← Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey
Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey
Ep 1356 | America Has 37 Years Left — Unless We Make This Change | Seth Gruber
01:05:37
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- [00:01]
A
Those who don't know history, including church history, are doomed to repeat it. Seth Gruber is here today. He is the author of Last Stand. He is the leader of the organization White Rose Resistance, and he has a powerful call for us as Christians today to understand what our legacy is in fighting against the darkness of this age. As we are staring in the face of infanticide, abortion, sexual depravity, what is our role in all of this, spiritually and politically? This is such an encouraging call to Action Vice. Seth, you are going to love this episode. It's brought to you by our friends at Olive. Olive is a food scanning app that tells you what is really in the food that you are buying. Even hidden ingredients, so easy to use. Just go to the app store and download the Olive app for free today. Seth, thanks so much for taking the time to join us. Okay, first, you have to tell everyone what your shirt is and why you're making this declaration at this time.
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B
That's right. Yeah. June is life month, okay? It's not. It's not gay sex month. It's not sodomy month. It's not rainbow cult month. By the way, Roe v. Wade got overturned in June, which is, like, just my favorite thing, you know? So June is literally life month. But not only that, people forget, Ali, that the overturning of Roe vs. Wade on June 24th in the church camp calendar is the Nativity of St. John the Baptist. That's right, evangelicals. We have a church calendar. It's. Okay, let's admit it. As evangelicals, we suck at the church calendar. We know more about. It's not even a Catholic thing, okay? This is a Christian thing to have high holy days and Christian festivals. And so we know more about, like, the LGBTQ LMNOP liturgical feasts of the religion of humanism these days than we know about our own faith. Well, one of those is the Nativity of St. John the Baptist on every June 24. It's when Christians celebrate and remember this teenager named Mary going to visit her cousin Elizabeth. And as they're sipping back on tea, celebrating what God's doing in their individual uteruses, the prenatal John the Baptist starts doing backflips in the uterus because he recognizes the humanity and divinity of his prenatal deity, second member of the Trinity, God, man. But because God had slept together in the womb, Psalm 139, fearfully and wonderfully made, your frame was not hidden from me. When you were woven together in the depths of the earth, my eyes saw your unformed substance before any of them came to be. And so, because Fauci told us to follow the science, and Jesus is not fully God and fully human from the moment of birth. He's fully God and fully human from the moment of conception, then that is the creator of the universe who once breathed out the freaking Milky Way in Mary's womb, which, meaning that the prenatal deity, second member of the Trinity, God, man, is knitting the prenatal John the Baptist together in the womb while he's knitting himself together in the womb while he's knitting himself together in the womb of a woman whose uterus he once knit together when he knit together Mary in the womb of Mary's mother. So the death sentence of preborn children gets overturned in the church calendar on the day where we celebrate two unborn babies, one of whom is God and the Savior. So June is not life month because Seth and Allie tell you so. June is life month because the greatest former fetus who ever existed, who entered human history in a uterus to redeem mankind from their sins, says it is life month.
- [03:22]
A
Oh, my goodness, Seth, how in the world do you do that? I just love that that's how. We just ran straight into this interview. That was perfect. Okay, tell me, June. I mean, this is relevant to. Yes, that's relevant to what you just said. I mean, there's so much at stake right now, always. But it seems, especially in this moment, not only do we have a month celebrating all kinds of sexual depravity, we've got people that are still pushing harder than ever for abortion. We've got the abortion pill that's still circulating. So we've got tens of thousands of these unborn lives that are still being snuffed out. But at the same time, I see the courage and clarity of Christians like I have not seen in the past decade or so. I can't speak for all of the generations past, but it seems to me that there are a lot of Christians now who are willing to say, okay, like, we've reached the point to where I'm not willing to sit down and sit by and just be comfortable. And you've kind of dubbed this moment the last stand. Right? And even without knowing that you've dubbed this moment that I think a lot of Christians feel that way. So tell us, give us the lay of the land. How do you see this moment right now and Christian's role in it?
- [04:35]
B
Yeah, it is a last stand moment, Ali. And I'll get into all of that, but it's not Red meat for the base. It's not a Republican talking point. It's easy to rile people up and do a frenzy, right? That's not difficult to do with patriots who understand that America seems to be collapsing in on itself. It's not difficult to get people all ticked off or fired up for righteousness to write your ministry large checks or to come march at a rally. But this is not just like rhetorical ascent. This is quite literally a last stand moment. Neil Ferguson, the celebrated historian Ali, puts it this way. He says, my sense is that history has always been against any republic lasting 250 years. So this American Republican is in its last Republican phase. I mean, that's a little bit like scary to think about, right? And it's also incredible to be alive in this moment, in this 250th year. And by the way, it's okay to celebrate America, guys, okay? Like I am buying this incredible AR15 shotgun platform this summer. Ali and me and my wife, we've been working out so that we can. I wanna wear a red, white and blue wife beater and like dress some scarecrows up as old communists with tannerite and blow them up. It's okay to love America, cuz that's an extension of your love of family. That's all, okay. But to celebrate americ America, this 250th while simultaneously doing nothing to tear down the high places of weird gay sex stuff and baby killing would merely be the decoration of a coffin that we're unwilling to admit we're already carrying. Okay, this is literally a last stand moment and there's this shocking work that was done. I have the book over there, but I don't wanna walk off camera. Called Sex and Culture by JD Unw. And I think I've mentioned maybe this to you before, Ali, but he's been absolutely buried by the liberal academic left because his findings, his research, his conclusions are a total indictment on secular liberalism and the false promises of the sexual revolution. Which, if I could summarize the false promises of the sexual revolution, it would be this. Orgasms without responsibility. That you can have orgasms without responsibility. And so he's been totally buried. In fact, I went viral with our friends at Cross Politic on their show at Amfest and the reel went, I don't know, 2.5 million views. And I got meta fact checked by going through the data, the info I'm about to give your listeners right now, Ali. And it basically said fact check. Seth Gruber's wrong. There's no Proof that a society that adopts total sexual freedom eventually collapses. There's no evidence of that. And so J.D. unwin writes this book in 1934, so 92 years ago. It's called Sex and Culture. It's a study. It's not very fun reading. It's very dense. And he gives you his research methods, his conclusions. And he looks at 86 civilizations over a 5,000 year period of time. And he asked the question, what causes civilizations to rise and thrive? And what causes civilizations to decline and fall and be replaced? And he says that there is not one exception to this rule. That civilizations that paired prenuptial chastity with absolute monogamy created the strongest civilizations in history and lasted the longest. These civilizations, he says, Ali gave us the best art, food, architecture, standing armies, families, art. Just go down the line. Okay, then in the inverse, he said, there's not an exception to the inverse rule that societies that adopted. And watch this codified total sexual freedom collapsed within 90 to 100 years and were freaking replaced by another civilization that still possessed what he called that great social energy. And you're like, wait, hold on a second, 86 civilizations over 5,000 years and there's not an exception to that rule? Wait, so if you flout Genesis 1 through 3 and you try to flip God off and you say, no, we're gonna literally defy how you define the gender binary, correct expression of sexuality, procreation and sanctity of life, that God punishes nations. Interesting. It reminds me of this line from George Mason Ali. He's the father of the Bill of Rights and he said, as nations cannot be rewarded or punished in the next world, so they must be in this. By an inevitable chain of causes and effects, providence punishes national sins by national calamities. It's like, oh, right, right. God's not judging nations on the day of judgment, he's judging individuals. So he punishes nations now when they defy the invisible rules written into the fabric of the universe. So the key point from J.D. unwin's research, Ali, was this. It was the codification of what he called total sexual freedom. That started a century long clock ticking down to civilizational replacement.
