Latest / The Alex Marlow Show / 'Christian Pitbull' Megan Basham on the Threat of Weak Churches

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'Christian Pitbull' Megan Basham on the Threat of Weak Churches · The Alex Marlow Show

0:05
Speaker 1: A cool show today. I'm excited about this one. This
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Speaker 1: will be my last in my series for now with
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Speaker 1: people who are Christian luminaries and thought leaders. And my
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Speaker 1: guest today is Megan Basham, who is a author and
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Speaker 1: a reporter and one of the best people on XC
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Speaker 1: Everything app these days. She covers faith and media and
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Speaker 1: politics as well as Christian culture. And she is one
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Speaker 1: of the foremost voices against weakness within the Christian church,
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Speaker 1: something that is near and dear to my heart, and
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Speaker 1: she is a true fighter, which I really like. She's
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Speaker 1: also pretty fashionable, which is fun. We have a great
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Speaker 1: conversation that I had at Pastor Alan Jackson's Culture and
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Speaker 1: Christianity Conference recently, and you're going to enjoy this, I
0:42
Speaker 1: guarantee it. You'll probably learn a little bit as well.
0:44
Speaker 2: Check it out.
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Speaker 1: You're, among many things, you're a young mom, and you're
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Speaker 1: looking out for your families, and you've an eye on
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Speaker 1: a strong church. That's what you're best known for, is Christianity.
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Speaker 1: You were so prescient in this with your reporting that
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Speaker 1: the weak churches are a massive problem. And I think
1:05
Speaker 1: that's been on full display, particularly since Charlie Kirk died.
1:08
Speaker 1: And we're at the Culture and Christianity Conference for Pastor
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Speaker 1: Alan Jackson. And my first time here was last year,
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Speaker 1: and I had to stand in for Charlie because Charlie
1:18
Speaker 1: was slated to speak. And I had to do that.
1:20
Speaker 1: I get chills every time I have to say that
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Speaker 1: because it's just so surreal that that's what happened. But
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Speaker 1: what was so striking is right after Charlie died, the
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Speaker 1: churches were so weak. Some of them were strong. But
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Speaker 1: so many of them allowed for this, entertaining this idea
1:34
Speaker 1: that Charlie was a hate speech guy.
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Speaker 2: Right.
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Speaker 1: And talk to me about your research when you look
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Speaker 1: at how all these churches have been co-opted by woke
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Speaker 1: culture warriors. But I think weak more than woke. Weak
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Speaker 1: is the word I want to focus on more than woke.
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Speaker 1: Give people all your background on all this research you've done.
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Speaker 2: Yeah. So I didn't initially set out to write Shepherds
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Speaker 2: for Sale. So part of that, I think, is people
2:01
Speaker 2: just assumed I went spoiling for a fight. And it
2:03
Speaker 2: didn't actually go that way. Like everyone else, I was
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Speaker 2: experiencing the woke years of 2019 to 2021 in the
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Speaker 2: same way that probably your ordinary average Christian mom was.
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Speaker 2: I was suddenly going, you know, why is my children's
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Speaker 2: ministry director sending me emails on how to talk to
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Speaker 2: my kids about their white privilege? Or, you know, I mean,
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Speaker 2: that was like crazy. Or, you know, why is my school,
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Speaker 2: our Christian school, like why are they defending these shutdowns?
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Speaker 2: And not just of the school, but of churches shutting
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Speaker 2: down and things like, I'm going, why are we accepting all,
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Speaker 2: like things that to me just seem like basic biblical
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Speaker 2: common sense that we should oppose this stuff. They weren't.
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Speaker 2: And so, you know, that was probably the first thing
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Speaker 2: was when I started reporting on it, I was reporting
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Speaker 2: on it as someone who was trying to understand it myself.
2:56
Speaker 2: And I've talked about this a little bit. And this
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Speaker 2: is it's one of the organizations that I think is
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Speaker 2: a success story that righted the ship. But I was
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Speaker 2: at an evangelical magazine at that time. And it came
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Speaker 2: into my work life. You know, I suddenly had colleagues
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Speaker 2: who were complaining to my boss because I had scheduled
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Speaker 2: an interview with Votie Bauckham. And that was a real
3:18
Speaker 2: thing that happened. I had coworkers at a, it was
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Speaker 2: supposed to be a conservative Christian magazine saying, we are
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Speaker 2: upset with Megan because she has planned to interview Votie
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Speaker 2: Bauckham about this article.
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Speaker 1: He's got a massive following. I mean, this is a
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Speaker 1: good get.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, it was a huge get. And the book, you know,
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Speaker 2: and I'm, you know, the Lord in his providence took
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Speaker 2: Votie home, but it was an incredibly influential book. And
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Speaker 2: it was at the time that you had this prominent,
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Speaker 2: incredibly faithful black pastor who was calling out critical race theory.
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Speaker 2: And that I had colleagues who were saying, we shouldn't
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Speaker 2: even hear him out on the podcast for our Christian program.
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Speaker 2: That was another thing that was alarming and waking me up.
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Speaker 2: And it's part of why I ended up going over
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Speaker 2: to the Daily Wire. But then when I got to
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Speaker 2: the Daily Wire, I was really, again, just an average
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Speaker 2: Christian mom sitting there listening to, at that time, the
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Speaker 2: head of the policy arm of my denomination, the Southern
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Speaker 2: Baptist Convention, do an interview with the head of the NIH,
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Speaker 2: Francis Collins, telling us why we should shut down our churches,
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Speaker 2: why vaccine mandates were biblical, and all of these things,
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Speaker 2: and didn't push back. And I went, how are you
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Speaker 2: not asking one tough cross-examination style question? And so I
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Speaker 2: started writing about these things, and it turned out there
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Speaker 2: was a whole bunch of ordinary Christians out there who,
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Speaker 2: like me, felt like, okay, what our leaders are telling
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Speaker 2: us doesn't sound particularly biblical. And so, you know, those
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Speaker 2: stories blew up. And that was when an editor, Regnery,
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Speaker 2: reached out to me and said, hey, this reporting that
5:03
Speaker 2: seems to be really gaining a purchase with ordinary people
5:06
Speaker 2: in the pews seems like something that would be a
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Speaker 2: good book. And so that was really how it all happened.
