From a grand dragon in the KKK to pastoring a multiracial church? It's time for the line of fire with your host, activist, author, international speaker, and theologian, Dr. Michael Brown, your voice of moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution. Michael Brown is the director of the Coalition of Conscience and President of Fire School of Ministry. Get into the line of fire now by calling 866-34-TRUTH.
That's 866-34-TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. You know, friends, we we so often divide over religious issues, and then as people of faith, we're on other sides of the political divide, and division, division, division seems to be all there is around us. factions, differences, societal breaches, we often forget that the gospel is the ultimate message of reconciliation.
that the Gospel of Jesus brings people together? It brings estranged human beings back in relationship with God. brings us back in relationship with one another. Breaks down culture barriers, breaks down racial barriers, breaks down social barriers, class barriers, caste barriers. That's what the gospel does.
raises up the oppressed, raises up the impoverished. It brings about dramatic change. In a moment, I'm going to speak to Dr. Richard Harris. Uh listen.
Hear this. In the mid to late nineteen seventies, He ran the largest underground terrorist organization in the Midwest. You're talking about Someone who is a grand dragon. in the K K K. Thirty years Later, more than thirty years later, He shares with Audiences With his congregation.
The lessons he learned. taking it from racism and bigotry and prejudice to acceptance. love and tolerance.
So We are going to speak with Richard Harris in a moment. And whoever you are listening, There is hope for our nation still. Check out my latest article at askdrbrown.org, A-S-K-D-R Brown.org. Oh, did I tell you this is Michael Brown? Just in case you didn't recognize the voice, you were just tuning in.
And yes, you can hear the smile in my voice because it's a smile on my face because of the great joy of coming your way every day on radio. And I should mention to you that many people, when they meet me, somehow that never went to my website or saw a picture anywhere and just listened on radio and got to know me on radio. In point of fact, they'll come up to me and say, Wow, we thought you were a lot younger. You know, I'm 62 and I got gray hair, I'm full of energy, and life, and vitality, feel very young.
So it is the same voice, just in case you're wondering, because I didn't introduce myself today. I was so focused on talking about the gospel and talking about our guest. But there is hope still for our nation. And as I wrote in my latest article, As bad. as things are today.
Think of where they are at right before slavery, or excuse me, right before the Civil War. During the Civil War, and after the Civil War. Do you know of if you put the Civil War casualties in today's numbers? It would be more than six million Americans killed in the war. And this is not Americans dying on foreign fields fighting an enemy.
This is Americans killing fellow Americans. Can you imagine the trauma of that? Traumatic enough what happened in Charlottesville over the weekend. It's traumatic enough for a white supremacist to ram his car into a crowd of protesters and kill a young woman and injure others. That's traumatic enough.
Think of a war where six million of us kill each other. And the actual number, 620,000 killed in the Civil War, just made it for what would be appropriate in today's population numbers. That represents almost half. of all of our war dead, in all wars combined, Outside of that.
So If God could bring us together, After the Civil War, yes, it was bloody and horrific. President Lincoln said that the blood that was being shed paraphrase of his quote was a payment for the sin of slavery. But if God could bring us together and build us up as a nation after that, Why can't he do it again? It's the line of fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown.
Get into the line of fire now by calling 866-34TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. I don't believe that the secular media is particularly interested. in bringing about racial unity in our country.
I don't believe that. I'm sure some have a heart to do that, but by and large, I don't see that. I see them looking for ratings. I see them looking for that which will advance a particular cause or viewpoint. Be it on the left, the bulk of the media, or be it on the right.
I I don't see a strong push for that. or true reconciliation in the nation. But the gospel brings reconciliation. The gospel supernaturally transforms lives. You know my story, saved in 1971, is a 16-year-old heroine shooting LSD using hippie rock drummer.
and a young Jewish kid who had no interest in God and no belief in Jesus, God could radically turn around some one like me. and my friend Y. Suppadam in India. who when he came to faith was a a Naxalite, a violent Naxalite. These are Ma uh Maoist communists.
He was an atheist, alcoholic, violent man whom Jesus wonderfully saved.
So angry growing up is an untouchable. That he hated the world around him. I don't know anyone that's done more to help human beings on this planet firsthand than my friend Yesu Padam. This is what Jesus is about. Radically changing lives.
And the story you're about to hear is one of the more dramatic I have heard. And my guest, Dr. Richard Harris, as I introduce briefly. On the other side of the break, before he is about to join us now, as I introduced him before, he's gone from one radical extreme of destruction and hate to the radical extreme of God's love as much as anyone you're going to hear. Richard, thanks so much for joining us today.
Well, thank you, Dr. Brown. It's a pleasure to be here.
Alright, just to make sure I have this right. You ran the largest underground terrorist organization in the Midwest During the mid to late 1970s, this is an accurate quote. Yes. All right. Tell us about your upbringing.
Tell us how your ideology got shaped and then Let's find out about your journey. Sure. I grew up in the middle of the upper middle class family, intact family, father, mother, two older brothers. But I was the one that the schoolyard bullies always picked on in elementary school. I was one they took the lunch money away from on the playground.
And I grew up very, very angry. It was a segregated school. And then each of them. Yeah. Six groups.
Grade in the school, desegregation happened in the 1960s. And all of a sudden, I started. seeing African American children being bussed into my formerly all-white school. and I realized that they were being bussed in from the other side of town. Uh they were coming onto my turf.
This was where I had been going to school for the last five years and now they were brand new. And I I as this angry bullied child I I wanted to get back at some point.
Somebody, and I didn't know how or who or when, but this provided the opportunity because obviously they were in the minority in the school and so I started picking on them. And I started. Bullying. them so badly. That by eighth grade, my eighth grade yearbook, I still have.
Someone actually wrote in there. Uh to Richard Harris, Grand Dragon of the KKK. Keep those inward. In line.
So I was well known. And and and how how old how old how old were you at this point? Eighth, eighth grade. Wow. Thirteen, thirteen.
Incredible.
Alright, so what happens from there? My mother passed away when I was 14. And that caused my father to have to run two businesses and And so he was hardly around. He was trying to keep both businesses up and going. and I rarely ever saw him.
And my two older brothers one they were much older than me. One was already a doctor and married and away from the the house. The other one was in college.
