The Eric Metaxas Show - Josh Abbotoy

Episode Date: January 7, 2022

Josh Abbotoy of AmericanReformer.org is leading an effort to expose and challenge wokeness at conservative colleges across the country, beginning with Grove City College in Pennsylvania.

to the Eric Mettaxas show with your host, Eric Mettaxas. Hey, folks, today. I can't believe it. Thursday, hour two. You know what that means? I know. A segment of Ask Mataxis. I'm going to play the role of Metaxus, since that's my surname.

And Albin, you can ask the questions. I'm going to do that right now. Can I do that? Yes. Here we go. My understanding is that the Greek word Logos is not translatable in English. Therefore, as a Christian and of Greek descent, could you give us your explanation on this word logos in the Bible.

Thank you for what you and your great crew are doing every day. Jimbo. Jimbo, thank you for your question. This is a big bug bear for me. It really is. When I hear the word logos, the Greek word logos, logos to the EU, it's translated as the word of God, capital W. That's a stinko translation because word makes people think of the words of the Bible. the Bible is the Word of God.

Well, it's not that simple. The Logos to Theu, Logos means a lot more than word. And in a way, this has led Protestants and evangelicals in particular to kind of, it almost leads to what's called biblioletry, where you worship the Bible, which is wrong. You should worship God alone. and the words in the Bible are nothing if they're not inspired by the Holy Spirit of God. So a parrot can you say, you know, and quote scripture, Satan quotes scripture to Jesus. So the words themselves, apart from the Holy Spirit, are nothing special.

Think about that for a second. So when you talk about the word of God versus the logos to Theu, the logos, the logos, It's a huge, it's a huge concept. We don't have time to go into that much more, but I'll just, I'll leave it at that. Yeah, great question, though. How would you relate today's events to the time in which Bonhofer lived? Well, it's obvious that Trump was Hitler 2.0 and we got rid of them, and everything's just going to be fun from here on in. Actually, on the contrary, we're dealing with cultural Marxism, which has taken over most of the culture.

and the left, the Democratic Party in particular, have been either complicit or ignorant of what is happening. And so what we see as, you know, whether it's critical race theory or the BLM organization or a lot of this stuff is against American freedom, against self-government, the founder's vision. And today, if you want to be serious about your faith, you're obliged to stand against these things in one measure or another. Now, that's always going to be difficult. It was really difficult in Germany to stand against the National Socialist program.

But I have to say those are the parallels where we are right now. I can unpack that more another time, but I'm quite serious about that. What was your favorite chapter in Is Atheism Dead to Write? And loving the book, they say. Yeah, I've never gotten such positive feedback as I'm getting from this book. And it's like being asked, well, who's your, which is your favorite child? I mean, I... Fortunately, you have one.

Yeah, that's the good news. So I can say my least and most favorite is the one we have. But in the case of the book, I think the last third of the book is the most fun. Those are the most fun chapters. so I'll go with that. Okay. What is your favorite fruit? Tomato, next question.

Yes. What do you think is the most important thing to tell people about the gospel? Wow. These are big theological questions, and I haven't had enough coffee. I would say people really, kind of like what I said about the word of God, quote-unquote word, the gospel, it's really a lot of people don't understand what it is. I think they think it means just this evangelist. message, the good news, Jesus died for you, and we're done. And I think, well, it's a lot bigger than that. I mean, if you have to boil it down, you know, it's like saying, what's the Christian

faith? And you say, well, here's the Nicene Creed. That's the Christian faith. Well, that's a distillation of it. But the gospel, first of all, if you believe the good news that Jesus died for you, literally for you, that he defeated death and that you can participate in eternal life, by believing in him, you're going to live your life totally differently. And so what it means is that you have to really believe it to the point where you are willing to give every part of your life over to God, knowing he's not going to play a trick on you. He's not going to try to embarrass you or ruin your life, but to really live out the faith. Yeah, I forget who it was that said something like it's not the finish line, it's the starting line.

I said that. You said that. I said that. There you are. Yeah, when you accept the faith, people think, well, I'm done now, I'm going to heaven. It's like, no, no, no, you've just begun. Now you get to live out your faith until the day the Lord calls you to be with him. Right.

