WWUTT 1215 Q&A Who is Hawk Nelson, Another Deconversion Story, How Do We Have Faith?

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May 22, 2020

Responding to comments from Jonathan Steingard, lead singer of the Christian rock band Hawk Nelson, who announced he doesn't believe in God, how do we have faith, how do we guard our hearts. Visit wwutt.com for all our videos!

00:00: What is with all these deconversion stories in online Christian circles? How are they harmful and is there any benefit to these testimonies?
00:09: And how do we respond to the doubts they raise? The answers to these questions when we understand the text.
00:24: This is When We Understand The Text, a daily Bible study in the word of Christ, that we may be conformed to the image of the
00:31: Son, in order that He might be the firstborn among many brothers. Drop us a line through our website at www .wutt
00:38: .com. Here once again is Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. You're welcome. Being Friday, we take messages from the listeners, and you can shoot us an email to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.
00:52: Before getting to those questions, we have, very sadly, another deconversion story that has just surfaced.
01:01: And this one involving the lead singer of Hawk Nelson, John Steingard.
01:07: Not to be confused with Jason Dunn, who was the previous lead singer of Hawk Nelson. He had stepped aside in 2012, and John Steingard took over.
01:16: Now if you haven't followed contemporary Christian music or even Christian rock music, then this band is probably not known to you.
01:23: But nevertheless, it means something to Becky and I. We knew
01:28: Hawk Nelson before we got married. When she and I started dating,
01:34: I had told her that dating me means we're going to be hanging out with some of these bands sometimes.
01:40: Because I was still in Christian radio at the time, and I was still emceeing a lot of these concerts. I would get called and, hey, come to Wichita, give an emcee for this show, or come down to Oklahoma City and do this one.
01:52: We went to one down in Emporia, I think that was Pillar. And who else was in that show?
01:59: Pillar was the only one I remember, because that was the headlining band. I don't remember. Anyway, not important.
02:05: It's been too long. I want to say Flyleaf was there. I think it was before they were real big and well -known.
02:12: Flyleaf was one of the bands. Oh, Fireflight. I think that was the band. Yes.
02:17: It wasn't Flyleaf, it was Fireflight. Yes. Anyway, there was a show that we did down in Wichita, and it was the
02:25: Rock and Worship Road Show. And I knew the guy that booked these concerts.
02:31: And so, I would just call him up on my phone and say, hey, we're here. He'd say, well, come on backstage. And he'd even take me back to the tour buses.
02:37: So, Becky got to go on one of the tour buses and check it out. Yeah, it's pretty cool. In the back of the tour bus, they had all of the money that they had accumulated for this show and the one before.
02:49: And the bands slept in the bunks, but the back room on the back of the bus was where the tour guy stayed and where he kept all of the cash.
02:58: I think we were looking at something like $350 ,000 in cash that was just laying out on the table and on the couches.
03:05: It was just stacks of money. But it wasn't from just that night. It was from the night before.
03:11: And this was one of those shows where you show up at a big arena, probably seat six or 7 ,000 people, and you're paying $10 cash at the door.
03:19: If you've been to the Rock and Worship Roadshow, if you've been to Winter Jam Tour or something like that, then you've seen that.
03:26: You've probably forked over. You've witnessed that. Right. Yeah. You handed over a 20 for you and your buddy as you were walking in.
03:32: Right. And then you would enjoy the concert. And right before a speaker came up, they passed buckets around and took even more money from you.
03:38: But this was the model that they started adopting, and they figured out they could make more money this way than by doing pre -ticket sales, by just having a show with a bunch of bands together.
03:47: Some of the early, or not the headlining bands, but the opening bands, they paid to be there.
03:55: Okay. So their record label paid for them to be on this tour since they're mostly unknown or not as well known as the headlining acts.
04:03: Yeah. And so this is their chance to get in front of people, sell some records at the record tables, record
04:08: CDs, t -shirts, hats, stuff like that, get some merchandising money from that.
04:15: Some drumsticks. Yeah. Right. They just throw those out in the crowd. Here, have a drumstick. Put a guy's eye out.
04:20: Yeah. I got a souvenir. Yeah. And so that's what the opening bands would do, and they would actually pay to be on those tours.
04:29: The record companies would pay for them. Then they get built up, and eventually they become those headlining acts.
04:34: Right. That's kind of the dream. Get your foot in the door. Yeah. So they figured out if we just charge everybody $10 at the door, and then we even take a love offering in the middle of the show, we're making more money than if we're selling tickets in advance because we're filling up these arenas, we're getting more people there.
04:52: I could even tell you the names of the two guys that came up with this model, and then I could tell you the name of the other guy that ended up ripping it off.
04:59: But one of the first two guys ended up going in league with him, so he wasn't technically ripping it off.
05:05: What a mess. But I'm not here to spread all of that backroom info, but it was kind of like totally eye -opening for Becky to hop on one of these
05:15: Christian tour buses and see stacks of tens of thousands of dollars. Yeah.
05:20: Literally hundreds of thousands of dollars. It was a lot. It was a lot of money, but that's why they put these things together.
05:28: Yes, there's ministry that gets done there. Yes, they'll have a speaker that comes in and he will do a presentation of the gospel.
05:35: When you're talking about something like the Rock and Worship Roadshow or Winter Jam or something like that, they'll have some evangelist on the tour with them, but that really is not their primary goal.
05:46: It is an industry and they're there to make money. And if it wasn't making money, then they wouldn't be doing what they're doing.
05:53: And a lot of money on top of that, not just breaking even. That's not the goal. They want to make a ton of money.
06:01: So there was one of these shows that we went to when... You mean they're not considered non -profit. They're not non -profit.
06:07: That's definitely true. There was one of these shows that we went to in Wichita, and I want to say 10 to 12 ,000 people, the
06:14: Kansas Coliseum. I don't remember what the Coliseum seats, but it was full.
06:20: They had to turn people away at the door. Yeah, they did. So they packed out and that was the largest crowd that I had been in front of.
06:27: I don't think I had emceed over 10 ,000 before. So I got up on stage and it's just so many people, you can't make out anybody's face.
06:36: And this was... How long had we been seeing each other? It wasn't very long. No, it wasn't. I think this was April or May, and so we'd only been together for maybe three months or something like that.
