Truthscript Tuesday: Confronting Evil

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It is

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TruthScript Tuesday. I'm your host, John Harris. We have a few things I wanted to share by way of announcement, and I'm actually streaming this to both the

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Conversations That Matter YouTube channel and the TruthScript YouTube channel currently, as well as X.

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At least it's supposed to be on X. It's giving me a warning or a problem notification for X.

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I don't know why that is. So maybe I'm not on X, but we're on Rumble. We're on Facebook. And I want to make an announcement to everyone.

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The church search feature is operational now. So for all of you who have been looking for a populated map of churches that aren't woke, have taken very solid stands against social justice, this is a great week to announce that with Megan Basham's book out and all the flack she's getting.

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Patrick Sims says I am on X now. So, okay. I think my personal

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X account is streaming this, but not the TruthScript account. So I'm not sure what's up with that.

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But anyway, this is a great week to make this announcement. So if you go to TruthScript, I'm just going to show you real quick where you can find this right now.

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It's a banner. So if you go to TruthScript .com and you scroll up to the top, it says looking for a church, click here.

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You click there and it comes up with a map of the United States. And of course there's also some,

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I think there's a church. Yeah, I'm not mistaken. There was a church I thought in Canada, but it looks like maybe

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I was mistaken on that. But at least within the United States, there are a number of different churches.

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Now we're still populating the map. Some of you, this might not look like a whole lot, but we want to vet as much as we possibly can, the churches that are submitted, which does take some time.

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In fact, one of the guys who was inputting this data, he told me one of the churches apparently had a number of female pastors or something like that, that was submitted.

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And so we obviously didn't put that church on the map, but there are a number of churches that are there and there should be, if it's not there, it should be there tomorrow.

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Because I asked our web designer who graciously donates his time to make sure that there's a way, while we're still working on this to some extent, to input a church.

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Because there is going to be a way to automatically submit a church to this and be able to manage that church through a let's .church,

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which is the website that's hosting this, Ken Powers, the one that designed all that.

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But he's still working on the input. So the map works fine, but inputting it from a user -friendly standpoint isn't that easy.

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So we have a form that we've had up on the website for people to just put the information about the church and that should be there tomorrow.

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Because I think the web designer thought we were done with that maybe and took it down, but we're going to have it back up.

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So anyway, if you're looking for a church that's not woke, this might be something to consider. So not all areas have options, but some do.

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So if you're in Franklin, Tennessee, there's one. If you're outside of Greenville, South Carolina, there's one. If you're outside of Atlanta, there's two.

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There's a number of them in Virginia. So check it out, truthscript .com.

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This is just the beginning of that. And the other thing, of course, I wanted everyone to know about both on my channel, the

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Conversations That Matter channel and Truthscript is the conference coming up, the

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Fundamentals Conference. You can go to fundamentalsconference .com. You need to come to it if you're a man and you are able to, and you live in the area.

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We've got great teaching, great fellowship. I had a great meeting with the speakers, at least most of the speakers the other day, and talked about what our topics are going to be.

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And I'm really excited about it. It's going to be great. September 27th through September 29th. At Camp of the

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Woods in beautiful Speculator, New York. You definitely don't want to miss it if you're a guy. Fundamentalsconference .com.

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And my email address is there somewhere. I think scroll down to the bottom, contact.

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It'll take you to my email. So there you go. All right. Let's see.

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What else? Those are the two major announcements. Oh, I do have one. I'll launch

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Truthscript. And I'm not going to tell you the name of it yet. That's top secret. We do have a name.

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But we are going to be announcing soon who the co -host is going to be, along with myself, to start it out.

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And I'm excited about it. It's going to be a good podcast and more details coming.

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So that's one of the things that we're talking about. We're also working on two different conferences for next year and the year after that.

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So you can pray for us in the planning stage of those things. So anyway,

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Barry Moss asks, who did you say is vetting these churches? Well, Truthscript is. Truthscript, the organization, as best we can.

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There's limited manpower here. But when we get a submission from someone out there who wants their church to be on the map because the church agrees with our statement of faith and has taken a solid stand against social justice, which

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I have said, because this is one of the main threats facing the church. And I've said, look, if your church went through 2020, and let's say they capitulated to BLM in 2020, and then they reverse course, but they didn't acknowledge it, we don't really want your church on the map.

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No offense. But we want people that are solid. So either you realize the error of your ways, the leaders apologized for what they did, or a church that stood strong the whole time.

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That's the kind of thing we're looking for. So only you can assess that. So we're looking for people who go to these churches and acknowledge we got a solid church here.

