Next Week: Debate Documentary with Christopher Hitchens

Christopher Hitchens, Douglas Wilson, and the Debate Over Morality

Imagine there's no heaven above us, all right, no hell below us, all right, above us only sky, all right, imagine there's no heaven, all right, why don't you fix this, there's no heaven, there's no hell below us, above us only sky, what does that mean?

Because I think the teachings of Christianity are immoral, saying you must love someone who you also must fear, that's to say a supreme being. He thinks Jesus Christ was a real person, was the son of God, was crucified, dead and buried, suffered under Pontius Pilate and rose again from the dead, so I know where I.

Am with him. Christopher Hitchens is a public intellectual, which is to say he's the kind of.

Intellectual who matters, he's a man of great abilities, he's quick on his feet. You put it modestly but it is a fantastically arrogant claim, isn't it rather the case that with God anything is permissible.

I want you to give me the evidence for an objective moral standard that governs all of us and you can't appeal to any anything because those conflict, you can't appeal to the general consensus because those differ over time, you haven't given any evidence whatever for all your condemnations of this, that, and the other thing.

I need to do this real.

Up. By what standard do you condemn any action? This is one of my first introductions to Darren.

Doan, we've become very close friends since then, we've hung out with each other, been to his house and we've done some things together. Darren Doan, welcome to Next Week with Jeff Durbin, brother.

Man, it's so good to be here, I can't believe that there's a live audience, I'm finally on it,.

Like I'm hyped, let's do this. You're on a real nighttime talk show, man. I know, this is unbelievable. And it's not on TBN or any of those other, you know, silly Christian networks,.

Right? That's right, no, you're owning the space, you are your own network, and I hope we can talk about that even more tonight because that's what Christians need to be doing is 100 owning the.

Space and just building it. And that's what I want you to inspire people towards Darren, because you inspire me every time I talk to you in this area, the area of the arts and media and what you're doing.

Just for people who don't know you, because we've done stuff together before, but for people who don't know you, the film Collision, they need to see that film, and we're going to talk a bit about your new project with Collision, but just give a little snapshot of your background and like who you are, where you've come from, and how you sort of got into this, so just people get an idea of who you are.

Darren Doan’s Path into Filmmaking and Christian Faith

Yeah, I mean, I'm a filmmaker by trade, that's.

Kind of the best way I think to kind of set that up. I thought I was going to draw comic books, I graduated high school, nobody hired me, I was 18 years old, and I always loved film, I always loved music, I loved music videos, all my friends were in bands, I just said I'm going to be a music video director.

Day after high school, jumped right into it, and haven't really stopped for almost 30 years now, but in my mid -20s, so I graduated high school in 1990, in my mid -20s, I was working with a ton of Christian bands, I was the guy doing all the punk rock stuff, all the underground independent punk rock stuff, and then eventually ran into a bunch of these Christian kids who were in bands, and I started doing their music videos, so bands like MXPX, and Supertones, and Mike Knott, and I mean, just Stavesacre, and all these people, and no one ever preached the gospel to me, I was just around it, I was around all these people, and got a hold of Lewis, of C .S. Lewis's Mere Christianity, got about a page or two in, and I said, I'm pretty sure I'm going to hell, and that was, I mean, which I'm pretty sure he doesn't even talk about hell, which is just funny, and I just knew like, okay, man, this is it, and not too long after that, gave my life to Christ, figure it out, I was trying to figure out, am I going to do music videos, still be in this industry, and God kept me here, he kept me as a filmmaker, he kept me doing music videos, projects, commercials, and then, but down the line, sort of doing more documentary type stuff, and years later, which is kind of what we can talk about now, but eventually did this film Collision with Christopher Hitchens and Douglas Wilson, and that kind of, I never felt like I actually fit, which I'm sure you can relate to, you know, I never felt like I fit in sort of modern Christendom, and Collision was sort of my way of sort of expressing like, I want to say something as a Christian, I don't know where or how I'm going to be able to do it the way that I thought I could do it.

