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French Friday: Spiritual Warfare & Political Violence
01:01:46
A tragic political assassination in Minnesota has raised new alarms about the radicalization happening inside certain corners of American Christianity. David French and Skye Jethani discuss the rise of spiritual warfare language within independent...
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- [00:02]
Sky Jatani
Guess what day it is. It's French Friday. It's French fry day. So grab your fries and say hooray. David French is here to play on French Friday. It's French fry day.
- [00:18]
David French
David French, welcome back, Sky.
- [00:21]
Sky Jatani
It's always great to see you. And wait, we're seeing each other days. Days before we're gonna see each other in person? Imax Superman.
- [00:30]
David French
Yes. I don't. We have not announced this yet, so we're breaking news here that you and I and Phil and perhaps a few others that I won't disclose, are going to see an advanced screening in IMAX of the new Superman movie in the Chicagoland area. We don't want to say where because, you know, we'll be mobbed by people.
- [00:48]
Sky Jatani
Of course. Yeah, absolutely.
- [00:49]
David French
And we may just do something shortly after that in the next day or two where we sit down and have a geek out about what we thought about James Gunn's Superman movie. So.
- [00:59]
Sky Jatani
As we should, Scott. I mean, this is big moment here.
- [01:03]
David French
There's nothing more important going on in the world right now than a new Superman movie.
- [01:08]
Sky Jatani
And if you can't talk about Superman, what's the point of having your own podcast?
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David French
Exactly.
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Sky Jatani
Really?
- [01:13]
David French
Yeah, I agree 100%. I have very high expectations for this film. I almost feel like I'm going to be disappointed just because my expectations are so high. But I really hope not. I mean, the early reviews are looking really good, so we'll see. And I know you don't have such discernment around these things, so I expect you're going to love it, no matter what.
- [01:33]
Sky Jatani
I'm going to love it, Sky.
- [01:34]
David French
I know you will. Okay, so I want to talk about spiritual warfare today, partly because you wrote a piece last weekend called the Problem of the Christian Assassin. This is the terrible story of. Of the assassinations that happened in Minnesota on June 14, where a guy named Vance Bolter, is that how you say his name, Targeted a number of Democratic political leaders in the state of Minnesota. He shot and killed State Representative Melissa Hortman and her husband. He shot and wounded State Senator John Huffman and his wife. Thankfully, he was caught. But there was a lot of confusion around who this assassin was, what his politics were and all that. But it didn't take a long time before we found out more about him. So share a little bit about what we know about this guy and why you would label him a Christian assassin.
- [02:29]
Sky Jatani
Yeah, so very early on, there was this sort of wave on Twitter where a lot of people on the right were saying, look, another example of left wing terrorism. And there has been far left terrorism. There has been. And the reason they said that is he had been appointed to a nonpartisan board by Mark Dayton, the previous Democratic governor of Minnesota, and then reappointed by Tim Walls. People didn't really know anything about this board, didn't really know anything about him. But the fact that he was appointed by Democrat led people to say, well, this is a left wing assassin. And the fact that his hit list or the list of people that he was, that he had, you know, that was found with him was mainly was Democratic politicians and pro choice activists made people think it was a far left, you know, terrorist who was wanting to take on the mainstream Democratic Party. But it took about nine seconds of additional digging to realize. No, no, no, no. Occam's razor applies here. The guy who had a list of Democrats to go after was in fact a Trump supporter, that this is somebody his roommate said was a Trump supporter, had a history of, you know, a Republican sort of affiliation and interest also. And this is where it got like, this is where it got even more grim. Sky was we found out that this guy was a graduate of the Christ for the Nations Institute, that he had spent a lot of time in the Democratic Republic of Congo on business interests, but also engaging in missionary activities. There were some videos of him that surfaced online where he's kind of prancing around the stage in sort of classic like over the top Pentecostal cadence of preaching, etc. And so it's very clear very quickly that this was a person on the right who had strong connections in Pentecostal Christianity, Independent Charismatic Movement, etc, and then went on to kill Democratic politicians. Now there's a lot we don't know. So for example, we don't know if for example, this guy was having a break with reality. Right.
- [04:28]
David French
Did he suffer from some kind of mental illness?
- [04:31]
Sky Jatani
Right, exactly. So to sort of say, okay, we know definitively this was an act of terrorism, you know, perpetuated by somebody, a Christian who is in their right mind, etc. There's a lot we don't know. But we do know his, his history, we do know his educational background, we do know his politics, we do know his targets. And you know, look, a lot of us guy have for a long time been saying that there are parts of this independent Pentecostal world that are over the top, radicalized, just over the top. And we've been talking about this for years and years, talked about in the run up to January 6th. We saw it on January 6th and you know, I think there's just a real cause for concern that particularly in some of these independent charismatic circles, that the dedication. And we're talking about spiritual warfare, the idea that there is a sort of a demonic presence hovering around all of your political enemies is really radicalizing people, and it's creating downline effects that are very, very predictable.
- [05:36]
David French
Yeah. Before we get into that, you know, there's probably people listening to this going, I don't know that world. I'm not part of the New Apostolic Reformation. I don't go in independent charismatic circles. I'm not Pentecostal by background or tradition. I don't know that world. So why should I really care about this? I'm not a part of that world either. But I went on YouTube and I started looking at some of the YouTube channels of proponents of this stuff.
- [06:01]
Sky Jatani
Yeah.
- [06:01]
David French
And they have hundreds of thousands, if not millions of views on these videos. And it's remarkable how people who are not even part of that world are affected by it. These ideas spill over into mainstream evangelicalism, and they even can spill over into mainstream evangelical media. Maybe not as virulently, as grotesquely, but it does seep in. And so you may not be getting it uncut and unfiltered and direct from the horse's mouth here, but it's getting into the water supply, and it's affecting a lot of the American church in one way or another. You made a connection between the school he went to in Dallas, Christ for the Nations Institute, and the New Apostolic Reformation. Draw that out a little bit and talk about this school and why you would put it into that larger category of New Apostolic Reformation.
