THE FRIDAY SPECIAL - Why Christian Men Don’t Have Friends
Episode Stats
Harmful content
Misogyny
1
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Toxicity
10
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Hate speech
24
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Summary
A typical day in the modern world is to wake up, leave home, sit in a car for a part of an hour, arrive at work, interact with people from whom your existence is nothing more than a means to a paycheck, and drive home alone.
Transcript
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A typical day in the life of the young man in the modern world is to wake up, leave home, sit in a car for part of an hour, arrive at work, interact with people from whom your existence is nothing more than a means to a paycheck.
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He drives home alone in his car for part of an hour.
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Even the brutalist architecture that surrounds him is designed to make him feel alone.
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He goes home alone, maybe to interact with virtual friends on social media or video games,
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maybe to consume entertainment and pornography alone.
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He is distant from his family, a family that has been fractured since his parents split
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Every waking second of his life, he is confronted with the fact that no one really cares whether
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This may seem hyperbolic. It may seem like an exaggeration, but these are the conditions that
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many young people live in today. It's time that Christians learn this lesson. It is not possible
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to understand the spiritual miasma of our current era without recognizing how extraordinarily lonely
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most people are you are utterly alone alone utterly alone it's true yeah yeah now it's not
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necessarily true for the christian man who is working to turn back the tide on trash world
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but for a lot of people women but it seems like even maybe disproportionately more so men
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are incredibly alone this this part really you know it kind of it spoke to me in a certain way
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because when i when i before i became to christ i lived in new york city which is one of the
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largest cities on the planet it's just people on top of people you know what i mean they're
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everywhere you can't get away um but i was i was pretty you know i was pretty good at isolating
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myself. And I was able to do it very easily. I'd commute about an hour to work because even if it's
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a mile away, it takes an hour to get there in New York. And I'd pass by just tons of people.
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I had no idea who they were. And then I'd go to my room and whatever the night brought,
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whether it was drinking, whether it was drugs, whether it was video games, whether it was
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pornography, whatever it was, I would do that alone. And then on the weekends, I'd get together
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are my degenerate friends but like my life was lived pretty much alone nobody really knew what
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was going on and we even had i had i worked at a very high turnover kind of sales environment
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and we would make a joke of it people would just vaporize and i had a i had i would say was a index
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card i had like 10 index cards with tiny writing of names of people that had come and gone and we
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had no idea where they went you know why they went it would just be gone but things just kept
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functioning right and it was a high producing office too it was an office that generated a lot
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of cash um and these people would just come and go and nobody really even knew nobody even knew
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even really knew where they lived and it was just it was just an isolating type of experience and
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again i had friends so i wasn't totally alone but i could live my life for a long time if i didn't
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see my friends for a few weekends in a row it could be a month and i you know was alone basically
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the entire time in a city full of people right right yeah and you're completely alone and i think
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the city um it it exacerbates that feeling of loneliness uh it's it's harder to feel as alone
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if you're like living out in the country yeah uh even if you're totally you are totally right
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you're actually alone it is it's way more intense because you see people all day and they don't care
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about you at all no right right if you just drop dead right in front of them would they even stop
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to help you i i've seen people that may or may not have been dead on the side of the street
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before i was a believer and i just keep walking keep walking right by him yeah yeah and and so
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that that and that's in your like you know this like you know that the this mass of humanity that
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surrounds you does not care about you at all you're just one face in a sea of faces and you know that
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that hits you pretty hard yeah right that that oh i don't have anyone i don't have a people i don't
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have a community i don't have family or friends real friends um and that's the existence that
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most people live under today yeah and and it's it's daunting it's it's terrifying and yeah and
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for the christian it shouldn't be that way even some christians um have life that is this way even
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you know if you live in a big city and you go to you know like a large mega church um you're just
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facing the crowd there too you know if you go to a church that has 15 000 people well you can go
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there for years and never know anybody yeah and of course a lot of people like that like that's
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the draw yeah that's the draw one of the main attractions i think for a lot of mega churches
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is the lights i mean literally the lights are turned down low the the music is loud so i can't
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see you i can't hear you i can come in a little bit late and i can leave a little bit early and
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it's just an experience i don't have to actually be accountable to anybody or know anybody meet
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anybody like that is it's like going to a movie theater right that's not the that's not the bug
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You don't make any friends in the movie theater.
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And it seems like we're such a lonely society today,
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and the church, sadly, is, well, I think the church probably does better on this one.
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The church, in many cases, is kind of like, here's the culture, here's the church.
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And it's like Pam from The Office, it's the same picture.
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I think, you know, in fact, there are people who aren't even Christian who will still go
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to a church just to try to make some friends.