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A
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- [11:16]
B
So is it a last stand moment? Well, when did America embrace total sexual freedom? Okay, that's the question I want to ask. If there's not an exception to that freaking rule, I think we should try to find a date Ali of what America codified and adopted total sexual freedom. And most people ask that question too. And feel free to interrupt me anytime. By the way, they say, like, oh, the hippies, maybe the flower children in the 60s or something. And that's like, yeah, that probably sounds right. Or maybe Madeline Murray o' Hare removing the Bible and prayer from schools. It's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, you're onto it for sure. But I'm trying to get to J.D. unwin's no exception to this rule. Codification of total sexual freedom. And so I think it was 1973 that America began its 90 to 100 year ticking clock to civilizational suicide and then being replaced by another civilization with greater social energy. And I have three reasons for that. Obviously you're thinking, okay, Roe v. Wade, your listeners, obviously. Okay, so now, in one way that shouldn't surprise us because there's not a civilization in the history of our recorded species that did not exercise ritualistic child sacrifice in some way, shape or form. Which should be like, pretty shocking. But what makes Roe v. Wade shocking to America, because we're the most powerful child of the Reformation. America was birthed by Protestant pastors preaching that resistance to tyranny is obes obedience to God. For a century before 1776, where you had to prove your membership at a Protestant church before you could appear on the ballot to run for public office in several of our early colonies and states. So given our Christian founding. Yeah, Codifying baby killing through all nine months of pregnancy for any reason or no reason at all in all 50 states, that is pretty significant and shocking. So, okay, so Moloch, what else happened in 73? The Supreme Court reversed their obscenity rules that therefore allowed the widespread and legal distribution of pornography in 1973. People forget that. So porneia. So let's call it Ishtar. What else happened in 73? The endangered species Act. The same year we declared open season on preborn babies, we gave more legal protections to sea turtles and porpoises. Which by the way, reminds me of a Chesterton prophecy. And I mean culturally prophetic. Ali not, not, not, not. Like I don't believe in prop, but Chesterton said wherever there is animal worship, there will be human sacrifice. Chesterton also wrote nine months before the founding of Planned Parenthood, he said we are not so very far off from even the sacrifice of babies, if not to a crocodile, at least to a creed. So in 73, you get Moloch, Roe v. Wade, you get Baal animal worship and you get ashtoreth, weird sex porneia stuff that should be a little bit of an Old Testament alarm bell for the church in America that maybe we came into something of a demonic trinity, an agreement in 73 that codified total sexual freedom. Because you don't have total sexual freedom unless you can murder the products of your total sexual freedom babies. So that's why I think America began its 90 to 100 year clock in 73, which means we could be approaching the third and final chapter of Western civilization in this republic as we understand it today. That should be a sobering wake up call. That's why our festival, my book and our film that's all dedicated to Charlie is called the Last Stand.
- [15:04]
A
You know, it's making me wonder if Republicans have a hard time. Obviously we know where Democrats are and all of those things, but have a hard time understanding the truth of what you're saying. Because I think for so long, and for good reason, understandably so, we've emphasized the importance of liberty. And you and I still very much care about the Constitution and care about liberty and the First Amendment. But I just wonder if we have said liberty at all costs and we have forgotten that liberty that is untethered to virtue, that is untethered to the knowledge of the authority of the Creator who has given us our rights, has really actually been our downfall and that it's not just the Democrats who openly love baby killing and all of the debauchery that you're talking about, but also on the other side of things, like we have a political party who is just like, well, as long as people are free to do whatever they want, then our republic will survive. But what you're telling me Is that. That's not actually the pattern. It's not. Democracies and republics survive when they allow people as much freedom as possible in every realm of their lives. It is the societies that first forget that God is the authority of all things, that he has an order that we have to follow and that liberty actually has to flow from that. It can't precede that, or else everything then gets disjointed and disordered. So, like, do you see that? Do you see that we also have a challenge as Christians with the Republican Party when it comes to the message that you're conveying?
