Cultish - Is Christianity A Cult? W/Alisa Childers

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00:00

Alright, welcome back ladies and gentlemen to cultish entering the kingdom of the cults. My name is

00:05

Jeremiah Roberts I'm one of the co -hosts here as Always, I'm super excited for this episode.

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I'm here as always with Andrew the super sleuth of the show We are almost at the final countdown before You'll be sleuthing in Salt Lake City, Utah.

00:21

Oh, yeah, super excited for that. Yep I'm gonna be embedded down there, but it's gonna be great and I'm super excited for today, too

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We have a very very special guest. You want to introduce her? Yes, we are here with Elisa Childers and She is someone we've been following here for a while She's got a great

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YouTube channel and is really passionate in the area of apologetics. Lisa.

00:45

How are you? I'm good. I've been really looking forward to this. Thanks for having me on Awesome.

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Awesome. Just real quick. You tell them just a little bit about yourself I know that some people I've been around for a while and kind of the

00:57

Christian ghetto and world so I kind of know you and some of your in a past life in some sense you have some background in music and sort of Almost the the

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I would call the evangelical industrial complex just because of your background so tell them just a little bit about that and then also just tell them a little about what you currently do and And in regards to apologetics and just some of the passion topics you have the things that you're passionate about right now

01:28

Yeah, well I spent about seven or eight years as a part of the contemporary

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Christian music group called Zoe girl and We were a teen pop group that was oriented toward young tween teen girls.

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And so throughout about 1999 till about 2007 or 8 we toured all over the country even in different parts of the world and you mentioned being a part of that Evangelical industrial complex.

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I didn't know that there was an evangelical industrial complex at the time but I was thrown right into the middle of it in Zoe girl and today

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I run a YouTube channel and I have a podcast and I go around and speak at women's conferences

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Occasionally, I don't do a ton of traveling but I do a little bit of that and I write books And so my first book just came out and it's called another gospel a lifelong

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Christian seeks truth in response to progressive Christianity and it tells my story of Actually ending up at a progressive

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Christian Church Although I didn't know that that's what it was at the time and then my journey out of that And so it's sort of a memoir slash apologetic answering the movement of progressive

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Christianity from a biblical worldview Okay, awesome. Awesome. And so would you do maybe just elaborate a member?

02:44

I mean, I just recent I listened to your book on audible and by the way I think I told you when we initially spoke on the phone

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There is something about when someone does the audible themselves and you hear their voice because there's a lot of times like there's books by John Piper or I'll just other authors all over the place who kind of will have someone else do the audio for them

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There's something that just feels so much more real and tangible. It's actually you talking yeah, maybe you could just elaborate to what when you were because you went from a point where you're sort of in the

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Christian industrial complex and just were being a musician and I think on some ways you have sort of a story that's similar to a

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Previous musician who now has his own podcast. I think you've actually done some stuff together with John Cooper from skillet, but Give us some examples of Some of the things you notice in your journey of both being a musician that kind of got you into the field of apologetics

03:39

I mean you mentioned that you were You would what you were you were in the

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Christian industrial complex or just working as a musician But then also you went to a progressive church, but you saw

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Maybe a similar if I remember that there were a lot of people around you that at one point made a profession of faith in Christianity and biblical

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Christianity and then kind of walked away or kind of evolved and that kind of Kind of shook you up and affected you a little bit maybe just open up about that so people can kind of get an idea of What kind of Formulated maybe go deeper into that if you could

04:16

Well, I appreciate you bringing up the audiobook because I love to listen to audiobooks and it I always love when the author reads it

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So that was really important to me to make sure that I got to read the audiobook. So I'm glad you appreciated that But yeah, so being a touring musician is a very strange

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Experience and I really wasn't even though now This is what's so odd about it is I was raised by a touring musician

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My dad was in the contemporary Christian music industry many people call him a pioneer of CCM He was in a band called love song in the late 60s early 70s just right before the record executives came in and essentially capitalized on all these hippies who were getting saved and writing

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Jesus songs and so that was sort of the Genesis of the CCM movement and so I grew up in a home

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Where that was a reality my dad toured all my growing up life

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And so I got to see the inside of it in many ways But I think

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I wasn't prepared when I went into it with Zoe girl Just to encounter so many different types of Christianity when you're touring you essentially

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Visit every possible kind of church that you can imagine I mean looking back, of course We didn't know at the time where we were even gonna where the bus was gonna park the next day

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You just got up got out. You did your show you got back on the bus So I didn't know what what type of churches but looking back.

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I mean we did Liturgical really conservative small churches. We did big seeker friendly mega churches.

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We did a couple of prosperity churches and It was just I got to experience all facets of different streams of Theology and the way that people would identify themselves as Christians and so because of that I think that You know, you can you can get a little bit jaded when you're on the road because I have this one memory

06:17

I have a couple memories in particular that I think ended up making me vulnerable to what ended up happening next but I remember being at this big megachurch and We were going to go meet the pastor and so they escorted us into this waiting room

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But it was a very small waiting room and to get into the pastor's office somebody would have had to have literally walked right by us and I remember the pastor coming in with his seven or eight bodyguards and Just completely ignoring us and going into his office and then they brought us in and then it was like well

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Hi, nice to meet you. Yeah, so strange and like the bodyguard thing and all of that So it was just little you know, like death by a thousand paper cuts just little experiences like that Very often we would go places and people either thought that maybe would they need to be sure that we're living, right?

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So they would sort of grill us or then we'd go somewhere else and it was the opposite it was just almost like you were being worshipped and admired and and so you're kind of in this fishbowl and you're

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Like I said, you're getting on the bus You're in a new city the next day and it all starts over again

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And you can get very kind of hardened and jaded and the other memory that about the Evangelical industrial complex that really stands out to me was

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This big convention we went to and I think I I can't I don't want to say it wrongly I can't remember exactly what convention it was but I remember our road manager saying wait till you get to the floor and see all the

07:44

Jesus junk and I was like, what is Jesus drunk? Well, we go to this big show you know floor where all of these booths are set up with trinkets and all of these things they're selling with scriptures on them and Jesus t -shirts and all of these things and I just remember thinking like this feels wrong like I'm not a scholar but something about this just doesn't feel right and and so I started to perceive things about The church that bothered me things that I felt needed to be reformed things that needed to be

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Corrected and then around the time that Zoe girl came off the road. I encountered other people who felt the same way

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They had some of these same critiques. They had some of the same red flags And they were starting to speak them openly

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So that was very attractive to me because I I thought oh I saw those things When I traveled as well, and I have the the advantage to part of my story is just being raised by very genuinely authentic Christians My parents gave me the gospel.

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They loved God yeah believed in his word and they served people and loved people and So all of this was kind of new to me

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But what happened was when I connected with these other people who had some of these same things they were seeing and critiquing

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I Joined a church in just right here in the heart of Middle, Tennessee, and at the time it was marketed as a

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Evangelical non -denominational church and my husband I just loved it because it felt so real and authentic and I was encountering all these other people that were like Yeah, we think all that stuff's wrong, too and so I was invited to join this very small and exclusive inner circle type study group and It was in the context of that group that the pastor admitted to this small class that he was actually agnostic and he was

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Deconstructing from Christianity essentially and into what would later become a more progressive type of Christianity But at the time

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I didn't know what any of that was and it was really shocking to me To watch some of my friends who

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I thought we were all on the same page like let's correct these errors But it seemed like they were all willing to throw the gospel out with it and that was really alarming to me so After my husband and I left the church,

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I kind of was isolated away from a church community I had a new baby. So I was isolated from all other adult humans

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It's pretty much and that's when all of the doubts that were planted in that group setting began to take root in my own heart and grow and I went through a

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Really dark night of the soul of doubt and some deconstruction although looking back on it, I think it's not so much that I Deconstructed I didn't want to deconstruct but someone else had successfully deconstructed me

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Yeah, and so I just found myself in total cognitive dissonance about it

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I just it's like I believed but my head was convinced that it was untrue

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And so I'm so thankful to God for being he's just so faithful and he yeah Brought me into the world of apologetics and I began to study and he reconstructed my faith that way but that's sort of the the broad version of the story and we can drill down on any details if you'd like, but essentially

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Just about everybody that I knew from that church or especially from that small group ended up deconstructing

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And some I think even left the faith altogether others identified themselves more as a progressive type of Christian and that church itself

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Went on to identify itself as a progressive Christian community many years later And so that's why

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I'm so passionate to talk about progressive Christianity because it's just a huge part of my story Yeah, no, that's really good.

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Andrew. You have any thoughts real quickly? Yeah so essentially that that pastor was like a wolf in sheep's clothing like you're in a time when you were trying to you know sort

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Things out from when you experienced while you were touring going all these different churches and going through this Evangelical industrial complex you needed to be pointed to the

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Word of God to get Reformation in your thinking and then you have Essentially a wolf in sheep's clothing making you question the

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Word of God leading you into more confusion. I have a question Going back into your touring

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What was church life church life like for you? Did you have like a church that you would get that you were a member of how did that work?

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I've always been kind of interested in that like you just make phone calls to that one pastor or were you just going from?

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One one Sunday to another Sunday to just a bunch of different churches not essentially being a member anywhere white wall while touring

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This is an important question. So when I was in, California Right before I moved to Nashville, so I grew up in California and always was very connected and involved in church

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Then I moved to New York City for a couple of years to do some inner -city ministry very involved with church

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Moved back to Los Angeles was again very involved with a church and then

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I moved to Nashville and Almost immediately went on the road.

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We did some recording and I would attend churches but I never really found a church that felt like home to me and so then we were on the road and In you know, we were gone just about every

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Sunday so if we were home on a random Sunday, I would try to attend somewhere and There was one church.

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I went to several times, but I never got connected with a church in In the

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Nashville area and so out of my seven years of touring I mean

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I started out with the best of intentions. I on my first tour bus. I brought my big Strong's concordance

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You know the big before this is all before our social media for all this was online it was this huge Strong's concordance that I brought out so I could study my

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Bible and In the beginning I was really consistent to do that for a while but that started to I got lazy and it's also really that the

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Schedule of being on a tour is really odd because you basically start your work day

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Around three or four o 'clock with sound check and then there's a show prep and then you do the show and then you do the meet

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And greets and all of that and it's it's very emotionally exhausting then you get back on the bus, which doesn't even leave until midnight and You're hungry

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So you eat and then you're awake and you end up staying up later and later each night And I don't I can't speak for anybody else

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But for me, I fought a lot of depression when I was on the road Yeah And I would wake up like in the beginning

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I'd wake up I go out for a walk or work out and read my Bible I mean by the time I was done touring

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I was dragging myself out of my bunk five minutes before sound check to just get through it and you know fighting depression fighting a lot of depression when

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I was home and I just if I'm honest I essentially didn't really go to church that much after maybe three or four years of touring because then when we'd get off the road, then you're kind of I remember walking into the

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Back then it was the the Dove Awards I don't I don't think it's called that anymore, but the the GMA the

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Gospel Music Association had this big week convention where you'd go to this, you know, all these hotels in downtown

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Nashville is a very big deal and Maybe a couple of years into our run I remember walking into this humongous hotel in Nashville and seeing a billboard with my face on it and the billboard was about two stories high and I didn't know, you know,

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I didn't know they were gonna do that and it was just kind of shocking And so things like that make you very aware of your recognizability when you go into a church

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Especially in Nashville when you've just seen your face like blown up to the size of a brontosaurus

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Yeah downtown it can make you a little bit guarded and careful And so I think there

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I mean I take responsibility for all of this These are my choices that I made but I essentially wasn't reading my

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Bible very much by the end of that I was struggling a lot with depression didn't know who I could talk to You know,

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I was struggling a lot and I really wasn't going to church by the end of that And so when we came off the road though My husband and I were like we really want to get committed and go be involved in a church and we were involved with a church

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For a while and then we ended up going to this progressive church that you know, sort of the whole thing got blown up But but yeah, so when we were on the road it was it sort of waned it just I But no, there was no pastor

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That I could have called in Nashville there wasn't any pastor who was aware of me to even keep me accountable or to even ask me how

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I'm doing and You know, I take responsibility for that. Like I said, but when you're in a touring situation if you want accountability

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You have to provide it for yourself and you have to really want it because and there are artists who do it and do it

16:47

The right way and they do it. Well, but for me, I just I didn't have those safeguards in place.

