CTP (20251206 S3E129) Julian Raven Portrait Of Trump And Smithsonian Lawsuits BTS/SP Video

Name: CTP (20251206 S3E129) Julian Raven Portrait Of Trump And Smithsonian Lawsuits BTS/SP Video
Uploaded: 2025-11-19T02:30:13+00:00
Duration: 46 min 38 s
Channel: Joseph M. Lenard

Joseph M. Lenard

2 days ago

CTP (S3E129) Santa’s Beard, Lawsuits, And A Seven-Foot Trump
Exploring more of the fascinating intersection of Activism, Community Engagement, Faith / Religion, Human Nature, Politics, Social Issues, and beyond
We trace Julian Raven’s journey from atheist entrepreneur to Christian artist, and the legal fight that followed when his seven-foot Trump portrait was rejected by the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery. The story blends art, faith, and free speech with a call to active, principled citizenship.
• childhood in Spain and early loss shaping atheism
• entrepreneurship, addiction, and a mountain epiphany
• turn to faith and purpose as an artist
• creation of a symbolic, Christ-centered Trump portrait
• Smithsonian submission process and rejection
• claims of viewpoint discrimination and legal appeals
• Board of Regents structure and accountability
• recent leadership changes and renewed filings
• Christian civic duty, reform over rage
• website and book details for deeper reading http://SmithsonInstituion.com
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00:00Hello, welcome to another episode of Firstitutionalist Podcast.

00:06I am your host, Joseph M. Leonard.

00:10That's L-E-N-A-R-D.

00:12It's not, it's Leonard without an O.

00:17Thank you for tuning in, as Graham Norton used to say, on his show.

00:24Let's get on with the show!

00:27Hello, everyone.

00:30This is going to be a quick cheat intro segment.

00:34I'm going to be lazy.

00:36I've got so many guest recordings built up.

00:40I'm going to get lazy and cheat on some Saturdays.

00:44I don't have to dream up a monologue topic this way.

00:49So, and I'm also not going to say what guest will be appearing,

00:53because I'm going to be lazy and cheat and use this same intro.

00:59So, as Graham Norton used to say, let's get on with the show!

01:09Surprise interview!

01:12Take care, God bless!

01:14Hello, joining me today is Julian Raven, and since that can be spelled a few different ways,

01:22it's J-U-L-I-A-N-R-A-V-E-N, and of course, in the final episode, if you look at the behind-the-scenes video,

01:32it'll be on a sprawl at the bottom there.

01:35So, at any rate, welcome to the show, Julian.

01:39How are you?

01:40I'm very good, Joseph.

01:41Thanks for having me on.

01:42Yeah, like I always say, could be better, could be worse, right?

01:49Well, thank God I am alive and able to give witness to that,

01:53and obviously walk out in the purposes of God is always a real blessing.

01:57Yep, as the saying goes, we got up on the right side of the lawn today.

02:03Yeah, we did.

02:05You are here to discuss Odious and Cerberus, an American immigrant's odyssey,

02:11and your free speech legal war against Smithsonian corruption,

02:16a Christian manual to bring faith and the gospel to the marketplace,

02:21where it always causes a controversy.

02:25But the Christian joke, right, the proverbial first question,

02:33who the heck are you?

02:35Where were you born?

02:38Where were you raised?

02:39Where are you now?

02:40How much time and for what crime did you spend in prison?

02:46That type of thing.

02:47Well, I am born in London, England.

02:51Oh, well, we won't hold that against you.

02:55Raised in Marbella, Spain, on the southern coast near Gibraltar.

02:59And from where I was raised, you could see the Atlas Mountains of North Africa.

03:03You could see the Rock of Gibraltar.

03:04Very beautiful place in southern Spain.

03:08Picturesque, yes.

03:09Very nice.

03:09You should take a picture and use that as your background.

03:14I have different ones.

03:16I'm an artist.

03:16I'm a photographer.

03:17I have plenty of images.

03:19Oftentimes, it's not knowing which one to use.

03:22There's so many beautiful pictures.

03:25Yep.

03:26So, what brought about the odious and serious and American immigrants odyssey?

03:35Well, that's a journey.

03:36It's a journey of faith.

03:38And the story really starts, I would imagine, you know, well, listen, when we begin, right,

03:45our journey, when we are born, we live, we go through our experiences.

03:49And by the age of 10, and I'll do this as a recap because my story is extensive.

03:54It's a wonderful odyssey.

03:57It really is.

03:58It's been an adventure.

03:59It's fraught with all sorts of trials and tribulations and giants and romances and failures and heartaches and, you know, mountaintops.

04:08Well, we want to focus on your failure here.

04:11Yeah, well, that's good.

04:12Well, listen, that's good.

04:15The failures is this.

04:16You know, without those, failure is our greatest teacher.

04:20And so, there's nothing else.

