Responding to No Gun Santa

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Hello, welcome back to Coffee with a Calvinist.
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This is a daily conversation about scripture, culture, and media from a Reformed perspective.
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Get your Bible and coffee ready and prepare to engage today's topic.
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Here's your host, Pastor Keith Foskey.
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Welcome back to Coffee with a Calvinist.
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My name is Keith Foskey and I am a Calvinist.
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Today is December 9th, 2020.
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We are right in the middle of the Advent season and over the last few days, last week and then this week, I've been talking about the subject of Christmas, several subjects we've been dealing with.
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Last week, we had sort of a fun week where I and the rest of my friends on the Caffeinated Calvinist Roundtable went around and discussed our favorite Christmas movies and we even decided what was the greatest Christmas movie of all time, and if you didn't get a chance to listen to last week's program, I would encourage you to go back and check those out.
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Now, this week, I've given sort of an overview of what I wanted to do.
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Yesterday, I talked about the subject of whether or not the Bible condemns Christmas trees, and then later in this week, I'm going to talk about good gifts that you can give both to believing family members and unbelieving family members, things that you can use or ways that you can use Christmas as an opportunity to share Christ with others, and so I'm going to talk about that later in the week.
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But today, my subject was going to be the subject of Santa Claus and how Christian parents can deal with the difficulty of the Santa Claus figure and how he has been represented in culture and in media.
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And even though that was the plan for today, I have sort of been derailed.
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I've been derailed by an event that took place on social media.
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A video was posted and I have to share it with you.
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And since it does deal with Santa Claus, it does sort of go along with the topic I was going to address today, but this particular Santa Claus, no matter what your position is on the Santa Claus mythos and no matter what your position is on how you are to address that with your children, this particular Santa Claus really just has, well, I'm going to let you watch the video.
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I'll let you decide for yourself.
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But this video really upset me, so I'm going to bring the video up now and let you watch exactly how this plays out.
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If your dad wants to get it for you, that's fine, but I have lots of other toys.
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There's Legos, there's bicycles, there's cars and trucks.
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What do you think? What do you think? It's okay, we're dead.
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Okay, I just can't take it anymore.
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I can't watch the kid cry anymore.
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And this is, in my opinion, one of the worst examples of how the modern expression of wokeness has made its way into our culture.
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It has made its way into even the most fun and lighthearted aspects of our culture.
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This is an example of something that I think is unconscionable.
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A child cannot, a young male child is not allowed to ask for any type of gun, even a toy gun, because that is not allowed.
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You cannot express any type of desire for any type of gun, because guns are evil.
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That's the perspective that so many people take, and I imagine that would be the perspective of this pseudo Santa Claus.
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First of all, can I just mention this? You saw the video.
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If you're listening to this, you didn't see this.
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If you're listening from home, you didn't see.
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But if you're watching this from home, isn't it sad? Kids can't even sit on Santa's lap.
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If you notice, there's a six-foot table between Santa and this child, so the child has to get on his knees, has to look over the table to see Santa to begin with, and this Santa has just this worst voice of all.
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He just sort of sounded like a little whiny child.
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The man playing Santa Claus sounds awful.
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What do you want? And when he asks the child what he wants, the child, very clearly, I heard it this time, I didn't hear it before, but the child very clearly early on, he says, a Nerf gun.
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He said Nerf.
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Now, if you're not familiar with Nerf, Nerf is a little rubber pellet shooting gun.
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They have been sold for years.
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I had Nerf guns when I was growing up.
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They're still being sold today.
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They're literally one of the most fun toys that you can buy as a child because you can shoot them at anything.
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You're not going to hurt anything.
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Some of them have suction cups, so they stick to glass and other places like that.
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But these Nerf guns, they're a blast.
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They're a lot of fun.
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But because the word gun is in the title, it's automatically non-grata.
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Now, here's the thing.
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For those of you who don't know, I'm not only a pastor, but I'm also a firearms instructor.
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I have been a firearms instructor certified through the National Rifle Association.
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I've been certified for 12 years.
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I have taught literally dozens, if not hundreds.
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I've taught many, many people how to shoot firearms.
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I've not kept a count over the years.
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I could go back through my records because I teach classes and I certify people for receiving their concealed weapon permit in the state of Florida.
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This is obviously something that I'm very passionate about.
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I enjoy shooting firearms.
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I enjoy being good at shooting firearms.
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I recently went out shooting with a friend and I shot sporting clays, which is basically where the clay pigeons are shot out, and you have to shoot at those pigeons with a shotgun.
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It's a difficult game, much more difficult than I was expecting, and I really didn't do that great.
