00:00:57.000We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.
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00:03:22.000Some people kind of scoff at the fact that, oh, you have the same beliefs that your parents do.
00:03:27.000You're only a Christian because your parents raised you that way.
00:03:29.000I actually think it's an immense privilege to be able to say, yeah, I had parents who brought me up in the Lord and brought me to church and taught me who made the world and who makes the rules.
00:03:39.000And that really is the foundation of my faith.
00:03:42.000But, you know, things become your own when you go off on your own in college and then you're in the real world and you realize that it really does have to become personal because it also becomes a little bit of a, a little bit of a fight, a little bit of a battle when you're up against people who don't believe the same things that you do.
00:03:56.000You have to know why you believe what you believe.
00:03:59.000It's not just that God makes sense of the world.
00:04:01.000I don't understand the existence of truth or morality or right and wrong or any kind of moral order without the creator.
00:04:09.000But also, there has to be a dealing with injustice.
00:05:02.000So we actually need doubts to be able to wrestle through our faith and answer those tough questions.
00:05:07.000The good news is that people that are much smarter than me have wrestled with the very same questions that I've had.
00:05:13.000I think a lot of times we have this hubris to think that if I have a question about like, why does God let bad things happen?
00:05:19.000I'm the first person to ever ask that.
00:05:21.000And the answer is going to be found somewhere deep inside me.
00:05:24.000And so we have this, there's this trend of deconstructionism that is really kind of a progressive movement within the church to deconstruct your faith, but then not reconstruct it into any kind of biblical Christianity, but reconstruct it with all of these secular, progressive ideologies into something that really doesn't look like Christianity at all in a way to try to pick and choose what you like from the Bible and discard the things that you don't like from the Bible.
00:05:50.000But when we have doubts, when we have questions, when, for example, maybe you had a church leader growing up who ended up being a huge hypocrite, and that just made you really doubt your faith and wonder if all of this is true, the great thing is, is that there are Christians, tried and true Christians, who have fought through and answered these questions, who can tell you where to go in the word of God.
00:06:10.000So rather than fleeing the church, fleeing scripture and fleeing the Christians who have surrounded you your whole life, go into that community, go into scripture and ask those questions.
00:06:23.000He's not too small for your questions.
00:06:25.000He's not like, oh, I've never heard that question before.
00:06:28.000If he is the creator of truth and he's the source of all wisdom, the Bible says that if we ask for wisdom in the book of James, that he promises to give it.
00:06:38.000So, wisdom is both a promise, but it's also a process, as the book of Proverbs tells us.
00:06:44.000And so, we seek wisdom in the place where we know it is in God's word, and we ask in humility for God to give us the wisdom that we're looking for.
00:06:53.000Yeah, I love when you and I go to a lot of campuses where there's kind of a guy that comes up and he's 19 years old, and he's 19, 20 years old, and he believes he's the first person ever to think of the question, how could God ever allow bad things to happen?
00:07:11.000And it's, there have been people that have been wrestling with this since the beginning of time.
00:07:16.000And so, can you talk about, you know, we have a lot of people that are searching on this podcast, and we get wonderful emails, people that are finally really committing their life to Christ, which is awesome.
00:07:25.000And that is not the primary focus of this podcast.
00:07:27.000We're unapologetic of our beliefs, obviously, but we talk about a lot of other stuff, as you all know.
00:07:31.000But I think it points people to Christ as the more we talk about liberty, we want to find its source.
00:07:36.000Can you talk about how the scriptures have impacted your life and why do you believe the Bible?
00:07:43.000Some people have emailed us in disagreement.
00:07:45.000They say, oh, it's just a bunch of mythology.
00:07:53.000And like I was saying earlier, there are people who are so much smarter than me that thankfully have wrestled through that and have looked at the history of the Bible, why the biblical canon includes those 66 books.
00:08:05.000That's what Protestants believe anyway, and why we believe that's the inerrant word of God.
00:08:32.000Why do we believe that it's different than any other book?
00:08:35.000And so we could go through the history and the logic and the apologetics of all of that, but I'll just direct you to that.
00:08:41.000I think one of the most compelling arguments that I've heard for Christianity, kind of what I was saying in the beginning, is that it helps us deal with these existential questions that all humans are born having.
00:08:50.000Like secular humanism, it doesn't have an answer for these questions because it basically just sees us as evolved animals.
00:08:56.000And so we are just these clumps of matter, but it can't answer questions like, why do we long for purpose?
00:09:10.000All of these very big and almost intangible questions that all human beings have, they're found in the source that created these things.
00:09:17.000And it's only answered in this idea that we were made in God's image, which doesn't mean that we are gods, that we are divine ourselves, but we have attributes that are similar or that reflect the trying God's nature.