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But even within the church though, there still is a lack of friendship that I think, you
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know, prior generations experienced and especially for older men to where like, I think for men,
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the only relationships they have at all is with their wife and children.
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you know like where you you'll hear the language of like my wife is my best friend
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you know um that kind of language and she's my only friend the only one i have the only person
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that yeah she's my only friend you know it's like um you know but meanwhile she has lots of friends
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yeah she usually has lots of friends um but a lot of guys it's like your wife is your only friend
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that you have and so really i what we're talking about i think in this episode is brotherhood
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yeah and anytime you know you see deep profound brotherhood um it's rare but when you do see it
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even the church uh thinks like well it must be gay yeah you know like so like like so david and
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jonathan there's you know there's no way that those two guys could actually just be friends like
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no they must be gay they must be gay yeah yeah that's i mean that's what the world does with any
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close friendships and you see this like like reddit uh idiots you know like they try to
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imply that two characters in a tv show they're secretly gay right like all the time that's all
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they do and and really well in most tv shows they turn out to be they end up being that yeah the
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writers eventually you know reward them i don't watch these gay shows that's right i don't know
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what you're talking about but um but that i think it's it's part of um a people that that simply do
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not know what what male friendship looks like entails what they've never experienced it before
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they they don't know anything other than than you know with this like the lust and sexual desire
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that's the only thing they can comprehend eroticism yeah yeah and and it's like so of course
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they their mind goes that way because that's the only form of relationship they between two people
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they can even comprehend and i think that with that the church gears towards it does a better
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job in the world and facilitate facilitating relationship and community but primarily for
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women not for men and i think part of the reason why is because back to the whole you know gnostic
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thing that we've been talking about but gnosticism pietism this whole thing this world is not my home
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so if the world's not your home if jesus is coming back next thursday if things if god has ordained
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it's actually spelled out that things must get worse and worse until jesus comes back and he's
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coming back relatively soon and this world is not our home and the world is going to dissolve like
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snow and we believe we take that in a literal sense you know it's going to be burned with fire
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you know like all these kind of things you know um and and for the record i we don't believe any
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of those things that i just listed but that's what a lot of people do believe if you believe
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those kinds of things then building doesn't make much sense and here's the problem um the essence
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of in my experience the essence of male relationship male friendships has always been around fighting
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and building whereas the essence of female relationships part of the reason why christian
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women in the church have more relationships than christian men is because the church itself what
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it focuses on is introspection it's uh sharing you know and divulging and and you know these
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it's like dna groups gospel groups confessing your sin these kind of you know what's your
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anagram right yeah exactly and so uh those kinds of things whereas like for for men uh there's such
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a de-emphasis on building and fighting and restoring chrysidom mission and right yeah but
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for like the best friendships i've ever had in my life is because we were building something
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together yeah and if we're not the moment that the project stopped here's the idea the moment
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that the project stopped then the relationship it did get gay like not now they didn't get like
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super gay i don't have something to confess to it you know like i'm not in the literal sense you
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this is not a confession but you know but in the metaphorical sense it got like it's like
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hey dude how are you doing how are you doing hey yeah uh-huh uh you want to go do something like
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this is weird yeah yeah let's let's go do let's do something because if we weren't building if
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we weren't making something or fighting something like right right now like all you know all three
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of us are on you know we have all these different things that we keep up with you know with
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friendships and stuff like that but it's all circulating on around um building and fighting
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yeah there's a there's a particular mission that we are all aligned on and and we have this vision
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and goal that we're all striving towards together and that's yeah all the you know close male
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friendships i've had that's it's been the same way you know it's like there's a reason why you
