Ideas Have Consequences

Jews: Oppressed or Oppressors?

• Disciple Nations Alliance • Season 2 • Episode 4

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From the Old Testament through current events, the Jewish people have been the target of animosity and violence. We’ve witnessed a heightened global resurgence of antisemitism since the attack on Israel last October. Anti-Jewish sentiment hasn’t been at this level since the end of WWII. What’s behind the hatred? How does critical theory play into this? What about radical Islam? Join us as we unpack the major worldviews at play and discuss practical ways each of us can respond. 

Luke Allen:

Just these compounding incidences where anti-Semitism is clearly on the rise. I saw a stat last year or last week that said you know it's up 400%. You know, I don't really know what that means, but it is clearly on the rise. And it's not just in the Middle East, where we kind of would expect to see that, but it's this global rise of anti-Semitic thought. So, yeah, I just I want to understand that. Why is there this hatred of the Jews? Where did this come from? You know, we've seen it throughout history. It's back again. Why is that? This small people group that's been hurt throughout history, a group that you would think we would have some pity and compassion for, but I'm not seeing that right now. Hi, friends, welcome to. Ideas have Consequences.

Luke Allen:

The podcast of the Disciple Nations Alliance. If you're new to the podcast here on this show we examine how our mission as Christians is to not only spread the gospel around the world, to all the nations, but our mission also includes to be the hands and feet of God, to transform the nations, to increasingly reflect the truth, goodness and beauty of God's kingdom. Tragically, the church has largely neglected this second part of her mission and today most Christians have little influence on their surrounding cultures. Join us on this podcast as we rediscover what it means for each of us to disciple the nations and to create Christ-honoring cultures that reflect the character of the living God.

Scott Allen:

Well, welcome again to another episode of Ideas have Consequences. This is the podcast of the Disciple Nations Alliance. My name is Scott Allen and I'm joined today by my co-workers and friends Dwight Voet, darrell Miller and Luke Allen. We thought, after some discussion about our topic today, that we would speak to all that's been happening around in the aftermath of the October 7th attack from Hamas against Israel. There's been so many ripples and follow-ons to that horrific event and we haven't really spoken to that yet. For me, guys, I want Luke, you were the one that kind of suggested this as something that you would like to talk about. I'd like to hear from you on your thoughts on that. But just in terms of a little setup, I have been trying to keep up with this a little bit as well. I read a tweet I guess they don't call them tweets anymore, it's.

Luke Allen:

X now.

Scott Allen:

It was from a person that I had not heard of before, named Bill Ackman, and he's apparently a billionaire hedge fund manager and graduate from Harvard University. He was writing about what he was seeing at Harvard with alarm. We've all been kind of, I think, aware that a lot of these protests now coming out of the universities and, of course, beyond that. I just wanted to read a little bit about what he said because I thought the way he said his observations on this were kind of powerful. He said he was talking about the president of Harvard, president Gay, who has, as of last week, resigned over her response to all of this. He writes this when I saw President Gay's initial statement about the massacre, it provided more context for the student group's statement of support for terrorism.

Scott Allen:

The protests began as pro-Palestinian and then they became anti-Israel. Shortly thereafter, anti-semitism exploded on campus, as protesters who violated Harvard's own codes of conduct were emboldened by the lack of enforcement of Harvard's rules and they kept testing the limits on just how aggressive and intimidating and disruptive they could be to Jewish and Israeli students and the student body at large. Sadly, anti-semitism remains a simmering source of hate, even at our best universities and among a subset of our students. I was struck by that because there was a couple of things. One was it started as pro-Hamas but then quickly shifted these protests to anti-Israel and then anti-Jewish, and they kept pushing these protesters, pushing the limits of just how aggressive they could be, because there wasn't a consequence from university faculty. It just got worse and worse. That's just one little data point on this larger discussion. Luke, tell us what you were thinking when you suggested this as a topic for our discussion today.

Luke Allen:

Yeah Well, I've been curious to talk to you guys about this ever since October when that initial attack against Israel happened October 7th but I'm still wrapping my head around it and just wrestling with this. I think a lot of people listening can agree with me that they've been shocked at the amount of anti-Semitic, the rise in anti-Semitism over the last three months. Growing up, I always thought there was two things that you could never touch, you could never discuss. One of them was, especially after our history in the US is an outright racism towards black people, african Americans. We don't go there. I think almost everyone will agree on that. The other one is anti-Semitism, hatred of Jews coming out of 80 years ago, world War II, and also just the history that the Jewish people have seen of hatred towards them. I thought that was an area we just didn't go in. We don't talk about. Maybe a few neo-Nazis agree on, but everyone else is an adamant rejection of.

Luke Allen:

Then October 7th happened. Interestingly, at that time I was reading with my wife the hiding place about the Holocaust and just growing up with dead. You, as a history buff, we all knew a lot about World War II. We love the history of World War II. It's very interesting, fascinating history, but the ringing theme there is the Holocaust was bad, 60 million Jews. It's pretty obviously evil.

Luke Allen:

Then October 7th happens. I'm shocked, I'm taking it back. I think we all can remember seeing those videos of what happened on the ground there in northern Israel. It was just evil, it was despicable, it was very sick. Then, a few weeks later, you start seeing these protests happen around the world. They're pro-Hamas, pro-the people that attacked Israel. I couldn't believe it. I know there's a complicated history between Palestine and Israel and all the politics of that. I'm not denying that. That's quite confusing. It's the evil that we saw on that day of October 7th, the denial to call that evil by a lot of people. You started seeing protests here in the US. I saw one in a high school where students were walking down the hall chanting from the river to the sea, which of course, as we know, is a cry to eradicate Israel from the Mediterranean Sea to the.

Scott Allen:

Tigris River, I believe, or the Jordan.

Luke Allen:

River, so eradicate all of Israel. And then, with the Harvard and what you were just talking about, who was that? Harvard, penn and MIT, they're hearing where those three presidents of those schools pretty much refused to condemn anti-Semitism Pretty shocking again. So just these compounding incidences where anti-Semitism is clearly on the rise. I saw a stat last week that said it's up 400%. I don't really know what that means, but it is clearly on the rise. It's not just in the Middle East, where we would expect to see that, but it's this global rise of anti-Semitic thought. So, yeah, I want to understand that. Why is there this hatred of the Jews? Where did this come from? We've seen it throughout history. It's back again. Why is that? This small people group that's been you could say, this minority people group that's been hurt throughout history, a group that you would think we would have some pity and compassion for, but I'm not seeing that right now.

Dwight Vogt:

And I'd like to add to that your question, luke, because I asked the same question. I have a good friend who's Jewish and we were watching a baseball game last summer and there were some something had happened in the news that month. I thought it wasn't Hamas, but and I just said, hey, you know, why do you think there's so much hatred for the Jews? What's that all about? And I thought, well, surely he thought long and hard about this, you know. He said, you know, I don't know.

Luke Allen:

I don't know.

Dwight Vogt:

I really don't know. And then I mentioned to you guys last week. You know, I was listening to a well-known journalist who's Jewish and they were asking her where did this come from? And she said well, it's, it's, it's tied into critical race there. It's because Jews are white and whites are oppressors and so they're hating Jews because they're white. I'm going oh, my goodness, you know it's not the answer. It's much, much deeper than that. But anyway, it's just this the sense of nobody really understands anti-Semitism.