Okay. When will you be heading to Southern California for a speaking engagement? Never. Actually, I think I'm supposed to go to San Diego. Awaken Church in San Diego has invited me. The dates aren't clear. But if you go to Eric Mataxis.com, every time we get an event, we post it at the speaking on the speaking page. sign up for the newsletter at the same time.

And if you don't sign up for the newsletter, you're dead to me. Okay. Did the Arizona audit disprove Lindell's theory of electronic tampering? Love Mike, but want to know the truth. I got to tell you, I get hotter under the color. We're living in a country now where the news is not reported. The fact of the matter is that the Maricopa County Audit made clear that Mike Lindell is correct.

Now, nobody reports on it or they say it did just the opposite. If you're paying attention, which is not so easy to do, I think the evidence becomes clearer and clearer that there was so much irregularity as putting it in a nice way that you need to take this seriously, folks. Don't just go along because people say, oh, shut up. Don't be conspiracy theorists. I mean, that's really not an argument. The fact is that when the nation is at stake, you need to take this stuff seriously. Okay. Why do you think Donald Trump is oblivious to the VAERS reporting and is still touting the success of the vaccines? Because he's a human being, a flawed, sinful human being who gets things wrong.

And that's okay. I don't have to agree with everybody on everything. But I'll tell you this. I have a relative in Germany who has no clue where I stand on the vaccine. or any of this stuff, wrote to me yesterday and said, we have three friends. This is a relative of mine. He's in banking, brilliant guy. He has no clue where I am politically around this stuff. He said that we have three friends who died after taking the vaccine who were otherwise healthy. Wow.

I thought to myself, this is, like, I keep hearing things like this and people like, shut up. We can't talk about that. Folks, I really, I couldn't believe it. I think Donald Trump, he's Donald Trump. He has some good qualities and some less good qualities. And on this issue, he's flat out wrong. And, you know, we'll leave it at that. Okay.

In your opinion, how is it looking for New York City right now that we have a new mayor? Oh, this is hilarious. Listen, our last mayor was so bad. People think we're exaggerating. You cannot, you cannot exaggerate how awful he was. I mean, I have been in New York my whole life. Over 50 years, I have seen mayors come and go. The worst of the worst cannot hold a candle to Bill de Blasio.

He was just virtually universally hated. And I got to tell you that the new mayor, I think that the new mayor at worst, will be infinitely better than Bill de Blasio. I'm very hopeful. The new mayor, he was a cop for 20 years. Hard not to see black and white, and I don't mean that racially. I mean, hard not to see facts when you've been a cop,

because you've, you know, so I'm hopeful. Okay, here's a fun one to close out with. You know, we just had the Christmas special. How about an Easter weekend TV special thinking Albin in a bunny costume? Okay, well, this is where you've got to write your letters to TBN. address them to Matt Crouch, care of TB, and say, Matt, would you fund an Easter special?

We really want it. We want to see Albin in the bunny costume. So we just want you to send your emails to them. And you'll get your Easter bunny costume, Albin. Thank you. We're going to leave it at that. Thank you. Hey there, folks. Have you ever looked for a business podcast? You're into business, but you also like to be entertained. So you're looking for a funny business podcast. Well, some of them try to be funny. They're just not funny, which is a problem. I think I have the answer for you. If you like business news and current events with the side of actual comedy, you want to listen to,

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Subscribe to IP Frequently and stay up to date on their weekly stream of episodes wherever you get your podcasts. Go to IPfrequently.com. That's IPfrequently.com. Hey there, folks. I'm excited to talk to my next guest. His name is Josh Abbottoy. And there are a few things that we want to talk about, but I want to make sure we talk about something that's going on. Grove City College, where I have spoken, is struggling as many of even the best colleges are with going woke.

Bad news, but the good news is there are folks like Josh who are kind of on the case. Josh, welcome to the program. Thank you, Eric. It's good to be here. I want to talk to you about a number of things, but let's start with this. You've written an article very recently at Americanreformer.org talking about this. So for folks don't know anything about it, give us a summation if you would. Absolutely. I became aware of this situation that's going on in Grove City. After I was contacted by some parents, actually, who are involved in a petition.

