Ep 256 ｜ George Floyd and the Burning of Minneapolis
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Summary
On this episode of Relatable, we discuss the death of George Floyd, the police officer who pinned him down and killed him. We also discuss mob justice in general and why we are seeing a trend of deconversion.
Transcript
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Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Friday. I hope everyone has had a great week. Today
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we are going to talk about George Floyd and what's going on in Minneapolis. We're also
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going to talk about mob justice in general. We will also, if we have time, talk about the
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lead singer for Hawk Nelson and his deconversion story and why we're seeing this trend of
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deconversion. We will start with this very heavy topic of George Floyd. Let's talk about George
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Floyd. He is the man that you've probably heard about on social media, especially if you are on
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Twitter. I saw a video a few days ago that showed a police officer putting his knee on this man's
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neck who was under arrest. So he had his handcuffs behind his back. He was laying down on the
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pavement and this officer had his knee on his neck and George Floyd was saying, I can't breathe
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officer. I can't breathe. So I'm going to show you just a few seconds of that clip.
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Bro, with your feet on his neck, man. You get out.
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That's right right there. With his feet on his neck.
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So that should break your heart. It broke my heart. I didn't know at that point when
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I originally saw the video that it was going to become what it is now and cause the reaction
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that it has. And the reaction that we have seen of anger and of wanting justice for him
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is, of course, justified. I can't even imagine any kind of second angle or second side of the story
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that would excuse that kind of behavior. For nine minutes, apparently, this officer had his knee
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on George Floyd's neck, and then George Floyd later died in custody. Now, the police report
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said that he was resisting arrest, but he wasn't being arrested for a violent crime. He was
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apparently being arrested for being in the middle of forgery. He was accused of forgery. So a
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nonviolent crime for a police officer to pin this guy down to the point to where he couldn't breathe
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and died later in custody. That is not justice. So, of course, people have a right and should be
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angry about this. We should be upset about this. As a human being, I am upset about this because
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this isn't just happening to him. This has happened to others. This could happen to anyone. As a
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conservative, I'm upset about this. I believe in limited government. I don't believe in disproportionate
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police force or police power. As a Christian, I'm upset about this because this human being,
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like all human beings, was made in the image of God. This person has a soul. That means he's living
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forever. That means he is eternally valuable. This person is a brother, a friend, a son. This is a
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human being. We should care about police brutality. We should care about situations like this, whether
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they are caught on tape or not. Now, this particular situation was caught on tape. And of course, the
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reaction was intense. The reaction on social media calling for the conviction of the police officer who
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pinned this guy down to conviction of murder. That was a popular thing that was going on. We do know
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that the four police officers that were involved in the arrest of Floyd were fired the next day. But of
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course, we don't believe that that's enough. President Trump, he ordered the DOJ to investigate
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into this to make sure, you know, to see everything that's going on. And so it may very well be that this
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police officer is charged with murder. I'm not going to pretend like I know exactly how that's
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going to go down or even exactly how it should go down. We all do have the right of due process.
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And I'm not necessarily interested in giving this police officer the benefit of the doubt.
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Like I said, I don't see any other angle or any other side of the story that could possibly excuse
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this kind of brutality. But of course, I am not the judge and jury. So I don't know how it's going to
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go down. And I can't say authoritatively how I think it's going to go down. Now, we are in a very
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or how I think it should go down. We are in a very similar situation to where we were a few weeks ago
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when we were talking about Ahmaud Arbery. And you can go back and you can listen to that episode. And I
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won't rehash everything that I said there. But it is a similar situation in that we see a video
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that looks condemning, that is condemning as far as we know. We see a video that causes outrage and
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that causes justifiable anger. And then it becomes a hashtag, then it becomes a trend. And then we hear
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certain storylines that say, OK, Ahmaud Arbery was just on a jog and he was racially profiled. Of course,
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here in the case of George Floyd, we are also hearing that this is a classic case of racialized
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police brutality. And I'm going to say probably the most controversial thing that I could say,
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the thing that I said then and the thing that I will say now, even as I am agreeing that this looks
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to be a miscarriage of justice, this looks to be abuse, just like in the case of Ahmaud Arbery,
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that was murder. It looks to be murder. It was wrong no matter what their reasoning was to chase
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this guy down. I don't care if they said that it was a citizen's arrest or vigilantism. It was wrong.
