WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.320 --> 00:00:03.080 All right, George Bagbee, weo me to the Jay Burdon Show. 2 00:00:03.080 --> 00:00:03.520 How are you doing. 3 00:00:03.839 --> 00:00:05.519 I'm doing well. It's good to see you again. 4 00:00:05.960 --> 00:00:08.640 Yeah, believe me. I'm happy to have you back on. 5 00:00:09.240 --> 00:00:13.599 So this is a more topical episode than you and 6 00:00:13.640 --> 00:00:17.960 I normally do, and it concerns the doctrine of dispensationalism 7 00:00:18.079 --> 00:00:21.839 and Christian Zionism. This is obviously relevant to current events 8 00:00:21.879 --> 00:00:25.079 with the Israel Hamas War and then kind of why 9 00:00:25.120 --> 00:00:28.359 there is so much support for the US. But I 10 00:00:28.399 --> 00:00:30.960 consider it sort of a continuation of an episode you 11 00:00:31.000 --> 00:00:34.799 and I did about evangelicalism kind of problems with that 12 00:00:34.840 --> 00:00:37.200 in the US, and then also an extension of the 13 00:00:37.240 --> 00:00:40.560 episode I did with Filo that will be the previous 14 00:00:40.679 --> 00:00:44.119 numbered episode, which is about kind of the history of 15 00:00:44.679 --> 00:00:48.240 Zionism and kind of the relation between Zionists and Israel, 16 00:00:48.640 --> 00:00:52.840 the Jewish diaspora, and then Christians in America. So do 17 00:00:52.880 --> 00:00:55.000 you want to kind of just launch straight into this 18 00:00:55.079 --> 00:00:59.119 with a very broad kind of description of what dispensationalism is. 19 00:00:59.640 --> 00:01:04.519 Sure, So there's no avoiding the controversy on this, and 20 00:01:04.840 --> 00:01:08.560 I'm perhaps especially aware of it. I come from a 21 00:01:08.640 --> 00:01:15.200 dispensationalist background. I was raised Low Church Baptist, and many 22 00:01:15.239 --> 00:01:20.120 people that I'm closely allied to and tied to are 23 00:01:20.840 --> 00:01:25.079 dispensationalist and they define themselves that way. So I'm not 24 00:01:25.200 --> 00:01:28.400 going to avoid the controversy here, I'm going to grasp 25 00:01:28.640 --> 00:01:37.120 the controversy. Dispensationalism is a nineteenth century Anglo theological innovation. 26 00:01:37.640 --> 00:01:41.680 It's mostly confined to the English speaking world, and it's 27 00:01:41.719 --> 00:01:45.000 also mostly popular in the United States because the United 28 00:01:45.040 --> 00:01:49.879 States is far more religious than Great Britain Protestants these days. 29 00:01:50.280 --> 00:01:54.319 Dispensationalism involves a number of teachings, but two very important 30 00:01:54.480 --> 00:02:03.079 markers of dispensationalist theology are an ecclesiology that recognizes that 31 00:02:03.200 --> 00:02:08.479 God has a different relationship to Jews than he does 32 00:02:08.560 --> 00:02:13.240 to Christians, and that God has a different covenant with 33 00:02:13.479 --> 00:02:19.080 Jews than he does with Christians. So it's a split ecclesiology, 34 00:02:19.599 --> 00:02:27.319 and dispensationalists believe that God has a special covenantal protective 35 00:02:27.680 --> 00:02:33.080 arrangement with the Jewish people, and dispensationalists see that manifested 36 00:02:33.240 --> 00:02:37.560 in the modern state of Israel in particular. So this 37 00:02:37.719 --> 00:02:42.560 is why we see so much political support that's tied 38 00:02:42.680 --> 00:02:45.879 with emphatic religious belief when it comes to the state 39 00:02:45.879 --> 00:02:51.800 of Israel. Another great marker of dispensationalist belief is the 40 00:02:51.840 --> 00:02:56.039 doctrine of the Rapture or what critics might call the 41 00:02:56.080 --> 00:02:59.800 secret Coming of Christ. And the doctrine of the Rapture 42 00:03:00.240 --> 00:03:02.879 is the belief that Christ is not just going to 43 00:03:02.919 --> 00:03:06.159 come again with glory to judge the living and the dead, 44 00:03:06.360 --> 00:03:09.319 but Christ will come a third time or maybe a 45 00:03:09.400 --> 00:03:13.240 fourth or fifth time as well, all in the context 46 00:03:13.360 --> 00:03:17.039 of in Times teachings, and we aren't here to talk 47 00:03:17.080 --> 00:03:20.879 about that. I'm not prepared to talk about that, but 48 00:03:21.039 --> 00:03:23.319 I am content to say that that is an innovative 49 00:03:23.360 --> 00:03:26.360 belief as well. It has not been something that Christians 50 00:03:26.439 --> 00:03:30.240 around the world have been at all acquainted with, haven't 51 00:03:30.280 --> 00:03:34.919 even heard of until nineteenth century innovators started preaching it. 52 00:03:35.240 --> 00:03:37.439 One of the things, sorry, I just want to bring 53 00:03:37.520 --> 00:03:39.879 up before we go into this, is that it is 54 00:03:40.159 --> 00:03:45.520 very rare for someone to announce themselves as a dispensational 55 00:03:46.039 --> 00:03:48.960 I was I was talking with a group of guys 56 00:03:49.800 --> 00:03:52.479 actually the Telegram group of the Art of Darkness podcast 57 00:03:52.599 --> 00:03:55.439 right about this topic before we went live. Yes, and 58 00:03:55.520 --> 00:03:56.960 one of the things that a couple of them mentioned 59 00:03:57.000 --> 00:03:59.000 is like, Oh, I didn't know this had a name. 60 00:03:59.400 --> 00:04:01.479 And so this is a system of beliefs that has 61 00:04:01.560 --> 00:04:07.520 sort of infiltrated a lot of kind of conservative spaces 62 00:04:07.560 --> 00:04:11.599 in America. And so it's important to understand even if 63 00:04:11.639 --> 00:04:15.759 you have kind of no direct relationship with a church 64 00:04:15.840 --> 00:04:18.120 like this, because you know, even in my own church, 65 00:04:18.120 --> 00:04:20.720 which does not teach this, a lot of the older 66 00:04:20.759 --> 00:04:23.560 people just kind of through cultural osmosis have picked up 67 00:04:23.560 --> 00:04:26.279 these ideas. That's just a note before you launch into it. 68 00:04:26.600 --> 00:04:29.439 No, that's that's a really important one as well, because, 69 00:04:30.480 --> 00:04:37.480 as I will outline, dispensationalism is not the traditional dogmatic 70 00:04:37.600 --> 00:04:42.959 teaching of any Christian church I'm aware of. And that 71 00:04:43.360 --> 00:04:47.240 seems to me, that seems to me so so radical 72 00:04:47.240 --> 00:04:51.079 a claim that I went and tried to try to 73 00:04:51.160 --> 00:04:53.879 verify it. I tried to figure out if that is 74 00:04:53.959 --> 00:04:58.000 actually the case or not, because it is so very popular. It, 75 00:04:58.519 --> 00:05:01.160 like the doctrine of the rapture, for instance, is probably 76 00:05:01.199 --> 00:05:06.240 the most popular dispensationalist doctrine, and that has filtered out 77 00:05:06.720 --> 00:05:10.439 far and wide. You find Christians all over the place 78 00:05:10.480 --> 00:05:13.480 that are familiar with the idea. Even if they don't 79 00:05:13.759 --> 00:05:15.560 they aren't sure if they believe in it or not. 80 00:05:16.319 --> 00:05:20.279 It's become Christian pop culture in some in some respect. 81 00:05:20.560 --> 00:05:23.720 Well, And it's interesting you bring up popular culture aspect 82 00:05:23.959 --> 00:05:28.839 because I remember this is a very specific one, but 83 00:05:28.920 --> 00:05:31.160 I remember going to a homeschool co op when I 84 00:05:31.199 --> 00:05:32.800 was a kid, and obviously a lot of the people 85 00:05:32.800 --> 00:05:36.879 there were these kind of like low church Protestant you know, situations, 86 00:05:37.319 --> 00:05:40.399 and all of the kids there. The like trading card 87 00:05:40.439 --> 00:05:43.920 game we played was a game called Redemption, which is 88 00:05:43.920 --> 00:05:46.959 literally like a knockoff like Magic the Gathering or Pokemon 89 00:05:47.120 --> 00:05:51.120 card game, but it's all themed around like dispensationalless eschatology, 90 00:05:51.480 --> 00:05:53.519 you know, like it has like little like cards that 91 00:05:53.560 --> 00:05:55.480 you trade back and forth, and it's like, oh this 92 00:05:55.519 --> 00:05:57.319 is that's that's a market a beast card, you know, 93 00:05:57.360 --> 00:05:59.399 it's very powerful, or this one is like the seven 94 00:05:59.439 --> 00:06:02.839 Countries or like the Third Like it's absurd, but it's 95 00:06:03.199 --> 00:06:04.639 it's true. You can look it up if you want. 96 00:06:05.000 --> 00:06:07.240 And so even to someone who was never taught that 97 00:06:07.279 --> 00:06:09.560 from the pulpit, I kind of just thought, well, that's 98 00:06:09.560 --> 00:06:12.199 what Christians believe. That I remember very distinctly when I 99 00:06:12.480 --> 00:06:14.879 asked my mom about it, She's like, uh no, we 100 00:06:14.920 --> 00:06:17.480 don't think that it's like, oh, okay, I just kind 101 00:06:17.519 --> 00:06:19.839 of assumed that we did well. 102 00:06:19.879 --> 00:06:23.360 I have a great friend who is is something of 103 00:06:23.399 --> 00:06:27.480 a mentor to me, who is also an old school Baptist, 104 00:06:27.959 --> 00:06:32.920 and he knows his Baptist theology very well. And this 105 00:06:33.079 --> 00:06:36.480 is something that I talked to to him about because 106 00:06:36.639 --> 00:06:39.560 it's very interesting to me, especially to meet a Baptist 107 00:06:39.560 --> 00:06:43.600 who is not a dispensationalist. And that's just another example 108 00:06:43.680 --> 00:06:48.600 that are There is no Protestant denomination that I know 109 00:06:48.759 --> 00:06:57.639 of that is dogmatically dispensationalist. So dispensationalism exists among Protestants. However, 110 00:06:57.759 --> 00:07:04.240 it is taught by several Protestant seminaries, in particular Baptist seminaries. 111 00:07:04.480 --> 00:07:04.879 Today. 112 00:07:05.079 --> 00:07:10.480 Now, if you don't know a prostant church organization, it 113 00:07:10.560 --> 00:07:16.720 is impossible to nail a Baptist down on theology because 114 00:07:16.759 --> 00:07:20.360 there is an awful lot of variety among Baptists. There 115 00:07:20.399 --> 00:07:26.040 is no central organization that controls doctrine among the Baptists, 116 00:07:26.839 --> 00:07:30.199 so there are several different seminaries. I don't know just 117 00:07:30.240 --> 00:07:34.600 how many Baptist seminaries there are, but every Baptist seminary 118 00:07:34.639 --> 00:07:39.240 could have divergent theological beliefs. So there are a couple 119 00:07:39.240 --> 00:07:43.160 of Baptist seminaries that I know of that are emphatically dispensationalists, 120 00:07:43.199 --> 00:07:45.360 and they're and they're pretty famous. You know, they're very 121 00:07:45.399 --> 00:07:49.879 well funded there. They've got a lot of illustrious people 122 00:07:49.879 --> 00:07:55.000 connected to them, specifically the Dallas Theological Seminary and the 123 00:07:55.079 --> 00:08:01.319 Liberty Seminary Liberty Baptist Seminary in Virginia. So so, even 124 00:08:01.399 --> 00:08:05.360 though even though historically Baptists have not been dispensationalists, of 125 00:08:06.000 --> 00:08:10.519 most Baptists today would recognize dispensationalism and embrace it, much 126 00:08:10.560 --> 00:08:15.160 to the chagrin of my traditionalist Baptist friend who's really 127 00:08:16.360 --> 00:08:20.040 enthusiastic about the old school Baptist theology. Basically, the thing 128 00:08:20.079 --> 00:08:24.160 that holds Baptists together is the idea that everyone should 129 00:08:24.199 --> 00:08:27.519 look to their local institutions and not to a central 130 00:08:27.560 --> 00:08:32.120 Baptist institution. Ironically, that's the thing that holds them together. 131 00:08:32.320 --> 00:08:34.399 All right. So let's work from the top of kind 132 00:08:34.399 --> 00:08:39.080 of the origin of this idea. So where is this, 133 00:08:39.080 --> 00:08:41.879 this innovation of dispensationalism, Where does it come from? 134 00:08:42.399 --> 00:08:49.279 It comes from nineteenth century innovating, innovative preachers, and there 135 00:08:49.320 --> 00:08:53.039 are a number of these people that we would recognize 136 00:08:53.080 --> 00:08:57.360 as figures in non Christian movements, or we would we 137 00:08:57.399 --> 00:09:03.720 would differentiate these these religious movements from traditional Christianity in 138 00:09:03.759 --> 00:09:07.200 a serious way. So one of one of the teachers 139 00:09:07.399 --> 00:09:13.240 of Zionism, or some Christian relation to Jewish Zionism, was 140 00:09:13.360 --> 00:09:18.559 Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism. Another was the founder 141 00:09:18.679 --> 00:09:22.279 of the Jehovah's Witnesses. I think his name was Charles 142 00:09:22.360 --> 00:09:28.039 tays Russell, and another was the I think his name 143 00:09:28.080 --> 00:09:32.159 was William Campbell of the No No, No, No, I'm 144 00:09:32.200 --> 00:09:37.120 getting this guy mixed up the Millerites who became the 145 00:09:37.159 --> 00:09:42.120 Seventh Day Adventists. The Seventh Day Adventists also had a 146 00:09:42.200 --> 00:09:46.039 teaching about the return of Jews to the province of 147 00:09:46.120 --> 00:09:52.519 Palestine and some sort of national renewal for the state 148 00:09:52.559 --> 00:09:57.320 of Israel among the Jewish people of Palestine. So all 149 00:09:57.399 --> 00:09:59.720 of those, we would differentiate them in some way from 150 00:09:59.759 --> 00:10:03.440 his Oracle Christian belief. They all stem out of the 151 00:10:03.440 --> 00:10:07.120 second grade Awakening or soon afterwards, as in the case 152 00:10:07.120 --> 00:10:13.720 of the Jehovah's Witnesses. But inside of of more mainstream Protestants, 153 00:10:14.679 --> 00:10:22.240 you have characters like a theologian named Darby, who popularized 154 00:10:23.919 --> 00:10:29.679 the doctrine of dispensationalism, and very famously an American Bible 155 00:10:29.799 --> 00:10:35.919 commentator named Schofield who managed to get his Bible commentary 156 00:10:36.039 --> 00:10:42.039 published by Oxford University Press. Darby and Schofield are the 157 00:10:42.080 --> 00:10:48.360 major popularizers of dispensationalism in English speaking lands today. 158 00:10:49.000 --> 00:10:53.279 So it's interesting going into this because they're kind of 159 00:10:53.360 --> 00:10:56.039 two and we're not, like you said, we're not going 160 00:10:56.080 --> 00:10:58.159 to go into the specific like eschatology. But there's kind 161 00:10:58.159 --> 00:11:02.279 of two parts of spensatialism that are sort of relevant. Right. 162 00:11:02.279 --> 00:11:04.840 There's what you mentioned, which is the dispensations, which is 163 00:11:04.879 --> 00:11:07.279 the idea that you know, there are sort of seven 164 00:11:07.320 --> 00:11:12.080 ages which kind of correspond with seven deals God made 165 00:11:12.159 --> 00:11:15.480 with different groups. So for instance, the idea is that, okay, 166 00:11:15.519 --> 00:11:18.919 well pre sort of in the early parts of Genesis, 167 00:11:18.919 --> 00:11:22.200 that's one dispensation. You know, at Noah, that's the way covenant. 168 00:11:22.240 --> 00:11:24.480 That's another one in the Arab judges, and I can't 169 00:11:24.480 --> 00:11:26.799 remember them off the top of my head. They're fairly Byzantine. 170 00:11:27.120 --> 00:11:29.200 But part of this, and this will get a little 171 00:11:29.240 --> 00:11:35.200 bit confusing, relates to kind of numerology and rationalism. So 172 00:11:35.240 --> 00:11:38.480 the weird thing about Darby in particular is that, on 173 00:11:38.480 --> 00:11:41.759 one hand, he was kind of firmly fundamentalist, in a 174 00:11:41.759 --> 00:11:45.440 biblical literalist. Right. He believed that, you know, what the 175 00:11:45.480 --> 00:11:47.759 Bible says, the Bible says. So on one hand you 176 00:11:47.759 --> 00:11:51.279 could say, well, that's a very irrational quote unquote belief, 177 00:11:51.559 --> 00:11:53.559 But on the other hand, he's firmly steeped in this 178 00:11:53.600 --> 00:11:57.759 tradition of rationalism, and he believed that as many problems 179 00:11:57.879 --> 00:12:01.120 to do, essentially everything in the Bible you can figure 180 00:12:01.159 --> 00:12:03.279 out using nothing more than the text itself, like you 181 00:12:03.360 --> 00:12:06.200 can understand it all. And so what this leads to 182 00:12:06.399 --> 00:12:08.879 is this idea that you know, there's kind of like 183 00:12:08.879 --> 00:12:11.320 a mathematical schema in the Bible we can figure out 184 00:12:11.360 --> 00:12:15.399 to find out exactly what these prophecies meet. And so 185 00:12:15.879 --> 00:12:17.799 he kind of jumps back and forth between the Book 186 00:12:17.799 --> 00:12:20.120 of Daniel, right, which is old testing the prophecy, the 187 00:12:20.159 --> 00:12:21.879 Book of Revelation, which is in the last book in 188 00:12:21.879 --> 00:12:24.840 the Bible, New Testament, and kind of combines those into 189 00:12:24.879 --> 00:12:28.960 this complicated mathematical scheme where they refer one to the 190 00:12:29.039 --> 00:12:32.360 other to support his argument. And there I don't want 191 00:12:32.399 --> 00:12:36.120 to get too into it because the numerology is somewhat tedious. 192 00:12:36.600 --> 00:12:39.639 You're kind of going through on one level. When it 193 00:12:39.679 --> 00:12:42.360 was written at the time that numerology was fairly common. 194 00:12:43.080 --> 00:12:45.200 Like if you've ever people at home, I've ever read 195 00:12:45.240 --> 00:12:48.919 OVID when he references, you know, trust not in Babylonian numbers. 196 00:12:49.600 --> 00:12:51.600 It was quite common at the time, right, There were 197 00:12:51.600 --> 00:12:54.279 these kind of systems of numbers which had symbols. So, 198 00:12:54.320 --> 00:12:57.600 for instance, seven the idea of completeness six less than that, 199 00:12:57.759 --> 00:12:59.440 hence the number of the beast. It's so on and 200 00:12:59.440 --> 00:13:03.399 so forth. So he does attempts to ground this in 201 00:13:03.559 --> 00:13:08.000 the text. I think from the outside looking in, it's 202 00:13:08.039 --> 00:13:11.600 a bit of a stretch. A lot of his justification 203 00:13:11.720 --> 00:13:14.799 for this, but the specific doctrine of the rapture is 204 00:13:14.879 --> 00:13:20.559 almost unjustified. He allegedly got the idea from an ecstatic utterance, 205 00:13:20.759 --> 00:13:23.919 which means that he was having this sort of extremely 206 00:13:24.000 --> 00:13:28.399 charismatic worship service, and this woman went into a fit 207 00:13:28.799 --> 00:13:33.399 and started speaking in tongues and prophesying and mentioned, you know, 208 00:13:33.440 --> 00:13:35.919 the idea of this rapture, which I believe is a 209 00:13:36.039 --> 00:13:40.080 phrase used in a different context some point in the epistles. 210 00:13:40.080 --> 00:13:43.240 I can't remember exactly where, but he kind of from 211 00:13:43.279 --> 00:13:48.720 that idea kind of built his whole system. Incidentally, one 212 00:13:48.759 --> 00:13:51.080 of the other things that is less common now but 213 00:13:51.200 --> 00:13:55.799 is very common with the early dispensationalists is he viewed 214 00:13:56.480 --> 00:14:00.840 that the Bible was not equally relevant to different groups 215 00:14:00.840 --> 00:14:03.919 of people. So we've mentioned that, you know, dispensationalist view 216 00:14:04.559 --> 00:14:08.559 God is still having a special relationship to the Jews, 217 00:14:09.000 --> 00:14:10.840 and part of that is he believed that, well, there 218 00:14:10.840 --> 00:14:12.639 are section of the Bibles that are I think it's 219 00:14:12.759 --> 00:14:15.720 rightly ordained is the is the kind of doctrinal phrase 220 00:14:16.240 --> 00:14:19.720 for Jews and for Gentiles. And so essentially the idea was, well, 221 00:14:20.000 --> 00:14:22.639 we don't have to pay attention to anything that doesn't 222 00:14:22.720 --> 00:14:25.639 explicitly pertain to the Gentiles, you know, we only have 223 00:14:25.720 --> 00:14:29.080 to effectively deal with the epistles. And so that's kind 224 00:14:29.080 --> 00:14:30.879 of fallen out of fashion, but if you read the 225 00:14:30.960 --> 00:14:33.879 kind of founding fathers of this school of thought, that 226 00:14:33.960 --> 00:14:36.279 was very much kind of baked in at the ground level. 227 00:14:36.320 --> 00:14:37.399 So sorry for that digression. 228 00:14:37.440 --> 00:14:41.840 Back to you, Jordan, No, that that's very helpful. And 229 00:14:41.080 --> 00:14:45.720 I've got some material in front of me from from 230 00:14:45.799 --> 00:14:53.480 dispensationalist writers about their feelings there. They're teaching about Zionism 231 00:14:53.679 --> 00:14:59.240 in particular, just to illustrate how important this stuff is 232 00:14:59.279 --> 00:15:02.679 to them and how central it is to their understanding 233 00:15:02.759 --> 00:15:08.799 of what Christianity is all about. One dispensationalist fellow named 234 00:15:08.840 --> 00:15:14.320 Mike Evans wrote that nations will be judged by whether 235 00:15:14.440 --> 00:15:19.600 they helped Jerusalem or tried to destroy her, and rewarded 236 00:15:19.720 --> 00:15:24.399 and punished accordingly. So this is a really extraordinary thing 237 00:15:24.440 --> 00:15:29.840 that our feelings about the modern state of Israel determine 238 00:15:29.919 --> 00:15:35.840 our relationship with God as Christians. This is a very novel, 239 00:15:36.559 --> 00:15:42.360 innovative idea, as is the idea of the rapture itself. 240 00:15:43.519 --> 00:15:49.000 Your mention about numerology and trying to figure out what 241 00:15:49.399 --> 00:15:52.440 these biblical prophecies mean. I mean, if you were to 242 00:15:52.480 --> 00:15:54.759 pick up the Book of Daniel, you would find that 243 00:15:54.879 --> 00:16:00.799 it is rather inscrutable to the lay reader. It certainly 244 00:16:00.840 --> 00:16:05.360 mystifies me more often than not, and I don't I 245 00:16:05.399 --> 00:16:07.679 don't think that I have a special duty to figure 246 00:16:07.679 --> 00:16:12.080 out what it means either. But here's here's a major 247 00:16:12.120 --> 00:16:18.120 difference in approach between dispensationalism and a more traditional approach 248 00:16:18.120 --> 00:16:21.080 to Christianity. I'm not I'm not trying to be partisan 249 00:16:21.399 --> 00:16:25.399 in my interpretation of this doctrine. I am Eastern Orthodox, 250 00:16:25.559 --> 00:16:30.159 but I'm not trying to give a partisan position here. 251 00:16:30.279 --> 00:16:34.240 I'm trying I'm trying to uh to be more ecumenical 252 00:16:34.759 --> 00:16:39.840 in my interpretation here. But here's a difference of approach. 253 00:16:40.000 --> 00:16:45.000 There is the Christian who will encounter the dispensationalist arguments 254 00:16:45.639 --> 00:16:51.240 like Darby and his obsession with numerology, and you can 255 00:16:51.279 --> 00:16:55.320 get very very deep into that subject. You can be 256 00:16:55.559 --> 00:17:01.919 like Sir Isaac Newton and right shelves of material analyzing 257 00:17:01.960 --> 00:17:06.359 biblical numerology. There is an awful lot there to analyze, 258 00:17:06.839 --> 00:17:13.119 and there's some really compelling patterns there that invite interpretation. Okay, 259 00:17:13.160 --> 00:17:17.000 so that's one approach. And we know that Darby came 260 00:17:17.079 --> 00:17:19.880 up with some really weird ideas doing that and had 261 00:17:19.880 --> 00:17:23.680 some strange inspirations for doing that, some irrational inspirations perhaps, 262 00:17:24.279 --> 00:17:26.400 And we know that people like Sir Isaac Newton were 263 00:17:27.839 --> 00:17:33.640 obviously very heterodox. By the time he finished his analysis 264 00:17:33.759 --> 00:17:38.000 of scripture. Isaac Newton was denying the trinity and denying 265 00:17:38.000 --> 00:17:41.400 the incarnation. You know, he's going very far afield from 266 00:17:41.440 --> 00:17:46.599 traditional religious beliefs of Christians. But here's another approach. The 267 00:17:46.680 --> 00:17:50.359 other approach is that there has been a lot of 268 00:17:50.480 --> 00:17:56.240 holy analysis, a lot of trustworthy analysis that's already been done. 269 00:17:56.599 --> 00:18:00.480 And unless you yourself are going to devote yourself to 270 00:18:01.319 --> 00:18:08.279 biblical scholarship under the guidance of trusted authorities and become 271 00:18:09.000 --> 00:18:12.680 a scholastic or something, if you're just a lay person, 272 00:18:13.359 --> 00:18:17.880 you need to be more reliant on the traditional interpretation 273 00:18:18.079 --> 00:18:22.200 of these things unless you would like to become a 274 00:18:22.279 --> 00:18:27.920 Christian innovator or a heretic or an apostate. Obviously, if 275 00:18:27.920 --> 00:18:30.400 you're open to being those things, you want to become 276 00:18:30.400 --> 00:18:34.680 a religious entrepreneur, then go to town, you know, analyze 277 00:18:34.720 --> 00:18:38.160 a way, go have fun, dabble in it. On the side, 278 00:18:38.279 --> 00:18:40.720 it is obviously isn't all that important to you to 279 00:18:40.720 --> 00:18:44.680 share community with people through time, right, But if you 280 00:18:44.799 --> 00:18:48.400 want to be a Christian, that means you want to 281 00:18:48.519 --> 00:18:53.039 believe what Christians believe. Therefore, the traditional interpretation is always 282 00:18:53.039 --> 00:18:56.079 going to have more weight with you than not. And 283 00:18:56.400 --> 00:19:00.319 this is this is not just the orthodox approach to 284 00:19:00.359 --> 00:19:04.319 these things. I'm giving you an orthodox perspective here that 285 00:19:04.359 --> 00:19:08.160 the tradition is sacred, the tradition itself is sacred. That's 286 00:19:08.200 --> 00:19:13.319 an orthodox perspective here, but that's also just a practical approach, 287 00:19:13.799 --> 00:19:16.359 and they're all manner of Protestants that would agree with 288 00:19:16.400 --> 00:19:18.960 me on that point. You know, if you want to 289 00:19:19.000 --> 00:19:21.319 know what Christians believe, look at what Christians have had 290 00:19:21.319 --> 00:19:24.519 to say about the subject. And I'm here to tell 291 00:19:24.559 --> 00:19:28.519 you that your attitude towards the state of Israel is 292 00:19:28.640 --> 00:19:33.079 not the most important thing according to traditional Christian beliefs 293 00:19:33.079 --> 00:19:40.039 and doctrines. Baptists historically will not emphasize that point. Presbyterians 294 00:19:40.279 --> 00:19:44.000 will not emphasize that point. Methodists will not emphasize that 295 00:19:44.079 --> 00:19:46.960 point that your attitude to the state of Israel determines 296 00:19:47.000 --> 00:19:52.599 your salvation, all right. Dispensationalists will. They will emphasize that point, 297 00:19:52.759 --> 00:19:57.000 and that is why we recognize dispensationalism is innovative. 