WORLD Opinions Roundtable: Woke and Worried?

The following is a WORLD Radio special presentation. The conversation you’re about to hear is a recording of a recent WORLD Opinions Live video discussion … about the unmistakable arrival of the culture war on corporate America’s doorstep.

This discussion is made possible today by the Christian healthcare cost-sharing ministry, Samaritan Ministries.

Our guests for this conversation are two WORLD contributors: First … economist and author of The Maker Versus the Takers, Jerry Bowyer …

BOWYER: Then I think another inflection point comes with the Anheuser-Busch marketing campaign, and then, Target. The rotten roots have been growing for some time. Now, they’re fully undeniable.

And Dr. Katie McCoy. She’s the author of the book To Be a Woman: The Confusion Over Female Identity and How Christians Can Respond.

MCCOY: Parents eventually got to a place where they said ‘I have had enough,’ and they’re just putting their foot down where they can.

You’ll also hear from WORLD Opinions Managing Editor Dr. Andrew Walker.

WALKER: It’s moved from a profit-seeking institution to woke capitalism, which is to more or less virtue signal particular causes.

And here now is the moderator of this discussion, WORLD Opinions Editor and Southern Baptist Theological Seminary President, Dr. Albert Mohler.

ALBERT MOHLER: American corporations are certainly going woke. The question is, are they now also worried?

And of course, the background to this is the fact that we have just gone through Pride Month as it is known. And it has been a shake-up in cultural and moral terms. Also in economic terms. By the end of Pride Month, the Wall Street Journal was suggesting that several corporations involved in this controversy may have lost about $28 billion in equity. Something's going on here. We need to figure out what it is … Anheuser Busch, Target. Well, let's get the conversation going. I want to turn to Jerry Bowyer. first, Jerry, when you've been as an economist following these issues for years, did you see this coming? Or is this something just out of the blue?

JERRY BOWYER: Well, I saw it coming because it's been an area of emphasis of mine for some time, namely, the way in which ESG environmental, social, and governance investing and stakeholder capitalism (which substitutes the idea of corporate managers being responsible to the owners of the company, and swaps that out for them being responsible to any number of quote unquote, stakeholders, which could be as wide as penguins, the planet unions, you know, social justice, etc,) had shifted in a way that was going to become a problem for these companies.

For example, I had meetings with Target two and a half years ago, on behalf of an institutional shareholder, talking to them about banning books (to which LGBT activists objected) and warned them that even though in the past, they have not heard from the broad middle of America, they were going to, and they had gotten used to all of the threat coming from one side. But that in fact, there was a branding problem that was brewing for them. Their argument was our stock is doing quite well, we've got good stock performance, so that means everything's okay. Now, I've recently written to them to say, well, okay, that was the criteria two and a half years ago … “Our stock is doing well, therefore, our social and political process is a good one.” Now your stock is collapsing. Does that mean it's a bad one? Or do we just use that standard when it's to our advantage?

ALBERT MOHLER: So the question is this: I mean, what in the world happened in say, June of 2023? You know, a lot of these trends have been going on for a long time. I think we're aware that in this culture, something has to serve as a catalyst to wake people up. And, you know,

JERRY BOWYER: Well, yeah, that yeah, there's a few inflection points for those who are paying attention. The stakeholder capitalism statement put out by the Business Roundtable, led by Blackrock in 2019. For people who are in finance, that was an earthquake, wait a minute, you are now accountable to everybody instead of to the owners. I think for the broad public, I think it was, to a large degree, it was the Disney mishandling of the parental rights and education bill. Speaking out on that, by the way, I need to point out, they didn't want to speak on that issue. And there was a time when Disney could have been influenced in the right direction. Christians were M-I-A, then I think another inflection point comes with the Anheuser Busch Bud Light with that marketing campaign and then Target.

Now, it’s everywhere. Now, it's the hottest issue among conservatives in general and certainly among social conservatives. So it's a little bit like Jesus's parable, it's kind of the roots have been growing down there. But this is a this is not wheat, this is tears, the rotten roots have been growing for some time. Now they're fully undeniable.

ALBERT MOHLER: Katie McCoy, It's certainly undeniable that when a lot of Americans walked into Target, they got an eyeful. And we've been talking about it ever since.

KATIE MCCOY: That's right. Dr. Mohler. Once Target really went full in on Pride Month, parents just had enough. And I think one of the things that we're seeing with companies like Target and Bud Light, is that it hit a tipping point, parents eventually got to a place where they said, I have had enough, you have had this shoved down their throats, not only during every Pride Month, but now it seems like every other month, there is some new emphasis in LGBTQIA2A+ or whatever the new acronym is. And I think especially decent freedom-loving Americans are looking at just this trend and seeing the combination of corporate activism, and educational emphasis [on woke ideologies] happening in the public schools. And they are just putting their foot down where they can. Now they haven't been able to control some big-picture things, but they certainly can control where they spend their dollars. And that is the big thing that we're seeing that the real question will be at what point does that hurt business is enough to backtrack and recognize this was not worth whatever we thought we were gaining in the culture.