- [06:57]
Sky Jatani
Yeah. So the school itself, Christ for the Nations Institute, is Pentecostal. It was founded by an individual. One of its founders was a guy named James Gordon Lindsay, who was part of a spiritual movement years ago. It was founded in 1970. It's part of a spiritual movement years ago called the New Order of the Latter Reign. Now, this was a movement that was. It's a Pentecostal movement that even in that moment, back in the 1970s, was deemed a little bit Much sky. So this was something where the largely the more established Pentecostal denominations were not on board with this. But a lot of the elements of this Latter Rain Movement, which, again, very heavily supernatural in its focus, became and morphed into parts of the New Apostolic Reformation. Now, what is the New Apostolic Reformation? I'm sure that Holy Post listeners, faithful Holy Post listeners, have heard a lot about this, but, you know, just super shorthand it's like a loose collection of churches and leaders, again, very supernatural in focus, very supernatural, who believe in the offices of prophet and apostle. Now, the Independent Charismatic Movement, if you're a new Apostolic Reformation, you're almost certainly part of independent charismatic land. But if you're independent Charismatic, you're not necessarily part of New Apostolic Reformation. But there's a lot of overlap here. And so now let's be very fair here. Christ from the nations put out a very good, very strong statement condemning the attack. So I don't want to cast aspersions that if you went to Christ for the nations.
- [08:43]
David French
Yeah.
- [08:43]
Sky Jatani
That you're some sort of proto terrorist. No, no, no, no. There are a lot of really wonderful Christian people who've gone there. A lot of really wonderful Christian people in independent charismatic circles. So I just want that to be very, very clear. But there are elements of this are getting very, very dangerous. And sky, you said something that I think is really important to say, which is lots of Christians, this is so alien to their experience of church. It just sounds like you're describing people on the moon. But I think that we have to underline how big this all is, that the fact that you don't encounter it doesn't mean that it isn't immense. This is the fact. Independent Charismatic Movement and non denominational churches in general are growing really faster than any other category of church. You know, I wrote months ago about this movement as well. And you know, you have a prophet named Jonathan Cahn, C A H N who, if you've never heard of him, millions have. I mean, he's written multiple best selling books. He was profiled in the New York Times in 2019. He's a pioneer of some of the prophecies about Donald Trump. So this is a very big movement and it is the most radicalized sort of element of modern, you know, white eve. And it's even wrong to say white evangelical. It also so happens to be much more ethnically diverse.
- [10:19]
David French
Yeah, there's plenty of Hispanics and African Americans.
- [10:22]
Sky Jatani
Exactly.
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David French
Who are wrapped up in this too.
- [10:24]
Sky Jatani
It's sort of the bleeding edge of sort of Pentecostal political activism and it's extremely radicalized.
- [10:33]
David French
So one of the things you reported in your piece was that last year in the lobby of Christ for the nations there was a sign posted that said everyone ought to pray. At least one violent prayer each day. Okay. Again, I don't want to say that that's representative of the whole school or everyone who went there or the whole administration, but that sign was posted There. And you can make a thin biblical case for the role that imprecatory prayers have in. I mean, you see them in the Psalms where the psalmist is calling for God's judgment on his enemies or whatever. But to say you ought to pray one of those prayers every day, you would think if that were central to the Christian faith and our communion with God, that some kind of violent prayer would be included in the Lord's Prayer, which is a prayer that we are to pray every day, but it's not there. So it's a really interesting way that they will draw out certain parts of scripture, the most violent, the most pugilistic, the most tribal, and use these as prescriptive for how we ought to be engaging the world today, which then leads to this broader idea of just spiritual warfare. So I know that some of those connected to this movement following this assassination on June 15th have said, well, we're not calling anyone to actual violence. The violent language we use or the violent prayers that we pray are all about spiritual warfare. It's not about physical warfare. So what's, what's the problem with that? Like, why can't we say this terrible stuff or pray these violent prayers but not actually mean any harm to anybody?
- [12:10]
Sky Jatani
Right. Well, a couple of responses to this one. The violence cat is already out of the bag, and it's been out of the bag for a while. Like, if you go back to January 6th, there was a strong element of independent charismatic NAR. New apostolic reformation, strong element there. I would urge people to read Matthew Taylor's book, the Violent Take it by Force, that has really outlined sort of chapter and verse how this movement is, how this movement is spawning violence and the violent language that this movement uses. And Sky, I think I'm, you know, when you encounter some of this stuff, you get much of the same impression that you get when you're talking to somebody who's on the super far left, who's talking about globalize the Intifada, and you say, wait a minute, I mean, the intifada, that was violent terrorism, blowing up buses, blowing up pizza restaurants, killing civilians, killing children. You want to globalize the Intifada? And then they go, oh, no, no, no, no, you don't understand. It just means struggle, right? It just, it means it's, you know, an uprising, a struggle.
- [13:12]
David French
And technically they're correct, but that's not the meaning anyone takes. It's not just a struggle.
- [13:19]
Sky Jatani
Right, exactly. And so if you're a normal person hearing globalize the Intifada, what are you thinking? You just have, if you have any historical knowledge, you know, the Intifada is a violent uprising in the Middle East. Similarly, you know, the Christ for the nations put out a statement saying this prayer, pray, a violent prayer. While that doesn't mean a prayer for violence, it means like being sort of almost violently committed to the prayer. In other words, like prayer with weeping and gnashing of teeth. And I'm sorry, but your words have a meaning. And if you have to explain that the meaning of the words is basically the opposite of the words or not what the words say, that's a big problem. And that's the same problem you see sky with a lot of the language around spiritual warfare.
- [14:07]
David French
Yeah. I just always have chafed on war metaphors being applied to Christianity. Even hymns like Onward Christian Soldier. Like, even though the content of that hymn is not physical warfare, I just, it sits wrong with me to take. And I know it's not completely foreign even to the New Testament where Paul uses the metaphor of a soldier, you know, and an athlete in training, things like that. Like there are some of those examples. But it's just, it doesn't seem to sit right when you use violent metaphors for what is we are called to be, which is a movement of peace and reconciliation. But they've taken it to a whole other level when you apply all the spiritual warfare stuff. And Paul talks about the armor of God and all those kinds, and we understand it to be metaphorical and poetic and all of that. But I don't know if maybe is it the problem that people aren't that bright and they don't understand that these things are metaphor or poetic and they do take it too literally.
