Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Hello, friends. Got a question recently in response to. I mean, this is just a general question. It's a question I've had multiple times. I'm not sure. I guess the. The person who emailed me did not say what they're responding to, but it. It kind of has to do in light of the whole Charlie Kirk situation.
[00:00:23] This. This person.
[00:00:24] I'll just read what they said here. I was never a big fan of how Charlie Kirk presented Christianity, but I always respected him for standing up for common sense.
[00:00:34] I'm also not a fan of Christian nationalism, probably because I listened to the Holy Post podcast almost every week, which is a fantastic podcast, by the way, but they are.
[00:00:45] They've done quite a bit of work at kind of exposing Christian nationalism within evangelicalism.
[00:00:53] I wanted to ask you about American culture.
[00:00:56] My brother lives in NYC and attends a church where the pastor is on the board of Turning Point usa. My brother and his wife are strong advocates for maintaining American culture based on Christian values.
[00:01:09] She has worked with transgender individuals and believes that passing laws against LGBTQ rights helps people understand that it's wrong to surgically alter their bodies.
[00:01:21] They believe that someone needs to advocate for evil in the culture. I. I'm assuming that means, like, advocating against evil just based on the context. I think that's what it means. They think we have a role in our culture to stand up for common sense, and they believe Trump is someone who embodies that. They believe God sees nations as a whole, and we have a part to play in that.
[00:01:44] Play in that, in society. Not going to lie. It kind of made sense. I'm curious how you would respond to that.
[00:01:52] And first of all, I just want to affirm, like, Charlie Kirk was someone who definitely advocated for common sense. So there's a certain level of common sense in how he responded to people, especially some of the extreme leftist ideas, as it pertains to reproductive rights, um, as it pertains to.
[00:02:22] Even. Just like, how he talked to young men about valuing family and taking responsibility and. And not sitting around playing video games or drinking beer and. And serving yourself first. Like, there's a lot of content that Charlie Kirk has out there that. That certainly is basically common sense. And. And so I think. I think that's probably partly why he resonated so much with young.
[00:02:51] Particularly young white men is kind of that provocative. He's one of them. He died at, what, 32, 31 years of age? He's young. He's a young man. And so he's demonstrating, living a responsible, upstanding Life. And then he also has this message and everybody like, I think this is human within everyone is just this. You need someone to sometimes get in your face and say, wake up. Like, you got it, but you gotta stop doing this foolish stuff. Right?
[00:03:29] And that's very much kind of the attitude that Charlie Kirk had. There are some of his reflections on history are simply inaccurate.
[00:03:42] He presented things as fact that were conspiratorial and had little evidence to back it up. And then one of the things that I was most concerned about is just how he uses scripture to, you know. And one of the lowest hanging fruit is he frequently would say, Jeremiah 29:7, demand the welfare of the city which you live for. Your.
[00:04:07] Your flourishing is tied to its flourishing as a reason for why Christians should be nationalists. And that is just simply a.
[00:04:16] Not only is it just a misquoting of what Jeremiah 29:7 says. It says, seek the welfare of the city.
[00:04:24] But it's also just void of the context where because of Israel's continual drifting away, wanting to be like the nations around them. And one of the key ways they wanted to be like the nations around them was to have a king like the nations around them, one with military might and power.
[00:04:44] And because of that continual apostasy, we could say now the time had come for exile. And God explicitly told the people of Israel and Judah that they were not supposed to fight against Babylon and said they were supposed to go into exile with Babylon and seek the welfare of the city and that he would be with them. So the flourishing is not like somehow this is sort of a genie in the box. You demand welfare in the city and then you all can flourish. But more like there's a remnant that's going to make it through this exile. You have to face the consequence of being in exile, but you will be taken care of through it as you live faithfully to Yahweh in exile in spite of the fact that you're there because you were not living faithfully. So it's not.
[00:05:37] Jeremiah 29:11 is not a commissioning for Christians to engage in culture and political power struggles. It is the exact opposite in context. It is God's people submitting to the political powers that be and seeking the welfare of the city within as it pertains to just living faithfully and caring for not only your families and your communities, but also caring for the people around you who might be a hostile people to you and so forth. So just different stuff like that uses of scripture I found problematic. I'm not saying Charlie Kirk was not a Christian.
[00:06:24] There's a lot of us Christians who use scripture inappropriately.
[00:06:29] What I am saying, as someone with as much influence as he had, I did not. I was shocked to discover that people saw him as like a spiritual leader because his theology was very undeveloped and he presented dangerous ideas as. As though they are factual and. And so forth.
[00:06:55] So. But the whole standing up for common sense, having the boldness to talk about some of these things publicly.