298 00:19:57.559 --> 00:20:02.440 So one of the things, and I voiced before my 299 00:20:03.240 --> 00:20:06.599 lack of interest in public theological debates, So that is 300 00:20:06.640 --> 00:20:08.839 not what I'm trying to get into. But I think 301 00:20:08.880 --> 00:20:14.400 that some people may question, like, okay, like we've laid 302 00:20:14.400 --> 00:20:17.519 out our problems with juralism, but why do they care 303 00:20:17.960 --> 00:20:21.400 so much about Israel? So one, obviously you'll hear constant 304 00:20:21.799 --> 00:20:26.720 references to kind of parts of the Old Testament when 305 00:20:26.759 --> 00:20:30.559 God referring to shall we say the pre Christian nation 306 00:20:30.640 --> 00:20:33.839 of Israel, and that's an important distinction there. We'll say 307 00:20:33.839 --> 00:20:35.920 something like, you know, those who bless Israel would be 308 00:20:35.960 --> 00:20:38.480 blessed those who curse Israel, Okay, and the. 309 00:20:38.799 --> 00:20:43.119 Confer obviously you know that that's from the Book of Genesis. 310 00:20:42.839 --> 00:20:47.799 Right, And then there's a conflation between the kind of 311 00:20:47.880 --> 00:20:51.079 tribes of Israel in the Old Testament and the modern 312 00:20:51.160 --> 00:20:55.279 nation of Israel. That's a little bit odd, right, I 313 00:20:55.319 --> 00:20:57.880 don't want to get too much into the specific kind 314 00:20:57.920 --> 00:21:00.480 of like genetic histories of those two groups of people. 315 00:21:00.720 --> 00:21:04.279 That's a discussion for another day. Such one another one 316 00:21:04.799 --> 00:21:09.920 is the in the disputationalist version of the end Times. 317 00:21:10.000 --> 00:21:11.799 You know, we talked about the rapture, the idea that 318 00:21:11.839 --> 00:21:14.160 the Church will the Church will be kind of removed 319 00:21:14.200 --> 00:21:16.640 from the earth and Christ will reign on earth for 320 00:21:16.640 --> 00:21:17.400 a thousand years. 321 00:21:17.759 --> 00:21:17.880 Uh. 322 00:21:18.319 --> 00:21:20.759 And part of that is that they're the third Temple. 323 00:21:21.000 --> 00:21:25.240 So the original Temple destroyed, Solomon's Temple destroyed by the Romans, 324 00:21:25.640 --> 00:21:28.720 a third temple will need to be destroyed for the 325 00:21:28.799 --> 00:21:31.119 end times to happen. In the rapture to occur. And 326 00:21:31.160 --> 00:21:34.279 so part of this is that dispensationalists view that like 327 00:21:34.440 --> 00:21:38.480 leading that to occur as part of their necessary duty. 328 00:21:39.240 --> 00:21:41.119 So if you go back to my talk with AA, 329 00:21:41.240 --> 00:21:43.640 we talked about the idea of the kind of like 330 00:21:43.799 --> 00:21:47.759 Christian idea of history as a slow kind of winding down, 331 00:21:48.000 --> 00:21:50.839 you know, entropy taking over. And so a lot of 332 00:21:50.839 --> 00:21:54.440 these dispensationalists, who are I would consider sort of good people, 333 00:21:54.880 --> 00:21:58.039 you know, view society as coming apart at the scenes, 334 00:21:58.160 --> 00:21:59.559 something that you know, you and I might have some 335 00:21:59.559 --> 00:22:02.119 sympathy and say, like, all right, what's all coming to 336 00:22:02.160 --> 00:22:05.400 an end? What are these signs of, you know, the 337 00:22:05.519 --> 00:22:08.559 end times? You know, things being renewed and remade. And 338 00:22:08.640 --> 00:22:11.960 part of that is the construction of the Third Temple. So, 339 00:22:12.279 --> 00:22:15.559 for instance, right, you see this big push from people 340 00:22:15.599 --> 00:22:18.319 like Pompeo and Trump, who, let's be honest, I think 341 00:22:18.359 --> 00:22:20.119 Trump did this as a play to his base, not 342 00:22:20.160 --> 00:22:23.960 out of any to sort of support Jerusalem as the 343 00:22:24.319 --> 00:22:26.960 capital of the nation. It is. So that's one way 344 00:22:26.960 --> 00:22:30.279 in which this theology matters in kind of like the 345 00:22:30.319 --> 00:22:32.839 here and now. One of the other things is that 346 00:22:33.039 --> 00:22:35.759 part of that, in this prophecy, they're viewed as being 347 00:22:36.079 --> 00:22:40.039 seven nations against Israel which need to fall again, you'll 348 00:22:40.079 --> 00:22:42.960 notice this repetition of the number seven that goes back 349 00:22:43.000 --> 00:22:47.440 to the digression about numerology. But those seven nations among them, 350 00:22:47.559 --> 00:22:49.160 it's and I don't remember all them off the top 351 00:22:49.160 --> 00:22:53.559 of my head, but it's Somalia, Sudan, Iran, Syria, Iraq 352 00:22:53.720 --> 00:22:56.119 and some others, right. And you may notice that a 353 00:22:56.160 --> 00:23:00.799 lot of these were invaded by and so essentially, in 354 00:23:00.839 --> 00:23:04.599 addition to just being an innovation, you know, something wrong 355 00:23:04.839 --> 00:23:08.119 to believe, which has its own consequences, especially if you're 356 00:23:08.440 --> 00:23:12.440 dealing in matters of theology, it also comes into effect 357 00:23:12.480 --> 00:23:15.920 and kind of the foreign policy arena. And I know 358 00:23:15.960 --> 00:23:17.880 a lot of people and George you know Doubt as well, 359 00:23:17.920 --> 00:23:21.240 who essentially signed up for the Global War on Terror 360 00:23:21.400 --> 00:23:24.240 because of this belief, and they viewed it as a 361 00:23:24.279 --> 00:23:28.119 holy war. Yes. And one of the things that I 362 00:23:28.160 --> 00:23:30.759 really hate about this is that it takes what I 363 00:23:30.839 --> 00:23:35.000 consider the kind of like the best instincts of Americans, right, 364 00:23:35.000 --> 00:23:38.640 which is an instrict towards patriotism, and distorts it for 365 00:23:38.799 --> 00:23:41.359 things that are not in their interest, you know, distorts 366 00:23:41.359 --> 00:23:43.240 it so that they believe that they are fighting a 367 00:23:43.319 --> 00:23:46.400 Holy War, you know, fighting on behalf of Christ. And 368 00:23:46.519 --> 00:23:51.119 essentially they are without mincing words, you know, bombing civilians 369 00:23:52.119 --> 00:23:53.200 in the Middle East. 370 00:23:53.200 --> 00:23:58.119 Well or any words about it. And the justification for 371 00:23:58.200 --> 00:24:06.160 the war in Iraq was particularly disgusting. I was I've 372 00:24:06.200 --> 00:24:09.039 said several times before, and I don't mind people knowing 373 00:24:09.119 --> 00:24:14.400 I went to Liberty University. I knew Jerry folwell like 374 00:24:15.079 --> 00:24:16.880 I knew him in the sense that I was a 375 00:24:16.920 --> 00:24:21.359 student at his university and he could just remember everybody's name, 376 00:24:21.680 --> 00:24:24.960 because that's the kind of fellow that he was. That's 377 00:24:25.039 --> 00:24:27.119 one of the reasons why he was a remarkable man, 378 00:24:27.799 --> 00:24:29.839 is he could shake your hand once and he could 379 00:24:29.880 --> 00:24:33.119 remember your name forever. Not that I was at all 380 00:24:33.799 --> 00:24:36.599 important to him. I had no influence. He didn't know 381 00:24:36.599 --> 00:24:39.720 who I was really, But I was there during the 382 00:24:39.720 --> 00:24:45.240 war on Terror, and I saw how everyone there, everyone 383 00:24:45.240 --> 00:24:50.039 in authority there, justified the invasion of Iraq. And they 384 00:24:50.079 --> 00:24:53.319 were all talking about in times prophecy, they were all 385 00:24:53.359 --> 00:24:58.720 talking about dispensationalist talking points. They were talking about how 386 00:24:58.839 --> 00:25:04.480 Saddam Hussein had launched scud missiles at Israel during the 387 00:25:04.480 --> 00:25:09.079 Gulf Storm or was that the name of the operation 388 00:25:09.400 --> 00:25:14.759 in nineteen ninety two. I heard, yeah, Desert Storm, he 389 00:25:15.240 --> 00:25:20.960 just he just lobbed missiles at Israel randomly, as as 390 00:25:21.000 --> 00:25:25.200 an action of revenge. And I heard people talking about 391 00:25:25.240 --> 00:25:29.039 that when the United States invaded in two thousand and three. 392 00:25:29.359 --> 00:25:31.839 But we need to remember the record of that, like 393 00:25:31.920 --> 00:25:39.160 the justification for those those military adventures, was built on 394 00:25:39.960 --> 00:25:44.880 allegations that were unfounded. The CIA was cooking up information 395 00:25:45.160 --> 00:25:50.440 on order for the Bush administration, and they people like 396 00:25:50.559 --> 00:25:56.920 Colin Powell, made a fool of himself presenting evidence for 397 00:25:57.000 --> 00:26:00.640 weapons of mass destruction at the United Nations that that 398 00:26:00.720 --> 00:26:04.160 could not withstand scrutiny. Even just a few years later, 399 00:26:04.759 --> 00:26:09.039 Colin Powell was apologizing for that, calling that the lowest 400 00:26:09.039 --> 00:26:11.799 point in his whole career, saying that he was surrounded 401 00:26:11.799 --> 00:26:15.079 by people telling him to do this, and he gave 402 00:26:15.160 --> 00:26:19.400 in when his judgment should have held his hand. 403 00:26:20.039 --> 00:26:21.079 The result of the war. 404 00:26:21.000 --> 00:26:24.519 In Iraq was a million dead civilians at least, and 405 00:26:24.839 --> 00:26:30.319 the end of Christianity in that land, and what justified 406 00:26:30.400 --> 00:26:35.559 the intervention itself, at least with some Americans, I'm not 407 00:26:35.640 --> 00:26:41.119 saying with all, but with the crowd of conservative Christians 408 00:26:41.599 --> 00:26:46.799 who were very engaged in politics, at my university in 409 00:26:46.839 --> 00:26:53.319 that crowd, dispensationalist talking points and allusions to those talking 410 00:26:53.400 --> 00:26:57.119 points in the speeches of politicians, that was enough to 411 00:26:58.279 --> 00:27:02.119 secure their support for these things. And not only does 412 00:27:02.319 --> 00:27:05.759 this tax them, not only does it send their young 413 00:27:05.799 --> 00:27:09.160 men to fight and die in distant lands with no 414 00:27:10.839 --> 00:27:15.559 positive outcome for the United States. No good is done 415 00:27:15.960 --> 00:27:21.519 for Americans in this Iraqi intervention, but Christians in that 416 00:27:21.720 --> 00:27:27.400 place itself bear a disproportionate amount of cost and suffering, 417 00:27:27.960 --> 00:27:32.559 to the point that Christian belief isn't in Iraq anymore. 418 00:27:33.400 --> 00:27:35.759 It used to be ten percent of the population there 419 00:27:36.200 --> 00:27:39.079 and now there are no Christians left. We see another 420 00:27:39.160 --> 00:27:42.680 example of this manifested in our politics. A number of 421 00:27:42.759 --> 00:27:48.559 years ago, Senator Ted Cruz from Texas had an invitation 422 00:27:49.359 --> 00:27:55.839 to an event hosted by Arab Christians. And so these 423 00:27:55.920 --> 00:28:01.039 are mostly Orthodox and Catholic Arabs, and there are a 424 00:28:01.119 --> 00:28:05.920 number of organizations of those groups of Christians here in 425 00:28:05.920 --> 00:28:09.720 the United States. There are people like the Antiochian Orthodox Church, 426 00:28:10.000 --> 00:28:12.640 which is an Eastern Orthodox group in the United States, 427 00:28:12.799 --> 00:28:17.799 and also Roman Catholic groups like the Merronites and the 428 00:28:17.839 --> 00:28:23.720 Melkite Catholics. They're all Arab Catholics with Eastern write liturgies. 429 00:28:24.440 --> 00:28:27.440 They all sat down and listened to Ted Kruz, and 430 00:28:27.640 --> 00:28:30.000 ted Kruz decided to use his time with them by 431 00:28:30.039 --> 00:28:33.720 talking about the important relationship between the United States and Israel, 432 00:28:34.319 --> 00:28:37.599 and in the midst of his talk about how much 433 00:28:37.599 --> 00:28:43.480 he loved Israel, these Arabic Christians, who are not dispensationalists, 434 00:28:44.200 --> 00:28:48.240 started cat calling and hooting at him because Israel is 435 00:28:48.279 --> 00:28:54.279 extremely unpopular among them. The Zionist movement in the Holy 436 00:28:54.400 --> 00:29:00.960 Land has ostracized Christians and exiled Christians from this place 437 00:29:01.000 --> 00:29:03.640 where they have been settled since the time of Christ. 438 00:29:04.599 --> 00:29:08.599 These people have been there believing in Jesus for two 439 00:29:08.640 --> 00:29:11.319 thousand years, and if you go to the Holy Land 440 00:29:11.400 --> 00:29:13.599 you can still see their churches, though most of them 441 00:29:13.599 --> 00:29:18.759 are empty now right they've been displaced by Jewish Zionism 442 00:29:19.119 --> 00:29:22.799 in the Holy Land, and Christians also in that area 443 00:29:23.480 --> 00:29:28.119 have happened to have more resources to leave than the 444 00:29:28.200 --> 00:29:31.000 Muslim population in that area. So if you go to 445 00:29:31.039 --> 00:29:34.279 Palestine today, if you go to a Palestinian town like 446 00:29:34.519 --> 00:29:41.160 Nazareth or Bethlehem, you'll see that there are Palestinian churches 447 00:29:41.559 --> 00:29:46.079 there that were built by Palestinian Christians hundreds of years ago, 448 00:29:46.720 --> 00:29:50.400 and now those churches are virtually empty because everyone that 449 00:29:50.559 --> 00:29:53.920 has left, everyone that can leave those communities has left 450 00:29:53.960 --> 00:29:56.279 those communities because the situation in that part of the 451 00:29:56.319 --> 00:29:59.880 world is so miserable for people who are not Jews. 452 00:30:00.720 --> 00:30:06.240 So we we think of the Palestinians as overwhelmingly Muslim, 453 00:30:06.319 --> 00:30:09.000 and and when we when we look at at the 454 00:30:09.119 --> 00:30:12.480 territory of Palestine today, we see that is the case. 455 00:30:12.480 --> 00:30:15.839 They're overwhelmingly Muslim. But we forget that there was a 456 00:30:15.920 --> 00:30:19.559 large group of Christians in that in that place, and 457 00:30:19.599 --> 00:30:23.000 now now they're mostly in diaspora communities around the world. 458 00:30:23.519 --> 00:30:28.119 They've left. So, going back to your point, support American 459 00:30:28.200 --> 00:30:32.799 support for these adventures done in the name of the 460 00:30:32.839 --> 00:30:35.640 State of Israel or done for the benefit of the 461 00:30:35.640 --> 00:30:39.599 State of Israel, it does not help Americans. It does 462 00:30:39.680 --> 00:30:44.039 not help American Christian communities. I would argue strongly that 463 00:30:44.160 --> 00:30:49.160 it undermines the future of both. It's not sustainable to 464 00:30:49.240 --> 00:30:53.519 ship ship all all this money and resources abroad indefinitely 465 00:30:53.640 --> 00:30:56.559 and with with no limit to any of it. But 466 00:30:56.799 --> 00:31:02.200 it also undermines Christian belief in America because it discredits it. 467 00:31:02.839 --> 00:31:08.160 This is an innovative belief, and it discredits it. It 468 00:31:08.480 --> 00:31:15.119 gives it gives Native American Christians, people who grew up 469 00:31:15.160 --> 00:31:19.480 in this country believing in Christian doctrines. It gives them 470 00:31:19.880 --> 00:31:25.880 a bad experience, bad political experience, with an innovative Christian belief, 471 00:31:25.920 --> 00:31:29.279 a new Christian belief that does not correspond to historical 472 00:31:29.359 --> 00:31:34.160 Christian beliefs, and they see it as counterproductive and personally, 473 00:31:34.400 --> 00:31:39.559 just personally, I'm thinking back to all of the classmates 474 00:31:39.599 --> 00:31:44.279 I had at places like Liberty University who strongly identified 475 00:31:44.640 --> 00:31:47.119 all the Christianity that they had been brought up in 476 00:31:47.440 --> 00:31:52.839 and taught to believe with disastrous adventures like the invasion 477 00:31:52.839 --> 00:31:57.240 of Iraq, and they thought that Christianity meant George W. 478 00:31:57.400 --> 00:32:01.400 Bush and dead children and I. And if you were 479 00:32:01.440 --> 00:32:04.359 to talk to them today and ask them, well, why 480 00:32:04.519 --> 00:32:07.799 why don't you identify yourself as a Christian anymore? They 481 00:32:07.880 --> 00:32:11.240 would identify the War on Terror I had. I had 482 00:32:11.240 --> 00:32:14.759 friends that joined the Marine Corps and went to Fallujah 483 00:32:15.119 --> 00:32:19.839 and leveled city of blocks in Falluja and came back 484 00:32:19.920 --> 00:32:23.920 talking about how there were civilians in those city blocks 485 00:32:24.200 --> 00:32:27.839 and they were not allowed to do searches before they 486 00:32:27.960 --> 00:32:31.720 leveled the place, and these these people came back with 487 00:32:32.519 --> 00:32:35.839 major feelings of guilt, and they believed that they were 488 00:32:35.880 --> 00:32:39.079 serving their country. For one they weren't serving their country. 489 00:32:39.079 --> 00:32:43.640 This had nothing to do with American national interests. This 490 00:32:43.839 --> 00:32:47.920 was a money pit. Trump was absolutely right when he 491 00:32:47.960 --> 00:32:51.519 identified this as a complete waste of American resources. That 492 00:32:51.599 --> 00:32:54.359 we have nothing good to show from this adventure and 493 00:32:54.839 --> 00:32:58.880 just just a ruined country and millions of dead people 494 00:32:59.240 --> 00:33:03.119 who now hate us for what we did to their homes. Right, 495 00:33:03.240 --> 00:33:10.119 this is counterproductive, this is blowback. And my friends came 496 00:33:10.200 --> 00:33:13.640 back from tours over there. I have family that was 497 00:33:13.680 --> 00:33:18.880 there on military service, and they look back at that 498 00:33:19.720 --> 00:33:24.519 period of their lives with regret that this was misplaced, 499 00:33:24.640 --> 00:33:28.359 that this was a waste of resources, a waste of 500 00:33:28.359 --> 00:33:31.160 their lives. It took them away from their families for years, 501 00:33:31.480 --> 00:33:34.759 and there's nothing good to show for it. And many 502 00:33:34.799 --> 00:33:37.279 people walked away from their faith because of this, because 503 00:33:37.279 --> 00:33:41.039 it was so closely tied to their religious beliefs. And 504 00:33:41.119 --> 00:33:44.039 I see that as incredibly tragic and wrong, and this 505 00:33:44.119 --> 00:33:49.160 should not be this should not happen. But aside from 506 00:33:49.240 --> 00:33:51.599 all of that, it has resulted in the suffering of 507 00:33:51.759 --> 00:33:55.920 Christians in the Holy Land. It's resulted in the suffering 508 00:33:55.960 --> 00:33:59.079 of Christians and the eradication of Christian communities in the 509 00:33:59.119 --> 00:34:04.160 Middle East, and Christians are Christians in this country seem 510 00:34:04.240 --> 00:34:07.599 completely unaware of that. They don't know that it resulted 511 00:34:07.720 --> 00:34:13.280 in the the extinguish, the extinguished light of Christianity in 512 00:34:13.320 --> 00:34:14.239 places like Iraq. 513 00:34:14.719 --> 00:34:17.719 Well, and there's another layer of it that I find 514 00:34:17.760 --> 00:34:20.760 incredibly irritating. And I cannot remember the name of this 515 00:34:20.800 --> 00:34:22.440 book off the top of my head. Maybe maybe you 516 00:34:22.480 --> 00:34:23.960 can't do. Do you remember the book that came out 517 00:34:23.960 --> 00:34:27.840 maybe five or ten years ago. It was specifically about Oklahoma, 518 00:34:28.039 --> 00:34:30.599 And it's one of these books from progressives basically saying like, 519 00:34:30.719 --> 00:34:35.000 why do you know, why does Oklahoma vote for the 520 00:34:35.119 --> 00:34:38.199 GOP when they get no benefit from it? No, basically 521 00:34:38.360 --> 00:34:40.079 they really should vote for Democrats. 522 00:34:40.519 --> 00:34:41.880 What's the matter with Kansas? 523 00:34:41.960 --> 00:34:43.760 Yeah, that's what's the matter with Cansas. That's again what 524 00:34:43.800 --> 00:34:46.760 it is. And the thing that drives me crazy about 525 00:34:46.760 --> 00:34:50.800 that is that that's that's pure gloating. It's like, you know, 526 00:34:50.880 --> 00:34:56.199 exactly what's them. It's that essentially what the two options 527 00:34:56.760 --> 00:35:00.039 placed in front of kind of like white Christian and 528 00:35:00.800 --> 00:35:04.159 flyover Americans, right, is you have a party that explicitly 529 00:35:04.199 --> 00:35:06.719 hates you. You know, there's no bones about that. The 530 00:35:06.719 --> 00:35:08.719 Democratic Party has made it clear that there is no 531 00:35:08.840 --> 00:35:12.679 patronage available for these type of people, or a party 532 00:35:12.719 --> 00:35:15.360 devoted to a completely other country, which is the r 533 00:35:15.400 --> 00:35:20.559 NC right. And through this combination of church and state, 534 00:35:21.280 --> 00:35:23.199 you know, these flyover Americans have been sold a bill 535 00:35:23.239 --> 00:35:27.440 of goods where they're sort of given a proxy nationalism. 536 00:35:27.599 --> 00:35:30.960 So they don't get anything they want within the contiguous US, 537 00:35:31.360 --> 00:35:35.440 but they get to, you know, support Israel, feel good 538 00:35:35.440 --> 00:35:38.280 about it, have their tax dollars go somewhere else. And 539 00:35:38.320 --> 00:35:41.320 that is essentially what they get. That is their patronage 540 00:35:41.599 --> 00:35:45.360 from the Republican Party and no material benefit to them. 541 00:35:45.480 --> 00:35:48.760 And so what they get is basically no, they have 542 00:35:48.840 --> 00:35:52.360 no advocate at all for their own interest within the country, 543 00:35:52.800 --> 00:35:56.639 and their only reward is essentially, will you get to 544 00:35:56.679 --> 00:35:59.920 sign up and die for someone else? And again it 545 00:36:01.320 --> 00:36:05.000 I am struggling for polite words on this, but there's 546 00:36:05.039 --> 00:36:07.960 something just ghastly about the fact that, you know, these 547 00:36:08.000 --> 00:36:12.039 people are having their kind of good and natural instincts 548 00:36:12.079 --> 00:36:15.199 towards patriots. You know, they're they're kind of natural American 549 00:36:15.239 --> 00:36:18.079 idealism towards you know, becoming a you know, good and 550 00:36:18.199 --> 00:36:24.079 righteous country abroad, used to essentially propagate violence against other 551 00:36:24.159 --> 00:36:28.800 Christians in other countries. And when you go into it, 552 00:36:28.880 --> 00:36:32.119 you know, you recently recorded a reading of an article 553 00:36:32.639 --> 00:36:35.360 the Untold Story of Christian Zionism's Rise to Power in 554 00:36:35.360 --> 00:36:37.760 the United States by Whitney Web. So you can find 555 00:36:37.800 --> 00:36:40.840 a full hour plus lung reading of that on your 556 00:36:40.920 --> 00:36:44.199 YouTube channel. I'll link it where essentially it is clear 557 00:36:44.239 --> 00:36:47.920 that the Foreign Service of Israel has been directly promoting 558 00:36:47.920 --> 00:36:53.920 this belief. So prominent, prominent dispensationalist preachers like Jerry Folwell 559 00:36:54.199 --> 00:36:59.039 essentially received large monetary gifts from the State of Israel. 560 00:36:59.280 --> 00:37:03.320 And I'll put it this, given the hatred that our 561 00:37:03.360 --> 00:37:08.079 government has towards Russia, for instance, right, even the fact 562 00:37:08.119 --> 00:37:12.519 that Orthodox Christians are vaguely connected in some ways to 563 00:37:12.559 --> 00:37:15.239 Russia has put them under suspicion. Right, there's a hit 564 00:37:15.280 --> 00:37:17.199 piece that came out a few months about this. But 565 00:37:17.280 --> 00:37:19.440 the fact that through all of that, you know, there's 566 00:37:19.480 --> 00:37:22.679 been no concerned you know, looking into the fact that 567 00:37:22.760 --> 00:37:25.679 you know, Jerry Folwell's private jet, what was purchased by 568 00:37:25.719 --> 00:37:27.960 a Lakud party member, you know, or that his entire 569 00:37:28.079 --> 00:37:31.599 organization was was bailed out at least twice. Yes, exactly 570 00:37:31.679 --> 00:37:31.880 what the. 571 00:37:31.880 --> 00:37:34.400 President of the Prime Minister of Israel or a president 572 00:37:34.440 --> 00:37:37.599 of Israel that bought Jerry Folwell's jet exactly. 573 00:37:38.119 --> 00:37:42.400 And look, I have complicated feelings on mister Fallwell. I 574 00:37:42.400 --> 00:37:45.199 never met him personally. I have had a number of 575 00:37:45.239 --> 00:37:47.480 people who's told me that in his personal dealings he 576 00:37:47.559 --> 00:37:50.119 was a very good man, nice man, treated them well. 577 00:37:50.320 --> 00:37:52.880 So I don't mean to speak ill of the dead. However, 578 00:37:53.679 --> 00:37:57.000 this is wrong and in addition to just being mistaken, 579 00:37:57.079 --> 00:38:00.360 it is taking good people and ruining their life. It's 580 00:38:00.440 --> 00:38:03.840 driving them away from the faith. And John Slaughter, who's 581 00:38:03.840 --> 00:38:06.320 been on here multiple times, he used the phrase I 582 00:38:06.400 --> 00:38:09.559 like we basically said, like these churches are atheist factories, 583 00:38:09.800 --> 00:38:12.960 and we've talked about before that this is contributing to 584 00:38:13.679 --> 00:38:17.000 the brain drain in the American right and American conservatism, 585 00:38:17.119 --> 00:38:20.039 where essentially anyone who is smart enough to see this 586 00:38:20.159 --> 00:38:22.320 is a false bill of goods, you know, because it 587 00:38:22.320 --> 00:38:25.119 obviously is, you know, there's nothing to it. Anyone who's 588 00:38:25.159 --> 00:38:29.440 smart enough to see that basically is presented a dichotomy 589 00:38:29.480 --> 00:38:31.519 where it's like, well, you can either be dumb in 590 00:38:31.599 --> 00:38:35.480 conservative or smart and get out and become an apostate, 591 00:38:35.519 --> 00:38:39.639 you know, become a rabbit progressive. And it's really part 592 00:38:39.639 --> 00:38:42.639 of the reason that I have nothing but disdain for 593 00:38:42.760 --> 00:38:45.599 the kind of leaders of the American conservative movement. So 594 00:38:45.880 --> 00:38:47.559 I want to. 595 00:38:47.000 --> 00:38:52.639 Add it's it's an incredible waste of resources. I reflect 596 00:38:52.760 --> 00:38:57.159 often on the the beliefs of so many of my 597 00:38:57.280 --> 00:39:00.280 classmates and how and how they fell away from the 598 00:39:00.079 --> 00:39:03.519 they were raised in. These were people who were homeschooled 599 00:39:03.559 --> 00:39:06.400 by their parents. These are people that went to Christian 600 00:39:06.440 --> 00:39:09.519 private schools their whole lives. These are people that were 601 00:39:09.559 --> 00:39:12.840 sent off to Liberty University, which was the you know, 602 00:39:12.920 --> 00:39:18.920 the flagship school of their variety of Baptists. And yet 603 00:39:19.039 --> 00:39:24.440 these these kids, my classmates, who were the recipients of 604 00:39:24.519 --> 00:39:27.159 all of that investment, walked away from the faith their 605 00:39:27.159 --> 00:39:31.519 parents most wanted them to preserve. So you're you're quote 606 00:39:31.519 --> 00:39:35.880 from our friend mister Slaughter that these churches are atheist factories. 