ALBERT MOHLER: You know, years ago, Katie, I was a part of a group that met with target leadership, corporate leadership to talk about some issues. And it was long enough ago, that nothing like this was even on the horizon. But they were nonetheless beginning to show some activism. And, you know, my wife and I decided that we would go into Target just at the beginning of June is pride month in rural America, a county-seat town big enough to have a Target, but let's just a far far away from either coast. And you know, to be honest, we were so shocked. It was almost as if you know, some far-right fantasy list and painted a picture of this something like 60 square feet of display space that included? Well, I mean, think of things that, frankly, we don't want to mention in detail. But let's just say trying to make a boy appear as a girl in a swimsuit. How do you get there? How does America get there? How does it all of a sudden make sense that Target thinks they can sell this in rural America?

KATIE MCCOY: Well, in some ways, this is a combination of the proliferation of social media yet, and the marriage of corporate activism. So it's something that the typical American consumer may not be aware of is that companies are running to be beholden to something called the Corporate Equality Index. The Corporate Equality Index is essentially like a rule stick or a measure that companies are getting points from this organization to prove that they are on the cutting edge of progressivism on gender activist issues. And it's not only in terms of their policies for their employees, but it's also in their marketing and in the products that they push. And so you have companies like Nike and Adidas and then Bud Light, like Target that are falling all over themselves to try to gain points from the Corporate Equality Index, to the point that normal middle America doesn't matter. They have been told to be quiet and to take the new ethos of what creates a just and good and accepting society. And it is a combination of not only the most loud activists, which are in that LGBTQ community, but the marriage of that activism with corporate activism as well. And so the reason we're seeing this all over it is because we have had a shift in what is considered not only normal but good. And until the average American consumer stands up and says I am not going to vote with my dollars for that, things will not change. But the amazing thing is that Target, even though it is I think the late eighth largest retailer, or excuse me, the eighth largest grocery retailer in the country, you have people, moms, willing to completely up end their weekly routine to avoid giving one more of their Penny their hard-earned dollars to target. That is a big deal. And I think we're going to see rural America out into the coasts begin to express their values through their dollars once again.

ALBERT MOHLER: Andrew Walker, this just gets to some of the biggest questions in terms of how Christians understand how culture works, and So just give us a bit of the lay of the land, you know, how is the culture working here in terms of the operations of the elements like big business consumers, the two coasts, and then, you know, flyover country as the left likes to call it. What's going on here?

ANDREW WALKER: Well, I mean, I think what we're seeing play out in real-time is a phrase that you and I will often use quite frequently, which is that ideas have consequences. And so we should not consider how we've gotten to this present moment as purely coincidental. There are cultural forces, that they themselves may not be aware of the logic that they are swimming in. But the logic necessarily has—or the revolution has a logic to it. And it's brought us to this point. And we can think back to the fact that, you know, very recently, we've had, we've had the anniversary of Obergefell, which we're now I guess, eight years past Obergefell.

And Obergefell, was advertised as Love wins, right? If you don't want a gay marriage don't get a gay marriage. But the problem is, there are certain presuppositions about the nature of human nature, the nature of marriage, that began in 2015, that begins this revolution of redefining other aspects of our existence. And so if you can erase the concept of marriage of having any finite fixed essence to it, who's to say that what it means to be a man or a woman has any fixed essence to it, as well. And so this is all very, very seamlessly tied together. And so what began as you know, love wins you do you it has brought us to the point of here, kid take these hormones. And we're seeing really the zaniest elements of this revolution work itself out. And I think, you know, as far gone as we oftentimes want to think American culture is, and I think, arguably is at its most elite level, I think in these types of moments, it's worth recognizing that you've had what I would call the revenge of the normies. You know, you have normal moms and dads who don't fashion themselves as activists but have kind of reached this level of fatigue and exhaustion, to say, All right, we don't have the cultural levers at our disposal, to steer everything, how we want to steer it, but we can, as Katie just mentioned, vote with our dollars. And I can just tell you, speaking as a husband to a wife, and a mom, who does the bulk of our shopping, my wife who's not an overly ideologically engaged person, because guess what, she's busy being a wife and a mom. She has gone out of her way to avoid going to Target. And I'm just thinking to myself, how has this moment weaponized other moms who may not necessarily find themselves being ideologically predisposed, but again, have had some sacred line breached, where they're saying, Okay, we've we can appreciate tolerance and respect and kindness. But this is a bridge too far when you have certain unmentionables at Target being sold to children. And again, things I'm not going to say out loud because they broke the decorum of what I think we would want to talk about here, world.

ALBERT MOHLER: Well, I thank you for that judgment, if only Target had shown similar judgment. But here we are. I want to turn to Jerry Boyer again, because Jerry Lewis says, Be honest, you and I are the only ones on this conversation who can actually talk about this with living memory. But if you were to go back as you and I can, to the 1970s and the 1980s, the big conversation was how there was a fusion between corporate interests, and What even was called the Religious Right. In other words, there was this, and then you have libertarianism and some other strains. But basically, you had cultural conservatives and American corporations in concert. I mean, so much so that the Chamber of Commerce, the US Chamber of Commerce — the National Association of Manufacturers, which probably had more power, actually in the economy, then than now but nonetheless, was just, you know, the earth shook when the when the name was invoked — They were clearly siding with conservatives, a generation ago. So what in the world happened?

