When CNN Compared Trump to Jim Jones

The following program is recorded content created by the Truth Network. Get into the line of fire now by calling 866-34-TRUTH. That's 866-34-TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Thanks for joining us today on the line of fire.

This is Michael Brown. Here's the number to call 866-34-TRUTH, 866-34-87-884. We are going to share some eye-opening content with you today. At the bottom of the hour, I'm going to be joined by author Joe Dallas, an important new book on Christians and a cancel culture.

But before then, oh yeah, we're going to rock the boat a little, ruffle the feathers a little, and talk straight and clear. Do you remember when Hillary Clinton made the unfortunate statement likening Trump supporters to a basket of deplorables? And that became a badge of honor. Yeah, we are the deplorables. And maybe you were a reluctant Trump voter. Maybe you were voting for Trump with mixed feelings. You were voting against Hillary Clinton and a leftist agenda, but you were not all in for Trump. But the more he got attacked, and the more he stood his ground, and the more he kept his promises, the more you identified with him.

And for some, it went too far. Trump became idolized. Trump became the only man that could save America.

You couldn't trust anybody except Donald Trump. But the process developed over a period of time. I'm writing a book on this to come out, God willing, September of next year, dealing with how so many in the church lost their way and how easy it is to fall into a political type of idolatry or a partisan political spirit where we wrap the gospel in an American flag and mistake political victories for the advance of the gospel.

But these things happen in subtle ways. And one of the issues was that the left-wing media so demonized Donald Trump that they demonized you, that they so made him into this white supremacist, racist, bigoted, xenophobic madman. They made him into a Hitler, that that made everyone who voted for him into some type of white supremacist.

Even if you weren't white, it made you, well, if he's Hitler, then you're just like the Nazis. And it was this over the top rhetoric and these attacks on Trump that went too far. Of course, there were issues in terms of his character.

Of course, there was damage because of his character in the midst of all the good that he did. And I say this as someone who voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020. But I was just reminded of the extreme rhetoric. I was just reminded of the nature of the attacks. I was just reminded of how it is that so many of us who voted for Trump felt that now we were getting attacked and we were getting smeared. And since January 6th, it's basically like if you voted for Trump, then you stormed the Capitol. If you voted for Trump, then you're an insurrectionist.

If you voted for Trump, then you're trying to topple the government. That's the way the thing has gone. So you will find this conversation absolutely remarkable. Brian Stelter and Jackie Speier on CNN.

Check this out. These citizens in other countries sometimes email me and say, you know, why doesn't the American media just call Trump for what he is? Call Trump fandom for what it is. Sometimes they use the word cult. I know that's a sensitive word. It doesn't come up a lot in American news coverage.

So I wanted to put it to an expert, an unfortunate expert. Congresswoman Jackie Speier started out her career in politics, working for a lawmaker. She was on a fact finding mission to Jonestown. She sadly knows firsthand about the weight of that word cult. She was able to escape with her life. Others were not able to that day. So I wanted to hear her thoughts about the comparison, the notion of the cult of Trump, especially in the light of January 6 and the mass delusion that led people to a riot of lies on Capitol Hill.

When I brought this up with her, she did not mince words. There's no question that you could compare Jim Jones as a charismatic leader who would bring his congregation together, force them to do things that were illegal, and then took 900 of them into the jungles of Guyana, where over the course of time, he then convinced them that they should die. I've never been able to say they committed suicide because I don't think they were in control of their faculties, to be quite honest with you. So you look at Donald Trump, charismatic leader who was able to continue to talk in terms that appealed to those who are disaffected, disillusioned, and who were looking for something much like those who became part of Jim Jones's congregation, the People's Temple. They were lost souls. And the only difference between Jim Jones and Donald Trump is the fact that we now have social media.

So all these people can find themselves in ways that they couldn't find themselves before. What a ridiculous, over-the-top, destructive, unhelpful comment that the only difference between Jim Jones and Donald Trump is that we now have social media. What a ridiculous, outrageous insult, not just to Trump, but to those who voted for Trump, who are therefore part of the cult of Trump and are no better than the Jim Jones followers who committed mass suicide. Yes, under deception and duress over 900 people, one of the great tragedies in the world of religion and cults in recent centuries.

