The NXR Podcast - July 26, 2024


THE FRIDAY SPECIAL - Burning Man with Cultish


Episode Stats


Length

54 minutes

Words per minute

179.00642

Word count

9,700

Sentence count

444

Harmful content

Misogyny

1

sentences flagged

Toxicity

3

sentences flagged

Hate speech

36

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Every year, a city in the desert is built from scratch and for a week is populated by tens of thousands of people from all over the world. Known as Burning Man, attendees known as Burners see it as a grand celebration of life and spiritual transformation.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.060 Every year in Nevada, a city in the desert is built from scratch and for a week is populated by tens of thousands of people from all over the world.
00:00:10.080 Attendees known as Burners see it as a grand celebration of life and spiritual transformation.
00:00:17.520 Burning Man is just one of the countless transformational festivals that encompass the return of the old gods.
00:00:25.580 All right, here we are. This episode is on Burning Man, a harmless event that's fun for
00:00:34.540 the whole family. Right, guys? Absolutely. Bring the kids. Yeah, bring the kids. Have a blast,
00:00:39.840 right? Just tapping into your inner self and a few demons along the way. Tell us, okay, so...
00:00:44.960 Well, that's Disney. Yeah, that's Disney. Amen. All right, so tell me about Burning Man.
00:00:50.820 Yeah, so I want to start off by saying that I want to sort of quote and paraphrase the founders of Burning Man who really described and they said that there's no way you can truly describe or encompass it unless you've been there.
00:01:04.940 So I am speaking, though, I want to make sure I'm emphasizing I am speaking, Andrew speaking, we're all speaking as people who are on the outside looking in.
00:01:14.280 Right.
00:01:14.360 So, I'll just talk about how it sort of came to my attention.
00:01:17.400 So, as we've talked about in previous aspects of our discussion, one of the very first episodes we did where I had Stephen Bancars on, it was our first sort of general overview of the New Age and the occult.
00:01:28.380 You know, he brought up ayahuasca.
00:01:30.140 And I never even heard of that.
00:01:31.680 And I was like, wait, what's ayahuasca?
00:01:33.080 What's that all about?
00:01:34.140 And so, now, that's now part of a normalized discussion.
00:01:37.380 So, once, even five years ago, I wasn't talked too much about.
00:01:40.640 I wasn't even on my compass.
00:01:42.160 now is something that's normalized.
00:01:44.520 You've seen it.
00:01:45.000 And I even talked about in our last episode
00:01:46.400 that I didn't mention was like Aaron Rodgers
00:01:48.340 from the Green Bay Packers.
00:01:49.860 He's been very upfront about his ayahuasca use
00:01:52.260 and the ceremonies that he's done
00:01:53.960 to tap into the divine feminine.
00:01:55.940 And he's very much been like advocating this.
00:01:58.660 So in the same way, as I was doing the podcast,
00:02:01.900 as we're seeking out guests,
00:02:03.300 you know, I had a lot of conversations with new agers,
00:02:05.240 both on people that are on the podcast
00:02:07.340 and a couple of ones just behind the scenes,
00:02:09.280 sort of talking with them,
00:02:10.440 is the subject of Burning Man came up.
00:02:13.860 And I remember one of my former guests was describing
00:02:17.020 that she taught classes on ayahuasca
00:02:20.280 and how to do an ayahuasca ceremony.
00:02:21.840 She taught a class at a burn camp at Burning Man.
00:02:25.300 So that was the very first time I heard of that.
00:02:27.260 I'm like, well, okay, well, what's that all about?
00:02:29.460 And then, you know, it was one of my previous guests
00:02:31.460 and she had pictures of her,
00:02:33.200 like before she came to Christ,
00:02:34.940 dressed, you know, promiscuously out there
00:02:37.920 with a bunch of her friends out in the desert.
00:02:39.860 And it looked, my first perception is that I was trying to just, like, what am I even looking at, looking at pictures of this person? And it would almost be like Lawrence of Arabia, like a promiscuous Lawrence of Arabia intertwined with Mad Max with a bunch of tents in the desert with all sorts of interesting artwork. And just, it's like, oh, well, that's interesting. What's that all about?
00:03:03.960 And so, I think when you look at being on the outside looking in, I think what Burning Man does represent, it is sort of a North Star encompassing point that it really sort of points where we are as a culture and really the return of the old gods.
00:03:24.060 because while many people would look at Burning Man
00:03:27.620 as something of modernity,
00:03:29.880 this is something that's brand new,
00:03:32.260 that's never been done before,
00:03:33.620 of 50,000 plus, I think, last year,
00:03:37.240 when it was on the news about people being rained out,
00:03:40.740 even the year before,
00:03:42.100 I think the attendee was around 80,000,
00:03:45.000 just a large amount of people
00:03:46.480 that go out into the desert via RVs that are out there.
00:03:49.820 There's really nothing new under the sun.
00:03:51.740 In fact, the idea of pagans moving about, creating a giant festival to raise up a temple, or in this case, a grand statue, and to do all sorts of different rituals and things connected to paganism, that's literally ancient Rome.
00:04:11.420 That's syncretism. That was the case.
00:04:14.440 The Apostle Paul in Colossae, that's what he was dealing with, a predominant pagan city.
00:04:19.960 so a lot of what you're seeing articulated there while there's nothing new under the sun a lot of
00:04:25.300 people see it as brand new innovative but it's very important because while some of you may be
00:04:31.900 kind of thinking about this for the first time it does very much represent the culture it's not
00:04:38.120 just a bunch of hippies out in the desert it may have been one time but it there is a point where
00:04:42.580 you're looking at some of the biggest influencers influencers in the world but from a celebrity
00:04:48.160 standpoint, you look at a lot of different execs at Google, Amazon, some of the biggest
00:04:54.200 technocrats out of Silicon Valley, they really have carried over a lot of their ideas, their
00:05:00.500 philosophy, their way of business, their way of work at Burning Man.
00:05:04.460 So it's gone from just being kind of this wild Mad Max festival from several years ago
00:05:09.500 to sort of really now sort of being a kind of like how Wario was the opposite of Mario
00:05:15.460 if we can utilize video games.
00:05:17.240 Right.
00:05:17.480 I would say that this is sort of the, like, a reverse transfiguration.
00:05:21.960 So I think it's important, as we sort of just talk about it briefly, is not sensationalize it, but also not try and sugarcoat it. 0.99
00:05:29.980 Like, it's this wonderful, perfectly innocent thing that Christians should just go and attend to because it's inherently neutral. 1.00
00:05:36.380 What about you, Andrew? 1.00
00:05:37.300 When you think of Burning Man, I mean, I know you've sort of seen it in the background.
00:05:40.160 We've studied a lot of topics.
00:05:41.760 Like, when you see it, like, what are, like, the first impressions that come to mind?
00:05:45.300 Yeah. When I see Burning Man, it looks like a place I definitely don't want to go. But I want
