Has Pet Idolatry Become A Cultural Craze？ - Dale Partridge
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Summary
On this episode of Real Christianity, we are talking about the cultural obsession of pet idolatry. It s something that is plaguing America, and it s important. All that coming up right now! Welcome to Real Christianity. My name is Dale Partridge, and I am the founder and CEO of Relevance, a ministry that is on a mission to bring the church back to the Bible. We want gospel fluency in men, women, and children, and we re here to help.
Transcript
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my name is Dale Partridge. We are going to have a great conversation about pets today.
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But before we begin, I just wanted to let you know that this is a audio and video ministry
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of relearn.org. We are on a mission to bring the church back to the Bible, to increase biblical and
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theological literacy. We want gospel fluency in men and women and children. One of those resources
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that we've actually released to help, not with necessarily gospel fluency, even though we do
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talk about the gospel, is my book. It's a children's book. It's called Jesus and My Gender.
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And it's really a book on affirming God's design for children or affirming your God-given gender.
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We don't talk about all the alphabet soup stuff that's going on in gender and sexual identities
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today, but we do talk about just the affirmation that it's good that God made boys and it's good
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that God made girls and we're different and we have unique beings and we have unique roles.
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So anyways, we would love your support that way.
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All of the money goes back to the ministry 100%.
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Again, the name of the book is Jesus and My Gender.
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All right, we're gonna dive into this conversation
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When we move, we're in the middle of trying to build a house
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and we want to have a Rhodesian Ridgeback there
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to help protect our children from mountain lions and some of the other coyotes and different things
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that are ranging around the area that we live. Now, I want to say this because I'm not saying
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that Christians shouldn't have pets. This is not the focus of the discussion. I want you to take
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this within context of what I'm really talking about, as you will see here in a second. So this
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week, I released a tweet that said, quote, the absurd number of dog parks being built across
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America is telling. We have rejected children to such a degree that many cities are building more
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recreation sites for pets than playgrounds for kids. Namely, our culture is so selfish that it's
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now shaping civics. All previous generations would see spending $225,000 of taxpayer money on pet
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pleasure, as foolish and idiotic. But cities always follow culture and culture always follows
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what they worship. When Christ isn't seen as Lord, pet praise and childlessness are two sad
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consequences." So this was kind of a bit of a social media storm. And actually, I believe the
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comments proved my point, as you will see many people on Instagram, I think there was over 500
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comments there, defending this cultural desire and obsession and fixation on pet idolatry. You can
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see it clearly in the comments. I posted it also on Twitter, which there's a little bit of a storm
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there as well. I found a quote by GK Chesterton that I thought was quite fitting for our discussion
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today. He says, quote, wherever there is animal worship, there is human sacrifice, end quote.
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Now, this is certainly true of our culture, which is bloodthirsty when it comes to abortion
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and compassionate when it comes to adopting or caring for a pet.
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We all know that in America, it'll cost you about $5,000 and up to one year in jail if
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While anyone, say, in a state like California can kill their baby all the way up to full
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Now, I'm fully aware of the kind of vast responsibility between the differences, I should
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say, between the cost of a pet and the cost of a child. But I just want to say something to
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illustrate a point. In America, animal adoptions are about 22 to 1 over human adoptions. 3.5
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million pet adoptions are happening per year and about 135,000 human adoptions per year. And I
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know you're thinking, of course, adopting a child is like $35,000 and kids are way more expensive
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and all the things that are coming up. The reality is, is that in our culture, you know, people spend
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that much money on their pets, as you're going to see here just in a second. I actually was looking
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up online. I was trying to find some stats on the cost of raising a child. There's varying, like
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wildly, radically different numbers on the internet, but I was trying to find even just
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stats on babies, what it would cost for a baby. And people were trying to say that it was like
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$1,500 or $2,000 a month. And I'm like, I've had three babies and I'm about to have another one.
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And there's no way that we're paying $1,500 to $2,000 a month for this baby.
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They were all these liberal sites that were factoring in like
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formula and all these other things that you just don't need and not take any consideration
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that your hand-me-down clothing or gifts from a baby shower or any of these things.
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And so they wanted to make having a child seem like financially burdensome.
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That was really the overarching theme of all these websites.
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But today, the amount of money that people spend on pets, it's not much different.
