Matt Walsh, Voddie Baucham, The Trans Guy, and the Reality of Stigma

Matt Walsh, Voddie Baucham, The Trans Guy, and the Reality of Stigma

Mar 11, 2023 | Culture

I stumbled on the video below about the drama surrounding Matt Walsh speaking brutal truth to some guy pretending to be a woman. You have to see this guy pretending to believe he is actually a sexy woman to believe it. Appropriate words fail when you encounter something so wrong. It’s like watching something so nauseatingly evil that you’re dumbfounded, literally struck dumb, unable to speak. Like watching old films from the end of WWII and the allies coming upon the death camps with piles of bodies, that kind of nauseating. What can you say about such a thing other than feel anger and disgust and a yearning for justice that feels like vengeance. No, I do not believe a transgender male pretending he’s a woman is in any way comparable to genocide. There are obviously gradations of evil, and while these two examples are significantly different on the scale, transgender sin is deeply evil and elicits in us revulsion, and it should!

The reason I decided to comment on this is because it’s a critical cultural moment for the church and America. I encourage you to watch the 13-minute video to better understand the issues I’m addressing. If you watch through to the end you’ll see a touching video of a girl who now wants to be called Mike reading a letter from her grandmother telling her she cannot do that because of Jesus, but affirming how much she still loves her. Walsh is the one who plays the video, so he’s not the heartless monster his critics say he is. Some of these critics while not saying he’s a “monster” do think his tone and words were unfortunate, not winsome, and basically counterproductive. I couldn’t disagree more because the two examples are apples and oranges: the dude playing the woman needs tough love, and the struggling young lady just needs plain old love, and guidance. This gets to the cultural issue.

 

The word stigma was dropped a long time ago as a remnant of a hostile and intolerant religious (i.e., Christian) past in America. The simplest definition:

An association of disgrace or public disapproval with something, such as an action or condition: synonym: stain.

Oh no, we certainly wouldn’t want to do that! Stigmatizing “the other” was so last century before we entered secular Utopia and became tolerant of others’ lifestyles in the 1960s. Now in American culture we’re tolerant of all lifestyle choices, and accept everyone for who they decide to “identify” as. Only, we’re not. Far from it. Let’s use a simple example of why this “narrative” is a lie.

What are the two most common criticisms of Christians? We hate homosexuals (we’re intolerant), now including trans people, and we’re hypocrites.  Even though the first one is demonstrably untrue, and the second one is true of every human being (nobody lives up to their own standards let alone those of a perfectly holy God), what do these accusation do to Christians? Why, they stigmatize them! We’ve seen a growing phenomenon over the last several decades that has become as obvious as a Mount Everest in our midst. Those who are supposedly the most tolerant among us are the most blatantly intolerant people imaginable. It was not too many years ago when liberals were, well liberal. Here is one definition of the word liberal that makes one laugh out loud thinking we used to call these people liberals:

Favoring reform, open to new ideas, and tolerant of the ideas and behavior of others; not bound by traditional thinking; broad-minded. synonym.

The most narrow-minded bigots in America today used to be called liberals. They are more commonly called progressives now, but any honest person would call them communists. As ex-communist and leftist David Horowitz has accurately said, “Inside every progressive is a totalitarian screaming to get out.” This is an especially virulent form of communism, though, informed by a cultural form of Marxism, in popular parlance, wokism. This isn’t the old style communism a la Lavrenty Beria, Stalin’s hit man who had a penchant for shooting people in the back of the head, but a more subtle form of political murder. In 2023 we call this cancel culture. Another word for this? Stigma.

In the olden days in America, women who got pregnant out of wedlock (what an antiquated word that is!) were stigmatized. Now this is perfectly normal. When I was growing up the phrase, “living in sin” meant two people not married were living together, and people actually used it. If you used that phrase today to anyone under 40, they would have no idea what you’re talking about. Divorce was an embarrassing reality for some families. A man not having a job and living on the government dole was a disgrace. Those who lived on the street were bums, not “homeless people.” People who got drunk often were drunkards, now their alcoholics and supposedly have a disease. And I could go on.

Now, everything in America has become morally inverted. What was once stigmatized and considered immoral, is considered perfectly “normal,” and morally good. What is stigmatized is anyone who questions the morality of such things, those who do are considered intolerant; they must not be tolerated! Free speech, speaking what you think, is now considered by our progressive, woke cultural elites as “dangerous.” If it goes counter to the accepted moral standards of the woke cultural elites, it is hate. How convenient.

