Why There’s No Going Back To The US Constitution - @AuronMacIntyre

all right welcome back to another episode of theology applied I am your host Pastor Joel webin with right response Ministries and in this episode I am welcoming for the very first time to the show Orin McIntyre he's a contributor with the blaze uh he's got a podcast it's really good you should check it out and what we're discussing in this episode is why we should Constitution even harder Classical liberalism just kidding um Orin is a realist and by God's grace so am I and so we're not talking about that uh what we're talk about instead is how America has not been a constitutional republic for a very long time and if you think we are currently still a constitutional republic in terms of how we actually function uh then I've got you know some oceanfront property in Kansas that I would love to uh sell to you uh it's time to wake up it's time to grow up um a constitutional republic is wonderful but we don't have it uh because that was designed for a moral and religious people and currently all we have are a bunch of degenerates so can we get back to the Constitution and if so how or is this a storm that we just have to go through and if so what's on the other side and are we prepared for that that's the episode I think you're going to like it tune in now applying God's word to every aspect of life this is theology [Music] applied all right welcome to another episode of theology applied I am your host Pastor Joel webban with right response Ministries and in this episode I'm privileged to welcome to the show for the first time Orin McIntyre he is a contributor with the blaze he has great political commentary uh he is a Protestant Southern Baptist Oren thanks for coming on the show thank you so much for having me man all right so you've got a new book coming out let's go ahead and plug that first and give us a brief synopsis for the listener of uh why did you write the book what's it about sure I I think like a lot of people who probably watch this I grew up as a talk radio conservative standard GOP neoconservative type of guy and I went to school for politics I ended up being a political reporter worked a little bit in politics and then 2016 and 2020 happened and like a lot of people I just learned that politics doesn't work at all the way that I thought it was power in the United States actually does not conform to the Constitution it doesn't restrict any of the things that I thought it did and this kind of threw me for a loop and so I kind of went on a journey of exploring political Theory trying to understand what had happened why we were in the situation we were in and how power really works here and as I did that I started to kind of collect all of that and put it into YouTube essays and eventually that turned into the book and so the total state is really my journey to understand how the land of the free the you know suddenly transformed into this place where lockdowns and cancellations and the end of free speech seemed to be everywhere and that's really what the book's about right so the title of the book is uh the total State its release date is May 7th May 7th and basically what you're you you're just pulling back the veil that God and His Providence pulled back for you you know at a personal level over 2016 and 2020 and just realizing I think you know like you know one mutual that you obviously know and that I've had the pleasure of of getting to know Steve da I does he say it uh we're not a a nation of laws and never will be we are a nation of political will or do you know what I'm referencing absolutely yeah yeah and he's exactly right about that that's a deeper Insight than I think a lot of people realize of what what a nation really is at the end of the day it's not a constitution it's not a piece of paper it's a people with a particular way of being and that's that's certainly something that I learned on my journey when writing that book right the people and uh and their political and moral religious will I always I think back to co um the restrictions and the lockdowns and the mask mandates and all those things um it ended precisely at the moment that the American people said we're done that's that's when it wasn't the science did not change the political science changed and what changed the political science was um the critical mass of the American people saying okay that's enough we're done and then it just was over yeah it was the elites realizing that there was a limit to how far they could push people how far they could manipulate people and they got away with too much and they pushed them too far but there was a natural limit and you're exactly right well all of a sudden we got a scaling down oh you don't have to be six feet away you could be three feet away actually you can be right next to each other maybe you need a mask well maybe you don't need it at all maybe it doesn't really do anything yeah how how many vaccines we kind of lost count we're not sure it really was just commiserate with people saying we're done yep when people said we're done all of a sudden the rules changed um yeah so let's let's talk about the Constitution briefly so I I you know um am I'm one of the guys who's you know willing to wear the label Christian nationalists like I wouldn't have you know Doug Wilson says I I wouldn't have chosen that label for myself I wouldn't have picked it you know out of a hat um but there's uh lots of pejoratives that will be thrown at uh the Conservative Christian right and uh and it's somewhat rare that they uh they pick a pejorative that you can actually work with um it's like well yeah I can I could work with that um I know that some of your um hesitancy with that label is uhu and I think you're right about this is recognizing that Christian nationalist is really just a placeholder for white Christian nationalist um that's what they mean that's what the left means this ethnocentric you're a racist when they say you're a Christian nationalist they mean you're a racist right exactly yeah it's it's part it's a way for them to go ahead and link Christianity to their anti-fascist Crusade which is the animating ideology of our current regime to be very clear people are are confused about what ideology binds this very diverse Coalition of the left together and it's really that they think they're putting red America through denazification that's insane of course when you look at you know red America and its beliefs and its level of Tolerance but they don't care that that's what animates them that's what puts them together and so when they tried to coin the phrase Christian nationalist of course it had existed before them it was not something created wholly by the media however it was certainly thrusted on to people who want to see uh Christians take a more active role in the government do want to see a return to the idea that biblical values should be reflected and that there's no problem with basing your law on the law of God that these things are are in no way mutually exclusive they went ahead and thrusted that title on them for a reason because they knew for better for worse that wife evangelicals are one of the largest and most powerful forces in the United States and one of those that are most likely to continue to have Christian values and so they wanted to single them out they wanted to demonize them and they wanted an easy catchphrase to go ahead and sweep them into this Crusade against hate racism all these things right right uh So within the Christian nationalist Banner there there are lots of variations and lots of different definitions lots of you know um but I think you know that that's part of the difficulty but that's also I think part of the um one of the pros is that it's uh it's meant to be a big tent uh where guys of different Persuasions can partner together um and work towards you know a common cause uh but one of the if I think of you know well what's the the lowest common denominator um that pretty much every Christian nationalist would agree with um I think one is um that you know uh most of the Christian nationalists that I speak to uh believe that um that God could change the nation um not just in one way but um but in one of two ways and um the two ways being uh he could send Revival there could be a mass move of his Spirit across the land and through preachers and churches and you know gospel heralding