Collision was that kind of a project where hip-hop, metal, big fat beats, rap, you know, kind of a crazy style of filmmaking, like that, I kind of put it all into one project, and boom, that was Collision, and now here we are 10 years later from Collision, I'm actually revisiting Collision.

That's right, that's.

Right, and so people can get into sort of the background of Collision, this is a film with Pastor Douglas Wilson, Christchurch, Moscow, Idaho, who is a brilliant writer and theologian, speaker, author, and Christopher Hitchens, who is one of the most well-known notorious atheists of the 21st century, 20th and 21st century, he is truly my favorite atheist in history.

I am so sad that he's gone because I wish that he would have been around when we had this, so we could have had dialogue, because I really, just tell people about him, let's do that, tell people about Christopher Hitchens.

I mean, as Doug says in the film, he was kind of a professional intellectual, I mean, and writer, and because what he wrote really mattered, people listened to it, it was just sharp, it just, it really cut, you know, and Christians and non-Christians could see that Hitchens could really describe something, he could really point something out, I mean, he was just, you know, he was just that, he was that good, but his attacks on Christianity and religion in general were just fantastic, because, well, one, Christianity can take it, so someone like Christopher Hitchens, who wants to come at something and just tear everything apart, go after every verse, every scenario set up in the Bible, I mean, that's what he did, and if you weren't prepared for that, I mean, you just got leveled, because he knew the Bible better than you did, and so he was working through these things and questioning you, and if you didn't have an answer, you know, he'd be going after, you know, God saying, yes, go in there, take those babies, and dash their heads against the rocks, and slaughter them, and people responding by going, but if you look around, there's got to be a creator, right?

You know, and like, and he would just, he would just cut right at every single verse that Christians didn't want to deal with, and he got away with it for a long time, he got away with it for his.

Entire career, until he met Doug Wilson. Right, when he met Doug Wilson, things changed drastically, and he was impressed with Douglas Wilson, that's what I respected, I think that's where I really fell in love with Christopher Hitchens, is when he met the opponent that defeated him, soundly defeated him, he responded with respect and adulation.

Yes, yes, I mean, and you know,.

I always get the question, you know, well, where do you think Hitchens is now? Do you think he finally gave his life to Christ? Do you think he had? In a lot of ways, it's really odd, because the sort of last few years of his life, I mean, he only wanted to be around Christians.

Yes, yes. Yeah, I mean, so it's, there was, you know, like I said, people have affection for Hitchens, and I understand where someone might say, how dare you, you know, he was an enemy of the faith, and I mean, if he was just that, if he was just an enemy of the faith, if he was just truly that, well, then he should still be applauded, because he's the kind of enemy that makes Davids.

Yes, yes. And that's so important to understand. Yeah, and there's a whole bit about loving our enemies that, you know, it's in there somewhere. But, you know, what I loved about Hitchens, and we're going to play a clip from your new project that you're working on that I am so thrilled about.

Thank you. And everyone here is going to be really, I think, the first to see it. Yep. He used the word exegesis. How many of our enemies of the faith know the word exegesis?

Yeah, man. I mean, he was just, you know, there's a certain look you get from certain guys when you get into a room. And you can kind of measure up a room pretty quickly. Okay, if something goes down, are the guys I'm in this room with, are they down to at least go out swinging?

And Hitchens was one of those guys where we were doing a project together, we didn't show up saying, Okay, I'm doing this on the Christian side, or the atheist side, we showed up to make a film together.

And when we got together, he had that look in his eyes, like, we're doing this together, we're on the same team here, we're going to make something. And you can see that in men, you can see when they are committed, and they're on that team.

And so for those four days, and even a year or two afterwards, every time I would see, you know, see Christopher, there is just this look, that you just you just knew he was on the team, you just knew that, that for that time, he was with you, he was good.