JERRY BOYWER: Well, I think, I mean, let's take a step backward here in terms of sort of biblical social philosophy. My premise is that everything to which we do not apply salt is always rotting. So So basically, or, or anything that's not being resurrected, or assaulted is rotting. And we took the relationship with corporations for granted. And so we didn't witness there. And people you know, kind of the alphabet club very aggressively focused on major corporations. And we were completely M-I-A. I mean, it's embarrassing how much we lost, it's like, it's like there was every publicly traded company in America has an annual election. The majority of shareholders are conservatives, conservative shareholders are more conservative in general than non-shareholders, even on moral issues. So it's like, every year there were 5000 elections in red states that we lost, because we didn't know we were allowed to vote didn't show up, and didn't get engaged. So you know, my, you know, I'm outraged about what's going on with these companies. But I, before we conservative Christians get super outraged, go back and say, Wait a minute, where were we when this was happening? Because the other side would had foresight and engagement as shareholders, and they would buy one share and show up in an annual meeting. And just kind of pound away at these companies. By the way, roughly 70%, of members of boards of directors of corporations are Republicans. So either they're cowardly Republicans, or all the pressures coming from one side, or some kind of combination of those. So I want to kind of come back to us and say, What didn't we do? And what should we do now? Because the heart the left didn't take over Target, through consumer boycotts. It did it through shareholder engagement.

ALBERT MOHLER: Yeah, but it's more to it than that. And so you push back and you say that Christians weren't there, I was face to face with Jeffrey Immelt who was then the CEO of General Electric. I was face to face rather publicly with A.G. Lafley, who was the CEO of Procter & Gamble, when frankly, there was a boycott against Procter and Gamble products that had been led by Focus on the Family and other organizations. I was the representative to meet with A.G. Lafley, to negotiate how that would come to a conclusion. I went to those shareholder meetings. The difference is, and I want to put this on the table is that, frankly, he didn't care about the consumer base, they cared about the cultural elites, and I was put in my face in those meetings continuously. I had business meetings, and, frankly, the invitation of both of those CEOs, because they needed to say they had done it, but they had parties with the leftist activists. And here's the other thing that I think we're missing: The pressure, and you mentioned rightly, from Disney, that, you know, you said Disney didn't mean to speak on the wrongly named — but let's just say what they call the “don't say gay” bill in Florida, but they were forced to. But who forced them? Their employees.

JERRY BOWYER: Well, a particular subgroup of employees.

ALBERT MOHLER: Well, yes, but a very powerful subgroup of employees, I just gotta say, I'm deeply involved in that one. And it's a very powerful, you know, subgroup of employees. And if you're located in Orange County, California, you have your creative team, you know, basically leading, I just want to say there's a lot more to it. And a part of it is the fact that corporate America right now cares a lot more about what people on the coasts think, than people do. And they're trying to sell their products in the middle of America think. And I have had them basically say to my face, you know, I met with you, I can take this off. We got this done now go home. And so I'm not saying you don't have a point, I'm just saying, it's not true that no one was there. really true that they were already determined to do what they were going to do.

JERRY BOWYER: You're right. It wasn't no one. You were one. There, there were not many, let me tell you having attended several hundred annual meetings of corporations, let me tell you, there's almost nobody from our team there. So I wouldn't, I'll round it down to zero. But I'm glad you were there. And I'm glad that I was there. But when there's a meeting, and there's 300 people and there's one or two like us, then something's wrong, especially when we're the majority of the country, and the majority of shareholders. And we elect …

ALBERT MOHLER: Directly or indirectly, directly or indirectly. And that's another thing we're gonna come back to in a few moments is that the indirect part of this is, I mean, where there's mutual funds or retirement accounts, you know, these massive pension funds — that this all plays a big role. And frankly, you know, for instance, you take care of some of these giant pension funds, Jerry, I mean, their leadership doesn't really care what the members of the fund think. I mean, you see this in, in massive numbers of cases where you've got the heads of these pension funds, and they're deeply involved in investments. And quite frankly, you can be a retiree or someone with a retirement plan. You really don't have much of a say at this point.

JERRY BOWYER: Well, you have litigation possibilities, because they're breaching their fiduciary responsibilities. I understand the challenges are genuine, but I think about how to win, not about, you know, all the things that are against us. There's a great deal of vulnerability to pension funds that look at ESG factors and use wool capitalism strategies rather than maximization of return. So there are ways to …

ALBERT MOHLER: Isn't that what got to Larry Fink? I mean, didn't it? Didn't he basically have a little cold shower of reality where he discovered he was gonna have huge legal liability if indeed he pressed on with what would violate his fiduciary responsibilities?

JERRY BOWYER: I participated in the Blackrock annual meeting, and I actually asked the question about ESG. In his opening statements, he did not mention the letters E, S, and G in that order, once. He mentioned the F word, fiduciary, which is who that's the F word he never wanted to use before. But he mentioned fiduciary a lot. This is just a few weeks ago. So yeah, there's a shock of reality here. Red state pension managers and treasures are writing letters to these people. See, the thing is, I understand that we’re outraged, and there's a concern, but I'm seeing victories every day of the week. So it's almost like, if we start to engage more, it's shocking to me how quickly this thing is collapsing. I get that we're like grasshoppers in their eyes, and they're formidable. But I'm seeing them fold in meeting after meeting if we engage, but we have to be bold about it.