So I was coming home. I was this uh upper middle class White. uh latch key kid who didn't have a lot of friends. and had a lot of time on his hands. And By the time I was 16, when I was 16, Well, the Klan had been watching me.
I did not know it, but they had been watching me. In my middle school years, because there were a couple of teachers in my middle school who were active clans people. Obviously, no one knew about it. It was a secret. But they were watching me.
And so when I turned sixteen, the age that you could become a member of the regular adult clan, they started wooing me into the organization And they would come to me and they would say things like, you know, if you joined us, No one would ever pick on you. No one would ever call you names. No one would ever make fun of you. No one would bully you anymore. We'll take care of you.
And you know, will be your mother and will be your father and will be your brothers and sisters. We'll be a family. And that sounded really good to this lonely 16-year-old. And let me ask you this. The KKK, I have no exposure to it, no connection to it.
Growing up as a Jewish kid in New York City and Long Island, different part of the world, different culture, then coming to faith in godly circles, completely unattached to some of this southern or midwestern racist, quote, Christianity. Who was the KKK? What was their message? What did they represent? The clan Believe In white supremacy, as they still do, the Klan believes that they are the true.
Christians that they are the ones who are shining the light for the white race and the white race. We are the chosen one. and everyone else if you're not Uh from White Europe. then you are an inferior beast.
Some of the As to say that only whites were actually human, others were simply animals and less than human. And so their message is that. They want to take back this nation, keep it segregated. and possibly even make it an all-white nation. Yeah.
Only with no minorities or at least keep the minorities segregated over into one section. And in a community like that where you grew up, Richard, How how prevalent? Was the KKK? Obviously, you can't give exact figures, but was it just something that behind the scenes people knew was hiding here and there, or was it just, yeah, lots of us are KKK. Indiana is the largest clan city.
Yeah. Of the Mason-Dixon line, or at least it was in the 1970s. It was a very huge Klan state, and I happened to grow up in Kokomo, Indiana. which was where the State headquarters was located.
So there were a lot of Klan members. They were everywhere. But of course, it's a secret. organization You did not know most of these people were actually in the Klan because they were your business partners. people.
store owners. They were doctors. They were lawyers. They were police officers. They were teachers.
And how many of them were openly and outwardly? racist even though you didn't know openly that they were in the Klan. Many of them would not by day appear unusually racist for that time and age. But at night, they would be going to secret clan meetings and they would be espousing their true beliefs. Many of them We're just the average white person.
But you've got to remember. that back in the 1960s, life was still Society was just uh very much different than Yeah. Uh today. I grew up in a home Uh where The N-word was just a regular A regular word. And you said it, and nothing, no one thought anything about it, whereas you would not say those things.
So, I think that's a good question.
So there was a lot of racism, but as far as I never heard my I never heard my parents talk about black people. Uh but then again, they never had any friends. Uh No one of a minority had ever entered our home, to my knowledge, and nor would they be welcome. And I certainly picked up on that and knew that, even though they never sat me down and said, okay, we have a lesson for you, son. And just uh thirty seconds before the break, but your your interaction with other kids in school, I mean, did did you ever in that setting begin to interact with black kids and see their humanity?
Honestly, no. The black kids in school, and this was true even for high school as well, they usually kept to themselves, and we usually kept to ourselves. They had their place in the lunchroom. We had our place in the lunchroom. lunchroom.
And uh there was as little interaction As possible. All right, friends, we'll be right back. I'm eager to hear more of this story. How God takes someone like that. That full of hatred, that full of bigotry, that full of prejudice.
We didn't even get to the worst of his activities yet. and turns him into a man with a message of love. and reconciliation. Stay right here. It's the line of fire with your host, Dr.
Michael Brown. Get into the line of fire now by calling 866-34TRUT. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. From Grand Dragon in the Ku Klux Klan.
to leading a multiracial congregation. That's the kind of thing that Jesus did. does. I'm speaking to Dr. Richard Harris.
So Richard, just a quick question, purely out of curiosity and don't need to take much time on this at all. But these names that Grand Dragon and Grand Wizard for an ostensibly Christian group. Where in the world does this stuff come from? Actually, those names go clear back to the founding of the clan. They started using odd names like that, and then I believe they finally codified them around the turn of the century.
And they simply came came into being because they wanted to uh create an an era uh of an aura of mysticism and that kind of thing. for their members and hence also the the robes, the outfit. That we wore. Uh we're really uh just to to create to separate them from other to make people feel like you're really a part of something. And and how long were you in the Klan?
I was in the Klan for about four years. All right, and during that time Now this may be difficult for you to say In retrospect, because you didn't really know the Lord then. But did there seem to be any folks? That genuinely believed in the gospel but were deeply deceived and confused? Or was it people who were purely Christian in name only and using their Christianity as a cloak for their hatred?
You know, I think there was both. I think both. was happening even in the same individual. Yeah. Very deceived.
very deceived. But yet, at the same time, really Honestly, there were those who were very religious and very sincere And then there were those of us like myself who I was Christian in name only because I was the. Brought up in a critical And uh and so you'll Of course I was Christian. All right, so You're in the Klan, how do you get from there to outright terrorism? Say that again.
there to terror them. Yeah, if you ran the largest underground terrorist organization in the Midwest, there's obviously a step from being a member of the Klan to. Oh. I understand, yes. How how did I how did I take over leadership in the Klan?
That's it. That was rather interesting because the Klan had been grooming me from the moment that I became a member. I didn't even realize what they were grooming me for. I just thought Yeah. the same treatment that everyone else was.
they had been watching me and they realized that I was a very good public speaker, I was young, I was very intelligent. And uh they said this guy could be groomed for for leadership.
So that's what they're always looking for. They're looking for someone who is a good public speaker, who can communicate well, and who basically can speak. stir up and rally the troops together. And so when they saw that, they started grooming me. And I was I was made the grand dragon of Indiana.
Uh two years after I Yeah. And uh I was the I was the second I was the second youngest Grand Dragon Uh in the nation. And I was I became Grand Dragon and ran Indiana Uh when I was eighteen years old. Eighteen years old extraordinary. And for everyone listening, friends, this did not just go back.
To race issues, this went back to family issues, this went back to being bullied as a kid. There's so many things that can happen, and it's easy to radicalize someone. That's why so many people are radicalized into all kinds of causes while in prison. And they're vulnerable to want to fight against, quote, the system.
