News Roundup: TGC Conference, Women in Seminary, & Post-Christian Zoomers

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And we are live now in the conversations that matter podcast.

I'm your host, John Harris. Hope everyone's having a wonderful time out. I had a bunch of technical things that happened.

And then also for those who are on X, you might've noticed the few of you who are on there that James White and I started to go back and forth a little bit.

And I wanted to devote some time to that. I thought it was important enough. So now I am here and sorry about the delays for those who were waiting.

We are going to cover a number of things today. I want to give an update first, though, because we just had a conference over the weekend.

True Script sponsored it in Sellings Grove. Actually, someone, a native of that area told me

I was pronouncing that wrong. And I can't remember what the correct pronunciation was. So I'm going to keep going.

Sorry. Sellings Grove, Sellings Grove. Anyway, a place in Pennsylvania most of you probably have not heard of, but it is beautiful.

And we converged on this small, I think, historically

Quaker Lutheran, if I'm not mistaken, town and had a wonderful conference and Sound of the

Gospel Church hosted or at least let us use the building, which I'm really grateful for. And we talked about the different denominations, some of the major ones, at least, that played a part in the founding of the

United States. And we had a number of guys. We had Zach Gares and Sean McGowan and Sam Smith and Jared Lovell.

And we had Stephen Wolfe. And obviously, I was speaking as well.

And we all took a different part. And of course, the keynote was Paul Gottfried. And I just think that more of this needs to happen.

I had so much good feedback from people. And I realized when I was a student, both in seminary and then in grad school, there were a number of times

I would go to symposiums on a particular academic topic, even topics related to Christianity, to the early church or to the

Reformation or to some events, some figure, perhaps you could do a whole symposium on John Calvin, for example.

And I always enjoyed that kind of a thing. And it happens on the academic level quite a bit.

But of course, most seminaries and academic institutions have gone pretty far left. And so this has,

I think, created a big wedge between the church or between laymen and oftentimes people who are funding these institutions or have historically funded them.

And then the institutions themselves. Why would you want to go to a seminary that's capitulated to hear about what they think about some historical topic when you know that they're reading everything through their progressive agenda?

And I think it's caused a lot of people to want answers in the church.

They want to find a rich fulfillment of their heritage and Christian understandings and theology and history, but they don't have a lot of places to go.

And that was one of the things that we were able to provide over the weekend. TruthScript was able to provide this. They underwrote the whole thing.

It was a very minimal fee. Of course, if you know me and you've been to any of my events, if I'm the one that's the sole responsible person for planning the conference, it's going to definitely look like it.

I'm a guy and it's going to be focused on the main stage and the information. And we want to kick it up even a notch from what we did.

We would love to do not just bring you great speakers and great information and venues and so forth, but we'd like to bring in a bigger team to be able to really make these things nice.

For example, things like, you know, I could have contacted the local hotels to find out if they had a deal they could give to conference attend people attending the conference, but I had no bandwidth for it.

And that's part of the problem that I've had over the years is I feel like we just have enough resources to kind of do the event or do the project.

But there really isn't a lot of resources to bring in other people. And I'm not a pastor at this point.

So, I mean, a lot of pastors, their church just kind of becomes part of that. And if they have a secretary at their church, of course, the secretary ends up planning this.

But I just want you to know, for those who support this podcast, what we'd like to do, what we're looking at doing. And of course, if you are a patron, you got a email or I think it gets sent in the email, but a message from me over the last few days that will hopefully clarify some of the directions we're going.

And I talked about a number of things that I won't go into detail here, but patreon .com forward slash

John Harris podcast. And you will get to participate if you are a member in our exclusive signal chat, which we have now and also our series that we're starting this next month.

I had to think about that. I think the next month, May 1st is tomorrow. So this next month on it's a great book series on conservative or Anglo conservative heritage and the books that contributed to our

Anglo conservative heritage. You might call it paleo conservative or Burkean conservative. But I realize that a lot of people are wanting to be fulfilled in these ways.

They want to understand that they're not part of they didn't come from just nowhere.

They're a link in a chain and they want to know where that chain began. And so we're going to go back and we're going to talk about I might do an episode.

I don't know yet a precursor episode that talks about things like Alfred the Great in the Book of Doom and the

Magna Carta and common law and those kinds of things. I'm not sure yet, but we're going to at least do an episode on reflections on the revolution in France.

And then after that, we're going to get to the anti federalist papers and the disquisition on government by John C.

Calhoun and and so forth until the present and talk about this rich heritage we have because most people need to be reintroduced to it.

I'm just realizing that. And it's going to be a really, really good, fulfilling thing. So that's exclusive, though, to patrons

John Harris podcast. Sorry, Patreon dot com forward slash John Harris podcast. All right.

Well, with all that, we're going to I'm trying to think about where to start here.

We're going to talk about TGC. We're definitely going to go there. Maybe that is the place to start. Oh, real quick, though, first,

I need to let you know about where I'm going to be speaking next, because this weekend there is another event and that is in Pennsylvania.

So I'm sorry, New Jersey, my bad. Last week was in Pennsylvania. This one's in New Jersey. So if you come to Mount Laurel, New Jersey, to the

Truth Conference, there is a website now, May 2nd through 4th. That's this coming weekend. I will be speaking there. It's a lot different than the event that we just did last week.

And so those who are curious and say, well, I just saw John. This is a big this is a very different event.

This is going to be more I don't know how to describe it. It's not a an academic symposium.

We'll put it that way. But it is near Philadelphia. And my brother's actually going to be there.

I mean, I don't know if you should come for him. I mean, let's face it, but he will be there. And then Seth Brickley from the

Eureka Baptist Church. He's been a great friend over the years. Really generous guy. Wonderful man. Wonderful pastor.

One of the guys that I just it makes it worth doing. It makes me not lose hope that there are pastors and younger pastors who are taking the reins.

And oftentimes you don't see it because it's on a local church level. Pastor Seth Brickley is one of those men. Andrew Rappaport, good friend, author and president of Striving for Eternity Ministries.

He spoke at the men's retreat, I want to say, two years ago. And then Craig Chambers, Pastor Craig Chambers, who

I've yet to meet in person. But he was an EFC pastor. I think he still is actually.

Sorry, not EFC. What am I thinking? Evangelical. Yeah. Yeah. EFC, Evangelical Free Church in Pueblo, West Colorado.

A lot of the guys coming, I think, are former EV free guys. And we're going to be talking about, hey, what's the future?

What can we do? I get a lot of those questions from people. What what do we do now that our denomination has gone a certain direction?

And I'll be honest with you guys. I'm just going to be brutally honest here. I don't have all the answers. I don't.

I really don't. I know who does, but it's not me. And I have thoughts, but I don't

I don't know what the answer is for every unique situation. I had someone else.

I'm not going to say the name of the denomination, but another prominent denomination reached out to me and someone who is prominent in that denomination and just say,

John, I have questions about the direction of the denomination and where to take it and stuff. And I just thought,

I don't know what to tell you. I, um, I can try my best to, uh, think through these issues, but ultimately we have to submit ourselves to the

Lordship and providence of Jesus Christ. God is going to have his way and he uses us.

And that's really what we need to focus on is how can we be used wherever we are? And if we are not at the place that he wants us to be, how do we get there?

How do we get from A to B? Maybe that means we need to gain more influence and we're not doing it because we're,

I don't know, fill in the blank. Something's keeping us back, but the Lord is at work.

He'll use someone else if it's not you. And I think that, um, yeah, I think it's important to emphasize that.

So I don't know what's going to happen. You can pray for me that there will be wisdom, uh, for everyone involved and whatever our discussions are, that they would be fruitful anyway.

Uh, where else are we going here? Okay. TGC. I said, TGC, we're going to talk about TGC. Uh, TGC 25 happened and this,

I wasn't paying close attention. And I think that in and of itself is a symptomatic thing.

The fact that I'm not paying that much attention says something. The fact that Southern Baptist stuff happens and I cover it often times, uh, later than when it happens.

I used to be kind of cutting edge and. Occasionally I still am, but, uh, it doesn't really concern me all that much.

And why is that? I think a lot of people who are in this audience feel that way. They've parted ways with these organizations.

They don't read TGC anymore. They're not in the Southern Baptist convention, their church left. And why would we care now?

There are reasons to care. I do think that Southern Baptist convention is the largest Protestant denomination still though.

It's lost a lot of churches. That was one of the things Sam Smith talked about at the conference. So the, this is one of the problems, uh,

Canada just had an election and the results are not very encouraging.

