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[Music]
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This is on Daunted Life of Man's podcast. I'm your host Kyle Thompson. Let's get into it.
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All right, guys, I know I said I was wrapping up the botching Afghanistan series, but seemingly
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every day there's way more and more things to talk about. So we're probably going to do
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another future episode on that. But I'm going to go back to an interview here and to continue
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the botching Afghanistan series. And that's this is with kind of a little bit of a different person
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because we had some gold star folks and we had some military folks. But this is a military person
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that's now actually a lead pastor. So this is pastor Ryan Visconti. He's a lead pastor at
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Generation Church and he has two locations out there in Arizona. And the thing about it is
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we've got another interview coming up with him later on. So that's what we actually recorded.
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But I found out that this guy was actually, you know, a captain in the army, I believe.
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And I wanted to get his thoughts here because we haven't had a pastor kind of give us their
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perception of what's going on here in Afghanistan. So I wanted to go ahead and bring that to you a
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little bit early before I introduce you to him fully here in a few weeks. So without further
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ado, let's go ahead and get into it. All right, Ryan Visconti. Thank you for letting us kind of
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keep you around for a little bit longer. So we're going to be releasing your longer episode here,
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maybe in a few weeks or something like that. But you know, this this Afghanistan situation,
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I feel like every day when I look at the news, I'm hoping for something to get better. And it's
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just not as of the recording of this podcast, there are 12 dead US military soldiers from overseas,
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I think it's two Marines and our 10 Marines and two Navy corpsmen and stuff like that. It's just
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a horrible situation. The body count is continuing to rise every time I look at the newsfeed.
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There was a report from political just right before we hopped on the air here saying that Joe Biden
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actually provided a list to the Taliban of the people that we had in country, right?
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Basically like, Hey, can you make sure that these people get out? And then magically,
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these people are now being targeted by the Taliban. It's some of the crazy stuff I think I've ever
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seen. I can't remember a news cycle like this in my 35 years of life. But I want to just kind of
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step back as I've done with everybody else in this little mini series and just kind of give you
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the space to say your thoughts. Because as I understand, you're one of the few pastors that I
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know that also served, that was also deployed at some point to the Middle East. So what are your
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thoughts on the situation going on in Afghanistan? Yeah, it's been a really complicated time
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emotionally. I'm army veteran. I was a captain in the US cavalry. So I was deployed to Kirk Hook
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Iraq in 2009 and 2010 and spent time there worked with some Iraqi army guys who were pretty good dudes
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also saw a lot of Islamic extremism. And yeah, as I've been watching us pull out of Afghanistan,
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my heart has gone out to my fellow veterans and families who've lost loved ones. Because
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you started asking these questions like, well, what are we doing? Like, well, is it even? Was it
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worth it? The sacrifices that we made as a country and maybe as a family deploying going over the
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Middle East, all the good that we accomplished is this mean it just was for nothing. And I think a
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lot of veterans are asking those questions right now. And I would encourage them. I believe it still
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was worth it, us going there. And I would encourage anyone who maybe lost a loved one or who gave a
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year of their life to deploy. Or maybe you just think about it in terms of your taxpayer dollars
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helped fund this war, right? It still accomplished a lot of good. And I think it was good that we went
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there and disrupted terrorism on its own turf rather than let it come here and interfere with
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our way of life. Now, as we've watched ourselves pull out of Afghanistan, clearly, irresponsibly,
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with no plan in place to ensure stability, as a country, it's really hard. It's humbling because
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it makes us look terrible to our allies. It makes us look terrible in the world's eyes.
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It makes other enemies potentially in the future just see a clear path to what they need to do if
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they're going to resist us and fight against us and hope in their minds outlast us. But I would
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encourage Christians at times like this, you know, you got to put your hope in the Lord. You got to
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trust God that he's going to work through this and even bring good out of it somehow as difficult
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as it is. But I think that it's been a major mistake the way that we've pulled out of Afghanistan.
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Having studied world religion, having lived up close and personal with Islam and in the middle
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of Muslim countries, it's very clear that what you see out of the Taliban is actually what orthodox
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Islam is. It is violent. It is extremist. And we all know probably peaceful Muslims. Well,
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those are progressive Muslims. And so you take you take orthodox Islam versus orthodox Christianity,
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very different dynamics there. Orthodox Christianity is loving and kind and courageous.
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Orthodox Islam is violent in extremism. So I personally am of the mindset that the more we can
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kill violent extremists before they kill us and our families and loved ones, the better,
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the more we can disrupt them on their own turf, the better. So it's really, it's really sad to see how
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we've handled the situation. When I think I just released an episode today where I talked at length
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about about Islam and about fundamentalist Islam, you called it orthodox, which is good as well.
