The NXR Podcast - August 11, 2021


THEOLOGY APPLIED - The 3 Most Dangerous Cults In America

Hosted by
Joel Webbon Harrison Smith Antonio Griffith Dale Partridge Wewsley Todd Calvin Robinson
Mentioned
Jeremiah Jordan Peterson Andrew Donald Trump Allie Bestucki George Floyd Ben Shapiro Jim Jones Gen Z Jonestown Greatest Solomon Stalin
THEOLOGY APPLIED - The Puritans Message To The American Church THEOLOGY APPLIED - Biblical Counseling 101： The Sufficiency Of Scripture

Episode Stats


Length

22 minutes

Words per minute

187.89

Word count

4,162

Sentence count

110

Harmful content

Hate speech

7

sentences flagged


Summary

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

On this episode of Theology Applied, I sit down with Andrew and Jeremiah, co-hosts of the podcast called Cultish, to discuss the three most dangerous cults in the United States today. They discuss their experiences with cults, and what they believe about them.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00 On this episode of Theology Applied, I was privileged to have both Andrew and Jeremiah, the co-host of the podcast called Cultish.
00:00:08 We actually took our interview and broke it up into two parts. This is the second part.
00:00:13 The first part, we dealt with identifying cults.
00:00:16 In this part, we deal with the three most dangerous cults here in America today. Enjoy.
00:00:24 Applying God's Word to every aspect of life.
00:00:26 This is Theology Applied.
00:00:30 what would you say are maybe three and if you have you know maybe just two or if you have four
00:00:38 feel free to add another one but three of the most dangerous cults in america today and i know
00:00:44 that word dangerous is somewhat subjective maybe it's spiritual danger maybe it's physical danger
00:00:49 or however you interpret that but three of the most dangerous cults that you're aware of in our
00:00:55 nation today? Andrew, I'm going to give you the first one. All right. So number one. Okay. I guess
00:01:02 I would say my brain instantly, just because I'm so deep into it right now, it's the Latter-day
00:01:09 Saints, but I don't want to just go there. I'm thinking more of the cult of secularism or the
00:01:16 cult of Darwinianism, the cult of a system of government that doesn't bow its knee to Christ
00:01:23 in all aspects and areas of life um that that worldview right babble in itself um that man
00:01:31 is autonomous uh in free thinking and that uh we came from highly evolved apes uh i believe that
00:01:40 the presuppositions involved with that worldview are far more dangerous when you take it to the
00:01:45 furthest implications than many of the other we'll say more predominant uh mainstream cults
00:01:52 because it's the worldview that leads to Stalin.
00:01:56 It's the worldview that leads to all kinds of horrors
00:02:01 that have happened in the past
00:02:01 that somehow people have forgotten nowadays.
00:02:05 Vanity, as Solomon would say, it's all vanity.
00:02:08 So I would say that that is probably
00:02:10 the most dangerous worldview right now.
00:02:13 And we're seeing the fruits of it in our own nation
00:02:15 as we face the judgment of God
00:02:17 from falling prey to that worldview.
00:02:21 yeah um i would say the dangerous there's a dualism between uh political cults right now
00:02:28 in our culture that's incredibly dangerous one everyone always is thinking about what's going
00:02:33 on with leftism with the left uh you know you think about what's going on right now with pride
00:02:38 month and it seems like every single year it gets taken to the next level in regards to what gets
00:02:44 celebrated what is on the table and so forth and so on but then the counter the counter to that is
00:02:51 really i think it's equally as dangerous and deadly it's a secular conservatism because within
00:02:57 that you see a lot of people who just kind of hold to these arbitrary vague conservative values of
00:03:04 different um yeah i think these vagative uh it's vague conservative values and so they they don't
00:03:12 give an ultimate accounting as to why this is an issue to begin with so i would i would give an
00:03:18 example uh the whole situation i haven't really followed it the olympics are happening right now
00:03:23 are the olympics happening i guess i guess i guess it's happening but there was um there was
00:03:29 i guess some lady who got third place was not was sort of like looking disgruntled for the national
00:03:35 anthem right and all you know not everyone on the conservative side is all like up and up and
00:03:42 arms about it and like you what you you don't kneel you you stand for the flag you stand for
00:03:47 the anthem and i'm hearing that i'm saying like oh you worship the state like you better worship
00:03:52 the state no matter what and so for me as a christian i honestly struggled with that i mean
00:03:57 i think honestly like you're you should go if you're if you're going to represent a country
00:04:03 whatever country you are you're representing the country and like i would want to be respectful
00:04:07 in the same way if i was on a field trip uh my creative agency we're going to we're working for
00:04:14 a cycling company based in california so i want to be on my best behavior to make that company
00:04:19 look good because that's just that's my role so i think there's a matter of general principle in
00:04:24 that but to be able to say like no you need to stand for the flag you need to do this well
00:04:29 ultimately there's one person that i'm accountable to which is christ and i'm going to stand i'm
00:04:36 going to bow the knee to christ and do that before i stand before any flag and so i think
00:04:40 one of the main problems is that a lot of the people who are appealing to the conservative
00:04:44 values aren't rest aren't vesting in the ultimate source of where those values originally came from
00:04:51 which is biblical truth so i think in that sense and then i think one of the most dangerous uh
00:04:57 things today is really the uh really the new age and the occult i think just because in many ways
00:05:05 it's kind of the new atheism, because as you can see, especially at Pride Month, you can see that
00:05:10 we are in a complete freefall as far as ethics, Western civilization goes. And as we become more
00:05:21 secular, there's still this huge hole and vacuum that gets created in regards to people just having
00:05:29 that spiritual void that they're desperate to fill it up. And I think typically in times past,
00:05:35 you know, during the dark ages and such, you'd see the resurgence of all sorts of different
00:05:39 paganism. But now I think with the very quick fast food spirituality, and where you don't
00:05:47 really have to have a whole organization that the truth is within you, you don't have to start a
00:05:52 church or to start a religion. So I think you have you have that combined with the tick tock
00:05:57 influencer mentality, where you can get millions of followers, you know, young kids who are 18 to
00:06:03 20 years old even younger than that who are can use that as a catalyst for influence it's it's
00:06:10 really a powder keg a a field full of dry it's a it's a forest full of dried pine needles for miles
00:06:18 on end just waiting for a spark to happen that's one of the biggest dangers and that's why i think
00:06:24 having shows like cultish and being able to partner with people like steven bancars and
00:06:29 other people to be able to get the hope of the gospel out to people in oh we're still here
00:06:37 minimize uh yeah into the world of cults uh and the occult i think that's a huge need so yeah i
00:06:43 would just say uh definitely both the left leftism and secular conservatism it's a really deadly
00:06:50 dualism um you know like a lot of people on the left and i don't know to go super political here
00:06:57 But even on the conservative side, people are looking right now like Donald Trump is not the hope that we have for Western civilization.
00:07:06 I'm sorry to say it. Yeah, he might do better than other people in there.
00:07:11 I mean, he can formulate complete sentences. So he has that going for him.
00:07:15 But, yeah, ultimately, he's he's not the savior. He's not the ultimate standard.
00:07:19 I think a lot of people are just sort of viewing him still as he is the hope and the savior, you know, and it's just that.
00:07:26 that was one of the concerns too i guess he had a recent rally like in ohio or somewhere like that
00:07:30 and it was just a ridiculous amount of people showed up for one of his rallies which is totally
00:07:34 okay like i would go to one no problem but i think for a lot of people would troll me like this is
00:07:39 their vested hope it's like my hope is built nothing less than donald whatever would rhyme
00:07:45 with that so um but anyways those those would be my two of mine for sure yeah no that's helpful
00:07:53 So the secular, I like what you said, Andrew.
00:07:56 So you said, you know, secularism, because a lot of people don't think of that as a cult.
00:07:59 So I really appreciate you kind of leading off with that answer, because it is a cult, you know, that we climbed out of some primordial soup and we're apes.
00:08:08 And like, it's crazy.
00:08:09 It's just as crazy as any other cult out there.
00:08:12 And at some point, you know, as often as the secularist, you know, points to the Christians, says, you know, the Crusades, the Crusades, the Crusades.
00:08:20 At some point, they got to own up to Mao. 0.50
00:08:22 You're right.
00:08:23 when is secularism going to own up
00:08:25 because for every person that was killed
00:08:27 in the name of Christianity, we know that that wasn't
00:08:29 true Christianity 0.81
00:08:30 but for everyone who was killed
00:08:33 and it gets counted to the number
00:08:35 of Christian casualties
00:08:37 I mean 1.00
00:08:39 it's a hundred times
00:08:41 a hundred fold, a thousand fold
00:08:42 because of secularism, the world view
00:08:45 promotes, if I'm bigger
00:08:47 than you, you have something I want
00:08:49 I take it, why would I not
00:08:51 And I appreciate you, Jeremiah, throwing in, I actually would push back, I'll push back a little bit real quick. But the, you know, the conservative secular, because you're right, that's absolutely, absolutely exists. I personally, now I could be wrong, I personally don't see it as dangerous as the full blown leftist secular.
00:09:11 I see it as just the seeds, in my opinion, of I see the conservative secularist as just a as as a leftist secularist in embryo.
00:09:22 You know what I mean? So I see because really, I think that that's what happens.
00:09:27 Somebody once said that, you know, one generation believes the gospel, the next assumes the gospel, the next neglects the gospel and the next rejects the gospel.
00:09:36 And I think that if you look at generations and what is happening, you know, we have the greatest generation and they suffer.
00:09:41 Did they, you know, sometimes I think, you know, we either need revival or America just needs another war, like like a big one, you know, because that's that tends to be what purifies nations and brings them back right now.
00:09:52 There's just there's so much comfort, so much ease that you just you just start whining and complaining about everything.
00:10:00 And it's really all on the shoulders of privilege, not white privilege, but just privilege.
00:10:04 And so, you know, so anyways, all that being said, I think that, you know, you look at generations.
00:10:09 I just listened to Ali Bestucki. She had a guest today and, um, and, you know, talking about the
00:10:14 boomer generation, this, this woman, she wrote a book on the boomer generation and how they really
00:10:18 messed everything up, you know, with the 1960s and all these things. And, and, uh, and what they did 0.93
00:10:23 was they took for granted everything that was given to them by the greatest generation, by their
00:10:26 parents. Um, and then they were, they were very anti institution, you know, and they broke down
00:10:31 institutions. And so I see like the secularist conservative, somebody like, um, I won't push
00:10:36 Shapiro there, um, just because I, I know that he's not a Christian and I pray that, that God
00:10:40 saves him. Um, but he's not a secularist in the sense that he's an Orthodox Jew, but let's say
00:10:44 like Peterson, Jordan Peterson or somebody like that. I see them as like at best a calming grace
00:10:50 expression, um, that I'm grateful for. Um, but in reality, give it time, right? The seeds will grow
00:10:57 in time. Uh, there are people who are hanging really good things, God things in midair, but
00:11:03 there's no found date and it's just you know i mean and it just it won't hold and so you have a
00:11:08 generation that that that believes the gospel believes the christian worldview believes the
00:11:13 law of god all these kinds of things um and then and then you have a a generation that accepts it
00:11:19 but but they but it's not with conviction it's assumed and then the next generation neglects
00:11:25 and then eventually it's just that full-on rejection and i feel like i would say like
00:11:29 Greatest generation believed, I would say boomers assumed, and I would say we're now experiencing kind of, you know, Gen X and, you know, and millennia like this, this neglecting with some and, and then now outright rejection.
00:11:42 And so I see the conservative secularist, what you're saying, Jeremiah, is not necessarily the enemy, but they're the ones who ultimately manufacture the enemy by giving people the what. 0.53
00:11:57 This is the good what.
00:11:58 This is what you should do and what you – but they don't give the why.
00:12:02 And it just doesn't work.
00:12:03 You have to ground it in the worldview.
00:12:06 And Jordan Peterson, brilliant as he may be, at the end of the day, with every one of his lectures, I'm astounded by his brilliance, the way that he can speak.
00:12:17 But if I was ever there in the audience, I would just say, why?
00:12:21 That would be my question at the end of every single lecture is, okay, all that sounds really good.
00:12:26 What you said is good.
00:12:28 But why?
00:12:29 If Jesus isn't Lord, which is the most political statement we could ever make, so that Christianity does deal with politics.
00:12:35 If Jesus isn't Lord and people are not his image-bearing creatures and there's not a law of God, a God in heaven who will judge both the quick and the dead, then why?
00:12:47 And there's no real answer for that apart from the Christian worldview. 0.92
00:12:51 And so I agree with you.
00:12:54 The secularists, I thought that was fantastic.
00:12:56 And I agree with you also, Jeremiah, with the conservative secularists.
00:12:59 I personally don't think they're quite as dangerous, but I just think that the conservative secularist is just a generation away from being the progressive.
00:13:06 Yeah, and I totally get and appreciate what you're saying for sure. I think just one thing just for clarification would be where the danger I would see where a secular conservative would appeal to just the sort of generic values we're not really dealing with ultimately where they come from.
00:13:29 And I'll give you an example. There's a guy who's a big influencer. His name is Officer Tatum.
00:13:35 And like his YouTube channel is great. I enjoy it. He's always talking about different.
00:13:41 He's a foreign police officer and he kind of deals with he's also a foreign black police officer.
00:13:47 So he has a very unique vantage point as a black conservative talking about a lot, especially he got a big a lot of notoriety back last year during the BLM riots and a lot of the different shootings that took place.
00:13:58 what happened with george floyd however he's oneness apostolic he adamantly denies the trinity
00:14:04 and the deity of christ there was someone he did a live stream where i believe he challenged he was
00:14:12 giving a challenge for anyone to like prove the trinity or the jesus was the eternal god in human
00:14:17 flesh or something of that nature i wish i could find i can't i'll have to look up and find it but
00:14:23 some guy found out about it and he wasn't even on instagram but he opened up an instagram account
00:14:29 just to be able to go on to his live stream and challenged him so he brought him on hundreds of
00:14:35 people were listening in and they have this big debate and you could hear that like when you
00:14:40 started getting pushed on what scripture adamantly says about who christ is in regards to being the
00:14:47 eternal god and knowing the ramifications of christ giving the contingencies of eternal life
00:14:52 and believing maybe struggle with but not adamantly rejecting that he's he's the eternal god that
00:14:59 eternal life is contingent upon that he's someone at this point in time it seems like he was
00:15:04 rejecting it and the same thing too is someone like glenn beck and i've always appreciated a
00:15:08 lot of his show and he's a really funny guy and he's i think there's a lot of good that he
00:15:12 contributes but ultimately if glenn beck believes in the gospel of mormonism you know some people
00:15:19 are saved and spy the mormon church but if he believes in the gospel mormonism like that's a
00:15:24 false gospel and someone and you can't you can't clothe yourselves in the robes of conservative
00:15:32 values or the constitution the only way you ultimately have for people god is through is
00:15:38 through the righteousness of christ so that's that's where a way i would i would say that i
00:15:44 think part of the reason of sort of makes like calling them equals is to kind of like force
00:15:48 people to think kind of it's kind of sort of separated out I agree that's that's really good
00:15:56 I just had a mental picture of like you know Ben Shapiro on on the day of judgment wearing the
00:16:01 constitution instead of just not it's just I love Ben come on Ben you just you gotta love Jesus you
00:16:09 gotta submit to Christ um no you know what I think you're right you know as you were as you
00:16:15 were talking i think you i you were persuasive i think that was compelling and it just it got me
00:16:19 thinking that you know i think the leftist secularist i i would i would put them if we
00:16:23 you know you watch those shows like uh 50 deadliest animals you know so if we were doing that right
00:16:27 now 50 deadly deadliest cults i i think i would put the leftist secularism number one i think you
00:16:32 nailed that andrew but then jeremiah you got me thinking i i think i probably put number two um
00:16:37 new age and and a cult that was really good what you said on that and so i don't want to just
00:16:41 gloss over and i like what you said like the um the powder keg with you know with you know 18
00:16:47 year olds without even a fully developed mind and a tick tock with a million viewers you know and
00:16:51 and that it it can multiply it can spread so quickly because it doesn't need an order right
00:16:56 it doesn't need an organization institution it's just because you have the revelation so that was
00:17:00 super helpful so maybe put that at number two and then number three i still don't know if i'd give
00:17:05 it number three but i agree with you in this you won me over on this that the the conservative the
00:17:11 secular conservative if nothing else it is dangerous right because that was kind of the
00:17:15 original question if nothing else it is dangerous because it it seeks to persuade people that you
00:17:19 can have good without god and that is a lie and uh and and so it's dangerous in the sense not
00:17:27 necessarily that it that it ruins empires and nations and those you know but what it does is
00:17:33 it gives people a allegedly good and wholesome and comfortable life on their way to hell
00:17:38 for each other you know what i mean and and so in that sense it is utterly dangerous so
00:17:44 touche so fair enough okay you guys are talking about this it was making me think of something
00:17:49 uh go for it yeah so the secular conservatism reminded me essentially of the israelites when
00:17:55 they're getting led through the red sea and after they come out to the red sea we're going to mount
00:17:59 sinai and then we know we all know the story they end up you know fashioning a golden calf from all
00:18:05 the gold that they plundered from the egyptians and they worshiped that so the secular conservatism
00:18:10 it's like we god brought us through an area right we have his law we have um the way he wants to
00:18:16 institute government which was given to us in the bible war the way we at least try to find
00:18:20 conservatism in general what are we trying to conserve right and nowadays it seems like the
00:18:26 conservatism is the worship of the golden calf it's like we have these these values but we forgot
00:18:31 who the god was that led us out of the through the red sea right and out of captivity and we go
00:18:37 back to the pagan to try to make sense of all that that is around us that's that's why i see 0.59
00:18:42 it's dangerous because we know the lord hates misplaced worship and um i i find like that's
00:18:47 what it leads to in a sense so you guys just have my brain thinking about that you're right no it's
00:18:52 good that's good well guys i really appreciate your time i know that you've probably already
00:18:56 given me enough any final i'll give you guys the last word any final thoughts that you'd like to add
00:18:59 um no i just think that uh this topic is incredible is incredibly unique uh it's very
00:19:06 unique place that we've been placed in i think especially if you are a christian it's real i
00:19:12 would say if you don't have it get uh dr walton martin's kingdom of the cults i would say just
00:19:16 look up his lecture listen to his lectures online he was really speaking about a lot of these
00:19:22 different new cults uh new uh religions uh things in regards to ufos extrasensory perception he was
00:19:31 so ahead of its time i guess they get king of the cults just look just start listening to his
00:19:36 lectures on youtube like get equipped because this is the the kingdom of the cults is only going to
00:19:42 explode uh given the state of the world right now i mean historically cults have always exploded
00:19:47 during times of uncertainty and if any if 2020 that was one thing i thought through i said i
00:19:54 don't know where this is all headed but this is just going to be the fault the nuclear fallout
00:19:59 of all this is going to be just a plethora of brand new cult leaders as you mentioned a long
00:20:06 time ago a bunch of little jim jones is like running around and as christians we need to be
00:20:13 able to give an apologetic and give an answer for people. Otherwise they may end up face down
00:20:19 somewhere else, another jungle and another Jonestown. So this is serious stuff. We have
00:20:24 the slogan and the teacher about theology hurts people. What is a serious thing? No, outside of
00:20:30 just the show, I'm a deacon and I've had to sit on meetings and hearing horrific stories of people
00:20:36 who've gone through horrific spiritual abuse. And, you know, you see that the wherewithal,
00:20:41 like this is like this is serious this is a serious game this is not something to play around
00:20:47 with there's a reason you know when you think about the apologetic answer in first peter 3 15
00:20:53 you know give an answer for everyone the hope that is in need but with with weak with meekness
00:20:58 gentleness and compassion or reverence the way that it says it and respect is that that's really
00:21:03 like that that's like the warning that's the warning on a desert the desert eagle has a warning
00:21:08 label and that's really what it is i mean that's you're wielding something that's powerful and you
00:21:14 need to do it with carefulness as well too and there's and that's what the cult leaders do they
00:21:18 they ignore the instructions they wield it in a way uh that the instructions don't say and it
00:21:24 harms people so as christians we have even more of a responsibility to do it in the correct way so
00:21:29 those are my thoughts anything else you have to say no brother that was that was beautiful
00:21:34 That's good.
00:21:34 Great.
00:21:35 Great, guys.
00:21:36 Thanks so much for coming on the show.
00:21:37 I really appreciate it.
00:21:38 God bless.
00:21:39 Awesome, man.
00:21:39 God bless you, too.
00:21:40 Thank you, man.
00:21:41 Awesome.
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