The NXR Podcast - January 25, 2022


THEOLOGY APPLIED - How The “Woke” Military Ignores Real Trauma

Topics
real trauma
Hosted by
Joel Webbon Harrison Smith Antonio Griffith Dale Partridge Wewsley Todd Calvin Robinson
Mentioned
Jeremy Stalnecker Jesus Christ Milley Adam Noah
THEOLOGY APPLIED - How To Start A Christian Podcast THEOLOGY APPLIED - The Gospel Coalition & Westminster Seminary CA： Two Ways To Get Politics Wrong

Episode Stats


Length

51 minutes

Words per minute

180.67

Word count

9,312

Sentence count

430

Harmful content

Misogyny

1

sentences flagged

Toxicity

6

sentences flagged

Hate speech

15

sentences flagged


Summary

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

Jeremy Stalnecker is the CEO of Mighty Oaks Foundation, a non-profit organization that seeks to serve our military, both active duty and veterans, as well as first responders, through a biblical worldview. In this episode, Jeremy shares his story of how he became a Christian in the Marine Corps and how God called him to serve.

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 .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00 Hi, this is Pastor Joel Webbin with Right Response Ministries, and you're listening to Theology
00:00:04 Applied. In this episode of Theology Applied, I was privileged to have a special guest,
00:00:09 Jeremy Stalnecker, who is the CEO of Mighty Oaks Foundation. Mighty Oaks Foundation seeks to serve
00:00:16 our military, both active duty and veterans, as well as first responders, and primarily,
00:00:22 they serve these individuals in the realm of trauma, specifically PTSD, addressing these
00:00:30 real issues of pain and difficulty, not with the wisdom of man, but through a biblical worldview.
00:00:38 In addition to this topic, we also beg the question of, is the military going woke? We hear
00:00:45 lots of different things that are concerning as conservative Christians in the news headlines,
00:00:49 but what's actually happening on the ground with our troops.
00:00:54 Tune into this episode.
00:00:56 It'll be a real treat.
00:00:57 Real quick, before we hop into our episode,
00:00:59 if you'd like to support Right Response Ministries,
00:01:02 you can do so by giving a donation of any amount
00:01:05 at rightresponseministries.com slash donate.
00:01:09 Again, that's rightresponseministries.com slash donate.
00:01:13 If you're unable to support our ministry financially at this time,
00:01:17 you can still support us in a significant way by simply subscribing to our YouTube channel,
00:01:23 clicking the bell, and, of course, sharing our content with your friends and family.
00:01:28 Without further ado, here's today's episode of Theology Applied.
00:01:33 Applying God's Word to every aspect of life. This is Theology Applied.
00:01:39 All right. So my guest for this episode is Jeremy Stalnecker. He is the CEO of Mighty Oaks
00:01:49 Foundation. So without further ado, Jeremy, would you take a moment, introduce yourself to our
00:01:54 listeners? Tell us a little bit about, before you get into your ministry, tell us about your story,
00:01:58 your testimony in terms of Christ and being in the military, and then tell us a little bit about
00:02:04 your ministry to our troops? Yeah, well, first of all, thank you for having me on. I really
00:02:08 appreciate it, and I appreciate the work that you guys do. I enjoy listening to your interviews.
00:02:16 It's right response, right? And it really is, and that's what this is all about, and
00:02:19 I think we have a common understanding of what the answer to most of these issues are, and I
00:02:25 appreciate you spending some time talking about this. A lot of people don't, so thank you for
00:02:29 doing it my my story um you know i was raised in a very conservative christian home my dad
00:02:36 was a pastor and i pastored for over 30 years and um i always talk about going to him when i was 14
00:02:44 years old and you know if you're raised in a pastor's home it's kind of the family business
00:02:47 everyone expects for you to become a pastor which is what's gonna happen holy spirit calling
00:02:52 of god doesn't mean anything your dad's a pastor so that's what you're gonna do and i knew that
00:02:56 that's not what I wanted to do. I talked to my dad when I was 14 and said, Dad, would you be okay
00:03:02 if I didn't become a pastor? And he said what pastor dads are supposed to say. He said, Son,
00:03:06 be whatever God wants you to be. That's the best thing you could possibly do. I said, Dad, I believe
00:03:11 God wants me to enlist in the Marine Corps. He said, Son, God does not want you to enlist in the Marine Corps.
00:03:14 That's not what God wants you to do. I know this. So we talked that out. And, you know, over the
00:03:21 course of time, I went to college. My parents wanted me to go to college. That was kind of
00:03:25 stipulation you're going to go to college what you do after that is up to you and went through the
00:03:29 process of going through a commissioning program i was commissioned into the marine corps in 1999
00:03:35 as a second lieutenant made my way through quantico virginia where all marine officers go
00:03:40 went to infantry officer course and served with the first battalion fifth marines based out of
00:03:45 camp pendleton here in southern california as an infantry platoon commander just a really for me
00:03:52 that was the culmination of everything I had wanted to be and wanted to do. I accepted Christ
00:03:58 when I was younger and I really did. That was never something I never had a crisis of faith
00:04:04 per se or anything like that. But growing up in a Christian environment, growing up around good
00:04:11 godly parents, I went to a Christian college. It was very easy to live that out. And it wasn't
00:04:17 really until I got into the Marine Corps that living out my faith and walking my faith out,
00:04:22 whatever phrase one would like to use, really became something I had to consider and something
00:04:27 I had to think about. You know, that was the first time I found myself in a secular environment,
00:04:33 not to mention a Marine Corps secular environment. I really had to understand what it was to be a
00:04:38 Christian, what it was to stand for Christ and live for the Lord in that environment.
00:04:41 went to went to iraq as part of the initial invasion into iraq in 2003 we deployed to
00:04:50 to kuwait january of that year our infantry battalion did along with the rest of the first
00:04:55 marine division and on march 19th of 2003 a lot of folks will remember we went into the country
00:05:02 our battalion first battalion fifth marines was the first marine infantry battalion into iraq in
00:05:08 2003. First KIA of the war was one of our lieutenants, and we went from southern Iraq,
00:05:15 made our way to Baghdad, and eventually the Battle of Baghdad on April 10th, that was also
00:05:20 our infantry battalion. So, you know, a very, at that time, what we call a kinetic war environment,
00:05:27 you know, things changed a lot, but we were very much, you know, mechanized unit moving from south
