the, the dragon of culture is clearing space in its stomach

56:55 to swallow up their denomination and all the inhabitants of the denomination.

57:00 And then here all of us are, and this is what I want to talk about next.

57:03 There's so many people that while this is happening, the dragon is famished, looking

57:08 for a big meal to devour.

57:10 And here we are talking about the tone of voice that guys like you or guys like me or

57:17 guys like Vodie Bockam or guys like, you know, Matt Chandler or guys like whoever is someone

57:21 who's actually speaking.

57:22 So well, not Matt Chandler, because he's kind of into the critical race theory stuff.

57:25 But maybe these, these types of folks, he's, uh, John MacArthur's in these types of people.

57:31 We're worried about their tone.

57:32 They don't sound very winsome.

57:34 They sound really mean, and I won't read the entire quote here because you talk about

57:37 the tone police in chapter seven, but you, you read a quote from, well, actually, I'll

57:41 read the quote.

57:42 It says, the wrath of God burns against them talking about sinners.

57:45 Their damn nation does not slumber.

57:47 The pit is prepared.

57:48 The fire is made ready.

57:49 The furnace is now hot ready to receive them.

57:52 The flames do now rage and glow.

57:54 The glittering sword is wet and held over them and the pit hath opened its mouth under

57:59 them.

58:01 That sounds terrible.

58:02 That sounds terrifying.

58:03 Sounds so judgmental.

58:04 That sounds like that would get you a community guidance warning on Instagram.

58:07 But those are the words of Jonathan Edwards, sinners in the hands of an angry God.

58:12 And that sermon helped lead to the great awakening here in this, in this country.

58:17 And so I guess talk to me a little bit about the tone police.

58:20 Is this a distraction tactic?

58:22 They don't want to deal with our actual arguments.

58:24 So they just want to be angry about the fact that it's coming out of a bearded face.

58:28 Well, what's the deal with the tone police focus?

58:30 Yeah, it's insane.

58:32 I mean, I think to me, one of the biggest things happening, and again, it's the reason

58:37 we have, you know, I put 650 quotes in this book because because I'm just trying to wake

58:43 people up.

58:44 But the biggest things happening is that we don't believe the people when they say they

58:52 want to tear down our faith, when they want to destroy the world.

58:57 We just don't believe them.

58:59 That's because we're wimpy and weak.

59:01 And as you just said, well, they didn't call it critical race theory.

59:03 I looked through the curriculum and you're like, yeah, they call it social, emotional

59:07 learning, or they call it DEI or they call it other.

59:11 They just rename itself, but they're always clear about what they want to do.

59:14 I said to somebody this week, I they were really upset that I'm making too big a deal

59:21 of the drag queen thing, like as if drag queens are the worst thing in the entire world.

59:26 And I'm like, I'm not saying drag queens are the worst thing in the entire world.

59:30 What I am saying is that the gender ideology people and the drag queen people and the

59:39 LGBTQ mafia, they will tell you from their words and their literature straight out of

59:45 their mouths.

59:47 They believe that the world would be a better place if we would just break down, uh, disintegrate

59:56 the gender binary.

59:58 They don't like the gender binary.

59:59 They don't like male and female.

1:00:01 They think that it's oppressive and they want to get away from it.

1:00:05 And one of the best ways they can do it is you have to start with children and you get

1:00:10 children as young as they are before they create all these binary boxes of this is what

1:00:16 a man acts like.

1:00:17 This is what a woman acts like.

1:00:18 This is how a man dresses a woman dresses.

1:00:21 You have to get them before they do that and show them the queer joy.

1:00:26 That's their words.

1:00:27 The queer joy of queering, that's what they call it, queering the boundaries and what they

1:00:32 mean is doing something different.

1:00:34 And they would say from their own mouths, the best way we can do that is to have drag

1:00:39 queens around children because then we can gender bend.

1:00:44 We gender bend them in their minds and now they have queer joy.

1:00:47 And if we do that, we disintegrate the difference between men and women.

1:00:52 You can say that to Christians all day long and all that they will say is this.

1:00:57 I don't think that's true.

1:01:00 They can say from their own mouths of the drag queens, yes, it is true.

1:01:05 We want to teach your children to stop seeing men a certain way and women a certain way.

1:01:10 And they'd be like, I don't think that's that big of a deal.

1:01:14 They won't believe you.

1:01:15 It's the same thing with Israel and Palestine.

1:01:18 The amount of Christian people that are anti-Israel.

1:01:22 It doesn't matter how many times Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas, BLM, talk about the fact they want

1:01:30 death to America.

1:01:32 Christians are like, I don't think they really mean that though.

