The "BAPTIST-TERIAN" Christmas Special

Opening Banter and Christmas Song Intro

Ladies and gentlemen, could I please have your attention? I've just been handed an urgent news story, and I need all of you to stop what you're doing.

Jingety Jing, it's Dominic the donkey. Jingety Jing, the Italian Christmas donkey.

La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la,.

La. Santa's got a little friend, his name is Dominic, the cutest little donkey, you'll never see him kick. My name is Keith Boskey, and I've been your Calvinist.

May God bless you.

Because the reindeer cannot climb the hills of Italy. Hey! Jingety Jing, it's Dominic the donkey. Jingety Jing, the Italian Christmas donkey.

La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la. Exploring theology, doctrine, and all of the fascinating subjects in between. Broadcasting from an undisclosed location. Dead Men Walking starts now.

Introducing the Christmas Special Guests and Format

Well, hello everyone!

Welcome to an episode of Dead Men Walking podcast. But is it really an episode of Dead Men Walking podcast? No, I think it's a three way episode.

Of Christmas special live stream. Let's go. Yeah, here we are. Who do I got with me on the live stream?

I've got Keith Bosky, I've got Claude Ramsey. What's going on, brothers?

Well, hello.

I've got Boba Fett and I've got an elf that got fired, it looks like.

Oh, hey, yeah.

Got my legs. So every year here, I do a Christmas live stream or special on Deadman Walking Podcast, but this year, we are sharing the live stream because I have Claude Ramsey from Here I Stand Theology Podcast, I have Keith Bosky from Conversations with a Calvinist, your Calvinist on Twitter, where he likes to make those funny videos that you know so much about.

Now, granted, we've got a U of M fan and we've got a Roll Tide fan here today. Keith, I don't know where you land, but it might get tense between Claude and I, but we're gonna put that aside because we are brothers in the Lord.

This is the Baptisterian Christmas special. Right now, I'm outnumbered two to one, but we're gonna have guests stopping in all hour for you guys on the live stream, from one o 'clock to 2 .15, every 10 minutes or so.

Someone's gonna pop in.

Here's the fun part, is Keith and Claude don't know who they are. They don't know who the guests are, so it'll be a fun reaction from them. We'll get to talk. We're gonna talk bad Christmas presents, crazy Christmas experiences, and just have a good time fellowshiping the Lord.

So what's going on, brothers?

I'm doing good. I see Eric out there. Hey, Eric, how you doing, my friend? Die Hard is a Christmas movie, and you know it.

Exactly, and we've got Brandon. Bro, what did I just click on?

He just said, bro, what did I just click on?

That's right.

What did you just click on, Brandon?

Merry Christmas, bro.

Southwest says, oh, that's scary.

Yeah, and also for those users that are saying, boom, we don't know who you are. If you would go to StreamYard .com forward slash Facebook, give StreamYard permission to use your info so with that we know who you are, and we can give you credit if you say anything funny.

Oh, look at this. This guy's like a professional producer now, Keith. We're gonna have to start paying him or something.

I just, yeah, I need him to come and help me out. I'm doing some changes to my podcast at the first of the year.

I need some advice. I mean, look at the background. We've got the live background, the video in the beginning. He's got the cameras all set up.

I love it, man.

Thanks for doing that, bud.

Hey, you're welcome.

I just want to make mention that I contributed absolutely nothing to this except for this hat.

I know, me too.

But the hat makes it worth it.

That's right. So what's going on? Are we ready for Christmas or what?

Not at all. Our family's been sick for two weeks, so all the fun, and I know that's not funny, but it is the reality. We've just had flu go through our house for two weeks, so we have had no time to do anything Christmassy.

So it's been really rough. Sorry to hear that. I know, boo, yeah.

Yeah.

I know.

Man.

