POV: Did Biden Target Christians? Anti-Christian Bias Report Explained

In this Faithful Politics POV episode, Will Wright and Pastor Josh Burtram examine the Trump administration’s anti-Christian bias report and ask whether it proves real discrimination against Christians or mostly reframes policy disagreements as persecution. They discuss the FACE Act, the Richmond FBI memo involving traditionalist Catholics, IRS scrutiny of Christian nonprofits, vaccine exemptions, Liberty University fines, and the broader politics of religious liberty. The conversation is less about defending one administration and more about how Christians should evaluate evidence, resist easy outrage, and protect religious freedom without turning every conflict into persecution.

Wait, We're the Oppressed Ones? Part Eight: https://faithfulpolitics.substack.com/p/wait-were-the-oppressed-ones-part-535?r=1bt7sx

Our live POV episodes happen every 2nd Thursday. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:17

Hey guys, welcome to another point of view POV. I am the faithful host here, Josh Bertram, and of course I'm joined by my good friend and my liberal friend, my good lib friend, Will. It's good to see you, Will. Did that did I make that awkward enough for you?

SPEAKER_01 0:40

Um, I live in the awkward spaces.

SPEAKER_00 0:42

Um You know, do you remember, do you ever remember the phrase awkward as awesome? It was do you remember Dare to Share? That probably is like bringing up all sorts of like trigger, like triggering anyone. Like, I don't know. I mean, they're I thought they were a great organization, but I'm sure there's controversy at some level that I haven't thought about, but they used to have like, or maybe there's not. I hope there's not. I just know how these things go. But they had awkward is awesome. That's what they would always say. And so just embrace the awkward.

SPEAKER_01 1:13

So, so speaking of awkward, I know this is a really weird way to start a show, but you know, we're letting people come in. This is sort of like, you know, early church service. The worship, the worship team is up there just scrumming, trying to wait for people to get their seats. But no, what when it comes to awkward, I was one of like probably less than a dozen black people at my high school, and and even in my middle school, and uh I've always been a big nerd. I could sing you probably the entire lyrics of the Wilson Phillips album and the Two Life Crew first album because that's just how how weird I was. I was on a chess team, I played Magic the Gathering, anyways. Yeah, so I live in the awkward.

SPEAKER_00 1:56

Hey, that's okay. We're all just gonna live in the awkward, and I I I understand that. You know, I never got into Magic the Gathering, although I've heard a lot of good things about it. I was always kind of told that I was gonna end up like basically dead or like possessed by a demon if I did Magic the Gathering, or like hung like basically like I don't know, they tell me this horrific things that people did when they played. Oh, maybe those Dungeons and Dragons and Magic they all got mixed in together. It was all basically like tarot cards and all of that were all just put into one thing. So people are like, what are you talking about? Magic. Well, that's what happened when you grew up in the evangelical world, like I did, at least in my experience. But tonight we have a special treat, don't we, Will? A special treat for our friends. We're gonna talk about what everyone has been waiting with bated breath to hear. That's right. About the task force, right? The religious liberty task force and their report on the anti-Christian bias that occurred under the Biden administration. And we already know that this report is telling certain people things they want to hear. We already know that this report is controversial. But can I just give like let me just kind of frame the report and what it's arguing? And then you can give me maybe give some more context. Or let's do this actually. Can you give us a little bit of context on the religious task force that's doing this? Like because I'm only asking you well, because you've written a million substacks on it. So I'm figuring you have some idea. And just helping people understand what is this report and what's the what's the task force responsible for making it?

SPEAKER_01 3:42

Yeah. So the yeah, I have been writing about this basically since the the task force was put together. One, just because it was just it was a bit of a pet project. I didn't really know like how you know how crazy or how I don't know how busy they would be, but apparently they've been pretty busy. So this was a task force. It's it's called the task force to eradicate anti-Christian bias in the federal government. It was put together by an executive order not long after Trump got sworn in, and it's ran out of the DOJ, Department of Justice. Actually, one of their first uh meetings was at the DOJ. Oh no, actually, one of their first meetings was at I think the Museum of the Bible. And maybe getting it confused because right around the same time, there was also another task force that was like the task forces. I know it was no, no, no. This one was a commission, my mistake. So don't don't call us fake news. This was called a religious liberty commission. And yes, and it was it was formed around the same time, and and I sometimes get them confused, but I mean the Religious Liberty Commission has its own set of problems, as as in like it only really cares about the religious liberty of one religion, but but the but the task force to eradicate anti-Christian bias in the federal government. Like I said, it was formed by EO, and it had three deliverables as a part of the executive order. So the first deliverable, I'm I I might be getting this a little confused, but because the task force has issued out two reports so far. The first report was, I don't know, several months ago. It was about 49 pages. Some of the reporting I read on it was like, you know, they there was like a a memo sent out to the agencies that basically said, hey, you know, give us all the all the sort of anti-Christian bias stuff you can find in your agency. And the 49-page report almost kind of looks just like that. I mean, it's sort of laid out. It's not really making a real big case for for anything, but it's basically, you know, Biden did some things we weren't really, you know, happy about. We felt like our religion was being targeted and you know, Biden bat. So so a few months later, a new report came out. I mean, this one was actually one of the deliverables in the executive order. And this report is is 594 pages long. And it it rehashes substantial. It is substantial. I mean, now mind you, it's like 200 of those pages is like actual text.

SPEAKER_00 6:17

200 is the report, right?

SPEAKER_01 6:18

And then like 300 of like exhibits or appendices or whatever you want to call them. I think they call them exhibits in their report. Um and and the 200 pages does rehash a lot of the stuff in the 49-page report. So, like if you read the 49-page report, you're not gonna learn anything new per se, but you will be given an education on a number of different things. Um, because part of the the 200 sort of actual pages of of text includes about 20 pages of a history lesson about how closely tied America is to Christianity. And then you also get a five-page explanation of what all Christians believe as as well. So if you're not if you're not sure what a Christian is supposed to believe, the government has figured it out for you.