Which brings me to the video and Matt Walsh speaking brutal truth to cultural power to the trans guy who claims to be a sexy woman. What Walsh is doing it attempting to re-stigmatize what ought to be stigmatized. In the upside-down, inside-out world of progressive Alice in Wonderland, what should be stigmatized isn’t, and what should not be stigmatized is. There is no moral neutrality in the universe. The idea is a myth of the secular lie. Christians are especially susceptible to the lie because they often buy into the secular cultural stereotype of Christians as Big Meanies who hate “sexual minorities” or some such thing. Those in the video criticizing Walsh as a Big Meanie are blind or naïve, and have no wisdom about the brutality of spiritual warfare in a fallen world.

Which finally brings me to Voddie Baucham, the great Christian culture warrior. At 7:48 and 10:08 in the video, he tells us about the Eleventh Commandment Christian, a phrase I’d never heard before. These well-meaning Christians, he says, believe “that every problem in the world is a result of Christians not being nice enough.” Whenever the “controversial” topics around sex are brought up by Christians or Christian pastors, they die the death of “a thousand qualifications.” As an example, he uses Christian pastors preaching on adultery, and it’s spot on. Pastors would never qualify the evil of adultery so they don’t offend the adulterers in the audience, but on the topic of homosexuality, that’s a different story.

The importance of this cultural moment is that we have two choices as we encounter the cultural hostility to all things Christian the left hates, and that’s pretty much everything. We either call a spade a spade, even if some Christians think that’s “mean,” or the left will continue to try to stigmatize us out of existence. We must culturally re-stigmatize any sex outside of marriage, for example, among many other things. There is no “getting along” with the woke elite. As Ronald Reagan said about the Soviet Union when asked what victory would look like, he answered, “We win, they lose.” The mutually exclusive worldviews of cultural Marxism (wokeness) and Christianity cannot coexist.

The spirit of “the 60s” is at its cultural and political apex; it has no higher to go. But as I argued in my previous post, the fall of the left is inevitable because nothing built on lies can last. It is the examples of Matt Walsh and Voddie Baucham who show us the path to victory and the advance of the kingdom of God.

 

My Interesting Encounter with The Rationalist

My Interesting Encounter with The Rationalist

Mar 7, 2023 | Apologetics

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I say The Rationalist not because there is one such person in the world, but because the person I encountered is the quintessential rationalist. There is a lot I want to unpack here and get off my chest so this may take several posts; we’ll see. Before I get to what a rationalist is, I will briefly explain the encounter.

I was recently on the Unbelievable? Podcast with Justin Brierly, and had an enjoyable discussion about Uninvented with an atheist, Matthew Taylor. I found out he has his own podcast, Still Unbelievable! and joked with Matthew after Justin stopped the recording that I expected an invite to be on their podcast, and he said he would do that. Lo and behold he was as good as his word. I was on recently for two and a half hours! He warned me that his co-host was not as accommodating as he is, or some such words, but I assured him I could handle it. I did, but it was grueling being interrogated by a rationalist atheist for that long. I’m sure his listeners were gleeful that yet another clueless Christian proved the superiority of their worldview. But I’m convinced he could have on C.S. Lewis come back from the dead, William Lane Craig, J.P. Moreland, and J. Warner Wallace all at the same time, and The Rationalist would still feel superior to we poor benighted Christians.

First, I’ll explain what a rationalist is for those not familiar with the term. In 17th century intellectual circles skepticism was on the rise. René Descartes (1596-1650), a Catholic and generally considered the founder of modern philosophy, decided he would address the challenge. He is famous, or infamous depending on one’s point of view, for defending the faith by doubting everything that could be doubted. His goal was absolute certainty because he felt that was needed to counter the skeptics. He was convinced such certainty was possible and developed detailed rules for how to attain it. The first step was finding if there was anything he could not doubt.

He eventually concluded the only thing he could not doubt was his own thinking, thus concluding cogito ergo sum, or I think therefore I am. There is certainly something to that, but it is a very thin reed upon which to hang one’s epistemology, or how we come to know what we know. My interlocutor on the podcast seems to believe that reed is a mighty oak that encompasses the entire universe. In that I’m not exaggerating because reason for him is all you got. Rationalism, along with empiricism, that true knowledge is only available via the empirical method, rounded out the Enlightenment project of the scope of man’s possible knowledge. Eventually, metaphysics was completely rejected. With these tools it was assumed mankind could figure out the true nature of reality, and unlock all the mysteries of the universe. Good luck!

Although Enlightenment intellectuals allowed God along for the ride for a century or two, they eventually kicked Him off the bus and left Him on the side of the road to fend for Himself. They could do well enough on their own. Which gets me to my interlocutor. Both he and Matthew once embraced the Christian faith, and then rejected it. We call that nowadays a “deconversion.” Many who take this path find a kind of agnosticism because they realize having absolute certainty about the ultimate nature of things isn’t really possible, so they decide to live in the space of unknowing, or agnosticism. The Rationalist, on the other hand, believes in absolute certainty, and he is absolutely certain in his certainty! It’s amazing to see this displayed in another human being. The lack of humility and what I perceived as arrogance was unpleasant to endure. If it was just a conversation over a pint I would have quickly changed the subject to the trivial like sports or the weather and I’m sure he would have been a fine person to interact with, but being a guest on their podcast, I was kind of stuck.