04:23You know, the way God's process of sanctification, in my experience, in my life, has only happened through failure, through struggle and disappointment.

04:33It doesn't come through the good times.

04:35So, failure is my bosom buddy.

04:37And as a Christian, you know, we embrace the cross because it's through the cross that we receive the life-transforming power of Jesus Christ.

04:45So, that's been my experience as a follower of Jesus.

04:49Now, that happened, my journey even to faith.

04:52I used to be an atheist.

04:54I was born, my father Jewish, my mother Gentile.

04:57I was raised in this beautiful place, like I said, in southern sunny Spain.

05:01Grew up atheist because my dad died when I was 10 years old.

05:04And tragically, he vanished from my life.

05:07No one could give me answers.

05:09No one could explain anything.

05:11There was no faith around the people that I knew were just faithless, really.

05:14My mother had very, very shallow faith.

05:16It's like non-existent.

05:18And so, I struggled as a young man, and it just led me on a very dark path towards, you know, really suicide at the end of it.

05:27Frustration, just the real, just by the time I was in my teens, from the age of 18 to 22 became the darkest period of my life, spiraling.

05:37In southern Spain, I became, as an entrepreneur, very young age.

05:42I left art school, had a very traumatic experience at the age of 18, which really galvanized my atheism.

05:50And then after that, I went into the world of drugs and alcohol.

05:54I owned three and built and ran from the age of 18.

05:58I just was, as a pioneer, I just took it upon myself to do it.

06:02I didn't know.

06:03I left school saying, at the age of 16, saying I'd never work for anyone.

06:07I didn't know why.

06:08I just had the urge just to be my own boss, whatever that meant, and built these businesses.

06:14One of them is still there today, now 35 years later, 36 years later.

06:20And I lived a very wild, hopeless life.

06:25And my medicine, to numb the pain of not knowing the answers to the great questions, was drugs and alcohol.

06:32And it was how I medicated my hopeless condition.

06:37Until I had an epiphany on a beautiful mountain in southern Spain, right near where I lived.

06:42I was a seeker.

06:43I always was a seeker, always trying to find the answers, always trying to take things apart.

06:47Since a young boy, I was always dismantling things, trying to understand and figure out how things worked.

06:52And so in my life, the same was how I approached life.

06:55And God was obviously seeing that.

06:58And as much of an atheist as I was, and I was hardcore, militant, angry, angry at anybody, mentioned any sense of having faith, I would take it upon myself to go and mock them and ridicule them and just be this hostile.

07:13The unfortunate, proverbial, anti-faithful, anti-Christian atheist.

07:21Not all are that way.

07:22I often talk on the show about Penn, of Penn and Teller fame, you know, the famous comedian magicians.

07:31A great person who doesn't hate people of faith or mock Christianity.

07:39He often says he has no problem with Moses and the Ten Commandments and that being on our Supreme Court building in the U.S.

07:49Because whether you come at these things from a moral faith point of view or just a humanist, it's just being a good human.

08:00I have no right to steal your stuff nor your mind.

08:05I have no right to take your life nor you take mine.

08:09Whether you come at that from a faith-based or just a humanist standpoint, what's the problem with that?

08:19Well, that's one of those big questions that people have, you know.

08:24I would take the argument further to a source and actually say, well, there is no problem with it, but people need to either come to an understanding that, you know, it's either true or it's not true.

08:36You know, and this is the hard part when you say, when you take a real honest examination of history and you see the way the Christian faith spread throughout the world and sanitized the world.

08:50The world went from madness, went from the madness that you see in countries today that are non-Christian countries that have populations that are immoral.

09:00Or the madness, the Christian message brings that restraint upon human behavior.

09:08And so, as you mentioned, those, even the moral laws, you know, people can't find fault with them because, yeah, you know what?

09:14It's actually, I don't like it that people want to come and kill me, so I'm quite happy to have a law to protect me.

09:18And that says, well, yeah, well, you know what?

09:20That's great.

09:20But if you want to take an evolutionistic view, and this is where there's such hypocrites, then you say, well, well, I'm going to come and kill you because it's survival of the fittest, and I'm going to be the fittest.

09:30And yet you should be happy and celebrate that we are living out our Darwinian nirvana, and we're just going to...

09:37No, no, no.

09:39They want to have it right there.

09:42Cake and eat it, too.

09:43They want to have it both ways.

09:45And then they say, oh, we have evolved.

09:47We have evolved evolutionary morality.

09:50And you're like, so what?

09:52Yeah.

09:52It never makes it absolute.

09:54It means that you can change it tomorrow.

09:56It's like, there's no absolute.

09:58If you have no actual guiding moral code, it can change on a whim.

10:04Absolutely.

10:05And my audience knows I like to joke around, and I can never avoid being a smart you-know-what.

10:11So for those viewing on the behind-the-scenes video, looking at you, they're going to obviously know the smart you-know-what question.