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And they are right to be imprisoned right now. In the same way, while I think that this police
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officer was certainly in the wrong, and I believe from what I can tell that he will be charged with
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murder, I don't know if this was racially motivated. And again, that's the most scandalous
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and controversial thing that I could say. And I don't say that again, because I want to give the
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benefit of the doubt to the perpetrator. I don't have a dog in this fight in that I'm not going to
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automatically defend the police officer because that's typically what conservatives do. I'm not
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interested in that. I am trying. I desire some kind of humility for me to say that I just don't know.
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I don't know what the motivations are. And that is not me denying the existence of racism ever in
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all places. It is me simply saying that in these cases, which do seem and are cases of injustice,
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I don't know if they were racially motivated. But of course, that is the storyline that is going on
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on social media right now. And it is that idea, which people are free to hold that idea. They're free
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to talk about that idea. They're free to assert that idea. That's that's totally fine. But it is
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that idea that is perpetuating the riots that are going on in Minneapolis. Now, there were peaceful
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protesters in Minneapolis about this. They had a lot of signs that said, I can't breathe, which is
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exactly what George Floyd said before he died as he was being pinned down on the pavement. There were a
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lot of peaceful protesters. They had their masks on and that's fine. That's a beautiful part of living in
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the United States of America is that you are free to do that. And you should be free to do that without
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punishment. By the way, there were some stories of peaceful protesters being tear gassed. I don't know
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if that's true. I didn't see videos of that. But of course, if that is true, I don't believe that
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that's right. People should have a right to peacefully protest without being cracked down upon by the
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police. But those peaceful protests turned into very violent and mob like riots. So I'm going to show
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out of here so that is that's terrifying that's terrifying and i said something about it
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on twitter i said you know peaceful protests can be very effective and they are constitutional
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and they are good i i believe in people exercising their right to protest uh peacefully however that
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is not a protest i mean you saw mobs of people looting a target you saw them and maybe if you
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didn't see that in the clip you saw them um trying to break into atms and break into banks
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burning down auto parts stores burning down a dollar general there was a clip of a small
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mob of young men attacking an elderly woman who was trying to defend herself in in a wheelchair
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and so this has moved beyond it seems like it appears crying out for justice which is something
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that i think that we have a right to do and that we should do that we should be angry about instances
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of injustice but you're gonna have to tell me how looting a target correlates to justice for this
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poor man george floyd you're going to have to tell me what it actually accomplishes now when i said that
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on twitter when i talked about that peaceful protests are effective and this looting and things
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are not i got a lot of angry people saying well obviously peaceful protests are not effective and
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you are just uh you're just a karen because you don't want these people to to loot in target you
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care more about this billion dollar business target than you care about the the death of of george floyd
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the death of george floyd was also unconstitutional and this is again this crazy binary that twitter
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always comes up with that exists in the social media realm is that you are not allowed to hold two
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thoughts at the same time the fact of the matter is is that george floyd's death was a tragedy it
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wasn't injustice it can also be true at the exact same time that there are better ways to cry out for
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justice than looting a target than breaking in to banks than assaulting people who get in your way can
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we not just agree on that all of us who care about justice and who care about truth and who care about
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holding people to account and care about people's lives black white whatever can't we all agree that
