The Matt Walsh Show - Ep. 66 - The Secularization of Christianity

00:00:00.000 Well, before we begin, I was reading an email earlier this morning from somebody responding

00:00:06.660 to my show yesterday, which was about masculinity, and she says that there's too much macho manly

00:00:14.200 stuff going on in the culture, and it's okay for a man to cry, you know, to show his feminine 0.86

00:00:20.020 side and cry. I like a man who cries, is what she said. And that just got me thinking,

00:00:25.620 and I wanted to stipulate this just kind of as a public service announcement at the top,

00:00:29.540 and it's not related to anything else we're going to talk about. But let me just stipulate

00:00:34.580 one thing about crying. It is generally not okay for a man to cry, except for in the following

00:00:43.800 seven situations. There are seven situations where a man can cry. The first one, death of a loved one.

00:00:51.040 Obviously, crying is okay there. The second one, a major milestone involving your kids, like when

00:00:57.360 your kid is born, when child graduates, that sort of thing. The third thing, during an intense

00:01:04.560 spiritual experience, crying is okay there. The fourth, of course, when you're watching the final

00:01:11.880 scene of Rudy, when they're chanting for Rudy, and he finally comes out, and he makes a tackle,

00:01:18.940 and the tackle is totally irrelevant because the game is basically over. But he's been working for

00:01:23.580 his whole life, and then everyone's cheering, and his dad is there, and then they carry him off the

00:01:28.060 field. You can weep over that as a man. The fifth thing, if you're kicked in the shins by a horse,

00:01:36.620 I think is a good, is a fine crying situation. The sixth thing, if your wife makes you a lasagna,

00:01:46.580 that is just so good that it brings you to tears, that's acceptable. Seven, if you go to somebody's

00:01:56.240 house, and this has happened to me before, you go to somebody's house, and they say, oh, we're having

00:02:02.840 chili, and you say, oh, wow, this makes my day, and then they serve you the bowl of chili, but then you

00:02:09.460 discover that the chili is made with ground turkey and black beans, then it's acceptable actually to

00:02:17.500 throw the hot bowl of chili at the person who served it to you and cry, and that's acceptable

00:02:23.720 not only morally and ethically, but also legally, I believe. That's the law stipulates that. I'm pretty

00:02:28.540 sure in most states. Anyway, those are the seven times, and there are no other times. That's it. Those

00:02:35.540 are the only times when you're allowed to cry as a man, but I can, I can expand on that some other

00:02:40.880 time. I want to respond to something else, actually. As, as I've, as I've mentioned before, I get

00:02:48.400 complaints about the religious content on my show quite a bit. People complain, you know, that I talk

00:02:54.500 about God too much, and there's too much Jesus stuff, especially after I did the last show. I was

00:03:01.320 talking about doubt, and what do you do about religious doubts, and there was a ton of complaints

00:03:06.820 from people about, why are you talking about God again? I don't want to hear this, and it makes sense

00:03:12.780 for them to complain because it is true that I will go into people's homes with a loaded gun and force

00:03:19.820 them under threat of death to watch my show, so it makes sense for them to complain that they don't like

00:03:27.100 the content because they're forced physically to watch it. Now, if I, if I weren't forcing people

00:03:36.060 physically to watch it, it would make no sense at all to complain about my content. It would make sense

00:03:41.540 simply to not watch it and go live your life and do something else, because there are, after all,

00:03:48.260 probably like a hundred thousand different podcasts and shows that I'm not interested in that talk about

00:03:56.380 content that I don't find interesting, but I don't show up to announce, hello, this content doesn't

00:04:02.420 interest me. I am not interested in this content, and I will watch the entire thing and remain here

00:04:09.520 and leave comments letting you know how uninterested I am. I don't do that, but some people follow a

00:04:17.720 different strategy, I guess. Some people are under the impression that everything that happens

00:04:22.980 in the universe must cater to their special interests, and if it doesn't, then they'll

00:04:28.320 complain about it. You know, then they'll barge in and complain. It's kind of like if, it's like

00:04:36.080 when people come, if you watch whatever platform you're watching the show on, and you look at the

00:04:40.120 comments, and there are people complaining, I don't find this interesting. I don't like this.

