The American Churchman: DEI and the Imago Dei

And welcome to the American Churchman podcast where we encourage men to take dominion and love the Lord. And we're going to talk about DEI today. How does that sound? And the Imago Dei. And we have, as always, I'm John Harris and my guest host is Matthew Pearson.

How you doing Matthew?

I'm doing pretty good, John.

Thank you for having me on as always to co-host this. Bit of a sticky situation. You may notice the camera's a bit different. And I, it's just my funny living situation and my podcast equipment's all in the other room.

So you get me on my phone today.

People are going to be wondering what's up with the podcast because we've changed times and days. And some, like, I think two weeks ago, we didn't do it. And it's just because of scheduling. So I appreciate everyone's patience with us and we are still getting episodes out there.

But it's kind of like, you know, from, I think it was a Lego movie, Taco Tuesday on a Thursday or whatever. You know, it's like, we're doing the 6 p .m. at the 3 .30. But we have a lot of stuff to talk about because there's, I think a lot of questions come up regarding the topic that we're going to be going over, which is what is the Imago Dei?

And then how does it relate to things like DEI policies? And some of you might wonder what I'm referring to. And I'm referring to the fact that it seems like every time a social issue like illegal migration or racial disparities or even gender roles comes up, there's a Christian veneer that some more left-leaning Christians will put on that.

And they'll say, well, you have to treat people like they're made in the image of God. And oftentimes, accompanying that are terms like you need to have dignity, you need to treat people according to their self-worth.

And whatever policy conservatives are advocating is somehow seen as in conflict with that. And we talked about that a little bit last time with that measure from Senator or Congresswoman Salazar down in Florida, the Dignity Act, quote unquote.

But I want to have a broader discussion just about the Imago Dei. So it looks like Matthew, can you hear me, Matthew? Because I see your video went away. You must've been having trouble. All right, I do not hear Matthew.

I hope everyone else

Yes, my connection is not the best right now.

Okay, all right, it was a little delayed, but we'll just go on and bear with it. And we already have people coming into the stream. So I will show you the article here so you know exactly what I'm talking about.

This is from TruthScript, which you can support us in our mission. You go to the bottom. There's a little tab that says Publish if you want to publish with us. And of course, there's a Donate tab as well.

If you want to donate to the work that TruthScript does, it is a 501c3. But this is written by Aaron Silver, and I believe he's a Presbyterian pastor. Yeah, he's a research scientist in the food industry, actually, sorry.

He is married and the father of three. He's a member of the Bible study at his Presbyterian church. So not a pastor, but he is a member of a Presbyterian church. And he's a good writer.

And a good mutual.

Do you know him?

I'm mutuals with him on Twitter.

I've been for a few years.

Yeah, he's a good guy. Excellent. Yeah, so he wrote this, and it's called the Imago DEI, which is very clever. Instead of, you know, Imago Dei, it's a DEI. So he starts off by saying, it's a core tenet of the Christian faith that mankind is Imago Dei.

We are made in the image of God. From the beginning, scripture lays out the Imago Dei in terms of mankind's role as stewards over God's creation. Our imaging of God is shown in dominion and care to which we were appointed and which we are required to enact.

And in contemplating what God has appointed mankind to do, much Christian thought has also explored the way mankind has been fittingly created so that we can accomplish this mandate from our creator. So the Imago Dei is a matter of what man has been divinely designated to do in the world and how he has been divinely designated to perform his duties.

So mankind's purposes, his essence, they go hand in hand. This is understood to have implications for what it means to be male and female, to be cultivators and custodians of the environment, to be fruit fulfillers of the earth, and to be builders and maintainers of civilization.

We are fitly fashioned to be God's stewards over God's world, exercising dominion and hospitality. We are called to continue forming and filling the world as a reflection of the way God formed and filled the creation from the beginning.

So right along the lines of our mission at the American Churchmen, right? To take dominion, to fulfill the responsibilities God has for us, to do so in joy and gratitude to our creator. I'm kind of wondering, Matthew, if these two paragraphs I read describing the Imago Dei, if there's anything that you would add, because there's a lot of different ideas out there theologically on what exactly the Imago Dei is.

And some people even wondering whether you can fully even encapsulate that in words.

Yeah, so in regard to the Imago Dei, the more traditional definition of it can be seen in someone like Aquinas or in Franciscus Junius, which is that to be made in the image of God is to be endowed with intellect, reason, and will, something of that regard.