- [15:09]
Sky Jatani
So I think a few things are going into play here at one time. So number one, a lot of Christians are not that biblically literate, Sky, Including a lot of Christians who go to church a lot. Yes. And so you will see surveys of evangelicals, even surveys of evangelicals that kind of self select for people who have more serious evangelical theological commitments and their biblical knowledge is abysmal. Just abysmal.
- [15:38]
David French
Yeah. If I can pause you there for a second, I could maybe cite this and put it in the show notes. There was a Lifeway study that came.
- [15:44]
Sky Jatani
Out a couple of years ago thinking of that.
- [15:45]
David French
Yeah. So this Lifeway study, I forget the exact date, but they surveyed Americans in general about their understanding of Christian teaching and it was horrible. Like, most Americans don't understand the very basic doctrines of Christianity and most of them held very heretical views. And then they selected out for those evangelicals who go to church regularly. And they were stunned to discover that they performed even worse than the average American. So the result of the survey was saying you are more likely to hold heretical views about basic Christian doctrines if you go to an evangelical church regularly. That's an indictment on the discipleship and formation that's happening in a lot of American churches. So just to emphasize your point, yeah, we don't know the Bible well.
- [16:34]
Sky Jatani
Yeah. So what that means concretely, sky is illusions and metaphors and things like this, that where a pastor with a PhD in theology would say, in response to say, hey pastor, you called members of the opposition party demon crats, which is a common language you will hear in sort of these independent charismatic circles. And I've seen it in leaking out into more, you know, older denominations, non charismatic denominations, this kind of language, you know, they would say, how dare you attack me for using that language. I'm referring to precious children of God created in the image of God who are just under the influence of dark and nefarious spirits. And I'm really aiming at the dark and nefarious spirits. Spirits, not these people. Okay, But a normal person hears the words demon crat and what are they going to think about the status of the person on the other side from them? And, and this is something that again, Taylor has said very well that the practical result of this rhetoric is to sort of create this two tiered vision of humanity. There are the people who are saved, there are the Christians and who are entitled. And by the way, this is part of, in a, a lot of nar prophets and apostles have this theology of dominionism that there are these Christians who are ordained by God and destined to ultimately rule all of the mountains of culture. And then there are the demon, there's the demonic opposition to that. And so what ends up happening is that for a lot of people when they're possessed by this zeal, they can see everyone who is against them as being under the influence of demons. And, and I'm sorry, if you're, if you're believing people are under the influence of demons, your general response, the normal response of people is to not exactly be full of love to them.
- [18:30]
David French
Right.
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Sky Jatani
It is not exactly to be full of charity and kindness to them. It's to categorize them as a threat, as a danger, as people need to be defeated. And look, if you're dealing with demons, how much does the first Amendment matter? How much does due process matter? How much do these niceties of constitutional law matter? You've got demons in front of you, and so are people under influence of demons. And it just creates this. It has this unbelievable radicalizing effect.
- [18:59]
David French
Yeah, it seems like splitting hairs to say, I don't think you are a demon. I just think you're a puppet for a demon. It doesn't help me love my neighbor better or show compassion, understanding, or empathy to somebody that I may disagree with politically or religiously or whatever. Let's go a step beyond this, though. Why do you think this language of spiritual warfare and these frameworks of spiritual warfare find such resonance with. With so many Christians, not just the people in the extremes of NAR and YouTube prophecy and all that, but even ordinary evangelicals find it just normal language to talk about spiritual warfare all the time and interpret current events, political happenings, things in the culture through that framework when it's really rarely spoken about in the New Testament. Why do we find this so appealing? What has given it such traction and power?
- [20:07]
Sky Jatani
I think one of the reasons, Guy, it's a combination of sort of historical accident and human nature. So here's the sort of human nature element of it. I think the. At a very. At a pretty young age, you get used to. And you begin to experience the randomness of life in the sense that this person next to you gets into a car accident and gets really hurt and this other person next to you does not, or your parent gets very sick and your friend's parents do not. You have. You begin to experience sort of the randomness and the chaos of life and then the suffering and the misery that comes along with a lot of that randomness and chaos. And so we want to make sense of it. We want to make sense of it. And. And one of the ways to make sense of it is to sort of say, well, what is happening is that we are not. We're collateral damage. And a great spiritual conflict. And this great spiritual conflict means that there are angels and demons sort of in this constant struggle. And if a negative thing happens to you, it's the demonic triumph. If a positive thing happens to you, it's the angelic triumph. And so how can you engineer more positive outcomes? So upon this world of uncertainty, with rising Pentecostalism and. And sort of a burgeoning Pentecostal movement that's very much more spiritual, comes the Frank Peretti books.
- [21:38]
David French
I knew that name was coming in.
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Sky Jatani
Sooner or later, it has to come. That has to be part of this. And. And they painted. I. I don't know about you, sky, but I was very much not Charismatic when I read them, but I was captivated by them. They kind of had this Lord of the Rings sort of feel, feel. You know, they're written in a very like page turning way. And I didn't read too deeply into them. I just read them sort of as fiction. But what was. It's just sort of pure fiction. But what was fascinating to me was how much resonance they gained. Almost as if they were books of theology.
- [22:10]
David French
Exactly. And they're novels, they're fiction.
- [22:12]
Sky Jatani
They're novels. And I began to hear people in my life pray prayers very reminiscent of the kinds of prayers that you would hear and, or read about in the Peretti book. And obviously with many of the same expectations that almost in the spiritual realm, that if you're praying for spiritual warfare, that was like a platoon leader calling out to the division commander, I need reinforcements now. And then in comes the reinforcements, turns the tides of the battle. And so there was this sort of thought that very, very, almost literal to the Peretti first framework. And I don't want to overemphasize that, but I don't want to under emphasize it either, because you just began to see this pop up everywhere. And so you then what that does, it creates an illusion of control.
- [23:03]
David French
Yes.
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Sky Jatani
It creates this idea that, okay, I now have in my, in my quiver of arrows, I have the spiritual warfare arrow. And I can pave the way for my health, I can pave the way for my prosperity, I can pave the way for my friends and family's health and prosperity. And so it created, even though it's reflecting towards angels and demons, the ability to sort of call in the reinforcements led to that illusion of control. And so I feel like that's part of it's human nature, pop culture, and here we are.
