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This is Undaunted Life on Man's Podcast. I'm your host Kyle Thompson. Let's get into it.
0:46
For the church, the skies are growing dark in the West, but the sky is not falling in.
0:51
In fact, this is a great time to be a Christian. I know that it may not look like that,
0:56
from terrorist attacks to racial injustice to political chaos to an increasingly secular world
1:01
that seems to have lost its moral center. We find ourselves in some unique and challenging times.
1:06
Fear runs rampant across our cultural landscape, and especially, and increasingly,
1:10
fear sits in the pews of our churches. Talk to most Christians, or read most Christian blogs and
1:15
social media streams, and it's clear that the church isn't what it was. Or rather, it isn't
1:21
where it was. What do I mean? Bernie Sanders will explain for me. In spring 2017,
1:27
the Vermont Senator, who came closer than anyone expected to winning the Democratic nomination
1:32
for U.S. President in 2016, discovered that Russell Vogt, Deputy Director of the Office
1:37
of Management and Budget, holds to the Orthodox Christian belief on salvation, and that, therefore,
1:43
he believes that Muslims are "condemned." Here is what Sanders said in Vogt's Senate confirmation
1:49
hearing. It is hateful. It is Islamophobic, and it is an insult to over a billion Muslims
1:54
throughout the world. This country's sittsens' inception has struggled, sometimes with great
1:59
pain, to overcome discrimination of all forms. We must not go backwards. Welcome to the age of
2:04
unbelief. Unless you want to place your head in the sand and leave it there, there's no denying
2:09
the fact that fewer and fewer people are claiming to be Christians throughout the West, and that
2:12
Christians are losing social status, in favor, more and more, almost by the day. For those in the
2:18
United States, we're seeing "Christian America" pass away right before our eyes. Our one nation
2:23
under God doesn't look and feel the same way anymore. Many European nations are way downstream
2:30
from there. It is the end of the age of Christendom. Whether it's legislation around issues such as
2:35
gay marriage and transgender identities, or the debate around what religious liberty really is,
2:40
and whether it even matters, or the popularity of the new atheists like Richard Dawkins and Carl
2:46
Sagan, or just the way our neighbors and co-workers look at us, even if we mention that we agree with
2:51
what Christ said about salvation, relationships, or truth, we're in a new era. It was one thing
2:57
to move toward a pluralistic society where we lived among those who looked and thought differently
3:02
than us, and who believed differently than us on some of our close-held beliefs. Now that's not
3:08
good enough. We're currently experiencing the intolerance of intolerance. Hopefully you catch
3:13
the hypocrisy in that. Christians with traditional convictions and understandings of sexuality and
3:18
marriage are seen as bigots. Churches are being viewed as hate groups. Our beliefs are,
3:23
Bernie says, and millions of others think, hateful. Our positions are, Bernie says, and millions of
3:28
others think, backwards. Welcome to the age of unbelief. What are we going to do in it?
3:33
I believe we can thrive, really. That was an excerpt from the introduction to Take Heart,
3:40
Christian courage and the age of unbelief, which was just released this week. So if you're listening
3:45
to this on time, it was just released this week. And that was written by Matt Chandler,
3:49
who's the lead teaching pastor over at the Village Church down in Dallas. And so this podcast today
3:54
is going to be a review of that book. So first of all, I'd just like to really thank the Village
3:58
Church and their team for sending me an advanced copy of this book. I was able to read it a couple
4:03
of months ago to kind of formulate my thoughts on it and get a really good idea as to what I think
4:09
this could do for, for my audience and for people that looking on Daunton life or in men's ministry.
4:14
And so that was just a really, really nice thing of them to do to send that my direction. I really
4:18
enjoyed getting to read an advanced copy. Now, obviously, if you've been following me or been
4:22
following this ministry for any length of time, you know that we have like a super like massive
4:28
theological man crush on Matt Chandler, like we just love him here at Undaunted Life. We just,
4:33
we love what what he's about. We love what he stands for. We love the fire that he preaches with.
4:37
We love how he speaks about truth even in the face of just this kind of the moral pluralistic
4:44
kind of ridiculous even counter cultural Christian culture that we see where everything's just kind
4:49
of up in the air and you can just believe whatever you want. We like that Matt Chandler kind of sticks
4:53
it out and stays true. And I mean, if you know Matt Chandler story, the guy should be dead. He
4:56
should have died of brain cancer years ago. And so it's almost as if this guy has a new lease on
5:01
life and he preaches every single week like it's his last sermon. And I know a lot of people kind
5:05
of say that about different people like always playing this like it's his last game. And she's
5:09
doing this like it's her last time ever in the boardroom like, but but I really mean it. And if
5:14
you've been listening to a sermons for any length of time or especially for years and years as I
5:18
have, you know, you'll know that to be true. But this book goes into a lot of different directions.
5:23
I mean, really even in the very beginning of the book, you're gonna look at stats about the decline
5:27
of Christianity in the West, the decline of Christian thinking in America overall. And so it really is
5:34
going to go into a lot of these areas, but it's going to be a very, very hopeful read for most of
5:38
us. So I mean, first of all, if if you can see the cover, which, you know, we'll include a link to
5:42
the Amazon link, the cover is super dope. We love the cover. Obviously, we love lines here at
5:47
Undaunted Life, we like to focus on the line of Judas or the fact that there's a line on the cover.
5:51
It's as if it was written for us only, which was amazing. But what is this book about? And I could
5:57
have gone into my own little synopsis and I'll kind of do a little bit of that later. But I'm just
6:01
going to read directly from the Amazon description, because I think this is a very apt and obviously
6:05
a very appropriate description. So here's what it reads on Amazon. "Christianism is dead,
6:11
and that's a good thing. The Christian culture that has underpinned Western society for centuries
6:16
has been eroded. We're now at the point where to disagree with people and issues such as marriage
6:20
and sexuality is seen as hateful. Christians are no longer seen as honorable, but as bigots.
6:26
But history testifies that the more people try to destroy Christianity, the more it grows.
