#138 Rhett McLaughlin - How to Save Christianity From Christians

Hey, I'm going on a tour of the United Kingdom. If you've ever been interested in that big question of God's existence, or try to make sense of religion in the twenty-first century, or consciousness, or anything philosophical then join me on stage as I try to work out some of these topics with you. I'll be in conversation with a good friend, but also bring questions because there will be an extensive QA and maybe even an opportunity to hear and rate.

some of your philosophical hot takes. The tour dates are on screen. The link to buy tickets is in the description. And I hope to see you there. Did I say your name wrong last time? Because I I would say McLaughlin. Mm-hmm. Right. And that's maybe my sort of Irish heritage. Is it Scottish or Irish? Well, that's an interesting story. I I thought it was Scottish.

I took my entire family to Scotland, dressed up in the traditional garb, got pictures taken by what I thought was our ancestral castle, the Lachland Castle. And uh and then we learned that right after my mother broke her ankle at the castle, we learned that our the spelling is most likely Irish. Cultural appropriation. There's like a hundred different spellings of it. Yeah.

There's no doubt that Lachlan McLachlan is more close to the original. Son of Scandinavian or something it means, right? Well, you know more than I do. I just looked it up in the bathroom. Um but the the So you probably said it more accurately'cause it the McLaughlin is like an Americanization of it. Well, growing up I would say McLaughl McLaughlin.

McLaughlin. McLaughlin. Well, um whoever you are, welcome back to the show. I was just trying to avoid the comments again'cause some of them were sort of like oh like you know it's funny to hear his name like that. That I think that's how it's Well, it seems to be the uh the MO of any time someone makes like a reaction video to anything, if your name is a little bit hard to pronounce, yeah. The beginning of the video is them trying to figure out how to say the name. Yeah.

For me it's people just making fun of my my British accent and talking about T. Happens all the time. Speaking of which Our last episode. Um, yeah. I thought it's great. It's one of the most viewed episodes we've ever done, which like i in a way is unsurprising because people like you so much, but also like it it was it obviously just captured a a great deal of of attention and interest.

And um yeah, it was very well received. Also, you know, for some a bit controversially received. Right. We were just talking about this. I put that episode out on Easter Sunday. Mm yes you did. It wasn't

On purpose. I I genuinely like'cause we talked about like the resurrection and Jesus and stuff and and we put out episodes on Sundays and an episode has to go out that week and I was excited to put out this episode of them with you and and I put it out and it's only afterwards that I'm seeing people commenting like, Oh man, he's oh this is brutal, you know, talking about the resurrection and I was like, Oh Yeah, and I know that wasn't your intention and it wasn't my intention.

De I mean it's definitely not your fault. Well, it's funny because i you know, we talked about doing another episode, you know, when it next time you came into town. And I know we we talked about is there like something in like responding to the responses or whatever and I think we both agreed that that's not We're not interested in doing that. That's right. Um

And it's and it's funny because a friend of mine, Paula Gia, who's got a great YouTube channel, he's a former Christian that examines the the claims of Christians. Um, he has he took all of the sort of major channel responses to our video. and he made a response to it. And the name of that video was Did Rhett Just Break Christianity on Resurrection Sunday. Yeah. And

First of all, his channel's great and he's very and I like the way he does everything so thoroughly. He's great. But he's also very funny. Yeah. Like every video is very funny. I always appreciate a sense of humor being thrown in there. We'll see that in the description for people. It's a great channel. And that video is is great.

But you know, he's asking that question because it's like you would think that that was what we had set out to do. Right. Was that our conversation was setting out to like be a critique of Christianity or to break Christianity or to like make a case against the resurrection. And I always I c honestly it may seem ridiculous uh to I kind of forget that that is how things are interpreted a lot of times, right?

Because I see it like we're sitting down to have a conversation. I'm trying to be descriptive and not prescriptive. But I think a lot of times, obviously if you're talking about well, I'm d I'm not a Christian anymore and here's a couple of reasons why. I'm not going into some really well articulated case against the Christi uh against the resurrection. But imp it's implicit that I'm critiquing or I have something against Christianity or I don't b I don't believe in it.

And I also think that so many of the you know, I c as a m as a Christian for most of my life, any time I spoke about Christianity I was being an advocate for it and I was trying to get you to agree with me. And so I think a lot of times it's just like, oh, you must be trying to get people to agree and

So we weren't trying to break Christianity. That's right. I don't think I would be capable of breaking Christianity and I don't think the Christianity needs to be broken. No, that's the other thing. Yeah. And and also I think a lot of the because the episode was quite big as well, and because I'm known as like the atheist guy, although people who follow my work remotely closely know that I'm sort of not really um

Yeah, I don't sort of identify with that strongly anymore. I'm I'm sort of more of an agnostic and I like to explore ideas and people think that, you know, I've brought on my atheist friend to gloat about how wrong Christianity is. But like You know, I just had Bear Grills on the show. Do you know Bear Grills? Yeah. So I had him on and he's just writing a book about Jesus and he's like

really strong on the faith and and I brought him on and we just had like a nice chat and I didn't like push back too much. I was very grateful for his time, just wanted to talk about how you rewrite the story of Jesus. And Like, yeah, like I I I do that too. I just like hearing people's stories. And I didn't get any atheist

Actually, somewhat surprisingly, in the comments of that section being like, you know, why are you trying to promote Christianity? It's like I'm I'm not just trying to have a nice chat. I know what you mean. Like i it's not necessarily

Christianity that needs breaking. But I think we can both agree that there are certain ways that Christianity expresses itself in the modern world and throughout history that probably need rethinking, right? Yeah, I mean I would go as far as to say that I don't you know, I don't know. It I can only uh guess as to where I might be if I came from a different Christian background or if I had a different set of beliefs or I approached this differently. Um

You know, there's definitely if if if multiple worlds theory is true, there's definitely a a n a lot of rhett's out there who are still Christians. Mm-hmm. Uh it could have gone a different way. And I think that Now on the other side of it, you know, is somebody who's no longer associates with it, but is still so interested in it, right? I can't I'm always gonna be interested in it because it's formative to who I am. Yep. And I'm just interested in the ongoing conversation.

Um I've seen the way that Christians have approached a lot of things and I kind of f realized that I had sort of developed some ideas about I've got advice for Christians ultimately, I think, is what it is. Like if you've got people like me who are in your currently in the flood.

and you wanna keep'em there. Mm-hmm. I think there's some things that you could do differently, right? The the crazy thing is happening is that you've talked about this a lot, but there's there is a crisis of purpose and meaning, right? Like we are experiencing People feeling the sense of hopelessness and disconnectedness.

And then you've got the church kind of stepping in. It's kind of having a cultural moment, right? The church is stepping in, ready made purpose and meaning. You've got this tested philosophy that's that's helped millions of people, billions of people. The st it's showing up in the stats. Uh, you know, church attendance is up. I was looking at one uh Barner research poll that was

the number of people who considered Jesus, a commitment to Jesus to be a very important thing in their life. Like in twenty twenty one, I think that was around fifty four percent. In twenty twenty five is sixty six percent. It's a twelve point jump.

You know, and fifty four was like the lowest it had ever been. Right. Yeah. In a very short period of time, based on a number of different factors. It's it's climbed to that level. Mm-hmm. And so the church is having a moment and you've got all these people coming in. Like I th I thought it would be interesting to sort of do what might not be expected by The skeptic and the former Christian and talk about what they can do to keep the people who are coming through their doors. Yeah. I mean

You you told me about this when w I was talking about coming back and you said, Well, we could do like a sort of, you know, advice for keeping people in the church. It's like okay, yeah, why why not let's But then yeah, we are both people who are former Christians and

So we obviously have some idea as to why we both don't find it sort of particularly compelling, but there's also a lot to like about it. And there's a lot that I find really interesting and meaningful in Christianity that I do think it's kind of misrepresented by various groups and expressions of it, right? And so Yeah, like you're right. There is this moment, the the revival that everybody's talking about, which seems to be in many ways political. Um, seems to be a result of like

political circumstance, but there does also seem to be this kind of, you know, spiritual moment that's happening. I think it's because it's become sort of fashionable to say that new atheism has sort of died. And the promises that it made about, you know, just regain your spiritual autonomy and secular humanism will save the world, it sort of hasn't

really worked out very well. And so, you know, religion's there like it's like a prodigal son moment, sort of like, Okay, you know, come back, we'll welcome you back in. Um but You used to bring people into the faith yourself. You used to be part of the the sort of open door and you know what it's like to

then sort of see the other side of that door on on the way out. So how can we start talking about our adv our advice to Christianity in in its modern sort of revival to keeping people inside? I brought something. I brought my Bible. My this this okay, so this is a first of all, this is a reason why you should get a real leather Bible and not the fake leather bible.

Because this is what happens after twenty years is i there's a good chance that as I touch this, oh look, see it comes off it then this will get on your face. Whoa. So if I get a little Bible on my face. Yeah. Let me know. Okay. Uh but yeah, this is the one, you know, we this is the way we used to do it. You get your name on your Bible, so if somebody takes it, they know this belong belongs to Rhett McLaughlin. McLaughlin. There it is.

