Ep. 66 - The Secularization of Christianity
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Summary
Is it ever okay for a man to cry? Is crying allowed as a man? Is it okay to cry in certain situations, and what are the 7 situations where a man can cry? I'll break it down for you in this episode.
Transcript
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Well, before we begin, I was reading an email earlier this morning from somebody responding
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to my show yesterday, which was about masculinity, and she says that there's too much macho manly
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stuff going on in the culture, and it's okay for a man to cry, you know, to show his feminine
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side and cry. I like a man who cries, is what she said. And that just got me thinking,
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and I wanted to stipulate this just kind of as a public service announcement at the top,
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and it's not related to anything else we're going to talk about. But let me just stipulate
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one thing about crying. It is generally not okay for a man to cry, except for in the following
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seven situations. There are seven situations where a man can cry. The first one, death of a loved one.
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Obviously, crying is okay there. The second one, a major milestone involving your kids, like when
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your kid is born, when child graduates, that sort of thing. The third thing, during an intense
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spiritual experience, crying is okay there. The fourth, of course, when you're watching the final
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scene of Rudy, when they're chanting for Rudy, and he finally comes out, and he makes a tackle,
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and the tackle is totally irrelevant because the game is basically over. But he's been working for
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his whole life, and then everyone's cheering, and his dad is there, and then they carry him off the
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field. You can weep over that as a man. The fifth thing, if you're kicked in the shins by a horse,
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I think is a good, is a fine crying situation. The sixth thing, if your wife makes you a lasagna,
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that is just so good that it brings you to tears, that's acceptable. Seven, if you go to somebody's
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house, and this has happened to me before, you go to somebody's house, and they say, oh, we're having
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chili, and you say, oh, wow, this makes my day, and then they serve you the bowl of chili, but then you
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discover that the chili is made with ground turkey and black beans, then it's acceptable actually to
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throw the hot bowl of chili at the person who served it to you and cry, and that's acceptable
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not only morally and ethically, but also legally, I believe. That's the law stipulates that. I'm pretty
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sure in most states. Anyway, those are the seven times, and there are no other times. That's it. Those
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are the only times when you're allowed to cry as a man, but I can, I can expand on that some other
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time. I want to respond to something else, actually. As, as I've, as I've mentioned before, I get
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complaints about the religious content on my show quite a bit. People complain, you know, that I talk
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about God too much, and there's too much Jesus stuff, especially after I did the last show. I was
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talking about doubt, and what do you do about religious doubts, and there was a ton of complaints
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from people about, why are you talking about God again? I don't want to hear this, and it makes sense
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for them to complain because it is true that I will go into people's homes with a loaded gun and force
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them under threat of death to watch my show, so it makes sense for them to complain that they don't like
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the content because they're forced physically to watch it. Now, if I, if I weren't forcing people
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physically to watch it, it would make no sense at all to complain about my content. It would make sense
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simply to not watch it and go live your life and do something else, because there are, after all,
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probably like a hundred thousand different podcasts and shows that I'm not interested in that talk about
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content that I don't find interesting, but I don't show up to announce, hello, this content doesn't
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interest me. I am not interested in this content, and I will watch the entire thing and remain here
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and leave comments letting you know how uninterested I am. I don't do that, but some people follow a
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different strategy, I guess. Some people are under the impression that everything that happens
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in the universe must cater to their special interests, and if it doesn't, then they'll
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complain about it. You know, then they'll barge in and complain. It's kind of like if, it's like
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when people come, if you watch whatever platform you're watching the show on, and you look at the
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comments, and there are people complaining, I don't find this interesting. I don't like this.
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This, this I don't like. That's like if you're walking by somebody's house, and the windows were
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open, and you could hear what sounded like the people inside playing Scrabble, and so you knocked
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on the door, and when they answered it, you said, I don't like Scrabble, and they said, okay. Did anyone
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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
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doing here at my house? I don't like Scrabble. No, I don't like it. That's kind of what happens in the
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comment section under all my videos, but when I've discussed, and by the way, I have decided to change
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my policy. This is good news. I will no longer be forcing people at gunpoint to watch or listen. I'm
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going to stop doing that. I've decided that it's not really in keeping with my Christian convictions. I
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won't do that anymore, so you are free. Everyone is free to not to do what you want. You don't have
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to be here if you don't want to be, but when I've discussed before the complaints about the religious
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content on my show, most of the time I'm focusing on atheists and secular people who criticize me for
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it. Unfortunately, though, and this really shouldn't be too surprising, it's not only atheists. Very often
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I hear from Christians who are upset that I'm talking about Christian stuff. For instance,
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got an email from a guy after that show, whatever it was, two, three days ago, and he said,
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and I hear this a lot. This is a very common line that you hear. He said, if I wanted to hear about
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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?