But I mean, the way that Aaron has summarized it here is also good because there's the dominion aspect as well, which sometimes those more classical definitions don't always stress enough. I mean, sometimes you can say that those things will flow from having intellect and reason, and by intellect and reason, perceiving that which God commands and part of the commands is dominion.

But that is something important about the Imago Dei.

Is this idea of dominion,.

Which is pivotal to what Genesis lays out. So I think that, I believe that Aaron does a good job at grounding this notion of the image of God with the command to exercise dominion, such that the Imago Dei is not just a status that you have, it's not just something that God creates you with, it's not less than that, that is part of it, but it also is a call.

You bear this image in order that you might yourself image God. So you're made in the image of God that you may image God. So it's not just a status you have, but it's something that you live. And I'd say like, you know, something similar as well, your status might be righteous before God.

Because of imputation,.

But that nevertheless should also be a calling to live righteous like Christ himself. So that's all I would add to that.

So to go back to the Bible verse that this is predicated on primarily is Genesis 1, 26 to 27. Then God said, let us make man in our image according to our likeness and let them rule, which is what he's talking about, right?

In the article, immediately there's a function over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. So God created man in his image, in the image of God, he created him male and female, he created them.

One of the things that I know comes up sometimes with this is what about people who have disabilities or children, for example, are they less in the image of God because their reason, their capacity to reason is not as developed or perhaps it's with people who are disabled sometimes, they actually do have the ability to reason, but they can't communicate it.

And so people assume that they don't have it. But communication itself is one of the things that is unique to God. It's something animals do have some form of communication, depending on the animal, but humans can think in the abstract, right?

And they can do the kinds of things God does as far as they can't create out of nothing, but they can certainly be creative. You know, they're not just operating on instinct when they create a dam, for example, like a beaver.

Beavers create dams, it's instinct. But when humans do that, they can put art and beautiful images on their dam and use precious metals for the railing. And I mean, they could do all kinds of things that express something of what it means to be human, which is behind that is the image of God.

So, I mean, how do you think, how do you navigate that where you have someone with a disability, for example?

That's a good question, because that is something that I've thought about before.

As somebody who had a sister with severe autism. And what I would say to that is, you would sort of frame it in a similar way by saying, if a woman is infertile, does that still make her a woman? Because what is like one of the like chief natural ends of women?

And it would be the ability to bear children because that in and of itself, though natural, it's almost like a very miraculous thing. And I say this as somebody who has had no children, has never witnessed a childbirth, but I'm sure that those in the audience and probably you, John, would say, yeah, it's practically miraculous.

But a woman that's infertile is not any less a woman because she cannot fulfill like her chief natural. And what we would say is like that there is a disorder because that which is natural to her has been stripped by inordinary circumstances due to her health or body or whatever, but nevertheless, she still is a woman.

Likewise, somebody who is mentally deficient would still bear the image of God, even if they can't reason or exercise rationality in the same capacity as more normal people can. Being abnormal by virtue of their lack of mental awareness and things like that, that still doesn't make them any less human or bearing of the image of God.

Because if we wanna say that, when we say, you brought up artists who can accomplish great feats, would we say that a very good musical artist or somebody who can paint very well, do they bear the image of God more than we do because they know how to exercise certain creative gifts which more imitate God?

We would not say that we lack the image of God, whereas they have it more. And so I would just apply that same reasoning and it's also different than looking at a monkey.

And being like,.

Oh, well, we can say a monkey's made in the image of God because just because a monkey can't exercise his rationality.

And it's like, no, no, no, no, no.

The point is the monkey in his natural normal state can never reason to the same capacity that we can. Whereas our natural state is to be able to reason in a certain capacity and someone who's mentally deficient, they simply, because of some reason or the other, they lack that which is natural.

There's much more clear and concise ways to say it. I just don't have the nice words, but I think that you can understand the gist.

Of what I'm getting at.

Yeah, I think so. I mean, sin also mars and it doesn't take away the fact that we're made in God's image. It seems to be something eternal, something that's wedded to the soul itself. So it is the difference between killing an animal and eating the animal and killing a human and then receiving the just penalty, which is death for doing so.

One is an attack on the image of God, one is not. One is seen as a necessity in order to provide for oneself. So it is somewhat mysterious, right? It does seem like there is this thing about humans that where there's an intrinsic worth that we have and everyone has to recognize it.