00:05:50.480 to give some numbers real quick just to give the audience a good idea of how Burning Man has grown
00:05:54.680 throughout the last, let's say, 30 years. Okay. 30, 35 years. So 1986 was the first burn. There's
00:06:01.260 about 20 people there and it wasn't even something that was organized. It just happened. There's 20
00:06:06.220 people around 2011, 53,735 to around the last, the last one around 80,000. Let me give you an
00:06:13.940 idea of prices. In 2012, the tickets were $240 to 320, all the way up to 390. And there was
00:06:20.760 presale tickets for $420. So they're making a lot of money off of Burning Man, so much so that
00:06:26.000 there's even a corporation, BlackRock City LLC. It's a for-profit company that creates Burning
00:06:32.700 Man every single year. But on the outside, looking in at Burning Man, I'm seeing a relation to,
00:06:39.880 let's say Mormon general conference, which happens twice a year where all of the LDS individuals from
00:06:45.340 around the world will gather to hear their prophets speak, right? Revelation from God,
00:06:50.320 and they all gather to go. That happens twice a year, April and October. For Islam, they do what?
00:06:56.460 They go to Mecca. They travel there, the adherence of Islam. So for, let's say, the degenerate
00:07:03.180 rejects of modern Western culture, where do they go? They go to Burning Man once a year, right?
00:07:09.300 So we're talking about artists other than, you know, political figures and even Jeff Bezos has gone to Burning Man or sends people to Burning Man. 0.99
00:07:19.120 We have, you know, artists, queers, like people who believe in UFOs, people are doing psychedelics, nudists, people looking for new sexual experiences. 0.66
00:07:30.220 These are all the types of people that are going to Burning Man. 0.86
00:07:32.300 And an interesting fact even about Burning Man is that everything is supposed to run on like charity there in a sense.
00:07:38.640 But the only things that cost money are ice and coffee.
00:07:42.780 But supposedly the city gets built up, right?
00:07:45.800 Imagine 83,000 people there.
00:07:48.640 And then it gets torn down.
00:07:50.760 There's a burning.
00:07:51.460 I believe they burn a temple and they do the burning of the Burning Man.
00:07:54.960 Because there's also a temple that they build every single year that goes there with its own theme.
00:07:59.180 but after they're supposed to leave
00:08:01.320 and there's supposed to be no trace of them whatsoever.
00:08:04.640 So on the outside looking in,
00:08:06.200 I see it as a mecca of sorts
00:08:08.060 for those types of people to go
00:08:09.800 and try to find fulfillment in fantasy
00:08:12.620 in the modern Western world.
00:08:14.640 Yeah, and in fact,
00:08:15.360 one of the things that's really emphasized 0.99
00:08:16.540 as there's a sign that sort of welcomes Burners back
00:08:19.720 that it basically says,
00:08:21.960 welcome home,
00:08:22.700 like when they come back to Burning Man.
00:08:24.660 So that's where you see this.
00:08:26.100 There's a lot of community.
00:08:27.340 There's a lot of camaraderie.
00:08:29.180 But when you come down to it, then there's just that you have all the different burn camps and you have all sorts of different, you know, areas in which there's talks and discussions on how to do shamanism, how to do different.
00:08:45.180 There's always new discoveries on, you know, transformational psychedelics.
00:08:49.080 There's a lot of talk on, you know, political oneness, which is like one world government.
00:08:53.520 So you have those aspects.
00:08:54.740 Really a good book, some really good talks I would recommend looking into would be Carl
00:09:00.140 Takrib.
00:09:00.940 He has a book called Game of Gods, which is excellent.
00:09:03.320 He's been on the podcast before, and he's really talked about it before.
00:09:07.900 I'm just curious as well, too, you did, I remember I saw on White Response Ministries
00:09:13.000 a previous episode on Burning Man.
00:09:15.400 Yeah.
00:09:15.900 Tell us about that.
00:09:16.820 What did you gain from that episode, and what do you think your perspective, like before
00:09:19.800 and after you did that episode?
00:09:20.700 Yeah, I did it a while back.
00:09:22.320 um yeah just false signs and uh thinking of you know i showed like a video clip that's pretty
00:09:30.800 popular and a lot of people have probably seen it where there were um you know there were like
00:09:37.100 these little um wind tunnels um not not like a full-blown tornado but like a dust devil right
00:09:44.660 kind of you know small um wind cycles and uh happening they're just in the weather but it
00:09:50.920 was happening as they, you know, at the time that they were actually burning the man.
00:09:56.000 And so they were going like nearby.
00:09:57.600 And then one of them kind of went through the man and picked up fire in the wind.
00:10:02.540 And so now there's like literally a pillar of fire that's moving, you know, around.
00:10:07.400 And I was just thinking about, you know, the Israelites in the wilderness being led, you
00:10:11.820 know, by a pillar of cloud and a pillar of fire.
00:10:15.200 And they're in the wilderness in the middle of the desert, in the middle of nowhere.
00:10:18.480 And so, anyways, you know, I was just looking at that and other aspects, but just thinking that, you know, a lot of it is like seeking a sign, some kind of supernatural experience, you know, that I'm going to go to this place and receive some kind of supernatural experience, some kind of revelation, transformation, you know.
00:10:39.880 Right.
00:10:40.120 Yeah, but it absolutely, but, you know, aside from that and some of the religious, you know, undertones, it, you know, it's from everything that I've read, it's filled with sexual promiscuity, lots and lots of drug use, lots of psychedelics, you know, and then lots of pagan practices, you know, like shamanism.
00:11:05.220 And, um, it is not, uh, it is not even close to, you know, I was being facetious at the opening
00:11:12.160 of the episode, but like, it's, it is not, uh, just a, uh, let's go camping in the desert and
00:11:17.540 hang out and have a good time. It's a very, intentionally, it's a very, uh, sexual,
00:11:24.440 psychedelic, religious experience that has, it seems like it's just a mere image of,
00:11:30.900 a counterfeit to things that are biblical, and then just a mere image, a replica of a lot of old
00:11:42.620 pagan rituals. Real quick, before we continue with the show, I wanted to let you know that
00:11:48.540 this is actually just one episode of a 10-part series that we will be slowly releasing to the
00:11:55.300 public on places like YouTube and your favorite podcast platform over the coming months. However,
00:12:01.540 if you want to get all 10 of these episodes right now, early access and ad-free, we are making them
00:12:09.540 available exclusively for our Patreon members over at patreon.com forward slash right response
00:12:17.540 ministries. Here are the titles for just a few of those episodes. We've got transhumanism and
00:12:23.960 artificial intelligence. We also have DMT and the astral realm. We also have neo-paganism.
00:12:32.440 And another of my favorite episodes is an entire episode devoted to the grays. So again, head on 0.99
00:12:40.220 over to patreon.com forward slash right response ministries and sign up for our silver tier,