SPEAKER_00 7:07

And it's in that on over to the anti-Christian task force and their bias report.

SPEAKER_01 7:12

Yeah, I mean, it's quite the public service, to be honest, you know.

SPEAKER_00 7:15

Who needs the Nicene Creed and anymore? Am I right apostles' creed? Who needs that? I'm just being we're being silly. Okay, okay. So so that's that's super helpful. Thanks for framing that for us. So let me let me do this, dude. Um, I just want to give like a quick overview of what the like report says. I mean, you you it's anti-Biden. I mean, we we know that there's uh it's it's specifically about the Biden administration that they were looking at. And then I wanna I want to just give some ground rules and then let's go into the findings themselves because they're debated, although there's certainly there's a lot of when I was looking through it, there's cause for concern, and then there's cause for let's be balanced here. So essentially, right, this is what the this is what the report came out with. It essentially argues that the Biden administration repeatedly treated traditional Christian beliefs as obstacles to federal policy goals. So the Biden administration is like, hey, this is what the report is saying, right? That they essentially were against traditional Christian Christian beliefs and and enforced that through their administrative bureaucracy and using the power of the administrative state, executive state to do so. Okay, so and and then they give they outline 14 key findings. But the report points to examples across, and they use law enforcement, FBI intelligence, tax enforcement, education fines, conscious rights, gender policy, foster care, abortion, public benefits, vaccine accommodations, and religious speech to talk about COVID. So a lot of things there, right? And we're not gonna be able to cover it all tonight. We're just gonna let everyone know that. But we'll try to do our best to get into the substantial stuff we need to. Here's the thing, though, that here's the thing we should maybe look to see. Like, why would they even say, like, why would they even say this is a problem? Well, what it seems what they're trying to get at if multiple agencies are burdening Christians in different ways. I know that the argument you make is specific kind of Christian, and I I agree with what you're saying, but if it burns Christians in different areas when Christian convictions conflicted with those preferred policies of the administration, then the pattern may, and to some people's like, oh, it absolutely does, but it may indicate anti-Christian bias rather than isolated mistakes. So that's kind of like that's kind of the underlying like principle that you might look for that might you say, hey, this if we find these kinds of things, they maybe should give us alarm. And I think that is true. If we find things from multiple agencies that are targeting a specific group, and we can prove that, then that should be an indication of some kind of systemic bias that we should look at, right? I think that that's important. Now, before we jump into all this stuff, well, I'll give you a chance, Will, if you want to comment on any of that stuff. I just want to give us a little theological frame and then we'll jump into the findings. Um, yeah, no, I don't I don't think so. Go ahead. All right, cool. So here's what's important, I think, for all Christians, no matter where you fall on any number of the cultural issues we have, whether you're MAG or not, whether you voted for Donald Trump, Kamala Harris, some some someone else, no matter where you're at in here, truth is not optional for Christians. It should never be optional for Christians. And that means even when truth is really difficult and we don't like it, we don't like what the truth is. It shouldn't be optional for Christians. So I'm just gonna we need to have that commitment. Also, we need to have a commitment to care deeply about religious liberty. And I I think I I am gonna say this, and I think it goes without saying, but I I in this environment it doesn't. That religious uh freedom for all religions, right? This is the idea that I think we've come to in our modern expression of Americanism is that we are a pluralistic society, and in that sense, we care deeply about the religious liberty of all. Also, we should care about deeply about evidence. Evidence. The the the reasons people are telling us that something is true, the reasons they're giving us for their claim. So if the government is giving us a claim about something, we should ask for evidence, reasons, data, primary sources. Third, I think we need to kind of refuse just the luxury of just getting angry and being upset. We might be looking for something to be upset about. Persecution is very real. It's real for Christians around the world, it's been real in Christian history. And I just would want to make sure that we don't dilute or somehow somehow minimize or or denigrate the idea of what an a martyr is and someone who's persecuted is. Um, we wouldn't want to cheapen that definition by calling things persecution that aren't. So I think we should really take anti-Christian bias seriously without becoming dick becoming like addicted to the idea that we're we're victims. One last thing I would say, but I'll give you a chance to respond, Will, if there's anything.

SPEAKER_02 12:57

I got anything.

SPEAKER_00 12:58

I always like to hear you thought. So that's cool. So here's the last thing. I think there's a difference between a policy agreement or a policy disagreement, rather, right? Was hey, the government is taking a position that Christians or Christians under certain interpretation, denomination Christians might oppose abortion policy, gender policy, vaccine policy, education policy, right? All this stuff that could be wrong. Those policies for sure can be wrong. We can debate policy, but it doesn't mean it's persecution automatically. I also think discrimination is different than policy disagreement, and that's when a Christian is treated actually worse than other people in a in a comparable apples to apples situation. And then I think persecution is when the state or society actually imposes real penalties because of someone's allegiance to Christ or their obedience to conscience like surveillance, loss of employment, denial of equal access, certainly any kind of violence, things like that. So we are trying to figure out did the Biden administration punish Christians? And we're gonna jump into the claims. What do you think? Well, you ready for this, dude?

SPEAKER_01 14:17

Well, yeah, the the Biden administration probably did target Christians because Christians are the largest believers in the country.

SPEAKER_00 14:28

Target Christians intentionally as an act because they're Christians, as Christians. Target Christians.