10:22How often do you get asked to portray Santa around Christmas time?

10:28Well, I do.

10:29I do it.

10:31In Spain, I was Santa last Christmas.

10:33Yeah, I have a lot of fun doing it.

10:35For the benefit of the transcript and those on the 25-plus audio platforms, Julian has a very full white beard.

10:47And, you know, it's an amazing experience, and it's an amazing story.

10:55Most people, you know, the confusion between who Santa Claus was.

11:00You know, you have the real St. Nicholas.

11:04Yeah, amazing life, amazing story, amazing Christian, a true follower of Jesus.

11:10Yeah.

11:11The cross between the German Sinterklaas and the real St. Nicholas gives us our Santa Claus of today,

11:20which a lot of Christians get upset around Christmas time about.

11:24But if you use Santa in the right way as children get older to explain them the real St. Nick when they're old enough to understand it,

11:37it's a good thing, not just, you know, the whole Coca-Cola commercialization kind of thing.

11:44Absolutely.

11:45I've seen such remarkable things happen.

11:47What I think is an amazing experience, what I have, is when you wear the suit and you go out, especially when you see the kids,

11:58you see in the eyes of children, you see a faith.

12:05And it's obviously they have been trained or they're believing and they see it.

12:09But I've had kids look at me in ways that are just like, my God, look at those eyes that are this big, just innocent, pure, bright.

12:22And they're like staring at you like they think.

12:25Yeah.

12:25And yet there are so many people who want to poo-poo and destroy our children, sexualize them, pervert them, try to make them adults far too soon.

12:38Let our kids be kids and be innocent for a while.

12:43You know, and we as a human race, I talk about this, about the Bible is a Dr. Seuss book.

12:50People get upset with me when I say that, but we as a human species are but children to God.

12:58That's right.

12:58So the Bible is a Dr. Seuss.

13:00It doesn't tell us everything.

13:03And God doesn't owe us all the answers.

13:08Eventually there'll be another testament when we can handle more and understand more.

13:15But for now, it's Dr. Seuss.

13:17It's not war and peace.

13:19Now, this says here, let's get back to the seriousness.

13:23Like the Apostle Paul, I have been involved in a nationally important legal battle with the Smithsonian.

13:29So let's get into that.

13:31What's the background on that?

13:33Well, obviously, the great chapter in the book of Acts there when Paul is, he knew how to, you know, and as an instrument of God,

13:41he knew how to, you know, provoke the, I guess, the powers that be in that wonderful clash, I believe it was at Herod, and they're trying to accuse him.

13:51And he starts throwing out facts about who he was.

13:54And, oh, you arrested a Roman citizen.

13:56And they're like, whoops, we didn't know he was a Roman.

14:00And then he's like, oh, yeah, but they're claiming this.

14:04And he was able to pitch the Sadducees against the Pharisees.

14:07And he's like causing, he was a smart master of using the system.

14:12And this is the message, I think, to the church.

14:14One of the examples of, boy, you picked on the wrong guy.

14:19That's exactly it.

14:20And he was able to do that.

14:23And then, as that whole sort of trial progressed, when he gets to that final great statement, he says, I appeal to Caesar.

14:33And Herod says to him, to Caesar, you will go.

14:38And that led him on that journey where then he will fulfill his calling, you know, right where he wrote from prison, you know, the book of Romans.

14:46And an amazing ministry that God, the upside-down kingdom, you know, facilitates where through the punishment, he accomplishes the greatest work that he could have done.

15:01It's amazing.

15:01And while in chains, as he says, I'm able to do the greatest, greatest work that God has called me to do.

15:07So I've always been moved by that, obviously, the scripture, the stories.

15:12And you want to, I want to aspire to walk in the footsteps of our forefathers in the faith, the Christian faith, and then have an impact in the same way.

15:22I've always spent my life as a Christian seeing how God, how can I have the most impact?

15:27Yeah, so how does this all involve the Smithsonian somehow?

15:32Well, as an artist, it leads to a painting, a prescient, predictive or prophetic image that I painted in the summer of 2015.

15:42Of then-candidate Donald Trump.

15:45As a New Yorker, I was very familiar with the guy.

15:48And it's a whole story.

15:49It's in the book.

15:50Whole journey of how I was inspired at that early age.

15:54Most people thought I was crazy.

15:56All the believers that I knew said I would have to hold my nose to vote for this guy and this type of thing.

16:02I was one of those people.

16:04You know, he thankfully is a different man than he was.

16:09He was a serial adulterer, playboy.

16:13You know, he was all those things.

16:17There's no denying it.

16:19But he, and God has a way of using bad vessels.

16:26Well, that's the truth.

16:27Yeah, I'm not a Trump apologist.

16:28But I will, I will, I acknowledge, and this was my story, the hand of God on exactly that, that he picks and chooses who he wants to and he uses who he wants to.

