0:00

that's one of the worst things I could possibly think of and like that's that's horribly bad and you guys are a

0:06

conservative biblical church that's associated with one of the biggest seminaries in the country what it's

0:13

horrible and these are the things that kind of open my eyes to this and realize scripture is the solution to these things and churches that follow

0:21

scripture above the government churches that follow scripture above wanting to please people churches that follow

0:27

scripture above wanting to fill their pews and make as much tithe money as possible that's the

0:41

key hello my name is Will Spencer and welcome to the will Spencer podcast this

0:46

is a weekly Show featuring in-depth conversations with authors leaders and influencers who help us understand our

0:53

changing World new episodes release every Friday my guest this week is Cody

0:58

Lawrence host of the spare no arrows podcast courage is a rare commodity in men now what precisely courage is is a

1:06

tricky concept but the root word of Courage is the french word c or heart so

1:12

a man with courage is by nature a man with heart and not heart in the sense of the heart is deceitfully wicked but in

1:19

the sense of the heart of a lion or a righteous Spirit not a self-righteous

1:24

Spirit however a spirit inspired by the righteousness of God which naturally involves some amount of

1:31

self-sacrifice courage that is not willing to sacrifice itself including making the ultimate sacrifice is not

1:38

courage because self-sacrificial courage is the model set by the example of our

1:44

Lord Jesus Christ in the ultimate Act of sacrifice he went to the cross it wasn't

1:49

for his own Glory at least not his Earthly Glory anyway a broken bleeding

1:54

dying body nailed to Planks of wood is not glorious but what comes after is so

2:00

true courage is willing to suffer scorn ridicule abuse and even death on the

2:06

faith that if the process claims the life of just one man the end result will be worth it even if the man himself will

2:14

not live to see it and that's why true courage is rare because quote greater

2:19

love has no one than this than to lay down one's life for his friends John

2:25

15:13 and then Romans 5: 6 and 7 quote for while we were still weak at the

2:32

right time Christ died for the ungodly for one will scarcely die for a righteous person though perhaps for a

2:38

good person one would dare even to Die end quote how many of us can say we have

2:44

that kind of great love for our friends how many of us have that kind of great love for strangers how about strangers

2:51

who are ungodly and that is Christ's model to be willing to make the ultimate

2:56

sacrifice on behalf of strangers in Pursuit Of Truth and the glory of God

3:01

now here's the part that distinguishes righteous Sacrifice from unrighteous sacrifice righteous sacrifice is not

3:08

seeking its own ends it has faith that the ends will be beneficial but perhaps

3:13

not for oneself because with the recent crop of quote noticing that has come up a lot of men could say that they're

3:20

making a righteous sacrifice being willing to sacrifice their platforms or whatever for the truth but the real

3:27

truth is there is nothing more profit Prof itable and trendy right now than noticing I'm sorry when Candace Owens

3:35

Dan Bilzerian Andrew Tate and even con West are doing something that thing they

3:40

are doing is now mainstream by definition and is where the herd is going and therefore it's profitable even

3:47

if only in terms of immediate controversy which generates attention which always terminates in money when

3:54

profit is going one way it is not profitable to go the other in fact fying

4:00

the herd or the cult often has real consequences in terms of scorn ridicule

4:05

abuse and more and that's why it takes real courage true courage to go against

4:11

the stream because you might die in a sense in the process but for a righteous

4:17

end of truth and the glory of God not money which brings me back to Cody Lawrence and his podcast spare no arrows

4:24

Cody has been one of the loudest most outspoken and confident voices against the So-Cal called woke right which is an

4:31

imprecise term but we used it because a more precise term is something like white nationalist Christian ethnos

4:38

supremacist fascist imbued with secret knowledge about the true origins of evil

4:43

and Evil's goal of Supremacy through cultural genocide however since that

4:48

term is too long and unwieldy we simply say woke right though I'm open to a better term if you have it and again

4:55

Cody has been one of its most outspoken critics I first heard about him from his video breaking down the Antioch

5:02

declaration which is linked in the show notes at the time the Declaration coming out of Moscow was being torn apart on

5:08

social media for subtle details here and there lines that men didn't like but Cody worked through it line by line in a

5:15

tone that I'll never forget you should watch it his approach makes very clear where any level-headed and sensible

5:22

person would land in response to the text but that's the thing we're not in level-headed and sensible times anymore

5:29

in fact far from it so following that video Cody has continued to approach the topic of

5:35

woke rism with the same kind of straightforward humor and enthusiasm that makes gross topics like that fun to

5:42

discuss and that's what I appreciate about him Cody stares into the darkness without letting it stare back into him

5:49

in fact he laughs at it and we all laugh with him which is the right response now

5:54

if you find Value in this podcast I need three things from you first subscribe

6:00

hit that button like you mean it and make sure to click the Bell icon so you don't miss future episodes second leave

6:06

a real comment not a throwaway great video I want to hear your actual thoughts what challenged you what made

6:13

you think differently and third share this these conversations matter and if

6:18

something we discussed could help someone see the world differently please pass it along if you want to go deeper

6:24

check out my substack subscription or buy me a coffee links in the show notes every contribution you make keeps this

6:31

independent platform running because this isn't about me this is about creating a space for real conversations

6:37

also a quick personal note before we begin this past Lord's Day at my church I had the distinct pleasure of watching

6:44

two infant baptisms like all the ones I've seen they were beautiful in fact I

6:49

heard the man sitting next to me say to his young daughter and this is the part where all the dads cry and I could

6:56

relate because even though I'm not a father that happens to me too and I don't know why but it's moving for me to

7:02

experience and in that moment I realized there are men and fathers like the two baptizing their children all around the

7:09

world who listen to me on this podcast you come to the show for entertainment for information for edification and

7:16

inspiration and I'm sure plenty of other reasons you put your trust in me with your time and attention because you have

7:24

families to lead Futures to build legacies to grow towards and every week

7:29

you and invest me with a couple hours and sometimes more of your time in a sense you rely on me not solely of

7:36

course but in a way hey I've given this man I don't know a little bit of my attention every week because I trust

7:43

he'll lead me rightly in this little way it is an honor to me that you view this podcast as moving you towards the

7:49

accomplishment of your responsibilities to your households and families because

7:54

if I didn't if I somehow moved you away from the goals you have to achieve on half of yourself and others you wouldn't

8:01

listen so again as you've hopefully heard me say many times thank you thank

8:06

you for making me part of your life thank you for making this small project even more fulfilling than it was when I

8:12

started thank you for being here thank you for listening thank you for trusting

8:17

me Lord willing I will only continue to build and further earn your trust as the

8:23

days and weeks go on and may we all move towards our future and Legacies together

8:28

also speaking of legacies for those of you who missed it a video I did about flaws and the theory of evolution and

8:35

its consequences went Mega viral on X being retweeted by some of the biggest

8:40

accounts in the world including Jenna Ellis who has 1 million followers and the account clown world who has almost 3

8:47

million it was a very exciting day for those of you who haven't seen it the video is here on YouTube but if you'd

8:54

like to be part of the fun on X you can watch and reshare that video as well both both of those links can be found in

9:00

the show notes and please welcome this week's guest on the podcast from spare no arrows Cody

9:08

Lawrence Cody Lawrence from the spare no arrows podcast thanks so much for joining me for the will Spencer podcast

9:14

it's my pleasure it's good to be here thanks for the invitation appreciate it I have had such appreciation for you and

9:20

your bold No Nonsense no compromise approach to some of the issues of our day and I enjoyed our conversation last

9:27

week as well so I've been looking forward to having you over at my house for another discussion yeah me too it

9:33

was great it was really fun to talk about masculinity and this uh interesting Trend that we're seeing of

9:39

people seemingly flocking to uh Eastern Orthodoxy Catholicism that that was great really insightful conversation ese

9:46

especially about uh our topic about masculinity since that's one of your Specialties yes yes from my time in the

9:53

manosphere and coming up through that world and thinking about what it means to be a man for 20 years it's been

9:58

something that's very much been on my mind for half my life so um I've appreciated that as well and and you

10:04

have a very interesting story also now from from my perspective you just kind of showed up on the scene I I want to

10:11

say for me it was like two to three months ago something like that with your Antioch declaration video and so I

10:17

watched that and I was like this is a guy who clearly knows what he's doing knows how to talk on on a microphone

10:22

knows how to articulate his thoughts knows how to do a podcast and so it's like suddenly you just like surfaced to my attention and just started you just

10:29

started started going ham out there so you've been at this for a while but you have kind of an interesting story that

10:34

led you to this moment so maybe we can talk about that like where did you come from and and how did you get to where

10:39

you are today yes so I am just a Layman uh I I have been in professional

10:46

Ministry in the past I have been to Seminary and dropped out halfway through my MD and that's something we could talk

10:53

about I've I've got opinions on a lot of things but basically I after a uh I got

10:59

married in 2020 and my wife and I were trying to hunt for a good church that was after me leaving a not so good

11:07

church and we we really didn't want to go to the church that we had been going to prior to getting married and so we

11:14

kind of after a string of going to churches for a few months and realizing like ah this isn't that great let's try

11:21

another one and then you know it takes a while to really determine if if you if you can't tell right away if a church is

11:28

not great I think it takes a few months and then what also takes a few months is making friends and so then having to

11:34

like go to another church and leave those friends is difficult and so we have this string of just like ah these

11:41

we're we're kind of discovering these negative things about these um

11:46

conservative like otherwise seemingly biblical Church churches from the outside and then we discover these

11:52

things and we leave and uh this was also kind of around the same time that deconstruction was talked about a whole

Cultural Apologetics Podcast Origins

12:00

lot and I recognized that a lot of there there were a lot of people criticizing

12:05

the church obviously most of them were leftists but there weren't a lot of people offering conservative biblical

12:12

correction of churches uh not a lot of podcasts like that and so that's why I started my podcast I wanted to try

12:19

to uh equip other people who were in the same situation as I am like I'm just looking for a good church or like I'm in

12:26

a church and maybe there are problems and I don't know how to deal with these problems and so I wanted to try to reach those people and then also kind of just

12:33

educate people about false teachers out in the world and important theological issues and give cultural commentary and

12:41

things like that so I'm kind of all over the place but kind of focusing on um cultural maybe maybe I would just say

12:47

cultural apologetics So when you say that you are part of a bad Church what does that mean

12:52

because there are all kinds of ways that churches can go bad well yeah i' I've been to a number of bad churches yeah

12:59

well so yeah my my youth uh so I when I was in Youth Group back way back in high

13:04

school I uh I didn't even know youth groups existed until I was a junior because I grew up a

13:09

Pentecostal um telling the future and healings and

13:15

uh prophecy you know very interesting environment and then when I was a junior

13:21

I started going to this youth ministry uh and one of the pastors was a woman in the church and one of the youth pastors

13:27

quote unquote pastors was a woman and I I kind of thought like ah yeah that's probably not great but well I mean this

13:35

is a church and they got hired and so they probably know what they're doing that was kind of my Approach and then

13:41

just as the years progressed things like that uh going to just a lot of churches that right now I would I would not even

13:48

want to set foot in for various reasons and uh I just learned over time but I

13:53

think one of one of the benefits of my story is that I got to experience uh you know very liberal churches and very

13:59

conservative churches with various different kinds of problems and uh trying trying to teach people how to

14:06

avoid those so yeah I can imagine being in a Pentecostal church with wom pastors and

14:14

but not really not really knowing better right that's that's just the world that you so you grew up in the church yeah

14:20

yeah so my parents are Christian uh grew up in the church so actually the the church with the female Pastor that I ended up going to was Methodist so I've

14:27

been in Pentecostal church church Methodist churches um even this is funny

14:33

in uh uh in yeah my junior year we were I was one of the leaders in our youth

14:39

ministry and we were we would travel to other big churches and try to copy you

14:45

know the big successful things that they were doing and we took a big trip to a youth conference in Orange County

