The Deconstruction of Christianity | Alisa Childers

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00:10

We're back with another episode of Room for Nuance. I'm Sean with my guest

00:16

Elisa Childers. Elisa. Yes. Not Elisa. Not Elisa. Not Elisa. Have you ever heard anyone say your name properly the first time?

00:23

Yes. Really? I have and you know it's oddly usually like in stores when I'm paying and they see my name and they'll just say it right and wow

00:30

I'll be like, how did you? Yeah, how did you know? Well sister, we always get started with prayer.

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Would you mind praying as we get started? Absolutely. Father thank you so much for the freedom and opportunity to come together to Have conversations that glorify your name and edify your church.

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That's our goal for today. We hope that that is accomplished and We pray that that your will would be done in all the words that we speak and that would reach the people who need to Hear it and minister to those who need it in Jesus name

01:05

Amen Now our viewers will note that we are in a different space a different studio space unfortunately

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The studio for the Room for Nuance podcast was located in my church building which burned down last week

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So now we are in another location, but the podcast continues Can you start just by giving us like a five -minute version of your testimony?

01:30

Yeah. Yeah, so born and raised in a Christian home. I Nominally or sincerely?

01:37

Sincerely. Yeah. Yeah really dedicated Christian parents. I Personally was totally devoted to Jesus my whole life.

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I Read almost the whole Bible by the time I was 12 It was very very devout in my faith in in Jesus And one of the things

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I'm thankful to my parents for is they they really did model What real Christians are like and so you hear all these horror stories of people growing up with these horrible quote -unquote

02:03

Christians and I just the Christians in my life were basically really great people that loved the

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Lord They believed the Bible was God's Word and they they served other people We would go out and do homeless ministry and street evangelism growing up all kinds of stuff like that So so my faith wasn't blind.

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It was a very deep faith but what I didn't realize growing up is that it wasn't very informed intellectually and So I had never heard words like hermeneutics.

02:31

I grew up in the more kind of charismatic side of things Yeah, so I knew a guy named Herman hermeneutics.

02:37

Yes Good old Herman But I didn't know I didn't know systematic theology

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I didn't know any of those words or I I just I realized now looking back actually that I Interpreted the

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Bible kind of allegorically. I didn't realize I was doing that Augustine would be proud. Yeah But I would you know

02:55

Whatever was going on in the Old Testament, for example, I would it would just apply it to some spiritual battle

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I was having in my life because I just didn't know I didn't know that the historical context early mattered more than I believed it was real.

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I believed it really happened but I just didn't have those tools and So it wasn't till I was

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I did some contemporary Christian music industry stuff through the 90s And then after I came off the road

03:20

My husband and I started attending a church right in the heart of the Bible Belt I if I'm honest really had lost touch with the local church

03:27

I loved Jesus But I didn't really make it a priority to stay connected to the local church while I was touring

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Yeah, and that really made me vulnerable for what would happen next but in this church that we loved the pastor invited me to be a part of a smaller group study and So I remember coming to the first class

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There's about 12 people kind of all sitting around in a circle like we are okay, and he said to this group

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Well first he said what we talked about in here kind of stays in here Which is not a good sign. Yeah, and then he said he was an agnostic and that blew my mind because Well, first of all,

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I didn't really know I kind of knew what that was I had a gymnastics coach that was agnostic when I was a kid and I brought him a gospel track thinking, you know

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That'll cure that spiritual disease but that's what he said he was he said he was hopeful agnostic and so at this time

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I Was confused by that, of course red flags were flying but I thought well, I don't want to be judgmental

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I'm gonna hear him out. Maybe he just needs strength and support and well long story short Every core belief that I'd ever held about Jesus and God the what

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Christianity is the Bible especially the Bible these things were picked apart explained away they were deconstructed and It really wasn't until we left the church there

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There was a night when they invited the spouses for some reason he had just invited me to this class But then also not another good sign

04:55

Looking back. I'm like, yeah Yeah, but I would go home each week telling my husband you won't believe what they talked about this week

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And then I'd spend the whole week researching that question to try to refute what the pastor was saying.

05:08

Okay, and When they invited the spouses though, I remember we got in the car My husband was really quiet and he just goes we're done.

05:16

You're done. We're living. Yeah, I did Praise God for that so it was then when we left the church that I didn't really have anybody to debate with and so all of those doubts took root and really grew and so it really propelled me into a faith crisis that I didn't know if God existed at all.

05:35

I was really double -minded. I didn't lose my faith. I don't want to over -exaggerate it, but I Truly loved

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Jesus and surely didn't know if he actually existed. It was sort of like both of those things together so I just remember crying out to God one night and Saying God if you're real if the things that I've believed about you are true.

05:54

I need to know that they're true Yeah and so God just sent me on this journey of studying apologetics and Church history and theology and all the things hermeneutics.

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I got to meet Herman And then rebuilt my faith and made a lot of course corrections along the way

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So there's I've you know, I disagree with my parents on some things theologically now but I really am thankful to them for Teaching me what mattered about the gospel about the

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Bible being God's Word and things like that Wow, how long ago was that? That was over 10 years ago.

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Yeah time flies. I bet it just feels like yesterday Yeah, then you've written some books.

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You've been involved with the American Gospel Projects Sister your apologetics ministry is absolutely invaluable.

06:41

So I'm really excited for us to talk about this But before we do I went on to our

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Facebook page That's about as much social media as I do and I posted and I said what must

06:52

I absolutely ask Alyssa Childers about? but you you kind of Alisa dang again

06:59

We'll just keep going. Okay. Yeah, it's gonna happen again for sure and everyone said

07:06

You have to ask about Zoe girl now listen, you just kind of breezed right past it earlier So we don't have to talk about it if you don't want

07:12

I'm happy to talk about okay Cuz I know how it can be with that. It's a part of your life. You're like, yeah, I don't be fun

07:18

I don't really get to talk about it. Very really. I don't even know who or what a Zoe girl is

07:27

So this was Back in 1999 and this was when do you remember the

07:32

Spice Girls? Tell me what I want. Yeah So the

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Spice Girls were just at the height of their fame Okay, and so the Christian industry is like we need a

07:43

Christian Spice Girls Wow So at that time I I had visions of being a singer -songwriter because that was really more my genre that I that I did

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But I was 25 at this point Feeling like I felt sold at 25.

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I felt like oh, man I have to figure it out got it got to get in this thing. I'm almost a senior citizen.

08:04

Oh Yeah, yeah, so This opportunity came to me to be a part of what they they didn't say at the time that it was like Christian Spice Girls, but that it would be a

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Like a teen pop group that would be aimed at young girls like who is they? They are the powers that be you know, the record label the management

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Actually, it was our manager and the record label that came together to put together

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Zoe girl So it really is like a like a Christian music machine

08:35

Yeah, yeah it was and and so what they what they wanted us to do is write songs that would

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Minister to young girls and so which is not bad. No No, it's a it's a good call and I know you know

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I look back on it and I still hear stories from kids who are now, you know, they have their own kids

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They're married with kids now and they say, you know Your songs really helped me to be bold for Jesus on my public school campus

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And so I love hearing stuff like that and that that's really encouraging. But so we yeah, we were together for about seven or eight years and We got to tour

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I got to do some really cool things. Yeah, well, I was in Zoe girl I got to play at Madison Square Garden with Carmen.

09:17

I think that was with Carmen That was Carmen. Do you not know? See you have so much.

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Okay, is that a Christian artist? So Carmen see some of your audience right now is laughing because they know

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I didn't grow up in the church. Yeah jars of clay are okay Okay, so you go up to you have an excuse so Carmen was like the big

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Christian artist in the 80s and 90s. Okay, and they kind of made this comeback in the early 2000s a band

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Carmen is one guy one guy it the best way I could describe him is he was kind of like he's not

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Alive anymore, but he was kind of like the Christian Tom Jones like Las Vegas Okay, do you know who this is massive shows, okay, you know dancers pyrotechnics like the tour we did with him had pyrotechnics

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Wow, so we played Madison Square Garden with him and I got to play the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Whoa got to tour with the newsboys.

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I got to do one show with DC talk when they were still together. Yeah Do you know are they still walking with the

10:18

Lord? Well, that's a great question, okay, so Toby it the kind of the main one that everybody knows

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Yeah, Toby Mac is is walking with the Lord and Michael is walking with the Lord. Okay, but Kevin has deconstructed.

10:32

Hmm, and So his time in the music industry had a big part to play in there You know, I don't know it'd be hard for me to speculate because I don't really personally know

10:40

Kevin very well I met him a time or two, but I asked because in your book at the end interestingly

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I thought it would have been in the introduction you talk about how Some of your journey at least trending towards deconstruction was because of some of what you experienced in the

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Christian music industry. Yeah Without question, but at the same time it's like there are so many artists that don't deconstruct and then there's so many that do but I definitely think there are factors there.

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But with Kevin he he went on Twitter I think it was a couple of years ago and basically said that he's

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Deconstructed and he's progressive now and he follows Richard Rohr and the universal Christ and all of that. So You know for all intents and purposes.

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He's walked away. Yeah, but The other two are walking with the Lord. So to my knowledge

11:25

You still getting those royalty checks? Oh, yeah, they're like, what are they like? 18 cents sometimes well, they actually stopped cutting checks for I did get a royalty check for 18 cents once Yeah, I think we just framed it or something.

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I didn't even throw it away or use it. Yeah But yeah, it's we get it's it's very they're very small.

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Yeah now has you know, we live in the age of you know Our society is in decline.

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We can't come up with anything new. All we do is repurpose old thing and make sequels and prequels

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Has there been any mention of like a Zoe girl reunion tour? We've actually the three of us.

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So there's three of us in the group. Okay, we've talked about it In fact, cuz you're all following the Lord. We're all walking with the

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Lord God, and we're all married with kids now okay, and Actually about I think it was maybe

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I Hate to say it was probably like 10 years ago We started talking about how each of us had written lullabies for each one of our children

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Wow And wouldn't it be fun to come together and make a lullaby album? Because all of our little

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Zoe girlfriends are now moms and in that age group so I can see it's just never happened You're right by Nashville just find somebody the tightest to tour right you've become the tightest to women

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I bet you I bet you you'd pick like 10 locations 10 dates.

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You'll sell out. It's the only thing people have asked about They're like tell us about Zoe girl. I'm like who is Zoe girl?

12:52

Yeah now I know All right, maybe after this is over. I'll show you a really embarrassing

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Christian rap video of me back when I used to oh, I'd love to yeah, it's pretty bad Now Luke Luke is actually a real artist

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He has just repurposed five hymns that are basically unsingable with their traditional melody

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He's put them to a more modern melody. They're amazing. Oh, wow, pretty cool, huh? Hey, so you got into apologetics.

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Do you still do music stuff? Like do you serve musically in the church or is that kind of in the rearview? Well, it's coming back.

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So I I Served as sort of like on as an artist in residence at a church for a few years

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Kind of during that faith crisis and actually I'm so thankful for that church because the pastor I was really honest with him

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About my struggles and he helped kind of disciple us through that process of leaving that church

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So I served there for a few years really up until Kovat actually Okay and then they kind of changed the way that they did things and they used to have artists come in and Help with the worship and then they stopped doing that.

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Okay, so from Kovat until about a few months ago I really wasn't doing much of any music at all, but over the course of the last

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Ten years really along this theological journey. I started to write songs again And so there were songs that I wrote when

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I was literally just coming out of the dark The one was originally

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I called it a doubters hymn because it was like me just singing by faith the truths that I knew were true, but I was my heart was trying to catch up with them and So I just got to record five songs that I've just released like in October.

14:37

They're out. They're out Can you send me the link to that? I can okay. Yeah, that's great. How what's the reception been like so far?

14:44

It's been great I mean wait, it was kind of it was a bit of a leap of faith because it's expensive to make music and we used a live string section, which is very expensive and But it was like, you know, if we're gonna do this, let's do it, right?

14:57

Yeah, let's make something excellent and you know and and my goal was not I Did not want to go through a label.

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I I did not I don't want to go through CCLI I don't think it's right that churches should have to pay money to sing songs in their churches.

15:12

Yeah, so We're not doing any of that. So it's just totally independent. So but I'm I'm really thrilled the reception has been great

15:19

We've pretty much broken even so I'm thrilled about that. That's huge. If you really spent that much money on it.

15:25

Yeah Yeah, so especially in the age where people don't make money off of selling music anymore, right? It's all like downstream

15:30

You don't really make any money off the album. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so I'm really I'm really it's been satisfying

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So that's that's been Increasing like invitations to go to churches And so sometimes now

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I'll sing a song when I you know, like speak at a women's conference or something and yeah Why do you think churches should not use

15:50

CCLI? Well, it's so I remember This is my personal opinion and I could be wrong, but I remember back

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When that all became a thing, okay, and I remember my publisher This is when I was signed to I think it was

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EMI at the time. Okay, and I read a big label Yeah, so it was Sparrow Records they got bought by EMI which is a secular company

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Okay, all pretty most of the labels now are owned by secular companies just like the publishing houses Yeah, it's kind of it's similar.

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So I think capital owns our catalog now So it's it's gone through, you know some changes, but it was

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EMI at the time and I remember our publisher saying You know when you write worship songs

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One of the ways that you'll make money is is that when churches actually sing them in their services?

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They're gonna pay a royalty and I looked at him. I said, that's that's wrong It's one thing to produce, you know a project that people pay for the music

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That's one thing because that cost you something to make But just for churches to have to pay a royalty

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To worship just it hits me really wrong. And so I didn't want to do that That was certainly the way

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I reacted the first time I heard about it. Well, I didn't even know that was a thing Yeah, because technically even if a church isn't using

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I think this is right. I may be wrong about this isn't even using the CCL I software they're still supposed to report.

17:12

Mm -hmm what songs they're singing. That's right to pay the royalty Yeah is hits me in all kinds of wrong ways.

17:17

Can you imagine the IRS kicking down your door? You owe us $700 All right, we got to start talking about deconstruction

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I have so many questions sometimes when I do interviews, I'll read people's books and I'll just be like, yeah, we'll talk about something else.

17:35

But your book is just full of quotations I did my best to try to narrow everything down to make this a streamlined discussion, but The whole manuscript could have just been underlined and highlighted.

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I thought it was very useful Very well written With Tim what's Tim's last name

17:53

Tim Barnett Tim Barnett of red pen logic red pen logic He's got those fantastic YouTube videos and those shorts.

17:59

I I mostly just see the shorts, but anytime I see them I'm edified by yeah So hopefully we can get him on the show. He's doing great work.

