DEAD MEN WALKING TRIPLE EPISODE: Righteous Wretch, Reformed Dissenters, & Westminster Effects

Dead Men Walking

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exploring theology, doctrine, and all of the fascinating subjects in between.

00:09

Broadcasting from an undisclosed location, Dead Men Walking starts now.

00:17

I don't know if it's undisclosed right now. Welcome back to another episode of Dead Men Walking podcast.

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Guys, we're live at Fight Laugh Feast. Continuing the series, talking to interesting people, giving glory to God.

00:28

It has been amazing. And we have two gentlemen on today. It's Mr.

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Marcus and Mr., I almost called you Josh, see? We had that. That was different than the almost name before.

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Jason, Jason. I looked right at him and we had a discussion and I said, don't say Josh. Whatever you do, it's Jason in my head.

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And then of course, I looked right at him and it's Jason. Jason and Marcus, owners of Righteous Wretch.

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They're here at the conference. You guys, if you've listened to the podcast any amount of time, we've talked about them multiple times on the podcast.

00:59

Love these guys. You guys do all kinds of cool stuff, man. Your T -shirts are one of a kind. I wear them all the time.

01:06

Tell us a little bit about that journey and what you guys do besides just making

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T -shirts and other things. Give us a little insight. Oh yeah, okay,

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I can take that. So Righteous Wretch, you want our whole journey? Sure, why not?

01:24

Let's go long format. We got until what, two o 'clock until lunch? Maybe. Hopefully not.

01:30

Hopefully not. We started as a brand in 2015.

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Gentleman named Paul, visionary, artist. Ventriloquist.

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Yeah, just saying. Oh wow. Yeah, he's a barber. He's got a lot of kitschy talents.

01:49

You guys coming out with a new line of Reformed Dummies? Reformed Dolls is pretty soon, or? Hey, write that down, write that down.

01:56

Reformed Dummies, got it. So he, you know, he grew it to what it was, and we took it over in 2020.

02:07

Yeah, so we're two years in. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know what else you wanna know.

02:12

Yeah, so what makes you go, yeah, I wanna do an apparel company? Like, do you guys have a background in that, or is that just something you're interested in, or what?

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I think both of us have been always interested in doing apparel, but I was always a big fan since 2013 in my cage stage years of debating everybody and getting into the

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Reformed circles, and just fighting every single Armenian I could find. I love it. Online, and I came from Catholicism and the prosperity gospel before that.

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Oh wow, you got the extremes, buddy. Yeah, and actually I was debating a pastor. That's how I heard the true gospel. Beautiful.

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Yeah, so he brought me to the doctrines of grace, and then I was just on fire.

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I had to learn everything that he had to feed me. And yeah, so I found, 2015,

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Righteous Wretch, and just seeing Paul online before that, he was also debating people along with a bunch of other groups, and when he started that, and he started with the

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Spurge, which is hilarious, and then Still Fresh, and a couple other neat designs.

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It was something that, like, I don't have any tattoos, but if I was gonna get it, everything was a

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Righteous Wretch one. Right. So something that we always supported, and once it became available, when he was gonna close it down, 2019 to 20, we're like, we have to continue the tradition.

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We wanna be able to make products that spark gospel conversations, and really kind of poke the bear with a lot of misconceptions in theology, and maybe what the

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American church has bastardized. Sure. And so we want to actually state exactly what true theology and a true hermeneutical system leads to, and it's reform doctrine, so.

03:53

Yeah, absolutely. No, that's so good. It's funny that you say keep the tradition alive, and then also with your designs, my eight -year -old, his favorite shirt,

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I was telling you, I think yesterday, is the Spurge. I bought it a few years ago, probably right around the time you guys were switching over, yeah.

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And so it's far too small for him. It's basically a belly shirt, but you know how little boys are with their, like, favorite

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T -shirts and shorts? It's just tight, and he's wearing it around the Spurge. So I gotta get a new one from you guys, a little bit bigger.

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Since COVID, all my shirts are belly shirts as well. So it's okay. Hello, he's got jokes on the podcast.

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He'll be here all night. Make sure you tip your waitresses, guys. That's good, though. So you get into it, and I do have to say,

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I have many of your shirts, and I would encourage anyone who's listening, go to, is it reformsage .com?

04:44

Nope, it's Righteous Red. Reformsage. Reformsage, oh my gosh, I looked right over it. I'm sorry, that's

04:49

Nick from Reformsage. You guys are both pro -life, and I'm sorry, the promo's on my podcast. I'm getting it mixed up. Righteous Red, is it .com,

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though? It's not .org? Yep, yep. Okay, and go check them out, you guys, because I get the

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Sola series of shirts, which are just amazing. I have so many people come up to me and go, what language is that?

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What is that? And then, of course, I still always have a little cage stage in me, so then it's sermon time, you know, standing in the

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Meijer parking lot or the, you know, Aldi grocery line or something. So those are great, but so what are some challenges when you guys took this over?

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I mean, for, because we got a lot of people who are business owners in the audience, and they listen. I own a business, my co -host

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Jason couldn't make it here, he owns a business. Like, what are some of those challenges, not only just being a believer, but just in general for you when you take over a company and you're trying to grow it?

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Yeah, I think one of the biggest challenges with taking over an existing company is everybody does business differently.

05:49

Okay. So, A, we're figuring it out, right?

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I've owned other businesses, never apparel, never, like, trying to source products that people like that are quality, that are gonna last, you know?

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So where do we get those things? Yeah. How do we get them to you? You know, a lot of the back -end things like running our website, and doing taxes, and getting a license to do this, and a license to do that, and, you know.

06:27

So did you guys have mentors, or did you just kind of jump in, jump off the cliff and go, we'll figure it out as we go, or did you? In this particular industry, we didn't really have,

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I won't say any mentorship, but, you know, I come from a consulting background, too, and we both were in sales, you know, so I used to help merger and acquisitions in, like,

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Asiana countries, like Southeast Asia, and then I was in film, finance, and production for quite a few years, and then after being saved,

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I worked at Grace Community Church in Los Angeles, and then kind of switched it up and decided to be poor, and then when we moved to Phoenix.

