1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:11,040 And we are live, episode 29 of To The Unknown Pod. 2 00:00:11,780 --> 00:00:12,920 My name is Jordan Bush. 3 00:00:12,980 --> 00:00:14,840 I'm the executive director of TGFB Media. 4 00:00:15,440 --> 00:00:18,400 We exist to help Christians understand and use Bitcoin for the glory of God and the good 5 00:00:18,400 --> 00:00:19,080 of people everywhere. 6 00:00:19,740 --> 00:00:25,400 Today, I'm joined by the normal, usual cast and crew here, Jim McAndrew, Tim Fox, Oshawa 7 00:00:25,400 --> 00:00:25,800 Hawthorne. 8 00:00:26,140 --> 00:00:27,400 Go ahead and introduce yourselves. 9 00:00:27,400 --> 00:00:32,200 i'm tim fox executive director of the magnolia foundation 10 00:00:32,200 --> 00:00:37,320 also a presbyterian minister helping with magnolia helping orange build the church 11 00:00:37,320 --> 00:00:44,920 i'm jim i work with tim at magnolia as tech support i also run a company called drone link 12 00:00:44,920 --> 00:00:55,420 do you use the drones for your ministry could that'd be cool so i'm ashiel hawthorne i'm the 13 00:00:55,420 --> 00:01:01,280 executive director and founder of Brilliance Labs. And I was on a long road trip and vacation 14 00:01:01,280 --> 00:01:07,120 for a month. So I'm happy to be back with you guys. Yeah, we are. We're happy to have you back, 15 00:01:07,220 --> 00:01:12,980 Ash. Today's episode is, again, going to be a little bit more of a somber one, probably the 16 00:01:12,980 --> 00:01:19,100 most somber one we've done up to this point. It's called The Death of Charlie Kirk and the 17 00:01:19,100 --> 00:01:25,400 consequences of subsidized injustice. We're going to just, obviously there's so much that we, 18 00:01:25,560 --> 00:01:31,760 that we could say that has been said. This episode was initially designed to just be about 19 00:01:31,760 --> 00:01:36,280 the, this latter half of the topic, the consequences of subsidized injustice. And we were going to talk 20 00:01:36,280 --> 00:01:43,400 about the stabbing that happened for this young Ukrainian lady in Charlotte. We had everything 21 00:01:43,400 --> 00:01:50,140 set up and ready to go. And then we're all horrified yesterday to hear the news about 22 00:01:50,140 --> 00:01:55,960 Charlie being shot and all the stuff that went with that. So we just wanted to take the opportunity 23 00:01:55,960 --> 00:02:02,980 to talk through some of the issues that maybe haven't been discussed as much. And so we'll see 24 00:02:02,980 --> 00:02:08,500 kind of where this leads. The first thing that I want us to discuss is something that we don't 25 00:02:08,500 --> 00:02:15,360 even have tweets for. It's kind of, it's meta in that way. Just basically, the question that we all 26 00:02:15,360 --> 00:02:20,980 kind of were talking about was, should we even watch these videos? Obviously, in the case of 27 00:02:20,980 --> 00:02:28,380 the young Ukrainian woman, there's very just graphic video displaying her final moments and 28 00:02:28,380 --> 00:02:32,680 what that looked like. There were some people who watched them and were sharing them widely on 29 00:02:32,680 --> 00:02:37,500 social media and, you know, felt justified in doing so. And then there's plenty of other people 30 00:02:37,500 --> 00:02:42,560 who just said, I'm not going to watch that or I can't watch that. And so I want to just maybe 31 00:02:42,560 --> 00:02:52,020 start there. Is this something that Christians should consume? I'll leave the floor open to 32 00:02:52,020 --> 00:03:01,960 anybody who wants to kind of lead off the discussion. I'll try to give the straw man 33 00:03:01,960 --> 00:03:05,840 or the steel man for both sides. So if you want to do that, maybe we'll go that route. 34 00:03:07,500 --> 00:03:11,720 Yeah, well, I'll start just with the decision that I made. 35 00:03:12,500 --> 00:03:17,700 And I don't want to impose it on anyone else, but I'll give my thought process. 36 00:03:18,520 --> 00:03:23,060 So, like Twitter, I noticed after Elon Musk took over, 37 00:03:23,780 --> 00:03:30,160 I got an influx of violent videos showing up in my feed. 38 00:03:30,160 --> 00:03:35,480 They changed something with the algorithm and they would feed you accounts you don't already follow 39 00:03:35,480 --> 00:03:38,280 so that you would find new content or whatever. 40 00:03:39,020 --> 00:03:43,460 And there would just be these like enraged porn kind of, 41 00:03:43,860 --> 00:03:47,280 hey, look, this person was beat up by this other person. 42 00:03:47,380 --> 00:03:48,960 Often it's racially charged. 43 00:03:49,380 --> 00:03:54,980 And I just started blocking and muting every single account 44 00:03:54,980 --> 00:03:59,040 that in my feed I got an unasked for, 45 00:03:59,360 --> 00:04:01,860 just look at this video, be angry. 46 00:04:01,860 --> 00:04:05,720 and it took me about a week to just clean my feed 47 00:04:05,720 --> 00:04:08,820 to make sure that didn't happen. 48 00:04:09,300 --> 00:04:13,600 So as a person, that's not what I'm going to X or Twitter for. 49 00:04:13,900 --> 00:04:15,020 I'm not interested in that. 50 00:04:15,980 --> 00:04:17,240 It's not good for my soul. 51 00:04:17,620 --> 00:04:18,760 It's not what I'm looking for. 52 00:04:20,980 --> 00:04:24,180 And so with these, the two videos, 53 00:04:24,680 --> 00:04:28,060 I didn't go looking for them. 54 00:04:28,260 --> 00:04:30,280 I did when I just was trying to figure out 55 00:04:30,280 --> 00:04:31,500 what happened with the Kirk. 56 00:04:31,860 --> 00:04:40,500 video i saw of a long distance zoom in shot of the the hit and and he slumps over and there's 57 00:04:40,500 --> 00:04:48,020 like a spot of red in his neck and and for me that was enough i i understood what happened 58 00:04:48,020 --> 00:04:57,380 and then i had to process it um it i don't feel like it it does i don't gain anything more um 59 00:04:57,380 --> 00:05:05,620 watching a close-up uh video of that or this other this other video um and then even the other video 60 00:05:05,620 --> 00:05:12,020 i i you see the images on the on the train of the woman slumped over and i saw that um but i didn't 61 00:05:12,020 --> 00:05:20,020 need to see that that the moment of of violence yeah i mean a lot of these platforms just have 62 00:05:20,020 --> 00:05:26,180 auto-playing videos when you scroll through your feed right so you do have to be really careful i 63 00:05:26,180 --> 00:05:32,360 I think I don't, I mean, Tim can weigh in on whether or not our conscientious consciences 64 00:05:32,360 --> 00:05:33,980 should be bound on something here. 65 00:05:34,100 --> 00:05:38,720 I'm intentionally trying to not see the videos. 66 00:05:38,900 --> 00:05:45,140 I intentionally didn't seek out like the beheading videos, um, from decades past. 67 00:05:45,140 --> 00:05:49,660 I also intentionally have not ever watched any abortion content. 68 00:05:49,660 --> 00:05:54,100 I'm already pretty incensed by all of it 69 00:05:54,100 --> 00:05:57,580 so I don't really need to get any more enraged 70 00:05:57,580 --> 00:06:00,740 I feel like I'm as enraged as I can be 71 00:06:00,740 --> 00:06:03,460 and I have a photographic memory 72 00:06:03,460 --> 00:06:04,800 and that stuff just sticks with me 73 00:06:04,800 --> 00:06:06,240 I think it sticks with anybody 74 00:06:06,240 --> 00:06:08,840 but I can just 75 00:06:08,840 --> 00:06:12,680 my mind can just replay it 76 00:06:12,680 --> 00:06:14,260 so I don't know 77 00:06:14,260 --> 00:06:15,300 that's kind of where I'm at 78 00:06:15,300 --> 00:06:17,680 but I also have watched John Wick 79 00:06:17,680 --> 00:06:18,960 so I mean 80 00:06:18,960 --> 00:06:22,160 I don't know you know it's like when I know 81 00:06:22,160 --> 00:06:23,740 it's movie and fake 82 00:06:23,740 --> 00:06:26,200 it's just there's 83 00:06:26,200 --> 00:06:27,600 a different quality to it 84 00:06:27,600 --> 00:06:30,260 in terms of just my mind so I don't 85 00:06:30,260 --> 00:06:31,260 know Tim what do you think 86 00:06:31,260 --> 00:06:34,200 I think 87 00:06:34,200 --> 00:06:35,680 it may be one of these 88 00:06:35,680 --> 00:06:38,200 first Corinthians all things are 89 00:06:38,200 --> 00:06:40,200 lawful but not all things are beneficial 90 00:06:40,200 --> 00:06:42,500 is it 91 00:06:42,500 --> 00:06:44,200 necessarily wrong to watch 92 00:06:44,200 --> 00:06:46,040 it no but I think for a lot of people 93 00:06:46,040 --> 00:06:47,900 it's not, at best, it's not helpful. 94 00:06:48,420 --> 00:06:49,440 And it's probably harmful. 95 00:06:50,620 --> 00:06:51,740 I did watch the Charlotte 96 00:06:51,740 --> 00:06:53,960 Kirk close-up one. I regret watching it. 97 00:06:54,360 --> 00:06:55,620 I did not watch 98 00:06:55,620 --> 00:06:58,000 the Charlotte one. But, yeah, 99 00:06:58,060 --> 00:06:58,740 I don't know. I think, 100 00:06:59,280 --> 00:07:01,760 yeah, I mean, I grew up playing very violent 101 00:07:01,760 --> 00:07:03,940 video games, Grand Theft Auto 102 00:07:03,940 --> 00:07:05,500 and all that stuff, and really enjoyed it. 103 00:07:05,780 --> 00:07:07,520 But as a dad now, I'm like, 104 00:07:08,340 --> 00:07:09,820 you know, I don't think this is 105 00:07:09,820 --> 00:07:11,640 probably a good idea, especially 106 00:07:11,640 --> 00:07:13,480 for my kids. And there's 107 00:07:13,480 --> 00:07:14,800 some things that are 108 00:07:14,800 --> 00:07:22,500 not wise you're not ready for it there's a line somewhere in uh corrie ten boom's book 109 00:07:22,500 --> 00:07:29,660 uh the hiding place where her she's like riding a train and her i think she's starting to ask her 110 00:07:29,660 --> 00:07:35,260 dad about what's going on with the jews and the nazis in amsterdam or amcam in uh wherever she was 111 00:07:35,260 --> 00:07:41,920 harlem in the netherlands and her dad says well kind of like a suitcase on a train that is too big 112 00:07:41,920 --> 00:07:45,200 for you to lift up above you onto the rack. There's some things that you're not ready yet 113 00:07:45,200 --> 00:07:51,620 to carry. It's my job to carry them for you. So yeah, I don't know. I think, is it necessarily 114 00:07:51,620 --> 00:07:56,500 wrong? Not necessarily, but I think we probably need to be careful about assuming I'm someone 115 00:07:56,500 --> 00:08:02,420 that can handle this and I need to see it. And yeah, I don't know. Maybe I'm being inconsistent. 