[00:07:07] He even seemed like someone.
[00:07:09] Even though I found a lot of his debate tactics repulsive. Like, I don't think that, like, there were. There were times where he was just fine. But there's also a lot of times where it's like, I don't think even he would want to be treated that way or belittled in that way.
[00:07:28] Even though I thought some of those things about his tactics, he did genuinely seem to be someone who was open to having a conversation or debate with people.
[00:07:40] He's very quick on his feet. And that was one of his tactics, is to put you on your heel or whoever's at the mic, put them on their heels. Because then a lot of people come to situations like that not having thought through their arguments very well.
[00:07:55] And so it's easy to make them look like idiots.
[00:08:00] And a lot of the videos that you see, like, the people are just to be quite frank, idiots. They're not using common sense. And so even if I disagreed with kind of what he was presenting, he did a good job exposing the idiocracy. Is that a word? I don't even know if that's a word of some of the far left movements or ideologies or ways of thinking. And so.
[00:08:32] So yeah, let's explore this practically a little bit.
[00:08:37] The.
[00:08:38] They're strong advocates for maintaining American culture based on Christian values.
[00:08:44] So I guess that would be one thing that I would want to explore is what. What aspects of American culture are based on Christian values? And is there an openness to, first of all, to understanding that there's a lot of aspects of American culture from its very origins that actually aren't Christian?
[00:09:04] Are there certain. Are there aspects? It's like the whole Is America a Christian nation? Debate.
[00:09:12] What do we mean by that? Like, what are we saying? Are we saying that people wanted to create a new nation and so they went to the scriptures and they let scriptures guide the. Their whole view of how to establish a government and national structure? If that's what we're saying, then that's simply false. Like, that's not.
[00:09:38] Benjamin Franklin would have rolled over in his, would roll over in his grave at the idea that somehow the Bible was like the thing that they went to.
[00:09:49] There's actually more evidence that Greek mythology and, and Greco Roman, like the Roman, the Roman Republic was almost more of a source of, of drawing on how the Western government structures and so forth were established than even just the Bible. But I don't, I'm, I'm not suggesting that it's entirely fair to say that, oh, this was based off of Greek mythology. Rather, I do think it is accurate to say that as the founding fathers envisioned a new nation, one source that was cited in the process is the Bible.
[00:10:32] That is clear. We have Christians participating in the process. We also had very, you know, Benjamin Franklin is a founding father of the United States and if you don't even have to look that much into his history to realize that he was not any, anything close to a, a moral man for one thing, and then someone who would have advocated for a biblical and Christian founding of the American government.
[00:11:10] There was, yeah, it's a complex thing to talk about because yes, there were Christians by all evidence, people who claimed Jesus as their Lord, people who would value and try to structure their lives after the teachings of the word of God, who participated in the founding of the United States. But there were also people who were not very much not Christian. And, and that was a point of contention is what to do with God and what to do with Scripture.
[00:11:44] So in a similar way, I think we need to be honest or be willing to be honest about what are we saying when we say American culture based on Christian values. There are things about American culture that overlap with Christian values. I've lived in several different cross cultural settings and I can say that's true about every culture I've lived in. There are things about that culture that overlap with Christian values. And I, and one, one way Christian nationalism can show up is the idea that American culture is inherently the most Christian culture out there.
[00:12:26] Like it's most closely in line with Christian culture.
[00:12:32] And I just, again, it's like, what are we talking about? You know, within.
[00:12:39] If America was founded both governmentally and culturally founded and established on Christian values, then how did things like the, the concept of Black people being 3/5 of a person or not at least not equal to white people, how did that ever make it in there?
[00:13:06] You know, how do you ever get that sort of not only explicitly stated in the Constitution, but then even that sort of narrative to permeate a culture if indeed it's based on Christian values?
[00:13:25] Because that is an explicitly Antichrist value to view people through that sort of lens.
[00:13:32] So yes, there's certainly overlap between American culture and Christian values. But then even to kind of flesh that out a little bit further, what about like, we have some Christians who really desire policies to be in place that take care of single moms, the advocacy for fair wages between men and women, that is Christians who largely pushed and initiated a lot of that.
[00:14:11] The advocacy for certain medical benefits to help coverage for single moms who would have babies, maybe they would be at risk of committing abortions otherwise, maybe not.
[00:14:25] Maybe they're just needing to take care of their children. Like, those are also Christian values. Those are values that overlap with.