And I think one of the reasons, probably the major reason Canada is in the state it's in is the same reason that Europe is in the state.

It's in Canada, like Europe is very irreligious. Uh, and I, I should have had a map ready.

I don't have one ready, but if you look at maps of Europe and Canada that actually outline things like belief in God, they're pretty similar.

The United States is the outlier. The United States is different because we have a South and we have a Midwest. We have red state

America and red state America serves as the conscience for the rest of the country at this point. Red state

America pulls the country in a direction where you could vote and elect Donald J.

Trump. That would not have happened. Had you not, can you imagine an electoral map without the South and Midwest? It's just not going to happen.

And that is the unique strength that America has. But if we lose it, that's not good. And there have been well over a thousand churches.

I think it's more than that who have left the Southern Baptist convention in the last few years. And, uh, it's growing and people,

I think it discouraged you go to a meeting. You see your side lose and you think, what's the point I'm in it for ministry.

I'm not in it to have a headache three days out of the year and spend all kinds of money to get to an annual meeting.

And there's guys like William Wolf, who I respect greatly, who are in this fight and they're in it for the longterm.

And they think there's an avenue to take back the SBC and they want all hands on deck. They would love it. If your church joined the

SBC, I've always said, if you're going to do that, know what you're in for, and then give the minimum amount to the cooperative program.

Do not enable them, give them whatever it is. The 15 bucks, the 20 bucks a year, just to be able to have a vote and then make that, you know, if you're some people are able to handle this kind of stress, they're able to go to these meetings and they can even have fun doing it.

I don't know that I'm even one of those people. It's a unique person. Uh, I, I act, I happened, I think handle stress better than most probably, especially when it comes to criticism,

I'm able to, uh, not care my, my brother and those close to me sometimes will say, why do you go back and forth with these lower level accounts that have like three followers?

And I, I mean, yeah, I could have frustration, but I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that I do care about these people, right?

So, um, it's not, it's not all because I'm, uh, working off stress or frustrated.

Sometimes that happens, but you know, I'm just using myself as an example to say, I'm probably one of the few people out there that's, uh, maybe.

Well suited for this kind of thing. And I don't even want to do that. Right. Uh, most people don't. And so if the

Lord is going to save the SBC or the Lord's going to save us with some organization like TGC, it is going to take, um,

I think a work of him. You have to rely on him. He's got to put it in people's hearts that this is where they should go their direction, this is part of his plan for them, and then they need to fight with all their might and it's, it is going to be something that he does and gets credit for that's what

I'm convinced of. It's not going to be, uh, horses and chariots that are able to pull this off.

It is going to be ultimately the Lord and maybe he'll work through horses and chariots, but he's got to do it.

And I've been watching this stuff for years. And so all that to say TGC, Southern Baptist and other evangelical organizations haven't really been as interesting.

I think many of us have gone our own ways on these things, but they're still tremendously influential. And if there's not a lot of voices that are still willing to take them to you can bet this podcast, at least for the foreseeable future for now,

I'm still going to be willing to do that because I recognize something. And this was clarifying for me to watch the video.

I'm about to show you TGC has a lot of people. TGC has more institutional credibility and I think resources than any of the comparable, if you want to call them comparable organizations that have tried to compete with them.

Uh, I G3 might be the closest competitor. And, and, and I think that they, they're probably neck and neck with TGC as far as numbers go.

I don't know. TGC may still, I think CGC still has the numbers to be honest with you, but beyond even

G3. And some of you may know, I'm not like a hugest G3 guy. And that's, I mean, I, I actually still kind of root for them because I think they have good theology on most matters.

Most of the matters they focus on. I just think when it comes to politics, they got, um, unfortunately kind of a black eye a few years ago.

And, and, um, anyway, that, I don't want to get into the weeds on that, but there's guys there that don't seem to care for me, but I still,

I still want to see them successful beyond more than a TGC, more than a

T4G, more, you know, T4G is not even in the running anymore, but, uh, more than most of the denominations and what they're doing, um, more than Christianity today.

Right. I want to see solid stuff going on and, you know, who, who are the guys, right?

I mean, you got sort of the Moscow wing. You got, um, I noticed Michael Foster's now starting to do more stuff.

There was just this conference at, uh, well, it wasn't actually at the church, but it was at a conference center that Joel Webb and put on, uh, there's, um, there's all these different, and I would say sometimes very different groups that are forming that are, uh, in this sort of fractured wake of 2020 and, uh, and there, none of them come close to what

I'm about to show you. None of them. Um, fight left. He doesn't come close to the numbers I'm about to show you.

So what am I about to show you? Here's the video. And then I'll give you some commentary. A few years ago, probably a few years ago, um,

I was working in the Spanish speaking world. I had heard about this other brother named Miguel Nunez, a medical doctor that had become a pastor who was working in Latin America.

The Lord brought our paths together. And we began to brainstorm. How can we work together in the

Spanish speaking world? Okay. Hey, sorry.

That is the final day of TGC is conference 2025. And this is a commentary.

This is where I pulled the video from. It's from a guy named Joey. Uh, Cochran has the momentum of the reformed resurgence slowed.

And is TGC a movement in declension when most conferences experience attrition on its final day of meeting?

I see a packed exhibition hall in a standing room, only meeting hall of 7 ,000 plus attendees.

In a word, no TGC 25 TGC. So, uh, this room that you see right here that I just played for you, see if I can mute that.

Um, now I'm trying to find out, I'm trying to look, it's very hard what the demographic here is.

I mean, you're seeing this from a distance. Uh, it looks to me though, like it's probably consistent with the video from last year, cause

I commented on the same dynamic. It's mainly upper millennials and Gen Xers.

I think now I'm not saying there aren't any zoomers there, but this is mostly. I think upper millennials in Gen Xers that are attending events like this.

Now, the encouraging part is if that's their, uh, the demographic that they are attracting, then they are not probably, if they can't reach the

Gen Zers, then they are, there's a ceiling on this, they're only going to be able to expand so far and they may not be expanding anymore.

They may have, I think, hit a wall. And I, I, I suspect that that, but, but this is still influential. This is still big in reformed evangelicalism.

Uh, I want to talk about zoomers in a minute, but before we get there, um, my I I'm convinced that zoomers actually are much less likely to attend a conference.

We may be, and this is a prediction of mine. Okay. We may very well be in a situation where conferences are not the future, at least national or international conferences that they'll still happen, but they'd hit their ceiling.

And, um, it's going to be like, you, you remember, well, some of you may not have studied this, but. Uh, and, and you, none of you were alive for it, but okay.

So none of you remember, but maybe some of you remember studying in the turn of the last century before last now, uh, there were what you were well up through,

I guess, the 1920s and thirties. There were a lot of prophecy conferences. I mean, even my dad remembers some of that from when he was growing up, but they were really big, uh, during the fundamentalist movement, prophecy conferences, uh, one of the big ones

I think was the great lakes, uh, region prophecy conference. And, uh, and this was a big thing.

And of course that fizzled out over time, but you can still look back and say, remember that time when everyone just got together and it was so big and there was this big movement.

And I think we are past that with the young reformed movement. It's not young anymore. It's middle -aged and, uh, that movement

I think is kind of stuck. That's my prediction. Okay. I could be wrong, but that's my prediction. I don't think that this has, uh, for cultural reasons,

Gen Zers aren't as likely to show up for a number, you know, economics as part of this being online more as part of this consuming information that way.

Uh, also just, uh, social anxiety is part of this. I think there's a number of reasons for this. Uh, but there's all, they're also less

Christian. Right. And I'll talk about that in a moment. So I don't think that it's making its way, no matter who's trying to do it into the

Gen Z crowd. I think your best way of reaching and expanding in this scenario that we are in now is on a local level at smaller conferences, do more of them, but make it feasible for people to attend.

I don't know if you noticed, there was a controversy recently on X. Over a con a certain conference, uh, that shall go nameless charging almost a thousand dollars to have certain privileges to meet conference speakers.

And this was later clarified. And I guess there's some marketing company to blame. Now the question

I have is, you know, what, why, why are we hiring marketing companies too? But I don't want to get into it.

I don't want to get into it. Uh, let's just leave it there. Uh, even if you don't pay a thousand dollars to come to a conference and meet people, right.

This particular conference, uh, costs, what is it? You know, 200 bucks or something for a ticket.

It's pretty expensive to show up at a conference. And then you got to pay for a hotel. You got to pay for food. By the time you're done paying for everything you need to pay for, for those days that you are at the conference, you are in, even if you're from the local area, you are easily in 700 bucks.