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Yeah You know before you wrote this book you say

18:13

Sorry, actually, let's let's go back even before that. Let's talk about your heart in addressing this Russell Berger and I we do an apologetics podcast kind of sometimes when we have enough time when we did our series on critical theory which is not just critical race theory, but all of that it was such a

18:32

Passions were so inflamed about that subject that the very first episode we did was to talk about our heart

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In addressing that subject because we were gonna say some some pretty tough things We wanted people to know that it was in love that we were praying for fruit of the spirit as we were doing it

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Etc. And that's how you and Tim start off the book. You say we feel like we are writing with both

18:53

Tears in our eyes and a sword in our hand. Can you elaborate on that? Yeah Well one comparison

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I could make is When there's some sort of a like a pandemic You want to fight that disease because you care about the people who could be hurt by it

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So you have tears in your eyes for the people who might be harmed by it?

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Yeah, but you're gonna throw everything you have at curing it stopping it, you know that kind of thing

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So I think deconstruction is kind of like that disease That you're gonna throw you're gonna pull out your sword and do everything you can do to stop it from Robbing people of their faith.

19:33

Yeah, but at the same time you have tears in your eyes for the people who are so confused Yeah by the deconstructionists online and the propaganda machine that the social media

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Space is yeah, so I think that was that was really kind of what we meant and it also that was spring -boarded off of Some pushback we would get when we would talk when we would talk in war language

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So this was we kind of start the book with this now viral statement that skillet frontman

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John Cooper made at Winter Jam when he said it's time to declare war on the idolatrous deconstructing

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Christian movement and What I think that revealed at the time was that Christians were defining deconstruction in really different ways

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Because for those of us who understood it like John understood it as this thing that robs your faith We were like, yes,

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John, you know, that's great. But then for people who were defining it just as simply

20:27

Engaging your doubts or asking hard questions. They were like, why are you so mad at me? I'm asking questions I want to know what's true

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So I think that's where we were trying to explain like we're not mad at people who are confused

20:41

We're mad at the lie, yeah, you're like a surgeon who's Aggressively removing any signs of cancer.

20:48

That's right. You're not doing it to hurt the patient You're doing it because you want to help the patient, right? If you cut somebody's chest open, yeah, and you're not a doctor and there's no purpose then you're harming that person but if you're a doctor and you have a scalpel and you're trying to Remove disease then it's it's still the same instrument.

21:06

Mm -hmm, but it's used for evil. Yeah, that's right. So You in that little

21:14

You were talking about the different ways that people use the word deconstruction Here's a quote from right at the beginning of the book.

21:21

You say when terms are not clearly understood We can end up talking past one another You and I were talking about the good faith debate that I did with Rebecca McLaughlin about wokeness really disappointed in how that turned out because Not until halfway into the second part of the debate

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Do we realize that we're just not even using this word in the same way, you know? So when terms are not clearly understood we can end up talking past one another multiple meanings create confusion, especially when it comes to a word as emotionally charged as Deconstruction so right at the outset of this interview as we begin to explore this topic

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Can you just give us a good succinct definition of deconstruction? Yes, and and I will tell you that this definition was the hardest sentence for Tim and I to write in the whole book just To try to pin it down And I will also tell you that one of the reasons we wanted to be so careful to define it

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So succinctly is because we saw so many Well -meaning Christian leaders using it in all kinds of different ways, which is really confusing so our definition and we can dig down into some of this if you want to is

22:29

It's a postmodern process. Mm -hmm of Rethinking your faith, but not regarding scripture as a standard.

22:35

You nailed it That's exactly what I have directly word -for -word from you. You really did, right? No ghostwriters

22:44

Okay, so we're gonna basically spend the rest of the interview unpacking that let's contrast your definition with a

22:52

Definition that Josh Harris the author of I kissed dating. Goodbye. Yeah, how I yeah who has deconstructed

22:59

He is one of the more honest Deconstructors, he says there's a biblical phrase for the word deconstruction and it's called falling away

23:08

What does he mean by that? Yeah. Well, this was in 2019 so Josh Harris was like this icon of purity culture in the 90s and He basically announced that he was getting a divorce and then a couple of weeks later

23:21

He went on Instagram and that that's where that comes from as he was saying I've deconstructed the for all intents and purposes.

23:29

I'm not a Christian anymore and the biblical phrase is falling away So we pointed that out because back in 2019 there were not a lot of people challenging that definition

23:37

Most people were like, yeah deconstruction means walking away or deconversion was synonymous. Yeah, and Then after that there seemed to be a whole bunch of Christians really more in the evangelical world saying

23:48

Oh, no, just deconstruct but deconstruct in a healthy way. So an example, that would be Lecrae Exactly.

23:54

Yeah. Yeah when he said I'm deconstructing he had this long series of tweets Which really he was just saying

24:00

I'm re -examining my faith to make sure it's biblical, right? And so we would say yeah Everybody should re -examine, you know every day always examine make sure your beliefs line up with scripture

24:10

Make sure they line up with what's real and true But we're saying that's not deconstruction. Yeah, that's right

24:16

Yeah, which is interesting because when you wrote your first book another gospel. Yeah, you use the phrase deconstruction

24:23

Can you talk about I changed it? Yeah, I've changed my mind. Yeah, so did somebody come to you and say sister I don't think this is helpful or was it you just working through it.

24:30

It was me working through it so basically in my first book another gospel, which is sort of my theological memoir of Where I walked the reader through that process

24:39

I described at the beginning of our interview where I was talking about my doubt and all of that and At the time I called that deconstruction even in the book.

24:45

I called it deconstruction because it was the best word I had at the time but what started to happen is

24:52

When I started to talk more about deconstruction Progressive Christians who had already been through deconstruction and other deconstructionists would say you don't understand deconstruction and I was like, well,

25:04

I'm pretty sure I do. I almost lost my faith, you know, and They would say no you you didn't deconstruct because you still believe all the things

25:12

Christians believe, you know well, they would say evangelicals, but sometimes they conflate the two but And and so I would say

25:19

Okay, so because I busted everything down to the studs I mean you these people had no idea how many beliefs

25:27

I actually changed But because I believe Jesus is my Savior that I'm a sinner that has the

25:32

Bible's Atoning sacrifice on the cross that he's coming back to judge the living in the dead. Hell is real because I believe those things

25:38

I didn't deconstruct so that got me thinking like this word means something different as it manifests in culture

25:46

Maybe some the way some people in church are using it or even historically the way the right the word was intended to be used

25:53

Right, exactly. You get into the book. That's right So then I started thinking about the postmodern baggage behind the word and then

25:58

I started to ask myself why did I use a postmodern word to describe what really I think was a process of seeking truth and Following the truth wherever it leads.

26:09

Why am I using a postmodern word that is built upon the rejection of absolute truth? Why would I do that?

26:14

Yeah, and I hung on to it for a while and Because I do think even in my faith crisis

26:21

I I subtly bought into some of the lies of postmodernism not realizing it until I pulled back out of it

26:28

But it was when we wrote this book. It became so clear to me. I did not deconstruct.

26:33

That is absolutely not what happened I doubted I nearly maybe lost my faith.

26:38

I don't think I could have but right nearly felt like I did Yeah, I re -evaluated absolutely everything.

26:45

I believe about everything, but that's not deconstruction That is not what I did because what is manifesting in the deconstruction space

26:52

Which is it's largely happening online because people leave their church communities. They leave even sometimes write

26:58

No contact letters, then they find community online, which is basically a propaganda machine. That's really what it is

27:03

Yeah, and so they they will tell you if they laugh

27:08

I mean, they have memes meme after meme after meme laughing at Christian pastors who say Oh just deconstruct with the

27:14

Bible in one hand and they're like, that's not what this is Yeah, you're not supposed to have an external authority when you yeah, that's right

27:21

Well, you say that there are a number of different reasons why the word deconstruction should not be baptized, which is a great image

27:27

Redeemed or Christianized to mean something healthy or positive, but the main Reason you give is that what pastors call good deconstruction

27:36

Which we would say using the scriptures to challenge the ideas and beliefs you hold It's just not the commonly it's not the common use of the word 90 % of the people 95 % of the people

27:48

When they use that word, they don't mean re -analyzing your beliefs in light of Scripture They mean trying to tear down your beliefs and move away from Scripture Yeah, you list other reasons, but I think that's probably the most and belief in general, you know in that deconstruction space

28:01

They don't want you to land on any kind of belief because if you do, you'll just have to deconstruct that Yeah, and then you talk about well, well, what if we add an adjective to it if we add the right adjective to it?

28:12

then that will Be like healthy deconstruction versus unhealthy deconstruction and you say that that won't help the problem either

28:19

No, we tried actually Tim and I okay when when we were first talking about writing the book

28:26

That's when the John Cooper thing happened. And that's when we realized oh, there's a hundred different ways People are talking about us.

28:31

Maybe we could talk about like a healthy so we tried we couldn't do it We couldn't find the healthy deconstruct. You go in the hashtag you go in the in the spaces where people are talking about it

28:40

Yeah, you cannot find this healthy deconstruction. Okay. So what words should we use should it be a word?

28:47

Should it be a sentence? We we advocate for the word Reformation and I don't honestly care what you call it.

28:53

You can call it discernment You can call it discipleship. You can call it being a biblical

28:59

Christian we say Reformation is good because you do want to always be reforming your beliefs according to scripture with the cry of the

29:06

Reformation, but Even that prefix is something that you talk about in the book. You say there's a difference between D words and three words

29:13

Yes, D words tear down deconstruct D, you know vol D whatever but recreate reform

29:19

We these are words that are building up and we want to build up right belief not just tear down for the sake of tearing

29:25

Down. Yeah. Yeah every Christian if you live long enough I mean, maybe you get saved and you get into a car accident on the way home

29:32

I don't know, but most of us will go through some period of Reformation, right? That's just a normal Semper Reformanda Sometimes it's major like when

29:41

I came out of the prosperity gospel Sometimes it's minor when you're like, oh, I don't know if I'm a continuationist anymore

29:48

But I'm gonna dig into that when I get a little more time But we are always in some sense just re -evaluating our beliefs in light of scripture.

29:55

And yeah, I like the word discernment It is it's just a good biblical word Reformation good too, but yeah discernment's a good word.

30:04

Yeah. Yeah, that has my vote in chapter 12 You give some pretty good advice on how to interact with Christians who perhaps use the word unwisely

30:14

You guys do a little thought experiment, which I really like You say Johnny little Johnny Little Johnny comes home from youth camp and announces to his

30:22

Christian parents that he is in Deconstruction and his parents say thanks for sharing that with us, which by the way,

30:30

I love how perfect this response is I'm trying to think if my daughters came home from Christian camp and said we're deconstructing.

30:35

They got like a nose ring Probably not

30:41

I'd be like, uh -huh. Uh -huh. Cool. Cool. Cool. Cool You say thanks for sharing that with us.

30:46

What do you mean by deconstruction? Well, which is a good practice right ask people what they mean when someone uses the word woke

30:53

Well, what do you mean by that when someone uses the word prosperity? What do you mean by that? What do you mean by construction

31:00

Well, it turns out Johnny heard from some friends that deconstruction is a way of making sure you believe what's true for him

31:07

It's a healthy process of thinking through what he's been taught and making his faith his own and then you say

31:14

Once you've kind of understood that wrapped your arms around how he's using the word then later You want to come back and gently nudge him?

31:20

Hey, maybe there's a better word. I thought that was really wise Well, the reason we used that specific scenario is because that's that specific scenario has happened many times

31:31

When I speak to youth, so I do some youth apologetics with like summit ministries and impact 360 okay, and When we talk about deconstruction what

31:40

I learn is that especially among that age group that kind of middle school and high school age group Yeah They a lot of the

31:47

Christian kids have adopted the language of some of their evangelical leaders who have tried to baptize the word And so I've had kid after kid after I give my presentation come up to me and go, you know

31:57

I would I thought that I was deconstructing but now I realize I'm not deconstructing. I'm just trying to make my faith my own

32:03

I'm trying to you know, evaluate scripture. I'm trying to learn how to read and study the Bible for myself And I was calling that deconstruction, but I'm not gonna call it that anymore

32:12

So I think I've seen the fruit of that conversation many times, especially when you actually show them

32:19

What is the dominant expression of the word when they get out from under the safety of their Christian homes and yeah limited you know social media or whatever they have when they really see what it's like and I show them and then you know in the

32:32

Talk and they're like, oh no, that's not what I'm doing. Yeah Yeah, it happens a lot and you keep bringing up and I'm glad you you do the the the world of deconstruction online we're gonna talk about that pretty heavily towards the end of the interview because People are basically falling into two worlds either a healthy local church or really unhealthy online communities

32:55

So we're gonna come back to that You you guys talk about the five key elements of most deconstruction

33:03

Which I also just like the word deconversion Even that's though a little theologically fraught because truly regenerate heart can't become unregenerate.

33:12

But yeah, you say there's People who deconstruct they have a problem with a literal reading of the

33:19

Bible a belief that women are beat to be submissive to men a belief in the sanctity of heterosexuality the assumption that the

33:26

American way of life is best and identification and partnership with Political and social conservatism now what

33:33

I found to be interesting about this is that at least three of these points There's a way in which you could say that in which I think we would say a man

33:39

So let's start with the first one. Yeah a literal reading of the Bible Contra Ken Ham, no, I'm just kidding.

33:45

I'm trying to start any beef with Ken Ham You interpret the parts of the Bible literally that are meant to be understood literally and you interpret the poetry

33:54

Poetically and you interpret the allegory Allegorically, there's not a lot of allegory, but there is some yeah, and so I mean

34:02

Isn't that a good place for you to get in with people who are deconstructing to be to for you to say actually well

34:08

I don't know that I believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible either yeah, I think that could be a good doorway because I and there's so much straw manning that happens, especially with this topic in particular because Deconstructionists are some of the most wooden literalists that you'll ever meet when it comes to what they want to refute from the

34:26

Bible They have no hermeneutical precision. No, they take everything like they will take everything

34:31

Wooden literal yeah, and then try to debunk the Bible because oh the Bible says something stupid like whatever they think is stupid, right?

34:38

Yeah, and so it's interesting that they criticize, you know literalists when they're like such literalists

34:45

But yeah, I think You know That was one of the things when I was coming out of my faith crisis that I really learned about hey

34:52

The Bible employs figures of speech just like we do in everyday language and learning to spot what they are

34:58

The problem though, I think is that sometimes people who accuse Christians of literalism

35:03

They want to turn plain speech into figures of speech Yeah And and you can't you can't allegorize everything, you know

35:10

It has you have to go with the intent of the author was the author intending to communicate like a parable for example

35:16

You know, Jesus was telling stories that make a spiritual point, right? And so it's yeah

35:22

I think this is not literally a door. He's not a door. He doesn't have hinges. It's not made of wood, you know, and And sheep, you know,

35:30

I don't I don't have a woolly coat, you know, so it's yeah it some of it is

35:36

Is a straw man, I think Okay. So the next one a belief that women are to be submissive to men that is biblical

35:44

But I can imagine the way that they understand that is not what the Bible intends, right?