Scott Allen:

I mean, I think the you know the last answer you gave is is interesting, dwight, and and I think it's also um, there's a lot of truth to that. That uh, why you're seeing students on campuses like Harvard protesting and, more broadly I would say, people on the far left, you know, very progressive or what we might call woke people um standing kind of very quickly, uh, in support of Hamas is um, is largely because of that ideology. That that is a Marxist ideology. It divides the world into these binary categories of oppressor and oppressed and, um, you know, on one side of that line, on the oppressor side, are Jews and on the other side are Palestinians, and how they get put into those different categories I think is kind of interesting and we can explore that. But I do think that's that that's part of what's going on. There's this kind of uh uniting of, you know, a group like Hamas, you know an Islamic terrorist kind of organization, and people in the United States on the far left, um, who are standing quite solidly in support of them.

Scott Allen:

I thought it just, you know, let me read one thing on that. I, um, I was struck I think many of you were struck by Black Lives Matter. You know, which is kind of the front or the face of woke progressivism in the United States, and the statement that they put out shortly after I think it was on October 8th, it might even be a bit, I mean, it was immediately after the attack, um, and I thought it'd be worthy of reading again what, what they, um, what they wrote, um, let me pull that up here. Um, yeah, this is from the statement that they they put out publicly on social media.

Scott Allen:

Quote this quote as the world is faced with deep questions about self-determination, as we all desire and pray for a world of peace, we must stand unswaveringly, unwaveringly, on the side of the oppressed. When a people have been subject to decades of apartheid and unimaginable violence here we're speaking about the Palestinians at the hands of the Jews when they've been subject to decades of apartheid and unimaginable violence, their resistance must not be condemned but understood as a desperate act of self-defense. Then they go on and they say black lives matter stands in solidarity with our Palestinian family, who are currently resisting 57 years of settler colonialism and apartheid, as black people continue to fight to end militarism and mass incarceration in our own communities. Let us understand the resistance in Palestine as an attempt to tear down the gates of the world's biggest open-air prison. As a radical black organization grounded in absolutist ideals, we see clear parallels between black and Palestinian people. I think that says a lot. Right there, you know about.

Dwight Vogt:

They're quite clear, right, you know, you know you go ahead, dwight, yeah, well, yeah, but that explains okay. So there's Israel, which is the political entity in the Middle East and it's oppressing Palestinians. But that explains that and you can take a critical theory perspective and say, oh okay, that's what's happening, but that does not explain what's happening on campuses against Jews.

Scott Allen:

Well, it does to me. Dwight I mean, because that woke ideology is absolutely dominant on the campuses and in the minds of the students. That's their reigning, functioning worldview by and large. You know, the vast majority, I'm sure, of students at Harvard would agree with this statement from Black Lives Matter. And so when Black Lives Matter says of the Jews that they are perpetuating an apartheid, unimaginable violence, that's what they believe about the Jews. These are violent, wicked people. You know that have colonized and oppressed the Palestinians, and so therefore, this is all completely justified.

Dwight Vogt:

That's. That is their worldview. But my question is why does that carry over to the Jewish student next to them who they've been in class with for the last four years? It's like now that person who's my friend is the oppressor because they're related to this political group in Israel that's oppressing Palestine. I mean, to me it's deeper than that, that's all.

Scott Allen:

I think this division of oppressed and oppressor, the white and black, you know it's, whatever it is, it's always because it doesn't see people as individuals, it lumps them together in groups and it defines the entire group. It's a completely deadly ideology. I mean, I think the fact that they're justifying this incredibly wicked attack just as proof positive of just how deadly this ideology is Once you other a group of people, an entire group of people, the next step clearly is I mean, this is what Hitler did with the Jews, right, he othered them as a group and the next step is the Holocaust. That's just what happens, you know. That's why it's evil and it needs to be absolutely condemned. You know, this ideology has to be as why I wrote the book, you know, on social justice, because I thought this has to be spoken out against its utterly deadly. Darrell, let's hear from you. I'm sure you've got some thoughts here on this.

Darrow Miller:

Well, I'm just thinking of this part of the conversation. There's so many things we could talk about.

Scott Allen:

Yeah.

Darrow Miller:

But you mentioned cultural Marxism and, as we've talked about on this podcast before, this was born out of the Frankfurt Institute in Germany in the 1920s and there's an irony here.

Darrow Miller:

There's a number of ironies in this whole discussion, but one of the ironies is that the Frankfurt School was founded largely by Jewish scholars academics and they all had been the children of wealthy Jewish bankers and businessmen who had made a lot of wealth, and they were the privileged children of these bankers and businessmen and they saw that this wealth was unjust. And these people were largely Marxists. They were communists, but they saw you needed to go deeper than just economic Marxism. You needed to bring a change in culture. There were cultural Marxists, but here you have this whole cultural Marxism coming out of the Frankfurt School, begun by wealthy Jewish young people who were scholars and philosophers, and they said we need to change culture.

Darrow Miller:

Well now we are, 100 years later. We're changing culture and the irony is this cultural Marxism is now attacking Jews and you know, I don't know as these Jewish scholars 100 years ago would have thought oh, this is going to come back and bite us, but it has. So that's, that's something I think needs to be brought into the discussion.

Scott Allen:

It is a real irony, isn't it, dero? I've thought that too. I do think one thing to add to that is that the Frankfurt School academics that were behind the kind of the originators of critical theory, you know, which is, as you said, cultural Marxism, it's just Marxism kind of, you know, redone, you know, for a new age, but they were secular Jews. I mean, they, they, they were Jewish people, you know, in terms of their ethnicity, but they, they weren't devout Jews Bible, you know, god fearing Jews, I would say, by and large, I don't think any of them were. So I think that's important to bring out here too.

Scott Allen:

And you know, another irony and this has been pointed out to Dero in the same vein is that you know these kind of the outburst of strong anti-Semitism in these protests coming out of our you know, elite, most elite universities. Those very same universities are largely supported by the Jewish community and Jewish, you know, wealthy Jewish donors. So there's an irony there too. And I think it's in some ways it's kind of a wake up call for for some of these people that have been investing a lot of money in these universities for the first time. I think this guy that I just quoted, this. Bill Ackman is kind of one of them. Like because he is Jewish as well, he's like something's wrong here, you know, and he's just realizing it for the first time.

Darrow Miller:

No, I think that's true, and it's one of the reasons there's a backlash in a lot of these people who financially support these universities, assuming they're a place of open debate, open discussion that would by their very nature be would not be anti-Semitic. And yet they are in the level of the faculty, the administration and this generation of students. And so people are saying is this what we've bought with our money? And they're starting to withdraw literally billions of dollars from these institutions, which it's good to have that kind of a response. But like you say, scott, they weren't expecting this, but it's what they've gotten.