Every ethicist has to figure out what that is. It's the people who, I'm trying to think of the guy, oh, what's his name? Who was pro-suicide at Harvard. I don't know why the name escapes me, but he was an ethicist.

Those guys are nuts, right?

They're seen as Oh, really?

Yeah, it was, I don't know if he's still there, but it was a few years ago. Like he was obviously for abortion, but also for euthanasia. Was it Kevorkian? I think he was, I'm gonna look it up. I think it was Kevorkian.

I don't know, I haven't heard of this guy.

Yeah. But anyway, there are ethicists who try to do that kind of thing. Yeah, I think it's Jack Kevorkian, if I'm not mistaken. And maybe, so maybe I'm wrong about Harvard. It looks like he was at Michigan, the University of Michigan.

But anyway, if that's who I'm thinking of. The issue that, the issue presented there is you can't actually even run a society without acknowledging there's an intrinsic worth. Peter Singer, thank you.

Gerard just, I don't know why I was thinking Kevorkian. They must have similar views or something. So it's Peter Singer I was thinking of. Okay, thank you. Yeah, so you can't run a society though if humans are just animals.

There has to be a separation between the animal kingdom and humans. And I don't know, I just, I think it's important as we begin the article to just recognize that there is a distinction. There obviously is an intrinsic worth.

We do believe in the value of the soul and this isn't predicated or this isn't based upon mental capacities or IQs or anything like that that doesn't diminish your value. It may diminish your abilities, but that's something that is ontologically part of you from the moment of conception.

You are made in the image of God. You are made to have a relationship with him. So anyway, he weds this to the responsibilities that God has certain duties and they're not the same as the duties that he gave the animals.

He says, the image or the Imago Dei is a matter of what man has been divinely designated to do in the world and how he has been divinely designed to perform certain duties. Let's see, I lost my place.

Okay, mankind's purpose and his essence go hand in hand. Sorry, I'm trying to move it around. Actually, my mic is like blocking the view. So I'm trying, it's a unique problem and let's move my mic around here.

Okay, it goes on. This is understood to have implications. We're both having, guys, I don't know why you're watching the podcast now.

I'm also lagging a lot.

Because every time I talk, you start talking.

And then it's wild.

We'll get through it though, guys.

We're gonna give you a good shot.

Yes, this is understandable to have implications for what it means to be male and female to be cultivators and custodians of the environment, to be fruitful fillers of the earth and to be builders and maintainers of civilization.

We are fitly fashioned to be, to rule. So I think I already read that. Moving forward, Adam and the last Adam are the image of God. And there's much that could be said about how being images of God and being sons of God are linked.

But suffice it to say that one description of life's purpose is that God is informing all believers to the image of his son. And at present, what that looks like is an image that we see in a mirror dimly.

But the day will come, the day that the creation yearns to see when the sons of God will be revealed openly in their consummate glory. Interesting thought because I think the argument he's making here is to be a Christian is to fulfill this ultimate design that God's made.

So the image of God is fulfilled in you when you commune with God. To be truly human is to follow God's ways, right? That's the natural thing for humans to do. Being a Christian is about being human. So he says, in the present cultural moment, the reigning errors we see are not only heresies against orthodoxy, but heresies against creation reality.

Mankind's rebellion against our maker has run deep. In a world where increasing technological innovation has muted the constraints of nature, fallen man is busy denaturing his own divine design further, the meaning of the Imago Dei is being attacked.

And so he talks about how this is happening and he links it to DEI. When all manner of perversion is defended and championed with youth enthusiastic appeals to the universal human dignity and worth, you can be confident that the doctrine of the Imago Dei has been distorted and weaponized against the reality of the Imago Dei.

Perceptive and pithy wordsmiths have been quick to call this monstrous distortion and weaponization of Christian teaching the Imago Dei, or the Imago Dei, in reference to the diversity, equity and inclusion policies and initiatives that are the enforcement arm of this macabre militants.

In our view of the Imago Dei, perfected in the son of God, is like something we now see in a dark glass surface, a dim but accurate glimpse. Then the Imago Dei is like something we now see in a funhouse mirror, a distorted and inverted monstrosity.

Interesting point because we so often hear that, that some innovative leftist social policy requires our attention because it's forwarding a valuation of the Imago Dei, implying you're not really a Christian if you don't get behind this, right?

