← Devil and the Deep Blue Sea
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- [00:02]
Dr. Michele Del Rosario
This episode is brought to you in part by the Apologetics Guy show, the podcast that helps you find clear answers to tough questions about Christianity. Learn to explain your faith with courage and compassion. Join Moody Bible Institute Professor Dr. Michele Del Rosario at apologeticsguy.com.
- [00:22]
Mike Kosper
Hey, we hope.
- [00:23]
Rebecca Sebastian
You are enjoying the show. Just so you know, the best way to contribute to the production of this podcast is actually by subscribing to Christianity today using orderct.com DeepBlue Sea listeners like you get 25% off your subscription and unlimited access to the platform that elevates the stories and ideas of the Kingdom of God. That's orderct.com deepbluec all one word. We look forward to having you join us.
- [00:58]
CT Media
This is CT Media.
- [01:05]
Adam Kinzinger
A note to listeners this story contains sensitive content, including sexual abuse, child murder, and dark spiritual themes, and may not be suitable for all listeners. Welcome to Devil in the Deep Blue Sea Bonus Episode three. I'm Rebecca Sebastian, producer on the show and today Mike Kosper sits down with former Congressman Mr. Adam Kinzinger, who recounts his experience on January 6, 2021, and the two discuss conspiracy thinking among Christians. Please enjoy this fascinating and important conversation. Relevant links and Mike substack can be found in the show.
- [01:50]
CT Media
Notes.
- [02:02]
Mike Kosper
Adam Kinzinger, welcome to Devil in the Deep Blue Sea.
- [02:04]
Adam Kinzinger
Hey, good to be with you. Thanks. I as, I'm a big fan of the show. It was great and hit a little close to home for me and how I grew up, so I really enjoy it and so glad to be here.
- [02:14]
Mike Kosper
Yeah, well, and I, I imagine with our finale with, you know, all the conversation about January 6th, that also probably hit close to home a bit.
- [02:22]
Adam Kinzinger
Yeah, it really did. And you know, it's, it's, I, I still, I mean, what are we, four years out? I still sometimes can't even believe it happened. And yeah, it just seems unreal to me. But yeah, that hit extremely close to home and it put into words something that I've been trying to say. And so I'm glad you guys did it.
- [02:38]
Mike Kosper
Thanks. Well, I'm glad you could come and talk with us about it. I think before we dive in, maybe for listeners who aren't familiar with you and your background, let's say prior to January 6th, how would you have described Adam Kinzinger and his record as a congressman?
- [02:54]
Adam Kinzinger
Yeah, I would have considered myself fairly conservative, moderate on some things. You know, when I left Illinois after having been elected, I thought I was extremely conservative until I got to D.C. and met people from the south and other Republicans from the south and, yeah, so, I mean, I was. I would be like a pro union Republican, but socially conservative and, you know, fiscally generally conservative. So, yeah, I was kind of like, I guess, down the line, mainline Republican. You know, I was elected young. I was one of the youngest elected in the House, so I was kind of seen as a rising star, you know, this young guy. And it's always been amazing to me to watch that and then just to see how the party has changed around me. So that's how I would describe myself, I think.
- [03:36]
Mike Kosper
Would you have described yourself as particularly hostile to Donald Trump and the Trump agenda or. You know, because I think in Trump 1.0, there were a lot of conservatives that probably would have attached themselves to more directly to a previous generation of conservative leaders, the Romney, McCain, George W. Bush kind of Republican Party party. But once Trump was elected, there was a sense of like, well, let's see what we can do together. Would that have kind of described where you were coming from or.
- [04:02]
Adam Kinzinger
Yeah, I'd say generally. So in 2016, I didn't endorse Trump, and in fact, all the way through the election, I didn't even vote for him. And I paid a price for that for, you know, really the rest of my time in politics. People wouldn't let me forget that, and. And I wouldn't have changed it even if I went back in time and. But when he got elected, I made the decision like, look, okay, let's hope he's not exactly what he said on the campaign. Let's hope he knows how to govern. I actually thought, look, this guy, I mean, let's be clear, he doesn't really have a governing set of principles. So had he put that into effect, he could have cut a lot of compromises on all these issues, even immigration, spending, stuff like that. I would say he. We got along pretty well. I was invited to the Oval Office a number of times, but I also didn't really hesitate to call him out. And so it was kind of a good relationship, but contentious at times, is how I would say it. I wanted to make sure that I never lost, even though you have to compromise in some areas and keep your mouth shut sometimes. I didn't want to lose what made me who I was, and I tried to keep that through my time.
- [05:03]
Mike Kosper
That thing that politicians used to call principles, I suppose, is what it.
- [05:09]
Adam Kinzinger
I know it seems like a dying thing now, but it used to exist.