Um no, but I thought it would be interesting. So I I I think that um I think about The way that this happened for me and I kinda see this as again, and I because I come from this background, it's just like there's a good three-point talk, good three-point sermon. It kinda hit me that there are three things, three pieces of advice that I would give to Christians if they want to hold on to these people. Now, let me just say that one of the reasons I'm motivated to do this is because

You know, the church isn't going away. The church is going to evolve. The the church can has always evolved and the church continues to be a really important cultural force in in the United States. they basically have the biggest influence on the direction of our country right now. And I think that as a citizen of the United States and a citizen of the world I I have a uh a vested interest in the church being healthy and the church being a force for good. Mm-hmm. Um

And I think there's a little bit of that. There's also some other things that are happening in the church. So that that's kind of the perspective that I'm bringing in this. But I see it as sort of three points.

I would say they need to embrace faith, they need to embrace truth, and they need to embrace Jesus. So the first thing, you know, when we talk about faith, I think in many ways the modern Christian church, and I would say this is most pronounced in sort of American evangelicalism. kind of took the bait of the enlightenment.

Right. So you've got this one two punch of the Reformation and the Enlightenment. Reformation, of course, when faith became more personal and the access to scripture and the experience of God became something that could happen on an individual level. Right. And then you follow that up with the the Enlightenment where we go from Truth being determined by dogma, by tradition, and authority to truth being determined through observation, uh, you know, evidence.

And I think that fast forward to modern times and you've got Christian apologists who spend a lot of time making the case that Christianity is the most reasonable worldview that you can have. Right. that the resurrection is the best explanation for the start of the church. Like the literal bodily resurrection of Jesus is the most reasonable explanation for the start of the church.

And I think that I don't think that's true. I don't think it's the most reasonable explanation for the start of the church. But I think that what ends up happening when you're when you have a brain like mine and you are sort of motivated to try to get the things that you believe to line up with reality. You're told this is the most reasonable thing. And so you really jump in with the reason and logic, and then you encounter a faith that.

says that reason and logic can be a little bit overrated and that and and what I see in the Bible from Jesus and also whoever wrote Hebrews, uh, Paul I see a completely different message. Mm-hmm. So I'm sure these are all verses that you're familiar with, but just to like to explore the idea of what faith looks like in the Bible. Let's take a look. Follow along at home. Bible study. Yes. So we're starting with, you know, the uh the famous verse.

um in Hebrews uh Hebrews eleven one, right? Now I'm reading from the ESV because that was my uh translation of choice. It's not always it's not always exactly what I'm looking for, especially in this verse, but you know Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for the conviction of things not seen. And this is the beginning of this hall of faith. The conviction of things not seen. Now the NASB is

says, now faith is the certainty of things hoped for, the proof of things not seen. Mm-hmm. Which I like that even more because it fits with where I'm trying to go. And um It what ends up happening in the in the following chapter, because you can't just take that that that verse, is that you see a bunch of people in this hall of faith, people who exercise faith. to accomplish all of these incredible things. And it's people who it found themselves in a situation where

They had to rely on the authority of God and on the w and the word of God and God's promises in order to move into faith. But it was definitely somet it wasn't something that like I am going to reason my way through the situation and I'm gonna make the decision that the evidence suggests is the best possible decision. It's like, no, I'm going to follow I'm going to follow what I hear from God, right?

So this I so right there we see that in in in in in is said in other another place, you know, we walk by faith, not by sight. So again, is this evidence and observation or is this is this faith, right? Second verse that really brings this to light. Or passage really. So this is this is maybe my favorite passage just because it's so uh personal to to me and my experience. So you got Jesus in John chapter twenty. Mm-hmm. So Thomas. Yes.

So, you know, he has appeared to the disciples, and he's shown them the holes in his hands and the in the hole in his side where he was pierced. And then of course Thomas what I don't know what he's doing, he's not there. Mhm. And then Thomas shows up later and they're like, We have seen the Lord and he's like, Okay, well that might be good for you but I I need to see him and I need to literally place my fingers in his hands. I need to place my hand in his side.

And what does Jesus do? Well he comes back a week later and he's like, Okay, you wanna you wanna do this? Here, touch my hand, touch my side. And there's a great painting, The Incredulity of Saint Thomas, which I want to get a print of this. Yeah. Uh just But interestingly, he's sticking his finger in the side, not his whole hand. Yeah. Missed opportunity. This time of year, everyone talks about going dry. But at Athletic Brewing Company, we're skipping that because we prefer going athletic.

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Yeah, I think so. Although interestingly, um as a s actually yeah, I'll I'll I'll get to this in a moment, but I it's not clear from the text. And this actually works really well with what I'm presuming you're gonna say. It's not actually guaranteed by the text that Thomas ever actually touches Jesus. Uh we only know that Jesus shows up and offers

Come on then, like t touch me. Right. Cause he kind of continues in in that and says, Stop doubting and believe. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. And then of course he says the the thing that and I've heard you talk about this as well. He's like, you know You have seen because you have believed because you have seen. Blessed are those who believe who have not seen. Yeah. We'll get back to the show in just a moment, but first.

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essence of enlightenment values of empiricism and observation, to say, Blessed are those who believe without seeing. When I ask Christians about this and I say, look, what what is what's Jesus saying here? Is he saying that you're supposed to believe without evidence? They say, typically, no no no, it's more that Jesus thought that Thomas sh or like already had enough evidence based on the witness of the disciples. Like blessed are those who could believe based on on that amount of evidence.

And if if that even if that's the case, we're still talking about sort of belief in something which you have not directly observed for yourself, but rather heard through essentially a kind of authority. That is the authority of like trustworthy friendship. Which is much more in keeping with the tr sort of traditional view of of authority than this enlightenment scientific approach. And it takes into account the experience of almost everyone who's ever responded to the gospel. Yeah.

I think we talked a little bit about this last time as well, but you know Uh it has only into a until a very recent point in history, if I were to share the gospel with you and tell you about the risen Jesus, would you have said

Well let me see if I can see it verify if that's true. Because you wouldn't have had any tools to verify that that was true. Yeah. Like there's n there was no scholarship on that that anyone had access to. So if that's such an important part, like reasoning your way to that is such an important part of the process. then why is it that those tools have never been made available until very recently. And by the way, now that the apologetics tools are available

the v small small minority of Christians take advantage of it. Like think about like I I saw a lot of people come to know Jesus would during my time in ministry, and I never, not once after sharing the gospel, did I have someone say, Do you have any way to prove that that's true? Can you can we like, is there something I can read to to know that the Bible is true? Mm-hmm.

It was like no, they were making it was a faith decision, it was a spiritual decision. And then maybe once they became a Christian, they might then go to apologetics, which again that's what apologetics exists for. Yeah. It's to justify belief that's already happened in a lot of ways. Um but I just find it interesting that I'm not sure.

You just don't get that from the Bible. And Paul kind of so we've seen the example of Jesus talking about it and then the writer of Hebrews, but Paul gets even more explicit, which again, I find this very difficult to reconcile with modern apologetics. So you got first Corinthians. Uh, yeah. What is that? I need my readers. eighteen.

For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. And in other translations it says foolishness, right? And then he expands on this at the top of chapter two, where he says And when I came to you, brothers, I did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom, for I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.

And I was with you in weakness and in fear, and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. Plause it's this is not a plausible argument that you're trying to make. And again, the reason I think this is this is so important for from a Christian perspective is that when you tell somebody like me that

the resurrection has incredible evidence. That is the most well attested uh event in the ancient world. And then you look at what the evidence is that there that exists and you're like, Mm, well that's not true.

Like that's not true. Like you can believe you can choose to believe it is an explanation of the beginning of the church, but there are natural explanations that can explain everything that we know about the church. And of course they're more plausible from a just reason and logic standpoint. And if you think about any other religious claims, like i I I always find it really interesting the way Protestants don't give any time to the Marian apparitions, right? Like when I was a Christian.

And basically kind of a Baptist, like a non denominational Baptist. I heard about these Marian apparitions that had happened throughout history. Some very recently and some very well attested. Some with like newspaper like you can read about you can read press interviews. Is that the one in Z Tune? Zi Toon? I th I think So yeah, there's one in particular that I'm thinking of but I can't remember where it was.

It was like three years that it kept happening someplace. And like groups would show up and you'd have like newspaper reporters and they'd all claim to tell you exactly what they'd seen and and even with those first hand written like accounts.

Yeah. examine those and then say they're not true, they don't even give them the time of day. Like I knew that they existed, but it wasn't even worth my time to consider it's like Catholics believe something, but uh it's not true. It's like and I d in and there in that moment where you're dismissing that Catholic belief you are resting on human reason because you're like

You may not articulate this, but what you're saying is that, well, there's obviously a natural explanation for this. I don't know what it is. Even within Protestant Protestantism, you've got ki I wasn't charismatic, so I didn't speak in tongues, right? I thought that if you spoke in tongues it was maybe for like an evangelistic purpose to like reach somebody like it y you saw in the the book of Acts.

But this idea of like going to a charismatic church and they start speaking in tongues and somebody interprets and it's like literally like the tongue of an angel or whatever. I d I didn't

I thought that was BS. Yeah. Right? And I didn't even take a whole lot of time thinking about it. But I was using reason and logic to be like, Well, this is probably some emotional experience or whatever and it's like they're still Christians, they're still in the fold. Uh Catholics, I don't know about them. Yeah.

