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pastor Doug Wilson welcome back to the Will Spencer podcast Great to be with you I'm very excited for what I think is

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the sixth edition of the Will and Doug Book Club Sounds all right In the past we talked about Mere Christendom and

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Idols for Destruction and American Milk and Honey Case for Christian Nationalism I pulled these all off my bookshelf

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Deeper Heaven and then Men and Marriage Here we go There we go So I've enjoyed

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all of our conversations about these books very much And today uh after our last conversation which was about Idols

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for Destruction you recommended another book which is somewhat smaller Yeah The basic laws of human stupidity And you

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this this brilliant this came with a very strong this was a delightful little book by the way I was reading this on an

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airplane I I was having a good laugh through it So maybe you could talk a little bit about this book and and uh

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and some of the aspects of it Sure Um I was on vacation uh a few years ago maybe

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five years ago and one of the things we do when we're on vacation is we try to

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find bookstores or used bookstores and Nancy goes and shops for useful things

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and I go browse in the bookstore and I uh we were in a small town in North

1:29

Idaho and I came into this bookstore and saw this book on the on the shelf and I

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thought what what on earth is that what on earth is that i picked up picked it

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up and started browsing there in the store and it made an immediate conquest of me Um this book is like a couple of

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other books from decades ago Um the Parkinson's law for example or the Peter

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principle Uh Parkinson's law uh work expands to fill the time allotted for it

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Um the Peter principle is that people get promoted to their level of incompetence They do a good job then

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they do a good job and they keep getting promoted until they stop doing a good job and then they stay there for the

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next 30 years In other words satiric books uh funny books uh humorous books

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that have a serious point to them And uh this book was very much in that vein It

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was "Oh this is funny This is hilarious Oh this is true." Yes He's not messing

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around with this No it's not messing around So basically um he's got uh basic

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laws of human stupidity The first one being the number of stupid people is always larger than you think

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Uh and and he defines stupidity as someone who takes an action that harms

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you but also does no appreciable benefit to himself or perhaps even harm to

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himself Um which is he distinguishes that from the the activity of a burglar

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Uh you know a a bandit or a burglar or a thief uh is following some sort of

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ruleguided behavior Mhm You have a stereo and he wants a stereo and and so

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he breaks into your house to take your stereo Um but because it's ruleguided

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behavior u people can anticipate it They can build a security system that you

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know they can defend themselves against it because it's it's destructive behavior that at least makes sense Mhm

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And um Chipola's argument here is that stupidity makes no sense There there's

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and and consequently there there is no way to defend yourself against it

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Uh you you can't uh you can't come up with a system that anticipates how a

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stupid person will come in and wreck things And and there are other laws that

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are really uh this is not a u an aristocrat snarking at the bluecollar

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types That's right Because one of his one of his laws is that uh stupidity the

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the number of the stupid people which is always larger than you expect is constant in every demographic group So

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he said if you've got uh a group of janitors at a large corporation or a

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group of Nobel Prize winners uh the number of stupid people which will be larger than you think is going to be the

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same in both groups or comparable in both groups Uh and you think okay this

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is just beyond cynical Um but it's also very helpful Um yeah it

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it it's helpful to understand that some things don't have an explanation

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Yeah The the stupid people are it's kind of framed as a force of nature Like it's just something that we exist within that

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we have to account for and that we all deal with every day and there's really no explanation for it particularly

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because the stupid person harms others at no appreciable gain to himself Right

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Right and and he has a quadrant He he's a he's an Italian economist who wrote this book

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initially in English as sort of a Christmas present for his friends Um it

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got translated into a number of other languages and was an international bestseller but was never translated was

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never published in uh in English until just recently and uh and he divides

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everybody up into one of four quadrants There's the there's the intelligent person who does good for himself and

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good for others There's the helpless uh person who doesn't know how to fend off

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the the predations of the stupid person or the or or the burglar The burglar who

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helps himself and hurts others And then the stupid person who just hurts everybody including himself including

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himself Those are those I think call I think uh Chipola calls them the super

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stupids Most people are on the line They don't actually cause harm to themselves They just cause harm to others with no

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benefit to themselves And that whole quadrant is the super stupids Yeah Anyway it's a if you want a good

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chuckle on an airplane or you know it's it's a great great book But I I imagine

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it had particular relevance for you as an institution builder And that's that's why reading it I was I was so interested

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to talk with you about it because yes we all live in our day-to-day lives and interact with the general public or

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bureaucracies and we encounter stupid people in various degrees But as an institution builder anyone who builds an

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organization knowing that stupidity will be a force that you have to contend with must be a real challenge Obviously no

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one in Moscow is stupid So let's be clear Yes I've got news for you

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Fake news Fake news Fake news So um yeah if you build institutions

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um there's a great uh a great Seinfeld line Uh people they're the worst

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So if if you build a a school or a college or a publishing house or you

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know the the a number of the things that have taken root here in Moscow this

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really is something that you have to contend with Um you have to budget for it uh because you're hiring people and

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and you the what however fine you set the uh the mesh on your filters in the

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interview process Uh there will be people who uh get through the inter

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interview pro process because the interviewer you know you've got a group of you've got a band of interviewers

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Well maybe some of them are stupid Maybe Maybe And of course uh you know

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one of the things you have to factor into this is if a if a thousand people bought this book and read it uh a number

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of them would misapply uh the the lessons they would uh I think

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of that um that that Nazi meme are we the baddies you know Yes For the movie

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Yeah TV show whichever it was Yeah Are we the baddies uh well there will be out of the thousand people uh some people

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ought to be asking am am I one of these stupid people and the chances are it's poss

8:57

that's possible you one of the things you want to do is budget for that right

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um and and so consequently when you manage institutions you have to factor

9:08

in the the reality that somebody somewhere is going to do something uh

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that is destructive um to himself and to everybody else Um there's another line

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in one of PG Woodhouse's books where he says you have to real a leader has to

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recognize that in the people that he's overseeing somebody is always up to

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something And he says the rest of them are up to something else

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That's that's a Woodhouse line So um I think it's it's interesting that

