Apologia Radio | James White Interview

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00:00

Greetings and welcome to Apology Radio. My name is James White and along with me, I'm about to do a

00:06

Jeff Durbin thing, but I really can't because how can, have you thought yet? How can we call you

00:12

Joy the Girl? Because you're now Mrs. I know. I mean, there's so much gravitas.

00:20

There's got to, we have to find something a little bit better. Yeah. I think now there's, I've always been the girl.

00:26

Yeah. But now there's like an upgrade. It's like a rite of passage type thing, you know? Yeah. And then the next thing is mama.

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And then once it's grandma, it doesn't matter anymore. You're just happy to be here.

00:42

You just show up. I got out of bed this morning. It's very good. So anyways, uh, you're wondering.

00:49

That'll be all of us one day. We'll just be hunched over the microphones. I can just see the original gang getting together for a very low energy reunion.

00:59

Yeah, that'd be a lot of fun. But anyways, uh, you're probably wondering what in the world am

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I doing here again? Well, uh, I'm sitting in and I'm sitting in because, uh,

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Jeff has a lot of folks who love him and who are willing to do anything to, uh, to fill in when he has need.

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And, um, he has need right now. Uh, most of you have read the updates and stuff.

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I don't know what a new update would be because I'm not sure when this is going to air. But, um, I'm basically, uh, the director of Alpha Omega Ministries and I'm going out of town later this week as I'm going to be doing a lot.

01:36

I've been looking at my travel schedule for the next year and it's just simply insane. Uh, but I said, you know what?

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Let me, uh, let me sit in and, um, and, uh, Joy's back. And so, uh, we have certain common people that we know in our lives.

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This is kind of a weird crossover. It is. It is strange because I've sat in here, not this particular one, but the old one, uh, with you and Summer.

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And, uh, in fact, I think the last time was so long ago. It's sort of like, I'm not loved anymore, but, uh, we did that.

02:12

What's the thing where you do the song lyrics thing? Oh, we did the, um, What do you call it?

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Oh my gosh. I forget what it's called. I forget what we were calling it. It's been so long since you did it. But the thing where you like listen to the music and you like write a part of a movie for it or whatever.

02:28

Right, right. And do you remember what I played? Um, John Denver. John Denver. Yeah. Because that drives Summer crazy.

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She doesn't like it. No, no, no. And she was mocking him horribly and came up with theological errors and everything else in what he was saying, which there were a lot.

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He was into EST or whatever that stuff was called. So, you know, I trained her well along those lines, but it's been a long time.

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I know. We'll have to have you on again sometime soon. I think we were talking about it. I'm still semi -relevant. Just not as relevant as I used to be.

02:57

Super relevant. Always. So anyways, uh, so here we are and, uh, there's lots of things to, to, to talk about, but obviously first and foremost, uh, congratulations to you.

03:09

Thank you. Um, I did that 36 years ago. Yeah. Um, but I was 19.

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Can you imagine that? That would have been like 10 years ago for me. Yeah. Wow. I was 19.

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She was 18. We were both 18 when we got engaged. How long were you engaged for? Uh, well, uh,

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June to, it was right at a year. Okay. So we were both real young.

03:36

Yeah. Wow. I made up my mind early and, uh, I said, that's the one for me.

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And, uh, I've told the story before and Summer certainly knows this, but I actually fell for her sister first because she's an identical twin.

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But I figure if they're identical twins, then that's, that's fair. Right. You also, there's a weird like loophole there.

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You did fall in love with both of them in a weird, but not real, you know, yeah. I didn't even know she was a twin when

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I first saw her. I was just like, wow, that's, you know, when you're a sophomore in high school, that's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen on the planet.

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So, but she didn't know I existed. And then a couple of weeks later, I come into Sunday school and there's two of them.

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Yay! Double the chance. And of course, Kelly, my wife, is the, in most identical twins, you've got a more outgoing one and a more retiring one.

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And Kelly's the quieter one. Okay. Which works better for me. Yeah. I think so. But then again,

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Shelly has never, I still don't think she knows who I am. Just doesn't,

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I don't fit the parameters. So anyways, but yeah, that was 36 years ago. So. So if you want to increase your odds, go for identical twins.

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You know, I had not really thought about it that way. The reality is you want to increase your odds, make sure you know history.

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Oh. Oh, you didn't know about this? Oh, I shouldn't do this. What? Because Kelly's going to kill me. Oh gosh. Well, I love telling this story, but Kelly is always like, oh, don't do it.

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But I have, for all the young men in the audience. Well, then this is, if young men need to hear it, then they need to hear it.

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I have a 100 % foolproof way of getting the woman of your dreams. Because it worked for me. Here's, here's, here's what

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I did. I'm not gonna give you all the backstory. I had been trying to get her attention for literally a year and a half.

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Okay. Finally, I invited her out to Peter Piper Pizza.

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We are in high school. Yeah. And that's where everybody went after church on Sundays. Went to this big mega church. Mega church as in 20 ,000 members.

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We could never find more than 7 ,000 at a time, but they were on a roll. It was the type of church where you had to show up personally and submit your own death certificate in triplicate to be able to get off the membership rolls.

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Oh, wow. That's serious membership there. Anyway, and so I finally got the nerve up to ask her out.

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And I've always been able to read her face. Immediately, it was like one of those things where you've got the message that scrolls across that says, he's been trying to get my attention all along.

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And so, so, so she said, yes. And so on March 17th, 1981, we went to Peter Piper Pizza.

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And so this is how you do it because it worked perfectly. And Peter Piper Pizza is still in business. It is.

