Jordan Peterson, Joe Rogan, and the Problem of Addiction

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Non -rockabodas must stop. I don't want to rock the boat. I want to sink it! Are you going to bark all day, little doggie?

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Or are you going to bite? We're being delusional. Delusional? Delusional is okay in your world view.

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I'm an animal. You don't chastise chickens for being delusional. You don't chastise pigs for being delusional. So you calling me delusional using your world view is perfectly okay.

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It doesn't really hurt. He hung up on me! Desperate times call for faithful men and not for careful men.

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The careful men come later and write the biographies of the faithful men, lauding them for their courage.

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Go into all the world and make disciples. Not go into the world and make buddies. Not to make brosives.

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Don't go into the world and make homies. Disciples. I got a bit of a jiggle neck.

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That's a joke, master. When we have the real message of truth, we cannot let somebody say they're speaking truth when they're not.

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For I want you to know how great a struggle

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I have for you and for those at Laodicea. And for all who have not seen me face to face, that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, to reach all the riches.

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To reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God's mystery, which is

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Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

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That's Colossians chapter 2, everybody. First couple verses there. Welcome back to another episode of Apologia Radio, everybody.

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I think most places did. It was bad. I mean, last week, everybody was down for the count last week.

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So this is Luke the Bear. What up? That's Joy the Girl. Hello. I'm Jeff the Commenter Ninja. And we're back for another episode of Apologia.

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And this is actually interesting. Both Joy and Luke have not seen this clip yet.

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Many of you guys are aware of Jordan Peterson. Jordan Peterson has had some interesting moves forward towards the

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Bible, the Christian faith. I just looked up. He claims to be a pragmatic Christian.

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Yeah. He's a Carl Jung, if that gives you any idea. Yeah. Pray for him because he's saying some things that's like, that is actually very, very good.

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Very insightful. I'm glad you're getting closer and closer. But Jordan Peterson, many of you guys have seen.

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Did you guys see? Did you see it? The clip where he starts talking about Jesus and he starts to cry. That was really powerful.

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Look it up. Look it up. Jordan Peterson, Jesus, and crying. I'm sure you'll find it. He's definitely, for a while,

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I would say, been grappling with some stuff. And obviously a very intelligent person. Super.

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But, you know, a little more like philosophically leaning as opposed to religious.

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Yeah. So. Yeah. But, I mean, he's just, I feel like he's continued to kind of get more and more. And wait till you hear what he says.

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Wait till you hear what he says here. It's going to blow your minds. It's like, wow, I'd like to talk to Jordan Peterson. Very exciting. Jordan Peterson, if you actually happen to watch this and see this,

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I'd love to have a conversation with you. I'm intrigued. But Jordan Peterson had a clip where he was talking about Jesus and he starts to cry.

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He's talking about Christ. I'm not going to play that right now because we don't have time to do that right now. But in this particular one, he just had a conversation with Joe Rogan on Joe Rogan's podcast, which is blowing up all over the world.

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It was already popular, but now it is uber, uber popular. Did you see? Sorry. I think this is hilarious.

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So, like, two or three days ago, Neil Young said, I'm going to pull my music off Spotify if you don't get rid of Joe Rogan.

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If you don't get rid of the number one podcast on your platform. Bye bye, Neil. They pulled all this stuff.

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Amazing. Yeah. No, I think that's amazing. Exactly. The first question people asked when they saw that was, who's

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Neil Young? And the second question was, are you on Spotify? I knew who Neil Young was.

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Of course. Yeah. No, I'm teasing. This modern generation is like, people who are using

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Spotify are like, who's Neil Young? Who are you? Cooper's the one that sent me that.

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And what's funny about that is he was like, his most popular song is rocking in the free world. There you go.

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That is funny. That is funny. It's fascinating to me because you look at, okay, the two particular,

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I know we're going to get into this, but this probably, well, I think lots of people, we're probably thinking the same thing. It's our show.

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Yeah, it's our show. We do what we please. We do what we want. Two particular people today, kind of cultural icons today that are both not

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Christians. They are not Christians at all. Not even close is

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Joe Rogan and Dave Chappelle. Sorry. Jack Morgan is trolling our thing.

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Is he? And people are thinking he's serious. Oh, is he messing around? He said, I don't know why they use red lights. That's the devil's light.

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That's hilarious. Jack Morgan's a pastor. Apology, you guys. So two cultural icons.

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And what's interesting is they exist in the midst of a very strange culture. It's the cancel culture.

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And most people can be taken down pretty easily through the cancel culture of today.

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Like, we'll de -platform you. We're going to take away your ability to work and feed yourself because we don't like what you said.

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But these two cultural icons, not Christians, are the ones that have been standing up against the culture of, like, you're not allowed to speak about that.

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You're not allowed to talk about that. You will not say these things. And what's amazing about it is that they can't be canceled.

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They can't be canceled because they are too good at what they do and too interesting to everybody.

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They can't actually be canceled. Like, for example, this guy Neil Young is saying, you know, I'll pull my stuff off of Spotify. And he's got a history.

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He's popular. He's famous. Neil Young is actually famous. Yeah. As much as we tease. Yeah, tease because the younger generation is like, who the heck is

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Neil Young? But he's got some clout. And he says, well, you know, I'll pull my stuff.

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And it's like, well, Joe Rogan's the one with, like, he's getting the most views and ratings of, like, anybody. Like, he's beating Fox News and everybody else.

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So bye, Neil Young. And, like, with Dave Chappelle, like, he comes against the culture. He says things he's not supposed to say.

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And, like, we're going to cancel you. But he's too dang good at what he does. And so he can't be canceled. So I just find that fascinating.

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But what is irritating to me about it is that both Dave Chappelle and Joe Rogan are the ones standing against the establishment in many ways, saying the things that are the blasphemous things of the day.

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You're not allowed to say these. That's blasphemy. That's cultural blasphemy. They're saying it. They're doing it courageously. They're standing against what people do to try to shut you down.

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And they're not Christian. So that is the thing that irritates me, is that where are the other courageous men and women who are going to stand up like these men are and do it for righteous causes?

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Not that some of the things they've done is not a righteous cause. It in many ways is. But so Jordan Peterson on Joe Rogan.

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I'm going to play the clip. We'll play through it. It's about four minutes long. But I want you to hear some of the things that Jordan Peterson says because it's amazing.

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It's like, yeah, that's actually really insightful and good. And you're right, Joe. He comes from a very philosophical perspective.

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He's thinking a lot in terms of categories and worldview and justification and all those things.

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So he has that mindset already. And I was so intrigued that he actually caught a very, very important aspect of, like, even what

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I read at the beginning of the show, that in Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. If you want knowledge, if you want truth, then

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Christ is the very foundation of it. He's the reference point. And it's interesting because Jordan Peterson, he sees that.

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He sees that. And what's amazing is he's saying it to Joe Rogan. That's what you're going to love about this, is that here's

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Jordan Peterson who's saying it across the table to Joe Rogan.

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And I just want to say a final thing. I think one of the reasons that people appreciate Joe Rogan's podcast so much is that when he has people on that he even disagrees with, he lets them talk and share.

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He's very fair to him. He lets them talk and share. Yeah, I think Joe Rogan has conversations that he wants to have, and I think he's a good conversationalist.