Um and even other have you know about this rainbow body stuff? Rainbow body. So this is fascinating. Dale Allison talks about this. I had never heard about it, but Wait, I have heard of this. What tell me about this? It's in Tibetan Buddhism. Yeah. And there is this idea that if you are a very enlightened individual, like fully realized. I guess like Dalai Lama level.

that when you die, your body transforms into light directly. Mm. And so what they observe is that the body gets smaller and smaller And I think they call it rainbow body because you'll see a rainbow like c like wherever they're i entombed or whatever, there's like a rainbow that's coming out of it as they transform into light. Yeah. And the only thing left is a lot of times hair, teeth. And fingernails. And of course If you don't have

a reason to believe that, then you're like, well that didn't happen that doesn't happen. That's not real. Aaron Powell And but people are probably thinking that didn't happen

Even if that's the first time they've ever heard of this. If you're a Christian listening, you've probably gone like, Oh yeah, well, you know like you haven't looked into it. You don't know what the evidence is. I'm sure there's like a wealth of great attestations and and s and you know, but but like it kinda doesn't matter because like

That obviously didn't happen. There's a Catholic I need to read more about this, but there's a Catholic I think a Catholic priest who went to spend time Like in the last hundred years. spent time over there and investigated these claims directly,

And basically says, I interviewed all these people. I don't know if he saw it for himself, but he's like talking to all these people and he's like, This is very, very well attested. Yeah. It doesn't seem like a hoax. It doesn't seem like something they're making up.

He was actually trying to make a a parallel between Rainbow Body and the Resurrection. Right. Interestingly. And I don't again I don't want to speak too much on it because I don't know too much about it. But If the central claim of Christianity was rainbow bias, Jesus rainbow body, which that would really confuse things with the pride flag. What do we do at that point? Reclaiming the rainbow for for Christ.

Yeah. But like if that was the central claim of Christianity, that would be the thing that apolog apologists are defending. Yep. But we're not even considering it. We don't even know about it. It's something that there's like this tertian knowledge of it. And I just think that Again, you're digging in on in again, you there's if you look at like Muslim apologetics, which I've looked at a little bit, but there's certain miracles and Oh yeah, yeah. And it's just like

you see kind of a one to one apologetics channels that if you if you want to find those of like defense of things like the splitting of the moon and things like that, that like it it just feels very, very similar. So anyway. I I think the point is is that it it it seems that according to the way that Jesus talks about it, the way that Paul talks about it, that If you make a decision it like this is this is happening on a spiritual plane.

And this decision that you make to believe in the resurrection is not because it's the most plausible thing, not because it's the most reasonable thing, bec and because it's not. It really isn't, right? Paul Agea's got a great video and a great uh uh theory on this called the Minimal Witnesses Hypothesis, which I think is a great it's I you know, he I I love the guy and I think he's it's a great channel. But

Basically saying that like here, here's a natural explanation for how the church started that is plausible. Now, do we know that that's what happened? No, we don't have the level of insight that we can have into these events. Mm-hmm. Uh but you can choose to believe I think it's just I was ultimately what I'm asking for, I think, is just Just embrace the fact that it's a fate.

And if you're saying that you believe this in faith because you trust God and then there's a legitimate spiritual transformation that takes place, why is that not a good enough argument? Why do we have to get into using reason and logic? Because for me, I was told it was true because it was reasonable. When I found out it wasn't reasonable, I concluded that it wasn't true. Mm. Yeah. It sort of um sets up the

the way in which it could be falsified. Uh because like if if your belief is that this has to potentially be grounded in empirical evidence or rationality, then if it if you discover that actually the case isn't as good as you thought it was and you know, so it's not for us to say that

It's definitely unreasonable or that there is no evidence. But even just on a practical level, if somebody becomes convinced that the arguments they heard from an apologist that made them think about Christianity actually aren't as well founded, if that's what brought them into the church. then that's what will send them right out again, you know? It's um you know the same the same hand that leads you in also pulls you out. Okay. And so in that case, is it not better to ground

Christianity in what historically people have claimed is the most sort of important part about your relationship with God, which is the the experience, the the faith, the the sort of personal commitment to a relationship with Jesus, that kind of stuff. And yeah, you're right. I mean, like if you if you look closely

The Bible is is constantly talking about I mean there's a passage where it it talks about how you sort of like shouldn't be fooled by philosophy. Yeah. You know? And'cause there was a lot of sophisticated Greek philosophy that Paul was running into. Yeah. And they were, you know, this is the beginning. Uh he was like i the heyday of this Greek thought and he understood it and he was basically saying, Mm, if we get into thinking like these guys, it's going to lead us away.

The resurrection will be foolish if I'm using this as my parrot. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, isn't that interesting? Like if if we would sort of Trying to sort of argue in this way the resurrection would be foolish. Well in in so many ways, that's what a modern atheist on Reddit says, isn't it? Like, you know, the the resurrection is foolish according to reason and rationality. And in a way, as a Christian, you could say,

Yeah. Yeah. Wouldn't that be a you know jujitsu they you know, I can't remember it means something like literally like I wish I remembered this, but In jujitsu the and I'm not. I d I took I took w I was a yellow belt and karate. Yeah, right. But like the idea that you use the momentum of your opponent and you don't necessarily use your strength and you don't dig in. But if they're coming hard this way and you kinda let them go past you and you flip'em or whatever. Yeah.

But exactly like The skeptics are saying This is a foolish thing to believe. As a Christian, why can't you say, yeah, it is? Yeah. But try. Yeah. Like w what would that be like, right? Versus, no, no, it's not no no no no it's reasonable. Let me show you. Uh here's the historical evidence. It's just like and then you're like, Yeah, the historical evidence is real thin, guys.

And and there's very few Christians who who are willing to admit that. Dale Allison is my favorite of all of'em because he is willing to admit that he has made a faith decision because you can't look into this cloud of history and come to confident conclusions. He's phenomenal. I just um I had him on my show. I think between

seeing you last and now. I think I hadn't had him on when I when I last spoke. But I had him on the show. Great episode. He's also one of my fav I mean, his book on the resurrection, I think we said this last time, is like

the it's like I I always want to say it's the only book you need to read on the resurrection, including the Bible. You can read d oh the you can read the introduction and adopt that way of thinking and you save yourself a lot of pain. I I often find that like I I was speaking to

a biblical scholar friend of mine recently and he was sort of like, you know, sometimes I th I feel like I enjoy reading about the Bible more than I enjoy enjoy reading the Bible. I was like, Yeah, me, me too, man. Me too. Um but yeah, I spoke to uh John Leonard. on the show as well. And one of the things that I spoke with him about was that Um

if you believe that Christianity is based on rational argumentation. Now it like it may be that Christianity or or theism in general can be um supported by evidence. Maybe the complexity of you know, a biological cell points to God or, you know, language or whatever. The problem is that That if you think that that is what you need to like ground the faith, that's what you need to sort of get the faith going, then what this does is it creates an intellectual barrier for entity.

It means that if if you are not smart enough to understand the calam cosmological argument, if you don't know how premises lead to conclusions, if you don't know the difference between deductive and inductive logic, then you're not gonna be a Christian.

And because this is the way that Christianity is supposed to be proven to people, if you don't understand, you know, historical methodology, if you don't understand what a criterion of embarrassment is, if if you're not smart enough to work that out, then sorry, mate, you know, Christianity isn't for you. Which

is sort of unthinkable. When put in those terms, it is completely unthinkable that that is what Christianity would be about. So this isn't to say that there aren't good arguments you can make and and good evidences that you can discuss. But the idea that that is like the way in and that that is the reason for your faith, I think

is a mistake. At least as a practical measure for trying to bring other people. It's not biblical. Yeah, that's right. I it you're supposed to become like a child. That's right. Yeah. And so I'm it it to me it just feels like a temptation. Mm-hmm. A human temptation that Christians have fallen for. Yeah. To be like, well, no, no, I got I I need to make this I need to make this reasonable. Yeah. It's just like

Do you trust God? You don't really have to make this make sense from a from a human standpoint. Does it make sense from a spiritual standpoint in your in your particular experience? And you know, it's inter cause some people some Christian listeners might be thinking of of Romans chapter one. In Romans chapter one, Paul says uh that

like sort of God and his invisible qualities have been known for all time. So the people are are without excuse. I can't remember the the exact the exact phrasing. Maybe we can find or or put it up on screen. Um and some people will listen to that and go, like, Oh well, it says that, you know, like God can be known through like sort of the world that we live in and th and But the fact that it says that no one is is with excuse, that every single person knows God's existence.

also I think implies that whatever it is that Paul is talking about there, the kind of thing which sort of guarantees that anyone can know God, cannot be some complicated syllogism or you know, biological observation through a microscope or something like that. It has to be something that is just present in every single person naturally. And that's not gonna be something like

Apologetical argumentation. And even with that passage, if you think about what is that, but can I borrow your Bible while you're talking? If you think about what pass the Bible on the left hand side. If you think about who Paul was writing to and what they understood. Yes. Uh, I think someone in the first century was without excuse because there was no explanation at all for reality apart from a personal God in many ways, right? uh the modern world only made well

Now you just revealed that this is Diet Dr. Pepper that you're drinking. Is that really bad? This is a No, no, no. This is a this is like a this is a a proper whopper table. You know who sits at this table on a regular basis? Link Neil. Y di if this table is linked neal proof, it's Dr. Pepper. You were saying. I was saying that at the time that Paul was writing. I do think it would have been unreasonable and stupid.

to be like, there's nothing behind this. Yes. I'm looking at Romans chapter one, verse eighteen, but I'm I'm skipping forward im importantly to chapter to verse twenty here. Uh for his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world.

in the things that have been made so that they are without excuse. Yeah, it's odd reading it in the in the ESV. But it's it seems to imply that it's got something to do with the actual world. It's not just like this internal thing. It is something about like

looking at the world and his invisible qualities are present in there somehow but the fact To me the important thing is that he says that they're without excuse, like that that every person, um, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world, like implies again that whatever it is

It can't be complicated and it can't require like a great deal of reflective thought. Yeah. This is plain. Yeah. Essentially. Yeah. Yeah. And I do I mean, you know, I uh I still have a lot of Christians say that to me today. It's like

Isn't it obvious? Isn't it o like look at the sunset. Like, isn't it obvious that that there's a God and I'm like Well, there are parts of me that are very that that are very um you know, that makes sense to me, that there that there is this beautiful creation, there is this beautiful world and that It very well could be the case that there's

something or someone behind it. But it could also be that that someone is in it and this is just inherent in the nature of the way that this works, you know, with like some sort of pantheist a uh i idea.

