Post Debate Interview with Chris Date

Well, hello and welcome to the Reform Rookie Podcast. My name is Anthony Uvinio and I'm your Reform Rookie host, looking to bring you all things reformed today. The goal of this podcast is to take the rich truths of the reformed tradition and help you see the beauty and the biblical nature of them.

Understanding these truths will help us to better know the God of the scriptures and help us to better magnify his glory. And to that we say Semper Reformanda. So today I have a special guest on the show, Chris Date, who just last week did a debate with a hyper-preterist on Long Island and he defended the future physical resurrection of believers in Christ.

And he did an excellent job, by the way, and that's what we're going to be talking about.

Today.

This is going to be the post-debate interview and I'm going to link to it in the comments.

Section.

So if you do want to watch the debate, you could just click on it. I encourage you to do so because this is definitely one of the best preterist to hyper-preterist debates I've ever watched. Chris Date is also an excellent apologist with a great website.

So Chris, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and your website?

Sure.

So first of all, I certainly feel like a rookie, but in reality, I've been reformed for about the past 18 years of my 20 years as a Christian and became a Christian when I was 20. So you do the math. I'm 40 years old.

It's hard to call myself a rookie, but I certainly feel like one. As I said, I became a Christian 20 years ago when I was 20 years old. My wife and I had gotten married. Actually, it was probably when I was 21.

My dates all kind of blur together. But my wife and I got married in 2000, oh my gosh, yeah. In 2000, as atheists, in fact, we insisted upon having a justice of the peace marry us rather than a minister, which turned out to be a mistake because he showed up to our wedding drunk and forgot to have us kiss each other and read our vows.

It was a mess.

Memorable.

What's that? Memorable. Memorable, exactly. It makes for a fun story to tell. And then about a year later, I became a believer and a few years later, my wife did too. You could imagine that things were a bit rough, especially for relative newlyweds to have a sudden transformation in one person and then another person not come around for a couple more years.

But anyway, very soon after becoming a Christian, I encountered false Christians, Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons and also atheists that had known me from before I was a Christian. And so I quickly developed a passion and a love for apologetics and also for sound theology and biblical exegesis.

Fast forward another, you know, to about 2009, I think it was, and I got into the world of Christian blogging and podcasting, started a podcast called The Apologetics, which is sort of, it's the first four letters of theology combined with all the letters but the first of apologetics.

Bang them together and you get The Apologetics. And developed something of a name for myself so much so that within a couple of years, I was invited to, I had just become convinced of a view that we won't discuss in this episode or this show, but a contributional view in another area of theology and I was invited to become a part of that ministry.

And I'm not sure if that's the ministry that you said, tell me about your website, but is that the one you had in mind?

Rethinking how?

Okay, good. I just, I didn't want to scare anybody away.

That's okay.

All right.

So yeah, so I became invited to participate in a brand new ministry back in 2011-ish called Rethinking Hell. We are conservative evangelicals who are committed to the authority and reliability of the scriptures and infallibility and I would even go so far as to say it's inerrance, but we have become convinced that it teaches something other than the traditional view of hell as eternal.

Torment.

And since then, I've gotten kind of popular for some reason or another and I've appeared on a number of podcasts and done a lot of debates and radio shows and things like that. So that's a whole nother thing we could be discussing.

Academically or professionally, I should say, I'm a software engineer, have been my entire adult life, so 20 plus years. And I enjoy it and it makes a lot of money, but it's also not where my passions are.

And so my dream is to one day teach full time at the seminary level, to which end I began an undergraduate in religion at Liberty University back in 2014. Graduated from there in 2017 and then later that year began a Master of Arts in Theology at Fuller.

Not because I'm liberal, but because I wanted to go somewhere where I was going to be stretched and challenged while at the same time building an impressive CV so that I could teach full time one day.

And I graduated from Fuller earlier this year and hope to go on to do an Old Testament PhD at Cambridge or Oxford or somewhere like that if they'll accept me, but that's probably about a year down the road.

In the meantime, because I can't teach full time yet and can't afford to give up my software engineering salary just yet, I'm doing adjunct professor work at Trinity College of the Bible and Theological Seminary, which is the seminary that is led by Braxton Hunter and Jonathan Pritchett.

And so there I'll be teaching undergrads, Hebrew, Greek, and a few other classes. So that's, I suppose, me in a nutshell. There's a whole lot more we could talk about, but those are probably the most relevant issues.