And that, that I think that's why people loved Hitchens, he was, he was engaged, he, he knew your position, we had a conversation. It was my son, I mean, it was the funniest roundtables at we were at one of the premieres of the film.

And it was myself, Doug, I think Aaron Wrench, Gary DeMar, and maybe David Hagopian, I'm forgetting, but Gary DeMar is sitting there, like right, right next to Hitchens. And at some point, Hitchens looked at all of us at the table, he was making a funny comment about something, and he kind of said something to the effect of like, Well, I mean, because all you guys think that the world's coming to an end real soon, right?

And the whole table was just quiet. Nope. And, and he kind of looked at us like, don't you? And we kind of just said, not, not really. And, and Gary DeMar explained to him, the, you know, post-millennial partial preterist sort of view, AD 70, temple, that language, all that stuff.

And Hitchens is listening. And it's like, to see him taking new information was like, oh, he's taking this and he's listening to every single thing. So that so Matthew 24, you don't believe, okay, and he's taking, and he takes it in.

He sits back. And he looks at all of us. And, and he says, Well, he says, must be lonely being all you gents. Like, sometimes it is. He knew we had no friends. Yeah. He was that like, he just looked at us like, well, this is cute.

Like, because clearly you.

Have no friends. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that's so awesome. And I'd love to sit with you for just hours and talk about just what the experience was like. So let's, let's get into it. So you've got something right behind me, right here.

Revisiting Collision Through New Eyes

Collision through new eyes, collision through new eyes. If you guys haven't seen collision, the film, you need to get it immediately. Watch that film. I, by the way, I think I told you this, Darren, we, I think we've talked about this before when I was a chaplain, the full-time chaplain at the hospital, I had 30 days, which with each person that came in patient, and I made sure they had a plan where they can get a full understanding of the gospel and who Jesus was.

They can get prepared for their life to be discipled. And I wanted to make sure they had a lot of the tough questions already answered. And one of the things I did every 30 days is I played collision for each new group.

So they all got to watch collision at least one time. And it was one of the, it was one of the things that I always look forward to because every time I played it, it always created these amazing conversations where we can really get in and dig into the gospel because it answered so many questions.

And I want to say so many people that came in that were these drug addict, atheists ended up walking out of that film going, okay, I'm open to talking now. And so it was such a, it's such an encouragement to me every month to be able to see people respond to this really well done film like that.

So tell us about a collision through new eyes.

Well, I had, I had always, you know, when, when I was cutting the film, you know, I, I had the advantage of obviously going through 30, 40, 50, 60 hours of footage. And the thing that really hit me at the time when I was editing is I got to see everything around every scene that ended up in the movie.

And I was watching Doug Wilson on so many exchanges. And obviously when you have a camera rolling for that long, you see things. And I was literally being, I was being mentored by Doug by just watching his mannerisms.

And there, there were always these moments where Hitch would say something, Doug would say something, Hitch, Doug, and Hitch would kind of get a really good kind of zinger. And in my mind, I'd say, I know the response to that.

I know what Doug's going to say right now. And Doug wouldn't say anything. He'd pull back. And I started learning when it was almost like Doug had a much bigger kind of plan. He had a much bigger heart and how he was approaching Hitchens.

And he would let him take a couple of shots every now and again. He didn't try to answer every single thing. He would kind of let Hitch kind of have one every now and again. And I would, and I would watch this.

I was so, I was, and again, he knew I got four days with this gentleman. And so he really was playing the long game. And so all this footage I've known about, obviously, and throughout the years, I would back up the hard drives, back up the hard drives, new hard drives, come new components.

Now we're Firewire, then Thunderbolt. And I kept, and eventually just this last week, I kind of transferred it over again and it was just sitting there and I was looking and I saw two folders and I thought, you know what, what if I just opened up the footage and just went chronologically and just told the story of Collision with all the footage, all the outtakes, all the, and then I was like, I'm just going to do this.

I'm going to just start it right now, every week, crank out two to three episodes anywhere, you know, could be three minutes, could be 15 minutes, who knows. And just revisit the film with all the footage, do my own voiceover to set things up if need be, or to come back and wrap something up.

