Political Islam in the West

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Let God arise. Let his enemies be scattered. Let them also. Yeah. Hate and flee before him. [00:00:16] Speaker B: Welcome to the Truth Exchange podcast. This is unique program where we have conversations about worldview all through the lens of oneism and two ism. I'm your host, Joshua Gilo. I made a mistake on that intro, Mary. That lens of oneism and two is, is based on Romans 1:25. We have exchanged the truth of God for the lie, worship and serve creation rather than the Creator who is blessed forevermore. Amen. I am your host, Joshua Gil, and of course with me is my co host, Mary Wella. Good to see you, Mary. [00:00:50] Speaker C: Joshua. Yes, and I, I have to say I'm a little intimidated today because this is the first time time that I'm co hosting with my new boss, Joshua Gilo, the executive director of Truth Exchange. Joshua, I know the announcement went out a couple weeks ago that the board has decided to make you executive director and so I'm thrilled to be with you today and I hope I don't mess up like you have like firing power now. So. [00:01:16] Speaker B: Well, I think if I had fired you, I'd be out of work as well. You are essential to this ministry. So it's a delight now to serve the ministry Truth Exchange in this capacity. And then of course we have our two guests with us today. We have Daryl Harrison and Virgil Walker, both who are ministers at Redeemer Bible Church in Arizona. So if you are in the Gilbert, Arizona area, I commend this church to you. Please go visit. I know that my wife and I, when we have gone to Gilbert, it's been difficult finding a good Bible believing church and so this would be a great choice for you to go visit. So gentlemen, welcome. [00:01:56] Speaker D: Hey, thanks for [00:01:57] Speaker E: having you. Thank you. Joshua, Mary, good to see you. [00:02:00] Speaker C: Nice to see you as well. So good to have you guys on here. We've been looking forward to this for a long time. [00:02:05] Speaker B: Our discussion for today is on political Islam and almost one year ago the Just Thinking podcast, which is the program that Daryl and Virgil co host together, did an excellent episode. I think it's episode 136, maybe 126. 136. And together they looked at the topic of political Islam. Not Islam as a religion, but political Islam and the danger of it as a worldview. And so gentlemen, if one, if you could start off, share it together, talking about what brought this topic to the forefront for you to address it and then second, give us kind of a where are we now? It's been almost one year. How has there been any shift in this movement? I'm thinking about, well, really three things. It's been almost 11 years since the attacks on Paris by Islamic terrorists and we lost. There was 129, I think the number, final count of lives lost. It's amazing for me to think about just 11 years have passed and Islam as a movement was a terror in France. And now we're here in 2026 and we're seeing all kinds of riot and upheaval in France and it's being reported by. It depends on who you go to on the left, it's all about education. It's a protest against education. There's not enough teachers, not enough funding. If you go on to conservative or right wing news sources, it's about Palestine. What's interesting is, as I was looking at various news sources, is that the Palestine movement, what they don't say is that a lot of this is actually driven by a political Islamic ideology. So in light of that. And then third, we have in New York, Zoran, Mandi. [00:04:11] Speaker C: Mom. Donnie. [00:04:11] Speaker B: Say it again. [00:04:12] Speaker C: Mom. Dani. [00:04:14] Speaker B: And, and, and he is radical left in a lot of his ideology. And I've wondered, how does that work with political Islam? So, gentlemen, the floor is yours. Where are we now, almost a year later? [00:04:29] Speaker E: I'm going to defer to Virgil on that to kick us off. [00:04:32] Speaker D: Okay, I, I'd start here. For me, two thoughts primarily. One is my interest in, and exposure to Islam actually began in November of 1979. And so for those who are listening, who don't have, you know, that kind of, that kind of historic framework, that was the, that was the time in which, you know, there were, you know, a number of people that were in the, the embassy there in Iran, the American embassy there in Iran who were taken as hostages. And over the course of 444 days, they were images of their, their, you know, them being hostages were flooded in our screens, right. I was, at the time I was turning all of 10 years old. So it gives you kind of a date in the timeframe that, that, that I was exposed to, to Islam. And at the time I didn't even know what it meant. And you referenced the ideas, you tried to kind of dichotomize the idea behind a religious framework, right. And a political movement. And at the time, at 10 years old, I had no assessment of what that looked like and that what I was witnessing on my television screen was the combination of the two, those who had used religion for the purpose of political advancement in Iran. And so, you know, 10 years old. I'm watching this unfold. It would be 1981 when we would see the hostages released. The. Right, the, the, you know, we would witness Ronald Reagan come to the fore and, and turn that whole situation around again. Wouldn't notice it again until 1993. And, and in February, when I first heard, I was at the time serving in the Air National Guard and I first heard the name Osama bin Laden. And this was during the time of the first, you know, first New York attack of, of World Trade Center. And, and then of course, everyone knew what happened during, during 9 11. So all of this is a run up of seeing two things happening simultaneously. One, people claiming, and particularly after 9 11, George Bush proclaiming that Islam is a religion of peace, that Islam actually means peace. He would say that. Right, right. As the, you know, right. As the towers had fallen just days before there in the Islamic center there in New York, I was under the impression that, that Islam was a religion of peace. But, but evidence was to the contrary. Everything that we would see was to the contrary. And so what I had to learn was that there's a separation between the 1 billion Muslims who, who adhere to Islam. There's a difference between that, that 1 billion Muslims who adhere to that and the. Let's call it 10%. You know, you got 100 million Muslims who are radicalized who, who see Islam as a, as an overarching. They intend to destroy and overcome the West. That's what we're witnessing. And, and you know, it's only 10%. Well, that 100 million people who believe that they're engaged in a jihad against the west is something of note. It's something that we have got to consider. It's something we've got to think about. It's something we've got to examine. It's something we've got to pay, pay close watch and attention to. And I believe I'll, I'll land the plane here. I believe that there are things that we have done in the west to abdicate our responsibilities as Christians first and as citizens secondly, that has allowed Islam to take on some of the advancement that it has taken on. And we'll, I'm sure we'll jump into those conversations about Mandami and other issues as we proceed. [00:08:11] Speaker B: Yep. [00:08:12] Speaker E: Yeah. So, Joshua, my. Just to sort of dovetail on wherever Verger began and ended, I'm going to sort of follow his same pattern there. You know, my interest in this topic that he and I dealt with on our Just Thinking podcast on political Islam what caught my attention was, was what appeared to me to be the rapid and unfettered expansion of Islam in Western Europe. For me, it goes back more contemporarily to the election of Sadiq Khan as mayor of London. That caught my attention. And then not long after that, you saw other municipalities and cities within England and then largely the UK at large electing Muslims as mayors, as members of Parliament. And then to bring it back closer to the United States, you see the Prime Minister of Canada expressing Islamic favorable sentiments. Going down to Australia, the same thing in the U. I think the UN has a history of being very, very pro Islamic and, and maybe even beyond just Islam as an ideology, the UN has been somewhat favorable even to Islamic terrorist organizations. So. But again, what caught my attention as something that I felt very, very strongly that Virgin I should deal with on the Just Thinking podcast is how Islam was so rapidly expanding through mean, through political means. They were using and taking advantage of political mechanisms. More specifically, they were taking advantage of Western democratic political mechanisms, namely free elections, to promote put forward Islamic Muslim candidates and as, as if under the guise, right, of shared values. So, you know, I can reflect back on my experience with Barack Obama and observing him at the 2004 Democratic National Convention where he, he gave the keynote address [00:10:35] Speaker B: one [00:10:35] Speaker E: night and turn that arena into a black Baptist church. Now, here's a guy who I've been saying, and I've been following Obama now for 22 years. Here's, here's a man who, from my first exposure to him, I immediately recognized was a Muslim. And he, he, he, his handlers worked so hard to keep that reality about him away from the American public so as to make him palatable, make him presentable and acceptable