- [16:29]
B
Well, so, Ali, two years ago, the GOP basically gutted their platform as it came to the life issue and to like marriage and sexuality. People forget this now, Ali, you know this. But like, people forget this how significant that was that for decades, the Republican Party platform. Now, were they actually fighting for some of the things in the platform? I'm about to say, okay, we could say probably not, but at least we could hold them accountable based off of the language and commitments in their own platform. That's what I'm saying, right? There was language in the GOP platform in regards to the sanctity of life to preborn babies that called for the 14th Amendment protections of babies. Now we're about to drop a statement, an equal rights protection statement at White Rose soon. We probably don't have to unpack all of that right now, Ali, but you're a signer. It's going to shock some people, the signers on this. And it's just calling the pro life movement and the Republican Party back to first principles. That was in the platform, 14th Amendment protections for the pre born, which also means if they're a person, then there's consequences for anyone who intentionally kills what is a person. So anyways, we'll have that debate some other time. And I know you've had Bradley Pearson, great brother, but the point is they gutted their language that allowed us to hold them accountable on the civilizational issues that matter the most. The babies, the family, sexuality. And why did that happen? Because we, the church, have not been engaged and we've not been holding the Republican Party establishment accountable to actually defend and stand for what Christians believe, which starts with the family issues. So this concept you're talking about, about valuing liberty so much that we end up sacrificing the lives of babies, what you put your finger on is profound, Ali. It's quite brilliant. It's the same difference that Alexander Hamilton was writing to the Marquis de Lafayette The Frenchman who was an American hero in helping us win the war for independence, when he talks about the difference between the French Revolution and the American Revolution. And by the way, the French Revolution is basically a modern reprise of the fall of Rome. It's the same issues that you see all over again. And we'll get into some of that. But there were Jacobins who were basically thinking, hey, what we're doing in the Palais Royale with the Marquis de Sade in the French Revolution. What we're doing is we're just doing what America did in 1776. And Hamilton despised that anyone was comparing the French revolution, which was 76, 86, 96. The French Revolution starts in 89. So like, you know, less than 20 years after 1776. And he compared it as the difference between liberty and licentiousness. He said, I, I am glad to acknowledge and believe that there is no real resemblance between what was the cause of America and what was the cause of France. And that the difference is no less great than the difference between liberty and licentiousness. And that's what we've done in the conservative movement and even in the church is we have confused liberty with license or with licentiousness. So that I lose donors when I speak against big fertility or in vitro fertilization. Because even Pro Life Christian thinks that this is somehow a blessing of liberty.
- [19:43]
A
Next sponsor for the day is seven Weeks Coffee. I love my morning coffee and I love when it's seven Weeks coffee because it's, it's so great tasting, it is clean, it's pesticide free, mold free, all of that really important stuff. But what's more important to me is that every sale of 7 weeks coffee goes to support pregnancy centers. 10% of every single sale supports these pregnancy centers. They've now because of you raised well over a million dollars for these clinics that are saving baby lives, that are helping these moms, sharing the gospel, helping resource, these families. Just an incredible ministry and partnership that Seven Weeks has forged. And so it's just a win all around. Your coffee gets to serve a higher purpose, you get caffeinated, you get great tasting coffee. It's just a win all around. Go to 7weeks Coffee.com. you can save 15 forever when you subscribe and then an extra 10 when you use my code ALI7weeks Coffee.com code ALI. Let's talk about that a little bit. You talk about this concept of libido dominanti. I think that's how you pronounce it. Tell us what that means and how does that tie into something like abortion, ivf, sexual degeneracy, all the stuff that we're talking about.
- [20:55]
B
Oh, boy. Okay, so let's open up that can of worms. Ali, I'm glad you asked that. Augustine wrote always unrelatable. Augustine wrote, in the city of God, a man has as many masters as he has vices. Okay, so what does that mean? I guess that means that by promoting vice, the regime promotes slavery, which can then be fashioned into a form of political control. That sentence I just said, Ali Beth, is the beating heart of libido dominandi. The less to dominate. Dominion becomes domination when man listens to and accepts the serpent's counterfeit kingdom. And the things that we were called to steward. Right. Dominion. The dominion mandate which we'll get into. The things we were called to steward become the very things we are now enslaved to. And so this is why the apostle Paul, writing to Christians in Rome, connects the original lie to the city of man, Right? What does he say? They exchanged the truth about God for a lie. Romans 1. Which results in worship of or slavery to created things rather than the creator. Endangered species act. So a wicked man may sit on a throne, but he is controlled by his appetites. He is enslaved to his lust, rage, jealousy, greed, sensuality. And so, because he cannot master himself, he turns his cravings outward, attempting to master others instead. And this is why tyrants behave the way they do. I'm convinced of this now, Ali. A man enslaved to vice must project his slavery onto the people he governs. He has to resort to domination because he has not learned to exercise dominion. And this is so important for Christians to understand. Domination is a reflection of your own slavery projected onto others. But dominion is a reflection of your own stewardship exercised on behalf of others. So one is the city of man, and one is the city of God. But in each case, it reveals who or what we really worship. Because the. The tyrant must replicate his bondage in others or his authority feels threatened. So vice. Vice is contagious. And tyrants work very hard to spread the infection because they know that a virtuous populace cannot be controlled. So they have to corrupt, seduce, blackmail. They have to weaponize lust. And if you're thinking of Epstein. Good job, audience. But Rome understood this perfectly. At the time of Christ's birth, Ali. The Roman Republic had