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A
Ladies and gentlemen, what is the key to understanding why the culture has basically gone mad ever since about 2020, say around George Floyd time? What is the one idea that will help you unlock and help you understand why you've got people advocating for racism, why there's a group known as Gays for Gaza, why people are called oppressors, why Christians are called oppressors, why people in the political world, particularly if they're conservatives, are called Hitler or fascists, why my friend Charlie Kirk was murdered. What is behind all this? Well, it's actually going to the Arizona Supreme Court. At least a portion of this is going before the Arizona Supreme Court. And the plaintiff in that case is with me today. He's been on the program before. It's Dr. Owen Anderson, ladies and gentlemen, all the way from Arizona State University there in Phoenix. Owen, how are you?
B
Hey, so great to talk with you. Thanks for having me on.
A
Yeah, we're going to have a very interesting conversation. I think that will help people understand why our culture has gone crazy. It has to do with the technical term known as critical theory, but also cultural Marxism. And once you see the two column chart, we're going to reveal to you, I think it's going to help you understand what's going on in our culture. Now, before we get into that in any detail, Owen, I don't know. A year or two ago we had John talking about a dispute you had with ASU over dei, diversity, equity and inclusion, which also means didn't earn it, by the way, ladies and gentlemen. Didn't earn it. Oh, and give us an update as to what's going on and why you are before the United States. Not the United States, but the Arizona Supreme Court.
B
Yeah. So it's the same case as last time we talked. This is the reason why people don't want to do this stuff is it takes a lot of time, a lot of energy. And you ask yourself, hey, is this worth it? Probably not because there's no money involved, it's just a matter of law. So I was required to take DEI training. It was called Inclusive Communities because you always had to spin this stuff with a positive word. As I got into it, I saw that the content was about attacking Christianity, attacking people for their skin color, they call it whiteness, and attacking men. And so I documented it, took screenshots and I posted about it on my sub stack, which is Dr. Owen Anderson. And I was contacted by the Goldwater Institute, which is a legal think take here in Phoenix, but they do, they do cases across the country. That deal with government overreach. And they said, yeah, actually, ASU is breaking Arizona law. And so we went to court, and the first thing ASU did was said, this training doesn't exist. Well, I had screenshots. And then they said, well, it's not required. Again, I got screenshots where it says required. And then they denied the content. It's not really dei. So again, got the screenshot. So then when they realized, okay, this is serious, they hired the law firm Perkins Coey. And that's worth bringing up because that's the Hillary Clinton law firm that did the Russia dossier. So this is high level ideologues in the legal world. So they hired them even though they have a whole team of lawyers on staff that can deal with the concerted professor guy. And we went to court and they made a motion to say that I don't have standing and this can't even go to court. So right now we're still dealing with that side of it. The lower court, the first court we went to, agreed with me and Goldwater and said, well, of course you do. You're the employee who was wronged. You're bringing the case. You have the right to go to court and argue your case. So ASU appealed it, and the appellate court in December agreed with ASU and said, the law that Arizona has, which we're going into court with, doesn't allow employees to take their employers to court. And so we bump it up now to the Arizona Supreme Court, and we're asking them to look at this because this just became a bigger employment issue in Arizona. And I've made this case to my colleagues. They've said, hey, you might not agree with me on anything, but there might come a day where you believe you've been wronged by asu. And if I lose right now, you can't go to court either. So we have an amicus brief supporting us from the state president of the Arizona Senate and the speaker of the Arizona House, both who are involved in writing the law that we're using. And both of them say, of course we wrote that to protect people like Dr. Anderson. It's a civil rights issue. He should be able to go to court and argue his case.
A
What was the reasoning, Owen, that any court would say that an employee of Arizona State University does not have the right to sue his or her employer? Isn't that the purpose you have these laws?
B
Well, precisely. I mean, the argument, you know, if I was to explain it, they say this doesn't make any sense. Because their argument is, in each law you have to have a clause that lists everybody who can take this to court. And the point that Goldwaters made, and our response was none of our laws do that. So if Arizona is right about this, if Perkins, Coey and ASU is right about this, then this rewrites Arizona law altogether. Because no law can have a list of every single person who can go to court for this. It doesn't have to say that. It's called an implied law. Right. So it says it's illegal for any state education system, whether K12 or university. It's illegal for them to race blame to say you're guilty, you're morally culpable for your skin color. And again, that should be obvious, like, we shouldn't even be having this conversation. Shame on ASU for having that in. In their employee training. And then I had to bring it up. They should know better. But the law says you can't do that. It doesn't list every kind of person who can bring a case. It's implied that if it's done against an employee, you can bring a case.
A
Well, it would seem that that's why you have the law. But is this Arizona State Supreme Court decision just to see whether you have standing or are they?
B
Well, and that's why I said this is why I'm pretty confident about it, because this is now an Arizona employment law matter before the Arizona Supreme Court. This will change if they agree with asu. It completely changes any kind of implied aspects of laws. You can't bring cases unless you're named in the law. And so I think the Arizona Supreme Court's going to want to weigh in on this and favorably for my case.
A
Right. If they do that, then it just kicks it back to the lower court and you then have to try the case. Right. So this is just to see if the case can go forward. It's actually not going to determine whether or not you win or they win. Correct?
B
Yeah. That's all we're arguing right now is I have the right to have my day in court. I might lose. But what they want to do is take away my right to even go to court. And it's been. And that's why I opened up with it's been two years to get to this point. A lot of people would say this is not worth it. And that's how we're. And that's why our universities are the way they are. Because really it isn't worth it in one sense. But if no one does this and we don't stand up to this stuff. Our universities continue down this path. We need to be, you know, Christians need to stand up and say, hey, this is not right.