that uh you know that people are born again and that there's uh you know uh Mass conversion and regeneration and there's you know we just have more Christians and that these Christians um then you know exercise uh their political will and you know if we have numbers on our side then you know things start to get better and uh and I absolutely think that that's something God can do I I I see as a drawback there though I I think you know some would say well we've we've never had the numbers on our side you know the the southern baptist you know boast of you know 14 you know million or what you know but you can only find six or seven million on a Sunday in the pews um you know so we we've never really had the the numbers on our side and even if the numbers are there in terms of church attendance at you know Protestant Evangelical churches um you know half of the people aren't truly Born Again they're not really regenerate and I'm more of the persuasion where I actually think we have had the numbers I think that we have had U many Christians truly born- again Christians um but that there's just been so much um theological and uh cultural and political ignorance uh that the numbers even with the numbers uh it wasn't enough so I think God could change the nation uh bottom up Mass move of the Spirit uh Revival whatever you want to call it renewal uh but I also think that uh the Christian nationalists are unique from other evangelicals who are have an aversion towards the Christian nationalist label uh in the sense that Christian nationalists seem to be comfortable uh with not only a bottom up change but also if God chooses a top down change and when I look at scripture I look at Israel bad King bad King bad good King and it's not and it's not because he was elected it's not because you know God sent Revival and there was 50% of the population of Israel now with regenerate Hearts plus one and uh and they voted in Josiah no it's it's just in the province of God you get a Josiah Josiah uh begins to legislate and enforce righteous laws and tear down the high places and that functions as a tutor that begins to uh righteous laws enforced with power begins to disciple the people and and the hearts of the people change and then you know that's Old Testament but then over the last 2,000 years of church history not just the history of Israel under the the old Covenant uh but you look at whether it's King Alfred or Constantine or you know uh Charlamagne or all these different um examples I I I feel as though yes God has sent Revival U but often if we're looking at the chronological order it it does seem as though in the province of God it's um it's a small percentage of the population that's strategic and organized um and and that ACR power uh that which power is not inherently evil it how you wield it it's a tool like a sword and and they acre power and then they use it righteously and then uh that righteous legislation and enforcement of God's laws then begins to tutor and disciple and shape a people and even if the people are unregenerate righteous laws one thing that they do is uh they reveal to the people that they're Lawless and therefore in need of a savior who fulfilled the law in their place and and that becomes the backdrop the context it doesn't save people but it becomes the context for gospel preaching which does save people and and so I think that one thing that I appreciate about the Christian nationalist is it seems like all of them one common denominator are perfectly comfortable in saying well um the the homo Jihad with less than 3% of the population over the course of 40 years replace the American flag with a rainbow um why can't we do that what what do you think I think that this is a a huge shift and an important shift I think that it's important for for people to realize as you're saying that civilizations are usually led by organized minorities I tend to focus on the political Italian elite school off the makian strain this is also known as political realism and it recognizes the fact that all culture tends to be derived from Elite attitudes and Elite preferences that actually it doesn't tend to come from the bottom up but as you said from the top down I think it's really easy to observe as you said if we just to look at the changes for say gay marriage and trans ideology these things were wildly unpopular not very long ago the gay marriage was voted down in California in Proposition 8 not that long ago Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton had to disavow it in their presidential runs had to say no I'm for the traditional definition of a man and a woman that's how unpopular this was just a few decades ago and now you get fired for disagreeing with it now you're you're completely unable to be uh even employed at a large Company If you happen to disagree with this if you have a a basic biblical view a natural view of what marriage has been for its entire existence and somehow people still think that this is all about some kind of marketplace of ideas or popular opinions that will rise from the bottom no this is top down again look at look at the speed at which it's become normalized to feed puberty blockers to eight-year-olds try telling anyone that 10 years ago they'll think you're insane the westbo Baptist Church wouldn't have warned you against this kind of stuff right they would have said no that sounds a little extreme man like I know things are bad but it's not going to get that bad and now this is just the reality we live in so I think there has to be a real Awakening I think a lot of people on the right had what I like to call a boomer eschatology which is just well America is a Christian culture and it'll always be a Christian culture and if you know the the Christian culture ends it can only be because it's the end of the world you know that they tied uh American institutions and biblical truth one to one and assume that they would exist side by side in perpetuity and the only thing that could possibly Rin them apart would be the literal end of of all existence and so they and so they can't they never thought that they needed to impose that they never thought that they needed to maintain Christendom Christendom was just an assumption that would always exist it was not something that we needed to go ahead and maintain and so it wasn't it wasn't just assumed I think Chris chrisom was despised U and and when you talk about Boomer eschatology we call that um uh dispensational pre millennialism because that's what it is the idea that Jesus is going to come back next Thursday and uh and that God has destined uh it's written in the stars that things will progressively be worse and worse until he does um and then you look back to a chrum of yester year um and you look back at it with um with uh shame regret um even hatred despising it um thinking the the thought I think for for a lot of Evangelical kind of Boomer theology is um that chadum lends towards uh weaker pulpits weaker Doctrine weaker gospel preaching and false conversions uh because everybody will think that they're you know uh culturally Christian they'll just assume that the nation is Christian the culture is Christian and therefore that they as an individual are Christian in the proper sense capital c Christian um that they're regenerate and born again and going to heaven when they die um and therefore you know it's going to be a net loss Christ culture is a net loss because you don't have transing kids uh but you have millions you know people by the millions um going uh you know Bound for hell while thinking that they're Bound for heaven uh which I just I I think that that's a false dichotomy I I completely reject the notion I I forget who it is but some major atheist one of his main right-hand guys you know during Co you know was trying to escape all the lockdowns and things like that move to some tiny little rural Red Red Dot on the map and after being there for six months he and his wife you know they had no friends they wanted Community they asked around the town you know where do we find relationships and friendships they're like oh well we do that at church so they started going to a Cowboy Church um and uh and then you know this Cowboy Church just had a simple um you know gospel Proclamation and uh they got saved and uh and now he you know identifies as a Christian and tells his testimony the point being that um you get him