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This is Undaunted Life, a man's podcast. I'm your host Kyle Thompson. Let's get into it.
0:45
All right, guys, today we're going to be talking about the state of civility.
0:49
Man, the timing of this is pretty appropriate because we just had a display of one of the most
0:54
uncivil things possible, which is modern United States politics are really just modern worldwide
0:59
politics because we just had a midterm election. So if you're listening to this
1:03
on time, we had a midterm election a couple of days ago, and it was billed as, you know,
1:07
the biggest midterm election in the history of everything. You know, things don't go the way
1:12
for your party. It's going to irrevocably change the earth. And we're not going to be able to come
1:15
back from this. It's the most important election of our lifetime. Blah, blah, blah. There was a lot
1:19
of blovey aiding. There was a lot of hyperbole leading up to all this. But at the end of the day,
1:23
we just had some elections, right? You know, we pick some people for the states that we live in
1:27
and we pick some people for the nation. You know, it just kind of is what it is. But it was a really
1:31
interesting night. So if you're even if you're not a big political person, it is kind of interesting
1:36
to see this. And, you know, to be, to be honest, I haven't been watching midterm election results
1:40
for the last 40, 50 years and looking at trends or anything like that. But typically what you see,
1:45
you see the sitting president two years after they're elected, you see that president's party
1:52
lose seats in the house in the Senate. That's what you typically see. And it's not terribly
1:58
uncommon for if they have a majority going into that, you know, matching the same party as the
2:03
president, that that will actually flip. And so that's exactly what we saw last night. So
2:08
Republicans lost 34 seats in the House of Representatives, but they gained three seats in the United
2:15
States Senate. So I think most people were right in their predictions that the Republicans were
2:21
going to lose the House. So now they don't have control of all three branches. But are they
2:27
don't have control of the House and the Senate and the president, the president, the White House,
2:31
there you go, the White House. But at the same time, gaining three seats in the Senate was just
2:35
kind of interesting. And if you dig into the numbers and you dig into some of the races is a lot of
2:41
these are pretty predictable. That's why there was a really, really overwhelming chance that
2:45
Republicans were going to keep the Senate and an overwhelming chance that Democrats were going to
2:49
take the House. But there was just a lot of really interesting races. I mean, you had Ted Cruz
2:55
beating Beto O'Rourke, but it was only separated by a few 100,000 votes. And this was down in the
3:01
state of Texas, which is supposed to be incredibly deeply read. And this was like a really, really
3:06
close rate and Beto O'Rourke is a pretty extreme left wing guy. So that I mean, that shouldn't have
3:12
happened, right? You saw Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan that are all kind of considered purple
3:17
states that are probably the three most important states when it comes to the 2020 presidential
3:22
election, those now lean a little bit blue. There was a lot of governor's houses that changed here
3:28
in my home state of Oklahoma. Kevin Stitt, a businessman without a political background was
3:33
elected as governor. And the thing about it, whenever we're looking at something like the midterms
3:39
midterm elections or things that are coming up like that, we kind of get a sense of what's
3:45
happening in society and what kind of the, the tone and the temperature is on a lot of things that,
3:51
you know, most people think are important. Because we all differ on the things that we think are
3:56
highly important. But there just seems to be some major divides right now. And within humanity,
4:02
you're obviously going to have divides. And you can look historically as all kinds of divides,
4:07
right? And I mean, you have people on the opposite sides of wars, on the opposite sides of issues.
4:11
But right now, it's just there just seems to be huge divides between Republican and Democrat,
4:16
conservative and progressive rural and urban male and female, college educated, non college
4:22
educated, you know, one race or another race. I mean, you get the point. But the thing about it is,
4:27
is we can see this in our everyday lives, but then we can see it in polling data as well.