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know men in like a a locker room or young men in a locker room like a football team are really tight
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really close and this is like the strongest bonds that they have or men that were in the military
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you know the closest friendships they ever had were were those ones where you're you were like
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literally in a foxhole with another guy and facing death uh well you're gonna you're gonna have a
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strong bond with with these these other guys but even you know even going back like i i will
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you know attend or do funerals for like elderly you know men from you know two or three generations
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back and you see you know on the on the program well this guy was a member of the lions club and
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the elks and the rotary and all these different you know he was in everything and on all these
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he had tons of relationships with all these people in the community and it's because all of it was
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centered around different types of mission different things they were trying to build and do
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and accomplish together that's what men do um and you see that like and you see you know if you go
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on like the Facebook page of your local rotary club or, or whatever, something like that,
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or lions or any of that. And it's all 70 plus year old men. They don't, they don't have any
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young men involved in those things anymore. There's all sorts of reasons for that. We've
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talked about many of them, um, in, in the, this series here, but, um, men, I think are conditioned
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to be alone and expect to be alone and don't go and join things. Don't participate in things
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because um they they want to be alone right they want to be isolated they don't want to have someone
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involved in their life um they they go to the big mega church where they can be anonymous because
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they don't want somebody watching over them i mean so it's a kind of a two-way street like they're
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they're very isolated and they're depressed and anxious and life is miserable because they're
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isolated but at the same time they they don't want to not be yeah because that's costly use
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a trade-off that described me you know for to a t because like i said i had degenerate friends and
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we would do degeneracy you know all the time together that was the mission but well that's
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true but but you know to be honest there were things that i i didn't want my friends knowing
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what i was up to yeah you know i don't want them to know that i was drinking as much as i was
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yeah or doing whatever i was what is i was doing like i i kind of wanted to be like i could have
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hung out with them any every day if i wanted to but i chose not to you know what i mean i wanted
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to be alone and i think one of the things i found so interesting in your book is you mentioned at
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one point it was just like a line about how they've been tricked into thinking they're introverts or
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something like that yeah or something like that because people talk about that all the time all
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the time right i'm an introvert exactly exactly and i've said that about myself before you know
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i you know when i go to an event like the fight laugh feast conference yeah i'm always dreading
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it going up to the event but i always have a great time you know what i mean you heard it here
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everyone yeah i've said this many times yeah i've said this many times um yeah this is no secret
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but I always have a great time and it doesn't feel stressful for me to talk to people. I always
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have a great time. Um, but you know, I, I, I do feel like I was almost like not, maybe not programmed
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to be, think I was an introvert, but to almost wear it as a badge of honor, you know, almost
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that, that, that I, I can be alone. I I'm okay with that. I don't need to have these friends
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and things like that. Yeah. And like, well, then the whole concept of introversion, extroversion
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is really just, what is the thing that drains you? Right. Uh, is, does being alone make you tired
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and wipe you out or is being with people, you know? And I, I always, I always thought like,
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Oh, Andrew, you're, you're an extrovert. Like you, uh, you love being around people and talking
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with people and hanging out with people. And I do, I love it. Uh, but things, things just like
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that, going to conferences and talking to people all day, like I come home from it. I'm, I am
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exhausted yeah i'm so tired and i need like a week to just lock myself in my office and read
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and think and it's like oh maybe i'm an introvert i don't want to be because of this like reddit
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concept of like oh i'm an introvert and that means i can just watch video game or play video
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games all day and and i'm good uh it's like this badge of honor like you say um and i didn't want
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to wear that but it's like i think i am yeah right but you um at the same time like it's it's
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this culturally and socially conditioned concept where you should exalt in your own loneliness
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and your own isolation and your own kind of weirdness. Like people, people want to be super
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weird on purpose and off-putting because then they, then they have an excuse. Then it's kind
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of a cope. Like, well, my own, my loneliness, people, they won't get me, you know, they won't