this guy who's a radical atheist and hates God get him into a uh Conservative Christian context um and it doesn't make him uh further averse to Christianity it it makes him Christian and and so will there be false conversion sure will there will there be people with false Assurance uh sure but I think that Baptist especially sadly and I am a Baptist uh but Baptist is Baptists have this weird relationship with persecution they're deathly afraid of it so they think that if we were a Christian Nation uh the Presbyterians would drown the Baptist and then at the same time they're afraid of of persecution and they also are secretly wishing for it because they think that persecution is the only tool in God's Arsenal um to purify the church the danger of centralized power is often represented by the word King As Americans we hate the word King civilian ownership of body armor is about helping people to have increased power to resist and criminals and so armored Republic is about helping you to preserve your god-given rights to the honor of the Lord Jesus Christ because he is the king of kings and he governs Kings and he will judge them this is armed Republic and in a republic there is no King but Christ we are free Craftsmen and we are honored to be your armor sprad choice yeah there tends to be this idea that at some point if things get really hard for Christians we'll we'll have real Christianity right and that just obviously is not the case I think when we look around this we see that the you know culture is falling apart for a reason and you can't just pretend that if you Retreat as Christians that you know well as long as my kids are fine you know as long as my my kids are watching the right things or listening to the right things they're they're in the church when the doors are open everything will be okay it's like no your your kids have to go to school or at the very least even if you homeschool them they have to like meet people they have to live in this world and they will be they will follow incentives the average person will follow incentives and so there is the the culture that you had was hard fought for by your ancestors you are the posterity that is benefiting from the trees they planted that they did to sit under and then you sit around saying well it'll be best best for my children to bake in the sun it's like no you just you just were born on third base and you assumed that it would always be the case and that that's a terrible way to live it's it's incredibly entitled and it's it's beneath people who should know better so talk to us about the Constitution I are we a constitutional republic no we we couldn't keep it uh and that that that's a hard thing for a lot of people uh when we look at the United States I think that most Christians have gone ahead and substituted the Constitution for American identity they said uh well we don't really know what to base our identity in anymore we've we've had so many waves of immigration and transformation religiously and culturally and all these things the only thing that can bind us together is the Constitution so they've kind of deified the Constitution and the founders to to make that the the political theology that that goes ahead and and drives us as a nation and because of that they've they've made this kind of legal positivism the the the core of their belief and kind of who we are as as a people and so they've lost the this understanding Joseph demra is a guy I like to pull from a lot he was a a French uh political theorist and he talked a lot about what makes a constitution and he explained that all Constitutions are written by God there there's never been a constitution that's been written by men because Constitutions are only the Reflection of the way of being of a people the constition does not create people people create the Constitution it is simply an instantiation of what has already been written onto the hearts of people by generations and generations of traditions that God has placed amongst them and so we never actually are defined by a constitution it's it's only it's only the words on the paper that are kind of formalizing what we are already doing as a people and so the Constitution can never bind us together because it it it's just a shadow of the of the people we are and the people we have to continue to be and while we didn't don't seem to know this in the modern world the founding fathers totally did they were very explicit about what the Constitution was it was a document that was only capable of ruling a virtuous and religious people and if we ever walked away from that identity if we ever walked away from that kind of shared Protestant Christian understanding ing of what the nation was then we would not be governed by the Constitution and we no longer are those people and so therefore we are necessarily not governed by the document made for them right yeah Adams right was a a moral and religious people um yeah we're we're degenerates we're not even close to we're degenerates the Constitution is not um is not suited for governing degenerates uh for governing governing degenerates and I'm curious your thoughts on this if you agree disagree um but I I think for our population that is degraded uh morally and culturally uh as far religiously as far as we have um you need power um men must be governed you need you need a Caesar type you know uh so so for me I I would say if if we're talking about you know does the Bible will prescribe a certain form of government um there are guys in the theonomous camp and and I would be a general Equity theonomous theonomy just means you know God you know Theos and and uh it's just God's law that's that's all it means and so I am am of that persuasion that's I believe the confessional position both in the Westminster and the 1689 um a general equity theonomy which means the moral law endures forever think 10 commandments decalog Exodus 20 um and then all these judicial laws uh you're you're just ex rating the general Equity you know what's the main moral so parit on the borders of the roof um okay well we don't sleep on the roof because we have HVAC you know so but that means you know to preserve human life the Dignity of human life so seat belts and speed limits you know whatever so that's you know that's that's how we do it uh so General Equity theonomy yes I'm on board uh but some of the old school re Reconstructionist uh theonomic you know pure blood uh guys who I appreciate and respect immensely um they would go so far uh as to say that the scripture actually dictates not just laws but a particular form of government and and they of course uh being guys from you know the 60s and the 70s and the 80s and predominantly in American context lo and behold shocker um the the type of government that the the Bible absolutely dictates is a constitutional republic um and and I would say I don't know um now if you're asking me my preference that that would probably be my preference would be a constitutional republic um but I think the um the the conditions for that is a moral people so I think you can you can work towards that in the future uh but I don't think um Constitution even harder is going to get us out of our our current uh mess uh I I don't see us getting out of this apart from things getting worse and worse and then eventually um like a caesar type Rising through the ranks of populace you know figure and the people you know the political will of the people that the people are desperate and they're like yes do it so and so and and then so and so Constitution be damned just rules with an Iron Fist and uh and then you know like a Cromwell type and then and then you you know hopefully don't get his son maybe then you're able and then you you maybe it's just a one generation one guy kind of thing and then you you have to move back to you know aristocracy or or some other form what what do you think yeah it can be very complicated when you look at the Historical cycle of regimes it would seem like we're at the point as you say where Caesar figure often Rises we're really in that moneyed oligarchical period of existence and it feels like the you know that you can feel that pressure building as to you know the only way through that to cut through that gordian not that that grid work grid lock and kind of restore order would be someone who could take the Reigns but but it really of course depends Joseph de again said