Oh, and I must also say this, because it's particularly relevant to the topic we're discussing today, even before, or the whole reason I got into Christian podcasting was because of the issue that I debated in this debate, the topic of resurrection.

Back in 2009, I think it was, or maybe it was 2010, somewhere around there, I started my podcast with the very first episode being on this topic, because it became clear to me that so many Christians, if they even were aware of the fact that they would rise bodily from the dead one day in the future, it was something they gave very little thought to.

And this was a problem that I had felt at the time was contributing to the scourge of hyper-preterism. I was involved with a, who at the time was a conservative evangelical who went by the name Dede Warren.

She hosted a show called The Preterist Podcast, and she had a preterist blog, but preterist in the orthodox sense, not in the hyper-preterist sense. And so I was participating in that ministry, and that's where I, that combined with this problem that most Christians don't seem to think about the resurrection, got me into this world of Christian media in the first place.

So I've been sort of thinking about and researching preterist-related details for over a decade.

Wow.

So you were, you were in tune to this and this is kind of like right up your alley.

Yeah, I hadn't, I mean, it had been a number of years since I'd really given it much serious thought and research, but hopefully I've started to make up for that in preparing for that debate.

You certainly did. You certainly did. And just as a, as a mention of full disclosure, you do believe in the existence of hell?

Yes.

Right.

So.

Well, the future existence of hell. I don't think God has created it yet.

Okay.

Right.

Okay.

But people would go to hell. Your view would say that at a certain point in time, justice would be fulfilled and that person would basically be destroyed.

Correct?

No, not quite. I mean, I'll, I'll let you decide how much you want to get into this topic on this episode, but, but no, my view is that the wages of sin is not torment, it's death. And so, you know, when, when somebody gets sentenced in this life to death by execution, they're not suffering on the electric chair or on the, or in the noose.

And then once justice is completed, then they're, and then they die. In fact, that would be the opposite of justice because if they've paid their penalty, if justice has been done, why do they then go on to die?

No, it is their death. They're not having life anymore that I think is what the Bible says is the punishment. So I think that on the day of judgment, when all of humankind has been raised from the dead to be judged, the saved will, as the Bible says, put on immortality and, you know, be declared innocent by virtue of being covered by the blood of the Lamb.

And they will go into everlasting life in the new heavens and new earth and in the presence of God and the community of his people. But the lost, when they rise from the dead, they will still be mortal.

The Bible nowhere promises them immortality and their punishment will literally be execution. It will be dying a second time and forever. So it's not they pay a penalty and then once they've paid it, they die.

It's that their lack of life is their penalty, much like the penalty in a fine is not having the money anymore, right? If the penalty of a fine, we're just having money taken away from you, then they could give it right back immediately after and you've been punished, right?

No, the penalty is not having that money anymore. And that's my view with regards to hell. Hell, in hell, the wicked will be killed and they will never live again. And they're never living again is their everlasting punishment.

All right. Thank you for that.

Sorry, I was a little verbose. I apologize. No, no, no.

I think that was a good encapsulation of what you believe. And that would be a terrific topic for a future show. I certainly I'm aware of your expertise and your debating skills. So I'm certainly not going to do that right now.

Let's talk about how you annihilated a hyper-preterist before you annihilate me on the show. But actually, actually, before that, I did I did want to ask you and you knew this was coming. How did you come to be a reformed Christian?

I mean, were you an Arminian first or just evangelical? And then how did it happen?

Yeah. So, you know, you can imagine that as an atheist, but not a particularly philosophically minded one, meaning I had when I was when I was still an atheist, I didn't give any thought to things like free will.

I didn't I was not one of these people who studied the new atheist. I don't even know if there were new atheists 20 plus years ago. You know, Dan Dennett and Christopher Hitchens and stuff, I think started to become popular very shortly after that, or they were just starting to become popular, if I remember correctly.

But anyway, you know, the atheist community that now many of them say, you know, we don't have free will or whatever. This was not something I was had thought about. So I was a freedom loving, individualistic American atheist.

And as such, when I became a Christian and sort of through the door of a mere Christianity kind of thing, it wasn't I wasn't evangelized or or offered good arguments into the kingdom from a particularly reformed perspective or anything like that.