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Well, I went in 1987. That's the last time I wanted to hear about this stuff.
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Now, he says he doesn't want to hear about God and religion all the time. There's a time and place
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for it, he said, but my own show is not a time or place, he's decided. That's not a time or place.
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In fact, if he comes in contact with a conversation about religion, then it is immediately not a time
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and place. It must always happen in places where he cannot hear it. He was saying, I need to separate
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the religion stuff from everything else, and I shouldn't bring God and religion to everything,
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and so on and so on. And this, again, is something that I hear a lot from Christians.
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And, you know, when I hear this, it brings to mind
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a conversation I had with an atheist a little while ago.
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And he made a very good point. It's not, it was not the first time I've heard a point like this
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made by an atheist. But he said, you know, the reason I don't believe in God, or one of the big
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reasons, is I don't believe that you believers actually believe. How can I be convinced about
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God if the people trying to convince me aren't convinced themselves? And I asked him what he
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meant by that, and he said, and I'm paraphrasing now, but he said, if I really believe, if I personally
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really believe in God, if I really believe that a supernatural force was active in the world and was
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and this force had made me and made the world and made everything, and this force is watching us
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now and judging, and when I die, I'll either go to eternal paradise or eternal suffering based on how
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I live here, and if I really believe that, like, angels and demons are around me and are acting in
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the world, though, invisibly, and if I believe that all of that stuff exists, angels, devils, hell,
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heaven, heaven, God, all of that, well, then I would be obsessed with that fact. I'd be obsessed with it.
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It would be the only thing I ever thought about or talked about. I would live completely differently.
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I mean, I would live and act and speak and behave as if there were a supernatural force watching over
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me, but that's not how Christians in this country act. That's not how they talk. That's not how they
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carry on, not even close. They mostly just carry on the same as everyone else, which makes it clear
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that they don't really believe what they say they believe, because if they did, it would be such a
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significant fact. I thought that was a great point, and by the way, I've heard a similar point made by
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pro-abortion people in relation to pro-lifers. I've heard pro-abortion people say, if you really
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believed that babies are being killed, why aren't you acting like it? Why aren't you doing anything about
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it? I mean, and they'll say, you know, if there was a building down the street where they were
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killing two-year-olds, I mean, I would, I would really act upon that in a way. I mean, I wouldn't
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just sit around. And I think that, you know, it's hard for us to hear this, but these are very good
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points. And we need to face them, because they're right. And this is the consequence of being secularized
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Christians living in a secularized country. This is the consequence of insisting that God be separated
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from normal life and normal discussions. This is the consequence of treating our religion as
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something that belongs only in church. The consequence is that nobody believes us, and we
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don't really believe ourselves. Nobody takes us seriously, and they shouldn't, because we don't
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take ourselves seriously. We make these extraordinary claims about the nature of life
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and about what we believe, but then that claim is not reflected in anything else we do.
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So if you're a Christian saying, I don't like all the Jesus talk, it makes me uncomfortable,
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let's talk about something else. Well, the atheists around you, they may agree with you, and they
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may be happy that you're joining them in their efforts to shut down religious conversations,
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but they're also laughing at you in their heads, because you're a ridiculous figure. You're a fraud.
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You are, you're laughable. And they're right to see you that way and to treat you like that.
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Because what, what are you doing taking their side? They, they believe in a world where there's
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no God. I mean, it's, it makes sense for them to be saying this stuff, but you, what are you doing?
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I thought you believe in this force who is, I mean, imagine, imagine that God, imagine that you,
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you, this is what we talked about in the video a few days ago, but imagine that you did walk outside
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your house and you could see, you could literally physically see God in the sky. Like he was
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encompassing. I don't mean that he's living in the sky. I mean, you see this, this, this, this
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infinitely immense being just hovering over everything, right? And looking right at you,
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directly at you, would you not be obsessed with that fact? Would you be able to go and talk about
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something else? And if somebody said to you, Hey, you know, uh, Hey, about that, about God up there,
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would you say, no, let's not talk about that? No, you wouldn't.
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But as Christians, we believe that though we can't see him, that is actually literally what's
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happening. He is there over and above and in and through everything, a personal being looking
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directly at us. Um, so when we do this thing, we say, ah, you know, I don't want to talk about that.
