Full Transcript for TCND - Let's Deconstruct Deconstruction [The Comedian Next Door]

week, I just basically dominated. I just took over everything. So, so this week I'm going to let you. Well, also as we pointed out last or we found out last week, I'm kind of, I'm a person. I'm representing all the Christians out there who are easily duped by, uh, a, um, a post that's, that's, uh, milking or are fishing for sympathy. And I'll usually give it. Or I usually try to see my perspective is let me see this from the other person's point of view. So you're, you're the one who's going to educate me. That's what we'll do. That's the roles we'll play as I'll go, hey, what about this? But before I have a clip, I want to show it. And in fact, the progress should share it while I'm talking. Um, we, uh, have the question I have is, uh, which one is it? That's not the one. Um, you're going to show it. I was wondered if, yeah, I was wondered if, so like for a while back, I used to think, um, that everybody needed to read books or read certain books. And I was like, these are the books that every Christian has to read. And so, like for instance, one of them, uh, was like some CS Lewis, some Chesterton, that kind of stuff. But then I realized, um, not everybody. I'm not trying to call people stupid, but they're just not, sometimes they're not accessible. Because for one thing they're written by British dudes that, that lived a while ago. So they're, they're using their own vernacular. So you have to kind of waive through that a little bit. So some people don't, they can't do that. And that's not for them. So I'm wondering, because I was thinking about these people. The whole people stupid. Right. I'm wondering is there a similar situation with people who, so like we talked about how, um, and we're about to watch a thing where, um, these are stories. In fact, I'll set this up in a little bit. But, um, people, the most frequent thing you hear, and I keep seeing this. And I think because last week we said the word deconstruction, it's been popular almost of lately. But, uh, and I have a search for it. Well, I'll take that back. I think I did search deconstruction. Yeah, I did to myself. Anyway. Um, are there people that, um, when they were in church, uh, just swallowed everything and didn't, and didn't hold a light. They just kind of, uh, holy and, and heart and soul in mind trusted everything. Everybody said because they were in a church. And then when they, a lot of things we see as people get hurt. And, um, and it's usually with people that are in the church. And a lot of times it's a person of leadership. But, when they start telling their story, you go, and there was a lot of warning signs. And they passed a lot of sign posts on the way to those waterfalls that they fell over. But, again, I don't, I don't like laughing at people's pain. But at the same time, you're like, you know, I laugh at myself when I do something dumb. But then when they deacon shrugged, they just swall, they do the same thing. It seems like they're doing the same thing. So like, um, I'll pull these guys, they're, their deconstruction story is pretty public. And I know that was the other thing. Last week you go, I don't want to use people's names. But I'm like, well, maybe these are guys that are public. So a retinolink, I listened to their whole podcast about how they deconstruct it. They were on campus who said they were doing, uh, conferences. They were doing all kinds of, they were full on 100%. And then reds like, I read this book. And then I had a lot of questions. So basically, he just dumped Christianity because he read this one or two books. And I'm like, well, did you didn't read any Christian books that would counteract that? You didn't kind of have a debate with yourself and say, is this right or is this right? You just, you just like leaped from one tree to the other. So I'm wondering, are most of the deconstruction, I'm going to call them kids, those kids out there, the deconstruction kids, the ex-vanjangles, did they just go, oh, well, this was wrong. So I'm just going to dump the whole thing. That's the other thing I was like, so some guy in his tree did you? And so now you think God doesn't exist. I still don't. I'm trying to, I need people to, I've never seen anybody connect those dots. They just go, my youth pasture was weird. Anyway, I don't believe in God anymore. I'm going to go, huh? Okay. What can I do? I'm going to say, what's that you have? So this is a lady, this is actually, she's a legitimate. So this is a thing Mike Winger did and you can go and look, there's a guy named Sean something. Now I can't remember what the guy is saying was he's a false prophet that was endorsed by Bethel and Winger had a six hour documentary, you know how he does, you know, like this is a, so he did a documentary on this guy. One of the clips is him saying pointing out to a guy and saying, you know, basically he told a boy and a girl is like, you were meant to be together. God's telling me that you're supposed to be married. And so it's basically the, it's, it's divine destiny that you guys get married. Well, this guy, this girl here, her name is, she's public. She's a public, a deep constructionist. Her name is Jubilee, but her husband like a physically abused her. And this is all like in the name of Christ, I was like, you have to submit to me and those kind of things. And he actually ended up leaving them because she choked her, he choked her a couple of times. But the second time it was like she was unconscious and she had to get hospital treatment for it. So now she, she likes to gather. And what's it called curate all these stories about people who have weird things in the church. So this one's about why are people leaving the church? I hope the old church because they just want to sin and sleep around. And on a totally separate note, let's read some stories. Our pastor who was a married father of three ended up getting the deacons 18 year old daughter pregnant. I went to my high school friends funeral