1:01:35 Yeah, I think there is more jobs.

1:01:38 Yeah, I think it's that they want universal child care.

1:01:41 It's not that they want every Jew to die because that's crazy.

1:01:43 Yes.

1:01:44 So they Christians are so weak philosophically and wimpy because we just go, well, they don't

1:01:52 really mean that.

1:01:53 So just if you just speak nicely, you'll win them over.

1:01:58 Well, let me ask you a question here.

1:02:00 What are we to do when you have a church?

1:02:03 I'm talking about the church at large with a big C, Christendom, that does not believe

1:02:09 the words of the people that want to destroy Christianity, to destroy America, who are

1:02:14 coming after your kids, to trans and to queer your kids.

1:02:19 What do you do with Christendom when they won't believe the people out of their mouths?

1:02:24 And the destruction is at the stinking door.

1:02:28 How are you going to think as long as I'm just nice, I will change.

1:02:34 I will change Hezbollah's mind.

1:02:35 I will change Hamas's mind.

1:02:37 I will change the BLM people that want destruction of America.

1:02:41 I'll change their mind.

1:02:42 I'll change the drag queen's mind and say, Hey, if you just understood how nice of a

1:02:46 Christian I was, you probably wouldn't come after my children.

1:02:51 Stop being so stupid.

1:02:52 And the other thing I would want to say is just this to the whole tone police thing.

1:02:57 It's absurd.

1:02:58 Let's just go back.

1:02:59 Do you think that Christians should not have been screaming in Germany about Hitler in 1942?

1:03:09 What are you going to do?

1:03:10 The Christians should not been yelling in 1842 about slavery.

1:03:15 I just don't think that Christians understand they just don't get what's happening.

1:03:20 And so to them, because they they're still living, as you said in 2001, they're still

1:03:26 living in what they think is sort of a neutral society.

1:03:28 If we all just get along, everybody has a right to say that everybody pretty much has

1:03:33 the same ideas of justice like Keller taught us.

1:03:37 It's just not true.

1:03:38 We don't have the same ideas.

1:03:40 They are actually trying to destroy everything about our nation, our heritage, our religion.

1:03:50 Your right to raise your kids.

1:03:52 Your right to say, No, I don't think I want to get that jab because I read some literature

1:03:57 and it ain't looking so good.

1:03:59 They want to destroy all of that.

1:04:02 It's actually insane.

1:04:04 Christians are just too weak to believe it.

1:04:06 So once again, the last thing I'll say, I gave you 650 quotes from the horse's mouth.

1:04:14 And let's just see if any, if anybody's going to go, okay, maybe they mean it.

1:04:19 So it reminds me of me, my posted here recently, it was of this cartoon of this kind of woke

1:04:24 looking person saying, Hey, what are your pronouns?

1:04:26 And then the other side was an Islamist terrorist and it was kill slash you.

1:04:32 And so that's what people don't understand is they think, Oh, if we're, if we're accommodating

1:04:36 to the pronouns, if we show pronoun hospitality, or if we ask them these questions in a really

1:04:40 nice way, maybe they're not going to want to chop our heads off and wouldn't you know

1:04:44 it?

1:04:45 That's exactly what they want to do.

1:04:47 And I guess the thing, John, is the easiest way to defeat what comes next is by defeating

1:04:52 what's coming right now.

1:04:54 And that's what people don't really understand is so the drag queens that show up at the

1:04:57 Dove Awards, people are like, yeah, I'm not really comfortable with that.

1:05:02 But it's not that big of a deal.

1:05:05 And then they turn their ire towards people like you that are calling it out like, no,

1:05:08 this is a big deal because it's indicative of a particular worldview and philosophy,

1:05:12 which is the antithetical to biblical truth.

1:05:15 But they're just going to keep pushing the line.

1:05:17 Do you think Flemie Grant and, you know, the, the lead singer was a cadements call?

1:05:22 You think these people are not going to do something at next year's Dove Awards?

1:05:26 Because now there's expectations and it's like what Madonna was doing for a while.

1:05:30 Lady Gaga was doing for a while and, you know, Lizzo is doing now, it's like they're having

1:05:34 trouble shocking you, doing the stuff that they did before.

1:05:37 And so they have to do something more satanic and more revealing of their vagina and boobs

1:05:42 and in more extreme and then maybe they'll be able to get your attention again.

1:05:47 And so that's, that's the, the continuum that we've created because guess what?

1:05:51 If every artist got up on stage or if half the artist got up on stage at the Dove Awards

1:05:55 and said, Hey, uh, yeah, I want to thank my label and my wife and I want to thank all

1:05:58 these other people.