6:31
So we are entering an exciting period of time because we're back in the place where Christ
6:35
Church can survive and thrive at the margins of society. In this stirring passionate book,
6:41
Matt Chandler shows us we need Christian courage like never before and how to live with compassion
6:46
and conviction able to look around positively and reach out confidently. It encourages us
6:53
not to be thwarted by fear, but to depend on God and have confidence that Christ will build
6:57
his church despite continual marginalization. A must read for any Christian who wants to understand
7:03
how to stand firm and walk forwards in an increasingly secular culture. So what I'm going to do today
7:09
is I'm going to review this book and some of my major takeaways from this and really summarize
7:14
some of the content without giving too much away. So if you've read the book already by the time
7:20
that you've heard this podcast, you're going to know that I'm going to go over a lot of different
7:24
things, but I'm leaving out a lot of the meat of the book because I want you to experience that
7:29
in the narrative way that Matt Chandler puts it out there. Okay, so let's just go ahead and launch
7:35
into this. Okay, the beginning of the book kind of goes into a discussion of the plight of Christianity
7:41
and Christian thinking in the modern West because, and I think that's an important distinction
7:44
because we think of, oh, Christianity's on the decline is being attacked, but really it's Christian
7:49
thinking as well. It's like Christianity as a worldview. So all of us tend to respond to the
7:55
plight a little differently. And Chandler did a really, really great job of putting our different
8:02
responses into these four categories. So we're seeing this, this anti Christian nature going on.
8:08
How do we respond to it? So here are the four approaches that he threw out there. The first one
8:12
is the converting culture approach, the converting culture approach. So in this approach, you want
8:19
to make sure that culture reflects Christian and or biblical principles and values. That's what you
8:25
want to make sure it happens. So think, you know, the modern Christian right politically. So,
8:30
you know, different politicians that you've identified with that would even call themselves
8:33
Christian right. That's kind of where this approach comes from. So this could lead to some unholy
8:38
alliances with groups that we don't necessarily want to align with. And I think that goes really
8:43
well with a quote from this section. And here's the quote. And yes, Christians are called to seek
8:47
the good of those around us and to pursue justice and to love good and shun evil. But we get into
8:52
trouble when we confuse the earthly city with the heavenly city, until Christ returns, this world
8:58
will never look as it should. You can't use politics to build the new Jerusalem and you can't
9:04
legislate people into the kingdom of God. Okay. So that's the converting culture approach. The
9:09
second approach he talks about is the condemning culture approach. You'll probably be very familiar
9:14
with this one. So basically, we are going to remove ourselves from culture as Christians. We're just
9:18
going to be outside of a culture. So we're going to get up on our high horse. We're going to point
9:22
down at all the sinners and all the crazy folk. And we're just going to condemn them from our
9:26
perch on high. That's kind of what we're going to do. So the Anabaptist movement, some of you may
9:31
have heard of the Anabaptist movement that has a lot of this condemning culture approach. There
9:35
was a very popular book that came out called the Benedict option. And it uses this approach. It
9:40
basically calls it a strategic retreat. And so Chandler doesn't really dig this option very much.
9:47
I think you can see for some obvious reasons. And here's a quote from this section talking about
9:52
the condemning culture approach. So here we go. My concern is that by itself, I just don't think
9:58
the idea is all that biblical. We are to be the salt of the earth as we see in Matthew 5 verse 13.
10:04
And salt maintains its flavor while it is rubbed into the food it is being used to preserve.
10:09
Not only that salt spreads its flavor too. There comes a point where we have to actually get our
10:14
hands dirty and show and share the good news of Christ. And proximity and relationships are
10:20
essential to making that work. It requires involvement in the local community and in the
10:24
public square. If God's Old Testament people could have called to seek the welfare of the city of
10:31
Babylon during their exile from the homeland in Jeremiah 29 seven, then we should be seeking
10:36
the welfare of others too. After all, however, ungodly your context, you are not in Babylon.
10:42
Okay. So that that's a really good summation of the condemning culture approach and some of
10:46
the issues that you might have with that. So let's move on to the third approach. That's the
10:49
consume culture approach. Okay. So this one is the most personally frustrating for me, especially
10:55
inside the church. And you've heard me talk about this in other podcasts. And we'll certainly talk
10:59
about that throughout future episodes. But basically it's this idea that in order to stay relevant.
11:05
Yeah, I'm using air quotes right now to stay relevant. We have to look like the rest of culture,
11:10
essentially do what they do, act how they act, you know, to a degree, right? This approach tends
11:16
to begin with good intentions, but it can so easily fall off the rails, right? And here's a quote from
11:22
this section of the book that I think sums it up very nicely. Okay. But the problem comes when we
11:26
start to put too great a focus on culture to the neglect of the gospel. And that even goes for
11:31
social justice. What happens is that we start to want the implications of the gospel more than we
11:37
want the actual gospel. Those who take the consuming culture approach follow culture,
11:42
first and foremost, before the Bible, neglecting and compromising on significant aspects of faith.
11:48
These men and women begin to look more and more like the world and less and less like the church.
11:53
When the voice of a culture and not the word of Christ is what governs the church, then it is no
11:58
longer the church. It is just a social club of people desperately trying to keep up with the
12:03
cultural fashion. Ironically, that's the quickest way to close your church. Why would anyone bother
12:09
coming to a church that is indistinguishable from anything else? I think that is such a fantastic
12:14
point. Like he points out accurately that these first three approaches are all born out of fear,
12:20
right? So if you're using the consumed culture approach, the condemned culture approach,
12:24
or the convert culture approach, those are all things that you're doing out of fear. That's how
12:29
you're operating, right? And so there's a fourth approach. And that is the one that we need to take.
12:35
And that's really what the whole of the book is about. And that's the courageous approach, okay?
12:40
So the entirety of the book goes into a lot of different detail and spells out a lot of different
12:45
ways that we can operate that kind of keep us out of those first three approaches because it's
12:49
really the courageous approach, which is going to have the most positive in terms of outcomes.