So here's the deal, friends. I am fully willing to address the question of, quote, the cult of Trump. In fact, in my book, Evangelicals at the Crossroads, that came out last year, Evangelicals at the Crossroads, will we pass the Trump test? I have a whole chapter on that called the cult of Trump versus Trump derangement syndrome.

I deal with books written with titles like that, the cult of Trump. I address article after article saying that Trump has the characteristics of a cult leader. And there is no question that he is a master at pushing the right buttons to get the right responses, that he can provoke certain things, that he can stir people into a frenzy, that he can convince you that you can't trust anybody but him.

And yes, his rhetoric is dangerous. And yes, I hold him directly responsible for ultimately what happened on January 6th. No, I don't believe he wanted that to happen. I don't believe he wanted the Capitol to be stormed.

I don't think that in his mind he was setting that up. But he's responsible because of his irresponsible rhetoric, because, yes, there are people disillusioned and there are people who didn't trust the government, didn't trust the election process, and didn't trust the mainstream media. And Trump was the one they were looking to. And yes, he pushed the right buttons to get certain responses, even if things went in ways beyond what he ever would have dreamed of or imagined.

So I'm totally willing to discuss that and to look at that. At the same time, you must look at the phenomenon of Trump derangement syndrome where people attacking him go off the deep end, just like this interview, just like this interview and these outrageous statements. You know, Jim Jones forcing people to do certain things. Trump didn't force anyone to do anything. Trump did not take his followers into a jungle when the election was certified, when Biden was inaugurated, he vacated the White House. He didn't try to start an uprising. And what's he done with his followers since then? Well, he keeps his voice out there and he attacks Biden and the Democrats and Republicans he doesn't like. He's got this grip on people. Follow me, do what I say.

No, of course not. The Trump derangement syndrome is just as real as the cult of Trump. What it is, is he knows how to push certain buttons. And for people who can be more influenced and for people who are more unstable, they will follow him in a reckless way. And the ones who are the white supremacists and the ones who've been waiting to take up arms against the government, those are the ones that could get provoked to go do something and go too far. In the same way, the left wing media attacking him incessantly and unfairly and demonizing him, they respond to who he is in their own deluded ways, in their own bizarre ways. And when I think of the fact that, yes, Jim Jones, who was a cult leader, who sexually abused, I don't know how many people under him slept with woman after woman after woman, and from what I understand, man after man as well, was a sexual pervert, was a bonafide cult leader, pulled people out of where they were and said, OK, we're going to relocate here, had him under his control to the point that he convinced them and drink this and they all die.

Over 900 people, others fled out to the jungle safely and evaded that. If that's who Trump was, there would be complete civil war all over America right now. He would be holed up somewhere in some militia place in maybe the hills of West Virginia.

No one sold to West Virginia. You know, the stereotypical picture here. And there'd be some militia plotting the overthrow of the government. And so that is not what is happening. I voted for Trump assessing the good with the bad and saying, OK, the policies are the things he's in there for appointing judges. He's in there for that major international decisions.

He's in there for that. I massively prefer his policies to those of the Democrats. I know there are good people around him speaking into his life, even if he's not showing real signs of repentance. He's listening a lot. One of my colleagues, evangelical leader, said to me, Michael, all the good decisions he made, all the good policies that he put into into place. That's because he listened to the wisdom in the room.

That's because he listened to these leaders who were sharing and speaking to him and giving him wise counsel, as were others around him as well. And I thought, OK, but there's the damage of his rhetoric. There's the damage of his character. There's his divisive nature there.

There are all these other things. I can vote for him for the policies and then set a different example in terms of character. And we believers can set a different example and we can distance himself ourselves from his bad behavior.

Others said, no, it's it balances out or the bad behavior is worse. I can't vote for either candidate either way, either way. I understand the issues. I deeply understand the issues.

I've been commenting on them for years and as much depth as I can and after much prayer as well. But it's this kind of rhetoric, friends. Please hear me. This kind of terribly irresponsible rhetoric that fuels more mistrust towards the media, that identifies them even more as fake news, that says when you attack Trump like that, then you also attack us because if he's like Jim Jones, then we're like the Jonestown followers as well. We are just as mindless as they were.

And it's this type of attack that created greater allegiance to Trump and played into the problem. Cooler heads, more sober words must prevail. Enough with this kind of job.