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both of those things are wrong and now it's true that murder is worse than looting yes that's
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absolutely true but for the people who are saying that oh you just care about target they're a billion
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dollar company you'll be fine okay let's think through this just a little bit so we're in the
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middle of a pandemic well hopefully we're on the tail end of a pandemic and we know that we have lost
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uh roughly a hundred thousand people to the coronavirus which is just devastating but on top
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of that we have other losses we have employment losses and so there are millions and millions of
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people that are freshly unemployed there are millions of people now who are in uh experiencing
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economic calamity and i would suppose that that is true in minneapolis in the same way that it's true
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in other places people who have jobs are hanging on to their jobs for dear life speak for dear life
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because they want to be able to feed their family just like everyone else does these riots this uh
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burning down of various buildings uh these these instances of looting and theft this is only going to
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exacerbate those problems these economic problems i don't care about target as a company but target
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employs people all of these businesses the auto parts stores that were burned down uh the banks that
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were looted and uh almost destroyed all of these different stores and small businesses that were
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destroyed by these mobs they represent people and so when you are looting target you're not hurting
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the billion dollar company of target like target is going to be fine what they're going to do is
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they're going to raise prices on everyone else to make up for the losses in their minneapolis store
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and so we're all going to be hurt by that but i don't even care about that i care about all the
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employees of target all the employees of all of these small businesses in minneapolis who don't
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have a job on monday like who who aren't going to be able to feed their families because they no longer
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have that paycheck coming in i mean this affects this affects people this affects families this is
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not justice this is not justice all you're doing is hurting the people that you say that you're
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defending there are people of all different races that work at target that work at these small
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businesses and now their livelihoods have been destroyed because these mobs and these riots do
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not correlate with uh with trying to get justice for george floyd the fact of the matter is is that
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i didn't see anyone and maybe they do exist i didn't see anyone saying yeah that police officer
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was in the right that was fine it's okay i didn't see anyone saying that everyone that i saw was
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equally outraged that hey this is disproportionate police force this is wrong and a lot of people
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saying this could possibly uh be racist this is a problem i saw everyone crying out for justice and
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accountability and he was fired and i i agree that there needs to be an investigation there and there
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needs to be a longer process to make sure that justice is truly served and that george floyd's blood
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is truly avenged but still these riots broke out that ended up having nothing to do with this poor
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man's life i mean you are going to have to show me you're going to have to show me some evidence
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uh that proves that these kinds of riots have any kind of correlation uh to the death of this man
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and are uh giving us anything productive in the way of justice i just have a hard time believing that
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the motivations for all of the people that are going out there and stealing alcohol that are
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stealing items from target and these small businesses are are truly looking out for justice
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injustice doesn't uh doesn't perpetuate justice injustice begets injustice it just keeps going and
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in situations like this i think that we believe that in order to be virtuous we have to show a high
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amount of emotion we have to latch on to the mainstream narrative we can't criticize any
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movement we can't criticize any reaction we can't criticize any narrative or else we are not
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sufficiently righteous but as christians we know that we are not beholden to the mob we're not
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beholden to mob justice that's for sure we're not beholden to the mainstream narrative we have to be