00:05:33 the north to secure the largest city in the country, a city the size of Los Angeles, and that's
00:05:40 what we ended up doing on April 10th, and it was in that process, really, so I had a wife, I had
00:05:45 two small children, I was a part of a good church, but it was really at that time in my life where I
00:05:52 understood the sovereignty of God, I understood that, you know, the enemy doesn't care who you
00:05:58 are, where you come from, what you look like, what your background is, doesn't care, and so many of
00:06:03 those truths came to clarity in my heart and mind and understanding who God is and, you know, the
00:06:10 fact that we trust God and we lean on God and we move forward has really become a driver in my life
00:06:15 and changed in many ways the direction of my life. Came back from Iraq and because of a lot of
00:06:23 circumstances had already made the decision to get out of the Marine Corps. I came back June 1st
00:06:28 So 2003, July 1st of 2003, I was serving on a church staff, the church that we had been attending.
00:06:34 My pastor, I don't have a pastoral background.
00:06:40 I don't have a seminary background.
00:06:42 I have a criminal justice degree, and I was an infantry officer.
00:06:44 But my pastor said, hey, we've got a place for you here.
00:06:46 If you'd like to come and serve, we'll bring you on to the staff.
00:06:50 And that's what I did.
00:06:52 Very, very difficult transition for me.
00:06:54 the first year out of the Marine Corps while working at a church where I know people loved
00:06:59 me and cared for me. I had a pastor that cared for me. I was an absolute train wreck. I was a
00:07:04 mess at home, two small kids, a wife that loved me, and I was angry all the time, which manifested
00:07:11 itself in throwing things and hitting things. Not my wife or my kids, thankfully, but just about
00:07:16 everything else. On a church staff, blowing up in staff meetings, getting thrown out of staff
00:07:22 meetings eventually after about 11 months of that my pastor called me to his office and said this
00:07:28 is just not working i love you i care for you i care for your family but you're going to have to
00:07:32 go somewhere else if you don't get this thing figured out sent me away for a week said come
00:07:36 back at the end of the week and tell me what you're going to do this is 2003 um i guess 2004
00:07:41 at that time post-traumatic stress and you know the issues we're going to talk about today
00:07:46 weren't things that the church was talking about and um you know i knew my pastor loved me but he
00:07:51 didn't know how to deal with me. And that's fair looking back. And through a process of
00:07:57 conversations with my wife and praying and, you know, really trying to understand where I was,
00:08:02 I realized that so much of what I was doing was my fault and my responsibility. It wasn't everyone
00:08:08 else in my life. Everyone's a jerk. Everyone is a problem. No one knows where I've been or what 1.00
00:08:12 I've done. That's what I was telling myself. I mean, that's the story. You know, I continue to
00:08:15 tell myself, but really it was, I was not doing what I needed to do. I was not living the way
00:08:21 that I should have been living. And, um, once I got ahold of that truth, the personal responsibility
00:08:27 aspect, uh, everything changed. Um, it didn't change overnight, but I was able to move forward
00:08:33 and, um, stayed at that church for another four years, served on that staff for a total of five
00:08:38 years, eventually pastored a church in the San Francisco area for another seven years before
00:08:43 doing what I do now, working with veterans and our military. So a long road, interesting road,
00:08:49 and kind of a convergence of the military and my ministry life now in, you know, doing what I do
00:08:55 now. And I'm thankful for the path that God brought us down. But yeah, it was a very interesting
00:09:00 transition. But here we are. Now we serve the military. Praise God. Well, tell us about serving
00:09:07 the military. So you've told us your story, a little bit of your testimony, how you got up to
00:09:11 that point. So what is it that you do with Mighty Oaks Foundation? So we work with essentially four
00:09:19 groups, veterans, active duty service members, first responders, that's police officers and
00:09:24 firefighters, and then spouses. And we could talk about all that is involved in that. But
00:09:30 there are a lot of programs for all of those groups of folks, particularly the veterans and
00:09:36 the active duty service members. A lot of programs that deal with post-traumatic stress and combat
00:09:40 trauma, you know, other, we'll say mental health related issues, a lot of programs.
00:09:47 What most of those programs fail to deal with or address, however, is the spiritual need.
00:09:53 And what we understand is that you can, you know, put a Band-Aid on a wound, but that's
00:09:59 all it is if you haven't dealt with the actual problem.
00:10:01 And so many of our service members, whether it's veterans or active duty service members,
00:10:05 and really in our first responder community as well the programs that they have access to
00:10:10 are putting a band-aid on a you know a gaping chest we're going to get a hole in their chest
00:10:16 and and we're covering it up we're trying to change habits or whatever and not dealing with
00:10:21 the spiritual issue the founder of the mighty oaks foundation who i work with chad robishow
00:10:27 is also a marine veteran i'm a marine veteran and as we were working through a lot of this a long
00:10:33 time ago, 10 years ago, we decided very clearly and very, I was going to say very fundamentally,
00:10:45 that's not the right word, but we decided that what we would do as Christians who have found
00:10:51 healing through a relationship with Jesus Christ and aligning our lives to his purpose for our
00:10:56 life is we would move beyond the programs and the therapies, all the other stuff that
00:11:02 service members have access to and address specifically that spiritual need. And in the
00:11:10 beginning, folks said, if you do that, you will never have access to the active duty military.
00:11:14 You'll never have access to police officers and firefighters. Maybe you'll get some veterans to
00:11:18 come to your program. But if you talk about God, talk about who he is, talk about what it is to
00:11:22 have a relationship with him through Christ. If you talk about these kind of spiritual healing or
00:11:27 what the Department of Defense would call spiritual resiliency pieces, you'll never have access to
00:11:32 real people who are really hurting. And we said, well, we'll just do the best we can to see what
00:11:37 God opens up. And that's what we've done for the last 10 years. We've had more than 4,000 people
00:11:42 come through our week-long programs where we bring people to one of our facilities across the
00:11:47 country. We spend a week with them talking about what it is to align your life to the life that