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You could duplicate this exactly. You could repeat this exactly. From the time

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I ordered the pizza, picked it up, we ate the pizza and we left. The entire evening at Peter Piper Pizza, I narrated for her in perfect chronological detail, names, dates, everything.

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The entirety of the Battle of Midway. Oh, did you know?

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I did. And her response was good. We were married 15 months later. Okay, there you go.

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So she, she told, I think she told Summer once that she had a soft spot for geeks. Okay.

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Smart guys, you know. And so the fact that without notes or anything else, I could give

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Commander Sam Waldron from the Enterprise did this. And I mean, do you know which four

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Japanese carriers were sunk at the Battle of Midway? I bet you do not. I don't. The Akagi, the Kaga, the Tsuru and the Hiryu. And we lost the

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Yorktown sunk by Japanese submarine I -68. That was 37 years ago that I heard that story.

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So it has stuck well. And that's what, that's what did it. So know your history well.

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Yeah. I think that I was recently just helping my friend study for her licensing exam for psychology.

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And what, there was like a research study that was done that shows that men typically are more like single -minded, passionate.

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And that tends to be more of a male characteristic. And so I think it makes sense that females would find that attractive, like a, like sort of a weird, just like, weird, like laser focus on something.

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And yours is... It was that. The Battle of Midway. No, honestly. You have a lot of laser focuses though.

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A little bit wider focus than most, but history has always, always been there. And so you don't have to use

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Midway. I mean, I think the story of Munster, I don't know if you've ever heard the story of Munster. I've been teaching a church history class for about a year and a half.

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And that would be a really cool, special study for apology at some point.

08:42

Oh yeah. Would be... Let's do it. The craziest story from church history ever known is

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Munster. I'm going to be visiting Munster in January, February, late

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January, early February. I'm teaching in Russia. Well, I'm hoping I'm teaching in Russia. Cause I mean, there's stuff going on with Russia right now and Ukraine and the rest of that stuff.

09:01

Who knows? But I'm supposed to be teaching in Russia. And then on the way back, I'm going to go through Munster. Cause Munster is where the

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Institute for New Testament Studies is where the vast majority, this is the Nessie Olin 28th edition, Greek New Testament. It's put together in Munster.

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Oh wow. So it has been sort of the center of New Testament manuscripts for quite some time now.

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In the olden days, it was microfilm. Now it's super high quality digital images and stuff like that.

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That's cool. It's very, very cool. So I'm going to be going through there because the PhD I'm working on has to do with what's called

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CBGM. And I'm going to be interviewing some people and stuff like that. But the coolest thing about Munster is if you go on Google earth and find the cathedral,

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I think it's St. Lambert's Cathedral in Munster, go down to street view and swing around it, looking up at the spire on one side, you will find three cages hanging from the side of the church spire.

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Okay. And they're the size to hold one human being. Person. Okay. They have been hanging there since 1534, 1535, 1535.

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And they originally had bodies in them. Wow. And they've been there for, well, that's the story of Munster.

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Honestly, the story of Munster, I am stunned that Hollywood has not picked it up because you could simply tell the story as it happened without the slightest bit of embellishment.

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Wow. And it would be a mega hit. Well, so that's what we're going to have you on Sheologians for, because you know how we do our story telling episodes.

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So you're going to have to come tell us that story. That's just, that's going to happen. And now there's no competition anymore by my doing that for Sheologians and then doing it, you know, one night.

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Yeah. Here at the studio for Apologia, because the other big announcement is you're stuck with me now.

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Right. Because I'm an official, is it, do you call yourselves Apologians? Oh, well.

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I hope not. I mean, I think offhandedly, but mostly just a member.

11:19

A member. I'm just a plain old member. So if you want to be a member, then that's fine. Yeah, I'm a plain old member. As Luke said yesterday when it was announced, we're sort of, we're sort of using, because how do

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I, I can't sneak in the back door of a church. And when, when

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Jeff has said numerous times how influential I've been over his life in the development of his theology, though we have differences because there's been other, there's been other sources.

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And you know what, the funny thing is, since the announcement was made last night, the internet's gone and saying that,

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James White is a member of Apologia now. The amazing thing is that people assume that if you join a church, that means you have absolutely identical opinions with everybody else.

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Nobody in their church is that way, but evidently somehow I'm supposed to be that way. And it's like, look,

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Jeff knows where we have differences. The point is on the fundamentals of the gospel and the focus of what we're doing, we've always been on the same page.

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You know, how many times I've had him fill in for me on the dividing line, he's had me fill in here. I've preached the church, et cetera, et cetera.

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I've even lost track of how many times I've preached at Apologia over the years. It's been a lot of times. So I can't exactly just waltz in the back and sit back in the corner.

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Because when I do, a line for him to be able to ask me questions, that doesn't work. So the term

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Luke used yesterday, we're using the term scholar in residence, which basically means someone who's had a whole lot of schooling and just sort of hangs around.

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So it's not an official thing, but it is a recognition that, yeah,

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I want to be a resource for Jeff and Luke and Zach and have their backs and do teaching and stuff like that.

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And we don't know what it all is going to mean. It sort of happened fairly quickly, but hey, here we are.

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So we can do those types of things. And so I can come on to theologians and tell the most fascinating church history story ever.

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And you're all going to sit there going, you're making this. No, no, I'm not.

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I'm literally, I could tell it in the driest historical way possible.

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And you'd sit there and go, no way. Well then we need that story told. It may end up being a little bit longer in the episode because just doing it in the class was,

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I had to go fairly quickly because it's just stunning. It really is a stunning story.