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I didn't have that Yeah. Yeah, I think I appreciate you sharing all of this and some levels.

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I feel like I can I can relate a little bit I mean, I know last year I was at a

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I went to a conference in Nashville, Tennessee of all places The same as you but um, it was like I went there not as Just for a different reason but there are a lot of people this conference who recognized me either by seeing me or hearing my voice or just like hearing my voice and And you know, it was just like Oh Jeremiah from Colton's.

17:27

It's good to see you like I love your episode and after you know, the 10th or 10th or 11th person that came up like very subtly it

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It almost you could sort of feel and I don't if you can relate to this I will sort of feel like my Gave me just a little more ego a little more by a time

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Then that very next day I was kind of walking around kind of like broad choice Oh people know me, you know

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And so that mean there's there's that aspect and and I think sometimes a lot people will misconstrue the fact that just because I Might be on a

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YouTube video behind a 4k camera or lots of people can hear my voice Somehow doesn't make me anymore

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Doesn't sound might make me like a super super person or super special I mean I've had times to just where You know

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You put a lot into an episode and it's draining and exhausting and I've had times where it's almost that it's almost like I was avoiding

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Fellowshiping with the Lord by serving him or so busy caught up Working that you're forgetting to actually spend time with a

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God that you're serving So I had times where I'd be walking away from an episode just sort of feeling more empty

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Lonely depressed So I mean just to say there's a huge real human element to that for sure let me ask you this because what we're going to try and tackle through today is

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Really is Chris the topic and we talked about this a little Lisa is is Christianity a cult?

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and so I want to just get your thoughts in this initially because I've noticed consistently our podcast has been around for around two and a half years and we

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Have addressed a variety of brought a broad topic of different historical cults like Jim Jones Charles Manson Mormonism Scientology the

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Watchtower Bible and tract society and so forth and so on but from a strictly Christian world view

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We've made no apologies about that and we haven't spoken from a point of neutrality We've really gone with a presupposition that Christ is

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Lord He is the creator of all things All things were created by him and for him and him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge

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And so we're not we're coming from a point not of entrail but of objectivity in regards to got the

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God of Scripture Being the source of all things that are true But we consistently have noticed that we get consistently messages that say that oh

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We are just another cult talking about cults or we are part I mean I could just read off tons of reviews that we've had that where we represent the biggest cult of all time

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Christianity and so forth and so on so I want to get your thoughts just kind of your given your experience kind of wrestling through Your own faith and kind of growing up in the evangelical world.

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I feel like in many ways while I'm not a musician I kind of grew up sort of in the evangelical world

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I've seen other people Deconstruct and believe they kind of got to a higher level of thinking by leaving the

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Christian faith. What do you think? The sort of like the mindset or reasoning just just the general pulse of the culture why people consistently this isn't just one review

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This is every two to three weeks We get a review like this whether it's on our iTunes review or on our

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Facebook page or something of that nature It's a go -to. Yeah, it's a go -to like what do you think is everything everything know at least like what do you think is the pulse?

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Behind that like where do you think that's coming from? I Think that if you follow the deconstruction movement, you do see a lot of people saying things like Lumping the whole church together and they'll they'll identify it in different ways but as a whole system that perpetuates something like abuse or it's

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It's a cult and I think that you know, I of course, I don't think

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Christianity is a cult because I would define a cult as a group of people that may might be centered around a personality that's very charismatic and people kind of unquestioningly follow what that person is saying and I think that there's vulnerability within Christianity to get swept up in a cultish type mentality or maybe a you know

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There are different streams that could be more cultish than others But I don't think

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Christianity is a cult because Jesus wasn't a cult leader and that's because you know with with cults

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You have somebody who drums up a bunch of followers. They give a teaching this works for me I'm gonna follow this person or I think this person is very charismatic but with Jesus he made a lot of claims about himself and then and then he died and then he was raised from the dead predicted his own death and resurrection and then

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Was raised from the dead and we can even know from even outside of the Bible just going to non -christian history

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Within 150 years of Jesus life and know that the people who walked with Jesus and knew him genuinely believed that they saw him

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Alive after he was dead and they were willing to suffer and die for that belief That is a lot of strong evidence that the resurrection of Jesus really happened

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That's the only way to really explain all the evidence And so the way I see it is that Jesus proved what all he said was true

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He right. He was raised from the dead. I'm gonna go with with that guy Yeah, and predicted his death and resurrection and then did it

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And so so it's not I don't think it's a cult, but I do think that in certain church situations certain

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Christian environments we can be very vulnerable to the cult of personality Especially today when we have the internet we have social media we have

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Effectively recreated the Tower of Babel. It's just digital now And so we all have this information that that we can share

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And so I think that there can be this rise of the personality It's something that I think all of us who are public people have to be really careful

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To to make sure that we're not feeding into that that we're coming to the Lord humbly

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And like you said when you get recognized and you might feel that twinge of oh people know me

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Yeah You know to just push that down like know that I'm not created to be worshipped or to be glorified

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Let everything I do glorify you Lord and just do our best to sort of navigate that But I've seen it, you know, it's interesting because the progressive church that I was in I believe there was a lot of cultish things about what was going on there and I'd like if I could

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I'd like to read something from a progressive Christian book Yeah, because I think that the way to avoid

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Becoming a cult or the way to avoid a cultish type environment is to stay grounded in the

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Word of God If the Word of God is your authority You're not going to get swept up in a cult because you know

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You mentioned Jim Jones and I got I got really interested in in that Cult a while back and did a deep dive study if you look at the things he was saying about Scripture He was trying to change what

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Scripture was saying He didn't he had a very antagonistic attitude toward the Bible and that's typically what cult leaders will do is they'll get you off the

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Bible and on to them as your authority and the reason I wanted to read this from the late

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Rachel held Evans book inspired on the Bible and She's she's essentially saying that when it comes to to right from wrong

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She's saying when you can't trust your own God -given conscience to tell you what what's right or your own

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God -given mind to tell you what's true you lose the capacity to engage in the world in any meaningful authentic way and you become an easy target for Authoritarian movements eager to exploit that vacuity for their gain and then she said

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I tried reading Scripture with my conscience and curious curiosity suspended But I felt fake and in all of these things and so she essentially what she's saying is you can't

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I'm saying the direct opposite of what she's saying She's saying if Scripture is if you don't question

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Scripture if you just live your life by Scripture, you're vulnerable For movements that are gonna exploit you.

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I think it's the exact opposite. I think if you stand on Scripture and Then when someone comes along who's twisting it for their own gain or they're misquoting it or taking out of context

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That's how you know like no I'm not following that person because my authority is here in God's Word.

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And so I actually think she's got it backwards and and That's the that's the assurance we have to not get swept up in a cult is to question when a leader says some things they wait a second my

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Bible says this but you're saying this and You know, this is what the Bible tells us to do to test every spirit.

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And so Yeah, I think that that the cult Mentality we can be vulnerable to that as Christians, but no

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Christianity is not a cult. Hmm No, that's that. I think you but you brought up a lot of really really good points there

26:09

Lisa What so one of the things I wanted to maybe bring up and get your thoughts on Andrew you can jump in as well too is that I think that a lot of the

26:18

Reviews and a lot of the criticisms that have been labeled at us and I believe we take note we take no offense to it and in fact,

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I always appreciate the one -star reviews just because It's relevant to the fact that we're making an impact

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We're getting into the world and we're getting it to people that typically wouldn't listen here here the gospel

26:35

So we again, we're not we are intentional with getting the gospel the true gospel of Jesus Christ out into the culture and into this cultural conversation

26:45

I do think that a lot of those reviews and even a lot of times when people bring up the aspects of being hurt by the church being

26:56

Abused by the church We're even in some cases where a pastor is mishandled his authority and someone was generally hurt.

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I think they are Well, I don't believe their claims are accurate and we're gonna do our best to respond to it

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I think it's good to acknowledge the fact that many of them are Coming from a position of pain and they're kind of acting that they're reacting in a way

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Emotional in a sense because you know it I've been in places where I've been hurt by Christians before I mean

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I've had friends that we had Falling out falling outs with because we sinned against each other and it was very difficult process and we end up, you know

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Restoring our relationship. I had my own personal journey where I got really jaded by the church and there was a church

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I was going to I was just really struggling with The celebrity mentality of this church had where you know, they're just situations where this church that I was attending

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I'll be fully transparent is that Everyone who was on staff was sort of celebritized

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As this is the Ed couple. There is a couple that was In that was kind of known as sort of like the rock star couple like the youth pastor

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One of the one of the interns or youth pastors Married a girl that kind of came up was raised up through student ministries and they kind of became like the rock star couple

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This is how you do it. This is all God's plan and they kind of really promoted them well, their marriage hits a major major turbulence and It was almost in the sense of that The church had built so much had spent so much like building these people up as this rock star celebrity couple that there is no room for them to be seen as a as Broken people and as sinners and people that you know needed some real help and counseling

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I just remember seeing this church and being in staff meetings where the pastors and some of the people on staff were like more upset about the brand being hurt or how the perception of their church having someone who was on staff in a high position who now had fallen in a sense or had

29:03

Committed certain sins and I just noticed that and I remember that just being rubbed the wrong way and I just got to a point where I became very

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Deconstructed and jaded and so that's just you know, I'm not without I'm not coming for this a point of like viewing it from afar

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I've grown up in the church and I had my own personal things. I've had to work through with that but Yeah You know, you know what?

29:24

I'm kind of thinking right now like listening to the the Christian industrial complex in a sense even your

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Experience Jerry it what it sounds like to me. We'll use the Christian industrial situation there we have people who are

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Created to be celebrities in a sense like like you're saying your face was on a two -story billboard, right?

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And there's no accountability. Of course, there's always personal accountability of how we get on the in the word, but it seems like when

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Christian groups create Let's say movements that are focused more on individuals other than Jesus right other than the

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God of Scripture. It's a hotbed for confusion error and Influencing people not pointing them to Christ but pointing to them to other flawed humans.

