Why The Conflict in Charlottesville Should Have Christians Concerned

Why the conflict in Charlottesville, Virginia should have Christians concerned. I'm David Wheaton, the host of The Christian Worldview, and that's our topic today on the program where the mission is to sharpen the biblical worldview of Christians and to share the good news that all people can be reconciled to God through faith in Jesus Christ. So glad you joined us this morning on the program as we talk about the conflict in Charlottesville that took last week and why Christians should be very wary about what took place in the future. Ephesians 4 in verse 31 and 32 say, Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice.

Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you. In that passage, we need to keep in mind today as we hear the rhetoric of both sides of what took place last weekend. So the melee that took place last Saturday in Charlottesville between Nazi white supremacists and communist anarchists, and I'll tell you more about both groups coming up in the program today, has shocked this country. The white supremacist Nazis obtained a permit to march in the town of Charlottesville to oppose the removal of a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee. But before the march began, the sides came into confrontation.

Violence ensued, resulting in scores of injuries and the death of a woman being run over by a car. The mainstream media has pushed relentlessly the narrative that the Nazi white supremacists are to blame and that President Trump is a leading supporter. Meanwhile, in the aftermath of the incident, Confederate statues and monuments around the country have been removed by towns through their city councils or pulled down by mobs in an effort to purge American history of anyone or anything associated with slavery. So how do we make sense of all this? What is the worldview of these two sides, the Nazi white supremacists on one side and the opposing communist anarchists on the other, a group known as Antifa, short for anti-fascist? And why should biblical Christians, who would appear to be far removed from either of these sides, why should we be concerned about the ramifications of this with regards to speech and freedom of speech and freedom of religion in America? So today in the Christian worldview, we're going to discuss the values and the goals of those fueled by hatred and bigotry. I think there's four things I'd like to go over today just to keep in mind in thinking about what took place.

And the first thing is that we cannot trust the media to tell the truth or to tell the full story. Number two, we need to resist resist the urge to sympathize in any way with the group that you may dislike less than the other group. Because some of the things you're going to say, you might say, well, I can kind of agree a little bit with that.

That does seem like the way things are going in this country. Resist that urge. I'll tell you why in a second. And then the next thing is number three is don't be an advocate for suppression of hate speech and hate groups, because we'll tell you why. And number four is proclaim God's truth while you can. So that's just an overview of what we're going to discuss today here on the program. Let's go back to that first point that you cannot trust the media to tell the truth or tell the full story. Because the media and politicians, they have their own worldview and they have their own agenda that they are intent on pushing. They're providing information and they want people to get a certain kind and amount of information that makes them think like they do. You can't even fully believe the video from watching what took place last weekend in Charlottesville, because working in broadcasting myself, so much can be done after the video is taken in editing.

You can have one scene and make it look like something's happening and turn it into something else through skillful editing. Even if you were there at the march, you really only have your own point of view. So for instance, CNN this past week did a little bullet point on trying to simplify what took place in Charlottesville.

And this is what they said. Number one is that counter protesters met white nationalists and other right wing groups at the site of Saturday's Unite the Right March event hours before the rally was set to start. Number two, clashes broke out and police began to disperse crowds. Bullet point three, local officials declared the rally an unlawful assembly and the governor declared a state of emergency. Bullet point four, about two hours later, a gray Dodge Challenger rammed into a crowd of counter protesters walking down a street into downtown Charlottesville. Bullet point five, final one, the driver slammed the car in reverse and fled the scene backward.

The suspected driver was arrested later that afternoon. And so in looking at all the things that happened at this thing, there's for sure semblances of correctness in what CNN reported, but there's a bias to how they reported that. For instance, who are the counter protesters? It makes them seem like, well, if it's Nazi white supremacists counter protesters, well, they must be good people.

They must be worthy of our support. That's a very critical thing to keep in mind in today's program is who are these two sides going at each other? And the second thing is, did these quote counter protesters have anything to do with the violence that took place? Now I read a pastor's blog, a quote unquote pastor who was there.