06:46: A few months, yeah. So Becky got a whole taste of, okay, he wasn't kidding. We're showing up and hanging out backstage with Mercy Me and Jeremy Camp and Hawk Nelson and 10th
06:56: Avenue North and Addison Road was on this tour. And David Nasser, I even think, was the evangelist that they had with them on this particular tour.
07:06: And then it was just a couple of months after that, we're at Worlds of Fun in Kansas City, riding roller coasters with Family Force Five and Thousand Foot Crutch and seeing
07:15: Toby Mac and Third Day. And this was a little mind -blowing,
07:21: I think, for... It wasn't just like... It was fun. It wasn't like we're showing up to indie shows and just rubbing elbows with band guys you've never heard of before.
07:30: These were the top artists in Christian music at that particular time. And so when we were backstage with Hawk Nelson, I think we were watching 10th
07:40: Avenue North and we're standing next to Jason Dunn. And a friend of mine even texted me and said, hey, tell
07:47: Jason I still have his shirt from something and thanks for the laughs or whatever.
07:52: And I showed him the text message and he's like, oh yeah, I remember that show. And we just kind of start chatting.
07:58: So Jason was a super nice guy. And I talked with him on the phone a few times after that. Is a super nice way.
08:04: Yeah. But we haven't talked with him for... Okay. Sure. But you know... But I will say this about Jason Dunn.
08:12: So this is... Now again, the lead singer of John Steingard has now come out and said that he's leaving the faith.
08:19: Jason Dunn is the former lead singer of Hawk Nelson. He left the band in 2012. That's when John Steingard became the lead singer.
08:28: And Jason went back to Canada. He got married, started a family and it was actually at his old church.
08:36: He started going back to church again. And he tells his story that when he was part of Hawk Nelson, he wasn't going to church anymore.
08:43: He was still doing the Christian thing, but he really felt like he had left the faith.
08:49: And it wasn't until he got out and started going back to church that his eyes were awakened to just how far away from God he was.
08:56: And when he went to church, his wife was moved by the gospel and said,
09:01: I want to follow Jesus. And it suddenly was like, he was like, wow, I do too.
09:07: And so he says that it felt like he got saved all over again, because he didn't realize being a part of that, even though you're in a
09:16: Christian band and you're doing Christian things and you're attending shows where the gospel is being presented.
09:23: It's just like you're just a... It's not church. Yeah. You're just wearing a t -shirt is all you're doing.
09:28: You're wearing the label and you're doing the thing, but it's not really in your heart. Your heart is far from God.
09:35: It looks right on the outside, but there's nothing going on on the inside. And that is very...
09:40: That's why you have to be super careful and guard your heart of those things. Yeah. I mean,
09:46: I hear about like some of these bands, when they go on tour, they will take pastors on tour with them.
09:51: But yeah, you still have to be... It's still not the same. Yeah. I mean, kind of, sort of, but not really.
09:57: Right. You just have sort of a church plant, if you will. Just unplanted.
10:03: On the buses, going out on the road, something like that. Smaller congregation.
10:10: Yeah. Plus, you know, this is not like a missionary venture. Right. Whereas missionaries, you go out, you're doing church plants, you're sharing the gospel, you're getting beat up for that and you don't even know tomorrow, where's your next dollar coming from?
10:24: Right. How are we going to eat? Who's going to take care of us? You're just fully trusting in the
10:30: Lord for all of that and being persecuted all that while and you're enduring through hardship. God is taking care of you.
10:37: You're learning to rely more upon God who raises the dead. When you're out on a tour, that's not how it goes.
10:44: You are... You're having everything provided for you. The record label's taking care of you.
10:51: You just have to trust, you know, the tour head, you know, guy who's making sure that the rider is being followed and your hotel room is there and somebody's shuttling you from the arena to your hotel or getting you back on the bus and getting the bus from point
11:05: A to point B. And in the meantime, you stand up on stage in front of a bunch of screaming adoring fans.
11:11: So there's... And you're like, which town am I in? Yeah, exactly. Thank you, Chicago. We're in Detroit.
11:17: Yes. Chicago was last night, dude. Yeah. Stuff like that.
11:22: And it is... I mean, I'm sure that's grueling work. I've done that before too.
11:28: And of course, we were totally... Nobody had heard of us. We weren't playing sold out arenas and stuff like that.
11:36: Well, I did, but I was opening for other artists. I did get the chance to play a few sold out shows.
11:42: You're looking into just total blackness. You can't see anybody. So you just... It's pretty amazing, but it's like...
11:50: It's unnerving because it's like, this isn't natural. You know, you're used to looking at people and playing in front of people.
11:56: Yeah, that's right. And so I would say something into the blackness, not being able to see anything except for the exit lights around the arena.
12:04: That's all you can see. It's crazy. And you would say something and then laughter comes back. You know, oh, my joke hit and people are laughing.
12:10: There's people out there somewhere and they're laughing at my joke. Anyway, all of that was real funny. So I've done a little bit of that and it's hard.
12:20: It's taxing on you. It can be a very emotionally draining experience as well, but it's not the same kind of persecution that you would go through if you were actually out there going through hardship and planting churches.
12:33: Well, everybody's praising you. Yeah, right. Everybody just adores you wherever it is you go, except for music critics who don't like Hawk Nelson or something like that.
12:42: But anyway, it was great for Jason Dunn to have shared that. It was a podcast interview that he did a couple of years ago where he shared about his experience being with the band and even feeling like he had fallen away from the faith.
12:54: And then contrast that experience with John Steingart, who's basically gone through the same thing.
13:00: And he's taken to Instagram now. And I believe it was just it was either yesterday or on Wednesday that he had posted this multi page thing on Instagram about how he's left the faith.
13:14: But it's you know, I hate to kind of come down on the guy for this, but it's rather cowardly because he does admit that this confession is coming out at a time when the band is no longer doing anything.
13:27: He's not out there making music and doing the shows that they used to do before. So it's not like he's really taking a risk here, even though he thinks that he's taking a risk.
13:36: But it's it's when he's no longer milking Hawk Nelson for the money that they were making a living off of.
13:42: And instead, he feels like I just have to be honest. And I'm coming out and I'm admitting to you that I'm not
13:47: I don't even believe in God anymore. Right. So he's more than than just a it's more than just a deconversion story, so to speak.
13:56: He's not just leaving Christianity. He doesn't even believe God exists. So here we're going to read a few pages of this.
