Derek: 00:27

Welcome back to the Fourth Way podcast. In this episode, I had the privilege of interviewing doctor Kathleen Wellman, author of Hijacking History. Her book is about homeschool and Christian school curriculum and about some of the propaganda that you find in there, some of the common themes. To be completely open, I was raised in a Christian school. I had a lot of homeschool and Christian friends.

Derek: 00:54

Went to a Christian college. I am currently part of an evangelical denomination doing missions work overseas. I worked in a Christian school, and our family currently homeschools our kids. So I hope that gives me some credibility here and that I am not at all trying to dismantle some other group. I'm not talking about, you know, those crazy evangelical fundamentalist Christians.

Derek: 01:21

Those evangelicals are largely my group. And I agree with a lot of their their theological ideas and, some of their rationale for, some of the things that they do, like homeschooling. So I hope that provides me with some credibility that I'm not just trying to pick on some people that I think are crazy. Rather, what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to hold my own group accountable to take a true look at how we handle history and propaganda and education. Now I I'm not at all saying that it's only my group that propagandizes, but I want to do the whole taking the log out of our own eyes first.

Derek: 02:01

Let's have Christians weed out propaganda in our own institutions first, and then we can start looking at how terrible propaganda is elsewhere. If we're gonna go through the time and effort to create alternative institutions of education, then we should actually make them good, make them true. That would be a great start for education. This is why we are doing a lot of false prophet episodes this season. The church, when she values position, power, influence, and comfort over truth, is wicked and dangerous and filled with all sorts of moral compromises.

Derek: 02:38

And that hypocrisy is a terrible stench that turns everybody else off. She when she does this, she perpetuates injustice. This injustice, it's one of the two main things that Israel was judged for in the Old Testament. Sure. Idolatry is one of those things, but a lack of orthopraxia, of right action, of justice, That's the other main action which makes a nation Babylon and worthy of exile.

Derek: 03:07

So I wanna hold us accountable. Of course, I expect serious backlash from those within my group because as we've said a hundred times already and we'll see a hundred more times this season, the propagandized are polarized. You're there with them or you're against them. There is no middle ground. There's no rational discourse.

Derek: 03:28

You can't show any weakness in your group or uncover any flaw in your group if they're propagandized. American evangelicals, just like American politics, they're a two party system. You're either in or you're out. As As you listen to this episode, you'll definitely hear some of this, as doctor Wellman talks a bit about the polarization of certain beliefs and how evangelicalism made some dividing lines which are relatively new in Christianity. One of the things I think doctor Wellman uncovers well is when she talks about how history works.

Derek: 04:02

She tells us that we ought to beware of certainty because history and life don't tend to work that way, though that's exactly how propaganda tends to work. Whether it's a domestic abuser boyfriend or a political abusing autocrat, the propagandizer wants to be the ultimate source of information. What they say is true and should be followed. At least, that's what they want you to think. That's how fundamentalist Christianity tends to work too with ever tightening lines of demarcation.

Derek: 04:33

But history should be more broad than that and less certain. In fact, I love how doctor Wellman put it. She said that good history is often really boring because it's so objective. Just think about commercials on TV as just kind of an an example to help you see this in history here. If the advertisement were truly about information, then they would show you a picture of the product and a list of details about it, price, lifespan, whatever is pertinent.

Derek: 04:59

But that would be boring. Instead, what we get in an advertisement is propaganda. Beautiful models, exhilarating action, serene landscapes, happy faces. Propaganda, the infusing of values or the directing of information towards some implied value is entertaining. Plain facts are not.

Derek: 05:21

As just one example of this neat packaging, you're gonna notice that there's a section in which doctor Wellman talks about the development of a number of what she calls newer doctrines to Christianity. Now it's important to note here that I don't always agree with the guests, that I'm talking to. And and I'll point out here just, some subtle ways in which I disagree with doctor Wellman or might take a different perspective. But you have to remember as you're listening to these episodes that the point isn't generally for me to insert my thoughts or disagreements all the time, but to kind of present, something that is going to give you a more rounded perspective

Dr. Wellman: 06:04

of the discussion at hand.

Derek: 06:04

So here, doctor Wellman brings up what I think are two really representative issues of this this idea of, neat packaging as it comes from, my group, the evangelicals, particularly conservatives, and, you know, often associated with that would be fundamentalist. It's kind of hard to to draw all those, hard lines and figure out where where one group ends and one group begins. Nevertheless, doctor Wellman brings up what I think are are two important issues. And first, is gonna be she talks a little bit about how a lot of conservative evangelicals, especially fundamentalists, are going to make something like the age of the Earth a big deal today. Something that, she says is new.

Derek: 06:51

Right? To believe that that young Earth creationism is is new. Now here, I disagree with doctor Wellman. I don't think that that this idea that the Earth is young is extremely new. You know, obviously, you had people, within the last couple hundred years who are are dating the Earth to, like, six thousand years.

Derek: 07:10

But but even so, that would be relatively new in church history. But you have people all the way back who are discussing Genesis as, you know, is it is it literal six days? Is it not? Like, what does that mean? But without the discussion of evolution, there there wasn't all that much emphasis on on landing on a particular point.

Derek: 07:32

So while doctor Wellman, I think, is, maybe incorrect in terms of of saying that the belief that Earth is young is new. I think what she's correct in saying is that, the the idea that where you land on this doctrine determines whether you're truly a Christian or not, or whether you're you're Orthodox or not, that is something that is new. These hard lines in the sand on these more peripheral issues. Now a part of the reason that something like the age of the Earth has become such, an important line in the sand for a lot of fundamentalist and some conservative Christians is because of a second issue that Doctor Wallman talks about, and that is the issue of inerrancy. Now, I I have a love hate relationship with inerrancy.

Derek: 08:23

Just like I have a love hate relationship with with Calvinism. Because, as a reformed believer, right, there there are ways that you can discuss reformed theology that I think, really take in the complexities of it. But then there are also, you know, what people term Hyper Calvinism, where it's, people actually take this this idea of Calvinism and run with it, and create this hyper version of it, this hyper Calvinism. And so, there there are kind of really two visions of what Reformed Theology can be. You have this extreme version, and then you have a version that, you know, I would say is more nuanced.

Derek: 09:07

Well, the same thing sort of goes with inerrancy. I think that the idea of inerrancy is really beautiful in that in terms of, recognizing the character of God as somebody who speaks truth and somebody who is able to convey, his ideas and and to convey them accurately. And that's that's great. But some people take the idea of inerrancy and really run with it to extremes. And and, you know, so you've got groups like people who adhere to only the King James version.

Derek: 09:39

Right? God didn't even God didn't even speak, to, to in English. Right? And modern English is is only relatively new on the scene in the last five hundred years, you know, after old English. But this idea that, you can have this one right Bible, the King James Bible in English, it comes out of this idea of, like, what I would term hyperinearancy.

