War of the Worldviews: LGBTQ vs. Christians

And any God which denies me for this, I don't want to have a part of it. Some sins are worse than others.

Okay, we got one LGBTQ member coming in. Oh, two. In the eyes of the

God I worship, I believe that any sin separates us from Him because He's holy and pure.

But at the same time, I think there are certain sins that will have greater consequences. Yeah, I resonate with that.

For me, it would be, you know, killing another human is the worst. That's it. Also, it's

Venn diagrams into abortion. Taking the life of another is huge.

It's huge. Can I ask you two this? Do you all see homosexuality as a sin?

Yes. And if so, where on that scale? I don't think... So hold on a second. So before we go any further, some sins are worse than others.

Technically, that's true. Okay, the Bible shows us this is true. When Jesus said to Pontius Pilate that those who delivered

Me to you have the greater sin, He was revealing that there is a hierarchy of sins and that some sins are greater than others.

Jesus also illustrated this when He said that the slave who knew his master's specific will and didn't do it would receive more lashes than the one who did not know specifically what the master's will was.

So there is a hierarchy. The problem is we don't have the full chart on that hierarchy, do we, Logan? The Bible doesn't really delineate what that full chart is, and so we don't see all the sins laid out and in what particular order.

The only indication that we get about homosexuality, about the sin of homosexuality, is that God considers it to be an abomination.

And it's probably an abomination because it runs directly against the created order, and our own specific design as human beings.

We were made to be priests of this world and to reveal God's image partly through the family structure and through producing children through that dynamic.

So to me, the sin of homosexuality is a little bit different than lying because some lying can take place while not perverting that created order.

So now there's a new question. Let's take a look at this. A homosexual tendency or an attraction to somebody of the same gender is a sin.

I think that's a natural feeling. I think when you start engaging in a lifestyle and you act upon that tendency, then because it goes against what

I believe God designed, then I think that's clearly a sin. Also, can we just acknowledge really quickly, the

LGBTQ person, Beck, which

I suppose—so they haven't really identified themselves, right? But Beck, I suppose, would be a lesbian.

She actually acknowledged what we know to be true as Christians, particularly as it pertains to abortion.

She realized that abortion is the taking of an innocent life. And if I were sitting down next to Beck, I would say, good for you, because we can agree on this, and that is 100 % true, and I completely affirm that.

I just don't believe in sin because I feel that sometimes being punitive about things can make you repress things.

And instinctually, I was like, but not acting on them would be a sin. That's how it feels for me.

Being dishonest to myself, that feels wrong. – Hmm. There it is again.

So, you know, we talked about this before, but whatever feels wrong to me would be the ultimate evil.

It would be the ultimate sin. And that is, you know, post -Enlightenment

Romanticist views of the self, you know, just I need to express my true self on the inside, and everybody's opposing me from the outside, authority is opposing me, you know, society is opposing me, but, you know, whatever is on the inside and whatever feels good, that is what is good and righteous.

And that is, again, just garbage. It is an utter lie, and it crept in around the time of the

Age of Enlightenment, although arguably, you know, the authority of the self has been creeping in since the

Garden of Eden. Logan, we had some internet issues there, but was there any comments that you wanted to make?

– Beck's identity becomes a little bit more clear later on in the video, but this is somebody who does not fit all of the predetermined boxes that we tend to put people and their beliefs in, which is one of the things

I like about a format like this. – One more thing to notice before we move on. I think he's a gay man.

His name is James. He was very uncomfortable when one of the Christians started talking about his view of homosexuality, is homosexuality a sin, and the

Christian starts to answer it. James starts to laugh, and that is very, it's very telling because laughter in this regard is an inappropriate response.

And so, what that tells me is that he's uncomfortable, this is his kind of defense mechanism, he's, you know, he's trying to – there's a wall here, but he doesn't like what he's hearing, and I would – at that point, you gotta stop as a believer trying to communicate and ask the question, you know, not to start a fight unnecessarily, but to acknowledge, hey,

I notice that what I'm saying is causing you to laugh, do you mind if I ask why? And then seeing what they say about it, because, you know, that's just not – if you continue down this line and you ignore it, you might end up causing more trouble, and you wanna be effective.