12:53
Because like I said, on those other three, those are things that can have positive outcomes,
12:59
but they are not wholly positive W-H-O-L-L-I positive. They're just not wholly positive,
13:05
whereas the courageous approach has the most positivity possible throughout it, okay? And one
13:11
of the things that he does early in the book that I think is very, very important for us is he takes
13:15
a look at Christendom, okay? And even saying we're living in the twilight of that period, right?
13:21
And so this is basically Christianity being at the forefront of culture. That's what Christendom is,
13:27
right? And we've all kind of lived in different points like this. So I'm a younger guy, but for
13:33
even some of you folks that are a little bit older listening to this podcast, you have experienced
13:37
times where Christianity was really at the forefront of culture, that our politics was downstream of
13:42
Christian Judeo-Christian thought, you know what I mean? But you got to really look at it this way.
13:48
The first thousand years of Christian history was crazy. You've heard me talk about the book
13:52
tried by fire a lot, but in a thousand years, it was just an inconceivable way that Christianity
14:00
grew because we were basically going from every conceivable world power was trying to stamp out
14:05
Christianity, especially the Roman Empire. And then we became the most widely accepted religion
14:10
on the planet in a relatively short period of time. Like that's pretty incredible. That speaks
14:16
to the truth of the gospel and to the gospel accounts that we see in the New Testament.
14:21
But there were a lot of changes that happened in the church because of Christendom because
14:26
Christianity did have such a high status in most people's brains. And so Matt Chandler actually
14:32
goes into detail on four of the ways that the churches changed. So I'm going to go over those
14:35
right now. But one of the first ways that the church changed was as Christendom formed,
14:41
you began to get what was considered to be a Christian civilization for lack of a better way
14:47
to put it. So it was essentially binary. It was basically Christendom versus, you know,
14:52
the heathens and the barbarians. That's how he puts it in the book. And so basically,
14:56
your faith and how you set up your life had largely to do with where you were born, right? If you
15:02
were born in a Christian nation, a Christian civilization, well, then you were just a Christian,
15:06
almost by writ of birth, right? But if you were born in a place that did not look at Christianity
15:11
in the same way that did not have a Christian culture, you were seen as outside of that, right?
15:15
You're a heathen or a barbarian. The second way that it changed the church is the church moved
15:20
kind of from the margins of society and became basically the center of political and cultural
15:26
power. So this is really a far cry from what we saw in the early Roman Empire, just because a lot
15:32
of things in that time, you know, we learn a lot about the martyrs and so how they were physically
15:37
tortured in the ways that they were destroyed and martyred. But that wasn't the only way that
15:43
they were maligned. A lot of these early Christians were just basically kept out of the public square.
15:49
They were being, you know, there was pregnancy against them in terms of hiring, in terms of
15:53
business dealings. They were just kind of seen as outside of the culture, right? But you know,
15:58
now the church has kind of moved from away from that to being at the center of all these decisions
16:02
that are happening. The third way that the church changed was that Sunday became an official day
16:07
of rest and that church going was at the very least socially mandatory. And so now when you see
16:14
children, they may not understand what that socially mandatory thing means in terms of church.
16:18
But I know in my parents generation, especially living in Oklahoma, growing up in Oklahoma,
16:22
that was just something you did. You went to church, right? It didn't matter if you believed. It didn't
16:27
matter if you got anything out of it. You just went because that's the thing that you needed to do.
16:32
If you ran a business, you were not open on Sunday. Like that is just not something that you saw.
16:36
It was just very if seen as a very sacrilegious type of a thing and anti cultural at the time.
16:42
And the fourth way you saw the church change was Christiandom changed the way churches worked.
16:46
So if you think about it this way, and we've talked about back on the fourth podcast kind of
16:51
how men have left the church and why and those different things, but part of that is now we have
16:55
large groups of professional Christians, I guess would be the best way to look at it. So
17:00
these are your pastors or your people that that work for a church or something like that.
17:04
They are professional Christians. And that was something that would kind of be considered
17:08
ridiculous if you if you talk to people that were from the first few centuries, it would be ridiculous
17:12
for them to think that, Oh, there are people that just get paid to do this. So I don't need to share
17:16
the gospel with people because there are people that do this for a living. It's kind of an interesting
17:20
thing. But he goes from a Christiandom and kind of what that's done and how that's kind of gone
17:25
through history and what it's done to modern Christianity in the modern church. And then he talks about
17:29
how the enlightenment really began to disrupt Christiandom. Okay. So the enlightenment happened
17:35
during the 18th century. And it was basically a movement started by philosophers and these free
17:39
thinkers. And essentially, this is really distilling it down. And it's oversimplifying it. But I'm
17:44
doing that on purpose. Man kind of became the center of the universe. Like the individual person
17:50
was the center of the universe. And so I'm going to read a section from the book where he he goes
17:55
into talking about the enlightenment. So here we go. Given its emphasis on man as the center
18:00
of life, the enlightenment was the source of modern day individualism, materialism and consumerism.
18:06
Each of these not only led people away from the church, but they also greatly influenced the church,
18:11
both in the way people understand it and the way it operates. Basically, we began to see church
18:16
from a consumerist point as the place that exists to help us to serve us and to meet our needs,
18:23
not as a place in which to be the body of Christ or to worship God. So rather than the church being
18:28
something we give our lives to, it became another option on the great and ever growing menu of life
18:33
and leisure choices. Maybe we do it. Maybe we don't devotion to the gathering of God's people and
18:38
the worship of God's name became an add on to the rest of life. And unfortunately, churches have fed
18:45
into this consumeristic individualistic model of faith. Sermon series and books seem to be less
18:50
about the character and nature of God and well, the actual Bible and more about the ways that we
18:56
can improve or better our lives. There's been a shift from orienting our lives around God in his
19:01
story by orienting God around our life stories. It's what Christian Smith dubbed moralistic
19:07
therapeutic deism. It is religion of trying to be good to be good people so that we can feel good
19:14
about ourselves. And God's name is mentioned here and there. And he's really somewhere in the
19:19
distance. What ends up happening is that the local church enters a competitive marketplace
19:23
against other churches. Rather than being on mission and longing to see people come to know
19:28
Christ, we just reshuffle the deck of Christians in a given city. These things just get out of hand
19:34
and our churches start to look more and more like the world and less and less like Christ.