1:05:59 But by the way, are the Dove Awards really going to allow drag queens to just parade

1:06:04 themselves around these people that have auto guy, an affiliate?

1:06:07 Is that something that we're going to be cool with?

1:06:09 Do you know what would happen?

1:06:10 The Dove Awards would be forced to respond to repudiate those people that came onto in

1:06:15 cross stress on the red carpet and then it wouldn't happen again.

1:06:19 That's exactly what would happen because the culture would get mad and the Dove Awards

1:06:22 could have been like, Hey, take two of these and call me in the morning.

1:06:25 And just said, Hey, I don't really care why you're so fired up about this.

1:06:28 But again, we're not really interested in doing that.

1:06:31 Now, John, I know we got to wrap up here.

1:06:32 I have so many other questions.

1:06:33 I want to ask you about your amazing new book, but we've been fairly pessimistic here, John.

1:06:39 We've been talking about all the negatives and we've been raging and we've been angry,

1:06:43 white patriarchal men for an entire hour at this point.

1:06:47 But you wrote an entire last chapter, chapter 11 called this is the kingdom.

1:06:52 And so this goes back to the third thing on your list that you wanted to do, you know,

1:06:56 rock the mic, write the hits and, you know, spread hope.

1:07:01 Help us be hopeful at this point, because I tend to believe like you, we are watching

1:07:05 the, we are watching our empire fall before our eyes.

1:07:09 But even if America falls, that doesn't make the gospel less true.

1:07:13 Even if America falls, that doesn't make God any, any more involved in the goings on

1:07:17 of humanity and creation, but it's kind of hard to be optimistic.

1:07:22 So help us out.

1:07:24 Well, amen to that.

1:07:25 I mean, here's the thing.

1:07:27 The answer for this is actually not very difficult.

1:07:31 It's only seems difficult because it's just going to take some guts and a little bit of

1:07:36 brain power.

1:07:37 We got to get a little bit smart.

1:07:39 All we have to do is like I wrote in my first book, go back to the word of God.

1:07:46 I mean, it's honest to God that simple doesn't mean we're going to quote unquote save America.

1:07:51 Doesn't mean that America is going to come, no, things might get really, really terrible.

1:07:56 But all that we have to do is believe the Bible is true.

1:08:00 And if we believe the Bible is true, then we are going to believe these Bible binaries.

1:08:04 God says, I put before your life and death, who's this way you're going to serve?

1:08:08 God gives us his, his law.

1:08:10 He gives us his commands.

1:08:11 We know that when we obey his commands that we really live in blessing.

1:08:16 That's a promise from the Lord.

1:08:19 So if we obey his commands, we're going to be blessed.

1:08:22 If we disobey his commands, we're going to experience hardships.

1:08:26 And this is one of my favorite things about the book is I explain the book that God created.

1:08:32 This is a little philosophical stick with me, folks.

1:08:35 God created a moral universe.

1:08:38 His universe is not arbitrary.

1:08:41 Afterwards, if you, if you add two plus two together, it's always going to equal four.

1:08:47 It's not arbitrary.

1:08:48 It's not sometimes going to be equal six or seven or three.

1:08:53 It's always going to equal four.

1:08:55 There are laws, creation laws that God created.

1:08:59 And so you go, okay, what does that really mean?

1:09:01 Well, what it means is this, two parents are always going to give a better life for a child

1:09:07 than a single parent.

1:09:09 That's just, that's just the way it is.

1:09:12 And you're not going to be able to change that.

1:09:14 So God created a moral universe to work in a certain way.

1:09:17 Then God gave us a moral law that coincides with the universe.

1:09:22 So when you obey God's law, you are in the flow of the world He created.

1:09:28 I call it being in the flow of the kingdom of God.

1:09:31 Let me give you an opposite example.

1:09:33 What if the only way to produce children was through a man and a man having sexual intercourse

1:09:42 or a woman and a woman, that's the only way you can produce children.

1:09:47 But we have the moral law of God that says, man should not lay with man as he lays with

1:09:51 a woman.

1:09:52 So God's moral law says, no, no sex is only righteous when it's one man and one woman

1:09:57 and a covenant marriage for life, but you'll never produce children that way because that's

1:10:02 not how the world's created.

1:10:04 If that were the case, it would mean that as a Christian, please in God, I cannot produce.

1:10:10 I cannot flourish.

1:10:12 I don't belong in the world God created because it doesn't work.

1:10:15 But the opposite is true.

1:10:17 God says, no, this is how it's supposed to be done.

1:10:20 And when you do, you're in the flow of the kingdom, baby, which is great news.

1:10:24 All we have to do is obey what the word of God says.