And if you're not from the local area, you got to fly to this place. You're, you're already paying possibly 800 to a thousand dollars to code, go to a conference.

Now, some people are willing to do that. There is a class of people willing to do that. And they mostly are affluent.

And if you can tap into that affluent group of people, they're not going to mostly be zoomers.

Uh, then you can make some money on conferences. I've never made money on a conference. I've always spent money. In fact, this last conference we had over the weekend,

I, I think it's going to cost truth scripts. I don't know, 7 ,000 bucks. And, um, you know, for the tickets we got,

I haven't seen actual numbers, but I'm guessing, uh, you know, we, we probably pulled in, you know, $400 or something.

It's not like, like, and we do that on purpose, right? That we, that's what the money's there for.

That's what you've donated a truth script is so we can do these kinds of things. We want there to be an access point.

We want people to be able to afford to go, but we also recognize if you're going to have, especially zoomers show up, you got to make that entry to, uh, that, that bar of entry.

A lot lower. They need to be able to afford to come. And most of them just aren't in an economic place to be able to do that.

That's one barrier of many. I think that for any growing Christian movement, it's going to look like smaller conferences and more of them if it's going to be a movement and it's going to have probably an online presence if it's a national or international thing, but I think the local church and local communities is really where it's at.

And I'm a localist. Anyway, I'm a regionalist. Um, I'm writing a book on the new, uh, writing a chapter in a book, uh, that others are contributing to on the new

Christian right or ascendant Christian. Right. And I got the chapter on localism or regionalism because I think it's so important and it's already in our

DNA as Americans, that is who we are. And if we can tap back into that, I think that we have, uh, we have a shot politically and also spiritually for the church.

I think it is much more healthy to, uh, for one reason. And this is one of many, uh, you have a scale at which you can actually tell whether someone is a grifter or a, a fake, uh, you can tell whether they have the character to match the position they're in and worthy of leadership.

You don't have that on a national level mediated through a screen as much. It's very hard. You have it more when you can watch a guy's life.

So all that to say that's happening, TGC is still happening and there's still a reason to focus on them.

Even I think more than some of the things people are very concerned about happening on X. I get it.

Uh, I'm trying to be measured and look at all things and put them in proportion, but look, um, if your movement can ratio guys on X in a very niche world, that means something, but I don't know that it means as much as having 7 ,000 people show up for your national conference, the big gorilla in evangelical

Christianity are still the organizations that I've been focusing on. There's still the organizations. Megan Basham has been focusing on and William Wolfe and the competitors to these organizations.

Um, I think true script Christ overall founders seminary. Um, you know, the, uh, uh,

I'm trying to think of other ones. Um, you know, Michael Foster's group, uh, there, I mean, there's so many now, but those are the organizations that if you're going to spend money, if you're towards a five

Oh one C three and you, you know, whatever, if you are in blessed to be in the position of beyond the local church that you have, and you want to see something happen, those are the organizations

I would look at. And, uh, and of course, don't give it a crew. Don't give it to these other big organizations. They are still powerful.

They can still do damage. I was privileged recently of talking to some crew missionaries, by the way, who came out to an event and.

Uh, they, they were just so grateful that, um, not just myself, but I'm sure others had exposed that organization, but it was really hard for them because it is a, it's a huge organization.

I don't think people realize, uh, uh, this podcast has exposed much, but there's still as much to be exposed.

And I don't say that any of this to discourage you. In fact, I want you to be encouraged. We've done a lot. You know, in fact,

I know personally had crew. Uh, I can't really say the situation. I, all

I can say is that, um, there was a situation not long ago where they told someone who had been on staff that, uh,

John Harris had hurt them in their donations tremendously and anyone associated with him essentially would be punished by crew, or at least they would be, uh, uh, they would, they would have a talking to at the very least.

So we'll put it that way. So we've done a lot. I think the Lord's been in this, but, um, Hey, it's separating wheat from shaft a lot of this work and it's still ongoing.

So TGC happened and these were the speakers that are still giving to TGC or contributing.

You had Alistair bag, Ryan Kwan, uh, Kenneth. Uh, I'm sorry.

I'm, I can't, I've never heard of Kenneth, so I'm going to have a hard time with his name, but, uh, uh, I'm sorry, who go,

I think I'm saying that right now. And then, uh, John Piper, of course, David flat, Mark, uh,

Rago and Andrew Wilson or Mark forgot rather. And Andrew Wilson. Uh, and then they had some breakout sessions.

I'm not going to read every name. Uh, some of that stand out or Sam Albury and Jason Allen. Danny Aiken, of course, uh, was there

Danny Aikens, Danny Aikens, a clip where he says he wants to give up white, uh, authority to minorities in the

SBC has been going around again, uh, with the whole you first, Danny, um, HB Charles, Brian chapel.

I mean, some of these guys have done good work on some things. Uh, but, uh, you know, over the years, as you followed my stuff with TGC, you know, that, you know, the ministry itself has been compromised.

Andy Davis. Um, I used to attend that church actually. And, um, you know, I, I've corresponded with Andy Davis a little bit on this stuff.

I even offered for him to be in a documentary, uh, against social justice cause he said he was against it and stuff.

And, um, I've just, he's still affiliated though with SCBTS with TGC. Uh, it's just,

I, I'm just telling you in this whole group, there's Ligon Duncan. There's Keith Getty, um,

Rachel Gilson, JD Greer. Uh, man, there's so, so many speakers here.

Uh, we've got Rebecca McLaughlin. So, Oh, there's Tony, uh, Marita from Southeastern also acts 29.

Uh, Gavin Ortland of course is there. Um, do I, who else? Oh, bill Rydell.

Wow. Bill Rydell is there that thoroughly woke, um, uh, leader in the evangelical free church.

I didn't even know he was affiliated with it. That's interesting. He's at TGC. That is actually fascinating.

I did not know that. Cause he's, I wouldn't see him as like a young reformed guy. Uh, or none of these guys are young, but I wouldn't see him as a reformed guy.

There's one Sanchez, right? I told you guys, you know, he's the law amendment and all that. Not withstanding. Uh, that's kind of where he he's at.

There's Patrick Shriner. Um, okay. I'm tired of going through this. There's way too many names.

So Jen Wilkin. Um, so Jared Wilson, Trevor wax, Andrew Walker. So, so there's, there's a mix of people here, but here's the thing.

Um, this is the who's who. Of reformed evangelicalism. This is literally the who's who.

And there's so many guys in there that would be so sensitive to being told that they're on the social justice train.

In fact, probably almost every single one of them would deny it at this point. And that is par for the course in evangelicalism.

It is the denial, the disguise, the deflection. It's always been that way since I've been involved in this.

And we just are going to forget what people said. And we're going to try to move on and pretend it never happened.

And, and you can't really do that. Uh, you need to focus on following the guys who got 2020, right?

Both the BLM issue and the COVID issue when the going was tough, not the guys who later on came around, not the guys who, uh, saw it as an opportunity to build a platform because there was a demand for leaders who didn't compromise.

No, the guys right then at that moment did the right thing. Uh, they were, they were conservative, uh, both in their theological and political dispositions when it wasn't cool to be.

That's who you need to follow. They're not on the list guys. They're just not there. There's no room for nuance to pick on a particular podcast.

There, there really isn't, it is, it isn't lockstep and, uh, some, and I haven't watched all the, uh, speakers and what they said and all that kind of stuff, but there were some interesting things that people sent me.

And so here is one of them. This volume might be a little low, but this is, uh, David Platt. Of reasons not shared publicly, but it ties directly with this text.

And as I prayed about it, I, as best as I can tell, I'm fallible, so I may be wrong. But I believe, and I hope it will encourage you.

I'll go into all the details. There was one point in some of the challenges we walked through in our church a few years ago, that was particularly traumatizing involving somebody coming at me physically with police.

Okay. So someone is coming at David Platt physically, and he's traumatized by it.

This is a trauma moment for David. He's coming after them. And thankfully he was able to get out of that situation.

But the next morning, my wife and I were at a small gathering of brothers and sisters in Christ, many of whom, and you might hear some noise in the background that is, uh, unintentional, the person who sent me this, sent it to me like this.

And then TGC, as I understand it, uh, deleted the clip or didn't post it. So I am working with what

I have here. I didn't personally know. And at one point, somebody I did know asked the group to pray over my wife,

Heather and me. So we got on our knees and I started praying over us. And as that time began to conclude,

I hear the voice of a sister in Christ on the other side of the room. And she began to speak.

