Highlights from my Whatever Debate with Erudite

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]But there's going to be things where as Christians we have to investigate here's the principles. How do we apply them?

[00:00:06]>> But we know when we do apply them overall it makes society better.

[00:00:08]>> I love Christian ethics. Right. The problem is that when the state blends with Christianity in a in a removal of separation of church and state what happens is that what is Christian ethics is very tied to power. And I think power is not a pursuit of the good. Power is a pursuit of power.

[00:00:25]>> This is just a critique of any value system. For me, it's killing human beings is wrong. And in some cases, you're allowed to start with the moral principle and the squ.

[00:00:36]>> I never said that you can't start with them. In fact, even >> I want to start with that.

[00:00:43]>> So, we're talking about Christian nationalism today. A lot of things under that umbrella. And the problem with talking about Christian nationalism is that nobody can agree on what it means.

[00:00:51]The critics of the idea often define it as like handmaid's tale fever dreams of religious leaders directly controlling the government and instituting evil policies like turning women into slaves.

[00:01:02]And defenders of the idea are exist across a wide spectrum with probably a few crazy people in the mix. But the most prominent defenders of Christian nationalism put forward a fairly reasonable definition of it. Uh Steven Wolf defines it as a totality of national action consisting of civil laws and social customs conducted by a Christian nation as a Christian nation in order to procure for itself both earthly and heavenly good in Christ.

[00:01:27]Andrew Torba says it is a spiritual, political, and cultural movement comprised of Christians who are working to build a parallel Christian society grounded in a biblical worldview. As a Catholic, I I agree with these goals.

[00:01:38]So, I would lean more towards Catholic integralism, uh, which would root authority on moral matters in the Catholic Church's teaching than just amorphous principles. Though, I also lean towards libertarianism. So, I'd want a kind of limited Christian government that still respects the rights of all people. Uh, does that mean I want a theocracy that oppresses other religions? Not at all. The second Vatican Council taught that religious freedom, quote, has to do with immunity from coercion in civil society.

[00:02:05]Therefore, it leaves untouched traditional Catholic doctrine on the moral duty of men and societies toward the true religion and toward the one church of Christ. When Pope Leo recently visited the European nation of Monaco this year, he said the following to them. You are among the few countries in the world to have the Catholic faith as a state religion. This faith places us before the sovereignty of Jesus who calls Christians to become in the world the kingdom of brothers and sisters. A presence that does not cast down but raises up. That does not separate but connects. Always ready to protect every human life with love at any time and in any condition so that no one is ever excluded from the table of fraternity.

[00:02:43]So what kind of Christian state would I want to live in? How about one where it's illegal to dismember babies in the womb or create them in labs and sell them even to unmarried men through commercial surrogacy? A state where sperm donors don't father thousands of children who will never know their father. where porn that destroys children's minds and their families is basically illegal, especially AI content involving people, you know, who are not adults. So, uh, even when some judges say that should be protected under the first amendment. Above all, it's a state where the highest value is not liberty, but the good itself, God. Now, we might disagree about where to draw the line between outlawing evil and merely using social customs to shame evil. But we should agree society is better if our goal for people is to live good lives and not merely pleasurable lives. So here's a simple argument that I would propose. There's uh three premises and a conclusion. Number one, all laws are based on ethical systems. Number two, some ethical systems are better than other systems. And number three, Christian ethical systems are better than secular systems. So laws should be based on Christian ethical systems. I think one and two are obvious. We might disagree about number three, but I would say that this premise is true because Christianity provides the best explanation for why there are any moral obligations at all, why all human beings have equal dignity, and it produces the best outcome for avoiding brave and debaucherous evils that harm men, women, and especially children. So there you go. My concern is that there is no such thing as true state neutrality on several issues. I will give you two examples. So the state cannot be neutral on the question of who is a person with a right to life or >> what do you mean by neutrality? Do you mean like moral neutrality or like >> moral moral and legal as in the state?

[00:04:36]>> Like the state doesn't talk about that issue. So there I mean so for example which religion is true like in America the state is neutral on that like the state doesn't tell us which religion is true >> but the state does tell us who is and isn't a legal person. So one example would be who is a person and another example would be what is marriage. The state can't be neutral on those. So some some value system is going to be imposed. And so I think that if secular liberalism can be imposed, we can critique it. And some if there was something better, we should impose that.

[00:05:11]And I think Christian ethics are going to be better there. So like I'll give you an example. So in the 19th century, there was a Supreme Court case called Reynolds versus the United States. It dealt with Mormon polygamy. Do the Mormons, it's their religion. The guy can have as many, you know, wives as he wants, I guess. And this and what, you know, should they be allowed to have multiple wives because that's their religion? Can we impose our laws on them? And in Reynolds, the Supreme Court said that if religious liberty means you can do whatever you want because your religion says so, the law would exist in name only. I mean, think about I mean, if you had people who are like, well, I'm going to be I'm going to be an Aztec. I'm going to sacrifice my children for for the corn crop this year. So, would you agree we're always going to be limiting people's sincerely held beliefs >> to some degree? Yeah. That's the that's the nature of a state. Okay.

[00:05:59]>> My question to you would be, what do you think would happen with Christian nationalism? Do you think that Christian nationalism in America today if Christian nationalists had what they want? Do you think that it would look like the America James Madison was envisioning or that Americans are thinking about? What do you think it would look like?

[00:06:16]>> Well, I think it'd probably look a lot different because people wouldn't be enslaved. That would be nice. It would be It would be a lot different. What do you mean by that?

[00:06:22]>> Well, like in the time of James Madison, there was a large portion of the United States population that were enslaved.

[00:06:28]They they didn't have a right to liberty. Yeah, I don't think Christian nationalists would roll back that for example agree >> but there were people who were arguing for and against slavery with religious arguments for and against and so the state can't be neutral on that question.

[00:06:42]I think to answer your question though what's hard is like I said in my opening Christian nationalism is just such a broad thing as to uh what it is doing. I think on the far end where you try to get the church to replace the state I think things would go poorly and that would be theocracy. So theocracy Yeah.

[00:06:59]theocracy is when religious when the state is directly controlled by religious leaders. Yeah.

[00:07:04]>> That might be popular among some Christian nationalists, but I don't think very many of them. Um >> well, theocracy is two things. It's when it's run by religious leaders, but also in the definition is that the legal system is based on religious law. And I do see Christian nationalists, for example. So now >> I'm not now there's where I would draw a hard line that I would consider that more like Catholic integralism or Christian nationalism in the sense sense that we have to have some kind of way to judge our laws to make sure they're just and we might use Christian principles to do that.

[00:07:34]>> Sure. My argument to this would be you shouldn't use only Christian principles if you're a statesman. Right? So I have kind of two prongs of why Christian nationalism in America is concerning.