Dwight Vogt:

Let me poke the issue again a little bit. Okay, let's say, agreed critical theory is underlying the current anti-Semitic movement on the universities and in the US and maybe globally among Westerners. But does that explain anti-Semitism? Because you can look at the critical theory and it doesn't apply to other groups. There are oppressor groups all over the world. I mean the Chinese are oppressing the Uighurs. I don't see an outcry on their campuses against that oppressor group. I mean there's, there's, and they're worse than Palestine. I mean, if you want to compare things, there's, there's oppression everywhere, but they're silent until it comes to the Jews. And all at once. Now we have a problem, now we have a real oppressor group. How do you explain that?

Luke Allen:

And not only that, but I don't even. I have a really hard time understanding how the Jews in Israel are an oppressive class according to critical race theory. You know, the Jewish people are an ethnic minority, they're. They have been very oppressed and marginalized throughout history. They've experienced some of the most outright racism that we've ever seen in history, and now they're the oppressed. They're the oppressors. I don't. I have a hard time wrapping my head around that Let me.

Scott Allen:

Let me see if I can respond, and I would love to get your thoughts on this too, because I've thought a lot about this as well. But yeah, I think it's really really the right question to be asking how, if, if we're dividing the world, if we're putting everybody into groups and then dividing all those groups into two categories oppressors and oppressed, how is it that the Jews, of all groups you know, ended up on the side of the oppressor? It's the right question. It's not. It's a lie. You know they are, and just demonstratably a lie. In the United States, you know the police track, you know hate crimes and you know the violence against ethnic groups and Jews are always at the top of that list that you know more violence against Jews and any other group. You know blacks, Hispanics, any other group.

Darrow Miller:

Historically.

Scott Allen:

Historically, and it's increasing. So how is it that they're categorized as an oppressor group? And earlier, dwight, you mentioned that it had to do with skin color, and you know there's they're viewed as white and white people are are the most oppressive groups. And I here's my, you know, I. What I want to do here is go back to something that, to me, was incredibly insightful and eye opening. That happened several years ago, maybe five years ago, when I was researching for my book on social justice and and the Smithsonian.

Scott Allen:

The Smithsonian Museum of African American history, remember, put out that infographic and it explained what white, what they mean by whiteness, meaning this evil, oppressive white culture, right, and and you're lump, you know, dwight, you lumped Jews into that because of their skin color, and that, to me, said it all. It just really shed light, and in fact, so much so that I wanted to pull that back up again and relook at that again this morning. And let me explain what this infographic said. Now they've since like walked away from this and backed off of this. The Smithsonian Museum did, but I think it was because it wasn't because what they it, you know, they still believe it it was. Just there was such incredible pushback on it that they, they. It was just too hot for them and they had to kind of back off of that. But you know, you can still go and find it, it's still here.

Scott Allen:

Let me read just a few of what. When they, when they so, when they talk about whiteness, they're really not talking about skin color at all. Let's, let's, let's look at what they're talking about. Whiteness refers to ways and this is again quoting from this infographic in which white people and their traditions and attitudes and ways of life have been normalized, and these include things like prioritizing people as individuals Okay, number one. Number two seeing individuals as having control over their environment. Now, we might you know, christians might call that dominion, that's very bad.

Scott Allen:

As opposed to the idea that the environment has control over us. Okay, let me keep going. I'm not going to read all of these, but okay, here's another one. The nuclear family father, mother and children is the ideal social unit. Husband should provide for the household, should be the breadwinner. The wife should submit to the husband. Let me go on and read just a few more. Objective, rational, linear thinking. This is whiteness. This is what whiteness is very evil.

Scott Allen:

Cause and effect relationships. Okay, let me continue. Hard work, the Protestant work ethic. They literally say that that's not, that's whiteness. Now, it's not okay.

Scott Allen:

When you look at this list, what? When I saw this list, I thought these are values that are actually biblical. Okay, these are biblical values that have shaped a culture, a civilization, right the West, and they've been shaped because they come out of a book, out of the Bible. And this helps me to understand why Jews are on the side of the oppressors, because here we're describing the oppressors, it's these oppressive values. Whether the Jews are believers in God or not, they've been shaped by these values and they tend to function according to these values because they come we're, we're, we're. Both Christians and Jews are people of the book. Thoughts on that, guys, because I, to me, that was really the thing. That kind of that was the key that unlocked so much of this. We're not talking about skin color here. We're talking about a civilization, the Western civilization. But, deeper than that, we're talking about the book that shaped Western civilization. That came out of Judaism right In Israel. So, darryl, you've thought a lot about this yeah.

Darrow Miller:

I was going to say on this point, Scott, this is a materialistic reflection on race. It's white against everyone else and it is not. It is not that at all. It's a cultural thing. There's a set of virtues that were born out of the revelation that God gave to Jews and Christians. The Bible that supports, that has a worldview, understands human beings in a certain way and produces a certain Judeo-Christian culture.

Scott Allen:

That's right and DNA is kind of our mission is to see the church channel these values and see them become rooted in society for the good of a society. Right, yeah, go ahead.

Luke Allen:

When I first saw this list, I'm so glad they took it down, even though they probably still believe it is. I just think it's so racist to assume that hard work is a white concept. Talk about diminishing to other people. When you turn that argument around, it's like what are you saying? People that aren't white, aren't hard workers and don't have good families? That's just yeah, that's kind of off topic, but I just can't believe that they actually said that.

Scott Allen:

Yeah, it's a lie, luke. It's a lie to say that this is kind of something that is white and not universal. I mean, even in our own experience in the United States the black community coming out of slavery there's a whole movement to live out and champion these values in their churches. Great leaders of the black movement in the United States, like Frederick Douglass or Martin Luther King, would completely champion these values. So these aren't white, these are biblical. But they've been labeled Black people have lived them out and even to this day.

Scott Allen:

But they've been labeled white.

Darrow Miller:

And it's a lie. This is the lie. It's a lie, but it has been successful in that people have bought into that.

Scott Allen:

Yeah, they have. That's correct, that's correct and it's a deadly lie, right? And then Jews get lumped into this same right. You know? I mean this is what, don't you think? Jewish culture, dwight, you've spoken to this more than once. You know whether you know there is a Jewish culture that's largely been shaped around these values because they come from the Bible. You know, whether Jews are devout, God fearing or not, there's a culture that's been shaped, I think, over the over millennia around these values and it's been good, you know, for the Jewish.

Dwight Vogt:

I think I think the points well taken that in this situation the reaction of the West is really a cultural reaction.

Dwight Vogt:

The critical theory is a reaction against in my opinion it would be this idea of individual dominion, where God said I've made you in my image, I've given you this earth. Now go out and create, create culture and have dominion over it, not in the necklace sense or in the non-stewarding sense, but in the best of senses. And it's a reaction against that which is strange and hard to understand, but it's a reaction globally. But I'd like to press Darrell, maybe not yet, but in this conversation, before we end.

Darrow Miller:

We're just beginning.

Dwight Vogt:

What about the Palestinian view of the Arab, let's just say the Muslim view in general of the Jew?

Scott Allen:

That goes back before Marxism, right?

Dwight Vogt:

Yes, and there's also been anti-Semitism among Christians against Jews. Where did that come from? There's all kinds of seems like strains of this. The big one right now is critical theory.