14:02: This is rather long, but I thought we would start this way. And then I do still have a few questions we're going to get to as well.
14:08: So John begins. This is not a post that I ever thought that I would write. But now I feel like I really need to.
14:15: I've agonized over whether to say this publicly. And if so, how to do it. But I now feel that it's less important how
14:23: I do it and more important that I do it. So here it goes. Now, before we get to the rest of this, this sounds a lot like Marty Samson.
14:30: I think we mentioned his name last week, who was the the musician from Hillsong in Australia who had left the faith and made an announcement on Instagram that he had done that.
14:41: There was the we're going to see more and more of these. Instagram seems to be the coming out place.
14:46: It's like, hey, I'm not a believer anymore. I've left the faith. And as we understand from First John 219, they went out from us that it might become apparent that they really were not of us.
14:57: Right. So we're not really talking about a person who is deconverted. We're talking about a person whose faith was never genuine to begin with.
15:04: Right. And I think that even though John believes that he's being genuine and open with what he's confessing here,
15:10: I think that he's exposing to the fact that, no, this never was real. He tries to cover for that.
15:17: Yeah. He tries to say it was real. But no, you were wearing a T -shirt. But his message is very lengthy.
15:25: And in the end, the truth is revealed. Yeah, I think so, too. So who was the other guy?
15:32: Joshua Harris also came out on Instagram as having left the faith. Both Marty Samson and Joshua Harris were last year.
15:38: Earlier this year, this was just back in February, I believe, we heard the deconversion story of Rhett and Link of Good Mythical Morning.
15:46: Yeah. Which is a program Becky and I used to watch. Yep. Until they actually progressively started getting more crass.
15:52: And then we couldn't watch it anymore. Yeah, it wasn't okay to watch it around the kids. Yeah, it used to be clean and funny.
15:59: But then they, I mean, still tried to play on the laughs. But they started getting more crass and even into some mysticism thing.
16:07: Yeah, it was weird. Which kind of added the mystic to Good Mythical Morning. Yeah. Added myth to the
16:12: Good Mythical Morning. But they came out a couple of years ago as two guys who formerly had been youth leaders.
16:20: They were the fabulous Bentley brothers on the What's in the Bible series. That was actually my first exposure to them.
16:27: I hadn't heard of Rhett and Link before they played that role through the What's in the Bible series that was created by Phil Vischer.
16:34: And then anyway, so back in February had this coming out, so to speak, where they said, we're no longer
16:41: Christians. We don't even believe that God exists. And they laid out their entire deconversion story. It was talked about on multiple different Christian websites, including the
16:51: Gospel Coalition. Alyssa Childers, formerly of Zoe Girl, who's also now a
16:56: Christian apologist, had responded to it. She had a good response to it. What are you doing?
17:02: I'm trying to get comfortable. Without making your chair squeak? Is that the attempt? It's not working.
17:09: It's still squeaking. But I mentioned that because the stuff that John says here sounds like Marty Sampson, and it sounds like Rhett and Link.
17:17: Okay. And so, these things are all interconnected. They are. When a person has this coming out of I'm no longer
17:25: Christians. Public statement. Yeah, this public statement that they make, it's going to have an effect on other people. Oh, yeah. There are others who have been doubting.
17:32: They have been using Christianity to make a name for themselves, but now they can't do it anymore. And so, they come out as saying,
17:39: I just have to be honest, which is another attention grab. So, this isn't a sort of a thing where it's not as honest as it seems.
17:48: Right. Even though they open this with I have to be honest, it's not really that honest.
17:53: And in fact, can we really trust anything you say at all anymore? It just kind of gives truth to the statement that a person who says
18:03: I am a liar is always telling the truth. Or that's not quite how the statement is going to say.
18:12: It's something like I am a liar is always true. Okay. So, if a person says they're a liar, yeah, that's true.
18:19: Yeah. And how much can you actually believe what that person says to you then from then on?
18:24: Or as we understand that biblically from Titus chapter one, Cretans are always liars. So, how do you understand the
18:31: Cretan? How do you believe the Cretan and whatever it is that he tells you when the men from the island of Crete had a worldwide reputation for being liars?
18:41: Yeah. This is something else that we're considering heading into the weekend when we've got this documentary that's dropping from it is a final interview with Norma McCorvey, who is the
18:52: Jane Roe in the Roe v. Wade decision. Oh, wow. That the Supreme Court made back in 1973.
18:59: Yeah. Legalizing abortion on demand in America. And this documentary is
19:05: Norma McCorvey nine months before she died, saying that she switched sides to make money.
19:13: So, she went from being pro -abortion. She's the Jane Roe in the Roe v.
19:18: Wade decision. She went from being pro -abortion to in 1995, getting saved and becoming pro -life.
19:25: But then toward the end of her life, she claimed that she wasn't that anymore and that she had been playing everybody the entire time.
19:32: And she was making money off the pro -life movement. And she says, I'm a good actress.
19:38: And apparently in the documentary, she even reads some lines to kind of like demonstrate, see how good
19:44: I can do this. Oh, wow. You know what I mean? That's crazy. So, the pitch at the end of this is supposed to be some kind of a gotcha to the conservative movement, the pro -life movement.
19:57: See your icon, even though she never really was an icon of the pro -life movement anyway. Not really. But look at your person that you put up there.
20:05: You paid her to convert and she was using you and you were using her and so on and so forth.
20:10: What a terrible person. Yeah. But really, all this demonstrates is just how wicked the Roe v. Wade decision really was.
20:18: If it was nothing but a lie and it has resulted in the deaths of millions and millions and millions of unborn children since 1973.
20:27: Over 60 million in the US, one and a half billion worldwide since 1980. And this is the death that has been come about from lies.
20:38: And the woman who was involved in this, she said that she lied when they presented the case to the
20:44: Supreme Court. Her lawyers lied. Her lawyers lied to her. They lied to the Supreme Court. Lies beget lies, beget sins, beget other sins.
20:53: And it has resulted in death and destruction. As we read in Proverbs 14, a truthful witness saves lives.
21:01: Yes. But a person who has committed themselves to lies and deceit is just going to the fruit of the rotten fruit,
21:10: I guess you could say, of their labor is going to turn out to be death and destruction. And so we hope that those who hear this account will be convicted of their sin and they will turn to Jesus Christ who forgives sins and cleanses us from all unrighteousness.