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So when hurt occurs when they're mistaken worship in let's say a celebrity for example, or their

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Celebrity youth pastor as well. For example, they're actually Blaming God for the error that their youth pastor did when truly what should have been going on Is that they always should have been pointed to Christ in the first place, right?

30:37

Right? Yeah and so one of the things that where I was going with that and I'm glad you caught me because of my mind was like Going off in so many cylinders.

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I almost lost my But where I was going with this is that a lot of people have been

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Hurt by the church and then we have to acknowledge that that there's a real problem With that's just a reality when it comes to this conversation

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So I believe there is credence that we need to give in that regard but one of the things

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I do want to bring up and maybe you can give me your thoughts Lisa is that I think that I want to just re -educate

31:08

Walter Martin's classic definition when he would talk about detecting the cults How do you say the existence of a counter counterfeit?

31:16

Predicates the authenticity of original in the same way The existence of an abuse of something has to predicate a certain way that something should be done an absolute standard

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So if there is a path if there is a pastor who is self -appointing himself without accountability and as a byproduct

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People are hurt by that that predicates a standard That there is actually an authentic way that pastors should be appointed

31:44

As far as how someone conducts themself You know at the same time, you know, the

31:51

Bible talks about how the Word of God is like a two -edged sword And it's but also in first Peter 3 15, you know

31:57

It talks about being able to give an apologetic to be able to give an answer with hope meekness gentleness and respect in a sense

32:04

That's a warning label that you need to handle this with care because it has the ability to cut so someone mishandles something

32:12

That's where a lot of the hurt comes from but I think one of the aspects that people need to consider in regards to spiritual abuse that It does

32:21

I would argue that spiritual abuse spiritual abuse predicates almost presupposes or assumes

32:28

There is a standard how people ought to be treated and true biblical Christianity is the only measurement into which we can actually give an accounting

32:36

For that hurt in that pain at least that that's one of the other things that I would try and make an argument for What are your thoughts not

32:43

Elisa? Yeah, I agree with you. I I think that from the perspective of people who've been through the deconstruction often there can be a confusion there because Not only are they questioning what they went through with an abusive pastor.

33:00

Let's just take the example of abusive power You know using the pulpit to bully people rather than teaching

33:09

God's Word weaponizing sermons because the pastor had a bad meeting that week and then that person's going to get the you know, the slap on the wrist through the sermon and It happens a lot, you know, and when you when you're the the

33:24

Receiver of one of those sermons It can be very confusing and not just that but I mean even beyond that just the the bully tactics and things that can happen

33:33

Narcissistic type tendencies with pastors and so there can be a confusion because I agree with you

33:39

You can only know that something's an abuse if you have the standard of what it should be And if we follow the biblical model in the example that should insulate from abuse

33:49

But we live in a culture where any kind of hierarchical structure almost starts to be viewed as abusive

33:56

Right. So to view somebody as a church leader who has any kind of authority over you is viewed as abusive

34:02

Doctrines themselves are viewed as abusive. I've heard many times in the progressive Christian movement

34:07

For example that the doctrine of substitutionary atonement just just the teaching is an abusive doctrine

34:14

It traumatizes people it abuses people so it requires us to really pull apart

34:20

What's going on and dissect it with a surgeon's knife? because for example, you know somebody could

34:29

Have a really bad experience with a pastor. Maybe it's the only pastor that they've ever known maybe they've been with this pastor for a couple of decades and they just don't know any different and then

34:40

Something happens where this pastor is abusing his power and there's gaslighting and all kinds of stuff that that goes on Well that person can begin to then look at the

34:48

Bible and say well did the people who wrote the Bible do that? How do I know that I can actually trust the

34:55

Bible because maybe that was just some guys getting together to systematize some type of You know control over people so I think that even in our apologetics

35:06

We have to we used to really parse through some of those issues What is real abuse and then when are we just lumping everything in the abuse category?

35:15

Because we don't really want authority in our lives and that's a difficult conversation That's gonna vary from from person to person, but I do think you're right

35:22

I think that when we follow the biblical model, which is you know plurality of elders You don't just have one guy calling all the shots and everybody doing everything he says

35:31

You know, we can we can do better to insulate our congregations from from those types of abuses

35:38

No, that's that's really good In fact one of the examples to you when you want to talk about you know Having checks and balances and a standard and a guideline for all right

35:48

This is how you're supposed to do something and when it's not, you know Those not abiding by these principles have consequences so what

35:56

God's Word says in 1st Timothy 5 22 When it talks about do not be hasty in the laying on of hands and do not share in the sins of others and keep yourself pure it's really talking about the qualifications of a

36:08

Biblical elder where there's been a lot of times where I've seen and even our pastors had witnessed churches fall apart

36:14

Just because they're in such a rush just to bring people Just on staff or bring people into spiritual authority who really were not

36:22

Raised from within or had time to have their lives Examined like many a times people will either do that or they will self appoint themselves

36:31

Without checks and balances and lack of accountability And the reality is a lot of the hurt comes from that But if you abandon if you abandon the standard of God's Word, which actually

36:43

God's Word has a base for saying No, don't do these things and the spirit and law of the spiritual abuse is a byproduct by disobeying what

36:50

God's Word says How do you expect to avoid being manipulated spiritually abused if you if you abandon the fundamation fundamental standard?

37:00

to begin with And maybe you could talk about this too I mean you mentioned a little before we asked when we were on the phone

37:06

But I think a lot of people too in the deconstruction movement or people who had label

37:13

Biblical Christianity as a cult they would kind of look at examples of patriarchal abuse or people people being manipulated or being misused or or just being taken advantage of and for some reason they seem to only

37:31

Lump it into Fundamentalist Christianity as if this is the only place that it exists and so therefore because of that I want to obtain more enlightenment more freedom by deconstructing or going to a progressive church or maybe

37:45

I'll Find some sort of by myself through getting to the New Age We're finding a

37:51

New Age guru and thinking that will the only place this happens is fundamentalist Christianity How would you respond to that?

37:58

I'm curious to hear about that Anywhere you have people Together in the same room.

38:04

You're gonna have tendency toward abuse you're gonna have sinful natures coming out and it's it's absolutely not just And I've heard that narrative that it's the it's the evangelical church or it's the conservative church that you find all of this abuse

38:18

And granted we do there have been a lot of abuse scandals come out certainly have but it's not just there

38:24

I can I can attest to this firsthand The church that I came out of has a long his the progressive church that I spoke about in the beginning

38:32

There are a lot of people who were spiritually abused in that church That didn't even necessarily disagree with the pastor's liberal theology, but he was an abusive pastor

38:44

He had narcissistic tendencies and there are a lot of people that he's left in his wake that are wounded and hurt in fact a couple of years ago

38:53

He made a video about what went down at the church and I don't even think he realized what he was admitting

38:59

But he even admitted, you know, I was doing this on purpose I I knew that there were people in the church that didn't know what

39:06

I was doing They didn't know what my beliefs really were and I was okay with them being kind of blind about it

39:12

Because my goal was just to to get them into deconstruction if I I I didn't mind them not knowing

39:20

Basically how he was manipulating them because he said I just I just wanted them to be in the pipeline of being

39:27

Converted to progressive Christianity by me and you know that that's just the very definition of spiritual abuse is using your power and position to Essentially exploit the vulnerabilities of someone else for your own gain

39:41

He had an agenda and he manipulated that agenda and there was a lot of hurt people today because of that You can you can actually search on Twitter There's a hashtag called not my progressive sanctuary and there have been

39:55

Scandals in the progressive church as well. We're a high -profile progressive leader maybe the you know

40:01

The wife comes out with allegations of abuse and the same sort of systems that protect abusers in the evangelical church

40:08

We see that pop up in the progressive church as well with even prominent female authors and personalities

40:15

Running to the defense of the of the man and and ended up gaslighting the wife and this this happens

40:21

You know this happens everywhere where there are people and that's again Though why if we will just root ourselves in the

40:28

Word of God, there's there's a grid for this There's correction and repentance for the abusers.

40:33

There's Advocate work for the victims and healing for the victims and protection for the victims when this is done, right?

40:40

But when we unhitch ourselves from the nature and character of God has revealed in his word

40:46

It's gonna just be a free -for -all we're all gonna be following our feelings and what we think feels right in this moment and We're gonna be doing what might feel right in the next moment

40:55

But that's how abuse starts in the first place is you have this leader who's basically following his own heart

41:01

Who's sort of saying like this is what I want This is a desire I have and that gets corrupted and and then he's willing to use people to get to that to that end

41:10

Goal, so I think this is again just why it's so important as Christians to stay rooted in the Word of God Which is gonna call abusers to repent and it's gonna call church leaders to to deal with abusive leaders

41:23

It's gonna call church leaders to deal with False doctrines and do the hard things that sometimes we as really nice people don't want if we don't want to do that stuff

41:32

But that's all in there for a reason even unrepentant sinners there's there's instructions on on what to do with that and that's all for the restoration of the sinner and for the protection of the sheep and And so I think that it's just so important for us to stay hitched to that to avoid

41:49

Abuse situation and when people haven't been doing that that's when we see the abuse situations happening

41:56

Wow so so what do you think I'm Trying to put yourself in the deconstructionist person's point of view or even that progressive pastors

42:04

I hate to say that like quote -unquote pastors point of view. What is even the purpose of deconstructing?

42:10

What are they feeling that they're not getting from true biblical Christianity that gives them the reason to deconstruct because what

42:18

I find with the zeitgeist or the Society today is that there are certain things that people want to do that.

42:24

The Bible tells them that they should not do Right like practice homosexuality That they shouldn't murder their child in the womb

42:32

There's very thing there's things that are very specific in the Bible that people find offensive today

42:38

Right and if you hold to these quote -unquote offensive beliefs that are given from God Then you are an abusive person

42:46

Therefore you are in a cult Right because you're going against the modern flow of society So what what do you think the appeal is to the person who's deconstructing is are they do they think that they're getting more?

42:56

Liberty to act out in certain areas that they find The the

43:01

Bible tells them they should ought not to do those things, but they would rather do them instead When you listen to a lot of deconstruction stories when you follow the deconstruction movement like on Twitter and on Instagram and even there's there's

43:16

YouTube channels and podcasts dedicated to letting people tell their stories of deconstruction you do find

43:22

Themes of that, but it's gonna differ from person to person. I think now now in my observation

43:30

Now people in the deconstruction movement would probably not agree with me on this But what I have observed is that in absolutely every

43:37

Deconstruction story that I've ever listened to no matter what all the reasons are that are given

43:43

There is always an undercurrent of the biblical ethic on sexuality

43:48

That's always running underneath all of the other things. It might be science versus faith

43:54

It might be oh, I couldn't believe that God is good in the Old Testament It could be all kinds of things that people are genuinely wrestling through and that all of you know

44:02

We all wrestle through some of that stuff But they're always even if it's just at the very end There's always an acknowledgment of and I just couldn't follow a system that would basically tell gay people that Well, they word it like, you know that we don't affirm you as a person because they've assumed that their sexuality is their identity

44:20

They've just adopted that from culture and made that a category and said well if the church isn't gonna affirm you as a person because it's it's like an assault on their

44:28

Personhood because they bought into the idea that this is their identity. Yeah, it's always running underneath it.