[00:07:42]One, I think the inevitable conclusion of current American Protestant evangelicalism is theocracy. I think actually a lot of Christians, I think just recently they said uh they want they think that Trump is the second coming and they actually are okay with him being the king. Like they've just there's many Christian nationalists that are Protestants that are just >> I would be the best king that you ever had. So much better than those other kings.

[00:08:06]>> But terrifying because it's not just >> even better than that King George.

[00:08:08]>> Yeah. It's not just like small time people. There was large Christian speakers on stages. I was watching I can't remember his name. He's got this blonde, golden, beautiful hair and he wears glasses. He was talking to a stage of thousands of people watching talking about how he wants Trump to be the king, right? And so I think that's really concerning cuz you and I can agree the bad, not good. Okay. But the second thing is I actually think that Christians ought not make moral compromises and I think political leaders must a lot of the time. and having a state in which for example well you have to basically be a Christian to lead. I have very huge concerns about that because I think that there are m many choices that certain political leaders will need to make for the goodness of their state to be a good leader of the state that maybe a Christian ought not make and that would be a huge concern as well is that I don't think that it leads to uh yeah a good system.

[00:09:05]>> Well okay so I have two thoughts on that. First, uh I think that Christians should absolutely be involved in politics. Uh I wouldn't >> say that I >> Right.

[00:09:13]>> Is that a rebuttal to me?

[00:09:15]>> Yeah. Is were you concerned about Christians being involved in politics?

[00:09:18]>> Nope.

[00:09:18]>> Then what was what was your >> I said Christians ought not make moral compromises, but political leaders must, >> right? But that sounds like if you're a Christian political leader, you're going to have to make compromises >> probably. Yeah.

[00:09:31]>> So if you don't want them doing that, it sounds like you're saying you don't want Christian leaders in politics.

[00:09:35]>> No, I think they can be in politics. I think it's really hard. I think frankly it's really hard. And so is there like can I imagine a world where you've got kind of a senator. He doesn't get involved in everything. He focuses a lot of his policy and bill making on only the things that are aligned with his Christian ethics and stuff like that and that's about it. And he uses logic and reason and and compelling to get the votes for it. I think that that's actually fine. I have no problem with that.

[00:09:57]>> Why can't he just vote for the things that don't contradict >> his moral principles >> and then he works against the other things? But I don't think it has to be that limited. So I'll give you an example. In John Paul II's Gospel of Life, he wrote an encyclical on abortion and other offenses against human life.

[00:10:14]In paragraph 73, he talked about as a what do you do if you are a politician who is against abortion, you want to ban abortion, uh but you can't fully ban it.

[00:10:24]So could you vote for limited laws? Like let's say, oh, we're going to just ban abortion for birth control, but leave it for the hard cases. Can you as a a faithful Catholic do that? And so what the pope said is yes, as long as people know you're personally opposed and your goal in the law is to limit evil, not expand it because politics is the art of the possible.

[00:10:45]>> Sure.

[00:10:46]>> Sometimes you don't have enough political capital to get everything you want.

[00:10:49]>> I think a valid critique of that would be going, well, you're still necessarily enabling to some degree, >> no, >> the poor behavior. Well, because you're you're compromising on it a little bit.

[00:10:59]You're still allowing it somewhat in edge-wise. But that's like saying if there was if there was a hundred drowning children and I only have the resources to save 90 of them, I shouldn't save the 90 because I'm somehow complicit in the other 10. I don't want the other >> that's analogous. It would be more like you have uh in order to save 90 children, you might have to like shoot one in the head, right? That would be more of like the type of compromise situation.

[00:11:24]>> No, it isn't because >> or you have to let somebody torture that child a little bit, right? And it's like I want the political leader to make the choice to torture the child a little bit. I think the Christian gets very very stuck.

[00:11:34]>> I'll make a better analogy. So it'd be like there are 100 children drowning and uh 90 of them are being drowned by super skinny scrawny guys. And so I can easily beat them up and save those kids. The other 10 are 300 lb jiu-jitsu black belts. So it's like I know some jiu-jitsu. Not enough to beat >> you'll be fine.

[00:11:53]>> Not well not enough to beat a 300 I'm only a blue belt. Not enough for a 300lb black belt. So it's like I'm not letting that. So when I choose to intervene to save some of the kids and stop the people killing some of them, the others I'm not letting them. It's just I don't have the power to stop them yet, but I hope one day I will.

[00:12:11]>> Say to that in that instance, I think >> I don't have the power to save all the babies, but I hope one day I will.

[00:12:15]>> But perhaps the Christian argument would be maybe in this situation you should throw yourself at them anyways because it would be the right thing to do to try to save them even if you'll fail because the glory is the kingdom of God. It's not just the outcomes, right? And I think that that so I think >> but if letting them beat me up so the other 90 kids die anyways then that's but I want to be rational and save as many as I can without doing evil and I'm not doing evil by just recognizing I don't have the power to stop these other people yet.

[00:12:42]>> Sure.

[00:12:43]>> Here's the other thing I want to bring up about theocracy. What I also worry about from your critique >> Yeah. This is just a critique of any value system that really because secular liberalism will always try to make the president a king to do what they want. I mean, you know, people treat Trump like a king. People also did the same with Obama or Biden trying to I mean, maybe not as gold, fancy, and flourish, but they'd want them to just put in as many policies as possible that they support.

[00:13:09]That's everybody gets that way.

[00:13:11]>> Sure. I think that like selfish voters typically just want what they're self-interested in to have. But I think like the founding fathers are Christians and deists who made the nation who were very intentional about building separation of church and state. And I think there's a lot of people secular and Christian who recognize the values of these things, right? And so I don't think that this is a critique of like the secular system necessarily. What I'm saying here specifically is that like Christians shouldn't make moral compromises and necessarily political leaders must. And I think like the example you give is a good one because I would agree as a leader you should make the rational choice to not throw yourself at the 10 men um that can kill you. I think that that's totally fine.

[00:13:49]Or throw your throw because of that it will stop me from saving the other 90.

[00:13:53]>> True.

[00:13:54]>> I just can't fight them yet, but one day I'll think that God put in every human being a desire towards his goodness. And I think whether you watch Christian ethics or other ethics, there is a trundling towards that. I just think Christian ethics are the best at it. But we can agree.

[00:14:07]>> But that's something I said earlier.

[00:14:08]Yeah. Christian ethical principles, they're the best system.

[00:14:10]>> I I So yeah, of course.

[00:14:13]>> Of course I agree with that. The issue is a Christian ethical system, for example, doesn't insist on political power. It actually doesn't. No, I don't.

[00:14:22]>> Of course not. Otherwise, why would Paul say render unto Caesar while Caesar is murdering Christian babies? Why would he say this?

[00:14:30]>> Are you talking about when Jesus said, "Give to Caesar." What does Caesar Paul said to like, you know, honor honor the authorities? Yeah. Yeah. Paul, he does say that. But we have to also remember in the book of Acts when Peter and John are brought before the Sanhedrin, which basically had political authority over the apostles and they said, "We told you not to preach the name of Jesus."