Luke Allen:

I get that it is but it's also this, and this feeds into the question too is it's this weird bedfellows between the critical theorists, the extreme leftists and Muslims? That's such a weird combination to me. We all saw the signs queers for Palestine. It's hilarious, but where did that come from? Remember a lot of people my age were posting these TikToks saying oh, there was this great thinker about 20 years ago who I know my parents didn't like because he knocked down these Twin Towers, but Osama bin Laden's led it to America. There's so much wisdom there. And these are young people coming out of US universities, where these people, I'm guessing, are very woke, and now they're finding alliances with Osama bin Laden Crazy.

Scott Allen:

Luke, explain that, because I think this is a TikTok phenomenon that I am just much more vaguely aware of. There's been a push on TikTok to change young people's perceptions of Islam and Osama bin Laden violent Islam and portray it as something that's positive, and you should give a second thought to what's going on there. Explain that to me.

Luke Allen:

That whole thing with Osama bin Laden's led it to America was a trend that's over now. But yeah, it's just all of a sudden this real interest in Muslims and they're the oppressed group and all of us. We need to join arms with them and we need to understand what they're talking about. So I'm seeing tons of information about Islamism out on the internet, these short blurbs. A lot of them are wrong. Some of them are right.

Luke Allen:

The Quran in itself is very confusing. Some of it is very accepting, very peaceful and peace-loving, and there's even a passage in there I forget where it is, but it says we are open to all religions. As long as you don't hurt us, we're not going to hurt you. And then, a few passages later, it talks about how we need to have a jihad against all people who are non-Muslim. So it's very confusing. But you're seeing a lot of the peaceful messages of the Quran being spread right now and a lot of people hear those and just see the out of context one liner and take it and run with it. And that's just the nature of social media, right, it's just these.

Scott Allen:

I just think there's incredible hubris or something, the boldness to think that we can propagandize young Americans into having a positive view. I mean, we're not very far away from 9-11 or ISIS, right? I don't know. Are we supposed to just? Well, our whole university see that nobody's going to remember all of that and that now we're going to, I don't know. It's just Our whole.

Luke Allen:

It's a weird combination of we're not just talking about Islam here at all, we're talking about terrorists. I think most Muslims out there wanted to make a clear distinction between those camps, because there is a clear distinction and yet nowadays the propaganda is all mixed together and it's just here it is. Salman bin Laden's was a great guy who had a lot of good thoughts. It's great.

Darrow Miller:

Well, let me say what the point you've just made. Public education and universities are rooted in evolutionism and atheism, and when you begin with an atheistic framework, that's how we are taught. I was taught that People are taught that today Darwin is right. There is no God. We've come about by chance. And when that is your intellectual foundation, your cultural understanding, then you reject God and you can believe in anything, and that believing in anything is part of what is going on today. You have a whole generation of people who've been taught by a generation of atheists who leave you with believing anything. And you can believe lies. You can believe that Hamas is a peaceful group. That's how it can happen.

Darrow Miller:

But I'd like to go back to the original question, and I don't know how deeply you want to go into these things, but I would say there's four different historic points that we can look at to answer your question, luke, of where has this come from? And the modern one is what we know from World War II and Hitler made this comment the God of the desert, that crazed, stupid, vengeful Asiatic despot with the power to make laws, that poison with which both Jews and Christians have spoiled and soiled the three wonderful instincts of man. Why is there an anti-Semitism? Because God is a moral God. And who brought that to the world? Jews brought it to the world.

Darrow Miller:

Jews brought the concept of a Creator God, not polytheism, not animism. A Creator God who was a moral God, who created a moral universe, and that means there is right and wrong. And Hitler understood that. If there's a moral God and we live in a moral universe, then all the fun things in life are gone, and that was a theme in the early part of the last century. With the rise of Darwinism and evolutionism, god is eliminated and you get rid of the moral universe, darrell.

Scott Allen:

Bock. Yeah, darrell, I completely agree with what you're saying. I just want to change maybe one thing. I know you said you know, if God exists, then you know we have to get rid of everything. That's fun, I know what you're saying there. We can, you know. But I think the way I would say it is if God exists and he has a law that is supreme, then I'm not God and my law isn't supreme. You know, and that's what's unacceptable for somebody like Hitler. Right, they want to be the supreme being and they want their law to be supreme. They don't want to bow the knee. So at heart, it's just, it's the rebellion that goes all the way back to the fall.

Luke Allen:

You know, I don't want there to be a God.

Scott Allen:

I don't want to bow the knee to God. I don't want to bow the knee to his moral law.

Darrow Miller:

That's the point. The God of the universe is a moral God. He made a universe where there's a moral framework, not just natural laws but moral laws. And if you deny God, you get rid. You get rid of the moral laws.

Scott Allen:

Yes.

Darrow Miller:

Aldous Huxley said this in the confession of a professional free thinker I had reason not to want the world to have meaning and, as a result, I assumed the world had no meaning, and I was readily able to find satisfactory grounds for this assumption. So the world has no meaning. There's no creator, it's all come about by accident. That's what he wanted. Why For me, as it undoubtedly was for most of my generation, the philosophy of meaninglessness was an instrument of liberation from a certain moral system. We were opposed to morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom, and I think we see this today in America and globally. Modern people want their sexual freedom, and to have sexual freedom you have to not have a moral universe, and to not have a moral universe you have to get rid of God.

Scott Allen:

And Darwin allows us to do that. Yeah, Darrow, I think it's so interesting. You know there's a lot of differences between Hitler and Marx, but there's a lot of things that also unite them, and let's just draw the linkage.

Darrow Miller:

They're both atheists.

Scott Allen:

Yeah, hitler, marx and this modern woke movement. Right, it's born out of atheism and it's also born out of this kind of you know, when you quoted Hitler, there there was a hatred, right it's, you know a hatred towards.

Luke Allen:

God.

Scott Allen:

And you see the same thing with Marx right, this kind of hard atheism and hatred of God. And you see it with this modern woke movement as well.

Darrow Miller:

And why?

Scott Allen:

What's that?

Darrow Miller:

And why? Because it's all about sexual freedom.

Scott Allen:

Well, to me, the deepest yeah, that to me is a really important piece of it, darrow but to me the deeper root is just rebellion against God. You know, it's just that old, ancient root of just man's. I don't want there to be a God. You know, the Satan's lie to Adam in the garden was you know you can be God.

Darrow Miller:

I wouldn't disagree with that. Yeah, that's the garden of that part of that is, I can live however I want.

Scott Allen:

However, I want is hedonistically as I want right, that's right. That's part of it, for sure, you know so.

Dwight Vogt:

I was reading Ask Innis late recently and a quote came out from him. He just said everyone wants to be in control. Everyone wants to and everybody. It's man's basic nature to dominate others.

Scott Allen:

That's the core element of the fallen nature. Dwight, I think yeah, right.

Dwight Vogt:

And. But you could flip that coin over. And the other is the quest for liberty. Nobody can tell me what I can't do.

Scott Allen:

Secular liberty, and it's freedom and control.

Dwight Vogt:

You want total freedom and you want to dominate.

Scott Allen:

Yes.