- [05:13]
Mike Kosper
Yeah. So 2020 election comes around. Joe Biden is declared the winner of the election. Donald Trump, the night of, comes out and Says, actually, I won the election. Leading up to January 6th, what was your sense of alarm around what Trump was doing, what you were seeing in the streets, the rallies in D.C. in fact, we talked on the show about these Jericho rallies. These groups of very charismatic new apostolic Reformation Christians are coming to town and they're blowing shofars and casting out demons. Was any of that on your radar at the time?
- [05:47]
Adam Kinzinger
Yeah, it was. And so actually, probably during COVID is when I learned about this thing called QAnon. And I actually started, you know, do. Putting out videos about QAnon and saying, you know, people were saying, hey, Adam, don't. Don't talk about them. You're just giving them air, giving them attention. But I would go after that, like, there's these lies out there and a significant number of people that believe them. And it's not like a lie about, you remember the UN black helicopter, you know, stuff from back in the 90s. It's not an innocent lie. It's a lie that can really cause violence. It can cause. It could cause death. It could cause an explosion. Because I was raised as a kind of Christian that believed that we were on the doorstep of the second coming in the one world government at all times. And so I know how they're thinking. And so when, when the election happened that night, and now here's the weird thing, I actually voted for Trump in 2020. So that was because, you know, I just didn't want to have to deal with that again. But that night when he came out and said, you know, frankly, the election is being stolen, the thing that hit me strongest was, look, I wanted, I didn't want to be known for January 6th. By the time my career was over, I wanted to be known as a guy that believed in America's role in the world and fought for democracy. And you know, when he says that, I know that in struggling democracies, the thing that will guarantee that they fail is when they don't believe in the election system. Because literally in a democracy, that's the only thing you need is to agree on the rules, and that's that. And so I spoke out immediately.
- [07:16]
Rebecca Sebastian
Here is CNN's coverage of Kinzinger's response to the vote to certify the election.
- [07:21]
CNN Reporter
I have no doubt that voter fraud existed. I have no doubt that voter fraud exists in every election. But is it enough to take a 300 some electoral victory victory and cause us to overturn it? I love you, Louis, but Louis had mentioned the comment about an intel agency being involved in this do we really believe the CIA vote switched like we've seen on Twitter? Every conspiracy theory that I have researched, and it's been a hobby of mine, has been debunked, but it's hard to do the research to find that it's debunked.
- [07:54]
Adam Kinzinger
And then for the next three months, yes, you saw basically this go from, hey, let's wait for the recounts, let's do the recounts, to turning into prophecy. And you began to see, like, people. And this is where I got really concerned. You began to see certain people in the church prophesy that God had told them that on January 6, for instance, that the Congress would do the right thing. And. And when you start to incorporate that religious aspect into it, you can no longer reason on that side of things, especially when it's. And what does it do to people's faith? I mean, the thing we can't quantify is how many people bought into that, were disillusioned and left the church completely and left the idea of God completely. I'm sure there's a handful of those folks. So. Yeah, and I saw that continue to increase in intensity. And it really culminated, obviously, on January 6th. But on January 1st, I was on a call with all the Republican members of Congress, and Kevin McCarthy had just announced that he was going to vote against certification, which was shocking for all of us. And I told him, I said on that call, I said, kevin, there's going to be violence. You've convinced a third of the country that an election was stolen. And honestly, if an election was stolen, Mike, I would have been on the other side of the Capitol. And I'm like, there's going to be violence. And of course, we saw what happened on January 6th.
- [09:12]
Mike Kosper
I'm curious about your fellow congresspersons, Congressman, Congresswoman, because I remember hearing a report at one point that I think it was attributed to Mitch McConnell that somebody basically said, and let him get it out of his system, like, all the elections is stolen business and. And all that. Was that the pervasive attitude behind the scenes and. Or were people genuinely. How many. How many true believers were there in your ranks that were like, no, I think this thing was actually stolen?
- [09:41]
Adam Kinzinger
Yeah, I don't think. I mean, there may have been a couple that I had never talked to. I remember actually around January 6th, the first time, we were sitting in the cloakroom and I saw a congressman, and I don't remember who it is now, but actually make the case for that the election was stolen. And that was the first time, by the way. In three months from the election to that point that I had ever seen that everybody else that I talked to would say, like, yeah, you know, look, he's got every right to complain. We know there's been election stealing in the past, so let him complain. Let him take. Not there hasn't been election stealing, but you know, vote rigging, like in Chicago in the 60s, you think of that kind of stuff. And, and like, yeah, he'll go through all the court cases, but the second he's done with the court cases, he'll concede. He just needs to protect his ego. And I mean, honestly, this was everybody's position. You know, I wasn't doing that. I was calling it out during. But they're like, just be quiet because after the court cases, that'll be good. And the problem is, is when the court cases were exhausted, that everybody was waiting for the signal of like, okay, you know, yeah, we lost. And when he didn't give that, they knew at that point that they had to double down. I mean, look, Kevin McCarthy himself went on Fox News and he knows better. He told me differently. And he said, frankly, this election was stolen. You know, call your people, call them. And if I'm sitting here as kind of a regular Republican based voter, particularly a Christian, and I see Donald Trump say the election was stolen and I give some level of truth to him, but then I see all these tier two leaders, you know, the Kevin McCarthy's, your congressman on TV saying the election was stolen from. Frankly, I would be an aberration to not believe it because everybody that I trust is on there telling me that. And that's the thing is we've lost. We've forgotten as leaders that our job partially is actually to lead and not just to reflect what people want to get elected.