00:09:32.000And I am someone who really cares about, I really care about fairness.
00:09:40.000I hate when people get away with bad things.
00:09:42.000I hate when people are deceitful or manipulative.
00:09:44.000I hate when the vulnerable are trampled on.
00:09:47.000And we can look at the world and sometimes I just feel like despairing because it feels like justice is never going to be executed, like right will never prevail.
00:09:56.000And then I think about the promises in God's word that going back to that question of why does God let bad things happen?
00:10:03.000Well, actually, God promises to defeat the evildoers.
00:10:06.000He promises to defeat Satan forever and to rule in perfect peace.
00:10:10.000That God is not just letting bad happen.
00:10:12.000He's going to exact revenge on those who do evil.
00:10:15.000And so putting my hope in that and asking or answering all of those existential questions that I and every human being since the beginning of time has had in such a beautiful and redemptive story of Jesus taking away our sins and then defeating evil once and for all.
00:10:32.000I can't think of a better satisfaction for those ponderings that we all have naturally.
00:10:40.000Well, it's been quite a year, hasn't it?
00:10:41.000Well, it's actually been a total nightmare.
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00:11:46.000Can you talk about where you think our country has been going because we've decided to kind of discard the Bible as a coffee table book or something that's not even worthy of reading?
00:11:57.000What do you think the consequences have been culturally in our country and across the world?
00:12:02.000You know, some people think that this is a very recent phenomenon, that only in the past five years or so have we kind of embraced postmodernism and progressivism, this idea that there is no absolute truth, that moral relativism and all that.
00:12:16.000And yes, I do think things have accelerated over the past five years, but this has been happening for a very long time.
00:12:22.000And there are various avenues in our country that we can look at.
00:12:25.000Okay, where did this leftist progressive postmodern secular indoctrination start?
00:12:30.000I mean, you can look at teachers' unions, how they became more activist in the 1960s.
00:12:35.000You can look at some of the values in our government.
00:12:37.000And so there's a lot of different possible sources of it.
00:12:40.000But I think what you see is just a detachment from reality and a detachment from truth.
00:12:45.000I was talking to an atheist the other day who I really like and really respect.
00:12:49.000And she said something along the lines of, you know, it must be funny to people on the right to see us arguing about what is a man and what is a woman.
00:12:56.000And I said, you know, actually, it's sad because to me, that's the consequence of godlessness because what is anything?
00:13:09.000Why do definitions matter if there isn't a transcendent source of truth?
00:13:14.000If there isn't, as C.S. Lewis says, a great moral lawgiver from which we get our definitions of right and wrong.
00:13:20.000Of course, we're going to be arguing about things that we thought had been decided for millennia, but now we're asking such basic questions like, what is life?
00:13:35.000These are very basic questions that have been asked and answered by a lot of people.
00:13:40.000But because we've been infected by postmodernism, which I like to say makes hearts of stone and brains of mush, we're now asking very stupid questions because we don't know what truth is anymore.
00:13:51.000And so can you talk about the impact you think it's had with young people in particular?
00:13:55.000I think it's created the most miserable generation in American history because they have no idea what it actually means to live a meaningful life and they don't know what to try to pursue.
00:14:05.000And so human beings are aiming creatures.
00:14:10.000And the Bible and Christ give us the ultimate aim, which of course is truth and is his sacrifice for us and his love, but a love in a very specific way.
00:14:21.000I think that we throw around the word love too often.
00:14:24.000You know, probably one of the most used sermons ever.
00:14:28.000It's kind of like the introductory sermon 101 for a pastor who kind of has to pinch it is the different types of love, which you know well of Phileo, Eros, Sergei, and Agape are the different types of love that God has given us.
00:14:42.000But what do you think this impact has had on young people and students?
00:14:46.000And if there is a young person listening to this right now that is kind of stuck in this nihilistic postmodern rut, what can they do?
00:14:52.000Yeah, I think where I see it the most, you know, my audience is predominantly young women, probably college age to, you know, young moms.
00:15:00.000And what we are bombarded with on a daily basis, speaking of love, is this self-love culture.
00:15:06.000And that's why I wrote a book about it.
00:15:09.000Yeah, because I've been seeing just so many young women, but young people in general who are weighed down by, I know this sounds paradoxical, but the misery of self-love, this misery of self-sufficiency.
00:15:22.000And even though self-love and self-empowerment, it all sounds really good because of course we don't believe in self-loathing.
00:15:28.000We don't want self-deprecation, of course.
00:15:39.000All your relationships will come together.
00:15:41.000All it is is what I call trendy narcissism.