But just, but just to do it, I said, I'm just, I'm going to do it. I'm going to just sit down and go for it. And I sat down, I started editing. I just started pulling up footage and I was just seeing all these things that I just forgot about and kind of just had, again, I had new eyes on the whole project.

I was like, wow, this is crazy. And then just, I want to tell the story. I want to tell what happened because what I wasn't really able to do in the film, because in one sense, it's not the film I was making, but these guys loved each other.

Like they just had this affection for each other from like literally minute number one. I had that with Hitchens from like minute one. And you see that the very first time I turned the camera on and I just start filming him and we start joking.

And it just, and I was like, so there's, there's a whole other story here. And that's what God does. I mean, he's always telling multiple stories. And I just thought this would be really cool because I'm, I'm going to go a little deeper now.

I just, I'm always, I'm much like Collision. And it's funny because Collision was a film that there was nothing like it before it. I didn't have a template for it. I just wanted to just be, be like a rapper who got in the booth and just started rapping, just spitting bars, 16 bars going.

I just wanted to just do something like, let, let's go. And there was just, and it just, it became like what, what it was. But there was so much more. And all of a sudden I'm sitting here going, I'm just going to do it again.

I'm going to do something that, I mean, I, I, I love when I start to do something and I go, there's no template for this. This isn't ESPN 30 for 30. This isn't a, you know, whatever doc or this is like, I was like the idea to take all the raw footage from a movie and tell a whole other story.

I'm like, I've never seen that done before. And those are.

The kinds of things that just get me super fired up. Oh, that's awesome. So we're going to play that clip right now. This new series Collision Through New Eyes. This is Darren Doan's work. I am so excited for you guys to see this and to get connected and make sure you guys keep sharing this content because the world really does need to see this.

It's very special. So here's.

That clip. So here's how collision starts. I become a Christian and that first week, a good friend of mine hands me a cassette tape and that cassette tape is a debate between Gordon Stein and Greg Bonson.

It's the great debate. Does God exist? And I went home and I listened to that debate and I was blown away. I was a new Christian, but I could tell right away that what Greg Bonson was doing, his approach to defending the Christian faith was just, I mean, you couldn't, you couldn't beat it.

It was so unbelievably powerful. And I listened to it probably easily a couple of hundred times and I was just mesmerized by it. And the story goes that you had Gordon Stein, this atheist who was basically going around beating up every Christian that would debate him.

He was crushing them one by one. But eventually Gordon Stein's disciples ran into Greg Bonson's disciples on a college campus at some point and Bonson's disciples said, oh yeah, our guy will debate your guy.

And so that was it. They set it up. And so that debate really kind of changed everything, not only for me, but I think for people in Christian apologetics because the, the presuppositional approach to defending the faith just really hadn't been articulated or experienced until that tape got released.

And years later, I just thought, man, I wish you could see that debate. And I thought about how they do the Lincoln Douglas debates and how you have someone dressed up as Lincoln Douglas. They do the presidential debates.

They've memorized their script and they do it verbatim. And so I thought, what if I just got people to do the Bonson-Stein debate again, then people could really, really experience it. And so that's kind of how this all came about.

The problem was just finding people to do that. How was I going to do it? It just, I just couldn't find a way, you know, to kind of make that happen. And so eventually I was hanging out with David Hagopian and Gary DeMar and we just were talking about this idea.

And eventually one of those guys said, well, what if we just do a new debate? And I said, well, who should we get to actually do the debate? And we talked about Christopher Hitchens. Man, this is probably the greatest living atheist, you know, and like he was just, he was unbeatable.

And the question became, who could we actually get? And I asked Gary, Gary, would you debate, you know, Hitchens? And he was like, I don't think I want to debate Hitchens. And David Hagopian, who was actually trained under Greg Bonson was kind of like, well, I could probably debate him, but I don't know if I'd be the best guy to actually do that or, or not.