Enough. Let's move forward. It's the line of fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Get into the line of fire now by calling 866-34-TRUTH.

Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Thanks, friends, for joining us on the line of fire, 866-34-TRUTH. Feel free to respond to what I just shared. Feel free to share your own frustrations, your own thoughts, your own insights, or to differ with me if you like.

866-34-8-7-8-8-4. Okay. I want to bring something to your attention. If you've been listening to the broadcast for years now, if you've been reading my articles for years now, you'll see what I'm saying is true. If you're just getting to know me, just tuning in, then let me give this background. Have you ever heard me say that I am not a conservative pundit, a conservative talking head, a conservative radio host who is also a follower of Jesus?

That's not my goal. That's not who I am. There are many fine conservative hosts on the air on radio and TV.

There are many folks with great insight into the culture or the Constitution or American history or where things are at today with American international relations, and they come from a conservative perspective. They may be religious, they may be non-religious, they may be Jewish, they may be Christian, but either way, they do a great job at what they do, and they are who they are. That's not who I am. That's not my calling. I'm called to be a Jesus follower, a preacher of the Gospel, a teacher of the Word of God, and as the Gospel and the Word of God intersects with culture, then I'm called by God to address those things. I'm called by God to help equip you to stand strong in the midst of a chaotic and crazy world. I'm called to help you stand on the front lines where you are, in the place of work, in your family, in school, wherever you find yourselves, behind the pulpit, to equip and strengthen you to stand strong, to be lights in this dark world as every generation of believers is called to be, standing as lights in this dark world.

Now, here's the deal. Joe Biden was inaugurated as our president January of this year, correct? And he's said a lot of things that others have mocked, look at his speech, he's not coherent. Have you seen me playing clips like that? Did you ever, in the history of the broadcast, see us playing clips like that, where we drew attention to someone's cognitive weaknesses or parent cognitive weaknesses and mock them? No, that's not who we are. I don't like anybody doing it, but no, that's not who we are.

It's not who we are. Joe Biden has made many statements that I differ with, and here and there we've interacted with them when they intersect with areas that God's called me to deal with, when they intersect with areas where we have burden or concern, all right? But there are plenty of policy decisions he's made and directions that he's set and budgets he wants to pass and things involving Kamala Harris and their border issues and all that. You don't hear me bashing him every day, do you? Weeks and weeks could go by when his name does not come up at all.

Of course, the name Donald Trump doesn't come up at all for weeks and weeks. Why? Because I'm not a conservative talking head. I'm not a conservative radio host who's also a follower of Jesus. That's not who I am.

That's not my calling. Otherwise, that'd be our theme every day. Biden this, Biden this, Democrats this, Democrats that. How often do you hear me playing, say, clips from CNN and really taking issue with what's being said? It has to cross a certain line or be on a certain subject that then intersects with areas that I'm called to address. Oh, that's not why I'm here.

Now, please hear me. I'm not criticizing those who are doing that every day. Talking heads on TV, radio host, writing articles, et cetera. I've written over two million words of articles, over 2000 articles and average about 1000 words an article, obviously some shorter, some longer. But I've written over 2000 articles. I've written a lot of words. I can just do a search.

I have one file on my computer just as articles. And I just do a search, just type in and I could in one second, you'll pull up all the articles during the eight years that President Obama was in the White House. I was bashing him every day.

The show was not about Barack or the ladies with Barack Obama attack Obama. And friends, if you're if you're political persuasions to the left, you know that during the four years of the Trump presidency, that was the main discussion on the left every day. Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, idiot Trump, bad Trump, resolution Trump, porn star and Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump.

It was a day and night, day and night. And if you were listening to conservative radio, there were Trump, good guy, Trump, great guy. And when Obama was in bad Obama, Biden in bad Biden and just and if you're on the left, wow, great thing Obama did, great thing Biden. That's partisan political reporting.

I understand it. And that's why you go to certain sources, right? Because either you agree with them and you want to hear what they have to say on the left or on the right, or you differ and you want to learn where people are coming from, what they're thinking. It's one reason that I enjoyed Hannity and Combs. Remember that the late the late Alan Combs was on with Sean Hannity. This before Hannity had his own show on Fox. And it was the big show he has now.