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And of course, you have to be Orthodox, you have to be an actual Christian church. So there you go.

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We have a lot of articles to talk about today. So I want to get to that, but wanted to make that announcement first.

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And that's it for now. If you have any questions during the podcast, please submit them in the stream.

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I know it's late. Most people are probably in bed now. But if you are up and you happen to be streaming with me, then please post a comment and I will get to it as soon as I possibly can.

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All right. Well, I didn't do a TrueScript Tuesday last week. So that means that we're going to do more articles this week.

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And we start off with one by Amy Simmons, a book review, Shepherds for Sale by Megan Basham.

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And Amy reviewed this on July 25th. And at least that was when this was published.

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And she does a great job. She talks about the background to all of this, what the book is about.

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Megan Basham unravels how the progressive left has infiltrated the conservative church through shadowy, non -governmental organizations, initiatives with benign sounding front groups that well -respected pastors, theologians, and parachurch leaders promoted under the banner of loving your neighbor.

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And she talks about Megan Basham's journalist background and why she brings some of that to the table, how she brings that to the table and how that's a good thing.

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She starts off with her first point, the divisive groups were right. The divisive groups were right. There's some vindication here for people who for years have been saying there's a problem in evangelicalism.

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Our leaders seem like they're aligned with the regime, meaning those who aren't our friends, who really are against what we believe.

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But it doesn't seem like the people at the top of our organizations represent us. They seem like they're embarrassed by us.

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And this book vindicates that. And it gives many examples of it. Talks about Danny Akin at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, which platforms climate alarmist,

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Jonathan Mu. Mu and his secular backer, A. Rocha, set their sights on the younger generation to start grassroots campaigns in churches in order to pressure the

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GOP to join the cause. And it's climate activism is what it is. She talks about Russell Moore and the evangelical immigration table, which is part of the

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Soros backed National Immigration Forum and a number of other things. These are just a few examples.

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Her second point is that unfit leaders cower under the progressive gaze, meaning that, and J .D.

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Greer is one of the big examples here, meaning that leaders in the church are very aware of themselves.

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They're aware that the media, secular God -hating media, looks at them and they want to somehow appease that.

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They want to, if they're going to be attacked, they want to lessen that attack. They want to couch the truth if they can to appeal.

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And she gives an example of J .D. Greer, where he talks about the main task as SBC president is to appoint people on committees who will then appoint trustees who end up shaping the institutions.

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Greer then goes on to give a typical DEI criterion of hiring mostly women and minorities. This type of posture falls under what

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Joe Rigney aptly calls living under the progressive gaze. It operates under the assumption that it's progressive sensitivities that we must take into account, progressive concerns, progressive hopes, and all of that.

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Basham talks about critical race theory quite a bit, and Greer, J .D. Greer again, culturally in 2019, he was the one who appointed the members of the committee that gave us

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Resolution 9 in the Southern Baptist Convention on Critical Race Theory and Intersectionality, which promoted them as useful analytical tools.

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And obviously Greer's not the only one talked about, but these are some of the examples that Amy wanted to give to us.

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And for those who are on X right now, you'll know that Neil Shenvey, who goes to Greer's church, and he's a member of Greer's church who's active on X, is very much trying to defend his pastor right now using what

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I would consider some very desperate moves, but he's essentially trying to show that Megan Basham is in her work using sources that don't really say what she's saying they say.

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But if you look at all the sources, it's perfectly reasonable for Megan to draw the conclusions that she does.

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For example, people leaving J .D. Greer's church, and he complains about the political allegiances are leading to this, and Megan Basham talks about how people who were concerned about wokeness left

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Greer's church. Well, that was the context in which this happened. Greer was pushing the needle left, and there were some people who left his church, but Neil and others on X want to say that he was just saying politics in general.

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This wasn't necessarily woke -ism. So getting very, very obtuse,

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I would say, trying to get very specific in the details and then show that if Megan summarizes something, which really all academic pursuits require some summarization.

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You have to understand the context in which things were written, which Megan, I think, does a great job at, but it's trying to find any slight deviation that you can possibly find where Megan might have said something that doesn't have to be construed the way she said it.

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If you ignore some context or if you take other things someone said and then try to pigeonhole those into the quote that Megan's drawing from and that kind of thing, that's what's happening on X right now.

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So it's a current controversy, and this review was from a few weeks ago, but as you can see, this is still being talked about quite a bit.