So, Richard. As the grand dragon of the Ku Klux Klan in Indiana. What type of activities did you conduct? What were you involved in? I was I was mostly involved with Making appearances, public speak.
Yeah. Uh and also writing a lot of the propaganda and producing a lot of the problems. that they would use to hand out planning rallies, planning these marches that you see even today and like we saw just over That was a lot of what I was involved in. In one of the things the Klan learned from the very turbulent 60s. during the civil rights era.
A lot of Klansmen ended up going to jail. for carrying out violence. Activities. One of the things they learned was. that they needed to keep their leaders Leaders out of jail because their leaders didn't.
Yeah. So because they were grooming me for leadership. They purposely kept me away and ignorant of a lot of the violence. That was going on around me being perpetuated by just some of the lower, lower level. clans people.
Yeah. I knew that a lot of it was going on even though I didn't know the details. All I had to do was walk through state headquarters and see if we could simply say Uh boy that mister Jones over on uh Boulevard uh street really makes me angry. That's all I needed to do. I didn't have to give an order.
I didn't have to bring people in. All I had to do was express that. And I knew that something would be done to Mr. Jones, it may not be for a month or a year, but They kept very long lists. But sometime something was going to happen.
Be done, and I wouldn't, it would not be reported back to me or anything because that would. just uh that would make me uh part of it and And so they were able to do that. They got very smart about keeping their leaders. away from actually doing illegal activities themselves. And if you could summarize, as ugly and unpleasant as this is, just in the minute and a half before the break, the type of propaganda you'd put out, the message you'd get out, summarize it.
What was this message that you were preaching and that you were so good at articulating. It was always uh Focused around White people are superior. superior to blacks. To Hispanics, to Jewish people. Always they were the inferior ones.
And we would literally say. Up studies, a Harvard study. done in 1964 showed that that African American brains are 30% smart. Smaller than European brains. We would make that up.
It would be sent off to the printers. It would be printed up. It would look very real. And it would sound very real. We literally made it up.
Incredible.
Fake news going back. Yes, absolutely. Extraordinary. All right, listen, friends, we've heard how deep Dr. Harris was caught up in this hatred and this bigotry and as a professing Christian on top of it.
When we come back, we're going to hear how how Jesus got hold of him. and how the Lord is using him. to this day. Boy, this is a message. We need to get out in this day and in this age.
Yeah. Change the world. It's the line of fire with your host, activist, author, international speaker, and theologian Dr. Michael Brown. Your voice of moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution.
Get into the line of fire now by calling 866-34TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Welcome back to the line of fire. Jesus brings us into right relationship.
With God through the blood of the cross and into right relationship with one another through the blood of the cross. Speaking again with doctor Richard Harris, former Grand Dragon, the KKK in Indiana.
Now a man leading the way. in racial reconciliation through the gospel. All right, Richard. What happens next? How in the world does God get hold of a bigoted, hate-filled young person like you?
All right. So I was Grand Dragon for I had been Dragon for a year. couple of years. I'm 20 years old now. And I have four armed bodyguards.
Who are there to protect me? I hear. To the grapevine, that's one of my four-armed bodyguards. has put a hit out on me. and is going to take me out.
And so I couldn't prove it. But I believed it. In my mind, I thought I need different security. I need different protection. I need more protection.
So I thought the only way I could do that is if I had a higher office I contacted the Imperial Wizard.
Now the Imperial Wizard is the man who's in charge of the entire nation. I called him up on the phone and I said, Bill, I want a national office. I've done a great job. in the Indiana clan running it. I said I've started the youth clan.
I actually started recruiting for the youth clan clear down into the elementary grades. And uh the Klan had grown under me. And he said, well, yes, you're absolutely right. He says, I do think you're ready for a national office, but the only one we've got coming available is the national chaplain of the clan. No.
I don't know anything about being a preacher. And he says, you're a good public speaker. All you have to do. Start reading the Bible. Start pulling out some good sounding scripture verses.
and put them in your speeches. Start sounding religious and I'll take care of the rest. And I said, well, that sounds like a plan to me.
So I started reading my Bible that very night.
Now I didn't know where to turn in the Bible. I didn't know one book from the Bible from the other book from the Bible. I had no idea. I should have started in the book of Genesis, I guess, but I didn't. I realize now it was God guiding me.
I started reading the Gospel of John. And as I was reading that, I thought, oh, this is great. These are the stories of Jesus. I'll just. Find some good things Jesus said.
And I'll quote Jesus. Can't sound too much more religious than Jesus. And so I'm reading along in the Gospel of John, everything's fine, until I get to John chapter four. John chapter four Is the Samaritan Woman at the Well story? And it was one of the clan's favorite stories to tell.
because every Klan meeting is started with a Klan preacher. because they really do believe that they are the true Christians. And so a Klan preacher would open up the Klan meeting with a prayer, with a scripture, sometimes with a sermon. And I had heard the Klan preachers Preach on Uh the Samaritan Woman at the Well story several times.
So I was familiar with it. I said, oh, I know this story. And I knew what a Samaritan was because the clan had taught me that one correctly, half Jewish, half Gentile.
So I knew what that was, or as the clan would call them. race mixers. Half breeds. And so I'm reading down through and I I get to the point where The woman asked the Samaritan woman asked Jesus for a drink, or Jesus rather asks the Samaritan woman for a drink, and the Samaritan woman says, Why do you ask me for a drink? You are a Jew, I am a Samaritan, and then the Bible says that Jews don't have anything to do with Samaritans.
At that point, the Klan chaplains would close their Bibles and start preaching. That was the end of the story. I tell you what, I'm interrupting the story here. We'll come back on the other side and find out what happens when Dr. Richard Harris kills.
keeps reading what happens in the gospel. of John. Wow. Oh God of burning, cleansing flame, send the fire. It's the line of fire with your host, Dr.
Michael Brown, your voice of moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Welcome back friends to the line of fire. 866-348-7884.
That is The number to call if you've got any questions or comments, but we're taking all our time right now with our special guest, Dr. Richard Harris. All right, you're a KKK member. You're going to be national chaplain, chaplain for the Klan. You're now reading the Gospel of John, a favorite story.