And I didn't watch it a lot. But when I would watch it, I thought, wow, you know, Sean Hannity would start off and nail it. Man, he made his case. Combs is going to have nothing to say. And then Combs would proceed to tear it apart, find fault with it, raise compelling points. And the other side, I thought, wow, Combs just won.

And then Hannity would come back like, wow, good job. And I thought, this is good. This is good because I'm hearing both sides. This is good because it's making me think that this is good because it's forcing me out of the echo chamber. Some of us rather live in the echo chamber. You know, we just want to be whoever we are, whatever our background, whatever our religious background, political background, social background. A lot of us want to stay in our little echo chamber and not interact with those who differ. And in fact, if someone differs with us, it threatens us because we don't feel we can defend what we believe or we just don't like hearing other stuff.

It agitates us. But what I want to remind you of, friends, is that here, how many times since the elections have you heard me talk about election fraud? There may have been fraud. I know very solid people, learned people, PhDs, statisticians, others who study things carefully and they say, Mike, something's wrong here.

I'm telling you, maybe. My feeling was there's been so much prayer and we have the court system and all the checks and balances. If that's the case, it'll come to light, but I'm not focused on that because the election was certified.

And that's the current reality. And I prayed for Donald Trump, so I prayed for Joe Biden. And as much as I deeply differ with his policies, I'm not rooting for the guy to go down. I'm not rooting for harm to come to him. I'm a follower of Jesus. I want God to save him in a way that he truly knows the Lord. Pray for Donald Trump to truly know the Lord and that they could bear much fruit and honor the Lord.

That's my desire. And if they're not, whoever it is, not living in such a way that not making decisions in such a way that are in harmony with what's best for the nation, I'm not expecting them to say, we are now instituting mandatory Bible reading in every business in America. No, it's not their business.

The separation of church and state is therefore violated. Of course not. I'm not looking for Joe Biden or the Democrats or Donald Trump, the Republicans, whoever comes up next. I'm not looking for them to be champions of the kingdom of God and righteous if they're saved.

Wonderful. But I'm looking for them to make good decisions that'll be in the best interest of America. So to me, that ends up being pro-life. To me, that ends up being pro-family. To me, that ends up showing solidarity with Israel. To me, that ends up pushing back against the tyranny of China. To me, it ends up on a certain side of the culture wars because I believe that's what's best for America. But we advocate for that in the public square.

We advocate for that with the platforms that I have advocate for it. And then we vote accordingly and we work within the system knowing that the system itself is still of this world, that the political system itself is always going to be corrupt. Like it's got human beings in it, human beings leading it and power corrupts. And you know what happens?

You know the joke. Someone says, I'm looking for a perfect church. And the answer is, well, the day you get there, it won't be perfect anymore. If churches are imperfect, if denominations are imperfect, how much more the political system. And as much as I appreciate our constitution and Bill of Rights and all these things, they're not the Bible.

They're not the Bible. So we're in this world. It's a fallen, messed up world.

We seek to live out our kingdom values in the midst of it. But I'm not here for partisan political games. Excuse me. That sounded like an insult. I'm not here to emphasize partisan political themes. Forgive me for saying games because you can be very much involved in the political system and involved in partisan politics, but it's not a game. So it's the wrong word to use. Forgive me. But I'm not here. For me, it would be playing games because that's not my calling.

So I just wanted to bring this to your attention. For any of you who say, well, you're just right wing, you're just, if I was just right wing, I'd be talking about Joe Biden all the time. I'd be bashing the Democrats all the time.

I'd be talking about the Republicans. Look, I'm a registered independent even though I voted for Republican candidates for years because of policies and platform. I'm a registered independent. That was my way of making a statement that my ultimate allegiance is to the kingdom of God. For me, I'm not criticizing you if you feel to be registered as a member of a party. What I'm saying is for me, it was important to say I'm registered as an independent because that's where my allegiance is. So when I say us, I mean fellow believers, us walking with the Lord, fellow believers, even though I'm standing with Republicans in many policies and thrilled that Republican judges are doing things they're doing. By the way, tremendously important interview tomorrow, tremendously important interview tomorrow with my friend Reverend Patrick Mahoney, talking about what could be the biggest case to come to the Supreme Court in decades has the potential of overturning Roe v. Wade in October. Oh yeah. And Republican governors are now lining up saying, hey, we're behind this.