44:33

You'll find it in absolutely every Deconstruction story even if lots of other reasons are given first There's always this

44:42

Assumption that the Bible and Christianity historically has gotten sexuality wrong and not just in the area of homosexuality for example in progressive

44:50

Christianity Very popular book that sort of defines the sexual ethic for the progressive

44:56

Christians was written by Nadia Bolts Weber called shameless and she argues in that book that we don't just need a few tweaks of the

45:03

Christian sexual ethic We need to burn the whole thing down and start over She teaches that telling kids to wait until they're married to have sex this

45:12

Represses their sexual flirty and this causes them to be repressed sexually. And so it's really not just the

45:18

LGBT issue It's it's also just biblical sexuality in general. So yes,

45:24

I think that's an element I think people who have deconstructed would would not agree that that's the primary motive

45:29

But you do see that come out in in many of the and well in virtually all of the deconstruction stories

45:36

I've listened to that's at least played a role and and it's very important to Understand not just that they change their mind on it

45:44

But that there's a fundamental assumption From the get -go that Christianity has gotten that wrong and that that the

45:50

Christian teaching on sexuality oppresses people. Mm -hmm No, that's good. I want to get your thoughts on this too.

45:56

Alia says that um, There's a there's a post that I make and it's kind of when you run an

46:02

Instagram account You'll you sort of have those posts that if I post is it just gonna get a ton of reactions

46:07

So say there's one post I make about every six months and it says post someone sent me. It was a poster is

46:13

Of some fundamentalist church and it basically says women are not allowed to wear pants in church there you have to wear a long skirt and they use some

46:22

Bible verses out of context and It's definitely a very you just look at the artwork and it's definitely a very fundamentalist

46:30

Poster for sure, but I've noticed when I the last time I posted this it was around 400 comments

46:38

Just it just struck a raw nerve and the majority of the people who Responded were honestly were women who had grown up in Similar in situations where it was very oppressive and there's a lot of issues that brought up I mean we've had a previous guest who was on the who grew up in the

46:57

UPCI where they believe that you have to grow Your hair out to a certain length.

47:03

You can't cut it and the length of your hair is congruent with you know You're standing with God and so what

47:09

I've noticed too is that a lot of people who deconstruct especially the women they they do come from a point of Believing that they were oppressed

47:18

And this sentence I'll give validity to it just in regards to how they grew up how they can dressed in regards to Modesty and I think

47:26

I've noticed I I think we've even gotten messages from people who have Deconstructed and their mindset and I think this is the case for a lot of people people who come out of Westboro Baptist rather Strict or even

47:39

Mennonite groups when they leave a lot of women they become sort of very promiscuous

47:44

In the sense where they feel like they're liberated to show their skin or show their body almost in the sense that they were

47:50

Repressed and so now they believe that they have freedom Maybe if you just speak from the heart, you know

47:56

Just as a woman and how and under like what's the mindset behind that and especially just being able to give an apologetic for that Like how do we give an answer to?

48:06

The people who are who have been affected that way because I think those That post that I had and people who respond to that They're speaking from a in many ways a legitimate position of pain of where they're coming from and how they felt growing up But how do we respond respond?

48:22

authentically to how do we deal with that in regards to how women have in some cases have been

48:27

Mistreated in regards to that and how they're acting and how they're using that to deconstruct Boy what an important question and I think much like the abuse question this is gonna require a surgeon's scalpel and it's going to depend on each person's kind of Individual story of what they have walked through because I personally know people

48:48

Who were told that if a female if she cut her hair that she was in sin

48:54

When she got married, she wasn't allowed to wear a wedding ring because that was jewelry, you know and there

49:01

I Know other people who were told that if they were in a bowling alley or a movie theater when

49:07

Jesus came back that they would Be left behind and so there are legitimate Anti or extra biblical ideas that people that legalism that hyper

49:18

Fundamentalism like Westboro Baptist in these types of places that they will ingrain in people

49:24

And so I think we that's gonna require a lot of mercy and walking through that with somebody helping them untie the knots of that and and Explaining the scriptures to them and what those things mean on the other hand

49:36

There's there's sort of this knee -jerk reaction to go so far on the other side Like you said to become really promiscuous to begin to address really provocatively and of course

49:47

We all have seen this big pushback against purity culture and yeah, and some of that is legitimate

49:54

There there were some people who grew up in churches where the the example that Nadia Boltz Weber uses in her book is that you?

50:01

Know they pluck the petals off the rose and say, you know, you can't put the petals back on the rose essentially

50:07

Telling students you if you have sex you're you're done like there's God can't restore that or something and you know, those are damaging teaches that are extra biblical, of course, the

50:16

Bible talks about the grace of God and forgiveness and Reconciling sinners to a holy

50:22

God, that's good news. We get reconciled to God and then we you know, Jesus righteousness

50:28

Covers us and it's just a beautiful Doctrine, but what we have to pull apart and and avoid the reaction to knee -jerk way hard to the other side because in Critiquing some of the missteps of purity culture that doesn't mean that we throw the biblical concept of purity out the window

50:47

And I I you know, just personally I think that telling women to dress modestly to I mean

50:54

There's so many Bible verses that talk about Modesty and that's not just modesty and as far as not being sexually provocative, but just in every area to be modest humble people and And I don't think that's oppressive to women and I also don't think that when that's taught

51:12

Right that it places the blame of men's lust on women No, men are responsible for their lust.

51:18

They need to repent for their lust You know there's there's when we have a fully orbed biblical view the

51:24

Bible requires a lot from men and women in this area and certainly if a woman is dressed provocatively and you know, that's not permission to assault her and and so there's there's

51:34

I think a bunch of knots that we have to untie when it comes to this and take a surgeon's scalpel to it because there is

51:43

Legitimate things that people grew up with that that became so fused to what they believe

51:49

Christianity is It's almost impossible to tear those things apart. And so it takes a lot of care It's gonna take a lot of healing a lot of discipleship a lot of walking with people through these things

51:59

But in the deconstruction movement, I have noticed that in fact, they'll have memes on it

52:04

I always search the deconstruction hashtag just to see what people are saying and there was this one meme where it said

52:10

That awkward moment after your deconstruction when you run into one of your old church friends when you're wearing a crop top and Sort of like, you know, that's that awkward moment

52:19

Once you're all freed and liberated and you can dress however you want, you know, their response is is weird, but biblically speaking

52:27

You know dressing modestly is a biblical concept and the Bible like I said requires a lot from men and women with that And so I think just oversimplifying things is our tendency in our

52:38

Twitter verse It's just yeah, we just want the the quick hot take we want the the quick little soundbite, but that's not how life is

52:46

That's not how biblical You know instructions towards things work It's a fully orbed holistic thing and it's gonna require looking at a lot of different angles

52:55

And so I think you know We're having mercy and patience with people walking them through things if you're walking with somebody in real life

53:01

He's been through some of this but also not over correcting on the other side And but just trying to have a biblical view on things because we're

53:09

Christians and we want to live according to the Bible Yeah, no that that's really good too. And I want to also just bring into the fact

53:16

I mean we're talking about some of the the Sociological assumptions that people have who've been hurt by the church and how they would might label

53:22

Christianity biblical Christianity as a cult Again, we would we had emphasized that the the source of a lot of that hurt and a lot of pain

53:30

I think biblically we would make the argument If you hear where we're coming from for any of you who are listening who have experienced

53:38

Pain hurt by the church one, you know, we want to have empathy with you in that regard But we want to just reiterate that you know

53:45

There is a specific standard that God gives checks and balances in the way that things should be done

53:50

And that typically the hurt and pain comes from a part when people disavow that standard

53:57

That's where the pain came to begin with You're not going to find healing by disavowing the exact same standard that ultimately was the original source of your pain and hurt

54:07

To begin with if in fact Someone did act in accordance of a way that wasn't biblical and you or you were hurt in that process

54:14

Maybe I want to get your thought on this to Lisa in regards to kind of maybe the theological implications of is

54:23

Christianity a cult I wanted just to bring up a couple different topics because a lot of people believe that they are sort of bringing in They're kind of achieving spiritual enlightenment or spiritual freedom by engaging in progressive

54:37

Christianity or New Age thought and somehow that is going to give them freedom and liberation

54:43

But if you want to look at the classical Definition of a cult but also let's just for example, let's bring in Walter Martin's classic definition which is really we mentioned earlier a group of Usually Where's it at one of my any group focus around a personal organization or organization's misinterpretation of the

55:04

Bible? Centrally focused around their denial that Jesus is God Come in the flesh that ultimately is where we would categorize that our definition and then we would also argue that the sociological and psychological manipulation as a

55:19

Ultimately comes from the theological manipulation that that's where the source is is our is where we're coming from But a couple of people that you may know

55:29

I'll just mention a couple of them just recently Actually, we just made a post about it was trending on several different people

55:36

I think the folks over at American gospel shared it the tweet from gun gore where he was making the statement that Jesus was a cry.

55:45

I'm just paraphrasing it Muhammad was a Christ everything is Christ and he just goes down this whole line sort of embracing this

55:53

Really progressive ideology and he in the follow -up tweet He brought up the fact that he gave

55:58

Richard Rohr the credit for that or talking about the cosmic Christ Even to honestly, this is one of those times

56:06

I'm sure you've had people you you know, you've seen walk away from the faith that it just it hurts

56:11

It's almost like it's just you feel like gutted. I think one of the experiences for me was just sort of seeing

56:17

You know Kevin Mac's from DC talk Identify with himself as a someone who's also deconstructing to me

56:24

I grew up in the sort of the Jesus freak era and that played such a really a real role in like when

56:30

I became a brand new Christian and You know, I made a post when that happened.

56:35

I was like, I'm listening to the Jesus freak this morning It just it just doesn't feel the same and made me sad

56:42

And I don't know if you're familiar with this group. I can't remember her name But there's a band called the autumn film and they had a hymn group page the

56:50

XVI Which they would do him covers and I actually met this artist personally But in her most recent album that came out she has this

57:01

Song where it's very beautifully done similar She's done a lot of him covers But in it she is referring to the cosmic

57:08

Christ and refers to God by Multiple different genders as he she not giving making

57:13

God genderless and it just again it's just something that you see someone who at one point was making an adamant profession of the triune

57:21

God and Now they're progressing to this sort of new Progressive Christianity that fundamentally was done by really

57:29

Richard Rohr had a huge has had a huge role in that like what's the appeal? To that like why why is that appeal don't going towards those aspects of progressive

57:38

Christianity in regards to the cosmic Christ? And is that would you say that there that would be more congruent with a classical historical?

57:46

Definition of a cult versus biblical Christianity or give us your thoughts on that. Oh Boy so much in that question.

