The David Knight Show - INTERVIEW Prohibiting Private Cultivation of Food and Scattering the Sheep, the Closing of the American Church in 2020

Episode Date: January 24, 2024

Property confiscated without trial or conviction, asserting that growing food for private consumption and not public sale is prohibited.Chris Hume, Managing Editor of The Lancaster Patriot, reports on why Pennsylvania is going after Amish farmer, Amos Miller. Then, Chris talks about his new book "Scattering the Sheep" the closing of the American church in 2020, and his book "Vote Christian: Biblical Principles for Voting"Find out more about the show and where you can watch it at TheDavidKnightShow.comIf you would like to support the show and our family please consider subscribing monthly here: SubscribeStar https://www.subscribestar.com/the-david-knight-showOr you can send a donation throughMail: David Knight POB 994 Kodak, TN 37764Zelle: @[e-mail] App at: $davidknightshowBTC to: bc1qkuec29hkuye4xse9unh7nptvu3y9qmv24vanh7Money is only what YOU hold: Go to DavidKnight.gold for great deals on physical gold/silverFor 10% off Gerald Celente's prescient Trends Journal, go to TrendsJournal.com and enter the code KNIGHTBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-david-knight-show--2653468/support.

All right. Welcome back. And joining us now is Chris Hume. He is the managing editor of the Lancaster Patriot. And you probably have seen his videos that went pretty viral. He went to the farm of the Amish farmer, Amos Miller, who was being prosecuted, I should say persecuted by these people. And we want to talk about what it is that he was doing and catch up on that. But he's also written a couple of books.

He wrote a book called Vote Christian Biblical Principles for Voting. But I particularly want to talk to him about a book that just came out in December that a listener sent to me, Scattering the Sheep, talking about what happened to the closing of churches in 2020. And I like what Chris says about the worldview of the Lancaster Patriot. He says, no media company is without bias, and we're honest about ours. We believe in truth, goodness, and the beauty of the Christian worldview. We strive to live up to that standard in everything that we do. That is so refreshingly honest.

Thank you for saying that, Chris. I am so sick and tired of hearing people who say, well, we're objective. And you and I both know that there is no objectivity. Everybody has got a bias. And if they tell you that they don't have a bias, then they're either deceiving themselves or deceiving you. So thank you for getting that out there and being so self-aware and forthright about that. But thank you for joining us. Yeah, thank you so much for having me, Mr. Knight.

And yeah, I mean, there is one objective standard, and that is the word of God. And our job is to align ourselves with that. And so, yeah, the liberal media companies, they like to claim that they are neutral of course that's not the case they're coming from a worldview and i think we need to be honest about what worldview we are coming from yes that's absolutely right uh let's talk a bit what is happening to amos miller and uh first of all tell us a bit about what is going on i i when i first saw the story i thought it was uh primarily about the usda and whether or not he was going to be able to butcher the cows there locally for people who are part of a club and have ownership in it. So it really becomes an issue of can you grow your own food and eat your own food, but also has to do, I think, with dairy products.

So kind of tell us what Amos does there at his farm. Sure. Yeah. Amos Miller there at his farm. Sure. Yeah. Amos Miller is an Amish farmer here in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. He has been for decades now selling his food to people in Pennsylvania, people across the nation. He raises his food naturally. He raises it without the additives and chemicals that are so common in the commercially produced government-approved food. And he's been doing this again.

As you mentioned, he doesn't sell his food in the grocery stores. He doesn't sell them at roadside stands. People have to either come to his farm or they have to order specifically from his website, sign an agreement as a private buyer that they would like to purchase this food. They're informed customers. They want this food precisely because it is outside of the big food complex. It is true food freedom. Now, you mentioned the USDA a few years ago. The USDA, the federal government, attempted to come down hard on Amos, and he had to pay $85,000,

in fact, and he had to send some of his meat off-site to be processed. There was a bit of a loss for him and his customers, and that was kind of the end of that story. We thought maybe, all right, Amos will be able to continue on for the most part, practicing food freedom, offering people an alternative to the big food commercially produced products. But then this year in January, earlier this month, the state of Pennsylvania came onto Amos' farm, and they're essentially attempting to regulate him again, telling him he cannot serve this food to his customers because he doesn't follow all the government regulations. So that's in a nutshell what's going on here. I mean, there's so much more we can unpack. pack but the state of pennsylvania saying you're not following all our rules uh you need to stop what you're doing and um bow to the state and do what we say when it comes to feeding your neighbors

now a few years ago as you pointed out he got into it with the usda about the slaughtering cattle and i remember he was saying that um during 2020 things got very spotty uh about all that you have to reserve this very far in advance. And then all the supply chain issues and everything just got messed up. And so he said there was that issue. There was the issue of cost, but it was also the issue of quality and the issue of justice. You know, can't you just do this on your own land? Now, at that point in time, he was working with the federal government.

Right. But now this most recent one, which you filmed and went all over social media, that's with the state, right? The state of Pennsylvania. Is that correct? That's correct. And actually, the state of Pennsylvania has been targeting Amos since 2016. And as I understand it, they wanted to go after him back then,

and they weren't able to given some loopholes and regulations. So they actually turned to the federal government and asked them to help go after Amos. And that's how I believe the USDA got involved. It was still at the prodding of the Pennsylvania State Department of Agriculture. So it became a federal issue. Amos settled. He had to pay $85,000. It kind of went away.