ALBERT MOHLER: Yeah, well, you know how much I am thankful for your analysis. I just, I tend to be far more pessimistic, quite frankly. So that's why we can have a good conversation. Katie McCoy. Let me tell you what I learned in the Procter and Gamble boycott, which by the way, I didn't start but I did kind of inherit in terms of having to deal with it. And, you know, it was a big enough deal that A.G. Lafley, the CEO of the world's largest consumer products company, had to finally have a meeting with him until it goes to say, how can we deal with this? So I did not tell him this, but I'm telling you this — I can tell you one of the great moral lessons I learned from that, that Procter and Gamble controversy, and that is don't get between an evangelical mother and a box of Tide. In other words, the boycott was not a smashing success. And it was because people continue to use — Christians continue to use Procter and Gamble products. So I'm just turning to you. Yes, you're right to say there's outrage at Target. Is this gonna last? Is this just a femoral? What do you think's going on here?

KATIE MCCOY: And that's a great question. I hope it does last, if anything, so that we can see, hopefully, this major corporation cave to the consumers, and not to the activists, but it's going to take some sustained effort on the part of conservative voices to keep this ever before the public. You're right. We had a recent controversy in the last few years related to Target and bathrooms or gender-neutral, neutral clothing. And it kind of comes and goes. Where I do think we could see some of this last is in how the corporate activism represents one piece of an ever-growing confluence of cultural influences, not only in business, but in education, children's entertainment, medical research, therapeutic theories. And it could be that this is going to have a bit of a tipping point, like we saw in the gubernatorial election of Virginia in recent years, and how parents certainly rose up to speak out about that. But I think it's going to take some sustained effort to show how these corporate activist companies are just representing one piece of an overall agenda that is happening not only culturally but spiritually as well. If we could hold back to this to see the spirit realm, we would see that these are efforts of light and dark, good and evil. And there are forces at work to capture the hearts and minds of this next generation. And it's only when we frame it in terms that cosmic that I think we can keep it ever before the public. And they can recognize that they have not only an opportunity, but I would say a duty to represent that which comports with Christian values in the public square.

ALBERT MOHLER: You know, Andrew, let's be honest, what neither of us wants to name is a product Target tried to sell. That was a swimsuit, they said was directed to adults but came in younger sizes that would attempt to make a boy look like a girl in a bathing suit. Now, In what world does it make sense that a company like Target would offer that to the American public? I'm going to make the suggestion to you and you fight back hard if you disagree. I don't think this was ever about selling that product as a swimsuit, I think was about selling an ideology and a cultural normalization. Agree or disagree?

ANDREW WALKER: No, I agree with that. I mean, this is A question of what does a corporation see as their primary responsibility …

ALBERT MOHLER: Which, by the way, used to be to make money, and correct, which was to dress it up by saying to serve the public, but basically corporations existed to make money for investors.

ANDREW WALKER: Correct. It's moved from a profit-seeking institution to what Jerry and Katie have already alluded to, which is the conglomeration of woke capitalism, which is to more or less virtue signal particular causes. And I think one thing we can recognize here that I think is a positive is, you know, I would love if Target would, you know, immediately switch sides and begin supporting wholesale conservative Christian causes. But we aren't there yet. But one thing I think we can celebrate is, even if they are not totally on our side, one way to measure a victory is the fact that they have been neutralized. And so to get …

ALBERT MOHLER: Oh, my goodness, you sound like the most incredibly wide-eyed optimist I've ever heard. What do you mean neutralized has been neutralized? Who’s been neutralized? So the people who are pushing that agenda target haven't gone home? The Sisters of perpetual indulgence got re invited. Correct. But

ANDREW WALKER: But when you see organizations like the National Hockey League, who there's these organizations have been having, in the month of June, their teams have been wearing pride jerseys during their warm-ups, and that causing national controversy. And literally in late June, the NHL Commissioner or one of their high-ranking officials, made the announcement that in future months, we're not going to be having these types of of jerseys being worn and warmup periods. I think that is a recognition that they understand that they have overreached. And so again, I would like for them to recognize I would like for them to say we have overreached we recognize we have erred, they're not there yet. But I think the admission that they're not going to do this anymore, is an admission of the fact that they have been neutralized, they have heard from a constituency. And the constituency is saying, hey, we're here to watch hockey, we're here to play baseball. We don't want politics to go along with this. And, and to your point with the Sisters of perpetual indulgence, you know, they did end up going through with that charade. But everyone who is watching this on social media understood that they had this event an hour before the game when there was virtually no one in the stands. And then when they were announced an hour before the start of the game, there were booths all throughout the stadium. And I do think that at some point, you know, the law of consequence is going to come into effect here. And individuals are going to recognize, you know, we do have to serve our leftist constituency to some degree, but to what extent is serving that constituency going to hurt our constituency over here as well. And so, again, I'm kind of with Jerry here a little bit. Maybe I'll split the deck between Jerry and Dr. Mohler in the optimism-pessimism matrix, to say that, you know, I do want us to get total victory, but neutralization is, I think, a path towards victory.

ALBERT MOHLER: Yeah, I think we're fooling ourselves if we think we've neutralized anything. I think we're also fooling ourselves that we think that there hasn't been any impact if no message has been sent. I think we'll find out in June of ‘24. For one thing, a real clear indication of what has changed and hasn't changed. Jerry, I'm gonna give you two Wall Street Journal articles. And here's one company's rethink embrace the social issues front page of the Wall Street Journal, telling us, you know, these companies are really getting getting the arm, they're smelling the smoke. They're gonna have to rethink this. Then along comes the same newspaper on the inner financial page with an article that says, Oh, don't worry, Anheuser Busch. InBev won't remain flat for long. So, short-term, long-term, medium-term, what are we looking at here?