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But the point is, shooting is, to me, a lot of fun.
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It is an enjoyable activity.
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As I was shooting those sporting clays, I looked at my friend, I said, I don't know why anyone would ever go golfing because golfing could nowhere be in any way, shape, or form as fun as shooting those sporting clays.
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It just could not possibly be.
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And so the point I'm making is everybody associates guns with violence.
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Everybody associates, not everybody, but the left specifically, liberals, associate guns and firearms with violence, associates them with war, associates them with hurting people.
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But I grew up around firearms.
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I grew up in a time period where my dad literally had guns and had me shooting guns from the earliest age that I can remember.
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And it did me good to learn the discipline, the rules of firearms, which the rules are very simple.
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Always keep the gun pointed in a safe direction.
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Always keep your finger off the trigger until you're ready to shoot.
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Always know your target and what's beyond.
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And do not leave a loaded firearm unattended.
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These are basic, basic firearm rules that we teach people to be safe with firearms and don't point the gun at anything that you don't intend to, or that you're not willing to destroy.
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And so these are basic, basic rules.
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And again, always keep the gun pointed in a safe direction.
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Always keep your finger off the trigger until you're ready to shoot.
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Everybody who is wanting to have a firearm should learn to do so safely.
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But the point of the matter is the idea that guns are bad.
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This has been taught to our culture.
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And this Santa Claus is reinforcing this.
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I want you to go back just a few years ago.
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It was a very famous Christmas movie.
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Many of you are familiar with it.
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And what was it that the boy wanted more than anything in the world? The boy wanted an official Red Ryder carbine action 200 shot range model air rifle.
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Little Ralphie on a Christmas story.
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All he wanted in the world was his Red Ryder official BB gun.
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Now, I thought that the Santa Claus from that movie was the worst Santa Claus in the world.
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And if you don't remember, here's just a little reminder of that fella.
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Oh, seriously.
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Now, again, we all thought that guy, that was the worst Santa.
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That was the guy.
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That was the abominable Santa Claus because he told little Ralphie, you can't have your BB gun because you're going to shoot your eye out.
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That you shoot your eye out.
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That's pretty standard fare.
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People who see the movie, they understand you're going to shoot your eye out.
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But the reality is no one was saying you shouldn't have a gun because guns are bad.
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They were saying that, you know, you're too young.
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BBs do ricochet.
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That is an issue.
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And of course, we see later in the movie, it actually does ricochet and hit him in the cheek.
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So, you know, the idea that BBs can be dangerous.
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Yes, of course, BBs can be dangerous.
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But nobody's going around in a Christmas story saying, no, no, no, Ralphie, you can't have a gun because we're all, you know, we're all trying to be, we're all trying to get away from firearms because firearms are bad.
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No, nobody was saying that.
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They were just saying, you know, you're going to shoot your eye out.
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But the reality is we have so many people now that are saying guns themselves are bad.
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Firearms themselves are bad.
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And I want to tell you as a firearms instructor, there is no guns are not evil in and of themselves.
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Guns are not even dangerous in and of themselves.
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Guns are tools.
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And what is dangerous is human beings.
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When I was a kid, I was definitely afraid of skill saws, you know, the round circular saws that you use when you cut wood with.
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I was definitely afraid of circular saws.
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And the reason why I was afraid of them was because I had a friend who cut himself very badly with a circular saw.
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And he came to school and he had a huge cast on his foot because he had cut through his foot with a circular saw.
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And kind of an odd way that he was doing, had a piece of wood down his leg, cut through, fell down, the blade caught his foot.
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And he had an awful injury.
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And I remember thinking, oh, how dangerous.
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And then later, my dad would tell me how if you're pushing a circular saw through and you hit a knot in the wood, it can jump back on you and can hurt you.
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And so I was afraid of these things for a long time.
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Until later, I got into woodworking and I found out that circular saws aren't unsafe in and of themselves.
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They are a tool.
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And the tool itself has to be respected, has to be treated with respect.
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And when you treat the tool with respect and you handle it with care and safety, it will do what it's supposed to do.
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And you can use it.
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And I got into woodworking.
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And so I was able to use table saws, band saws, miter saws, and the skill saw.
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And I did so without fear because I knew how to handle it with respect.
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I knew how to handle it safely.
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Not saying I could never have an accident.
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Anybody can have an accident.
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But ultimately, I wasn't going in fearful anymore.
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And that's the same way I see a lot of people with guns.
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People think guns are going to grow legs.
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They're going to walk out and they're going to hurt someone all by themselves.
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But that's not the way the guns operate.
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Guns, you can load an AR-15 with 30 rounds.
