The long form is back! Thank you for your patience while the family settles into our new home.
Welcome to Politics by Faith brought to you by the Patriot Goal Group and Public Square app. Slater, where you been?
Sorry, it's been a long time. This move has been more stressful on the family and on me than I thought and it's wild. My wife and I, we like routines and moving cross country with four kids will change your routines quite a bit. It's amazing how many micro decisions on autopilot when you're in a routine you don't even think about. Like, where are the forks? Like, you just like, you know where the forks are. But then when you move, you don't know where anything is. So you make a billion decisions every day and it ends up being exhausting and it's hard to do much of anything. So I apologize that this full length podcast has been and if you missed the whole story, we had two medium sized moving trucks and on the way, one of them burned to the ground. So we lost probably three quarters of everything. So now it's like hey where are the forks? Oh I think we put them in that drawer and you open the drawer and there's no forks. Oh yeah we don't have any forks. I forgot. So now we got to go get forks. So it's just and everything else. So it's just been a lot. But that's no it's an excuse. I was gonna say that's not a good excuse. I think it's a pretty good excuse, actually. But we're back and we'll do the best we can here. Moving forward, doing these as much as we can. But I've committed to doing the daily one, the morning motivation. I think those are worth it. Well, it's all worth it, but I can do those in a good amount of time and hopefully we'll get back to these long-form ones once or twice a week as well. So thank you for your patience. Thank you for caring. All of these podcasts, by the way, we put on MikeSlater.Locals.com, so if you want to see them commercial-free, you go to MikeSlater.Locals.com, and I think more importantly, the transcript is available there as well. This episode, I want to talk about the soul for a couple reasons. Oh, so the reason we moved to Nashville is I got a new job. So I'm still hosting the show in San Diego. I've been doing it for 12 years. Keeping that job, which is amazing. The new job is I'm the host of the morning show on SiriusXM Patriot, Breitbart News Daily with Mike Slater. And it's been awesome. We've done it for two, three weeks now. And that's been pretty stressful too. It's been great, but you know, just getting routines and figuring everything out. You're nervous because you want to do a good job your first couple weeks. So it's been a lot, but we're starting to get a groove now and we've had some amazing guests. And just the other day we had a guy who's, Jocko Bullions is his name, who's dedicated his life to fighting against child sex trafficking and rescuing kids who are caught up in child sex trafficking. And this was inspired, we've talked to him a lot actually over the years, but specifically this week inspired by the movie Sound of Freedom. Have you seen it? This is the independent Christian movie. It cost fifteen million dollars to make and they've now made over a hundred million dollars and Disney passed on it and more people per screen are seeing this movie than Indiana Jones and all the other summer blockbusters and people are choosing to see a movie about child sex trafficking. That's unbelievable. That says a lot about where our country is too, I think in a good way. I think people are thirsting for the truth. I think people are thirsting for important things. I think people are thirsting for things that matter.