00:12:46.880 which is just $5 a month, and you'll be able to get all 10 of these episodes ad-free right now.
00:12:54.100 And if you join us at the Gold Tier for just $10 a month, you'll get early access, ad-free for the
00:13:01.020 full 10 episodes, plus an additional live stream that I and the guys who joined me for this series,
00:13:08.020 that's Jeremiah Roberts and Andrew Sunkrant, the three of us will be doing live streams where we'll
00:13:13.920 be taking questions from you, our gold-tier Patreon members, and providing for you the
00:13:19.700 best answers that we possibly can from the Word of God. So, don't delay. Go to patreon.com forward
00:13:25.960 slash right response ministries and become a supporter today. Yeah, I mean, yeah, for sure,
00:13:31.340 and there's definitely nothing new under the sun. In fact, Burning Man would be one of those areas
00:13:34.880 in which it's not just Burning Man, but there's also sort of smaller replicated burns around the
00:13:39.720 world. And there's many other transformational festivals too that still, while they differ from
00:13:45.260 each other, they still have an underlying aspect propagated of oneness. So there's another really
00:13:50.740 popular festival known as Tomorrowland. Andrew, you've heard of that. And in that, I remember
00:13:57.420 just seeing the tickets to Tomorrowland. It was really, the artwork is very well done. And it just
00:14:03.620 goes to show that a lot of times, man, there's so much reformation that Christians need to have
00:14:08.840 in regards to their art. 0.98
00:14:10.540 You think about how much of that we sort of like have abandoned
00:14:12.940 and not really given way to.
00:14:14.680 But some of the art, I mean, the fact of what you want,
00:14:17.340 if you actually look at the footage of the different art
00:14:20.020 that takes place of the different burn camps
00:14:22.840 and the different festivals and what takes place,
00:14:25.280 it's extraordinarily impressive.
00:14:27.860 But what they are doing is that they are really articulating
00:14:31.340 a worldview of oneness.
00:14:33.600 And you see that articulated completely.
00:14:35.480 And that's where you see a lot of major political influencers,
00:14:38.300 you know, really advocating for things like climate change
00:14:41.940 and a lot of other things that are very tied
00:14:45.180 into the World Economic Forum as far as even that world
00:14:48.380 which is propagated is oneness.
00:14:50.140 So, this is no longer, again, this is no longer
00:14:53.020 just a bunch of hippies out in the desert.
00:14:55.060 This is something where you're looking at policies,
00:14:58.180 you're looking at, they want to implicate this worldview
00:15:02.460 to push towards an awakening, an awakening you call
00:15:06.100 like of consciousness, of oneness, and really decisions.
00:15:09.440 And you kind of look at what is talked about
00:15:13.100 within the world economic forum.
00:15:14.820 If you kind of put our tinfoil hats on for a moment,
00:15:17.080 like you will own nothing and you'll be happy,
00:15:19.160 which is their own words.
00:15:21.320 This is not a conspiracy theory.
00:15:23.020 And that is on some level advocated within the culture
00:15:26.760 from what I understand from the outside looking in
00:15:29.120 of not really having any possessions.
00:15:31.480 The first thing that came to mind also with knowing
00:15:34.220 you being a Beatles fan, is, you know, John Lennon's Imagine.
00:15:38.300 Like, sort of imagine there's no distinctions between us.
00:15:43.060 You know, you see, like, oneness depicted,
00:15:44.640 but really, like, no possessions.
00:15:46.440 Like, I just, as soon as I heard that described
00:15:48.500 when I was first trying to understand tangibly Burning Man,
00:15:52.480 and I think this is the thing, too.
00:15:54.600 What I want to try and do, what we're trying to do in this episode,
00:15:58.500 is that, kind of talking about this,
00:16:01.140 if you think about someone who's a clinical surgeon,
00:16:03.300 right a clinical surgeon if they're going to do uh brain surgery like you think of somebody like
00:16:09.120 ben carson who is a neurosurgeon that takes a level of precision of understanding the in a lot
00:16:16.320 the the integral parts of the brain and how it works or how to remove a tumor and what each part
00:16:21.760 does that requires a skill set that's very unique or if you look at someone who just would fix or
00:16:27.760 who would fix a broken bone or whatever type of surgery they're doing you cut you know what parts
00:16:33.080 of the leg are bone. You'll know which part is in you. You'll know regardless of which person
00:16:38.420 comes in. You have that. Now, the difference is, as somebody who, for example, would be like a
00:16:44.040 therapist or a psychologist, when they have someone in their office and they're trying to,
00:16:48.340 you know, prescribe and give them treatment and trying to talk with their client,
00:16:51.680 what they're doing, and say they're a trauma therapist, they're talking with a veteran who's
00:16:55.900 been through some serious PTSD or a survivor of sexual assault, what they're trying to do,
00:17:03.420 they're trying to prescribe and look at something that they tangibly can't see. But there's components
00:17:09.340 that they're trying to figure out, but still being on the outside looking in. Because we can't
00:17:14.140 tangibly see our psyche and what's going on or what's causing a trauma response. We can only
00:17:19.420 sort of look at it at a vague distance. And I think this is kind of where we would fall into
00:17:24.460 the second camp of, pun intended, of being on the outside looking in. So while my perspective
00:17:30.480 will be very different, you know, if I ever end up going specific, there's actually a group
00:17:35.000 that we did a podcast with who have been out for years. They, it's a really cool story. They have
00:17:41.080 a camp, a burn camp called the camp of the unknown God, a homage to act 17. And then again,
00:17:47.660 they've been on the podcast before and they said, this is not for every single Christian. Like if
00:17:51.700 you, in the same way, going to the Planned Parenthood and doing abortion ministry is not
00:17:57.960 for every single person. And you think about John Barrows, who's now with the Lord, and the faithful
00:18:03.220 work that he has done, that he's done just being out at that clinic out in Florida, just being
00:18:08.120 faithful, continually, continually going. Robert Worley, who's been on the podcast before, he has,
00:18:15.000 he's an older man now, but he was, you came to know the Lord, was saved out of it, we just kind
00:18:19.340 of had a rough upbringing and was in, like, different, like, biker gangs and stuff like
00:18:23.500 that. And he just knew that Christians went out of their way to talk to me when I was really kind
00:18:29.500 of a dangerous, you know, sort of Sons of Anarchy sort of character, presented the gospel to me.
00:18:34.900 That changed my heart. Why would I be scared? Why would I not want to go to talk to these people?
00:18:40.080 So, he ended up just having a heart for the people at Burning Man. He got connected to it.
00:18:45.280 So he's pretty much been there since it started and just going out there to do evangelism, to create relationships, to talk with people, but specifically going as a Christian, not trying to blend in, not trying to look like a burner. 0.91
