ALISA CHILDERS | The Deconstruction of Christianity (Ep. 560)

0:00 [MUSIC PLAYING]

0:20 This is Undaunted Life of Man's Podcast.

0:23 I'm your host Kyle Thompson.

0:25 Let's get into it.

0:26 All right, guys.

0:27 We've got a special return guest to the podcast,

0:29 and that is Alyssa Childers.

0:30 So she is a former contemporary Christian music recording

0:33 artist turned Christian apologist.

0:35 And she's a podcast alum.

0:36 She's been on episode 373 and 318 of this podcast.

0:39 But I've got to tell you, our episode today--

0:41 I mean, I enjoyed those other two interviews a lot.

0:43 This one's probably the best of the three.

0:45 And if you've heard her name before,

0:46 it's probably because you heard her

0:48 as a part of the all-female Christian pop music group

0:51 Zoe Girl back in the day.

0:52 I know you got some Zoe Girl fans out in the crowd here.

0:55 But after her music career, she found her way

0:57 into the world of Christian apologetics.

0:59 She's been an outspoken opponent and critic

1:01 of Progressive Christianity.

1:03 She wrote the book Another Gospel and Live Your Truth.

1:05 And that's when we had her on previous episodes

1:08 to talk about those a little bit.

1:09 But she has a new book out now called

1:11 The Deconstruction of Christianity,

1:13 what it is, why it's destructive, and how to respond.

1:16 And this is a book that she co-wrote with Tim Barnett.

1:19 We'll be releasing our interview with Tim

1:20 a little bit later to discuss this book as well.

1:22 But basically, there is this deconstruction movement

1:25 that is happening in modern Christianity.

1:28 And most people either aren't talking about it

1:30 or don't know how to talk about it.

1:32 Maybe they don't even know how deconstruction should be defined.

1:35 Maybe they're confused as to what the tenets of it are.

1:38 Maybe they actually think, well, this seems pretty practical.

1:41 Doesn't it make sense to just deconstruct your Christianity

1:44 and then build it back up?

1:45 Then the various thing in the problem is,

1:47 and we talked about this in the interview,

1:49 a lot of people never reconstruct.

1:50 The entire point of the process of deconstruction

1:53 is the deconstruction itself.

1:55 And so we talk about deconstruction.

1:56 We talk about why co-writing a book,

1:58 when she swore she wasn't going to write a book for a while.

2:00 So we get into that a little bit.

2:02 But then we talk about some very specific things.

2:04 Like, what is the goal of deconstruction for most people?

2:07 'Cause there really is an end goal.

2:09 But also, most of the people that are deconstructing,

2:11 they tend to lean towards the same political beliefs.

2:14 These are people that are typically leftist.

2:17 And so what about the people that might just say,

2:18 well, hey, let's just fight this philosophically.

2:20 Let's fight this in the political sphere.

2:22 Why not?

2:23 We don't need to fight it spiritually.

2:24 We talk a little bit about Kristen Cobes-Dumei

2:27 and Jesus and John Wayne and how she and others

2:30 are basically steeping themselves

2:31 and marinating these cells in the works of people

2:34 like Foucault and Graham, she and Habermas,

2:36 and how that leads to some of their nonsense views

2:38 that they spray out to everybody.

2:40 But then we also talk about Christians

2:42 and how our politics should be downstream

2:44 from our theology and it's not.

2:47 And how these Christians are not equipped for this fight

2:49 because even people that describe themselves

2:51 as evangelicals, they don't believe that Jesus is God.

2:54 They don't believe that Jesus pays for our sins

2:57 and that we have to put our faith in that.

2:59 They believe that there are multiple roads to God.

3:01 These are people that think that they're evangelicals,

3:03 right?

3:04 And then even just evangelicalism,

3:05 how would you even define that?

3:07 But we talk about how the church has really done no favors

3:09 'cause of the lack of discipleship.

3:10 We do also talk about Calvinism

3:12 and how one of the points of Calvinism,

3:14 the L parts of limited atonement,

3:16 how that could lead people,

3:18 or not necessarily lead people to deconstruction,

3:20 but people that are already deconstructing

3:21 that have kind of a theological bend,

3:23 how that could add gasoline to the fire

3:25 of the things that they're going through.

3:26 And then we talk a little bit more

3:27 about how we can practically deal with the process of,

3:30 you know, what if I have a family member

3:32 that's in the process of deconstructing?

3:34 What if my daughter says that I'm toxic

3:37 and that I believe horrible things

3:39 and that I can't see my grandbabies

3:42 because I believe such terrible things

3:44 and I vote for people that are reprehensible,

3:46 according to them, of course.