Derek: 10:06

And so when doctor Wellman and I talk about inerrancy, what I'm trying to to talk about isn't the doctrine of inerrancy itself, but what I would probably term hyperinearancy. And that's gonna be important to understand in our discussion. Because what I'm not trying to do is undermine the idea that God speaks truth and that we can have confidence in the Bible. What I am trying to undermine is this idea that, there's there's this hyper inerrancy that leads to some some really strange ideas like King James only ism. And also, that, there's this idea of inerrancy, which, is used as a cudgel.

Derek: 10:45

And you see this a lot of times by Young Earth creationists, people who believe that the Earth is really young. If you don't believe like they do, therefore, you don't believe what the Bible says. And since the Bible is inerrant, meaning the Bible says what I believe it says, therefore, you can't be a Christian. People like, Ken Ham, even though he might say that he doesn't believe that, I've read enough articles from him where he essentially says that. Like, I don't know how you can be a Christian if you, if you don't adhere to Young Earth Creationism.

Derek: 11:19

You you just can't take the Bible seriously. Beth Allison Barr has said similar things when it comes to the conversation of complementarianism, and egalitarianism. And so we see this a lot in in, evangelicalism and conservative Christianity, especially fundamentalism. You have this idea of inerrancy that's taken to to a certain extreme and often wielded as a a power play against people to avoid having theological discussions of of any rigor. Because I said something.

Derek: 11:53

I can show you in the Bible where it says that, at least my interpretation of it. Therefore, if you disagree with me, you are you are saying you don't believe God, and you're not taking him at his word. So I don't wanna get too much into the, the inerrancy discussion. I just wanted to clarify, what we're trying to get at in here. And I will put one link to an article that I think is helpful, which nuances, what I think inerrancy is and isn't, by, Greg Koukl.

Derek: 12:22

I don't think it's written by Greg Koukl, but his organization stands to reason. And so I think, I think that'll be good for you to read if you're interested in that aspect of it. So as I've said before and as I'm gonna continue to say, it's really important for you to understand that, what I'm trying to do in this season is to uncover some of these these sorts of things in my own group. Some ways that we have we have, taken ideas to the extreme, and how those ideas have been wielded propagandistically or, in terms of abusive power. So in this episode, that's looking at something like inerrancy and how, that can be manipulated and abused.

Derek: 13:08

In, in earlier in the season when I talked with doctor William Witt, that's taking a look at complementarianism. And I come from a complementarian position. And so, discussing with doctor Witt though, saying, hey. What do we need to be aware of? How is this, is this doctrine often used?

Derek: 13:26

And what can it lead to when you abuse it? Now the same thing just overall in the whole season. A lot of what I'm doing is looking at Christianity in ways that that it has been abused. And that's not at all because I disagree with Christianity. I am a a very staunch Christian.

Derek: 13:45

Somebody who thinks it's so important that I wanna spend the time addressing where it has, really screwed up and where it's been abused and, where there are fault lines so that we can work on those things, correct those things, and and not allow those things to become straw men for, opponents of Christianity. Because I think Christianity is true, and it is, the true hope for the world. Anyway, I know this has been a really long intro. You're not here to listen to me. But I think it's really important because more than any other episode up to this point, not in the future, I think there'll be, bigger ones in the future, but at least up to this point, this episode, I think, has the, biggest chance of making waves.

Derek: 14:37

And I don't think that there should be waves to be made here, if you understand what I'm trying to say and what my goal is. But, if you're not gonna take me graciously, and if you're not going to listen to this whole episode, but also the whole season and take this in context, I think it can be really problematic. And, if it is taken that way, I think that's prime example of propaganda in action. It's trying to say that I am I am saying something that I am absolutely not, so that you can be dismissive. And it's really convenient for my group, for conservative Christians, to be dismissive at this point.

Derek: 15:19

We don't wanna recognize our faults because that shows weakness. Polarization, in group, out group, enemies, good guys, that's what we want. So hopefully, we can see our own complexity, our own sin, and, our own fault lines, and use this as as something to make us better, not to divide us more. Do I strongly recommend playing and replaying that section where doctor Wellman goes into this aspect of history? It's, maybe the the first or second question.

Derek: 15:50

It's relatively early on in the episode. Other than that, I want you to understand just a little more about why I placed this episode where I did in the season, under race. American mythology and history, how we view ourselves, has played a significant role in how we view various groups of people, from blacks to immigrants to Middle Easterners. It has impacted politics on racial discrimination, immigration, and war. Really, all different forms of dealing with various races.

Derek: 16:20

Right? And whenever nationalism is on the rise, as it is again in the world stage, we see mythologies grow right along with othering, with racism. Understanding that what we believe about history determines how we live our present will hopefully help you to recognize the importance of today's episode. So without further ado, here is the interview with doctor Kathleen Wellman. Okay.

Derek: 16:50

So, as I as I told you in our email, I am working on a season on propaganda. And while I was doing research, I came across your book, Hijacking History. And and that stuck out to me a lot because, I went through a Christian, to a Christian school, and we used a lot of the material that, that you actually reference in your book. And I've been coming to learn a lot more about, the culture that I grew up in and and a lot of that culture, which I'm still in, especially since 2016. That was that was kind of an eye opening experience for me and and a lot of other friends in my group.

Dr. Wellman: 17:27

Right.

Derek: 17:29

So I I, I would really I wanna talk to you today about that propagandization that goes into, some of the the curriculum, that I experienced. But before we get into that, I would love for you to just kind of give a a brief introduction as to, who you are and how you came to write Hijacking History.

Dr. Wellman: 17:49

Okay. I am, trained as an early modern European historian. I worked primarily on the connections between science and culture in France, but because I took students to Paris for twenty summers I also did a book on Queens and Mistresses of Renaissance France, so I never expected to write something like Hijacking History. But I was asked to review textbooks produced to conform with state standards for world history, and I discovered some very strange standards were specified and there were some very ahistorical claims inserted into history, and so I went down and testified before the State Board of Education, and I was looking for where the very strange ideas I found in those standards and in those textbooks might have come from, and I found this set Alright.

Derek: 18:56

Alright. So your your book is obviously called Hijacking History. You know, you could have you could have gone with hijacking science, hijacking, whatever. But, you know, obviously, you landed on history. And I was somebody who who taught in, in a various school settings, but I was in public school for a couple years.

Derek: 19:15

You know, my association with history teachers is like, you know, the football coaches. We give we give people that job who, you know, it's really not important. History just doesn't matter. So and, of course, that's stereotyping. But, you know, science and math, especially since, since the cold war, are kind of the bread and butter of school and what we seem to value as a society.