A
I want to put up the graphic that I've been using lately. I did this at the TPUSA pastors conference to show them sort of an overview of what's known as cultural Marxism or critical theory, that the people that adhere to this believe that there are groups of people, oppressed groups and oppressor groups. And it doesn't matter what your personal behavior is. You could be Mother Teresa, you could be serving the poor your entire life. And if you have more oppressor qualities or oppressor check boxes, then oppressed, you are going to be considered an oppressor. And by the way, by this category here, Owen, if I look at this, you're an oppressor. If you're a white owning class, a man, a heterosexual, a Christian, if you're able bodied, if you're a citizen or you're a white settler, you're automatically an oppressor and you're oppressed. If you're peoples of color, poor middle class women, trans, lgb, non Christians, disabled immigrants, indigenous people, by this standing, which I took out of a critical theory book, by the way, Jesus himself would be considered an oppressor.
B
Oh yeah, I've actually made that same point. I use the apostle Paul as an example about decolonizing because I was told to decolonize my curriculum and I was given a link to a webpage which explains what that means. And what the webpage said was to decolonize your curriculum means you need to get rid of the pale male and stale. And so I thought to myself, wait a minute, you couldn't say that about anybody else. You couldn't change those words around and say, get rid of these things. And then it said, you need to make sure that your students see themselves in your curriculum. And I thought to myself, well, do you mean see themselves as humans who need forgiveness in Christ? No, that's not what it means. It means see something physical about themselves because we're teaching students, that's the only thing that matters. That's what you, when you see someone else, you see a teacher, you see another student, you just assess them on their skin color and, and I thought we were past that, but we're not.
A
Yeah, well, we're never going to be colorblind, but we should be color neutral. That should be the goal. We're always going to notice color. Obviously we have eyes, right? But we should be color neutral. And yet, despite the fact that Arizona law, and now at least executive orders from the president, United States say DEI is basically illeg. You shouldn't be using race to differentiate people. These groups are still doing it, Owen.
B
Yeah, well, and I think that's one of the reasons I speak up, is to help parents. Because I bet if we polled your audience and asked parents before you and I said anything today, will your children, if they're white, experience racism? They would say, no, I don't think so. But, yeah, there's a very high chance they're gonna have professors, and not just in the humanities, who will judge them because they have white skin.
A
Isn't that crazy? Nobody should experience discrimination based on the color of their skin. White, black, Hispanic, yellow, red. Doesn't matter. We're one race, the human race. And yet it's one side in this debate that wants to try and fix old racism with new racism. And it's not just racism. It's economic, as you can see. It's sexual, as you can see. It has to do with whether or not you're a citizen or not. I mean, there are so many discrimination categories on this chart we're showing you now. How do people intellectually support this, Owen, when they see that you're being treated based on the group you're in rather than your personal behavior? How do people support this kind of thinking morally?
B
Yeah, I think there's three main things I have identified. One is a shift from truth as objective to truth is power, meaning who Whoever's in power determines the truth. And then coupled with that, the idea that you can be God. It's the old temptation from Genesis 3. Whatever you want is good for you, and everyone else has to accept that. And then the third one is just discontent and envy run amok. Breaking the Ten Commandments. If your neighbor has more than you, your life must be miserable until you get stuff, too. And so at its heart, it's very materialistic and it's very immature because we know little kids act that way. If your brother gets a little bit bigger cookie, when you're five, you freak out and say, hey, that's not fair. And your parents have to explain, well, but Timmy's a little older, so he gets a little more cookie. But these persons, I guess, didn't have parents that did that because they grow up and they say, hey, my neighbor has better stuff than me, and my whole life is miserable until the government redistributes that stuff. So I think those are the three things I Have identified.
A
Yeah. When they say that truth. How did you put it? Truth is power.
B
Whoever's in power determines the truth.
A
Whoever is in power determines the truth. Well, if they're in a minority and they say that, are they wrong?
B
Then, I know it's a self referentially absurd position, but the thing is, the second two points, that they want to be their own God. There is no God. And then that they just are constantly miserable and envious. Make it so they don't care if they're self contradictory. Like, if you point that out, you'll be called, well, you're colonizing my mind. Logic and reason, those are, those are whiteness categories.
A
Wait, they're giving you reasons you ought not use Reason?
B
Yep. Yeah.
A
Oh, really?
B
That's why they say, you know, there was a, there was a controversy where one of our professors might have been maybe eight years ago or so. One of our professors on their syllabus said, if you're a white man, you need to not talk in my class to learn what that's like. And ASU said, hey, that's a bridge too far. Don't put that in your syllabus ever again. But that's the sentiment. Like, if ASU hadn't said that, I bet that you'd have that in almost every single humanities syllabus. And for example, I encounter this all the time in our emails because you have those little email signatures. And ASU a few years ago asked us, it was actually in the same training that I'm going to court over. They asked us to put in our email signatures a Native American land acknowledgement where we acknowledge that ASU is on stolen land. And I kind of chuckle because it's like, hey, asu, if you believe that you can give it back anytime you want.
A
That's right. Yeah. Yeah.
B
Our college, just this spring, our faculty voted to make it a Native American land acknowledgement, official policy for our college. And the stated reason is to make up for past injustices. And so in our faculty meeting, I said, wait a minute. And you're confessing publicly to guilt. So for one thing, I can't confess that because I've never done anything that led to injustices. But if you're agreeing to this, you're confessing to that, and you should personally make that right to the Native Americans that you believe you've wronged. And no one's done that so far?
A
No, of course not. It's all talk. Rush Limbaugh used to say that liberalism is just symbolism over substance. Right. It's Just, we're gonna, we're going to wear a button or we're going to wear a flag or, you know, we're going to put out a hashtag and that's going to solve everything. Look how, look at all the virtue signaling that we're doing here. But nothing ever changes, right?