- [11:32]
Mike Kosper
This might sound like a weird question, but like, as you know, listeners may be aware, you endorsed Kamala Harris this past year. You spoke at the Democratic National Convention. Obviously stuff like that makes you kind of a pariah among your Republican colleagues.
- [11:47]
Adam Kinzinger
I haven't noticed.
- [11:48]
Mike Kosper
I'm curious, was that the experience even leading up to January 6th, where people just like, hey, Adam, chill out, stop making such a hassle. You're going to lose friends, you're burning bridges here. Or did people just kind of figure out it's one guy, let him do his thing.
- [12:05]
Adam Kinzinger
Well, leading up to January 6th, it was a lot of people coming up saying, hey, thanks for saying it. We need somebody out there saying it. And they would say, I can't say it because of the primary in my district, by the way, I served a very, very Republican district, too. My district was. There was this misperception that I represented because I'm from Illinois, some moderate district. It wasn't. It was about as hardcore red as you can get. But it was after January 6th that, yeah, I think people. Well, I mean, look, there was a period of about a month after January 6th where everybody was on that position. But then in the significant after, yeah, people just started to put their heads down. Nobody directly told me, hey, don't do this. You know, you still had some people come up and say thank you, even while I was on the January 6 committee. But a lot of the times, I think people were struggling with their own shame, to be honest with you, of, you know, knowing there's not a single person that goes to Washington without this expectation that they would be. Mr. Smith goes to Washington if the situation called for it. They would stand alone, you know, in a crowd. But the problem is, is very few get the opportunity to actually do that. And a minute fraction of those actually can do it. And so I think it brings a lot of shame to people.
- [13:12]
Mike Kosper
So take me to the day, then, morning of January 6th. You know, this vote is coming. McCarthy has announced that he's not gonna. He's not gonna vote to certify. Walk me through what happened that day.
- [13:24]
Adam Kinzinger
Yeah. And by the way, with McCarthy's announcement, the reason it was so chilling was because up to that point, leaders. So if you're in leadership, the whip, the majority minority leader, whatever it is, your job is to take the difficult votes, right? To provide cover. And so the fact that he then said that he was going to not vote to certify was. It was really shocking. Anyway, so I predicted violence on the first, that my mind didn't change. So on the sixth, I actually had my staff stay home. I asked my wife to basically stay in the apartment that day because there were a lot of kind of MAGA people walking around the city and everything. And for the first time ever, Mike, the first time ever, I took my gun with me to my office. And, you know, we were. We were allowed to conceal carry as members of Congress. I never did. I mean, I do at home, but I never did in D.C. because there were so many police officers. But I did that day go in, you know, kind of a normal morning. There's some. A lot of, like. There's a real weird feeling, and it's hard to describe. Just it. It just was an uneasy feeling. And I go to the floor of the House of Representatives at the start of proceedings. And I'm looking at my phone the whole time and watching on Twitter that, okay, now, you know, the crowds are right at the gates, the barricades are down, this officer has been pushed down. And so I make the decision, like, I think I'm going to go back to my office, because keep in mind, it wasn't until the. The insurrectionists were in the Capitol complex that even the alarms went off. You know, they had the pipe bombs, but that was considered separate. So I go back to my office, and by the time I get there, you know, my office behind my desk overlooked the west front of the Capitol where all this combat was happening. I go in and I open my window. I had a conversation with my wife. You know, as she says, she goes, for the first time, I realized what it's like to be a politician's wife, the danger she felt with that. And I just remember opening the window behind my desk, looking out and hearing all the explosions, hearing the fighting. And I got to tell you, and I've never. I've maybe felt this once in my life prior, I don't know, but I felt a darkness that I cannot describe, I can't prove, but I just felt this dark evil. I remember praying actually at that moment and almost in tears because it just. I felt something. I can't describe it. Anyway, long. And the short of it, basically, from that point on is when all the, in essence, sirens went off and we had to barricade in place. And, you know, I lock all my doors to my office, three heavy doors, basically, to get to me. But in the process, I take out my gun, put it on the desk, and, you know, am facing the reality that I may have to fight some people, you know, and people that, frankly, eight months ago, would have considered me a political ally. It's a strange, strange feeling. And so sitting there, kind of hunkering down, and meanwhile, I'm looking at Twitter, and, you know, if you search your name, it's Kinzinger. Where's your office? We're coming for you. You're next. You know, you're next for the gallows, that kind of stuff. And so you have to come to the exception, okay? They have access to the entire capital complex. If they know where my office is, they're coming here. And obviously, you know, the rest of the day is history. The feds basically took back the capital. And I remember going back to the floor of the House and giving my speech. And I gave this speech where I said, basically, guys, the emperor has no clothes. Can we finally just admit?