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There's lots of cool stories. There's stories that people don't know about, you know, Cyprian's letters to the

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Christians who were enslaved in the mines during the imperial persecution.

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I mean, that's the tearjerker type stuff. Most of us have never even heard of things like that.

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But this story is just like, this could never have happened. And yet it did.

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And it didn't happen all that long ago. So I'll just leave you hanging on that.

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We'll do cool stuff like that. But I got to preach last night and one of my favorite studies that just, to me it's just so important to be able to see the relationship of the, you know, the harmony of the scriptures and the testimony of the deity of Christ.

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And I got to talk a little bit about Christmas before Jeff did. So I thought that was pretty much of a coup, I think, personally. Yeah. No, I think that was the best way you could have entered into membership is by joining this weird unspoken competition.

14:58

Well, it's not really unspoken either. That's true. Well, how long has he had his tree up?

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I mean, it's been a while. It's been a while. But they have, so there's another family at Apologia that they duel with to get their tree up first.

15:12

Yeah. Okay. Let's just make sure, I'm telling Jeff right now, don't do, I once went to a church where the pastor literally has a

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Christmas tree in his office all year. Oh, see, that's cheating. That would be cheating.

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That's not just cheating. That's imbalanced. You're right. Okay. It's not Christmas if you don't stop doing

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Christmas. That's right. That's right. You have to end it. There was something wrong with that. So anyhow, so yeah, here we are.

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And then I show up and then I disappear for two weeks out of, you know, that's just the way it's going to be this year because I'm going to be flying.

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Oh, am I going to get the frequent flyer miles? Well, that's, I mean, good or?

15:57

It is good. And, you know, the one thing that people caught hold of last night that they said a lot of was

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I had talked to Jeff about this and it was, you know, you know, I will, I will give the greetings of the elders and the people of Apologia Church and the saints all around the world as I go and speak.

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So they were like, we like that. We like that. So you can go, you can go now, go do that. And it'll give us all a chance to get to know your wife better too.

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There won't be a line to meet you so we can line up to talk to her. There should be a line to meet her because she's put up with me for 36 years.

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She knows the true secret behind the man. Sadly, yeah, that could be the end of everything.

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But then again, somebody else, you know, does too. Right. Yes, that's true. Well, and so we did,

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I told you that when we did this episode that I would probably just like ask you a few questions. And I listened to the episode that you and Summer did and I learned stuff even there.

16:55

Yeah. So we did the interview. And so I'm just going to ask you some questions.

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I don't get to ask back. I mean, you can ask me questions too, if you want. It's not like I don't have a computer in front of me.

17:07

So this would be the, you know, whatever your mind generates, which is probably more than mine.

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But well, so you were talking about Christmas and last night you also talked about being a grandparent specifically, but I thought maybe you could give.

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So this time of year is all about, it's like a celebration of family and being together. So I thought maybe you could give some good like biblical perspective on spending time with family and.

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Except my family is all spread out. Right. Yeah. I do not know what grandparents did before FaceTime.

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I mean, seriously, back when I was a kid, you know, we would get these handwritten letters from grandma in Kansas.

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And we'd have to sit there while mom and dad read the hand thing from grandma in Kansas, who we only saw for a few days during the summer when we drove out there on, that's all we did for summer vacation was right out there.

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And my dad would work on her house and stuff like that. So spread out families, um, you know, we've, we've had everybody fairly close to home for a number of years.

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And so Christmas and Thanksgiving and stuff like that have been big things, but man, we're all, we're all spread out now and, uh, it makes you really appreciate what you did have when everybody was around.

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Um, but you know, this year, um, as you know, uh, summer and Eric and the kids are supposed to be coming down.

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And, uh, and, uh, I checked last night to make sure that they were able to be here for the apologia service.

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Oh, uh -huh. Which of course they were planning. Oh, good. Good. Uh, cause that's, that'll be really exciting to have us all at the same place at the same time.

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Um, but what we want to do this year is, um, sort of demonstrate what a, what a distinctly

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Christian celebration, uh, is, um, because there's a lot of folks who celebrate

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Christmas, but they're not believers. Right. So shouldn't there be a difference, uh, because this is not a commanded celebration.

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I mean, I know a lot of folks that, I know folks, I didn't know folks until I entered into the

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Reformed Baptist world, but I know folks who will not celebrate Christmas. Okay. Um, if, if someone,

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I can especially see that if you came out of some kind of Saturnalia worship or something like that, if you have a background in that, okay, you know, and there are other people that just read the

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Puritans and go, that's Roman Catholic and I can't do it. Yeah. Okay, fine.

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And, and so I'm not going to force something on somebody and every,

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I think every local body needs to make a decision as to how they're going to handle this, these types of situations.

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And you know, most evangelical churches don't even give it a thought, you know, it's just, you know, bring out the decorations, bring out, you know, bring the camp of walk the camel through during the

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Christmas musical cleanup afterwards, whatever, you know, uh, that, that kind of thing.

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Uh, and they use it in another way. For me, uh, what I've tried to do, and I was, for example, this is what

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I was trying to do that one year, and I'm sure Summer has told you, when

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I chose to read the Christmas story from the Geneva Bible.

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And I, I got to the Geneva Bible's rendering of the word cradle, uh, or manger, manger as creche.

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And, um, um, the whole thing fell apart at that point. It fell apart when

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Summer fell off of the couch laughing, but it just really sort of ruined the whole effect. And so I haven't always been successful, uh, and Summer's to blame for a number of those failures, um, but, but, but I have tried.