Derek: 19:38

So, why why is history so important to focus on, and why do people care so much about history if it doesn't seem like we really value it?

Dr. Wellman: 19:50

Okay. We certainly don't value it in education, and you could say we maybe don't value education at all. I think the assumption about coaches teaching history is that you know to teach math and science you might have to know something, but the presumption is coaches can read from textbooks just as well as anyone else, right? So it doesn't matter. I think we all need to be concerned that the teaching of history is also devalued now at the university level because humanities are devalued and education is just job training, but history remains salient in public discussion even if less so in actual educational settings, because it's a fundamental way that a society imparts a collective memory to the next generation, and it is often taken to convey a society's values, and when those values are in conflict, wars over the teaching of history erupt.

Dr. Wellman: 20:58

And political autocrats almost immediately decide that the way to mold public opinion in their favor is to mandate a particular teaching of history, and we're seeing this now in Hungary, Turkey, Russia, Brazil. Autocrats understand that history molds public opinion and molds the public opinion of the next generation. So I think that's why it's so important.

Derek: 21:28

Yeah. One of the quotes that you you mentioned at least once, but I think several times in the book was from, Arthur Schlesinger junior. You said, history is to the nation as memory is to the individual. And I thought that was such a a concise quote, you know. And and and we see this, like, in Hollywood.

Derek: 21:44

I just came from watching, the second Black Panther film. And and a lot of the the core of the film, I mean, it dealt with empire and all kinds of things, but a lot of the core was, you know, who are the the the new, leader? Who are you going to be? Are you going to be, you know, merciful and benevolent? Or are you going to be vengeful?

Derek: 22:03

Like, what is your identity? And the identity is what guides your decisions. And so that that just struck me as like, oh, that's perfect for for our conversation because, you know, our what we view as our history is who we are, and who we are kind of leads us to where we're going.

Dr. Wellman: 22:19

Right.

Derek: 22:21

So when it comes to, religious education, do you believe that that parochial schools and private schools are or have historically been shelters from from these sorts of opposing viewpoints that would, maybe alter the identity that those those groups would like to maintain? Do, do the private schools and such, do they often prevent ideas from being tested in the intellectual free market?

Dr. Wellman: 22:53

I think they are increasingly intended to be such. History of education, I don't know, so I okay so I went to parochial schools and my mother was sort of interested in history and would go through textbooks and tell me things she thought were erroneous. I don't have a sense that I lived in a different world than people who went to public schools. And now that I'm teaching students who come from these Christian schools that have had a really explicit ideological historical narrative, many of my students, particularly students who were homeschooled with these curricula, really feel betrayed when they get into a college history class by what they were taught in their high school educations in particular. I mean, they have a sense of cultural dissonance that I was I do not think was characteristic of parochial schools, and I think that part of that reason might be that religious schools founded by fundamentalists mostly since the 1970s also really wanted to separate people from what they saw as malign cultural influences in a way that parochial schools were originally founded to prevent Catholics from reading the King James Bible, the wrong Bible in in school, right?

Derek: 24:37

Yeah.

Dr. Wellman: 24:38

But not not for cultural separatism, I don't believe.

Derek: 24:42

Okay. So maybe, there's a difference between, maybe more Catholic, schools that are that are older and, I guess what were originally known as segregation academies and and, the protestant movement of Christian schools starting around the seventies.

Dr. Wellman: 24:57

I think so.

Derek: 24:58

Okay. So let let me push back a little bit if I was gonna, you know, be somebody from from, you know, the the more Christian school side. You know, as I was reading Elul on propaganda and and some other people, they they talk about how education is a primary place where propaganda occurs, and that makes sense. I mean, you you train kids, and that's a that's a perfect place to propagandize. We recognize that in southern books.

Derek: 25:26

Right? You know, the the lost cause narrative that's even still in in some, textbooks, even in public schools. So I think that probably everyone tries to propagandize some ideas to some extent. So, you know, if I'm a a conservative Christian and I say, okay. You're right.

Derek: 25:46

My school might propagandize, some things that you don't like, but I guarantee you that if I put them in a public school, they're gonna get propagandized by some other ideas too. Like, doesn't everybody do propaganda, and what what makes, this propaganda that you're uncovering different?

Dr. Wellman: 26:07

Okay, I certainly agree that education is a forum where propaganda can occur, and I suspect that many people who would be coming at this from the Christian schooling side would be uncomfortable with cultural ideas in the same way we saw these issues raised and expanded from, critical race theory into ideas about gender and sexuality, etcetera. I would object that history teaching I don't believe is one form of propaganda or another. I think there are incredible number of history textbooks that are so objective they are killingly dull as a result, right. And I don't think, when historians criticize, other textbooks as conveying propaganda or as being erroneous. I don't they're often not doing it from an ideological point of view.

Dr. Wellman: 27:13

One thing they're objecting to is that they don't meet the standards of critical cons analysis or historical consensus. And I think one of the things that makes people argue that more recent history is propagandistic is because it isn't what they learned in school, but their notion of history is that it is static and unchanging, and that a narrative that they were comfortable with, you know George Washington and the cherry tree and all of our you know favored myths is what should still be taught. And I think that the public generally doesn't understand very much at all about how history gets written or how it gets evolved or the fact that historians ask different questions and they uncover new evidence and it changes our interpretations and those interpretations then get included in textbooks in a way that's pretty unobjectionable I would want to argue and doesn't have very much to do with propaganda. And one thing I found about these textbooks is I think any time that people insist on myths, we need to pay attention to why the myths were constructed, the time in which they were constructed, what they were constructed to achieve, And if you are still teaching a history curricula based on nineteenth century myths constructed largely in the aftermath of the Civil War to undo Reconstruction, we have a problem, right?

Dr. Wellman: 29:02

And I think that's a particular case. And so these curricula are really ahistorical in that they are presenting a truth. I I don't think historians could ever write saying, I am writing the truth, much less that I'm writing to tell you what God did.

Derek: 29:26

Alright. Yeah. I think, that last five minutes, I'm gonna go back and listen to several times because there was there was a lot there. I think that's gonna be the bread and butter right there. But maybe you can, maybe you can unpack it a little bit more and and, help us to see.

Derek: 29:41

Because as I think through history, you know, as I'm going through this season, I'm I'm getting into lots and lots of injustices and false beliefs, you know, going back to the early nineteen hundreds, Buck versus Bell and forced sterilization. You're going, you know, further back and further back, you know, to to Haiti and colonization and just all of the terrible things.

Dr. Wellman: 30:02

She could much be grim.

Derek: 30:04

Oh, yeah. It's it's terrible. I've I mean, I was cynical before going into this, and now I I don't know. I'm a nihilist maybe. But so if I'm thinking back to somebody in school in the the nineteen hundreds south, right, they're being propagandized about black people.