- [17:01]
CT Media
Can an inspiring story from the global church deepen your faith right here at home? The Globe issue from Christianity Today takes you on a journey across continents sharing powerful stories of faith in action. From a cafe in Cyprus sparking cross cultural ministry to Ukrainian volunteers bringing hope amidst war, this beautiful issue is more than a magazine. It's a window into God's kingdom work. Buy your copy today@orderct.com globe edit.
- [17:38]
Unnamed Host
People have been lied to by too many for too long. So here's the truth. Joe Biden won this election. The effort will fail, and everybody knows it. For some out there, this isn't about making a statement for the betterment of our country. It's about avoiding the pain of leveling with the people and telling them the truth. The emperor has no clothes. I know.
- [18:01]
Adam Kinzinger
And I remember when my speech was done. I mean, I've never given a speech in the Capitol. I could be talking about things like, I don't know, you know, Asian carp in the, in the river, right? And at the end when you're done, there's always somebody behind you. This is like, good job or kind of gives you a little clap. It was dead silence. And I turn around and everybody that was in there had their heads down. And I realized, this thing's not over. And so I, you know, when I walked on the floor, by the way, I didn't have this, like, awful, this, this sense of democracy has persevered. I was just angry. I was furious. And the last part I'll say is, you know, about three or four in the morning, whenever it was, I went home and I remember seeing my first National Guard troops as I get into my car to go home. And I'm a member of the National Guard. I'm retired now, but at the time I was a member. And I remember seeing them and being both proud and mortified at the same time. You know, proud to see them because we had been begging for them all day and mortified that they had to be there at the U.S. capitol. So that was my day of. And one that I'll never forget. It's crystal clear in my head and truly feels like it was yesterday.
- [19:06]
Mike Kosper
The thing that probably shocks me the most about the January 6th story is the revisionism around it, right? So my January 6th story was Things are different at CT now. But at the time, we would have these big editorial meetings on whatever day of the week that was, that the vote was. And we happened to be in the middle of one of these meetings. And I remember I had a laptop and a monitor over here, and I'd set up the monitor over here, streaming cnn. Ted Olson was sort of the acting managing editor at the time, and Ted must have had the same thing going, because I remember looking at the zoom, and as people are talking about what their stories they're working on or whatever, I could see Ted's face, like, mirroring the worry that was coming up on my. And then finally, he kind of jumps in and says, hey, y', all, something really bad is happening at the Capitol right now. I think we just. We should just pray and end the meeting. And we did. We prayed for a little bit and then ended the meeting. And I just sat there. I mean, maybe I can think of, like, three days in my life where I sat in front of my computer with, like, Twitter over here and news streaming going over here. 9 11, which. Well, we didn't have Twitter back then, but, like, 9 11, sitting in front of the TV the whole day, January 6th and October 7th. I mean, those are the three things that have just really sort of frozen me. And so for me, the thing. I mean, and again, that's me experiencing it in front of a computer screen. For me, the thing that's shocking is people who were in that room who heard the mobs, who did all those things, who then six months later, were saying things like, well, this is what happens when you steal people's votes. What do you expect? Or they were saying, nothing bad actually happened that day. How do you react when you hear these things?
- [20:57]
Adam Kinzinger
I mean, look, you take people like Troy Nels from here in Houston, southern part of Houston, former sheriff who was basically trying to take sheriff control of the floor because they thought they were going to die. Mark Wayne Mullen, who's a senator, who was basically taking his jacket off, took his tie off, had his sleeves rolled up, ready to fight some of the biggest defenders of January 6th now. And I don't understand it except to say this. Like, I. And by the way, this whole process has. Has allowed me to, or I guess, given me the opportunity to, in essence, deconstruct my faith. And one of the things I battle with is just blatant lies, right? I mean, just. It's. Regardless of your opinion of Donald Trump, like, how do you justify blatant lies around it? And here's what I think, basically it comes down to is, remember, everybody started getting arrested after January six. You started to have these large arrests, and people that were being arrested were talking like, I got misled. I went there because I didn't know. And then what happens? They end up in jail. And honestly, I gotta call them out. Fox News at some point decides to wrap their arms around the people in jail, and instead of shaming them, they now begin to call them like political prisoners or, you know, they at least shouldn't be in jail. And that is what then turned the people who had been arrested or the people who had committed the crime into now being able to say, I did the right thing. And then secondarily, when Kevin McCarthy went to Mar A Lago, I mean, this is the thing that turned the whole Trump thing on a dime. And the January 6th thing on a dime, when he went to Mar a lago, like three weeks after January 6 and got his picture with the President, you could hear an audible gasp, I mean, metaphorically, in the whole Republican collective. And that's when these Republicans started rushing to put out their statements of support for Donald Trump. And that's when they started minimizing January 6th. And the other thing is this. Look, if you are going to fight in the military of an evil force, I'm not comparing it to this, but like, how do you get there? Well, you make compromises every bit of every day and you convince yourself that the compromise you made is for a good bigger cause. And so if you're all of a sudden defending something that you know is indefensible, like January 6th, you can. Humans are very capable of convincing ourselves that actually we're doing the right thing for the bigger cause. And you know what those arguments are, Mike? It's always abortion. It's always LGBT and kids with purple hair. There's always a reason why we have to accept, frankly, a man that I don't think follows biblical principles or encompasses them. There's always a reason. And you can convince yourself of that.