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Speaker 2: You know, people think, and I get this a lot, like, oh, Grifter,
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Speaker 2: you went out to, you know, just sort of cause controversy.
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Speaker 2: And I'm like, look, I was just reporting on the
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Speaker 2: things that were impacting my life.
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Speaker 1: No, it's real. And it's something that I've experienced. So
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Speaker 1: I'm a... I would like to think of myself as
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Speaker 1: a leader in the conservative movement, but I'm just a
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Speaker 1: regular church-going Catholic who goes to church, and I am
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Speaker 1: not a super active part of, but I am a
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Speaker 1: part of the congregation and of the church community, and
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Speaker 1: I am one of those people who would sit there
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Speaker 1: and would hear a woke sermon or a woke homily,
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Speaker 1: in my case, or I would see things that are offensive,
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Speaker 1: like after Charlie Kirk passed away, and they wouldn't use
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Speaker 1: his name, or they would somehow grant some sort of
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Speaker 1: a hearing to the absurd hatred online as if there's
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Speaker 1: some legitimacy behind it. And maybe I'd walk out. Maybe
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Speaker 1: I would fire off a tweet about it. But I
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Speaker 1: wasn't really– I'm not doing enough. I'm not doing enough
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Speaker 1: to fix this because the churches have to be the
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Speaker 1: palace guards for our communities. They have to be, I believe,
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Speaker 1: that blockade between woke infiltration and the Judeo-Christian rest. This
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Speaker 1: is what it's all about. We have to be more activated,
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Speaker 1: and we need people to lead us in that regard.
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Speaker 1: And so one thing with your book, Shepherds for Sale,
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Speaker 1: which is really cool, you got some negative press, which
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Speaker 1: is always the dream.
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Speaker 2: As an author.
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Speaker 1: I haven't gotten enough negative press.
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Speaker 2: I missed out.
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Speaker 1: I need some negative press. What were the critics saying,
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Speaker 1: and did that sharpen you at all, or do you
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Speaker 1: feel like they were just completely just trying to take
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Speaker 1: you down?
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Speaker 2: Yeah. So one, just to go back to your point
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Speaker 2: that you made so well, like a dear friend of mine,
6:46
Speaker 2: Rosaria Butterfield, has put it so well when she says,
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Speaker 2: you know, that a bad idea doesn't really start to
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Speaker 2: run amok in the United States until the church starts
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Speaker 2: promoting it. And that was why there had been so
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Speaker 2: much effort by these secular left organizations. Yeah. to funnel
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Speaker 2: money into the church and to try to move Christians
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Speaker 2: in the pews on their politics because we really have
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Speaker 2: been the last men standing. We have been the last
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Speaker 2: blockade to the march through the institution. So they're like, look,
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Speaker 2: if we can take down these churches because, I mean,
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Speaker 2: the churches are where they're getting teaching that opposes what
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Speaker 2: they're getting in the Ivy Leagues or in the legacy media.
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Speaker 2: So that was part of why they started targeting churches.
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Speaker 2: And so, you know, I kind of came in and, again,
7:30
Speaker 2: without a real plan, but I think it was providential,
7:32
Speaker 2: threw a wrench into that and exposed some things that
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Speaker 2: I don't think they wanted exposed. And so the criticism
7:39
Speaker 2: took a few, it took shape in a few different ways.
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Speaker 2: And largely what they did is what I have called
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Speaker 2: the discreditation machine. And it's where they do something that
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Speaker 2: you could literally do to any book, which is if
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Speaker 2: you have a large book, which mine was, you know,
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Speaker 2: it was a very big book, heavily researched, I mean, heavily,
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Speaker 2: heavily footnoted because I wanted to leave no room for denial. So,
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Speaker 2: I mean.
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Speaker 1: You have to. And any aspiring authors watching this, like
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Speaker 1: my books, you can see they're 80 to 100 pages
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Speaker 1: and notes. That's the only approach you can take as
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Speaker 1: a consumer. Exactly.
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Speaker 2: And because they couldn't deny the thesis and they couldn't deny,
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Speaker 2: you know, the clear, broad truth of these claims, what
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Speaker 2: they did was they kind of would pour through my
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Speaker 2: footnotes to find some small error. And it would be
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Speaker 2: something that didn't in any way undermine the claim that
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Speaker 2: I made, the argument that I made, or the overall
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Speaker 2: thesis of the book. But it would be something like,
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Speaker 2: I cited the wrong page. Or on one chapter, I
8:40
Speaker 2: said someone went to the wrong college. They went to
8:43
Speaker 2: a different college. But the point was the same. I mean,
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Speaker 2: it was totally irrelevant if they went to this Christian
8:48
Speaker 2: college or this other Christian college. But they would take
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Speaker 2: a small error that you're going to find in any
8:55
Speaker 2: book of that size, especially that relies that heavily on research,
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Speaker 2: and they would use that to try to say, well,
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Speaker 2: now the entire book is discredited. Even though, you know,
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Speaker 2: obviously the key truth claim and the overall point was 100% factual, unbelievable.
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Speaker 2: Unable to be denied, impossible to deny, but they would
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Speaker 2: sort of say, okay, well now, you know, you shouldn't
9:18
Speaker 2: listen because as it turned out, this guy that she
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Speaker 2: quoted went to a different college. So, you know, that
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Speaker 2: was kind of the tactic. And then the other tactic
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Speaker 2: would be to say, and this kind of always makes
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Speaker 2: me laugh, is they would go, well, you're criticizing this
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Speaker 2: particular college. highly influential, extremely famous theologian who writes essays
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Speaker 2: in the New York Times, the New Yorker, the Atlantic,
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Speaker 2: and they would go, why are you obsessed with him?