SPEAKER_01 14:35

Yeah, yeah. Obviously, I've got my own views. I don't think he did, but I'll let the I'll let the conversation sort of uh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:42

Yeah, no worries. So here's the first thing the face act prosecutions. Okay, so here's the key finding, right? We got this report, and here's what it says. The Biden DOJ aggressively persecuted, sorry, prosecuted Freud and Freudian slip there, prosecuted nonviolent pro-life Christian demonstrators under the face act while responding less aggressively to violent acts against pregnancy resource centers. So basically, it points to prosecutions of pro-like pro-life activists, Mark Hauck, harsh sentencing requests, aggressive arrest tactics like showing up and arresting people at gunpoint, and allegedly dis alleged dispers disparities, rather, sorry, I can't speak today, between pro-life and pro-abortion act defendants. So essentially, they said that the Biden DOJ prosecutors sought an average of 26.8 months for pro-life defendants versus 12.3 months for pro-abortion defendants. And if federal law was applied more harshly to Christian pro-life actors than to similarly situated people in a apples to apples comparison, pro-abortion actors, then that definitely I think could show some discrimination or selective enforcement. So what is what did you find about that, Will, as you're doing your research? Is this a legitimate act of what's the deal with these sentences? Is this is this something that's going on? What did you find?

SPEAKER_01 16:19

Well, it's I I don't I don't think it's fair to say that you can compare apples to apples personally in in this particular situation. So the FACE Act just stands for freedom of access to clinic entrances. And, you know, it has been sort of like it it was originally created here. I I because I wrote about it, I think, in my very first or second one. You know, it was it was created as a response to the threats against abortion clinics. So in the 90s, if you recall, there's a lot of violence. There was an abortion provider, Dr. David Gunn, who was murdered. Some of the groups that were responsible were groups like Operation Rescue, and as a result, it was introduced into Congress by Senator Ted Kennedy and Representative Chuck Schumer. And, you know, had fair, you know, mediocre bipartisan support in the Senate. It's like 69 to 30, and in the House, it was like 40, 241 to 174 or something like that. Signed into law into 1994, had overwhelming success since its beginning. There was actually a government accountability office report that was created in 1998 that talked about the overwhelming success it's had on protecting abortion clinics. And and the reason that you can't really compare apples to apples is because number one, an abortion clinic is an abortion clinic, and a church or religious place is that, right? The act is designed to essentially, you know, not like you can't you can't prevent people from accessing those services. So you can't like block somebody from going to church, or you can't block somebody from wanting to, you know, go into an abortion clinic. The reason that you don't see a lot of face prosecutions on churches is because churches are already protected by several other much harsher federal statutes. I mean, they actually have like hate crime statutes. So for instance, here, because I I wrote this down too. So in my in my in my first first one, you know, there is like oh gosh, Church Arson Prevention Act. So, you know, somebody, you know, throws a maltov cocktail to a church, like like would would the government want to apply the Face Act to that? No. Why? Because like the criminal probably wouldn't get nearly as much time than they would under this hate crime one. So there's Hate Crimes Prevention Act, 18 USC 249. You know, that's that's another one that that's out there. And then um, you know, but but also like not all of the prosecutions actually lead to arrests. So there's there's a number of ones that are still out there that have been open, you know, even through Trump's first term. So so and then and then the the last thing I'll say about this is that it would be incorrect to say that the Biden administration, you know, intentionally targeted Christians. I mean, number one, he's a Catholic, and and again, like I'm not the I'm not the uh faithful host, but but I I think there's probably enough carryover, perhaps, to to say that why would he be out trying to punish him like his own faith? I mean, that doesn't make any sense. But while he was in office, he actually launched a couple of of different like interagency initiatives. Remember, because during his term, the DOMS decision, you know, that was still a big thing. So, so there was sort of like rises of attacks against like pro-life, you know, pregnancy centers and stuff like that, and in the religious community. So he launched the Protecting Places of Worship, Interagency Policy Committee. The DOJ also expanded its place to worship initiative, which like offered like educational materials, you know, about land use protections under Aur Lupa, the religious land use and institutionalized persons act. So yeah, I I think it's a pretty weak argument for um for them to say that you know Biden was intentionally targeting people for the FACE Act.

SPEAKER_00 20:37

Yeah, no, I I I can appreciate that. You know, I I take a slightly different view of it. I mean, I I think that I I don't necessarily trust right the the motivations of this task force, right? So it's not like I am looking at this and saying, oh yeah, I I really want this task force to prove to me that I'm being persecuted as a white male Christian. I do think that there is enough in this face act to to raise concern, like just with on on the face, not to be like silly, right? But the differences in those in those 26.8 months pro-life versus 12.3 months. Now, the question though that should be next, right, is just because the government is claiming this, do I therefore think that it's true? Okay, or is there something there potentially hidden, some premises that are hidden that they haven't brought out, evidence, agenda that they have that they're not being honest about? I mean, really, it maybe they are just being honest about it. I mean, if you look at the rest of the report, again, you it's very, very much Christian. Let's go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 21:56

I I I know okay, I'll I'll I'll take that back. I'm fairly certain that that I you know know why the report is is that way. You know, number one, and and the very first substack in the series of Wait Worthy Press ones, you know, I I talked a little bit about like. The persecution complex. So survey after survey, if you are a white Christian, you feel like the most persecution. Yeah, you do. Like more so than like Muslims, more so than it's like, okay, I get it. So it's like when we are trying to talk about something that could potentially like affect you know your, I don't know, your existence. I don't that's a bad way to say it, but but it's just like, you know, as as the white population decreases because there are more like people that are like multi-ethnic, like there is sort of this sense of like, hey, we're gonna lose something, right? Regardless of that, you know, if you were to look at any sort of PRI survey and and look at the things that Christians really care about and the things that they really hate, like all of that just comes through the report. I mean, it's like like like I mean, take the report, throw it in a chat GPT, ask it like what's the the top five things the report cares about. It'll say, like, you know, LGBTQ, you know, trans, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then you look up a PRI survey and be like, oh, it kind of matches. It's like, yeah, these are their top items. So, anyways, go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 23:35

No, I really no, I appreciate that. I appreciate that point. And, you know, I think that it's really, really important for, again, the Christian to say, I care about truth, right? We're going back to our foundational, I care about truth. And truth is often in the details, the devil is in the details, right? And so when I look at something, I can say, hey, man, wow, they're they're looking 26.8 months for pro-life defendants versus 12.3 months for pro-abortion. What's up with that? Like, that's crazy.