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that the book helps clarify for readers who perhaps are not stupid what it actually means to be a good person in in

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his own in his own I guess he's he's an economist So he expresses it not necessarily in strictly moral terms but

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in economic terms that you benefit yourself and that you benefit others And so the ability to see that to say "Oh

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okay My function within this organization or the many groups that I'm a part of families etc is to seek to

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benefit others at not necessarily at cost to myself and perhaps also at benefit to myself Maybe in that order Do

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you think that this book can help stupid people identify the fact that they're being stupid i I do I there would there

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would have to be obviously he's speaking as an economist and obviously I don't think a stupid person can come to that

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realization without the Holy Spirit doing some work right uh but let's say

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there's there's prep you know wise people loving people dealing with this person u and then yeah it's conceivable

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that someone could come to the point of repentance because a a number because

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that's what's going to required because the uh the stupidity that he's talking

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about really is a moral thing It's like it's like the fool in Proverbs where the

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fool has said in his heart there there is no God Well we're not talking about

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the absence of intellectual RPM Um some of the some of the greatest fools uh in

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the human race are people who are highly intelligent Yeah you know they've won

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prizes they've they've they've published great books they are very insightful in

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certain areas Uh so the fool in biblical terms is a moral category And if you

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read this book uh even though it's written by an economist who's not appealing to scripture or anything like

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that you can say the the stupidity he's talking about is a moral category and

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consequently can be repented Oh okay That's a that's that

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provides some hope And what's what's funny about the book is that the word stupid just lands with such a thud Yeah

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But it's such an accurate term for what he's describing And that's kind of the delight of the book is that he's

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handling this comical term but he's defining it in a very precise and useful

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way Yeah Don't sugarcoat it Just tell them That's right That's right And you can you can actually feel in the book

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his grief over the whole thing like he's trying to maintain a sort of academic remove from the subject because he's an

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economist and he's got graphs and charts and you know Greek letters and everything and yet you can tell he's

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talking about something that has has impacted him his life with a great weight That's that that's right So I

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wanted to not only so it's affected everybody's life and th and everybody has has to deal with this and and what

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this does is gives you a grid or a a metric for being able to process what's

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happening So for the so for the leaders who are listening what the the consistent theme since Trump's election

12:54

however many six months ago something like that has been this is a this is a reprieve it's a respit it's an

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opportunity to build and I'm I'm seeing a a growing tide of commentators in our

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space who seem to be uh focusing on going local sort of withdrawing from larger political kind of kind of battles

13:12

for the moment at least and emphasizing emphasizing building locally So as as a man who's built a number of institutions

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yourself and we have this moment where everyone seems focused on institution building which I think is a great

13:23

blessing What sort of recommendations would you give to men who are seeking to build their own institutions in this

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unique moment we have um yes one of the advantages of acting locally Take a take

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a play uh a page from the leftists playbook Think globally ask locally

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Christians should be think intergalactically act locally Love it

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The cosmos the cosmos belongs to Christ Um but obedience happens in the

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day-to-day OB obedience happens where you're living And one of the one of the

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great advantages of such direct action planting a church starting a classical

14:08

Christian school you know do doing this sort of thing where you live That that

14:13

sort of direct action uh is valuable because you don't have to get permission

14:19

from anybody You you don't have to get anything through Congress You don't have to get anything through the state

14:25

legislature You don't have to get you know just do it Just go Um share the

14:32

word preach the word Um uh rent a rent a storefront and start preaching Um you

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know um this and I think that we have to take full advantage of the this respit

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that we have We don't know how long it's going to be There's going to be push back or some sort of counter at some

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point Yeah And it's going to be formidable I believe And I would much rather have a lot of Christians in a lot

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of places with a lot of institutions that they care about defending rather

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than uh you know I'd rather have thousands of guerilla bands all over the

15:16

country than one huge standing army Mhm And I think that suits the American

15:22

character as well or sort of decentralized nature right so that's that's great So so um so to tie into

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that uh a couple weeks ago maybe it was last week uh you talked in your blog

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about um institutional immune systems and it seems like that's kind of swimming around some of these

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conversations not only institutional internal immune systems but institutional external immune systems

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from conditions So maybe we can talk a little bit about that idea because I thought that was very relevant right now

15:51

Uh yes Uh institutions like people require an an an immune system I if you

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if a church or a denomination or a college or whatever the institution is

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doesn't have the ability to fight off infections Yeah Then it's going to die

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Um and it might be a slow agonizing death or it might be a rapid death but

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they're going to going to die And in the in the arena that I'm talking about the

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death could be one of two uh diseases Basically it's a disease of the head uh

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heresy or disease of the heart morals basically Um think of a church

16:39

that denies the Trinity or church that denies the deity of Christ or denies the

16:45

uniqueness of Christ That's that's a heretical teaching that is going to kill

16:50

that church It's going to they're done Stick a fork in it They're done Um then you

16:58

have the churches that u a man leaves his wife and nothing happens right a man

17:06

leaves his wife and marries a secretary and nothing happens The wife unhappy

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drifts off to another church but he's just he's and he's still the deacon right

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um that is the first step to the alphabet people that that you know

17:25

you're you can't how how on earth are you going to say no to anything now

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right yeah You can't So it's the the evangelical church tolerated

17:39

heterosexual sin open heterosexual sin for a long time and all of a sudden

17:46

presto here we are in Sodom How do we get here

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Well um basically uh the the fence against the the immune

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system is church discipline You you can't you cannot protect an institution

18:06

in this fallen world without saying no All right you have to say no to certain

18:12

heretical doctrines and you have to say no to certain immoral practices And if

18:17

you don't say if you don't say no then you're going to uh you're going to be

18:22

overrun by the people who want to do all the things that you thought could just

18:28

be suppressed without saying anything I'm glad that you mentioned the open

18:33

toleration of uh heterosexual sin because as I've attempted to reconstruct

18:38

the recent past of evangelicalism having arrived newly to this world somewhat

18:43

unexpectedly that seems to be one of the most likely explanations that I've been able to come up with sort of how we got

18:50

here that the sexual revolution found its way with like a great flood into the

18:55

church and it was just kind of openly tolerated and allowed and that was the beginning of maybe not even a slippery