- [23:39]
David French
I agree. One of the things that surprised me is those books came out in the 1980s, is that right?
- [23:45]
Sky Jatani
I think so.
- [23:46]
David French
I think it was the 80s. I know none of my kids and none of their friends or anyone in their generation has read any of those books or encountered them. And yet the ideas from those books pop up even in their generation. It's had such a lasting impact. And I'm not saying that Frank Peretti invented this idea, it predated him. But the visualization of this concept is so resonant that it's still here with us. But one of the things that I.
- [24:15]
Sky Jatani
Say think of it as Pentecostal, Lord.
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David French
Of the Rings, that's giving it too much credit. I wouldn't compare it to Lord of the Rings, but I get that it scratches that desire. Sort of the Charles Taylor desire to re. Enchant the world, right?
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Sky Jatani
Yeah, yeah.
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David French
And that's what good science fiction does. Good fantasy books do that. But this did it sort of for an evangelical or charismatic subculture. Part of the problem with it, though, is it so infantilizes God. Like he can't handle it. He can't handle what's going on, that there's this raging war going on unseen all the time, beyond his control. And our prayers and our activities have to be employed in order to make sure that the good guys win in any election or any circumstance or the school board or whatever's going on. Because there's these demonic forces pulling the strings behind the scenes, and it doesn't leave much room for. For the sovereignty of God. And I've never really understood how so many Christians are able to play both these games at the same time, believing in a sovereign God and yet being perplexed and constantly stressed out about the spiritual warfare. I'm using air quotes that's going on in their daily lives.
- [25:29]
Sky Jatani
Well, I mean, again, it's this human desire to make sense of all that is around me. And this is a prism through which you can make sense of things, and it's been really amplified. So let's circle back to new apostolic reformation and independent charismatic movement. One of the hallmarks of both independent charismatic and NAR is that the sense or the idea that these prophets and apostles are hearing directly from God. And so what you end up having is that these prophets and apostles will read mysterious verses in the Bible, like, you know, in the book of Jude, when it talks about, like, Jude 1:9. But even with the archangel Michael, when he was disputing with the devil about the body of Moses, did not dare condemn him for slander, but said the Lord rebuke you like. So there's this. There's this vision, scripturally, of this confrontation in the heavenly realm between Satan and Michael. Or, you know, later on it talks about Michael was delayed by the Prince of Persia. Right. And so you had these very mysterious Bible verses that are hard to make sense of and that Christians have been kind of struggling to make sense of for almost 2000 years. And then along comes somebody who says, I hear from God, and God is telling me exactly what all this means. And so you've then created this taxonomy of spiritual warfare that it's almost like sky at extreme levels. It's almost like an org chart. Like, there's the Prince of the. There's the prince of Persia, there's the prince of this and the spirit of the air and the spirit of the water.
- [27:05]
David French
Right. It's a spiritual hierarchy or bureaucracy, essentially, which is. Which is common in many religious traditions. It was common in paganism, it's common in Hinduism, it's common in Buddhism. This is just the evangelical version of that. It's a very common human instinct. To your point, it's who we are. We want to believe that there are all these spiritual forces that give us the illusion of control. Right. This is the Christian version of it.
- [27:31]
Sky Jatani
Yep. And, you know, and these passages are mysterious. There are references to, you know, conflict in the heavenly realms. I mean, so they're not just making stuff up out of whole cloth, but what. They're taking something that is very, very mysterious, something that I would really hesitate to declare with confidence what any of this means and how it applies to us directly. And they're filling in all of the gaps. Just all of the gaps.
- [28:02]
David French
And this is my beef, and I've said this before on the show, but one of my interpretive north stars in the way I read and engage Scripture is I try really hard not to allow the passages that are difficult to understand to trump the passages that are easy to understand.
- [28:20]
Sky Jatani
Yeah, I love that.
- [28:23]
David French
And these passages you're talking about are weird and they're difficult to understand. And there's a lot from the apocrypha and other things and understanding ancient cultures and whatever. What's not difficult to understand is the command to love your enemy, the command to serve your neighbor, to welcome the stranger, to pray for those who persecute you, to seek to live at peace with all men. These are not difficult passages to understand, and they're not difficult to see in the life of Jesus, in the life of his apostles, in the communities of the early Christian church, this is what you see. And yet we so quickly throw all of that away because some guy on YouTube told me what's really going on behind this vote in Congress for X, Y, or Z, and it's demonic. And we need to hate the people who are organizing on the other side because if not, our children are going to be sacrificed to statues of BAAL or something like crazy stuff. That's what drives me nuts, is we discount the core teachings of Jesus for these peripheral weird things that have scant biblical justification.
- [29:27]
Sky Jatani
You know, my pastor, and he's not the only pastor, my pastor several years ago, and he's certainly not the only pastor to use this statement, but was very, very insistent on repeatedly referring to what he called the upside down kingdom of God, that. The kingdom of God is constantly counterintuitive. Right. What do you do to your enemies? Do you hate him? No. Do you love them? Are the last last or the last first? Well, the last or first to gain your life, you have to lose your life. I mean, all of these things that are totally upside down and counterintuitive to our inherent drive for power, our inherent drive for dominance, etc. And what a lot of pen, a lot of this version of Pentecostalism does is it takes the upside down kingdom God and flips it back again into a formula and a format that sits much better with our.
- [30:17]
David French
Our.
- [30:17]
Sky Jatani
Our will to power in our flesh.
- [30:19]
David French
Yes.
- [30:19]
Sky Jatani
Because it, it takes. The last shall be first. No, no, no, no, no. You will be the head and not the tail. That is a, you know, that is a common Pentecost. Now, this is rooted in a lot of Old Testament stuff. So if you're going to get into NAR circles and get into independent charismatic, they really, I mean, the promises to Israel in this world are promises to the current modern church. The military victories of Israel have parallels in military earthly victories. Now, I mean, and so this is a constant one to one importation of promises made to Israel in the Old Testament into the church. And it's almost as if the New Testament ethos is obliterated. That sort of. That the Jesus coming in to fulfill the law in a way that confounded the. The sort of. The teachers of the old law, he came not to. He fulfilled it in a way that confounded people. A lot of NAR is like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. This confounding needs to go away.