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And, uh, and I think one of the ones that, uh, was fairly recent ones that, uh, everybody in the family said they really enjoyed.

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Uh, I actually brought home one of my digital projectors and I did a presentation,

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I think on Christmas Eve on the wall. You ready for this? It's almost as bad as Midway, um, because this is

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Christmas. Okay. But I did a pre, I, I projected, uh, the little manuscript

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P52, which is probably the oldest fragment of the New Testament we possess. Some people argue some others are older, but generally agree that it's probably the oldest fragment of the

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New Testament we possess. And I somehow, maybe somewhat torturously, um, connected, uh, the history of that little fragment through to the subject of Christmas.

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Okay. It was, it was a bit of a stretch, but, but they actually found it really interesting because it wasn't your standard.

21:57

Right. Something new. Star wise men stuff. Um, and, uh, so they really seem to enjoy that.

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The one real major bomb, uh, was when the kids were younger. Uh, when

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I decided to make one of their primary gifts, a, um, you can buy these, uh, you can buy things like international justice ministry,

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Barnabas fund, voice the martyrs type thing. You can like sponsor. Oh yeah.

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Child in a, in a, in a difficult area, provide Bibles, you know, type of stuff like that.

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And so you can give certificates to people, you know, so in your name, so many Bibles distributed in this difficult area type of thing.

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And yeah. They weren't a fan. They were like, maybe they were a little bit too young at that point.

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I don't know. But, um, that may be one of the least memorable attempts that I made.

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I'm going to ask her about that. Yeah. She may not remember it. That's the, that's the really frightening and sad part about it.

23:01

But, um, but I tried and, uh, but I do try to, uh, you know, uh, emphasize the, the real, you know,

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I don't, I hate using the phrase meaning of the season, but if you don't really believe in the Trinity, the deity of Christ, uh, the inspiration of scripture, there's really no reason to be doing any of this other than to help the economy out anyway.

23:21

Yeah. Um, because really what we're saying it's, it's, does not surprise me that the world mocks, uh,

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Christmas every Christmas, because we're literally saying that the God that created these hundreds of billions of galaxies with hundreds of billions of stars in each one of the hundreds of billions of galaxies and holds all this together by the word of his power actually became flesh and lived 2000 years ago in a little backwards corner of, of the

23:50

Roman empire and never traveled more than a certain number of miles, any one direction. And yet that was our

23:55

God. Yeah. And look from the world's perspective, as Paul puts it, uh,

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Moria, uh, from which we get more on foolishness, absolute foolishness. And so I get that.

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Um, but it, it does, you know, I want to make sure that at least my family, uh, uh, you know, when

24:16

I talked a little bit about Isaiah nine last night at Apologia, um, we normally spend some time on that because that a child will be born son given a,

24:26

I think there's a whole lot behind that. I really, really do. Unfortunately, I got derailed last night because almost nobody at Apologia loves

24:33

Handel's Messiah as much as I do. So I was, well, why don't you give your recommendation for Handel's Messiah right now?

24:40

Oh my goodness. Um, look, if you're not a classical music lover, okay,

24:47

I get it. But the reality is, uh, Handel's Messiah is, is almost miraculous.

24:53

When you look at the period of time in which he wrote it, just a, just a matter of weeks, the music is enduring and he, he didn't do the words.

25:03

The words were provided by someone else, but they're all scriptural texts. They're just that someone had called these scriptural texts in a certain order that, that basically tell the

25:10

Christ story. So part of the Messiah is sort of the Christmas part of the Messiah. And then you've, you know, everybody knows the

25:16

Hallelujah Chorus. Right. Um, but that's actually the Easter portion. Right. The resurrection.

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The resurrection period. And so it is, um, it has been in constant performance since Handel wrote it.

25:31

It's the only piece of music that I know of that that is the case. And it transports me.

25:36

It is the most beautiful stuff. Um, and what I want to do and have not had the opportunity of doing,

25:44

I've got to find someplace. I, I, I may just have to set time aside next year, find a singalong because there are places in major, normally in major cities where they do singalongs.

25:55

I have my own score. I sing bass, bass or baritone, depending on what they need. So you're ready. I'm ready.

26:01

I know the bass part pretty well. My voice isn't what it once was, but, um, you know,

26:07

Kelly and I sang in a singing group at North Phoenix Baptist Church. Really? We were both in what was called

26:12

Liberation. We had our own band. We traveled and we won. It was the year, it was the year before she came in, but Liberation won the small group category at the

26:24

National Christian Music Festival in Estes Park, which is the big, that's the big thing. So we weren't half bad.

26:31

We actually could, could sing it. That's really cool. A lot of fun. Yeah. So, and in fact, the Wednesday night before we got married,

26:38

Kelly and I sang a duet at North Phoenix. What did you sing? We sang a song called

26:44

I Am Willing, Lord. Okay. And it's I Am Willing, Lord, all the way through. But then we changed the last chorus and, uh, uh, clasped hands.

26:54

We are willing. Oh, oh, that's so cute. So about five years ago, uh,

27:02

I got this thought across my mind. Uh, they recorded all of those things for the homebound ministry.

27:08

Oh, and so I contacted North Phoenix as well. When Richard Jackson, who was the pastor there left, we gave all that stuff to him.

27:14

So I contacted the Richard Jackson Evangelistic Foundation in Texas. And lo and behold, they had the tape from that Wednesday night.

27:22

So do you have it? I have it. Oh my gosh. Now, of course it was the recording quality.

27:29

Right. Isn't best from 1982. Um, but yeah, I've, I've got the recording.