just been transformed into an empire with a line of Caesars descending deeper and deeper into madness. And we all think of Nero, right? Who's infamous for blaming Christians for the Great fire in Roman AD 64. Executing Christians. Okay, horrible. But I want to draw your listeners attentions to the Roman emperor who reigned during the events of the Book of Acts, the lesser known Caesar, to get a sense of what is libido dominandi and how do we understand its role in the culture and in this spiritual warfare we're in as Christians. His name is Caligula Ali. While his reign was short, it's only four years. It ended abruptly with his assassination in A.D. 41. Its terror is unmatched. Josephus the historian, claimed that Caligula's high minded and even handed rule earned him initial goodwill. But he fell super ill Caligula. And as he recovered, it was like a different Caligula had emerged. It was like he had undergone almost like demonic transformation. And within a decade of the ascension of Jesus and the foundation of the early church, Caligula's power grew fierce. He began persecuting Christians. Many started to call Caligula insane. He became a total sex pervert. But he was popular with the citizens because he was building buildings and giving them lots of cool things, right? That's why Rush Limbaugh said, you can't beat Santa. But despite this, his perversity became undeniable. According to historians Suetonius and Dio Ali, Caligula established a brothel in the imperial palace staffed by children. Now, buying sex with kids should outrage us, but it often doesn't anymore. We forget the perversity of the ancient world. Sexual orgies became common life in his court. But there was apparently a method to Caligula's madness. He's remembered as this perverse, kind of like insane ruler. But that misses the key to Caligula, who really codifies libido dominandi. His insanity was strategic. It was very Epstein ish. Okay? He wasn't given over to fleshly pursuits simply because he was a sensate reprobate. Although he was, Caligula correctly saw it as a tool to control others. He believed that if he could completely corrupt the morals of the Roman Senate, then he could control them because all their filters would be off. So Caligula forced his sexual addictions on the imperial court. He violated wives in front of their husbands. He debauched and had intercourse with each of his sisters. He preyed on relatives and allies alike. And once people participated in his sexual perversion, Caligula owned them. He used their shame as leverage. Their secrets began, became his chains over them. This is libido dominanti in action. This is like if we see this as the church in America, Ali, this will Change everything. Promote vice to create addiction and then exploit addiction to secure domination. And that strategy proved effective. He neutralized the Roman Senate not with military might, but with seduction, shame and blackmail. And the rulers who followed him, Claudius, Nero, Domitian, all adopted variations of the same playbook. And that was a playbook closely followed by the revolutionaries across history to this day. Ali. From the Caesars of Rome to the revolutionaries of France to the Russian Bolsheviks, and yes, even to eugenicists like Margaret Sanger, Libido dominandi is powerful in the short term, but it has a limited lifespan. Here's the hope. It's a house of cards that always eventually collapses under the weight of its own absurdity. And this is the same playbook you see with Balak. Do you remember the king of Moab in numbers 22? He sees the vast host of Israel right approaching. In the aftermath of the exodus, military resistance wasn't going to work. Diplomacy meant surrender. Alliances were useless. And so what does Balak do? He turns to the spiritual realm. He summons the seer Balaam, and through Balaam delivers multiple oracles. But each of them reach the same conclusion, that Israel cannot be conquered from without. Their only weakness lay within. They could only fall. This is what Balak learns. Israel could only fall if they abandoned righteousness and polluted their own covenant. And so, armed with this knowledge, what does Balak do? He. He abandons armies. He abandons curses. He abandons strategic alliances, and he chooses temptation. The women of Moab enter Israel's camp at Peor, drawing people into idolatry and immorality. And this succeeded where weapons had failed. Israel was defeated without a battle. No blades clashed, no arrows were loosed. Centuries would pass before Moab could physically conquer Jerusalem. But that eventual triumph had already been secured. The real victory had been won long before, not by mitre strategy, but by the sexual and moral collapse engineered at Peor, which you cannot defeat militarily. You can always corrupt through sexual enticement. Maybe that's why the Epstein list will never get released.
- [29:23]
A
Wow. Yeah. What a fascinating, very disturbing connection. Because without even you having to explain all of the parallels, you mentioned Epstein, you can just see it. You listen to what you're talking about and you're like, oh, yeah, that makes sense. I can see that. I think I'm sitting in that moment right now. I see that context because it's so familiar to us in a very scary way. Now, make that connection between what you're just talking about and something like in vitro fertilization, sperm selling, egg selling, as you know, both of us have caught a lot of heat, gotten a lot of pushback for things like that. We want more babies. Shouldn't it be great if someone wants to have a child? How does that have anything to do with any of the depravity that you're talking about? It should just be unconditionally celebrated. And yet there is a connection. Next sponsor is crowd health. So if you've got health insurance, you know that sometimes it can feel like you don't have it even when you have it. And it's just a hassle to try to deal with, especially when you've got so many other things going on. Crowd health is a refreshing alternative that puts you back in control. It's a community of people who come together to help fund each other's medical bills, negotiate unfair charges, actually advocate for your family's well being. We use crowd health. We really like crowd health. It has been a great option for our family. You get personal care advocates, prescription discounts, a huge database to help you find great doctors, and the freedom to choose any provider. No restrictive networks. Members crowdfund eligible bills with a 99.9% success rate, usually in about seven days. Together they have saved over $56 million for their customers. It's really incredible. We've enjoyed it a lot. Join today for 99amonth. For your first three months, use code ally@joincrowdhealth.com that's joincrowdhealth.com code ALI. CrowdHealth is not insurance. Opt out. Take your power back. Join CrowdHealth.com code Ali.