19:01

slope but a cliff that has enabled so much other heretical and and uh moral

19:07

compromise to find their way into the church Is that is that a correct assessment that seemed to be to be the most likely Okay please go ahead Very

19:14

much so Um basically my my father uh used to say Lord bless him He said sins

19:21

are like grapes They come in bunches Oh there you go They come in clusters And

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uh and you see that in the New Testament uh overwhelmingly when the Apostle Paul

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starts talking about sin he'll you'll have a whole cluster of them Yeah Right

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He does that in Romans He does that in Galatians 5 He does that in in

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Corinthians He does that you know Uh and you notice that particular sins keep bad

19:54

company right yeah Um envy and malice go together Envy and malice are are twins U

20:02

so you have uh fornication adultery uncleanness you know all of these uh

20:08

things are clustered together And so consequently you can't let you can't admit one without

20:17

bringing in the whole batch Uh and that's going to happen It's the we have

20:24

many proverbs the camel's nose under the tent Uh the you know the that's the

20:30

that's the game that has been run on us and because we were asleep at the switch

20:37

when it came to uh obeying the Bible That's what it boiled down to Uh we we

20:43

didn't want to obey the Bible when someone that we knew our whole lives had

20:49

a troubled marriage and it broke up and then he married again and nothing was

20:55

biblical about it right nothing was biblical about it but we just sort of let it go because we know him Well

21:01

that's an argument that the homosexuals can use Yeah I know him too right he's

21:08

he's done a lot of good you know he's and and so if we uh if we start playing

21:15

the that was then this is now game we're we're going to discover that all kinds of sinners can play that was then this

21:22

is now So it it seems there's a category of sins that have just kind of socially I

21:28

mean not even socially collectively in America and the West has just decided to overlook That's not really a sin anymore

21:35

But now we have to somehow bring the car back onto the road And I from an

21:41

institutional level is it possible to do that within an already existing institution i'm thinking of for example

21:47

Joe Riggnney's book The Sin of Empathy which I haven't read yet but he'll be coming on the show to talk about in about a month Seems like some of that is

21:53

is is wrapped up But is that possible to do or do we just have to build new institutions i go back and forth on this

22:00

myself all the time I think I think some institutions are too far gone Yeah Uh

22:06

but I do I also believe that some are salvageable Um and uh so for example uh

22:14

it would be hard for me to believe for example to to name names It'd be hard

22:19

for me to believe that Wheaton could be turned around by this point Okay It was

22:25

looking pretty grim for a a bit there for Grove City College a stalwart

22:31

conservative college that started to do the woke wobble Uh but they just have a

22:36

new president and it looks very promising So you know Grove City looks

22:42

like they have turned around or are turning around So there is hope for that

22:47

uh for that sort of thing But you shouldn't bank on it you know if you

22:53

compromise I think the mortality I'll put it this way I think the mortality rate is very high Um and um and so when

23:03

you're associated with an institution and a a prudent assessment thinks we're

23:09

not going to be able to turn this around then it's time to to think about planting a freshman planting planting

23:15

new institutions So eight out of 10 times new

23:22

institutions two out of 10 times maybe you're going to be able to salvage it and pull it pull it from the fire Now in

23:28

our particular circumstance it was just simpler and easier to start new

23:33

institutions here in Moscow um which which we have done But I'm a big fan of

23:39

those who have successfully you know pulled their institution back from

23:46

um the woke left or the progressive left or the liberals

23:51

Can you think of um can you think of some other institutions i'm thinking of the work that Trump is starting to do

23:57

the Doge is starting to do trying to bring some of the governmental institutions church institutions are are

24:02

one set of things I think I think our government our our state institutions you know have been so massively

24:08

corrupted The IRS comes to mind the Federal Reserve Do you think Trump and his administration will be successful in

24:15

meaningfully changing any of the institutions that we all sort of collectively live under it's uh judging

24:21

from all the yelling that's going on I think I think so Uh I think that uh

24:28

Trump and Elon really have gotten in between the hogs and the bucket and and

24:33

the noises that we're hearing uh indicate that they're they're not pleased at all about it One of the

24:40

ironies is if you look at me Basham's book Shepherds for Sale Yeah what what

24:46

Elon is doing with Doge is also going to have an impact on cleaning up the church

24:52

because a bunch of the uh corruption money the the money that was being paid

24:58

into the church to drag us left um that's going to dry up some of that a

25:05

significant part of that is going to dry up also So I I I think that there are

25:11

moderate signs of um hope Mhm I I I tend

25:17

to agree I think that uh Trump and Elon are making a lot of people and JD Vance are make and Pete Hegsth and Cash Mattel

25:24

are making a lot of people very uncomfortable and it's kind of baffling to think that Trump hasn't even been

25:29

president for 3 months yet What are we coming up on three months in a in a week or so does it I don't know Is it just me

25:35

or does it seem like time has slowed down in a way i remember his first administration seemed to kind of rip by and this one it seems like every day is

25:41

a new is a new war that Yeah Yes And uh basically every once in a while he or

25:49

one of his people will say or do something atrocious and I'll go oh man good but most of the time it's Christmas

25:55

every morning So okay so I've been wanting to ask because there are a lot of very smart

26:01

people and we all kind of feel this way the tariffs conversation Can we talk about that for a minute because this

26:06

seems to be one of the things that's just it's kind of flying over my head in in many ways the complexity of the

26:12

discussion the geopolitical aspects of it I can say for sure that I that I've known from my travels overseas that

26:18

while you have the American left that's so heavily focused on Russia Russia Russia and the extreme left and the

26:25

extreme American right is focused on Israel Israel is Israel Go around the world and the whole world will say the

26:30

same thing China China China why won't you wake up and it seems like Trump has finally woken up to that reality So

26:36

maybe we can talk about that for a moment Uh yeah the thing the thing that I think we I would want to press on