[00:14:51]>> And what Peter and the apostles said to them, they said, "We must obey God rather than men."

[00:14:57]>> Of course, if your state insists on you doing something wrong, right? If our state made a law that said not only is abortion legal, but you Trent have to get one if you're under the age of 24, like some crazy state. Of course, yeah, Christians should resist against that. A state should not compel you necessarily to personally act in sin. But that's a very big difference between making policy and law that is only justified by the Bible and telling importantly non-Christians that they must comply to that as well. That's my concern.

[00:15:28]>> What I would say though is if Yeah, you're right. if it only relies on the Bible, I think that that is um not a sufficient way of arguing in a pluralist society. But I want you to agree with me that I would say Christians have a moral duty to rid the world of unjust laws.

[00:15:48]>> Um I don't know. I haven't thought about that before. Do Christians have >> That's a hu Well, let's think let's think it through. Christians have a moral duty to rid the world of unjust laws.

[00:16:00]Um, probably. Yeah. But unjust is going to be doing a lot of heavy lifting.

[00:16:04]>> Of course, >> because I think I I certainly operate in this way, right? I do my best to be pretty loud and political about things that I think are unjust and wrong, but also about things that are empirical.

[00:16:12]>> So, for example, >> but I just don't know if I'd confer that to all Christians, but sure, let's for the sake of this conversation, I just will.

[00:16:17]>> So, for example, the the civil rights movement. So, what would it be now? It would be about 70 years ago in Alabama.

[00:16:26]In the south, you have the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, SLC.

[00:16:31]That was the movement working to end legal uh racial segregation in public accommodations. Um and so there were a lot of people who were saying that Christians shouldn't be doing these things is where does the Bible say we should be doing this kind of stuff? Uh >> those Christians were wrong, right?

[00:16:48]>> They were wrong. And so, but Christians were operating in the principle, no, God made all human beings in his image and likeness. That's that's to my accounting though. This is this is my view. This is what I'm already presenting. I have no problem with Christians using both their Christian ethics and rationality and logic which >> you know philosophy probably better than I do. Lots of original philosophy comes out of Christianity. It's beautiful.

[00:17:11]>> What I'm saying is we we agree they're permitted. We agree.

[00:17:14]>> Don't just point to the Bible. And that is my Well, that's my that's my whole point on Christian natural.

[00:17:19]>> Good. Because I do think a lot of people who are identify I do no I I am against >> my definition of Christianity.

[00:17:25]>> Sure. But I don't think that applies to a there's a there is a huge spectrum of people who identify as that just like there's a huge spectrum of people who would say that they're secular like you said there are anti-theists on the end of that spectrum that are these groups are heterogeneous. Of course >> exactly the Christian nationalism I would agree with would say that there are major Christian principles that Christians have a not just that they can for example vote to outlaw abortion.

[00:17:49]Christians have a moral duty. Every single Christian has a moral duty to rid the world of these unjust laws if if they are capable of doing so. They might be >> and if they're compelled by the argumentation because a Christian argumentation for certain like abortion unjust laws is well while we agree that at some point we are killing a person and that is wrong unquestionably wrong.

[00:18:11]We are also necessarily setting up a system that we can look at the outcomes and go we know increases uh child poverty. We know increases child sexual sorry child can I say the >> harming child by grown by bigger people.

[00:18:28]I know what you're getting >> child harm. It increases mother poverty.

[00:18:31]It increases mother's death and infant death. So when we look at that type of system we might go okay well abortion is something we definitely want to decrease. And I'm with you on that one.

[00:18:40]I want less abortions, too.

[00:18:42]>> Wait, why?

[00:18:43]>> Because I think that abortions at some point necessarily are a a tragedy.

[00:18:47]Something evil is happening. And I don't know why that point is, >> but at some point it certainly is.

[00:18:52]Right. The Christian answer is to be most conservative, but the state answer cannot be to just be most conservative on moral issues.

[00:18:59]>> So, you want less abortions because it's just possible a person is being killed.

[00:19:03]>> Well, no, at some point there is unquestionably a person being killed.

[00:19:05]>> Well, but you don't know that point.

[00:19:07]>> No one knows when ensulment happens. How do you how I'm not talking about insulment?

[00:19:11]>> That's what I'm talking about. When I'm talking about a person, the person I care about is obviously the insold person. Like if we make a meat human that isn't insold, like a clone, something like that, do I care about it being killed?

[00:19:23]>> Probably not. But if there's a soul in it, and if God goes, that's my creation, then yeah, I really care. I'm not opposed to animal.

[00:19:28]>> I just think I think we have different concepts of what the soul is. For me, the soul is the principle of life. It's what makes a living body different than a corpse. In fact, all living things have souls.

[00:19:37]>> Okay? But uh non-human living things have material souls. That principle disappears once they die. The soul doesn't survive the death of the nonhuman body.

[00:19:49]>> So what's in soulment?

[00:19:50]>> Ensolment would be the principle of an immortal principle of life or an immortal soul animating the human body.

[00:19:57]>> Do we have one of those as well?

[00:19:58]>> Do we have one of those?

[00:19:59]>> Humans. Yeah.

[00:20:00]>> Yes. Human beings.

[00:20:01]>> What do you call that? Just cuz I want to use the same language. That's what I'm calling a soul. Is that immortal metaphysical? You can just say in soulment in relation to human beings.

[00:20:08]>> When I'm talking about soul, just so it's clear, I'm only trying to talk about this like metaphysical magic soul that lives that is infinite that we can't like test for. I'm not talking about like consciousness or or life, >> right? And I agree that's that principle of the body that survives. Your soul will go to he goes to heaven when you die or goes to be judged. Your intellect goes with it and then you'll be reunited with your body at the resurrection of the dead. My point though is that all human beings, all individual members of the human species, irrespective of the question of whether they have a soul or not, because I can't empirically locate that, all of them are made in the image and likeness of God. And so my position is that Christians have an obligation to protect each and every one of them, those human beings, just a member of the human species, from evils like slavery or abortion or different kinds of abuse.

[00:20:58]>> Unless God orders it.

[00:21:00]>> Unless God Unless God orders you to do that, >> like if he orders you to kill babies.

[00:21:04]>> Okay.

[00:21:05]>> Well, that's happened with the Amalachites, right?

[00:21:07]>> That that gets into difficult issues about biblical interpretation.

[00:21:11]>> I agree. Right. I view that as allegorical as well. But >> I I would hold that that's Yeah. But I would hold that that's nonliteral warfare rhetoric because saying all the Amalachites were slaughtered in Joshua.

[00:21:23]Well, they happen to come back in judges is they obviously weren't literally all wiped out. That that will take us >> of course and you don't need to sell me on.

[00:21:31]>> My point is that yeah, God has authority over us in ways that we don't.

