News Roundup: Columbus Day, Wokeness Leads to Apostasy, A Brave New World, Millennials In Church?

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00:08
Welcome to the Conversations That Matter podcast. I'm your host, John Harris. A few things to get to today. We're just gonna do kind of a news rundown.
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I wanted to start before we get into the podcast with just kind of a shout out because I haven't done these shout outs in a while.
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Bradford Christian College, I just want to let everyone know, in case you're unaware, if you have homeschooled kids especially and you want to take them to the next level but you don't want them to go away to school, check out
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Bradford Christian College. They have some accredited degrees there and they have, this is what I really like about them, they have mentors who will work with your children, work with your students.
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They're not going to just have a, you're not gonna have a guidance counselor who you see once and then you never see him again. So check them out.
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They're not woke and you can go to bradfordchristiancollege .com. The other thing I wanted to let you know about is discerningchristians .com.
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I haven't plugged Discerning Christians in a while and I should. You can go on that website. There's so many tools.
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You can look around the map of the United States, see if there's, and in fact, you can go to Africa. I mean, there's other places.
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You can map of the whole world, see if there's any churches in your area who've taken a stand against social justice. It's cross denominational, so you have to put that filter in your mind, but it's a really good tool.
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And it's the number one in my mind. I mean, if you want to find a good church, I would say go there first. If you can't find anything there, try out sermonaudio .com
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church finder and that might be a helpful thing. I've often told people the Grace, the Master Seminary alumni list is an option, but that's a hit or miss.
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A lot of, just because someone went to Master's does not mean that they're solid in every way and that they're not woke.
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So it's, you have to use a lot of discernment on these things. The IFCA church finder is another one.
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I mean, there's a lot of church finders out there, but it'd be, I mean, after that, maybe Nine Marks or something.
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You can try the Founders, you know, but these, I think if you're looking for a church that's not woke, which once you find out they're not for social justice, they're against it, they're taking a stand, they've signed the
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Statement of Faith at Discerning Christians. It answers a lot of other questions, doesn't it? So check it out, discerningchristians .com.
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Create an account. When you create a profile, then you can add an organization like a church yourself. You can put if the church is hiring, you can become a candidate.
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There's a whole candidates tab. Once you become a member, you can see others who are looking for positions if you're on a search committee for a church and there's some people that might be good pastors who are not on the social justice bandwagon.
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Check it out. You can go to discerningchristians .com. And while you're there, by the way, give a donation if you can.
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There's a support us tab to Craig. He's the guy that has put this all together from the goodness of his heart and he hasn't asked for a penny, but it's not cheap to maintain these things.
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So please, give him a donation, even if it's just like five bucks, just say thanks. Thanks for designing this, this tool.
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Okay, let's get into some things. Number one, some people ask me, and I wanna answer them because enough people ask me, about the
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Puritan Conference at Grace Community Church. I've been getting texts and emails about it and I just wanna say this. Yes, Lincoln Duncan spoke at Grace Community Church where John MacArthur is.
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And yes, Steve Lawson was there and John Piper was there.
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And I think probably Lincoln Duncan's at the top of this list, but there were people there who, let's just say they're not as strongly against the social justice stuff or social justice teachers as say
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John MacArthur. Lincoln Duncan most notably wrote the Four to Woke Church, which it pushes a false gospel.
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And so that's pretty serious stuff. I think it's very serious actually. And the answer to the question, why did
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Grace Community Church allow him to speak is, I don't know. And I haven't asked them. There's a lot of stuff going on and I don't have time for everything, unfortunately.
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And I mean, I can spit ball on possibilities.
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Maybe there's ignorance about the extent to Lincoln Duncan's involvement. Maybe people think it's all just a political disagreement.
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It's not really theological. I don't know, I don't know. But is it a bad look? Is there tension in that?
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Yeah, I mean, Lincoln Duncan hasn't been at a Shepherds Conference since that infamous panel in what was it, 2018, 2019.
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And he went out against John MacArthur in a passive aggressive way when John MacArthur said, go home to Beth Moore.
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So it's kind of odd after all these years, but I think if I'm not mistaken, this Puritan conference was put on by Joel Beek, I think was the guy's name.
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And so I don't even know if the speakers were selected by Grace Community Church. They probably had to be approved, I would think. But I don't really have any more information.