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Time to own my own business and see if we're not homeless next month, let's go. Yeah, so we moved to Phoenix, and we were both working for a ministry -slash -vocation, doing lighting sales and also evangelism.

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What's lighting sales? Yeah, it's called Voss Lighting, so that's a plug. You're welcome, Mike. But they say it's sell to tell.

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Get right up on that mic for me, too. It's sell to tell, it's kind of like their motto, and so they do commercial lighting.

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Okay. And then you also are presenting the gospel as well with your clientele. I love it. Yeah, so.

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Do they have a van, and it says, I am the light of the world on the side of it? Did they use that verse? We should. They should have.

07:39

They should have. I feel like it's a little on the nose, but I would suspect it, you know? That would've been wise.

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So where are you guys based out of? Yeah, we're based out of Phoenix. Phoenix, the crazy west in Arizona.

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What's going on in that state, man? All of it. I mean, you guys, it used to be Florida was the number one

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Google search, and now it feels like you get just as much crazy stuff going on in Arizona, good and bad. But, you know,

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I like it. Yeah, it makes it mostly bad now. I think we're the test subject state of where the globalism is trying to infect the

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United States. Yeah, right. So it's interesting to see the dynamics and kind of turnover.

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Yeah. And since I moved there in 2019, and then since COVID, a lot of it, you can see who truly are from Arizona and have the conservative ideals and also the correct theological positions to be able to hold fast to something.

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Is Phoenix like a, is it a blue city? Is it like democratic in a more outlying conservative

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Arizona? I would say most of your downtowns are. Sure, yeah, yeah, yeah.

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So Phoenix has become that way. Except Moscow. Moscow has too. And what is weird about Arizona is that all of the outliers in Phoenix are traditionally really red.

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Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we have huge counties. Our counties are gigantic. Okay.

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Like our Maricopa County is bigger than most states. It's huge. That's crazy.

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And so what we've seen in the last couple of years is just a shift in those outlier cities as people vacate their atrocious state and come to ours, they bring their things with them.

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Are you getting like that Austin thing, like California to Austin, you kind of getting that in Phoenix too? Yeah, yeah, we are.

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We're the first pit stop. Yep. Wow, that's crazy. Yeah, it's so fun. It's interesting, not fun, interesting to talk about those type of dynamics as someone who's in local politics and worked in that, it's just like, it's kind of different everywhere.

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But you do see those crazy things where it's pockets of one type of thought and then maybe some around it. I will say if I say to someone from Arizona, man, it gets hot out there.

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And if one more of them say back to me, yeah, but it's a dry heat, I'm gonna punch them in their face. I mean,

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I know violence isn't the answer, but you guys love telling us how dry your heat is. 120 isn't, you know, it's dry heat though.

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But when you guys have humidity. It's great, you know? So if you're arthritic like me. Is it good for, yeah, if it's dry like that?

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Yeah, that's why all the blue hairs go there. Okay, did you guys grow up there or did you just end up there? End up.

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Oh yeah. Because you said you, which one said you were in Los Angeles for a while? Yeah, I was, yeah. So where were you guys born at?

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Oh, I was actually born in Oklahoma City. Okay. Lived there until the fifth or sixth grade.

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Yeah. And then spent the rest of my days in a small town in Northwest Ohio. I'm from Cincinnati.

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Okay. Yeah, I'm in Michigan. I'm three miles north of Toledo. Right over the line. So yeah. No way.

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Yeah. All right. I won't hold that against you. That's fine. I didn't finish though. Did you ask for your money back? I tried.

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No, I'm just kidding. I'm kidding. My mom wouldn't give it to me. It's a fine school.

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They had the, yeah, they had the big game. UT versus Ohio State. What was it? Second game of the year or something? Maybe the first one.

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That did not end well for UT. Never does. Yikes. Yeah, never does. I went to school with a gentleman that he was a wide receiver in our high school, and then he went to UT, and then he went on to play for Green Bay for a couple years,

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Carl Ford. That's as much relationship I have to that school. So there's my story.

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I just knew a guy who knew a guy. Yeah, it's like a Kevin Bacon. Seven degrees to UT. Yeah, yes.

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Yeah, very cool. So have you guys been enjoying the conference? It's been very fun. Getting to meet new people.

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Having just random conversations turn into different meals and long nights like last night.

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And it's amazing. Just having that kind of instant fellowship that's only possible because of what God has done.

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And changing hearts. And even different presuppositions, but able to come together, have amazing conversations that really,

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I think, sharpen everybody. Yeah, for sure. Did you guys go out and eat last night and hang out? Or, yeah, too?

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Yeah, with no kind of intention. We just kind of like, we're going to the lobby, we're going to get a cigar. And then somebody was there.

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We're like, hey, come, you know, let's go all out. Yeah. And then met other people. Well, it was a little awkward. Because we went down expecting to get in the hot tub.

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And so like, I'm in flip -flops and swim trunks. And then we're like, there was no hot tub.

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And the pool was closed. So now you're just a weirdo in flip -flops and swim shorts. Walking around at night, it's freezing, you know?

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With a cigar hanging out his mouth. I'm a Calvinist, I tell ya! Who wants to hang out with a flip -flop guy?

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No, that's funny. So I went back to my hotel early. And I was going to do the same thing.

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I'm like, dude, I got to go soak in the hot tub. And I go down, and they go, oh, yeah, the hot tub just went out a couple days ago.

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So that's the only reason I have this hotel, you know? It's like the McDonald's ice cream machine. Always, always with these hotels.

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I'll tell you what, they complain about Airbnbs, and then nothing ever works when you get to the hotels. Step up your game, hotels.

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You have competition. Jeez, I'm on my third cup of coffee, guys. I'm a little squirrely this morning.

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But so what's the future of Righteous Wretch look like?

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Are we expanding into anything else? Are we going to keep chugging along with all the apparel? Now, I know your designs in your t -shirts are pretty awesome.

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But do you guys do anything else, too? I know you got a sticker line. You got some other stuff, too, right? Yeah, we do different merchandise.