00:04:45.380 This, this I don't like. That's like if you're walking by somebody's house, and the windows were

00:04:53.580 open, and you could hear what sounded like the people inside playing Scrabble, and so you knocked

00:05:00.200 on the door, and when they answered it, you said, I don't like Scrabble, and they said, okay. Did anyone

00:05:07.120 ask you if you liked it? You weren't even invited to play, so I don't know why, who are you? What are you

00:05:13.240 doing here at my house? I don't like Scrabble. No, I don't like it. That's kind of what happens in the

00:05:20.960 comment section under all my videos, but when I've discussed, and by the way, I have decided to change

00:05:29.860 my policy. This is good news. I will no longer be forcing people at gunpoint to watch or listen. I'm

00:05:37.780 going to stop doing that. I've decided that it's not really in keeping with my Christian convictions. I

00:05:42.380 won't do that anymore, so you are free. Everyone is free to not to do what you want. You don't have

00:05:47.800 to be here if you don't want to be, but when I've discussed before the complaints about the religious

00:05:54.660 content on my show, most of the time I'm focusing on atheists and secular people who criticize me for

00:05:59.800 it. Unfortunately, though, and this really shouldn't be too surprising, it's not only atheists. Very often

00:06:06.480 I hear from Christians who are upset that I'm talking about Christian stuff. For instance,

00:06:13.600 got an email from a guy after that show, whatever it was, two, three days ago, and he said,

00:06:20.340 and I hear this a lot. This is a very common line that you hear. He said, if I wanted to hear about

00:06:27.360 this, I'd go to church. And I didn't ask him, but I'm sure if I, okay, well, when do you go to church?

00:06:33.760 Well, I went in 1987. That's the last time I wanted to hear about this stuff.

00:06:40.240 Now, he says he doesn't want to hear about God and religion all the time. There's a time and place

00:06:49.000 for it, he said, but my own show is not a time or place, he's decided. That's not a time or place.

00:06:56.720 In fact, if he comes in contact with a conversation about religion, then it is immediately not a time

00:07:04.320 and place. It must always happen in places where he cannot hear it. He was saying, I need to separate

00:07:13.140 the religion stuff from everything else, and I shouldn't bring God and religion to everything,

00:07:16.940 and so on and so on. And this, again, is something that I hear a lot from Christians.

00:07:23.120 And, you know, when I hear this, it brings to mind

00:07:26.600 a conversation I had with an atheist a little while ago.

00:07:33.940 And he made a very good point. It's not, it was not the first time I've heard a point like this

00:07:38.520 made by an atheist. But he said, you know, the reason I don't believe in God, or one of the big

00:07:43.540 reasons, is I don't believe that you believers actually believe. How can I be convinced about

00:07:53.320 God if the people trying to convince me aren't convinced themselves? And I asked him what he

00:07:58.840 meant by that, and he said, and I'm paraphrasing now, but he said, if I really believe, if I personally

00:08:06.240 really believe in God, if I really believe that a supernatural force was active in the world and was

00:08:13.280 and this force had made me and made the world and made everything, and this force is watching us

00:08:18.820 now and judging, and when I die, I'll either go to eternal paradise or eternal suffering based on how

00:08:24.080 I live here, and if I really believe that, like, angels and demons are around me and are acting in

00:08:29.840 the world, though, invisibly, and if I believe that all of that stuff exists, angels, devils, hell,

00:08:35.580 heaven, heaven, God, all of that, well, then I would be obsessed with that fact. I'd be obsessed with it.

00:08:45.440 It would be the only thing I ever thought about or talked about. I would live completely differently.