I just don't think I can I'm not gonna figure it out. Hm. Like you know I'm say i i I just that's how I respond to that. I'm like, Yeah, that's cool and maybe that's the case. And I see how that if you're a Christian, then this is kind of a bedrock Philosophical idea, and I respect that, and I'm not trying to get somebody to question that, but it's not even if we came to that conclusion. We might at best arrive at deism. The world moves fast. Your work day. Even faster.

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Limited time offer for new clients, participating locations only. Details at jacksonhewitt.com. Yeah. You know, I would really like to see the extent to which this revival, the people who are sort of going back to church, particularly young people, if I could like interview them on the way in and ask them like, What is bringing you here? Like specifically, like and I really doubt that they would say, you know,

I listened to this lecture by William Lane Craig and he was talking about the nature of causation and the penny dropped. Some people, maybe, sure. But I would just presume that it's much more experiential. It's much more personal. It's much more subjective. I I think that it is a it's a sense of belonging. Yeah. And you know you know what the Enlightenment

did. Um, in my view. You know what the scientific method does? I talk about this all the time in the context of consciousness, which I won't get into. If you're If you've got your sort of Alex O'Connor bingo card at home, there's consciousness. We still need to do the the Gnostics and I need to talk about triangles in in the head. Right. Um but I talk about it when it comes to consciousness because it's

My friend Philip Goff wrote a book called Galileo's Error. Yeah. He's a big panticause he believes that, you know, science can't explain consciousness. And Galileo's error was like mathematizing the world in such a way that it just precluded talk of consciousness. Galileo said that mathematics is the language of the universe, right? And as a scientist that makes sense. Yeah, I can describe physical operations and stuff all in the language of math.

The problem is that by defining the universe in that way, you've excluded anything which cannot be described with mathematics, essentially. And you kind of get a bit of the same problem here, which is that What science does is it moves you from the subjective to the objective, from internal to external. The purpose of science is to say, like I'm seeing a table right now.

a stained table right now. You're seeing a stained table right now. It's gonna dry. It's it's drying as we speak. Um but you know, our our perspective of how it's drying and the shape of the stain and all of that kind of is very different. You know, you're you're seeing a different image literally to me. So what does science do? It says If somehow we could like to go Step outside of ourselves.

And see the table for what it really is, as opposed to how I'm interacting with the table and how you're interacting with the table. That's what the purpose of science is. It's like, yeah, you have that experience and you have that experience, but what's really going on? What's the actual nature of stuff? So it moves out.

But if faith is supposed to be personal and subjective and individual and inward, then this approach of stepping outside of yourself and trying to see the world for how it really is absent any personal considerations. Like inappropriate. It's like stepping up to the gates of heaven with the wrong key. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's just like well I I I I I believe this because it's the most reasonable thing and it it was proven to me.

Yeah. And I also find it very difficult to believe that like you would get to the pearly gates and God would sort of say to you, like You know, d do you think that's this argument is valid or what's your sort of historical belief in that like it it really feels like that wouldn't be at the forefront of anyone's attention when it came to which is why I think this reading of Doubting Thomas is really interesting because like

And in fact, there's a bit of a conspiracy theory here that the reason why, you know, the the Christian world was insistent on depicting Thomas physically touching Jesus was because it was like this great enlightenment sort of answer to the Enlightenment. Like here's the empirical proof that Thomas has and sort of th the physicality of of Jesus and all that kind of stuff. Um but If Thomas never touches the wounds then then what actually happens? Well

Thomas says, when he hears about Jesus, he says, I would like to see evidence. I want to touch him. I want to cross my hand into his side. Then Jesus shows up and meets him and says, I'm here. Come and touch me. At which point Thomas just like drops to his knees and says, My Lord and my God. There's a reading of this which because it doesn't narrate him touching the wounds.

There's a reading that says that what happened was Thomas demanded evidence, wanted evidence, but when he actually met Jesus, he instantly just realised how like silly that was. Mm. And was like, Oh gosh, you know. My Lord and my God, you know, and Jesus is like Blessed because you uh you know, you you believe'cause you've seen, not touched. Seen. Yeah. Right. You believe'cause you've the painting the painting w it was uh interpreted too much. the story is

a later you know, it's in John, so it's one of the last things and it's like John is responding to some of the things and some of the critiques that have come along and this importance of the bodily resurrection, which you don't see in Mark. Mm has suddenly become central to the beliefs. And now that's a part of this. It's almost like even within the Bible itself they're already

responding in the wrong way. Mm-hmm. That's a that's an interesting little rabbit hole. Yeah,'cause I mean that the like some people think that John's gospel being the latest was written with some kind of polemical intention. That there were things going on In the early church community that John's gospel is written in order I mean, my favourite example to talk about here is always John the Baptist. Because in John's Gospel it's like

You know, there was a the first person named in in the Gospels, unless you count the word, in the Gospel of John, uh, is John the Baptist. You know, there was a c man called John who was not the Messiah. And he was preparing the way for the Messiah because he himself was not the Messiah, he was just making way for the Messiah. And then John who was

not the Messiah. It's like really wanting to know that. Yeah, just so you know. Some people came and they asked him, Are you the Messiah? And he said, No, I'm not the Messiah. Why would you think that? It's like, okay, what and it seems to be that there were people who believe that John the Baptist was the Messiah. So this is sort of a polemical attempt to

reestablish, you know, Jesus' position as the main guy. Some people think of similar things going on with like the emergence of Gnostic there it is, bingo. Uh Gnostic Christian sects in the early church that believe that Jesus is this like ephemeral spiritual apparition kinda and it's like, No no no, we're gonna we're gonna emphasize Jesus' physicality with the what he you know his his you know, physically presenting himself to the disciples. And so yeah, it's not quite clear that this

actually happened. It also only shows up in John's gospel, the uh the the gospel of the this this story of doubting Thomas. Um and also it seems to serve some theological purpose, which is a lot of I didn't realise this for the longest time. I can't remember exactly where I learned about it but You know when Jesus says anyone who's seen me has seen the Father Who is he responding to when he says that? He's responding to Philip.

And a lot of people know, oh well it's because Philip asks, you know, Jesus, when are we going to get see the Father? And Jesus says, anyone who's seen Philip, don't you know how long have you been with me? Anyone who's seen me has seen the Father. But Philip doesn't actually start that conversation. It's Thomas that starts the conversation. Thomas asks Jesus something. At which point Jesus then says the famous um you know

I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. At which point Philip asks, When do we get to see the Father? And then he says, Anyone who's seen me has seen the Father. So it's interesting that at the end of the Gospel it's Thomas who sees Jesus

and says, My Lord and my God. As if he's finally understood the answer to his c his question earlier that anyone who sees me. He's got a good narrative. So there's a lot of like theological motivation. So whether it happened historically in a way, you kinda wanna say, who cares? We're we're never gonna know.

like there's good reason to think that it did happen that it it's it's not historical, but maybe it was, like who knows? But what's the message here? Like what are we what are we being like told by this story? And I don't think there's a very easy way to read this as like Very pro-Enlightenment. Let's put it that way. And so I'm like, okay, well if you do believe that

then how does that actually impact the way that you think about this? Because I think that Christian apologetics has actually done a lot of harm. Mm-hmm. Maybe it I I feel like the the apologetics is this double edged sword because there's a lot of people who first of all, there's a lot of people who never think about their faith from an introspective way and there's never any kind of self cr critique. Mm-hmm.

Those people don't have any use for apologists. They're their their pastor may occasionally preach a sermon that gets into apologetics, but they're just like, Yeah, yeah, I know it's true. You don't really have to convince me. Then there's people who start asking questions and the apologetics answers are satisfying and that's it. That's they don't dig deeper.

I think it is useful for those people, but for the people and again, I think the church wants to keep these people, the most curious and the most thoughtful, who are like, well, let me look into the answers that I'm being given. And then that's when things to begin begin to fall apart. And I just think they're being led down a road where they're being asked to really think about this very deeply versus experience this deeply spiritual. Mm-hmm. And I and so

Yeah, we could talk about that point forever. Yeah. Well um yeah, let's let's move on. But I I think I mentioned earlier this quote about philosophy being it's Colossians Chapter two, verse eight, which perhaps you can find in in this Bible and uh and read out, just because I think this is essentially in summary, like what we're talking about here, and I think it's I think it's

summarized perfectly well there. Yeah. So it says Colossians two eight, see to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world. and not according to Christ. Again, this is the same he he's just like hitting the same m message again. Yeah, and I think that the most important part of that is the human tradition. Yeah. Right? It's like and I I don't actually know what the

what the word philosophy would have meant to Paul, like it probably would have meant something quite different to to what we mean. Um I mean philosophy being a Greek term, like love of wisdom, philo and Sophia. Um I would presume that it was literally the same word being used in the Greek there, but like we don't know exactly what it meant, but it quite clearly is talking about like

human tradition, human thought, human ways of thinking. Don't be held captive by them. And okay, when you first hear that, it's like, don't be held captive in the sense that like I've captivated you with a with a you know, sophistic argument that's not really actually true. You can also read this as like don't be held captive by it in that even if it's sort of

even if it works, even if it's accurate, even if it's like helping you to spread the message, it will keep you captive in the sense that now you've defined the terms that you have to play by. Such that if somebody's got a good reason against your faith. Or if someone's got, you know, a doubt of your historical methodology or something, well, you've made that bed and now and now you have to defend it on those terms. Don't be held captive by this approach. Right. And I think that

A wonderful summary of just what we've been talking about. And it's the opposite uh saying to be, you know, this is according to Christ, not according to the you know so I think that Again, it's not like, hey, this is not that good of an idea. It's like, no, this is actually counter to like because if you if if Jesus is real, if the spirit is real, there's real transformation that's happening. Like you're literally becoming a new creation.

