Baptist-Terian Christmas! Greg Moore, Claude Ramsey, Keith Foskey, CR Wiley, Joel Webbon, and more!

Exploring theology, doctrine, and all of the fascinating subjects in between. Broadcasting from an undisclosed location. Dead Men Walking starts now. Well, hello everyone. Welcome to an episode of Dead Men Walking Podcast.

But is it really an episode of Dead Men Walking Podcast? No, I think it's a three-way episode Christmas special live stream. Let's go. Merry Christmas, you filthy animal. Yeah, here we are. Who do I got with me on the live stream?

I've got Keith Foskey. I've got Claude Ramsey. What's going on, brothers?

Well, hello.

I got Boba Fett and I've got an elf. They got fired, it looks like. Oh, yeah. Oh, man. So every year here, I do a Christmas live stream or special on Dead Men Walking Podcast. But this year, we are sharing the live stream because I have Claude Ramsey from Here I Stand Theology Podcast.

I have Keith Foskey from Conversations with a Calvinist, Your Calvinist on Twitter, where he likes to make those funny videos that you know so much about. Now, granted, we've got a U of M fan and we've got a Roll Tide fan here today.

Keith, I don't know where you land, but it might get tense between Claude and I. But we're going to put that aside because we are brothers in the Lord. This is the Baptisterian Christmas special. Right now, I'm outnumbered 2 to 1.

But we're going to have guests stopping in all hour for you guys on the live stream from 1 o 'clock to 2 .15. Every 10 minutes or so, someone's going to pop in. Here's the fun part is Keith and Claude don't know who they are.

They don't know who the guests are, so it'll be a fun reaction from them. We'll get to talk. We're going to talk bad Christmas presents, crazy Christmas experiences, and just have a good time fellowship in the Lord.

So what's going on, brothers?

I'm doing good. I see Eric out there. Hey, Eric, how you doing, my friend? Die Hard is a Christmas movie and you know it.

Exactly. And we've got Brandon.

He just said, bro, what did I just click on? That's right. What did you just click on, Brandon?

Merry Christmas, bro.

Southwife says, oh, that's scary.

And also for those users that are saying, boom, we don't know who you are. If you would go to StreamYard .com forward slash Facebook, give StreamYard permission to use your info. So with that, we know who you are and we can give you credit if you say anything funny.

Oh, look at this guy's like a professional producer. Now, Keith, we're going to have to start paying him or something.

I just yeah, I need him to come and help me out. I'm doing some changes to my podcast at the first of the year.

I mean, look at the background. We've got the live background, the video in the beginning. He's got the cameras all set up. I love it, man. Thanks for doing that, Claude.

Hey, you're welcome.

I just want to make mention that I contributed absolutely nothing to this except for this hat.

I know. Me too.

But the hat makes it worth it.

That's right. So what's going on? Are we ready for Christmas or what?

Not at all. Our family. Well, our family's been sick for two weeks. So all the fun and I know that's not funny, but it is the reality. We've just had flu go through our house for two weeks. So we've we have had no time to do anything Christmassy.

So it's been really rough.

Man, I'm just killing the Christmas spirit.

Yeah, no, but but we're bringing it back this week. We're going to have a festivus celebration this Saturday. We have some folks coming over. And if you don't know what Festivus is, Festivus is a celebration based on the television show Seinfeld.

And we are going to have a aluminum pole because you don't have a Christmas tree because tinsel is distracting. We're going to have feats of strength, which are actually arm wrestling competitions. And we are going to have an airing of grievances where everybody tells other people how they have disappointed you this year.

I got a lot of problem with you people.

That's right. December 23rd at my house. We got some folks.

If you are truly doing that, that is awesome.

That's a real thing.

That's awesome.

In fact, one of the ladies coming had never seen the show. So I made her watch it just so she could have fun with it.

Oh, so you're doing this with your some church congregants and members.