21:25: And it's only by Christ do you have your sins forgiven. Any of these guys that go through these deconversion stories like this, if we were having a conversation, that's really what
21:35: I would, that's probably the first question I would ask. So what are you doing now? Right. What are you doing for the forgiveness of your sins?
21:42: When you stand before God in judgment, how are you going to overcome the judgment? And their likely answer is going to be, well,
21:50: I just don't believe in that anymore. Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter whether you believe in it or not. It's still going to happen. When you were saying that you believed it, when you believe that the judgment of God was coming, how were you going to be rescued from the judgment of God?
22:04: Perhaps the answer is going to be, well, I believe that it was by faith in Christ. Okay. So that answer is still the same.
22:09: It doesn't matter whether you believe it or not. The only way that you are saved from the judgment of God is that you have faith in Christ.
22:17: It says in 2 Thessalonians 2 that God gives a strong delusion to those who loved unrighteousness.
22:25: Right. So that they may revel in their pleasure and then fall into judgment. Is that what's happening to you?
22:31: You loved unrighteousness. So God has, in judgment, given you a strong delusion that you can't see the truth anymore.
22:39: That truth that you once proclaimed, you can no longer see because you love unrighteousness. So what is the unrighteousness that you're clinging to and you are loving that is now blinding you to what is true?
22:52: You love sin more than you love God. What is the sin and the unrighteousness that's led you to where you are?
22:58: And I think whenever you listen to these, especially the lengthier ones, they pretty much tell it without knowing that they're telling it.
23:07: They admit that. Yeah. But yeah. Why were you doing it in the first place? Well, you know.
23:13: I was making money off of it. Yeah. I was popular. I was famous. Yeah. Joshua Harris. Getting the attention.
23:19: Yeah. Now I'm not. So I feel safe to say that I don't believe anymore. Right. Joshua Harris made a lot of money off of I Kiss Dating Goodbye.
23:27: Then he figured out he could make a lot of money off of condemning I Kiss Dating Goodbye. And he did a follow up to that.
23:34: Well, I don't really believe that anymore. Right. And then he could become more popular by leaving the faith altogether. And now he's become pro -LGBTQ and all of these things.
23:43: And so you can see the progression of a person that goes this way. It's never just ending here.
23:50: This guy's not going to remain in some sort of neutral state of not believing in God or wondering whether he's real or not.
23:57: But he still remains this moral person that looks like he's upholding a Christian ethic.
24:03: That's not going to be the case with this guy. They all seem to be heading in this direction of sin begetting sin, evil begetting more evil, and they will fall into more depravity and more being fooled by the enemy that has blinded them to the truth of the gospel.
24:23: Yeah. So and John is even going to say in this statement, he's going to say that my parents pray for my conversion.
24:29: They pray for me to be able to come out of this and be able to that God would show himself.
24:35: Right. But you're also going to hear in this that he it's clear that he grew up in a very charismatic environment of Holy Spirit, please come to this place.
24:43: The Holy Spirit's already there, dude. Yeah. If there's Christians among you, the
24:48: Holy Spirit is there. So this is it's very sad to read this. And it grieves me all the more to think that what he's writing here on Instagram, which as we're looking at it already has 1200 likes.
25:01: I mean, Joshua Harris deal was way more groundbreaking, I think, or social media breaking than this was, but it's nevertheless going to have impact on people.
25:12: And he talks about that, how even his conversations with friends of his have already got them thinking about, hey, maybe
25:19: I don't believe anymore either. So here's John's story. He goes on after growing up in a
25:24: Christian home, being a pastor's kid, playing and singing in a Christian band and having the word
25:30: Christian in front of most of the things in my life. I am now finding that I no longer believe in God.
25:36: The last few words of that sentence were hard to write. I still find myself wanting to soften that statement by wording it differently or less specifically, but it wouldn't be as true.
25:47: So what we have here is John now making a public confession of non -faith.
25:54: And it really has kind of brought to reality those things that he's been experiencing in his heart now that he's making an evangelistic statement, so to speak, even though you may not have an appeal in here of him begging people to come to his side, come to me where the water is clean and the cookies are fresh, you know, it's not like it's not like what it's that's not the kind of appeal that he's making, but it's nevertheless an evangelism statement of here's my good news now.
26:26: It's not the good news of the gospel. It's the good news that you can be free from all this religiosity and you can come to my side and now you don't feel like you were imprisoned by these
26:36: Christian things anymore. Yeah. So he is making an appeal, even though he's not directly making an appeal. And it's a false gospel and people will be led astray by this sort of a message.
26:47: So he goes on the process of getting to that sentence that I no longer believe in God has been several years in the making.
26:55: It didn't happen overnight or all of a sudden, of course, it didn't. It's always a gradual thing.
27:01: It's a slow fade as the as the saying goes, gradual decline. Yep. It's been more like pulling on the threads of a sweater and one day discovering that there was no more sweater left.
27:12: Now, that's the analogy that he's going to come back to several times in this. But I think the Christian T -shirt thing fits the best.
27:20: It's pulling on the threads of my Christian T -shirt and finding out that underneath I wasn't a Christian at all the entire time.
27:26: That would really be the more honest analogy here. I have been terrified to be honest about this publicly for quite some time because of all that I thought
27:35: I would lose. I'm still scared, but I'm writing about this now for a few reasons. Firstly, I simply can no longer avoid it.
27:42: Processing this quietly felt right when I simply had doubts. But once they solidified into a genuine point of view, it began to feel dishonest not to talk about it.
27:53: Secondly, I have had private conversations with trusted friends about my doubts and discovered to my absolute shock that they are shared by nearly every close friend my age who also grew up in the church.
28:05: I am stunned by the number of people in visible positions within church circles,
28:12: Christian circles that feel the same way as I do. Like me, they fear losing everything if they're open about it.
28:19: I hope that my openness and my transparency can be an encouragement to them and to you if you feel the same.
28:25: Now, what I'm going to say following that might be kind of shocking to you, but I agree with him. I do too.
28:30: And I hope that it does. I hope it does too. I hope that his coming out about this and admitting that he no longer believes in God likewise exposes those
28:40: Christian leaders in those Christian circles who believe the same way, but are not coming out and honestly admitting that they don't believe in God because they're afraid that they're going to lose.
28:50: Right. Exactly. They are lying and they're leading people astray. Yeah. And they're going to...