Let me bring the tone down, yeah, no. But we're bringing it back this week. We're going to have a Festivus celebration this Saturday. We have some folks coming over, and if you don't know what Festivus is, Festivus is a celebration based on the television show Seinfeld, and we are going to have a aluminum pole, because you don't have a Christmas tree because tinsel's distracting.

We're going to have feats of strength, which are actually arm wrestling competitions, and we are going to have an airing of grievances where everybody tells other people how they have disappointed you this year.

That's happening.

I got a lot of problems with you people.

That's right, December 23rd at my house, and we got some folks coming.

If you are truly doing that, that is awesome.

No, it is. That's a real thing.

That's awesome.

In fact, one of the ladies coming had never seen the show, so I made her watch it just so she could have fun with it.

Oh, so you're doing this.

With some church congregants and members.

It's some friends from church, yeah, and my brother, who is, he's kind of crazy, so we were supposed to have a Christmas vacation party, but the sickness killed that one, but we were going to give away Jelly of the Month Club subscriptions.

We were going to do all kinds of fun stuff for a Christmas vacation celebration.

You know, I'm sitting here in between two pastors. I have to say, probably, to keep a healthy church, it is good to have an airing of grievances once a year with the church congregants.

That's exactly right.

I got a lot of problems with you people.

Keeps things in the open, right?

That's right.

No, he didn't say it.

Come on now.

Hey, Greg, James Norman asked the question, are Baltic Coastals invited, too? Or I don't know if that's to you or Keith.

I don't even know what that means.

Why does James Norman think I have a vocabulary? What is a Baltic Coastal?

He's trying to say Babtocastle. I think he spelled it wrong.

I was like, well, okay, is this guy with Eastern European descendant and he lives in Maine? What's going on?

He's a Baltic Coastal?

Babtocastle is a person who believes in speaking in tongues and once saved, always saved. Oh, okay.

That's what it is.

If you believe in both of those, you're Babtocastle.

Yeah, it's always funny because I've always said I grew up in a non-denominational church, but then when I look back on it, it was Baptist.

All non-denominational churches.

Basically just steal Baptist creeds and go, yeah, we're non-denominational,.

But you just don't wanna pay the fees, huh? You cheapo.

Mario, oh no, Mario. He said Festivus is a pagan holiday. Well, no, what we did was we reappropriated it. We went ahead and took it.

Shouldn't there be a Santa Claus doll on top of the Festivus pole?

Well, yeah, it's a little awkward, if you will.

Christmas, Paganism, and the Meaning of Traditions

So, hey, Keith, real quick. So you just did an episode on is Christmas a pagan holiday, didn't you? Over at Conversations with the Calvinists. It was very interesting. Give us a recap of that. Give us a little two minute.

What'd you guys talk about? Because that's an interesting topic.

All right, so we dealt with four things. One was the dating of Jesus's birth at December 25th. A lot of people believe that's connected to pagan gods who were born on December 25th. That's a heaping, steaming pile of reindeer feces.

That's not true. December 25th has nothing to do with pagan beliefs. It had to do with the belief of the dating of the Annunciation, which was when Mary received her statement from the angel that she was gonna have a baby.

The early church fathers weren't concerned with pagans. They were concerned with actually getting it right. And whether or not they got it right, we don't know, but it has nothing to do with that. So that's number one.

The second thing we dealt with was Santa Claus. We had a little debate about whether or not it's right to lie to your children. I don't believe pretend play is lying. So we had a conversation about that.

And I know people disagree with me on that, but we had fun with that. We talked about Christmas trees. Jeremiah 10 is not about Christmas trees. I promise you, it's about making idols. And that's what we talked about.

And then the last one was about gift giving. I said, every culture and everywhere throughout history has given gifts. It's not pagan. It just is something people do. Jesus said, a good father gives good gifts to his children.

So there's nothing wrong with gift giving. So that was our four things. And we demonstrated that people who are concerned with Christmas being pagan are just a little too uptight.

Agreed.