4:31
We can see it in how people voted, you know, people that are of a particular skin color,
4:36
and went to a particular school in a particular part of the country and live in a particular
4:41
area, they tend to vote a particular way. But the issue that we're seeing here is we're seeing
4:48
a relative increase of incivility. And the thing that I don't want to be in this podcast is I
4:53
don't want to be hyperbolic. I don't want to be an alarmist. I don't want to be a conspiracy
4:56
theorist, all that nonsense. Like I don't want to be that type of person. But you have to understand
5:03
that the temperature has been getting a little hotter around a lot of these issues. Things seem
5:08
to be ratcheting up and not the other direction when it comes to things that people disagree
5:13
with each other on. And it's just really interesting to see how Christian men that I'm around respond
5:21
to this and interesting to see as society as a whole response to this. And so I guess where I
5:26
would want to start is kind of where I started even thinking about the word civility. And so back
5:32
in 2004, I got a scholarship to the University of Central Oklahoma. And this was a scholarship that
5:37
was basically created by the president of the university. It was called the President's Leadership
5:42
Council Scholarship. So it's a scholarship that every year, you know, the University of Central
5:46
Oklahoma has about 16 or 17,000 students or so. That's what the average was when I was there
5:52
for my undergrad. And about 1,000 to 1,200 students every year apply for this scholarship. And about
5:58
25 or so get the scholarship. So I got it in 2004. And the thing that was interesting is you got a
6:05
lot of FaceTime with the president of the university. And at the time of my undergrad,
6:09
the president of the university the entire time was Roger Webb, Dr. Roger Webb. And an incredible
6:14
guy. He's still a mentor and friend of mine, even to this day. But just getting to learn from
6:19
him and learn things that are important to him and how you're supposed to build a society and have
6:24
an education and be a globally competent human being. We're all things that I was able to learn
6:30
basically at his feet for four years. And, you know, in the years subsequent to that.
6:35
But there were things that he talked about a lot while he was president and while we were under
6:40
his tutelage. And the big thing that he talked about were the three C's. And the three C's that
6:45
he said he said him in this order were character, civility and community. Those are Roger Webb's
6:50
three C's. And he drilled those things home every chance that he got. I heard him talk about it,
6:56
you know, innumerable times in speeches, even in talking in one-on-one situations.
7:01
And I got to see him act those things out. Like one of my favorite stories about Roger Webb was,
7:06
I think I may have been a sophomore or something. It's called maybe a junior or something like that.
7:10
And the first it's a first day of classes. So it's Monday of the first day of classes.
7:15
And if you went to college, you understand this Monday of the first day of classes is chaotic,
7:19
no matter what. People can't find a parking space. People, you know, locked, you know,
7:24
their, their laptop in their dorm room. You know, they don't know where the buildings are because
7:28
they figured they would just, you know, wake up and figure it out Monday morning. They're late for
7:31
their first class. They, you know, they enrolled in the wrong class. So they're trying to get in
7:35
with an advisor. Oh, well, there's a hundred people in front of them in line because everyone else
7:39
needs to see the advisor. So it's chaos, right? It's absolute chaos. Well, I'm at the university
7:42
center, which is one of the main buildings on campus. And I see Roger Webb walk through the bottom
7:48
floor of, of this building where most of this is going on. This is where, you know, the financial
7:55
advisement is, it's where the ID, where you get your student ID, it's where that is, it's where
7:59
student development and, you know, advisement. That's where all these people are, right? And he's
8:04
clearly sees he doesn't see me. And I don't make eye contact with him or something like that.
8:08
He's obviously on his way to a meeting or something like that. And he sees a student that is absolutely
8:12
perplexed and lost. This had to have been an incoming freshman. So 17, 18 years old, no idea
8:17
what's going on, you know, about to be a level 10 freak out. And he just stops and says,
8:21
Hi, my name's Roger. Is there something I can help you with? And you know, they're, they were,
8:26
you know, okay, you know, they kind of took a deep breath. And they're like, I think they were
8:30
looking for, you know, academic advisement. He's like, Oh, yeah, it's right over here. Let me,
8:33
let me walk you over there. He didn't say hello. I am the president of the university. Is there
8:38
something I can do to make your experience better? He didn't even do any of that. Like,
8:42
there's a pretty decent chance that this student may still not realize that the president of the
8:46
university actually physically walked them over to an academic advisor to get them all squared away.
8:51
And so this was a guy that I got to see his character civility and his sense of community and action
8:56
over and over and over. But as an 18, 19, 20, and 21 year old while I was in undergrad,
9:02
I had to think about those three things on a regular basis. And so thinking about civility,
9:07
I mean, the definition we have for civility is just basically its formal politeness.
9:11
So it's basically being courteous in behavior or speech. Those are the things that we think
9:16
of when we think of civility. But the thing that we have to ask ourselves now is, how did we get
9:23
to the current state of civility in our society? Because I don't remember things being this extreme
9:30
whenever I was in college. When I first, you know, I had to really look at civility. Now in 2004,
9:35
if y'all will remember back, that was the election year of George W. Bush and John Kerry.
9:40
And so, you know, I'm in a freshman class with the president with the 24 or so other students that
9:46
got this scholarship. And not everybody believes the same way. And as an 18 year old, you're having
9:50
to like, you know, define certain things and put your flag in the ground on a certain issue
9:56
and have cordial debates and express your opinion and all these different things. And so you're
10:00
having to learn civility somewhat on the fly. Because as a teenager or even younger than that,
10:05
you just kind of like throw your opinion up against the wall and just kind of deal with it.