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And so, but my point is what I'm saying is that we have a culture,
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essentially, that has literally designed itself to offer things like human abortions
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and pet adoption for basically free, right?
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So you can kill a baby and adopt a pet for basically free,
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while hospital birth of a child and human adoption
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So what we have is a society that rewards people
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with convenience and the removal of financial barriers
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And it burdens those same civilians when it comes to adopting or caring for children.
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And so we have something that's going on even systematically in our culture.
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Essentially, what I'm trying to say here is that in America, we are disincentivizing a culture of children and promoting a culture of pets.
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That's really at the core of our societal ethos right now or our legal system or our financial system or our social system at the very least.
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And so we have things that are changing all around us in regards to pets.
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We have pets on planes and in grocery stores now.
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We have pets in strollers and we have pets in car seats now.
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We have pets with insurance policies and annual dental work.
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We have dog sitters. We have vegan dogs. We have pets named after their grandparents. That was a
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real thing I saw online. We have dogs that take Xanax and organic supplements. We have pets that
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have birthday parties. We have people calling themselves dog moms and dog dads and referring
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to themselves or their pets as fur babies. On top of that, we actually have a market.
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I think the global market share that I saw online for pet clothing was $5 billion for pet clothing.
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And so to not see the culture's movement to view pets as the replacement for children
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is just utter blindness. I mean, this is certainly happening right before our eyes.
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Doug Wilson said in a video on this topic, he says, quote,
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people are projecting onto their pets sentiments and affections that ought to be rendered toward
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a child, end quote. This is certainly what we're seeing. We have a culture that has elevated
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animals to a place of intrinsic value or esteem that is reserved strictly for humans. And it's
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not that we should reject the care for pets. We like pets. The problem is not the animal here.
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But what we're having is that people are prioritizing them over children and then raising them to this societal status where they have equal care, protection, and dignity before the law or before at least the cultural theme of the day.
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And what this does is it actually makes, when you elevate animals to be essentially the same
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as humans, you essentially say that humans are animals. And that's really what's behind this
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way of thinking for this community that's pushing this movement. Bible-believing Christians are not
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the ones that are aggressively driving the movement of pet idolatry in our culture.
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It's really the liberals and the atheists that are doing that.
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Humans will experience the resurrection of their bodies.
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I don't believe every animal that ever lived on earth
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will be resurrected and be in heaven because we have the restored heavens in the earth.
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This earth will actually be restored. I believe that God will actually have animals in the new
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heavens and new earth, but I don't think it's going to be the animals that we had on this earth.
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And so this is important to just see as an overarching theme because our death cult culture
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is rapidly decreasing the value of human life. And one way that they're doing that is by elevating
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the life of animals to be essentially equal to the life of humans. In a study mentioned by Dennis
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Prager, 40 to 50% of people said that they would save their dog over a stranger in a life-threatening
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situation. Again, this just simply illustrates the misprioritized station our culture is nurturing
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around pets. And it shows, again, us rendering those sentiments and affections that Doug was
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talking about toward animals in an improper way. According to the World Animal Foundation,
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the pet care market is worth $207 billion around the globe. But the U.S. citizens radically,
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actually, this is a fun fact, outspend the rest of the world on pets. $123 billion per year we
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spend on pets. The UK pet owners, I believe this stat is right, only are spending about $7.5 billion.
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That was double, however, since 2005 in the UK. China spent $31.89 billion. Europeans spent around
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$21.2 billion. And Australians spent $30.7 billion. But again, we have $123 billion per year
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I also heard a quote that there are now more pets
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in Portland, Oregon and Seattle and San Francisco
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And so it makes me think of a quote by Leonard Ravenhill
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So, you know, in the middle of his ministry, I'm thinking is maybe in the 1950s, but he
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says, quote, today, Christians spend more money on dog food than missions, end quote.
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Honestly, I would not be shocked to learn that the average Christian spends more money
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on their pet than they do giving to their church or giving to the poor or supporting
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missions or other parachurch ministries around the world.
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Pets have truly become an idol in this generation,
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and it has certainly influenced Christians in the church
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why we're doing some of these things in the culture.
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People are literally satisfying their need for love,
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They become essentially the replacement figures
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of spouses or children, or in some cases, God, they literally wake up. The priority of their
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day is to care for their dog and to receive love from their dog and to give love to their dog.