3:47 So we talk about that in a whole lot more in this episode.

3:50 I love every time Elisa comes on here,

3:51 we always have a great conversation.

3:52 So without further ado, let's get into it.

3:55 - Elisa Childers, this is your third time here

3:58 on Undaunted Life of Man's podcast.

4:00 I mean, I don't know what you're trying to do.

4:02 Are you trying to creep into my space here?

4:03 Like you handle the ladies, I got the guys.

4:06 What's going on here?

4:07 - It reminds me of the office episode

4:09 where Dwight says to Angela,

4:10 "You can be in charge of the women."

4:11 Do you remember that?

4:12 - Yes, I do.

4:13 It's a great quote.

4:14 - And she just liked the delight and pride

4:17 that comes over her.

4:18 No, not exactly that, but I'm glad to be back with you.

4:21 - Well, and as you have said before,

4:22 like you're not elbowing into my territory

4:24 because even on your show, it's pretty split.

4:26 You got a pretty even keel split of guys and gals.

4:29 I listen over here, it's a little bit rougher.

4:30 So the 10% of lionesses that listen to this,

4:33 they're pretty much thugs, so we love them.

4:35 But the thing about, that's been fun

4:38 about knowing you for as long as I've known you

4:40 being friends and kind of watching your career

4:42 in different things, you have to have seen a lot of fruit

4:45 come from the work that you've done,

4:46 not just the books, you know, live your truth, great title.

4:50 And then another gospel and then the new book

4:51 that we're gonna talk about now.

4:53 But we were even just talking off air

4:55 about some of the downstream fruits

4:57 that you're seeing of just some of the interviews

5:00 that you've done.

5:00 So I just wanted to give you a chance to,

5:02 you know, maybe brag on yourself.

5:04 And if you don't take the bait, I will brag on you for you.

5:06 But just some of the fruit that you've seen

5:08 from the work that you've done,

5:09 because again, you used to be a recording artist

5:11 and now you're doing this kind of stuff.

5:13 And I'm sure you didn't really think in your 20s

5:16 that this would be what you would be doing.

5:17 So flow on that a little bit.

5:19 - Yeah, no, I did not think I would ever be a speaker

5:22 or an author writing books or anything like that.

5:25 So it's all been kind of a surprise

5:27 and it's been a fun ride.

5:28 But I do think that some of the more encouraging notes

5:32 that I get or some of the feedback I get

5:34 when I speak at churches around the country

5:36 is really what keeps me going.

5:38 Because you can see, you know, it's like you know this, Kyle.

5:41 You go on an online platform

5:44 and people are just not nice on the internet, right?

5:46 People, they're not kind-hearted.

5:49 They don't, you know, it's like the keyboard warrior thing.

5:52 And so, you know, people say a lot of mean things,

5:54 which you know, it's fine.

5:56 That's what we know that we're setting ourselves up for that.

5:58 But it's the times when somebody will come up to me

6:02 after I speak with tears in their eyes

6:04 saying I went through something very similar

6:06 that you went through and you were really a lifeboat for me.

6:09 And so in my ministry, the lifeboat metaphor

6:12 is something that I talk about a lot

6:14 because when I was drowning in doubt

6:16 and I didn't know where to turn for information,

6:20 I just remember people like Frank Turic and Greg Cocoa

6:23 and Jay Warner Wallace were like lifeboats for me.

6:26 Like just, I was drowning

6:27 and I just got to get in the boat.

6:28 And so it's always my hope

6:30 that I get to be lifeboats for other people.

6:32 So whenever somebody says that to me,

6:33 it always means a little something extra special

6:36 and you get to see the fruit of it

6:37 and just more on a one-on-one kind of situation.

6:40 So it's really, truly a blessing.

6:42 And I don't just say that as a platitude.

6:44 It really blesses me when I hear things like that.

6:47 - Well, the great thing about that as well

6:49 is I just got an email this morning,

6:51 which I'm sure you've received similar emails to this.

6:53 It's like you gave words to what I was thinking

6:57 but didn't know how to express.

6:59 And so, I mean, again, I mean,

7:01 having Cocoa and Jay Warner Wallace and Frank Turic,

7:03 like all guys that have been on the show before,

7:05 like that's why I have guys like that on the show

7:07 because I never know when I'm gonna run into an attack

7:10 of like, oh my gosh, this is a really great point

7:12 that someone made, I don't know how to address that.

7:14 Well, it's like, Greg Cocoa addressed that probably in 1984.