607 00:39:36.039 --> 00:39:39.239 I certainly am witnessed to that, and I think it's 608 00:39:39.280 --> 00:39:43.519 incredibly sad. But I'd like to I'd like to go 609 00:39:43.639 --> 00:39:48.480 back to the point. What is dispensationalism exactly? 610 00:39:49.199 --> 00:39:49.639 This is. 611 00:39:50.760 --> 00:39:54.880 Let's be nice to it and say it's an enthusiasm. 612 00:39:55.079 --> 00:39:59.880 All right, I think that this is I think that's false. 613 00:40:00.079 --> 00:40:01.920 I don't I don't want to make any bones about it. 614 00:40:02.360 --> 00:40:05.519 But let's let's be nice and let's call it an enthusiasm. 615 00:40:06.119 --> 00:40:11.679 You you were crediting, uh, the the ecstatic utterances of 616 00:40:11.840 --> 00:40:15.880 a woman in a charismatic sort of service as as 617 00:40:16.000 --> 00:40:18.880 inspiration for some of Darby's teachings a little while ago. 618 00:40:19.480 --> 00:40:23.159 That that's an example of an enthusiasm, like a private 619 00:40:23.280 --> 00:40:29.559 opinion that's brought into a worship service and grabbed by 620 00:40:29.880 --> 00:40:35.960 the leaders and inflated into a Christian teaching. Now we 621 00:40:35.960 --> 00:40:43.039 we all, we all experience private religious opinions or enthusiasms. 622 00:40:43.800 --> 00:40:49.159 Some of us have had major spiritual events in our 623 00:40:49.239 --> 00:40:53.960 lives where we feel like we've we've been inspired in 624 00:40:54.039 --> 00:40:56.960 some way, or we've received something from God. 625 00:40:57.519 --> 00:40:57.920 All right. 626 00:40:58.440 --> 00:41:03.119 Not everyone has major spiritual events in their lives. And 627 00:41:03.440 --> 00:41:05.480 this is this is one thing that would that would 628 00:41:05.519 --> 00:41:10.480 divide some some Protestants or some some Christian believers from 629 00:41:10.559 --> 00:41:13.480 some groups of Protestants. There are a number of Protestants 630 00:41:13.480 --> 00:41:16.760 that say you have to have a spiritual event like 631 00:41:16.800 --> 00:41:19.960 that in order to call yourself a Christian. I'm not 632 00:41:20.039 --> 00:41:24.360 one of those people, and I don't I cannot identify 633 00:41:24.559 --> 00:41:27.880 a particular time in my life where I felt like 634 00:41:27.920 --> 00:41:32.920 I was receiving a tremendous amount of spiritual inspiration. But 635 00:41:33.320 --> 00:41:37.519 spiritual inspiration is one thing. Bringing it into church and 636 00:41:38.159 --> 00:41:41.360 proclaiming it as a teaching that Christians ought to believe, 637 00:41:41.760 --> 00:41:46.920 that is something else. That is something else. And if 638 00:41:46.960 --> 00:41:51.280 I could make a metaphor for this, church is a 639 00:41:51.360 --> 00:41:56.599 place where we are supposed to put on our best clothes. 640 00:41:57.400 --> 00:42:00.920 Church is a place where we're supposed to go with 641 00:42:01.119 --> 00:42:04.960 a proper frame of mind, a sober frame of mind. Obviously, 642 00:42:05.000 --> 00:42:07.119 some people think that church is a place to go 643 00:42:07.239 --> 00:42:11.000 in order to get very emotional and enthusiastic. I will 644 00:42:11.000 --> 00:42:13.599 take exception to that. All right, I'm gonna say no, 645 00:42:13.679 --> 00:42:16.960 that's not proper, and make of me what you will. 646 00:42:17.599 --> 00:42:20.800 But church is a place where we are supposed to 647 00:42:20.800 --> 00:42:22.760 put on a certain frame of mind. We're supposed to 648 00:42:22.800 --> 00:42:25.760 be sober, we're supposed to be dressed up properly, we're 649 00:42:25.760 --> 00:42:29.960 supposed to behave ourselves right. We have phrases that we 650 00:42:30.079 --> 00:42:33.159 used to describe that put on your Sunday best right, 651 00:42:33.679 --> 00:42:36.000 and that really does change the way that we behave 652 00:42:36.360 --> 00:42:40.000 when we dress up well. If we dress up better 653 00:42:40.119 --> 00:42:43.880 for work, or dress up better for the supermarket, then 654 00:42:43.920 --> 00:42:47.639 we dress up for church. Then there's a disparity there 655 00:42:48.079 --> 00:42:52.199 that there's something there's something amiss. Church is not supposed 656 00:42:52.199 --> 00:42:56.519 to be vulgar. Church is not a place for commonplace things. 657 00:42:57.280 --> 00:43:00.000 It's not a place for pajamas and slippers. 658 00:43:00.800 --> 00:43:01.280 It's not a. 659 00:43:01.199 --> 00:43:04.400 Place to let your hair out or let your hair down. 660 00:43:04.840 --> 00:43:05.000 Right. 661 00:43:05.440 --> 00:43:09.119 It's a place where we're supposed to present ourselves better 662 00:43:09.480 --> 00:43:13.039 than we are typically because we're presenting ourselves to God 663 00:43:13.119 --> 00:43:17.280 in some way. So my metaphor is this, we should 664 00:43:17.280 --> 00:43:24.199 not bring vulgarity into religious teaching. To bring vulgarity into 665 00:43:24.320 --> 00:43:32.679 religious teaching discredits religious teaching. It brings in, It brings 666 00:43:32.719 --> 00:43:39.320 in mockery against our religious teaching. It invites the mockery 667 00:43:39.719 --> 00:43:44.000 of our religious teaching. It brings shame on all Christians. 668 00:43:44.400 --> 00:43:48.599 And this is one of the reasons why innovation does 669 00:43:48.719 --> 00:43:53.599 not belong in the teaching of the church. If we 670 00:43:53.639 --> 00:44:00.639 can identify that teachings like dispensationalism originated from a historical 671 00:44:00.719 --> 00:44:05.880 period and do not correspond to the traditional teachings of 672 00:44:06.079 --> 00:44:09.960 Christian groups. Then it does not belong being taught in seminaries. 673 00:44:10.000 --> 00:44:13.320 It does not belong being taught in church. Now to 674 00:44:13.400 --> 00:44:16.400 your point, you mentioned something really important. You said that 675 00:44:17.039 --> 00:44:21.960 Americans are allowed to have an affection for the nation 676 00:44:22.159 --> 00:44:25.639 state of Israel, and they are not allowed to have 677 00:44:25.719 --> 00:44:29.920 an affection for their own country, for their own national group. 678 00:44:30.519 --> 00:44:38.079 We're allowed to fund and otherwise support the sacred boundaries 679 00:44:38.280 --> 00:44:41.559 of the nation of Ukraine, but we are not allowed 680 00:44:41.679 --> 00:44:46.840 to support or fund boundaries for our own country. This 681 00:44:47.000 --> 00:44:51.599 is ridiculous and it's a kind of a proxy nationalism. 682 00:44:52.119 --> 00:44:56.719 As you said, Similarly, I would say that in this 683 00:44:56.840 --> 00:45:01.760 problem of ecclesiology, that is the theology of the Christian Church, 684 00:45:01.960 --> 00:45:06.440 what what is the church in the beliefs of Christians, 685 00:45:07.199 --> 00:45:12.960 there is a proxy ecclesiology going on here in dispensationalism. 686 00:45:13.679 --> 00:45:18.440 So many Protestants, so many low church Protestants in particular, 687 00:45:19.159 --> 00:45:23.599 don't believe in a holy calendar. They don't they don't 688 00:45:23.679 --> 00:45:29.800 celebrate religious holidays, or perhaps some of them still do 689 00:45:29.880 --> 00:45:33.079 in in the form of holidays like Christmas, but they don't. 690 00:45:33.119 --> 00:45:38.199 They don't see that as something particularly connected to worship 691 00:45:38.199 --> 00:45:41.599 in the church. They don't don't have a holy calendar 692 00:45:41.679 --> 00:45:46.159 that they keep in their minds, and so they they 693 00:45:46.199 --> 00:45:50.760 praise the holy calendar that they see in the ceremonial 694 00:45:50.840 --> 00:45:54.119 law of the Jews in the Old Testament. They don't 695 00:45:54.159 --> 00:45:59.360 see themselves as a chosen group by God. They don't 696 00:45:59.400 --> 00:46:04.119 have uls to perform in their own churches. They don't 697 00:46:04.159 --> 00:46:06.360 see that as a group set apart by God, and 698 00:46:06.440 --> 00:46:11.239 so instead they see the Jews as a group set 699 00:46:11.239 --> 00:46:15.119 apart by God. They see the Jews as having rituals 700 00:46:15.199 --> 00:46:19.239 to perform that have religious significance, and they themselves do 701 00:46:19.320 --> 00:46:23.199 not see that they have any corresponding rituals as Christians. 702 00:46:24.000 --> 00:46:27.400 And this is a moment to make a controversial aside. 703 00:46:27.800 --> 00:46:34.840 I have sympathy for Protestants that embrace things like freemasonry, 704 00:46:34.880 --> 00:46:41.280 because it is an exclusive group with rituals and practices 705 00:46:41.800 --> 00:46:45.639 and has a temple and things like that. I think 706 00:46:45.679 --> 00:46:49.239 that it's natural to want those things. And if you're 707 00:46:49.280 --> 00:46:54.480 a Baptist out in Mississippi or something, and you don't 708 00:46:54.519 --> 00:46:56.920 have any of those things, and you're taught by your 709 00:46:57.000 --> 00:46:59.960 church leadership that Christians are not supposed to have those things, 710 00:47:00.039 --> 00:47:03.800 that those things are like Roman Catholic apostasy or something. 711 00:47:04.199 --> 00:47:09.280 I think that it's there's something humane and understandable about 712 00:47:09.320 --> 00:47:12.239 wanting to go and become a Freemason so that you 713 00:47:12.280 --> 00:47:15.039 can have some of those things. I think it's natural 714 00:47:15.079 --> 00:47:18.400 for people to want those things, so at least it 715 00:47:18.920 --> 00:47:24.519 goes some way explaining that phenomenon among Protestants in particular, 716 00:47:25.039 --> 00:47:30.079 but in dispensationalism, we see a lot of Protestants that 717 00:47:30.159 --> 00:47:35.400 are praising the Jewish practices and saying, no, God, God 718 00:47:35.480 --> 00:47:39.079 blesses these things. These are good things. We want to 719 00:47:39.079 --> 00:47:42.280 see these things flourish, and moreover, we want to see 720 00:47:42.840 --> 00:47:47.679 another temple constructed in Jerusalem so that the Jews can 721 00:47:47.960 --> 00:47:53.400 can better practice their religion, which they say God has blessed. 722 00:47:54.000 --> 00:48:00.760 This is extremely perverse, this is wrong. Dispensationalists will say 723 00:48:01.519 --> 00:48:07.280 that the belief that the Church was established by God 724 00:48:07.639 --> 00:48:13.000 for his people and that the Church manifests the chosen 725 00:48:13.119 --> 00:48:18.679 people of God in the body of Christ. Dispensationalists call 726 00:48:18.800 --> 00:48:24.559 that quote replacement theology. That is, the idea that the church, 727 00:48:24.639 --> 00:48:31.719 the Christian Church, replaced the Jews in religious rituals, in calendar, 728 00:48:32.400 --> 00:48:37.480 in the church calendar, in the true and proper worship 729 00:48:37.559 --> 00:48:45.679 of God. Dispensationalists dismiss that doctrine of ecclesiology, but that 730 00:48:45.880 --> 00:48:50.800 is the doctrine of the Church for all of historic Christianity, 731 00:48:51.039 --> 00:48:55.039 and in that I'm including the Protestant denominations. That's what 732 00:48:55.159 --> 00:48:59.079 Presbyterians believe, that's what Methodists believe, that's what the Church 733 00:48:59.119 --> 00:49:04.360 of England believes. That the Church is the promise given 734 00:49:04.400 --> 00:49:08.000 to Abraham. And I don't want to get us bogged 735 00:49:08.039 --> 00:49:13.679 down in scripture today, but I will quote one piece 736 00:49:13.719 --> 00:49:18.280 of scripture to this effect. What we need to do 737 00:49:18.679 --> 00:49:23.280 if we're wanting to understand these points better as Christians, 738 00:49:23.360 --> 00:49:26.800 we need to go back to the Bible and see 739 00:49:26.840 --> 00:49:29.000 what the New Testament has to say about this. The 740 00:49:29.039 --> 00:49:33.039 New Testament has an awful lot to say about people 741 00:49:33.079 --> 00:49:37.400 who continue in the beliefs and practices of the Jews 742 00:49:38.159 --> 00:49:41.639 versus Christians. They see them as opposed to one another. 743 00:49:42.280 --> 00:49:46.519 And the Apostles are emphatic on this that the Church 744 00:49:46.679 --> 00:49:51.920 is the covenanted group with God, and that Jews are 745 00:49:52.119 --> 00:49:56.719 supposed to believe in Jesus, that this is the culmination 746 00:49:57.199 --> 00:50:01.119 of the Old Testament, that Christ full fills all the 747 00:50:01.119 --> 00:50:04.239 promises of the Messiah in the Old Testament, and that 748 00:50:04.320 --> 00:50:08.960 Jews are not supposed to continue on in Judaism without 749 00:50:10.039 --> 00:50:13.280 professing their faith in Christ as their Messiah and as 750 00:50:13.440 --> 00:50:17.599 God incarnate. The New Testament is very clear on these points, 751 00:50:17.760 --> 00:50:21.960 and I'll quote just one verse to this effect. I'm 752 00:50:21.960 --> 00:50:27.440 going to quote Galatians three six and following, the apostle says, 753 00:50:27.599 --> 00:50:31.960 consider Abraham, he believed God, and it was credited to 754 00:50:32.079 --> 00:50:37.320 him as righteousness. Understand then, that those who believe are 755 00:50:37.519 --> 00:50:41.760 children of Abraham. The Scripture foresaw that God would justify 756 00:50:41.800 --> 00:50:46.039 the gentiles by faith and announce the Gospel in advance 757 00:50:46.599 --> 00:50:51.280 to Abraham. All nations will be blessed through you. So 758 00:50:51.760 --> 00:50:55.760 those who have faith are blessed along with Abraham, the 759 00:50:55.800 --> 00:50:59.000 man of faith. Okay, So here the Apostle is telling 760 00:50:59.079 --> 00:51:04.760 us the gentiles who believe in Jesus manifest the promise 761 00:51:04.920 --> 00:51:09.239 given to Abraham. It is not Jews who may literally 762 00:51:09.320 --> 00:51:13.199 be descended from Abraham. That is not what God wants. 763 00:51:13.280 --> 00:51:17.719 God wants belief in our hearts. God does not want 764 00:51:18.039 --> 00:51:24.719 physical descendants of the patriarch. And that's the major difference here. 765 00:51:24.800 --> 00:51:28.079 If we want to identify it with scripture and with 766 00:51:28.239 --> 00:51:35.320 dogma between dispensationalists, these innovators, and traditional Christian belief. The 767 00:51:35.320 --> 00:51:40.679 traditional Christian belief is that the faith in Jesus is 768 00:51:40.920 --> 00:51:44.119 the thing that marks the people of God, and we 769 00:51:44.199 --> 00:51:48.440 call the members of that group the Church. The dispensationalists 770 00:51:48.480 --> 00:51:52.760 say that there are two groups of God, that it's 771 00:51:52.800 --> 00:51:56.639 the modern state of Israel and the Jews that belong 772 00:51:56.719 --> 00:52:00.159 to that group, and the Christian Church, which some how 773 00:52:00.239 --> 00:52:05.639 exists alongside. And as you said previously, the dispensationalists want 774 00:52:05.679 --> 00:52:09.800 to bring about the end of the world by helping 775 00:52:10.320 --> 00:52:15.400 the Jews in Israel reconstruct the Temple in Jerusalem, which 776 00:52:15.440 --> 00:52:18.400 is also a very perverse thing to want. This is 777 00:52:18.519 --> 00:52:23.880 this is perverse to want the world to burn. That's bad, Okay, 778 00:52:24.000 --> 00:52:26.760 to want to see people die all around the world 779 00:52:26.840 --> 00:52:31.000 in a fiery cataclysm, that's bad to want that, And 780 00:52:31.039 --> 00:52:34.800 that is that is equivalent to washing one's hands of 781 00:52:34.880 --> 00:52:40.119 one's one's inheritance and all the beauty and value everywhere. 782 00:52:40.960 --> 00:52:41.360 It is. 783 00:52:41.480 --> 00:52:46.840 It is right to to desire the reconciliation of God 784 00:52:46.880 --> 00:52:49.719 and Man, okay. And it's it's right to want to 785 00:52:49.760 --> 00:52:51.920 be reunited with your dead loved ones. 786 00:52:52.320 --> 00:52:52.679 Okay. 787 00:52:52.760 --> 00:52:56.400 That those are good desires, but to desire the judgment 788 00:52:56.440 --> 00:53:02.719 of mankind, that that reveals an incredible disconnect with realities. 789 00:53:03.519 --> 00:53:05.920 We are not ready to meet God. You and I 790 00:53:05.960 --> 00:53:07.840 are not ready to meet God. We need to spend 791 00:53:07.880 --> 00:53:10.400 the rest of our lives preparing for that. And to 792 00:53:10.880 --> 00:53:13.719 want the end of the world is to want death. 793 00:53:14.320 --> 00:53:19.920 That's that's the death wish manifested in it. It's very 794 00:53:20.000 --> 00:53:24.480 upsetting to me. I had a ride in my taxi 795 00:53:24.599 --> 00:53:28.280 just recently that at the time was amusing to me. 796 00:53:28.320 --> 00:53:31.920 And it's funny because I was preparing for this stream. 797 00:53:31.960 --> 00:53:33.599 I've been doing a lot of reading on the side, 798 00:53:33.639 --> 00:53:36.519 getting ready to have this interview with you. And one 799 00:53:36.599 --> 00:53:39.760 night I was I was driving these folks around and 800 00:53:39.800 --> 00:53:42.760 I picked them up in this in this rather rough corner, 801 00:53:43.159 --> 00:53:46.360 and they were tourists. They weren't They weren't used to 802 00:53:46.400 --> 00:53:49.800 New Orleans. And they said they had had some street 803 00:53:49.840 --> 00:53:55.320 people harassing them and they saw drug addicts lying in 804 00:53:55.360 --> 00:53:59.199 the gutter. And they asked me about that because they 805 00:53:59.480 --> 00:54:03.239 weren't used to presumably they weren't used to American cities, 806 00:54:04.519 --> 00:54:08.480 much less New Orleans. And I said, well, the police 807 00:54:08.559 --> 00:54:12.239 just don't enforce laws relating to those things like, even if, 808 00:54:12.400 --> 00:54:16.719 even if you were to call the police because these 809 00:54:16.719 --> 00:54:20.360 people conned you or threatened you, or you saw people 810 00:54:20.440 --> 00:54:23.480 shooting up in the gutter, the police wouldn't do anything 811 00:54:23.519 --> 00:54:27.440 about it. And a woman turned to her husband in 812 00:54:27.480 --> 00:54:30.760 the back seat and she said, you see, you see, 813 00:54:30.840 --> 00:54:34.119 it's the end times. We're about to be raptured out 814 00:54:34.119 --> 00:54:39.519 of here. And I couldn't help but smile. And my 815 00:54:40.239 --> 00:54:45.159 mental response to that moment was I'm afraid it's a 816 00:54:45.159 --> 00:54:48.480 lot worse than that. This is what we're dealing with, 817 00:54:48.920 --> 00:54:53.159 and no one's going to snap their fingers and get 818 00:54:53.199 --> 00:54:57.400 out of this without paying a price. Right, this is 819 00:54:57.440 --> 00:55:02.719 our society, These are our political circumstance. We shouldn't bet 820 00:55:03.280 --> 00:55:07.360 on getting raptured out of here. We shouldn't bet on 821 00:55:07.440 --> 00:55:09.880 the end of the world taking place so that we 822 00:55:09.920 --> 00:55:11.880 don't have to deal with any of them. We are 823 00:55:11.920 --> 00:55:14.159 going to have to deal with this stuff. It's going 824 00:55:14.199 --> 00:55:16.920 to involve a lot of suffering. It's going to involve 825 00:55:17.599 --> 00:55:20.880 a big cost because we've just let all this stuff 826 00:55:21.000 --> 00:55:25.599 go for so long. So I think that's another explanation 827 00:55:25.800 --> 00:55:29.599 for why dispensationalism has become popular. We've been able to 828 00:55:29.760 --> 00:55:34.400 externalize a lot of our a lot of our political problems. 829 00:55:35.079 --> 00:55:41.280 We've been able to export them to some rapidly approaching 830 00:55:41.719 --> 00:55:46.719 judgment day that will resolve everything with no cost to anyone. 831 00:55:47.159 --> 00:55:50.039 God will intervene and fix everything in the blink of 832 00:55:50.039 --> 00:55:57.039 an eye. But that's just fantasy thinking. And we we 833 00:55:57.159 --> 00:56:00.440 believe as Christians that the world will end. We believe 834 00:56:00.480 --> 00:56:03.960 in the second coming of Jesus Christ. This is doctrinal 835 00:56:04.679 --> 00:56:08.800 teaching of ours. This is dogmatic. All Christians believe that, 836 00:56:09.440 --> 00:56:11.480 and I'm not I'm not taking any exception to that. 837 00:56:11.559 --> 00:56:15.199 I believe that too. But we we also think that 838 00:56:15.320 --> 00:56:18.440 this world is our home for the time being, and 839 00:56:18.480 --> 00:56:21.159 we have a responsibility to take care of it. We 840 00:56:21.199 --> 00:56:26.000 shouldn't we shouldn't absent ourselves from that saying, oh, well, 841 00:56:26.280 --> 00:56:29.320 it's all it's all ending right now any second now, 842 00:56:29.320 --> 00:56:32.840 it's all going to end. Uh, and take no provision 843 00:56:33.079 --> 00:56:35.280 for the future of our communities. We're supposed to take 844 00:56:35.280 --> 00:56:37.920 provision for the future of our communities. And perhaps it's 845 00:56:37.960 --> 00:56:42.000 because we've had a couple generations that have externalized all 846 00:56:42.079 --> 00:56:46.360 all of these things, not made the proper investments in 847 00:56:46.400 --> 00:56:51.960 the future of Americans. And see these chickens coming home 848 00:56:52.000 --> 00:56:56.119 to roost. Perhaps perhaps that's why they've embraced this doctrine 849 00:56:56.159 --> 00:56:59.079 that oh, well, none of that matters now, because we're 850 00:56:59.119 --> 00:57:02.320 we're in the end time now and it's all about 851 00:57:01.800 --> 00:57:03.880 to be ended well. 852 00:57:03.960 --> 00:57:05.960 And one of the things I think that there's a 853 00:57:06.000 --> 00:57:10.559 reason that this service coology is so popular among baby boomers. 854 00:57:11.719 --> 00:57:13.239 But one of the things I want to talk about 855 00:57:13.400 --> 00:57:18.800 is the way that this arose in a crisis of leadership. 856 00:57:19.159 --> 00:57:25.320 So the doctrine of dispensationalism sort of originates in England 857 00:57:25.440 --> 00:57:27.880 in the nineteenth century, but it rose to kind of 858 00:57:27.880 --> 00:57:32.320 media popularity in the US in the early nineteen twenty. Now, 859 00:57:32.400 --> 00:57:36.000 this relates to two historical events are important to understand. 860 00:57:36.039 --> 00:57:39.639 Which is one what's called the modernist crisis, which is 861 00:57:39.960 --> 00:57:44.119 this situation where a lot of this is where the 862 00:57:44.760 --> 00:57:51.239 main line evangelical or mainline conservative split happened in Protestantism, 863 00:57:51.360 --> 00:57:55.480 where essentially all of these denominations had two camps in them. 864 00:57:56.000 --> 00:58:00.280 There was an elite liberal camp that kind of around 865 00:58:00.320 --> 00:58:03.039 the nineteen twenties sort of dropped all pretenses of being 866 00:58:03.519 --> 00:58:08.840 genuinely Christian. This aside, here this sinks up well with 867 00:58:08.960 --> 00:58:12.559 what Muldbug writes about kind of the progressive Christian elites 868 00:58:12.639 --> 00:58:16.280 becoming what we consider the woke religion. Now, if you 869 00:58:16.320 --> 00:58:18.559 want to look at the kind of early forerunners of this, 870 00:58:18.960 --> 00:58:21.880 the you can look at the Quakers, but essentially started 871 00:58:21.920 --> 00:58:25.199 doing things like denying a virgin birth, denying Christ. And 872 00:58:26.039 --> 00:58:29.639 in evangelical circles they call this the Great Betrayal because 873 00:58:29.639 --> 00:58:35.079 all of these legacy American institutions, these legacy American seminaries 874 00:58:35.639 --> 00:58:40.480 like Harvard, like Yale, like Princeton, which were elite organizations, 875 00:58:40.559 --> 00:58:43.960 essentially stopped being Christian Christian in name only. So you 876 00:58:44.000 --> 00:58:47.840 have these congregations that are in many cases still very conservative, 877 00:58:48.039 --> 00:58:53.719 they're still very devout, and they're essentially left leaderless. And 878 00:58:53.760 --> 00:58:57.280 so the Schofield reference Bible, which we've mentioned multiple times is, 879 00:58:57.639 --> 00:59:00.960 you know, dispensationalless and the reason and it sold so 880 00:59:01.039 --> 00:59:03.360 well is because it's sort of coincided with that. So 881 00:59:03.400 --> 00:59:05.280 you have a large number of people and their elite 882 00:59:05.320 --> 00:59:08.000 structure has been cut off. They've been cut off from 883 00:59:08.039 --> 00:59:11.920 their access to new leaders and so they're sort of 884 00:59:12.000 --> 00:59:14.840 left rudderless. They're sort of forced to come up with 885 00:59:15.079 --> 00:59:18.679 a new leadership organization from the groundhop and the Schofield 886 00:59:18.719 --> 00:59:23.159 Bible has an addition to commentary, it also has sermon notes. 887 00:59:23.440 --> 00:59:26.119 So it was sort of a ready made solution for 888 00:59:26.280 --> 00:59:30.760 someone who is not a classically trained teacher to preach 889 00:59:30.800 --> 00:59:33.159 to a group of people. And it was used not 890 00:59:33.239 --> 00:59:36.199 only to train kind of that generation, but also to 891 00:59:36.360 --> 00:59:40.599 start new seminaries. So one of the and this is 892 00:59:40.599 --> 00:59:42.880 something that you really only see in the South, you know, 893 00:59:43.000 --> 00:59:45.559 kind of the Bible Belt is the Bible school and 894 00:59:45.679 --> 00:59:49.320 Bible schools are sort of they're not even quite seminaries. 