SPEAKER_01 24:03

Well, again, wait, can you say those numbers again?

SPEAKER_00 24:07

26.8 months, they were the Dyton DOJ prosecutors sought an average of 26.8 months for pro-life defendants versus 12.3 months for pro-abortion defendants. So basically, they wanted longer sentences for pro-life. The question, of course, is are they comparable crimes? That would be the first thing. You assume they are, right? You assume that they are, but are they comparable crimes?

SPEAKER_01 24:34

Well, are they that does a Biden report like identify what pro-abortion?

SPEAKER_00 24:39

No, see, that's the thing too. Like, that's kind of what I'm getting at. Like, definitions are extremely important in all this, because you could say pro-abortion, pro-life, and you mean something by that. But until that's defined, we don't know, right? And I don't think I can search it up, but I don't I don't remember it defining that. Also, we don't know about different like I know sentences, like one something done in the evening. Oftentimes they can't give the same max sentence. They can't there, there are so many different like disparities that could potentially be there, right? They might not be comparable if suspects they were unknown, evidence could have been weaker in certain cases. There's all sorts of things that happen, the complication in the system, and and again, start to unravel and ask what would it take? How do we know that the contributing factor that gave them longer sentences that actually caused the DOJ rather to push for longer sentences? How do we know that that actually is anti-Christian bias, as opposed to something else? As opposed to maybe even even if it was ideological, again, you've made the point that Christians have different ideologies. So maybe anti-conservative Christian bias. How do we know that that's what was driving it, as opposed to any number of contributing factors that might create that? Again, I'm you could say, well, trust the government. Well, I don't really want to trust the government. I actually want to dig in and I'm trying to ask the kinds of questions people would want to ask to get to the truth. Because if there is an issue, the disparity is significant. It raises a question, but it doesn't prove bias unless there's an actual apples to apples comparison. And what you've just said is you've made a case that there isn't an apples to apples comparison, which then will make someone, hey, let's go check this out to see if we can find does that does that make sense?

SPEAKER_01 26:50

Yeah, it it does a little bit. I I I I would probably Yeah, I I would I would characterize the report more like a collection of grievances that forces you to ask if whether or not Christians are being persecuted. And I think the report does that job well. Like, because like it's gonna like I've already looked at some articles from you know Family Research Council and Fox News, and it's just like mass, anti-Christian, whatever. So it's like the like it, it's almost like the the details aren't even that important. I mean, like anybody that spent 30 minutes just like fact-checking one of the claims would be like, why is it like what what why why is the fact that you know transgender day of visibility that happened to fall on Easter, you know, like like evidence of mass discrimination, you know, against against against Christians?

SPEAKER_00 27:47

Because there's an assumption that it is, right? And and and and that's kind of what I'm getting at. Like you have to get to the assumption, the actual place of the controversy, the place that because so many people leave out premises, they leave out inferences and assumptions that they're making, and and then they're proving it. Hey, look, I'm it's absolutely can't you see that it's anti-Christian bias? Look, it's clear they're giving more to pro-life or you know, more or longer sentences of pro-life than to pro-abortion. Okay, that is appealing to someone's elephant, it's appealing to the thing that people already believe. They already believe. No, I'm again, I'm not saying it's not worth investigating. I think it is.

SPEAKER_01 28:30

Although, okay.

SPEAKER_00 28:31

Go ahead. No, no, no, you go.

SPEAKER_01 28:34

The fact that it appeals to the elephant, and and for for those that aren't you know Jonathan Hyde fanatics like we are. So, so it's it's sort of this this metaphor of like the elephant or the writer. The elephant is all about intuition, the writer is all about reasoning. Jonathan Haidt's sort of work talks about how you know our our our intuition comes before our reasoning. Basically, like the way we kind of our gut feeling is is what drives the day. And and our writer, our the reasoning part kind of just helps prove us right, like our cognitive biases. So, like when you read a report like this, it it's almost like explicitly written to exercise your elephant. And when when you're I do agree with that, when your intuition in your elephant is activated, like the threshold by which you you use to fact-check things goes down.

SPEAKER_00 29:27

Um your skeptical dial gets gets turned down.

SPEAKER_01 29:32

Oh yeah. So so so like so if if if you read the report like from the viewpoint of can I believe this report, like you're you probably won't even you know think twice about fact-checking it. If you read the report from the viewpoint that I did, like like do I have to do I have to believe this report? Then then you read it with the level of skepticism and you fact-check stuff.

SPEAKER_00 29:54

Turn up, turn up the skeptical dial, be especially when you're gonna read something that you know you're gonna agree with. Right? Because you know that you know your biases are gonna be gonna be going. So you probably should even turn down the skeptical dial a little bit and suspend belief a little bit when it's someone you don't agree with, so you can enter into their worldview a little bit and understand it and gain some empathy, gain some understanding. I think this is so crucial when it comes to report. Yeah, but that's not just about a report because it's about people in our lives because they're gonna talk about the report and they're gonna have, well, didn't you see the report that came out? And that's fine. We want to be, again, always looking for truth, critical thinkers, looking for evidence and facts. So let's move on. You ready to move on to FBI scrutinizes traditional Catholics?