By the way, I want to mention the guys over at the Laborer's Podcast, which is Claude and I are connected with them. I'm currently stroking my beard with my beard brush that was sent to me. At least I think it's a beard brush.

Okay, you got the same one. Rob sent you one?

Hey guys, also Dave Hassenbrock said non-denoms are just cooler Baptists.

It may be true.

It may be true. It may be true.

Well, we're technically,.

If you're going to be non-denominational, our friend Keith Foskey says, you're going to be cooler.

Yeah, well, if you love Jesus, you're going to be non-denominational and have a feeding trough as your Baptistry.

You know, I was a, I was baptized or no, not, it was, I know one of my kids when like 13 years ago was baptized in a, what is it?

Not Trader Joe's.

What's the tractor supply feeding thing? You know what I mean? It's like where you put the water to hang. Yeah, it's baptismal now.

Yeah. Everybody at my church wants to get baptized in the ocean. And the last time I went to baptize a guy in the ocean, I wasn't deep enough and I went to take him down and he didn't go under. So I had to like chokeslam him on the second turn.

His feet, he went head backwards, feet stuck up. It was, it was awesome.

Going full time Bentley on his brother.

That's right.

Chokeslam.

You're going to be the Holy Ghost. Unlike, unlike Greg's church, you're going to get immersed at my church, baby. We don't put water just here. We put water here and everywhere.

Oh, John Johnson.

Hey, John Johnson,. Non-denominational means.

You have a Baptist church with drums.

Yeah. So that's big John from Real Talk with Big John. He's a big dude. He's a good guy. Hey, here's Robert and here's Robert Knapp. As a matter of fact.

Yep. And that's, that's the, yep. Hi. Hi, Robert.

Hey, Robert.

Was that the beard brushes? Yeah. Yeah.

He, yeah. So who's a character on Adam and Adam's family?

Is it a character on Adam's family? Who's that?

I don't know who. Yep. That was it.

The Laborer Podcast. Beard brush. I need to get me one of those. How do I not? I mean, look at us. We all got these beautiful beards. I need one of those.

That's right. Rob, let's, let's get Greg one of these and I will foot the bill for it.

Send it to him and I'll pay for it.

I'll pay for it.

Come on.

No, it's a Christmas present. Plus, I'm good now.

Real quick. Hold on. I want to do something. Hold on. Okay. We're waiting. I'm just, I just did, I just did a screenshot. I'm going to put on Twitter.

Did you just fart?

What were you doing? You made a weird face and it went silent.

I did a screenshot so that I could post this on Twitter and ask who has the better beard.

Oh, good Lord.

You got to have a beard.

Look at the lines here, folks. Look at the lines.

You got the gray and the black going perfect, man. I mean, you look like a, you know, you're making out with a skunk, but other than that, it looks great.

Hey, one of the best compliments, which I don't know if it was offhanded or not, that I've ever received, was at Fat Lap Feast two years ago here in Knoxville. You remember the reformed dissenters were right beside of us?

Yep, yep, yep.

So their mom told me I was like a stepped up Phil Robertson.

Stepped up, all right.

Well, you're definitely Phil Robertson with better theology, if I can say that.

Yeah, that's true.

Yes, Church of Christ got them some problems.

Oh man, that's funny. So what kind of Christmas horror stories do we have. Or great Christmas stories or good gifts, bad gifts? We were going to talk about that a little bit, but obviously if people pop it in, the conversation will go where it goes.

But you guys ever get... Oh, someone coming in?

Yeah, we got a pop in. Hang on just a moment.

Hey, creature in the world.

Goodness, it's the Sheen version of Owen Strayen. He's here.

Blue steel.

I'll just say, I'll tell you guys now, if he grows a beard, we're all losing, right?

You know that.

So thank God he's hairless on the face there.

We have a chance.

Yeah, he's a beautiful man. I'm gonna tell you something.

So he looks like a George Seinfeld with an unblemished record of heterosexuality.