Dr. Wellman: 30:26

Mhmm.

Derek: 30:26

You go to the 17 Hundreds, they're being propagandized about slavery. You go to, you know, the the 15 Hundreds, and you've got you've got a a sparse few amount of people like, de las Casas and and other people who are saying, no. No. No. We shouldn't we shouldn't be like this to the Native Americans.

Derek: 30:44

But most people, right, they they think that they're savages and and whatnot. So historians of every every day and age, it seems, were propagating terrible, terrible ideas, to those that they educated. So today, if if we're going to, how can we have any faith that, like, okay, well, now modern historians, if we get historians on the school board today, they're going to get it right, when nobody else in all of history, it seems, has, has gotten human rights and justice and all that stuff right when they're teaching history?

Dr. Wellman: 31:25

I would like to think we're getting it better. Getting it right, propaganda well, I think historians recognize the context of ideas that are promoted, right? And they can recognize what is conventional and what's progressive and what's repressive, but, so I mean as a historian or as somebody looking back, right, you would wanna examine why people in the fifteenth century or sixteenth century had these attitudes towards Native Americans, right? And what allowed de las Casas and the few arguing against it to emerge, and how did that gather steam and who were the people in the society who were able to articulate new views, right? I mean, one of the most fascinating experiences I've had teaching is teaching about early modern women's history and teaching the documents about witchcraft from the fifteenth century through the seventeenth century when people finally began to say, maybe torture doesn't work, maybe this isn't a good thing.

Dr. Wellman: 32:51

But at the time of the Gulf War and the program 24 on television, which seems to have exerted a particularly malign effect, my students were suddenly beginning to argue that you got really good information with torture.

Derek: 33:11

Yeah.

Dr. Wellman: 33:12

But that's reversed now. I'm so excited to see.

Derek: 33:16

Yeah. I I one of the things that I I looked into is, you know, the the, committee, I forget what it was called, the the committee on torture, the torture report. They have a movie movie about it and, you know, reading the the committee's paper, and it's, yeah, it's just egregious, how how that kind of happened. Yeah.

Dr. Wellman: 33:39

So I would, I mean, so to put a little bit of a positive spin on historians who've always gotten it wrong or history teaching has always gotten it wrong. I think good teaching cultivates critical, critical attitudes towards one's present and one's past and I think that makes it worth doing.

Derek: 33:59

Yeah, and I think that, what you said earlier, you know, in history curriculum, objectivity and a lack of certainty. So it's, hey. Here here's some information. Here's some information. Because it seems like you really wanna stay away from that certainty thing, like right and wrong, because, history is is extremely murky.

Derek: 34:23

And it seems like what a lot of fundamentalist, conservative evangelicals want to do is, and we'll get into inerrancy and stuff later, which plays into this. But there's this this desire for certainty. I know, if you're familiar with Peter Enns, he has he's, I guess, ex evangelical, but he, he talks about the sin of certainty. And he's got some books on that, which I I feel like highlights some of the blind spots in evangelicalism. But anyway, you know, to to kind of start getting into this, believing in our nation's blessedness and benevolence is is something that is important for American evangelicals.

Derek: 35:04

I'm still very saturated in that community. And I've got a lot of family and friends who would be more conservative spectrum. And, yeah, this this blessedness language, that we're losing the the blessedness that we have because of whatever, societal sins is is huge. It's a very big theme. So can you talk about how conservative evangelical curriculum has tended to, kind of show this certainty in history.

Derek: 35:32

Like, hey. Here's God's blessing. Here's God's curse. How do we see this this series of blessings and curses?

Dr. Wellman: 35:39

Okay. So I have a question for you. Where did this sense come from?

Derek: 35:45

The sense of

Dr. Wellman: 35:47

Yeah, the sense that, particularly the sense that America, I mean it's beyond American exceptionalism, which a whole lot of Americans have, right? But, I wondered where the particular sense of evangelicals as blessed comes from.

Derek: 36:09

So I would I would probably guess two things. I mean, the so in the, you know, the the early founding fathers, they had this this idea that, you know, this was the new promised land and things. And so they kind of put, religious spin on it, but people weren't evangelicals at that time. My understanding, is it Kevin Crews, One Nation Under God? In in his book, he gets into and, Fitzgerald has a book called The Evangelicals.

Derek: 36:38

They talk a lot about how you know, it it's very clear. You know, you you I always thought growing up in the pledge of allegiance, you know, one nation under God, well, that was always there. Or, in God, will you trust on the currency? Well, you look when it happens. It happened in, like, '9 early nineteen fifties.

Dr. Wellman: 36:57

Right.

Derek: 36:58

And and so the Cold War, I think, like you said, history starts to, become more mythological and and fought over when when you have big ideological battles. Mhmm. And so I think that and then the religious right comes out of that not too too much later. You've got fights over segregation and stuff. So I think it I think it probably arose then.

Dr. Wellman: 37:22

Okay. The that I'm interested in knowing how how American exceptionalism be became explicitly evangelical blessedness. That seems to me a a different degree and a different sensibility. And I think the fact that you suggest that if that were challenged, that evangelicals might feel a sense of extreme unease, if that sense was diminished somehow.

Derek: 37:52

Yes.

Dr. Wellman: 37:52

And I can't speak to how they would actually feel, but I suspect that evangelicals, like most Americans, pretty uncritically accept the notion that we're the best nation in the world, much evidence to the contrary, right, in terms of life expectancy, healthcare, any number of measures. And it made me wonder whether you can believe in blessedness, American exceptionalism, and yet like many American evangelicals also sign on to all of Donald Trump's pronouncements that were a nation in decline and that we are in horrific shape. So it seems to me that if American blessedness is diminished because we are such a, you know, a depraved nation in his account that evangelicals like most Americans are perfectly capable of holding two entirely contradictory views in their head at the same time.

Derek: 38:59

Well, well, yeah. But they would say that it they're losing their blessedness because of all the other people who are stopping, who are, deconstructing and not being evangelicals anymore. It's them.

Dr. Wellman: 39:12

Okay. So it's sort of the goat and the sheep and they get to be the sheep and so but, so you have to root out the sheep the goats from the nation and make everybody conform to a Christian ideal, which gets to Christian Reconstructionism, right, and the idea that society needs to be remade to conform to Christian ideals.

Derek: 39:40

Right? Yes. Yeah.

Dr. Wellman: 39:42

So I wondered why if evangelicals in America have this notion of a kind of national blessedness, why evangelicals in European countries don't have that same nationalist identity? Or am I not supposed to be asking you questions?

Derek: 39:58

No. No. No. That's fine. Yeah.