14:51

California where we visited Saddleback Church and participated in a service where Rick Warren preached and we got to

14:58

go to this big conference with uh Doug Fields youth ministry and so I I did all that I I thought Rick Warren was totally

15:04

cool and so I I was totally in the uh big Eva crowd I I'm like terrified

15:10

because I uh I was even in 2020 before I got engaged I was interviewing for a job

15:16

as a youth pastor at a very large church that I would not want to be a part of

15:22

anymore probably um you know not and that's not to say I I want to give this kind of qualifier that's not to say that

15:29

everybody in um churches that I think have significant problems are bad that's not to say that everybody is completely

15:36

Unfaithful but that is to say that like there are very serious problems in a lot

15:41

of churches that we ought to know better about and the fact that we uh maybe

15:47

allow these things to happen anyway or the the fact that we're ignorant about the things that happen in churches

15:52

anyway I think slowly over a long period of time kind of degrades our um degrades

15:59

the quality of our faith and then over the course of generations or years degrades the quality of our families and

16:05

the quality of our cultures and that's how we find ourselves where kind of we are as a country right

16:11

now yeah I mean today or was it yesterday Trump appointed the head

16:17

Department of Faith or whatever it was a woman Pentecostal Prosperity preacher

16:22

yep y did no one sit him down like hey you had Franklin Graham I mean you know

16:29

on on stage at at RNC and it's like yeah of course there's there's a lot there but uh this is this is no the same same

16:37

imagine that that Progressive uh Pastor who did that prayer exhortation against

16:42

Trump you think he would have learned something from that or you think Vance would read his Bible enough that he would know that no we shouldn't probably

16:48

shouldn't have a female Pastor as a head of a faith thing in the White House yeah

16:54

I mean he didn't you could have just appointed a man and you didn't have to you didn't to say anything about it he

17:00

he doesn't have to be you know Trump doesn't have to get up there and say now I'm appointing this man because women can't be pastors I mean that would be

17:05

amazing but he doesn't have to do that right and so now it's going to be a whole thing so okay so maybe like you

17:11

can talk about to whatever degree you want to get into detail like some of the things that you saw I guess we talked

17:17

about female pastors were there other things you saw in that experience that you know that help that degrade the faith I didn't grow up in the church so

17:24

I don't I don't have a history I did a podcast with Joshua hes from Reformation red a couple weeks ago and so he was

17:31

talking about his whole journey going from kind of big Eva to uh to covenantal

17:36

presbiterian and what that Journey was like for him and I I don't have the ability to relate to that because I went

17:42

straight into a Reformed Baptist Church at apologia now I attend a Presbyterian Church that's a cand that's going to

17:48

candidate with C so I had that accelerated timeline like go straight to the stuff what did you see what were

17:54

some of the things that you saw that you thought were kind of egregious that relate specif specifically to the

18:00

degradation of faith and culture yeah and by the way that story of yours where you kind of went straight into the the

18:06

good kind of Christianity is incredible like it's so rare uh everybody else has

18:12

the experience like that I have had where you've just been you know like in our church I go to a cc church and

18:18

almost everybody in the whole church is like yeah we had this horrible experience in 20120 at some church and

18:24

then like maybe another one after that and then eventually we're like ah where do we go and then oh we found this church and it's fantastic so like

18:30

everybody has that exact same experience but I know other people who uh who who

18:36

like were converted and then out of nowhere just like landed in reformed

18:42

kind of CC sphere Christianity it's incred it like blows my mind that that's a thing uh but so my story is some agree

18:51

let's see there are so many examples I can point to but let's say I so when I was a youth pastor and that's something

18:57

that I would uh I I hate youth ministry now that's not to say that I hate ministering to youth but I hate the

19:04

thing that youth ministry generally is in our country where it is a replacement

19:09

for church it's like uh the a lot of the students in my I I think even though I

19:16

don't think youth pastors are a very biblical thing anyway I think I was Far

19:23

More close to being biblical than 99% of all the other youth pastors because

19:29

youth ministry in America is like fun and games and pizza and uh the the

19:35

pastor who I worked under encouraged me to shorten the length of my sermons as much as possible and and that's not to

19:42

say I was preaching for like an hour and a half like yeah okay you can shorten those but no I was I was preaching for

19:48

like 20 25 minutes and he was like no you got to get it down to like 10

19:53

minutes and and I was like how do you do that in 10 minutes what and and so and

19:58

it's like well so the argument is um and this is this is kind of the I think the

Prioritizing Attendance Over Faithfulness

20:03

broad philosophy of youth ministry but it's also I think this kind of Venom

20:09

carries into adult churches as well because this kind of thing I I didn't

20:14

only see him trying to push on me in youth ministry but I saw this in the

20:19

church like basically they cared more about numbers than they cared about

20:25

faithfulness and the argument is if you if you don't have people sitting in the

20:30

pews you can't reach them with the truth and so like you you got to rope the kids

20:36

in with the fun in the games and make the sermon as short as possible because if you're not attractive then nobody's

20:43

going to be there for you to share the gospel with anyway and I wrestled with that tremendously because something in

20:49

my in in the dregs of my soul was like there is something horribly wrong about

20:54

that and now I realize it's like being attractive doesn't matter what matters is telling telling the truth now there

20:59

is a right way and a wrong way to be Winsome I think um well really there's only a right way to be Winsome and and

21:05

what I think most people consider winsomeness is not really winsomeness at all but right to to win people we win

21:13

people with the truth and we need to do that in a Biblical way which means you

21:18

know we don't want to there is a kind of demeanor that we ought to have when we are presenting the truth to people but

21:25

to be Winsome does not mean sacrificing the truth at all and that's that's what I saw that I was kind of being pushed to

21:31

do uh in youth ministry to sacrifice Truth at the cost of uh bringing more

21:37

people in and and there there was all this other stuff like you know back back in the old days 30 years ago where it

21:43

was the only church in the whole town they had a huge youth ministry and now that there's you know a dozen youth

21:48

Ministries in town like the youth ministry is way smaller because all the kids are dispersed through all the youth Ministries and so it's like it's your

21:54

job as the cool new youth pastor to bring you know to bring 500 kids into

22:00

the youth ministry it's like I I don't think I can ever do that and my job is

22:05

like as like biblically my job it doesn't matter what you say my job is as my boss what matters biblically is that

22:11

my job is to um try to spiritually lead these students and

22:19

and I was also really trying to incorpor like I I wanted the students to go to church on Sundays I wanted to try to

22:26

educate them uh but also like I wanted to try to bring their parents into this and teach them like you know hey you

22:32

need to take your kids to church you need to Shepherd them better at home and that kind of thing and it's it's an

22:38

uphill battle when that is not the the philosophy that the church itself shares It's So eventually I I quit and also at

22:45

the same time I got engaged and so that was kind of my ultimate excuse to leave and then that was also right smack dab

22:52

in the middle of the pandemic this was also at the same time that I was interviewing for this other job as a youth pastor at a much bigger Church

Divine Timing Amid Pandemic Uncertainty

22:59

and thank God that I think the that the pandemic happened when it did because I

23:04

could have been some big Eva goon if if the pandemic didn't happen and they

23:10

accepted me at that other Church like I I could have gone on a tremendously different path so thank God that I you

23:17

basically I quit the job at the church and then they were like well we don't ah this pandemic thing we want to wait till

23:23

it dies down and then it never died down so week after week I wasn't getting a paycheck and my wife and I were trying

23:29

to determine like are you going to move here so we can get married or we am I going to move there so we can get married and then eventually it was just

23:35

like well I don't have any guarantee of a job here we want to get married and so I'm just going to move

23:41

there where sorry where where was there and now where is here yeah I used to

23:46

work so I I am I've spent most of my life in Kansas City Missouri which is where I am now actually I'm in Kansas

23:52

now but yeah Midwest and then I moved to uh Washington and that's where I worked

24:00

for year and a half or so and then I moved back to Kansas City that's a heck

24:05

of a long distance relationship from Washington to Kansas it is we met my wife and I met in college and then we we

24:12

kept up our relationship over the course of time and decided to finally get married in 2020 well praise God so did

24:18

as she was looking at all this happening was she was she seeing things the same way as you were I reckon she probably was yeah I think like spiritually we

24:27

have always been on the same page um and also even like with pandemic stuff we

24:32

have also been on the same page we were kind of asking the same kind of questions and concerned about the same things and we both agreed that like yeah

24:40

I'm I'm GNA quit my job and I'm GNA move there and hopefully I can find a new job quick and uh we can get

24:47

married that's 2020 was such an Awakening for basically well I want to

24:52

say everybody because it wasn't for everybody lot of people but for a lot of people particularly particularly in the

24:58

church and and in both good ways and bad ways and we'll definitely get into some of the bad ways but it's it's so cool to

25:05

hear that it sort of took a lot of people and shook them and recognized that there's no Foundation under this

25:12

like it's it's you you watch churches slide off that's ultimately how I found apologia because apologia was one of the

25:19

one churches that was open here in Phoenix during the pandemic in fact I

25:24

originally heard about them because they were doing an anti-abortion protest at the capital this was in this was in 2020

25:32

20 21 is when it was I'm like well a church that's doing an anti-abortion protest at the capital during the

25:39

pandemic that's a church that's got it going on you just look at those together

25:44

so so as as you transitioned out from the belief set that you had So you

25:51

you're in this uh youth pastor mega church P Pentecostal what was the first

25:58

thing you looked at a bunch of different stuff and you're like this is not okay what was the first thing that you kind of got a Toe Hold on that like I don't

26:04

like this this this feels kind of gross to me yeah so the the church that I worked for and that I was a youth pastor

26:10

under it was a Baptist Church and so ever since basically like at um in ever

26:16

since like college I was a Baptist essentially let's say like a non-denominational

26:22

Baptist and that's the kind of church that I ended up working at non-denominational Baptist mhm and

26:30

the just a lot of I I Think Through The Years there was I just noticed a lot of

26:37

mistreatment of people uh including me just in

26:42

various capacities in churches like well that's not how I think Christians are supposed to act like that's weird what's

Crisis of Faith and Leadership

26:48

up with that and then often it was even up to the point of leadership like Wella this pastor did what like that's

26:55

outrageous and you know then you hear stories of Pastor P all over the place committing horrible sexual sin and uh

27:02

it's like shouldn't we be held to a higher standard like didn't isn't that stuff I learned in Sunday school true

27:09

and also this kind of happened at the same time as um I started going to this Baptist Church uh back like way back in

27:17

high school college um and I I was kind of studying apologetics for the first

27:23

time and it was kind of the first time in my life just like most people where they're confronted with other people peers who are um starting to think about

27:32

heavier things and being willing to argue with the things that their parents believe or uh they're influenced by the

27:39

things that the culture says and so basically I was you know through high school and college probably like most people encountering these Arguments for

27:45

the very first time that well maybe God doesn't exist I I never considered that before like of course God exists and so

27:51

that that really rattled me because even growing up I think uh just in the churches that I went to or in um

27:58

in the I think my my parents are broadly faithful people but U and and they would

28:05

they would admit this too that you know they just don't have answers to all of these questions and the churches that we

28:12

went to they didn't equip us for these things very well either and so I I didn't feel very well equipped to answer

28:18

these questions and so I struggled with doubt and and and whatever and so that made me dive into apologetics for the

28:25

first time and so I was like very uh evid evidentialist now I have gone the the way of the presuppositionalist very

28:31

hard the past few years but grew up very evidentialist I would have thought presuppositionalist are idiots and uh

28:39

but knew all the arguments for the existence of God read um William link Craig uh to this day I really appreciate

28:46

Stan to reason and Greg kokal uh so there there are a ton of apologists that I love and and deeply respect even

28:53

though I'm I lean the presuppositionalist direction because all those all those Arguments for the existence of God are true they don't