895 00:59:49.719 --> 00:59:52.599 They're sort of in that mold, but they're much less formalized, 896 00:59:52.639 --> 00:59:55.840 they're much less institutionalized, and the vast majority of those 897 00:59:56.559 --> 01:00:00.239 draw their teaching from the Schofield Bible, and so of 898 01:00:00.320 --> 01:00:03.079 have this. And honestly, I think in a world in 899 01:00:03.119 --> 01:00:07.159 which the leadership class of the American Protestant movement kind 900 01:00:07.159 --> 01:00:11.280 of kept its senses, dispensationalism would have been a side 901 01:00:11.360 --> 01:00:13.719 note in history, you know, one of like any number 902 01:00:13.760 --> 01:00:17.960 of you know, spinoff heresies. But because the leadership, the 903 01:00:18.079 --> 01:00:24.000 leadership completely gave up, you know, turned around and betrayed 904 01:00:24.119 --> 01:00:29.840 their base, sort of had a massively outsized impact. And 905 01:00:30.000 --> 01:00:31.639 you know, you and I have said before that we 906 01:00:31.679 --> 01:00:34.800 have a lot of disdain for conservative leadership, and this 907 01:00:34.840 --> 01:00:36.760 is a part of it, that they're sort of like 908 01:00:36.880 --> 01:00:40.639 second tier leaders. And I guess that's another thing in this, 909 01:00:40.800 --> 01:00:43.840 that this is sort of something of, you know, sheep 910 01:00:43.920 --> 01:00:47.000 looking for a shepherd. And at the same time as this, 911 01:00:47.199 --> 01:00:50.400 right you have the Zionist movement picking up steam in Europe. 912 01:00:50.519 --> 01:00:52.800 You know, more Jews are moving to Israel, and so 913 01:00:53.039 --> 01:00:55.800 sort of you can forgive people for thinking, well, it 914 01:00:55.840 --> 01:00:58.679 looks like it's happening, you know, the prophecy is coming. 915 01:00:59.320 --> 01:01:01.920 And I don't know, I have kind of two feelings 916 01:01:01.920 --> 01:01:04.480 about this, because I think that what these people believe 917 01:01:04.559 --> 01:01:08.519 is harmful and bad and stupid, to put it bluntly, 918 01:01:08.880 --> 01:01:11.800 but also I feel a lot of sympathy for these people, 919 01:01:12.119 --> 01:01:14.639 you know, the people that they should be able to 920 01:01:14.679 --> 01:01:19.519 count on, hate them and despise them. And yeah, other 921 01:01:19.639 --> 01:01:22.480 relevant things kind of happening is this is also relevant 922 01:01:22.519 --> 01:01:24.760 to the Scopes monkey trial, things like that, And this 923 01:01:24.880 --> 01:01:27.639 is really the moment in which the kind of split 924 01:01:27.760 --> 01:01:31.800 between conservative Christians and broader culture began, you know, where 925 01:01:31.800 --> 01:01:35.400 these people were vilified, they were mocked, and it became 926 01:01:36.199 --> 01:01:37.960 more and more difficult kind of up to the current 927 01:01:38.000 --> 01:01:43.199 day to be a respectable devout Christian. Anyway, it's probably 928 01:01:43.280 --> 01:01:44.239 not said. 929 01:01:44.239 --> 01:01:50.639 I correspond with your statements on this. I agree with you. 930 01:01:51.000 --> 01:01:54.519 I have a lot of sympathy for these people. I 931 01:01:54.559 --> 01:01:57.199 want to be very clear. These people are my people. 932 01:01:57.440 --> 01:02:01.760 I'm one of them. I come from these people, and 933 01:02:01.840 --> 01:02:07.119 I love these people. And they seemed to me deluded, 934 01:02:07.599 --> 01:02:14.519 misled led to support things that seem obviously against their 935 01:02:14.719 --> 01:02:19.280 interests to support. And I think it's really sad and 936 01:02:19.360 --> 01:02:24.880 it's very frustrating. But you're quite right that their elites 937 01:02:25.800 --> 01:02:30.320 conspired against them. And this happened all over the country. 938 01:02:31.079 --> 01:02:37.039 There was this big division that resulted in a civil 939 01:02:37.119 --> 01:02:43.320 war over Protestant institutions all across the United States. And 940 01:02:43.360 --> 01:02:47.360 this is the Great War between the modernists and the fundamentalists. 941 01:02:48.079 --> 01:02:53.000 And what happened was the leaders of various American denominations 942 01:02:53.760 --> 01:02:58.840 came out against traditional teachings that Christians have always believed. 943 01:02:59.760 --> 01:03:03.519 They we're embracing things like the higher criticism out of 944 01:03:03.559 --> 01:03:08.119 Germany and saying, oh, well, the Bible is not what 945 01:03:08.239 --> 01:03:13.639 it purports to be. The Old Testament prophecies were written 946 01:03:14.000 --> 01:03:17.239 after the events that they described, which means that they 947 01:03:17.280 --> 01:03:22.440 aren't really prophecies. And the miracles of the New Testament 948 01:03:22.519 --> 01:03:26.679 which undergird Christian teaching, things like the virgin birth and 949 01:03:26.880 --> 01:03:33.119 the resurrection, those are miraculous things, and modern people know 950 01:03:33.280 --> 01:03:37.320 that such things never really happen, and so they're denying 951 01:03:38.199 --> 01:03:43.760 basic Christian teachings, and they face a revolt from the 952 01:03:43.800 --> 01:03:48.480 lower ranks, and the people in the pews say. 953 01:03:48.320 --> 01:03:49.039 Wait a second. 954 01:03:49.480 --> 01:03:53.239 We believe what the Creed says. We believe what the 955 01:03:53.280 --> 01:03:57.079 Bible says. We're taking these things at face value. And 956 01:03:57.119 --> 01:04:01.960 when the Bible says in prophecy that a virgin shall conceive, 957 01:04:02.079 --> 01:04:05.079 we believe that's exactly what happened. And this is manifested 958 01:04:05.119 --> 01:04:08.079 in the life of Jesus Christ in the New Testament. 959 01:04:08.559 --> 01:04:13.000 And these people then made a stand to try to 960 01:04:13.519 --> 01:04:18.079 hold on to the institutions their ancestors had built for them. 961 01:04:18.440 --> 01:04:23.400 So you saw fights over things like colleges and seminaries 962 01:04:23.920 --> 01:04:29.320 and even for the control of various denominations. And I 963 01:04:29.360 --> 01:04:35.119 don't have a taally. I don't know which fundamentalist sects 964 01:04:35.239 --> 01:04:39.639 were able to retain the control of their institutions around 965 01:04:39.679 --> 01:04:42.880 the country. I do know that here In the South, 966 01:04:43.280 --> 01:04:49.800 the fundamentalists one in the Baptist Church, and you can 967 01:04:50.320 --> 01:04:55.639 count that to their credit. They retained control of most 968 01:04:55.719 --> 01:05:01.079 of their educational institutions. And up north, where the Baptist 969 01:05:01.599 --> 01:05:06.440 Modernists won out, the Baptist Church has just withered. 970 01:05:06.519 --> 01:05:07.079 In the North. 971 01:05:07.239 --> 01:05:11.760 It became more like the Episcopal Church in doctrine, of course, 972 01:05:11.840 --> 01:05:15.480 not in practice. And it turned out there wasn't much 973 01:05:15.519 --> 01:05:18.400 reason to continue believing in those things. If you can 974 01:05:18.480 --> 01:05:23.119 just believe whatever is fashionable, why not stay at home 975 01:05:23.239 --> 01:05:26.320 on Sunday? Why give your money to that institution. If 976 01:05:26.320 --> 01:05:29.639 they're telling you that the Bible isn't actually true, and 977 01:05:29.760 --> 01:05:34.559 in Christian teaching isn't actually true, it's only spiritual or something, 978 01:05:35.880 --> 01:05:37.960 there's not as much reason to be a part of it. 979 01:05:38.000 --> 01:05:41.559 And we see that the falling away from from leftist 980 01:05:41.719 --> 01:05:45.519 and liberal denominations that continues on into the present day. 981 01:05:46.519 --> 01:05:51.760 But you're quite right what you're describing about the elites 982 01:05:52.159 --> 01:05:57.639 embracing leftist causes in this period. A very good book 983 01:05:57.800 --> 01:06:02.840 on that subject, by the way, is Richard Gamble's book 984 01:06:03.159 --> 01:06:07.960 The War for Righteousness, which was published by is I Press. 985 01:06:08.159 --> 01:06:14.400 I believe in that he's he's documenting the support of 986 01:06:14.840 --> 01:06:19.960 leftist Christians, and that would be those modernist Christians for 987 01:06:20.199 --> 01:06:25.440 Woodrow Wilson's war to save the world for democracy, to 988 01:06:25.480 --> 01:06:29.599 make the world safe for democracy, and to fight the 989 01:06:29.599 --> 01:06:36.119 war to end all wars. You know, these very utopian goals. 990 01:06:35.920 --> 01:06:41.519 It's a really interesting study. But that's left the fundamentalists 991 01:06:41.559 --> 01:06:46.239 without without that elite leadership, and they've been left with 992 01:06:46.320 --> 01:06:50.840 people like Pat Robertson and Jerry Folwell and John Hagey 993 01:06:51.400 --> 01:06:56.360 as their leaders. They've been left with tele evangelists for 994 01:06:56.559 --> 01:07:01.920 their leaders, and those people have been particularly interested in 995 01:07:02.000 --> 01:07:06.199 trying to grab the reins of the political process. We 996 01:07:06.320 --> 01:07:10.320 see that at least the one that stands out most 997 01:07:10.320 --> 01:07:12.480 to me, and it's because of my personal experience, the 998 01:07:12.519 --> 01:07:14.480 one that stands out most to me is Jerry Folwell, 999 01:07:14.880 --> 01:07:18.760 who always wanted his school to be a training ground 1000 01:07:18.800 --> 01:07:22.519 for future congressman and he wanted his law school to 1001 01:07:22.639 --> 01:07:27.960 produce future Supreme Court justices, and his school has attracted 1002 01:07:28.679 --> 01:07:33.760 any Republican aspirant to the presidency, including Donald Trump. I 1003 01:07:33.800 --> 01:07:37.480 remember when Donald Trump came to speak at Liberty and 1004 01:07:37.880 --> 01:07:40.719 revealed that he did not know how to talk to 1005 01:07:40.800 --> 01:07:43.440 low church Baptists, and he didn't know how to talk 1006 01:07:43.440 --> 01:07:45.719 about the Bible. He tried to talk about the Bible 1007 01:07:45.760 --> 01:07:49.599 in his speech and messed it up. He tried to 1008 01:07:49.679 --> 01:07:55.639 quote Second Corinthians and said, you know, in two Corinthians 1009 01:07:56.440 --> 01:08:00.880 whatever reference, and everyone laughed at him for that because 1010 01:08:00.920 --> 01:08:04.159 he didn't know how to quote scripture. He was obviously 1011 01:08:04.199 --> 01:08:07.239 out of his depth. But it only it only goes 1012 01:08:07.280 --> 01:08:12.920 to show that that liberty was always about getting involved 1013 01:08:12.960 --> 01:08:18.960 with politics. But in in my judgment here, given the 1014 01:08:19.000 --> 01:08:22.239 metaphor that I drew a little while ago, bringing up 1015 01:08:22.680 --> 01:08:27.760 current political events in church to make an argument about 1016 01:08:27.880 --> 01:08:32.479 where Christian should stand on these things. If it's if 1017 01:08:32.520 --> 01:08:38.560 it's something that's in conversation right now and is controvertible, 1018 01:08:39.279 --> 01:08:43.039 that's something that intelligent people, informed people can disagree about. 1019 01:08:43.560 --> 01:08:48.720 Politics has no place there. Politics is very vulgar. Now 1020 01:08:48.800 --> 01:08:54.479 I want I want to explain myself to say, Christians 1021 01:08:54.600 --> 01:08:57.479 believe that marriage is between a man and a woman 1022 01:08:58.000 --> 01:09:01.920 is not a controversial thing. But that is a political thing. Now, 1023 01:09:02.439 --> 01:09:05.239 when I say not a controversial thing, I'm saying that's 1024 01:09:05.319 --> 01:09:11.880 obviously what Christians have always believed, okay. Or when Christians 1025 01:09:11.880 --> 01:09:18.159 say Christians have always argued against abortion, We have records 1026 01:09:18.760 --> 01:09:21.600 that date back to the first and second century on 1027 01:09:21.600 --> 01:09:25.399 that point that that's not controversial to say that that's 1028 01:09:25.399 --> 01:09:28.840 what Christians have always believed, but it's become political now. 1029 01:09:29.399 --> 01:09:33.199 I'm not saying that Christians should not say those things 1030 01:09:33.199 --> 01:09:37.000 in a teaching position in their churches today. I'm saying 1031 01:09:37.039 --> 01:09:41.880 the exact opposite. Actually, Christians teach what Christians traditionally believe 1032 01:09:42.399 --> 01:09:47.359 in church. What Christians should not do is opine about 1033 01:09:47.479 --> 01:09:52.880 the controversies in the local race for congressmen or county 1034 01:09:52.880 --> 01:09:57.880 commissioner from the pulpit, because that's vulgar. That's the point 1035 01:09:57.880 --> 01:10:01.359 that I'm making. And so at at places like Liberty, 1036 01:10:01.600 --> 01:10:06.640 where the beliefs, the Christian beliefs of Baptists was so 1037 01:10:06.880 --> 01:10:13.840 closely wedded with national political concerns and even the concerns 1038 01:10:13.880 --> 01:10:19.119 of wars abroad, it had the effect of vulgarizing what 1039 01:10:19.319 --> 01:10:24.399 is sacred. And that is an only negative effect, that 1040 01:10:24.600 --> 01:10:30.119 only discredited what is holy. And this is why we 1041 01:10:30.239 --> 01:10:36.760 have such a profound duty to make sure that holy 1042 01:10:36.880 --> 01:10:42.840 things are not sullied, that holy things should never should 1043 01:10:42.920 --> 01:10:47.359 never be sullied by combining them with vulgar things. We 1044 01:10:47.359 --> 01:10:49.920 should not give our enemies any reason to mock us 1045 01:10:49.920 --> 01:10:52.359 on those grounds. We should not give our enemies any 1046 01:10:52.399 --> 01:10:55.000 reason to point out, Oh, look at them, they were 1047 01:10:55.039 --> 01:10:59.119 advocating for this political policy, and the whole thing was foolish. 1048 01:10:59.159 --> 01:11:01.640 The whole thing was a failure. You see, you can't 1049 01:11:01.680 --> 01:11:04.800 trust those people. If you can't trust those people on 1050 01:11:05.199 --> 01:11:08.199 what's going on right now, what makes you think you 1051 01:11:08.239 --> 01:11:11.920 can trust them to teach you about the hereafter? What 1052 01:11:12.000 --> 01:11:14.079 makes you think that you can trust them to teach 1053 01:11:14.119 --> 01:11:16.520 you about God and about how to relate to God. 1054 01:11:17.399 --> 01:11:22.560 Those arguments are reinforced, those arguments are strengthened every time 1055 01:11:23.079 --> 01:11:28.000 a pastor weighs into the mud of politics to make 1056 01:11:28.000 --> 01:11:31.039 an opinion from the pulpit. Church is not a place 1057 01:11:31.039 --> 01:11:34.079 for opinions, is what I'm saying. We should only get 1058 01:11:34.079 --> 01:11:36.920 what is real there. We should only get what is 1059 01:11:37.039 --> 01:11:40.199 tested there. We should only get what Christians have been 1060 01:11:40.239 --> 01:11:43.319 believing for the history of the Church. 1061 01:11:43.720 --> 01:11:44.039 There. 1062 01:11:44.560 --> 01:11:47.319 And occasionally the church has to deal with a modern heresy, 1063 01:11:47.760 --> 01:11:52.199 and that's when we traditionally have counsels to decide those things. 1064 01:11:52.520 --> 01:11:55.079 But the councils are always very careful to frame their 1065 01:11:55.159 --> 01:11:58.039 language and what Christians have always believed at all times 1066 01:11:58.119 --> 01:12:01.680 and in all places. That's why that is so very 1067 01:12:01.800 --> 01:12:02.560 very important. 1068 01:12:03.039 --> 01:12:07.199 I think that there's another layer to this, which is 1069 01:12:08.000 --> 01:12:11.680 when I you and I are both familiar with kind 1070 01:12:11.720 --> 01:12:14.479 of the points of elite theory, and when I look 1071 01:12:14.520 --> 01:12:18.479 at you know, who are the like, where are where 1072 01:12:18.520 --> 01:12:21.439 is there still some kind of spark left in the West. 1073 01:12:22.000 --> 01:12:25.239 It's in these communities. You know. You you mentioned it 1074 01:12:25.279 --> 01:12:28.319 a kind of an unscripted video on your channel that 1075 01:12:28.680 --> 01:12:30.560 these are the only group of people in the West 1076 01:12:30.560 --> 01:12:33.359 who still seem to be having children. And as you've mentioned, 1077 01:12:33.439 --> 01:12:37.560 they invest an astonishing amount in their children. You know, 1078 01:12:37.560 --> 01:12:39.600 they pay to send them to private school, which is 1079 01:12:39.680 --> 01:12:43.119 very expensive. You know, they send them to private universities, 1080 01:12:43.159 --> 01:12:46.439 which are also very expensive, and with the expectation that 1081 01:12:46.439 --> 01:12:50.800 they will kind of continue in their you know, broad 1082 01:12:50.920 --> 01:12:54.079 let's just say pro nomion. But the problem is, you know, 1083 01:12:54.079 --> 01:12:57.319 when you build all of that on something as incorrect 1084 01:12:57.359 --> 01:13:00.000 as this, you need captures. And so as far as 1085 01:13:00.119 --> 01:13:02.680 is what I believe are kind of the the core 1086 01:13:03.680 --> 01:13:06.439 kind of growths that need to be excized from this 1087 01:13:06.560 --> 01:13:11.479 movement there, and they're kind of linked. It's Christian Zionist dispensationalism. 1088 01:13:11.520 --> 01:13:13.960 I'll just kind of lump that into one and then 1089 01:13:14.000 --> 01:13:15.760 maybe you know something for another day, which is the 1090 01:13:15.840 --> 01:13:20.720 kind of like milk toast civic nationalism. And in each case, right, 1091 01:13:20.760 --> 01:13:22.960 we're sort of we have a community of people who 1092 01:13:23.000 --> 01:13:26.640 has good instincts, but they are playing with to borrow 1093 01:13:26.640 --> 01:13:30.079 a term from the the anti colonialist right, they're playing 1094 01:13:30.079 --> 01:13:32.760 with the master's tools, and because of that, they will 1095 01:13:32.840 --> 01:13:36.000 never be able to kind of keep that premise and 1096 01:13:36.119 --> 01:13:40.520 break out. Now you've mentioned before, you know that there's 1097 01:13:40.560 --> 01:13:43.279 sort of this dissonance between what these people think and 1098 01:13:43.319 --> 01:13:45.720 what they believe, you know, with regards to your own employment, 1099 01:13:45.760 --> 01:13:48.560 with what they you know, these people will say, oh, 1100 01:13:48.640 --> 01:13:51.720 we want to be dissident, you know, Oh we want 1101 01:13:51.760 --> 01:13:55.560 to be you know, kind of insulated from the world, 1102 01:13:56.079 --> 01:13:59.039 and yet they're kind of not committed to it. And 1103 01:13:59.079 --> 01:14:01.399 I see doctrines like this as being a part of that. 1104 01:14:02.079 --> 01:14:04.439 And so I realized that, you know that you and 1105 01:14:04.479 --> 01:14:08.920 I didn't get into kind of the theological nitty gritty. 1106 01:14:08.920 --> 01:14:12.279 I don't see it as that important really, But the 1107 01:14:12.319 --> 01:14:14.880 reason that this matters is I view this as being 1108 01:14:14.960 --> 01:14:18.039 one of the things standing between our people and they 1109 01:14:18.079 --> 01:14:20.840 are our people. You know, you know where I live, 1110 01:14:20.880 --> 01:14:22.399 you know, the kind of circles that I run in 1111 01:14:23.359 --> 01:14:27.399 and essentially getting out of this. You mentioned again this 1112 01:14:27.520 --> 01:14:29.680 idea of like, oh, we'll just stand back, it'll all 1113 01:14:29.680 --> 01:14:33.119 sort itself out. And that's another major stumbling block, you know, 1114 01:14:33.159 --> 01:14:35.159 the idea that you don't need to work, you don't 1115 01:14:35.159 --> 01:14:38.880 need to prepare, you know, essentially God will will come 1116 01:14:38.920 --> 01:14:43.640 back and you know, make everything better. And again that's 1117 01:14:43.680 --> 01:14:46.720 why this matters, you know, because in addition to motivating 1118 01:14:46.760 --> 01:14:49.199 people to do the wrong thing, it keeps them from 1119 01:14:49.239 --> 01:14:53.479 doing anything positive. So again, George, I appreciate your time. 1120 01:14:53.760 --> 01:14:55.680 We're sort of, you know, wrapping this up. Is there 1121 01:14:55.680 --> 01:14:56.479 anything you want to say? 1122 01:14:56.479 --> 01:15:02.199 And in summary, yeah, I made an impromptu stream just recently, 1123 01:15:02.399 --> 01:15:06.159 you just mentioned, I went to a homeschool co op 1124 01:15:06.800 --> 01:15:14.159 and I saw our people. They weren't saying explicitly dispensationalist 1125 01:15:14.199 --> 01:15:19.560 things at this meeting, but they were saying all sorts 1126 01:15:19.600 --> 01:15:24.760 of absurd things about the American flag and what it symbolizes. 1127 01:15:25.479 --> 01:15:29.479 They were saying obviously untrue things about it. And they 1128 01:15:29.479 --> 01:15:34.520 were doing this with noble purpose. They want their children 1129 01:15:34.680 --> 01:15:39.479 to love their country. They want their children to want 1130 01:15:39.520 --> 01:15:43.960 to serve their community and defend their community. They want 1131 01:15:44.000 --> 01:15:49.279 to preserve the freedoms they've inherited from their ancestors, specifically 1132 01:15:49.319 --> 01:15:52.319 their freedom of religion. They said, all of those things. 1133 01:15:52.640 --> 01:15:56.560 What they're unaware of is that their own government is 1134 01:15:56.640 --> 01:16:03.000 acting against their interests. Their own government is ignoring the Constitution. 1135 01:16:03.520 --> 01:16:07.079 Their own government is not protecting their freedom of religion, 1136 01:16:07.760 --> 01:16:10.600 or their freedom of speech, or their freedom of assembly, 1137 01:16:10.920 --> 01:16:15.760 or their property rights, or their protection against warrantless search 1138 01:16:15.800 --> 01:16:18.399 and seizure. All of this, all of those things have 1139 01:16:18.439 --> 01:16:22.199 been swept away, and they are unaware. They thought that 1140 01:16:22.239 --> 01:16:25.680 their government was still worth the blood of their children, 1141 01:16:26.279 --> 01:16:29.520 that this government is worth the blood of their children, 1142 01:16:29.920 --> 01:16:35.920 And that just floored me. I don't know how they 1143 01:16:35.960 --> 01:16:40.079 can cope so hard as to believe that. But also 1144 01:16:40.199 --> 01:16:46.000 what really disturbed me about about that service that I 1145 01:16:46.079 --> 01:16:51.239 witnessed was that the only children there that would continue 1146 01:16:51.239 --> 01:16:55.319 to believe that were children who had deliberately close their 1147 01:16:55.319 --> 01:17:00.319 eyes to what their government is doing and refuse to 1148 01:17:00.560 --> 01:17:03.199 believe what is obvious about what their government is doing. 1149 01:17:03.920 --> 01:17:07.079 It reminds me of another loved one that I have, 1150 01:17:08.720 --> 01:17:13.319 someone I'm closely connected to who believes in the Q conspiracies. 1151 01:17:14.119 --> 01:17:19.880 And I was talking to this man and getting along 1152 01:17:19.960 --> 01:17:24.479 with him. I don't seek out to have fights with 1153 01:17:24.600 --> 01:17:28.079 people about things like this or even to contradict them, 1154 01:17:28.279 --> 01:17:32.960 especially when it's a loved one of mine. And he 1155 01:17:33.079 --> 01:17:36.920 was telling me how Trump was still president, that Hillary 1156 01:17:36.960 --> 01:17:42.600 Clinton was dead and we aren't seeing actually Joseph Biden, 1157 01:17:43.159 --> 01:17:47.760 we're seeing a clone of Joseph Biden or something like that, 1158 01:17:48.520 --> 01:17:52.840 and that John F. Kennedy Junior is vice president. He 1159 01:17:52.880 --> 01:17:55.800 believes all of these things, and he says, yeah, and 1160 01:17:55.840 --> 01:17:58.479 everything is going to be fine. And he also he 1161 01:17:58.560 --> 01:18:01.439 said something very interesting to me. He said, none of 1162 01:18:01.439 --> 01:18:05.039 the churches are ready for what's going to happen. And 1163 01:18:05.399 --> 01:18:08.079 I said, well, what do you mean and he said, well, 1164 01:18:08.159 --> 01:18:11.560 when it's all revealed that Trump is still in charge, 1165 01:18:12.199 --> 01:18:16.159 and that John F. Kennedy Junior is still alive, and 1166 01:18:16.399 --> 01:18:21.039 that the United States government has been overthrown in this 1167 01:18:21.159 --> 01:18:26.079 secret revolution behind the scenes, he said, millions of Americans 1168 01:18:26.119 --> 01:18:29.720 are going to return to faith in Jesus. And it 1169 01:18:29.920 --> 01:18:34.560 just blew me away. I was like, how would that follow? 1170 01:18:34.560 --> 01:18:36.439 What does the one have to do with the other? 1171 01:18:37.199 --> 01:18:42.520 I don't understand. And it is people. It seems to me, 1172 01:18:43.199 --> 01:18:45.680 I have no other way of describing what's going on. 1173 01:18:45.800 --> 01:18:49.960 It seems that these people are deliberately closing their eyes 1174 01:18:50.000 --> 01:18:54.319 to what's going on, and they have a sunk cost 1175 01:18:54.560 --> 01:18:58.960 in these things. To go to a less radical example, 1176 01:18:59.039 --> 01:19:03.279 the homeschool moms who were telling that their children, telling 1177 01:19:03.319 --> 01:19:07.720 their children that the flag had symbolism of the Trinity 1178 01:19:08.119 --> 01:19:13.520 associated with it, and the sanctity of womanhood was associated 1179 01:19:13.560 --> 01:19:16.600 with the colors of the flag and things like that. 1180 01:19:17.279 --> 01:19:22.960 They could continue to believe in this ersatz civic religion 1181 01:19:23.600 --> 01:19:27.439 and continue to sacrifice to these people and institutions that 1182 01:19:27.560 --> 01:19:32.159 want them to be destroyed, or they will wake up 1183 01:19:32.199 --> 01:19:36.920 to the fact that this is all counterproductive. But where 1184 01:19:36.960 --> 01:19:39.800 does that leave them if they if they see, oh 1185 01:19:39.840 --> 01:19:42.720 wait a second, my government really does want me dead. 1186 01:19:43.520 --> 01:19:46.760 I've been sacrificing to them and telling my children to 1187 01:19:46.760 --> 01:19:51.239 have confidence in these institutions when in fact this is 1188 01:19:51.399 --> 01:19:54.399 all against my interests. Does that cause them to lose 1189 01:19:54.439 --> 01:19:54.880 their faith? 1190 01:19:54.920 --> 01:19:55.119 Then? 1191 01:19:55.520 --> 01:19:57.520 And I was talking to a good friend of mine 1192 01:19:57.560 --> 01:20:00.560 about this just recently. He and I. He knows he 1193 01:20:00.600 --> 01:20:04.159 knows a lot more about dispensationalism than I do. And 1194 01:20:05.119 --> 01:20:08.039 I was talking to him about this, and he said, well, 1195 01:20:08.720 --> 01:20:11.239 it could be that the religion of a lot of 1196 01:20:11.239 --> 01:20:16.760 these people is in fact that counterproductive civic religion, and 1197 01:20:16.840 --> 01:20:20.079 it does not merit their faith, and it should not survive. 