We've got another pop in. You want me to go ahead and bring him in?

Oh, geez. Okay, I didn't know we had two at this time.

Hey, who's coming in? Hey.

Oh, it's Amy Wallace.

What's going on?

Hello there. So we just had Pastor Kevin Hay pop in. I just got some Presbyterian backup with AD Robles.

AD, I don't know if you know Claude Ramsey from here.

I stand Keith Foskey from Your Calvitus. We're just talking Christmas stuff, man. Happy to have you in.

Hey, I'm glad to be here. It's a real party.

Yeah.

Having a good time.

It's a very bad Mysterian Christmas special.

That's right. So Kevin, why don't you tell all the listeners a little bit about yourself. So give us a little 30-second bio so they know you.

Yeah, cool.

Kevin Hay, a pastor at Redeemer Bible Church in Gilbert, Arizona. Been here since June. Married to my wife, Alicia, 17 years, and we have eight kids. So that's us.

Oh, awesome.

AD, shout yourself out.

What's going on?

Oh yeah, you know, I'm a big YouTuber. You know, big YouTuber. Yeah, I've got a YouTube channel. I tweet on Twitter quite a few times. And, you know, that's pretty much it.

Yeah, if you hear of something that gets to, like, the Gospel Coalition, or gets to the front page of Christianity Today, usually you're seeing one of AD's tweets intertwined somewhere. Yeah, that's true.

He has his pulse on the heartbeat of Twitter X.

Yeah, no, that's true. And I also, I want to plug this. This is my new series. I do Thinking Winsomely, a chat TGC podcast. And what I do is I go to chat GPT, and I prompt them to write, you know, something stupid in the style of Gospel Coalition.

And it just nails it every single time. It's unbelievable. It's really funny. You should check it out.

All right, so right before you guys popped in, we were talking about worst Christmas presents ever. Any of you guys got a worst Christmas present? One you just go, oh man, that was rough, or that was a bad one.

I'll throw it out to anyone.

Yeah, I'll go first. I came prepared for this, so.

That's what a good Baptist does.

That's right, that's right, always prepared. No, my brother-in-law, historically, has been the one to give me the worst Christmas presents ever. And I'm a book lover, so he got me a book. But you guys may know the name Ted Haggard.

Anybody remember that name? So Ted Haggard apparently wrote books, plural, but in particular, this book was the one given to me one Christmas from my brother-in-law. And the book, if you can see it, it's Dog Training, Fly Fishing, and Sharing Christ in the 21st Century.

Wait, wait for it.

Empowering Your Church to Build Community Through Shared Interests. So if you know anything about Ted Haggard, you know why that's such a bad Christmas present, so.

Oh, that's good, yeah, Build a Church Through Fishing, all right. You know what's crazy? I feel like the 90s was littered with those books and Bibles where they would just do them themed. Like the Fisherman's Devotional, the Hunter's Bible.

They would just pick a hobby someone had and then try to make, like sell a book or even like a Bible out of it, you know? And I'm like, what's a Hunter's Bible? You know, it's camo, come on. I don't know, I didn't fall for those.

Analyzing the church and the attempt to try to bring people together. Trying to bring masculinity in with something other than just the truth of God's word, so.

Yeah, very true.

How about you, Clyde? You get something to eat at Christmas that you're just like, ugh.

I'm on a public platform, so I'm gonna say no. Everything I've ever received has been fantastic.

More than you say, Clyde, I like it.

Actually, guys, I'm gonna be the guy that says this. Man, I can't complain. My family's super thoughtful. My wife, her parents, they put so much thought and effort into gifts. I cannot complain.

I thought you were gonna say that hat and sweatshirt. I mean, ugh, Roll Tide, come on, Alabama?

Just in case there's any misunderstanding, Roll Tide.

All right, we'll see how you do against J .J. McCarthy.

As a Buckeye fan, I can't say much, so I'm just gonna be quiet.

Okay.

I can hear.

I'm just booing. Oh.

Is it coming across over there or no? No, it's not.

It's very soft, very soft.

Oh, well, that's no good.

Yeah.

Well, that was one of my drops.

Okay.

What about you, Keith? Was it the hat? Is it the hat you're wearing? Was that your worst Christmas present ever? Let me tell you something.

I bought myself this hat. Don't give me any crap, all right?

I would not admit that.

Somebody's about to get their mouth busted at the Babs the Starry Christmas special.

That's right.

I chokeslam all my enemies.

Oh, go ahead.

No, you go.

No, I was just saying, I do remember when I was younger, we had my father's mother, my grandmother on my father's side. We grew up very, very poor, and she had some money, and she was grandma goody, and she would always get those big gifts, the bikes, and the things that you thought were out of reach.

She would come through with it every year, just overdid it for all of the grandkids, and always made sure it had to be fair, and everyone got big gifts and all this stuff in one year for a side gift, for just a little, she only got the big gift.

She got us all these, they were called Christmas blocks, and it was just a plastic rectangle, and you pack the snow in it, and then you make an igloo out of it. And I remember us bratty little kids just making fun of those things for the whole entire day we're at the Christmas park, not looking at the hundreds and hundreds of dollars of gifts that she got us.

We picked out this plastic block.

Meanwhile, I've got a $300 mountain bike, which back in 89 was, with inflation, it's a $1 ,000 bike, but we're making fun of these blocks, and to this day, poor grandma, man. She's 80, in her mid -80s, love her to death.

Just saw her a couple days ago, and I remember we got those Christmas blocks.

Oh, you be quiet, you know?

The one time she got us something, I'd just never seen that before or since. I mean, I guess they do have them, but it's essentially a plastic rectangle with a little handle on it. And the label made it look like the kids are having so much fun, man.

They're building these huge Eskimo igloos, and then you go out to try it, and unless the snow is full of water and it actually packs, it's just making mounds of snow. I don't know. But other than that, I'm with you, Claude.

I'm very appreciative every year. As men, too, as fathers, as men, I've seen a lot of people talking about it more this year than last, but my joy comes in being able to provide for my family, for my wife, to see the joy on their face.

I could care less, really, what I get at Christmas. Plus, let's be honest, we all do well. We probably all go out and get what we need anyway throughout the year, you know? And up to an age to where I like socks.

Hey, give me that. We can't use more socks, dude. Let's go, as long as they're the ones I like. Yeah, you know, socks and boxer briefs, let's go. Did I just get too personal for you guys?

Sorry.

I mean, I don't wear those.

What do you mean?

Yeah, it's amazing how things change. When you're a kid, you're just like, socks and underwear, what? And now it's like, come on, bring on the socks and underwear.

Exactly.

This is the only time of year I have clean underwear.

Oh, wait, no.

I rarely buy clothes, so I only get them for gifts.

Okay, so what?

You don't do your own clothes shopping, AD?

I mean, you're not a big clothes guy?

I just, you know, I was just thinking about this just the other day, and I had a shirt on, and I looked over to my left, and there's a picture of me in Ethiopia at a mission trip or whatever, and I'm wearing the same shirt.

That was like 10 years ago, you know? I buy clothes, but I keep it forever.

Yeah, hey, I like it.

Frugal, you know what I mean? Like, if it's not broke, don't fix it. If it's not stained, don't throw it out, right?

Well, that was gonna actually be mine. You mentioned bad gifts, and it's not bad gifts because, again, like you guys, I love the fact that people even think about me, give me gifts, but people give me clothes, and I am not the easiest, I'm a larger man, and so when somebody goes, oh, well, this'll fit you, it looks like it'll fit you, and I'm like, no, no.

I was like, my mom will give me shirts that I gotta wear over other shirts because they don't close, but I still gotta wear it because my mama bought it. So if you ever see me wearing a shirt over a shirt, just know that I live in Florida.

I'm hot, but I'm trying to make my mom happy. It just won't button, and the little hairs in my chest will stick through, and it'll be like that.

Sorry.

I've never gotten a bad gift because, you know, I've managed to dodge bad gifts. Like, actually, this year, I've got a buddy who has season tickets to the Jets, and he's like, hey, man, you know, do you wanna take the Christmas Eve game?

You take your son? I was like, that sounds like a curse, and the way things are going with the Jets, I mean, that was a dodge bullet right there.

You might've helped him just by going, I don't know.

Right, that's true. Now, that would've been my gift to you. I'll take your tickets. You don't have to go to the game.

Yeah.

Hey, Hap's Edison just jumped on and said, my parents rewrapped our own toys and gave them back to us.

That's crazy.

See, that's genius.

Hap's stealing that, dude.

My kids don't know half of what they have anyway. That's actually pretty good.

Yeah, I could get away with that, you know?

Hey, there's my buddy, Chris Hanshold on. Hey, Chris, good to see you, buddy. That's my own personal Captain America right there. If you don't know who Chris Hanshold is, he does live appearances dressed as Captain America.

He won't do my podcast dressed that way though, and that really bothers me.

Why not?

Hey, last minute Christmas idea.

Oh, man, so what do you guys, Keith and, or Keith, Kevin and A .D., what do you guys got going on for this Christmas?

Anything good?

Yeah, yeah, I'm staying home for actual Christmas, and then I'm going to my mother's house in West Virginia for New Year's and stuff like that. So it'll be good, man. And I've got some big surprises for the kids this year too that I have no clue.

I can't say it now because they might be listening, but it's gonna be fun, man.

Yeah, I sent our live stream link to your kids.

Well, they might be on the other side of the door.

Okay.

How about you, Kevin?

Yeah, so being in Arizona, things are gonna be different for us this year, obviously being 2 ,000 miles away from Ohio. But yeah, we will do the eight services this coming weekend, both Saturday and Sunday.

And then

My man went Big Eva on me. Yeah, eight services. At 27 different locations at our Big Eva multiplex and mini mall.

Yeah, exactly.

We got people flying in from the ceiling, angels to be put on high. It's gonna be crazy. Yeah, in reality, each service is like three to 400 people because the campus is just of such a size. We've got about 2 ,000 people that come through, but you get lots of visitors on Christmas.

So that's the reason for extra services. Typically it's five, two on Saturday, three on Sunday. But yeah, anyway, we'll do the services, celebrate Christmas together on Monday, and then we'll hit the road on Tuesday and head back to Ohio for a bit.

So I won't be far from AD there visiting his family. And we'll stay through the new year and then we'll experience Ohio cold weather and we'll be back to the beautiful weather of Arizona. So yeah.

What part of Ohio are you going to?

So the Southern most part, it's about two and a half hours East of Cincinnati. Little town Minford there, really close to the river.

So yeah.

Very cool. My dad lives in Beverly, Ohio. It's pretty close.

Yeah, 30 minutes. 30 minutes from there, same county. So that's awesome.

Yeah.

Small world.

It is.

AD, you said you had some surprises for your kids. Does that mean you're gonna be surprised on Christmas too?

Or you're No, no, no.

I know what's going on.

You know what's going on.

I know everything.

His wife bought all the gifts. Of course he's gonna be surprised.

He don't know what the heck he bought his kids.

What are you talking about? Oh man, my kids come up to me, thanks dad for that. And I go, oh yeah, yeah.

Sure. Yes, yes. Right on. Yeah.

I was absolutely not, not there when my wife bought that, when mom bought that.

No, no.

We do Christmas shopping together. It's fun. It's fun to get stuff with the kids. I'm the one who actually, my wife reels me in. I get a little too into it. I go just a couple more. Let's, and she's like, no.

She goes, where we came from as kids, this is insanity.

Okay.

So we, we, we curved it back a little bit this year.