26:43

everybody is in this whole tariff tumult Okay that's what this is In the whole

26:49

tariff tumult we're actually talking about two things not one Okay All right

26:54

the the one issue is are tariffs a good

27:00

economic policy when everybody is more or less behaving Okay

27:06

Um so for example when Carolyn Levit said that basically Mexico or Canada was

27:13

going to pay the tariff was going to u no it's a a tariff really is a tax So

27:20

I'm with Thomas Soul on that Okay Uh so if if we tariff certain Canadian

27:28

products then Canada is going to raise their prices to cover the tariff That's

27:34

right And if an American consumer buys that Canadian product he paid the tariff

27:41

through the raised price Okay So um when it comes to to that reality taxes are

27:48

tariffs Okay Tax And I'm I'm with the I'm with the libertarians and with the

27:53

free traders on on that issue Um the second thing that we're talking

28:00

about is tariffs as cudgel or tariffs as club

28:06

Okay Um or or put another way tariffs as

28:11

the art of the deal negotiating technique Okay So if uh if Trump says uh I I think

28:21

uh the tariff on China now is at 125% something like that But let's say um he

28:28

jacks the tariffs up to 400% That is not a an economic policy That's an act of

28:37

economic war Okay It's not exactly bombing Shanghai

28:42

It's you know it's but it's a hostile act basically Yeah Um and it's a hostile

28:48

act intended to force them to make concessions that they don't want to make

28:56

All right they and if uh so what I'm urging everybody to to do is I'm saying

29:04

okay I'm with the free traders on the economic argument about tariffs but I

29:10

want to wait and see what all the tariff levels are when Trump is done So let's

29:16

say let's say we fast forward to six months from now and let's say Argentina

29:21

has zero tariffs on us and we have zero on them Let's say Israel has zero tariffs on us and we have zero on them

29:28

Let's say Canada has come down to 5% and we have 5% on them Let's Okay And at the

29:35

end of the day uh I want to look at the actual numbers where the tariffs actually are and see was was Trump the

29:46

most uh significant president in a long time in bringing tariffs down

29:53

okay And he he did it by threatening tariffs Right Right He he he did it by

30:01

applying tariffs Now if if we had permanent tariffs on everybody at you

30:07

know extreme u uh extreme levels then I

30:12

think that that's going to wind up hurting everybody Okay Uh but I don't think that that's

30:18

what he's doing I think this is simply his style of smashmouth negotiation and

30:26

I'm I'm willing to wait and see the results of that uh negotiation If if it

30:34

we come out the other end with everybody's tariffs higher I would call it a loss But if we come out the other

30:41

end with the average tariff level greatly reduced then why wouldn't the

30:48

free traders be happy do you think it's possible to get to a place that we were I think before the

30:55

income tax where tariffs were all outward facing and there was no internal in income tax on the American people Do

31:01

you think it's possible to get there i'd love to believe that it is but I'm I'm not so sure Uh yeah but just think about

31:09

all the things that we thought were impossible that Trump just is going to

31:15

go ahead and do He's he's certainly talked about eliminating the income tax

31:20

and I've heard that that there's been discussion of eliminating the income tax

31:25

for people who earn under a 100k or something like but most people let's say

31:30

that he does that then even though the tariff even though an outward-f facing

31:36

tariff is a tax on the Americans who buy foreign products if there is no IRS then

31:43

what you have you've replaced one tax with another But it's not an intrusive tax because you don't have to fill out a

31:50

form You don't have to report your income You don't have to there's nobody prying into your private life All they

31:56

know is that you bought a a pallet of lumber

32:01

right right And you paid the tax and uh by means of the price that's baked in So

32:09

um so yes I think that that kind of tradeoff is quite possibly in the works and it

32:18

would go a long way to answering the argument uh of the people who say "Look a tariff is a tax." I'd say "Yeah for

32:25

most people a tariff is a tax but it's a better tax than the income tax." Mhm

32:30

Well I think it was a I was listening to something maybe it was a lecture or a podcast you were on or a Doug and

32:36

Friends you were talking about um you were talking about how the the taxes

32:43

need to be below 10% something like that about how it's taking it's competing with the Lord something Maybe you can

32:48

unpack that idea for for people who haven't heard that heard that uh particular point before Um there there are two things Um I I'm basing that

32:56

argument out of for 1st Samuel 8 when the people come to Samuel and they want

33:01

a king and they request a king like the other nations and my I I believe that

33:08

because in Deuteronomy 17 in the law of Moses uh God tells God places certain

33:14

restrictions on the king When you get a king the king must not multiply uh gold

33:20

He must not multiply horses He must not multiply wives Uh and the king has to

33:26

write out a copy of the law for himself So Deuteronomy in the Mosaic law regulates the behavior of a king So that

33:33

tells me that it wasn't a sin for the Israelites to request a king And I take

33:39

it that they were wanting a king like the other nations round about And Samuel

33:44

interpreted it as they were asking for a king who would behave in a tyrannical way And in 1st Samuel 8 Samuel gives a

33:53

bunch of warnings If you do if you do this if you persist in this you're going to get a king who takes your sons who

34:01

takes your daughters who takes a tenth of your flocks who takes a tenth of your crops And what that king is doing is

34:09

he's demanding as much as God does Uh God requires a tithe And I think that it

34:17

when uh Romans 13 says that we are to pay taxes to whom taxes are due revenue

34:24

revenue to whom revenue is due Uh well at what point it does a tax turn into

34:30

theft you know pure oldfashioned theft So when when Ahab took Nabus vineyard

34:37

why didn't he just call it a zoning uh change or you know why didn't he call it land

34:44

reform or taking land from the 1% or you know a lot of the euphemisms that we

34:51

cover that well environmental regulations Yes Correct So what Ahab did

34:56

was was a violation of uh the ten commandments He stole Even though he was

35:02

a civil magistrate he was a thief and a mur and a murderer So if the if the

35:09

Bible tells us to pay our taxes and the Bible also tells us that the civil magistrate can steal there obviously has

35:16

to be a a threshold or a dividing line where the one becomes the other

35:22

Okay and I draw that line at 10% So when when the civil magistrate starts

35:29

thinking that he needs as much money as God does um he's swollen he's overflown

35:35

his banks over overflowed his banks So in a sense the the initiation of the

35:42

income tax and the federal reserve that was symptomatic of a nation that had abandoned much of its Christian teaching