But the state of Pennsylvania said, we're not done yet with Amos Miller. He's still out there providing food to people, and he does not follow our rules. And I'd love to talk about those regulations. But the point is, they said, we're coming back after him. And now they've just released a final lawsuit against him. They've told him he can't sell any dairy products. They want him to come to heel because if Amos Miller is allowed to offer an alternative to big food, big government control, these bureaucrats aren't going to know what to do with their lives. Yeah, absolutely. And Thomas Massey came to his defense and talked about how he had, I think he called it the Prime Act, where you can grow your own cattle and process your own cattle, and you don't have to send them to the USDA. But let's talk a little bit about some of the—well, before we do that, let me ask you, since Thomas Massey, who was a congressman, came to his defense about that, is there anybody at the state level that is there to defend him? I know that you've got a Democrat governor, mostly Democrats, but there are some Republicans.

Are they doing anything at the state level to try to interpose for this? Absolutely not, Mr. Knight. The Republicans, you know, in the past have had control of the House and the Senate. Right now, by a very slim margin, the Democrats control the Pennsylvania House, but there are still plenty of Republicans. Lancaster County, where Amos Miller and me as well, where we live, most of the representatives to the state house and the state Senate are Republican. Nevertheless, there is no one that will defend what Amos Miller

is doing. And this is a huge frustration for Amos, for his customers, for me to see these people who claim to be about liberty and freedom really bow to the state here and say, well, the state is the one that tells you what you can and cannot eat. So it's very concerning, and I appreciate Thomas Massey. That's a federal law. It really wouldn't even affect the state level, as I understand it. So these representatives here in Pennsylvania, and there was one here in Lancaster County, Dave Zimmerman,

who supposedly stood for freedom and liberty, and he came out with a statement saying, you know what, no, Amos Miller, he's got to follow the rules like everyone else, and if he does not submit to the state, he should not be able to feed his neighbor. Wow. And that's what we're going to talk about coming up in terms of the lockdowns in 2020

and everything else like that. But it truly is, there really isn't that much difference between them. And we saw all this type of stuff. You've got to follow the rules. And these are not even laws. They're rules coming from unelected bureaucrats. We saw all this stuff in 2020.

So same type of thing happening here. Whether it's about our health, whether it's about our food, we see that these guys are AWOL on the job. And that's why I say things can be even worse at the state level. If we've got bad representatives at the state level, uh, the federal government, it's very difficult to change anything there. Uh, you have more leverage to change things at the state and local level, uh, but you still have to have, uh, you know, still have to have good people. And if you've got bad people, they can make things even worse for you at the state and local level. Let's talk a little bit about some of those rules that you mentioned.

What are these rules that are so horrific that he broke? Yeah, well, let's start with some of these laws, because the way the state presents this and the way the Republican representatives that will not defend Amos present this is in the way, in the sense of the state is going to protect us. They're going to protect us. They're going to keep us safe. This is all about food safety. It's all about your health and the government knows best. So keep in mind in Pennsylvania, it is illegal to sell raw butter or raw cream with or without a license under any condition. You cannot sell it for human consumption. So I want to start there because people think that, you know, the state, they have our best interest in mind. They know what's, what's best for us. These are manmade laws made by bureaucrats in Harrisburg, made by representatives, legislators in Harrisburg

who think that they can tell you and I what is healthy to eat. Now, again, I didn't have any trust in them before 2020. I don't know how anybody can have any trust now, but this is, this is, there's layer upon layer of regulation and regulation and regulation under the name of law. And this has come from the state legislators. They're the ones responsible for it. And so the underlying premise is statism that the state is the highest authority. And if they tell you, you are not allowed to do something, that is the ultimate law of the land. You cannot resist. There is no civil disobedience. You bow to the state and serve them.

So let's just start with that. Amos Miller sells raw cream, raw butter. That is illegal. The state under no conditions right now would allow anybody to do that. Not even as a private club? You can't do it that way, right? Well, apparently not, and that's the whole issue here. Amos Miller is going to argue, and i think he has a very strong case that this is not this food is not being sold at the grocery stores this is not this is a very you know a very

informed purchase here that a buyer is coming to buy this product and they know the risks they are taking if there are any risks they're taking those risks and they're buying the food now just to show the absurdity of these laws, in Pennsylvania, it's illegal to sell raw butter for human consumption. It's not illegal to sell it for pet consumption. So there are many farmers that will sell raw butter and they'll specifically state on their website, well, we're not allowed to sell this for human use because of the Pennsylvania state law, but we've produced it to human standards, but we can only sell it as pet food based on the PA law. Now, does anybody think that people are taking these layers and layers of man-made law seriously

when that is what's happening? It's like ivermectin, isn't it? It's like ivermectin. At your horse, right? And a lot of people did have to resort to the animal version of it because they were shutting down your ability to get something that they had already approved. It was just being used for an off-label use which they allow all the time if physicians maybe you could get chris maybe you could get some help from an organization i think it's called a planned parenthood they always talk about my body my

choice maybe they would get on the right how to be able to make a choice about what i eat right yeah and that's that's the absurdity of this. You know, Isaiah 5 says, Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, but darkness for light and light for darkness. You can, you know, Pennsylvania has become somewhat of a sanctuary state for murder. People are coming here out of state to slaughter their children, and the state is, you know, seemingly fine with that,

but yet we can't decide to buy a stick of raw butter or a tub of raw butter or a pint of raw cream. And while you're mentioning that, it makes me think of this trial at the Center for Medical Progress, and they were showing the trafficking in body parts. It was Fauci and the NIH that was buying a lot of body parts through Planned Parenthood, and they were sending them to the University of Pittsburgh, where they were using them to create transhumanized mice. I mean, it is amazing, isn't it? So that's kind of the background, unfortunately. I'm sure that Lancaster County is a great place, and I'm sure that it's nice having a lot of Amish neighbors who mind their own business, work hard, and don't try to control everybody else. But boy, I tell you, the rest of the state has really gone down that path, haven't they?