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Speaker 2: And I'm like, well, gee, I don't know. Maybe because,
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Speaker 2: you know, there's an entire cultural apologetic center that is
9:49
Speaker 2: devoted to turning out fellows in the model of this
9:53
Speaker 2: very famous theologian. And that is now having a huge
9:57
Speaker 2: impact on churches and ministries all all across the country.
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Speaker 2: So it seems like maybe we should cross-examine what this
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Speaker 2: man is teaching a little bit. And that's not obsession.
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Speaker 2: This person is highly influential. And so it only makes
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Speaker 2: sense that we're going to look at what is the
10:13
Speaker 2: impact of his ministry and how it's influencing all of
10:16
Speaker 2: these other pastors up and down the food chain. So,
10:18
Speaker 2: you know, these are the kind of things that are,
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Speaker 2: I think, very disingenuous. You know, just one more for
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Speaker 2: fun is that they really wanted to focus on the title.
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Speaker 2: I mean, I went through title wars over Shepherds for Sale. Really? Yes, because,
10:34
Speaker 2: you know, obviously Shepherds for Sale can mean very literal
10:38
Speaker 2: in terms of someone did take a check and launched
10:42
Speaker 2: a front group. And an AstroTurf campaign. So that's literal.
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Speaker 2: But there are other ways of selling. You can sell
10:47
Speaker 2: through cultural accommodation or compromise. And so they would act like, well,
10:53
Speaker 2: if you didn't show that that very person who didn't
10:55
Speaker 2: take a check, then you shouldn't be able to use
10:57
Speaker 2: that title.
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Speaker 1: This is just all my language because I deal with
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Speaker 1: this every day. First of all, it sounds like a
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Speaker 1: Babylon Bee headline. The journalists criticized for doing journalism.
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Speaker 2: Right, exactly.
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Speaker 1: Because the expectation is journalists are just clapping seals for
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Speaker 1: the establishment in our country. That's what we've accepted. And
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Speaker 1: I was just thinking about just this week, I was
11:17
Speaker 1: going back and forth with the great NewsGuard organization that
11:20
Speaker 1: lives to censor conservatives. And they're quibbling. I said that
11:23
Speaker 1: the California, I said the L.A. mayoral race was rigged
11:26
Speaker 1: in a podcast segment. In the segment, I also say
11:30
Speaker 1: that it might all be legal because of the people
11:33
Speaker 1: who write the rules, write the rules in a specific way.
11:35
Speaker 1: But I use the word rigged. And then they say, well,
11:38
Speaker 1: that's implying that you said the election results were illegal
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Speaker 1: and fraudulent. And I said, no, I specifically said they're
11:43
Speaker 1: not necessarily illegal. And the Trump administration is going to
11:47
Speaker 1: sort it out. But now also we're having debate over
11:49
Speaker 1: the word rigged, like the semantics of the word rigged.
11:51
Speaker 1: It's like a 37-minute clip. And we're just like, what
11:54
Speaker 1: are you doing? You're just wasting everyone's time. And they're
11:56
Speaker 1: trying to bum us out. They're trying to exhaust us
11:58
Speaker 1: as we try to do real reporting and report on
12:01
Speaker 1: things that are necessary. And from my experience, whenever we
12:04
Speaker 1: do reporting on woke churches, it explodes. It's explosive because
12:08
Speaker 1: there are other people who feel like they feel our pain.
12:11
Speaker 1: They feel like that's what I'm living. I'm living through that.
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Speaker 1: So how long since the book? A year and a half?
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Speaker 2: Two years? About two years, yeah.
12:18
Speaker 1: Have we seen progress? Have we seen... churches say, wait
12:22
Speaker 1: a minute, we need to be leading the culture. We
12:24
Speaker 1: can't be responding to the culture. Or is it still
12:28
Speaker 1: where we are?
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Speaker 2: I do think we have seen progress. You know, I
12:33
Speaker 2: just came from a speech at Grove City College and
12:36
Speaker 2: got to meet with their president. And, you know, that
12:39
Speaker 2: was a really encouraging experience because that is one of
12:41
Speaker 2: the schools that I did do some critical reporting on.
12:46
Speaker 2: But when I did that, you know, the students, the parents,
12:49
Speaker 2: the alums, They contended for their institution. They took responsibility,
12:55
Speaker 2: and they actually tried to push back on some things
12:57
Speaker 2: like a critical race theory course and some RA training
13:02
Speaker 2: that was very much like kind of struggle session type
13:05
Speaker 2: stuff going on. And what I appreciated about them is
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Speaker 2: that their board, when these complaints started happening, what I
13:14
Speaker 2: think we might've seen, and I'm not talking about Grove
13:16
Speaker 2: city specifically, but just the general evangelical establishment would be
13:19
Speaker 2: to say, that's not happening. And instead their board stepped
13:23
Speaker 2: up and said, let's do an investigation and let's see
13:26
Speaker 2: if it's happening. And I think, you know, that is
13:29
Speaker 2: something to cheer and, you know, it's not happening enough,
13:32
Speaker 2: but we have seen some things like that. And they
13:34
Speaker 2: did make changes. You know, they, They redesigned this elective
13:38
Speaker 2: that was essentially just anti-racism advocacy so that it was
13:43
Speaker 2: more balanced. I'm not remembering off the top of my head,
13:46
Speaker 2: but I know they made some other reforms. So where
13:49
Speaker 2: they address these concerns where You know, one of the
13:52
Speaker 2: professors who, you know, was the guy putting the rainbow
13:55
Speaker 2: flag on his door is no longer there. I don't
13:58
Speaker 2: know what exactly happened so that he's no longer there,
14:01
Speaker 2: but I know he's no longer there, and these are
14:02
Speaker 2: positive things. And so I think we're seeing that kind
14:04
Speaker 2: of thing, but at the same time... The respectability machine
14:11
Speaker 2: is still very active in Christianity and especially evangelicalism. So
14:16
Speaker 2: I do think you still have a lot of these
14:20
Speaker 2: younger pastors, apologists, and theologians who their instincts are establishment instincts.