00:18:57.640 But again, it's not for everyone because you have promiscuity. 0.86
00:19:00.940 You'll have to deal with probably with a lot of Christians in the first century how to deal with, you know, a lot of nudity and a lot of just promiscuity. 1.00
00:19:08.160 I mean, that's what you saw in Corinth. That's what you saw in Colossae with, you know, the temples that were dedicated to, you know, certain fertility gods who were full of prostitutes. 1.00
00:19:19.560 So, I just see, when I look on the outskirts, I see really not any different, not too much difference between what's taking place at Burning Man.
00:19:30.980 It's like, it's a technocratic, I feel like I would describe it from the outside looking in, of a technocratic version of first century Rome.
00:19:40.520 Because you're looking at, you know, what they're trying to, because you have all this background, you have like syncretism.
00:19:46.440 And that's what you really have.
00:19:48.240 And so that's where, you know, as a Christian, you would be, okay, well, I'm looking at this and you look at all the worldviews being depicted. You look at all the type of idolatry that's there. And I feel like as a Christian, you shouldn't feel like anger or feel like you want to be disparaging and derogatory ways towards any of the burners, but to be overwhelmed like Paul was in Athens, knowing that the city is full of idols and then go in there and start bringing in the unknown.
00:20:18.240 God. So, my friends who have been out there, when they have this camp, the camp of the unknown God,
00:20:23.980 they're literally having people who come by who are just into this, that, and the other and say,
00:20:29.000 who is this unknown God? Like, tell me about them. And it's like a trip because it's like,
00:20:34.120 all of a sudden, the Acts 17 becomes alive in real time. Like, you're living that out
00:20:40.040 right then and there. And so, another example, the Transformational Festival, and it actually
00:20:44.140 got mentioned by Carl Takerib, who did the book Game of Gods, would even be the festival out at
00:20:49.680 the Hare Christian Temple in Utah. That's one of the big ones. You've done evangelism as well
00:20:54.020 as there too. So that would be another example of a transformational festival, which is really
00:20:58.700 nothing that's brand new. I think what you'd really understand is that with, you know, it just,
00:21:05.980 it was about Richard Dawkins kind of hit the main prominence. Was it like 10 or like whatever,
00:21:11.840 like 10 20 years ago when he kind of like dropped god is not great and he kind of had him and
00:21:16.100 hitchens they sort of ran the new atheism well i think that really fell short even now he's a
00:21:21.280 cultural christian that's what he just said yeah so i think atheism and honestly it's not really
00:21:26.380 it was really a fad i think what you've seen is that neo-paganism surpasses the encompassing part
00:21:32.780 of atheism because you get to still be your own god you get to be autonomous but you also get to
00:21:37.220 be inherently spiritual too. Like we know people inherently know they're in the image of God.
00:21:42.020 We know we want to ascend and experience something bigger than ourselves. And I think that's where
00:21:47.900 I think a place like Burning Man and the hunger for that, it really taps into really getting a
00:21:55.140 thorough understanding of just the, the Lord has created attorney in the hearts of men. And I think
00:22:00.280 that's the draw that you see there. And so, yeah, those are some of my initial thoughts.
00:22:05.420 Yeah, it's very interesting to me thinking about Burning Man that it doesn't, they're creating a city that pops up and then goes away. Right? Well, the reason is because that type of life can't exist in God's world indefinitely. Right? So it's only there for a minute and then goes away. It's a place of free self-love and radical self-expression.
00:22:27.840 and what they what they want to accomplish is that these things happen at burning man there's
00:22:33.760 the burning of the man and then everyone dissipates and there's nothing left behind
00:22:37.540 right so come here uh enjoy yourself express yourself to the fullest even against capitalism
00:22:43.920 even though it's a for-profit company in a capitalistic society that's making money off
00:22:48.600 them i find that ironic but the reality is is that what happens at burning man doesn't just
00:22:54.200 stay there or disappear, right? There is sin happening in the wilderness. And I find it
00:22:59.740 also ironic that the wilderness represents, you know, sin in general. It's not a garden. It's
00:23:05.680 the wilderness. It's the desert. And we have people going out there to commit shameful acts
00:23:11.140 with one another, thinking that just for a time they're doing it and then getting back to their
00:23:15.340 normal life. But in reality, those things stay with them, right? That's sin. And it's anger to
00:23:22.560 God, and they need a sacrifice for their sins, who is Jesus. And that's why they go out there
00:23:28.940 to preach the gospel to them, the unknown God, right? Right. Right. What about the burning of
00:23:33.520 the man itself? Because I've read a few different descriptions of what that's actually supposed to
00:23:40.260 represent. What can you guys tell me about that? Why do they burn a huge effigy? They build this,
00:23:46.480 construct this wooden man. And right, I think it's the last night or something like that,
00:23:50.580 towards the end of the festival, that they set it on fire.
00:23:53.880 And I've heard multiple different descriptions.
00:23:56.580 One is that it represents you, yourself,
00:23:58.880 and your old man being burned up.
00:24:02.500 And so renewal, transformation.
00:24:06.260 I'm starting fresh.
00:24:08.160 Kind of almost like a pagan version of Lent.
00:24:13.860 But I've heard other things also.
00:24:16.020 What is that supposed to represent?
00:24:18.500 Yeah. And again, I'm someone who's on the outside looking in. What we'll probably do is there's an article, probably a link I'd recommend. There's a great magazine known as the Spiritual Counterfeits Project. And there's a friend of mine, Steve Matthews, who's been on the podcast before, who has given a lot more integral details.
00:24:36.040 It is loosely connected to the Wicker Man and kind of that story of the Burning Man.
00:24:42.440 I believe it came from that.
00:24:43.660 But I think ultimately you nailed it just in the very general sense.
00:24:48.320 And I feel like I'm kind of being on the outside looking in.
00:24:51.480 I want to just speak as generically as I can.
00:24:54.040 There is a part of renewal of it.
00:24:58.500 So like the final burn, it's like a very, from how I've heard it described from Carl Takerib and people who've been there who's witnessed it.
00:25:06.940 And I think Will Spencer would be great to give like a thorough commentary on it.
00:25:11.380 It's a very, it's a very sombering, it's a very sombering moment.
00:25:15.860 Like so throughout the entire festival, it's very loud.
00:25:19.080 You have different techno rays, different music, all, there's just, it's just nonstop like craziness.
00:25:24.400 It was just funny. I was watching the Ten Commandments
00:25:26.860 over the Easter weekend,
