- 00:00
- All right everybody, welcome back to the channel. It is Tuesday, December 17th,
- 00:07
- Year of Our Lord 2024, and today we are going to be commenting on an episode of Apologia Radio.
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- That's right, Apologia Radio. I have a lot of fond memories about Apologia Radio. I used to listen to every episode back when
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- I lived in New York. Sometimes I'd listen more than once. Sometimes I'd listen while riding a bicycle up through Coney Island and then over to Long Beach on Long Island and back again.
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- It was like a 35 -mile ride from where I lived in Bay Ridge, and I remember exactly where I was.
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- No, I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding, but it's been a while since I've listened to an episode of Apologia Radio.
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- I listened to this one called Bronze Age Masculinity with Andrew Sandlin. I listened to it yesterday, and I thought to myself, let's do an episode.
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- So here we go. All right, all right, all right, all right.
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- Let's get right into it today. I'm going to start right around minute 24, and if you're interested in hearing why
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- Dr. Andrew Sandlin is very concerned and troubled about the rise of pagan masculinity, including things like being strong, lifting weights, being healthy, eating healthy, things like that, he's got a whole presentation about why he's very concerned and troubled about these things.
- 01:37
- He calls it gay. Well, he doesn't really quite say it's gay. He uses the term homoerotic.
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- So they're against the gays, but they're kind of gay as well, and he goes into this whole big thing. I don't really care too much to talk about that.
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- If you're interested, like I said, go ahead and watch the episode. I'm starting at minute 24, and the reason
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- I'm doing that is because the conversation gets interesting at this point, because it becomes an actual conversation instead of just a presentation by Dr.
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- Andrew Sandlin. And so let's start. I don't know how far we'll get. Maybe we'll do multiple parts.
- 02:11
- We'll see how this goes, and yeah, I got some comments. Let's do it. Existentialist philosopher, some of that can get technical, but that's kind of the basis of it.
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- This is what the perfect gift for a man looks like. So my wife got me this weird new...
- 02:29
- There you go. A lot of commercials here. I have a lot to say, so go ahead. I want to be balanced in this here.
- 02:35
- So... All right, let me stop here. Let me stop here. I don't know who this guy is, but I have to say that I was very impressed with his questions.
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- He asked good questions. He asked questions that I would have asked if I was in the same situation. So I've got to take my hats off to this guy.
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- I think his name is Zach. Not familiar with him, but I'm taking my hat off because he's asked some very good questions.
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- Pastor Luke Pearson, on the other hand, he gets a little triggered, which I find very funny, but we're going to get to that at some point.
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- Let's start with this guy's very good questions. One of the things that you point out at the beginning is, in contrast to the leftist ideology of the egalitarian feminist mindset, there seems to be, with the introduction of this philosophy, kind of a counter -resurgence on the other side.
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- So you have a reaction going the other way now. And I see what you're saying. Anyone I think who's been on social media, in particular the
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- X platform, over the course of the last several months now, sees this type of language being used, sees the types of emphases that you are pointing out, the emphasis on cultivation of physical strength, the emphasis on using political power to destroy the left.
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- Once we gain enough power, political power, we can use that to crush our enemies.
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- There's an emphasis on waking up to all of the atrocities all around us, things that we didn't quite see before, but now we see now that we've been lied to our whole lives.
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- And so now we're throwing off those past restraints because the elites and so on don't want us to be free.
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- They don't want us to take care of ourselves. They don't want us to get healthy. So I see from the verbiage that's been used on social media, everything that you're talking about.
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- I think my first question is this, what indicates to you that these things have been imbibed by the reformed community, whether Baptist, Presbyterian, because I see men talking about wanting to get strong so that they can be here a long time to take care of their families, for example, so that they can serve their churches and serve their people.
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- And they want to get a baseline of established nutrition so that they can start eating better and being stronger.
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- And they want to be more involved in their communities and they want to have a strong Christian presence and build things and do media and politics and all this thing.
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- That's what I see, which I don't think are inherently bad things. So what in your mind has convinced you that they are imbibing this kind of neo -pagan resurgence that is right wing, if you will?
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- Great question. I have to hand it to him again, double hats off. I'm going to take my hat off to him.
- 05:34
- I think that he's asking the exact right question because he says, you know, these things that you're very concerned about,
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- Dr. Sandlin, I see them too. They sound like good things to me.
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- And so what makes you think that this is being driven by pagans? Why are pagans driving the bus here?