35:49

on money and its relationship to the to the magistrate Correct So do you so um so I guess the the hope

35:56

would be even though the Trump administration is not a Christian administration that they may bring us back more closely not necessarily for

36:03

Christian reasons for the but for the good of the population that perhaps they could bring us back more in a Christian

36:09

it would be a theomic alignment with with biblical principles for for how we address that Correct Even though um uh

36:16

Trump is um he's culturally a Christian he's he's baptized but in terms of he's

36:23

not an evangelical Christian who bases his day on the Bible Um

36:29

I think we all agree Um but as I pointed out during the election to to people if

36:36

if Harris won the election there would be be precisely zero evangelical

36:42

Christians in the White House in the West Wing uh in in the administration

36:48

And I said if Trump wins this election the place is going to be crawling with

36:54

them Uh there there there will be believers everywhere U and I think that

36:59

that's played out And so consequently even though uh Trump is not himself a

37:06

stalwart believer he has absolutely made room for them And personnel is policy

37:15

Yes Yeah personnel definitely makes possible policies that would otherwise be impossible with a completely

37:22

different set of personnel Correct So we've talked about um we've talked about institutional immune systems We've

37:28

talked about taking back institutions from sort of a uh morally compromised uh

37:33

and rebuilding new institutions and and it seems that one of the sets of

37:38

institutional immune systems has been against sort of feminism and its consequences And what I'm also seeing

37:44

now and this has been a surprise to me is a rising tide of we might call fascism on the right I think that's

37:50

probably an accurate term as well So you have an institutional inst immune system against sort of as a feminist view a

37:57

collectivist view But now you also have this and I think the word is actually used fascism monarchy also gets used

38:03

that's rising amongst young men on the right And this has been a surprise to me because I looked at a lot of that as an

38:09

expression of tension during the Biden administration that it was a a pressure cooker A lid kept on a pressure cooker

38:16

Everyone was very angsty about that for good reason And I thought you know when the when Trump won the election maybe

38:21

we'll get a chance at a big sigh of relief But it only seems to have gotten worse So maybe we can start talking

38:27

about that a little bit because it seems to me I've got a similar I've got a similar take to yours which I have not

38:33

given up on yet Okay Um and because as you mentioned Trump has been in office

38:39

for coming up on three months Yeah Let's I'll I'll uh I believe that a lot of the

38:47

Nietian angst in what what I would call the dank right was the result of um

38:56

several things It was the result of the pounding that young white men were

39:03

taking getting kicked in the head over and over and over you can't go to medical school you can't get into law

39:09

school you can't you know uh the the world of DEI um turned on in instead of

39:16

saying uh we're going to have a colorblind admissions proc process to whatever let the chips fall where they

39:23

may uh the affirmative action uh movement that morphed into metastasized

39:30

into um war on whites basically um a lot

39:35

of young white men uh were disenfranchised and alienated from their

39:41

own people from their own economy from all all of these things and took it ill

39:46

They they just they they uh So but what

39:52

what you're talking about is there's two elements to it One is all the abuse the

39:57

persecution the name calling the uh you're the bad guy in the piece The white people are the cancer of the

40:03

planet There was that part of it but then there was the economic part of it Okay um the the outsourcing of jobs jobs

40:12

going overseas uh factory shutting down um the the things that uh young white

40:20

men used to gravitate to and excel at and you know were they were being

40:26

squeezed out or shuttered or you know and and so the economic pinch point and

40:34

the coupled with the unrelenting hostility of official

40:39

the official culture against them produced They started looking around for

40:45

who's going to who's going to help me navigate this unfortunately the evangelical church uh was pastored by um

40:55

the winsome All right So everybody's got to be winsome Everybody's got to be um a beta beta

41:03

beta males are the most like Jesus and and we're going to uh attract young

41:09

people that way Um and so Big Eva and big swaths of the conference circuit

41:17

reformed evangelical world really were in the long house It really was uh um

41:25

really was bad And and so that aroused uh a lot of additional hostility because

41:32

these young men when they looked to the church for how does the Bible help me

41:38

navigate this terrible situation how what would Christ have me do all they heard was a um slightly modified version

41:47

of what they would get in a TED talk So uh sermons sermons were TED talks

41:53

with Bible verses attached Yes And uh and so a lot of these young white men

42:00

grew angry and uh cynical and bitter

42:06

and were ready to blow Uh and I think that was the condition running up to the

42:13

election Okay The 2024 the this last last election Now let's say that there

42:21

is and I don't know the future and I don't know if Trump can pull it off and I I don't know the future but let's say

42:28

we're a year from now and there really is a Trump

42:34

boom okay an economic boom DEI is gone Um all of you know all of this stuff is

42:42

the crazy is gone is outlawed Um the the um American military is once

42:50

again a career option for people who don't want to be uh attacked for being

42:56

white or being male or whatever right and the economy takes off like a rocket

43:01

ship Let's say that happens and it's one year from now I believe a lot of this

43:07

angst goes away Okay Okay Yeah One of the reasons why

43:15

the the Middle East is such a a boiling

43:20

pot of turmoil is because there is no

43:26

employment for young men Yes Yeah Very much so There there there

43:32

is no economic opportunity And when there so young men have a lot of energy

43:38

they have a lot of aggressiveness And what a booming economy does and what

43:44

capitalism does understood in a Christian way What capitalism does is it

43:50

channels that energy in ways that are constructive for everybody Everybody's

43:57

blessed But men are going to be dominant no matter what Yes Okay And this is some

44:03

even though even though some of these young angry young men think that Gilder George Gilder is a bad guy Um Gilder is

44:11

the one who taught me that men are going men are going to be dominant no matter what And your only choice is to have

44:19

whether that dominance is going to be constructive or destructive And what we

44:24

were headed for if if Harris had won the election I believe that we would have

44:30

had an explosion of uh young men Yeah there would have been I think there

44:36

would have been a big mess because that energy has to go somewhere Uh if Trump

44:42

turns the economy around then I think that energy somebody's going to say to

44:49

you know Young Smith here why are you down in your mama's basement typing there's they're hiring