35:50

When it uses that language, right? In fact in most so this I don't know how deep in the weeds we want to go on this but The you know, there's a debate among Christians about and there's a bit of a spectrum

36:02

Complementary into egalitarian that people are gonna land on different places in the spectrum. You can be a Christian and be egalitarian

36:07

You can yeah, I mean I would shouldn't be I would disagree with an egalitarian, but But yeah, we can have that debate based on Scripture I know a couple of really great egalitarian scholars even that I've had on my podcast that I disagree with them on that topic

36:20

But they they are to the best of my knowledge trying to get their position out of Scripture, right?

36:25

So that's a different conversation than what's going on in the deconstruction hashtag So what's happening there is it's really

36:31

I think built upon a more, you know, if you want to use the word woke Yeah definition of justice, which is equal outcome

36:38

So if a woman has a different outcome than a man does in church leadership, that's not just a theological debate

36:46

That's actually oppression. That's injustice. Yeah, the Marxist worldview. Everyone is either an oppressor.

36:52

That's right oppressed So and and I've had Sorry, but middle -aged white guys mansplained to me that I am internally oppressed for holding that view which is hilarious to me

37:03

But so it's it's an injustice and so and then what also ends up happening is you might have somebody who's come out of a real extreme version of like a real hyper fundamentalist

37:17

IFB where women are basically hated and it you know I would say that there is some misogyny going on there and they'll they'll say well

37:26

This is what all evangelicals believe. This is what this is what the church teaches whatever their particular experience was

37:31

Yeah, so that gets thrown in there and then also like people like Beth Allison Barr who are basically and she was in Dumas Yeah, Kirsten Dumas.

37:39

She like they Beth Allison Barr in her book She even says that she skirted the fringes of the Gothard movement

37:45

Yeah, and she's equating that to okay. Well all evangelicals must believe that and then she's linking that to abuse.

37:52

So she says yes Complementarianism as a theology leads to abuse

37:57

So in the mind of the deconstructionist and this is this is really where the post -modernism comes in on just all sorts of different topics but the you know if we define deconstruction as not regarding scripture as a standard what their standard is is really what they

38:12

Personally feel helped by or harmed by abused or you know They're gonna reject what they feel abused by and embrace what they feel affirmed by Yeah, and so it's all this this shift of authority from an external authority to an internal one.

38:25

Yeah, and so Complementarianism Wherever you land on it for them it that is an abusive doctrine.

38:33

Yeah. Yeah. It doesn't matter how careful you are Right. Yeah how nuanced the language is?

38:39

Yeah, the third thing is a belief in the sanctity of heterosexuality Why does that ruffle their feathers?

38:48

Well, that's a big one. I would say that that's kind of a pillar in the deconstruction movement is that they believe again getting to the unequal outcome and the perceived oppression is

38:59

That the church oppresses gay people. That's that's the view Yeah, and so if we were to say marriage is between a man and a woman

39:07

Well, that is that's oppressing Somebody who might experience some level of same -sex attraction because they've embraced that as a core identity

39:16

Yeah, you know, that's obviously from Freud saying our sexuality is our core identity

39:22

We bought that hook line and sinker. And so of course the deconstructions have bought that So if somebody experiences a particular temptation in that area

39:30

That is their core identity And then if the church doesn't affirm that then the church is basically saying you can't you know

39:37

Be a part of of us and we reject you which of course is not is not true, you know, but Yeah, it's it's it's the perceived oppression.

39:46

Yeah, the fourth is the assumption that the American way of life is best I don't know any

39:52

Christian. No, maybe there would be some Christians who would say that I think I would almost say that just depending On what you mean,

39:57

I think Western civilization is downstream from a deep reservoir of a biblical worldview

40:04

But no culture is perfect or sinless nobody should ever use superlative language towards any fallen kingdom on this earth

40:13

Yeah, so what would you say to a well, it's it's almost like, you know, cuz this language

40:19

I think that what you're reading is coming from Blake Chastain who came up with the exvangelical hashtag. That's what he was saying like these are the pillars of evangelicalism we're leaving basically and So when when you talk about American way of life is best, that's how he worded it

40:35

But really if we're honest if you just like America They think you're a

40:41

Christian. You don't have to be a maga You don't even have to be like, yeah saying that the American way of life is best

40:47

You just have to be like I love my country. Yeah Christian nationalist You're you're traded politics for the gospel and Wow, you know so I think there's these people should go live in another country for a while and that's the thing and then one of the

40:58

Things we say in the book is first of all, my co -authors Canadian. So like we're not saying we're not saying that Yeah, he knows his country sucks.

41:06

All right. Yeah I think he put a line in there like everybody knows Canada's the best, right?

41:14

But yeah, so I think there's more going on there it's this perceived idea that evangelicals are you know that evangelical is synonymous with Republican or maga or something like that and There's no room for nuance

41:29

Again, all right, we're gonna do a compilation video because every episode somebody does

41:35

Let's go number five identification in partnership with political and social conservatism

41:42

And there's just no way you can win on that one, right? I mean I think it was

41:48

GK Chesterton who defined conservatism Like this he says when you when you are out walking in a field and you see a fence

41:56

Rather than saying let's tear it down. You first must stop and say I wonder what that fence is there

42:02

Yeah, right now that I butchered that but no that was it. That was that was at least a close pair close enough, right?

42:07

Yeah, the message version of the yeah I think that that's a good biblical instinct.

42:14

I know that iterations of conservatism can certainly be unbiblical but Going back to the same impulse with the

42:21

American way of life There's really no way that you can shape that or mold it or say it that they will in any way be able to hear

42:28

It right. No, I don't think so. And this is the thing Well, let me say this and then I'll get into the hypocrisy of that as well yeah, of course like we

42:39

Quote Doug grow ties a great Christian philosopher on conservatism. And and yeah,

42:44

I think you're right. I think now Every like you said, there's every kingdom on earth is fallen, right?

42:50

This these are there's no perfect political party, right? But really what that's about is the 2020 election

42:57

In almost every deconstruction story Donald Trump is in there somewhere. Yeah, and so what

43:03

I think is going on is that They What you'll hear a lot in the deconstruction stories is hey

43:10

Christians were so hard on Clinton. They wouldn't let him pass morally They said, you know, you're you're immoral.

43:16

So you got to get out where we're done with you But yet they they embrace Donald Trump And of course, that's a very broad statement because not every

43:23

Christian does embrace Donald Trump some voted for him because it was the lesser of two evils in their mind or they

43:29

They liked his policies and they were there was just again I thought to bring in nuance, but there was there's like no nuance in this conversation at all and so anybody who may be voted for Trump or is a

43:41

Republican is kind of lumped in with this idolatrous Political movement, right?

43:47

And and to be fair that there is a real idolatrous political movement I've met them.

43:53

Yeah, it's a real wild ride. Yes Well, and especially like with what the American Gospel movies are doing that we've been involved

43:59

We've seen that especially in the New Apostolic Reformation. There's a lot of that So yeah, we're not denying that there are

44:05

Christians that are doing that for you just can't collapse every Christian, right? Yeah, exactly and so I think that's what's going on there, but I mentioned the hypocrisy and I just I did want to Just mention this because you know in the whole

44:15

Christian nationalism conversation some according to the definitions that everybody's going by some of the most

44:21

You know Christian nationalistic churches or progressive churches who regularly have you know

44:27

Democratic candidates come and give stump speeches in their churches. Then then wasn't there a video of that just recently?

44:32

Yeah, there was there was one recently and so, you know, it's it goes both ways there. It does. Yeah. Yeah I Think about that kind of like the ring like both sides are trying to get the ring of power

44:47

Sometimes they're doing it from a politically conservative position. Sometimes they're doing it from a politically progressive position

44:52

But that's the carnal desire underneath it all and sometimes it's wrapped in religious garb, you know

44:59

Now it's I found it interesting who was the person who wrote these five well if I'm remembering correctly

45:06

Blake Chastain was the guy who came up with the ex -evangelical hashtag and he has the ex -evangelical podcast now

45:12

Okay, and when somebody asked him, what does ex -evangelical mean? He said well, it's you know

45:17

This might change and grow as I as I go, but this is kind of what yeah, we are leaving

45:23

I think it's interesting that he doesn't list race in here because yeah, it seems like race is like a huge one

45:29

Especially after 2020 I'd have to look at when he wrote that blog post because it might have been before the whole George Floyd thing before that really

45:35

Was at the forefront of the conversation. Yeah I cannot tell you so I was

45:42

In the Christian rap world for a little while a lot of my for a long I went through my own little weird identity crisis

45:48

I grew up around nothing but like Mexicans Filipinos and black kids growing up and then I joined the military moved away lived in Seattle the whitest city maybe in the world and and then

46:00

I moved to Atlanta which you know, maybe the blackest city in the world and Had a lot of black friends they're black

46:08

Christian friends and I gotta say I think over half of them are not walking with the Lord anymore and Most of that has happened over the last four or five years

46:17

It started kind of in 2011 by God's grace. A lot of brothers have persevered We don't always agree on race stuff when we have the conversation, but praise

46:26

God we can have the conversation sometimes But yeah race stuff has really caused

46:33

It I don't know what the hashtag would be if the broad kind of hashtag is Exvangelical there's kind of what is it leaving loudly?

46:42

Jomar Tisby's whole thing That was pretty bad. The idea was very similar to this deconstruction idea.

46:49

It's we're not walking away from Jesus We're just trying to shed the the the white manifestations of Christianity that are unbiblical

46:56

But I don't know a lot of guys who survived that. Yeah, you know, so yeah Well, that's enmeshed like the whole critical theory is totally enmeshed in deconstruction.

47:06

Yeah, like decolonize your theology. There's a Influencer in the deconstruction space that basically said that you have not deconstructed until you've decolonized your theology and by decolonize

47:17

She means get rid of blood atonement get rid of biblical authority All of these are tools of oppression that the church has used to control people with fear and to prop up white supremacy

47:27

That's kind of the narrative even if if if if being punctual is is a manifestation of whiteness

47:33

Then atonement is not gonna make yeah Logic. Yeah. Yeah two plus two equals four

47:41

You say that the one thing that virtually all deconstruction stories have in common is what they say they're leaving behind right, so They they express an almost well actually sorry answer that first.

47:54

I got carried away. Mm -hmm yeah, so It might be helpful to think of deconstruction like a car

48:01

It's a car you get in to leave a point. Okay, but you can go anywhere you can end up in Agnosticism you can end up in secular humanism.

48:12

You can end up surrounded by crystals and chanting, you know Affirmations you can end up a progressive

48:18

Christian. Yeah And that's why I actually think Deconstruction is the biggest apologetic challenge we have right now because it truly doesn't matter where you go as long as you leave these quote -unquote toxic

48:30

Theological beliefs. Yeah, and really the toxic theological beliefs are any sort of objective truth statement that you might make because that's an external authority

48:38

Which is is seen as a power grab. Yeah. Yeah, you know I couldn't help as I was reading this think of another illustration for the difference between deconstruction and Reformation When our church burned

48:52

Because one of the things that they it's hard to burn brick. It's a brick building brick is hard to burn That's one of the reasons why people use it

48:59

There's there's a structural engineer who is there this week who's trying to determine if the damage is significant enough to just tear it all down or do you just kind of scrape all the crap out of the inside and then rebuild from within and I think that's a pretty good picture right a lot of deconstructionists.

49:14

They don't care. They're just trying to tear it all down They start like Satan with a little bit like a half of a truth

49:21

But then the goal is to tear the whole building down whereas Reformation is alright If the bones are sturdy and we want the bones to be sturdy

49:28

Yeah, let's get back in there and rebuild and it's gonna be better than before Yeah, and you want to have a shelter right?

49:34

That's the mind of the Reformation is is the house is good yeah, it's good to have a roof over your head and Interesting with the house analogy because I don't think this actually made it into the book

49:44

We had to chop like yeah, I don't know 10 or 20 ,000 where it was crazy. We have so much We had to cut so much out, but you know what it paid off though Because the book the pacing is very good.

49:53

Good good, but I think one of the things that didn't make it in the book is one of the deconstructionists online uses the house analogy and it's so interesting to hear him talk about How he sees deconstruction like a house and then basically he says oh, you know

50:09

You want to turn this big room or you want to knock this wall down and turn that into into two rooms

50:14

But you know what? It's it's a load -bearing wall. Now. The roof is sagging So now you just have to tear the whole thing down. I'm like does he even realize what he's saying?

50:22

You can't just knock down any wall Yeah, if you want a good house if you want a house that's going to stand and you know shelter you

50:28

You can't just go down knocking walls because you want a room there. It doesn't work Atonement is a load -bearing wall.

50:34

Yeah, you can't you don't get to just do that and still have a house And so it was interesting to me that he would use the house analogy

50:41

But even basically out himself is saying well, yeah, I just have to same with the sweater analogy

50:46

I think it was Lisa Gungor that used that analogy Yeah, and she's like you pull it this thread because it's itchy you don't like it

50:52

So you pull on it and I thought that was interesting language, too Cuz it's like she's not worried about the structure of the sweater

50:57

She just doesn't want that thing right there didn't like it and then she's like and then you don't have a sweater anymore I'm like, well, yeah, you don't make it and you're left naked.

51:04

That's right. That's exactly what she says So speaking of Lisa Gungor Gungor Gungor Alisa Alisa tomato potato

51:14

All these quotes that you have in the book they are still zealous evangelists

51:20

You say that they express an almost religious zeal to reconvert others. They are actively attempting

51:27

I'm combining two quotes here actively attempting to dismantle historic Christianity discredit the church and promote an atmosphere of faith

51:34

Deconstruction we're we're fond of telling our people when we talk about apologetics and evangelism is that everyone is preaching

51:41

Everyone is an evangelist I got back from Portland a couple months ago Then one of the most secular cities in the country could not believe how much preaching there was every window black lives matter in this

51:51

House, we believe XYZ Marches and literal street preachers, you know

51:58

So yeah, I just find it interesting that although they've abandoned Christianity that impulse to evangelize

52:03

To bring people into the faith still exists. Oh, it's very strong In fact, we talked about in the book how

52:09

Josh Harris who we mentioned before He came out with what he called a deconstruction starter pack and for $275 you could take these classes

52:17

Where he could do guys a marketing machine I mean and that's the thing is you you there are deconstruction coaches online their deconstruction therapists

52:26

There's all sorts of people who it's an industry happy to take your money. So to deconstruct your faith for you

52:32

Yeah, I noticed that that that the package he's done. That's not it's not for free. He's not really well

52:38

So in all fairness to him, okay, which I don't I shouldn't laugh at this but it's a little bit funny that he said

52:46

I'll give this package for free to anybody who was harmed by my Previous purity culture teachings.