So, anyway, let's move on. – At some point in my life, I was taught that sex is wrong. I guess, like, within the context, you know, sex is bad outside the context of marriage.

And so, I guess that's how I identified with the question. – I had a very strong religious upbringing, and I ended up doing a lot of self -harm, and I ended up doing a lot of things just to try and cope with these urges that, when

I finally gave into them, I went, this is a physical manifestation of love, this is glorious and beautiful, and any god which denies me for this,

I don't wanna have a part of, because whatever this is, is, I know for a fact to be a truth, because it is the nature of love.

– Yeah, just responding to your story, it makes me sad to hear – –

So you got one Christian, and this is the man talking right now, one Christian talking to two LGBTQ folks that have decided to engage on this issue, and here's his response.

– Yeah, I still hold on to what

I believe are my beliefs, but at the same time, I wish there was a better way for you to talk to someone and to process and to think through reconciling how you feel with, like, what you may have been taught or have read through scripture.

– Logan, what are your thoughts on this one? –

I really like the way that the Christian responds here, because one of the things that I'm noticing about it is, you see a little bit of a difference in James's non -verbals before, so before this question comes up, or before the

Christian gives this response, so he was laughing in the earlier part at what the

Christian was saying. – Right. – He seems to want to find a way to get this particular story in, because it's not like, it's not a real natural fit for the question, but he, you know, he wants to tell the story, and then after, and he says it pretty, fairly aggressively, right, when he's telling his story, and when the

Christian responds not with, well, but you were wrong about this, right, he first responds with compassion, and then says, you know, he doesn't compromise what he thinks is right, but he's, he is very much leading with,

I'm sorry that that happened to you, I wish that could have been different for you, and I thought it was a really good response, and I think that he does a really good job of, in that moment of meeting him where he's at, and meeting him in his, sort of his emotion in his story, not, he's not skipping all the steps in the order of persuasion, in other words.

– Yeah, now, we've talked about this before, but it just has to be said again, you gotta watch, you gotta read the person that you're talking to, and James is a really good example of a lot of LGBT folk that engage, first of all, not a lot of LGBT folk will engage

Christians, and vice versa, you know, they'll avoid it, they won't go near, they'll talk all about him behind their back, but they won't sit down and do what

James and this other person is doing, so they should be commended, but there is a wall that is put up around James, and it's very clear, his body language shows, he's uncomfortable, he's nervous, he's laughing at inappropriate times,

I would argue, so that's what I wanted to ask you about, the body language, like, what is the body language saying to you, did you pick up on that,

Logan? – Yeah, so, something, so I caught a very much a, you know, sort of aggression when he's first going through that response, while the

Christian, and I'm awful with getting their names mixed up, when the Christian is giving his response, he seems a lot more, he seems more like he's listening, and he's not prepping for an angry comeback, which is kind of what it looked like in the last segment, now he, now, with that said, he's still pretty high strung, like, so one of the things that I notice is when he's saying,

I'm sorry that happened to you, James nods, like, as in, like, you know, he's accepting this affirmation, but he does it, like, it's a very jerky motion, but like, exaggeratedly so, and so I think that says, that is a step in the right direction, he's still pretty high strung, he's still pretty anxious about the whole situation, and so, you know, these things exist on a continuum, but that motion was something that just really stuck out at me.

Yeah, someone, and to process, and to think through reconciling how you feel with, like, what you may have been taught, or have read through scripture.

Yeah, I mean, and that's the thing, is I think there's a lot of, there's a lot of cultural baggage, I think, around Christianity that isn't necessarily inherently part of any biblical

Christianity. Excuse me? Excuse me? What does that mean?

Yeah, I want to know what the Christians said after that. I really want to know,

I mean, they don't tell us, but... What is he talking about? You know, I want, yeah, because the producers of this video decided to make cuts, just to make this more viewable, and I understand that, but maybe they also cut it for an agenda, right?

