Today on the live cast, we will be talking about Douglas Murray's recent appearance as part of our research series, and we'll also be looking at the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett as Supreme Court Justice. Hello everyone, welcome to the live cast. My name is Paul Fizzy, and as always, I'm joined by Glenn Scrivener. Hello, it's Glenn Scrivener here with the Pee Fizzle. With the P Fizzle. That's it, Paul Fizzy. Yeah, getting time to get busy with the fizzy again, people. Here we go.
SPEAKER_00Yes. Yeah. Which is one of my favourite comments from uh from last week's video. We've got um Mundy Carroll. Hello, Mundy. She said, uh, like your shirt, Paul Fizzy.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I believe I was wearing a Metallica t-shirt last week. Oh really? Yes, I believe that was the that's what she's referring to there, I imagine.
SPEAKER_00So your shirts quite often get a few comment comments. I don't I don't think I get quite my my due, you know, fair fair share of comments. No, no. My sartorial elegance has escaped most people. It's a different yeah, yeah. Different thing. Different thing, isn't it? We were discussing my I think one of my favourite shirts of yours is the one from uh Very British Problems.
SPEAKER_01Oh yeah. Yeah. The the one that says, you know, what we say is I'll let you get on. And the translation that really just means go away.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Very British problems. If people don't know very British problems, if you're a missionary to the UK, and in one sense I I am, I think this is essential reading for contextualizing yourself among this strange breed of human called the British. Yep. Um because the passive aggressive Just say what you mean, English people.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's like every time I read very British problems, it is it is just like I'm looking at my own life just being reflected straight back at me. All the things I say. So, you know, I'll let you get on. Definitely means go away, please. And um yeah, when people say you come to you with an idea and you go, oh great, yeah, I'll think about it. No, I won't think about it. That's what it means.
SPEAKER_00You really must come over for dinner.
SPEAKER_01Um he's a oh yeah, he's a bit of a character. Right. He's he's the worst human being I've ever met.
SPEAKER_00All that you know. And you think it's just cute understatement, and everyone else is just baffled and offended, and but uh yes, so very British problems. It it is essential reading for those who want to contextualize in the British context. Definitely, definitely. But Mundy Carroll on last week's uh video, we we did a video about QAnon and more generally about conspiracy theories. Uh basically we did it about QAnon because that was in the news, and what we try to do is respond to the news and then see if we can bring a theological uh perspective to it. Uh Mundy um had that comment. I like your shirt, Paul Fizzy. But uh one who is called Dominus Illum Illuminatio Dominus Illumin Illuminatio Mayor Benefits of a classical education, people. Um Latin for the Lord my guiding light. Anyway, um that person commented fun fact only six percent of both Republicans and Democrats say they believe in QAnon. Which is actually um something we were gonna get onto um last week.
SPEAKER_01We did talk about it, didn't we, like between ourselves, but I don't think it made it to air, so yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Uh I saw a poll that said um Democrats are more likely to have heard of QAnon, and they're more likely to have heard of to have heard of it as a right-wing conspiracy that, you know, you know, all the bad right-wing people over there, they believe this QAnon stuff. And let me tell you about the, you know, the vampiric blood-sucking tendencies of of QAnon. And yeah, but actually, more people When you say that to the right wing people, they go, Q what now?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, well exactly. Exactly. That's what they would say, Glenn. That's what they would say.
SPEAKER_00Plausible deniability. That's what it is. Um but yeah, it it is important that part of the story about why we're hearing about QAnon is not so much that QAnon is so prevalent. Part of the reason we're hearing we're hearing about the story is um we're being told to fear a certain segment of the population. And there is a very broad brush that's being used. And certainly in the Guardian Stroke Observer article that we read from last week, um, it sort of said there's QAnon, and it's kind of this pro-Trump thing, and it's anti-the-deep state, and there are elements of it that are anti-Semitic and Nazi and blah, blah, blah, which is an incredibly broad um brush stroke. And I think, you know, people quite rightly have said, um, look, just because I can tick one or two of these boxes does not lump me in with the entire, you know, an entire movement that might be described by by some as anti-Semitic or that that sort of thing. And it is interesting that um people on the left tend to have heard of QAnon more than people on the right. And does that mean that the media is making us fear QAnon more than you know the there is uh such such a movement? And the the poll that was linked to by a Dominus Illuminatio Mayer. I got it right now. Nailed it this time. Um there was an Emerson poll that was run uh regarding QAnon, a far-right conspiracy theory, detailing a supposed secret plot by alleged deep state against US President Donald Trump and his supporters. Five percent of voters believe in QAnon, while twenty-two percent do not. Seventy-three percent were unsure or had not heard of QAnon. Six percent of both Democrats and Republicans say that they are believers in QAnon as compared to two percent of independents. Um interesting to get a a few stats on that. And then there was a third comment that we wanted to talk about. Do you want to do platinum bubble or me? Let me yeah, you go on, you kick it in and Platinum Platinum Bubble commented, uh, this is so sad, guys. You're great at theology and apologetics, but you've shifted from your lane without due diligence. You make all sorts of accusations, but in doing so reveal that you haven't researched what our friendly back channel is saying at all. Did you just read a few critical articles and think you understood it all? The back channel is not anti-Semitic or anti-immigrant or Gnostic or far right or whatever else you've accused them of. Why didn't you speak to someone who really knows about it before you pass judgment? This video won't age well. It's a bit like analyzing the idea of the Ark by only talking to the people mocking Noah. How do they feel when those first drops of rain touched their faces and didn't ease up? From a supporter. Uh so thank you, platinum bubble. Um but I I I think one of the things we wanted to do in raising this issue is is not to point a finger at QAnon simply. Uh we we mentioned as well uh Darren Brown and Stephen Fry as as people who are very much on the left and very much gullible in certain senses to a certain telling of of the story. And so I think the reason why we kind of brought up QAnon isn't is not QAnon in particular, but it is this interesting interplay between being gullible and being skeptical. Because I think all of all of us have all of us are gullible, and all of us are skeptical. It just depends what it is that we swallow and what it is that we strain out like a you know like a gnat. So um, you know, we we've often spoken before about different the different plausibility of different conspiracy theories, like did Jeffrey Epstein kill himself or not? You know. And it sounds a lot less crazy to say Jeffrey Epstein did not kill himself than it does to say that the earth is flat. For instance. You know, let's let's let's pick two two poles on the uh believability scale. I don't think the people who think the earth is flat would appreciate poles. Just saying. That is very true. It is a global movement, though. The whole the whole flat earth. Um but I mean to to entertain the thought that Jeffrey Epstein did not kill himself is to entertain the thought that he was killed, which is to entertain the thought that there was some level of collusion with at least one other security guard, which is improbable unless there was some greater collusion with other powers that be. Um is all of that plausible? Yeah. Yeah, it is it is plausible. Um and therefore, what is the solution to that? Well, I don't think I don't think to be skeptical of the story of Jeffrey Epstein having killed himself, I don't think that then commits you to being uh to swallowing whole um what the back channel says or what QDrops say, what what what QAnon says. And just because some just pick just because we can be rightly skeptical of certain presentations to us about who's really in charge of the world and all that kind of stuff, doesn't mean we then have to go to this, you know, like the Bible says, put not your trust in princes, which is like telling us not it's telling us to be very skeptical, even of our even of our rulers. You know, we have to obey our rulers and pay our taxes and honour them and pray for them. Sure. We're also not to put our trust in them, so don't trust them. Yeah. Pay your taxes, don't trust them. Yeah. So we're we're to be skeptical of them, but that doesn't mean that therefore the ones who are really pulling the strings in this world are meeting in a secret underground lair and it's run by a couple of billionaires.