Dwight Vogt:

And Hitler and Marx. That's that defines them.

Scott Allen:

And so this gets us back to anti-Semitism, because Jews are associated with the, as Hitler said, the God of the desert, right? The God who is an obstacle to all of that, whether they want to be or not. And so are Christians, by the way. So we're an obstacle to that because we believe in that God and that book and these values, right?

Darrow Miller:

Okay, so to me, that helps explain it, Darrell. I think there's another level and this goes back to the time of the Middle Ages in history, where the church saw Jews as Christ killers. Yes, and if you remember in the New Testament where there give me who do you want me to kill? Barabbas or Jesus? And what did the Jews shout?

Scott Allen:

Jesus, give us Barabbas, give us Barabbas, barabbas Kill Jesus, kill Jesus, kill Jesus.

Darrow Miller:

And there was a time in the history of the church where the church was highly anti-Semitic because they saw the Jews as the Christ killers. So that's a poison that has come into the church in the past and I think there's probably still some Christians who think of the Jews as the Christ killers. But it was certainly prominent at an earlier time in history and contributed greatly to anti-Semitism. Then there's another one, and this goes back to Mohammed, the prophet of Islam, the founder of Islam, and he was born in Mecca and he was surrounded by Jews and Christians. They were the people he grew up with. I'm sure they were his friends, and when he received his revelation from Allah, he tried to convert the Jews and the Christians to the fact that he was a prophet. Jesus was a prophet. There was Old Testament prophets, jesus was the prophet, and now Mohammed was the prophet, and the Jews and the Christians in Medina rejected him. Up until that point, he thought he could persuade them. This was a dialogue let's talk. And the revelation that came to Mohammed in that time was one of let's reason together, let's dialogue. He was a person of the book and the Jews and the Christians were people of the book. There was this commonality. And when they rejected him, he moved to Medina with his followers and his strategy and tactics changed and he went from persuasion to coercion. If people will not be persuaded to my message, then we need to take up the sword and we need to hold the sword above their head until they convert to Islam. And he swept through the Arabian Peninsula with his followers and then out of the Arabian Peninsula into the Persian area and then into the Middle East and across North Africa, because he had the sword and he didn't want to persuade, he wanted to conquer. And that's a lot of what we find in Islam today in their attitude towards the Jews and the Christians.

Darrow Miller:

There's two in the Quran. You have those passages and I think Luke you mentioned this that are more peaceful passages. Let's talk together, let's get along together. Islam is a peaceful religion. Those all came from Mecca and the other passages came from his time in Medina, and so you can look at the Quran and say, okay, here's all this peaceful stuff, muslims are peaceful. And you have the other part. No, it's violence. And the Jihadist read the violence part and a lot of people in the West will say, no, it's peaceful, because they can pull out passages from the Quran that are about peace. So the other thing about this that I think is important to see is, in the Arab Peninsula at the time, like there is in many parts of the world, the culture was defined by tribalism.

Darrow Miller:

You're saying that the time of Muhammad.

Darrow Miller:

That's a time of Muhammad, the Bedouins in Saudi Arabia, what's now called Saudi Arabia. In the Bedouin, in the Peninsula, the Arab Peninsula, they were tribalists and they said I'm against my brother, my brother and I against my cousin, my cousin and I against the strangers. And who were the strangers? The Jews and the Christians. And so you had this tribal mentality and that became part of the Islamic culture and they wanted to have the. They wanted to create a global caliphate, and this is something they have in common with woke. In wokeism, there's no borders. A world without borders and we see that in spades on our Southern border today this is the product of this postmodern world, a world without borders, and that's exactly what the Muslims want. They do not want states, they want a caliphate, a global caliphate, and so, in this sense, you have what's the Swiss group Scott.

Scott Allen:

Davos, yeah, the world economic.

Darrow Miller:

Davos, on one side, promoting open borders, the diminishing of states globalism, yeah, globalism, and that's exactly what jihadists want. They want a global caliphate. So there, there is correspondence there between those.

Scott Allen:

Yeah, I think it's to me. Yoram Hazoni, the Jewish scholar, conservative Jewish scholar he, you know, wrote a really seminal book on this era. That was so fascinating. He talked about the idea of the nation coming out of the Bible with the Jewish nation, you know, being the first kind of kind of representative nation. Now there were people, groups and tribes, like you said, but nations as we understand nations, it kind of originated with the Jewish nation.

Scott Allen:

And then that idea he sets up kind of the binary between the nation and the empire. And the empire is globalist, you know it wants world domination. You could think of the Babylonian empire, or you could think of the Chinese Communist Party or whatever it might be. You know the Nazis, you know they want global domination. So they don't, they don't want to respect, you know, the rights of individuals or of nations.

Scott Allen:

And anyways, he talks about how you know the Roman empire, that the idea of empire kind of got subsumed. You know this idea of the nation got subsumed with with the fall of the Roman empire and you had kind of a Christian empire. But then after the Reformation there was a recovery of the idea of nations and then you saw the beginning of the modern nation state in Switzerland and Holland and England and the United States and around the world. And now that's being fought against, as you rightly say, darrow, and we're kind of there's big pushes back to empire again, both with the kind of the globalist movement that doesn't respect nations and wants to see them kind of eliminated, and you know, yeah, with Islam as well, with this idea of a global caliphate. So it's, it's good.

Darrow Miller:

And let's go back to what we said earlier from the river to the sea, from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, we need to get rid of the Jews, but it doesn't just stop for the Jews living in Israel, it's. We want to get rid of the Jews globally, but you have in the Middle East. We want Israel to disappear. So the we have a growing caliphate there in the Middle East, where there's Muslim peoples, but this is ISIS. This is the concept of ISIS. There's a caliphate that was growing in that part of the world, and this is what. This is what Jihadists want a global caliphate under Sharia law.

Scott Allen:

Yeah, I think it's a really good point, darrow, the idea of a genocide against Jews is an ancient idea, you know. I mean, it goes all the way back to. It goes all the way back to Egypt and to Pharaoh. Right, you know? We're going to kill all first born Jews. Right, we're going to destroy the Jewish people. Or you could think of the story of Esther, right, you know, during the time of Persia and the Persian Empire, we're going to wipe them out, wipe them off the face of the earth.

Luke Allen:

So, this.

Scott Allen:

This isn't new right, this is just a reoccurring theme.

Scott Allen:

Again the question why is it we're hearing it in our own time? Why is that? You know, and again I think it, there's ancient, ancient roots that goes all the way back to the garden in the fall. You know, on this one, you know there's there's the spirit of rebellion against God and you know there's obedience to God and that spirit of disobedience and hatred of God is going to always fight against God and, by extension, the people of God, right, the Jews, christians. You know these kinds of things.

Luke Allen:

But I maybe I'm wrong on this, but I do feel like there's more animosity towards Jews than Christians. You know, if that's true, then you would think it would be. You know, an equal hatred towards both groups, and I know persecution against Christians is at an all-time high today, so it's definitely real. But don't you guys think there's a little bit of a difference there? It's more towards the Jews than the Christians.

Darrow Miller:

after Depends where you live. Part of it's where you live. Part of it is a sequence. And Hitler was out to get the Jews, and then who was next?