00:08:51.840 I mean, I would live and act and speak and behave as if there were a supernatural force watching over

00:08:58.580 me, but that's not how Christians in this country act. That's not how they talk. That's not how they 1.00

00:09:05.440 carry on, not even close. They mostly just carry on the same as everyone else, which makes it clear

00:09:12.740 that they don't really believe what they say they believe, because if they did, it would be such a

00:09:19.920 significant fact. I thought that was a great point, and by the way, I've heard a similar point made by

00:09:30.300 pro-abortion people in relation to pro-lifers. I've heard pro-abortion people say, if you really

00:09:37.740 believed that babies are being killed, why aren't you acting like it? Why aren't you doing anything about

00:09:44.300 it? I mean, and they'll say, you know, if there was a building down the street where they were

00:09:51.280 killing two-year-olds, I mean, I would, I would really act upon that in a way. I mean, I wouldn't

00:09:59.480 just sit around. And I think that, you know, it's hard for us to hear this, but these are very good

00:10:06.900 points. And we need to face them, because they're right. And this is the consequence of being secularized

00:10:16.080 Christians living in a secularized country. This is the consequence of insisting that God be separated 0.99

00:10:21.260 from normal life and normal discussions. This is the consequence of treating our religion as 0.86

00:10:27.280 something that belongs only in church. The consequence is that nobody believes us, and we

00:10:33.400 don't really believe ourselves. Nobody takes us seriously, and they shouldn't, because we don't

00:10:39.320 take ourselves seriously. We make these extraordinary claims about the nature of life

00:10:46.420 and about what we believe, but then that claim is not reflected in anything else we do.

00:10:56.840 So if you're a Christian saying, I don't like all the Jesus talk, it makes me uncomfortable, 1.00

00:11:00.580 let's talk about something else. Well, the atheists around you, they may agree with you, and they

00:11:05.400 may be happy that you're joining them in their efforts to shut down religious conversations,

00:11:09.880 but they're also laughing at you in their heads, because you're a ridiculous figure. You're a fraud.

00:11:21.000 You are, you're laughable. And they're right to see you that way and to treat you like that.

00:11:27.520 Because what, what are you doing taking their side? They, they believe in a world where there's

00:11:35.220 no God. I mean, it's, it makes sense for them to be saying this stuff, but you, what are you doing?

00:11:42.420 I thought you believe in this force who is, I mean, imagine, imagine that God, imagine that you,

00:11:50.400 you, this is what we talked about in the video a few days ago, but imagine that you did walk outside

00:11:54.860 your house and you could see, you could literally physically see God in the sky. Like he was

00:12:01.560 encompassing. I don't mean that he's living in the sky. I mean, you see this, this, this, this

00:12:07.200 infinitely immense being just hovering over everything, right? And looking right at you,

00:12:17.200 directly at you, would you not be obsessed with that fact? Would you be able to go and talk about

00:12:30.660 something else? And if somebody said to you, Hey, you know, uh, Hey, about that, about God up there,

00:12:38.220 would you say, no, let's not talk about that? No, you wouldn't.

00:12:46.300 But as Christians, we believe that though we can't see him, that is actually literally what's

00:12:52.300 happening. He is there over and above and in and through everything, a personal being looking

00:13:00.280 directly at us. Um, so when we do this thing, we say, ah, you know, I don't want to talk about that.