that every people will have a different form of government that that it's not that there is no right form of government but it again will align with the way of being of the people and no PE uh people is static so PE the people will change over time their needs and and desires and uh will change over time and so therefore their governments will change over time in the United States we kind of do this little trick see we don't number our republics the way that say like France does and so we pretend like we've had this one homogenous rule the entire existence of the United States of course that's not true at all we started under the Articles of Confederation we dissolved those improperly we didn't take a vote we didn't follow the rules of Articles of Confederation our Elites just said all right we're going to pass the Constitution now and in even inside the Constitution we've had a very radically different ways of governing so for instance the Pres presidencies of say FDR and Abraham Lincoln are very close to dictatorial I mean people don't remember the FDR literally stole all the gold in the United States he just took it he said you can't own gold anymore and he put it in Fort Knox and we just pretended that's a normal thing that presidents do we didn't declare that the you know the Constitution was over we just let the president steal all the gold and then we moved on and we pretended that we had the exact same government we had before and so the United unit States has had strong men they've had dictatorial Caesar likee rulers in our in our history in fact they're often the people we Revere the most despite pretending that we care very much about separation of powers and checks and balances and control of the executive office it's not really the case we kind of allow these people to rise as necessary and so as demer predicted we kind of allow our form of government to change in time even though we technically keep the storyline the continuity of the people as if we've been one continuous Republic this entire time so will we see a formal change out of the Republican form of government I'm I I don't think so in the same way that Augustus did not formally change the Rome Rome into an Empire no one came by and banged a Gong and said the Republic is done and now Rome is an Empire he simply slowly acquired the powers of the princip pit and put them together and a couple Generations later no one could imagine that you know a Caesar didn't have all these Powers even though there was no formal Declaration of you know this Imperial title for Augustus he was simply the the the First Citizen and so I I think that's probably the situation we're heading towards assuming that America holds together as one political entity I I'm actually a little skeptical that that will continue but if it does I don't think we'll see a formal announcement that we've move to the American Imperium right I think that's fair uh so talk about about that for a moment talk about the nation splitting what do you see is make your uh go ahead and pull out your crystal ball and give us a some predictions well a lot of people assume talk about National divorce right we we hear this this phrase thrown around a lot now I'm skeptical again that we're ever going to get some official secession I think the the question of secession For Better or For Worse was kind of answered in the 1860s and we're probably not going to see any any official uh move in that direction however I think can all feel that the competency of our current state is collapsing we can we can feel that competency crisis and what's happening there and it's also becoming very clear that states like Florida that completely ignored what the federal government demanded that they do during covid fared much better than those that complied with everything that the central government demanded of them we're also seeing this with things like immigration we see guys like Greg Abbott and now probably Ronda santis uh with possible Mass migration from people fleeing the Haitian Civil War have being tested like will you protect your state from an invasion because the federal government isn't doing it in fact they're actively importing it they're they're facilitating it are you willing to take independent executive action and as we saw with Greg Abbott when he started to lock down Eagle Pass the federal government you know threatened him and said there was going to be a lot of retaliation and then nothing happened right and every time there's a check on sovereignty like that every time the federal government has to go head-to-head with somebody and lose loses the battle and there are no consequences people start to notice and they say hey man would you rather live in a state where your borders are protected and people are you know allowed to go outside even though the news is telling them that they're dying from a pandemic or you you know do you want to constantly be waiting for the 19th booster and you know keeping your kids home from school because you have to house the next wave of illegal immigrants in their classroom and people start making their choices you know my my state of Florida is now currently flooded with people who you know uh came from New York and these other New Jersey these other places that had these wild Co lockdowns and so what I think we're going to see is probably that people simply start ignoring the federal government more and more that they're going to tail they're going to fail these tests of sovereignty and power is going to accumulate in these regions and like many empires before it the United States will probably just slowly come apart not with any official declaration but simply because the different territories realized that it's better to govern themselves than to continue to kick Authority back up to Washington right yeah my family and I and seven other families uh we left at the end of 2020 we were uh I was born and raised in Texas but I had moved in 2009 to California to plant a church in Southern California and uh handed the church over um in 2020 and at the end of that year my family and seven other families we all moved to Texas um back back to where you know where I grew up and um and I wrote this little book I've got it next to me but uh fight by flight which is a glorified blog um you know with a just massive font to to get to 100 pages but basically a simple concept but just saying that um I I don't think it's just you know one of two choices that I stay and fight fight the good fight in my blue State um or I Surrender and quit and give up and lose by leaving um I I think one of the ways that um that people can fight blue States is uh and I think one of the more effective ways is to leave um to stop propping them up with uh your business your taxes you know um that uh one of the you know California if you know six 16 million professing Christians and you know a state of 42 million population um 6 million voted for Trump you know so like 6 million people took their vote flushed it down the toilet because it was 12 million for Biden um so not even close uh when you know at the Electoral level is less than 50,000 votes in you know like three or four states respectively uh that would have flipped you know Trump uh winning the presidency and so um I I really do think that that's that's one of the ways that you know a practical way that you can fight back and I know that's not for everybody you know some people they're exua circumstances some people really are missionaries so that's that's one you know like we send people to the Sudan um but we don't send everyone to the Sudan and I think that as we move more into like Aon Ren's conception you know of of negative World um I I think as the America becomes more hostile towards Christ I think we're going to need to start thinking about certain states in the way that we previously have thought about certain countries when it comes to missions that um okay these PE people these places still need the gospel they still need churches they still need ministers um but but we would we would look for certain qualifications we wouldn't send just anyone right like there's 16 million professing Christians in California um I don't think all 16 million of them are missionary caliber I think you know that a lot of them uh probably should consider uh leaving and then maybe Nome finally has to lie in the bed that he's been making for years um maybe