Episode Transcript
[00:00:06] Speaker A: Welcome to the Truth Exchange podcast. This is a weekly program with Dr. Jeffrey J. Ventrella, where he answers questions from subscribers around the globe, answering questions about worldview, cultural apologetics and other miscellaneous items. I'm your host, Joshua Gilo, and this is another edition of the Director's Bag.
Matthew from Muskogee, Oklahoma, writes, Dr. Ventrella, well done on the release of the symposium. Yes. By the way, listeners, the symposium is out. Please Visit us at www.truthexchange.com for those. It's a great series, every square inch. Back to Matthew's question. I have really been enjoying them and there are a couple areas I wish the various speakers would have gone with their talks. For example, Mattson on why the Bronze Age mindset is really speaking to young, also with Dr. Sandlin. I'm sorry, Jeff, should I go into this or should I just go to more of his question?
[00:01:05] Speaker B: I would just go. His question, I think. Let me, I would just, let me just interject. I really appreciate that it shows you're listening to it, and the fact that you're hungry for more is exactly what we want. You can't say everything in 40 or 45 minutes. And so I think our Truth Exchange scholars would certainly be open to hearing from you and maybe we can follow up with respect to that. So those kinds of suggestions are very valuable to us and to our Truth Exchange scholars. So, boy, keep listening and keep sharpening iron with iron.
[00:01:36] Speaker A: Excellent. So here's his question for the mailbag. Are there movements within Christianity here in the States that are strongly preserving classical liberalism, or have we as a country and culture evolved beyond that and statism is here to stay? I look forward to seeing what Truth Exchange does in the future. Praying for you all well, first of.
[00:02:05] Speaker B: All, it's really important to be praying for us. We need those prayers in so many areas, and we're grateful for them. Thank you.
Well, let's see. Classical liberalism is right now not popular, and it's decreasing in popularity among a number of elites. And a lot of that is fueled by professing Christians, both in the Roman Catholic tradition as well as in certain aspects of the Reformed tradition. Actually, we have people who are, they will call themselves post liberal. They think that liberalism itself is the problem. Now, when we say liberalism, we're not talking about left politics. We're talking about that tradition that comes out of classical liberalism. Liberty, freedom, human flourishing, self responsibility, those kinds of issues. So the question was, are there groups within the church that are championing classical liberalism? The answer is yes. That's certainly the perspective that Truth Exchange takes, it's certainly the perspective that the center for cultural leadership under Dr. Sandlin takes. It's certainly the perspective that the Acton Institute takes with respect to these kinds of issues. And so, yes, there are people doing that.
I think there are other individuals who embrace this greatly. If we go beyond the church, I would say that scholars like Yuval Levin, who understands culture and liberty and some of his writing does that. I think in many ways, but not in all ways. The American Enterprise Institute would champion those kinds of things.
The Hado Institute is a libertarian group, so they are certainly strong on a virtuous market, but on social issues, they are hit and miss. The same would be true with respect to the Manhattan Institute there. In fact, their journal, the City Journal, is just an outstanding digest and has some very excellent articles, sometimes written by Christians, sometimes not. So I think that's important. Unfortunately, some of our flagship Christian publications have backed off from the Christian classical liberalism, like First Things magazine. The editorial board there is very strongly embracing statism.
Not as hard as some other areas. They're not progressive Marxists, but that's certainly their. Their situation. The group American Compass very much into statism and managed economy. That's the debate that our scholar David Bonson had with Oren Cass.
[00:04:51] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:04:52] Speaker B: And I think that people want to see the contrast that debates available and David graciously unearth the problems with that statist approach to economics.
[00:05:03] Speaker A: That's an interesting way that he puts it as an evolution. Is it. Is statism an evolution or is it wave? So when you. When you look at anthropology and the history of mankind and how it's been run via government, does it come as evolution, a progress or progression, and then regression as a wave? Or is.
[00:05:29] Speaker B: I picked. I picked up on that. I picked up on that, too. It's an interesting word. I think he's using it kind of colloquially, but I don't think that's accurate because I think that statism has been with us a long, long time.
[00:05:43] Speaker A: Right.
[00:05:43] Speaker B: It was really Christianity that first restrained the state. It was Christianity that allowed this understanding of there was a law above the law, and consequently the state is answerable. Caesar is answerable to Christ. Caesar has limited jurisdiction. We've talked about this both on this podcast and in our written materials in the dictum. So I don't think it's a natural evolution. That would be more akin to what the left says or what Hegel says or what Marx says. This is inevitable. Here we go. We have to have this control. But there's Another aspect to all this that I'll just mention here and oftentimes gets forgotten, but it's the rise of managerialism. So the idea is that we just control things by nudging and this sort of stuff. So there's this separate kind of bureaucratic class that'll manage things for us. It's akin to statism, but it's not necessarily the state of blank doing this. But we've embraced it kind of in ourselves and we're managing these kinds of things. And so this comes out of folks like the existentialist Heidegger, who is a Nazi sympathizer. We're going to control things in this way. And it also comes out of, you know, hey, the industrial revolution was quite good. If we just have the right management styles and structure and so forth, we're going to be more productive. Well, there's nothing wrong with being more productive, but when that, when that becomes an ideology, then we have some problems. So that's part of it too.