14:26
Speaker 2: So if a question comes up like, what position should
14:29
Speaker 2: we take on this? If it's an open, debatable question,
14:32
Speaker 2: they tend to still go to whatever they think is
14:35
Speaker 2: the respectable establishment answer as opposed to, Well, hang on
14:39
Speaker 2: a minute. What's the biblical answer? And I can tell you,
14:41
Speaker 2: just this week, we saw the Gospel Coalition, which is
14:47
Speaker 2: a highly influential establishment evangelical media outlet that was founded
14:53
Speaker 2: by Tim Keller. It turns out they are among those
14:56
Speaker 2: media outlets that have been taking money to promote AI alarmism.
15:03
Speaker 2: And didn't disclose that in a podcast that they produced.
15:05
Speaker 2: And that's not to say that there's nothing to be
15:07
Speaker 2: worried about with AI, but it does go to show, look,
15:11
Speaker 2: the stuff that I wrote about in that book two
15:12
Speaker 2: years ago It's still going on.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's interesting how they play the same playbooks.
15:17
Speaker 1: Like the global warming playbook is now getting run on AI.
15:20
Speaker 1: It's the exact same playbook. But now we have better
15:22
Speaker 1: pattern recognition. So I'm optimistic about it. And my audience
15:25
Speaker 1: is very skeptical of AI in general. But they can
15:27
Speaker 1: also spot that what's happening in the last week of
15:30
Speaker 1: news is a big hoax. It's all leftist globalists who
15:33
Speaker 1: want a big government AI regulation that they run. They're
15:37
Speaker 1: the ones who are putting out all the AI doomerism.
15:40
Speaker 1: I think we can all see through it, and that
15:41
Speaker 1: is encouraging. I mean, I do feel a little uplifted
15:44
Speaker 1: by people recognizing, I've seen this one. I know this
15:47
Speaker 1: one before. But then what do we do? That's a
15:50
Speaker 1: much tougher question. But just to– you touched on something
15:53
Speaker 1: I think is really big, that noting the biblical where
15:59
Speaker 1: politics and culture and faith align is important. It should
16:02
Speaker 1: be in the Bible. And I was talking to Pastor
16:04
Speaker 1: Jackson about this, about what brings so many people to
16:07
Speaker 1: his church, which started in a rented room and is
16:10
Speaker 1: now this. which is just, for those of you who
16:12
Speaker 1: can't see what this is, this is a massive, massive
16:15
Speaker 1: megachurch with international following. And he said it specifically, the
16:18
Speaker 1: politics and cultural stuff, that he says there's a humanitarian
16:21
Speaker 1: crisis at the border. When he says that, that an
16:23
Speaker 1: open border is not empathetic, it's actually un-humanitarian. When he
16:28
Speaker 1: says that Israel, there is a biblical precedent for us
16:30
Speaker 1: defending Israel, they're an important, I'm not going to be
16:32
Speaker 1: shy about that. I'm going to do everything I can
16:35
Speaker 1: to defend Israel. And then you look at things like
16:37
Speaker 1: transgender issues. two sexes in the Bible. That's it. There's
16:41
Speaker 1: just two. It's right there. Isn't it that simple? Why
16:44
Speaker 1: isn't it that simple for weak pastors around the country?
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Speaker 2: I'm going to be honest because I think, again, they
16:50
Speaker 2: have an evangelical establishment that has twisted itself in knots
16:53
Speaker 2: to try to accommodate the dominant cultural assumptions of our
16:58
Speaker 2: secular establishment. So they kind of want to be where
17:02
Speaker 2: ABC is and The Atlantic is and The New York
17:05
Speaker 2: Times is. So they twist themselves in pretzels instead of
17:07
Speaker 2: just being Basic and biblical. Like basic and biblical is
17:11
Speaker 2: male and female. He created them. But instead they went, okay,
17:15
Speaker 2: we acknowledge that, but can we do pronoun hospitality? Can
17:20
Speaker 2: we do that? Where, you know, so it was a way,
17:22
Speaker 2: so you have invented a bizarre term that is very pharisaical.
17:26
Speaker 2: I mean, to me, that is so the pharisaical legalistic. Okay,
17:32
Speaker 2: we're going to tithe this much and we're going to
17:35
Speaker 2: do that. And it's all of it is a way
17:37
Speaker 2: of just of trying to manipulate the law to not
17:40
Speaker 2: speak truth. I'm like, just speak truth.
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Speaker 1: And it's the weakness where those cracks, that's where I
17:46
Speaker 1: think the dam breaks because if you're a person who's
17:49
Speaker 1: kind of conservative-leaning and you go to a church and
17:52
Speaker 1: they're playing around with it, there's multiple genders, and it
17:54
Speaker 1: just comes up right in the first book of the
17:57
Speaker 1: Bible that there's two, and we're already just throwing that out,
18:00
Speaker 1: then what else are you going to throw out next?
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Speaker 1: So I find the inconsistency to be a huge mistake.
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Speaker 1: It's a mistake for the church. And I'm just trying
18:07
Speaker 1: to get people to wisen up to this with my platform.
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Speaker 1: And it feels like you're saying we are making a
18:13
Speaker 1: little bit of progress, you think?
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Speaker 2: We are making some progress, but it's not enough. And
18:22
Speaker 2: for everyone who watches your show, I just want to
18:24
Speaker 2: encourage people. I'm like, you need to still be contending
18:27
Speaker 2: with for your church, for your denomination, for your ministries
18:32
Speaker 2: that you're involved in, because there is still a lot
18:35
Speaker 2: of fear of man out there. And I, you know,
18:37
Speaker 2: I put a lot of it down to the money.