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We do hats, we do beanies, any kind of accessory line. I think we're trying to nail these things down first before we venture off into anything grander.

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Who knows where it takes us down the line? Just trying to be faithful.

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In the grand scheme of things, we'd love to just be a clothing brand.

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It doesn't necessarily always have to have a printed t -shirt. There's a lot of other things we'd like to do.

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You know, dress shirts, athletic wear. There's a lot of other things.

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Bedazzled denim. Yeah, man. Just in the corners. Nothing crazy, just some flair.

14:06

I got a guy back in my district, and he's probably 80 years old. But he looks about 60,

14:12

OK? But he's 80, he's in real good shape. You know, kind of a thin rail, dresses real nice when he's wearing dress pants to my meetings.

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But when you see him out and about, he's got a, what are the jeans with all the jewels in the back?

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There was a certain brand. You guys should, if I say it, you'll know what I'm talking about. I do know what you're talking about.

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It starts with a G? No. No, no, no. That was a JNCO, man. No, that was, oh, it's old school

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JNCO. That was 22 inch wide legs, dude. What are you talking about? Look how big my JNCOs are.

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It's Affliction. Well, no, Affliction's the t -shirt. Yeah, but you're in the right track. It's those ones that, and he's like 80, and he just loves them.

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And he rocks them. He's like, you like my jeans? Look how sparkly they are. I like those real long pointy toe dress shoes.

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He wears those, too. Yeah, I knew it. How'd you do that? You know? And you just go, I love it, man.

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He's just, he's really into that particular style. Like Ed Hardy -esque. Yes, but man, gosh, now

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I'm going to have to Google it. Guys, if you're listening to this, even if it's a month later, please message me and tell me what the name of those jeans are.

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True Religion. True Religion. Just got it. Yep. There we go. No message needed. No message needed. Never mind.

15:21

Cancel that. All right, guys. So throw out the website and everything for everyone. Or where they can maybe get a hold of you or send you guys messages or interact with you on social media.

15:30

Yeah. I mean, we're on all the major social medias. Well, I say major. Facebook and Instagram.

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You don't want to see us do like a Twitter. Or TikTok dance. Yeah, TikTok dance.

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Right. And we don't tweet. Maybe we do, though. No, you really don't. Actually, everyone who comments, if we get to 5 ,000 likes, we'll get

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Jason to do a TikTok dance. Yep. Heck yeah. In fact, we can pick a number, but we actually have a dance recorded that if we could get to a certain number,

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I would let get released. OK. So where do people have to like? Let's say, let's go to Facebook.

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OK, Facebook. Just the page in general? You can just search Righteous Wretch. OK. And if we can get enough, we'll put a post up.

16:16

Oh, not enough. You got to throw down a number right now. Now we're going to try to get it. I'm going to throw down a number. So my thought process is slow here.

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I've only had one cup of coffee. So we'll throw out a post that we are at Fight Laugh Feast.

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And if we can get 500, we'll say 500 likes. OK. If we can get 500 likes or some sort of interaction, we'll post up this dancing video.

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It's worth it. I would make 500 new accounts just to get this released. All right. Well, you guys got to let me know when you're going to release that.

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Because I'm going to release, I'll release a clip of us talking about this. And then we're going to put the, I don't know.

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I don't know what to call them yet, the listeners. You know, we were going to say, well, Dead Men Walking Deadheads. But you know, Jerry Garcia already has that.

17:03

I can't do that. So maybe you two marketing geniuses can come up with something for me and say, what do we call the listeners on the podcast?

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Something to do with dead, or men, or walk. I don't know. We'll have to figure that out next time. But I'm going to enlist your guys' marketing prowess to figure that out for me.

17:20

OK, so Facebook, Righteous Wretch. Yep. Instagram, Righteous Wretch. Oh, easy. Website, RighteousWretch .com.

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Come on, let's go. Branding. Consistency and branding. Have you ever met those guys, and they're like, well, here's my Instagram and some weird thing.

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Here's my Facebook, a different thing. Here's my website, nothing to do with the name. And you're like, I can't remember all that. I just called this guy

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Josh, and then called your company the wrong company. I'm having a hard enough time with that. Please keep everything the same.

17:45

What about Redeemed Zombies for your listeners? Redeemed Zombies? Yeah. You know what's funny is

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I get a lot of people that stumble onto the website, like, oh, man, we thought this was going to be about the walking dead.

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And I'm like, wait a minute, so not only did you not, you didn't see all the scripture on the website and all the reform stuff, but then you had enough time to say you're disappointed.

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And you know what I mean? Who has that time to randomly post on someone's web page? I thought this was about something else.

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Oh, well. God bless them. Maybe they got something out of it in the first page. All right, guys, it was so nice for you guys to jump on here.

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Any final words before we get out of here? No, it's just been an encouragement. We love listening to you guys.

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And we love what you guys do, man. Yeah, we just pray that you continue to fight on and be still and fast.

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And I think everybody's blessed by listening to you guys. So I know we're being encouraged. And I think just tune in to the conference.

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And no matter where you are in this walk, I think just try to take away exactly the love and zeal that all these people that have been on your show, that are defending the faith, that they have.

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So just continue to fight well. And then also have the unity aspect in mind to where, again, if there's differences, clinging together first and understand what battle we're really fighting.

18:59

Amen. You guys heard it right there. So listen, we're in a culture war, guys. We have people, cultures, that are pushing back against Christ.

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Not only pushing back, but trying to rule their dominion with evilness. And I'm telling you, you got to be geared up.

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You got to be dressed appropriately. And you got to go to Righteous Wretch and get some of that gear.

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So you can have conversation starters. You can have scripture on your shirt. People will be going, what the heck is that?

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And then if you're still in your cage stage, we're going to pray for you. Bring it down a notch. But if you're in that sage stage, then you can say, hey, this is where I got it.

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This is what it's about. And it's all to the glory of God. Guys, thanks so much for being here. And as always, guys, thanks so much for listening.

19:38

God bless. And we'll get right into it. I've got some special guests here. I got some young brothers in the Lord. The older I get, the younger they seem to get.