I just it's a whole other story. There's not a whole lot to it. But I became a Christian and having brought with me this baggage of having been a individualistic, freedom loving American atheist, I just sort of assumed that I was free in the way that I had already thought that I was free.

And so, yeah, I was just sort of a standard vanilla evangelical. I wouldn't have at the time even known what Arminian means or libertarian versus compatibilistic free will. I didn't know what any of that meant.

I just continued to believe I had freedom in the way that I thought that I had freedom prior to becoming a Christian. Well, as I mentioned a few moments ago, my wife didn't become a Christian for another few years.

And you can imagine that as somebody who was not yet reformed, I was very concerned about my wife's eternal destiny. And of course, even as a reformed person, I would have been if I'd been a reformed person at this time.

But because I still believed in the kind of freedom that I thought I had prior to becoming a Christian, I thought that it was sort of incumbent upon me to win my wife over, you know, and so I spent a lot of time.

Things were really tough there for a while because I was proverbially bashing her over the head with the Bible and I was exposing her to all sorts of apologetics material and stuff like that. And so things were tough there.

And it was right around that time when I was really experiencing a lot of anxiety and concern over the eternal destiny of my wife that I started becoming best friends with somebody who remains my best friend to this day.

He's a Jewish Christian who is also reformed. And I quickly became best friends with him and he became a discipler of mine. And very soon he introduced me to reformed theology. And I fought it tooth and nail because the thought that God might have predetermined that my wife would never believe and not be saved was unconscionable to me.

I just couldn't stand the thought that that might be the case. I couldn't overturn the arguments that my reformed friend was making based on the scriptures. I didn't have answers for those, but I just knew, gosh, I can't stand the possibility that God may have not foreordained my wife unto eternal life.

But at some point, a realization hit me. And it was this realization that made me comfortable embracing reformed theology and continues to have me comfortable ever since. And that is, I would so much rather the choice of whether my wife will believe or not, I would so much rather that choice be in God's hands ultimately than in my wife's.

Because I know my wife, I know me, I know myself, I know other human beings, and we're all pretty terrible people and we're stupid and we make foolish mistakes and we ignore evidence and we're stubborn and we're obstinate.

And I so much more trust God to make that decision for my wife ultimately through secondary means. So much prefer that choice to be in God's hands than my wife's. And when I realized that, I became at ease with the reality that my wife's eternal destiny was ultimately in my God's hands.

Because in whose hands could it, in what better hands could her fate possibly be? So that's how I became, that's how I was finally free and comfortable and at peace with accepting the biblical data on the topic.

Do you ever get the feeling that you want to go back or is there a tug in the opposite direction? Some people nudging you?

No, it's funny because there is an area of theology when it comes to human constitution, you know, what the nature of the immaterial soul is and stuff like that, where I do really feel like I want to go back to the view I once held and I may even at some point.

But when it comes to reformed theology, I really don't. And the reason is because I've yet to see, I can't think of a single engagement between a Calvinist and non-Calvinist on any particular biblical text in support of at least meticulous divine providence or determinism and predestination.

You know, we could talk about limited atonement and we could talk about perseverance of the saints. Those debates become a little bit more challenging because you have some difficult texts to deal with, like Hebrews 6, you know.

But when it comes on those two topics I mentioned, what we reformed mean when we refer to the sovereignty of God, namely the meticulous divine providence of God is determining all things that take place in time.

When it comes to that and when it comes to predestination, I've not seen a single engagement between somebody on the Calvinist side and somebody on the non-Calvinist side in which the non-Calvinist can offer any reasonable sounding exegesis of the text.

And so I remain convinced that this is clearly what the Bible is teaching. And, you know, frankly, even if I did, even if there was a part of me that shared some of the concerns that my non-Calvinist brothers and sisters have that caused them to push back against what seems to be the biblical data, even if I had some of those intuitions or thoughts, I frankly don't care about them anywhere nearly as much as I do about the clarity of the scriptures.

So, you know, I might change my mind one day if somebody can make a better case from the texts that we Calvinists think teach our view, but I've yet to see it so far. So, yeah, I'm perfectly fine staying where I'm at.

It doesn't cause me any problems. And to be quite honest, being reformed allows me to reach a lot of Christians on other topics that I wouldn't be able to if I were not reformed. So I'm happy to be where I'm at.

That's great. That's great.

Yeah.

Look, understanding the scriptures and seeing God's sovereignty in all of them. And ultimately, salvation is for the glory of God and our salvation is a blessed benefit.

For us.

But ultimately, his work and for his glory just makes me worship that God all the more knowing that he shouldn't have chose me. You know, it wasn't anything in me, you know, because a lot of people say, well, why?

Why would God choose me? And I often tell them, if you knew the answer to that question, it wouldn't be grace.

I'll take it a step further and I'll say, I think there's a possibility that we reformed our slightly being a little bit sloppy when we talk about God choosing us. Because the way that that makes it sound is there was this mass of people that God created.

And then from this mass of people, he sort of took some of them and chose them to be believers and others of them and chose them to be reprobate. But that's not the way the Bible describes it. Yes, it uses the language of choosing, but consider that it uses a language of molding from a lump of clay, some for one purpose and some for another.

So a better analogy would be, you've got, you know, this big ball of dirt or clay and you rip off a piece and you shape it into a tool for glorious use and you rip off another piece and you design it for inglorious use.

And as such, it's not merely that God chose me. It's that this is what God has designed me to be is among the elect. And you're right. That makes me praise God all the more. It doesn't cause me to struggle with it, you know, just struggle with who God is.

Yeah, that's an excellent illustration. Obviously comes out of Romans chapter nine. But the way you explained it, that adds more clarity and depth to what I just said.

I appreciate that.

Okay.

One more question with regards to being reformed.

Sure.

What do you think is the most important thing about being reformed? Why does it matter to be reformed? What's the most important thing about that?

Yeah, that's tough because on the one hand, I am not as convinced as some other reformed people are that this is an extremely vital position to hold and that anybody who doesn't is deficient in major ways.

I'm not saying that people who think that way are wrong. It's just, I'm not quite as convinced of that. I've seen, it just doesn't strike, I can't even make a really solid airtight case for that, but what I can say is I'll say, I'll offer two thoughts among many that I have as to why I think it is important, even if it's not maybe crucial or vital, number one, it's, I'll talk about how it's been important to me.

And namely, it's made me able to be at peace in my life. When, you know, my wife and I, I write about this at the beginning of this book right here on my camera, if you can see it. You got that, you know exactly where it is.

I like that.

Yeah. It's a two views debate book. People can find it if they go to amazon .com slash author slash Chris Date. And in it, I argue for predeterminism and predestination opposite an Armenian coauthor, and I opened my contribution to the book with the fact that before my wife and I were, became Christians, we'd had a miscarriage and then after becoming a Christian, we had three sons and then had another miscarriage and both were difficult, both were painful, but there was a profound difference between the two.

Namely, and the difference wasn't just having relationship and community with the church. It wasn't just having relationship and community with the Holy Spirit in our hearts. Those are, those things were certainly important.

But what most enabled us to get through this really painful part, and you can imagine, by the way, now that we were believers, it was all the more significant that a human life died in my wife's womb, you know, all the more significant than when we were atheists and we basically thought we were just highly evolved apes.

What was most significant was that we knew that there was purpose in it, even if we couldn't detect it, even if we couldn't discern it, and I write in the book about how some of the glimpses that we've had into God's purposes in ordaining this tragedy in our lives, but it was precisely the knowledge that there was divine purpose in that tragedy that enabled us to get through it and has enabled us to get through all sorts of other difficult times in our lives ever since becoming Calvinists.

So firstly, I think for the Calvinist and for the person who is willing to give up autonomy, it can become incredibly freeing and comforting and peaceable to know that the worst imaginable things that happen in life, they're not, God isn't merely permitting them to happen.

God isn't merely letting, standing back and letting people commit senseless acts of evil. No, those acts of evil, God himself is working for good and that was really powerful for my wife and me and continues to be to this day.

The other area is something I've explored less, but is something that I think should be discussed more and focused more on by Calvinists and that's the issue of theodicy, in particular, when it comes to evangelism and apologetics.

You see, I'm sure your viewers, some of them anyway, are aware that there are several, let me back up a second. Theodicy is a word that refers to an attempt to make sense of, or to justify, to show that God is just despite the fact that there is evil in the world.

And so the question often is asked by atheists, if God is all loving, all powerful and all knowing, then why doesn't he stop all evil from happening? Why is there evil in the world? And I have discerned three basic types of answers, Christian answers to that question.

One is what's called the free will theodicy. And the idea here is that God values libertarian human freedom so much, he sees it as being so worthwhile, so valuable, that he treats that as the greater good that justifies permitting people to commit evil.

Now we can certainly, I don't see the argument for libertarian free will being so valuable in the first place, but even if I did, I think atheists can see through how nonsensical that theodicy is, because the Bible is replete with examples of God preventing people from doing evil.

So really the atheist is being told, yes, God can and has stepped in and intervened, interfered, and prevented many acts of evil in the past, but he lets all sorts of evils happen to you. You know, atheists are going to see through that, and it's not going to be an effect of apologetic, not to mention the biblical data.

The other, another theodicy is called the soul-making theodicy. And the idea is that God permits evil to happen in the world, or ordains it, if the Calvinist is making this particular theodicy. And the idea is that experiencing evil and emulating the character of God in the midst of such evil is training us, as it were, forming us, shaping our character in preparation for our eternal life upon being resurrected, and so forth.

But it seems to me that the problem with this is that, is the very, the doctrine of glorification. You know, there are a number, a couple of places in the scriptures where our resurrection and glorification is described as a blink of an eye kind of transformation, and what's more, I think we will continue to learn and grow and develop even in eternity.

And so I don't see there being any biblical justification for thinking that God somehow needed evil to be in this life in order to make us, to shape our character in the way that he might choose to do.

So I don't think that theodicy works either. The only other theodicy I'm aware of, and there may be others, but the only other one that I'm aware of is some variation or another of a reformed theodicy, which is that God hasn't merely permitted evil to happen.

God has foreordained evil to happen, which seems to be consistent with what the Bible says about it. And that gives evil purpose. Atheists, you know, when they encounter this, of course, many of them are going to push back just like they would to those other two theodicies that I mentioned, but they're not going to be able to say, they're not going to be, they're not going to, you know, the other ones they're going to see through how deficient these theodicies are and how inconsistent they are with the biblical data, but with this one, their struggle is really just going to be, are they willing to give up autonomy or not?

And that's something that I think the Holy Spirit is ultimately going to work in their hearts. So I think that there, I think that if we reformed embrace and really run with this reformed theodicy, I think it's going to have a profound impact in evangelism and apologetics.

And so for that reason, I think it's important as well. Now there are others as well, other areas of importance as well, but I've talked for long enough, so I'll, I'll end it at those two.

Yeah, no, I think that was, that was excellent. And one of the things that I love about the fact that God ordained evil in the world, I believe is to also show his sovereignty over it in what he can do with the worst evil in the world.

Obviously the worst evil that's ever happened in the world is the crucifixion of the only innocent man that ever walked the planet, Jesus. And God out of that heinous, worst evil we've ever encountered, he brings about the greatest gift possible for mankind, our eternal salvation and communion with God.

So if God can bring the greatest good out of the greatest evil, as we're walking through trials and as children of God, we recognize that all things work together for good, what can he do with the evil in my life?

Right.

He can, he can bring some good out of it. And then you get to these scriptures, like in Hebrews five, where it says, um, Jesus learned obedience through suffering. You're like, wait a second, Jesus had to suffer to, to learn obedience.

Well, yes, he, he was a man, fully man, truly man, truly God, but he learned obedience through suffering. So if the sinless spotless son of God had to learn obedience through suffering, shouldn't I expect to, to go through some suffering?

So it, it, it kind of, uh, turns the tables on this Santa Claus God that so many people have embraced and unfortunately, um, created in their minds. It's, it's idolatry. And to, to think that a God is just going to give you whatever you want, uh, is, is foolishness.

In fact, last night in the study that I have at my house on Monday nights, we were talking about this topic cause it, it comes up and I told him, I said, could you imagine if God gave you everything that you prayed for?

I mean, think, think about when a, when a little kid, you see a little kid in the supermarket and he's, he's basically demanding mommy, I want that mommy, I want that. And the kid and the mother is capitulating and giving the child everything that the child wants.

What would you create? You create a spoiled little brat. So I went on to say, I am so grateful that God did not answer. I shouldn't say did not answer. God said no to the, to the, to the prayers that I prayed that were not good for me.

So, you know, no is an acceptable answer from God. And again, he's, he knows best. He knows better than us.

So, yeah, I do just want to say though, just for the sake of people watching who may have misunderstood, you're not. At least I don't think you are, uh, characterizing our non Calvinist brothers and sisters here, right?

Arminians and even open, they're not necessarily, they don't necessarily have a Santa Claus God. I think you're talking more like nominal Christians and health and wealth, health, prosperity.

Thank you for clarifying that because it needs to be said, listen, I have, uh, dear brothers who are Arminians who, who, who, who love God. I don't want to say more than I do, but are more gracious, uh, and, and loving towards others than I am.

And just because you're reformed, it doesn't mean you're, you know, you've got a big S on your, on your, on your chest. Uh, in fact, at me, there's a big T because the T is true. I, you know, don't mess with total depravity.

It's the only doctrine I can live up to. So, you know, I, I just, you know, I just think as Calvinists who, who, uh, understand the doctrines of grace, we really, and truly should be the most gracious, graceful people on the planet.

And a lot of times, you know, you, you, you go on Facebook, you see what happens. Sometimes Calvinists can be very, very condescending and arrogant, and I just don't understand why.

I don't understand why either. And, and this is something that, that I really, um, am frustrated by because, uh, it does seem to me as if, um, many of the most well-known and prominent reformed people, um, even, I won't name them on this show, but even people that I look up to and admire and listen to their shows regularly, um, and agree with them theologically on so much, and I'm so shaped by them over the years, and yet they are some of the biggest jerks that I've ever encountered amongst Christians.

And I just can't get it. I don't know why, because like you just said, we reformed ought to be the most gracious because we're the ones who think that it wasn't our choice ultimately, um, to, to believe it was God working faith in us.

Um, so that, that continues to baffle me. I'm not sure what's going on there, to be perfectly honest.

Yeah, I think, you know, um, I think I know some of the people you're talking about, um, you know, when you're in the crosshairs constantly and you've, you've, you've explained your position over and over and over again, and then people, um, misconstrue it or twist it.

It gets frustrating after a certain point in time. So I think that's just part of the sanctification process. You know, sometimes your, your sweet spot is your weak spot. I know that's true for me. You know, what is my greatest strength is also my greatest weakness, uh, when used the wrong way.

So I think, you know, we're all, we're all a work in progress. He, who began a good work in us is faithful to complete it. So we just got to pray for those brothers. Cause those brothers are on the front line.

Uh, and, and, you know, they're doing great work. And like you, I learned a tremendous amount from them. So maybe, maybe it's just, uh, you know, help for us to, to keep them in prayer on a regular basis, you know, and just show that, that grace.

I think so. And the other thing I'll encourage viewers who are Christians and are Calvinist to do is, um, keep people close to you who are going to call you on your BS, uh, excuse the foul letters. But, um, you know, I think the problem with a lot of these people, including the one I have in mind who I've just been alluding to, I think one of the biggest problems is that they've, they're surrounded by yes men, sycophants, you know, and if you don't have, I've got people in my life who will call me on my arrogance, on my stubbornness, on my jerkiness, um, and as hard as it is, as hard as it is to hear those things, nothing is more critical to my salvation apart from the Holy Spirit's sanctifying work.

Um, I've got to have people in my life who will hold my feet to the fire and not let me become more prideful and arrogant than I already am. So I would just encourage up and coming Christian Calvinists that are going to be going into doing podcasts and, you know, may have a bright future in terms of popularity and influence and stuff like that may be very intentional and proactive about keeping people, friends and family close to you, who you can trust to tell you, stop being a jerk, man, you know, um, you need to, you need to, uh, check your pride and humble yourself.

We we've got to have people like that in our lives because for one reason or another, it seems as if we performed a particularly, um, uh, prone to giving it to the temptation to be prideful.

So certainly, and, and just on a side note, that's one of the things I love about my church. There is nobody who is above criticism, you know, where, where, where I go. And it's a wonderful thing. Cause I, I mean, so many stupid things have come out of my mouth and had one of these brothers not pointed it out.

Um, I would still be repeating those errors, right? So really it's, it's an act of love to go to a brother and gently say, Hey, listen, you know what you said, you either got to clarify it or you got to change your position because this is what I'm seeing.

So we're all there, you know, iron sharpens iron. We're all there to help one another. And it's truly the definition of love. When, when you give yourself over to someone else for their benefit, you know, if, if you're afraid of offending somebody, uh, who's speaking, um, I don't wanna say blasphemies, but who's speaking heretical, taking heretical positions and teaching those things, and then you don't correct them, boy, that's not loving.

At all.