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understand me. Not just because you're a freak. Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to like do this like deep
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a Spurgy dive onto, uh, uh, every facet of Star Trek information, you know, and only talk about
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that. And then I, that's why I don't have any friends, you know? And it's like, no, no, it's
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just cause you're weird and you want to be. Yeah. Yeah. And I think deep down, again, I think that
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I was ashamed of some of the stuff I was doing, you know? Yeah. And I, and I, I wore the badge
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of introversion as a cope essentially. Cause I really, what I didn't want is people to know
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was what i was up to yeah yeah exactly you you it's a defense mechanism really more than anything
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else yeah all right i'm just gonna say it this show is fantastic you know it's fantastic i know
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it's fantastic but i'm willing to admit there is one singular problem the waiting zone right you
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gotta wait a whole week for each new episode of this show to drop on fridays at 4 p.m central time
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unless you go on over to patreon.com forward slash right response ministries and then you'll
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be able to binge watch every single episode of an entire season all in one day so this is a season
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based show right the whole idea is a deep dive on one singular topic so that you know everything
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there is to know each season comes out in a quarter right so a three-month period anywhere
00:16:52.660
from probably eight to 12 episodes in a season and the moment that the first episode of a new
00:16:58.620
season drops to the public then you can go over to patreon.com forward slash right response
00:17:05.300
ministries and watch all of those episodes without having to wait week by week by week
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for the next episode to publicly drop so you know what to do don't waste any more time binge watch
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the whole season today yeah and in this day and age living in trash world like one of the things
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that i want young men especially to realize and i say young men that's a relative term 30s 40s
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we're young but yeah we're yeah yeah but what i want them to realize is like no but you've got
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to touch grass uh you you have to um you have to actually have some real friendships that you live
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nearby so like that's part of what i want to get to is like because like i think a lot of us it's
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like oh i have friends i have 30 uh 30 friends on twitter yeah you know and we're on a group chat
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you know on signal where we you know we're formulating our twitter strategies you know
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blah blah it's like okay that's great that's fine you know i it's even that it's relatively
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those can be real friends too yeah they can be yeah yeah but what i'm what what i'm trying to
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get at is it like um but when it rains it pours and when you know when the next thing because
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there will be a next thing you know whatever you know if it's world war three you know god forbid
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or covid round two or you know whatever something we can't even think it really helps when you know
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someone who's within a 10 mile radius who who can like be at your front doorstep your people yeah
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who are the guys that you would call to check on your wife if you were away exactly you know what
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i mean exactly yep exactly yeah so having and really what we're getting at is like you need a
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church like you need a local church i think there's still a lot of because what you're getting
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at in that chapter andrew is the atomized man you know like that that man right now like again you
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know trash world has you know it has rulers in in this regime and they want people who are easily
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manipulated people who are easy to to control um so okay like we've talked a lot about the physical
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but like okay let's make sure they're fat let's make sure they're sickly let's make sure uh let's
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definitely make sure that they're chemically castrated that they have low t levels you know
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they have low testosterone they're not very aggressive um all those kinds of things but in
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addition to that um let's also make sure that they're lonely like you know like let's make sure
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that um that they don't have they don't have households they don't they don't have capital
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they don't have property they don't own anything they don't have a wife they don't have children
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let's keep them single and let's keep them lonely um and if they do somehow you know end up with a
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wife and end up with kids and end up owning a home, well, at least let's make sure that the
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only friends they have are in the comment sections on YouTube or on Twitter. Let's make sure that
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they don't actually have brick-and-mortar, flesh-and-blood friendships within proximity
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because those are defensible. That's defensible. Like when you have a local church with real
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people who think the same way, who all own property in the same town, and some have run
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for local office and you have you know this and that like that now we're talking about something
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that like actually is not just spiritually a threat but it is spiritually and literally a
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threat politically culturally all of this like i i i mentioned this in the book you know it's it's
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funny you know i will talk to uh relative very conservative uh boomer generation you know relatives