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Third point is that everything is political. She talks about COVID -19, talks about Francis Collins, who used fetal cell research, who was behind some of that and is a staunch ally of the

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LGBTQ movement, but he was platformed and friendly with a number of evangelical heavyweights, including

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Tim Keller, Rick Warren, N .T. Wright, Russell Moore, and Ed Stetzer, and was favorably written about in Christianity Today and Relevant Magazine.

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So do with that what you will. She talks about people that are funding, driving the train left, but also donors, leftist donors who are funding things like Pierre Audemars.

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Her fourth point, Amy's fourth point, is untethered empathy imports false ideologies, and this is a general posture in evangelical leadership, that since we're more feminized, we've seen a propensity of leaders to cater to the whims of those who are led by their emotions, and so she attributes some of this compromise to that, and her conclusion is that this will not be shocking to those who know what time it is, but for those who have not been paying attention, this is an important book.

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You need to read it and check it out. So Shepherds for Sale can be ordered from HarperCollins.

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We had a few articles. We had two articles on the Olympics. One is by my brother and the president of TruthScript, David Harris.

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Blasphemy of Olympic Proportions is the title of this, and really talks about this opening sequence that the

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Olympics put out there, where they really, there was a reenactment in some ways of the

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Feast of Dionysius, but also with imagery that was purposely meant to invoke images of the

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Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci, and then of course, in addition to that, you had a man or a woman,

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I guess, who had taken hormones and had a beard doing very provocative things, and you had Marie Antoinette in a decapitated pose.

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It was just, it was grotesque. It was the enemy of everything true, good, and beautiful, but there was a blasphemous display, and so David wrote about some takeaways, and he brings us through some history here, that French Revolution set the nation on an immediate trajectory of near constant political and social upheaval, and murdering, exiling thousands of French Protestants in 1572.

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France's relationship to Christianity has ebbed and flowed over the centuries. It's been generally recognized that Christendom is at the heart of the

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French national identity though, and they've seen a lot of immigration and so forth, and there's areas that have increased demand for Sharia law, but the elites want to take shots at Christianity, and he makes the point that the

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French political social system is not run by Muslims or Christians, but by a conglomeration of secular liberals committed first and foremost to sexual deviancy, and that's what they wanted to present to the world, and they can't really criticize

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Islam without there being problems, so they threw Christianity overboard. Second point

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David makes is that global unity is a farce. The Olympics began in 1896. There was a revival of ancient

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Greek games. The first games were almost exclusively represented by European nations.

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It was a peaceful competition, and this wasn't enough to unite nations, especially those that had nothing in common culturally, socially, politically, and spiritually, whereas some games really have served to highlight the triumph of the physical capacity

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God has given to humans. 2024 in Paris is awash in sabotage, civil, social unrest, and physical, spiritual darkness.

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There isn't unity. There isn't fraternity. There isn't liberty. The Christian framework that the original games operated in is what made these things possible.

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Wars not only rage but escalate during the games, putting into clear view the words written in Psalm 2 that the kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together against the

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Lord and against his anointed, saying, let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us.

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He who sits in the heaven laughs. The Lord holds them in derision, and then number three, the battle lines are not as they seem, so 10 years ago the

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Olympics were held in Russia. The opening ceremony featured an array of artistic representations of Russian culture, and the 2024

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Olympics have barred Russia over the word Ukraine, meaning the games are very much Western in style and influence compared to 2014, but the foreign ministry spokeswoman,

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Maria Zakharova, criticized several things concerning the games, and notably the blasphemous opening ceremony, calling it a mockery of the sacred story of Christians.

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Amid a monumental election of the U .S., American Christians have been instructed by their politicians and church leaders that Russia represents an existential threat, but the same rhetoric is repeatedly used to maintain support for Israel in its struggle against Hamas.

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While these situations are not remotely the same, there's a profound disconnect between calls for solidarity with Western or Western -aligned nations, including

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France, and the blatantly obvious truth that most of the leaders, those nations look upon the

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Christians in their countries with other contempt and scorn, and we need to be vigilant as Christians.

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We need to recognize this desecration, and by the way, the Olympic committee did pull it from YouTube because of social pressure, which is good, but Christians in political or social positions of influence need to not be timid about punishing such evil, and I'm glad that social pressure was able to be applied.

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The most important thing for Christians to remember is to not fall into despondency or be overwhelmed. We live in an exciting time in a way, and God is in control.

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He sits above the circle of the earth and its inhabitants, looks at the inhabitants, and they're like grasshoppers.

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He stretches out the heaven like a curtain and spreads them like a tent to dwell, and he brings princes to nothing and makes the rulers of the earth his emptiness.