1:10:28 Do not apologize about it, know that you're going to be hated for it just what Jesus said

1:10:34 to his disciples.

1:10:35 Don't be surprised when people hate you.

1:10:37 They really hate me.

1:10:38 They hated me before they hated Jesus is about me, not about you.

1:10:41 We're coming to that time in America.

1:10:43 But the truth is this, and this is the really good news.

1:10:46 This is where I get a little philosophical.

1:10:48 Some theologians may not agree with me based on their eschatology or whatever.

1:10:52 I don't know.

1:10:54 I personally believe that what will happen is that the people of God who obey the commands

1:11:01 of God will be so incredibly blessed that their outcomes are going to be way better

1:11:09 than the world's.

1:11:10 The only way that the world's outcomes could be better is if you limit it to say like something

1:11:16 like economics, because if the world wanted to, they could get all the guns and they could

1:11:21 steal all of the money from Christians and all the whatever they could, they could imprison

1:11:26 Christians and yada yada.

1:11:28 But if we continue to live in a somewhat free society, are you going to tell me whose outcomes

1:11:35 do you think are going to be better?

1:11:36 The kid that is raised with two parents who teaches him that physical reality is real,

1:11:43 that there is a difference between men and women.

1:11:46 The sex is only meant to be between that person and his future spouse or her future

1:11:52 spouse and that God created the world.

1:11:57 Take that kid and now let's take the other kid.

1:11:59 The other kid is a product of some, some random dude and a baby mama who is raised by a single

1:12:08 parent who is not taught the law of God is not taught that there is a difference between

1:12:13 men and women who begins watching drag queens at five and six years old and does gender,

1:12:22 gender hormone therapy at 10 years old, who do you think is going to have better outcomes

1:12:27 in this situation?

1:12:29 I believe that people of God are going to be blessed.

1:12:32 The Bible says that the kingdom of God is righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.

1:12:38 Which household do you think is going to have more peace?

1:12:40 Which household do you think is going to have more joy, more righteousness?

1:12:45 And so I guess what I'm trying to say is the answer is not difficult.

1:12:49 It just is going to take some courage and some guts.

1:12:53 Thank God he's given us the Holy Spirit who gives us all the courage and all the guts

1:12:58 that we need.

1:12:59 Amen and amen to all that.

1:13:01 I appreciate it, but we covered a lot of ground, but we left some meat on the bone.

1:13:06 Perhaps we can keep this conversation going when I see you next month in Kansas.

1:13:09 As of now, that's all for me.

1:13:11 Is there anything else you want to get off your chance?

1:13:13 I'll have your chance.

1:13:15 I don't want to get it off my chance.

1:13:19 This right here is my chance.

1:13:22 You know what?

1:13:23 I just want to say a huge thank you to everybody for watching.

1:13:26 I want to say thank you to you Kyle for doing the show and for being a good friend.

1:13:30 For the ministry you're doing.

1:13:31 I appreciate it.

1:13:32 I love it.

1:13:33 I think it's necessary.

1:13:35 And I would like to make sure that people know that the only place right now you can

1:13:39 get the book is my website, John L Cooper dot com.

1:13:43 I'm working on getting on Amazon and it's just proving to be a lot more difficult than

1:13:47 I thought.

1:13:48 The Kindle version is going to be available in Amazon, but if you want the physical book,

1:13:51 go to my website and thanks for listening.

1:13:55 John L Cooper dot com.

1:13:56 That will be in the show notes.

1:13:57 John will see you soon, buddy.

1:13:59 There you go guys.

1:14:00 Hope you enjoyed the return appearance of John Cooper on our show, but before we let you

1:14:03 go, we are going to do a quick resilience boost.

1:14:05 That undaunted life or mission is equipping men to push back darkness with content that

1:14:08 forges spiritual, mental and physical resilience.

1:14:11 So the only link I've got for you today is a link to John's website, john l Cooper

1:14:14 dot com where you can go pick up a brand new copy of his brand new book, wimpy week and

1:14:20 woke.

1:14:21 Thank you guys so much for listening to this episode.

1:14:23 Wherever you're listening to this, please subscribe, rate and leave us a positive five

1:14:26 star review.

1:14:27 If you want to come speak alive at your event or on your podcast, just shoot me an email

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1:14:44 And also we want to thank the band Holy Name for allowing us to use their music for our

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1:14:49 The musical in this podcast is our song Perpetua, which is off their self titled debut album

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1:14:54 The links are in the description.

1:14:56 I'm your host Kyle Thompson.

1:14:58 Remember, keep pushing back darkness, keep forging spiritual mental and physical resilience.

1:15:04 Keep seeking the lion of Judah.