SPEAKER_02 30:47

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 30:49

Yay! Our next fun topic at the FBI's scrutiny of traditional Catholics. So the claim in the report is the Biden FBI investigated, monitored, tracked, and scrutinized traditional Catholics who had engaged in no criminal misconduct. So basically, the report relies on the Richmond FBI memo that can that that was concerning radical traditionalist Catholics called Rad Rad Trad or Trad Rad or something like that, Catholics. I thought that's cool, rad trend. So and its use of extremist risk language, references to SBLC style categories, allegations that the Catholic parishes or clergy were treated as potential intelligence services or sorry, sources. So essentially, the FBI comes in, they're investigating this person that's within a church, and then uh investigating. They they saw this, and actually the account itself, the report itself got had an invert internal investigation done, I think, by the IG and basically found it to be faulty. So we did see that, I believe, uh in an investigation of it. But what do you think about this? Essentially, it was about the weaponization of the Johnson amendment. So what do you think about this Biden IRS investigated? Oh, sorry, I I looked at the wrong thing. What do you think about this Richmond sorry, FBI memo and all this stuff with the rad trad Catholics?

SPEAKER_01 32:31

Yeah, I I mean it is one of those it's another one of those things where, you know, Biden is going after those Catholics, you know, you know, the the those Catholics that that that he considers brothers and sisters. And and you're right. Like I that there was a memo and in the the the funny the funny thing was, or funny thing is, is you can kind of see a little bit of of how how much they really want to sort of take this and just and just run with it. Because the memo in in particular referenced the Southern Poverty Law Center, who is currently now being attacked by the DOJ. And you know, and the FBI basically saying, yeah, SPLC, you know, like paid a bunch of Klan members. It's like, no, that's dumb. But but no, like they they they they took sort of like this definition off of something that the SPLC had. The the IG I documentation, I believe, says something like it was not sort of like it didn't meet muster. It was like I I don't have all the details, but basically that that's what it was. There was there was a formal like letter of apology, and and like and there was no charges or anything. I mean, that like nobody went to jail. It was more of a right, you know, there was a letter that kind of made made my my feelings hurt. But you know, here's the kicker, like the FBI director was appointed by Trump. Uh Christopher.

SPEAKER_00 34:03

That is the freaking kicker. So thanks, Trump, not Biden. That's kind of the point. So yeah, I mean, this is an interesting one, right? Because I actually got introduced to the rad Trad Catholic kind of idea of like we only go to Latin services, we want to get rid of all the, you know, all the the the mass and the common language. And it was really very, very conservative, like the masses have been corrupted, and they need to get back to kind of the pure original MACA, make no wait, make Catholicism Mikka. No, that doesn't, that doesn't mcka. It doesn't work the same way as MAGA make Catholicism great away uh great again, make Catholicism great again, micka, it doesn't work. So basically though, in this particular case, the FBI had a legitimate reason to investigate this particular person, but they basically botched it and they definitely it was definitely thrown out because it got a little bit too close to this idea that they were being looked at because they were there was some kind of like uh religious extremism attached to it, or that because of their specific religious views. But it wasn't like the memo essentially said they weren't it it wasn't this intentionality at the level that they there wasn't an intentionality to try to like somehow all Catholics or even all this specific group, there were some things that they that they overstepped, but it wasn't enough to it was a it was a real issue, but it doesn't necessarily prove maybe what the report is trying to say that it proves, right? And I think that in this kind of case it's like I I struggle a little bit with this because you have different people that are going to like in in in any agency, it's massive, right? And so you're gonna have people that are making decisions, doing the things that they need to do. They might have, they might be pro-Catholic, anti-Catholic, they might, you know, and there's all sorts of different things that people views that people bring, backgrounds that people bring, decision making that people have. And so sometimes like I'm sure that these kinds of things happen, and if there's an individual actor, but it looks like in this case it was caught, it was dealt with. And so, yes, it's definitely concerning, but I I I I definitely think that Christians should be concerned. I do, but I also think that we should be really careful.

SPEAKER_01 37:10

Why why why should we be concerned?

SPEAKER_00 37:13

Well, I think that the reason that we should be concerned is that anytime, like, because I'm I I in that memo, if I understand it correctly, if my memory serves me, in the memo, there even though it's like, hey, there's not an intentionality, the reality was it it it crossed a line into a kind of viewpoint like targeting. And from from what I understood of uh of that memo. And I think that like anytime like it was enough that it had to be investigated, right? It was a it was a really it and the and essentially it was criticized by an internal investigations like memo from the inspector general or whatever. So it's a serious enough thing that I think that we should be concerned, but also say, hey, the system caught it, and the system caught it even under what you might consider a potentially, you know, hostile, you know, administration. And so even the system is still catching it. So that should be maybe even evidence force that the system is working to catch some of these things.

SPEAKER_01 38:21

Yeah, see, I would I would say, like, I would take a different view. Um please. I would I would say if if any Christian feels the least bit concerned about you know discrimination or bias or anything like that from reading the report, I would say number one, the report did its job. Like if if it moved the needle, you know, for you wondering if Christians are persecuted or not, you know, yes or no, and you're like, maybe, then like the report has has done its work. But so, yeah, go ahead. But but but the report is explicit about you know, Christians are the you know, main religion in America, and it and it also ultimately always kind of draws the point of you know, there wasn't discrimination based on somebody's belief, but the conduct, kind of their reaction to to the policy or to them to the move. And and and and I and I'm probably gonna butcher a really bad Bible story, but like I don't know what book it's in, but the story of Meshach, what's what's the other guy?

SPEAKER_00 39:30

Shadrag, Meshach, and Abendigo, it's in Daniel, Hazariah, Meshael Makamaya.

SPEAKER_01 39:38

I'm forgetting the well I should side side note is it abendigo? Like, is there a is there an in in there or is it a bed?

SPEAKER_00 39:48

A bed abednego, I think. Okay, all right. Abednego.