[00:07:23] Speaker A: All right, Chuck, from Spartanburg, South Carolina, Truth Exchange. This quote, where do we go from here? And this quote is from Dr. Ventrell, your latest dicta. Where do we go from here? What's next strategically? What's next legally? Can such matters even be argued? Is it plausible in America's courts pushing back against the bricked edifice of radical autonomy, unfettered choice and ill defined liberty? Can the bricks be replaced?
That hit me like a ton of bricks. Pun intended. Lol. But seriously, in today's context and how things are polarized, it seems the ones who are making bricks to build something are the alt right nutsos. But my take is that they won't last a decade before having some moral failure. Just look at Mark Driscoll or insert any macho man lightning rod figure that offered men something to labor for, but they didn't themselves submit to some Christian authority. Fifth commandment matters, brothers. So who will lead the charge of a balanced Christian life and call women to be women and men to be men? Thoughts on that statement?
[00:08:33] Speaker B: Well, Chuck, I wonder where you stand. Chuck, you have no opinion on these things? No. I appreciate that candor.
There's a couple of thoughts there. The metaphor of the brick comes from the building the glorious cultural cathedral. And part of the beauty of that lies in the fact that sometimes we don't even know where our bricks will be and when they will be positioned to bring God the most glory. Our call is to be faithful to the brick building or the brick fashioning or the brick baking that has been entrusted to us. So we don't have a master planner other than God.
[00:09:15] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:09:16] Speaker B: And so that's, that's part of the problem we're seeing on the alt. Right. And some of these people, they think they have the solution. Many of them are simpletons and are simply looking for power, not for servants. And so I think that's part of the problem in question of who will lead. Well, it's really those who faithfully follow Christ, the men and women who are submitted to him, who are doing what I call heroic ordinariness, they're doing the things that they know they're supposed to do. They're doing it well, they're not looking for credit. And God has a tendency to bless faithfulness. God rewards those kinds of things. And so that will help us cultivate that culture. Having said that, we also need to have our eyes lifted up in the horizon to see the broader view and to see those opportunities we may be called to. In other words, this is not a time for us, for no more, let's go hide out. Let's just have, you know, Christ against culture. That's just a false understanding.
[00:10:18] Speaker A: Right.
[00:10:19] Speaker B: Fakey pietism. But all in all, and we live faithfully and we let God bless the work of our hands.
[00:10:27] Speaker A: Yes, excellent. Yeah, you know, it's, I, I've seen those kind of questions come in and it's, it's, it's the, and I remember Brian Matson had, had responded to one of those kind of questions that arose during one of our symposium years ago. Goes and he says it's, everyone's looking for some sort of success story.
But really the Apostle Paul's charges, whether eat or drink, whatever you're doing, do it to the glory of the Lord. And therein lies your success is bringing glory to God. Whether you are a mechanic, you're a plumber, you're an apologist, your pastor, or you're a stay at home moment. Do it to the glory of the Lord and there you'll find joy. There you'll find good success.
[00:11:18] Speaker B: Now it's an interesting point you make because a number of Christian ministries have attempted to learn some things from the general corporate environment. And part of that is a lot of Christian business gurus have talked about if it's not measurable, it's not important. And this whole push toward numbers and measurements and all these sorts of things, and I believe that's well intended. And as we all know, you know, you've been around the block a few more times than you, but you've Been around the block.
There are a lot of Christian ministries that are not governed according to, you know, scriptural edicts and so forth. Sloppiness, slack, these kinds of things. And so a lot of those managerial principles, not talking about managerialism, but managerial principles, how to do things well, are very valuable, but they're not all inclusive.
[00:12:15] Speaker A: Right.
[00:12:16] Speaker B: I remember having a conversation with Os Guinness about this years ago and it's kind of like, oh, we want measurable this and measurable that. It's kind of like, well, how do you put a value on it on a beautiful Voss that was completed if you're a sculptor? Well, I sold a bunch of them. That's the wrong measurement. You know, how do you put a value on a well performed violin concerto?
So I don't think you can monetize everything, nor do I think you can measure everything. So I think that we need to have a full orbed understanding of what fidelity is. And you encapsulated it. Well, talking about Dr. Madsen, look, ultimately success is whether you eat or drink. Whatever you do do all to the glory of the Lord. Go to your work.
[00:12:59] Speaker A: Yeah. Yep.
Last question is from James in Aitken, S.C. carolina. A lot of South Carolina questions this week.
[00:13:08] Speaker B: No game clocks.
[00:13:10] Speaker A: That's right.
Hey, Jeff, Josh and the Truth Exchange team. I hope this will make the next show and by the time you answer it, we will probably have a new president.
There is an ad by the Kamala Harris campaign that is pitting wives against their husbands on how to vote.