57:53

Yeah, this is something that You know when Michael Gungor and Kevin Mac's tweeted about well

58:00

Kevin Mac's tweeted about his deconstruction and Michael Gungor tweeted about you know, Buddha is Christ. Jesus is

58:05

Christ And Kevin Mac's referenced the universal Christ Well because I've studied progressive

58:11

Christianity for so many years that these I immediately knew what they were talking about But I think for a lot of Christians who had followed some of these people didn't realize how deeply ingrained this teaching has become in the movement of progressive

58:25

Christianity and Like you mentioned it's been brought into the church through Richard Rohr.

58:31

It's actually just a new age belief it's been smuggled in to Christianity from the New Age and you know, we've both had a guest even bank cars on our podcast to talk about this and it's

58:45

The appeal I think it's the same appeal that was the appeal for Eve in the garden you can do things

58:52

God's way and submit yourself to God's authority or you can choose to do it your way and essentially, that's what the universal

59:00

Christ gives you is It's fundamentally based on a panentheistic worldview that you know,

59:08

Richard Rohr will say things like Christians tend to look at the incarnation as when

59:14

Jesus came but actually the first incarnation was creation. This is when God In fact

59:20

Richard Rohr says God loves things by becoming them So God essentially created the universe and then exists in and as it

59:27

The universe is the body of God according to Richard Rohr So think about the appeal of this if you want to search for God And you don't want to really have to feel like you've done things that are wrong and sinful that you haven't rebelled against a holy

59:43

God. Well, where are you going to look to find God if God exists in and as everything?

59:48

Then all you have to do is look right inside yourself because we all have this shared divinity So that's why when

59:53

Michael Gunker comes on and he says Buddha was Christ Jesus was Christ He's not talking about what we have always believed for 2 ,000 years

01:00:01

Christ means the Messiah the anointed one He's meaning it in this New Age sense that it's this cosmic reality that this guy

01:00:09

Jesus Sort of latched on to and fully realized and then as Richard Rohr says, you know,

01:00:15

Jesus was a model and an exemplar So here's the thing I do think a case could be made that the universal

01:00:23

Christ type mentality leans toward a cultish mentality based on Walter Martin's definition because of the

01:00:31

Implicit denial of the deity of Jesus now. I've never personally read or heard Richard Rohr say

01:00:37

Jesus is not God But he implies it all the time with the way he words things So like I just said

01:00:43

Jesus was a model and an exemplar of the human and the divine Dwelling in the same body an example a model like this is what we're supposed to be doing.

01:00:51

We're supposed to be Gaining the cosmic Christ. We're supposed to be having this enlightenment in this cosmic reality happen to us and then

01:01:00

Richard Rohr will say things like Jesus never asked to be worshipped I've heard other progressive pastors when they're teaching on cosmic

01:01:07

Christ say things like you know Our tendency is to worship the messenger and then you know sort of Lowering Jesus view and then there's always putting

01:01:17

Jesus on the same plane as people like Muhammad and Gandhi and Buddha you know, these were all examples of these highly evolved humans who who somehow realized this cosmic reality of the universal

01:01:28

Christ and And we that's what we need to be going for we need to be doing that because you already have Christ inside you

01:01:34

So according to Richard Rohr and the universal Christ Jeremiah, you are the Christ the chair you're sitting in is the

01:01:40

Christ The computer that is in front of you is the Christ because Christ Christ is a cosmic reality

01:01:47

That's in in all things. And so it's it's something that I think it appeals to intellectual people it appeals to people who might be wanting to throw off the authority of the

01:02:01

Bible and some of the what they perceive to be the more Fundamentalism that they grew up with and it sort of gives them a framework within which to make sense worshipping themselves essentially but you know

01:02:15

Richard Rohr in his book even talks about looking into the eyes of his dog and seeing the Christ in his dog and It's it's really just it can it's a concept that's completely foreign to historic

01:02:25

Christianity It's completely foreign to the Bible, but it seems to be really gaining a lot of ground

01:02:30

Especially in the progressive Christian movement, but yes, I think and I do think

01:02:36

I mean, this is my opinion But I think Richard Rohr as a person is a very cult leader type person.

01:02:42

He's got a very charismatic genial He's like this warm grandfather type personality.

01:02:48

He makes you feel so good about yourself I've heard him on podcasts where he's complimenting people and there there is some behaviors there that Concern me about the kind of cult leader.

01:03:00

I'm not saying he is a cult leader, but there are cult leader qualities there And there's always kind of this focus on himself

01:03:07

And then he's giving you this cosmic Christ idea that makes you feel so good about yourself And so according to work

01:03:13

Walter Martin's definitions. I definitely see signs of that in Richard Rohr and and the universal

01:03:18

Christ I'm not prepared to make a case for it. I think I'd love somebody wants like a PhD topic I'd love to see somebody sort of explore that but Do you think a case could be made with a for there being a cult like thing attached to the universal

01:03:33

Christ? No, that that's really good. In fact, I'm sure you're familiar. You're familiar with the Facebook I'm not sure who runs it, but it's red pen logic.

01:03:41

Yeah, I know that's Tim Barnett. Yes. Oh my gosh I love I've become a huge fan of his his account.

01:03:48

It's so good and practical In fact, he did he did a really good breakdown of Michael Gungor's tweet And in fact,

01:03:54

I noticed too when Michael Gungor responded his second tweet follow -up after he made the statement of everything being

01:04:00

Christ You know, he mentioned that being canceled again by evangelical Twitter for this tweet and was kind of playing

01:04:05

You know the the victim a little bit I would say too is like I don't want Michael Gungor cancer canceled

01:04:11

I want him to be able to speak his mind. He has the right to do so But we have a responsibility as Christians to be able to give a response

01:04:21

And I think that was very helpful what he did and you know He made a couple of really good points to when it comes to defining terms, you know

01:04:27

For example in Michael Gungor's tweet, he mentioned that Christ is a word for the universe seeing itself It was like no no actually

01:04:34

Jesus and his followers did not understand the word Christ this way The Greek word for Messiah is Christos or Christ Christ is referred to the anointed one sent from God to be

01:04:43

Savior and King of Israel and the nations In fact, we dealt with us, too We had Steven bankers on several times as well, too

01:04:50

We dealt with this issue, you know, if someone said to me and obviously you're giving as example, I would like no No, no,

01:04:55

I'm not. I'm not Christ. No, I'm more. I'm John the Baptist. That's who I'd emulate saying. I'm not the

01:05:00

Christ And the fact that you know, he said there was any was there anyone more righteous in his day than John the

01:05:06

Baptist of anyone He said no, I am NOT Christ, you know Christ must increase but I must decrease and you saw all aspects truly biblically is always focused in on the work and person of the historical

01:05:19

Jesus of Nazareth so and one of the things that also I would try and make the argument to is that a lot of people who believe they are becoming progressive or deconstructing what

01:05:30

Typically ends up happening is that either either embracing some sort of progressive Christianity or some realm of new age thought

01:05:38

Believing that somehow they're obtaining true freedom when reality that is all they're really in doing is embracing the

01:05:46

Historical heresy that the Christian Church initially was there their initial arch -enemy

01:05:52

You know, this was the Green Goblin from spider -man 1 in regards to heresies. I'm a little superhero nerds

01:05:57

I'd throw that out. But you know, he says You know you think about the teachings of Jesus Christ look at John 18 chapter 20

01:06:04

He says I have Jesus said I have spoken openly to the world I have always taught in the synagogues or at the temple where all the

01:06:11

Jews come together. I have said nothing in secret that goes antithetically to every single claim of progressive

01:06:19

Christianity new age thought that is Why the Christians were at war with all these other worldviews all these other worldviews had this secret hidden Esoteric knowledge has always has been the case with Christian heresies different cults different secret societies

01:06:34

And this is what has made the unique gospel of the unique uniqueness of the true gospel of Jesus Christ that it is a open and Public record not nothing done in secret.

01:06:45

You have specifically historical events that happen in place of specific prophecy time date

01:06:52

Location not a private revelation not because I said so not just some arbitrary claim but real

01:06:57

Historical places of where things happen that is out in the open versus the typical claims of cult leaders or the secret

01:07:05

Esoteric knowledge that seems to be a lure of people who go and deconstruct. Mm -hmm.

01:07:11

That's that's good, man I love that. I love that so much. Yeah, go for Lisa Well, yeah, that's that's really interesting because it's it's like so Gnostic, isn't it?

01:07:21

It's like, you know this this secret knowledge that that's just being revealed now 2 ,000 years later

01:07:28

It's it just makes no sense to think that like you said everything that's public record all of we have the historical

01:07:36

Jesus in the Gospels and He wasn't talking like this and and it's like you have this whole new thing.

01:07:42

But you know, I think that one observation I made with the Michael Gungor tweet when I was I was kind of looking at the fallout and a lot of the

01:07:49

Comments some people were making and one of the tweets in the in the responses stood out to me that I thought was a really hopeful

01:07:55

Observation that somebody made it was somebody who was actually deconstructed and I'll have to paraphrase because I don't have it in front of me

01:08:01

But they said something I think that that tweet from him if you're not, you know in the universal Christ world even for deconstructed people that tweet was kind of shocking because they don't understand the framework that that's coming from or maybe they're not familiar with Richard Rohr and somebody said, you know, this tweet kind of makes me wonder if half of my deconstruction was just reactionary

01:08:22

Wow, because I think that it's like it's it's taking things so far that maybe people who were deconstructing some of the abuse they went through or some of the hyper fundamentalism they went through or Maybe some of the erroneous biblical ideas they were given as they were growing up Maybe they're realizing whoa, like this is where this is all heading

01:08:44

I don't want to go there and I'm praying that maybe more people as you know as the progressive

01:08:50

Christian movement becomes more and more sort of out into the the weeds that people will kind of will kind of Recognize like wow what

01:08:59

I was running from I'm kind of running away from that but into something That is not gonna lead me into a good place

01:09:06

And so my hope is that you know as this kind of gets more and more out there that people will even question their

01:09:12

Deconstructions and say wait, maybe I don't want to throw the gospel out Maybe I do want to plant my feet on something solid and unchanging

01:09:18

Wow It reminds me of like almost the time that we're living at is the time of the book of Judges right where everyone does what?

01:09:24

Is right in their own eyes and if you're reading through the book of Judges you realize that the error comes

01:09:31

When people reject what God has told them and they forget the God of their fathers, right?

01:09:36

They forget who Jesus is so if we fall prey to the Gnostic heresy that God and God who exists independently of us who created us as creatures right goes into his creation to live a just and perfect life to die the death that we deserve and Then raises from the dead if you deny that and say well ontologically you are

01:09:59

Christ In this panentheistic worldview that Christ or God is in every single thing, right?