There was a group of pastors praying at this particular event. And this pastor I believe was in support of the Antifa, the communist anarchist side of things, or at least the quote counter protesters against white supremacists and Nazis. And the pastor wrote this, he said, the Antifa, again, anti-fascist, and we'll tell you about what they believe today, the Antifa strategically incited enough violence before noon to make the police declare it illegal to gather in Emancipation Park. Through this strategic violence, they effectively made a previously legally permitted Nazi rally illegal. We may not agree with each other's tactics, we may have had different goals, but if you're looking to praise people specifically for shutting down the Unite the Right rally, praise and thank the Antifa, not the clergy and not the police. Okay, so this is someone who's in support of these quote counter protesters who said that they're the ones that instigated the violence, that was able to create a melee, and then the police moved in to shut this legally permitted event down.

And so there's lots of questions that you have to think through and not just accept what appears to be the reporting of the mainstream media and these kinds of things. Why did the person ram his car into a crowd? Was it malicious? Did he maliciously do it? Or was he actually being attacked himself and was trying to get away from being violently attacked?

We don't know that. Was it a self-inflicted hoax? Was it someone on, you know, we see these hoaxes all the time.

Remember the Jewish community centers were being threatened to being bombed in America? Well it turns out it's an Israeli person over in Israel making the hoax. Was it a hoax?

We don't know. It may be, absolutely, a white supremacist running into the Antifa protesters. It may have been, but we we should never jump to conclusions, especially when realizing the media has an agenda that they're trying to get across to us. The media conclusion, I'm going to play a soundbite here in a second from written on Esquire.

There's an article on the event in Esquire and says quote, the question before us is obvious. Is this the country we've built for ourselves and can we allow it to continue this way? Now those might seem like simple and indecent questions, but you have to ask in response, well is this racial hatred? Is this new in America? Is this new in the world? Is it worse now in America? Is it worse all across the world? Is it growing in America?

Is it growing across the world or according to past times in history? And so what does he mean by can we allow it to continue this way? Does that mean that the authorities should jail or kill those who have ideologies that hate non-whites or hate whites? What's allowed to continue?

What does that mean? That we should put them in concentration camps? Be very careful about the suppression of speech in this country, the first amendment constitutional right, the forefathers knew that tolerating speech that we find reprehensible is important to other people's speech being protected, namely Christians. So incidents like this are simple and complicated. They're simple to draw quick conclusions.

Nazi white supremacists bad, counter protesters good, but that's not what you want to do in situations like that. You want to think of the broader implications or ramifications of what is actually taking place. They're complicated also to know why exactly they happened and to what extent they represent the country.

I mean are these big movements? Do they represent you know 50% of the country or just 0.001% of the country? And the fact that we live in an internet age now where we find out news and it's broadcast everywhere immediately at once is a bigger deal being made of hundreds of Nazi white supremacists and these Antifa folks going at it in Charlottesville.

I mean is this really where the future of the country is going or is it just really an anomaly, less than 1% of what's really taking place in this country? Any other questions you have to ask is who is behind the organizations of these sides? Who is doing all the funding? These two things, organization and funding, are critical to having something people gather together and uniting people to do these things and funding them.

These things take almost full-time work to put something together and so that means they're probably not gainfully employed somewhere else. Someone is supporting them. Who is behind the organization of these groups? Who is providing the funding and what are their ultimate goals? And what are their ultimate goals?

Is it just to have a voice or do the Nazi white supremacists really want to exterminate all non-whites from our country and do the Antifa, the communist anarchists, really want to exterminate the country of whites and anyone who disagrees with their worldview? So again, point one is to not trust the media to tell the whole truth or the full story. Point two is to resist the urge to sympathize with the group that you dislike less. So in the last couple days I did a very deep dive on this particular incident because it's shocking to watch that last weekend. I read news sites that represented, by the way, both sides. I went to a documentary done on, I'm going to play some audio of that in a second, on the Nazi white supremacist side of things and I think their viewpoints are pretty obvious. It doesn't take too much of a deep dive to understand what they're about. But I also went and looked into the Antifa side of things.

So we're going to get into that in the next segment. And they are essentially communist anarchists. And the worldview of both sides is reprehensible and antithetical to a biblical worldview. The Nazi white supremacists would rid the country, if they could, of non-whites.