SPEAKER_01You know? Yeah, sure. I mean I don't I don't have any issue. I mean, when you put you know, you use the Epstein case as an example, and obviously you we I think we've talked about the Prince Andrew stuff as well, you know, with him being kind of on the edges of that and people kind of going, is he involved with something? And it's all a bit kind of fishy. You know, I can certainly look at that and say, hey, it it wouldn't surprise me if there was some kind of um you know, ring of people behind the scenes that may involve, you know, uh politicians or people, you know, whoever who could be involved in I feel like the word allegedly should be. Allegedly, I'm saying you know, I mean in a sense, you can completely imagine that could be true that they're people who've got power who are misusing their power for their own ends and you know, in whatever way that looks like. Yeah. So I'm not saying I know it's all utter nonsense. Yeah. But obviously, like you say, but just by that doesn't necessarily make mean I want to jump into the the camp that says, therefore as well, yeah, you know, yeah, clearly Donald Trump is part of you know the this Messiah figure in all this and so on. You know, committing you know, saying you're you're you're open to thinking about one thing doesn't mean you I'm jumping into bed with all the other things. So Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00And like interestingly, that within Qnon, the like the idea of sex trafficking and sex abuse and pedophilia and that that sort of thing um is is quite strong there. And when someone like Jeffrey Epstein is arrested, and then when he's dead, um it it does make you think, okay, um we know, and we know to the great shame of the church that there can be sex abuse scandals that get covered up. We and and we know the sorts of dynamics at play that allow that evil to continue and to not be addressed and for light not to be shone on those places. And we know in a secular space as well, um the rape gangs in the United Kingdom um are cases in which like terrible, terrible abuse has happened and been covered up, and we haven't heard about it to the degree that we really ought to have heard about it. Yeah. Um but you don't need to conclude that that the Rotherham sex abuse you know uh scandals or Oxford or any number of these places where the rape gangs um did their evil, you don't need to assume that that is because of one or two billionaires who are meeting together and doing X, Y, or Z. You can look at the you know, this interplay between fundamentalist Islamic beliefs and some socioeconomic conditions in the United Kingdom in the in the 21st century, and there are evil men and there are some shame-based communities that are not wanting to confront the evil within them, and and there's a culture of political correctness that incentivizes turning a blind eye to certain things that might be seen as racist, and you put all those elements into a pot and you stir them and you get this wickedness that has happened. Um, but I think in a sense it's far too simplistic to say there was one person pulling the strings. Well there's a secret cabal pulling the strings.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean I like I think all all those things clearly these things do clearly go on, don't they? Behind the scenes. There is stuff going on that's very dark and stuff. I I suppose my thing is I I'm I'm less convinced that it's all joined together, you know, it's all joined up with this single thread somewhere, you know. Um I think it's just you know wicked people doing wicked things independent of each other. Um but but equally we also know that things that sound kind of rather outlandish can also end up being true. So I mean, you know, back in the the kind of fifties and sixties, people would have said, hey, you know, apparently the Americans have got all these Nazis, the American government have taken like the Nazis out of Germany and like they're they're getting them to like work at NASA to like beat the Russians to get to the moon and get into space. And you that sounds rap it just crazy, doesn't it? It's all true, right? Like loads of Nazis were taken out of Germany by the Americans, given new identities, and like you know, they built the what was it, one of the V what was the V rocket, can't remember what it's called, V five? No, I don't know. I can't remember exactly which one. But you know, so and they were like, well, let's get these guys and let's get them to build build stuff to get us into space, and that's exactly what happened. So it sounds crazy, yeah, but that is it is a reality.
SPEAKER_00So I mean you know everything's a everything's a crazy conspiracy theory until it's proven. Absolutely. It's like, oh, okay.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um so that is that is absolutely true, and don't put your trust in princes and all that. But therefore, do put your trust in the one who really is ruling the world. And this is where we wanted to get to, you know, in the last video, that you know, there there is a secret cabal ruling the world, the the father has committed all things to the son. Um, but he says to the world, Come to me, all you who are wearing burden, take my yoke upon me. Uh take my yoke upon you and learn from me. And so what he's what he's really doing is giving us the secret wisdom in order to navigate a scary world in which there is sex abuse and cover-ups and power plays and bullying and and horrendous you know, forces, and you can feel cut adrift. And Jesus is like, No, take my yoke upon you and learn from me. So be united to Jesus. And to wear the yoke of Jesus, I think, is is really to go the way of Jesus and to turn the other cheek to evil and to forgive evildoers and to and to love, love your neighbor as yourself. And this is the secret wisdom that will actually overturn the world. What's actually going to overturn the world? It's not being in on the secret knowledge about you know, secret cabals in charge of the world. It's actually it's the church. It's it's Christians living out the love of Jesus day by day. We really are in touch with the secret wisdom that that runs the world. And it's it it would be thrilling to think, oh, I know, I know who is really in charge of this world, and I know that they're really pulling the strings. And wouldn't it be even more amazing to think, and I've got a hotline to that person, right? Um but the thrilling thing is as Christians, we do know who's in charge of the world, we have a hotline to him. He's given us our marching orders, and this really is the power to overturn the world. Um, so if we um if we libeled QAnon people or slandered them or or or spoke um ill um or attributed to them views that they don't have, yeah, if if we've attributed views to them that we don't have, then then hands up, that's that's wrong. We shouldn't do that. And we're very aware that um certain people can weaponize the conspiracy theory label in order to silence dissent. You know. I mean one example is um uh vaccines, you know. So, you know, is it okay to be at least somewhat skeptical of vaccines that will be rushed through in time for November? Yeah, sure. Is it is it okay to be skeptical about the how um how good these vaccines will be? Is it okay to raise moral questions about how have these been developed and have they been have have they been developed from the use of um aborted human tissue? Babies, right? Is it okay to raise that question? Is it okay to raise the questions uh uh about the safe safety of of such a vaccine? I think it should be. Does that make you an anti-vaxxer with all the you know kind of things?