to an American society and culture, which, especially as it relates to black voters, made him incredibly appealing to them. So when you look at from 2004 up to where we are now, here you have Barack Obama still involved in the global, global political arena, especially over in Western Europe. So when you see what's happening under the guise of tolerance, multiculturalism, diversity, where when a Muslim comes into power, they don't govern according to the laws and precepts of the land that they were elected to govern, they don't operate that way. They get in through, again, taking advantage of the democratic electoral processes. They get in, but then they operate and they govern as Muslims. So what shocked me was again, the extent, the degree to which this was happening. [00:12:12] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:12:13] Speaker E: Unfettered, unopposed. As if there were. As if this idea of tolerance and diversity just had it was totally boundaryless. Now you can inculcate into that timeline, right? You know, we had, we had George Floyd, we had Black Lives Matters, we had Trayvon Martin, we had all these sociocultural events that sort of fed into this sort of idea that the west was unjust, that the west was racist, that the west was closed minded. And that narrative unfortunately landed in the laps and minds of tens of millions of white liberals who bought into that under the guise of white guilt. And they want to compensate for what they felt was the truth of that narrative. Electing people, electing more black people, electing more Muslims and so on and so forth. So there's, there's this sort of perfect storm of ideological elements that just sort of have combined and coalesced to get us to where we are now. And Islam as an ideology takes advantage of this. You can go [00:13:36] Speaker B: back to [00:13:37] Speaker E: the entire Islamic history, all the way back to the seventh century. This is what they do. And what's blowing my mind right now, if you want to talk about where we are, is that Islam being an ideology historically of conquest for centuries, militaristic conquest is what I mean by that. Doesn't need that now. Islam doesn't need that now. All all Islam needs right now is uninformed, un uneducated minds, naive minds who under the guise of sort of kumbaya, let's all just join hands around the campfire and come together. That's all they need is a little bit of ignorance and you give them an inch and they'll take it. Actual miles. You can see that happening in France right now, especially in Paris. Milan right now, is under attack in Italy. So this, this whole narratology around this being a student led protest, we can talk about more about this later, is an absolute falsity. This is, this is an Islamic jihad that's happening right now under the pretense that of student protests. [00:14:40] Speaker B: Yeah, you had mentioned culturalism. And that reminded me back in 2015, Dr. Jones and I were both at a ligonier event and it was actually the event that hosted the book release of his one book, the Other Worldview. And Dr. Jones took the stage that year by starting off by saying that the millennial generation is the first generation of the modern era to receive a fully developed neo pagan cosmology masquerading as the correct progressive view of history and demanding it to be inscribed in public policy. And of course, as you gentlemen, I'm sure you're familiar and our listeners are too, is that at Truth Exchange, we've said that There was a shift of religions in the United States really in the 1960s, that as the hippies went east and the gurus came west and America changed its religion from Christian to Hinduism, which is that all religions are one and that all is one. That monism, or what we call one ism, it set the stage really for that multicultural perspective to think that everything has got a great peace to bring. And of course, what it never really allows for, though, is the Christian worldview, which it radically sets up as the antithesis. And so in that one all is one worldview, it then sets up that all humanity is one, which says that there is no creator creation distinction, that man is divine. I was thinking about in Islam that as a political ideology, because you guys said in that podcast, in the Just Thinking podcast that the worldview is law, [00:16:40] Speaker E: it's all law. [00:16:42] Speaker B: There is no love, there is no redemption. I thought that was such a powerful response to Muslims is how do you have redemption? You can't redeem yourself. Well, in one ism, redemption comes from looking within. And Sufism, that's what you do, you turn within. And so you get these out of body experiences. And it's quite. Actually, you know, the New age movement embraced a lot of Sufism by looking within. And so Islam never deals with truly the problem. It only just continues to build upon law upon law upon law. I can't help but to wonder if we were ever in a situation where politically Islam overtook the west, how would the left deal with, oh no, what have we done? We've made a bad deal with this ideology. And I've wondered, have you guys considered how would the left handle that? Would it be too late for them? Or do you think that maybe there's going to be an evolution in the political Islamic view for the mayor of New York who has views that would perhaps be juxtaposed to Islam. [00:18:08] Speaker E: Yeah, let me jump in here real quick. You mentioned something, Joshua, I think is very profound. You said Islam doesn't deal with the problem. Well, the answer to your latter question, there is no, there will never be a sort of epiphany or turnaround within Islam because in contrast to the gospel of Jesus Christ, Islam and Christianity are not dealing with the same problem. Islam is not a worldview of redemption. The gospel deals with redemption of a fixed, definable, objective problem. And that is the problem of sin. That problem is universal. [00:18:42] Speaker B: Right. [00:18:42] Speaker E: Islam doesn't deal with that problem. [00:18:44] Speaker B: Right. [00:18:45] Speaker E: The problem that Islam deals with is that, that, that not, not, not every person on the planet worships Allah, that's. They, they've got a, their problem is a, a, a Listen, we, we need to expand the extent to which every person on the planet worships Allah, whereas the gospel is dealing with a problem. We can tell you, okay, why does the, why does the gospel, the gospel exists to address the problem of sin. So when you talk about, hey, will, will someone like a Zoran Mandami, you know, ever, you know, turn or change. No, no Muslim will ever do that. This is why Muslims, wherever they are on the planet, wherever the foot of a Muslim tribes, that land belongs to Allah, that is a conquered. I don't care if it's five inches. They've conquered that five inches for Allah. So this is, this again brings us back, I think, to fundamentally what Islam is, especially when you look at it in contrast to biblical Christianity. Islam is not a worldview of redemption. They are not trying to redeem sinful human beings even unto their false God. They must kill, they must destroy, they must conquer in his name. Whereas the, the biblical gospel that God himself brought to this world through His Son Jesus Christ exclaims that the Gospel quote unquote conquers one heart at a time. This is a, this is, this is a, this is a, this is a, a, a a A just a difference between these two worldviews is immeasurable. So again is, is Islam is fixed in that it was fun. It is fundamentally a militaristic political ideology. It has nothing to do with changing people's hearts so that, so that our base nature changes. But this is what the gospel does. So we're not even dealing with the same problem here. So is my point. So, so to answer your question, absolutely not. We, we cannot be so naive as to expect, and we're seeing this in Paris and Milan right now. We are not. We, we should never expect a Muslim, apart from God and his mercy, exposing that individual to the truth of the gospel to ever, ever change. [00:21:23] Speaker C: Yeah, I'm thinking of a microcosm. I think of what you guys are describing and this is going to seem a little out of left field, but hear me with it. I participated in a protest in, in, I think it was 2021 up in Anaheim, California where a group of gender critical men and women were going to the American Academy of Pediatrics to talk to them about their affirmation only approach to gender care. And while we were there handing out pamphlets about, of scientific information about the difference between males and females, I was able to talk to the feminists who were at this protest with me from A creator perspective. So what were men and women created to be? They're created in the image of a holy God, male and female, to glorify him. And while we were there, a mosque came to participate, quote, unquote, on our side against gender ideology. But I was aware they were all men and they were coming and they were speaking to these feminists about the need to speak out about the truth of male and female not being able to change. But I was looking for the women. I was looking for the conversations where these women who were, by and large, white liberal feminists, and wondering, like, when are they going to realize that if they accept the help of these men who've come from this mosque to speak the one piece of truth that seemed to overlap, like, at which point will they realize that they're being expected to accept all of these other