And essentially what happened is they raised a number of claims in their petition to the president of the university. They got 500 signatories from a variety of parents, students, and alumni. And their claims basically boil down to the following. They say that the chapel programming at Grove City has become woke. There are speakers that are pushing CRT in the chapel. They said that CRT ideas have influenced the residential advice. training. They've said that even in the classroom, there have been courses taught that platform and don't accept alternative viewpoints, but push CRT predominantly in the classroom and are actually

looking to build activists rather than having intellectual conversations about the substance of these issues. And then finally, they raised a number of concerns about relating to some LGBT issues. And as you know, you know, this is a conservative Christian college that sort of markets itself as having a certain standard of behavior. And these are hot-button issues, but in some ways the parents have concern about whether the college is actually adhering to the behavioral expectations that it sets out for its students and its faculty members and how it markets itself to its parents. Well, a lot of, yeah, go ahead, sorry. No, no, I was just going to say that, you know, these are the concerns. that the parents raised. And, you know, the response was very curious, right? So that, and this is really why I wanted to write an article and get involved. You know, the college responded after this

public petition was submitted to them within about a week afterward. And mainly what the college did was they sidestepped the complaints, and then they sort of punched back at the parents, right? They said, you know, you're engaging in hearsay and rumor. This was not the appropriate way to bring these concerns to our attention. You should have done that privately first. which, by the way, they did try to do privately before going public. But at that point, when I saw the response, you know, it sort of engaged my sense of justice, you know, and talked to some of these parents that are involved. I thought that they had been treated unfairly.

These were folks that were acting in good faith trying to raise concerns to the administration, and their concerns were not met in a way that said, hey, thank you for raising these concerns. We're going to investigate, right? It was met with stone walling. And I just want to say one other thing that I think is important for understanding this situation. You know, this is not the first time that Grove City has dealt with a contentious petition in the last couple of years. So in the summer of 2020, right, when the nation is being torn apart with riots and demands are being made of many institutions, there was a group of students that submitted a petition to Grove City that asked them to do a number of things.

first of all, they called for the firing of Paul Kangor. Paul Kangor is a rock star conservative professor at Grove City. He has been on this program, and yeah, he is a hero. He believes in the American founder's vision in the Constitution, and it makes perfect sense. If you are woke, you're going to go after somebody like that. And so, yeah, so even at places like Grove City, this kind of stuff is happening. It's shocking, but I'm just, I'm thrilled you're all over it. But Eric, here's the thing that you really need to understand about what happened.

Those petitioners called Paul Kengor a white supremacist. They called him. They have nothing else, right? If they don't call you a white supremacist or a bigot of some kind, then they have to have an actual argument, which they don't have. So they're going to go there pretty quickly. How nice. How charming.

Yes, you know, you know he doesn't have a racist bone in his body. This is a good man. And not only that, they also called for the college to take a number of actions. Now, here's what's important. Here's what matters. The college did not defend Paul Kangor. They did not issue a public statement defending him. They did, however, implement the majority of the demands that the petitioners asked of the college to make.

I just want to say, honestly, Josh, it is staggering how gutless. supposed leaders can be. I don't know why. You expect this gutlessness at this point from corporate America. They would sell their souls to the devil, you know, for a better quarter. But when you see conservative Christian colleges behaving this way, it is truly a gut punch, frankly, that Grove City of all places would have this kind of response. I mean, give us more details, but I cannot believe that I'm hearing this kind of thing. It's dismaying. Well, look, what happens is, you know, these programs are done, and there's sort of, so the

college goes out and they create a diversity council, right? And, you know, the language and the packaging around that is not always on its face problematic, right? They say things like, you know, we are a university that does not have, you know, we're predominantly white, right? We don't represent the general population. So we want to form a council to help us reflect the general population better, right? These are sort of benign goals on their face, right? But as we know over time, and we see this pattern in many institutions, these councils end up being clearing houses and strategizing groups for implementing CRT throughout institutions, right? When folks join a council

like this. And typically there's a, you know, the type of person who joins a council often has a certain viewpoint on these issues. And then they carry the approval of the institution in all of the different areas where they operate. And they have this sort of mark of approval from the highest levels of administration to pursue agendas that conflict with the college's mission, Americans' founding values. So look, so Grove City establishes a diversity council, right? And then in the fall of 2020, after all of these events. They have this intensive two-week program where Chapel is essentially all about social justice issues,

particularly focusing on race. And these were, you know, a varying quality. They were a varying. Not all of the speeches had CRT in every sentence of the speech, right? But there was a very clear pattern. Every single speaker that the college chose the platform in that event took as for granted that America is a systemic, racetrically racist place, and that if we as Christians are not being actively racist, and we know

that has a very particular meaning in the literature and the way it's used, if we are not being actively racist, then we are complicit in that white supremacy. The college chose to platform that in their chapel. Chapel is not the classroom. Chapel is not where you explore academic ideas. Chapel is where the institution is trying to form the character of its students. students are required to a Chen Chapel. When people speak in Chapel, they are, in a sense, speaking on behalf of the institution to the students in an authoritative way. And that's important because many folks like to defend the topics and sort of what has happened with a appeal to free speech and academic inquiry. But we can talk about that in a classroom when views are being analyzed critically and looked at from different angles.

but when you're talking about somebody speaking in a chapel, that brings with it a certain mark of authority. It's, as I said earlier, it's staggering, dismaying, horrifying that, yes, folks, even places like Grove City College are at least on the face of it, unable to formulate a positive vision that they are reacting when they're threatened. I mean, look, we see that. this with BLM, CRT, critical race theory. This is all Marxism, and let's be blunt.

Marxism is by definition, you talk about systemic. It is systemically atheist and anti-God. It may not be talking about that, but the assumptions of Marxism, cultural Marxism, critical race theory, critical theory, all of this is fundamentally atheistic, hostile to faith, and then, as you carried along, hostile to the founder's vision of America. But what amazes me, Josh, is that even at places like Grove City College, and there are other, at least I thought they were good colleges, they really seem rather than standing up heroically and doing their duty, parents are paying them a lot of money to speak the truth and to teach. truth. They are going into a fetal position and saying, how can we get these people away from us?

Who do we pay? What do we say? What do you want us to do? It's really pathetic. I want to talk more to you about this and other things. Folks, I'm talking to Josh Abbottoy. You can find what he's written at Americanreformer.org and Americanmind.org. And we'll be right back. In case you haven't been paying attention, the Biden administration has caused a financial crisis and they have no clue how to fix it. Oil prices have skyrocketed, and when oil prices go up, the cost of transportation and shipping spikes,

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Folks, is the Eric Mattaxas show. I'm Eric Mettaxas, and my guest is Josh Abatoi, not Attauoy, but Abatoy. What kind of a name? I have to always ask my guest, what kind of a name is Abitoy? I've never, let me first say, I've never heard that joke before. Oh, shut up. I can hear that. Alvin made me do it.

My producer made me do it. But, I mean, it's a good way to remember your name. It's not Ataboy. It's Abatoy. But what kind of a name is that? French. It's French. Abitois.

and it was anglicized, you know, very eloquently into aditory. Right. Okay. Well, listen, you're doing heroic work, and I want to hear more about what we're talking about. And then I want to talk to you about American Reformer. I want my audience to know about American Reformer, which is really where you're doing your work and you're writing AmericanReformer.org. But tell us more about Grove City and how does Hillsdale stack up?

How do you compare them in your mind? Absolutely. The contrast with Hillsdale is really important, right? These are two schools that are often mentioned in the same breath. Both of these schools, years ago, made the decision to stop taking federal funding so that they could operate independently without the tentacles of the federal government getting involved in their policymaking and the decisions that they make on how they operate their institution, right?

So these are two schools that are considered. to be peers, almost two peas in a pod. But the schools have been on very different trajectories recently. And you can see this in sort of their public image. You can also see it just in sort of the metrics, right? So Hillsdale now is competing with Ivy Leagues. If you look at their admissions rates and the test scores of their students, they are flourishing. They are getting a ton of very smart applicants from around the country. And you know, even though they're like a pretty out and proud conservative institution. They place their students in top graduate schools and top professional programs around the country because they have such a strong brand. And people know that when they

get a Hillsdale student, they're getting a smart, hardworking student who also has top-notch character. And that's the opportunity for Grove City. But I am sad to say, if you look at some of these objective metrics, they're slipping relative to Hillsdale, right? And why is that? You know, Part of it is because there is a core constituency out there. There are kids coming out of Christian schools around the country, conservative Christian kids who are very smart, hardworking, high character folks. And, you know, frankly, if Grove City is not going to be as bold about their history and their affirmative vision for the future, they're going to lose out to other institutions

who can cast a more compelling vision on that front. If you're going to go, you know, if you're going to go to a college, that's dealing with this stuff that's not standing up heroically. You know, you might as well go to Princeton or Harvard. Why go to Grove City? If they can't do the very thing that you're expecting them to do, you can skip it. Absolutely. Absolutely.

And that's the issue, right? Grove City doesn't take federal funding. It's not cheap to attend. Most people who attend are paying full freight, right? And, yeah, frankly, if you're not getting something distinctive, what's a differentiator from Oberlin or Swagmore, this host of other small liberal arts colleges that are out there. But, you know, look, I mean, there's a very particular contrast with Hillsdale

that I want to bring to your attention. In the summer of 2020, again, during all of the discussions around racial issues that were happening, Hillsdale got a petition, right? Hillsdale got a petition about, you know, hey, Hillsdale, even though you were founded as an abolitionist college in 1840, You know, you need to reckon with race. You need to make these institutional changes. You need to make these changes that implement CRT and create inroads for it within your school.

And Hillsdale took to the pages, the editorial pages of Wall Street Journal, and they said, no, what we teach, you know, sort of the universal truth found in the great tradition of classical books in the Christian tradition and in America's founding values, that's what needs to be said right now. We don't need to change what we're doing. We need to do more of what we're doing. I mean, look, that's because of Larry Arne, who is the president of Hillsdale. He is a heroic figure. He knows history. He understands these things, and he lives them out. And Hillsdale is Hillsdale because of him.

So the question is, I don't know who heads up Grove City. But it is pretty amazing when you realize that somebody who just lacks the courage to do what what Hillsdale did in response to that bullying by these Marxists, sensing an opportunity, smelling blood in the water, that Grove City was unwilling to stand up heroically and Hillsdale was. Do you think, I mean, is the leadership at Grove City going to change? I mean, is that the issue? I can only guess that it's the issue. You know, Eric, I don't know. I'm hopeful that this leader. leadership can respond positively to this discussion that's going on.

Perhaps it needs to change, but the opportunity is there for them, right? I mean, if you make a course correction and you're clear about it and persuasive and you market it, you're going to get credibility back very quickly. And you and I know there's an incredible opportunity right now for leaders who are courageous and are not shy about casting an affirmative vision that differs from what mainstream academia has for sale right now. The donor checks will write themselves. The students will be lining up.

And so the key thing is does the leadership have the wherewithal to recognize that and then the courage to act on it? That's the key. And I want to be the first to say that when somebody does the right thing, I would have you back on this program in a heartbeat to praise them for doing the right thing and to tell people. to send your kids there or think about sending your kids there. This is really, these are crazy times.

We'll be right back, folks, talking to Josh Abbottoy. Don't go away. Hey, folks, I've got to tell you a secret about relief factor that the father, son, owners, Pete and Seth Talbot, have never made a big deal about, but I think it is a big deal. I really do. They sell the three-week quick start pack for just 1995