SPEAKER_01All the stuff that goes with it.
SPEAKER_00Well no.
SPEAKER_01But it that can be weaponized. But yeah, yeah, we see it that that can be the case, can't it?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. You don't want to be an anti-vaxxer, do you? Oh, sorry, no, no, okay, I'll just give you know, give me give me the injection. Quick, I'll do it myself. So I can I can see how that stuff can get weaponized, but um but yeah, I I I really hope that it gets people coming back to Jesus and living out his counter-like the real counterculture is is not to join this movement or that movement, but to join the church. That's the real counterculture, and that really is in charge of the world. That's where we were trying to get to uh with all of that stuff. Uh but we also released another video this week, and that was the start of our reset series, uh, where we're interviewing uh a whole bunch of different people, some of them Christians, some of them not, cultural commentators, biblical commentators, and going back to Genesis, right back to the beginning, to that origin story, and seeing if that ancient text can still speak today. And um, we're gonna watch uh a little clip of Douglas Murray, and uh then we'll talk about uh that conversation, which you can get in the link below. But let's have a look at the clip.
SPEAKER_03But what you touch on is of is very, very interesting, as you know. I'm all over this subject because um yeah, I'm I'm interested in the things that the age waves through without question. And I say in the gay chapter of madness. Well, starting off with this uh uh group who made this film about so-called gay conversion therapy. Um that uh I I'm much more I'm much more willing to listen to their arguments than many people thinking most gay people. Um partly because I'm just curious about curious arguments, and partly because as I say that, I think there are questions that were left behind. And and that's consistent in all of the issues I address in the man's parents, it's consistent in the women's chapter. What are the questions that we that feminism left behind is too difficult to address? The obvious one I say, like in the opening, the obvious one is motherhood. Feminism jumped along on a whole range of things to do with you know equal representation on always and so on, and really never worked out what to do about motherhood. As I say in the man's craft, that's a that's a big that's a big easy to jump over. Um and in the gay chapter, yes, I say I say something along the lines of what you just said, which is uh we we we we have a we have a set of ideas about this. One is that the gay is a one-way street, which um it may be, and there's a lot of evidence to demonstrate that it is. Uh, that there is, however, considerable diversity, and the largest form of diversity in that is between men and women. Uh this is a conversation I've had in the in the past, I think people can find on YouTube with biologists about why it may be that uh women are more sexually um fluid uh in this way than men. I mean, the shorthand example I give is you can quite often find somebody who's a lesbian who's had bad examples with men, and that may not be the only reason she's become a lesbian, but it is quite a strong one that she seeks to be with another woman. You never meet a man who's had bad experiences with women and as a result becomes gay. I mean, it wouldn't have been had they not met the wrong woman, sort of like now all this is incredibly dangerous and contested terrain perhaps. But I say, look, why have we said it's so straightforward in one way? Are we absolutely sure about the nature of how sexuality is formed? And the answer is no, we're not really. Uh I think the evidence increasingly points to the fact that it is biological, it is determined from uh uh uh the womb from the say from a very very early age. Um but there are also possibly some societal factors that might be overlay. And I don't see why we shouldn't be able to discuss them, other than that uh they um tread on some what have become sacred values. And I add one of the things, of course, and the the obvious reason is again, is this fear that if you do address them, then you'll go back to you know the horrible times that have existed in the past, and then sometimes it exists still where young gay people are sort of tortured by uh um religious professionals in order to become something they just cannot become. Uh but yes, the example you give also existed in the trans one. Uh your and I've written about this a lot because the era now says um if you're I don't know, a young feminine boy, you know, like if it is your really a girl and should be given medical help to become a girl, and vice versa, a tomboy is a girl who's really a boy. And that's of course not in against a lot of issues to do with women's rights, but a lot of things to do with gay rights, and that is very offensive for a lot of gay people. Um and so but my point of saying all this is to say these whole things are very blooming mess, you know, it's very messy to rain. And I think that it's unwise it's wise to try to do as kindly to people as possible and to listen to their concerns because it seems unwise to me to dig in and invent narratives that have not actually been proven. And um I worry about any shutting down the total like that. So as you say, maybe the conversatory example is Tricky because um you may uh make it illegal for somebody to suggest that somebody might be happier being straight, as I say, like in the case of your friend, and that's more common among women. Um but uh um at the same time as you make that illegal, you make it illegal not to approve of a child being in the wrong sex and therefore medically transitioning to later stage. That seems to me to be very dementia of things that happen on the same time. So I'm just interested in in opening that up. I think we need a lot we need to know a lot more until as we're until we're as certain as we're currently pretending to be about these issues.
SPEAKER_01Great. So that went out on Friday, wasn't it? That's right. I think so. You'd you'd obviously had a chat with Douglas kind of uh a week or two back. Um tell us a bit about it. You know, obviously we saw a little bit there, but how did it go?
SPEAKER_00Did you was it a good conversation? Oh, I loved it, absolutely loved it. And um, as soon as I knew I wanted to do reset, um Douglas was one of the first people I thought, wouldn't that be amazing if we could get and very generously he he you know gave his time to us and you know he I mean he must be doing he is doing wall-to-wall media um you know, he's a professional writer, his his his book, his paperback, is out and so an updated updated version, isn't it? I think it's expanded from the hardback or something. Right, because the hardback came out in 2019, and then a few things have happened in 2020. Um apparently so. Yeah, yeah. A few things. I don't know if you've noticed, but yeah, so he he wrote uh an expanded sort of uh afterword uh to that. But yeah, so I mean he's he's in demand all over the place. He was doing Joe Rogan, you know, after he spoke to me. So um it's just great to be able to get him. And I I think interestingly, his his personal journey with faith is that you know he he was a believing Christian um right into his twenties and significantly into his twenties. It was it wasn't just like he went away to university and lost his childhood faith, but um you know confirmed in the Anglican Church and and um you know a proper Christian who then walked away from it and then kind of identified as atheist, and now he says, Well, I much prefer the old gods to the new gods. Yeah. So interestingly, I think his I think why he's a good cultural analyst is because he personally has taken the journey that the West has taken. You know? Yeah, okay, yeah, I see. Walking away from that inheritance and then going, wait a minute, what's what's the yeah, where's this leave us? Because I thought we were walking into rationality and it seems we're walking into the madness of crowds.