44:56

Right Right Why don't you do this why don't you do this and no longer can you say uh no I can't because I'm white and

45:03

they won't they they won't hire a white guy or they won't promote a white guy Uh that's going to be that's going to be

45:08

gone So we'll we will see It's possible that in Trump's first term he was he had

45:15

a promising economy that got shut down with the pandemic Uh and I believe that

45:21

he got played by the u by the co mongers

45:27

Um and I but I think 47 appears to be tackling everything a a lot differently

45:34

than 45 And so consequently my hopes for a an economic resurgence which is going

45:41

to pull the uh pull the bitterness away from a lot of young men So So in a post

45:49

I I I agree with you and I I pray that you're right sir So so in a post um

45:54

winsome evangelical world where you have uh reformed churches that now are quite

46:00

appealing to men but men are carrying a lot of this bitterness with them as they

46:05

as they enter into churches So I think we see it I think we feel it It's online I think one of the great tragedies is is

46:12

the belief that your online behavior doesn't feed back into your offline I I

46:17

don't think we're two separate people when we're with our anonymous Twitter account Then when we are we're elsewhere It just kind of goes How can how can

46:25

reformed churches and I I I spoke with uh with Dr Longshore about this I think it was a couple weeks ago about JC

46:31

Riyle's book Holiness I think that there's a sanctification challenge here In fact I know there is So So how can

46:37

reformed churches build their own institutional immune systems against this bitterness because it it's not

46:43

coming with you In fact uh at my church we're reading The Great Divorce right now and that's a a wonderful example of

46:48

all the things that you can't bring with you to heaven And so how can how can reformed churches build their own

46:54

institutional immune systems against some of these ideas in the interim unless and until the Trump boom God

47:01

willing happens yeah So um it's a great great question because a there's going

47:07

to be a lot of refugees people showing up at the church and they're going to track stuff in and uh and it's the

47:14

church's task to get them you know adjusted cleaned up a bit and and have

47:19

them take off their shoes You can't track that in here And and like you said bitterness is is

47:27

one of those things Uh and it can u see to it It says in Hebrews 12 "See to it

47:32

that no root of bitterness spring up and by it many be defiled." Yep So

47:38

bitterness is a root And if you've ever dug up a tree stump before you know that roots go all over the front It's just

47:44

this little stump like this and there are roots all over the front yard And pretty soon you're having to call in a

47:49

backhoe uh to to get this thing up Well bitterness is like that The roots the

47:56

tentacles the roots go everywhere And uh uh the author of Hebrews says "Let no re

48:04

root of bitterness spring up and by it many be defiled." Uh one wise person has said that bitterness is like eating a

48:12

box of rat poison and then waiting for the rat to die It just doesn't work the

48:18

um the per whoever wronged you thought thought you were nothing and and your

48:25

bitterness is saying you agree with that the the person who made you bitter mistreated you and now by your

48:32

bitterness you're mistreat you're mistreating uh yourself so you really

48:37

want in this time to be putting wholesome food on the table uh teaching

48:43

the way of Christ uh not as a feminine gentle Jesus meek and mild approach But

48:51

the first and second great commandments are love the Lord your God and to love your neighbor as yourself Uh the fruit

48:57

of the spirit is love joy peace patience Uh of these three u faith hope and love

49:03

The greatest is love So it's not uh squishy to teach the law of God It's not

49:11

squishy to say that Paul says in Romans "Owe no man anything except for the debt of love." Love does no harm to its

49:18

neighbor Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law And so consequently uh and then we need to

49:24

teach people that certain things are inconsistent with Christian charity with Christian love Uh one of the things I

49:32

found most helpful my dad wrote a a book u how to be free from bitterness Yeah

49:37

Which has been distributed hundreds It's in like 28 languages or something Some crazy number

49:43

of languages hundreds of thousands of copies And I would I would advise uh

49:50

churches that have an influx of battered young people coming into your church

49:57

to have that be one of the things in the welcome basket You know when you when you welcome aboard and this is we want

50:03

to love God and love each other and love the people who do us wrong And uh and

50:09

that's when you're coming to Christ that's what you're coming to learn how to do Uh one of the things that the

50:16

online trolls will say uh and they'll take you know what I'm just now talking

50:21

about love is the Beatles taught us all you need is love and and I'm I've become a flower child somehow and um but it the

50:31

kind of love I'm talking about is not a an effeminite here walk all over me Uh

50:40

again quoting my dad my dad said uh the Bible says that you're to love your neighbor you're to love your wife and

50:46

you're to love your enemy And he's he he taught me that everybody you meet all

50:52

day long is one of those Okay right um he's either your enemy or

50:59

your wife or your neighbor And you can't get off the hook by saying "Who is my neighbor?" by you know you're supposed

51:05

to love Yeah Um now the the thing that is amazing about this is when you when

51:13

you love your neighbor excuse me when you love your enemy the presupposition in that is that you're supposed to have

51:20

them Okay Yes Right Now what the winsome guys

51:26

have done what what the what the the men in the long house have done is they've

51:32

they have taken the commandment to love your enemies as a command to have no

51:37

enemies Got it Okay Yeah And that's simply

51:43

simply false I'm I'm supposed to behave in such a way as to generate

51:51

opposition And I maybe I've said this on your podcast before but I like saying it

51:56

So no reformation is ever accomplished to the polite sound of background golf

52:02

applause Sure Nobody has said "Yes we are wicked

52:08

and twisted and perverse Please come fix us." Um that's that's not how it goes So

52:15

if anybody stands in the pulpit and opens the Bible and said reads the text

52:20

and says these are the words of God uh this is what God says You are loving

52:27

God by that action and you are loving the people in front of you Uh because

52:32

the loving thing is to tell the truth to speak the truth and you want to speak it in a particular manner You know as Paul

52:40

says in Ephesians speaking the truth in love See the two things need to go together But uh we the uh the soft

52:49

squish evangelical left says that if you have an enemy at all it was almost

52:55

certainly your fault Yes Okay In not so many words Yeah Right

53:01

You you did it by being insufficiently winsome Uh it used to be it used to be

53:08

that a vile back in the day you know 50 years ago it used to be that you were vile if you said or did vile things but