Derek: 40:00

So there's a there's a, I guess he would be an evangelical that I I listen to, from The UK. He's he's big there into apologetics. And he, you know, at the after the twenty sixteen election, he's like, man, I I realized I used to think I was kind of with with the evangelicals in The United States, but he's like, I realized that we are two totally different mindsets in regard to in regard to this. So, yeah, even people who'd be considered very conservative in places like The UK, they just they don't get that that US Conservatism. There's something different about it.

Dr. Wellman: 40:40

And certainly, Germany Evangelicals would not claim a sort of national blessedness, I don't believe. Right?

Derek: 40:48

Yeah. But, you know, I I think a lot of that kind of stuff like, if you look at Germany, in under the Third Reich, you've got very few people like Dietrich Bonhoeffer in the, in the confessing church, and you've got a lot of Christians who are, who who are on board with that. UK, I would imagine that, when they were in their heyday and the sun never set on the empire, that they probably were were very gung ho as well. So there there seems to be a very big connection. You know, I think of the book of Revelation and Babylon.

Derek: 41:22

You know, Babylon is an empire. I mean, who's who's the empire right now? Who's exploiting and taking advantage? And, it's The United States. And and I think when you have empire and nationalism, I think you get that mythology, of the nation.

Derek: 41:40

And religion as a false prophet plays plays right into that. It's it's the false prophet's mouthpiece.

Dr. Wellman: 41:47

Another element that I think is really interesting is the way in which blessedness has or blessings or a nation that's blessed is a message that is now economic.

Derek: 42:02

Yeah. Are you familiar with, Max Weber's, the Protestant, spirit of capitalism, Protestant work? Yeah. Yeah. I I my, my language tutor here in Romania, told me about that book.

Derek: 42:17

And I read it, and I was like, oh, that you know, I I mean, I don't know that it can completely carry the thesis, but it it makes it makes some good sense, I think. Mhmm. Okay. You're free to ask me more questions, by the way.

Dr. Wellman: 42:34

Those are just some that occurred to me when I when I was thinking about yours.

Derek: 42:39

Yeah. And, I mean, I I am not a historian. So, you know, if historians are fifty fifty, I'm probably I've got, a pretty big chance of getting things wrong. So I'm just stabbing

Dr. Wellman: 42:51

No. I wouldn't say historians are just fifty fifty.

Derek: 42:55

If they're seventy thirty, then I'm

Dr. Wellman: 42:57

I'm forty seventy.

Derek: 43:00

Okay. So does as you were talking about the blessedness of, idea of evangelicals, made me think of of confirmation bias. And I was just wondering, do you think that confirmation bias plays into into the narrative, you know, that evils befall Christians? When evils befall Christians, like you were saying, if The United States, okay, if we're in decline, right, we don't see that happening to us. We just kind of dismiss it.

Derek: 43:32

But when judgments happen to other people, like, I think of Pat Robertson and hurricane Katrina, you know, that's because those people there are being judged by God. But if a hurricane hits his condo in Florida,

Dr. Wellman: 43:44

No problem.

Derek: 43:46

Right. Yeah. It's completely different.

Dr. Wellman: 43:48

Right, well so these curricula do since since they they they are telling the story of how God acted in the past, it's particularly important that they be able to identify good and evil and that's sort of a story they tell, right? So they point to, developments they abhor as signs of God's disfavor and developments they approve are signs of God's favor. Probably the most egregious example of that is they object vigorously to German scholarship at the turn of the nineteenth to the twentieth century that they characterize as Biblical Modernism or the historical study of the Bible. And they say World Wars I and II were punishments for German, Biblical Modernism. But even within two extremely similar events, they're able to see one as a sign of God's favor and one as a sign of God's dis favor.

Dr. Wellman: 44:56

So for instance, when Mary Tudor has no children by Philip II of Spain, she's a Catholic monarch, he's a Catholic monarch, a Catholic heir would have derailed the Protestant Reformation in England, that is obviously a sign that God favors the Protestants, it's why the Spanish Armada failed for instance a couple years later. But when Edward VI dies young and without a child, this is no sign of God's disfavor at all. It's not even mentioned. I

Derek: 45:33

Yeah. So speaking of, of double standards, I was captured by an idea that you wrote, which, it was something to the extent that, conservative evangelicals praise social event advancements abroad, but they deploy them at home. So we we love to dig a well, over in Africa, send some medicine over there to, you know, those needy people and some tribes. But, if we did that here, that would be socialism. So which seems like a double standard.

Derek: 46:03

So I'd love for you to explain a little bit about some of this. I would call it paternalism, maybe, that you find in Christian texts while at the same time avidly condemning similar things at home as socialism or, social gospel.

Dr. Wellman: 46:17

Okay, so it's not just a difference between foreign and at home. It's between Christian and non Christian. So anytime anyone practices any form of public charity, it is condemned in these textbooks. They can see providing aid to unchristians or pagans as beneficial to them because it will Christianize them and equally importantly it will bring them capitalism. And when they are Christian capitalists then they will be sort of subject to the same notion these textbooks seem to have that the economy is God's reward and punishment system.

Dr. Wellman: 47:07

So once they're capitalists, if they can't dig their own wells, it's God's and feed themselves, it's God's punishment because they've been exposed to Christianity and capitalism, and that's why missionary efforts were so important. And so when they look at the twentieth century in particular, they see it as a war between Christianity and communism, and if missionary efforts in the third world were not successful, those areas would become godless communists. And I wouldn't be at all surprised to see Christian evangelicals taking on the Chinese in the same way as undermining their efforts in the third world.

Derek: 47:52

Wow, that's, that's interesting. Yeah.

Dr. Wellman: 47:57

But I I think it's an easy way for them to reconcile the two. Right? One is getting to people to the point that they can be Christians and be capitalists.

Derek: 48:08

So yeah. So so capitalism is kind of the, the the preemptive work for the holy spirit to come and save somebody.

Dr. Wellman: 48:18

Well, I well, I think it goes with blessedness and the notion of being saved. Right? And it's led into what I think is the extreme perversion of American evangelical into both prosperity gospel and the whole, you know, come to my church, give me a lot of money, and God will reward you with a lot of money. It's

Derek: 48:44

it's strange. That that's something that I've I personally had to to struggle through. So at at our church back in The States, where I really started to struggle with this, and this was maybe 2014, so it it was kind of preparing my heart for what happened in 2016. But I started working on our church's diaconate and started working with the poor for the first time in my life. And I learned a lot of things there.

Derek: 49:11

And, you know, over here in Romania working with the Roma and just really grappling with with what it means to to try to love people and and help them. And it really uncovered a lot of double standards, in my heart and in in my community for for this. And so when you when you say this, it it just rings so true, from my observation that, yeah, it's it's like in the Bible, you see helping the poor comes from a love for them, for humanity, for justice. But when you see how it's couched in fundamentalism and conservative evangelicalism, it's it's really just kind of a tool. It's an object it's a way to objectify other people.