Jews have nothing to do with Samaritans, so whites, we superior ones, have nothing to do with those inferior blacks. That's the hateful narrative you've been fed, and now you keep reading in John 4. I keep reading because for the first time I'm reading the Bible for myself. And I I realized, wait, that's Not the end of the story. Because the chaplains would would uh stop uh at that Jews don't have anything to do with Samaritans.
Breeds, race mixers, and they would say, Well, We're smarter than Jews, aren't we? And of course, the answer was a. Always, well, yes, of course we are. I had only met one Jewish person in my entire life at that point. And they said, well, we know better than Jews that Jews don't have anything to do with right.
mixing what we don't have have anything to do with that either. Samaritan woman at the wells story shows us that Jesus. Right. Mixing. That was the Klan's line.
But now I'm reading it for myself. Wait, that's not the end of the story. There's more to it. What is this? And I keep reading, I read that story, and I realize that this race mixing Samaritan Woman.
She became a believer in Jesus and Jesus accepted her. And he loved her. And then she goes back to the town, she brings a whole whole uh town full of uh half breeds. and they become believers in Jesus and Jesus. Jesus loves them too and accepts them.
The story of the Samaritan woman at the well was Jesus Love for Race mix. And that's when the light bulb came on. I mean, I wasn't stupid. It was like This is automatic. Obviously The Klan has lied to me.
And it wasn't just one Klan chaplain I heard. preach on that particular passage I'd heard several over the years. And they also the same thing. I read the Gospel of John. I kept reading that night.
I stayed up all night long. I read the entire Gospel of John. I kept finding place after place after place where the Klan had just slightly twisted. whisted the scriptures sometimes just absolutely Caught. the wrong thing, the exact opposite of what the scriptures was teaching.
And By the time I got done with the Gospel of John that night, I I knew. that I had to get out The Klan had lied to me. They were not the true Christians. like I thought they really were. And I didn't know how to pray.
I prayed a very simple prayer. Uh God, if there's any way that you can get me out of this alive. I want to find out what a true Christian is. and I want to be one. And I called the Imperial Wizard up the very next day, and I quit the clan.
Whoa.
Okay, so one thing you're telling us is that very few of these people actually seriously read the Bible. Otherwise, they would have seen the deception and then had to make a choice. And obviously, if they stayed in the clan, they weren't going to be serious with God in the scripture. You had this radical conversion. I wish I could get into even more details, but our time is short.
I want to make sure we go on with what's happened since in the ministry you're doing today. But just very quickly, were there repercussions? Were there threats against you?
Well Absolutely. There were I mean they put a gun to my head and they said you keep your mouth shut or you know what's going to happen to you.
Well I knew exactly what that meant. And I did keep my mouth shut for about fifteen years Until finally I realized that That God really needed me to tell. wanted me to tell people Uh and hopefully keep others From uh Following the same path that I did.
So once I started speaking out against the Klan, the Klan really turned against me. and uh became my enemies and So They've they've been out to get me ever since.
Alright, so what have you now given yourself to in terms of the right message and and modeling what Jesus is about.
Well you know when when I preach now, I I not only obviously speak out against the Yeah. and neo-Nazis and other white supremacist groups. groups because we obviously I hope it's obvious to your readers that they they are They are in the wrong. But it's not just that. ra racism, you know, so many times we in the in the white uh white church have thought that, well, we're not Klan, we're not Nazi, so therefore We're not racist, so we don't have a problem with it.
But racism It's not quite that black and white, if you'll excuse the pun. Racism is on a continuum. And you You may not be at the extreme end like like these people are. And Uh you'll We have to ask ourselves Uh how many how many friends? Real friends.
Do we have Yeah. Bite over to our house and we do things with, and we go on vacation with. How many friends do we have that are of different races? than us. the majority of white people do not have uh those kinds of friendships that they can point to.
And that's the way. Mm-hmm. understand each other and communicate with each other. when we start having real friendships, not associate not associates at at work or at school Well, you know, I see him, I say hi to him, we treat each other decent. But no, I'm talking about real building real bridges and real friendship.
Yeah, that is quite a challenge and something that exposes. uh not necessarily racism but lack of shared life experience. And you know, Richard, just being on live radio for eight, nine years. The many calls that I got from African American listeners gave me perspectives that I never had my entire life, even with all my interacting with black Christian friends, because they tended to be in a certain political or social or spiritual uh place that we had even more in harmony. And many of my listeners loved the Lord, but had very different perspectives on things or different life experiences.
And it really helped expand some of my thinking because I'm constantly listening and learning and trying to see where do I have a blind spot, culturally, background, whatever it is.
So this is a great question for us to ask ourselves. What have you now been able to do, not just in bringing that challenge, but in constructive steps to help minorities to bring about reconciliation? One of the things that that has happened in my life uh b within the last couple of years is uh an African American pastor, senior pastor of a large African American church uh in the area he heard came in he heard me speak. And I was challenging I was challenging the uh the Ministerial leaders in the group It was put on by the Chamber of Commerce. all there's a lot of business leaders, but I was challenging particularly the the religious leaders.
So, you know, if you really want to build multicultural bridges, if you want to build a multicultural church and really reach out and begin to develop these friendships. And this communication Then when people of Yeah. come into your church. Church. They better see multiculturalism.
They better see different colors up there on the platform in the leadership. because if they don't see someone in the leadership like them, They're they're very unlikely to return. Turn to your church. And at the time I had just stepped down. from being a senior pastor.
uh pastoring for thirty one years And uh I I was I was at simply at the university teaching And uh Yeah. Senior pastor came up to me and he said, It's time to put your money where your mouth is. I know you're not pastoring. Come join my staff. and be one of my associate pastors.
He says, because I have a history. Historically. American church that I would love to see. Begin to reach out to other races and do exactly what you said. And so Of course, my African American.
Congregation. They absolutely love going around. Telling you would not believe who we have on our platform us in our pulpit. Come on. And, you know.
I I bet. That you would even have more joy from the African American congregation to have someone like you on the pastoral staff than an all-white congregation to have a former Black Panther. on their pastoral staff. I think there's a greater embrace and a greater celebration simply because of history. And Richard, if folks want to find out more about your work, about the ultimate story to associate from grand dragon of the KKK to associate pastor in an African American church, that's gone.
That's got to bring you great joy every day. But if they want to go to a website or a book you've written, what's the best thing to go to or place to go? They can check out my website. It's always in progress, as all of them are. But it's Harris Speaks.