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And they're kind of new in podcasting. Introduce yourself, you guys. You're from the Redeemed Dissenters.

19:53

Almost. Reformed. Reformed Dissenters podcast. Sorry, I started with an R. It's been a long weekend, all right?

19:59

I totally get you. Been getting three hours of sleep at night, it feels like. But introduce yourself to our audience and tell us what you're all about.

20:04

Yeah, well, I'm Bruce Johnson. Yep. I'm the oldest of the two, 22. And yeah, I mean, we started

20:10

Reformed Dissenters year and a half ago. So we are brand new. Yeah, and who's sitting to your left here? Yeah, I'm Jacob Johnson, and I'm 18 years old.

20:20

But yeah, we've been doing the podcast for a year and a half now, and I've been with Bruce the entire time through it.

20:28

Very cool. And you guys are brothers, right? Yeah. Sons of thunder. Yeah. All right. Not thunder puppies, though.

20:34

Not thunder puppies, though. So what's your podcast about? So we're Reformed, or I mean,

20:40

Reformed, yeah. But we're a Christian worldviews show and podcast. So we do three episodes a week.

20:45

We talk about current events on Monday. Wednesday, we do literature. So every one to two months, sometimes it takes us two months to get through a book.

20:52

Yeah. Because I mean, going through Greg Bonson's book, you can't speed that up. Right, sometimes you've got to read it twice.

20:58

Yeah, right, right. You hear it exactly, or three times. Yeah, I hear that. So yeah, Wednesday is Literature Wednesday, and then Friday is our discussion topic.

21:04

So our audience gets to engage with us. Friday is for our episodes. But we talk about Christian education.

21:10

We have all sorts of guests on. We've had, what, four pastors on the show? Yeah. Gary DeMar on a few months ago.

21:17

But yeah, everything that's involved in a Christian worldview. And so we've got our work cut out for us, because there is so much.

21:24

I was going to say, that's pretty aggressive, ambitious, three episodes a week. How long is each episode on average?

21:30

Just a half hour. So a half hour for each one? Yep, yep. Yeah, that's a lot of content, though. How that kind of started was, we kind of hosted a

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Fight Left, Feast rally in South Dakota. Not last year, but we did it this year in April.

21:47

And we were talking to Gary DeMar, and he was saying, because before, what our structure was is that we had an hour and a half each podcast.

21:56

And it was a little long, and not a lot of audience held on for that long. Of course, yeah. And so Gary DeMar was like, well, if you're already sitting down and doing an hour and a half podcast, why not take that time and split it up into three different podcasts and just post them throughout the week?

22:15

Absolutely. And so that's kind of how that got started. And a lot of people are like, oh, wow, that's ambitious for us to do three podcasts during the week.

22:22

But for us, it's actually been easier to do it than just an hour and a half. And it's fun. I mean, it's something.

22:28

We've grown up homeschooled Christians. Sure. What we talk about on the podcast, we've been talking about our whole life.

22:35

Yeah, around the kitchen table and stuff. Yeah. Every time we'd watch a movie with our parents, after the end, we'd debrief. And well, what was the world view?

22:41

Why did they react that way? What's involved here? And so breaking down current events, we would do that with our mom every day.

22:48

We'd have the blaze on in the background, and Steve Dace would pop up. We'd all huddle around for Aaron's montage and break down from a biblical perspective, what's happening.

22:58

So we enjoy it. That's kind of just something we've always done. And it doesn't feel like anymore.

23:04

It doesn't feel like you're listening to a sermon or stopping and listening to a sermon or anything, or that it's like an interview afterwards, or that our dad is questioning us, and it's a serious discussion or anything.

23:16

It's fun for us now. It's become this just discussion, happy, joyful discussion.

23:22

I mean, a huge part of it, too, is we don't want to be people's ultimate source of truth. No. We stress all the time, no matter what book we're reading, no matter what we're discussing, no matter who we have on the show, it's not us.

23:33

It's God and His word. And it's in the beginning God. Right. And it's the people that, if we're reading

23:39

Greg Monson, we accredit everything in his book to him. Like, hey, buy this book. Check this out, because these aren't our ideas.

23:47

Absolutely. So that's really important for us, is that people do their own research. Because they can get information from all these places, and they can just kind of consume it, and not actually do the research to figure out, well, what's actually happening?

24:00

Or study the history of why is this current Roe v. Wade? We've grown up our whole life, and Roe v.

24:07

Wade was a reality for us. Me, too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So for it to be overturned, it's like, wow, that's cool.

24:13

What does that mean? So we got a legal expert. He took a couple of college -level courses on it.

24:19

Yeah. Well, the joy of homeschooling is that you can do really what you want to do, what you want to learn.

24:26

And so I took a couple of constitutional law courses. And just breaking down different court cases has also been very fun.

24:34

And it really helped me on the show to break down some of those things and show people what this court case means.

24:41

And show them and be like, hey, all our episodes have at least five or six links in the description. We're like, hey, check out all these resources, and then prove us wrong.

24:50

Right. Yeah, very cool. So were you guys homeschooled all the way through? Yes. Yep, yep.

24:56

Yeah, yeah, so was I. And so are my children now. That's awesome. That's great. It's great, isn't it? Yeah. People who don't homeschool don't know what they're missing.

25:03

It's so much better. Yeah, what was it? Doug Wilson is recently doing this podcast thing where he's the public school detox.

25:14

And it's so interesting and cool. Yeah, no, it's awesome. So give me an example of something you guys might specifically talk about on the podcast that someone who is listening here might go, yeah,

25:24

I want to tune into that and hear a discussion on it. Obviously, if you have a Gary DeMar on, you're most likely talking eschatology or something like that.

25:33

But who are some other guests or pastors? You said you had a few pastors that you've talked about. What kind of stuff do you guys like to focus on?

25:39

Well, that's a good question. We did a three -part series for three weeks on the kingdom. And focused on one week, we talked about the gradual growth and how we can't expect it to change overnight.

25:51

I gave the example of a mustard seed and how that plays into culture. And then we introduced the

25:57

Kuyperian idea. And we took one episode for the two spheres, individual and family, and then took another episode and talked about the church and the civil government.