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about you know things going on in politics and how bad stuff is and things like that
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and you know they will always eventually at some point in the conversation go to
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well if it gets bad enough we still got all the guns and like i mean i'm sure you guys have all
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heard this kind of stuff before all the time and i always just like like laugh at that because it's
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like okay you've got guns what are you gonna do right like what are you gonna do like and and
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like they're they're they're chopping off the genitals of little boys uh take them away from
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their parents right right is it not bad enough yet and no one's doing anything uh and and and so
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it's the the interesting thing there is like you know they'll talk about well yeah we could we could
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fight the u.s government they lost to the taliban and and they're just a you know a bunch of goaters
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in in in afghanistan like uh we could win and it's like no you couldn't because you don't have
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you would be alone you're not organized you're not like and and again we're not we're not trying
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to foment you know violent revolution absolutely not we're against it completely yeah yeah totally
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not i i uh reject all all violence um most violence most violence uh i reject i reject
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that idea right of a violent you reject the being the initiator yeah yeah don't i'm not
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comes to me yeah yeah i will then we will i'll protect my family yeah exactly um but um right
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they say this kind of stuff and they do these kind of like verbal fed posts all the time and
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it's like no you you don't get it you don't have um you don't have a community you don't have people
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you don't like if if the the governor of your state just unilaterally banned guns and was going
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to come confiscate them and you said i'm not taking this i'm going to fight like you would
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be alone a SWAT team would come and they would kill you yeah you're not going to call you know
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50 friends and set up an ambush for the SWAT team they're not going to go die for you right um and
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you don't have anybody you're going to go die for if the roles are reversed like that that world
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does not exist but it did if they tried to do it in like 1945 uh with all the GIs that came back
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from the war they would never have been able to do it because these guys actually would have done
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that stuff and they had communities and families and you know extended networks in their in in
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their localities where they would easily do that. And we have an example of it. There was,
00:22:53.060
um, I believe it was in Tennessee. I mentioned in the book, um, yeah, Athens, Tennessee,
00:22:57.540
where there was a, um, a most secure election of all time that happened in their, uh, in their
00:23:04.520
County where the corrupt government just like stole all the ballot boxes and started stuffing
00:23:09.180
them. And, and all of these GIs in like 1946 came back and they just grabbed their M ones
0.96
00:23:14.200
and they lead siege to the county courthouse and won and and nobody went to jail none of this they
00:23:21.080
got the sheriff kicked out and all this kind of stuff they they won it and it's like something
00:23:25.480
like that is totally inconceivable today right so when i hear the people talk well if it gets bad
0.95
00:23:30.080
enough we got all the guns like you don't have that world at all what the what the vietcong have
00:23:35.620
like the social capital that existed in in vietnam fighting the u.s military or uh the social capital
00:23:42.520
exists in afghanistan that does not exist anywhere maybe in some amish communities and that's about
00:23:48.940
it in the entire u.s that it does not exist anywhere else and that's that's by design it's
0.99
00:23:55.200
not by accident they want people to be isolated they want them to be spread out you know they
00:23:59.140
want kids to grow up and one kid lives in washington the other kid lives in florida the
00:24:03.380
other one lives in texas and they want they don't want family living near each other where it's like
00:24:07.960
yep there's my second cousin and there's my third cousin once removed and like you don't want to
00:24:12.820
live in a community where you're related to half the people um they don't they don't want you to
00:24:16.420
have that they don't want you to have men that are part of every civic organization in town
00:24:21.060
and have deep connections to people they want you to be alone they want you to just
00:24:24.880
pull into your cul-de-sac not know the first names of any of your immediate neighbors and
00:24:30.940
go in watch tv leave the cul-de-sac go to go to work and then come back and that's your life
00:24:35.960
that's what they want like that is by design and so how do you overcome that right how do you get
00:24:42.180
over that well one very first step is like knock on your neighbor's door and introduce yourself
00:24:47.560
right right one like get to know people in your neighborhood maybe maybe even have a block party
00:24:53.620
and and invite them into your house and and like actually build relationships with people
00:24:58.160
um and join different organizations in your your local community like join there's all sorts of
00:25:04.720
different clubs and things that you have interest in uh that you can be part of that always need
00:25:08.800
people to volunteer and help out um there are all the civic organizations that are graying and about
00:25:14.380
to to die uh you could you and like five buddies could take over your local lions club um or even
0.97
00:25:20.080
if you want to join the american legion right you could take that organization over in your local
00:25:24.240
town like think things like that like it's so it would be so easy if you just do it uh but it takes
00:25:29.720
work it takes time uh but you begin to have uh these this these deep roots in a place
00:25:36.900
and all of a sudden right now the social capital doesn't exist you're slowly rebuilding and it is
00:25:43.940
the thing like yeah the the cathedrals burned down it took centuries to build and it burns down in a
00:25:50.380
day well you're not going to build the same kind of social capital even in like one lifetime that
00:25:55.020
took your ancestors generations to build but you can at least begin to slowly stack that up and
00:26:02.400