So, did the Christian engage? Like, was there a question there? Is James an advocate of the Matthew Vines, you know, understanding of the

Bible? Does James think that homosexuality was totally permissible in the Bible, and somehow those teachings against homosexuality kind of crept in later?

Like, what is he talking about? Well, and you know, so if this was somebody I was able to sit down, you know, over coffee or something, have a longer conversation with,

I would want to know what exactly it was that he was taught, and what he says is a very religious upbringing.

The reason being, so I think that the Christians that they have for this segment do a really good job,

I think, of distinguishing between same -sex attraction and same -sex sexual activity.

One of those is an inclination, the other is an explicitly, you know, it's a sin that's explicitly addressed in the

Bible. It could be, and I mean, Nate, I'm sure you might know people like this who think that homosexuality is so, that they might overstate the case, right?

Or they might, you know, intentionally say very harmful things about anybody who has this inclination or this temptation to the extent where it reaches a point of, you're not a real man if you have this temptation, or something like that.

Because I would just want to get some clarification on that. Now, I have a suspicion, based on some of what he's saying here, that he would consider all of the above to be, you know, not matching up with his idea of biblical

Christianity. But I think you need, you want to get that, sort of that playing field clarified before you get too deep into it.

What exactly is it about it that he's saying is not biblical? Right, right.

Let's keep going. Even though I grew up in a

Christian family, I don't recall ever being told that sex was wrong or it was a bad thing.

I think I grew up with the understanding that sex is a beautiful thing. It was given to us as a gift to enjoy.

There's a place where it's, it's been designed for a place where we can enjoy it. And there's a place where it's, it's detestable in the sight of the creator, the one who gave it.

There's that smile. So again, reading the body language from the LGBTQ community, they don't like what they're hearing right now.

I just don't like the idea that anything's really detestable. You know what I mean? So I just don't like that.

But wouldn't you say that even sex for you within certain contexts is detestable? Like, like if it's non -consensual, like that's pretty detestable.

Yeah, agreed, agreed. So even in that, oops. The things that I consent to are,

I think not, like that I have sometimes no control over if it's non -consensual.

Yeah. Rad got busted there. Right, Logan? Yes. Although I think that the choice of the word detestable is kind of questionable.

That not in terms of theology, but in terms of effectiveness and helpfulness. Because I think what

I would want to focus on, it's not because, so we talked about this in last week's show when we were talking about engaging with those who are transgender.

And one of the things we talked about is we really need to get rid of the ick factor. That that's not a helpful thing.

I think that using detestable there is kind of bringing up the ick factor.

And I think that is really what she's responding to. That it's not only that they think that what she does is wrong, but they think it's gross.

And I think Christians sometimes mean that in a particular context, the same way that say, injustice in the market, cheating poor people is detestable.

There's lots of that kind of stuff in scripture, and in some cases, pretty similar language.

But I think given the context and the audience, that's going to set you a step back unnecessarily.

Yeah. Totally agree. Trevor agrees with you. Right, Logan? Not the right application. On the other hand, she does make a sweeping statement here, which is that,

I don't really think anything is detestable. Anything in the context of what we're talking about is detestable. And so, she got busted.

I think this was actually a really great moment for the Christian, because the Christian was very kind, and he probed, and he asked the right question to kind of point this out.

There's a bit of a flaw in what she just said. There are ways that sex can be abused, and rape would be one of them, you know, non -consensual sex, right?

The question that I have is, who gets to determine how sex is properly used, you know?

Who gets to determine whether it's abused or not? Does that standard come from RAD? Does it come from the

LGBT community? Does that standard come from societies, you know, social contract theory?

Or does that standard come from God? Because there's only one option here that is free of defeaters or any liability, and that's the standard comes from God.

But, wait a sec, people don't like that answer, you know? And so, they choose to live in contradiction and defeater land in order to continue to do what they like to do.

But, anyway, let's go ahead. Yeah, I mean, people should honor the pronouns others wish to be called.