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able to have the humility to say i'm against injustice too i'm against racism where it exists i'm against
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brutality and abuse and murder and i am for people fighting for these things and sticking up for these
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things and sticking up for the lead of least of these i also care about truth i also want to know
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uh all the facts of of every case not just this case but every case i'm also going to question uh what
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the media tells me what the mainstream narratives are i'm not going to lash latch on to hashtags just
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because they're available i'm not going to post something or share a post just because doing so
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shows how virtuous i am i am going to be thoughtful about this i am going to be biblical about this i'm going to be
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careful about this i am going to show compassion and love without sacrificing truth i think that is
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what christians are called to in the midst of this and i'm not saying that we can't call this racism if
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it is racism of course i i think we should i think we should call out real instances of racism but again
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these assumptions these jumping to conclusions these uh this inability to say hey riots and looting and
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thievery and violence and abuse in the name of justice for someone who is killed by the police
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is also wrong like that's also not biblical justice mob justice isn't justice that's something that we've
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talked about before and it's still true uh godly virtue is not measured by emotionalism it is not
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measured by how quickly you lash latch on to a hashtag or latch on to a trending post or latch on to a
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mainstream narrative that is that is not what godliness looks like that is not what justice looks
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like so we have to be able to simultaneously hold these thoughts in our head no matter what people tell
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us no matter what people say hey you must just not care enough if you are criticizing the people that
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are looting no of course you do of course you do you can care about both things and you can still
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believe that murder is worse but you can also say that these riots are counterproductive and that they
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affect the real lives of people they affect the lives mostly of poor people they affect the lives of
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minorities they affect the lives of all the people who are already hurting in need of help this doesn't
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help anyone and i look at all of these people that are writing and i'm not angry at them i'm sad for
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them they too are also people made in the image of god and i have no doubt that a lot of them feel
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true pain and they feel um a lot of anger about this and they too want justice i believe that a lot of
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their motives are um are are real i'm not saying that they're right but a lot of their motives and and
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maybe looting and doing all of the things acting out of anger i believe that those emotions are real
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maybe not all of them but a lot of them and i feel for them i do i feel for them i mean we have a media
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who tells us that this kind of stuff that this kind of police brutality happens on a daily basis against
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black people we have a media and blue check marks on twitter who say that black people are murdered by
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white people on a daily basis i hate reading statistics and conversations like this and so i always
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have them and i and i don't want to because it seems callous you can look it up yourself but that
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doesn't bear out those kinds of statements are not true they're they're not factual that these things
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are happening on a daily basis now one racialized instance or incident is one too many i completely
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agree with that but it is simply not factual the statistics do not bear out the narrative uh that
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white on black crime is happening on a daily basis i had someone tweet at me that white people are
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murdering black people on a daily basis if i were hearing that as a black person i would be really
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terrified as well but the facts are that's just not true that's that's just not true and we can still
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care about truth and care about justice and care about the murder of a man we can still care about
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police brutality we can still care about riots and uh what it looks like to peacefully protest and fight
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for justice you can still care about all of these things at the same time but unfortunately uh we live
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in a very reactionary culture where again our virtue is measured by our quickness of reaction and the