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Now, I want to go to the next article on the Olympics. This is by Will Spencer, and Will Spencer makes a great point about imagery in this.

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He talks about symbols being important, rings. He talks about Lord of the Rings, but this wedding ring.

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These are some symbols we find important, but there are certain forms of Christianity, namely evangelical

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Christianity, and I would say the streams of Christianity most affected by Puritanism probably would fall into this.

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They're very skeptical about images and symbols, and they want to avoid idolatry.

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Of course, you had iconoclasm early on with the Puritan movement, and the churches they built tend to be devoid of a lot of those kinds of things, but it's impossible to be completely devoid of images, and images are important.

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Evangelicals generally reject the use of symbols, and for good reason, because what I take from a symbol is not the same as what someone else will.

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That ambiguity is one reason why symbols cannot be an infallible source of authority. Jesus said in John 20,

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Thomas, because you have seen me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believed.

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Then Paul later writes, faith comes by hearing and hearing of the word of God, so evangelicals tend to prioritize the scriptures. That said, even evangelicals can't avoid the use of symbols.

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Ixus fishes, for example, the dove to represent the Holy Spirit and the cross. Unfortunately, evangelical illiteracy towards symbols has wide -ranging effects.

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Protestants only discover the value of symbols of their heritage once a symbol has been misused, which is exactly what happened at the

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Olympics. The symbol was misused, and finally, they found an offense to something that they weren't probably that aware of, or at least it wasn't something that they found to be that important, but all of a sudden, they realized what's going on.

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The world, the pagan left, definitely understands the importance of symbols, and symbols rule the world.

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That's the next point. Christians were outraged at what they saw, but Will Spencer says,

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I don't think they understood what was happening. They instinctively knew it was bad and knew they should be mad, both of which were correct responses, but without comprehending what the moment was trying to communicate,

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Christians did not get mad enough. They saw it as a failing of the

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Olympic organizers, rather than a failing of the pastors and Christian institutions that had betrayed them for generations, a betrayal which

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God once again bailed his people out of. Let me explain, he says. The Last Supper performance featured an obese lesbian

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DJ, Barbara Butch, standing in the place of Christ, and she, anyway,

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I'm not going to get into the description of Butch, but the choice of Butch, a Jewish female musician, to stand in for Jesus, a

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Jewish male laborer, cannot have been a coincidence. And there were drag queens surrounding her, there was actually a guy with his genitalia hanging out,

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I mean, sick stuff. Afterward, defenders of the performance attempted to claim that the performance was merely a reenactment of the

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Feast of Dionysius, but even ESPN acknowledged that the scene was meant to recreate the

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Last Supper. It's not difficult to see why Christians would interpret this as a mockery. I also think, he says, their reading of the performance misses the mark, because following the outrage that accompanied the performance, a strange thing happened.

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The Olympics issued a statement that the organizing committee never had any intention to show disrespect towards any religious groups at all.

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Many understandably took this statement to be a lie. You might not believe this, but I think the statements are true insofar as they go.

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And he says, on the one hand, yes, they weren't trying to mock the faith. On the other hand, the statement leaves out what they believe they were trying to do, lay claim to a treasured

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Christian symbol, absorb it, and make it one of their own. Put simply, what Christians witnessed was an elite attempt to syncretize

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Christianity into the globalist transgender religion, the globo homo. The elites were trying to say, this is ours now.

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And with the new owners being women, gay men, and transgenders accompanied by their favorite audience, little children. Seeing this way, the use of the

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Last Supper imagery wasn't an offensive mockery of Christ. It was an attempt to supplant the risen Lord in his own story, saying in effect, we appreciate your contribution to humanity,

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Jesus, but lesbians, gays, and transgenders will be sitting on your throne now. So this is a really profound point,

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I think. And it's okay to be mad at this. And he goes on and I'm going to probably, because of time, not read the end of this, but he lands the plane saying, well,

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Christians, institutions, and leaders in the name of pietistic Gnosticism and urban winsomeness continue to blanch at hurting the feelings of fat women and gays who are playing with our symbolic language like a children plays with matches.

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Because God in his infinite mercy clearly lit the elites on fire this time, next time we might not be so blessed.

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So he's just saying, Christians should be very concerned about these things. These things really do matter.

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Symbols do matter. And it's not some of the reactions to this that I saw were just very individual.

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Like, you know, this is, this is evil. This is wrong. These people need to come to the Lord, which is absolutely true.

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But there, there is more than just personal salvation. You know, someone's personal salvation at play here.