00:15:44.000It's actually making people far too focused on ourselves.
00:15:48.000I posit that we do not have a self-love deficit in this country, that we're all kind of born with the natural instinct of self-protection and to meet our own needs.
00:15:57.000We don't actually have to be taught to take care of ourselves.
00:16:00.000What we need is a purpose outside of ourselves.
00:16:03.000Because if self-love were the problem, then we would all be a lot happier by now because we have been preached the message of just think about yourself, put yourself first.
00:16:12.000All that matters is that you're happy in the moment.
00:16:19.000Okay, well, the generation that has been the greatest beneficiary of that, Generation Z, is more depressed, more anxious, more lonely, more purposeless, more godless than any other generation.
00:16:30.000So it can't, that can't be the problem.
00:16:34.000I would say, if we're looking at the problem, look at the correlation between godlessness, the increase in godlessness in this youngest generation and their misery and their sadness.
00:16:44.000And I'm not saying, hey, if you just pray more, you'll automatically be happier and that's it.
00:16:51.000No, I'm talking about having an eternal sense of purpose, that this world is bigger than you, that your life is bigger than you, that other people matter too, that you don't just exist for yourself and to make yourself to make yourself happy and to serve yourself.
00:17:06.000I think that does wonders to people's mindset and even that overused term today, mental health.
00:17:13.000And if you have a service mind, you actually end up being a lot more fulfilled.
00:17:17.000And that's what happens when you mature.
00:17:19.000The definition of maturity is when people start to look at not just what their own actions impact themselves, how their actions might impact other people.
00:17:28.000And an immature person is someone who, no matter what they do, their actions will never impact other people.
00:17:33.000For example, an immature person, someone who never leaves the basement.
00:17:36.000No matter what they do that day, unless they do something on social media or whatever, if they just play video games by themselves, their actions are going to have really no bearing on other people.
00:17:47.000It takes actually a lot of responsibility to go, and someone relies on you to show up on time to actually produce something of value.
00:17:54.000And all of this is rooted in the biblical canon and the biblical ideas and biblical truth.
00:18:01.000And this also has had to do a lot with kind of, and I want you to talk about the differences between Christianity and other religions, because there's been this kind of Eastern religion influx where a lot of the self-love nonsense actually comes from.
00:18:14.000This kind of quasi-Buddhist yoga culture where I can ascend to a higher level of peace because it's all about me.
00:18:22.000And I make a very provocative argument, but I don't really care.
00:18:24.000It's what I do, that Buddhism is the ultimate most selfish religion.
00:18:43.000And there might be some therapeutic meditative reason to do that for some people, but the idea, the highest level of achievement for Buddhism is to never talk again.
00:18:54.000If you talk to a legit Buddhist, it's never to speak, right?
00:19:30.000Escaping the toxic culture of self-love.
00:19:32.000And just to clarify, it's not a book about self-loathing or why self-loathing is better, but why God's love is profoundly more satisfying than superficial self-love.
00:19:41.000But we talked about in the book, this new age idea that I think is infiltrating the church and in particular women's ministries.
00:19:48.000And here's how it, here's how it manifests itself without even people realizing.
00:19:52.000And so you read in something like Girl, Wash Your Face, that the most important thing is your journey to your inner self, and that underneath all of society's expectations and your insecurities and your self-consciousness is this perfect inner goddess.
00:20:08.000And this is not what they say explicitly, but this is the underneath of these kinds of self-love books.
00:20:14.000And that if you just journey to find yourself, you find your true authentic self, no matter what people say, if you can brush off the patriarchy and capitalism and all these unjust systems that are holding your true goddess self back, then finally you'll manifest goodness.
00:20:28.000You'll manifest good things in your life.
00:20:29.000You'll finally be happy and healthy and chase after your goals.
00:20:33.000Well, as I like to say, the self can't be both the problem and the solution.
00:20:36.000So if you're going to read one of these books because you're like, ma'am, my life is in shambles and I'm looking for something to make it better because, you know, I've got these bad character traits or these things in my life, whatever.
00:20:47.000Well, you can't go deeper inside yourself to find the solution that is also in yourself.
00:20:51.000You have to go outside of yourself, namely into the God who made you, who provides the satisfaction and fulfillment that you're trying and failing to find inside yourself.
00:21:00.000And that's just one part of Christianity, ultimately, why Christianity sets itself apart from something like Buddhism, which is ascending to a higher self, which is, by the way, I know I'm going to make some people mad.
00:21:13.000But some people don't understand that that is also the philosophy that is behind something like the Enneagram.
00:21:20.000The Enneagram was created by New Age philosophers who believed in ascending to your true self and that personality types would help you get there.