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emotionalism of our reaction and that was also true in this uh in this case of a woman named amy cooper who
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was walking her dog in a part of central park where you were supposed to have your dog on a leash
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because people are bird watching and so if you've got like she had a cocker spaniel running around in
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this part of uh central park then you're going to scare the birds away and these people who are
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bird watching aren't going to be happy with you so she had her dog off of the leash and uh this man and
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this is pertinent to the conversation he was a black man he approached her and he said hey ma'am can you
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please put your dog on the leash and she said no she didn't want to put her dog on the leash and so
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he called the dog over gave the dog treats she started freaking out he started recording she called
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the police and said i have an african-american man who is um who is approaching me threatening me and my
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dog and this whole time she's holding i don't want to show the video because i don't think that this
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situation needs to be uh i don't think the video needs to be shared anymore than it already has but
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the whole time she's holding the cocker spaniel on the poor i'm watching this and the poor cocker
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spaniel is like is choking because she's holding the holding the collar so hard and so this goes
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viral because it's posted on the internet she is uh threatening she's basically threatening this guy
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knowing that hey the police might show disproportionate force to you if i tell them
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that you're an african-american which i think that we can very clearly and confidently say that that
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was a racist thing to do i don't think that we need to wonder whether or not that was racist i mean
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we see the racist comments on tape and this ends up going viral now what happens to her her name wasn't
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shared in the original tweet well she gets doxxed by people so that means that her personal information
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all of the all of her information about her employment her address her phone number were put uh were put
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on the internet for everyone to see which ended up with her getting fired from her job and her losing
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her dog so this is what mob justice looks like it doesn't actually correlate to any real or substantial
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view of justice and truth so this person obviously was racist she obviously freaked out she shouldn't
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have done what she did and she should have calmed down and the guy bird watching didn't do anything
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wrong in the video he was very calm all we have really is his side to the story he actually went
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on cnn and was like okay the reaction to this was way too much like this lady got death threats i was
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just trying to kind of like show what happened so she ends up getting death threats she ends up getting
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fired from her job she ends up uh she ends up losing her dog because of mob justice and doxxing
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online no one ever said asked hey has she been racist at any other point in her life we don't
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know if she was good at her job we don't know you know the rest of her history we do know that
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apparently she is a lifelong democrat that she is a big obama supporter and hillary clinton supporter so
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that part of the media narrative was taken out from under them but of course it still perpetuated this
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idea that these kinds of instances are happening on a daily basis and hey maybe they maybe they are
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in some cases this was just one that was recorded but this this lady ended up losing everything
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because of a really bad and what we as christians know was a really sinful moment now i'm not sure
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that that represents any sort of real justice like i don't know if that kind of reaction and that kind
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of outcome has any real grounding and truth and virtue but when you have a culture that is morally
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relative like when you have a culture that is not dictated uh by godly morality or the biblical rule
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of law or any kind of objective standard of morality um your definition of justice is defined by whatever
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the mob says and that has really dire outcomes for people's lives like you can put people on blast
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you can call them out and you can criticize them but i'm not sure that things got any better that any
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good was produced from this lady losing everything that she has from a really bad moment like would you