01:10:05

You're forgetting now the very important aspects of why the gospel even makes sense and why Jesus was needed in the first place in Colossians 2 it warns us it gives a warning but also a

01:10:17

Steady and firm foundation for the Christian to not be fooled, right? It says it says this it says

01:10:23

God's mystery Which is Christ in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge? I say this in order that no one may delude you with plausible arguments

01:10:30

Although I'm absent in the body yet I'm with you in spirit rejoicing to see your good order in the firmness of your faith in Christ And then it says this

01:10:36

Therefore as you receive Christ Jesus the Lord So walk in him rooted and built up in him and established in the faith just as you were taught

01:10:43

Here's the key word abounding in thanksgiving when you forget the God of your father's you forget how important Salvation is and you go searching after other gods and Jerry says this all the time in Psalm 16 for it says the sorrows of those who search after other gods are multiplies and then it says this right after in Colossians it says

01:11:01

When you are supposed to be abounding in thanksgiving for your salvation the basic Fundamentals of Christianity the milk of Christianity if you are not abounding in thanksgiving

01:11:10

This is what you can fall prey to it says this See to it that no one can take you captive by philosophy and empty deceit according to human tradition

01:11:17

According to the elemental spirits of the world and not according to Christ for in him the fullness of deity dwells bodily

01:11:23

It's in him alone and you have been filled in him who is the head of all rule and authority, right? This this is

01:11:29

Jesus and the salvation that we had we are not to forget the God of our fathers and the truth is this is when we

01:11:35

Fall prey to a God of our own design We make bad gods and bad things will happen right when we all do what is right in our own eyes

01:11:44

Because if you take to the logical conclusion that everyone ontologically is God Right.

01:11:50

You are your own moral compass. You are your own lawgiver. There is no more sin

01:11:55

There is no more need for redemption However, you live in the reality where God is in control and when you have a society of people who are going against God's words

01:12:05

Redefining who Jesus is we are going to live in judgment If you think the world's gonna get better by you accepting a universal

01:12:13

Christ, are you blind? Do you not see the world that we're living in today and the problems that we're facing?

01:12:19

I can tell you this number one It's because you're not bowing the knee to Christ and who he has revealed himself to be in scripture instead

01:12:26

You make yourself as God and yourself as the standard and you live in confusion, but you don't have to live that way

01:12:32

We actually have certainty through God's Word on who he is how he has revealed himself to us and we need him as Creatures, right?

01:12:41

We worship regardless. There's no real sense in the word Deconstructing because what are you even deconstructing?

01:12:48

Right? What are you coming to? You can't deconstruct the one who spoke all things into existence.

01:12:53

It doesn't work that way. That's called cognitive dissonance Right. We need to understand who

01:13:00

God is to construct a consistent worldview in the first place. So What that's the thing like what are you deconstructing to you're holding to a set of standards?

01:13:10

You're holding to a set of presuppositions. Are you taking them to their furthest logical conclusion or are you your own

01:13:18

God? And do you worship yourself, I mean it kind of comes down to that in a root I know there's other reasons for it

01:13:24

But that's just kind of my my basic thought process of it as of right now And I pray for anyone who is deconstructing

01:13:31

I want you to I want you to think about this if you do not have absolute certainty in the God of the

01:13:37

Bible you will Never ever in your searching your whole life Ever find absolute certainty

01:13:43

You will be blown about by every wind of doctrine because Jesus says sanctify them by the truth.

01:13:49

Thy word is truth He cares so much about his word and who he is. That is that he took flesh the

01:13:55

God of the universe and Died and resurrected from the grave just so you can actually have peace with him.

01:14:01

That's how much he cares Tell me how much Muhammad cares. Tell me how much Buddha cares. They don't care. They're not

01:14:06

Christ and I would never want to ascribe a term that's only associated with the

01:14:12

God of the universe To mere men who are still dead in their graves That's good,

01:14:18

Andrew preach What are your thoughts in the handle Elisa? Oh gosh, I wouldn't add anything to that That was you know,

01:14:27

I was my charismatic my charismatic background almost just gonna you know started showing I was

01:14:34

I Steve would be listening that caught glory glory Love you, Steven Yeah, let me ask you this.

01:14:41

I want to spring up a couple topics here I mean at this time at time is just flying by and this is I just again Thank you for taking the time.

01:14:47

Oh, yeah mentioned previously, you know, you've done a couple of different podcasts today So I appreciate you going extra innings with us

01:14:54

I wanted to address something too because we're kind of addressing people who have deconstructed or people who are Kind of in the grow up in the evangelical world.

01:15:01

I think a lot though a lot of people do Come from the point of their criticisms of our show

01:15:08

I mean, we have a broad variety people who enjoy us who are atheistic Gnostic and whatnot But I think a lot of times people will and sometimes rightfully so I believe there are

01:15:19

Christians who do not use really critical thinking The way that they should

01:15:25

Where they're very they're very experiential, you know Jesus is good because he worked he worked for me But a lot of times the accusation will made the

01:15:32

Christian is a cult because it's just blind faith. It's something that people You're just taught not to think for yourselves not to question anything

01:15:39

You just let's just accept this dogma and live the life that is great and never question anything

01:15:46

Maybe you could kind of jump back and you shared a little bit earlier Kind of your story as you kind of dealt with both progressive

01:15:53

Christianity and also when you're going to different seminaries and Really challenged with a lot of people who are challenging different aspects of the

01:16:01

Bible I know I think it was in the Old Testament. You were talking in your book another gospel the Battle of Jericho and How people perceive that and that was something morally wrong so my point in being is that If someone would say that Christianity is a cult in the sense that this is a non it's not a religion of the intellect

01:16:23

And it's not something you should use as far as your mind goes How would you respond to that given your experience and how it's brought you to where you are today?

01:16:32

That's a great question. And I think often that Claim is made based upon a faulty understanding of faith

01:16:40

I think a lot of Christians define faith the same way atheists do you know

01:16:46

Richard Dawkins famously Called faith. I don't have it in front of me But something like if you believe something despite there being no evidence for it

01:16:55

And even if there's evidence to the contrary you still believe it and and so yeah He's describing a very blind kind of faith and sadly

01:17:02

I think a lot of Christians view faith that way as well as if you know If you if you question anything or if you have any doubts about things

01:17:09

Well, that's a sign that your faith is weak But we have to understand that the opposite of faith is not doubt the opposite of faith is unbelief

01:17:19

Doubt only can exist in the context of faith. You don't doubt something unless you believe it so doubt and faith kind of go hand in hand and I I've said this before on podcasts and I've gotten a little pushback on this

01:17:31

But I think doubt is it is a healthy good part of maturing as a Christian Because we are gonna be finding ourselves in all kinds of situations growing up You might have a family that's giving you the biblical gospel and that's great.

01:17:45

You might have someone else Another family who's giving you a little bit of it But then some of it skewed or maybe it's a cult or something like that And the only way you're gonna know is if you start to doubt some of those things and test them

01:17:56

So you test them against reality you test them against God's Word. And so, you know faith biblically speaking is trust

01:18:02

It's trusting in Jesus for salvation, but that's not a trust. That's blind In fact, you know,

01:18:09

I did a search through the scriptures of just all the doubters in the Bible You have people like Hezekiah you have

01:18:16

John the Baptist a lot of apologists used John the Baptist but it's a powerful example of someone who John the

01:18:22

Baptist saw the son son of God. He baptizes the Son of God physically

01:18:27

He sees the Spirit of God to sound like a dove and hears the audible voice of God the Father I mean he encountered the whole

01:18:33

Trinity if anybody in the history of the world had every reason to never doubt what he believed

01:18:38

It would be John the Baptist but you know, he finds himself in Herod's prison cell on death row essentially and He sends his disciples to ask

01:18:48

Jesus. Are you the one or should we look for another? I mean like what you're you're questioning you knew this and Jesus was so tender with him

01:18:56

Jesus didn't send him back and the disciples back and say John you should just believe or you know

01:19:02

Have a blind faith in me. No Jesus. He he was so tender about it

01:19:07

He reminded John remember blind I see and I don't have it right in front of me But he even referenced a prophecy that John would have recognized as a prophecy because he was performing miracles

01:19:19

Jesus was miracles were always Referred to as signs these were signs that were confirming his message and so he sent that evidence back to John to reassure him and I think that's such a

01:19:29

Great example to look to look at when we think about faith versus doubt because they're not opposites

01:19:37

They work together and if you're rooted in truth and you're looking for truth and you want the truth You will resolve your doubts based on God's Word.

01:19:45

You resolve your doubts based on just the evidence of Reality and so I don't think that it's a blind faith.

01:19:52

No, it's not Faith requires you to take a step, right? It's not like but it's not like jumping off a cliff and I kind of in my book

01:20:01

I use the example of a roller coaster because when I was little I loved going on roller coasters I had zero fear there wasn't even a hint of oh, this could fall off the tracks but like when

01:20:12

I became an adult and You've watched enough of the news and you kind of see how things happen in the world

01:20:18

I'm a little more hesitant to get on roller coasters now because I'm always thinking okay This is gonna be the one this is gonna be the one on six o 'clock news where it falls off the the tracks and Everybody plunges to their death, right?

01:20:30

But I still get on the roller coaster because I trust I don't have absolute proof that that Thing is not gonna go off the rails

01:20:38

But I trust that it won't because I know that they have safety guards in place

01:20:43

There are people who x -ray the tracks every few years. They they check all of the machinery. They make sure it's working properly and so there's good reason to Trust getting on that roller coaster.

01:20:55

And so I think that when we view faith as this sort of blind leap

01:21:00

That that's what can get us into trouble But when we view it as trust based on good evidence

01:21:06

Which I think is kind of what the Bible gives us then it's not a blind faith. It's a very intellectually informed faith and I think we look out into creation and we see that what we discover about creation lines up with what

01:21:20

God says about it and so yeah, I don't think that that Christian true biblical

01:21:26

Christian faith is blind. It's not blind. It's trust based on evidence. It's based on a reason We have reasons to believe this.

01:21:33

Mm -hmm. No, that's really good and then I want to bring up one other thing that was brought up in our

01:21:39

We got we got quite a bit of response both our Facebook and Instagram asking

01:21:45

You know different questions about whether or not Christian is a cult And it's a broad variety of topics, but our good friend and you know her as well

01:21:53

Melissa Doherty. Shout out to Melissa She brought up a good question That I think this sometimes gets brought up to on even the

01:22:02

Joe Rogan experience on a consistent basis Which is this cut that's kind of like the digital Areopagus the live -streaming areopagus of the world right now

01:22:10

That's like the Athens Greece live stream on a regular basis Where it's not like all the different philosophers and politicians of the world come there and share their thoughts and ideas

01:22:19

But that is something that typically is brought up on a regular basis But Melissa brings up a good point where she says one thing

01:22:27

I've heard from certain circles is that Christianity was a cult of Judaism Saying something on the lines that it was the

01:22:32

Mormon it like we were the Mormonism of Judaism So that would be an argument. Well, well Christian as a cult we kind of derived from that and and sometimes

01:22:41

I mean that some people in the first century they did perceive us as that but That is a good question.

01:22:47

That's a good objection and that deserves a good answer Just off the get -go.

01:22:52

How how would you respond to that claim? Given that historical assumption that many people appeal to from all different world views

01:23:02

That's an interesting claim. I mean, I think that that you could devote a whole show to Showing all you know how

01:23:09

Jesus fulfilled the Jewish prophecies and how it all comes together I mean you could probably do a whole hour on all of that, but it's an interesting claim

01:23:18

It's sort of just off the top of my head. It's sort of For are the people who are asking that are they

01:23:25

Jewish people or are they are they atheists? Do you know I think I think both people category people in both categories would make that claim from different world views

01:23:35

I think Melissa brought that up as a general assumption, but I've heard multiple different people Bring that up But I could see both people making that claim

01:23:45

Because it's interesting to me I could understand that claim come coming from a Jewish person But for if it's from somebody who's not a

01:23:52

Christian, but not a Jewish person is like what would it matter? Because you know, it's like what would it even matter if if it was or wasn't?