26:05

And on that episode, we had my pastor, Pastor Jonathan Hanson, join the show. And he's one of the few pastors in the state of South Dakota who is strongly post -mill, strongly theonomic, and is actively working in a little town called

26:20

Leeds, South Dakota. It's about an hour drive from me, but I'm willing to do it every Sunday because it's great preaching.

26:27

And he's actively doing that. So we've had him on the show twice now. We talked about the kingdom of God.

26:32

What can the church do in the community to replace all the things that the civil government thinks is its responsibility?

26:39

Caring for the poor, helping people who can't help themselves. All of these things, there's so much that we take for granted that the civil government does that it's not supposed to do.

26:49

We always say, it's the justice division of society with limited roles of defense. And they're all stipulated very clearly in scripture.

26:56

And you can study that. Along that line, we've also discussed Romans 13, how people like to use

27:02

Romans 13 against us in saying that, oh, look at Romans 13, we're not supposed to be involved in, well, we're not supposed to.

27:10

You're supposed to obey. Yeah, exactly. You're supposed to do what they say because God's instituted government, yeah.

27:16

Yeah, and so we've taken that and broken it down in saying, no, actually, it kind of means the opposite. We're supposed to make sure that the government is a minister of God.

27:26

Minister of justice. Yeah, that protects the righteous and brings justice to evildoers. And I think we've really been going through, as we grow more and more, we bring stuff up onto the podcast.

27:41

And I think there was a period in which we were growing and seeing that homeschooling, and we really, since, because we were homeschooled, we've seen that homeschooling is very important and that we've really now, more recently, have seen even more of an importance for it and seen even more that it's the biblical example, that it is what the

28:08

Bible commands us to be doing. Yeah. Yeah, and so we've got - You should talk of these laws when you're standing by the way, when you're walking by the gates, when you're lying down, when you're sitting up.

28:18

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And so, as we're growing in that, we bring stuff up on the show, and we've talked a whole bunch.

28:27

And we just recently, this past week, had a pastor on talking about homeschooling.

28:35

Nick Charlton, yeah. Yep, yep. Christian education. Yeah, oh, that's awesome, man. So, as we kind of wrap this up here,

28:41

I wanted to ask you, so you said you're 22. Yep. You are? 18, so you guys are young brothers in the

28:46

Lord compared to me. I'm an old 41, so I'm like almost, well, twice your age, almost twice your age.

28:51

So, for people, for the audience listening that is maybe of the younger generation, right? I would be an elder millennial.

28:58

I think, technically, you guys would be what? Gen X? I think Z. Z. Or, not X. X. X is older than me.

29:04

Yeah. Yeah, Gen Z, I'm sorry. Yeah. Wrong letter. Gosh, once again, it's been a long weekend.

29:10

Oh, yeah, yes, it has. This is only my 15th interview. So, you know, it's like, jeez. So, for those, for the

29:17

Gen Z that are maybe your age, that are listening, that are younger, they're going, they might be feeling overwhelmed by the culture, or they're dealing with things that I never had to deal with and the previous generations never had to deal with, whether it be in public or private school or among their friends, or just seeing things on television and in social media.

29:36

What would your advice be to them as a solid Bible -believing

29:41

Christian, young brothers in the Lord? What's your advice to them to either fight the culture or to stay encouraged and not let it overcome them?

29:47

Well, I mean, at any point in which you're overwhelmed, I know a lot when

29:54

I was in school and doing school and stuff, I would get overwhelmed with all the schoolwork that I had to do.

30:00

And I would always make sure that I, and my mom would always help me with that in making sure that I broke it down into one step at a time, making sure that I go one step at a time.

30:11

And going into the culture war, we have to understand that God has given us different abilities and gifts.

30:18

And taking those abilities and gifts and understanding and breaking it down, yes, there is a very overwhelming goal of how far we need to go, but taking your abilities and gifts and breaking it down one step at a time in trying to grow in those abilities and gifts and know what vocation you're going into and building that up to where you can create a kingdom building business or that you can get involved in different ways.

30:50

If you don't necessarily know how to create a kingdom building business, go to your church and help your church either go out and evangelize or maybe your pastor can help you as to how to make your business a kingdom building church.

31:04

Sorry, business. I would say that there's two really important things. So first of all, if you're already a

31:13

Christian, you've been homeschooled your whole life, you can take the Bible for granted. Yeah, get up on that mic for us. I know a lot of Christians, because I was one of them, who grew up reading the

31:24

Bible their whole life, but it wasn't something that was consistent. It wasn't something that I took really seriously and was like,

31:34

I can't end my day, I can't start my day unless I've at least read a chapter or two in the word of God. So that's step one is consistency in that changes your outlook and reading through it, not just nitpicking, but reading really through, that's why

31:47

I love the to the word challenge that Canon Plus is doing right now. Reading through whole books and understanding the entire context.

31:56

I've been taking this whole year just reading the Old Testament and just understanding the context and the joy and the comfort we receive all through the book of Isaiah, through the book of Jeremiah, even

32:08

Lamentations has comfort in parts of it that we can draw from. And that today,

32:15

I think is needed more than anything, because we can so easily get overwhelmed. And then we fall prey to the pre -millennialist worldview.

32:23

Then we fall prey to this is all, you know what, what can we do? You know, like, it's just, it's getting worse and worse and worse.

32:30

Let's go hide out somewhere and wait for Jesus to come. Make sure our rapture hatch is unlocked, you know.

32:35

But when we understand that this is how human existence has been from the beginning, and God is working through it, and is our great comforter, and is pulling us through it.

32:46

And the only way to truly understand that is to be consistent and being in the word. So that's step one. Step two is your church.

32:54

I mean, the importance of a solid, reformed evangelical church cannot be overstated.

32:59

We're going through Mother Kirk by Doug Wilson. We spent the last two months going through that. And really, it's a manual for how to find and build solid, reformed evangelical churches.