The communist anarchist Antifa would rid the country of whites and anyone who opposed their worldview, like Christians, if they could. So when we come back, we'll discuss the viewpoints of both these sides and tell you why it matters for Christians to be very wary of this incident in Charlottesville. The Christian worldview fall conference is coming up soon on Friday evening, September 15th and Saturday morning, September 16th in the chapel at Grace Church in Eden Prairie, Minnesota.

There are two compelling themes this year, world events, Islam and the clash of civilizations and the reformation, justification and the authority of scripture. Geopolitical analyst Soren Kern, Pastor Troy Dobbs and David Wheaton will be the speakers. There will also be a live radio broadcast and special music. Friday evening dessert, Saturday morning breakfast and a pre-conference speaker reception are also available. You are encouraged to come and bring others too. Registration is not required for the conference, but doing so by Tuesday, September 5th guarantees you a seat.

Discounted hotel rates are available. Details and registration are at thechristianworldview.org or call 1-888-646-2233. Thanks for joining us today on the Christian worldview radio program. I'm David Wheaton, the host, and our topic is why the conflict in Charlottesville, Virginia last weekend should have Christians very circumspect and concerned about what this could lead to our own freedom of speech and freedom of beliefs. And as I was mentioning before the break, I was saying that the two main sides at this event, now there's lots of people who come to an event like this, but the two sides that were really causing the action against each other on one side were Nazi white supremacists and the other side was a group called Antifa, which is a communist anarchist group. Now I'm sure there's just regular liberals there and conservatives and a lot of the people watching in media and college students and like any big gathering of people, but the ones that were causing the action were, from what I could at least see in all the research I was doing on it, were these two sides. And HBO did a about 20 minute documentary on the Nazi white sympathizer side of things.

They had a reporter, a liberal reporter embedded with the Nazi white supremacist group. And I'm going to play a soundbite from that. It's about three minutes long. It's a 21 minute documentary, but I cut it down to three minutes, so keep in mind it's been edited down.

And just to give you a flavor of what the worldview of the Nazi white supremacist side is. And so it's a little rough. I warn you if you have children, you may not want to hear some of the things. All the obscenities have been bleeped out, so you won't hear any of that.

But it's one of those things that gets your audio, the audio of it will raise your heart rate a bit. And I'm just going to say in advance that just some of the things, I'm just going to play the whole thing, not going to stop it. It's about three minutes long. Just some of the chants. You may not be able to make out what they're saying, but they start off by saying, you will not replace us.

Jews will not replace us. Then they go, the groups are going back and forth, white lives matter, black lives matter. And then one of the speakers for the Unite the Right rally, Chris Cantwell, he's interviewed. And then you have the other side saying, we're here, we're gay, we fight the KKK.

This is there on the side of the Communist anarchists. Then you have other white supremacist leaders talking about the city of Charlottesville is run by a criminal element. They comment about Donald Trump and David Duke comes on talking about the ethnic cleansing in this country. A black woman is interviewed about what Charlottesville is like. And then finally, at the end, the actual leader who organized the Unite the Right, Unite the Right rally, the march, was trying to speak at the end in front of microphones and literally a mob formed around him, shouted him down and forced him away from microphones.

And if there had not been police officers there, I think he would have been killed or he would have been stoned or something because it was just it ended just like a mob scene. And you'll hear all that in this soundbite. So I'm not trying to give everything away in advance. I just want you to kind of basically know what you're going to be hearing in the audio so you can follow along because I'm not going to stop it. Okay, so this is from an organization I believe called Vice News. It was aired on HBO. You can search for it yourself if you want and watch it on YouTube. It's 21 minutes long.

It's been shortened to three. And here it is. I'm here to spread ideas, talk in the hopes that somebody more capable will come along and do that. Somebody like Donald Trump who does not give his daughter to a Jew. So Donald Trump, but like more racist. A lot more racist than Donald Trump.

I don't think that you could feel about race the way I do and watch that Kushner walk around with that beautiful girl, OK? We're here obeying the law. We're doing everything that we're supposed to do, trying to express opinions. And the criminals are over there getting their way. And that is a foundational problem in our society. And whatever you think of my opinions, that's going to be something that puts you in danger.