then have your children add to it and so on and so forth and it has to start with someone
00:26:08.000
consciously doing the opposite of what the regime wants you to do and going well out of your way to
00:26:14.320
do that right and and the the men who do that will be king right yep covet was helpful in that regard
00:26:22.660
it was you know again it was a mercy from the lord um because it did allow at least temporarily
00:26:28.720
it allowed for people to become mobile um people who ordinarily you know they were stuck
00:26:34.140
they had to live where they lived because of their job and then all of a sudden they were able to work
00:26:39.140
remotely and a lot of businesses you know lots of them have gone back to you know people coming in
00:26:44.000
but a lot of a lot of economics have has forever changed since covid you know some of it's not
00:26:49.820
going back you know stuff has gone back but some things will never go back and a lot of the places
00:26:54.320
only went back because they're locked into a commercial right a real estate deal where they
00:26:58.460
have an office and it's just empty so like well you better come back so we can justify having it
00:27:03.000
right uh but most places places that didn't and to remain competitive in the labor market they
00:27:07.660
have to allow that right you know exactly that's been that's probably been like the biggest boost
00:27:11.460
for like you know this is not a this is not a communist dsa podcast but like the biggest boost
00:27:17.340
for like labor and workers is work from home right that's like the first gain we've made in
00:27:22.820
a century of like life getting better is that now you can work you don't have to commute it anymore
00:27:27.980
and you can live wherever you want like that's a huge deal and so with that with that grace from
00:27:32.840
the lord um now is it like i mean that's probably the most common email that i get is do you know
00:27:38.920
of a church in my area do you know of a church might like people are churchless yeah you know
00:27:43.700
because um what what we've seen you know when the veil was torn back in 2020 as it pertained to
00:27:49.900
evangelicalism was that uh a lot of our leaders were corrupt and a lot of them were you know
00:27:55.360
they kowtowed to you know everything that caesar said and quickly you know immediately gave it
00:28:01.020
immediately yeah and we're very hesitant uh to take a stand i mean they're very slow to you know
00:28:06.240
you know i mean there are certain churches that didn't gather for a year you know longer you know
0.96
00:28:11.260
yeah yeah so anyway so all that being said you've got a lot of uh de-churched uh christians right
00:28:17.020
now but you have a lot of de-churched christians right now who who are actually able to move
00:28:22.560
if they wanted to and i'm not saying it's easy right like i mean maybe that maybe they're locked
0.94
00:28:27.700
in with a really low interest rate if they moved and bought a house you know seven percent interest
00:28:32.420
rate or whatever but um but it's be more it'd be more doable a geographic move across the country
00:28:39.480
than than any time previously absolutely and that's i think when we talk about you know
00:28:45.220
friendship particularly male friendship um that's i think that's part of it is actually being
00:28:50.820
physically in the same location to where you can be building together um in a literal sense and
00:28:57.720
not just virtually yeah and it might mean like getting the guys in your group chat to like move
00:29:02.200
to where you are or vice versa you know like i mean if you really are on the same page with all
00:29:06.340
these guys like and these are your brothers that you love and care about like all right go to the
00:29:10.920
same place well could you imagine like and that's where i i feel like that's again where we that's
00:29:16.440
that's like the line we're like okay we're gonna be we're serious and we're gonna put dents in the
00:29:21.900
gates of hell to a point but we can't we can't be too successful i mean we wouldn't want to win
00:29:27.520
after all you know we lose down here that would produce cultural christianity so like we find
00:29:31.240
each other you know through youtube and twitter and this that and the other and then we start our
00:29:35.400
our chat and you got 30 guys who like who really agree on like 99.9 percent of things and and guys
00:29:42.780
with spine and with courage and all this kind of yeah um but then but then they you don't go the
00:29:50.080
extra step you don't go the extra step and say like like what if we teamed up and and part of
00:29:55.720
it's because guys have responsibility these are men they have wives they have children they have
00:29:59.980
schools you know i'm not talking about public schools but you know but christian schools and
00:30:04.520
they have churches and they have uh they have aging fathers and mothers so that's i think that's
00:30:10.040
part of it oh yeah um but but if it's at all possible i think the way that god has designed
00:30:16.120
a man it's just duty after duty after duty right authority flows to those who take responsibility
00:30:21.000
yeah and and you just the responsibilities keep coming and and i don't i'm not saying that as a
00:30:25.800
bad thing like no it's a good thing it's it's it's a it's an honor it's an honor a glory for a man
00:30:31.440
and so he just weight gets stacked and he can carry that weight and some more weight and
00:30:36.340
progressively throughout your life and by the end you look back and you're like you're carrying a
00:30:40.160
mountain by the grace of god strengthening you but the point is that um guys have so much
00:30:45.460
responsibility and duty that's that's progressively you know gradually hoisted upon them i think that's
00:30:50.880
what that's what roots them there um and and so i guess i'm not saying it's impossible once you're
00:30:56.780
a little bit older in your 30s and 40s but if anybody's listening to this who's younger
00:31:00.700
like one of the biggest things that i would like grab a guy in his 20s by the caller and say is
00:31:06.440
like okay so you don't have seven kids yet you know what i mean and your and your parents aren't
00:31:12.700
aren't 70 you know or whatever and aging and you and you haven't bought a house yet you know and
00:31:19.720
i feel for you because it's going to be really hard if if even possible to do that when it comes
00:31:29.580
Find those 15 based dudes that you're talking to and like, you know, and move right there and set up shop, you know, because later on, it becomes increasingly hard.
00:31:42.520
The danger of centralized power is often represented by the word king.
00:31:49.520
civilian ownership of body armor is about helping people to have increased power to resist tyrants
00:31:57.340
and criminals and so armored republic is about helping you to preserve your god-given rights
00:32:04.120
to the honor of the lord jesus christ because he is the king of kings and he governs kings and he
00:32:09.580
will judge them this is armored republic and in a republic there is no king but christ
00:32:16.800
We are free craftsmen, and we are honored to be your armor spread choice.
00:32:42.300
And it's not to say like, I mean, there are friendships that I have online that with guys that I've known for years and I talk to every day that I've never met in person, you know, and it's, it's, I mean, it's a different world than, than, than ever before.
00:32:58.440
But you can have these deep, intimate connections with guys and not have ever encountered them in flesh and blood.
00:33:06.280
And it's, it's even weirder now with AI because maybe they're fake.