1198 01:20:20.640 --> 01:20:25.439 So maybe they maybe we're looking at massive disillusionment. Can 1199 01:20:25.479 --> 01:20:30.000 you imagine where these people will be left if the 1200 01:20:30.039 --> 01:20:37.399 state of Israel is discredited, repudiated as genocidal by the 1201 01:20:37.520 --> 01:20:41.880 United Nations, say, by a consensus of world powers. And 1202 01:20:41.960 --> 01:20:47.640 if the United States has a new administration that repudiates 1203 01:20:47.680 --> 01:20:51.800 its support of Israel or announces hard limits to that support, 1204 01:20:52.359 --> 01:20:55.159 it could shake the faith of many of those people. 1205 01:20:55.479 --> 01:20:58.560 And I don't want to I don't want to misrepresent 1206 01:20:59.560 --> 01:21:03.760 these things, but this is what the dispensationalist writers and 1207 01:21:03.840 --> 01:21:07.880 leaders have to say about it. How Lindsay, who wrote 1208 01:21:07.920 --> 01:21:11.680 a very important book called The Late Great Planet Earth 1209 01:21:12.039 --> 01:21:19.159 a dispensationalist interpretation all right, an important dispensationalist thinker, how Lindsay. 1210 01:21:19.800 --> 01:21:24.079 How Lindsay said, the United States has been protected by 1211 01:21:24.119 --> 01:21:29.239 God because it has been a haven for Israelites and 1212 01:21:29.319 --> 01:21:34.199 an ally of their survival. That's what makes America exceptional. 1213 01:21:34.800 --> 01:21:39.640 This is very close to what people at Liberty were saying. 1214 01:21:40.000 --> 01:21:44.119 The whole time I was there, that America is special, 1215 01:21:44.159 --> 01:21:47.880 America is exceptional because we support Israel. That it's not 1216 01:21:48.000 --> 01:21:51.119 at all unusual to hear a dispensationalists say that what 1217 01:21:51.359 --> 01:21:57.600 happens when these illusions are dissolved. If support of Israel 1218 01:21:57.840 --> 01:22:02.279 is what makes them crit in their view, and not 1219 01:22:02.439 --> 01:22:06.800 their confession that Christ is God, where does that leave them? Well, 1220 01:22:07.079 --> 01:22:12.079 it's a very disturbing question. I feel very sorry for 1221 01:22:12.119 --> 01:22:16.479 the suffering that they must go through. That suffering is inevitable. 1222 01:22:17.079 --> 01:22:20.239 It's going to happen. They will be disillusioned because these 1223 01:22:20.239 --> 01:22:23.600 beliefs are false. It's not going to trouble me. I 1224 01:22:23.600 --> 01:22:26.239 mean it'll trouble me because people I love are suffering, 1225 01:22:26.600 --> 01:22:29.840 because people I love are having their faith tested. But 1226 01:22:30.720 --> 01:22:35.279 that faith must be refined, it must have their impurities 1227 01:22:35.520 --> 01:22:36.279 burned out of it. 1228 01:22:36.640 --> 01:22:42.960 And I think that's something we're witnessing. I'm, as you 1229 01:22:43.600 --> 01:22:48.920 probably picked up on, kind of pessimistic by nature. But 1230 01:22:48.960 --> 01:22:51.680 when I look at what's currently happening in the conservative movement, 1231 01:22:51.720 --> 01:22:56.359 there has been a turnover and people like Glenn Back, 1232 01:22:56.560 --> 01:23:00.199 people like Ben Shapiro, who I mean, Glenn Back is 1233 01:23:00.000 --> 01:23:03.119 a Mormon, you know who? And Mormons buy into this. 1234 01:23:03.920 --> 01:23:09.319 Ben Shapiro is Ben Shapiro. They've sort of begun to 1235 01:23:09.359 --> 01:23:12.680 alienate themselves. And I think that this is partially generational. 1236 01:23:14.319 --> 01:23:17.359 The baby Boomers and gen Z buy into this much more. 1237 01:23:17.640 --> 01:23:20.199 And maybe it's just the fact that millennials in gen 1238 01:23:20.319 --> 01:23:23.000 Z are less Christian or less churched, and so they 1239 01:23:23.039 --> 01:23:25.079 get less of it. But it does sort of seem 1240 01:23:25.119 --> 01:23:28.359 that this is an idea that is dying, you know, 1241 01:23:28.399 --> 01:23:32.159 whether you want to say it or not. And on 1242 01:23:32.159 --> 01:23:34.199 one hand, you know, I would prefer to live in 1243 01:23:34.239 --> 01:23:37.279 a more Christian country than not, even if it's kind 1244 01:23:37.319 --> 01:23:41.039 of a suboptimal form of Christianity. But at the same time, 1245 01:23:41.039 --> 01:23:43.640 I think you're right, this needs to die. It is dying, 1246 01:23:44.039 --> 01:23:45.640 and I don't think we should bemoan it. 1247 01:23:46.079 --> 01:23:51.359 Well, I will, I will reserve my sympathies for those 1248 01:23:51.439 --> 01:23:55.359 that suffer from this, because I love them. But this 1249 01:23:55.560 --> 01:24:00.079 is not what Christians believe, and this is counterproductive to 1250 01:24:00.520 --> 01:24:06.039 Christianity in this place. This is counterproductive to American Christianity. 1251 01:24:06.439 --> 01:24:12.119 It causes people to despise the Christian message, and the 1252 01:24:12.239 --> 01:24:17.119 Christian message is the Gospel. It's not any specific innovative 1253 01:24:17.159 --> 01:24:20.720 teaching about the modern state of Israel. It does not 1254 01:24:20.880 --> 01:24:27.600 involve our crazy, are insane modern political problems. The Christian 1255 01:24:27.640 --> 01:24:31.880 gospel is that Jesus is God and he saves us 1256 01:24:31.880 --> 01:24:35.159 from our sins, and our sins cause us to suffer 1257 01:24:35.199 --> 01:24:38.840 and die. All right, So this is good news that 1258 01:24:38.960 --> 01:24:41.520 Jesus saves us and that we're supposed to believe in it. 1259 01:24:41.920 --> 01:24:46.039 That's the Christian gospel, and dispensationalism is contrary to this. 1260 01:24:46.800 --> 01:24:49.680 Dispensationalists say, no, it's more important for us to support Israel, 1261 01:24:50.000 --> 01:24:55.119 and that's ridiculous. That is vulgarity as opposed to what 1262 01:24:55.239 --> 01:24:58.760 is holy and true and golden. And so this does 1263 01:24:58.800 --> 01:25:02.399 not deserve to survive, and it's going to cause a 1264 01:25:02.399 --> 01:25:05.359 lot of suffering to those that have so heavily invested 1265 01:25:05.439 --> 01:25:08.600 in it. And we see, we have all these major 1266 01:25:08.640 --> 01:25:12.560 institutions all over the place, and they have been perpetuating 1267 01:25:12.600 --> 01:25:15.680 this belief, and they've been popularizing this belief. This is 1268 01:25:15.720 --> 01:25:20.640 something that's even out in pop culture. Nicholas Cage was 1269 01:25:20.800 --> 01:25:25.159 in a movie about this. It was one of those 1270 01:25:25.199 --> 01:25:28.479 lesser known Nicholas Cage movies, but they actually got Nicholas 1271 01:25:28.520 --> 01:25:33.399 Cage for that. The movie was called Left Behind, which 1272 01:25:33.479 --> 01:25:38.359 is a very popular series of novels about this theology. 1273 01:25:38.920 --> 01:25:43.520 And that is not what Christians have historically believed. And 1274 01:25:43.600 --> 01:25:46.960 you don't have to look far outside of the United 1275 01:25:46.960 --> 01:25:50.199 States to find that no one's heard about this stuff. 1276 01:25:50.199 --> 01:25:54.199 This stuff is really weird. As ask Christians from the 1277 01:25:54.199 --> 01:25:56.720 Middle East if they've heard about this stuff and they 1278 01:25:56.800 --> 01:26:01.119 think it's crazy, they think that it is. It's parochial, 1279 01:26:01.520 --> 01:26:04.079 right in the sense that it's isolated to a certain area. 1280 01:26:04.680 --> 01:26:11.000 It's isolated to like the like anglophone Americans, and those 1281 01:26:11.039 --> 01:26:15.399 are all all signs this is not the Catholic teaching. 1282 01:26:15.560 --> 01:26:18.079 This is not what Christians have always believed in all times, 1283 01:26:18.079 --> 01:26:21.399 in all places. So it does not deserve to survive. 1284 01:26:21.520 --> 01:26:23.720 And it's done a lot of harm and it I 1285 01:26:23.760 --> 01:26:27.000 think it will cause a lot of people to lose 1286 01:26:27.039 --> 01:26:31.680 their faith in Christ such such as they profess it, 1287 01:26:32.399 --> 01:26:37.399 because it has marred that teaching so badly. So I 1288 01:26:37.520 --> 01:26:39.199 want to and I don't want to see that happen. 1289 01:26:39.239 --> 01:26:43.840 You know. I'd prefer more people confessing than not, and 1290 01:26:43.920 --> 01:26:49.680 I'd prefer a level of cultural Christianity. But like I said, 1291 01:26:50.520 --> 01:26:55.079 it will refine people's teachings, and that is necessary and inevitable. 1292 01:26:55.239 --> 01:26:56.560 It has to happen at some point. 1293 01:26:56.920 --> 01:26:59.880 So Bagbee, we're have time. If people want to find 1294 01:27:00.439 --> 01:27:01.920 more of your work, what's a good way for them 1295 01:27:01.960 --> 01:27:02.319 to do that. 1296 01:27:02.920 --> 01:27:05.760 Well, I have my YouTube channel where you can find 1297 01:27:05.760 --> 01:27:09.600 some of these recordings. We've mentioned that storage Bagbee on YouTube. 1298 01:27:10.600 --> 01:27:15.439 I am also releasing a book. It's an old history 1299 01:27:15.439 --> 01:27:19.920 book that I have edited and I'm re releasing. It's 1300 01:27:19.960 --> 01:27:24.720 called The Civil War and Reconstruction in Alabama by Walter Fleming. 1301 01:27:25.600 --> 01:27:28.199 It has been delayed several times. I've had a lot 1302 01:27:28.239 --> 01:27:34.000 of formatting problems. But my work ought to be done today. 1303 01:27:34.079 --> 01:27:38.880 So it depends on if the publisher can get this 1304 01:27:39.039 --> 01:27:43.560 approved for publication today. It might go online today. So 1305 01:27:44.319 --> 01:27:47.800 we'll figure that out and I will certainly publicize its 1306 01:27:47.840 --> 01:27:51.319 release once it's actually for sale. I expected we'll go 1307 01:27:51.399 --> 01:27:53.199 for sale on Amazon very soon. 1308 01:27:53.600 --> 01:27:56.039 All right, Well, I will be sure to short of 1309 01:27:56.039 --> 01:27:57.960 link that as well. If you guys want to support 1310 01:27:58.000 --> 01:28:01.239 my show in this available on Apple Spot, YouTube, anywhere 1311 01:28:01.399 --> 01:28:03.000 you want to listen to podcasts. If you want to 1312 01:28:03.000 --> 01:28:05.760 support the show more directly, you can check out my 1313 01:28:05.920 --> 01:28:09.119 fitness sponsor, Axios doing some good work really expanding the 1314 01:28:09.159 --> 01:28:11.560 program there and again, Bagbe, thank you so much for 1315 01:28:11.600 --> 01:28:14.800 your time. Thank you good to be here, and everyone 1316 01:28:14.840 --> 01:28:17.760 at home remember keep your head up. Well, I can't 1317 01:28:17.840 --> 01:28:21.520 last forever. Good night, all right, George Bagbe, Welcome back 1318 01:28:21.520 --> 01:28:22.479 to the show. How are you doing. 1319 01:28:23.000 --> 01:28:27.680 I'm doing well. I've been driving very hard this holiday 1320 01:28:27.720 --> 01:28:30.600 weekend and so I'm kind of recovering from that. But 1321 01:28:31.319 --> 01:28:34.079 We've got a really good subject today and I've I've 1322 01:28:34.079 --> 01:28:35.279 been really looking forward to it. 1323 01:28:35.560 --> 01:28:38.640 Yeah, for those listening in the future, it is New 1324 01:28:38.680 --> 01:28:42.640 Year's Day and both Bagbie and I are are somewhat 1325 01:28:42.640 --> 01:28:44.640 the worse for where in each case though it's not 1326 01:28:44.680 --> 01:28:47.399 because we were up late partying, but I'm stuck with 1327 01:28:47.439 --> 01:28:50.600 this kind of eternal throat sickness, which you can probably hear. 1328 01:28:50.920 --> 01:28:53.560 And obviously Bagbe drives a cab and turns out that 1329 01:28:53.840 --> 01:28:56.439 New Year's is a pretty busy day for him. So anyway, 1330 01:28:56.560 --> 01:29:01.960 we'll get into it. So you have recently republished a book, 1331 01:29:02.479 --> 01:29:06.199 and that book is about our topic today, So do 1332 01:29:06.239 --> 01:29:08.560 you want to first introduce our topic and then maybe 1333 01:29:08.720 --> 01:29:10.279 the book that you've republished as well. 1334 01:29:10.840 --> 01:29:14.840 Yes, the topic is the reconstruction of the United States 1335 01:29:15.159 --> 01:29:18.680 that follows the War between the states the Civil War, 1336 01:29:19.479 --> 01:29:24.520 and the book is The Civil War and Reconstruction in Alabama. 1337 01:29:25.079 --> 01:29:28.520 This is one of many books published by the so 1338 01:29:28.600 --> 01:29:34.239 called Dunning School of the Civil War historiography. They were 1339 01:29:34.279 --> 01:29:39.720 all students of a certain professor at Columbia named William A. Dunning, 1340 01:29:40.439 --> 01:29:44.800 and they all got very deep into the primary sources 1341 01:29:44.840 --> 01:29:50.239 in their native states and wrote state specific histories of 1342 01:29:50.399 --> 01:29:55.800 the reconstruction period. And these students, the most famous of them, 1343 01:29:56.479 --> 01:29:59.520 went to the Southern States and did their work there, 1344 01:29:59.560 --> 01:30:02.760 but there were northern state histories that came out of 1345 01:30:02.880 --> 01:30:08.560 this school of historians as well. These were mostly published 1346 01:30:08.600 --> 01:30:13.199 around the turn of the century, and they are rather inaccessible. 1347 01:30:14.119 --> 01:30:19.479 They're extremely good quality because they are compendums of the 1348 01:30:19.520 --> 01:30:23.920 sources of the times. They draw very heavily on these 1349 01:30:23.960 --> 01:30:27.960 primary sources, and that's one of the reasons why they 1350 01:30:28.119 --> 01:30:33.479 are very durable and valuable. But it's also a very controversial, 1351 01:30:34.800 --> 01:30:38.760 very controversial period in American history, and the Dunning School 1352 01:30:38.840 --> 01:30:43.640 has been purposefully marginalized because they take an older view. 1353 01:30:45.119 --> 01:30:48.840 It used to be the establishment view of this period 1354 01:30:48.840 --> 01:30:53.680 of American history, but it's been marginalized and deliberately excluded 1355 01:30:53.760 --> 01:30:57.520 from the conversation about this period. What's really interesting about 1356 01:30:57.560 --> 01:31:04.640 this at the moment as a contemporary concern is suddenly 1357 01:31:05.239 --> 01:31:10.640 these reconstruction policies and laws are front page news all 1358 01:31:10.680 --> 01:31:15.720 around the country, mostly because of controversy about the upcoming 1359 01:31:16.159 --> 01:31:21.119 twenty twenty four presidential election. And these these laws, in 1360 01:31:21.159 --> 01:31:25.840 particular the fourteenth Amendment, are being used to justify very 1361 01:31:25.960 --> 01:31:31.199 radical policies in our own time. So it's a curious 1362 01:31:31.239 --> 01:31:35.720 thing that this old conversation about what happened in American 1363 01:31:35.800 --> 01:31:41.399 history and what justifies or or makes makes these things unjustifiable, 1364 01:31:42.079 --> 01:31:45.479 that is now a topic of popular interest once again. 1365 01:31:46.079 --> 01:31:50.800 And it's interesting because the two other and I realized 1366 01:31:50.840 --> 01:31:53.479 this may be seen as overly broad, but the two 1367 01:31:53.920 --> 01:31:59.239 other major post war I guess kind of social planning 1368 01:31:59.279 --> 01:32:03.760 operations that the Empire of Lies has embarked on. Well, 1369 01:32:04.439 --> 01:32:08.079 obviously there's the denossification, right what we did to Europe, 1370 01:32:08.640 --> 01:32:11.079 But the blueprints for that and what is sort of 1371 01:32:11.479 --> 01:32:15.079 maybe going to come back after the next election, well 1372 01:32:15.079 --> 01:32:18.920 that the blueprint of that is found in reconstruction. So 1373 01:32:19.800 --> 01:32:24.199 let's start kind of immediately when you know, the hostilities 1374 01:32:24.439 --> 01:32:27.239 end as far as the War between the Straits is 1375 01:32:27.640 --> 01:32:30.640 how long does it take between that moment and the 1376 01:32:30.640 --> 01:32:33.720 start of I guess what we would know is reconstruction. Actually, 1377 01:32:33.880 --> 01:32:35.359 you know, before I get into that, do you want 1378 01:32:35.359 --> 01:32:37.640 to maybe define what reconstruction is? Because I realize I 1379 01:32:37.640 --> 01:32:42.439 have a more international audience than I I often say, 1380 01:32:42.520 --> 01:32:44.520 and so there are perhaps some of us who don't 1381 01:32:44.520 --> 01:32:45.960 necessarily know their America. 1382 01:32:46.039 --> 01:32:52.159 Sure, yes, reconstruction refers to the period after the American 1383 01:32:52.239 --> 01:32:57.079 Civil War. It's a period of military governments in the 1384 01:32:57.119 --> 01:33:02.840 South of the imposition of martial law and political policy 1385 01:33:03.720 --> 01:33:09.239 made by force of arms, not through normal means of 1386 01:33:09.399 --> 01:33:15.359 consensus and political process, but through military governments and through 1387 01:33:15.439 --> 01:33:21.399 the intimidation of soldiers in the Southern States. And it 1388 01:33:21.479 --> 01:33:29.439 refers to this period of radical idealism that nominally motivated 1389 01:33:29.720 --> 01:33:35.399 the Republican Party, which dominated the federal government after the war. This, 1390 01:33:35.479 --> 01:33:42.600 of course, was Lincoln's party, and the Democrats were marginalized 1391 01:33:42.760 --> 01:33:46.920 as the party of rum, Romanism and rebellion. 1392 01:33:47.840 --> 01:33:48.520 At this time. 1393 01:33:48.760 --> 01:33:51.520 These are the things that were associated with the Democratic Party. 1394 01:33:51.520 --> 01:33:53.600 This is back when the Democratic Party was much more 1395 01:33:53.600 --> 01:33:57.359 interesting and fun than it is now. I really like 1396 01:33:57.640 --> 01:34:02.479 the legacy of this particular political It was associated with 1397 01:34:03.239 --> 01:34:09.560 the immigrant Catholics, with people that liked alcohol, so anti 1398 01:34:09.640 --> 01:34:16.439 prohibition forces, and with the former Confederate States, thereby calling 1399 01:34:16.479 --> 01:34:20.600 it the party of rum Romanism and rebellion. Sounds like 1400 01:34:20.640 --> 01:34:23.640 a lot of fun to me. But they were marginalized 1401 01:34:23.720 --> 01:34:27.920 during this time. Lots of Democratic voters, these are white 1402 01:34:28.199 --> 01:34:33.000 ex confederates in the South were disenfranchised during this time 1403 01:34:33.720 --> 01:34:37.399 very importantly, and this is the probably the number one 1404 01:34:37.520 --> 01:34:40.920 emphasis in most of the history you'd read on the 1405 01:34:40.960 --> 01:34:47.359 period today. The slaves were all legally freed by the 1406 01:34:47.439 --> 01:34:50.239 thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution. This is the first of 1407 01:34:50.279 --> 01:34:56.399 the reconstruction Amendments. That was the legal end of slavery 1408 01:34:56.800 --> 01:35:01.039 in the United States, not the emancipated proclamation by the 1409 01:35:01.079 --> 01:35:06.159 thirteenth Amendment in eighteen sixty five. In eighteen sixty six 1410 01:35:06.279 --> 01:35:10.760 we see the fourteenth Amendment, which redefines citizenship and also 1411 01:35:11.279 --> 01:35:17.199 excludes ex confederates from voting and holding office. And then 1412 01:35:17.279 --> 01:35:19.960 finally you have the Fifteenth Amendment, the last of the 1413 01:35:19.960 --> 01:35:25.960 Reconstruction Amendments, which guarantees voting rights to all American citizens, 1414 01:35:26.279 --> 01:35:32.399 regardless of their former status of being slaves. So reconstruction 1415 01:35:32.600 --> 01:35:41.279 is this time of the rebuilding of American American constitutional government. 1416 01:35:42.680 --> 01:35:48.439 It's a reforming of Republican institutions, particularly in the South, 1417 01:35:49.279 --> 01:35:54.439 Republican meaning representative government institution. And it's a period that 1418 01:35:54.600 --> 01:35:59.199 was done by force. These reforms were done by force, 1419 01:35:59.439 --> 01:36:04.399 not through consensus. The constitutions of all the Southern states 1420 01:36:04.399 --> 01:36:07.720 were rewritten during this time. And it was also a 1421 01:36:07.760 --> 01:36:13.359 time very famous for corruption in high places. Mark Twain 1422 01:36:13.439 --> 01:36:17.520 famously referred to this period as the Gilded Age. So 1423 01:36:17.560 --> 01:36:19.880 it looks really glittery on the outside, but on the 1424 01:36:19.920 --> 01:36:26.920 inside it's worthless gilded. It's an age of corruption in 1425 01:36:27.000 --> 01:36:35.119 high places. You have probably the most infamous American presidential regimes, 1426 01:36:36.199 --> 01:36:41.640 like the US Grant regime, which sees the vice president 1427 01:36:42.560 --> 01:36:49.479 arrested for corruption, the president's personal secretary and several cabinet 1428 01:36:49.520 --> 01:36:54.520 members all indicted for corruption and the embezzlement of public funds. 1429 01:36:55.239 --> 01:37:00.199 Even the word lobbyist first comes into use during this 1430 01:37:00.319 --> 01:37:06.239 period because the Republican Republican regime in Washington, d c. 1431 01:37:07.039 --> 01:37:11.920 Is handing out huge sums of money to special interest 1432 01:37:11.960 --> 01:37:16.560 groups during this time. So the way that the United 1433 01:37:16.600 --> 01:37:22.359 States government operates fundamentally transforms during this period, and that 1434 01:37:22.399 --> 01:37:26.960 makes it of particular interest the civil rights aspect, the 1435 01:37:27.640 --> 01:37:34.800 end of slavery, the radical sudden enfranchisement with no previous 1436 01:37:34.880 --> 01:37:39.880 plan of all black Americans in the South, not in 1437 01:37:39.920 --> 01:37:46.279 the North. We should specify these reforms that enfranchise black 1438 01:37:46.399 --> 01:37:50.960 voters in the South do not initially affect northern states 1439 01:37:51.000 --> 01:37:54.119 at all, not that that matters very much. There are 1440 01:37:54.199 --> 01:37:56.960 very few black people living in the North at this time. 1441 01:37:57.800 --> 01:37:59.159 The vast majority of them live. 1442 01:37:59.079 --> 01:37:59.520 In the South. 1443 01:38:00.319 --> 01:38:05.439 But that is a huge issue during this period, and 1444 01:38:05.479 --> 01:38:07.760 that is usually what is focused on. 1445 01:38:08.399 --> 01:38:15.520 So let's go through three constitutional amendments and contrast that 1446 01:38:15.720 --> 01:38:20.880 to how American governance was handled before. Does that sound reasonable? Sure? 1447 01:38:22.319 --> 01:38:25.960 And that's very topical for us right now, because the 1448 01:38:26.000 --> 01:38:30.640 Fourteenth Amendment in particular is very emphasized in our discourse 1449 01:38:30.720 --> 01:38:34.760 right now. So let me go back to an earlier 1450 01:38:34.840 --> 01:38:38.479 question you had, just when did all this reconstruction begin. 1451 01:38:39.600 --> 01:38:45.359 Historians start tracking the progress of reconstruction policies during the 1452 01:38:45.359 --> 01:38:50.000 war itself. So while the South is being invaded in 1453 01:38:50.039 --> 01:38:53.479 the course of the Civil War, military regimes are set 1454 01:38:53.560 --> 01:38:59.039 up around the South and military governments are established. And 1455 01:38:59.359 --> 01:39:03.640 Lincoln was always adamant that the Southern states had not 1456 01:39:03.920 --> 01:39:07.239 left the Union. They remained in the Union, and they 1457 01:39:08.159 --> 01:39:14.520 were commandeered by rebel factions that did not represent the 1458 01:39:14.920 --> 01:39:20.800 states that they portended to represent. So Lincoln never recognized 1459 01:39:21.000 --> 01:39:24.880 that the South had left the Union. He never recognized 1460 01:39:24.920 --> 01:39:30.399 the legitimacy of the Confederate States or the Confederate Government, 1461 01:39:31.680 --> 01:39:35.399 the Union of the Confederate States. He never recognized them 1462 01:39:35.479 --> 01:39:38.920 as legitimate bodies. And he said that they were all 1463 01:39:38.960 --> 01:39:43.600 in conspiracy, in rebellion against the federal government. So when 1464 01:39:43.680 --> 01:39:47.720 the federal armies went into Southern states, they would set 1465 01:39:47.880 --> 01:39:53.359 up rival Union governments when when they didn't just run 1466 01:39:53.439 --> 01:39:57.039 things like a military camp. So this happened in several states, 1467 01:39:57.039 --> 01:39:59.920 and this is this is an important feature to talk 1468 01:40:00.039 --> 01:40:03.960 about the Reconstruction Amendments because it makes sense of several 1469 01:40:04.000 --> 01:40:09.239 of them. In states where the federal government had a 1470 01:40:09.439 --> 01:40:14.760 long standing occupation, states like Tennessee, which was invaded very early. 1471 01:40:15.920 --> 01:40:23.199 In states like Louisiana, the Union army established rival state 1472 01:40:23.239 --> 01:40:29.479 governments in those states, and those governments actually sent representatives 1473 01:40:29.520 --> 01:40:34.560 to Congress, and these were all Republicans. The most famous 1474 01:40:34.640 --> 01:40:40.479 instance of that is the future President Andrew Johnson of Tennessee. 1475 01:40:41.119 --> 01:40:45.159 He was a Democrat. He was a Southerner from the 1476 01:40:45.239 --> 01:40:49.079 highlands of Tennessee. He was a Unionist. He had the 1477 01:40:49.119 --> 01:40:53.279 distinction of being the only Southern Congressman that did not 1478 01:40:53.600 --> 01:40:56.800 leave the capital when his states seceded from the Union. 1479 01:40:57.239 --> 01:40:59.800 He did not recognize the right of secession, and so 1480 01:40:59.840 --> 01:41:03.640 he stayed in the capitol and became a favorite of 1481 01:41:03.680 --> 01:41:08.640 Abraham Lincoln because he was a loyal Southerner, loyal to 1482 01:41:08.680 --> 01:41:12.640 the Union. So Abraham Lincoln rewarded him by making him 1483 01:41:12.840 --> 01:41:17.479 vice president on his Republican ticket in eighteen sixty four 1484 01:41:17.560 --> 01:41:21.680 when he ran for reelection. And this very ironically, after 1485 01:41:21.760 --> 01:41:25.199 Lincoln is assassinated, makes Andrew Johnson President of the United States, 1486 01:41:25.399 --> 01:41:29.760 which is the craziest thing. Following the Civil War. You 1487 01:41:29.800 --> 01:41:34.239 have a Southern Democrat who is President of the United 1488 01:41:34.279 --> 01:41:39.640 States immediately following the Civil War. It's the most unlikely accident. 