She said, I don't know you guys. I don't know anything about what you're walking through, why we're even praying for you.

Like nothing. She had no context. And she definitely didn't know, uh, what had happened the night before and how unsettling it was.

But she said, when you walked into the room today, I heard the word direct attack, and I had a picture in my mind of something coming at you physically.

And these were her words. She said, Jesus himself dressed in complete armor stood in the way to protect you.

But it was traumatizing. And I just feel led to read to you from Isaiah 59.

And she starts reading from where I just quoted from how God with his righteousness as a breastplate and salvation on his head is a defender of his people.

I'm sitting there bawling before God. As his spirit is speaking to my heart through his word in a supernatural way that no one, no one could explain.

And then if that wasn't clear enough, a few weeks later, another sister in Christ visits our church, not knowing anything about me, anything that was going on in our church family.

And she sent me a message later that said, I don't know what this means, but as I was visiting your church and was praying,

I sensed that I just needed to encourage you because something had happened a few weeks before that you couldn't explain.

And the Lord just wants you to know he really loves you and he is drawing you to deeper faith in him.

All right. Let's talk about this for a moment. David Platt gets up there at TGC 25.

Now, David Platt has a tremendous problem on his hands. There's a documentary out there, obviously, that it has done.

Let's just say a lot of damage to his reputation with people, but not with these organizations. He is still at TGC, CrossCon is still going to platform him.

There's no problem there. And he, without acknowledging this, this is a delicate thing and I can understand the position he's in, but without acknowledging that documentary and the people who contributed to that, he needs to try to defend himself from it.

Okay. Now I don't really, in and of itself, I do not fault him for wanting to try to defend himself.

Um, obviously if there was nothing wrong there, but the problem is there was a lot wrong there.

And so what he wants to do. And what I see him doing here is he is smearing the motives and, and, and honestly, uh, just blowing out of proportion, the situation, the situation is already there in the

David Platt documentary, go watch it, go watch the real, real davidplatt .com. Uh, you can, I posted the two part series on my, uh,

YouTube account. You can go watch it there. Go check it out. You will see the event that he's referring to here.

I mean, it matches the description, the, and it's Laura Burke who is coming after him with a camera, asking questions and him running away.

And he acts like this is a, a traumatizing, or you would think it was a physical assault.

You would think someone came there physically with their body. He says, and they tried to confront him.

Like they were going to punch him or something. No, it's just a woman with a camera who is, and I think her husband was also trying to do the same thing.

Uh, but they are wanting to get answers from him as to why he lied about the

SBC affiliation that McLean Bible church had, and he just walks away from it.

Now, one of the things you also notice in that documentary is one of David Platt's big, uh, I don't remember if he's a chief of security.

One of the big security guys though, in the story, uh, asks David Platt for a private meeting.

And this is one of the things that I found when I was interviewing the people for that documentary, uh, that you just found over and over was

David Platt had no time to field concerns of people who were, might even be founding members of the church.

That was not something that he wanted to deal with. And this particular individual, I think stands out to me because he wanted to go to seminary and just wanted.

Maybe just a few minutes of David Platt's time to talk about this. So he ends up, uh, getting pushed off and never gets a meeting with David Platt because David Platt doesn't have time, but if you, now, if you believe what he said, if you believe, which has never been contradicted, if you believe what that documentary said, which

I have never seen anyone substantively try to interact with, then you, you will find it very hard to believe what

David Platt just said. Because what he just said is there were two people. One was a visitor who just somehow had access to him to be able to send him messages and in the first case, someone who had no context, who just showed up.

So this isn't even somebody who's aware of the goings on of the church and was able to get an audience with David Platt, a personal one where he's just balling.

He's just weeping. And then they tell him the first one that there's, they saw an, um, uh, an image of Jesus and armor protecting

David Platt. Now, I don't know where Jesus has ever worn armor in scripture. I don't think Jesus needs armor. Uh, it's a very odd thing.

You might associate that with angels, but, uh, but they have this vision. Um, I'm going to just say right here, and this is, these are instinctual things from John Harris.

I don't buy any of it. I just don't. I've watched too much of this guy over the years. I think he should have gone to Hollywood and been an actor.

I really that's, and I like to have my sources in front of me. There's no source though, that can contradict this because I don't think

David Platt can provide any evidence. This stuff ever happened personally. I just don't, I think that he needs to garner sympathy and he does it in an effeminate way by trying to, uh, act like there was this great threat, which there wasn't to him.

And then, uh, playing on everyone's heartstrings that God is on his side and against the people who actually wanted to hold him accountable for what he did to that church.

That it's a complete moral play. It's deceptive. It's disgusting. And the way he cloaks it all is something that particularly, uh, female

Christians are going to resonate with because they want to, well, everyone wants a close walk with the Lord, but to have that security of a male figure of Christ in armor, protecting them is particularly,

I think, uh, attractive. And the, the idea that he's sitting there and he's weeping, he's just so traumatized and I mean, it's, it's getting us in our vulnerable, emotional state, thinking about times when we might be traumatized, when we might be crying, when we might need someone to protect us and then creating that empathetic relational connection.

And then all the while though, he's leading you towards smearing the very people trying to hold them accountable for his own lives, his own damage to the church that completely has slashed the membership, uh, that has kicked out people who are founding members, uh, that has, uh, failed to appropriately navigate even an abuse situation that has, um, uh, did

I say lied? I think I already did that has, uh, engaged in financial indiscretion, uh, that has pushed social justice, uh, ideas and policies.

Just sidestep all of it, have a cry session, have someone who you say told you visions, I just don't buy it.

I don't buy it anymore. Don't think it happened. And if David Platt wants to prove it, then at this point, because trust has been so broken, he'd have to prove it.

But that's the kind of thing that was happening at T TGC. Uh, this is circling the wagons guys. Uh, this is a purposeful and it, this is the tribe.

The tribe is still there. They're still out for each other. Uh, they, they are not, uh, they do not,

I believe have your best interest in mind. Um, another clip from TGC.

Now I don't know how much of this I want to play. This is something I just noticed some guys going after this. I don't think it was like super egregious, but Dr.

Michael Kruger, who, by the way, I've, I've actually, uh, recommended some of his early church stuff.

He is a pretty good from what I can tell early church historian on the cannon and other things. But he has been terrible on, uh, the

COVID vaccine on, um, on, I'm trying to remember now. There's been a number of things that he has on women in ministry in the past.

Well, anyway, he decided to talk about women in ministry for his speech at T4G. Now, the thing about this is most of what he said.

I didn't actually find to be that bad. I didn't think now people were going after this. I think some people are sensitive to it.

I think though, um, here's the way to frame this. He felt the need to do an entire session to that audience on the importance of, and the necessity of women in ministry.

That audience probably needs to understand the limitations of women in ministry more than other audiences.

So I think there's, uh, understanding the need of the moment, understanding your audience. That would be the problem

I see. I think he's reinforcing something that he doesn't need to be reinforcing. So this is what, uh, one of the things he said that I thought though, yeah, that's, this is not a good, this is not good.

And this will lead into egalitarianism by this logic. You will get egalitarianism, even though Michael Kruger would say he's against female pastors.

Uh, this is the kind of thing that serves as the basis for why people think we need female pastors. I cannot imagine more relevant to a women's conference than the topic before us today.

Now this is okay. So I, this is, I, I'm actually confused myself right now.

This is a TGC conference, but this, this must've happened in conjunction or right around the same time.

Cause they posted it not long ago. Uh, but he says women's conference here. So I'm assuming that's not a knock at everyone at TGC.

He's not calling them all women. I think there was a separate women's event or conference, but same source though it is

TGC. And, um, if you go to, let's see, where do I want to go?

About the third, about 30 minutes in to this speech, I want you to hear what he has to say. He has a mistress named

Marsha. She converted. All right, let's, let's skip ahead just a little bit here. Doing ministry and doing things, and this is stunning to observe.

And that is, we have all kinds of evidence that the pagan critics of Christianity mocked Christianity for having so many women around.

You may not realize it, but in these early centuries, we actually have not only Christian sources telling us about the way Christianity was.

We actually have pagan sources critiquing Christianity. It's fascinating to watch the interplay between these two, two of the most famous critics in the second century by the name of Celsus or Celsus.

If you pronounce the Latin C soft or in Lucian, they despise Christianity and they wrote all kinds of disparaging things about Christianity, but you know, it was top of the list for the disparaging things about Christianity.