10:08
I didn't really go to a high school where we were welcomed into a whole bunch of debates of any kind.
10:15
And so that's kind of the difference in discussing this with people is, okay, when did you ever
10:19
wrestle with this? And I think part of the issue that we're running into now is it seems like people
10:24
have never wrestled with the reality of whether or not we should be civil. And what the positives
10:30
and negatives of being civil or being uncivil are. And to be honest with you guys, I feel like
10:36
civility is under attack. Like, and again, I don't want to be hyperbolic, but I really feel that way
10:41
at this point. I mean, in part of the biggest reason for that is politics. I mean, it's probably,
10:48
as I mentioned at the top of the show, one of the more uncivil things that we're all a part of,
10:53
we get to witness this. Even if you're not one of those people that's constantly in the 24-hour
10:58
news cycle, you get pieces of it, man. You're scrolling through Twitter and you see the
11:03
incivility and you see it on Facebook and you hear it at work. And it's just, it's an interesting
11:09
thing. But we just have to look at some of the things that have happened here recently.
11:13
I mean, here recently, a few weeks before the election, Hillary Clinton, who I have no idea why
11:17
she's still talking and still relevant, but she's still talking to people and doing interviews,
11:21
she said that you cannot be civil with a political party that wants to destroy what you stand for.
11:27
That's a direct quote. You cannot be civil with a political party that wants to destroy what you
11:31
stand for. I mean, there's so much wrong with that single sentence. The first part, you cannot
11:38
be civil. Well, who gets to make that determination? You, like whoever the president actually is,
11:44
which isn't you? I mean, that if somebody disagrees with you politically, you can't
11:50
be civil with them. Like think of the inherent ridiculousness in that statement. I mean, that's
11:56
crazy. And just say that because someone disagrees with you politically, they want to destroy what
12:02
you stand for. I'm sorry. Do any of us live in fear that we're going to say who we voted for in
12:09
public? And then all of a sudden, there's going to be like a SWAT team's worth of dudes come in,
12:13
though a black bag over your head, drag you into the back room and no one ever sees you again.
12:18
Because because last I checked that stuff doesn't happen in America, right? That stuff that just
12:24
just doesn't happen here. Then yet Eric Holder, who used to work with the Obama administration,
12:30
he was doing a speech and he was talking about Michelle Obama. And you know, basically her big
12:34
thing was when they go low, we go high. And then he was quoted as saying, no, no, when they go low,
12:39
we kick them. So, you know, here's the former attorney general basically talking about someone
12:43
disagrees with you politically that you should strike them. Now, I don't really think he was
12:48
calling for violence. I don't want to be ridiculous. But I mean, that wasn't very nice. I mean, look,
12:53
look at pretty much anything Donald Trump says. Some of you were thinking I was just going to start
12:57
railing on people on the left. But how many times does the guy have to be uncivil on Twitter?
13:03
Like it's ridiculous. Calling people names, calling people dogs, calling old, you know,
13:09
basically concubines, calling them horse face and all these different things. Like a lot of
13:14
things he says are incredibly uncivil and rude. They're frankly really, really rude.
13:18
You have Maxine Waters, who is a congresswoman in California, basically saying if you see anybody
13:23
in the Republican party in public that you should get a crowd and surround them and, you know,
13:28
shout them down and kick them out of restaurants and kick them out of department stores and to
13:32
actively go against these people. I mean, look at, look at pipe bomb guy, right? That this lunatic
13:38
that was sending apparently nonworking pipe bombs to all these people that he disagreed with
13:43
politically in every single one of those people was on the left. He sends it to CNN. He sends one
13:48
to to Bill Hillary Clinton and to Michelle and Barack Obama and he sends it to, you know, George Soros
13:53
and all these different individuals. Like that's that's a very civil thing to do. But look at the
13:59
Kavanaugh situation. I almost forgot about that one. Judge Kavanaugh. Have we really forgotten?
14:03
That's the thing about the news cycles. That was what three or four weeks ago.
14:06
I mean, go back to episode 42 and 43 of this podcast. I talked about what was going on with
14:11
Judge Brett Kavanaugh for two episodes in a row because it was unbelievable. It was unbelievable
14:16
what we were seeing. Like the fact that with with no evidentiary basis for anything that the
14:22
Democratic Party was willing to destroy a human being. And here's a here's a good proof for it
14:29
because if the Democratic Party actually thought that Judge Brett Kavanaugh was a rapist, a gang
14:34
rapist or or any type of rapist, don't you think they would still be talking about it?