And while I’m targeting rationalists in this post, don’t think they’re the only ones capable of the absolute certainty delusion. It’s a sinful human trait, and plenty of Christians are guilty of it too, and people of every other religious stripe as well. It’s terribly unattractive in whatever form it’s expressed on whatever issue. I often quote the Apostle Paul: “The one who thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought to know.” And I always follow with, this doesn’t call for skepticism, that we can’t know, but for epistemological humility. We can in fact know, have true knowledge, but we must realize, especially as we get older, that we don’t now a whole lot more than we do. Wisdom says, I know what I don’t know.

The reason rationalists, and I mean the true believers, are often unpleasant is because of arrogance. If you disagree with them you are wrong, full stop. They are likely not like this in the rest of their lives, but when it comes to God and Christianity, they give no quarter. The weapon of choice for The Rationalist is reason in the form of logic in the form of accusations of logical fallacies. While I am superficially referring to the gentleman I engaged in this conversation, he sounded exactly like other very intelligent atheists I’ve encountered over the years. And with such a weapon no wonder there are so few atheists in the world. Saying that I would be accused, as I was, of the popular fantasy, or some such thing. Just because something is popular doesn’t make it true. To which I replied, duh! This brings up several other fallacies he accused me of, including the straw man and red herring several times. As I thought back on the encounter, I realized he was committing the exact same fallacies he accused me of, numerous times. After I said something, he would tell me what I thought, the straw man, then chop it down.

It was impossible on the fly to challenge it effectively because first, he knows more about a lot of things than I do, and I’m not a professional apologist or debater. I’m a businessman, a sales guy, who dabbles in apologetics. In fact, and I told them this, I hate debates, never watch or listen to them. But The Rationalist seemed to think we were in a debate, and he clearly won, while proving absolutely nothing about the veracity of his worldview. In fact, I thought his arguments were for the most parts terrible, but I’m not quick enough, or knowledgeable or experienced enough to effectively have challenged him. The main problem with The Rationalist, and other rationalists I’ve encountered, is that they come off as condescending. It’s just not appealing. I agree with something Dennis Prager often says. I would rather seek clarity than agreement. I can’t convince anybody of anything, and I gave up even wanting to do that a long time ago. I’d rather have a conversation of mutual respect and understanding, try to the best of my ability to see where the other person is coming from, and let God do what God does. And that’s in any encounter with any human being in any context.

I will continue with some further thoughts about the encounter in my next post. Stay tuned.

Audiobook, Chapter 1: The Bible and Its Critics

Audiobook, Chapter 1: The Bible and Its Critics

Mar 4, 2023 | Uninvented

  • Liberal Christianity, and Its Contradictions
  • The Enlightenment Sets the Stage
  • The Effect of the Enlightenment on the Interpretation of Scripture
  • Biblical Criticism Gets Its Start: The Arbitrary Becomes the Authority
  • The First Liberal Christian
  • The Quest for the Historical Jesus

 

“The Elite Panic of 2022” and the Inevitable Fall of the Left

“The Elite Panic of 2022” and the Inevitable Fall of the Left

Mar 2, 2023 | Politics & Government

If you believe in truth, and more importantly, if you believe in He who is the Truth, you will have some sense that lies will always be exposed for what they are. Here is the truth: anything built on lies cannot endure. Light always overcome darkness. When light appears, darkness flees. It’s the nature of things.

It is impossible for that which is contrary to the created structure of reality to last, and God in his almighty sovereign control of all things will not allow it. It is my faith in God and the power of His Truth that gives me confidence that we are living in a time of great revealing. This began in the most unlikely of ways with the most unlikely person, Donald J. Trump, New York real estate billionaire and reality TV star.

It doesn’t matter what you think of the man, if you believe he’s a MAGA hero saving American, or everything his critics and enemies say he is. As Steve Bannon often says, you can spit on the ground when you hear his name, but something happened when he came down the escalator at Trump Tower in New York City on June 16, 2015. Specifically, something happened to the left. The term as I use it covers all who and what we refer to as progressives, the media, Democrats, the deep state, globalists, and RINOs of various stripes, collectively the Uniparty. They are all to one degree or another cultural Marxists (now called wokeness), and Trump broke them. It’s called Trump Derangement Syndrome, and it’s a real psychological malady. We can also refer to them in the title of the piece we’ll be discussing, as the elite. What exactly was this panic last year?