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He's good at what he does. That's why he's pretty much number one. That's why he's the most popular right now, for sure.

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If you guys, by the way, haven't seen the two – I won't even say it because if I say it right now, this is going to get shadow banned or something.

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He did two particular shows with some doctors and scientists that you really need to see.

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You really, really need to see. It will raise the hairs on the back of your neck. Very important stuff.

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Very important stuff. So here we go. This is Jordan Peterson's realization about the

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Bible, if you guys want to look it up for yourselves later. Here you go. The Joe Rogan experience.

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If categories dissolve, especially fundamental ones, the culture is dissolving because the culture is a structure of category.

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That's what it is. In fact, culture is a structure of category that we all share.

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So we see things the same way. Well, that's why we can talk. I mean, not exactly the same way because then we'd have nothing to talk about.

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But roughly speaking, we have a bedrock of agreement. That's the

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Bible, by the way. Wow. All right. Good start. Good start. One of the things that's interesting about this is just what he's saying there is something that you've actually heard us saying quite a bit.

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Now, we'll say it with a little bit more of a biblical explanatory power in terms of saying, you know, things like you're in the image of God.

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Right? It's inescapable that you're in the image of God. You know the true God. And the problem is not like a lack of light or evidence about the true

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God. It's that we're all made in the image of the same God, but we suppress the truth because we don't want to know

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God. Because we're sinners. We rebel. We go the other way. We'd rather worship and serve the creature, the creation itself, rather than the true

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God. So the fundamental issue in all of human experience in terms of our broken relationship with God, our estrangement in terms of our creator, is that we know the real

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God, but we don't want to know him. We don't want him in our knowledge. Romans 1 says we don't want him in our knowledge.

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And so what we do is we switch him for something else. We go to substandard gods, and we try to distort even the nature of creation itself.

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So like when he talks about categories, well that's in Romans 1. The category of maleness and femaleness is in Romans chapter 1.

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And what happens is, and this is right in line with what he's saying here, when he talks about culture breaking down because we're no longer sharing the same categories.

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That's exactly what Romans 1 is essentially saying, is that the men exchange the natural use of the women for other men, and the women do likewise.

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And then there's the description of the breakdown that Romans 1 says in terms of disobedience of parents, enemies of God, and all of the different sins that show the breakdown of the image of God in Romans 1.

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And I think that's, this was so beautiful about this conversation, is that's essentially what

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Jordan Peterson's getting at. But he's doing it in a way by talking about we all share these categories.

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I think what he's really getting at is worldview. Like we all share these same worldview platforms, whether it's human dignity and that experience and human dignity, whether it's value of life, whether it's, you know,

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I'd say probably, I don't want to speak for Jordan Peterson. But I assume he's talking about categories of like the big no -nos we all agree on.

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We all agree that these are no -nos. These are immoral. You ought not do this. This is the basic structure of all of our thinking that we share.

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Well, we would say that's the image of God in people. And of course, it comes downstream from the biblical worldview changing the world, the

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Bible changing the world. So we're supposed to all be holding to these same categories. And I think what Jordan Peterson is saying is now the cultural breakdown is because now we're dismissing all those categories that we all had sort of as a bedrock.

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And he's saying, and that came from the Bible. And he's right. He's 100 % right.

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Now, watch him explain a little more. By the way, you guys jump in any time. I'm just going to say I'm surprised Canada hasn't banned him yet.

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Yeah. Good point. One of those things, if someone has a certain amount of a following, they already have their audience intact.

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So it's harder to cancel. It's the same thing with Joe and Dave Chappelle. Yeah. Yeah. Good point. If you already have that sort of intact, that brand intact, then it's harder to take you down.

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Right. Because you have loyalty. Yeah. You have loyalty and you've established yourself and people say I respect you and trust you.

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So you're not getting taken down. That's good. Here we go. So I just walked through the

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Museum of the Bible in Washington. That was very cool. It's a very cool museum. So the structure, that's what the

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Bible provides. That's what I figured out. I just figured this out this week. So it was a cool thing to walk through because it's chronological.

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They have one floor, which is the history of the Bible. But it's not exactly that. It's really what it is, is the history of the book.

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Now, in many ways, the first book was the Bible. I mean, literally. Because at one point, there was only one book.

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As far as our Western culture is concerned, there was one book. And for a while, literally, there was only one book.

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And that book was the Bible. And then before it was the Bible, it was scrolls and it was writings on papyrus.

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But we were starting to aggregate written text together. And it went through all sorts of technological transformations.

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And then it became books that everybody could buy. The book everybody could buy. And the first one of those was the Bible. And what he's referring to here is, and this is true, in history, it was the

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Christians that essentially innovated and created the technology of a book.

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Reformed Christians. Right. So the book. Just throw that in there. Yeah. So the book is, of course, an innovation from the

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Christian church. And he's right. Historically, it's not that people didn't tell stories and write stuff down.

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You didn't have scrolls and things handed out. You had your own personal libraries at home in terms of the things you could carry around.

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But we're talking about papyrus and vellum, animal skins, and things that are rolled up and passed along like that.

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But when we talk today about, hey, I'm holding this here. And it's just a collection of books and letters and put together nice and neatly in this format.

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Well, that's an innovation of the Christian church. Like the Bible is what inspired the book and books.

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And so this was an innovation of the Christian church, doing it like this. And so that's what he's getting at.

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And so when you talk about the innovation of making books, well, it started somewhere with an innovation of the book.

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It was the first. And so if you go to libraries today and you're secularist, looking for your book and pulling it off the shelf and opening it up and everything else, it's like, well, you can thank a

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Christian for that. So that's where it came from. So came all sorts of books that everybody could buy.

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But all those books, in some sense, emerged out of that underlying book and that book itself.

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The Bible isn't a book. It's a library. It's a collection of books. And so what

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I figured out was partly because I was talking to my brother -in -law, Jim Keller, who's the world's greatest chip designer and has now designed a chip that's as powerful as the human brain, which is optimized for artificial intelligence learning, by the way.

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And so I talked to him about that. He said, you heard of the Internet? I said, yeah, Jim, I've heard of the

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Internet. He said, this is way more revolutionary than that. So in any case, we were talking about meaning in text, because we were talking about translation and the problem of understanding text.

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And Jim said, the meaning of words is coded in the relationship of the words to one another.

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And the postmodernists make that case, that all meaning is derived from the relationship between words. That's wrong, because, well, what about rage?

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That's not words. And what about moving your hand? That's not words. So it's wrong, but part of it's right, because the meaning we derive from the verbal domain is encoded in the relationship between words.

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So now then you think, well, let's think about the relationship between words. Well, some words are dependent on other words.

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Some ideas are dependent on other ideas. The more ideas are dependent on a given idea, the more fundamental that idea is.

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That's a definition of fundamental. So now imagine you have an aggregation of texts in a civilization.

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You say, which are the fundamental texts? And the answer is, the texts upon which most other texts depend.

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And so you put Shakespeare way in there in English, because so many texts are dependent on Shakespeare's literary revelations.

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And Milton would be in that category. And Dante would be in that category, at least in translation. Fundamental authors, part of the

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Western canon, not because of the arbitrary dictates of power, but because those texts influenced more other texts.

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And then you think about that as a hierarchy, okay, with a Bible at its base, which is certainly the case.