28:58

stop being true I just approach kind of theology a little bit differently now in my head but uh basically over the years

29:06

I started seeing these cracks and after

29:11

after kind of having this more firm faith in God I thought you know the

29:17

issue here is not God where a lot of my friends or a lot of people you hear about uh or even like Progressive

29:22

Christians people who deconstruct they're like bad bad people who called themselves Christians did bad stuff to

29:28

me and therefore Christianity isn't true and that that never really resonated

29:34

with me that that never made sense to me I always recognize that as a flawed argument the the very tiptop most

29:41

challenging argument in apologetics for at least emotionally for people is the problem of evil and logically the

29:49

problem of evil does not disprove God the fact that we think that evil is bad

29:55

actually is an evidence for God and so so I I kind of recognized that very early on and when I encountered these

30:04

bad pastors or churches who were more concerned with numbers than truth or

30:09

pleas it you know somebody complains to the P the the pastor at the church that I worked at he would talk to me he would

30:15

we would have meetings and he would essentially teach me how to man to uh manipulate people into not causing

30:21

trouble so he'd be like hey so if somebody comes to you and says this here's the kind of thing that you say to

30:26

get them off your butt yeah and I mean like insane awful awful

30:32

stuff crazy and um you know at first I was like oh okay that's oh that's kind

30:38

of weird but and then you know as as time kind of progressed I started realizing like oh this guy's actually a

30:43

terrible guy like you can't do that and and so you know eventually I

30:48

was like I don't want to be here anymore I left and um I was also going to Seminary at the time and so I I kind of

30:55

developed this love of God and this love of the word of God because I also

31:00

recognize that the word of God is the thing that we have to build the foundation of our faith in I think I

31:06

think my love of the word of God kind of developed over time because there was a time early in college probably where I

31:11

was like well the Bible can be interpreted in a lot of different ways it's tough to interpret the Bible but

31:17

like you know what we you know what's good logic and philosophy and so like that's the thing

31:24

that that I that I need to kind of spend a lot of time wrestling with and I need to read philosophers and you know and

31:31

and now nowadays I I've also gone completely the opposite way from that I think that was a a terrible mistake and

31:37

it's a mistake that a lot of people even in the reformed Community make today to Value philosophy and tradition and

31:44

things like that far over the word of God and and I even had experience with other pastors who were uh like more

31:51

recently in in history who were toist and they would preach sermons not over scripture but over

31:58

and over Aristotle and like that's weird aren't you don't you claim to be a Conservative Christian biblical Reformed

32:05

Church like that's that's crazy and so um I I was also going to Seminary and

32:10

then during 2020 I I dropped out of Seminary and I could have transferred to another Seminary here in Kansas City and

32:18

these things started coming out about the SBC and and some of the serious problems in the SBC and we were going to

32:24

an SBC church and I started to see like this this odd corruption um in in this

32:30

church that was very closely associated with the Seminary that uh that I lived near at the time and so I was like okay

32:38

no more Seminary no thanks this is bad uh and even to this day I think

32:45

there are like I would I would highly and tons of people disagree with me on this but I would like highly push back

Seminary vs. Church-Based Education

32:53

against somebody wanting to go to Seminary I think you you can absolutely get a good biblical educ at a seminary

32:58

but you have to really have your guard up and I think it's not good for people

33:04

to have to have their guard up when they're in some kind of school because you're there to learn things you're not

33:09

there to like filter and you know protect yourself from the things that you're learning and so I I I think

33:16

people can get a much better biblical education and even even about how to go into Ministry if they find a really good

33:22

church and learn under the Elders of that church and also read a lot of really good old books

33:29

mhh I I hear all of that and I see it now as I look around because I just

33:35

showed up in this Christian world and I'm trying to understand how the church got to where it is today sort of I walk

33:42

it's like I walk into this room and I don't know the room that I've walked into but it has thousands of years of

33:48

history behind it but also a hundred or so years of history and its current form more or less and so as the lights slowly

33:55

come on in the room as I start to understand and where I am I I see all the things that you're talking about particularly deconstruction you know the

34:03

the lack of pastors and churches to have good answers to Pretty basic pretty

34:08

basic questions you know like while this person did this bad thing to me once so

34:13

Christianity isn't true and uh and I encounter that a lot because I before I was active on X I was more active on

34:20

Instagram and so I started having my own sanctification started talking about Christianity more on my profile there

34:27

and I would have you know guys who came from the new age like I did who would say stuff like that like well you know

34:33

Christianity has done all this stuff through the years Etc it's like well first the Roman Catholic Church is not

34:38

Christianity right that's that's the first thing that was my own that was from my own understanding but then also

34:44

to explain to them like imagine that the only game of basketball you've ever seen your whole life is played in like a

34:50

rundown stadium with really bad players who are fouling each other you know and

34:55

like they're jumping into the stands and punching people and the refs are looking someplace else and they're playing with

35:01

a rock yeah exactly it's like basketball's terrible it's like well but then you actually read the rule book I

35:07

was like oh wait a minute this is not at all and I actually gave someone that metaphor and that really that really

35:13

clicked for him to recognize that things have been done wrong in really bad ways I think ways

35:20

that people are just starting to become aware of frankly yeah yeah I made a post recently

35:25

on X where I said uh there's this interesting Trend recently of people

35:30

really enjoying the phrase historical Christianity and I I don't have anything against historical Christianity like I

35:38

love reading I love history I think there is a tremendous amount to learn from Christians historically obviously

35:45

but historical Christianity whatever that is is different from Biblical

35:50

Christianity so if we're trying to base our faith on historical Christianity we could we could pick some kind of time in

35:57

church history and follow those people but that's that's not authoritative you

36:03

know that's not good that those people in that specific period of time they have made some tremendous mistakes that

36:09

we absolutely do not want to follow and how do we figure out what's wrong or what's right well we go to the word of

36:16

God and that's kind of the same thing that I started discovering um at these churches especially so I my my faith got

36:24

stronger and stronger I really wanted to go into Ministry I became a youth pastor uh I even went I was a missionary in

36:29

Japan for uh over a year and so I uh really wanted to serve in some you know

36:36

Ministry capacity but then you know through that time I I started to really

Embracing True Christianity

36:41

really value the word of God because in in seeing the like I I got to see from a

36:48

Layman's perspective Church issues um you know and kind of growing up it wasn't that bad it wasn't like ah you

36:54

know this horrible thing happened to church but kind of as I got older I started you know be like see these more bad

37:02

things happening but I also got to see this um kind of from behind the curtains

37:07

perspective of a bad church and you know even even in studying things for my

37:12

podcast and looking into things that are happening at the SBC or or like politically at these large kind of

37:18

church organizations or things that are covered up that pastors do by their staff or or whatever in various ways is

37:25

like that's off and the solution to that is is the word

37:30

of God like that's the thing that we always have to go back to not historical Christianity not emotional Christianity

37:37

not like not any Christianity with any kind of modifier just Christianity and

37:43

what how do we Define Christianity and the answer is the word of God so that's the thing that I kind of started

37:48

developing and started loving and then during 2020 my eyes were opened to um

37:55

just even even more things like the massive coward of churches and um churches shutting down and churches

38:01

requir like something that our church did at the time was they required people to wear masks of course like a lot of

38:08

churches did to go in and that was something that I really struggled with because it's like you you are basically

38:15

going to turn me away from worshiping with the body of Christ if I choose not to wear a mask like that is that is

38:22

like I I that's one of the worst things I could possibly think of and like

38:28

that's that's horribly bad and you guys are a conservative biblical church

38:33

that's associated with one of the biggest seminaries in the country what it's horrible and these are the things

38:40

that kind of open my eyes to this and realize scripture is the solution to these things and churches that follow

38:46

scripture above the government churches that follow scripture above wanting to please people churches that follow

38:52

scripture above wanting to fill their pews and make as much tithe money as possible that's the key

38:59

mhm did you explore out of that Roman Catholicism Eastern Orthodoxy all at all

39:05

or did you just know that like that ain't it yeah that's an interesting question I I always

39:12

encountered Catholics I encountered fewer Eastern Orthodox people over my life but

39:19

when I I think growing up I always perceived Catholicism as some kind of

39:24

wacky different denomination and uh I wasn't really interested in

39:29

denominations at the time I was I was just interested in Christianity and so I was trying to figure out what that was

39:35

and landed on the Bible and so no I never really took Catholicism seriously and even now you know I I've done a lot

39:42

of studying about Catholicism and um things like that just because I wanted to uh to learn about those things later

39:49

but before that no I never personally explored Catholicism or any of those other different religions that kind of

39:55

seem wacky to the average American mhm that because that's a really interesting thing that's happening right

40:01

now is people going walking a similar path to what you have and deciding that protestantism ain't it and so and we

40:08

talked about this in our podcast like they go into Roman Catholicism or if they don't like the pope or what's

40:14

happening there or historic Roman Catholicism they go into Eastern Orthodoxy and I've had to explain to

40:20

lots of guys who are in faithful Protestant churches like yeah I know it maybe it doesn't look the way that you

40:25

want it to but as soon as you begin departing from solo scriptura and you start saying that there's some other

40:32

source of authority like you start getting on a very dangerous path because guys will go into Roman Catholicism they

40:39

look around at that they will see that it is not at all what's promised that is not the that is not unified it's not

40:45

like the people there are more greatly Sanctified it's it's many of the same problems and in fact some of the

40:50

problems to a much even greater degree and then so it's like you will bounce out of that and you will end up in

40:55

eastern Orthodoxy and maybe you'll stay there for few years and what I've heard is people will come into Orthodoxy

41:00

they'll be there for a few years and they'll start to recognize that the bare ritualism that doesn't produce uh

41:06

transformation of the heart transformation of the character it gets very tiresome and then they then they

41:12

bounce out of Eastern Orthodoxy and Lord knows where they go right hopefully they'll end up back you know in a

41:18

faithful uh a faithful Protestant church but of course those can be few and far between for the exact reasons the exact

41:25

reasons that you've listed yeah yeah I think the thing that protected me from

41:31

Desiring to explore that Avenue is my

41:36

love of scripture you know solo scripture I I cared about churches

41:42

adhering to the word of God and so I think that prevented me from like okay what's all this wacky stuff that they're

41:48

doing well it's because dead guys a long time ago did it too okay I don't care about that where does the word of God

41:53

say that and and so I think that that's why I was protected from that and

41:59

probably this is just a theory what's happening with a lot of other people is uh a lot of people are you know they

Christianity Shift: Evangelicalism to Catholicism

42:05

just grow up in Christianity and they they have similar experiences to me and a lot of other people where they're like

42:11

oh there are problems here like there are problems in evangelicalism but a lot like the deconstructionists where the

42:17

deconstructionists are like bad Christians equals bad Christianity I think a lot of these people they think

42:24

bad evangelic you know bad you know f the blank equals oh that that

42:30

denomination or that like that um evangelicalism the focus on the gospel must be bad which is a weird argument

42:37

and so it's like so what's better well something that's older probably something that's older is better uh

42:43

what's older oh well Catholicism and if if I don't like the pope well Eastern Orthodoxy is also kind of old and so I'm

42:50

going to go there instead but the reality is what's much much older than both of those things is the word of God

42:56

itself which is the foundation of the very of the world you know in the beginning was the word you know there's

43:03

nothing older than the word of God and that's that's I think what a lot of people forget and that's something that

43:08

uh I have kind of developed a true love for over time that uh that I'm really

43:15

terribly hard trying to instill in other people because that that would solve all of our problems in America it would

43:21

solve the the the woman Faith lady at at in Trump's cabinet and it would solve the people uh doing their Exodus to

43:29

Roman Catholicism and it would solve you know churches locking down for Co it would solve literally everything if we

43:35

used the word of God as our ultimate Authority and not the word of

43:40

man I wish more people would really read and meditate on Pilgrim's Progress that

43:46

I keep coming back to that one it's like the way is narrow it's it's narrow and

43:51

and and you have to be okay with that and and the width is the width is the width of a book