- [23:35]
Mike Kosper
Yeah, that reminds me of. I'm a big fan of what they do over at the Dispatch. And I remember when Tucker Carlson, I guess McCarthy had decided to release a bunch of the footage to Fox News, and Tucker then edits that stuff into this, I mean, very Soviet era kind of propaganda storytelling to sort of reframe it. And I believe the show is called Patriot Purge.
- [24:02]
Adam Kinzinger
Yeah.
- [24:03]
Mike Kosper
And when that thing aired almost immediately afterwards, you saw Jonah Goldberg and Steve Hayes from the Dispatch, who were contributors over Fox, resign and say, we're leaving. We can't be a part of this. This is. And I had this like, naive reaction of like, oh, man, it's gonna be an exodus over there, isn't it?
- [24:23]
Adam Kinzinger
Yeah, I know.
- [24:24]
Mike Kosper
Like, lots of people are Gonna leave over this. And ultimately, they ended up having to get rid of Tucker because of the lawsuits over other stuff. But again, I think the shock of it was the willingness of so many to embrace the second lie. The first lie being the stolen election, the second lie being that January 6th was no big. No big deal. And I say all that to say I thought about all of this a lot as we were making the Devil in the Deep Blue Sea, because the satanic panic takes hold and really transforms a culture for a decade because of a series of lies. And it's a series of lies that when you examine them with an ounce of skepticism, you go, well, obviously, those things can't be true. I think there's something remarkable about that. I think it says a lot about our political moment, right? That famous line from Mark Twain, the lie gets halfway around the world before the truth can get its pants on again. What's weird to me about this one is it's almost like that's inverted. We all saw the truth, the lie came later, and because people wanted to believe it, it swept the thing away. And I just find that remarkable.
- [25:33]
Adam Kinzinger
I've said of recent. I feel like. And this is very Biblical, every day we kind of fight this battle in our own hearts between light and darkness, right? And you have to make conscious decisions every day. And, you know, some days the darkness wins, right? And as Christians, we have to try to minimize that, and we take that to God. And. But when somebody with authority stands up and whispers the dark parts of your heart to you, it gives you permission to let the darkness overtake. And I'm going to tell you, darkness overtaking seems. It's very corrosive, but it feels easy, it feels easier. You can finally let those mistrusts you have of the government or of minorities or whatever it is, other people, you can finally let that overtake you, and you feel like you can take a deep breath because you don't have to fight that fight anymore. And you really don't. You could just be hate. You could be filled with hate. And. And on the. On the conspiracies, I mean, this is one of the big battles on the January 6th committee. You know, I would see, because unfortunately, I would follow a lot of the conspiracies, and I would see, like, okay, here's a. A guy that is, you know, quote unquote, flashing his badge to a police officer who then allows him to exit. Well, you know, that went around the Internet a thousand bajillion retweets. Well, the truth is that Guy actually had a vape in his hand, and he was getting ready to take a hit off his vape, you know, another one where there's a guy that was, quote, unquote, a fed, who was looking up. And he was looking up. This is the theory that he was looking up at the control, at the cameras, and then all of a sudden, the door buzzed open. So he was looking up at some, you know, D.C. metro Police Control that could open the door, by the way. That doesn't even exist, just so you know, And. But the reality is what he was doing was looking up at the second floor to his buddy who had opened the fire door five minutes prior to ask how to open the fire door. And you have to hold it for five seconds for it to open. And so, I mean, that's just one of the. You think about, you know, Ray Epps, the whole thing about Ray Epps being a fed. And I mean, this poor guy, you know, got caught up in January 6, but now has to basically hide his identity. Nobody knows where he lives because they're convinced Ted Cruz came out and said, Ray Epps is a fad. Guy's not a fed. He just had a short haircut. So, yeah, it's amazing to me. I think it's kind of. It's going to take a sociological study to figure out why in the face of truth, people are so eager to embrace conspiracy because the old belief was they embrace conspiracy because maybe it's a little easier to believe or because they don't know the truth. And unfortunately, that's not the case here.