27:35

That's cool. Yeah. That's really cool. So I really, yeah, I really want to, uh, do a sing along with the

27:40

Messiah. That'd be awesome. I mean, I know it gets, it gets performed. Right. But they do community sing alongs where they have the orchestra and then anybody who wants to come along and it ends up being a huge choir and you just bring your own music.

27:52

That would be quite an experience. Especially with everyone singing. Well, especially when you hit the, not just the holiday chorus, but there are a couple of, of the songs, uh, the numbers in there that are just, they'll transport you.

28:07

Yeah. There's a, it's not like listening to most contemporary Christian music. It is just timeless.

28:12

It is incredible. But anyways, that's what, that's another thing to add to your, your, your Christmas would be some really, and dig into some, some of the deepest

28:22

Trinitarian theology I have ever found in music is

28:27

Christmas hymns. They're normally the stanzas that never get played on the radio.

28:33

Right. Yeah. Or sung. Yeah. But when you look at some of the major Christmas hymns and get to like that never sung third verse.

28:42

Yeah. You'll have hypostatic union language. It does seem like that's where all the really deep theological, like, why would they scrub that out of?

28:50

Cause it doesn't. Like even some of the hymns that you might sing at a regular church, just modernized.

28:58

They, some of the best parts of it have been taken out. Cause that's frequently not the best rhyming.

29:03

Right. Yeah. Cause for playability or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. You're trying to say something. So yeah. Yeah.

29:09

So anyways, those are just some, some things you don't have to, you don't have to skip the, you know, the gift giving and stuff

29:16

I've spent. You know, I've been, I've been quote unquote, Santa Claus for my family for a long time.

29:21

Summer has told me that you take your gift game seriously. I take my gift game very seriously and I've upped it this year for, for a few folks.

29:32

My son -in -law, Eric had to get his early. So he's, he's already, he already knows, but I've got,

29:38

I've got four grandkids coming. Yeah. And this will be the first time that Cadence and Waylon have been to our house.

29:45

They are going to be disappointed. Oh really? I can tell you right now, the look on their face. They're going to, they're going to walk in.

29:52

They're going to look around a little bit and come back. Like it's so small because our house is, you know, they've got two floors.

29:59

Right. They've got so much more space under roof than we do. And there's no, well,

30:05

I was gonna say there's no grass outside to go play in, but I've been to their house and there's no grass outside to play in there either. So, but yeah, yeah, it's, they're, they're going to be disappointed.

30:15

So we've got to do a good job with the tree or something. Except for, I heard that, I heard that your wife, when

30:23

I think when either Jannie or just Clementine, I think just Clementine was in and your wife set up like this whole little fort in the backyard.

30:33

She like dragged out those phone things. We're going to put that back up. But yeah, the last time that they were there, we put a little thing up in the backyard.

30:41

The problem is you have to walk over the rocks to get to it. Right. Yeah. But yeah, we, we're going to try to do something like that.

30:47

And I'll probably put some lights on it and stuff like that. I'm going to have to work hard when I get back from these trips, because I've got a bunch. Yeah. You don't have a ton of time to execute.

30:55

And still do everything else I'm supposed to do. So, but it's going to be great to have the grandkids there. And obviously for us, that's the whole thing is, is the, you know, my parents were, were very poor and yet we had the same

31:10

Christmas tree from the time I was four. I think they got rid of that tree about 10 years ago.

31:18

That's how long we had the, I mean, so much so that the, the, you put the little things in and then we had to put toothpicks in.

31:26

To hold in the little stakes. Because the holes had worn out over the years. So everything was starting to do this.

31:32

Sort of like human bodies. Everything's just starting to break down over time. But we had the same tree and, and they would, you know, always make sure that, that there was something, something there for us, even though we were, we were poor as church mice.

31:47

And so I've just loved seeing how Cadence and Waylon and Clementine and January have come together.

31:55

I mean, Waylon's relationship with, with Jannie. Oh yeah. He's like her little caretaker.

32:01

He is. And Cadence's mother's all of them. And she and Clementine hiding in closets doing girl talk.

32:07

Pink lava lamps. I mean, seriously. And everybody knows about Clementine and her.

32:16

I can't wait for Clementine says it's. I know. Yeah. She's gonna have to wait till Clementine's 18 to publish it.

32:22

But even by then, it should be pretty interesting. So we've got to keep all this stuff. But, you know,

32:28

Cadence just doesn't know how much she means to me. She is, there's, there's really something special about that young lady.

32:34

She is, I'm looking forward to having all of them. Um, but I've got to get some super duper cool guy toys for Waylon.

32:42

Cause that poor guy. Yeah. I know. I mean, I mean, Eric does everything he can to do the testosterone thing.

32:47

Yeah. He is surrounded by a lot of girls. Right. Yeah. He needs, he needs some guns. Well, and there's something, there's something special about your grandson.

32:55

Your first grandson. It's different than the granddaughter. He's 1000 % boy. Yeah. Oh yeah.

33:01

All the way. That's good. Anyways, here, here, everyone tunes in to find out. I'm doing the grandpa thing about, about Christmas.

33:09

That's okay. It's a side that people don't usually get to see of you. I don't even know how long we've been going.

33:15

I don't either. Do you need to head out sometime soon? Do we have time for one more question? Oh, of course. Of course.

33:21

It's also, again, sorry to disappoint anyone. It's really not like the most, right.

33:26

But I asked Summer. So. I got some theology into that last one. You did. You've been, he knows what he's doing.