Derek: 49:58

You know, I want to get them to be capitalists or to get them to be, you know, Christians. Yeah. So another double standard that I I feel like you pointed out was, when it comes to revolution. So you talk about Luther and the peasant's revolt a little bit, and you you talk about how the peasant revolt is is kind of downplayed in the the, homeschool curriculum because Christianity must not be viewed as revolutionary. Mhmm.

Derek: 50:31

Yet conservative Christians love the revolutionary war. Maybe they'd like to change that first word there. They don't like revolution, but they like the revolutionary war. The war for independence, maybe. So that that double standard, though, of revolution reminds me a lot of, I don't know if you're familiar with the Falwell's sermon of ministers and marchers where it was it was, in nineteen sixties, right right when Selma is happening, I believe.

Derek: 50:58

But he's he's like, Christians should not be politically involved. No marchers. Right? We're ministers of the gospel. We're not marchers.

Dr. Wellman: 51:05

Right.

Derek: 51:06

And he's he's against political involvement. Well, of course, you know, it happens with Falwell a decade later. He's, he's a marcher for the religious right. So this idea of revolution, we we like it sometimes. We don't like it other times.

Derek: 51:24

How do Christian curriculums navigate this idea of revolution and and kind of throw that double standard around?

Dr. Wellman: 51:31

Okay, I would say they always hate revolution. So what you do with the American Revolution is you say it wasn't a revolution. Okay, and there are different ways to treat it, and in fact, they raise several of them. One is to say that, okay, it sort of relates to Calvin's political ideas that it is possible that you must decide who the duly constituted political authorities are. So the problem for Americans living in the Revolutionary period was deciding which were the duly constituted officials elected by God, right?

Dr. Wellman: 52:13

Whether they were the, you know, the colonial bodies or whether it was the king of England. And so some people made one choice and some people made another and both were equally good. Okay? And there was nothing revolutionary about it. Another argument to make is to say it wasn't a rebellion, it was conservative, it was conserving what America had against a change implemented by the British.

Dr. Wellman: 52:45

So it was the British who were imposing a revolutionary change on America. Or you can say it wasn't about politics at all, it was about religious freedom, and I don't know where you get that sensibility, but but they make that claim as well. Okay.

Derek: 53:06

So if I'm trying to understand Falwell, which I I don't really care to do all that much, but if I'm trying to understand him, basically, what it would probably be is when they were marchers in Selma and the civil rights, they're trying to change their status. They're trying to change their rights. When he starts marching for, let's say, you know, abortion or conservative economic policy, he would think that he's trying to preserve. He's marching for preservation.

Dr. Wellman: 53:37

Yeah. I think I think that's possible, though. I think I mean, I think there's been a real change. And I think they, I mean I think all the way up to the present in these textbooks, they would maintain they are not politically engaged. They're trying to, what, make Americans behave like Christians should.

Dr. Wellman: 54:08

So it's a kind of moral, not political.

Derek: 54:14

It so, so they're but they're using politics, but that doesn't count as political.

Dr. Wellman: 54:19

Yeah. Somehow not.

Derek: 54:21

Okay.

Dr. Wellman: 54:22

And it's very interesting because they also, I mean, they really argue against revolution, political change, political engagement, because because they argue God puts all elected leaders in charge and you can't challenge them. And so that was part of the affirmation of Donald Trump, but you don't find the same kind of acceptance of Joe Biden and heaven's not of Barack Obama, right? So I there are lots of logical inconsistencies and some of them can be sort of reconciled the way in the way that I've suggested and others I think they basically don't care to, Right?

Derek: 55:16

Yeah.

Dr. Wellman: 55:17

It's more important to be right than logical. Right. So let's,

Derek: 55:22

let's get into then inerrancy here because we've we've talked a little bit about, certainty and just this, you know, knowing knowing where your boxes are and how to fit things in in the boxes that you need them to be in. Right. So I've seen inerrancy used a lot as a a cudgel against dissenters within Christianity. You know, obviously, inerrancy doesn't matter outside of Christianity, but I've seen a lot of people that I I respect. And when they kind of have a a different view on, you know, whatever secondary issue in Christianity, people say, well, they don't believe the Bible anymore.

Derek: 55:59

You know? They they don't believe in inerrancy. And and so it's it's been weaponized, in our group. So you argue that inerrancy is relatively new and that it's it's new in two ways. So the, I wanna talk about each of those ways.

Derek: 56:17

The first way that you say that inerrancy is new is that, it was originally argued, and and I think it's still maintained in the Chicago statement on biblical inerrancy that the autographs are inerrant, right, not what we have today in our hands. So, most people don't understand that position and the implications that that has. Can you explain what it means for the Bible to be inerrant in the autographs and why that's important to understand?

Dr. Wellman: 56:45

Sure. Though I think when you suggest that inerrancy is used as a cuttle, I would contend they don't have any idea what inerrancy means at all, but okay so the autographs are inerrant. That means that people recognized that there were many versions of the Bible in the nineteenth century and yet they wanted to maintain the authority of the Bible, so they said the autographs or the original manuscripts of the Bible were inerrant.

Derek: 57:23

Which And of course

Dr. Wellman: 57:24

we don't have those.

Derek: 57:26

Yes, important for people who might not be too familiar with with the Bible. Yes, we do not have those.

Dr. Wellman: 57:31

We do not have those. So, the position sort of became, what, diluted a bit by the suggestion that the King James Bible must have been the closest, right? Sort of an Anglo American prejudice in favor of our own language, right? Even though it's seventeenth century, it's a group effort, promoted by King James, but anyway. And what's okay so these original manuscripts don't exist but the claims have been transferred on basically to any Bibles we have, right?

Dr. Wellman: 58:14

They've been transmuted somehow, but all of even those distinctions have been lost, because when you talk about someone saying, but you don't believe in the Bible, what you're, what it seems to me you're really suggesting is something like what these curricula do, which is biblical proof testing, right? You make a claim based on a Bible verse, right? And if somebody, and then you develop what social and political positions you believe that verse supports. So if someone doesn't support your social and political positions, then they don't support the Bible verse you've just told them about, right? And there are any number of people who try to argue against certain positions taken by evangelicals or fundamentalists by pointing out other Bible verses, right?

Dr. Wellman: 59:19

So you get into feuding Bible verses and social interpretations and political interpretations. And I read something interesting that seemed persuasive to me. You can never persuade an evangelical that their social and political beliefs are not biblical by citing another Bible verse. Because the way biblical inerrancy seems to be implied or biblical literalism seems to be utilized is that I expect the Bible to confirm my social and political ideas, and lo and behold, it does. So I find in the Bible what I'm looking for.