SPEAKER_01Surely by leaving behind religion, actually everything's gonna be better and so on. But actually, particularly in the last five or ten years, you see this acceleration where people seem more divided and you know segregated and at each other's throats than we have been for a while. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, totally. And and less rational than ever. You know? Oh yeah. Yeah, it's fascinating, isn't it? I mean, if I went back to, you know, kind of when I was at university, kind of finished in 2008, everything was about, you know, particularly in the in the Christian realm, in terms of it was all about coming up against the new atheists, it was all about science and rationality, and well, you know, you can't prove Christianity and science is the is the real thing that has empirical evidence and all this stuff. And now nobody is talking about that. Like, where's new atheism now? Right. Like, that's gone because everybody now is not talking remotely about let's look at the facts, it's just hey, let's listen to how people feel, people's lived experience and stuff like that. So and it's it's incredible how quickly that's happened, really.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. He he's he begins the book with a quote from GK Cheston, and you know, the the mark of the modern age um is not simply that it is dog is it's not that it is not dogmatic, it's that it's dogmatic without knowing it. Um and just the and the way that Douglas speaks about the new gods, he's just very clear that there are theological claims being made, um, but they're theological claims that are kind of divorced. They they've emerged from Christianity, but but they've been cut loose from Christianity. And so equality, diversity, inclusion are remarkably Christian ideas, and we talk about that in the interview, but untethered now.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I'm slightly diverting off the topic here a little bit, but given that that's the change there's been been in the last kind of 10, 12 years or whatever, how do you think that as it affects like the way we do evangelism? Because I'm just thinking back to when I was at uni and like kind of the classic Christian Union Mission Week with your lunch bars and there's all these questions about like rationality and science and stuff. And it strikes me that the couple we've been on in the last few years, they haven't hugely changed. And I wonder whether when Christian unions, or even churches, but I guess Christian Union is a good example, put on these events like that. Are they really asking the questions that people are asking or have have people moved past it? I'll just put you on the spot there, so off you go.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think that's very true. And and I even question whether those lunch bars ten years ago actually did the trick back in the day either. Right, okay. Yeah. Because I w you know, even though Richard Dawkins was grabbing all the headlines, I don't think he was where most of your friends were.
SPEAKER_01And you said a few times, haven't you, that like you've sat in in those sessions when someone else has been speaking and they've you know, someone has got up in the Q ⁇ A afterwards who was maybe a kind of new atheist type person, who would then bash the person at the front with something, and you'd ask the person next to you who was a who was a guest, you know, well, what do you think about what that guy said? And they said, Oh, no, don't care about that guy. I said, I'm here because my granddad died the other week and I just want to know what's going on. And even then, as you you think people who all the you'd think all the non-Christians are there to kind of be like, well, here I am with my rational atheist mindset to to evaluate this evidence and debunk it in whatever way. But to be honest, that wasn't where people are at.
SPEAKER_00No, his granddad had died, and granddads always die, and that's what makes people really ask the big questions. And the motto that I always kind of use is almost my mantra since that that day when I you know sat next to that guy is that the guy with the microphone does not speak for the room because there was an angry atheist in that room, he was dominating the QA, and and he had the microphone, and we all had to listen to him for a bit. But as soon as the microphone was off, we turned to one another and we talked about the stuff that was really on our hearts, and it wasn't what the guy with the microphone was speaking about. And for a for a limited time, Richard Dawkins had the microphone, and we and I think Christians started to believe that he did speak for the room. And we forgot to talk to our neighbour about their grandfather and about mortality and about the sufferings of this veil of tears.
SPEAKER_01And instead And and Murray, actually, in the not in the interview, but in the top ten quotes video that we put out, he has that thing as he where he looks like he's at is it Oxford or Cambridge? Cambridge. Yeah, and he talks, he says, and now atheism misses things and it doesn't have anything to say to suffering and tragedy and or forgiveness and loss and all those things.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_01And and you know, he looks a bit younger then as well. So I'm guessing that was probably back in those kind of days. It was. That was back in the height of the new atheism.
SPEAKER_00I think he was debating against Richard. Rich Hawkins, I think he references yeah, that he's there in in that whole thing. And and and that has never changed. You know, the new atheism can come and go, but the the issue of of our mortality and human tragedy and suffering and our need for forgiveness and to find repentance and peace and reconciliation, all those things are absolutely immutable, and they're they're far closer to each person's human experience than the the common tropes of the new atheists. So I I think we were suckered into, and I was suckered into, you know, engaging with the new atheism on its own terms, as though the guy with the microphone spoke for the room, and then all I wanted to do was grab a microphone and say, Oh, you think that, but I think this, and you know. Meanwhile, the guy next to me, like he is unedified by any of that. Like even if the Christian wins that argument. Yeah, he doesn't care about like, oh well, who made God and all that screen?
SPEAKER_01That question again.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so I I think I think we are slowly learning to do to do, you know, uh Plato Plato's old sort of tryout of goodness, beauty, truth. Um, you know, we we've we've been sort of talking about the truth thing in abstraction from goodness and beauty quite often. And I think I think talking about the good life and talking about beauty, art, music, story, wisdom for life, I I think those are categories that are far more fruitful in evangelism. We're trying to figure out how to do that. But you know, again and again, I think, you know, why why why do why do I constantly reference Jordan Peterson? Ding, Jordan Peterson is because he's able to pack out theaters where he just talks about the book of Genesis because he's applying it to life, and he's saying, here is here is a text, and he just believes it's a human text written to humans to humanize them. But I I think the Bible is not less than that, and we miss out on so much when we just treat the Bible like this divine text that's given to the super spiritual to fine-tune their spiritual lives. And Peterson gets a hearing because he talks about here's here's how to live, here's how to be free, here's how to flourish, here is wisdom. And I I think far more that that's useful these days.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and if if the non-Christian can take Genesis and do that with it, yeah. What could the Christian do? The Christian do. I know. We could so much make a series about that, you know.