Dot com, H-A-R-R-I Harris. Mm-hmm. Speaks.com and also they can pick up a copy of my book off of Amazon. Uh it's one nation under PERS. One nation, under person.
All right, One Nation Under Curse, the name of the book by Dr. Richard Harris. His website, HarrisSpeaks.com. Brother, thank you for sharing an incredible story with us today. God bless you.
Thank you, Dr. Brown. It's the line of fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Get into the line of fire now by calling 866-34TRUTH.
Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Thanks, friends, for joining us 866-34TRUTH. Number to call. We've got a brand new video that you'll want to watch.
If you remember, last week I had Ezra Levant on with me from Rebel Media in Canada with some strong warnings about what has happened with free speech in Canada and also his great heart to stand with the persecuted church in the Middle East. We have that interview up, but we also. Want to draw your attention to another video, A Christian Response to Google's intolerance, as well as What is the Mark of Cain?
So, a couple of videos, just me, and then one with a great interview with Ezra Levant from Rebel Media in Canada. To watch those, go to askdrbrown.org, askdrbrown.org, check out the latest videos in our digital library, and check out the latest articles, including the one from last night: There Is Hope. for America. Yeah. There is hope.
for America. despite where we find ourselves today. Let me share with you a testimony from a very different perspective. This is a black brother. Stuart Greaves.
posted this on Facebook and a friend sent me the link. Many years ago I had a very interesting experience. This is a brother in ministry, and he shares this. I was living in Melbourne, Florida. and I was driving back to my apartment.
Suddenly I heard the Holy Spirit say, Stop. pull over. When I heard this, I immediately noticed a white supremacist skinhead walking down the road. My heart was strangely moved and I heard Share the Gospel with him.
So you get this. Here's an African American. Driving back to his apartment in Florida, he hears the Holy Spirit say strongly, Stop. Pull over. and he looks and sees white supremacist skin head driving down the road.
Uh-huh. And the LORD says, Share the gospel with him. He writes, I immediately began to question the wisdom of this directive and proceeded to inform the Lord about how things work down here and that being a black man, it probably wasn't a good idea. It didn't seem like wisdom. Ha!
I proceeded conti to continue to drive to my apartment. I got out of my car, but with every step towards my apartment it was as though a man had his hand on my chest and was squeezing my heart the more I walked away from where I needed to be. I finally couldn't take it any more. I turned around towards the entrance of the apartment complex. When I got to the exit this man was just walking towards the entrance.
I had a small Bible in the back of my pocket and I reached to grab it, when all of a sudden realized that it wasn't such a good idea, and suddenly he positioned himself to fight me. I extended my hand to him and I said, Wait I'm reaching for my Bible. I want to talk to you. He proceeded to release a few expletives and about how it isn't right for us to be talking. In response to this I said something that until this day I don't know why, because again it is not like this was a friendly environment, but out of my mouth comes, I represent everything you hate.
I'm a Christian. I'm a black and my great-grandmother is Jewish. I have something to share with you. We began to talk about racism and white supremacy. He told me about the coming racial conflict in America and asked me how I would fight.
In no uncertain terms, I told him, the gospel of Christ and His Word is my weapon. Our conversation continued for about two hours, and towards the end I had the opportunity to share Jesus with him. He didn't say yes to Christ, but he had a significant change of attitude, and went on to say how much he began to respect me as a person. I gave him my Bible, and he received it. We parted ways.
His name is Michael. I don't know where he is or how he ended up.
Some plant, some water, the Lord brings the increase.
However, Michael is in my thoughts and my prayers. In so far as the grabbing of my heart is concerned, I will never forget it. God's deep desire. Is to win some, if not many, over to His mercy, truth and grace. Paul said, the love of Christ compels us.
2 Corinthians 5.14. Friends, the only church the response has and must have is the gospel response. If we find ourselves asking what does that really mean, I urge us, let's go and find out what Christ and his gospel really has to say about the growing crisis in the land. It ebbs and it flows, but there's a mounting crisis. crisis.
Whatever the social crisis, this current one or any other, the central issue before us is the knowledge of Christ, as through the Scripture our understanding of Him expounds or expands our understanding of His gospel grows. And he goes on with some further quotes.
So here's a question. to think about, to mull over. What if Jesus physically, had been in Charlottesville. This Past Saturday. With the neo-Nazis, white supremacists, white nationalist extremists.
With their despicable chants and march. They're there. And then you have others who are standing against them with some radical elements in their midst as well. And some folks just like the the young woman who was killed from what I've read live locally and just didn't want to see that kind of hatred. on her streets.
She wasn't as much a counter-protester, some radical counter-protester, as about a young woman who cared, didn't want to see that junk. on the streets of her city, wanted to make a statement about it.
So you have this going on for whatever reason. The police basically stand down. I mean, some think it was conspiratorial from the left to that there would be a conflict. And either way, we know the root of the whole thing. We know the start of the whole thing from everything we understand was neo-Nazis white supremacists.
which we with one voice denounce as from below, not from above. Nothing American, good, righteous about it. Certainly nothing Christian about it. But if Jesus was there, What would he have done? And obviously, we all have our perspectives.
But I would sink. that he would be going after lost sheep. Wh don't you? Don't you think he'd be again? I want to pre I asked you what you think now, telling you what I think and telling you you should think the same thing.
So here, here's what I think. Here's what I think. You're entitled to think what you think. Here's what I think. He'd be looking for some lost soul there and there are plenty of them.
And maybe some neo-Nazi hate-filled ringleader. Jew hating black hating, minority hating. And and maybe gone up to that one person. and spoken one word to them. and the next thing they would be on their face weeping.
and repenting. I mean, his presence can do that. His presence alone can bring about that kind of radical change. But then maybe One word spoken, And it uncovered the root of hatred in this, like our guest, Dr. Richard Harris, where he talks about one of the issues he had was being bullied as a boy.
Now you get in uh an ethnic minority being bussed over, brought over to a school in the early days of segregation, And now he's got some group that he can express hatred towards. Even in point of fact, They were not the cause of his problems, but he's going to have an outlet here. and perhaps just one word spoken gets to the root of it. and releases a torrent of repentance. Who knows?
I do know this. That's what Jesus is about. Oh, he stands for righteousness. Oh, yes, he'll judge the whole world. Yes, he'll come in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that don't know God and don't obey the gospel.