Derek: 01:00:11

Yeah. It it is hard with, with all the denominations and things and everybody just, fighting back and forth on on who's more serious about the Bible. It just gets it gets so convoluted and, just add homonyms and everything.

Dr. Wellman: 01:00:25

Well, but one thing I think is missing that's I found really interesting to explore in the book, my sense of American evangelicalism is that it is increasingly sort of, theologically untethered. It's not I mean, there are remnants of Protestantism. There are also remnants of its historical tradition. But most people have no sense that there is any tradition or evolution of views among evangelicals because it's always just true.

Derek: 01:01:05

Yes. And we'll get to that at the end, because there there there's something, it's something that I discovered. I I grew up and, like, my history went back as far as Billy Graham, and he was alive at the time, you know, where it's, oh, yeah. He's he's our whatever. And then so I was drawn to Presbyterianism because I was like, okay.

Derek: 01:01:26

There's there's tradition here. And, you know, Augustine. Augustine, maybe Aquinas, may maybe Aquinas. And he's Catholic, but, like, still, he's kinda cool. He's he says some things we like.

Derek: 01:01:38

And then you go to Calvin. So our our history is, like, very sparse up until the reformation. And then you start going back and you start reading the early church fathers, And you're like, oh my goodness. There's like, we're we're very different, very different on a lot of things. So I wanna talk talk about that at the end, though.

Derek: 01:01:57

Because I I wanna, get to the second part that you said about inerrancy. You said that it's also new in terms of the degree to which it's held. So, for example, Luther and Calvin, you say, may have believed in an inerrant message or infallibility, but you argue that they didn't actually believe that there were absolutely no errors. You said that Luther recognized errors in prophetic, predictions, which were erroneous, and that Calvin didn't think the accuracy was the goal of the Bible. I'm not familiar with that with that vein of history.

Derek: 01:02:27

So are you able to to back that up and and kind of explain where you got that?

Dr. Wellman: 01:02:31

Sure. So I think what's missing when we apply backward, the current notion of inerrancy that seems to be, That can you still hear me? It says it's not detecting my microphone. I can't hear you.

Derek: 01:02:53

Oh, yes. I can still hear you.

Dr. Wellman: 01:02:55

Okay. I'm checking my audio device. And you're back. Okay. So it's okay?

Dr. Wellman: 01:03:00

Can you say that?

Derek: 01:03:00

I can hear you, I just can't see you.

Dr. Wellman: 01:03:03

Oh.

Derek: 01:03:04

But that's, that's okay.

Dr. Wellman: 01:03:05

That's because I clicked on this stuff, Katie. Okay, so I think what we failed to recognize is that both Luther and Calvin are really sophisticated religious thinkers. And they are coming to the Reformation with a thorough background in all of the church fathers, the scholastic tradition, fifteen hundred years of Catholic writing. They're familiar with it, right? They are also really well educated humanists, which means they have the kind of philological skills cultivated during the Renaissance that allowed them to understand the issues of translation, right?

Dr. Wellman: 01:03:49

And diff the historical differences between when biblical texts were written. So they're concerned that the Bible is true, but they also effort of human beings. And this leads them to take positions that modern evangelicals and fundamentalists would probably consider heretical or certainly signs of the biblical modernism they condemn, right? So, Calvin has a number of so Luther, well, when Luther and Calvin look at the Catholic Bible, they decide to delete some books of it and they delete it on beliefs of that Luther deletes a number of those books. He says he's only going to keep the ones he believes were originally written in Hebrew and before 500 BCE.

Dr. Wellman: 01:04:57

He was wrong about the books he selected, but it doesn't matter, they've been canonized as the Protestant Bible, right, which is you know reduced the Catholic Bible down to 39 books. So Calvin has a whole series of things. So, so I mean Luther is obviously a significant Protestant reformer, but Calvin is particularly concerned about the proliferation of interpretations that's occurred in the second generation of the Protestant Reformation and he works on a systematic theology. And so he looks at the books of the Bible, I mean he develops the institutes of the Christian, of the Christian whatever, institutes of Christianity, can't remember the title right now, but Christian religion. Anyway, and he also does a lot of biblical commentary.

Dr. Wellman: 01:05:55

Luther does some sort of defining a clear reformation theology, but Calvin is much more critical. So he says there are many errors of translation, some between Paul and his use of the Old Testament in particular. Some of those are intentional because he's arguing for a particular interpretation. Some of them are simply mistranslations. There are technical inaccuracies.

Dr. Wellman: 01:06:26

There are historical errors and there are scientific errors. So Calvin in fact says the book of Genesis it has cosmological errors, things that were thought about cosmology that are simply not true anymore. Right?

Derek: 01:06:43

Yeah. But then that gets back to point number one, which is that as long as I say the autographs are inerrant, I can say I believe in inerrancy even though I don't have access to

Dr. Wellman: 01:06:53

Okay. But that's a distinction from the early twentieth century and not one Luther or Calvin would have understood or likely subscribed to. Yeah. That was Yeah.

Derek: 01:07:03

That was foreign.

Dr. Wellman: 01:07:04

They would have gone with the word of God versus, you know, human artifact. I can't hear you. You've got

Derek: 01:07:20

me. Sorry. Sorry. Press the wrong button. Right.

Derek: 01:07:24

So, another staple, of conservative evangelicalism besides, inerrancy today, that, you argue is a is a relatively new tradition is that, evangelicalism and fundamentalism seem to be largely opposed to evolution. And I think it would be surprising to most conservative evangelicals to hear that, William Jennings Bryan of the Scopes Monkey Trial thought that evolution and Christianity could be compatible, and that the anti evolution movement, it didn't form until after World War one due to anti German propaganda, which are are things that you highlight in your book. So can you talk about how Christian curriculum views evolution and how this anti evolution stance, came to exist?

Dr. Wellman: 01:08:14

Okay. So in the nineteenth century, evangelicals, Biblical Modernism as a much bigger villain than Darwin, they initially accepted Darwin and evolution as not being at odds with creationism. God could be involved as the agent of evolution in their view, so it wasn't, they did not rule it out of hand, and as you said William Jennings Bryant accepted evolution wasn't considered particularly religiously controversial. It becomes a dividing line between fundamentalists and evangelicals in the 1920s and '30s, and as fundamentalists begin to take a firmer line against evangelical, it becomes a division within the evangelical community and more conservative seminaries insist on anti evolution and it becomes a kind of test of evangelical orthodoxy in a way that it hadn't been before. And another view that's become I mean, I think it's interesting that in the twentieth century, we are as as many Americans are opposed to evolution as they were at the time of the Scopes Trial.

