Recently, there’s been deep concern expressed by some Christian commentators about my new film, “Am I Racist.” Thee pundits are troubled by the film because, they say, we used deceptive tactics to capture the footage. This is profoundly problematic, they say. They are disturbed. A Christian has made a movie that is interesting and funny and effective and that appeals to a wide audience — and this of course is a cause for great alarm among the sorts of Christians who want to make sure that we never do anything interesting, funny, or effective, especially if it appeals to a wide audience. No, what they want, always, are things that are lame, boring, redundant and insular.
I’ve already addressed the arguments these people have made. I don’t need to address it again. And yet here we are. I happened to see a clip posted to Twitter by the account Woke Preacher Clips. This is a conversation on a podcast called “Holy Post,” hosted by Phil Vischer, best known as one of the creators of “Veggie Tales.” Vischer has gone woke in recent years — or maybe always was, I don’t know. But it’s no great surprise that he is apparently not a fan of mine. He’s joined on this episode by Pastor Mike Erre and Skye Jethani, who is now a Christian speaker and was once, I believe, also a pastor. These three brilliant minds came together to talk about the film — a film that, as far as I can tell, none of them have seen. Listen:
I’m going to let them continue but I do want to interject here to say, yes, actually, we do need more of that in the Christian world — comedy, satire, using the Left’s own methods against them. That is, without question, something we need more of. But these three men disagree. Let’s get to their argument, even though they didn’t see the movie and haven’t the slightest damned clue what they’re even talking about. Still, here it is:
I want to interject one more time, briefly, before we hear them make their compelling case against the movie they didn’t watch. I just want you to notice the tone. You see the guy on bottom left with his head in his hands, rolling his eyes. Pastor Erre is flippant and dismissive. So is Phil Vischer. The whole thing is so beneath them, so silly. It’s absurd that they are even lowering themselves to discuss my film. That’s the general tone, which pervades all the rest of what we’re about to hear.
It’s also the attitude that these types of people usually have when discussing me or my work. But notice something — they’re discussing my work. I am now discussing them discussing my work. But I’m not discussing any of their work. Nobody is. That’s because they haven’t done anything remotely worth discussing. They haven’t done anything at all. Vischer made “Veggie Tales” 30 years ago, which is fine. That was a successful series about singing vegetables. It was something though, at least. But these other two — and Visher himself, post “Veggie Tales” — haven’t done anything, ever, to move or impact the culture in any way. They hang out in their pretentious, woke pseudo-Christian bubble, smelling their own farts and telling themselves how much smarter and more nuanced and sophisticated they are. But they don’t do anything. They don’t create anything. Instead they spend their time dismissively critiquing the people who are actually doing and creating. And, look, I’m used to having useless people criticize me. That happens every day. But when they do it with such a snide attitude — that’s where it annoys me.
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Here’s my challenge to any of the three dudes in that podcast. Go out and create something — anything at all — that makes a noticeable and positive cultural impact. I don’t mean something that your liberal Christian friends like. I mean something that moves the culture in some way. Something that people outside of your bubble have to sit up and take note of, and grapple with, and think about. Make anything that achieves that. Could be a show, a movie, a song, even a podcast. Not the one you’re currently on. That has zero impact. Just anything at all that makes an impact. That’s my challenge. And I would suggest that if you can’t do that — if you can’t even conceive of how to go about doing that — then you should probably have a little humility and wipe the smarmy smirks off your faces. Not only that, but you aren’t qualified to hold the positions you currently hold. You should not be in a self appointed position of Christian leadership or as a supposed Christian thought leader if you actually don’t know how to effectively spread a message of truth and fight back against evil in modern culture. You really should be sitting and listening, not talking to an audience, because you don’t have anything worthwhile to say.
But maybe I’m being harsh. Let me now continue listening to them so that we can find out if they do in fact have something worthwhile to say.
There is a lot there. All of it bad. It is a confused, morally and theologically incoherent stew of nonsense. And it is coming from exactly the sort of weak, ineffectual, uninspired, utterly useless, limp-wristed, spineless little mealy-mouthed empty vessels who have all but destroyed the Christian church in the West. And that’s why I get a little heated about this. It’s not because I’m defending the movie. The movie doesn’t need defense. It’s doing great. The audience response has been overwhelmingly positive. It’s certainly not worth getting upset about the opinions of these three guys nobody cares about.
What upsets me is that these three guys — and the legions of Christian “leaders” just like them — have done catastrophic damage to the body of Christ. And that damage can best be summarized by the statement from the man on the bottom right of the screen — Pastor Erre. It was a statement enthusiastically co-signed by the other two. He said: “You can’t follow the Sermon on the Mount and engage in a culture war.” That very concisely summarizes the effeminate, castrated form of Christianity that has invaded the christian church like a parasite. And it could not possibly be more wrong. You might as well say that you can’t be a good boxer if you know how to throw a punch. It is a statement that misses the point so much as to be basically unintelligible. It is a wrongness so wrong that it induces stroke symptoms in those who encounter it.
No, pastor. Let me clear this up for you. You can’t follow the Sermon on the Mount unless you engage in the culture war. “Do not light a candle and put it under a bushel.” “Let your light shine before men.” That’s what Jesus tells us in the Sermon on the Mount. And that is the culture war. It is being a light, a flame, a torch of truth in the darkness. What do you think a culture war is?
Let’s break this down. I’ll try to make it as simple as possible for you: Culture is nothing less than everything that makes up society — our institutions, our traditions, our customs, our art, our collective achievements. Everything that defines our society. That is the culture. The culture war, therefore, is the fight over that.
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Nearly every aspect of our society — of our culture — is now controlled and defined by an ideology that not only denies but aggressively militates against Christian values and christian teaching. It’s an ideology that embraces and promotes debauchery, relativism, self-worship. An ideology that celebrates the mass slaughter of the unborn. An ideology that seeks to inflame resentment, suspicion, and hostility between different races. Which is what our movie deals with. We want to stop that, defeat that ideology and install Christian values in its place. The other option is to surrender. Tell me, pastor, which part of the Sermon on the Mount calls for us to surrender to evil? Where did you see that? Can you quote me a chapter and verse on that one? What I see when I read the Scriptures are continued, relentless calls to fight evil, not lie down and acquiesce to it.
But you know all of that, don’t you? See, people like you pretend to be too good for the “culture war.” You stick up your nose and act like you’re above it all. But in reality, you are yourself actively fighting a culture war. You’re fighting one right now. All three of you in that video were fighting a culture war in the video itself. It’s just that you’re fighting on the other side. Trying to convince us not to fight is a battle tactic that you are employing. You are employing it on behalf of the side that despised Christian values, Christian teaching, and the truth of the Gospel. And, sadly, this tactic has been very effective up to this point. But that’s starting to change now, finally. We see you people for what you really are, and what you’re really doing, and who you are really aligned with.