[00:14:34] There are certainly a lot of people who like those policies and push them forward who aren't necessarily Christian. Just like there are people who value marriage between a man and a woman and who don't like the indoctrination of the left as it pertains to sex identity and so forth. There are people who aren't Christian but also don't like all of that stuff too. So. But do we recognize that some of the welfare programs have been initiated by people because of their Christian values? And are we able to acknowledge that as American culture as well taken care of? But see, embedded within Turning Point USA and the, the right wing movement is a resistance to that sort, those sort of policies. It's a focus on particular sets of Christian values. And obviously it has to do with transition. People who want to transition their gender and so forth, even as it pertains to the unborn child. Like Republicans have been more vocal about that.
[00:15:47] But then, I mean, you're also getting into like, there's a lot of data from 1990 through 19, 1921 through 2021, abortions have decreased at a faster rate under Democratic presidents than Republican presidents. What do we do with that? Like, what do you. Obviously there's different variables to go through that. But yeah, Democrats are okay keeping abortion a legal option, but they kind of, to what I just touched on, they. They also advocate for things that help moms then take care of their children. And so yeah, it's. They've also been advocates of medical advancements, whereas Republicans generally speaking, like, aren't as bad, big on scientific advancements and so forth. Actually now in recent years fighting directly against it. So the question that I think I would like us to start with is what is our commitment to.
[00:16:51] Are we committed to actually seeing the values that we see in Scripture fulfilled and not just in policy, but in actuality, like what actually helps stop abortions or decrease abortions or what actually helps take care of people properly?
[00:17:13] And what I see happening so much is people get caught up in the movements and what each party presents as their agenda and their goal, and then they, they stop.
[00:17:28] And I don't mean this in a, in a, I don't know how else to say this, so I'll say it and then I'll, I'll try to clarify it. It seems as though people end up stop evaluating whether or not that, that what we're wanting to see happen is actually happening. The, you know, post Dobbs, for instance, in 2022, when Roe v. Wade was overturned, do you realize the national rate of abortions have increased in the United States?
[00:17:58] And does that bother us? Does that concern us? The Republican Party as a establishment has taken abortion off of, from being one of their main agenda items.
[00:18:15] But we still have a major, we have a worse issue of abortion in the United States than we did in 2021.
[00:18:23] And so if, if you want like, are the question that I have is am I actually committed to eliminating abortion or am I actually committed to helping people, as it pertains to this email, understand the dangers and the, the crucial mistake that it is to surgically alter their body, then, then I should be, I should be willing to let go of partisanship for it and address the root causes more specifically, regardless of what party that means. I end up sounding like, and that's my concern is what I see.
[00:19:09] I see this on both sides. I come from a Republican background. The churches I circle in are primarily Republican. I, I shocked to find that there's any Democrat in my local church or even in, you know, a lot of the churches that I circle in. So I'm going to specifically speak to the blind spots and what seems often like idolatry or a loyalty commitment to a political ideology as over against true allegiance with Jesus. But I see this happening on both sides. I see it happening among some Democrat Christians that I know of.
[00:19:54] I do have some friends who are Democrat, but the vast majority of my world is on the Republican side. And so I see us kind of like latching onto the parties as though they are advocates of our values, when in actuality they aren't necessarily and they aren't always. And we seem more loyal to the party or to the movement than we do actually, or even the ideology than we do actually to solving the issues and addressing true Christian gospel centered values. Donald Trump is hailed as someone who embodies fighting, standing up for common sense and Fighting against evil in the culture. I personally don't agree with that.
[00:20:47] Donald Trump. Donald Trump will state as fact already proven to be lies, and a lot of people will just swallow it, which is a bit baffling to me.
[00:21:00] Rather than like, testing, like, we would never do that with Biden, so why don't we test Trump to see, like, there has been a willingness to, to just forego critical thinking and testing and actually proving with data when it comes to Trump that. That kind of baffles me a little bit.
[00:21:21] Trump is a deeply immoral man. He's had a history of that. He is someone who is pushing aside. He's. He talks about being for law and order, but he pushes aside law and order to get done what he wants to achieve, frequently going past or going around due process and just imposing what, what he wants done in. In a variety of ways. But probably the most stark way recently has been how he's handled undocumented immigrants and so forth.
[00:21:58] There is due process for that, and Donald Trump has ignored that, has foregone that.
[00:22:06] And in the, in the collective thrust of it all, there have been genuine US Citizens who have ended up being hurt and harmed by that because there was not careful due process. So I'm not in advocating for this, and the email didn't bring this up, but I used immigration as an example of how Donald Trump is not embodying the rule of law and embodying common sense.
[00:22:33] I'm not saying that there should never be deportations. I'm not saying there should never be consequences for not being properly documented. I'm saying within the United States law, there is due process for this. And Donald Trump is foregoing that. Not, I think that how he handled the 2020 elections, like, there's absolutely nothing about that that communicated common sense and, and so unless you are loyal to Trump and.