33:32

I can ask him anything and he'll turn it into a theological talk.

33:38

It's great. It's a talent. So I asked Summer this. I was just going to ask you, what is your last meal?

33:46

Oh, you mean as if I was going to have a last meal. I was going to say the last meal I just had is really boring.

33:53

I guess. Yeah. That question. I actually, it was two eggs with cheese in a low carb tortilla wrap.

34:02

If you are on death row. Yeah. The death row thing. Yeah. I know. Not that you would be.

34:10

That's a good question. Streets of New York? No, no.

34:15

I do streets of New York spaghetti. I do love their pasta, but I just do that to do some carb loading before long rides and stuff like that.

34:23

It's not because it's my favorite thing in the world. My dad's turkey and dressing.

34:29

Summer's probably told you about it. I've got pictures of when we get that turkey out on Thanksgiving and Christmas, we used to anyways, when everybody lived here.

34:40

I don't know how he did it because I've tried and failed miserably to replicate his dressing, but I don't know how he got that much dressing into one turkey.

34:52

I mean, it's almost physically impossible to create the volume of dressing by stuffing it.

35:00

There's just, there's not enough room in there. I'm sorry. I don't know how he did it. Well, he put it all around it too. Okay. But our favorite part of Thanksgiving and Christmas would be once it's coming out, snatching the especially overcooked portions.

35:14

Oh, the real crispy. The real crispy. I've got video of Summer, you know, doing this thing and all of us are doing it.

35:22

And we almost, you'd almost not eat much turkey because you had just stuffed yourself with stuffing.

35:27

Because that's the stuffing that he has, that he has made is there's, I've never tasted anything that even comes close to it.

35:35

You don't have the trick? He's tried to communicate it, but something hasn't, something hasn't worked.

35:43

It's sort of like Colonel Sanders, you know, you can, you can try stealing it. It may not, it may not. But you're missing the special.

35:48

You're missing the secret ingredient or something. I don't know. Um, but, um, I would think that a turkey, uh, uh, my dad's turkey and dressing, um, especially when you would get the fresh kill turkey.

36:02

Oh my goodness, just melt in your mouth. So as long as you could have that and then get the, grab the crispy pieces.

36:09

Gotta have the dressing, gotta have the dressing. That would probably be, that'd probably be best. I think, I mean, his fried chicken,

36:15

I am fairly close. I can get fairly close to his fried chicken. Um, and that's what we used to that.

36:22

That was Sunday afternoon. Okay. Sunday afternoon was fried chicken and mashed potatoes and corn.

36:28

Okay. And if we went to Kansas corn on the cob, because my grandmother lived in Kinsley, Kansas, which is just surrounded by fields.

36:36

All corn. So whatever corn you got in Kinsley. Was good stuff. Had been on the stock a couple hours earlier.

36:44

And oh man, that was the best stuff on the planet. So, so, but let me, I've got to ask you, um, how long have you been doing

36:55

Sheologians now? Um, I think it's like, I lose track of,

37:02

I'm not a good at timelining. This is why I want you to teach a church history class because I'm really bad at timelining.

37:08

I'm not sure that I'm able to cover Sheologians in the church history class. You don't have to. And then we come to some of the major developments in social media ministry.

37:18

And we have to remember Sheologians. Well, if anyone would put it on the timeline,

37:24

I'm sure it would be you, but it's not necessary. But so I think it's been two full years as of October.

37:35

Um, so yeah, we, I think we probably knew about, well, I met

37:40

Summer just a few months before that. And we became, we'd only been friends a few months when we started

37:46

Sheologians. So obviously at first, you know, these things, when you do these things at first, you've got the hot topics that you're already focused upon and, and it's pretty easy to be philosophical.

38:04

Two years is a lot of topics. Oh yeah. And we've never missed a week.

38:09

I, yeah, I understand how that works. I miss weeks, mainly because I'm traveling.

38:15

You've also been going, by the time we've been going for a decade, we'll probably have missed some too.

38:21

I would assume so. I would assume so. A childbirth may have something to do with that. But what have you, what have you, now that you have to, you have to do some work now.

38:34

Yeah. You have to do some work now because at first it's all fun and games. Then all of a sudden you've got people that are listening and they want new material and they are supporting you.

38:48

And there are people that are taking their time to post this material and do graphics for you. And all of a sudden you've got a job.

38:54

Yeah. And what have you, what have you learned about each other now that you have to sort of work harder at doing stuff?

39:07

Well, so I think what's come out, well, and this is obviously just my perspective on it, but I think what really has been revealed to me is that,

39:20

I don't even know if I'm going to say this correctly. Maybe you can help me. But I think that Summer's like very solid upbringing comes out in like her memorization of scripture and like knowing theological concepts and stuff that are maybe a little bit more off the beaten path.

39:42

And then I have always been like a thinker and very sort of like philosophical and I just think something until I know,

39:50

I think about it until I like know what I, how I want to say it and what it really, really means.

39:56

And so you don't necessarily think in the same way. Right. Right. But so I think that,

40:01

I think that those two, I think you have like what comes, what

40:09

I'm really starting to see is Summer has like this, she's like the solid, solid foundation and the like black and white person for us.

40:20

And she, you know, you, she's told me before that you said you have the bedside manner of a rhinoceros. And I think she would say she has the same, that she got that from you.

40:30

She's a female obviously. So I'm sure she's a little, a mother rhinoceros maybe, the bedside manner of.

40:38

But so yeah, I think we, I always knew that we offered like a balance to one another and there was a sort of a compliment that happened between us, but that's just becoming more and more apparent and.

40:51

Yeah. If you were, if you were identical, this would never work. Right. Yeah. It could never work. I've seen people who started off cause everybody's like,

40:59

Oh, you guys, you know, you're right on the same page. And then it all, it all broke down because there was, there wasn't enough difference to, to allow for friction and all the stuff that comes from having to sometimes work hard to get stuff put together.

41:14

Yeah. I mean, it's, uh, uh, it takes work and, uh, and then you get opposition and you get criticism and you get, you know, all the rest of that kind of stuff.

41:23

I've never had opposition. No, never. You're just like always right in the middle, no one, even right under the radar.

41:29

James White. Everybody just, uh, I Google my name and nothing but salt and lime.

41:37

Yeah. I've often said if I believed 5 % of what I read about myself on the, on the web, I'd slap myself.

41:43

Right. It's pretty amazing. But yeah, there has to be that little bit of a, of, of difference. So, so how is, how is the program different now than it was the first few months?

41:54

Well, I mean, it was, we started out trying to do a micro podcast. So we, our episodes were 15 to 20 minutes long.

42:01

Yeah, that's right. And it's funny cause I've since gone back and, or I've stumbled across some criticisms of our first episodes.

42:10

And I mean, if anything, doing Sheologians has taught me a lot about, um, like how things work around here just for my job.

42:17

Um, and just in those first few podcasts, everyone who's avid podcast listeners, just go into it with an open mind.

42:24

Like in three months, this podcast that you're listening to could be completely different, you know, um, obviously, right.

42:33

Yeah. That's more often. Yeah. So at this point we go 45 minutes to an hour if we have a lot to do and we're busy and the episodes aren't, are only half an hour.

42:45

Sometimes that's okay for us. Just depending on what we've got going on. Or if you've got people that you're interviewing, a few, which

42:53

I've helped to make happen. Thank you for that. And I, there's one

42:59

I haven't even had a chance to listen to and I keep forgetting to go because I've got to grab it out of the archives to throw it on my iPod to listen to.

43:05

But I want to hear Dr. Kruger. Oh yeah. Because I'm not sure if you saw the, um, he and I last year at G3, uh, we did an early morning session on the canon of scripture.

43:19

Wow. So he and I together and, um, we, we sort of wonder if it was just gonna be he and I talking to like two geeks, uh, sitting down the front row.

43:27

Cause it was like eight o 'clock in the morning, places packed out. Wow. And, um, it has proven to be a really, really helpful episode because he's just brilliant.

43:40

Um, but I, I provide a little more of the humor. Yeah. And, uh, and so, uh, but since I know where he's coming from and we're, we're on the same page as far as the theological nature of the canon and stuff like that, it's really helped a lot of folks to, to understand that subject.

43:55

So when, uh, when I got a note from Summer, Hey, could you, uh, hook me up with, uh,

44:01

Michael Kruger? I'm like, yeah, yeah. Yeah. We've had, we've had the opportunity.

44:06

Yeah. I mean, it just all, like we've been even just blessed with a resource, you know, summer has gotten in touch with people on Twitter.

44:15

Many times, you know, a lot of people, I think Jason Lyle was one of yours. Yeah. I was on mine. Yeah. And that was a great, it's all there.

44:22

You know, a lot of smart people. It's cause you're smart. We run into each other once in a while, we're running around out there.

44:29

And, uh, but it's neat to hear them in another context, you know, uh, talking in this context.

44:35

And I, I know someone like Michael Kruger, that's not the normal thing he's doing. Right. He's running, you know, he's the president of RTS in Charlotte and he's, so he's running in with the big dogs and stuff, but it's good for everybody to have an opportunity to sort of spread their message out to folks.

44:52

And, uh, so, but, um, I, so one more question and we'll wrap up.

44:58

Okay. Um, but this is a semi serious one. Okay. Um, I would love to find out, uh, and I, I sort of playfully threw this out at summer, but I think because the kids were around, she didn't really bite on it.

45:15

But so I'll ask you, um, obvious. Okay. Let me put a preliminary question.

45:23

Which of the two of you would be the debater? Um, I'm going to say summer.

45:31

Okay. All right. Not an overly shocking response. Um, so who would you like to see summer debate for her first debate?

45:45

If there was someone who wanted to set that up, let's put it in a different context.

45:51

Let's say, who would you like to see her debate in London? Are you having a, do you have a connection that can make this happen?

46:02

Um, yeah, yeah. Oh, interesting. See, that's hard because I would really, this isn't a slam on, um, uh, any

46:18

Christian feminists out there, but I don't know if they would necessarily be a challenge.

46:24

So I'd almost want to go with like a secular feminist that knows, or maybe even someone that almost sort of lines up with, with some stuff that we believe.

46:35

I mean, have some common ground. Like Camille, uh, is her,

46:40

I always hear Paglia, but I heard it pronounced differently one time. And now I'm anyway. When you spell your last name like that, you do not have any grounds for objecting.

46:48

You're like white. Nobody will get this wrong. Um, so her, maybe.

46:54

I mean, then of course, a part of me wants to say Jordan Peterson, but I don't know if she would ever. Well, I've, I know people who want to see he and I have a dialogue.

47:05

I just, I want her to have that. Like, I want her to be able to say I debated.

47:13

So, so what about, uh, like just today I tweeted out about the most incredible statement about transgendered people from Jory Micah.

47:28

That was just, I mean, I, I, I, I tweeted it with something about, you know, terminal velocity, heresy or something along those lines.