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I would say this though, if you're concerned, take it up with Grace Community Church. Ask them, why did, you know, is this an endorsement?
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Is this, what does this mean? Ask them, I don't know what else to say. I do believe in biblical separation.
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I am not though, someone who's like a second, third degree. I don't think now you just throw
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John MacArthur overboard because Lincoln Duncan was there or something. It's possible. I don't know.
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I don't wanna even assume possibilities. I just know that the possibilities do exist that don't have to be
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John MacArthur is compromised completely on this issue. Their ignorance being one possibility to some extent.
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It doesn't mean there's full ignorance, but maybe enough. So yeah, that would be my advice.
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Just talk to them about it and express your concern. So that question being not answered, but addressed, let's get into some other things on the podcast today.
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It was Columbus Day, October 11th, an article came out by Mike Keabone on the
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TGC, the Gospel Coalition. Let's see if we can pull it up. Web page, which everyone is familiar with if you listen to this podcast.
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Mike Keabone. And Mike Keabone says, well, the title is How One Native American Pastor Celebrated Indigenous People's Day.
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So it's not Columbus Day. In fact, let's just see. Did the Gospel Coalition say anything about Columbus Day? Hmm. I do not see anything about Columbus Day, but there is something about Indigenous People's Day, which tells you something.
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I think it tells you something. This is kind of an innovation. This is a new holiday.
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I don't even know if it's federal, if I can say the word, federally recognized, but it's what a lot of people now are saying they're celebrating.
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I don't know how you celebrate it. I don't know what the traditions are. It's like five seconds old, but this is the alternative.
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It's meant to replace Columbus Day. It's just as if you had in the town square a statue of Columbus that was ripped down and you put in its place a statue of a
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Native American figure of some kind. That would be the equivalent, only it's happening on the level of a holiday in that category instead.
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So I think just even running this article is making a statement already, but the article is by a pastor in the
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Southern Baptist Convention. He's very happy. I'm just gonna summarize that the Southern Baptist Convention condemned the type of, the policies that the federal government took towards Native tribes in specifically attempting to Christianize them.
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It says, the report outlines how the United States federal government subcontracted with religious groups to operate these schools to accomplish the forced conversion and assimilation of indigenous children to Christianity.
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And it gives you a whole kind of really tearjerker kind of portrayal of how this operated.
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And I don't have a lot to say. There's really two. In my mind, there's two things side by side. One is
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I actually have sympathy, driving especially through some of the reservations. It's hard not to, to see the conditions that some of these people live in.
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And if you study enough history, you know that the national government, the general government did some terrible things, but it's not a completely black and white narrative.
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That's the problem. One of the problems at least with really those who would post memes that talk about, that paint all
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Native Americans as people who ripped out the hearts of others and human sacrifices. And then on the other, the flip side, you had those who have the noble savage idea that they were minding their own business and here comes these
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Europeans, these dirty Europeans. Both of these narratives just aren't accurate. The, there were a lot of tribes and there were a lot of different settlers, different bands of white people from Europe who came at different periods of time.
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The Puritans treated the Natives much differently and much harshly, to be honest with you, than the settlers of Augusta, Georgia, or I should say
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Savannah, Georgia, because I was just there. And it's just a different story depending on what situation you're looking at and it spans hundreds of years.
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So, T -shirts that say fighting terrorism since 1492 and stuff, they're kind of, that's kind of ridiculous, to be honest with you.
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It's not, Columbus wasn't a terrorist. Were there white people who did function like terrorists?
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Yeah, I'm sure there were. And there, and conversely, there were certain tribes that also did some horrible things.
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I mean, and it's a sad situation. You look at some of these tribes that sided with the
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British during the American Revolution because they had sided with the French during the French and Indian War and that didn't work out so well.
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So, we'll side with the British now and that didn't work out so well. The colonists defeated the British and they were on the losing end of a lot of these early wars that were so formative.
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We keep getting pushed out west. You have the Trail of Tears and then you have, I think the worst part of all of it is when after the
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Civil War, the United States government decides, well, we've made a total war on the
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Southern people and let's take some of those same generals, like General Sherman, and let's go and apply the same kind of thing to the native peoples out west.
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And, or I should say, I don't know how, they say native, but the people who migrated here earlier from Asia, let's go apply that out there and give them land that's frankly, some of it's the worst land, all the reservations.