It's some friends from church. And my brother, he's kind of crazy. We were supposed to have a Christmas vacation party, but the sickness killed that one. But we were going to give away Jelly of the Month Club subscriptions.

We were going to do all kinds of fun stuff for a Christmas vacation celebration.

You know, I'm sitting here in between two pastors. I have to say probably to keep a healthy church. It is good to have an airing of grievances once a year with the church congregants. I got a lot of problem with you people.

That's right. No hidden sin. Come on now.

Greg, James Mormon asked the question, are Baltic Coastals invited too? I don't know if that's to you.

I don't even know what that means. Why does James Mormon think I have a vocabulary? What is a Baltic Coastal?

He's trying to say Babtocastle. I think he spelled it wrong.

I was like, okay, is this guy with Eastern European descent and he lives in Maine? What's going on? He's a Baltic Coastal?

Babtocastle is a person who believes in speaking in tongues and once saved, always saved.

Oh, okay.

That's what it is. If you believe in both of those, you're Babtocastle.

Yeah.

It's always funny because I've always said I grew up in a non-denominational church. But then when I look back on it, it was Baptist. All non-denominational churches basically just steal Baptist creeds and go, yeah, we're non-denominational.

You just don't want to pay the fees, huh? You cheapo.

Mario, oh no, Mario. He said Festivus is a pagan holiday. Well, no. What we did was we reappropriated it. We went ahead and took it.

Shouldn't there be a Santa Claus doll on top of the Festivus pole?

Well, yeah. It's a little awkward, if you will.

Hey, Keith, real quick. So you just did an episode on is Christmas a pagan holiday, didn't you? Over at Conversations with the Calvinists. It was very interesting. Give us a recap of that. Give us a little two-minute.

What did you guys talk about? Because that's an interesting topic.

All right. So we dealt with four things. One was the dating of Jesus's birth at December 25th. A lot of people believe that's connected to pagan gods who are born on December 25th. That's a heaping, steaming pile of reindeer feces.

That's not true.

December 25th has nothing to do with pagan beliefs. It had to do with the belief of the dating of the Annunciation, which was when Mary received her statement from the angel that she was going to have a baby.

The early church fathers weren't concerned with pagans. They were concerned with actually getting it right. And whether or not they got it right, we don't know. But it has nothing to do with that. So that's number one.

The second thing we dealt with was Santa Claus. We had a little debate about whether or not it's right to lie to your children. I don't believe pretend play is lying, so we had a conversation about that.

And I know people disagree with me on that, but we had fun with that. We talked about Christmas trees. Jeremiah 10 is not about Christmas trees, I promise you. It's about making idols, and that's what we talked about.

And then the last one was about gift-giving. I said every culture and everywhere throughout history has given gifts. It's not pagan. It just is something people do. Jesus said a good father gives good gifts to his children, so there's nothing wrong with gift-giving.

So that was our four things, and we demonstrated that people who are concerned with Christmas being pagan are just a little too uptight.

You want answers? I think I'm entitled to them. You want answers. I want the truth. You can't handle the truth.

The guys over at The Laborer's Podcast, which is Claude and I are connected with them, I'm currently stroking my beard with my beard brush that was sent to me. At least I think it's a beard brush. Okay, you got the same one.

Rob sent you one?

Hey, guys. Also, Dave Hassenbrock said non-denoms are just cooler Baptists. I don't know. What do you think about that?

Maybe true.

Maybe true.

Hey, because if you're going to be non-denominational, our friend Keith Foskey says you're going to be cooler.

Yeah.

Well, if you love Jesus, you're going to be non-denominational and have a feeding trough as your Baptistry.

You know, I was baptized. No, not.

Was I?

No.

One of my kids, like 13 years ago, was baptized in a, what is it? Not Trader Joe's. What's the tractor supply feeding thing? You know what I mean? It's like where you put the water in the hay.

Yeah.

It's baptismal now.

Yeah.

Oh, man.

Everybody at my church wants to get baptized in the ocean. And the last time I went to baptize a guy in the ocean, I wasn't deep enough. And I went to take him down, and he didn't go under. So I had to, like, choke slam him on the second turn.

His feet.

Oh!

He went head backwards, feet stuck up. It was.

Going full. Todd Bentley on his brother.

That's right.

Choke slam for the Holy Ghost. Unlike Greg's church, you're going to get immersed at my church, baby. We don't put water just here. We put water here and everywhere.

Everywhere.

Oh, John Jones said non-denominational means you have a Baptist church,.

But with drums.

Yeah.

So that's Big John from Real Talk with Big John.

Okay. Yeah.

He's a good guy. Hey, here's Robert. And here's Robert Knopp, as a matter of fact.

Yep. And that's the. Yep.

Hi.

Hi, Robert.

So is that the beard brushes?

Yeah.

Yeah.

He.

Yeah.

So who's a character on Adam and Adam's family?

Isn't he a character on Adam's family? Who's that? I don't know.

Who is he asking about? Yep.

The Laborer podcast. Beard. I need to get me one of those.

How do I not?

I mean, look at us. We all got these beautiful beards. I need one of those.

That's right, Rob. Let's let's get Greg one of these, and I will foot the bill for it.

Oh, no, I'll pay for it. I'll pay for it.

Come on.

No, it's a Christmas present.

All right.

I'm on a hook now.

All right.

Real quick. Hold on.

I want to do something. Hold on.

Okay.

We're waiting.

I just did. I just did a screenshot.

What did you just fart? What were you doing? You made a weird face, and it went silent. What is going on over there, dude?

I did a screenshot so that I could post this on Twitter and ask who has the better beard.

Oh, good Lord. We're going to have a beard poll.

Look at the lines here, folks. Look at the lines.

You got the gray and the black going perfect, man. I mean, you look like you're making out with a skunk, but other than that, it looks great.

Hey, one of the best compliments, which I don't know if it was offhanded or not, that I've ever received was at Fight Lab Feast two years ago here in Knoxville.

Yeah.

You remember the reformed dissenters were right beside of us?

Yep.

Yep.

Yep.

So their mom told me I was like a stepped up Phil Robertson.

Stepped up.

All right.

Well, you're definitely Phil Robertson with better theology, if I can say that.

Yeah, that's true.

Church of Christ got them some problems.

Oh, man. That's funny. So what kind of Christmas horror stories do we have, or great Christmas stories, or good gifts, bad gifts? We were going to talk about that a little bit, but obviously if people pop it in, the conversation will go where it goes.

Speaking of pop-ins.

Oh, someone coming in?

Yeah. We got a pop-in. Hang on just a moment.

Who we got?

Let's see.

Oh, yes. The funniest preacher in the world.

Goodness.

Oh, my God.

It's the Sheen version of Owen Strahan.

He's here. Blue Steel.

Now, let me just

What's that?

Let me just

I want to

I'll just say, I'll tell you guys now, if he grows a beard, we're all losing, right? You know that. So thank God he's hairless on the face there. We got a chance.

He's a beautiful man. I'm going to tell you something.

It's like a George Seinfeld with an unblemished record of heterosexuality.

We've got another pop-in. You want me to go ahead and bring him in?

Oh, geez.

Okay. I didn't know we had two at this time. Hey, it's Kevin Hay, everyone, for the first pop-in. Oh, it's A .D. Robles. What's going on?

Well, hello there.

So we just had Pastor Kevin Hay pop in. I just got some Presbyterian backup with A .D. Robles. A .D., I don't know if you know Claude Ramsey from Here I Stand, Keith Foskey from Your Calvinist. We're just talking Christmas stuff, man.

Happy to have you in.

Hey, I'm glad to be here. It's a real party.

Yeah.

Yeah. Having a good time.

So

It's a very Babysterian Christmas special.

That's right. So, Kevin, why don't you tell all the listeners a little bit about yourself? Give us a little 30-second bio so they know you.

Yeah, cool. So, Kevin Hay, Pastor at Redeemer Bible Church in Gilbert, Arizona. Been here since June. Married to my wife, Alicia, 17 years, and we have eight kids. So that's us.

Oh, awesome. A .D., shout yourself out. What's going on?

Oh, yeah. You know, I'm a big YouTuber. You know, big YouTuber. Yeah, I've got a YouTube channel. I tweet on Twitter quite a few times. And, you know, that's pretty much it.

Yeah, if you hear of something that gets to, like, the gospel coalition or gets to the front page of Christianity Today, usually you're seeing one of A .D.'s tweets intertwined somehow. He has his pulse on the heartbeat of Twitter X.

Yeah, I know. That's true. And I also want to plug this. This is my new series. I do Thinking Winsomely, a chat TGC podcast. And what I do is I go to chat GPT, and I prompt them to write, you know, something stupid in the style of Gospel Coalition, and it just nails it every single time.

It's unbelievable. It's really funny. You should check it out.

All right, so right before you guys popped in, we were talking about worst Christmas presents ever. Any of you guys got a worst Christmas present? One you just go, oh, man, that was rough, or that was a bad one.

I'll throw it out to anyone.

Yeah, I'll go first. I came prepared for this.

That's a good Baptist does.

That's right. That's right. Always prepared. No, my brother-in-law, historically, has been the one to give me the worst Christmas presents ever. And I'm a book lover, so he got me a book. But you guys may know the name Ted Haggard.

Remember that name?

Yeah.

So Ted Haggard apparently wrote books, plural, but in particular, this book was the one given to me one Christmas from my brother-in-law. And the book, if you can see it, it's Dog Training, Fly Fishing, and Sharing Christ in the 21st Century.

Wait, wait for it. Empowering Your Church to Build Community Through Shared Interests. If you know anything about Ted Haggard, you know why that's such a bad Christmas present.

Oh, that's good. Yeah, build a church through fishing. All right. You know what's crazy? I feel like the 90s was littered with those books and Bibles where they would just do them themed, like the Fisherman's Devotional, the Hunter's Bible.

They would just pick a hobby someone had and then try to sell a book or even a Bible out of it. And I'm like, what's a Hunter's Bible? You know, it's camo. I'm like, come on. I don't know. I never fell for those.

The church and the attempt to try to bring masculinity in with something other than just the truth of God's word.

Yeah, very true. How about you, Claude? You get something at Christmas that you're just like, ugh.

I'm on a public platform, so I'm going to say no. Everything I've ever received has been fantastic.

You are the peacemaker, Claude.

I like it.

Actually, guys, I'm going to be the guy that says this. Man, I can't complain. My family's super thoughtful. My wife, her parents, they put so much thought and effort into gifts. I cannot complain.

I thought you were going to say that hat and sweatshirt was the word. I mean, ugh. Roll Tide?

Come on. Alabama?

Just in case there's any misunderstanding.

Roll Tide.

All right, we'll see how you do against J .J. McCarthy.

As a Buckeyes fan, I can't say much, so I'm just going to be quiet.

Okay.

What was that noise?

Oh, just booing. Is it coming across over there or no?

No.

Very soft.

Oh, well, that's no good. Well, there goes all my drops.

Okay.

What about you, Keith? Was it the hat? Is that the hat you're wearing? Was that your worst Christmas present ever?

Let me tell you something. I bought myself this hat. Don't give me any crap.

I would not admit that.

Somebody's about to get their mouth busted at the Baptisterian Christmas special.

That's right.

I chokeslam all my enemies.

I do remember. Oh, go ahead.

No, you go.

No, I was just saying, I do remember when I was younger, we had my father's mother, my grandmother on my father's side. We grew up very, very poor, and she had some money, and she was grandma goody, and she would always get those big gifts, the bikes and the things that you thought were out of reach.

She would come through with it every year, just overdid it for all of the grandkids, and always making sure it had to be fair, and everyone got big gifts and all this stuff in one year for a side gift, for just a little.

She already got the big gift. She got us all these, they were called Christmas blocks, and it was just a plastic rectangle, and you pack the snow in it, and then you make an igloo out of it. I remember us bratty little kids just making fun of those things for the whole entire day we're at the Christmas party.

Not looking at the hundreds and hundreds of dollars of gifts that she got us. We picked out this one. We go, a plastic block? Meanwhile, I've got a $300 mountain bike, which back in 89 was, with inflation, it's a $1 ,000 bike, but we're making fun of these blocks, and to this day, poor grandma, man.

She's 80, in her mid -80s, love her to death. Just saw her a couple days ago, and I remember we got those Christmas boxes. Oh, you be quiet, you know? The one time she got us something, I'd just never seen that before or since.

I mean, I guess they do have them, but it's essentially a plastic rectangle with a little handle on it, and the label made it look like the kids are having so much fun, man. They're building these huge Eskimo igloos, and then you go out to try it, and unless the snow is full of water and actually packs, it's just making mounds of snow.

I don't know. But other than that, I'm with you, Claude. I'm very appreciative every year. As men, too, as fathers, as men, I've seen a lot of people talking about it more this year than last, but my joy comes in being able to provide for my family, for my wife, to see the joy on their face.

I could care less, really, what I get at Christmas, and plus, let's be honest, we all do well. We probably all go out and get what we need anyway throughout the year, you know? And I'm too an age to wear, I like socks.

Who can't use more socks, dude? Let's go. As long as they're the ones I like, yeah. Socks and boxer brief, let's go. Did I just get too personal for you guys? Sorry, it's a live stream. I mean, I don't wear those.

What do you mean?

Yeah, it's amazing how things change. When you're a kid, you're just like, socks and underwear, what? And now it's like, come on, bring on the socks.

And underwear.

Exactly.

This is the only time of year I have clean underwear.

I rarely buy clothes, so I only get them for gifts.

Okay, so what? You don't do your own clothes shopping, AD? I mean, you're not a big clothes guy?

I was just thinking about this just the other day, and I had a shirt on, and I looked over to my left, and there's a picture of me in Ethiopia at a mission trip or whatever, and I'm wearing the same shirt.

That was like 10 years ago, you know? I buy clothes, but I keep it forever.

Yeah.

Hey, I like it. Frugal, you know what I mean? Like, if it's not broke, don't fix it. If it's not stained, don't throw it out, right?

Well, that was going to actually be mine. You mentioned bad gifts, and it's not bad gifts because, again, like you guys, I love the fact that people even think about me, give me gifts, but people give me clothes, and I am not the easiest person.

I'm a larger man, and so when somebody goes, oh, well, this will fit you, it looks like it'll fit you, and I'm like, no, no.

Not even close.

My mom will give me shirts that I got to wear over other shirts because they don't close, but I still got to wear it because my mama bought it. So if you ever see me wearing a shirt over a shirt, just know that I live in Florida.

I'm hot, but I'm trying to make my mom happy. It just won't button, and the little hairs in my chest will stick through.

I've never gotten a bad gift because, you know, I manage to dodge bad gifts. Like, actually, this year, I've got a buddy who has season tickets to the Jets, and he's like, hey, man, you know, do you want to take the Christmas Eve game?

You take your son. I was like, that sounds like a curse, and the way things are going with the Jets, I mean, that was a dodge bullet right there.

You might have helped him just by going, I don't know, jeez.

No, that would have been my gift to you. I'll take your tickets. You don't have to go.

Hey, Haps. Addison just jumped on and said, my parents rewrapped our own toys and gave them back to us at Christmas.

Dude, that's genius.

I'm stealing that, dude.

My kids don't know half of what they have anyway. That's actually a good guy.

Yeah, I could get away with that, you know?

Hey, there's my buddy Chris Hanshold on. Hey, Chris. Good to see you, buddy. That's my own personal Captain America right there.

Who's that?

Chris Hanshold. He does live appearances dressed as Captain America. He won't do my podcast dressed that way, though, and that really bothers me.

Why not?

Okay.

Hey, last-minute Christmas idea.

Exactly.

Oh, man. So, what do you guys... Keith and... Kevin and A .D., what do you guys got going on for this Christmas?

Anything good?

Yeah, yeah. I'm staying home for actual Christmas, and then I'm going to my mother's house in West Virginia for New Year's and stuff like that, so it'll be good, man. I've got some big surprises for the kids this year, too.

They have no clue. I can't say it now because they might be listening, but it's going to be fun, man.

Yeah, I sent our live stream link to your kids, which is both creepy and awkward. How about you, Kev?

Yeah, so being in Arizona, things are going to be different for us this year, obviously, being 2 ,000 miles away from Ohio, but, yeah, we'll do the eight services this coming weekend, both Saturday and Sunday, and then...

My man went Big Eva on me. At 27 different locations at our Big Eva multiplex and mini mall.

Yeah, exactly.

We got people flying in from the ceiling, angels to be put on high. It's going to be crazy. Yeah, in reality, each service is like 300 to 400 people because the campus is just of such a size. We've got about 2 ,000 people that come through, but you get lots of visitors on Christmas, so that's the reason for extra services.

Typically, it's five, two on Saturday, three on Sunday, but, yeah, anyway, we'll do the services, celebrate Christmas together on Monday, and then we'll hit the road on Tuesday and head back to Ohio for a bit so I won't be far from AD there visiting his family, and we'll stay through the new year, and then we'll experience Ohio cold weather, and we'll be back to the beautiful weather of Arizona.

So, yeah.

What part of Ohio are you going to?

So the southernmost part. It's about 2 1⁄2 hours east of Cincinnati, a little town called Minford there, really close to the river.

So, yeah.

Very cool.

My dad lives in Beverly, Ohio. It's pretty close. Yeah, 30 minutes. 30 minutes from there. It's in-county, so that's awesome.

Wow.

Small world. There you go.

It is.

AD, you said you had some surprises for your kids. Does that mean you're going to be surprised on Christmas, too? No, no, no. I know what's going on. You know what's going on. I know everything.

His wife bought all the gifts. Of course he's going to be surprised. You don't know what the heck he bought his kids. What are you talking about?

Oh, man.

My kids come up to me. Thanks, Dad, for that. I go, oh, yeah, yeah, sure.

Yeah. Yeah. That's what's going on.

I was absolutely not not there when my wife bought that, when Mom bought that. No, no. No, we do Christmas shopping together. It's fun. It's fun to get stuff for the kids. I'm the one who actually, my wife reels me in.

I get a little too into it. I go, just a couple more. And she's like, no. She goes where we came from as kids. This is insanity.

It's okay.

So we, we, we curbed it back a little bit this year.

Every year we try to do this thing where people, somebody gave us this idea where like, you know, something to wear, something to read, something to that they want and something that they need.

Right.

That was this thing. So like it's four gifts for each kid. We have six kids. So that's still a lot of gifts, but it's never works out that way. Cause I always see something. I'm like, oh, I want them to have that.

And it doesn't fit into those four categories. So I ended up having it. And then I got to get all of them something because I got the, you know, I mean, I'm not a communist, but I do make sure that all my kids get a fair amount of gifts.

Equal distribution of gifts and labor for all the kids. He owns the means of gifts and labor.

Okay.

Oh,.

You guys have any strange traditions you do or unique traditions you do with your family for Christmas? Maybe on Christmas day or something like that. I know we read through Luke. My mom started this when I was younger as we, this is so funny and she's probably gonna, okay.

I can't believe I'm telling you this, but we, when we were younger, we would sing happy birthday to Jesus. So we've done that a few times with our kids just because Mimi, my mom, you know, grandma does it.