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like to be recorded in your very worst moment and lose everything based on that moment probably not
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and again this lady was totally in the wrong like she definitely needs some kind of counseling or
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something like that she had a very disproportionate reaction to this situation however i'm not sure
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that the outcome that mob justice was the best conclusion to what was a bad situation to begin
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with i'm not sure that justice was advanced at all okay so if all of this has you feeling heavy-hearted
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the way that it has me feeling i just look at all of the contention that's going on in the world
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between races between political parties between different factions within christianity between
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uh christians and secularists and it makes it makes me sad it makes me sad not because i want my
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side to be right because ultimately as christians we know that christianity god's kingdom god's church
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will prevail so i'm not concerned about that i am concerned about people that are living with so much
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fear and hate in their heart on both sides of the aisle that they are wasting their lives in in
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misery and what we actually need the only thing that can bring us together is the gospel that is
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ultimately the only thing that can bring us together that's the only thing that can reconcile the races
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that's the only thing that can stop class warfare or race warfare or gender warfare or any of the
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contention and the conflict that we are dealing with today it's the only thing that can turn a heart
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of stone to a heart of flesh i read the storybook bible every morning to my daughter and one of the
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themes in it is having a heart that is soft towards god right now what we are viewing throughout the
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country both sides of the aisle and different sections of the population is a hard heart toward god
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which concludes in a hard heart toward other people which causes the kind of conflict that we are
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seeing today and an inability or unwillingness to defer to the word of god for morality for virtue for
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uh for justice and so you have a lot of confused people a lot of confused hateful fearful people who
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are caught up in these conflicts that just they don't just divide our country but they divide uh they
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divide your own heart they fracture your own heart they're not good individually they're not good
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collectively they're not good in communities they're not good for society as a whole it's not good for
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the church and if we want any hope of reconciliation any hope of restoration then we should be looking to
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the gospel ourselves even those of us who know the gospel we need to refresh our minds with the gospel
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on a daily basis we need to live out the gospel as the hands and feet of jesus taking care of the
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least of these loving our neighbors as ourselves pursuing real justice pursuing real mercy pursuing
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uh real truth and we need to be sharing the gospel to other people we have to trust that the good news
00:27:29.440
today is is still as good as it was two thousand years ago when jesus died and rose again it is still
00:27:36.260
just as powerful today it is powerful enough to change hearts to change families to change communities to
00:27:42.100
have a generational impact and so yes we can care about current events obviously we talk about
00:27:48.220
politics we talk about different issues on this podcast that i think actually uh you know require
00:27:53.740
action and may even require activism but at the end of the day and underneath it all above it all
00:27:59.820
what transcends it all is the gospel of jesus christ knowing that that is the only thing that can change
00:28:06.300
hearts and in order to change society in order to change systems you have to be able to change the
00:28:12.020
heart and there's nothing there's nothing that can change the human heart um other than the gospel
00:28:17.460
of jesus christ so i want to read the scripture because it reminds us what our responsibility is
00:28:23.340
as christians and it gave me a lot of good urgency but it also gave me a lot of comfort and that is first
00:28:30.700
peter four seven through well we'll see how long i want to go once i start reading uh we'll start with
00:28:36.820
verse seven the end of all things is at hand therefore be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of
00:28:43.140
your prayers above all keep loving one another earnestly since love covers a multitude of sins show
00:28:49.400
hospitality to one another without grumbling as each has received a gift use it to serve one another
00:28:55.180
as good stewards of god's varied grace whoever speaks as one who speaks oracles of god whoever serves
00:29:02.120
as one who serves by the strength that god supplies in order that in everything god may be glorified
00:29:08.280
through jesus christ to him belong glory and dominion forever and ever amen beloved do not be surprised at
00:29:16.260