18:39
Speaker 2: And like I said, that's still going on too. We
18:41
Speaker 2: just learned a story about that this week, but there's
18:43
Speaker 2: also just a constant challenge of wanting to fit in
18:49
Speaker 2: with the culture and that's never going to end but
18:53
Speaker 2: um for people who are like oh the pendulum has
18:55
Speaker 2: swung i'm like it's moved this way a little bit
18:58
Speaker 2: but it isn't even gotten back to where i think
19:00
Speaker 2: we're on a biblical line i feel i still think
19:03
Speaker 2: we're we're in a place where our instincts within the
19:06
Speaker 2: church and i'm just talking broadly our instincts in the
19:09
Speaker 2: church are we don't want to say things that the
19:11
Speaker 2: world or the culture will view as embarrassing And so,
19:15
Speaker 2: you know, I think we still have a long way
19:16
Speaker 2: to go to kind of overcome that tendency.
19:20
Speaker 1: So you're seen as one of the most prominent, I guess,
19:23
Speaker 1: pit bull, young woman, conservative Christians. Have you always been
19:26
Speaker 1: this way?
19:28
Speaker 2: Um, I guess so. You know, I don't know.
19:31
Speaker 1: That's pretty cool. A lot of you have a big
19:32
Speaker 1: narrative arc. Like I wasn't here and then I ended
19:34
Speaker 1: up here, like a Dr. Swain, I was talking to
19:37
Speaker 1: her earlier and she was saying, yeah, I was completely uneducated.
19:40
Speaker 1: And then I decided to get 50 Ivy league degrees
19:42
Speaker 1: and become a professor at every single, college.
19:45
Speaker 2: I feel like I was always this way, but I
19:48
Speaker 2: feel that because I was an evangelical, for me it was,
19:51
Speaker 2: I'm like, no, you guys moved. Maybe I didn't notice
19:54
Speaker 2: how much you had moved, but I'm like, I had
19:56
Speaker 2: always been here. And then suddenly, like I said, I
20:00
Speaker 2: started hearing crazy things coming into our church, our school,
20:04
Speaker 2: my Christian workplace. And so that was the moment that
20:07
Speaker 2: I went, things have gotten away from me here. Like,
20:10
Speaker 2: when did this happen? So, you know, I haven't always been,
20:12
Speaker 2: you know, people who would describe me as a culture warrior. One,
20:16
Speaker 2: I'm like, it's actually important to war for the culture.
20:19
Speaker 2: Like we say it as a dirty word, but I'm like,
20:22
Speaker 2: that's just contending for the faith as far as I'm concerned.
20:26
Speaker 2: But I don't think that the things I believed were
20:30
Speaker 2: controversial to most Christians 10 years ago. So I'm like,
20:34
Speaker 2: The people who have decided that's controversial, you moved, I didn't.
20:37
Speaker 1: We're very much kindred spirits in that way. I don't
20:39
Speaker 1: even think of myself as a warrior, but I am
20:41
Speaker 1: just because I'm not backing down from the stuff I
20:44
Speaker 1: believe in. It's that simple. So let's invite others in.
20:48
Speaker 1: What should people be doing if they want to help
20:50
Speaker 1: their church? Is it as easy as writing an email
20:54
Speaker 1: when you're not happy with something? Or is it getting
20:56
Speaker 1: more activated than that? What should people be doing if
20:58
Speaker 1: they want an entree into fighting for their church?
21:00
Speaker 2: Absolutely. So one is, yes, don't ignore it. Because I
21:04
Speaker 2: think that... And I've been there too, you know, probably five,
21:07
Speaker 2: 10 years ago, pre 2020. Let's see. I saw things
21:11
Speaker 2: that I thought were a little off, but you just
21:13
Speaker 2: kind of shrug and move on with your life. And
21:14
Speaker 2: I'm not saying to become a combative presence in your church.
21:17
Speaker 2: Don't do that. But if you see a consistent tendency
21:21
Speaker 2: towards something that's not biblical, that is instead cultural, then
21:26
Speaker 2: I do think you should confront that. And we do
21:28
Speaker 2: need to start. I mean, we have this command to
21:31
Speaker 2: contend for the faith. Once delivered to all the saints.
21:34
Speaker 2: So we need to actually do that. So, you know,
21:38
Speaker 2: have a conversation with your pastor. You don't have to
21:40
Speaker 2: blow him up. And I'm not saying go, you know,
21:42
Speaker 2: put him on blast on social media. But do have
21:45
Speaker 2: a conversation with him. And if those challenges that you
21:49
Speaker 2: offer aren't answered in a biblical way, then I do
21:52
Speaker 2: think at some point you have to say, I can't
21:55
Speaker 2: continue to support with my time, my attention, and my giving,
22:00
Speaker 2: my financial giving. a church that is not representing the
22:05
Speaker 2: Lord well. So, you know, at some point, if there
22:07
Speaker 2: isn't change on those issues, then you do have to
22:09
Speaker 2: look at going somewhere else. But when you go somewhere else,
22:12
Speaker 2: I also think it's important, again, not in a rude way,
22:16
Speaker 2: but you have to let them know, listen, this is
22:19
Speaker 2: why we feel that we can't in good conscience stay
22:22
Speaker 2: here anymore. Because, you know, these pastors need to hear
22:25
Speaker 2: it too.
22:26
Speaker 1: I think that's good advice for your school if you're
22:27
Speaker 1: not happy. I think it's good advice for your HOA
22:29
Speaker 1: if you're not happy with it. Just politely call them out.
22:32
Speaker 1: But you don't have to, again, blow them up on
22:34
Speaker 1: Twitter necessarily.
22:35
Speaker 2: Right.
22:35
Speaker 1: Though that can work too. But you're good at that also.
22:39
Speaker 1: So you do other reporting beyond just the Christian stuff.
22:41
Speaker 1: I'm most excited about that because we're here at the conference.
22:44
Speaker 1: But you were telling me you're reporting for the Daily
22:45
Speaker 1: Wire today on Paramount leaving California.
22:47
Speaker 2: Yes.
22:48
Speaker 1: What are your thoughts?