Darrow Miller:

Yeah, the Christians yeah the Christians, and it's the same thing with Jihadists. Their focus is to get rid of the Jews and Israel. That's their near enemy. Who's their far enemy? Christians, and what Judeo-Christianity, that worldview framework, produced in the world? It's to destroy the Judeo-Christian values and civilization. So it's a progress? In my mind, it's not. The Jews are more significant than the Christians. We need to get rid of the Jews first and then the Christians, and we need to overthrow the Judeo-Christian civilization. Is what wokeism is trying to do, which is exactly what a global caliphate is trying to do.

Scott Allen:

And just to point out again the irony there, darrow, that when you talk about woke, far-left progressives that are rooted in Marxism and critical theory, that believe in queer theory, sexual libertinism, they have very little in common with Hamas or these, let's say, quite orthodox or strict Muslims. They do have one thing in common, though, don't they? They, you know this. You know this hatred of these values, these values of whiteness, of the Bible, of Western civilization. I mean, I think that's the thing that unites them. It's a common enemy, but that's it.

Darrow Miller:

Well then, there's another irony here, scott, and I try to point this out in my book Emancipating the World. You mentioned Osama bin Laden's letter to the West. It was actually, I think, addressed to whoever was the cabinet member in the United States government at the time, who was head of the Defense Department. I don't remember his name, oh, donald Rumsfeld, maybe it was it.

Scott Allen:

Maybe it was Rumsfeld.

Darrow Miller:

But I was doing the research for the book Emancipating the World Emancipating the World and I came across this letter from Osama bin Laden and it was like 10 years or so after he had written it and I'd never heard of this. How come this letter articulating who Osama bin Laden was and what he was about, why people said, why did they attack us on September 11th? I don't understand. Well, if you'd read his letter you would have understood. He sent the letter out before they attacked us. But again, in the West there can be no religious thing. Here it has to be. Well, we're the oppressors, so they're attacking the oppressors. But if you read that letter, it was a rant against the depravity of the Western world. Sexual license, greed.

Scott Allen:

It was all just kind of hedonism right, Western hedonism.

Darrow Miller:

Yeah, it was an attack on Western hedonism. And so we're sitting here as Christians. Well, who do we identify with? Well, we identify with the secular West against the jihadis. What? Why are we identifying with the secular West when, in the West today, we are hedonistic? That's the thing I think the church fails to realize. We have jihad coming from the East at us and, believe me, if they conquer Israel, they're going to keep coming. And you have the war in the West, and we see it in spades today, with what's going on in our country. And what do both groups want to do? They want to get rid of this Judeo-Christian culture and the Judeo-Christian worldview, and both groups are absolutely serious. And, as the church, we need to wake up and realize this.

Scott Allen:

Let's move towards kind of wrapping up our discussion. That's a good segue into that. Let's move to the good news. But that's a good. How do we respond?

Dwight Vogt:

I think we're going to have to go through the good news.

Scott Allen:

How do we respond? I think is the question and you know, daryl, you're pointing the way right there, but let's talk a little bit about that. How do we respond to this Personally? What does it mean? When we see this going on in the culture, we have discussions with people who maybe have bought into this ideology. How do we respond? What are your thoughts on that, guys? I mean, daryl, you obviously just mentioned something right there. We've got to wake up, okay. We've got to see things. We've got to begin to see things as they truly are and hopefully, as they truly are.

Scott Allen:

Hopefully, this podcast has been helpful to some in that regard. So, but what else can we do?

Dwight Vogt:

I think one of the lies is the lie that morality is bad and that it's a loss of freedom, when in reality a libertarian lifestyle just leads to dissolution and decay and destruction. And I was listening to Steven Meyer talk about natural law the other day and he goes, he goes. The amazing thing about natural law is that it's always if you follow it you get. It leads to good. And he he was just saying that we forget that a moral, a loving creator who is totally good, created laws for our good, and when we lose sight of that and don't realize that those laws are for good, then we see them as a prison and a limitation and we push back, but it's to our demise.

Scott Allen:

Yeah, dwight.

Scott Allen:

I think you're speaking to the. You know this, this secularized view of freedom and liberty, and just remind people that freedom, liberty are biblical values. You know they came out of the Bible, these ideas of freedom and liberty. You know the fallen world only knows tyranny, you know, and oppression, but but there's a secularized view of freedom. That isn't. That's a lie, like you say. It's this idea that I can do anything that I want to. I can act in any way I want, behave in any way I want. That's what freedom is. But that just leads to slavery. The Bible is very clear about that. That just leads to bondage, addiction, you name it. The biblical idea of freedom is an ordered freedom. You know it's freedom within the framework of a moral law, and that's only found there. You can only find true freedom in that place. So yeah, so let's, let's, let's understand these things and let's speak out for them. I think that's part of what we can do. Go ahead, darryl. I was just going to say yes, those are minimal.

Darrow Miller:

We need to. We need to be thoughtful and look at really what's going on and we need to speak out against what's going on. But there's something else that we can do and that is to be to identify with the Jews. And I remember and somebody mentioned earlier Cory Tenboom's book, the Hiding Place that godly Christians during the reign of Hitler opened their homes and hid the Jews at the risk of their own lives, and many people like Cory Tenboom's family was caught harboring Jews and they went with the Jews. They were sent to the concentration camps with the Jews and Cory's mother was a Jew and Cory's mother and father and sister did not survive the camps because they identified with the Jews and they were known. The Jews called these folks the righteous Gentiles. Will we be righteous Gentiles at this moment in history?

Darrow Miller:

I'm afraid, you know I'm afraid, you know, are we just going to put this off as, oh, this is just a moment, it's an aberration? No, we've said quite clearly this is something that happens through history. And where am I personally and where is the church Corporately in relationship to Israel and to the Jews? I remember hearing Dennis Prager at Christmas time calling for people to identify with the Jews and he said Hanukkah is upon us, go buy a menorah. Go buy a menorah. And that just went. Yeah, what if Christians put menorahs at Christmas time? Put menorahs in their windows? I don't know if you guys have seen my little star of David.

Luke Allen:

Yeah, I haven't seen that.

Darrow Miller:

And I asked the question from Dennis Prager. You know, I heard that halfway through Hanukkah and I thought well, by the time I get a menorah, what else can I do? What if Christians simply started wearing the star of David? Would that be a statement? A very simple thing. It's nothing to get a star of David and hang it around your neck, but remember, it was the star of David that Jews had to wear in Hitler's Germany to identify them as Jews, and they were the ones that were killed. So how do we identify? In simple ways, yeah.

Darrow Miller:

With the Jews at this moment in history. So there is a pushback against, in this case, secularism, wokeism, this hatred that we're seeing, this anti-Semitism. What if Christians all over the world did something for the Jews or to identify with Jews?

Scott Allen:

And, as what I was going to say dear is, I think one thing we can do very practically on this is I want to go back to this statement of Black Lives Matter. Okay, that they made in support of Hamas and against Israel. They said this when a people have been subject to decades of apartheid and unimaginable violence. Okay, they are making a statement here that the Jews Israel has been perpetuating decades of unimaginable violence against— it's a lie. It's a lie. It's a lie. And the fact that it's Black Lives Matter making this bold lie, it's not surprising. They did the same thing against the police here. Right, they said the police are perpetuating a genocide against Black people.

Scott Allen:

When I first heard that, I thought that's not an overstatement, that's a deadly lie. Because if you believe that lie, then all of a sudden you're going to end up where we're at right now in a lot of our cities You're going to defund the police because they're genocidal against Black people. It's just a lie. Now, again, I'm not saying all police are perfect, I'm not saying all Jews are perfect or all policies towards Palestine are perfect, but this is a lie.

Scott Allen:

And so here's the question Do you let these guys just let that lie stand out there in the public. No, we have to say no, this is a lie, this is a falsehood against the Jewish people and against the Jewish nation, and I'm not going to let it stand. I'm going to speak out. I think this is the problem in Nazi Germany is that they didn't. A lot of the Christians didn't speak up, even though they were witnessing these lies that demonized the Jews. So let's not just let these things go out there in the public without saying something about it. Right, let's be people of the truth and let's speak the truth.

Luke Allen:

Yeah, and that was one of my takeaways from this discussion is I mean, one of the easiest ways we can do that and speak the truth is just call evil evil. I think it's, you know, like the Holocaust. Everyone calls that evil now because it's easy, it's done. You know that time has passed. In Germany during it it was a lot harder. You know we just experienced some pure evil on October 7th. We all saw it. You know there was. There was people coming into Israel who had intel beforehand of where the Holocaust survivors lived in northern Israel, and Hamas targeted those houses specifically.

Scott Allen:

That's pure evil and all the other things that happen, kind of evil you have to call evil evil.

Luke Allen:

That's really simple application here. But if you if you, you know, depending on your ideology find a way to overlook that and say it's you know, turn a blind eye to it. That's wrong and we should be able to call that out.

Darrow Miller:

Well, and I would add, and I've written a series of blogs. We haven't posted them yet, but maybe we can get them up. That it's. It's not only evil, but it becomes diabolical or demonic, in other words, it manifest. The evil manifests itself in, in people's lives and through people's lives. And are we willing to go that far?

Scott Allen:

Exactly dear, oh, I mean the the black back to black lives matter. Their statement was was to justify the actions of Hamas on October that's right.

Scott Allen:

That's what they were doing, and they were doing it by saying the Jews are Practicing unimaginable violence and evil. And once you lie like that about, it's no different than what Hitler did to the Jews. Once you lie about a whole group of people, then anything is on the table. You can do anything to eradicate that evil. You can put them in concentration camps, you can. You know, you name it. So we can't just allow these Lies to stand.

Darrow Miller:

They have all. And it was also the behavior of Hamas on October 7th. Was that behavior diabolical, oh?

Scott Allen:

Yeah, of course.

Darrow Miller:

I would say it was. It was diabolical. It wasn't just a little bit of evil or having a little bit of fun, it was diabolical.

Luke Allen:

So it's a lover.

Darrow Miller:

I think we need to consider as Christians because we say we believe in Satan, we say there's a devil. Okay, do we? Or we willing to say this is a diabolical thing? Yeah no, it's demonic, it's it's, it's, it's really demonic.

Scott Allen:

But it takes me back, darrow, to Corey Tenboom again, and you know she pointed the way in terms of how do we respond? In Two very profound ways, I think. How do we respond as Christians? One, by defending the Jews, and that's what they did, literally took them into the home, hid them and then paid the price when they were caught, you know, by going to the concentration camps. The other, and and the one that just is to me even more stunning than that, is what she did, not to the Jews, but to the Nazis. That's right, to forgive them. To forgive them, you know, and that's the end of that book. The hiding place is that, yes, this was a, that this was the Nazi that came to her.

Scott Allen:

You know, the story goes that she was back in Germany after World War two, preaching that God, you know, is real and loves you and will forgive you to this defeated, broken nation. And then Upcomes this, a concentration camp guard, the very one that, at you know his hands, her beloved sister, died, saying I've now become a Christian. How wonderful that God has forgiven me. Would you forgive me Now? She could say no, you are diabolical, you are evil. Right, that would be the kind of the woke response. Right, you know, I'm gonna lump all of you people together and I'm gonna label you all Irredeemably evil. Of course I will never forgive you, but she didn't. She said I forgive you and that's an amazing Christian response.

Darrow Miller:

I wouldn't Evil, I wouldn't say. Using the word diabolical Is a non-Christian response. I think it's identifying an Ideology. Hitler was diabolical. Yeah, he wasn't simply a bad man, he was diabolical and that's the kind of language he deserved. Now, if he came up to you and Asked for forgiveness, what would you do? Yeah, it depends.

Scott Allen:

A little bit on the conditions, like it did in this case. Right, it was.

Darrow Miller:

Had he, you know, had he repented, you know so, but I know what's going on today is you have wokes Saying that something that is diabolical was actually positive. What Hamas has done is a good thing it's justified it's justified. No, it's not justified.

Luke Allen:

Yeah, I think we all agree on that. You know, believing in demons in the world and the demonic, but also believing in redemption and oh yeah, that's both over that. Yeah, it's both. But to go back, dad, to your point about Understanding the truth and speaking the truth, I think that's you know I don't. I don't want to overlook that. That's a that's a difficult thing to do, understanding the truth, spreading our time of incredible propaganda?

Luke Allen:

Yeah, exactly spreading lies and propaganda and misinformation is very easy. It's in our face all the time. Understanding the truth behind these kinds of situations as much it takes more. It takes more Work effort in more effort.

Luke Allen:

Attentionality right, but in this situation it's I wouldn't say it's that hard. You know, the facts are there for us. The world views have made themselves clear throughout history that are at work here, but it still does take work. So, yeah, what are some of the best ways that we can do that when approaching an issue like this? Well, it's still hot, because that's when it's uncomfortable to seek the truth. When it simmers down, it's always a lot easier, but it's still hot. So how, how can we? How can we go about that?

Scott Allen:

Yeah, it's so good. Luke, I think you know right now you first of all recognize the times that we're in, which is a time of kind of weaponized propaganda and lies. There's, it's, it's it's happening on a scale in greater than I've ever seen in my lifetime. So what that means is that when somebody comes across and makes a statement like the Jews are perpetuating an unimaginable violence and apartheid against Palestinians, you should question it, right, you should question kind of the rule number one. I think it's kind of question.

Scott Allen:

The narrative question Doesn't mean it's wrong, but you should always be kind of questioning it. Is that true, you know? You know, don't, don't just Accept. You know what kind of these sources are saying. And I this is where I think Christians have kind of been Not doing so great.

Scott Allen:

I mean, just back to Black Lives Matter again. Far too many of our evangelical brothers and sisters, you know, accepted the lies of Black Lives Matter and posted in support of Black Lives Matter and they still haven't come out and said I was wrong. You know they I mean Black Lives Matter is pretty well exposed itself now as this, you know, cultural Marxist kind of wicked group and a lot of Christians haven't yet kind of said I was wrong to support them. So but you got to question that narrative, you got to push to Kind of sort out truth from lies.