19:39
It's getting to the point where you just show up, push a button on your chair and someone brings
19:43
you a mocha to drink. Then at the end of the performance, because that's what it is,
19:47
you basically pick up your kids at main event. I'm exaggerating, of course, but not much.
19:52
I think this is a very important part of the book here. And you talk about what you see in the
19:58
modern day church and you've heard me say it a bunch, it's these Ted talks with Bible verses.
20:02
That's what we're getting now. And again, I don't mean to sound like an old curmudgeon that's
20:05
like, "Ah, we need to go back to the way it was. What's with all this dang rock music?" Like,
20:08
it's not one of those types of things. But it's enlightened thought from the enlightenment that
20:14
has basically caused what we're seeing now. And then, yes, the church landscape has become a
20:19
marketplace and I'm not immune to it either. I mean, you go to a church and then all of a sudden,
20:23
a church, you know, stops meeting your needs, right? Have you ever heard someone say that or even
20:28
yourself say that? Oh, it's just not really meeting my needs right now. And I wish the music was better
20:32
and I wish the sermon content was better. Like I've heard myself say all those things that's been
20:37
created, but a little bit by Christendom being kind of taken down piece by piece via the enlightenment.
20:43
And it's caused churches to move in that direction. And so the interesting thing that he talks about
20:49
in the book is that Christianity is now going back to the margins of society. It's spent literally
20:55
centuries as kind of being the forefront, the central hinge point for a lot of people, a lot of
21:01
decision making, a lot of legislative ventures. But now it's moving back to the margins. And one of
21:06
the first examples that he looked at was a story about Chick-fil-A. So there was an interview that
21:13
the current CEO and the son of the founder of Chick-fil-A, Dan Kathy, there was an interview that he did
21:18
with a Christian publication. It was like a Christian magazine. And he was asked about his business model
21:24
and this was his response. This is Dan Kathy again, the CEO of Chick-fil-A. We are very much
21:29
supportive of the family, the biblical definition of the family unit. We are a family-owned business,
21:34
a family-led business, and we are married to our first wives. We give God thanks for that.
21:39
We know it might not be popular with everyone, but thank the Lord. We live in a country where we
21:43
can share our values and operate on biblical principles. Not a whole lot going on right there,
21:49
right? Again, this is a Christian that's being interviewed by a Christian for a Christian magazine
21:53
and none of that seems outside of the realm of acceptable doctrine, right? I mean, this is really,
22:00
it's not that crazy of a statement. Like, this is not some sort of insane thing. But this went
22:06
around and it made the rounds in all these different media venues. And it was seen as an outrageous
22:12
thing for a modern human to say. Like, what does he mean we're talking about being married to our
22:18
first wives? And what does he mean by the biblical definition of the family unit? And obviously,
22:23
you're seen as a bigot, you're seeing it as all these different things. And so, kind of, you know,
22:28
what, even in hindsight, I bet Dan Kathy wouldn't have done this, he had a follow-up interview.
22:33
And even in the book, Matt Chandler says probably not the best thing for you to do. Never do a follow-up
22:37
interview. Try to maybe do something else. But he was asked about his views on marriage. So obviously,
22:42
this was, you know, diving down a little bit deeper. And this is what Dan Kathy had to say about that.
22:46
I think we are inviting God's judgment on our nation when we shake our fist at him and say,
22:51
we know better than you as to what constitutes a marriage. I pray God's mercy on our generation
22:56
that has such a prideful, arrogant attitude to think that we have the audacity to define what
23:02
marriage is all about. There was extreme outrage to this. Okay, I can almost see where the outrage
23:09
would come on this one. I can almost see it. It makes a little bit more sense. But still,
23:13
if you're looking at it through the Christian lens and the Christian worldview, this is not
23:16
beyond the pale, like at all. This one doesn't even register. And this led to a lot of virtue
23:23
signaling, which we talked about in the last podcast, but virtue signaling by politicians and
23:27
by city saying, you know, we're not going to let you be a part of our city. Your values are not our
23:32
values. And all these companies were kind of basically, look at us. We're so woke. We're so
23:36
awesome. We're going to be anti chicken sandwiches. And so what's funny about this story, I guess,
23:41
it's not really funny, as it actually affected me directly. Back in 2012, that's kind of when this
23:47
story broke, I was working for Major League Baseball at the time. And whenever I was in college in
23:53
different times, I worked with a company locally here in Edmond, Oklahoma. And they did a lot with
23:58
the Chick-fil-A company and with Dan Kathy and with their foundation and all those different things.
24:03
And so I kind of had an idea of who Dan Kathy was as a man, right? Not just as a business owner and
24:08
someone who's the CEO of very large corporation. But you know, it was just an interesting thing
24:13
because I felt like I got to know this guy's heart. And so there was a day, and I'm trying to
24:17
remember all the details, but there was basically a day where people were going to be boycotting
24:22
Chick-fil-A, right? There were same sex couples that were going up to the register and just basically
24:27
making out at the register. They weren't even ordering or anything like that. They were picking
24:31
outside and basically just trying to disrupt business. And so people that were in support of
24:35
Chick-fil-A, so a lot of Christians or people that were more so on the right politically,
24:41
they were going to be it was like national buy a chicken sandwich from Chick-fil-A day. Like that's
24:45
kind of what it ended up being. And so I'm woke up that morning and a lot of what I did in my job
24:50
had to do with Twitter and social media. And so I saw kind of this outrage and I didn't really look
24:55
very far into it. Like where it came from and what everyone was saying, I just saw that there were
25:00
two people on the issues in my head. I'm thinking, so today in this country buying a chicken sandwich
25:07
and or not buying a chicken sandwich is some big like political statement. And I thought about how
25:12
ridiculous that was. And so I tweeted something along the lines of, well, I guess this is where
25:16
we're living now. So everybody enjoy your chicken sandwiches today. Like, let's let's go support
25:20
Chick-fil-A. It was something like that. And the the pushback and really the the the negativity
25:27
that I got for Major League Baseball for putting that tweet out there was was fairly substantial.