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There's, there's something, there's an overarching attempt by the enemy, by satanic forces to co -opt

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Christian symbols, to distort them, to, to, to profane them, that that's also a genuinely tangible evil that's going on here.

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So we, we also had a few articles. And again, the theme of this one is standing against evil.

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We've already talked about standing against shepherds for sale in the church. We've talked about the blasphemy of the

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Olympics of standing against that. I wanted to talk about standing against the modern world somewhat, the modern society.

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I can't get into this too deeply. This is too, we could do a whole podcast just on this article. This is one of the reasons you should subscribe.

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When you go to truestrip .com, make sure you subscribe to the email list. Make sure that you share the articles that you think are interesting on social media or by email with your friends.

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Make sure that you subscribe to the YouTube channel and the iTunes. It's I think truestrip live on iTunes, and you can find truestrip

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Tuesday on YouTube and subscribe. That all helps us. But this article is, I asked actually

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Kruptos to write this. Kruptos is a, that's an anonymous account, but the guy behind it is a very thoughtful man.

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And at least, well, I guess maybe I doxed him now. Did I do? I mean, I think everyone kind of knew it was a man judging by the way that he writes.

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But anyway, Kruptos has an article, why you should read Jacques Ellul's political and social works.

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And let me just, because he goes through a bunch of these writings by Jacques Ellul, the technological society, the technological bluff, propaganda, the formation of Penn's attitudes and the political illusion and the autopsy of revolution, these, and just gives you kind of a summary and why they're significant.

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Let me just tell you what, what I think of this. I think

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Jacques Ellul is important for Christians. And it's not because he's, he's not an evangelical

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Christian. He's just is a very prescient thinker. And when he looks at the modern world, he sees things, he's very good at observing things that a lot of people don't tend to observe.

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Namely the way that technique is used, the technological society, this penchant we have for systems and rationalizing things and coming up with systems to apply to things.

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And this is really what gave us the managerial revolution. It's what produced what, when we complain about quote unquote,

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Big Eva, that's what we're talking about. And so that's really, I think the importance of Jacques Ellul is understanding his critique of modernity and the systems and the propaganda that modernity puts out there to give the impression that you can somewhat transcend using technology.

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You can transcend the, some of the natural things that God has put into this world and, and really, you know, come up with your own systems for what a hierarchy should look like and what a society should be run on and what a family should do.

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And all of these kinds of things we are dealing with right now, it all comes back to this kind of optimism for technology and the progress of technology and what it can do for our lives and wanting newness.

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And so Jacques Ellul just kind of brings you down to earth and shows you that there's actually a lot of problems these things bring that we don't necessarily think of.

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And it's not even just that they're, it's a pro and a con, like you have the internet and there's good things and there's bad things.

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That's true. But when you have the internet, it also presents things that it doesn't matter if you're using it for good or for bad, there's, there's going to be an effect on you.

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In other words, you could be looking at pornography or you could be, let's say, reading the Bible on the internet, right?

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Those are two things you can do. One is good and one is bad, but no matter which one you're doing, you're still using the internet.

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And because of that, there are consequences. And you become dependent on something.

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Let's say your notes are all online, right? For studying the Bible, you become dependent on that. It wires your brain, or at least it shapes the way you think about things.

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So these are fairly abstract things to think about and fairly deep.

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So I would just recommend you go and read that because I don't have the time to go over the whole thing now. And frankly, it's fairly complicated stuff if you're not, if you're not a philosopher, but I wanted him to break this down for a layman.

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And so that's why Kruptos wrote it. So check that out. There were three articles by Robert Zink on needing to read more curiously or reading in general.

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The first one was called needing to read more curiously. And I'm not going to go over these in detail, but I just want to say this is one of the things that true script puts out there that I think is very practical.

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These are the kinds of things that people need to be exposed to. You know, a lot of people today aren't reading because of, this is a good transition from Jacques Ellul, but because of technology, we just don't really read.

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And reading is very important. Reading, you can stop, you can think about what you just read, you can digest it. It's a different, it shapes your mind in different ways than watching videos does.

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And listening to me even does. Not that it's wrong to listen to me. I think it's, it's good, but reading is important.

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And so anyway, so in this first article by Robert Zink, he talks about the, really the building block for getting started with reading.

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You need to be somewhat curious. And if you're a curious reader, if you're someone who is inquisitive, you ask questions, you you're interested, fascinated, you're seeking and searching for answers you desire to know, then this is a positive thing.

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You can start the process of study when you have that mindset. It's essential for reading.