0:03:55
There's this whole idea like, oh, would people want to be entertained and numb out and veg out? You're like, yeah, maybe, but I think, I think people really want some gravitas. They want, they want some weightiness. They want things that matter. They want to be a part of something that matters, something bigger than themselves. So even the idea of watching a movie about the most horrific thing imaginable, people want to go see it. And it's good that people are aware of it. And we talked all about how the left is saying this is a phantom issue and it's a made-up QAnon conspiracy and it's not even a thing that happens. You're like, what are you kidding me? It is so bad the world we're living in, the culture we're living in. I read a headline and it said, former child sex trafficking advocate speaks out against Sound of Freedom. So I was like, oh, that's interesting. Why would a child sex trade advocate speak out against a movie about, you know, bringing awareness to the child sex... And I read the article and I was like, well, maybe, as we... The one critique we did talk about the movie is it kind of makes it seem as if child sex trafficking is a thing that happens in South America or Thailand and not in America, although it's a huge problem in America. So maybe that's that guy's concern, is it doesn't focus enough on American child sex trafficking. And I read the article, and the article doesn't make any sense. And I'm like, wait, what's going on? So I go back up to the headline, and the headline didn't say, former child sex trafficking advocate. The headline said, former pedophile advocate speaks out against Sound of Freedom. And I was like, pedophile? That's so bizarre, the idea of a pedophile advocate. My brain didn't compute it. And it was, like I read pedophile, and my brain said, oh, well, that's not it. That's not the word. It must mean child sex trafficking advocate. And then I put it in that box, and then moved forward as if that's what it said. And that's not what it said. It said, pedophile advocate. There's a pedophile advocate. That's a thing. And that's gonna be the ultimate thing, by the way. That's where they're ultimately going. That's the ultimate taboo. It's the ultimate thing left to be brought out of the shadows, into the light. Wait for that. So, in the light of all this, Sound of Freedom, and just a lot of the trans stuff and everything going on in our country, I wanna talk about the soul. I share this story all the time, but it was such a pivotal moment in my political journey. I feel like I just need to share it whenever I can and maybe it'll be meaningful to you too. It was a couple years back, maybe three years ago, when I was talking to one of the most acclaimed psychologists of today, he's got a million different books, Ivy League scholar, whole thing, and I asked him how this topic that we were talking about, how does this affect the soul?
0:06:52
How does it affect your soul? And he said, oh, we don't deal with the soul. We don't talk about the soul, but I can tell you how it affects the brain. Because the people in the modern world, you're just random chemicals and like random hormones that trigger at times that cause you to act certain ways that there is no soul, the word psychology, this guy's a psychologist, the word psychologist is Greek for study of the soul. Psyche, psych, soul, study of the soul. So the entire field of the study of the soul doesn't account for the soul. That's amazing. So I realized that the soul is what matters the most. If the modern world ignores the soul, then clearly that's the thing that matters the most. So what's really going on in this ignoring of the soul? It's a quote I came across recently. It's been attributed to C.S. Lewis and a bunch of other people, but it looks like the first reference is George MacDonald from 1892 over in England. He observed that there was, in his view, excessive mourning going on at funerals, a lot of wailing and such. And he said, this is no good. This is no good. This wailing and over too much sadness, it takes people away from the reality that your hope is in heaven. And this ties in perfectly, and I didn't mean to do this, but this ties in perfectly to the theme of the morning motivations this week. Luke 10, Jesus said to his disciples, "'Rejoice more than anything "'that your name is written in heaven.'" That is the greatest thing of all that you could ever possibly rejoice in, no matter what you ever do ever in life. That's the most important thing. And people are wailing at a funeral, and he's like, why? He said, never tell a child you have a soul. Teach him you are a soul. You have a body. He said, as we learn to think of things always in this order, that the body is but the temporary clothing of our soul, our views of death and the unbefittingness of customary mourning will approximate to those friends of earlier generations." We've got to act more like the people who came before us. But think about that. That's a paradigm shift. You don't have a soul. You are a soul. You aren't a body that has a soul, you are a soul that has a body. That's a totally different game. Now, there's some debate about this already, the importance of the body in the Christian world, right? It's the body's important. I'm not minimizing it to nothing, but the soul should come first. I think we can all agree that the soul has been neglected in our modern world. And we wonder why people are so depressed and empty and why kids are looking to fill this void with anything that they can grasp to as they're drowning in chaos, transgenderism just being one of those things. Let's lament here for a second, but before I do, let's celebrate. Let's take a moment to celebrate the Public Square app. As I am recording this today, this morning, the Public Square app, Michael Seifert, the founder, rang the bell on the New York Stock Exchange as they are now a publicly traded company. It's unbelievable. Well, it's totally believable. I'm so proud of him and what he was creating. I was at the launch, actually that was a couple years ago, it wasn't that long ago, two years ago maybe? And I was