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I am, I'm sympathetic to that. I see problems with the federal government, specifically their policies and how some of those policies were enacted.
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I am not, my knowledge is not extensive on the nature on, I mean, I've certainly seen media depictions that are just horrible of what would happen when people from Massachusetts would come out and say, we're gonna assimilate these native peoples into our, by taking their kids and giving them an education so they can be assimilated.
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I don't know to what extent that's, I'm sure that happened. I'm sure it was bad at some points.
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I don't know if though there was also some, those who were involved in that who had better motives.
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It's just, it's not something I've studied extensively. So I'm not gonna comment on that, but the stuff I do know, I do have some sympathy.
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That said though, that said, it doesn't mean that there's a one -size -fits -all narrative for this.
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I'm sure Mike Keybone probably typed this out on his computer, you know, in English. There's a lot of advancements,
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Christianity being one, that were given, that were adopted by formerly people who had been here living in a much different way, who had migrated from Asia.
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And the interaction with Western peoples, European peoples, there's also some net positives there.
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And the main thing though in all of this is replacing Columbus. So it's not just the lopsided kind of imagery.
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It is the replacement of Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples Day. It's not like they, they could have tried to find another day.
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Is there another day we can celebrate that? They didn't do that though. Instead it's, and interestingly enough, they want recognition in the
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United States and among Western, descendants of Western Europeans and peoples from Africa and so forth that aren't descendants of the
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Asian peoples who came here over the land bridge. So it's just interesting they want that recognition and they want to replace a
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Western holiday. It matters to them for some reason, right? What Western peoples think, do and celebrate matters to them.
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You gotta ask yourself, why is that? If this is about Native Americans, who cares?
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Who cares what Western people are doing like that? They're different, right? I mean, if you're in the Navajo Nation, you're in the
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Navajo Nation, but they do care about it. They do want that recognition. Those who are more the activists for this particular holiday.
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And I'm not saying this is all Natives at all that are behind wanting to replace this, but that's the issue to me.
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And that's where I think people do need to stand firm and say, no, we're not letting you replace it. You can have your own thing, but you don't get to take from us the thing we've been celebrating.
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And we celebrate Columbus, why? Because of his adventurous, his bravery, his exploration that he did.
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I mean, at the time that he did what he did, that was incredible. It was unheard of.
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And it's a pretty simple reason. It's not because of the way he treated the Taino people or any of that.
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So we've talked about this before. I have other episodes on Columbus Day you can go check out. In fact,
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I interviewed the guy who wrote, I have it somewhere, this book. This is actually one of the books by Kilpatrick Sale, Christopher Columbus and the
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Conquest of Paradise. It is one of the books that's kind of led to a lot of skepticism about Columbus and kind of thinking about him as, he's not such a hero, but the guy who wrote this,
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Kilpatrick Sale, Kirkpatrick Sale, who is in the documentary, American Monument, we did.
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He says, we need to celebrate Columbus Day because of his achievements, not because of the way he treated the Tainos. So there's that, and that's the play that's being run.
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And the way you defend it is just by saying, get your own holiday. And you could reverse the logic and say, do you want to support the worst of what native peoples did?
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None of them were Christian, right? At the time that Europeans came. So does that mean, you must be supporting, you can only use this on Christians, but you must be supporting pagan religion then, if you wanna support
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Indigenous Peoples Day, because they were all pagan. You know, you must, do you support human sacrifice?
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Some of the tribes did that. Some of the major tribes did that, Aztecs, Mayans. And do you support the kind of slavery that many tribes were involved with, some of the savagery, even the pilgrims.
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If you read like the diary of William Bradford, he talks about some of the things. Oof, I'm like, wow, that is a creative mind to do some of these, the horrible things that some tribes, not all, some tribes did.
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You know, of course they're not celebrating that, right. And we're not celebrating any of the views Columbus had that were out of step with some of the values that are commonly believed today.
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So that was the Gospel Coalition, nothing about Columbus Day, but we'll celebrate
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Indigenous Peoples Day on a certain level. And then you have Jamar Tisby, and he put out that, a quote from Columbus.
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They should be good servants and intelligent, talking about the native peoples. And excerpts from the
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Journal of Columbus from when he first encountered Indigenous Peoples. And so the whole thing is that, surprise, surprise,
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Christopher Columbus did not have the same views on race that people in the 21st century have.
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Can you believe it? In 1492, the first European to set eyes in that area of the world, and Jamar Tisby tries to say, well, look, he wasn't the first.
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You had Scandinavians, yeah, the Vikings. They made it to the Northern Atlantic coast, right, which is a long way from where Columbus was.
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So Columbus also, he brought in this wave of European immigration, colonization, really.
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And so that's why he's unique, but Columbus didn't share the same views that people today do.
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He said things like, as regards beauty, the Christians said there was no comparison, both men and women, that their skins are whiter than the other
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Indigenous people. They saw two girls whose skins were as white as any that could be seen in Spain.
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And Jamar Tisby takes these quotes and says, look, he's operating off of a view of beauty that was common at the time, and that's racism.
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And yeah, Columbus had views that aren't in, it has nothing to do with the holiday, though.
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It has nothing to do with why Columbus is celebrated. So that's really the long and short of it.
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And so this happened across evangelicalism. I don't know what other articles. I know there are more,
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I'm sure. I noticed in my local Facebook page that there was some stuff about that as well, and I chimed in a bit and got into a little bit of a back and forth with someone.
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But the effort in all of this is to rip down and replace, rip down and replace.
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There's plenty of character flaws to find in Columbus if you want to find them. But you also, you have to keep asking yourself, and what was the achievement that Columbus did that we celebrate?
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Nothing that he thought or said or did takes away from that achievement. And if we're gonna have, if you're gonna have a bar as high as, it's not even a high bar, it's just, it's kind of warped, to be honest.
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If you have a bar like Jamar Tisby has, then you're gonna have to eliminate almost all.
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You're gonna have to, if you're gonna be consistent, you have to eliminate a lot of heroes of black history as well, because they weren't in step with social justice beliefs, egalitarian beliefs.
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So that is what's happening there. Now, speaking of Jamar Tisby, I wanted to bring this up, and it looks like for some reason, huh,
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I don't know why. There we go. All right, well, this is a thread from Woke Preacher Clips.
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And it's interesting, it's on Jamar Tisby's, I guess it's a podcast or something. And Jamar Tisby has something to say to, well, he has someone he interviewed, and he has something, positive things to say about her, and I'm gonna show you what
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Woke Preacher Clips put together. It is fascinating, and it was predicted, it's been predicted many times on this particular podcast,
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I'm sure many others have said the same thing, that this is the off -ramp. Woke theology, whatever, it's the off -ramp from Christianity.
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Once you go down this path, it leads you into more and more and more areas that are unorthodox, heterodox, and that's what we're getting from Jamar Tisby.
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Woke Preacher Clips found this. Jackie Lewis, she provides enough material that I could clip her and her alone for years,
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I don't though, because it's more obvious she's not a Christian, but Jamar Tisby recently hosted her on his podcast to teach you how to be a better Christian, and here she is.
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Our next guest, the Reverend Dr. Jackie Lewis. Welcome to those meddling kids.
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I'm so glad to be here, what a fantastic series this is. Come on, keep up with the meddling. It is getting even better with you here.
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Y 'all, I cannot tell you how excited I am to hear from Reverend Dr. Lewis. I'm a universalist
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Christian pastor. I've not had an abortion, but I strongly believe it's my right to choose.
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Every birthing person's right to choose. He showed up at the steps of the
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Supreme Court to rave, to rage, and yes, even to pray for abortion access.
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Join us to act for abortion. Do I believe in a literal second coming of Jesus Christ?
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No, I do not believe in the literal second coming of Jesus Christ. To be honest with you, I think the second coming of Christ is you and me.
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We are the living body of Christ. What if we looked at each other and saw we nearly missed being gods, just by a little bit?
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Happy coming out day to all my queer friends. You are loved by a God who has no pronouns, a
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God who made you exactly like you are. May God make her face to shine upon you.
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You get to name God the way you want to name God, and you get to name you the way you want to be named.
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And our job is to see you and love you and honor you. See you and love you and honor you.
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Trans people are divine, and transphobia is a sin.
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I've been changed in my life by my relationships and my activism with my queer siblings.
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You have queered me. You have cracked my heart wide open. You have made me want to be a better everything, and most especially a partner in the liberation of humanity.
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So thank you and never stop loving your amazing self. God bless you.
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Middle Church is my jam. Middle Church is my multiracial, multicultural, multi all the things, queer -friendly, woman -led experiment about multiracial life in America.
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And you're a national voice, international voice really on this. So again, honored by your presence.
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Okay, I don't think we have to look at any more, right? I mean, he's got a whole thread here of the crazy things she says on his particular podcast.
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I'll just read for you some summations. Lewis repeatedly and explicitly stated her desire for all churches to be queer affirming and Tisby didn't read the word of protest.
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I'm pretty bored of the CRT discourse, but since it was the reason she was there, it is at least noteworthy that they're embracing
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Derrick Bell with no caveats and rejecting the idea of equality under the law. Jamar's final word, you are so generous with wisdom.
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The experience and knowledge that God has given you and you blessed us, you are truly, truly blessed us. And I cannot thank you enough for joining us, those meddling kids, thank you so much, which is the name of his podcast, those meddling kids.
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So this is where I guess Jamar Tisby's at now, which is sad to me because this is a guy who went to,
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I believe it was Reform Theological Seminary. I think he had some connection at some point with Lincoln Duncan, if I'm not mistaken, but there's like pictures,
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I've seen pictures of him with Al Mohler and I mean, this is the world he kind of came from, this Reform Christianity, and this is where he's going.
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And it's really sad to me to watch, to see this happen. It's not a political thing, it's a theological thing.
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A social justice debate is not ultimately a political debate, it is a philosophical, theological debate, and it, sure, it comes in as a political debate, but that's not really what it is at a fundamental level.
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And so, yeah, that's where Jamar Tisby is at these days. Switching gears, there is a debate going on right now, starting to go on, and I think it's actually a worthwhile discussion about the pastors, the
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Christian leaders who pushed the COVID protocols from the state in manipulative ways, and whether or not they should go back and in fact apologize for the bad information that they gave to you.
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And I think it's actually a pretty slam dunk argument and answer, the answer's yes.
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And here's an article from the Freedom Center, Theology of Politics, Christian Lovers, COVID Conformity, by Dr.
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Tim Yontz, July 20th, 2022. So this started actually a while ago, but it's now making the rounds again on social media.
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And it's pretty lengthy, it's a bit well -sourced, and he calls out
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Gospel Coalition, he calls out David French for using these arguments that you're so familiar with.
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I mean, it's funny, I was talking with someone last night, my wife and I, a friend of hers, and she was saying to her friend, she said, you remember, or her friend was saying to her, do you remember, it was like, what, two years ago, there were stickers on the floors of Walmart, social distance, and no one obeyed them, but we were supposed to, and like that whole, that 2020,
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I think so many of us just wanna forget that that happened, but it wasn't that long ago.
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And the people who are in charge are still the ones in charge. There was a pastor not far from me who said that if you didn't get,
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I think it was, I'm trying to think it was masked or jabbed, I think it was jabbed, you, not, it's not just you were failing to love your neighbor, you were murdering, right, if you showed up at church.
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This is someone who's supposedly conservative. And so Christian leaders, we talked about many of them who did this, should at least say, you know,
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I goofed on that, and give some kind of explanation. You know, how are you gonna, what are you gonna do different next time, right?
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That should be maybe part of that. Well, Rhett Koppel, who you should follow him if you're on Twitter, I'm not on Twitter, but if you are, follow him.
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He's also on Facebook. He said, given the discussion, well, let's see, let's, I'm not gonna read you the whole tweet.
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The issue here is he wanted to know if Andrew Walker at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary is going to recant what he wrote.
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Andrew Walker was part of a group that wrote this. It's why we plan to get vaccinated, a
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Christian moral perspective. And in it, you know, they give the love for neighbor thing. It's seeking the common good.
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And, you know, you need to, you need to comply. That's what we need to do. And that was
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December 8th, 2020. Of course, this was an issue, I remember at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, that there was
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Ryan Hutchinson, I think it was, wrote this article to all the students, emailed all the students, being just sarcastically treating those who would be against the jab.
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You know, I got the jab. I didn't grow a fifth arm, that kind of thing. Third arm, fifth appendage.
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He, this was across the board. If you were a North American, or sorry, IMB missionary, and you didn't wanna get the jab, you're off the field.
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I think that's still in effect. I mean, this is where they were all leading us. Al Mohler was leading us on these things.
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And now, Mohler's done even a 180 with wanting to fight this. But at the time, he was on board too with supporting this experimental treatment.
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And there was very few voices who were willing to say, hold on a minute, this was one of them.
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This podcast was one of them. And I knew I was stepping out on a limb to even start to try to really address this, but I didn't feel like I had a choice.
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And doctors I knew of that were taking stands against this were just being deplatformed, being, it was horrible.
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It still is. And I've had family members and people I know who have lost their jobs over it. In New York State, you still can't get a job in the medical field unless you're gonna get that jab.
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Things are changing, things are loosening up, but there's still... Where did the
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Christian leaders take us on that? On the whole thing, on the mandates, on the lockdowns, on the whole thing, where did so many of them take us?
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Not to good places. And here's the thing, the point isn't to like jump down their throat, it's really not. The point is this, if you were wrong and now you know you were wrong, why not just say,
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I'm sorry? I'm sorry that I led you down that path. It's not hard work, it doesn't take much.
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Just say it, that's all. And that's, I would... Andrew Walker, I think, is the one here because he has, since especially the election, he's kind of pivoted more to the right.
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And I remember there was like a year ago, I was looking up some
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Andrew Walker tweets and I noticed something about him that before the election, 2020, if he ever said conspiracy, he was applying it to the right.
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And after the election, if he said the word conspiracy, he was generally applying it to the left, thus the pivot. But Andrew Walker is someone that maybe because of the direction he's gone, maybe he'd be willing to take back his previous view.
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And that'd be awesome if he did, because he did the same thing recently on the preferred pronoun issue,
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I believe as well. No, maybe J .D. Greer did, J .D. Greer did. I don't know if Andrew Walker did, but it'd be nice to see
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Andrew Walker do that. And it'd be nice to see a lot of other Christian leaders. The Gospel Coalition had several articles that were terrible in this regard.
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So that's a little trend that I thought, that's, there's some prudence to that. I hadn't really thought of that, but that's a good, it really tells you where someone's at.
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If they're not willing to apologize, if they think that they were wrong at the time and they're not willing to apologize, that says something.
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So I take that for what it is worth in the news roundup today. In other news,
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PayPal pulls back, says it won't fine customers $2 ,500 for misinformation after backlash.
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The world we live in. Yes, I need to find an alternative to PayPal, please. Put, if you have an alternative, like a real one, it's gotta be user -friendly.
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I can't do something that's too hard to navigate. If you have a real good alternative though, because that's what
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I've been using for the card processing for my books. And at the time, the designer who put that together,
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I even questioned it. I said, isn't there anything else? And he said, this is all I know to use. I said, okay, but I really wanna get away from using
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PayPal. But PayPal pulls back, says it won't fine customers $2 ,500 for misinformation after backlash.
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PayPal has backtracked on a published policy that would fine users that much money for spreading misinformation, claiming the update had gone out in error.
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Hmm. Of course it was in error. This is incredible that they, that was even a thought.
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So that's where corporate America, they're all Republicans, right?
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No. And this is not only motivation to not use PayPal, but this is motivation to build an alternative economy.
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What Andrew Torba talks a lot about, that you need a company that, I mean, this is like getting into social credit status.
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And if the government gets its, I mean, the merger between government and business, that connection, that close connection they often have, where there's contracts that these big titans pick up from the government, it is the kickbacks and all the rest of it, it's so close.
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Even just the relationships that through the media and politics and big business,
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I mean, the relationships that cycle through with people who even get divorced, marrying someone who's in that world, they attend the same parties, all of that.
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That cabal, if you wanna call it that, I'm not saying conspiracy theory, I'm just saying that's the way it is. These people hang out with each other is a big problem and we need institutions we can trust.
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It's the most dire need, that we need institutions and leadership. We're missing that.
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And so that was a wake -up call. So on the domestic front, now here's also in the same vein, the
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Gates Foundation pledges $200 million for international digital IDs. Isn't that wonderful? What a nice man. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has been revealed to have pledged 1 .27
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billion in funding towards achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals with a portion of this going toward invasive technologies.
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In a press release, United Nations General Assembly, the foundation stated that 200 million of this sizable fund would be going towards expanding digital public infrastructure.
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So just so people know what this is, this would be the way that you'd enforce a social credit system.
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This would be the way that you would enforce it. This would be the way that you can control a mass population quite easily.
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They already have cell phones. They already have these. And that helps quite a bit, but this would be on a level that you can't even imagine.
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So that's what's going on there. And then on the international front, Russia just recently struck
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Ukraine's Lviv power supply. Now, why did they do that?
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Well, it was probably in reaction to a strike they're attributing to Ukraine on a bridge in the
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Crimean Peninsula. I'm kind of,
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I don't know what's going on exactly. I don't know if any new source that I have has a great handle on it, but we're either going, things are becoming escalated.
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So it's the beginning of the end or it's the end of the beginning. And I'm not sure which.
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We're in a weird spot over there right now. And the administration here just does not seem to be that interested in peaceful negotiation.
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Russia is so alienated right now from Western countries and especially the United States that there doesn't seem to be any way of resolving the impassable conflict that is emerging.
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And it's not something to bite your nails over. I'm not bringing it up for that purpose, but it's just something to know is happening internationally.
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And it could well lead to more destabilization than we already have. And that would mean just get your house in order.
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Make sure that you know economically in every way that you know how to be self -sufficient and to, if you need skills, gain skills.
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I don't know what the future holds, but we could be on the precipice of something bigger. And by the way,
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I should say that the election in Brazil got kicked down the road. It wasn't, they have to, they're doing a runoff, which
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I think is in a week. So that situation hasn't resolved either. In that, with that topic in mind of Russia, David French, David French, someone sent this to me and I'm like, you gotta be kidding me.
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Okay, it was John Cooper from Skillet sent this to me. I just, and he was like, you know, did
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I see what I said? And I'm like, yeah, you did. David French, the world's most powerful Christian nationalist, the anti -woke
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Vladimir Putin. It's the most powerful Christian nationalist in the world. I mean, man, I thought
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Trump was, okay. Vladimir Putin's the most powerful Christian nationalist has launched a holy war.
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His tanks are burning in the fields and his raping, looting, and murdering army is in retreat. What can we learn?
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We can learn not to listen to David French. Talk about rendering the term Christian nationalist absolutely useless.
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You can't define it. If Vladimir Putin's a Christian nationalist and that's what
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Christian nationalism is, holy war with raping, looting, and murdering. You know, is that, that's what
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Stephen Wolf is defending in the case for, is that what he's defending here? Is that what
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William Wolf is defending? I think if your name ends in Wolf, you have to defend Christian nationalism for some reason.
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And the way he just characterizes this, that's a holy war with raping, looting, and murdering.
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Yeah, well, you know, welcome to war to some extent, but you know, as if there's, from what
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I can tell, there's nothing like, as far as comparing Ukrainian soldiers to Russian soldiers, it's not like any of them are more or less,
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I better not get into this territory. It's getting dicey for me. People are gonna be mad.
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You support Ukraine. I'm not saying, I'm not saying I'm for Russia at all.
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I'm saying though that both armies, they're armies. That's what I'm saying. They're just, they're armies. And the way that, if soldiers are doing that, what soldiers are known to do, then they would be going against the protocols that are in place.
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And so it's possible that that happens. But David French just wants to make it irreducibly defined by this kind of behavior.
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And this is unfortunately the posture that the administration has taken too. But look, over 1 ,000 likes on this too.
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I mean, this is what people like. I'm sure, should I dare click on this? Probably not. The spiritual lessons of a
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Christian nationalist military defeat. What's, oh, I have to have a subscribe on Dispatch.
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So, well, we're not doing that. But this guy has just become so unhinged.
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It's like Jamar Tisby. It's like they start out and it's like they have a few bad takes and then it's like, before long, like what happened to you?
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Okay, last but not least, Breitbart News. Report, more millennials going to church now than before the pandemic.
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And I read, churches all across the country famously closed down during much of the pandemic, clearing tensions in some communities they wanted to continue to meet regardless of local or state rules.
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But now, most Americans recognize that the pandemic is over. Each President Joe Biden, even
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President Joe Biden made that admission. There's been an uptick of Americans returning to normal activities.
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As Rasmussen reports, for example, slightly more Americans plan on attending an Easter service than did the year before.
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In the same vein, a report from Christianity Today and found that more millennials are attending church now than prior to the pandemic.
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The trend can be partly explained. And let me just read for you the basis of it. More millennials attend church weekly now than before the start of the pandemic, according to the
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Barna Group surveys of 13 ,000 adults. Roughly 16 % of regular churchgoers have not returned to service at all in 2022, but weekly attendance among those born between 81 and 96 has risen from 21 % to 39 % this year.
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Now, I don't know how to make sense of this. The trend can be partly explained by LifeStage report ads, noting that attendance is typically highest when people have young children, and that's what's happening.
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Their report coincides with a June Gallup poll which found belief in God sinking to an all -time low in the US. It remains unclear with churches millennials are tending to flock to, but the news...
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So this is fascinating to me. And I would be curious, what is the reason for this?
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You put in the comment section what you think is going on here. I would be absolutely fascinated to hear your opinion on this because this is a spark of good news.
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This is a silver lining, right? But I don't know what churches they're going to. I don't know what this means.
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Is it financial desperation too? Could that be playing a part in it? What do you think? I figured
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I would at least let you know about that. So that's the show today. Just a bunch of news items that I've wanted to mention to you.
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And I hope you all are doing well. I do, I really do. It's been fall weather at my house and it's been,
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I'm doing a lot better today than I have been for a while. In fact, I had a drill. I was doing some work upstairs.
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I had a drill fall on my head from like, I had it on a ladder at the top of the stairwell and I was at the bottom and it hit me at like, you know, seven feet.
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I was like, oh man. And I'm feeling, the swelling has gone down though.
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I feel a lot better now and I'm looking forward to what the rest of the week brings. But, you know, there's crazy things going on out there as I highlighted some of them.
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And sometimes these things can be discouraging. And I think sometimes we need to know, so sometimes you have to turn it off.
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Even my podcast, I tell people that, look, don't just listen to my podcast. And sometimes it's too much.
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I don't focus on negative things every episode, but I'm doing a lot of critiquing in most of my podcasts because I think it's necessary.
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It needs to be done. But realize the world we're living in. Big picture here, okay? Christ is on his throne.
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He's king, he rules. He's coming back. And we're here on a mission from him.
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And it looks different for each and every one of us, but in general, as Christians, our mission is to make disciples. And so that includes going to all the world, preaching the gospel.
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I think part of that is also raising up children in your family. This is what we're here for.
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And God wants us to enjoy the things that are in front of us, not just to spend our times in worrying all the time. It's easy to do that.
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We need to be aware, we need to be, but not letting that gain too much of a foothold in our lives to where we can't see beyond, to see who's really in control and to see the world he made.
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It's a beautiful world out there. And so I hope that you have some time this week to not just be in the
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Word, but to get out and maybe see what's going on. In my neck of the woods, the leaves are changing. It's beautiful. Go out and look at the handiwork of God, of your creator.
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Realize that he has a plan in all this, all the crazy things, all the tracking IDs and social credit systems and all that, they can't outsmart him.
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And he's going to accomplish his purposes. Now, you do play a part in that.
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Now, depending on what you do, depending on your obedience will determine what part you actually play.
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And no, I'm not saying that you determine God's plans. The plans are already fixed, but God ordains the free choices of men.
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And you have a place in all of this. We're not fatalists. We do believe that we have actions that we must take in obedience.
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And so that's where I think you need to see yourself. Whatever role you have in this world, you may not be able to stop a
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Bill Gates, right? You may not even be able to stop a David French or a Jamar Tisby, but you know what you can do is you can be faithful where you're at.
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You can guard your family against these kinds of forces that would seek to subvert them, to get them to believe things that aren't true, to get them to participate in things that would be bad for them and bad for the world as a whole.
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And so you're protecting. You're protecting your family and you're also propagating the good news of Jesus Christ.
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So that's my little pep talk for you. In case I don't get to a show before the weekend,
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I think I will get to another one or two at least before the weekend, but I wanted to let you know that. Take a deep breath.
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Let your heart not be troubled. As Jesus said, believe in God, believe also in me. My father's house are many mansions and if it were not so, he would not have told us that.
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And so with that in mind, with him, the idea that he's not gonna leave us and forsake us, go forth.