SPEAKER_00Going back to the beginning. So Douglas Murray is kicking off this series, and we're talking to Catherine Burble Singh, and she'll be out on Friday, and then Tom Holland and uh a whole bunch of people, lots of professors. I think I think we've got like seven professors in the in the lineup. And so the series has begun on uh Friday, and it began with Douglas Murray, and then this Friday we've got Catherine Burble Singh, we've got Tom Holland coming up, we've got Professor John Lennox, Professor Rupert Sheldrake, Professor Mirislow Wolf, we've got about seven professors, I think. Um Rebecca McLaughlin, Wendy Olsup, um a whole bunch of different people. And we're really just wanting to see if the ancient text of Genesis can still speak today. And uh, if you're not uh subscribed, do uh do subscribe to us on YouTube and you'll get them in your feed. But um I did I did find it interesting talking to Douglas Murray about uh the issue of gay conversion therapy. So, you know, we just saw that in the in the clip, and I and I actually gave him um the experience of Rachel Gilson, who is one of the others who we're gonna be interviewing in this series. So here is um here is a girl who comes to Christ. She had always only really been attracted to women in the past, but she's become a Christian, and now there's this guy on the scene, Andrew, and he likes her, and she starts to feel is God calling me towards a relationship and more with Andrew. And um in a previous interview with Rachel, she kind of talks about her desire for Andrew being a little bit like uh a candle kind of kind of fluttering in the wind, and it's just a little, but she but she could protect the candle and nurture that flame and bring it into um something more of a roaring flame, and and that's that's her description of fostering heterosexual feelings for another man, but that could be criminalized if you say that that's gay conversion therapy, or if anyone helped her to do that. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So the yeah, like the example you give if she'd said, Would you pray for me to foster that for it to grow? Yeah. Someone could construe that and say, Ah, this is this is gay conversion therapy, this is this is terrible.
SPEAKER_00Right. This is wrong. And at the same time, we're running this other program that says, um, yeah, if Rachel prayed to become Andrew, this should be celebrated. Yeah. How do you run both those programs together? And you know, and I and I said to Douglas, look, it it seems pretty obvious, doesn't it, that there's a fixity to gender and much more of a fluidity to sexuality. And he seemed to say yes. Which um which is an interesting admission, I think. Um and I think I think it does go towards the view that okay, if we're cautious about the trans issue, that has implications for the gay issue. If we're cautious about saying, you know, I'm not so sure that a Rachel can become an Andrew because gender is not sort of interchangeable in that way, then what about when the Christian says, well, let's be cautious in marriage, of saying that we can just swap one gender for another and marriage remains the same. Um Douglas Murray very famously wrote a uh a piece in The Spectator um about gay marriage is a conservative issue because it's bringing the goodness of marriage to a wider number of people. And David Cameron quoted basically from um from Douglas Murray's article at the Tory Party conference and said, you know, I'm I'm not pro-gay marriage in spite of being a conservative, I'm pro-gay marriage because I'm a conservative. So Douglas Murray's been right at the heart of that. But I do therefore see there's there's an argument, isn't there? Is there an argument for saying because we're cautious about saying gender is interchangeable, because we think it's far more fixed than that, then surely a male-male relationship is a different kind of a thing to a male-female relationship. Um doesn't mean you have to persecute male-male relationships, doesn't mean you have to diminish them or make them less in the eyes of the law necessarily. But it does mean, perhaps in the eyes of God, there is something different about male-male, male, female. Yeah. Can that be said? No. Don't be silly. Of course you can't say those kind of things. But I find it interesting. I think on Douglas's own logic, you can say stuff like that.
SPEAKER_01He and yeah, he from from listening to the whole interview, his one of his big things does seem to be, I just wish we could have these conversations about things. Yes. You know, at least to talk about them. And he he says, but people are scared of having X and Y conversation because of the potential of what could come from it. But he's very much like, well, we're all grown-ups, can't we? Have these conversations. So we all should be.
SPEAKER_00We all should be. Yeah. And I think that that that would be like the only the only other thing I would have loved to have gotten into with Douglas was uh a question of time scale. So he says in the book a number of times that the madness we've gotten ourselves into, it would be a little bit like a train that pulls into the station just nicely, it just comes to rest. And he's kind of talking about sort of the equality train. And we all love training. And, you know, surely we've gotten to the stage where on all these issues of gay and race and trans and and um whatever the other words, women, and you know, relationships between the sexes, we've basically come to a position of equality, haven't we? Now can we just get on with the other stuff of let's build underwater cities and get to Mars and you know, like let's cure cancer and not debate about pronouns the whole time. Um and so I think he looks wistfully back to the 1990s as a time when um things were just equal and we just got on with stuff. But in his telling of history, he says the train has pulled into the station, and just when you thought it it had come to rest, it somehow gets a new like wind of speed, crashes through the barrier, up onto the platform, smashing through people, and it's chaos. And I just I I I just question that telling of history. It seems unlikely that that is the case. You know, if you were if you were an investigator looking at the train crash, you know, I don't think the first thing you would conclude is, I bet this train pulls safely into the platform. And then and all mics. Accelerated hugely up onto the platform. I think what you would you would conclude is this train was probably out of control for quite some time. It had probably lost its brakes way back there. It's not where it should be, and it probably has been heading towards this trajectory for some time now.
SPEAKER_01So I mean he talks, doesn't he? So is that a an argument for I think what he mentioned to do with like kind of the overcompensation, over-reaching type thing? Where like you've been accelerating towards these equalities and things to try and get rid of all this bad stuff from the past, but in the process of trying to you've you've actually overshot the station and flown past. Yes. You know, but we would I suppose we would debate whether we ever really stopped in the station or just it just always was off.