16:38So, that whole story was life-changing for me on the journey that it led me on as a newborn American citizen.

16:45And then seeking how to be a Christian in this country that I could see had drifted so far from its founding values and ideas.

16:54It's the way that the Christian faith had impacted society, had impacted law.

17:00And so, I have always, as somebody who's always sought for reform, as somebody who is, as a student, you know, obviously church history, especially in the Reformation and the great moves of God that have brought Reformation to the church itself.

17:12That spirit of Reformation, if you bear the spirit of Christ, it's in us.

17:17We want to see world reform.

17:19We want to see, you know, as in business, I've restored furniture.

17:23You want to see things restored and fixed and made right once again.

17:27So, in that spirit, my painting carries those, that message.

17:31I went on the campaign.

17:33You don't have the painting to show.

17:35So, can you give a description of it, kind of, you know, what, you said it's of Trump.

17:43Well, in what aspect or just a portrait?

17:50It's a giant seven by 15 foot canvas.

17:54And it's a giant portrait of Trump with like a seven foot portrait.

17:59And then to the right of it, it's like an interpretation from a Christian perspective of seeing God working at that time in this sinner's life.

18:11And it's a remark, it's layered with symbolic imagery.

18:16A lot of it is Christ-centered.

18:18The composition of the painting is Christ-centered.

18:21But it's symbolic.

18:22So, it's all this, whether it's the layer, the outline of a lot of the images, this light that covers the entire portrait,

18:30is a picture then of obviously the providential, you know, supervision of God over this whole, you know, the symbols.

18:37I wove it in.

18:38The whole painting is a Christian.

18:40It's an allegory in the sense of, as a believer, interpreting the events that are happening in front of me

18:46and seeing how this man could very much be this instrument that facilitates...

18:52Right.

18:52The God working through the imperfect vessel and attempt at potential for redemption and to be far better and greater than one was once.

19:05Right.

19:06And the thing, I think, with it mostly that I shared a lot was that the danger, and this is the danger even we see today,

19:15and it's the danger that is that the...

19:18And when I was into it, I've had a lot of coverage on this journey, and it's been going on for 10 years.

19:22But the danger to the church is that people would, and I would say it every time, even as I'm saying it now, is that people would sit back.

19:31The church has always suffered when, you know, obviously, they're either not acting when they should because of the terrible things that are happening around us,

19:40or not acting as they should because now somebody else is doing the job.

19:44And I used to say the biggest problem that we'll have right now is that people will sit back and they'll get their popcorn out,

19:50and they'll be like, oh, this guy's going to fix everything for us.

19:53And it's like, I don't know.

19:54Not going to happen, right?

19:56This guy, yeah, don't be deceived.

19:58There's a lot of deception.

19:59Right.

20:00One person can't, short of Christ himself, one person can't do it all.

20:07And only thing necessary, evil prevail, good peoples do nothing.

20:13Nothing, right.

20:14And that is the sentiment behind it to say, to me, I saw it as an opportunity for the church to stand up and say,

20:22hey, we have an opportunity because we actually have an unbeliever who's contending, you know,

20:27even if it's on a religious level, he's contending for our ideas, you know,

20:32even as a superficialist saying, oh, Merry Christmas, and we're going to put Merry Christmas back into Christmas.

20:38And it's like, well, yeah, these are very, very superficial approaches, but they are valid,

20:43because at that level, our Christian faith is being maligned and attacked and undermined.

20:50And so now we have this leader that's going to stand up and say, well, I'm just going to say it, and I'm going to say it to you.

20:54Yeah.

20:55And as a personal standpoint, I like that, the cultural war.

21:02But at the same time, right, being a Christian, I recognize it isn't only and always about me and my stuff.

21:12So, yes, we as Christians say Merry Christmas, but I don't demand the people at Target or wherever say Merry,

21:23Happy Holidays is perfectly fine with me because I want to acknowledge my Jewish brethren and Hanukkah.

21:32I want to acknowledge, hey, New Year's Eve, the holiday is around the corner.

21:38So I, around Christmastime, have no problem with the Happy Holidays if it's meant in the right way.

21:48It's not meant as a cultural attack of trying to eliminate Christianity.

21:54So the motivation matters.

21:58That's right.

21:58And that's, I think, the heart behind all of the issues that we face, because when there's the prohibition,

22:04when people are afraid to say it, they kind of lose their job to saying this type of thing.

22:09It's like, look, you've got to be able to allow people to be themselves.

22:12And that's the thing.

22:13Now, we get into a whole other subject there, obviously, that we can wade into there.

22:17But the point is, is that with him, even though that, like I said, these very superficial attachments or allegiances to the Christian faith,

22:28they were sufficient to then say, well, this is an opportunity for the church to stand up and rise up and become who we should be.

22:36Because, like I said, complacency is a curse that cripples Christianity.