And that is because this city is run by Jewish communists and criminals. That's exactly what it is. So what do you hope to get out of today? Like what does it mean to you? Well, for one thing, it means that we're showing to this parasitic class of Andy White vermin that this is our country. This country was built by our forefathers and sustained by us.

It's going to remain our country. I believe, as you can see, we are stepping off the Internet in a big way. For instance, last night at the torchwalk, there were hundreds and hundreds of us. People realize they're not atomized individuals. They're part of a larger whole because we have been spreading our means.

We have been organizing on the Internet. And so now they're coming out. And now, as you can see today, we greatly outnumbered the anti white, anti-American filth. And at some point we will have enough power that we will clear them from the streets forever.

That which is degenerate in white countries will be removed. We had a federal court order to have this, to have this rally. And also we had an order that we could have obviously speaking equipment.

Let's get in the car. Let's get a speaking permits. They wouldn't even let us hook up our microphones and our speakers because they don't want our speech because we're telling the truth. We're talking about the ethnic cleansing of America and the destruction of the American way of life. And a new Bolshevik style society with no freedom, no freedom of speech in this country. That's really where we're going in America.

And that's got to change. This is the face of supremacy. This is what we deal with every day being African-American. And this has always been the reality of Charlottesville. You can't stand in one corner in the city and not look at the master sitting on top of Monticello.

He looks down on us. He's been looking down on the city for God knows how long this, this is Charlottesville. It really is a sad day in our constitutional democracy when we are not able to have civil liberties like the first amendment, that's what leads to rational discussion and ideas breaking down and people resorting to violence. Wow.

Just listening to it again is pretty chilling. And that the last speaker was the guy who did the Unite the Right, got the permit for the Nazi white supremacist side, or he was from the alt-right. They're not all Nazis. They're not all white supremacy. They're different splinter groups.

They all kind of are on that side of things. And this is the guy that was at the microphone in front of a building. And this mob came in and they were, they were not going to let him speak.

And he was going to be, he was going to be physically harmed, if not killed, if the police had not jumped in and pulled him away in that moment. So that just gives you a flavor of what took place last weekend in Charlottesville. And that's probably something you didn't see reported on the news at all as to what the beliefs of the, the white supremacist side of things are. That's why I think it's helpful to hear, to hear what they actually believe. Now, going back to a couple of the comments by a few of their leaders during that, that audio, you may agree. And remember the point of this, this whole segment is resist the urge to sympathize, sympathize with the group you dislike less. Now you may agree that white America, white Christian America is being diminished, whether through immigration, through discrimination in hiring, admission to colleges, affirmative action, these kinds of things, but you'd better steer very clear of all of their conclusions and methods because you'll find yourself very far away from where God wants you to be. In other words, believing a little bit of their ideology, they have a point there, okay, maybe you have a little bit of a fraction of a point somewhere, but you start going down that road, the flesh easily gets it into where they are, where they would exterminate and rid the country of all non-whites, as they talked about, you know, the vermin and scum in this country.

So be very careful about that. But on the other side, as we're going to go into the worldview now of who these Antifa folks are, you might sympathize with them being social justice warriors, as they call themselves, that they fight against racism, that they fight against the oppressive, greedy, big business, corporate America in this country. They're fighting for universal health care, protecting the environment.

You may have a sliver of agreement with some of those causes, but again, the same warning goes for that. You better be very careful and steer clear of all their conclusions and methods, because you'll find yourself very far away from where God wants you to be. And so I looked into this this Antifa group.

I'd heard the name in the past and didn't really know much about it. I went to some of the websites and the Facebook pages of who Antifa is. Their official Twitter account has a banner and says this, the official Twitter account for Antifa says this, the only good fascist is a dead one. Okay, Antifa USA Facebook page says this, hey, are you looking for ways to support your local Antifa, Antifa that doesn't involve being on the front lines?

Spread this around everywhere. Look, people, this is blank, serious. Please read. We aren't glitter bombing Nazis. We aren't throwing flour on them. We definitely are going to peaceably shut them down. They want to kill us. They said so in Charlottesville.