he actually has to take a spoonful of his own medicine you know that he's not bailed out and maybe not you know maybe that that's uneffective maybe it doesn't work um but all all that being said you know to your point echoing your point of um yeah a lot of people are are moving and balkanizing you know some of the guys on Twitter like no don't balkanize live near the coast to save that state and also go on a cruise and pay money um you know I I I just think that's insane to ask Christians to sacrifice their kids cuz that's what you're asking you're asking Christians to uh very with a you know not a guarantee but but a very high likelihood of uh their children if they remain in that state with those schools and those laws and that culture uh they're basically saying in the name of evangelism uh would you give up your kids and people make that trade because that's literally what we've been doing I think for like six decades that is Southern Baptist personal evangelism uh meanwhile all your kids grow up you put them in public school and all atheist now right but do you have any thoughts on that yeah no I mean I I think that's exactly correct we have this idea that we have to win everywhere all the time and if we aren't if we aren't constantly evangelizing if we aren't constantly changing the culture everywhere then we're not doing it anywhere and this is I think a failure on a lot of levels to understand human organization I think we have a a very serious problem of scale of civilization involved here where we have adopted the idea that we must convert the entire Empire and you need to understand America as an Empire not as simply a nation if if you if you think of it as a as a nation you will fail this test uh but you we have to win the whole empire once or not at all and that that's just a terrible way to understand things one of the hardest problems with Christian nationalism and I think I think Christians attempting to involve themselves in politics is we have lost the idea of what a nation is even is we can't even Define it we don't understand it one of my problems with the phrase Christian nationalism is not that I disagree with pretty much anything that Christian nationalists want to do in general but that it it avoids the more difficult question of what a nation really is and I know Stephen wolf talked about this somewhat in his book I haven't read it yet but I've been told that he did address this but but until we understand that and understand that you know yes America is a Christian Nation but Armenia was a Christian Nation you know Ethiopia is a Christian Nation that's not sufficient to explain what you are as an American and not to say that Christianity or Christ is not sufficient but this is simply not what defines in its entirety what a people are and so for us to be a people first we must be geographically concentrated that's what defines a nation that's why for instance one of I think the top priorities to create any kind of understanding and shared identity As Americans is closing the borders Because unless you have a set population that can understand their relationship with each other you can never bind into one people that that's you can't constantly have this massive turnover and still create an identity and a shared moral Vision you know cemented in Christianity or anything else because you're constantly changing who is involved in your society and this constant Reen negotiation makes it impossible for you to understand this and so I think Geographic concentration is critical especially as the culture becomes more hostile like you said I had Aaron renon recently and you know one of the things that both he and I have talked about is that we have to start looking at this as people who are in a minority situation when the Catholics or the Jews came to America they created their own schools they didn't let Protestants raise their children because they wanted to have their religion and their culture continue even though the majority of that culture was not Catholic or Jewish Protestants used to be able to just assume that if your kid went into a public school classroom they were going to get a generic Protestant education we we called it American education but that's not what it was and we can't do that anymore and so we have to start thinking more like people who do not live in a culture that is default assigned with their values and their identity right no I think you're absolutely right um a nation is not an economic zone it's not a set merely a set of moral principles it has to be at at some level at the most basic level it has to be uh people and place it's it's actually land um it's actually people um a particular people and uh multiculturalism is not your friend um we you know we have to have Borders or you don't have a nation and you know if we had borders and a generation passed um we probably would over time um have a lot more Unity diversity has not been our strength um and and that's not the to say you know everybody hears that and they're like oh so you just want um the nation to be 100% white people no I I want the nation to be uh people who have the same culture I don't I don't I don't particularly care what color the people are uh but I want them to have the same culture I want them for for certain to have the same religion culture cultist the Latin word worship I want um I want us to have the same culture to where you know if if we shut down the borders today and and held that tightly um then you know my grandkids could live next to their black neighbor and um and they' be able to share in common uh that their fathers and grandfathers uh fought in the same Wars hold the same Traditions um have the same religion the same theological convictions at least generally so like you're still going to have denominations and different variations but um but yet you can't you can't do that when when your nation has no borders and it's just an economic zone that you just move in and move out you know at Free Will and it doesn't so yeah we we um we're yeah we're not much of a Nation um these days but I think we can be and uh and that's everybody you know again back to the Christian nationalist thing that they try to make it a boogeyman Christian nationalism is really just uh it's just racist you know they just want it all to be white people um no I but I do want um America to be uh uniquely Christian and beyond that because you're saying well okay but what if Japan's Christian and what if you know Argentina is Christian and what if you know um then then what what makes America unique well the geographic center its borders its land but in speaking of its people I would say what what makes uh America unique is um as opposed to other European countries is that America was uniquely Protestant um you know so different Expressions theological expressions of um of Christian thought um I I think that America these days you know we were kind of it started in many ways as a presbyterian Revolt you know the black robe regiment and um I think that if we could get back to a Christian Center um America would actually be uniquely um Protestant and particularly Baptist that might be American culture is uh Americans are Baptist that's what they are and that would be great I don't think there'd be anything you know bad about that but but it would have to be shared it would have to be common among the people it can't just be all these splintered factions um or you just you you can't keep a country that way at private family banking our mission is to help you set up your own privatized banking system so that you can prosper and pass along taxfree wealth to the Next Generation and teach them to be financially responsible with that wealth your system will guarantee positive and continuous growth of your money income tax protected for the rest of your life and Beyond Additionally you will create a pool of capital that can be used to grow additional wealth using the same money in more than one place at the same time for families investors and those near or already in retirement your system will provide a buffer against Market volatility to help you avoid selling off your Investment Portfolio during prolonged market downturns now for those who are struggling with paying off high interest bearing credit cards or car loans or student loans there's no worries we'll teach you how to use your private family Bank to accelerate