B
No, it is 100%. Yeah. Virtue says our faculty meetings. I've made the analogy to religious services because they have their own little rituals they have to do. Like, they have to read the Native American land acknowledgment at the beginning of the faculty meeting, just like someone might read the Lord's Prayer. And then they do penance by having these kinds of virtue signaling and confessing their guilt. And then they have, like, there's no God in their system. So they forgive each other, but they don't actually make wrongs. Right. By giving up their house back to the tribe they've wronged.
A
Right. What, Let me ask you this. Where do they, where would the, these university types, these professors in the humanities departments. In the humanities department. Where would they stand on the Hamas, Israel issue?
B
Well, we've had some really interesting things at asu and because when I tell you what I'm about to say, I don't think you'll believe me. But I posted the video on my substack. We had a history professor go on a video podcast and call for armed resistance against the United States and Israel. And I posted on my subsec, I've seen other people, other conservative groups post it because it's unbelievable that ASU has not done anything. And the idea that, well, we have to protect academic freedom. We don't have the academic freedom to call for armed resistance to the United States government.
A
Yeah. That's called treason.
B
Yeah. Well, and I pointed out all of us are state employees. Like, this is not a private university. And we have to sign a contract from the Arizona Board of Regents where we agree to affirm the United States and Arizona constitutions. And so I think this is a serious employment issue. If a professor's calling for armed resistance, well, he's broken his employment contract.
A
And here's what I don't understand, Owen. These are the same people that say that the white settlers here in America are on stolen land because the Indians were here first, the so called Native Americans were here first. But why don't they apply that same logic over there in the Holy Land? We have evidence that the Jews were in the land from 1406 BC onward, and there's never been a Palestinian state, Islam did not begin till over 2000 years after the Jews were in that land. Why do these same professors reverse their logic and say it's the Palestinians that have a right to the land?
B
Yeah, well, that goes back to the self contradiction. They'll never admit. They'll never care about that. You could point that out and sometimes they'll argue against you for a little bit, but once you show no, this really is a contradiction, they'll say, don't colonize my mind. I don't care if I contradict myself. Because what's really at stake, I believe what's the heart of the matter is biblical Christianity. So you gave two kind of parallel categories. But the intersectionality hub is a wheel where you have the hub in the middle. And usually that's like white men are in the middle, and then you have these spokes coming out of it which names different kinds of oppressed groups that are harmed by the white men. But the white man they hate the most is Clarence Thomas. And of course that's. You say, wait, but Owen, did you know he's not white? I know. Because what they hate is that he's a Christian and that he believes in Christian values. And so although they say it's the white man, it's really the Bible and what the Bible teaches that they have in the middle of their hub. And so that's why they can be contradictory, because the Jews factor into that biblical account and Islam doesn't.
A
Yeah. This is right out of the playbook of Satan that we're going to put people into different categories. And the worst kind of category, regardless of your personal behavior, is for you to be a Christian. So Mother Teresa, despite being somebody that helped the poor most of her life in Calcutta, India, would be considered an oppressor.
B
Yeah.
A
By this particular ideology called cultural Marxism. Isn't it interesting too, Evan, that a white Christian Pentecostal man living in a trailer park, Rod Dreher, made this point. A very poor man living on food stamps and welfare is considered an oppressor, But a black Ivy League lesbian professor is considered oppressed.
B
Yeah, well, that's why I was, you know, that was my third point, was saying it comes out of a discontent heart. I mean, these persons are spiritually miserable. And we. And we can relate because anybody would be without Christ. I mean, you need Christ or you will be spiritually miserable. But they want to go a different path. They want to say, I'm going to be spiritually miserable until the government or some big corporation gives me my stuff, and then I'll finally be happy?
A
No, but this is a theory of conflict that never ends. Like, how do you. When do you say the revolution is over? When do the oppressed people get enough power that they become oppressors? Do they ever define that?
B
No, they never do that. And you're right, though, to bring up the dialectic, because that's the heart of it. Back to Hegelian dialectic and then the Marxist materialist dialectic, because it's rooted just in. For the Marxist, just in material things. So if you were to ask me, like, oh, and what's the biggest privilege you have? Because one of the things they ask you to do is check your privilege. And what they mean is like, well, you're a white guy and that's why you got X, Y or Z. Whereas I had to work hard for it. And incidentally, I would say if that's true, like, if some person was given free stuff and didn't have to work, whereas you learned how to work hard, you're actually better off. I'd prefer learning how to work hard. But if you were to ask me, what's your greatest privilege, Owen? You know what? One of my very first memories, probably around 3ish years old, is my mom giving me a Bible. It was my own Bible. I have my own copy now. And she explained to me the gospel. And I think back on my life, like, wow, for my whole conscious life, I've had access to a Bible of my own. That's amazing. What a great privilege. But that's not what factors into the Marxist dialectic.
A
Well, what factors into the Marxist dialectic then? What is it?
B
Just material goods. How are you doing financially? How's your house? How's your income? If someone makes more than you, look at them. And if they're pale, male or stale, that's why they make more than you.
A
Male or stale. Okay, that's it. So they make more than you. So this is just so incoherent and so demonic. Yeah, it's. It's hard to even respond to because if you respond with logic, they're going to claim that you're oppressing them. So how do you deal with an issue like this? Well, you point out these contradictions, and you point out you're not treating people based on their behavior, but based on an artificial category you put them in.
B
Yeah.
A
And you treat them based on that category rather than their individual behavior. How do you move somebody from this ideology to the truth?
B
Yeah, well, I mean, I'm obviously a Christian, so I'd say the clear teaching of the gospel. But what I think we're encountering is something that's always been true. But we might, as Christians, especially in apologetics and philosophy, we might have forgot for a little while because since, like the 60s, we've had what I call Star Trek atheists. And the Star Trek atheist presents themselves as super intellectual, very consistent. They're the ones that understand the world.
A
And.