SPEAKER_01 39:52

Got it.

SPEAKER_00 39:53

I'm pretty sure that's what it is.

SPEAKER_01 39:55

All right. Well, well, it it's like that the the story of them going in the fire. What the report, like it the the report speaks as if Christians are being asked to go in the fire. And when you come out of the fire, you write HR and you tell them the mean guy put me in the fire. Like, that's essentially the entire report. And and it's like, I I don't think that that's okay because we are the I'm a Christian. Like, I I have never once felt like discriminated against for being a Christian. Felt discriminated for being other things, but never, never for being a Christian. And like, if I've ever felt like the need to pray either for somebody or like in in the workplace, like I just, you know, I either do it quietly or you know, or I wait till after work and then ask the person, hey, you know, like would you do you want to come to church with me? I mean, I don't I don't like people to church, but you know what I mean. Like, like there's a time and a place, and it's like if that if that comes into conflict with with the law, I mean like even like Amish people, Amish people used electricity, you know, like to go to work.

SPEAKER_00 41:10

He's like, what in the world? And by the way, it's Hananiah, Azariah, Mishel. I knew I was thinking, what is that? Those are the Hebrew names, and then they get were given bab Babylonian names.

SPEAKER_01 41:20

I was gonna say something, but I didn't want to embarrass you.

SPEAKER_00 41:24

Were you that's funny, dude? Well, no, I said thanks, babe, because my wife is the one that corrected me in the uh in the chat. I love it. No, I and I think dude, like so it when I say concerned, I mean that we should be concerned because anyone we should be we should be concerned if that happens to any faith. That's that's what I mean. Like the should we be concerned about this specific instance? Yes, it's concerning. Should we then take that and extrapolate that into Christians are being systematically persecuted in America? No, that I don't think that's a fair claim. So I just want to make sure what I'm saying is that the concern is localized to this and then what this might imply and and what this might imply. But I that because so that's kind of what my concern is, and I'm way more concerned with this kind of spirit that's saying that we are so persecuted that we need to like circle the wagons, become doomsday preppers, and get ready to fight all the enemies of God because we're being like, like that is that's not what we should do. And I think that that isn't an accurate depiction that that Christians are being persecuted in America. Now, again, that's kind of what I was saying, like the difference between policy disagreements, being persecuted, and then being discriminated against. And so I think that you can push to have certain like you know, if there's issues of legitimate discrimination, right, we want to push those. And I think that there have been issues, and that's why we have a system that's meant to correct it, if that if that makes sense. Let's do let's jump into let's how about this? I could move on to the next one, but uh for the sake of time, is there one of the is there one in particular of these key findings that you want to highlight well from the report that you feel like if not, I'll jump into the next one and that'll just basically be the last one that we do.

SPEAKER_01 43:41

No, no, go go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 43:42

For the sake of time. Okay. So the next one is essentially about the IRS, the scrutiny of churches and nonprofits. So the IRS treated certain forms, the report says the IRS treated certain forms of Christian teaching and civic engagement as functionally partisan because those teachings overlap with Republican policy positions. They talked about the Christians engaged case. Christians Engaged was a or is a Texas based Christian nonprofit that encourages believers to pray, vote. And engage in civic life. In 2021, the IRS denied its application for tax exempt status. According to First Liberty, the IRS denial said that the group educated believers on national issues that are central to their belief in the Bible as the inerrant word of God, including issues such as the sanctity of life, marriage, biblical justice, free speech, borders, and immigration, and U.S. Israel relations. The IRS said those issues were typically affiliated with the Republican Party and candidates. And then Christian Engaged Own History page quotes the IRS as saying Bible teachings are typically affiliated with the Republican Party. So essentially they denied them from getting their from having the 501c3 status, but then the IRS later reversed it and granted it because of public pressure and a legal appeal. So basically, we have this instance of the IRS under the Biden administration saying that these Bible teachings are affiliated with the Republican Party and candidates, therefore they aren't given status when they were about again sanctity of life, marriage, biblical justice, free speech, borders, and immigration, and US related or US is relations. So it's an interesting tension here, right? Because you have these like policy positions that are then religious positions, and then someone is saying, hey, these are important to me. I'm uh and I'm and I'm encouraging people to vote because these are important issues, but then they don't get their 501c3 because they're told that that's more like you're you're actually uh endorsing one specific party over another, which you're not supposed to be able to do. It's about the Johnson Amendment, essentially, within this and so the Johnson Amendment is the you know, essentially the pastor speaking Yeah, speaking, but they essentially they're they I think they use this as a an example of the Johnson Amendment. Yeah, like it was being weaponized, essentially. Because it was used to deny this uh Texas-based Christian nonprofit, Christians engaged to deny their their 501c3 status. And and it was reversed, right? I definitely understand why people would be concerned about like that kind of viewpoint. You could get in a viewpoint discrimination there, and why people would be concerned about that. Public pressure did, and and then uh illegal action did get it reversed. So again, this is another instance where it shows it's almost like the report gave it, but then our systems caught it and reversed it, right? So again, it's almost like more even evidence, like if it was given and and and then no system caught it, and then they covered it up and they're like, let's keep this going, and we're gonna keep denying this, and we're gonna find other reasons. And again, it's like part of this stuff is like how much of it was I'm an IRS agent and I don't like Christians, and I got assigned to this, but maybe it was another IRS agent that liked Christians, and it would have gotten you know what I mean, it would have gone, it would have gone through, or like conservative Christians, like let me be more right, and it would have gone through. So maybe it's something like that again. Does this prove systemic? The question we're asking is not where did these instances of potential discrimination or or or bias? Okay, well, there's bias in every system, and the idea that there isn't bias in this current administration is so laughable, it's almost it's almost a joke. But so obviously, right, you're gonna have bias in every situation. The question is do the institutional constraints and the institutional tools and apparatus that's in there, will they catch it? Kind of like your immune system catches the disease, they catch it and do they correct it. And in several cases, it seemed like they did catch it and correct it. I know that's not every, there's 14 or like I don't know how many, 11 more findings that we didn't get to because this is a massive report.