SPEAKER_00And may maybe we're crashed because way back there we'd left the tracks and we didn't put the brakes on way back there. And you know, Douglas and I are the same age. I I think we both look back to the 1990s as these sort of Halcyon days, it wasn't everything great. You know, what if what if actually we were both in the train carriage peering out the window, we both quite liked the the countryside, but we were off the tracks and there were no brakes, and things were bad even then, or at least things were were off kilter. And you know, we all know it with with train tracks, if you're just off by one one degree here down the line, you're off by quite quite some distance. And and I and I don't think it's drawing a long bow to say that some of these problems are back to the 50s and 60s, especially around the sexual revolution. Um, that actually, naturally speaking, civilization is built on father, mother, child, as as you know, G.K. Cheston spoke of father, mother, child as this triangle and it's the strongest structure. Everyone knows in engineering that the strongest structure is a triangle, and if you try to break the triangle, the triangle will break you. G.K. Cheston said, Father, mother, child is the strongest social unit. You try to break that apart, it'll break you, right? And therefore, if father, mother, child is this unit that must be held together, then we used to hold together sex and marriage, and sex and pregnancy, and pregnancy and children, and children in the family unit, and this was this strong, you know, building block of society. But what happens, you know, when you have the pill and contraception and the sexual revolution, and then easy, no-fault divorce, and what you have is suddenly sex gets taken out of the context of marriage, marriage gets taken out of the context of of lifelong commitment, sex and pregnancy are kind of severed apart because of contraception, pregnancy and children are severed apart because of abortion, and the children are then growing up in in families that uh do not have the security of the of the mother-father thing. Everything's kind of being blown apart in the name of liberation and freedom. Um, I wonder if that's where we came off the rails. And many of us enjoyed life in the 70s, 80s, 90s. Um, but I wonder whether the the end point is exactly what we've seen. Um and the problem did not come with the invention of social media, the problem did not come with the 2008 financial crash. The problem goes back a a little bit longer. That's what I think. That's what I think. But uh and and I think and I think Douglas is kind of very open to hearing that. Because he's he's just like, yeah, the complementarity of the sexes, we want to we want to be able to talk about that. You know, can we can we please have a conversation about that? So I think I think Douglas is very open to to all this all this kind of stuff.
SPEAKER_01Um I mean, yeah, he had no problem in in your discussion with the idea that there are differences between men and women and people, you know, that people will react differently based on their their gender things. And that is you know, obviously broad brush strokes, but yeah, in general, yeah.
SPEAKER_00There are differences and which I think goes back to the GK Chester and mother, father, child. You just can't get away from mother, father, child, actually. And to the degree that um to the degree that we're trying trying to say, oh, men can be women and women can be men and we all know that we have a nature and nature bites back. You know, if you if you don't if you don't um accept and conform yourself to nature, um nature bites back. And therefore, you know, we need we need to accept the maleness of male and the femaleness of female, but as soon as you do that, that means that a male-male relationship is a different kind of thing to a male-female relationship, is a different kind of thing to a female-female kind of a relationship. Um and I I quite understand why members of the gay community get very um twitchy at that point, because oh that can sound start to sound homophobic. I can totally see that that that can lead to the utter um degradation of the humanity of male-male relationships, female-female relationships. But it doesn't have to. It doesn't have to. Yeah. Is there is there a way of saying there is just a there just is a difference between a male-female relationship. And there therefore, what happened in 2014 in the UK was not uh an expansion of marriage, but a changing of the meaning of marriage. Right. It it so so that I would say Douglas Murray in in that twenty thirteen article is wrong, and I I'd be really interested to know if he'd rewrite or rethink what he thought back in twenty thirteen. But his argument was there's this thing called marriage and all we're doing is expanding its definition to include more people. Marriage is a good thing. If we expand it to include more people. That's a good for society and so on. And he and by the way, I I agree with so much of what he wrote back in 2013. Because he you know he's he sort of said, look, if anything has ruined marriage, it's been heterosexuals, right? Like easy divorce, infidelity, porn like there are any number of ways that I mean straight people have ruined marriage, like far more than gay people have. I totally agree with that. And and I don't think that the introduction of gay marriage is the thin end of the wedge, and that's why we are where we are. What I do think is that gay marriage and the trans ideologue both rely on this former kind of sexual liberation um theory that says the genders are far more fluid and interchangeable. And therefore, to have this thing called marriage and to change the sex of one of the spouses is not to maintain it as marriage, but it is to redefine it. Just as to change the gender of a trans person is not to leave the person unaffected. So to change the gender of a of a spouse is not to leave the marriage unaffected. It's to make it something different. And again, that doesn't mean that you can't have equal rights for civil partnerships, right? That doesn't mean that. But it I think it would mean that you say, okay, marriage is a male-female thing. Just irreducibly, it's just the way that it is. Um and everyone, everyone is then discriminated against, right? Because as we said when we when we did our Cutties episode, you know, when Jesus unveils his teaching on marriage, it's like one man, one woman for life, that's your lot. And they're like, oh what? Man, yeah. Yeah, the red-blooded heterosexual Peter is like, I'm out, count me out, you know. Yeah. You get to be a eunuch then.
SPEAKER_01Oh, okay, maybe I'll get in. Maybe I'll go in on it. Which isn't.
SPEAKER_00Um and so which which then says that actually what Jesus wants to do is to help us to discipline our sexual desires, because without disciplining our sexual desires, there can be no sexual liberation. And we were we were sold a bill of goods back in the 60s. Liberation is not had by forgetting my nature and by letting my unbridled lust have its way. That's not liberation. That's the beginning of a train wreck. And Douglas Murray has chronicled that train wreck really, really well. Um, but I think what one one of the elements, as soon as you as soon as you pick at the complementarity thing, then you you start to discover what GK Jesterton said. It's mother, father, child. Um and from there, there's good news. I think you can build a society from there. But apart from that, you know, the triangle is the strongest structure, and let's let's get back to that. So that's some of my reflections on Douglas Mo. We we spoke about far more in the interview. He um talk about race and trans and feminism, and does he think that the West would benefit from a revival of Christianity? Does he think he would benefit from a revival in his own Christianity?
SPEAKER_01And you can see the answer that he gives there. Yeah, it's definitely worth a watch. There's lots of good discussion in there. Brilliant.
SPEAKER_00Brilliant. And um stay tuned this Friday for Catherine Burble Singh, who um was a powerhouse, and uh it's uh such a such a fun uh hour that you'll spend watching her this Friday. Um last bit of news. We were we're gonna talk about Amy Coney Barrett. Who is Amy Coney Barrett, Paul?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so she's just been uh nominated in the over in the States. She'd been nominated um to um as uh for Supreme Court Justice. Um if I'm right, so it's in the wake of the death of Ruth Bader Ginsberg. Um I'm not sure how many years she was she was on the Supreme Court, but I mean it's been a long time.
SPEAKER_0090s, I think. Or was it longer?