53:16

today for the soft evangelical left you're a vile person if you say something that makes somebody else say

53:23

and do vile things right so if I if I'm in a conversation with you and I say you

53:29

know little boys can't become little girls something like that and we're just

53:34

And let's say someone snips that and puts it online in a way that goes viral

53:41

Yeah And then we go to YouTube and we read the comment thread below this viral

53:47

uh clip Uh a year or two ago that happened to my dear wife Nancy Yes

53:55

where someone someone took a clip of her talking about uh a spanking incident

54:00

with one of our kids and it had a million or more you know it was views

54:06

all over tarnation U so which made the rest of the family quite

54:13

jealous Nancy the the fire brand Uh so that that happens and people out there

54:19

go nuts and then the the the squishy evangelical says you're the problem

54:25

because you triggered that You you made that happen So you're a vile person

54:31

Nancy was a vile mother She was a vile uh teacher because she would she was

54:37

saying something that made other people u go completely bonkers And and of

54:43

course going completely bonkers can always be arranged So as as soon as you

54:50

uh as soon as you define uh the vile Christian is the one who makes all the

54:55

non-Christians fall over going ow ow ow Um then that's what they're going to do

55:01

right that's that's how the world works And as soon as

55:06

we get to the understanding that that is a play that they're running on us and we

55:13

come to the liberating moment of not caring you're free right and this is

55:21

where the sin of empathy kind of comes in right the emotional manipulation So you you've kind of So this is a question

55:27

I've kind of wanted to ask and you've kind of touched on it a little bit I I think um so you no reformation happens

55:32

in response to uh gentle golf applause There's a I don't mean confrontational

55:38

in a belligerent way not in a sinful way but in a way to confront culture to speak truth into culture and and to

55:43

adopt contra the winsome you know the the Moscow mood has been to be more say

55:49

confrontational in a in a righteous way I would say And so I've had many conversations with with good good men

55:55

and good women that have a longer history in evangelicalism than I do and they've sort of given me a sense of

56:01

context and and they say that you know the the dank right that we're seeing right now the this guy this this tone

56:07

that I think many agree is far over the line in terms of Christian behavior they they will say that well you know Doug

56:13

Wilson he set the stage for that and it was his book the serrated edge and it was that approach that he really

56:19

pioneered these techniques this approach this posture that now all these guys

56:24

they're they're blameless they're they're sort of taking it that's it's his fault for the way that they're

56:29

responding and it sounds to me that that's sort of a similar idea that like this is a play in a way that's being run

56:35

to say that like well you do it this way and then they iterate on that in a in perhaps sinful ways oh but it's it's

56:40

really eviscerated edg's fault Yeah I think that's a great question and it's

56:46

on point and I would I would and I'm not unus to that question That's a that's a

56:51

common allegation Look uh you you were the pioneer and it it doesn't help

56:58

matters when some of the people who are misbehaving over there uh will say that

57:03

themselves I I first learn you know I first learned this from Doug Wilson and

57:08

my hats off to him and too bad he turned into a Boomercon but uh but I I first

57:15

learned it from him and credit where credit's due Now back to my praise of Adolf you

57:22

know Yeah So u this the problem with

57:28

this uh analysis is that you you see it

57:33

you it's a it's a logical fallacy I think that cries out for a name probably does it's an informal fallacy but the

57:41

apostle Paul taught free grace okay um

57:46

you turn to Christ look to Christ um with apart from works of the law you're justified by faith alone apart apart

57:53

apart from works of the law Now one of you will say to me then okay why not do

58:00

evil that good may come okay Uh so you when you look at the book of Romans he

58:07

he's laying out his gospel of free grace and then he points to certain ways that

58:13

that gospel will be distorted Okay and he says somebody's going to say

58:20

this either as an adversary what you're saying leads to antonyomianism or someone's going to

58:27

pick it up and run and become an antonyomian in the name of Paul Okay So

58:33

Paul is going to teach free grace and an antonyomian will pick it up and run with it or a legalistic uh Pharisee will pick

58:42

it up and accuse Paul with it See see look at what you're causing Um Paul's

58:48

Paul's response to that is their condemnation is just that's not what I said That's not

58:55

what I teach That's not where it goes How can we who died to sin still live in it okay The the answer is just laid out

59:03

very clear I'm not saying that the people who are distorting what I'm saying to justify their sin their

59:10

condemnation is just Those who fail to recognize that I am unalterably opposed

59:15

to that kind of distortion their condemnation is just Um someone is

59:22

someone threw this charge at Martin Luther Um if you if you teach this

59:27

gospel of free grace then people are just going to say "I'm forgiven I can go

59:33

sin up a storm And Luther's response was "Let

59:39

them right?" Um they answer to God I'm I answer to God for what I'm saying and

59:45

what I'm doing And uh I do believe that I have to make it clear that the dank

59:51

right has u is radically misunderstanding uh what we're doing and what we're about

59:58

And they're they're not my prime pupils All right They're not my star pupils that are going on to show the deeper way

1:00:06

Uh they are kids who flunked out of the class And and they said "Well I studied

1:00:13

I studied under Wilson Uh I learned all these tricks from him." And someone comes to me and says "What about Schwarz

1:00:19

over here he says he learned all his he says he was your former student He says

1:00:25

he learned all this from you." I'd say "Sure Would you like to see his gradebook would you like to see the gradebook?"