We want to see this happen. I'm glad for that. But when it's us and them, it's not Republicans versus Democrats or vice versa. It's the people of God and the world. It's the followers of Jesus and those who don't know.

That's the us and them for me. So I just want to share that with you. Please hear me for who I am.

I want to hear you for who you are. We'll be right back with Joe Dallas. 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. Thanks, friends, for joining us on the line of fire. There are some Christian authors when you see one of their articles, you read it because you know this is going to carry weight. And when you see they come out with a new book, you say, wonderful.

This is going to be as good as gold. Joe Dallas is one of those authors. I've had the privilege of working with him in some conferences in years past. He came and spoke at our School of Ministry one summer some years ago, and I have so appreciated his ministry. I've kept up with it over the years. He has his own extraordinary testimony and has been on the front lines of the culture wars, taking on the difficult, the uncomfortable topics for many years now and doing it, bringing together grace and truth.

His new book is Christians and a Cancel Culture. Joe, thanks so much for joining us on the broadcast today. Michael, thank you for having me.

It's great talking with you again. Yeah. What a joy and how how shocking to see so many of the things we've talked about in years past and basically warned were coming.

Here they are. We're in the midst of them right now. Is it any surprise to you, Joe, that we are where we are in America today?

I cannot really say it's a surprise. Just as you said, we've talked about this type of thing for years, you and I and so many of us in ministry, but it's still a heartache to see it. We know that there was a decay which began in our nation decades ago. We saw it spreading.

We anticipated its impact on the Church and within the Church. But it's like watching someone you love very much growing very old and very ill. You may know what the end is going to be, but it's still heartbreaking to witness it. Yeah, absolutely so. Absolutely. Friends, I'm speaking with Joe Dallas, the new book Christians and a Cancel Culture. Is there a world vision, a new vision in broad terms where our nation is going? Is it just a bunch of separate individual developments, or is there kind of a larger vision that is being embraced?

Well, you got me, Michael. I look at it two ways. I see this whole mentality Cancel Culture woke social justice warriors. I see it as both a virus and as a crusade.

It seems like a virus is that different people keep catching it, and people who you recognize one day, the next day you suddenly don't recognize. They've got a different position, a different attitude, a different worldview, a different way of arriving at truth, and all of a sudden they are strident promoters of things like the Black Lives Matter movement or Antifa or a liberalized view of Christianity, as if they've caught a virus. Or we could look at it as a crusade, and I guess that may be more accurate.

I think we're in the middle of a crusade where you basically have very powerful forces, social media, entertainment industry, news media, certainly academia, the psychiatric industry. They basically have linked arms in a crusade to overhaul our way of thinking. And those of us who hold on to traditional concepts that are sacred to us, the definition of family, the definition of marriage, the reality of life within the womb, an accurate definition of racism and social justice, we who hold those views are the infidels. And infidels need to either be converted or they need to be silenced.

And I think that's where we are now. We're in the middle of a crusade that is sweeping the nation and other nations and is attempting to either convert our thinking or to marginalize and then silence us if we will not be converted. And this is problematic for us because the areas of thought they want us to convert our thinking on, these are non-negotiables.

We can't. I mean, in all fairness, you and I, we haven't been out there looking for a fight. We're not trying to make trouble, but our backs are against the wall when people say you need to change your belief system, you need to change your definition or there's going to be hell to pay. And we're sort of stuck with the old well, hey, judge for yourself, should we obey men or should we obey God? For our part, we've made our decision.

Right. And as you've been on the front lines of issues having to do with LGBTQ activism with your own powerful testimony coming out of homosexuality, being involved in, quote, gay Christianity, addressing these things. It used to be, hey, live and let live. Tolerance, diversity.

We just want to be treated fairly. Of course, you believe what you believe. But now the tables have basically turned saying, no, no, you have no right to believe what we believe. So am I overstating things to say that we've we've moved beyond the call for tolerance and diversity or maybe tolerance and diversity were always just code words? Oh, I think we left those suckers behind a long time ago.

I still remember those quaint little bumper stickers that said coexist. Yeah, yeah, no, not now. I got to tell you, you mentioned my own testimony when I was a part of the gay community and I was very committed to both the social and the theological normalization of homosexuality. And I was completely wrong.