00:11:53 your creator created you to live. Most of the folks who attend our programs are not Christians.
00:11:58 Many of them would have what they would call no faith at all.
00:12:01 Some of them might even be adversarial to God because of the loss of friends and so forth.
00:12:07 They would say they hate God or they're angry at God, but they tried everything else.
00:12:10 They end up with us because they have nowhere else to go through donors.
00:12:14 We pay for the programs. We pay for travel. So there's no you know, there's nothing.
00:12:18 They're not losing anything in the process. So they'll come and they'll sit and we'll say simply observe what we do.
00:12:25 Watch what we do. Listen to what we say. Look at the lives that we are demonstrating to you through testimony and compare your life to that and see if you have what you need to continue moving forward.
00:12:37 We talk about, again, God, the creator. If there's a creator, then there's a plan.
00:12:41 If there's a plan and we need to understand that if we align to that plan, then the traumas and the difficulties and the trials and the stuff that is holding you bondage and captive will no longer have control over you.
00:12:54 And we've, again, seen 4,000 folks come through those week-long programs.
00:12:58 We've spoken to more than 150,000 active duty troops, whether it's in bases or conferences
00:13:04 across the country, as unit commanders and unit leaders have reached out to us and said
00:13:08 things like, we don't really care what you do or what you say, but we need help.
00:13:13 And if you can come and help us, we'll open the door for that.
00:13:16 God has been very, very good to us in just opening doors of opportunity that really should
00:13:22 not be open to us.
00:13:23 And yet we have a very good rapport with the active duty military and certainly on the veteran side.
00:13:27 So it's been incredible to watch and be a part of.
00:13:31 Praise God.
00:13:31 Well, let's talk about PTSD for a little bit.
00:13:34 So just so you know that where I'm at, you know, we talked a little bit before we started recording this episode.
00:13:38 But for me personally, as a pastor and being a Reformed Baptist pastor and conservative in my convictions, I would prescribe to biblical counseling.
00:13:48 I think that a lot of secular psychology
00:13:52 well you know what
00:13:53 even that statement that I'm about to make
00:13:55 is me softening it but not being completely honest
00:13:57 I think secular psychology period
00:13:59 not just a lot of it but period 1.00
00:14:01 is garbage 0.99
00:14:02 I think that it does 0.99
00:14:04 the problem with secular psychology in my assessment
00:14:07 is that the secular psychologists
00:14:10 by virtue being secular
00:14:11 by virtue of their denial of Christ
00:14:14 and his lordship and his truth 1.00
00:14:15 that the unbeliever who is
00:14:18 at enmity with God, who's going to somehow help a person heal, well, you know, exactly what you
00:14:25 were saying. You say, do you have a creator? And if there is a creator, there's a plan that this
00:14:30 creator has, you know, and there's a design, right? There's a goal. There's something that
00:14:35 we're working towards. There's an image of this creator that we're meant to reflect. There is a
00:14:42 model that we're meant to emulate and in secular psychology for the unbeliever it's uh one i think 1.00
00:14:49 that they they get the starting place wrong so on the one hand they have bad anthropology they don't 0.88
00:14:55 adhere to the word of god as truth and what the word of god says not only about god himself but
00:14:59 what the word of god says about man man in his design which was originally good and without
00:15:06 flaw, but then also man in light of his sin and his depravity and the curse of sin and all these
00:15:13 kinds of aspects. And so if you have bad anthropology, because you don't adhere to the
00:15:18 Bible, then your starting place of who man is, is off. But then even perhaps more important than
00:15:26 that, the ending place of where we're moving toward is for you and I, we would say that we
00:15:32 want in our ministry, whether it be with civilians or veterans or whoever it may be, our goal is
00:15:39 by discipling people that they might be forged more and more into the perfect image of the
00:15:48 perfect God-man, Christ Jesus, that he's the model. He is the end goal, that we are trying
00:15:56 to be formed more into his character. And so if you're rejecting theology, and namely doctrine
00:16:02 of the Son, the perfect God-man who is the model, and if you're rejecting the Bible's anthropology,
00:16:08 who man is in God's original design, and then also in light of sin, then I just feel like no
00:16:15 matter how many big words you have, and no matter how many degrees you have on your wall,
00:16:20 I don't really care to hear you. And I would recognize that all truth is God's truth. So
00:16:24 if we find a Babylonian library, then I would be of the assessment of let's plunder the library
00:16:30 and let's see if anything is true. But if it is true, it's only because even unbelievers are 1.00
00:16:35 created in the image of God. And because of common grace, unbelievers still can discover 0.81
00:16:42 and affirm things that are true in light of God's world, because they live in God's world,
00:16:48 they've been created by God. But when it comes to psychology, it's not just like in engineering
00:16:54 or building a bridge or discovering a cure to cancer,
00:16:57 you're talking about something that is intimately involved
00:17:01 with who is man and who is man meant to be, 1.00
00:17:05 which that's something that I believe an unbeliever can't really grasp 0.90
00:17:09 if they reject Christ. 0.99
00:17:12 And so my point is in saying all that,
00:17:15 I prescribe to biblical counseling.
00:17:18 However, I do recognize that there are physiological things at play,
00:17:23 There are spiritual things, which that's what you guys are emphasizing,
00:17:27 that the world and its attempts to serve people who are hurting
00:17:32 won't acknowledge hardly at all the spiritual side.
00:17:36 But there is also, we're not Gnostics, so we are spirit and body,
00:17:40 and there can be physiological problems.
00:17:43 So when I'm offering biblical counsel as a pastor,
00:17:46 we talk about the Bible, we'll talk about the spiritual issues,
00:17:49 But I'll also say, hey, it sounds like you're only sleeping four hours a night.
00:17:55 You're probably going to be a little cranky.
00:17:57 You should sleep because God made you a human being.
00:17:59 You should exercise.
00:18:00 What are you eating?
00:18:02 You know, those kinds of things.
00:18:03 And then, of course, if it's beyond those basic things like exercise and sleep,
00:18:07 then I always encourage them, in addition to getting biblical counseling,
00:18:11 go and see a general physician, which is different than go and see a psychologist
00:18:14 or a psychiatrist, but go and see a doctor.