- [28:00]
Mike Kosper
I wanted to get to that because, you know, Christians played a unique role in January 6th. I mean, not everyone. There obviously was a Christian. Not every Christian has embraced all of the lies around it, but undeniably there were a lot of Christians involved in the buildup to it and everything else. I'm curious, did you notice that imagery on the day, the crosses, that Jesus is my savior, Trump is my president? Was that visible from your vantage?
- [28:26]
Adam Kinzinger
Yeah, it was extremely visible, and I was noticing that. And a lot of military physics fatigues, which you know, implied to me there were a lot of veterans or whatever. But the Christian stuff is what bothered me the most. You know, and look, I think there were people in that crowd that believed that if Jesus was there in the crowd, he'd be joining them in scaling that fence, even though that kind of violates everything that Jesus ever said or I believe about him. And, yeah, you would see the Christian flag, the white, blue, red Christian flag, the shofars were everywhere. I mean, I think once they pierced the, the window on the Capitol Building, somebody was blowing a shofar into that. You heard them everywhere. And I think when I was listening, I heard them. And I didn't put two and two together until I saw the footage later of what it was. But obviously the symbolism is, you know, the walls of Jericho, this is. Or else it's the end times, because Donald Trump is coming to save us from the One World Order, which I can't put together how he's going to save us from it, but also it happens anyway. And so, yeah, I mean, and I'll tell you what the sad thing to me is, this is just a gut feeling, but I think if you're talking to somebody who's 20, 21 years old about our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, I think you're probably more likely to lead them to Christ in 2015 than you are today because of the reputation that the church has. And it's not all churches I go to one that's not at all like that. But the church in general does have that reputation. And I think it's, look, it's, it's honestly in, in my mind, it's the devil's greatest trick to discredit the, the church.
- [29:55]
Mike Kosper
Yeah, well, and the flip side danger of it, and you're seeing this in young men, is the young men that are attracted to the version of Christianity that is represented by all of this, this like hyper masculine performative, the Christian nationalist stuff and all, all of that.
- [30:12]
Adam Kinzinger
And Mike, can I say another thing too, just real quick, is like with the, all of the conspiracies, you know, I think back to the 80s when I was a kid and I lived in Jacksonville, Florida for a few years, went to a big church there. And I remember watching, you know, Thief in the Night, as probably every church did on the big screen, and watching people get beheaded in church goodness. And then, you know, listening somebody come in and talk about backward messaging. And, you know, if you play as you guys talked about in the series, you play this backwards. It's a hidden Satan message. And AC DC actually means anti Christians defeating Christ. And you know, 1990s, it's always the, it's always the UN black helicopters and the FEMA camps, which have made a resurgence. All of that I look back on and say, look, I had a pleasant childhood, but childhood was a lot darker in terms of how I looked at the world than it needed to be. And part of it was this just deep, utter kind of conspiracy that permeated every aspect of what I did at church. And so I would say to parents today that may find yourself in this, you know, where it feels comfortable and it feels good to buy into conspiracy. What is this doing to your children? And do they feel like the world is safe for them or not? You know, it's only something only they can answer. But it's interesting to me.
- [31:32]
Mike Kosper
Yeah, I've got a working theory on it too, because I've been trying to sort of wrap my head around what makes us gravitate towards this stuff. Like, I have people in my family, people I. People I love who really got pulled into the Q stuff just a couple years back. And of course, that was a big factor on January 6th as well. And of course, like you said, we grew up in these churches where I think I grew up in a very similar kind of church and saw the same videos, heard the same things. Ross Douthat talks all the time about decadence. Right. Part of the problems that we have of society is not for a lack, but because we have an excess, this sort of consumeristic excess. And you know, like Douglas Adams says about these aliens that he calls the buzzers. Like their problem is that they're a bunch of rich kids with nothing to do. Like, we're a very affluent society and in the absence of like a powerful, meaningful story, it seems like we start just inventing them. Right?
- [32:29]
Adam Kinzinger
Yes.
- [32:30]
Mike Kosper
And the Q conspiracy is a perfect example of it. For people who are not quite as familiar with Q, it's this idea that Donald Trump is playing five dimensional chess, really with history, in a sense. And that there's this moment that is going to come the storm, this moment where it comes where basically everybody we don't like as right wing Trump followers is gonna get perp walked out of a federal building somewhere and sent to Guantanamo Bay. Everyone from the Clintons to Bill Gates was gonna be sent there. I mean, it's just.
- [33:03]
Adam Kinzinger
I was gonna be sent there and I'm still waiting.
- [33:05]
Mike Kosper
Oh, that's right, yeah, we're still waiting. Yeah, you and Liz Cheney for betraying the party and all of that. Does that resonate to you at all? I mean, in terms of what drives people and what's your sense of what drives people?