01:24:01

but you know, I mean just I Know that you guys probably have a lot to say on this But I think overall what what

01:24:07

I would say I just go back to the resurrection of Jesus You know we have all of these Jewish prophecies about the

01:24:13

Messiah the coming Messiah and then we have Jesus fulfilling all these prophecies and again claiming these things about himself and it's not like he just died and went away he died and was risen from the dead and To me, that's just and he even said

01:24:27

I'll give you a sign It's a sign of Jonah and he was talking about his death and resurrection And so like again, we're talking about that trust based on evidence

01:24:35

I think that's the greatest evidence to show that this isn't like the Mormonism of of Judaism Jesus is the fulfillment of Jewish prophecy

01:24:43

He is the the culmination of the Jewish religion is how I would answer that in a broad sense But I know that you know

01:24:49

We could go through all the scriptures to sort of demonstrate how Jesus fulfilled all these things and just real quickly

01:24:55

We would also articulate that It would not it would be a category error in the sense that Mormon is

01:25:01

Mormonism is really founded off of a private Experience a private revelation where Joseph went out into the woods to pray and see what church was true

01:25:10

And then Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ in separate physical form come down to say Oh that you it's now your time to restore the church

01:25:18

Either that there's no one who there's not multiple public witnesses. There's no public record

01:25:24

Different manuscripts of the golden reformed Egyptian plates that he supposedly found on the hill

01:25:30

Kimora No, we don't have any verifiable resources of historically the ermine the omen and thumb

01:25:37

Um, I don't even I still mispronounce it. Am I doing I just think of Uma Thurman in with Thurman. I Think we said the previous pod.

01:25:43

Yeah, that's all that comes to my head now Yeah, so my point being is that this is like everything within Mormonism was it was all based off of public private experiences and Joseph Smith claims because I said so where the reality is that you have all

01:25:57

Really God's law when it comes to establishing truth. It's based off of the testimony of two or three witnesses

01:26:03

That's why I believe we have four Gospels because we have to not just two to three independent lines of testimony.

01:26:09

We have four independent lines of testimony witness of Jesus Christ and his minute his public ministry and then you look at all the different public people who publicly witnessed it

01:26:19

You'll see that in the claims that Paul made in Corinthians talking about the resurrection over 500 people saw him some have fallen asleep

01:26:25

Some are still alive. So you see a publicly verified record But I think one of the things also And I'll let you just real quick and give a summary of this

01:26:32

I really like what you brought up and maybe you'll be hosting about a blog about this Andrew Is that Jesus said himself?

01:26:38

I have not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it so I think the argument could be made or should be made that we are not

01:26:47

Christianity is not a cult of Judaism it would really the reality is that biblically it would be fulfillment of Judaism because everything that the

01:26:59

Old Testament leads up to leads to Christ and his ministry give us just real quickly a summary of that just very quick Yeah, I'll try to break it down as quickly as possible

01:27:09

I'll be making a blog post about this as well But I'll go through four Christian claims very quickly number one

01:27:14

The Messiah was prophesied throughout the Old Testament beginning at Genesis So therefore the Jewish people were also looking for the

01:27:19

Messiah when the Messiah would come It's not like this spurious like Jesus was this spurious weird figure that came out of nowhere, right?

01:27:27

No, the Jews were also expecting a Messiah There was a specific time frame in which the Messiah would appear

01:27:33

So Jesus appeared within the book of Daniels time frame for the coming of the Messiah He fulfilled also all prophecies spoken about spoken about him from the

01:27:40

Old Testament scriptures Right in the temple was destroyed in 70 AD Ending the time frame in which the

01:27:45

Messiah would come and that the temple would be destroyed in Daniel 9 24 through 27 so people who hold to Judaism today do not have a time frame in which the

01:27:54

Messiah will come He came in the temple was destroyed in 70 AD for 70 AD fulfilling the prophecy in Daniel So if modern

01:28:01

Jewish people were consistent, they would have to label Daniel as a false prophet

01:28:06

Right because his prediction of the prophecy is extremely clear, but therefore Christianity It's the fulfillment of Judaism and spiritual true spiritual

01:28:14

Israel always differ from those within the visible Israelite Church, I would argue

01:28:20

That the Jew Judaism that we see today or what is called quote -unquote Orthodox Judaism is actually a cultic offshoot of fulfilled

01:28:27

Judaism by the pharisaical branches of The people who held themselves up in their traditions as a standard over what

01:28:35

God says and told the people that Jesus was not actually the Messiah Going over the

01:28:40

Word of God and the prophecies given to him in Scripture and I'll go I can just go over a few just prophecies

01:28:45

Here we have Genesis 3 15 the Lord speaking to the serpent I will put enmity between you and the woman in between your offspring and her

01:28:53

Offspring you shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel born from a woman to crush the serpent speaking of Jesus in the beginning

01:28:59

Genesis 49 10 we have Jacob's prophecy The scepter shall not depart from Judah nor the ruler staff

01:29:06

From beneath his feet until tribute comes to him and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples

01:29:11

We know where Jesus is the seed of Jesus it comes from. We also have Genesis 12 3

01:29:17

I will bless those who bless you and him who dishonors you all curse and in you all of the families of the earth will be blessed and again, these are prophecies that not even only

01:29:26

Christians go to in terms of Expecting of a Messiah the Jewish people hold to these promises of a

01:29:32

Messiah today They reject who Jesus is so our argument as Christians is saying well if you hold to Daniel as being a prophet you can go through the 70 sets of seven that are described in the

01:29:43

Bible and You will find that there is a specific time frame. It has come it is gone

01:29:49

Where's the Messiah? You no longer have a sacrifice. The temple has been destroyed just as predicted

01:29:55

That's it. That's a basic overview that I will give in terms of the argument of Christianity not being a

01:30:02

Weird cultic offshoot of Judaism. No, it is the fulfillment of Old Testament Biblical texts and it is being upheld today by the very

01:30:11

God himself who sits at the right hand of God gain Growing his church through the

01:30:19

Holy Spirit who is at work convicting the world of sin and righteousness And it won't stop it won't end

01:30:25

He sits at the right hand of God Psalm 110 1 the Lord said to my Lord sit at my right hand until I put All of your enemies under your feet and that's what we're seeing happening today.

01:30:33

I mean we can go deeper into it I'm writing. I have a blog post for it I just don't want to get too into the weeds in the 70 sets of the 70 sets of seven

01:30:41

But I I have a blog post devoted to it. It will be up so you can read it. It's not something that's Spurious or weird.

01:30:48

This is actually a good apologetic in terms of Jesus being the Messiah Fulfilling biblical prophecy within a specific time frame.

01:30:54

That is very useful Yeah, and I also do I mentioned to there are some great great debates

01:30:59

I remember Jeff and I a long long time ago. We watched a couple of debates by our good friend. Dr.

01:31:04

Michael Brown Where he debated certain rabbis and whether or not Jesus was the Messiah really incredible.

01:31:10

That's really a content as well, too Yes, good. Yeah, dr. Michael Brown. Yes phenomenal if I check that out any real

01:31:15

I have one more point to bring up that may want to get your thoughts on Elizabeth You have any thoughts on what Andrew said or any other thoughts regards to that?

01:31:22

What he said your answer was a lot better than my answer That was great, yeah,

01:31:28

I look forward to that blog post Awesome. Yeah, I praise God praise God a lot of smart people came way before us to go through the 70s

01:31:36

That's a seven So I'm gonna go off of their backs and just make a good apologetic response to you know The the tick -tock responses to Christianity that have no real logical basis in reality

01:31:47

I mean, that's what we see today The church being Influenced and I would say progressive

01:31:53

Christianity by the zeitgeist of the world I mean if you are being honest with yourself if you think that progressive

01:32:00

Christianity holds things that are so unique Look at the world. It's the same thing.

01:32:05

It's acting just like the world today How unique is that really how special it doesn't seem very special to me.

01:32:12

Yeah so what I thought I have to and is Really talking about the atheists who would view or give us that criticism that we're just another cult talking about cults

01:32:25

I would really make the argument that really just from a presuppositional standpoint

01:32:31

Just looking at the nature of really metaphysics reality logic reason all of that but especially how does one who is a who has a if you have a worldview of naturalistic materialism if You would ascribe to Richard Dawkins that we are nothing but blind pettiless indifference what all of all of the every aspect of occult leaders or cult

01:32:58

Behavior usually ends up on some level of spiritual abuse but if you have a worldview that completely denies the reality of The physical realm to begin with like what basis do you have a license to detect?

01:33:13

What is what is authentic and what is not I mean what is wrong with one person's brain biochemically fizzing one way to get other people's brains to fizz

01:33:23

One way or the other like how can you give an ultimate accounting for that? I mean, I think of I don't know if you've seen the show at least a

01:33:30

Scientology the aftermath of Leah Remini Mike render. Yes. Okay. You've seen okay amazing show

01:33:37

I remember just being blown away in that that first season was like it almost was a Drive and motivation for me to do culture guys saw so many people that were just being

01:33:47

Hurt and just destroyed by this system where you're just spit out the other end like thrown through the spiritual woodchipper in a sense but At the end of the day these people were just sort of like, okay

01:33:58

Well, you're out now you now you can just sort of think for yourself And these people didn't have any basis or hope identity of even where to grasp themselves but if you don't have

01:34:07

I would think that if you don't have an Absolute standard if you live in a world where it's just everything it's just Everything's a byproduct of random chance.

01:34:16

We're all just matter in motion How can you give an account to me you can acknowledge that spiritual abuse?

01:34:23

I think people would see that because they're an image bearer of God But you look at those people who are hurt who have tears going down their eyes as an atheist

01:34:30

How can you give an accounting for what what ethic are you appealing to say? That's just wrong

01:34:36

Just because that well, it's just because that is they just assume without giving in accounting for it I think really the atheist has a big problem if they're going to try and articulate an argument the only way they can do it

01:34:50

I would say is that they would have they would have to Jump into look at your feet They would have to jump into the

01:34:55

Christian worldview to borrow from our standards of ethics that people are in the Imago Dei That being shunned being abandoned and Being treated the way that David Miscavige and and the people within Scientology treated people or how they're treating the

01:35:10

Sea Org Like it only makes sense within a Christian worldview that that makes sense So those are just kind of my thoughts when it comes to people making that label

01:35:18

Especially from an atheist standpoint, and I'm not saying this to attack anyone who has that worldview

01:35:23

This is strictly a conversation about your theology and your worldview and how you how you can how do you give an ultimate accounting for?

01:35:31

The hurt and abuse that takes place within cultist structures. So as we wrap up here, give me some you're just what?

01:35:37

What are some thoughts that come to your mind on that? Well, I do think that this is one of the biggest problems.