That it was all women. This is a remarkable thing in the

Greco Roman world that was seen as something weak and bad. And so if you wanted to mock a religion, what you would do in the ancient world is mock it for being all it's all women and children.

Now notice that, you know, when you have criticisms, there's always an element of truth of them. And the element of truth here is there was a lot of women.

Okay. And that's what I want you to realize is that Celsus and Lucian were noticing something real is that the women were flocking to Christianity in droves.

And so they had to sort of find a way to attack it and punch at it. And so they mocked it for being so pro women.

Just let that sink in for a moment. So our modern day tells us that Christianity is anti -woman. Probably hear that or have heard that the

Christianity is hostile to women. I'm not sure this conference bears that out, but okay, you got 9 ,000 women in here this week saying not so fast, but nonetheless, we have a.

Wait, did you catch that? I didn't catch that the first time he just said 9 ,000 women. That's again, reinforcing my earlier point, guys.

Uh, is there any comparable conservative alternative that can boast those numbers? I don't think so.

Cultural message saying, Hey, Christianity, evangelical Christianity is hostile to women. Yeah.

In the ancient world, it was being mocked for being so pro woman. In other words, in the ancient world, apparently the women weren't getting the memo that it was a bad place to be.

They went there and drove and so much so that the pagan critics had a heyday making fun of Christianity for having so many women around.

What does all that mean? Well, that means is you have a heritage you may not realize. Okay. I think that gives you some context, at least to understand what he's talking about,

I think that is the gist of his point is that look, Christianity is for women and he kept saying they're spiritual mothers and spiritual fathers.

I'm trying to find the clip that I thought served as a basis though, for egalitarianism. Maybe it was earlier. Let's go back to 11.

I only wrote down some timestamps that I wanted to cover. And, uh, I think I just got confused. So let's go back to around this part here.

They hear things differently. They that's it. That's it. Okay. So, you know, why, what's the reason?

What reason does God have for women in ministry? This is what Kruger says. You go and you preach. You need to have a sermon feedback committee.

How are you reaching the church? How's your, how's your preaching resonate with the people and half that committee of course, need to be composed of women.

They hear things differently. They, they take sermons differently. They see scripture differently. It might actually tell you that endless

Lord of the Rings illustrations don't always work for everyone in the church. Here's the thing is that complementarianism is not a reason for women not to do ministry.

It's a reason for them to do ministry. We are better. That's one of the reasons I think so many of us are patriarchal.

Now we don't use the word complementarian because we see this as a measure for, uh, actually going right towards egalitarianism and you just heard it.

Um, now we're in the new Testament. Do you find, I'm not, I don't want to say, cause I'm not, um, a strict regulative principle guy, but I do think that you ought to, uh, follow the new

Testament pattern as closely as possible and not get, you'll be very careful. I get nervous about even things like church softball teams and even pro -life ministry and that kind of thing.

I, I, I get, I start getting nervous because I know that it's so easily to get mission drift when you get into that mode.

And, um, that's for another podcast, but when you, you hear about this, I've never heard about this before, this committee that reviews the sermons.

Let me ask you this. Would that committee have authority over the pastor, over his teaching and preaching?

It sounds like it, they give, they like, like, uh, the pastor's wife. Let's say that's not an actual role.

It just means there's a wife of a pastor. Uh, they can, that person can give feedback to the pastor. I grew up with that my whole life.

My dad is a pastor. So I saw my wife, my wife, my, well, my wife now can give me feedback, but I saw my mom giving him feedback.

Uh, women in the church can give him feedback as they're exiting. Um, there's, there's mechanisms for women to give feedback.

He's talking about an, an official committee. The church has that gets to review the sermons.

And then he adds this. He says, they hear things differently. They see things differently.

They have, they read scripture different than men. Now, what do you hear in that?

They, that means they have an extra insight of some kind. And if they have an extra insight that men don't have, this is my question.

Why should they be prevented from filling the pulpit at times? I mean, if they can review the sermons, if they can have authority in that way, if they have a way of reading the

Bible and insight that men don't have. Why, why did God decide that they shouldn't also be preaching?

Now that that's, I think a fair question. Um, that, that gets out. I think the nature of this whole conflict, is this something that God did arbitrarily, or is this something that God actually wove into creation that he wants men to be leaders.

And on this particular, in this particular position, he has commanded that it's only men. Uh, I permit a woman not to teach or have an authority over a man.

Is it having authority over a man? When you have women who are the chair, as my seminary was of the, uh, programs at the seminary, they are the chair of the board of trustees.

I mean, it seems like that's an authoritative position, doesn't it? With this sermon intake committee have be an authoritative position.

I mean, people can organically just give feedback. So if you're going to have a committee, it seems like that's an authoritative thing.

I don't see how it could not be. Uh, this is the concern I have. This slides right into egalitarianism and it's, it's always with that little bit of that little spoonful of sugar.

And then people wonder, Hey, why, why are my, are people in my church going liberal? Well, you've given them the tools to do so they're going to go places that you don't want them to go, even that you disagree with, but they're going to go there because you have, you've give it, you've let them put their foot in the door, essentially.

Um, more could be said. I actually have other things. Uh, he, he talks about like at 36 reminded me of Danny Aiken, you know, kind of emphasizes we got to stop just talking about what women can't do and start talking about what they, what they should be doing or can do.

And I think what women should do is a valid question, but I don't think we, we need to stop talking about what women can't do.

That's actually an emphasis. We should probably have more of, especially in these crowds, because that's the wave of the, that's the cultural wind blowing at us.

That's what they want. And so we're going to have to constantly put up guards and shields. If you take down guards and shields, then you will be swept away.

That's how it works. So just wanted to point that out. I do think this is a problem and TGC still manifest this

TG still TGC still represents this, no matter how much they're trying to do a course correction and say, we're not woke anymore.

And we don't, we don't do those things. They'll never admit that they have even compromised, but they are still compromising.

That's kind of my point. All right. Uh, let's, I don't know if there's any questions.

We'll take questions. And then I got, man, it's only it's 50 minutes in. I don't want this to be a mega edition. I still got stuff to, to talk about.

A statistics man says standpoint, epistemology, maybe, maybe. Um, plot is also certainly not safe says

Romans eight. He's literally a thief. Watch the real David Platt by John. I, you know,

I, I hate getting into this oftentimes. Cause I think that it's sometimes can be, it can be counterproductive.

Like, are they saved? Are they not saved? I'd much rather focus on their false teaching or, uh, in David Platt's case, there is false teaching.

I remember his T4G, uh, sermon from like 2018 or 19, he conflates law and grace.

But I think that with David Platt watching him for as many years,

I do want to know where the fruit is. And I do want to know how he can lie so easily without any remorse.

It is odd. And I realized the lie thing gets thrown around all the time. Uh, I've been accused of lying in the last few days by people who can't articulate where I lied, what

I lied about. I realized that that's a very, it's a, I think the attractive thing with that is when, when someone's pegged as a liar, any defense they make is also suspected of lying.

So it's a powerful, uh, tool to use against someone, but there are people who literally lie.

And David Platt is one of them literally lying multiple times about his church's affiliation with the SBC. And it's just like, he doesn't seem to care.

So that that's something a Christian should very much care about that alone, uh, should be a concern. So yeah,

I think that there's a big problem there. Uh, let's see if there's other, there's a lot of comments.

I'm looking for questions specifically. Okay. Don't see a lot of questions.

It's a lot of good comments though, out there. Let's keep going here. Cause there's more to cover. I want to talk a little bit about post

Christianity, the rising secularism. I don't see it. Uh, shutting down. And this is despite, uh, headlines in the

New York post about, look, young people are going towards Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism.

And look, I think a lot of that is probably from more Protestant and evangelical traditions that tend to be on, not very rooted in history.

But let's say, or at least they're, uh, they're reinventing themselves every 10 years and people just aren't satisfied with that.

They're looking for something more stable. And so they think that, that, that, that, that is EO or that's RC. And I don't think this indicates a larger movement, not at this point, at least for people going in more religious directions,

I think there's a tremendous opportunity out there, but I don't know that I see people taking it. Uh, in fact, uh, even at the church that I'm going to be on staff with soon.

Um, this is one of the things that I'd like to focus more on is I do think that there are people searching right now for stability.

And I think as Christians, we have stability in the word of God and we need to focus on, um, providing, uh, stability and community, not in a secret sensitive way when we need that ourselves, but I think that, um,

I think the, the great witness that the church has right now is going to be that it's going to be the brightest light.