[00:23:05] But I guess an appeal that I would have is because every time I talk about this, people automatically think I'm somehow pro Biden and pro left.
[00:23:12] And it's like, well, I never propped up the left as an example. So I'm not sure why we make that logical jump. But the best news outlet, media outlet that I really appreciate following is the Dispatch Network. The people at the Dispatch, David French, Stephen Hayes, Jonah Goldberg, Sarah Isger. I'm sure there's a lot of other people there that I'm not even privy to all their names right now, but they are Republican politically conservative people who have been calling the bluff and the hypocrisy on the MAGA movement and Donald Trump this whole time. And so that's where a lot of my concerns come from.
[00:23:58] It is on the Republican side pointing out how unrepublican Donald Trump's behavior and unconservative his way of leading has been historically. So. So I guess I'm kind of pulling that out.
[00:24:16] And I would just say I flat out disagree with that. I'm not sure what else to do to say that Donald Trump embodies standing up against evil. He actually embodies living into evil. He has dropped more bombs in a annual span of time than any other president in the United States.
[00:24:36] He hides under the guise of the fact that he's not starting any new wars. But Donald Trump is very much a warmonger in.
[00:24:46] In the understanding of, like, he's actually facilitating war conflicts and. And dropping a lot of, like, participating in war.
[00:24:56] So are we committed to the language, like, he's not starting any new wars? Well, as a follower of Jesus, I believe any war is evil. I'm not. I wrestle with the conflict going on in Ukraine because it's evil what Putin is doing.
[00:25:13] And then at the same time, like, I wish there would be no war.
[00:25:18] There's an aspect of inspiration for the way that President Zelensky has led his people over there through the middle of all this turmoil.
[00:25:31] But it's all just stuff that causes me to cry out and say, how long, Lord Jesus, till you come and speak the judgment on all these evildoers.
[00:25:43] My whole point being that Donald Trump uses language that gets Christians on board.
[00:25:50] But as someone who understands the way of Jesus to be someone who hammers their weapons of war into plowshares and cultivation and peace and participating in the way of the lamb as opposed to the way of the sword and the way of violence, I don't see Donald Trump embodying the kinds of things that I. That I see in Scripture saying a government is supposed to do. Government is given the sword to punish evil and reward good. And I see Donald Trump frequently rewarding evil and punishing good.
[00:26:30] Obviously, there are some times good when it happens to overlap with the Republican agenda.
[00:26:36] There's good that Donald Trump rewards.
[00:26:38] There's certainly some evil. Like Donald Trump, as a Republican, has been more outspoken against the woke left view of sexuality and sex ethics. But if you studied or tracked Donald Trump historically, he's been very pro LGBTQ throughout his life. And. And then obviously, not to mention just his own marriage and his having had several accounts of sexual misconduct against him.
[00:27:15] And by all appearances, obviously, this has been Conveniently sidelined, but sure seems like he had quite a bit to do with Epstein as well. And so, yeah, I just, I cannot agree with that idea that Donald Trump is someone who embodies common sense and certainly does not embody fighting against evil.
[00:27:40] And this kind of comes back to something. So I have family members who vote. So this is certainly there are people who I love and deeply appreciate who disagree with me on this.
[00:27:56] There are also a lot of people who I really appreciate who do agree with me. So emboldened to talk more boldly about this.
[00:28:06] But as a disciple of Jesus, if you're to be involved in politics and you're going to cast a vote for somebody, you are essentially saying that I value fighting against one kind of evil more than fighting against another kind of evil.
[00:28:22] And I don't understand how we can do that. Maybe I'm too simplistic. I think we need to fight against all evil. And what I see happening on both the right and the left is I see people making exceptions because, yeah, I know they, they tolerate that one thing, but they're really against this other thing. And that individual has decided that other thing is the more important thing to be against. But in other areas of their policy and other areas of their life and their belief system, they're still fighting. They're still basically being evil and supporting evil. And I see a lack of, like what, what's happening en masse. This is not true because there are people. Eugene Cho is someone who I, I really appreciate his participation in the advocacy world. He is not just voting and thinking that he's done his work with it by casting a vote, but his whole organization is centered around lobbying and, and political activism and so forth for on behalf of values that derive from the teachings of Jesus.
[00:29:35] The AND Campaign. Justin Gibney. So forth with the Ann Campaign.
[00:29:40] Is that his name? Justin Gibbony? Because there's also a Taylor. Is that Justin Taylor as well?
[00:29:46] I forget now right offhand, but the and Campaign is another great example of this book, is a wonderful book. Compassion and Conviction by the end Campaign.