- [31:21]
B
Brilliant connection, Ali. Yeah, so what. What is the best sort of personal example of libido dominanti or the lust to dominate for the layperson? Obviously we can identify that when that comes to someone like Epstein or Sean Diddy Combs. Right, that's easy. But how does that relate to the layperson? The belief that adult desires matter far more than the rights of children. That's the lust to dominate. It's the belief that my desires, or what I have rephrased as my rights, are ultimate. And if you get in the way of my desires to curate my version of liberty, then I will crush you. And we have to identify that in all of our hearts, don't we, Ali? That's not just an indictment. Don't take this guys as just like shaming the gays or the heterosexual Christian married couple who created 10 embryos and still has six of them frozen on ice. We have to identify that in each of our hearts that when we pursue passion. This is what C.S. lewis talked about. The head rules the belly through the chest. So the intellect rules the belly, the appetite through the chest, which is virtue, honor and morality. But what is men without chests? Well, then the intellect rules the appetite with nothing to temper it in between. And that was. That's what he calls the Abolition of Man. And aren't we good at coming up with intellectual justifications for our urges? Oh, yeah, human beings are very good at that. That's the whole. That's chapter one of the Abolition of Man, which I think he writes in 1945. We have to identify that in all of ourselves, we all have the tendency to pursue our curated version of liberty, our passions, our desires and our addictions, even when that comes at the expense of the innocent, the young, the unborn, or those yet to be born who will inherit this republic. And so I love how our friend Katie Faust puts it. Almost every political issue can be defined as prioritizing the interests and desires of adults over the rights and needs of children, even if those children are not born yet. We're doing that with generational debt as well. So that's a perfect example of libido dominanti, or the lust to dominate, even when it means redefining our historic understanding of liberty. And so today, there are twice as many babies. This is so gnarly to have to say. Al, you've heard this, but most Christians are shocked to hear what I'm about to say. There are twice as many babies being killed, losing their lives every 12 months in America through big fertility, meaning through IVF, than through the abortion industry. I could go through the data is how we kind of reach that number. It's hard to have like, like foolproof, bulletproof numbers because states have not passed any good legislation yet to go into the IVF labs and actually get their data. But it's very likely that we're killing nearly, nearly 2 million babies every 12 months. And that doesn't include the abortion industry. That would be 2 million children every 12 months through in vitro fertilization. Now add the roughly 1 million that are aborted every 12 months, and America could be slaughtering upwards of 3 million children every 12 months. And we're, we're celebrating America. We're saying, make America great again. Yeah, I want to make America great again, too, but it's not going to happen when the sewers of our country run red with the blood of our children. The through line of the church up until about the 20th century, which we can talk about if you want where the church kind of trades her birthright for a bowl of porridge and comes up with an evangelical cultural engagement model to remain relevant. But for about the first 1900 years of church history, the church was known by their resistance to evil. The church stood in the face of these same issues we're facing today. And they didn't just preach a clean gospel against these issues. They actually suffered. They were killed, thrown in jail. Not simply for saying, allie, Christ is king. They were killed and persecuted for refusing to allow tyrants and sexual perverts to murder babies and abuse the family. That's what created the moral framework that built Western civilization. We can tell some of the stories. I've got some short ones for you. But I guess let's put it this way. The first 1900 years of church history stands as an indictment against the last 100. We've forgotten who we are.
- [36:02]
A
What do you say to the Christian that's like, I hear you, and they're totally in alignment that all of those things are evil and Christians are called to push back against that, but who are just demoralized by the political system and who say, you know what? I'm just going to focus on what I can do in my neighborhood, share the gospel, love the people around me. I just don't really care about politics anymore. There are, you know, bad people on both sides. Whatever argument people make for political disengagement, we say we see that among a lot of Christians who are just discouraged. Like, what is your charge to them? Like, why should they be politically engaged? Yes, locally and statewide, but also on a national level when it comes to our national policy?
- [36:44]
B
Well, Ali, you're one of the best voices in explaining how these issues are not really political. And by the way, guys, go watch the Last Stand film. Host a screening at your church. Ali Beth is in the film alongside other warriors. The Last Stand up film. The Last Stand film. And you can bring this film to your church. But you're a powerful voice. That's why I put you in my film explaining why, guess what? These issues are biblical, theological, Christian issues. And for most of church history, the church understood that those issues were our issues, fundamentally our issues. We weren't looking to kings, to tyrants and to overlords to deal with these issues. We dealt with them in our local communities. And so the, the, the feeling of exhaustion and feeling disenfranchised and, and, and done with the whole political debate is totally understandable. And maybe that's actually part of the answer. Ali, maybe we do need to tune out some of the noise coming out of D.C. the noise from national political divisions and debates and focus like a laser beam on fighting evil in our little camp. And that starts with your home, okay? If you're not raising dragon slayers who are going to inherit this republic, they will be catechized and discipled by rainbow demons, okay? So that starts in your home, but your city and your county, if you focus like a laser beam on being on raising holy hell and shaken the gates of hell in your city and your county, and we actually begin to live like that as Christians. That kind of resistance has always laid the foundation for renewal and reformation. My favorite stories, Ali, are the faithful moms and dads, the faithful believers over the centuries whose names, like, we basically don't know anymore, we've completely forgotten. And some of the stories we're never gonna know till we get to glory, whose actions had a direct impact on the legacy of Christendom and the kind of freedoms and liberties that we've taken for granted. So, yes, every cultural and theological issue has been politicized Christian. So you need to be ready and willing to fight politically in a political arena for biblical and theological truths. But at the end of the day, we have to be faithful where God is, has put us. It's one of my favorite verses that Christians often forget is in Acts, when Paul says God ordained the boundaries of your existence and where you should live, like God literally picked that you would be alive right now listening to Ali Beth and I in 2026 in the city that you live in. There was intention and purpose behind that, which means that there's a role for you to play. I mean, you know, Allie, we even think of the Dark Ages, right, as being this, like, horrifically, you know, disappointing time where everyone was just dying and there was nothing good going on. The Black Death, infectious germs killing people. It was enough to know that nearly a quarter of the world's population had succumbed to dreaded disease. But there's this incredible person named Gerhard Gruta who knew he was living in dark days. Everywhere he looked, things only seemed to be getting darker. And in the 14th century, Western Europe was at a turning point. The Hundred Years War between England and France still raged, claiming thousands and thousands of lives, bringing instability to both kingdoms. The rise of universities brought knowledge, but it also spread a certain form of scholastic humanism and nihilism. And plus, Gerhard Grutted I had experienced the debauchery that came with this culture and with university life. Add to that the corruption that was visible in the church throughout Europe. And it appeared that Christendom, like today, it seemed like it was ready to fall apart. And so Gerhardt Agruti walks away from the faith. He has a prodigal story. He chases women, he drinks nearly himself to death. And there's no reason to think that anything would get any better. And then he meets the grace of God. He comes home to the faith, and he begins a ministry called the Brethren of the Common Life, where he brings together fatherless boys, poor children in his community, and he begins to pour into their lives. He begins to care for them. He begins to preach the word of God. He becomes so popular, churches become filled to overflowing. Whenever he would take the pulpit, he called out the sins of the laity and the cross clergy. This enraged church officials. This was Big Eva. Okay, Ali. Big Eva didn't like him. And these schools, the Brethren of the Common Life, passed without any attention in his time. He dies in his early 40s. It looked like nothing he had done had any impact. Okay? But from those schools, Ali emerged nearly every single figure of the Protestant Reformation, including Martin Luther, Ulrich Zwingli, John Calvin, Martin Bucer, Theodore Beza. And until someone listened to this podcast, you probably never even heard of Gerhardt Agrute. And yet your life has been affected by how he lived out his Christian faith. That man's devotion had very little effect in his own generation, but he changed the world all the same. That's the kind of stories we have to tell. That's the kind of faithfulness we need now, Ali, where we're so upset. Frankly, I'm ticked that we don't have the Epstein files. Like. Like we're like. We can't trust anything. People feel disenfranchised. People feel like they can't trust anything. And all of that makes a lot of sense. So just be faithful. Be courageous in your city and in your county and in your home, because that's exactly what the left has done for 100 years. They focus locally for perversion, and they did it simultaneously. They took our cultural mandate playbook, they flipped it upside down for wickedness, and we stood by doing nothing. That is why Western civilization is on the edge of decline. Not because of barbarians at the city gates, to quote Hilaire Belloc, Chesterton's best friend, but because of the traitors within those who scoff at their history, mock their faith, and welcome the enemies of Christ with open arms. That has always been how Christendom has been torn down brick by brick.
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A
Next sponsor is Alliance Defending Freedom. As you guys know, I love ADF and everything they do. I have talked to a lot of their clients, a lot of their attorneys on this show because I just believe in what they're doing. They are on the front lines fighting for our religious liberty, for our free speech rights, not just here, but also abroad. They're fighting for the right of women and girls to be able to access sex exclusive spaces. They are also pushing back against corporate America that are now using their dollars to support minors that are on their insurance plans who want to get these genital mutilating surgeries or these cross sex hormones that are terrible for their bodies. And so when you spend money at a place like American Express or Home Depot, you could also be supporting that. It's not good. So ADF is fighting against it, trying to put a stop to corporate America covering these procedures. Your voice will be heard if you join their petition today. Go to joinadf.com Alli learn more about it. Joinadf.com Alli. Gosh, you've got my wheels turning. And I wish that we had three more hours to discuss all of this. But as you're speaking about the Dark Ages and then the Reformation and God's sovereignty and, and all of that, I really do see so many parallels to where we are today. Yes, we see parallels to the depravity of ancient Rome and all of these ancient civilizations. But I also see so much that could be, and this is kind of what you're talking about, could be on the horizon. And I wonder what you think about this. I've just thought about this a lot. When it comes to literacy, I care a lot about people being able to read and being able to argue and being able to communicate. And I know you do too. We're trying to raise our children to not only be wise but smart and to have knowledge and to be able to wield that in a godly way. And then when I see literacy rates, when I see that children and teenagers and adults have kindergarten and below reading levels, when they've graduated from college, they've, you know, gotten into grad school, they can still barely comprehend the text that's in front of them. Attention levels all the way down. And I just think, are we entering voluntarily into the dark Ages? It's a very different time than then when they didn't really have access to literacy, they didn't have access to education and books. Now we have all of the access into, to the, in the world, to all of these things, and yet voluntarily, because of other distractions we are entering into a dark age. And because of that there is a concern about the preservation of the faith because Christianity, not truly because we know that Jesus wins in the end, but that Christianity is a word based faith. Jesus is described as the Logos, he is the source of logic. There is a level of rationality in and reasonableness that comes with being able to comprehend this good news of Christianity. And I do wonder if that's why more like image based faiths are actually more popular than this word based faith, especially of evangelicalism. But then you see the same kind of thing preceding the Reformation. Then you had the printing press and then you had the Bible translated into these regular languages and you had people being able to understand the Gospel gospel and understand the Bible, apply it. And that spread like wildfire throughout Europe and then laid the foundation for America today. And I just wonder what is the thing that's going to get us out of these dark ages? And like, are we in the times? Are we entering into a dark age? I hope not. But that eventually will precede that time of reawakening and revival. And as you're talking Also about the 13, 1400s, I was thinking about someone like John Huss. John Huss, he was like pre reformation, 1300s, 1400s. And when he was burned at the stake for the things that he was saying, he said, you're going to burn a goose, but in 100 years you will have a swan which you can neither roast nor boil. And it seemed like he was, you know, almost prophesying about Martin Luther. And I, you know, I, I can't help but think about someone like Charlie Kirk. I can't help but think about someone that represented this huge loss to us and that we're hope kind of, we're hoping kind of leads to some kind of revival. But I just, I just wonder, and I know that doesn't all come together because I'm kind of just stream of consciousness, but I just wonder if there are parallels in all of that to the like voluntary ignorance that so many of us have or so many people have. The lack of literacy, the lack of understanding, and then also how God can work in all of that to then accomplish what he is going to accomplish. I don't know when, I don't know how, I don't know through whom. But there seems to be in what you're explaining to me a lot of parallel from that time to today.
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B
So let me summarize, attempt to summarize the truth bombs you're spitting.
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A
Okay, please, please.