22:50
Speaker 2: You know, I'm of two minds. Like on the one hand,
22:52
Speaker 2: you kind of feel like looking at Hollywood and what
22:55
Speaker 2: this might do to them if Paramount leaves, which would
22:58
Speaker 2: be some enormous financial devastation for Los Angeles. You're like, well, darn,
23:02
Speaker 2: it couldn't happen to better political leaders. But on the
23:05
Speaker 2: other hand, I do get a little concerned about Tennessee
23:08
Speaker 2: because I'm like, look, this is a reliable red state.
23:11
Speaker 2: And if you keep importing people from California, is it
23:14
Speaker 2: going to take the same trajectory that Georgia has taken?
23:18
Speaker 2: where it becomes a purple state. And so, you know,
23:21
Speaker 2: I don't know. Explain to me why do people leave
23:24
Speaker 2: failing states but bring their failing politics with them? I
23:27
Speaker 2: don't really get that. And so that's a concern.
23:29
Speaker 1: I have a theory about this, which I came to
23:31
Speaker 1: later in my not too long life, but I've been
23:34
Speaker 1: around a little bit. I think it's the cognitive dissonance
23:37
Speaker 1: with admitting you've been wrong your whole life. I think
23:39
Speaker 1: people have a very hard time admitting all the stuff
23:42
Speaker 1: I cared about and I voted for and I protested
23:44
Speaker 1: for in college. It was all bullshit. Like, all of
23:47
Speaker 1: it's wrong. And I think people have a really tough time.
23:50
Speaker 1: And they could say, well, you know, maybe I don't
23:52
Speaker 1: want to raise my family in this environment. But it's
23:53
Speaker 1: very hard for them to admit fully, oh, my God,
23:56
Speaker 1: I had Republicans all wrong. I had conservatives all wrong.
23:58
Speaker 1: I had Christians all wrong. And that is people won't
24:02
Speaker 1: allow themselves to go to quite that level. Maybe they'll
24:04
Speaker 1: say they're an independent or I'm a libertarian now. Or
24:07
Speaker 1: I don't like a big government. But to be able
24:09
Speaker 1: to just say, Actually, you know, Trump's kind of mostly
24:12
Speaker 1: right about stuff. That's almost impossible for most people. You
24:15
Speaker 1: have to be pretty mature to be able to do that.
24:17
Speaker 1: It's very hard to admit you're wrong. I think people
24:18
Speaker 1: are terrible at it.
24:20
Speaker 2: No, I think that's a really good point. But, you know,
24:23
Speaker 2: if it does happen, I feel like, you know, I'm
24:27
Speaker 2: kind of going like this. I think I'm leaning more
24:29
Speaker 2: towards I hope it happens. Yeah. I'm worried for Tennessee,
24:32
Speaker 2: but if it does, I love the idea of how
24:34
Speaker 2: this could energize so many conservative creators out there who
24:39
Speaker 2: feel that they're boxed out of this industry. Totally. So
24:41
Speaker 2: between that and AI, if the Paramount move happens, I
24:46
Speaker 2: think it'll be exciting to see a lot of. young
24:48
Speaker 2: conservative creators. You don't even have to be conservative, man.
24:51
Speaker 2: Just be people who want to tell good stories, but
24:54
Speaker 2: maybe you're a white guy, a straight white guy who
24:57
Speaker 2: is not welcomed into this industry, into the writer's room.
25:00
Speaker 1: Well, that's one thing. Just take the politics out. I
25:03
Speaker 1: don't need... This has been one of the things... We're
25:07
Speaker 1: 15 years since Andrew Breitbart was at his peak, and
25:09
Speaker 1: he was talking about this exact stuff. We're not asking
25:12
Speaker 1: you to make a bunch of movies that are just
25:16
Speaker 1: only about the founding documents. You can, but we don't
25:18
Speaker 1: need that. You can make movies that just don't hit
25:21
Speaker 1: us in the face with your leftism, and we're going
25:23
Speaker 1: to go see them. We're going to love them. And
25:25
Speaker 1: that's why there's so much nostalgia for 80s and 90s stuff,
25:28
Speaker 1: because it didn't have any politics. It was fun. We
25:33
Speaker 1: used to have fun.
25:33
Speaker 2: Well, it did have politics in the sense that... Reality
25:37
Speaker 2: is conservative. So if you faithfully reflect reality in your art,
25:43
Speaker 2: it's going to tend to have conservative themes because that's
25:47
Speaker 2: the nature of reality. So, you know, I'm like, don't
25:50
Speaker 2: be political. Just tell good stories. And it's probably going
25:53
Speaker 2: to take that tenor on anyway.
25:55
Speaker 1: So I've been asking everyone. We're just north of Tennessee
25:57
Speaker 1: now or just east of it. But anyway, we're Murfreesboro,
26:00
Speaker 1: which is in the area. Forgive me. I don't know
26:01
Speaker 1: the geography exactly. And I've been asking everyone who's here,
26:04
Speaker 1: do you ever go into regular Nashville? And they're all
26:08
Speaker 1: telling me they have so much pride for the area,
26:11
Speaker 1: but they don't want to go into Nashville proper because
26:14
Speaker 1: it's just become half Disneyland, half liberals. And it's not
26:20
Speaker 1: the Nashville that I think a lot of us see
26:22
Speaker 1: in our brain. We don't spend time there. But it's
26:24
Speaker 1: really interesting that people hear a lot of pride in
26:27
Speaker 1: the area, but they don't want to deal with downtown.
26:29
Speaker 1: And that is what I fear about some of this
26:31
Speaker 1: stuff is that our red states could end up getting destroyed.
26:34
Speaker 1: overly infiltrated. That's why we all have our eye on
26:36
Speaker 1: Texas right now, like what's going on in Texas. You
26:37
Speaker 1: go into Dallas, you go into Austin, you're seeing a
26:40
Speaker 1: lot of liberals.