It's very manipulative language, but really what's happening is it's actually the complete opposite. It's an attack on the Imago Dei. It's a distortion of the Imago Dei because it distorts, as we're gonna see, the responsibilities, the obligations God has given to mankind to fulfill as part of their duty before him and really as part of who they are, their identity at their very core, which is the Imago Dei.

So going on, he says, the motto and proof text for the post-Christian vision of the Imago Dei is Galatians 3. There is neither Jew nor Greek, neither is there slave nor free. There is no male or female, for you are all one in Jesus Christ.

The distortion and misapplication of the teaching in this passage perfectly mirrors the distortion and misapplication insidiously at work in the Imago Dei. In short, the apostle Paul is teaching the universal equality of access to the person and benefits of Christ by all believers and access provided by God that is not limited by the otherwise very real social structures and relationships that define everyday life.

These structures and relationships are rooted in the design and operation of the world that our creator has established. But to the champion of the Imago Dei, this passage is the justification for the complete dismantling of those social structures and relationships as any kind of fitting limitation on and direction for reality.

It's a hideous commitment to radical egalitarianism. It's an assault on God's intention that there should be legitimate differences and particularly in the lives of human beings. It would regard all humans as interchangeable and destroy all human excellence in the process.

So I wanna stop there for a moment because I've been reading for a while. You remember 2020 when we were all told we had to wear a mask so you couldn't see people's faces and you go out to the store and it was kind of dystopian, right?

You would interact with people in exchange at the store or even going to church, you would worship together, but you felt incomplete about it. Like you weren't really with the people. You weren't actually acknowledging who they were.

And even if you got the task accomplished, right? I mean, you could go out and accomplish every single thing that you could accomplish before those mandates, but there was something disconcerting about it when you can't see someone's face.

And it obviously bothered a lot of people. And at the time we were told this was a necessary thing that this had to continue on because if we really value human life, we have to protect human life from a virus.

And one of the points that I remember people started to bring up as this continued for weeks and then months is that actually, if you really want to value human life, you have to look at people in the face.

Like you're actually not valuing human life. It is a dehumanization to not interact with people, right? At a certain point, like it is a, like if it becomes policy that you have to continue this indefinitely, it does become an attack.

It does become a devaluation of like, it's not necessary to look at someone in the face. And there's something communicated through the face. I don't really understand it fully. It's somewhat mysterious, I suppose, but you can hear someone's words, they can communicate, but if you're not seeing their lips move and you're not seeing the expression, you're missing something.

And it's more than just non-verbal communication even. It is, it's something even deeper than that. And I think that sums up our society, right? Like I was watching a video of this girl who, young Zoomer girl, I think probably around your age, Matthew, and she is talking about her generation.

She lives in Great Britain, but she's saying that people that are coming up now don't even know what it's like to flirt with someone of the opposite sex. They don't, the whole excitement of that and going from friendship to courtship or dating and marriage and that, they don't have a concept of it because everything's mediated through a digital device.

And that this actually dehumanizes, her argument, she wasn't even a Christian, but she's saying this actually takes away from God, from the image of God. I mean, she didn't use that term, but that's basically what she was saying.

Like, we're not even human anymore. Why do you even need humans? Couldn't you get like an AI software to function and be your best friend and you could bond with that, right? It won't let you down like a human will.

It will know your needs and all that. So I guess the point I'm making and the point I think that he's making is when you bring in a technology that interferes, and I'm not just talking about like, digital technology or mechanical technology, but when you bring in a technique, policies, barriers that stand between people and their interactions as people, their natural interactions, non-sinful natural interactions, and then the goals that they have, the mission that they're on, the way that they conduct themselves in the world naturally with other people, the way God intended, it's actually an attack on who we are as humans.

And it's done in the name of dignity. It's done, you have to, I have to take all your money, Matthew, and I need to give it to this other person because there's a disparity that exists or all your privilege, or I need to, I don't know, cut you down to size because someone else of a different identity needs help.

And like, these are the policies of DEI, right? They force corporations to make unnatural policies and in businesses and so forth, in churches even. But the whole thing behind it is it's actually creating dissonance and interference in the way that humans would naturally get along.

And it's not for some kind of sinful thing. It's the assumption is that God's creation and the way that we interact in that creation is somehow dirty or wrong, or produces something wrong, you know? So, I mean, thoughts on that, I will continue reading, but I've been going on for a long time.

No, no, yeah.