things that Islam has to say about the created human person? And right there with the male and female in God's image, you're going to have an immediate breakdown, especially these women who did not submit themselves to Allah and so are considered unclean. You see this happening in the. In the UN as well, where, you know, we have Muslim leaders put in charge of women's rights campaigns across, you know, international boundaries. But then you see what happens to women according to Muslim law. And. And so there are just these glaring questions, these glaring conflicts. But because of that one little piece where it seemed like there was overlap, I was aware of that at that protest, that they were kind of like, yes, welcome. And then you could kind of see out on the street sort of the. They weren't quite sure where to go because they knew that something that they were accepting with this help was off, but they couldn't quite put their fingers on it. It was a very strong, strange contrast of worldviews. And so that seems like a microcosm of this larger conflict that you guys are talking about, because they'll bring in the one piece that seems similar, and they want us to ignore all the drastic differences that you immediately have to take into hand, and we don't know what to do with that culturally or theologically. [00:24:18] Speaker B: Yeah, [00:24:20] Speaker D: yeah. I'll jump in here and just say this part of a. Part of what? The sense that you're feeling is the embrace of most Americans to the idea that multicultural ism is a good thing. [00:24:31] Speaker C: Right. [00:24:32] Speaker D: So there's a natural inclination to embrace people from different cultures. The idea behind multiculturalism that's flawed is the idea that all cultures are equal. Right. [00:24:42] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:24:43] Speaker D: We. We don't want to say that, that all cultures aren't equal. And the reality is they aren't. There are some cultures who have good behaviors that, that when they align with biblical truth, we should embrace. But when they, when they depart from that, from biblical truth and what's right and what's wrong, what's good, what's evil, we should reject. We should reject that culture. We should. We should expose the fact that it is not in line with. With a biblical culture or with a Christian culture that we. That we want to embrace here in the West. The other thing is the pluralism, and it's the same problem there. It's the idea that all religions are equal, that everyone who worships a God is worshiping some form or fashion of the God that we worship in the Bible. And nothing could be further from the truth. [00:25:26] Speaker B: Right. [00:25:27] Speaker D: So those, those women that you explained on the sidewalk have embraced those two things, which becomes uncomfortable for them when, when the Islamists, and that's what I call them, when the Islamist is. Is. Is trying to advance asymmetrical warfare on the West. And by asymmetrical, what I mean is simply that they're not. They're not. They're not carrying tanks, they don't have weapons. They. They know that they'd be outnumbered if they tried some kind of advancing of their, of their ideology or their cause. So what they do instead is they leverage the freedoms that we have in the West. They leverage the multiculturalism that I just mentioned that that's been embedded in. In our. In our society. They. They maximize the pluralistic behavior, the pluralistic ideas that those women have embraced only to bring in their. The one thing that they could find agreement on and to use that asymmetrically to. And to ultimately advance their cause. Those women, by embracing that idea that one right thing from the wrong source are going to find themselves in a very bad place. It's the same thing when you see these. You. You see these LGBTQ people who've got their signs and there's. And they're [00:26:44] Speaker C: for Palestine. [00:26:45] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah, queers for Palestine. Or, you know, I mean, they, they don't recognize the problem that, that they're going to face when that ideology that they're trying to advocate for actually advances to the, to the height that they, that they think is. Is important. [00:27:01] Speaker C: Yeah. There's that total lack of the idea of assimilation where in order to have a functional democracy the way that it was envisioned for the United States and end our founding documents, there is an assimilation. There's a submission to the ideas of the Founding Fathers. And so you can't change your skin color. You may come from a different culture, but you embrace those ideas of the founding, which are inherently based on Christian ideas, and there's a total refusal of that assimilation. They will maintain in full their culture, their ideology, and you will find that all of the pressure is on you to assimilate to their ideas, to submit yourselves to their ideas. And that's the conflict that I don't think any of us really see coming. [00:27:49] Speaker D: No, that, and when we've abandoned those ideals, right, as Americans, we've abandoned the Christian culture that we've inherited from our forefathers. We've been told by leftists and progressivists that it is something that we should be ashamed of because it was what gave us slave, slave ownership. Right. It is what gave us all of the horrific historical past that we should all be embarrassed about or by that, that, you know, those, those horrors stemmed from the Christian worldview and they absolutely did not. In fact, the Christian worldview is what overthrew those horrors. Right. It [00:28:24] Speaker C: was [00:28:24] Speaker D: Christianity that, that had abolitionists who said, wait a minute, these are men created in the image of God and so we have to abolish slavery. We don't tell that story enough. And we're told by leftists and by progressivists that A, those stories don't exist and B, we should be ashamed about our historic past. And so as Christians, we abandon those things. And as we abandon those things, Islam comes right in and picks up where we left off and begins inculcating the next generation of their young people with regard to their ideas and what they believe and their ideology. So that when you have the 18 year old who's grown up in a Muslim family, matriculates through, through school, he knows by the time he's 18, exactly what he believes. He knows why he believes it. Whereas the 18 year old who, you know, went through elementary school, middle school, high school, who meets that same Muslim, that American young person is embarrassed about his history. [00:29:16] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:29:17] Speaker D: He's trying to hide from the, the, you know, the, the historic narrative of Christianity and its value and, and his upbringing. He has no idea what he believes and he's ready to embrace whatever he's being told. [00:29:29] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:29:29] Speaker C: Excellent. [00:29:29] Speaker E: Yeah. I think Virgil, I think Virgil just answered the question brilliantly. Where are we? Where are we? Now, not only did he answer that question, he also answered the question, how do we get here? Because I think as I'm listening to Virgil, I'm thinking, okay, if I were to answer that question, what, where Are we now? And how do we get here? Well, we got here partly for the reason of biblical ignorance. You know, we, we, our churches, the pulpits of our churches are weak. They don't prepare our people theologically to have a biblical worldview. So when they don't do that, you cannot go out into this world where, you know, Jesus said in Matthew 10, where he's sending us out as sheep among world, among wolves. Who, who. How can we be prepared to do that with when within the walls of our churches, we're not being given the ammunition we need to have a biblical worldview and be able to argue intelligently against these ideas. So I think a fundamental reason we're here right now, even speaking with the two of you on this podcast, is, is largely due to professing Christians not being equipped with the biblical, biblical acumen to be able to go out and argue intelligently, intelligently against why Islam is false. Why. Why is Christianity true? I was just looking here. In Ephesians 4:21, can the average Christian go out and defend the biblical gospel? The words of Paul in Ephesians 4:21, where Paul says truth is in Jesus, [00:31:02] Speaker B: can [00:31:02] Speaker E: the average Christian go out and defend that claim against Islam or against Hinduism or against any other heresy or false religion that's out there? I, I seriously doubt it. This is one of the reasons I'll take an opportunity here to, to plug my admiration for Dr. Peter Jones and, and, and truth Exchange, the work that you, Josh and Mary, you do. A truth exchange with Dr. Jones. Because Dr. Jones, through truth Exchange, my first exposure, when I listened to him, a serious teaching series he did for ligonier Ministry on 102. This man made me think. This man made me think. He made me. You cannot listen to Dr. Jones without engaging all of your brain cells because it's going to take all of them to digest the content that he's delivering. I have all his books, I've read all of his teaching, watched all his teaching series with Ligonier, and he makes you think. But the average Christian is not a thinker. This is why what Virgil was talking you earlier, Mary, how Muslim men engage women because they know that