And so we kind of just sat around dinner, you know, talking about that. And then eventually at some point, one of those guys said to me, oh, if you got Douglas Wilson, we would have a debate. I was like, okay, I need to meet Douglas.

Wilson. There you go. Collision through new eyes, Darren Doan. Hey Darren, man, uh, we could just.

Go for days. You and I right now talking about this stuff. Like what, what are you, what are you passionate about right now? Like, uh, forgive me, uh, my short-term memory after my seizure is still coming back.

So of course, free speech apocalypse is wonderful, but you also had a series. My wife and I watched, I remember the series itself, uh, is available on Amazon, I believe. And it was the series in Hawaii, uh, with the photographer, the ocean, short break, short break.

Tell, tell everyone just, just quickly about short break so they can go watch that.

Short Break, Social Media, and the New Public Square

Short break is just a project that, um, I got introduced to Clark little, who's like one of the best ocean photographers in the world. He goes into like 10, 15, 20, 30 foot shore break, you know, just gets right into it, gets these amazing shots.

And I just wanted to follow his life, his world. And so, um, yeah, that is, you know, the, uh, documentary, um, short break is on, um, and it's on iTunes, Amazon prime. I think you can find it. Um, and then the outdoor network or outdoor channel, I forget outdoor TV.

I forget actually has the television series and yeah, I'm just inspired by people who are just doing stuff and making stuff. And he's a very visceral dude. He's throwing his body into gnarly situations.

And so I just love documenting stuff like that. That kind of gets me fired up and maybe gets other people fired up just to go.

Out and do stuff. Yes. All right. So let's talk, let's get to brass tacks here again. We can talk for days here, Darren, what are you, what are you passionate about right now? Talk to people like you're making films, you're doing big projects, you're doing, you're doing amazing.

Things. So, yeah. So end of 2018, I kind of had this just, just epiphany really. I've been having a long time that I was actually, um, I really didn't understand social media. You know, I think either I thought I was too cool for it or I was doing that fake thing where it's like, Facebook's going to be gone.

Instagram's going to be gone. There's going to be a new thing and all this stuff. And I just, you know, I just wasn't, you know, I just wasn't, I wasn't into it. And I just had this, this moment where I was like, this is in my hand all the time.

I was like, I wasn't watching TV anymore. My news, my content. And then at some point last year, like someone said to me, Hey, have you seen these guys that they do these resin pours over wood? I was like, no, no.

And they pull, you know, YouTube or something and, or even Instagram. And these guys take these like cracked pieces of wood and they pour resin and they make these tables and it's like 25 million views.

And I was like, and it clicked. I was like, oh my goodness. Like pop culture is done. I was like, pop culture is completely done. It's me culture and not me culture. Like me, me, me, like the world doesn't have to go through the gatekeepers anymore.

There's like 20 million people or 5 million people, whatever it is, watching people do woodworking, metalworking, knitting. And I'm looking over at my wife and she's watching recipes or she's watching a home design thing.

Not, not even HGTV home design, but she's watching. I was like, oh my goodness. I missed it. I was like, I missed it. Like it's totally arrived. You know, or I'm watching you guys, right. Or I'm watching, or watching cross politic come up on my Facebook feed and it's a show and I'm spending.

Look every minute here. Look, so here's, so here's my thesis. And we can flesh it out. I'll do my best to defend it if need be. I just believe every Christian needs to be here. I mean, I'm like put every teenager on this right now and we can give it disclaimers and all that stuff.

But every minute, every second we're on this and we're not on TV or at a movie theater, we are winning a hundred percent. We are winning because this is it. And what's happened is reality has won. See, I don't think people have understood this.

Reality has one, not reality TV, but like reality, reality has won. People want to watch a dude split wood for two hours. Like literal reality is winning. And we think this is like somehow like, like, no, no, it's all on our phone now.