43:57

right but the people don't recognize the freedom that comes with that that's the

44:03

part that's been so shocking to me again now I came from the new age false light

44:08

kind of world that's that's where I came from and that way is Broad as broad can

44:13

be yeah and in that broadness it's so so much real danger

44:19

and it's by walking this Narrow Path that's the way that you could be safe and free from the world but I I guess

44:26

that path is too narrow I mean I understand but the path seems to be too narrow for a lot of people yeah Ordo am

44:33

moris has been trending recently and this is something we talked about in in our episode a little bit but uh we need

44:39

to properly order our affections and so as Protestants people who love the word of God as our ultimate Authority we

44:46

we're allowed to Value history we're allowed to read John bun we're allowed to Love Phil gr's progress we're allowed

44:53

to read and love Augustine we're even allowed to read and benefit from people like Thomas aquinus or Plato or

45:01

Aristotle because we we filter all of those things through the word of God

45:06

first but if we don't do that if we flip it the other way around even if we try to aim for actually good things like

45:12

masculinity or like patriarchy or whatever if we flip those orders upside down then we get none of them we get

45:19

absolutely none of them what's so interesting about the Ordo amoris discussion and I haven't

45:24

really tracked it closely this it doesn't it's not it's not a doesn't seem like a complicated subject to me but

45:31

someone it might have been Rich Lusk Rich Lusk is like Twitter Allstar for sure yeah um he I think he might have

45:37

said that the order of moris without putting your love of God first the whole thing falls apart you can't just say

45:44

like I love my own people more than I love other people well sure okay that may be true but you are called to love

45:50

God above and even your above even your own people above your own family members

45:55

right and if you don't do that first then nothing else stands then you get some sort of arbitrarily assigned set of

46:03

loves and so it seems to me that the order of moris discussion can't happen in an environment outside of uh

46:10

confession repentance restitution and I just see that completely left out of the

46:15

discussion men are not caring at all for the condition of their own hearts and that's really bad that's really really

46:22

bad yeah yeah I think I first heard the concept of Ordo amor he didn't use the

46:27

word but uh from CS Lewis I think probably in Mere Christianity he talks about that and then I realiz probably

46:34

yeah and yes that was probably it he might also mention it in Mere Christianity but anyway he you know we

46:39

we repeat things that are important and this is a very important idea and I later realized like oh he probably got

46:46

that from Augustine but regardless you know regardless of where it comes from it's true because we we there are

46:52

ordered loves there there is like an order of values that we ought to have some things are more important in others

46:57

absolutely true but uh it's like yeah what a lot of people are are missing is

47:03

yeah of course you should love your family more than some stranger across the planet but the truth is if you're

47:09

not loving God then you're actually not even loving your family that's right

47:14

you're not even loving like you you can love nobody properly if you don't love God first now some Christians who do

47:21

love God they can still not love their family properly because May they're still not actually loving God properly I

47:26

think you know because we're imperfect we can mess things up but uh you know so that's not to say and this kind of gets

47:32

into the presuppositionalist discussion I think because people talk about Covenant apologetics or covenant

47:38

theology and they're like well those Covenant guys they're inconsistent and it's like yeah of course we are yes

47:45

that's the point like we we're not perfect uh you know we make everybody

47:51

makes mistakes but to be consistent and nobody can be perfectly consistent but we ought to strive for for consistency

47:58

to truly love our family we need to love God first to truly have knowledge of

48:03

anything we have to have uh true knowledge of God or we we need to at least admit the knowledge that God

48:09

innately gives us first before we can have actual true knowledge of other

48:14

things yeah I was thinking it's a little bit like a a fountain right you you pour

48:20

into you poured your love into God and then it overflows in a proper order and you know one of the things that's funny

48:25

about the whole order of Mor thing I wonder how many men love their fathers

48:31

right I love my people like well do you love your mother and your father and I don't mean like yeah of course I love I

48:37

mean like not love out of obligation like do you honor them the the fifth commandment violations has been part of

48:43

American culture since the 1960s at least and we're I think we're seeing a lot of that a lot of that today yeah and

48:50

even even the people part of the groups who are uh using words like Boomer brain

48:55

a little too much they they they will talk about the importance of honoring your father and

49:01

your mother and like we need to honor like our father you know even John Calvin and his commentaries is like not

49:07

you our father is not just our immediate father but it's our forefathers it's it's the people who came before us

49:13

historically and it's like yes all true and then we skip over our actual father or we skip over our grandfather or we

49:20

skip over the people who are older than us generationally and then we we want to go to people a thousand years ago and

49:26

then and then we skip everybody near us and then we want to insult those people and call them Boomers like that's yeah

49:33

it's like that I mean it's hypocrisy not not only is it bad but it's like you you specifically know that we ought to be

49:39

honoring our fathers and our mothers and you're still you're not you're choosing not to you're intentionally skipping

49:45

over people just because it's convenient or you don't like them or you know for whatever reason yeah that that's a that's a huge

49:53

that's a huge part of it but in the Westminster Confession of faith also talks about honoring father and mother

49:59

means more than just your biological fathers or your forebears it also means people who are in authority over you it

50:04

means Elders right it means it means everyone who has a degree of seniority over you and that is just I think that's

50:12

probably one of the most devastating effects of the 1960s and the sexual revolution in fact it might even be

50:17

keyed specifically to it is this idea like oh dad is just an old fuddy duddy who doesn't understand the changing

50:24

times that I don't have to listen to him and if I don't like my boss I'll just like you know flip him and take off

50:30

right and it's it's like no when you look into scripture and you look at DAV you look at Saul David and Absalom

50:36

there's a great book uh uh called A Tale of Three Kings by Jean Edwards and it's

50:42

a very short little book it might be a hundred Pages less probably big print too and it talks about the story of Saul

50:49

David and Absalom about how David recognized that Saul was still the the

50:54

rightfully crowned King and that to he had to behave in a certain way as a

50:59

result of that and David was faithful in that in a way that Absalom was not and

51:04

that story gets told and you see that it's like oh even if I don't necessarily agree if someone is in is is rightfully

51:11

in a place of authority I'm still called to honor them I don't need to follow them into sin but that doesn't mean I

51:17

can be disrespectful or dishonoring to them and I think that that's just a tension that's too much for some men to

51:24

bear in their frustration is it anger is it bitterness I think it's bitterness

51:30

that's you know a root of bitterness wrapped around the heart what do you think it is yeah I

51:35

think the ultimately the problem is with everything the problem with everything

51:41

is that we're not rooted in the word of God like if if you hate your father and

51:46

mother if you're disrespectful to your elders or whatever you are not like something with your theology has cracks

51:53

in it and and this this also um remember your question because I want to go back

51:58

to it but I this is I want to say this too that I think there is a there's this tendency

52:07

for people well I forgot what I was saying so anyway we'll go back I can go back to

52:15

my question if you want go back to I remembered it so my question was we see a lot of men um we see a lot of men that

52:22

are saying terms like Bo Boomer brain they're loving their loving their people

52:27

but their people does not include their fathers their Elders Etc and so I was

52:32

speculating is it anger is it bitterness like what what do you think is motivating that specific form and it's

52:38

not just to be clear it is not a new form of rebellion yes it's just the latest flavor that's continuing since

52:45

around the time of the sexual Revolution yeah I remember the first thing I wanted to say first this this kind of direction

52:51

that the conversation is going is probably like people

52:56

one of the accusations that us like very conservative reasonable people get is that like oh you're acting like liberals

53:02

what you you don't think it's ever okay to to rebel against you know evil authorities or you know evil people who

53:10

are Elders over us it's like sure like when Whenever there are

53:15

situations where we um we can we can be disrespectful in

53:21

certain situations to people that are older than us right but broadly the command to honor your father and your

53:27

mother it like in other words sometimes it's honoring to a person to fight them

53:33

you know like we we want to resist evil authorities and so we fight them and that's actually honoring to them but

53:39

what's not honoring to them is uh for people who are otherwise being faithful

53:47

to just throw insults at them or or even if if they're wrong about something if we just disagree with them throw out

53:53

insults to them like that's actually not honoring like there there is a time that we need to honor people by fighting them

53:58

and there's a time that we need to honor people just by respectfully disagreeing but we shouldn't be just fighting people

54:05

constantly all the time all over the place but I think to to answer your question the actual root of a lot of

54:12

this I think is um it's a lack of wanting to take

54:18

responsibility for things uh very similar to I think what happened in 2020 the world wanted to look for some kind

54:25

of scapegoat and if we don't recognize that we are sinners if we don't point the responsibility back in on ourselves

54:32

as the bad guy in the situation and the the person who has to deal with the evils of the world around us regardless

54:38

of who's actually causing the evils if anybody's causing the evil at all uh

54:43

that is an important thing to do to be able to be introspective and and to self-reflect on oursel and realize like

54:48

you know what whatever is happening in the world this is my responsibility to deal with it but instead I think a lot

54:54

of people want to pick some kind of person or some kind of group like you know a lot of conservatives might say w

55:01

Biden is ruining the country and it's like yeah that's partially that's true absolutely it's true but Biden is

55:07

ruining the country because we have ruined the country in such a way that allowed someone like Biden to get

55:13

elected we we have ruined our churches enough so that Trump thinks it's okay to

55:18

appoint a woman to the head of some kind of fith committee you know we we need to accept personal responsibility for this

55:24

ourselves and we need to realize that the ultimate solution is not some kind of um asserting any kind of authority

55:30

over somebody or just making them do whatever we want the solution is repentance and the solution is Revival

55:36

ultimately and everything else is just a Band-Aid and so I think the the root of

55:42

this anger and this kind of disrespect for elders and and a lot of these problems is just people looking for some

55:47

kind of group that they want to blame their problems on if it's white people or if it's black people or if it's the

55:54

Jews Jews yeah or or if it's the Boomers or whatever it's like this is all just

56:00

Marxism it's picking some kind of group you don't like calling them the oppressor and then oppressing them you

56:06

know that's Marxism and that's what people can do on both proverbial sides of the political Spectrum even though I

56:12

think the people who are doing that who call themselves on the right they're not actually on the right at all but yeah that's what I think the root is yeah the

Scapegoating and Self-Reflection

56:20

the scapegoating effect the scapegoating of saying let me identify this individ

56:26

idual or this group and I'm going to hang all the ills of society around their neck now the thing the the

56:33

psychological phenomen of projection where you um where you mistake you

56:38

mistake your qualities for someone else's so you look at someone and you say oh that person you know that

56:44

person's so amazing Etc ET you're projecting your your whatever your inner stuff on them can be good or bad yeah

56:50

and I think the the function of projection is very much like hey it's that person's fault was like okay maybe

56:57

there's a hook there that of some truth to that right there's always a hook that you can hang your projection on uh but

57:04

at a certain point you do have to look back at yourself and say okay well how am I contributing to this how have I

57:11

contributed to this how can I not contribute to this anymore in things that I can control within my own life

57:18

that don't involve me changing the behavior of another person not to say that that person's Behavior doesn't need

57:23

to be changed maybe it does but these causes for self-reflection to understand

57:29

I'm a participant in this situation is seems to be completely lacking with the desire to get out like and start

57:36

crusading towards the other it's like well how's your how is your house and how is your heart like what is the

57:43

condition of your heart and that's the question that I don't see being asked maybe because it's I don't know it's

57:48

Boomer I guess I don't know yeah and well because it it it requires us to take responsibility for our own actions

57:55

and be introspective and that's something that people absolutely don't want to do and and it could be entirely

58:00

possible that you are put in a horrible position by somebody else absolutely

58:05

possible like let's say your father made horrible choices and you grew up with a horrible childhood I grew up in West