They made it very clear where they stand and how they plan on taking action. Their violence needs to be met with great force. If you are not down to physically fight these blank, please stay off the front lines. You'll get hurt and your pacifism will be a liability resulting in others being hurt. You can run support. We need more support.

Go to street medic training, run jail support. If you're good using the internet, learn how to securely dox these people. That means to put up their faces on the internet and try to hurt where they get them fired from their places of work.

If you know, it says, listen, there's the last one. If you are white, use that privilege to engage your racist relatives and neighbors in thoughtful discussion to change hearts and minds so the burden doesn't fall on our comrades of color. Notice the violent intent that the racism against whites and the word comrades, that's a communist word. We'll come back and discuss more after this. David Wheaton here to remind you that the Christian worldview golf and dinner event is fast approaching on Monday, September 18th at Golden Valley Country Club just outside Minneapolis. The golf and dinner event is really two events in one. Golf registration includes lunch, golf, cart, range, gift and the dinner event and the chance to win the Chevy Equinox hole-in-one prize.

Not a golfer? Then come to the dinner event which features a meet and greet on the lawn at 5 p.m. followed by dinner in the club at 6 with a worldview message, special radio broadcast, silent auction and great fellowship. Again, the golf and dinner event takes place on Monday, September 18th, but the registration deadline is Tuesday, September 5th.

Discounted hotel room rates are available. Full event details and registration are at thechristianrealview.org or call toll-free 1-888-646-2233. Thanks for joining us today on the Christian worldview radio program. We're talking about why the conflict in Charlottesville, Virginia last weekend should have Christians wary and concerned about freedom of speech and freedom of religion here in America. The first two points that we've been discussing the first half of the show today have four things Christians should keep in mind. Number one, you cannot trust the media, especially the mainstream media, to tell the truth or the full story here or even smaller media groups.

They each have a worldview. They're just trying to persuade you in a different way and so you know you can't even trust me. You go and you don't do the research for yourself from various groups and try to put together the picture of what really happened and what is the worldview behind these various groups that came to this rally.

So that's the first thing. You can't trust the media. Number two, you need to resist the urge to sympathize with the group that you dislike least. In other words, you may side a little bit with some of the worldview of one side or the other, either the fact that you feel that whites are being Christian, white males are being persecuted in America. There's some truth to that and you may think, well that's true, but be very careful about going down that road because it easily kind of slips into the really radical, unbiblical worldview that that group has, exterminating all non-whites and Jews from this country. And then the same thing for the other side, which we're talking about now, their worldview of the communist anarchists are known as antifa, anti-fascist. And a fascist to them is anyone basically who is, you know, white people, Christians, police officers, corporate America, they're not concerned about unborn babies, they're not concerned about God and the Bible, they're concerned only about non-white peoples, Muslims as we're going to find out, homosexuals, transgenders, the working class versus the oppressors, it's classic Marxism, they're concerned about social justice, basically tearing down Western civilization.

That's what they're focused on. As I mentioned, they use the word comrade all the time in referring to each other. That's a communist term, that's how communists refer to each other. Their flag, if you look at their logos, their flag is black, like ISIS. It sometimes has a red flag combined with a black flag, so it's like ISIS and communism. They are willing to use this red, and I'll read more, willing to use violence to, to what they say, defend against fascism. One of the commenters on one of their Facebook pages said, antifa has a good cause, but you lose all respect when you limit people's freedom of speech and throw urine in chemical mixtures and pepper spray. That's not freedom to which the antifa person who runs the page said, antifa, this is antifa USA Facebook page, yeah, such bad meanies hurting Hitler and Mussolini and Franco and their pals for speaking their mind and just trying to change the world to a fascist utopia. You do know that fascism has evolved historically, and what has been the only way to stop fascism?

Hint, it's not with hugs and logic. So this other side, quote unquote, remember how they were they were termed the counter-protesters? In other words, they must be good because they're counter-protesting the Nazi white sympathizers or supremacists who are bad.