00:25:29.620 and just the part where Aaron was forced to build the calf
00:25:33.300 while Moses is taking that.
00:25:34.920 I'm like, that kind of looks like Burning Man,
00:25:37.440 just with what was depicted by C.C. DeMille,
00:25:40.500 showing there's nothing new under the sun.
00:25:42.520 But the burn at that moment is a very sombering moment.
00:25:47.520 So there's two main things, from what I understand,
00:25:51.140 and it's the, it's the, it's the man
00:25:54.280 and it's also, there's the temple that's built
00:25:56.520 and each year the temple has a different theme
00:25:59.000 and there is a part where you just sort of
00:26:01.920 take your burdens and you take your traumas
00:26:05.060 and I think there, I think it's the temple
00:26:06.460 where they go and like they'd sort of write it down
00:26:09.040 or they, they just kind of go there
00:26:10.300 to sort of just alleviate
00:26:12.040 to kind of lay your burdens there
00:26:13.500 and then they, then they burn it up.
00:26:15.220 So it'd be kind of like the equivalent of say,
00:26:17.660 you know, you have a bunch of letters
00:26:19.500 from like your ex-girlfriend
00:26:20.980 and you just want to take them and then you want to burn them up as far as evidence you're saying
00:26:24.400 you're leaving that behind. Yeah. So part, uh, looking at the article here, uh, part of the
00:26:30.260 ceremony of burning the man, uh, let's try to think about it in terms of Christianity. So we have
00:26:35.960 the body of Christ, right? Different members make up the body of Christ. Uh, the eyes, the ears,
00:26:42.080 the hands, the feet, uh, in terms of burning man, uh, what the article that we'll link to, uh,
00:26:47.180 it talks about is that these pagans or different subcultures are all essentially different parts
00:26:53.720 of a body. And the man itself represents the whole. Okay. And so there are rituals that go
00:26:58.740 on all throughout the week. And I'll read this from quotes. It's very interesting here. So it
00:27:02.860 says this utilizing the sun and a spiral mirror, crimson rose extracts a flame from the sun and a
00:27:07.500 fire is lit in the center camp cauldron for the flame to continue burning. It must be stoked,
00:27:12.420 disturbed, and kept alive throughout the entire week. So this happens at the beginning and they
00:27:15.520 keep this one flame alive. We encourage all those that encounter the special cauldron to help keep
00:27:20.340 this flame flame alive. On Saturday night, the fire that we extract from the sun drum and dance
00:27:25.000 around that has been burning all week long will be transferred to a special lantern. The Lumen
00:27:29.180 Ferris, the procession of the ceremonial flame in great fanfare will process to the great circle
00:27:34.880 where the fire conclave in its full force will utilize that same fire for dances dedicated to
00:27:39.860 the man before he is brought to life in a pyrotechnic delight. So the burning of the
00:27:44.700 man is burning of the whole, right? That's the man represents all of them, all of the cultures
00:27:49.260 that are there. Very interesting to me, but it's not a surprise that most false worship tries to
00:27:57.560 counterfeit Christianity in so many ways, right? All of them together, the head, the eyes, the ears, 0.76
00:28:03.280 the legs of paganism brought together to burn this man in worship. Whereas in Christianity, 0.92
00:28:09.060 the body of Christ is to bring about the kingdom of God on earth, not a burning of a man.
00:28:13.900 Yeah, and you think from a Christian perspective, you're looking at unity through a lens of twoism, where you're looking at we are distinct, we're unique, we have equal value because we are both equal in the eyes of God.
00:28:27.700 Not equal because we're some part of one divine, you know, and personal consciousness through a realm of pantheism where, no, we're equal in the sight of a God because he is the transcendent law giver.
00:28:38.520 He has declared us equal before God regardless of race, ethnicity, and background.
00:28:45.680 Like that, that would be the primary distinction. 0.89
00:28:47.580 And I think it's just, you know, and also another thing I would just say from just my conversations of what I've had with Will Spencer, some of my other previous guests who have been burners, is that when the people, like the interactions of the group that's been out there, when they talk with people who are burners, a lot of them come from very difficult and rough upbringings. 0.98
00:29:12.540 They have usually a lot of family abandonment, a lot of abandonment trauma, which is very interesting because when you hear backgrounds of New Agers, a lot of them come from very broken homes. 0.74
00:29:20.960 So I think as well, too, I've realized, too, just the importance of self-government and as a man, like a good patriarchal family government where you are looking after and spiritually nurturing your children.
00:29:34.280 Because while patriarchy is inevitable, there's that saying where a lot of women, for example, they usually have a lot of father hunger because they had a very abusive, a very neglectful father.
00:29:48.420 And now they're trying to fill in that spiritual vacuum through the New Age.
00:29:52.380 But instead of having ultimately their Heavenly Father for validation, now they're usually trying to find some sort of male guru like in India. 0.75
00:29:59.880 Especially like all the white, specifically like the white New Age women who go to India, you always see them finding confidence in some sort of like Hindu guru like over there. 0.59
00:30:09.540 And that becomes their father patriarchal figure. 0.89
00:30:12.060 But what you really end up seeing is that a lot of them, people who come there for the burn, they come from a very broken background.
00:30:19.500 They come from just a lot of chaos in their life, usually like a background like of addiction.
00:30:24.300 And usually that's a catalyst for going into the New Age.
00:30:26.660 uh so theresa gentry she was in the podcast and she was an avid burner like so she got into the
00:30:32.700 new age because she was actually in san francisco and she was a very fun she taught she's very open
00:30:39.600 about this in the podcast but she was a by the time she was 14 she was a functioning alcoholic
00:30:44.060 and that had to do with because there's all this family trauma that she didn't really know how to
00:30:48.920 do with and because of that that created a lot a lot of health issues then she got that by way of
00:30:54.600 getting into a lot of organic and raw food eating, and that actually helped her, you know, 0.98
00:30:58.700 recreate her microbiomes and stuff like that. But a lot of these areas of the New Age,
00:31:04.620 there is a lot of gateways. One would be alternative medicine. Alternative medicine,
00:31:10.720 and a lot of times in the health food industry, nothing wrong about, you know, having, eating
00:31:15.040 healthy. You should do that. We should be responsible of the bodies that God has given us.
00:31:19.020 We should do that.
00:31:20.680 But a lot of times what you'll see is a lot of those movements,
00:31:24.920 they end up having the new age tied into them.
00:31:27.920 That ends up being the caboose or the hook to rule people in.
00:31:31.500 So this raw food restaurant that she was working at,
00:31:34.680 that became a catalyst for her to be introduced to the new age