- [33:17]
Adam Kinzinger
Yeah, I mean, look, I think it's completely that. I mean, I've often said that we're a little bit of a victim of our own success. You know, we don't have. Okay, let's put the, let's put the blanket thing out. There is there are exceptions to this. But we don't really struggle to find food to eat. We don't really struggle to find places to live. For the most part, our kids get a good education, but we struggle to find meaning and we struggle to find vision. Now, look, in the, what's Post World War II era, we were anti communist, so that was our mission. It was fighting for freedom around the globe. Well, the Communists fall, then what? Well, Al Qaeda popped up so we could fight that mission. Well, then basically, we've kind of either gotten bored of or defeated that extremism. So now what? And we turned on ourselves. And the problem is, too, we've always had leaders in the past generally that recognize they can play with fire a little bit, but they got to kind of keep it contained. And ultimately you have to unite a country as best you can. And I'll be honest, I think we have the first time in American history, well, at least that I. Modern American history, a leader that is really happy to divide America against itself. And I'm going to tell you that the bully pulpit of the presidency is a very, very powerful position. So, yeah, I think it's a lot of that. And, and it's just, you know, here's the other interesting thing to me, which is, you know, when you look at Al Qaeda and I'm not making comparisons, but when you look at like radical Muslim kind of viewpoints, who is their biggest enemy? It's not Christians. It's not even really Jews. It's actually heretic Muslims. That's who the biggest victim of ISIS was, for instance. I can tell you that in the Republican Party, and particularly among some of the Christian nationalist circles, I'm a bigger enemy to them in their mind than Nancy Pelosi. Now, does that make sense? Because I'd probably agree with them on 80% of the stuff, but no, I'm the heretic that should know better. And so once you start to put that together and you look for people desperate for meaning, and I honestly believe it's been 20 years since the President's made the case for the mission of America. Yeah, it leads to a soup of hate and anger and drama. We're dramatic people. We want to have an enemy. We love conflict, and right now it's ourselves.
- [35:29]
Mike Kosper
I'm so glad you said that. I think that's exactly right. I mean, I actually have an article I'm writing that it'll probably be out on my subsect before this comes out that's titled why We Hate David French.
- [35:41]
Unnamed Host
Poor guy.
- [35:42]
Adam Kinzinger
I know.
- [35:43]
Mike Kosper
Oh, man. The first Thing I talk about in it is that the first rule of Twitter is that if you get retweeted by David French, delete the app from your phone for at least three days, because there's no point in going back on there.
- [35:57]
Adam Kinzinger
He's the only guy that makes me look well loved by the right.
- [36:01]
Mike Kosper
Well, and the reason is, like you said, he's the guy who's just outside the camp. Right. I think this is true with you. I think this is true. And I'm not trying to blow smoke at you, but I think this is true with you. I think this is true with Representative Cheney. I think there's something about the fact that this is a person who stuck to their principles and maintained their integrity and seeking their principles that is, by its. Like, by its appearance, is shaming to the people who abandoned them. That provokes a lot of rage. I think it does.
- [36:34]
Adam Kinzinger
It does. And it's like, look, if you. Again, the thing, you can convince yourself of anything, you know, I could convince myself I look like I'm 20 years old still. But if I hold a mirror up, all of a sudden I see now I'm 47. Right. It's kind of the same thing when you make compromises. And all of a sudden, again, I'm not. I'm not the mirror. I'm not perfect at all. But you see somebody like Liz Rye that basically said, like, we're not going to relent on this. And by the way, and I mean, this. What we did wasn't heroic, actually. Everybody should have done it because it was part of the job. We were just surrounded by cowards. And, yeah, I think that makes it especially angering, because all of a sudden, if I have to look in the mirror and be ticked off that I'm 47 years old, you know, I am going to be pretty ticked that the mirror is the one reflecting that back to me and not really mad at my face for being.
- [37:22]
Mike Kosper
Right. Right, Exactly. I'm curious about. You talk to somebody who says, man, I'm in a family or I'm in a church or I'm in a Sunday school group where, like, everybody's buying in on these lies and these conspiracies. How do you break through to them? Like, what do you do when you're surrounded by people who are believing these things and spreading these things?