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Eh. Well, then we, we come off as frauds and we have no chance of reaching anyone. We don't have a
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chance. We have no chance of reaching atheists or anything like that because they know that it makes
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no sense for someone who believes in God to not want to talk about it. And if you believe in God and
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you really believe it, then it must be the most relevant thing in your life. And every conversation,
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everything is tied to this fact. But we have participated as Christians in the secularization
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of culture. We as Christians have participated in this process of separating God from life. We've not
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only participated in it, but we've been the driving force of it. We have been facilitators of it. We've been
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encouraging it. We have made two different camps, two divisions. And so there's the God camp and then
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there's the everything else camp. And the God camp is very small. It doesn't get a lot of room to
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operate. And the everything else camp encompasses most of the rest of the landscape. And, and so that
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we as Christians can live in this camp over here and we can acknowledge that, that, that camp exists,
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but it's, that acknowledgement has no bearing on our, on our lives or on our conversations. And we just
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continue about our life as if that camp doesn't exist, as if it really is completely separate,
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as if the two things are completely separate. We live atheist lives. And if we acknowledge God's
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existence at all, it's maybe for a few minutes on Christmas. And then maybe if something happens to us
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that we really need, we need his help, then we might say, oh God, can you come here for a minute?
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I need a promotion at work. Yeah, just come here. And okay, thanks for the promotion. Now go back to
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that. Go back over there. Go, go, go, go, go, go. The point is we've created an environment
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as Christians. I think we've created an environment where faith in the gospel cannot be preached because
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effectively, because faith and the gospel must exist in the culture intertwined with everything. That's what
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faith demands. Considering the claims that it makes about life, it makes claims that if we believe those
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claims should alter everything we do, think, and say. By its nature, faith has to be all-encompassing. It really
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is an all-or-nothing proposition. People tell me all the time, it's not all-or-nothing. It's not black
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or white. It is. That's exactly what it is. That's exactly what God is, all-or-nothing. He is either
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all or he is nothing. He cannot be anything in between. But I think we look for that in-between thing
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where we want to live, where we want to live and operate as if there is no God, yet still say that
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we believe him. This is pretty unprecedented, I think, in history. For most of the existence of
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Christianity, for most of Christendom's history, this didn't exist. You didn't have this
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dichotomy of, well, there's God over here, and then there's life, right? There was none of that.
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There was just God and faith was a part of everything. It was just, it was ingrained in
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everything. It was your life. And that made sense. So if you go back to supposedly the dark ages, which
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were times much more spiritually enlightened than the times we live in now, by the way. So if those were
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the dark ages, then I don't know what this is now. But if you go back to the dark, the middle ages,
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the dark ages, what you're going to find is that people, they drew no distinction whatsoever between
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faith and religion and life. It was all, everything was all together. There was no distinction.
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They couldn't even conceive of a distinction. There was no, you really didn't have the option to be a
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secular Christian. You couldn't be that. That was not an option for life. And so, although back in
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those days, back in the older times, it would have been harder to live physically, would have been
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more physically challenging and demanding, certainly. I think spiritually, it was easier. It was easier to
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be a Christian than, because things just kind of made sense. You lived in a society
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where everyone really just acted and operated like they really believed this stuff.
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And that's what society was. There was no dividing line.
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And there shouldn't be. I don't know how we as Christians can argue that, yeah, we should keep
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God out of this. What? How can you? I understand why atheists say it. How could you possibly say that
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as a Christian? Keep God out of it. You must know that you can't. It's impossible. And nothing good
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can ever come out of keeping God out of anything. Out of anything.
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This is, again, if we lived 500 years ago, we wouldn't be having, like, it wouldn't be necessary
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for me to make this point. Everyone would have looked at me like, yeah, of course, what are you
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talking about? And now I say it, and Christians are disagreeing. Well, yeah, but you know, you can't
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involve God in this. It's so ridiculous, so weak, so flimsy, so ridiculous, so stupid.
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I mean, if you want to be an atheist, just be an atheist. Don't try to turn Christianity into
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atheism. By the way, this is why I'm so opposed to anything that hints of secularization in the
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church. Because we've got, the entire culture is secularized, right? We live in a secular culture.
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We live in a culture where, as I said, it is not just feasible, but very easy to live as a secular
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Christian and to separate your faith from everything else you do in your life and to not even really
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think about it. It's possible to live that way. That is an option. That never used to be an option
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for living. Now it is. And most people, that's the option they select, which makes it harder for
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Christians who want to really live like Christians. It makes it harder for them because there's more of
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an effort, just an effort. It requires effort, like every second of the day. And you're going to get
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pushback, not just from atheists, but from other Christians who mock you and laugh at you for actually
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taking the religion seriously that they supposedly share with you. But at least in a church,
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at least you should be able to go to a physical church. And it's a safe haven, and it's an oasis
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different from all the rest of it. You got secularization everywhere. You should at least be able to go to a
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church and escape secularization and find a place that is grounded in the reality of God.