I have no justification for where I was and what I did between, say, 1978 and 1984 when I was so committed to that. But I also have to say I don't even recognize the movement we see today going by the name LGBTQ. In my day, Michael, we were trying to persuade people to treat us decently. We weren't asking for their approval.

We weren't saying you have to say gay is good. All we were saying was don't harass us. Don't beat us up in the street.

Don't call us names. Allow us to live our lives without having to be afraid of mistreatment by you. That was the essence of the movement I was a part of. And again, I wasn't wrong in asking for that.

That was fair treatment. I was wrong in embracing the sexual sin and embracing the deception of thinking that sin was right in God's sight. But I tell you, it was a different movement in a different side. This is not your grandfather's LGBTQ movement. It really isn't. Well, you know, it's interesting in the earliest days when you had the zaps and we're here with queer, get used to it. And the intimidation tactics is basically greed.

Those things don't work and they aren't working. And then really just the personal appeal. You know, can't you just treat us decently and our relationships are as good as anyone else's and look at how the church has demonized us. You know, there's a lot of power behind that personal appeal. But you know, I said when I, when I first got called into standing on the front lines here in 2004, I immediately said those who came out of the closet want to put us in the closet.

You saw where this was going. And, and Joe, how to, and you deal with this in your book, the new book, Friends, Christians and a Cancel Culture by Joe Dallas. How is it that progressive Christianity, which is supposed to be more enlightened and loving and accepting, how does progressive Christianity tie in with this new militancy? Some of the most vehement opposition we are getting and we will continue to get is going to come from people who identify as Christian, but who really embraced something other than Christianity. And that's basically what progressive Christianity is. It's another gospel, it is not the news of Jesus Christ. Progressive Christianity teaches that some of the essentials of the faith, the exclusivity of Jesus Christ as the only way to the Father, the existence of a place of punishment, of an afterlife, the reality that humanity is not born wonderful, but that we are born with a sin nature.

The, certainly the sexual morality clearly expressed and reinforced in the New Testament. Why these things are anathema to progressive Christianity, it does sound like it's enlightened, but actually it is simply progressing towards something. And not all progress is good. You can progress towards the edge of a cliff. That's progress, but it's not the way you want to go. That's basically why I think progressive Christianity plays into this, because I really believe, and I've tried to put this into the book and point it out, just saying, I love Jesus, just saying, I'm a Christian, that's not going to get you in any hot water these days.

You can do that, shoot, you could be a rock star and accept your Grammy and say, thank the Lord, you know, fine. But if you hold a certain biblical distinctive, and these are the ones I spell out in the book, again, the biblical position on abortion, the family, sexual morality, social justice, and so forth, if you hold to the biblical distinctive, that's where the rub is, and that's what's getting us into hot water, and it reminds me that Jesus said, if you're ashamed of me or my word, my Father will be ashamed of you. So it's not just claiming the name of Christ, it's also following the teachings of Christ, that's where the controversy is, and that's where I think the Church is being pressured to soft-pedal the doctrinal positions we hold that the culture now finds offensive, and I have to say, Michael, one of my biggest disappointments is not the unreasonableness of the cancel culture, but the willingness of the Church to cave to that unreasonableness. It seems like we're dancing pirouette to make sure that the culture is approving of us, and we're telling ourselves, and I think we're kidding ourselves, we're telling ourselves that that's how you reach people. Well, I don't want to say anything controversial because I want to reach people, which really seems, if we're more honest about it, to be a way of saying, I want to get along with everybody and not have any tension.

Well, good grief. If you don't have tension, you don't have the Gospels. I mean, I don't see just a lot of kumbaya in the early Church, when Peter and John and Paul and James were preaching, certainly not when Stephen was preaching. And to be honest, I wasn't won over. I wasn't brought back to truth out of sexual sin by people just knifing me into the Kingdom.

I needed to hear truth, combined with the conviction of the Holy Spirit, softening my heart and turning me around. That's how it works, and you know what, we're not going to rewrite that formula. No, no, it's never going to change.

It's never going to change. In fact, in a different context, Paul speaks of those who preach circumcision to avoid the offense of the cross. And there's always that effort, one way or another, you so beautifully articulated here, that we want to avoid the offense of the cross, avoid the offense of saying salvation is only through Jesus, or human beings are at core sinful and need to repent, that we want to sound more broad-minded, open-minded, and in the end, that will save no one. Hey, Joe, we've got a break coming up, but just in 30 seconds, what are you hoping that readers will get out of your new book, Christians in a Cancel Culture? I want them to have an awareness of the necessity of holding to these vital doctrines.