Yes, yes, yes. But Right now. While he is working on the earth in many different ways and bringing judgment as well, he is leading people out of darkness to light. He is bringing them to repentance. Maybe you have a friend that's lost, far away from God.
Help, pray them into the kingdom. While there's life, there's hope. You know, it's a subject we don't talk about much on the air, but fossil fuels, it's a big issue. Is there a moral case for the use of fossil fuels? It's time for the line of fire with your host, activist, author, international speaker, and theologian, Dr.
Michael Brown, your voice of moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution. Michael Brown is the director of the Coalition of Conscience and president of Fire School of Ministry. Get into the line of fire now by calling 866-34 Truth. That's 866-34 Truth. Here again is Dr.
Michael Brown. Yes, yes, we will be talking about the president about Charlottesville. About reconciliation, about conflict in America. We will be doing that the second half of this hour, and I will be taking your calls: 866-3487-884. But we get Tons of books sent to us by different publishers and publicists, as everyone does with radio shows, radio programs of any size.
And trust me, some get a ton more books sent to them than I've ever seen. But we get a steady flood sent by publishers, publicists. And I'll be showing different topics or my system will look at it and say, how about, yeah, let's do this, let's do that. And in point of fact, even though for years and years and years and years and years and years, issues about climate control, issues about fossil fuels, issues about... Our responsibility for the environment.
They have been giant issues that have been discussed endlessly. People like Al Gore have made even a greater name for themselves through their arguments about climate control and human factors and how we're destroying the It's a world. I've virtually never talked about these things. I had a friend down a couple weeks ago who mentioned some things about climate control, and that's one of the few conversations I can remember. You say, well, don't these things concern you, or use of fossil fuels, or is it right or wrong, or is it immoral?
Doesn't it concern you? To be honest. I've never focused on it. I focused on so many other issues, I study so many other issues, I feel burdened about so many other issues, I've just never focused on it. And the same with economic issues.
We all know. Economic issues are of massive importance. The economy affects every single one of us in very, very real ways. But I hardly ever talk about it. It's just not an area of expertise I have.
Area of burden I've had, as important as it is, something that the Lord's called me to study and look at.
So, when we had this opportunity presented to us to bring on Alex Epstein, to talk about his book The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels. Which asks the question, could everything we know about fossil fuels be Wrong. I thought, well, let's do this. I mean, I owe it to our listeners, I owe it to our listeners, to at least bring on an expert, bring on someone who's written about this, to have an intelligent discussion for all of you, because it's just nothing that I've focused on or talked about, but it is worthy of discussion. Um So for decades Environmentalists have told us that using fossil fuels is a self- destructive addiction that will destroy our planet.
Yet at the same time, at every measure of human well-being, from life expectancy to clean water to climate safety, life has been getting. Better. and better.
So we come back. I'm going to speak with Alex Epstein. He started the Center for Industrial Progress to offer an alternative environmental philosophy to America, one that is anti pollution but pro development. He's a popular speaker on college campuses, publicly debated leading environmentalists. Lives in California.
Oh, that could be interesting. Ah, Epstein. All right. I knew it's either Epstein or Epstein. I'll get it right.
Epstein.
So, the book, The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels. I might be able to take a call or two. I want to devote. Every minute I can to the interview, but if you've got something pressing or you really differ with something our guest says, I might be able to take a call at you at 866-348-7-884. And then, about the half-hour break, we're going to switch subjects and get back to the larger rumblings surrounding Charlottesville and give you further perspectives and interact with you right here on the line of fire.
Change the world. Change the world. Give us strict to always do what's right. It's the line of fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown, your voice of moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution.
Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. All right, we've taken a few minutes already to set the stage for my guest, Alex Epstein, in his book, The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels. But what's fascinating is the book came out in 2014. Yet it remains on Amazon, number one, in several categories, including natural resource extraction, oil, energy, fossil fuels.
It's number one, two, three, four, these different categories. And I'm looking over 400 reviews. Only 6% slammed it with one star. Even though my guest has been called a climate denier, The most recent review, Five Stars, as the vast, vast majority are. No other book disputing climate change alarmism has been written so well.
Bravo, Mr. Epstein.
Alex, thanks so much for joining us on the line of fire. Thanks for having me. All right. The most basic question here climate change climate change alarmism, the things we associate with the Al Gores and Michael Moore's of this world. Don't we know for a fact, sir, that that it's really happening?
Don't we know for a fact that polar bears are endangered because of lack of ice and water? I mean, don't we just know that this is happening? And look at how hot it's been at certain times here. How can you deny this? Isn't this the fundamental thing you run into right off the bat?
Well, it's interesting that you call it the most basic question because I don't think. even properly framed. which that isn't. But even properly framed, the issue of How much warming fossil fuels created? Not the basic question, the basic question.
Do fossil fuels advance human flourishing? Or not? And if so, how much? And if not. how much do they harm it?
And then their impact on the atmosphere. Is one aspect of that. But what I do in moral case for fossil fuels is I I focus on the basics, which is what is good for human flourishing. And then, if we want to figure that out, we need to look carefully at the positives and negatives. of different alternatives versus in the way that you raised.
And I know you're just raising it exactly as it's raised. Notice that you threw polar bears in there. Yes, of course. What kind of how is that a primary thing? We have 3 billion people in the world with virtually no energy.
Yet, polar bears are a popular thing. Yeah. very early on in these discussions.
So only if we really have this A human flourishing perspective, only if we're committed to looking at the whole picture, can we even know. when to talk about these things and how much weight to place on them. Got it. Right. And it is interesting as we encountered many years ago with a fellow from Evergreen going door to door, raising money for his cause.
He knocked on the door of a friend of mine and said, I'm raising money to help save the baby whales. And my friend said, I'm more concerned with saving the baby humans. And the guy got very upset and walked away. But that's the issue. Human fight.
Flourishing.
So let's say someone's listening. When we talk about fossil fuels, they don't even know what this is and where this plays in the debate today.
So just give us the, in this case, the most basic of the basics. Fossil fuels, what's the real issue here?
Well it's a it's a source of energy.
So energy of the industry that powers every other industry. When you're talking about a source of energy, This is something that if it's cheap, plentiful, and reliable, will make every other value in life. more cheap, plentiful and reliable. And if it's expensive and scarce and unreliable, it'll do the opposite.