25:32
There was like an entire group of people that were part of the marketing team that
25:35
kind of stopped me and talked to me about, you know, do you know the ramifications of what you said?
25:40
And gosh, how that could be seen as offensive. And we know it's your own Twitter account,
25:45
but you are representing Major League Baseball right now. And I was just in there almost like,
25:48
what are they talking about? Like, this is ridiculous. Now, I did not realize that
25:52
one of the C suite executives for Chick-fil-A, I think he died of a heart attack. I think it was
25:57
the guy who was handling the PR of the issue. I didn't I didn't know that. Not that that necessarily
26:01
would have changed what what I put out there. But it was just so interesting that I had to answer
26:06
to all these people that, you know, more so aligned with the atheist left, that's who these people I
26:11
was working with is what they were talking about. And basically the idea that I would even hint at
26:16
the fact that I supported the biblical definition of what a family is and what a marriage is was
26:22
seen as abhorrent, like absolutely outside of culture and completely unacceptable. So it wasn't
26:27
like this massive reprimand. I didn't have to take it down. I didn't have to issue an apology or
26:31
anything like that. But it was almost like they were just, you know, trying to school this this poor
26:36
little Oklahoma Christian and kind of bring him up to speed about how they do things in the Northeast.
26:42
It was a very condescending thing at the time. I was kind of confused by the whole thing. But now
26:46
when I'm looking back on it, you know, several years later, it was just like, what a stupid thing.
26:50
What a stupid thing to even have to sit through when people say things like that. But that's one
26:54
example of what we're seeing across the globe. And that's such a small example. But that's just one
27:00
personally from my own life. And I'm sure you guys have your own stories. And I'm actually,
27:04
you know, interested to hear your stories, if you have something like that, where you fill as if
27:08
you've been maligned by modern culture, go and shoot me an email info@undaunted.life. Again,
27:13
info@undaunted.life. I'd like to hear your story and, you know, commiserate with you or at least
27:18
understand what's going on around us. But the thing about it is all the things that I've talked
27:23
about up to this point. So we've got the enlightenment and we've got everything that's happened with
27:27
Christendom, the rise of which and what we're seeing now in the fall. Because of all this,
27:31
we pretty much get to the entire point of the book, the entire reason why Matt Chandler has
27:37
written this book. And there are three things that he writes. This is towards the middle of the book
27:42
that I think sums up where the book is going and why people should read it. And the first is that
27:46
the church thrives on the margins. The church thrives on the margins. Okay. So if you think back to the
27:52
first several centuries of the Christian church, which again, if Jesus didn't exist, which we talked
27:57
about on a, on a past podcast and different things like that, if there was no reason to believe that
28:03
this could be a thing that would have survived. There's, there's no reason to accept that there
28:07
would have been so many people that were converting to this. And when Christianity was on the margins,
28:11
it was healthy. It was very, very healthy. It was very gospel centered and gospel driven. Okay.
28:16
And the second reason that we can, we're looking at this book and looking at it as a prescriptive
28:23
way for us to live, essentially, is that it gives us a perspective required to see that
28:28
Christendom was essentially a mirage. It's such an interesting point. I've never really heard it put
28:33
that way, but Christendom was a mirage. Like this idea that somehow we had control over culture,
28:40
that we had control over the world, that somehow, I mean, it's kind of ridiculous to even say it,
28:45
that that we didn't really need to depend on the Triune God, that we didn't need to depend on that
28:49
to affect culture. I mean, because whenever Christianity is at the center of everyone's mind,
28:55
and at the center of legislation and of politics and of culture, you don't really feel the need to
28:59
ask the Holy Spirit to intercede for you, right? It's kind of one of those types of things. But
29:03
it's great that we've seen the mirage kind of break down right now that it's like,
29:07
look, it looked like Christian Christians were in control, looked like Christianity was dominating
29:12
culture. But that was never really the case. And the third thing we look out here is, and this is
29:18
Matt Chandler saying this, but he says, I don't mourn the passing of Christendom,
29:21
because I think a lot of people claim to be Christians who aren't Christians. And if you listen to
29:25
Matt Chandler sermons, which I would highly, highly, highly suggest that you do that, I listen to the
29:30
village church podcast every week. He talks about this from time to time about he operating in Dallas,
29:37
there's kind of this nominal Christianity where you are Christian in name only, right?
29:42
So someone asked you, Hey, are you a believer? You just say yes, instinctively, because you were
29:46
born in Texas, or because you were born in Oklahoma, or something like that, or I went to a Baptist
29:50
church as a little kid with my family. And so what you get is when Christianity is at the center of
29:56
things, and when it's the dominant ideology and the dominant party, if you look at it politically,
30:00
right? When it's the dominant type of thing, you just kind of say, yeah, I check that box.
30:05
Like I'm cool with that. Yeah, I'll call myself a Christian without any true understanding about
30:10
what being a Christian is and what the gospel even means. And so I think that's very important for us
30:15
to think about is when we're looking at the points of this book, and we're looking at where we're at
30:20
currently in Christianity, we have to be realistic about where we're at. Okay. So I'm going to read a
30:25
quote here actually from chapter three, and this is a quote about courage, because again, you know,
30:30
I talked about this when I talked in the virtue signaling podcast, which wasn't one podcast ago
30:34
was two podcasts ago, but in the virtue signaling podcast, you know, when you're at the Academy
30:38
Awards and you're sitting in a room full of a bunch of people that already think the way that
30:42
you do, you are not courageous for saying things that they agree with, right? So if you're sitting there
30:47
with a bunch of pro-abortion people and you say something that is very pro-abortion, that does not
30:52
make you courageous. It makes you normal. Like there's nothing courageous about doing something
30:57
like that. And so I think it's important for us to look at courage in the right way, especially
31:02
since that's one of the central themes of this book. So there's a quote in chapter three by James
31:06
Neil Hollingworth. And it's this courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that
31:12
something else is more important than one's fear. I'll read that again. Okay. Courage is not the
31:18
absence of fear, but rather the judgment of something else is more important than one's fear, right?