00:33:10.000
um well if you met him 10 years ago you're probably yeah probably okay yeah exactly um
00:33:14.920
some of these guys break the mold though i know who you're talking about i don't think they make
00:33:18.200
ai like that no not yet not yet when they do then we're in trouble uh but yeah so it's like
00:33:26.240
these are real friendships and i would love it if we could be in the same place together that
00:33:30.660
would be awesome and and the older you get the harder it is to ever bring anything like that
00:33:35.000
about um but especially when you're younger you should be you know in your in your 20s you should
00:33:41.200
be thinking okay what are my duties and responsibilities and where can i go to build
00:33:45.120
with other other men that want to build as well and and that should be the priority in your mind
00:33:51.180
is thinking okay what's going to occur what's my general idea of the direction and trajectory of
00:33:57.560
everything over the next 40 or 50 years and where should i be to accomplish the things that i think
00:34:04.620
god can you know use me to do um that that's how you need to be thinking right now yeah yeah and
00:34:11.560
and this is going to look different in like you guys have some insane different situations call
00:34:16.020
for different things i mean you might you might live in a town where you know your family's well
00:34:20.620
established and um you know you you know everybody you're related to half the people um and and you
00:34:27.560
you may want to go out as an outpost and meet up with some you know 15 other base guys and your
00:34:32.960
town's gonna be just fine or you could be in a town where you know things are precarious like
00:34:37.140
you're saying you have an older relative and things like that and you just it wouldn't make
00:34:40.840
sense to move actually would maybe be an abandonment of your duties if you moved yeah so it these are
00:34:45.300
these are things that like there's no band-aid answer for you know everybody is the same answer
00:34:49.820
yeah here's what you should do every single one of you right right but but but i think the point
00:34:54.900
of this is understanding the fact that we collectively have been atomized to the point
00:35:22.400
but church planting has followed this same mode
00:35:30.260
and i think the name of the game right now that's part of why you know i wrote the little fight by
00:35:34.920
flight but i think part of the and it's not you know to flee to avoid the battle but it's to you
00:35:40.080
know to run to you know the mountains run to you know the defensible ground turn around and start
00:35:44.760
fighting and then slowly progressively take back uh the land but all that being said i think um
00:35:51.160
one you know we spread our our troops too thin and the name of the game right now is like i know
00:35:56.040
it's you know not the best example but i you know i think of like the avengers it's like not just
00:36:01.060
you know not just i know here we go i'm not saying you know i know the movies are it's the epitome of
0.61
00:36:07.040
fake and gay but i'm just saying as a principle i can't believe we're going there as a principle
00:36:11.320
so i don't know whatever whatever kind of team but my point is like teams i think right now are
0.91
00:36:16.760
the name of the game like avengers assemble yeah yeah like instead of isolated you know isolated
00:36:22.740
uh little you know renegade you know all by yourself yeah but like no actually instead of
00:36:29.380
guerrilla warfare actually having organized platoons yeah that's a whole like that's a lot
00:36:35.960
the internet the internet is a is a double-edged sword you know you know it gives you these
00:36:40.500
relationships that have the facade of being real but they're really not real but then again you
00:36:45.880
can also use it as a tool to create these real real relationships that's what i was just talking
00:36:50.520
to uh to to uh our producer uh backstage about video games and we were talking about uh in the
00:36:56.340
old days when we used to play gold and i together right yeah in the living room we would all be in
00:37:00.320
the same living room and so and so we could actually play the game we're all together you
00:37:05.160
know and i you know punch my brother you know for doing something and stuff like that you know
00:37:09.160
things like that yeah for screen watching you knew i was there you know and that was a lot of fun you
00:37:13.260
know oh yeah and and and so video games now you know i don't play them anymore but when i did
00:37:18.000
uh they're all online and so i'm still playing with people um but it's just not the same it is
00:37:23.560
it does not create the bond that being said you know my biological brother you know we would use
00:37:29.100
we would play madden back when i was in college and it would just be like for us it'd be a phone
00:37:33.140
call basically right so that's how we talked on the phone we would play madden together talking
00:37:37.620
right and um that was you know it's a it was useful in that way but it really it does not
00:37:43.780
uh replace when we used to play together in the same room right you know what i mean absolutely
00:37:48.040
yeah i never got to the online uh the furthest i ever got was halo one land you know yeah land
00:37:54.580
parties yeah a bunch of nerds yeah that was my in in high school we would stay we would pull
00:37:59.060
oh yeah i did in high school yeah yeah and then i did it in college that was great and then i did
00:38:03.540
it after college this also i can't like like i think what halo are they on at this point six
00:38:12.200
six okay so i was playing halo one i think when like the fifth one came out and it's like and
00:38:17.200
everybody's like could we please play a different halo but they've got new weapons now man i was
00:38:22.720
like yeah like i never even got to dual wielding it was just halo one that's man this is this is
00:38:28.240
old school yeah so but but the point is the kids don't even watching in person flesh and blood
00:38:32.920
with your friends because because what would happen is like all right you finish that game
00:38:36.480
and now everybody's going to get up and you're all going to grab a drink together you know on
00:38:40.160
the back porch or whatever and then you're going to come back and you're going to play another game
00:38:42.700
let's order a pizza you know like and you're going to talk about how you sniped your buddy
00:38:46.460
across the screen and there's camaraderie and but like you actually can pat a guy on the back and
00:38:52.180
you know and you know where he lives in real life you know not you know like yeah this is a real
00:38:56.620
person and so yeah you need that i think the name of the game is um it's it's funny but like i really
00:39:02.520
think the church planning thing did a number on evangelicalism i think we spread ourselves so
00:39:07.300
thin and now what you have is you've got a bunch of people who a bunch of people who are just
00:39:13.060
they're lonely and the bar just everything went down you know to the lowest common denominator
00:39:18.540
to where you've got all these guys who went through some church planting assessment and that
00:39:23.480
aren't really qualified um but could you imagine like i mean moscow is you know the quintessential
00:39:29.320
example but they're not the only ones who are doing it there are other people you know like
00:39:34.980
The Ogden guys with Brian and Eric and Dan, they're doing a good job.