B
And religious people like Christians, they just believe in superstition. And so Christian apologists, they've mostly dealt with that group a little bit of New Age, but mostly these atheists. And so Richard Dawkins and the new atheists are popular. And so we've become accustomed maybe to thinking the other side wants to be consistent. They value that. And I think in the history of Christians interaction with the world, that's just simply not been true. And when it comes down to it, it's not even true for the atheists, which is what your book is about. But we're just seeing the inconsistency, like, up front now, instead of being hidden behind a couple layers of science, it's just right up front.
A
Now. You have been accused in your classes of being too Christian. Like, you have been marked down by your department head. How did this happen? You asked for evidence back. What happened?
B
Yeah. So that's just. That's just like a breaking story. Last couple weeks. Every year, we have to review ourselves. And then we submit our review to the directors of our school and we get an official annual review. And for us, that means we have to review it in three areas. Service, teaching, and research. And we have an objective rubric. And that's a very important part. Objective rubric with your activities. And different activities get different points. And then you add up all your activities for those three areas and the number, the point you have tells you if you get a one through a five, where number three is doing your job, lower than three means you're gonna have to have a plan of how to improve. And 4 and 5 is, like, excellent and super excellent. So I got my review back, all my scores using our objective rubric should give me three fives and I get my review back and I got a 4 on teaching. Now someone could say, oh, and come on, you got a four. That's pretty. That's better. That's excellent. Still, you're doing fine. But the issue isn't that. And there's a tiny little bit of merit pay attached, like a hundred bucks. It's not the money either. The issue is the reason why I was given a four. And the director wrote back and said, there's a student complaint in your evaluations which says that you're teaching Christianity. And so I have to give you a four. And so I appealed it and said, hey, you got to tell me what the rubric is, though, because that's not in the rubric. Are we losing, like, five points now? If a student says that, and second, if. Is that applied to everyone? Because I happen to know that other professors are teaching the stuff you and I are talking about today in their classes. If it's the truth, are they also being dinged? And the dean, now, the kind of last level of appeal for me wrote back and said, I'm going to keep it at a four. And here's a couple quiz questions from your class that prove it's weighted towards Christianity. And the quiz questions didn't say anything about Christianity. They might have been straight out of Plato or Aristotle or Viktor Frankl. If you just looked at them and I didn't tell you anything, you wouldn't say, oh, those are Christian questions. Not to mention that it's five out of like a hundred questions. Right. So that's not a good sample. And so I asked again, what's the rubric? What's the metric you're using? And that was two weeks ago. I haven't heard back, so I don't think I'm going to hear back. They're just going to say, you're losing a point.
A
Okay, but he says those are Christian questions, as if coming from a Christian worldview. What is the worldview he is requiring you to teach from?
B
Yeah, so the example he gave was like, if you say, you say there's five arguments that show God exists. You're supposed to phrase it. Aquinas says there are five arguments. And I don't have any questions like that. But sure, I understand that point. But none of my questions step over the line on that issue. I'm not asking the student to believe anything uniquely Christian. And the class that those questions came from is called Philosophical Issues in Death and Dying. And I didn't write the ASU catalog description. That was written by someone else. And that description says, you're going to go over the Bible in this class. Because the student said he snuck the Bible in, he's teaching us the Bible. Well, it's in the class catalog. It's not something I just brought in myself, and I didn't write that. So I'm just being a good employee by doing what the catalog says.
A
And if you're going to talk about death and dying. How could you not bring the Bible to it?
B
What also shows a little bit of their bias? Because I actually spend most of the time in the Old Testament in the Jewish scriptures. And so they're lumping that in and saying, well, that's all Christian. But I go over Job, for example. We spent a lot of time in Job and Ecclesiastes. And for them to say, that's Christian. A Jewish friend might say, well, wait a minute. No, that's ours.
A
But I'm still trying to figure out if you were to try and pin him down and say you're saying that I have a Christian bias or I'm teaching from a Christian worldview. That could be true. The problem, though, is there is no neutral worldview. I mean, everybody has a worldview. So what worldview does he expect you to teach from?
B
Yeah, well, and that gets back to what you're pointing out about being inconsistent. Because that's their whole position is there's no such thing as an objective worldview. And they all admit that they teach from this Marxist dialectic stuff. Well, that's my view. Then that's my opinion. They would say, that's my view. And so I teach from Foucault or I teach from Freire, whoever it is. And so it's just this inconsistency. And that's why, again, this isn't just like my case at Arizona Supreme Court is now an employment issue. This is an all ASU faculty issue. Because what this means is a director can subjectively decide. Even when you have an objective rubric, they can decide. I think you're biased. I'm going to take points off. And while my colleagues might today say, yeah, you deserve it, you're that Christian guy. One day that could be you. Right? You don't want some Christian director to be able to say, oh, now all Marxists lose points.
A
Right? So essentially, they're saying someone like Foucault is okay, but Jesus isn't. As if Jesus, regardless of whether or not he's God, he certainly was a thinker. Right?
B
Well, that's where, I mean, the dean would probably say, sure, you can teach that stuff. And in fact, he said a sentence. He said, hey, this is not about religion. I know you're a religion professor, you can teach religion. But you have to phrase it like Jesus says this. But that's what I'm objecting to is the review from my director and dean makes it sound like I'm in there giving altar calls.
A
Right?
B
I do that already. I Don't say you have to believe the gospel. To pass my class, I do historical stuff like what did Jesus say here? Or here? Or what did Job say? Or what does Solomon say? So that's where I expected them to look into what the student said. The student gave no proof. They just said it in a evaluation. And ironically, in the fall, my school spent our faculty meetings talking about how to redo student evaluations because of this kind of thing. We all know they're not very helpful because students can say whatever they want. And so the very professors, the very director of the school who said that in the fall, then uses them to get me. And that's why I'm saying I don't think that's objective. I don't think it's applied to everybody. I think you're picking on the Christian guy.