116 00:08:02,620 --> 00:08:06,760 I've seen different things about this over the years. I'm generally more comfortable with seeing 117 00:08:06,760 --> 00:08:10,800 violence, especially in movies, than I am with sexual stuff. And I would feel more comfortable 118 00:08:10,800 --> 00:08:14,580 with my kids seeing violence in movies and sexual things like i've never watched game of thrones 119 00:08:14,580 --> 00:08:18,200 even though people really like it because it's just like i don't think this is a good idea 120 00:08:18,200 --> 00:08:23,120 certainly wouldn't honor my wife even if i can completely keep myself from ever lusting about it 121 00:08:23,120 --> 00:08:27,000 is that inconsistent maybe a part of me thinks sexual stuff may be more 122 00:08:27,000 --> 00:08:32,560 potent and destruction destructive than violent stuff but the violent stuff is not nothing 123 00:08:32,560 --> 00:08:40,640 i mean the sexual stuff is in a lot of instances like actually happening to the actors 124 00:08:40,640 --> 00:08:48,280 and actresses um you know versus not so i think there could be some distinction there between like 125 00:08:48,280 --> 00:08:54,180 is something actually happening versus not um but then also i feel like our society is just 126 00:08:54,180 --> 00:09:01,600 very much sanitized and sterilized and there's no i mean 200 years ago people would have seen 127 00:09:01,600 --> 00:09:06,320 dead bodies and things like that and we don't have that anymore and so there's there's something 128 00:09:06,320 --> 00:09:13,960 there that we are not as decent as desensitized in a lot of ways that a lot of people would have 129 00:09:13,960 --> 00:09:19,720 firsthand experienced and seen a lot of pretty horrific things not that that's like something 130 00:09:19,720 --> 00:09:25,200 that we should find out or something yeah yeah yeah so again there i would separate because i 131 00:09:25,200 --> 00:09:29,180 would kind of i guess for this both in real life and for the sake of this argument i would kind of 132 00:09:29,180 --> 00:09:33,720 be on the other side of things where again there i do think i mean again 133 00:09:33,720 --> 00:09:42,200 we don't want to, what we don't want to do is try to bury ourselves in a hole and like get away from 134 00:09:42,200 --> 00:09:45,660 reality. Okay. So this is, and I'm not saying you guys are doing this. I'm saying this is one, 135 00:09:45,800 --> 00:09:49,820 this is one ditch you can fall into is just basically we're going to plug our ears. We're 136 00:09:49,820 --> 00:09:53,180 going to run away from evil. We're never, you know, we're like, we don't want to know anything 137 00:09:53,180 --> 00:09:56,960 about it. Um, and I'm sure there's people listening to this who that would be your, 138 00:09:57,020 --> 00:10:01,460 your pushback. It'd be like something of like grow up guys, you know, like that would be like 139 00:10:01,460 --> 00:10:05,860 you're you're grown men you know the the difference between tim the situation from 140 00:10:05,860 --> 00:10:10,260 cory ten boom you know that you mentioned would be yes this is a father trying to keep his daughter 141 00:10:10,260 --> 00:10:15,740 from some of this stuff that makes sense um and so you know the father is bearing this on behalf of 142 00:10:15,740 --> 00:10:21,080 his daughter um i i do think there is an element to which that is a helpful framework to think about 143 00:10:21,080 --> 00:10:26,660 this of we're not like this this is first of all if you're if your motivation for watching some of 144 00:10:26,660 --> 00:10:33,000 this stuff is to, you know, enrage yourself or just, I want to watch this over and over again. 145 00:10:33,000 --> 00:10:38,880 So it burns into my mind so that I'm, you know, I never forget this. I think there can be damage 146 00:10:38,880 --> 00:10:44,640 there. You know, I think, and it takes wisdom to know your, know yourself and your own spirit 147 00:10:44,640 --> 00:10:49,060 and soul just to figure out like how, how helpful is this? I do think that's a very valuable 148 00:10:49,060 --> 00:10:54,640 concern. I will say the, the, the beheading videos, if you guys are just kind of coming 149 00:10:54,640 --> 00:10:57,880 and cold. You're like, what in the world are they talking about? So there were, it was one of the 150 00:10:57,880 --> 00:11:03,240 first examples of this. I remember it was, I was in high school, uh, when there were, uh, 151 00:11:03,480 --> 00:11:08,720 jihadist guys who were taking captive, they weren't necessarily Christians, but there were 152 00:11:08,720 --> 00:11:13,880 plenty of Christians who were beheaded. They would post videos of, of them beheading these 153 00:11:13,880 --> 00:11:21,280 Christians or just, uh, Americans. And I remember going back and forth about whether I should watch 154 00:11:21,280 --> 00:11:28,860 them, I was in high school and I ended up watching a couple of them and remember either immediately 155 00:11:28,860 --> 00:11:34,620 or very shortly thereafter thinking as a Christian, just thinking that's all that they can do to me. 156 00:11:35,780 --> 00:11:41,120 You know, like that, that's, that's, that's all they have. And then it's over and I'm with the 157 00:11:41,120 --> 00:11:48,660 Lord. And so I do think there, there, you could at least make the argument that due to the fact 158 00:11:48,660 --> 00:11:53,940 as Ashwa mentioned, how desensitized we are from death. We don't think about death. We're able to 159 00:11:53,940 --> 00:11:59,680 sanitize and we don't, a lot of people don't do open caskets. We'll never encounter death. We try 160 00:11:59,680 --> 00:12:05,340 to go our whole life without encountering death. There can be something helpful on a limited basis, 161 00:12:05,340 --> 00:12:10,900 like in a situation like this, that I could see, you know, I could see the effect of having seen it 162 00:12:10,900 --> 00:12:18,260 to be being a, I would say a healthy one, not to say at all, this is something we should make a 163 00:12:18,260 --> 00:12:25,140 regular diet of we should go seeking out regularly or anything like that but um i do think the 164 00:12:25,140 --> 00:12:33,400 argument is there you know that for for that to be the case um well yeah so i think it's just what 165 00:12:33,400 --> 00:12:38,440 what would be what's tragic is if somebody that's intentionally not wanting to see it goes onto an 166 00:12:38,440 --> 00:12:43,480 auto playing video feed right and then you get served it or you know or if your kid's looking 167 00:12:43,480 --> 00:12:46,960 over your shoulder when it happened like something like that i can i can definitely argue with i mean 168 00:12:46,960 --> 00:12:53,940 The other example that came to mind as we were talking about this before we got on the air was Emmett Till. 169 00:12:54,700 --> 00:13:02,740 Emmett Till was a young boy who was lynched, dragged behind a truck by some racist guys. 170 00:13:03,540 --> 00:13:06,540 And he just looks disgusting. 171 00:13:06,780 --> 00:13:09,380 He's just absolutely beaten to a pulp. 172 00:13:09,380 --> 00:13:13,300 and his mom chose to do an open casket, 173 00:13:14,200 --> 00:13:18,200 just basically to convey the idea of like, 174 00:13:18,300 --> 00:13:20,780 you're not going to get away from seeing what you did to me. 175 00:13:20,880 --> 00:13:23,660 In society more broadly, you're not going to get away from seeing 176 00:13:23,660 --> 00:13:26,680 the reality of what was going on. 177 00:13:27,440 --> 00:13:30,660 Because I think part of what can happen is the, 178 00:13:32,220 --> 00:13:34,980 again, I'm not saying this is a perfect comparison, 179 00:13:35,120 --> 00:13:36,480 but you have the Apostle Paul talks about like, 180 00:13:36,720 --> 00:13:39,220 we don't in 2 Corinthians, we don't want you to be unaware 181 00:13:39,220 --> 00:13:43,820 of the affliction that we suffered in Asia, right? He basically is saying, hey, 182 00:13:43,960 --> 00:13:53,020 ignorance actually can work against you. It can produce a lack of, you know, fury or lack of 183 00:13:53,020 --> 00:13:59,340 caring that really ought to be there. And so I think that that is something we ought to be aware 184 00:13:59,340 --> 00:14:04,700 of. And this is what part of what motivated Emmett Till's mother, you know, was she's like, 185 00:14:04,700 --> 00:14:10,640 I want you to see the full range of the badness of this situation, not as a regular diet, 186 00:14:11,020 --> 00:14:15,760 but because this was uniquely heinous, I want you to uniquely recognize how heinous this 187 00:14:15,760 --> 00:14:17,960 is so that you do something about it. 188 00:14:18,680 --> 00:14:23,180 And I think that would be something to keep in mind as well, is if you have, whether you've 189 00:14:23,180 --> 00:14:30,200 seen the videos or not, what you're seeing or your lack of seeing ought to do, that's 190 00:14:30,200 --> 00:14:33,100 something you ought to consider is what should I, what do I do now? 191 00:14:33,100 --> 00:14:37,700 to quote Francis Schaeffer how should we then live what what do I do with what I've seen 192 00:14:37,700 --> 00:14:43,660 or what I've heard about and so I think that's a broader lesson that we can uh that we can discuss 193 00:14:43,660 --> 00:14:47,480 and we ought to talk about like what should we do what should be the response to this and what 194 00:14:47,480 --> 00:14:56,460 we've seen uh because there's the full gamut of of responses at least verbalized if not acted out 195 00:14:56,460 --> 00:14:59,380 Yeah, I mean, I think 196 00:14:59,380 --> 00:15:16,441 I was just thinking this morning about the full sweep of psalms that the Lord gives us emotionally And I was at a retreat one time and the guy was talking about how he was talking about the psalms and kind of giving a bunch of talks on them 197 00:15:16,701 --> 00:15:23,861 And he said, you know, a lot of kind of contemporary, especially evangelical Christians tend to fixate on the psalms of joy. 198 00:15:24,081 --> 00:15:25,541 He said, there's three kinds of psalms. 