like, oh man, I hope this goes well. I really hope the Public Square app is successful. And it is just thriving. Donald Trump Jr. is one of the big investors now, and it's going amazing, and I'm so happy for him. So it's only gonna get better. Jump in now, totally free, the Public Square app, and you can connect with like-minded business owners. So if you wanna go get coffee, don't go get it from the Starbucks, go get it from the local coffee shop that shares your values. What are those values? Go to the Public Square website, publicsq.com, scroll down to the bottom, there's the five values that every business owner needs to attest to before they can be featured on the app and we can grow a parallel economy. You wanna know what it's like? It's like the movie. It's like the movie, Sound of Freedom. That was bailed on by all the major production houses, Disney and all the rest, and it was done independently by Angel Studios, people who do The Chosen, and look what a great, incredible success it is. Huge money maker. The last eight Disney movies have lost almost a billion dollars for Disney. That's unsustainable. This movie made 100 million. It's doing pretty good. So hopefully we can continue to grow these, our A, parallel economy, with people who have these values. It's really important. And the Public Square app are the people to do it. And they're building out this whole new platform to be like an Amazon of all this too, right? So it's not just a place where individual stores are, but you can buy through the app at all the stores. It's gonna be great. They have a huge future, but the present is fantastic. I've been using it for a long time now, and they're growing in exponential ways. So anyway, the Public Square app, be a part of it. It's truly a revolution. I don't say that lightly. That is a big deal how fast they're growing and I'm so happy to be just a tiny part of it. The Public Square app, publicsq.com and it's free in the app store. All right, let's lament about the unhappiness in this country, this lack of joy, this malaise. It's not an economic problem. We have more than ever. It's not a political problem. This clearly can't be solved with government. This is a problem is the problem with the soul. For the first time since they've been asking this question, let me pull it up here, make sure I got this right. They've been asking the question, are you, take it all together, how would you say things are these days? Would you say that you're very happy, pretty happy, or not too happy? And since the 70, 72, 1972, very happy's been mid-30s. And it went down to 18%. Not too happy, but about 10% and it jumped up to 25%. This is the first time ever since 1972. Through all types of economic problems and war and all types of things. This is the first time that there are more people who say they're not too happy than very happy. I don't like that. And it is because we continue to get more and more disconnected from our creator. We get more disconnected. I should say we ignore more our soul. We are starving our soul. If you think of a visual of our soul, if you could personify our soul, I don't know how you want to personify it, but I think of it as a frail, decrepit, ghastly man, just black and wretched and full of tar and just like crunched over and can barely move. That's the soul. We've just been not feeding it. And then we wonder why we're not happy. This morning on Breitbart News Daily, I was talking to the great Chris Rufo. He's got a new book out that you have to buy and This is a section from the book. Excuse me for reading it. He says the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin Raised his glass to a group of artists assembled at the home of famed writer Maxim Gorky in 1932 the production of souls is More important than the production of tanks," he said, explaining that the communists desired not only to remake the world of politics and economics, but to reshape human nature according to the dictates of left-wing ideology. And so he continued, I raise my glass to you, writers, the engineers of the human soul. This concept, Chris says, the ruthless application of politics to the most intimate recesses of the human spirit would drive the communist regimes for the middle part of the 20th century. The Soviets had their artists, the Chinese had their propagandists, all were committed to the creation of the new man. Here's a little bit from Chris Rufo and I chatting this morning. Yeah, well I
0:15:36
mean they want to capture it, I mean because this is a, you know, Marxism was designed in many ways as a substitute for religion, something that would take over for religion, and so they needed to have a theory of the soul, they needed to have a theory of human nature, and their theory of human nature was that human nature could be changed through the conscious application of politics. And so they believed that they could mold human beings into something totally different with their ideology. I of course take the opposite position. I don't think that you can do that, and I think that as the Marxists have tried to do that in the 20th century, it was another disaster. But in some ways, if you look at it as conservatives, you have to in some ways respect the ambition of their project. Conservatives don't even talk about these things anymore. I think they're too embarrassed to speak about it, about the soul, about faith, about first principles, you know, first things, as the magazine is called, that you read. And I think we have to get back to that, because ultimately that's what people want, and I think especially young people, you know, they want to have those deepest questions answered. And if we don't even attempt to answer them, they're going to fall for all of the kind of, you know, ankle-deep answers, but at least they're getting something from the left. And so I think that the reason
0:17:21
I included that little anecdote was to show that, and also to show that, I mean, what is more horrible than engineering
0:17:15
and chipping away at somebody's soul. It's actually kind of a horrific image, even though they meant it as kind of a compliment.