- [48:07]
B
The church's Forgetfulness has always been her undoing. Always. Remembrance and forgetfulness are the measuring rods of faithfulness throughout the Bible, revealing that there's only two kinds of people in this effectual doers and forgetful hearers. There's an incredible line from Chesterton or Hilaire Belloc that says history is a hill or high point of vantage from which alone a man sees the town in which he lives or the age in which he is living. And we don't know how to ascend that hill of history anymore. And we don't know how to identify how to fight any of the issues that are appearing before us now. Even though we have a blueprint that's been drawn up in the centuries past by heroes of the faith who faced every single one of these issues. And we find ourselves being tossed to and fro by every new wave of doctrine and every new political headline. And the pastors, by and large, do not know how to preach righteousness into this culture or disciple their people to actually be salt and light. And this is why we're doing the last Dan film and book. Ali is because the Church is suffering from forgetfulness in a way that I think maybe she never has ever. In the history of the Church. There's this powerful line from Philip Schaff, the Church historian. He says, how shall we labor with any effect to build up the Church if we have no thorough knowledge of its history or fail to apprehend it from the proper point of observation? History is and must ever continue to be next to the word of God, the richest foundation of wisdom and the surest guide to all success, successful practical activity. Churchill said, the greatest advances in human civilization have come when we recovered what we had lost, when we learned the lessons of history. Of course, we know the lines that those who forget their history are doomed to repeat it. And that's become. We've just said that so often, we forget exactly how true that is, that during ancient Rome they were having accidental incest because of all these babies that were abandoned on infanticide walls. And then, and then pimps would, would, quote, unquote, rescue the babies to get a sex slave to raise it in a brothel. So then the brother or the dad of the infant that they abandoned would go visit a brothel to go get their pleasure, and they would accidentally have sex with their daughter or their sister. They were, they were throwing babies on walls to be a young boy in ancient Rome meant to be sexually abused by older men. Oh, by the way, oh, what do we have today in the 21st century? Ali. Oh, accidental incest. That's right. Multiple headlines of someone who went on a date or they started having sexual relations with someone, they found out it was a half sibling because, quote, unquote, sperm donors, which doesn't really exist. You're always paid for. Your gammies are creating 10, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70 biological children. And then siblings are accidentally having sex. Accidental incest is always been sort of a canary in the coal mine for the death of a civilization. By the way, you know what else is another canary in the coal mine? When drag leaves the theater stage and sets itself up in the public square. That was one of the final gasps of the Roman Empire. It's when drag left theatrical performances and set itself up in the public square. What's another canary in the coal mine? Freakishness in the arts and obsession with sex that masquerades as originality and just being authentic. That's another canary in the coal mine when your civilization is teetering on the precipice of suicide. So we're seeing all the same markers right now, Ali, that we saw in the decline of Rome, that we saw in the Palais Royale during the French Revolution with Robespierre and the Marquis de Sade and the Duke d' Orleans before you get a strong man named Napoleon to come bring order because they were doing weird sex stuff. They had brothels full of children above the Parisian cafes and the Palais Royale between 1789 and 1797, where you could pay to have sex with children. Historians talk about how these children were so debauched and abused, they would throw themselves onto customers hoping to be paid for their body. Okay, we see all the same markers with the radical left today with their obsession about trans kids and projecting sexual identities onto minors, insisting that we don't call pedophiles pedophiles, but we call them minor attracted persons. Or what about the United nations buried report that I've cited in my book that you have to go back to the Wayback Machine to find where they suggest we lower the age of consent because consent to sex might be consensual in reality, even if it's not acknowledged legally. All this obsession with sexualizing kids, killing babies, and driving a wedge between children and parents has always been some of the issues you start to see before a civilization freaking commits suicide. And the only thing that has stayed that madness before, the only thing that has reversed that crash course scenario has been Christian nationalism, or whatever they call it today. I mean, Christian resistance believers actually getting engaged. There's this incredible guy, you Know his name. His name is Athanasius.
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A
Athanasius.
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B
Athanasius Contramundum. In Alexandria, he was key in writing this thing called the Nicene Creed, the most simplest profession of the Christian faith. And after those theological disputes in his later years, according to oral tradition, Athanasius marches his church out of the sanctuary, okay, this absolute doctrinaire intellectual giant. And he marches his church outside of the sanctuary. They walk outside of Alexandria to. Outside. To the Roman infanticide walls, the local abortion mills of the day, where you toss infants to be eaten by animals if they're not rescued by a Christian or apprehended by a pimp to become a sexual slave. And he preaches a message on the Incarnation. Ali. Okay, this is profound. Athanasius had written a book, Ali, at 15 years old, 15, called on the Incarnation. That's still a staple of any classical Christian education today. At 15 now, he's in his later years, and he preaches a message on the Incarnation in front of the infanticide walls before his entire church, the people whose souls he has been leading. And he talks about John 1. The logos became flesh, which in ancient Rome was insane. The context of that we don't understand as evangelicals, Ali, because that's what ancient Roman politics, political leaders and philosophers cared the most about was the concept of Logos. They thought having Logos made you a person, not having Logos made you a non person, meaning our ability for language, rationality, and speech. And so they only defined men as having Logos. They thought most women didn't have Logos. And they said that slaves, toddlers, infants, and preborn babies didn't have Logos, and therefore they could be treated however adult males wanted to treat them. That's what they cared the most about. So when Christianity, when John writes in John 1, the logos, this is not a concept, this is a person. He's the divine logic of the universe. He has so much Logos, when he opens his mouth, the freaking Milky Way comes out. That's a lot of Logos, Ali. To just breathe out stars. The Logos, capital L. Logos takes on flesh and identifies with you as a fetus. So every unborn child is, in a way, the brother of the Lord. They share his human nature and the image of God. So in Christianity, Logos is not a concept, it's a person. And this furnishes for the west the concept of children's rights. Because if the Logos, the thing that ancient Romans cared the most about, is also the Logos as a fetus, this thing that we don't care about at all and we call a non person, then Maybe all preborn children are people. So athanasius preaches John 1 the incarnation in front of an abortion mill outside of Alexandria alley. And then he turns around and he starts to rip down the infanticide walls with his bare hands, literally tearing down the high places. This guy is like Gideon, okay, incarnate. And then he turns around with his bloodied hands after tearing down the infanticide walls alley in front of his congregation. And he says this blood for their blood. He died shortly after that. And then in 374, shortly after his death, emperors Valentinian and Theodosius issued edicts for the first time in human history banning infanticide and giving legal protection to babies. It was the first time in human history anything like that had ever happened in 374. Six years later, Ali In 380, Rome embraces the teaching of Christ, etching the sanctity of life into the very fabric of western civilization. I guess I just want to say this. Could it be. Could it be that it was pastors living their faith in action tearing down the high places of baby killing that were destroying families and children that led to Rome protecting children for the first time in human history? Could that have prepared the way for Rome embracing the teachings of Christ? We call this the Charlie Kirk effect. Today we've gotten the framework all wrong. It wasn't avoiding politics to do gospel ministry. It was engaging the cultural and political world that gave you the political capital to establish righteousness, put a smile on the face of Jesus and plant oak trees, the shade of which we may never sit under.