- [37:42]
Adam Kinzinger
I mean, this is where a personal relationship with Jesus Christ matters more than anything. You know, I would say, just as a recommendation, if you're in a church that's up there at the pulpit spreading this maybe look at a different church. Can't tell you to do that, but, you know, you want truth from that pulpit. But the thing. And I'm glad you asked it, because what it forced me to do when I came out after the January 6th committee, honestly, I was in a pretty dark place. I didn't know it, because when you're in the middle of combat, you know, you just act, you just operate. It's only after combat that you have ptsd. Not many people get it during the war. It's when you have a chance to reflect. And. And so I went through that for a good year. I'd still say I'm going through it to some extent. You know, lost relationships, lost families. My co pilot on Iraq that sent me a text and said he was ashamed to have ever served with me. You know, those things that compile and add up and what it forced me to do, and then my disillusionment with the fact that these people claim to follow the same Christ I do. Now, what did that do to me? That's beneficial a lot. For frankly, I can now tell my son I did the right thing when he's old enough to understand it. But it forced me, and I hate the term, but it forced me to really deconstruct what I believe. And, you know, look, I. I was lazy in just taking what some pastor would say on YouTube or what some pastor would say from the pulpit as the truth. And now I had to. Look, who is Jesus Christ, really? Does Jesus Christ sit around and care about capitalism? Does he want us all to get as rich as possible? Look, I'm pro capitalist, right? I really am. Small government, but that's not what Jesus concerned himself with. In fact, he talks about money being kind of the root of all evil. So it forced me to go back to understand who he really is, to take the things that I had put on him, that I had heard and to understand that. And that's what I would encourage people to do, is to just grab on to the words of Jesus Christ in the New Testament, grab onto that personal relationship with him and let him show you. Look, if I'm wrong, And if the QAnon stuff and Christian nationalism, and if darkness and all this stuff is really what Jesus wants, he's going to let you know that, and you're going to know it. But if I'm right and you sincerely seek that out, then I think he'll be faithful to show you he did to me. And it's actually made my faith stronger. And I hope if you as a listener have found yourself in a similar situation. I hope when you come out the other end. And by the way, coming out the other end means you're going to crawl through glass to get there. But I hope when you come out the other end that you too can have a stronger faith like I do.
- [40:13]
Mike Kosper
How do you think history will look back on January 6th?
- [40:17]
Adam Kinzinger
I think it'll look back on it as. As a shame. You know, I said in the committee hearing once, I said, you know, democracies are not defined by bad days, or I can revise that now to say bad eras. Democracies are defined by how we come back from that, what we learn. And look, I don't think America's success is automatic because, you know, but we have won every time. We've always come back for 250 years. We're celebrating America's 250th anniversary next year. All these generations kind of created us where we are in this moment. My grandfather stared down the Nazis, could never talk about it. Basically gave his mental health, health to that fight. My generation, post 9, 11, all of that sacrifice to this moment. And what we're being called upon to do is just kind of maintain the flame of democracy. We're not asked to go to war to fight each other. And so I think we have to succeed. I refuse, and I know you do. I refuse to be the generation that America fails on. I refuse it. And so the only way that that can happen is if we see January 6th for what it was. And that's where I think, you know, despite the fact that all these pardons came, despite the fact that X, Y and Z. I am very proud of the work of the January 6th Committee because I think it's very provable now that it wasn't the feds, it wasn't antifa. It was what it was. And I think that will stand strong in history. And. And I think, honestly, I think in 10 years, there's not going to be a single person that will ever admit to having defended that day.
- [41:48]
Mike Kosper
I want to personally thank Adam Kinzinger.
- [41:50]
Rebecca Sebastian
For his time on this show and for his service to our country. We're going to conclude this episode with an Excerpt from his 2022 farewell speech on the House floor. It's worth listening to the whole thing in its entirety.
- [42:04]
Mike Kosper
We'll include that in the show notes.
- [42:06]
Rebecca Sebastian
But this clip in particular stuck out to us.
- [42:10]
Unnamed Host
We must not abandon our values or our beliefs in the US Constitution. We all swore an oath in this very chamber to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. Not a political party and not a single man. Where Republicans once believed that limited government meant lower taxes and more autonomy, today limited government means inciting violence against government officials. Following the tragic Oklahoma City bombing, former President George H.W. bush publicly refuted those who used fear to gain support. In stark contrast, our leaders today belittle and in some cases justify attacks on the U.S. capitol as, quote, legitimate political discourse. The once great party of Lincoln, Roosevelt and Reagan has turned its back on the ideals of liberty and self governance. Instead, it has embraced lies and deceit. The Republican Party used to believe in a big tent which welcomed the tired, the poor, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free. Now we shelter the ignorant, the racists who only stoke anger and hatred to those who are different than us. Our constituents voted us in based on our beliefs, but we cannot use our faith as a sword and a shield while ignoring the fact that we are all children of God, that we are all Americans.
- [43:47]
Rebecca Sebastian
Devil in the Deep Blue Sea is a production of Christianity Today. It's hosted and written by Mike Kosper, produced by Mike Kosper and Rebecca Sebastian with production assistance from Dawn Adams Sound design and mix engineering by TJ Hester Sound design, animation and video by Steve Scheidler Graphic design Nim Ben Rubin, Eric Petrick and Mike Kosper are executive producers of CT Media Podcasts. Matt Stevens is our senior producer. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a rating and review wherever you listen. It'll help more people find the show.
- [44:27]
Mike Kosper
Thanks for listening.
- [44:28]
Adam Kinzinger
Listen.