22:42And it's happened in the story of Israel.

22:45You know, it's like, you know, people will always get weak, will always get comfortable when things are going well.

22:50It's part of human nature, right?

22:54That's the problem with biblical community, free will.

23:00We are to want to be our brother's keeper and take care of widows and orphans.

23:04But the Bible also makes the distinction against those who are unwilling to bother to do things for themselves versus those who are unable, right?

23:16Like, worldly communism is a bastardization of biblical community.

23:22It's not free will.

23:24It's force.

23:24It's not choice.

23:26It's force.

23:26It's not charity of one's own blood and treasure.

23:31It's theft, force, redistribution.

23:35These things matter.

23:36Now, back to the Christmas thing again.

23:38Even if you don't want to acknowledge the Christianity in Christmas, if you just go to the secular issue of can't we be more charitable to one another as humans?

23:54From an atheist standpoint, what is the problem with Merry Christmas as a let's be kind to each other sentiment, right?

24:05Yeah, but we know it's in the name.

24:07It's all wrapped up in the name.

24:09It's what's in the name Christ.

24:11It's the power that's in that name.

24:13And that's why they fear it.

24:15Yeah, that's why they fear it.

24:17That's why they don't want it uttered.

24:19They don't want to utter it.

24:20They just want to curse that name.

24:22You know, it's just a weird, very weird human condition.

24:24But yeah, so those things are all undergirding my expression as an artist in this painting.

24:32It's a lot of those issues that are woven into symbolically.

24:36So the journey is I go on this campaign on my own dime.

24:40I cross the country.

24:42I have this wonderful experience.

24:44And then after the election, and this gets to the Smithsonian question, after the election, when Trump wins, I wasn't surprised because I painted this prescient image in 2015.

24:57So I was like, I knew it.

24:59Most people laughed at me.

25:00They mocked me.

25:01They ridiculed me.

25:01What are you saying?

25:02I said, well, I'm just doing what I believe.

25:05And here it is.

25:06And he couldn't process.

25:08It was always like ahead of its time because it was.

25:10So after the election and Trump wins in 2016, excuse me, then I was like, well, what am I going to do with this now?

25:20And I was sort of bummed out for a couple of weeks.

25:23I was like, well, it's like, this is like everything going flat.

25:25You know, the election he won.

25:27Okay, great.

25:27And I start wondering, what do I do with it?

25:30And I ended up praying because I didn't know.

25:32I thought maybe I might sell the thing.

25:33I just didn't know.

25:35And I pray and I get the idea.

25:38Oh, the Smithsonian Institution, because all across the United States, as I had shown my painting from New York to California, people had come up to me and said, that should be in the Smithsonian.

25:50That should be in the Smithsonian.

25:52I was like, well, what's the Smithsonian?

25:54I am a newborn citizen.

25:55I thought Smithsonian was a place of rockets and spaceships in Washington, D.C.

26:00So I then begin to.

26:01Yeah, you didn't know the whole greater, broader.

26:05Nothing.

26:06Of the other museums.

26:08Right.

26:08So I discovered the National Portrait Gallery.

26:11And then I discovered because my painting had been shown in L.A. in 2016, alongside the Obama Hope poster painting that was a very famous.

26:20The Dope and Change poster.

26:22Yeah.

26:22By Shepard Fairey.

26:24And that, but the actual, the artwork was commissioned by a guy named Yossi Surgeant.

26:31He was the brains and the political mind behind that image.

26:35The artist was a graffiti artist in the streets of L.A.

26:39who bumped into this guy, Yossi Surgeant, at an art show.

26:42He paid him a hundred bucks.

26:44He said, create me this image.

26:46Use communistic, fascistic imagery.

26:49Create dope and change to fool the people.

26:52Well, that's their, well, no, that's their creed.

26:55And that's what they, they, they, again, that's what they believed.

26:57And they did it.

26:58And anyway, this guy calls me up.

27:00He says, I want your painting in my show.

27:02And I showed it out in L.A.

27:04It was a huge gig for me.

27:05So when I went to the Smithsonian, well, blow me down.

27:08There, the Smithsonian Institution, the National Portrait Gallery, had shown in 2009 and 2013 the same Obama Hope poster as a tribute to, in the arts, to the incoming President Barack Obama.

27:21This is so.

27:22So there, there's your argument.

27:24There it is.

27:25So I was very, I then got letters of support from New York politicians, you know, a representative from about 200,000 people in upstate New York.

27:34I then had letters from my mayor and the congressman and senator and all these other Republican folks.

27:41And then also art collectors and a radio host.

27:45And I, it was a publicly supported application.

27:47I go through the process and I get to this point where I get this call one day from the director of the National Portrait Gallery herself, turns out to be an Australian woman and an Australian, not even an American.