the payoff of your Consumer Debt including a monthly step-by-step guide turning postmill thinking into postmill action with private family banking now that's a good thing find out how this powerful approach to a multi-generational wealth building can work for you and your family by emailing banking at private family banking.com you'll receive a free ebook and a link to schedule your free 30-minute consultation today are you a Christian struggling to find companies that align with your values and beliefs well then squirly Joe's has you covered for all your coffee needs all of their coffee is hand selected and roasted fresh every day by a family of fellow Believers try them out and you'll save her exceptional coffee while knowing that your investment supports a company committed to following God's teachings and upholding truth and righteousness ensuring that your hard-earned money contributes to the growth of God's Kingdom stop giving your hard-earned dollars to pagans who support evil right response listeners have access to an exclusive deal your first bag of coffee is free all you have to do is cover the shipping so head on over to squirly Joe's .r resonse again that's squirly joe.com SLR resonse to claim your first free bag of coffee today yeah when we look at the geographic uh size of America obviously if this was a European country yeah it's funny go go to England and it's like you know this this entire country which is not a small country by European standards is the size of my state right and so if we were a European country would' be many different countries we would be very recognizably an Empire anywhere else and the size of America has always had a very distinct impact on its identity we always had multiple different you know types of Protestants even Catholics and and others uh in the colonies they all kind of broke out into their own you know most people don't know that the separation of church and state isn't in the Constitution and until the incorporation of first amendments you were allowed to have state churches and we did right uh you know and these things were were very common this is part of the American Experience in a way that we've kind of cleansed from a history so we can pretend that this is some kind of secular nation and always has been and so the these different identities existed regionally people in in New England were very different from people in North Carolina or Georgia but they all shared this this kind of General identity As Americans and that was okay because we used to be these United States and that regionalism allowed us to have significant cultural and even religious differences while still Binding Together in a way that allowed us to cooperate and and have a shared identity and in a weird way we kind of destroyed that postor War I especially right after the Civil War and then World War II ironically the the radio and shared public education kind of just attempted to uh homogenize the entirety of American identity and it's created a very weird scenario where everyone had to fit into this cookie cutter box of what America was going to be because it got piped in through your television set and we're kind of seeing that come back apart right now so I don't think there's anything wrong necessarily with different states or different regions having very different ways of being and different understandings but like you said there has to be an overarching thing that gels the country together and that was most assuredly Protestant Christianity but with the abandonment of that we've we've gotten this uh you know a heretical version of it you know in wokeness and it's all of the all of the most radical Universalist strain of protestantism without any of the you know God and so obviously it's it's doing its best to be this kind of gutter religion that binds the country together uh but in the most horrific way possible right yeah it seems like if there's anything that America now you know a universal thing that like what is America what it's um anti-racist y that's that's what America is which really um if you if you want to you know spell that out more more accurately um America is a country that hates itself uh that I mean that's that's really what it is Japan doesn't hate itself Japan isn't losing sleep you know um you know burdened by guilt um they're they're perfectly comfortable being Japanese and China is perfectly comfortable um I I feel like we're we're only you know one of the few countries that um that that you know uh is ashamed of our past um hates ourselves you know and I you know I've been telling people um I feel like two things that you need in terms of like a positive Vision if if you if there's going to be any hope is um honor for your fathers and hope for the future uh whereas I feel that we have uh disdain for our fathers and um and you know doubt out in despair for the future and uh if if you don't and I think a lot of that actually is religious I think a lot of that is dispensationalism I think a lot of that is you know Boomer theology like you said like there's no hope for the future and we've all been taught that um our founding uh not just for our nation but but you know the last 2,000 years of Christianity is mostly bad um that the features are all the bad things and the bugs are you know every now and then we got it right you know so that were marked by the Spanish inquis Inquisition and um you know all these you know terrible terrible things and so if that's if that's the the the frame of mind for the people is that um that our past was bad and our future is uh Bleak then um there's not much there's just not much that you can do um so I I don't know I think people I you know a lot of the things that have been helpful for me over the past few years is you know continuing to read theology but realizing just how um how we my understanding was of History like I've had to read a lot more history um and and trying to read you know about history that's not just uh revisionist you know um trying to find primary sources and what actually happened um you know what were the Crusades all bad what you know was this good was this bad so um do you think there's any hope uh for Americans to be to relearn to to be to be taught or do you think that the post-war consensus is just done irrevocable damage I think the postwar consensus probably has done some pretty serious damage and I think that at this point we're we're in a scenario where the only way out is through um I I think that you have a honorable history of America I think there is a lot to rescue from this but I think that we're we're in we're really through this postmodern setting at this point where people have lost that continuity of history and you're not going to probably go ahead and just revivify that by giving everyone more intense Civics lessons you know uh Cicero said that to not know history is to always remain a child and that the purpose of a man's life is to be woven into the great chain of being into the tapestry of their ancestors and we've completely abandoned that like you said we we've rejected our ancestors we we cast them down what one of the things that even probably most Christians most conservatives you know Baptists and many have have done is they've they've followed the you know replaced the story of the founding fathers with the story of the Civil Rights Revolution America was a country born in sin and iniquity and it's only through the constant uh you know remission of of racial sins that we can go ahead and uh you know become something new and better that's that's a terrible way to live like you said that that's a that's a doctrine of self Annihilation and we have to have an identity that is something that we can be proud of something that we can care about something we can hand proudly to our posterity and that means probably reestablishing a way of being I mean what do we have at this point CS Lewis predicted the abolition of man because he said eventually the social Engineers would figure out everything about kind of what makes a man a man and they would strip them out and and reconfigure it and and if that's not what we've done through our uh through our advertisements through our social media and everything else simply strip the human down to its constituent parts and reprogrammed it to consume things then I don't know what else has happened and so if we're going to be human again if we're