Oh, hesitation. Okay, so, we talked over that, but this is the pronoun.

Is this the pronoun thing? Yeah, yeah. Okay, I lost the video. How do

I rewind this? Yeah, here we go. Let me just rewind this just for a split second so we can make sure that we hear the whole thing.

I know what I'm doing. I'm 40. Here we go. People should honor the pronouns others wish to be called.

There it is. Hesitation's enough. Okay, so, we have two LGBTQ folk that come.

One stays back, and it's Beck. Isn't that interesting? I'm all for this.

Like, I identify as they. People don't consider it, and I think that, like, having these conversations about how people want to identify is, like, really important in a way that we can move things forward and stuff.

Yeah, if you're like, hey, if you don't use whatever, you're going to get fined or whatever, like, that's, I'm not a big fan of that.

Those are conversations between us, though, right? But, like, yeah. But, otherwise, it's just being respectful. So, okay, so,

Rad identifies as they. Okay, so, and we talked about pronouns and using preferred names on last week's episode.

I encourage everyone to go watch that or listen to that if you haven't yet. But, also,

Rad requests, Logan, she requests that not that nobody ever challenged her on these issues, but then when that challenge comes, watch this.

Oh, the pronoun police. So, for me, I never correct people because many times people do confuse me as sir.

I don't, you know, it doesn't faze me. However, I'm born in a female body. I'm a she. There are times where my girlfriends have said, oh, my boyfriend isn't that just because of their comfort zone.

They don't want to have to deal with the whole, like, social stigma. So, you're comfortable with them presenting you as a male?

It doesn't faze me. Really? It doesn't faze me at all because my identity and my expressions are masculine.

And I've come to the terms and the realization that I don't need to chop up my body into different pieces to fit in the social little box that is man.

If you want to address me, you can address me as he or she or them or girl Becky with the good hair or Beck.

As long as the term is respectful. Yeah. I will take it. I mean, I sit back just because it's a complicated topic because with language, language is powerful.

And so when somebody who I would consider female wants to be called a male, I would want to probably respect that.

But I still firmly believe that, you know, like God created there to be men and a woman. And I would like to sit down and talk to that person in depth before leaning one way or the other.

Yeah. But I think, like, focusing more on, like, building a relationship instead of just, like, grilling someone. Why do you feel, you know what

I mean? Like, just trying. What's wrong with you? Like, why? Yeah, like, let me sit down. It's just like, do you like?

America is heading in the right direction when it comes to inclusion and diversity.

Okay, we got one LGBTQ person to no Christians. For me, it's more like the youth are headed in, like, inclusion and diversity.

And I wouldn't necessarily say it's the institutions of power. I think the youth are really moving our culture forward.

And like, it's encouraging to see. Logan, the go ahead.

So I'm as we're watching through this again, you know, kind of with fresh eyes, the nonverbals are really sticking out to me.

Like, I think I might have pegged James wrongly when I was talking about like that exaggerated head nod, because now all of his motions just seem like that to me.

And I'm wondering if that's just kind of, you know, his just his communication style. Yeah, Beck had a very skeptical face with that response by rad, which

I find really interesting. I don't know 100 % where that's coming from. But given the fact that she is, you know,

I said this earlier, and we've seen examples of this with abortion and with pronouns, she doesn't fit into the box of predetermined beliefs that we think of for people who are

LGBTQ. And so that's just interesting to me, because she was seemed very not sure about what rad was saying.

Yeah. Well, and again, you know, the influence of post enlightenment,

Rousseau in romanticism is just oozing out of out of rad's blue hair.

I mean, the structure of authority is the problem. The youth who I take it rad would suggest is that's throwing off the authority structures and who are more in touch with their true selves.

That's who is truly enlightened, and that's who we can count on for the future. That is, you know, that is everything that is wrong with the idolization of self in today's culture.

So, here's what I'm noticing from the Christians, and I think I'll say more about this towards the end, but I'm noticing that the

Christians have kind of implicitly adopted the same view. Maybe I should say more about that at the end, but let's pick it up from here.