7:17 Like, I mean, I just, I just need to go back

7:20 and read some of the stuff that he's done.

7:21 And that reminds me of when you were talked

7:23 through another gospel where you were basically going back

7:25 to some of the early church fathers,

7:26 some of the earliest writers to be like,

7:28 I'm not the only one that's been distracted by these thoughts.

7:32 I'm not the only one that's been, you know,

7:33 kind of knocked off of my path by these thoughts.

7:36 But you kind of have this thing where you very,

7:39 in a very sweet way, you attack sacred cows, right?

7:42 So we were talking off air about the Enneagram,

7:44 we were talking about some of the interviews that you've done.

7:47 But now you're taking a hit at deconstruction.

7:49 So you have a new book that you co-wrote

7:51 called The Deconstruction of Christianity,

7:53 what it is, why it's destructive and how to respond.

7:56 This is a book that you co-wrote with Tim Barnett.

7:58 So he's the red pin guy on TikTok

8:00 and I'm gonna be interviewing him soon

8:02 to ask him what in the world is up with the red pin

8:03 when it's actually a marker.

8:05 Come on, Tim, you're not fooling anybody.

8:07 But you're doing an entire book on the subject of deconstruction.

8:10 You give a definition in the book

8:12 that faith deconstruction is a post-modern process

8:15 of rethinking your faith without regarding scripture

8:19 as the standard.

8:20 So just take me into the whole process of, okay,

8:24 why do another book?

8:25 'Cause the last time we talked, you were like,

8:26 I can't do another book.

8:28 And then you sign on to do another book

8:30 and then you're, I don't know,

8:31 you probably have two more books lined up.

8:33 You know, why co-write it?

8:34 Because as people read it, it's gonna be a little bit weird

8:36 because y'all will even vacillate from paragraph to paragraph

8:40 who writes it.

8:41 And so I'm thinking it's Lisa talking,

8:42 but it's actually Tim a little bit confusing,

8:44 but I'm not the smartest guy around.

8:46 Just give me the background of the book

8:48 and then we'll dig in.

8:49 - Yeah, well, back, I would say about two years ago,

8:52 I was hip deep in finishing up Live Your Truth and Other Lies.

8:55 And like you said, I did not wanna write another book.

8:58 I just thought, oh man, I can't wait to finish this.

9:01 And then just take two years where I don't write any books.

9:04 But I started to see Tim who, you know,

9:07 we had worked together on a couple of things in the past

9:10 and I started to see him posting on social media

9:12 about deconstruction.

9:13 And I didn't see anybody else really talking about it

9:17 in a way that I thought, okay, they really get it.

9:19 But Tim was doing that.

9:21 He was calling out the deconstructionist.

9:23 He was doing talks about it.

9:24 And I was really encouraged to see that

9:26 because to my knowledge, I was really the only person

9:29 saying what I was saying about it

9:31 and how it would relate to progressive Christianity

9:33 and other things like that.

9:35 And so I remember Tim texted me one day and he said,

9:39 hey, you know, you need to write a book on this topic.

9:43 And then I told him what I told you.

9:44 I said, no, I do not wanna write another book.

9:47 Like when I finished this, I am done for two years at least.

9:50 I need to take a break.

9:51 And he said, well, what if, you know,

9:54 would you be open to co-writing one?

9:55 And the second he said that,

9:57 I thought, oh, this seems like the right thing to do.

10:01 And so we just, I just said, let's talk.

10:03 And so we started talking and it just led into writing the book.

10:08 And it was a beast to write though.

10:10 The research was, it's really dark.

10:12 You know, it's a dark place that deconstruction has tag.

10:16 It's very toxic.

10:17 It's a really unhealthy, even just emotionally,

10:21 it's a really dark place to be.

10:23 And so it was really a sacrifice to write this book

10:27 because it was not fun to research.

10:28 It was not particularly fun to write.

10:31 But I do think that with Tim and I, you know,

10:35 like you said, we'll vacillate between whose voices what,

10:38 but I can honestly say that every word is both of us.

10:42 Like we took ownership of every single word.

10:44 And so I'm really proud of it.

10:46 And I hope that it helps the body of Christ

10:47 because you know, you read the definition earlier,

10:49 our definition.

10:51 I don't know how much your audience knows about

10:53 how people are talking about deconstruction,

10:54 but our definition is actually kind of controversial.

10:57 We're, to my knowledge, not a lot of other people

11:00 are framing deconstruction the way we're framing it.

11:02 So it's kind of fun to wait into those waters as well

11:07 and kind of be the underdog saying,

11:08 no, I don't think people are getting this right.