and his pastor said that he believed that my friend had died so that people could come to his church and no God. Our pastor told the congregation at the end of the Sunday sermon that if you didn't go to Tuesday night's prayer service, then don't you dare come up for prayer right now because you don't deserve it. The blessing is only for the faithful and he said that he knew who you were and he would send you right back to your seat if you tried to come up. My preacher told me when I was in college that the reason that I got diabetes was because God knew that I would be gay later on in life and my illness was my punishment. My aunt who was very religious told me and my cousin when I was 12 years old that we were going to burn in hell because we watched the Lord of the Rings, which has magic and obviously that's demonic. A pastor that we knew had a wife that was dying of cancer. After his wife passed, he got married not even two weeks later to the woman that he was having in a fair with. My dad died of colon cancer when he was 44 years old and I was 9. People told a little 9-year-old me that God needed my dad more and those same people also told little 9-year-olds me that my sins caused my dad to get cancer. I'm left handed and a mean little girl at the church told me that because I was left handed, that meant that Satan had marked me. I was 5. So I don't know why do you think people are leaving the church? Obviously she's saying that in a coy because she also has the answer. Basically she's saying that at the end saying this is why people are leaving the church. But at the same time, if you comb through these and if we took them one by one at a time, I just threw them all in there because obviously we can't spin the whole podcast, responding to each one of them. But 30% of those are people being dumb and you'll encounter that anywhere in your life that you're in a community of people. Somebody's going to say something stupid and because maybe even more so, if you're hanging around the Lions Club or I'm trying to think of other places people gather besides church. Four of, we have FFA here or something and if you somebody passes away, there's a ton of stories not religious related that when somebody passes away, people are saying dumb things because they're awkward and they can't. They don't know what to say and they're trying to say something. I have to say something. I have to comfort this person in some way. Now what they say is just dumb. And so, if that like scars you for life and you have to leave your faith because of that and you leave God and Jesus and all those teachings, then that's unforgiving. And I would say, I don't know, if you would have that problem if the church didn't forgive you for the things you were doing. There's a difference between leaving a church and leaving the church. That was my second thing. Yeah. Go ahead with that. And so, and the deconstructions this oftentimes conflate. They just merge those two into one. You know, it's like, well, here's this psychotic thing that somebody said to me at the church that I was attending or here's what a Christian, a random Christian said to me when I was nine years old. And so therefore, I'm going to leave Christianity. That's what's so weird. That's what I'm saying. I've never, and maybe you can, because you've done more research than me, quote unquote research. But is there like a, they go from A to C, but is there a B? I never hear a B. I just hear my youth pastor said something kind of gross to me. And so that's when I left God. There's got to be a between. They're just not, they're, they're just not good. They're not good thinkers. They're emotional people. Okay. And so that's what I was talking about before. Yeah. And drive people's actions. And that's just, it's always been that way. And so they, they do these things because their feelings are hurt or they're scared or they're angry. And so they, so they make decisions that they're just not going to go to church and you for it. It's not rational. There's no, there's no rationality to it. If you, if you check with them, if you go, well, you understand that that was just one person or, or one, one church. There's, there's other congregations that aren't like that. There's other places where, where actual Christians congregate. It's like they, they don't, they're emotional. They don't, they don't process that. I guess that was my point before was, and not that I'm saying people should be cynical, but the weird, that's the irony. I just realized the irony of it is that people say I got a lot of thing, well, a lot of times a common thing in here is that people say I got reprimanded for asking questions. Or there was told not to ask questions. Well, then now, as we, you know, you're going to swallow everything whole. That's when you deconstruct it, you're still asking questions, you're just like, well, I'm just listening to these influencers or whoever that has these stories and just agreeing with them instead of going, well, what happened with the, you asking questions. Still, you were curious when you were a kid, I guess. And if the church told you not to ask questions, are the agnostic now going to chastise you for asking questions. You still ask questions. The deconstructionist rarely deconstruct deconstruction. They rarely say it. They're not. They don't pick apart deconstruction and put that under the microscope. They say where they do Christianity. But what you said, the other thing that they do, and this, and you were telling us that this lady had been choked by her husband and so on, which is obviously abuse. No one is going to argue, you know, that that should have happened or that God would condone that or just saying what you to live in that. No one would say that. But there's also a conflation that happens with the word abuse and it's a big problem. You've got a woman who was actually abused, who has documented and she was clearly abused. And she's talking