I thought that was very good insight. And it reminds, the COVID example is also very good because it reminds me of a principle. I think it was Peter Lightheart who made this point and it stuck around with me back during COVID was he said that there's a difference between bare survival, bare living, or bare like just surviving versus actually living.

So theoretically, you could just sit in your room all day and do absolutely nothing, nothing productive at all. And you technically would be alive, but would you really be living versus like actually going out and interacting with others and doing things, shows, and more fully, I would say accommodates, I guess, I'm trying to think of the words,.

But the Imago Dei,.

Like part of that involves human interaction with one another. It's why God said that it was not good for a man to be alone. He needed some actual human interaction and things like that. And you're absolutely right that a lot of these people will, I say you're absolutely right, but it's the guy in the article and you're right with your tangent about COVID too, is that people will use Imago Dei to just accomplish whatever they want to, because what they'll essentially do is they will not argue for their particular political position.

They will simply assert it. And then as evidence of why this ought to be done, they'll assert man's inherent dignity given by virtue of the image of God. And they're not giving an argument. They're just saying something that two parties may agree on, but that's like saying the economy's bad, therefore we need to do tariffs or this or that.

Okay, sure, the other person might agree to that, but you have to explain why the tariffs would help fix the bad economy. You can't just say, therefore this, then this. Unless you're Trump, then you can say it and I'll laugh because you're funny.

But I mean, with something like this, you can't just assert it because the other party will also agree.

That man has inherent dignity,.

But they'll disagree on what the proper solution for it is. But that's part of upholding modern liberal orthodoxy is just giving theological assertions to justify whatever the popular political program is.

And it's frustrating to have conversations.

With people like that,.

Because what ends up happening is they try to take the higher ground by saying they're standing on scripture's principles. But then when you try to add like a bit more nuance and say it's a bit more complicated than that, they act like you're blaspheming God.

And it's just like, no, no,.

That's not how it works.

Life is complicated and difficult and hard and you need to think through things.

Yeah, I think it gets back to kind of like rights language and it seems like the liberal understanding is your net worth is, it is the sum total of the rights that are extended to you. And so if you don't extend a right or you take away a right of some kind, it means you're attacking the image of God, but there's two different assumptions of what rights are.

You have the liberal assumption that rights are intended to produce equality. So if everyone has, let's say an Xbox and Matthew doesn't have an Xbox or I don't have an Xbox, we demand an Xbox, right? Like it becomes a right because everything it's...

Yeah, and actually, I think I just made a good point. We probably should have an Xbox. I wouldn't have time to play it though. And neither would you, you're getting married. So yeah, we'll pass on that.

But unless you already have one, maybe you already have an Xbox.

I do not.

I do not have an Xbox. I used to when I was in college, but it's gone.

I was a PlayStation guy. I had PlayStation 2. That's how old I am. Well, first PlayStation 1 and then PlayStation 2, but I digress. Everyone's having so much fun playing their Xbox, but we don't get to have that fun.

So we have a right and you're denying the Emonga Day if you don't give us an Xbox. Well, that seems kind of silly. And I picked that example on purpose because it is silly. But I think it's silly because the Christian understanding of rights comes more from the idea that God actually gave us duties.

And that is encapsulated in the dominion mandate that we are to have charge over this earth. And that keeping and cultivating the garden is more extensive than just farm work. That this is engaging in all the kinds of things that people do to produce value in culture and in economics and in all the rest.

So God gave you abilities that some of them are unique to you. And so a right is something that, a negative right, I should even phrase it that way, is the ability to serve God, ultimately. That's what it is.

That's what a right should be. It's always rooted in that. So we have a right, for example, the second amendment, right? It's not about guns. As a right, that is. It's really, what's behind that is, it's about self-defense.

It's like, you should be able to protect yourself. God's given you a duty to protect yourself and your family and your fellow man. So government shouldn't stand in your way. You should be able to do that kind of thing, right?

Or there should be a mechanism to do that if it's not gonna be government. So anyway, that's kind of one of the things I think that maybe is the dividing line here. And to see it get into the realm of like the Imago Dei itself, something so intrinsic and fundamental to Christianity is a little bonkers.

Like I said already, it's manipulative, but it's also just kind of bonkers. It's kind of crazy. To the champion of the Imago Dei, this passage is the justification for the complete dismantling of those social structures.