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12:45 - Well, and you're poking a sacred cow

12:50 and you're poking at something

12:51 that a lot of people won't define

12:54 because if they define it, then they have to defend it.

12:56 And so you're actually putting a definition out there

12:58 that you have to defend.

12:59 But it's commendable what you and Tim did,

13:01 'cause I remember talking to John Cooper

13:03 throughout his process of riding wimpy, weak and woke,

13:05 which came out at the end of last year.

13:07 And just, gosh, he was ready to just bang his head

13:10 into a brick wall because it's just like,

13:12 this is so dark, it's so depraved.

13:14 It's like last year I talked about on my show,

13:16 I spent a week watching videos,

13:19 looking at pictures and reading descriptions

13:21 of what Hamas did to people in Israel.

13:24 And the reason that I did it is so that I could describe it

13:27 to people that wouldn't do that themselves,

13:29 but the way that I could describe it to them to be like,

13:32 hey, evil is real, like we can't just let two weeks go by

13:35 and be like, why is Israel being so mean

13:37 to these poor people in Gaza?

13:39 It's like, nope, we don't get to do that.

13:42 But you need people that are gonna be waiting

13:45 into those dark waters.

13:46 But my encouragement to the people in the audience

13:48 is pray for you, pray for Tim, pray for John Cooper,

13:51 pray for these people that are going into these dark areas

13:54 because you can go into these dark areas,

13:56 but then you're gonna come out smelling like smoke

13:58 and that's not always the best thing.

14:00 One awesome thing right from the jump of this book

14:02 is the gangster Carl Truman himself wrote the foreword.

14:05 So guys, if you have not read the rise

14:08 and try and put the modern self,

14:09 again, if you're like me, it's gonna be a hard read

14:11 'cause there's not a whole lot going up on there,

14:13 but it's a great book, it's a must read,

14:15 it's a book that's on our book list

14:16 that everyone should read.

14:17 But there's so many things about this, Alisa,

14:20 and we're gonna dive into a bunch of different things

14:22 from the book, but just generically, in your opinion,

14:25 what is the most nefarious thing

14:28 about the growing ubiquity of deconstruction?

14:31 And we'll just use y'all's definition,

14:34 but within y'all's definition, within that rubric,

14:36 what's the most nefarious thing going on?

14:39 - I think the most nefarious thing about deconstruction

14:41 is that it's very singular in its goal.

14:45 So if you go on all the deconstruction hashtags,

14:47 they'll say, oh, there's no goal,

14:49 it doesn't matter where you land,

14:50 but if you really read more posts,

14:52 what you see is there is a very focused goal

14:54 in deconstruction, and that goal is to get you

14:56 to leave the historic Christian faith.

14:58 That's really what it is.

15:00 They do not care if you become a Buddhist,

15:02 they do not care if you become a humanist,

15:04 a Satanist, a progressive Christian,

15:06 they do not care where you land

15:08 as long as you leave historically Christian beliefs

15:11 that they deem to be toxic, abusive, and harmful.

15:15 And that's really what it is.

15:17 And so this is why Tim and I are so concerned

15:20 about otherwise maybe conservative Christian leaders

15:23 talking about deconstruction

15:25 as if it can be this healthy process.

15:27 It's okay, just deconstruct with the Bible in your hand

15:29 or deconstruct based on truth,

15:31 but our question is, why are you using a postmodern word

15:34 that has a very specific manifestation in culture

15:37 to describe a healthy and biblical process?

15:39 That makes no sense at all.

15:41 And so in the book, that's why we're saying no,

15:42 deconstruction is this thing, it is unhealthy,

15:46 it leads you away from Christian beliefs.

15:48 And we ought not try to baptize the word

15:51 to mean something positive or biblical or healthy.

15:54 - Well, Lisa, you know this to be true.

15:56 We worship at the altar of pragmatism right now.

15:59 Like we come to the feet of what's practical

16:01 and pragmatic and what works.

16:03 Well, Lisa, this seems to work,

16:05 why are you being so mean about this?

16:08 Like, is this your hill to die on?

16:09 It's like, well, no, this isn't my hill to die on.

16:11 I'll die on the hill of not killing babies

16:13 when they're in the room.

16:14 But this is still really, really important

16:17 because y'all are playing with stuff

16:18 that you don't even understand.

16:20 And that's the thing that I just don't get

16:21 with these people.

16:22 Like these people wouldn't walk into a chemical factory

16:24 and start mixing crap together,

16:26 but they're taking all these different deadly worldviews

16:28 and they're just kind of like sprinkling it over

16:31 what they do at church already.