to all of these women who were saying, well, because, because somebody told me that God wants my father in heaven, you know, I was abused the same way that this person was. This word abuse gets used to be it's everything I don't like. It's every negative experience that's happened to me. It's every wrong theology I've been given is now abuse. That's when I was uncomfortable once. It's the thing though. So it's combined. It's a severe hedonism because any unpleasant. That's what I mean in the younger generations what you got with don't go work out. But I don't know how their workouts are. I don't know if they're super light or whatever. But we grew up it was no pain, no gain. But now it's just no pain, no pain at all. Please and not even pain. It's like if it's uncomfortable. So that's why cringe is such a such a bad thing when something's labeled as cringe. It's like, oh, that's got to throw us be thrown out immediately. But no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, condemnation has in, you know, you know, you know, condemning someone to hell, like the year on her way, and there was one thing in there who was, oh, somebody said they were going to hell because they were watching Lord of the Rings. But that's a thing. Okay, let's take that scenario. Because I guess maybe this is because is how I grew up, but I'll say it again, and I'll probably, I'll probably repeating myself, and I'll probably say it again. I grew up in a very legalistic church, but my dad liked it because they stuck to the scriptures, which is kind of ironic because, because the scriptures talk about grace. And so if you're super legalistic, there's that problem. But, um, so like when we're going to see the Bible, we're going to see the Bible, and we're going to see the Bible, and we're going to see the Bible, and we're going to see the Bible, and we're going to see the Bible, and we're going to see the Bible, and we're going to see the Bible, and we're going to see the Bible, and we're going to see the Bible, and we're going to see the Bible, and we're going to see the Bible, and we're going to see the Bible, and we're going to see the Bible, and I mean, like you could, if you were a woman, you could wear pants to the church, but you wouldn't be, they probably wouldn't talk to you, and he would probably be ostracized in some way. King James Version was the only version of the Bible, and, um, which, but the other thing is so when I'd get home though, my dad would drink a beer here and there, and my mom would wear pants, and he, he read, he stuck with the King James, but then he would open

the living Bible, the living translation. So it was like, you know, these are good people, and we like him, and this is our church family, but at the same time, sometimes they're wrong about stuff. So I guess I grew up, I guess somehow my dad inadvertently taught me to question, and the research for myself, and that kind of stuff. The legalistic people are not usually legalists, they don't think of themselves as legalistic, they think of themselves as faithful to the scripture, they think of themselves as faithful to God's word, and then so we call them legalistic, but that's because we have a different interpretation of what God's word says than what bears is. And legalistic people just keep asserting their point of view over everybody else's, but it should be legalistic, but see, the point of that though, I guess where I was going was like, I didn't know about Lord of the Rings until I was in college, and I went, man, this is why they kept me from this, because there's magic in it, but somehow I still believed in Jesus. Because even though they were against Lord of the Rings, and there was even kind of a little stuff, there wasn't a lot about Narnia either, or talking to see as Lewis, that's what I had to discover, see as Lewis, for myself, but that's the point is, I did discover these things for myself later, and I still believe in Jesus. So there's, I mean, there's obvious implications, because it's like, we know once your soul is regenerated, you could suffer an enormous amount of church hurt quote unquote, or actual spiritual abuse, but if you have the end dwelling, holy spirit, you're going to be guided back into the true faith, even if you kind of walk away from the church, God will bring you back on the path is the thing. So obviously, that's the first argument, I guess, is people who are walking away so easily, we know they're not regenerate, that was one thing. Is it wrong to watch a movie? Is it wrong to watch a movie like Lord of the Rings? I don't want to get into Paul Gorn, but is it wrong to watch a movie like Lord of the Rings as a Christian, to just watch it, to just watch a movie, or let's take another one, let's take like pulp fiction, or once upon a time in Hollywood, I used to be hardcore. Did you, Tarantino? Yeah, Quentin Tarantino, when I was hard, I, I used to be hardcore anti-RATA movie. If it was, if it was a RATA movie, I wouldn't go and see it. And my reasoning was that because R means that children are not supposed to, this is not suitable for children, and I being a, I'm supposed to have a child like faith, and so it would not be, it would not be appropriate. And so I've changed my position on that a little bit, but the thing that got me, the thing that sort of changed my trajectory was years ago, people were a person in my family who was being critical of the Simpsons because it was unchristian. And, and I said, well, what do you mean? What is it? What is it that's specifically on Christian? Oh, they just mock Christianity. They mock God. They mock. And so I was like, okay, well, give me the example of it. And they, and they, I think they give you on. They haven't actually seen the Simpsons. They hadn't actually watched any episodes of the Simpsons because they had heard that it was anti-Christian. And so they couldn't give me the example because they never seen it. And so I went to, I started watching the Simpsons looking for, you know, where it was anti-Christian. And I suppose if you're a, if you're easily offended, you could take the character of Ned Flanders or Reverend Lovejoy. They're caricatures of Christians. They're, you know, they're a Christian. Yeah, they're not of Christianity. That's what I looked at. But they're not, they're not actually mocking God. And Ned Flanders is a, he turns out to be a pretty good guy. Well, he's true. Yeah, he's, he's a good neighbor and a good friend to Homer. And Homer is a jerk to Ned Flanders. So Homer's the one who comes off looking like the bad guy. It's not Flanders. Flanders always is kind to him and nice to him and loans him thing. He's just, you know, Flanders is a great guy. So, but that's the kind of, that's what I'm talking about. I'll give you an example too is a like first season bark is praying. He said, you know, gosh, not smithers, not smithers. Gosh, okay. I've never seen the Simpsons in so long. Burns, Mr. Burns is running for office. And he's at the Simpsons house where he can look like a regular Joe. And then he goes, Bart say the, say the blessing