00:13:09.560 Eh. Well, then we, we come off as frauds and we have no chance of reaching anyone. We don't have a

00:13:19.620 chance. We have no chance of reaching atheists or anything like that because they know that it makes 1.00

00:13:24.220 no sense for someone who believes in God to not want to talk about it. And if you believe in God and

00:13:29.960 you really believe it, then it must be the most relevant thing in your life. And every conversation,

00:13:35.220 everything is tied to this fact. But we have participated as Christians in the secularization

00:13:45.140 of culture. We as Christians have participated in this process of separating God from life. We've not

00:13:50.820 only participated in it, but we've been the driving force of it. We have been facilitators of it. We've been

00:13:58.900 encouraging it. We have made two different camps, two divisions. And so there's the God camp and then 0.63

00:14:06.140 there's the everything else camp. And the God camp is very small. It doesn't get a lot of room to

00:14:10.300 operate. And the everything else camp encompasses most of the rest of the landscape. And, and so that

00:14:16.920 we as Christians can live in this camp over here and we can acknowledge that, that, that camp exists,

00:14:23.240 but it's, that acknowledgement has no bearing on our, on our lives or on our conversations. And we just

00:14:32.100 continue about our life as if that camp doesn't exist, as if it really is completely separate,

00:14:38.240 as if the two things are completely separate. We live atheist lives. And if we acknowledge God's

00:14:46.420 existence at all, it's maybe for a few minutes on Christmas. And then maybe if something happens to us

00:14:52.640 that we really need, we need his help, then we might say, oh God, can you come here for a minute?

00:14:57.320 I need a promotion at work. Yeah, just come here. And okay, thanks for the promotion. Now go back to

00:15:00.880 that. Go back over there. Go, go, go, go, go, go. The point is we've created an environment

00:15:09.140 as Christians. I think we've created an environment where faith in the gospel cannot be preached because

00:15:15.640 effectively, because faith and the gospel must exist in the culture intertwined with everything. That's what

00:15:23.920 faith demands. Considering the claims that it makes about life, it makes claims that if we believe those

00:15:32.000 claims should alter everything we do, think, and say. By its nature, faith has to be all-encompassing. It really

00:15:40.860 is an all-or-nothing proposition. People tell me all the time, it's not all-or-nothing. It's not black 0.69

00:15:45.340 or white. It is. That's exactly what it is. That's exactly what God is, all-or-nothing. He is either

00:15:53.200 all or he is nothing. He cannot be anything in between. But I think we look for that in-between thing

00:16:02.000 where we want to live, where we want to live and operate as if there is no God, yet still say that

00:16:12.300 we believe him. This is pretty unprecedented, I think, in history. For most of the existence of

00:16:22.240 Christianity, for most of Christendom's history, this didn't exist. You didn't have this

00:16:29.140 dichotomy of, well, there's God over here, and then there's life, right? There was none of that.

00:16:36.840 There was just God and faith was a part of everything. It was just, it was ingrained in

00:16:44.280 everything. It was your life. And that made sense. So if you go back to supposedly the dark ages, which

00:16:52.960 were times much more spiritually enlightened than the times we live in now, by the way. So if those were

00:16:58.000 the dark ages, then I don't know what this is now. But if you go back to the dark, the middle ages,

00:17:05.140 the dark ages, what you're going to find is that people, they drew no distinction whatsoever between

00:17:13.360 faith and religion and life. It was all, everything was all together. There was no distinction.

00:17:21.520 They couldn't even conceive of a distinction. There was no, you really didn't have the option to be a

00:17:27.520 secular Christian. You couldn't be that. That was not an option for life. And so, although back in 1.00

00:17:35.500 those days, back in the older times, it would have been harder to live physically, would have been

00:17:40.960 more physically challenging and demanding, certainly. I think spiritually, it was easier. It was easier to

00:17:46.440 be a Christian than, because things just kind of made sense. You lived in a society 0.58

00:17:52.700 where everyone really just acted and operated like they really believed this stuff.

00:18:03.420 And that's what society was. There was no dividing line.

00:18:07.380 And there shouldn't be. I don't know how we as Christians can argue that, yeah, we should keep

00:18:14.780 God out of this. What? How can you? I understand why atheists say it. How could you possibly say that 1.00

00:18:22.680 as a Christian? Keep God out of it. You must know that you can't. It's impossible. And nothing good 1.00

00:18:30.360 can ever come out of keeping God out of anything. Out of anything.