00:31:38.780 and some of these seances and getting into one thing over another.
00:31:43.440 And that's what you're really looking at.
00:31:46.180 And I think one of the areas too, and again, I'm fully talking from the perspective of someone on the outside looking in, is I, this past year at Burning Man, it was very interesting because I was, I had some friends who I, that I had spoken with and they were part of the team that was out there.
00:32:07.120 And, you know, there's a downpour, and all of a sudden, it became this, like, crazy Woodstock situation. 0.74
00:32:13.960 And it was very interesting because I was following on X some of the posts that people were making, in some sense, really going above and beyond having, you know, warranted, sterated edge, you know, there's a place for that, mocking the prophets of Baal.
00:32:29.100 But really, at a point, really demeaning and mocking and disparaging the people that were there at Burning Man at the expense of seeing them less than how you should view them as a Christian, as people who need to know Christ and need to know the gospel.
00:32:44.140 And there were also a lot of different conspiracies about FEMA camps being set up there and supposedly some sort of weird flesh-eating virus or something like that where people were killing each other.
00:32:54.920 I mean, it was just, there were all sorts of crazy, you know, TikTok theories about all these conspiracies that are going on.
00:33:01.760 And I met, I got a whole, the guy, Carl, he didn't have what, he didn't have a minimal, he had minimal receptions.
00:33:08.500 He would give updates, but he just said like, where's your compassion for people?
00:33:12.680 Like what happened to being, seeing the crowds and being like moved with compassion to reach these people?
00:33:18.220 And I think it's just as a whole, it's very easy to look at people who are going to transformational festivals or going to those guru weekend retreats where people are like screaming out their traumas and trying to do all those things.
00:33:32.460 And I'm hesitant a lot of times now to post those, even on our socials, because people tend to speak about them in a very demeaning way, whereas like they're doing their best to try and transcend.
00:33:44.000 they just have a very broken, dysfunctional way in hell to do so. So I think that's the most
00:33:49.700 important thing is that people who are burners, they are made in the image of God. They know
00:33:56.500 that eternity is written on their hearts. They know they're made to transcend. They're just
00:34:00.280 trying to do it in an empty, futile way where there's no end in sight, since they're doing
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00:35:30.320 So I'm going to give you some names of events that happen at Burning Man.
00:35:34.300 And remember, these are people who desperately need the gospel and not every single individual
00:35:39.540 is going to every single one of these events. If there's kids, I'd say earmuffs, or maybe this
00:35:45.440 wouldn't be the best time for them to be listening, but I'm just going to go over some names of events
00:35:49.160 that occur there. Well, if you go to Black Rock City, if you're going to Burning Man, you could
00:35:53.600 have short-term weddings. You can get married for just a very short time there. You can have also
00:35:57.260 Black Rock temporary divorce. So you can just temporarily divorce the individual you're married
00:36:01.240 with, go have fun for a while, right? There's also Elvis weddings. There's queer sex magic,
00:36:06.800 gender bender night at the booby bar, ATTOL's famous orgy dome, BDSM rites, rides of passage, 1.00
00:36:14.180 Satan's school for sluts. These are all things that occur. We'll have the articles. You can read 1.00
00:36:18.740 the descriptions if you want, but more than that, let's get into like the shamanism. So there's
00:36:23.380 shamanistic healings, classes, shaman's path, transmuting suffering, shamanism, psychedelics,
00:36:28.300 and neuroscience. Animal totem meditation, advanced shamanistic technique, tantric meditation,
00:36:35.140 tantra energy for flow, sacred sex. These are things that are happening at Burning Man.
00:36:41.380 Tantric touch for intimate partners, tantra tau, sexual healing for women. And then there's all
00:36:47.580 the other ones, right? On attaining Buddhahood in this lifetime, losing my religion, going there to 0.98
00:36:52.460 to lose yourself, get involved in all these other things. Atheist agnostic sore at Yuli Baba's
00:36:58.620 channeling voices from other dimensions. So I would imagine at Burning Man, we have a slew of
00:37:04.500 different types of people, right? There's people that are obviously making a mockery of God, of
00:37:08.480 marriage, of the sanctity of marriage, of gender roles and distinctions going there, maybe being
00:37:14.980 atheistic and saying it doesn't matter whatsoever, or being, you know, agnostic in a sense to where
00:37:20.840 They're like, I'm just looking for myself in general.
00:37:23.340 But in reality, what's going on there is people, like you said,
00:37:26.400 looking to try to find anything in life to justify their passions or desires without involving God.
00:37:34.880 That's kind of what happens there at Burning Man.
00:37:37.320 So I'm glad that there is a group of people called the Camp of the Unknown God
00:37:40.660 who are there to tell these people, no, you need to stop what you're doing
00:37:43.460 and you need to believe in Christ.
00:37:45.260 He is the one who has made himself known to all men.
00:37:48.320 Amen.
00:37:49.060 All right.
00:37:49.580 Any final thoughts for this one?
00:37:52.080 Yeah, I think, you know,
00:37:53.540 as someone who just from the outside looking in,
00:37:55.920 I think one is that just,
00:37:59.100 you would, I would say, you know,
00:38:00.640 this is going to come up in the future.
00:38:02.100 You're going to see this more and more.
00:38:03.740 And in fact, the way that these transformational festivals
00:38:06.320 are growing in the same way
00:38:08.460 how psychedelics have just been normalized
00:38:10.220 just in the last five years, you know,
00:38:11.820 just being named by, you know,
00:38:13.600 talking previous episodes,
00:38:14.580 like with the Machine Gun Kelly and Megan Fox
00:38:16.840 and like Joe Rogan, Jordan Peterson,
00:38:18.640 and a lot of people normalizing it, you're seeing transformational festivals normalized.
00:38:24.240 So what would have been the norm for first century Christians in Rome?
00:38:30.080 We're going to be seeing, it's not going to be isolated in one area, even in the desert. 0.70
00:38:34.500 I think you're going to see, as we continue to free fall, as we continue to plunge into
00:38:40.580 neo-paganism, and you can't fix this through secular conservatism.
00:38:44.680 You can't fix this through Trumpism.
00:38:46.120 that's that there's no end in sight for that you're gonna see this normalized it's gonna be
00:38:52.020 no different i think from you know just your average areas the arizona state fair or carnivals
00:38:58.000 that are around i think that's you're gonna see even like in lower subset subsects and you're
00:39:01.960 gonna see like literally like farmers markets burning man yeah you'll see you'll see that
00:39:06.200 normalized so i think that's an area in which you know you need to think about how you conduct