- [31:25]
David French
Right?
- [31:26]
Sky Jatani
This is, this is straight line stuff, guys. And, and I think that that's one of my biggest beefs with it. It takes the upside down kingdom of God, flips it right side up and turns Christians into yet another will to power faction of American life.
- [31:42]
David French
Yeah. Another way of saying it is. It's Antichrist. I'll just let that sit, but okay. Your comments about the Old Testament, though, is a good transition because I also see some of this dynamic at work in what's unfolding in the news right now. The current conflict between the state of Israel and Iran and then President Trump's decision this past weekend to join that conflict by sending in the B2s and these bunker buster bombs to try to wipe out the nuclear facilities in Iran. I don't want to get into the politics of this. I don't want to get into the Military tactics of this. I don't even want to get into the just war theory debate about this, which we've talked about that in other shows and other events. What I'm intrigued by is the flood of content that has come out in the last couple days again on YouTube and many other places from so called Christian leaders, in some cases pastors, who are framing this current event as biblically the fulfillment of prophecy or evidence of Armageddon or the second coming of Jesus. There have been pastors, John Hagee, who's been around for decades, he's talking about this as the fulfillment of promises rooted in Christian Zionism. Greg Laurie has talked about this as a significant biblical sign. Lance Wallnau, who's one of these NAR guys that you're talking about, sees this as evidence of the battle between Gog and Magog and all the. I mean, it goes on and on and on. Am I correct in seeing a link between these interpretations of the current war and our fetishizing of spiritual warfare? Is there a link between that and end times kind of red yarn on the bulletin board kind of stuff?
- [33:26]
Sky Jatani
Oh, for sure. And also a link to a lot of the prophecies around Trump.
- [33:30]
David French
Yes.
- [33:31]
Sky Jatani
Because what you saw from a lot of these people was that there was this prophecy of Trump being a particularly uniquely important divine figure. And by the way, the prophecies have morphed in, in kind of dark ways. So you had a lot of King David type prophecies in 2016. Cyrus prophecies, 2016. And the king David prophecies were essentially like, this is a flawed guy. But flawed people can be used mightily by God. Right. Similarly with Cyrus, flawed person can be used mightily. Now you get this, you know this Apostle Khan that we talked about earlier with the Jehu prophecy, and this is where things get scary. Who was Jehu? Jehu was the guy who toppled the Ahab dynasty. How did he do it? Mass murder. Okay. Mass murder. You know, his people execute Jezebel, tramples her body under the hooves of his horse, kills the sons of Ahab, piles their heads out and held heads outside the city. I mean, this is grim stuff. And then, you know, Khan comes in and like Jehu drained the swamp.
- [34:38]
David French
Yeah.
- [34:39]
Sky Jatani
Okay.
- [34:39]
David French
It's a, it's a little more, what's it called, Game of Thrones than Lord of the Rings.
- [34:46]
Sky Jatani
Yeah, for sure. And so, and then if you have Trump taking on an enemy of Israel, Iran, then this just turns the dial to 11 sky because it's a confirmation. It's sort of in that feedback loop. See, see, see, he's going to take on the enemies of Israel, you know, and. And we had this weird exchange between Tucker Carlson and Ted Cruz. Oh, yeah, we might want to get into that. Which is, you know, look, the Bible says that the Lord will bless those who bless Israel and curse those who curse Israel. And Cruz backtracked from saying that this is a foundation of policy, but there's a reason why he brought that into the debate. And Tucker Carlson just absolutely grilled him over that. And I don't really admire either of those two people.
- [35:38]
David French
Pick someone to root for in that conversation. Yeah, well, okay. But that gets in. It reminds me, and you cited this in your earlier piece, Mike Huckabee, former Southern Baptist pastor who's now the ambassador to Israel, sent a message saying to President Trump, Mr. President, God spared you in Butler, Pennsylvania, to be the most consequential president in a century, maybe ever. And he's echoing the view of a lot of folks that Trump survived that assassination attempt last summer and it's proof of God's blessing on him. And even Trump has talked about this.
- [36:11]
Sky Jatani
Yeah.
- [36:11]
David French
And it can lend the air of infallibility that now anything Trump does is ordained by God. And some people have that posture toward the modern state of Israel. Well, it's Israel, and Israel is God's chosen people. And those who bless Israel will be blessed. And they pull all these verses out of context in various parts of the Old Testament. And therefore, anything the state of Israel does is automatically ordained and blessed by God, regardless of its legality, regardless of whether it's a human rights violation or not. Anything Israel does is okay. So now you were in a situation where there are a sizable number of Christians in America who give carte blanche permission for Israel to do anything and for Donald Trump to do anything. That's not a great framework to analyze foreign policy. And again, I'm not even getting into whether or not the strike in Iran was a good idea or bad idea. I think we won't know that until some time passes and we discover whether or not it was the right or wrong decision to make. But that seems really undiscerning for Christians to just go, oh, they're wearing the white hat, they're wearing the black hat. Anything the white hat people do is automatically blessed by God.
- [37:22]
Sky Jatani
Right.
- [37:22]
David French
That's insane. Yeah, even God doesn't do that. And, I mean, he judges his own people all the time in scripture for violating his character and laws.
- [37:33]
Sky Jatani
The.
- [37:33]
David French
The.
- [37:35]
Sky Jatani
Right. There. There is this idea that if you're wearing the white hat. That it's almost as if they're infallible.
- [37:42]
David French
Exactly.
- [37:43]
Sky Jatani
That they're not fallen human beings anymore. And so if you're opposing Trump on anything, on anything, then you're opposing God's purposes.
- [37:54]
David French
Right.
- [37:54]
Sky Jatani
And. And this is the thing. And honestly, Sky, I think that this concept has leaked so thoroughly out of that independent charismatic world that it is now a common belief in Southern Baptist circles, in PCA circles. Not a majority belief. Not a majority belief, but a common belief. And. And I. I see this because my opposition to Trump has led a lot of people outside of the charismatic world to call me a. To call me a wolf or a heretic. Right. And that because arguments about politics are no longer in the realm of reasonable disagreement, upon which people can agree to disagree, that these are hard issues, and different people come to different conclusions. And good faith. No, no, no, no. If. If there has been a declaration, if there's been a prophecy that this is God's purpose, then your opposition to this candidate is no longer a matter of worthy of debate, and that you have. It is a. It is a symptom of heresy, not a sign of reasonable disagreement.