going to return to to uh be being a real a real people grounded in an identity in a history being connected to our God and and worshiping that necessarily requires us to go back to an existence where we're probably you know again geographically concentrated building a tradition bu you know we we have to start that culture again a new because what was before has been more or less made unaccessible to us it's hard for many people to even grasp what that would mean and so I think that that that starts again I think with scaling things down not trying to convert the entire country or the entire world but first looking to your neighbor and being like do I know them can we hold each other other accountable can we share our faith together you know do our families grow together like that that's a much more important task right now than you know getting your Jesus commercial on the Super Bowl right especially if your Jesus commercial sucks yeah um yeah no that's really good uh as you were talking it just made me think about you know again um dishonoring your fathers being you know being taught this revisionist history that they were all bad and that we just basically need to atone for the sins of our fathers and that's our entire existence um it it makes me think you know it's it's almost feels like too on the nose but I you know but I think it's just because God's word is living and active and and relevant and applicable um so I don't I don't think it's too obvious I think it's exactly true the fifth commandment um you know the Apostle Paul brings it back up in Ephesians um and says you know this is the first commandment with the promise and the and the promise is the fifth commandment to honor thy father and mother the promise is that um that you would live a long life but particularly that you would live long in the land um and I think that Nations that dishonor their fathers will not last in the land and I I think I think the Bible means that it's like well what's the Deep you know secret metaphorical meaning uh no I think it's just that I think you get kicked out of the land literally um you if you hate your founding hate your fathers hate your history um if if if a generation whole cloth is taught to um despise their Heritage uh then they will lose it they will they will give it up um you know they they'll give it away and and that really is you know like thinking um that our our our forefathers were terrible people that's one way that we've Dishonored disobeyed you know broken the fifth commandment Dishonored our fathers but another way is um through immigration um our great grandfathers and great great grandfathers and Beyond um and mothers for that matter uh they paid an immense price some of them gave their lives um they didn't do that for strangers that's not because we hate Strang that doesn't mean that that you know that somebody from another nation is bad we're not saying that but what we're saying like right now I'm working my butt off as a pastor and and then in addition to that you know making right response Ministries I'm with with a couple guys members in my church we're working on starting a Soap Company it's like why why are you doing you already got enough going on why why the Soap Company um because I want to leave an inheritance to my children's children because the Bible commands me to do so um and that inheritance can be nothing less than a spiritual inheritance teaching them uh the truths of Christ uh but I would be shocked if it's not more I don't think it's merely a spiritual inheritance um I think that inheritance is Spirit and I think it includes cash I I just think it does and so so my point is I'm working my butt off uh but here's the deal I am not working my butt off uh for uh a child in Uganda and and I think children Uganda are great love them but I don't love them like I love my kids not even close um our forefathers died they died um for their posterity and when their posterity gives away a legacy that we didn't earn but but that our forefathers died for to strangers we are breaking the fifth commandment and not honoring our father and mother and the fifth commandment is the first commandment that comes with a promise that you will live and specifically in the land and yeah right now I think we're in the process of of losing the land shocker yeah no I would 100% agree I think what happened um is that we told ourselves a story because it allowed us to not have to work very hard and the story was this America is a land of individualism we we are individuals the the capable individual is the key building block of of kind of Liberty and freedom and so therefore I don't have a duty to my children or my children's children I have a duty to the generations that will follow me in my posterity because well they need to learn how to do all this on their own I don't want to spoil them right I don't W to and so it's okay if I go ahead and go on my 19th Cruise or whatever and it's okay if the borders open because I get you know really cheap labor because ultimately like my kid will just have to fight it out and I mean aren't people from other nations just as good as my kid and there there's no reason for me to go ahead and prefer this what we did is we allowed uh ourselves to abdicate our responsibilities the truth is that sovereignty lies in Duty and Reliance right the the ability of one to trust others uh and the duty of one to care for others is what actually binds a society together and what gives a group at sovereignty and its continuity and if we abandon those things then they don't just go away like people don't stop being dependent like I hate to break to everyone listening to this but you're not an island you're not self-sufficient like you need a lot of things including your church and your family your community and everything around you and so do your children and if they don't get it from you they'll get it from someone else and the people they're getting it from is the government one of the reasons that we have the kind of government we have now the reason we have the total State as I call it my book is because we abdicated all of those responsibilities the um the the different intermediate institutions that stood between the individual and the all-c consuming government governments didn't used to be able to wield the level of control they have now because they didn't teach your kids because they didn't take care of your parents when they got old because they didn't provide you their their health care these are all things your community did your family did but it's a lot easier to tell ourselves oh well I don't want to spoil my C I don't want to make them dependent on me so I'll just turn them loose which means I'll just turn them over to the government is actually what you're saying and so if we if if we have this idea that everyone is American everyone can become an American anyone can walk in at any time and just become an American then it absolves us the duty to our neighbor because who's yeah I had Phil visher the guy from Veggie Tales uh telling me this on Twitter everyone's our neighbor and it's like Phil if everyone's our neighbor then nobody's our neighbor there is no duty to anyone we can't have a duty to everyone there's no such thing as a duty to everyone no one is capable of that we are only do we are only able to be uh bound to a certain number of people and hold a particular duty to a certain number of people and if we don't have an idea of who those people are then we just don't take care of anyone you're right yeah Bob the Tomato has been sorely disappointed with Phil for a very long time um but with that like it's just such theological ignorance so theologically that's that's the whole point you know when Jesus is talking about the you know the Good Samaritan and he's he's talking about love for neighbor well who is my neighbor um and then he tells you know like this parable of the Good Samaritan and it's the guy that you least expect um and and there is theologic I mean theologians have hold this held this forever and long before for the reformed tradition for 2,000 years Augustine plenty of guys um that there is a sense in which we have a universal neighborhood um that every human being created in the image of God is our neighbor however Augustine and the reformed tradition after him and everybody else has also argued um the the order of loves you know that there um you