I think I already read that. It would regard all humans as interchangeable and destroy all human excellence in the process. Okay, the goal of this post-Christian radical egalitarianism is an eschatology, a vision and goal of a future to be sought that is both perverted and over-realized.

It's a perversion of what the true Christian eschatology is, and it's an over-realization of what that eschatology trying to fully bring about the consummated future in the here and now. The Christian vision of the world to come is marked in part by imagery that shows the passing away of certain everyday social arrangements.

For instance, neither marrying nor giving in marriage, something that is because shadows are giving way to reality. For instance, earthly marriages point to and give way to the finished reality of the lamb and his bride.

But in this disfigured world of vision of the world to come and what it ought to be, the passing away of everyday social arrangements in the human history is recklessly reduced to the mere doing away of all particularities and inequalities.

This becomes the overarching value and moral compass. It's a distortion where liberty to be the best of what God meant each individual to be becomes freedom from all constraints, even and especially constraints on our sinful impulses that tell us we could be or must be.

In truth, the glorious future imagined by the foolish faithful adherents of the Imago DEI and which they seek to bring about on earth looks much less like a heavenly paradise and much more like a hellish wasteland.

So he's not talking to obviously about different flavors of eschatology in Christianity. He's saying the broad Christian eschatology is looking towards new heavens and new earth. And it is gonna have different arrangements and their shadows in this realm, this temporal realm.

But the alternative to that, this liberal DEI arrangement is a utopian scheme that seeks to bring about what they think of as a similar arrangement, but in actuality, it doesn't work at all. You can't, for example, if you dismantled marriage, which is honestly, that's what a lot of the policies that have been foisted in our face in the name of human rights and so forth.

For, give you a few examples, things like no fault divorce or the legalization of pornography and obscenity, and prostitution and all the sexual deviancies, I suppose, will go into that. The redefining of marriage so that it is no longer a man and woman, but it's also open to those who have the same gender, same sex, they can engage in a ceremony that pretends to sanctify the same kind of arrangement.

We obviously have the transgender sports issue and all of these blurring of the lines, these created order lines, this is an attack on the creator. This is a confusion and these are roadblocks in the way of trying to fulfill the creator's intentions and fulfill our own destinies that God's given us.

And so our image of God is actually, in a sense, it's under attack in these kinds of things, but from the other side, you'll hear that actually, no, this is a fulfillment of the image of God somehow. This is about dignity.

This is about extending rights and all of that. And it's like, man, that's like literally calling good, evil, evil, good in that scenario. So anything to add to that, Matthew?

No, I totally agree with everything that you said there. It just, especially the part, Aaron makes a really good point about eschatology and by sort of saying that there's an over-realizing of the eschatology, you know, and that sort of gets back to, you know, the common Theo nerd, like a thing to say, where you use the big words to sound smart, amenitizing the eschaton, basically, like trying to bring about the end on your own, you know, or looking like too quickly ahead and being like, oh, we can bring this about ourselves.

And that sort of is the pinnacle of human pride, believing that you can achieve that, which only God can directly and like, you know, primarily achieve by virtue of his own power. It's probably because you try to place yourself essentially in the position of God and you enact all these things with these eager expectations.

That it'll come about this way,.

But you're just, you're never gonna achieve it. And that sort of is what DEI seems to do or seeks to do because it values, you know, we need the same outcomes for everybody and it doesn't leave room for, you know, the fact that, hey, maybe the reason why this person got the job instead of this person is because they simply do it better.

They simply perform better and therefore we're gonna choose this person. Maybe it's not just, you know, their upbringing was bad or whatever. Maybe Jim really is just better at James at doing this than that.

But, you know, there's this notion that, oh, well, all hierarchy is bad. This person can't be better than that person at doing this, yada, yada, yada, which is actually funny enough. It's strange because I would even argue that while all people have equal grounds before the throne of the father, have equal access to, you know, receive forgiveness from Christ, even in heaven, there are still gonna be some people that are like higher than others.

Like, I think that the apostle Paul will probably be of greater regard in the kingdom of heaven than myself.

I don't think that when I get to heaven,.

I'm gonna be on the same status as the apostle Paul, David, or all these other people, not to sound like a papist or anything, but heck, I think even, you know, the Virgin Mary is probably at a higher spot than me, you know, than a lot of people.

I think that the way that it works is just like, you know, some people are worthy of certain honors and dignities and things like that.

And hierarchy is not a result of the fall.