00:39:10.160 yourselves and how and how you deal with those people and look for and just look for relationships
00:39:14.920 and a lot of times in understanding worldview implications.
00:39:17.560 And I'll give up one example too.
00:39:19.980 I'll just tell just two stories.
00:39:22.140 There's a great episode, any of you who haven't checked out the podcast,
00:39:26.040 it was done at the end of last year.
00:39:28.260 It was called Burning Man Stories from the Front Lines
00:39:30.040 where he interviewed the team that was out there this past year.
00:39:33.060 And one of the things he talked about,
00:39:35.340 talking about one-ism or two-ism,
00:39:37.980 my friend Carl, he was talking with an individual
00:39:41.280 and he was talking, they're an artist.
00:39:44.920 And he was talking about what has more value,
00:39:47.300 is your art as valuable as you?
00:39:50.620 Is it unequal with you?
00:39:51.800 And he said, well, no, I made the art.
00:39:53.900 Well, then you realize, no, well, your distinction.
00:39:56.500 So in the same way how you have more value in the art,
00:39:59.460 your value doesn't come from yourself.
00:40:01.240 It comes because you have a creator who's made in your image.
00:40:05.860 And just understanding the relatability, in fact,
00:40:10.600 one of the things for me that was very touching
00:40:12.560 with the team that was out there,
00:40:14.920 was when Robert would just sort of his stick
00:40:18.300 or what he would say to people is that he's like,
00:40:21.100 you are, they would sort of have this unity,
00:40:23.500 this like brotherhood or whatever,
00:40:25.260 that they would sort of identify with each other.
00:40:27.600 He would say like, you are my brother,
00:40:29.600 but you're my brother in Adam,
00:40:31.520 but I want you as my brother in Christ.
00:40:34.160 And so I think if you just look at that,
00:40:37.080 I think it'd be, I was very convicted
00:40:38.740 about how I want to reach out to those people.
00:40:43.000 I don't think it will happen this year, but it's very much possible I may end up joining the team to be out there, which would be a very unique thing.
00:40:51.040 It's a very unique calling.
00:40:52.220 It's not for everyone.
00:40:53.780 So it's one thing I'm still kind of weighing out if this is even the right thing that I should do.
00:41:00.100 So, but yeah, I think it's something to be paying attention to because it is very much a pinnacle, like a wind.
00:41:09.440 Like, we see the which way the wind is blowing.
00:41:11.320 I mean, if you want to see how this worldview of oneism is affecting the culture, I think Burning Man is really the central hub and ground zero to understand where that's headed.
00:41:21.320 Because everything from public policy to, you know, just many aspects of our life, they see that as the transfiguration.
00:41:28.680 Now it's like, disassemble, disassemble, now go ye into the world.
00:41:32.440 Make disciples, disciple the nations of oneness.
00:41:36.380 You know, what's really interesting to me, and I'd like to get your perspective on this, Joel, is they're using words like transformation, right? And then we also hear terms like, let's think about France. The French, they would call it the revolution, right? Which I would call it more a French rebellion. What's going on at Burning Man isn't a transformation, right? Like there's this weird play on language that's being used as if what's going on there for the individuals is actually something good, right?
00:42:04.040 Would you call the French Revolution the revolution or why not if not?
00:42:09.420 And why would Burning Man not be a transformation?
00:42:12.580 What would it be in your eyes?
00:42:14.940 Yeah, well, I mean, like, you know, that's why I don't like calling it the Revolutionary War.
00:42:18.620 Speaking of America, you know, I'd rather, I think it's more accurate and more helpful to call it the War for Independence.
00:42:26.680 You know, because when you call it the Revolutionary War, it's like, oh, well, this was a Revolutionary War like there were others.
00:42:32.320 you know, the French Revolutionary War being a more popular one, but there were several around
00:42:38.460 the world and most were negative. America's war for independence was not a revolutionary war. And
00:42:44.900 the way that we typically think of is distinct in many ways. But to answer your question, my point
00:42:49.600 is that I think it depends. It just all depends. What are you being transformed from and to?
00:42:57.180 you know what are you revolutionizing from and to you know so i you know those words are being used
00:43:06.480 they're picked intentionally you know because they they connotate you know some you know some
00:43:12.480 kind of positive experience people think of it positively but at the end of the day the the
00:43:16.920 bottom line that makes it positive or negative is uh what what is it precisely that we are
00:43:24.260 abandoning? What is it that we're rejecting? What is it that we're transforming out of and into?
00:43:32.960 And I think most, just as a rule of thumb across the board, most revolutions and transformations
00:43:42.200 and these kinds of things as major cultural and historical events over at least, I would say,
00:43:49.200 the last three to 500 years, the vast majority of them, you should just, when in doubt, assume
00:43:57.180 are negative. And the reason why is because the dominant thing, at least in Western culture,
00:44:03.240 Western civilization, in Western civilization over the last three, 500 years, if there is a
00:44:08.780 revolution or a transformation, the big thing that people are revolutionizing against and
00:44:14.960 transforming from is Christodom, because that was the hegemony. That was the dominant worldview.
00:44:23.140 So, to me, it makes sense. The whole time you were talking, Jeremiah, I was just thinking,
00:44:29.800 it'll be interesting if God does not send revival, and if we kind of have to,
00:44:37.400 if His judgment continues, because I believe that we are currently under judgment as a nation,
00:44:41.640 If his judgment continues and intensifies, becomes more progressively severe, and it
00:44:48.000 tarries, his judgment grows and tarries for, let's say, for instance, 30 years, and things
00:44:57.380 get worse before they get better.
00:45:00.860 I wonder if Burning Man will make sense.
00:45:04.500 And what I mean by that is I can't help but think that part of the idea of leaving the city and civilization and, you know, going into the wilderness and the desert. 0.90
00:45:20.660 Because with Israel, it was like, even before they left, right, they wandered in the wilderness for 40 years. 0.82
00:45:25.840 but even before that, there was kind of a probation, a temporary period where Pharaoh
00:45:31.200 actually let them leave for a little bit to go into the wilderness. And the reason why they
00:45:35.040 went into the wilderness to have this powwow with Yahweh, with Moses, and to hear from God,
00:45:42.880 and to make sacrifices and worship, is because the civilization at the time was pagan.
00:45:50.100 So if they wanted to go and do something holy, truly holy, by God's standards,
00:45:55.640 the one true God. They went into the wilderness to seek righteousness and left the city that
00:46:02.820 represented pagan idolatry. And I think because of Christendom, Burning Man made sense 35 years 0.51