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And again, they're reprioritizing where that love should be focused upon something that is
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not the object of right affection. And so this is a multifaceted problem. So I know that you're
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thinking about all the reasons why these things happen. And I'll talk a little bit about that in
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a second. But 1 John 2.15 reminds us, it says, quote, do not love the world or the things in
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the world, end quote. Now, I'm going to make a case that things in the world could include
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creatures that were made that are not humans. I'm thinking that things in the world could
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include a cat or a dog. It is a creature and we shouldn't be worshiping or idolizing the creature
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ever. All of our affection and worship and focus should be going towards God primarily.
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Animals are not a primary place to receive or to offer love. They're not a primary place.
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Okay, just hear me out here. They're not a primary place to offer or receive love. Now, the primary place is God and the secondary place is from people and those people have an order themselves. I mean, a husband should love his wife in a primary way and love his children in a primary, even secondary way and should love the people of his church, the people of God in a way and then there's love people in the world.
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I mean, so there's, there is some degrees. I mean, we definitely have a discriminating love. I mean, I'm not supposed to love other women the way that I'm called to love my wife. I have a discriminatory dimension of that love. There's a hierarchical structure of love. The fact that I love my wife in a way that I don't love other women doesn't mean that I don't love women. It means that I don't love other women the way that I love my wife.
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And the same thing is true is that Christ loves the church in a unique way, in a special way.
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And so we have to realize that there's really not any passage of scripture calling us to love
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animals. It doesn't exist. Now, what I will say is that we're called to care for animals
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as they're glorious creatures that God has given to us. We are called to enjoy them,
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use them for fulfilling God's mission upon our lives.
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We might have animals that help us provide for our families
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and feed our families, might work for our families
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but we're never to place our love in a primary way
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but what I want you to realize is that we live in a world where that certainly is true of many
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people. I want to talk just about this boom of dog parks for a second, because I think it really
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is, again, telling. The boom started in 1979, and guess where? San Francisco, right? Of all places,
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the dog park became essentially part of the liberal agenda of that time and has pushed
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forward. It becomes essentially the easiest and most visible representation of this cultural
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shift from children to pets. I think it's, again, it's not about the dog. It's not even about the
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dog park. Beneath the dog park is starting to tell us the cultural shift that's causing
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the thousands of dog parks to be created across the country. And so, it's essentially a public
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indicator of an already existing societal delusion or shift, craze, whatever you want to call it.
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And so, the trust for public lands shows that there was a 40% increase in the development of
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public dog parks from 2009 to 2020. I expect that is continuing to grow. In other words,
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the idea of the dog park is going viral in a civics sense. And it's, why? Why is it? Just ask
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yourself the question, why are we having so many dog parks? Well, because it's meeting the already
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existing desires of the people of our particular culture. We have this obsession with animals and
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pets because of a variety of reasons. And we are now essentially creating what we want.
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In America, we have nurtured such a gross degree of individualism and self-autonomy and independence
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that young people don't even know how to get married anymore. They don't know how to date
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anymore. They don't know how to court. They don't know how to start a relationship. Young men don't
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know how to talk to women. Women don't know how to be in relationship with men. Birth control is on
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the rise for those people that do get married. Many couples are pushing back children to their
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late 30s. And this basically what this does is it pushes back grandparenting back a decade or so.
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And now millions of empty nesters have no progeny to nurture. They have no grandkids to take care of
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to spoil with time and investment and energy. And what they do is they've quenched their desire for
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grandparenting with the puppy. That's what's happening all over the place. And why does this
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whole conversation matter for Christians? Is Dale just ranting about another thing and he's mad about
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some other problem that's going on? Well, it's again, we're talking about the deeper issue,
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the deeper cultural shift from a culture that loves children and cares for pets to a culture
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that idolizes pets and hates children. And so Christians really are the ones that need to
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define culture, not conform to it. And it's clear that we live in a culture that worships, or again,
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idolizes at least, pets and is hostile toward children and families. I mean, it is so hard.
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We're in the middle of renting a house. We have friends that are in the middle of renting a house.
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You know how hard it is to rent a house with three, four, five kids? I mean, there's literally
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laws that prevent you from having a certain amount of kids in a bedroom and they want you to have.
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I mean, everything is against big families in this culture.
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I actually just saw Matt Walsh's wife talk about how many crazy looks she gets
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while she walks around with six kids in the grocery store.