they can engage them at the level of their feelings and not their mind. You see, in the average. The average Christian is not equipped at the level of the mind to go out into the world and engage and defend the biblical gospel against a false religion like Islam. You know, I think back as I was listening to you, Virgil, I was recalling a speech I read by Frederick Douglass. Frederick Douglass gave a speech in the early 1850s. He titled it the Case of the Negro Ethnologically Considered. And in that speech, he Leveraged Acts 17:26. When you talk about a creature creator distinction, Douglas was not known as a theologian. But when you read a lot of the black abolitionists, you'll find that every single aspect of their apologetic for freedom was rooted in the Bible. And in that speech by Frederick Douglass, he leveraged Acts 17:26 to argue the equality of every human being as an image bearer of God. And Acts 17:26, the first part reason he made that is God made from one man, every nation of mankind to inhabit on the face of the earth. So Douglas used that, the first part of that verse, to argue to make his abolitionist case. [00:33:26] Speaker B: It [00:33:26] Speaker E: was. It was, we are all image bearers of God. We're all image bearers of God. But what. What multicultural. What multiculturalism does is it brings us down from a vertical construct of us bearing the image of God was called the imago DEI to a horizontal imago homo. So now we're all in the image of one another. [00:33:50] Speaker B: Yeah, [00:33:51] Speaker E: yeah. With the image of one another. So this is where you get multiculturalism. This is where you get this fatherhood of the brotherhood of man, fatherhood of God, this whole plural pluralism, universalism, where all religions are the same. And France is finding out that that's not true. Italy's finding out that that's not true. At least finding out is that it takes Italy and France, Western Europe as a whole. They're finding out that it takes more than a coexist bumper sticker for us to get along with each other. [00:34:18] Speaker C: Well, going back to the bumper stickers, I talked about this at length in my introduction to my last lecture for the Truth Exchange think tank that we did in South Carolina this year. And I'm embarrassed every time I talk about it. But, gentlemen, when I got hired for truth exchange in 2008, I was driving around with an Obama sticker on my car. I was a Christian. I had been raised in the church, in the Reformed church. And I fell wholesale because I was going off of emotion for the idea of hope and change. And I did not stop to think, wait, what am I asking myself to put my hope in? What am I asking my nation to put my hope in? And what is it that we're seeking to change? And why are we changing it? Are we taking the mistakes that we made as a young nation and holding it up to holy scripture and recognizing where we have fallen short from the Christian ideal? Of loving every man as an image bearer, no matter the color of their skin. And. And am I changing that to conform better to Scripture, or are we just changing things wholesale across the board and not paying any attention to what that change is and just putting hope in it? Like, I just really did not have any categories for asking myself those questions. And it was, I'd say, three months, actually, it would have been faster because I got hired in September of 2008 and I had that bumper sticker on my car. And it was within a month that I quietly took that bumper sticker off because I thought, oh, I've been had. I was not categorically, theologically thinking through the things that had been presented to me on a popular level. And so, yes, it was working under Dr. Jones and Mrs. Jones at the time, sitting down and being taught to think through that creator creature distinction and everything that came after that. Everything that gets described in Romans. You know, you start in Romans 1:16, you go through the end of the chapter and to see where when I got those categories of creator, creature wrong and worshiped the wrong things, that all of my other reasoning fell apart. So it was a very quick correction. It's been going on ever since then. It's still having to do that. But I love that you guys brought up Obama as one of those who had kind of pulled that wool over the cultural eyes, had taken advantage of that, that biblical lack and really deceived us. And I was responsible for that. I was responsible for that self deception because I had not thought biblically about the stances that I was taking and the resulting politics. So it's painful to remember, but I'm thankful to have been here, so thankful to have gone through it under Truth Exchange. [00:37:02] Speaker B: You know, one of the things we have said at Truth Exchange often is for parents to catechize your children. Otherwise the devil will. And I appreciate you gentlemen putting to the forefront for our listeners the importance of really the call for all men and women of the faith to be able to give a defense for their faith. And so in light of this, where is this movement going? What is your finger on the pulse of? Are we so far behind the eight ball that we're going to see a radical decline of the West? Do you sense perhaps maybe longing for revival of a movement of God? Where are things at? You can even put it anecdotally with. Within the context of Redeemer? What are the pastors at Redeemer doing to prepare young men? As an elder at my church, I know that we are Actively trying to disciple and catechize our young men, our children, and we're seeing good fruit of that. But I do have a concern with the rise of so much information out there that young people. I was actually talking to one young person who I'm discipling, and he was telling me, you know, your generation grew up on Letterman, grew up on Jay Leno. That was your entertainment. And Saturday Night Live, our entertainment. What we regularly listen to all day long is podcasts. And I thought, I have a hard time just to listen to one podcast a week, let alone daily consuming. But it dawned on me how much content that these young people are taking in, and it opened my eyes to why I was seeing such a dissatisfaction on the Lord's Day. For the ordinary means of grace, for the preached word, right? The confession of sins, being called to worship and proclaiming our faith, hearing and taking at the supper and then hearing God's final blessing of the benediction at the end. And there was just. There's no appetite for it anymore. However, we have seen an uptick of young people coming to church. But what do you see at Redeemer? How are you guys training young people to think about these things? And are there errors that are arising in the midst to counter this rise of political Islam? [00:39:57] Speaker D: Yeah, that's a wide range. I'll step in. There's so much that you shared, Mary. I was thinking about your admission about voting for Obama. I don't think you were the only Christian that was duped. That felt like, and you want to be a part of something new and different and wow, here's, here's a black man. And we have the opportunity, historically speaking, to maybe right some, some, some wrongs. You know, there's all, all of that that was combined probably in that process, but it didn't take six months of, of the Obama administration when we had the beer summit, right, where, where, where we, we began to get hints of the fact that all of the sudden race was going to be. Become an issue as, you know, as it relates to how people are treated, whether, whether law enforcement has the right to ask anyone questions, regardless of the color of their skin, whether we were going to use equal weights and measures to, to that. So it didn't, it didn't take long for, for you to recognize that, for you to see that. And then time, Time played itself out. But as, as it pertains to what we're doing and where we're going, I think there's a, there's an important thing that we've Got to think through one is the importance of educating. First of all, parents and parents need to understand what's going on in, in the world in which they live. From parents to pulpits, from pulpits to the public square. That's kind of, that's kind of the trajectory that we've got to think about. These, these, these things. How, how are parents being educated and equipped? Are those parents getting their, getting a theological framework from the pulpit? Is that being reinforced there? Because as, as you mentioned, the catechizing of young people is not waiting for Sunday morning service for on the Lord's Day, [00:41:33] Speaker C: right? [00:41:34] Speaker D: It's not waiting. They, they are on tick tock. They are on, you name it, they're. They're leveraging whatever social media platform is available to them. Which is one of the reasons why as, as I take on the, the area of our, of our social media advancement here, I'm really encouraged because I think there is a wonderful opportunity to take what men of God have labored in the pulpit over all week and to reproduce that in a, in a wide range of formats so that the public can consume it, right? So that those who are connected to our local church can first experience it, consume it, re. Listen to it. Right? Right. Memorize it category, use it as a, as a catechizing opportunity for their lives as they compare that to the word of God. And so there's, there's that facet of it. But again, it starts with parents, it goes to pulpits, and ultimately out to the public square, which means we've got to, we