1489 01:41:40.319 --> 01:41:42.479 Not surprisingly, he does not get along with the radical 1490 01:41:42.520 --> 01:41:47.920 Republicans and is impeached unsuccessfully. They do not remove him 1491 01:41:47.920 --> 01:41:52.359 from office. He's acquitted by a single vote. But he's 1492 01:41:52.399 --> 01:41:56.640 a very important example of these Union governments that were 1493 01:41:56.640 --> 01:41:59.640 set up in these occupied states in the South. Well 1494 01:42:00.319 --> 01:42:07.560 immediately after Lincoln's assassination. Andrew Johnson is president because he's 1495 01:42:07.720 --> 01:42:14.640 Lincoln's second vice president. The process of renovating the Union 1496 01:42:14.800 --> 01:42:19.960 at this point, following the Great American Civil War, where 1497 01:42:20.119 --> 01:42:23.199 half of the country destroys the other half of the country, 1498 01:42:25.039 --> 01:42:28.159 the big question of the time is how is the 1499 01:42:28.279 --> 01:42:32.319 Union going to work at this point. Previously, the conservative 1500 01:42:32.399 --> 01:42:39.520 position in Antebellum America, in pre war America was that 1501 01:42:39.960 --> 01:42:45.079 the states had formed a consensus about what functions of 1502 01:42:45.199 --> 01:42:49.880 government the federal government would have, what powers does the 1503 01:42:49.920 --> 01:42:55.039 federal government have, and they wrote down and agreed upon 1504 01:42:55.359 --> 01:42:59.239 this consensus, and that is what the Constitution is. So 1505 01:42:59.279 --> 01:43:02.760 the Constitution is a long list of things the states 1506 01:43:02.800 --> 01:43:07.159 agree the federal government can and cannot do. And after 1507 01:43:07.239 --> 01:43:10.960 they wrote down the Constitution, or their representatives wrote it down, 1508 01:43:11.439 --> 01:43:14.560 it went to the state governments for ratificate. And that's 1509 01:43:14.600 --> 01:43:18.119 the story of all the states of the Union up 1510 01:43:18.319 --> 01:43:22.680 until the Civil War. After the Civil War, we have 1511 01:43:22.840 --> 01:43:29.159 this big problem because it's obvious that there are many 1512 01:43:29.199 --> 01:43:33.760 more powers in that federal government than people had imagined before. 1513 01:43:34.399 --> 01:43:37.920 The federal government has waged a war against the states 1514 01:43:38.680 --> 01:43:41.800 in the name of union, and this was how Lincoln 1515 01:43:42.039 --> 01:43:46.680 justified his military actions that began the war. Now, Lincoln 1516 01:43:46.800 --> 01:43:52.159 added further justifications as the war progressed. Most famously, he 1517 01:43:52.279 --> 01:43:56.159 said the war was going to end slavery, and that 1518 01:43:56.199 --> 01:44:00.279 the war was justified because it would end slavery. He 1519 01:44:00.399 --> 01:44:03.840 very famously alludes to this in the Gettysburg Address and 1520 01:44:03.880 --> 01:44:07.359 then states it much more plainly in the second Inaugural Address. 1521 01:44:07.640 --> 01:44:11.279 But if we read the first Inaugural Address, he is 1522 01:44:11.640 --> 01:44:15.359 very careful to skirt the issue of slavery. He says 1523 01:44:15.399 --> 01:44:18.199 that he isn't doing anything in regards to slavery and 1524 01:44:18.279 --> 01:44:20.039 doesn't think that he has any right to do so. 1525 01:44:20.680 --> 01:44:24.119 But by the time we get to April of eighteen 1526 01:44:24.199 --> 01:44:30.439 sixty five, Lee surrenders at Appomatox Courthouse. The other Confederate 1527 01:44:30.520 --> 01:44:35.279 armies are in a hopeless condition. They quickly surrender. The 1528 01:44:35.359 --> 01:44:39.760 question is what sort of government does the United States 1529 01:44:39.840 --> 01:44:44.920 have at this point? Andrew Johnson President Andrew Johnson is marginalized. 1530 01:44:45.079 --> 01:44:48.760 He has his ideas about how to bring the Union 1531 01:44:48.800 --> 01:44:57.520 together post war. Andrew Johnson seems to illustrate Abraham Lincoln's 1532 01:44:58.000 --> 01:45:05.359 conciliatory ideas about restoring the Union. Andrew Johnson stays up 1533 01:45:05.960 --> 01:45:11.359 all night long signing pardons for ex Confederates who write 1534 01:45:11.399 --> 01:45:15.439 to him asking for the restoration of their citizenship rights. 1535 01:45:16.159 --> 01:45:21.000 Andrew Johnson tells the ex Confederate states that all they 1536 01:45:21.079 --> 01:45:25.399 need to do is send representatives back to Washington, d c. 1537 01:45:26.159 --> 01:45:30.680 And they are restored to their status in the Union. 1538 01:45:31.359 --> 01:45:37.680 But this runs into problems. Congress at this point is 1539 01:45:37.920 --> 01:45:44.920 dominated by the Republican Party. The Southern States, the former 1540 01:45:44.920 --> 01:45:50.000 Confederate States were the major Democratic stronghold in the South. 1541 01:45:50.039 --> 01:45:53.000 They were the stronghold of the Democratic Party. When they 1542 01:45:53.079 --> 01:45:57.119 left the Union, they withdrew their Congressional representatives. All except 1543 01:45:57.159 --> 01:46:01.600 Andrew Johnson left. So Congress from the moment of the 1544 01:46:01.600 --> 01:46:05.760 secession of the Southern States has been overwhelmingly dominated by 1545 01:46:05.800 --> 01:46:09.039 Lincoln's Republican Party, and through the course of the war, 1546 01:46:09.159 --> 01:46:15.960 this party becomes very radicalized and very antagonistic against the South, 1547 01:46:16.279 --> 01:46:19.600 not surprisingly because it's a war, right, they feel very 1548 01:46:19.600 --> 01:46:23.720 bitter towards the South, and their people are encouraging them 1549 01:46:23.760 --> 01:46:28.920 in this. It is a reflection of popular sentiment. More 1550 01:46:29.039 --> 01:46:34.560 or less Andrew Johnson's conciliatory attitude, just as Abraham Lincoln's 1551 01:46:34.840 --> 01:46:38.680 conciliatory attitude towards the end of the war. Lincoln was 1552 01:46:38.720 --> 01:46:42.600 famous for saying, with malice towards noun and charity for all, 1553 01:46:43.000 --> 01:46:47.239 let us bind up the nation's wounds. He's known for 1554 01:46:47.279 --> 01:46:52.760 saying these very nice and soothing things about the Union. 1555 01:46:52.840 --> 01:46:56.720 Following the war. Andrew Johnson seems to be working that out, 1556 01:46:56.960 --> 01:47:01.000 and that is very unpopular in Congress. So Congress does 1557 01:47:01.079 --> 01:47:04.640 a couple of things here. Well, Congress starts doing a 1558 01:47:04.680 --> 01:47:09.560 great number of things, but most importantly, they decide they 1559 01:47:09.560 --> 01:47:13.680 are going to run the restoration of the Union out 1560 01:47:13.720 --> 01:47:18.239 of Congress, and they are going to get around the 1561 01:47:18.279 --> 01:47:24.760 president's conciliatory policies towards the South. The Republican leadership in 1562 01:47:24.880 --> 01:47:31.319 Congress is very close with Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, 1563 01:47:31.880 --> 01:47:36.039 who is Lincoln's Secretary of War, not surprisingly Lincoln's last 1564 01:47:36.199 --> 01:47:41.800 and most effective secretary of war. He is a radical Republican, 1565 01:47:42.039 --> 01:47:47.880 Edwin Stanton, and he starts disobeying the orders of President Johnson. 1566 01:47:48.399 --> 01:47:55.119 President Johnson tells Edwin Stanton that Southerners are to hold elections, 1567 01:47:55.760 --> 01:48:01.039 that these ex Confederates are allowed to reform their state 1568 01:48:01.159 --> 01:48:07.159 governments to hold constitutional conventions. The idea is that these 1569 01:48:07.479 --> 01:48:12.680 ex Confederate states need to repudiate their former Confederate Constitution 1570 01:48:13.319 --> 01:48:19.199 and rejoin the Union. Ratify the Philadelphia Constitution once again, 1571 01:48:19.239 --> 01:48:23.239 and rejoin the Union. Edwin Stanton is commanding the army, 1572 01:48:23.920 --> 01:48:28.039 and he's sending out the orders to all the Southern generals, 1573 01:48:28.039 --> 01:48:33.399 and he is actively subverting the political process in the 1574 01:48:33.439 --> 01:48:36.760 Southern States at this point. So Andrew Johnson attempts to 1575 01:48:36.840 --> 01:48:41.880 remove Edwin Stanton from office, and Edwin Stanton refuses to 1576 01:48:42.000 --> 01:48:46.800 leave and is backed up by his allies in Congress. 1577 01:48:47.479 --> 01:48:52.840 Then the president's enemies in the Republican Congress, they pass 1578 01:48:52.960 --> 01:48:58.479 articles to impeach the president for attempting to remove a 1579 01:48:58.520 --> 01:49:03.439 cabinet officer for attempting to remove Edwin Stanton from office. Now, 1580 01:49:03.640 --> 01:49:10.079 that is a remarkable and crazy episode. Andrew Johnson was 1581 01:49:10.159 --> 01:49:14.840 wanting to appoint ulysses As Grant as Secretary of War 1582 01:49:15.199 --> 01:49:19.399 to replace Stanton. And Grant is the most popular man 1583 01:49:19.479 --> 01:49:23.000 in America at this point, He's the victor of the 1584 01:49:23.119 --> 01:49:28.520 army right. He couldn't have picked a more popular fellow 1585 01:49:28.800 --> 01:49:33.479 to take this position. And yet Edwin Stanton barricaded himself 1586 01:49:33.600 --> 01:49:37.720 in his office to resist removal and gets backed up 1587 01:49:38.119 --> 01:49:44.439 by these really wild anti Southern Republicans in Congress. Congress 1588 01:49:44.479 --> 01:49:48.279 then decides that they're going to impeach the president. They 1589 01:49:48.520 --> 01:49:52.199 very very narrowly fail on that point, but then they 1590 01:49:52.319 --> 01:49:58.000 start imposing very strict terms on the South, very punitive 1591 01:49:58.119 --> 01:50:04.119 terms on the Southern state. Firstly, the Republicans turn away 1592 01:50:04.920 --> 01:50:10.760 the representatives sent to Congress by the Southern States. Not surprisingly, 1593 01:50:10.960 --> 01:50:15.840 these are people that were voted on by these ex 1594 01:50:15.920 --> 01:50:24.279 Confederate Democrats in the South, and the Southerners vote Alexander 1595 01:50:25.159 --> 01:50:30.000 Alexander Stevens to be the senator from Georgia for instance. 1596 01:50:30.079 --> 01:50:33.319 Alexander Stevens was the former vice president of the Confederate 1597 01:50:33.359 --> 01:50:39.159 States and a notable statesman from pre war Georgia. Well, 1598 01:50:39.720 --> 01:50:42.760 he's the leader of these people. These people are voting 1599 01:50:43.359 --> 01:50:47.760 for their wartime leaders to lead them after the war. 1600 01:50:48.399 --> 01:50:55.039 They vote ex Confederate generals into Congress, and these men 1601 01:50:55.199 --> 01:50:59.520 show up in Washington, d c. And are barred from 1602 01:50:59.720 --> 01:51:04.880 entry into the capital by the Republicans. The Republicans in 1603 01:51:04.960 --> 01:51:10.760 Congress declare that there are no legal governments in the 1604 01:51:10.800 --> 01:51:15.720 Southern States, and they declare martial law throughout the South. 1605 01:51:16.239 --> 01:51:21.479 And this is getting around the president's authority with the 1606 01:51:21.520 --> 01:51:26.239 Secretary of War. The Secretary of War isn't answering to 1607 01:51:26.279 --> 01:51:29.199 the president with all of this, He's answering to radical 1608 01:51:29.279 --> 01:51:32.720 leaders in Congress. So this is not the way that 1609 01:51:33.039 --> 01:51:36.119 the American government was designed to work, but this is 1610 01:51:36.159 --> 01:51:40.039 how it is is working effectually during this time. Now, 1611 01:51:40.079 --> 01:51:43.640 at the exact same time, taking the long way around 1612 01:51:43.760 --> 01:51:48.159 to your original question, what about these reconstruction amendments. At 1613 01:51:48.159 --> 01:51:51.920 the exact same time these things are going on in Washington, 1614 01:51:52.000 --> 01:51:56.560 d C. We have these major constitutional questions, this big 1615 01:51:56.600 --> 01:52:03.039 crisis is brewing. The Southern state governments are ratifying the 1616 01:52:03.079 --> 01:52:06.319 thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution at this time. Now, the 1617 01:52:06.399 --> 01:52:10.600 thirteenth Amendment of the Constitution is the amendment that formally 1618 01:52:10.680 --> 01:52:16.000 abolishes the institution of slavery. Every Southern state abolishes the 1619 01:52:16.000 --> 01:52:22.720 institution of slavery. There's one weird exception when it comes 1620 01:52:22.760 --> 01:52:25.279 to the thirteenth Amendment. The state of Mississippi does not 1621 01:52:25.439 --> 01:52:30.119 ratify the thirteenth Amendment, but they do write a new 1622 01:52:30.199 --> 01:52:34.359 state constitution which abolishes slavery. So it's not as if 1623 01:52:34.359 --> 01:52:37.319 they are trying desperately to hold on to slavery. At 1624 01:52:37.319 --> 01:52:39.359 the end of the Civil War, it's just a different 1625 01:52:39.359 --> 01:52:42.079 way of doing it, and they don't want to be 1626 01:52:42.800 --> 01:52:46.279 strong armed into ratifying amendments to the Constitution down there 1627 01:52:46.319 --> 01:52:49.199 in Mississippi, so they do it their own way. But 1628 01:52:49.319 --> 01:52:53.439 every Southern state abolishes slavery, and this is through their 1629 01:52:53.760 --> 01:52:58.119 representative governments. At the exact same time, the radicals in 1630 01:52:58.800 --> 01:53:01.520 the Republican led Congress in DC say there are no 1631 01:53:01.760 --> 01:53:06.399 legal governments in the South and that justifies their treatment 1632 01:53:06.600 --> 01:53:12.000 as conquered territory to be administered by martial law. And 1633 01:53:12.640 --> 01:53:18.199 this is one of the very many reasons why reconstruction 1634 01:53:18.880 --> 01:53:22.279 is a maddening period to study. It is a very 1635 01:53:22.319 --> 01:53:26.520 frustrating period. It is a very confusing period because legally 1636 01:53:26.800 --> 01:53:32.439 this doesn't make sense. It's not a time that it's 1637 01:53:32.479 --> 01:53:35.840 not a time where anyone can justify what's going on. 1638 01:53:36.479 --> 01:53:38.439 No one can make sense of what's going on or 1639 01:53:38.439 --> 01:53:43.039 how it's all, how it all makes sense constitutionally. Even 1640 01:53:43.720 --> 01:53:46.560 even if you are trying to take the side of 1641 01:53:47.039 --> 01:53:51.960 the radical Republicans, you have to admit that they are 1642 01:53:52.279 --> 01:53:57.520 there going far beyond the law to do all. 1643 01:53:57.399 --> 01:53:58.399 Of these things. 1644 01:53:58.920 --> 01:54:03.159 So in the South, at this time, the slaves have 1645 01:54:03.279 --> 01:54:09.079 been declared free. This is certainly the most important result 1646 01:54:09.319 --> 01:54:12.680 of the American Civil War the end of slavery. I 1647 01:54:12.720 --> 01:54:16.800 do not dispute this. This was a This was a 1648 01:54:16.920 --> 01:54:20.920 huge social, economic, and political change in the United States. 1649 01:54:21.399 --> 01:54:23.920 But there are a lot of other things going on 1650 01:54:24.000 --> 01:54:27.640 at this time as well. Just to give you an example, 1651 01:54:27.880 --> 01:54:32.039 a wartime example, but it still fits. One of the 1652 01:54:32.039 --> 01:54:34.680 things that I'm doing right now is I'm giving Civil 1653 01:54:34.720 --> 01:54:39.680 War tours in the French Quarter in New Orleans. Occasionally 1654 01:54:39.800 --> 01:54:42.880 I have some people and I give them this tour. 1655 01:54:43.560 --> 01:54:47.000 And one of the stories that I tell is how 1656 01:54:47.159 --> 01:54:53.119 the Union army arrived in New Orleans and declared Confederate 1657 01:54:53.439 --> 01:54:58.800 currency void. This shut down the banks in New Orleans. 1658 01:55:00.000 --> 01:55:05.399 Everyone was using Confederate currency and this was declared not 1659 01:55:05.560 --> 01:55:11.560 legal tender. When the Union arrives, then the Union publicizes 1660 01:55:12.039 --> 01:55:17.359 that Congress has declared the confiscation of all rebel property. 1661 01:55:17.920 --> 01:55:19.840 This is one of the things that the Republicans do 1662 01:55:19.880 --> 01:55:23.319 when they take over Congress in eighteen sixty two. The 1663 01:55:23.359 --> 01:55:27.760 Confiscation Act of eighteen sixty two declares anyone in arms 1664 01:55:27.840 --> 01:55:31.199 against the United States Government has forfeited their property rights, 1665 01:55:31.600 --> 01:55:35.159 and their property may be seized and auctioned and This 1666 01:55:35.319 --> 01:55:38.279 is one of the original things that's used to justify 1667 01:55:38.600 --> 01:55:42.640 the manumission of slaves. So people who own slaves who 1668 01:55:42.640 --> 01:55:46.560 are in arms in the Confederate States have forfeited their 1669 01:55:46.600 --> 01:55:50.600 property rights to their slaves. Some Union generals take that 1670 01:55:50.720 --> 01:55:55.479 act to meanness and declare the emancipation of slaves in 1671 01:55:55.560 --> 01:56:01.640 military districts based on this law. Down in New Orleans. 1672 01:56:01.760 --> 01:56:05.520 What this meant was General Butler, the Union general in 1673 01:56:05.600 --> 01:56:09.399 New Orleans, warns the people of New Orleans that they 1674 01:56:09.479 --> 01:56:14.279 have to take oaths to be loyal to President Lincoln 1675 01:56:14.760 --> 01:56:19.600 and to the Union, or the military authorities could seize 1676 01:56:20.000 --> 01:56:24.439 everything that they own. And there are lines outside of 1677 01:56:24.720 --> 01:56:30.640 the army headquarters in New Orleans for people to come 1678 01:56:30.640 --> 01:56:32.680 in and take the oath with their hand on the 1679 01:56:32.680 --> 01:56:36.079 Bible that they will be loyal to Lincoln and his government. 1680 01:56:36.880 --> 01:56:41.800 Not surprisingly, the people with the most to lose, the wealthy, 1681 01:56:42.039 --> 01:56:47.199 the merchant class, are the ones most tempted to go 1682 01:56:47.239 --> 01:56:51.399 and take this oath to safeguard what they own. The 1683 01:56:52.279 --> 01:56:55.920 women of the city, which are the majority of the 1684 01:56:56.000 --> 01:56:57.640 people in the city at this time. You know, most 1685 01:56:57.640 --> 01:57:00.399 of the able bodied men are off at war at 1686 01:57:00.439 --> 01:57:04.640 this time. The women of the city come and be rate. 1687 01:57:05.079 --> 01:57:07.960 The men that stand in line to take this oath, 1688 01:57:08.000 --> 01:57:13.239 they call them cowards, and there's this very emotional exchange. 1689 01:57:14.800 --> 01:57:19.079 It's this very sad thing to imagine. But one of 1690 01:57:19.079 --> 01:57:22.359 the things that follows is that General Butler goes around 1691 01:57:22.359 --> 01:57:26.800 New Orleans seizing the property of ex confederates. He sezes 1692 01:57:26.880 --> 01:57:30.840 the property of Confederate generals, Confederate officers, people that he 1693 01:57:31.000 --> 01:57:35.319 knows are in arms, and he can use newspapers as 1694 01:57:35.760 --> 01:57:39.399 evidence for this that they are in command in posts 1695 01:57:39.520 --> 01:57:42.760 outside of the city, and he starts seizing their property, 1696 01:57:43.199 --> 01:57:47.279 and according to the military law, and according to the 1697 01:57:47.319 --> 01:57:51.600 martial law, it is auctioned off. Now this presents a 1698 01:57:51.600 --> 01:57:57.000 big problem because Confederate currency has been outlawed. So unless 1699 01:57:57.279 --> 01:58:03.680 you have assigned loyalty oath which safeguards your property rights, 1700 01:58:04.399 --> 01:58:06.760 and you have a lot of gold and silver, coin 1701 01:58:07.680 --> 01:58:11.439 or or some other some other source of wealth that's 1702 01:58:11.479 --> 01:58:16.800 that's liquid and exchangeable, you have no ability to participate 1703 01:58:16.840 --> 01:58:20.279 in the auctions that follow from the seized property. So 1704 01:58:20.479 --> 01:58:25.000 General Butler auctions off seized Confederate property around New Orleans, 1705 01:58:25.720 --> 01:58:30.439 and he turns up to the auctions himself and wins 1706 01:58:30.560 --> 01:58:34.439 a lot of these auctions and sends the movable property 1707 01:58:34.520 --> 01:58:38.439 back to Boston, where he was from. And he leaves 1708 01:58:38.479 --> 01:58:41.720 New Orleans after after a tenure of only nine months. 1709 01:58:42.079 --> 01:58:45.680 General Butler leaves New Orleans a multimillionaire. And this is 1710 01:58:45.840 --> 01:58:51.199 this is all arguably legal under martial law. After the 1711 01:58:51.399 --> 01:58:55.239 end of the war. This is happening throughout the South, 1712 01:58:55.880 --> 01:58:58.319 not just in in the great city of New Orleans. 1713 01:58:58.399 --> 01:59:02.880 It's it's something that's happening everywhere. After the war, twenty 1714 01:59:03.000 --> 01:59:07.079 five percent of the able bodied men of the South 1715 01:59:07.680 --> 01:59:13.279 have died. A whole quarter of the military age male 1716 01:59:13.319 --> 01:59:19.800 population is dead. Another quarter is wounded or maimed, lots 1717 01:59:19.800 --> 01:59:23.800 of them with missing limbs. A whole twenty percent of 1718 01:59:23.840 --> 01:59:27.760 the farms in the South in eighteen sixty five have 1719 01:59:27.920 --> 01:59:32.159 been abandoned. And this is very surprising when we think 1720 01:59:32.239 --> 01:59:35.600 of the death toll right and the proportion of men 1721 01:59:35.720 --> 01:59:41.039 lost in battle. There simply aren't enough men around to 1722 01:59:41.159 --> 01:59:43.479 save the farms, to do anything with them, to even 1723 01:59:43.560 --> 01:59:47.000 make them liveable or habitable, and so they are abandoned. 1724 01:59:47.560 --> 01:59:51.680 A huge proportion of the population is reduced to penury 1725 01:59:52.239 --> 01:59:57.239 and even made into refugees dependent on friends and family 1726 01:59:57.680 --> 02:00:01.560 elsewhere at the exact same time in eighteen sixty five, 1727 02:00:01.960 --> 02:00:07.319 when federal authority is enforced throughout the South, the federal 1728 02:00:07.399 --> 02:00:13.399 government imposes four years of back taxes on the South. 1729 02:00:14.000 --> 02:00:18.199 So the Southerners said, well, we are at an independent country. 1730 02:00:18.319 --> 02:00:21.199 We've seceded from the Union. You know, we aren't paying 1731 02:00:21.399 --> 02:00:25.800 taxes to the federal government. When the federal government came back, 1732 02:00:26.039 --> 02:00:32.000 they imposed punitive taxes and back taxes on all of 1733 02:00:32.039 --> 02:00:35.880 the Southerners and told them to pay up. And when 1734 02:00:35.880 --> 02:00:40.640 they couldn't pay, they seized their property. So a huge 1735 02:00:40.680 --> 02:00:45.319 amount of property around the Southern states went to the 1736 02:00:45.359 --> 02:00:50.840 auction block for back taxes. This caused property values to 1737 02:00:50.960 --> 02:00:57.199 plummet throughout the South. In some states, this was particularly bad. 1738 02:00:57.960 --> 02:01:03.720 In places like Mississippi, one fifth of the state was 1739 02:01:04.560 --> 02:01:08.000 auctioned off for back taxes. A whole fifth of the 1740 02:01:08.039 --> 02:01:12.319 state was put to auction because the people there could 1741 02:01:12.319 --> 02:01:18.640 not pay the taxes. After the war, it's difficult to 1742 02:01:18.720 --> 02:01:24.039 explain just how utterly destroyed the South was in the 1743 02:01:24.680 --> 02:01:29.680 years after the war. I have a quote here to 1744 02:01:29.760 --> 02:01:36.239 illustrate this. A Massachusetts journalist his name was Sidney Adams. 1745 02:01:37.000 --> 02:01:40.319 He made a tour through Southern States in eighteen sixty five, 1746 02:01:40.960 --> 02:01:43.760 and he said you can only get over the roads 1747 02:01:43.880 --> 02:01:49.399 walled by desolation. He described Charleston, South Carolina, as a 1748 02:01:49.439 --> 02:01:55.039 city of ruins, of desolation, of vacant houses, of widowed women, 1749 02:01:55.479 --> 02:02:02.560 of rotting wharves, deserted warehouses, of wild gardens, of miles 1750 02:02:02.560 --> 02:02:08.479 of grass grown streets. A British traveler who visited Tennessee 1751 02:02:09.319 --> 02:02:12.199 wrote that the area consists, for the most part of 1752 02:02:12.359 --> 02:02:16.079 plantations in a state of semi ruin. The trail of 1753 02:02:16.159 --> 02:02:20.479 war is visible throughout the valley, in burnt up ginhouses, 1754 02:02:21.079 --> 02:02:25.680 ruined bridges, mills and factories, and of large tracts of 1755 02:02:25.720 --> 02:02:30.600 once cultivated land stripped of every vestige of fencing. One 1756 02:02:30.640 --> 02:02:33.920 of the things that we should remember when we're talking 1757 02:02:33.920 --> 02:02:39.000 about this period of reconstruction. It is a time that 1758 02:02:39.279 --> 02:02:45.039 is cunningly labeled because we know that war is so destructive. 1759 02:02:45.399 --> 02:02:48.840 But reconstruction is not the rebuilding of the United States. 1760 02:02:48.880 --> 02:02:52.720 It is not the restoration of what was lost. It 1761 02:02:52.800 --> 02:02:57.880 is not recompense or effort made to restore things that 1762 02:02:57.920 --> 02:03:01.199 were destroyed. It was not the rebuilding of the country. 1763 02:03:01.520 --> 02:03:07.159 Reconstruction was the rebuilding of the way our country's institutions worked. 1764 02:03:07.960 --> 02:03:13.399 It was a radical tinkering with the fundamental laws of 1765 02:03:13.439 --> 02:03:17.199 the country, and it was done. It was done by force, 1766 02:03:17.439 --> 02:03:20.960 it was done by military government. Well, I've been talking 1767 02:03:21.000 --> 02:03:24.800 here for a long time. I hope I haven't overworn myself. 1768 02:03:25.199 --> 02:03:29.279 No, not at all. It's it's interesting you bring up 1769 02:03:29.960 --> 02:03:34.960 that kind of the the fatal irony of that phreeze reconstruction, 1770 02:03:35.680 --> 02:03:38.119 because you know, buried within this is one there. There's 1771 02:03:38.159 --> 02:03:40.840 part of it that's just base looting, you know, and 1772 02:03:40.880 --> 02:03:43.199 maybe we can get into, you know, the rise of 1773 02:03:43.439 --> 02:03:46.800 the organization's like the plan why that that arose kind 1774 02:03:46.800 --> 02:03:49.680 of in reaction to that. But there's another level of it, right, 1775 02:03:49.720 --> 02:03:52.760 which is this idea that you see again in the 1776 02:03:52.760 --> 02:03:56.119 Morgenthele plan, you know, or the Marshall Plan. You know, 1777 02:03:56.159 --> 02:03:59.199 what is kind of teased in you know, their wildest 1778 02:03:59.279 --> 02:04:03.399 dreams about is this idea that essentially they know better 1779 02:04:03.479 --> 02:04:08.840 they can reconstruct, you know, certain ideas, certain proclivities out 1780 02:04:08.880 --> 02:04:14.159 of people and society can be remade in their image. 