It contrasts with the culture so much in their dysfunctionality. And I think it's all, it's good to go hand out tracks.

I think it's good to witness to people. I think the Lord uses those things, but I do think that fellowshipping with people and then including others, uh, to who, who might not be

Christians to get, get a window into what that looks like. I think that actually is a big thing. I think that's huge.

Um, and I'm concerned that Christians don't even fellowship as much as they should with each other. I think

I could say that even with my own life, I should be fellowshipping probably more. Uh, I do a lot of fellowshipping, but, um, some of it happens to be with people that are in other

States because I travel and, uh, we, we still, you know, do hospitality at our home. But I even feel like,

Hey, it should be more. It should be more. Um, this is, this is the need of the hour. So anyway, um, people need the

Lord. They need community. They need stability. This is something I think that Gen Z, uh, does find attractive, but, um, we're still, despite that need and the way that churches should be able to fulfill some of this, we are still going in a direction that we shouldn't.

And here, here's a, uh, a story. This is a recent story. Uh, let's see if I can pull it up.

This is from the Federalist and it is see here, the story on psychedelics decline of Christianity sparks rise in claims for religious protections of psychedelics.

I don't think our parents' generation would have ever thought this would happen in February, a group called singular singularism story, troubling victory under the

Utah religious freedom restoration act claiming police violated their rights by confiscating otherwise illegal magic mushrooms used for tea ceremonies and their scriptures, which are insights during their trips.

A mental health counselor had allegedly formed the organization to alleviate suffering and facilitate practitioners called voyagers connections with themselves and God, by the way, the guy

I just saw recently, the guy, if any of you ever, um, remember the triple X church thing, the anti -pornography ministry or whatever the guy who formed that he's now totally into psychedelics.

It crazy. I didn't even know that he used to do the, they called it the porn debate. He would go to campuses and debate pornography with, um, some foreign star or X porn star or something.

But, uh, that pastor, unfortunately he's now into psychedelics and this is a growing thing.

He's encouraging people to get into it. Um, and there, and this article frames this as a religious problem that they're framing this as religion.

Now you might say, oh, I remember that in the sixties. Yeah. But do you remember in the sixties them trying to file for religious protections and getting it?

Do you remember that from the sixties? How did we get here during the 21st century? The percentage of Americans attending religious services steadily shrank while the percentage of those claiming no religion more than doubled.

Christianity in particular has been in decline and it goes through all these numbers. I don't want to depress you with them, but here's the, here's the thing.

Psychedelic retreats are really increasing and it's projected to increase. Um, right now, let's see, uh, there's an increased 200 % in the last two years of these retreats.

Uh, the global market for psychedelics drugs was 3 .4, sorry, 3 .7 billion.

In 2024, it's projected to increase to 8 .35 billion by 2032. And this stuff is popping up all over the place.

People are stressed. They want community. They want to connect with God. And I think most of them don't want their sin confronted.

That's just the human condition, right? They've rejected religion. They don't think there's anything to Christianity. Um, the ones who do go in and they see a rock show.

They don't, what, what are they there for? This is the time to be the church, to really look like a church and act like a church.

But sadly, I think so many Christians want to follow in this, uh, and do the secret sensitive thing, and they're just going to kowtow to it.

All right. I don't really want to read much more. It's depressing, but, um, like in what world, and I know down the street,

I've said for me, you know, there's now these witchcraft shops and stuff popping up and I'm just surprised they can remain in business, but they do, they get enough business.

And I see young people, I see millennials and zoomers frequenting those kinds of places. Scorched earth studies.

This is all this from the Christian post. A study looked at reasons behind rise in arson attacks on churches.

All right. Spoiler spoiler alert. Uh, 4 % of the church arsons recorded between 2021 and 2023 in Canada.

Um, highlight the perpetrators motives. We don't know in 96 % of the cases, why these arson cases happened.

And it's, it really goes to show you Canada. I just said it before, largely irreligious, unchurched, hostile to Christianity.

That's the condition that most of the West is in the United States is somewhat of an outlier here. And the

Northeast and the Pacific Northwest are basically like Canada. So I bring you all that to bring you this, let's talk about Gen Z.

There's a lot of hope that people have in Gen Z. And I don't, I want to be realistic about this.

This is part of the reason I want to talk about this. And we could say more, but I, there's a poll USA today, April 29th.

I was yesterday, Gen Z men and women split on politics, Trump and Musk. So if you go to the stats, 53 % of Gen Z women said they identified as Democrat compared to 35 % of men in that same age range, 38 % of young men surveyed called themselves

Republican versus 20 % of young women. Um, Trump's favorability with Americans has slipped recently hitting a record low.

Uh, Elon Musk is getting a similar divide among young voters. 43 % of Gen Z men reportedly see him favorably though.

Whereas 20 % of Gen Z women approved of the white house advisor, men and women are being, and there's multiple reasons for this, but they're being split up in large ways.

And some of that has to do with the way men and women have been treated. Men are called basically toxic.

Their masculinity is toxic. They were suppressed on Ritalin as they were young. Masculine features are not suited for this modern world.

And so, uh, they're tired of the vilification and Trump is masculine and they're going to, uh, at least more than the alternative.

So they're going to go with him. Now, the question I've always had though, is are they really going right?

And what does right look like? Is it what kind of right wing, right? What kind of American are you?

What kind of right winger are you? Um, this is all, this has always been the main question for me.

I want to see more of this, but I also am, uh, I have a cautious enthusiasm here.

Um, and there's, there's more stats. I'm not going to read them all, but let's just get through a few of these things to just show you why

I have the view I do, uh, Gen Z is less religious, less Republican than others. Now this was from 2024.

This was last year. This is Gen Z as a whole. Okay. So men and women overall. Uh, all

American adults right now, GOP, 27 % Democrats, 33%. Gen Z adults, 21 %

GOP, 36 % Democrat. Okay. Millennials, 2135.

So it's not that much different in at least party affiliation, uh, the millennials, but this is different than the, uh, the older generations.

And of course the average Gen Z years are going more towards as a whole.

Uh, they're going more towards the left. And it says Gen Z adults are less likely than older generations to join an established religion.

Now that is an interesting first step in this article, far more likely to identify as LGBTQ and generally are less likely to be

Republican. A new survey shows. Now this is men and women, but. Um, my question has been, where are the men at on these social issues, religion, abortion, and all of those kinds of things.

That's the question that I have that will determine if they're going to be right wing, what kind of right wing does this look like?

Is this going to be just a revolutionary kind of, uh, semi.

I don't, I don't even know what to call it. Like a pagan right type of thing. It's an irreligious kind of alt -right kind of thing.

What, what kind of right wing is this? And, um, if we get battling modern ideology is not rooted in a

Christian tradition and people that are deracinated cut off from their history that are now just doing red team, blue team.

I get concerned a little bit about that. I want to root people in something that's actually tangible, real, and will fulfill some of these longings.

And if we are, we're dealing with loneliness. I mean, I I've read enough of, uh, guys who, you know, talk about fascism and communism in the 20th century.

And they, they always, without a doubt, just about all the conservatives who write about this say, uh, it was loneliness.

It was the shattering of social institutions that created the conditions that led to this. We were there,

I think in some ways we're there. I think that's one of the reasons the Weimar Republic gets brought up so much more, so much more than anything

American as a parallel, uh, among at least online Gen Z guys, uh, it's why

I think that even Adolf Hitler has become now somewhat of like a good guy in the minds of a lot of young Gen Z men, uh, it's because of the dynamics that we are in.

And, um, anyway, I, the thing that I want to make sure of, and I think Christians need to be aware of is that there are some good instincts and wanting to bring back masculinity and wanting to, uh, say that we should be a country with borders and, but the danger comes with, uh, especially guys who are cut off from previous generations, who now are irreligious.

And they, they have an ax to grind and that, and we honestly, we need some, some healthy, hearty, righteous indignation, but what we don't need is a non -Christian element that rises to the forefront and becomes the alternative.

Uh, for the base of the Republican party. I don't think we're there yet at all. I think the Christian evangelicals are still the base and they will be probably for a while, but we might have a rising competitive base and that will pull the party and it'll be conflict between Christians and that particular base because Christians do have ethics, uh, issues like abortion and sexual issues are going to be it.

This it'll determine what direction the party goes in. I've been in some of these long before I even had a platform,

I had been aware at least of some of these, uh, groups. I mean, a lot of people talk about 4chan.

I wasn't really on 4chan, but I, um, I, I was at times reading blogs from guys who all across the political spectrum, including guys who we would have been considered on the alt -right.