and he goes, God, we paid for all this stuff. So thanks for nothing. So it's a joke. But like you said, it's not, it's not, they're not saying God doesn't exist. They're saying Bart is rebellious. That's, that's all the, that's all we're saying about that. But that's the kind of, that's the attitude I'm talking about is Eve. So in Christian circles, like you said, there was no investigation. They just heard, oh, the, the Simpsons are anti-Christian. So I'm going to. And instead of deciding for yourself and going to it. So that's the weird thing about, you know, they'll be the first ones to say is solo scriptura. But then they'll listen to anything that their pastor says. You know what I'm saying? And I said, so to bring us back to that lady who was left the church. You know, if you leave, if you leave Christianity because somebody tells you that the Lord of the Rings has magic in it and that's evil. And so you shouldn't. So you can't be a Christian and watch Lord of the Rings. You're, and you leave the church because of that. Then you have basically made what they said true. You basically, you basically, you know, held up their argument as legitimate because you said, well, I guess if God won't let me watch magic. I want to watch Lord of the Rings. I have to leave Christianity. So you've actually, you've actually, you've actually, you've, uh, dropped up there in state arguments. I've never thought about that. That's awesome. We earned she

started out the clip and it may not have made it on the audio. But she says a lot of people think that people leave the church because they just want to do what they want. But at the same time that's what he said is, is go, well, I'll just leave the church like, well, okay. So that's. And you know, the other thing or not saying to is we're not saying you have to be in a church to go to heaven. But you'd be, you know, the church. Here's where you get into the theology. Yeah. And they push back on that. They go, some people say we just will leave the church because we want to sin. It's like, so what are you doing when you walk away from Jesus? Yeah. And then they would say, well, I said, I'm not walking away from Jesus. It's like, well, Jesus says that he's, uh, that the churches is bright. And who are those people? And then they make the argument, well, you don't have to be, you don't have to go to church in order to be a Christian. And I think that you're, I think that you're demonstrating a, an uncharitable Jesus never stopped going to the temple. Jesus never stopped hanging rail at the decision. I only wanted those. They have used him and they have initially killed him. You know, the tax call, they love to talk about the tax collectors in the city, the prostitutes. And Jesus hung around with its packs, selectors of the prostitute. Right. Jesus hung around with those people. If you can't hang rail with your Christian brothers and sisters, here's another thing to it. You can't go with your, with your church people. Right. Those, those, those, uh, tax collectors and prostitutes that followed him stopped tax collecting and prostituting. They left those things behind the bottom. It's like that's, that's the difference. Gosh, there's so many layers. Cause like he said, they want to be affirmed. But that's not what Jesus did. Even though he sat with them, he said, follow me. So it's like, stop what you're doing. Even the lady that was drug out into the street, when people say judge not less, you be judged. His lady was drug out of the street. And Jesus said, you know, that's another one of the people like to quote is, who's without sin cast the first stone. And but then he says neither do I condemn you, but he ends it with going, send no more. So he's not like, okay, you know, you just want love. So why don't, you know, so go ahead and try to find that anyway. No, he says, stop it. Stop what you're doing. The deconstructing us are, are people who look to other, they look at the example of other Christ followers and decide what they're going to do with their faith based on that. It would be like a first century person going, did you hear what Judas did? And he was one of, he was one of Jesus disciples. Yeah, he had a Peter denied him. He was, it's like, look at what these disciples did. Look at what these awful disciples did. I'm not going to be part of this. It's like that makes no sense. I'm thinking of this. I'll look it up later. There's a CS Lewis

code about people, people being bad Christians. But, well, let's see, one of the marks of a certain type of bad man is that he cannot give up a thing himself without wanting everyone else to give it up. That's not the Christian way. An individual Christian may see fit to give up all sorts of things for specialties of marriage or meat or beer or cinema. But the moment he starts saying that things are bad in themselves or looking down as, okay, that's something else. Sorry. But what, but what you were talking about, I lost my train of thought. What was the end of what you were saying? Because that was it made me think of. You can't look at you. You can't find to leave Christianity because Christians are stupid. Christians say stupid things. Christians are ignorant and the Bible. Everyone says such a wacky theology that they've put together in their own minds and there. And you just can't go. Well, that's it. I'm done. I'm walking away from the church. There's. Yeah. At some point, at some point, you can walk away from a church. If the hypocrisy and the wrong headed theology is so pervasive and so overwhelming, you can go to a different church, but you can't leave the church capital C. You can't walk away from Christianity. And you also can't go, well, I'm leaving Christianity, but I'm still following Jesus. You can't do that because well, yeah, follow Jesus are Christians. It's in the name. It doesn't, it's it's convoluted. It doesn't make any sense, but they say it all the time. It's like, I'm just leaving Christianity, but I'm still following Jesus. It's like, okay, it's like saying I'm leaving America, but I'm still living in the United States. Right. Yeah. Or I'm not going to, yeah, I'm not going to be an American, but I'm going to live here. But do you think gosh, there's too many things to ask. I was working on a thing that said, maybe you can help me work through this. It's kind of like the point that like you said, if people saw Judas and they were like, look at that guy, I can't be a Christian. I was like, well, it's because it's the very fact that he's not being a Christian that you're dead, that you're you're repulsed by him. So you're proving what we're saying. So there's in some way when you, when these people are rejecting the church because of unforgiveness or because of immorality. It's like, well, you're proven our point is like, that's because they're not at what we touched on this last week. Most of the thing actually know 100% of the things, well, I'll say it's a hundred percent, maybe 90% of the things that I hear that people complain about the church are people acting in un, un Christ like ways. Right. So you are using the standard of Christ against people in a church, like you said. And then that was the other thing is like, I'd be curious to see how many of these people went to a second church. Or they just decided to stop being Christians. We have them. They're literally on every street corner as there's all kinds of flavors, which probably about my next thing was I was thinking about that is, are there just too many bad churches and people just churches that are built not on Christ, but on people and on charisma and like you like entertainment as like is that part of the problem that people are getting. They're buffered from getting to Christ because they're going to this thing that they think is a church, but it's really just a gathering of people that want to feel good. Right. And that's not a concert. Yeah. Well, that's another, that's the other good point that you're walking away from being that has the moral and ethical structure to it. You're not supposed to tell lies. You're not supposed to be a music. You're not supposed to choke your spouse. These are things that are. If I had to be said, but you know, the Christian faith, you're not supposed to treat people poorly. And you're walking away from that where the standard is established to what you're going out to something that doesn't have a standard. You're going into secularism where there is no clear standard. Everybody just does whatever they think is right. All morality is subjective. And so you're not, you haven't solved the problem in many ways. You made it worse because now you have no course of action for condemning another person's behavior. You can't go and you can't blame people who are not Christians for behaving like non-Christians. Yeah. That's the, yeah. Well, I was thinking about too. The danger is like you're saying. And I guess maybe this is an analogy that I didn't think about just now. So you have Jesus feeding the 5,000 and Jesus healing people and people are following him. And the minute he says something weird like unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you can't be my followers. This is where everybody. It's a lot of his disciples walked away that way. So do we know that not just he didn't just have the 12, he had some people following him, but they were following him because of the stuff. They wanted the God's stuff, but they didn't want God. That's I think that's another thing. It's like it's now I'm starting to sympathize a little little more with people who grew up in the church and then they're realizing this isn't the right thing. But for that church that they were in, like you're saying, they were right to walk away because it was nothing. They learned that there was nothing to it. But then in that church, usually what you get is this is another thing I'm working through a transactional agreement with God. If I do this, then God will give me this. The thing is God gave himself to us and I think people miss that. It's not just God up there trying to make us happy. God is saying the only thing that will make you happy is me. That's why he came to us. That's why Christ came to us to show us and walk a path that we could follow behind him. Unfortunately for our sinful nature and for our self-preservation that path leads to a cross and a grave. Part of it, the old man

has to die. What's happening is people are saying, well, there's nothing really wrong with me. Jesus loves people. I'll just sit in this little middle area and they never get to the cross. The churches they were in never got them there. That's why I guess now that I think, now that I remember, that's why Jesus said it's better that you were never born. If you cause one of these little ones to stumble, I'm saying little ones as in. People who are in your church and you're not showing them to the cross, he said it's better for you to just drown yourself. I guess there's a reckoning coming for those people. Now I'm trying to think, how do you tell someone who has deconstructed, maybe they are curious? It's like, what's a good church that they can even have people or less a thing? That's the point that we're making is if you're good, then you don't need a church. If you're just a good person, you don't need to be at a church. But I'm not good. So I'm constantly needing. There's more than one reason for going to church. It depends on who you are and where, what God is doing in your life. Some people go to church because they need to be in a church that tells them the actual gospel. They need to be discipled. They need to go to church so that they can learn how to follow Christ. But then there's other people who've already learned that. And I know that people can argue that, well, you never arrive. There's always things to learn. But you can get to the point where you are a faithful devout Christian. And now your reason for going to church is not necessarily discipleship or to learn discipleship. But it's because you're supposed to contribute to the lives of the rest of the congregation. And so the church is like family. You don't reach a point. There's not a certain point where you don't need your family anymore. I don't really even need to be in this family anymore because I've got everything that I need apart from them. Well, that's not true. And it's not the point. The point is that you are... All of the church is following Jesus. But we're following it for different. Our roles are different as we follow. Some people are the babes that you're talking about. And some people are more mature and they are helping the babes to follow. But there's never a point where it's okay to just divorce yourself from the entire congregation and go, yeah, I've been abused and so I'm not going to put myself from my own safety and protection. Because that's faithlessness. That is a soup. But you're not going to be okay if you go to church. This goes back to what we've said before that you're looking at Christianity as this kind of a practice, something like meditation or yoga that has some sort of benefits for you. And this is the... Yeah. You don't need anything anymore. It's the point where we just don't need what church has to offer. It's a completely selfish position to take because what about your obligation to the other people at church? Yeah. And I mean, you were asking about how you can tell if you're at a good church or not. I think that you have to listen to what's being said publicly from the teachers, the pulpit, the people. What views are being represented? You need to kind of ignore the congregation. You need to pay attention to what's being officially proclaimed in the teaching times. And if you're being fed or if you're being told things that light up with the scripture for the most part, I mean, you can find disagreements on things. But if you can... But if they're trying to light up with the... With what the scripture says, then you're probably in a decent church. That's not just saying that you're going to counter some crackpots and some weirdos. Well, because then... I guess it depends... I was going through something. Well, because there was a clip... There's a clip of it and I could look this up for you if you really want to see it. The guy who actually took John 316 and said that Jesus is not here to... Like Jesus doesn't want you to just follow him. He wants you to be your true self. He wants you to be your authentic self. So he's using scripture, but it's not lining up with scripture. So I guess what I'm thinking of is this poor little young person that's walking into a... Just some random church. And like you said, they kind of go with what they're feeling at the moment. And if it gives them a good feeling and there's a nice... There's a nice fluffy and you feel good, then you're like, well, this must be good, because I feel good. And then when people tell me I'm sinful, that makes me feel bad. So obviously, that's wrong. So there's just trying to get... How do you get people to think and ask questions? Because they're not... They're maybe asking questions, but the question is just introspectively, how am I feeling about this? And you hear that too, because that's people... You've heard that in quotes from sermons too, as somebody else say, people won't remember what you say, they'll remember how you made them feel. But it's like... But I guess that's good to a point, because I've heard that... That's a way to help people be sympathetic, but it's not a good rule to live by. If you think about that, because if I lived by that, then I would never confront anyone on anything. I'd never say, hey, this is not right. You got to change your ways, and that's loving. So even if they walk away and they hate it, and they go, that guy made me feel bad, because he said, I'm sinful. But... Well, a lot of the deconstructionists and the exe-vanjellicles and the ex-Christians are waging a war against certainty. They're really annoyed with certainty, the idea that we can know something for sure. But they prefer this ambiguous well. This is what I think, but it could be different. They see that as open-minded and charitable. And they see that as humble. You're not going to stand up and proclaim that I'm right about this, and you're wrong. It's like, we can both be right about this. They think that

that's... Again, they think that's humble. They're actually opposed to certainty. They're opposed to saying something is definitely true. Where the snake eats itself there. Honestly. And so part of the reason that it's difficult to talk to them is because, like you said, we're trying to get them to think and we're trying to get them to arrive at the truth. Well, they've already sort of predetermined that the truth is not knowable. No matter what conclusion we come to, we can't be certain about it. And so that's... That's a matter of... They're fairly certain that we can't be certain. Yeah, that's another thing that's kind of weird because with church stuff and with... So like with theological things and with like even what you just said is a philosophical problem. Is that used to be taught? Is the truth knowable? And then yes, it is because... Well, I couldn't even tell you where they found that out of that. But I had to look it up. That's a philosophical, classical teaching. We have to learn about philosophies and questions that we've asked. We're not even getting... We're not even getting that far. So what we're having to do is relive old heresies and old philosophical arguments that were put to rest a long time ago and now they're coming back up and so we're going, okay, we've got to have to go back. Like you said, now we have to... I don't know how you teach critical thinking, but I guess you could just ask questions. These people are not doing okay. They're saying that their deconstruction is their salvation and that they've... You know, they've got away from that toxic environment. Now since they've deconstructed their... You know, they're much happier and better off, but it's just not true. They're either deceiving themselves or they're trying to deceive us. It's not... You can't be okay if you're constantly unsure of everything. If there's no... You can't have peace. If you just don't know if what you're doing or thinking is... Is the right thing to do or to think? You can't be okay. You're going to be constantly eating up with anxiety and doubt. Well, that's not just... I guarantee you, they're not saying I'm uncertain about... Well, they would say they're uncertain about everything, but they're not... They don't actually live that. They would say they're certain things like you have to love people. So I'm sure they have doctrines that they live by. Like you said, they're very sure about that love is more than anything. But then like, well, how are you... How are you sure about this? And, uh, gosh, I started reading Everlasting Man again by Chesterton. And just see, everybody needs to read the introduction. Even if it takes you two months to get through the 10 pages of it, because that's what this is all about. And again, this was written in the 1920s, I think. But he's saying people are criticizing Christianity, but they're in it. They're in Christianity. They have to get far enough out of it to even know what it even looks like. Because like you're saying, it's by Christian morals that they're using against the church. It's weird. So, uh, he's saying you have to completely... Is like, it'd be better if you were some kind of alien. And you could come in and people would just explain it to you. And then you'd have to ask questions about that. But your... the thing is, everything, every response they're having to like we said, stupid people in a church is a Christian response. It's like when you said, I'm going to hell because I didn't watch Lord of the Rings. Or you made some suggestion. So there was another one that I guess I didn't post or save it. But there's another one. Our youth pastor is commenting on a girl of teenager's body. Well, man, that's... It's inappropriate. Why, though, is what you're asking. That's your question. Why now is it inappropriate if you don't think truth is noable? Or there is a God? Or maybe this is a whole... Maybe we're in a computer simulation. Well, okay, well, how does... How does anything mean anything? Then what gives anything meaning? Now you got to answer that question. Because you've hopped out of the whole boat. But you're using... The Bible to live your sinful life. It's as weird. That's a... You can talk to this. Basically, I quit attending church services. That's what it means. It doesn't change anything else. True. It doesn't change the one they think. It doesn't change their values. It doesn't change their values. As you pointed out, and Chester to point it out, they still believe you're supposed to love your neighbor. They are certain about that. They may not say it. But it doesn't change anything about the way they think as changes have their lives. Their values are still what they were when they were, quote unquote, Christian. And so, deconstructionists are just... They're not telling the truth. They haven't deconstructed anything. All they did was they quit attending church services. Yeah. I think it's... There might be a revolution of some sort. It seems to me... So, it seems to be this certain... Just a range, a window of age... Where people will... They have enough youth... Where it's luxurious to kind of do whatever you want. So, it's kind of like that late college to early... You don't have a family. You don't have a spouse. So, you're kind of just... Off to the wind. And you're just kind of doing whatever and a lot of people do things that they regret later on. And that time... So, one of them is... Throwing away their religion or whatever... Like you said, they're the practice of going to church. But then they start to realize... And I've heard this a couple times too. It's like, I miss it. I miss that community. I miss the time together. And the singing... That's another thing. I miss the singing and that kind of stuff. So, they're trying to recapture stuff. And I wonder what's going to come out of that. Is there an actual revival of true Christianity and regeneration? Or are they going to try to manufacture

something? And there are... There's atheist churches and stuff of singing that. But the funny thing is every time you go up against reality... It wins. Every time. Every time you do something deluded, it's going to beat you. That's going to frustrate you. Very well. Many atheist churches... But the ones that are out there are... Pretty stupid. Because what are they doing? I mean, what are they? That's the thing. So, they know that it's good. That a group of people is good. That like you said, you can't be on your own. You got to be around people. And community. And like you said, family. And not just blood relatives, which there's a... There's another thing to say about that. But spiritual. There's a spiritual connectedness that they're missing. Because they're... Spirit is dead, basically. They know there's something there. They hunger. They've also set themselves up as God. And they get really annoyed when you say this. But it's the truth. We're the arbiter of truth. They flat out say, yeah, you don't have to go to church in order to be a good person. And then they'll say, you don't have to believe in God to be a good person. You can just be good for the sake of being good. You just do the right thing because it's the right thing. But that doesn't work. Because you haven't decided what the right thing is. And then they just assume, well, everybody knows. We all know why. Because society has taught it to us. That's not correct. Society is built around a theology. I mean, all the society is built around a theology. It's not the other way around. We don't form a society and then add religion to it. Religion is the foundation for civilization. Well, our contention is that we all proceed from God. And that he's infused us. And so, yeah. He's infused us with that hunger to come back to him. Even though we've fallen away. It's in our nature. We know about good and evil. We know about justice and inequality. Those are things that have been fought for. That's another thing. It's a why-well. If you look at true, if you just look at humanity, humans themselves aren't eating. Humans themselves aren't equal. They're stronger people. They're smarter people. There's people who are more cunning. There's people who are more artistic. There's people who like to work. They don't want to be in charge of anything. So, humanity is just going to automatically fall into ranks. And so, why not do like the Romans did? And the strongest is the best. Every society has had some kind of characteristic attribute of mankind that they've elevated above them. It's Greeks elevated. Well, Paul said this. The Greeks elevated the smart people. The Romans elevated the strong people. All those societies passed away. So, where equality come from? When we say every person is equal, how do we come up with that? That didn't just come out of nowhere. Well, there's some misunderstanding of what the word equal. When they use the word equal, they mean. And they'll usually say everybody is made in the image of God. Every person bears the image of God. Remember that when you're dealing with them. And that's true. We are all equal in the we are image bearers. But that's basically where the sameness stops. Because as you pointed out, some of us are smarter than others. Some of us are faster. Some of us are bigger. Some of us are healthier than others. I mean, there's a million variables. There's old and young people who don't all have a portion to us in the same amount. Some of us are richer than others. And so, God did not create a world where we are all equal. That was not, clearly, that was not what He was trying to do. We are different. We have different abilities and different resources and talents. And so to go, you're going to be enormously frustrated if you're trying to make everybody equal. That's what a lot of these folks are doing. And I'm deconstructing because everybody was treated differently. Because they are different. How can you treat people the same? Well, to be clear, what you're saying is, soldier does not equal academy professor, academic professor. We're talking about equating someone who's a physical person as opposed to someone who's an intellectual person. But under God, every human has equal value. That's what you're saying. Yeah, you're not saying not everybody doesn't have equal value. It's just everybody is different. You can't equal. You don't equate every human. That's why we're different. But, that's not satisfying. People, they like to say, everybody is made in the image of God and then use that as a cudgel to tell you to stop doing whatever you're doing. You know, like you can't be opposed to open borders. Because everybody's made in the image of God. That includes the image. Wait a second. Wait a second. Well, because, yeah, that's something what you're reminding me of is this battle of words that we're having. And I don't know, do you feel a burden to teach people what those words mean? Because your technique is to kind of throw a grenade into the internet and let people just let the wasps come and the hornet show up. I can't teach people. I mean, I just, I can't it. I have, I say whatever it is I'm going to say. And they either get it or they don't. And I don't know. I can't force people to understand things. And that's where I think the spirit, I think God comes in. And for some reason, for some reason, some people don't understand. I don't know. That's God's territory. Well, something you said once that I've been thinking of since then. I remember who I read. It was somebody old long time ago, but that those of us who are followers of Christ and are regenerate and have been saved are sane. And everyone else is insane. I don't know that's the best thing for everybody to hear. But if you define sanity as a person who looks at reality and has a clear view of what is real than people who deny Christ by definition are insane. So, I believe that, that maybe the right people to hear that. Logic and

reason belong to God. And they're his. And he gives them their gifts that he gives to us. Wisdom. And it tells us if you lack wisdom, for example, you should ask God for it. I mean, ask him to ask him to give you the right answers. Ask him to order your steps and to light your path. There's scripture that says that. And if you do that, I believe he does. He doesn't do it the same way for all people. Different people have different capacities for understanding. But if you relentlessly deny the, if you deny God, if you say I'm not going to follow you, I'm not going to worship you, you're awful, you're bad. I'm a more, more a person than that God of the Old Testament who was, you know, hateful and cruel. I'm a better person. God eventually takes away your ability to think because that's a gift that he gives people. And it happens for some people faster than others. I don't know. I think there's some people who are not good thinkers. But they're still really successful. And they're really, they do well in society. But they're at foundation, they're irrational. Because there is a God. God does exist. And apart from him, you will die. And so it's, life itself. It's insane to not want to be, you know, in his family. It's insane to not want to basically flip him to burn and go, no, I'm going to do my own, I'm going to do my own thing. Is insane. You know, that may be a person who has 150 IQ. And is a member of Mensa. But as far as I'm, as far as I understand it, he's still nuts. He's still not able to think correctly. Right. So maybe next time, when I want to start talking about it, you're what goes to your head and maybe even not tactics that might be a weird word. I don't know the way that you think about these ideas, what catches your eye when you see things. I guess in the meantime, for Christians, I guess the encouragement would be not to let people hold you emotional hostage. Because like you said, that's how they see the world. They feel their way through things. And so to get them to, for them to get you to feel sympathy for them, you kind of have to, I guess, you know, when a toddler is screaming about, you know, not getting their candy, you know, you kind of giggle at them. Right. So that's the way you can look at it. But they do it with such serious faces and they're so dour and they're so, I don't know if they're sympathetic. But it's just like, man, I really know the one I saw last night, I think I saved it. There was a guy that said, you know, I've written Christian songs. I've been in there, but there's all these people and these spaces that they, these Christian spaces that have been hurt. And they, you know, they're just, they're in doubt and they want to, they're asking questions. And I want to be able, I want to reach out to you and bring you in. But like you're saying, you're, when you find a safe place, you stay there. Or what, when you find a comfortable place, I should say, we find a comfortable place. That's where you stay. The Christ is saying, follow me. That's action. So he's saying, don't stay where you're at. Just keep moving. So that's the thing I've learned is don't let people hold you emotionally hostage. Because if, basically, if you disagree with them somehow, they're going to kill themselves or you, or you're hating them. So you got to let go of that. Hey, I think I covered it. Also, also, next week I want to talk about Martha Stewards, Halloween costume. Ah, here, here. Oh, I did that. You know, don't really look at that. Next week we'll talk about how Martha Stewards, how long ago. Alright, see you everybody.