JERRY BOWYER: Yeah, what's the date on that won't remain flat for long? That's that's a few weeks ago, and it's gone down since so yeah. Yeah. No crystal ball award for that guy.

ALBERT MOHLER: Well, I think, let's just say it may be maybe redefining what “for long” means.

JERRY BOWYER: Yeah. I think that there are a couple of things going on here. One is let's, you know, let's take kind of a theological, you know, take on this, in the doctrine of salvation or in the doctrine of the Atonement and soteriology, theologians make a distinction between repentance and capitulation. Repentance is a change of mind and heart. It can be in the face of adverse circumstances it frequently is. Capitulation is a knuckling under. Paul on the Road to Damascus underwent conversion. Pharaoh after the 10th plague underwent capitulation. So what do we want from these companies? I don't want capitulation, I want repentance. I don't think a Christian should be satisfied with anything other than complete repentance. Now, what we have now, I think, is mostly capitulation. On the other hand, for a lot of these companies, it was capitulation to the left beforehand. Again, I have had scores of meetings with these executives, you know, many of them for years, some of them are all at Target, they drank the Kool-Aid. And they, you know, they're totally all in on this, because they, you know, in 2010, they made a donation to a conservative candidate, the alphabet squad went after them, they changed their board composition. Now, it's part deeply part of the corporate culture. It's mutated into that they're into it. so is Salesforce. But a lot of companies, they're just responding to pain points. And what's happening is even some of the most liberal CEOs in America, for instance of Apple, they're tired of the left. When I'm talking to companies, even tech companies, it's like enough already. We can't do enough for these people. So you know, it capitulated to the left, we were silent. Now we're angry. The normies are having our moment. Normie is a temporary strategy. Normie anger is a temporary strategy. Conversion. And repentance is the long-term strategy. But that normie anger is helpful in the short run, and I don't think it is going away. Because this isn't the boycott that you participated in before. I agree with you completely, boycotts do not work. People are physically revolted by Bud Light, people are physically revolted by Disney. People are physically revolted by Target, I don't want to go near the place without making the sign of the cross and saying some of the lines from the exorcism from the prayer book. So people will drive to the other part of town that isn't going away quickly. So you know, that that has some staying power to it. But in the long run, that can't be the strategy. The strategy has to be prolonged engagement with the leaders of these companies. We spent so much time talking about them, and so little time talking to them. That's an imbalance in my view.

ALBERT MOHLER: Yeah, but let's, let's be honest, I appreciate the colorful way you, you make your argument there. And as a theologian, I gotta say, when an economist decides to talk theology, I consider that an eschatological sign. So it makes me very happy. But, but when you're looking at this, you know, the cultural system, it has to be, you know, the CEOs of these corporations, their kids don't go to school with our kids, they, they go to school with their kids. It's what in sociology, they call it, you know, self-reifying. System. And so, I don't mean to diminish in any way, our responsibility to show up at meetings. But that is not what most American Christians are going to be able to think about every day. What they're thinking about every day, is how they operate, when they take their kids a little league, when they go to the grocery store, when they go to church, when they do these things. So I don't want to dismiss your argument at all, I'm simply going to say look, to most of the readers of WORLD Opinions, the question is, well, how does this ‘How does this inform what I do this afternoon.’ Katie, this is kind of right up right up your alley. So when a Christian says, Okay, what do I do about this? What do you say to them?

KATIE MCCOY: Well, it's a big challenge, because like you said, we are coming up against not only agendas, but people who almost do this for a living, if not all of their free time. And so many people in the pews are busy living their lives and being faithful witnesses in their families at work at church and their communities that they don't really even have the bandwidth to respond to everything happening in the news. I like to encourage as many women as I can when talking about this issue. I look at these moms and I say why not you for the school board? Why not you for a city council? Why not you for state legislature? They only work a few months out of the year. Why can't you be one of those? Someone's moral agenda is being advanced. And I think when we take our eyes off of the big picture, because it can be very overwhelming … but how can we make incremental decisions and incremental advances? You know, much of what we're seeing in these corporate Pride Month initiatives are the results of those incremental advances that have been taking place for more than a decade. So how do we turn back the tide? Well, there's two ways to tip over a boat. You can try to do it in full force and try to sink it that way or you can poke just enough holes in it that it can't hold up against the tide anymore. And I think that might be the approach we need to take. We can't necessarily produce the force to sink a vote in one fell swoop. But what we can do is poke just enough holes in all of their arguments and be just enough of a persistent force, that the things that we're seeing happen in culture, they cannot continue to hold up, they eventually will sink under the weight. So I think it is the incremental, the small, this sustained things that happen over a decade, and certainly over a generation that we will see produce long-lasting change.