01:35:43

I think philosophically that atheists Can't really explain very very Meaningfully, I think and just in in the

01:35:51

I don't you know, I don't spend a ton of time in the atheist world It's more in the progressive Christianity world But what is interesting is that when you see a lot of the deconstruction stories if the person deconstructs totally out of faith so there's sort of different categories people can deconstruct into more of a progressive

01:36:07

Christianity or where they're still trying to hold on to some kind of supernatural elements to their belief system, but but the ones that deconstruct totally out into a

01:36:19

Naturalistic worldview or just like you see even outside of the the Christian framework What's so interesting is that if you start to watch what happens very often the person will announce the deconstruction and Then within weeks they're on Instagram and YouTube Moralizing telling everybody be kind be good.

01:36:38

This is so important. We should do this. We should do that This ought to be this way It ought to be that way and all the shoulds and oughts are so interesting coming from People who have essentially thrown off the

01:36:50

Christian worldview and they've said, you know, we don't want that We don't we don't think the Bible got things, right?

01:36:56

We don't believe this is true But we should still be really good and we should still be kind and we should still do these things

01:37:02

Well, the question is by what standard? we all agree like I know that they know we should be kind and good because The Bible talks about God putting that in our hearts like we know what's right and what's wrong

01:37:15

But the the the secular person the atheist the secular humanist can't justify why?

01:37:23

That's right, or that's wrong. Especially if you build that upon a Darwinian evolutionary paradigm where it's it's

01:37:31

Basically survival of the fittest in the in the framework of survival of the fittest

01:37:36

Why would you think abuse would always be wrong? Why would you think that would be something that would at least be something you shouldn't do?

01:37:44

because if like Richard Dawkins has said or I think it was Richard Dawkins who said we're just dancing to our

01:37:49

DNA and that The universe is just like you said blind pitiless indifference

01:37:55

If that's your view then but then Richard Dawkins turns around and calls God misogynistic homophobic malevolent bully and he's using all of these moral categories that he's essentially borrowed from the

01:38:08

Christian worldview because According to his worldview. He can't justify Calling God immoral because we're just dancing to our

01:38:16

DNA So it's I think it creates a big problem for people who step outside the Christian worldview

01:38:22

And again, not that there can't be atheists who do good things or who know that it's good to be kind and do good to other people but it's

01:38:29

Justifying why that's something you should do because to say anytime you say

01:38:35

You should do this or you ought to do this That's implying an objective moral standard and so I do think that's a big problem for for a secular

01:38:46

Humanist or an atheist to justify why that's right or wrong. Mm -hmm.

01:38:52

No, that's that's really good I like I could not agree with you more and that's just I do Hopefully we kind of covered a broad variety of topics.

01:38:59

There's a lot we could go into But definitely this I hope this will be helpful

01:39:05

For you for those of you who have been asking that question or even if you Are listening in and you've given us those reviews, but maybe you're even after the one -star list

01:39:14

You just have to come back and keep on listening Honestly when we release this episode, you know

01:39:20

We kind of really put this episode together thinking of any of you who've given us that type of review and honestly

01:39:27

I think take into account like what we thought and give us your thoughts. I mean if you would generally are an atheist Living in a naturalistic

01:39:35

Worldview I would like to know I mean you mentioned to Lisa that you studied the you know

01:39:40

The movement Jim Jones and really his movement with the People's Temple and what took place at Jonestown I mean that was our premier episode where we played the

01:39:49

Jonestown death tape q42 Where they are there and you hear the people cheering in the background.

01:39:54

It's one of the most disturbing videos I've ever heard I mean as someone who's an atheist, I would like to know

01:40:00

How is That tape q42 listening to that audio of people injecting themselves with being injected and drinking potassium cyanide both voluntary and involuntary

01:40:11

And a madman who's up there slurring his words doped up on drugs 940 something people who were killed both men women and children.

01:40:21

How is That any different than what we would see on a planet earth nature show where some gazelles are

01:40:29

You know overtake some zebras are overtaken by a lion or some good You know some sort of fawn or gazelle

01:40:36

Goes up to drink some water and it's overtaken by an alligator or just all the violence of just you'd seen it

01:40:43

And how how is that different? How do you differentiate that? What ethic are you appealing to?

01:40:48

Why is why are you so horrified by that but have no issue with what happens in the backdrop of?

01:40:55

Africa on those nature shows, you know, that's just something I think that if you are an atheist I mean,

01:41:00

I would genuinely like to hear from you. Like what? What is your ethic? What is your standard? You've rejected the

01:41:05

Bible and God's word in Christianity We would have a basis to say no that was wrong

01:41:10

There's there's a whole account we've talked about this entire podcast But I I would like to hear from you about that So leave us your thoughts and reviews or come to our social media when you drop this.

01:41:19

We'd love to hear from you So yeah, that's all I gotta say about that. So this has been really good

01:41:26

Andrew do you have any other final thoughts to rip up here? Mmm, I we could drag we could drag it on if I go with my final thoughts right now

01:41:35

So I'll just say one thing as well in terms of even the agnostic We got to even look at what the term even means ag like a without the

01:41:42

Gnostic knowledge So when if you're listening to anyone who claims to be an agnostic give you truth claims I mean, they're already in very contradiction to the worldview that they

01:41:51

Supposedly purport coming out of their mouth and it's very compelling in the society that we live in today to not have critical thinking abilities, but to just Trust people at their word and when we talk about the

01:42:05

Amaga day people being made in the image of God It's very it's this very number one reality that the Christian God has instilled into us.

01:42:12

We want love dignity respect Right, there's these moral oughts that we hold on to and the very proof of the

01:42:19

Christian God is no matter how hard the atheist tries to say there is no God and holding to a standard where there is no such

01:42:25

Thing as moral oughts and everything's blind pitiless indifference or the agnostic who says there is no such thing as true knowledge

01:42:30

All of them all of them need to ape Christianity to have any type of logical argument

01:42:36

They have to be inconsistent with their own worldview and assume our worldview to try to make sense of the world that they live in Remember that but hold their feet to the fire as Jerry was saying and say well actually

01:42:49

Take a step back into your worldview Let's stay consistent with what you're claiming to believe and then make your case try to justify it

01:42:56

Then it's very proof of the Amaga day. It's very proof of the fact that we are made in the image of God Jesus is real

01:43:02

He is God who came in the flesh died on the cross for our sins because we if we're being honest with ourselves are not

01:43:09

Good people. We need a Savior. We don't want to be so rash to say

01:43:15

God. I don't need you. I'm good I can do this on my own really think about the position here You're putting yourself and you're not being very honest with yourself.

01:43:22

God knows all of your thoughts He sees everything in the secret places. It will all be revealed in the end.

01:43:28

Do you want Jesus as your liberator? In that situation when you come face to face with God, or do you want to stand on your on yourself?

01:43:37

I mean, that's that's the that's the very thing I can tell you right now that Jesus Happily gave up his life.

01:43:42

So when you die and come face to face with God He says no my blood and my righteousness is applied on them They're justified by me through my perfect work on the cross and they would come unto us to live forever

01:43:53

That's the hope of the gospel be honest with yourself and come to Christ Awesome.

01:43:58

Well, appreciate you sharing that Andrew. Yeah, very brief thought there. Yeah Yeah, Lisa one last thing as we wrap up here,

01:44:06

I mean, I mean obviously we really appreciate you taking the time going extra innings with us and We do know that especially if you are real quickly

01:44:12

Where can people find you if they want to find out more about you've got a website

01:44:18

You've got a YouTube channel with a large following. How can people get a hold of you? Yeah, YouTube.

01:44:23

It's just Alisa Childers and my podcast is the Alisa Childers podcast super creative.

01:44:28

I know You can also go to Alisa Childers calm to get links to all that stuff and I'm not doing a ton of blogs right now

01:44:35

Because I'm writing a book but I do blog In between book writing and there's podcasts on there and just info where you can find me

01:44:42

I'm on Facebook and Instagram at Alisa Childers. Okay, awesome And I just kind of jumping back into what really

01:44:48

I think is your passion topic really From your book another gospel, which I definitely recommend you get that book

01:44:54

It's just really enjoyed it and definitely I think if you enjoyed it, well if you get it, but really with your

01:45:01

Being centered around just going back to the deconstruction X sort of X evangelical movement

01:45:07

I'm assuming we probably have people that would fall under that category who listen to that podcast

01:45:12

If you could just say anything as we wrap up here to kind of speaking your heart to people in that category

01:45:17

Who maybe have deconstructed are considering to deconstruct kind of going down that process of becoming you know?

01:45:24

Progressive thinking that they're liberating themselves. Maybe just speak from the heart just to them just for a brief moment as we wrap up here if you could

01:45:32

Yeah, just my advice to you would be that you know It if you have doubts if you have things that you're struggling with don't push those down Don't ignore those things deal with them.

01:45:42

Take them to the Lord. I think that there's a really a Really rich growth that can happen with honest doubt, especially when we bring those doubts to the

01:45:51

Lord ask for his help We go to the word we go to evidence. There's so much great Apologetics books out there, but you know it maybe it's not just an intellectual thing for you

01:46:01

If you're watching and you've been wounded you've gone through spiritual abuse you've witnessed hypocrisy Maybe you grew up in a

01:46:06

Christian bubble or you have Been been told things about how to live that have overshot the

01:46:13

Bible by a long way You know my encouragement to you would be the cultural stuff the stuff that the church has gotten wrong

01:46:22

You know deconstruct that stuff but don't deconstruct the gospel because the gospel like like you guys mentioned you can't deconstruct

01:46:30

Jesus and The gospel is a cure for all of that. The Bible has a lot to say about abusive leaders

01:46:36

The Bible has a lot to say about Adding to scripture and So you can plant your feet on it.

01:46:44

God doesn't change and his word doesn't change. It's time -tested. We have 2 ,000 years Plus of people living their lives according to the

01:46:52

Word of God in such a rich Christian history We have we have a lot of mistakes in our history. We have a lot of Errors, we have a lot of missteps for sure

01:47:02

But again, the gospel is not the problem. The gospel is actually the cure for all of that So my encouragement would be that you know plant your feet in the rock plant your feet on God's Word It will anchor you and when storms come when trials when doubts come

01:47:16

You you won't be torn away from your foundation because it's solid and it stands Awesome.

01:47:22

Well, I think that's a great. I really appreciate you sharing your heart there And so once again,

01:47:27

I thank you at least for coming on and spending this time with us today We really appreciate that so all of you

01:47:33

Thank you for listening and I'm sure a lot of you are enjoying kind of our new style trying just to extend a conversation

01:47:38

Versus breaking things up. So if you enjoyed this episode, please let us know what you thought

01:47:44

Especially if you disagree with that we want and this is something that we would even argue now a

01:47:49

Christianity not being a cult that we are inviting you to have a conversation. Let's talk.

01:47:54

Let's reason together in a civil way Let's have dialogue. Let's have a conversation. If you if you disagree with us come to our social media page.

01:48:02

Let's have a conversation Let's let's go ahead and use the reason we'd argue Let's use the reason intellect that God gave you even though you don't think that right now

01:48:11

And let's have a conversation So anyways head over social media less know what you thought and also have a program like this if you're blessed by content that we

01:48:18

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01:48:29

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01:48:37

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