28:00And that set off this 11 minute argument where this woman with a very snooty, condescending tone began to arbitrarily object to my painting, denying it, denying it, denying it in any which way she could, even so much as saying at one point, she's like, well, it's not from life.

28:21Meaning that the painting portrait, a portrait painted from life would be, I sit in front of you and I paint you directly or to the canvas.

28:28Yeah.

28:29How was the dope and change?

28:31Oh, there you go.

28:32There you go.

28:33I knew that story so well that I said to her, what the, the Obama hope and change, but that was not painted.

28:40That was a, there was an edited photograph from the internet that was used in a 24 hour process.

28:45I knew the whole story at that point.

28:47She raises her voice.

28:48She starts yelling and screaming.

28:50She's clearly someone who had early onset TDS.

28:55She absolutely.

28:56And it went to this, it ended after all of these objections, then it's too political.

29:01It's too this.

29:02And it's like, you, you show a political campaign portrait of a Barack Obama, two years, two elections in a row.

29:10And now you're telling me my painting is too political.

29:13It's like, these are the viewpoint discrimination.

29:15So at the end of the call, after raising her voice and disparaging my artwork, she's like, I'm the director of the national portrait gallery.

29:23Your application will go no further.

29:25You can appeal it all you want.

29:27Click.

29:27And she hangs up the phone.

29:29And that was like stunning.

29:31It was like, I was, I could not believe what had happened to me.

29:35And it led me on a journey of appealing through the Smithsonian institution all the way.

29:40Well, even this, most people, Joseph and most Americans and myself before included, I didn't know nothing.

29:47But even today, most people, and that's why I'm doing these podcasts, wrote my book, et cetera, is because nobody knows what the Smithsonian institution is.

29:57They just.

29:57Yeah.

29:57But before we go any further, let's mention the book again is Odious and Cerberus, an American Immigrant's Odyssey.

30:06Do you have it?

30:07There we go.

30:08For those looking at behind the scenes video, you'll be able to see he's holding up the book there.

30:15And it's actually in focus nine times out of ten because you're not using the green screen.

30:20Nine times out of ten, people hold up a book.

30:23Oh, I can't get it to focus because of the green screen.

30:25My camera.

30:26I've got a good camera.

30:27It does a good job.

30:29But even with the green scenes, it does a good job there.

30:32But the point with the story and me sharing it is that, you know, what the Smithsonian institution is, it has an amazing history.

30:41I did all the study, all the research.

30:43Excuse me.

30:45And I ended up then litigating myself, self-representing against the Smithsonian institution.

30:51And what people don't know, and I'll just give you an idea of how most people are so unaware of what the Smithsonian institution is, is when I, when she said, you can appeal it all you want.

31:01After recovering, it took me like a week.

31:03I could hear in my head this, this taunt.

31:05You can appeal it.

31:06Because I'm like, what can I do?

31:07You can appeal it.

31:08You can appeal it now.

31:09Because she's like, you can appeal it all you want.

31:10And I then say, well, who's her boss?

31:13Who runs the Smithsonian institution?

31:15Well, there's a board of regents.

31:17And guess who sits on the board of regents?

31:19The chancellor of the Smithsonian institution is Chief Justice John Roberts.

31:25Yeah, I'm not a fan of his.

31:27I know, the vice president of the United States, three members of Congress, three members of the House, I mean, of the Senate, and three and nine members of the public.

31:37So you have 17 very important people sitting on this board of regents.

31:41So I appeal to them.

31:43They kick me to the curb.

31:44I then file a federal lawsuit, and I go through eight years of federal litigation against them.

31:50And to bring it, the story is in the book up until what's happened in the last six weeks.

31:56And for those who don't know, may not have followed it, in Washington, there's major, major things took place that affect me and have affected my story.

32:04This is now eight years.

32:05I'm at my third Smithsonian lawsuit that was just filed last week.

32:10This is all because of what's happened in the last month, and that is at the beginning of the second presidency, President Trump pointed his finger already at the Smithsonian, saying they need to be basically brought to heel because of their, he called it improper ideology.

32:27And then on May 30th, that's May 30th, that's only a few weeks ago, he fired Kim Sayet, who was the director of the National Portrait Gallery, who's the antagonist in my book.

32:40And he says, a lot of people told me that she's highly partisan.

32:44My lawsuits had already brought that up.

32:46She was already charged as being highly partisan in my lawsuits.

32:49It's all, it's amazing how this has taken this long.

32:52But finally, he points, my story in my painting was number four on the president's list of 17 reasons to fire Kim Sayet.

33:02And so he fires her.

33:03He didn't have the legal authority to do it.

33:07The journal, the Washington Post calls me up, you know, what do you think of this?

33:11Can he fire?

33:12I said, no, he can't fire her.

33:13But in spirit, he could because he's the representative of the people.

33:17He's the president.

33:17But he had no legal authority to fire her.

33:20The Smithsonian goes all quiet.