ALBERT MOHLER: But you know, Jerry — And thank you very much for that, Katie, I think that's, that's the kind of practical argument that really helps. Jerry, part of our problem is, let me just give you a real-life example. And again, this comes from my involvement, serving on the boards of EFA Jellicle organizations trying to deal with this. Let's say you want to use a bank. Let's say you need to use a credit card. And thus, you know, very scandalously, some credit card company comes out with a statement. And then you hear from a board member who says we probably ought not to do business with that company, until you look closely at what they missed was the other two major credit cards used exactly the same kind of promotion, which is to say, we're up against something a lot more complicated and a lot more massive than I think a lot of Christians think. So in other words, canceling your account at this bank. You know, how do you know which bank to go to? So you know, we talked about the good, the bad and the ugly? How do Christians know? Who is the good, who was the bad, nd who was the ugly in this picture? Who's going to tell us?

JERRY BOWYER: Well, that's what I tried to do. And you know, if they read world opinions, they'll see material pretty frequently on this topic. For example, the battle with JP Morgan Chase. I worked with a financial advisor named David Bahnson to put a proposal on the ballot. By the way, do people know you can do that? If you own if you've owned $2,000 worth $2,000, we're not talking about millionaires here. If you've owned $2,000 worth of a company for three years, you can put a proposal on the ballot like initiative and referendum. Now they do fight back, but we fight back against they're fighting back. And we often when they're that now that is the opportunity to speak at a shareholder meeting, talk to the other shareholders and to speak to the board of directors …

ALBERT MOHLER: The average mom can't do that. In other words, I'm not arguing against that. But for the listeners a world opinion and for those in this panel. I like this proverbial soccer mom, it just isn't going to be able to do that. What can she do? And how can she know where she should buy?

JERRY BOWYER: The average moms should talk — I think most average moms have a 401K plan or an IRA and something like a financial advisor or a financial planner, a very high proportion of them do. I'm working with Christian financial advisors and financial planners all the time to help average moms set the agenda. We have so much more power than we know that we have.

ALBERT MOHLER: But where does she buy her kids' shoes? How does she in an informed way think about day-to-day economic decisions?

JERRY BOWYER: There are databases out there. 1792 Exchange has one called the corporate bias index. Second Vote has one …

ALBERT MOHLER: Can you quickly just say okay …

JERRY BOWYER: Yes, you can — Target, RED! You can see who's who's on the naughty list and who isn't. But I want to move this is not just about consumer behavior, because it didn't go bad on consumer behavior, and it's not going to get fixed. Just on consumer behavior. I was thinking about what Katie said before, talking to these Christian moms. Why not you for school board? Why not you for a state legislature? Hey, why not you for board of directors? Oh, that's too big. I'm just an average Christian mom. An average Christian mom could have, if they had been on the board of Target, would have put this stuff out of commission a long time ago. So there is a hunger, for instance, for gender diversity on boards of directors, they need more women. Now I know you probably don't start out on the Apple board, you might start out on a Lumber Company from Minneapolis board. But Christian women ought to think about becoming board members of small and then medium and then eventually large publicly traded companies. Because if we don't change people, we won't change people. And if we don't actually go on these boards, and be good board members, we're not going to really transform these institutions.

ALBERT MOHLER: Andrew, take a run at the big questions here. In other words, what if you were just called immediately to say speak at a local church on these issues? They want to know what you think and how you as an ethicist and Christian intellectual would advise, what would you say?

ANDREW WALKER: I mean, very simply, I would recommend that individuals try to gain an awareness So I think one of the things we can take for granted here is to think that everyone's paying attention. And I don't think that's necessarily the case. I am encouraged by the fact that in this past month, I have noticed more engagement than typical. But I think most people again, want to put their heads down, and just, you know, be kind of culture war culture conflict-averse. So I would recommend getting engaged, paying attention to reliable news sources, which we would be remiss not to mention WORLD Opinions as one of those news sources…

ALBERT MOHLER: Really the whole WORLD enterprise. They’re able to go into even some investigative reports that are very helpful.

ANDREW WALKER: But fundamentally, you know, it's not just enough to be engaged and to know kind of where all of the battle fronts aren't necessarily. I think it is to possess kind of the right paradigm for why you're engaging. And let's be really clear, this isn't just about we want to protest and we want to get angry. We ought to be channeling that into something productive, because at the end of the day, this is not about just venting our spleens, it's about the fact that we do think something insidious and toxic is actually infecting the culture. And so behind all of this, and this is this would be my appeal to the the Christian layperson in the pew, is why are you fighting? Is it you're fighting to, you know, own the libs so to speak? Or are you fighting, because you actually have a coherent account of what is true and good and beautiful, and that you're fighting because of what of what's behind you that you love, not just to get angry at the stuff that frustrates you, in the front? Or in front of you. And so I would want to just, you know, get the level of why are you expressing the frustration that you are in this situation? Is it out of a sense of frustration? Or is it out of a sense of my heavens when we look at the culture around us and we recognize the vulnerability of certain individuals and their susceptibility to ideology, that should, I think, activate us to be far more vigilant and to move from a posture of, of hesitation to a posture of faithful engagement.