SPEAKER_01I thought you were saying that was how many years she'd been on it. I was thinking like 99 was she? Like just from from the from birth. Um, because of course when you're appointed, you're there for life. So, you know, and and so she'd passed, and I think she'd said, hadn't she, something like she'd she'd hoped that there would be no new appointment until a new president was put in um to position. Uh but of course Trump has nominated Amy Coney Barrett. And yeah, I mean obviously it's kind of uh kicked off in the in the Twitter sphere and in the press as people are just trying to discuss what is this woman appropriate? Because, you know, look at her life. She's a Catholic, she's a Catholic, she's pro-life, and all these kind of things. Um so yeah, I mean, I'll admit I don't know all the ins and outs of it. I mean, I have to admit though, I I I did see the the picture of her with her family um and she's got what is it about seven children, seven children. Um and I immediately I thought to myself, well, this is gonna be interesting because two of the children are clearly adopted. She's got um two black children. Um and um I just thought to myself, I just wonder how the left is gonna push this. Now, I just like to say, if you're on the left, it's not that I'm not on the left or anything like that, but I do this is one of the things that actually goes back to the QAnon thing slightly. Some people we get accused at different times of either being too right wing or too left wing. But yeah, the reality is like I you know I look at the Tories and roll my eyes, and I look at every Guardian article and roll my eyes as well. So um when I'm when I critique the left now. So anyway, I looked at and I thought, what's the left gonna do with this? Because I just think how this this doesn't tick the boxes, it doesn't follow the narrative, you know. Um but of course, uh amazingly, apparently, by adopting two black children, it's she's done the most racist thing you can do. Um just uh and the mind boggles. So I mean there were quotes, uh tweets coming out from uh Ibrah X Kendi who said some white colonizers adopted black children, they civilized these savage children in the superior ways of white people while using them as props in their lifelong pictures of denial while cutting the biological parents of these children out of the picture of humanity. I just thought that's you know that's amazing. That's a stage we're at, isn't it, where a family gives a home to two children of colour, you know, who are obviously from a um different ethnic background to themselves. And the and of course the first accusation is oh well it must be because you're a white supremacist who's trying to, you know, civilize these savage children.
SPEAKER_00Like just it's a still man Ibrahim X. Kendi. I I think what what he was doing was responding to people who were saying she can't be a racist because she adopted some black children. Right, yeah. So this is I think to put the best spin on it. Some of my best children are black children. Some of them they're in the top five, anyway. One of them's in the top five. Dear me. Um so I think they were responding. So he was responding to some people who are saying, ah, C, Barrett is clearly not racist because they've uh adopted transracially. Um and and then, you know, I think you pick your moments, don't you? Because aside from anything else, the Barrett's are a family. You know, they're not a pawn in a political game. And they're a beautiful family. And and it looks from from everything we can see um is that they're a happy, well-mannered, shining example of of a family, and it it looks like transracial adoption worked has worked out for them. It it really does. Now it is true, the history that um Kendi like proffers here, it that that is true that there have been terrible things done in the name of adoption. That that that is true of taking in Australia in particular, there's a stolen generation of Aboriginal children that were stolen from their birth parents and raised white in order to erase their Aboriginal history, in order to um in order to decimate the Aboriginal community. I mean, um that is white that is white colonization massively.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so I mean so his so it seems like seemingly his defense is just I'm I'm saying, oh, this has happened. Yes. Yeah. Which just seems so I mean, to be honest, it doesn't really wash at me. Yeah. You know if if this was a let's imagine it was it was a a democratic candidate who'd been nominated and they had it was the same picture. Imagine she was Democrat. He would not have got up and said that. He would not have tweeted that at all. It's entirely political. It's entirely just like we we don't need to have this woman, she's awful because you know. I mean it it it's like if you if you have I mean if you had someone who said, Hey, look, I've got you know, I drive a Volkswagen, right, and you said, Oh well. Right Nazis, Nazis did the Volkswagen, didn't they? The Volkswagen. Like, well why you why why are you even mentioning that? Like in the It's you you only meant you'd only be mentioning things like that if you're insinuating something about the fact that someone's ow owns a Volkswagen, you know. I mean that's a stupid example, but like you know, like it's like, oh I'm just oh she's got some she's got black adopted children. Just saying. Yeah. Some people just saying. I'm not saying she is, I'm just saying, and you're like, come on, really?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. I again to I I don't know why I'm doing this, but to to leap to um I mean X Kennedy's defense again, it it it might be possible if you've got an historically formed bee in your bonnet about transracial adoption, and someone just mentions the issue of transracial adoption, and you say, Well, you know it's problematic, don't you? You know it's hashtag problematic, and let me give you some reasons why it is. Now that that is that is again to um cast aspersions on a family that's just a beaming, lovely, you know, um family. And so that's not on. But I I think people do have heartfelt objections to interracial adoption. And it's it's interesting because I think in the UK, so as speaking as an adoptive father, it's been very difficult in the UK to adopt any kind of child apart from a white child. So Emma and I put ourselves forwards for a number of different children who are black, and and were told that it was not appropriate because we couldn't um we couldn't affirm their cultural heritage. Um and we were told at the same time that black children are less likely to get adopted, which I think is outrageous. It's outrageous that black children could those things possibly be linked. Yeah. And just saying Well, exactly. And just unless you think there's a superabundance of adoptive parents out there, which there's not, so let's let's get on that Christian family. You know, let's let's let's get adopting, right? Um, but there's not a super ad a superabundance of adoptive, you know, so they can pass over the scriveners. That's okay, they can go to the next family, you know. And and so it does get to the point where, you know, who who knows what will happen to those children who we were not considered for. We wanted them, they did not want the the powers that be the powers that be did not want us because of our race, that child is at a higher risk of staying in care for the rest of their life. Now, are we as a society saying that growing up with a true appreciation for the distinctiveness of your racial identity, that that is a a greater blessing in your life than being raised in a forever family? Would you would we are we really in a society saying that that that is such that is such a value that for me to know my racial identity is such a value that it's almost worth the risk of staying in care for the rest of my life?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and and also I'm I'm sure that in some sense it's a it's a false dichotomy. Like it that that even though you know had you and Emma you know had a uh you know a kind of black child, then you there there are many ways in which you could still help to affirm that child's not saying it's the same, you know, but it's not like it's an either or that you you can't do it at all. Just it it just seems bananas to do that. And I mean I think as well, like the what what I think is maybe in what that his hi this um Ibrahim Itskendi was saying there's a sense as well of which it I think is is is it not like slightly insulting to those children as well because isn't there not a sense we'll say, oh well you're not you're not really black you're not properly black, are you? Because you were raised by white people, so you're not you don't really understand what it is to be black. So like even though you're even though you're black, you're not black black enough, yeah, you know, and I I I just think like that's problematic as well down the road.