[00:30:00] Chris Butler.
[00:30:02] Why was I thinking Taylor? I don't know. Justin Gibney, Michael Ware and Chris Butler. Chris Butler's who I was thinking of.
[00:30:10] They are examples of people who aren't just voting, aren't just participating in politics and assuming that that's going to get done. Like they, they do a tremendous job of calling out the evil on the left and on the right.
[00:30:30] And I guess.
[00:30:32] But when I see en masse my peers, I see a lot of people sliding into a. An ideological viewpoint and then no longer calling out the evil within that ideological viewpoint.
[00:30:50] And I just, I'm not, I have not been able to justify, at least in my conscience, a, a thing for that.
[00:30:59] And I stand free as someone who doesn't vote where I can. I can call out the evil on both sides, and I can.
[00:31:08] I can advocate for true justice and morality freely with my neighbors and the people in my community as we talk about things. I can walk across the street and engage my neighbor who flies proudly a Do not tread on me banner. We can invite our democratic neighbors on the right and the left into our home and host them for a meal and hear their stories of growing up in the community and the things that they feel as needs within our community and so forth. Those would be a lot harder to do if.
[00:31:44] If I was entrenched dogmatically on one side or the other. And so, yeah, I guess that's all just kind of some general rambling in this notion that, well, first of all, that Donald Trump embodies common sense and fighting against evil. I don't see that.
[00:32:03] And then secondly, that in order to do that, we have to be involved in politics. And I think now just to dive even deeper at the theological and philosophical level, this is the number one concern that I have. I have watched this happen in my lifetime. I'm only 34 years old. I'm not terribly old, but I have watched this happen in my lifetime. I see it happening with a lot of peers. And that is buying into this notion like, it is hard.
[00:32:37] It is hard. I don't feel like me and my wife don't feel like we're doing this perfectly. Like what I'm about to present is a vision, an aspiration of what we desire to do and to participate in. We have, to greater or lesser degrees, throughout different periods of life.
[00:32:55] But it is really, really hard to be at a grassroots level discipling people and helping people walk through the. The fact that we have so many single parents in our culture, right. Like that in itself is a theological and moral issue that needs to be addressed. And you can't address that over politics and legislation.
[00:33:19] That. That has to. That only happens at a discipleship level where you're walking with people through very turbulent times of their life.
[00:33:29] And in discipleship and in walking with people, you. You have people who come along and they're growing and they're lear so much, and then there's backsliding and there may even be months, if not years of just like, well, I don't know how this individual is doing or, you know, all this stuff. And. And they might even spend time dabbling in another world view and another loud message that somehow they came across and have been entrenched with and so forth.
[00:33:56] And like, true discipleship is messy and long and hard. But here's what I'm seeing happen in my lifetime is people are giving up on that, if they ever were.
[00:34:10] Like, some of us are coming from communities and homes that weren't even involved in that. And so we're growing up, and now maybe we just had a family business, a construction business, or lived on a farm or something. And that was the focus and the focal point.
[00:34:25] And now we see the needs in the world and in our culture and we want to help impact it. And so the only way that we can conceive of doing that is by getting involved in the political activism of our time.
[00:34:37] Well, here's, here's the thing.
[00:34:39] I don't think it's original with Francis Schaeffer, but I know Francis Schaeffer said it and like, that was in the mid-1900s, and that is, well, 1960s, 70s, whenever Francis Schaeffer was.
[00:34:52] That's someone talking who's in the 2020 era, that politics is downstream of culture.
[00:35:02] What that means is when it shows up on politics, when you see someone like Donald Trump elected to office, that's because culture was already where Donald Trump is.
[00:35:11] Culture was already at the brash, demagogue, kind of say whatever you want and kind of bullying way of bantering and communicating. Culture was already there. That's how that got elected.
[00:35:28] That's the concept that politics is downstream of culture. So I think it's. On one hand we can point to politics and say, here's issues. Like, that's kind of the clear, obvious statement of where things are at.
[00:35:45] But it's not going to be solved through politics, because politics flows from culture. It's downstream of culture. And so how do we impact culture? One of the best books.
[00:35:59] See if I have it on my shelf here to show But Culture Making by Andy Crouch. Yeah, this is a fantastic book on this subject. This is probably.
[00:36:09] It's actually a book I read a number of years ago and I want to read again because we are in a new stage of life. And I just remember being very inspired by the vision that Crouch puts forward as to how Christians can participate in culture making.
[00:36:25] And he walks through five different postures that the Evangelical church has taken towards culture.
[00:36:33] Let me see if I can see them in the Outline or remember them right off hand, he calls them.