can't, we can no longer live in a, in an environment where, where it's me, my four and no more, right? Where I'm simply holding some idea about what it means to be a Christian and I say nothing in the public square. What we're witnessing on the other side are Muslims who have no problem going out in the middle of Times Square on prayer rugs and bowing down to their God and prayer and daring someone to remove them from that space. And if they do, the whole point of it is to show that they are a conquering force in that arena, that they, that they have every intention of taking ground and standing and maintaining ground. We, you know what, what we do looks different, but it's, it's no less vocal, it's no less real, it's no less honest. Darrell and I do it on our, on our podcast with the platforms that God's given us. I do that in writing in a wide range of formats. But we've got to continue that process, look for ways in which to leverage things like podcasts. Right. Things. Things like, you know, different social media resources that we can use to get the message out. One thing I would encourage you. There's a book that's out that's fantastic, by the way. It's by AS Ibrahim I B R A H I M and he's a theologian scholar there at, at Southern Seminary. He's written a book called Sharia versus the US Constitution. Why Me? Why We Must. Why Americans Must Choose Freedom. Sharia versus the US Constitution. In the book, he does a fantastic job of unpacking the import of Sharia in and through Islamists here in the United States and how they intend to advance the cause and how it is in contradiction to the U.S. constitution. Every single Christian should understand this, know this, and be walking this out. It's a great book. I encourage. It's a small book just, just came out recently. Guys like that, you ask, what, what's Redeemer doing? We run a, a format called Christ in Culture. And, and I've been given oversight for that, where we bring in, you know, speakers, thought leaders, theologians and the like to speak specifically on these issues. Because as pastors who are expositors, we are walking through books of the Bible, right? We're in, we're, you know, we're in the. Here when John's not in, we do, we do Hebrews and we're in the book of Luke as well. So all of that to say we're, look, we're walking through books of the Bible. And that takes a long period of time. So four times a year, we bring in an expert from, you know, from a different space, a different place and educate our folks. We just did that. A week ago. Tim Tebow was here and he was talking about the issue of, of, of human trafficking. And in our area in, in Arizona, it is, it is commonplace, unfortunately. So he made us aware of what's happening here. And then, you know, over the course of the next year, I plan on having people come in to talk about the issue of Islam and Sharia. We'll talk about issues related to pro life and the public square. How do we, how do we engage those, those kinds of things? And we'll have a wide range of ideas and thoughts, but we're trying to educate, train and equip our people for the work of ministry, and that's what we're doing here. [00:45:45] Speaker B: Praise the Lord. [00:45:46] Speaker E: Yeah, Joshua, if I may, I just want to add a few words with respect to, you know, the, the young generation and this current generation, how do we sort of tap in to the. The means and methods through which they're accessing content and information today? As I was listening to you earlier, Josh, I was thinking, you know, I don't know if you guys are aware, but I'm a voracious reader of the Puritans. I mean, I love the. I love. I love the Puritans. I study them rigorously. And one area of focus of the Puritans was the affections. You know, probably the most famous resource among the Puritans was probably Jonathan Edwards on the religious affections. And I think what we have to do as a church. I'm using that word loosely, I'm inculcating within that term platforms like truth Exchange platforms, like just thinking platforms that resemble the types of platforms that these young people are getting, are being drawn to and have an appetite for. [00:46:52] Speaker B: I [00:46:52] Speaker E: think one of the primary challenges that we have in leveraging our platforms is to encourage these young people to reorient their affections. And what I mean by that, we have to ask them, when you, when you're, when you have an appetite for the content that, that you're accessing, what is it that your heart is longing for by accessing that information? What is it that you really, really are desiring from within as to why you're being drawn to that content? I say that in the context of Colossians, chapter 3, verse 2, where Paul says, he exhorts us to set our minds on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. These young people almost to a person, are being drawn to philosophers, sociologists, anthropologists, even some syncretistic theologians who get a little bit of the Bible but a little bit of the world. They're drawn to those people because primarily they're searching for something here. [00:48:03] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:48:03] Speaker E: Searching for something temporal. They have. Their affections are tied to this world, but we're not doing a good enough job to redirect and reorient their hearts to something better, something greater, you know, something eternal, ultimately is where we need to be leading them to. So when we look at. And this is one problem that I have with this whole. I don't even know how to describe it, but this whole sort of tsunami that is Christian nationalism, where you've got. You've got myriad voices speaking into that ideology or that worldview. [00:48:44] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:48:45] Speaker E: As if it's the. As if this is just another ism that's going to serve as soteriologically. Right. Salvifically to bring us to where we need to be. [00:48:56] Speaker B: Do you think that it's. Sorry, Darrell. Do you think that it's a lack of patience and self governance? Because you talk about affections and one of the things that the Puritans embodied is an understanding of trials, [00:49:16] Speaker E: right, [00:49:16] Speaker B: and suffering. And young men, women are seeing the problems coming in and they're thinking we need to fix this, like right now. And some of these talking heads that are promoting some of this, the Christian nationalism, they're offering quick get, not get rich quick, but fix it quick type solutions, you know, activism right now. You know, we can change this. We could, you know, get somebody in power, deny all the mosques, get some in power, shut this down, get some in power, it'll be okay. You know, elect this next Christian and smooth sailing. [00:49:59] Speaker C: It's a utopian vision. [00:50:00] Speaker B: It is. It's very utopian. [00:50:03] Speaker E: Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. I would check all those boxes, Joshua. Actually, you know, I was making a note here. When you talk about the Puritans and suffering and trials, you know, you get someone like a, a Thomas Brooks with his book the Crook in the Lot or you get a Richard Sibs, his book the Bruised Reed. You know, these, these are men who, who, who wrote these treaties not just as a strictly theological references, but a lot of them suffered through this themselves. When you look at the Puritans, they did not live very long lives. [00:50:35] Speaker B: Right. [00:50:36] Speaker E: You know, Virgil mentioned that one of the things we have here at Redeemer is what we call our Bible Out Hour, which is a Sunday school on Saturdays. And I'm one of the rotation of four pastors who teaches in Bible Hour. And I'm working on my next teaching which I'll be up on October 31st. I'm teaching out of Galatians 5:13 where Paul says that we are to serve one another through love. And one of the Puritans that I'll be quoting in that teaching is a Puritan by the name of Hugh Banning. He's one of the lesser known Puritans. But Hugh Banning lived to be only 26 years old. [00:51:09] Speaker B: Yeah, [00:51:10] Speaker E: but he had the reputation, if you go out to the Banner of Truth website, for example, and you read you Banning's bio. Hugh Bannings bio said he was so thoroughly a, a gifted communicator of the gospel that there was a saying back in his day that once Hugh Banning spoke, there was nothing left to be said. He lived to be only 26 years old. So. But, but here's a man who, who suffered. But I think you're Right, Joshua. Not. We want quick, comfortable comfortability. This is why. And to bring this back to more of a socio cultural context, this is why these Western nations are being flooded with. They're not immigrants. They're, they're invaders. These people are. They come here to steal [00:52:00] Speaker B: the [00:52:00] Speaker E: American way of life because they want to be comfortable for free. They want to be comfortable for free. They don't want against, against the all that America has stood for for 250 years. They don't want to assimilate to that construct of you get what you earn, get what you work for. It's like Booker T. Washington said. Booker T. Washington said, you may not get everything you work for, but you must work for everything you get. [00:52:31] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:52:32] Speaker E: And they're coming here right now because they want free. They want comfortability at no cost. That's what's happening in the west right