Wake Up, Look Up

Hello everyone, thanks for listening to Wake Up, Look Up, a podcast where we connect events happening in real time to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm Zach Weihrauch, and in today's episode, we're talking about Nick Fuentes, and we're asking the question, is hate the new gospel? Now, this is prompted by an article I read recently in the Atlantic. If you're not familiar, and I frankly hope you're not, Nick Fuentes is a far right influencer with, uh, close to a million followers on Twitter. An influencer who openly promotes racism, antisemitism, misogyny, uh, and a whole host of really terrible ideas. Uh, he routinely shares racial slurs, praises Hitler, and has a vision for a white kind of ethnocentric America, even going so far as the saying America should have and does have an ethnic identity. Fuentes supporters, uh, are holding influence now not only online, but in various federal government positions, giving up the frightening idea that maybe his ideas won't just be shared online, but actually permeate our federal government. And conservatives are struggling with what to do with him. A few have tried disowning him or disavowing him publicly, but there's kind of an online mob that follows anyone who bothers to take a shot or to oppose Nick Fuentes. Uh, he is also really crafty about shaping much of his hatred into economic concerns, social concerns, so that if you accuse him of racism, he'll just say he's thinking economically or he's promoting positive social ideas. But every now and then, he's just out and out. A man who speaks hate. And the reason why I want to cover him on Wake Up Lookup is because when you read of someone who's a far right influencer, what that means is that more than likely there are people sitting in our churches who are subscribing to the things this guy is saying, even going so far as to believe that somehow what he's saying squares with the Bible. Well, I got news for you. It doesn't. Let's just take the idea of ethnocentrism or of an ethnic identity in America. Listen, I love this country and I wish great things for it, both out of self interest and out of the belief that it's the greatest country that the world has ever produced. But I'll say this. I am a follower of Jesus Christ, which means I don't belong fundamentally to America. I belong fundamentally to the kingdom of Jesus. And if you only like white people, I got news for you, you're not gonna like the kingdom of Jesus. Because time and time again, when it's described, it is described, to borrow from Revelation 7, as a great multitude from every nation. In fact, let me just say this. Statistically speaking, thinking across human history, if you're white in heaven, you're gonna be in the minority. And if you don't like that, it might be because you're not actually following the guy who's building the kingdom. Because what the Bible teaches is the inherent value of every single human being because they're made in the image of God. And that value is not linked at all to ethnicity or the country that they are from. Simply put, as a Christian, you have more in common with a brown or black believer than you do with a white American. And if you don't, then your priorities are out of whack. Second, hate speech of any kind violates pretty clear commands of Jesus, who said in Matthew 5 to love your enemies. Now, I don't actually think that any of the people that Nick Fuentes counts as his enemies are my enemies. I'm married to a woman. She's pretty great. I have friends who are not white. They're pretty great. I have friends who are politically left leaning. They're pretty nice people. I don't hate any of them, and I'm not interested in doing that. But even if you saw any, uh, particular group as your enemies, Jesus says, great. Once you've identified your enemies, here's how you treat them. You love them. Well, Fuentes isn't about love. He's about demonizing. He's about telling you why. Those people are dangerous and harmful and wrong and not worth your time. But they are, at least according to Jesus. As for misogyny, pretty clearly violates God's commands, which tells us in Genesis 1 that God made people in his image male and female, which means whatever it means to image God, femaleness and maleness are indispensable elements of that meaning. If I rid my life of women, I am ridding my wife. Um, my wife and my life of what it means to be human. Guys, when we listen to Nick Fuentes or people like him, we're not just listening to the wrong voice. In order to listen to him, we have to turn down the voice of God, because they're saying completely different things. Listen, the Bible makes clear that being a Christian means Jesus is king. And if Jesus is king, what he says is good is good. What he says is bad is bad, no matter who online disagrees. So here's a pretty easy application of this. If you've been buying into the ideas of Nick Fuentes, you need to repent. Not because I say so, but because ideas are completely opposite of Jesus. And if you thought you could hold on to Jesus in one hand and Nick Fuentes and the other, you're wrong. In the end, they're going in such different directions. You're going to have to let go of someone. And my concern is that that someone, whether you realize it or not, is going to be Jesus. We already have a king. We already have a leader. We already have someone whose voice and advice and counsel and word we should be listening to. And anyone who disagrees with him isn't just wrong, they're dangerous. And we should be turning them, uh, off. Hey, thanks for watching this episode of Wake Up, Look Up. If you enjoyed it, please help us get the word out by sharing it with someone you think might benefit from it. And while you're here, make sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel to get further content or even download the CCC app, where you'll find even more resources to help you grow in your faith and relationship with Jesus Christ.

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