199 00:15:25,761 --> 00:15:29,101 He said, there's psalms of joy, there's psalms of anger, and there's psalms of sadness. 200 00:15:29,601 --> 00:15:39,661 And interestingly, he said that people in his hip congregation in Brooklyn found the Psalms of joy to be phony and inauthentic and that kind of language in church. 201 00:15:39,661 --> 00:15:46,101 And they gravitated towards the Psalms of sadness and kind of angst and frustration and being burned on things. 202 00:15:46,781 --> 00:15:51,181 And so he was not saying, you know, one is better than the other, but saying that these are all important. 203 00:15:51,681 --> 00:15:55,681 And, you know, Ash, you were just telling us before we started recording, you know, just the sadness you felt. 204 00:15:55,761 --> 00:15:56,961 Like I've mostly just felt really sad. 205 00:15:56,961 --> 00:16:01,181 And I see people online, you know, mostly kind of really mad. 206 00:16:01,421 --> 00:16:03,621 And this certainly should evoke a lot of anger. 207 00:16:04,101 --> 00:16:08,001 But mostly I've felt very sad about it. 208 00:16:08,141 --> 00:16:16,821 And I'm encouraged to remember that God has given us a full sweep of worship language and prayers to go to him with, 209 00:16:17,121 --> 00:16:21,101 full of anger towards the wicked and asking for God to judge them and punish them. 210 00:16:21,101 --> 00:16:27,221 but also with that and oftentimes mixed up in it are psalms of deep sadness over sin and evil and 211 00:16:27,221 --> 00:16:33,481 wickedness. This is something we see Christ talking about. He's lamenting Israel and says, 212 00:16:33,601 --> 00:16:38,681 you know, Oh, how, Oh Israel, Oh Israel, how like a mother, let's get a mother chicken. I wanted to 213 00:16:38,681 --> 00:16:44,241 draw you near and you were unwilling. And so it is this mixture of, of sadness and anger that was 214 00:16:44,241 --> 00:16:51,621 going on that colored a lot of Jesus' interactions with the Pharisees. And I absolutely think that 215 00:16:51,621 --> 00:16:59,281 there is no excuse to try to be mealy-mouthed about the evil of what's going on or to try to 216 00:16:59,281 --> 00:17:04,181 do third-wayism, whataboutism, to try to draw false equivalences between other things that 217 00:17:04,181 --> 00:17:13,021 have happened. I just think there's great danger and unbiblical, that's an unbiblical reflex. 218 00:17:13,021 --> 00:17:19,441 somebody uh i believe it was joe rigney talked to me evaluated someone one of these kind of tweets 219 00:17:19,441 --> 00:17:25,121 that somebody sent and accused basically said this is what life is like this is what it's like 220 00:17:25,121 --> 00:17:30,801 to live life under the progressive gaze and i do think that there are there is a segment of 221 00:17:30,801 --> 00:17:39,161 christendom that very much operates and thinks about how to respond with one group of people 222 00:17:39,161 --> 00:17:41,201 in mind and 223 00:17:41,201 --> 00:17:43,001 very much to not appear 224 00:17:43,001 --> 00:17:45,201 to try to appear a certain way to one 225 00:17:45,201 --> 00:17:47,261 group and they're 226 00:17:47,261 --> 00:17:49,121 not so much worried about the other group and there's 227 00:17:49,121 --> 00:17:50,741 interesting dynamics there between 228 00:17:50,741 --> 00:17:53,681 people who have more of an evangelistic 229 00:17:53,681 --> 00:17:55,221 bent versus people who 230 00:17:55,221 --> 00:17:57,301 have more of a I would say 231 00:17:57,301 --> 00:17:59,361 inward shaped in terms 232 00:17:59,361 --> 00:18:00,841 of like church focused bent 233 00:18:00,841 --> 00:18:03,261 I think there's some of the dynamics 234 00:18:03,261 --> 00:18:05,281 that can manifest themselves 235 00:18:05,281 --> 00:18:06,141 in different ways 236 00:18:06,141 --> 00:18:08,421 um 237 00:18:09,161 --> 00:18:25,521 I mean, one thing I would say is I do think the, so, you know, you see people kind of, I think sometimes pretty over the top in the last 24 hours expressing outrage over Christians and Christian institutions kind of trying to do the like, well, this, but that. 238 00:18:25,581 --> 00:18:29,381 And it's kind of like all these other evil atrocities and it happens on both sides. 239 00:18:31,441 --> 00:18:33,461 And I mean, like you said, I think they have a point. 240 00:18:33,461 --> 00:18:43,481 And I don't think this is the time to kind of have to qualify it before, like, you know, our friend James Wood keeps tweeting about, you don't have to qualify that you didn't agree with everything you had to say to just grieve the wickedness of it. 241 00:18:43,481 --> 00:18:56,141 However, I have been thinking too about the way that I think social media in particular seems geared towards stoking anger more than anything else, more than joy and more than sadness. 242 00:18:56,141 --> 00:19:07,181 and that I am concerned, profoundly concerned about people getting whipped up into a kind of anger at other people, 243 00:19:07,501 --> 00:19:12,301 at the left, at their pastor because he's not saying or doing or praying or preaching the right things 244 00:19:12,301 --> 00:19:20,521 because, you know, the talking head or the tweeting head on Twitter told them, you know, and got them all riled up and angry. 245 00:19:20,521 --> 00:19:25,981 and I just I don't know I was telling Jim earlier there's a part of me that is getting kind of 246 00:19:25,981 --> 00:19:31,181 flashbacks of September 11th I mean today is September 11th but of the September 11th when 247 00:19:31,181 --> 00:19:36,861 I was in high school and then the Iraq Afghanistan wars you know a few years later of just this kind 248 00:19:36,861 --> 00:19:42,621 of total black and white there's only one right way to think about this and you're either with 249 00:19:42,621 --> 00:19:47,621 us or you're against us I have been reading lately for some of our homeschool stuff on the run-up to 250 00:19:47,621 --> 00:19:52,301 World War I and some of the stuff that was kind of used in the run up to that to kind of whip 251 00:19:52,301 --> 00:19:56,361 everybody up into this fervor of, you know, those people are completely wicked and evil. There's 252 00:19:56,361 --> 00:20:01,461 only one way to think about this. It's just that plus my own kind of early war on terror stuff as 253 00:20:01,461 --> 00:20:05,121 a young man who did get totally sucked into all of this and sucked into kind of the propaganda of 254 00:20:05,121 --> 00:20:12,221 it all. There is a part of me that is like, I do want to be a little bit careful about how we let 255 00:20:12,221 --> 00:20:20,401 people get kind of pushed into especially extreme things or kind of black and white things or 256 00:20:20,401 --> 00:20:25,041 apocalyptic things, if that makes any sense. Not to say that everything's the same or there's good 257 00:20:25,041 --> 00:20:29,161 and evil, you know, all over the place. Some ideologies are clearly much more wicked than 258 00:20:29,161 --> 00:20:38,081 others. But if you start to think that certain kind of person over there is by definition wicked 259 00:20:38,081 --> 00:20:44,381 and evil because of what they think or the ideas they have, you have become the communists of the 260 00:20:44,381 --> 00:20:48,541 20th century who are executing people because they wear glasses and they are therefore professors 261 00:20:48,541 --> 00:20:52,901 who are killing everybody and destroying everybody or the kulaks who, you know, their bellies are a 262 00:20:52,901 --> 00:20:56,941 little bit bigger and therefore they're wicked. They're killing everybody. So I don't know. I just, 263 00:20:57,041 --> 00:21:02,241 I am outraged and I'm sad and I'm angry about what happened yesterday. But at the same time, 264 00:21:02,281 --> 00:21:06,701 I'm trying to keep an eye on my own heart and want to help other people not to get sucked into 265 00:21:06,701 --> 00:21:12,141 something really dark. Exactly. Because that, that is, there is a very, there is a very true reality 266 00:21:12,141 --> 00:21:21,161 of that, that there, there are people who have bad, bad intentions who, who would love for certain 267 00:21:21,161 --> 00:21:27,561 responses to happen. Um, I do think to, even though that's the case that that shouldn't ultimately 268 00:21:27,561 --> 00:21:32,101 drive what we do or don't do, right? Like there, there, we should have higher, higher things 269 00:21:32,101 --> 00:21:36,501 motivating what we do. Um, and again, it does take wisdom to know the difference. One of the 270 00:21:36,501 --> 00:21:43,381 things that Pastor Doug Wilson talked about a lot in the last, after Trump was shot, and even in the 271 00:21:43,381 --> 00:21:50,161 lead up to that, he basically kept repeating, don't take the bait. Like, don't take the bait. 272 00:21:50,261 --> 00:21:54,721 Like, this is so easy to take the bait and then to justify, like, if there's certain people that 273 00:21:54,721 --> 00:21:59,341 respond a certain way, it can be used to justify certain types of responses, especially at that 274 00:21:59,341 --> 00:22:07,241 point. And again, by and large, incredibly in a country of 350, 380 million people, nobody took 275 00:22:07,241 --> 00:22:14,941 the bait. And, and so I think that again, the, it's a similar type thing is he, and not to mention 276 00:22:14,941 --> 00:22:19,281 him all the time, but he, one of the things he does, he's got these, this, he does react videos, 277 00:22:19,281 --> 00:22:25,981 what are commonly understood to be react videos. And in the intro, they always put up Doug reacts 278 00:22:25,981 --> 00:22:31,461 and then they cross it out and they replace it with respond, like Doug responds. 279 00:22:32,001 --> 00:22:35,901 And I think it's just, that's a very, it's a small grammatical difference, 280 00:22:36,001 --> 00:22:38,481 but it really is, it makes a lot of difference between, 281 00:22:39,021 --> 00:22:43,421 like it's just, is the way that we're responding the way that we should respond? 282 00:22:43,941 --> 00:22:47,601 Is this the way that's actually going to produce the greatest outcome 283 00:22:47,601 --> 00:22:52,641 for the cause of Christ, for our own selves? 284 00:22:52,641 --> 00:22:59,861 I do think that it's something we do need to weigh and think carefully about. 285 00:23:00,221 --> 00:23:07,021 We don't want to just fly off the handle and react without thinking through the consequences of our actions. 286 00:23:08,941 --> 00:23:11,881 So I think that's all really helpful. 287 00:23:13,261 --> 00:23:17,281 And I tend to be the nuanced guy. 288 00:23:17,281 --> 00:23:23,061 and let's try to not let go of one thing 289 00:23:23,061 --> 00:23:24,861 while grabbing onto the other. 290 00:23:25,921 --> 00:23:27,341 But at the same time, 291 00:23:27,341 --> 00:23:32,621 I sense that this really is an Overton window shift. 292 00:23:33,281 --> 00:23:38,781 I sense that the safety of not committing politically 293 00:23:38,781 --> 00:23:41,641 and not picking sides, 294 00:23:42,461 --> 00:23:46,721 that zone where you can do that is shrinking. 295 00:23:47,281 --> 00:24:07,221 Like the ice is melting around somehow like, oh, I just don't, I'm not calling anything or I'm somehow trying to either I'm pretend, I'm actually on one side and I pretend to be neutral or I'm genuinely trying to be neutral and I'm equivocating and doing all these things. 296 00:24:07,221 --> 00:24:14,081 I feel like the place to do that is rapidly diminishing 297 00:24:14,081 --> 00:24:17,621 And I think both sides 298 00:24:17,621 --> 00:24:20,101 And it's easy to say, oh, it's just the radicals on both sides 299 00:24:20,101 --> 00:24:23,261 But I think it's just the normal faithful Christians 300 00:24:23,261 --> 00:24:33,621 That are self-described conservatives 301 00:24:33,621 --> 00:24:39,801 are seeing that and calling that out as disingenuine. 302 00:24:41,621 --> 00:24:44,981 And I think that's a good thing. 303 00:24:45,541 --> 00:24:52,361 I think it's really good that it's no longer easy 304 00:24:52,361 --> 00:24:56,481 to just to not connect our theology and our politics 305 00:24:56,481 --> 00:25:01,561 and just to say, well, I fall down here theologically. 306 00:25:01,561 --> 00:25:09,581 yeah yeah and like so like uh you could say like well keep your religion private right it shouldn't 307 00:25:09,581 --> 00:25:14,441 belong in the in the public sphere i think the church too often has said yeah you can be public 308 00:25:14,441 --> 00:25:22,401 about your theology but keep your politics private and trump's assassination where all 309 00:25:22,401 --> 00:25:28,521 of a sudden people were now bold of like okay forget it i'm just gonna be like open and yes 310 00:25:28,521 --> 00:25:29,401 I support Trump. 311 00:25:29,921 --> 00:25:31,601 And that shifted. 312 00:25:32,001 --> 00:25:35,681 You saw that in Silicon Valley with a lot of tech leaders. 313 00:25:35,921 --> 00:25:39,441 You saw it in different spheres among Christians. 314 00:25:39,841 --> 00:25:43,841 I feel like this is another step where it's like, okay, forget it. 315 00:25:43,841 --> 00:25:51,141 If he could lose his life over these issues, I'm willing to come out of the closet and 316 00:25:51,141 --> 00:25:55,601 be a conservative in social media, in my circles, or from the pulpit. 317 00:25:56,401 --> 00:25:57,341 That's what I view. 318 00:25:57,481 --> 00:25:58,321 And I think it's a good thing. 319 00:25:58,521 --> 00:26:08,581 yeah insofar insofar as christians are people who value truth the way that many people have lived 320 00:26:08,581 --> 00:26:14,641 for way too long like many christians have lived which is again you're always one of the one of 321 00:26:14,641 --> 00:26:21,741 the problems that we have is in the temptations for all of us is to to make decisions by the lowest 322 00:26:21,741 --> 00:26:26,601 common denominator so like we move from exceptions to the rules and we we can like be tempted to like 323 00:26:26,601 --> 00:26:32,641 deny rules because there are exceptions. And, and so it's like, we, people feel bad. 324 00:26:33,061 --> 00:26:40,441 There's a lot of Christians who feel bad about saying, uh, you know, the, the left is bad 325 00:26:40,441 --> 00:26:45,741 or something like the, the left is worse or something like the left is worse than the right. 326 00:26:46,601 --> 00:26:51,581 And it's just like, I mean, you're getting, this is, I completely agree with you. You're getting 327 00:26:51,581 --> 00:26:59,321 to the place where there are many ways in which you you cannot even compare the two like you you 328 00:26:59,321 --> 00:27:05,501 just can't in good faith and i i feel justified in saying that i'll share this one uh one article 329 00:27:05,501 --> 00:27:10,801 that was written uh by somebody who i frequently disagree with uh his name is samuel james 330 00:27:10,801 --> 00:27:16,861 writes for uh that's not it yeah i hear this yeah uh he's got he wrote a book called digital 331 00:27:16,861 --> 00:27:22,041 liturgies that talks about how technology is shaping us. He is somebody who is far more 332 00:27:22,041 --> 00:27:28,681 center left than that's even being charitable in my mind. But Christian, he frequently, 333 00:27:28,861 --> 00:27:34,681 frequent critic of Donald Trump, frequently, frequent critic of a lot of the discussions 334 00:27:34,681 --> 00:27:40,601 about nationalism. I'm trying to find this exact quote here. He comes down and he says this right 335 00:27:40,601 --> 00:27:44,001 here in this moment, I see myself in Charlie Kirk, not because our views were identical, 336 00:27:44,001 --> 00:27:49,141 but because I too sense the spiritual and social evil that Kirk gave his life trying to identify 337 00:27:49,141 --> 00:27:55,621 and reader, I have to confess, I don't think that this kind of evil exists equally on both sides. 338 00:27:56,681 --> 00:28:06,221 And so this is, to risk being dad jokey here, this is a turning point for Samuel James, 339 00:28:06,281 --> 00:28:12,761 at least in his public rhetoric. This is someplace that he, and I think this, as you mentioned, 340 00:28:12,761 --> 00:28:14,861 And this was representative for a lot of people. 341 00:28:15,441 --> 00:28:23,081 And I hope that his, do we want to call it courage to speak this way, will breed more 342 00:28:23,081 --> 00:28:28,041 courage in people who've been, I would argue, cowards up to this point and drawing force 343 00:28:28,041 --> 00:28:31,841 in people who, Christians who've, Christian leaders who've drawn false equivalency between 344 00:28:31,841 --> 00:28:32,501 different things. 345 00:28:33,421 --> 00:28:39,041 So again, I just was very encouraged to see this because again, when you look at some 346 00:28:39,041 --> 00:28:42,181 of the things that are happening, like they're not happening equally. 347 00:28:42,761 --> 00:28:54,941 And it's simply lying to argue that these things are happening equally, in equal numbers, or even anything close to equal numbers from people on both sides of the political spectrum. 348 00:28:55,041 --> 00:28:57,081 It's just not. It's just not. 349 00:28:57,201 --> 00:29:10,081 Again, we can talk about the reasons why and all that kind of stuff, but just the plain fact of this is not happening equally is something that Christians, by virtue of their ethic, 350 00:29:10,081 --> 00:29:14,121 their ethic that the command that Christ has given us to tell the truth we can't just keep 351 00:29:14,121 --> 00:29:19,921 lying about this like it's it's not serving anybody well I think the issue in view here is 352 00:29:19,921 --> 00:29:24,121 inciting people to violence correct yeah I mean there's there's a bunch of issues but it's 353 00:29:24,121 --> 00:29:29,181 inciting people to violence yeah it happens all the time on the left yeah I'm not saying it 354 00:29:29,181 --> 00:29:35,461 doesn't ever happen on the right but it's not even close yeah and so the question really boils 355 00:29:35,461 --> 00:29:41,961 down to here how is the right going to respond and if we respond by inciting to violence 356 00:29:41,961 --> 00:29:48,721 yep you know but but that's the problem right like we we're not going to fight violence with 357 00:29:48,721 --> 00:29:55,381 violence because we have morals yeah because we fear god and because yeah how do how do we actually 358 00:29:55,381 --> 00:29:59,341 respond here like how do we how do we get the government to wield the power of the sword the 359 00:29:59,341 --> 00:30:00,041 way that they should. 360 00:30:02,241 --> 00:30:02,641 Yeah. 361 00:30:02,701 --> 00:30:16,222 And this is something we talked about a lot is it one of the tragedies and the injustices one of the greatest again the injustice that been subsidized is the government has taken on every responsibility except for the one that they 362 00:30:16,222 --> 00:30:21,602 were given to do, right? They don't want to exercise the sword. They don't want it there. 363 00:30:21,602 --> 00:30:26,462 I mean, in the case of this guy, I mean, staggering, the guy who killed the young lady 364 00:30:26,462 --> 00:30:35,062 in the immigrant, the immigrant who'd fled war-torn Ukraine, the guy who killed her in 365 00:30:35,062 --> 00:30:42,702 Charlotte, this guy had been arrested 14 times and was set free by somebody who wasn't even a judge. 366 00:30:42,822 --> 00:30:48,522 I don't know if you guys even have seen that, but this lady, it was a woman, she was not even a 367 00:30:48,522 --> 00:30:53,702 judge. She didn't go to law school, didn't go anything. She was just appointed by somebody in 368 00:30:53,702 --> 00:31:00,542 Charlotte to make judgments on whether or not people should go to jail and she let this guy go 369 00:31:00,542 --> 00:31:07,062 and so just the the staggering level of injustice and obvious idiocy that led to something like that 370 00:31:07,062 --> 00:31:14,222 happen happening is something that I just think a lot of people are waking up to and they're just 371 00:31:14,222 --> 00:31:19,702 they they're realizing this isn't these aren't bad people who are being attacked this is just 372 00:31:19,702 --> 00:31:27,602 random random acts of violence you hear the guy in that case say i got the white girl two times 373 00:31:27,602 --> 00:31:34,082 in the video uh charlie kirk renowned for literally peacefully showing up on campuses 374 00:31:34,082 --> 00:31:40,962 and debating people literally using reason and i think for a lot of people my wife said this to me 375 00:31:40,962 --> 00:31:47,742 she said this is the first time where i i felt like i was potentially somebody like a stand in 376 00:31:47,742 --> 00:31:53,162 for me was being attacked and my wife was like she's not interested in politics all this kind 377 00:31:53,162 --> 00:31:59,222 of stuff and so for her to express feeling like that it just was kind of again i i do hope it is 378 00:31:59,222 --> 00:32:07,482 a turning point i do hope this is people are recognizing that this is unsustainable um you 379 00:32:07,482 --> 00:32:12,922 know i i want to be clear too like i i'm pretty disappointed right now with you know trump's 380 00:32:12,922 --> 00:32:16,722 administration and the right and how they're handling the epstein files they are totally 381 00:32:16,722 --> 00:32:24,282 mishandling the power of the sword in that case correct yeah there's no justice yeah and the fact 382 00:32:24,282 --> 00:32:28,222 that we don't know who i mean the other thing we the whole thing with how the shooting went down 383 00:32:28,222 --> 00:32:34,942 where there's a shooting that happens somebody immediately in the vicinity of of the shooting 384 00:32:34,942 --> 00:32:43,602 claims that he was the shooter and then they take him off then there's somebody else who again had 385 00:32:43,602 --> 00:32:48,142 head guns and then it because of the confusion because they thought they had the guy the real 386 00:32:48,142 --> 00:32:53,562 guy gets away like there's just a bunch of just really weird feel like i have any closure from 387 00:32:53,562 --> 00:33:00,862 trump's assassination attempt yeah yeah and it's like trump trump is the president like 388 00:33:00,862 --> 00:33:06,262 you would think he would want that looked into yeah i i did think about that yesterday 389 00:33:06,262 --> 00:33:11,562 i mean it really is sagra we still don't know we still don't know what motivated the guy 390 00:33:11,562 --> 00:33:13,382 I mean his house 391 00:33:13,382 --> 00:33:15,062 the Trump assassin guy 392 00:33:15,062 --> 00:33:15,742 his house had been 393 00:33:15,742 --> 00:33:16,622 professionally scrubbed 394 00:33:16,622 --> 00:33:17,842 like there's all kinds of things 395 00:33:17,842 --> 00:33:18,442 where you're just like 396 00:33:18,442 --> 00:33:20,022 this just doesn't happen 397 00:33:20,022 --> 00:33:20,662 like this is 398 00:33:20,662 --> 00:33:22,422 the point I'm trying to make is 399 00:33:22,422 --> 00:33:23,782 I'm not just like 400 00:33:23,782 --> 00:33:24,382 going to blindly 401 00:33:24,382 --> 00:33:25,202 just say 402 00:33:25,202 --> 00:33:26,082 oh I'm following 403 00:33:26,082 --> 00:33:26,742 the government 404 00:33:26,742 --> 00:33:27,202 the right 405 00:33:27,202 --> 00:33:28,882 Trump administration 406 00:33:28,882 --> 00:33:30,662 I'm as horrified 407 00:33:30,662 --> 00:33:31,262 about that 408 00:33:31,262 --> 00:33:32,242 as I am about 409 00:33:32,242 --> 00:33:33,882 radical leftist 410 00:33:33,882 --> 00:33:35,542 random people 411 00:33:35,542 --> 00:33:36,482 that are inciting people 412 00:33:36,482 --> 00:33:37,622 to violence on Twitter 413 00:33:41,562 --> 00:34:00,182 Yeah, and I think it's important to, you have to have a distinction between your political philosophy and your country and what it means to be patriotic or love your country or your kinsmen or your culture. 414 00:34:00,362 --> 00:34:05,262 And then the state and the actual government and the actual people in that government. 415 00:34:05,262 --> 00:34:15,602 and you need to be able to hold a strong biblical political philosophy and a public theology 416 00:34:15,602 --> 00:34:21,102 and then you need to be able to say, and I can love my neighbors, 417 00:34:21,622 --> 00:34:25,862 I can be proud of my cultural or ethnic identity, 418 00:34:25,862 --> 00:34:30,581 and I can still agree and disagree with specific politicians, 419 00:34:30,982 --> 00:34:34,581 with a specific government and the decisions they're making 420 00:34:34,581 --> 00:34:37,842 and have nuanced views of all these things. 421 00:34:38,982 --> 00:34:40,902 And obviously, like, social media 422 00:34:40,902 --> 00:34:43,462 and certainly the mainstream media 423 00:34:43,462 --> 00:34:48,222 doesn't promote any of those distinctions. 424 00:34:48,302 --> 00:34:49,602 I don't even need, like, nuance. 425 00:34:49,842 --> 00:34:51,422 Like, let's all equivocate and try to, 426 00:34:51,842 --> 00:34:54,581 well, yeah, I like this, but don't like... 427 00:34:55,202 --> 00:34:57,581 Let's actually just be unwavering 428 00:34:58,282 --> 00:35:00,502 with our biblical, like, political philosophy. 429 00:35:00,502 --> 00:35:09,922 um i i just heard um so on the all-in summit i i listened to those guys a lot i aspire to to be 430 00:35:09,922 --> 00:35:14,402 a more popular podcast than them they keep saying they're the number one podcast but we're 431 00:35:14,402 --> 00:35:19,942 we're gonna work our way up uh but they did the summit right and they had tucker carlson on 432 00:35:19,942 --> 00:35:29,522 just this last week and and uh they were talking about this question of of israel and and the need 433 00:35:29,522 --> 00:35:37,242 to be able to say, hey, we can, like, you can have issue with the governmental decisions 434 00:35:37,242 --> 00:35:43,102 of the state of Israel and not be an anti-Semite and not be racist, right? 435 00:35:43,102 --> 00:35:54,202 So can you, like, love individuals and even love people as a group and still call out a 436 00:35:54,202 --> 00:35:55,262 specific nation state? 437 00:35:55,342 --> 00:35:56,182 You need to be able to. 438 00:35:57,782 --> 00:35:58,382 Yeah. 439 00:35:58,382 --> 00:36:03,622 So in this, I think one of the things that I, again, because this is ostensibly a Bitcoin podcast, 440 00:36:03,802 --> 00:36:08,342 one of the things that I would like to talk about is, again, just the subsidized injustice side of 441 00:36:08,342 --> 00:36:13,642 this. Like so much of what's happened, this doesn't happen in a vacuum. This happens because, 442 00:36:13,862 --> 00:36:18,362 and people are content to do this because they keep, because they're enabled to get away with it. 443 00:36:18,782 --> 00:36:22,581 I think that's the, when you see this guy's been, he's been arrested 14 times, 444 00:36:23,202 --> 00:36:26,482 nothing's happened. He keeps getting dumped out. What does he take from that? 445 00:36:26,482 --> 00:36:32,382 well people don't really care and so what is so what does that tell you it tells you that people 446 00:36:32,382 --> 00:36:40,122 don't value justice and so if you don't if you don't subsidize justice then you're going to get 447 00:36:40,122 --> 00:36:44,242 and you do subsidize injustice you're going to get more of what you subsidize 448 00:36:44,242 --> 00:36:50,542 and so this is this is again totally predictable we talk about on this podcast a lot the relationship 449 00:36:50,542 --> 00:36:56,402 between sowing and reaping like if you continue to sow seeds and everybody just goes oh i don't 450 00:36:56,402 --> 00:37:02,202 want to die on that hill, right? This is another thing we've talked about is there's people who say, 451 00:37:02,382 --> 00:37:06,282 I don't want to die on that hill because they actually have identified hills that they do want 452 00:37:06,282 --> 00:37:10,202 to die on. And there's other people who just, they say, I don't want to die on the hill because 453 00:37:10,202 --> 00:37:14,802 they don't want to die in any hills. They love their lives and they don't want to be inconvenienced 454 00:37:14,802 --> 00:37:20,002 or have their reputation inconvenienced. They don't want to become the guy or the girl who is 455 00:37:20,002 --> 00:37:26,202 associated with talking about politics, like that's costly and people don't want to pay that 456 00:37:26,202 --> 00:37:32,002 cost. As a Christian though, my, what my pushback would be, and I fight this too, as somebody who's 457 00:37:32,002 --> 00:37:36,722 got like a, again, a podcast that's about Bitcoin, I like fight back and forth of like, okay, how, 458 00:37:37,202 --> 00:37:41,482 how, where should I talk about biblical things? Where should I talk about, you know, just 459 00:37:41,482 --> 00:37:47,962 particularly Bitcoin related things. And at the end of the day, you know, like, yeah, 460 00:37:47,962 --> 00:37:52,542 You're going to have to make decisions that aren't motivated by self-preservation. 461 00:37:53,982 --> 00:37:58,822 We can't make just our decisions based on, I just want to protect myself. 462 00:37:58,922 --> 00:38:00,862 I want to protect my reputation. 463 00:38:00,862 --> 00:38:17,862 At the end of the day, we have to have convictions that are just more rooted in, I want to honor God and align myself with reality by telling the truth and telling what I actually think about situations. 464 00:38:17,962 --> 00:38:24,422 in order to subsidize a world where other people feel strengthened and encouraged to do the same 465 00:38:24,422 --> 00:38:31,442 kind of thing. Yeah. I also think it's incumbent upon us to not have this ideal of moving out to 466 00:38:31,442 --> 00:38:37,061 the cabin in the woods and becoming a yeoman farmer and we're just going to raise all of our 467 00:38:37,061 --> 00:38:42,842 own stuff and we're going to check out of society. You know, it's like we got to, we do need to 468 00:38:42,842 --> 00:38:44,722 assert ourselves. 469 00:38:44,822 --> 00:38:45,061 Yes. 470 00:38:45,162 --> 00:38:45,782 That doesn't mean 471 00:38:45,782 --> 00:38:46,902 it has to be violently. 472 00:38:47,442 --> 00:38:47,642 Yes. 473 00:38:47,642 --> 00:38:48,882 We can assert ourselves 474 00:38:48,882 --> 00:38:50,442 economically and socially 475 00:38:50,442 --> 00:38:51,702 and religiously 476 00:38:51,702 --> 00:38:52,782 and, you know, 477 00:38:52,782 --> 00:38:53,602 in all these ways, 478 00:38:53,942 --> 00:38:54,202 right, 479 00:38:54,202 --> 00:38:55,422 to have influence 480 00:38:55,422 --> 00:38:56,042 on our culture 481 00:38:56,042 --> 00:38:57,002 and we can't just expect 482 00:38:57,002 --> 00:38:57,722 daddy government 483 00:38:57,722 --> 00:38:58,982 to do everything for us. 484 00:38:59,162 --> 00:38:59,282 Yep. 485 00:38:59,982 --> 00:39:01,061 Yeah, that's a more, 486 00:39:01,182 --> 00:39:02,222 what you just described, Jim, 487 00:39:02,242 --> 00:39:03,042 is a more respectable 488 00:39:03,042 --> 00:39:04,502 form of cowardice, right? 489 00:39:04,882 --> 00:39:05,362 Like that, 490 00:39:05,422 --> 00:39:06,162 or at least it can be. 491 00:39:06,242 --> 00:39:06,802 Again, I'm not saying 492 00:39:06,802 --> 00:39:07,702 that anybody who moves 493 00:39:07,702 --> 00:39:08,342 outside of a city, 494 00:39:08,442 --> 00:39:10,262 like Jesus fled 495 00:39:10,262 --> 00:39:11,262 from being killed 496 00:39:11,262 --> 00:39:12,022 multiple times. 497 00:39:12,022 --> 00:39:18,102 the apostles fled numerous times in the scriptures. And so we do, we do want to have wisdom and we 498 00:39:18,102 --> 00:39:21,502 don't want to just be willy nilly. And I'm not saying you're doing this, Jim. Like we, we do 499 00:39:21,502 --> 00:39:25,522 want to like just identify there are, there is a time, there's a season for everything. And there 500 00:39:25,522 --> 00:39:32,322 are times to run away. There are times, there are times to stand and, and not, not run away. 501 00:39:32,322 --> 00:39:36,882 And so I think that takes wisdom as well to figure out what to do. And so that requires, 502 00:39:36,882 --> 00:39:42,722 again being giving each other grace even just being willing to put yourself out there on a 503 00:39:42,722 --> 00:39:49,622 podcast and have your name on it you know it's uh obviously we're not that popular and famous or 504 00:39:49,622 --> 00:39:54,422 whatever but we're still out there in the public space and people know what we think and there's a 505 00:39:54,422 --> 00:40:01,542 non-zero chance of risk because of what we're doing as opposed to just going totally opsect up 506 00:40:01,542 --> 00:40:06,422 and anon everything and VPN, all this and all that. 507 00:40:06,542 --> 00:40:08,842 It's just like you have to make a choice. 508 00:40:09,061 --> 00:40:09,902 And at the end of the day, 509 00:40:09,902 --> 00:40:12,081 you can't influence people if you're anon. 510 00:40:12,782 --> 00:40:12,922 Yep. 511 00:40:14,202 --> 00:40:14,762 Yeah. 512 00:40:15,222 --> 00:40:20,782 So over the, going back a bit to the Charlie Kirk response, 513 00:40:20,962 --> 00:40:23,482 that just these videos, what's going on, 514 00:40:23,902 --> 00:40:28,422 the voices and the kind of the main Christian thinkers 515 00:40:28,422 --> 00:40:30,342 that I think have responded well, 516 00:40:30,342 --> 00:40:34,482 have said, okay, Jesus calls us to forgive. 517 00:40:34,902 --> 00:40:38,382 He calls us to be angry and yet do not sin in our anger. 518 00:40:39,322 --> 00:40:42,102 But then they ask the question, but what are you going to do? 519 00:40:42,642 --> 00:40:44,002 Okay, now live it out. 520 00:40:44,002 --> 00:40:51,081 How are you living differently in a post-Charlie Kirk assassination 521 00:40:51,081 --> 00:40:52,642 slash martyrdom world? 522 00:40:53,802 --> 00:40:56,862 So one of the answers, I'll start with mine, 523 00:40:56,862 --> 00:41:04,102 And I'd love to hear you guys or if people are in the chat or listening, I'd love to hear your guys' response. 524 00:41:04,342 --> 00:41:15,022 So Charlie talked about how he wanted to stop there from being a revolution, like the union falls apart because of disunity. 525 00:41:15,262 --> 00:41:22,342 And he said, we're going to help people to get back to church, get married, have kids and invest in their communities. 526 00:41:22,682 --> 00:41:25,122 So that's like the theme that we just keep hammering on. 527 00:41:25,122 --> 00:41:33,422 We were just talking about the atomization of our culture with Ryan on Tuesday. 528 00:41:33,922 --> 00:41:47,902 So have kids, invest in your family, be in your church, be present and connected and build that bit of the kingdom around you. 529 00:41:47,902 --> 00:41:55,382 Now beyond that, I do want to step out more in public ways 530 00:41:55,382 --> 00:41:56,922 I'm in Portland, Oregon 531 00:41:56,922 --> 00:42:02,282 So the general kind of political view within the church 532 00:42:02,282 --> 00:42:06,081 Is without a doubt center-left 533 00:42:06,081 --> 00:42:13,262 Right? I mean, we're more center, more conservative than the main culture 534 00:42:13,262 --> 00:42:16,382 But for sure, we drink some of the water in this city 535 00:42:16,382 --> 00:42:18,682 and so 536 00:42:18,682 --> 00:42:21,162 yeah I would like 537 00:42:21,162 --> 00:42:22,962 now I'm not a pastor so 538 00:42:22,962 --> 00:42:25,422 I don't have that same need to 539 00:42:25,422 --> 00:42:27,162 to be sensitive there 540 00:42:27,162 --> 00:42:29,242 and I think there's a good 541 00:42:29,242 --> 00:42:31,262 argument and discussion and maybe if Tim is 542 00:42:31,262 --> 00:42:33,422 here next time to talk about the role of the pastor 543 00:42:33,422 --> 00:42:35,262 and the pulpit in these topics 544 00:42:35,262 --> 00:42:36,942 but yeah 545 00:42:36,942 --> 00:42:39,282 I want to be more bold I want to be more 546 00:42:39,282 --> 00:42:40,581 explicit about 547 00:42:40,581 --> 00:42:43,322 the immorality 548 00:42:43,322 --> 00:42:44,561 I see in the secular 549 00:42:44,561 --> 00:42:46,102 left 550 00:42:46,102 --> 00:42:49,002 and wokeism and all of that. 551 00:42:50,642 --> 00:42:51,902 I mean, I agree. 552 00:42:53,382 --> 00:42:55,222 I'm not going to become less public 553 00:42:55,222 --> 00:42:56,922 and less vocal because of this. 554 00:42:57,122 --> 00:42:58,342 I'm going to become more public 555 00:42:58,342 --> 00:42:59,202 and more vocal. 556 00:43:01,982 --> 00:43:04,081 Yeah, one of the things, 557 00:43:04,182 --> 00:43:04,862 I mean, Oshawa, 558 00:43:04,962 --> 00:43:05,922 one of the things that comes to mind 559 00:43:05,922 --> 00:43:06,561 is the quote, 560 00:43:06,742 --> 00:43:07,762 the C.S. Lewis quote 561 00:43:07,762 --> 00:43:11,742 that you quoted. 562 00:43:12,542 --> 00:43:14,182 You quoted at the 563 00:43:14,182 --> 00:43:15,722 Bitcoin for Everyone conference. 564 00:43:16,102 --> 00:43:21,902 which talked about, it's basically C.S. Lewis talking about, it's difficult for him to imagine 565 00:43:21,902 --> 00:43:27,242 people with a freeborn mind being able to live free if they don't have a certain level of 566 00:43:27,242 --> 00:43:33,302 economic independence. And Michael Foster shared a tweet today where the fourth point that he shared 567 00:43:33,302 --> 00:43:39,402 basically echoed those sentiments. And so I do think that this is something where it raises, 568 00:43:40,581 --> 00:43:45,722 it just reemphasizes the importance of something like Bitcoin. There's a lot of people who, 569 00:43:45,722 --> 00:43:52,362 for whom the reason why they have a hesitancy or the hesitance to speak up is because they're 570 00:43:52,362 --> 00:43:59,442 afraid of losing jobs or they have a mortgage, they've got other kinds of debts. And if something 571 00:43:59,442 --> 00:44:04,402 were to happen to their job because they spoke up publicly or made any kind of political statement, 572 00:44:04,402 --> 00:44:12,522 they would be afraid of losing those things. And so I do think it's a good point, a good time to 573 00:44:12,522 --> 00:44:18,922 to reflect on and do a good accounting or, you know, just taking a look at your life and just, 574 00:44:19,561 --> 00:44:23,922 you know, accounting of you personally, and then also an actual accounting of, 575 00:44:24,102 --> 00:44:30,442 you know, where, where do I have, where do I have weaknesses that can be exploited that I could get 576 00:44:30,442 --> 00:44:36,402 rid of? And so if you have high amounts of debt, like how can I get rid of these? So I'm not so 577 00:44:36,402 --> 00:44:43,302 beholden. So I'm not tempting myself to, to be a coward and to be unfaithful. I think that that's 578 00:44:43,302 --> 00:44:47,522 an honest question that people should ask themselves. Um, and even if that, I mean, 579 00:44:47,622 --> 00:44:53,822 if you're somebody who has a meaningful amount of Bitcoin and you really are content to accumulate 580 00:44:53,822 --> 00:44:57,982 debts because you're like, Hey, I don't want to sell my Bitcoin. Like, I think that's, it's 581 00:44:57,982 --> 00:45:02,002 something you should be willing to consider at the very, as well. Um, if you've got a lot of 582 00:45:02,002 --> 00:45:05,702 Bitcoin, then, you know, maybe you're not as vulnerable as some other people, but, um, you 583 00:45:05,702 --> 00:45:18,102 For some people this might look like again with this audience it probably largely Bitcoiners But if you somebody who doesn have Bitcoin I think this is one reason that you should consider and that Christians and churches more broadly should consider Bitcoin 584 00:45:18,923 --> 00:45:23,383 You know, it's a money that's held up outside of the existing monetary system. 585 00:45:23,602 --> 00:45:29,403 And so you don't need to ask permission or worry about losing permission in the case of somebody like the Canadian truckers. 586 00:45:30,302 --> 00:45:33,962 I think that's a very, an underappreciated attack surface. 587 00:45:33,962 --> 00:45:54,423 I don't think still, at least up to this point, many people take seriously that that's a real risk. And to even begin looking for alternatives that would include Bitcoin, I think it is something that more and more ministries and churches should take seriously, though. And hopefully we can play some small role in helping facilitate that conversation. 588 00:45:54,423 --> 00:45:58,643 I mean in the long run 589 00:45:58,643 --> 00:46:00,782 Bitcoin may make you a target 590 00:46:00,782 --> 00:46:01,923 though as well 591 00:46:01,923 --> 00:46:03,903 especially getting in this early 592 00:46:03,903 --> 00:46:05,762 so I do think 593 00:46:05,762 --> 00:46:08,442 you should care about 594 00:46:08,442 --> 00:46:10,363 OPSEC but not 595 00:46:10,363 --> 00:46:12,602 to the point where you just have to completely check out 596 00:46:12,602 --> 00:46:14,802 a society and live in your bunker 597 00:46:14,802 --> 00:46:18,242 I do think one other 598 00:46:18,242 --> 00:46:20,282 takeaway from this is 599 00:46:20,282 --> 00:46:21,663 that we're going to die 600 00:46:21,663 --> 00:46:30,323 like you're going to die we don't know when it is and you know and there there is there is truth 601 00:46:30,323 --> 00:46:36,623 and you know like there's a needed truth and just the fact that you know this is why like this is 602 00:46:36,623 --> 00:46:41,423 yes jesus knew it was this bad like this is why he was willing to come and die it was because 603 00:46:41,423 --> 00:46:47,942 things are this grave people i mean just are there are people who are committed to evil and injustice 604 00:46:47,942 --> 00:46:52,282 and they don't care about the cost. They're willing to pay the cost in somebody else's blood 605 00:46:52,282 --> 00:46:58,282 all day long. And so I do think that it is something that if you're a Christian, 606 00:46:58,643 --> 00:47:03,043 you should think about that. And if you're not a Christian, I think I would encourage you to think 607 00:47:03,043 --> 00:47:09,702 about that as well. It's just, that's a reality. And this is a problem that part of the value 608 00:47:09,702 --> 00:47:15,462 proposition to use monetary, to use economic terminology, part of the value proposition of 609 00:47:15,462 --> 00:47:24,282 Jesus is that he came to pay for sins, to be able to fix the world in, you know, authentic, 610 00:47:24,442 --> 00:47:30,563 sustainable ways and to remove the fear of death. And Charlie was somebody, yeah, 611 00:47:30,762 --> 00:47:34,922 Charlie was somebody who embodied that. The mask really came off during COVID on that one. 612 00:47:34,922 --> 00:47:41,163 Yeah. That whole thing was preying upon people's fear of death and lack of assurance of salvation. 613 00:47:41,163 --> 00:47:43,602 even within the church 614 00:47:43,602 --> 00:47:46,123 but obviously amongst non-Christians as well 615 00:47:46,123 --> 00:47:47,942 you see people wearing masks by themselves 616 00:47:47,942 --> 00:47:48,563 and cars 617 00:47:48,563 --> 00:47:51,702 I mean 618 00:47:51,702 --> 00:47:53,903 yeah at the end of the day you really got to ask yourself 619 00:47:53,903 --> 00:47:55,722 what are you really trusting in 620 00:47:55,722 --> 00:47:57,482 and is everything 621 00:47:57,482 --> 00:48:00,063 that you're doing all about 622 00:48:00,063 --> 00:48:02,202 ensuring that you're alive tomorrow 623 00:48:02,202 --> 00:48:04,282 or doing the right thing 624 00:48:04,282 --> 00:48:05,102 and serving the Lord 625 00:48:05,102 --> 00:48:08,102 again 626 00:48:08,102 --> 00:48:10,002 I'm not saying you should go out and like 627 00:48:10,002 --> 00:48:12,002 just take unnecessary risks. 628 00:48:12,602 --> 00:48:14,883 And we're also all in different situations. 629 00:48:15,143 --> 00:48:16,663 We have wives and children, 630 00:48:16,922 --> 00:48:18,143 people that depend upon us, 631 00:48:18,183 --> 00:48:19,343 and we have to be prudent. 632 00:48:19,863 --> 00:48:20,843 But at the same time, 633 00:48:21,202 --> 00:48:22,843 we do have to be bold. 634 00:48:23,823 --> 00:48:23,982 Yep. 635 00:48:25,323 --> 00:48:30,202 So what role does the local church have in this? 636 00:48:30,323 --> 00:48:32,222 I mean, there's different perspectives 637 00:48:32,222 --> 00:48:34,242 on how political you get 638 00:48:34,242 --> 00:48:38,242 and how much you talk about these hot-button issues. 639 00:48:40,002 --> 00:48:47,663 what do what do you guys think i think there's even beyond i would say even before you get to 640 00:48:47,663 --> 00:48:56,523 the level of the church i think the the you have to have a commitment to real unity which is rooted 641 00:48:56,523 --> 00:49:01,843 in truth and actually being honest about who you are and i think there's a lot of people 642 00:49:01,843 --> 00:49:07,163 and again we're all tempted to this i'm tempted to this all the time like you're tempted to 643 00:49:07,163 --> 00:49:13,302 foster this type of false unity, this fake unity, that's really, we're not going to really talk 644 00:49:13,302 --> 00:49:18,082 about what we actually believe. Uh, we're going to kind of just, you know, just kind of keep things 645 00:49:18,082 --> 00:49:24,482 below the surface. Uh, just try to keep the peace and that kind of stuff that that's not real peace. 646 00:49:25,202 --> 00:49:31,002 Like that, that's, that's not real. It's not reality. That doesn't require any kind of, 647 00:49:31,002 --> 00:49:37,082 uh, courage on the part of the person telling it or, uh, spiritual maturity on the part of 648 00:49:37,082 --> 00:49:39,962 the person who's hearing you say what you actually believe. 649 00:49:41,702 --> 00:49:48,843 That's just something I think churches, I guess, do have a responsibility to foster environments 650 00:49:48,843 --> 00:50:01,343 where people can tell the truth about who they are, what they believe, and the reality 651 00:50:01,343 --> 00:50:08,523 of Christian love and Christian commitment to the kingdom of God manifesting itself in 652 00:50:08,523 --> 00:50:13,383 not just leaving a church because there's people there who don't think the way that 653 00:50:13,383 --> 00:50:14,363 you do about every issue. 654 00:50:15,302 --> 00:50:25,143 Some of the people who I respect the most and who I respect the most, their faith and 655 00:50:25,143 --> 00:50:30,123 or just their maturity at some, at the very least, 656 00:50:30,302 --> 00:50:33,102 are people who I don't agree with on a lot of things. 657 00:50:33,102 --> 00:50:34,242 And yet I still love them. 658 00:50:35,683 --> 00:50:38,143 And again, we can have respectful disagreements. 659 00:50:38,222 --> 00:50:40,143 We can joke with each other about, you know, 660 00:50:40,183 --> 00:50:42,523 things that they believe that I disagree with 661 00:50:42,523 --> 00:50:43,742 and they can joke with me about things. 662 00:50:43,863 --> 00:50:47,782 And I just think this requires a level of maturity 663 00:50:47,782 --> 00:50:50,302 that we think we possess, but many people do not possess. 664 00:50:50,302 --> 00:50:58,063 i mean i think the church should be absolutely the moral authority on this they need to come out 665 00:50:58,063 --> 00:51:02,403 and condemn it they should not ignore it they should speak out against it and say it's absolutely 666 00:51:02,403 --> 00:51:08,742 heinous and wrong and then they need to remind people that god is sovereign and then they need 667 00:51:08,742 --> 00:51:14,222 to embolden people to go out there and fulfill the great commission in the face of evil 668 00:51:14,222 --> 00:51:22,802 that's good so something i learned uh as a a pastor when i was a planning a church and then 669 00:51:22,802 --> 00:51:31,363 more recently here in portland is that if you avoid a topic that are on people's minds 670 00:51:31,363 --> 00:51:37,982 and and a question they're trying to answer and you don't answer it for them they're gonna go 671 00:51:37,982 --> 00:51:44,982 elsewhere to get their answers. And you, you see this in the whole manosphere type of thing where, 672 00:51:44,982 --> 00:51:52,942 where churches is effeminate and, um, and so they're going to go and they want to find dudes, 673 00:51:53,043 --> 00:52:00,082 dudes and, and, and it's, they're going to end up finding bad influences online and radical 674 00:52:00,082 --> 00:52:07,343 influences that like connect with their urge for masculinity, but then it, it goes overboard and 675 00:52:07,343 --> 00:52:15,922 it objectifies women or here they have anger over this issue. And, and so, uh, but you as the pastor 676 00:52:15,922 --> 00:52:19,623 aren't talking about it. And so now they're going to, they're going to find some militia group or 677 00:52:19,623 --> 00:52:26,543 something, or like, there's, there's ways that, that people like water will keep going like 678 00:52:26,543 --> 00:52:34,082 osmosis. It's going to go to the place that's lowest and that, uh, where there's a vacuum and 679 00:52:34,082 --> 00:52:41,863 And the church historically, I mean, the pastor was the most educated person in the town. 680 00:52:42,202 --> 00:52:44,023 And they went to the pastor for things. 681 00:52:44,102 --> 00:52:48,163 Now, certainly, I think some pastors go off and they try to be the expert in everything. 682 00:52:48,302 --> 00:52:50,163 And if you're not, don't act like the expert. 683 00:52:50,962 --> 00:52:59,323 But find the experts, come to conclusions and biblical educated opinions and share them. 684 00:52:59,323 --> 00:53:01,982 If they should be open-handed issues 685 00:53:01,982 --> 00:53:04,123 Don't bind people's consciences to them 686 00:53:04,123 --> 00:53:07,643 But don't be afraid of offending people 687 00:53:07,643 --> 00:53:10,023 And sometimes you gotta say things 688 00:53:10,023 --> 00:53:11,702 That are gonna make people walk away 689 00:53:11,702 --> 00:53:15,023 And stop tithing to your church 690 00:53:15,023 --> 00:53:18,903 And that being silent is actually gonna 691 00:53:18,903 --> 00:53:23,383 Like, uh, is gonna cause more harm in the end 692 00:53:23,383 --> 00:53:25,883 Um, and it's also, I mean 693 00:53:25,883 --> 00:53:28,543 Like, during COVID and BLM, right? 694 00:53:28,543 --> 00:53:34,082 the pendulum saying was, oh, here's some outrage. You have to say something and silence is violence. 695 00:53:35,043 --> 00:53:43,742 So you don't want to fall into that. And at the same time, if you are silent, they're looking for 696 00:53:43,742 --> 00:53:51,383 something. So you don't need to posture politically and put the flag in the profile. You don't need 697 00:53:51,383 --> 00:53:59,383 to buy into that while still not leaving a theological and political vacuum within your 698 00:53:59,383 --> 00:54:05,823 church. Yeah, this, somebody, I can't remember who said this, it might have been Michael Foster, 699 00:54:05,922 --> 00:54:10,962 it might have been somebody else, but authority flows to responsibility. Like, authority flows 700 00:54:10,962 --> 00:54:16,002 to people who take responsibility. So, again, there's people who don't hold office in their 701 00:54:16,002 --> 00:54:23,242 towns, but who effectively do effectively have a ton of influence and, and, you know, authority 702 00:54:23,242 --> 00:54:28,063 because they take responsibility. They, you know, they make themselves known, they care for people. 703 00:54:28,602 --> 00:54:32,442 And so this is, this is something that at the various, and there's something called sphere 704 00:54:32,442 --> 00:54:35,102 sovereignty, which is something, if you, if you don't know what that is, go look it up. 705 00:54:35,262 --> 00:54:40,222 But it's just basically like you have, God has given you authority over certain, you know, 706 00:54:40,222 --> 00:54:45,703 in certain capacities, depending on what stage of life you're in. And so you have authority, 707 00:54:45,703 --> 00:54:50,703 in your home, if you're a dad, you're a mom, if you have, you have authority in your family, 708 00:54:50,703 --> 00:54:54,863 if you're a brother or a sister. And so just taking responsibility and caring, 709 00:54:55,102 --> 00:55:01,863 you know, caring for people in those ways, by you taking responsibility for things, 710 00:55:02,442 --> 00:55:07,543 you like authority will naturally flow to you. And so I think there's a lot of people who want, 711 00:55:08,462 --> 00:55:13,762 and the temptation is for guys to want to look for official authority and to look for, you know, 712 00:55:13,762 --> 00:55:17,523 to rely on position to give them authority rather than, 713 00:55:17,523 --> 00:55:20,582 than just basically going out and taking it, just going out and, you know, 714 00:55:20,643 --> 00:55:26,143 caring for people and then people coming to identify you as an authority in a, 715 00:55:26,143 --> 00:55:29,902 in a different, in a certain realm. Uh, and so I think this is, 716 00:55:30,442 --> 00:55:31,942 there's a happy medium there, right? 717 00:55:31,942 --> 00:55:35,143 You don't want to be just trying to accumulate authority and then have, 718 00:55:35,222 --> 00:55:38,762 again, have no, nothing, uh, meaningful to say. 719 00:55:38,802 --> 00:55:42,843 You can lead people into, you know, you could look at somebody like, uh, 720 00:55:42,843 --> 00:55:53,722 I mean, Andrew Tate or somebody like these guys, they have humongous followings, but have, you know, are repeating and saying foolish things in many occasions. 721 00:55:53,722 --> 00:55:58,582 And so, again, there's a happy medium there, but you don't just want to wait till you're perfect. 722 00:55:58,863 --> 00:56:04,482 There's a lot of people, unfortunately, there's a lot of people who should be more vocal and take more responsibility. 723 00:56:05,402 --> 00:56:08,163 And yet they are more naturally bent towards not saying anything. 724 00:56:08,163 --> 00:56:10,123 and then there's people who are more bent to say something 725 00:56:10,123 --> 00:56:13,123 and to want to be the guy up front or the girl up front. 726 00:56:13,302 --> 00:56:16,163 And they actually should be the ones who sit down more 727 00:56:16,163 --> 00:56:18,203 and are willing to learn. 728 00:56:18,742 --> 00:56:20,902 It's the whole angels or fools rush in 729 00:56:20,902 --> 00:56:22,683 where angels fear to tread, that dynamic. 730 00:56:22,922 --> 00:56:25,502 And so I think that churches shouldn't be looking 731 00:56:25,502 --> 00:56:27,242 to close that circle. 732 00:56:27,663 --> 00:56:30,043 Churches shouldn't just be waiting 733 00:56:30,043 --> 00:56:32,363 and trying to encourage, especially men, 734 00:56:32,582 --> 00:56:34,843 to never say anything unless it's perfect. 735 00:56:35,722 --> 00:56:37,543 We talked about this before we got on, 736 00:56:37,543 --> 00:56:43,623 but Jesus called the sons of thunder and they were anything but finished products. 737 00:56:44,222 --> 00:56:49,582 Like they were anything, but these, you know, these nice, uh, polished, perfect people. 738 00:56:49,722 --> 00:56:50,823 They had all kinds of things. 739 00:56:50,902 --> 00:56:55,402 Jesus called his best friend, Satan, because this guy wanted to do something that wasn't, 740 00:56:55,462 --> 00:56:57,323 that wasn't in line with what God wanted him to do. 741 00:56:57,383 --> 00:57:00,942 Jesus, there were guys who wanted to call down fire from heaven because people didn't 742 00:57:00,942 --> 00:57:03,063 respond the way that they should have responded. 743 00:57:03,063 --> 00:57:21,442 And so I think that there's a lot of churches, especially in America, who put this pressure on guys to be perfect, perfect, polished, you know, basically women with slightly more testosterone. And I just don't, I think that's, that's another example. We get what we subsidize. 744 00:57:21,442 --> 00:57:29,482 uh you know we we there's we want men we see the importance of of courageous men in situations like 745 00:57:29,482 --> 00:57:35,143 this and yet the question is are we producing or is the are the actions and the cultures that we're 746 00:57:35,143 --> 00:57:41,742 creating are they subsidizing and producing that type of men and i think that there's a lot of 747 00:57:41,742 --> 00:57:47,823 parts of american christendom where the answer is no and so if that's the case then we need to 748 00:57:47,823 --> 00:57:53,942 like reconsider, well, what are we missing? Um, I think that would be wise to do. Um, 749 00:57:54,063 --> 00:57:57,623 you guys have anything else to add? We're going to close the pod here. 750 00:57:59,422 --> 00:58:09,082 I mean, I would just say that our culture seems to be allergic to grieving and being mournful. 751 00:58:09,082 --> 00:58:19,623 and mourning is totally a legitimate state of mind and heart to be in in the bible sometimes 752 00:58:19,623 --> 00:58:27,802 you sing a dirge and sometimes you don't uh so i think it's totally appropriate to feel some 753 00:58:27,802 --> 00:58:34,482 sadness and some heaviness and to not shy away from that especially it doesn't make you any less 754 00:58:34,482 --> 00:58:40,683 masculine to feel that way. Yeah. This, this isn't the end. That would be the other thing 755 00:58:40,683 --> 00:58:45,442 would just be, it was a Brian Savé song. I think it was Psalm 47 or something. I shared it 756 00:58:45,442 --> 00:58:52,462 yesterday. And it's just, it's a great message. Just don't, don't fret for evil men, 757 00:58:53,063 --> 00:58:59,063 fret not yourself for evil men. Like these things, this isn't the end there. The Lord is 758 00:58:59,063 --> 00:59:05,363 working, you can trust him and what that trust looks like is going to require different things. 759 00:59:05,502 --> 00:59:11,643 And so I think we should all be doing, again, having some introspective moments here of like 760 00:59:11,643 --> 00:59:17,683 what should change, what needs to change as Asha was talking about in me and the things that I'm 761 00:59:17,683 --> 00:59:23,663 doing with my family, my church. I think the people should take seriously. This is one last 762 00:59:23,663 --> 00:59:28,643 final thing. I think that people need to take seriously the threats of violence and to be 763 00:59:28,643 --> 00:59:34,302 preparing themselves in any one of them, any one of a number of different ways for that reality, 764 00:59:34,402 --> 00:59:39,002 both not, not just to protect yourself, but to be able to protect other people. I think that that's 765 00:59:39,002 --> 00:59:43,023 something that, uh, one thing that we should, we should take from this. So again, a lot, 766 00:59:43,102 --> 00:59:47,023 lot more that we could say, but we are grateful for you. Um, again, if you have benefited from 767 00:59:47,023 --> 00:59:54,183 this, please like subscribe, uh, share with friends, um, leave reviews on, um, on Apple 768 00:59:54,183 --> 00:59:59,802 Podcasts and Spotify. Those are the two most meaningful places. Comment on Facebook. We're 769 00:59:59,802 --> 01:00:04,782 grateful for the people who've done that in the chat. And we will be back on Tuesday with another 770 01:00:04,782 --> 01:00:07,602 episode, Lord willing, of the To The Unknown Podcast.