0:17:23
The left knows what they're after. There's no question about that. They're after their soul, your soul. They're after the soul of your kids. They want to remake human nature. We know that can't be done. It's been tried before, many times before. There's nothing new under the sun, but you, no one can remake fallen human nature. We know the battle. This is the battle for, what Reagan called it, the soul of the nation. I'm more concerned about the soul of each person. The Marxist left is after your soul and after your children's soul. And part of the remaking of your soul is a remake of human nature is telling people that nothing is your fault. You're perfect. It's all their fault. We've talked a lot about stories on my shows this week. Marxism has a great story. The story is your problems in life are caused by that guy and that guy needs to be changed, forced to change, imprisoned, killed, whatever. Christianity has a harder story to tell. The story is your problems are caused by you and you need to change. But we can't forget the truth that the human condition is lost. We've all wandered astray, Isaiah 53 6. We are spiritually blind, 2nd Corinthians 4 4. We are sinful, broke the law of God, 1 John 1.8. We stand guilty before God, the righteous judge, Romans 5.12. We're enslaved by sin, John 8.34. We're morally ruined, Romans 7.18. We're dying physically and dead spiritually, 1 Peter 1.24. In our natural human nature, we do not willingly seek God or his will, Romans 3.10. And we're hostile to God, Romans 8 7. If that sounds really negative Nancy, it is, but the good news is while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. While everything I just said was true, Jesus died for us. Paul writes of human nature in Romans 11 21, he says, for if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will He spare you. Natural. Interesting. 1 Corinthians 15, 44, it is sown a natural body. It is raised a spiritual body. Natural. James 3, 15, the wisdom is not that which comes down from above, but is earthly. Natural. Demonic. There it is. Natural. 1 Corinthians 2, Paul uses again the word natural. It's someone who's in their original sinful state. Natural. That's human nature. Now the word natural in Greek, here's the definition. The principle of animal life. That which men have in common with the brutes. The sensuous nature with its subjection to appetite and passion. Not That's the natural state. Not good things. We need to rise above. I wanna play this clip here.
0:20:29
This is Tucker Carlson.
0:20:31
He hosted this forum on Friday with all the Republican candidates except for Trump. And this was just before the forum began talking with the guy who was running it. But leaving aside even elections, I think it's clearly a pivot point in history.
0:20:43
And I don't think the issues that we debate and really are in some ways distractions are the core issues at all. I mean it really there are forces unseen forces acting on people. It's funny in February I was like trying to think about what to do for Len. I'm not a particularly faithful or virtuous person but like you try to do something. I already quit smoking so like what's next? And I thought well I'm just gonna read the Bible and no I'm not gonna do a Bible study. I'm a Protestant, so I feel like I have a right to kind of read it myself. And I'm sorry, I feel that way. And so I've been reading it since February and I'm like about halfway done. And I haven't talked to anyone about it. And I haven't been just been myself reading it. And I have all kinds like the most interesting thing I think I've ever done. It's unbelievable. The amount of drama in those books that has been hidden for me as a regular churchgoer in the Episcopal Church. It's like, wait, why didn't you ever mention this? This is like unbelievable. What? But the two things I have come away with after reading the entire New Testament, and I'm up to Deuteronomy and the Old Testament, is that every person, with the exception of Jesus, every figure is like really flawed. Big time. Like flawed in a way where you'd be like I don't know if I could be friends with that person. You know what I mean? Abraham enters Egypt and he's like, oh it's my sister actually, take her. What? I'm saying to my wife who was a religion teacher, I was like why did anyone, what is that? And she's like maybe the point is that God takes people who are not perfect people, not only not perfect people, like they're so imperfect again, I don't think I could have dinner with them, and uses them for these grander purposes. That's the first thing I noticed. The second thing I notice is that people, while they have free will, of course, and they can make decisions and they live with the consequences of those decisions, they're not really in charge of the arc of history at all. They are being acted upon a lot. And I never really appreciated that because I'm American. And so I grew up with this feeling that we're the sum total of our choices. Well, that's not what I'm reading at all. People's choices matter. You need to do certain things and not do other things. On the other hand, you are not in charge. You are being acted upon by a world you can't see. And that, by the way, is consistent with my life experience. Like I've seen that. I've lived that. I'm 54. And so I feel like it's really important to approach politics with that in mind. Like a lot of these issues are symbols of this much larger battle.
0:23:20
We use a lot of good stuff there. I love that. It's amazing what happens when you open your Bible. Tucker says it's the most interesting thing I've ever done. Tucker's a reader. He reads all the time. But it's fascinating that the church he's been going to or goes to or his church tradition, they just don't. They don't read the Bible. That's true for I think most Christians today. They don't actually read the thing. Because if you read it, you won't be lukewarm about it. You can't. You'll either love it or you'll hate it. You can't be lukewarm. The only way you're lukewarm about the Bible is if you've never read it. But this point that God uses not perfect people, I've said that, I've heard that forever. I don't think that's right. It's not that the people are not perfect. Not perfect implies they're really, really, they're almost perfect. They're almost perfect, but they got this one thing, you know. So they're not quite perfect. I like the way Tucker did it. They're deeply flawed. They're profoundly deeply flawed. And that's way better because, well, why does God use flawed people? Because he gets the glory. Flawed people have to depend on him. They have no other choice. And God uses flawed people because he has no one else to choose from. We're all deeply flawed, so that's just the way that is. 2nd Chronicles 20 and Tucker will get to this if he keeps reading. King Jehoshaphat he cries out do or we do not know what to do but our eyes are upon you. Love that prayer. I don't know what to do but our eyes are upon you. Alistair Begg he made the point that what he was really saying is Lord we're just a bunch of pathetic losers. We are pathetic losers and if you don't help us, we're sunk. He said, that's not a bad mission statement for a church. We're just a bunch of pathetic losers and if God doesn't help us, we're sunk. It's not the worst name for a church either, the church of pathetic losers. But that's a healthy posture for our country. God, we're doing the best we can but we are sunk without you. That's the posture our founders had. That's the posture, posture of not only our founding fathers but our founding grandfathers. They would have proclamations calling for days of humiliation and prayer, a timeout of all earthly pursuits. Our founders did that routinely, not even for any obvious reason, but stop all earthly pursuits and pray, because we can do nothing on our own. That posture is deeply ingrained in our founding, and instead it's been turned into pride. We have pride months now. And then the second thing Taka talked about is this idea that you have to hold these two things together at the same time, that you have free will and you're not in charge.
0:25:51
That seems difficult, doesn't it?
0:25:53
You have free will and you're not in charge, how can that be? Let's talk about what's in your control.
0:25:57
Wait, hold on.
0:25:58
Control, I'm not in charge. Yeah, but you have free will. But I'm not in charge. But you're still called to do things. What's in your control? Jesus, I just heard this the other day, I think this is fascinating. Jesus at Mark 12 30. The first is the most important commandment. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength. And you can't fake it. Jesus said in Matthew 15, eight, that these people honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. In vain do they worship me. So their lips are singing the hymns and the worship, and they're saying the right things, but you can still be far from Jesus because your heart is far from Jesus. But check this out. I heard this and I confirmed it with my very basic Greek knowledge. It says, love the Lord your God with all your heart, with soul, with mind, with strength. But if you go back to the Greek, the first Greek preposition is not with. The first Greek preposition is a different word. It's ek. All the other withs are en, ek means out of, it means out of or from. The other three prepositions mean with. So if you read it more specifically, more to the text, the commandment of Jesus in Luke 10 27 is you shall love the Lord your God out of or from or as as the spring that comes from out of all of your heart. Love the God with or out of your heart and with all your soul and with your strength and with your mind. Does that difference make sense? Like this all these other things come out of your heart. So what's in our control? Well there's some commandments in the Bible. First, some of the negatives. You're commanded to not be covetous, to not fear those who kill the body, to not feel anxious, to not give way to anger, to not lust, to not love money. These are things we're commanded to not do. And then on the other side, you're commanded to hope, to be to have brotherly affection, tenderheartedness, sympathy, desire for the word of God, joy, gladness, delight, these are all commands. Go back 30 seconds, listen to them again, pick one or two that you're gonna really focus on this week. We have to look at these things as commands because that's what they are. And when we do these things and pray, our soul will be nourished. We want a nourished soul. To go back to that visual of the decrepit, hunched over old man of a soul that's not fed. I want a soul that is vibrant and alive and thriving and when it's connected to the creator of it. So I'm grateful you're here. Thanks for, I hope the return of Politics by Faith. I know it wasn't as maybe specific on an issue as I like to be. I just felt called to talk about this general topic that is the soul. And you can apply it to many, many things. Look at our world around us. The next time you see people calling child sex trafficking a QAnon conspiracy theory, or trans children being mutilated, or whatever decrepit thing you see out there. Just think about the soul. And then ourselves, whenever we're feeling out. Really what I think you're feeling is disconnected. At least I am. So final thought, thing to meditate on first. Patriot, gold, group. first patriot gold group, the economy is still in bad shape. It was just about six weeks ago we raised the debt ceiling and in I think four weeks we spent a trillion, we didn't spend a trillion, the debt went up by a trillion. It's been more than that, the debt went up by a trillion in just a couple weeks.
0:30:21
Isn't that amazing?
0:30:23
Our debt is completely out of control. In 2010, our debt was 13 trillion, gold was $1,000 an ounce. In 2020, the debt was 23 trillion, gold was 1,500 an ounce. Today, the debt is 32 trillion, and gold is 2,000 an ounce. So now that we have a trillion dollars in interest payments annually, and another trillion on defense, and there's no sign of any of this slowing down, what do we think will happen to gold? Bloomberg said gold appears as a caged bull awaiting a catalyst. And I love this fact, people searching how to buy gold. So the idea of buying gold, like I'm in, how? I was shocked how simple it is. Go to Patriot Gold Group and buy from them and they mail it to you. One, eight at eight, 617-6122, FedEx, technically, but the FedEx man shows up and hands you gold. Like, what? That's unbelievable. Eight at eight, 617-6122. You can also talk about a no-fee-for-life IRA. Your IRA or 401k can be a physical gold and silver as well, so you can talk about that and also own physical gold and silver. Patriot Gold Group, consumer affairs, top rated gold IRA dealer, six years in a row and counting. Pretty awesome, 888-617-6122. How to buy gold, they're the best, patriotgoldgroup.com. So what do we think about tonight? What's our final thought to meditate on? Anything that distracts you from delighting in God, from building up your soul, get it out of your life.
0:32:05
Your soul needs so much more than we're feeding. 1 Peter 2 11, Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh which wage war against your soul. Mike Slater, dot locals, dot com.