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Um, but that's not what happens in most churches. You should be able to walk into a church
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and everything about it should be completely different from what you see in the world today.
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It should be shocking at this, at this point, it should be shocking to walk into a church. Every
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time you walk in, you should be taken aback. It's like, whoa, this is different.
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Everything from the architecture to the music, to the dress, to the, certainly to the message being
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preached, the attitude, the demeanor of the congregants, all of it should appear to be
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like from a different universe because it is from a different universe. It is from a universe where God
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exists and rules over all as opposed to the universe that our secular culture tries to live in where
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God does not exist and is irrelevant. Um, but that's not how it goes. Instead, most churches look and
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sound and in every way resemble the rest of the culture. Most churches appear to be extensions of
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secular culture, products of it, rather than windows into something eternal and sacred and, and
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supernatural. And the effect is that you can go to most churches in America, or many anyway, you can go and
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you can sit in the church and you can attend the service, you can listen to the music, you can listen to the
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sermon or the homily, and you can still all the while continue on forgetting about God. The reality of God,
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even in most churches in America, is not really thrust upon you. You're not really forced to face it. He might be
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mentioned. But the fact that again, you live in this, uh, in a reality where God is present and looking at
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you all the time, that you're not really in most churches forced to confront that reality. And the way
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the church itself operates, it does not appear to be grounded in that reality. Um, just with the, just how
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casual everything is, there's just no sense of reverence, no sense of anything sacred happening.
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instead, it's like people, you know, people just stroll in casually. And I mean, if you really believe,
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especially at church where church is like the special place where God, I mean, God is present
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everywhere, but at church, you know, two or three are gathered as scripture says, God is with us. Um,
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and he is, you're, you're really there. You're really focusing on God more than you, more than what
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happens in secular culture. And so he's really there in this special sense. I think there should be this
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just total reverence. And I mean, imagine that you were in church and Jesus himself appeared there
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physically right in front of you. How would you react? I mean, wouldn't you fall to the floor in just
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Or would you just continue along, which most people do in church, they just sit back and they're
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chatting and they're just, you know, super casual. The music is nice and secular and kind of casual.
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A lot of churches now they got the little, uh, they got the donuts and the coffee. They got a coffee
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shop. People are sitting there sipping their coffee. Is that what you'd be doing? If Jesus appeared
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right in front of you, we'd just be like, Oh, Hey Jesus. Hey, how's it going?
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Um, in a, in a secular culture, everything is designed with the intent, I think, of keeping
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our minds focused on now on, on material things. And it seems now that even churches are designed
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with that in mind. And it's a big problem. It isn't hard to see how Christianity in the early
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days was able to spread so rapidly through pagan cultures while it seems to be fading and dying
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in our supposedly sophisticated modern secular culture. Because people back in those times,
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even in pagan, not just, not just in Christian society, but even pagan people lived in a world
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where the spiritual and the supernatural and the mystic were all front and center in their daily
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lives. Everyone had an idea of life as, as this thing that was inexorably tied to something else,
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something infinite, something beyond it. And so it was just a matter of, for Christians was a matter
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of coming into these societies where this, where, where, where spirituality and, and super and
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supernatural forces, all of that was already taken for granted as, as being, as being real and being
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part of life. And so you had to just come in and correct their spiritual ideas and kind of redirect
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them in the right direction. But America today is a spiritual vacuum. There's nothing to build upon.
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There's no spirituality. There's, there's only, we're just a, we live in a material world and we
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are material girls as Madonna rightly observed. So I think to bring it all back together, that means
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that we as Christians, I think have to make a considered effort to keep God and keep our faith at the
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forefront of our minds and of our conversations and of everything we do. Like, even though it's hard
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because to live that way is so alien and foreign to most people in our culture, including most
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Christians. So if you do, you're going to be mocked by them and they're going to look at you like you're
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a weirdo and you're going to be looked even in, in most churches, that's how they're going to treat
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you. But I think when we do that, we're not only helping ourselves and our own souls and our own
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spirituality, but we're helping everyone else because we at least are living as if, and speaking
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and acting as if we really believe. And so at least there's a, that doesn't mean we're perfect,
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doesn't mean we're saints. It just means we believe this. And so we're just, we're operating as if we
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really believe it. And then at least there's a chance, there's, there's, there's, there's a chance
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of a little bit of that light poking through the darkness and of getting through to people.
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At least there's a chance. But if we carry on just like them, and if we, if we toss God off to the
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corner of existence and we don't talk about them and we don't bring them up, there's no chance.
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All the lost sheep out there, there's no chance of us getting to them because there's no light,
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right? All right, we'll leave it there. Hope you guys have a great weekend. Godspeed.