26:41
Speaker 2: Right. I mean, and that is the concern, right? Because
26:43
Speaker 2: you go five years ago, certainly 10 years ago, you
26:47
Speaker 2: would never imagine a candidate like James Tallarico being remotely
26:51
Speaker 2: competitive in Texas. And the only reason that he is
26:55
Speaker 2: competitive is one, because of immigration, and two, because you
26:58
Speaker 2: have had this major... transplantation of all of these big
27:03
Speaker 2: tech firms and things like that that have sort of
27:05
Speaker 2: changed the voting base there. So, yeah, that's a concern. Now,
27:08
Speaker 2: I live in Charlotte, kind of a little bit outside Charlotte,
27:10
Speaker 2: but I have watched this happening in Tennessee and Nashville,
27:14
Speaker 2: because obviously I come here a lot because Daily Wire
27:16
Speaker 2: headquarters are here. And also, we lived in Memphis for
27:19
Speaker 2: a few years, so I'm very familiar with the political
27:22
Speaker 2: landscape of Tennessee. So, you know, that is a worry
27:26
Speaker 2: that I have, and especially because... Conservatives tend to leave
27:31
Speaker 2: instead of stay and fight. And I do think that
27:34
Speaker 2: that is something that we're going to have to get over.
27:36
Speaker 2: I actually think that we are people, my reputation notwithstanding,
27:42
Speaker 2: who don't seek out conflict. And I think the left
27:45
Speaker 2: seeks out that conflict.
27:46
Speaker 1: They really do.
27:47
Speaker 2: And we just want to be left alone. I'm like,
27:49
Speaker 2: we're going to have to get a little more comfortable
27:51
Speaker 2: with being aggressive.
27:52
Speaker 1: Well, and what's interesting is that they really do box
27:55
Speaker 1: you out in a lot of ways. I'm in California,
27:57
Speaker 1: and every... California conservative thinks about leaving. The Daily Wire
28:00
Speaker 1: famously left. And it's because I pay a penalty of
28:03
Speaker 1: about 10% a year to have to endure.
28:06
Speaker 2: Yeah.
28:06
Speaker 1: Like that's what the state, like 10% of everything I
28:09
Speaker 1: earn and my wife earns every year is going to
28:11
Speaker 1: go to the people who would put tampons in the
28:15
Speaker 1: men's room at our reasonably conservative school, like with normal
28:18
Speaker 1: families up the block. They've got the, I'm sorry, I
28:21
Speaker 1: always say the tampons, it's the feminine napkins, which I'm
28:25
Speaker 1: told that those cases are always empty. I'm told that
28:29
Speaker 1: they never stock them. But in the men's room, allegedly,
28:32
Speaker 1: that's what's going on up there. And that's the type
28:34
Speaker 1: of stuff where I really have to fund that. Like
28:36
Speaker 1: how long do I have to fund that? And it's a,
28:38
Speaker 1: it's a tough call. It's a tough call. So, um,
28:42
Speaker 1: let me ask you about anything else. What else you
28:44
Speaker 1: reported on that you're excited about in the news?
28:46
Speaker 2: Oh gosh, what am I excited about right now? Um, Well,
28:50
Speaker 2: I'm very and I'm going to dig into it more.
28:52
Speaker 2: So I am by no actually I think sometimes it's
28:55
Speaker 2: good that I am not an expert in anything because
28:57
Speaker 2: in a way it makes you a good reporter. Oh,
28:59
Speaker 2: it's like I'm starting from, you know, a basis of zero.
29:02
Speaker 2: And then when I turn around and explain it to
29:05
Speaker 2: the audience, hopefully, you know, they're in the same place
29:07
Speaker 2: that I was like five minutes ago. But I'm super
29:10
Speaker 2: interested in what is happening with this AI stuff because
29:14
Speaker 2: I just had a meeting with a Trump administration official
29:16
Speaker 2: a couple of nights ago who was basically telling me, Megan,
29:21
Speaker 2: everything you're seeing out there, everybody's working in angle. So
29:25
Speaker 2: the surface level stories you're seeing are not the real stories.
29:27
Speaker 2: So here's all the angles that people within AI are working.
29:31
Speaker 2: So I'm interested to see how that plays out. And
29:34
Speaker 2: I definitely want to dig a little bit more into
29:37
Speaker 2: how it has infiltrated into Christian ministry. So that story
29:43
Speaker 2: about the Gospel Coalition this week, right in my wheelhouse.
29:46
Speaker 2: And so now I want to dig in a little
29:48
Speaker 2: bit more and go, okay, we know now about one
29:50
Speaker 2: grant for $ 200, 000 going to one Christian media outlet has
29:55
Speaker 2: Where else is this happening? So I'm interested to check
29:57
Speaker 2: into that.
29:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, and just knowing that the people who are behind
30:01
Speaker 1: the effective altruism movement all have tens of billions of dollars.
30:06
Speaker 1: So they have very deep pockets. And as you've proven
30:09
Speaker 1: with your book, ironically, you kind of gave them a playbook.
30:11
Speaker 1: I don't know if that was your intention. Just say, yeah,
30:14
Speaker 1: you can buy these guys off like you can. You
30:16
Speaker 1: don't even have to pay them. Just retweet them a
30:17
Speaker 1: few times. Give them an award and they'll be yours
30:21
Speaker 1: for nothing. Create an award out of nowhere for them. No,
30:24
Speaker 1: it is a scary thing, but it's also an opportunity.
30:26
Speaker 1: I think when you're talking about challenges to biblical principles,
30:30
Speaker 1: Judeo-Christian principles, you can also access pretty good answers pretty
30:34
Speaker 1: fast without having to run to a library and take
30:38
Speaker 1: out your microfiche and then look stuff up. You can
30:40
Speaker 1: have a pretty good, there is good Christian AI. It's
30:44
Speaker 1: got to be open source. It's not going to be
30:45
Speaker 1: open AI or anthropic. I'm not going to give it
30:47
Speaker 1: to you. But there is potential for some entrepreneurs to
30:51
Speaker 1: create There's an incredible compendium of answers to biblical questions. But,
30:55
Speaker 1: of course, it can't be garbage in, garbage out. We've
30:57
Speaker 1: got to have credible people putting together.