[00:21:34]>> Sure. But the issue is you're championing along a lot of US Christian nationalists who take all of this literally. like you're you're already advocating for a a theological system that you don't even fully align with.

[00:21:47]>> I just I just don't want babies to be killed. That's just not that part of the thing.

[00:21:51]>> And I think you do a really good job of exercising everything that I'm talking about that Christians can do. And I have no problem.

[00:21:57]>> But I'm saying that if you care about divine command theory, doing what God wants, being a moral person, you would go to the voting booth with me and vote for abortion to be illegal.

[00:22:05]>> I'm a Canadian immigrant, so I can't vote for it. But >> well, come here. Well, the issue is I wouldn't because of certain outcomes, for example. So, I want >> we we've got nicer weather and you won't end up being an assisted suicide if you get sick or something.

[00:22:19]>> Well, uh >> which is a difficult thing in Canada.

[00:22:22]>> I'm fine with you in Asia, but >> well, that's a separate thing we could >> Sure. But if we go into it again, you're saying like, well, abortion like the ending of that human life, whether it's in sold or not, is the like the greatest evil. And I'm saying well living a future like ours creates a lot of issues with this because for example if the life promised not even just to the infant but to the mother is not necessarily a good life. Right? Then we have complications of saying okay well what's a system politically that can lead to the most flourishing and the least amount of abortions. Okay. One thing is way better access to contraceptives and way more education about it. But as a Catholic, would you allow legally contraceptive access or would you ideally politically advocate against it?

[00:23:03]>> Ideal world, contraception would be illegal.

[00:23:07]It was illegal at one point and the world didn't fall apart with the Pope Paul V 6 for example predicted in humanite that with the greater spread of contraception there would be greater degradation of the status of women.

[00:23:19]There would be an increase in adultery.

[00:23:21]He made many predictions. there would be an increase in divorce and many of that did come to pass. But I want to go back to making abortion decrease one way.

[00:23:30]Like in Texas, we have a huge decrease in abortions cuz it's illegal.

[00:23:33]>> We also have a massive spike in child poverty, mother and infant death, and child abuse.

[00:23:39]>> No, we don't.

[00:23:40]>> Yes, we do.

[00:23:40]>> Even if there was it went up by 11% in 6 months alone of children being surrendered to foster care system, infant and child mortality, I think increased by 30%.

[00:23:50]>> Okay. Well, is it is it better? Is it better for Is it better for a child to be adopted or to be killed?

[00:23:55]>> Um, well, once a child's a child's doing a lot of heavy lifting, right?

[00:23:59]>> Right.

[00:24:01]>> But you agree though it'd be better for a child to be >> adopted. Better of course.

[00:24:04]>> Or a one-year-old.

[00:24:05]>> Or a one-year-old.

[00:24:06]>> Or a newborn.

[00:24:07]>> Or a newborn.

[00:24:08]>> How about How about 9 months in the womb?

[00:24:10]>> How about two weeks old in the womb >> to be to be adopted rather than killed?

[00:24:14]>> Sure. Don't don't kill him. That's a That's a human being. Don't directly kill this person. All members of the human species should have should be protected from being directly killed.

[00:24:23]Okay. And human embryos and human death penalty or are you anti- death penalty?

[00:24:27]>> I'm I'm anti-death penalty.

[00:24:28]>> Okay.

[00:24:29]>> Okay. So I this >> you reject the Don Marque argument because Don Marque is for Sorry, that's future.

[00:24:35]>> Yeah. Or Marque. Yes. The future like ours argument says that what makes killing wrong is that it's wrong to deprive someone of a valuable future. A future like you and I might have. And I think that >> is good. which is the reason the future matters is because of the goods of that future. But that's a really big part of the argument. It's not just a future.

[00:24:53]It's a future like ours which begs into an assumption that it's a good future.

[00:24:57]Right? That's what it argues. And so again, I'm not saying that >> it doesn't. I think that Marquis's argument explains the wrongness of killing in many cases, but not all cases. And so it's part of a cumulative case about why killing human beings is wrong. But I think there's an overarching because for example, if somebody jumps off the Golden Gate Bridge to >> But you're not opposed to war. Wait, you're for the crusade?

[00:25:18]>> No, hold on. Let me >> I'll write a pin on it.

[00:25:21]>> If somebody if somebody jumps off the Golden Gate Bridge to end themselves, I can't use a sniper rifle to pick them off midair to show them a great shot.

[00:25:29]Even though they don't have a valuable future like ours, but they are a human being made in the image, likeness of God.

[00:25:36]>> And so I I am making an argument. I I just really would like you to be pro-life and on fire with protecting the unborn like I am.

[00:25:44]>> I believe you that you would really like me to do that.

[00:25:46]>> I would very much like that. I think these are solid, rational reasons. I don't see a good reason.

[00:25:50]>> Well, the issue I don't reject preserving human life as much as possible. What I reject is the process legally by which you want to do that because I think all of the goods of the future matter too. And so would I like a world as well where abortion is basically doesn't exist anymore because there's no rape and there's no incest and there's no that one's fine. Uh there's no all of the things all the tragedies including poverty including single motherhood including deadbeat dads. My dream world is obviously that abortion doesn't have to happen and we can be aligned in that. The actual difference here is that the way I go about targeting it is going to be different. And the reasons why we go about targetingly targeting it differently is lo logic and reason, right? My logic and reason is harm to mother, harm to baby, harm to society, right? Increasing poverty, things like that. Um, your reasoning is I you have a very strong anti-killing position, which is totally fine. It's just like my hierarchy of like things like suffering might be significantly higher than just like than what yours is, for example.

[00:26:59]>> And I would want you to see that I don't I think you have the same level of opposing killing innocent human beings when it involves born people or harming innocent human beings. Like there's it's not eitheror. It's not like we'd say, well, you know, should we outlaw marital grape? You know, >> for euthanasia, so it's not obvious that I just grant that like >> Well, let me finish. Like when it comes like marital grape uh we wouldn't say well let's just work on all the factors that lead husbands to do something like that and ameilate this and poverty and this or that. You can do that but we can also just make it illegal and you don't do that and it works really well to stop these things from happening with child or child labor. Take child labor. We might say well let's just improve the economy so kids don't have to go work in coal mines their parents will feel like they have to send them. Well we can do that but also if you just make it illegal to do that to kids. It turns out people don't do that anymore.

[00:27:50]>> Exactly. This actually >> So we should do that for we should do it for abortion.

[00:27:53]>> So I think you're fine to make that argumentation for abortion. And what you're actually pointing to is the motus operande of why I think the state is good when it's separated from the church. Right? Because what you have is moral issue X.

[00:28:04]>> No way. Because the Catholic Church started the pro-life movement in the United States of America. Even Protestants were late to get on board.