A
Yeah, it sure sounds that way. And by the way, this is the same fallacy, ladies and gentlemen, that has driven some of our court decisions to throw the Bible out of the public square or even out of schools. Teaching about the Bible is not the same as saying you need to believe it and you need to accept Jesus. Now, you can teach facts without trying to get kids to worship the source of those facts, right?
B
Yeah.
A
So there's a difference between here's, here's what the Bible says and then trying to convince a person to put their trust in Jesus. Those are two different things.
B
Well, yeah. When I've been in conferences internationally, I'll meet colleagues from other places. I say from Germany, and they'll tell me that that's a really interesting thing about America, because they all do get taught about the Bible in whatever, you know, their version of K through 12, but they don't believe it, they just get taught about it. Whereas they'll say, you Americans, like your kid, your high schoolers know nothing about the Bible. But they all say they're Christians, right?
A
That's right. It's kind of the opposite. At least many of them say they are. But how can they be informed if they never engage with the text? That's part of the problem.
B
I call it the Madeleine Murray o' Hare era. And I think we're coming to an end of it. Your listeners might not remember Madeline Murray O', Hara, but she was this Marxist from early 60s who went to court because her elementary school son had to pray in class. And I think there was a related case about the Ten Commandments. And so just two weeks ago, one of the was, the 6th District upheld a Texas law that Texas public schools could keep the ten Commandments up in public schools. And so I've been making the case that we're at the end of the Madeline Murray O' Hare era where in the early 60s Christians agreed with the atheists. Okay, well stop talking about religion and public education. Think about, I mean think about that. That's not like neutral. You just gave it up to the atheists. That's what they wanted the whole time.
A
Oh yeah. I mean it's just, it's crazy to say. Who was it? Was it Mortimer Adler who years ago, after he did the great book series, was asked the question, why is the God section in the great book series the largest of all of them? And he said, I suppose you could say because the question of God, his existence or non existence impacts more other subjects than any other. You know, if God exists, there is an objective way to live, a right way to live it. If God doesn't exist, there isn't an objective way to live or a right way to live it. And so, so much matters on the question, does God exist? And isn't it just crazy when you think about it, that our public school system acts as if the answer to that question does God exist? Is either no or we're not even going to investigate it yet. So much of life depends on how you answer that question.
B
Yeah, and they're not taught how to do that at all then. And I think that's why we see, I mean such used the word demonic earlier. And I don't think either one of us is saying this is actually demoniacs, but just as a description of what goes on in K through 12. And then, and then it filters over to the universities because the elementary school teachers all got their degree from those university professors. It's just the best category for it is self hatred. You hate your own body and you're taught by your teachers that that male and female is, is imposed on you and you should be able to pick what your gender is. And you say, well what's a gender? Because you're a little kid, you don't know and you're given a list of 500 things and told there's even more than that, it goes to infinity, you just pick one and the little kid's completely confused now. Right, well I want the teddy bear one. I like teddy bears. And they're not even taught how to understand objective reality anymore.
A
Well, they're told there is no objective morality. And they, they're also told that's objectively true, there is no objective morality. So we have first, oh and that's what we need to teach.
B
Yeah, I've always said that, like, because I, I teach logic at ASU sometimes and I've always said that should be kindergarten, like first day kindergarten's logic class.
A
We're talking to Dr. Owen Anderson. If you're just tuning in from Arizona State University as a case, going to Arizona Supreme Court on whether or not he has standing to sue his school that appears to be interfering with the his rights as a, as a professor there and violating Arizona State law that DEI diversity, equity and inclusion, also known as didn't earn it is being imposed upon him that he has to go to certain training and adhere to all of this in the oppressed, oppressed category or oppressor category that we've been talking about. What would you recommend to parents who are thinking of sending their kids to a state school or almost any college other than maybe Hillsdale Liberty and a handful of others? What would you recommend they do, Owen?
B
Yeah, you know, there's a few things I'd give as action items. The first is just to realize the reality is we need state universities in our current setting. So there are the schools you mentioned, but state universities were made so that the taxpayers of a state have affordable access to a university education for their children. And so one solution is, of course, don't go to university. And that could work out for some people. I'm not saying everyone should go to university. There's probably a lot of reasons not to. But some people do need to go. If you want to be an engineer, you want to be a medical doctor, you want to be a lawyer, and when your kids go for those degrees, don't think you're safe. So I think this is what I would really emphasize for parents. It's worse than you think because no American says to themselves, I'm going to send my kids to state university to become more Christian. But the fact that that's true is really sad, isn't it? Why are we living in a world where that's true? And then on top of that, it's not just that they'll go to a school that's neutral and parents might hope they find a good college group. What they're going to do is they're going to go to a school that's hostile and it's not even like it's not even cloaked anymore. Maybe when I went to school it was cloaked behind one level of pretend friendliness. And you get behind that level, it's anti Christian. But now it's just on the board, the first day of class, the stuff you put on the screen and the intersectionality hub I described is just straight out. And they're going to spend time in classes on why the Bible's false, why it's an oppressive book, why Christianity is wrong. And so I think parents need to know it's really bad. That's why I have my substack to alert you. I remember last time I was on with you, I brought up the witchcraft thing. And right at the end of our first conversation you said, what? And we kept talking about this witchcraft event they had about teaching the benefits of witchcraft to feminist students. And so I think parents need to know how bad it is and then prepare your kids. And I'd like to suggest there's two things for the preparation part. There's the intellectual side. Make sure your kids know Christianity. Because polls that come out are very dismal, that even kids that go to Christian high schools don't perform well on basic doctrine tests. And that might not be true of every kid, of course, but this is why it's a poll. But so just make sure your kids even know what does the Bible teach and what have Christians taught? But of course the second path is it's not just an intellectual issue. Just knowing stuff won't be enough. Present the gospel to your kids. Teach them that they're sinners who need Christ so that they have their own real faith in Christ as their personal savior. And I think when they have that, I mean, when they have that faith in Christ, that's unassailable. They're in his hands. If they only have the intellectual stuff, they could survive it. But I don't think that's what a parent wants. We don't want to just survive. We want to have kids that grow up loving Jesus as their savior. And if they go into college with that love, then they're going to be willing to stand up and be courageous.