52:53

So I think it by the time he took it down because there was a big backlash not from conservatives But from the deconstructionists because they were basically like you're the reason

53:02

I have to deconstruct in the first place and now you're gonna charge $275 that's an interesting racket. Yeah. Yeah, so I think like four people might have at the time

53:10

He took it down had had taken the free package But but even that shows that there's still something in him that says

53:15

I need an atonement Yeah, you know, right like I know that what I know I've sinned. Uh -huh, and I can't live with that I got to do something to purify this so here here's a $275 you'll get it for free

53:29

Wow You talk about the way that deconstruction begins

53:35

And you say it almost always begins with you say you say

53:42

I'm trying to think of a good joke to insert there like it begins with a well now this is not a draft This is a little uh, this is a little nature fact that you'll probably appreciate

53:50

I learned the other day that all ants are females. Did you know that the little insects? Well, I know all honeybees are female all

53:58

I'll answer. Yeah, if they were males, they'd be called uncles. Oh Yeah, see you're full of puns and I'm not ready for him

54:06

Knocking it out of the park. All right always begin with questions because questions are bad

54:12

We shouldn't ask questions, right? No, I see. Yes that yes, they the many deconstructions begin with questions, but we because of the

54:23

Nature of that we have a whole chapter on questions because the problem with that is that some questions are honest and some aren't

54:31

Yeah, that's right. You say that some people are seeking answers. Other people are seeking exits Yeah some some people ask a question because they truly want to know the answer other people ask a question because they're seeking justification for the unbelief that they're already wanting to hold on to and and some we say are

54:48

Unaccepted or unacceptable because what often happens too is like I'm not gonna deny that there are church environments that shut questions down In fact, that's the thing.

54:56

We say please do a Q &A. We we'd love for Yeah Which as a pastor, by the way,

55:02

I'm not gonna do. Yeah, there's just no way Thank you for your honest. Yeah but you know to foster or maybe even a

55:09

Wednesday night thing or something once in a while to At least in the message that we we want the questions, right?

55:16

But the problem We actually talk about Tim with that But the problem is is that when the when the correct answer is given it's not acceptable

55:25

And so they'll this happened with me with someone in my life who was deconstructing She she kept asking questions about textual criticism.

55:32

So I'd send her resources I would answer the question as best I could and then she'd sort of rephrase the question and ask the same question again and I would be confused about how to answer because I'm like why just sent her like three books she could read on this and and I realized after a while.

55:46

Oh, she doesn't she doesn't want the answer Yeah, she wants to believe that the Bible is this tool of oppression that was written by these guys that want to keep women subjugated

55:54

And that's what she wants to believe. Yeah, and there's nothing I can do to help her until her heart opens to truth

56:00

Yeah, and so there's that dynamic as well And we I mean we know this because of the sin that lives in our own heart

56:06

I mean how many times have we seen the answer God put it there right in front of our face blue, right?

56:12

And we just go now green and we just keep denying and denying that Lord has to come and open our eyes

56:17

We see this in discipleship relationships as a pastor It's really tough to be in a lot of counseling situations where people will ask for an answer and sometimes

56:26

I just I'm trying to give you wisdom. This is so complicated I'm gonna try to get you to some scriptures, but nothing's like a knockout, but sometimes

56:33

I'm like listen, it's literally right here It's only like four words sometimes and people will go. I'm not seeing it

56:39

Yeah, so yeah this the the question asker who's not genuinely seeking is a reality

56:45

We have to deal with it's a reality that Jesus had to deal with. Mm -hmm, right? Yes, that's right Answer a fool according to his folly

56:53

Do not answer a fool according to his folly those two are back -to -back How come because the Bible is filled with contradictions, don't you know?

57:02

They're back -to -back because they're both good advice for different situations wisdom dictates, right? Sometimes you're gonna be in a conversation with someone who's deconstructing and you have to realize oh,

57:11

I'm actually just casting pearls before swine Yeah and sometimes you're you'll wrestle with people for a long time and the

57:17

Lord will bless it and they will actually Remain in the faith and I even think of it like what Tim does with red pen logic where he's answering a fool according to Their folly but for millions of viewers so that they can find clarity as well

57:27

You know Russell is one of the best apologists just sort of naturally.

57:32

He's just so gifted at it and And I would see him get into debates on our defending confirm stuff

57:39

Sometimes the people and I'd be like bro, you're killing me like you got to chill out and then and I didn't prepare

57:44

I don't have it pulled up right now But there's a section in the book of Acts that he sent me where it basically talks about Paul debating the

57:52

Jews in front of Others who were edified by the way that Paul handled the scriptures, right?

57:59

So that is another category It's not just me and my interlocutor if I'm using that word correctly,

58:04

I believe that was correct That's good. Yes. I thought that's what I used to see really far away. Yeah. Yeah my interlocutors

58:12

But so that's it's not just you know Me and you it's also there are people watching when we're having these conversations

58:18

Publicly and they can be really edified equipped strengthened encouraged. Yeah. Yeah, okay You say that?

58:26

Deconstruction is like a kind of death It's a death for the person who goes through it But it's also a kind of death for people who love the person who's going through it.

58:35

Can you speak to that? Yeah, well in the deconstruction hashtag and in lots of deconstruction stories I think one misconception that some

58:42

Christians have about deconstructionist is that it's just easy It's just I don't like this.

58:47

I'm gonna walk away and in a lot of them describe a lot of emotional anguish I mean this was their core identity and I mean that doesn't mean there's not rebellion in there and all sorts of stuff

58:57

It's very agonizing process for a lot of people so it can feel like a death for them also because Their entire community that has always been their community is going to be different now.

59:08

I mean, that's that's huge. That's a lot yeah, but it can feel like a death for their family, too and That that is the thing to me.

59:16

That is the hardest about this whole thing is I meet these sweet elderly

59:22

Parents all the time. This is very common where they'll come up to me tears in their eyes We don't know what to do.

59:27

We raised our daughter in the church and she's deconstructed. She won't let us see our grandkids now She tells us we're toxic.

59:33

We start the book with a one of those stories But that's a very common story that I come across and you can do everything right and that can still happen.

59:41

That's right I think someone might hear that and think well, yeah, if you raise your kid and you don't disciple them Well, and they're not in a healthy church

59:47

Well, yeah, that doesn't help but you can actually knock it out of the park. That's right Yeah, and people grow up all kinds of ways people grow up with atheist parents and become strong Christians So, you know, you know exactly so I always try to minister that to them

59:59

But it can feel like a death because in many cases The impetus to disconnect from your church community and even your blood family

01:00:08

Is so strong because they truly believe you you are an unsafe harmful person Yeah, not just that you have these fuddy -duddy, you know old -fashioned beliefs

01:00:16

That you are actually harming people when I go home on Thanksgiving. I have to confront my family members about their oppression

01:00:24

Yeah, and and if they won't listen then I have to cut them off. I've had people tell me yeah And there are oh my goodness so many threads in the deconstruction hashtag about what to do at Thanksgiving Yeah, how do you handle

01:00:34

Thanksgiving? Yeah, and and yeah, so it can feel that way Especially in many cases they receive a no -contact letter.

01:00:40

Yeah, I've met people. Yep. We got a no -contact letter We're not allowed to reach out. We're not allowed to text.

01:00:46

We're not allowed to you know, ask how they're doing and this is really painful for a lot of Christian parents and I mean, oh and the relationship dynamics.

01:00:56

It could be a spouse. It can be a best friend. It can be You know, I had a high school girl stand up in a

01:01:03

Q &A and ask me how to navigate her parents deconstruction How do

01:01:08

I honor them? But yeah keep faithful to Jesus Wow You know,

01:01:15

I can't help but compare someone who's deconstructing going home for the holidays and some friends that I have number of them with children who have abandoned the faith and the different ways that they

01:01:27

Handle that when they come together and try to be a family one of my friends in particular is so desperate

01:01:36

To show mercy and grace to this wayward child at the same time maintain healthy boundaries for the sake of the family and honestly for the testimony of the gospel whereas very often the

01:01:51

Deconstructing there's no grace. There's no mercy. It's kind of like listen, I Figure this out and I'm bringing the law and if you don't submit and if you don't repent immediately, we're done

01:02:01

We're getting cut off. Yeah Which is again, it just goes back to this like actually

01:02:07

I don't think I think you're the harsh one Yeah in this scenario, you know It's interesting about that is when we were preparing for this book

01:02:15

Tim and I reached out to several Deconstructionists to try to have a private zoom call yeah, and some did and we were very thankful that we got to just you know, ask them questions and try to Characterize this correctly, but we had one who responded basically like I will not speak to you because of your beliefs

01:02:31

I won't even have that discussion Because you are you are toxic and be and I think the word was because of your worldview

01:02:38

I won't even have a discussion with you. Have you seen that chart where it walks through critical theory and it's basically compares like Every aspect of that religion with the

01:02:49

Christian religion and how they're basically the same, you know What is the world?

01:02:55

How should we live? What is sin? How do we make atonement and as you go down through?

01:03:01

What every they both have the same categories, but one is filled with hope Grace is real

01:03:07

Redemption is possible. The other one is just the burden the burden of the law You just never come out from under that, you know, it's crippling.

01:03:15

Yeah And I feel bad for some people for a lot of people who have deconstructed But they've not really deconstructed from Christianity They've deconstructed from one kind of workspace religion to another kind of workspace religion

01:03:29

And so in some sense, it wasn't even that hard of a transition for them because they never even really tasted grace

01:03:34

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. All right. I can I'm rambling now. This is your interview. Not mine. It's good You say that virtually every deconstruction story speaks of a trigger event or several trigger events.

01:03:44

Can you elaborate on that? Yeah, so we were trying to figure out Why the question we started with was why can there be two people that grow up in the same house?

01:03:54

Go to the same church have the same pastors have the same summer camp experiences same mission trip experiences

01:04:00

And then some kind of a crisis can happen and one walks away and one walks closer to the Lord What's the what's the answer to why that is?

01:04:08

Yeah, and so what we came up with you mean from a secondary cost perspective, right? Exactly, of course, of course. Yes, so it's like I'm thinking of Jacob and Esau Right So so what is what are what's going on, you know, and so what we think about is

01:04:26

Someone's foundation and this is maybe where this will circle into to your comment just here. I Think there are a lot of people who grew up in the church and grew up in Christian families

01:04:39

Believed even some of the right things demons believe the right things, right? I think my sister was an example of somebody like this.

01:04:46

I my sister did not become a Christian till she was an adult She she was probably

01:04:51

I want to say maybe late 20s early 30s Went through a horrible

01:04:57

You know, this is we were living in LA goth industrial. Yeah, you know drugs

01:05:03

Alcoholic hardcore. Yeah, and and she she will say like I wasn't a Christian before Yeah, but she might have believed the right things gone along with Christian culture might have even thought she was a

01:05:12

Christian Yeah, so I think there's a lot of that. And so that's what we call the foundation is. What is the person's faith foundation?

01:05:20

Did they actually believe that all these things were true or did they believe in Jesus did they trust in Jesus for their salvation

01:05:27

So I think there's a lot of that going on So that's the foundation and then the crisis can be

01:05:33

Lots of different things. It could be the death of a loved one. It could be church hurt It could be the moral failing of their pastor the mishandling of the moral failure of their pastor

01:05:41

Perceived hypocrisy in the Christians in their lives and for the person who is saved

01:05:48

They're they're going to God is going to use that in their life to build them stronger. Even if for a season there's doubt

01:05:56

There's all sorts of stuff Yeah but then you have Somebody who didn't have that foundation and so that crisis is going to and then it can be compound crisis

01:06:04

You know, it could be a lot of different things all together and that's the best I could come up with it because I I know people that have

01:06:12

Been through the same exact church hurt. Yeah, and one walks away and one gets stronger

01:06:18

Yeah, and so I think it's it's the intersection of the foundation and then the crisis triggering events.

01:06:24

Yeah And you can have a triggering event with the person who is you know

01:06:30

Who has trusted in Jesus and it can send them wobbling? I mean for sure and they could go through like what

01:06:35

I went through where I I just didn't even know what I believed but There there does seem to be a crisis that triggers it

01:06:44

I went through something kind of similar to that when when I first when when

01:06:50

I got saved I was a drug -dealing gangbanger and I got pretty powerfully saved a radical transformation overnight but then

01:07:00

I tried to go to church and In the Christian South, I mean I had gold teeth with vampire fangs

01:07:06

Kind of wild and it did not go well and the first person who discipled me taught me the prosperity gospel hmm, and I got deep in the prosperity gospel and I so closely associated the gospel and walking with Jesus with What was essentially a cult?

01:07:23

That when I left the prosperity gospel, thank you. John Piper for the video that you put on the

01:07:28

Internet very helpful And thank you Lord for your word more importantly in your

01:07:33

Holy Spirit in your church That was the event that That sent my head spinning right leaving the prosperity gospel and it got so bad

01:07:45

That for a little while I was entertaining Jehovah's Witnesses They were coming they come they came by my house and I was like sure why not come and tell me why the

01:07:53

Trinity isn't Interestingly your husband, well, by the way, what's your husband's name?

01:07:59

Mike. Mike. He told me that earlier, but I forgot. Sorry, Mike Mike Kind of being like hey, we're done.

01:08:06

Yeah, my wife kind of did that We were I think we met with him for like six or seven weeks and finally one day

01:08:12

She basically hit me upside the head. She was like, what are you doing? And while they were there we just shut it down So praise

01:08:20

God for that, but it could have gone another direction Right. So so which which is which gets back to what

01:08:26

I brought up earlier primary and secondary causes Secondary causes what we can see right from from the human perspective, but underneath that it's nothing but the sovereign grace of God Why Jacob and not

01:08:40

Esau? Why Judas, you know, why Peter and not Judas? Well, it's all a grace, right?

01:08:47

Yeah So we actually already talked about The difference between Reformation and deconstruction.

01:08:53

Let's come back to that because there's a great illustration in the book that I want to talk about You talk about two different paintings.

01:09:01

Oh the Salvatore Mundi and the I think it's a gay homo.

01:09:07

I want to say it with a Spanish. Yeah. Yeah. So tell us about that Okay, I don't know if you remember Several years ago this went viral and I could not stop laughing

01:09:16

Yeah, so hard because what happened was in Spain, I believe it was in Spain There was a fresco of Jesus an old fresco of Jesus that had been

01:09:25

Dilapidated over the years and just you couldn't really so so a local woman Took who's not a professional artist took it upon herself to restore the painting now

01:09:34

You can look this up and I encourage everybody I did Yeah, and what she what she did was

01:09:40

I think I wrote in the book It looked like Picasso got drunk and drew a proboscis monkey with his left hand, you know

01:09:48

And which Picasso was right -handed by the way, I looked that up to be sure Picasso, you know, he's all two eyes on the same side of the yeah.