ALBERT MOHLER: Yeah, faithful engagements, I think a very good way to express this. I need to put a couple of theological issues on the table. To be made in God's image is to also to be homo economicus. We are economic creatures, we have an economic stewardship and responsibility. The main biblical themes emerging so early in the in the creation account are dominion, which means we're actually to do things, not just to watch things happen. We are to take responsibility for production, for human flourishing, and stewardship. There's a moral accountability at every stage of this. To be homo economicus — homo economicus is also a being that in a world after sin, has no safe place. There are safer places, but there's no sinless place. And so that's why we believe in, for instance, the doctrine of subsidiarity that says that, you know, the safest place is the most basic place. So you're gonna start with marriage and family and you know, parents and children. The more you abstract from that, the more dangerous it gets, by the time you get to global corporations. My goodness, we're in a very unsafe place. But the point is, we're not suggesting total economic withdrawal. We're not suggesting everybody move to, you know, the Canadian border and, you know, live in the woods. So, Katie, we're asking people in real life, in, in real family life in real community life, to make a difference. How do you express that? In other words to a Christian mom or to a Christian family, how would you say they're to operate? What are they to be thinking about?

KATIE MCCOY: Think the Sermon on the Mount gives us perhaps the best paradigm for what that faithful engagement looks like. When we talk about being the salt of the earth and the light of the world. That means that we are being the moral preservatives to an ever-decaying society. When we are the light of the world as Jesus called us, that means that we are shining and bringing forward what is true, good, and beautiful, the things that lead not only to human flourishing, but whatever is in alignment with God's ways, is also going to be for Humanity's benefit. One of the things that we end up really missing in this in this conversation is, as Andrew said, that “why” — you know, we're not looking for social preeminence. This isn't about a reordering of cultural power, which is how the rest of the world operates. We are trying to advance that which is good for humanity. And that means that no matter where a person is in their relationship with the Lord Jesus, they are still an image-bearer of God. And those general revelation aspects of creation and conscience things that God created to give order to the world, to demonstrate purpose and design, anything that would obscure that or lesson our witness to give evidence of God through those things of creation and conscience, that means that we need to push back on anything that could be defying our Creator and obscuring the truth from that general revelation, which only blinds humanity to the truth of their condition and the reality of God. And let's keep all of that in view here too. We are trying to push back against a darkness that tells people that defying their Creator and going against his design is the pathway to joy, peace, and freedom. This is not about making America a Christian nation. And it is about preserving the things that are good about humanity that God created us to live in wholeness, family, the integrity of the body and what that means for being a contributing member of society in the world. So I think recapturing that why will give us the blueprint for the how.

ALBERT MOHLER: Alright, so let me put you on the spot. And thank you for all that. Now, I'm going to make it harder. The proverbial 10-year-old question. You are advising a mom, who is standing in Target with her 10-year-old boy or girl. And let's just say they didn't know what they were walking into. But now they're looking at this massive display. And the boy or the girl says, Mom, what's that? Okay, let's just say if it's not in Target, that mom's gonna get that question. What do you say that mom should say?

KATIE MCCOY: That like every other sin, it is an expression of people attempting to define themselves and define what it means to be a happy and whole human being according to their own hearts, according to their own minds, rather than according to God's design. It's such an opportunity, not only for parents to instill in their children that worldview discipleship that says God created every human being in love, and that we will never understand what it means to be a man or a woman until we are in right relationship with Him. And until we're in right relationship with Him, we can never be in a right relationship with ourselves and other people. But along with that, to be the witness publicly, in the community that says, we are trying to stand between people and a cliff, and they are running headlong into that cliff. And every time that we uphold God's design for humanity, we are upholding what God created humanity to be, and to be happy, whole, blessed, and fulfilled. So this simple answer, that you would say to a 10-year-old looking at the expressions of gender ideology, it's the same thing that we would say to every other evidence of human sin. It is as old as Genesis three Did God really say? And the lie that says he is holding you back, according to His laws, that they are not in your best interest, that they're not really for your good. And every time that we confront gender ideology, we are confronting a lie as old as the Garden of Eden.

ALBERT MOHLER: Andrew, I asked you the same question — the 10-year-old. I think I told you, sometime back, this came to me because a mom came up to me and said that she had been with her two boys in a park ultimate about 10, and they passed a very clear Gay Pride expression. And the 10-year-old just said, What's that? Okay, so, Andrew, what's that?

ANDREW WALKER: Yeah, well, I mean, it's interesting that it's 10-year-olds, who are often the most acutely aware of things that seem awry, which I think is a way of recognizing things that sometimes those who have not been subjected to years of ideology, let their eyes tell them immediately that they know something is off. I would use the phrase here oftentimes that the natural law finds away. And it often finds the way in the unshocked, the conscience of a 10-year-old boy or girl who just intuitively recognizes that something is awry here. Now, what I would say — and by the way, Katie, what you just mentioned in your previous remarks was beautiful, and I really can't capitalize on what you even said — I would want to begin to walk the child through a simple creation, Fall, redemption, restoration paradigm, to understand that the Christian worldview has an account for why everything appears the way that it does in this particular situation that we find sinful, wrong, immoral, or even perverse. But I would also say, and I would challenge anyone to find a worldview, that can do this like Christianity can, is to say that we have a way to critique this as something that's morally wrong and perverse, while at the same time possessing a worldview that allows us to state our affirmative love and care for every single person involved in a situation that we would consider wrong, because of our doctrine of the Imago Dei, that it's the same Imago Dei, that tells us that man and woman have been made for one another. And it's the same Imago Dei that tells us that we are to love every single man and every single woman because they are made in God's image. And so this doesn't actually have to be very complex. It's understanding the basic storyline of Scripture, and in a very real way, testifying to the fact that the things that we're seeing with our eyes right here are evidence of living in that Genesis 3, Romans 8 chapter world, but the story doesn't begin there. And it doesn't end there, either. So this is a full-orbed opportunity to get a biblical worldview in place.