28:56: Even though they think they're telling the truth up on stage, even if it's Christianese, they're still not.
29:01: Yeah, they're still lying. Yeah. And they are setting people up to go the same route that John Steingart is going here.
29:10: A day is going to come in which they're going to go, I didn't really believe either. My leader didn't believe it and he was faking it.
29:17: So I was faking it. And now what difference does it make? I don't have anything to gain by it. Nothing to lose by leaving it.
29:23: Yeah. That's what they're setting up here. So I do agree with John in that sense. I hope that his coming out and admitting that he's not a
29:32: Christian anymore will likewise expose these other guys in these Christian circles that feel the same way, but they're scared that they could lose everything if they admit, hey,
29:44: I don't really believe in God either. You know, I also hope that those people who have their doubts, it would bring them back to reality and scare them into, yeah, you know,
29:59: I really need to get serious about my faith again. Absolutely. And I hope that's what happens.
30:05: And you're taking a much softer, more gracious approach to that. You're welcome. Maybe than I did.
30:12: Well, no, I still hold true to what you say because, I mean, those who are not with us and not of us, but they're using our name.
30:20: Yeah. That's awful. Right. They should not be in those positions. What you see over and over again in the
30:28: Sermon on the Mount, which is what I'm preaching through right now on Sunday morning, Jesus constantly confronting, don't be like the hypocrites.
30:37: Hypocrisy is this. Hypocrisy is looking like you are doing this on the outside, but on the inside, you're full of dead men's bones.
30:45: Yeah. You're a whitewashed sepulcher that's full of dead. It's just full of death, full of death and deadness.
30:51: You're not really alive. You've not been brought to life in the spirit. And so over and over, Jesus saying, it's not just something you do on the outside.
30:58: You have to be transformed from the heart. Right. From the inside out. And we're just about to get into the
31:03: Lord's prayer. And it's interesting that when Jesus gives instructions on prayer in Matthew chapter six, he actually begins by saying, here's how not to pray.
31:14: Before he gives the instruction on how to pray, he says, here's how not to pray. Don't be like the hypocrites.
31:21: Don't go out into the public places to be seen by others. I tell you, they've already received their reward.
31:27: Or don't be like the pagans who want to be recognized for their many words. But instead, pray to your father in secret.
31:36: And your father who sees in secret will reward you. Go into your closet, close your door, pray then like this.
31:43: Our father who art in heaven. And then you have the Lord's prayer after that. So Jesus instructions on prayer begin with a genuine personal relationship that you have with God that is not seen, but is personal between you and God.
32:00: Now, that's not to say that we should not show our relationship with God. Because back in Matthew chapter five,
32:06: Jesus says, let your good works be seen by others so that they may see your good works and give glory to your father who is in heaven.
32:13: Right. But it's not just for show. Right. It's not about getting the recognition from other people.
32:19: Right. If that's what your faith is about, you're a hypocrite and you're lost. Yep.
32:25: Yeah. So yeah, like Becky said, I hope that this does expose those guys who are faking it.
32:33: Yes. Because they're sons of hell creating more sons of hell. It's exactly the way Jesus put it in Matthew 23.
32:38: Yes. It's what he said to the Pharisees. They proselytize, but they make a son of hell twice as much a son of hell as yourself.
32:46: So I hope that those guys are willing to step out and say, yeah, you're right. I'm not a believer. And I'm leading people to hell.
32:53: That's not what they're going to say because they don't believe that it exists. So either that outcome or... Or they can't be that bad.
33:00: Right. Exactly. I'm a good person. I'm good without God, which is blasphemy in and of itself.
33:05: Yes. Or the other possibility is that it scares these guys into recognizing, I've been a hypocrite.
33:12: Yeah. I've not been following what Jesus has said in the Sermon on the Mount. I was doing all of this for show.
33:18: From the heart, I've never really been changed by God. And it goes back to Jason Nelson, or sorry, yeah,
33:24: Jason Dunn. Jason Dunn, the former lead singer of Hawk Nelson. Yes. Where after he left the band, he realized it wasn't real.
33:33: And felt like he was getting saved all over again when he went back to church, which I would really take that as the prodigal son returned home.
33:40: Right. But it's great that he could be honest about that and say, I got caught up in the Christian culture and was just doing the t -shirt thing.
33:48: Yeah. When I was there, it really wasn't real. I mean, people, we all sin.
33:55: We all sin. And we follow the indulge that sin sometimes. And this could be just some
34:01: Christians indulging in that sin of a popularity and making money and.
34:08: Thinking they're going to find some satisfaction in that. And then realizing, I hope this helps them realize that there's nothing in it.
34:18: No satisfaction in worldly things. And they come back to God. Yeah. And so, I heard one
34:24: Christian teacher describe the religion that they're doing like this. It's like the worldly guy, but with a choir robe on.
34:31: Yeah. Yep. Exactly. You're living exactly like the worldly guy. Yeah. But you're wearing a choir robe.
34:37: There are so many. And still trying to find satisfaction in worldly things and material things.
34:43: And you've made religion another one of those things. Yep. So, you think there's an experience that's going to happen there, that's going to give you some self -worth.
34:50: And when you don't find it there, because it's always been shallow. Or another description of that is like a mile wide and an inch deep.
34:57: That's been the extent of your religion. And when you don't find the satisfaction there that you thought it was going to give you, then it's meaningless.
35:06: And you have nothing to lose by leaving it. Right. You're right. Because it didn't have any meaning to you when you were in it.
35:13: None whatsoever. So, then John goes on and he says, thirdly, I've got a whole lot less to lose now.
35:20: This is kind of the exposing the fact that you're not really being as honest as you claim you are.
35:25: The band isn't playing shows or making new music at the moment. And we've all found other work and careers to focus on for the time being.
35:33: In order to make sure I'm able to keep providing for my family, that had to be the case before I could be totally honest.
35:40: And that fact is one of the issues that I have with the church and with Christian culture in general.
35:46: John, if I am speaking something that he's actually listening to, and you're actually going to listen to me say this here.
35:53: John, you're a liar. You are a liar. And you think that you're doing something noble here.
35:59: But all you're exposing the fact is I've lied to everybody. And I'm going to continue lying.
36:05: Because as you're talking about God no longer existing and Christ not being the answer, you're still being a liar here.
36:13: I just, I don't understand how that is, that fact is, like he had to find a different work.