01:09:55

Yeah. Come on, buddy. Look around. Yeah, right So it's just it's hilarious and it went viral because it was so it was just so funny

01:10:02

And now it's kind of this tourist spot where people will go see it and there's merch You can buy a mug or something, you know, it may be the best thing that ever happened to that painting that I agree

01:10:10

Different reasons, right? But with the other one the Salvador Mundi, this was what is being referred to as the lost

01:10:17

Leonardo So this was a painting the male Mona Lisa. Yeah, the male Mona is a beautiful painting

01:10:23

Lot of art scholars thought it might have been attributed to Leonardo da Vinci and so I can't remember her name off the top of my head, but the the art restorer

01:10:34

She was this professional and it took her I mean if you watch you can watch the documentary on this the painstaking process of her just slowly barely touching it to remove the because there was some

01:10:46

Warping and there was some varnish that was added. So just the careful. I mean, I Think it was years of just removing the little things and then just barely touching it with her hand trying to restore

01:10:58

What was actually there? Yeah, and so and it ended up selling for like it was the highest selling painting in his

01:11:04

Yeah, I couldn't believe how much it sold. I don't remember what the number was Hundreds of millions. Yes hundreds of millions and Now it's disappeared people don't know like who bought it or where it is all mysterious

01:11:15

Maybe on a boat. Yeah But she She really believed it was a

01:11:22

Leonardo da Vinci and so did many others now that's been contested and they go back and forth about it but But for the sake of your illustration, yeah her the point of it though was the other lady

01:11:31

Just slapped some paint on and just well, he probably looked like this, you know and with with this one

01:11:37

It was like this painstaking process of trying hard to not be seen as the restorer

01:11:43

I want just what originally was painted to be the only thing that comes through and that was the goal and so deconstruction seems to be more like the

01:11:53

Eccehomo, you know, let me fix your Christianity You know X this out and then it just is not a beautiful thing anymore.

01:12:01

Whereas Reformation is more like what? Modestini was her name the restore.

01:12:06

Yeah, I can't remember her first name, but it was Modestini you know what she did was what we should do as Reformation if there have been things that have covered up the gospel or Marred the you know, your your understanding of the scriptures

01:12:19

Let's let's remove those things and let's restore the beauty of the gospel and the Word of God Yeah, and and so I thought that was such a great picture.

01:12:29

Yeah, I think so, too. I thought it was great Okay, so let's talk about toxic theology. Ah the word toxic it has made its way into our

01:12:38

Vocabulary I hear people using it all the time When it comes to toxic theology, you say it's a catch -all term that's being used to describe any doctrine that one deems

01:12:50

Harmful and harmful is in terms of Power right who's using this as a means of power to suppress?

01:12:58

Justice and thriving and well -being. Yeah, this comes from post -modernism. So This is this is how

01:13:05

I try to help people Understand this most post -modern people It's not that they necessarily would deny that there is an objective truth

01:13:13

But they just wouldn't say it can be known especially when it comes to religion immorality So most people don't walk around like relativists.

01:13:21

They go to the bank. They expect their money to be there They you know obey traffic lights there. There's objective truth that can be known but when it comes to religion immorality

01:13:30

The post -modern person has put those more in the category of like what's your favorite sports team? What kind of ice cream do you like?

01:13:36

What's your favorite dessert your favorite meal? This is the Nancy Piercy upper story, right? Yeah, so Nancy Piercy building on the work of Francis Schaeffer kind of did it like a house total truth, right?

01:13:45

Yeah, total truth. That's right. So there's upper story in a lower story lower story is facts and logic This is public truth.

01:13:51

Everybody has access to but then in the upper story you have like your favorite flavor of ice cream preferences opinions

01:13:56

Yeah, well, our culture has put religion immorality in the upstairs, basically So it's not and it should be with facts and science and logic and all that but it's not it's with opinion and preference.

01:14:07

So Here's how I try to help people understand it is if you're postmodern and you truly don't believe

01:14:14

That absolute truth about religion or morality can be known Then when the Christian comes along claiming to know what it is and telling you what you need to believe to be saved

01:14:25

Then you're not even interacting on the level of well Is that true what they're saying because you don't even think that can be known that truth could be known

01:14:33

Yeah, so you're immediately gonna go to motive. Well, why would they be saying that? Well, the church must have invented the doctrine of hell to control people with fear the church uses

01:14:44

This idea that you're a sinner and you need substitutionary atonement To keep people in the fold to prop up their institution to make sure you don't leave to make sure they keep control over you

01:14:54

Yeah, and and I think there it's an outflow also of this whole idea Flowing out of Marxism that you know, he it's not humans that corrupt the institutions

01:15:04

It's the institutions that corrupt humans and it's basically it boils down to whether or not you think people are sinners or not Yeah, and so it's sort of built on that People are naturally good.

01:15:13

They're morally good. And if you just left them alone, they would do good things Jean -jacques Rousseau. Yeah, exactly. So that's really what that's all coming from so any kind of objective truth claim that Christians would make

01:15:23

That they say you have to believe this too is toxic because that's authoritarian

01:15:28

You're just trying to keep control over me. You don't want me to be my truest self or whatever wording they might use.

01:15:36

Yeah So much of this comes back to post -modernism and in really critical theory which

01:15:44

Reified post -modernism. Have you read Helen Pluck rose and James Lindsay cynical theories? Yeah, so good

01:15:50

Yeah, they even have a simplified version because you can't give that book to everybody. It's a little too academic that paired with The Truman book.

01:15:59

Yeah, it really goes a long way. Yes, and he has a simpler version of that one He does strange new world. I was thankful.

01:16:04

Yeah Yeah Give away the the thin version of the Pluck rose Lindsay book along with brave new world to anyone who's really trying to think through These things carefully

01:16:12

That's not about your book, but that's no I agree. Yeah You you you guys do a really good job of simplifying things throughout the book and I thought this section was helpful you say that The deconstruction project works in three simple steps step number one

01:16:31

Identify a problem in society and that word problem. Maybe could even be put in quotation marks, right?

01:16:37

Whatever you deem to be a problem We'll just put capitalism in there, that's right

01:16:43

To show how the church actively endorsed or passively allowed in justice Which would be the problem and then three conclude that hundreds of years of participation in white supremacy

01:16:54

Patriarchy and nationalism have warped white evangelical theology such that it needs to be fundamentally

01:17:00

Reimagined. Yeah, that's very succinct, isn't it? Very succinct. Yeah, and that actually is coming from Neil Shen V's work so yeah,

01:17:09

Neil's the one who and we're quoting him there because he wrote an article and He put it so simply like that and I was like that is really good

01:17:19

And that's really when I started to when I read that from Neil or it might have even been something he said on my podcast I can't remember where we quoted it from it's in the book.

01:17:26

It'll be footnoted in there, but But it was it was so clear like that is exactly what happens like the perceived problem might be capitalism right in quotes, right?

01:17:35

and Well, if the church may be used capitalism to promote injustice Well, then now it's connected to all of this oppression that is and everything is white is like white supremacy

01:17:46

Yeah, that's the problem underneath all of it. And so you can almost get to that from anywhere. Yeah, like any perceived problem.

01:17:53

That's right. Yeah It's a pretty interesting setup. Yeah. Yeah Do you read much

01:17:59

Thomas soul? You know, I have not I've heard him like a couple of talks that he's done But I need to I know

01:18:05

I need to I just haven't yet. I would start with There's a book called a conflict of visions

01:18:12

It's probably his most important work He basically goes why is it that people who trend what we would call liberal?

01:18:19

And other people who trend what we would call conservative tend to always line up on the same side of debate

01:18:24

So like, you know that if someone's liberal, they're gonna have a problem with capitalism. They're gonna have a problem with heterosexuality

01:18:30

They're gonna be pro LGBT And you can just you can just I can just tell you exactly what they're gonna believe and yeah very rarely

01:18:37

Do you find someone who believes this but not that and he he basically does?

01:18:43

I think it's just really good common grace reasoning. The Bible gets you there. He doesn't go get to the Bible I don't think he's a

01:18:48

Christian, but he basically says it's due to our anthropology Mm -hmm If you think that human beings are fundamentally good and that human nature is fundamentally good and that we can we can always trend towards The good which how do you define that?

01:19:03

That's another question then you're gonna tend to have this view of the world and that's gonna lead to these conclusions

01:19:09

But if you distrust human nature because you think it's flawed or sinful Then you're gonna trend towards these views and then you know, he enumerates them

01:19:19

I kind of butchered that but well worth Well worth the time to read because it's it is interesting that whenever you read through like point number three white supremacy

01:19:28

Patriarchy nationalism capitalism sexuality like they always line up together. Yeah.

01:19:33

Yeah moving on In chapter 9 you say that deconstruction is more like a vivisection.

01:19:42

I think my wife had one of those with our second daughter No, that's a c -section

01:19:47

That would not be good. I think You said that deconstruction is more like a vivisection than a dissection.

01:19:55

Yes. What do you mean by that? So this was kind of a fun part to write about because in my original another gospel book

01:20:01

I had taught compared deconstruction to dissections like you know dissecting the parts of something like in Anatomy and biology like yeah, you do a little pig or something

01:20:13

Yeah And so Tim was a high school science teacher and he said, you know I think we need to talk about vivisection because with dissection you're cutting apart a dead thing

01:20:22

It doesn't matter if you puncture a lung or you nick an artery Because the thing is dead.

01:20:28

Yeah, and when you know if the Christian faith were like that, then yeah hack it apart who cares? Yeah, but it's actually a living thing.

01:20:34

Yeah, so vivisection is more like experimental surgery where you're very careful Yeah you know you got to be careful not to nick an artery not to puncture a lung or Slash a muscle or something like that because the thing that you're operating on has value.

01:20:47

Yeah, you're trying to preserve it You're trying to preserve it and fix what's wrong? And so in deconstruction so often it's like the value is not really assigned to the thing

01:20:54

So yeah, they're just hacking it apart. Yeah, there's no Value given to to what they're tearing apart in the first place.

01:21:01

Yeah, so speaking of Caring about this this thing that we're taking a scalpel to you guys talk.

01:21:08

I'd never heard this before I thought I mean it I felt like I have but I haven't heard it the way that you guys said it

01:21:14

You you talk a lot about how faith is relational not Informational. Hmm.

01:21:19

What's the difference there? Well, I think it's it's a lot of Christians Maybe don't understand grace, you know, grace is unmerited favor.

01:21:28

It's like every false gospel is a workspace gospel We want to earn it. We want God to look down and be like I see you, you know, you're you're doing such good work

01:21:36

I'm gonna pick you for my team. You know, you'd be a good asset Exactly. Like I don't know if it's all the 90s rom -coms or the

01:21:43

Disney movies We're just like we want to be noticed But I think you know, it's a misunderstanding of of grace and I I lost the question.

01:21:53

I just forgot Yeah, the thing relational versus right, right.

01:21:58

So When I think a lot of Christians kind of alluded to this before they believe that Jesus died on the cross for their sins

01:22:06

They believe that Jesus even is the Messiah. Yeah, they believe that Christianity is true

01:22:12

They believe that the Bible is the Word of God, but they've never trusted in Christ Yeah for themselves and that's intellectual ascent not right.

01:22:19

It's intellectual such they checked the right boxes And I think we see that a lot in the deconstruction movement work

01:22:25

And this is the interesting thing if you listen to deconstruction story after deconstruction story

01:22:31

I still have never heard one Where and and Sean McDowell whenever he talks on his podcast with people who have deconstructed he always asks them this question

01:22:40

Okay, like what was your conversion? Tell me about your conversion and he'll tell his story of Could being convicted of his sin crying out to Jesus to save him from his sin

01:22:49

Repentance that like save me, you know in sackcloth and ashes. Yeah, and they never have that right?

01:22:55

it's it's like well, I knew Jesus Jesus was my buddy or He was real to me.

01:23:01

I went to church my whole life. I went to church. I believed all the things But you have to listen very carefully

01:23:08

But it's the relational aspect and and the one that came the closest I think was Rhett McLaughlin I don't know if you heard his like three -hour deconstruction story

01:23:16

Well, he and Rhett and Link of the Good Mythical Morning, they had a very viral deconstruction story they were crew member

01:23:23

I mean they missionaries with crew heard of them. Okay. Yeah, okay, and it was a really that his deconstruction story rattled a lot of people

01:23:30

Okay, and one of the reasons was because he did such a good job of describing his relationship with Jesus But it was so interesting because he's talking about how much he really knew

01:23:39

Jesus. He knew Jesus Jesus, you know I prayed all the time I did this but then he gets to the end of his deconstruction story

01:23:45

And he's basically saying he doesn't even think Jesus was resurrected. So who does he think he was talking to? Yeah, and so if you really listen carefully, then you'll get the language that there wasn't that Relationship.

01:23:57

Yeah, you know now deconstructionists lose their minds when we say things like this because they say absolutely I was a Christian Well, how can you have a relationship with a person who's not real?

01:24:05

That's right I have to and I think honestly no matter where you land on the you know

01:24:10

The Calvinist or non -Calvinist side of the aisle. I Think it'd be very hard to make a case that people who fully walk away and stay walked away wherever truly

01:24:22

Say they went out from among us Yeah with us. Yeah Man there's there's so many threads

01:24:29

I could I could pull out there because Wow, that's that's really rich Let me just go to actually something you say in the book that I think is a pretty good illustration of this point you're making

01:24:39

You use this illustration you say reevaluating the belief that your spouse is faithful is

01:24:45

Different from say taking a second look at the belief that your car gets 25 miles per gallon Both examine a belief but the former is tied to a relation.

01:24:54

That's right. That was so good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so if you think of like a marriage relationship and this is where I think it makes the point about the relational aspect that's missing from so many deconstruction stories is

01:25:07

You know and Tim wrote a section about even his wife like loving my wife It's like if I say my wife's name is

01:25:13

Stacy. She has blonde hair, right and she's a mom of three It's like she's gonna be like dude, like you even know me

01:25:18

You just find me on Facebook and read that's the most, you know, like benign, you know description but then he says but now if I describe her and he goes into detail about who she is and and what her

01:25:31

Thoughts and feelings and loves and talents and all the things about her. Well now, you know, okay

01:25:37

He actually has met his wife, right? And so very often in the deconstruction of stories it's like they're approaching it not like it's a

01:25:48

Relationship and and in the cases of the ones that are there's that great grief and pain. Yeah, that's right.

01:25:55

I Remember what I was gonna say earlier Hearing you talk about people's Testimonies and what's noticeably absent makes me think about just certain membership interviews.