Now, I can't imagine what it's like to not be able to be who I am and having to hide.

So, I think it's good in that sense that people finally are living in a world where I can be who

I am, and I don't have to be ostracized, and I can be included. And the reason why I didn't step in is because, you know,

I have certain values that I think are from God. And so, that's why

I hesitated a little bit on do I come forward or not. Yes, this is what I'm noticing.

This is what I'm talking about. Isn't it interesting, Logan, how these Christians have been communicating their disagreements with LGBTQ this entire time.

They're very apologetic in tone, very, very careful, almost bending over backwards to try and make sure that the

LGBTQ folk are not offended. That's how I'm seeing it. That's what it looks like to me.

And I appreciate the spirit of that. I appreciate where that's coming from. But ultimately, what

I sense is going on is they're treating their own convictions as their own personal beliefs, just like the

LGBTQ folks. And when you do that, your beliefs are then made to be on par with everyone else's, which means there's no better belief system in terms of truthfulness or value.

So, Nate, I have a question for you about that. Yes. So, I have this thing that I say sometimes when we get questions about how to talk about a particular thing.

I'll say, here's my inside baseball answer that you don't say out loud. And then here's the thing you say out loud. So, I'm wondering, do you think that's the way they are treating their beliefs in their daily walk as well, or are they trying to express it in the language of the people they're talking to?

I think there's still that liability. But I'm just wondering, which do you think is going on?

Oh, man, that's speculation, Your Honor. Or maybe which is more common within the church.

Maybe we can go there for our folks listening at home. Yeah. If I had to guess,

I would say that this betrays a deeper problem, which is that they have accepted the culture's worldview, the elevation and idolization of self, that they have accepted that post -enlightenment, you know, because we were talking about this a lot in the last episode, the romanticist notion of self, where basically there is something divine in you.

What you were born with is actually good. And what corrupts you is not sin, as the

Bible teaches, but what is invading from the outside, society, authority invading from the outside.

And I think that's crept into the church quite a bit. I've seen it happen quite a bit. And that explains,

I think, why these Christians particularly are responding in this way. Well, here's my conviction.

This is how I believe the Bible. This is how I read it, you know? And to me, it's ultimately ineffectual when it comes to changing someone's minds.

I hate to sound harsh, but there it is. No, I think that's good.

But I wanted to address that because I know that, you know, for some people, they might think, well, we don't want to come across as a

Bible thumper, you know? And I mean, I think there's a way to avoid those pitfalls without falling into that, but that is a common trap, and I think that one that people are especially sensitive to want to try and avoid.

Absolutely. And that's where I think our ministry comes in in a very, very helpful way.

Again, if I had to guess what's going on, these Christians realize I want to say something to these people, but I also want them to know that I care about them.

And so what I'm going to do is I'm going to couch my language in such a way that, you know, I'm not going to really try to jab.

And so I'm going to say, hey, this is how I read the Scripture. These are my personal beliefs, but I respect your personal beliefs.

And like I said, the problem with that is that's like running in place on a treadmill. You're not going to go anywhere.

Instead, if you ask questions of someone's belief and you try to expose some flaws, look, the

Christian did it already before, you know? Rad said, I don't think anything is detestable in the context of sex.

And the guy goes, well, hold on a second. You would agree that rape is detestable, you know? And she goes, oh, yeah, like that.

He maintained relationship, it appears, and he challenged her view. You keep doing that and that is much more effective.

Let's keep going. Well, I have a question because I, you know,

I'm curious where the sanctity of your marriage comes in. Like, if you can only get married to a woman because you and God and that woman have a relationship that is perfect for you,

I'm curious how that affects who we can marry. Yeah. I don't think the job of a

Christian, for example, is to get people to behave in a certain moral way that's in line with what the

Bible says. I wouldn't be one to say, you can't marry, you can't marry another guy or you can't marry another girl.

I would say, first of all, God loves you, you know? God loves you. Yeah. So, what?