know that that everyone may be our neighbor but we are not equally obligated morally obligated to all of our neighbors um every child um is my neighbor um but if I clothe children on the other side of the planet and neglect to to clothe my own then the Bible has very harsh words for me uh the man who doesn't provide for the members of his own house has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever he's an apostate and I think American evangelicals this is a general you know large swath comment I'm about to make but in a general sense American evangelicals are apostates per the Apostle Paul um they have denied the faith and are worse than unbelievers because they have cared uh more about the children in Uganda uh than the children at their dinner table and um and and so uh yes in a technical sense theologically everyone is our neighbor uh but nowhere in scripture are we told uh to treat every neighbor with an equal devotion with an equal um love and and and affection um I love all women uh but I love my wife more and if I didn't uh then I wouldn't be a lover of women in a biblical sense I would just be a womanizer I would be a pervert I'd be a loser I'd be some red pill you know guy who you know says get a vasectomy at 20 and never marry and I repeat myself a loser so I you know that's that's not the way it works and with the Samaritan people say oh but he's a Samaritan he's not even related so this is the foreign you know um immigrant kind of uh thing going on no there's an argument for proximity uh part of the Good Samaritan theologically what's baked into the equation there is this is not a Samaritan on the other side of the world this is a Samaritan who is uh uh literally walking right next to a guy who's been beaten up and left for debt and why is he obligated uh because of their genetic ties no because of religious ties no um he's obligated because he's there he's right there um he is right next door and uh the guy is is uh right next to him bleeding out about to die and if he doesn't stop um no one else no one else uh it's not just that no one else will no one else can no no one else is around and so there is something to be said for um in terms of familial bonds uh National bonds um you know so Ken is is part comes into the equ everyone's my neighbor uh but but there's something to be said for a family in terms of prioritizing one neighbor above the other there's also something to be said spiritually so Galatians Paul says as often as you have opportunity do good to all but especially that is prioritize the household of faith so I'm called to with my finances practically spiritually at every level emotionally relationally to prioritize my brothers and sisters in Christ above you know Jesus even says whatever you do for the least of these and evangelicals have misinterpreted this for decades oh well who's the least of these who are the people on the margins oh well it's the illegal immigrant who's being paid Pennies on the dollar to do the work that you know white Americans don't want to do and no no no Jesus specifically says whatever you do for the least of these my brothers if you visited uh when I was in prison you came and visited me when did we visit you well when you visited the least of these my brothers the implication there is not that uh the Christians went and visited um a a rapist in jail no the implication is they visited a Christian who was imprisoned for preaching Christ and the least of these my brothers among Christians and as often as you do that uh you've done it for Christ himself so like we've just we've lost the threat we've entirely lost the theological thread of the order of loves um um which neighbor we everyone's your neighbor sure uh but there is a hierarchy there's a hierarchy of obligations um to neighbors I so I have familial ties I have church ties my you know spiritually to my fellow believer um and then I have National ties to to my countrymen um and then uh if there's anything left over then then yeah sure uh then then maybe I also support some Mission agencies um or or institutions in a a third world country that that's helping with poverty or something like that um I I can consider that as well that's not wrong to do uh but but we put the cart before the horse we we just we we turned the whole thing on its head where it's like my My Flesh and Blood kids I don't want them to be spoiled so they can fend for themselves and and uh and then the neighbor that I've never even met and and part of it is exactly what you said Orin um it's it's not because uh we grew in love uh we became less loving um it's it's because it was easy it's easy to love in theory it's easy to love the people that you've never met right plenty of plenty of people love the children Uganda U but they can't uh they can't get along with a roommate right I love all people except for the people that I happen to meet and then I realized that I'm actually not too good love and that's you so I don't know it's any final thoughts I know we need to land the plane but any final thoughts about your book or about what you know what what what we need to do to fix this mess is there any hope what do you think uh like I said I think we really are in the in this kind of the only way uh out is through scenario and so I do think that I I I've said this I'm long on Americans but I'm probably short on America as it stands now the U us as a as it's constantly is just currently constituted as a political entity I think that basically civilization was just never meant to scale this way I think we've lost sight as you say of the the condition of our neighbor because we've decided that everyone else is one and so we we cannot take care of ourselves our community uh and we cannot provide for uh and and share an identity that will kind of move our community forward and so I think like like I said what is necessary really is to bind ourselves back into those tighter communities you know that we have to go ahead and be you know geographically yes at first but in every other way re uh construct those intermediate institutions when dville came to America he wrote Democracy in America the reason he said it worked was because there are all these voluntary associations all these these different uh uh Social Clubs and churches and everything else that Americans spent a lot of a lot of their time you know they didn't spend a lot of time watching television obviously didn't exist but they didn't spend a lot of time free time just idling away they bound themselves into these social institutions that created these different Mutual Aid societies and things that meant that the government didn't have to do this kind of thing for them and so it's that reinstantiate of virtue but virtue as Aristotle told us can only be practiced inside a tradition inside a community it can't be in some vast abstract way it has to be personto person person inside uh again bounded inside uh that shared understanding and identity and so that means if we're going to go ahead and create those intermediate institutions again that will allow us to devolve power away from the state and once again be a community we have to take the responsibility on to ourselves we have to build stronger families we have to build stronger churches we have to be willing to go out and Care again for specific groups of people and ensure that their uh their well-being will to continue before we can then expand that and share that with others and I think that's really the key to to getting rid of much of what what we're going through now is is scaling things down becoming local again becoming personal again and recognizing that we we can't share there there is no Liberty without virtue and that virtue can again only be practiced once we are in a community again right that's great well thanks for coming on the show your new book the total State May 7th it'll be available and uh people can follow you on Twitter I assume Twitter YouTube uh substack Orin McIntyre of course I'm on the blaze as well right on the blaze with uh your podcast and is it just the Orin McIntyre show or McIntyre I'm on Blaze TV and in the podcast as well all your favorite podcast platforms cool well Orin thanks again for coming on the show appreciate it thanks for having me sh [Music]

Channel: Right Response Ministries

Views: 7,900

Keywords:

Id: gFZyYiOf-mM

Length: 69min 0sec (4140 seconds)

Published: Mon May 06 2024