01:26:05

I've had so if you want to join our church We have you go through membership classes and then we have a membership interview

01:26:12

Which is you know, we don't put you under a heat lamp, you know grill you like the Spanish Inquisition We just want to make sure to the best of our abilities that you are actually a

01:26:21

Christian We asked to hear your understanding of the gospel and we also asked to hear your testimony. We write it down and Yeah, there have been times where many times where people have come in and their testimony

01:26:33

I say hey Give me your testimony and by the way If you just go if you if you come to church with us on a Sunday and we go out to lunch and nobody at our

01:26:39

Church knows you you're gonna share your testimony and so often we hear stories like yeah, you know grew up in the church and my dad was a deacon and You know,

01:26:50

I was really active in the youth group and then I was active in a group in college And then I found you guys online, yeah, you know, yeah now sometimes

01:26:58

People tell their testimony like that because they've been poorly discipled. Hmm, right sure if you know

01:27:04

Sometimes even with your children, they're telling you a story and you got it You know what they're trying to say, but you're not good with words

01:27:10

So yeah, not good with words and so you got to kind of help them and we've had that where it's like yeah But what about conviction of sin the

01:27:16

Lordship of Christ, you know? Oh, yeah well, I had this experience and then you kind of get there but Sometimes people don't have those categories at all because they're they're not

01:27:25

Christians They haven't understood the gospel and and and I'm sure that that's a lot of what you hear in these deconstruction stories

01:27:32

Yeah, it is and I think too with the rise of the seeker sensitive megachurch

01:27:38

Model over the last 50 years or so I think it's just it's prime environment for that kind of a thing to happen

01:27:46

Yeah, people really think they're Christians because they go to church and yeah, they're part of things and they're involved. It's experiential

01:27:51

Yeah, and there are different iterations of this throughout history So you take for example the second Great Awakening? Trying to re -engineer revival a lot of people after that professed to be

01:27:59

Christians just because they hadn't experienced You know, they're at the anxious bench and people were yeah, and that's how

01:28:06

Mormonism got gained so much steam from that Ian Murray in his fantastic book revival and revivalism calls that whole section of New England That was affected by the second

01:28:16

Great Awakening the burned over district Mm -hmm because the gospel went the the the the movement went through and basically like inoculated people to the gospel

01:28:26

Oh, wow, and then out of that came Joseph Smith and a lot of bad fruit a lot of bad fruit came from that You had to probably sift through a lot of really nasty

01:28:40

Anti -gospel propaganda while researching this book when when I wrote with Mike McKinley our book on the prosperity gospel

01:28:46

I told Mike I said man if you want to use Like if you want direct quotes and stuff

01:28:52

I'm not gonna go back and read a bunch of TD Jake's books and Joel watch Joel Osteen sermons I just I don't think

01:28:57

I have it in me. I don't want to I imagine that must have been really hard for you.

01:29:03

It was very hard. Yeah, it was is very dark I even felt it a little bit while I was reading the book.

01:29:08

I felt like this feels like spiritual warfare Yeah, I remember when I would have to spend a day in the hashtag

01:29:16

I'd be asking people to pray for me Like I got to go into this hashtag today and it was like it is this is the thing

01:29:22

I always try to give people hope with too is that it is such a dark you want to talk about toxic

01:29:28

It is such a dark and toxic just hopeless place That it gives me hope that I don't know

01:29:36

I this is the theory I have that perhaps God in his sovereignty is using this

01:29:43

To bring people back to him that never were with him Yeah, they get to the bottom of that darkness and see what life is really like without the nice Christian stuff

01:29:51

They got to experience growing up and maybe we'll see some kind of revival. I don't know but it is so dark and toxic

01:29:57

Yeah, it was it was not it was not fun. It was definitely a sacrifice. It was a labor of love.

01:30:03

I did not enjoy it Yeah Your theory I think it's biblical. It reminds me of 1st

01:30:09

Corinthians 5 You know handing them over to Satan some of those people who are handed over were probably never actually

01:30:16

Christians there's a Hebrew 6 connection here and here somewhere the rains that fall and such but Depending on how you interpret

01:30:23

Hebrew 6 They're being handed over to Satan. So again thinking about this pastorally I'm thinking about people that we have had to Discipline out of membership in our church and one of the things that we often say in our members meetings is pray that as they

01:30:36

Are sent back out into the world and they experience the harsh ugly Painful world that is out there that they will then come to their senses because it is the realm of Satan It is his kingdom.

01:30:48

It is harsh. It is nasty. There is no grace. There's a reason why You know, it's nature is red in tooth and claw.

01:30:55

It's it's it's fierce out there. Yeah Yeah, I pray that right there along with you sister I had a question lost it.

01:31:04

It wasn't planned. Oh, I'm back better than ever. I notice

01:31:09

Listen, I get it. You can't say everything that needs to be said in a book and maybe you had this maybe this is one Of the 20 ,000 words that you guys cut out, but I noticed that spiritual warfare doesn't factor in here at all

01:31:20

Have you thought about spiritual warfare and connection and deconstruction at all? Yeah, we actually did have a little paragraph or two about it and that made it in that did make it in It's okay,

01:31:29

I read every word I believe you but you know, you can't always remember and it was just a small little thing Yeah, we we did mention that and really how you know, of course me coming from more the charismatic side of things

01:31:41

I always thought spiritual warfare was like binding demons and you know The what we called power encounters in the book and that were the guys tear the phone books in half

01:31:49

Oh the power team. Oh, I love the power team. I loved those guys But you know and and certainly

01:31:56

I want to be careful and say this to we're not denying that demons exist in the you know Supernatural because sometimes when we say this people are like, oh, but demons are like, you know

01:32:04

We're not saying demons are not real But when the Bible talks about spiritual warfare the primary way it talks about it is more like truth encounters

01:32:12

That's right. Not not necessarily power encounters. It's truth encounters. It's speaking truth into the lies. And so yeah, there there is

01:32:20

There was a lot of spiritual warfare where I would have to sit there and say I'm going to just be faithful consistent speak the truth know what

01:32:29

I you know know what's true about God and about who wins and and just continue and just be you know,

01:32:35

I think some of the Best spiritual warfare is just faithfulness just being consistent.

01:32:42

Yeah, that's right going back to people who want to Not not give nuance, you know, you're saying demons aren't real when you look at Spiritual warfare in the

01:32:54

Bible. It is inextricably connected to truth claims. Yeah, right it is Satan is the father of lies

01:33:01

Jesus calls the Pharisees sons of their father because they are twisting scripture.

01:33:06

So yeah, that's it's not a juxtaposition It's not an either -or right. It is a both and whenever someone's preaching a false gospel.

01:33:14

You are having a power encounter Nobody may be falling out There are demonic forces at work and You know people who minister and more animistic societies have different experiences with demonic forces

01:33:29

But in our highly intellectual world, yeah, that's often how it manifests. Yeah You have a section in here which

01:33:37

I thought was very good again pastor early I'm just interpreting I'm reading this book through through the lens of how

01:33:43

I'm gonna be using this book Which by the way, I am gonna be using it. I've already recommended it to several people

01:33:50

You have this really good pastoral section about how we should treat those who are

01:33:55

Deconstructing and you say that we need to treat them With love and respect and then you go to talking about How the

01:34:04

Bible addresses doubters and I thought this was really sweet. You just you just quote Jude 22

01:34:10

Have mercy on those who doubt and then you talk about 2nd Timothy chapter 2 verses 25 and 26 where you talk about How those who are in deconstruction are actually captives?

01:34:22

2nd Timothy 2 25 and 26 correcting his opponents with gentleness that God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth and they may come to their senses and Escape from the snare of the devil devil, excuse me after being captured by him to do his will

01:34:41

Yeah, you want to elaborate on that? Yeah. Well, I think one of the reasons we wanted to put that in there is because Tim and I have both experienced out personally, you know

01:34:51

We tell a little bit of our stories in the book as well, and I'm so thankful for Jesus response to doubters

01:34:58

Think about John the Baptist I mean, I know there's some debate over whether or not that was actually doubt, but I mean he was

01:35:03

Yeah, I think he was doubting are you really the Messiah and John? I mean if you think of if there's one person in all of history who should not doubt

01:35:12

It would be John because he encountered the entire Trinity with his senses He saw the Son of the Spirit of God to send like a dove heard the audible voice of God and touched the

01:35:19

Sun I mean with his hands, you know Thank you But I mean he encountered the

01:35:26

Trinity like nobody else really has and Yet he's in Herod's prison cell and any doubts and Jesus is so ten

01:35:33

Jesus doesn't shame him. He doesn't say oh You know John just read your Bible or you should just believe and don't ask those questions around here

01:35:40

You know Jesus do you baptize me? Come on exactly, but he he Referenced his miracles.

01:35:46

He gave him evidence and and he was so merciful to him And so I think that that's one thing that a lot of Christians I think maybe we could improve on is giving people a little bit of space

01:35:58

Yeah for doubt because when I was in my really heavy times of doubt There were a couple of different people in my life.

01:36:04

I didn't talk about it a lot I didn't tell a lot of people because I didn't want anyone else to lose their faith. I think that's wise and Yet I had one person who was very fearful every time.

01:36:13

I would just well, what about oh It was just it was fear. Yeah, and I didn't want to talk to that person Yeah but I had another person in my life that was just really relaxed about it and didn't like force me to come to a

01:36:23

Conclusion like right then and there and so I think Christians maybe you know, we can learn the frustrating thing though is

01:36:30

We have to diagnose if the doubt is honest or not And that's the tough thing because like my doubt was really honest.

01:36:36

I just I really wanted I wanted Christianity to be true Yeah, I just I needed some some evidence

01:36:41

I needed to know what the evidence was but there like we talked about earlier There are some people who it's not an honest question

01:36:48

It's not honest out and they just want to justify their unbelief Senior goes off to college start sleeping with his girlfriend comes home.

01:36:54

Exactly. It tells his youth pastor. I don't just And lest anybody watching

01:37:03

Any of our viewers think that that's sort of uncharitable and a caricature It is a very common experience very common and in almost every deconstruction story sex or sexuality

01:37:15

Is in there somewhere? Yeah, that's right I See this is one of the issues we're going along with interviews is

01:37:22

I had another question But my mind is fading and I lost it somehow I Think it's important to remember

01:37:30

Well, even when you're talking about heresy, there's a big difference between someone in your church

01:37:36

Who you find out believe something incorrect and someone who's teaching that which is incorrect.

01:37:43

The same thing is true with Deconstruction, right? there's a big difference between someone in your church who may be wrestling with this and who may be going down the wrong path and Someone who like is a deconstruction coach or who's trying to lead people down this path of deconstruction, right?

01:37:58

We have to handle those two things different. Absolutely. It's yeah I heard one of the best ways of putting that about heresy was

01:38:05

Philip Carey in his little book about the Nicene Creed Okay, and I mean this is a paraphrase but it was basically like heresy isn't accidentally saying something wrong

01:38:12

Heresy is being corrected and persisting in false doctrine. Yeah, that's right If you say that the father descended on Jesus accidentally and yeah, right

01:38:20

I'm not a Christian. I one time baptized somebody just in the name of Jesus.

01:38:25

I left completely the father and the son Right, right. Yeah, we all say, you know, incorrect imprecise things.

01:38:32

No sustained, right? Yeah, and so this is where I think we bring in the conversation where Jesus calls people wolves

01:38:40

Yeah, and I've received a lot of heat and criticism for quoting Jesus on this

01:38:45

But I my thing is just you know, take it up with Jesus because he's the one who decides he took a lot of heat And Chris how that goes, right?

01:38:51

And and he says there will be people you you creep in it's like these are people who are not coming from the outside These are people in the church

01:38:58

Yeah And you will recognize them by their fruits and of course the fruit of obedience not the fruit of good feelings like the progressives

01:39:04

Want to make it? But do you know is there fruit of obedience but people who are actively? evangelizing people and Trying to take them away.

01:39:13

I mean it is so unreal some of the things I've seen in that hashtag I remember a comment thread where a person came on and they said you guys

01:39:24

I think I finally don't believe in hell anymore and the the

01:39:30

Overwhelming encouragement from everybody praise, you know, I mean, I didn't say praise God, but the equivalent of that just like oh

01:39:36

We're so happy for you. Isn't it? Wonderful. Are you free? No, you're truly free and all of these comment after comment just congratulating this person for finally making it to the place of enlightenment where they can let go of the doctrine of hell and And the coaches and all the people are right there cheering everybody on yeah and selling their books and and oh, yeah

01:39:57

Yeah, they're profiting from that too You have a section in the book where you talk about Helping Christians to learn how to doubt well

01:40:06

I'm sure that that idea is scary for some people especially if they were brought up in certain church and faith environments

01:40:13

I think it's super wise It should never be nobody should ever go when a

01:40:21

Christian says hey, I'm wrestling with this I mean, I'm a pastor and I think in one of our executive sessions

01:40:26

Which is where once the elders meeting is basically done with we just kind of have our accountability stuff I told the guys

01:40:32

I think I'm struggling with some doubt about something, you know And nobody should be aghast at that right doubt is something that If a

01:40:39

Christian tells me they've never doubted any aspect of their faith. I think now we have a sincerity problem Yeah, I don't think you're being honest with me

01:40:46

It reminds me of like in counseling you tell especially in premarital counseling You don't tell people you're not gonna fight when you get married if you tell them that right you're setting them up for Yeah There's a disillusionment and disappointment what you really do is you say listen, you're a sinner.

01:41:03

She's a sinner. He's in or whatever Marriage is hard. You're in a fallen world

01:41:08

God's gonna be sanctifying you and some of that's gonna come through fighting So what you really have to do is you have to learn how to fight? Well, yeah, right fight like Christians.

01:41:15

Yeah, and that's that's essentially what you're saying about doubting. Yeah So, how do we learn to doubt?

01:41:21

Well, yeah, I think doubting well involves Keeping God involved in prayer all the time

01:41:27

I remember meeting with a woman who was in Deconstruction and she wanted to meet with me which kind of surprised me because usually

01:41:33

I'm kind of anathema in that world But yeah, but she was going through all of all of the things she was doubting

01:41:40

She had this list and God behaved this way or that way in Scripture and I said well Tell me about your

01:41:45

Bible reading. She goes. Oh, I don't read the Bible and and I pointed out to her I said, I don't think your doubt is intellectual

01:41:50

It's emotional and she blew her mind because she thought that her doubt was just intellectual and I said, how can you be doubting something?

01:41:56

You're not even engaging and it was an emotional block that she had. So I think doubting well I hope her

01:42:01

I think it did great and and she was like, I wonder if I have trust issues Because it seemed to me by the end of the conversation

01:42:07

I'm like, I think maybe a counselor, you know, like a biblical counselor might help you better than an apologetics book But I think doubting well is important and it's important to realize that doubt and faith are not opposites

01:42:17

Yeah, they're not contradictory to one another you only doubt something you believe it kind of bubbles up in the context

01:42:23

That's right. And it's and it's not wrong to say. Ooh, I don't know. What do I think? I need to know but always be involving the

01:42:31

Lord in the process stay in the word And wrestle it out The opposite of faith is unbelief and we learn that from Romans 1 when when

01:42:38

Paul lays it out and he says, you know Unbelief is the sin basically because all are without excuse We have access to information about God just from his the heavens declare all that and and so we are without excuse

01:42:50

So it's unbelief. That's the sin. It's knowingly rejecting what you do already know Yeah, that's right.