14:39
Because because now it's like, oh, we got a rapist on the Supreme Court. Like we can't let
14:44
this stand. It's not like, ah, shucks. You know, he's already on there. I guess we'll leave him alone
14:49
now. No, it wasn't politically expedient for them to continue talking about it because it was a
14:53
losing issue because everyone saw through the charade, right? But it's just again, and those are
14:59
just a few examples. But there's plenty of examples a lot with with politicians. I would say that
15:06
easily it's mainly happening with people on the left, but it certainly happens with people on the
15:10
right and people that pretend to be in the middle, right? But there there's kind of like fundamental
15:17
differences in how people are on civil. I think there was a great quote by Dennis Prager, Prager,
15:21
you. He said this. He said the right thinks the left is wrong talking about political right and
15:26
political left. He says the right thinks the left is wrong. The left thinks the right is evil.
15:31
But at the same time, I can see the same thing being true in the opposite. I know that there are
15:38
a lot of people that align on the conservative part of the aisle, which I have told you over and
15:43
over where I align that they look at people that are on the left is evil. Now, to be fair, I think
15:50
it's completely okay to think some of the things that they think are evil because if somebody,
15:57
which it makes it almost impossible for me to vote for any Democrat ever, if somebody thinks that
16:02
you can murder a baby that's living in the womb of a mother, I'm not down with that. I disagree
16:10
with that wholeheartedly. And I think it's an evil ideal to believe that you can murder somebody
16:15
like that. But do I think that person is evil? Not necessarily. I don't know them. I just know
16:23
that something they believe is incredibly, incredibly evil. But the problem is is with the temperature
16:29
of some of the discussions that we're having, it makes it almost impossible to have a conversation.
16:33
Which for the most part is where civility begins is in a conversation. Again, going back to the
16:40
definition, it's just basically courteousness and politeness. Do you have the ability to be courteous
16:46
and polite to somebody? And so as I was thinking through kind of what I've seen over the weeks
16:51
leading up to the election, and then obviously the coverage I saw on election night, there were
16:56
a couple of things that came to mind. And these are the two dangers of being uncivil. So I want
17:01
to kind of go through what I'm calling the two dangers of being uncivil. The first danger is we
17:06
tend to dehumanize people that disagree with us. And we see this in micro and macro levels.
17:14
So we will demonize somebody that thinks LeBron James is the best basketball player of all time.
17:20
When we think it's Michael Jordan, we will disagree with somebody that says that the Beatles is the
17:27
greatest band ever. Whereas I might think Metallica is the greatest band ever. I'm just kind of making
17:32
stuff up. But when it goes into the most extreme situations as well. So people that disagree with
17:38
us politically, people that disagree with our religions, and the way that we, you know, raise
17:43
our kids in the way that we help out businesses and the way that we run our businesses and all
17:48
those different things, we tend to dehumanize people that disagree with us. And when you start
17:54
seeing people as less than human, it's obvious that you would not treat one of those people
17:59
like civilly. Like you wouldn't want to be civil towards those individuals because they're not
18:05
worth being civil towards because they're not really human in your mind. They're just a Democrat.
18:10
They're just a Republican. Like they're just a Trump guy. They're just an Obama guy.
18:16
They're, you know, again, I know I keep going to the political side, but that's where most of
18:20
this gets to be charged. But even look on the religious side. Oh gosh, they're just a Sikh.
18:23
They're just a Muslim. Now those stupid atheists, those, you know, agnostics over there,
18:29
those secular humanists. And the thing that we have to remember is every single person that we
18:38
are ever eyeball the eyeball with on this planet is made in the image of God. Whether they're your
18:44
pastor or they're the leader of ISIS. They were all made in the image of God. And they can either
18:51
live a life that's looking towards him or away from him, but they're all, we're all in the same
18:56
plane here. And the second danger I see of being uncivil is that we practice actively turning people
19:04
away. So the first one is we tend to dehumanize people that we disagree with. And the second
19:08
is we practice actively turning people away. Most people, if we're being fair, most people are not
19:15
trying to turn people away, trying to turn people off. But it's something that happens over and over
19:21
and over. And the thing about whenever you're being uncivil towards somebody, it's you're physically
19:28
taking yourself in a direction that is to the opposite of that person. Like you're being anti
19:34
that person. And when you do that, you're going to turn people off. So specifically to the context
19:41
that we're thinking of right now as Christian men, we would want to attract people to us and
19:47
attract them to our way of thinking about the world and obviously attract them to the reality of the
19:52
gospel. And so if we're unwilling to do that, it becomes a major issue. I mean, if you're unwilling
20:03
to act in a way or comport yourself in a way that will allow people to come to the gospel,
20:07
like that's something that you need to repent of. That's not something that you should be proud of.
