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All right everybody, welcome back to the channel. It is Friday, December 13th, Year of Our Lord 2024, and in today's video, you know, we still got, you know, 18 days, I guess, 18 days until the end of the year, so I'm still being nice.
It's as simple as that. I got people texting me saying, hey, you shouldn't be nice. It's not a virtue. I know it's not a virtue, but I promised, you know, and I'm going to make good on my promise, so I'm going to be nice, and that's that.
Yesterday I got, I posted a few posts just in defense of Anons, because I am very pro -Anon, as you know, as everybody here knows, and I've got some more content coming about Anons, because I think Anons are getting a bad rep, and, you know, I don't think they deserve.
It.
I really don't. In any case, I wanted to just address the Stone Choir podcast, sort of. I mean, listen, I posted this, and here's what I wrote. I wrote, some are mad at Stone Choir because they are sowing mistrust of clergy and elders.
Okay, fine. I don't like it either, but instead of getting mad, think about the situations you've created that give this sowing of mistrust a hearing in the first place. And you know, got some decent engagement on this one.
This was a pretty good one, but I did have a few people kind of complaining that guys like me and John Harris, you know, we're always talking about Stone Choir without talking about them, which, I mean, I don't really understand how that's true.
I don't talk about Stone Choir because I don't talk about Stone Choir. I don't think they're a big problem. I've told many people privately and publicly that if you think they're a big problem, you should seriously engage them.
And that's what a lot of people here were doing in the comments, saying, A .D., you need to engage Stone Choir, engage the substance of their arguments, you know, and all that kind of stuff. And I'm not going to do that because I don't think they're a big problem.
You know what I mean? It's just as simple as that. If you think they're a big problem, I would suggest doing exactly that, seriously engaging them like real people, because they actually are just people.
Now, at the end of the day, someone made a decent point, and I felt like they made a good point, and so I would address what I meant by this, because they said, no, no, no, A .D., you're wrong. You do talk about Stone Choir.
And I was like, I do? I don't know that. And they said, yeah, you did it right here. You said that you don't like that they so mistrust of clergy and elders either. That's a pretty good point, because at the end of the day, this tweet wasn't really about Stone Choir.
It was about the people that don't like Stone Choir and are all concerned about them. But I did level some agreement there, and so that's a good point. And so I thought I'd just describe what I meant.
Right. All right.
Yeah, this channel is not going to turn into an anti-Stone Choir channel unless somebody can convince me that they're this big problem, because I just don't see it. I've told many people this privately.
I've told many people this publicly. There are a lot of things that I could talk about that I don't, but if you can convince me that this is the biggest thing that I need to discuss, then I guess I could potentially do that.
So, hey, in the comments section, if you think Stone Choir is this big phenomenon that I need to address because they're so dangerous to the church, then go ahead and try. And I do the channel for you guys, so I'll do that.
But I felt like I should explain this, because it is true that I do, in a way, agree with the criticism that they're sowing mistrust of clergy and elders. The point of the tweet, though, is instead of getting all mad at Stone Choir, maybe consider yourself.
Especially if you're in the clergy, the conditions that you've created that give, when Stone Choir sows distrust, gives people, oh yeah, that actually sounds interesting. Here's what I was thinking about.
There was a very particular post by Trouble Woe, who I think is a local. I think he's a New Englander, just like me. Maybe one day I'll grab a cup of coffee with him or something like that. Grab a beer with him.
I don't know. But in any case, here's exactly what I was thinking about. And there's a whole, if you're interested, do a Twitter search about Trouble Woe and just type in cleric or clergy or something like that.
If you type in clergy or cleric, you will find a lot of tweets that do exactly this kind of thing. And so here's the one I was thinking about, though. I found it. And so this was a whole conversation regarding the Tobias incident.
And Tobias had a conversation with Joel and Joel's church member. I don't want to rehash all that. But it turns out that Joel's church member had secretly recorded the call. You all know the story, right?
And it was funny because the way that it's told by the other side, Joel was secretly plotting with this church member to secretly record the call so they could make him look bad later. It was a whole conspiracy theory.
It was wild. But what ended up happening was it was actually the church member, without telling Joel, had secretly recorded the call because, and this is the reason why he did it. He recorded the call without Joel's knowledge because he did not trust Tobias.
And he was completely vindicated by that lack of trust. Because what ended up happening is Tobias went on, you know the story, he went on Eschatology Matters and spun a whole web of lies. And it turned out that because we had the secret recording, because this church member was clever enough to not trust this clergy member, it ended up vindicating Joel completely.
Now, so that was the story. You guys all remember that. And at one point in this conversation, this non-Christian mountain says, I hear you, but counterpoint, this church member was also foolish enough to tell Tobias all this stuff that he was learning from Stone Choir and then sent the meme in the first place.
But I suppose one could argue that once he realized his mistake, he wisened up. So this person saying, look, sure, this church member was smart to record the call, but he was also stupid for telling this guy in the first place.
He shouldn't have trusted him in the first place. So I guess maybe he wised up and all this kind of stuff, but he was foolish in the first place to tell Tobias this at all, which is an interesting point.
And then Trouble Woe comes in here and says, yes, you are absolutely right that this inexcusable foolishness to ever, right, that it is inexcusable foolishness to ever trust any cleric. You are absolutely right that it is inexcusable foolishness to ever trust any cleric.
I remember this post vividly when I first saw it. This is the exact one I was thinking of when I posted what I posted yesterday. And the reason why I remember it so well is because he's kind of got a point.
He kind of has a point. And the thing is, I think this is a terrible impulse, even knowing that he had a point. This is not a good impulse. This is not an impulse that is good for society to just not trust your pastors.
That's terrible. You cannot have a functioning society where the default setting is you don't trust your elders, right? That's my point. That's not a good impulse. Now, it might be necessary at times.
And I've said this numerous times, like if you have a church that you're a member of and you can't trust your pastor, that's a very dangerous place to be. I've said this publicly a number of times. You should do what you can do to find a place where you can trust your pastor.
My pastors, we don't see eye to eye on everything. It's as simple as that. There's things that I believe and things that I say that they don't like. But I trust them. If I needed somebody to, you know, I was away for the weekend and I needed, you know, my wife was nervous because, I don't know, there's someone outside or something like that.
Of course, I'd tell her to call the police, but if I needed someone to like maybe sit outside and like guard the house or something like that, I trust my pastors to do something.
Like that.
You know what I mean? I trust my pastors. And if you're not in a position where you can really trust your pastors with beliefs that are maybe a little bit, a little edgy or a little bit unorthodox or, and I don't mean like Christian way, but just, you know what I mean?
Like, you know, non-PWC approved beliefs. If you can't trust your pastor to talk about that kind of stuff, that's a super dangerous place to be. It's not healthy for you. And I, I believe that treble woe has a point here that a lot of people are in those positions where they have a pastor that they cannot trust.
Look, I've got a meeting with my elders coming up next week and I called the meeting. I said, Hey guys, I've got a few questions. I've got some things that I'm kicking around and I'd like to talk to you about it.
The ability that I have to do something like that, when it's a, it's definitely a situation and I'm not gonna tell you the exact details of this, but it's definitely a situation where they could completely disagree with me and be a little bit concerned about some of what I say, right?
But I trust them to not, you know, kick me out or something like that, or to look at me sideways all of a sudden, you know, that kind of thing. It is invaluable to have that, because your pastors are supposed to be looking out for your soul.
They're supposed to be shepherding you, the flock of God, the people of God. That's a very, it's a heavy crown. It's a weighty job. It's an important job. And as part of the flock, I'm just in the congregation, I'm just a regular person.
I'm a layman. It is beneficial to me to have shepherds that are willing to do that in a, you know, a helpful way, in a direct way, in a way that is, that requires a lot of trust. Let's just put it that way.
And so I don't think, and again, do a Twitter search of treble woe and clergy and treble woe and cleric. And, you know, you'll find a lot of this impulse coming out. And I have to assume it's coming from experience, you know, he's got experience that leads him to these positions, right?
And the problem, the problem that we face here is that he's got a kind of a point. He's got kind of a point in, I believe, in many circumstances, and it shouldn't be that.
Way.
And it can't continue this way for very long. You cannot have a society where people just instinctively do not trust their elders. So that's an impulse that I hope, I want to suppress. And so if you're in that situation and there's nothing I can do to suppress that impulse to just instinctively not trust your elders, then I suggest to you, I beg you to find a situation where you can, because those situations do exist.
Maybe they're hard to find, but they do exist. It's analogous to a lot of single guys out there that, you know, are struggling to find a godly wife, right? And it is legitimately hard, okay? I'm not saying that it's easy, but they are out there.
It is doable, and you should put your resources into doing exactly that. If you're a single guy, that's priority number one, I think, in many cases. It's not every case, but in many cases, priority number one is to put your time and effort into finding a godly wife.
That's important. And in the same way, if you don't have a situation like this, if what Trouble Wo says here kind of resonates with you, and you're in that position, I would suggest that you find a situation where you can trust your pastor.
It doesn't mean your pastor has to agree with you on everything. It doesn't mean your pastor has to just be a yes man to you or all that kind of stuff, but what it does mean is that you can trust him with actually deep conversations, conversations where it's on the fringes of what's acceptable in society.
You need to find that. You need to find that. And one of the other things I remember about Trouble Wo's post here was that it seemed kind of cynical to me for him to say that in this context, right? Because this whole controversy, right, Tobias, untrustworthy for this church member, right?
And he learned his lesson, whatever, and Trouble Wo is saying it's inexcusable foolishness to trust any cleric because of it. But what I found so cynical about that take in this particular instance is because, sure, Tobias was kind of scheming the entire time, and it's really messed up, and I'm not going to excuse that for a moment.
But in the same controversy, you also had Joel Webbin, who, under pressure to do the wrong thing with this church member, refused. And there was great pressure put on him, and he had a lot to lose, and the other team really did try to pull every lever they could to make him lose what he had to lose.
And in the face of all that, he did not back down. He protected his church member. So on the one hand, you've got Tobias, who is scheming against this particular church.
Member.
He's a cleric. And on the other hand, you've got Joel, who is doing the right thing. And so to me, it just seemed very odd that the impulses don't trust any cleric in a situation where we've got two, and there's contrasting views on this.
One of them is not doing the right thing. The other one is doing the right thing. Again, it is hard to find people that would do the right thing in that situation. I readily grant that. But I don't think that the impulse to just, you know, don't trust any cleric kind of thing is a very good one.
It's a very negative one, in my opinion. And it's sad. And to me, it's actually sad. It makes me sad, legitimately, that Trouble Woe kinda has a point. But it is not hopeless. There is no black pills allowed on this channel.
I don't black pill on this channel. So when I see the same situation, sure, I'm very disappointed in Tobias Reimerschneider's behavior, but I cannot let that overshadow what, in my opinion, was very solid behavior by Joel.
Now, that's what I was thinking of. Not a big deal. Listen, not a big deal. But I think it's fair, because, you know, when I posted this, okay, fine, I don't like it either. That's a little critical. That's a little critical.
It's at least critical of Trouble Woe, and I don't know if it's critical necessarily of anyone else in Stone Choir. But that's what I was thinking of. And so, you know, it's fair to explain myself there.
And I don't think Trouble Woe would disagree with me, you know what I mean? There are good pastors out there, and some of them, you know, he probably is aware of. So I mean, he's talking in generalities here.
But I just think that the impulse in general, right, is not something that you want to necessarily feed, you know what I mean? I think it's totally valid to tell people to be careful. Like, I agree with Christian Mountain here, that like, yeah, this church member probably shouldn't have shared this with Tobias.
He probably shouldn't have been talking to Tobias about it. But they were friends, you know what I mean? It's hard to put yourself in that position. So I think Trouble Woe would agree with me that it's not a good impulse, necessarily.
He would probably argue that it's a necessary impulse right now. And here's my point. Maybe in some situations it is necessary. But as a general statement, it would devastate society, it would devastate civilization, if we just instinctively embraced this lack of trust for the clergy or for clerics, as he says here.
That's my only point. That's my only point. That's what I was thinking of. I don't think that I want to encourage this impulse, even as I recognize in some situations this is kind of how it is. And if you find yourself in that situation, I would dedicate resources and time to getting out of that situation into a better one, because there are good clergy out there.
That is a fact. And you should find them. And I think you should do it now, as if your soul depends on it. Because in some ways it kind of does. In any case, I hope you found this video helpful.
God bless.