SPEAKER_01 48:58

Yeah, you know, in in one of the cases, and I I don't know if it's the one that you were just talking about, but it was it dealt with something similar where there was like a kind of viewpoint discrimination issue. Again, when you when you sort of peel back the onion, it was like these these staff, you know, workers were trying to create a way to to you know gain efficiency in separating these applications, you know. So like so they they came up with these sort of key terms for for both left and right. I don't think the port mentions the the left part, but and then you know that that's the thing that came out. They got discipline. It was like something, I mean, anybody that's ever worked at a company knows there's an employee that's gonna do something stupid, right? So but but this is actually a little bit this is indicative of a much larger pattern, in my opinion. My my my last substack, I I I I included something in there that that's been a theme. So, and I I hate that I'm pushing my sub stack so much, but I guess that's what better place to do it, right?

SPEAKER_00 50:03

Where else would you do it?

SPEAKER_01 50:04

So there You gotta do it, bro. There is a there's a really great book um by Sarah Posner called Unholy, Why White Evangelicals Worship at the Altar of Trump. And she has a a line in in her book that I've I have used over and over again. And and it's a line that she uses to kind of just describe kind of like the tactic that that's used amongst like Christian nationalists, and especially like a lot of the white evangelicals that follow Trump. She writes, you amplify a single local flare-up into a national issue emblematic of elite liberal orthodoxy run amok. So I I took that, expanded a little bit on it, and and basically came up with like this this very repeatable pattern that you can pick up on almost like all of these cases. So the first is you identify a local incident, the next is you blow it up into a symbol of national crisis, and then three, frame it as evidence of a coordinated assault on traditional values. So you can you can take that same sort of pattern and apply it to you know the cake shop baker, to the Kennedy v. Bremerton, to the you know, the marriage license clerk lady, and and it and it it's it's over and over again. And I'm gonna give you just just one, because I I included in my substack. So identify a local incident. And what I did is I I took I took actual text from from the document and then applied it. So identify a local incident. So in the report, it says, and in 2023, this is a quote, in 2023, a Catholic hospital in Oklahoma was told to extinguish the flame of a religious candle or risk losing its participation in Medicare and Medicaid, including children's health insurance program funding. Just quote unquote, because my my day job, I'm a safety guy. That's a fire issue. So that's so that that's why. So that's identify a local incident. That's the local incident. The next blow it blow it up into a symbol of national crisis. So in in the report, key finding 14, the Biden administration regulated and suppressed religious speech that it did not like and curtailed Christians' ability to jointly worship and study the Bible. So this is all in the same section. So then the last is frame it as evidence of a coordinated assault on traditional values. So this is a quote from the report. Same section. The Biden administration engaged in anti-Christian bias, seeking to limit Christians' ability to act in concert with their sincerely held beliefs in their homes, in the workplace, and in the public square. So it's like you could take just about every single one of these stories, you know, in the report and kind of apply that and be like, yeah, like it's just a small little thing that they that they amplify. Now, the the last thing I'll say about this, and I know we gotta we gotta move on, but there are a few cases that I think do warrant a little closer scrutiny. I think the the vaccine thing deserves a little bit closer look. There were like thousands of cases of of like denials.

SPEAKER_00 53:19

Uh like 50 a day or something like that, or something like that.

SPEAKER_01 53:22

Yeah, I think that deserves to be looked at a little bit more. Whether or not they were all Christians is yet to be determined. I I couldn't find that information when I when I was digging into it. Right, right. Um, because it's like I don't think they disclose that. So so so that that for sure. I even said the last substack and part seven of it, I'm at eight parts now, but the use of force in one of the cases that was presented in the 49-page report, Paul Vaughn, who's actually even testified in front of the committee, you know, he talked about hey, agent showed up at his house, you know, he was like getting ready to take his kids to school, they're all armed and so on and so forth. And it's like, yeah, that sucks. Like, I feel that. You know, you know, we we can argue, you know, the reason that you know they even had to show up there in the first place, you know, all of those I think are good questions. But, you know, I think that excessive use of force is is a bipartisan initiative that that we all can probably get get on board with. So, so I I think that with the report, you know, if if a small minority, or maybe large majority, of a bigger majority can, you know, or can claim that they have disproportionate discrimination levied against them from the federal government. Um, and in the report, they say, hey, if you don't protect the biggest religion in the world or in the in the country, you know, what hope do you little religions have? Uh paraphrasing, but that's essentially, I think, like one of the last sentences. Which is a crazy statement, right? Like, we have to protect the big guys in order to protect the little guys. Like that just that doesn't seem like a very Christian like like philosophy. Um maybe I'm wrong, you know, like I'm I'm the political host, not the faithful host.

SPEAKER_00 55:18

No, I think you're I think you're probably on there. And you know, the there was one that I've that uh we didn't really get to get into, but the idea that but I think it's an an important the the whole Liberty paying$14 million in fines while Michigan State paid$4.55 million after NASA and then the comparison with Penn State and Yeah, it's a quantity issue.

SPEAKER_01 55:46

The the students at Liberty brought the suit because there was like a reporting thing, and then also due to just cost adjustments like there's cost adjustments, yes, and and and the clarity fine.