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The curious reader seeks to connect knowledge to life. And so ask questions, even about the

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Bible, um, assess the information you're taking in, act on the information.

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So apply it. I mean, these are pretty basic things, but these are things that we're losing as a society. We're just, you're watching a little video.

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That's a one, two minute tick talk, right? And you're not, are you going through these things are now it's affecting you, but are you putting it through the filter of your mind?

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Are you asking questions about it? Are you assessing it? Are you acting on it? Or are you just absorbing it uncritically?

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That would be a problem. And he wrote a, uh, another article here.

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Let's see here. Robert zinc wrote this article. Sometimes we need to read graciously three pieces of counsel for the

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Christian reader. If we're trying to read graciously, then obviously we have to read.

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So to say, don't read is counterproductive. However, uh, he says, I mean, refrain from reading with the primary purpose of disagreeing.

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This is a problem by the way. And you know, I'm someone who I've got to be especially aware of this kind of thing.

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Cause I'm constantly reading to be critical about something to critique.

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I'm looking for, this is the academic process. You're constantly engaged in this anyway. Uh, you,

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I remember classes I had in grad school where you're reading and as you're reading, you are required to come up with problems.

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And sometimes there was like a really good book we'd and really the gymnastics people would go to, to come up with problems in the book.

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He didn't emphasize this. He should have said this. They ought, you know, you're, it gives you a mindset. You gotta be careful of that.

32:44

You want to be, you want to be critical like in a wise way, but you don't want to be critical in a overly judgmental way where you are looking for fights, looking for disagreements, um, just because you think that everyone's wrong, essentially.

33:04

And I don't know after 2020 that, you know, you've been lied to by a lot of people. So I get it, but you gotta be careful of that spirit.

33:12

I'm not advocating. He says that we drop our discerning behaviors. We must interpret every piece of information upon God's revelation.

33:17

I'm advocating that a gracious reader doesn't seek disagreement first. That's all your motive in approaching the work.

33:23

Isn't just to seek disagreement. All right. Um, and by the way, most works, you know,

33:30

Tim Keller's books, which I don't recommend, but even in his books that I've read like generous justice and every good endeavor, you can read those books and there's some good things he has to say.

33:40

There's, there's bad things that he has to say, but there's good things he has to say too. And I think that's what a gracious reader can understand.

33:47

Once you purpose not to read for disagreement, start reading, but do so by giving the author your full attention.

33:53

This is another thing, you know, when the age of audio books, Kindle reading to you, sometimes you can absorb information, but you're not absorbing it well.

34:02

And I don't know how many books I've gone through on audible at like two or three speed because I need to get through it.

34:08

And I get, I just get maybe sometimes, you know, I retain what 10 % of what

34:14

I've read. So if you really want to dig into something and give it your full attention, give it your full respect, uh, and not everything is like that, but if you do, then you need to really reread and sometimes reread.

34:25

Uh, and that means giving yourself an another run through. Um, so good article by Robert zinc, uh,

34:35

Robert's thinks a thoughtful person and too busy to read a third article about reading. And he says, reading encourages relaxation.

34:43

There was a reason that so many people utilize reading as a tool for relaxation. A busy lifestyle is not often characterized by excessive activity only, by the way,

34:50

I have found this to be true. When you might say, I don't have time for it or what

34:55

I don't know, like I'll do something else that will really TV will relax me. Right? If you sit down and you read, just give it a try, go outside.

35:03

If you just start reading, there's a, it's relaxing. It is reading encourages character in a manifestation of his grace.

35:10

And by the work of the Holy spirit, our God uses reading to instill and develop character, um, convicting us not to be busy for the sake of being busy, convincing us to, to subdue busyness in our life and coaching us how to handle stress, anxiety, and tension.

35:24

And reading encourages prioritization, man, this is hitting me. This is hitting me. I need help in this reading imparts

35:30

God's will and wisdom so that we do not fill our lives with anything and everything. God's will and wisdom are crucial for discerning his priorities in our lives.

35:37

When we understand God's will and wisdom, we are better able to prioritize the tasks that create busyness in our lives.

35:43

We'll begin to bring our lives into more alignment with his, um, really what he's talking about is like defragging yourself.

35:50

If you defrag a computer reading helps you kind of defragment yourself, gather your thoughts, organize your thoughts, organize your life.

35:58

Uh, I really appreciate this actually from Robert zinc. And, um, in a way I feel like I'm breaking his rules by skimming through them that fast on a podcast, which is why, again, you got to subscribe to true script.

36:09

And if you see something that catches your eye, read it. And I understand not everyone has the time for this.