So if you think of like Walmart had those falling prices, well imagine those prices just doubling and tripling and quadrupling. That's what it means to have more expensive energy.
So then fossil fuels are an option in terms of using energy. And they're the option that's chosen around 85% of the time. around the world.
Now That's a lot. It's really unlikely that in every country this is going to happen. and that it's just some sort of conspiracy. And if we look at it, no, it's not that it's a conspiracy, it's that it's really, really hard produce energy cheaply, plentifully and reliably. on a scale of hundreds of millions, let alone.
Billions of people. You just have to come up. With the right kind of source and the right kind of process and the right kind of distribution. And the only industry that's pulled it off is the fossil fuel industry.
So even if there are negative side effects of fossil fuels, we need to recognize that this is the one industry that is demonstrably capable of fulfilling this fundamental human need. And so that's where I start. And then I look at: okay, in that context, how big a deal are the risks and side effects? And what I find is. that thanks to ingenuity and technology, uh they are getting those situations are getting better and better and better.
So we have more of the resource than ever, thanks to human ingenuity. We have less pollution than ever, thanks to human ingenuity. And actually, our climate is safer than ever, thanks to using fossil fuels and other technologies to take the naturally dangerous climate and make it safe.
Well then, what what drives the alarmism? What you said seems very pragmatic, simple, clear, be easy enough just to look around the world. I I know there are pollution problems in countries like China and India as you have massive population increases and people flocking to the cities more. But you're saying that these are being addressed and dealt with. Why the alarmism?
It's a really good question.
So I think the first thing is to get clear on why the alarmism is wrong.
So that's what I tried to indicate. Before, I think it really comes down to the issue of what is the goal. because alarmism implies I'm alarmed about my goal. being harmed. The thing that I'm after, there's some huge threat to that.
And if your goal is human flourishing, you can see, well, no, the threat is actually reducing fossil fuel use. That would be the big problem. And so then there are one of two possibilities. One is people are just not making the right factual calculations. They're not really calculating the positives and negatives.
And I think that's true of the public. But the leaders of this, they've been too exposed to the evidence. They're too obviously biased against fossil fuels. And I think what's going on is their goal is not to maximize human flourishing, it's to minimize human impact. They do care about whales much more than they care about humans.
Really, they just. Are opposed to humans. Because if you say minimize human impact, that just means you like every part of nature. More than human. And if that's your goal, And that's a goal we're taught is moral, to minimize our impact on the planet, then you're going to be.
opposed to any kind of industrial progress because human progress, including industrial progress, means impacting nature in very transformative ways.
So what happens is they're against fundamentally all forms of energy, which is why they only support imaginary forms of energy like solar and wind that don't really work or scale very well. But if those ever became big and successful, then they would oppose those two. All right. the the the word moral in the title of your book, The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels, that that's a very important word that people can hear the moral argument even rising. And we'll come back to that very specifically.
But what has to be baffling is why would human beings not care about human beings? I can give a religious theological issue or a perspective and say that there's a lack of recognition that we're created in the image of God and therefore we're no different than a tree or an animal. But if we're just looking at it in broader non-theological terms, you're saying that a lot of people are not concerned. People are not concerned with what's best for people. How do you work that out?
Well, I think it's it's important That we should expect that the natural thing, religion or not, would be for human beings to care about humans. Yes. It shouldn't be, oh, you have to accept some particular. of theological tenets. to care about your own child.
more than a mosquito. Right, this is not something incredible.
So it is really worth looking at. How is this? how is this possible? I think there are a lot of historical answers. But one is, I'll give two.
One is just people not thinking clearly about what the moral goal is.
So if somebody says, well, minimize your impact, they think, oh, well, yeah, I'm against pollution. But that's not what minimizing impact means. It means, yeah, you're against pollution, but you're really against You're really against development. Against transforming nature, which is a fundamental of human survival.
So people don't think about it clearly. And then, what reinforces that non-thinking about it clearly is they have a false view of the relationship between human beings. and the rest of nature. They have what what I call the perfect planet premise. They believe that that nature is naturally stable.
safe and sufficient. And so the only worry then is to rock the boat. Whereas in reality, if you have the imperfect planet premise, nature is is is uh dynamic. dangerous than deficient. It's not good enough.
We have to upgrade it. And if you have that premise, your fear is not rocking the boat. it's not improving things. And because of this perfect planet premise and because it's not really challenged, it people even more buy into this idea of minimizing human impact. even though if you take it seriously, it really means dehumanize the planet.
So it's weird that people think they're benefiting humans when they're actually Dot taking the most anti-human position imaginable. Yeah, extraordinary. And then somehow it gets politicized as right versus left, which seems even odder. And just got 30 seconds before the break, but any comment on that?
Well, what I'm trying to do with what I call the human flourishing movement is to transcend that and to ask people, do you really care about individual human beings' lives? being healthy and happy and productive. And if you do, let's start thinking in those terms and then let's evaluate which political policies and energy policies and environmental policies actually advance them. Got it. Got it.
All right, friends, my guest, Alex Epstein, the book, The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels. We come back. I want to find out. I mean, what's going on? Climate-related deaths?
Are they increasing? decreasing and curious to know he must have a busy debate schedule with all the folks who want to challenge him. God of light, hear our cry, send the fire. It's the line of fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown, your voice of moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution.
Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Welcome back to the Line of Fire, my guest, Alex Epstein. Author of the influential book, The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels. You know, we hear so much challenge about these various views, the views that you espouse, and so much of what is an alarmist viewpoint about human changes and the climate and the end of the world is around the corner.
So you must have a busy debate schedule with all the people who want to challenge you, right? I assume that that's facetious. This is a really interesting misconception. That I would say today, in particular, not to be too political, but particularly that the left. is very eager to debate its ideas, which You might expect because they often at least feign a very high degree of moral confidence and scientific confidence.
and intellectual confidence in ideas. But you see, there's a general establishment tendency to just condemn people who disagree with them instead of explaining. Like, I live in San Francisco and I actually have a whole bunch of methods to persuade people effectively.
So I don't run into too many problems. But when I talk to other people of my views, they say, Yeah, people will just condemn me. And I say, Isn't that interesting that they don't feel the need to persuade you? Like, I feel the need to persuade other people. I can't just, if they say a view I think is wrong, I can't just say, Oh, you're evil.