now. And this is why you see the looting that's happening in Paris, you're seeing the looting that's happening in Milan right now. And if, if, if, if, if, if Christians don't develop a political worldview. And when I say that in the context of Romans 13:4, which says that, that government is established by God as a minister for our good. [00:53:01] Speaker B: Right, [00:53:02] Speaker E: you must develop a political worldview as you go to the voting booth. [00:53:06] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:53:06] Speaker E: You carry with you. It's like John Calvin said that the, in the vernacular of his day, that the magistrates should see themselves as God's lieutenants [00:53:18] Speaker B: is [00:53:18] Speaker E: what he said. We should be doing everything we can to vet these candidates so that we support in the voting booth people who will go into office as recognizing that they are God's lieutenants. [00:53:30] Speaker B: Right. [00:53:30] Speaker E: This is what we need to be doing. And until we, until we get that to your earlier question, Joshua, I think we're going to continue to see a deterioration of the west because Christians have been lazy, they've been apathetic, and they've been ignorant as to a, as to how, as to how to apply their biblical theology in the political arena. We're going to suffer for that. We're already suffering for that. [00:54:00] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:54:03] Speaker C: You know, this makes me think back to the Just Thinking episode and I always feel bad for our speakers when they come on our podcast because we go back and listen to the things you guys have said and I don't know if you went and reviewed yourself, Virgil. You were talking in the political Islam episode and we should, we should put the link to that episode in our show notes so that our listeners can go back and listen to the entire thing. But it was around the hour 54 mark where you started to point out, Virgil, that Islam does not change hearts and minds. So there's no regeneration, there's no pro. So there's salt, there's no salvation, and then there's no process of sanctification. It's all submission and subjugation. And that has to be done by force of law. That. That is where immediately I was like, that's a one, a system. Because you're not looking out to a God who's creator and Redeemer because He is triune to come in and by the power of His Holy Spirit, change our hearts, mature our minds, help us, through the application of living word, to reconsider our own ideas and to understand and repent of the ways that we have fallen short of our understanding of the world according to what Christ has laid out for us. And so it. It must be a conquering that happens. And I think, Joshua, what you're describing and what we're seeing within this Christian nationalism movement is it's conqueror versus conqueror. Like they're gonna bash at each other because they're operating only on that horizontal, with no patience to wait for a God who is faithful and who indwells us by the power of His Holy Spirit, who makes us His. His dwelling place, we are his temple. And then through the course of life and what he brings in, his sovereignty and the application of the Word changes us and therefore changes culture, changes families, matures children as they grow up in the faith and they become mothers and fathers. There's no patience for that. And that's why I think that Christian nationalism movement, we're going to bring in a Christian prince. He's going to rule over everyone. He's going to change the laws. It's the same kind of one, a system, it has a Christian overlay, but that's just a mask, because it's not looking to the power of the Holy Spirit, Spirit and the living and active Word to work that change in his sovereign timing. We want it now. And that's what makes it a utopian vision. And I'm just so thankful for the ability. You were referencing, Darrell earlier on, like, how transformative this work of Dr. Peter Jones is. And I know that it's been that way for me. And even now, I sit and I listen to you guys talk, and I think of all of the ways that I fall short. And my instinct is I'm just going to do it better, right? So by my own power, I'm going to go and I'm going to do it better. But we have that step, that glorious step of being able to go back to the Lord and saying, lord, I've failed at this again. I've fallen short in the way that I'm raising my children in my day to day life. I am so sorry. Please forgive me and change me by the power of your spirit. So there's that vertical and trusting that he will be faithful and that he will do it, and that, that's our hope. It's just such a contrast. And I loved how you drew that out, Virgil. That was such a powerful section of the podcast, really understanding the hopelessness of Islam because they do not have a Redeemer King who comes and sacrifices himself and then gives the gift of the Spirit to change hearts and minds. [00:57:52] Speaker D: That's, that's, that's spot on. I, as you were, as you were unpacking what I'd said during the, during the conversation, I immediately made the connection that you did mentally. I thought that's exactly what, what, you know, not all, not all, not all. But a large majority of those who hold to the idea of Christian nationalism are trying to do. They're trying to enforce by law what, what they don't see in the transformation of the human heart. Right. Yeah. What. Basically what they've done is they've, they've, they've utilized the means of TikTok and the platforms with the, with the goal of shrinking the time frame that it actually requires to, to properly educate, equip. Right. Transform, you know, sanctify a culture. We, we look at the Shema as if, as if perhaps that's a, that, that's a, that's something that was cool for, for Moses to insert into the book of Deuteronomy. Right. Rather than recognizing that, yes, we're to, we're to, to, to, to. To hear Israel. It says the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Right. The, the idea behind that is not just. Oh, that's a, that's a cool phrase to say. The idea behind that is if we, if we adhere, know and understand who our God is and we follow his commands and decrees, and then we teach our children's children to do the same, we will then we will therefore have the kind of, of community, the kind of society, the kind of nation that God desires for us to have. Here's the reality. That takes more than four years. [00:59:19] Speaker B: Yeah, [00:59:19] Speaker C: yeah, [00:59:20] Speaker D: right. That, that takes a whole lot more than the next presidential election. [00:59:23] Speaker B: It [00:59:23] Speaker D: takes a lot more than the midterms. But what many of these podcasters and prognosticators are doing is. Is they're bastardizing what God intended, believing that they're more powerful to be able to shrink the time frame by getting on a podcast and making proclamations and declarations that they could see this thing transform overnight if everyone would just give them their attention. Right. If we just give these leaders our time, our attention and our money and our resources, they're going to be the ones that lead us to the promised land. And the reality is what's happening is what we see, what we've seen in the Book of Judges. Everyone has. Has decided that they're going to go their own way and do things the way in which they see fit, rather than following what the Lord. The Lord our God has. Has declared and decreed. And so we. We've. We've got to get back to that. It's a. It's a. It's a slower process. And in a. In a Me too generation, in a. In a generation of young people who. Who get. Who have the attention span of a TikTok video, it's going to take a little bit longer of a time to process the see that. We're looking at a 40, 50 year in my generation. We may not. We may not see it, but we sow the seeds now so that our children's children can reap the benefits. And that's just a hard message to sell. [01:00:37] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:00:37] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:00:37] Speaker B: Some trust in horses, some in chariots. We will trust in the name of the Lord. [01:00:41] Speaker C: You know, I'm. I'm thinking of my sweet husband and Daryl and Virgil, Lord willing, you'll get to meet him soon, hopefully within months, as we are able to interact together as ministries. And he's running to retain his seat on the local school board. So he sits on the high school board here in Escondido, and he's up for reelection this cycle. And I just think about him. He's now a board member, also a board member for Truth Exchange, which I'm really excited about. But I think about him faithfully, you know, going to those meetings. And he has a vision in his mind of this community of children that's being educated in all kinds of ungodly philosophies. And one of the things that he was dealing with in his first term was the fact that California has instated an ethnic studies requirement for all of our kids as they graduate. So by the time the class of 2030, I believe it is, graduates, all of these colleges, kids will have to go through a full curriculum of ethnic studies, as Bob was Reading through. The source documents that were being used for this curriculum that California had put out in the very introduction of Rethinking Ethnic Studies that they were using as their formula for how to do this ethnic training, the authors took it upon themselves to apologize for the fact that. That they