They are not secondary issues, they are primary issues that we cannot compromise. And then I want them equipped by reading the book to be able to have reasonable dialogue with people on each of these issues, even when the temperature in the room goes up and it starts getting hot and controversial. So I'm hoping people will get awareness and they'll get equipping. All right, awesome. Hey, I've got a few more questions for my guest, Joe Dallas. Yeah, just looking at a comment on Facebook, love hearing the clarity you bring, Joe.

Yeah, thank you for that. That's what we need. We need clarity in the midst of the confusion. We'll be right back.

And I want to talk about God's heart for race, God's heart for justice versus a lot of what we see today. We'll be right back. 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. Thanks friends for joining us. I'm speaking with author, counselor, speaker, Joe Dallas, his new book, Christians in a Cancelled Culture. Joe, last year I was shouting out as loudly as I could, free black life matters. We must be carefully aware, acutely aware of needs within African American community from history and things that still exist. Churches working together, doing our best to have real reconciliation, doing our best to address issues that may remain that are still unjust. At the same time, I was shouting out my opposition to the BLM movement, to the Marxist ideology, to the queer ideology, et cetera. So you referenced earlier BLM movement, but towards the end of your book, you deal with key issues in our society, abortion, homosexuality, race. And you talked about those that have a real heart for God's heart for social justice and things like that.

In other words, a biblical way get called infidels today. So in your mind, what's the difference between having God's heart for justice versus being part of, say, the BLM movement? We have to recognize the evil nature of racism, Michael. Racism is not just bad. Bad is if you go 75 on the freeway and it's a 65 mile per hour speed limit.

That's bad. Evil is when you believe and or express the belief that one race is superior to another. That is a foundationally evil belief. To practice it is to practice evil. And we've seen some of the worst miseries inflicted on humanity because of racism.

On that, we have to agree. God's heart is towards equal treatment for all people. God does not see one race as inferior or superior to another. However, we depart from a biblical view of racism and social justice when we presume someone is guilty of a sin by virtue of their race alone. One of the great errors of the Black Lives Matter movement is the belief that if you are not of a racial minority, you are inherently racist by virtue of not being a part of a racial minority.

Now, I'm 66 years old. I grew up when Dr. King was still alive and influential. And I remember very plainly what he said his dream was, which was the antithesis of what we're seeing Black Lives Matter promote. And that was a day when his children would be judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

Black Lives Matter does not take into consideration the notion of individual responsibility. Instead, it imposes collective responsibility onto an entire race. And it finds that entire race is guilty with salvation only being available if they repent of a sin they may never have committed. Now, this, again, is the antithesis of true repentance. To truly repent, we have to be guilty of a sin, recognize the sin, and the sin must be verifiable. I can't just walk up to you and say, I know you're a liar, Dr. Brown.

Unless I hear and can verify that you lied, I have no right to impose that on you. And yet the Black Lives Matter movement and the critical race theory, by and large, do impose that on an entire race. And the end result of it is a terrible fruit. The terrible fruit being the actual inflaming of the very thing that Black Lives Matter says it wants to eradicate, and that is racial tension. You cannot help but have racial tension if you teach African American people that white people are currently their oppressors, and you cannot help but inflame racial tensions if you tell all white people they are inherently bigoted, and if they deny it, it's only because they aren't honest with themselves and they don't want to own their own guilt. This is getting us nowhere. It's, in fact, tearing us apart. So for all those reasons, I do think Christians need to be better equipped to discuss both the evil of racism, the false solution which Black Lives Matter offers, but the true solution found ultimately in salvation through Jesus Christ, who saves us not only from the sins and its judgment, but from the sin nature from which bring evil like racism, and then, of course, a truly biblical racial unity.

Where we can eradicate racism, good grief, let's do it, and where people are found to be racist in their language or their actions, let's make them accountable for it, but we will get nowhere simply applying the guilty verdict to everyone without genuine evidence. Yeah, and friends, the new book, Christians in a Cancelled Culture, the subtitle is Speaking with Truth and Grace in a Hostile World, and there's something, as you're speaking, it's clear but it has a calming effect because, slow down, everybody slow down, just listen to one another, and that's a purpose of the book to equip Christians to do this. So friends, we barely scratched the surface of the contents of the book.