36:22: And so. He had to make sure he was providing for his family before he came out about this and realized that he was going to lose his place as the lead singer of the
36:32: Christian band, Hawk Nelson. No, I got that. But that last part of it, and that fact is one of the issues that I have had,
36:39: I have with the church and the Christian culture in general. Because he had to get a different job, he wasn't being provided for anymore.
36:46: No, he's saying that he was just as fake as everybody else is being fake. And so this is my problem with the
36:52: Christian culture is because we're all just fake. That's what he's saying. How does that have to do with his job and career?
37:00: He had to make sure he had another job. Right, right, right. Before he now comes out and says, hey,
37:06: I'm not a Christian. And he loses Hawk Nelson. Right. And not able to provide for his family. So he thinks he's being noble here.
37:13: I still don't understand how that ties to the church and Christian culture. Well, let's just go on.
37:18: Oh, sure. I'm just reading too much into it. So if you're someone who follows me because of Hawk Nelson and my involvement in Christian music, you're probably thinking, wait, were you lying to me this whole time?
37:29: Were you pretending to be a Christian? Yes. What about all those songs that you wrote? Did you mean those?
37:35: The short answer is that I was not lying. I did believe those things at the time.
37:41: I may have been pulling on the threads of the sweater, but there was still some sweater left back then.
37:46: And again, I think the Christian T -shirt analogy is more appropriate here. So he's wearing the Christian T -shirt.
37:52: He's pulling on the threads. So you're looking at his mid rift. His tummy button is showing there as he's pulling on the threads of this thing, not really believing the shirt that he's wearing.
38:03: And it looks a little inappropriate. You're going, why is your stomach showing? You need to cover that thing up.
38:09: But the whole time it was all a lie. Underneath, there never was really anything there. He was just wearing the
38:15: T -shirt. And he may have worn the T -shirt genuinely liking his T -shirt. Right. But there was not any genuine heart underneath the shirt that believed the thing that was said.
38:25: From the T -shirt. Right. Yeah. It was not seen by his works.
38:30: There wasn't a fruit there that demonstrated the righteousness that he loved. It was all just completely on the surface.
38:36: It looked like one thing that wasn't reality. So he goes on. So what did this sweater thread pulling process look like then?
38:44: Okay, let's get into it. I grew up in a Christian home, in a loving Christian home. My dad was a pastor and still is.
38:51: And as far back as I can remember, life was all about the church. It was our community. It was our family.
38:58: It feels important to point out that church wasn't something that we went to once a week.
39:03: It was more like something we came home to as often as possible. After bravely venturing out into the world when necessary, it wasn't a part of our life.
39:13: Church wasn't a part of our life. It was our life. Now, that's certainly a description of us, of our family.
39:20: Yeah, definitely. Because as a pastor, of course, John is speaking as a pastor's kid. But as a pastor myself, this is church for us.
39:28: Yeah. Church is our life. It's not simply something that we go out and do, but it's really something that we come home to.
39:36: Yeah. And we talk to our kids about, you know, we're going to see our family in the morning when we talk about going to church, or you're going to go see your
39:43: Christian brothers and sisters when we go to Awana on Wednesday night or something like that. So our children understand that as well.
39:50: But what Becky and I have to be careful of as we're raising our kids is what we're teaching them about Christianity, making sure that it is real in our lives, what we say to them, as well as making sure they understand that this is true.
40:06: It's not just the mythology that we're a part of. It's not the religion that we've accepted. It is not the thing that we do because daddy is a pastor.
40:16: It's what we do because it's true. Right. And I think you mentioned this last week or the week before about our 12 -year -old.
40:23: It's starting to click with her. And so it's great to see that, that it's true to her.
40:29: Our younger kids still trying to make sense of it, of course, but they're still really young. But this is day in and day out, being in the word of God, praying together.
40:40: Everything that we do becomes those Deuteronomy 6 moments of buying these things on your hand, may they be as frontlets between your eyes and you're rising up and then you're going out.
40:52: So everything that we do, we talk to our kids about now, how did the Lord bring this about? Where do you see
40:58: God in the midst of this situation? Or how do we look for what the Lord is doing in a circumstance like this?
41:04: What does God's word say about it? Where have you read that? Where do you find that?
41:10: And these are the things, the word of God prevalent in all of this all the while. It's never about sensing.
41:15: It's never about, well, I feel like it is this. It is teaching them according to what God's word says. Right. And we had a moment the other day, which was totally adorable, but it was still, it was adorable because she was three.
41:27: Yeah. But our three -year -old tells Becky, I want to grow up and be big like you.
41:33: Yes. How do I grow up and be big like you? And you said, well, it's the Lord's will, Lord willing.
41:40: Yeah. I said, sure you can, Lord willing, you know, and she didn't understand what
41:48: I said. And I said, it's, I explained it as, it means that if the
41:53: Lord wills, you know, if the Lord wants you to, then you will. And so she's like,
41:59: I'm going to pray about it. And so she prayed and she said,
42:05: Jesus, can I be big like mommy? Amen. And then she looks at me all excited and she goes, he said, yes.
42:16: I was like, oh boy. Well, it's cute now, but if we don't teach that she's writing the next
42:24: Jesus calling. So yeah, teaching our children that the truth comes not from what we feel or what we sense.
42:36: Or what we want. Or what we want. Right. And the thoughts that pop into our mind must be God telling me or affirming to me that the things that I want are true.
42:45: It's according to what God's word says is true. So it's always coming back to the Bible and teaching our kids according to the word.
42:50: But it seems like here by John's testimony that that's not the way he was raised.
42:56: It was not according to the word of God. It was according to feelings and experiences. So he goes on when you grow up in a community that holds a shared belief and that shared belief is so incredibly central to everything.
43:08: You simply adopt it. Certainly everyone I was close to believed in God, accepted
43:14: Jesus into their hearts, prayed for signs and wonders. There's the first clue as to where we're going with this.
43:20: And participated in church, youth groups, conferences, and ministry. So did I. I had this experience when
43:27: I was about 18 or 19 years old where I was praying to God and saying, God, it sure would be a lot easier for me to believe in you and know what it is that you want me to do for my life if you would just tell me and you would just show me.
43:38: And I was literally praying for burning bush type signs and water turning to wine.
43:44: In fact, I even wrote about it in a song called East from West, which at one point was the name of this podcast.