- [39:07]
David French
Right.
- [39:07]
Sky Jatani
And now, again, most. I do not think that most members of the PCA or the SBC believe that. Right. However, many of the most vocal members do. And they'll call you a wolf, they'll call you a heretic, and a lot of the normal folks won't even question why you've been called that. They'll just sort of say, oh, I got to be careful about David or Sky, because these people in my church said he's a heretic or a wolf. They won't do that extra due diligence and find out. It's just some utter nonsense about, you know, Trump.
- [39:42]
David French
It just. It just feels lazy and like too many people are outsourcing their discernment, and it's just a simpler way to go through the world to go. Please tell me who to root for and who to be against. That's all I need to know. Yeah, it's like sometimes I'll sit down and watch a game with my son, and it's a sport or a league I don't know anything about. I'm like, okay, who are we rooting for here? Let me know. Who should I be for? Who should I be against? That feels like what some Christians are doing because they don't want to do the hard work of actual discernment. And I don't care who the president is or what the conflict is going on in the world or what actors are at play. My assumption is that every one of these leaders is a combination of good and bad, of wise and foolishness, of virtue and vice. And so whether it's Biden or Obama or Trump, I want to look at what decision did that leader make and. And gauge that based on my values and convictions as I follow Christ. And when they're right, let's say they're right. And when they're wrong, let's say they're wrong. But so many people just want to go, nope, that guy's on my team. He's always right. Or that nation is somehow automatically blessed no matter what they do. And this one, because it's Muslim, is automatically wrong no matter what they do. And again, I don't expect everyone to rise above that level of simplicity. I do expect the leaders of our country to rise above that level of simplicity. I expect the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of State. I expect journalists to rise above that level of simplicity. But we seem to be moving in the wrong direction, and that doesn't give me a lot of hope.
- [41:26]
Sky Jatani
Yeah, this politics as a team sport thing is really corrupting. It's really corrupting. So let's just take, for example, what you've seen in the debate about Iran. Again, we don't need to, like, adjudicate the substance of it, but MAGA was very split in the run up to these attacks over, should you do it, should you not do it, Trump decides to do it. And guess what? Maga's not that split anymore. Right now, there might be a few people who are clinging on, many of them sort of heavily popular Twitter voices. But in the taxonomy of maga, when Trump speaks, that settles the argument. Right. And. And people just salute and fall in line. Why? Why? I mean, if you had a sincere conviction prior to the bombing that that was not the right decision, and the fact that Trump made the decision, that doesn't magically render it correct, and all of your arguments wrong, and vice versa. If you're somebody who's long wanted and believed that there should be military intervention to block Iran from getting a bomb, and maybe you're not. You're against Trump, and the fact that Trump ordered it doesn't make it automatically the wrong decision. Right. And so you get into this team sport and everyone. And we've used this analogy before, sky, and. And I think it's so important to drill down on this. We become lawyers for our team. And what do lawyers do? Lawyers always maximize positive facts and minimize negative facts. Because at the very end of the day, the most important thing is your team has to win. Right? And so this is what happens when you become a part of Team Red or Team Blue, is you become tempted to be the lawyer constantly for your team. And that works in a courtroom where there's a paid advocate on the other side and there's rules of evidence and you have a jury. It does not work for us in politics. It is not working. We need more jurors who can evaluate the facts and render individualized determinations case by case, and fewer lawyers who are always on the defense or always on the prosecution.
- [43:35]
David French
I think it's a helpful analogy. And the part that I find incredibly frustrating is the folks who call themselves Christians, especially if they call themselves Christians, who adhere strongly to the authority of Scripture, who participate in this kind of team tribal advocacy, are clearly not reading their Bibles. Because one of the things you see over and over and over again, both in the Old and New Testaments, and it's a beautiful contribution of Judaism and Christianity, is that they are self reflective and self critical. David was God's anointed king, and yet prophets went and confronted David when he sinned. Israel were God's chosen people, and yet God confronted his own people over and over and over again with their failures through the prophets and even sometimes through foreigners. In the New Testament, Jesus commands us to look at the plank in our own eye before pointing out the speck in our brothers. And in the Church, you see the church exercising discipline. And I mean Ananias and Sapphira who fall dead before the apostles. Like you see the church going through the, the process of being chastised at times by Jesus. My goodness. The opening chapters of Revelation is Jesus giving his take on what's going on in different churches. Good, bad and ugly. So it isn't just blind advocacy because we are God's chosen. It's because we are God's chosen. We are that much more self critical and humble and willing to look at the sin in ourselves rather than pretend it's not there and only point out the evils of the world around us. That's the part that just doesn't sit with me. Because in the name of Jesus or in the name of the Bible, you're doing none of that. Yeah, and therefore betraying your own loyalties.
- [45:21]
Sky Jatani
I mean, you know, to that litany, you know, you can add such explicit admonitions as 1 Corinthians 5, where Paul is saying, who are you to judge those out in the world? Let God Be the judge, right? Expel the wicked from among you. And so in other words, we need to be extremely critical of our own, of, in, of, of unrighteousness and injustice in our own institutions. And yet again and again it's the opposite. How dare you talk about sex abuse in the Southern Baptist Convention. Haven't you heard of Harvey Weinstein? Right. Haven't you heard of Playboy in the pornography industry and all of the awful things happening out there? You know, you're going to weaken us as we are. And what do you mean weaken us? Well, if the most important thing is to be a strong political faction, then internal critique does weaken you. But that's not the most important thing.
- [46:14]
David French
This gets back to the spiritual warfare idea. Because if you do see the world primarily through that lens and everything has a demonic power behind it or an angelic power behind it, it's either Team Darkness or Team Light. That doesn't lend itself to the nuance that maybe my team, my church, my ministry, my political party, me, myself can be a jumbled mix of both Team Darkness and Team Light, of both demonic and angelic, of both godliness and worldliness. That nuance isn't possible in the spiritual warfare taxonomy of things. So it's just an unhelpful lens through which to see the world because it takes away nuance and discernment and leads to the kind of nonsense that we're seeing.