Okay. So, this is a little bit interesting to me because I feel like what he might be saying is that making non -Christians do external things the

Christian way is not saving any souls. And I think that there is a little bit of an argument there for, or there can be an argument there for why

Christians getting super involved in, you know, who is afforded marriage certificates at the courthouse is not really the most fruitful place for Christians to be expending their energy.

Right. And I mean, to some extent, like this argument now, like it's a little bit like that ship has sailed legally speaking.

But I think that there is an argument for that. But I think that he did not effectively make the demarcation between, it's important for people who follow

Jesus and who follow God to actually abide by God's plan for marriage, for like, you know, the whole world, the whole

Christian worldview, it's important that people who are calling themselves Christians abide by that. That's different than, you know,

I believe that Christianity is right. So, I'm going to force everybody else by edict to do the same thing, even if they haven't committed their lives to Christ.

But what it came across as being instead is

Jesus loves everybody, so we shouldn't be really trying to persuade people why the

Christian worldview is more complete. And I think that second part is where it becomes more problematic. I think that Jesus loves you, and that needs to be paired with, and you need

Jesus, that comes first, or that other stuff, but it's a problem if that comes later becomes that doesn't come at all.

– Right, right. Probably, being fair to the

Christian, the producers probably cut his fuller comments on this. – Yeah, that's probably true. –

Because if they were not cut, that was an atrocious response. Because it's incredibly - –

He did say, first of all, and then they cut him before he gets to a second of all, so that is pretty indicative.

– But the other thing on top of what you're saying is, this is, again, it's just another missed opportunity to show, there's another way to show that there is a

God, which is to show that the lifestyle that the LGBTQ person has embraced does not actually lead to human flourishing.

You can make that argument, not going to the scripture and taking the Bible and banging somebody over the head with it, but you can make that argument in that way, but then it actually leads to a greater question, which is why then is the better way, which is the

Christian lifestyle, why is that better? Well, the answer is because there is a God. You know, that's the thing, is the reason that the

Christian lifestyle is more righteous and better is because there is a divine standard that stands over and above all of us.

And so, that is just another avenue to talk about the existence of God. But when you say, hey, I don't want to tell you what to do, you know, it's just, my goodness, you get locked into these little boxes and you can't ever step outside of it in order to invade against somebody else's lifestyle choice.

– Yeah, and I think a better way to maybe express that is, I remember talking to a friend of mine from high school about, there's kind of this consensus you hear in Christian youth groups that anytime a friend around you is swearing, you should tell them to stop.

And I was talking to a friend of mine from high school and he, we were in college at this point, but that's what the kind of age time

I knew him from. And he said, I'm gonna probably butcher the exact way he said it, but it was something to the effect of,

I don't want to tell them to do that without giving them a reason why. And he was just talking about how, like, it's kind of silly to expect, you know, you might want your non -Christian friends to refrain from certain things out of respect for you and your beliefs, but at the same time, you don't go around just expecting non -Christians to act like Christians, because why would they?

You know, they just don't have the same reasons to. And so, that's something that really jumps out at me.

I also think a way I might explore some of what we're talking about here in terms of human flourishing, that different lifestyles do not lead to human flourishing.

So, we talked a little bit earlier in the video about the use of the word detestable. Another way I might have kind of talked about the same sort of thing to respond to Rad's assertion that, you know, nothing that is consensual is detestable.

We want to get away from that word. I might have said, do you think that consensual sexual relationships can ever be unhealthy?

And I think that might be an interesting road to go down, because I think if you, once you get away from the, if you can, for a moment, step away from the allowed, not allowed conversation,

I think most people recognize there are sexual relationships that are unhealthy.

I mean, you see at least one of these in just about every major sitcom, right? It might be in the context of a greater romantic relationship, but I mean, these things are intertwined.

And I think that might be a good question to kind of step down that path a little bit.

I believe in a higher power. Okay, two

LGBTQ folk are walking to the table because they affirm that statement. Watch, Logan, how these

LGBT folks somehow say in so many words that they are the higher power, that somehow they're connected to it, that deep down, their higher power is what directs their lives.