Have you seen this commercial, Jeff? And I'll say it for our listeners. I'm pretty certain I know which one he's talking about. Where it's, it's a couple walks in and the husband is wearing a MAGA hat, Make America Great again. And his wife has a bedazzled pink American flag hat. And he goes in and he votes Trump Vance. And then his wife goes in and she looks around, she sees her husband, and then she sees another woman at another voting booth and they look at each other and they both agree we're going to vote in what we think is right. And which is they vote for the Kamala and Van or the Kamala and Watts ticket. And at the end the couple get back together and he goes, did you do the right thing? And she says, I did the right thing.
That's the ad. So he writes some of the he man woman hater groups on X or Slash Twitter are going on about abolishing the 19th Amendment.
I can't stand some of These guys, but for once, they made sense to have household voting. I'm a newlywed and wondered how you all approach voting with your spouses, and what do you do when you disagree on who to vote for?
[00:14:49] Speaker B: Wow. Getting up close and personal with respect to that, let's remember voting is that voting is both a privilege and a responsibility in a constitutional republic. And so we ought not to take it lightly. We ought to be informed. And I really wish that some of these people yapping out there on social media were actually informed on some of these issues. So for our listeners, the 19th Amendment was the amendment that established women's suffrage. Now, there's a whole lot of history behind this. It wasn't just all what we called in the 60s women's lib. For example, there were common law doctrines called coverture. And this was the idea that women could not contract, women could not hold property. Oh, that's just repressing women. Well, there was a reciprocal side to coverture too. The reciprocal side was women could not be in debt. So the husband dies. She doesn't lose the house because she could not be responsible for the debts of her husband and her family. So there were mutual sides to it. I'm not saying covidure was a good thing. I'm just saying there's a lot of ignorance that's out there concerning it. Now, with respect to the suffrage issue and household voting, let's assume that that's a good thing.
If in fact we say that women should not vote, like some of these people on the new right are saying, then they've just cut their effectiveness by 50%. In other words, instead of two votes or 200 votes in their little enclave, they get a hundred or just one, and consequently they're cutting off their nose despite they cannot influence culture by participatory constitutionalism. With respect. So it seems to me that that's a foolish tax to take. But I also think it's anthropologically foolish because the Adam and Eve were married. We know that from the scriptures, and yet the cultural mandate was given to both of them as partners to move forward. There's a validity there, a validity of perspective and ontology that should do that. Now, if you're looking about canceling things out, well, then people need to talk about how you can deal with, you know, what kinds of issues are we talking about? We're talking about the top of a presidential ticket, and there's a clear contrast. Well, maybe that's something. But the answer is not to get rid of women's suffrage. The Answer is better communication and volunteerism and respect for that other person. The other problem here is how do you define household?
So let's say I know a family that has nine daughters and they're. Most of them are all still in the house.
So the daughters have the right of franchise, they can vote.
Do they have to follow what the dad requires? If so, why? I mean, you get very complicated. Or how do you deal with widows, even people who, you know where to protect widows, you know, and all those sorts of things. Even a person like Doug Wilson would say, well, maybe there's an exception to heads of household. Only if it's only a woman who's the head of the household. What if the man, the husband, they're still married, but he's incapacitated, he's comatose, he has had a traumatic brain injury and can no longer function as a political actor. Oh, woman can't vote. I mean, that's just silliness, really.
If you want to talk about bad amendments, why don't we start with the 17th Amendment, which helped undermine and eventually gutted our federalist system. 17th amendment gave the direct election of senators, thereby making senators beholden to the popular vote instead of the state legislatures. And consequently, senators are DC Oriented and not home oriented. That's a real problem under our system. And of course, you know, the 18th Amendment, that's a problem too. Prohibition, where you had populist moralism run amok, and that basically entrenched the mafia and other organized crime in the United States. So I think there's a lot bigger constitutional amendments we need to look at before we get to the suffrage issue. And then I think we have to look at, you know, politics is the art of the possible. That ain't happening. That will not be accomplished. It's just impractical to do that. So what you're going to have then is this coercive effect, either saying, A, you don't vote woman, or B, you have to vote the lockstep with what I do. And what if you're wrong? Who tells the husband he's wrong? Because there's a lot of doofs out there that don't have a clue. What if the wife is A.
Of course, in these marriages that wouldn't be the case. But what if she's a vcap, a venture capitalist who understands economics, who understands how wealth is produced, and he's a welder. Both are honorable professions, but I'm guessing unless there's mutuality of education, the wife's gonna have much better insight into some of these economic proposals, and that's a good thing. That makes the marriage better informed. So I just think some of these guys are, you know, proverbs talks about, you know, don't open your mouth and let everyone know you're stupid. Well, here we are.
I'm not talking about the list. The Inquirer.
[00:20:43] Speaker A: No, no. This concludes the recording of the Director's Bag. For more resources from Truth Exchange, please visit. Visit us online at www.truthexchange.com. you can follow us on X as well as Facebook for more updates and content related to Truth Exchange. Be sure to join us next week for more questions from the Director's Bag. I'm your host, Joshua Gilo, and this is the Truth Exchange podcast.