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Now imagine that's the entire corpus of linguistic production, all things considered.

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Now how do you understand that? Like, literally, how do you understand that? The answer is, you sample it by reading and listening to stories and listening to people talk.

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You sample that whole domain. You build a low -resolution representation of that inside you.

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And then you listen and see through that. And so it isn't that the

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Bible is true. It's that the Bible is the precondition for the manifestation of truth, which makes it way more true than just true.

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Wow. I've never heard it explained that way, but that was incredible. That was a really fascinating way to get at what historically

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Christians have said, in particular the school of Van Til, Bonson, you know, the thinking behind transcendental apologetics or presuppositional apologetics is really the thinking that is in accordance with a revelational epistemology.

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In other words, how do I know something, anything at all? How do

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I know something, anything at all? How do I know about human dignity? How do I know anything about ethics? How do I know anything about human experience, about the world, about value, beauty, truth, goodness, anything at all?

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Which is the one thing most people aren't taught now. Right, right, right. It's just what to think, right?

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And here's what you're to believe, rather than getting at, well, how is that possible?

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And how do you know that that's actually true? Because it's amazing. People will always make claims, knowledge claims. I know this is wrong.

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I know this is right. I know this is beautiful. I know this is not. I know this about humans, whatever. And you ask the question, how do you know that?

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How do you know that that's true? And if you push and push and push and push and push, and you don't start with something that's the very precondition necessary for knowledge at all, then you'll find that that person, the secularist, the atheist, the agnostic, whatever, the humanist today will simply say, well,

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I guess I really don't know. Maybe we are just in a simulation. Maybe human beings don't have any real value or dignity.

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Maybe, maybe rape is not really wrong, right? Like, I personally feel like it is, but I don't know that.

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Right. Right? Well, they certainly won't live, I mean, especially with the very, most people in instances of like murder or rape won't be consistent with that.

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Right. But they'll say it, I guess, if it comes to that. They'll say, because they're in the image of God, they'll say, you know, rape is wrong.

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We ought not to do that, right? And you push them on their worldview and ask them how they know that that's true, and then they're going to ultimately say, well, it's not really wrong.

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How many times have we heard that on the show? But we shouldn't do it. It's not really wrong, but we should. I don't think you should do it. I don't think you should do it.

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But I guess. It's just a knowledge claim. Right. I guess I don't really know with certainty that it's wrong. Right. But what

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Peterson's getting at, and that was a really fascinating way to get at it, was that the word of God is the very precondition, not just that it's true, it's the precondition for all truth.

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Right. And that's coming from Jordan Peterson. Yeah. And I like how he talked about the low resolution.

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What he was saying was the lens, that's how we describe it, is the lens which you view life, which is your worldview.

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Exactly. He just said it in a very philosophical way. He said it in a very fascinating way. But what's amazing is at the beginning of the show,

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I quoted from Colossians 2, and what Peterson is saying there is something that the apostle

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Paul said about 2 ,000 years ago, that he's the foundation of wisdom and knowledge.

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And in Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. So if you want to know something, if you want to know something is true, if you want to know how to live, it starts with God.

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It starts with Christ. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. And Jesus' claim about himself in John 14, 6, popular verse,

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Christians all know this, is I am the way, the truth. He's not just something that is true.

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He's the grounding of truth. He's the very embodiment of truth. And so what Peterson aimed at there was something actually fascinating.

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He said the word precondition. It's the precondition for truth, not just true.

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It's the precondition for truth, period. And so I love how he did that because he's pointing out to Joe Rogan something very fascinating is that you have all these things that you're holding onto.

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They're not just suspended in midair. We exist downstream from something.

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And what is that something? It's the biblical worldview. It's the word of God. It's what many atheists today just take for granted, right?

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Absolutely. It's like a while back, I did a show with Provoked with Zach and Desi, and they had an atheist come on, right?

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And as I'm talking to the atheist, you guys can look this show up. It's somewhere in our feed. As I'm talking to the atheist,

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I was just trying to press him on his worldview. And we brought up the question of whether or not it's okay to kill, to mutilate, kill, and eat another human being, right?

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And I'm challenging him on that. Now, he, of course, lives here in this nation that was so influenced by God's word and God's revelation and the gospel itself.

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And so, of course, he thinks that that's wrong and icky. But as I pressed him, I was like, well, but in other cultures that still presently exist today in the world, there are cultures, there are tribes who think that it is absolutely moral and good to kill and eat another human being.

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And as I pressed him on his worldview, like, now, you're living in a Christian nation. Sorry, I can't say that anymore.

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You're living in a nation that's so been influenced by Christianity. So, of course, you don't want to do that. You do think it's immoral.

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But what about them? Is it actually wrong? And what did he say? It was so refreshing to have somebody just say this.

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He finally, like, came to terms with, oh, yeah, that's true. It's just their tribe and it's their society determining what's right.

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That's how we do this, right? Yeah, I guess, you know, it's not really wrong. And I guess just so long as you clean your plate, it's not immoral.

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That's essentially what he said. Well, that is what he said, as long as you clean your plate. So, as long as you, you know, you kill them, dispatch them, and you don't waste anything,

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I guess it's fine. It's just like you take it for granted as an atheist that you exist downstream from the influence of the

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Word of God in the world and how it so blessed the world. And what Jordan Peterson is pointing out is the cultural breakdown in the

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West today is because it is a destruction of the categories that came from the foundation of the

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Bible. And that's why we're imploding. And I love how he just says that. It's not just true. It's the precondition.

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Yeah, sorry, I was just going to say, too, because I've seen some comments. We're not at all, like, approving of whatever theology

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Jordan Peterson has at this point in time. And we realize this was taken from a four -hour show.

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We're just simply responding to this one point and dissecting that scripturally.

28:28

I'm glad you brought that up. It's interesting how oftentimes, and I don't want to talk down to anybody, but Christians can tend to have some pretty severe knee -jerk reactions based upon assumptions.

28:41

Like, in an instance like this, we're just saying, Jordan Peterson, pray for him.

28:47

I hope that God opens his eyes to the truth and he comes to Christ. I'm just glad to hear him saying true things.

28:54

Like, just because somebody is an unbeliever— I don't know, maybe this is a good discussion to have for a moment here. Just because somebody is an unbeliever doesn't mean that the image of God has been erased in them.

29:05

And it doesn't mean that they have nothing to offer. Like, for example, you might have an unbeliever who doesn't believe in Jesus, doesn't trust in Christ, but they actually are an incredible artist.

29:17

An incredible artist that I can admire and respect and appreciate and try to, of course, evangelize.

29:25

But just because they're not a Christian doesn't mean I need to— Okay, for example— You're talking about Neil Young? Yeah, right.

29:30

So, yeah. I'll say it like this, and I think this is something that is important, at least in my own mind.

29:37

You have, say, an unbeliever, still made in the image of God, doesn't know Jesus, want to evangelize and want them to know

29:43

Jesus, want to aggressively evangelize them so they know Christ. They may actually be a better artist and storyteller than the

29:50

Christian artist and storyteller. Yeah. I may actually want to appreciate their gifts that are given to them by God, whether they acknowledge

30:00

Him or not, more so than the Christian. So, like, and this is expressed, I think, so well with Christian media and film.

30:07

Have you ever seen a movie that was made by a

30:13

Christian? Like, I'm talking about, like, we're going to make a Christian film. You know, something that goes on Pureflex.

30:19

Have you ever seen one that you liked that was done well? Good cinematography, good sound, good story, good acting.

30:27

Have you ever? I'm asking. My answer is no. Do Darren Doan films count?

30:35

Well, you're talking about, he does, like, documentaries and stuff. So, that's just a different category. I'm talking, like, a film with a storyline and characters and acting and, like, you know what

30:45

I'm saying? Like, I'm talking about a film film. Like, of course, Darren does excellent. But is it me

30:51

I'm saying? The Apostles is phenomenal. But is it, I'm talking, you guys know what I'm saying? I know what you're saying.

30:56

There's a scene in Princess Cut, which is a Pureflex movie, where the main character is sitting in a coffee shop, and for about three seconds you can see the boom mic at the top of the frame.

31:11

That's amazing. Oh, I remember that. Actually, I do remember that. And I just thought that,

31:18

I mean, that's it. Like, they didn't, they were like, eh, we don't need to refilm it. Let's just keep it in there.

31:24

It'll be fine. You know, there is such a thing as CGI, guys. Didn't we try to, like, blur it? Right. Now, no, don't get me wrong.

31:29

But that's sort of the general, that's sort of the general idea is, like, eh, does it give people the warm fuzzies?

31:36

Right. Does it, is there some Bible verses in there? Eh, good enough. Right. Are the actors explaining the movie well enough for you?

31:42

Like, they're always telling you things that, you know, the assumption that the audience is stupid and can't understand nuance and figure the story out for themselves has to be explained in the dialogue, which is done so poorly.

31:52

I'm not saying that, like, for example, like, Hollywood started as this mecca of, like, you know,

31:58

Christian worldview creating, you know, Christian films and things like that. Obviously, a lot has changed. But there's a whole cool story about Hollywood and early films and everything.

32:06

Of course, when you look back in the days, you look at things like It's a Wonderful Life, and you look at things like Ben -Hur.

32:13

There's a difference between then and now, and the difference is back then, not very long ago, the

32:18

Christian worldview was still the riding assumption. Like, roundabout society.

32:24

Like, the Bible, the biblical worldview was still the accepted, this is above all of our heads. So, as you're making films like It's a

32:30

Wonderful Life, I was just going to say that. It's still above the head, right? And now, as Hollywood takes a nosedive, and they start, like, throwing off the fetters of the

32:38

Christian worldview and all that stuff, you know, you start getting to a place today where, like, you've just got garbage. It's a hot mess.

32:45

Joy and I were just talking about, like, shows that it's like, this is done so well. The cinematography, the direction, the production, the acting, the storyline.

32:54

And they feel like today, it's like, well, you know, we've done seven episodes so far, and we've got no bare breast scene.

33:00

So, can we get, like, can we get a ten seconds, like, girl walking by with her bare breasts? You know, well, what's that got to do with anything in the film?

33:07

Nothing, but we just, well, don't we have to do that? Like, don't we have to put that in there? Where's the topical homosexual? Exactly. And so, but I'm talking about today, when you look at, like, you know,

33:16

I'm a Christian director, Christian filmmaker, and they come out with this stuff. It's like, it's done so poorly, and it's embarrassing at times.

33:24

I don't have to say, because I'm Christian and they're Christian, oh, you're really great. That's good art. No, it sucks.

33:31

Like, it's really done poorly. Like, we should do what we do to the glory of God. Christians used to own art. We used to own architecture and medicine and science and all the rest.

33:41

We were the innovators and the ones that were the movers and shakers. And now it's almost like people have this, like, thing, like, well, as long as you're a

33:48

Christian, then I can accept what you do, love what you do. You're the artist. I'm going to love your stuff.

33:53

And the unbeliever, I'm not going to appreciate your art or your stories or anything else because you're an unbeliever.

34:00

And that goes to even, like, this thing with Jordan Peterson. Jordan Peterson says something that actually is true. It's really good.

34:07

And then our reaction is, well, he's not actually saved yet, so I need to just reject and not appreciate anything that he says.

34:13

It's like, no, let's pray for him. He's getting closer. And I really appreciate the insight. That was actually a very good insight.

34:19

I loved it. Yeah, we still believe that a heart change is necessary to be a

34:24

Christian. So you can say a lot of true things. Yeah. I mean, there may be people you sit in church with.

34:31

Yeah. That say a lot of true things that we've been doing this for how long now?

34:37

When I say we, I guess you guys have been pastors for a long time. You've seen people come and go that said all the right things.

34:44

So we certainly don't – we haven't changed our position on that. But he is saying some pretty – he has always been saying some fairly impressive things for someone who does not claim to be a

34:55

Christian. Yeah. And he continues to do so. Wouldn't it be great if we got him on the show? We could talk to him and just have the really meaningful, deep discussion and even offer some solid challenges to him.

35:06

Talk about it. Give him the gospel. That would be amazing. Make that happen, guys.

35:11

Get the word out to Jordan Peterson. We'd love to have him on. So let's talk about – any more on Peterson, guys?

35:20

No, that was just very cool. I'm glad we got the dice like that. So we did a show.

35:28

I think it's the last one we did. Yeah, it was the last one we did on Alcoholics Anonymous and the

35:34

Christian worldview. Is Alcoholics Anonymous consistent with or can it be consistent with the biblical worldview, the gospel itself?

35:40

So the issue is really like the gospel and addiction. And so if you guys haven't seen that show yet, after the show, go back and listen to that show,

35:49

Alcoholics Anonymous. We talked about the 12 steps. We talked about whether or not the 12 steps were consistent with the biblical worldview.

35:55

And so we had a lot of questions. People were asking questions like, okay, where do I go from here? We had some people that were upset.

36:02

We knew that was going to happen, saying like AA helped keep me sober and things like that.

36:10

And so maybe we can address some of that. I think we did address some of it in the last episode. But I wanted to talk about a little bit a step ahead because the big question was, okay, what next, right?

36:22

Like I think a lot of people were saying, yeah, I see what you're saying, like come to God as we understood him.

36:28

Like you can worship a doorknob or electricity or the group or the chair or whatever else. And that's not helpful.

36:34

And obviously the gospel is ignored in AA. I'm sorry. The comments today are just killing me.

36:41

So interesting. We got an interesting group today. Oh boy.

36:48

So the question was like, okay, where do I go from here? And somebody even asked me at church.

36:53

They were like, well, I have a pastor friend who wants to know, okay, like what's next? Okay, I see that we can't really do

37:01

AA as Christians. It's not consistent with the Christian message or the gospel itself.

37:08

It detracts from it in many ways. And so what next? And my answer is, okay,

37:14

Christian discipleship. So key thing I want to say, I know Luke and I would always want to say this. When you're dealing with the issue of addiction, it's amazing that Jesus didn't sit people down in different groupings.

37:24

Like Sermon on the Mount, he says, okay, all the adulterers sit over here, the drunks sit over here, the pill addicts over here.

37:29

Did they have pills then? Whatever, they were smoking. Pharmakia. And so everyone over here who's a thief, you sit in the thief group.

37:38

Jesus just talked to crowds. And the issue was always sin, and it was always repent and follow me, believe in Christ, salvation found only in Christ.

37:45

Okay, so Jesus doesn't group people according to their sins. You're just a sinner, and you might have some favorite sins, right?

37:51

But your problem is the same, and the solution is still the same. So we always want to say, however, when you're dealing with the issue of addiction, this is important, you can't say you just need to repent to the person that's taking like benzodiazepines every day or they're drinking like, you know, two bottles of vodka a day.

38:11

You cannot say to that person just repent and stop drinking because you might be giving them a death sentence because there are chemical toxicity issues related to that particular drug of choice.

38:25

You can't just stop cold turkey or you'll die. So you've heard us say many times, maybe even said in the last episode,

38:30

I don't know if we did or not, that pastors used to have like bottles of whiskey. Right. I think we did talk about that.

38:35

Yeah, they would taper people down. So if you had like a drunk, and that's the proper term, by the way, not alcoholic, it's drunk.

38:42

If you had a drunk who, you know, you were ministering to, and they're turning to Christ, and you needed to help them, you would usually taper them with like shots of whiskey.

38:52

Like, well, how much are you drinking now? All right, let's give you a shot and let's give you another shot in four hours or whatever the case may be.

38:57

They would just taper you down so you wouldn't die. And also it's a mercy to not allow someone to go through much pain.

39:06

All that to say, you've got to be really cautious when you're dealing with the area of addiction. If the person in front of you is, say, shooting heroin, are you going to die from stopping opiates?

39:19

No, you're going to feel like you are dying and you're going to wish you were dead, but you have the issue of opiates.

39:26

Why don't you take the person to a rehab or a hospital and get them professionally detoxed so that they're not going through hell for two weeks?

39:34

Like, that's a mercy. I used to love that part of working at the hospital I was working at is people would come in that were just a mess.

39:42

They were just in misery. And as soon as they would get in, within an hour of checking in, they were stabilized and they were okay and they weren't in horrible pain because they were being tapered over two weeks or 30 days or whatever.

39:56

And so you have people who might be addicted to alcohol or benzodiazepines. That is immediately get to the hospital.

40:03

Immediately get to the hospital. Get to rehab, professional detox. You need that because you can die. You have people who are addicted to heroin or pills,

40:13

Percocet, Dilaudid, whatever the case may be. And those are people that you can still work with professional detox because it's going to help take away the misery and the pain and it's actually going to make it a little easier for them not to go back.

40:27

At a certain point, that is almost what exclusively compels people to continue their addiction.

40:36

That's a good point. Their body can't go without it. They can't function without it. Can we describe that a little bit?

40:44

That's a good point. Because if you're talking about like an opiate addiction, everyone who does any kind of opiate, heroin is in that category,

40:52

Percocets are in that category, Dilaudid is in that category, Vicodin, you're just talking about an opiate.

41:00

What you'll feel, let's say you were addicted to Percocets because let's say you blew your back out in an accident or something like that.

41:07

You just need to know this. The detox that you're going to feel when you stop taking Percocet and you've been taking it for say a year and you're taking just like a lot every day and you decide like I'm done with this.

41:17

I feel like garbage. I need to stop taking these now. The detox you're going to feel coming out of Percocet is the same detox that the

41:25

IV heroin user is going to feel. You're going to get the sweats. You're going to get the shakes. You're going to feel absolute misery.

41:33

You're not going to be able to stop kicking your legs. That's one of the things you see a person who's detoxing from heroin or pills laying in bed all night long and they're just kicking.

41:40

Their legs won't stop kicking. You have these shots of almost like electricity going through your fingertips and your toes.

41:49

Like it's just like bursts of electricity. That's what you feel. And so in a situation like that,

41:57

Joy is exactly right. One of the key issues is a person says I'm done. I got to stop this.

42:03

Like you know what's crazy about it? We often think about it's the drug addict on the corner underneath the overpass.

42:09

Like I think about them kicking like in their little bed they made on the side of the road. Like you think about like the sleazy guy, something like that under an overpass.

42:19

But what's amazing is that it's also the soccer mom who got rear -ended while at a stoplight a year prior and she was given

42:28

Percocets to help her with the severe pain she was in. She wasn't looking for an addiction.

42:34

She wasn't trying to get high. She just was taking Percocet to take care of a real legitimate pain issue.

42:41

And now she decides I got to stop taking these. And next thing you know, she's like in tremendous pain.

42:47

And so what she do? She's like I can't stop. Why? Because I'm in so much pain. I need a pill just to make this pain go away from stopping the pills.

42:56

That's an excellent point. One of the key issues that keeps somebody locked into the addiction at that point is chemical.

43:03

It hurts. Yeah. I mean, yeah. There's no – we don't believe in the disease model.

43:09

Right. But there's no point in trying to disagree that there are physiological things.

43:15

Absolutely. The high is physiological. And I mean there's some things you can – like technically with a lot of opiates, you can experience symptoms when you've been taking it for two weeks.

43:30

Right. Like you'll experience extreme emotional outbursts. It's pretty crazy.

43:39

There's a key issue here too. So let's say anybody in the audience who loves Jesus, you get into like a major car accident and you start taking pain medicine.

43:48

First we'll say this. Praise God for pain medicine. Right. Like if my son is jumping on a trampoline, he flips off and breaks his femur,

43:59

I am giving glory to God for morphine. Right? That's supposed to be like one of the most painful things that can happen to a person.

44:06

Right. That's why I said that. It's one of the most painful things ever and I want to give glory to God for morphine.

44:12

It's a gift. Yeah. But also it's a curse, right? It can be a curse but it depends on how you use it.

44:18

It depends on how you use it. But within 72 hours of using any opiate or say even alcohol, like you're binge drinking for 72 hours, to some degree, to some degree you're chemically dependent after 72 hours.

44:33

To some degree. It might just be minimal but to some degree you're chemically dependent. Now imagine you have like a major surgery and they give you a prescription for pain pills for 14 days, 30 days.

44:45

You are chemically dependent. Now you may be able to get off it because maybe it's just minimal.

44:52

Like the milligram is not very high. It's not a whole lot. But maybe you had a catastrophic car accident or something like that and it's pretty significant.

44:59

You're chemically dependent. And so it's best to wean yourself off.

45:05

It's best to wean yourself off of any of this stuff so that it's not as painful. Or if you're in a situation where even inadvertently you've become addicted to pain medicine, you weren't seeking to be a drug addict or to get high.

45:17

You just did it because you legitimately needed it. There's no shame in going to a detox facility.

45:23

That's one of the things that I always feel like so bad for some people. It's like they inadvertently got into a chemical addiction because of a legitimate pain issue.

45:34

And they're like embarrassed to go to detox. It's like you don't have to be embarrassed by that. That's a physical thing.

45:41

It's chemical dependence. And that's okay. Let's get out of it. Let's get over it. Let's go get medical treatment.

45:48

So all that to say, as we start really engaging this, we're not saying, when we say

45:54

AA is not compatible with the Christian worldview and it's not compatible with the gospel, we're not saying just repent and believe the gospel.

46:00

There's a whole beautiful way you can apply the biblical worldview here and you can thank God for all of this medicine and the ability to get out of this in a way that's actually comfortable.

46:09

But you may want to initially look at the person and say, is this person just going out to party on the weekends and they're drinking too much or using pills every once in a while?

46:23

Assess that. Or is it like an everyday, all -day thing? They're hooked. Assess that and say you may need detox.

46:30

You can't just say cold turkey. Just stop doing it. And also it puts the person in a better place. Okay, and I'll shut up here.

46:37

People would come in to the hospital I was at. I would usually try to hang out in the lounge as much as I could or come through to see who was coming in, and you would see somebody that was just out of their mind.

46:47

Their eyes are glazed over. They're in so much pain they can't even converse with you. They don't even remember that they talked to me.

46:55

That's how gone they were. They don't even remember they had a conversation with me. Because typically people who are going into rehab, they're just like, one last time, right?

47:04

So they just go all in and then show up. Yeah, totally blasted out of their minds. Or you'd have the people coming in that were trying to detox themselves, and they are in so much agonizing pain, but even still they can't even have a coherent conversation with me.

47:19

I remember one time I had a conversation with somebody where I talked to them. It must have been for at least two hours.

47:26

Preached the gospel to them. They were crying. I thought, this is amazing. This is great.

47:31

I saw them again the next day and was like, you want to have another conversation? They were like, who are you? They had no clue of the conversation

47:37

I had with them. I was like, well, that seems like that was wasted, right? But with the benefit of professional detox, is it gets a person to a place where they're balanced, where now they can listen.

47:49

That was a huge gift to me. It was like, are they being detoxed yet? How long have they been detoxing? They've been here for a couple hours.

47:55

They're doing okay right now. Okay, now I can talk to them. Because I knew, well, now they're in a place where I can talk to them, and maybe something will penetrate.

48:03

Well, and I mean, just to everything you're saying, I think that proves an additional point, which is that we do believe that people who, so obviously there's a physiological component, but people who are going through this are vulnerable people.

48:20

Generally, there is some sort of traumatizing stuff that's happened, either that sort of launched this worship problem, or because of chaotic living.

48:33

There's a lot of just really messed up stuff. Some of them don't have their kids. I mean, some of these people have been living rough for a while.

48:44

And then even some of them are just legitimately trying to get off of things.

48:50

They've already decided they don't want to do it anymore. But I think it's important to acknowledge that even people who go into rehab are vulnerable.

49:00

Generally, rehabs are secular places. And so it is important.

49:07

So while rehab is a tool, it's not the end -all be -all.

49:15

And we don't obviously recommend AA as a tool. And so what that means is that,

49:21

I mean, I do think pastors need to be a little bit more aware, depending on their church population.

49:26

If they're seeing a lot of addiction, they probably need to do some brushing up on this.

49:32

But, I mean, I know plenty of people that in rehab they were diagnosed as bipolar, all this stuff.

49:41

And people who – you're talking about people who aren't remembering conversations that they're having because they're so messed up, right?

49:48

And so I think it's a great tool. But we also believe that there is a vulnerability,

49:59

I mean, in many different types of sin. But there's a vulnerability that does require a lot of discipleship, specifically from pastors, specifically from a group of people that can be there to support people.

50:13

Like I said, I had friends that were trying to – their rehab tried to convince them that they had these horrendous mental illnesses.

50:22

And they're like, well, do you think maybe I'm just a little off chemically right now because I've been injecting heroin into my veins every day?

50:31

Right, right. And so I don't know. I just – I'm trying to –

50:36

I guess I'm trying to foresee someone's argument against us, which is that like, oh, so rehab's just a tool.

50:45

Why isn't AA just a tool that can be used? Yeah, no, good point. And so when I say – when I would talk about rehab,

50:50

I'm talking about professional detox. I'm talking about medicine. Right, so you're not even necessarily talking about a 30 -day stint.

50:57

No, I'm saying medicine. As a matter of fact, that's what Luke and I would look for when

51:02

I was no longer working at the hospital as the chaplain there. If we had somebody who was in need of detox, we would look for a facility that just did the detox.

51:16

We didn't want the 30 -day program where they were going to their meetings every day.

51:22

We just wanted the detox aspect, the medical detox, and we would want to handle the discipleship aspect.

51:28

And that gets to the second part of this conversation, is when we go past the conversation of the chemical toxicity, that conversation, and what could be the most beneficial to bless that person, the next question comes to, okay, so what next?

51:39

Well, you already know our answer. They need a new heart. They need eyes that see God. They need the gospel itself.

51:48

Listen, what's the point of putting lipstick on a pig, right? It's the same conversation of rearranging furniture in a burning house.

51:56

It's like, what's the point? Deal with the problem. Exactly. You talk about the problem of addiction, and if you're going to only focus on the external, is the person's heart still the same?

52:05

Nothing's changed. Fine. How many times did we see somebody get the drugs pulled out of their system via professional detox?

52:15

They're now completely clean. They're like 60 days clean, and they still want to use their drug of choice, or they're still the same person, and they're just massively struggling.

52:25

They want to go back. They want to go back. They want to go back. Well, why? The chemical issue's gone. Toxicity's out of your system.

52:30

You're good to go, right? I mean, there's still some rebalancing. Neurologically needs to happen. All that stuff. Fine. Maybe a year goes by, but what's the problem?

52:37

It's the same you is there. Drugs are gone. Everything's rebalanced. It's the same you.

52:43

And so you need to be saved. You need the Spirit of God living within you. That's the key issue always and every time, is you need eternal life.

52:50

You need to be forgiven. You need peace with God. That's the issue. That's what you're exchanging God for, is that idol, the heroin, the pills, the alcohol, the sex, whatever it is.

52:59

But then, and this is the question that was asked, this pastor wanted to know, what next? Well, what next is

53:04

Christian discipleship? Right. Which is what

53:10

AA and rehab do. They insert a philosophy and a program that you follow to keep you accountable.

53:21

So it's just, it's exactly what they're doing, except with truth, and not just an external inventory where you fix up the outside.

53:31

Yeah, think about it. They have a congregation. They have a text. They have a ritual.

53:36

They have a worldview. They have a system of commandments, in a sense.

53:43

And so it is religious in every sense. And they have also any God you want.

53:48

God as we understand him. So they have a God, they have a text, they have a congregation, they have their weekly meetings. A priest.

53:53

It is religious, religious, religious. Worship. Now, what we're saying is Christian discipleship. Now, by the way, please forgive me if I'm not communicating clearly in such a way that when you hear

54:05

Christian discipleship, you don't think that it needs to be specialized in any way, or that I think that it needs to be specialized.

54:10

It does. So, for example, and we're not going to spend a ton of time on this, but just think in terms of, like, this person's in the image of God.

54:20

Even if you get the drug out of their system, chemical toxicity is no longer an issue. They're still in the image of God, and all those same problems that led them to the drug of choice, to their idol, still exist, right?

54:33

Many times they have been just multiplied because of this very specific sin tends to have a lot of consequences.

54:45

Certain sins are just as vile, but don't have a lot of external consequences.

54:50

It's not as obvious. Right. These happen to be very obvious consequences. So that, their original issues, plus all the problems and trouble they've created for themselves.

55:03

So, that's exactly right. So, what we often would say is that, let's dig deep.

55:09

All right? You've got a new heart now. You love Jesus. You want to glorify God. You want to worship Christ, and you don't want to go back to the old idol.

55:15

So you dig deep. Pastorally speaking, or even as a brother or sister ministering to somebody who's come out of this, what is it that led you to the drug?

55:24

What led you to the idol? What were you trying to go to it for? Well, this person's in the image of God, so it's usually, it's just like a network of things that are common to all humans.

55:34

Like, for example, shame and guilt. Somebody feels guilt and shame, and so what do they do?

55:40

They use the heroin to give them feelings that allow them to ignore the guilt and the shame.

55:47

Or, they try to drink the guilt and the shame away. The problem is, is that guilt and shame can swim.

55:55

And so you can keep going and going and going, and you blurt it for a little bit, but guess what? The amazing thing is exactly what

56:00

Joy just said. It's exactly this, is that you might go to the alcohol to get freedom from guilt and shame, but it can swim, and as soon as that moment is gone, you're gonna find out that you did things while you were drinking that actually established more guilt and shame.

56:16

Right? So, like, this God doesn't ever satisfy your needs. Like, I need to get freedom from guilt and shame, so I'll go to this

56:23

God. Glug, glug, glug. Oh no, now I've got more guilt and shame. It's not a very good God.

56:28

So guilt and shame is an issue. Anxiety. People are fearful, constantly afraid. And so what, man, this, you know one of the most popular things today is people who are made in the image of God are constantly fearful of the future.

56:40

They're so anxious, and so what do they do? They go to a doctor, and they're like,

56:45

I am so anxious. And the answer is yes, you may have now actually created chemical factors in your brain from a life of practiced anxiety.

56:57

So is it chemical or spiritual? Well, both, many times both, but it's fed by the spiritual.

57:06

That's what really drives it, is the spiritual. And so people say, I gotta get rid of this anxiety,

57:11

I'm so fearful. So they go to the doctor, and they just get a bottle of pills, take these pills, and this will solve your problem of anxiety.

57:18

Well, big question, what changed? What changed in my thinking or my heart to make the anxiety go away and the fear of the future go away?

57:26

What changed? Nothing, I masked it. I masked it. It's a Band -Aid. It's a Band -Aid. And the amazing thing is, you know what?

57:32

This is what shocks people. Does it surprise you to learn that many of the popular pills given today to people for problems of anxiety have the same chemical impact as alcohol?

57:49

In other words, it's doing the same thing to your brain as drinking, right? Like, oh, this pill's really helping me.

57:54

Well, it'd be the same as you going out and having a beer a couple times a day. It's the same chemical issue.

58:00

What we were talking about earlier is Benzos. Those are probably the most common med given for people with anxiety disorders.

58:09

And it's just alcohol and a pill? Right. And so what do people do? I always say to people, look, okay, it can be a grace from God for the person who just had this massive, massive traumatic experience to go to the hospital, and they are out of their mind, shaking, crazy.

58:28

It's a grace for the doctor to go, hang on, let me hit you with this. Right. Let me calm you down for four hours.

58:35

I would call that a grace. But you can't make the person live like that.

58:41

Well, and that's not what we do. Doctors don't prescribe 14 days of Benzos.

58:47

They say, you will take this for the rest of your life, and when it stops working, come in and we'll readjust your dosage.

58:53

You know what that is? That's this for the rest of your life. Right. That's this. And here's the thing.

58:59

What's changed? Not a thing. You're masking the issues that are underneath that are all related to God and how you see

59:07

God and your trust in his word. And so people go to the pills for the anxiety, but also, and this was a popular one, it was definitely mine when

59:14

I was using, was pleasure, a pursuit of joy and pleasure. People just want to have pleasure and joy.

59:19

And so they go to the ecstasy. They go to the cocaine. They go to the meth or whatever it is because they're trying to seek this pleasurable experience.

59:28

And it's amazing because it's like, well, how does that relate to God? Well, that's what God created you for. In your presence is fullness of joy.

59:36

In your right hand, there are pleasures forever. That's what

59:41

God says about himself. And so lo and behold, image bearers of God are in a fallen world just clamoring around to try to find joy and pleasure somewhere, not in God, but I'll find it somewhere else instead of looking for joy, looking for pleasure.

59:54

And they're just trying so hard to have that in their experience because that's what you were made for. You're made to have pleasure and joy, but you're supposed to have it in God, in God.

01:00:03

And so people go to the idol for the pleasure and the joy or things like loneliness. People are desperately lonely.

01:00:09

They're separated from God. They're desperately lonely. They don't trust him when God says about himself as father, all that. And so they use to try to blur that.

01:00:16

They use to get themselves into a place where they can hang out with other people, go to parties, make friends, make those connections that are typically sinful.

01:00:25

And so there's a host of issues that you say, okay, what are you going to it for? That's got to get solved.

01:00:31

And it's got to get solved with God's truth. Like the shame, and I'll just, I'll land on this one, the shame and the guilt.

01:00:38

Does Jesus have something to say about that? Does the Christian worldview answer the problem of shame and guilt better than drugs and alcohol?

01:00:45

Yeah, yeah. But it's going to take a lot of training in your heart and your mind as a believer with a new heart to actually say

01:00:52

I believe God over myself. I'm going to trust his promises about my forgiveness and no condemnation and eternal life and my sins are forgiven as far as the east is from the west.

01:01:00

Like that changes your whole life. I don't need to go to the alcohol because I feel guilty. I'm not condemned.

01:01:05

It is finished. Do you see how like the word of God and Christian discipleship actually heals this stuff?

01:01:12

And it's not like, and this is the last thing I'll say, it's not like the alcoholic or the pill addict is the only one that's, they've got the guilt and shame problem.

01:01:25

That's like a universal issue. It's everyone. It's everybody. It's just that the alcoholic chose to go to that particular

01:01:33

God with all these consequences to do it. But guess what? Christian discipleship means the alcoholic, sorry,

01:01:40

I used the proper word. I didn't want to correct you. I'm doing it for the purposes of everyone having a conversation.

01:01:49

This is incredibly, it's the medical terminology, the disease model, even outside of addiction, even when it comes to things like depression and anxiety, it is so influential that we even have to, we have a hard time, like I know what you mean when you say alcoholic, but what you mean is drunk, but it's so influential.

01:02:10

And in this context, in this conversation, that's the language.

01:02:16

That's how people speak. But the problem is proper definitions and how am

01:02:22

I actually going to get out of this. My point was, is I as a pastor, we as pastors have to deal with brothers and sisters who are healing from the problem of guilt and shame all the time.

01:02:32

You know what's amazing? Is that many, I would say most of those people who are being discipled and growing out of the problem of guilt and shame don't have a problem with drugs and alcohol.

01:02:43

Never did. But they still have the problem of guilt and shame needs to be dealt with. Just so happens, this person over here was doing it with drugs and alcohol.

01:02:51

But guess what? This person over here, same problem, same need, same solution. I would say as far as anxiety, that's a huge one that,

01:03:01

I mean I've been meeting with a number of people over the last several months.

01:03:07

I mean I think COVID's brought on a lot of that, but people that are really struggling with anxiety.

01:03:13

So this has been a hot topic. I'm sure it's been for you as well with people, but I just wanted to point out that anxiety ultimately isn't the root issue.

01:03:23

And people just think, oh I'm anxious, that's the issue. So they want to mask it or they want to put a

01:03:28

Band -Aid on it. Anxiety is the peripheral outworking of the root issue and the root issue ultimately is fear.

01:03:35

They're afraid. They're not trusting God. It's a lack of trust in God's sovereignty.

01:03:41

So that's what we're talking about is getting to the root issues of all these different things, not just slapping a

01:03:48

Band -Aid on the outworkings of the root issue. We want to get to the root and put that to death.

01:03:54

Yeah, you're afraid because you don't trust God. Well and we just, our culture is just full of all the medical terminology you could ever want when it comes to diagnosing yourself and figuring out why you are the way you are.

01:04:09

And I think especially why it would be damn, why I would never, I don't recommend AA for anybody but much less for the

01:04:16

Christian is it's not going to teach you, so much of this is what we would refer to in our culture as just like emotion or feelings.

01:04:28

I feel, and I spent a lot of my young walk as a Christian unable to understand my feelings in relation to the word and God and trying to figure out why

01:04:40

I felt the way that I felt and that is just all of us. Like that is this, I mean, that's this culture, the

01:04:47

United States, Western culture, whatever you want to call it. That is us just all trying to figure out what and why and our emotional outbursts appropriate and some aren't and labeling it because we hate

01:05:02

God and we don't want to have to go through this. We just want to figure out some sort of psychology that allows us to have a reason for why it's happening and they're just, for the

01:05:16

Christian specifically and obviously without giving the gospel for the non -Christian, in terms of your emotions, there are no like, there are no sinful, secular, emotional expressions that are faithful and you're not going to be able to handle them with a method that hates

01:05:40

God and doesn't acknowledge sin. You have to redirect your emotional outbursts even if they're internal.

01:05:49

Some of us are very internal with our outbursting and you have to redirect those things through the word and you are not doing that in AA.

01:05:59

No. You're not. You're just not and I'm not saying that people haven't been saved in AA. People have, absolutely.

01:06:05

But it's been despite AA. Right. Yeah. And people, I see some of you guys in the comments here,

01:06:11

I appreciate what you're saying. You're like, well, I was in AA and I came to Christ. Well, let's just try to recognize that it was despite AA.

01:06:19

It was despite what the 12 steps were saying. It was despite the fact that AA does not point you to Christ, that it attempts to pretend neutrality.

01:06:27

Maybe you heard the gospel from a Christian that was there at AA. Okay. So it was despite AA. It was because God sent a messenger into the

01:06:34

AA group. You're the exception, not the rule. Exactly. AA is not preaching Christ. AA is not preaching the gospel.

01:06:41

AA is not pointing people to Christ for salvation and forgiveness. Therefore, AA is pagan and should be rejected by us.

01:06:49

And someone says, you know, God has infiltrated AA so many times.

01:06:55

It's like, yeah, yeah. God strikes straight blows with crooked sticks. Doesn't mean that Christians should go around looking for crooked sticks, right?

01:07:01

I mean, we shouldn't do that. And so this is something that the church has the message of life for.

01:07:08

We should be the ones who are actually engaging this area in a way that is most meaningful and has the most blessing on the world.

01:07:15

And we can't advocate our duties as the church in particular areas to the world, which is what we've done in the area of addiction.

01:07:23

Believe me, we really have. Well, and it's just expanded to everything, to modern psychology.

01:07:31

It's not even... And that's why you don't need to categorize your flock into thieves and addicts and adulterers because it's sin.

01:07:46

Right. It's a worship problem. It's a worship problem. And all of us can attend the class on worship problems.

01:07:52

That's exactly right. That's exactly right. You know, it's amazing. And I'll finish my... I guess we're gonna wrap up here.

01:07:58

We're already out of time. Yeah. So one of the greatest blessings to me in my life was when

01:08:04

I came out of my addiction 22, 23 years ago, when

01:08:10

I came out of my addiction, I was going to church, being fed.

01:08:16

I was growing. God was dealing with my anxiety and he was doing through his word. It was powerful. But there was a key issue that needed to get solved in my heart and my mind.

01:08:24

And in God's providence and just truly by his grace, I picked up the book

01:08:31

The Pleasures of God by John Piper. And what's amazing is that that was my root issue.

01:08:36

I dealt with anxiety. God's healed me there. But the issue for me was pleasure and joy.

01:08:44

And it was amazing. This is exactly what you just said, joy. It's like it's the one group, same problem.

01:08:51

We can all go to class to get healed. But I read The Pleasures of God and I remember

01:08:56

I got like to chapter four and I remember I had this moment I was like, oh my goodness, this is the answer.

01:09:03

This is what I was doing. That whole entire book said nothing about drug and alcohol addiction.

01:09:10

There was one word in the book about drug and alcohol addiction, but it was all about my drug and alcohol addiction.

01:09:16

Get it? It was about real joy. It was about the sin that was causing me to pursue pleasure, enjoy the wrong place.

01:09:24

And it was all about my problem, which was drugs and alcohol. But it didn't say one word about drugs and alcohol.

01:09:30

It was the sin issue. And that's why that book was such a blessing because it was really, it was just the word of God on this issue for everybody and it would just hit me where I needed to be punched.

01:09:41

So, it was amazing. Big blessing. Pleasures of God, by the way. John Piper. We didn't even get to identity.

01:09:47

We were already done. Do you want to say anything about that real fast? We're here. I'm not even going to open that can because it's a whole nother show. We'll do it next time.

01:09:52

We'll talk about identity next time. Identity in Christ. All right. So, everybody. Oh, quick. Help me with this because I'm just scattered here.

01:09:59

So, we have a lot happening in the next couple of months. A few things. We want to invite you all to.

01:10:05

So, big praise to God. We got a bill of abolition into the state of Colorado. It is in now.

01:10:13

And hopefully, we're going to be going to Colorado to do a rally around that bill. It's a bill of equal protection for all human beings.

01:10:19

We also have a bill of equal protection in South Carolina. We have one going into Louisiana and one going in.

01:10:26

We have one in Indiana. We have more coming. We have. The next time you can come and actually hook up with us is going to be

01:10:32

March the 5th. South Carolina. The capital is. We were there last time.

01:10:38

I forget. I didn't go. It's the capital. It's the capital in South Carolina. Forgive me. I forget. That one city. Yeah. That one place in South Carolina.

01:10:45

Is it Charlotte? No. That's North Carolina. That's North Carolina, isn't it? Raleigh is North Carolina's capital. I don't think so. I'm sorry, everybody.

01:10:51

Geography. We'll be putting it out there for you guys. But just know we're going to be the capital in South Carolina March the 5th for our bill with Representative Hill.

01:11:01

Columbia. Columbia. Thank you, Conover. Oh, gotcha. Equal protection. Equal protection in South Carolina.

01:11:06

Come join us. If you're in and around South Carolina, come and join us protecting all humans.

01:11:13

You can tell we never passed geography in high school. Yeah. Sorry. My brain's just melted down this week.

01:11:19

It's been a week. It's been a week. And a couple of weeks, actually. So, hey. Praise the Lord, everybody. Thank you guys for partnering with us. Go to apologiestudios .com

01:11:25

Sign up for all access. I'll see you guys tomorrow for Ask Me Anything. That's Luke the Bear. Peace out. That's Joy the

01:11:31

Girl. See ya. Don't forget to give at endabortionnow .com Help us to get our budget for this next year to accomplish all that we're doing.

01:11:38

We have so many states with equal protection bills. That's abolition. Ending it completely. You can be a part of that with us.