00:18:38.480 This is, again, if we lived 500 years ago, we wouldn't be having, like, it wouldn't be necessary

00:18:44.760 for me to make this point. Everyone would have looked at me like, yeah, of course, what are you

00:18:47.600 talking about? And now I say it, and Christians are disagreeing. Well, yeah, but you know, you can't 1.00

00:18:54.660 involve God in this. It's so ridiculous, so weak, so flimsy, so ridiculous, so stupid.

00:19:05.320 I mean, if you want to be an atheist, just be an atheist. Don't try to turn Christianity into 0.92

00:19:11.680 atheism. By the way, this is why I'm so opposed to anything that hints of secularization in the

00:19:21.760 church. Because we've got, the entire culture is secularized, right? We live in a secular culture.

00:19:29.180 We live in a culture where, as I said, it is not just feasible, but very easy to live as a secular

00:19:40.960 Christian and to separate your faith from everything else you do in your life and to not even really 0.96

00:19:45.940 think about it. It's possible to live that way. That is an option. That never used to be an option

00:19:51.100 for living. Now it is. And most people, that's the option they select, which makes it harder for

00:19:59.100 Christians who want to really live like Christians. It makes it harder for them because there's more of 1.00

00:20:04.900 an effort, just an effort. It requires effort, like every second of the day. And you're going to get

00:20:09.580 pushback, not just from atheists, but from other Christians who mock you and laugh at you for actually

00:20:16.100 taking the religion seriously that they supposedly share with you. But at least in a church,

00:20:24.100 at least you should be able to go to a physical church. And it's a safe haven, and it's an oasis

00:20:34.140 different from all the rest of it. You got secularization everywhere. You should at least be able to go to a

00:20:41.140 church and escape secularization and find a place that is grounded in the reality of God.

00:20:49.140 Um, but that's not what happens in most churches. You should be able to walk into a church

00:20:56.880 and everything about it should be completely different from what you see in the world today.

00:21:03.280 It should be shocking at this, at this point, it should be shocking to walk into a church. Every

00:21:09.780 time you walk in, you should be taken aback. It's like, whoa, this is different.

00:21:15.980 Everything from the architecture to the music, to the dress, to the, certainly to the message being

00:21:20.960 preached, the attitude, the demeanor of the congregants, all of it should appear to be

00:21:26.240 like from a different universe because it is from a different universe. It is from a universe where God

00:21:31.520 exists and rules over all as opposed to the universe that our secular culture tries to live in where

00:21:37.240 God does not exist and is irrelevant. Um, but that's not how it goes. Instead, most churches look and

00:21:45.440 sound and in every way resemble the rest of the culture. Most churches appear to be extensions of

00:21:52.180 secular culture, products of it, rather than windows into something eternal and sacred and, and

00:21:58.920 supernatural. And the effect is that you can go to most churches in America, or many anyway, you can go and

00:22:07.420 you can sit in the church and you can attend the service, you can listen to the music, you can listen to the

00:22:11.480 sermon or the homily, and you can still all the while continue on forgetting about God. The reality of God,

00:22:20.320 even in most churches in America, is not really thrust upon you. You're not really forced to face it. He might be

00:22:26.840 mentioned. But the fact that again, you live in this, uh, in a reality where God is present and looking at

00:22:36.280 you all the time, that you're not really in most churches forced to confront that reality. And the way

00:22:42.940 the church itself operates, it does not appear to be grounded in that reality. Um, just with the, just how

00:22:52.340 casual everything is, there's just no sense of reverence, no sense of anything sacred happening.