20:12
And because that's the thing is I know a lot of guys specifically that are proud of the fact
20:17
that they [inaudible] people off. Like on there, they do it on purpose. So so I'm there's a good buddy
20:22
of mine that I know of specifically, he's a Trump supporter, right? And believe what you want
20:27
about Trump or say what you want to say about Trump, that's not necessarily what I'm talking
20:29
about here. But he got a Trump sticker to put on the back of his car, which I have a crap. I mean,
20:35
if you're a Bernie person, you have a sticker on the back of your car. Great. Then I can laugh
20:38
at you as a dry buy like it doesn't really matter. But he specifically got this sticker so that he
20:44
could make people angry. He wanted to make people angry. He was actively turning people away.
20:49
And I just had to think there's so many opportunities for us to turn people away where it's so easy
20:55
for us to just not do those do those things. I mean, the motivations for this guy were negative
21:02
when it came to why he got the sticker. He didn't need to do it that way. Now, if he had bought
21:07
the exact same sticker and put on the exact same part of the vehicle, and he was like, no, I just
21:10
want to show my support for my guy because I voted for him. It's different. But he was actively
21:15
turning people away. And that's one of the dangers of being on civil. He was practicing
21:18
incivility like in basically modeling that for the people around him. This is a guy that owns a
21:24
business. And he's modeling that to the people that are around them. And a lot of people thought
21:28
it was funny. I didn't really think it was funny. It's just like, you know, why would you do that?
21:32
Like for that reason, I don't give a crap what the sticker says. But like, why would you do it for
21:38
that reason just to make someone mad? It's kind of the same thing when I get accused of this from
21:43
time to time that I just try to do things on this podcast or within this ministry, just to shock
21:48
people. It's like, really? You think I'm doing that just for the sake of shock? I had a buddy
21:54
episode four of this podcast is called Pussy's in the pews. And he's like, yeah, I know you just
21:58
named it that because of because of the shock value. And it's like, no, bro, like, this is just
22:02
how I talk. Like, I literally couldn't think of a better name for it. I couldn't think of a more
22:06
appropriate name for it. And he wasn't wrong for any by any means to saying what he said.
22:11
It's just he wasn't accurate. He didn't realize that I wasn't doing it for shock value that that's
22:17
just the way that it was. But I'm not actively acting in a certain way to turn people away.
22:23
I want to stand up for truth. And I want to stand up for the, you know, philosophy about
22:29
men's ministry that we have here. But I don't do it actively to turn people away. And I'm certainly
22:33
not going to be uncivil to get there. And so if those are the two dangers of being uncivil,
22:38
I think there are two main ways that we can be civil. And so here's the that was all the descriptive
22:44
stuff. So I guess we're going to move into the prescriptive stuff now. But the first thing is
22:48
super easy, guys. And I'm going to take you to church a little bit. It's love your neighbor as
22:51
yourself. Love your neighbor of yourself. Like, that's easy. Like, think of the number of issues
22:57
that would be solved within your house, within your business, within your city, within this country,
23:02
within this planet, if you just loved your neighbor as yourself. And so I want to go ahead and read
23:08
the section of the Bible where we get that, because a lot of us will just kind of spout that out and
23:12
just forget that it actually came from Scripture. And I know that your pastor is probably going over
23:16
this at least once or twice a year. But guys, go to Mark 12. So if you're in a safe place where
23:20
you're not driving or doing something dangerous, go to Mark 12. I'm going to go ahead and read this
23:24
section here, because it's such an interesting thing to watch our Savior, to watch our God,
23:28
to watch the line of Judah take on these people that are trying to trip them up. So Mark 12
23:32
versus 28 through 34, I'm going to be reading from the English standard version. So here we go.
23:36
And one of those scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another. And seeing
23:41
that he answered them well, asked him, which commandment is the most important of all?
