Deconstruction w/Alisa Childers & Red Pen Logic | Cultish

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Here's to living out freedom. All right.

01:19

Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen to Coltish. My name is Jeremiah Roberts, one of the co -hosts here. I am flying solo today.

01:25

Andrew, the super sleuth of the show, is now a pastor up in Utah. I had to take care of some pastoral stuff today, so I'm riding solo, but I've got two guests with me today.

01:36

We're going to jump right into it. We have Elisa Childers. Welcome back to Coltish. You've been on a couple of times.

01:42

It's good to talk to you again. It's great to be here. Always fun to talk with you, Jeremiah. Awesome.

01:47

And we also have the infamous Red Pen Logic making his first time debut at Coltish, trying to hype you up there a little bit.

01:55

It's good to have you on, man. It's good to be here. Thanks for having me. Awesome. I do have to ask, is that hat, is that your thing?

02:03

Because I've always been admired by your different hats. They go along with all your reaction videos, which is actually how

02:08

I found out about you on the internet in the first place. This is the first question I get.

02:14

I mean, you'd think it would be an apologetics question, but the number one question is, where do

02:19

I get that hat? And I'll just tell you, I don't make a dime off these hats. A friend of mine, he's called the social apologist online, and he's got an

02:28

Etsy store or whatever, and he literally just drops hats at my front door and I throw them on because I think they're cool.

02:35

So people can search for him online and order away. Nice. Nice.

02:41

I'll have to make note of that. Yeah. Great, great hat game. I'm glad to have you on here. We have you both on today because you both co -wrote a book that recently came out a couple of months ago called

02:52

The Deconstruction of Christianity. I do know that many who are jumping on are very familiar with that discussion.

03:00

It is a very emotionally charged conversation, and there's a lot of weightiness that comes from that we're going to talk about bit by bit.

03:09

Let me ask you both, how did you both come together, collaborate? Both of you know, a lot of you know each other separately on your own channels.

03:17

How did you collaborate and what motivated you to write the book? How did that come about? Well, I was in the midst of writing my second book, and I noticed that Tim had been posting quite a bit about progressive

03:27

Christianity and particularly deconstruction. He was giving these talks at youth camps and he was showing some of the slides.

03:33

And I remember thinking, wow, he is really aware of this world of progressive Christianity and deconstruction, which is kind of unique in our world because many of the apologists in our community are dealing with things like atheism and postmodernism and all of those kind of like skeptical claims against Christianity.

03:51

And yet Tim was talking about deconstruction. And I also noticed that as other people started to talk about deconstruction, it really seemed like Tim understood what it was.

03:59

And then he posted this thing on Instagram that was like a deconstruction story.

04:04

And he totally fooled me. I was like, oh, no, another deconstruction story. And you go down reading the post.

04:10

And then I get to the end of it and I realize it's Demas. It's a post that Tim constructed as a deconstructionist, talking about like as if it's

04:18

Demas from the New Testament deconstruction story. And I thought, oh, like I love the way he's talking about this.

04:24

And then out of the blue one day, he just texted me and suggested that I write a book on deconstruction.

04:29

And I was like, oh, man, I'm just hip deep in my second book. I just don't even think I could do that right now.

04:35

And honestly, I was so excited to not be writing a book anymore that I just didn't want to write another book.

04:41

And then Tim suggested that maybe we work together on it. And the minute that he said that, I just I knew this was going to happen.

04:48

And so I had to give you my I'll give you my side of the story, because I was actually teaching a week long series at a

04:56

Christian camp on the topic of deconstruction. Everyone was talking about it. There had been notable

05:03

Christian musicians who had come out and, you know, on Instagram saying, hey,

05:08

I'm done with Christianity. And so there was a lot of talk about it, both from, you know, the famous people online, but also within the local church.

05:17

You know, I knew people who are going through this and using the term. So to bring some clarity, put together this, you know, five part series at a camp, and it was probably halfway through the week where I'm sitting at the back pew.

05:28

And I'm thinking, man, the discussions I'm having with with these different congregants, these are really important conversations that need to be had not just here, but like out there in the church at large.

05:41

And I also noticed that there was a connection between deconstruction and progressive

05:46

Christianity. Not that that's the destination everybody lands in, but it seemed like for a number of people, the deconstruction was almost like the vehicle that was taking people towards something and many ending up in in progressive

06:01

Christianity. So I immediately thought of Elisa because she'd written the book, Another Gospel. And and so that's when

06:08

I sent her the text. But honestly, when I sent her the text, I'm like, you need to write the book. I don't want to write it. And when she said no, then

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I was kind of like, you know what? Maybe this could be, you know, my first book project. So I said, hey, do you want to write one together?

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Knowing that if she said, you know, no thanks or sent me like a laugh emoji, I would just, you know, just kidding, you know.

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So I was I was a little bit surprised when she said, hey, let's talk and then got the ball rolling.

06:36

So that's kind of a little more that that backstory there. Yeah. So if we look at a very sky, I appreciate that. So if we look at a very sky view of this entire topic and how they're connected together, especially in relation to defining terms, and Elisa and Mike, I'll let you back on a bounce each other, decide who wants to sort of take the turn on this and you can bounce off each other.

06:55

But how would you define define in a nutshell deconstruction, but also define progressive

07:02

Christianity, just in case someone might be listening and have never heard either one of these terms before? Describe them both, if you could, and how are they related and interconnected to get into this conversation from a very aerial sky point of view before you kind of zoom into some of the nitty gritty?

07:19

Yeah, I'll start with progressive Christianity and then Tim can take the deconstruction part of that. So they're related to one another, but they're not the same thing.

07:27

So progressive Christianity is a movement that is sort of coming up and out of the evangelical church that's very similar theologically to the theological liberalism and even

07:37

Unitarianism that we saw arising both in the United States and in Germany in the late 1800s, and even going earlier than that with Unitarianism in the

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United States. So a theological paradigm that is sort of skeptical of the miraculous, a little iffy on the deity of Jesus, not necessarily needing the resurrection of Jesus to be something that was literal, to have meaning.

08:00

So theologically, it's going to be like that. But then with progressive Christianity, you add to it this more of an ethical sort of place.

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So the ethic of progressive Christianity is going to be very social justice oriented, and that's going to be flowing out of the critical theory.

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So more of a critical social justice approach, like environmental activism, LGBTQ activism.

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And that's ethically really one of the pillars of progressive Christianity is changing the church's position on things like same sex marriage and the idea that your sex is determined by your biology.

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These are things that are rejected in progressive Christianity in favor of LGBTQ activism. And so there's a bit of a postmodern ethic to it as well, especially

08:43

I noticed back in the like around 2011 and 12, a lot of people who were espousing this new kind of Christianity were saying, we need to make a postmodern correction.

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And they viewed that conservative theology was really more of product of the Enlightenment and then hyper rationalization and just kind of a head knowledge.

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And so they were critiquing the church from that perspective, bringing more of a postmodern ethic into it.

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And so progressive Christianity, as it relates to deconstruction, is deconstruction really is more of like Tim mentioned, a vehicle that you get in to go away from historic

09:20

Christianity or evangelicalism. And some people land in atheism, some people land in secular humanism.

09:26

Some people don't, you know, they don't even want to label at all. In fact, many in the deconstruction movement would say, don't reconstruct new beliefs because then you'll have to deconstruct those.

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But for many, they maintain a semblance of Christian language, like talking about Jesus and the

09:40

Bible and certain things. And so the progressive Christian destination would be one of those off ramps in the vehicle you get in called deconstruction.

09:50

Hmm. And Tim, did you want to add on to that wherever you'd like to contribute? Sure. Well, looking at deconstruction, you said kind of from that 30 ,000 foot view.

09:59

I mean, what is deconstruction? Well, this was I mean, this was part of the project of our book, trying to figure out what is this thing?

10:07

And and what we would say is our definition, I'll give it to you in a minute. It was probably the hardest sentence to write in the whole book.

10:14

In fact, we went back and forth on a number of different things. In fact, we talked about adding adjectives to the front of the word.

10:21

And so you could potentially have good deconstruction, bad deconstruction, healthy deconstruction, unhealthy deconstruction.

10:28

That's kind of where we started. Yeah. But actually changed our view on that. We can go into that in more detail later.

10:34

But here's the thing. Everyone was using the word to mean different things.

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I mean, if you ask 10 different people, you may get 10 different kind of definitions. You got everything from people who are questioning maybe some tertiary doctrine like the age of the earth or eschatology or whatever.

10:54

They're all the way to, you know, Joshua Harris coming out famously saying that deconstruction is, he said, biblically, that's falling away.

11:03

So that's how he was using the term leaving the faith altogether. So question the faith all the way to leaving the faith.

11:09

So this is where we I mean, how do how is this word being used? And that's where we spent, you know, hours and hours and hours kind of digging into this phenomenon that's happening online, especially under the hashtag deconstruction.

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So how are the leaders kind of in this movement using the word? And we found certain characteristics that became really clear, not just tertiary, but like fundamental to what deconstruction is.

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And at least in a minute, I want her to come back and say she used the word years ago to define to define where she was at.

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But people came to her and said, no, you didn't really deconstruct. And I can see why now, because what she ended up doing, the process that she went through was not the same process that we're seeing people go through online today who are using the hashtag deconstruction, along with usually hashtag exvangelical.

12:05

So here's here's the definition we landed on. And again, this, I mean, is controversial,

12:11

I guess, to some people. But I actually think when you look at our critics and and how they are approaching their deconstruction,

12:19

I think they check off both of these these key fundamental attributes. And that is it's a post it's a postmodern process of rethinking your faith without requiring scripture as a standard.

12:33

And so there's kind of two main elements there. There's the there's the idea of truth when it comes to Christianity or religion in general, to be honest.

12:42

And we would say that they're treating it like there is no objective truth that either exists or can be known when it comes to religion.

12:51

OK, so that's the postmodern part. And then the second part is the authority part. And that is without requiring scripture as a standard.

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And so usually there's a rejection of scripture rather than trying to align your views with scripture.

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And so there's oftentimes within that movement, lots of these criticisms and critiques and oftentimes ridicule and mocking of the scriptures that comes along with it.

13:15

OK, so there's those two kind of fundamental elements of truth and authority that are part of the process.

13:23

And so that's where we that's that's why we landed on that particular definition. What we said, though, and this is what we say in the book, if you do care about truth and if you do care about what the

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Bible has to say, well, all of a sudden we would move you into a different category.

13:42

Now we give that the name reforming your faith. Some people use a term disentangling your faith, but that would be a different kind of process than what we have called deconstruction.

13:54

OK, and so we're going to try to tease those apart because part of the problem is there's so much confusion,

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I think, going on. When we use this one term to describe all of these different things.

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And so when someone says, I'm deconstructing my faith, you got to ask the question, what do you mean by deconstruction?

14:17

Because there is so many ways that it could be. It could be that kid who wants to know or whatever about, you know, what is

14:24

Genesis one and two and three teaching about origins, you know, and they really want to know, like, what's the scripture actually teaching on this?

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They want to get at the objective truth. But there may be someone else who doesn't really even see it in that category.

14:41

And there and and so they're going to take a different approach. So so bottom line, deconstruction is a how.

14:48

It's not just a that deconstruction is a process. It is a methodology.

14:54

In fact, this was an insight I was reading John Caputo's book. Now, John Caputo, he's like Jacques Derrida scholar, post postmodern scholar.

15:02

He wrote a book, What Would Jesus Deconstruct? And that's straight from him. He says deconstruction is a how.

15:08

And I think that's I think he's right about that. And and when you start to see deconstruction through that lens, you start to make sense of a whole lot of things that are happening, especially on online and in social media.

15:21

And he said, did you want to say something about your connection there? Well, I just real quickly, I just want to add to and I'm going to hand over to you,

15:28

Lisa, to the word where we're even going a layer deeper than your term postmodern.

15:35

Like if we're just unraveling even the definition, defining terms of deconstruction, define postmodernism and its relation to deconstruction.

15:42

Because when I think of postmodernism, I think of more relativism, the absence of absolute truth.

15:49

How is postmodernism to find that in its relation to deconstruction? Either one of you or Lisa. Yeah, well, the reason that that word is important in the definition is because it really does it functions, deconstruction functions as if absolute truth does not exist when it comes to religion and morality.

16:08

And we kind of we take we take from Francis Schaeffer and Nancy Peercy in the book when they talk about the upper story and the lower story.

16:15

So when we when it comes to the realm of truth, if you see it like a house, most people in the world will see lower level truths like math, science.

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These are things that are accessible to everyone. These are public truths. These are things that we can debate in the public square. But then on the upper upper part of the house, the upper story are more like people's values, their opinions, what they what they believe about certain things that you can't necessarily debate in the public.

16:42

These are private beliefs. These would be things like your favorite, you know, kind of dessert, what you might order in a restaurant, the type of color you like, the clothing you like to wear.

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These are upper story truths like your favorite song, things like that. And so the way that the postmodernism sees religion and morality is that these are really more private opinions.

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These aren't things that we can really debate with a capital T truth like you might be able to debate a scientific hypothesis.

17:09

And so in deconstruction, they're buying into that what Peercy calls the fact value split, where there's like facts on the bottom and then kind of your values and opinions.

17:19

And so what what we're trying to argue is no, actually, religion and morality, the values that we hold are in the downstairs.

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They're the public truths that we can debate because these things can be tested. We can test them with evidence.

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And if Christianity is true, if the resurrection of Jesus really happened, if Jesus body came back to life and came out of the grave 2000 years ago, then that means

17:40

Christianity is true, which means it's true for everyone and means it has a specific definition. And that is certainly not to say that there aren't secondary doctrines that we might disagree about, maybe areas where the scriptures aren't as clear as others.

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But when we're talking about core doctrines, the definition of the gospel, once for all faith passed down as Jude talks about, these are things that are our actual objective truths is what we're arguing.

18:04

So in deconstruction, those beliefs about morality and spirituality, what you might think about God, his existence, the resurrection doctrines like hell, original sin, things like these are like it's it's abusive and it's actually oppressive to tell people that they might be on their way to hell.

18:23

It's harmful. It's it's something that is toxic to tell someone they're going to hell because they just assume that can't be known.

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That's just a personal belief you might have, but there's no way to prove hell. So they're saying it's toxic and harmful to tell people these things.

18:37

And we really think and following John Caputo, who adapted the ideas of the father of deconstruction, who was

18:43

Jacques Derrida to religion. We're following him on this and and we see it in the hashtag.

18:49

So that's what we're saying is going on where we think that in the deconstruction hashtag, it's not people aren't assessing their theological beliefs based on what they think is true outside of themselves in objective reality.

19:00

They're assessing their beliefs based on what they personally feel harmed or helped by oppressed or liberated by beliefs that they feel are toxic or harmful.

19:10

And these are the types of words that you're going to hear in the deconstruction, not like true or false. And so just I'll end this question with this one little sum up.

19:19

Certainly, Tim and I both would say we don't want anybody believing harmful theology or toxic theology.

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But the point we're making is that you can't know what's harmful unless you first know what's true, because it's commonly claimed that it's harmful to tell somebody that they're going to go to hell.

19:34

Well, we're saying if hell is real, if hell is a real place and that doctrine is actually true, then it's actually way more harmful to tell people it doesn't exist if it really does.

19:46

It'd be like telling somebody, you know, yeah, you can touch that hot stove. It's not going to burn you.

19:51

Well, that would be very toxic, abusive and harmful if the stove is actually hot. Right. And so we're just basically saying that religion, morality are in that lower story with the math, science, facts and logic, whereas in deconstruction, that all gets moved to the upstairs with your personal opinions.

20:08

Let me ask this. Now, this this movement seems to have a kind of recent origin and only a couple of decades old.

20:15

You mentioned earlier Joshua Harris. I mean, I come from a background of being homeschooled and be going to Joshua Harris seminars like pre -Ica stating goodbye when he was doing homeschool seminars at a very young age, 18, 19 years old, back when you know everything about the world, which is when you should do everything when you're 18 after that, you know.

20:37

But yeah, I mean, I have stories for days about, you know, just all the different things of the Joshua Harris seminars and stuff that come up.

20:43

And so when I've listened to different ex -evangelical podcasts or whatnot, when they talk about that, I relate so much.

20:49

But it's just interesting because, you know, you think about a podcast like The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill, where a lot of those topic topics came up about things that are toxic, toxic leadership, toxic patriarchy, toxic this, that and the other when it comes to theology and all that took place.

21:05

And it's very interestingly enough, you know, towards the end of that podcast series that I remember if it was every single episode

21:12

I listened to, but they brought on Joshua Harris kind of as the consultant for to understand all things, what went right, what went wrong with with Mars Hill back in the day.

21:22

But it seems to be like it was kind of a justification for progressive

21:27

Christianity, that's that's where it ended up. When is when it's just interesting. So like where where's kind of the focal point, you think of kind of where this started?

21:36

Was it kind of just something that happened organically where people sort of question your faith and then it became sort of the deconstruction, it became kind of what it is today with that specific title deconstruction or what are your thoughts on that?

21:47

Well, I think the word has definitely morphed and changed over time. So I have a sort of a long relationship with this word because I wrote my first book about a faith crisis that I went through that started somewhere around 2009, 10, 11, somewhere in there.

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And I mean, I really busted all my beliefs down to the studs, took absolutely everything apart.

22:10

I mean, I was really at the point where I wasn't even sure God existed at all. It had brought me to the edge of agnosticism.

22:16

And this was the result I've shared this, I'm sure, on this podcast before of taking part in a small class at a church that would eventually rebrand itself as a progressive

22:23

Christian community. So my faith crisis was agonizing. It was years long. It was disorienting, painful.

22:32

And when I first came into that church, one of the things that I really loved about it was that after I had been touring for seven or eight years in the contemporary

22:40

Christian music scene, gone to absolutely just absolutely every kind of church you can imagine, seeing the good, bad and the ugly,

22:47

I had some critiques for church culture. I had some criticisms and they related with my criticisms.

22:52

And so I thought, wow, we all kind of want the same kind of reform. But what I didn't realize at the time was that they were going to throw the gospel out with some of the abuses and the bad things.

23:02

So there can be a lot of things all tied up together. But when I went through this, this faith crisis in my first book,

23:07

I actually called it deconstruction because that's what I thought had happened to me. What I understood deconstruction to be at the time was something that was negative.

23:15

I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy, but it was a totally taking apart of all my beliefs.

23:21

There was a crisis. It wasn't just sort of this intellectual exercise. It was something I was catapulted into.

23:28

And it again took years. But because I came back to a historic understanding of the gospel and Christian ethics, when

23:37

I started talking about my deconstruction online, deconstructionists would say, you didn't really deconstruct.

23:42

You don't understand deconstruction if you think you deconstructed. And so that's when it was really interesting. I thought,

23:48

OK, tell me more, say more words. And and sometimes they would say things like, well, you still hold to toxic theology.

23:56

So basically, that's not what we're doing. That's not what we're talking about. And so that's when I realized that there's something more to this thing than just simply taking things apart and then putting your worldview back together.

24:08

You actually have to land by rejecting certain things like they don't care where you land.

24:14

If you land in secular humanism or the new age, that's fine with them as long as you get rid of toxic, quote unquote, toxic theology.

24:22

And that's really the nature of the thing. And so my relationship with that word has morphed and changed over the years because I really thought

24:29

I had deconstructed because I was understanding it differently. But that's why I I just ended up agreeing with the deconstructionists.

24:37

I actually didn't deconstruct. I think I didn't. I for a long time thought I had. And then I realized, no,

24:43

I don't think I ever got to the point where I was not searching for truth, like an objective standard outside of myself.

24:50

I wanted to know what was real and true, whether I liked it or not. And I don't think that's what's happening in the deconstruction movement.

24:57

Tim, what about yourself? How did you come about learning about this deconstruction? You mentioned earlier that you had kind of written out sort of that deconstruction note that at least

25:07

I thought was somebody else. But then it was you. How did you come across in the first place yourself? Yeah, so I that's a good question.

25:16

I think it was more friends or acquaintances that I started hearing, talking about deconstruction.

25:22

And then, of course, you're seeing whether it was Marty Sampson from Hillsong or you had you had

25:29

Joshua Harris. We talked about him. I kissed dating. Goodbye. There was John Steingart from Hawk Nelson.

25:35

There was I mean, since then there's been Derek Webb, Cademan's Call, DC Talks, Kevin Max. I mean, there's some there's some notable people.

25:42

Any any Jesus freaks out there, you know, DC Talk fans will know those will know that name.

25:48

And and so it's there's something actually when you hear about someone's deconversion or deconstruction, which, by the way,

25:55

I think those are different terms and different different means behind those. But when you hear those stories, they're powerful.

26:02

I can tell you when Rhett McLaughlin went through his deconstruction and very handedly shared his story on his podcast

26:12

Ear Biscuits with his buddy, Link, I cannot tell you how many people messaged me either direct messages on Instagram or or through email or whatever, saying,

26:25

I now think I'm deconstructing like he is. This is me to my core.

26:32

And because I think there's something powerful about stories and and, of course,

26:37

Christians use stories all the time, especially you listen to Lee Strobel, you know, and his story from atheist to to Christian, you know, is his book,

26:46

The Case for Christ has sold millions of copies. And I've been at events where people come to Christ after hearing the evidence and his story kind of laid out.

26:56

Yeah. But they actually work the other way, too. Somebody shares their story like Rhett saying, hey,

27:01

I was there. I was a part of this ministry and that ministry. And I was all in and now

27:07

I am I'm out and here's my reasons why that's that's really powerful.

27:13

And so I think it was because I'm an apologist and part of my job is to travel around.

27:18

I just got home actually from, you know, eight days away speaking and teaching. And so I'm having conversations with lots of people and and I hear their questions and I their stories and lots of people sharing really heartbreaking stories about loved ones, friends, family, and even some personal stories of of deconstruction.

27:41

And some of them are looking for a lifeline. And so for for us to provide some kind of answer, the impetus, in fact, for writing this book for me, it wasn't necessarily personal like I had gone through a deconstruction.

27:56

And that's why I didn't really want to write the book to begin with. But I, as a teacher, want to see

28:03

Christians have a strengthened faith and I want to be there to kind of meet that need.

28:09

And I and my hope is that in through this book that it will serve the body of Christ, that we will, you know, a pastor will better understand what deconstruction is and what it isn't.

28:20

And and and we'll be able to address some of the comments that you just made.

28:26

Hey, there's a lot of things the church does poorly. And there are a lot of things that are genuinely hurtful and genuinely spiritually abusive.

28:35

We're not denying any of that. That stuff's got to change. OK, so this was kind of like a call for the church to wake up and truly understand and be able to respond to what's going on.

28:47

Mm hmm. Did you want to add anything to that, Elisa? No, I think that was really well put.

28:53

I think that one of the things that is often misunderstood when we criticize or critique the deconstruction movement is that we're somehow denying that spiritual abuse exists or that hypocrisy doesn't exist.

29:04

One of the things that I've been deeply concerned about is the trajectory of church history over the past 50 years or so with the megachurch model, seeker sensitive model.

29:12

I think we those kinds of environments and I'm not saying again, I want to be always be really clear. I'm not saying it's wrong to have a big church, not wrong to be sensitive to people who are seeking.

29:21

But those are two particular like business type of models that have resulted in a lot of people not really ever hearing the gospel, but yet church becoming more of like a corporate identity.

29:31

And these places are right for spiritual abuse. I think that's why we're seeing the social media platform where pastors are seeking fame.

29:38

I think that that can attract more narcissistic type of pastors. We're seeing a lot of these types of, you know,

29:44

I listened to every episode of the rise and fall of Mars Hill and it related with so much of it because I ended up having to leave a church that was very similar with that very authoritarian bully pulpit kind of leader.

29:58

And yet I was frustrated by part of it because, you know, they're making the progressive Christians the heroes. And then, of course, just acting like any kind of complementarian belief is abusive.

30:07

And I think that's those aren't that's not right. And that's not good. We have to maintain the integrity of the gospel.

30:13

And that's how we can deal with abuse. But we're certainly not denying that it exists or that it's out there. But the difficulty with that conversation is that you can have somebody who is literally been in a spiritually abusive situation that you would just be so compassionate toward.

30:30

But then you have a lot of people claiming to be abused simply because they were told that they were a sinner in need of a savior or that Jesus died on the cross for their sins or that hell is a real place or that you can't just fulfill your sexual whims or whatever it might be.

30:45

And then they feel harmed and abused by that. So there's it's a very tangly conversation.

30:52

Now, let me ask you this, too. And when it comes also like defining terms and because you find out a while back, you mentioned the book that you had had some interactions, you had done even some interviews with those who who would identify themselves as deconstructed, ex evangelical.

31:08

And I'm sure there's levels, obviously, of confidentiality. But what would just be some generally speaking, some examples of questions that were asked or that you would ask and how those questions were responded to?

31:20

And what was that process like for you before the interview afterwards? What did you all learn from that? Well, we yeah, we did a few interviews with deconstructionists, some would not meet with us, but some would.

31:32

And of course, like you said, confidentiality, we always said we would not sell anybody who they were or or anything like that.

31:39

But just generally speaking, one of the things that I think one of the most impactful ones was when we met with somebody,

31:46

I'm going to try to keep this really vague to not give away this person's identity. But the story was heartbreaking, the story that they grew up in this very fundamentalist, hyper legalistic kind of scenario.

31:59

And a lot of what this person encountered was very heartbreaking. Like Tim and I were just feeling so much compassion and empathy for this person.

32:07

And so not that that was unexpected. I know there's a lot of painful stories in the deconstruction hashtag, but it was just, you know, particularly powerful to just get to look into this person's eyes and hear the story from.

32:20

And they were so kind to share that story with us as painful as it was to have to recount it. So that was one that was really impactful for me.

32:28

Another one, a question that was asked that was not a surprise to me, but one of the deconstructionists that we met with asked us if, you know, don't you think you're just kind of caught in caught up in the hangover of the

32:42

Enlightenment, you know, almost suggesting that we're so, you know, we're so focused on objective truth.

32:47

Is that is that wrong of us to be so focused on that? Is that is that just like an old way of thinking?

32:53

And I remember thinking I wasn't at all surprised by that question, but it was actually very confirming to me that we were on the right track as with our postmodern connection.

33:02

Yeah. Yeah. No, I appreciate that. Go ahead. Can I say something about that, too?

33:09

Well, just to just to say something in response, it's not an Enlightenment thing. Aristotle famously said to say something is and it is or something isn't and it isn't, then it's true.

33:20

And to say something is and it isn't. Well, that's false. So this I mean, this goes back to Eris.

33:25

This isn't like objective truth or the idea, the theory that that truth is what corresponds with reality.

33:32

Of course, it's not something that's like new or an Enlightenment thing. OK, but I do want to say that one of the deconstructionists we talked to because we were talking about this like a movement and they had an insight and it made it into the book.

33:46

And the idea was that it's they referred to the deconstruction movement as a deconstruction explosion.

33:55

And I thought, you know what, that is such a great insight that deconstruction, although like an explosion, kind of goes outward in every direction.

34:06

And that's kind of like deconstruction. People end up in all different places. But like an explosion, it all starts from a singular position.

34:17

And what we found was these people are all leaving to different places through what we think is a common process.

34:25

And where they start is typically called evangelicalism. And that's why they will identify their posts online with the hashtag exvangelical.

34:37

OK, I'm no longer an evangelical. And so it was actually insight.

34:43

I thought it was a great little analogy or illustration, but it also got us thinking about what it means to be an evangelical and starting digging into some of the research on on how like what do evangelicals, especially in the

34:59

US, actually believe? And and what we found was, I mean, so fascinating, like the

35:05

Ligonier study from a couple of years ago, I think it was twenty twenty two, found that like 40 percent of those

35:12

US like Americans who identify as evangelical believe that Jesus is just a good moral teacher and not

35:21

God. And I mean, I almost when I read that, I almost fell out of my chair. Like so you have people who identify as evangelical, but they aren't

35:31

Christian. Right. Like if you don't believe Jesus, if you don't deny the deity of Christ, this is like outside the pale.

35:39

OK, this is like you're now into heresy. So I just it just became like really fascinating to me that you're leaving evangelicalism.

35:53

And yet this thing called evangelicalism seems to be a mess. And of course, we know that through the stories of abuse and some of these other things.

36:01

But even what's being taught theologically seems to be all all over the place.

36:08

So and of course, that got us thinking, well, if you were raised in a church where evangelicalism is just taught, well,

36:15

Jesus is a good moral teacher and that there are many roads to God and there's and go down the list, that there is no objective truth, just subjective truth when it comes to religion and so on.

36:27

Then I wonder whether or not you were taught the true gospel. I want

36:32

I'm now I'm wondering about all these other things. And so you're say you're leaving Christianity.

36:38

Well, maybe you maybe you're leaving something, no doubt. And we'll call it evangelicalism.

36:43

But it's not genuine, like historical Christianity that Paul would have recognized or or the apostles would have recognized or Jesus would have recognized.

36:54

Have both of you read Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan? Oh, yes, of course. So at the very beginning, have you read it,

37:01

Tim? I have. I mean, I don't know if it counts, but I listen to it. OK, I'm a throw.

37:08

I'm a I'm just going to tell you a segment. I grew up as a kid. This is I just love the book. I read an abridged version as a kid called

37:15

Dangerous Journey, which is this abbreviated version of Pilgrim's Progress. I had the coolest, gnarliest illustrations.

37:21

I love it. But the very beginning of Pilgrim's Progress, after Christian meets evangelist, he's outside the city of destruction and he tells them about the celestial city and Christian comes and goes running and they send two people after Christian, obstinate and pliable.

37:36

John Bunyan had the best names, by the way. I love his names, obstinate and pliable. And of course, obstinate does not really listen to Christian.

37:46

And he's like, no, I'm not. I'm done with this rubbish. And him being the obstinate person that he is, goes back to the city of destruction.

37:53

Mr. Pliable, living up to his name, goes along with Christian until they run into the slew of despond, which a slew would be like a murky, muddy kind of like swamp, like a

38:05

Florida Everglades swamp, like muddy that you're stuck in that's just gross and everything like that.

38:10

And they fall into the slew of despond, they get out. And beforehand,

38:16

Pliable is very excited about the celestial city and he's asking

38:22

Christian, tell me about the celestial city. And he's saying, I'm reading all these things because in Pilgrim's Progress, Christian has this giant burden on his back and he's reading this book and he's saying, they're going to wipe every tear from my giving and it's going to be wonderful and it's going to be devoid of suffering and all this.

38:38

And then this happens. They fall into this slew and right away, Pliable says, is this the happiness that you promised me?

38:45

If it's this bad right now, what else should we expect? And in the version of Dangerous Journey, it says he ran home for a hot bath and Christian's all by himself.

38:55

Just me kind of giving you the very abridged version of that story, would that relate to you both as far as what you've seen in this whole discussion?

39:05

Well, that's interesting that you'd bring that that, by the way, that book just captivated my imagination as a kid.

39:11

I just and then I just watched the little animated version they put out a few years ago with my kids. But, you know, that's interesting that you would bring that up because that is sort of and it reminds me also of the

39:21

Egyptians, you know, like, well, at least we should just go back to Egypt. You brought us out here to die, you know?

39:26

And so I do think that there's there are some similarities there as far as like being kind of pliable, like kind of liking the idea of it going along, but then ultimately getting stuck when they're suffering.

39:37

Like that's one thing we see quite a bit in the deconstruction movement is that it's really there's just not a lot of theology of suffering that people grew up with to understand the benefit of suffering and that God might be involved in that and that bring out bring that out for your good.

39:54

You know, there seems to be a lot of people deconstructing because prayers weren't answered and because they went through a really difficult time.

40:01

In fact, it's I pulled a quote from a deconstruction page for my second book that basically said suffering is evil.

40:08

Suffering is never from God. There could never be suffering in the will of God for for someone's life. And so if that's your theology and then you suffer or the strongest

40:15

Christian, you know, suffer, you don't have a paradigm to to be able to explain that. But I did want to say one other thing,

40:23

Jeremiah, when you asked about interactions, we had one kind of notable interaction that I had with a deconstructionist, not to change the subject, but I just don't want to forget this.

40:33

I was really struggling to understand how he would define deconstruction. And because I had had deconstructionists tell me

40:40

I don't understand deconstruction, I didn't really deconstruct. You know, people are very brave when they're just in comment sections.

40:46

But when you're just looking at somebody eyeball to eyeball, I shared my, you know, thumbnail sketch of my story and I said, did

40:53

I deconstruct? And this person basically kind of punted, wouldn't really answer, but just said, well, in deconstruction, you know, we just kind of think everybody should define it kind of self.

41:05

It's a self definition. And I thought that was interesting because that was also a very postmodern response to just say words don't really have objective meaning.

41:13

Everybody kind of just can can self style the thing according to what they think happened to them. And I just didn't think that was very helpful because I honestly wanted to know, like, is that what happened to me?

41:23

And he just kind of couldn't answer. And by the way, Lisa, when I know who you're talking about and that person has a pretty large channel on social media and post memes and stuff.

41:35

And one of the memes they've shared, in fact, a couple of them are along the lines of if an event like an evangelical pastor gets up and says,

41:44

I, too, have deconstructed. He says something like, I'll eat my hat if the next words out of his mouth are you just have to do it biblically, like you have to use your

41:53

Bible to do it. And it's a meme kind of ridiculing like evangelical pastor who tells you

41:59

I've deconstructed, but used his Bible. He didn't really deconstruct. He hasn't really, truly deconstructed.

42:06

So it's, you know, mocking those who you. But so, you know, in our conversation, he's like, well, everyone gets to define it.

42:15

Well, that evangelical pastor doesn't get to define it. That's not I mean, you literally mocked him for how he used the term.

42:22

So and by the way, we agree with that deconstructionist that the evangelical pastor who says just do it biblically, use your

42:30

Bible. We would agree that's not deconstruction. So we're actually right there with the deconstructionist in agreement that deconstruction is something different than that.

42:41

And that's why that's precisely why Alisa doesn't use the term deconstruction to describe the process she went through.

42:47

So we actually thought we were moving towards the deconstructionist and that they would see, hey, these guys get it.

42:54

Well, you know, we've been kind of criticized for that. And and there's kind of I'm still left scratching my head a little bit about that.

43:03

When it comes to determining, as you mentioned earlier, theology that causes harm or toxic theology, those go hand in hand.

43:12

From your perspective and just interacting with deconstructionists, how how does one go about determining what is truly, indeed, harmful and toxic when, in fact, it is a moving target?

43:26

And they continue in the very term progressive means you're you're in a continual rate of motion, a state of motion going from point

43:35

A to point B. It's a continued journey. And there is not really an absolute standard of truth.

43:42

How does one go about? Is there a way to that they all determine? Is it a collective thing or that there's a truth really begin with the deconstructionist?

43:50

How do they truly determine that? Because I listened to a conversation between I can't remember is a popular popular couple that are

43:59

YouTubers and they had somebody from the New Evangelicals on and he was he was saying in such a way where it sounded like an absolute statement, like if it causes harm.

44:10

And I'm thinking, well, by what standard? I mean, do you have any insight on that? Either one. Yeah, I'll go first, and then

44:16

Lisa, you can jump in. I think that if you're a moral relativist, if you do not if you do not have an objective standard for right and wrong, good and evil, then you have a serious problem with trying to ground a claim like that.

44:30

I mean, what you could say is, I think it's harmful or I think it's wrong.

44:36

And fair enough, but you can't blame the person across from you who says, well,

44:41

I don't think it is because everyone's left, you know, to determine what's right in their own eyes.

44:48

OK, so that would be, I think, part that's part of the problem. I think there really is an objective morality out there.

44:57

And that is precisely how we ground what is truly wrong and or have the ability to say that there are things that are truly wrong and there are things that are truly right, good and evil.

45:09

So that's that's kind of one layer. Now, how do you know that's another question? So the grounding question is the ontological question.

45:16

Philosophically, does such a thing even exist? OK, now we can move to the next question, and that is, well, how do we know that's the epistemological question?

45:27

And I think because we have something like the scriptures, that is a revelation from God that we're able to gain truths about things that we otherwise wouldn't know about.

45:42

OK, and this is part of the problem. When you toss the scriptures out, well,

45:47

I guess you're just left with, you know, your own inner voice. Now, I think that God has given us a conscience and that does reveal truths.

45:57

But there are certain things that we know because of special revelation, not just general revelation.

46:04

And so you've got to get down to the truth of the matter. And this is why, you know, we could talk about is hell is telling people that they will go to hell.

46:15

They will die in their sins and face judgment. Is that something that's harmful?

46:22

Is that abusive? Well, I guess if there's no truth of the matter and I'm just like hurting people's feelings or trying to cause them anxiety and stress or whatever, yeah, that could.

46:37

But if there is a real place and there is sin in the world, if that's like a real thing, then telling people that truth and that there is a solution, a cure to it, well, this is the best news.

46:55

I mean, there's a reason it's called the gospel, the good news. So I think that that changes everything, whether or not there is an objective truth that can be known or if there isn't, depending on who's right about that.

47:10

Well, that's going to change what really is toxic and what isn't. And so I think that's probably the starting point.

47:17

I don't know if Elisa wants to add to that. Yeah, well, you know, you mentioned the New Evangelicals. Tim from New Evangelicals is one of the people we met with, and we can say that because he publicly said that he met with us.

47:28

So that's not a secret. And he's a nice guy. I mean, we talked with him for a while and he was really helpful.

47:34

He seems like somebody if he met with me, I'd love to talk with him too. He's really nice in person. Tim, if you're watching, not so nice when you talk about us online, just saying.

47:43

But the thing I would point out about that is I think what you've noticed there, Jeremiah, is it's not very consistent.

47:49

People would say, you know, they wouldn't say they're rejecting certain things or that, you know, they're just they're just using words like harmful and toxic and all of this.

47:59

But it's not the most consistent thing. So they will make a lot of objective statements. Like I was just thinking of the

48:04

New Evangelicals page where he's making these kind of little video memes where it's like when you deconstruct and realize and I'm just going to paraphrase because I can't remember the wording exactly.

48:14

But like when you deconstruct and realize that there is no place waiting for you called hell and you don't have to believe you're a sinner and he's drinking his coffee and it's like his life is so peaceful and happy.

48:22

It's like, well, you know, you can you can say that you can say there is no hell.

48:27

You can say that you're not a sinner and you might actually feel better and feel like less harmed right now.

48:33

But if you really are a sinner and if hell really does exist, then you might just be feeling not harmed.

48:39

But you're going to be way more harmed later if you find out that those things are true. And so I think to make ourselves the authority on what's harmful or toxic or oppressive is a terrible idea because I even think about my son when he had a cavity and he had to go have his cavity drilled at the dentist's office.

48:56

Now, my son was younger. It was hard to explain to him what was going to be happening. He's got sensory issues.

49:02

So the sound of the drill, it was all very scary for him. And I remember him looking up at me just pleading with me with his eyes, just as if he could if he had the eloquence to speak, he would say, this is harmful.

49:14

This is oppressive to me. This is hurting me, mom. Stop this. Please stop this. And yet, because I'm his mom and I have more information and even more than me, the dentist has more information.

49:26

And we know that even though there's some temporary discomfort, he may not feel helped by this. He may not feel like this is healthy.

49:32

It actually is healthy because in the long run to fix the cavity is going to give him greater health.

49:40

You know, it's going to keep that cavity from burrowing into the bone and causing more health problems down the road, which would cause him even more pain down the road.

49:47

So sometimes what you feel harmed by is actually something that is helping you. I think we all know this.

49:53

We've all experienced this. We experienced this with our kids. You know, my kids never think they're being helped by me making them do chores and be disciplined with certain things and lay off the screens.

50:03

They feel very harmed by my screen time rules, you know, and they feel very abused by those things at times,

50:09

I'm sure. But because we have, I, as the parent have more information, I know what's better for them.

50:14

So I think, you know, as a Christian, we know that the Bible is God's self -revelation and what he what is revealed about him is true.

50:21

And although we it might go against our sensibilities, it might rub up against what

50:27

I would do. I'm not God. I am hopelessly fallen. And I am I fall amazingly short of God's perfect moral standard.

50:35

And he is so much wiser and more intelligent than I am. So I just wouldn't assume that because something makes me uncomfortable or because I wouldn't necessarily do that, that it's harmful.

50:45

And I think that's probably where this is coming from in the deconstruction movement, that it is really a self -led process.

50:52

It's like, I feel harmed by this. This doesn't feel good. This doesn't feel right. So it's toxic. It must be rejected.

50:59

Another thing I do want to add, it's just interesting, too, as we are recording this, we are in a very interesting political climate right now.

51:07

Tim, you're viewing it from afar up in Canada. You're a bit a little bit on the outside looking in. But I'm bringing this up because we just had the

51:15

Republican National Convention. We had, you know, and all that until that, you know, Hulk Hogan, you know, tearing down like his shirt, the shirt, the

51:24

Trump shirt. And then the week before, you had the attempted assassination. And now no one really knows who's going to be the president.

51:30

It's a weird election season. But what I found very interesting was the part in your book, how you sort of connected the

51:38

Trump movement of just an evangelicals and their relationship to Trump, even back in 2016, in relation to the deconstruction movement.

51:47

Could you elaborate on that? Because I found that part so fascinating. Well, I'll start and then

51:52

Tim can add to it. This is yeah, I would say I don't know if I have heard a deconstruction story that Trump didn't play a role in.

52:02

It's just it's it's you cannot exaggerate the just that the figure that Trump is in our culture.

52:10

I mean, it's like he has just how is it? I think I can't remember who said this, but it's like he just broke everybody's brains.

52:15

Trump just broke everybody's brains. And so I think it's a bit like the abuse conversation where some people are using that as an excuse.

52:23

Some people, I think, were genuinely rattled when maybe they saw the more cultish elements of Trumpism take over the church.

52:31

I know that I, you know, from afar, I have, you know, mixed feelings about Trump.

52:37

I, you know, I, I really don't like the behavior that I've seen him like on Twitter.

52:43

When I was on Twitter, the way he would talk to and about people was so undignified and so ungodly.

52:49

And I just hated that. But at the same time, he brought in policies that ended up or, you know, putting in judges that ended up overturning

52:56

Roe v. Wade. So there's like this kind of like mixed feeling that I have about him. And so, but, but it was like there was no nuance allowed.

53:04

So it seemed like in the deconstruction hashtag, if people had parents who voted for Trump or were more conservative politically, then it was all lumped together.

53:14

And that's when we had this phrase like, you know, white Christian nationalism became the big phrase that if you have a conservative opinion, or maybe you held your nose and voted for Trump, or maybe you really liked

53:22

Trump's policies and you heartily voted for him, you weren't allowed to have that opinion. So that's one side of the coin.

53:28

But the other side of the coin is that I think there were some legitimate critiques where we see kind of this cultish, you know, element that that has been in some churches, certainly in some of the bigger churches.

53:40

And so I think that, but again, rather than saying, hey, look, this is not biblical to maybe if, if, if there was a

53:47

Christian who was promoting Trump over Christ or treating Trump, you know, like he was the savior figure or some sort of a, you know, a godly example of a godly man.

53:56

He certainly wasn't. As far as I know, he has not repented and trusted in Christ for his salvation. I sure hope he's on the way.

54:03

I was, I appreciated that he gave glory to the God almighty for, you know, sparing his life.

54:09

I think that was something that I'm hopeful that maybe he'll be turning toward Christ. And I think that would be great. But it's sort of this, this thing where everybody's lumped in together.

54:19

And that's what frustrates me as a, as a Christian, because there is a strong political component to deconstruction and in particularly in progressive

54:29

Christianity. So progressive Christians, you know, sociological research has borne this out that they kind of start with their politics and then their theology flows downstream from that.

54:39

So what we see in the deconstruction movement is that it's really motivated by much more of a leftist sort of political ideology.

54:47

And then how do we determine what beliefs are harmful or helpful? Well, it's going to start with the sort of political presuppositions that are there.

54:55

But certainly, I mean, there, there were some legitimate critiques that even I was, you know, puzzled by some of the leaders and the things that I saw them saying.

55:04

But for me, it's like I never, I never took that over the line to say, well, that therefore

55:09

Christianity is not true or Jesus isn't the savior or something like that. So it's been a bit puzzling to me that people would entirely walk away from the faith over that.

55:18

But I don't know, Tim, if you have something to add to that. Well, that is puzzling to me.

55:23

But just watching U .S. politics is puzzling to me.

55:29

OK, so just getting, you know, turning on CNN or whatever and watching some of the recent convention that was going on, it to me,

55:39

I mean, it's so foreign as a Canadian, like rallies, the, you know, kind of two year build up to an election, whereas, you know, there could be a non -confidence vote tomorrow and we're going to the poll in like six weeks or something.

55:53

OK, like it just happens. Voting here happens pretty quickly. So there isn't a lot of time for these rallies, people dressing in costumes.

56:00

I mean, it really almost is like a circus. And so watching it is it's a little bit strange.

56:06

But then you have this idea where you have your politics and your religion and they are like so tightly interwoven together.

56:17

And again, just kind of watching, you know, just a meme came up the other day and I don't know who made it, but it's like a picture of Jesus.

56:26

I think it's Jesus. And he's got a bandage on his ear with an American flag, an

56:31

American flag behind him. Like just that kind of thing just makes me cringe.

56:37

It is so it is so cringe. Did you know that that was actually not real?

56:43

That was actually created by somebody trying to stir up dissension among Christians. That wasn't made by a

56:49

Christian. OK, well, I knew it wasn't Jesus. I knew that that that part was true. But yeah, OK, well, that just even that, though, like,

56:57

I mean, even at the convention, there is almost cultish behavior where everybody's got a bandage on their ear.

57:03

Like I'm I am Trump. I am with this leader. I know the leader is good. The leader is great.

57:08

But surrender our will as of this day. That's like a line from The Simpsons from way back in the day. It's like the cult leader kind of mentality.

57:16

Now, I'm not saying everybody's in a cult who votes for Trump, but I'm just saying there is some weird there's some weird stuff.

57:22

And I can see how if you were deconstructing your religion, your

57:28

Christianity, that it would make sense to like, man, I'm get it. And I think that all of this is part of it, like to be a

57:35

Christian means that I am a Republican, you know, with who holds

57:43

X, Y, Z, all those views. So now I'm I'm walking. I'm deconstructed out of all that stuff, too.

57:50

I mean, it is interesting sociologically. I don't know how many people who deconstruct but end up still voting

57:57

Republican. You know what I'm saying? Like they deconstruct out of Christianity and still end up being pro -life, you know, when it comes to the unborn.

58:06

That's interesting because I've never I don't think I've heard of anybody doing that. Or still pro -traditional marriage.

58:13

Or I mean, you could go down the list of looking at like the policies that, you know, someone in, say, the

58:19

Conservative Party would want to put in place. Well, all of those views seem to be deconstructed, too.

58:26

And you change your mind on those. So there's a whole there. I think it's a real like nest that's all like woven together.

58:36

A hornet's nest that is is a bit of a mess. And that's why

58:42

I think it's really important. Again, this is the Canadian speaking. But we need to I think it's important that we vote.

58:48

I mean, I'm going to vote when there's an election. I think it's it's, you know, our moral obligation to like try to make good policy as best we can, given what we have.

59:02

I'm going to do that. But at the same time, I want to keep my I'm going to try to keep my politics and my theology.

59:09

Those are separate things. So, you know, we're not going to wave a Trump flag in my church.

59:15

You know, that seems like the wrong thing to do. Or I personally don't even like it when my pastor gets up.

59:22

I talk about the issues, you know, but if you get up and start endorsing a particular, you know, political figure, that makes me really uncomfortable.

59:33

OK, your job is to exposit the word, preach the word. OK. And of course, talking about morality and sin and all those other things.

59:40

We're going to end up touching on issues that that politics is involved in, because that's all about making good, you know, encouraging the good and obviously punishing evil.

59:54

And so that's like the purview of the of the government. And so, yes, of course, be involved in that.

01:00:00

But I just think there's too much of them being married together. And that's created the mess that we're in.

01:00:06

And I don't think honestly, at least I wonder what your view is on this. But do we have the deconstruction movement like we're seeing it today without 2016, you know, and Trump?

01:00:19

Oh, yeah. And all of that. So I think this this whole this whole political and whether it was Trump or someone else, you know,

01:00:26

I think that it was eventually going to happen where you end up bringing your your politics and your religion so closely together.

01:00:34

Now, ironically, ironically, I think when you start doing some digging into progressive

01:00:42

Christianity and and the deconstruction movement, you find that a lot of those beliefs are right in line with the policies of the

01:00:53

Democratic Party and kind of leftist ideas. And so it's not like they're done with politics altogether.

01:01:02

You know, people who deconstruct. But now they're now they're just oriented towards a different political party.

01:01:10

OK, well, right. It's very common to say that, like, conservatives are so political. We're more that, you know, that's the charge, like conservatives are more political.

01:01:19

But that's really not the case in progressive churches. They bring politicians in all the time. It's in fact,

01:01:24

I think it was Neil Shenvey. I could I could be wrong about who this was that identified that really like some of the progressive churches, according to the progressive definition of Christian nationalism, are more

01:01:33

Christian nationalism than the conservatives that they're accusing of. Oh, it's just such a mess. I know.

01:01:39

It's like I just wish we could we could all just get to the gospel, focus on the gospel, which is going to get into people's business on in political realms, because as we know, things that weren't political 50 years ago are political now because they've become political and we can't just shut up about them just because people say, oh, no, that's political.

01:01:57

So it's it's a hornet's nest, really. It's I think it's a bit of a hornet's nest. Yeah. I mean, one thing that I'll just mention, too, is that I do think there is somewhat of an inescapability from the lordship of Christ, the gospel and Christian politics, like one example, like in the book of Acts in Acts 4, 12, which is one of the common verses that are used in evangelism is there's no other name under heaven by which men must be saved.

01:02:22

Well, what they're actually doing in that context is that they're referring to a coin that actually had

01:02:28

Caesar that said there's no other name under heaven by which men must be saved. Like the there's actually like referencing a coin that was deifying

01:02:35

Caesar and saying that Caesar is Lord. In fact, Francis Schaeffer made a huge emphasis on one of the main problems that Christians had in the first century was them saying that Christ is

01:02:45

Lord. We're not going to give a pinch on the incense to Caesar. And so it just it's interesting where I do think it's inescapable.

01:02:51

And a lot of times, you know, there is the very emotionally charged conversation of Christian nationalism. And I feel like even that sometimes is a pejorative because it seems to be that term is defined by whoever is defining the term.

01:03:02

They try and fit someone into that category. I do think it is very interesting that, I mean, there's even a couple of progressive

01:03:09

Christianity meme pages I follow just to kind of get a better understanding of where they stand. There is really a lot of like progressive

01:03:17

Christian nationalism on their side. So it almost seems to be like there's there's a little bit of projection, you know, when somebody who's conservative tries and say, hey, you can't do this, this and this.

01:03:28

But that's bad. That's the evil Christian nationalism. But when we're doing it, this is right.

01:03:33

This is justice. Like, is there I don't know, is that like a lack of self -awareness or not?

01:03:38

I don't know. What do you guys think about that? Yeah, I agree with you, Jeremiah. I think that that there's a lot of I think maybe the word hypocrisy, right, where it's

01:03:48

I can do this, but you can't because we think your policies are evil. And and so I think that there is it's like the whole

01:03:57

Trump thing is so it's so hard to parse because, like I said, there are legitimate critiques of the more maybe elevating

01:04:05

Trump beyond what a politician should be, you know, to a place that's beyond where a politician should be elevated and equating him with like being a prophet or something like that.

01:04:14

But I just personally in my own sphere of people, I don't know anybody doing that.

01:04:20

The conversations that I've seen and observed are people for the most part. I mean, there's always going to be the radicals on the fringe of everything.

01:04:27

But for the most part, I've seen Christians try to be really thoughtful in how they're voting and they may decide to vote for Trump.

01:04:33

They might really, you know, be appreciative of the platform because of I mean, when I I'll just share personally, you know, when

01:04:39

I think about approaching this election, I feel the pressure from the progressives and from, you know, culture to disassociate from anything that Republican because that's what they really are trying to get everybody to do is to view like any kind of conservative politics as evil and as anti Christian.

01:04:56

Or, you know, we don't care about the widow and the orphan and all of that. But when I think about going to the polls now, the

01:05:02

Republican Party has changed their stance on abortion. I'm hugely disappointed. I'm happy to see a lot of really strong Christians who have always been kind of very openly conservative, openly

01:05:13

Republican, criticize the Republican Party. And even live action was outside the

01:05:18

RNC protesting, saying you have you have you are leaving the unborn behind because they've changed their policy on abortion and they seem to have changed their policy on same sex marriage.

01:05:28

And so I think this is a pivotal moment for Christians to hold the Republican Party accountable for those things.

01:05:33

But when I go to the polls, I'm thinking, OK, what's going to save the most amount of lives? And for me, it's like a soft policy on something versus complete the other side that's wanting to completely trans kids and transition them and amputate healthy tissue and do all the gender affirming care, you know, open borders, which is bringing so many so much fentanyl and other things across the border.

01:05:57

And then you have pro abortion and up till, you know, birth. And we're talking like evil, evil, evil.

01:06:03

Both have kind of evil policies right now. But one is going to kill a lot more people. And so but if you hold that position, well, somebody is going to pull out this video and call me a

01:06:12

Christian nationalist because I'm saying these things. But I do. It's like at this point, I think people are just at the point like you can call me whatever you want to call me.

01:06:20

I have to do my best to be faithful to what is going to bring about the most justice. And so a lot of Christians are thinking that still is going to be this one thing, whereas the other side is saying, you know, you're just you're evil and wicked and a nationalist if you hold any of these views.

01:06:35

And I just I don't think it's fair. OK, Tim, did you have any did you have any other thoughts on that as someone who's on the outside looking in?

01:06:44

No, I mean, I think I think those are wise words from Elisa. There's no ideal situation ever,

01:06:52

I think, in politics when you're voting for someone. Certainly they are, you know, much less than ideal right now for the

01:07:00

US. Yeah, I think even Biden, did he just step down? Is that that's a thing?

01:07:06

Yeah, he did. So it's I mean, it's just it's wild what's going on. And so, again,

01:07:12

I'm just trying to keep up. We have our own issues over here, too. But it'd be fascinating to see the number of Canadians who deconstruct and how many see politics as ranking in or playing a role in why they deconstruct it.

01:07:31

And I don't know if you'd I mean, maybe it would be US politics, but certainly I don't think Canadian politics and we have our own stuff going on.

01:07:40

So it's it's I think that would be a fascinating question or topic of research to look into.

01:07:48

Yeah, it's a shame. It really is a shame that this is such a this this thing has played such a role.

01:07:55

I mean, the church has its own problems, you know, internally. And then you have this other kind of massive thing going on in politics and where the church is kind of wed itself to parties and so on that just create even more problems.

01:08:12

And so interesting. I have to just say one thing just to compliment of you up in Canada is that the one thing

01:08:19

I am very entertained by every now and then, I think I follow one or two accounts on Instagram. I think it's the one guy who's running for prime minister against Trudeau, whatever his name is.

01:08:28

But they show highlights of him like inside Parliament, like the interactions in the Canadian Parliament where they're like hitting the table and doing like the here, here.

01:08:34

Yeah, it's super. It's super entertaining. It's super entertaining. I love watching that. Yeah, watching

01:08:40

Parliament. I mean, that way, I guess that would be the one example of that looks,

01:08:46

I guess, from an outside looking in is kind of like a debate that's constantly going on Monday through Friday, you know, where they're getting together and, you know, addressing

01:08:56

Mr. Speakers. You're not really addressing the other side, but you're talking about the other side. And Pierre Poliev, who is the leader of the

01:09:02

Conservative Party and, you know, opposition leader. And then, and then, of course,

01:09:07

Justin Trudeau, our prime minister, kind of going back and forth and, you know, jabbing each other again.

01:09:12

It's super unproductive. They just are in there kind of getting their 15 seconds of fame.

01:09:19

If there's something that can be clipped out and shared online, it doesn't really accomplish much, unfortunately.

01:09:25

But it is kind of it has that circus mentality for sure. No, that's good.

01:09:31

And also in relation, I'll just add this up, bounce on to the next thing. And this would be related is that in this whole discussion, even we're talking about Trumpism, its relationship to deconstruction and, and that relationship.

01:09:41

And then the segment, if you haven't checked out the book, The Deconstruction of Christianity, definitely check it out. And that segment is great.

01:09:47

They go into a lot more detail on that. But one thing I thought of was even progressives will kind of look at modern conservatism and modern the modern

01:09:55

Trump movement, and they'll give it this title, not just Christian nationalism, but white Christian nationalism.

01:10:02

And there is a lot of times in the kind of the progressive deconstruction movement talking about sort of distancing themself from this, really this talking about whiteness in a very pejorative way.

01:10:15

But it's something that's deeper than just the melatonin of my skin. Or, you know, you'd think about that.

01:10:22

But also this relationship of whiteness and colonialism, specifically when it comes to this.

01:10:29

Actually, Lisa, would you be able to kind of talk about that, that relation? Because that does come up a lot in this discussion in relation to Trumpism.

01:10:38

Talk about that, the relationship between colonialism, deconstruction, progressive Christianity. How does that all kind of like work and jive and flow together?

01:10:46

Yeah, well, I think that it's important to note that the deconstruction movement seems to be very motivated out of a critical theory, critical social justice, oppressed versus oppressed.

01:10:58

I mean, oppressed versus oppressor, you know, victim versus victimizer mentality.

01:11:05

And that's flowing out of the critical theories, of course, where you have intersections of different types of oppressions.

01:11:11

And then the more intersections that you have gives you a higher moral authority to speak on certain justice issues.

01:11:16

And even I would say what I see is is even theological issues. And so it's common in the deconstruction hashtag.

01:11:23

In fact, one very prominent deconstructionist said, and I'm going to paraphrase because I don't have it right in front of me, but she said, you haven't deconstructed until you've decolonized your theology.

01:11:37

And so a lot of people are left scratching their heads like, what is that about? What is that talking about? And why is why is it?

01:11:43

Why is it that a black person could espouse conservative politics and conservative theology and then be told that they're a part of whiteness or white supremacy?

01:11:55

In fact, you could have several black voices, even an entire black church that might believe the historic

01:12:01

Christian gospel, that might be pro -life, that might believe marriage is between a man and a woman, that your sex is grounded in your biology.

01:12:10

And because they believe those things, they're going to be lumped in with whiteness and colonization. And they'll say they've just been colonized.

01:12:17

And so that's a very common sentiment that when it comes to certain doctrines like, well, really,

01:12:24

I think, and this is just my observation, I don't have data for this. It's just in my research and my observation, any sort of objective truth claim you're going to make that would put humanity all in the same boat is colonization.

01:12:38

So if you say everyone's sinner, like, you know, even original sin affects everyone. Everyone has original sin and has to repent and trust in Christ.

01:12:46

And substitutionary atonement, the doctrine of hell, final judgment, and the ethics of, you know, the sexuality, gender, and all of these things are lumped in with white theology, whiteness.

01:13:01

And so it's something I'm still struggling to understand because when

01:13:07

I go back and I read the early church fathers, none of whom were white, and they're saying the same things, it's hard for me to really understand why that's being called colonization.

01:13:18

But even if you talk about like missionary work over the years, they will say that was just like white people bringing their theology and their, you know, their culture to another place, which, you know, it's like if you're going to view the gospel as something that just colonizes people,

01:13:36

I mean, then we have a problem because the gospel is life. That's what actually is the cure for what is wrong.

01:13:43

Like, I remember reading about Elizabeth Elliott and her biography and how when they went into,

01:13:50

I believe it was called the Urani tribe, something like that. I think it was in Ecuador. It was in Ecuador.

01:13:56

Yeah, that's right. And they were commenting in this book about how it was so sexually promiscuous in this particular village and people would literally spear one another to settle their debates.

01:14:09

And so to bring the Christian message of the gospel in, like those of us who believe the gospel would say that was a really good thing to do.

01:14:16

That was a good thing to solve the problem of the sexual promiscuity and the murder, you know.

01:14:23

But for people who are buying into this oppressed versus oppressor narrative, that was really just white people bringing their culture and trying to change these people.

01:14:31

And who are we to say that we have a better message? And so this is something that sort of seeped into all of the deconstruction movement,

01:14:39

I would say. I don't know if you have something to add to that, Tim. Well, I think that the critical theory play and different theories play a role in the deconstruction movement.

01:14:51

In fact, there was a series of books, and Neil Shemby writes about this, that use what is called the evangelical deconstruction project.

01:15:01

And he actually kind of formulates, here's the steps they go through to deconstruct a certain view.

01:15:10

And so they first are going to identify some kind of problem in society. The step number two is they show the church has somehow been either endorsing this particular view or maybe passively allowing this injustice to take place.

01:15:24

And then finally, you just conclude that after hundreds of years of participation in white supremacy and patriarchy and nationalism, all that stuff, that somehow all that needs to be kind of fundamentally reimagined through deconstruction.

01:15:42

So there's kind of like the process is you just select some kind of problem in society.

01:15:49

And that problem, I mean, it could be something like slavery, or it could be something like or they could just, they could take on complementarianism and say, you know, complementarianism, that view that there are different roles within marriage or within the church, that is a problem.

01:16:11

And here's how the church allowed it to happen. And here's how it got there. And so they're using not theology to come to what does the

01:16:20

Bible actually teach on this, but rather, we're going to look at history and how it's been abused, this particular doctrine, and somehow use that to undermine the belief in the first place.

01:16:36

So I think that this critical theory, or the idea of oppressed versus oppressee, that is now become kind of the standard of how we're going to look at all this stuff, kind of the worldview, rather than starting with what we've been talking about, kind of since we started this discussion, starting with, well, what really is objectively true?

01:17:03

And work from there, and acknowledging along the way that there's plenty of examples of people being oppressed and the church using,

01:17:13

I mean, a few minutes ago, Elisa was talking about, hey, sometimes you have to discipline your kids.

01:17:20

And they may feel that's harmful. At the same time, there are parents out there who actually beat their kids, sadly.

01:17:29

And so at the same time, again, we want to be able to say that's harmful, but this may feel like harm, but it isn't.

01:17:38

And again, at the end of the day, I think we need to start with laying the grounds for what's actually true, and that there is such a thing, and then move from there.

01:17:49

Trevor Burrus No, no, that's really good. I appreciate it, Tim. Like I said, they're just interesting to see that aesthetic of commonality sometimes, birds of a feather.

01:17:56

One area, and I think this would be a really good landing point to talk about for a while, because a common thread amongst evangelicals and both ex -evangelicals to people who've deconstructed, and I found this out a lot too, as I was sort of, this is years ago when we did our episode on Youth with a

01:18:13

Mission. We're talking a lot of people who had just sort of maybe some bad experiences with it.

01:18:18

We had people who had good experiences and had bad experiences. But there are a lot of, I just saw a lot of the conversations amongst ex -evangelicals, which kind of led me to listen to a couple of different podcasts.

01:18:30

There seems to be this issue of not really knowing how to relate to suffering and spiritual abuse.

01:18:38

The New Evangelicals podcast, for example, they'll bring up issues, they'll bring up about, oh, well, this

01:18:45

Christian did this and this Christian did that. And I get that. I'm not somebody who's on the outside looking in. I've had my own fair share of hardships.

01:18:53

Years ago, I dealt with a situation, a very up -close, and I got a very up -close and personal view of a situation that was very similar and very part and parcel to what happened with Ravi Zacharias.

01:19:10

And seeing somebody who used their spiritual clout as a way to do very harmful things.

01:19:17

I'll just say, and very much in the like of Ravi Zacharias, as much as I'll say. I got shook.

01:19:24

It really rattled me. I went into a very, like, I struggled with depression for about six months, very heavily because of it.

01:19:33

And I had to clamber back out of it, you know, thankfully. But, you know, it's just, and I've had that. I've seen some of the weird cringe stuff that's happening.

01:19:42

I'm part of church culture. I'm a byproduct of purity culture. A lot of people that talk about the harm that happened because of Josh Harris's book,

01:19:50

I Kissed Standing Goodbye. I can identify with it. You know, I've been there.

01:19:55

But they say, like, this is the answer. Like, this is the answer is ex -evangelicalism, deconstruction.

01:20:01

And even in occultist too, you know, we have this thing, like, bad theology hurts people. And I take that very, very seriously.

01:20:08

Like, I believe that the Christian worldview can only, is the only thing that can give an accounting for what is wrong.

01:20:14

Like, most of the time when you actually look at the spiritual abuse that takes place, it's a violation of the biblical protocol.

01:20:20

For example, it gives precedent about don't be so quick to lay hands on a new convert, someone who's young.

01:20:27

Like, that's what happened to Josh Harris. You know, when he's 18 years old, you know, he was sort of given this huge platform.

01:20:34

So there's precedents for all that. Like, how do we handle and how do we deal with that?

01:20:39

Because it honestly, like, I, whenever I look at, there's legitimacy, a lot of legitimacy to what they bring up when it comes amongst, you know, ex -evangelicals, deconstructions bring up.

01:20:53

It just, I really, like, I feel like there's a lot of weightiness to it. And I've been there and I feel for them.

01:21:01

Like, how do we, how do we answer and address that? But both, but with compassion, with that, because I know what it's like.

01:21:07

I've been there. Yeah, well, I just think, go ahead, Tim. Yeah, you start.

01:21:13

Okay. Well, I was going to say that I think one of the good things about the deconstruction movement would be that they are calling out genuine abuse that's going on.

01:21:26

And I think at times, the church hasn't been doing a good job at calling to accountability our own leaders and letting them get away with things.

01:21:38

And I think that that is a shame. And it's, yeah, I was rocked too when

01:21:44

Ravi's, when all the stuff came out about Ravi. And that it was, it just, when you started to hear the details, like, there was so many things that were red flags, you know, and I can understand when we put people up on these pedestals and we start treating them as if they're more than just a mere human being.

01:22:06

And that causes all kinds of issues because we kind of blind ourselves, I think, when we do that to some of the stuff that's going on.

01:22:15

And, and that's, that's partly the concern, the megachurch model and some of these, you know, promoting leaders that are really good at communicating.

01:22:24

But maybe not so great theologically or have character issues, character flaws. And this is why, you know, you see these conditions in scripture for eldership.

01:22:33

And it's like, hey, this person should be above reproach. But the way some churches are structured, you would never know if they're above reproach or not, because you can't even access that particular spiritual leader.

01:22:46

There's no accountability. They do whatever they want. And when they're challenged, because it's run like a CEO, it's like, well, that person's got to go.

01:22:54

They're fired, you know, that kind of thing. They're kicked out of the church. So I think it's, it's a good thing.

01:23:01

I think it's a wake up call that we ought to be on the lookout for the spiritual abuse that can be the genuine spiritual abuse that's out there.

01:23:12

And I think, you know, how do, how do we respond? Well, I think with, with both truth and compassion, okay, the way

01:23:20

I think, again, you identify, we talked a lot about truth here. But you want to know what's actually truth. What does scripture actually teach on some of these things?

01:23:28

And that can help guide us in making some of the assessments that are necessary in, in these, in these particular situations.

01:23:36

And frankly, a lot of these churches, you know, Christian churches are not abiding by Christian principles when it comes to leadership.

01:23:45

And when it comes to church organization and this kind of thing. Okay, so that's part of it.

01:23:52

The other thing though, the compassion part is, yeah, I feel for those people. And I think that, you know, genuine counseling probably needs to take place.

01:24:00

I think the solution isn't necessarily, well, okay, you were hurt in this church. And then we're just going to push you into this other church over here.

01:24:07

Now that you have all these wounds, sometimes people just need to take a step back. Now, I, I, I honestly love the local church.

01:24:15

I think we ought to be a part of the local church. You know, Hebrews don't, don't neglect meeting together.

01:24:22

I think there's something about meeting together that is good for us. And sometimes it does, you know, we do get hurt.

01:24:28

Anytime you put sinners together, there's going to be people that get hurt. I've been hurt by pastors.

01:24:34

I've been hurt by the church. We had a pastor in a small country church growing up.

01:24:42

I went there through my teen years, from birth through my teen years, and he had cheated on his wife.

01:24:49

And that was a, that was a huge deal. I mean, I was rocked. How could a man of God who gets up every

01:24:54

Sunday and talking about, you know, things like sin and purity and, and faithfulness and all these things.

01:25:01

And yet he's cheating on his wife. Right. What is going on here? Like totally, totally rocked me.

01:25:08

And I had to, again, I kind of pushed away, I guess, for a time, church and the value and maybe even the role of a pastor.

01:25:18

But at the same time, I'm thinking, he wasn't Jesus. You know, he, he was just a man like everyone else.

01:25:26

And I had put him in a position where he didn't belong. And, and this, his sin was a big deal.

01:25:34

I'm not trying to belittle that. It was a big deal. But at the same time, I'm a sinner too. And so is everyone else in that congregation.

01:25:42

And so, you know, I came to a point where I had to kind of forgive him, even though he hadn't committed that sin necessarily against me,

01:25:50

I was feeling wounded. And I had to, I had to tell him that I, I, I forgive him for that.

01:25:59

So I think that there's, but that healing takes time. And so I think as a church, we need to,

01:26:07

I think we beat up our wounded. I think when our wounded are going through a season of doubts and questioning, sometimes we just want to say, well, you went out from us because you weren't one of us.

01:26:19

You know, that's kind of like the go -to, you know, response for some people.

01:26:24

I think that's not just, you know, bad theology. It's just, it's, it's harmful and it hurts people.

01:26:32

So we ought to approach those people with compassion and say, how can I, how can

01:26:38

I be part of your healing process? What might that look like as the body of Christ?

01:26:44

Being there, praying for one another, confessing to one another, you know, and, and this is where the,

01:26:50

I think the body of Christ can actually come to the aid of individuals who have, who have been hurt.

01:26:57

Okay. And I, even though I completely understand, they may not want to talk to someone in the body of Christ, but being there when, when, when they're ready to talk.

01:27:09

Yeah. And I just want to share this too, is that, you know, I think honestly the church has been one of the, like a healthy church has been one of the most best processes for me and my like reconstruction process.

01:27:22

I think one of the things too, is that I got very, I was going to a very, very large church at the time and there was just a great people, but there was just kind of a aesthetic around the area where there was just a lot of celebritization of the people on staff, where they were kind of looked at as too, as like,

01:27:38

Hey, they're the celebrity who's got it all together. And, you know, I, I was wary of just stuff that sometimes is going on behind the scenes.

01:27:46

And there were a couple of times where I felt a little bit shook by seeing that persona versus what people were viewing on the outside.

01:27:52

And so I just kind of had, I started kind of growing like a lot of bitterness in my heart towards those who are sort of, you know, being double -minded, you might call it.

01:28:01

But there was a while where I didn't go to church for, you know, two years. And I was like, misery loves company.

01:28:08

I was definitely part of that. And it just, I remember like when I started going back actually to apology at the time, like 10 years ago, we planted out a drug and alcohol recovery center.

01:28:19

Like that's like my pastor with the chaplain there. And he was preaching the gospel to people who are addicts, you know, people addicted to fentanyl, alcohol, drugs, you name it.

01:28:27

And people are coming to Christ and he, his church, him and pastor Luke at the time, they felt led to start apologia, which is now part of the studio ministry.

01:28:37

But like the very early stage of the church, I remember I went there the very first time and everyone's together, like brand new addicts who are just brand new in Christ and are just confessing and being real to each other about like the overdose they struggled with last week.

01:28:52

And I just remember I was like so uncomfortable with that because like I had come from a church where it was like, hey, you got your pressure to put on your best face because you want to be just like, you know, the celebrity pastor who have it all together.

01:29:05

And here everyone's just sort of being so upfront and transparent. And it was like, I got to sort of re -experience for the very first time, like James 5, 16, like confessing your sins to one another.

01:29:17

And I think honestly, in all transparency, like even with our show, we deal, this is sort of a conversation within the lens of evangelicalism, but a big part of our ministry is dealing with ex -cult members, people who are part of like definitive cults, like Jehovah's Witnesses, for example, they have a really hard time when they leave.

01:29:34

If they come to Christ, like getting plugged back into a church because there's so much sociological pressure to act like everything is fine and suppress all of your emotions.

01:29:44

So a lot of them that come out of the watchtower have all sorts of mental health issues. There's a count of, this is one of the untold stories that the majority of, there's an untold large number of those who are in the watchtower who've come out of it who are functioning alcoholics, because that's their only coping mechanism to kind of deal with all of that, really not even being allowed to have a human experience in the field of the way that you feel, lest you be shunned and you get thrown out from your community.

01:30:11

You go through that sort of spiritual trauma, now going, just the idea of just walking into a similar church setting, there's a lot to go there.

01:30:21

Yeah, Elisa, did you want to, is there anything you'd like to add in this conversation? We're talking about deconstructing and spiritual abuse.

01:30:27

What are your thoughts here? Yeah, just a couple of things come to mind. I remember when

01:30:34

I was researching for this book, I was talking with a man, this was actually in person at a conference, and he shared with me how he and his wife had been through three very brutal spiritual abuse scenarios right in a row.

01:30:47

And one of which was a very famous and popular one with Harvest Bible Chapel. And then right after that one, they were in another church that was very similar.

01:30:54

And so what he said was that his wife had completely deconstructed and she didn't want to go to church at all.

01:31:01

She didn't feel safe in church. And I think any Christian who has the Holy Spirit inside of them is going to feel compassion for that.

01:31:07

Like, man, that's a rough go of it. It would be very hard to trust the church and church leaders after not just one, but three just brutal experiences like that.

01:31:17

Which makes me think of even a little, not nearly that bad, but just a small snapshot into my stories, even after I had an apologetics ministry and a

01:31:26

YouTube channel and all these things. I think I had the YouTube channel at this point, but no, maybe not.

01:31:32

But I had a podcast and we had to leave a church for that same kind of Mars Hill type of bully, kind of authoritarian, where if you even raise a concern or ask a question, you are shunned.

01:31:44

You get the sermon preached against you. Even though they may not say your name, you and everybody who knows you, knows who they're talking about and that kind of thing.

01:31:53

That was really, really painful for us. And so I remember when we found where we still now attend and meeting with the pastor.

01:32:03

And I just asked him so many questions. I mean, here I am in public ministry, but I'm scared to ask this pastor questions.

01:32:10

And what I loved about, and maybe this is just some hope, because what I loved about the way our pastor dealt with us is he first of all affirmed that, there are other people in his church that have come out of that church and he understands to a certain degree what we've been through.

01:32:27

And then when I started grilling him theologically, he loved my questions.

01:32:32

And he was actually quite invigorated by being asked all of these questions. And I could tell he wishes that more people would come in and ask these questions.

01:32:41

And then he said to us, we just wanna be a safe place for you. So if you wanna just sit on the back row and hide out for a couple of years, we are totally cool with that.

01:32:51

Cause I'm used to my whole life being in music and all these things. The minute I go to a church, they immediately wanna put me on the worship team.

01:32:57

They wanna use me for this and that. And it was really one of the first times that a pastor was just like,

01:33:02

I don't wanna use you for anything. Just sit on the back row. Let us just minister to you.

01:33:08

And even if the Lord moves you on somewhere else after a couple of years, we will bless you and always wanna be a part of your life.

01:33:17

And so we still attend there and we're so grateful for the pastors. But even grilling them on the leadership structure of a church, there are qualifications, biblical qualifications.

01:33:28

A pastor is not supposed to be abusive or quick to anger. And I think those are maybe two of the most overlooked qualifications that churches just give pastors a pass who have a track record of losing their temper on their parishioners.

01:33:46

You can't do that if you wanna be a qualified biblical leader. And I'm not saying that people don't have moments of weakness and pastor might get really pushed.

01:33:54

But when there's a pattern of abusive behavior, I think we're living in a time where churches have a really hard time holding their leaders accountable to those things.

01:34:03

And we have to fix that. But here's the point. And I love that you deal with so many cults, but what you often see in cultish situations is people undermining the word of God because they can just remove that objective standard.

01:34:15

Then they can make the rules and they can manipulate you and they can twist the interpretations of certain things.

01:34:21

But it's when we hold to scripture, that's when you see people making their way out of cults, when they open the physical

01:34:27

Bible for themselves. I've talked to Mormons, I've talked to other people who were like, they always told me this is what the

01:34:32

Bible said, but when I opened it and I read it and I read this verse and I read this verse, and that was so different from what they were saying.

01:34:39

You see people coming out of cults. I have a friend who was an atheist and she simply read the

01:34:45

Bible and became a Christian without anybody, any person telling her this or that. She literally read the

01:34:50

Bible and responded to the gospel in what she read. And I think that what is so sad in the deconstruction movement and in progressive

01:35:00

Christianity is they're taking away the objective standard by which you'd even be able to identify abuse, which we'd be able to identify right from wrong and false teaching from true teaching, which is gonna make people vulnerable for cults.

01:35:16

And honestly, Jeremiah, I'm not just saying this because your show is called cultish, but I really do think there's a cultish aspect to the deconstruction phenomenon.

01:35:26

The hashtag operates with a lot of propaganda, a lot of false information, misinformation, and it's a social contagion.

01:35:34

It's something people have these charismatic leaders with stories. And I think that it's scripture that will walk people out of these things and being able to be given the tools to interpret scripture properly, that is the cure, not the problem.

01:35:49

Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm. Would it be like when you say like cultish, right? Because I had to be careful too, because a lot of times even the word cult can be like a pejorative.

01:35:57

But when you look at, there are sometimes like traits. One of the things that like Steve Hasson talks about in his book,

01:36:03

Combating Cult Mind Control, he talks about the replacement of one's identity in place for a new identity.

01:36:11

And you kind of have this cult identity that sort of takes place and suppresses the true self. And you have sort of the cult identity and the true self, and you'll sort of see them like almost switch place.

01:36:20

Oh, I'm hitting my mic here. They'll switch almost places. Like those sometimes where you're talking to the actual person, but then you kind of switch, something switches, and you hear sort of the talking points of what that person has been told somewhat to say.

01:36:35

Absolutely. And not to say, and I don't want to say in any demeaning way, like I think there are those, even in the deconstruction of progressive

01:36:44

Christianity movement that I've observed, they're very acute, very intelligent. And I would even go as far as to say they're doing a good job with a lot of critical thinking, but I do see a little bit of that in all transparency.

01:36:57

What are your thoughts on that? Well, and also, Jeremiah, that, yes, 100%, but also the impetus with cults to separate you from your family.

01:37:07

And that's what you see so often in the deconstruction movement is that, I mean, it's unprecedented. It's like an epidemic where every night when

01:37:15

I go speak at like women's conferences or apologetics conferences, people will come up to me night after night and it's not just one person each night.

01:37:24

Now it's multiple people who say, my adult child deconstructed. Now they've told me I'm toxic.

01:37:29

They won't talk to me. They tell me I'm emotionally stunted and that they're not gonna be in relationship with me anymore.

01:37:37

And very often they won't let them see their grandkids. And so what we see is just a lot,

01:37:42

I mean, it's very common for people in the deconstruction hashtag to write no contact letters to their biological

01:37:48

Christian family because they think they're now toxic. And so it's like this lack of forgiveness, a lack of grace, a lack of respect for elders.

01:37:59

And I see that in certain cultish movements as well is that they will isolate you from your biological family.

01:38:06

And then you have this new kind of cult identity. And I do think we see that in the deconstruction movement.

01:38:13

Tim, did you want to add anything onto that? Yeah, we know when we began writing the book, we talked about actually putting a chapter in, talking about kind of the pseudo religious nature of deconstruction.

01:38:29

And there was a number of things that kind of tipped us off to that. It was almost like there are kind of creeds that you have to like, certain beliefs you have to hold to.

01:38:40

Obviously there's conferences, there's meetings together.

01:38:45

I mean, there's this beyond just a movement, there's more going on.

01:38:52

Now we didn't end up going that direction, but it was certainly something that we had identified early on and thought there's probably something here that could be expanded on.

01:39:05

But we didn't, for whatever reason, I forget why, but we didn't end up including that material in the book.

01:39:12

It was hard to fit into the flow of the book. And also I think we just didn't flesh it out enough. Yeah, but certain tenets, certain beliefs, you're in, but you're not in kind of thing.

01:39:24

And here's why. Just functioning almost like a pseudo religion.

01:39:32

It's fascinating to kind of explore some of those ideas as well. What's been the influence of social media in relation to deconstruction?

01:39:40

I have my thoughts, but I'd love to hear some of yours. Oh yeah, no, it doesn't exist like this without social media.

01:39:47

I mean, like we said, people have always walked away from their faith. People have always, you know, maybe decided

01:39:53

Christianity wasn't true or decided to go their own way or this for whatever reason. But now you have social media where people can actually, like Tim said earlier, it's organized apostasy.

01:40:04

People can actually organize themselves. And maybe the church community that they left, they can replace that with the community that they find online, that's gonna celebrate and affirm them in their choices and in their new beliefs.

01:40:17

And so I think it's very tempting for people to, you know, because you're not going to pay a cost.

01:40:23

Well, okay, you're gonna pay a cost, of course, because there's a pain of leaving your community and the community you grew up in, of course.

01:40:30

But it's not like you're gonna be all alone. So there are these, I'll never forget, Jeremiah, I was researching one day and in the comment section of one of the posts, somebody came in there and said,

01:40:41

I think just today, just now, I finally don't believe in hell. And the flood of encouragement, celebration, you know, the celebration emojis, the hand claps, like, congratulations, you're finally free.

01:40:56

All of these people. I mean, I can imagine if you are being tempted to let go of the doctrine of hell, the only way you can really do that is if you have a whole bunch of people saying, yes, you do it, you do you, this is good.

01:41:07

Because otherwise there'd be so much fear of God involved. And so it kind of diminishes that and lets your inhibitions down in a way and gives you courage really to where you might not have had courage to do something like that before.

01:41:17

So I think they're inextricably linked and I don't think deconstruction as we see it today exists without it.

01:41:25

And just to piggyback off of that, there was a conference in 2023. I don't know if they're doing one in 2024, but it was called

01:41:31

Decon 2023 and it was a deconstructionist conference. And when you looked at the headliners, like who are the speakers?

01:41:39

Elise and I are speakers, we speak at conferences. And who are the speakers at these conferences?

01:41:45

It was fascinating how, I don't know if it was half or more, were people who are well -known on social media.

01:41:53

In fact, some of them are known because they're TikTokers. It was people with platforms that are 250 ,000, half a million, people like Jagezis on TikTok.

01:42:07

Jagezis is a guy with long hair, he's got like this rainbow sash or stole or something that he wears.

01:42:17

And he's criticizing and sometimes mocking kind of historic or biblical

01:42:25

Christianity, original Christianity, whatever you wanna call it, and those views.

01:42:31

And so it was fascinating to me that this is the leadership of this movement.

01:42:38

And it's no surprise that it's TikTokers or Instagrammers or whoever with these large accounts because they have the following and this is where the movement's taking place.

01:42:52

So I think Elise is right, I think that you don't have this modern explosion without social media.

01:43:01

And the ability to not just find community, but also express my current beliefs.

01:43:07

So it would be one thing to just deconstruct, but I'm gonna go on social media. And I think

01:43:13

Marty Sampson started his Instagram post with, this is a soapbox moment, so here

01:43:18

I go. And then he has all these questions, he's questions about miracles and hell and so on.

01:43:27

And they're fair questions that unfortunately he said no one talks about it.

01:43:33

How many miracles happen? Not many, no one talks about it. Why does a loving

01:43:38

God send people help? No one talks about it. Which is unfortunate, he came out of Hillsong and I guess they didn't allow for questions, at least maybe at his local church, which is unfortunate because this is the kind of thing that we should be talking about those questions all the time.

01:43:56

Because people genuinely have those questions and that's what Elise and I do for a living.

01:44:02

We get invited places and we say any question you can ask. Now we may not know the answer, but we're gonna do the best we can.

01:44:10

And so if you got a question, don't be afraid to ask it. No, I appreciate that.

01:44:17

In fact, I was actually just at a Bible Belt Evangelical Church recently and I was out of town and the sermon was maybe 35, 40 minutes.

01:44:27

And there was maybe one verse that was paraphrased out of context.

01:44:34

And I was just thinking in the back of my head, man, if this is what a normal service is like for this church, these people are in trouble because the moment they get, they watch some tech talk that questions their verse about whether or not

01:44:48

Jesus is God, the questions there, anything about whether Jesus is God, whether the Bible is true, they're in trouble.

01:44:54

Like you're not everyone, we've all had those moments where you get hit in the nose and the eyes start to water up and you have to sort of readjust, recalibrate.

01:45:01

Okay, how do I answer this? And those have been the best moments for me. But if you don't have any of that, like you're going to be in deep trouble.

01:45:08

One thing I'd like to ask is we kind of wrap up here. I really appreciate both of the time, both of you guys, the time to be here.

01:45:15

What's the response of the deconstruction ex -evangelical movement to those who keep their face, who like disentangle?

01:45:23

Like Elisa, both you and I, we both interviewed Ginger Duggar who had her book where she talked about that.

01:45:28

I think it was you and Melissa who talked to her. How do they deal those sorts of stories versus those who like deconstruct all together?

01:45:34

How is that? What's the attitudes towards those type of stories or journeys, you'd call it?

01:45:41

I've not, maybe Tim has, but I haven't seen any reactions from the deconstruction space to Ginger.

01:45:47

Have you seen any, Tim? I'm sure it's mixed. You know, did she, although she didn't use the term deconstruction.

01:45:55

So that may be why she referred to her journey as disentangling. But she's,

01:46:02

I mean, she would be considered a faithful follower of Jesus, you know, believing, you know, historic

01:46:10

Christian doctrine, which is fascinating. So here's someone who was raised in this, you know, kind of cult -like upbringing,

01:46:22

Bill Gothard's teaching, a number of other things. And what she had to do, and this, by the way, is the case with all of us.

01:46:28

We all receive beliefs early on, at least if you're raised in a Christian home, or maybe a home that's, you know, quasi -Christian or something, you just get, you just receive those beliefs, like you receive

01:46:42

Christmas presents. And so I came to believe in God because my parents told me that God existed.

01:46:48

That was my first kind of belief in God. Just, I didn't know about the Kalam cosmological argument, the teleological argument.

01:46:55

I haven't read, I hadn't read C .S. Lewis, mere Christianity. I just came to believe it. And I accepted a bunch of beliefs from my parents that way.

01:47:02

You know, they said that brushing your teeth prevents cavities. Okay, sure. Now, some of those beliefs that I was given turned out not to be true.

01:47:11

You know, I accepted them uncritically. And then when I critically evaluated them, they turned out not to be accurate.

01:47:20

And so the key is to find, you know, which ones are true and which ones, and which ones aren't.

01:47:26

So it's interesting that, you know,

01:47:32

I think the proper response when we have questions and doubts, like a ginger dugger or whoever, is to try to correct those mistaken beliefs about your faith, but using the scriptures as a standard, as an authority in the process.

01:47:49

And what you see is with deconstruction is that's not the case. It's a different kind of process. And so oftentimes people are, you know, chided for doing what

01:47:59

Duggar did. You know, she didn't quite deconstruct. Or like Elisa did. She didn't actually deconstruct.

01:48:07

So I can't - I think if she would have been claimed, I think if her book said, I deconstructed, and then

01:48:13

I reconstructed to this, I think she would be getting more criticism. But because she didn't use the word, and I agree with her,

01:48:18

I think disentangling is a much better word because Ginger was searching for, she had her Bible open, and she wanted to line her beliefs up with the

01:48:26

Bible. And so the corrections she made were based on that. So I think, I haven't, I don't think she's really, I have not seen her be criticized by the deconstruction movement, but had she come out and said, hey,

01:48:36

I deconstructed, and here's what I believe now, I think we would see some criticism from the deconstructionists had she said that.

01:48:43

So let me lay out the scenario then to get more honed in here. And I was just thinking of this example. So say I'm Joe Schmoe, who is going through, like I'm scrolling through TikTok, and I see the name of this

01:48:54

TikTok you mentioned, Tim, whatever his name was. And all of a sudden, I start following him and learn that he's gonna be at this conference.

01:49:01

And I buy the ticket, I go to Deacon 2024. I go there, I listen to the speakers. I'm someone who's grown up in an evangelical world.

01:49:08

And I really, I go through the conference and you have a lot of takeaways, you start going that route, but all of a sudden you start to really question, you start wrestling through this stuff and the lion's den.

01:49:18

And then you come to the conclusion, no, actually, no, I'm gonna hold on to my faith. Christianity is true.

01:49:24

And I had to wrestle through some stuff. And you say, you just, you leave a post, say there's a Facebook group for people who've attended

01:49:31

Deacon 2024. And you say, hey, great. I'm actually thankful for this conference, but after all,

01:49:37

I've decided not to deconstruct. And I believe that Jesus is God, that this, that, you know, everything that they deconstruct from.

01:49:43

I'm just curious as to how that would be received. If indeed that scenario happened. What are your thoughts on that?

01:49:51

It's, I mean, all we can do is speculate. And that's what makes this kind of difficult. We're speculating, right. Yeah, I think that there will be some that will say, well, you still hold to toxic beliefs, you know, whether it's, you know, your view of sexuality or your view of, you know, inerrancy or your view of resurrection or whatever, you know, like how there's gonna be beliefs.

01:50:15

You didn't quite deconstruct these. You didn't really do it. So there's gonna be some, maybe some skepticism that you ever went through the process.

01:50:24

And by the way, that is the same skepticism that Elisa and I have. You didn't really go through the process if you are affirming truth, if you're truth guided instead of self -guided.

01:50:39

And if you believe that the scriptures at the end of the day are a reliable source of authority in the process, then yeah, let's call it something else.

01:50:52

And so that's where I think Elisa, you and I would be on the same page as the deconstructionists if they were to say, yeah, you didn't really do it the way we did it.

01:51:05

So, and that's why in the book, we advocate for something using a different word and calling it reforming your faith because that's a different kind of process.

01:51:18

Yeah. Well, and I'll just say too, like, again, this is just speculation, but from my experience with the movement, because I've seen certain pages where there'll be somebody who believes in historic

01:51:28

Christianity, they believe the Bible is the word of God and they'll regularly get in the comment section. And as long as they're very kind and very nice about things, they're tolerated.

01:51:39

So my suspicion is that if somebody actually spent the money, I think the conference was solely online,

01:51:46

I think, wasn't it? It was an online conference. Because I actually know a couple of people who did go through the entire conference.

01:51:55

And I suspect that if somebody, if they went into like that Facebook group and said, hey guys, I want to thank you so much.

01:52:00

You've really helped me understand where you're all coming from. I'm a Bible believing Christian, but I really wanted to hear your side of things.

01:52:07

And I still believe that the Bible is God's word, but I appreciate you sharing your perspectives. I think they would be treated very kindly.

01:52:14

I think they would, as long as the Christian wasn't criticizing them, as long as the Christian wasn't calling them to repentance or trying to point out any holes in what they were saying or trying to debate with them about their worldview, that they're asserting is the right one.

01:52:29

But as long as there wouldn't be disagreement or criticism, but if the attitude of the person was more like, hey,

01:52:35

I'm just here to observe and learn and I appreciate you giving your perspective, even though I disagree with you, I think they would be treated very respectfully and it would be fine.

01:52:45

But it's when you criticize or you try to poke holes in the belief system or point out the inconsistencies in the worldview, that's when you're going to get the ire,

01:52:55

I would say. Mm, okay. Yeah, well, no, I appreciate that. Well, this has been a very insightful conversation.

01:53:02

Real quickly, just where can people find the book if they want to find out, tell them about the book, where they can find it.

01:53:09

And also where can they, yeah, tell them about that real quickly. Yeah, and it'd probably be good for us to mention that the audience for our book is the church.

01:53:18

We actually, this is not, like, if you're listening to this and you're like, oh, my loved one is deconstructing, I'm going to get this book and give it to them.

01:53:24

This is not the book you're going to buy and give to your loved one who's in deconstruction. There are a lot of books written for that audience, but we really wanted to give the church a resource.

01:53:34

Faithful Christians who are experiencing deconstruction from the outside and are trying to understand what's happening to their loved ones so that they can have just some hope and wisdom in navigating those relationships.

01:53:44

Like, we wrote this book for the pastors, the spouses, the brothers and sisters, and the parents of the people who are deconstructing, not the deconstructionists themselves.

01:53:53

And the book is available pretty much everywhere books are sold, Amazon, Barnes & Noble. You can go to the deconstructionofchristianity .com

01:54:00

to find all the links. And of course, subscribe to Tim's YouTube channel and all of that, because honestly,

01:54:07

I think one of the greatest things people can do for their kids is watch Tim's videos where he plays a deconstructionist

01:54:12

TikTok and then takes a minute to respond to it. I think those are some really great resources we can use to even help our own thinking.

01:54:19

Like maybe you've seen a TikTok video and you're like, I don't know how to think this through. There's a really good chance Tim has a short video that sort of interacts with it from a biblical worldview.

01:54:27

Just a really, really great resource. No, I love that. And the fact, I just want to say to Tim, I've learned so much just from watching you, not only as far as like answers, as far as actual answers to give, but just the level of like how to actually respond with compassion, you know?

01:54:42

So I think just, you know, when it talks in collages about letting your speech, conduct yourself with wisdom towards outsiders, making the most of the opportunity, but let your speech be gracious and seasoned with salt.

01:54:52

So you may know how to speak with every single person. Like I've seen that so consistently with how you respond.

01:54:59

So I'm very, very thankful for that. And you are, most people know you as Mr. B, it's

01:55:04

Red Pen Logic. That's new for your YouTube channel, right? Yeah, that's right. Okay, so pretty much -

01:55:11

And Alisa didn't say where you can find information about her. So she's plugging Red Pen Logic, but you need to go to alisachilders .com,

01:55:19

right? And that's where you can find all kinds of cool resources. She's got a

01:55:24

YouTube channel. She's got podcasts. Of course, the other two books she's written are great.

01:55:29

So people got to check her stuff out too. Awesome. Awesome, love it. Any final thoughts as we wrap up here?

01:55:35

I feel like we covered a lot.

01:55:40

Yeah, we did cover a lot. We would just say, look, I know there's a lot of stuff we covered in this over these, what, two hours.

01:55:49

I think we'd want to make sure people understand there is hope, you know, that we're seeing people who have kind of gone down the path of deconstruction and seen that, you know, there's no pot of gold at the end of that rainbow, you know?

01:56:06

It's, there's a lot of people seeing the kind of hopelessness in it and turning back. Having corrected some of those false beliefs and having, you know, gone through a period where they had to get rid of some bad theology and maybe bad people in their lives, okay?

01:56:24

And yet have found Jesus at the end. And so I think there is hope, even though there's a lot to be kind of, to disparage over.

01:56:37

And I know that many of us have loved ones who are going through this and we feel like, man, there's, what can

01:56:43

I do to help? This is partly why we wrote the book. And there's a whole part of that in walking through, here's the best ways to respond, given, you know, where they are as far as how they're defying their deconstruction.

01:56:57

So hopefully the book will help equip people and offer some hope that we will see people kind of come out the other side of this.

01:57:06

Just like we saw people engage in the emergent church years ago. Yeah. And a lot of people kind of went, maybe spent some time in it and came out the other side saying, hey, this wasn't what it was promised to be.

01:57:19

I think that there could be a revival that happens within the church because of this explosion that we're seeing online.

01:57:28

No, I appreciate that. This has been very insightful. So Lisa, Tim, Mr. Red Pen Logic, love it.

01:57:37

Appreciate you both coming on here and taking the time talking and check out the book, The Deconstruction of Christianity.

01:57:43

It's available on Audible, Amazon, especially Audible version's great. It's narrated by both of them. So it's very similar to this podcast.

01:57:50

If you haven't checked it out, you should be able to carry right on over here if you get the Audible book. All that being said, we'll talk to you all next time on Cultish.

01:57:57

We'll talk to you all soon. What's up, everybody?

01:58:04

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01:58:10

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01:58:19

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