It's just amazing. Well, the thing is, Lancaster County is, I would say, being targeted by big government, by the liberals. It represents something of freedom and liberty, the heritage and tradition here in Lancaster County. And if the liberals and the big government Republicans, to me, there seem to be the same at this point, if they can, you know,

turn Lancaster County into the statist hell hole, you know, then the rest of the state, you know, is falling behind. And the rest of Pennsylvania, but I think that this is a pattern that we're going to see repeated elsewhere because as you see people start to, to break away from the Democrat-controlled cities and the highly regulated and create their own communities where they grow their own food and all the rest of the stuff,

this type of thing is going to be happening in every other state. It's not going to just be limited to Pennsylvania. They're coming up with some tactics that they're going to apply across the country and see if this stuff works. So this is a very important precedent, even though it's a state level level it's a very important precedent because they'll replicate this if they're successful that's right and i think that's why they're coming after amos so hard because he represents an escape from big food big pharma you know statism the nanny state and if amos miller is allowed to do this um that will just grow the interesting thing is many of amos's customers

most of them are not amish they're what what we call English, the English people here, you know, the non-Amish. And he represents an escape from, you know, the government-controlled food supply. Now, you know, you mentioned very briefly that this is not just about Lancaster County. It's not. In fact, I think they're using the Amish as an example to the rest. If they can get the Amish to bow, you know, the rest of us are, we're done for. There was recently a case yesterday, another Amish farmer here in Lancaster County, I know this isn't the topic of the show, but very briefly, he was selling rifles and shotguns without a federal license, which interestingly is not even against federal law.

However, if there's an imaginary line, if you sell too many, then you've broken this imaginary law. He was threatened with jail time. He almost got put into jail. He ended up getting three years probation and a $35,000 fine for selling rifles and shotguns to his neighbors. So they're coming after the Amish. They're coming after the non-Amish. And as long as people roll over and take it, they're going to keep going. The nanny state will not stop until they control everything, not just what you eat, what you wear, what time you go to bed. It'll just continue. Yeah, and that's the key thing.

The Amish are a real pain to them because they've got their own lives that they want to live, and they don't really pay any attention to this micromanagement of every detail of their life. And so by being separate and coming out from this, which a lot of us aspire to do and to have communities that are going to be, you know, separated to some degree and not completely captured by this large system here. They are really the tip of the spear, I think. And it is amazing to see what is happening with this but tell us a little bit more about some of these uh other regulations besides the the raw cream and butter uh is that the key issue that even with a even with a private

club they they don't want raw cream and butter what about milk i guess that is included as well is that totally prohibited as well? Yeah, that's the next level. So raw milk is not illegal. It's interesting. You have, you know, Russell Redding, the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture guy, who is really behind a lot of this. And he was speaking about this.

And he said, well, in Pennsylvania, we're a raw milk state. We allow you peasants down there to drink raw milk. So in some states, it's illegal to sell raw milk. In Pennsylvania, it's not illegal to sell raw milk. So in some states, it's illegal to sell raw milk. In Pennsylvania, it's not illegal to sell raw milk. We can thank our nanny overlords for giving us the freedom to drink milk from a cow. But of course, they regulate it heavily. They want to be involved in it. And of course, there's some money behind that as well. If there's not a big industry, they don't really want to regulate it. They don't really care. Just as a side note, Amos' meats, when he was having the issue with his meats, there was no problem with him butchering his own water buffalo because water buffalo is not regulated in the U.S. because there aren't enough

farmers for it to be worth the government's time. So it's not really about money. It's just about what legislator has put on some bill to make them feel good at night so they can send out their constituent email saying you're keeping you safe. But raw milk is legal to sell in Pennsylvania if you follow all the government regulations, if you basically agree and consent to follow whatever the government says about food, and then they're going to get into your facility. They're going to be doing these inspections. Now, again, Amos Miller is not against testing. He has his own testing. He has his own quality control. But I just believe, and Amos' customers believe, that we, the consumers, are more competent to make our food choices than the government, than the nanny state. So the thing is, and this is what's very

frustrating, is not only, you know, they make it like Amos Miller's the only one out there not following the rules. One, as I mentioned, you have these other farmers who are selling raw cream, raw butter as pet food. Amos doesn't want to do that. I mean, I think he understands why they're doing it. He doesn't want to be dishonest like that. He says, no, I'm selling this for people to eat. And that's what God has called me to do. And I'm going to keep doing it. But when it comes to the raw milk, you know, he has his own standards of quality control. Of course, the CDC for years, they've been villainizing raw milk. It's this horrible thing. People are going to get sick and die. There's no evidence that any of Amos' milk has killed anyone.