00:21:27.000I'm not slamming all personality tests as completely destructive.
00:21:31.000But just understand that that is the philosophy behind a lot of these things to understanding your true self and knowing who you really are.
00:21:39.000That obsession, I've gotten so many emails from women saying, thank you for writing about this because I was so, I got an email from someone the other day who said, I was so obsessed with my Enneagram type that I could not read the Bible without thinking about that because I couldn't figure out which number I was.
00:21:55.000That everything that I saw was I was trying to figure out the lens through which I should see the world rather than scripture.
00:22:01.000I was thinking about my Enneagram type.
00:22:03.000So it can become an idol, this New Age stuff for some people, and it clouds out their real faith.
00:22:08.000But so those types of New Age movements, Buddhism, other kinds of religions, and a lot of other religions tell you how to ascend to God.
00:22:16.000So climbing the proverbial hill to get to God, you have to do these things to make yourself holy enough to be God-like or to get to the top of the hill.
00:22:24.000Christianity says, look, Ephesians 2, you're dead in your sin.
00:22:28.000So if you're dead, you're not just a bad person.
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00:24:06.000A movie that was unintentionally, a great example of this, unintentionally, but it's a phenomenal movie where someone goes and serves, sacrifices, and dies so someone else might live is saving Private Ryan.
00:24:19.000It's a perfect movie of a rescue mission.
00:24:21.000Again, it's about actually amazing American heroism, but it's the gospel perfectly.
00:26:06.000Ooh, well, I'm a little, I don't know when this is coming out, but as I'm recording this, I am worried about the state of Georgia and how it is going to affect the state of the country.
00:26:17.000And I'm really worried about if it doesn't go the way that, you know, Republicans and conservatives want it to go.
00:26:24.000I'm worried about the legislation that's coming down the pipeline.
00:26:26.000I don't think that Democrats care one bit that even if they push all the radical legislation that they want, that they're going to lose the majority in the House and the midterms, which they would.
00:26:36.000I think that they are going to, you know, they're going to do whatever they can while they have the opportunity.
00:26:40.000And we're talking about as much as they can, a radical reconstruction of our systems for the worse.
00:26:47.000Like we've already seen with Biden's perspective picks for his administration that he is much more concerned with intersectionality and narratives about economic and environmental justice and injustice than he is about actually getting anything done that's good for the country.
00:27:05.000And Donald Trump, you know, whatever people think about certain parts about Donald Trump, one thing I really liked about him is that he cared about getting things done.
00:27:14.000He cared about having effective cabinet picks.
00:27:17.000And I really do think, like, you did a panel with about China earlier at SAS that I just thought was incredible.
00:27:23.000And there is no worse man for this moment than Joe Biden when it comes to a threat like China and when it comes to our domestic needs.
00:27:31.000And with all of the personality traits that Donald Trump has, he was the right man for the moment.
00:27:36.000And I'm worried about the shift of going back into the Obama years, except worse.
00:27:43.000But, you know, for such a time as this, we'll figure it out.
00:27:46.000Well, your voice is more important than ever before in this moment.
00:27:49.000The title of the book is You're Not Enough.
00:28:31.000I don't know if you've seen that or not as well, but especially in Georgia and Alabama and Texas, there is a massive movement of this kind of Oprah style theology.
00:28:44.000So Oprah theology is like, well, there's a God, but we'll never know him.
00:28:49.000And he's ambivalent and you don't pray.
00:28:51.000You just kind of exist and meander and, you know, we'll go buy a bunch of lotions and something, like whatever.
00:30:49.000Yeah, women are attracted to it, I think, for that reason.
00:30:51.000And a lot of women weren't taught theology.
00:30:54.000It's like, oh, men need the hard stuff.
00:30:55.000And women just kind of need to be told that you're not fat or something like that.
00:31:01.000Like, that's our biggest problem in the world is that we're insecure about our bodies.
00:31:04.000And so every book that we read and every sermon that we hear is just about how society is so bad and we have been oppressed.
00:31:12.000And all you need to know is that Jesus is there to tell you that your hair looks pretty.
00:31:16.000It's like, no, woman, your biggest problem is men's biggest problem, that you're a sinner who's going to stand before a holy God one day.
00:31:23.000And if Jesus Christ is not your justification, then your destination is the same as any sinner.
00:31:29.000That's the woman's biggest problem, just like anyone else's.
00:31:33.000And if we're not taught proper theology and soteriology, then we're destined, destined for hell, just like anyone else.
00:31:40.000I tell people, and we say this on our podcast, the best way I can get people's attention about the gospel is you will die one day, no matter how hard you try.
00:31:48.000Do you know what's going to happen next?