Radical Frequencies: Rediscovering Anabaptist Roots

Welcome to the podcast that refuses to live life on mute.

It's time to amplify the truth and drown out the noise. Coming to you live from the Lord's Lair in the Shenandoah Valley, this is Life on 11. We're turning up the volume on faith and kingdom living. Here are your hosts, Jeremy and John. What's happening, doll? What's up, brother? Nothing. How you doing over there? Cold. Oh, it's a balmy 62 in here. Okay. All right. It's not that cold in here, but just getting from the car to in here was like 16. Yeah.

Is that one of those 16? That's what it said on my car. Okay. It could be six or seven. Sorry, I had to. That's just wrong. Hey, we're wearing it out, though, so the kids are like done with it. I don't think that's true. Yeah. It is true. So our snowpocalypse just turned into sleetpocalypse. Yeah, man, I have never seen it sleet so hard in my life. Dude, it was a lot of sleet. It was wild. It was from the windows to the walls. We had like a waterfall of sleet coming off of our garage.

A waterfall of sleet. Yeah. I don't think... A sleetfall. A sleetfall. It was a sleetfall. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Did you see some videos of the sleetfalls in West Virginia? That's crazy, man. That actually was pretty awesome. So I'd like to see that in person. It's crazy. So did you have some fun in the snow, the sleet, the ice, the wintry precipitation? Well, I got to use my skid steer to push snow for the first time. Did you love it? It was fun. I wish it was not quite as cold. And I guess cold.

Skiddy, as we call it, doesn't particularly like the cold weather. So some new leaks popped up in the cold weather, and I may or may not have gotten hydraulic oil all over the driveway. Okay, but at least they were new leaks. True. And not old leaks. It was true. I had, like, when I drove it up to the garage to park it in there, no oil leaked out. Last night, I went out and pushed a little bit of snow, brought it back in, oil everywhere.

I'm sorry. But I did find the leak this morning and fixed it. Well, that's good. Wasn't too terrible. That's good. Yeah. Well, we asked on our page if people liked. Oh, yes. Yeah. Actually, I didn't pay attention. What were the results there? So we had, let's see what we got here. There were seven people said absolutely. I'm one of the seven. Okay. Four said no way, of which was me.

And 10 said one big snow a year is good for me does this count as one big snow i don't think so i don't think it counts i think it's one big sleet i mean so here's the thing like i actually don't hate snow as much as i say i was i was getting ready to call you on that because i heard you on sunday morning like i just hate all the decisions that come with it yeah you know like and then all just the extra you know making

sure the making sure the plow works making sure the generators ready to go all the things yeah, Yeah, if it was just like, if it was clearly enough snow to where everybody knows we are not going anywhere and there's no decisions to really make, all right, I'm down. But when you get like, like this wasn't all that bad because most people figured it out.

But, you know, when you get like the two inches or three inches and it's slushy and it's like, you know, you have to start thinking about all the things. That's what I don't like. Yeah. So, yeah. Meh. It was cute. Olivia and Haley and Jess all went out in the sleigh road.

Oh, nice. That's always fun. Cool. That's always fun. Good. I know I'm old because 20 years ago I'd have been out in the Jeep doing donuts in random parking lots somewhere. Oh, I definitely would have been out doing something. Oh, yeah. But today I pretty much just plowed the snow and Riley and Talon are both over it. Yeah. So you excited about the Super Bowl? Super Bowl's coming. I'm excited about the food. The food's going to be amazing. The food is always my favorite part of the Super

Bowl. I think the Super Bowl's going to be a bloodbath. I'm not going to lie. Oh, yeah. I don't think it's even going to be close. Yeah, the Seahawks are going to completely destroy them. Yeah, it's not either. If they don't, I will be very surprised. I think we should have just had the Seahawks and the Rams play two out of three. That would have been cool. That was a great game. That was fantastic. It was a really good game.

Really, I don't know. Part of me wishes it would have went the other way, but, you know, it's all good. Yeah, I mean, yeah. It's all good. It's all good. It's all good? It's going to be a good night. It's going to be a good night. Oh, yeah. But I think the game's going to be... I mean.

Unless the the Redskins excuse me the Commanders are in the Super Bowl, to me it's more about the food and getting together pretty much I get it the game is just have you seen where like every time a new Pope has gotten elected like the past three times the Popes have gotten elected the Patriots have been in the Super Bowl I mean the Patriots have been in the Super Bowl like.

27 of the past 32 years yeah but they hadn't been in one in a while until a new Pope got elected okay gotcha so there you go Ha ha ha! Yeah. Crazy. Everything else good? Having a good week? Loving life? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, really didn't have to go to work today, but went in for a couple hours to do some things. You're such an overachiever. Back in the swing tomorrow. Everyone should be like you. With an 8.30 meeting. Mm. Oh, yeah. Mm-hmm.

But no, other than that, I mean, it's all good. I love it. What about you? About the same. You know, it's weird because I took vacation there the first week of the new year, and And then last Sunday, I was preaching somewhere else to do an ordination. And then this Sunday, we were out. I have yet to kind of feel like I've hit a... It's been like three weeks of just wonky schedules. That's fair. Yeah. I mean, you did bring a good message on Sunday.

Thank you. On the old YouTube. Yeah, God's good. Or Bookface. Bookface, YouTube. God's good. It was good. It's good. Hey, you got to go ahead and tell everybody who maybe hasn't seen the post about Olivia's, Oh, yeah. Checkup. Yeah, so Olivia had a checkup last week, and her, like, we called it the nubby lung. Which I like. Yeah. Her nubby lung is almost as big as her regular lung. So they've both grown. They've both grown really, really well.

And so they checked her patch. Patch looks good. I mean, maybe getting the feeding tube out here in a couple weeks. Oh, snap. We'll see. So God's good, man. Okay. That's awesome. She's rocking it. So, you know, it's funny because part of us was like, oh, we're really, really, really ready for the feeding tube to come out yet. But then, dude, like, it's so funny when you have a baby with a feeding tube because you have to be really careful of it, you know?

And so we'll see other babies doing stuff. We're like, oh, yeah, they don't have a feeding tube. You know, like, even, like, going sleigh riding, like, we had to, like, cover it up and make sure because if it hits the sled the wrong way or something like that, it'll just pop that bad boy right. Which, by God's grace, Olythia's only lost a feeding tube twice in four years. That's pretty impressive, actually. That is pretty impressive, especially as much as she's on the go.

And neither one of them were actually her fault. Wow. That's even more crazy. Yeah. So it's pretty crazy. Yeah. It was good. It was good. Sweet. Yeah. We'll see. They're talking like they're probably going to pull it out. So yeah. Okay. Awesome. Good for her. Yeah. We're excited. We're excited. Sweet.

So we're starting this new thing. Thing. This new podcast kind of mini series, Radical Frequencies. We're talking about the Anabaptist life and faith. Both of us grew up Anabaptist. I grew up Brethren. You grew up Mennonite. Mennonite, yep. Conservative Mennonite, not old order, but conservative. And so both of us have kind of grown up in that world. And even now, you know, we're CBC, which is still Anabaptist and pietist and all those things.

And so we just really wanted to look at, like, I think that there's a heavy, heavy, heavy Anabaptist influence in the Valley, especially. Oh, absolutely. But not a lot of people actually understand. Like, I think because we're ingrained in it, maybe a lot of people don't even realize, like, oh, there are other ways of doing the Christian faith than the Anabaptist way. Absolutely. I mean, I would say that's true for me. for the most part.

Was it a big deal? Like, when you grew up, did you guys, like, embrace the Anabaptist? Like, was it something you were conscious of, being Anabaptist? I mean... I would say not specifically, like it wasn't specifically like talked about as Anabaptist. It was just like, we were very specific in talking about why we believed what we believed, why we did what we did. I don't know that we were ever, we ever talked about it being Anabaptist and how we got to that point.

But I mean, it was all the things, there I go saying things, all the things were important things, if that makes sense. Yeah, yeah, yeah. See, it was, we were like undercover Anabaptist. undercover. The church where I grew up had some Anabaptist tendencies, but then had other things that clearly weren't Anabaptist that they did. Sure.

And so that was a little different. It wasn't until I went to Liberty, which of course is not Anabaptist, that I really started to understand and really think about why I believed some of the things that I did, which caused me to embrace Anabaptism. Sure. And so for me, it was really, while I grew up in it, it was also a choice that I made to continue to embrace it. Once you were exposed to something different.

Yeah. Yeah. And, and I mean, not that, and again, like Liberty was actually pretty close to what my church was, but then as I started studying like my faith and doing like these courses and stuff and I was like, oh, this is quite how, how church, the brethren or anabaptism would, would believe this. And so just breaking those things down. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, there's lots of, you know, you got Mennonites. You got brethren.

You have all the offshoots of both of those things. Sure. Quakers are Anabaptist. Amish are a form of Anabaptism. There's probably a couple others that I'm forgetting. Would Methodists? No, no, no. They're part. Well, it's weird because Anabaptism and the Reformation, they're in the same zone-ish historically. Okay, I was going to say, because evangelical United Brethren kind of. Became Methodist. That might be a whole other conversation. Yeah.

We could do a whole thing on brethren splits, oh, for goodness sake. It's crazy, dude.

But we are going to talk about throughout the next few weeks, like we're going to talk about all the things that make Anabaptism distinct or make Anabaptism different. Tonight, we're just going to kind of set the scene for it. And, you know, the birth of the Anabaptist movement, which was between like 1500 and 1700 right in there. It was a lot of turmoil. It was not, I think sometimes we forget how radical to play on the terms that it was.

There was basically the conflict became church and state and the marrying together a church and state and that the church was very much influenced by where you were born and the government saying all those things about you. And so there was basically a thousand year tradition of how you do church that the early Anabaptists broke. And the movement, the biggest part of the movement was, is they began to baptize adults.

That's the name Anabaptists actually means re-baptizers, their emphasis on not being baptized as infants, being believers baptism. Believers baptism, yeah, is what we called it. Okay, so what did believers baptism What does baptism mean to you guys? What were the things to be believers baptized? So believers baptized, there wasn't like a specific age, but it was like when you were to a point where you understood what it meant to be.

To repent of your sins and ask forgiveness and realize that you knew the difference between right and wrong. And when you did something wrong, you felt like you needed to do something about it, so to speak. So there's no specific age there. But at that point, that is when you usually either went to your pastor, went to your parents, went to a youth leader, went to somebody and talked about these things.

Then it was like oh you might be ready to to be baptized and then it's like oh okay cool so that's what this means and then you know we we did like a. A pre-baptism class type thing where you just talk about what it means to be baptized and all those things. And then you get baptized. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's pretty much. There's a lot of the pastors that I'm around, like they kind of say like 13's the age, which is funny enough. Give or take. Yeah.

Earlier in my ministry, I probably would have said like around there, but I'll tell you, man, like that number is going to backed up for me a little bit. Oh yeah.

And part of the reason is we have a world that if an eight-year-old says they want to be the different gender the world will embrace that and let it like not even ask questions sure and so if i have an eight-year-old who understands things about jesus and understands what an eight year old should like i've kind of gotten to the place where to me that's that's okay for the moment yeah yeah and and it's weird because i think if you grew up in those things like

i didn't know baptizing i mean i knew baptizing babies was a thing but it like wasn't something that i thought like around here we did until later on in life same for me yeah and so and Whereas like I have never been to an infant baptism. We do baby dedications, right? We'll dedicate the baby and really we're dedicating the parents more so to the baby. But yeah, so then as I became a pastor and I found all these, like a lot of people who were like, oh, I was baptized as a baby.

And I mean, I don't tell folks they have to be baptized as an adult, but I strongly encourage it.

Sure. you know and i mean tell me if i'm wrong but i would imagine most people in that scenario want to be baptized yeah a lot of them do yeah i mean just just the way i'm thinking in my head that makes sense yeah and and i think that was a huge thing like that was a huge thing for early anabaptists like it would we'll talk about this in a few minutes like it would cost them their life which to me that's great like you talked about

how radical it was and then you talk about what they started with doing and i'm like yeah that doesn't seem that radical but then And you're right, I mean, it could have cost them their lives, which to us, that's mind-blowing. Yeah. They also, part of the conflict was that early brethren, this is one of the things that really drew me to fully embrace the brethren, the Anabaptist faith, was sola scriptura and the Sermon on the Mount, right?

They took Jesus's teachings literally, specifically the Sermon on the Mount. If Jesus said, love your enemies, then he meant it. If Jesus said, don't get divorced, he meant it. If Jesus, like all the things that the Bible says. So it's a literal reading and interpretation of the Bible that the easiest and most accurate way to interpret the Bible is the black and white reading of the letters. And I feel like that's probably where you guys were. Absolutely.

Yes, that's where we were, where we where we still are, in my in my opinion. They also believed in the full separation of church and state, that the kingdom of God is distinct from the kingdom of the world. And so we'll talk a little bit about how that applied. But very much, they believed that as Christians, they did not need to participate in the kingdoms of the world. And that's kind of evolved. Yeah, that's definitely, definitely.

Now, I would say that was one of the biggest things I remember. When I, like, when I turned 18, my mom very specifically was like, make sure when you register to vote and which in turn you register for the draft that you register as a conscientious objector. And I'm like, what, what, I don't tell me more. Yeah. That was one thing I specifically remember. And now, I mean, then I understood why once she explained it to me, but yeah, but yeah, sorry.

Well, and even like a lot of Anabaptists, early Anabaptists would, and still do some, take this to another, like they don't even serve in like public office. Like they don't work for the government, like none of those things. I don't know any personally, but I do know there are some Anabaptist congregations. Like if you're a member of that congregation, you like, you can't work for the government. You can't take, you know, you can't be on the school board. You can't run for

public office. Like those things are very different than what we do here. And so that's crazy. I know some church of the brethren, it's not covenant, but like they won't allow you to be a member if you are active in the military. Really? It's just crazy, right? Yeah, that is. It's kind of mind-blowing. And then the fourth one, which is kind of a blend of the two, was the non-resistance, the pacifism. Boy, that one's complicated. We've talked about that with Scott already. Yeah, yeah.

I go back to that podcast we did with Scott quite often because he really, He really did a great job explaining the peace position and why he feels the way he does. And it really made me think a lot more probably than I ever have. Yeah. So that was very good. Yeah, it was great. Anybody who hasn't listened to that, go back and check it out. Absolutely. It's one of my favorites that we've done. Oh, absolutely. And it's interesting because if you like, so Carl Bowman was a brethren sociologist

and he did this back in 2008. eight, he did a book and it's called portrait of the people. And he talked about how, like, as core as we say, the pacifism stance is, especially for the church, the brethren, like I think 70 or 80% of brethren didn't even, didn't even like follow it. I mean, I can, I can believe that really. Yeah. But those are kind of the big four things. And so it reminds me, one of the scriptures that, that we pulled was X five

29 in the scriptures. It says we must obey God rather than human beings. And that's really where the early Anabaptists were. And I think we're going to get to a point in our society where we have to think about that, too. We might already be there. Yeah. And maybe not in the craziest ways like they did. We were, you know, some of the ways counting the cost, right, is what we call it.

It's the, in Luke chapter 14, when Jesus starts talking about if you're going to build a tower, wouldn't you make sure you got enough money? Or if you're going to go to war, wouldn't you make sure you have enough soldiers? And so the scriptures do tell us like if we're going to stand for our faith, we need to count what that costs before we're going before we do it, because it's a huge commitment that we get into when we're following Jesus.

It's not something we should take lightly. It's one of the reasons why. I've never been a fan of people who they confess Jesus and they immediately get baptized. I think there needs to be a season in between those things because I think you can say yes to Jesus at an altar call and not fully understand what it means to follow him. I'm familiar with a person that I knew I was growing up with and knew right out of high school and they said yes to Jesus and they got baptized.

And then two weeks later, they were like, I'm done with this Christian thing because all of a sudden they found out they couldn't sleep with their girlfriend anymore they you know could they couldn't drink and you know party and and out you know well they i guess they could but it wasn't encouraged and so like they sure didn't realize all the things that came with following jesus and like two weeks after they you know we were at like one of those heavens

gates hell's flames things like they accepted the lord and they were all about it and then like two weeks later they were like oh no i ain't about this life yeah i'm not giving up all that stuff and so that's an That's an example of counting the cost. That's probably why we had to go through the, what did we call it? Membership classes. Yeah, like membership class or whatever. Because we talked about all those things

and what it meant and your commitment to follow Christ and all those things. Yeah. We don't live in a place where, I mean, right now, as bad as things are in our country for some things, we aren't going to die because of our faith. Yeah. Agreed. If we die, it's probably not because of that, right? And it's not okay to kill Christians. Not in the United States anyway. Exactly, exactly. One of the things that I forgot about this until we were reading through some of these notes.

So often Anabaptists would be killed by what they called the third baptism, which was a way of being mocked that the first baptism was the infant baptism and the second baptism was their confession. So the state would give them a third baptism. They would drown them. Oh my goodness. That's terrible. Yeah. Yeah. And so grief, like you're being mocked, you're, you're being executed.

And like, that was by the state that wasn't like, you know, and I think in our, even in our country, like when we hear about Christians being murdered or even around the world, you know, it's, it's basically by religious zealots. Like this was by the state. This was government sanctioned executions, drownings. That's crazy, man. That is, that is hard for us to imagine. Yeah. The first, the first day, the first one that we know of was Felix Mancy was. He was, he was martyred.

He was drowned in Zurich when his mother, like his mother sat there and watched him be executed for his faith. Man. Yeah. That's a, it's hard to fathom. Hard to imagine. Yeah. Yeah. I can't, I can't imagine, you know, what that would, but, but, and how easy it would have been to turn back and be like, all right, I'm done now. Like this is reaching a level where it's going to cost me something.

Yeah. We also talked about Dirk Weilams. this is one of the most powerful illustrations of of anabaptism so while i'm's escaped prison and ran across a frozen pond to get away from from the police and his pursuer fell through the ice he turned back and saved his life only to be arrested by that same guard and later he would be burned at the stake now was he in prison for being i believe so i i think that's how that's I believe so, yes. Okay.

I mean, that would make sense in the story. And those are those things. Like, could you imagine being, I don't know about you, like, if I was in prison for my faith and I escaped and somebody was chasing me and they fell through the ice, I'd probably be like, peace out. Like, this is, how many of us would be like, well, that's God's way of letting me get out. But his, like, conviction of pacifism and loving your enemies was so. I was on full display right there. Yeah.

Pulls him from the ice. that guy still catches him and he gets burned at the stake. Dude, that's crazy. You're right. I mean, that's hard. Again, thinking back to the podcast we did with Scott, like, you know, am I willing to do that? Yeah. You know? Yeah. I mean, odds of me being in that situation are very slim here in the United States, but would I be willing to do that? Right. I don't know. Yeah. That's tough. It's extremely tough.

Yeah. The early story of counting the cost in Antibaptism, really the biggest thing it reminds us is that the idea of being a Christian is not a label, but it's a radical choice. And I think that's one of the things that really draws me to Antibaptism is the radical stances that we have to take on some things. We choose to take on some things because the crazier the world gets, the more radical it is to be a Christian.

There are decisions that we make every day that could easily make us very unpopular in the world. I mean, we're to the point where now, I would say, for most of us, taking a biblical stance on marriage seems very radical to people. Oh, agreed, yeah. To people, right? Taking a biblical stance on loving your enemies seems very radical to people. It's so hard because I think of the song I used to sing when I was a kid. They can tell we are Christians by our love, by our love. Thank you.

It's almost like that has gotten flipped on its head where our love, people have turned it into hate, which is just unbelievable.

Yeah. But anyway. Yeah. And so I would argue that if you are a Christian and there isn't some aspect of your faith as a American in 2026 that doesn't look radical to non-Christians, then you're probably not doing it right. For sure. I would agree. I think because Christianity has become sort of a cultural thing, you know, for the generations in front of us, like it was cool to be a Christian or whatever, like now to stand on those things seems radical.

It seems radical for us, like the amount of young people that I'm like, hey, you should probably save sex till you get married. That is a radical idea in 2026. It is a basic biblical concept that up until like a generation ago, everyone was pretty much like, yeah, we agree with that. Even the thought of tithing, giving away 10% of your income. If you looked at somebody right now and you're like, hey, just give 10% of your income to the church.

That's a pretty radical thing when you think about it, especially to people who've never done that before. But in the same conversation, you have other groups of Christians saying this to these Christians. Oh, absolutely. So you don't have the state church. Yeah. You've got Christians versus other Christians. Yeah. All right. So I'm going to tell you a story, and I want you to think of one

while I'm telling the story. So what is, is there something that you have done that has been seen by the people around you as like extremely radical for your faith? Okay. I think I've told you the story. Maybe I've told it on the podcast, but so I do not say the Pledge of Allegiance. It's not something that I do. I don't believe that I have more than one allegiance to give, and my allegiance is to Jesus, to the kingdom of God.

So I personally don't say the Pledge of Allegiance. I don't know if a lot of people knew that about me. But I can remember in my late 20s when I had done a lot of Bible study and I'd done a lot of study about the faith, and I came to this conviction that I was no longer going to say the Pledge of Allegiance. And I didn't really tell anybody that. Maybe Jess, I'm just not going to do this anymore. I don't think I can do it

in good faith. And I can still remember being somewhere where the Pledge of Allegiance got said. And I stood up and I put my hands behind my back and I just didn't say the pledge. And four or five people around me picked up on it. And they were offended that I didn't say the Pledge of Allegiance. And one of them was like, why didn't you say the Pledge of Allegiance? And when I told them, that was so radical. I didn't tell them they didn't have to. I didn't do it.

I didn't get drowned for it. But something that small that I was in a worship service. I was at a church service and didn't say the Pledge of Allegiance. And was actually bothered that they were saying the Pledge of Allegiance in this church service. Didn't make a big deal about it. Understandably so. And they just looked at me like I had two hits. Have you ever had something like that? I don't know. I don't know if there's been one specific experience.

Experience, but I think I said going back to the Holy Cussing podcast, multiple people have made comments about how, oh, you don't cuss, you don't cuss, oh, you're a good Christian man, you don't cuss. I mean, sometimes saying it jokingly, mockingly, but people genuinely take notice, I would say, but not, I mean, yeah, one specific instance like that I can't think of. Yeah. Do you feel like, are some of those people Christians?

They might consider themselves Christian maybe but it seems pretty rad yeah it doesn't fit let me put it that way yeah, And I mean, I would argue that really is like a place where the church must do better, right? Is there so many people that Christianity is just a label. It's just a thing that you are. Like I go to church or I grew up Christian.

You know, it's very different. Like even when we were in Israel, we talked about like the difference between like Jews and like practicing Jews because you're born into that faith. And that's what sometimes as Christians, like they'd be like, yeah, I'm Christian. But why are you Christian? Because when my whole family is Christian and I went to church growing up. I mean, a lot of people pick Christianity just to identify with having never been to church before. They just identify as Christian.

And the early Anabaptist movement reminds us that our faith is supposed to be something more than that. And as we go through the next few weeks, we'll be talking more about what that looks like and some of those stories and the core values.

But overall like i think all of us the more and more our society drifts in the more and more this goes like we are all gonna have to take we're gonna have to count the cost because brother i think by the end of our lifetimes like it will look very different to be like i don't i don't believe that we will ever live in a place where christians are executed by the government like i think that religious freedom is such a powerful concept in the united states

of america i don't think the government will ever sanction. I'd agree with you on that. I don't see that ever being a thing. But I do think that it will be normal to see Christians persecuted. And I think that we will see more people who are killed for their faith, even if it's still illegal to do so. I think we'll have more people that will stand up for the... I mean, we've seen... I mean, how many churches have been attacked,

burned, going back to Charlie Kirk, all those things. Or people's businesses. Because of Christian owners. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah. And so I think that's going to be more normal, but I don't, I don't think in the United States of America, not just because Christianity is so core to us, but religious freedom is so core. I don't think like we will ever be tracked down by the government. I agree with you on that. I don't, I don't see that happening. Yeah.