There was this one specious claim that someone who may have consumed his milk died. The woman had cancer, of course, a terrible thing. She had cancer. She had a stroke prior to even moving in with someone who may have had some of Amos' milk. This stuff is so specious. It's so thin um but it's all done in the name of well we're going to keep you safe meanwhile um the fda approves 10 000 chemical additives different additives to the food many of which by the way have been banned in europe

because they've been associated with cancer or developmental problems but those things are okay you know the government says hey it's fine if you have all these additives, but you can't make the decision to buy your raw milk from a farmer. You can go and shake his hand. I can go to Amos' farm. I can walk through his facility. Good night. Have I tried to do that at Kraft or Tyson? I said, hey, I'm here.

I'm a customer. I want to walk through your facility. They'd say, no way. Security is showing you the door. I can do that with Amos Miller. I can shake his hand. I can see his facility. And then you have these big producers, and I'm not saying all of them do this, but I've heard stories where the government regulates it. There can be no bacteria. Well,

obviously there's always bacteria in everything, but they set these standards. If there's this bacteria count, then your milk is not fit for consumption. So what some of these producers will do, they'll add chemicals to their milk that does not, you know, trip any wires for the regulators, but it knocks down the bacteria count. And then that's the stuff that is put on the grocery store shelves. You know, many of us say, you know, we want the raw food. We want the microbes. We want the bacteria. That is our choice. I mean, I could go out and smoke 20 packs of cigarettes a day, but I can't buy raw milk or raw meat and consume it how I want. Again, this is statism. It's the nanny state. That's what's behind this. Ultimately, you need to follow all our regulations because if you don't, we're all going to get sick and die. And unfortunately, people

still believe that, that the government is competent as if God had authorized the government to take care of our food choices for us. Yeah. Yeah. And it really does rhyme with what we just saw the last couple of years, doesn't it? You got a woman there that had milk. She died. She had cancer and all this kind of stuff, but perhaps she died with milk, not from milk, but with milk, you know, all these people in the so-called COVID pandemic, you know, but you mentioned the water buffalo. I thought that was, it was a few years ago. I guess maybe about six or seven years ago i interviewed a farmer uh who um was up in michigan and he had a different breed of pig uh they were not wild pigs

but they did have um hair on them and um and they were free range pigs and they were from europe and uh they were red meat they weren't white meat and he said you know when you compare this to the hairless pigs that are white meat that are grown in the factories and all the rest of this stuff, he goes, these, these pigs are really, really healthy, but they came in and they wanted to shut that whole thing down. And he had a long fight with them over that because, um, as you pointed out, they don't want people to have food choice.

They don't want people to have a choice of having clean food. And just like the bacteria, so many of the additives that they put into the food when they're processing it in the factories are just to make it work through the machines. And so you get the stuff that's basically there, not for any health purpose at all, but it's there to facilitate the foaming or whatever. And so you're getting these foaming agents, and you're consuming that stuff as if it were food. That's right. And this is the problem. Again, whenever we add to, I mean, God's law is so good. When we add to it and start saying man can make all these other rules, it always ends up favoring the big corporations who are in bed with the government.

And I mean, you know this, Mr. Knight. I mean, the government wants to tell us, hey, we're going to tell you what to eat to keep you healthy. And then when you get sick, of course, I don't know why we'd get sick eating all this food with the chemicals and additives from the commercial. But when we do get sick, then you go to the hospital, which that's a bad decision, I'd say. But once you're in there, now the government's going to tell you how to get better. And this is, of course, this is most maddening. And with children, the government comes in and says, well, we're going to tell you how you have to, you know, medicate your child.

Thankfully for adults, there's still some freedom, but the government would still, if they have their way, they'll keep us healthy. But then when we inevitably get sick, they'll tell us how to get better. They want nothing more than for us to be sick, you know, dependent individuals who go to work, pay our taxes, which we don't have a choice, pay our taxes, and then die once we retire so we don't need the government to take care of us anymore. And people are saying,

you know what, this is not the ideal of freedom and liberty that this nation was founded on. It wasn't a perfect founding, but we had this idea that we were to be free to make our own choices. And biblically, we should only be punished for evil, not for going to my neighbor and buying a gallon of raw milk. And so that's what we have here.

This is a battle of religious worldviews. Is this state God? Or has God given us responsibility and a very limited role to civil government? And I play frequently a clip from 2019, I think it was around may where there was this idea. Oh, we got measles that are out there. So everybody's got to get the MMR shot and everything. And Trump, you know, we're going to take away all of the religious exemptions and medical exemptions for kids.

You've all got to get it. It's going around. That's what he had to say. So yeah, we are all subservient to the state when it comes to all these different things they claim. Uh, and this is really the heart of the issue issue as you point out of statism and tyranny uh two different words but really they essentially two sides of the same coin uh that is rolling out there when they came into uh amos amos miller's farm and um they seized the property of course uh they're

taking that before he's been found guilty of anything right before he has any trial they're just going in and confiscating his stuff right that's right yeah so much for innocent until proven guilty they came in there they would not even allow amos miller uh to see allow allow him to see what they were doing um so so now they go in there with a search warrant uh all under the authority of the department of agriculture that unfortunately the state legislators they pass it off and say, now we've given this authority to them. And Amos Miller, you know, he can't even be there and see what they're doing. I don't know what they did in there. I mean, I'm not going to, I can't say, but I don't know. I mean, did they bring anything, did they track anything in with them? You know, I have no idea. And no one was able to witness it.

So yeah, they, and then they seize his property, right? At least some of it. And then they detain in place, hunt, I'd say thousands of food items. I mean, just understand the absurdity of this. Again, you have a nation where babies are being slaughtered at Planned Parenthood. Kids are having their generals chopped off for transgenderism. People are going hungry, you know, food, food pantries across the nation are struggling. And that's because when you have this monopoly of food, if something goes wrong, the whole food system crumbles. If you have individual farmers who are sustainably raising their animals, you don't have that

collapse. But we have that. We have food shortages. And here's a man who's feeding his neighbors. And the state says, they come in and slap stickers on his product saying, you can't sell this, you can't even move this. I mean, this is straight out of a communist playbook. The government's coming in saying, you're not allowed to feed your neighbors while people are going hungry. You know, Americans need to wake up to what's going on here. Yeah, and I've talked many times about the civil asset forfeiture, where they say, well, I have a rule. You didn't violate a law. If you violate a law, you have to have due process. And so you've got to have a trial, and you've got to be found guilty,

and then we can take your stuff. But we're saying this is a rule that comes from a bureaucracy, so we can just take it. And they steal people's cash, they steal their cars, and other things like that. But this is happening with a lot of different bureaucracies. They're all doing this. It's not just the DEA or the sheriffs who are doing that.

This is a very, very common tactic that is becoming ubiquitous. And so we don't really have any due process anymore. We don't have a, we have taxation without representation. We have regulation without representation. We've got confiscation without being found guilty or even charged with a crime. And so this is the really concerning thing about it as well. The fact that this, this, uh, food should not be off limits to people, but then the fact that they can come in and use these Gestapo tactics and there's not really any answer to it. Let's talk a little bit about your book, Scattering the Sheep.

As I said, this was sent to me by a listener. I've read from the foreword by Matt Troella because I've interviewed Matt several times about his Doctrine of the Lesser Magistrate. I really like that book, and I really like your book as well. Give people an idea of the closing of the American church in 2020. That was something that truly astounded me, and I know it astounded you as well because you wrote a book about it. What are your comments about the closing of the church in 2020? Yeah, I mean, there's so much there. I mean, that's a topic that for me and many others were extremely discouraged by the lack of leadership in the church. And this actually ties in very closely to the Amos Miller thing when it comes to the character of our leaders. these were men, you know, leaders in the church who had said before, you know, they had lauded the Christians in the past who had stood firm,

who had defied tyranny, who had refused to stop meeting. We think of the pilgrims who came to America, King James over in England told them they weren't allowed to meet in their home churches. They had to go to his church. They defied that. They said, we have a higher law here that we are going to follow. And then, you know, along came COVID and these churches, these pastors, they crumbled. And they basically, I mean, the main indictment in that book is that these pastors said, we will not meet with our sheep.

One, because the state said so. Or two, because we think it might put you in danger. It was this nanny state mentality that we have so long been imbibed in the state. We've been brainwashed into the statism and it's seeped over into the church where the pastors would say, we're going to make the decision for you, whether or not it's safe for you to leave your home. We would meet with you maybe, but it's not safe for you. So the church shut down for weeks and weeks and months in many cases. Now, there were faithful churches, but I don't know how much time we have. But one of my concerns that I address in that book as well is the whitewashing

that happened later. That's a big part of the book. These big time pastors like John MacArthur, who's coming out now and saying, you know, shame on those pastors who shut down when John MacArthur was the one who led the way in shutting down. And he never repented of it. But these pastors would say, you know, they laud the heroes of the past, and then they don't live it out. It's the same thing with these Republican representatives who laud the founding fathers, the Boston Tea Party, but won't lift a finger against tyranny now. So it's the same thing as it is in the culture, so it is in the church. And probably it started in the church, and the culture is just downstream from the church. Yeah, I talked about the other day, George Barna looked at the state of the

church. He does all these surveys, I'm sure you're familiar with it, where he asks people what their religious beliefs are, and then he asks people what their religious beliefs are. And then he asks them what they do in their life and that type of thing. And part of that survey in 2023 was to look at pastors. And it's like, so how do you feel about what you're doing? How do you feel about your call? How do you feel about your church? And is it growing?

And are you confident about this? And all of that just took a nosedive with all that lockdown. Because they looked at it, and I think they and a lot of church members in the churches that did lockdown looked at it and said, this is, people don't really believe this. You know, they're afraid of dying. They're afraid of disease. They're afraid of man. But they're not afraid of god right and so always in the past we've had

and i remember when this was happening uh after about a week of it i had john rapaport on and and we were talking about this and said you know the churches have got to lead the way to get out of this thing this is phony we got to stop this and i remember john uh saying if you know we're easter is coming up if we could get the churches to come back for Easter, that's their big day. They know that a lot of people in the community are going to come in on Easter that don't normally come in. If they could open up for that and everybody could see what a sham this is and that nobody is dying, that would be a huge issue. But they didn't. And that was one of the things that was really crushing, I think, to a lot of people.

I interviewed people. I remember a pastor in a small town in Illinois where the governor was Pritzker. And they were threatening them and they were threatening to send in the state police to shut their church down. But they met anyway. And he had the local sheriff was a member of the church. And he got all his deputies around the church. And they were going to intervene and interpose and keep them from shutting that church down. So there were all different types of approaches.

And I've talked to some pastors who have said, yeah, you know, I, I thought that it was something that I needed to do and I would never, ever do it again. And they have repented of it and they they are more awake about that as well. I think one of the ones, I think it was James Coates that was up in Canada, one of the things he said before they arrested him and took him off to jail for keeping his church open was he said, I wish I had known more about church history and about political history, and I would have been able to see through this deception better. And so, you know, he admitted that he was wrong,

and he said, I'm never going to do that again. And I think that's the key thing, and I would have been able to see through this deception better. And so, you know, he admitted that he was wrong and he said, I'm never going to do that again. And I think that's the key thing. And I think that's why it's key to, you know, what you're talking about in your book. We need to understand just how serious this is because I think you and I both know, Chris, that this isn't the end of it. It's going to come back and they're going to have some other thing to scare us with. And we have to react to this, I think, in the way that Christians of old did, and they said, well, you know, I may die, but I'm not going to shut everything down. That's right, yeah. I mean, you make some great points there. And there have been pastors who have repented.

Now, this is a very important point, though, that I try to make in the book. There are many other pastors who have not repented, and they'll say things like, well, if I knew now what I knew then, maybe I would have stayed open, or you know what, in hindsight, you know, hindsight's 20-20, you know, and maybe we could have done things differently. I've spoken with these pastors, some of them personally, and I'm very concerned that that is not repentance. It is not repentance to say, well, maybe I could have done a better job. I have a statement in there from a pastor who did repent. You know some. And it's a statement of what I did was wrong. I don't have the authority to tell the sheep they can't meet. And I address objections in that book. People say, well, what about this?

And what about that? But you're right. Something else is going to come up. And the best that I've gotten from some of these people is, well, if that exact thing happens again, I probably would do it differently. But they are still saying, you know what? It's not going to be the exact same thing next time. It's going to be something different. And since their worldview is so infiltrated with statism, I mean, and I know I'm hard on John McArthur.

He's a public figure here. He shut down for months and he said, he was like, well, I don't know what to do because I got the state governor saying this. I got the state legislature saying this. I got the county saying this. I got the president, President Trump saying this. And he was I have no idea what to do. And to me, that was demonstrative of the problem. And it started long before 2020, when these churches and these pastors had spent no time thinking about the application of God's law word to the civil realm. And then when something like this happens, they're like, well, I don't know what to do. Who's in charge? And if you have the right biblical worldview, you know, okay, well, I know how to handle this. God's law word is supreme. If God tells us to meet as the pastor of all people, I will be here with my flock. And anybody who wants to gather with me, I will publicly stand in the name of Jesus Christ and meet with you, even if it costs me my life. And I'm afraid that, and that's why I wrote that book,

I'm afraid that while there have been some good things happening, that many pastors still have kind of now just kind of morphed, you know, with the winds. Well, now it's popular to say you oppose the COVID lockdowns, but we need people to stand when it's not popular, and it's not going to be COVID next time. It's going to be something else. And if you still have this statist mentality, this misinterpretation of Romans 13 that says, well, whatever the government tells you to do, you got to do, then we're going to have problems again. And the point of that book is to try to say, hey, I don't think we've completed our repentance as the institutional church or the American church from 2020. There's still more work to do if we want to be ready for the next thing. Oh, I agree. Yeah. And as you said, they haven't thought this thing through

in advance or they had the wrong perspective on this. I remember when this was all happening and uh the vaccine mandates from biden were coming out and i remember todd friel uh and i played his clips and and criticized it significantly he said look if the government tells me to wear pinwheels on my head i'm gonna wear pinwheels on my head i don't know has he ever changed his tin on that and said you know i was wrong about that or is he still got that bad theology that Todd Friel has? Yeah, I don't know if he's changed his mind or not, but that is demonstrative of the John MacArthur, you know, misinterpretation of Romans 13. Whatever they say will do. I mean, and I've talked to pastors here locally who shut down their church, and they told me, well, you know, only a couple families left when I opened back up again. So it couldn't have been that bad. And I'm just thinking, this is maddening. Your role as a

pastor is to lay down your life for the sheep and to be there for them. And you know, this, this is your worldview that whatever the government says we do, I mean, if the government, I mean, where does that end? And if you have a poor biblical worldview, if you don't go to the Bible as a standard, it doesn't end with the church, with the government saying the church has to shut down. The government tells you what you have to teach your kids. We're not too far from that. I mean, Germany, you can't homeschool your kids. Where does it end? Would these pastors who are so influenced by statism say that it would be also wrong to refuse to send your kids to a demonic institution of learning. And if the government tells you to, so there's so much here that needs to be corrected.

And unfortunately, I think we've moved on from 2020 without really addressing the underlying worldview issues. And I think that's true. I think that's true in every aspect of our life. I think everybody's like, you know, that was a really uncomfortable thing.

Let's just move on. I was just playing the other day. Uh, Luke Krodowski had on Tim pool and he had Laura Loomer and he says, so can't we just have, can't Trump just say he did it wrong and apologize and say, he's not going to do it again. And we're going to fix this. And I, and, and they went ballistic and Tim pool just starts swearing and screaming and goes, I am so sick of this. That was four years ago. And so Trump did a thing. Let's move on. But of course, he wants to focus on the election stuff as well. And that's the key thing. Everybody is like, okay, that was a really horrible time. I would like to just forget about that and never think about it again. But as you point out, it's going

to happen again. And we have to think about this. And many people were thinking about that interpretation of Romans 9 long before that. And I think they got it right and it helped them to get through this. But even more than that, and even more than just shutting down a church, you know, Chris, when I was a young child, and I've told this story before to my audience, I was about four or five years old. I got tommy and poisoning. They thought that I had spinal meningitis. They put me in isolation. They wouldn't even let my parents in. but the pastor came in and he risked his life because you know everybody was like oh this day you know and i was in quarantine but he

went through quarantine to talk to me and i've thought about that especially in 2020 and when And when you look at that, you look at the sincerity of his belief. That's what people are looking for. And that's what they don't see. What they saw was a cynical, self-interested church that had no faith in God or their destiny. And it's been destructive. It's more than a couple of families that have left. It has really eviscerated the church, hasn't it? Yeah, you're right.

It is devastating. It was a great opportunity for the church to demonstrate that this life is not all that matters. I mentioned in that book and another book I wrote called Essential Service that you look at the past and these plagues that happened in the early church, and the Christians were, it was so otherworldly for the pagans around them to see the Christians care for the sick, not just their own, their fellow Christians, but the unbelievers. And the pagans, they were afraid of death because they don't have Christ, you just live in fear.

But the Christians had a higher hope and many of them did die, but they died knowing that they were serving Christ. And we blew that opportunity as a whole, the church as a whole. There were some faithful ones and I thank God for them. They're the ones that should be now looked to as examples, not John MacArthur who shut down for four months. That's a big frustration that I have. But there were some faithful ones who did that, and they stood firm. But overall, they didn't. And like you said, people just want to move on now and say, well, you know what, let's just forgive and forget what happened there.

And we can't do that. I mean, there's definitely a place for forgiveness if people repent absolutely yeah but we can't forget what happened and we have to understand why it happened and and just as importantly we have to understand how it's being presented now to justify the shutdown of churches for months and months and of all people the pastor's ought to understand the importance of repentance and of coming to terms with what had happened I just before you came on I played a clip of repentance and of coming to terms with what had happened. Just before you came on, I played a clip of a lady, and there was a couple of interviews

of people who were at the March for Life, and they were talking about the experiences that they had with abortion and how that had haunted them and finally come to terms with forgiveness, with repentance, and that type of thing. But that is a part of the Christian experience. We're all going to make mistakes. We're all going to sin. We're all going to have bad theology in one area or the other. But we're constantly trying to improve that, to admit those mistakes, to repent from those

mistakes. And that is an even more devastating thing. And I think that's the importance of your book is to call people to repentance and to change because, you know, that is a part of reconciliation. And it has tremendous consequences for the future if they don't do that. And they can't really pastor the sheep if they can't come to terms with their own flaws and their own mistakes and admit those. We always see that from Christian leaders, that they're not perfect, but they admit those mistakes and correct them. That's right, yeah. You mentioned abortion, and one of the great tragedies in the Christian witness

against this slaughter of the pre-born is that we don't call it sin. And you have these people saying, well, we can't call that sin. But the women and the men who have been involved in the murder of children, when they come to see it as sin, then they can finally repent of it and find healing in Christ. If you don't call it sin, you can never find healing for it. If you're always justifying it, you'll never be able to be healed of it. And it's the same thing with the church shutting down. I mean, I've spoken with these pastors, and I have some of that in the book,

that they won't admit that it was sin, because if they admit that it was sin, then they have to humble themselves and repent of it. And so they can just simply paint it as, well, we did the best we had with the information we had. But that's not good enough. We had the Bible. Everybody had the Bible. Everybody had the same church history books. We knew what God's word called us to do, and many of them didn't do it. And they're refusing to call it sin, and therefore they are preventing themselves from repenting, because if you don't call it sin, what do I need to repent of? Eh, maybe I could have done it better.

Eh, yeah, shut down the church for several weeks, whatever. Maybe I'll do it differently next time. That's not repentance. God won't bless that. That's right. Yeah, and the public is not fooled by that either. They look at it and they say, this is very hypocritical, right? This guy is not living out what he says he believes in.

Again, anybody can make a mistake. Anybody can be wrong. Anybody can sin uh but you have to come to terms with it and and if you just kind of blow it off um that's even more damaging and so the damage continues and that's why i look at it from a political standpoint as well by just continuing to move on and not make any corrections not make any reforms not admit any mistakes uh they are making this much, much worse because it is going to happen again politically.

But from a Christian standpoint, as you said, when plagues were going around, people didn't hide out. They went ahead and did what they could to help their fellow man. They understood what they needed to do, and they left the consequences to God. And they were fine with that. And so that is really, it is that kind of approach is really going to be the only thing that is going to save us in the future. We have to not be afraid of what they're doing. And if we are afraid in all these different areas,

if we're afraid of sickness or of fines or of government or men, we are going to be at their mercy. And so that is a key thing. You know, again, it are going to be at their mercy. And so that is a key thing. You know, again, it comes back to fearing God and trying to make that correct. A great book for people to read. And thank you so much for what you're doing there. And keep us informed as things happen. I'll keep a lookout for your reports as well from the Lancaster Patriot. Is that correct?

I got it right here. It got buried. The LancasterPatriot.com. Yep, that's correct. Okay, good, good. So everybody check that out. Again, the book is Scattering the Sheep. We didn't talk about your biblical principles for voting.

Just give us a quick overview of that. That's a book that did not just come out like this one, but that's been around for a while since we're going through the primary stuff here. What do people do? You know, everybody's saying to me, well, you don't like this one, you don't like that one, who do you like? And I try to steer them towards local elections

because I feel like that's the only place where we've really got any choice, and I think that's where we've got the biggest opportunity to make a difference. What do you think about biblical principles for voting? Yeah, yeah. That book was written maybe 2020 as well. There's another book that came out in between called Seven State of Sins. That's a more recent one. If you're interested in learning about what does the Bible say about the government and what are all the ways the government is going beyond what God has ordained, check out that book, Seven State of Sins. It goes well with Vogue Christian. To give a brief answer to your question, I would agree with you. We have a ton of focus on the federal

level, and really the tyranny is happening at the local level. If we had local magistrates who were righteous and just, then we could have some interposition here, and we could stand against some of the federal tyranny. But as it stands now, the state and federal and the local are all, you know, in bed together with statism. But my main point in that book, Vote Christian, is that Exodus 18.21 calls us to vote for men who fear God, who hate a bribe. You know, these are men who love justice. The Bible says that the wicked do not understand justice. And I just try to lay out the case there that God's word does speak to the qualifications of civil magistrates. And that's a big time people say, well, no, you know, we're not voting for a pastor here. So you just vote for whoever you most pragmatic. And I say,

of course, we're not voting for a pastor, but the law word of God tells us that there are requirements if you are to rule in the fear of God and to rule justly, and that can only be defined by God's word. Um, and so that's where, you know, that I wasn't popular with a lot of people. Um, you know, they were very afraid of Hillary Clinton and I understand and said, well, you know, Donald Trump, he's going to be the one to save us. Um, I had a different take on it. Um, I think we we're going to we're going to hear the same thing again um but just keep in mind you know again you mentioned uh you know was it operation warp speed and who started the whole covid uh response um you know character matters character matters we don't have to agree with somebody from a theological standpoint but character does matter

and uh and if somebody is of a standpoint but character does matter and uh and if somebody is of a low moral character as i've said many times i said what made you think he's going to obey his oath to the constitution when he not only disobeys his marriage vows but he brags about it you know and parades his sin i said this this is obviously a person of no moral character and you can't put them in an office of trust. You know? Right. Yeah.

Yeah. Go ahead. Sorry. Character matters, and also a correct understanding of the role of civil government matters. And that's what that book, Vote Christian, and then my other book, Seven State of Sins, deal with. That we have gotten away from the biblical role of government and it's grown into this huge status gargantuan beast and we have to start you know pulling back from this because it just goes on and on and on and we think you know voting for the next well this person because the republicans

are taking us down the road of statism maybe not as fast as the democrats but they're doing it and i think it's more dangerous because they're doing it almost imperceptibly. So we have this false sense of security that, okay, well, at least we don't have Biden again. And so, you know, we're going to go into statism just a little slower. And then where are we going to be when my children grow up and we're going to have more statism, more man-made law, more tyranny. And the people will be lulled into it.

Like the frogs being boiled in the water. That's why my argument in the book is, vote on principle, leave the rest to God. Because this is, the one analogy I use, you have in the Old Testament, the Babylonians are coming to judge Israel. And Jeremiah is there saying, look, this is what we deserve. God's bringing this judgment. We need to accept this judgment. And the people say, no, we got to run to Egypt. Egypt, they're not as bad as the Babylonians. They'll save us. And Jeremiah says, look, that's not going to help you. And I think that's what we do in the political landscape. We say, well, this is really bad over here. The Democrats, and they are, they're horrible.

They're, you know, villainous. They want to murder babies, wicked, wicked group. And we say, well, the Republicans will save us. And yet they're not honoring Christ either. And so we've just turned to another enemy of Christ and we think it's going to give us deliverance. And it doesn't. We need a complete transformation, shall I say, revolution of the character of the people in this nation if we're going to see justice administered. That's right. Yeah.

And I think we need to speak out and say, you know, we need to see some people of character. And I think that's why we have, we have a better, certainly not always an opportunity, but we have a better chance of seeing a broader spectrum and finding somebody of character that we can vote for at a local election or, you know, get some local neighbors to do it or run for it ourselves or something like that at the local election. But we just have to take what these Egyptians are giving us. And we've got Egyptians on both sides that are out there. But I agree with what you said about 2020. And I said that myself.

I said, is it more dangerous for us to have Biden, who is going to ramp this stuff up, and everybody knew he was going to try to mandate the vaccines? Or is it going to be more dangerous for Trump to do it in a very subtle way? And especially because we've got the media that is going to any lengths to try to excuse what he had to say. There was an article that I just saw yesterday. And they said, look at this. No matter how many people are dying from these injections, the Democrats just can't see it. And of course, this is a publication that talks about the poisoning, but it doesn't talk about who created the poisoning.

And I said, and so we got the Democrats who can't see what is happening with the poison, but we got the Republicans who do see the poisoning, and they're dishonest enough that they won't attribute it to Trump. I said, which one is worse? Is it worse to be deceived and not understand what is going on, or is it worse to know what is going on and then to cover up for it? And that's my concern about it. It's crazy. Well, it's great talking to you, Chris.

And again, it is the Lancaster Patriot, the books Scattering the Sheep, Vote Christian, Biblical Principles for Voting. And so we look forward to what you're doing. You're doing some great work up there in Pennsylvania. Thank you so much for doing that. Thanks for having me on. Appreciate it. The David Knight Show is a critical thinking super spreader. If you've been exposed to logic by listening to The David Knight Show, please do your part and try not to spread it. Financial support or simply

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