33:12

And there's so much that goes into it. But if you don't have that, or if you're going to a church and you're not sure whether they're solid or not, that book,

33:20

I would highly recommend just to evaluate your own church. And if you're not part of one, seek it out.

33:26

I mean, I moved halfway across the country looking for a good church. I moved from Pennsylvania to South Dakota, to find a good, solid

33:34

Christian community. And now I'm finding that there really aren't. South Dakota is kind of the same position.

33:40

So I'm looking at Moscow, Idaho within the next two or three years, moving there. So finding a community.

33:46

God doesn't, right in Genesis, it's not good for man to be alone. So that encouragement is vitally important.

33:54

And honestly, at this point in my life, I see that as one of the best ways. I'm single, I'm not married, so I don't have a family.

34:01

So right now, kingdom work for me is one of the most important things that I'm trying to do. And I think the show is a really good way to do that.

34:08

But being part of a church that does that, and being able to help with their kingdom work,

34:14

I think is one of the best things for people our age. And we have on our podcast, going back, kind of going back to that question of what can you find on our podcast, but we go over different books.

34:27

And two books that I think really answer that question is the book on how to find a job you can love.

34:35

Ralph Mattson. Helps you really understand your gifts and abilities. But then also our

34:40

Raymond Simmons book on trying to create. Confessional County. Confessional County, thank you. On trying to apply comprehensive

34:49

Christian world. That's the word. I was thinking of complexive. I don't know why I was thinking of complexive, but yeah, exactly, thank you.

34:56

That's why there's two of us. That's right, yeah. Works out when there's two, huh? You remember the stuff I forget, so. All right,

35:01

Bruce, Jacob, as we wrap this up, tell everyone where they can find more about the Reformed Dissenters.

35:07

Yeah, so go to TRDShow, stands for The Reformed Dissenters. TRDShow .net. We're working on getting all,

35:13

I'm actually, so I'm a software engineer for a living, so I'm actually building out a feature set so you'll actually be able to watch all of our content from our website.

35:21

Oh, nice. Eventually, so I'm building out a platform. So TRDShow .net, we have a list of links to all the many places we are, and if you like free speech, follow us on Gab and Getter, and if you hate it, you can follow us on Instagram and Facebook.

35:32

I like that pitch, it's pretty good. All right, guys, thanks so much for stopping by, and guys, thanks for listening. As always,

35:38

God bless. Thank you so much. And we have Cody with us from Westminster Effects, a very unique company.

35:44

Wanted to talk a little bit about that. Cody, what's going on, brother? Oh, just, well, as you said, fighting, laughing, and feasting, right?

35:53

Right. Yeah, have you been to any of the conferences before? Yeah, I was here, well, not here, but in Nashville last year.

36:00

Okay. And that was my first time at this conference, and obviously they've only done three of them, right? Yeah. So two out of three ain't bad, right?

36:07

Yeah, yeah, we hit the first one in 2020, then did the rally in 21 in South Dakota.

36:13

Yeah. We missed the one in Nashville, and now we're back here. So, yeah, very cool, great talks.

36:20

I always tell people this is one of the rallies where it's, well, not rallies, but conferences, where first of all, it doesn't feel like a conference, and then second of all, there's just such brotherly unity among everyone.

36:31

I was talking to a gentleman just about 20 minutes ago in front of the booth here, and he was like, this is my first one, and it just feels like, wow,

36:38

I'm not like that weirdo that thinks that way. I got brothers and sisters in the Lord that are fight laughing and feasting.

36:44

I said, yeah, it's very cool what cross -politic guys in Christchurch out there in Moscow has done and brought together.

36:51

But I want to talk to you because you have probably, like I told you earlier, the shiniest booth here.

36:58

It's just beautiful because you make custom pedals. Tell us a little bit about Westminster FX and what it is.

37:06

Yeah, so Westminster FX exists for the glory of God and the tone of his people.

37:13

For the tone of his people, I like it. It's really just an outlet for me to make stupid puns is all it is.

37:19

Yeah. It's hand -wired and theologically sound. Right. Guitars making sounds. But yeah, it's me in the upstate of South Carolina in my home office.

37:30

I do almost everything myself. There's a couple of things that I export to people who can do them better than I can, more efficiently than I can, such as printing, applying the art, circuit board design, stuff like that.

37:43

But it started in 2015 where, I started it on accident, actually.

37:51

I was freelancing with blogging and social media and to kind of kill some time while stuff was materializing.

37:57

I got a little pedal kit, built one pedal. I've always been a DIY guy.

38:03

I have soldered pickups and whatever in my guitars. And then I was like, huh, I like guitars.

38:08

I like theology. The worship world needs better theology. Yeah. I have ideas.

38:14

Let's just start a company. One pedal. Right. I don't recommend this approach to anyone, honestly.

38:19

Okay. And so I just went from there. And within a couple of years, my father -in -law injected some capital and I purchased another brand called

38:29

Nose Pedal. Ended up subsuming that product line into Westminster because Westminster ended up being the one that actually grew.

38:36

And now at this point in June, the most recent release was the 2716.

38:44

Yeah, hold that up for people watching. So for those watching, the 2716 is the signature distortion pedal of Seth Morrison from Skillet.

38:53

Oh, nice. And it chugs, it screams, it makes a lot of noise.

38:59

And it's a lot of fun. And it caused things to escalate quickly this summer.

39:05

Sure. So really thankful for it. And obviously working with Seth has been a blast. He kind of put me through the ringer of development because if he's slapping his name on it, then it's gotta sound perfect.

39:16

Right. That was awesome. It stretched me, it pushed me. And really thankful. So are you start to finish for the pedals?

39:23

I mean, are you putting them together and manufacturing them yourselves? Yeah. It looks like a lot of them are decaled or is that decals on there?

39:31

Do you do any type of metal work on those or? Yeah, so I get these aluminum enclosures raw.

39:37

Okay. And then I drill out the in and outs, the jacks on the side.

39:43

Sure. And then I powder coat them myself. Wow. It's a super ghetto DIY. I use toaster ovens to cure it.

39:50

You're saying super ghetto, but for those people listening, these things look gorgeous. Yeah, they do look good. And look at,

39:55

I'm a musician. I'm not a guitarist, but I know a lot of lead and rhythm guitar guys. They need to look nice.