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But when you look at the writings of the 9th, sir, of the Quran, and you see how bloody it is,
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and when you look at the Hadith and you look at how bloody what Muhammad did in his life and also
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the things that the last words he gave to the Muslim people were not, hey, go and coexist with
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everybody. It's like, if they're not going to pay the tax or convert, you kill them, you slay them.
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And that's, that's just the reality of what we look at. But from that perspective, just a couple
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more questions here. How should the American church respond? You know, you talked about
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Christians, you know, just praying and relying on God. But how should the American church respond
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to the situation? Because there's a lot of different things. There's going to be a lot of hurt families.
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There are new gold star families as of today. There's a refugee crisis that's going to be
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coming to a neighborhood near you. You know, what, what should we do as the American church of Christ,
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not church of Christ from a denominational standpoint? Sorry for them to speak, but you get what I'm
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saying. Yeah. Well, I think, let me say this, because there's probably already a lot of
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churches and pastors who've talked about helping refugees. So I think that gets covered a lot.
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I think it's good for Christians to think about the moral benefit of having a strong military presence
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in the world. America has its flaws. America has its issues. We're not a perfect country.
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But in general, historically speaking, this country has been the greatest force for good
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in the history of the world as far as any secular organization goes. So for us to have a military
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that is strong and feared in the world is good for the whole world. So I mean, at, I think as a
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church, obviously we've got to support immigrants. We've got to support gold star families. We've got
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to pray. But I would also think about, and I want to vote personally for politicians, and I would
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encourage Christians to vote for politicians who believe in and want to establish a strong military
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presence, knowing that the values that shape our country lead to us having a military that's used
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in the world to stabilize the world, to promote good, to promote justice, let's call it democracy,
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which is the best of all the flawed systems. So I think that's something to think about is how
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how do we vote coming out of this situation so that we don't see these kinds of tragedies
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unfold hopefully again in the future. Okay, last question here. I called the episode I released
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today of the Botching Afghanistan series The Lasting Death. And what I meant by The Lasting Death
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is that, first of all, the the ripple effect of us pulling out of Afghanistan was going to have
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horrible dire and bloody consequences. And just a few hours after that podcast release,
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a suicide bomber went in and killed a whole bunch of people, just absolutely horrific. I'm by no
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means a prophet, you could see the writing on the wall if you were a five year old, you could
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have predicted that this was going to happen. But the second thing I said is the only true
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lasting death is eternity away from God, eternity separated from God. And I think that's something
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that's getting lost here is that a lot of people are going to die that don't know him, right? Because
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you know, out of the 28 or 30 million people that live in Afghanistan, there's only a few hundred,
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maybe even a few thousand that would consider themselves to be gospel believing disciples of Christ.
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And so for you as a pastor, how is it how important is it for us right now to not only lean on the
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gospel ourselves as the elect as the ones ever called to be believers, but also to share that
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and time like this? Yeah, it's so important for us to share Jesus with our friends and family members.
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And I would encourage everyone listening to this. There is a certain level of fear when it comes to
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sharing Christ or your beliefs with other people. And it really honestly is fear about how are they
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going to perceive me? How are they going to react to me? If I tell them, I believe in Jesus and I'm
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a Christian, are they going to laugh at me? Am I going to lose a relationship? Am I going to lose
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influence at work? And at the end of the day, we got to go back to this. We have eternal souls.
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And currently without Christ, people are on the pathway to spending eternity in hell. The most
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loving and kind thing you can do is tell them about the life raft. Let them know about the
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opportunity to be rescued through Jesus Christ. And you're not responsible for their choice.
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If they reject you or laugh in your face or walk away from you, you have been faithful. You've
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been obedient to God and you've been a loving friend. Then it's on them between them and God,
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what they do with it. But I would encourage people, you've got to share Jesus. You've got to share
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clearly. He is the only way to be safe. And whether you believe in predestination or free will,
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salvation, doesn't really matter. God still wants to use you to deliver the good news to people who
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need it. So more than ever in our world today, share the gospel, ask people, hey, who is Jesus
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to you? Do you know where you would go if you died tonight? Hey, we just saw people die in
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Afghanistan today. What if you got blown up today? Where would you wake up? Where would you be?
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And just like let people chew on that. And then God can use you to lead someone into eternal life
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through Jesus and share your faith. As the ultimate place to leave this, I really appreciate
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you giving the word there on the gospel. Pastor Ryan, thank you again for coming on. Thank you.