the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you as though something strange were happening to you
00:29:21.780
but rejoice in so far as you share christ's sufferings that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory
00:29:28.720
is revealed if you are insulted for the name of christ you are blessed because the spirit of glory
00:29:33.860
and of god rests upon you but let none of you suffer as a murderer or a thief or an evildoer or as a meddler
00:29:42.980
yet if anyone suffers as a christian let him not be ashamed but let him glorify god in that name so i think
00:29:50.680
that's a good reminder of us that if we are to suffer if we're to suffer injustice if we are to suffer
00:29:58.000
condemnation if we are to suffer persecution it should not be for wrongdoing but for doing good
00:30:02.900
and obeying the lord uh sharing the gospel that is what we should focus on continue continuing to obey
00:30:10.360
the lord uh because the call to obedience the call to holiness the call to love and to faith and to hope
00:30:16.140
is unconditional no matter what's going on around us so let us cling to that when we feel like the rest
00:30:22.380
of the world is burning down those of you who are in my women's book club we're reading screw tape
00:30:26.720
letters and a lot of us have talked about how that passage in screw tape letters that just hits us
00:30:31.200
so hard is that um when screw tape the uncle demon is talking to his nephew demon and he's saying our
00:30:38.260
situation is no more dire than when a patient that's a human being that the demon is trying to torment
00:30:44.820
than when a patient looks around sees no reason to have faith in god and still persists in his faith
00:30:51.740
and that is what christians are called to do and i do want to talk that does lead me into the
00:30:57.100
conversation about uh this trend of deconversion and the lead singer of hawk nelson and i'll talk i'll
00:31:03.380
talk about it for just a second but i'm also going to talk about it more on monday i'm talking to costi
00:31:08.520
hin he's the author of god greed and the prosperity gospel it's going to be an awesome conversation we're
00:31:13.060
going to talk about deconversion more on monday but i'll just say this briefly that there are so
00:31:18.280
many christians that do not do what the screw tape letters describes we look around and we see all
00:31:23.940
these reasons to question god we see tragedy we see injustice we see suffering we see oppression
00:31:29.000
and we say there's no way that a good and powerful god to can allow this to happen and we say well
00:31:34.540
it must not be true it must not be true we trust our reasoning we trust our faculties worst of all
00:31:39.960
we trust our emotions and we say okay well god must not be real at least not the god of the bible
00:31:46.080
and as i read this deconversion testimony from the lead singer of hawk nelson these were some of the
00:31:52.380
questions that he had how can a good and powerful god allow something you know allow all of these
00:31:58.020
bad things to happen what about these confusing parts in the bible that seem you know oppressive
00:32:03.440
towards women or seem like they contradict one another and once he decided that he was going to
00:32:10.000
agree with his doubts he then felt like the word of god wasn't trustworthy at all and that the rug
00:32:16.020
had been pulled out from underneath him and that he no longer had any kind of faith to believe in
00:32:20.800
and this is very similar to the deconversion story of the hill song singer that happened almost a year
00:32:27.980
ago now and we also saw the deconversion story of josh harris the guy who wrote the christian book
00:32:34.540
i kissed dating goodbye he also came out and said you know what i am just not a christian anymore and
00:32:40.120
here's the comment we could go into so many different things with with the trend of deconversion
00:32:45.340
and kind of doubt as virtue that trend that's going on right now but the one thing that i see so often
00:32:52.240
and that really breaks my heart is that pastors it seems like are are failing these people that these
00:32:58.960
people the questions that they're asking that they're presenting as groundbreaking that why do bad
00:33:04.320
thing seemingly happen to good people or how why do natural disasters happen or what about the verses
00:33:10.140
about women not being able to teach in the church and how do we reconcile that with you know women
00:33:14.700
being made in the image of god these are very basic theological questions that theologians have been
00:33:21.720
asking answering wrestling with preaching about for literally thousands of years so all of these
00:33:28.080
deconversion stories they present questions and seeming quadris as if they are novel they're not novel
00:33:34.520
millions of christians everywhere have asked these same questions the difference is instead of resting on my
00:33:42.300
reasoning instead of agreeing with my doubts instead of viewing myself as um sovereign over truth or like
00:33:52.640
the arbiter of truth i go into the word of god i have to start with the idea that god is good that god
00:34:00.460
is in control and that the word of god is true and then i have to go into the word of god to answer the
00:34:06.300
questions and the seeming quadris that i've created in my head about my faith i have to go into the faith
00:34:13.100
i have to go into christianity i have to ask people who are smarter than me i have to read people who know more
00:34:18.720
than i do i have to talk to people who have more experience than i do whose faith has been tested
00:34:23.720
more than mine has and who has ended up on the other side we have to go into the faith when we have these
00:34:29.840
questions not step out of them and go into our doubts because we're always going to get confused
00:34:34.700
we're always going to get confused and another theme that i see in these deconversion stories is that
00:34:39.560
they want to retain parts of christianity but not christianity itself so in this story he says you know
00:34:45.820
i want love joy peace and all of that stuff and eventually maybe it'll lead me to god but don't
00:34:51.140
you see that if you want to pursue the love and joy and peace and satisfaction and purpose
00:34:55.360
all of these things that christ offers through his gospel plus eternal life and the greatest gift