23:45
Jesus answered, the most important is hero Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall
23:52
love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with
23:57
all your strength. The second is this, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other
24:03
commandment greater than these. And the scribe said to him, you're a right teacher. You have truly
24:08
said that he is one, and there is no other besides him. And to love him with all your heart, and with
24:13
all your understanding, and with all the strength, and to love one's neighbor as oneself, is much
24:18
more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices. And when Jesus said that he answered wisely,
24:24
he said to him, you are not far from the kingdom of God. And after that, no one dared to ask him
24:29
any more questions. I always think that that's that cracks me up. I don't know if that cracks
24:33
you guys up, but no one dared to ask him any more questions. It's like, yeah, because he's owned
24:36
you over and over and over, because you made this way too easy for him. Like, when are you going to
24:42
stop bringing him this weak sauce? But that's an incredible thing for us to remember that they asked
24:48
him for a singular answer, and he gave us two. He basically described how we're supposed to love God,
24:53
and then how we're supposed to love others, and love your neighbor as yourself, which, you know,
24:58
I'm not going to go into a sermon about that, because you all heard it all before. But, you know,
25:02
if you love yourself well, you have to love other people well. And that's one of the main ways to
25:07
be civil. Again, going back to this concept of everyone that you're ever eyeball the eyeball with
25:12
is somebody creating the image of God and worthy of dignity and respect, regardless of what they've
25:18
done up to that point, right? So that's the first main way to be civil. And the second is to be
25:25
intellectually honest, be intellectually honest. This is one of my least or it's one of my most
25:32
frustrating things watching people interact is that they're so intellectually dishonest,
25:37
whether you're seeing people spout their opinions on Facebook, or whether they're saying things
25:42
casually at the workplace or something like that, when they're not being consistent in their ideology.
25:47
They're consistent when it's convenient for them in their argument, or whatever they're trying to
25:53
get across to you or say to you or say to somebody else. But then whenever you flip the script a
25:57
little bit, it's not nearly as important to them to stick to that. And so one of the things that I
26:02
think is really important, this is a great litmus test since most of this has been about politics,
26:06
is think about something that your favorite current politician is doing, right? Let's just use two
26:12
of the easiest examples, because we can compare them side by side. So let's look at the previous
26:17
president, President Barack Obama, and the current president Donald Trump. So during the eight years
26:23
of Barack Obama's presidency, I was miserable. Like this guy, like I was rooting for him, because
26:29
guess what? I live in the United States of America, so that was my president. I chose not to vote for
26:34
him twice, but it didn't matter. The country spoke, the electoral college did the thing it was supposed
26:38
to do. And he was my president. But then he subsequently did thing after thing after thing after thing
26:45
that was completely against what I felt was right, what I felt was moral, what I felt was
26:50
ethical, what I felt was good for our country, didn't make him not my president. But I didn't like the
26:56
things that he was doing in the way that he was going about it. Now, you will have somebody, you
27:01
will probably have a lot of people, maybe it's even you, that will say the exact same thing about
27:06
Donald Trump. That's how they feel about Donald Trump. But this is where we have to be honest,
27:12
is if when Barack Obama did it, you were furious. But when Donald Trump does the same thing,
27:20
you think it's okay? That's not intellectually honest. If Donald Trump does it, and you think,
27:27
ah, great idea. But when Barack Obama did it, you're like, ah, that jerk. That's not intellectually
27:32
honest. So with most of these things, there's kind of an easy proof. And that's if the shoe
27:38
was on the other foot, or if you had to think about it another way, or if you inserted another name,
27:42
or if you inserted another party, or if you inserted another idea, then would you be able to see
27:48
yourself thinking the same way that you're thinking right now? Because here's the thing about civility
27:53
and intellectual honesty. Let me just kind of attach these things is when you're being intellectually
27:57
honest with yourself, it causes you to dig deep into your own philosophies and define them to make
28:05
sure that you have a fully thought out philosophy on a particular subject matter. Because there's
28:10
nothing more annoying than somebody that has an incredibly loud opinion, but it's completely
28:15
uninformed. So you see all these morons, it doesn't matter what's high the aisle they're on,
28:20
picketing and, you know, yelling things from the crowd. And then every now and then you'll get
28:24
these organizations that'll come through and want to do one on one interviews with these people,
28:27
and they don't know anything. They don't know anything about what they're yelling about. They're
28:30
just yelling, which it's so ridiculous. They have no desire. They're, they're not striving for
28:37
intellectual honesty. But you know what, they're just going to go out and yell anybody anyway,
28:41
because they read an email that basically gave them their talking points or screaming points,
28:45
and they're going to make a funny or stupid sign. They're going to hold it up and then they're
28:48
going to go on about their day and probably do it again tomorrow or next week or a year from now,
28:52
right? But an easy way for us to practice being civil is by being intellectually honest,
29:00
which is going to require something called a conversation. Because one of the easiest ways to
29:05
realize if you are being honest with your philosophy is to test it. To talk to people that
29:11
disagree with you, to go into areas that are going to make you a little bit uncomfortable,
29:17
to read or listen to or watch videos about people that have points of view that are different from
29:22
yours. And then you can evaluate your presuppositions and you can evaluate your overall position on
29:27
a particular issue or worldview, but you can do it with intellectual honesty. Does that mean
29:32
you're necessarily right? No, especially if it's something that's opinion-based. But if it's
29:38
something that is based in truth or falsehood, then that's great. Then you've dug down to bedrock.
29:43
That's a great thing. But there's there's a whole lot of non-conversations happening right now.
29:50
Yeah, people that are just yelling their sides, you know, issues or yelling their talking points,
29:56
whether it's on social media or in person. And there's not a whole lot of people trying to
30:00
conversate. And just to be honest with you guys, I don't I think we might be past the point of
30:04
no return. Are we getting the genie back in the bottle on this one? Do we all of a sudden think
30:11
that there's going to be a moderate third party that's going to somehow, you know, break the divide
30:16
between the Republicans and the Democrats in this country? Do we honestly think that's going to happen?
30:20
Do we honestly think that organizations that make tons and tons of money and have a tremendous
30:25
amount of influence are all of a sudden going to, you know, basically not have those things,
30:30
they're going to give up those things in order for individuals to be able to come more towards
30:35
the center? Like, are our people going to stop trying to go deep red or deep blue and kind of
30:40
bring more into the center and be more purple? I just don't think so. And so for us as Christian
30:45
men, we have to see the church, the modern church, as being downstream from culture and downstream
30:51
from modern politics, because that's what's really happening. Like the church has been so
30:55
emasculated and seen as such an afterthought now that we're going to have, we're going to assume
31:00
that we're going to have some of those things happening in our ranks. And I do see it a little
31:05
bit. Now, I don't really get into the, you know, the Calvinism thing and oh, is this person a
31:10
dispensationalist or any, you get into all that nonsense? Because I see so much of this happening
31:15
even within the church, this incivility with people that are supposed to be our brothers.
31:19
And part of the thing is, is because someone might disagree with you on a theological point
31:24
and again, you, you almost dehumanize them. You put them in a category. Like, oh, you're one of
31:29
those people. You believe one of those that you're a Baptist. Oh, you're a, you know, you're a
31:33
Presbyterian or oh, you're a, you know, whatever the thing might be. I can't even think of categories
31:38
like that off the top of my head right now. But just think about the incivility in the church, guys.
31:42
And to be honest with you, there are certain theological issues that we should fight about
31:47
in a civil way as brothers. I love hearing you know, I haven't mentioned Matt Chandler yet,
31:52
so here I got to pull Matt Chandler out again. I've heard him talk several times where he just
31:58
disagrees vehemently with somebody at a different church or maybe someone within the axe 29 network.
32:03
And you know, they will talk about it and they might even get a little bit heated,
32:06
but they always try to make sure that they can shake hands and leave his friends. Even if they
32:11
still are on a separate sides of the issue. I mean, just to be honest, guys, think about all the
32:15
civil conversations that you've had with somebody where you left with your mind changed. You may
32:19
have left with your mind more open, but you maybe didn't change your mind because I can guarantee
32:22
you right now, there's not a thing anybody on this planet can say to me to make me think abortions.
32:27
Okay, anything not a thing to think that we should just be able to do that carp launch without any
32:33
issues. I mean, you might have your issue as well that under no circumstances could someone tell you
32:40
that it's okay for a immigrant to come here illegally, like under no circumstances. Maybe
32:44
that's your issue. Like, maybe your issue is school choice. Maybe your issue is, I don't know,
32:49
like marijuana or whatever your thing might be. But at the end of the day, we should always
32:53
strive to be civil with the people that are around us and try to come to some common ground and
32:57
understanding. We can do that by loving our neighbor as ourself and by being intellectually
33:02
honest. And I really hope that some of these things that we talked about here today is going to be
33:07
helpful for you as you go through life, because the tendency and the temptation is going to be
33:12
to make things worse, to join one of the mobs, either the one on the left side or the right side
33:18
or one of those things, it's to join the voices that are screaming the loudest. And this is my
33:22
encouragement to you to be above all that, to be the one person in the crowd raising your hands
33:27
silently to be like, I would like to talk to somebody about this is anybody interested in
33:31
grabbing a cup of coffee or a drink. So we, so we can talk, talk through this. I'd, I'm really
33:36
interested to hear your point of view. And I think if more of us did that, we'd be in a better spot.