And once that dawned on me, I was like, I basically, I was like, Hey, I'm firing myself. It's only me and my wife. Like I'm firing myself as the head of marketing for my company. I said, I'm going to, and I'm going to rehire myself in January one.

I'm going all in. I'm going, I'm going just social media everywhere. I'm doing three, five, six, seven posts a day, multiple platforms from a podcast to Instagram, LinkedIn, Spotify. I mean, I'm dropping podcasts and just ideas and thought process on, you know, on SoundCloud.

And I've got SoundCloud rappers now reaching out to me and talk. It's like, I want to be everywhere on every form. And again, because this is, this is where it's all changing. And I've had so much pushback.

It's been crazy. I was going to speak at a Christian event and I said, well, Hey, I'm going to talk about social media. Like you can't talk about social media. I was like, well, I'm gonna talk about, I mean, they're all, they're just talking about entrepreneurship and business.

I'm like, that is entrepreneurship and business. That's right. Kid can start his own business right here. This is it. Like, this is it. And to me, there's this weird high level hypocrisy that like parents are sitting there going like, you will not be on social media until you're 18.

You will not have a phone until you're eight. And they're sitting there with their phones. I mean, this is, I can watch you guys. I can listen to things. I mean, podcasts, audio. I mean, this device right now, I mean, it's just, this is, this is the next.

Industrial revolution. It's the public square. What I describe it as. It's the public square in your pocket. It's the ability. Well, I'll give you an example, Darren. I, I dropped a video once that was really important for the world to see.

We thought it would have a big impact on the church and it did. But when I dropped it, I checked the stats like 15 seconds later. And the first people that were watching it 15 seconds after I dropped it, we're in Australia and New Zealand.

I mean,.

Yeah. So don't, so don't tell me that social media is this scary thing that we need. I mean, we need to be all in on social media. We need to be, and by the way, if so, if a Christian parent said to me, so are you saying that my 16 year old should, should be on Instagram?

I'd probably say no, but if I'm in front of a room full of people and there's a bunch of kids, Christian or not, I say, how many people are on social media? Almost all their hands go up. And if they don't go up, I say, how many of your parents are on social media?

And everyone's hand goes up. And what I don't think people are realizing that I've kind of just gotten super fired up to where people are super annoyed with me because I'm all in on this, because I want Christians to win this space is that your Instagram is your new resume.

Your Instagram is your new resume. If all things are equal and you're going for a job, trust me, they're looking at your Instagram feed. And if it's private and the other person's isn't, and they're doing a good job at promoting themselves, I'm not talking about just taking selfies.

I'm talking about people realizing the power they have to build their brand. And by brand, I just mean your reputation. And I'm pretty sure Proverbs talks about your reputation. Yeah. Like this, this is how you build who you are now and how you want to present to people.

I'm not just talking to a fireman. And he was like, dude, every time we hear of a new hire, everyone in, in the, in, in the, you know, firehouse there is like combing through their Instagram is combing through their Facebook.

Right. I mean, that's how we're living now.

That's right. And I want Christians to get there. Well, I think it's powerful too, Darren, and we can probably wrap up on this point, but it's interesting because you mentioned like removing the gatekeepers.

One of the things that's clear from the last election cycle even is that the major media nationally and internationally realized after the election, the major media didn't own anything anymore. They weren't controlling the conversation anymore.

I mean, Darren, I remember this dude, it was, it was so clear to me. I was in Australia, just a couple of days before the presidential election where Donald Trump won this last cycle. And I remember my daughter and I, at times when we had a break, she was there to assist me and film while we were there, we would be in the room waiting for a pickup or to go somewhere to teach or something.

And we would turn the media on and, and dude, I'm telling you every single channel dedicated to our election. And all they were talking about Darren was how Hillary's winning. She's ahead. There's no chance for Donald Trump and they're dissing Donald Trump.

And they're just sort of selling the narrative and all that. And wherever you're on that discussion, that's not the point here. It's the media itself. Internationally, we're talking about Australian media in their Australian accents was talking about Hillary Clinton and she's so far ahead.