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You can put a round in the chamber.
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You can set that gun on the porch.
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And as long as it's never acted on by an outside force, it's never going to grow legs and walk across the street and shoot the neighbor.
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It's never going to do that because guns are not evil in and of themselves.
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People are evil by nature.
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And we are depraved by nature.
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This is Coffee with a Calvinist, by the way.
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People are totally depraved.
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We believe that.
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And so people will use guns in a dangerous way.
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But guns can also be used benevolently.
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Guns can be used to save lives.
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And many of them have been used to save lives, to protect life.
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And so the idea that all guns are evil and we should teach children never to touch guns, Santa Claus isn't going to bring you a gun because a gun is evil.
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That is absolutely atrocious thinking.
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That is horrible thinking.
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And it's helping to promote the feminization of young boys in our world.
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Because we're stripping young boys away from any of the idea of the culture of the knight, by knight I mean K-N-I-G-H-T, the knight, the sword wielding knight, the one who is to stand and rescue others, the one who is supposed to go out and fight the battles.
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We're taking that away from our young men.
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We're putting in their hands other things.
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We're putting in them dolls and toys.
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We're saying, no, no, no, no.
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You don't want to play with guns.
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You don't want to have any sense of any attitude of battle.
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You don't want to have that attitude.
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One of the things I pointed out years ago in a sermon, I said, do you know why boys like to play aggressive games? It's not just because they're sinful, but there's something in boys.
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Notice what they want to do when they go out and play.
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They'll say, there's good guys and there's bad guys.
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What do I want to be? I want to be a good guy because I want to be a hero.
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I want to go and I want to protect other people.
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And that's a noble thing.
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That's a noble thing.
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Very rarely is the kid wanting to be the thief or the robber or the murderer.
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No, they want to be the superhero.
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They want to be Superman.
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They want to be Batman.
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They want to be Spider-Man.
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And when you're a kid, these aren't fantasies.
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As Seinfeld said, when you're a kid, Batman, Superman and Spider-Man are not fantasies.
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When you're a kid, those are options because you think that's how life works, that you're going to get to be a hero one day.
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And you know what, children, you can grow up to be a hero.
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And there are different ways to do that.
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Not every person has to have a gun to be a hero.
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But there are people, military men, policemen, these are people who have to be skilled with firearms because firearms are part of the way that the jobs are done.
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And so again, to tell a child, no, Santa won't bring you a gun because guns are evil.
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And I know Santa didn't say that.
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Santa didn't say guns are evil.
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He just said, I'm not going to bring you a gun.
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He says, because I'm not going to do that.
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And the kid said, even a Nerf gun? No, not even a Nerf gun.
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And I tell you what, I take great issue with this Santa.
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First, I don't think this Santa understands anything about guns.
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Secondly, I don't know.
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I don't think he understands anything about how boys see guns and playing with these things.
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And I know people, some people make a big deal.
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Oh, well, you know, we can't give, we can't let kids play with guns because it's so dangerous because we're teaching them to be violent.
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No, not, no, no, no, no, no.
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No, no guns that, that, that is, that is a wrong way to look at guns.
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I grew up around guns.
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I grew up respecting guns and it wasn't about violence, but there were some things that we knew about guns.
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One, guns can put food on the table.
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If you need to, you learn to shoot a gun so you can learn to hunt.
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Two, guns can protect your home from invaders, from, from people who are bent on hurting you.
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So guns have value in the, uh, in the field to go and, and get game.
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Guns have value in the home to, to protect your home.
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And the Bible does remind us that a strong man protects his home.
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That's, that's, that's what a strong man does.
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And so a strong man protects his home.
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And so the guns have value in, in, in getting food and protecting the home.
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And to say that guns are only violent and only for violent people, uh, Santa Claus, this Santa Claus, uh, doesn't, isn't, isn't fit to wear the suit.
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As I said, when I posted about this on social media, he must be a South Pole Santa because, uh, this is not the, this is certainly not, uh, any type of representation of any type of a good, uh, expression of the Santa Claus figure.
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Now, again, I didn't get to get into Christians and Santa Claus today.
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That was about my original topic and, and Lord willing next week, we're going to come back and, uh, maybe I'll talk about it then.
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But I hope that this has been, uh, an encouragement to you.
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I hope that maybe I've, uh, made you think outside of the norm today, thinking about the subject of the, the no gun Santa Claus.
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And again, thank you for listening to Coffee with a Calvinist.
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My name is Keith Foskey and I have been your Calvinist.
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As you go about your day, remember this, Jesus Christ came to save sinners.
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May God be with you.