You must be stupid. How is that? But there's this. There's this illusion of superiority. And so, when the moral case from fossil fuels came out, I wasn't surprised, although I was not happy, that.
people didn't want to engage in. And I've gone to a lot of lengths to make people engaged. I now have a hundred thousand dollar offer to Al Gore. To debate me, which he hasn't taken me up on. And his view is: oh, there is no debate.
Really, there's no debate. about energy policy proposals by you that would outlaw eighty percent of the world's current energy use. Like there's that's we can't even debate that. We can't even debate whether there's going to be a one foot or two foot sea level rise versus the twenty foot sea level rise that you claimed in two thousand six and still haven't come back on.
So really a kind of dishonest thing. And I think the best way to promote debate is just to really frame it around this human flourishing issue and say, yeah, let's talk about what policies regarding energy and fossil fuels are best for human flourishing and what aren't. And if you're not willing to debate that, then you're not serious, then it's not responsible to call for drastic measures and not being willing to debate them. Got it. Yeah, and of course, I understand that folks aren't willing to debate, hence the facetious nature of my question, to reveal these very things.
When you have this air of superiority, moral and intellectual superiority, then you shut down opposing views, and that almost guarantees an obscurantist position of your own. Talk to us about reality, Alex. What's the trend regarding climate-related deaths, increasing or decreasing? Decreasing, but it's important to even raise that question. Because almost noba if we're looking at human flourishing, the thing we care about in climate is how livable, how safe is climate.
And so the perfect statistic is how many people are dying from climate, climate related deaths. But people that statistic is not publicized. It's not documented by the people who claim catastrophic climate change. because either they're not thoughtful enough to even think about it in human terms, they're so absorbed in this idea of, well, let's focus on polar bears and let's focus on molecules of CO two that they don't actually care about the body count. Or they're just being dishonest because they know that that number has been reduced from in the millions and the thirties.
In the thousands today.
So last we just checked last year, the current number that they have calculated for last year is 6,114. You think about how many problems in the world are there only six thousand one hundred and fourteen Wow. Not very many. Yeah, that's an extraordinary figure. You just look at car deaths in America just as one of a multitude of statistics, and it's going to completely demolish a number like that.
So let's get back then to the positive side, the moral case. for fossil fuels. Why? All right, so less deaths, but what is moral? about using these fossil fuels.
How is this ultimately going to help human flourishing?
Well, it's important that the moral in moral case for fossil fuels means human. Because the case against fossil fuels pretends to be human, but it's really an anti-human case. It's the green case, the minimal impact case. It says, well, of course, we shouldn't be changing nature. We shouldn't be impacting nature.
So if we're adding any more CO2 to the atmosphere, it must be evil. Whereas my perspective is I'm perfectly happy to add CO2 to the atmosphere if the net result is really, really good for human beings.
So it's actually that step of defining the goal that serves as the standard by which we judge everything. That's actually the most consequential thing because we really start measuring things. in human terms. We just see, oh my gosh, well, if you care about medicine, where do we get the manufacturing capability to make medicines? And where do we get the power for hospitals?
And where do we get the time to do medical research that requires a machine labor society that's productive? You can take any realm you want, and you'll see that energy is fundamental, and therefore the distinctly cheap, plentiful, reliable, and scalable energy provided by the fossil fuel industry. Is essential, and to the extent that's diminished, life is going to get worse.
So it really is a universal value. to human flourishing. Got it. And uh lastly, when when uh People who are looking at this and they hear a lot of the alarmism, you mentioned some of the predictions that haven't come to pass. People don't take responsibility for them.
The Algor predictions in 2006. If you were just giving a couple of other instances to someone to say, I need more ammunition to get people just to think, just to get them to wonder, what else would be some of the most striking things that we've been told with this end of the world scenario? It's here, it's upon us, and it hasn't happened. Yeah, it's very important that the same claims that are made today - catastrophic resource depletion, catastrophic pollution, catastrophic climate change - all of those have been made since the 70s. And I'll give you a couple of examples here, but if people want to get a lot of them, just go to moralcase for fossil fuels.com and you can get the Three first chapter of the book, which is called The Secret History of Fossil Fuels, which is all about these predictions.
But for instance, Paul Ehrlich, who's one of the world's leading ecologists and still prestigious professor at Stanford. Uh said that No, by the nineties, uh late nineties I think it was, no, England would had a fifty-fifty chance of not existing. Like that kind of thing. People talked about uh John Holdren. President Obama's lead science advisor predicted in the mid-80s that by the year 2020, we'd have a billion climate-related deaths.
From C. Yeah, yeah. And if you look at the stats, actually billions more people are fed in large part because of fossil fuel energy. Powering all the different agricultural machines. And oh, by the way, the extra CO2 in the atmosphere that we've really enriched the atmosphere with.
has led to dramatic increases in plant growth, including crop growth. All right, so friends, go to the moral case for fossil fuels by the moral case for fossil fuels. Oh, sorry. Thank you for correcting me. MoralCaseforFossilFuels.com.
Download the first chapter of the book, and then to get the entire book, it is by Alex Epstein. All the information will be there. Hey, at a certain point, truth and sanity will prevail, so keep getting the message out. I appreciate you helping to educate our listeners. I thought your questions were particularly good.
So I really appreciate you thinking about the book. Tandu, it's great to be here. All right. Thank you so much. I really appreciate that, Alex.
Change the world. It's the line of fire with your host, activist, author, international speaker, and theologian Dr. Michael Brown. Your voice of moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution. Get into the line of fire now by calling 866-34 TRUTH.
Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Well, thank you for joining us today on the Lana Fire. With your permission, we're going to talk about really controversial issues, all right? And I want to hear from you: 866-348-6636.
Seven eight eight four Yeah. I posted this Saturday night once I was done with ministry and. Spending time with the folks that were hosting us. I then. Posted this Saturday night, so the night of the Charlottesville Tragic events.
And I said this. There is nothing American. about white supremacism. Nothing heroic? Nothing praiseworthy, nothing patriotic.
There's a rotten, ugly mindset full of hatred, bigotry, and pride. and every person of conscience should denounce it, It degrades others who are also created in the image of God and takes His name in vain to further its cause. Whatever our political or racial or ethnic background as Americans, we need to stand together against it. That is the statement that I issued immediately, and obviously, as categorical and clear as I