1781 02:04:14.359 --> 02:04:18.039 And to a certain degree they were successful, I would 1782 02:04:18.079 --> 02:04:21.079 argue in the case of reconstruction, they were very very unsuccessful, right, 1783 02:04:21.119 --> 02:04:23.680 It went poorly it was, it was ended early. But 1784 02:04:23.720 --> 02:04:28.039 it is this this kind of like megomaniacal desire to 1785 02:04:28.079 --> 02:04:32.000 remake other societies. Like say what you will. But there's 1786 02:04:32.039 --> 02:04:36.359 something kind of honest about pre modern war. Right, it's 1787 02:04:36.399 --> 02:04:39.920 either you know, kind of an internecine thing between you know, 1788 02:04:39.960 --> 02:04:43.239 different factions, in which case it's a political struggle, or 1789 02:04:43.239 --> 02:04:46.960 if it's a war between different peoples it was. It 1790 02:04:47.039 --> 02:04:48.680 might not be pretty, it might not be nice, but 1791 02:04:48.720 --> 02:04:51.720 it's understandable and kind of an animal level, right, Different 1792 02:04:51.840 --> 02:04:55.920 packs of wolves fight, so Roman Carthage fights. But something 1793 02:04:55.960 --> 02:04:58.720 like this, whereas there's this layer of social engineering, I 1794 02:04:58.800 --> 02:05:01.319 just I find it very. 1795 02:05:01.159 --> 02:05:08.479 Distasteful, absolutely, and that's a good transition to the so 1796 02:05:08.560 --> 02:05:13.399 called civil rights aspect of this period. So as I've admitted, 1797 02:05:14.000 --> 02:05:17.680 the end of slavery is the single most important result 1798 02:05:17.800 --> 02:05:20.079 of the American Civil War, and the fact that it 1799 02:05:20.119 --> 02:05:24.359 was done by violence and by force, not by political process, 1800 02:05:25.119 --> 02:05:29.000 that this is a very important distinction. Every country in 1801 02:05:29.039 --> 02:05:34.479 the world that abolished slavery did it through a political process. 1802 02:05:34.800 --> 02:05:40.680 That means they talked about it, everyone's everyone's concerns were 1803 02:05:40.720 --> 02:05:46.600 taken into account. There were compromises made to accommodate concerns. 1804 02:05:47.319 --> 02:05:50.880 There was a plan. People were thinking about how this 1805 02:05:51.079 --> 02:05:54.399 was going to play out, and it was executed through 1806 02:05:54.479 --> 02:06:00.720 a political process according to that country's traditions. Whatever it was. Okay, 1807 02:06:00.760 --> 02:06:03.800 this is how Turkey did it, this is how Brazil 1808 02:06:04.159 --> 02:06:07.960 did it, This is how Great Britain did it. The 1809 02:06:08.119 --> 02:06:11.720 United States was the only country in the world to 1810 02:06:11.800 --> 02:06:17.840 abolish slavery. Perhaps I should say HATI abolished slavery by 1811 02:06:18.119 --> 02:06:23.600 violence rather than by political process and consensus, and it 1812 02:06:23.720 --> 02:06:27.479 was done without any consideration for the future. What was 1813 02:06:27.520 --> 02:06:30.960 going to happen after that is a very important thing 1814 02:06:31.000 --> 02:06:36.279 to remember about this process. So back to congressional reconstruction. 1815 02:06:37.319 --> 02:06:41.560 I would I find myself talking about the state of 1816 02:06:41.640 --> 02:06:44.079 the South after the war and kind of the practical 1817 02:06:44.119 --> 02:06:47.000 results of the war. The fact that every bank failed, 1818 02:06:47.520 --> 02:06:51.159 the fact that no one had any money at precisely 1819 02:06:51.479 --> 02:06:58.119 the moment that the country became a free labor economy. 1820 02:06:57.960 --> 02:07:02.600 The irony of this is overwhelming. Right, Everyone's supposed to 1821 02:07:02.600 --> 02:07:06.000 have wages now and no one has any money, and 1822 02:07:06.039 --> 02:07:08.239 no one can get any money, and the country has 1823 02:07:08.279 --> 02:07:11.560 been decimated, and you know, a quarter of the of 1824 02:07:11.600 --> 02:07:15.840 the white men are dead. Right, This is really really bad. 1825 02:07:16.399 --> 02:07:18.720 And this, by the way, is one of the reasons 1826 02:07:18.720 --> 02:07:24.079 why Northerners who came South with money at this time, 1827 02:07:24.439 --> 02:07:29.399 the so called carpetbaggers, are an extremely important group of people. 1828 02:07:29.880 --> 02:07:33.680 They had a political voice in a time when white 1829 02:07:33.720 --> 02:07:39.159 Southerners were excluded from the political process. They had money 1830 02:07:39.239 --> 02:07:44.199 when no one else had money. They were disproportionately important 1831 02:07:44.279 --> 02:07:47.079 in every way. And if it had not been for 1832 02:07:47.119 --> 02:07:51.560 the carpetbaggers, the so called carpetbaggers that came from the 1833 02:07:51.600 --> 02:07:57.000 northern States into the South immediately after the war, the 1834 02:07:57.039 --> 02:08:02.119 reconstruction period would have been far worse. I mean that 1835 02:08:03.039 --> 02:08:05.800 there would have been terrible famine. Many people would have 1836 02:08:05.840 --> 02:08:11.520 been dead from famine and suffering in other ways. The 1837 02:08:12.439 --> 02:08:17.079 carpetbaggers served a very important economic role, even even if 1838 02:08:17.520 --> 02:08:20.960 they're condemned for their political role, and we can understand 1839 02:08:21.000 --> 02:08:24.520 why they were resented, but nevertheless, I think they're a 1840 02:08:24.640 --> 02:08:29.600 very important group. I find myself talking about those things 1841 02:08:29.640 --> 02:08:32.479 with more ease. But we do need to turn back 1842 02:08:32.520 --> 02:08:38.479 to congressional reconstruction. At the same time, the Congress is 1843 02:08:38.920 --> 02:08:42.800 insisting that no legal governments exist in the South, and 1844 02:08:42.840 --> 02:08:46.800 they use this to declare martial law throughout the South, 1845 02:08:46.880 --> 02:08:49.479 and the occupation of the South by the Union armies 1846 02:08:50.159 --> 02:08:57.000 who police the voters, intimidate the voters, encourage the newly 1847 02:08:57.279 --> 02:09:02.760 freed slaves to participate in politics, while they are excluding 1848 02:09:02.920 --> 02:09:06.000 all of the former white citizens from the political process. 1849 02:09:06.840 --> 02:09:11.399 This is very This is all a huge social experiment, 1850 02:09:11.960 --> 02:09:15.479 and it has an effect of pitting the races against 1851 02:09:15.560 --> 02:09:20.279 one another and breeding lots of resentments. We can understand 1852 02:09:20.319 --> 02:09:24.079 how that would work. At the same time they're doing this, 1853 02:09:24.960 --> 02:09:32.920 Congress insists that Southern legislatures, which they say have no authority, 1854 02:09:33.439 --> 02:09:40.039 should rewrite their state constitutions with Republican committees in charge. 1855 02:09:40.560 --> 02:09:45.239 The Democrats have practically been outlawed in the South. They 1856 02:09:45.239 --> 02:09:51.600 have been so marginalized through disenfranchisement. In particular, even though 1857 02:09:51.600 --> 02:09:55.279 the Democrats in the South, the Democratic Party leaders take 1858 02:09:55.479 --> 02:10:01.479 special pains to appoint as their official leader the men 1859 02:10:01.680 --> 02:10:06.079 of those states who were always against secession and on 1860 02:10:06.119 --> 02:10:10.520 the sidelines of the Civil war. Naturally enough, we can 1861 02:10:10.560 --> 02:10:14.000 say those were not their natural leaders, that those were 1862 02:10:14.079 --> 02:10:17.359 not the people they wanted in charge of their institutions. 1863 02:10:17.640 --> 02:10:21.399 They were just the only men around who stood any 1864 02:10:21.720 --> 02:10:26.560 chance to make an argument to the Radical Republican Congress 1865 02:10:27.279 --> 02:10:30.920 that the Democrat the Democratic Party of the Southern States 1866 02:10:31.319 --> 02:10:35.760 was at all legitimate to be participating in politics at all. 1867 02:10:36.399 --> 02:10:39.239 Even though they did those things, they were still being excluded. 1868 02:10:39.560 --> 02:10:42.840 So the radical Republicans say that all the Southern states 1869 02:10:42.880 --> 02:10:47.439 have to rewrite their constitution. This happens in places like 1870 02:10:48.399 --> 02:10:53.960 South Carolina and Alabama, for instance. This happens with committees 1871 02:10:54.359 --> 02:11:00.720 of Republican politicians who come from the North, or are 1872 02:11:01.560 --> 02:11:07.199 collaborator Southerners who declare for the Republican Party, or they 1873 02:11:07.239 --> 02:11:14.000 are newly enfranchised blacks from that state, or blacks that 1874 02:11:14.079 --> 02:11:17.960 come from elsewhere in the country, and they are put 1875 02:11:18.000 --> 02:11:22.279 in charge of rewriting those state constitutions. The Democratic committees 1876 02:11:22.520 --> 02:11:29.039 in those states file complaints to Congress saying this is 1877 02:11:30.880 --> 02:11:34.720 very lopsided, this is very unfair. You have taken a 1878 02:11:34.880 --> 02:11:39.840 very small minority of our population. If you think back 1879 02:11:39.960 --> 02:11:45.600 just a few years, in Lincoln's original election in eighteen sixty, 1880 02:11:45.720 --> 02:11:50.119 there was no Republican Party in the Southern States. Abraham 1881 02:11:50.199 --> 02:11:54.520 Lincoln did not receive a single vote in the states 1882 02:11:54.560 --> 02:11:58.159 that joined the Confederate States. It wasn't as if Lincoln 1883 02:11:58.399 --> 02:12:03.960 was an unpopular candidate by our standards in American history. 1884 02:12:04.880 --> 02:12:08.560 There was no organization for the Republican Party in those states, 1885 02:12:08.560 --> 02:12:11.399 and he did not receive a single vote in those states. 1886 02:12:12.079 --> 02:12:18.560 He was seen as such an alien candidate, so far 1887 02:12:18.600 --> 02:12:22.119 removed from the concerns of those voters. But now that 1888 02:12:23.119 --> 02:12:28.920 political party is reforming the basic political institutions of these 1889 02:12:28.960 --> 02:12:35.159 states for their own benefit. The radical Republicans in Congress 1890 02:12:35.920 --> 02:12:39.399 then pass on to the Southern States. At the same 1891 02:12:39.439 --> 02:12:44.039 time they say, is there are no legal institutions in 1892 02:12:44.079 --> 02:12:48.399 these states, they hand them an amendment to the Constitution. 1893 02:12:48.560 --> 02:12:52.399 They hand them the famous fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution 1894 02:12:53.000 --> 02:12:57.359 with a threat Congress. The Republicans in Congress tell the 1895 02:12:57.399 --> 02:13:01.640 Southern states in eighteen sixty six, ratify the fourteenth Amendment 1896 02:13:02.359 --> 02:13:07.920 or you will have no representation in Congress. And a 1897 02:13:08.039 --> 02:13:12.000 number of Southern states try to hold out on this. 1898 02:13:12.920 --> 02:13:15.960 Even with a lot of Republicans in charge in these 1899 02:13:15.960 --> 02:13:20.279 Southern states, several of these states decide they are going 1900 02:13:20.319 --> 02:13:26.960 to withhold consideration of the fourteenth Amendment because the way 1901 02:13:27.079 --> 02:13:31.039 that it is forced on them with a Blackmaile threat, 1902 02:13:31.720 --> 02:13:34.520 we will not give you, we will not permit you 1903 02:13:34.600 --> 02:13:40.279 to have Republican institutions, representative government, not not even a 1904 02:13:40.279 --> 02:13:44.880 shadow of it. With all the disenfranchisement that's gone on 1905 02:13:45.079 --> 02:13:50.279 in the enfranchisement that has gone on in these states 1906 02:13:50.399 --> 02:13:53.439 in this short period of time, we won't let you 1907 02:13:53.520 --> 02:13:59.039 have it unless you ratify a constitutional amendment. It makes 1908 02:13:59.079 --> 02:14:02.760 no sense. Are they part of the Union or did 1909 02:14:02.800 --> 02:14:05.920 they actually leave the Union? Lincoln said they never left 1910 02:14:05.960 --> 02:14:09.279 the union. President Johnson said, they never left the Union. 1911 02:14:09.520 --> 02:14:12.920 They just need to send representation back to Congress, and 1912 02:14:13.079 --> 02:14:17.079 they've been restored as states in the Union. The radical 1913 02:14:17.119 --> 02:14:22.520 Republicans forwarded a theory to justify their behavior that when 1914 02:14:22.560 --> 02:14:27.359 the states seceded from the Union, they committed political suicide 1915 02:14:27.600 --> 02:14:32.600 and ceased to exist as bodies, as legal bodies, and 1916 02:14:32.640 --> 02:14:37.279 this was their justification to treat the Southern States as 1917 02:14:37.640 --> 02:14:41.560 conquered territory, which was basically what they were. They declared 1918 02:14:41.600 --> 02:14:45.920 them military districts during this time. Yet at the same 1919 02:14:45.960 --> 02:14:49.439 time they're demanding that they ratify amendments to the Constitution. 1920 02:14:49.960 --> 02:14:53.960 The only bodies that can ratify amendments to the Constitution 1921 02:14:54.159 --> 02:14:57.199 are states of the Union. So they're trying to have 1922 02:14:57.279 --> 02:15:03.520 it both ways. The government of Florida in eighteen sixty six, 1923 02:15:04.399 --> 02:15:08.720 wrote Let's see a resolution of the Florida House of Representatives. 1924 02:15:09.399 --> 02:15:13.520 They said, beyond the postal service, our people derive no 1925 02:15:13.640 --> 02:15:17.359 benefit from our existence as a state of the Union. 1926 02:15:17.640 --> 02:15:21.039 We are denied representation even when we elect a man 1927 02:15:21.239 --> 02:15:26.039 who never sympathized with the Confederacy's rebellion. We are at 1928 02:15:26.079 --> 02:15:29.880 the same time subject to the most onerous taxation, and 1929 02:15:29.960 --> 02:15:33.439 our civil law is enforced only when it meets the 1930 02:15:33.479 --> 02:15:38.000 approval of the local military commanders. Now that was their 1931 02:15:38.039 --> 02:15:44.680 reason to not consider the fourteenth Amendment. But Congress. Congress 1932 02:15:44.720 --> 02:15:47.800 decided to drag this out as long as it took 1933 02:15:48.279 --> 02:15:53.039 to ratify the fourteenth Amendment, and eventually the Southern States did. 1934 02:15:53.680 --> 02:15:57.319 And this is part of the process of reconstruction. It 1935 02:15:57.600 --> 02:16:05.439 was a process of threats, of blackmail, of cynical looting, 1936 02:16:06.319 --> 02:16:12.199 of the enfranchisement of certain populations, not the Indians, by 1937 02:16:12.239 --> 02:16:16.399 the way, the fourteenth Amendment deliberately excludes the Indians from citizenship. 1938 02:16:16.760 --> 02:16:21.920 That comes later, all right, But enfranchising the black population 1939 02:16:22.680 --> 02:16:27.439 to make them a loyal block of the Republican Party 1940 02:16:27.680 --> 02:16:33.319 of Lincoln's party, and to make the Republican Party the 1941 02:16:33.360 --> 02:16:38.399 dominant party of the United States in perpetuity. This was 1942 02:16:38.840 --> 02:16:44.399 what the Republican leadership in Washington, d C. Openly avowed 1943 02:16:44.600 --> 02:16:49.760 as their goals in this time. They also some of 1944 02:16:49.760 --> 02:16:55.200 the more extreme members, people like Benjamin Butler, the former 1945 02:16:55.520 --> 02:16:59.600 Union commander in New Orleans now United States Senator in 1946 02:16:59.719 --> 02:17:04.639 Massachusetts or from Massachusetts. Benjamin Butler is one of Andrew 1947 02:17:04.719 --> 02:17:11.719 Johnson's greatest enemies in the impeachment. UH. Benjamin Butler is 1948 02:17:11.719 --> 02:17:14.079 is one of the leaders of the radical Republicans in 1949 02:17:14.120 --> 02:17:21.000 Congress during reconstruction. Other others like Thatteus Stevens of Massachusetts, 1950 02:17:21.079 --> 02:17:24.719 who has a big war, a big role prior to 1951 02:17:24.760 --> 02:17:29.040 the Civil War, very famously beaten over the head by 1952 02:17:29.200 --> 02:17:35.799 South Carolina Congressman Preston Brooks for insulting family members in 1953 02:17:36.200 --> 02:17:39.000 UH in speeches on on the floor of Congress. 1954 02:17:39.440 --> 02:17:39.639 Uh. 1955 02:17:39.760 --> 02:17:42.799 Thatteus Stevens is another one of these very harsh uh 1956 02:17:42.840 --> 02:17:49.000 antagonists of the Southern people. And UH, let's see, I 1957 02:17:49.079 --> 02:17:51.440 might be getting this wrong. Did I say Thatteus Stevens 1958 02:17:52.079 --> 02:17:56.159 I believe, yes, Okay, Thatteus. I'm getting this wrong. Thadeus 1959 02:17:56.200 --> 02:17:59.040 Stevens was a congressman from Pennsylvania. I'm getting that wrong. 1960 02:17:59.440 --> 02:18:00.559 Whom I think up. 1961 02:18:00.680 --> 02:18:02.840 I'm the wrong person to ask. We're entirely too far 1962 02:18:02.879 --> 02:18:04.360 in the leads for my knowledge of America. 1963 02:18:04.479 --> 02:18:08.200 I'm sorry, sorry, I'm I'm I'm forgetting this. The senator 1964 02:18:08.479 --> 02:18:13.159 from Massachusetts, he's just slipped my mind Thatteus Stevens. Let 1965 02:18:13.200 --> 02:18:16.719 me let me refresh my my statement on that Thatteus 1966 02:18:16.719 --> 02:18:20.879 Stevens said that he wanted to see the South depopulated 1967 02:18:21.360 --> 02:18:24.799 of white Southerners. He wanted to force them to immigrate. 1968 02:18:25.600 --> 02:18:29.200 So you have from from people like Thatteus Stevens, who 1969 02:18:29.280 --> 02:18:33.120 is a who is a very peculiar character, evidently had 1970 02:18:33.159 --> 02:18:37.000 a long affair with a a black woman. 1971 02:18:37.639 --> 02:18:38.040 Uh. 1972 02:18:38.319 --> 02:18:43.440 Really peculiar fellow, very spiteful fellow. 1973 02:18:43.840 --> 02:18:44.680 I don't, I don't. 1974 02:18:44.440 --> 02:18:46.120 Want to do him. 1975 02:18:46.399 --> 02:18:46.639 I don't. 1976 02:18:46.680 --> 02:18:50.920 I don't want to malign him unfairly. But he had 1977 02:18:51.239 --> 02:18:56.079 a reputation, even among his admirers, of being very bitter 1978 02:18:56.479 --> 02:19:01.239 towards his enemy. Okay, but Thatteus Stevens saying saying that 1979 02:19:01.319 --> 02:19:08.600 the Southern States should be ethnically cleansed and the property 1980 02:19:08.600 --> 02:19:15.000 there redistributed to loyal freedmen. That those are the newly 1981 02:19:15.120 --> 02:19:21.760 enfranchised black Americans and Union soldiers as as war booty, 1982 02:19:23.360 --> 02:19:28.239 even taking taking like a Roman view of the Southern 1983 02:19:28.280 --> 02:19:33.000 States as as conquered provinces uh with with all their 1984 02:19:33.040 --> 02:19:38.559 wealth to be redistributed as plunder. This this happened on 1985 02:19:38.600 --> 02:19:41.879 a certain scale, but it was not That was not 1986 02:19:42.000 --> 02:19:45.799 actually how reconstruction took place. I should say Thadeus Stevens 1987 02:19:45.799 --> 02:19:49.879 did not get everything that he wanted. But these these 1988 02:19:50.399 --> 02:19:54.440 radicals in Congress, they force the Fourteenth Amendment on the 1989 02:19:54.479 --> 02:20:01.120 Southern States. In the Southern legislatures, in desperation, eventually ratify 1990 02:20:01.280 --> 02:20:05.000 the most controversial amendment to the Constitution, the fourteenth Amendment. 1991 02:20:05.200 --> 02:20:07.520 So let's get in. Let's get into the details of 1992 02:20:07.559 --> 02:20:12.040 the fourteenth Amendment. The first, it's the longest amendment in 1993 02:20:12.079 --> 02:20:17.479 the Constitution, I should say first, it is the most complicated. 1994 02:20:18.719 --> 02:20:22.000 It has several sections to it, and it has been 1995 02:20:22.120 --> 02:20:26.600 used to justify a great many of the most controversial 1996 02:20:26.719 --> 02:20:32.360 things in constitutional law in the United States. It has 1997 02:20:32.399 --> 02:20:39.920 been used to justify the elimination of laws regulating abortion 1998 02:20:40.280 --> 02:20:44.600 in the States. Row versus Wade used the Fourteenth Amendment 1999 02:20:44.760 --> 02:20:48.520 to justify striking down all laws prohibiting abortion in the 2000 02:20:48.639 --> 02:20:54.799 United States. It was used to justify Lawrence versus Texas, 2001 02:20:55.079 --> 02:21:00.520 which struck down all laws prohibiting or criminalizing sodomy in 2002 02:21:00.559 --> 02:21:05.120 the United States. It was used to justify Obergfel versus Hodges, 2003 02:21:05.719 --> 02:21:12.760 which struck down all state laws regulating the definition of marriage, 2004 02:21:13.600 --> 02:21:18.799 proclaiming marriage to be a institution between a man and 2005 02:21:18.840 --> 02:21:22.440 a woman. It's been used for all of these controversial 2006 02:21:22.799 --> 02:21:26.559 Supreme Court cases, these major culture war cases, if you will, 2007 02:21:27.239 --> 02:21:31.719 because the first part of the Fourteenth Amendment limits what 2008 02:21:31.840 --> 02:21:36.440 state governments can do. It gives the federal government power 2009 02:21:36.559 --> 02:21:41.280 to strike down things that state governments have done in law. 2010 02:21:41.840 --> 02:21:44.520 And if you note, the Supreme Court cases that I 2011 02:21:44.639 --> 02:21:48.239 mentioned all have to do with striking down state laws. 2012 02:21:49.000 --> 02:21:52.399 It is the Supreme Court striking down state laws. What 2013 02:21:52.440 --> 02:21:58.920 we call the incorporation of the Bill of Rights, the 2014 02:21:59.000 --> 02:22:06.159 application of constitutional limitations to state governments. The Fourteenth Amendment 2015 02:22:06.879 --> 02:22:13.000 applies federal power to state governments. Now, if you recall 2016 02:22:13.360 --> 02:22:18.559 towards the beginning of our investigation, I said that in 2017 02:22:18.680 --> 02:22:24.600 Annabellum America, the conservative view, if you will, was that 2018 02:22:24.959 --> 02:22:31.040 the states came together to decide what powers their common 2019 02:22:31.159 --> 02:22:35.799 federal government might have over them, what powers they would 2020 02:22:35.840 --> 02:22:40.719 cede to a general government, and those powers were all 2021 02:22:40.840 --> 02:22:45.559 listed in the Constitution, the Philadelphia Constitution. The Constitution then 2022 02:22:45.600 --> 02:22:49.360 went back to the state legislatures for ratification, and there 2023 02:22:49.440 --> 02:22:54.120 was debate about that. The Constitution was then further defined 2024 02:22:54.239 --> 02:22:57.440 by the Bill of Rights, which followed the ratification of 2025 02:22:57.479 --> 02:23:00.479 the Constitution. And the Bill of Rights are another long 2026 02:23:00.520 --> 02:23:03.920 list of things the federal government can and cannot do, 2027 02:23:05.040 --> 02:23:10.079 summarized with the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution. The tenth Amendment, 2028 02:23:10.440 --> 02:23:13.799 the last of the Bill of Rights, says that anything 2029 02:23:14.079 --> 02:23:18.200 not explicitly listed in the Constitution is reserved to the states. 2030 02:23:18.879 --> 02:23:23.120 The fourteenth Amendment turns this on its head, and this 2031 02:23:23.239 --> 02:23:25.280 is one of the reasons why the fourteenth Amendment is 2032 02:23:25.360 --> 02:23:29.879 such a consequential and important amendment. The fourteenth Amendment says 2033 02:23:30.079 --> 02:23:33.719 the federal government regulates what state governments can do. The 2034 02:23:33.760 --> 02:23:37.760 tenth Amendment says the exact opposite. Now, the Tenth Amendment 2035 02:23:37.840 --> 02:23:42.159 was never repealed, but the South's defeat in eighteen sixty 2036 02:23:42.200 --> 02:23:46.399 five has sealed the fate and interpretation of the tenth Amendment. 2037 02:23:46.719 --> 02:23:49.840 People still talk about the tenth Amendment these days, but 2038 02:23:50.760 --> 02:23:53.600 I think they forget about eighteen sixty five when they 2039 02:23:53.639 --> 02:23:56.440 talk about it. I think the question was settled back then. 2040 02:23:57.600 --> 02:24:01.840 Doesn't mean that I'm happy about that or anything, Okay. 2041 02:24:01.920 --> 02:24:05.680 I'm just saying that that's the way it has worked out, okay, 2042 02:24:06.360 --> 02:24:09.760 And that doesn't mean it's the end of the story. 2043 02:24:09.559 --> 02:24:13.559 We still have these things in our law, and we 2044 02:24:13.600 --> 02:24:15.760 still think about them and care about them, and maybe 2045 02:24:15.760 --> 02:24:18.360 we'll do something with them. I'm not here to say that, 2046 02:24:18.799 --> 02:24:23.000 but okay. So that's what the Fourteenth Amendment did it. 2047 02:24:23.000 --> 02:24:27.479 It says no State shall make or enforce any law 2048 02:24:28.040 --> 02:24:31.000 that shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of 2049 02:24:31.000 --> 02:24:34.479 the United States. Nor shall any State deprive any person 2050 02:24:34.520 --> 02:24:37.079 of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, 2051 02:24:37.760 --> 02:24:40.799 nor deny any person within his jurisdiction the equal protection 2052 02:24:40.879 --> 02:24:41.200 of law. 2053 02:24:41.280 --> 02:24:41.639 All right. 2054 02:24:41.680 --> 02:24:45.200 That is the really famous statement in Section one of 2055 02:24:45.239 --> 02:24:50.680 the Fourteenth Amendment that applies federal laws to the states. 2056 02:24:51.040 --> 02:24:51.399 All Right. 2057 02:24:52.040 --> 02:24:57.000 The Bill of Rights has the exact opposite formulation. The 2058 02:24:57.040 --> 02:25:01.159 Bill of Rights very famously says Congress shall make no 2059 02:25:01.600 --> 02:25:05.239 law a bridging freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom 2060 02:25:05.280 --> 02:25:06.959 to press, so on, and so forth. 2061 02:25:07.200 --> 02:25:07.600 All right. 2062 02:25:08.079 --> 02:25:11.280 The Fourteenth Amendment says no state shall make or enforce 2063 02:25:11.280 --> 02:25:16.520 any law, and the federal government decides which laws. That's 2064 02:25:16.559 --> 02:25:20.719 why that has become so consequential. The Supreme Court decides 2065 02:25:21.399 --> 02:25:25.000 what due process means. The states don't have any say 2066 02:25:25.000 --> 02:25:27.680 in that. That's why state laws get shot down by 2067 02:25:27.680 --> 02:25:28.399 the Supreme Court. 