- [47:01]
Sky Jatani
Not to use a name, a trigger name for a lot of these fundamentalists and, you know, radicalized Pentecostals. But Tim Keller had an interesting thing to say about this, which is that when you so completely identify on one team, you end up buying into what he called package deal ethics. So let's suppose you are a Republican convincing in good faith and in all total sincerity, you're going to be for the party that is the more pro life in your view. That's your, that's your issue. That is the number one issue. The Republican platform is, might be watered down significantly, but it's not the Democratic Party platform. So because I'm pro life, I'm going to be Republican. Well, what happens when the Republican Party just stops talking about abortion? Right? Stops outside of like Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama or a few other countries, states just stops doing anything about it. Well, the Republican Party's still more pro life and you still want them to be in power, but then you end up arguing about all talking and adopting all the positions that you believe will keep the Republican Party in power, like the anti immigration stance or et cetera. And next thing you know, you're spending 90% of your time talking about immigrants when you got into politics because of abortion. Right. And this is something you see happening all the time. And you know, right now the pro life movement is just what, how much of it is left?
- [48:27]
David French
Yeah.
- [48:28]
Sky Jatani
I mean, we just got an Axios report that abortions are up again. The abortion rate is higher, the numbers of abortions are higher. The Republican Party has, as a national party, has no emphasis on abortion at all.
- [48:42]
David French
David, I just put out a video on this. I just did a video on how there's no longer a pro life party. And it's fascinating to me. I got so much hatred back in 2020 when I did the initial abortion video. You may recall that one.
- [48:55]
Sky Jatani
Oh, I remember that well. Yeah.
- [48:57]
David French
And it's been crickets on this one. No one's talking about it because first of all, I don't think they can argue with the facts that I lay out in the piece. But no one wants to talk about the fact that the Republican Party has completely capitulated on the pro life stance. So they just want to pretend it doesn't exist. So I'm with you. In the minutes we have left, let's pivot briefly to a case that's probably going to be ruled on by the Supreme Court in the next day or two. So we'll find out what happens. We're recording this on Wednesday. It'll probably be out by the time the this podcast goes live. There's a case before the court about pornography that's coming out of Texas. Can you briefly explain what the case is about and why we should be paying attention to the outcome?
- [49:48]
Sky Jatani
Yeah, this is a very important case. So this is a case about Texas's effort to create age restrictions, age gate porn websites, so that if anyone is going to access a porn website, they have to go through a process that will demonstrate that they're 18 or over, that they're an adult.
- [50:04]
David French
And it's not just clicking on a box that says, I'm 18.
- [50:08]
Sky Jatani
Right, right. There's a process requiring a verifiable process, an online version similar to the verifiable process that if somebody goes to a strip club and they check ID or an adult bookstore and they check id. So in other words, something where it's a verifiable process, it's not anonymous anymore, Right?
- [50:27]
David French
Yeah.
- [50:27]
Sky Jatani
Now, the reason why this would be constitutionally acceptable is that kids have never. The Supreme Court has never said that kids have a right of access to porn. Never. So a lot of these Law. A lot of laws aimed at preventing children's access to porn have been upheld in the offline world, in the sort of, in the real world.
- [50:50]
David French
Right.
- [50:50]
Sky Jatani
But in the virtual world. The Supreme Court has struck down previously efforts to age gate porn sites. And the reason why they have is that the definition of pornography and some of the laws was considered overly broad. And then also that the ability to age gate the technology was so primitive that the result would be to essentially inhibit adult access to pornography. And so a rule that inhibits child access to pornography cannot be so broad that it inhibits adult access under current constitutional law. So Texas, this is, I think, the last case holding that was about 20 years ago or more.
- [51:33]
David French
Technology has changed a lot.
- [51:34]
Sky Jatani
Technology's changed, but two things have changed. Technology has changed and pornography has changed. So technology has made age gating more feasible. Pornography has become ever more accessible and depraved. So if you're like say a 65, 70 year old listener to this podcast and you remembering like how when you're in middle school, some guy might have smuggled a few pages of Playboy into school or whatever, or the kind of like there was always the dad that everybody knew about in the neighborhood who had the stack of Playboys or Hustlers under the bed or whatever, that that was the way a lot of people view pornography. Now it's so ubiquitous. The average age of first exposure is low, is young as young, and what you're getting exposed to is violent. It's degrading it. There's, I mean, it's just, you know, horrific. And so I think the state interest in limiting access to minors has only gotten stronger and the technology to enable it has only gotten better. So I think there's a good chance, not a certain chance, but a good chance that the Supreme Court will uphold Texas's law.
- [52:51]
David French
So what is the possible argument against this? Like, I can't see a negative?
- [52:57]
Sky Jatani
Well, the argument against is the same one that's been around for 25 years or so, which is, hey, these, these ID requirements are too intrusive and can be dangerous. In other words, if you're uploading your personally identifying information to some of these, you know, to say a porn site, you're giving your identifying information to some of the worst people in the world. Well, that's not exactly an argument that kids should be able to see this stuff, but there are third party vendors, for example, that can accomplish the age verification. But it's very similar that what you're doing is interfering with adult access in the name of prohibiting childhood access. Now, here's where there's a couple of branching possibilities. The possibility that I prefer is that the court and what seems possible after all argument is that the court says, look, when we wrote these cases in the early 90s and 2000s, that the technology was not developed where it is now, the port. We didn't know as much as we do now about the state interest in limiting access. And so we're going to uphold this law. Technology has changed. State interests have changed. We're upholding this law. That's what I would prefer. However, I'm not so sure that's the likely outcome, sky, because of a very quirky element of the case.
- [54:19]
David French
Okay, what is that?