40:02

Right. Okay? Look good, play good, right? Look good and play good. You know, because they have to be aesthetically pleasing because if I know anything about guitar players, they're their little,

40:10

I mean, their pedals are their babies. Yeah, and I've known other, you know, the boutique, quote unquote, pedal market.

40:17

There are some guys who intentionally make them ugly or just don't care. And I'm like, why? Right. Why would you do that?

40:23

So I do powder coat them myself. The art that you see is UV printing.

40:30

Okay. So I used to do that myself. I got a little Chinese knockoff UV printer on eBay and it worked great until it didn't.

40:39

Right, yeah. And then it just, when it died, it really died. So that's one of the things that I export is the

40:44

UV printing. But then when that comes back, I'm stuffing the circuit boards and stuffing the circuit boards in the enclosures and just going to town on it.

40:52

And I do have a friend who helps me on the side, stuff some circuit boards just to help save time. And, you know, it's been good for both of us, you know, obviously, because that's how capitalism works.

41:03

Sure, yeah. And it's a lot of fun, man. Cool. Can I, let me check one of these out real quick.

41:08

So what is UV printing? I mean, how, I'm gonna show how

41:13

I'm a novice here. Yeah, the best way I can describe it is industrial inkjet.

41:19

Okay. So it's a flatbed printer and the flatbed carries the product, whatever you're printing.

41:27

And it's, you know, the printhead moves back and forth just like an inkjet, but it's cured by a

41:33

UV lamp. Nice. And so it's, depending on what powder you're printing on, it can get really bright in the room if you're not careful.

41:41

Is that the same as, is it UV printed here too? Because I'm looking at this where it's almost like this matte

41:48

Greek in the background. That is really cool. I didn't see it at first glance, but when you look up close, you spend a lot of detail on these.

41:55

Yeah. These are really cool looking. So the Greek there, since the guys in Skillet are friends with James White, 2716 is a reference to Revelation 1 .6

42:05

to kind of tie in with their newest album, Dominion. Yeah. And James White contributed Codex Sinaiticus.

42:12

Nice. Revelation 1 .6. So that's the Greek that's ghosted in the back there. But with the other pedals that you see here, you know, the color isn't faded into the background or anything.

42:23

There's a white layer underneath that. Okay. So what we did with this was no white layer underneath the

42:29

Greek, but then we did a second pass over the top. Yeah. So are you a guitar player yourself?

42:35

Yes. Okay. I'm a hack. You're a hack. So you're better at building them than playing with them.

42:41

Is that? Exactly. That's exactly right. But, you know, I build all of these things and then have a spaceship of a pedal board because I can.

42:49

And then that makes me sound better than I really am. Yeah. So for all the geeks out there that are listening, and I'm kind of a music geek, but more with drums and piano, when it comes to pedals, how are you,

43:01

I mean, do you start with the design on the outward, but also how do you figure, okay, this is the sound

43:07

I'm looking for in this pedal, or this is what I want to do with it. Is it demand led? You have people asking you for that. Is that something you go, oh,

43:13

I heard that and I want to copy that. Is that I'm going to create something new? How does that come about? Yeah, it kind of depends on what

43:18

I'm doing, really. Like, yes, I do have people say, hey, you should make this kind of pedal. And I keep hearing that request over and over again, of course.

43:27

Sometimes I just want to do something or I see a market need. So like I do a couple of analog amp simulators where so many people are going to stuff like Fractal, the

43:37

Line 6 Helix, and running direct, and it's all digital. And I'm like, we can warm this up and make it sound more natural as opposed to just playing through a computer, which,

43:47

I mean, there's nothing against the Helix or Fractal and those things, but I think mine sounds a little bit better.

43:54

But with the actual development, so one of the dirty secrets about this industry, and I'm just going to give it all away.

44:01

Oh, I love it. Secrets on Dead Men Walking Podcast, behind the curtain, let's go. Like with amps, pedals, and guitars, there are very, very few concepts that haven't been done already.

44:11

So it's mostly taking those concepts and tweaking them just a little bit, and then you have something totally new, legally speaking, and creatively speaking, and then that opens it up for, it's legitimately a new product.

44:27

So I tightened the bass response or made it sound less shrill, something like that, gave it a different texture option, or even just improved the power supply so it's not quite so noisy.

44:41

That's one of the things about my pedals is my circuit board designer, Kyle Daly, so shout out to Kyle, because he'll give me a grand if I don't shout him out.

44:52

Is he's just a genius with that kind of design. So all of my power stuff is super clean compared to most other pedals.

45:01

Right, so you throw out names like Skillet and James White, I mean, those are pretty big names in their own right, both in the music world and the theological world, and you're bringing these two together.

45:13

How does that come about? Is that just an email? Is that just, I ran into someone? I mean, to get one of those guys to not only partner with you but then use it,

45:22

I mean, they're a worldwide known band with millions and millions of albums sold to be using your product.

45:28

How does that come, was there a testing process for that? And how did you get ahold of those guys and get them on board? It's actually a really cool story.

45:34

So you know. That's what we're here for, tell us a cool story. You know The Bar Podcast. Yeah, Dwayne, love Dwayne.

45:40

I'm friends with Dwayne. He used to live 10 minutes away from me. Okay. And even to like, my dog has bit him on the ankle.

45:47

Right. So we've recorded a podcast where I was on his and then he was on mine and stuff like that.

45:56

And so he interviewed John Cooper, what, a year and a half, two years ago? Sure. And I texted him,

46:02

I was like, dude, that was a fantastic episode, like just really good episode, really good interview. He said, thanks,

46:07

I can't give you his number. And I was like, dude, I wasn't gonna ask.

46:13

It was literally all good intentions, completely transparent, just a good episode. He said, but I'll send him your link.

46:19

Yeah. Okay, not gonna complain. So John sends Corey, his wife, who's also in Skillet, and Seth, my link, and then

46:28

Seth hits me up on Instagram. And now I got a new friend. Right, yeah, awesome.