Okay. So I was, I was reading Richard Spencer stuff along the line, as I was also reading, you know, stuff from neoconservatives and, uh, even watching

MSNBC at night, and I mean, I was just interested in all of it, uh, that politics was my sports when I was a mid, you know, to late teenager.

Um, I'm seeing a lot of those ideas that were very fringe start to come back with, uh, with,

I would say greater fervor. And one of the things that I've, I've known about in those circles is that on issues like abortion, they tend to be, uh, some, some of them tend to be pro -abortion and most of them tend to not care.

They don't want it to be an issue at all, but the pro -abortion is bonkers to me. And I I've seen the comments all over the place that basically the argument is that if minorities want to abort their kids, uh, that it should be encouraged,

I'm not kidding you. And I, I don't, I don't want to name any names. I don't want to, this is, this is still kind of fringy stuff, but.

Um, this is the whole question I have about where Gen Z is heading, because it could, Gen Z could go in a few directions.

All of Gen Z, I think is still going towards the left. And all of Gen Z, I think is still going towards acceptance of some moral decadence, uh, coarser language,

LGBT, all that. But there are, there is a group of Gen Z men that they want to kick back and they want to kick back hard against the vilification that they've received from at the hands of the left.

So how do we tap into that politically and as Christians and also try to show them a better way?

It's been, that's been the quest all along. And, uh, some guys are very resistant to any kinds of guidance in those ways.

Um, and, and so anyway, let's go through some more stats. So how much more did I want to read here? Uh, let's see.

Gen Z adults appear to be accelerating America's move away from Christianity. They're less likely to identify as white

Christians, 27 % compared to baby boomers. 54%. That is a, you want to talk about boomers?

You can talk about boomers all day long and the problems they have. If 27 % of your cohort cohort is

Christian, uh, or, or white evangelical, whatever that demographic is, and only 54 % of the boomers, you're going to miss the boomers a whole lot.

Um, about 28 % of Gen Z adults identify as LGBTQ plus compared to a 16 % of millennials.

That's insane. 7 % of Gen X, 4 % of the silent generation, 4 % of baby 4 % of baby boomers think they're

LGBT and 28 % of Gen Z guys, that is huge.

I don't think people realize how big that is. Um, here's the

American prospect generation Z gender gap on abortion. Now they point out in this article, this is a new article.

The Harvard youth poll released in September, 2024 found that young voters overwhelmingly favored Harris over Donald Trump on climate change and abortion overwhelmingly.

However, after president, uh, Biden dropped out of the race, overall support for Harris in her contest against Trump sort among young women plus 47%, the bump was more modest to young, young men, plus 17 on abortion.

A survey center at American life report showed that 45 % of all men identified as pro -choice compared to 63 % of women, young men, though, were less likely to strongly oppose abortion restrictions and young women.

55 % to 38%. Uh, and a trend that is not only national, but global and Ipsos poll conducted in 2023 revealed that 46 % of Gen Z men thought abortion should be legal in all or most cases, far less than any other generational cohorts.

So less men that are Gen Z, um, think abortion should be legal, less men.

So more men think that it should be illegal in the Gen Z, uh, range. That's what they're saying in this.

Now, so this, this is one of the things that I think we're going to have to probably do more polling over time and figure out really what's going on.

I don't, I don't claim to know. I just watching trends and talking to people.

And I'm suspicious that what's happening here, the dynamic that they're talking about is

I think men had know that they've gotten a raw deal. And I think that they have been more and more subject to this.

John Harris's analysis. They have been subject to women who value their careers over their families and are willing to get abortions.

And that has broken the hearts of many men. I think this is increasing. And I think men think it should be overall, uh, that young men are starting to wake up and realize this, but overall that generation is more pro choice, more pro abortion.

I also think though, there's another dynamic at play here that young men on a political level don't care as much about, and you saw that in this article, they it's, it's an issue that depending on probably how you ask the question that they care about, but then at the same time, they're not as concerned with, so maybe on a personal level, they care about it.

I don't know. And I don't know why my camera is all of a sudden freezing. So let's try to get to the end of this. Maybe if I eliminate some tabs here, let's try to do it so we can get to the end of the podcast.

All right. I'm going to minimize myself since my camera seems to be slowing down for whatever reason. Sorry about that. Uh, this is a, an article from the

New York times by Ruth Graham. Uh, and it, the title of it is, uh, in a first among Christians, young men are more religious than young women.

On a beautiful Sunday morning on early September, dozens of young men in Waco, Texas started their day at grace church, men greeted visitors at the door.

So she talks about this whole story and how the young men are becoming more religious. According to her, uh, within Gen Z, almost 40 % of women now describe themselves as religiously unaffiliated compared to 34 % of men, according to a survey last year, that's still pretty startling, but, uh, more than 5 ,000

Americans, a survey, uh, center on American life and the enterprise American enterprise Institute and every other age group.

Men were more likely to be unaffiliated that tracks with research that has shown that women have been consistently more religious than men and finding so reliable that some scholars have characterized it as something like a universal human truth, the men and women of Gen Z are divergent though.

So if there's anything to get from this Gen Z, women are way more left and men are coming to be a little bit more right, uh, but women,

I think women are going harder left than men are going. Right. That has to be the case. And this is going to be social.

I don't even know what this is going to be for our society. Uh, young women are still spiritual and seeking according to surveys of religious life.

Um, let's see here. Oh, quotes, Russell Moore. That's great. All right.

I think that's the core of what I wanted to say about two thirds of women ages 18 to 29 say that most churches and religious congregations do not treat women and women equally.

All right, let's go to the next article. This one is Gen Z mental health, the impact of tech. Um, much like relationships, a person might have between 18 and 24, the relationships young people have with social media can be complicated.

So it goes into that. Here's the key takeaway from this. It's buried in the article. If I can find the actual tab here.

They're okay. Here it is. I think, uh, climate change, there it is. Climate change is a concern from many respondents.

Uh, climate change appears to be a major concern across generations. Uh, the McKinsey health Institute, 2020 22, uh, global Gen Z survey.

So that more than half of respondents across all age groups reported feeling highly distressed when asked about climate change with females reporting a higher percentage.

Uh, many Gen Z respondents reported experiencing stress, sadness, et cetera, more than 50 % of total respondents expressed fear and anxiety with Gen Z demonstrating greater concern than other generations.

More than 50 % of all respondents agreed or strongly agree that government leaders and companies have failed to take care of the planet.

All right. So these are just different metrics that I, I just want people to get a full understanding of all of this.

Here's a P R R I generation is the fact sheet. Um, LGBTQ identity, uh,

Gen Z. Let's see one quarter of, I don't want to get into, there's a bunch of racial stuff here.

Gen Z is less white. There you, there you go. That's, um, women are more likely to identify as LGBT than Gen Z men, but still 18 % of Gen Z men and 31 % of Gen Z women that's insane.

Identify as LGBT in some way. It's not even, so you have a rising

LGBT identity, uh, even among men in this particular generation. Um, between abortion access to guns,

LGBT rights, climate change, and immigration abortion is the issue that the highest percentage of Gen Z or say is critical for a candidate to share their views that it's so interesting to see even divergence among some of these polls.

Gen Z years, 42 % of millennials, 40 % are more likely than older generations, uh, to only vote for a candidate who shares their views on abortion.

Um, let's see at 38%, Gen Z is the generation whose members are most likely to only vote for a candidate who shares their view on LGBT rights.

Across all generations. Let's see, uh, aside from the silent generation, around three and 10 members of all other generations would only vote for, okay,

I don't want to go into that. Um, so they're, they're more interested in social issues and economic ones.

I think that's a takeaway here. Uh, Gen Z years, very pro LGBT, uh,

Gen Z men, 69 % support LGBTQ non -discrimination laws.

69 % of Gen Z men support LGBTQ non -discrimination laws. So there, this, this is the kind of thing

I'm talking about. They're going right wing and everyone's excited about it, but yet sick. And you see a slight bump.

It's slight that they're Gen Z men showing up at church, but 69%, if this is even remotely true, support

LGBTQ non -discrimination laws, how do we jive these things? I'm just telling you,

I am not quite as. Uh, bullish on Gen Z is some, I am excited and I am cautiously optimistic, but I am not putting all my eggs in this basket.

Like I see some people doing online. Uh, here's another one. Gen Z is less religious and less Republican on the level than others.

Uh, that's from the, uh, Axios. That one's an interesting one. If you read all that,

I got to finish the podcast though. Only 4 % of Gen Z have a biblical worldview. Barna.