58:11

Virginia and West Virginia's primary uh source of income for I it might still be

58:18

today but was coal mining and most of the coal mines probably I don't know if

58:23

most but a lot of the coal mines were shut down and and West Virginia broadley's is just filled with poverty

58:30

and it's a lot of it is like you took the government somebody else not them

58:36

took away their jobs right out from under them and they are suffering tremendously for it and that's on top of

58:42

all of the damage that happened in a lot of uh places in the South due to the Civil War like the the north ravaged the

58:49

South it's it's horrible they they sacked the South and and uh made it made

58:54

it very difficult for people to get back on their feet but what do we do now like there there's

59:03

a lot of people who are put in horrible situations and it seems like they they would rather you know roll around and

59:10

wallow in their uh their misery than to say like okay yeah life sucks I'm way

59:16

behind a lot of other people what am I going to do about it we're called to rejoice in all

59:21

circumstances as Christians and that's just and that's just true I mean do you believe believe that God is truly

59:27

Sovereign over the the period of time that he chose to put you in yeah and that doesn't that doesn't mean passivity

59:33

because because uh I think I said on my podcast it would it be a week ago or so I said that there's a there's a as

59:40

always there's a ditch on both sides of the road you can be too introspective you can be too much like

59:46

well what in this is me and you can get too caught up in that and and you can also be too much in the vein of it's all

59:52

the other person and I think the the righteous way of being is like well it's both right and it's both and it's it's

1:00:00

both and More in terms like well this is the situation that God has me in you know what do I need to learn about

1:00:06

myself and the other and my and go and God and his sovereignty from this and to

1:00:12

be able to think that through before choosing oh it's it's all my fault because that's I would say wokeness on

1:00:17

the left right and then wokeness on the right is it's all someone else's fault like well well let's pump the brakes on

1:00:23

that and let's actually have a have a discussion instead of deciding to go to war like I get that the most important

1:00:28

election cycle in human history but surely there's some time for some righteous introspection sure and Trump

1:00:35

won Trump's in office like we can all calm down now everything's fine but it's well not forever but at

1:00:42

least it's it should be fine briefly and uh and we like I I talked about the fact

1:00:47

that we definitely should not be dropping our guards like don't I I was expecting uh a lot of this to kind of

Avoid Complacency Post-Election Victory

1:00:53

blow over and people to kind of return to normaly and maybe even complacency and I'm sure that's going to happen to

1:00:59

some extent because that's that's always something we have to guard ourselves from if if there's some kind of Victory

1:01:05

uh in life and and I think the election was a big victory we we don't want to be

1:01:10

like you know just kick back and and be complacent and just say like oh well I

1:01:15

don't need to do anything over the next four years this is the time that we need to build this is the time that we need

1:01:21

to be growing and preparing and you know making making our family and churches

1:01:26

and States better to uh either prepare for something bad happening in the next

1:01:33

four years or uh to to get the nation in a in a good enough position so that they

1:01:39

can uh uh prepare for something for the good thing that's going to happen in the

1:01:45

next four years oh I agree I agree I think there's also a component of this where

1:01:51

um I don't know that people I can see it now now and you can

1:01:56

probably see it too I I see a lot of this we'll call it right-wing outrage

1:02:02

like yeah you know like a lot of the the Jews and all that stuff I and I've said this I think young men have been uh at

1:02:10

least for the past year maybe since the turn of the years no since um since the whole October 7th thing I think was a

1:02:16

big pivotal thing for for many people I've heard is that I see the right has

1:02:22

been fashioned into a weapon to attract attack Trump with from his right so the

1:02:27

first Trump Administration he was attacked from the left and now the left has been roundly defeated like they they

1:02:35

just have been right but now the attacks are coming from his right with a lot of

1:02:41

this a lot of this right-wing outrage and so that's been very interesting to watch that weapon being fashioned and

1:02:48

assembled you know from otherwise formerly sensible people to attack Trump

1:02:53

from his right and I think that's probably the most significant danger Will face in the near- term which I

1:02:59

would say maybe in the next year or two who knows after that I mean it took them four years of the first Trump Administration to come up with covid and

1:03:05

so who knows what they're trying to put together now but for for now it looks like the the attacks on Trump that I'm seeing the the effective effective I

1:03:13

don't know how effective they are but the the most powerful ones are coming from his right and I find that to be

1:03:18

pretty troubling actually yeah that's that's interesting I haven't thought about that before I think more of I I

1:03:24

see these attacks on um and I you would agree with this just attacks on truth you know the the

1:03:32

attack I think a lot of I I mean Trump's not a perfect person and there are a lot

1:03:37

of faithful people like I I criticize or I I would you know I disagree with a lot

1:03:43

of the Cho like the the woman Pastor thing we have criticized him for that and so these attacks you could say are

1:03:49

coming from the right but those are good attacks but and they're not even attacks they're like they're things that we want

1:03:55

to build we want to fix these things but um I guess you could say attacks are coming from people claiming to be on the

1:04:02

right who and you know this this has been consistent throughout American history at least through our lifetimes

1:04:09

where we see a lot of people who um like the most effective attacks I think in

1:04:14

general come from within you know the the Trojan Horse is a lot more effective than people sieging a wall from the

1:04:21

outside and so people claiming to be conservative uh can I think or you know

1:04:27

people pastors claiming to be uh conservative or you know Acts 29 did a

1:04:32

tremendous amount of damage the church that I used to go to used to be axw gu and okay they call themselves

1:04:37

conservative and you know the SBC calls themselves conservative and people who maybe don't have the time or the

1:04:43

capacity to to Really dive into every little detail about everything which is fine like you don't you can't uh you you

1:04:51

just think oh that's a conservative church and then you go there and you you know you you maybe don't have the

1:04:57

discernment that you could or that you should and then uh you you you end up

1:05:02

falling into this this liberal trap because uh because you just believe that oh this is a conservative thing all

1:05:09

these people call themselves conservative and so I think that's why it's especially important right now for us to know the the difference and the

1:05:16

the really core of what makes a conservative or just what makes biblical truth is is historical Christianity the

1:05:23

same as biblical Christianity like what is it conservative does the woke right really exist does it not exist like all

1:05:29

these are I think really important questions because we need to be able to draw these

1:05:35

lines so so to you maybe we can talk a little bit I know it's it's not going to be an easy thing to put into like a

1:05:41

little nutshell but to what does being conservative truly mean to you I I think we'd probably agree I'm I'm curious to

1:05:47

have to hear you unpack that a little bit yeah I I am a simple dude I like to

1:05:53

make things as as simple as possible uh so so I it's probably a lot actually more complicated than I want to make it

1:05:59

but I would make it as simple as just saying a conservative is a person who wants to conserve truth a progressive is

1:06:06

a person who wants to progress past truth and and there are and and I you

1:06:13

know no name and no label is perfect because there are things that that conservatives have traditionally wanted

1:06:19

to conserve that are bad things right and and uh I think GK Chesterton said

1:06:24

something like you know we we want to be progressing constantly towards good things we don't want to be progressing

1:06:30

away from things and so like there's a good way to be Progressive and there's a bad way to be conservative but I think

1:06:36

in the in in kind of the archetypal terms that we see today between the two

1:06:42

social parties conservative is a person who wants to conserve the truth and also

1:06:48

like progress towards that truth in an appropriate way and a progressive

1:06:53

opposite is a person who wants to proceed beyond that truth and to conserve things that accomplish their

1:06:59

goals so so when um interesting okay so cuz you've said you feel like a lot of

1:07:06

people who are on the right who are positioning themselves as conservative aren't actually conservative so do you

1:07:12

mean that they're trying to progress truth yeah absolutely or they're trying to destroy truth or whatever like yeah

1:07:18

there are there are people who are conservative who they call themselves conservative but actually they're not

1:07:24

conserving truth at all absolutely can you I that's a I love

1:07:31

that um I love that distinction because I I I've felt I haven't really been able

1:07:36

to put words to it I felt that we've kind of moved a little bit past Left Right labels I feel like there's some

1:07:43

there's some distinction that's getting lost in there and I think this is the this is what causes the friction over

1:07:48

the term woke right like how can someone on the right be woke it's like well that's not precisely what we're saying

1:07:54

it's probably closer to what you're saying is that there's a desire to progress truth so what are some what are

1:08:00

some of those ways that you see people this is great by the way this is going to help me a ton going forward so what are some ways you see people trying to

1:08:06

destroy truth or progress truth good and and about the the difficulty of using

1:08:11

these words a lot of the truth is a lot of people have different definitions for the words that they use some people think of more historical definitions of

1:08:18

conservative and liberal and some people think like you know like a Jordan Peterson figure or Joe Rogan is like I'm

1:08:24

I'm a liberal and I want to say something real quick in response to that okay so there does come a moment where

1:08:30

two people can be actively in good faith be Mis be misunderstanding each other

1:08:37

because they have different definitions for a word that happens a lot but I think a lot of what goes on is people

1:08:43

hiding behind a word they hide in the fog and that I I think that that is

1:08:48

probably closer to what's actually going on right yeah so what I was going to say was there there are totally legitimate

1:08:54

like differences of definition defs but the key is that we need to be willing to

1:08:59

discuss those and be open like the important thing I think for us for every individual is to be willing to

1:09:06

understand our opponent's positions and if we don't truly understand what our opponents are trying to say then it is

1:09:12

impossible for us to argue with them it's impossible for us to develop a good argument against them which means not

1:09:18

only are we not going to convince them of anything and we're not we're not going to convince them of anything anyway but the important thing is two

1:09:24

things we're not going to able to develop a good um idea ourself of our position versus their position

1:09:31

and also we're not going to be convincing to the other people who are who are listening to us and that's that's bad but also the the kind of the

1:09:38

the most important label that matters to me is not necessarily conservative and liberal but it's like the good guys and

1:09:44

the bad guys and T typically just in the way that I've defined it the conservatives are the good guys to

1:09:50

conserve truth is a good thing and to progress towards that truth is a good thing to proceed to progress beyond that

1:09:57

truth is a bad thing and so you asked what are examples of this so so the the woke right thing I think is a perfect

1:10:03

example and we can talk about how how exactly that is this subversive group of people calling

1:10:09

themselves conservatives who are actually acting woke acting liberal but a really easy example is uh we have a

1:10:16

name for these people in the Republican party and they're called rhos like you know Republicans and name only they're

1:10:22

they call themselves Republicans but they're not and like these people exist all the time we we would even like I

1:10:27

said Joe Rogan or or Jordan Peterson they probably would be more uncomfortable calling themselves liberals today but people like that have

1:10:35

said like oh yeah I'm a classical liberal or whatever but we would point at people like that I think and say like

1:10:41

you you call yourself a liberal but actually you're a conservative so I think it can happen on both

1:10:47

sides so um I I really like this because

1:10:53

it it's a much more bibl biblically sound way of discussing left

1:10:59

right uh liberal Progressive conservative because it doesn't matter

1:11:06

what you cons serve if it isn't truth yeah and it doesn't matter what dession what

1:11:12

direction you're progressing if you're progressing away from truth that's really good is this a is this a Cody

1:11:19

Lawrence original I I I mean all of my ideas come from somewhere but I've I've

1:11:25

them together I don't know if anybody else has said it in the same way I have so in some in some way it's an original

1:11:30

I guess well I mean this is fantastic because it also helps me understand why

1:11:36

you create the content that you do and why because if you're if you're operating with this distinction and this

1:11:43

and and this uh it's sort of a worldview but it's if if you're operating with this distinction of conservative and

1:11:49

Progressive as being conserving truth and progressing away from truth or some some false truth

1:11:55

that that's a solid place to stand like there's a great quote by this um's a mathematician Archimedes and he said

1:12:02

give me a solid place on which to stand and I will move the earth I love that I love that and so if you can find a solid

1:12:09

place to stand in a in a in a meaningful distinction you can create real leverage with that and I think it just shatters

1:12:17

this Left Right conservative liberal Paradigm to say well you know we don't have to talk about houses and the French

1:12:24

Revolution like sides of the in the French Revolution where we get left and right and we don't have to talk about

1:12:30

these sort of modern political terms conservative and Progressive it's like no as we're rooting things in a

1:12:36

presuppositional worldview that there is truth then we cons then we conserve that

1:12:41

truth and that truth produces Prosperity versus we're progressing to some new

1:12:46

shiny quote unquote truth that um ultimately is is either going to create

1:12:52

uh well it's an idol it's an idol so it it will it may create short-term Prosperity but long-term Devastation I

1:12:59

think that's I think that's really good and that helps me understand the position you take on the podcast like is this something that you've been working

1:13:05

to put out there or is just an idea that you've been kicking around or an idea you had sort of as your own for a long time yeah I bring that up semi-regularly

Importance of Clear Political Definitions

1:13:13

on the podcast whenever I talk about political things and just in general I find it deeply important to have solid

1:13:22

definitions of the words that we use especially when when the words are potentially so contentious like

1:13:28

conservative and liberal because they mean different things they've mean they've meant different things historically and I was even listening to

1:13:34

a podcast recently about the the woke right thing and even though you know woke right is a word that just started

1:13:40

being used you know a few weeks ago metaphorically very recently and like it

1:13:47

it has not been a word historically and so this podcast I was listening to is looking at all these historical examples

1:13:52

of like what is a conservative and what is a woke what does woke mean and what is liberal it's really important for me

1:13:58

personally to have definitions of words really clear because you can't

1:14:05

communicate with people if you're not using the same definition and so I think that I mean if you're having a sincere

1:14:10

conversation people don't do this on the internet at all but if you're actually trying to have a sincere conversation with people you need to know what you

1:14:16

believe and you need to know the definitions of the words that they're using so that you can come to some kind

1:14:21

of common ground and discuss the truth of the thing but I was listening to a a podcast recently where they were talking

Debating the "Woke Right" Concept

1:14:28

about the woke right and the woke right is a word that just started being used you know a few weeks ago basically a few

1:14:34

a few months ago very recently and they were giving all of these uh historical

1:14:40

examples of of what the word conservative means and where it comes from and and the idea of liberal and

1:14:46

wokeness and what wokeness means and I was thinking and basically they were trying to say the woke right doesn't

1:14:52

exist because this is not a historical concept and I was thinking of course it doesn't

1:14:57

exist because this is a new word that we started using like words can change meaning and if we're like like I said

1:15:04

earlier I'm a simple guy I don't think that we need to read we don't need to spend 10,000 hours studying something to

1:15:11

actually understand what it means we can use Simple common sense and logic and so

1:15:17

the way I personally Define something like woke right is a person who claims

1:15:23

to be on the right but but who actually acts woke it really is that simple and so if we're using that definition and I

1:15:29

think that's the common definition that I think most people probably mean when they say woke right like oh you're you

1:15:35

call yourself a conservative but actually you're woke like that's what woke right means somebody I was having a

1:15:41

conversation on X just earlier about or a conversation I guess somebody confronted me about this because I made

1:15:47

some kind of Claim about the woke right and he was like the woke right doesn't exist that's something that liberals say

1:15:53

and then I was thinking like so I'm a conservative and you're calling me a liberal and you call yourself a

1:16:00

conservative and I'm calling you a liberal except you say it's impossible

1:16:06

to be a conservative and to act or to call yourself a conservative and actually be liberal so it's like what's

1:16:11

happening here you know it seems to me that the that the people are who are

1:16:17

actively trying to suppress this idea the woke right exists are they they have

1:16:22

some kind of agenda they're either deeply deceived or they're malicious and they're those people who are trying to

1:16:27

infiltrate you know good things from the inside like we have like we just talked about you know what's funny is is during

1:16:34

the first Trump Administration and really before but his his first Administration I think made it clear to

1:16:40

a lot of people and then Biden of course cemented the perception is that the left had just jumped off a cliff yeah so many

1:16:47

people are like hey look I was a center-right guy like everyone in Trump's the whole Trump Administration

1:16:53

they're all like yeah we were kind of Center left guys but the left went so far to the left like we're not with them

1:17:00

and so now because the Overton window as they call it has shifted so far to one side suddenly they're conservatives and

1:17:06

now like the pendulum is swinging faster than I think anyone could have expected

1:17:12

from the left jumping off a cliff to the right going off a cliff right and so and

1:17:17

so yeah okay if you're going to if you're going to run way out into the next zip code and say that I didn't run

1:17:24

with you that I'm somehow a liberal now compared to your enlightened you know your enlightened secret knowledge you

1:17:30

know I have I took the red pill so I see the institutional impress oppression gnosticism basically amen

1:17:39

amen yes you have the you have the secret knowledge that you've watched the documentary or you've seen the meme or

1:17:45

whatever you've seen all the you've done all the 4chan stuff and you are the one with the real truth and no one else

1:17:52

understands but you not the libraries full of books I don't have to say like to say to throw

1:17:58

out the idea that you you need to have 10,000 hours to understand common knowledge fully it's like okay maybe but

1:18:06

like why don't you start spending start with 10 start with just 10 like 10 hours

1:18:12

10 hours is enough time to 10 hours is enough time to read a 300 page book if

1:18:19

you're a slow reader yeah right start with one but apparently that's too much like you have to earn a master's ree in

1:18:25

things that were that to in order to understand common sense it seems and except the irony is the people with

1:18:31

master's degrees are the ones who are lying to us they would say and like histor like so we we need to be

1:18:37

historical and or Oro amorist and we you know we need to uh go go to like a Roman

1:18:44

type of society except we can't trust anything that we have learned

1:18:50

historically like we can't trust all of World War II history it's it's self-contradictory and the thing where it's like the woke

1:18:56

right doesn't exist and you're a liberal who calls yourself a conservative it's like all of these things are self-contradictory another thing that I

1:19:02

really try to uh hammer hard on my podcast is self-contradictory things

1:19:08

there there is so much if you have your eyes open of things that people say and

1:19:14

you you don't need to know um you don't you don't need to know all the details you just need to say like does this

1:19:20

sentiment contradict itself and if it does like well maybe they're trying to deceive you or maybe they just haven't

1:19:27

thought it through but like either way you shouldn't take it seriously you shouldn't take self-contradictory things seriously you definitely shouldn't

1:19:33

believe self-contradictory things and and that's that's something I think that is just prevalent everywhere things

1:19:40

things just obviously self-contradictory like that like the the concept of the

1:19:46

woke right non-existing and then you're a liberal if you think it does right right well that's that's one of the

1:19:52

things that I learned from being out there in the world and one of the reasons that I'm so grateful to God for leading

1:19:57

me to biblically faithful Christianity because I can tell you other than

1:20:02

biblical Christianity everything is self-contradictory right every Everything a great example is feminism

1:20:09

feminism is self-contradictory because when you run it out then you have men and women's sports how is that

1:20:15

supporting women right and you you touch that spot you feel that that's a lie

1:20:20

that you believe period And every every belief system other than biblically faithful Christianity has that you just

1:20:27

have to dig you have to burrow until you find the crack in the wall and I've said this for a long time you find that crack

1:20:33

you take a crowbar you jam a crowbar and you pull as hard as you can and the whole thing falls apart that's good yeah

1:20:39

and that's that's the the foundation of presuppositionalism that's Covenant apologetics and a lot of ironically a

1:20:45

lot of the same people who are who are pushing the historical stuff and pushing theism type of theology is also pushing

1:20:53

um or or not pushing but like really attacking presuppositionalism and I I

1:20:58

find that fascinating because it's like uh that's not to say you're you're right

1:21:04

but that's not to say that Christians cannot be inconsistent like we need to

1:21:09

be consistent biblical Christianity is the only consistent religion but do

1:21:15

people who call themselves biblical Christians act that out perfectly no of course not and we're not we're not

1:21:21

supposed to and we don't want to fall victim to the same stuff that the deconstruction do where they say oh well

1:21:26

people who say they're presuppositionalist are inconsistent therefore presuppositionalism bad well

1:21:34

no because everybody's inconsistent with everything but the the uh the the

1:21:39

worldview if we can use that word itself is uh like the the the biblical

1:21:45

Christian worldview I think is the only worldview that is not in some way

1:21:50

self-contradictory because at some point if you just like logically if you take any argument down its line I think if

1:21:57

it's not true you know that like there we can use evidence to to counter

1:22:02

certain arguments and stuff but I think if we really take any argument no matter what it is down to its very base

1:22:10

elements at some point it is going to contradict itself like self self-contradiction ultimately something

1:22:17

is not going to follow the law of logic uh the law of non-contradiction essentially is is what I think real real

1:22:24

quick quick can you can you pull the microphone for your from your uh from yeah because it's wrestling against your

1:22:29

glorious beard okay no it's okay it's okay oh perfect yeah that'll work too so

1:22:35

um yeah so that's very effective so um I no I agree with you and that's the

1:22:40

that's the beauty of biblical Christianity in fact you know I've been thinking through some of these natural law presuppositional arguments and it's

1:22:46

like well you know if you think about I I think a lot about uh the creation of

1:22:51

Adam and Eve so if you just use natural law if you just use your eyes then the

1:22:57

natural conclusion of that would be well clearly man must have come from woman because that's all we ever see as man

1:23:04

being born of woman right interesting yeah but special Revolution Revelation

1:23:10

in scripture says actually no it didn't happen like that at all and there's no

1:23:15

way that there's no way that anyone if you if you didn't have the Bible there's no way that anyone would ever look

1:23:21

around and be like oh yeah clearly like Eve came from Adam's Rib like obviously

1:23:26

like there's no way that you would think that and evolution is the same like if you look around it's like well we see all these animals that look kind of the

1:23:32

same one must have come from from another you would never understand the way that God created things if he hadn't

1:23:38

told us so I think to me that trumps the discussion period yeah and that that

1:23:44

goes back to our our previous discussion about just biblical Christianity if you

1:23:49

and and like Ordo amoris you could say if if you use natural law to interpret

1:23:55

special Revelation if you use natural Revelation to interpret special Revelation you get things like Evolution if you use special Revelation

1:24:03

as the ultimate authority over natural Revelation then that's what truly helps us understand and so I think this is

1:24:09

this is actually where a lot of people get hung up I I don't really want to say it that way because I think both

1:24:15

Revelations they come from God and they're perfect but natural Revelation

1:24:21

is is I think easier to interpret differently let's say than special Revelation special like the Bible is

1:24:28

unclear about a few things I think we can admit but the Bible is clear about

1:24:34

the vast majority of everything if it says uh woman came from man when God

1:24:39

created the world then we need to believe that it's very clear about that and if we if we flip the uh the laws

Natural Law and Presuppositionalism

1:24:48

around like special Revelation was given to us to inform us and correct us about our corrupt View of natural law and uh

1:24:56

and if we flip that around then then we're actually just not helping ourselves any it's not good and um and

1:25:02

the funny thing is you know the people who push the the the tomisic thing like the the natural law stuff and and Who

1:25:09

attack uh presuppositionalism and that kind of thing is like presuppositionalist I love natural law

1:25:16

like I think we can benefit and and learn greatly from natural law one of the you know one of the ways to

1:25:21

determine if somebody like I said we we really need to try hard to understand our opponent's argument and so one way I

1:25:28

think you can tell that somebody is I don't know maybe being either insincere

1:25:33

or could be malicious in some way or just just not um not not offering a good

1:25:39

argument in general is if they cannot articulate their opponent's argument and so whenever a person says something like

1:25:46

oh presuppositionalist they hate natural law I was like what no what actually the

1:25:51

funny thing is somebody from the church that we used to go to they said he said something like uh they I I had a few

1:26:00

years ago I had never heard i' I've heard of presuppositionalism I didn't even know what it was but this guy who

1:26:05

was actually a student of one of the the foremost toist professors uh big big name guy is um he

1:26:15

he said something like we were talking about presuppositionalism somehow I didn't really know what it was and and

1:26:20

he made the I I listened to James White and he made the claim something like hey James White he's one of those

1:26:26

presuppositionalist James White hates natural law that's what he said and I was like whoa that can't possibly be

1:26:33

true what and so then what that made me do and and he said some other things he's like hey yeah those

1:26:39

presuppositionalist guys they hate natural law and and the reason he said that is because that's actually what

1:26:45

they were teaching him in the Seminary which is another reason why I don't like seminaries but he uh and and so I was

1:26:52

like oh man okay I want to dig into this and find out what the truth is and so I listened to more of what James White had

1:26:58

to say about natural law and then I started reading van till for the very first time and I started reading bonson

1:27:04

and uh uh Scott k k Scott olant and all these other presuppositionalist writers

1:27:11

and I was like no these people actually love natural law far more than the toomas does and uh and not only that but

1:27:17

they are lying about these people either either intentionally or unintentionally I don't know I think a lot of them are

1:27:23

absolutely intentionally lying but some of them might just be ignorant but regardless they're not articulating their opponent's stance very well and I

1:27:30

think the the presuppositionalist are able to articulate the opponent's stance well and uh and so I like well that that

1:27:38

actually made me a presuppositionalist that seeing seeing the arguments against presuppositionalism and how outrageous

1:27:45

and inflammatory and bad they were and and I was like oh I got to do more research into this that's what made me a

1:27:51

presuppositionalist that's great I mean that's the that's the right reasons to to recognize that whoever you're

1:27:57

listening to is misrepresenting the arguments and so whatever you had previously heard was not the actual

1:28:03

argument so let me go actually actually look into it yeah there was a book that

1:28:08

I read I I I tell the story very often it was um it's the Righteous Mind by

1:28:14

Jonathan height H AI DT he wrote this he would have written this in the

1:28:19

2000s something like that the late 2000s maybe early 2010s I think it was in the

1:28:24

late 2000s he's uh he well I don't know what he would be considered today at the time he was a he was on the left but

1:28:31

like a reasonable reasonable on the left right like college professor and this book The Righteous Mind it's called why

1:28:38

good people are divided by politics and religion way pre-trump might have been just the very beginning of the Obama era

1:28:45

and one of the things that he said in this book that has really stuck with me I still have it on my shelf I should go actually find the quote he talks about

1:28:52

how it is a consistent result in the social sciences as in this has been

1:28:58

documented in study after study that people who were on the right again he's writing in the 2000s right so people who

1:29:04

are on the right can articulate the arguments of people on the left consistently they can say they can

1:29:11

understand yes I understand why you believe what you believe this is your argument Etc he called himself a leftist

1:29:17

at the time yeah but he was but you know but he he wouldn't have called himself a leftist but I think he would have been

1:29:23

he would have been on the political left so we're talking about people who are like who are sort of hard maybe harder

1:29:28

on the left than him yeah interesting that he would compliment his opponents though it's just what I was thinking

1:29:33

that's fascinating right yeah I think I think again this is this is the prew woke era so we don't really have a good

1:29:40

model like meaning prew woke on the left pre-institutional oppression right so back then in the Obama days like I was

1:29:46

even part of Occupy Wall Street before wokeness came around so the political issues used to be like social around

1:29:53

like abortion and stuff like that and political economic it wasn't it wasn't

1:29:59

cultural and so the the mixing in of the cultural bit changed skewed everything a

1:30:05

here's a good example so I would like Occupy Wall Street was a was a mega

1:30:10

movement on the left 1,000% on the left Occupy Wall Street wanted accountability

1:30:16

for the big banks for the financial crisis in 2008 that's what Occupy Wall

1:30:21

Street was about was about the why I got involved like yeah absolutely I want the big Banks to swing for this now you have

1:30:29

what is considered the left today is so hard in the tank for all these giant institutions like like Chuck Schumer

1:30:37

like last week Trump is talking about getting rid of the IRS and Chuck Schumer one of the leftist guys out there was

1:30:44

like next thing you know Trump is going to tear down the IRS right after it's like what are you talking and like we

1:30:50

were on the left like on the left like within living memory was not to trust the pharmaceutical industry not to trust

1:30:57

big business and who was the biggest proponents of the covid vaccine everyone on the left like what has happened right

1:31:05

so so this is back when left was sane if you can imagine such a day a fantasy

1:31:10

time more saying right so what height said was that people on the right can

1:31:16

articulate the worldview of people on the left but people on the left think

1:31:21

the only reason anyone can possibly be on the right is because they're a bad person yeah and I read that I was

1:31:28

shocking and that has proved to be true so often and now we're seeing it again

1:31:33

the only reason you could possibly disagree with me at some is because you're a bad person or you're lying or

1:31:39

you're a bad actor it's like no I disagree with you because you're wrong yeah yeah and that that reminds me I

1:31:45

think a a cool theme that's kind of running through our conversation is the is ordering our affections properly

1:31:52

because if you love truth actually love truth you can find Value in the things your opponents say but if you hate truth

1:32:00

then you don't you don't even want the opportunity to receive truth so you're not going to listen to anybody and and so like you're going to

1:32:07

shut yourself off from listening to people but if you know you have the truth and you love truth and and you your mind is open to hearing things and

1:32:14

to having conversations and disagreeing with people then you're going to be able to have conversations with people you

1:32:19

disagree with maybe learn things from them and if not you know at least you're going to learn things about them or

1:32:24

about their position so that you can better deepen your own view of Truth yourself and that's that's why I think

1:32:30

it's so massively important to be able to um articulate your opponent's views properly even if they're evil evil views

1:32:38

right so I'm I'm not saying like only articulate the good views like no articulate be be able to understand the

1:32:44

most evil views that your opponents have because you got to know that so that you can then crush it well and and that's

1:32:51

something that like uh you're you're not able to do you're not able to crush this

1:32:57

gives me a tremendous amount of Hope because if you look at the people who are arguing against you know anything

1:33:03

that a rational biblical Christian says the arguments often almost immediately

1:33:09

devolve into name calling or you know or like a woman will will tweet somebody on

1:33:15

X and and somebody will say like ah get your husband I'm not going to listen to what you say it's like that's man you

1:33:21

you are terrified of the truth is what's happening and it's like you you are incapable of having a conversation

1:33:27

you're like a child and you you know you're stuck in your ways and it's it's pitiful it's like that's not how we

1:33:33

ought to be and it's absolutely not how we ought to be as Christians yeah the name calling there's

1:33:40

a and people will say like you know Jesus called people foxes and you know

1:33:45

whitewashed tombs like of course but there's a there's a character actually before we get into that okay I have a

1:33:52

question for you okay so maybe you can maybe you can maybe maybe you can help me work through this so I I hear what

1:33:58

you're saying about you should listen to your opponent's positions one of the one of my consistent objections I mean yes

1:34:05

you should listen to and understand right and and appreciate I get there are a lot of Christians that listen to guys like Bronze Age pervert Bronze Age

1:34:12

pervert calls himself Bronze Age pervert right like let's be very clear his book

1:34:17

Bronze Age mindset is about the drugs and prostitution underworld that's what that book is about the photo of him him

1:34:23

on his Twitter profile is is not his back it's another man's back from a gay cruising website right he like right so

1:34:31

there's all kinds of things about you know massive degeneracy I'll stop there so a lot of Christians listen this

1:34:37

listen to this guy and I think he's abhorent and Christian say but he says some good things and right okay so so

1:34:45

what's what's your response to that given given the the things that you had just said yeah there are I think like

1:34:52

this is something that people about Thomas aquinus for example he's I think a much better example because I think

1:34:57

he's dangerous in a lot of ways but also you know is not uh is not like obviously

1:35:03

blatantly pure evil whatever even though I think his you know his his uh sum

1:35:08

theologica is the foundation of modern Catholic theology and and it's I think

1:35:14

it's awful like we we should not put very much value at all in the Suma

1:35:20

theologica and then on a little tangent uh at the very end of Thomas aquinas's life he had this spiritual experience

1:35:27

where he he realized like he had some kind of vision or or something it's not clear exactly what happened but he had

1:35:33

some kind of spiritual experience where he realized he was almost finished with

1:35:39

his Suma theologica which was like his life work it's his biggest work that he did in his whole life the sum of

1:35:44

theology in this book and because of this spiritual experience he he had

1:35:51

resolved that all of his previous work is Like Straw he said like it's

1:35:56

worthless it is meaningless and so I mean in that way I could call myself aist because I agree like I I follow

1:36:04

Thomas aquinus is most recent teaching that his work is useless and so like why why do toomas

1:36:10

not take that part of Thomas aquinus seriously like that's kind of weird but anyway no I think I think yes there are

1:36:16

valuable things that that evil people can say no matter who they are like you know you can point to someone like

1:36:23

Hitler and be you know people say Hitler drank water or whatever like okay yes Hitler maybe he did maybe maybe he just

Engaging with Evil: A Nuanced Approach

1:36:31

drank you know children's blood or what but the point is it doesn't matter it's totally irrelevant because when Whenever

1:36:38

there is some kind of good and valuable thing from some kind of evil place and it's okay to call things evil so like

1:36:44

what I'm saying is if if we are in a convers or if we have some kind of

1:36:50

opportunity to have a productive conversation with somebody somebody who's just like pure evil we cannot have

1:36:57

a productive conversation with and so I think we we need to approach those people differently there there is

1:37:02

totally some time where we just have to be like I'm not going to interact with those people and I think that's totally

1:37:07

okay but even in those situations the way we interact with those people is not just necessarily making fun of them and

1:37:13

name calling I think I think there is a Biblical place for mockery I think there is a Biblical place for name calling

1:37:18

because Jesus you know the examples you gave and and there are other biblical examples of mockery

1:37:24

um satire sarcasm and and so on so I think there are totally biblical examples of that but it's it's also like

1:37:31

we ditches on both sides right we don't want to uh encounter evil and say like

1:37:38

well let me let me kind of dive into this because there might be some good stuff to get because all of the good

1:37:43

stuff that those people might be saying you can get somewhere else better and

1:37:49

with none of the bad stuff good that and that's what I usually say that's that's that's my most

1:37:56

common response is that you can you can are you getting your worldview it doesn't have to be Bronze Age perfectt I

1:38:02

can think of many other examples right are you getting your worldview information from him because you shouldn't be you should be straining his

1:38:10

information through a scriptural worldview yeah so I'm I'm by no means saying like seek these people out and

1:38:16

learn from them by no means I am actually completely comfortable saying like you can you can throw people out

1:38:22

like if there's even if there's a a pastor or some historical figure that had some kind of deep significant flaw I

1:38:28

think when somebody has like a crack in their theology that's big enough we might not see how it affects other parts

1:38:35

of their theology but it does and and I'm I'm a lot more willing to do this with more modern preachers than I am

1:38:41

with old preachers just because we we can look back and kind of see the effect that the old preachers had like for

1:38:47

example something with uh Charles Spurgeon that I really am uncomfortable

1:38:53

with is is his like mental health if you want to say that is like he was horribly depressed through his life and so it's

1:38:59

like Ah that's that's a problem but also he he is this figure that God chose to

1:39:07

put in history as this hugely uh influential Christian figure and so I

1:39:12

think we can still learn from him in that situation but today I would I would maybe treat a pastor who has crippling

1:39:19

depression a little bit differently that makes sense and and I think example of this a really fascinating example that

1:39:26

I've been thinking about recently is I'm reading through CS lewis' Ransom Trilogy again and in that hi strength yes so

1:39:33

you've read it oh yeah I left my heart on paralandra okay sweet oh man that that was my favorite book until I Tried

1:39:39

reading many years ago I Tried reading That Hideous Strength and I was like what is this boring and then and then I

1:39:46

had to try reading it two or three times until I heard somebody like kind of explain how the book develops and I'm

1:39:52

like oh okay that makes perfect sense I'm going to read it now and then now it's my very favorite fiction book but

1:39:59

basically I think of somebody like Merlin where Merlin I mean he's like you you would look at him today and you

1:40:04

would be like oh that's a pagan like awful what the heck like uh but for the

1:40:11

time that he was in he was a very faithful Christian you know in this fantasy world whatever and uh that also

1:40:18

reminds me in in paralandra near the end of the book Ransom is going through the caves and he sees the the enormous like

1:40:25

underground world and he's like I can imagine like on Earth Somebody stumbling

1:40:31

into something like this and it turning into like weird Pagan worship but on this world in this unfallen world like I

1:40:39

could perceive that kind of thing just being an offering for like going somewhere where you shouldn't in other

1:40:45

words it's like it's weird to kind of wrap your head around but I I have this I I'm I'm kind of developing this

1:40:52

weird view of of History where kind of what CS Lewis says or Dr dible in that hi of strength is good and evil seem to

1:40:59

be getting sharper and back in the old days back a long time ago um things were

1:41:04

maybe more fuzzy they were more vague and so I'm I'm more willing to give

1:41:09

somebody like Martin Luther Grace based on the kind of off the rails that he had

1:41:15

about the Jews and I'm much less willing to give people Grace today because of that because God has put Martin Luther

1:41:21

in this significant place in history and also I understand that like yeah John Calvin believed in the Perpetual

1:41:27

virginity of Mary and um George I think Whitman Whitfield I I always forget her

1:41:33

name his name um Whitfield probably Whitfield yeah the greatest preacher in American history uh did not have a great

1:41:39

relationship with his wife and and these things are like ah that you know these are struggles but also like God put

1:41:46

these people in history as important figures and I think we should honor them because we shouldn't honor our father

1:41:52

and our mother but also we see how the cracks in their Theology and certainly

1:41:58

they did have cracks kind of affected history after them but we can't see that

1:42:04

today we we don't have that kind of vision we don't have that kind of foresight and so I'm much more happy

1:42:10

being like yeah this person said some like outrageously crazy stuff throw them

1:42:16

out yeah you just can't you can't and maybe the dividing line then between

1:42:22

someone like Spurgeon or Whitfield and someone like a whatever Bronze Age pervert just as just because that's the

1:42:28

handy example maybe the difference between them is that you know Whitfield Spurgeon Etc Luther they're coming from

1:42:35

within a Biblical worldview so they're they're they're within the family of Believers they're within the family of

1:42:41

Christ they have cracks in their theology or in their l in their personal lives but love covers a multitude of

1:42:47

sins and properly ordering our loves Christianity is unto itself a nation set

1:42:53

apart from other nations and so this person who is part of this nation that I'm a part of I have a greater love for

1:42:59

them my love can cover their sins versus someone who is outside the family who does not have a Biblical worldview I

1:43:05

have to approach them very very differently and I think I probably made all the order moris guys really mad by

1:43:10

saying that there is a higher loyalty to the Christian Nation please go ahead well yeah I think that's interesting

1:43:16

because because I think like you're right where we I think we can discount

1:43:21

people especially people who um like call themselves Christians and and there's a lot of these people today who

1:43:26

are just acting like awful vitriolic horrible people in their public figures and I I am fine throwing themselves out

1:43:34

even though they claim to be you know they are maybe Covenant in the body of Christ but they are not acting like

1:43:41

Christians but in the same way kind of to what you were saying I think there are people historically like like the

1:43:47

the liberal that you quoted who acts a lot more within a Christian world world

1:43:53

view than a lot of quote unquote Christians do today so yeah if a person

1:43:58

has a um has like a demeanor of rationality yeah you know God has common

1:44:05

Grace like God gives gives uh imperfect people and even Sinners and even non-christians the ability to say true

1:44:12

things and if we as Christians order our affections properly like I said we can learn from those people but I I think

1:44:18

the difference is that if if there is a person Christian or not who Li is maybe

1:44:24

defined by a um something close to a Christian worldview then they we we can

1:44:31

comfortably learn from those people but historically there are people even who called themselves Christians you know

1:44:36

some people say like ah Hitler was a faithful Christian like obviously we can look at his behavior and say like he he

1:44:42

was the farthest thing from a faithful Christian no matter what kind of name that he put on himself and so those are

1:44:48

the people that I would be comfortable with throwing away and so I I am fine if there is like a rational atheist in

1:44:54

history like yeah learn from them like of course whatever who cares yeah there's maybe someone like a

1:45:00

Jordan Peterson Peterson very clearly not a Christian clearly he's a Yan he all but says that as often as he can I

1:45:07

still think that there really there are things that there are things that are worthwhile to learn from him but we are to regard him in a particular Way Joe

1:45:14

Rogan Joo willink you can throw a bunch of names in there you know these might be these might be virtuous men even but

1:45:20

we are to regard them a very very different from someone who is uh professing

1:45:25

Christian and behaves as such they have the fruit of of that in their lives and especially when they talk about theology

1:45:31

especially like that that's why I I hate it when Jordan Peterson talks about theology but I'm I'm fine when he talks

1:45:38

about other things uh and and the same thing applies to a lot of other non-pressing Christians just because of

1:45:43

common Grace like I'm I'm cool learning from non-christians I think non-christians do have things that they

1:45:49

can offer us but the key is not just because it tickles our ears not just

1:45:54

because they say something cool that we like only if we uh compare that to

1:46:00

scripture and hold hold that up to scripture and if it stands then like oh yeah it's good I can listen to to uh Joe

1:46:06

Rogan and or Joo willing can he has some good workout advice or or whatever and that's cool right so I know that uh

1:46:12

you've got some some plans of a study to go to this evening so I know your time might be run a little short but before

1:46:18

before we do I do want to talk about your podcast for a moment because I I I I have a lot of friends who started listening to it and have been listening

1:46:24

to it for a while and I really enjoy it so where did the podcast come from how did you start it what's sort of your

1:46:29

what's sort of your focus what's your vision Etc yeah so in 2020 is when it started basically after after a couple

Spare No Arrows Podcast Origin

1:46:38

like I said a string of bad Church experiences I I was like there are not enough people out there who are

1:46:43

conservatives who are calling out the problems in our culture and calling out the problems in our churches and trying

1:46:49

to correct these things and so I wanted to be a voice for that and and also give like just theological truth with a

1:46:56

Biblical foundation and uh and basically from that perspective and it started

1:47:02

being called good Monsters uh because I I kind of well it was the same podcast

1:47:09

but basically like we are we're imperfect people we're monstrous people but we're good as Christians we're we're

1:47:16

Sanctified we're good but we we are still this like Fallen thing and then eventually I changed the name to to

1:47:23

sparo arrows because I thought it it's a Bible verse and it more accurately reflects kind of what I'm trying to do

1:47:29

and it's it's metaphorical so it it could be like literal attacking things or it could be just like it could be

1:47:34

building it could be tearing down Babylon like you know who knows so I I think that encompasses what I do and so

1:47:40

yeah I just give like cultural commentary talk about a lot of current events but I I try to apply um ideas to

1:47:48

it that will be lasting and so it's not just like hey here's what happened this week in Christianity it's like maybe

1:47:54

here's what happened but also here's a lesson that we can learn from it and apply it to our lives uh

1:47:59

ongoing and that seems very natural for you because you were the youth pastor and you sort of came from that Ministry

1:48:05

background into and out of Seminary so it's that that explains a lot why I listen to it it's like he seems to know

1:48:11

what he's talking about and he knows how to talk about it and those two things a lot of guys don't know what they're talking about but they they're good at

1:48:18

talking a lot of guys are good right so so I've I've appreciated that now um one

1:48:23

of the things that I mean how you came to my awareness was again your episode about the Antioch declaration I don't I

1:48:29

I don't know if I saw it on Twitter or someone was passing it around I just watched it I just appreciated CU I signed that thing instantly like yes of

1:48:36

course and I appreciated and everyone was pushing back like who who it was rushed or what all the different critiques and you just went in like

1:48:43

let's go through line by line yes and you just yeah go dive in I want to hear what you have to say about it if you're

1:48:48

if you're willing yeah yeah well like I said like I'm a simple guy I don't care

1:48:53

about the background like I I know a lot of the people who contributed and they're Faithful Men I know that people

1:48:59

are very tribalistic and divisive nowadays and so like I don't want to let any of that get in our way if the thing

1:49:07

itself is good then let's call it good and let's say like the people who contributed are bad or whatever like you

1:49:13

know let's let's have that conversation but a lot of people are saying the documents bad because of the situation

1:49:18

it was written in whatever and or it was rushed and then like the the contributors came out and said actually

1:49:24

we started writing this over a year ago so it wasn't rushed and so that was just a lie or was some you know people try to

1:49:30

destroy the people they don't like and like I said if you're not able to articulate your opponent's position or

Misunderstanding the Antioch Declaration

1:49:36

you have to lie about your opponent to get your point across like you are the bad guy you're the bad guy and so I I

1:49:43

was interested because so many people were like ah it's rushed and it's yada Y and like you know Doug Wilson sucks and

1:49:48

whatever and and I was like well I disagree with what they're saying but also like I noticed that nobody is

1:49:56

actually talking about the content of the Antioch declaration and so I was like well I'm going to talk about the content because a lot of people are are

1:50:03

blasting it and Blasting the people who wrote it and I'm like I I really appreciate the guys who wrote it and also like um it's not long it's easy to

1:50:11

read but I know that a lot of people would maybe prefer to listen to it than than um than to read it themselves and

1:50:19

also I saw other podcasts talking about it because I you know I did my resarch before and not a single one that I found

1:50:26

actually read it they read they read like one line and they were they were going on and on about stuff they

1:50:32

disagreed with about the line or whatever but I I wanted to just like hey let's let's be simple let's look at it

1:50:37

word for word and say is this true or not is there a way to misinterpret this like is this something that we should

1:50:43

support is this something that not should we not support and what kind of person would be against this I think

1:50:49

that's what really riled people up yeah what what sort of a person would read this and start splitting hairs on

1:50:55

various things like I don't sign declarations it's like okay I you don't have to I mean that's not it's not it's

1:51:00

not a Blood Oath you know what I mean it just it seemed like a pretty straightforward thing a bunch of a bunch

1:51:06

of things worth being for and worth worth being against I just appreciated and and just to go back to your point

1:51:12

about conservatism and and progressivism I just appreciated it seems that you

1:51:17

brought that level of clarity to that particular discussion like what is conserving truth and what is progressing

1:51:23

away from truth and that that all makes a whole lot of sense based on what I've seen from you up until this point I

1:51:30

appreciate it yeah well this has been fantastic I've really enjoyed talking with you again I enjoyed our first

1:51:35

conversation as well I'll link that in the show notes um this has been great I don't know if you have anything else you'd like to offer to the audience

1:51:41

who's listening yeah the the thing that will fix everything is to focus on

1:51:47

scripture uh let scripture be your ultimate Authority above everything else and we should be reading our Bibles

1:51:53

because the the way that things have gotten in society is because of our failure as the church I think where the

1:51:59

pull pit goes so goes the culture and so like that that is the ultimate culmination of like everything I'm

1:52:04

trying to get at in my podcast these problems exist because the church has failed tremendously and uh and I you

1:52:12

know we that's something that we I think can recover and we we can have hope that the church ultimately will recover uh

1:52:19

but also it's something that I think we can actively participate in today day to accomplish amen amen to all that thank

1:52:26

you so much so where would you like to send people to find out more about you and what you do yeah I'm on X at wcor

1:52:34

Lawrence those are my initials and I'm everywhere else at spare no Arrows with underscores between the words I'm on

1:52:40

YouTube My podcast is on all the audio places you can just search spare no arrows great I'll send everyone your way

1:52:46

thank you so much Cody I really appreciated this thanks will