46:34

And so I've sent him some stuff. If it travels with him on the road, like it's on his pedal board as they're touring.

46:41

Well, they're not touring right now, but it's on his touring pedal board and stuff like that. And now we're here.

46:48

Well, that's pretty cool, man. I gotta feel like that's pretty neat too if you see like a live show or see something online and you go, hey, wait, that's my sound.

46:57

Yeah. That sounds familiar. He's using, right. But yeah, shout out to Dwayne because I've said it before in this podcast,

47:03

I think I was four weeks in, like April 1st of 2020. We had just launched the podcast.

47:09

And this guy, Dwayne, messages me, hey, man, I've listened to every episode. Absolutely love what you're doing.

47:15

You're gonna do big things. Come on the podcast and talk about it. Let me promote it. And I go, I don't know this guy from anyone.

47:20

You know what I mean? Yeah. And then that just started now a two -year relationship. Saw him down at G3 last year and we hung out and I've had him on a couple times.

47:30

And just one of those guys that is just there to support other people. Yep. He's now half the man he used to be.

47:37

Literally. He's like, literally, he's just ripped now. He's doing his, I can't remember what it's called, but his workout regimen that he's into now.

47:45

So shout out to Dwayne. Love to give props where props are due. I'm glad to hear that he helped you out a little bit and he always helps us and anything we can do to help

47:53

Dwayne out too. But so you get that, you get those guys. And then, so how did, so James White probably came along with Skillet because they're buds, right?

48:05

So then you've got the text for that. So when you're making a pedal from inception of idea to it's a finished product ready to be sold, what's that timeline on average?

48:15

It really kind of depends. The good thing about being a small company, kind of a one and a half man shop, if you will, is

48:24

I can pivot really quickly. Right. So it kind of depends on, you know, if Kyle, the circuit board guy, with his layout schedule and stuff like that, because that's a side hustle for him.

48:35

Okay. So depending on if he has other clients or if his work schedule is just bonkers or anything like that, my dad's over behind you making faces at me and it's, we're just having a good time.

48:50

Man, he's got a heck of a beard. I like it. Which one? No, not that one, this one. Yes. Okay. The one that I look like.

48:55

Hey dad, what's going on? But, The one I look like. We all become our parents in the end.

49:02

Yeah. And so, you know, once the design is set and then send it off to the PCB fabrication facility and that'll take a couple of weeks.

49:12

So, I mean, theoretically, it could take as little as two or three weeks from start to release.

49:18

Realistically, it should probably take a couple of months so I can plan out promotion and stuff like that. And there's an entire

49:24

YouTube industry of guitar pedal demo guys. Okay. And so like some dudes will, you know, only charge, hey, send me this thing and I'll keep it and that's it.

49:35

Yeah. And then other guys are like, yeah, that'll be 500 bucks. Jeez. And yeah, so it can get expensive but obviously those guys have the reach.

49:42

So it's just like here, you know, paying for a booth here. Sure. You're exposed to all of these people at this conference.

49:49

Absolutely. Yeah, very cool. So what's next for Westminster FX?

49:56

Are you just staying in the realm of pedals for guitars? Are you gonna, in the future, expand out, do anything else or just stay really, really good and be an expert in that area?

50:06

Yeah, I'm staying with the pedals. If you remember the guitar at my booth was made by my friends at Lyman Guitars.

50:14

So they do guitars and they're branching out into amps but it's kind of a thing where it's like we've known each other forever and it just made sense of, hey, you build guitars and I build pedals, so we should be friends.

50:25

Yeah, absolutely. And so we cross promote all the time. I'll do the NAMM show in Anaheim with them and or Summer NAMM in Nashville whenever that comes back.

50:34

But sticking in the realm of pedals, when is this gonna release? I don't know yet. Probably within a few weeks of today's date.

50:42

Okay, so by then we'll have probably released version two of the

50:48

Wittenberg bass preamp. And version three of the Piper drive, which was one of my very first releases.

50:54

And this is a great story too. John Piper actually owns a Piper drive. Nice. He was in town like three weeks after I started the company and I gave him a prototype of the

51:05

Piper drive and he just kind of held it flat in his hands and he just went, I don't know what to do with this.

51:14

That's such a Piper -esque response, right? It absolutely was. He didn't have any of his flailing hand motions to go with it.

51:21

It was the exact opposite. Yeah, it was, I don't know what to do with this. Which my wife says that when he does that, he looks like celery, which is, do with that what you will.

51:30

That's hilarious. All right, so as we wrap this up, why don't you let people know where they can find you, where they can find the business and where they can connect with you.

51:40

Yep, so westminsterfx .com for the website. You can order everything there. You can also find me

51:46

Facebook, Instagram and because I hate myself, I started a TikTok for it. I don't,

51:52

I try to stay off of it, but. Oh, he still refused to do it. It's almost, it was one of those you kind of have to.

51:58

Right. But I begrudgingly did it. So Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and then yeah, come say hi.

52:05

Awesome. Cody, thanks so much for stopping by, jumping on, telling us about Westminster FX. Gosh, what a great idea.

52:12

I love the fact that you're just not like, they're like quality pedals and you're not just slapping a sticker on it and going,

52:19

I mean, you've got like whatever, Texas Receptus on here and you've got inside jokes and you've got, you know, all these crazy things and it's a high quality product as well.

52:29

We need more of that in this space and I hope you have all the success with it. It sounds like you're chugging right along, man and it's very cool.

52:37

Absolutely. My co -host Jason, who couldn't make it, he was an internationally touring musician, phenomenal guitar player.

52:46

I was in a band, so I know guitar players. He's probably one of the top three I've ever met. He's going to be so jealous that he wasn't here and got to play around with one of your pedals, but.

52:55

We can always do it again. And we do have an endorsement program. There you go. I love it.

53:00

He's always pitching. All right guys, thanks so much for listening to another episode of Dead Man Walking Podcast. As always,

53:06

God bless. Be sure to follow us on Facebook and Instagram at Dead Man Walking Podcast for full video podcast episodes and clips or email us at deadmanwalkingpodcast at gmail .com.