It's not really that simple and clear. So their definition of being a fascist is someone who is non-white capitalist Christian constitutional America. Matter of fact, one of their major blogs is titled, It's Going Down. That's the name of it, like tear it all down, tear down Western civilization. And their Who We Are page on their blog says, It's Going Down is a digital community center from anarchist, antifascist, autonomous, anti-capitalist, and anti-colonial movements.

Our mission is to provide a resilient platform to publicize and promote revolutionary theory and action. These are the quote counter-protesters. Donald Trump was elected head of state through the democratic process, their website says, of course, as was Adolf Hitler. He has the support of millions of people, Trump.

So did Adolf Hitler. His government is in bed with people who dream about carrying out a second Holocaust and reinstating slavery among other things. We have every right to topple this government if we can. It would be unfortunate to look back on this moment with regret, realizing that we missed our chance. What would it take to rise to this occasion? We would have to mobilize large crowds nationwide to shut down government infrastructure, prioritizing everything nearest and dearest to people like Steve Bannon and his faction.

Something like that might work. I don't think it's too late. So that just should give you an idea of the worldview of both of these sides, both the Nazi white supremacists and the communist anarchist, self-proclaimed anarchist, anti-fascist known as Antifa. Now, Jonah Goldberg, who's a conservative columnist, wrote a good column this week in regard to this particular point we're making here, resist the urge to sympathize with the group you dislike least. He says this in his column, fighting Nazis is a good thing, but fighting Nazis doesn't necessarily make you or your cause good.

By my light, this is simply an obvious fact. The greatest Nazi killer of the 20th century was Joseph Stalin. So he killed millions of his own people and terrorized, oppressed, enslaved or brutalized tens of millions more. Naziism was evil, but so was so that communism was evil.

It's time to believe that Nazism, it's fine to believe that Nazism was more evil than communism, but that doesn't make communism good. And that's exactly the case here in this kind of situation. It's easy to slide into taking sides, one side or the other, but resist the urge because it goes down a very unbiblical road.

Okay, let's get to point three. Don't be an advocate for suppression of hate speech and hate groups. Now, you may disagree with both sides, but you should be in favor of our constitutional right to peaceably assemble and to peaceably speak. Once we reach a point where hate, according to whom, who gets to define what hate is, is shut down, or we get to the point where those people should be jailed or killed or put in camps, then you have Christians being the next ones that lose their free speech and freedom of religion. So to proclaim what the Bible says today, Jesus Christ in John 14 6 in just one place is the only way to salvation and all the religions are false. Or what Jesus said that marriage is between a man and a woman, or that sex outside of marriage, heterosexual and homosexual, is sin, and that gender is given by God to us and we should not try to change it, we cannot change it. To say those things today is considered hateful and harmful to people. And so do you really want an America that allows, because it's deemed hateful by someone, that you're jailed or you're persecuted for speaking what the Bible says to be true? And these four points I just made there, just those simple biblical principles, that's already viewed as hate by many in our society. And what you saw in Charlottesville is two sides that are really just assumed to be haters, and what should we do with them?

Should we allow them to voice their opinions in our society? And this is how Antifa, this is how these groups use hate, the word hate, to to shame and prosecute. They had a letter writing campaign on one of their websites where they printed out some texts that their members could read, call a company where a certain person, his name was Ellsworth George Works, he worked in a healthcare company, and he was pictured at one of these groups, the Nazi white supremacist groups, and they saw him, this is called doxing, where they identify him, and then they they call his place of work and saying, you're employing a white supremacist and we're calling to have you fire him.

This is what they do when you start getting into the fact that hate should be illegal. Now one particular organization, if you've been watching the news, has been represented or mentioned over and over again as being sort of the arbiter, the authority on who is a hate group and who isn't. And the group that has been mentioned over and over again by the mainstream media and everywhere else is the Southern Poverty Law Center. They've been presented as this unbiased source who is the the purveyor of morality and goodness and identifying who are quote hate groups in this country.