If those things are happening, then you see how the human philosophy, tradition, and reason just pales in comparison. It's like it's like if I do a magic trick, if I do a literal magic trick. And then you're like, Well, explain how that happened. I'm like, It's magic, man. Like I If I explain to you how it happened, I'm taken away from the magic of it. It it's almost like you're what you're saying when you really buy into the explanation is that you don't believe in magic. Yes.

Yeah, what is it um what is it Lewis said C S Lewis said, I believe in Christianity For the same reason I believe in the sun. Not just because I can see it. But because by it I can see everything else. He has some good ones, is he is uh bangers. He's got some bangers. Okay, um moving on. We've done one. So Yeah, yeah. So this this says first this middle one is f really fast and actually doesn't rely on the Bible.

Uh I mean I'm sure we could find some verses that support this idea, but it's embrace truth, right? Uh again, we talked a little bit about this last time. I think the biggest example of this being that the the church has a truth problem is that it at least within the United States, about it depending on what poll you look at, but about sixty percent of the church.

Does not believe in evolution. They don't bel they think that humans were created in their current form. And here's this is the crazy thing, right? That is a controversial statement. To say that the church has a truth problem because the majority of them don't believe in evolution, and I can see the comments just rolling in right now that evolution is just a theory, there are no transitional fossils, every mutation is detrimental.

uh evolution is falling apart. Even the evolutionists don't believe in it and they're they're fighting all the time and the mechanisms don't work and all this stuff, all these platitudes and tired things.

The fact that these I like to call them uh high confidence, low information people which that's a great recipe for giving a leaving a YouTube comment. Yeah, uh it makes it irresistible. Um The fact that what I'm saying right now that that being stated is a truth problem is just evidence of the truth problem.

Because this is again, I'm not gonna give a case revolution. Lots of people have done that. But this is the most well attested fact of the natural world. It's the only way that we can make sense of what we actually see, including the h human. Like a lot of people are like, I believe in some sort of evolution, but uh h uh humans are separate from that. Well that doesn't you can't do that. Humans are part of it. Very clearly there's no there's there's no like qualitative difference

Um and it's very clear that we are related to all animals. Why is this such a big deal? Well, Because anyone who actually and I use this as a litmus test and I'm gonna listen, I'm gonna sound a little bit like an asshole when I say this. I understand that because if you're coming from a certain worldview where you think this is this is not true.

Um the the disinformation campaign that the church has successfully pulled off to make people misunderstand evolution and think that it it is incompatible with their faith or it's just not true, has been so successful that it kinda makes talking about it this really controversial thing.

But the thing is, is that if you don't believe in evolution, I know one of two things. Number one, which is most common, is you really don't understand what evolution is and you don't understand the evidence for it. Right? Or number two, you do understand it, but yet you hold to a dogma so tightly that can't let it in that you are you are f you find some way to

have this cognitive dissonance where you can kind of push it to the side, right? And again, that will be insulting to a lot of people and I apologize for that. Because I know it's not a question of intelligence. It's a question of dogma and a question of m misinformation. But the crazy thing about this is that

And I talked about this before, this idea that why was people are like, Why is this such a big deal to you? Because there's plenty of Christians who believe in evolution. Why did you let this affect you so much? And I tried to be clear and I'll say it again, I didn't stop being a Christian because of evolution, because there's plenty of There's plenty of Christians who believed in evolution.

But what it did for me is it caused me to develop a trust problem with the most powerful voices in the in the faith who were leading me through some of these issues and helping me think about them. I see. Um And the interesting thing is that some of the most prominent apologetics voices today, people who have a lot of traction on YouTube, they readily admit they believe in evolution.

Because they are familiar with the evidence and they understand that it's not a controversial thing. It's not like, well, you could they know that it's true. But it's such a consequential truth. that if you have the majority of people in your church not believing it. That's a that represents a big

really significant truth problem and I just don't know why more of them are not shouting it from the rooftops of like we gotta get this right. Like we have to accept this fact if we're gonna move if we're gonna move forward in the long term, we have to accept this fundamental fact of uh about reality. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Um and so and I think there's some downstream effects like i in your conversation uh on diary of CEO with uh what's it Greg Greg Kukel. Kokel Kokel?

Again, we're doing the same thing. You can't talk about somebody with a weird name without saying it wrong. I think is the the American way. You kind of got into which is inevitable a lot of times with an apologist, a little bit of the moral argument, right? We're we're talking uh anytime a skeptic says anything about right or wrong, there's this appeal to well, where you what's your basis for that? And then we were into the moral argument. But there's an interesting thing related to this that

A lot of times they end up having to dismiss the evidence for the development of ethics and morality in humans. So you've got these. you know, precur precursory moral intuitions that you see in non human primates. So you see empathy and you see sharing and you see these other things. Like we have a good natural explanation for the nature of morality as it exists in humans.

But that research has to be dismissed because that can't be true because though animals don't actually have precursory morality. They might have some kind of common gray. I don't know how it's explained really. But What I'm getting at is that not accepting this core truth, you end up not accepting other truths. Like now we can't really talk about ethics in a meaningful way without just appealing to there's some ajeptic

objective standard that God has given us and that's where morality comes from. When it's like, well, actually if you look at the latest research, we've got really good reason to believe that these moral intuitions Evolved. Hmm. Well, wh what do you think is the resistance then, if there are so many Christians who accept evolution and seem to not have too much issue with that?

Why is there such a cultural resistance within popular Christianity in America to this idea that we share a common ancestor? Well I think one thing is trying to reconcile it with Genesis. Mm-hmm. So I think that in and I would say specifically reconciling it with the fall. Mm-hmm. I think original sin and the fall are theologically very important. Yeah, that's true. So like Tim Keller, uh the late Tim Keller would talk a lot about this.

He like accepted evolution. And and again, I read a lot of these guys when I was my faith was floundering because I was like, Well, there's a lot of really smart guys that believe evolution, but how do they reconcile it? I wasn't satisfied. Again, I was operating completely in reason and logic. I wasn't satisfied. I didn't feel like there was an actual uh great explanation for this. There's like, oh well

You know, we know from from genetics that we probably only got down to about ten thousand people. May I I can't remember the exact number, but like we never got down to two people. Mm-hmm. Even like the mitochondrial Eve and the like the the Adam the literal Adam and Eve, like the male and female who are the progenitors of the human race. They didn't live at the same time. But like there's a male that everybody's related to and there's a female that's everybody is related to.

But they were at different times, like according to genetics, and it's kind of interesting to look into that. But I think it's hard to reconcile what you see in the Bible when you're like, Well, I'm gonna start taking this account literally and I'm gonna take the entire Pentateuch literally and I'm gonna look at the flood story and all this stuff. And so I think there is a real reticence to just be like, guys All of this part of the Bible, this early part of the Bible is a polemic against

the Mesopotamian myths that they were exposed to. The creation story itself is taking the same imagery, the w the chaotic waters, the separating the waters from the waters, um the formation of people from clay, but it's taking those things that were understood culturally and it's resetting it in a monotheistic framework. The flood story is clearly dependent upon earlier Mesopotamian myths, right?

But I think that you people start getting and there's progressive Christians who accept this, but people start getting really, really scared'cause then that's when things seem you can't walk out of that Exercise with a with a belief in inerrancy. Well, you know, but it's not like it's um like modern response to you know mod modern science that we need to reinterpret genesis. I I've talked about this a bunch on the show, like

People have thought that Genesis is non literal as long as Christianity has been a thing. Like church fathers thought that Genesis was not literal. I mean one of the big reasons we'll uh we'll will have like like for for not thinking things are A literal is just because a lot of the time these stories don't make sense.

Like I I you know, there's some discussion about the temptation in the desert in the Gospels, for example. Yeah. And Satan takes Jesus to the the top of the mountain and says and shows him the whole world, right? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, we are gonna get onto that. Go for it. He he says um like Essentially that you can see the whole world. early Christian early Christians looked at the story and thought, Well,

You can't see the entire world from the top of a mountain. Even if the world is flat, you couldn't see all of it. Like biblical literalism of the kind that thinks that you know, the earth is six thousand years old and Adam and Eve were well, it maybe maybe not in the Adam and Eve case, but certainly in in terms of like the creation narrative and stuff like that.

It's a relatively like modern phenomenon to be like, no, no, this is like a literal account of what happened. Yeah, like so many Christians throughout history, not just so I just want to clarify, not just.

like in the modern day in response to science. Oh, let's reinterpret Genesis. Yeah, that was just a given. And so Yeah, uh when you say embrace truth You're talking here mostly about Evolution and I think I'm talking about i you we could have a whole discussion about the historical critical method of looking at the Bible.

Uh and again, this gets very it gets dicey'cause it feels like the other side of the coin of the embrace faith that we talked about, right? And I th and and I think that y if you're a Christian, you're holding these two things. If you're a thoughtful Christian, you're holding these two things in tension. 'Cause you've got I have faith about the resurrection and my relationship with Jesus and the things that are power of God that I can't have historical insight into. But

Evolution, you have a lot of evidentiary uh uh uh insight into, right? We we we can know. We can know kind of beyond a shadow of a doubt. But there's also things that we can know about the Bible. Like talking about Genesis. Well

It's pretty clear that there's two accounts of creation in Genesis from two different sources. That whoever put the Bible together decided that even though they were contradictory in some ways about the order of creation, the emphasis, the the name of God and these things. that these two theological perspectives were important to include.

So do you have to take the edges off and insist that it's one voice and that Moses wrote it? Or can you be like, no, for some reason God decided to have these disparate accounts in his word? that may be different than you actually think about. Or if you talk if you s when you're talking about prophecy, like You've got examples of Matthew, especially because he loved to do this.

essentially inventing things that no other gospel has, that no there's no historical records of to fulfill Old Testament prophecy. Right? Um is when he talks about Jesus having to flee to Egypt to escape Herod's massacre. And it and those t it it fulfills two prophecies. One out of Egypt I'll call my son, and the other one is the Rachel is weeping for her children, which was a reference to the massacre. Well

There's no massacre of Herod in any extra biblical writings. There's no massacre of Herod in any other uh parts of the Bible. So he invented it the best conclusion is that he invented a massacre so he could invent a fleeing to Egypt so he could get a two for one fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy. That's the most reasonable conclusion about that, and I think that does that mean that you

all of Christianity falls apart if you believe that Matthew was sort of like taking liberties with Old Testament prophecy? I don't think so. There's plenty of Christians who accept that critical scholarship and are still Christians.

that's uh I this embracing truth can go it gets dicey, for sure. Mm-hmm. Uh but I just think that when you've got really thoughtful people who are looking at the stuff that you're saying and they're looking at something as evident as evolution, but then they're getting into this historical, critical Scholarship, and I'm like, these guys have a lot of points. Yeah. You you can just put the blinders on and just be like, I'm gonna believe, I'm gonna believe, I'm gonna believe. Quiet, quiet, quiet.

Or you can be like, I'm going to go into this unafraid. And just if something seems to be true, I'm going to accept it. I think there's a there's a very thoughtful kind of Christianity which like, okay, there's nothing in principle that stops you from saying, I believe in the resurrection, I believe in Jesus, I believe in his miracles.

But when someone says, But did you know that like this particular passage most scholars think it was added in later, it was an interpolation, that you go like, Oh, okay, well then I don't believe he did that. And and that's it. And you just you just accept it and just move on. There there is a version of of Christian belief that does that. Interestingly, man, one of the one of my biggest gripes.

is that I try to be very, very nice to my my Christian listeners. I'm very grateful for them. I have wonderful conversations with Christians. I'm deeply interested in Christianity. But people on the internet keep saying that I'm about to convert. And it's because for me, it's just the lowest bar in the history of intellectual thought.

that me not saying to people, you know, they're a bunch of idiots and they've got absolutely nothing going for them, the only way that can possibly be explained that I'm actually listening to them and hearing them out and going, that's really interesting actually.

It can only be because I'm about to convert to Christianity. And j uh man, it gets on my nerves because people do it on um like YouTube shorts. There's this one YouTube short of me, which people keep telling me about because they see it on their feed that someone made and it's like me speaking on a podcast And they put that music in the background, it's very sweeping all that kind of stuff. And I'm saying like, you know, there's the story of Jesus.

Where he comes across the woman caught in adultery and, you know, they say, you know, the the law says that we should stone him and he says That he who is without sin cast the first stone. And it's just I mean it's just it's so based, it's so brilliant, it's just so it's a perfect encapsulation of the of the ethic of Jesus and the real end. If you go and look at the podcast, the very next words out of my mouth are

But of course most scholars believe that this was a later interpolation. It wasn't originally in the Bible and so, you know, it didn't really happen. Right. That's why I was talking about it. It doesn't matter, brother. The Lord is drawing you to him. I said. They know that's music and everything. I'm I'm just like, come come on man. Well it's just it's

So a as we were talking about, I've started my own YouTube channel. After twenty years on YouTube, I've decided to start my own channel. Yes, we'll put that down in the description. But I made uh I'm I don't know how often I'm gonna do videos on there, but because we're stopping the podcast, it's gonna be the place that I talk about this type of stuff. Maybe other stuff as well.

But I made this one video that was about uh why I don't fear hell and then oh I got caught up in the Christian algorithm real fast just'cause it was a new channel and they were like, Who's interested in this? And I I people c comment, a lot of Christians comment on my stuff anytime I talk about this stuff. But this was like a new level. And there was like this one night where like comments were coming in every like couple of seconds.

'Cause it was like it really hit the algorithm. And so many of the comments were like, Well, this is evidence that you do fear hell and that you are being drawn back. Mm. And again, it is it is difficult to not be like To not get frustrated uh about that. The most frustrating thing is it's not like you're making a video saying Christianity is stupid and I'm an atheist and then a bunch of Christians saying, like, oh well, you know You you you should be afraid of hell.

It's that you're quite thoughtfully saying, you know, like, here's some considerations and Christianity's got this going forward and this is what I th and then people are saying, you know, you should be you should be afraid of hell'cause it's you know, it's it's coming for you. It's like We're trying our best here. Um Yeah, I mean this this podcast alone will be used as evidence that g the Lord is drawing both of us back. Here we are with an open Bible. Yeah, right. Here's the thing.

If the Lord is drawing me back, it's like I don't have a pr I don't have a pro I'm not resistant to that. I think the thing that's offensive is that assuming to know the heart of someone else is that that that's a thing that's sort of like, well, you know why I did this, you know what you you know all my motivations, you know what my life is like, you know what my relationships are like. Your comment seems to imply that. I don't mind it

Exactly. But it's just that it's so like where you just said then something like, If the Lord is drawing me back, then then I'm here for it. Like, there you go, that's your clip. That goes on a YouTube reel Put it in black and white and and but people people do that. And when they do that, like

It's it's not I don't mind people saying, like, you know, it seems Alex, you're really interested in this, like, do you think you you know, are you becoming more Christian? I'm just gonna tell them honestly, like, you know, probably not, like But it's it's the sort of it's the people who are quite intentionally like Editing to decide engagement, man. Yeah. Yeah. It's all about that's why that's why I welcome these comments because as those comments about how I should fear hell

and how the Lord is drawing me back or coming in every second. I was like, well this video might do okay. Yeah, yeah. I'd recommend people watch that as well. I mean I've I've talked about fear of hell. It's been years since I've spoken about it as well. I I don't spend that much time thinking about hell these days. Um but it's something that a lot of people especially if they're sort of fresh out of a religious tradition

It it something that people are can can be afraid of. So you've got a great video on that and you reference a few videos in that video. Yeah, I really reference the ones that you should you should watch because I don't go very deep. Yeah, like GM Skeptic went to like Jerusalem to investigate, you know, the origins of hell. It's some really interesting people. Yeah, yeah. Um okay. But let's get to the the the final point, which is embrace Jesus. Yes. We've had embrace faith, embrace truth.

Embrace Jesus. Embrace Jesus. In that order? Uh yeah. In in no particular order. This is just how it came to me. Um The thing here is that this is really about the cultural moment that we're having right now. Mm-hmm. And I think that there are a lot of things that are happening in the church that are inconsistent with the way Jesus spoke about things and are and by definition are not biblical.

And I think that this is one of the reasons that the church is growing a little bit right now. I think that the sort of Dogged pursuit of political power and the consolidation of political power, especially in the United States, by Christians, is one of the biggest betrayals of the teachings of Jesus. And I think that it has been disillusioning to

a lot of Christians. Interestingly, my entire deconstruction happened outside of that and kinda now I was a conservative Christian. I voted Republican because of abortion, probably alone. Um But the political landscape has changed a lot. And at this point the kind of the the embrace of the pursuit of political power and talking about it and how it's spreading to more and more Christians.

I feel like this is a new level. I don't think this is something that I experienced, you know, fifteen years ago when I was deconstructing. Um, so I want to talk a little bit about what Jesus has to say about this, or you know, what the Bible has to say about this, and then we can kind of talk about why why I think this is such a problem. Um let's start.

In when Jesus is before Pilate, right? So this is just kind of setting the stage. You've got Jesus before Pilate in John 18. And um he essentially says You know, Pi well Pilate is basically asking him like, you know Well, let me just say it. Let me just read it. So Pilate entered his headquarters again and called Jesus and said to him, Are you the king of the Jews? Jesus answered, Do you say this of your own accord, or did others say it to you about me? Pilate answered, Am I a Jew?

Your own nation and the chief priests have delivered you over to me. What have you done? And Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting. That I might not be delivered over to the Jews, but my kingdom is not from this world. So again, here we are. Jesus is having this this moment where he has been taken in and

He's being taken in by the political forces that existed at that time where they were kind of executing the will of God to literally execute him. And what did he do? He said he took that opportunity to say, My kingdom, this is not about d this worldly kingdom that you're talking about. My kingdom is not of this world. And if it were My servants would be fighting.

They would be in here doing something about it. The reason that they are not resistant, in fact earlier when Peter cuts off the ear, he's like, just no, he puts it back on, you know? He's like, No, no, no, that's not what we're doing. We're not fighting. We're not here to fight. You don't get that anywhere from Jesus, right? Well, you get that a little bit from Israel, which I think is one of the reasons that that I think Christian nationalism is a little bit confused about

Trying to be basically be the nation of Israel today, it's like it's a little complicated. But let's just talk about Jesus. Aaron Powell Trump with literally a a a broken ear shouting fight. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. It sounds a quite stark contrast. Right. But it gets I I think it gets even more explicit. So this is the famous passage where the Pharisees try to trap Jesus in the question about taxes. Mm. Um

So, uh they had been giving him a number of different challenges to to catch him, right? And so uh well we'll just kinda cover this uh'cause I can remember the details. So, you know, they have this the Pharisees have this idea to come and ask Jesus if they should pay taxes to Caesar.

And the reason that they thought that this was a trap is because if he's supposed to be the Messiah, at least as they understand it, he's supposed to be the one delivering them from this Roman room. So if he's like saying, Yeah, we should give money to our oppressors not a very good messiah according to their perspective. And if he says

Yeah, uh no, we shouldn't pay taxes, then then they report him and get him delivered to the Romans. Right? So this was like a nice setup. And when they do this, they say, Should we pay taxes to Caesar? He's like, Grab me a denarius, grab me a coin. And then he takes it and he says, Who is this on the coin? And they say, Caesar. And he says, Render to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's.

Why is this so important and why is this so relevant to the current situation? Notice he didn't say anything like, see this coin? It should say, In Yahweh we trust on it. That's the battle that we should be fighting. We should be fighting to get the kingdom that is oppressing us or the kingdom of this world to represent. God. He's basically saying this is irrelevant to my mission. Yeah, pay taxes to Caesar. That's a completely different thing.

This embrace of political power and thinking that that is the answer, that's how we bring about the kingdom of God. It is a complete misunderstanding of what Jesus was talking about. Um and I do think it's wild because you the whole ing you know, you know, the in god we trust on the um American money, like I that was It's a pretty recent innovation. I can't remember the wall thing. Yeah. Yeah. I d I I think I I c well I can't remember exactly when it Oh Look, that's water.

Yeah, all right. Why don't you see the Bible? You know, I only did that to make you feel welcome. Okay. Where were we? Everything's cleaned up. You know, my Bible's a little bit wet. No worse. Okay. Holy holy water now on the table. So I I think that this this last passage is the one that is the most um informative about this and you've talked about it a moment ago. the temptation of Jesus. Uh and of course he's out there in the in the wilderness for forty days.

And so there's the three temptations from the devil. The first being, you know, eat some turns these stones into bread. Uh, the next one being, throw yourself off of this and the angels will save you. And then the third one being going up to the top of the mountain, saying, Look at all the kingdoms of the world, I will give you all of this if you will just bow down and worship me. And of course Jesus says

Be gone Satan, you know. W l what does it say exactly in the E S. He says he says worship God and serve him alone. Yeah, be gone Satan, for it is written You shall worship the Lord your God and serve God. And only him shall you shall you serve again as the And interestingly, it's not ac that's not actually written. There's no the Jesus is like slightly rewording the passage he's trying to i the in in the Old Testament the passage is something like um it's something like

I think it's fear God and serve him only, or something like that. It doesn't use the word worship, which is obviously it's you know Greek and Hebrew, but he's not actually quoting it quite correctly there, which is interesting. Um This to me, this is pretty wild, considering the state of the current American church. Because there's a lot going on here theologically, of course.

But the one opportunity that Jesus i i has to make a commentary about embracing political power over the kingdom or the the kingdoms of this world Is presented as a temptation of Satan. This is presented as a temptation of Satan.

to fall for this, we've got to be we've gotta be in control of the the the kingdoms of the world. Does Jesus say, well, okay, maybe you're in charge right now, but you just wait until a few of m my followers are are are in government or you you wait until we're in charge. Again, he says, it's not about that. We are operating on a different plane. And it just blows my mind.

That we've gotten to this place where this seems to be the way that the kingdom of God is going to be established is by infiltrating and taking over the government. And I'm not just saying that it's not a good idea from a Christian perspective. I'm saying it is forbidden. Mm. I'm saying that it is explicitly called out as something that will take you away from actually doing the work of God. Mm-hmm. And I think it's interesting. I think it's worth noting.

that the more that Christians have embraced this pursuit of political power, the more they have embraced political leadership that looks a lot less like Jesus and a lot more like the devil himself. Is that not crazy? I think it's true. But it's also it's also maybe it's a bit easy to say like, you know that if you pursue political power you begin sort of betray Christian principles. And some people will listen to this. And I think there are two things.

Which people will say in response to this. One thing is they'll say, Okay, but if you look at the Old Testament, you know, God is constantly installing literal political kings. There are at least some contexts in which God thought that it was necessary to have you know, his his rulers on earth. I think I know what I would say in response to that. I wonder what you would say. And the second thing is then

Okay. I'm a I'm Christian, I'm sat at home, I'm listening to this. Don't clip that either. Um and I would like to know what to do then, because I care about what's happening in my country and I I want to vote for somebody who shares my values, but am I supposed to

Am I supposed to look at anybody who says, I'm a Christian and I'm running on Christian motivations and say, No, no, no, I'm not gonna vote for you because you know, that can't be true Whereas I feel like I want someone who's Christian to, you know, run my like what what can they actually do? Those are good questions. was pr you know, sort of preparing the way for the Messiah that he comes out of. That's a different thing. That's not America.

That's you know, that that doesn't apply to these kingdoms. That's a diff that's a different thing. I don't I don't think there's a theological justification for applying principles of the way that God was establishing and upholding his nation for his people and then trying to apply that even to modern day Israel or definitely to any other kingdom. That just feels like that you can't you That dog won't hunt, as they say.

um might not be that. But even so, there is this. Please don't revoke my visa. The problem th the other thing is that like Jesus is presented as this fulfilment and sort of fulfillment of but also like In many ways, like he sort of um removes the the need for certain kinds of Jewish practices. So like there's this idea that Jesus is kind of like the new Jewish temple. You know, it used to be that you worship in this particular place and this is where you meet God and now

It's Jesus and Jesus is everywhere and anyway. And a similar kind of thing is happening here with like authority. I mean the the Jewish kingdom was waiting for the Messiah, who would be, you know, their ultimate king, and when the ultimate king comes

He's not a political leader. He is the opposite of political leader. So I think that The extent to which this is specifically a problem, like i if somebody's listening in other words and says, Oh, okay, yeah, but you know, Rhett doesn't understand that.

you know, the in the Old Testament political power was really important. This is just the problem of the relationship of the Old Testament to the New Testament. Yeah.'Cause I could say the same thing to a Christian, like, well, if if your Jesus is doing this or that or that or that

Then what about in the Old Testament where God's commanding this, that, that or that, or this thing you're supposed to do that you're no longer supposed to do or whatever? It's just the same problem um revisited. As long as a Christian is willing to say that yeah, Jesus changed changed the nature of God's relationship with Earth. Exactly. The same thing's here. But okay.

That's sort of out of the way. So what does a Christian do? What does a Christian do? So I think this is a uh I think it's a great question. Uh because I would say the extreme application of this perspective is abstaining from political involvement at all. And there are denominations that do that. Mm-hmm. Um and you have to respect that. Um this is a bit of, again, there's so many layers of this. There's a bit of a conundrum considering that.

I don't think that any of the people who were reading this at the time thought that in the year twenty twenty five the w world would still be around. That's right. Uh so I don't think that they envisioned two thousand years of more kingdoms.

So we find ourselves in a situation that maybe some of this philosophy doesn't specifically apply because, you know, they were selling all their stuff, not because they were communists, but because they thought that Jesus would come and Um it becomes a bit easier to say like, uh who cares about the government, whatever, th th the world is about to end, which makes it a bit complicated because

For a Christian, they kind of have to interpret this not them not believing the world's about to end because didn't they? Again, so that so I'm going with that. I'm again I'm trying I'm just saying be I believe that they thought that Jesus was coming back. Yeah. And he did. as a Christian, you do you believe that he that he wasn't intending that and that he knew that

the world will still still be around in twenty twenty five. What I'm saying is that it is a temptation because you start believing that the only way to get what God wants is for you to do it for him through human means. And I think that ultimately when you feel like the people in power politically have to represent your worldview, it indicates that you're fearful that if that wasn't the case, that God couldn't do what he needed to do.

And so I think it this is a this is a higher calling to a level of spirit spirituality and commitment to the kingdom that does I think that if you follow this Wholeheartedly. I think it means that I'm not saying you don't vote. But I think that the idea that the answer is to install Christians into political office and that's where your hope lies and to work very tirelessly for that. That's just it's not biblical. And I think ultimately I don't think you can hold on to political power.

And Jesus at the same time. I think that if you're gonna hold on to Jesus and you're holding on to to this world, you've kind of got to drop that pursuit in the same way. And the crazy thing that happens as a result of this is you end up align like you said, you end up aligning yourselves with people who do not represent

you know, the s the the the fruit of the spirit. The y you've got people who are living in fear. I think this is another aspect of this, is that so much of the current political pursuit or uh pursuit of political power is based in fear. You've got people all across the United States mainlining Fox News and the like every single night. Like give it to me. Give me that stuff that makes me fearful every single night.