30:59
Speaker 2: And I actually know some guys who are working on
31:02
Speaker 2: stuff in that area that, you know, they know a
31:05
Speaker 2: lot more about it than I do. I'm not a
31:06
Speaker 2: techie person. But, yes, that are doing that very thing.
31:09
Speaker 2: And so, yeah, I'm not a doomer on AI. I mean,
31:13
Speaker 2: I think there are concerns, but I'm curious. Which, by
31:17
Speaker 2: the way, you know, having fought a little bit of
31:18
Speaker 2: cancer in the last.
31:20
Speaker 1: Couple of years. Yeah, that was going to be my
31:21
Speaker 1: final topic.
31:21
Speaker 2: Yeah, that I'm like, I'm kind of excited to see
31:24
Speaker 2: like what kind of advances can be made in some
31:27
Speaker 2: of these fields much faster than they would have been
31:30
Speaker 2: made in the past. So, you know, I'm not super
31:34
Speaker 2: fearful of it. And your point about seeing them do
31:37
Speaker 2: the same things. I mean, I saw the same YouTube
31:40
Speaker 2: apologist who a couple of years ago was like, Christians
31:43
Speaker 2: need to take up the issue of climate change because
31:45
Speaker 2: it's an existential crisis, who are now saying AI could
31:49
Speaker 2: lead to human extinction. So the same guys are saying
31:53
Speaker 2: the same thing, mouthing the same preferred leftist talking points,
31:57
Speaker 2: and you just kind of have to laugh and go, okay,
32:00
Speaker 2: let's do round two now.
32:01
Speaker 1: I will start believing maybe human extinction is coming when, A,
32:04
Speaker 1: I can make a cell phone call in my house
32:07
Speaker 1: without the connection getting interrupted, and when I do the
32:10
Speaker 1: auto-dictate into my phone and it gets it 75% correct. Right, right.
32:13
Speaker 1: And I don't have to fix it all with my
32:15
Speaker 1: thumb after. Then I'll start buying that we got the
32:17
Speaker 1: tech sorted out.
32:18
Speaker 2: When Siri figures out that when I dictate ludicrous, I
32:22
Speaker 2: don't need the wrapper.
32:24
Speaker 1: Exactly exactly okay so so i was going to ask
32:26
Speaker 1: about the the cancer which you're very public and open
32:29
Speaker 1: about it and very admirable i think it's a good
32:32
Speaker 1: thing to do.
32:33
Speaker 2: It's mostly that i just can't be quiet about i'm
32:34
Speaker 2: just an open book so i was going to be
32:36
Speaker 2: an open book on this too.
32:38
Speaker 1: Well you know what it matters sometimes what we do
32:41
Speaker 1: not what we think about what we're doing all the
32:43
Speaker 1: time action matters more so um can you give us
32:45
Speaker 1: an update on how you're doing and yeah.
32:47
Speaker 2: As far as i know good you know they saw
32:49
Speaker 2: one little indeterminate thing on my last scan um And
32:54
Speaker 2: what they do when they see something, they're like, could
32:56
Speaker 2: be something, might not be something, is they bring you
32:58
Speaker 2: back in two months for another scan. So that two-month
33:02
Speaker 2: re-scan I actually do next week. So praying that they
33:06
Speaker 2: don't find anything on that, that hopefully whatever it was
33:09
Speaker 2: is not there at all. But if it is, and
33:13
Speaker 2: for everyone in the sound of my voice, I'm asking
33:15
Speaker 2: for your prayers just unapologetically and unashamedly. But if it is,
33:22
Speaker 2: there's still... ways, if it does turn out to be
33:26
Speaker 2: a metastatic lesion that I, you know, there's still good options. Um,
33:30
Speaker 2: something called SBRT radiation that they can blast it. But
33:34
Speaker 2: as far as we know right now, I'm no evidence
33:36
Speaker 2: of disease. So hopefully next week I will still be
33:38
Speaker 2: able to say I'm no evidence of disease.
33:40
Speaker 1: So no evidence of disease at all. So that's, that's right.
33:42
Speaker 2: So, yeah. So my, uh, went through all of the treatment,
33:45
Speaker 2: you know, did chemo radiation, couple of surgeries. I think
33:49
Speaker 2: I've had like four surgeries now at this point. Um, So,
33:52
Speaker 2: you know, as far as I know, they have eradicated it,
33:55
Speaker 2: and so I'm just hoping that this other little spot,
33:58
Speaker 2: and again, and I'm talking to myself as much as
34:00
Speaker 2: I'm talking to you, that I'm like, if it is something,
34:04
Speaker 2: there's still options for that to treat.
34:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you don't know this about me, but my
34:09
Speaker 1: wife's an oncologist, and it's a very exciting time, and
34:13
Speaker 1: AI is a part of it.
34:14
Speaker 2: I hope so.
34:15
Speaker 1: And it's the rapid, I think, increase in... Just to
34:19
Speaker 1: be able to assess medicines, approve cutting-edge medicines, to approve
34:23
Speaker 1: cutting-edge treatments is just going to be so rapid. Well,
34:26
Speaker 1: we're all praying for you, and thanks for all the
34:28
Speaker 1: great work online. Shout out to Elon Musk for putting
34:31
Speaker 1: you in my feed all the time. Thank you. It
34:34
Speaker 1: doesn't matter. I think if you put a grocery list,
34:35
Speaker 1: I like it would show up somehow, my algorithm, like
34:38
Speaker 1: it's right at the top.
34:38
Speaker 2: And I'm such an addict. I'm sorry. You must see
34:40
Speaker 2: me all the time. No, no.
34:42
Speaker 1: It's great.
34:43
Speaker 2: It's great.
34:43
Speaker 1: We need people like you, warriors, who are out there
34:45
Speaker 1: fighting for good stuff. So really nice to meet you.
34:46
Speaker 1: Thanks for doing this with me. Absolutely.
34:48
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me on.
34:48
Speaker 1: Megan Basham.