00:35:01.000
reconciliation to a holy and wrathful and merciful god that you have to add jesus into that you have to
00:35:09.960
pursue jesus for those things that you don't find happiness truly you don't find satisfaction
00:35:15.420
and purpose and true joy and unconditional love outside of christ you don't you don't find those
00:35:21.000
things you find replacements for them you find pleasure you might find what feels like freedom
00:35:26.320
you might find what feels like temporary happiness but all of the things that you are looking for
00:35:32.240
are are found in the bread of life and living water and of course satan exactly like he told eve is going
00:35:39.920
to convince you that did god really say did god really say that you have to be a christian to have
00:35:46.200
those things did god really say that you have to follow him that you have to follow jesus in order
00:35:53.220
to be joyful no surely not just take a bite of this fruit and you'll have everything that you need and
00:35:59.160
you'll even be like god being wiser and being more um being more open-minded you'll be more tolerant
00:36:05.960
this way and you'll get all the things that christianity offers too but you just don't have
00:36:09.940
to follow that whole archaic religion with its confusing bible and unfortunately people buy into
00:36:15.480
that and it just shows me how a lot of pastors obviously not all maybe not even most but a lot
00:36:22.520
of pastors have have failed its congregants and i started this thought earlier and now i'm going to
00:36:27.680
finish it uh these basic theological questions that these people who are converting away from christianity
00:36:34.080
are asking should be answered in the pulpit like these are basic theological questions i think too
00:36:40.280
many pastors don't preach theology they don't preach theology why does bad thing why do bad things happen
00:36:45.660
to good people there are no good people why did natural disasters happen how did the fall happen why did
00:36:51.460
god create human beings with the capacity to sin all of these questions have been answered by people
00:36:57.300
who are way smarter than we are and pastors unfortunately aren't teaching this kind of thing
00:37:03.300
they're afraid to go into controversy they're afraid to hurt people's feelings they're afraid
00:37:07.480
to offend people and so every weekend they get up and say jesus exists to make you feel good about
00:37:12.460
yourself and if you follow jesus then you'll finally have the confidence that you need to go on and live
00:37:17.800
your life self-love well there's a reason why the number one denomination that is uh dwindling is
00:37:25.180
mainline protestantism so that is uh the the liberal theological churches the churches who basically
00:37:32.300
preach universalism that yes sure jesus might be one way and we preach some parts of the bible but the
00:37:37.940
bible isn't inerrant it's not necessarily authoritative we pick and choose we're cafeteria christians we pick
00:37:43.080
and choose the the parts of the bible that we want and you just kind of live your life and god just wants
00:37:47.280
you to be whoever you want to be we don't really worry about sin and holiness and the wrath of god
00:37:51.340
and all that stuff we just follow jesus for what we decide is the tolerant jesus or hipster jesus is what
00:37:57.940
i call it well there's a reason why those churches are dwindling much faster than conservative evangelical
00:38:04.200
churches because why go to church every sunday when you're just going to get agnosticism like go to
00:38:09.300
brunch on sunday you don't have to go to church if you are just going to be fed the same thing that you're
00:38:14.200
going to read a cosmo like why go to church why dedicate any part of your week to something that
00:38:20.920
is not offering you anything different than what the rest of the world is teaching you so my challenge
00:38:25.940
i'm not a pastor and i don't know everything about pastoring churches but my encouragement or just i
00:38:32.300
guess just desire and hope is for more pastors to be willing to offend for the gospel to be willing
00:38:40.120
to answer these tough theological questions because you've got people that have been in your churches
00:38:44.300
for 20 years that are leaving your doors not knowing basic theological questions and walking
00:38:48.840
out of their faith because they think their doubts are the end-all be-all and you've got that combined
00:38:54.100
with uh with the virtue of this age which is not knowing which is agnosticism we are taught to believe
00:39:01.840
in modern day culture that it is uh virtuous and good and righteous and even kind of holy to not know
00:39:08.440
things to not know who god really is to not really know theology to just kind of be vaguely spiritual
00:39:15.160
and to go on with your life and to kind of just whatever live and let live like that has now become
00:39:21.780
the brand of righteousness doubt as virtue as i've heard it said and as i call it combine that trend
00:39:29.660
with pastors not preaching theology not preaching the gospel afraid to preach about sin afraid to talk
00:39:36.860
about these very fundamental theological questions and you've got a lot of congregants walking away
00:39:41.780
because they don't find anything different in the church than they find in the rest of the world and
00:39:45.000
quite frankly they would rather do something else on sunday mornings than go to church and listen to
00:39:49.320
something that they could read in any kind of secular new age book uh so those are my thoughts about
00:39:55.340
deconversion in general now i pray for him i i pray that he would be restored i pray that he would be
00:40:01.560
brought back i pray that he would be brought to his knees that the eyes of his heart would be
00:40:05.500
enlightened to the hope to which he has been called i hope he understands jesus i hope he understands
00:40:10.380
the gospel for the first time i pray that for all of the people who have latched on to this trend of
00:40:15.500
deconversion that they would know the god who made them and that they would um realize that you don't
00:40:23.180
get purpose joy happiness all the things that you're longing for outside of your creator outside of
00:40:29.680
the gospel of jesus christ okay another long episode we will be back here on monday with costi hen and i