A
Yeah, teach your kids logic too, ladies and gentlemen. In fact, over this summer you could take the course, train your brain, whether you're a young person or an adult. In fact, the course is written for six to eighth graders. Off our channel or cross examine.org but since it's written for six to eighth graders, we tell parents to take it too, because anybody can understand it and we just taught it live. But you can take a self paced course this summer with your kids, train your brain. Once they learn logic, it's sort of an inoculation against some of these very bad ideas. So many of these ideas are Just self defeating. I mean, to say there's no objective truth is a truth claim. It claims to be objectively true. To say you ought not judge is a judgment right. To say that you ought not do X, Y, or Z implies a moral. Moral standard. Where are they getting this moral standard from? Why is colonialism wrong? Why would they say it's wrong?
B
Yeah.
A
Oh, and yeah, it goes back.
B
Just the only thing they have the first. Like, they'll. You'll ask them a question, he'll have maybe one answer, and when you follow up, that's when it breaks down. So their first answer will be, well, we want just distribution of resources, and colonialism relies on violence. And, you know, you don't want to be violent to your neighbors. You want to love your neighbors. So, okay, that sounds good. But then you ask the question you just asked, which is, where do you get that standard? Marx? I mean.
A
Yeah. Where does that come from? Yeah. And would. Would these people be the ones to say that violence. On one hand, they'll say violence isn't. Isn't authorized. On the other hand, they will say it is authorized if you can redistribute wealth. Correct.
B
Yeah. Oh, yeah. They'll take a numbers game with violence, which is very scary for you and I because we know what that means. But they'll say, yeah, if you need to get rid of the minority Christians to benefit the rest of the group, then do it because they're actually harmful. They're teaching this stuff about Christianity, so it gets violent pretty fast. I mean, you'll see it in students who will come out, and they'll be speaking about how they need to defend, for example, lgbtq. And when you ask them about, well, what about the baby in the womb? They'll say, well, that doesn't even. Doesn't matter. It's okay. And what's scary about it is just 10 years ago, they would argue tooth and nail, it's not a person. It's just a clump of cells. Now, they'll still start there today, but once you start pushing that and say, no, it's not. It's its own individual clump of cells. It's its own DNA. They're fine saying it is a person and it should be killed. And that's. That's terrifying.
A
Yeah, it should be based on what standard? Right.
B
Yeah. Well, they bought into this overpopulation or,
A
oh, why don't they volunteer to check themselves out? If we're overpopulated, it's always somebody else that needs to die.
B
Al Gore was never in the front of the line for that.
A
Was he right? I mean, it's just crazy the way one idea can stack upon another idea to the point that they're so far away from the truth that they can't see straight and they don't have any foundation for what they're believing. It's very tragic.
B
Well, and I think we're living Romans Chapter one. So be very familiar with Romans chapter one, because there Paul gives the dissent that occurs when you deny what's clearly revealed in creation about God, because creation itself shows us there's a God. Paul describes what happens when you do that. You don't just become neutral. You end up inventing your own idols, and then you use those to suppress the truth of God. And then you get into all of this vicious and sexual sin that we're seeing today. So in one way, this is confirming scripture for all of us Christians. We might not like it. We might say, oh, I wish it wasn't like this. But God is saying, I know, but my truth stands. And I think that's really interesting because even 20 years ago, atheists would tell you, come on, Paul in Romans 1, he's wrong. We're not like that. We're all friendly. We're really nice. I help old ladies across the street. But now they're actually saying, we want Sodom and Gomorrah. Paul's 100% right, except for that. He says it's bad. We say, it's a good thing. We want this.
A
Well, here's the passage. We might as well read it. The wrath of God. This is verse 18. And on the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people who suppress the truth by their wickedness. It's what may be known about God is plain to them because God is making made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world, God's invisible qualities, his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen being understood from what has been made so that people are without excuse. Now notice, ladies and gentlemen, he's saying that you know God by his effects. If there's a creation around us, there must be a creator. If there's design around us, there must be a designer. If there's a moral law written on our hearts, there must be a moral law giver. Then he goes on to say, for although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him. But their thinking became faith futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being with and birds and animals and reptiles. Now it really gets spicy here. Verse 24. Therefore, God gave them over to the sinful desires of their hearts, to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the Creator rather than the Creator who was forever praised. Amen. Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way, the men also abandoned natural relations with women and inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with one with other men and received in themselves the due penalty of their error. That passage right there, no pro homosexual Bible believer can get around that's talking about the acts themselves being shameful. Now here it really gets far worse what you say here, Owen, that people are actually advancing evil and cheering it on. Here's what he says in verse 28 to the end. Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind so that they ought to do what not be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossip, slanderers, God haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful. They invent ways of doing evil. They disobey their parents. They have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death. They not only continue to do these very things, but also approve of those who practice them. Comment on that.
B
Yeah. You see this line? There are consequences for denying what's clear about God. Sometimes I think we live and we assume that, well, it doesn't really matter either way. You know, everyone turns out to be nice people. But what Paul's saying is, no, there are consequences. And he traces a very clear path. So starting with not accepting or denying what's clear. And he says that's without excuse. I think that's a really important idea, that not just that atheism is like intellectually wrong. And if you're an advanced apologist, you might be able to prove it. But everybody who doesn't glorify God is without excuse. They should do that and then no one stays there. They end up building their own idols to replace God and they use those idols to Suppress the truth. Which means they'll say, hey, you can't post the Ten Commandments. We're putting up a rainbow flag right there. So they suppress the truth of God, the Ten Commandments, by putting up the rainbow flag in that place. And then in their emptiness, they go from there because their idols are empty. They don't provide them with any meaning. They go into all of these kinds of sexual sins that he describes. He's pretty direct, he doesn't hold any punches and he points something out which is like you said, these are in themselves shameful. You should know better than this. And in one way you do know better because you know what God said, it's wrong. But you're saying with your lifestyle. I don't care what God says. I only care what I want with my lust. And it gets down into very vicious people who then are not only doing it themselves, but they're teaching others. Can you imagine a better summary of the universities we're talking about right now? They do it and they want you parent to pay tens of thousands of dollars so they can teach your kid to do it too.