00:39:39.540
And when you get, it doesn't take a million guys.
00:39:45.400
When you get three high-value, godly men, and they're in the same location, then it just snowballs.
00:39:57.760
And then you can form a school with ease because you have resources and you start buying land as individuals, not as a church institute, but individuals that make up the church and starting businesses.
00:40:09.780
And then, you know, 40 years, it took Doug 40 years.
00:40:20.320
They had to make all the mistakes and everything.
00:40:26.700
So yeah, it took Doug 40 years, not because he's a dope, but because he's the only one
00:40:34.140
But the guys, our generation looking to that champion, it doesn't have to take us 40 years
00:40:43.040
And I think if guys right now would say, hey, you know what?
00:40:45.580
Instead of all three of us getting to be a church planter, why don't we be willing to
00:40:50.140
be bivocational, at least for the foreseeable future?
00:40:53.340
and and we'll take you know maybe we take a housing allowance and we plant a church together
00:40:57.740
three high value you know caliber guys you do that it starts attracting people then you have
00:41:02.860
those resources and it's like you got to skip the first 10 years of the moscow project you know and
00:41:08.440
now you're into like 10 you know year 11 and 12 even though you're technically only on year three
00:41:13.380
or four and it just it builds and it builds and it builds and i think that's that's what we need
00:41:17.480
right now and yeah and the cool thing about that is not just that those guys you know the leaders
00:41:22.940
that they can have that camaraderie and that male friendship together,
00:41:26.200
building and fighting together, but it attracts a certain type of person,
00:41:30.660
and then all those people, they find each other too.
00:41:32.880
Yeah, everybody in the church has the same kind of bond.
00:41:35.680
And the feeling that you get when you go to Fight, Laugh, Feast or something,
00:41:38.820
the feeling you get for a week at a conference becomes just life.
00:41:42.660
Your whole life is like, yeah, our kids all go to this school together.
00:41:47.020
The feeling of Fight, Laugh, Feast for a week for most people
00:41:55.460
And it could be normal life for a lot more people.
00:42:06.860
and it's all different people that you know from church
00:42:20.200
And it's like, and they're all there. And I can just imagine like the thrill of that happening. Right. And you're confronting something that's totally wrong, you know, to not allow you to sing and worship. And you're fighting together and you're, you know, it's like, oh, and it doesn't just have to be there. It can be in all sorts of different places, you know, and you can build that.
00:42:48.080
It's not that, you know, it's no one is ragging on Moscow at all, at least not here in this room.
00:42:58.740
And the question is not, you know, well, can we make, you know, is Moscow good?
00:43:05.240
But there should be a thousand places like Moscow in America.
00:43:10.600
And I would say, we can only hope and pray.
0.96
00:43:41.740
the not real life the the the virtual reality part of it into real life yeah exactly so so do
00:43:48.140
those things but then use that and say that's why we're all here in the same room by the way exactly
00:43:52.160
yeah exactly we found each other in in this thing that's not real life but it turns out it is it is
00:43:56.480
somewhat real life because we're all three real people and we're sitting in a real room you know
00:44:00.640
and so yeah it is not uh an ai construct that's right he's a real human right here so so do that
00:44:06.400
you know partner with those guys and especially if you know if you're young and you haven't really
00:44:10.400
rooted yet the cement hasn't dried find find some people flesh and blood and then two if you're
00:44:17.200
older but you're in that transition period where it's like maybe you're like super discouraged and
00:44:22.460
you just lost a job take that as like god's providence to say okay maybe um let's let's this
00:44:29.840
time let's uh we have a moment right now maybe we move to ogden maybe we move to moscow maybe we
00:44:35.980
moved to georgetown you know and um because i think god's doing that and i don't think 2020
00:44:40.520
was the only time to rearrange you know the the chairs yeah um it's like musical chairs in 2020
00:44:46.840
i don't think that's the only moment it's not going to stop there yeah it's not going to stop
00:44:50.800
there so all right did you like the episode great you want to watch the next one wait a whole week
00:44:55.980
or go to patreon.com write response ministries again patreon.com write response ministries