31:25
We have to put our current circumstances in the right mind frame. Like we have to be logical,
31:32
we have to be balanced. Okay. There's so much in modern culture that we've confused what courage
31:39
actually is, right? I think most people would see a police officer, you know, jumping, you know,
31:45
guarding someone with their body to protect them from bullets is courageous. Firefire running into
31:50
a burning building to go and grab children and get them out there to get them to safety, you know,
31:55
soldiers going into the into war, basically running towards the sound of bullets. We see those things
32:00
as courageous, right? But we have to look at it through the context of what we're doing as modern
32:05
Christians. And are we operating in a courageous way? And that leads to a major point for us in
32:11
chapter four. And like guys, this is like the most undaunted life point in this book. Like,
32:17
it's just an incredible, incredible part of this book. And we just could not agree with it more.
32:22
So I'm going to go ahead and read the quote here. Yet it's an attribute that when we know it,
32:26
consider it and believe it, will give us courage in this age of unbelief. It is the understanding
32:32
that God is a warrior. This attribute of God has almost completely vanished today.
32:38
When did you last hear a sermon on the warrior nature of our God? When we think about God,
32:45
we tend to think about Nickelodeon, not HBO, about Disney, not Dunkirk without realizing it,
32:51
we can end up with a Tinker Bell Jesus, who has a bag of pixie dust. And all he does is sprinkle us
32:56
with blessings. He never gets upset about anything. You can't do anything wrong. His sprinkle dust is
33:02
there to help us understand that. Yes, you really are amazing. Now, don't get me wrong. You cannot
33:07
think too much about or appreciate too deeply the grace, mercy, long suffering patience and
33:12
kindness of the triune God. We must never neglect those attributes of God. God is not only a warrior,
33:19
and this is only one way of thinking and speaking about him. Of course, he's more than a warrior,
33:25
but he's not less. Make no mistake, the Bible does paint God as a warrior. The Lord is a man of
33:33
war. The Lord is his name from Exodus 15 verse three. That is what makes this God so terrifying.
33:40
Is he loving? Yes. Gracious? Yes. Merciful? Yes. Long suffering? Absolutely. Tinker Bell?
33:50
Not at all. Not at all. He is a warrior, and he fights for his people. And he wins.
33:57
That is worth the book, guys, that little group of quotes alone, that is worth the price of admission,
34:05
especially for us here at Undaunted Life. This stuff is why we love Chandler so much.
34:10
Like he brings it and he just brings the truth no matter how counter it is to you, no matter how
34:15
it strikes you. Again, there is so much focus on the Lamb of God, and there's almost no mention of
34:21
the line of Judah. We talk about this all the time. We are not saying that the Lamb of God is a bad
34:28
thing to talk about. The reason why Undaunted Life is here is because there's almost no mention of
34:33
the Lamb of God. There's no mention of the warrior side of our Jesus, right? Again, I love the quote.
34:39
He's more than a warrior, but he's not less. Stop trying to pacify Jesus. Like that's not
34:47
the way we need to understand our Savior. He is not less than a warrior. There's this idea that
34:53
what you're just kind of a Neanderthal, if you look at the warrior way too much, like it's
34:58
ridiculous. And I love at the end of this quote, and he wins. He is a warrior, and he fights for
35:03
his people, and he wins. In modern culture in 2018, winning is almost seen as a negative,
35:10
right? As this negative and modern society, like we shouldn't even try to win, right? So
35:15
capitalism, it's about winning. So like capitalism is evil. You know, what if our child loses if we
35:21
put them into a sport? What are we going to do? So what are we going to do? We're going to make
35:24
sure they don't keep score at the flag football game. You know, what if someone's left out? You
35:28
know, we're not going to have the kids pick teams because that's going to make the person that's
35:32
picked last feel bad. Well, yeah, that's kind of the point. Like, but there's just this idea that
35:38
we can't even look at somebody that could win something. But that's what Jesus is. Jesus is a
35:43
winner. Like he wins in the end. The trying God, it triumphs over evil. That that's what we're
35:51
living in. That's the story. That's the narrative that we're living in right now. And I just love
35:55
the way that Matt Chandler pointed it out. It doesn't take some sort of deep exegetical knowledge
36:00
of the scriptures to understand what he's saying is absolutely true. Again, like I always says it,
36:04
Tinker Bell, Jesus, that's hilarious. I normally say boyfriend Jesus. I might have to steal that
36:08
from him. But that's what we think about Jesus now. He's Tinker Bell. He's like a genie, right?
36:12
We just, you know, rub the bottle or rub the lamp and then he's just going to pop out. All right,
36:16
what do you need? Like here, I'm your Jesus. I'm here for you. And if you're just like, Oh, I just
36:20
need, I just need to cuddle right now. I just need you to help me. I just need you to protect me.
36:24
It's just like, can we, can we depend on the warrior Jesus a little bit too? Can we even just
36:28
talk about him? Again, we're going to talk about him. And we would encourage all of you to do the
36:32
same. We would encourage you to talk to your pastors about talking about those things. I say
36:37
these things always to challenge you guys. Why do you only hear about the Lamb of God in the modern
36:42
day church? Where's the line of Judah? I love that Matt Chandler goes into this. Okay. And now
36:47
we have to look at going further into the book. It's the reality of how this plays out in culture.
36:52
Okay. So there's a quote in there from a British pastor in evangelist named,
36:56
named Rico Tice. And here's the quote, there is increasingly hot increasing hostility
37:02
to the gospel message. But there is something else going on too. There is also increased hunger.
37:08
The same rising tide of secularism and materialism that rejects truth claims and is offended by
37:13
absolute moral standards is proving to be an empty and hollow way to live. You're more and
37:19
more likely to find people quietly hungering for the content of the gospel. Even as our culture
37:25
teaches them to be hostile towards it. That is such an important line. That last line right there,
37:31
I'll reread it. Even as our culture teaches them to be hostile towards it. That is the reality
37:38
of where we're living. Guys, your head is in the sand if you think anything differently. Okay.
37:43
For those of you listening that have children that are in school, what is it that you think the
37:47
teachers are telling them? Now you may be homeschooling them. Maybe they're in a private school or
37:52
something like that. But a lot of these teachers seem to align the same politically. A lot of these
37:57
teachers unions seem to have a particular worldview that they want to be espoused within those classrooms,
38:03
right? Our culture is teaching our children to be hostile towards the reality of the gospel,
38:08
right? It's pushing them towards pluralism. It's pushing them towards secularism and materialism
38:15
and narcissism and all those different things. And we have to be able to stand in the opposite
38:20
direction of that. Okay. I mean, the gospel itself was always going to rub people the wrong way.
38:25
Like because it draws a line in the sand, right? And lines in the sand, especially now are very,
38:31
very uncomfortable. Everybody wants a squiggly line, but it only squiggles when they want it to
38:35
squiggle and they want to erase parts of the line as well, right? And the more pluralistic we think
38:41
and the more pluralistic we go, the rougher the gospel will feel to people. But it doesn't actually
38:47
make the gospel any rougher, right? It's good news. After all, that's what the word means.
38:53
But the gospel will feel rougher, but it's the same gospel. We don't need to change it.
38:58
Like if you go back to some of the approaches we talked about earlier, this idea that we have to
39:03
change the gospel so it's more efficient or that it's communicated better so that people
39:08
accept it more. We kind of like don't talk about certain parts of the Bible. We talk about others,
39:13
like there's no reason to display the gospel in any other form or fashion than how it's currently
39:18
being displayed. Like that's it. And so there is an increased hunger for things that kind of buck
39:25
modern culture. And you know here, we're also big fans of Jordan Peterson here at Undaunted Life.
39:30
And I just recently was listening to an interview that he did. And it was very important because he
39:35
was kind of talking about something very similar to this. So I'm going to actually read a quote here
39:39
from that interview. You see, because I see the same thing when I'm talking, my audiences are
39:44
often composed mostly of men between say 20 and 35, not exactly young, but young enough.
39:50
And they're desperate for a discussion about responsibility and fair play and noble being
39:56
and working properly in the world. And to hear the idea that their lives actually matter,
40:02
that if they straighten themselves up and fly right, that they'll have a beneficial effect on
40:06
themselves and their family and the community and that the world is starving for that. And then
40:12
through them as individuals, not for them as a group, but for each of them as individuals.
40:18
Yeah, it breaks me up. Every time the topic comes up, it breaks me up because it's so damn sad.
40:24
We're so stupid. We're alienating young men. We're telling them that their patriarchal oppressors
40:29
and denizens of rape culture, and tyrants and waiting, and that we fail to discriminate between
40:34
their competence and their tyranny. And it's just awful. It's so destructive. It's so unnecessary.
40:40
And it's so sad. What's important about that quote by Dr. Jordan Peterson is that he's having
40:48
a lot of men in his audience that are wanting to be talked to about about how to be a good nobleman,
40:55
about how to take responsibility. All these things we basically been told that modern boys don't want,
41:00
right? We've been told that these modern boys and these teenagers and these young men that they
41:04
don't want to be responsible. They just want to play video games. Well, not necessarily. That's
41:09
what they're defaulting to. Because, you know, for a lot of guys and you know this to be true
41:14
about yourself, it's certainly true about me. If there's not a great chance that I'm going to win,
41:17
it's something I'm probably not going to do it, right? I mean, to a degree, right? So if there's a
41:22
sport that's just you're absolutely awful at, and it's not important to you to get better at that,
41:26
you're probably just not going to play. That's that whole concept of, oh, I'm going to take my ball
41:29
and go home type of thing. I mean, it's that same type of an idea. So if guys are constantly told
41:35
that they're awful, that they're, you know, perpetuating rape culture, and that they're a part of the
41:39
patriarchy that is destroying Western society and all these different things, where do you think
41:42
they're going to retreat to? They're going to retreat to places where they're in complete control.
41:46
They're in complete control of their world when they're playing Madden, when they're playing
41:50
Call of Duty, when they're playing World of Warcraft, they're in complete control of that,
41:53
right? They're in complete control of their fancy football roster, their fancy baseball roster.
41:57
They're going to completely in control of that. They can make trades, they can drop players,
42:01
they can, you know, change their lineup however they want. So they retreat to the places where
42:04
they have control. How about pornography? They were treating to pornography, right? Because they
42:07
can control what happens there. Because if they're done looking at a woman performing an act,
42:12
they go to the next one, and the next one, and the next one, and the next one until they decide
42:16
they want to ejaculate, right? Like that that's where they have control. So we're constantly
42:20
going to be seeing men moving towards those sides of things where they are in complete control.
42:25
And I'm going to bring it back around to the original point here, which is there's the reality
42:30
of how this is going to play out in culture for us. You know, it takes courage in the modern culture
42:35
to express yourself and express the gospel as a part of who you are as a person. And for a man,
42:42
that's what's going to actually take courage to be able to stand up and do those types of things.
42:46
And this book ends with, you know, how we can be courageous. And it encourages us by
42:52
demonstrably stating that we all of us were made for right now. Like this was not an accident. So
42:59
for all the listening to this podcast right now, it's not an accident that you're alive in 2018
43:04
that you weren't born a thousand years ago, or a thousand years from now, or somewhere in between.
43:09
Like there's a reason for you being here right now. Okay, we were made to operate in this post
43:15
Christendom world. But this is my encouragement to you guys. And that's what's encouraging about
43:19
this book as well is you have to be ready for it. Because a lot of us are frontrunners.
43:24
And some of you are even going to bucket the idea that I would bring that up. But a lot of us
43:28
operate as frontrunners. We are very, very happy when our team is routing the other team. We get
43:34
really uncomfortable when our teams get smashed, right? You know, we love to be a part of a team at
43:40
work that is succeeding. But if they even suggest that you would go to a weaker team that you could
43:44
potentially make better, some of us, it's just in our core of our being, we don't want to do that.
43:49
We're okay with being frontrunners. Well, guys, the days that Christianity is the front runner in
43:55
society and in how people think they're done, they're finished. I'm not saying they can't come
44:00
back. This isn't like a, you know, Hellfire brimstone type of thing. But those days are gone. They're
44:05
just gone, especially if you're listening to this in the United States, it's going away,
44:10
especially if the United States goes the way of Europe where everything is becoming very socialistic
44:15
and very even more pluralistic than what you can imagine. And the standards go into the toilet.
44:19
That's where the country continues to go as well. And so you have to be able to be ready for that.
44:24
You have to prepare your heart, you have to steal your senses, and you have to make sure that you
44:28
can operate in that type of an environment. Okay. So as we wrap up here on the review of the book,
44:34
I'm going to give everyone listening to this podcast the three reasons why modern Christian
44:39
men should read this book. Okay. And they're fairly simple and fairly straightforward.
44:42
The first one is it's short. Okay. And I hate that I even have to say that. But I know my audience,
44:48
guys, this book is just over a hundred pages long. This is not some super voluminous thing. It's not
44:54
like reading an encyclopedia. It's not like reading the Odyssey. It's very short. It's very,
45:00
very readable. Okay. But also this should serve as a primer for other materials or other things
45:06
that you should be thinking deeply about. Okay. And one thing that I want this to lead to for you
45:11
is to read another book by Matt Chandler, which is called the explicit gospel. So this is probably
45:16
like a top five favorite book for me. So obviously we put out that list on our website that we talk
45:22
about all the time. The hundred books that every modern Christian man should read. That's in my
45:27
top five on that list. Like we don't have that list, you know, set up in like a top one through 100
45:31
type of thing. But that's a top five book. That's the best book that Matt Chandler has ever written.
45:35
And I'm not hating on his other books. I'm obviously reviewing one of those as we speak. But it's an
45:40
incredible and incredible book. And so this book has a lot of the same qualities of that other one.
45:45
But the explicit gospel gets into such a more definitive nature of how the gospel should operate
45:51
in our lives. And it's completely appropriate when we're talking about how it operates in modern
45:55
culture. Okay. So first reason to read this book, it's short, you can read it in like an hour,
45:59
hour and a half guys. So quit bellyache and just nut up and read it. The second is it will call out
46:04
your cowardice towards modern culture. Okay. Because we live in this culture, we don't really want to
46:10
offend anybody. And we don't want to, you know, put a mean comment on social media, because we don't
46:14
want it to be taken out of context. And but guys, the gospel is offensive. That doesn't mean you need
46:20
to be offensive while you're displaying it to somebody. But it is offensive. You are challenging
46:25
people's worldviews. And Satan has got most of these people by the balls. And so if you're thinking
46:30
through a pluralistic, materialistic mindset, that is of the devil. It's not of God. And so the
46:36
gospel is going to be contrary to that, right? It's going to be vinegar in the mouth of these
46:41
people that are spewing these hatred, these hate filled ideologies. Okay. So again, the second
46:46
reason you should read this book is it will call out your cowardice towards modern culture. And the
46:50
final reason is it will reinforce the wholeness of the person of Jesus, the wholeness of the person
46:57
of Jesus. Again, we say it all the time and we will continue to say it. He is a lamb and lion.
47:04
Okay. He is caring and powerful. He is supporter and warrior. He is both. He's not 50% one 50% the
47:11
other. He is wholly both 100% both. Again, just to repeat the three reasons why you should read
47:17
this book. Number one, it's short. Number two, it will call out your cowardice towards modern
47:21
culture. Number three, it will reinforce the wholeness of the person of Jesus. All right, guys,
47:26
before we let you go, we're going to do a quick resilience boost. As you know, by now, we are
47:29
a men's ministry and our mission is cultivating manly resilience. Specifically, we do that by
47:34
providing content like this podcast that forges spiritual, mental and physical toughness. And
47:38
today it's a mental and spiritual resilience boost for you. And you know, every time we review a book,
47:44
that's going to be one of the things that we suggest. So make sure you pick up a copy of
47:48
take heart Christian courage in the age of unbelief by Matt Chandler. Pick it up on Amazon. The link
47:53
to that is going to be in the description. Pick it up at your local bookstore. Do it on your e-reader,
47:58
whatever you need to do. Make sure you get that while at the same time you're buying that book,
48:02
go ahead and put the explicit gospel on your list. Like I mentioned, this is going to be take
48:08
heart is going to be a book that kind of will springboard you into other ways of thinking.
48:12
You cannot go wrong by reading the explicit gospel. There's also like a group study that goes with
48:17
that that I've taken groups of people through before. So if you're the type of person that
48:21
leads a Bible study or a Sunday school or a men's group, that I could not recommend that content
48:27
any higher than that. So that concludes our review of the book take heart. And we just want to thank
48:32
you so much for listening all the way to the end of the podcast. Please subscribe on iTunes,
48:35
SoundCloud or Google Play and refer your friends to listen. And please share this on social media.
48:40
Use the hashtag on Daunted Life. We'll be sure to find the post. Guys, if we deserve a five-star
48:44
review, please leave us one and go ahead and leave a little note when you do so. Our website is
48:48
www.undaunted.life. You can follow us on Instagram and Twitter at undaunted life and Facebook.com
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backslash undaunted life. Check out our free devotionals on the Uversion Bible app. Just search
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undaunted life under the plans. As always, we want to thank the band August Burns read for allowing
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us to use their music library for our content. The intro outro track on this podcast is their song
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King of Sorrow, which is off their latest record entitled Phantom Anthem. The links to all of this
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are in the description. I'm your host Kyle Thompson. Remember, keep cultivating mainly resilience,
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keep forging spiritual, mental and physical toughness, keep seeking the Lion of Judo.
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(dramatic music)