33:40
All right, guys, before we let you out here, we're going to do a quick resilience boost.
33:42
As you know, by now, we are a men's ministry and our mission is cultivating manly resilience.
33:47
Specifically, we do that by providing content that forges spiritual, mental and physical toughness.
33:52
So today we're going to talk about mental resilience. And I'm pretty sure I've forgotten some of the
33:57
things that I've done on this podcast, but I'm almost certain that I've suggested Stephen Crowder
34:02
videos before the change my mind series. I can't remember the context. I'm sure y'all would
34:07
know more than I do. I should know where this is headed. But basically, Stephen Crowder is a
34:11
conservative comedian that does these things where he basically does these long form discussions.
34:17
He normally goes to a college campus or something like that. And anybody who's willing to sit down
34:22
with him and discuss this issue, he will discuss it with him. And so he's done it on abortion. He's
34:28
done it on gun rights. He's done it on all kinds of different things. But I have a video here for
34:32
you called there are only two genders change my mind because of all the change my mind series videos.
34:37
This is the one with the most views. I think it's like 50 million views as the recording of this
34:41
podcast or something like that. But here's my caveat because I know people are like, oh my gosh,
34:44
he's suggested so by Stephen Crowder. What's wrong with him? Okay, I don't agree with everything
34:48
that Stephen Crowder has ever said. So if that's not good enough, there are specifically jokes
34:55
and videos and things that he has done that I don't agree with that I specifically think
35:01
were distasteful, that were unnecessary, that he could have done a different way.
35:05
But part of the things that he does is for shock value, part of the things that he does
35:08
is it is just because that's his way of doing things. This is the thing that I like the most
35:14
about what Stephen Crowder does, that he will get two microphones and he will sit at a table with
35:19
anybody who's willing to debate him on an issue. And this is what I like the most about these
35:23
sessions because again, I don't really think he wants his mind changed. It's called change my
35:27
mind. But I think he's going in basically trying to show off how how much he knows about these
35:31
subjects. But he's always calm and he's always civil. He seems like he genuinely wants to know
35:39
why people think that the way that they think that these people are almost always sitting down
35:43
because they disagree with him wholeheartedly on a particular issue. And a lot of times it goes
35:48
off the rails and these people get super emotional and get hyped and just go nuts. And then other
35:52
people they just go, yeah, well, I disagree. But hey, you know, shake hands and we'll part ways.
35:57
And I think it's something that we need to see more of like enough of the little two, three-minute
36:02
hits on on the nightly news and and stuff like that. Like it sees long-form discussions. And so
36:08
again, this is not an endorsement of Stephen Crowder. This is not me saying you need to listen to his
36:12
podcaster join his network or whatever the thing that he has going on that you have to pay for. Like
36:16
this is not me saying that. But it is a testament to the to basically the fact that you can sit down
36:22
in front of somebody that you disagree with and have a discussion with them. That's a little weird
36:26
because there's usually several dozen people sitting around watching and basically keeping notes
36:30
on what's going on on them, you know, verbally sparring back and forth. But these things could
36:35
very easily happen without the crowds there. It's just he does them in a public forum. And that's how
36:40
it is. So anyway, hopefully that's helpful to you. And hopefully that video is interesting to you.
36:44
And if not, shoot me an email and maybe I'll read it. All right, guys, thanks again for listening to
36:49
the podcast. I really appreciate it. Please subscribe on iTunes, SoundCloud or Google Play,
36:53
and refer your friends to listen and share this on social media. If you use the hashtag
36:57
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review, guys, please leave us one. We are currently still five-star reviewed. And this podcast will
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continue to grow if you continue leaving us good reviews with a few sentences telling us what you
37:11
like. I'm currently booking speaking engagements for the last couple of months of 2018 and the first
37:16
three quarters of 2019. So if you'd like for me to come to speak at your men's event, at your
37:21
conference, at your camp, whatever, hit me up at info@undaunted.life, info@undaunted.life. Our website
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is www.undaunted.life. And you can follow us on Instagram and Twitter @undauntedlife or facebook.com
37:34
backslash undaunted life. Check out our free devotionals on the U version Bible app. Just search
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undaunted life under plans. And as always, we want to thank the band August Burns Red for allowing
37:43
us to use their music library for our content. The intro out your track on this podcast is our
37:48
Song King of Sorrow, which is off their latest record entitled Phantom Anthem. The links to all
37:52
of this are in the description. I'm your host Kyle Thompson. Remember, keep cultivating manly
37:58
resilience, keep forging spiritual, mental, and physical toughness. Keep seeking the lion of Judah.
38:13
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no!