16:32 It's like, guys, get out of here.

16:33 But I think a furtherance of what you just said

16:36 is this quote here that I wanna read

16:38 where you and Tim, I don't know who,

16:40 it's always a guess,

16:41 but it's the three things about deconstruction.

16:43 So three things about deconstruction.

16:45 One, deconstruction is not about getting your theology, right?

16:49 Two, there is no end goal or destination

16:52 to the deconstruction process.

16:54 There is just a never-ending skepticism of your view.

16:57 And then three, there is no external authority

17:00 to tell you that your view,

17:01 what your view should look like.

17:03 You are the ultimate authority.

17:06 And this is the question, I guess, I would wanna ask,

17:08 is when we talk about any of these things,

17:10 it's always me-focused. Postmodernism leads to my truth.

17:15 Standpoint epistemology leads to my lived experience

17:20 and how that gives me secret knowledge about the world.

17:22 And same thing with deconstruction,

17:24 it's there is no higher authority than the self.

17:28 It sounds like a lot of this kind of new age stuff

17:30 that I've been kind of steeped into here

17:32 a little bit recently behind the scenes.

17:34 Because when you focus on yourself, how can you be wrong?

17:37 Because you are your arbiter of truth.

17:40 So talk to me a little bit about just the nefarious side

17:43 of the you focus to all of this.

17:46 - But people need to understand about deconstruction.

17:48 And particularly we're analyzing how it's manifesting online

17:51 because that is where it's mostly happening.

17:54 Because of the nature of it,

17:55 people have already determined

17:57 that their Christian friends and families are toxic.

18:00 They're harmful people, they're not safe.

18:02 The churches are not safe.

18:03 And not just because maybe there's an unhealthy

18:05 leadership structure, but simply because of the beliefs.

18:08 These are what are considered toxic and harmful and abusive.

18:12 So because of that, the impetus to disconnect

18:14 from their Christian family and friends and churches

18:17 and then find community on these online

18:20 deconstruction spaces, that is where it is happening.

18:24 And so when we talk about the focus on me

18:27 and you said it perfectly when you quoted,

18:30 well, I guess we said it perfectly

18:31 'cause you were quoting us.

18:33 But it's not about getting your theology right.

18:35 And they will agree with that.

18:37 In fact, when people go into the deconstruction hashtag

18:41 and they'll say things like just deconstruct,

18:45 but deconstruct with the Bible in your hand,

18:47 they will make fun of those people

18:49 because that's not what deconstruction is.

18:51 It's a completely self-led process.

18:54 And so basically what you do in deconstruction

18:57 is you analyze all of the beliefs that were handed to you.

19:01 Maybe it's substitutionary atonement.

19:03 Maybe it's the doctrine of hell.

19:04 Maybe it's the concept of biblical authority.

19:08 And this is where the postmodernism comes in

19:11 and this is what I really hope to help

19:12 your audience understand, is when it comes to things

19:16 like religion and morality, our postmodern culture

19:19 has decided that those things are more like

19:22 your favorite flavor of ice cream

19:24 or what sports team you like to root for.

19:27 These are opinions and preferences.

19:29 Anything you might believe about what we should

19:30 or shouldn't do morally or who we should worship

19:33 or how we should worship.

19:34 Like you said, it's all in the altar of pragmatism.

19:37 Whatever works for you.

19:39 And I wish that I would have thought of this,

19:41 but one of my guests on my podcast said the greatest line.

19:44 Her name is Alexa Kramer and she said,

19:46 and it was actually about the Enneagram.

19:47 And she said, the enemy will make sure something works

19:50 for you as long as it's not true.

19:52 And I thought that was a really great statement

19:54 because sometimes things feel like they work,

19:56 but they're not true or they're actually bad

19:58 for us in the long run.

19:59 And so what our audience needs to understand

20:02 about the postmodern influence and deconstruction

20:04 is that it is absolutely not about lining up

20:08 your beliefs with reality.

20:09 It's about lining up your beliefs

20:11 with what feels right to you.

20:13 So anything that makes you feel harmed or oppressed,

20:16 you get rid of that belief and you replace it

20:18 with a belief that works for you.

20:20 One that maybe makes you feel like you have more peace

20:23 in your life.

20:24 And so that's why we say it's a postmodern process.

20:27 Because as you know, there are things in the Christian faith,

20:31 in the Christian worldview that don't feel good all the time.

20:34 There are things where we are called to repent

20:36 for things that, if I was just left to my own devices,

20:39 I'd say, hey, I think this is just fine for me, right?

20:41 This is great, I'm loving this, this is working for me.

20:44 But yet the Bible would call me to repent of that thing.

20:47 And so the Bible calls us to repent

20:50 and to turn from things that our inner moral compass

20:53 might actually be in tension with.

20:55 And so that's where truth comes in though.

20:57 Truth is when you say what is real,

21:00 you line up what you believe with reality.

21:03 Whereas in the deconstruction hashtag,

21:05 you line up your beliefs based on what makes you feel right

21:09 and what makes you feel less toxic and harmful.

21:11 And so this is why in our book, we talk about

21:15 the just myriad of people who have come up to me

21:18 after I've spoken at a church.

21:20 Usually older, elderly people with tears in their eyes

21:23 saying my adult child has deconstructed.

21:25 And what they're trying to understand is

21:27 why does that deconstruction end with my child

21:31 not wanting to talk to me anymore?

21:33 And even many have received no contact letters.

21:36 You're a toxic person, you can't see your grandkids.

21:38 And so it's taken the church, I think a lot of church people

21:41 are very shocked when that happens to them.

21:43 And it's way more common than most people realize.

21:47 But adult children rejecting their parents,

21:50 even relationship with their parents,

21:51 not because of something they did,

21:53 but simply because of what they believe.

21:55 And that's really what's happening at the bottom of this

21:58 deconstruction movement.

22:00 - Yeah, somebody clipped that out,

22:01 wake LaCray up and share it with them.

22:03 That was gold right there.

22:04 Now I wasn't intending to ask about this,

22:06 but you just, this came to mind

22:08 when you just described the situation you just described.

22:12 There are a lot of things kind of swimming around

22:14 in the switches, brew of postmodernism.

22:16 This isn't something that started in a particular year,

22:19 but at least I think 2016 broke everyone's brains.

22:22 All these liberals are all these well-meaning moderates,

22:25 if that's even a thing.

22:27 When Trump got elected and a bunch of evangelicals

22:30 held their nose and looked at the fact

22:32 that the Supreme Court's important

22:34 and still held out hope that Roe v. Wade

22:36 could possibly one day maybe be overturned,

22:39 like who knew it was gonna happen as fast as it did.

22:42 But Trump just literally broke people's brains.

22:45 I think Trump broke Andy Stanley.

22:46 I think Trump broke LaCray.

22:48 I think Trump broke, like pick a person

22:51 that maybe has deconstructed or deconstructed

22:54 and it all comes back.

22:55 Again, it comes back to this.

22:57 They bought the cultural Marxist lie

22:59 of standpoint epistemology and they just can't see.

23:03 They're like, oh, well, mom and dad,

23:05 if you can support a racist bigot like Donald Trump

23:08 that says the things he says about Mexican people,

23:11 then I just can't be around you.

23:13 But now they can cloak it in this Christianese

23:16 of well, I've deconstructed and it's your theology,

23:19 mom and dad, it's your theology grandma and grandpa

23:22 that I just can't be down with.

23:23 These are things that we used to just like roll her eyes at

23:26 at Thanksgiving dinner.

23:27 But now these are certified letters coming in the mail

23:30 saying don't talk to me anymore.

23:31 You racist horrible bigot.

23:33 I mean, that's kind of my read of the situation,

23:36 but goodness gracious, I started this podcast

23:38 when Donald Trump got elected, like right after.

23:41 So I've just been following the thread this entire way.

23:43 What do you think?

23:44 - Oh, I think you've absolutely nailed it on the head.

23:47 I don't know that I've heard a deconstruction story

23:50 since 2016 where Donald Trump wasn't a key figure

23:54 in the deconstruction, you're right.

23:57 Broke people's brains is a good way to put it

23:59 'cause whether you like the guy or whether

24:01 you don't like the guy, his influence in the deconstruction,

24:06 well, I would say the evangelical support of Trump,

24:09 that in particular, that component was massive

24:13 in so many deconstruction stories.

24:15 And the thing that makes me sad is that it's like

24:18 the breaking of the brain, people are unable now

24:21 to pull things apart and think critically like,

24:23 oh, I can actually dislike this guy as a person,

24:26 but think, okay, well, here are my two choices.

24:28 I like these policies I'm gonna vote here

24:30 even though I don't like the guy.

24:32 Or maybe people really like the guy.

24:33 And either way though, it's like they get villainized

24:37 because of the action that they took.

24:39 And that can span the gamut from being called

24:42 a Christian nationalist just simply because you might be

24:45 conservative politically, all the way to, you know,

24:48 it's just, you broke people's brains is really the way

24:52 the right way to put it because that's what you see.

24:54 You don't see any deconstruction stories really

24:57 that don't mention that political element

24:59 and directly in regard to Donald Trump.

25:01 - Flowing ad budget on metrics that look great

25:04 till the CFO sees them, that's bull's bend.

25:06 And marketers are calling it out in dashboard confessions.

25:11 - I remember telling my boss,

25:13 it'll be good for the brand when leads were slow.

25:17 Yeah, it wasn't.

25:19 - Cut the bull's bend.

25:20 LinkedIn lets you target by company, job title and more.

25:23 Advertise on LinkedIn.

25:25 Spend $250 on your first campaign

25:27 and get a $250 credit, go to linkedin.com/campaign

25:29 terms and conditions apply.

25:30 - Well, even specifically, when I say it broke people's

25:34 brains, it destroyed their ability to be intellectually

25:39 honest because they can't just calmly have

25:41 a discussion anymore because we have been convinced

25:44 that our level of outrage equals our level of rightness.

25:48 And so if I throw a brick through a window when I get mad,

25:51 I'm right because that's an extreme thing to do

25:54 or we used to think that that was an extreme thing to do.

25:56 I don't wanna really go down the political side.

25:58 I wanna kind of bring it back to this,

25:59 but I mean, this is gonna end up being

26:01 in the political side as well.

26:02 I wanna read a couple of quotes here from the book.

26:04 As we'll see, for many in the #xfangelical community,

26:09 evangelical is perceived to be synonymous with misogyny,

26:12 racism, homophobia and the political support of Donald Trump.

26:17 And then a little bit later, Alisa,

26:19 you and Tim talk about five characteristics of what

26:22 ex-vangelicals are leaving behind.

26:25 And this is according to Blake Chastain,

26:26 he's the guy that actually came up with the term ex-vangelical.

26:29 So here are the five things he said

26:30 these people are leaving behind.

26:31 Number one, a literal reading of the Bible.

26:34 Number two, a belief that women are to be submissive to men.

26:37 Number three, a belief in the sanctity of heterosexuality,

26:40 heteronormativity and the rejection

26:42 of homosexuality is sinful.

26:44 Number four, the assumption that the American way of life

26:47 is best.

26:48 And number five, identification and partnership

26:50 with political and social conservatism.

26:53 So my question here is essentially,

26:56 this movement is just leftism, progressivism,

27:00 postmodernism, wokeism, cultural Marxism,

27:02 put whatever ism you have in there.

27:05 Alisa, why don't we just fight this philosophy politically?

27:09 Why don't we just fight this philosophically?

27:12 Like, why do we need to take it?

27:14 And I know the answer.

27:14 I'm setting you up here to just hit a home run.

27:16 So please do it.

27:17 But it's like, I know what I would say to that,

27:19 but this seems like some people would be like,

27:21 y'all are making a big deal about this.

27:23 Let's just fight this philosophically.

27:24 Let's fight it in the classroom.

27:26 Let's fight it politically.

27:27 Let's just get these people out of office.

27:28 But we don't need to make it this big spiritual deal.

27:31 What do you say to those people?

27:32 - So are you talking, I want to make sure

27:34 I understand your question.

27:35 You're talking about the deconstructionists

27:36 would be saying that or?

27:38 - Well, I'm saying that people that don't think

27:41 deconstruction's that big a deal.

27:42 So that could include deconstructionists.

27:45 But people that are just like,

27:46 y'all are making this big hill to die on.

27:48 You know what, this just sounds like leftism.

27:50 So these are like conservatives that aren't Christians

27:53 'cause people think that those two things

27:54 are one and the same.

27:55 But these are just political conservatives that are like,

27:57 no, this is a philosophical war.

27:59 This is a war that we're gonna fight in the political sphere.

28:02 We don't need to make it all godly and godlike.

28:05 You know, what would you say to some of those people

28:06 that seem to not think it's a big deal?

28:09 - Right, well, I think they don't think it's a big deal

28:11 because they are not understanding the nature of truth.

28:14 Right, this is why it's so interesting

28:16 when we've seen the influx of critical theory,

28:18 how we see even like atheists and Christians

28:20 being on the same side, or as Bogosian,

28:23 I think put it in the same reality tunnel

28:26 because we may disagree about what, you know,

28:29 the nature of something is like as far as religion

28:32 with the atheist, we might say,

28:34 well, the atheist believes there's an objective reality

28:37 about God, he just thinks God doesn't exist.

28:39 Whereas the Christian also believes

28:41 there's an objective reality about God

28:42 and he believes God does exist.