There's no chance for Donald to win. I come home, the election happens and it's, everyone's blown away internationally. They go, wait, what happened? We thought we had this. The media is freaking out.

They're going, what's going on? And the answer was, you don't control this anymore. It's controlled by private people and private companies that are much smaller than CNN and MSNBC and NBC. And it's in their pocket.

Now, nobody was listening to you in the first place because it's this little guy over here. It's this little guy over here in Nebraska with his multimillion followers. He was actually winning and beating CNN.

Like it's that guy that was actually controlling the conversation. And you didn't know that. And that's the thing I think we have to pay attention to is that you're right. Is that now we have the public square in our pockets.

We have the ability as Christians to communicate the biblical worldview in a better way than the world does. And we could do it in an instant. Click of a button. It's like this. You have a studio that can communicate with the entire planet in an instant, literally an instant and live.

You can live stream in a way that you couldn't do in the 80s from your pocket to the globe, from your backyard. You can do that as a single person for $900 in your pocket. $900. And I would just add something to that, which is.

That I just got back on Twitter. So I went all on Instagram. I changed that all up, spent kind of three months back on Instagram. Then I jumped back into Facebook, kind of got acclimated there, jumped back onto Twitter.

So I jumped on, I jumped back onto Twitter and the first three people I follow Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama. Okay. First three people I follow. You're such a weirdo. Well, but hold on. Cause I wanted to see what was happening.

Yeah. And all of them, all of them. Okay. Forget Donald Trump. Cause we know he's doing a thousand tweets a day. And by the way, that's why he's winning. But secondly, if Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama feel it's important to tweet six, seven times a day, that tells you how powerful this still is.

Yes. And I want to encourage Christians not to, not to think, you know, like, oh, social media. And I don't want you to think, well, there's something around the corner. Don't try to be prophetic here.

Just be where everybody is at. And when the new thing shows up, just be there and keep doing your work, spreading the gospel, making amazing content. Cause every time you do that, literally the gatekeepers are falling, they are crumbling, and we have to be right there at those gates.

Abortion, Cultural Leadership, and the Mission of the Church

Awesome. Hey, Darren. Uh, we just decided today that we're probably going to be Lord willing in Moscow, filming some stuff. Um, what'd we say? First week of June. First week of June for an abortion now and stuff like that.

So hopefully we get to see you and.

Hang out. Yeah. And maybe we'll do a special edition live from the container. That sounds.

Awesome. All right, guys, Darren, don't make sure you guys check out collision as soon as you can.

Darren, I love you, bro. I'll talk to you soon. Thank you guys so much. Bye-bye. God bless.

All right, guys, that was next week, guys with Darren Dillon. We'll be right back, guys. Stay.

With us. What kind of society will we be responsible for building and what kind of people.

Are we sending into the world? Part of our mission in working to redeem culture is to connect with people in various professions to help them to understand their life and calling.

As a process of culture building. Our work is best demonstrated at the H. Evan Runner International Academy for Cultural Leadership. The Runner Academy represents a comprehensive instruction in Christian philosophy, worldview, and cultural apologetics.

This two-week course brings students and young professionals on site for a training program like no other. History, politics, law, education, medicine, the arts. There is a biblical vision for all of these spheres to bring them into obedience to Jesus, the King, and to develop.

Them toward cultural renewal to the glory of God. I want their faith to not just be something that.

Stands, but something around which culture can be built. We want students who can think critically about arguments, but also about the culture around them that can then speak clearly to it and that also have the ability to influence and shape because of the power of their message, because that's really what the gospel does.

The gospel throws down all the arguments against it.

It speaks to the hearts of people, it influences, and it changes. Welcome back, everybody, to next.

Week with Jeff Durbin. I am Jeff Durbin, and this is Luke the Bear. And that is Joy the Girl right there. If you guys haven't seen Sheologians yet or listened to Sheologians yet, you should get on that at sheologians .com.