SPEAKER_00 55:59

So you can look at this right and say, well, how in the world can you give? Now, again, that doesn't mean that that Liberty should get a$14 million fine, which again they've reassessed. I think they settled less, right? But that Michigan State should pay$4.5 million because Liberty, what they did was so much worse than Michigan State, which you might think, well, well, of course that's what it means. That seems like that's what it's saying, right? If you're pet to pay$14 million, it's a much bigger, almost triple the fine of a of a devastating right with Larry Nass over 300 victims, unbelievable sexual abuse is just horrifying. And then liberty. So what's going on when you get into the details, though, this this Clary act, it's an act that they were both um charged under. They don't it's not about moral, like the moral severity of something, but on the basic reporting disclosure that the that the university gives, compliance failures, warnings that they receive. So there's like several other things that go into it. And so essentially, because of the amount of violations and then changes, it could be different. Now, again, I uh it's it's definitely something that's curious to me, but again, that just might be my my bias that's right there. Like, hey, that needs to be investigated, and and there's a report that essentially like 70% of these violations were targeted 10% of the schools and they were religious, but this wasn't from a government report, it was from some other organization, so it was a little bit more you know, they're gonna criticize a Southern Paul uh, you know, Southern Law Poverty Center, Southern Poverty Law Center, Southern Poverty Law Center, they're gonna SPLC, they're gonna criticize them, then are they and then they're gonna go use like another organization. So, like again, are we are we applying the same standards? And these are all the questions we need to ask. So that for the Christians coming to this report, the question is not, hey, do we need to come here and we all need to run to the hills, we're all gonna be collected and you know persecuted today. No, I don't think that's the case. And obviously under this administration, those who are in conservative Christianity have not very much to worry about, doesn't seem to me at the moment. But the bigger question though is like we want to have a place of religious liberty where truth is the most important thing. And where we're not just given a report and it basically just takes us where it wants us to go and and we just believe the findings. No, we we apply more skepticism to things we believe in, suspension of beliefs to things that we're already hostile to to give us more empathy, and I think you start to use method to figure out can I actually look at the evidence here to see what's going on. But I I I think it's good. I think we need to keep looking at this and asking asking the right questions. Anything else you want to say about that report, Will? Nope.

SPEAKER_01 59:26

Nope. I uh I don't want to look at that report again. Although there is going to be one more report that will come out in a year. That's sort of the last final thing of the executive order.

SPEAKER_00 59:36

There you go. And then we'll, I'm sure we'll talk about that one when it comes out.

SPEAKER_01 59:41

That's assuming free speech is still a thing, then.

SPEAKER_00 59:45

Let's hope. Let's just assume it will be. Let's just assume it will be. So let's talk about just for a couple of minutes here what we got coming up in the summer, the church and state 250. So, well, can you kind of walk us through what's happening on that July? It's starting in July for the Church and State 250, our big project.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:09

Yeah, so church and state 250 plus is a project by Faith of Politics. And we are going to be looking at over 250 plus years of religion in America. And we are going to be doing that with an all-star cast. If you watch our show, you probably can already guess who we're gonna have on. And yeah, we're gonna start with the doctrine of discovery. We're gonna have Mark Charles come on and talk to us about that, and then Dan Hawk is gonna come on and talk to us about Manifest Destiny. We'll have Matthew Sutton, who just wrote a really great book, Chosen Land. He is going to sort of you know set the vision for the rest of the time period. And, you know, after that, we'll talk about the founding. We'll have folks like Rock Morton, John Fia. Then we're gonna get into some of the part of American history where religion was really trying to fight for power, and then kind of what that power struggle looked like, specifically with regards to like Jim Crow and the Bible use and slavery. So we'll have like Robbie Jones on to talk about that, a couple other folks. Then we'll have we'll move more into kind of like the religious right territory. You know, we're gonna be speaking with Jamar Tisby, Kristen Dumay, and then we'll end the series kind of with sort of you know the present day, if you will. Starting us off will be uh both Whitehead and Perry talking about Christian nationalism. Matthew Taylor will be on to scare us to death about, you know, kind of what all these Christian supremacist movements look like. And uh yeah, and then Brian Kayler is going to, you know, close out the the entire show from Word and Way, and he's gonna just talk about where we are today and all the Bible verses and the DOD and DHS and everywhere.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:59

That's great. Well, yeah, and and this has been such a uh cool like program to work on so far, and and and it's been pretty cool to like meet with these authors again, talk to them, and see like it all laid out and once like this history of Christianity in America. And it's it's it's pretty, it's it's different than you think. It it's really challenging to me. Like, there's so many parts of it, even again jumping into this, that challenge me with my the assumptions that I had, even the assumptions that I started to make again doing this show, and I started to feel like I really know what's going on, and then I get hit again, and I'm like, wait, well, maybe it isn't as like secular as I thought it was, or what all is different, like, dude, it's just it's been it's been an adventure. So definitely I think you guys are gonna love it, and we want you to be a part of it, share it with people. We're gonna put posts out there. One thing you can do to help us is share those posts, take them, share them on your socials so other people could become aware this is a really important work. We want to keep doing this, and we need your help.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:17

Yeah, you know, and and I would say too, I mean, it's it's like Josh and I are terrible promoters. Like like we read the books, we you know, we write the questions, we talk to the folks. It's like there's a there's there's a lot of stuff about like content creators and whatnot that we're just not, I mean, we're like middle-aged men, you know, like so so so the best way you can help us is just sharing it. I mean, if you ever are looking around and be like, I really wish more people would get it, you know? Like the best way to do it is is to share. Unlike like all the things you hear all the content creators say, like this this algorithm thing. We should do an episode on algorithms.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:56

Um yeah, like and subscribe, dude, and share. We need it. And we appreciate you guys a bunch. Will thanks for hanging.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:06

Yeah, well, I'm at home. I got nowhere else to be.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:09

Got nowhere else to be, nowhere else to go. But it's always good to connect and we'll keep digging into these things as we as we go along. But until next time, guys, God bless. Keep your conversations not right or left, but up, and we'll see ya at the next POV. Peace.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:29

I just hit stop.