were writing in English, because English is the language of [01:02:19] Speaker E: the [01:02:19] Speaker C: colonizers and the oppressors. And then within that authorship, there were three authors who were also Spanish speakers, but they were not off the hook because they were, you know, non white. They actually were doubly on the hook because the only other language that they could possibly write in was Spanish, which is also a language of the colonizers and the oppressors. You know. And so it was that kind of foundation that this curriculum was based on that our entire community of kids here in Escondido, within the public school system were going to be trained in. And so one of the things that Bob was able to do was to talk to the board about the seriousness of what was going to be taught to these young people. And they drew some of that back. And they're rethinking how they're going to. They're truly rethinking how they're going to do ethnic studies. So it's a legal requirement. But I'm just thinking of the long trajectory of what you guys are talking about. You know, Bob's in his 60s, and he's thinking of these little kids. He's. He will have knocked on 2,000 doors in our community over the course of this election cycle, speaking to the families who are sending their kids to these schools. And he's loving them. He prays for them, like the weight of their future and their ability to understand and think through the world, their need for truth, their ability to think, not just to respond as those who are oppressors are oppressed. To really find truth like that weighs on him. And he's used so much of his energy and his. His heart and his time to try to affect that for the greater good of the community. Because he is a Christian man, and he believes in that heritage. He believes in passing on that heritage of trust and truth and resting on firm foundations. And in whatever way he can, he wants forward the good, the true and the beautiful for these children. And I long to see Christian men and women thinking according to that long game, that heritage of generations that you guys are describing. And I don't mean to idolize him, but I do see in what he's doing the true love of Christian man, the true love of father's heart. He may not know the names of every single one of these kids, but he longs for them to have truth. And I think that's such a worthy enterprise. And you're right, it's longer than a podcast. It's longer than a sound bite. And Christians have got to believe in that vision that God has set forth for us in a profound and active way. [01:04:57] Speaker B: And [01:04:57] Speaker C: I just so appreciate that you guys are working, working so hard in Chandler and Gilbert to affect your communities in that way, too. Just with biblical truth, biblical perspective. [01:05:09] Speaker E: You know, Mayor, I have to say that, first of all, incredible amount of respect to your husband for what he's doing. [01:05:17] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:05:17] Speaker E: That takes an amazing amount of courage, especially in. Anywhere in California to do that. Yeah. Often said that. I've often said that school board is the most critical political office in the United States, even beyond the presidency, because it's there. It's there that the, that the world is trying to. The world knows. And when I say the world, I mean these worldly ideologies and, and, and paradigms. They, they know that you must get the mind of the child. You must get the mind of the child. You get the mind of the child, and then you've got the, You've got the culture that you want because you get them early. You. You train them along the continuum of their developmental years. You can get them out the door thinking the way you want them to think. Virginia addressed this in our adjusting episode on public education. You know, when you, when you look into John Dewey. [01:06:14] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:06:15] Speaker E: Dewey had a worldview for the, for the public school system. He wanted to emulate the Russian model, and he brought that over here. This is all about getting them out the door. Ideological robots. [01:06:26] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:06:27] Speaker E: Now, having said that, I do find it ironic that the, that the matter of, of what your husband is pushing against there is referred to as ethnic studies and not racial studies. I just found that interesting because the reason I found that interesting is because what do you hear, you know, what's being pumped into your ears, you know, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, race, racial, race, racial, race, racial. But all of a sudden they want to. They want to title this curriculum Ethnic Studies. And, you know, if you've listened to a version of me for any length of time, you know, that that's one sort of vernacular pet peeve that we have, that there is no such thing as biological human race. There's ethnicity. But all of a sudden you want to call the curriculum ethnic studies. When, when outside of that, everything's Race, race, race, racial, racial, racial. So first of all, I found that very, very, very ironic. But in addition to that, Mary, as I'm listening to you, I made a note here to say that, well, just like Islam wokeness is all law, it's all so, so when, when in your example of them having to make all these apologies because even with their intrinsic to their own worldview, they, they intrinsically violate their own law. [01:07:45] Speaker B: Right. [01:07:45] Speaker E: We apologize for using English. Well, we can't use Spanish either. We can't use, you know, this language either because it's a violation against, you know, all these guys are colonizers. So when you, it's, it's a, I don't forget what the Latin term is. It's an absurdo reductio absurdum. You know, at some point you're going to get down to where you're not going to have any language that you can use. [01:08:07] Speaker C: Right. [01:08:07] Speaker E: It's kind of like these, these, these black people that have been, Help me to remember the gentleman's name. He's, he does this PBS thing where they go back and trace their roots. [01:08:19] Speaker D: Oh yeah, you talk about, gosh, is it Harvey? What's the guy's name? [01:08:25] Speaker E: Chime in when the name comes back to you. But you've got people like Alice Walker, Oprah Winfrey, all these, I'm sorry, Mary [01:08:34] Speaker C: Sunny Hostin. [01:08:35] Speaker E: Yeah. Sonny. Sunny Host. Yeah, she. All these people are shocked to find out that they have slaveholders in their, in their ancestry. [01:08:42] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:08:42] Speaker E: I'm like, well, listen, if you, if you look at Acts 17:26, [01:08:46] Speaker D: Henry Lewis Gates. [01:08:47] Speaker E: Henry Lewis Gates. Right. Thanks. V. Henry Lewis Gates. You look, you look at Acts 17:26 that says we're all descended from Adam. [01:08:55] Speaker C: If [01:08:55] Speaker E: you go back far enough, you're going to find us, even if you're black. I'm sorry, but you're going to find some slaveholders in your ancestry. And it just blew my mind that these people were shocked, but they were surprised because they had absorbed. It's kind of like your story, Mary, of when, you know, you and Obama supporter. They have absorbed a narrative without doing their homework. [01:09:16] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:09:17] Speaker E: They learned this in school and sadly to say, they learned this in church. So you got people like Sunny Holston where her chronology or her construct of slavery is only within a certain time period, probably only begins back in the 1800s. And only in America, [01:09:32] Speaker C: where, [01:09:33] Speaker E: you know, the work that virgin I have done, we can demonstrately prove to you that if you list the top 10 nations across the trend, the 500 years of the transatlantic slave trade. The 450 something years of the transatlantic slave trade. You list the top 10 nations that off boarded the most African slaves and North America would be number eight. Across 450 something years, the United States offboarded fewer than a million slaves from Africa. You know who's number one? You probably drank coffee from that nation this morning is Brazil. [01:10:05] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:10:06] Speaker E: Nobody's asking reparations from Brazil, [01:10:08] Speaker C: right? [01:10:09] Speaker E: No, nobody. But. But this is all based on a narrative that they've been fed through institutions such as public schools, urban city churches that, that, that tell you a story. A narrative that's not based on facts. Because you don't. If you do the homework and you come up with facts, and that just blows up their entire mission to begin with. Because I remember what Virgil I said in our podcast episode on Critical race Theory, people ask me all the time, well, what's, what's the end goal of, of wokeness? What's the end goal of Critical Race Theory? I said, well, the end goal is to get paid and the end goal is to find another reason to get paid. So you never. This is why I came up with the phrase, you cannot satiate the woke. You never satiate them. So people bought into a guy like Obama because they saw him as their savior. Again, here again. Their kingdom is of this world. [01:11:02] Speaker B: Yeah, [01:11:02] Speaker E: their kingdom is of this world. You can identify people like that because their kingdom is of this world. [01:11:08] Speaker C: So [01:11:08] Speaker E: you can see Joshua, back to your reference to the text that says, you know, some people, you don't. Some people trust in horses and the princess. No, for the believer, we don't do that. We put no trust in no man. You know, but people bought into Obama. They're buying into El Sayed in Michigan. They bought into Mondami in New York. [01:11:27] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:11:27] Speaker E: Because they see these people as saviors. [01:11:30] Speaker C: Yeah, [01:11:31] Speaker E: your cultural saviors that are going to bring about their utopian visage of their existence. But they forget. And this is where we're Christians, we have to bring them back down to earth and remind them, no, eternity is waiting for you on the other side. [01:11:46] Speaker C: Yes. What [01:11:47] Speaker E: are you gonna do about that? [01:11:48] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. And the saviors of the whole woke movement, I mean, it's not long before they get crucified because they become, they've got their own issues. And really the message of the whole woke movement is it's a type of moralism. And there is zero redemption, there's zero grace, unlike the Christian message in the Christian faith, which is undeserved grace. Who the only true Moral person, human being was the God man. [01:12:17] Speaker C: Right. [01:12:18] Speaker B: And he. He took on that. That penalty for our failure. [01:12:22] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:12:22] Speaker B: And died the death that we deserve. And [01:12:25] Speaker E: Joshua, as I listen to you, I just can't help you think about it for a second. You look at what's happening in France right now. My wife and I were talking about this just yesterday. All we're seeing happening in France right now is a recapitulation of the French Revolution in 1848. That's really. [01:12:41] Speaker B: So when you [01:12:41] Speaker E: look across the annals of history, though, Joshua. Right. Isn't it interesting that there's. There always has to be another revolution because your God never fixed it. Your job was incapable of finishing the job. So there always has to be another revolution. Every single. Every so many. There. There's always another revolution. Is, like I said with respect to Islam, the. The socialism doesn't address the problem. The problem is sin. The problem is not your bank account. The problem is your heart. That's what there always has to be another revolution because these revolutions don't address the fundamental problem of humanity, which is sin. [01:13:16] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:13:16] Speaker E: There always has to be another protest. This is what we're seeing in Western Europe right now. [01:13:21] Speaker C: You never have a savior who says it is finished. [01:13:23] Speaker B: That's right. And. And as Dr. Jones says in the Five Points of. Of Paganism, that, that the problem in oneism is that it's us. So we look. So our solution is look within. And in twoism, the problem is us, our sin. But we look to him and, you know, he. That's how he concluded that the Five Points. [01:13:44] Speaker E: Yeah. [01:13:44] Speaker B: And [01:13:45] Speaker E: isn't. Isn't it interesting, though? In one ism, I'm both the problem and solution. [01:13:50] Speaker B: That's right. [01:13:50] Speaker C: Yeah, [01:13:52] Speaker E: that's. That's just. That's just so non sequitur to me, that, that how can you be both your own problem and your own solution? [01:14:00] Speaker B: Yeah, [01:14:02] Speaker C: yeah. [01:14:02] Speaker E: It just doesn't make any sense. [01:14:06] Speaker B: Mary, you want to take us home? [01:14:08] Speaker C: Sure. Well, no, I want to talk for another hour. Brothers, it is such a privilege to get to talk through some of this with you guys. And can you just, before we go, take a minute to remind our listeners? Because for some of our listeners, this is going to be brand new to them. They have not heard of the Just Thinking podcast. They're just discovering the way that you guys dig down deep. And I mean, you've done feminism, public education, dsa, Right. Democratic socialism. Obviously, we would encourage all of our listeners to go and listen to the political Islam episode. You've done the Green Movement. I mean, you guys and I, I love when one of your new podcasts come out. I love when I have a road trip in front of me because just thinking is one of the first things that I'm going to load up and listen to and just really sit in because you guys dig down and you take on at the source. I love that you go to the source materials, you take on these topics so that Christians can think through them in a winsome, theologically correct, well grounded, truth based way in a way that honors the Lord. So tell our listeners one more time where they can find you guys and where they can go and hear this. [01:15:26] Speaker D: You can, you can check us out at Just Thinking Me on our, on our website and you know, download the podcast anywhere. You get podcasts, it's, it's available. So that's, that's a, that's the core spot. Daryl, if I, I miss anything, you, you be sure and cover it, bro. [01:15:41] Speaker E: Yeah, you didn't miss anything. Just to give your listeners and Mary and Josh a little bit of a background. So the Just Thinking podcast is existed for eight years now. We, with the release of our feminism episode, we just surpassed 16.2 million plays of our episodes over those eight years. We have right now 140 episodes. So as Virgil said, if you go to our website at Just Thinking Me, that's Just Thinking Me, you can check out an entire library of our episodes going back across those eight years. We are a long form expositional podcast. We, as you said, Mary, we are, we, we dig deep on all of our topics. So we'll release on average a new episode once every six, seven weeks because it takes us that much time to do the research and study on the topics that we address. So we, we are not a podcast that sort of puts our finger in the wind to see which way the wind is blowing. Probably 99% of our content is evergreen. So you can pick it up five years from now and it'll still be relevant. So our listeners to, to, to check us out again. As Virgil said, they can access us anywhere they listen to their podcast. We're on all podcast platforms. [01:16:57] Speaker C: Fantastic. Fantastic. And I have a personal request as a listener because I have started to anticipate it. I'm like, oh, I hear it. They're going to read from Dr. Peter Jones. And so you have the organ music and I'd like a sound effect. But before you whip out like the other world view or one or two, like they're about to go, here it comes. [01:17:20] Speaker E: Yeah, the Hammond B3 organ is we. We call it the mascot because that, that, that our listeners love that. And it's sort of an homage to back to our respective days growing up in the black church where the. The Hammond be organ would, would, would, would anticipate the, The. The sort of apex that the preacher was about to reach in his sermon. And you know, when you hear that organ, you know, you know he's about to get. Well, two things, right? [01:17:45] Speaker B: It's time to run. [01:17:46] Speaker E: He's about to get. He's about to get really animated in his delivery. And then after that, it'll finally be time to go home after about two and a half hours. [01:17:57] Speaker C: I love it. I grew up in a home with a dad who belonged to the Spreckles Organ Restoration Society. And so I heard a really different kind of organ all through my growing up. But the joke used to be in our neighborhood, kids could hear it when my dad was playing organ records and we had the big speakers and so our windows would rattle. So people right at home, [01:18:19] Speaker D: I [01:18:19] Speaker E: can see you, Mary, right now with a boombox with organ music playing. [01:18:22] Speaker C: Oh, yeah, I was super cool in school. Well, anyway, guys, I hope that this is just the first of many, many more interactions with the both of you. We appreciate, we love the way that you are taking scriptural truth and, and giving it to the church in such an unadulterated way. We, we love both of you, and it's just been wonderful to have you. So thank you for this, this kind of deep dive with us today for all of our listeners. One of the best things that you can do to kind of help us get past some of the algorithmic changes that make it hard for us to get the podcast out is to leave a substantive message. Make a comment in Spotify, Apple podcasts, wherever you are, you can share this episode. You can share our past episodes, and that's a way to get this really vital information into other people's hands. Please pray for the ministry. Pray for Joshua, Pray for his wife Lael, and their kids as he takes on this new leadership role. I remember my first day of work 15 years ago with Joshua. I'd already known the family for a couple years of. Couple of years at that point. And it has been just an increasing joy to work with you, Joshua, and to see the way that the Lord has grown you and shaped you for this ministry. And I pray that you would just continue on this good work. This message of one ism and two ism and the. The vision and the heritage of what Dr. Jones has done. So I would ask you listeners, please, to pray for the Gilos and pray for truth, except exchange and pray for Daryl and Virgil as they continue their good work. And I think that wraps us up until we see you next week. Thank you for joining us.