00:18:17 We believe in medicine.
00:18:17 And we believe that God made a spirit and body and that all truth is God's truth. 0.66
00:18:22 And I do believe that unbelievers can discover and affirm right and true things about man 0.96
00:18:27 and his physical body, or at least we could up until a few years ago when we started thinking 0.95
00:18:31 boys were girls and girls were boys.
00:18:33 But anyway, so all that being said, PTSD, I don't know a lot.
00:18:38 I really, I think our listeners and I personally would benefit from hearing you.
00:18:42 How much of that is physiological?
00:18:43 How much of that is spiritual?
00:18:44 And what do you do as a Christian trying to help people with this, but without giving into, you know, godless psychology or what portion might be right?
00:18:55 What's your perspective on that issue?
00:18:57 Yeah, so that was a really big question.
00:19:00 Yeah, I know, I'm sorry.
00:19:01 Probably the next six or seven hours, breaking all of that down.
00:19:04 Right.
00:19:05 But no, it's a great question.
00:19:06 So great question. I think that that is what we as those who would hold to the sufficiency of scripture.
00:19:14 That's what we struggle with. And it's a struggle because, you know, all the things that you just illuminated.
00:19:20 We go to doctors. I believe in the sufficiency of scripture.
00:19:23 But if I have a broken arm, I'm going to go to a doctor to have that arm set because they have the experience and the tools and the resources to do that.
00:19:31 what so on the front end going back to your original point of starting point when we talk
00:19:38 about clinical treatments for post-traumatic stress disorder and i'll talk about how we view
00:19:43 that but when we talk about clinical treatments that would include secular psychology but it
00:19:49 would include a lot of other things too there are therapies there are medications there are a lot
00:19:54 of things that fall into that clinical care bucket the the problem with clinical care a lot
00:20:00 problems but one of the major problems and the probably the biggest problem for veterans and
00:20:06 service members who are struggling to try to figure all this out is the starting point a
00:20:11 clinician will say we're going to start with therapies that therapy will probably include
00:20:16 medication we have folks who attend our program that are on more than 20 medications a day 20
00:20:21 medications a day because a clinician has said well you need this for sleep and you need this
00:20:27 for awake and you need this when you feel bad and this when you feel manic, you know, and they'll
00:20:32 try to balance it all out chemically. There are a lot of other therapies and a lot of other
00:20:37 therapeutics that can be used, but that's their starting point. And if somewhere along the
00:20:42 treatment route, something spiritual needs to be interjected, then they'll include that as well
00:20:48 in their therapy. Their starting point is clinical and somewhere along the way, there may be
00:20:54 spiritual, if it's needed. We would say the starting point is spiritual. We have to deal with
00:21:02 who you are before a holy God, your standing before God, the fact that you were created,
00:21:09 that there is design, and the reason you're struggling so much in your relationships,
00:21:14 etc. The reason you're struggling to figure out your path forward is not because of what
00:21:18 happened to you, but because you're not aiming at the right target. You're not moving in the
00:21:22 right direction we start with the spiritual and if something clinical is helpful along the way
00:21:27 then we can look at that as it aids in spiritual healing gotcha now to your point there are both
00:21:36 psychological and physiological impacts of post-traumatic stress and this is all still
00:21:43 being researched and still being understood on one hand you have traumatic brain injury which
00:21:49 you know for many many years until fairly recently the way that it would manifest itself
00:21:55 the symptoms of a traumatic brain injury a concussion for those that aren't familiar
00:21:58 because of an explosion because of you know head injury which is very very common in the military
00:22:04 for our combat veterans in particular the symptoms of that traumatic brain injury looked very much
00:22:10 like post-traumatic stress disorder the anger the emotion you know uncontrolled emotions you know
00:22:17 all the things that go into post-traumatic stress disorder. And so we were diagnosing them the same
00:22:21 way, not addressing the physical, the very real physical, biological, physiological issues
00:22:27 associated with a concussion. And particularly when there have been multiple concussions,
00:22:32 the TBI, the traumatic brain injury has a real impact on the body. And that needs to be dealt
00:22:36 with. Thankfully, again, doctors, to your point, have figured this out and have begun to treat that
00:22:42 separate from post-traumatic stress disorder. And that's fantastic. And so we're seeing some great
00:22:47 things happen there. Post-traumatic stress disorder is very interesting and it goes back
00:22:54 to the creation piece. God created us perfect again, as you mentioned earlier, and he created
00:23:00 us with some presets in our brain that are designed to keep us safe. One of those things
00:23:07 is how we handle trauma. We have a subconscious response to traumatic events that take place in
00:23:13 our lives. It is a place in our brain where the limbic system where information is stored and
00:23:22 it's stored in a way that we don't even always recognize so that if we find ourselves in a
00:23:28 similar situation in the future, this stored information kicks in all those presets so that
00:23:34 we can respond better. We were in this situation and something bad happened. An example that we
00:23:40 use, and it's a great example because a lot of combat veterans can picture it, you are on a
00:23:46 forward operating base somewhere. It's a fairly secure situation, but you're being mortared by
00:23:51 the enemy every day. This becomes very commonplace. Mortars start to fall one night as they have
00:23:57 Every other night, you have a bunkmate, and he's taking his time because this happens every single day.
00:24:05 You start screaming at him.
00:24:06 The mortars are coming.
00:24:07 We need to get to safety.
00:24:09 He looks at you and says this happens all the time.
00:24:11 A mortar drops on top of him, and one of your combat friends has lost his life.
00:24:17 That's a traumatic event, obviously.
00:24:19 your limbic system is designed to store that information so that the next time you find
00:24:23 yourself in that situation you respond subconsciously without thinking god gave us
00:24:28 that that's a very important thing that he put into us it's for survival it's for our own care
00:24:34 the problem is when you find yourself at home and you're getting your four-year-old ready for a
00:24:39 soccer game and she's taking too long to put her cleats on or put her shoes on to get out the door
00:24:44 and your brain says we've been here before another urgent situation similar to this happened someone
00:24:49 died and you lose control of yourself we can train this response we see this in our first responder
00:24:55 community a police officer will draw and present his weapon thousands of times at a target pulling
00:25:02 the trigger only when it needs to be pulled looking at the right target versus the wrong
00:25:05 target so that he's he's training that subconscious part of his brain to respond instinctively these
00:25:12 are all built into us by God. It's creation. So when we talk about post-traumatic stress and some
00:25:17 of the symptoms of post-traumatic stress, how people respond after traumatic events,
00:25:22 we need to understand that God created us the right way. But like everything else,
00:25:28 sin has perverted that and we're dealing with a perversion of what God meant for good.
00:25:34 So we're not broken. That's the point. We call it post-traumatic stress disorder. You're not
00:25:39 disordered. The event that you experienced may be disordered, but you're not broken when you
00:25:44 respond to something that is traumatic, including death or sexual trauma and a lot of these other
00:25:49 things that we would talk about as it relates to trauma. And so the way that we address that,
00:25:54 again, you know, there are physiological issues that are sometimes involved in that.
00:25:59 Thankfully, doctors, you know, physicians are learning and understanding that. And a lot of
00:26:05 good research has been done in that regard. But when it comes to how we behave, we have to accept
00:26:11 responsibility for our behavior. We have to understand that there is no excuse to behave
00:26:17 badly. There's not a good excuse to behave badly. And if you have experienced trauma,
00:26:21 you've experienced these things in your life as, you know, 70% of adults will experience an
00:26:26 acutely traumatic event in their life at some point. I would say it's more than that. Clinically,
00:26:30 we say it's 70%. That does not give you an excuse to behave badly. Well, how should I behave? You
00:26:39 should behave like a child of God if you're a Christian and understand what that is and move
00:26:43 toward that. Now, moving toward that is, again, very broad. We also have biblical counselors at
00:26:50 each one of our sessions who understand the application of scripture to the traumas of life
00:26:57 and moving toward the person God created you to be.
00:27:00 Again, we use this language.
00:27:01 It's very vague.
00:27:02 What it means is understanding what the Bible says
00:27:05 and living your life according to that.
00:27:08 And if you do that, it puts the rest of it in perspective.
00:27:11 Are there problems?
00:27:12 Are there issues because of your trauma?
00:27:14 Yeah, probably.
00:27:15 That's part of being human.
00:27:17 We see this throughout scripture.
00:27:19 You know, you think of Adam and Eve,
00:27:20 the trauma of being thrown out of the garden.
00:27:22 Adam and Eve, again, the trauma of finding out
00:27:24 that one of their sons murdered another.
00:27:27 What's the consequence of that?
00:27:28 There is one.
00:27:29 It's traumatic.
00:27:30 You think about Noah, who had to deal with being locked inside of the ark as his friends, those who were outside, the people he preached to for 120 years, are trying to get in, and they're drowning, and they're dying.
00:27:41 He would have heard it.
00:27:42 I guarantee there are people banging on that door and scratching on the side and trying to hang on, which may be why we find him doing some of the things that he did later in the story.
00:27:53 You know, throughout Scripture, we see trauma.
00:27:55 to include Jesus Christ in the garden as he sweat drops of blood I mean this is this is life life
00:28:00 is traumatic and trauma being a part of your life doesn't give you an excuse to behave badly
00:28:06 but you need to know how to move forward in spite of that and that how is in alignment with the
00:28:14 word of God that was a long answer I don't know if I got to your point there but yeah yeah no that
00:28:19 was great yeah i appreciate it so continuing in this vein but maybe maybe shifting gears slightly
00:28:27 you know one of the things we talked about you know before we started recording the episode was
00:28:31 uh in light of you know the things that we see in our news cycle and and now for me as a civilian
00:28:37 i don't get the inside scoop and so i you know but i have common sense and so i i'm willing to
00:28:42 bet that you know that um the headlines i well i wouldn't bet this i'll hope this i hope that
00:28:49 the headlines of the military going woke you know or for four star general or five star general you
00:28:56 know uh you know reading white fragility by robin d'angelo you know i i i hope that those things
00:29:03 may make the headlines with a few people you know big wigs in the military that really more
00:29:09 politicians. But I imagine and I hope that on the ground that that's not really seeping in. But
00:29:16 if we don't turn from our wicked ways as a nation and our culture, if we don't repent of these
00:29:22 things, then that is something that could happen and probably at least in trickles here and there
00:29:29 is happening. And I'm thinking about that in light of everything we've talked about thus far
00:29:34 in terms of living in a world of trauma.
00:29:38 You said life is traumatic because we live in God's world,
00:29:43 and so it's good, and yet we live in God's fallen world.
00:29:46 And so it's under a curse.
00:29:48 And the creation itself is not a curse,
00:29:51 but there is a curse that is set on creation because of man's sin.
00:29:55 And so creation itself is groaning with eager expectations
00:29:58 for the sons of God to be revealed.
00:30:00 And so we experience heartache, we experience tragedy,
00:30:02 We experience terrifying and traumatic situations.
00:30:08 And I would imagine, at least if I put myself into somebody's shoes
00:30:11 who's in the military, that if I'm waking up with cold sweats in the night
00:30:17 and reoccurring nightmares and struggling with PTSD,
00:30:20 because I've seen my friend get his body ripped apart with shrapnel,
00:30:27 and then i have to sit through lectures about how to be more empathetic what i'm saying is
00:30:34 if there's real trauma like men being ripped apart by a real enemy that doesn't care about
00:30:39 political correctness you know china doesn't care china loves the effeminacy of america because 0.77
00:30:47 you know and china is as you know that i mean they're even legislating getting rid of 0.96
00:30:51 sissy men in movies and entertainment and those kinds of things. And so China, they don't care 0.95
00:30:57 about that. So there are real enemies out there, not so much the Chinese people, but the communist
00:31:02 Chinese party is at enmity with God and hates America because there are still remnants of God's
00:31:08 law in America and those kinds of things. And so there are real enemies, there are real problems,
00:31:12 and there are real trauma. And then there's what I want to call pseudo-trauma, where you're
00:31:20 You're making someone a victim who's not a victim and you're trying to create trauma or really just drama because you like it and you thrive on it and you're trying to get attention.
00:31:34 And I would imagine that these two things would be in conflict, drama and trauma.
00:31:38 And as drama comes into the military with people who have actual trauma, real situations, not pseudo made up situations, I would see this hurting that the drama and the political correctness, the wokeness in the military, in many ways, even demeaning and almost mocking real trauma and real pain.
00:32:01 What do you think about that?
00:32:03 Yeah, that's, I mean, there's so many interesting points to what you just said.
00:32:08 When we look at the leadership of the military, military is an interesting beast because it is led primarily by politicians.
00:32:18 Now, some of those politicians wear a uniform, as General Milley and others.
00:32:23 They're politicians.
00:32:25 I've been around long enough now.
00:32:27 I'm, you know, 20 years removed just about from my military service.
00:32:31 And I've known a lot of folks who I served with who are now in positions of senior leadership, whether, you know, colonels and generals and folks that I respected and still respect who are still doing good work.
00:32:45 When one makes it to the level of the Joint Chiefs and some of these appointed military positions, they certainly are politicians.
00:32:54 They think like politicians. They act like politicians. And they're there because they're political.
00:32:58 So that's a truth.
00:33:02 When we get to the operational side of the military, you know, different branches will be more.
00:33:11 I don't like the term woke because I think it's pretty broad, but but woke or, you know, social justice aware or whatever you want to call it.
00:33:18 than than than others uh united states army united states military uh united states marine
00:33:23 corps rather tend to be the least of those the navy the air force a little bit more uh the jobs
00:33:29 have a lot to do with that the types of people they attract have a lot to do with that but when
00:33:33 you get to the operational forces there is a job to be done and one thing that i have seen from my
00:33:40 time in the military and forward is that those young people go into the military and do that job
00:33:45 Do it and they do it well. So whatever it is that our senior leaders are talking about as they are sitting before Congress, the books that they read and the nonsense that they so often espouse does not affect the the impact that our young servicemen and women have doing their job.
00:34:07 However, and this is the big however, when those political ideologies become policy, that begins to affect the operating force.
00:34:19 We have seen this the most clearly this year or more clearly this year than at any other time, probably in military history, with the vaccine mandate in the military.
00:34:30 The fact that political military leaders have put as a matter of policy in place something like a vaccine mandate, and they are willing to lose a percentage of the United States military to enforce this policy.
00:34:50 And we could talk about that all day long, but to enforce a policy that has zero bearing on the operational force, but is impacting every level down.
00:35:01 That's when it becomes a problem.
00:35:03 And we see these policies being pushed forward that are impacting the young men and women who serve.
00:35:08 And if you look historically, military history, there have always been ups and downs.
00:35:15 There have always been good leaders and bad leaders.
00:35:16 There have always been these times of dark days and better days.
00:35:21 But what we're seeing now is, I would say, unprecedented in a lot of ways.
00:35:26 And so that is impacting folks.
00:35:27 So how do we quantify that?
00:35:30 Well, we can look at the number of people who are leaving because of the vaccine mandates.
00:35:33 That's impacting people.
00:35:35 But to our point of post-traumatic stress, and again, I don't love this term, but we
00:35:39 could call it mental health.
00:35:41 The Department of Defense put out a study last year.
00:35:46 So in calendar year 2020, that had some interesting findings.
00:35:51 So typically, we say that there are 20 to 22 veterans a day that commit suicide to take their lives, 20 to 22 a day.
00:36:00 It's a terrible number. That's the number we've used for a lot of years.
00:36:04 On the active duty side, that number has been right around one and a half.
00:36:09 more recently a little bit higher than that maybe as high as four active duty service members a day
00:36:18 tragic number the department of defense did a study last year and the findings were this active
00:36:24 duty suicide rates active duty suicide rates went up 25 percent across the active duty community
00:36:32 across the department of defense this is all services 25 percent the army of the active duty
00:36:38 suicide rate went up 35%. The Air Force, it stayed the same as the previous year. The previous year
00:36:43 was the worst year for active duty Air Force suicides in the Air Force's history. So these
00:36:50 policy decisions being made by political military leaders do have a real implication when it comes
00:36:57 to things like what we're experiencing right now. So yeah, there is a real consequence for those
00:37:04 who lead. And it's funny because it's always been a belief that it doesn't matter who's leading the
00:37:12 military. Marines will do what Marines do. Soldiers will do what soldiers do. There's a job to be
00:37:16 done. There's a mission to be accomplished. But now a lot of that is changing and we'll see where
00:37:22 that ends up. I don't know where that will end up. Taking that one step further though, and I think
00:37:28 This is where pastors and churches and Christians need to focus.
00:37:33 We work with veterans and active duty service members who almost to a person will say they have post-traumatic stress as a result of combat or just their military service.
00:37:46 A lot of folks now particularly haven't been in combat, but they have something that happened in their military service.
00:37:54 When they come to us, that's their presenting problem, if you will.
00:37:58 As we begin to present a biblical blueprint of what it means to live your life, what the Word of God says, who God is, and how that applies to you, these things that we talk about, what we learn very quickly over just a couple of days is that most of the folks who talk about combat-related post-traumatic stress were traumatized as children.
00:38:21 A lot of sexual assaults, a lot of abuse, relationship issues, pornography issues, a lot of sexual sin that they brought into the military that was perhaps exacerbated by what they did in the military, but that that is not the problem.
00:38:37 They're looking at the wrong place. 0.53
00:38:39 So when it comes to churches and Christians who are trying to deal with this and address it, we have got to get back to discipling, to teaching the word of God,
00:38:48 to helping young men and women understand who they are before God,
00:38:52 what the Bible says, how to filter their lives
00:38:54 and their view of the world through the Bible
00:38:56 so that when they're confronted with these other issues,
00:38:59 they know what to do.
00:39:00 They just have no guide.
00:39:01 And that puts them in a very, very bad place
00:39:04 when additional trauma comes into their lives.
00:39:07 Yeah.
00:39:09 Yeah, I can't imagine.
00:39:11 And it's crazy even as you just,
00:39:13 I think one of the things that's going on in our culture,
00:39:15 well, not even culture, but society at large,
00:39:17 is just the credibility of so many of our institutions
00:39:22 has been just completely shocked.
00:39:24 And rightfully so.
00:39:27 Because the lid has been blown off
00:39:29 with several major institutions
00:39:32 and people are getting to look behind the veil
00:39:35 and see what's actually going on.
00:39:37 So even as you were talking about childhood trauma,
00:39:39 whether it be sexual abuse,
00:39:43 and I can't help but think of recent stories
00:39:45 that have come out with the CIA.
00:39:47 You know, different special agencies that are just, you know, where multiple individuals on staff found, you know, like with child pornography and child abuse and all these kinds of things.
00:39:58 And it seems as though, it seems as though there's just been a lack of accountability maybe with, you know, like, so like what you're saying is on the ground level, people who are involved in the military and we could say other organizations outside of the military, you know, there's a job to be done.
00:40:14 people have a mission and people will rally and people will get it done um but it usually tends
00:40:20 to be the people who aren't really they're they're not actually on the team anymore they're
00:40:25 not they're not actually that it's they don't have the mission anymore they've they've they
00:40:30 they accomplish the mission and then they achieve some kind of reward status to where they're not
00:40:36 really military anymore they're a politician or they're not really a worker anymore they're you
00:40:40 You know, they're whatever.
00:40:42 And they're a bigwig now.
00:40:44 And there's so little accountability.
00:40:46 And now the lid's being blown off.
00:40:47 And we see just how much abuse of power there is.
00:40:51 And it goes all the way back to, you know, like just a little kid, you know, gets to be the hall monitor, you know, and they become a tyrant.
00:40:59 And just, you know, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
00:41:04 And there's just been so much tyranny, whether it be the vaccines or whether it be mask mandates
00:41:11 or shutting down churches and all these different things.
00:41:14 And you're right, like the result across the board in the military, but with civilians
00:41:18 and just across the board, suicide has gone up tremendously for young adults, whether
00:41:25 they be civilian, whether they be military.
00:41:28 And it's just, yeah, it's really sad to say that in the name of public safety, what we
00:41:33 did was we stripped everyone of liberty and it seems like that's always the trait right it's it's
00:41:39 individual liberty versus public safety and it seems like people in power they have an agenda
00:41:45 they have something that they they have a new mission some kind of global mission or whatever
00:41:50 they just want to they just want to be remembered and make a name for themselves or whatever it is
00:41:54 but they have their own mission and the thing that gets in their way is all those pesky
00:42:00 provisions in the constitution you know those freedoms those liberties because america has a
00:42:04 great foundation and so then they have to get people to voluntarily forfeit those liberties
00:42:10 and so what in the world you know but liberty is so precious what in the world is going to make
00:42:15 someone in their right mind give up liberty for you know what you got to trade something pretty
00:42:20 valuable for someone to to give up liberty but the illusion of safety will do that you know and
00:42:26 And there's this God complex, like I'm going to shut down the virus, or I'm going to stop tornadoes.
00:42:32 Policy doesn't stop tornadoes. Policy doesn't shut down epidemics.
00:42:38 There's only so much we can do.
00:42:40 And when you over-police things, and you pretend to be God,
00:42:44 and you scare the living daylights out of everybody with just this fear-mongering mainstream media
00:42:50 and all these kinds of things, and then tell them that I'm the Savior,
00:42:54 And if all you have to do is give me your liberty and I will make you safe.
00:42:58 And it turns out that not only do we not solve the original problem, whether it be COVID or whatever else, it didn't work.
00:43:07 But all we did was we created new problems.
00:43:09 There's substance abuse off the charts, suicide off the charts, unemployment off the charts, you know, all these different things.
00:43:17 Now, inflation off the charts, they just came out with a study saying that the average family is next year is going to have to pay middle class family $4,000 more on total expenses annually, which that's, you know, that's not just like gas costs a little bit more, but that's a real that people will feel that.
00:43:38 And it's a crazy thing, too, because that lack of trust in the institutions, it impacts someone who's already struggling and has struggled through their lives with trust and finding a place to belong.
00:43:56 So if you see someone who was traumatized as a child, they are obviously carrying a lot of trauma if it hasn't been dealt with.
00:44:02 and a lot of those folks will end up in an organization like the marine corps the army
00:44:08 the military because it's a place where they can find belonging they can find trust they can find
00:44:13 brotherhood and camaraderie and care and they've got leaders who care for them and watch out for
00:44:17 their best interests and you know we've all seen the movies and so we know that's how it works
00:44:21 and then it doesn't and there is such an identity wrapped up in the trauma of a child and then that
00:44:29 identity is traded in a lot of ways for the identity of military service. I wear the uniform.
00:44:34 I am this. I am this thing. And then when our leaders let us down or walk away from us,
00:44:41 we lose our identity in that process or we get out of the military or we're pushed out of the
00:44:47 military or whatever the case. And we no longer know who we are. So a big part of even what we
00:44:53 deal with with veterans is helping them understand that that job you did is not who you were,
00:44:58 the trauma you experienced is not who you are. It's all a part of your life and a part of your
00:45:02 story, but that's not who you are. We need to understand, you know, what our identity is
00:45:07 because, you know, it happens in churches where, you know, a pastor will do something
00:45:14 egregious and those that he's led and taught and who have trusted him,
00:45:20 he betrays them in that sense. It's a betrayal of God, but it's a betrayal of those that he leads
00:45:25 as well. And the trauma and the loss of identity, who am I now? And what do I believe now? Churches
00:45:32 go through that. Congregations go through that. Kids go through that with parents that do the
00:45:36 same thing. And certainly it happens in the military. And then you add that acute trauma
00:45:40 on top of it, you know, the physical trauma. It's a very deep and dark hole that you have to help
00:45:47 someone work their way out of. Yeah. Yeah. You're right. Well, do you have any final thoughts on
00:45:54 PTSD or trauma or just serving our troops maybe I could put it like this um what are some things
00:46:02 that you know you know I was in San Diego for a long time pastoring a church there and we had
00:46:06 some marines but a lot of navy and um you know so so maybe for some of our listeners who find
00:46:13 themselves in in one of those kinds of areas and maybe they're a civilian you know speaking to
00:46:18 civilians for a moment but they're in a church where there's a military presence you know where
00:46:23 they have brothers and sisters in Christ that they see on a regular basis who are active duty
00:46:30 in the military. What are some just practical ways that civilian Christians can love
00:46:35 and serve them? Yeah. Yeah, that's a great question. Loving and serving is a great place to
00:46:41 start. Loving people, genuinely caring for people, military folks. I can't speak for all
00:46:52 military folks, but generally speaking, someone in the military who attends a local church
00:46:56 is not there because they want to be singled out as someone in the military. They want to be
00:47:02 loved and cared for as a human being, as someone who would go to that church, just like anyone else
00:47:07 who would go to that church. I often have pastors reach out to me, and they'll ask something like
00:47:12 this, how do I help those in my church who were in the military who were struggling? I didn't serve,
00:47:19 So I can't relate to them. And while I understand the heart of that question, the reality is if scripture is sufficient, it's sufficient for all people, not just people that you have a common experience with or understand.
00:47:34 To apply scripture to the issues that service members are dealing with, struggles that they're having, you know, the feelings that they're feeling, that's always the right way as one Christian to another.
00:47:45 And so it's lovingly applying scripture. But I think beyond that, it's just it's being loving.
00:47:51 It's showing care. If you are in a community of active duty service members, a lot of ways to show care.
00:47:57 You can care for the spouse and the children while the service member is away.
00:48:02 The church that I'm a part of now and I was many years ago is in Oceanside, California, right outside of Camp Pendleton.
00:48:10 and we'll have times where you know a third of the church is on deployment and there are a lot
00:48:17 of wives and a lot of kids who need to be cared for and man there's no better way to show love
00:48:24 and care and concern than to be there for them and take care of them yeah also there are a lot
00:48:30 of people who are struggling and you know there are resources that are needed our organization
00:48:34 has written several books we have a lot of resources we do a lot of content production
00:48:40 in terms of video. We've got some podcasts. Pointing people to those resources can be helpful
00:48:44 as well. For someone who needs help but may not want that help, you can point them to others who
00:48:49 have also served, you know where they've been and where they're coming from, and hey, go check this
00:48:54 out. That's been helpful as well, and just being there for them. Yeah, that's good. You said you
00:49:00 were in Oceanside. Did you ever know, this is a random question, but did you ever know a pastor
00:49:04 there named jonathan ransom uh you know i met him years ago but it's been it's been a long time
00:49:11 yeah i remember when i was in san diego he was he was there for a while and then he ended up being
00:49:16 stationed in japan but yeah he was a good guy so and since you were in the ocean side i thought i
00:49:20 yeah it's funny i haven't heard that name in a long time but years ago yeah it's a good name
00:49:24 huh i wish my last name was ransom that's a great it's gonna be a lot easier to say if it was ransom
00:49:29 Yeah. Yeah. Well, thanks so much, Jeremy, for coming on the show. The last question is this. Let our listeners, could you tell them how they could follow you and keep up with your ministry?
00:49:39 Yeah, the best place to go is just to our website, MightyOaksPrograms.org.
00:49:45 So, it's Oaks with an S, Programs with an S, MightyOaksPrograms.org.
00:49:49 That's our website.
00:49:51 And so, there on our website, first thing you'll see is a place to apply for the program.
00:49:56 A veteran, active duty service member, first responder, or spouse can apply for our program.
00:50:01 There's no cost to attend, and we'll work with you to do all the logistics and all the planning.
00:50:06 We'll cover the cost of travel so that there really is nothing that would prevent someone from attending the program other than the five days it will take to go.
00:50:14 So we want to make that available. Please apply. We have a great team that can make that happen.
00:50:20 We also have places for resources. We have a blog that we run off of that Web site.
00:50:25 We have video and other resources as well. So check that out. And we put all that out there.
00:50:31 We do charge for our books, but we give, so for instance, last year we gave 45,000 books away.
00:50:38 So when we charge on our website, it's so that we can give them away to our active duty folks. So
00:50:42 if someone falls onto our website, they look at something they want and they think it would be
00:50:47 helpful just to email us and we'll send it to you. You can't afford it. So we just want to make sure
00:50:51 that every resource needed is available. That's great. Well, Jeremy, thank you so much for coming
00:50:56 on the show. We appreciate it. Yeah, it's awesome. Thank you. Appreciate all you do.
00:51:00 As a special thank you for your gift of any amount, we'll be happy to send you a free digital book from our store.
00:51:06 To access this offer, visit rightresponseministries.com slash offer.
00:51:11 We highly recommend Pastor Joel's book, Am I Truly Saved?
00:51:15 If you or someone you know has wrestled with doubts about the love of God, this would be a great resource.
00:51:20 As a reminder, to get this offer, go to rightresponseministries.com slash offer.
00:51:25 And thank you for your generous support.
00:51:30 You