00:46:10.700 ago in its inception. Leave the public square, leave civilization, leave your family, your
00:46:19.380 friends, your house, your suburbs, your job, your town that is maybe not overtly, but even 35 years 1.00
00:46:30.360 ago, there was plenty of sin, but still in a general sense is a Christian milieu. And leave 0.99
00:46:36.760 that and go into the wilderness and we'll set up temporary pagan town. I wonder if we don't repent 1.00
00:46:43.340 and God doesn't send revival and things continually get worse
00:46:47.320 and rebellion intensifies and God's judgment becomes more severe.
00:46:52.420 I wonder if 30 years from now, 0.99
00:46:54.040 it will make sense to go off into the desert for a pagan activity 0.93
00:46:58.360 when pagan activity, the capital of pagan activity,
00:47:04.000 would just be right there at home.
00:47:07.340 Why go off into the desert when you could just be in Austin?
00:47:11.860 you know new york or you know like so anyways i i you know yeah colossi and corinth is ingrained
00:47:19.400 within their city so they didn't have to go out to the camp exactly they weren't going out i that
00:47:23.280 that's what i'm saying is yeah so everything you're describing whether it's the mars hill kind
00:47:27.560 of you know situation or you know rome or um ephesus you know the thing the pagan activity
00:47:34.840 that was going down there or yeah yeah as paul writes to the colossians you know um all these
00:47:40.860 are not wilderness-type experiences. These are metropolis. The metropolis is the context. It's
00:47:48.740 the lightning rod, the focal point for all this pagan activity. But what we have the privilege of, 0.96
00:47:58.040 and it is God's mercy in this great post-millennial hope, is that we were born at a time
00:48:04.900 where Christendom has been dominant.
00:48:08.080 We're working off of, depending how you count,
00:48:11.240 500 years if we're looking at the Reformers and the Reformation,
00:48:15.580 1,000 years if we're looking at King Alfred,
00:48:17.800 1,500 years if we're looking at Constantine,
00:48:19.960 but arguably 5 to 1,500 years, centuries for sure,
00:48:25.040 perhaps a millennia and a half of this progressive growing,
00:48:29.420 not paganism, but Christianity.
00:48:32.540 and so what do you do if you want to have a pagan party well you have to leave the dominant areas
00:48:38.860 because christ reigns christ is king over the west at least he was you know i mean he still is
00:48:46.420 of course in the objective sense but as we are apostatizing as a civilization as the west i i
00:48:53.220 think burning man in its inception they may continue it just for you know just for nostalgia
00:48:58.720 you know like but but i don't if burning man was to uh to be completely erased and someone came up
00:49:06.220 with the idea for a pagan festival 30 years from now i don't think that uh i don't think it would
00:49:11.720 cross their minds that this should be in the desert i think that that was probably escaping
00:49:17.560 israel is escaping egypt to do something righteous and i think it was the reverse burning man is
00:49:23.960 escaping, you know, civilization to do something wicked, because civilization has been won by
00:49:30.100 Christ. But that is shifting. And obviously, we're all post-millennial in our eschatology,
00:49:35.620 so we don't think that shift is permanent. But we do believe that on our way to Christ's rule
00:49:42.500 and reign being, you know, further and further expanded over the earth, we do believe that
00:49:46.380 it's not a perfect incline, but that there are severe dips along the way. And right now,
00:49:51.800 we're in a heck of a dip yeah oh for sure and i think one of the areas when you look even having
00:49:57.440 a post-mill perspective looking into this uh it's very interesting too the majority of new agers who
00:50:03.200 come to christ they end up really getting heavily into pre-mill eschatology and i just tend to like
00:50:09.660 look past that because you know tell me you're in the end times like okay that's all right let me
00:50:15.680 Let me see. Let me talk to you about four times from now and see how you're doing.
00:50:19.020 Right.
00:50:19.820 But what I have really seen when it comes to just sort of being in the just in the in this realm now for five years, kind of being in the game here with cultish is that you do see an aspect while we are unequivocally free falling into a neo paganism for sure.
00:50:38.900 And you're seeing the resurgence of that in so many levels in the arts and in film and even in technology when we talked about the transhumanism and so many aspects of it.
00:50:48.480 But there is, I do see that post-millennial aspect of God's sovereignty where the Lord looks at the conspiring of the nations and that he laughs.
00:50:57.720 So, the spiritual zeitgeist of the age and the agendas that are there and how they want to implement public policy and how they do want to do all these things.
00:51:05.040 The reality is that since 2020, in the midst of all that chaos, there have been just a plethora of people coming out of the New Age to Christ who are the very idols that they're trying to build up in the desert.
00:51:19.280 People, by way of the conviction to the Holy Spirit, they're saying, no, I'm burning that down.
00:51:24.740 And it's a very interesting dichotomy, too, of the pearl of great price, because we're seeing this huge movement among evangelicalism of the deconstruction movement, which is really a byproduct of, you know, wisdom is justified by her children.
00:51:38.720 And so you're seeing so many ways in which the evangelical church has failed to disciple their kids, you know, substituting youth ministry for family worship.
00:51:47.240 That's one small aspect of it. 0.87
00:51:48.600 But you're looking at now this revival that's taking place amongst New Agers who are saying, well, you have a lot of the children of evangelicals who are rejecting Christ, who are deconstructing.
00:51:59.540 God is now saving a new remnant, just saying, no, I'm just going to call a bunch of people who just have no understanding of God, the gospel, or trying to be former astrologers, former witches, former warlocks, former this, that, and the other.
00:52:14.980 are now saying, no, like, Christ is Lord, Christ is King. I've tried everything under the sun when
00:52:23.860 it comes to the New Age and have been left wanting. Having a Philippians 2 resume of every
00:52:29.140 New Age and occultic practice under the sun, but still have been left wanting, and all of a sudden,
00:52:34.360 what has been rejected by, you know, the CCM artists who have deconstructed and the Derek
00:52:38.820 webs of the world is now being embraced as the pearl of great price by people who I'm talking
00:52:44.180 to on a regular basis who are coming out of Burning Man. So, I think that's why it's one
00:52:48.680 of the most important things of the church is to know, understanding the worldviews that come
00:52:54.280 behind transformational festivals like these so we can know how to minister to those coming out.
00:52:59.240 Because I've seen just a small trinkling, but I think what was once just a little bit of like a
00:53:03.860 dripping is now going to be a flowing faucet. And we have to be able to have formulated apologetics
00:53:08.580 of how to give answers for those coming out.
00:53:10.840 Amen.
00:53:11.600 All right.
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