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- What makes you think that? And one of the things this guy says is he says, I've seen it in the last few months.
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- And that's fair. I mean, I can't, obviously, I can't deny what he's seen. But I've seen it since probably
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- COVID, right? 2020 is when I started seeing an uptick in this kind of stuff. And I think that makes perfect sense.
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- You know, COVID was a big opportunity for people to really, you know, become aware of a lot of things that have been happening for decades.
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- So people have noticed this before COVID, but COVID was really like a big mask off moment for a lot of people.
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- And so he asks the exact right question. You know, these are good things. And I see Christians talking about them in a
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- Christian way. What makes you think that this is, why are the pagans driving the bus, Dr. Sandlin? Let's see what
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- Dr. Sandlin has to say. Yeah, a good question. It is a good question. The first thing is the very suspicious timing.
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- So Luke asked earlier, I've been in the ministry for 42 years, and the idea of needing young men to be strong, godly young men to press the faith, the kingdom, the gospel is not a new thing.
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- Right. But it is odd that only in the last few years, since I would say basically about 2015, 16, 17, 18, at least
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- I have heard this, it's come about remarkably. So correlation is not causation.
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- But when they're using the same language, that's sort of, to me, indicative that there is at least an indirect
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- Bronze Age influence. There's the other problem of... So his first answer is that the timing is suspicious, right?
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- And in his mind, look, it doesn't equal causation, but essentially when someone says that and they're trying to push some kind of causation, they're like, yeah, yeah,
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- I know technically correlation doesn't equal causation, but it's just too suspicious. I got to be honest with you, that to me betrays an extreme lack of creative thinking, in my opinion.
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- Because again, I do think there is a correlation here, but I think the correlation has to do with the big mask -off moment in 2020, you know what
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- I mean? Lots of people, not just Christians, but lots of people realize, wow, maybe the government doesn't have my best interests in mind.
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- And how far does that go? I mean, it certainly seems like they want us to be fat and stupid and not engage in all this stuff.
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- Maybe I'll do the other thing, right? And everyone has their own reasons for doing the other thing, but we don't want to be like the humans in WALL -E, you know what
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- I mean? We don't want to be like the humans in WALL -E, so it would make sense that the reaction would be kind of simultaneous, even if they're for different reasons.
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- That's my idea, but I can't prove that, but I can easily think of another reason besides Christians are being led around by the pagans to become healthy and strong, and this is somehow very concerning.
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- I don't know. I mean, it's just a very weird way to start the answer, but he's got more, so let's continue. So Zach, you mentioned rightly, guys, and this is nothing wrong with,
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- I want to be strong, I want to be physically fit so that I can keep my family and advance the kingdom, live a long time.
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- I might add, though, that when Jesus was training his disciples, when
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- Paul was speaking to Timothy and to Titus and others, though they would not certainly have disagreed with that, this did not seem to be a point of emphasis.
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- This certainly was not. Who cares? Who cares?
- 09:26
- I just have to ask, who freaking cares if this was not a point of emphasis, especially as he says out of the other corner of his mouth, they wouldn't have disagreed with this, but they never emphasized it.
- 09:40
- Yeah, you know, they never emphasize environmentalism either. But does that mean that environmentalism is automatically bad?
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- Like if you want to have a Christian, not a stupid version, but a Christian version of taking care of the earth and conserving things, and you know, listen, if we can come up with an electric vehicle that doesn't utilize all of our resources in a cost -effective way, let's go ahead and do that.
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- Like they never talked about that stuff. Does that mean that we should not talk about that kind of stuff? Look, I'm not, you know, one of these wacko green guys, but I think there is an element of conservationism that's probably very
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- Christian, driven from Christian principles, and is a very good thing. Obviously, again,
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- I'm not one of these Green New Deal wacko types, and I still drive cars that use gas, but at the end of the day, listen, if there was an actually affordable, you know, cost -effective, you know, good for everybody kind of thing, where you didn't have to use gas,
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- I would do it, and it was a good car, it was an effective car, I would do it. I mean, why wouldn't you?
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- I just don't understand, you know, Jesus never really emphasized, you know, going to your local park and picking up the trash that's everywhere, yeah, so, and if Christians decided, you know, we're going to start doing that a lot more, would that be somehow concerning just because the pagans are doing it too?