01:42:56

And so that's the sin not necessarily doubt as we're talking about it in this context

01:43:01

Yeah, you're questioning and wanting to know make sure that what you believe is true doubt is not good, right?

01:43:07

You want to resolve your doubt? Yeah, that's right Don't want to elevate doubt as this and that's what happens too. Yeah in the

01:43:12

Deacons are and progressive Christianity is doubt becomes this ideal No, you want to try to resolve your doubt.

01:43:17

That's the point. That's yeah, but definitely walk through it and don't push it down Yeah. Wow, that's really helpful

01:43:24

We're almost done. You're doing great. You say I Put it on Facebook, but I didn't put it in my notes.

01:43:31

Isn't that funny? You talk about people wanting freedom from obedience, but the

01:43:37

Bible offers us freedom with within obedience I thought about two things in relation to that The first is the regulative principle which people misunderstand.

01:43:47

They think you know I won't get into all the wrong things that they that they think but the regulative principle basically just says

01:43:53

God tells us how we Should worship right? He sets the boundaries and people go that's so limiting Well, it's only limiting if you think that there's no freedom within the boundaries that God prescribes, right?

01:44:03

it also I'm just working through Exodus 4 in prep for our Sunday sermon and The Lord gives

01:44:11

Moses this message to deliver to Pharaoh and he says let my people go into the desert that they may serve me right

01:44:19

Not being a servant is not an option Servant of Pharaoh. Yeah servant of Yahweh Either way, you're gonna be a servant

01:44:25

Paul picks up on this later in the book of Romans slave to sin Yeah slave to righteousness, right? you

01:44:31

You can try to find freedom by walking away from the gospel because you think that the gospel is bondage

01:44:38

But I promise you what you find in the world is going to be a more severe bondage than anything you could ever imagine

01:44:45

Yeah riff on that. Take it away. I remember back when God was rebuilding my faith

01:44:50

I was auditing seminary classes just whatever I could get my hands on I remember taking the soteriology class at Dallas from Dallas Theological seminary is the doctrine of salvation.

01:45:00

I believe it was that yeah, right Just make some of our people may not know what soteriology is. Oh, right. Yes I think Ethan thinks that that's what the animals who only eat at dusk and dawn

01:45:10

They're soteriological They are yes, they are that too But I remember the the professor saying something that always stuck with me

01:45:17

He said when you become a Christian, yeah, you are you're not free.

01:45:23

Yeah, you you're free from sin Hey, man, but you're a slave to God now You're not just free to you know, cuz he was talking about how so many

01:45:31

Christians talk about Oh freedom freedom He's like, I don't think you know, he's like the Princess Bride like I don't think that What do you think it means?

01:45:38

Yeah, so good part of that movie. Yeah That's right. Just like revenge. Yeah glorified, but Yeah, so I mean that always stuck with me about that concept of freedom because in the deconstruction space you see this concept of freedom

01:45:53

Big time. In fact there I think we quote this in the book too. There's an apologist whose daughter deconstructed and left the faith and she talks about Freedom the freedom of it and I think she even said freedom is my religion now

01:46:06

And that's what was expressed in that comment thread. I described earlier about how it's like it's it's felt freeing

01:46:13

To give up the doctrine of hell just like it would feel free You know I would feel greatly freed to embrace the idea that I can just eat a box of Krispy Kremes Every meal and be perfectly healthy like I would feel that would be a great freedom

01:46:27

You know to if I believe that but you can't be free if you divorce from truth

01:46:33

Yeah, and so put you in a different kind of bondage called diabetes exactly and so that's to your point

01:46:39

You know, you're free from the bondage of sin when you get saved, but you're a slave to Christ Yeah, but if you if you you know, if you leave that and you think you're free you're gonna be in bondage to sin.

01:46:50

Amen Let's talk about the local church This kind of gets back to the the two different worlds the online world and the church you say that in the deconstruction communities that we find online the instinct of Deconstructors is to disconnect from their church communities

01:47:11

And I just thought man, this is just sin right like yeah whenever I know

01:47:17

Providentially sometimes there are reasons why members aren't at church often there are providentially reasons why but Whenever I'm concerned for someone that they're in a pattern of sin

01:47:25

I'm doubly concerned when they stop showing up on Sunday mornings, right when they start disconnecting when it's like hey, we're so -and -so

01:47:31

Oh haven't seen him for a while. Have they been in small groups? Yeah, you know What about their accountability partner and they're just slowly pulling away from the church community

01:47:39

But going back to this it can't you can't really you're gonna serve someone you also aren't gonna disappear from the church into the ether

01:47:48

Right, right when you move out of one community because you're a human being God himself is three persons

01:47:53

He's a community when you move out of one community, you're gonna find another community but most of the deconstruction community that people are finding is

01:48:02

The online community it is so elaborate. Yeah, I think social media plays a huge role in all of this

01:48:09

In fact, I would venture to say without social media. You don't have this phenomenon right now Now people have always left the faith.

01:48:15

Don't get me wrong Of course you always and you might have an occasional Somebody like a Bertrand Russell who writes a book and you know that kind of thing that would happen throughout history

01:48:23

But with the rise of social media, it has created an environment where people don't really have a cost in leaving

01:48:30

You know It might have been before Somebody would really count the cost of leaving their church community because they have nowhere really to go to get that but they can go find it online and they can be affirmed and Celebrated and coached and they can have all of the infrastructure that they had in their church

01:48:46

But they just it moves to the online space and I mean there are some I don't know if they're still doing it

01:48:52

But the liturgists were having 24 -7 Rooms where like online rooms where you could go and deconstruct and talk with people 24 -7 so I mean the community that they've created online is really massive

01:49:04

I tell parents as well because I have some parents who have teenagers who are deconstructing and I always say

01:49:11

I Guarantee you it's because they have access to social media because if you do a social media blackout with your teenager

01:49:17

This goes away. Yeah, and and at least you can catch your breath address what they've heard work through Some of the stuff but this does not exist without social media.

01:49:27

Yeah, at least the way it looks today. Yeah, that's right this is one of the ongoing conversations that Christians are it's interesting the

01:49:38

The secular world is really beginning to understand this. Have you read the coddling of the

01:49:44

American American mind half of it? I haven't finished it. Yeah, so good. Yeah, one of the authors has

01:49:49

Jonathan hate has done Hidt has come out with a lot of literature recently on the negative impact of social media particularly on teenage girls yeah, and and It's it's so weird when you see like these tech gurus and these secular

01:50:08

Psychologists saying like keep your kids away from this and we don't allow it in our home And then you turn around and you see

01:50:14

Christians who should be more discerning who should be more aware Just you know, there's little Johnny 12 year old Johnny on tumblr all day

01:50:20

Of course Johnny's gonna deconstruct. What do you think was gonna happen? Right? It's and there's no way that did you say

01:50:26

Tommy or Johnny? Johnny Johnny There's no way that Johnny is getting That much discipleship as much time as he's spending on and there and I don't know what what we think is gonna happen.

01:50:37

Yeah not to turn this into a public school versus homeschool versus private school debate, but when

01:50:43

We had we live like one of the best cities in America and the school that we put our daughters in in Kindergarten, the first sentence that their teacher taught them was

01:50:51

I love God, right? So like if you're gonna put your kids in public school, it's one of the best ones that you could do it

01:50:57

Where you could put them in but maybe around the third grade we decided to pull them out Really?

01:51:04

We were just thinking more about like peer influence Eight hours a day They were just spending around their peers and how like throughout all of human history that was not the most normal thing that children experience

01:51:14

Right the majority of their waking hours were spent around older siblings or family members or parents

01:51:21

And and that was a significant influence and that doesn't mean they didn't have play time with people of their own age groups

01:51:26

But they did and something really interesting happened. Our kids were not wild off the chain They were very young, but we noticed an immediate increase and like their sweetness and their obedience

01:51:38

Yeah, even just the way that they communicated with us and with others it improved Wow, you know and so I do think that like Your children who are they spending most of their time with who are they being most influenced by is a really big

01:51:53

Question that parents should be considering that that actually ministers to me because we yeah

01:51:58

Because we we've done all three we did public we did private and for the last two years.

01:52:04

We've homeschooled Yeah, and I've worried like Like I'm the only people there. We're the only people they're around all day.

01:52:10

Yeah, I guess that's a good thing Yeah, I think it's really good. And I mean you guys are part of a church, right?

01:52:16

Oh, yeah Yeah, yeah I think the whole like not to turn this into a homeschooling podcast But the whole like they're not gonna be socialized.

01:52:23

First of all, let's set aside that term I think weird kids come from weird families.

01:52:29

You know what I'm saying? Like My kids are homeschooled and they are a blast and I think it's cuz

01:52:36

I'm totally rad No, yeah, like we're I think we're a pretty normal family

01:52:41

We're not so we are weird, but in not not in that way We're not socially awkward and our church is like a really healthy community

01:52:48

Yeah, right and so they're spending most of their time around us and around in the church and that has shaped their personality and They're not the weird homeschool kids that can't look at someone in the eye.

01:52:58

Yeah, and I think that's that Stereotype is is not really true anymore. Yeah, maybe in the 80s when they're you know, there's so many co -ops and things now

01:53:07

But even in the 80s and 90s, I used to coach softball and stuff and like my sweetest most normal kids were the homeschool kids

01:53:14

So, oh, yeah, I wonder if that's just a bit of a stereotype. Yeah, I think so. I know some people who homeschool and Their kids are like I'm when

01:53:23

I'm in the same room with them. I'm like you're weird But that's because their parents are weird. Now if you're wondering who it is,

01:53:29

I'll tell you Hey Hey, I thought you guys ended the book on a really good note you ended on the note of hope yeah you say it might take weeks months or even years for the

01:53:43

Deconstructing person to come to a place where they're ready to hear your point of view but even when you say that You're letting us know that it is possible in the same way that it's possible for someone who's been excommunicated from a church to repent and be restored to fellowship in the same way that Someone who fell away due to different non deconstructing reasons can come back to the faith, right?

01:54:03

Repentance is always on offer. It's always available Which leads me to ask you as you've been

01:54:10

As you've been dealing with this subject matter and you've been in these communities to some extent and you've been having these conversations

01:54:17

Have you seen anyone come back? Not many So I've seen there a couple that I've interviewed on my podcast who one had actually both had deconstructed into progressive

01:54:29

Christianity one was discipled by a local pastor back into Historic faith and yeah, so that was a great story and then

01:54:39

Another one as well, but I don't I haven't seen a lot of that yet Because I think still it's still fairly new as far as the explosion of it is it's still kind of exploding.

01:54:52

Yeah, and It's attractive. We're on the front end of it. The freedom of eating the

01:54:58

Krispy Kremes all day is still They're still high on that. You don't feel sick yet. Yeah. Yeah, and so But it's it's it's really my prayer and my hope and it's not like and this is what

01:55:08

I tell people, too It's not like God is up there going. Oh my gosh What's going on, what are we gonna do?

01:55:15

Yeah. No, I mean God's got this and and like I said my suspect that He's letting people.

01:55:22

Yeah taste the darkness and maybe people who grew up in church who might have otherwise not known right, right

01:55:29

It's a mercy. Yeah, really? Yeah earlier when you were talking about how like in previous times

01:55:34

Maybe this couldn't have happened without social media. I did wonder in The doctrine of concurrence, you know bad things happening, but God using them for his own good sovereign purposes

01:55:44

Is there a sense in which this is really good for the church? Oh, I think it is Oh, I think it is especially the

01:55:50

Christian South because it's shaking everybody up you could you listen every housewife every

01:55:55

You know every businessman every single Christian now Yeah has to have these conversations because they have somebody in their life who's going on social media saying that the

01:56:05

Bible's been corrupted and all These and it's it's forcing us to wake up. It's forcing us to Study to show yourself approved.

01:56:13

Yeah, I I think it's it's it's God's mercy because it's the light anytime The lines get very clear.

01:56:20

Yeah, it's good. You know the gray every can float around in the gray Yeah, but when the lines get clear, you know,

01:56:26

I'm growing up in California What part LA? Okay. I was born in Northridge. Oh, yeah I lived in San Diego and back and forth

01:56:33

North I lived in Northridge from the time. I was like year -old until I was 12 when we moved to Chatsworth Wow.

01:56:39

Yeah Yeah, so going in so you probably experienced some of this too

01:56:44

It's like if you're a Christian you really had to be a Christian like it wasn't cultural I remember moving to Nashville and going to the

01:56:50

YMCA and everybody's reading left -behind books on the exercise bikes and like you're reading that in Public like and so and then they left the books behind.

01:56:57

Yeah, right I got that one immediately But yeah, but you know when when the lines are clear it cut it it strengthens the church

01:57:05

I think amen sister We have a lightning round to end on you're not gonna get this on some other interview

01:57:12

What is your favorite candy? Do you have one do I have time to think about the answers?

01:57:18

I know it's lightning so there's pressure my favorite candy Yes, yes,

01:57:24

I like the all the candy probably The one I go I eat the most it's like it's dark chocolate with salt, you know the salt

01:57:33

Yeah, chocolate, you know a Panera which we were talking about earlier. They do that kitchen sink cookie Have you have no

01:57:38

I haven't and they put salt on it. It's like caramel chocolate with like sea salt on top Yeah, that sounds good.

01:57:45

Yeah Least favorite candy

01:57:50

Mars bars That was really a pointless they should stop making them immediately,

01:57:57

I think they Nuts in it. It's like it's like a snicker bars like ugly little younger cousin or something.

01:58:05

Okay? Yeah, so it's not even that it's bad. It's just that it it's just really nothing. I would rather Have nothing.

01:58:13

Yeah Can you eat black licorice? I love black liquor. Yeah, I love it black licorice if I even smell black really

01:58:21

We spent too much time on this podcast, which is supposed to be about exploring complex Biblical ideas.

01:58:27

We spent way too much time talking about how much I hate black But that means you like root beer

01:58:33

I do like there you go, yeah Favorite him Come now found

01:58:41

Yeah prone to wander Lord. I feel it. In fact in my music that I talked about I wrote a song called prone to wander.

01:58:47

Okay, where I sing the chorus of that at the end. Oh, that's really cool Yeah Least favorite him or one that you think like we got to cut this one out.