Dr. Wellman: 01:09:47

So science has made no progress in converting a percentage of Americans to accepting evolution. Another thing that's become extremely important as a test of orthodoxy, which I find very strange is young earth creationism, the insistence that the world cannot be older than 10,000 years. This is extremely new, it's produced by sort of crack pot writers in the 1960s, but it's become a sort of test of certainly fundamentalist loyalty if not entirely, or fundamentalist truth or maybe not more broadly evangelical, but it's, it is in these curricula and they insist on it. And so I think it's interesting that in the twenty first century, evangelicals are taking more rigid, more extreme positions than was character characteristic a hundred years ago.

Derek: 01:10:52

Alright. I want to, to to close out with a line of questioning that, in my opinion, is the most important part, for for me, because okay. Somebody believes in in evolution or not. Somebody believes in young earth creationism or not. Somebody is patriotic or not, ultimately, you know, go celebrate the fourth of July.

Derek: 01:11:16

I don't have to. Whatever. What what matters ultimately is, I I think in Micah six eight, you know, what does the the Lord require of you but to, love justice, and of course, now I forget it. To love mercy, love justice, and walk humbly with do justice and walk humbly with God. Right?

Derek: 01:11:36

So the the mercy and justice and humility, is important because that that's how we act out in the world. So I thought one of the most profound observations that, you made was that you said that in the curriculum, Jesus and the gospels were largely absent from from that curriculum, while there was a large emphasis on Moses, the law, and, and certain portions of Paul. And for those unfamiliar with the Bible, they might not really grasp why that's so important. Could you maybe explain the the difference between, you know, Jesus and the gospels versus Moses, the law, and Paul? Well,

Dr. Wellman: 01:12:17

I can tell I mean, there's there's an emphasis on the Old Testament and I think, the emphasis on a vengeful God and a punitive God and, their reasons they use Moses and Paul, they're especially attached to Paul for, misogyny and patriarchy. And I think the kind of tone that he takes towards peoples he disapproves of, I think they find that very appealing. They use Moses so extensively sense what they think, I mean Mosaic law as applied to American civilization, I have no idea what they think that would mean, but if you claim that Moses is the essence of all law and all reasonable law and certainly all Christian law, then you can claim that he's the foundation for the Christian for the Christian nation argument and Yeah. Christian nationalism.

Derek: 01:13:44

It kills me that, a lot of Christians are up in arms about, you know, we don't want Sharia law coming here, but then, you know, it's like, well, if if you got your wish and created a theocracy and wanted to make it just like you think God made it in the Old Testament, then, I mean, there's not really a difference between that and Sharia law.

Dr. Wellman: 01:14:02

Right. And I don't think they have any idea what Mosaic law would actually entail because I think they'd be pretty unhappy with it, but I think they they do think that Christian law or whatever they understand Christian requirements to be, those should legitimately be imposed on everyone. And like you, one of the things I was most struck by in these curricula is the absence of any appeal to charity. And the, I mean, Jesus plays no role, the New Testament is virtually never quoted, there are plenty of other biblical injunctions cited and I think it really has to do with how much the evangelical movement in The United States has become tied to Republican economic arguments. And so they look at every practice of charity throughout human history as socialist and something God would abhor because God is a capitalist as one of them puts it and so you simply can't have any charity because essentially charity is bad for the recipient or it thwarts what God intends for people to punish them.

Dr. Wellman: 01:15:38

I I really don't have any idea how this how this became part of any Christian religion. It's it's truly staggering. But it does, it does explain some of the salience of socialism in our current political rhetoric, right? It's it's ungodly and unchristian and

Derek: 01:16:04

Yeah. It's, you know, ironically, in the Mosaic Law, you've got things like the year of jubilee and there's, you know, for for

Dr. Wellman: 01:16:11

all relieved. Yeah.

Derek: 01:16:13

For for all of the harsh edges that that there is in the Mosaic Law. I mean, it's it's, revolutionary if we would apply those things in terms of debt relief and stuff. It's but interesting that those things are kinda cut out. And and, of course, you know, Jesus who overturns the Mosaic lawns, or not overturns it, but he he kind of brings it to fruition and says, hey, look, you've you've heard Moses say, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. But let me tell you something.

Derek: 01:16:40

We we love our enemies. And and that's what the reading the early church is something that that really helped me to snap awake in, evangelicalism because, I mean, some of these people like Chrysostom and the way he talks about women positively or the, the poor, just about how you know, people talking about, like, if you have two coats and your brother has none, like, you're a thief you took from him. The early church, when they when somebody was in need, if they didn't have enough, they would fast so that they could give that person in need. The early church, and and even some of the Mosaic law was just, it was it was so focused on orthopraxy, on the action of of, adherence. Whereas today, it seems like evangelicalism has been very influenced by by rationalism.

Derek: 01:17:36

And, it's it's all about what you believe, and it's it's not so much about what you do. And so, that brings me to maybe the last question. You can touch on rationalism if you want to, but one of the aspects of Mosaic Law is, you know, you you do the law. You adhere to the law. And so Paul and and others talk about that in the New Testament and say, hey.

Derek: 01:17:59

Look what grace. You know, it's by grace you're saved through faith. But but, it seems like, Christians, evangelical Christians, fundamentalists, Americans in general have this idea of meritocracy, which is, which kind of goes along with the capitalism that pull yourself up by your bootstraps, the give no charity, the, you know, I'm blessed if I do the right thing. You're cursed if you don't. Could you talk a little bit about meritocracy in the text and and in Christianity, and and how you see that kind of playing out as the Christian ethic.

Dr. Wellman: 01:18:40

Okay. I guess I guess I wouldn't have thought of it as meritocracy so much as a perversion of the notion of election. So, and I think what it cultivates in these curricula and maybe more generally is a notion of Christian superiority. I'm saved, I identify as Christian, I'm succeeding economically, which proves that God favors me, and he doesn't favor others, right? And I think that what it has produced is a lack of empathy towards others.

Dr. Wellman: 01:19:32

You can't empathize with the other and your position vis a vis the other is one of Christian superiority.

Derek: 01:19:44

Okay. I I think that's, that's all I have for you. It was it was, very insightful, and I'm looking forward to, going back and listening to it and then kind of just, creating an info intro and some notes and and really thinking through this this stuff again. I appreciate you giving me your time and for Yeah.

Dr. Wellman: 01:20:07

I tried talking to you.

Derek: 01:20:10

Yeah. Any more questions for me or any anything you wanna plug besides, hijacking history?

Dr. Wellman: 01:20:16

No. Okay.

Derek: 01:20:19

Alright. Well, then, thanks so much.

Dr. Wellman: 01:20:21

Okay. Bye.

Derek: 01:20:24

That's all for now. So peace. And because I'm a pacifist, when I say it, I mean it. This podcast is a part of the Kingdom Outpost Network. Please check out the links below to find other great podcasts and content related to nonviolence and kingdom living.