I'd love to hear from your perspective, why you believe in a higher power. I mean, the household

I was raised in, why not? The analogy of like, you can't, one cannot see love, one cannot see air, and it's still there.

And, you know, I started going to more clergymen and wanting to understand exactly, you know, my ways of being in the image of a greater creator, understanding

I wasn't a mistake. You know, there is a higher source, there's definitely something that has given me these blessings that have nothing to do with me, has everything to do with the bigger picture of things.

I think for me, you know, I was also raised in a very strong religious background. And just as I cannot deny this part of me that is the way

I express love, I'd be dishonest if I said that when I sat down and I prayed and I listened,

I didn't hear. Oh no, it's time for the heathen. What is he listening to? And what is he hearing?

You know, though, a lot of Christians talk that way. Yes, they do. But like, this is something that, and I think that this, when we talk about some of the ways in which, you know, a

Rousseauian epistemology and, you know, hyper individualism have come into the church.

This is the way that a lot of Christians do talk about their individual experience of Christianity.

And I think that it becomes difficult. It reminds me of one time I was in a study with a

Mormon, or a couple of Mormons, we were talking about that, you know, they wanted me and the friend of mine

I was with, who's also a Christian to pray and ask for God to confirm that the

Book of Mormon was true. And they said, well, no, it's true, because we get filled with this great feeling. And the question that I asked was, how would, so if I was a

Buddhist talking about Nirvana and describing Nirvana, and he says that he has experienced it, how would

I know which one of the two of you was telling the truth? Excellent question. Similar responses.

And I think that, and that's been kind of a go -to question for me since then, but I think the same question can be pitched to the

Christian who talks about experiencing God and what God wants them to know in this way.

That's right. That's right. Look, I think all Christians, and I say this with much, much due respect to my brothers and sisters in Christ, and I know you feel the same way,

Logan, so I'm speaking for you as well. I think all Christians owe it to themselves to really try to understand how we got here.

How we got to the point where we can say, as Christians, I went into my quiet time with God, I emptied my mind, which is extremely pagan act to do,

I emptied my mind and then I prayed and waited and listened for some kind of a thought to invade my mind as a response to my prayer.

That is not only unbiblical, it's quite pagan.

And again, it's this idea that there is something down in there, down in here, that I just need to tap into that society and the other sort of structures that are invading from the outside are distracting me so that I can't tune into it, and I need to get all of that out of there so I can go down inward and find

God that is Rousseauian, that is Romanticist, and that really should be avoided.

Are you saying that God doesn't speak, Nate? No, that's not what I'm saying. Please, you have to do the due diligence.

This is a wonderful Bible study for everybody to do. How does God speak? Open up your

Bible and go throughout the Scripture and find out just how exactly He does, because He does. I'm not saying

He doesn't, but what I am challenging is this idea that it came in because of post -Enlightenment reactions to criticisms of the

Church. The Church was the one that shrunk away from intellectualism, and that's where we ended up getting from Wesley the idea of going in, having quiet time, and sitting down, quieting your mind, and hearing from God, and that's just not helpful because we end up sounding like Mormons and these people, apparently.

Let's go ahead and close out here. Y 'all have to stop. You are no mistake. I resonate with some of the things you said, too.

I do believe in a higher power. I just don't believe in a typical higher power, and I also highly believe in science, so I'm like,

I believe in gravity as a higher power. I believe in entropy, things that are out of our control and stuff, and I want to always keep searching, and always keep questioning, and always trying to find as much love as possible,

I guess, and I believe in other people's gods, too. What is happening? Gravity is a higher power.

Entropy is a higher power. By the way, these are all uncaused laws of physics. To me, it sounds like she's saying farting is also a higher power.

That's all over the place, right? Yeah. This is one of these cases where if you let people talk long enough, they'll say five completely separate claims that you could write long responses to each of those separate five, and then they just keep going and more keep kind of spontaneously coming into being.