43:51: Sorry about that. But that's what I was praying for because I thought that's how
43:57: God would make himself real to me. And it was when I was reading the Bible and I was reading the Bible for a way of how did
44:04: Moses do it? How did the disciples do it? Did the disciples say, Jesus, teach us how to turn water to wine.
44:10: Right. And it was when I was looking for that, that I recognized many of these people who saw the miracles did not believe even going back to the
44:19: Old Testament. They saw the Red Sea part. They heard the voice of God from the holy mountain, and yet they perished in the wilderness.
44:26: And so I understood that faith comes not by witnessing miracles. Yes. Not by experiences.
44:32: How do we have faith? Romans 10, 17. Faith comes by hearing and hearing through the word of Christ.
44:39: Jesus saying in John 6, 29, this is the work of God that you believe in him whom he has sent.
44:47: And Peter talked about believing in the word of God. Second, Peter 1, 19. We have the prophetic word more fully confirmed.
44:54: Yeah. So John goes on. I became interested in music, began playing and singing worship teams, and started leading worship at church and at youth events.
45:04: Even then, I remember being uncomfortable with certain things. Praying in public ways felt like some kind of weird performance art.
45:11: Emotional cries such as, Holy Spirit, come fill this place, always felt clunky and awkward leaving my lips.
45:17: Well, they should. They should. That statement should feel awkward to you. A youth conference
45:22: I attended encouraged every teen to sign a pledge that they would date Jesus for a year.
45:28: It felt manipulative and unsettling to me. I didn't sign it. See, this is all surface level
45:34: Christian t -shirt stuff. Yeah, definitely. You know, we did this whole thing too with Christian purity when
45:40: I was in high school. But it was, I'm thankful to my youth leaders. It was about Christ.
45:47: Yeah. It wasn't about signing the card. You can sign the card. And they gave us cards to sign.
45:53: And I actually still have mine. I still have the card that I signed from when I was in high school. They gave us those things to do.
46:01: But I'm thankful that the lesson that they taught us was not about, see, sign this and now you're a good Christian.
46:06: They always were teaching us holiness. It's about walking with the
46:12: Lord. It's about obeying his word. It's about doing what he says, not doing surface level things like this, wearing
46:19: WWJD bracelets, wearing the Christian t -shirt. I'm thankful that that's what they taught me. So they did teach me about purity, about remaining pure until marriage.
46:29: Now, there were some things that they taught that didn't get in. That's not their fault. Right. There's just stuff that didn't get in there.
46:36: But it's not for lack of trying. Right. Yeah. And then I started rationalizing to myself, well, I can go this far and not cross this line.
46:44: That's not purity. Right. But they, I'm grateful, had God -fearing youth leaders that did, in fact, teach me purity is loving
46:53: God and following Jesus and walking according to his word. It's not signing the card. So sign the card, make the confession.
47:00: But they were very - Use that as your visual. That's right. That's all that it is. You remember the commitment that you've made, but that's not the genuine confirmation of that commitment.
47:11: It's that you walk with the Lord. But it wasn't, they didn't use dating Jesus. They didn't say that.
47:16: I don't even remember hearing that when I was in high school. That is awkward. I know, that is weird. Because you have to love
47:22: God with your whole heart, soul, mind, and strength, regardless of whether or not you use this terminology like dating
47:27: Jesus. And how do you date Jesus? Like that. It's that effort to be too commercial showy.
47:34: It's the whole seeker -sensitive church. You know, they're trying to draw people in.
47:40: Okay, sure. It's that kind of, it's the Christian culture language. It was the whole I kiss dating goodbye language.
47:46: We date Jesus instead of dating one another, which is divorce practice. Just get one girlfriend, tired of this one, we get another girlfriend.
47:55: You're just practicing divorce. You're not really looking for a spouse. That was probably the mentality behind it.
48:00: But again, it's all surface level stuff. It's not really getting to the heart of the issue. So John goes on,
48:06: I figured I was overthinking all of these things. This was the beginning of my doubt. And I began to develop the reflex to simply push it down and soldier on.
48:15: After all, everyone I knew and loved believe in God, Jesus, and the Bible. So I felt that it must be true.
48:22: At the age of 20, I joined Hawk Nelson and began touring with the band. It was a blast. Our music wasn't overtly
48:28: Christian, but as time went on, we became more outspoken about our faith in our music. To be fair,
48:34: I was one of the loudest voices for pushing for that shift because I believed that it would lead to more success in the
48:40: Christian music world. So there you go. And right there. Right. You have pushing toward being more
48:46: Christian so that we can make more money. Right. When I became the lead singer and main songwriter in 2012, the shift was fully realized.
48:55: We went from singing songs like Bring Em Out, which is still a fantastic song. Oh, yeah. To songs like Drops in the
49:02: Ocean. Google the lyrics. The difference is not subtle. Even through this shift, there were still many things about Christian culture that made me uncomfortable.
49:10: In fact, the list was growing. There were things that just didn't make sense to me. If God is all loving and all powerful, why is there evil in the world?
49:18: Can he not do something about it? Does he choose not to? Is the evil in the world a result of his desire to give us free will?
49:25: OK, then what about famine and disease and floods and all the suffering that isn't caused by humans and our free will?
49:33: If God is loving, why does he send people to hell? Now, there are certainly answers to all of these questions.
49:39: Oh, yes. We've answered them on the broadcast before, but we're already hitting the 50 minute mark here. So we don't have time to be specific with this.
49:47: But Isaiah 45, 7, I form light and create darkness. I make well -being and create calamity.
49:53: I am the Lord who does all of these things. Job in Job chapter one, saying that, do we accept?
50:00: Well, this was chapter two and he was rebuking his wife. But do we accept good from God and not also evil?
50:07: The Lord has given and the Lord has taken away. May the name of the Lord be praised. We have in Psalm 115, 3, our
50:17: God is in the heavens. He does all that he pleases. Psalm 135, 6, whatever the Lord pleases, he does in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all the deeps.
50:27: As we were talking about the Lord's prayer a moment ago, the beginning of the Lord's prayer, we're praying over and over again for God to be glorified and God's will to be done before we ever even get to any human request in there.
50:40: Right. Before we ever even get to a personal request, the desire of our heart is God may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
50:48: And as you had prayed at, well prayed, introduced the program at the start.
50:54: Yeah. You were quoting from Romans 8, 29, for those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.