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Or call 800, 500, 500, 8384, 800,5008384, relief factor.com. I use it. It works. There, folks. I'm talking to Josh Abbottoy. He is the executive director, I neglected to mention earlier, of American Reformer. Americanreformer.org. Tell us, Josh, what is American Reformer. Thanks, Eric. American Reformer is a journal for Protestant, civic, and cultural engagement. You know, we launched this, well, Nate Fisher and Aaron Wren are the two individuals that launched this over the summer. I joined about two months ago. I was so compelled by the vision. The idea is that, you know, Protestant Christians need their own platform for strong,

emerging voices who take a rigorous approach to the important cultural issues of the day, right? So you probably are aware of some great magazines that already do this with a broader platform, like first things, publications like that. We love those publications, but we also sat down and said, okay, we also need to be intentionally cultivating the next generation of thought leaders from the, from Protestant circles, right? We, we love our Catholic. brethren, but in some ways, the discussion is sometimes more advanced among Catholics, right? And we want to be encouraging Protestants to be engaging on these issues at a very thoughtful level. So that's what we're doing. But it's all with an action orientation, right? So we want to be

writing for people who are in positions to make changes. So pastors, seminary students, seminary professors, lay leaders and people of influence in their local churches. That's really our core audience. Well, okay, so let me ask you, of course, I'm familiar with first things. They published a poem of mine in 1999. I don't think I've been in its pages since in that way, but an important magazine and Father Newhouse, when he established it, really understood we need coalitions like that. where does, I mean, because when you say Protestant, my mind, in this day and age, when I hear Protestant, I think dead mainline Protestant.

That's not what you're talking about. You mean Protestant in contradistinction to Catholic. Where, I guess I also think of the gospel coalition. It seems that they have drifted leftward or is that, I don't know, what is your sense of the gospel coalition these days? I really don't know. I haven't followed them very much recently. So they're a big tent, but drift is, I think, a very fair characterization of what's occurred over there. I don't want to paint the too broad of a brush because there's some very good people writing for them. But, yes, on the whole, there's been a drift. It's also interesting from stepping back, there's a dynamic that you see playing out at Gospel Coalition, which you see at a lot of other elite evangelical institutions.

And that dynamic is that the knee-jerk reaction or mode of engaging the culture is to be accommodationist, to accommodate, to seek to find areas of commonality. Right. When that becomes your habit and your instinct in response to every single issue, it ends up warping your Christian witness. It ends up warping the way you think about certain issues, right? So in contrast to perhaps the Gospel Coalition and some of the other sort of existing institutions that evangelical elites tend to populate, we want to be offering up thought leadership that is rigorous, right, that critiques a lot of current cultural moments that's very, that's not shy about talking about issues of, you know, sexuality, gender, race, you know, political engagement. that is out of step with where mainstream society is right now. Well, and listen, this is music to my ears, and I'm glad to know that you and American reformer exist,

because it seems clear that a lot of good people, kind of they got stuck in a certain mode. It may have worked 20 years ago, but it no longer works. And the mode is this accommodationist idea, this idea. We need to find common ground. I mean, Tim Keller, whom I love, said, I don't know, a year and a half ago, everybody needs to read more stuff on critical race theory, you know, even if you disagree with it, we need to read as much as we can. And I thought, that is preposterous. That is ridiculous.

He is so unable at this point, I guess, to be able to say, this is bad, avoid it. He has to kind of make it seem like, well, we're not political. We're looking at both sides. And I thought, my goodness, you don't do that with the issue of slavery. You don't do that. with the issue of killing the unborn. You don't do that with the issue of racism. Some things are right. Some things are wrong. Why are we straining at a gnat to swallow a camel on these issues?

But I think that a lot of evangelicals have bought the idea that even when God would have us get political, we say, oh, we're, we're for the gospel. We don't want to get political. And the gospel pushes you to be political because politics is. come to you. So it seems that like that's what we're talking about right now, this accommodationist idea. I mean, look, sometimes their hearts are in the right place. Sometimes they're simply being cowardly. We don't need to talk about that, but we just know it's a mistake. Absolutely. And, you know, it's like, it's like a use an analogy to muscles, right? When you take an accommodist,

accommodationist approach over time, you lose your courage muscle, right? You're exercising your muscle where you're constantly trying to do PR for, you know, for the Bible or for historic Christian faith, and you forget and, you know, your muscles atrophy that you used to use to be courageous and prophetic. And prophetic, yeah. Well, see, that's, this is big stuff, Josh, what you're talking about. And again, I'm just thrilled that you and American reformer are out there because very few people are making this case, and it's at the heart of everything at this point. I mean, if you don't get this,

you don't get anything. When people talk about, we just want to preach the gospel, I want to know what dead gospel are you preaching? If you are not dealing with these issues, if you don't understand that children's lives are being ruined because people don't have the courage to stand against transgender madness. People's lives are being ruined. The gospel is at stake. You're supposed to speak the truth and try to bring the love, the shalom. of the kingdom of God into people's lives. And you're sort of, you're forgetting that that involves more than, you know, reading John 316 and saying, I don't want to get political.