01:58:58

Mm -hmm It doesn't have to be a hymn songs that you hear people singing Christian churches probably just any Hillsong song

01:59:06

Well, I mean do the progressive rewrites of the hymns count all the progressive rewrites where they take retch out of amazing grace

01:59:13

And they take you know, this is my story. What is your story? What is your song? You know when they change the lyrics to so funny

01:59:21

Yeah, I think my least favorite one has to be whatever songs So my first experience in a youth group was when

01:59:27

I moved to Alabama from California, which you know, very secular I'd never darken the door of a church

01:59:33

Yeah I come here as a teenager and they're like you should come to youth group and I'm like, what's that and We go to some there's like a garage and the lights are off and you know

01:59:42

There's a stage and they're singing this really bad music and the pastor gets up there and says, you know, no having sex

01:59:48

I went home and I told my mom about it and she was like they did what the lights were off Did anybody touch you, you know?

01:59:55

She didn't have a friend. Okay, are you okay? But I think

02:00:00

I still in my mind. I'm still like there are still open wounds from some of that music We uses, you know, it's a big big house.

02:00:07

Yeah, lots and lots of room I know that's a good song biblically, but I just can't get it out of my head Well, you know what

02:00:13

I could pick a genre. Okay that I really wish they would stop Okay today. Yeah, and that's

02:00:19

I mean obviously any songs or I don't like to sing about myself I want to sing about God when I'm worshipping Yeah, but it's the specific genre of how

02:00:26

I feel when I'm worshipping Yeah, like I feel it and no offense to Chris Tomlin, but I feel alive. I am alive.

02:00:32

I'm God's great dance floor I don't know what to do while they're singing that song because it's like I actually don't feel that way right now

02:00:37

So now I feel like I'm lying and now I'm being forced to lie in worship I think I should just not sing it and I have this like existential

02:00:43

Debate in my head about like I don't actually feel the way I say that I'm feeling. Yeah, if I sing the lyrics

02:00:49

My feelings fluctuate but God's nature and character and works don't so let's just focus on that.

02:00:55

Yeah, that's good What are you reading right now right now

02:01:02

I have Just just finished a couple of books I'm and I just put three on my

02:01:09

Kindle that I'm gonna get started with But I'm always reading a bunch so I actually am in the middle of well

02:01:15

I mentioned I'm halfway through a coddling of the American mind. I am About halfway through of Cormac McCarthy's newest novel, which is the passenger.

02:01:24

No, he just didn't he die? No, is this the Mandela effect? Oh, man, you know,

02:01:30

I Mandela effect is I don't think so It's this thing that we won't get into it. But basically a lot of people thought that Mandela died in the 80s, you know

02:01:37

Okay Novel in 16 years, it's called the passenger. It's very weird.

02:01:42

Okay, it's not grabbing me likes like I couldn't even do blood meridian Well that yeah, I try

02:01:47

I got about a fourth of the way through blood meridian It's just you know, you get to the baby bush tree and you're like I don't need

02:01:55

That's why I liked the road of his because I do feel like there's a redemption. Yeah, and that it has more of a redemptive undertone

02:02:02

But gosh on the spot what am I reading because I'm always reading like four or five things well, okay Rather than answering that you are.

02:02:09

I'm right in the middle of a book Jesus before Constantine, which is really an interesting look at Just a more historical of the church early church to constant.

02:02:19

Who's it by? If I had my Kindle, you could bring me my phone. I could say you're a Kindle reader I am a Kindle reader and I'm an audible listener.

02:02:26

I love I taken a lot of content through audible. Yeah, I So I put out a reading list at the end of every year kind of the books that I've done for the year

02:02:34

And I say a lot of these are physical, but a lot of them are audio Kindle is for when

02:02:40

I travel it's just so easy to take on a plane Yeah, I like it for research because you can highlight and all your highlights are right there.

02:02:46

Yeah, so good Yeah, but people say audible doesn't count and I'm like I Get what you mean by that?

02:02:52

Yeah But if if by reading you're just talking about taking time to focus and acquire this information

02:02:59

Using your senses. Sometimes it's the sense of sight sometimes the sense of sound. It's basically the same thing, right?

02:03:04

Yeah, and if you don't pay attention, which I know some people don't very well You're it's just like you can do the same thing with reading

02:03:12

Have you ever like the bottom of a page and realize you didn't in fact? I tend to do that more with physical reading than listening

02:03:19

So I think yeah I had to let go of that a little bit because I used to feel that way like well It doesn't really count if I listen to it on audible and then

02:03:25

I had to ask myself Well, what is my goal? Do I want this information in my head? Right? Well, I don't care how it gets in there

02:03:31

Yeah, or do I just care about having read? Yeah to be able to say I did this, you know So yeah,

02:03:36

I oh I just finished like as of a day or two ago J. Warner Wallace's next book

02:03:41

Okay called the truth and true crime. It's not out yet Okay, but I'm gonna be writing the full word and it's it's a very cool book where he tells all these stories from when

02:03:49

He was a detective. Okay, but he connects theological points to them. Like he has a whole chapter on Cold case

02:03:56

Christianity. Okay. Yeah, it's like a whole chapter on original sin and what's wrong with the world and and just it was really

02:04:02

Cool how he tied that all into his detective story. Yeah, so I just finished that one That makes me think of a book.

02:04:07

I just read from a guy at DTS. You took some classes at DTS I audited you audited. Well, actually

02:04:13

I want to be careful the way I say it DTS offered classes on iTunes you were you?

02:04:18

Yeah, that's right lectures. Yeah, that's what I did. I didn't actually officially audit guys There's a guy there a professor who has a book called a

02:04:24

I theist and he it's basically like In the form of a novel he did it's an apologetics book in the form of a novel interacting with AI Oh, wow, and I don't want to give the whole book away, but I'll tell you this first of all

02:04:38

I was surprised at how good it was somebody recommended it and I was like I don't really want to read it's kind of like I got my own long list of books

02:04:45

This doesn't really sound like it's up my alley a Christian guy who's writing a novel. That's really an apologetics There's no way this isn't going to be terrible.

02:04:51

Yeah, it was fantastic Oh cool, and the AI basically finds his way to the Christian worldview.

02:04:57

Think about AI right? He has access to all the It's self -learning and you work your way through all these logical propositions and eventually he gets oh, that's cool.

02:05:05

Yeah. Yeah, it's pretty cool Okay Do you reread books? I? Have but it's not my habit.

02:05:15

Okay. I have reread a few different books But it's not typically what what is your favorite book?

02:05:22

Let's start with fiction and then do nonfiction. You can have that be theological or not

02:05:27

Okay, so favorite fiction is probably the road McCarthy I really also liked the

02:05:34

Hobbit Let's go. I don't like Lord of the I don't like Lord of the Rings Luke loves

02:05:42

Lord of the Rings, but the Hobbit the Hobbit was great So good the Hobbit was like what Lord of the Rings should have been

02:05:47

I know this is like a green unpopular opinion but I've never made it through Lord of the Rings all the way because it's just like they're walking around this place and you know

02:05:54

The trees are places are anymore. Yeah, these are terrible. I like the movies

02:06:00

Okay, have you watched the Hobbit? I can't bring myself to watch the Hobbit movies. I have yes. Okay. Did you like them?

02:06:05

Um, well, okay, so I watched the movies before I read the book So that can change that, you know,

02:06:11

I did enjoy the movies But they're very different from the books like there's characters in the movies that aren't even in the books Okay in the book, but I really enjoyed that book a lot.

02:06:19

I just thought have you done it on audible? No, that one. I actually read physically. Okay, what's the guy's name?

02:06:25

Andy circus the guy who plays he narrates it. Oh nice. I don't know what kind of awards they have for audio stuff

02:06:32

Which by the way, like for those who are thinking about getting into audio books the narrator really matter it matters

02:06:38

That's why I read all my own books that I've written because I like when authors read their books. Yeah their own books

02:06:44

Andy circus So I want to actually do with my kids. It was such an experience.

02:06:50

Yeah an immersive experience I would like pull up somewhere and I would be listening and I like I got to go in for this meeting

02:06:55

But I could like not turn it off. It was so good. Yeah, so check it out Okay, and one more fiction if I answer three

02:07:01

Jane Eyre Jane Eyre is one of my written by Isn't it it well,

02:07:06

I'm gonna get the Bronte. It's I'm gonna get the sister Charlotte, right Bronte, you know, I don't know Yeah, Emily and Charlotte, right?

02:07:13

Yeah, who did what it's one of them. Yeah, if it's Victorian lady literature, I struggle with it

02:07:21

Okay, and so that was fiction what about nonfiction nonfiction, of course the

02:07:26

Bible, but that's a given but Augustine's Confessions is my probably second favorite book next to the

02:07:34

Bible. Okay, and Gosh I'm trying to think it's so hard to think of these on the spot books that have just really helped me so much.

02:07:46

I Loved a book called the the heresy of orthodoxy by Michael Kruger. Yeah, I Actually, that's one of the ones

02:07:53

I reread Okay, and I read cold -case Christianity the one that we mentioned before it three times, oh wow, yeah

02:07:59

Yeah, well, I mean you probably needed to I needed to yeah we have a couple in our church who the

02:08:05

They're about to join the sister the wife sister to me. That is Although we are in Alabama, so you never know

02:08:12

She got saved reading cold case Christian You do you have plans for another book

02:08:19

I am Contracted for another book, but I don't know see this is one of This is one of the things that can happen

02:08:30

You're a good writer a good thinker your books sell and then you get into this loop

02:08:36

Yeah, like you start feeling pressure to like do the next thing before the yeah The first thing even sells are for you the second thing.

02:08:42

Yeah, even settles and It's kind of like that in the music industry. Yeah, you have the next album contracted and it's like I don't know that you can really create

02:08:52

Right. Some people can well, I told them that I would sign For that additional book.

02:08:59

Okay, if they wouldn't bug me for two years nice So I I am I've pretty much determined in my mind.

02:09:06

I'm not gonna write something unless it's really something Yeah, that is like this is what I want to do. Yeah Wow Guilty pleasures

02:09:13

TV shows like I was just watching Jersey Shore. No, I just thought of a guilty pleasure

02:09:20

The other day, what was it? Well, I I love

02:09:29

Anything zombie? Oh, really? Yeah, what's your go -to zombie movie? There there was a really good zombie movie called the girl with all the gifts that I really liked

02:09:41

Cargo was another really good one. Okay, I just I There's something about that genre that just makes me ponder all the moral questions.

02:09:50

Oh, yeah, so it's intellectually a stimuli. Oh very much Yeah, you know like Korean cinema has a lot.

02:09:56

Yeah, like they had a series that I watched I watched on Netflix That was really interesting their their mythology was a little different where the zombies like sleep during the day

02:10:05

Oh, and then they wake up at night, but I think I am legend is one of the best zombie. Oh, I enjoyed that Yeah, I like that, too

02:10:13

Okay, how about let's close on this note give us a good Zoe girl story for those who you know, okay

02:10:22

Who are fangirling? What's a good Zoe girl story? well, I mean there there were so many times when just embarrassing moments happen where your flies down on stage or you

02:10:33

Trip and you know fall down and so we had plenty of that stuff happen. Oh That's one that's the one

02:10:42

I'm so glad you're here. Yeah, so glad you're here. So, okay. Yeah, this is a great story so we are at a festival and It's our time for soundcheck and we go up on the stage and we're like I was tired, you know we've been on the road for a while and there's these old guys up on the stage playing journey songs and I was like You know, when is are we gonna do a sound check?

02:11:02

I'm asking a road manager and he's like all of a sudden he's like ladies exit the stage right now leave the stage leave right now

02:11:09

And I'm like, but we have to do our soundtrack so I can go rest He's like get off the stage like that So we go off and he goes that's journey and we're like, excuse me what like the actual band journey

02:11:18

He's like, yes, that is journey. So journey was on the main stage. I don't even know who journey journey

02:11:23

So now I come to you with open arms. Oh, come on Journey.

02:11:29

Oh my god. Let this be a lesson to the youth Leading the fame of this world is I have no idea and they're like a really big deal

02:11:36

You got a jam out on some journey songs on the way. Okay. All right But so it was journey and so we were on a little the

02:11:41

Christian side stage, right? So yeah, so we were kind of embarrassed like oh my gosh, we just literally walked up on stage in the middle of their soundtrack

02:11:47

Well, when we did our our concert, yeah, we always did like a gospel presentation and you know an invitation

02:11:54

And so when and I'm sure I'd you know, we didn't do a great job at it But I didn't yes did my best

02:12:00

But I remember giving the thing and the journey stage was so loud that whenever they were playing a song

02:12:07

Like you could hear it clear as day where we were and so because I was talking Right when

02:12:12

I'm like giving the gospel presentation, they start playing open arms, which you'll have to listen to now okay, and you can imagine the the 90s moment of the universe when they're singing open arms as people are coming for That's a pretty good note to end on and I will look up journey and I'll probably be disappointed right?

02:12:34

What's the one song? I should listen to oh That's journey. All right see highway run what what's highway run?

02:12:44

The midnight sun All right. Well, we all need the clouds to make us y 'all can do like a journey cover band,

02:12:51

I guess Elisa nailed it. Thank you so much.

02:12:58

I Don't fully agree with every person and everything that they write When it comes to guests on this podcast, but this book was phenomenal

02:13:07

Thank you. I hope that every single person watching or listening buys a copy Listen to me even if you aren't deconstructing or there's not someone in your immediate family

02:13:17

You will probably need to use this resource at some point in time in the future If you're a pastor and you're listening to this

02:13:25

Buy copies put them in your bookstall. Give them away at your congregational meetings if you're a youth pastor just get a get a bunch of these and like do a study with them if you're a small group leader use these if you're a

02:13:36

Sunday school leader use these have a Have an extra copy of this on hand to give away because I bet you will use it one day

02:13:45

Sister, thank you so much for being on our show, and I can't wait to see what the Lord does with this Oh, thank you so much. Let me pray

02:13:51

Lord, we pray that you will bless Elisa's ministry Well, thank you for keeping her

02:13:58

Prone to wander Lord we feel it But you keep us by your sovereign power by your grace the same grace that saved us

02:14:05

Protects us and leads us all the way home well, we pray that we will not look back on this episode in the years to come and And look back on it as those who have deconstructed those who have walked away from the faith

02:14:18

We pray that you will continue to keep us Lord Help us to to handle our doubts Well to bring to bring them into the light to wrestle with you and your word and in prayer

02:14:29

And we pray that this book will be a blessing to your church Lord We know that all that you have called before the foundations of the world will surely come to you

02:14:39

You've predestined the world towards that end and your Holy Spirit is at work infallibly bringing those purposes to pass and so we praise you

02:14:47

God even for the tragedy of many Deconstructions because even those you are using for the glory of your name you are revealing who are the sheep and who are the goats?

02:14:57

Or we even recognize the fact that there are many in the church who will not deconstruct who nevertheless do not belong to you

02:15:03

So we pray for pastors all over the country this weekend all over the world that they will just be faithful and preach the gospel and And just entrust the results to you.