ALBERT MOHLER: Jerry, I want to reference another Wall Street Journal article that's on the front page of the finance section.

JERRY BOWYER: Actually, I've I've dodged the 10-year-old child question?

ALBERT MOHLER: Yes, for the sake of time, but I'll arrange for you to personally offer the 10-year-old some advice. The front page of the business minute section of the Wall Street Journal just a few weeks ago … Activists pull firms in the US culture wars. You know who the activists are? They're you. They're not the LGBTQ groups. It's astounding how you see a coalescing in the argument now that all this controversy is due to basically conservative Christians showing up where thet really don't belong.

JERRY BOWYER: Yeah, it's only political when we fight back up until then it was, it wasn't political. It's like, it's like going to a boxing match and pointing at one guy and saying, Look, he's fighting? He's always the challenge, or Yeah, that's his job, of course. And I dialogue, even with these ESG people, and I say, Look, you know, that you're liberals, and you know, that we're conservatives, and you know, that you've got a liberal agenda. And here are members of your board of directors, and here's the liberal causes that they're associated with. So this is a political conflict. But what I find so beautiful about that, — here's where we really have an advantage, because woke capitalism, this stuff was sold as risk management. The idea is, go along with us, decarbonize, you know, throw out people who believe in religious liberty, because it's code word for anti-gay hatred, or, you know, endorse the Equality Act. All of these things were done, you know, don't process gun orders — all these things were done as reputational risk management. This was the way to avoid controversy. Woke capitalism was sold to boards of directors as the way to avoid controversy. How's that working out? See, we don't even have to win to win. And once it becomes controversial, it has lost its raison debt, because it's no longer risk management. It exacerbates risk. And so even if they think we started it, we turned it into a culture war. Well, I don't think that's the case. It was a culture war. It was basically a, you know, a monologue. And now it's a dialogue. It's a debate. I think that's an improvement. But even if you think that we're the ones who made a controversial, well, it is controversial now, it's not safe. And actually, I think CEOs like safe. Most people don't become CEOs by becoming a big risk takers, that's entrepreneurs become risk takers. CEOs tend to be risk averse, just kind of rise gradually through the bureaucracy. Now that this is controversial, it's become somewhat radioactive, which is why you know, we've talked a lot about the LGBTQ stuff. We've talked a lot about target, which is probably the worst example. What I've seen is — when the Human Rights Campaign went out and said, Who wants to endorse the Equality Act with us? A thousand companies nearly signed up when the pro-aborts came out and said, Who wants to criticize Roe versus Wade’s reversal with us … crickets. And about 50 companies came out and said, Well, we're not going to criticize it, but we'll offer health benefits. We're just going to make it an HR thing. They've been that that is a huge shift. And it's before all the target thing. And the other thing in that regard is, every single pro-abortion resolution on the ballot this year, was defeated. Last year, they are getting 30 and 40% support this year, they're getting 10% support. On the abortion issue, we have seen a huge reversal in momentum in corporate America. They don't want — Edelman said classic 5050 issue, don't touch it, it's radioactive. And the vast majority of companies that just would have fallen in line behind the cause of the year, They're saying no, we're gonna keep our distance this time. And I've even asked that annual meetings, companies that came out and really did criticize Dobbs, and I said, Why are you speaking out on abortion? Oh, we're not speaking out on abortion. It's just, you know, human resource, you know, policy. And then I would send them their tweet at the time. And they're, they're now saying, Oh, no, we're neutral. So most of these corporations, the vast majority, have moved to neutral on abortion. To me, that's pretty miraculous, given what I've gotten used to seeing over the years.

ALBERT MOHLER: Yeah. Okay, so that was brilliant. And you put that together with Katie's theological grid for understanding this and Andrew’s advice to Christian families. The issue of the risk management is really, really important. Because these companies are doing what they think is the following the path of least resistance. They're actually trying to minimize damage. So you know, I think, if anything, redefining that risk management is just really, really important. I want to thank all three of you for joining me today for this panel. And we want to thank the readers of WORLD Opinions, and the larger WORLD Magazine and WORLD enterprises. You are, you're who are on our minds when we write articles. And when we consider something like this panel, a special thanks to Katie McCoy. And also, of course, to our dear friend, Jerry Boyer. And, you know, we just look at this and recognize we're in this for the long haul. Andrew, you're in it for the long haul?

ANDREW WALKER: I am.

ALBERT MOHLER: And one of the reasons you are is because you're a churchman. Another reason you are is because you're a father and a husband. And I have to say I'm in it for the long haul, at least in part because I'm a Christian, and I'm a grandfather. I've got to be in it for the long haul. All right, many thanks to Samaritan Ministries, for sponsoring this live stream. We think this is an important conversation. We hope that WORLD Opinions, we’re helping to foster important conversations for Christians. And the big issue is for all of us, how to think more faithfully, so that we can live more faithfully. Sometimes like this, we need to talk faithfully in order to help figure that out. Thanks again for joining us today for this panel for WORLD Opinions on behalf of Andrew Walker, Jerry Boyer and Katie McCoy. I'm Albert Mohler saying we'll see you next time.

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