I heard Martin Gurri interviewed by Mark Bauerlein on the First Things Podcast discuss his article about this elite panic. It was gratifying to have someone confirm my conviction of the ultimate futility of the ruling class. Those who get their news and information only from “approved” sources will not realize a great awakening is happening, but for those who seek and utilize alternative, “non-approved” news sources (you know, the kind where you get “disinformation”), the awakening is all over the place. I believe this awakening is ultimately spiritual and will lead to the advance of God’s kingdom and the growth of Christ’s church. The four-year assault by the deep state on Trump was the beginning of my own awakening, but it wasn’t until the covid scam, then the blatant stolen election of 2020, and finally the J6 “insurrection” FBI setup that my eyes were completely wide open.

It’s stunning how naïve I’d been all my adult life now looking back at how obvious so much of the corruption was. It is my trust in our Almighty God that keeps me from the temptation of cynicism, which is a sin. Through all of this, including finding Steve Bannon’s War Room after the 2020 election debacle, I started becoming excited about the future possibilities of our country. Up to that point I’d pretty much been a doomer, glass half empty kind of person when it came to politics and culture. In fact, I often saw the glass as not only empty, but completely dry. One of the reasons is that the only thing conservatives seemed to do is conserve the liberal/progressive gains of the last hundred years. What I call Con (conservative) Inc. (the intellectual and information ecosystem of the conservative movement) sadly turned out to be a con.

We might call what Trump initiated the great elite crack up. The ruling classes hatred of Trump (because he threatens their grift, their money and power) was (and is) so great they can’t control themselves. So they would do anything to rid the political world of the man, including lie, cheat, and steal (elections). They would even go so far as to use a contagious virous to destroy him, which the deep state and leftist media is finally admitting came from a Wuhan lab in China (honest people knew this three years ago). The “Trump-Russia collusion” lies didn’t get the job done, or the impeachment lies, but a virus from China was the perfect opportunity to distort our elections beyond recognition and get him out of office.  That, my friends, is called desperation, and a sign of weakness. The enemies of America haven’t gotten any stronger in the last two years, and thus the article confirming my convictions from Mr. Gurri. Covid was when the ruling class-elite jumped the shark. From Gurri:

Fauci embodied a bureaucracy and political class that, with the active support of the media, had converted the public’s fear of infection into a principle of elite authority. Under this principle, only trained scientists can make projections and recommendations. The writ of government stretched as far as the boundaries of scientific truth—and those boundaries were, of course, determined by government agencies. It wasn’t just a question of specific policies like lockdowns and vaccine mandates. At stake was the restoration of the public’s habit of obedience that had gone missing during the Trump years.

How dare we not passively obey the dictates of the “experts”! Some of us knew this back in the spring of 2020, and never obeyed. I knew something was very rotten in Denmark when the NCAA cancelled March Madness. What? That was the beginning of the end of sports in my life. Even college and professional sports had gone corrupt. I blame a lot of what they did on the panic porn pushed by politicians and the media, but there was zero excuse to add going woke to their Covid missteps, and I was done.

You knew the elites were desperate to protect their lies when they invented the word “disinformation,” the dumbest propaganda word in the history of dumb propaganda words. Gurri addresses the ending of the mask mandate (speaking of dumb, and evil) and Barack Obama’s speech at Stanford University a few days after a Trump appointed judge (how dare she!) in Florida struck down the mandate. As Gurri puts it, for Obama disinformation “is a form of lèse-majesté—any insult to the progressive ruling class,” which Gurri refers to as “the guardian class.” They will protect us whether we like it or not. Obviously we don’t know any better, so free speech be damned! Then Musk bought Twitter. Uh oh. Gurri nails the elite ruling class delusion:

For a considerable number of agitated people, the goal of neutrality was an abomination. Suddenly, “free speech” became a code for something dark and evil—racism, white nationalism, oligarchy, transphobia, “extremist rightwing Nazis”—all the phantoms and goblins that inhabit the nightmares of the progressive mind. Self-awareness was the first casualty of this war of words. The Washington Post, owned by multibillionaire Jeff Bezos, solemnly preached the need for regulation “to prevent rich people from controlling our channels of communication.”

We can file that under, you just can’t make this stuff up! As Gurri adds, “the itch to control what Americans can say online was equated with the defense of freedom. Granting unfettered speech to the rabble, as Musk intended, would be ‘dangerous to our democracy.’” That would be hilarious, if it wasn’t so dangerous. Gurri makes an astute observation:

In a vague and inchoate way, the progressive elites sense that they have power but lack authority. They live in dread of a reversal in the tide of history that will bestow the future to the worst kind of people and the bloody idols they worship.

This is the irony of the third decade of the 21st century in which we live. The left controls all the levers of cultural and much of the political power, and is at the apex of their societal influence, but in this their weakness is being exposed. Even “normies” (people not obsessed with politics) are getting it. In my favorite metaphor for rule by lies, their Berlin Wall is coming down.