33:21They pretend and try to ignore him.

33:24And then they have their private board of regents meeting.

33:27A week later, she resigns.

33:29So my story is remarkable now that this one woman who is from the first chapter of the book, she's right there on page one.

33:36The chapter is called Power and Abuse, where she calls me up with this.

33:41I was abused.

33:42I was victimized by this.

33:43What is fascistic?

33:44The left, the usual fascistic dictatorial.

33:49They call us fascist, but they are all about absolute power.

33:54And no, me, I decide.

33:58You don't get any say.

34:01Right?

34:01Yeah.

34:02My way, the highway.

34:04And all at the same time, trying to peddle mobocracy.

34:10They're not about democracy.

34:13They're all about whatever gets them power and control the Lord over everyone else.

34:19Well, I've seen that on both sides.

34:22I mean, I see it on both sides.

34:23Oh, there's rhinos and senos, too.

34:25I don't wear the Republican hat all the time, although I consider myself a Republican.

34:31I'm in a political wilderness.

34:32I left it all behind.

34:34It's like, you know, I got very good.

34:36Because, again, my goal is Christ.

34:38My goal is, at the heart of what I'm doing, is—

34:41Christitutionalism here, yes.

34:43My goal is to use the liberties and the law.

34:47This is, again, going back to the Apostle Paul.

34:49Paul, the model that he gave us in that whole experience is that he used the legal citizenship he had as a Roman.

34:58He used all of these legal tools that he had to advance the gospel of Jesus Christ.

35:05He used it in the system.

35:07He didn't shy away from the system.

35:09He didn't try to tear the system down.

35:11He didn't try to do this or that.

35:12He said, I'm a citizen.

35:14I'm a Roman citizen.

35:15I can appeal this all the way up to Caesar.

35:17I'm going to appeal this to Caesar.

35:19I'm going to make my case before Caesar because I'm going to use it as an opportunity to present the life-changing gospel of Jesus Christ.

35:26And at the heart of what I'm doing, it's in my book.

35:29The gospel is woven in through my book.

35:31It's a book for the unbeliever as much as it is an inspirational book for the believer.

35:35But it's written in such a way that it brings people to a faith understanding.

35:40My faith, as I express it, my journey, my experience, understanding the voice of God.

35:44How do we listen to the voice of God?

35:46Does God speak to us?

35:47Whether it is—I mean, it's a whole story of multiple levels that instructs people

35:54about the ideas that we as Christians hold dear.

35:58That's what's at the heart of what I do because my primary calling is as a preacher of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

36:04That is who I am.

36:06So that at the end of it, you know, with now with politics and this whole thing,

36:10this to me, my story where I am right now on this third lawsuit.

36:14See, even a lot of Christians—there was another—believe it or not, there was another Christian, a missionary, 1970s.

36:21He sued the Smithsonian himself.

36:24He's one of the few lawsuits against the Smithsonian.

36:27One of the other ones was by this Christian.

36:29He didn't get anywhere with it because his argument was basically he was—

36:33But you stand on the shoulders of who came before you.

36:37And everybody is pitching their little bit in there.

36:40And so at the end of the day, the point is, is that as God is using this story

36:44and he's using this journey and this testimony right now, I get to share my faith.

36:50I get to share that this is God at work.

36:53God is using us.

36:54And for the Christian, many times, and as you'll know this, Christians, even your position,

37:01however it is involving, you know, the Christian faith in the political,

37:05it's like America is a place where our Christianity can be expressed freely, can be expressed—

37:12Supposed to be.

37:13Yeah.

37:14It can be expressed legislatively in the sense of its principles, not as religion, but as ideas.

37:20You know, thou shall not murder is a good idea, right?

37:22Well, it's a law, too, in this country.

37:24Well, you know what?

37:25They didn't just make it up out of thin air.

37:27They got it from somewhere, as we discussed at the beginning.

37:30So our mission as believers in this country, see, the American decay, when we look at the—

37:37and I come from Europe, so I know about decay.

37:39I've seen England decay.

37:41I've seen England completely lose its Christian heritage virtually,

37:44other than having buildings there that still witness in a very small church, a powerless church.

37:48Spain is the same.

37:50But when you look at the American decay and you say, well, what responsibility does the Church of Jesus Christ bear in America?

37:58And I, as someone who has been a revivalist, I lay the responsibility at the feet, mainly of the pulpit,

38:06because the pulpit is where the truth either comes from or is perverted, where preachers have—

38:13because of the prosperity and the good life that America has offered people, human beings, as we said at the beginning,

38:19the weakness of humans is just to get accustomed to the comfort and the ease in Zion, basically,

38:25and we're asleep in Zion, and we've got all this stuff and all of our toys and all of the dinky things and all of this stuff,

38:31and then all the garbage that's coming off from the pulpit,

38:35and as they've used the freedoms and the abundance and the wealth of this country to build up their kingdoms and themselves,

38:43and then they don't want the gospel so much.