[00:36:41] You know, on one hand there's, there was like the resisting culture, like have nothing to do with it. On the other hand there was like, let's have conversations about it. Let's, let's, you know, try to try to understand it. And, and then on the other hand it's like, oh, let's use culture things and then make our own version of it. And he, There were a couple other, what I've listed three so far. There were five, five different postures.
[00:37:09] And he, he says that all, all of those failed first of all to have a meaningful impact on culture.
[00:37:17] If anything, they exacerbated the problem.
[00:37:20] And he says instead of them being postures, they should be gestures. Like different seasons of culture and different events and so forth require different types of response. There are times to condemn and to resist culture. There are times to have a conversation around it and understand what's going on. There are other times to say, hey, this is what you're doing.
[00:37:44] Let's do a similar thing for Jesus or for the kingdom or whatever.
[00:37:50] But he fleshes out culture making in a very robust, like, compelling way of just participating in.
[00:38:01] First of all, like the idea that somehow you can withdraw from culture is a little bit of a weird thing because you are culture. Like culture is what you make of the world. So you are like a family is going to have a culture, but even an individual is going to have a sense of culture. You are what you make of the world. Like culture is what you make of the world. And so making of the world, narratives, products, services, cultural artifacts I think is the term that he uses that tell the story of the gospel and of Jesus. That's a powerful way that we can participate in impact culture. And we see this happening in some realms where you have Christians who are helped script movies in Hollywood even there are movies that come out that have strong Christian undertones and so forth and yet aren't.
[00:39:02] It's not like they're this distinctly Christian.
[00:39:05] It's an alternative to Hollywood, this Christian.
[00:39:09] And so that's just one way. Obviously we don't necessarily know the effectiveness of that, but I know that. I mean, I've had conversations with young people where they saw the movie and the movie presented questions and conundrums that are powerful platforms for talking about the way of Jesus. And they would have never gone and watched a Christian movie. And so having Christians who, who can move into those spaces and begin to influence the storytelling by telling the story, presenting the gospel view and Perspective, I think is powerful. I think, I think that's going to have a far greater impact on culture than just going off and starting this own media company that creates Christian movies. Christian movies will serve Christians. It gives them entertainment that is wholesome. But it, like a lot of non Christians aren't necessarily going to interact with that stuff, except the chosen is kind of breaking that narrative as well. There are a lot of people who are engaging that content.
[00:40:18] But all that to say, like the impact of culture through the political sphere.
[00:40:25] On one hand, it's kind of backwards because politics is downstream of culture.
[00:40:30] But then also like you don't, you can't legislate righteousness getting a bunch of people. And we understand this at the church level.
[00:40:40] Our generation is tired of churches that require you to behave a certain way. And yet nothing's been changed on the inside. And yet somehow it also seems like our generation is more dogmatic perhaps than even our parents.
[00:40:55] Maybe I'm wrong, but I mean, I've been surprised how many young peers of mine who are getting caught up in the mega Christian nationalist movement.
[00:41:08] And yet I'm kind of confused. Like, why would you justify pushing legislation on people if it's not coming from a genuine change?
[00:41:21] And I think the argument is to surgically alter your body has permanent marks, permanent consequences. And that we want to save people from that. Right. Like, I want my child to listen to me and to honor me when I see them run out in front of a vehicle. I'm going to go grab them and bring them in and not let them be hit by the vehicle. In fact, maybe I'll be hit myself by the vehicle in the process. And so that's, that's a part of the rationale that we're grappling with culture may, like we want to save them from being hit by the vehicle. Right. And so we're willing to coerce, get off the road, get out of the way of this.
[00:42:06] The analogy was vehicle, but then I went to a dumpster fire or train wreck coming.
[00:42:12] But I think hopefully you're tracking with me what I'm saying. Like I understand that, but here's my concern.
[00:42:21] As more and more Christians get involved in the dogmatic political fighting, if you can somehow do it, do it like the Anne campaigned where they call out the evil on both sides, do it like who else did I mention earlier? Oh, Eugene Cho on Bread for the World, I think is his organization.
[00:42:43] Like if you can do it in that way where it's not inflammatory, where it's a non hostile Approach, I don't stand in judgment here. I think God can use that. I don't even know that it's in my place to judge whether or not Turning Point USA is going to be effective. I have seen some fruit that raises red flags in my mind, but maybe God, God's going to use this all to bring a genuine change from people within. I don't know. But if you can advocate for the ways of the kingdom without a hostile, aggressive, inflammatory, demanding sort of culture war, then I think that could be quite powerful.
[00:43:29] My concern is it's all going towards inflammatory. Like in my lifetime I have seen on both sides. Although to be honest, the friends of mine who have gone to the left or at least willing to vote Democrat and so forth, they seem more open minded and more approachable and conversational than the friends of mine on the right. Like the vitriol that I personally experience comes from the right and we hear on the news and so forth, a lot of vitriol that comes from the left. I've certainly seen stuff that people say, far left YouTubers and stuff that are whatever and, and so I'm not, I'm not saying that the left is exempt from, from argumentative ism and all that. I'm just saying in my context, the people that I know, it's, it's Christians who have bought into mega movement that are very vitriolic, that say things that I'm quite positive they wouldn't like, they would be very deeply hurt if people said it of them.
[00:44:44] And so I just, this, this type of approach, this aggressive, argumentative, demanding that things go a certain way, it creates a widening of the chasm where people want nothing to do with Jesus because that was presented as the Jesus way.
[00:45:02] And the Jesus way isn't just about a good ethic of sexuality. The Jesus way is also about how we go about the posture and the way that we present this and the way that we engage people. That's also a part of the Jesus way.
[00:45:20] And there's a lot of justification that some people will make. Well, Jesus turned over tables. Jesus said some very ad hominem attacks to the, you know, the religious leaders and so forth. And I'm just like, hey, let's, let's read scripture in context and understand what's going on. Like those are people who should know better.
[00:45:41] So I think Jesus would maybe talk that way to you perhaps, but not to somebody who's confused about their gender and needs to understand ultimately that Yahweh loves them so that they can begin to Explore the broken parts of their story that have led into this genuine confusion of their gender.
[00:46:09] And so that's like, I'm just like, I have. And I run the risk of making it sound like I'm doing a huge, making a huge impact for the world.
[00:46:21] And I actually don't feel like I am.
[00:46:25] I wish I had more time and more opportunities to have these kinds of conversations with people.
[00:46:32] But I have been able to have very blunt conversations with people genuinely wrestling with their gender identity, sexual confusion, or even just like, why does it matter that I get married? Like, one young man told me a few years ago, he's like, I can't fathom committing myself to a lady for life. And he had three kids at the time and had had two or three girlfriends.
[00:46:58] It was like, I've been able to have conversations with those kinds of people that I'm not sure I could have. If I was dogmatically into political activism, should there be a sense of political advocate activism?
[00:47:14] Maybe like, the slave trade would have never been abolished if there weren't people in politics, if there wasn't a Wilberforce who was in politics, who was gripped by the evil of the slave trade.
[00:47:31] Yeah, there's a host of examples that we could pull from, obviously.
[00:47:36] But at the same time, I guess one of my biggest concerns is this sense of demanding and sense of warfare that I see a lot of Christians participating in and totally forgetting that the warfare is not physical.
[00:47:50] It's not a matter of political powers. The warfare is spiritual, and it runs down the heart of every man. It does not run down political lines. Like, there are a lot of people on the left who need Jesus and need to understand the kingdom of God 100%.
[00:48:10] There are also a lot of people on the right who need Jesus, who need to understand the kingdom of God. Our president is one of them.
[00:48:21] Can you acknowledge that? Or is your commitment and loyalty to one particular party and one particular ideological viewpoint, is that blinding you to being able to see the evil within the Republican camp or to see the evil within the Democratic camp?
[00:48:40] That's the concern that I have. I mean, we have people hailing RFK Jr. As like, some moral, righteous person who cares about kids. The dude has a track record of cheating on his wife and lying about things that's not caring for kids. Like, yeah, I, I'm not sure how else to say it.
[00:49:03] The. So, yeah, I, I, I very much wrestle with this whole concept together too. Like, there's, there's a lot of science coming out around the, the damage of affirming someone's gender, how they're ident, how they're identifying, and then the damage being done to surgically alter their bodies, physically alter their bodies, like that is.
[00:49:30] That is an evil in and of its own. Not.
[00:49:33] Not just because it goes against the word of God, But. And this is why I think the word of God says what it does. It's evil because of what it does to people's psyches and their.
[00:49:45] Their own internal chemical makeup and what they're. Like, there's. There's stories coming out, but there's also scientific data coming out of how, like, there are non Christian scientists who do not think that is wise scientifically because of what it's doing to human bodies.
[00:50:08] As a Christian, I stand back and say, I think that's why God says. Why God's word says what it does is he knew what it would actually do to our bodies. And. And so I totally.
[00:50:21] I totally feel with you the.
[00:50:25] How evil this is, but I can't. I can't justify it. Like, why would.
[00:50:32] Why do I value that evil above, like, actually caring, like, solving the root issue of abortion and making it possible so that moms can know and understand what their baby's like inside the womb, making it possible that they can have what it needs to be taken care of outside of the womb.