They have maps and where the hate groups are across the country and they're referenced over and over and over again. Because you're going to hear this about Southern Poverty Law Center, you're going to hear about this organization, maybe you already have heard about them, but let me just read what the Patriot Post said. They gave a little background on who the Southern Poverty Law Center is. They write, back in 1971, a marketer and attorney co-founded a counseling legal organization that cut its teeth with a series of civil lawsuits that eventually all but shut down and dismantled the Ku Klux Klan. Had the organization rested on its laurels with that achievement as well as other early work in the civil rights arena, perhaps the Southern Poverty Law Center would continue to maintain a modest but solid reputation in the legal advocacy community for its impact on that movement. But co-founder Morris Dees has always had bigger things in mind than that. So as the Southern Poverty Law Center continued to move beyond its original focus on civil rights and issues common in the Southern U.S. to include a plethora of other leftist causes on a national scale, its ambition and fundraising appetite became larger as well. Dees, the leader, once promised to stop the constant appeals for money when the group's endowment reached $55 million. But as the marker drew closer, the bar was raised to $100 million and now the Southern Poverty Law Center sits on a $300 million pile of cash.

Clearly the word poverty is in name only. And I'm going to read you more about what the Southern Poverty Law Center advocates for today and who these hate groups are that they're actually identifying. You'll be very surprised at who they're identifying as hate groups. And just this last week, Apple Corporation gave $1 million in donation to the Southern Poverty Law Center. So who is this organization and who are the haters they're trying to point out and marginalize in society? Stay tuned.

That's coming up next right here on The Christian Ruleview. According to the World Health Organization, a massive 350 million people suffer from depression. What's alarming is that the depression has resulted in an epidemic of suicides. Nearly half a million Americans are taken to the hospital every year because of suicide attempts.