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And she said something about, we need to normalize big families again.
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Now, it's clear that, you know, we're not quite to the point where we're bowing down to pets.
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You know, we're not necessarily worshiping them in the physical sense.
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We're not praying to them, but we're, honestly, we're not far from it.
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I've actually heard some pretty twisted new age stuff that has to do with dogs.
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What I mean about this conversation about worshiping or idolizing pets is what Jesus
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He says, quote, for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also, end quote.
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In partnership with MetLife, there was a survey of 2000 dog and cat owners that found that
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52% of respondents said they spend more money on their pets than they do on themselves each year.
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Honestly, it's not a shocking statistic because we live in a sad time where
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people, again, that might be a normal thing if you change that out with children.
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And you go, well, yeah, you should be spending that money on
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your children and blessing them and giving them a great education and providing them the resources
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and tools that they might need to flourish and thrive and give God glory. But no, we're talking
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about spending more money upon your animal than you do on yourself. About 40% of those respondents
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said that having a pet is just as expensive as raising a child. About six in 10 said having a
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pet is more expensive than they initially thought. An equal percentage said that they specifically
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allocate about $200 from each paycheck. So $400 a month just for pet necessities. Okay. So again,
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this is an exorbitant amount of money that we're talking about that is a mainline trend here in
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our culture. So ultimately, what do we need to do? What's the point of this conversation?
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Christians need to catechize the culture to clarify that pets are not a substitute for children.
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He commands us to be fruitful and multiply.
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for the purpose of full-time ministry to the Lord Jesus Christ. But the gift is celibacy. The gift
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is not singleness. Singleness is not a gift. Celibacy is. And so we know that God desires.
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It's not good for man to be alone. And when Adam was alone, he didn't create, you know, he didn't
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say to Adam, hey, you know what, Adam, I'm enough for you. Or hey, the animals are enough for you.
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And so God wants us to be married if we're Christians.
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And he also wants us to be fruitful and multiply.
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in the sense that they are physically fruitful,
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So he wants the image of God to fill the entire world.
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world. Now, this is, again, the central purpose of marriage is, I would say, fundamentally,
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children. It's obviously to give God glory and to represent the gospel and all those things there.
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Definitely sex, the fundamental purpose of sex is children. And what I want you to realize is that
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having a pet does not make you a parent. That's really something that we need to
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reverse in this culture's thinking. But again, practically speaking, we as the church and those
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of you who are fathers or mothers that are listening to this episode need to demonstrate
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the glory and enjoyment of marriage and children to those that are around you.
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You also need to be sure that you have not elevated a pet in your house to such a place
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that your child views them as an equal family member or like a brother. I've actually heard
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people say like, oh, you know, we have seven members of our family and they have two dogs
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or whatever it is. I would guard against that kind of language because it really tells a narrative
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that's untrue and incongruent with the scriptures. So the solution to pet obsession, in my opinion,
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Now, I'm not talking about improper glorification,
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And this will take probably a generation or two
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to have these God-honoring, gloriously obedient,
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you know, parent-honoring children that people see
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because they don't know how to discipline children.
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essentially hellions that society ends up hating because they're disruptive or annoying or whatever
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it may be. And so we need to, again, work to really show the world that kids are a wonderful
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thing. We need to uphold the truth of scripture, that it's a blessing to have a child. And we do
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this through a variety of means. Obviously, the reversal of Roe v. Wade was a huge push by the
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church to make that move in our culture today. But when this is done and the beauty of children
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is seen, I believe that really is the long-term approach to this problem of pet idolatry.
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I think that just my own situation, we had a pet when we first got married and we would say
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stupid things like, oh, we're practicing for parenting. It's such a dumb idea. And once we
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had a child, you know, our pet became, you know, and it lowered in its station properly. And then
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a second child, it lowered again, and a third child, it lowered again, and a fourth child,
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right? Like we are, we are recognizing even us 10 years ago, we're falling prey to some of these
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unbiblical concepts of pet idolatry. And so just watch yourself, watch the culture around you,
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take witness to what's happening and, you know, really work on raising godly children that the
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world can look at and go, amen, we love those kids. Let's get some more of them. So hopefully
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this episode is helpful. A little rant on this discussion of pets. If you're a regular listener
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to this podcast, A Real Christianity, we'd love it if you would leave a review. I think we have