But I mean, we do have to, we have to count those costs and some of those costs too are things, decisions that we have to make like for, for our children. Like you, we talked about this the other week, like sometimes holding onto Christian values and helping your children do that is going to make you weird as a parent. Oh, sure.

It's going to make you look different as a parent because you're saying like, no, this isn't okay for these things to happen in your life and parenting differently. And boy, as both of us now have, you know, teenage children and some of the decisions we make with our children are very different than their friends and then their families.

And sometimes, I mean, I know that the boys have told me like they have friends who sometimes their parents are like, man, your parents need to lighten up about some stuff. I'm like, wait a minute. We're some of the most easygoing parents that I know. That's true. That's true. We're just not going to let our boys do certain things that you apparently are okay with your kid doing. Sure. So. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Crazy, man. That reminds me.

I've been thinking about this story. I don't remember when I heard it, who I heard it from. It was probably a church growing up sometime. But there's a story about, I don't know which country it was in, but a soldier came into a church service with his gun drawn. And this was in a time of persecution in this area. So everybody was like, oh, no, he's here to kill us all. Yeah. And he was like, I want to know who all believes in Jesus Christ as their savior.

And he said, if you don't believe, get out. Everybody left except one person. Yeah. And he walked up to him and he said, he said, okay. He said, I want to be like you. Wow. How can I, how can I be like you? So everybody else was counting. They weren't really counting their calls. So they were like, I'm out. Yeah. But this one person was like, hey, I'm ready to see Jesus if that's what this is about. But instead brought this soldier to Jesus, which powerful story.

That's crazy. Stuck with me ever since I was a kid. Absolutely. So. Absolutely. Yeah.

And I mean, you know, maybe that's something for all of us. think about like what are the things that you would die for like what are the tenets of your faith because baptism was so important to these people like be honest with you i don't know if like baptism like part of me is like um if we were baptizing you know we typically baptize back behind folks around rote and bark like if we were doing a baptism service somebody was like all right y'all need to stop baptizing or y'all going to jail,

A, how many people would disperse? And what would I do as a pastor? Would I be like, all right, well, can I finish this? Or what would happen if those things were going on? We don't have to think about those things. Sure, not. What are the things about our faith that if we would go to jail? Like I've said before, I will go to jail over same-gender marriage. If they look at me and say, you either have to do this marriage to same-sex

couple, or you're going to jail, I'll go to jail. It's that big of a deal for me, right? I would go to jail for, you know, that I believe the Bible is in any word of God. Like, if they looked and they were like, if you believe this book is God's word, you're going to jail. Okay, I'll go to jail for that. You know, there are other things I really believe about my faith that maybe I would back down from, you know, like, you know, we've said before, like, okay, I'll go to jail over baptism.

But if somebody said, like, you have to dunk them three times forward. Oh, hold up. Hold on. How many times do you want to go? But those are those things like we have, like, we don't have to think about now, but But I guarantee you, the longer and longer history goes, we're going to start thinking about that stuff because, I mean, it very well could cost you a lot. And we see that in the early brethren, early Anabaptists. It's been good, man. I'm looking forward to the next few weeks.

Oh, yeah. It's going to be great. It's going to be fun. We're going to tell some more stories from us. Oh, I'm sure there's plenty of them. And probably tell some more stories about some Anabaptist forefathers and really go through some of that stuff. Like, man, we've got to talk about John Klein. Oh, yeah. We've got to talk about Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Oh, yeah. We've got to talk about some of those historical figures.

Those are really interesting if folks don't follow them. I also need to, before we go, I need to get... There's a Bethel Mennonite church history book, basically. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It has a lot of the stuff from the early church. Yeah, find that. Yeah, I need to find it. There's some very interesting stuff in there. I love it, dude. Yeah. I love it.

All right, well, if you have some Anabaptist history or some Anabaptist stories that mean a lot to you, reach out to us and we'll make sure we include them.

But along the way, we're going to have some fun. Oh, yeah. It should be a good couple of weeks, man. It should be a good one. All right, Duke and Louisville, basketball. Duke and Louisville should be going in the second half. We got a little Arizona and B-I-G. Let's check it out. I do. Christ. If you enjoyed the conversation, the best way you can support the show is to share, like, and comment wherever you listen to your podcasts.

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