Yeah, I think that if I was in this situation, and I also, you know, in this particular context,

I don't even know how much opportunity they really have to kind of cross -question people, because they want people to be making statements and claims to compile the video together, but I think

I would just stop and say, like, okay, we need to talk definitions, so when I'm asking, do you believe in a higher power,

I'm talking about a personal being, do you believe in a personal being of some kind? You might want to expand that definition a little bit to include world religions that aren't theistic, that are deistic or pantheistic or something like that, just to start the conversation, but all of those things are very, deism and pantheism are both pretty different from gravity as a higher power, so I would just want to narrow it down and say, okay, when

I ask you, do you believe in a higher power, this is what I mean by it, so would you say yes or no to that?

That's right, and I hope I'm, you know, I'm not trying to make fun of Rad, I just, there's a lot going on there, and I just don't think

Rad has given it a whole lot of thought. You know what I've noticed, too, is a lot of non -believers who sound like Rad, they don't even understand basic things like age and causality, you know, age and causality meaning that there is a differentiation between saying that the laws of physics are divine, like what

Rad said, you know, which is what atheists do, the universe just came into existence on its own, you know, the multiverse or however you want to describe it, it kind of, these bubbles kind of kick -started the universe into its own existence, essentially, and it's been doing that ever since.

They don't understand agent causality, which is that things that cause other things, like the universe was caused, these things are the product of agents.

Agents have intentionality. What are the only things in our experience that have intentionality?

Minds. And so, that's where Christians are saying, well, the beginning of the universe needed a cause, and so, therefore, that is

God, because God is a mind. He is the divine mind, right? But you can't get away with saying that something that is uncaused in itself, just some kind of law of physics, is the same thing as an agent.

It's just, it's absurd. Yeah. I'm really tempted to say, let's just Kalam the heck out of this conversation and ask, did the universe begin to exist?

I think if you get a similar statement to this one, you could say, why do you think gravity exists?

You know, like, everything is so perfectly in balance. Why does that exist? Did it begin to exist? I think you can go down that, but, you know, it's going to be, when you have somebody who is throwing out so many things at once, it's best to pick one and stick with it.

It's kind of tricky sometimes to determine which the best one is. No, you're totally right.

And that's what we advocate for here. If somebody that you're talking to, that you're engaging, drops like nine to 10 different bullet points, you got to pick just one and stick with that one and not, you know, be the

ADD dog from up and, you know, squirrel. Doug! Doug!

Well, Logan, we're out of time. So, just a quick word about the sort of the general reaction to the video.

What are your general thoughts? Do you think the Christians even changed anybody's minds after this? I don't think the

Christians changed anybody's minds. I think that some of them gave some pretty decent nuggets or nuggets of stone for people shoes a couple of times.

I think as a whole, I think that they leaned a little bit to, there was not enough questioning going on.

So, they were being very careful not to be overly combative and to not, you know, come across that, you know, that they weren't going to come across as, you know, kind of your stereotypical screaming

Christian bigot, whatever. And so, they were very sensitive to that, which is good. But I think without the cross -questioning, it appeared that they were granting a whole lot of ground implicitly and would be, you know, to the extent that that person probably walked away with thinking they thought some things that they probably don't.

So, I think it highlights, they did a really good first step in really being compassionate, affirming them where they could.

I think that there were some missed opportunities, you know, at least with the video that we saw, edited how we saw it, of not doing more questioning, you know, gentle prodding.

Why do you think that? How do you come to that conclusion? That sort of thing. – Totally, totally.

And the leading questions that we advocate for, you know, with our method, First State Evangelism, yeah,

I'm not even going to add to that. That was perfect. That's exactly how I would characterize it.

And so, you know, Christians, if you find yourself in this kind of a situation where it's not a group, but just one -on -one, you should go in armed with some tools that are effective.

So, definitely check out our materials, First State Evangelism. You can, you know, read the book

Tactics. It's really held up really, really super well over the years. The updated edition just came out.

And then I think that you will have some excellent moments where you can challenge, ask them to reflect, you know, while also maintaining good rapport and, you know, initial relationship with these folks.