Absolutely, absolutely. The early Christians were known for, among other things, their opposition to the practice of abortion and infanticide in ancient Rome, right? And you do have to say, you know, we have to calibrate, you know, where our moral compass is, right, if we're not sort of constantly scandalized. by the fact that, you know, our nation kills hundreds of thousands of babies every year. We don't want to get political on this program. Josh, when we come back, we're going to avoid politics and truth altogether.

We'll be right back. Make like a Mr. Milk toast, you'll get shot out. Folks, I'm talking to Josh Abbottoy. He is the executive director at American Reformer. And I'm really excited to know that American Reformer exists. I hope folks will go there, Americanreformer.org. What else do we need to know about American reformer, Josh Abbottoy? Yeah, just keep an eye out on us in the coming year, Eric.

We've got a lot of exciting things planned. You know, a lot of great authors are going to be writing in our pages doing, exploring a lot of themes along what we've discussed already, helping equip Christian leaders to engage the culture vigorously. The other thing that we're doing, I'll say, is that we're developing sort of an expertise in advising parents and other concerned constituents when they have institutional battles and important Christian institutions. So, you know, I've been in touch with the parents at Grove City. We want to hear about institutional struggles that are happening and when we can give assistance

to help institutions stay faithful and then ultimately not just play defense, right, but actually implement an affirmative vision for what it looks like to be a faithful Christian institution in the 21st century and take leadership. So we are very eager to lend that assistance, and there's tremendous need across Christian colleges, denominations, seminaries, nonprofits. And so we would very much welcome, you know, folks to read us, and then folks to send us information

and make us aware of situations where we could give advice or help. Well, I know that there is hardly a college, there's hardly a Christian college, that isn't going through this kind of thing right now. I don't know where half of them are when I think of Biola or the King's College or Liberty or any of these schools. I'm not really privy to what is exactly happening, which way they are leaning. We've just got a couple of minutes left. Any sense on any of the schools I mentioned or any other schools like that?

Yeah, look, the situation is dire. there's a lot of issues. You could write an article similar to the one I wrote about Grove City at many of those other institutions, right? What we need to do is we need to show the possibility of change at one important institution, right? If Grove City can get back on the right track, if they can make some fixes, that sends a message to a lot of other schools, all right? You could have written this article about Biola, you know? you could have written it about Azusa Pacific, Wheaton, all of these places. Some of these schools, perhaps even a more damning article.

But what they need to understand is if they stay faithful, if they implement an affirmative vision, commitment to the good, the true, the beautiful, to America's founding ideals, then they're going to flourish. And when folks see that, I think that we're going to start to see some change at a number of these institutions. There's also some colleges that are doing some great things. this. You know about Hillsdale. I would also reference a couple others, you know, Cedarville University in Kentucky under the leadership of Thomas White doing very good things. New St. Andrews out now in Moscow, Idaho, very different model doing really good things. The Davenant Institute. It's sort of an online

school with some really smart, young, you know, devout Protestant. What is that called? Say it again? It's called the Davenant Institute. Yes. Yeah. Well, it's exciting. It's exciting. Go ahead. Yeah. No, I was just saying there's some really good things happening. And I think in the coming years, this is going to become clear, right? These institutions that are out on the front leading are going to flourish. And institutions that are perhaps stagnating, you know, in terms of their message are going to actually stagnate in terms of their performance. And listen, this is this is the great irony. If you want to play it safe and you want to play that game, you're dead. If Grove City does the right thing, they will flourish. don't, they will die. And I will do my part on this program and elsewhere to make sure that these places die. So I really want to encourage people to understand what is happening in these schools. We're out of time. Josh, just a huge blessing. Thank you for your time. Thank you very much, Eric.