A
Yeah, they're cheering it on. They're not only doing this evil.
B
This week the Honors College at ASU had an event called the Eros Symposium. Now the front facing public, this can be fine because Plato wrote the Symposium. It's about erosion. And they'll say, hey, we're just getting together with the Honors College to honor and read Plato. But what Plato wrote about in there is what Paul is describing. Except for Plato thinks it's good lust between men, lust between men and boys and how the division between men and women is arbitrary. Originally humans were both male and female, it says, and then Zeus got upset and divided them in half. And so you can go back to living however you want. And so it's a celebration of what's called a Dionysian revelry, drinking and orgies, with the idea that somehow by doing that, you're attached to the beautiful. Now I think parents, you know, that's the kind of stuff your honors professors are going to be telling your kids to do. Eros. But it's also very good because what's happening is they've been telling us that love is love, but I always ask them for the Greek and now they're doing it. Do you mean agape is agape? No, they mean eros is eros. Lust, sexual lust, however you want it. I think Journey summarized it best. Any way you want it, that's the way you need it. And it's telling that there's no similar thing. Like, let's say they did a symposium day. Why don't they also have a first Corinthians 13 day where you learn about Jehovah and about agape? They don't have that. But I'm too Christian and I'm biased.
A
Yeah, they're not biased. But you are, apparently, Dr. Andersen. So, yeah, there's. There's not. There's not a lot of consistency here. And it was John MacArthur who said this since passed on, as you know, that unfortunately, it seems the Democrat platform is basically the sin list of Romans. Chapter one.
B
Yeah.
A
Sorry. For those of you who are upset about that. It's just a fact. If you don't like it, get in the Democrat Party and change their platform. Because it's not the Democratic party of
B
even 20 years ago. It's. It's amazing. They've done doubling and tripling down on underage trans surgeries. It's sort of like anybody just. Even if you don't have. If you don't have a player in the game, you'd say, hey, guys, that's not a winning strategy for you.
A
No, it's immoral. And yet they continue to support it. Not that the Republicans are perfect. There is no perfect party or perfect candidate.
B
Yeah.
A
But you can see what lines up more closely with reality. And it's not the Democrat platform right now, Tragically, it was Ronald Reagan who years ago said, I didn't leave the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party left me. Me. And it's gone even further now to the point where Elon Musk looks like a conservative.
B
Yeah, right. That's something I said.
A
Yeah.
B
Because with the Southern Poverty Law center stuff that's coming out.
A
Yeah.
B
What I said was Trump just delivered a masterclass because he now has leftist professors defending giving money to the kkk.
A
Yeah. Explain that, because we haven't covered that on the show yet. That's been a story that came out in the past week. Explain that. Dr. Anderson. What. What just happened?
B
I think it was Cash Patel, FBI, who said they've formally indicted the Southern Poverty Law center for giving money to the very groups they say they're against. This is supposed to be an organization that identifies dangerous racist groups. And so, for example, neo Nazis would be top of their list. White supremacists are top of their list. Standard stuff that you'll see. Every leftist is saying, this is growing. And when they say that, they'll point to numbers from the Southern Poverty Law Center. Well, what's been revealed now is they were giving money to those groups to keep them going so they could complain about them. And if I understand it right, everyone can read this. They can look into it. Remember was it in Charlottesville and Trump said, hey, there were some good people there. And the Democrats went crazy. The Southern Poverty Law center funded the white supremacists at Charlottesville.
A
Wow.
B
The Democrats were on the side of that. And so they were giving money to the kkk. And that's why I'm joking, that if Trump. If you would have said like a month ago, before this happened, if Trump would have said, hey, I'm gonna get the liberal professors to defend the kkk, you would say, no, that's too far. You could never do that. Well, here we are, and they're all saying the Southern Poverty Law Center. Well, hey, they're just doing it to do research. They're paying the KKK so they can do research.
A
Yeah. They need an enemy in order to keep going. So they give money to the enemy so more people will give them money to fight the enemy.
B
Yep, exactly. Yep.
A
Yeah.
B
So imagine if you. You might just be a person who thought this was a good cause, and you, you didn't. You didn't realize this was going on. But let's say you. You gave money to them and you now find out your money went to the very thing you thought. You're fighting the kkk. You should be upset about that.
A
Well, the Southern Poverty Law center has long been an activist leftist organization. They even put TPUSA on their list. I think they did the Family Research council. And about 10, 12 years ago, someone went into the Family Research Council and started shooting there in D.C. i don't know if you remember, this one guy was shot. And I think the. I think if I remember correctly, the security guard shot. Shot the guy back and killed him. But this guy was going to go in and bring Chick Fil A sandwiches because Chick Fil A was known as a Christian organization, and he was all motivated by the false and incendiary rhetoric coming from the Southern Poverty Law Center.
B
Yeah, well, that's what happens. And I think that's part of the dangerous vibe going on. Because as this news was breaking about them, people like Matt Walsh were posting who they have, who the Southern Poverty Law center has on their website as dangerous. And Matt Walsh was on there, but so was Charlie Kirk, so was tpusa. And your audience may not know, but I'm the TBSA faculty advisor at asu, and I've been around faculty who say TBSA is Dangerous. We should get it kicked off our campus. And I tell people, look, even if you're not political, I can tell you from firsthand experience, the TPUSA Student club is the only one on campus that has free and open debate. And we have students who show up and they'll tell us, hey, I'm a Democrat. I don't agree with you guys, but I know I could come here and be given a platform to speak and debate, and I'm not giving that in my classes with my professors, and even though they're Democrats, and I'm not giving that anywhere else. And so TPSA clubs are the place where students can go and say, hey, university is about debating ideas. Let's do it right.