47:38

Yeah. So you've got, you've got Rachel held Evans and you got. So see, that's where I think that's the first, like where my first instinct goes.

47:45

And I guess I, what I fear in those is that it would just become like a weird semantics argument or just, you know, like it would kind of devolve into nothing.

47:56

Like it would be really, I was for like a fruitful, fruitful debate. I would want for her to have someone that's like more on her level, but I do think that people, if it was, if it was like moderated and stuff,

48:10

I think that I think that Rachel held Evans would probably be my, my choice for her.

48:16

They don't seem to be the types of folks that are real big into that type of thing. I see them doing it, but yeah,

48:22

I would, I would love to love to see that happen. Cause, um, I'm gonna be in London a lot. This, uh,

48:28

I've just, London is sort of the jumping off spot for almost any place else you go in the world. Yeah. When I went to Israel, the

48:34

Tel Aviv flight went through London. If I go to Scotland, it's through London. It's a London Heathrow is just booming the place.

48:40

Yeah. And so, um, looking at some debates with Muslims and hopefully debate on, uh, reform theology in London.

48:50

And, uh, so yeah, you know, it's sort of like, you know, while you're there, you can talk to other folks.

48:56

And cause I happen to know that someone would really like to visit London at some point. Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

49:02

Yeah. I know that someone would really, really enjoy that. So if there was a, if there was a, uh, you know, cause once you've got an event or something like that, then you can try to find funding.

49:14

That type of thing. There's a more of a push to actually get it done. Yeah. So that could be, that could be interesting.

49:20

We'll see. That's exciting. Super exciting. So, so, so do you think we should, we should let

49:26

Summer know that she might want to watch this? Yeah. Yeah. We'll have to tell her that. Whenever it drops, then let her know.

49:32

Yeah. This is an important one to, to check. I mean, she'll see that it's, that it's the two of us and she'll watch it anyway, but.

49:41

Just out of self -preservation because she's going to go, okay, what did they say about me? Right. Yeah. I know.

49:46

I know. Do you have any funny stories about Summer before you leave? Well, you know what, a really sweet one real quick.

49:54

That is, is funny is I don't know if you've seen the videos that she posted recently of Jannie.

50:00

Oh, uh -huh. But Jannie's all into the Yellow Ranger, the Yellow Power Ranger.

50:06

Now I, while I was up there, I actually saw the current version of Power Rangers.

50:12

And the stunning thing here is I had to watch that when she was that, when she was like five.

50:19

It was significantly better than it is now.

50:25

Over the past 25 years. I mean, that is, and that's saying a lot.

50:31

Yeah. That's saying a lot. But what's, what's funny is here's Jannie and she's all into the

50:37

Yellow Power Ranger. I have a picture someplace and they have it up there and I have probably on my phone amongst the other 17 ,000 pictures, which means you can't find anything anymore.

50:47

Right. Um, but I have a picture of Summer's first day of kindergarten and she is in the full

50:56

Yellow Ranger, uh, suit when she went to the first day of kindergarten. That's how she wanted to go.

51:01

It was the Yellow Power Ranger. Yes. She was the Yellow Power Ranger. And she was just the cutest, cutest button.

51:08

And that's her little blonde hair. She was really a, just all yellow, all yellow and just smiling as sweet as can be.

51:15

And so she went to her first day of kindergarten as the Yellow Rangers. So, and now Jannie is, now is there, is that genetic?

51:22

Yeah. She must have passed it on. Did she pass it on? I don't know. But, um. Well, now we have

51:27

Sheologian's Yellow. Sheologian's Yellow? Yeah. Like that, the yellow you see in our branding is all the same and we call it

51:35

Sheologian's Yellow. I'm sure that someone else has a different name for it, but yeah. So that's like our number one brand color is, and it's basically bright yellow.

51:43

And maybe it's because of her fantasy that she would really like to be the Yellow Ranger.

51:49

Yeah. She's just, it's been there all along. It's been there all along. So yeah, I've got other, I've got other stories like, you'll have to ask her sometime about what

51:58

Laser Wars is like. Oh. Yeah. Ask her about Laser Wars. Okay. I'll ask her on the next, the next time we do

52:04

Sheologian's. Okay. Ask her about Laser Wars. Laser Wars. So, well, thank you. I'm sorry for anyone who's sitting there going,

52:10

I wanted a discussion of CBGM and tactile variance in the New Testament, because that's what

52:15

I expect from you. I get people like that. Right. It's like, you just always got to be digging deep into something or refuting.

52:24

You didn't say a single negative thing about our minions today. You know, there are people like that.

52:31

It's like, lighten up, man. You cannot possibly live your life like that. Every once in a while, you got to climb into your yellow

52:37

Power Ranger outfit and just just go take on some of those really generally dumb, evil monsters.

52:48

They're not the brightest folks on the planet. So that's probably helpful. But anyways, so hopefully this will also give a little time, a little more time for Jeff to get back.

53:00

I imagine that Luke and Zach and probably his wife are all waving their fingers at him saying, no, not so fast, bucko, you need to rest up.

53:13

And so hopefully this will help push off things a little bit and take a little pressure. It will.

53:18

Thank you. Enjoyed it. Thank you for the excellent questions. Thank you for joining us.

53:24

And how do you, I don't know how he normally, you all normally just sort of let it die almost. You have music.

53:29

Yes. So. And usually he's usually just says, talks about supporting us through all access.

53:36

Yes. On apologiestudios .com. He also usually encourages people to check out unabortionow .com.

53:44

We'll have a lot, you'll be hearing a lot of updates from unabortionow .com, especially as we come towards the end of the year.