36:14

Some of you are commuting and you listen to this. So I get it, but if it's not reading articles on true script, you know, read the

36:20

Bible at least, right. Read somewhere. And then last but not least, I want to go through this article briefly called, uh, by Matt Borish, how to encourage your pastor.

36:28

Matt Boris is leading the music at the retreat this year at camp of the woods. You can go to fundamentals conference .com,

36:36

but he talks about this, such an important thing, the importance of encouraging a pastor. So many pastors,

36:41

I know this for a fact, cause my dad's a pastor. They do not get the encouragement they need and you need that.

36:48

So many jobs working can come home and be temporarily relieved from his vocation, but not pastors. That is so true.

36:55

Pastors are on call 24 seven. So I'm going to just skim through this, but he talks about submitting to the leadership of pastors.

37:04

And this brings joy to a pastor's heart. When you do this, right? Uh, compliment your pastor.

37:09

Don't flatter them, compliment them. You know, when they do something right, tell them that it's right.

37:14

Don't just say things to say things, offer critique or criticism privately and personally. That's a good rule of thumb.

37:22

Uh, when you, if it's your pastor at your church and they mess up somehow go to them first privately, unless it's like, you know, all out heresy and it's, you know, people are in danger right then you got to jump up,

37:32

I guess, but, um, don't gossip about it. I mean, if you're in talk to people, talk to people that can be part of the solution, not the problem, respect his time.

37:41

This is a huge one. Pastors are so busy. Don't waste their time. Um, don't put additional stress when you need your pastor, call your pastor, but do not spend copious amounts of time, uh, talking to the pastors, like after church, don't just think that your pastor has unlimited time to be with you.

38:00

They don't, uh, treat his family normally. And this is so good. It's like, and that's not even a pastor, but yeah,

38:07

I, I definitely had that fishbowl effect going. When I was a kid, I remember walking into rooms and people would stop with their conversation.

38:14

Cause they're probably talking about my dad and this is common for PKs. So just treat their family normally.

38:20

They're normal kids. They're normal. Don't hold them to a different standard than you would hold other families in the church.

38:26

Be loyal when they're challenged, give your pastor. In other words, the benefit of the doubt. And when your pastor takes courageous stand, stand with them.

38:35

This is really good. I really appreciate Matt brought a brush. He's, um, he's, he's a good friend.

38:41

So anyway, uh, there you go. True script .com. Those are the articles for this week. And, uh,

38:47

I guess I wasn't showing you my screen as I went through that. So there it is, Matt, uh, Boris, how to encourage your pastor. If you want to go check it out, we will be publishing an article tomorrow morning by Robert Gagnon on the shepherds for sale on this, on that topic.

39:01

But he's going to be talking about JD Greer's position on homosexuality, uh, over the years and really refuting

39:09

Nielsen. I think what Nielsen V is trying to do on X right now. So look out for that Robert Gagnon on true script tomorrow morning.

39:18

That's going to be a good article. And one that you're probably going to want to share. Now, if there's any questions out there, uh,

39:23

I would love to take them now. And then we will wrap things up because it's almost midnight. It won't be true script

39:29

Tuesday anymore. So, uh, username says there's not so many solid churches anymore.

39:35

That's true. That's why we're trying to come up with a list of ones that seem solid to us. My church is woke is not woke, but it's reluctant to call it any big named wokies by name.

39:45

I think they are many such cases. Yeah. Well, there's a lot of churches that, uh, you know, they,

39:50

I don't know. They, they don't, they don't want to be too controversial. It's a, it's a scary thing.

39:56

Megan has definitely stirred the evangelical pot with her book. Barry Moss says, um,

40:03

Jimmy starfish asked John, if a church is teaching is consistently not woke, but they won't call out the names of leftist evangelical leaders.

40:09

Are they recommended for the true script map? This is what I would say, Jimmy. I don't know what the answer is because it depends on their motive.

40:16

If like, you don't have to go and call up Tim, call out Russell Moore every Sunday from your pulpit or Tim Keller or Matt Chandler, whoever, like David Platt, you don't have to do that to be on the map.

40:29

I, in fact, I hope you don't do that. Um, if they refuse though, if they, if they know, like, like for example, if they have

40:35

Tim Keller books at their church and they've been approached and say, Hey, you know, you gotta be careful with Tim Keller because of X, Y, and Z.

40:41

And they refuse to call Tim Keller out, then I would say, do not put them on.

40:46

Don't submit your church, please. How do you submit a church? That's true. True script. That's a good question. Uh, I'm going to see if it's even available right now.

40:56

Um, it should be available tomorrow. So it was available up until today. So I, it's my bad because I said,

41:02

Hey, to the web designer could, who graciously gives us time. I said, Joel, could you just put up the true script map of churches?

41:12

We need to put it up there, even though we don't have a, uh, the submission thing worked out, but we had a form before where you could, you, it was just, it wasn't this streamlined submission form we wanted.

41:23

So I think he took that out temporarily because he didn't think we needed it anymore. So I'm going to ask him to put that back up.

41:29

So tomorrow it should be there, but you're just putting in the information about your church, you know, where it is, the website, that kind of stuff.

41:37

Uh, all right, well, I need to probably end the podcast. So I appreciate, um, everyone who participated in this.

41:47

Uh, did you see Doug Wilson debate posted on CN? I don't even,

41:53

I don't know what this is talking about. Sorry. No, I'm not aware of any debate. Can you comment more on Neil?

41:59

He, at times, uh, seems to be genuinely curious. Uh, read the article tomorrow from Robert Gagnon.

42:09

Uh, I, I've watched Neil over the course of years and I really wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt.

42:16

Um, and my conclusion at the end of the day, unfortunately, and this is really unfortunate because Neil out of the gate,

42:25

Neil was critical of, he wrote a, he was, well, this should tell you something. I guess his article went out with the gospel coalition, him and Pat Sawyer's article that was critical of critical theory, make of that what you will.

42:35

But he then supported resolution nine, which endorsed critical race theory and intersectionality as analytical tools in the

42:42

Southern Baptist convention. And I thought this is not good, but he would say things sometimes that were true were correct, at least somewhat critical of social justice stuff.

42:53

But his critique definitely comes from a more liberal mindset. That's my conclusion.

42:59

At the end of the day, his critique comes from a more liberal mindset, meaning a mindset. Uh, if you want to say classical liberal, you can,

43:06

I don't think it's completely classic liberal, but, but he's, he, he wants to be, he wants his allegiance to be to objective truth.

43:16

And he sees, uh, social justice or at least critical race theory as a threat to that because of the standpoint theory and, uh, the way that they have, they read reality through these lenses and so forth.

43:32

And there's more to his critique, but I think he sees that problem genuinely. But then what he ends up doing is, um, you know, like he goes along with some things.

43:44

I think the whole, I'm probably getting too deep into this right now. I probably should just send the podcast, but I'll say this in closing, like, you know, things like, uh, you know, race, race is a social construct or it's not, they're really, that's this critical race theory tenant, right?

43:59

According to Delgado. Uh, he'll kind of go along with that stuff or say things that sound like that.

44:04

And if someone contradicts that, like he'll, he sees that as, for lack of a better term, woke right, which is something

44:13

I think he came up with. And he tries to see parallels between genuine conservatism and social justice, which

44:19

I see as just not having a very long memory, like, like not being very grounded in the history of ideas and the history of, uh, of even our country and Western Civ and all that.

44:35

I just don't see him as someone who's very grounded in those things. He, he, he can nerd out on social justice books in the last 20 years or so critical race theory books, but I don't see him as someone who's very helpful in giving you a big picture.

44:49

And he's not going to critique liberalism. He can't seem to transcend his liberalism from what

44:55

I see in, of his interaction on Twitter. So that's my takeaway. Um, I don't want to not like him, but I, over time

45:02

I've, I've just seen him defend too many, what I would consider social justice advocates in the

45:07

SBC, including now his pastor, JD Greer, when they're indefensible and he just wants to seem to defend them.

45:14

And so whether or not he's critical of social justice, he seems to be helping, helping the people who are trafficking in the worst in his denomination.

45:24

So there you go, uh, do a podcast on the woke, right? It seems like a huge straw man. I already did

45:29

CJ angle, go check it out on conversations that matter. Uh, we did a podcast on woke, and we destroyed it.

45:35

So you can go check that out. And I think it totally refutes what Neil's trying to do, even though, uh, this was before Neil had written his article about it.

45:44

Uh, go to bed, John. That's probably good advice, Kirk. Thanks. I will try to go to bed. I do. I look tired.

45:49

I am. I am. I've been painting all day. Uh, well, like half the day, I guess. And, uh, and up on my roof and yeah.

45:57

So, um, the, the house looks pretty nice, but, uh, comes with a lot of effort. All right.

46:03

Well, uh, God bless. I will, uh, hopefully do another true script Tuesday next week. And don't forget about the men's retreat fundamentals, conference .com.