I gotta be afraid of the brown people who are gonna take my jobs or you know, I gotta be afraid of the people who are gonna come take my guns. I gotta be afraid of the trans woman who might come into my daughter's restroom, right? And and so It frankly that whole thing pisses me off because I feel like an entire

generation has been stolen from us because you have what could be older, wiser people who have perspective, but yet they have been completely captivated by fear and they tap into it every single night. Like that pisses me off. That a generation has been stolen from us. But what if I just this is a hypothetical. What if Christians in America were not mostly known for wanting to have political power.

and all of the things that come along with that and all the fear that that is based in. And instead they had they were cool, calm, and collected because they trusted that God was accomplishing his purpose and they were busying themselves with the work of Jesus, being the hands and feet of Jesus. Feeding the poor, caring for the orphan, caring for the elderly, caring for the widow. It seems to me that they don't believe that that would actually do.

that th th that level of spiritual commitment to being like I'm gonna be about the kingdom and I'm gonna trust that God will accomplish his accomplish his will through me in that. I just think it's a lack of faith. I think it kind of goes back, we come full circle, is that there's not a real faith that God can accomplish his purpose apart from you putting the Ten Commandments up in every courthouse? Really? Like you really think that that's what's gonna do it?

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Crispy Chicken Nuggets from Taco Bell, a brand new classic that participating US Taco Bell locations for a limited time only while supplies last. Yeah. Have you seen that clip? I can't remember the c I can't remember where it was. I can't remember which like it might have been some like

state government legislature where they're sort of debating putting up the Ten Commandments and there's this there's this guy, some politician, where he'll maybe we can play the clip, I don't know, we'll check the the copyright or whatever. What is the fourth commandment? Keep the Sabbath uh part of keeping the Sabbath holy is not working on the Sabbath. That is that is um yeah. What day is the Jewish Sabbath? It is on Saturday. And what day is it today? It is Saturday.

Here we are. The Christian Sabbath is what day? Sunday in honor of the day that Jesus rose from the dead. And we're scheduled to give this bill a final vote on what day of the week? It's ironic, isn't it? Would you be willing to postpone your bill so that we're not breaking the Ten Commandments by working on the Jewish or Christian Sabbath? I love that you said that because you're saying that you'd rather tell people to follow the Ten Commandments than follow it yourself?

Um where the guy's like, so um you wanna put the the Ten Commandments up? And they're like, Yeah, yeah and he's like, Can you just tell me You know what are they? What what are the commandments? And one of them is is, you know, thou shalt not you know, thou thou shalt keep the Sabbath and keep keep it holy. And he goes, Can you just tell me uh which day is d do Christians typically sort of treat as the Sabbath as like Sunday? It's like and um what day is it today?

Okay, it's Sunday. So okay. And and which which day uh uh uh the Jews consider the Sabbath to be? And like Saturday and say and and which day did this, you know, legislation get put into motion? It was it was on Saturday, right? And it's just like it's one of the funniest clips I've seen because it it's just it

So easy. It's just it was just such an easy move to make because it's so ridiculous and so antithetical. Or just look at what's happen Oklahoma's probably the the best example of this. I think a a Bible in every classroom and all this stuff. But th the the real travesty here isn't just that it's not biblical and it's it shows a lack of uh of faith, but the people who are enticing Christians into this pursuit of political power.

they don't care about the kingdom of God at all. They're they're using they are they see Christians as a powerful political group. Voting block. It's a voting block. Very powerful. And they can cater to them. They can pander to them. And frankly, the Christians are eating it up.

And I just think that they're falling to a temptation that it's worth aligning yourself with the types of people who are currently in charge of the Republican Party that If you stopped and just thought about it a little bit, you it would you would be like, hmm, is this worth it? Like you don't even have to do that.

If the Bible didn't address it at all, I think you could come to the conclusion that you could just decipher that this is not a good idea to align ourselves with the type of people and interests. you know, the things that are Christians are celebrating right now that uh just are not consistent with with Jesus at all. But I'm just making the point that

Jesus seems to be very clear that this no, d there's a temptation. I un I get it. There's a temptation. You're gonna want to f you're gonna think that you have to take over these institutions, these kingdoms of the world in order to for my will to be done. But I'm telling you that that's a temptation and you shouldn't go down that that road. I think people are gonna think th I mean sometimes people vote for

parties that they they know maybe don't actually in their heart of hearts represent their interests. Well th but they do represent their interests, but they they m might not be doing so honestly. So, you know, everybody knows that You know, this

political figure that they're voting for isn't really a Christian. But because they're trying to essentially cater for Christians, well they are pro life, for example. I mean you spoke before about how that was, you know, an important influence on you and they might say to you, like, right, I hear what you're saying, but like

You know, I care about unborn children, I want to to vote for a politician that's going to protect that and okay, sure, you're probably not really a Christian, you're probably not really like a Jesus figure or whatever. Well what am I supposed to do if if if

if me sort of being like, Well, I'm just gonna be like Jesus and I'm just gonna, you know, walk around and give people, you know, money on the street and stuff, meanwhile, you know, like abortion becomes legal and they really care about that. Like they've they'll still want to apply some Christian political pressure. And it it does feel as though fully taking a foot off the pedal there would be essentially like a removal of your interests from from those who are governing you.

Yeah, and I think that's why it's a temptation. Yeah. Because you know, again, and I'm not um like I do vote according to my political interests because i I'm not I'm actually not like I I love the character of Jesus and I love these stories, but I don't

I don't apply this stuff to my life in the way that Christians do. Yeah. And so I'm just what I'm doing is I'm kind I am kinda calling them to the carpet a little bit and saying that, hey, this is just not consistent with'cause you can reason your way and be like, Well, yeah, but we don't I need to like

vote for, you know, things that are consistent with the Bible. It's like, well, that's r I'm not really talking about who you vote for. I'm talking more about the fact that the entire right at this point. is and they're using Christian and so many Christians like if you go on go on Christian Facebook, if you can if you can bear it. and see how they're celebrating what is happening and the things that are being won back as if it's like, praise be, amen.

You know, praise God that this person won an election. And I th I'm saying that specifically of thinking that that's where your hope lies, that's not biblical. I think it's also worth pointing out that you might say, Yeah, but like, you know

if Jesus were around he'd be pro life and he'd care it's like you don't think that the Roman government were doing things too that that Jesus probably thought weren't that great? I mean in the ancient world people would like take live newborn babies and like throw them in the dumpster. because they're disabled. Right? And it's Christians who had like a really, really strong role to play

in the undoing it. They called it exposure in the ancient world, you know. And Aristotle says quite plainly, like, you know, if if a child is deformed, just, you know, leave them leave them out to die. And it was Christians who played a huge role in

turning that into something that we weren't allowed to do anymore. But it wasn't through political pressure in the traditional sense. It was it was sort of like the transformation of culture. Yeah, like a if at the time j it it's worth remembering, in other words, that there were

uh the political issues. Like of the of the Roman world in Jesus' time and even in the face which were probably much worse and more extreme than basically anything that's happening in our own. Yeah. That was hypo that were they were hypocrisy. You know, hypocrites. Yeah, that's where his that's where his anger lies like he wasn't sort of shouting at the political authorities in the same way. Which shows us at the very least where Jesus' interest

lies and I think gives us an indication as to maybe what he might be more like if you saw him today. Like I don't I think you'd be more likely f to find him like, you know, m under the underpass, like talking to a homeless guy than like in a in a Aaron Powell And I think the real the real danger, like again, like to bring it back to it to you know kind of in closing of like why this is

why this causes people to leave if you want people who are coming in. Mm-hmm. And a lot of people are coming in because of this because they're identifying politically with the right and they are like, well, where's a place where that's sort of celebrated? Well that's celebrated in the Christian church. When you bring people in based on that promise.

It's kinda like somebody going to a restaurant because of trivia night. You know? It's like, Oh, they had a great trivia night. Well, how's the food? Well the f uh the food uh the food sucks. Eventually Trivia night's gonna get old and you're gonna realize that you're at a restaurant where the food sucks. So, you know, a r a church that isn't about Jesus is like a restaurant that's not about the food.

And I just think that you cannot point to anything in this political move movement that is like, yes, that is really representing the heart of Jesus. I think you can point to a lot. that seems to be going directly against the things that he said and taught. And and so when you know, this political movement that's happening right now, who knows how far it's gonna go?

eventually it's gonna pass away. Jesus and the church are not gonna pass away. Like they are gonna still be there. They will evolve in some way. But those people who are there because of some sense of patriotism or they're like, I'm fearful about what's the transformation of our country and that's why I'm at church. Just like those people, when the political movement dies, there won't be anything there for them.

And do you do you want them to fall in love with Jesus or do you want them to fall in love with making sure that the Ten Commandments are in every classroom? Hm. Make it about Jesus, not about the politics. Yeah. Embrace faith, embrace truth, and embrace Jesus. The roadmap for Yeah. Keeping Christians in the church from your too friendly neighborhood.

Whatever you are. Well back to the whatever you are. That's good. Thank you. Thank you very much for coming back on. You do have a new YouTube channel. You're an up and coma. Yeah. It's just called Rep McLaughlin. You've got like what, forty thousand subscribers or something on it? I yeah, after I did that one video, maybe there'll be another one up by this time. Yeah. Have you got I mean, have you got space on the walls out there for another YouTube plat

Another silver plant? That's a really good question. I think we might have to put a new shelf in. Yeah, it's it's getting pretty pretty extraordinary out there. I'll link it in the description so that people can people can go check it out and I'm sure most people know where else to find you. Thanks for your time. This one goes out to anyone looking to buy a car. Carmax has all the options. Big options guys. All forty five vows. Pickups four wheel drive. Carmax.

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