51:05: And those things that we go through are what conform us to Christ. Hardship, difficulty, adversity, affliction, any of these things that we persevere through, we're sharing in the sufferings of Christ.
51:20: They're making us more like Jesus. They're doing what Paul says in 2
51:25: Corinthians 1, 9, making us rely not on ourselves, but more upon God who raises the dead.
51:33: That's the purpose of all of this. The word of God affirms all of this. Now, if we were going to get more specific, if we had the time, we would go into each one of these concerns that he raises line by line.
51:43: But certainly these things have been addressed throughout all of Christian history for the last 2 ,000 years.
51:51: Oh, yeah. He's not raising any kind of question or argument that is just floating around out there that has never received any sort of biblical answer to it whatsoever.
52:01: Right. But continue on with this letter. Okay. So he says, my whole life, people always said, you have to go back to what the
52:10: Bible says. I found, however, that consulting and discussing the Bible did not answer my questions.
52:16: It only amplified them. Now, I would raise the contention based on what he says here that he wasn't really reading the
52:22: Bible. Sounds like he was reading things about the Bible. Perhaps. Or sections of the
52:30: Bible, not the Bible as in its entirety. Yes. But he also sounds a lot like Richard Dawkins here.
52:37: So it sounds like he's reading the Bible as the naturally minded man. If he was indeed reading it.
52:43: He's not reading it as a spiritual man, which we can recognize. The Holy Spirit is not in his life. So it wouldn't make sense.
52:48: Yeah. Why does God seem so mad in most of the Old Testament? Then all of a sudden, he's a loving father in the
52:54: New Testament. Why does he say not to kill, but then instruct Israel to turn around and kill men, women and children and take the promised land?
53:01: Why does God let Job suffer horrible things just to win a bet with Satan? Which is not what the
53:06: Book of Job is about. No. Why does he tell Abraham to kill his son, more killing again, and then basically say, just kidding.
53:13: That was a test. That's actually the point of the Book of Job. God tests whomever he wants to test.
53:19: Yeah. Why does Jesus have to die for our sins, more killing again? If God can do anything, can't he forgive without someone dying?
53:27: I mean, my parents taught me to forgive people. Nobody dies in that scenario. Well, the problem that John has here is he thinks way too highly of man and way too little of God.
53:38: Definitely. He does not understand what sin has done to us, what is required because of our sin.
53:45: Right. And so he thinks, just forgive me. Why isn't that enough?
53:50: Because you don't realize that your sin is rebellion against the high king of the universe, that you have committed treason against the throne of creation.
53:58: And what you deserve for that is destruction. And God owes you nothing. Right. He could destroy you in his wrath and would be completely righteous in doing so.
54:08: But it's because he is a merciful and gracious God that he sent his son to die on the cross so that whoever believes in him, having died and atoned for our sins, the wages of which is death and rose again from the grave, conquering death for us, that we may by faith in Christ be forgiven our sins and now have fellowship with God where previously our sin had completely separated us from God.
54:37: Habakkuk 1 .13, as I quoted earlier on the podcast this week, God's eyes are so holy he cannot even look upon our sin.
54:44: Right. And so God... It's amazing that he even thinks to forgive us. Absolutely.
54:49: We are totally undeserving of what we have with God. But John thinks way too much of himself and way too little of God.
54:58: And that was why his faith meant nothing to him, because God meant nothing to him. Right.
55:03: And why it's so easy for him to walk away. Well, God meant money. Yeah, God... Now it's not making him money. God was to profit him.
55:11: He had a God that benefited him. And when that God was no longer useful to him anymore, he discarded that idol and is going after another, but never the true
55:21: God of the Bible. So anyway, the rest of that I might put into a blog and maybe address some of these things more specifically.
55:28: If you go to pastorgabe .com, so some of these questions and things like that, he raises. If you actually want specific answers to some of those questions, then
55:36: I can tackle that a little bit more there. Hopefully be able to have it up by Friday or Saturday, somewhere in there.
55:43: But anyway, thank you for listening to the program today. We didn't get to any emails, but I'll hold on to these for next week. Yeah. You can always submit questions or even comments to what you've listened to today by emailing whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.
55:57: And don't forget to support our ministry. Yes, if you would please support us, go to the website, www .utt
56:04: .com, click on give, send us a donation. The donations go straight to our church, a nonprofit organization.
56:12: And so your donation is tax deductible and you're also helping the ministry that we do, which we want to provide for free to everybody.
56:20: Videos, podcasts, everything for free. Yes. And we thank you for your support of this ministry. We thank you very much.
56:25: Let's conclude with prayer. Yes, let's. Heavenly Father, we do pray for John and I pray just as he says later on in this message that his parents are praying for him.
56:34: I pray that you would convict him of his sin and help him to recognize just how self -centered that he's been, just how selfish he's been his whole life, even up to this point.
56:45: Has never truly known God and that he would be torn to pieces over the fact that he has sinned against God.
56:53: He is not worthy of the holiness of God, but he needs your righteousness in order to be saved.
56:59: And so may he fall broken before you and beg for your forgiveness and receive the righteousness of Christ that comes by faith so that he may be lifted up from his place in the ashes.
57:11: And he may be glorified as a son of God and have that promise of eternal life that he has yet to understand and yet to grab hold of.
57:21: He needs to be saved for the first time. And may he understand what that really is according to what your word says.
57:28: May we not take these things for granted. May we never think too highly of ourselves and too little of you.
57:34: But when we look into the pages of the word of God, we see your glory. We behold your awesomeness.
57:40: And we are just speechless and taken aback by how wonderful and glorious you are.
57:49: How gracious you have been to us to send your son Jesus to die for our sins.
57:54: There was no work that we could have done to ever ascend to the goodness of God. That goodness had to be given to us by a gracious gift of your love.
58:04: And it is Jesus Christ that is that gift, the greatest treasure we could ever possess. His righteousness cleanses us from our unrighteousness that we may stand holy before you and have fellowship with God.
58:17: You hear our prayer even in this very moment because of what Christ has done for us. And so I pray that we would continue humbly.
58:25: We would desire that your will would be done, not our own. And may we continue to walk in your ways, faithful to our
58:33: Lord Christ, who has been faithful to us with the steadfast love that you have shown to your children.
58:40: us from evil. Come quickly, Lord Jesus. We pray these things in Jesus name. Amen.