Back in 2013, Newsweek magazine addressed the epidemic and could give no reason for the increase, saying that it had nothing to do with unemployment and nothing to do with guns. The preceding clip was from Exit, Ray Comfort's new documentary film on overcoming depression and suicide. To download the film or order the DVD, go to theChristianrealview.org or call 1-888-646-2233 or write to Box 401, Excelsior, Minnesota 55331. We're back on The Christian Ruleview final segment of the day and I apologize for the long monologue today on this topic of why the conflict in Charlottesville should have Christians wary and alert and concerned, but there is a lot to think about and a lot to consider in this. We're going over four points that Christians should keep in mind and number one is you cannot trust the media to tell the truth or the whole story. Number two is to resist the urge to sympathize with the group you dislike less and the point we're going over now is don't be an advocate for suppression of quote hate speech or hate groups or speech that you find very offensive even if they're Nazi white sympathizers and even if they're communist anarchists like Antifa which we went over in the last segment. Now we may find those those groups reprehensible and they shouldn't be allowed to use violence or incite violence but freedom of speech is a very different thing and very important for Christians, something we've enjoyed in this society and has been important for the propagation of the gospel. Now the gospel will still be propagated if there's no freedom of speech because Christians will still go and do it but it's certainly a nice privilege and gift from God to be able to have that speech that we've had in this country. So I'm reading a short column here continuing with this from the Patriot Post which is a conservative online site. I think it's patriotpost.us. They're writing about the Southern Poverty Law Center and I was telling you about them that they have become the chief point of reference for all these mainstream media organizations to identify who the hate groups are quote unquote hate groups are in this country and just going to continue reading the last couple paragraphs from this article and they say meanwhile since there isn't much need to sue the KKK out of existence you say that's what the Southern Poverty Law Center is known for it's where they are founded on the law center has turned its attention to advocacy as in trying to define itself as the sole arbiter of what defines a quote hate group one recent case in point the guide star directory of charities ran into controversy when it adopted the Southern Poverty Law Center's definition of hate group and applied it to legitimate organizations such as those now get this opposing same-sex quote-unquote marriage or otherwise promoting bible-based Christian beliefs the hate group list is nothing more than a political weapon targeting people it deems to be its political enemies one of the supposed hate groups is the Family Research Council I'm going to skip ahead the American Family Association and many other groups that you listen to from a Christian standpoint that simply stand for the biblical definition of marriage and other biblical principles that is hate to Southern Poverty Law Center any group that's anti you know transgender as they would put it that you should accept and embrace the gender God gave you that's hate to the Southern Poverty Law Center and so if your group advocates for that you're going to be on their list of hate groups in America and then this group is referenced all the time by CNN and broadcasts all over the country other stations and other media outlets as if they again are the sole arbiter of what is actually hate and it besmirches and actually instigates people to violence against these groups that are listed on this particular list by the Southern Poverty Law Center okay let's get to the last point today uh as is the last point is proclaim God's truth while you can now the aftermath of this um rally or this melee continues to be concerning as towns and mobs have removed other Confederate statues across the country because anyone in the Confederate army who served in that army or anyone who owned slaves is a hater or a fascist according to these people now I can understand how a Confederate statue could be offensive to some who only associate the Confederacy of the South with slavery but like we've been discussing it's a little more complicated than that because to many people the Confederacy and the families and the people and people like General Robert E. Lee they are remembrances of a time when their family members fought and died in a war the civil war that may have been for reasons other than slavery it may have been for the South's independence or for other reasons and they don't necessarily associate their history with slavery or with racism in any way okay so it can be interpreted a little bit different depending on who is looking at these statues I think Ken Blackwell he was I believe the former governor of Ohio and he's black and he wrote a very interesting column this week on historical revisionist revisionism you should read it if you can find it online he said look back on the great men and women of history most of them fare poorly when subjected to modern scrutiny they launched wars murdered rivals enslaved enemies enriched allies and violated most every moral norm valued by people today yet their tombs are venerated their distinctions are celebrated and their successes are lauded and then he goes on to say of course the role of some significant figures should not be celebrated like Adolf Hitler and Stalin and Mao Zedong let's go on down the article of course the focus of today's hysteria are southerners who led the confederate states of America given the centrality of slavery to the civil war history has rightly judged the confederacy harshly yet even its leading figures were complex Robert E. Lee opposed slavery in secession before the civil war and promoted reconciliation afterwards one wonders if even Abraham Lincoln was president during the civil war is safe from the left he spent much of the his career favoring colonization that is sending freed slaves back to Africa worse as he famously wrote to Horace Greeley if we could save the union without freeing any slave I would do it so why honor a man Kim Blackwell writes who didn't really want to free the slaves perhaps America's founders also should be dumped into history's wastebasket basket many were slave owners their attitudes towards women and native Americans were unenlightened after just a couple of generations U.S. leaders conducted brutal campaigns against the continent's original occupants and aggressive war against America's neighbors I need to skip down to the end because in in consideration of time here we should seek to understand and place in context he writes those who did great deeds while simultaneously tolerating and sometimes supporting what we now know see as great evil in the future our descendants will likely judge us by the same standards we applied to those who came before us or perhaps even more lightly and you can read Ken Blackwell's column online just do a search for historical revision of his column so just to summarize these statues are historical remembrances of a time in history you know if they offend you we have the freedom of movement in America just don't live near them if they offend you but to many people it's about their own history and it may not be associated with racism in slavery you know extremists have a purge impulse okay Christians are called to have a truth proclaiming in grace-filled character and it's not easy when you're in the crosshairs but I think Hebrews chapter 12 verses three through four or verses one through four give us a really good idea of what our marching orders so to speak as we talk about a march today are says consider him who endured such hostility by sinners against himself so that you will not grow weary and lose heart you have not resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin it says fix your eyes upon Jesus the author and perfecter of our of your faith that's the important thing to do in the midst of these very disturbing incidents fix your eyes upon Jesus and betray proclaim biblical truth in the gospel while we still have the chance thank you for joining us today in the Christian real view we'll talk to you next week everyone we hope today's broadcast turned your heart toward God his word and his son to order a cd copy of today's program or sign up for our free weekly email or to find out how you can be reconciled to God through Jesus Christ go to our website thechristianworldview.org or call us toll free at 1-888-646-2233 the Christian worldview is a weekly one-hour radio program that is furnished by the overcomer foundation and is supported by listeners and sponsors request one of our current resources with your donation of any amount go to thechristianworldview.org or call us toll free at 1-888-646-2233 or write to us at box 401 excelsior minnesota 55331 that's box 401 excelsior minnesota 55331 thanks for listening to the Christian worldview until next time think biblically and live accordingly