[00:28:10]And so I am grateful the reason that you Well, first abortion was generally illegal in this country. the in the 19th century well the American medical association in the 19th century called abortionists modern-day Herods in reference to King Herod who killed massacred the innocents u then it was liberalized partly due to the work of uh increasing contraception infidelity greater migrations to urban areas leading to women becoming pregnant without social support like they had in the towns and rural country areas then abortion proliferates from there becoming made legal in the 1960s. Then row says everybody has to make it legal for all 50 states. It was the Catholic Church that started the national right to life movement in the early 1970s to help to restore the right to life unborn children once had. And I gave the example of MLK and uh when it comes to racial segregation, you had Christians who were involved in abolition. When the church is acting authentically, it makes the state good and virtuous. And I think that's a good thing.

[00:29:12]>> I agree. But it does it through engaging in the political system the way that every other person is allowed to participate. It doesn't do so by using laws to preferentially prioritize certain Christian values. This is why James Madison, do you do you know what James Madison was opposing in his memorial Roman stance? Like his biggest his biggest everything for separation of church and state. Do you know? And it's it's esoteric. It's funny.

[00:29:35]>> I thought you were I thought you were talking about the um supporting churches financially, but is there something else you're referencing? Well, it was specifically a tax that was going to be taken from all Virginiaians to just fund uh religious teachers. And James Madison, a Christian, was vehemently opposed to this because he said that this is just one step towards tyranny of church, which we just left, guys. We're not going back there. This is why he says in his argumentation that we any sort of policy that gives extra preferential treatment to Christian ideology or Christians themselves over other people is not only against what we want in our state is also anti-Christian in this type of situation. Right? And so what I'm saying to you on Christian nationalism is I think it's totally fine for Catholics and all Christians to speak out against abortion and all these sort of things. I think it is all in your operendi as citizens to do so. What I am not okay with is Christians going through the back doors using lobbying systems, paying off politicians to get their favor to force through abortion without convincing the populace of that vote.

[00:30:36]>> In that argument, why not replace the word Christian with the word people?

[00:30:40]>> What do you mean?

[00:30:40]>> You're against people lobbying and backdooring and using these deceitful methods to achieve public policy rather than doing it rather than establishing.

[00:30:48]Well, then why is it So, you're saying it's okay for atheists to get together, use political. It's wrong. But again, I hold people to their own moral standards typically.

[00:30:56]>> Okay. Well, some people have the moral standard, I don't care. I just want to win and I want to make I want to get my way.

[00:31:02]>> Yeah. But mo even most atheist systems would look at that person and go, "Yeah, that's not a very good person." Right?

[00:31:06]Cuz most most uh uh this is maybe something I'm curious. You talked about this a bit before. Would you grant me that Christian ethics? Many people can have Christian ethics without having a Christian faith.

[00:31:15]>> Uh they can have some as Yeah, they can have some aspects of the Christian.

[00:31:18]Yeah, they can have aspects of the Christian ethical system. very informed by >> well I would say many people >> in fact the founding fathers were very informed by >> people's opposition to you know things that they find in the Bible regulated in the Old Testament or other things like this comes from living in a Christian society that values things like the intrinsic dignity of every human person that they're raised in this Christian mythos even if they don't explicitly affirm it and so it guides them in the decisions that they make.

[00:31:46]>> Okay.

[00:31:47]>> Yeah.

[00:31:48]>> Uh sure. Um, sorry I feel like I'm not connecting that to this broader conversation.

[00:31:52]>> You said can people have Christian ethics even if they're not Christian?

[00:31:54]Yeah. And I would say if you're if you are raised in a society that was founded by Christians and has Christian principles written into law.

[00:32:02]>> Well, not written into law.

[00:32:04]They were what motivated people to exactly you know to and so for example.

[00:32:11]So for example, Catholicism was uh instrumental in being opposed to the divine right of kings.

[00:32:18]>> Uh that was more of a Protestant idea.

[00:32:20]Uh Catholics said you still listen >> Protestants.

[00:32:22]>> Well, you still had to listen to the pope. Yeah, >> you still have to listen to him. But the idea that the king had a divine right to rule and >> thing.

[00:32:29]>> Well, yeah, it's and it was an idea the church said no that >> the state not only will men be judged but states will be judged like like I mean if you think about it like obviously no no state can go to hell but it can dissolve. But there we can look to see different cultures and states have more or less unjust laws and practices and Christians when they go into societies work to reform them to make them just. They go to India and outlaw sati. They go to East Asia and they outlaw footbinding.

[00:32:57]>> But they also came here and they stole indigenous children from their parents and pierced their tongues with with rods if they spoke their natural language. So I agree. I agree that Christian ethics as somebody who's a Christian ethicist.

[00:33:09]I love Christian ethics. Right. The problem is that when the state blends with Christianity in a in a removal of separation of church and st and church and state, what happens is that what is Christian ethics is very tied to power.

[00:33:23]And I think power is not a pursuit of the good. Power is a pursuit of power.

[00:33:27]And I think that that's where the Christian church goes so wrong is when it gets blended with church and state. I think that it typically, especially in the American institution, is not does not lead to good outcomes and corrupts the faith. Should our laws be based on the best ethical system?

[00:33:44]>> Um, some of them like the laws that are about morality specifically, yes. But there's lots of laws that are amoral and a like completely new.

[00:33:53]>> Sure. And and the best >> taxation system be based on Christian ethics.

[00:33:56]>> It should be based on the best ethical system, right?

[00:33:58]>> The principles of it. Yeah.

[00:34:00]>> Sure. And and there's going to be cases where the ethical system >> That's my position. Just so it's clear.

[00:34:04]The Christian nationalist position would say, "No, it should be what is said."

[00:34:07]Especially because you have to still deal with all your Protestant fundamentalists. They would say, "No, it has to be what's literally in the Bible."

[00:34:12]>> Yeah. I would and I would tell them, "Let let go of soul scripture. It's even in the Bible."

[00:34:16]>> I agree. Okay. Protestant, look, okay, we can say many things about the branches. The Catholics are the soulless ones. The Protestants are the stupid ones. And the Eastern Orthodox, >> what kind of Christian do you identify yourself as? I'm like Protestant cuz I'm protesting the church, but I love a lot of uh >> I look you're Many Catholics are trying to convert me. You guys are compelling, but I'm still protesting the church. I have some issues with it.

[00:34:38]>> We can work through that.

[00:34:39]>> We can work through it.

[00:34:41]>> But I'm not Look who you've been complaining about. Protestants. Yeah.

[00:34:45]But I think that >> that's who you want to work alongside.

[00:34:47]And your argument >> No, I I actually don't.

[00:34:49]>> Okay. Then your argument enables it.

[00:34:51]>> No, it actually doesn't. because I'm I'm arguing from a principle that the Catholic Church has had a lot more practice in having a relation between church and state. So for examp but it's important because >> the Catholics are like no guys we can do state Ambrose and nation together.

[00:35:09]>> So St. Ambrose called for the ro the the emperor of the Roman Empire to repent of his slaughter of women and children at Thessalonica for example that saying that no maybe in ancient Rome the emperor was above all but you're not above God and you have to be held to account. So we've had a long period in history of trying to understand okay how do we apply our principles of the common good. So for example, Augustine and Aquinus were open or supported the idea that prostitution should be legal to prevent greater evils. And I would say that there at least that principle is incorrect today given the harms, empirical harms we know of prostitution, with sex trafficking, with things like that. But there's going to be things where as Christians we have to investigate here's the principles. How do we apply them?

[00:35:56]>> But we know when we do apply them overall it makes society better. I know the study you're referring to. There were headlines all about it saying that maternal mortality in Texas went up 6 months before abortion was banned. So it's like it can't be abortion that's causing that. That's a that's a post hawk rationalization.

[00:36:14]>> Well, it's it's more it's not post hawk.

[00:36:16]The only criticism you could offer it is maybe this is correlation.

[00:36:20]The issue is that the study that came out from Texas after the ban specifically was comparing and contrasting times before the ban and after the ban. And we did see the increases of foster care utilization. We saw increases of infant and child mortality because uh and mother mortality because one of the issues that a hardline weak law imposes into a medical care system is that the moment it's passed whatever week you set it as now there's this difficulty of investigation. Because if say for example she is under the awful situation where she's miscarrying there needs to be a ver verification that it is a legitimate mis miscarriage and not a potential attempted murder. Right? And so this is what runs into a lot of issues why mother mortality tends to increase because usually the window to intervene on a woman who is misarrying and not developing things like sepsis is a pretty narrow window and it's very important that you be able to move on it and investigations are not particularly fast especially in the case of investigation on potential murder or attempted murder which is what it would be classified as.

[00:37:23]>> All right here's my my problem with two problems with that. Number one, if the argument is, well, we ought not pass this law because it has negative consequences, you couldn't pass any laws or do anything at all. Anything that you do have negative consequences.

[00:37:35]>> Is that my position?

[00:37:36]>> Your position was we should not outlaw abortion because it modestly increases maternal mortality rates or rates of children being placed in foster care.

[00:37:46]>> Right. And I also don't think it I guess I'll add to that. I don't think it actually addresses the core of the problem, which is abortions happening.

[00:37:52]Cuz >> does does it decrease abortions? uh decreases legal abortions for sure. It also increases illegal abortions.

[00:37:57]>> Do the over in Texas overall >> there's probably less overall. Yeah, >> there's less overall. Okay, so that's a positive outcome.

[00:38:03]>> Sure. And then there's a number of negative outcomes, >> right? In the same way in the same way that if you build highways, more people die in car accidents. If you spend more on education, suicide rates go up. We know that one. But these are still good things to do. And making it illegal to kill children is just as worthwhile as building a road or building a school. So is it accurate to summarize my position though which is the thing I was challenging you on that I just think we shouldn't make policies and if there's negative outcomes >> is that oh no I think >> that's how you summarize my >> your position would be that the negative outcomes do not balance out the positive outcomes.

[00:38:38]>> No my position would be that there are the negative outcomes of one policy is actually superseded by the negative outcomes of another policy. That's actually what my position is.

[00:38:47]>> What are the two policies you're weighing here? uh say we do a 20we abortion ban versus uh decriminalization. I think that decriminalization has a number of cons that come with it, but I think that they are lesser and I think the strict abortion ban has greater um but I'd be open to flex. It's possible you show me evidence that actually 24 weeks we basically get out of this window of miscarriages because of some medical stuff and be like, "Oh, okay, cool. It sounds like we can make >> No, you can just but you can just have laws with exceptions. in Texas, you have if a woman's life is in danger or if there is a risk to her bodily health.

[00:39:18]And here's the thing, though. If you say, "Well, look, >> why is there a risk to her bodily health? We can now murder that child."

[00:39:24]>> You guys can let each other finish. Uh, >> well, you were going my point is that just saying, look, if you're worried about someone not being able to get care for a miscarriage, then we can allow the physician exception to be wide enough so that no one is ever denied miscarriage care. But it might maybe result in a child being killed when they normally would not have. That is something we have to do with laws here and there. But that's different than abortion just being used for birth control, for example. But what I worry about is when you say, well, if we make abortion illegal, you know, women could be prosecuted for miscarriage. They didn't do anything wrong. Well, look, if you make child abuse illegal, there are people who go to jail for shaken baby syndrome when their child died of natural causes, right?

[00:40:08]>> That happens. But is it better to have laws against child abuse than to decriminalize child abuse? That way, no one's ever falsely imprisoned for child abuse.

[00:40:18]>> Isn't it possible just as well with your abortion carveouts, couldn't we just make decriminalized carveouts as well and outline specific types of things that we can investigate to being criminological? So, say we say as a nation um personhood begins at 15 weeks.

[00:40:31]Let's say that's the consensus right now. Isn't it possible that in a decriminalized state, if we have sufficient evidence to believe that after 15 weeks a woman sought an abortion, not because of medical emergency, but because of just I don't really want it anymore, that that individual could be properly investigated. Couldn't we just do the the inverse and just make these political carveouts to account for the the issues the the valid issues that you raised? No, because I I would just make the presumption being that if you are ending that it is wrong and illegal on the face of it to directly end the life of an unborn child, just like it would be on the face of it wrong to directly assault a child or a woman without decriminalizing and saying, "Well, maybe he had a good reason to hit that child or or hit that woman." I start from the presumption it's wrong unless a physician exception is put into place.

[00:41:17]But I just think in general that people want to call it the Christian nationalist boogeyman or not. I would say that it's totally rational and that people have a moral duty and if they failed to heed to that moral duty, they're morally responsible if they did nothing to prevent these children from being killed. Now, you might say, "Well, we're going to decrease it. I'm doing all these things that are fine to decrease it, but I also think people have a moral obligation to rid the world of laws that are designed to exploit other human beings."

[00:41:46]>> So, this is kind of like the legalistic piece that I'm concerned about. The Christian ethical principle should be concerned around like life, let's say preserving of life, right? As much as possible and to act ethically towards uh and sorry to have sanctity towards human life as much as possible.

[00:42:02]>> Oh, keep going.

[00:42:03]>> Oh, okay. Um >> but once you finish, I'm just going to let two chats come in right back.

[00:42:07]>> Absolutely. Um so yeah, that's the Christian ethic. The issue is that now you're saying and this is how Christians must act towards that ethic. And absolutely.

[00:42:16]>> Well, I'm going well if a Christian is doing, let's say you've got somebody who's very concerned about abortion, but they're not really on board with decriminalization. However, they're doing everything else. They're involved in better education for students.

[00:42:29]They're involved in abortion. They themselves uh sorry, in adoption, they themselves are adopting. They're doing everything possible to be reducing abortion, but they're not willing to decriminalize it. It feels like, and I could be wrong, what you're saying is that person is still kind of acting immorally as a Christian. And I would say >> because they are morally on par with someone 150 years ago who said, "I don't like people being enslaved, so I am working round the clock to make a cotton gin and free labor that will drive slavery out of business. I know I could have voted at the ballot box this year to end slavery, but you know, who's going to employ these people? there's going to be all kinds of problems I don't want to deal with. I consider it on par that those while I'm glad they have a heart to want to end slavery. I would say they ought to be brave and do the right thing and cast a vote to free their brothers and sisters who are in bondage just like Christians should cast a vote to free their brothers and sisters in the womb from being directly killed. We have common ground like we we both identify as Christians. We both believe in God. We believe in the Bible.

[00:43:31]We believe in Jesus. We believe God wants people to act in a certain way. Go Christian politicians should institute good laws.

[00:43:38]>> Would you grant me let let me uh see if you would grant me some of my worldview then?

[00:43:42]>> We'll see. All right.

[00:43:43]>> Um would you agree that a lot of Protestants um absolutely would like to establish policy that will go in the direction of a theocracy such as repealing the 19th?

[00:43:54]>> Oh yeah. Well, there's a lot of them. I one reason I am skeptical of full-blooded Christian nationalism. Um, like I know there's been arguments here on the podcast before that the states should get to have a state religion even if the federal government doesn't have a federal one. Each state should do that.

[00:44:10]>> States opted to not eventually.

[00:44:12]>> I'm very skeptical about that because it hasn't worked out well for Catholics in history. Uh, so in order for >> Protestants, >> well, especially for Catholics though, they tended to be the minority in a Protestant country.

[00:44:22]>> Well, there's been Cath like if you go to medieval Europe, it's >> I'm talking about America. We're talking about America.

[00:44:26]>> Okay.

[00:44:26]>> So, in America, you have Catholics.

[00:44:29]Oregon. Um there was a Supreme Court case saying whether um uh the state could force Catholic kids to go to public school.

[00:44:36]>> Yeah.

[00:44:36]>> And that went the Supreme Court said in Pierce versus Society of Sisters, no, you can't force them to do that because public schools then were Protestant schools.

[00:44:43]>> Yeah. I think Massachusett when I was researching for this, I found this crazy case in Massachusetts, I believe, where it was illegal basically to be a Catholic priest. They could they could >> It was called the Popish Act.

[00:44:53]>> Yes. And then if those people escaped and came back, it was justification to be uh to kill them. And in in Massachusetts, four Quaker priest priests, I don't know if they call them priests or what they call >> pastors. Probably four Quaker pastors were actually killed.

[00:45:07]>> I am Yeah, I am for people having the freedom to practice their religion within limits. But I also recognize Catholicism is true. And so I think society can in very soft ways point people towards that which is true. Now, in hard cases, I think the law should mostly be used to keep people from gravely harming others or gravely harming themselves. Uh, so I think there's a good just as I think there's a good case to be made that the state should um outlaw online gambling, >> but you also want to ban like contraception >> or let's but let's take things that are I think are more or take adult um uh pornography, explicit content. At the very least, the state should require rigorous age verification.

[00:45:49]>> Um, sure. It's just a bypass.

[00:45:52]>> I don't know. Well, well, the the Phub website doesn't work in Texas because it has age verification. There's a lot >> just uses other >> Well, but the point is like but there but there are sites that don't where there are many sites that are shut down because they won't comply with age verification.

[00:46:06]>> Yes. The issue is like all all that happens then is that you have the same and so this is going >> but you can put up you can put up the same with but the same you could do the same for online gambling but we could say hey this really harms people it's really it's an addictive vice it's bad when people have unfettered access to it. So I think I am in favor of the state mostly using its power to promote Christian virtue to prevent grave harms.

[00:46:26]I think it can also be helpful if the state like ideally I think you could have a Christian state that doesn't oppress people. Yeah it has different religions but all but all but the holidays are actually holy days. is you get the Christian holy days off because >> theoretically, of course, theoretically the state >> because it promotes it as the state religion while accepting there's pluralism.

[00:46:43]>> Well, I would probably still refute that because I'm very concerned about what happens to a religion when it is blended with a state. I think it corrupts it.

[00:46:49]>> I love getting more days off though.

[00:46:51]>> Sure, but you can get days off. But again, of course, Christians can engage politically. Of course, Christians can vote on what they feel as Christians are voted for. What they cannot do is make laws where the only justification that they can point to for that law is the Bible says so.

[00:47:07]>> And if you grant me that, then that's the Christian nationalism I'm talking about that is rampant in North America and then we just need a new word for Christians like you are just being like, can't we just like be Christians and have our ethics and vote based on what we think is right and good? Of course, you should do whatever you want as a voter. But am I I'm going stronger though to say that Christians have a moral duty to shape the state so that uh grave evils are are avoided or >> shape the state in so far as >> like to vote to ban slavery >> but also using logic and argumentation to convince non-Christians >> because I believe there's four kinds of laws. So there's eternal law that's God's mind saying here's how the universe should be. There's natural law which is when rational creatures participate in that. We use reason to be like, "Oh, God wants God made the world and it should be this way. We can look at our bodies. We can look at the world.

[00:47:59]It should be going this way." Natural law, we could see that. Uh then there is positive law. So, you know, God didn't reveal in the Bible what the speed limit should be. We kind of have to deliberate.

[00:48:09]>> It's pretty amoral, too.

[00:48:10]>> Well, it's not amoral because if you didn't have any speed limits, a lot of bad things would happen. You could say it's immoral.

[00:48:16]>> Bad things happening doesn't mean something immoral is happening, right?

[00:48:19]>> Not necessarily. But if you could intervene to prevent the bad things with a simple law, it could be immoral that you failed to intervene.

[00:48:26]>> Maybe, but you just have to make the logical case for it. And that's all I'm saying.

[00:48:29]>> All I'm saying, but it's not in the Bible. It's not in natural law. We have to use prudence to arrive at that.

[00:48:34]Christians have positive laws and then you've got ecclesial laws, divine laws.

[00:48:38]You have divine law, too. Like for example, worshiping on Sunday. Uh that's not in the natural law. Like that's that's an artifact of history based on Jesus rising from the dead and God communicating to people I want you to worship on this day. Yeah. And so because it's a part of divine law which is funny this have you do you know the national Sunday law conspiracy?

[00:48:57]>> No.

[00:48:57]>> So uh 7th day Adventists for a long time have said there is a giant conspiracy for Catholics to take over the government and make everyone worship on Sunday and put people to death if they worship on Saturday. Okay.

[00:49:10]>> So it's their conspiracy. Adel brain thinking that's going to happen. I'm like, we got a lot more to deal with in the Catholic Church right now that if we're going to pass a law, there's a lot of other things down the list we want to get to. So, I'm But no, I'm not going to make people worship on Sunday or or go to church or follow the divine law. But but but there's clear things in >> common law illegal.

[00:49:28]>> Common law what?

[00:49:29]>> Common law living together.

[00:49:30]>> Oh, I might make it illegal. No, because there some things that you can recognize like so like the natural law you can tell that >> um well the natural law you can see there are things that are wrong that are minor evils like breaking a promise like you promise to do something and you fudge on the promise I'm going to help you move and I knew it was lying when I said that and then I don't show up and leave you an alert that's immoral we can know from reason you shouldn't do that am I going to make a law about it no probably not just figure it out amongst yourselves so it has to be a grave enough evil to justify the weight of the law stepping in.

[00:50:04]>> Um, yeah, I I think that that's that's a totally >> and for me the brave enough evils would especially be directly killing innocent human beings.

[00:50:13]>> Then make the case to secular people so they agree with you and then passing on.

[00:50:17]I know you are. I think you this is why I'm saying I'd like maybe for us to find different words because when I'm talking about Christian nationalism, what I'm not talking about is Catholics and Christians who feel some sort of way for sound reason both from their religion and from logic why they feel some sort.

[00:50:33]>> Here's the thing when it comes to abortion. If I could go ahead um what I am saying is that if you want to do things like uh ban porn and your reason for it is well the Bible says so and you mostly have to post hawk other stuff or you have to be like well there's lots of like negative squle and it's like well as you said negative squellle is insufficient to ban certain things because we have to look at whether or not banning it has other worse negative squle right in the case of drugs okay alcohol is legal even though addiction is awful, >> right? Banning it. Banning it causes it causes more harm. Well, more harm. You know what though? During prohibition, the cap the per capita drinking rate was actually prior to prohibition was three times higher than it is today.

[00:51:15]>> Yeah. But you also saw an explosion of mafia activity.

[00:51:18]>> Sure. But but it wasn't it wasn't a totally outlandish thing to do because drunkenness was a problem then that was a scale we'd be totally unfamiliar with.

[00:51:27]>> I don't I didn't say that it was outlandish to do. I actually said what the state did was the reasonable thing.

[00:51:31]Right. what the state goes and you saw moral issue is X >> and they also want to tax revenue, >> right? And so that was the other reason they wanted generally stays agnostic and reactive to moral issue X. We say it's bad to kill uh fetuses in the womb and the state goes it could be. It's definitely possible that it could be.

[00:51:48]But if we start seeing a whole bunch of causes that are outcome from problem X, moral issue X, whatever it is, then we make a policy based on analysis and consensus, which is how the state should work. And my argument is Christian nationalists want to upend this. They want to say moral issue X so we ought to do the most conservative thing and they don't do any retroactive analysis of the outcomes because the moral thing is what matters the most and only the moral thing and that's not how states craft works.

[00:52:16]>> I agree and agree and disagree. So I agree with you that some Christian nationalists who are far Protestant solo scriptor well I want all the laws to reflect the Bible that bites them in the butt because the Bible doesn't have an explicit prohibition on abortion. It doesn't have an explicit prohibition on pornography. In fact the reason Protestants were late to banning abortion. I did an episode on my podcast called when Protestants Were Pro-choice that back in the 60s and 70s many of the even the Southern Baptists were moderately pro-choice because they couldn't get from the Bible we need to outlaw all of this. So, and the same thing with things like pornography. It's not directly in there. So, for me as a Catholic, I would say, "Yeah, >> the reason I'm going to pass laws is only from those things where the natural law informs us in ways that I could communicate it to any person, even if even if they don't believe with my divine law. And that's fine. But where yeah, where I disagree though is I'm not going to approach issues and say, "Well, I'm not going to approach it this way.

[00:53:13]Enslaving people is bad." And we're going to have a debate about the practical effects of freeing slaves or not freeing slaves. I'm going to say enslaving people is wrong and it ought not happen. So, it's not killing fetuses are bad for me. It's killing human beings is wrong. And in some cases, you're allowed to start with the moral principle and the squad that you can't start with. In fact, even >> I want to start with that.

[00:53:39]>> I wish we had gotten into pro Protestant evangelical Protestant bashing together a little bit more. I think that we would have a lot of grounds on that because I very much view fundamentalist Christian Protestantism as a heretical faith that has created a golden calf called republicanism. And it is destroying the church. Um, it's bad for the nation, but it is destroying the church. The amount of people that hate Christians is sad. And they hate Christians for good reasons. Not always good reasons, but a lot of good reasons. Because Christians are nasty. Because all these Christian viewers that are Andrew Wilsons are going to be in my DMs wishing me death threats. Whichever fan of his is signing me fake AI porn of me being like S8 and stuff. Gross, right? And so we have this disgusting behavior of people putting their hatred, their bigotry, and their politics before God. And it's really sad to see. And I think that American Christian nationalism is that. And I guess I'm a little concerned that Trent will walk away from this debate >> getting in trouble for me praising him and appreciating him because from hateful Christians. Um, >> look, I I've been I've been in their bullseye for a while now. I know. And what matters to me is just doing the right thing. And it used to be it was people who were not Christian that would get the most mad at me. But in the past few years, the people who were just the most vicious towards me and my family, spreading lies about us, >> horrible thing, horrible things. Um it has been it is a strange form of Christianity. Paul writes in his letter to Timothy, uh, those who claim to the form of religion but deny its power.

[00:55:21]They like a Christian costume. Yeah.

[00:55:24]>> But they they to me they're no different. Uh, someone who would go online and claim to be a Christian and send you death threats and pornography of you is no different than, you know, someone who wears a cross who goes and does hardcore pornography. It's like you are wearing a Christianity as a costume at this point when God wants us to be convicted. And the most important the thing that makes Christianity great is the greatest teaching I think is this um love I it has been said love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you love your enemy and pray for those who persecute you.

[00:55:58]>> I said >> but I like that we're not enemies. We disagree.

[00:56:01]>> Put your hot coals on your enemy. What that actually means when you look at the original text of hot coals that's saying give your fire to even your arms. And here's the thing. I have hope. I'll get you to come around. We'll just We just got to talk a bit more.

[00:56:14]>> Tell you what, if the Pope dis mis uh like excommunicates JD Vance, I'll convert like that. I'm just kidding. Not actually, but it would be pretty based.

[00:56:23]Got to say, be kind of awesome.

[00:56:25]>> Be be careful what he I mean, we'll see what happens.

[00:56:28]>> Look, if that happens, look, there's a lot of things the Catholic Church does really well. I'm still protesting it for a couple of reasons, but um I definitely appreciate uh that you do not dress up your hatred as God because man, it feels good when your hate is God justified. But >> of course, very >> the greatest the greatest evils aren't aren't lust. Hate is more likely to kill your heart. But um no, I I um I have hope and um and for those who are on the fence too, a lot of people are on the fence. Um I my hope is to present reason to pray for them and um let the Holy Spirit take it from there. So and the conversation you and I it'll it'll continue.

[00:57:11]>> Yeah.

[00:57:11]>> Yeah. Thank you all so much for watching and I hope you have a very blessed day.