2068 02:25:28.760 --> 02:25:32.399 Is this really the moment in which the kind of 2069 02:25:32.440 --> 02:25:36.120 true final seat of power in American governance becomes the 2070 02:25:36.159 --> 02:25:38.840 Supreme Court? Or is that going on before? 2071 02:25:38.639 --> 02:25:42.239 There was a lot of argument about that. Before, before 2072 02:25:43.079 --> 02:25:48.319 the Fourteenth Amendment, state governments would defy the Supreme Court. 2073 02:25:49.120 --> 02:25:55.319 One funny instance of that, there was a Supreme Court 2074 02:25:55.440 --> 02:25:58.840 case that said the Bank of the United States had 2075 02:25:59.159 --> 02:26:02.879 the ability to operate in any state, and states could 2076 02:26:02.959 --> 02:26:05.719 not say no to the Bank of the United States. 2077 02:26:07.000 --> 02:26:09.879 It was McCulla versus Maryland. This is a very early 2078 02:26:09.959 --> 02:26:15.680 Supreme Court case that federal law trump's state law. All right, 2079 02:26:15.760 --> 02:26:19.520 it's a very important early Supreme Court case, McCulla versus Maryland. 2080 02:26:20.280 --> 02:26:22.159 There was a law. 2081 02:26:22.000 --> 02:26:25.959 Passed by the state of Ohio. I like these northern 2082 02:26:26.040 --> 02:26:31.120 states that stand out in constitutional history, because I love 2083 02:26:31.200 --> 02:26:33.559 to point out it's not just southern states that are 2084 02:26:33.600 --> 02:26:36.440 always defying the federal government on this stuff. Northern States 2085 02:26:36.440 --> 02:26:40.799 did it too. It was an American thing. We used 2086 02:26:40.799 --> 02:26:43.799 to have more in common. On that, the State of 2087 02:26:43.840 --> 02:26:47.399 Ohio passed a law taxing the Bank of the United States. 2088 02:26:47.479 --> 02:26:52.440 This was precisely the issue that was at stake in 2089 02:26:52.799 --> 02:26:56.719 McCulla versus Maryland. The State of Maryland had passed attacks 2090 02:26:57.239 --> 02:27:00.719 against the federal corporation, the Bank of the United States. 2091 02:27:00.840 --> 02:27:03.719 The idea back then was the federal government did not 2092 02:27:04.000 --> 02:27:09.799 have the constitutional authority to set up corporations. Right, It 2093 02:27:09.879 --> 02:27:12.399 shows a difference between our world and theirs. We kind 2094 02:27:12.440 --> 02:27:14.879 of take corporations for granted. We can we can hardly 2095 02:27:14.879 --> 02:27:19.280 imagine our lives without these huge federally chartered corporations everywhere, 2096 02:27:19.440 --> 02:27:23.479 all protected by the Bill of Rights. Remember Mitt Romney, 2097 02:27:23.959 --> 02:27:28.239 corporations are people, my friend. We can hardly imagine our 2098 02:27:28.280 --> 02:27:30.719 world without that. But back then, states actually tried to 2099 02:27:30.799 --> 02:27:35.239 keep them out. They didn't want wealth and power concentrated 2100 02:27:35.239 --> 02:27:40.239 in New York City or whatever. So Maryland attacked the 2101 02:27:40.239 --> 02:27:45.040 Bank of the United States and that was declared void 2102 02:27:45.079 --> 02:27:48.639 by the Supreme Court in McCullough versus Maryland. Well, later on, 2103 02:27:48.879 --> 02:27:53.079 the state of Ohio decided they would tax the Bank 2104 02:27:53.120 --> 02:27:54.079 of the United States. 2105 02:27:54.319 --> 02:27:55.040 In Ohio. 2106 02:27:55.559 --> 02:27:58.479 And so they sent the tax collectors down to the 2107 02:27:58.520 --> 02:28:01.360 Bank of the United States branch and presented the bill. 2108 02:28:02.079 --> 02:28:04.239 And the Bank of the United States, you know, filled 2109 02:28:04.280 --> 02:28:07.799 with a bunch of smug federal people. They're like, uh oh, 2110 02:28:08.239 --> 02:28:13.399 you know. The Supreme Court and the authorities of Ohio 2111 02:28:14.120 --> 02:28:19.319 sent down safecrackers and they busted open the bank vaults 2112 02:28:19.479 --> 02:28:21.559 in the Bank of the United States and cleared it 2113 02:28:21.600 --> 02:28:25.639 out as taxes, and the thing shut down. And it 2114 02:28:26.559 --> 02:28:30.799 reminds you of the famous line from President Andrew Jackson. 2115 02:28:31.319 --> 02:28:34.680 The Supreme Court has made its ruling. Let's see them 2116 02:28:34.799 --> 02:28:38.200 enforce it, all right. Just because the Supreme Court made 2117 02:28:38.200 --> 02:28:42.440 a ruling and it is seen as constitutional law, did 2118 02:28:42.479 --> 02:28:46.840 not mean that the states would obey it. After the 2119 02:28:46.879 --> 02:28:50.520 Civil War, no one was under any illusions that the 2120 02:28:50.559 --> 02:28:53.879 states could say no to the federal government anymore. And 2121 02:28:53.959 --> 02:28:59.159 that's a very significant change. So that is one of 2122 02:28:59.200 --> 02:29:01.559 the main things about the fourteenth Amendment. But let me 2123 02:29:01.600 --> 02:29:05.799 talk about the other ones. I'm not meaning to keep 2124 02:29:05.840 --> 02:29:08.200 you here all day with all this talk about the 2125 02:29:08.319 --> 02:29:14.000 legalities of reconstruction. But the other element in Section one 2126 02:29:14.120 --> 02:29:20.680 of the fourteenth Amendment is extremely consequential. It redefines citizenship. Now, 2127 02:29:20.719 --> 02:29:24.159 it is very important to note that the Southern States 2128 02:29:24.200 --> 02:29:29.799 were strong armed, blackmailed, had to sit under a martial 2129 02:29:29.920 --> 02:29:35.159 law through a very oppressive regime for years in order 2130 02:29:35.239 --> 02:29:40.280 to redefine what Americans understood to be citizenship. Previous to 2131 02:29:40.399 --> 02:29:47.040 the Civil War, every state separately regulated who was eligible 2132 02:29:47.120 --> 02:29:52.120 for the suffrage. This is a very important point. Every 2133 02:29:52.239 --> 02:29:56.680 state had a different law about who could vote, and 2134 02:29:56.719 --> 02:30:00.559 that was because every state was seen to have publican 2135 02:30:00.680 --> 02:30:06.760 institutions of its own that it was responsible for. Ultimately, 2136 02:30:07.360 --> 02:30:12.319 the Fourteenth Amendment gives us a federal definition of citizenship, 2137 02:30:12.440 --> 02:30:14.639 and this is a very important one. This is a 2138 02:30:14.920 --> 02:30:17.920 this is a radical one. This has a lot to 2139 02:30:17.959 --> 02:30:23.760 do with how American identity has developed over time. We 2140 02:30:24.120 --> 02:30:29.879 see this this uh, this law influences American identity in 2141 02:30:30.000 --> 02:30:32.879 major ways. We we are perhaps much more aware of 2142 02:30:32.920 --> 02:30:37.680 that with our immigration questions today. The first part of 2143 02:30:37.680 --> 02:30:42.040 the fourteenth Amendment says, all persons born or naturalized in 2144 02:30:42.079 --> 02:30:45.680 the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof our citizens, 2145 02:30:46.399 --> 02:30:48.040 all you need to do to be a citizen is 2146 02:30:48.079 --> 02:30:48.799 to be born here. 2147 02:30:49.079 --> 02:30:52.959 Well, and it's interesting, and this is something that I 2148 02:30:52.959 --> 02:30:55.600 don't want to fall into this trap, you know, of 2149 02:30:55.680 --> 02:30:59.840 merely saying, you know, oh, the the left doesn't respect 2150 02:31:00.079 --> 02:31:02.920 the textual basis of the law, because it's obviously true. 2151 02:31:03.000 --> 02:31:06.639 You know, this has been true arguably, you know, ever 2152 02:31:06.680 --> 02:31:10.559 since the set of amendments, even before then. But if 2153 02:31:10.559 --> 02:31:13.879 you look at, you know, the construction of the fourteenth Amendment, 2154 02:31:13.920 --> 02:31:17.920 it is so clearly not talking about an infinite number 2155 02:31:17.959 --> 02:31:20.520 of Central and South Americans. You know it was it 2156 02:31:20.559 --> 02:31:25.799 was written with regards to slaves. And I mean, I 2157 02:31:25.840 --> 02:31:29.280 can dislike the original interpretation of the fourteenth Amendment, but 2158 02:31:30.000 --> 02:31:33.440 it's very clearly was not designed for its current application. 2159 02:31:33.559 --> 02:31:39.680 I guess indeed has this has huge ramifications, of course, 2160 02:31:39.840 --> 02:31:41.559 and we can never get to the bottom of it. 2161 02:31:41.600 --> 02:31:45.120 But Section two of the fourteenth Amendment, this, this is 2162 02:31:45.120 --> 02:31:48.719 a very long amendment, has to do with changing the 2163 02:31:48.760 --> 02:31:56.200 way that representation in Congress is apportioned. You you may 2164 02:31:56.239 --> 02:32:01.000 remember from Civics or if you've ever taken or if 2165 02:32:01.040 --> 02:32:04.479 you've ever read the Constitution itself. The Constitution is very 2166 02:32:04.479 --> 02:32:08.280 famous for the three fifths clause, which has to do 2167 02:32:08.440 --> 02:32:13.520 with the apportionment of representation in Congress based on population. 2168 02:32:14.280 --> 02:32:19.239 The three fifths clause refers to slaves counted for purposes 2169 02:32:19.239 --> 02:32:24.920 of representation. Because they were not citizens, they were only 2170 02:32:25.040 --> 02:32:30.799 counted as three fifths. This way, the South had a 2171 02:32:31.159 --> 02:32:36.040 measure of additional representation based on its slave population. The 2172 02:32:36.239 --> 02:32:41.920 argument was, of course, that the well being of the 2173 02:32:42.000 --> 02:32:48.399 slave population was represented in congressman, just as a father 2174 02:32:48.639 --> 02:32:53.159 would represent the interests of his wife and children. All right, 2175 02:32:53.200 --> 02:32:58.239 so it's we could call it a patriarchal or feudalistic 2176 02:32:59.040 --> 02:33:04.760 justification in a representative mode. This is of course, before 2177 02:33:04.879 --> 02:33:09.719 women's suffrage, and men were seen as representing the interests 2178 02:33:09.760 --> 02:33:14.399 of their womenfolk in representative institutions, and women were seen 2179 02:33:14.559 --> 02:33:20.319 as non political members of society, that they did not 2180 02:33:20.520 --> 02:33:24.159 have a public role in making law or executing law. 2181 02:33:24.840 --> 02:33:27.840 And this is actually a very profound point. We know 2182 02:33:27.920 --> 02:33:31.559 that this is mocked, dismissed. We are so used to 2183 02:33:31.600 --> 02:33:35.520 the mockery and cynical takes about the exclusion of women. 2184 02:33:35.680 --> 02:33:41.440 For instance, we tend to mouth them ourselves, or even 2185 02:33:41.479 --> 02:33:43.840 to fall into patterns of thought when we think about this, 2186 02:33:44.680 --> 02:33:47.319 think about it a different way, if you will. The 2187 02:33:47.399 --> 02:33:51.840 idea was that God has divided humanity into at least 2188 02:33:51.959 --> 02:33:56.559 two groups, men and women, and women have a special 2189 02:33:56.760 --> 02:34:02.959 role in society to foster and nurture, whereas men have 2190 02:34:03.120 --> 02:34:08.239 a special duty and burden in society to deal out 2191 02:34:08.399 --> 02:34:12.319 legitimate violence when necessary. All right, men go to war, 2192 02:34:12.520 --> 02:34:15.479 women stay home. Women are not supposed to shed blood. 2193 02:34:15.959 --> 02:34:18.399 Women are not supposed to bear arms. All right. 2194 02:34:18.479 --> 02:34:23.479 Now, it's not that they can't in extremists right self 2195 02:34:23.520 --> 02:34:26.120 defense or something like that. But the idea is that 2196 02:34:26.159 --> 02:34:28.399 this is why women do not make laws. This is 2197 02:34:28.440 --> 02:34:31.000 why women do not execute. Women do not have blood 2198 02:34:31.040 --> 02:34:33.760 on their hands. Women bring life into the world. They 2199 02:34:33.760 --> 02:34:35.680 are the only members of society that can do that. 2200 02:34:36.639 --> 02:34:40.079 And that's a different and important way of looking at it. Okay, 2201 02:34:40.079 --> 02:34:44.000 that's the way they looked at it. But they also said, well, obviously, 2202 02:34:44.079 --> 02:34:48.120 slaves don't take part in politics. Politics involves the dealing 2203 02:34:48.200 --> 02:34:51.680 out of legitimate violence, among other things. Slaves are just 2204 02:34:51.719 --> 02:34:55.200 not a part of this. Slaves do not bear arms. 2205 02:34:55.239 --> 02:35:00.000 Slaves are enthralled to their masters, and their masters look 2206 02:35:00.120 --> 02:35:00.520 over them. 2207 02:35:00.520 --> 02:35:00.840 So the. 2208 02:35:02.920 --> 02:35:08.399 Three fifths clause in the Constitution deals out representative the 2209 02:35:08.440 --> 02:35:12.200 representative apportionment of the states based on the slave population. 2210 02:35:12.520 --> 02:35:16.399 The second part of the Fourteenth Amendment undoes that. Okay, 2211 02:35:16.440 --> 02:35:19.639 because now the slaves are all counted as freemen. They 2212 02:35:19.639 --> 02:35:24.399 are now citizens because of birthright citizenship in the first section. 2213 02:35:24.680 --> 02:35:28.200 All right, So Section three. No person shall be a 2214 02:35:28.239 --> 02:35:31.479 senator or representative in Congress, or elector of President and 2215 02:35:31.600 --> 02:35:35.440 Vice President, or hold any office civil or military under 2216 02:35:35.440 --> 02:35:39.799 the United States or under any State, who, having previously 2217 02:35:39.840 --> 02:35:42.360 taken an oath as a member of Congress, or as 2218 02:35:42.360 --> 02:35:45.440 an officer of the United States, or as any member 2219 02:35:45.440 --> 02:35:49.360 of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial 2220 02:35:49.440 --> 02:35:52.479 officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the 2221 02:35:52.559 --> 02:35:56.760 United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against 2222 02:35:56.760 --> 02:36:00.959 the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. 2223 02:36:01.479 --> 02:36:04.319 But Congress may vote of two thirds of each House 2224 02:36:04.920 --> 02:36:06.559 to remove such disability. 2225 02:36:07.040 --> 02:36:07.479 All right. 2226 02:36:08.040 --> 02:36:13.040 This is specifically to disenfranchise ex Confederates. If you can 2227 02:36:13.079 --> 02:36:19.040 prove any of these people have anyone that has held office, 2228 02:36:20.719 --> 02:36:24.280 anyone related to the pre war government that supported the 2229 02:36:24.280 --> 02:36:28.680 Confederates in any way, if they've given aid or comfort. Okay, 2230 02:36:29.000 --> 02:36:33.440 that's a very low bar to disenfranchise. This is how 2231 02:36:33.600 --> 02:36:36.680 the radical Republicans in Congress were going to make sure 2232 02:36:37.079 --> 02:36:39.440 they were not going to be looking across the aisle 2233 02:36:39.559 --> 02:36:42.319 at any of their former enemies from the Civil War. 2234 02:36:42.639 --> 02:36:47.200 And this disenfranchise is a This disenfranchise is the leadership 2235 02:36:47.200 --> 02:36:49.239 class of the South. Okay, the leadership class of the 2236 02:36:49.239 --> 02:36:52.319 South participated in the war. This is this is a 2237 02:36:52.399 --> 02:36:55.959 very consequential thing. And by the way, this is the 2238 02:36:56.000 --> 02:37:00.399 justification for some of the Shenanigans who are seeing today, 2239 02:37:00.440 --> 02:37:02.200 which I don't mean to get into right now, but 2240 02:37:02.719 --> 02:37:06.120 this is what the fourteenth Amendment was written for. It 2241 02:37:06.159 --> 02:37:10.600 was written to disenfranchise an entire class of people, and 2242 02:37:11.840 --> 02:37:20.760 it was forced into law through these extreme malevolent ways, 2243 02:37:21.079 --> 02:37:27.680 all right, by by garrisoning black conscripts in Southern states 2244 02:37:27.719 --> 02:37:28.959 to intimidate the population. 2245 02:37:29.360 --> 02:37:29.719 All right. 2246 02:37:30.000 --> 02:37:33.200 Section four, we're getting to the entire The validity of 2247 02:37:33.200 --> 02:37:36.440 the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, 2248 02:37:36.520 --> 02:37:40.239 including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for 2249 02:37:40.360 --> 02:37:46.319 services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. 2250 02:37:46.799 --> 02:37:47.159 All right. 2251 02:37:47.559 --> 02:37:51.159 This is because there were there were plenty of people 2252 02:37:51.280 --> 02:37:54.360 right after the war saying, well, we've just borrowed an 2253 02:37:54.360 --> 02:38:00.399 incredible amount of money. They issued paper currency, which acted 2254 02:38:00.520 --> 02:38:05.840 like treasury bonds. Okay, the paper currency, every single item 2255 02:38:06.000 --> 02:38:11.000 of paper currency, every every artifact of paper currency. The 2256 02:38:11.000 --> 02:38:16.479 the green backs issued by Lincoln's government, the first green 2257 02:38:16.760 --> 02:38:19.959 paper money that we had in the United States. By 2258 02:38:20.000 --> 02:38:23.639 the way, it was all supposed to be redeemed by 2259 02:38:23.680 --> 02:38:28.879 the by the Treasury with lawful money, and lawful money, 2260 02:38:28.879 --> 02:38:31.799 according to the Constitution, is gold and silver coin. 2261 02:38:32.280 --> 02:38:32.639 All right. 2262 02:38:33.319 --> 02:38:38.959 So the green backs were a temporary paper currency, and 2263 02:38:39.040 --> 02:38:42.239 there were there there was a big controversy during reconstruction 2264 02:38:42.360 --> 02:38:45.959 about repudiating the green backs. Let's just not redeem this stuff. 2265 02:38:46.040 --> 02:38:50.079 Let's just make it permanent paper currency or do something else. 2266 02:38:50.280 --> 02:38:53.559 Let's let's avoid the responsibility of redeeming the stuff. 2267 02:38:53.719 --> 02:38:54.000 Okay. 2268 02:38:54.040 --> 02:38:57.600 So the fourteenth Mindment says, no, we're definitely definitely redeeming 2269 02:38:57.639 --> 02:39:03.879 this stuff, and we're guarantee that everyone that was rewarded 2270 02:39:04.319 --> 02:39:12.399 in war through payment in the greenbacks these certificates of 2271 02:39:13.200 --> 02:39:17.280 future payment, they are definitely going to get their money 2272 02:39:17.319 --> 02:39:20.120 out of the system, and no one is going to 2273 02:39:20.440 --> 02:39:25.399 argue about this anymore. The United States will pay its debts. 2274 02:39:26.079 --> 02:39:26.399 Okay. 2275 02:39:26.399 --> 02:39:28.760 So the fourteenth Amendment, and this is something that comes 2276 02:39:28.840 --> 02:39:33.520 up in conversation every time the government gets shut down. Okay, again, 2277 02:39:33.559 --> 02:39:36.200 the fourteenth Amendment is brought up and says, well, it's 2278 02:39:36.239 --> 02:39:39.959 the law. The government has to pay its debts. It's 2279 02:39:40.000 --> 02:39:42.479 part of the fundamental law. It's part of constitutional law 2280 02:39:42.559 --> 02:39:46.319 that the federal government has to pay its debts. So 2281 02:39:47.239 --> 02:39:51.719 when we have a budget crisis and the US government 2282 02:39:51.840 --> 02:39:56.040 is deciding which bills it can afford to pay, it's 2283 02:39:56.079 --> 02:39:59.639 definitely going to pay the interest on the national debt. 2284 02:40:00.280 --> 02:40:05.479 It at least constitutionally, unless it violates the constitution, it 2285 02:40:05.520 --> 02:40:07.719 has to pay the interest on the debt. But the 2286 02:40:08.639 --> 02:40:12.399 section goes on it says, neither the United States nor 2287 02:40:12.559 --> 02:40:16.079 any state shall assume or pay any debt or obligation 2288 02:40:16.600 --> 02:40:21.399 incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, 2289 02:40:22.000 --> 02:40:26.680 or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave. 2290 02:40:27.360 --> 02:40:30.559 But all such debts, obligations, and claims shall be held 2291 02:40:30.639 --> 02:40:34.879 illegal and void. All right, So, finally, the United States 2292 02:40:34.959 --> 02:40:37.479 government will not pay any compensation for the end of 2293 02:40:37.479 --> 02:40:41.440 slavery and the end. No one is going to be 2294 02:40:41.479 --> 02:40:46.120 paid for their confederate bonds, no one will be compensated 2295 02:40:46.120 --> 02:40:50.479 for Confederate currency. All of that is written off, no 2296 02:40:50.680 --> 02:40:56.159 debate anymore. So it shuts down these big questions during reconstruction. 2297 02:40:56.639 --> 02:41:00.520 But even though even though this is very constant quinchal 2298 02:41:00.559 --> 02:41:04.040 in that it destroys an incredible amount of wealth in 2299 02:41:04.079 --> 02:41:07.520 the South through the stroke of a pen, it's still 2300 02:41:07.559 --> 02:41:09.760 brought up in conversation today when it comes to the 2301 02:41:10.319 --> 02:41:16.319 national debt. Lastly, in an conclusion section five the Fourteenth Amendment, 2302 02:41:16.680 --> 02:41:19.799 Congress shall have the power to enforce or appropriate legislation 2303 02:41:20.120 --> 02:41:24.479 the provisions of this article all right into the fourteenth Amendment. 2304 02:41:24.680 --> 02:41:28.200 Well, I think that we are at time it might 2305 02:41:28.200 --> 02:41:30.639 be a good idea to come back if we want 2306 02:41:30.639 --> 02:41:34.959 to discuss kind of the fifteenth Amendment and maybe some 2307 02:41:35.040 --> 02:41:37.120 other parts of reconstruction, because there's some things that I 2308 02:41:37.159 --> 02:41:38.879 wanted to bring up, and I guess this is just 2309 02:41:38.879 --> 02:41:42.639 a deep topic. But as we've said before, you know, 2310 02:41:42.719 --> 02:41:44.879 you have a book on the topic that will be linked. 2311 02:41:44.879 --> 02:41:47.200 I've received my copy. I have not gone through it 2312 02:41:47.280 --> 02:41:49.760 yet because there's a lot in there. You know, it's 2313 02:41:49.799 --> 02:41:51.840 incredibly dense, and I got it just a few days ago. 2314 02:41:52.280 --> 02:41:54.719 But if people want to find more of you and 2315 02:41:54.719 --> 02:41:56.159 more of your work, what's a good way for them 2316 02:41:56.159 --> 02:41:56.520 to do that. 2317 02:41:57.079 --> 02:42:02.840 Yes, indeed, I'm so excited about the the publication of 2318 02:42:02.879 --> 02:42:05.079 this book I've been working on this book to bring 2319 02:42:05.120 --> 02:42:08.120 it back into print for a long time, and I'm 2320 02:42:08.120 --> 02:42:12.000 working on other projects there as well. The book is 2321 02:42:12.280 --> 02:42:16.479 the Civil War and Reconstruction in Alabama. It's by Walter 2322 02:42:16.760 --> 02:42:21.360 Lynwood Fleming and it's one of these state specific histories 2323 02:42:21.479 --> 02:42:25.520 of reconstruction and I've brought back into print to make 2324 02:42:25.559 --> 02:42:30.079 it accessible again. You can find it on Barnesennoble dot com. 2325 02:42:30.840 --> 02:42:33.239 Perhaps we can link it in the show notes there. 2326 02:42:33.360 --> 02:42:36.799 I'll make sure that you have that information. You can 2327 02:42:36.840 --> 02:42:44.120 find more information about my work. I'm newly on Twitter. 2328 02:42:44.559 --> 02:42:47.280 I've never been on Twitter before, but i am now 2329 02:42:47.799 --> 02:42:53.760 kind of to promote my book. I'm at Tallman Books 2330 02:42:54.239 --> 02:42:57.840 on Twitter, and I've got a YouTube channel as well. 2331 02:42:58.239 --> 02:43:01.920 Look up George Bagbee on YouTube and you can find 2332 02:43:01.959 --> 02:43:05.559 some of my recording there. I record essays things that 2333 02:43:05.639 --> 02:43:09.600 interest me. I'm recording a couple of books there right now. 2334 02:43:09.639 --> 02:43:12.840 I'm recording some C. S. Lewis and some GK. Chesterton 2335 02:43:12.959 --> 02:43:13.319 right now. 2336 02:43:13.760 --> 02:43:16.200 Well, great, I'm looking forward to that. I've been listening 2337 02:43:16.239 --> 02:43:18.840 to a lot of your backlog over the holidays. I 2338 02:43:18.920 --> 02:43:21.159 kind of lost track of it, so I'll be sure 2339 02:43:21.200 --> 02:43:23.360 to catch those when they drop. As far as my stuff, 2340 02:43:23.399 --> 02:43:25.959 you know, you guys can find me on any podcasterer 2341 02:43:25.959 --> 02:43:29.200 that's Apple, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you like watching podcasts. And 2342 02:43:29.280 --> 02:43:31.520 also I've been putting out a lot more on substack, 2343 02:43:31.600 --> 02:43:33.840 so you can find the Jay Burton Show on substack 2344 02:43:33.879 --> 02:43:38.360 as well. I'll be on Urn's show on Wednesday. That 2345 02:43:38.399 --> 02:43:42.120 will be third I believe to discuss an article I've written, 2346 02:43:42.360 --> 02:43:44.319 So if you want to get a look at it 2347 02:43:44.319 --> 02:43:46.479 before I discuss it live or see some other stuff 2348 02:43:46.479 --> 02:43:48.879 I posted, that's a good way to do that. If 2349 02:43:48.879 --> 02:43:50.440 you want to support us directly, the best way to 2350 02:43:50.440 --> 02:43:53.600 do it is Axios Remote Fitness and Coaching. A couple 2351 02:43:53.639 --> 02:43:57.559 of guys in my community have launched the Fat Bastard Challenge, 2352 02:43:57.879 --> 02:44:01.639 which is free. It's not something I even came up with. Scratchy, 2353 02:44:01.639 --> 02:44:03.680 who's been on here a couple of times, did which 2354 02:44:03.760 --> 02:44:07.319 essentially a weight loss program for the first quarter of 2355 02:44:07.360 --> 02:44:10.120 the year. I think it ends sometime in March. Heroic 2356 02:44:10.159 --> 02:44:12.559 Whale and Arthur Dane, who both had been on the 2357 02:44:12.600 --> 02:44:15.479 show before, are acting as judges. So I'll include a 2358 02:44:15.479 --> 02:44:17.280 link to that. If you want to get in on 2359 02:44:17.440 --> 02:44:20.760 the action and just do something. It's just accountability. There's 2360 02:44:20.799 --> 02:44:22.760 no sales or anything to it, but you should do 2361 02:44:22.799 --> 02:44:24.760 that as well. And again, Bagbee, thank you so much 2362 02:44:24.799 --> 02:44:25.280 for coming on. 2363 02:44:25.799 --> 02:44:28.159 It's my pleasure and I look forward to doing more 2364 02:44:28.200 --> 02:44:30.120 on Reconstruction with you in the future. 2365 02:44:30.639 --> 02:44:33.639 Definitely. And everyone at home, keep your head up. The 2366 02:44:33.680 --> 02:44:35.200 life can't last forever. Good Night,