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- It's just so weird. It's just so weird. Like, where does this come from? Well, they didn't emphasize, they wouldn't disagree with it, but, yeah, exactly, they wouldn't disagree with it because all of this is based on biblical teaching, biblical principles, and yeah, we don't need the letters of the book to explicitly, you know, explain everything to us to know that, yeah, you know, as Christians, we should care about our health, our bodies.
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- There's so many reasons why, in fact, this man, Zach, laid some of those out, and Zach, if your name is not
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- Zach, sorry, let me see if I can find out what his name is. Doesn't say.
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- Doesn't say. That's okay. He laid out some of the reasons, you know, I want to be around for my family,
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- I want to be strong to, you know, to fight tyranny, I want to advance the kingdom of God, like, these are all legitimate reasons, and so if people are emphasizing this, you've got to wonder why would people be emphasizing this now and not in Jesus' time?
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- Look, Jesus' time was a different time. It was a different context. You know, people were worried about getting enough calories to survive in Jesus' time.
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- In our time, we're all eating way too many calories, myself included. Like I said,
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- I said in a video the other day, I probably got like 25 pounds to lose, and that's going to happen at some point,
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- I've just been delaying it for a little while for reasons, and so anyway, the point is, our context is very different than Jesus' context.
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- If in Jesus' time, everyone had way too many calories and everyone was so unhealthy, just statistically, you know, maybe he would have started talking about some of that stuff a little bit more.
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- Like, this is the thing, like, we can't pretend like the Bible's context is the context for all time.
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- The Bible speaks to everyone at all times, right, and there's principles that we can apply to every situation and every time.
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- We all understand that. But it's not an all -exhaustive manual for life.
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- It just isn't that. We can't try to make it that. We can't do the thing, well, we can only talk about things in proportionally to how much
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- Jesus talks about them. No, our times might require emphasizing certain things more. Emphasizing certain things more.
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- Look, you know, the Bible, this is what liberals do, the Bible barely ever talks about hell, you know, like, so therefore you should never talk about hell.
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- Well, this is the problem, right? Maybe the Bible doesn't talk about hell all that much, right, but in our context, most people don't believe in hell.
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- And so it would make sense for people to address hell more. It's the same thing with homo—the Bible only mentions homosexuality a few times.
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- This is the liberal, this is the way that they interpret things. The Bible only mentions homosexuality a few times, so why are you majoring on the minors?
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- Well, the reason why is because everyone is celebrating homosexuality. It is the area that's being attacked aggressively.
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- And so therefore, it's going to make sense that we talk about homosexuality more in greater proportion than what the
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- Bible talks about it. This is not magic. This is not new. This is not a mystery.
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- I'm trying to be nice here. But this is the way liberals approach the Bible. He didn't emphasize homosexuality, so why are we?
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- We all get it, right? We're all reformed. We're all conservative. We get why we emphasize homosexuality more than what the
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- Bible seems to. And in the same way, health, fitness, you know, your body's a temple, all these things, they need to be addressed more because this is an area that seems to be an area of need today in the
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- United States in 2024. It wouldn't make quite as much sense to emphasize these things in Ethiopia today because in Ethiopia that's closer to the context of the
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- Bible times when people are struggling to get enough food to even survive. So it wouldn't make sense to go to Ethiopia and preach on gluttony.
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- It wouldn't make sense to do that as much. I mean, of course, it's still in the Bible. You still talk about it, but it wouldn't make sense to do that.
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- Not a point of emphasis in Jesus teaching. It was not a point of emphasis in Paul or John. And this is what kind of gets me a little bit like, what is going on, right?
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- This is what makes me really kind of, it boggles my mind. It's like if Dr. Sandlin were to say the same thing about homosexuality, everyone on Apologia's watch list would understand what the problem is, why this doesn't make sense, right?
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- But because it's about this issue, all of a sudden, oh yeah, you know, slay, you know, fire, this is total fire, like this is not fire.
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- This is not fire. Isn't that enough?
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- Bodily exercise does profit, act like men, be strong. The body is a temple.
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- Isn't that enough to not countersignal Christian men who are telling people, you know, we actually got to care about our bodies a little bit more, right?
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- This is not about deadlifting, you know, 600 pounds, right? This is about being able to deadlift, you know, a decent amount, 300 pounds, right?
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- If every Christian pastor is out there deadlifting 300 pounds and, you know, doing their squats and able to, you know, run a mile and stuff like that, like basic stuff, right?
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- Basic stuff. We wouldn't have an issue here, right? But the thing is, it's the exact opposite.
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- It's that many Christian people have not even the beginnings of health and fitness and things like that.
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- That's why it's being talked about. That's why it's being talked about. But profits a little bit.
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- Godliness is the great gain. So it seems to me that they're... Godliness is the great gain.
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- That's right. But we're not Gnostic. Godliness applies to every area of life.
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- We all get this. It's highly suspicious that this would have come around at the same time, particularly when a lot of that, the same language is used.
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- It's only suspicious when you want to make it suspicious, right? Again, it's really, this is one of these things that's like, if you're looking for it to be a problem, you can try to draw suspicions and cash aid and all this stuff.
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- But if you're not approaching it looking for a problem, right? You might say, well, there's a correlation here.
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- Wonder what that's about. And you come up to other conclusions, right? Maybe people have had enough of all this promotion of fatness as healthy.
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- You know what I mean? Because that's been happening, right? Everyone has a different body type. You can be fat and healthy and putting the
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- Calvin Klein models, which they shouldn't exist anyway, but putting the fat ones and saying, oh, this is something to be celebrated.
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- You know, Lisso and all this stuff. I don't know. Maybe that has something to do with it. Maybe that has something to do with it.
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- Because as we understand, people have a knowledge of the law of God, even without acknowledging
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- God's law, right? They know just, it's been written on their hearts, right? And so they see people promoting
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- Lisso as a standard of beauty. And even if they're not Christian, they're like, no, that's actually, no, no, that's not something that should be promoted.
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- And so maybe they're just kind of all sick of it. And they went a little bit too far. And now they're all together at the same time,
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- Christian and non -Christian saying, let's fight this. Let's actually do the opposite. I mean, if you're not looking for a problem, it's not a problem.
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- But if you're looking for a problem, oh yeah, it's a very suspicious correlation there. It doesn't make any sense. So to me, it's, and if you've read the book,
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- I think you will, and again, I'm not recommending anybody read the book, but if you do, you'll say, my, my, and then another reason.
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- If you read the book, you'll just trust me on this one. Don't read it. But if you do, you'll say, my, my,
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- I'm pretty sure I'm not going to be saying my, my. The utter mockery. I've just been stunned by the utter mockery of this.
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- Boomer, boomer, these, this kind of derogatory speaking of elders and so on and so forth. That's the nicest one they've used, nicest term.
- 19:07
- Right. Oh, it's commercial. This is Mosey. They're killing me. A simple, beautiful tea infuser designed -
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- It is. It is. And I saw, I was just, I guess not surprised, but some of you guys saw just a vicious and vile caricature of physical image, caricature of Dr.
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- White and Douglas Wilson and some others that it's just, just beneath what any
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- Christian would do. Now here's the thing, guys, I can understand, and by the way, this Bronze Age mindset has really influenced a lot of non -believing or non -Christian conservatives.
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- So certainly I'm not saying that there is a massive number of young Christian guys and a small number of others.
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- No, the number of non -Christians who follow this, I'm sure is much greater than the Christians. I guess
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- I could understand it because, you know, modern pagans will act like pagans, won't they? It doesn't justify it. It's still evil.
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- It's still sin. But when you have sort of this Christian veneer over this stuff or a synthesis trying to join these two things.
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- That's what I was going to ask about. And by the way, you may have noticed how this coincides very well with the revival of natural law.
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- I was just going to ask you about that. Yeah. You're smart. You're smart. Genius loves company. That's where I was going.
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- Is there seems to be a lot of emphasis on the natural law and, you know, obviously they wouldn't come right out and say many people trumpeting this.
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- I mean, let's just be real. You know, a lot of quotations by Aristotle are flying around. You know, let me let me let me be real as well.
- 20:47
- I, you know, I've heard a lot about natural law and, you know, as you know,
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- I consider myself a theonomist, although I'm sure a lot of theonomists wouldn't want to claim me. That's fine.
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- But I'll never forget this for my whole life. When I was when I was really like in the beginning stages of theonomy,
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- I, you know, I was I was kind of suspicious of natural law myself.
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- And I watched a video series from, oh, man, what's his name?
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- Brian Shortley. Brian Shortley, he's he's a minister in one of these micro Presbyterian denominations, stuff like that.
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- And he's got really interesting content. And some of it I don't agree with. Some of it I do.
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- But it's always like just chock full of information. And he just goes really deep. Very interesting character.
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- In any case, Brian Shortley, I remember he was critiquing theonomy. And he's very sympathetic to a lot of theonomy, right?
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- But he was he was critiquing in particular Christian reconstructionism, which is where I kind of cut my teeth on theonomy.
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- And he has this whole series on natural law that just kind of blew my mind away.
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- And in this series, he talks about the just the absolute huge mountain.
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- It's a huge it's like Mount Everest of reform thinkers on natural law and how natural law was actually legitimate and real and all this kind of stuff.
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- Now, a lot of people try to abuse natural law to say all kinds of weird stuff that contradicts revealed law and stuff like that.
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- But that's not what he was talking about. He was talking about, you know, actual natural law, because, you know, God created the world.
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- I mean, God was is actually the creator. And he wrote into the code of the world all kinds of things that people just know that people just know.
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- And so it's not the case that we need a law word from God about how it's not good for pastors to be obese or anyone really to be obese.
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- Like we don't we don't need a specific word from revelation to know that that's not good.
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- Right now, we do have some of that stuff, which is what boggles my mind with this kind of stuff.
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- But we don't need it because we know from nature that that is not acceptable.
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- That's not good. That's not ideal. That's not something that anyone should desire. So so natural law,
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- I understand the suspicion of natural law because so many people abuse it. I get it. I understand.
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- I have sympathy. I'm not going to throw shade at people that have suspicion. Right. But natural law is actually a real thing.
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- And God really does have it. And it's real. And we should embrace it. And I'll never forget that.
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- I mean, it didn't turn me off from theonomy, you know, exactly. But but it did help me understand the reformed tradition just a little bit more.
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- And I think that if we embrace the reformed tradition a little bit better, we wouldn't be instantly kind of suspicious at any talk of natural law.
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- Now, of course, there are still times when you should dismiss it. But whatever. And Greek thinkers.
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- So where does this where does this come from? And why is this being emphasized right now, this emphasis on natural law?
- 24:11
- Now, you get a cue from these guys by the fact that when I push back like I did a few minutes ago,
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- Zach, and say, what about Jesus, Paul? And they'll say, well, they did say bodily exercise prophets and we're not
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- Gnostics. And they're right about that. The body is important. The temple of the Holy Spirit. And we all agree on that.
- 24:28
- But there is not this is not a major emphasis of the Bible. It's not that the Bible is unconcerned about the body and physical things.
- 24:36
- That's a false Gnostic. We're not Gnostics. We're not Gnostics. But the Bible also doesn't teach that there should be this constant emphasis on being in shape, a consistent emphasis on if you're if you're too fat, you can't be in the ministry or something.
- 24:51
- Or we won't listen to you. Right. Or we won't listen to you because you're because you're overweight. I think we need to make, by the way, a distinction there.
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- And I think Dr. White. Look, this is just how it is, man. I did a video on this the other day, I think on X, where it's like, look, look, you might not like it that guys say, you know, you're you're preaching to me on discipline and how to have discipline.
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- And I can see that you have none. You know what I mean? You're obese.
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- You know, like you might not like the fact that people aren't going to really take you that seriously, but that is just a fact.
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- And if you're going to be all things to all people, I would suggest that, you know, if you're going to preach on discipline, then demonstrate it.
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- You know what I mean? Demonstrate the discipline in every area of your life. That would be the way to go.
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- Now you could wring your hands and say it ought not be that way. I'm sorry, but it just is that way.
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- Right? I'm not saying it's right. I'm not saying it's good. I'm not, I'm not saying that I automatically do that. When I see an obese pastors preach on discipline,
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- I disregard what he says. I'm not saying that. But what I am saying is that's just how the world is, because when you have an apparent lack of discipline and you're trying to teach on discipline, people are going to have an issue with that.
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- People aren't going to take you quite as much as seriously as you'd like them to. And that is just a fact and you need to own that, accept it and make the changes that are necessary.
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- Show, demonstrate the discipline, demonstrate what I need to do. It's hard for a lot of people to believe that you can be knowledgeable on disciplining your body for according to sexual sins, if you yourself have demonstrated no discipline with what you put in your mouth, that's just how it is.
- 26:35
- I don't know what to tell you. It doesn't do you any good to wring your hands and complain about it.
- 26:41
- That's just how it is. Again, I'm not saying that when you're fat, automatically everything you say is disregarded.
- 26:48
- It's just not the case. But if you're going to be convincing, you got to be a product of the product.
- 26:54
- You know what I'm trying to say? One of his statements, dividing line. He did a great job on this.
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- Gluttony is a sin and a serious sin that must be dealt with. Obesity is not a sin. Show me in the
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- Bible where obesity, I know of men and Dr. White pointed this out because of some heart problems. He has to be very careful.
- 27:13
- He can't do the exercise. He's a little heavier now than he was before. He can't ride the bike as much as he used to before.
- 27:19
- Well, there are physical problems and there are genetic problems that cause some people to weigh more than others.
- 27:25
- Can that be an excuse for people being overweight? And certainly for, of course it can be, but be very careful.
- 27:33
- I think you and I know, in fact, I'm thinking of some right now. I know of some gluttons that are real thin. It's just the way their body is.
- 27:39
- So there's no basis in the Bible on this. You look at the qualifications, let's look at Titus and Timothy for the qualifications.
- 27:48
- Is there a weight qualification? Okay. So let me just stop there for a minute. He's going to go into some other kind of just nonsense.
- 27:56
- Honestly, the only, I'm being nice. And the nicest thing you can say is that it's nonsense. He says, gluttony is a sin, but being obese is not a sin.
- 28:05
- Obesity is not a sin. Okay. And then he talks about all these exceptions, right? And I'm not a doctor.
- 28:10
- I have no idea, right? Whatever. I, it sounds suspicious to me, but whatever we can't, there's a, there's a great, there's a great meme out there where a guy says, you know, this is every conversation with a woman.
- 28:31
- And he says, you know, women on average are five foot four. And the woman says, well, but I'm five foot eight.
- 28:39
- He says, that's every conversation with a woman. And then, uh, there's a woman that responds to him.
- 28:45
- I, it might be a joke, but it's just too funny. The woman says, well, that's not true.
- 28:50
- Cause I'm a woman and I don't do this. Like we can't, this is, this is, this is another problem that I think we're having right now that it's just rampant, right?
- 29:01
- We can't start the conversation about what's going on with all of the little exceptions, right?
- 29:08
- Is it true that some, let's just pretend that it is true. Cause I don't know if this is true or not. Right. That, that, that there are, there are some medical conditions that cause you to be obese that has nothing to do with the calories that you consume.
- 29:20
- Right. Let's just go with that for a second. Right. I'm not so sure that that's really true, but I'm not going to argue that point.
- 29:28
- Right. Let's just say there are some medical conditions that, that basically make you obese when you don't consume more calories than you put out.
- 29:36
- Right. Let's just say, what is the value of starting the conversation that way?
- 29:44
- Because the majority of people in America that are obese are obese because they stuff their face with more food than they use in energy throughout their day.
- 29:54
- That is the facts. That is true. If you look at an obese person, the chances are that they consume way too much food for their energy, for their, for their activity levels.
- 30:07
- So why would we make the exceptions to the rule dictate what the rule is?
- 30:13
- No, obesity is a sin because obesity is caused by feeding yourself way too much food.
- 30:21
- Okay. That's, that's, that's the rule. And of course there are exceptions to this rule, but that's the rule.
- 30:29
- Why argue this way? Why argue by starting with the exceptions when you make the rule?
- 30:35
- All cretins are liars, lazy gluttons, all this stuff, but I know a cretin that, you know, he's very truthful and he's not lazy.
- 30:44
- Like, it doesn't make any sense. It makes no sense to argue this way. Why do it?
- 30:51
- Why do it? This is, this is, this is the problem that we're having because guys like Dr.
- 31:00
- Andrew Sandlin, who I don't know that much about, but I've read a number of his quotes because he used to be quoted often in a page that quoted also
- 31:07
- Rush Dooney, and I used to love that page because I love Rush Dooney, right? I know he's able to think through things much better than this.
- 31:17
- Why? Why is this happening? It's, it's, it's very, it's very interesting. Why? And why is Apologia Radio going along with it?
- 31:23
- That's it. That's the other question. No. So I'm not saying this is unimportant, but this is not a central feature of the thing.
- 31:31
- He just said that one of the qualifications for elder is not that you're not obese.
- 31:37
- And so he's not saying it's not important. It's just not central to the faith. This is not true.
- 31:45
- This is not true. One of the qualifications for elder is self control.
- 31:54
- And that's all it says, self control. Again, the Bible is not an exhaustive list.
- 31:59
- So we shouldn't go to the Bible and expect every area in a person's life where they could have self control, that it spells it out for us.
- 32:08
- It doesn't have to. We don't interpret the Bible this way. We understand that when it says self control, discipline is what it says.
- 32:18
- This is let's look up what it. I was right. It does say self -controlled.
- 32:25
- I should have, I should have listened to my first instinct. So why would self -control not apply to what you feed yourself?
- 32:33
- Why wouldn't it? And look, I'm not saying everybody has to have the perfect diet, right? The perfect human diet.
- 32:40
- Obviously that's not what I'm saying. If you're, if you're a pastor and you want to have an Oreo, have an Oreo. Just don't eat the whole sleeve of Oreos.
- 32:49
- How about that? I mean, it just, it just boggles the mind that you could look at a typical obese person.
- 32:56
- Again, I'm, I'm granting that there are exceptions to this rule, even though I'm not sure that there are. But let's just say that there are exceptions to this rule.
- 33:04
- We have, there's people that have the genetics that just make them obese, no matter what they eat. Even granting the exceptions to the rule.
- 33:12
- When you look at a typical pastor, a typical elder who is obese, how in any way could you say they're self -controlled that's self that's a model of self -control, how could you do it?
- 33:25
- I just don't get it. Look, we're all sinners. We get it. We sin in many ways. We get that. Nobody's looking for perfection, but to not even recognize a problem, to not even be attempting to do anything about it, to not even granting the fact that that this is a problem for me.
- 33:42
- I got to, I got to do something about this. I need help. It boggles the mind. It really boggles the mind.
- 33:50
- How could he say that? Well, if I can just, I don't want to interrupt your thought, but the, what is the root?
- 33:57
- You're not a child. You're a man. So stop wearing so many layers to go outside. And get the bear issue there of gluttony.
- 34:05
- It's self -control. That's what I was just thinking. Right. So you look at the qualification, you know, for elders and deacons, like they're to be self -controlled and that's the issue and that's why, like you just said, a skinny person can be a glutton because they have lack of self -control continue.
- 34:18
- Yeah. So, so Luke Pearson, Luke Pearson almost gets it right. He almost gets it. He's like, well, the issue with gluttony is self -control.
- 34:26
- And so it's like, yeah, yeah, that's right. Luke, that's exactly right. You know, self -control. That was the first thought I had when
- 34:31
- I heard this, but instead of making the actually relevant point that obesity is in most cases, again, granting the exceptions, an issue of self -control most of the time he says, and that's why skinny people can also be gluttonous.
- 34:55
- Oh, what? This reminds me of the, of the
- 35:05
- John Piper article where he talks about all the people that are being pressured to not get the vaccine in the time when every person in the planet was being pressured to get the vaccine.
- 35:16
- It's like, I guess that's true. Yeah. If you're being pressured to not get the vaccine and that's the only reason you're not getting it.
- 35:22
- Yeah. I mean, I guess you've got a problem, but of the three people that are experiencing that at that time, it's like, why, why is this necessary?
- 35:31
- Luke Pearson. Yes. Yes. There are some skinny gluttons out there.
- 35:38
- Granted. I get it. Granted. What does that have to do with the, the, the, the flood of obese people that are actually gluttons?
- 35:51
- It doesn't, this is the, this is the stereotypical bringing a fire extinguisher to a flood.
- 35:57
- It makes no sense. Why is this happening?
- 36:04
- You guys, I know a lot of you guys have your theories about why this is happening and I've heard them and I've read them and you know, maybe you guys are just smarter than I am.
- 36:14
- You know, I've got an IQ of one 36. It's been tested, but maybe
- 36:19
- I'm just too stupid to figure this one out. I don't know why this is happening. I just don't know.
- 36:25
- Why is this happening? Right now, the irony of this self -control is a lot of these young guys are quite good at pointing out self -control of some who somewhere in the ministry that can't control their eating the way they should, but these young guys seem to really have difficulty controlling their tongues and fingers.
- 36:47
- And their fingers on the, on the keyboard. Right. So, um, it is, there is a, there is a big element of hypocrisy here.
- 36:55
- I, uh, I, I, I, I regret to inform you that the tone police have returned and they are back with a vengeance.
- 37:03
- My goodness. My goodness. This is like,
- 37:09
- I know you are, but what am I level? I know you, I know you are, but what am I like? Like you can't talk about fat pastors because you don't even control your tongue.
- 37:18
- Look, these are random people on the internet and listen, look, the standards of, of, of a
- 37:24
- Christian, they apply to everybody. We get this right. But the topic is elders right now that lack, obviously lack self -control.
- 37:32
- It does. You know, look, you might have a point about the random people on the internet that can't control their fingers.
- 37:38
- Granted, you might have a point, but we're talking about pastors that obviously and apparently lack self -control.
- 37:48
- Don't, it doesn't do you any good to change the subject and point the finger back, it's either wrong or it's not wrong.
- 37:55
- It's not not wrong just because the other people are, are showing hypocrisy. What is this?
- 38:04
- What are we doing here? And the other thing, and I think, uh, uh,
- 38:11
- Dr. Y pointed this out. I'm going to predict not because I'm a great prophet that when these guys are in their fifties and sixties, they will not hold precisely the same position on this.
- 38:23
- I was thinking that same thing this morning that they, that they do today. So, um, the, the mockery and, uh, we have not even gotten into.
- 38:34
- And though the issue of antisemitism and racism is not logically connected, for some reason, it does seem to be connected.
- 38:42
- A lot of the same guys that have this obsession with masculinity. Often are, um,
- 38:48
- I don't know how to say it. They're either racists, uh, or they're very tolerant of and coddling of racists and antisemites.
- 38:58
- Now I want to acknowledge that the left accuses anybody who believes in Christianity or Christian culture as being a racist.
- 39:05
- Well, you guys at Paula Gia, you guys at CCL, you're, I mean, you believe in Christian culture and it was white
- 39:11
- Christian culture, so you're obviously racist. Well, that's a lie. That's just a libelous lie.
- 39:16
- It's just false. But the fact is, yes, there are people today talking about dominion over theonomic post -millennialists.
- 39:23
- And guess what? They're also racist. That is true. And they've demonstrated that.
- 39:29
- And, uh, the language they've used of our black brothers and sisters in the faith, uh, the idea that their view of nature is that, you know, we should be closer to those of us of our own skin color than, um, than believers who have dark skin, uh, black,
- 39:46
- African -American, Asian, or Hispanic, whatever. That's just false. Uh, in fact, uh, my, my good friend, uh,
- 39:54
- Uri, Uri Brito, and, uh, one of them, and I won't even mention, you guys know this, the, the most prominent racist and anti -Semitic quote, reformed ministry.
- 40:03
- Now he showed me, I saw him at our symposium. He showed me, they called him a demon. Uri Brito is a demon.
- 40:09
- That's the kind of language that I think they're talking about Stone Choir, and that's just one example. Let me stop there.
- 40:15
- We're going to, we're going to, we've been at this for 40 minutes and it looks like the change of the subject to racism, which, uh,
- 40:21
- I, you know, one of my favorite topics, as you know, um, but man, I, I just have to, uh,
- 40:27
- I just have to say it, you know, it's, it's, it's wild. This is wild.
- 40:33
- It's absolutely wild. And, um, you know, I, I, a long time ago, I did a video that said, you know,
- 40:39
- Hey, we should probably cool it on the accusations of racism because none of us are very good at spotting it. And, uh, man, that, that video aged very well, aged very well in any case.
- 40:51
- Uh, by the way, I'm a big fan of Uri Brito too. He's a friend of mine. You know what I mean? So, uh, Hey, me and Andrew Sandlin have that in common.
- 40:58
- Um, I like Uri Brito. I don't think he's a demon. Uh, it's a very low bar to, to like, uh,
- 41:04
- Uri Brito. I just don't think he's a demon. No, I'm just kidding. I've texted with Uri.
- 41:10
- You know, we chat every now and then he's a great guy. I like, I like Uri, Uri, Uri here first on 80 rule does YouTube channel.
- 41:16
- Uh, you might not like Uri, but I do. And I can tell you not a demon, not a demon in any case.
- 41:23
- Uh, we will continue. I want to do more. If you guys want to hear more of this, we're, we got about 10 minutes into what
- 41:29
- I wanted to cover. There's much more. And, uh, we got to get to the part where Luke Pearson gets completely triggered.
- 41:36
- It is wild. Apparently there's people in the comment section or the chat that, uh, are started that, that start to make him so mad.
- 41:43
- And he, he just publicly gets all freaked out about it. I've got some advice for Luke because, uh,
- 41:48
- I've got, uh, some experience in this kind of thing. And, uh, so yeah, it should be fun.
- 41:53
- It should be fun. Let me know if you want to see part two of the bronze age masculinity on apologia radio.