38:44So we—

38:45Yeah.

38:45Now, two things.

38:46Time flies, like with all guests, we could talk hours, and then no one would watch because it'd be too long.

38:55But you mentioned the thou shalt not kill.

38:58It's really thou shalt not murder innocents.

39:01And Exodus 22, 2 alone, as well as other scriptures, are the basis for self-defense and other laws.

39:09Sometimes a killing is justifiable, not a murder.

39:15So do you have a website people can go to?

39:20It's called Smithson Institution.

39:23James Smithson was the Englishman who founded the Smithsonian Institution.

39:29And my website is Smithson, like Smith's son.

39:34Yeah.

39:35It's Smithson Institution.

39:37The official name for the Smithsonian Institution is just Smithsonian, or si.edu.

39:44Mine is smithsoninstitution.com.

39:49And there you can find out the story.

39:51There you can see the history and a lot of the documents, the litigation, the image, the ongoing story.

39:57It's a fascinating journey.

39:58And it's to inspire believers to say, if we do not stand up and speak when we can.

40:05You can't just sit idly by on the sidelines.

40:09The Bible, right?

40:11You must sow to reap, or you're complicit in the rotten fruit we're all trying to choke down.

40:18You shall be known by your fruits.

40:21Not, you get on your knees, but yes, you must then also get off your knees, get off your hind side.

40:28Put your shoes on.

40:29Go out and do, yeah, put on your shoes, your coat, get out and do things.

40:35No, you can't rest.

40:37No, you can't sit idly by.

40:39Only thing necessary, evil prevails.

40:42Good people do nothing.

40:43No, you can't rest.

40:45No, oh, let him do it.

40:48No, him or her needs our help.

40:52That's exactly it.

40:53And that's why, as an individual, self-representing, I have no means other than my faith, thrilling God, my family, have a wonderful wife and children, very supportive of what I do.

41:03But as an individual, as a citizen, it shows the power that God has given to American citizens to do what I'm doing, what I've been doing.

41:13My appeal has gone all the way up to the Supreme Court of the United States.

41:16I've walked those steps myself as a newborn American citizen, remarkable on my journey.

41:21And so the encouragement to the church, you know, whether it's potholes in your street, whether it's potholes, whether it's drug addicts on the corner, there are so many needs that the gospel is the remedy to.

41:35And if it's not the gospel, it's the principles of scripture that just applied in the right context, in the spirit of Christ, in the spirit of Christian love, but without compromise, in the spirit of Christian courage, without compromise, we show love, but we show commitment and integrity.

41:53Those things in this world today are the brightest light because it's so dark because of the corruption in which we find ourselves today.

42:02So the attention to the Christian is that.

42:05We humans screwed that up, right?

42:08It's like a hundred different Bibles, a hundred different denominations of supposed Christianity as supposed followers of Christ.

42:18That's why I say this Christitutional show is not Catholic or Protestant or Baptist or Lutheran or whatever, right?

42:27That Jesus never said, go forth and create a hundred churches in my name.

42:33We screwed that up.

42:35Thank you, Julian Raven, for coming by.

42:38I can't promise when this will air, but when it does, of course, I will reach out, let you know, so you can share on social media and all that stuff.

42:47Thank you, Julian Raven.

42:49God bless you, Joseph.

42:51In discussion with someone during Books Authors Weeks, I mentioned I had not been out of the state of Michigan since 2006.

43:02Well, I remember now that's not completely accurate, and it's not about me.

43:11It's about the show's credibility, about dealing in facts and being honest.

43:19So, yes, during the Wuhan hysteria, and while wretched Whittler still had the state of Michigan locked down, Governor DeWine of Ohio unlocked his state, should have never locked it down, but unlocked his state early.

43:43Anyway, and I, on a nice day, chance to get out of the house, chance to get out of the state, even though I don't like putting the extra miles on the car.

43:58I need it to last.

43:59It's got a lot of miles on it, but again, it's not about me.

44:03This is about credibility of the show, facts and honesty, right?

44:08So, I drove down to Toledo, ate, even though I couldn't afford to burn the gas, bought, you know, just got Burger King there rather than Burger King here or whatever, McDonald's, whatever it was.

44:21I don't remember, not important, and went to a movie to support the theater, not in Toledo, actually, outside of Toledo.

44:33I forget the chain name.

44:35I forget the movie, not important.

44:38It was something I wanted to see, so it wasn't like I drove there to then pick a random movie they had going.

44:47So, hence, the need for the correction to maintain the credibility here, not, you know, I know you know what I mean, right?

45:02So, anyway, end segment one, recorded early.

45:07Head into segment two that will be recorded later on a topic, TBD, right?

45:14To be determined yet.

45:17Thank you all.

45:18Take care.

45:19God bless.

45:19Love you all.