- [54:21]
Sky Jatani
So the case came out of the fifth circuit court of appeals, and the court analyzed the case under a standard called rational basis review, which is the lowest level of review. It's the most permissive of the government's action because. And they did rational basis review because they analyzed it entirely from the standpoint of kids. Do kids have a right of access to that? And since they said no, kids do not, rational basis review applied. Uphold the statute. But if you. If you compare it from the adult standpoint, which is the argument that the plaintiffs are making as adults, it's the adult entertainment industry making this argument that look at the adult standpoint, it's a different test. When adult rights are at stake, it could. It's more strict. In other words, it's more difficult for the state to win. So in theory, the supreme court could say, as much as we don't like childhood access to porn, as much as technology has changed fifth Circuit, you just use the wrong test. You got to go back and do a different test test. So in that case, the porn industry would win, but it would be a temporary victory until the 5th Circuit took a look at the case on a different, more restrictive test.
- [55:42]
David French
Okay, so if I cutting through some of the jargon, and you're a lawyer and I'm not, so if I'm just interpreting this as a layperson, what I kind of hear you saying is the nature of the Internet means that pornography is pervasive and accessible beyond anyone's imagination. Prior to the Internet, it's everywhere, and kids are getting access to it, and it's harmful. That's number one. The same reason kids are able to access pornography, they're arguing, is why we shouldn't age gate it. Because if an adult has to give, say, their driver's license information in order to access it, that information could be stolen, used Abused, they could be outed as a porn viewer or whatever, and that's a violation of their rights. So it's essentially saying the Internet is just ungovernable. And therefore, to make it fair, we're just. Because we're worried that some adult pornography viewers might be outed. We're gonna have every minor in this country awash in pornography, because the rights of those adults who want to use it, their privacy rights, outrank the rights of children not to be exposed to this stuff.
- [56:54]
Sky Jatani
Yeah, I mean, I don't think it's a very convincing argument. Sky.
- [56:57]
David French
Right. I don't either.
- [56:58]
Sky Jatani
I think it's a really bad argument. And it was interesting, you know, in the oral argument, Amy Coney Barrett was kind of having none of it. And it's also, you know, I think it's very. There was a great profile of Justice Barrett by Jodi Cantor, my friend and colleague at the Times. And, you know, one of the things that's interesting about Justice Barrett is she's the first Supreme Court justice to have school age children.
- [57:21]
David French
Yeah, that is really interesting. You would think.
- [57:23]
Sky Jatani
Very interesting.
- [57:24]
David French
250 years, we would have had a justice with school age children.
- [57:29]
Sky Jatani
Well, I think it's the first female.
- [57:30]
David French
Female justice.
- [57:31]
Sky Jatani
Okay, now we're female justice.
- [57:32]
David French
Much shorter window.
- [57:33]
Sky Jatani
Mom. Yeah, yeah. Mom.
- [57:34]
David French
Yes.
- [57:35]
Sky Jatani
Okay. Yeah. A mom with school age. Shut. Yeah, not in 250 years. No, Mom. I was like, that's why female. We've had fewer female justices. So here you have a mom of a lot of kids basically listening to this argument. That is. Yeah, those kids of yours, they're going to see porn by 9 or 10 or 11 or whatever. And it might be awful stuff that I won't even try to describe on this podcast because it's just so awful. And why is that? Because some pervy dude wants to be able to see this stuff and have no possible social blowback. I'm sorry, guys, that's not a very compelling argument at all.
- [58:15]
David French
What? Okay, so this is getting really weird. But if an adult goes to an adult establishment, a strip club, whatever, and you have to show an ID to prove you're an adult to get in, you show them that idea. The bouncer looks at it for a minute, he hands it back to you, and in you go. There's some anonymity there because that bouncer is probably not going to remember you, your name, your id, whatever, if that bouncer said, hold on, I need to photocopy your id, and we're going to keep that in our records forever. That might give someone pause to be like, oh, wait a minute, I don't want someone to know that I was in here. Yeah, but that's essentially what the risk is with these websites. The risk is if I give my driver's license ID information to get into one of these sites, it's on record somewhere and I don't want that getting out. But couldn't you make the argument, well, okay, if you really want to view this kind of explicit material, then don't do it on the Internet. Go back to the magazines, go back to the strip club where it can be more transient and anonymous. But the Internet, you don't have a right to view this stuff on the Internet to the point where you're going to risk every child in America seeing it.
- [59:28]
Sky Jatani
And think about it from the live standpoint. Let's forget about the bouncer for a minute. And oh, by the way, I guarantee you that when a famous person goes into a strip club.
- [59:39]
David French
Fair enough.
- [59:39]
Sky Jatani
And shows their id, that bouncer is like calling his friends, bro. You won't believe who I, you know.
- [59:45]
David French
Well, that's, that's her fault for being famous.
- [59:48]
Sky Jatani
Yeah. Right. But also, people are in public, they walk into these things and outside of them in public. I mean, I have lived long enough to where I was at a church and a member of my youth group said my dad saw Deacon so. And so coming out of the, you know, whatever it was. Right. And so you were in public. So this idea that you have some sort of inherent right as an adult to a totally private, risk free, pornographic viewing experience is weird. It's just weird.
- [60:24]
David French
Well, there's still this persistent view that the Internet is private, you know, because. Because you might be on the Internet in your home. Well, then I'm in my home. I have the right of privacy in my home. But the Internet isn't in your home. You're entering into a digital world, a public square of sorts. And yeah, anyway, I'm fascinated to see as well how this ruling comes down. I really hope it isn't just kicking it back down to the fifth circuit for a different level of scrutiny.
- [60:51]
Sky Jatani
Yeah, me too.
- [60:52]
David French
We will find out.
- [60:53]
Sky Jatani
We'll see.
- [60:53]
David French
Okay?
- [60:54]
Sky Jatani
We'll see.
- [60:54]
David French
Well, David, I will see you in a few days at the I Cannot Wait at the Superman show.
- [60:59]
Sky Jatani
John Williams score is in my head.
- [61:01]
David French
I'm so glad they came.
- [61:03]
Sky Jatani
Oh, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
- [61:05]
David French
All right, thank you all for sticking around for this episode of French Friday. We will see you next week for another episode of Skypod. And don't forget we also have episodes of the flagship show of Holy post, the Esau McCauley podcast, and of course, Curiously, Caitlin. So check those out wherever you get your podcasts. We'll see you soon. French Friday is a production of Holy Post Media featuring David French and Me Me Sky Jatani music and theme song by Phil Vischer. This show is made possible by Holy Post patrons. To find out how you can become a Holy Post patron and to find more common good Christian content, go to holypost. Com.