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A
Last sponsor is Good Ranchers. If you're still trying to figure out what you're going to get your dad, what you're going to get your husband, your relata bro for, for Father's Day then maybe you should get them a box of good ranchers meat. This is something that they can use and whatever they don't use on Father's Day they can put in the freezer. We've always got a freezer full of good ranchers meat. The only problem is trying to figure out which great tasting American meat I am going to try to make that night. We've got better than organic chicken which we eat multiple nights a week. They've got ground beef which is really easy. You can make anything out of that. All different cuts of steak. That is chief related bro's realm. He's really good at grilling steak and seed oil free chicken nuggets, all kinds of good stuff, even seafood, all from American farms or ranches. Shows up at your front door on dry ice. You can even subscribe. When you do that, you save a lot of money. They've got a Father's Day deal going on right now. Check them out. Good ranchers.com use code ali you'll get a discount. Good ranchers.com code ali. Praise God. I had never heard that story about Athanasius. Actually, my audience knows very well When Children Became People by Owen Backy and the the story of the Logos. And you and I are such on the same page because we've also talked about how incredible that is. John1 But I did not know about that sermon in Athanasius. So I'm so glad that you filled in that vitally important detail to this narrative. And like how good is God, it reminds me of First Corinthians 1, that he shames the wisdom of the wise and that, you know, he can bring to nothing things that are and he can do the seemingly impossible and the, and the seemingly opposite and the seemingly paradoxical. And it's all to show that wisdom belongs to him, logic belongs to him, babies belong to him. He defines all things and he's in charge of all things. And as Christians, that is the most loving thing that we can do is agree with God, is agree with God's authority, not only personally, but also politically too. Politics matter because policy matters, because people matter. And you are so good. In fact, I know no one better, no one better at explaining that connection. And so thank you so much. Tell everyone again about the Last Stand. It's a conference, it's a. It's a book, it's a film. They need all of those. So tell us about it.
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B
Yes. Thank you, Ali. Yeah, the Last Stand is a book and a film and a festival. In fact, as people are listening to this on Friday, June 5, people are heading to Denver right now for the Last Stand Festival which will continue all day Saturday, June 6th at Brave Church in Denver. And it will end with the world premiere of this film, the Last Stand film. It's also a book called the Last Stand. Christ or Chaos, the War for the west, which goes way deeper into so much more. I couldn't put into a 90 minute documentary, but the film we filmed at Rome, Paris and London, arguably the three great cities of history. Ali. That really anchor our experience in the modern world more than it many others. And so cinematically it's an absolutely beautiful film. I only make beautiful films. I think Christians should be creating the truest, the goodest and the most beautiful things of all. And so any Church in America. And any school starting Sunday, June 7 can host a screening of the Last Stand film in their church. So pastors for your people, Christian educators for your students, you can go to the Last Stand.com Film Press, host a screening, fill out the stuff, our team gets in touch with you, we set the date, we'll even advertise the dates on our website and anyone can host a screening of this film. The books are available for sale right now and Ali gave a very kind endorsement of it. The Last Stand. Christ or Chaos. The War for the West. And if you didn't make the festival this weekend, it is an annual event, so you will be able to get pre sale tickets for the Last Stand Festival 2027. But this is our last Stand moment, Ali. It's not red meat for the base. It's not hyperbole. We simply cannot continue doing what we're doing in America and expect God to bless us or expect our children and grandchildren to inherit a free and sane society. I don't want my grandchildren to be the pioneers of a new civilization, Ali. Now, if the Lord wills that, okay? Praise God. And he's going to work through it. But my wife and I are raising little dragon slayers, okay? To actually live courageously and boldly to keep wickedness at bay because human nature has not changed. And to actually do what we were tasked with doing. It's not just because it's fun. It's not just because it makes you feel good, because you're crushing evil. It's because you were created to do that. Church, there was a declaration of war from the first chapters of the Bible. I will set enmity between you, serpent, and between her. Her and between your offspring, serpent, and between hers. Church, do you understand what the Lord just told you? Satan has offspring. That's right. Satan has offspring. Okay. There's a declaration of war against the seed of the woman and every baby conceived ever since. Because that's going to lead to the greatest former fetus ever existed. The Christ child. So Satan hates babies because he. Satan hates babies because he hates the Savior. He hates the children because he hates the father. That's been a war from the very beginning. And we kind of like the disciples at Caesarea Philippi are standing at the gates of hell, which at that time, literally, the local residents believed that that was an entry to the underworld. So when Jesus said, the gates of hell will not prevail against the church, he literally said that in a region where the locals believed that you could enter a cave and you could get into Hades itself. So when he says the gates of hell will not prevail against the goodness that is my church, he means that gates are so stationary and we're supposed to be advancing and laying siege to the gates of hell. If you want to learn to shake the gates of hell and remember what we've forgotten in the church, go to the last fan film, get the book, host a screening at your church and raise your children to be freaking dragon slayers and Athanasius against the world Gideon iconoclast who are tearing down the high places and maybe, maybe the Lord will show us mercy and we can give this civilization another 250 years for the glory of God and for the furtherance of his kingdom.
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A
Amen. Amen. Gates are a defense mechanism. So what does that mean about us? What is Jesus saying about us? We are on the offense. Thank you so much for that rallying crazy Seth Everyone check out the book. Check out the film the Last Stand. Seth thank you.
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B
Thank you
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A
Sa.