00:23:00.540 None of that. Um,

00:23:08.440 instead, it's like people, you know, people just stroll in casually. And I mean, if you really believe,

00:23:17.440 especially at church where church is like the special place where God, I mean, God is present

00:23:23.860 everywhere, but at church, you know, two or three are gathered as scripture says, God is with us. Um,

00:23:30.300 and he is, you're, you're really there. You're really focusing on God more than you, more than what

00:23:35.860 happens in secular culture. And so he's really there in this special sense. I think there should be this

00:23:42.440 just total reverence. And I mean, imagine that you were in church and Jesus himself appeared there

00:23:52.340 physically right in front of you. How would you react? I mean, wouldn't you fall to the floor in just

00:24:02.240 in total reverence to this divine being?

00:24:11.620 Or would you just continue along, which most people do in church, they just sit back and they're

00:24:15.080 chatting and they're just, you know, super casual. The music is nice and secular and kind of casual.

00:24:20.260 A lot of churches now they got the little, uh, they got the donuts and the coffee. They got a coffee

00:24:23.900 shop. People are sitting there sipping their coffee. Is that what you'd be doing? If Jesus appeared

00:24:28.600 right in front of you, we'd just be like, Oh, Hey Jesus. Hey, how's it going?

00:24:32.240 Um, in a, in a secular culture, everything is designed with the intent, I think, of keeping

00:24:42.360 our minds focused on now on, on material things. And it seems now that even churches are designed

00:24:49.060 with that in mind. And it's a big problem. It isn't hard to see how Christianity in the early 0.96

00:24:57.780 days was able to spread so rapidly through pagan cultures while it seems to be fading and dying 0.90

00:25:03.480 in our supposedly sophisticated modern secular culture. Because people back in those times,

00:25:08.320 even in pagan, not just, not just in Christian society, but even pagan people lived in a world

00:25:13.280 where the spiritual and the supernatural and the mystic were all front and center in their daily

00:25:19.220 lives. Everyone had an idea of life as, as this thing that was inexorably tied to something else,

00:25:25.520 something infinite, something beyond it. And so it was just a matter of, for Christians was a matter 0.92

00:25:30.280 of coming into these societies where this, where, where, where spirituality and, and super and

00:25:36.440 supernatural forces, all of that was already taken for granted as, as being, as being real and being

00:25:42.240 part of life. And so you had to just come in and correct their spiritual ideas and kind of redirect

00:25:48.740 them in the right direction. But America today is a spiritual vacuum. There's nothing to build upon.

00:25:54.500 There's no spirituality. There's, there's only, we're just a, we live in a material world and we

00:25:59.800 are material girls as Madonna rightly observed. So I think to bring it all back together, that means

00:26:08.380 that we as Christians, I think have to make a considered effort to keep God and keep our faith at the

00:26:15.740 forefront of our minds and of our conversations and of everything we do. Like, even though it's hard

00:26:21.120 because to live that way is so alien and foreign to most people in our culture, including most

00:26:28.700 Christians. So if you do, you're going to be mocked by them and they're going to look at you like you're

00:26:32.540 a weirdo and you're going to be looked even in, in most churches, that's how they're going to treat

00:26:37.300 you. But I think when we do that, we're not only helping ourselves and our own souls and our own

00:26:44.980 spirituality, but we're helping everyone else because we at least are living as if, and speaking

00:26:56.280 and acting as if we really believe. And so at least there's a, that doesn't mean we're perfect,

00:27:03.060 doesn't mean we're saints. It just means we believe this. And so we're just, we're operating as if we

00:27:09.220 really believe it. And then at least there's a chance, there's, there's, there's, there's a chance

00:27:16.560 of a little bit of that light poking through the darkness and of getting through to people.

00:27:25.460 At least there's a chance. But if we carry on just like them, and if we, if we toss God off to the

00:27:32.560 corner of existence and we don't talk about them and we don't bring them up, there's no chance.

00:27:38.760 All the lost sheep out there, there's no chance of us getting to them because there's no light,

00:27:44.860 right? All right, we'll leave it there. Hope you guys have a great weekend. Godspeed.

The Matt Walsh Show - July 20, 2018

Ep. 66 - The Secularization of Christianity

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript