ALISA CHILDERS | Crisis of Discernment (Ep. 871)

Let's be honest, most men drift. We wake up, we scroll, we work, and then we just rinse and repeat. And we know we're softer than we should be. That's why I built the 31-day resilience reset. This is not a devotional. It is a field manual for men ready to stop drifting and start fighting back. So, for 31 days, you'll train your spirit, mind, and body with scripture, prayer, and daily challenges that forge real resilience. Go to www.undaunted.life/31. life/31day to download this resource for free. That's undaunted.life/31day. Start your reset today. [music] This is Undaunted Life, a man's podcast. I'm your host, Kyle Thompson. Let's get into it. All right, Alisa Childers, welcome back to the show. And I say welcome back because this is somehow your fourth appearance of you sneaking into the boys club. This is Undaunted Life, a man's podcast, and you just keep, you know, elbowing your way in there. Even though I've only been on your show once, we should probably take care of that. But hey, when you get your sixth punch in your punch card, you actually get to redeem it for a prize. Okay. So, do you know what you're kind of eyeing? You know, when you get to that sixth appearance, >> I I don't know, but you know, I am pushy, so you know, here I am again. I actually thought this was my third time, but apparently >> I confirmed. I confirmed with my producers, and by producers, I mean myself. I just put on my producer hat and I went on my own website and I searched for Alisa or podcast/ Lisa Childers 4 and it didn't exist but number three did. So here we are. We're making it happen. But I do have a question for you from the beginning. And I can't remember if I learned this because you said it or because Katie FA said it >> but I hear that you make your own kombucha. And so here I am with this handy dandy life mug. I've got some kombucha in here. I won't say where it's from because you know they're not sponsoring the show. I don't give freebies. It's crazy. It's intense. This is the one that they don't put a whole bunch of extra sugar into. But when I heard that people could make kombucha, I thought this was something that had to take place in like a science lab cuz there's like billions of living organisms apparently in this thing I'm drinking. So, is that true? Is the rumor true that you make your own? >> Well, the rumor is not only true, but I've been making it for about 10 years. And I make a whole bunch of other fermented stuff, too. So, I make kombucha. I've actually made my own mead in the past. I make sourdough bread. I do fermented vegetables, pickles, radishes, kimchi. I I do all the fermented things. >> Wow. And now, are we selling these? Have we have we capitalized on the market potential here, Alisa? Are you selling these? Putting your picture on it, your name? What are we doing? Not yet, but actually my husband and I and our kids moved out to this 5 acre farm and we're kind of wannabe homesteaders right now. We've been here a little over a year and we actually are talking about putting a farm stand out front where I could sell the bread and we have a bunch of chickens and eggs and so we we may I have never done it yet, but I I am open to it and I and I would. Now, one of my favorite things I heard about recently is there are still there's a dwindling number of these, but there are still these um country farm, you know, farm-totable stands that just exist in the country that no one mans. And so, basically, the local farmers, they'll they'll bring their eggs or they'll bring their milk or they'll bring, you know, their produce and they'll just put it here and then there's basically a jar like, all right, well, the this cucumber came from, you know, Bubba Joe's down the road and you just kind of leave some money in there. And I was like, that's what we need to get back to, dad gummit. not where we be boop our phones to pay for some, you know, person to bring us our our food to our doorstep. That's what we need more of, >> right? Well, you know, on our street here, cuz it's all like farms around where we are. And lots of people have their own little farm stands that they have outside their houses. Our neighbors just across the street have an egg stand. There's one around the corner that does honey and eggs, and there's some bread ones. So, yeah, it's it's and it's all the honor system. Although I do have to say technology has come to it though because there's usually like a QR code where you can beep boop your phone to pay, but at least you have to drive to the farm stand. >> See, I think it's like the inconvenience of having to figure out how to get cash. I remember this was not long ago. I was talking to my wife and I'm like, how do I get like just cash on my wallet? Like I kind of forgot how to do that. Like I don't know how to go to the ATM anymore. And so you try to figure that out. But even the process of figuring out how to go in reverse a little bit, it could kind of take us back, you know, to your music days. we can get our old, you know, Sony Walkman and then we can like put it on there and try to like, you know, move it. We're just kind of going backwards, right? We're trying to go backwards in time a little bit. But anyway, I had to have a little fun at the beginning cuz I figure we're going to get into some heavy subjects today because normally for our conversations, Alisa, we have a new book of yours that that's coming out that we need to talk to uh talk about and talk about the exact things that are going on and kind of your heart behind everything. And we do have a new edition of one of your books that is out now that we'll talk about a little bit later. But whenever you and I were communicating before this, I was just kind of like, "Hey, is there something that you're you're really wanting to hit? Is there is there something that's kind of like burdening you right now?" And I actually just want to read your response to me. It was, you know, the main thing that's been on my mind is just discernment in general. It's like people have no clue how to assess claims and figure out what's true. Not a super exciting topic, but one that's really been burdening me. I just got to tell you, I was super excited the moment I read it because I've been like obsessed with this because it feels like something broke loose in our body politic when Charlie Kirk was assassinated to where it's like you knew the conspiracy theorist people were going to come out and we just didn't we couldn't really prepare for them being mainstream and you're seeing people like Candace Owens or Ian Carol or Tucker Carlson some of the things that they're saying publicly and you're like wait a minute these are these are grandiose claims and you're providing no substantiation for them no evidence and it's like you know I told you on my how to avoid being a crappy man episode. The number one thing this year, they're not in any particular order, but the first thing I mentioned is that we should hold our, you know, purveyors of truth to a high evidentiary standard. Like if you're going to claim something that is fantastical, maybe provide even a modicum's worth of substantiation for the claim that you're making. And so that's where I've been coming from it as I've just been absolutely flumx looking out on the po, you know, the the populace and wondering like why why are y'all just like putting all of your chips into one area on one bet on one person without asking hey why or why where did you get this information and then you have people say well this person got it in a dream and you're like yeah that sounds good enough to me and I'm just like yikes. And so why was the burden so big for you as well? Well, I think when I really started to realize the grand scale on which some of these theories and feelings, vibes, dreams as evidence was being kind of propagated and accepted was after the share the arrows event that I did with Ali Bethst Stucky. This was a few months after Charlie was assassinated and it was a bunch of women who came together uh under the leadership of Ally and basically talking about things like wellness. I mean, you know, kombucha vitamins, but biblical truth and all sorts of different topics. And I wanted to talk about discernment at the share the arrows event, and I did that. And this event is sponsored by the Blaze. So, Blaze had put a clip out of me speaking. And I remember just kind of looking at it that day as the conference is going on going, "Oh, that's cool. That's a little clip from Blae." And all of a sudden, I start to see all these comments under the post saying, "Oh, she's dressed like a man. She's a feminist. look at the girl boss and I'm going wait what is happening like everybody at this conference is complimentarian nobody you know is trying to be a pastor and we're speaking to other women and what I saw right after that event was just this absolute onslaught of posts and comments on my on my uh Instagram and ex on alleys and on Katie FA and others who had been at the event basically calling us feminists and and I just at first I was so confused cuz I'm thinking, "Oh, no, no, no. We're on the same side. Like, I'm with you. I agree with you. I'm against feminism, right? All that stuff." And then I realized like I made a post on X where I said, I was today years old when I realized that there's a very loud and maybe growing and large group of people that think that Christian women shouldn't even speak publicly to other women. And I was honestly kind of expecting people to be like, "Oh, that's not true." But then the comments, it was like comment after comment after comment, men telling me to go home and bake a pie and telling me which flavor of pie they'd like me to bake. And it was so fascinating to me just to see not I it's not surprising that groups like this exist and that people will make claims like this, but what was surprising to me was the scale uh to which this was being just put out to the public and accepted and growing. And then from there you had the Candace Owens snowball. And I'm just watching in disbelief, honestly, just disbelief as she's making these claims. And and the thing that I think was disturbing to me about the whole Candace Owens things was not the questions. I don't mind people asking questions, but sometimes questions are masked as claims. Like if I were to say to somebody, you know, hey, why are you cheating on your husband? Well, that's not just a question. That's a claim that's embedded in a question, right? >> And so I I was just flumxed, to use your word, to see her not just make grandiose claims without evidence, but actually groom her audience to actually believe that vibes, feelings, and dreams are a legitimate source of evidence just openly. Like she wasn't even trying to hide it. Just you know what, you know what? You can't tell us not to go with our guts. We we are seeing these vibes. We know what's going on. We know. We know. you don't know, but you know, you know that all that stuff. And that was the shocking thing to me. And honestly, I don't think it was just women. I mean, there's a ton of men. It's like people in general that are just falling for this stuff. So, I think for me, it's been uh very disturbing. It's been something that has been confusing because I'm not Kyle, I'm not like by nature a real super logical thinker. That has been a skill I've had to hone and learn. I'm much more of an artist type. I do kind of tend to naturally go with my feelings and emotions. So over the course of the past 15 years of my life, I've reoriented myself to focus more on evidence and look for claims and use critical thinking, learn critical thinking. What is a logical fallacy? How can I spot those things? And so it's I suppose it's just been kind of surprising and disturbing to see how many people because I would think okay well well if you don't realize you're going by your feelings if somebody shows you that you are then you learn the critical thinking skills and you're like oh thank you but that's not where people are at they're like no it's good to go with your feelings and that was one I didn't see coming. So that's I think probably why I have such a burden for this stuff right now. Well, I think as well, yeah, obviously if you were to take the big five personality traits, you would be incredibly high in openness and maybe not as high in conscientiousness, but as you as you age and as you develop as a person, those things start to, you know, shift a little bit. But the the thing with the Candace Owens thing is, you're right, you know, a lot of women that follow her were just kind of caught up in in that, but then a lot of discerning men, like the messages I would get whenever I would talk about her on social media and just basically say, "Here's what she said." I had a guy at my jiu-jitsu gym come up to me and he was not very happy with me at all. Like, he was using some very choice language. He's like, "You're one of those mfers that just doesn't look at the context and blah blah blah." I'm like, here's the context game that people play, Alisa. You post a clip that's 60 seconds long and some doofus in the comments says, "Well, that's not that's out of context." But if I were to post the entire segment, there would not be enough context. If I were to post that entire episode, there wouldn't be enough context. You know why? Because I don't have every thought and word that that person has ever had or said, right? And I'm not going to be able to present that. So, at some point, we have to make a call. Like, when someone says this, perhaps they mean it. we perhaps we should take them at their word. But here's the thing with Candace Alisa, she might be right. But I ask people this. If you're going to think critically and be intellectually honest, what has a higher likelihood that she is correct that the United States federal government, the Trump administration, the Jews, uh, Erica Kirk, TPSA, all that coconspired to murder Charlie Kirk in public where everyone saw it, right? Not to where they could easily hide it. Or is there a higher likelihood that she's manic, that she's bipolar, that she has some sort of a psychological break that happened that's attached to money? Because now her claims like she's claiming that Charlie Kirk was a time traveler. Like she the the claims are having to get so unbelievably fantastical now because no one's going to listen if she if she ramps down. And that's the thing is when you burn hot sometimes you burn up. What say you on that? >> Yeah. Well, this is a great point because like you, I've had people in my real life actually come to me and and say, in fact, I had this uh dinner with a lady that was like, "Oh, yeah, your podcast is the only one I listen to and Candace Owens." And I was sitting with her and I I kind of was surprised. And I said, "Okay, well, that that's interesting because we're very different in how we, you know, assess information." And so I as we discussed it and I was trying to gently kind of point her toward the fact that I just I think Candace is not showing evidence for any of her claims and like you said she could be right but she's not even shown any evidence that would lead anybody to that you know she would be right at this point. You know what I mean? >> Yeah. Right. So what I said to my friend I I came up with a scenario and maybe this would be helpful to people because I said okay let's let's imagine that okay you and I are sitting here having this dinner in this restaurant. Now, this was in Dallas and I had actually come to Dallas a day early. This is kind of context for you for you for the story. So, I came to Dallas a day early to do Alib Beth's show. But that day, Ali Beth got sick and that got cancelled. So, I kind of just hung out in Dallas because I had an event the next day. So, I had a day off in Dallas that wasn't supposed to be a day off. I was supposed to do Alli's show. Ended up having dinner with a friend who lives in Dallas and here we are talking about it. So I said, "All right, let's imagine that a crime is committed in the parking lot of this restaurant." Like right at this moment, somebody could make the plausible case that I did it. They could come up with all sorts of insinuation. They could say, "Oh, Alisa was, you know, she said she was doing Ali Beth's show, but that didn't happen." So instead of saying, and this is I think a Candace move, instead of saying, "Well, maybe she was wrong, maybe it got cancelled, maybe something happened that the plans changed." Instead going jumping to, "Well, that was a lie, you know, verifiable lie that she was going to do Ali's show, she didn't do it." Then let's even say that there's camera footage from inside the restaurant that I happen to get up and go to the bathroom around the same time that the crime is committed. And and then you know somebody like Candace makes this case like it had to be Alisa Childers. I said now you would know that's not true because you're here with me. Is it plausible? It's totally plausible. I was in the right place, right time, certain events lined up. There's even some things that could cast suspicion on it. But it that's not proving your case. That's just making a plausible case. And so I think that's one thing that Candace does a lot is make a plausible case. like it if I was the one who committed that crime, here's how it could have happened. But that's not evidence that I actually did commit the crime. There is no evidence that I committed the crime. And I think that's what a lot of people are falling for is kind of insinuation, random connections. And you know, Kyle, I think one of the reasons people are so vulnerable to this, and I have actually a lot of sympathy for this idea, is that we were lied to by the people we were supposed to trust during COVID, during all sorts of different things. And so it made the conspiracy theory idea more plausible to people like, well, maybe it is just a big conspiracy. And certainly some things can be a conspiracy. But again, we have to use critical thinking and look at the evidence for something rather than going with insinuation and and and just sort of that plausible case that I think she tends to make. >> Well, and this this applies across the board, but certainly to Cand Candace in this whole situation that we're talking about, you have to answer the question for me, which is when does plausibility transfer over to probability? Okay, because just because something is is plausible doesn't mean that it's probable. And I've given this because I've talked to friends of mine that are convinced that the United States is hiding, you know, aliens, that we have aliens alive amongst us, that there's these alien ships, blah blah blah, that kind of thing. That George [clears throat] W. Bush was the head of the planning committee for 9/11, right? So that was an inside job so that this could happen so that that could happen. And then you fast forward to, you know, why would we in invade Venezuela and get Maduro out of there? Well, obviously it's because the Jews have control over Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein somehow involved and, you know, all this kind of stuff. But you have to you have to ask yourself I feel like people would would be in a much better place if they would just ask themselves what would it take for me to be wrong. And for a lot of these people it wouldn't take a whole lot cuz when you believe in something so extreme the only thing that you would need to see that would make you wrong would be this much evidence. And for those just listening to the podcast my fingers are very close together. You just need a little bit of evidence to show yourself that you're wrong. And it kind of goes back to something I talked about with Wes Huff on my podcast when I had him on last year. is uh or it was on my show or someone else's show where he was like, "Hey, what would you need to see to make you disbelieve in Christianity?" Like, what's that one thing that if they could show you and his answer was brilliant, which is like there are so many levels of evidence. There's such a high evidentiary basis for what we see in the gospel accounts. Not only the gospel accounts themselves, but all of the cultural and historical anecdotes that happened thereafter, like trying to explain how Christianity could even survive first century Roman rule, all those types of things. So he's like, "There's not one thing that you could show me." He's like, "I guess you could show me some record that was, you know, historically accurate, showing that the the disciples all stole the body." But then he's like, "Then you'd have to answer the question." Plenty of people die for stuff that they think is true, but no one dies for stuff that they know is not true. Like that that's basically the world that we're living in. And again, we just don't really see that with with a lot of these types of people. But I do want to move on to another topic that you brought up and I want to give you the last word on this whole kind of discernment side, plausibility, probability stuff. >> Well, I think that the reason this matters, like I I've had people question me on X, like why are you talking about Candace so much, like you've gotten off of your main thing, you know, you need to get back to your main thing. And so I made a post and I was just explaining like, "Guys, this matters not because I care what somebody named Candace Owens is doing, but because it erodess people's confidence in their ability to even assess truth claims." And I I came on your show before to talk about the deconstruction phenomenon that Tim Barnett and I wrote a book about. And you see this all over the place. It's the same thing applied to spirituality. uh all over the deconstruction movement on Tik Tok, Instagram, all the places they're posting their videos. You see them question what they've been told. Oh, the church has been lying to you for 2,000 years. These guys planned this and everybody went with it. This was added. This was taken away and nobody wants you. The church doesn't want you to know about this and they're hiding it. And so there's like this conspiratorial aspect to it that applies and it overlaps. And so when people lose their ability to think critically and honestly too, Kyle, I think that in the spiritual, you know, scheme of things, we saw after Charlie was assassinated, including in my own heart, revival happened where people were repenting. They were trusting in Christ. People were curious about Christ in a way that they hadn't been before. We're seeing people that you never would dream would come to Christ were curious and coming to Christ. And then the whole thing just gets hijacked with all of this conspiracy stuff. And it it really has to do with the erosion of critical thinking. Critical thinking, I always tell Christian parents this. It's 70% of the battle, maybe 80, because if you can just spot bad thinking, you're going to eliminate so many false doctrines, false gospels, counterfeit movements just with that one skill. And so it does matter for us spiritually. It's not getting off track. It's actually staying on the track of fighting for truth, which is what we want to do. >> Hey guys, real quick. I know a lot of you train for very specific things. So maybe you've got a mud race coming up, a mountain hunt, a 5K, or maybe you just want to keep up with your kids, or you just don't want to let the old man in. But for a lot of you guys, whether you're working out at the Globo Gym, or even in your garage gym, you get there and you just don't know exactly what to do. And so you just kind of settle for the same old workout routine, maybe some bench press, bicep curls, a walk on the treadmill, and you know, you're not really getting the most out of your workout plan. And I want you guys to stop wasting time at the gym. 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Well, and I I feel like there's almost this this draw to this nasticism of sorts to this this thought that no one else can have. Why is there so much interest in the book of Enoch? But Christians aren't reading the book of Matthew, right? And so it's this overwhelming obsession with things that cannot be known versus things that can be known. Now within Christianom, I give young earth, old earth people a lot of crap because I get about once a once a month, I get this email or DM from a very concerned fan of the show that says, "I'm concerned that you haven't had a young earth old earth debate, like a fullon fullthroated debate on your show about the topic." And my response is, "I just don't really care that much." They're like, "How could you not care that much?" And I'm like, because if the earth is 6,000 years old or if it's a bajillion years old, it changes nothing about the gospel of Jesus Christ. Nothing at all. Right? It may change how we read certain verses in Genesis, whether we look at it as a description of history and a taxonomy textbook or mytho history or whatever William Lane Craig is saying today. And so those are the types of things that I think it's like we're getting so wrapped around the axle on things that are unknowable when we're not focusing at all on the things that can be known and can be discerned. But uh I'll shift gears to Charlie Kirk since you you brought him up. You know, the assassination of Charlie Kirk, you know, September of last year has really changed the face of politics in this country. It has changed our culture, but it also took the masks off of a lot of people because, you know, you saw what happened with people that were on the right, whether they were Christian conservatives or conservative Christians, whichever one comes first for them. Where did these people go? They went to churches. They went to prayer vigils. They went to Bible bookstores and bought Bibles for themselves and their friends. And maybe the highest church attendance in the history of planet Earth occurred the Sunday after Charlie Kirk was assassinated in front of everybody, right? And then you saw the people on the left, the people celebrating the murder of this man. Cuz I'm not one of those people that's like the biggest thing about Charlie Kirk in terms of his assassination is not the fact that he was married with children. Because there are people that deserve to be assassinated that have families, right? They're just awful, horrible, evil people. But these people are like they're they're thankful that Erica Kirk is on screen shedding tears. They're thankful that those kids are going to grow up without their father and they're they're emboldened by our society to share that publicly. Now, some of them lost their jobs, lost their businesses and to that I say fantastic, you know, f around to find out and they a lot of people found out. But the thing that I'm not really sure what happens is the left has not tamped anything down since that time. They didn't learn their lessons from the extreme nature of the things that they shared publicly. They're only going further. they they become emboldened. We saw recently where people that think that same way decided it was a great idea to go into the middle of a church service in Minneapolis and to destru you know disrupt an evangelical church and then claim first amendment rights even though you don't have a first amendment right to trespass and you know uh violate what's happening in a Christian church. So I I'm just not really sure exactly where all this is going but it doesn't sound good doesn't look good. Doesn't feel feel good. What's your read on it? >> Yeah. Well, I'm, you know, like you mentioned the the big five personality test. I actually just did that and I got like my score for what was it? Uh, neuroticism was fairly low. So, I I tend to see the positive, you know, [laughter] >> and so I I see in the grand scheme of what God is doing. I'm always I this might sound strange, but I'm always thankful when somebody just comes out and says what they really think, even if it's total heresy, because it's like, at least we know where you stand. And sometimes I even have the temptation in my own mind and heart and probably need to repent of this, but you know when somebody is following somebody that is so out there, so heretical, and they're just championing them. Part of me just wants to be like, "Good. You've chosen. Go. You know, if that's what you want, go have it." You know, Nick Fentes thing to where people are just like like when people are like, "Oh, yeah. I love like kind of like what you said earlier. I love your show and I listen to Nick Fentes." And I'm like, "Bro, you're not listening close enough to my show if you're listening to that joker." >> Right. Exactly. So, so there's part of me that's just kind of like seeing what God is doing going, "Good. I'm glad people are dividing. I'm glad that light is getting lighter and dark is getting darker. It's less muddy." I mean, I live in the south in the Bible belt and I moved here from Los Angeles. So, Los Angeles, at least when I was growing up, was very black and white. If you went to church in Los Angeles, you were a real Christian because you had to really be light in in this and it stood out among the sharp darkness. I moved to the south. I remember being here in uh going to the YMCA and seeing a guy reading a Christian book on an exercise bike and I remember thinking like, wow, he's so bold, but I just realized like everybody's reading a Christian book on an exercise bike here. So, it gets muddy, you know, it gets gray and it gets fuzzy and people become more confused. But when something like this happens, like this lightning rod event, it causes people to be like, "Okay, am I on the side of good or am I on the side of evil?" And it's like that stark to me. It's good versus evil. And people are having to make their choice. And so part of me thinks it's a good thing because it's it's becoming and this is, you know, to our discernment topic. One of the things I've said on my podcast several times is I don't think there's been a more difficult time to discern as Christians than right now. And that doesn't mean that our enemy is using different tactics or that he's getting any smarter. But even just the vehicle through which the lies are being, you know, put out is so much larger. I mean, every single person opens up their iPhone and can have this just Tik Tok and especially the short form stuff that's just feeding you, feeding you, feeding you. And it's it's disrupting our ability to think. But in a way though, I think that's good because it's forcing especially Christians to say, "What is my authority?" Like, "What is my authority? Is the Bible my authority? Is God my authority? Or am I my authority?" And it really is just it's like certain things become muddier, but that becomes clear like what who am I going to obey? Am I going to obey the God of self or the one true God? And I think it's causing people to not be able to rely on their social media influencer that they trust. I mean, you have people who view you as a reliable guide. There are people who view me as a reliable guide. And I certainly think some guides are more reliable than others if they're pointing you to Christ and to the authority of the scriptures. But ultimately, I think it's causing people, and I think this is wonderful, to say, "Hey, yeah, maybe I can go see what Alisa thinks about something, but ultimately I want to make sure she's lining up with the scripture rather than me seeing what she says and then figuring out what I think. I'm going to go to scripture first." And then, yeah, I might check out a few of people that I generally trust and if you know, if they're in agreement with the scriptures, then that's great. But I think that's what it's causing people to do is rather than just trust some random person on the internet that they have maybe trusted in the past. We we are not there right now or you can do that. There are going to be people that and every person's going to get something wrong. That's why the only authority for us is scripture. And so I think in a way I see people kind of understanding that or becoming, you know, they're either seeing that and grabbing hold of that or they're drifting away further. And in some way that's kind of merciful because at least you know where you stand if you're, you know, if you're drifting away from it or you're grabbing hold of it. But that's what I think this moment is causing. It's causing more black and white, which is, I think, helpful. >> Well, Lisa, one thing that you don't see from a lot of people that are, you know, influencers or podcasters or, you know, thought leaders, whatever you want to call these folks, is very few of them will say, "Hey, please don't put your faith in me." Or they at least, you know, imply, "Yeah, put your faith in me. Put your faith in the things I'm saying. put your faith in my philosophies. I remind people all the time, please don't put your faith in me. Please don't put your faith in your favorite podcaster, preacher, athlete, politician, any of those types of things cuz we're fallible. Like imagine if you built your entire life on the sotiology, esquetology, and you know, theology of Robert Morris. Yikes. Now we've got a huge issue. Or Robbie Zacharias or Carl Lince or any of these types of people. But then on the other side, what if you put your entire faith in whatever Phil Robertson said or John MacArthur or Vodie Bacham or or those types of guys? Either way, they're going to leave, right? They're either going to let you down and be shown as an apostate or as a wolf in sheep's clothing, or they're going to pass away as all those men uh that I mentioned in the second half of that example did last year. And then you're left like, "Oh, shoot. Well, now who's going to fill the gap in my life? Who's going to fill the gap in in this world or something like that?" But ultimately, I think you're right. It is good that people are easier to spot now. For zealots to be easier to spot, for morons, for just people to where it's like, "Oh, you proved to me in this exact moment that you were a moron." I remember years ago I was talking to a guy, vice president of university, PhD, very well respected in the community. And he he put something out there in public about Islam that was factually untrue. It was not historically accurate. And I messaged him privately just to be like, "Hey, uh, just to let you know, this thing that you posted, it wasn't true. You know, some people might get confused." And the blowback that he gave to me that how dare I question and impugn him and all those different things. And then my response to him was, "Hey, if you were wrong about that, would you want me to tell you?" And he just flamed me again. And I was like, "Okay." So, he is a guy that I can mark and avoid until further notice, until he changes his attitude to be like, "This guy is more concerned with his ego and what he thinks to be true as opposed to taking what he's claiming to the evidence to see if there's any connection whatsoever." And so, with that kind of comes with something that you brought up at the beginning, Alisa, which is what you experience. You experience the wrath of the fundamentalist, I guess, because it's like here you are with a microphone on your face and not an apron on and dad gum it, why aren't you making sourdough at this exact moment as opposed to, you know, hearing uh, you know, talking to this room full of women that have their Bibles and their journals open ready to hear the word and to be fed those idiots. And so not the women, the guys that said that from the beginning, but you kind of found yourself, we thought that there was a fight between like fundamentalism and wokeism, but then you even get into Christianity. It's like, oh yeah, yeah, but your version of it ain't right. Now, the difference would be, and a conversation could be had is if you were pre asked to preach on a Sunday morning at a church to a mixed audience of men and women and not there as a guest speaker, but literally there to preach to them. Okay, now there we need to have a discussion about what do these verses from the New Testament mean about women teaching to men, but you weren't even in that context. And I feel like there's something wrapped up in this as well. And Alisa, I don't know why more people aren't talking about it. We are coming to a crisis with the next generation of young girls and young boys because we've never seen a cohort in the history of, you know, taking these stats of young men, you know, 15 to 25 that are more religious and more conservative politically. We've never seen it before. While at the same time, 15 to 25 year old women have lost their ever loving minds. They've never been more leftist. They've never been less religious. Young men want to get married and have families. Young women want pants suits and corner offices. And so they're going to sacrifice their life to work in a cubicle for some, you know, middling middle manager as opposed to enjoying the fruits of a life that could be spent at home or valuing the things of the domestic. This is a crisis and not just from a birth rate standpoint, just for our culture overall. I know you've thought about this a lot. So let's get your take. >> Right. So yeah, that is an interesting phenomenon right now. First, on one hand, it's so exciting to see so many young men, and I see this too, Kyle, when I go speak to students. I do a lot of, especially in the summertime, I do a lot of speaking to various student groups that are in high school. And uh and and it's exciting to see how many young men are so engaged. And there are I think in the church, too, there's maybe more girls than we realize because uh I do I get a mix of both. like the the boys tend to be more conservative and then the girls tend to be a bit split. And but here's the thing that I think if I'm not wrong about this is encouraging is that the girls that are generally inclined toward the Lord, toward the Bible, they're easily persuadable to the how this all works. Like I I had a guy ask me, this was a young man in high school, and he asked this very question. And he said, "It's it's frustrating because we want to get married. We want to be good providers. We want to be good protectors. We want to be good husbands and fathers. We want kids young. We want to get married young. But the girls tend to be like, "What what should we do?" >> And you know, my advice to him was, I said, "You just do what the Bible calls you to do. Open doors for girls. You know, do the things that a godly, protective man would do. And you know what? If there's a feminist woman that gets mad at you, I promise you, she loves it secretly. And did you know what I saw when I said that? All the girls that were kind of not sure, they perked up and they kind of smiled and they know it's true. It's absolutely true. Any feminist girl that gets mad at you for helping her get her suitcase out of the bin on the airplane or deep down there's there's pro maybe a wound that's pricricked, but it has a good effect. I promise. even if she's yelling at you and telling you you're a jerk in the moment. And I think the more that the men lead, women are natural responders, even the ones that have been unduly influenced by feminism. I've had so many conversations with young girls who come to me and say, "I'm so upset. I don't understand why Paul said, "I do not permit a woman to teach uh, you know, or have authority over a man." Like, I'm really struggling with that. How do I make sense of that? And you know, I always take them back to Genesis and the design not just of marriage, but of our bodies and how our bodies are literally created to do this amazing thing. And and then ask them, why do you think that, for example, let's say I were to tell you that you are called to be a mother and a wife and you're actually none of, you know, I'm not saying I have a sister who's a single mom, she has to work. I'm not saying women shouldn't work outside the home in certain scenarios, but just let's say that I told you that your calling is to be married and to keep the home and to be a mother and not work outside of the home. Um, why would you see that as a negative thing? And it's very interesting to hear the responses and the only responses they really come up with are, I can tell, influenced by the feminist lie that that's oppression, right? And so then what I try to do is reframe the whole narrative for them going all the way back to Genesis. Like look at what God has entrusted women in general. There's always exceptions. Not everybody can have children or whatever, but I'm talking about the norm. What? Let's think about that. Like all the feministy kind of leaning women are wanting to preach on, you know, preach on Sunday at from the pulpit. They want to preach to the men. And I say to these women, these these young girls especially, I'm like, why? Why do you want to do that when God has literally entrusted you with all the new men? Like literally all the new men that are going to be alive on the on the earth. God has entrusted their care, their nurturing, their formation first to you. And that's literally your biology. Like the way that your body is created, not just to carry the baby, birth the baby, but also to feed the baby. What does that tell you about your design of your body? is that without modern convenience, God actually has orchestrated it for you to be not within an hour of that baby or two hours max. When you give a baby, you can't be 2 hours away from that baby without modern conveniences of bottles and things. That's how close God wants you with. Let's say you have a son and he trusts you to be the first person in that in that boy's life. Like to me, that's a much bigger honor and responsibility than teaching a bunch of men who are set in their ways on a Sunday morning. I don't want I don't even want to do that because I don't want to put myself in any kind of position of authority over a man. Not because I'm not a good teacher or I couldn't teach the Bible well, but because there's something about the way God designed this where when th that hierarchy is correct, everybody thrives. And I think deep down we know it. I think it just we have to recapture the vision for younger people to help them understand why that is beautiful. And it's kind of like, you know, if you think about I grew up in the evangelical culture of the ' 80s and '9s where the approach to the sex conversation was just no, you can't do this and how far is too far and don't do this and don't do that and then all of a sudden, you know, it's supposed to be fine. But I think rightly so people of our generation as we've gotten older, it's not that we want to change that narrative, but we want to rather than just here are all the nos, the things that you can't do, here's why the thing is so beautiful and worth protecting and in the first place, you know, anytime you have something that is powerful and strong and and you want to protect that, you put guard rails around it because it's precious. And so recapturing the beauty of the why from the beginning, I think will be the one thing that could persuade some of these young girls. But I think they're easily persuadable when they really see a man. See, because a lot of girls, I know I'm talking long here, but a lot of girls have a false understanding of what a strong man is. Maybe they've had an abusive father. They've had an abusive boyfriend. There's a lot of bad men in the world. Like, let's be honest, there's a lot of really bad men and a lot of women have encountered these bad men. And if that forms their idea of what true masculinity is, well, no wonder they're feminists. No wonder they're like, "No, I if he's not going to protect me, I have to protect myself. I'm going to have to fight for myself." But when these boys, you know, if they can capture that vision and really be that that true masculinity for these women, I think we're going to see a lot more women go along and and respond to that because that's by nature how God created us is to respond to that. And so I think that did encourage the guys, but it also kind of woke up some of the girls. So I can't even remember what your original question was, but that's [laughter] kind of my thoughts. No, that that's all great because it's a derivative of the argument I've heard that if you walk into Guitar Center and you hear someone playing Sweet Child of Mine badly. You don't blame Slash for that. You don't get rid of every single thing that Guns and Roses has ever produced because this guy sucks at playing guitar. You have to go back to the source material. So, when someone does Christianity badly, you have to go back to the source material. I use the same example with Islam. We want more bad Muslims because if you're a bad Muslim, that means that you you're not paying attention to what Muhammad actually told people to do, which is exactly what Boo Haram, al-Qaeda, Hamas, these types of groups are doing. But as you were talking through that, I was even thinking, I jotted this down, >> like somehow women have been convinced via feminism, which is one of the most pernicious things to have ever been released on humanity. It's one of Satan's greatest things he's ever created, which is modern feminism, uh first, second, third, and fourth wave. by the way, is we've convinced women that being a lifegiver is not enough. Because for me as a man, at best, Alisa, I can be a lifesaver or a life taker. Right? I can risk my body and my safety and my life to save someone. And even with the hundreds of millions of women that have murdered their babies via abortion, men have killed more people, more individuals in the history of humanity than women by a long shot. Right? Men are the ones killing men in war. Men are the ones that are dictators that are killing tens of millions of their own people like Mao did in China or Stalin or or whoever you favorite dictator was through history. But we've looked at it this way to where men know inherently I can be a life taker or a lifesaver, right? But for women, it's like they've never been told you are a lifegiver, darling. Like you don't have to be pretty. You don't have to be a certain type of person. You don't have to have a certain kind of background. You can be a lifegiver. And not just with sustenance from your body to a baby, but just with setting the tone of a home, like being the temperature gauge of what's going on in the world around you and being that protective mechanism when the man is off, you [snorts] know, killing and bringing the animal back like to to the house like kind of a thing and that kind of a setup. But I even thought like even feminists don't believe in their own nonsense, right? Uh because there's a funny Bill Bird joke where he's talking about like even a feminist in a fire all of a sudden puts her hair in pigtails and goes, "I'm just a girl. I'm just a girl. Women and children first." Right? It's kind of that that whole mindset. They only want equality in the stuff that they like. And I I see it the same way with people that are looking at uh something like pacifism. I've debated Christian pacifists before and I'm like, there's technically no such thing as a pacifist. There's just people that are willing to outsource their violence and people that are not. And so for me, I'm not willing to outsource my violence to the local magistrates. Like if they want to come and help me out, that's fine. But you as a pacifist, you're still willing to call the police and some big guy with a gun is probably going to show up and do violence for you on your behalf. But the thing about the the feminist culture and the feminist nature of what we're seeing Alisa I don't know what to do to better because again, 95% of my audience is men and then I got my 5enters, my ride or dice, like these lionesses in my audience. they are already, you know, they're they're not feminist curious. They're not, you know, reading uh any of the people that are the purveyors of feminist truth. They know it's nonsense. But I'm I'm struggling as a man with how do I even prepare the young men in my population to deal with that? These young men that that are verile, want to be married, want to be a protector and provider. And then every girl they go on a date with, they're basically just hearing her give her resume where she went to school. sumakum lad uh you know hey this is what I want to do like by the time I'm 40 I will have this many apartments in this many cities and this many handbags and all those types of things and it's I'm struggling to tell these guys yeah we'll just go to church and and you know you you won't find as many of them there but the problem is they're at church too right they're they're taking their feminism and they're just kind of like painting on this Christianes sounding stuff right while they're still just pursuing career and you know trying to conquer is is that kind of what you're seeing as Yeah, I'm see, you know, it's interesting. I was thinking as you were talking, I mean, and at the same time, and I don't know how to make sense of this, but at the same time, I know several lovely women who are not feminists. They're not buying that lie. They want to get married. They don't even have a career goal. They want to get married. They want to become mothers. And they're having a hard time finding guys that are on board with that. So, I don't know how to make sense of that because in my experience, I have way more females in my life that are looking to get married than males. And I think it might be an age thing. So, the the women who I think have come around to this, maybe they've been burned by feminists, they tend to be a little older and guys their age aren't out there. But, you know, on the younger generation, you see the the men. So, I don't know if, you know, maybe as people, you know, like if if a guy is maybe 10 years old right now, I mean, his wife may just be being born right now. I [laughter] don't know, you know, how to how to answer it. I I know that um yeah, I agree with you. I think feminism is is possibly the devil's I mean, you could make an argument for other things, but such a such a brilliant lie. Such a brilliant lie. To convince women to um basically in my view, feminism just makes men the standard. And then for a woman to be a good woman, she's got to live up to the standard of a man. So she's got to cuss like a man, be promiscuous like the standard men have set. She's got to be able to take a punch, you know? Uh it's it bugs me so much. And maybe we talked about this on the show, but it bugs me so much when I'm watching a movie and like there's these two massively trained like Navy Seal guys fighting each other and it's kind of like me. It's sort of a fight, but then the girl walks in the room and she takes both those guys on and now there's a fight. Now there's a real fight and the fight goes on forever because it's not like they couldn't just, you know, flick her like a spider and break her bones. But it's like it's so unrealistic because the message that sends to my son is that it's okay to hit a girl and a real woman can take a punch. And then the message it sends to my daughter is that you have to be able to beat up a guy to be a good woman. It's such a lie and it bugs me so much. >> Well, the thing about it, I remember being asked this on a show and it turned out to be controversial. Surprise, surprise, I said something controversial, but there were these two guys that were trying to settle a bet and they were like, so at the time, Amanda Nunez, she is the greatest female MMA fighter of all time. She's absolutely incredible, incredibly skilled. She fought at the 135 division and the 145 division. Probably walks around at 150 pounds. Soaking wet. Okay. So, he was like, "Hey, I've got a a buddy who's like, I could beat up Amanda Nunez." And I'm like, "Well, tell me about your buddy. What's his athletic background? How big is he?" He's like, "He's about 6' tall, about 210 lbs, played football in high school, still works out and all that." And he's like, "He says he can beat up a mana nun." And I says he I say that he can't. What do you say? I'm like, "Oh, yeah. He he smashes her to pieces." I mean, she's the most highly trained, most decorated female athlete of all time in that sport. But there's there's a massive difference between these two individuals. This is a woman and a man. Now, there are plenty of men on this planet that a man of Nunes can beat up, but the the gap there, but I was even like kind of confused [clears throat] by the question. I was like, why are we even talking about this? Because now we've put into people's brains this fantasy of a man beating up a woman and people betting on it like this is like a cockfight or something like that. I'm like, what are we even doing? But it comes from this this feminist lie, this atomic blonde, this all this thing. You've got this 100 pound woman that the moment she punches someone with a square jaw like this. Their hands going to shatter into a million pieces. But not only can she do that, she's doing all these spin kicks, which we should have found out that from the 1980s movies, none of those things actually work in real life. But we're we're supposed to buy this and think, "Oh, this is empowering." But this all does actually go to something. Which, by the way, I think the idea to fix this, Alisa, since I know so many guys looking for good women and you know so many women looking for good guys, we need to create a new dating app out there. Maybe like we'll get the people from your world, people from my world, and so [laughter] they can get together, have a bunch of babies, make the sourdough, and all the things. But, um, speaking of feminist lies, just recently on my show, I did an episode where I talked about how Lily Phillips, who is one of the most, uh, famous prostitutes on planet Earth right now, she's an Only Fans model. Uh she is famous for doing uh gang bangs, orgies, things like that. Her claim to fame is that she not only h slept with over 100 men in one day, but she also claims to have slept with a thousand men in a 24-hour period. Um and so that's why she's famous. That's why she's even colloquially known in our culture. But when you look at people that are uh fans of her or at least just, you know, interested in how is she so famous and all that, they all talk about it in, oh, she's she's so empowering. She's using her body and she's controlling her body so that she can build a business and build this empire. And it's just like, you know, aside from that all being backwards. But the thing I wanted to get you to comment on is just before the end of last year, she posted a video of her being baptized. And so, you know, it's a Lily Phillips video that went viral for her being clothed. So, that's the the first bit of breaking news. And so, there's this, you know, priest or something like that. His face is blocked out, but she gets baptized. And the caption basically said, "A day to remember forever." Those types of things. And Alisa, my very first thought was, >> "Praise God, man. The gospel is so good. The scandal of the gospel is no more apparent than in this woman. But wow, think of the impact she could have on these young girls that are 14, 15, they can't wait to get on Only Fans so that they can start making money like they're heroes." But then I went in the comments section, Alisa, and Christian after Christian after Christian people that claim Christianity. This isn't real. N there's no way. This this is some sort of a ploy. Oh, she's she's done stuff like this before. She's just trying to get attention. And I was absolutely flabbergasted by that because it was like they were rooting for this girl to go to hell. And at the fundamental level, it's like they know the gospel but don't understand it. They're like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah. The gospel it can save and all those different things." Not for her. She's too much of a right? Like she's had sex with thousands of men. Can't possibly save her. You know, serial killer like Jeffrey Dmer. No, no, no. That guy, you know, he he was a pedophile, a sodomist. He he murdered people. There's no way he accepted Christ at the end of his life, which is what the the claim is. And I I just couldn't believe what I was seeing from Christians that they were so desperate to be right about this being some sort of a setup, some sort of a publicity stunt, and they weren't prayerfully hoping that they were wrong. So, I'm just curious if you had kind of been keeping up with that or if you've seen that same trend because that that could be said about Russell Brand or Ayon Hersy Ali or any of these people that were atheists or, you know, Muslims or whatever that are now Christians and people are like, "Yeah, I don't really know." And, "Well, Russell Brand, you're not allowed to baptize people because you're not a pastor and you didn't go to the seminary that I think is cool or whatever." But let's get your thoughts on that. [laughter] >> Yeah. So, it's a tough one because I think that Christians can tend to be quite gullible and so I, you know, I think we've been burned by this a few times. And so, I'm kind of sympathetic to the idea of maybe internally thinking, gosh, I don't know if this is real. I don't think it's helpful to go on social media and say, "Oh, this is fake." Or declare something like that. Because, like you said, we should be prayerfully hopeful about it. We should be praying and hoping the best for her. Um, now I think in from what I understand, I could be wrong about this, but from the limited research I did on this, she is still claiming that there's it doesn't seem to be that there's any conviction of sin. She's wanting to continue doing pornography only fans page. She still is advertising. God's cool with it. I'm just So that does make me question the fruit because, you know, we are supposed to judge by the fruit, which is obedience. And that's not going to be perfect obedience. Like I truly do believe that Russell Brand is a Christian. I think that he converted. I see evidence of the Holy Spirit in him. Now, there's a discussion to be had. Should he be jumping on social media as an influencer with that? I mean, I think that there's biblical precedent to say, you know, don't raise up a novice because that can be a setup for their spiritual ruin. Um, but, you know, again, I'm prayerfully hopeful about these things. And I do think that's the right posture to have. I think it's okay to not just jump on there and be like, "Oh, praise God. This is real. This is real, but also to to not just dunk on it as if it's not, but to say, look, I hope this is real." And I did see a few influencers that I respect kind of take that posture like, I really I hope this is real and this is true, and I'm going to hope for the best and believe the best and I'm going to pray for her that there will be that conviction of sin that we will see the fruit of that obedience. And um and to be hopeful without being gullible, that's a tough balance, I think, because um you know, Christians get taken advantage of. I was just talking about this uh with a group of ladies uh was it last night, I think, or maybe the night before about how they had just come out of this horrible church experience kind of narcissist pastor deal. And their whole thing was just like, I think people like this are drawn to churches because Christians were supposed to be loving and nice and open and and um we're supposed to trust and it it it can set up this the fertile soil for a narcissist or for somebody to take advantage of that. So I think Christians are rightly unsure about how to respond to things like this, especially in the age of social media where people do PR stunts. And so I'm kind of sympathetic to that. But I agree with you. I think our our posture should never be to go on there and be like, "Oh, this is fake. Don't pay any attention to this." But to be hopeful and say, "Look, let's all pray for her." Even if this is a publicity stunt, let's pray that somehow God is using this in her life to draw her to himself to show her the depravity of the life that she's been living to convict her of her sin and and really pray with hope that the Holy Spirit would do a work in her heart. Because if if the if the idea is that she can't be saved because of all these things she's done, well then they do not those those people don't understand the gospel. And it shouldn't be shocking that God would save anybody. God saves people all the time. So we shouldn't be surprised by that. But um I think prayerfully hopeful is the right phrase for that. That was that's a good phrase. >> Well, here's another reference to the big five personality traits. I was like a 98 in conscientiousness. So if I say I'm going to get something done, I'm going to get it done. Do you want to take a guess what my agreeableness score was, Alisa, out of 100? two. >> Zero. It was a zero out of 100. A zero. I thought it was like the ACT where as long as you spell your name correctly, you at least get like a 15. No, I got a zero. So, >> I'm incredibly pessimistic. I assume that you're going to suck because people suck. So, why wouldn't you suck? That's just kind of my my ideology. But, I've been trying to fight against that because I've seen bad fruit from that tree. And so, I was thrilled that my first thought was not, "Yeah, that didn't count." But I was the guy that used to watch people raise their hands at church and be like, "Not that guy." Like that. That's not the guy. Or you have a church that puts the number of baptisms they did that year into their annual report so that they can celebrate it. And I'm like, "How do you even know?" But do I want to be the guy while a baptism, you know, line is going on at a church with a clipboard going, "No, I don't think so. There's no evidence here. I don't see the fruit. Um, blah blah blah." Do I want to be that guy or do I want to be like, I pray that this is true and what can I do to assist in their sanctification process? Is there a ministry that I can connect them to? Is there some sort of bit of encouragement that I can send them on? Cuz here's something no one's talking about and I didn't mention on the episode. Let's say one of Lily Phillips's fans, like one of the consumers of her content or one of her female fans that wants to emulate her, saw the baptism video, and that was the last video that they saw from Lily Phillips. And now here they are being like, "Oh my gosh, like I've heard of this Jesus fell. Like maybe I need to go to church. Maybe I need to, you know, knock the dust off my Bible." And so we don't know those stories and we never will, but God knows that. God ordained those types of things to happen. And so I think that's important as well. Uh we're kind of running out of time here. I do want to kind of get to one more thing. This goes to really a lot of the stuff that we've talked about, whether it's the people that we look at as our purveyors of truth, whether we're looking at feminism, people being pulled in by lies. And so I went and snagged uh my Bible off the forging table. And so I think for most people it's where do you place yourself in reference to this book? Do you place your opinions and your feelings and your preferences above it or below it? And so, uh, my mentor and one of my good buddies in ministry, Joby Martin, talks about he gets asked all the time from, you know, people at his church or, you know, fans of his books or whatever, like, hey, what do you think about such and such theological topic or cultural topic or all that? And he tries to [clears throat] make sure that the first thing out of his mouth is what does the word say about that? What does the Bible say, the revealed word of God say to us and how we should think about that particular subject? And when you train your brain to do that, you train yourself to put yourself below what the book says as opposed to above it. And this is this gets into all kinds of different areas like okay, you think you're maybe you think you're Armenian and then you start reading Romans and you're like sheesh, I can see tulip all over this thing. Like what am I supposed to do with that? There's what I thought the Bible said and then there's what the Bible says. What do I do? But most people are not even curious about how does the Bible directly apply to the thing that I am currently wrestling with. You've obviously written books that have tackled subjects like that. You've had a lot of podcast episodes and guests that kind of at least tangentially talk about those types of things, but let's get your read on that as well. >> Well, I think biblical authority is one of the most important things that I don't think is taught enough in Christian circles. Um, and you know, it can be tough because I I'll say this too. I think when Christians can understand the difference between what we might call an essential doctrine and a secondary doctrine, and I talk about those maybe a bit different than other people do because I don't even like the word secondary because it makes it sound like they're not important. Secondary issues are incredibly important and we need to be biblical. We need to all be seeking to line up what we believe with scripture on the secondary issues, but they're secondary for a reason. And I always go to 1 Corinthians 15 where Paul says it's this is a a creed actually that was circulating within anywhere from 18 months to 7 years of Jesus death. And it's found in 1 Corinthians 15:es 3-5. But as Paul sets it up, he says, I I wanted to uh I pass on to you what was first delivered to me as of utmost importance. Like this what I'm about to say, this creed, this is the most important thing. And that's where you have the gospel. You have the substitutionary atonement of Christ. you have the resurrection. And so I think it's important for Christians to understand that not all doctrines are on the same level because when people like progressives will put all doctrines on the same level, then they'll say, "Well, none of you guys can agree on anything. So if I don't want to believe in the resurrection, who are you to tell me that's any different than you disagreeing with uh you know, Armenianism versus Calvinism?" I mean, it's all the same. Well, it's not all the same. uh Armenians and Calvinists agree on the gospel and the essentials. And the essential is any doctrine that's going to directly affect your salvation. It's going to keep you from salvation or bring you salvation. That's essential. That's what we mean by essential. And so I think that yes, and biblical authority on all topics. So even on the, you know, Calvinist Arminian scale, are you going to scripture to get your your view or are you just kind of punting to what you were raised with or punting to what feels better to you? Um, and you know, it's if you do that, then you're in Candace Owens, just going with your vibes and feelings, right? We have to be surrendered. And this has been a hard thing for me too, Kyle, because, you know, 15 years ago, I had an incredible intense faith crisis that caused me to ultimately bust everything down. I've shared the story on your show before, but as I rebuilt, a lot of my theology changed. So, the the types of secondary issues I was raised with, almost all of them have changed. And as I surrendered myself to scripture, and I was always taught to surrender myself to scripture, but I was just taught, well, this is what this verse means, and that's what that verse means, and here's how we get around this and around that. But as I really systematically with good hermeneutical skills studied the scriptures, I had to change some of those. And some of them were very hard to change because my emotions, there was nothing about what I had believed previously that hit me wrong. In fact, it hit me right. like that was like that felt good, that felt comfortable, that felt normal. And then when I saw that actually that isn't what the scripture teaches, I had to surrender myself to scripture and say, even though this feels right, I'm going to have to go with the thing that doesn't feel right because that's actually what the scripture says. And I did that on several different topics. And and it's hard, especially it's easy to tear away a belief that doesn't feel right. It's easy to get to to be an adult and go, "Well, that that doesn't have the good vibes and I can change that." But when it has the good vibes and you do have good dreams about it and good feelings, but it doesn't line up with scripture, that's when it's hard to practice biblical authority. But that's what God requires of all of us because God cannot heir. God, the Bible is God's word. Therefore, the word of God, the Bible cannot heir. And so, we have to surrender ourselves to it. And I think that's something that is underappreciated and underemphasized, I think, in a lot of Christian circles because it's not just surrender to scripture, but it's surrender to scripture rightly interpreted. We can't just, you know, open our Bibles like magic eightballs and pick out a verse and apply it any which way we want to. And I think um that is what will protect people from cults. It's what will protect people from narcissistic abusive leaders. It's what will protect people from conspiracy theories. is what will protect people from all manner of heresy if they because they'll truly understand the nature and character of God as revealed in this word. So yeah, I'm I I think that's a drum I beat a lot is biblical authority. Even if you and I might disagree on a secondary issue, the point is that we're going to scripture to settle the debate. You're going to bring your verses, I'm going to bring my verses, we're going to try together to discover what scripture is actually teaching and actually saying. And I think that's the posture we need to have as Christians. >> Amen. And amen. Now, we're right up against time here, but I completely forgot that I was going to ask you about the student edition of Another Gospel. So, do you got time for one more question? >> Yeah. >> All right. So, Another Gospel, that was the first book that you released where you kind of go into that attack of faith and hey, what do I believe? And you know, which way am I going like fighting against your artistic wiring and brain? And then that was your first book, Another Gospel. That was your first fora into this show was to talk about that. But just recently, I think it was at the end of last year, you released a student edition. And so it's uh you know another gospel student edition, a lifelong Christian's response to or Christian seeks truth in response to progressive Christianity. And so I guess the normal thing I ask people in a book is why this book, why now? Why you? But the thing I would add to that is why a student edition? So you you could just let the another gospel sit on itself. It's very it's very readable. Like a kid could could read and surmise and bring some wisdom from that. But you know why this book? Why now? Why you? Why the student edition? Well, I realized that another gospel came out five years ago, or maybe it's six now. It came out in 2020. I can't remember which month it came out, but it could be coming up on six years. And in the life of a a teenager, that's like a lifetime, you know, going from 10 to 15 or 16 or even going from 12 to, you know, I mean, that's that's a huge formative time. And so, they may not be aware of it. And what I also realized is that all of the arguments of progressive Christianity are the same. Nothing has changed. There's just some fresh faces. Like I just read this book uh better called Better Ways to Read the Bible by Zack Lambert who's kind of an upand cominging progressive pastor. It's literally the same. >> He's a train wreck, but he's literally writing the same things Rachel Held Evans wrote, the same things Rob Bell wrote before her. It's it's all the same stuff, but it's just marketed to a new generation. And then, of course, you have Tik Tok theology and all of that. So I I felt a burden to get this information into the hands of students but in a way that would be palatable to them. So what we did is a lot of the information from the book is the same. It's still very storydriven. It's my story. We um changed some of the examples to be more relevant to what they might be encountering in their cultures and did even little kind of uh sidebars and questions at the end of each chapter to help them think about how they're processing the information. And here's the thing I'm really excited about, Kyle. I did the uh audio version of this book and every time I've done an audio book, I've wanted to go off script. I've asked the producer like I just want to like jump out of the book and they won't let you do it. But this time I actually recorded it in my own studio and I'm like nobody is here to tell me I can't do that. So I did it and and what I really loved getting to do that is as I'm reading I'm thinking about the students that I speak to and I and if I felt like something was even unclear or if there was something that I wanted to you know tell a tangential story to make it more clear I just did it and I made it clear like all right this is not in the book but I want to explain this to you and and then I would jump back into the book and so I loved getting to do that because it's really curated for the students and that's going to be coming out I think the the audio is going to be coming out in March or and the the student version is already out. So, it's just it's especially crafted for students and what they're facing because it's really all the same stuff but with kind of a different veneer and different faces. >> Well, very good. Well, it is in the show notes. You guys can check that out. But Alisa, we have punched your fourth appearance on this show. You got two more till you get the grand prize. Congratulations. You did it. But that's all for me. Is there anything else you want to get off your chest? No, but I I I heard you mention a forging table. If there's Do you What do you do on the forging table? >> That's a cool name. And it and so here's the thing. So, speaking about the Bible and its authority and all that. So, this would have been uh 2023, I think. I get to the end of the year and I I keep track of all the books I read so that I can make a a top 10 list at the end of the year and give a book of the year and give all these awards and all that. And I had read 54 books in that year for the podcast. And I was sitting there like, "Let's go. I'm the smartest man that's ever lived. I've read 54 books. I almost read a book a week. These, you know, some of these were toms, 4, or 500 pages." I'm like, "Look at me go." And immediate conviction was, "Oh my gosh, I don't know that I read 54 pages of the Bible this year." I was like, big big, you know, blinking red lights, warning, warning. This is terrible. And so, through some conversations with some of my guys internally here, I was like, you know, you know what? We just sat around the table like the the unashamed guys, you know, Phil, Jason, Al, Robertson, and you know, we just we opened up books of the Bible and we just like kind of went through them and, you know, let's do it like an hour at a time and blah blah blah. >> And then I was like, we're working with the name. I talk about forging spiritual, mental, and physical resilience. Okay, we're going to be at a table, forging table. Forging table. Boom. And so it's like, we'll call it the forging table. And none of us are professional Christians, right? No theological degrees. None of us are pastors. We're just normal guys working through the Bible. And before we even recorded the first one, Alisa, because I was like, "Hey, let's do a short Pauline letter and if it sucks, we'll just pretend like this never happened." [laughter] Before we even got there, I text all the guys and I said, "We're doing this. We're just doing this now." I said, "I don't care if I don't do I don't do another solo episode or another interview. We're doing this." Because the amount of time I put into the work of just learning and discerning from the Bible, not so that I could perform at a table with a microphone and a camera and some lights on, but just for my own edification and sanctification as a Christian. We're just going to do this now. And here we are years down the road. We've done, you know, my favorite book of the Old Testament, Nehemiah. We did Genesis. We did Matthew. We've done Acts. We've done some random Psalms and Proverbs. Right now, we shifted up. We're doing Romans. But as opposed to doing one chapter an hour, right? We're just going until we're done, right? And so we may do it took us two and a half hours to get through Romans 1:1. So Matt Chandler was here. He did the first four hours, the first four episodes of Romans. And it took us that long. Like in four hours we did Romans 1:1 to Romans 17. So you know, we're having a good time. We're exploring all the different rabbit trails. But what it's showing, Alisa, is it's showing these men all around the world, thankfully, that this is what a men's Bible study can look like. It's not just a bunch of weakwilled, doughybodied men sitting around, you know, waxing poetic about the thing that they read that week and how the Lord's speaking to them. It's like we can dig in. We can challenge one another. We can, you know, get after one another and make fun of one another, which is how men communicate love is by tearing each other down. It's a thing. I don't know why, but it's a thing. And just seeing men all over the globe going, I never knew that that's what Bible study could be like, so I started my own forging table. or I never knew that I could like, you know, consume the Bible without necessarily studying it because I can't always study it cuz I work a 12-h hour shift in construction, so I can't always study it. But now you got guys listening to the Bible, which leads to the Daily Blade, which is our five minute a day daily devotional for men, like dude dudes, like farmers, construction workers, guys on the way to the gym. And it's not, you know, in some breathy Scottish voice. It's just like real men like me and Joby just like talking to guys like, "Hey, I'm a fallible dude, but this is how the Bible can, you know, edify you today. At least get you on till tomorrow." And so that's the forging table. One of the coolest things that's come out of this ministry. >> That's a way better answer than what I was expecting because I was thinking for my sixth appearance, you could forge me something, but it's not that kind of forging table, I guess. >> Okay, Alisa, you tell me something like that. And I have an ability to make things happen. The number of people I know that do silly little things like that. I'm telling you, it's if if that's what it takes for the sixth appearance whenever that happens, I think we can make something like that happen. However, I would rather it be a trade, right? So, maybe you send me a care package with some kombucha and some honey and some >> I was going to say I can send [clears throat] you a scobby so you can make your own. I can send you the culture. >> That's the the culture that you have to have a scobby to make kombucha. It's like a symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast that you that fermentss the tea and you have to have a starter scobby and I can send you a starter scobby. >> Okay, send me a starter scobby and then a chicken. Just like ship that over and poke some holes in the box and we'll be good to go. Deal. [laughter] Okay, very good. Sounds good. All right, Lisa, thanks again for coming on. >> Thanks, Kyle. >> Thank you for listening to this podcast. Wherever you're listening to this, please subscribe, rate, and leave us a positive fivestar review. If you want me to come speak live at your event or on your podcast or shoot me an email to info@undanton.life, that's info@undanton.life. [clears throat] Follow us on Instagram and like us on Facebook and check out our website for everything else, including how to donate to keep more content like this coming your way. Just go to www.undton.life. And as always, we want to thank the band Holy Name for allowing us to use their music for our content. The music on this podcast is their song Perpetual, which is off their self-titled debut album on Faceown Records. The links are in the description. I'm your host, Kyle Thompson. Remember, keep pushing back darkness. Keep forging spiritual, mental, and physical resilience. Keep seeking the Lion of Judah. [music] [music]