SPEAKER_00I think the argument would would be, yeah, maybe that is the case, and it's the parents' fault for that. And and it's just I I mentioned in the Douglas Murray interview that there are forces in culture of unity and there are false forces in culture of particularity, and we need both. So it's it's very important that I am the particular person that I am, and I'm from the this particular ribe and this tr tribe and this race, and I'm a man, and I'm all this. But it's also really, really important that I'm a human, same as everybody else, and I'm equal to everybody else, and I'm welcome, and and all that kind of stuff. And the modern moment is a moment all of particularity, and and therefore we see the re-racializing of everything. And what becomes really important is my racial identity and my pronouns and my sexual preferences and and all the particularity of Glenn, this complicated splendor that is made is everything. And then we then we just lose the equality thing. And you see a photograph like the Barrett's together, and what do you see? I hope what you see is what a happy family. I hope what you see is oneness. But we are being trained to see particularity, to see difference. Oh, did you notice two of them were were darker skin than the rest. And one of them has Down syndrome. Right? But what do you see? Surely, surely what you just see, the the first, second, third, and fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh thing you should see is a loving, happily, happy family. Yeah. And then let's deal with you know, cultural heritage.
SPEAKER_01It's not to say those questions yeah, it's not to say those questions aren't. Yeah. There are not there's not validity in those things, is it? Yeah. But you should look at that and go, well, look, here's white and black, able and disabled, whatever. Divully able dimly abled, whatever the phrase is. Yeah. Apologies. Yeah. Um you should look at that and just go, that's an amazing thing.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01But our society which it it just seems deeply sick that that is our first reaction is to say, let's tear this apart, you know, like Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Well, normally the ones at at its strongest, they're saying let's really zero in on the particular, and I'm sure at some point we'll get the unity, somehow. I'm sure. But let's let's really zero in on the difference between people and affirm the distinctness of the different racial identities. You're like, well, at least paint me a picture. How how how does how does really racializing the human race get me to there? How does it get me to the unity point? Because at the moment it just seems like everything's about the particularity, everything everything's about difference. And, you know, fascinatingly, so Ibrahim X Kendi was retweeted by Richard Spencer. Who really is a racist. Like, you know, the the the epithet racist gets like thrown around. But here's a place it can really stick. Like a total white supremacist, an unapologetic racial, you know, white supremacist. The sort of person that Tom Holland worries about when he when he says, you know, I really worry that we might get to the stage where someone is called a racist and they go, so what? Yeah, yeah. Richard Spencer, isn't it? Sure. That kind of person. So he he retweets approvingly Ibrahim X. Kendi and says, He's not wrong. He's not wrong. And isn't it interesting that Ibram Xkandi, who's written the textbook on how to be anti-racist, that's his big best-selling book, How to Be Anti-Racist, is approvingly retweeted by a racist. And I think I think, you know, it's a little bit like the political spectrum. You know, left, left, and right, at you know, extreme left and extreme right are very close together. Sure, the old horseshoe. The old horseshoe. Yeah. There are aspects of some extreme anti-racist positions that are very close to racist positions because it's about the re-racialization of everything. And let's get down to the particularity. And as Douglas Murray said on Friday night, um, that Robin D'Angelo, who's the author of White Fragility, she ex and an anti-racist theorist, she explicitly um reverses Martin Luther King's saying that we should be judged by the content of the character of our character, not by the colour of our skin. And she says, no, that's a bad thing. That's the racist thing. So what an age we live in when a white woman tells Martin Luther King he's the racist. But but it is all about this particularity. And and and again, I think here here's an argument for coming home to Jesus and coming home to uh a story in which, yeah, every tribe, nation, and people and tongue are there in the end. There is a particularity, you know. I've I I I guess I'll be white forever, like for better or for worse, I'll be white forever, right? So there's a tribe, nation, people, and tongue, but they are brought together around the lamb in the great wedding feast. Yeah. And there's there's that unity, which is the which is the end goal. Um just a funny story about the Glenn's funny stories. Do we have a jingle? When we were when we were adopting our son, he was born in Cardiff, right? Um but that is that is the only that is the only um connection he has to Wales. And yet, because the system is so attuned to appreciating the cultural heritage of the child, like like he's he's from a very mixed background. He um the only question we were asked at this massive panel interview, that's that's it's meant to be the scariest thing imaginable. And we sort of we sort of gave our story and they said thank you very much, but but the one question that was asked multiple times to us was how are you going to affirm his Welsh heritage? He was 17 months old at the time. How are you going to affirm his Welsh heritage? And and I I like in the providence of God, I spent my years 14 to 18 in Wales. Yeah. So I was able to say, well, you know, I I grew up up the road, you know, and and I always support Wales and the Six Nations. And as soon as I said that Honestly. Please take the child. That was the qualified. We were not asked anything else. There was no other hoop to jump through. A panel. Do you support Wales in the rugby or not? Yes. You know, we'll we'll buy him a little red rugby shirt, you know. Hooray. Yeah. And we're we're supporting his Welsh identity. And okay, well then.
SPEAKER_01So he's got no uh so it's just chance that he was born in Cardiff. Right. It's right. Rest of his family are not Welsh in any way. So right, yeah. Right. Right. It's fascinating, isn't it? Yeah. It's the one.
SPEAKER_00So but you know, I do I do agree that okay, so if if we had gotten um a male, if we if we had gotten a black child, let's let's let's say, if we if we put ourselves forward and they said yes, I I do agree it would be very important to have like um conversations about where the child is from. And in the same way, it's important for every adopted child to know where they're from. And there is definitely an added um issue if you live in a predominantly white area, and there might be more questions brought up about a certain child when that child is already feeling a little bit like a like they stick out like a sore thumb because they're adopted already, and maybe you don't want to add that extra trauma to them. So with all those caveats though, um surely we can believe that the happy family we see in the Barrett is a goal that is far more worth pursuing than simply affirming the particular racial identity that we happen to have biologically. If we can't say that, we're we're really the madness of crowds. Madness of crowds. Absolutely. Anyway, um, thanks guys for listening to today's episode. If you want to get more of this stuff, do subscribe to us on the podcast if that's where you're listening to us. Uh, if not, um uh you might be watching on YouTube, then subscribe to us and click the bell and you'll get all our reset stuff and our live cast stuff. And Christmas is coming, our new 3D animated video. You won't want to miss out on that. And uh, if you want to support us in any way, we uh survive on the generosity of people like you. So you can go to speaklife.org.uk slash gives. Plenty of ways to give there. Thank you so much if uh you're already supporting us in that way. Stay tuned on Friday. We'll have Catherine Burble sing as uh she she is Britain's strictest head teacher, and we had a blast talking together. Uh, but until then, God bless and keep speaking life. Take care.