Uh, that's crazy. So there, they might be open to religion, but are they going to slide into magic mushrooms?

Like where that's the thing I'm wondering. Uh, I, I, I see, I see this at my own church people. I've seen young men just show up and then leave.

I've seen this a few times over the last two years, young, young men out of nowhere, just show up at church and then they leave.

I don't know exactly what they're looking for. I suspect it's community. It's stability. They maybe want to have an experience.

They don't feel like they're having, but, um, but these, these guys, I think are also on, they're searching around everywhere.

They want to find something. Gen Z religion statistics. Here's more. Let's see if I don't, this is just reinforcing everything else.

We've already said from get knucks, uh, Gen Z and religion. Let's see. All right. That's about it. So these are just some of the reasons that I have, uh, to say that I am not quite as optimistic as some of you out there on Gen Z and where Gen Z is heading.

I think we have a lot of work to do in the church. I think there's an opportunity here. I really do. But I think that if Christians keep doing the thing that you just saw

Michael Kruger doing and TGC doing, and it seems like that is most of the institutions, at least with connection, then we are going to not, we're not going to see the fruit of that.

I, we needed to tap into the Jen's emails. And that does mean, I mean, it's going to look a little bit like Jordan Peterson.

Some of these guys, a lot of these guys come from broken backgrounds. They moved around a lot. They need to know they have a place and they need to know they have a father figures, uh, and maybe you're that, maybe you're a brother figure, maybe you're whatever a mother figure, but they do need people who are going to say,

Hey, clean your room or this or model. Not maybe not say anything, just model. This is the way to live.

This is a stable way to live. That's going to be necessary. Those interactions have to happen. My church is going to be doing a trail life thing chapter.

When I was a kid, we had boy Scouts and that kind of fizzled out. They're going to be doing trail life. I think that's excellent. There needs to be more of that.

I mean, that's for generation alpha, I guess, but for Jen's ears, they're adults now. And, um,

I, I am concerned that I do see sometimes, um, people from the boomer generation and Gen X getting frustrated and then maybe dismissing, uh,

Gen Z guys too soon. And I'd love to see more interaction there. Just know that I think your words matter.

They mean something. I think guys are hungry for some male male spaces and male, uh, guidance.

So what are you going to do about it? What are you as a Christian going to do? What's your church going to do about it? How, how is that going to change?

And like that at my church, I'm just giving examples of things I'm thinking about for my own church. And some of the things we are implementing,

I'm a minister of music. Now we're leaning into some older hymns. We're leaning into some tradition. Uh, we are going to do, we're doing a little bit of a more traditional liturgy as of late.

I I'm the guy that's been promoting all of this. And part of it is this, this is not the main reason, but part of it is this.

Uh, I do think that Christian music has been targeted towards women and men need to be,

I think, included in that. And, you know, rousing hymns that have deep theology, it's going to, women should be just as included as men in that, but, uh, it's been female coded primarily.

Um, and there's one, you know, there's a tweet I forgot. I've totally forgot. I don't know why I didn't have it, but I'm going to,

I guess in closing, I'm going to mention it. I don't have it pulled up. Lincoln Duncan had highlighted a female who was, uh, a, an end of graduate from reformed theological seminary.

And she was a graduate assistant at RTS. And then she is now going to work for,

I think Lifeway as an editor. And there was a lot of guys getting down on this and I don't have the same exact concerns.

I, I know cause I've been a teaching assistant. I know that teaching assistants usually don't teach.

They usually grade papers. She may never have taught. I also know that an editor can be done from a home job.

You can be a stay at home mom, even, and be an editor. Most of those jobs don't pay enough for a man to work and support, support a family.

Most of those jobs are going to women. And that's not a good thing because a lot of these publishing organizations are female coded.

We're not even producing materials for men. And that's, that's a big problem, but, uh,

I don't think it's sinful for a woman to have that kind of a job. The thing that I think should be a question asked is, and I'm glad some people are starting to ask it is why is there an

MD for women? That, that is a specific ministry degree, uh, that was created with the intention of training pastors.

And, you know, I realized I even went to a seminary that did this. Um, you know, I, I asked,

I haven't done deep research on this. I asked a Grock real quick. I don't know if it's rock has given me wrong answers before.

So I just, I try to be careful, uh, with the use of any kind of AI and certainly don't outsource

AI to write, uh, for me or do any of the things I know a lot of you are doing. Uh, I think there's many, many dangers in that, but if I want a quick answer and I can't find it in a quick search, sometimes

I'll ask. And I I'd say nine times out of 10, it's gives me pretty good answers. It seems to indicate that in the late 1700s, early 1800s, there were some seminaries that did start offering theological education for women.

So I guess there are, there are some precedents. I don't know what that all looked like, but, um, different traditions, uh, handled this in different ways.

And of course you would expect the more pious traditions, uh, like, you know, Moravians and Quakers and, uh, and then the, you know,

Unitarians and, um, people like that to be the ones who were first in this, when you have the most conservative reformed seminaries, uh, making the

MDFs available, I I'll just put it this way. I wonder about that. I understand women can have a theological education.

I think women should know about God. I think it's fine, but I know what an MDF is too.

I know what it's geared for. I know why people go and get an MDF. It is supposed to lead towards ordination.

That's the whole point of it. There should be separations made, I think somehow, or why?

I, and I know this from my own seminary experience, you are sitting in classrooms that should be male only spaces for talking about ministry and you have women all around you.

And it does limit the kinds of conversations you are going to have. I'm just telling you the camaraderie is different.

I've had to be on, um, I remember for a class at Southeastern that was, that had women in it.

Uh, we had to break into small groups to discuss, uh, things concerning preaching and that kind of thing.

And there's women there. And so, and it changed the dynamic. I'm just telling you. Yeah. And, uh, you know, they're expected to be part of whatever presentation you make and that kind of thing.

It's not a good thing. I don't think it is. There needs to be some male only spaces.

And I think that is one of them. And I'm not saying that women shouldn't get a theological education at all.

I think women should, but I don't think it should look like that. I don't think it means invading male spaces. And sadly,

I think that's what we have. And that's the thing that I think Gen Zers who are male realize has happened in every, every aspect of their life.

If they were in boy Scouts, it's scouting. Now girls can join, but it looks like girl Scouts get to keep their thing.

You know, uh, sports it's like gender doesn't even matter anymore. Uh, they there's women can play with the men.

Men can play with the women. Uh, fraternal organizations, most of them they're done.

Maybe the church can be the place for men to be men again. Maybe you can start a men's lunch.

Maybe you can start a men's breakfast. Maybe you can start men's outings, men's hikes. Maybe there can be a men's night.

Maybe there can be times the men get together and discuss matters. Intergenerationally, you know, that's healthy.

A lot of Gen Z guys are going to blogs. And social media chat room rooms and stuff with a bunch of other

Gen Z guys, maybe some younger millennials. That's who they're fellowshipping with. That's, that's called the pooling of ignorance, not saying not good things can't happen in those groups, but how much more healthy is it?

If you as an older man at your church said, you know, Gen Z guys, I'd love for you to come over to my house next

Saturday night, we're going to have some steaks now with the tariffs. I don't know, maybe some hotdogs.

We're going to have some hotdogs. Certainly not eggs too expensive. Uh, we're going to,

I don't know, depending on what tradition, I don't, you know, I don't know where you want to go on drinking and smoking. You may not, you may, you may want to stay away from that, but, uh, you know, there's, there's people who can appreciate some of those things responsibly without, um, you want to be careful.

I don't, I think it's a bad look for an elder to, um, to be addicted to wine. I mean, it's obviously restricted, but you want to be careful with that.

But, but in some traditions, uh, I've seen it done well, I'll put it that way. And you can even teach responsibility responsibly, uh, using those things, but whether you do that or whether you just have a fire pit, men tend to open up at fire pits.

I don't know what it is, or you do an outing or you do something male related, we're going to work on building this or that.

It'll mean something. You may not think so, but it really will do it, do it. If you're on the fence, just I'm pushing you over the fence right now.

That's your duty. That's your assignment from this podcast. And I think if we all do it, it's going to make a huge difference on the next generation.

And we have the power to do it. You, you may complain that these big organizations aren't saying that things are doing the things you want them to do, but you know what?

You have the power in your small little world, even if it is a small little world to make significant changes and Jesus Christ has put you there for a reason.

So I'll see some of you this weekend at the truth conference, john Harris, podcast .com for more.