I really encourage you to check it out for yourself. I've never read anything by Joe that I didn't, not just agree with, but thought, wow, this is great. In fact, just yesterday, Joe, I was recommending one of your books to a caller about a kid identifying as gay, et cetera, said, here's the book you want to get.

And I've done that many a time, of course. So last question, and again, we could go on for a long time with this, but you talk about what could be coming for Christians in America today, the hostility we could face for holding to our foundational convictions. If we had warned about some of these things, well, we did.

Years back, people hardly believed it. Now that we're here, what could happen if we don't learn to stand our ground now? We have a choice as to whether or not we're going to set a precedent by which we tell the culture, you may tell us what we may or may not say.

That is basically where we are. Now, politically, we are in a time where government, in many cases, is attempting to influence what we may or may not express. All it takes is a couple of Supreme Court decisions, the right appointment, and the right legal precedent being set, and we may reach a point where churches will lose their tax-exempt status if they continue to preach and teach the biblical definition of marriage and family and possibly even social justice. People may begin suing churches because the pastor has made a statement which is deemed hurtful based on his understanding of what Scripture plainly says about marriage and the family. We very well may see Christian universities and institutions losing government assistance because of the positions they hold. And what we're going to have to ask ourselves is, are these doctrinal points, points that we can relinquish, or are they hills to die on?

Are they ancient boundaries that cannot be moved? Or are they definitions and concepts that we can conveniently be flexible about and not really fight for? I would argue that if we compromise, if we surrender these particular principles, we will have surrendered the essence of the Gospel and of what God intends for the human experience. So for this reason, we're not here to fight, but I think we're going to wind up fighting only because we are here to stand and we are not willing to advocate our role as the light of the world. We are not willing to tell the world that it may now become the light of the church. That is where our stand, I'm sure, is going to create more controversy as time goes by. And that's what we're called to as followers of Jesus.

In fact, Jesus guaranteed that the lack of conflict is often a sign that we're not standing and speaking the truth. And friends, this book will help you speak the truth, but without without sounding angry and to walk in love without without sounding weak. And by the way, I've said it's brand new book literally hot off the press today.

This is the release date. So Joe, so glad you could join us. May the Lord's blessing continue to be with you in the days ahead. Thanks so much, Michael. Great talking with you again.

All right. The book, Christians and a Cancelled Culture by Joe Dallas. And yeah, if you don't know his testimony, check it out. Just type in Joe Dallas testimony. And, you know, here here he was, I believe, playing organ. I should have asked specifically, but I'm playing organ in a gay church. I mean, he was totally involved and bought into the lies of, quote, gay Christianity.

But when God really got hold of his life, that was the end of that. So, look, you know what they say with IRS, with taxes, you can pay me now, you can pay me later. We've warned about things coming in the culture for years and years and years. And look, there are plenty of things I don't know. There are plenty of things that happen that take catch me by surprise like anybody else.

There are plenty of developments like I don't see that coming or that's a surprise. So there are other things that are just clear to me. Just like you might be a parent and as you have more kids, you learn certain patterns of children's behavior and you kind of see things coming before they happen. It's just as clear as day to you. Or you might be a builder and you see some novice builder building houses like, oh, gosh, these are accidents waiting to happen because you've been around.

So there are certain things that are just clear as day to me and happen for years, whereas others you see things I don't see. But where the culture is going, this is something we've been warning about for years and years and years with specifics, with details to say, hey, here it is. We wrote it out. We wrote it. It's in writing.

It's in print or it's on this video or it's in this message. There it is laid out. This is where it's going. So, friends, you're not going to ride the storm out. You're not going to just sit this out like, well, we'll just kind of. No, no, you have to stand. You have to stand. It's either stand or compromise. It's not sitting it out. You can't sit out taking a gospel stand in the midst of the culture wars.

It's only going to get worse and more intense the more we do sit out. So let's stand. Let's stand for truth. Let's do it in love. Let's reach out to those who hate us and oppose us with the love and kindness and mercy of the gospel. Let's bring Jesus to them in word and deed. And let's stand regardless of cost or consequence. As his disciples, you can do no less. Another program powered by the Truth Network.