A
That's what Charlie was all about. Obviously, he always said that once the talking stops, the violence begins. Ironically, he's answering questions when he's murdered.
B
I know it's. Well. And that we had a. The week before the big national funeral, we had one at asu, and up until that point, this was the biggest one that had happened. Of course, it's going to be surpassed by the national one, but we had it in ASU's basketball stadium, and I think we had 10,000 people there. And the point I made there when I spoke was that that Charlie was our Socrates. Meaning, the students love debating with Socrates and the students love debate with Charlie Kirk, even if they disagreed with him. They showed up in crowds to argue with him because they knew they'd be given a fair debate. They knew they could go to the mic and he'd put them up there first most of the time, and he'd say to the crowd, hey, don't be disrespectful. Let's hear their position. And so I said to the other professors who are present in the audience and to all of ASU professors who are listening, even if you didn't agree with the content, you got to know your students loved him for that reason. And that tells us something about us as professors that we're not providing that we need to.
A
Yeah, I miss him more every day, Charlie. What a great man. Great friend.
B
Yeah, I got a big picture of him in my office. Yep.
A
Thankfully, we know there's a resurrection. Thankfully, we know where he is. He's absent from the body, present with the Lord, but we need to carry on what he was doing. And so that's what we try and do. And I know you're trying to do there at asu, tell our listeners and viewers, Owen, where they can follow you.
B
Yeah, Well, I have a booklet with the student group Ratio Christie. They have an apologetic series called the Novum Series. And I actually did a booklet for them on Romans 1. It's called Without Excuse. So that's on Ratio Christie's webpage. Your listeners might like that. But also I have a substack and my substack is just devoted to this stuff. Like, if you read my substack, you think this is all I do. Because that's what it's about, is giving you a voice from inside the beast. It just happens that asu's mascot's the devil, the Sun Devil. So I say an advocate from the Sun Devil University to speak and say, hey, this is what's going on on the inside to parents. So Dr. Owen Anderson on Stub Stack. And then I'm also on Twitter where I tend to be a little broader. I talk about more other, other cultural and Christian issues.
A
All right, well, check out Dr. Owen Anderson at that website. We'll put that also in the show notes, ladies and gentlemen. And I think I'm coming to ASU in September, if I'm not mistaken. Owen, maybe you're partially sure.
B
Yeah.
A
Okay. That. That is in September. In the meantime, friends, I'm going to be out at the Calvary Chapel, chino Hills on 16 May for the giant Slayer conference. I'll be there with Jack Hibbs and several others. So if you're anywhere near Southern California, there, that is in Chino Hills all day Saturday the 16th. Oh, and where can people see you? Are you getting out and speaking other than at the university?
B
Well, right now I'm speaking just at TBSA events here at ASU for student club events. But I also have a YouTube page where you can put that in the. In the.
A
Yeah, we'll put that in. What is it?
B
My YouTube page. I put up any talks I give and any debates I have.
A
Okay, check all that out, ladies and gentlemen. And also Tomorrow night the 13th, I'll be at Central Church of God here in Charlotte, 7pm doing their Wednesday night service. So check all that out. Thanks for being with us and thanks for your work. Owen, keep us updated on this Supreme Court case and we'll have have you on again. All right, thanks very much. All right, God bless. See you here next time, ladies and gentlemen.
Podcast: I Don't Have Enough FAITH to Be an ATHEIST
Host: Dr. Frank Turek
Guest: Dr. Owen Anderson (Arizona State University)
Date: May 12, 2026
This episode features Dr. Frank Turek interviewing Dr. Owen Anderson about his ongoing legal fight against Arizona State University (ASU) regarding mandatory Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) training. The conversation explores the deep ideological roots shaping campus culture—including critical theory, cultural Marxism, and intersectionality—and the implications for Christianity, truth, and academic freedom in modern universities. Dr. Anderson provides first-hand insight into how these frameworks affect faculty, students, and curriculum, ultimately challenging parents and Christians to prepare for and push back against hostile worldviews in higher education.
Frank Turek (07:13):
“You could be Mother Teresa, you could be serving the poor your entire life—and if you have more oppressor qualities, you are going to be considered an oppressor. Even Jesus himself would be considered an oppressor.”
Dr. Owen Anderson (11:55):
“Whoever's in power determines the truth.”
Dr. Owen Anderson (12:15):
“If you point out the contradiction, you’re told you are ‘colonizing my mind.’ Logic and reason, those are whiteness categories.”
Frank Turek (32:10):
“They're told there is no objective morality—and they're also told that's objectively true!”
Dr. Owen Anderson (42:30):
“Can you imagine a better summary of the universities we're talking about right now? ... They do it, and they want you, parent, to pay tens of thousands of dollars so they can teach your kid to do it too.”
Dr. Owen Anderson (50:42):
“Charlie was our Socrates. ... students loved debating with Charlie Kirk, even if they disagreed with him. They knew they’d be given a fair debate.”
This episode offers a thorough critique of the modern university through Dr. Anderson's lived experience: how critical theory and DEI initiatives target Christianity as the root oppressor, resulting in academic discrimination, widespread materialistic envy, and self-contradictory thinking. Turek and Anderson argue that only a robust foundation in logic and the Christian faith can prepare students to survive—and challenge—these corrosive ideologies. The conversation is a call to vigilance, courage, and truth for Christians facing increasingly hostile academic and cultural environments.
For more from Dr. Owen Anderson:
For logic and apologetics resources: