Dividing Line/Sheologians Mash Up

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I did the program from Summer’s home today (they are installing the 5th wheel hitch in the truck today) so we talked about all sorts of stuff, including the SBC, how much the world has changed since Sheologians began, etc. Summer has come a long ways from her guest appearance on the show 25 years ago when we had her record, “My daddy will be right back” as one of our bumper slots. Visit the store at https://doctrineandlife.co/

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00:31
Well, welcome to The Dividing Line, sitting here with half of the
00:38
Sheol Ogins. What's half of the Sheol Ogins? Is that a Sheol? Sheol! Sheol!
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Actually, folks have pointed that out before, that you've got
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Sheol in Sheol Ogins. You're talking Sheol herself? Yeah, that makes somebody else
00:56
Ogins. Thanks for the info, Dad. Anyways, welcome to the program.
01:02
Hey, I know that even though we're live today, many, many, many people are either...
01:08
I suppose there's a live feed someplace of the SPC meeting. I don't know.
01:14
I'm not watching it. I've seen a few things on Twitter, and at least from what
01:21
I've seen, the morning hasn't been all that good as far as hearing people out, and that's what you get when you have someone in charge who's been in charge for a year longer than he was supposed to be.
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I haven't heard back from Tom Buck, and tomorrow would probably be the day.
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I'm just not going to be available the vast majority of the day tomorrow, so I'm not sure what's going to happen there.
01:53
But we continue to pray for the SPC and what's going on there, and I don't know.
02:04
Whatever you want. Whatever you want, Dad. Whatever. Whatever you want.
02:10
You've told me more than once you've gotten in trouble for calling me Dad. Yeah. Yes, I have. But then some people are still like, oh, that's your dad?
02:18
That happens all the time. Yeah. It happened, I think, after church on Sunday. I was like, did you see
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Summer? You mean sheologians? Yeah. Is she here? Yeah. Over there.
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That's my daughter. Really? Yeah. Yeah. That's great. That's whatever. Go team.
02:37
I don't know. Go team. But no, evidently, yesterday there was a crime.
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Someone cried at the SPC yesterday. Yeah. And therefore.
02:52
Therefore. We'll leave all women or something. Well, but therefore, the person who allegedly made her cry should not be president of the
03:01
SPC. Yeah. And the thing that scares me is how many people actually believe that and don't do any digging in and just simply go, if you make someone cry, you are a bad person.
03:16
And I don't remember the first time I ran into this form of argumentation being used against me.
03:21
But I would struggle responding to it without just going, what grade are you in?
03:29
Yeah. Type of a situation. And yet it seems to work really, really well for a lot of people. And that seems to what's going on at the
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SPC. I don't know. Well, since you're saying it, yeah, this person was,
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I think, is just clearly being used. She's very popular on Twitter.
03:50
Really? I've never heard of her. I know. She came out of nowhere. I hadn't either. She needs a lot of help.
03:56
There were suicide attempts in her past. She left the faith very publicly in May.
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And then it was just really convenient that six hours before this statement that she signed,
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I think it's one of the resolutions about supporting sexual abuse survivors. And her name was put on it.
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And then six hours before it was supposed to go live, suddenly she finds her faith again. She hears from Jesus.
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She goes to the SPC with reporters, approaches Mike Stone. There's all these photos.
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There's more than one way to use women. Smells like it set us. It strikes me.
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And I feel for her. I don't think she should be used this way. I think she seems to really be struggling genuinely with her faith.
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And she should not be a prompt in getting resolutions passed. She should be being protected.
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She should be counseled. There should be people around her that aren't using her for a photo op.
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And it's just really sad. Well, I hadn't seen the thing from May where she was talking about basically so she could heal and things like that.
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It's like these things are supposed to be handled in a certain way, in a certain context where people would actually know everybody that's involved.
05:18
Once you drag it outside of that, it just becomes a royal mess. And yet that's exactly.
05:24
Well, OK. I've said this a million times before. So I apologize for saying it again.
05:30
But when you buy into the cosmic justice now idea that there's not going to be justice done on that day, that everything has to be done now, then what happens is you don't trust local parameters for how these things go.
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And so you have to bring in outsiders. You have to bring in unbelievers. You have to local church.
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This is enough because, hey, it's true. There have been bad local churches and there have been bad.
06:06
I mean, the SBC isn't the best in having a robust ecclesiology.
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Let's just I'll just be straight up front about that. The SBC tends to emphasize the deacon board model with the pastor is sort of a hireling type thing.
06:27
And that pastor can end up with a massive amount of power. And so there is a potential for abuse there.
06:33
No question about it. So what do you do in light of that? Well, if you don't believe that someday justice will be done in the most appropriate and proper way, that is at the
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SBC, then you have to throw out the biblical standard and come up with a new way of doing things.
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And that's what people are saying you need to do, because, hey, if we keep doing things the old way, someone might get away with it.
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And if you really have bought into this is it, you die, that there's nothing after that, then
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I understand why you try to do cosmic justice when you don't have the ability to do cosmic justice. But that's when you start arguing against that silly biblical thing called due process and stuff like that.
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Because that helps people get away. The biblical standard is you do not convict an innocent person.
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And the guilty may get away with it in this life, but they will not get away with it before the throne of God.
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And that actually informed our entire way of thinking and law for a long, long time.
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And now it doesn't inform it at all in our society and evidently not in the church.
07:52
So I am obviously disappointed to see, I don't know, it's like watching the last two months before a general election in the
08:05
United States. It's all the same kind of political maneuvering and poisoning, everything else going on.
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It's going on in the SBC. And it's not just the SBC. There's politics in every single denomination.
08:19
Let's just be honest. It's a given. That's just the way it is. But they're using a lot of the stuff that you all have been talking about for a long time as far as you're seeing the intersectionality coming in and intersectional exegesis and hearing differing voices and all the rest of this type of stuff.
08:41
And it could not have just happened since 2018.
08:47
This was being, this was being, the preparation being done. The land was being prepared long before this.
08:56
And did you hear Doug's May blog where he talked about Baptist baseball?
09:02
No. Oh, oh, oh, you missed a fun one there. Yeah, I guess I did. Baptist baseball.
09:08
Baptist baseball. He commented on the Russell Moore letters that were leaked.
09:14
Yeah, okay, I did. I did read that. And it was, it was only semi tongue in cheek.
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It was just basically saying, you know, this sort of looks like it was really intentional.
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And, and if this is the case, then if this all this terrible horrible stuff is going on, how come
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Russell Moore wasn't saying anything about it before he left the ERLC? You know, just real basic Baptist baseball.
09:47
It's not just Baptist who play baseball. I mean, there's Presbyterian baseball, there's all kinds of different levels of Presbyterian baseball.
09:55
I think the General Assembly is going on also, or it's about to be going on. Which one? For the PCA. PCA?
10:01
I think the PCA General Assembly is going on as well. They're not nearly as excited. Because you understand that there is a chance of a
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PCA. It's not going to happen to PCA. It is a little bit less exciting.
10:17
Yeah, but it's going on. So yeah, it's that time of year. And so I'm going to be watching it very, very closely.
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And I'm sure that most everybody else is tuned into that right now. Unless you're just throwing your hands up in despair and gone, never mind.
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Because last I was seeing was Tom Astle arguing that there needs to be a discussion about these things.
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That many people have come to have that discussion, and then they're basically being ruled out of order.
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And so if that's the best way in the world to create a split is if you know all these people have come.
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And I think they have a record number of people. If you know all these people have come, and then you say, yeah, well, we're not really interested in that.
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And they're just going to go, well, we are going to talk about that. And it's just going to be under a different banner, and bye -bye.
11:17
And unfortunately, what always ends up happening then is all the buildings and the institutions that have been built up for years and years and years end up in the hands of the people on the left.
11:29
And the people on the right have to go and rebuild everything again. And 35 years later. Start stripping off some of these?
11:37
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's sort of how it ends up going. Which right now, given what's going on in our country, probably isn't all that bad an idea.
11:47
The smaller your footprint and the smaller your target. Though, to be honest with you, I was looking at what was the gentleman's name?
11:55
I was not looking at that. Oh, hey, hey, look at that. We're on Twitter. Oh, great.
12:02
I'm trying not to read my notifications today. Chris Hanholtz tweeted a screenshot of us.
12:08
But the pastor up in, I had it saved, but you know how that works with Twitter? Twitter hates me.
12:15
Twitter hates me. Yeah, Pastor Tim Stevens. Yeah, in Calgary. Okay, so you saw this picture.
12:23
But just a few minutes ago, I actually listened to the audio. There was audio of this.
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And he started talking to the cops. And this guy, this very guy, the cop, argued back to him that Jesus said, where two or three of you are gathered together, there
12:42
I am with you. So he wanted to try to redefine the church as just two or three.
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And you know what? He's not alone in doing that. That's the sad thing, is that there have been many evangelicals that have given him that same idea.
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But it was, well, Jesus also said, two or three are gathered together, I'm with him. But we're not going to talk about that.
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We're just here to do our job. So he throws out the quote, isn't interacting with what
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Pastor Stevens said about the gathering of the church, and it's not just two or three.
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And then immediately defaults to the person like that. And I saw another one.
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One of the reporters followed after they dragged him off. One of the reporters followed two of the cops, including the lady cop, back to their car.
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And he asked the question I would like to ask. And that is, why are you doing this?
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Is this why you became a cop, to arrest people like this? And the lady said, no, it's not.
13:46
That was a lady cop? That was a lady cop. She said, no, it's not. Wow. So look,
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I'm sure they do not enjoy this. Some of them. Some of them. But when is one of them going to finally stand up and say,
14:02
I'm not going to do this. I'm not going to do this. And their job's on the line.
14:08
That's the point. They've got a mortgage. Yeah. And when you simply say, yeah, but I've got to pay the bills.
14:14
And how is that any different than every other abusive situation in the past where people have said, well, you know, okay,
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I'll be the jackbooted thug because I've got to pay my bills. Right. Right.
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Sort of destroys the, wow, we're so thankful for you running into the danger type thing.
14:36
Yeah. Because it's just become a matter of paying the bills instead. So pray for Pastor Tim Stevens and his family.
14:42
Second time he's been arrested. And they were the thing that I think people need to recognize. They were meeting in secret.
14:49
They were not. They were not meeting in a building. I did not know that. Yes, they were meeting in secret.
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So they're arresting. So how did they get caught? Well, I don't know.
15:03
But there is a long history, sadly, of the
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Soviet Union. That was one of the greatest dangers was when someone expressed the desire to meet in your secret location.
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Who were they? And could you trust them? And there were many, many times people betrayed.
15:21
Many, many times people betrayed. I'm just convinced that no one my age thinks that this could happen here.
15:28
So even though it's happening just across the border, I think most of my peers are like, well, that's
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Canada. That's Canada. That's Canada. So that's not
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America. I think that's what most people my age think. So, yes, that's not going to go well for us, is it?
15:48
No, no. It's the exact same argumentation, the exact same situation exists here.
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And I have not been able to follow up on it, but the woman who was going to criticize the
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Michigan Attorney General and appear on Tucker Carlson, did you hear about this? Uh -uh. Who was arrested and dragged off to jail.
16:13
For what? Because there are certain states where as long as the same party is in control of every aspect of state government, they can do whatever they want, and they will do it.
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And it's in the United States, too, as well as in Alberta. So if you think it won't happen here, we've got one or two little hurdles
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I've got to jump over a little bit more. But I know last year I was sitting there going, yeah, the cops, how many of them are really,
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I mean, who becomes cops? The people who believe in the Constitution, stuff like that. No.
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And no. Everyone that I know. No? No. Oh, I've known those states, and I sort of thought they were the majority.
16:58
I don't think they're the majority anymore. No, not anymore. It doesn't need to be the majority.
17:03
If it was 15%, it would make sense. Yeah. But it's not. It's not.
17:09
So anyway, so there's the SBC stuff, and that's stuff going on there. And we pray for Pastor Stevens and his family.
17:15
I mean, it's got to be pretty rough on the kids and things like that. I mean, they're going to grow up with a very serious fate.
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Let's just put it that way. If you see dad being dragged off more than once, you're going to grow up with a pretty serious fate.
17:31
And maybe that will be helpful for a lot of folks, to grow up with a pretty serious fate in that way.
17:38
So you never saw me dragged off, so I apologize for that. Just dragged on the Internet. Well, that is every day.
17:47
That is every day. In fact, I had a dear brother who, you know who it was, since I mentioned it, but a dear brother at church.
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Was that last night? No, today's Tuesday. Oh, okay. Yeah. Tuesday.
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This is going to be a wild week. Anyway, I had a brother talking to me and basically apologizing for having gone postal with some people.
18:12
I got upset with some people because they were coming out for me. And I am currently the apostate du jour in certain
18:21
Facebook pages and groups and things like that. And I don't see most of it. You seem to see more of it than I do.
18:27
I'm not sure what it is. People send it to me. Oh, people send it to you?
18:32
Yeah. They're afraid to send it to you. I don't know. You don't have to do that. Well, I do need to know sort of what's going on a little bit.
18:47
But no, he was saying, how do you handle people?
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I mean, you've been in ministry for coming up on 40 years, and you've got all this long track where you're teaching this, that, and the other thing.
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And then all of a sudden, one little thing comes up, and they're just willing to just, you're gone.
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You're history. You're done. We don't want you around anymore. We don't want you part of our club, et cetera, et cetera. And I'm just sort of like, well,
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I'll be perfectly honest with you. You give to people. You give credit to people's criticism that their life in ministry demands.
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So if it's a faceless, nameless person on the internet, I'm sorry.
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If Jeff comes to me and says, you blew it, OK, he's got standing to be able to say something like that.
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But people who have no earthly idea of who I am, and the vast majority of people think that I am the most straight -laced, boring, sit -around -reading -Greek -all -day type person.
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And then they ask you, and they don't believe you. No, I don't. Yeah. No, I think most of the problem right now is that you, reformed folk are very, we're very tribal.
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And I think you're in, if you accept the wrong crowd, then all of a sudden you're just playing for the wrong team.
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And so I think, you know, a lot of people want to believe that since you're on apologia now, that you've changed.
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And I think you're not really at the cool kids table. And so that means that you, you're allowed to be misunderstood.
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And I just can't tell you how often, you know, I come across things. I do think because you've been doing this for so long, because your, your focus is apologetics.
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And there's a lot of people who don't understand that. They have a very kind of like ivory tower philosophical, like they study it for the sake of enjoying philosophy and not so much putting feet on it.
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And I do think that makes a really big difference in how you do things. And at the end of the day,
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I think that you've been doing this for so long and you are so unbothered so long.
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You're so unbothered that I think people read that as like, whereas you just have a different focus.
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And I think you're one that you are obnoxiously consistent. Like I can't get you to do anything new.
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I can't even get you to eat anything new. And you're so, you still haven't changed.
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Recently. I really get it. There's three meals. It's tacos and pasta, just kidding.
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And then tacos again. And also cheeseburger pasta. I'm not cooking cheeseburgers. Anyway, the point is, is
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I think that there's just a lot of the philosophy versus the apologetic.
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You are so much more about what you do with your philosophy than just philosophy for the sake of philosophy.
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And I don't think a lot of people understand that, but you know, like you were saying, Jeff was saying the other day too, like there's criticism that we should take and we should take criticism seriously from people that we know have life behind it.
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They have action behind it. They're, they're doing things with their philosophy.
22:47
They're putting legs on their beliefs. And if that's not something that you're busy doing, then your criticism just doesn't really, it's not something to really take very seriously.
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And that doesn't say, that's not to say like that the person saying it isn't worth anything. But what, what are you doing?
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If I'm doing this so wrong, show me how it's done right.
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And, and I would love to see how it's done right. If I'm not, if I don't know what that is anymore.
23:19
So, yeah. Well, you, you posted a meme, I think on Facebook or Twitter or maybe both.
23:26
I don't know. Where are you? About garlic? No. Well, you did do something about garlic. Yes, you did.
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That's the important stuff. Okay. But you, you, you asked
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Eric about what the dust up is. Oh yeah. About simplicity. Yeah. And what
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I think is the to mystic, the inappropriate to mystic extension of the truth. Which is very common in the
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West, but it's, we'll talk about it. Unfortunately, we'll probably end up having to talk about a whole lot more than people want to talk about.
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Future. Anyway, and you posted the picture of the lady, just doing the eye roll and walk away.
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Because I guess you didn't find the topic to be. No. I just thought it was so.
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I know what you believe. And so I've just seen so many people saying the most insane things that are not grounded in reality.
24:23
And again, I do think some of it's miscommunication. A lack of, you know, having context maybe.
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But I just, yeah. I got my answer. That's the way
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I was saying. Yeah. Well, some of it is that, but I just, it, it's so painful to see people that we should be.
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We have the same worldview. We have the same conclusion. And like, it's, it's not even it's friendly fire.
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Like, why are we shooting our own? And I think a lot of people have the background of like, well,
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I've been in churches where this doctrine was abused or it wasn't taught. Therefore I need it to happen this way.
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I need it to be talked about this way. And it just seems so unhelpful. I just,
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I can't believe what I'm seeing. To be honest with this subject. I challenge you to find almost anyone.
25:24
Who was at a reformed conference. From 1985 to 2015.
25:33
Yeah. I mean, it. Yeah. No, it just didn't happen, but now it's the new thing that we tend to get really focused on.
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This is exciting. And I had never seen this before. And this is, this is important. And then 10 years later, you're going.
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Remember when. And they're like, what? That's.
25:59
That's one advantage of age. It's one of the reasons I think I don't just get all worked up about stuff is
26:06
I'm like, yeah, but 20 years, 20 years ago, it was, it was something else.
26:14
And everybody was all excited about stuff back then too. Right. Five, 10 years from now, we're going to be going, what were you talking about?
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Right. Anybody remember the emergent church? Yeah. Yeah. I actually, I do.
26:28
They're still out there. They just morphed into something else. Right. We got swallowed up in something else.
26:34
So, so anyways, so now. She'll Ogins has been, has been going a whole lot longer than you ever thought.
26:44
Cheers. Yes. And so now, now you have discovered.
26:50
That you have to find a way. To start recovering ground.
26:58
But doing it in a way you didn't quite do it last time. Finding new ways, communicating people and stuff like that.
27:08
It's not all that easy. Is it? It's not that hard. Oh, there you go. There you go.
27:14
There you go. Well, all right. We're done with that conversation pretty quick.
27:19
Not all that hard. My honest, I think joy and I. All right.
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My honest. Take now. Is that things have changed.
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So much culturally. And the church. We started. That. Four years.
27:38
Yeah. I mean, come up on five. Five in September. Cause we started on September of 2016.
27:45
And of course. I mean, I think that's when a lot of things. And I think there was a time when we first started.
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We thought what we needed to be was. We need to first.
28:00
Persuasively. About what we believe. And that's just not. The case anymore.
28:06
And what I mean by that. Is that. We're not so interested in changing people's minds, but I just want to encourage.
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Oh, so our audience are, they're extremely well -read. They know the faith.
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They know. The confessions we do, but we do book clubs. We do book clubs. They're extremely well -read.
28:28
They're smart women. And what I'm finding is that so many reformed women are.
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Hurting for real community and discipleship. We have so many listeners in Canada who haven't been to church.
28:43
Last year. And so. They want community. They want discipleship.
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They're not getting it. For churches. It's super sad. And I don't know.
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I guess just, I'm not so concerned about convincing anyone of anything.
29:01
What I want to do. And what Joy wants to do is to just encourage women. Like, here's how you live like a
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Christian. And so that, I mean, you can talk about that. Oh, no, forever.
29:15
I feel any, any, any pressure to be coming up with. Novel new stuff.
29:22
No, I don't listen. If I got something new, it's probably wrong. Like, I don't, I don't want to come up with anything.
29:29
You are novel. I want to express the same ancient faith.
29:35
Well, and it's when people discover new doctrines and new things that there tends to be a problem.
29:42
So no joy. And I were not interested in doing that at all. And of course our biggest problem.
29:49
Remains that sometimes we just, we want to do like, I'm going to cover a really weird true crime story.
29:56
Cause sometimes I want to, You know, like I want to tell you about this weird thing that happened in the woods and like,
30:02
You know, Sometimes that's what we want to talk about. And so, but you know, Sometimes your brain needs a break.
30:10
All right. And we have a good time doing that, but yeah. I don't have that pressure anymore.
30:16
In 2017, I wanted to be persuasive. Because I saw critical race theory.
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I saw intersectional like intersectionality. It always happens in the women's groups first. And so I saw it there and I wanted to persuade people.
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I wanted them to know what it was. I wanted them to stay clear of it. And that really brought about the split because I had a lot of listeners that absolutely hate us now because we took that stance back in 2017.
30:48
And that, you know, it's sad, but that's fine. Bye. Oh, wait, we've, we've lost, we've lost folks.
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Well, we've lost folks over decades. Let's just put it that way. Lots. I can't tell you how many people love to come up to me and say,
31:07
I was once a big fan, but now I'm, and then, you know, name a name, a religion.
31:15
Now that's somehow meant to be an argument. Like I've proven you wrong by going the other direction.
31:20
I had someone tell me they're a Catholic because of you. Oh, I've had lots of former Catholics tell me they're not.
31:27
Cool. So that's nice of you. But yeah, you know, people, I just feel like if you're in ministry right now, or if you want to be busy at your church, like what people need the most right now is discipleship.
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And they need that first and foremost by knowing their Bibles. Like, if you can just, if you could just,
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What is Christian? Okay. Remember how the reformation really happened because people could read the
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Bible. Like if Christians were just like in their Bibles and, and committed to their churches, like just think of the revival that would happen.
32:02
Like you want to people like put up tents and they want revivals. And it's like, just go home and read your Bible and get other people to read your
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Bible and then do that in community. And like, things are going to change.
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And that's really, that's really our focus now is like, how do we encourage Christians to look like Christians?
32:23
What else is there? I don't know. Bible revival, Bible revival. Yeah. You know,
32:30
I, did you see the, the second part of just conversation? I kept queuing it up and I hadn't had a chance to listen to it.
32:40
It was great. Was it good? Yeah. He did a great job. Especially because he had been attacked by some reformed folks for the first one.
32:50
I've sort of. What he's just fired off. What's going to happen.
32:55
Yeah. Yes. No, it was fantastic. Really, really excellent discussion and got more into worldview issues, which was obviously the stuff that I think
33:06
Jeff is strongest on. And he did a fantastic job. Super encouraging.
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We're coming in time. Hi. I'll say hi to my audience. There's a camera right there.
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Thousands of people looking at you. She just wants to find her charger.
33:37
Oh, is that your super Nintendo thing? It's Mario. Mario. You go find.
33:46
Because you've been under the dividing line before. In fact, you don't remember it, but your first words under the buying line, do you remember?
33:56
Shoes off. Shoes off. Shoes off. Yeah. That's great. Cute. Yeah. Cause you still had your shoes on.
34:03
Shoes off. Love you. You can, you can't stop her talking at other times, but then one time.
34:18
Oh, which I don't absolutely nothing about. Cause I could not ask him. Keep it that way.
34:23
Yeah. Keep it that way. Yeah. No, I, obviously much has changed over the past few years.
34:32
And it's going to take a lot of wisdom to know how to right now.
34:38
We have, we still have access to people. And so you look at what apologies.
34:44
And all the other programs that are being worked on and special stuff and regular stuff.
34:56
And, you know, Zach's program, all the stuff that we're doing. And it's great to be able to put that stuff out there, but the time's coming.
35:06
The time is simply coming when that's not going to be allowed for the obvious reason. Hate speech.
35:14
And what are we going to do then? How are we going to have, if you haven't already established sources of sound teaching encouragement locally.
35:25
And I realized there are some of you in some rough places. I mean, just you sort of feel like you're pretty much alone out there and I get it.
35:34
That's why I've been saying for a long time, you need to be downloading stuff, archiving stuff. If they're in my debates or stuff like that, if you find them to be useful, you need to have them on jump drives.
35:45
You need to have those jump drives in static bags. And maybe not just left out in the open.
35:53
You need to be archiving stuff because right now it's so easy for you just to go, I'll just look at it on YouTube or whatever.
36:02
It may not be there tomorrow. I mean, you just, you just don't know. But the point is
36:08
I'm also concerned about folks who I, I'm glad that we can provide this service.
36:14
I'm glad that we can talk to people. I'm glad that we can be encouragement to the providing lines, been that around the world for decades.
36:22
But if we're not building a foundation for the future, if it always has to be, what have you done for me now?
36:28
I think, I think that's a problem in amongst reformed evangelicals.
36:33
If that's a nice, it's the one, what have you done for me now syndrome, which
36:39
I think is across the culture, but it's coming to the church instead of, instead of really looking at people who have proven themselves over time, it's the, well, here's something new over here.
36:52
Here's something new over there. No, it was people who've been consistent over time and laid solid foundations.
36:58
So that's, that's, that's where it's at. And that's, what's going to last through whatever it is.
37:04
We're going to be enduring in the next generations of that. And I'm not going to sit here and say,
37:13
I know exactly how that's done. We've just sort of mumbled and stumbled our way through it because I'm, I'm going to tell you when
37:22
I was your age or even younger, which I was once.
37:28
Well, I'm old now. Yeah. Well, if you've got,
37:35
I'm old now, so I'm getting, I'm getting in signals from, which one? Oh, comments, comments on your, that I'm old.
37:44
No, actually she was saying no. Oh, okay. So she wants candy. She doesn't like sharing.
37:53
Yeah. Anyway, uh, I, in the 1980s, you did not have this scenario.
38:01
You did not have the idea of ministering in a world where you wouldn't know who boys and girls were, uh, where marriage had been completely, not only redefined, but redefined out of existence and essence and turned into something completely different.
38:18
Um, and you did, and you did not even foresee. Some people did. Francis Schaefer. I was about to say
38:24
Schaefer. Schaefer did, Rush Dooney did. Um, and there were lots of, uh, fiction writers, uh, who nailed it long, long ago, but that wasn't a part of our reality.
38:36
That's, we didn't, I wasn't raised to think about my great, great grandchild.
38:44
Well, maybe that's why we're in the place that we're in. Yeah. Like maybe not thinking generally generationally.
38:51
Is having a cascading effect on the culture. Yeah. I'm not gonna,
38:57
I'm not gonna say that's not the case. I think there's lots of things my, my generation didn't do.
39:04
I'm not sure it's so much the things that we did as the things that we didn't do. Huh.
39:10
Yeah. And the emphases that we, that we did not have, because there was sort of a ceasefire with the culture.
39:20
In essence, there was a, it was more of a cold war, but it wasn't much of a war at all.
39:26
And I think it's where, that's where the myth of neutrality became so universal amongst the thinking of so many
39:33
Christians that, you know, we just got our, our sphere and you've got your sphere and everything's going to be cool.
39:40
And we don't have to make any claims about what's supposed to be going on your sphere of things and all the rest of that kind of stuff.
39:47
So, so hand signals, but that was a little distraction there off the side.
39:57
It's great. Having lunch games around. But anyways, I think,
40:03
I think that does explain how things have changed so much and are changing so rapidly even now.
40:11
And so for most of us, it's like we're in uncharted waters and, and that's why
40:18
I try to be as gracious and as granting of grace to people who are struggling with these types of things is because none of us, none of us can claim to have the final word on exactly how we're supposed to handle every little bit of this cultural revolution.
40:39
It's finding that balance because we obviously have people that are trying to drag us off onto our land on this side.
40:45
And then you've got the other people on this side that are just loading up flamethrowers and are ready to take on all the brothers and sisters and treat them that way.
40:54
Finding that balance, non -compromising and yet gracious. Yeah.
41:01
That is, I've said, I've said many times, I think that is the mark of Christian maturity is when you actually find for yourself and for your family and for your church, where that is.
41:14
And it's, it's hard that that is not a simple thing. I think my peers have been, they have a really hard time understanding the difference between criticizing a person and an idea.
41:29
They think it's all one thing because of the fact that we, we don't understand identity anymore.
41:36
We think that whatever you express is who you are, which
41:42
I do understand in one sense, what you do is who you are. That's okay. I get that. But you can criticize what somebody believes without hating that person.
41:53
And people don't understand that now. They don't, they don't believe that because how they feel is who they are, what they think is who they are.
42:02
We lost our grounding and our identity as being image bearers of God.
42:09
And now everything is, you have to make yourself, you have to self -actualize. And so if you're expressing an idea and somebody challenges that idea, they're actually not telling me the idea.
42:20
They must be challenging you. And so that's where, you know, we were at Target yesterday and sometimes it's like, what is pride?
42:31
And so just really loudly. Yeah. And then January was like, that girl is wearing a really inappropriate shirt really loudly.
42:42
And then she was like, Oh, someone in a mask. And I was like, I'm getting out of here. Anyway, all of that to say, you know,
42:51
I just had to explain that what they, what pride says is these people want to express themselves in this way.
43:01
And we are supposed to be proud of them for expressing themselves in this way.
43:07
And it doesn't matter that that way is thin. All that matters is that you're allowed to express yourself.
43:13
And so I think one difficulty that we have in dialogue right now is that, you know, when, when you say something like,
43:20
I try to be as gracious as possible, anybody whose ideas that you've criticized are going to be like, well, not to me, he is not gracious to me because there's this, there's this strong catechism that if you criticize an idea, you're actually criticizing the person as a person.
43:40
And if you disagree with their idea, you disagree with that person's person, this that's just more value.
43:48
Like in that, you know, I had a public dialogue with this very famous trans person.
43:56
And while I was trying to discuss the idea of transgenderism, what they kept saying to me was you just, you're, you're ignoring my existence.
44:07
I was like, no, no, I don't agree with what you believe. I, that doesn't mean
44:13
I don't believe that you exist, but those are the same thing now. And so it's a, the identity issue is a big one.
44:21
And as reformed people, like we have to reject that at all costs. We have to absolutely reject that.
44:27
We cannot. And it's hard because you are immediately sucked into a conversation.
44:33
You never wanted to have. So while I told somebody, I like, I told somebody yesterday, they just like posted this screenshot of this very, he said, she said thing.
44:43
And I was like, look, this is gossip. And when I got in response was like, so you approve of sexual abuse.
44:49
And it's like, now I'm in a conversation that I never would have set out to have. And honestly, there's, there's a part of it where it's just like, it's dirty.
44:58
Like it, it's like being, it's like, Hey, come like roll in the mud with me because now we're going to do this weird ad hominem thing where it's like gentlemanly behavior would require that you not have just dragged me in the mud.
45:13
Like you didn't deal with what I said. You made a horrible, unfounded accusation. And now
45:18
I have to defend. I'm not going to defend myself against that accusation because it's so ridiculous.
45:25
And that's just kind of where. Yeah. Well, you, you, you did have one advantage in your upbringing is.
45:37
Emphasis upon the necessity for logic. It's always. And I, I am,
45:42
I emphasize that when you all were young and I emphasize that whether you're male or female,
45:48
I don't buy the woman doesn't do logic. It's all this emotion thing.
45:54
I think it's just simply adult. It's maturity. It's mature. It's gender.
46:01
Are you mature or not? That's so, unfortunately most people either just stay out of the conversation more because they don't want to.
46:11
They know it's exactly. Or they end up becoming extremely frustrated or they end up just going, you know what?
46:18
I can't defend this. And so I'm just going to go along with it. And it's the,
46:24
I'm going to do the thing that's going to make it easiest for me to get along. That's we're going to be seeing more and more people.
46:30
Well, there's no neutrality. That's the problem. There is no neutrality. We're not, we're not, I think if you look at this
46:36
SBC stuff right now, the problem is, isn't that they disagree on these details.
46:43
The problem is they have two different worldviews. This is a worldview issue. They have, they completely.
46:50
I have more in common with a Presbyterian reformed lady than I do with anybody in the
46:58
SBC who has bought into this worldview of intersectionality and critical theory.
47:05
Like I don't, I have weight. It doesn't matter if you're a Baptist or Presbyterian, this is a complete worldview split.
47:11
I don't know how the SBC can survive it. And the same question has to be posed to the
47:17
PCA. Oh yeah. There is not a denomination that is in any way, shape or form safe from disinfection.
47:26
And you already see it deeply in the PCA and shocking. You're starting to see it, even the
47:32
OPC, which I would have figured absolutely impossible, but I'm sorry. As long as you gather people together, it doesn't matter.
47:40
You know, my, the big error that one of many errors that I have confessed to is the fact that I thought that souls would throw the mechanism whereby this type of stuff, we kept out of practicing the reform churches.
47:55
And I suppose if it was really being applied, it would function in that way.
48:01
But how do you force people to apply it is, is the problem. And so we're seeing it absolutely everywhere.
48:08
And that's because we live in this culture and this culture impacts us in this culture over time, wears you down.
48:16
And it's, it's not that it's not the compelling nature of the arguments of the other side. I'm sorry. There are no, when it comes to whether there are males and females and stuff like that, that is, that's a pretty given, you know,
48:30
I mean, I've never seen a compelling argument for transgenderism or anything even close to it, Christian or non,
48:35
I mean, secular, whatever. But the reason people give into it is just simply over time.
48:43
You're worn down. You just, you know, when Islam took North Africa, it wasn't that all the
48:49
Christians just simply said, Hey, this is a better system. Don't have that. It was generation after generation, year after year, not being able to get the better jobs being limited to poverty.
49:01
And it just, it's like this, the ocean coming up against the rocks, eventually pound those rocks in the sand.
49:09
And that's, that's what happened. And I think that's what we're going to be seeing happening. And I don't think it's so much that there were just a whole bunch of people in our churches that wanted to all of a sudden embrace some kind of mild peer worldview.
49:22
It's just, it seems to be the easiest way to get along and just keep on going.
49:28
And unfortunately, that's sort of sad to observe, but we keep trying to say that's a dead end.
49:36
That's looking at the Lord's still in charge. He's chill. He's going to, he's going to take care of things. Hey, did you know that I'm going to be traveling?
49:46
I didn't know that. I don't know where you're going first though. Well, I'm not going to be flying around the world.
49:54
That was, that was a lot of fun when I did it. And I look at that world map over there where we're, this is sort of part of the homeschooling stuff here at someone's place.
50:04
And so I'm looking at the world map over there and I'm looking at all the places that I've been to just over the past couple of years and all the good friends
50:12
I have looking over Germany and Scotland and South Africa. I can guarantee you one, one thing
50:20
I'm not going to Australia. As long as the people that are, are a lot of those jackbooted thugs are, are roll roaming the streets or Canada.
50:30
I'll be honest with you. I'll have to be honest with you. I haven't been to Canada in a long time.
50:35
And one of the main reasons was the first time I went, which was 20 years ago.
50:41
Yeah. The first time I went, I go walking up to one of the border people and I've landed.
50:48
I don't know where it was. I landed, but I've landed in some airport and man, the third degree that I got from this, what are you doing here?
50:59
And what's your business? and it just, just like, I was like, they were like, this guy is so American.
51:06
Oh, of course. Almost did. And so it wasn't the first time that I had that kind of authoritarian from people in Canada.
51:19
And now it's just coming out big time, sadly, in how they're behaving. But anyway, so I don't get to do,
51:26
I don't get to visit all those brothers and sisters anymore. I'm looking up in Norway and all these places, but it's going to be a while before the
51:39
United States makes it impossible for you to even like walk out the front door and get the car and go someplace.
51:45
We just have that culture that it might happen in, in Massachusetts or okay.
51:52
All right. Oregon, Washington. Yeah, I can, I can see the CCP, you know, taking over their role.
52:00
They sort of have already Portland and places like that. Sorry for you guys. Every time someone visits
52:06
Apologia and they're from anywhere on the left coast, I'm just like, well, don't let your back.
52:12
Yeah. Enjoying your freedom while you're here. Everybody's like, yes. Well, we play the license plate game.
52:18
I noticed as we were driving back up. Yeah. California. Yeah. If you see an out of state license plate, well, the game is you see an out of state license plate.
52:25
You say the state and punch the person. I was going to say, you're supposed to hit people with this.
52:32
I didn't tell my kids about the second part. Like, I just was like, you win if you say it first.
52:39
So we've taken the violence out. See, not a pacifist, but when it comes to my kids in the backseat,
52:46
I guess that was never really. I don't remember any time that it didn't result in some type.
52:53
No, So all that to say. My kids know that. Have a bad influx of California, Washington, Oregon, and Minnesota.
53:05
Those are the four license plates and we're starting to see more new Mexico. But those are the license plates that if you are on the road here anywhere, you're surrounded by California, Oregon, Washington, Minnesota.
53:19
Cause those are the ones that they're all moving here. So, you know, and the thing is, is they're going to come here and they're going to vote for the same policies that made them leave.
53:32
Yeah. So that's, that's super frustrating, but yeah. That's scary.
53:38
So I, as you know, rented a little. About two months ago.
53:44
Two months ago. As about. And I went back to Oklahoma and the whole test was, can
53:51
I do this? And we had some interesting problems along the way, but, but actually, but actually
53:57
I. The key issue is, can you do it without getting sick? In other words, can you rest well? Yeah.
54:03
And I slept. Like the dead. Really enjoyed it.
54:08
Especially with. It was wonderful.
54:14
So as we've been telling people, one of the reasons I'm here is that my new truck that we have gotten to make this work is having the hitch installed as we speak right now.
54:28
And tomorrow we take possession of fifth wheel. And I'm very thankful that when
54:33
I went back to Oklahoma, I was able to talk to guys who people who do this type of stuff and get advice from them.
54:39
And they would understand this is the advantages of this way of doing it and that way of doing it and stuff like that.
54:45
And so I think we've done it. Done it right. So, yeah, I'm going to do a little test run here in a couple of weeks. And then first big trip.
54:53
We'll be, I think 22 days. 22 days long.
54:58
Why? Because, because I don't want to have to spend 12 hours a day.
55:05
All right. So if you only, if you try to limit it to mine. Yeah. If you, you know, because you, you've got a 30 foot beast behind you.
55:15
So you, it's not as enjoyable as just sitting there in your luxury car.
55:20
And it's really easy. And so you've got to always be thinking about changing lanes, how much room you've got back, how much space you got for the person in front of you.
55:29
Oh, you'll be a pro. Well, I hope so. I have to be to, to survive it, but I'm going up to Colorado.
55:37
And in fact, I'm going to be speaking in Colorado Springs. I'm the early
55:43
August. It'll be a Tuesday with Jason Lyle, Jason Lyle. And I are going to do something. Yeah.
55:50
Jason Lyle. Do you guys know? Have you ever heard of Jason Lyle? If, and if, if, and if the, and if the weather's, if the weather's good, the first day
55:59
I'm there, because the thing is the second night. Yeah. Do you guys know what he's going to be doing?
56:05
Have you heard of Jason Lyle? He's a star guy. He's the star guy. He's probably never heard of the star guy.
56:11
He's the star guy. I've had him on a couple of times. He's so nice. He is. He's the genuinely best person.
56:18
He is one of the nicest people you'll ever meet. And the amazing thing, what's special about Jason Lyle is he is incredibly humble.
56:27
Yeah. And yet he is without a doubt, without a doubt, has the highest IQ of any man
56:32
I've ever met. So smart. I mean, he is so beyond genius. It's not even funny.
56:39
Yeah. Okay. So yeah, he's, and I'm sure he would go. It's God's grace.
56:44
God's grace. This is the Jason Lyle appreciation segment. It is. Look up Jason Lyle Biblical Science Institute online.
56:54
Get on his email list. Support him like I do. I support Jason Lyle. I think his work is that important.
57:01
He's a go -to guy. And he's always willing to, you know, I just send him a text and boom, he's very, very helpful.
57:08
So anyways, we're going to go up to there. I'm going to be speaking at Redemption Hills Church in Denver on Sunday.
57:14
And then I'm going to be heading up through Wyoming and Montana. And I may see squirrel, you know, who squirrel is getting quiet.
57:21
We're going to try to work something out. And also real squirrel. Yes. I will see some real squirrels.
57:28
And then I'm going to be speaking at Christ in Moscow. That's a
57:33
Friday, Saturday, and then Lord willing at one of the four locations of Christ church on Sunday.
57:40
But that's just really going to lose some more friends. Yeah. This is the losing more friends segment of the show.
57:46
Doug Wilson is also a very nice person. But that,
57:52
I'm looking at something that is like really, you could, you could spit at Canadians from up there. You really could.
57:58
Yeah. It's so far North. They don't want you. They're going to be arming the border.
58:04
And, but then I've got to get back. And again, if you're only doing three, 400 miles a day, yeah, it's, it's your back.
58:11
So I'm going to go through Reno. And there's, I will, we haven't, we haven't actually nailed this down yet, but there's a church with, you know, the guy that I've been torturing with buddy.
58:25
Yeah. Okay. Yeah. He's in Reno. So it's almost like penance. Yeah. You know, because I mean, he just posted a picture at his own church.
58:36
People were giving him buddy, the elf coffee cups. And he just, he just doesn't seem to understand that this is everyone's, this is how everyone shows love.
58:48
Yeah. I mean, if they didn't care about him, they wouldn't be, they wouldn't be joining in and having fun at his expense.
58:54
So Christmas needs to understand this is all about love. Yeah. And someday you just have to watch out.
59:01
That's something like that. So anyway, so it takes, it's going to take a while. I mean,
59:07
Nevada is a big state to go from north to south. Oh, we did.
59:13
And that was, yeah. But again, I'm doing 65 at max over in the right hand. I'm not doing as I should, as I must.
59:23
That's right. So anyways, so we've, we've put a.
59:30
Email address. Called road trip. One word road trip. And if your church would like to be considered, if you'd like to basically say,
59:41
Hey, if James is coming through, like in September, I've got to go to G3. And so I've already had to start working on that trip because there are a number of times
59:52
I'm going to have to stop somewhere. I look at the campgrounds. They're already, especially during the summer.
59:59
They're already filled up. So I'm already working on this stuff. And so if, if you want to know very often, this is going to be a
01:00:08
Monday, a Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, tonight. And so if you want to do something on a Tuesday night,
01:00:13
I know that's not what you normally do in stuff. It would probably be rather informal. It could just be a Q and a thing. It could just be a meeting with your elders.
01:00:19
It could be something for the whole church, whatever. Right. To road trip. Or give us your name and address, contact information, stuff like that.
01:00:28
We are right now putting the database together. And then you can put that on an overlay. On Google maps.
01:00:33
And then as I'm doing the routing, which is I'm doing it, if I'm going to have to drive it, I sort of need to do it.
01:00:39
Then we can see, okay, we've got a church up here. Like do something. Maybe I go up that direction, find a place to stay there.
01:00:46
You know, that type of thing. And that's how we're going to work it all out. And of course, trucks and fifth wheels do not come free.
01:00:53
We've done a really good job of getting, I think, quality set up. That's going to last a long time.
01:00:58
But if you'd like to help with those, As well, the travel fund is active.
01:01:04
Or you can go there and help us to defray those, those costs as well. Like what this hitch is being put in today, but you don't skim on the hitch.
01:01:16
Okay. Cause I'm thinking about some of the hills that I have to go down with this thing with a 9 ,000 pound creature attached to my rear axle, chasing me down the hill.
01:01:27
You want to have the best hitch on because going cheap, really done.
01:01:34
Not great at all. So, so yeah, we're going to be heading out and I'm looking forward to that.
01:01:39
And like I said, once we, and once I get it all put together, I, I want to let people know at the same time, there's a part of me that goes, that's not so smart.
01:01:50
You know, that type of thing. You know, I mean, just security, you know, I'm the only, I'm alone.
01:01:55
I'm not, there's not a, I don't have a fleet of black SUVs following me with, with Uzi's in them.
01:02:04
Well, that's true. I'm not friendly. Yeah. That's true.
01:02:10
That's true. People are saying, are you going to put, you know, on the truck and something? Nope. Nope. Nope.
01:02:16
It's going to be incognito all the way. But anyways, we will let people know at least for now where I'm going to be going.
01:02:24
I could foresee a day when we would do this and yeah, yeah.
01:02:31
There's rich might have to start meeting in secret at your campsite with the elders of the church and like that. I can foresee.
01:02:36
I can foresee it. I really honestly could. So, but for now we'll let people know if you're in the area.
01:02:43
And so we get to go to a lot of smaller churches and stuff like that. And, you know, I, I feel badly.
01:02:49
I mean, Sheologians is what you do, but you're a homeschool mom. You don't get to travel as much.
01:02:56
And you know what I hear all the time is a lot of these churches. We really love. Yeah. The prior, they said, we'd love to have these conference stuff like that.
01:03:06
And. I'll be on. I've done it. I've done it, but I got, I've been to big, big conferences.
01:03:13
I've been to medium sized conferences. I've been in a small church. It's, it's more fun to be in the small churches.
01:03:18
Oh, I believe that you, you get to talk to folks. You get to take pictures.
01:03:25
Did you ever hear him telling a story when I walked into prior the first night, as soon as I walked into the room, my eyes latched onto this 10 or 11 year old girl.
01:03:38
And first, the first thing I could tell was she's part of a homeschool thing because there's a bunch of other kids around there and they're just dressed like homeschool.
01:03:46
And the second thing was her face. Just like, does this number.
01:03:53
And so immediately I know this poor child has had to watch the dividing lines, the dividing lines.
01:03:59
So she could crawl and, and she was just, Oh gosh. I know.
01:04:06
I know. It's just so wonderful to get to, you know, have her stand next to me. We took pictures and, you know, all the rest of that kind of stuff.
01:04:13
And you don't often get to do that. Even though, for example, when I go to G3, Rachel, we,
01:04:20
I mean, I will, I will shake hands until in fact, I got to tell you a story.
01:04:26
We were at, we were at G3 a couple of years ago. And I was just,
01:04:33
I was ready to get ready to pass out. I really was. And Omaha, Omaha, Omaha went and got me
01:04:42
Chick -fil -A. Yeah. So I could keep meeting with folks. I mean, the guy's got a servant's heart and he went and got me really
01:04:50
Chick -fil -A at G3 because we wanted to meet the folks. Oh, you're going to have so much fun.
01:04:57
I went in 2018, not, I wasn't speaking or anything, but I went and, and I just, it was, it was so fun meeting people.
01:05:07
And that's the really cool thing about the church is wherever you go, you have family. And it's so fun to chat with people who they feel like they know you.
01:05:18
And you guys really like, you really do have a lot in common, whether or not you've met them before. And it's always good.
01:05:25
I'm looking forward to it. I'm not a hundred percent certain on my topic yet. I I'm taking somebody else's position and what he was going to be addressing.
01:05:36
I'm just not. Well, the Presbyterian is not a group party. Like, so you're going to have a great time.
01:05:43
Well, I'm actually, I'm actually sick. Oh, well, you're oh man. Okay. He's got, he's got an
01:05:50
RV hookup. So. Please send him home in one piece.
01:05:57
Please be gentle with the old man. I've hung out with Dave before. So I hope
01:06:03
I see you again. Wow. Wild. The man keeps pink bubblegum in his vehicle.
01:06:09
I saw bubblegum. Well, he was, he was giving a whole bunch of people a ride.
01:06:18
And so we were all in his very interesting Bronco. And I, it was all like, it was like muddy.
01:06:24
Like you were like a little like dirty when we got out and everything was like brown.
01:06:30
Like, like, I was like, is he like, what is he doing anyway? But the bright pink gum was right there.
01:06:38
Anyway, you'll have a good time. I hope so. As long as I get there in one piece, it's thousands and thousands of miles of driving.
01:06:46
So I believe it'll be interesting anyways. Well, thanks Summer for joining me on the second time.
01:06:53
Yeah, we did it at the kitchen table up in Vegas a while ago. Actually brought all the kids in that.
01:07:00
But anyways, so it was fun. It was. Thank you very much for being on and thank you all for joining us.
01:07:07
And as far as I know, we should be back in the studio in a regular dividing line format on Thursday or willing things could get thrown our direction, but hopefully on Thursday, we'll see you then.