[00:50:55] The commands, like, throughout the Old Testament and the New Testament of caring for the immigrant, the poor, and the widow and the vulnerable among us, like, for me to vote for one party so that they address the LGBTQ issue of our day means that I'm going to be voting in a party that is also doing evil in this other regard. And I don't. I can't justify that. As a disciple of Jesus, I want to be able to stand up and advocate against evil in any way and on all behalfs.
[00:51:25] So, yeah, that's about an hour's worth of responding to it. I think it's a fantastic question.
[00:51:32] And I think these kinds of questions and perspectives come from people, people who genuinely want to fight against evil and to see goodness flourish. And so we're all kind of grappling with and trying to understand how that works together. So I'm not trying to condemn someone specifically. I would advocate for our own personal willingness to engage people. Sometimes people box this in as. As though there's certain spiritual gifts profiled to this, but it's actually what we were commanded to do.
[00:52:09] The command that Jesus gave all of us to do is to go into the world and make disciples of all peoples baptizing. Them in the name of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit.
[00:52:18] Lo, I'm with you always, even to the end. We're going to be lonely. We're going to be. We are exiles. We're going to find ourselves on the outs of both ideological sides or all the political ideologies that there could ever be be conceived of.
[00:52:35] But the call is to make disciples. And that is like, sometimes that gets simplified to preach the gospel.
[00:52:42] Preach the gospel is very much a part of it. But we're called to make disciples, which is walking with people as they're struggling with their substance abuse, like, helping them understand why they keep turning to substance, what's going on in their soul, that they keep turning to these substance abuse addictions or why can't you hold down a job? Or what? You know, what is it that causes you to flip from relationship to relationship to relationship, to want sex, but not without the commitment of family and so forth. Like walking with people in this whole journey and process, you can't have that conversation on street corner, and you certainly can't have that conversation in one or two conversations. It's a process of walking with someone through life and being there with them in the middle of their mistakes and, and their successes and navigating all of life and showing, like, exposing yourself so that they can see your own, how you're governing your household and relating to your wife and your children, and then also the ways you fail and how you repair the times that you fail and all that. Like, this is. That's the call of Jesus. And maybe it sounds way too simplistic, but I don't see very many of us actually doing. Doing it, actually spending a lot of time doing it. And so our energies and our frustrations and our passions get all caught up around these political narratives where at the end of the day, like, you're holding to one side that's going to be prioritizing, fighting against a certain evil over here and kind of minimizing an evil over here. When. What if we took that same amount of energy and passion and started going across our lawn to our neighbors on a regular basis and started engaging people? And I, like, I think our neighbors are the place to start, but even other people around town, so forth. Like, how much are we actually. For those who care about fighting against LGBTQ rights, how many people in your sphere do you have over to your house regularly who, who face confusion in their gender identity?
[00:54:49] Like, I think if you're lopsided on that, like, you don't have too many people in that sphere. But you're really passionate against transgender.
[00:54:57] What do you call it? Transition, you know, laws that, that would allow kids to transition so forth. I think by your life, you're actually saying that doesn't matter a whole lot to you. And some of that is maybe a little unfair because there's, there's certainly like, I didn't seek out the people that I know who face these struggles. I didn't necessarily seek them out there in my life.
[00:55:20] But I do think if we're going to grow passionate about a subject, then we should seek out people who are in that target audience, people who are in the middle of that struggle, so that at the very least we can understand what they're dealing with.
[00:55:39] Because without understanding, we have no clue how to provide solutions and to how to help them solve. And so, yeah, I guess the call, again, maybe it's way too simplistic.
[00:55:54] What I feel inside myself sometimes can be an exhaustion because it's a lot of hard work.
[00:55:59] But we are called to make disciples.
[00:56:02] And that's not just preach the gospel. It certainly is to also preach the gospel, but it's also a very hard, arduous, long term play to walk with people in the messy middle of life.
[00:56:15] And it's in that context that we can have the most profound impact with people. The person who said this to me, as a teacher, that is a profound position to be in where you're shaping young people's lives and hearts. And I happen to know the school that he teaches at and he faces frequent opportunity, I'm sure, even though I don't know his students. But there's many of opportunities to have conversations about these issues and to help them explore the deeper fundamental ways of understanding the world, understanding ourselves, and ultimately understanding God that can begin to shape the next generation.
[00:56:59] So, yeah, that is how I would respond to this. I would appreciate, obviously in my response, my email response to this person, I will definitely invite feedback, but I would appreciate anybody's feedback to understanding. What sorts of things do you think about in light of all of this? God bless Sam.