1:00:32

M I think and that's that was sort of how I felt about it and that was always my response because my belief is as a

1:00:38

man I'm responsible for what I say and for what I do and for my work and I

1:00:43

can't point to well I learned there's there's a there's a there's a classic like don't do drugs don't smoking

1:00:49

non-smoking ad from like the 80s or something like that where a kid is smoking a cigarette in his room his dad

1:00:54

comes in is like who taught you this and the kid's like I learned it from watching you dad I learned it from watching too right and the dad has this

1:01:01

moment of conviction and like okay sure So you have a kid in his room you know from his father at a certain stage of

1:01:07

life We can accept that But when we're talking about conduct as adult men who are responsible for our own lives and

1:01:13

our own worlds our own words and the in the in the public square let's say it it lands squarely on you and your

1:01:19

relationship with God Don't look at the other guy like look at yourself And and I'm grateful to know that Luther said

1:01:25

the same Yeah And and so if uh if someone if if some online troll is

1:01:31

attacking other people's reputations and and and he's doing some uh crusader with

1:01:38

laser eye eyes thing but he's attacking individuals by name He's he's just

1:01:43

personal destruction And then he says he learned it from me I'd say I sign everything I write

1:01:51

Okay i don't I don't hide behind an avatar Um so just lesson number one uh you're

1:02:00

you're not doing it Um so basically I think that I I there is one uh there is

1:02:08

one aspect of this to which I'm very grateful um to the dank guys on the

1:02:15

right Okay uh because they have done what very few no one was able to do up

1:02:20

to this point which is that they've made me look like a

1:02:26

moderate all of a sudden all of a sudden I'm I'm balanced

1:02:32

Yes Yeah I'm the nice middle of the road guy Thank you Thank you so much for that Oh you know all of a sudden I'm winsome

1:02:41

Thanks Thanks for that Cheers Well so so then um so then uh maybe we can uh we

1:02:47

could talk just quickly about I regard some of some of these men as as a mission field like personally You know I

1:02:54

think you talked about the root of bitterness and and I wonder for for pastors who are interested available and

1:03:01

capable of doing of doing this work because I I am aware that these men are are working their way into reformed

1:03:07

churches across the nation and pastors are aware of it What advice would you give to those pastors for who are maybe

1:03:13

encountering it for the first time face to face you know and and potential membership interviews counseling

1:03:18

sessions to begin working with that root of bitterness in an effective in an effective way because it's it is quite

1:03:25

sensitive and and as you said it rightfully that there is legitimacy or or there is a legitimate cause behind it

1:03:32

but it's still it still needs to be needs to be pulled out What advice would you give to pastors fathers faith leaders to begin working with that to

1:03:39

take that root of bitterness out that maybe doesn't require a backhoe maybe they don't have th those resources Yeah

1:03:45

So I would say um I would I would urge pastors in that situation to make a

1:03:51

mental distinction first for the people arriving Uh and I'll use two metaphors

1:03:58

uh for it One is make a distinction between apostles and refugees apostles

1:04:05

from that world versus refugees from that world Okay Um the apostle is someone who wants

1:04:14

to come into your church and he wants to be an elder elder He wants to teach a Sunday school class and he wants to show

1:04:20

everybody the way You know th this is the way He's an apostle It's the job of a shepherd to drive that guy off Okay

1:04:29

He's a wolf Okay A refugee is someone who shows up tattered and mangled Um uh

1:04:37

he's a refugee and he was in that world He may have been a member of Proud Boys

1:04:42

He may have been uh in one of these groups and got disillusioned and and now

1:04:48

he's turning back to the church again and he shows up and he's got bruises and cuts all over him and rhetoric in his

1:04:55

mouth that he learned from the guy you just chased off Okay So make a distinction between

1:05:02

apostles and refugees The same thing applies to people from the left Apostles

1:05:08

of the left chase them off Refugees you dransitioners you know um no matter how

1:05:16

beat up they are they should be welcome Okay Then to change the image um make a

1:05:22

distinction conceptually between wolves and mangled sheep Okay um the the it's a

1:05:30

shepherd's job to fight off the wolves It's the shepherd's job to rescue the mangled sheep And uh basically the

1:05:40

evangelical world has done a poor job of identifying uh the kinds of slights and

1:05:47

injuries that a lot of these young men have uh gone through and and they'll

1:05:54

just backhand them Oh poor buddy You know your people enslaved black people centuries ago And he well he said well

1:06:01

one of the things that was done to me is I was given a lousy education So I don't know anything about uh the years before

1:06:07

I was born I don't know I don't know anything I don't have a father I don't know how to make a living I don't know

1:06:14

about the middle passage I don't know anything All I know is I get attacked for being white And I get attacked in

1:06:21

such a way as I can't make a living I can't afford a wife No girl wants to have anything to do with me All right

1:06:27

Now you're a pastor That That's a refugee That's a mangled sheep You take him in

1:06:34

Praise God And just one more quick question What advice would you give to men who want to become refugees who are

1:06:40

in this world and they just they've seen something that they just can't tolerate or they're sick of it and they realize it's taking them nowhere It's corrupting

1:06:47

their lives their relationships and they want to exit but they they can't see a way out Yeah One of the This is going to

1:06:53

be This is a hard thing but one of the bravest you're gonna have to start with

1:06:59

one of the bravest things you've ever done okay uh and that is because other

1:07:05

because it's going to be crabs in a bucket basically If you if you try to

1:07:10

climb out of the bucket the other crabs will drag you back in Um and so you have

1:07:17

to be turn to Almighty God and say "Most high God I got myself into a situation I

1:07:24

am going to have to make a clean break and I'm going to need courage and

1:07:30

backbone to do it and uh and then and then for for the sake of Christ don't

1:07:38

make a clean break and then go to some squish church you know go to a church

1:07:44

where they preach the Bible where they love God and they love their neighbor and they love you Um and if you don't

1:07:51

have a church like that in your neighborhood move Find find a find a

1:07:56

place where you can worship God with people who love him

1:08:02

Amen Amen I I I thank you again for your wisdom and your clarity on these issues

1:08:07

I I think we we are navigating our way culturally as Americans and as Christians and as men especially through

1:08:13

turbulent waters and I and I appreciate the the pathf finding that you offer there for for the men who are struggling

1:08:19

with these Great So um I wonder if our next conversation you had recommended

1:08:25

this in a previous conversation if we could uh touch on Martin Luther's commentary to the Galatians Maybe it's

1:08:30

time to have some theological conversations I had never heard of this but um I've become since aware that it's a it's quite an important book So maybe

1:08:37

we'll talk about this uh for our next episode of Will and Doug's book club Great All right Thank you so much Pastor

1:08:43

Wilson as always Thank you Delight