Scott Allen:

And like you said, luke, that's not easy in a, in a, in a kingdom of lies. You know it's hard to and I know a lot of my especially younger Christian friends have kind of given up on it. They just said everything is spin, everything is lies. You know there's no point in even trying to get to the truth, it's just whose lies are gonna prevail. I guess I Just think that that I get that that's a kind of a postmodern way of thinking, but it's false. There is a truth to things right there, you know.

Scott Allen:

You know we may never know it completely or fully, but we can push towards it. We, we actually have a duty to do that. We need to do that, and then we need to speak out. You know, in behalf of the truth, that that, to me, is the right response.

Luke Allen:

Yeah, it reminds me of you know, it's a struggle, it's something like you said it. We have to push against it. It reminds me of the story of Jacob when he wrestled with God and After that, god renamed him, israel, which means we who wrestle with God, which I think is so cool. It's the Pete, god's chosen people. Israel are those who wrestle with God, wrestle with the truth. You know it's, it's something we're called to do and even when it's hard and difficult, as it is in many situations, it's something we should still continue to work on.

Darrow Miller:

Well, yes, and it goes with wrestling with the truth, it's goes with thinking deeper about these things and it goes about speaking. But when you speak in a hostile environment, there are consequences, there's pain, and are we willing to Submit ourselves to having that pain? Come, come on us and you look at what's going on in this country now. That, I think, is parallel to some of the things we've been talking about, where our, our federal government has basically said that parents who protest at Board meetings, school board meetings about what's being taught, are enemies, terrorists. They're terrorists, they're like the Muslim terrorists, they're as bad as the terrorists. What is that? And do we protest and continue to protest because of what's going on, or do we just Cover our head and stick our heads in the sand?

Darrow Miller:

That's, that's where I agree with what we've been saying today. But where do we take that next step? And what is that next step look like? And is it, you know, getting being nominated to be on the school board and get on the school board? Is it to petition At school board meetings, just at that level, even though you're accused of being a terrorist? What do we do?

Scott Allen:

Yeah, I think it's. I think it's imperative, darryl, that we we don't let lies just stand unanswered, you know, and yes, there's going to be a cost with that, but that they're counting, I mean the, you know, the, the people that are weaponizing lies for power and control are counting on the vast majority of people to be cowed.

Scott Allen:

Of course and because then they win right, try. So we can't. We have to just see through that whole strategy and say, yeah, you know there is a price to you know you're making the price, you're, you're creating a situation where there is a price to be paid for speaking the truth. But out of love for my neighbor, you know, and I will, and to God and the truth, I'm not going to just sit back and let you have.

Darrow Miller:

You know the way here with these, with these really deadly lies, actually, you know I'm gonna, I'm gonna speak the truth, you know and, in one sense, the longer we go without engaging in speaking the truth or Identifying with, the longer we go, the steeper the price that's going to be paid, because it's going to be paid.

Luke Allen:

Yeah, it's so easy to look down the road and say you know, at that point hypothetical point then I'll say something you know, and yet today, I think there's plenty of things to stand up for as far as, as far as the truth and I think a lot of it, as as we see here in the US, is in the realm of I ever, in the realm of language right now, you know, for example, misusing that word terrorist to describe school parents yeah, that's an inflammatory use of language. Or what they said about Israel committing genocide against Palestine. That's right, inflammatory language. When we know exactly what genocide means, and it's what we saw during World War two. You know that word's been.

Luke Allen:

That word gets thrown around all the time. But one of the only times we've clearly seen it in recent history is with Hitler Committing genocide against the Jews. So we know what that word means and yet it gets tossed around all the time. Injustice, another word. And and that's lies. You know, when you take a word and you totally twist its meaning to mean something else, that's a lie. So right now, as far as the battle over truth grows, that's a clear application.

Scott Allen:

Dwight thoughts from you as we wrap up on this.

Dwight Vogt:

in terms of application, I've just enjoyed listening the last 15 minutes. I my one thought in listening to you was you know it's so easy when somebody puts out an idea To I mean we can either react immediately. But I heard Larry Arn recently says the first thing we can always do is listen, listen well and Hear well and be a people who listen for the truth, not just speak the truth, but listen for the truth and hear the truth. Because if you're shouting a lie yourself, you're doing no one any help.

Luke Allen:

Yeah, I heard someone In a similar line recently say when you hear, when you hear something that you're not sure if it's accurate, give it three days Before you go. Yell your response.

Dwight Vogt:

Yeah, same idea.

Scott Allen:

Yeah, and. I think there's a lot of things we could send. This would be worthy of just having another podcast on this. You know how do you discern truth and you know sift through all of the lies Like what, what, what. How do you practically do that?

Darrow Miller:

and how do you live the truth?

Scott Allen:

Yeah, yeah, I'm always reminded of you know the.

Scott Allen:

Voklov hovel exactly yeah live in the truth. The famous Russian dissident Check former Czech president Voklov hovel. Yeah, you know. Don't put up the sign in the store window that says workers of the world unite, you know. Or the black lives matter post on your social media because you're afraid of what your friends and everyone else is gonna say, or you might lose your. You know you have to kind of. At the end of the day you are gonna pay a price. But You're gonna pay a price either way, either way either way okay.

Scott Allen:

Sooner or later yeah and you'll also pay a price in terms of losing your own sense of self-worth and you know your own kind of, you know sense of what is right and wrong. You know you're in own integrity right that's. That's that you. Are you willing to pay that price?

Scott Allen:

you know, by just going along with what everyone's doing and, you know, perpetuating the lie. You know that's a price to be paid. What price? What price do you want to pay? There's gonna be a price one way or the other. So, well, guys, this has been, I think, for me anyways, a really great discussion, and I again want to thank you, darrow and Dwight and Luke, just for your insights, because, boy, they've helped me and I really trust that our Listeners have been helped in some way as well. And to our listeners, I just want to thank you as well for tuning in to this podcast. It means a lot to us. This is ideas have consequences. The podcast of the Disciple Nations.

Luke Allen:

Thank you for joining us today. We hope that this discussion was helpful and productive for you, as always. The easiest way to learn more about each episode is to head to the Episode landing page on our website. On that page, you can learn more about the two books that we mentioned in today's discussion, which were why social justice is not biblical justice and urgent appeal to fellow Christians in a time of social crisis, and that ones by my dad, scott Allen, and emancipating the world a Christian response to radical Islam and fundamental atheism, by Darrow Miller, and this book, in particular, I would recommend as a great resource for you if you'd like to dive deeper into parts of today's topic. Again, if you'd like to learn more about those books, they are on the episode landing page, which is linked in the show notes below.

Luke Allen:

Ideas have consequences is brought to you by the Disciple Nations Alliance. To learn more about our ministry, you can find us on Instagram, facebook and YouTube, or on our website, which is DiscipleNationsorg. Thanks again for joining us. Please share the show with your friends and we're hoping able to join us here next time on Ideas have consequences.

People on this episode

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Scott Allen

Host
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Darrow Miller

Co-host
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Dwight Vogt

Co-host
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Shawn Carson

Co-host
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Tim Williams

Co-host
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Luke Allen

Producer