28:44 We can have a discussion, we can have a debate

28:46 because we're on the same playing field.

28:48 We're in the same reality tunnel.

28:50 But what I think is going on is that a lot of people

28:53 think it's no big deal because they're not understanding

28:55 that this is an erosion of objective truth itself.

28:59 And, you know, you mentioned standpoint of epistemology

29:02 and all these different definitions of truth

29:04 and way of knowing what is true.

29:06 And I think a lot of people are just like,

29:08 oh, it's, you know, it's not a big deal

29:10 because just let people do their thing

29:12 and you can let other people do their thing.

29:13 That's because they are buying into the idea

29:16 that truth is just, you're the truth maker for yourself.

29:19 And whatever you think, you know,

29:20 is gonna work is gonna work.

29:21 And so I think it's really a battle over that word truth

29:24 and what that means.

29:26 And again, like I said, the Christians and the atheists

29:28 aren't always gonna agree on what is true about reality

29:30 but they agree there is a truth

29:32 that at least impartiality can be known.

29:34 - I think you're right.

29:36 And this actually flows right into the next question

29:39 because you just sometimes have to listen

29:41 to these people and what they say.

29:43 And I'm just gonna say this, Lisa.

29:45 I look back on my life with regret.

29:47 There are things, there are times when I should have zigged

29:49 and said I zagged and there's mistakes that I've made

29:52 but then there's just those opportunities

29:54 that just like, you know, you're trying to grab

29:56 a fist full of water and they just didn't happen.

29:58 And so one of those is I was supposed to debate

30:02 Kristin Cobes-Dumez on the unbelievable show

30:05 with Justin Briarley.

30:06 And I literally think about that all the time

30:09 because I was ready to smash her to pieces.

30:11 It was gonna be a bloodbath.

30:13 But she did an interview with Justin

30:15 because she didn't want to debate me.

30:17 And then Justin set me up with another Christian feminist

30:20 who found out it was gonna be me

30:22 and then decided that they didn't want to debate.

30:23 They just wanted to do an interview

30:24 and I was just like, okay.

30:25 Apparently this isn't gonna be a thing

30:27 but y'all put that trigger point in there in your book, okay?

30:30 And I took the bait so we're gonna have to talk about it.

30:33 So here's a quote from your book.

30:35 For example, when asked on Twitter

30:37 how one can best analyze power and cultural systems

30:40 so as to not be held captive by them,

30:42 Kristin Dumez responded, I should have a better answer

30:45 but for me it wasn't one source

30:47 but years spent reading social and cultural histories.

30:51 Histories of gender, Foucault, Gramsci, Adorno, Habermas,

30:56 learning to be curious about how the world works.

30:59 So let's look at our scorecards.

31:02 Foucault, Communist, Gramsci, the father of neo-Marxism,

31:07 Adorno, the leader of the Frankfurt School

31:09 and then Habermas, a proponent of critical social theory.

31:14 So when I see these Christians, especially Christian women

31:17 and you've said it before sometimes

31:19 and we see this in scripture too,

31:20 you can kind of get romanced by things

31:22 that men don't get romanced by

31:25 but you have these people that have been spending

31:28 by their own admission years, marinating

31:32 and not just non-Christian but anti-Christian,

31:36 a Christian, ideologies and philosophies

31:40 and then Christian publishing houses

31:43 just turn their brains off and publish their nonsense books

31:47 and just say, oh well, we wanna make sure people have a voice

31:50 as if they themselves, the authors don't have Twitter.

31:54 Talk to me a little bit about that.

31:55 I don't even have a fully formulated question on that

31:57 but I was just like, guys,

31:59 you don't even have to give commentary.

32:00 You just point, look what she said.

32:02 Look what she believes.

32:03 Is it any shock she came to believe these things?

32:06 Ready, set, go.

32:06 - Yeah, so this is a really,

32:08 I'm really glad you brought this up

32:09 because there's the sort of deconstruction explosion

32:13 that's very overtly anti-Christian, right?

32:16 There's the people who are saying Christianity is toxic

32:19 and you need to leave but then there's this sort of subset

32:23 and I think it was Neil Shenvie that coined the phrase,

32:27 the Evangelical Deconstruction Project

32:29 or it might've been Gucci, I'm not sure which one coined that

32:32 but that was in reference to a group of self-professed

32:35 at the time at least, self-professed Evangelicals

32:39 who were writing books to hopefully reform

32:42 the Evangelical Georgetown in many cases

32:44 like in the case of Christendoume

32:45 claiming to be a reformed Christian, right?

32:48 That anytime you say you're a reformed Christian

32:50 the connotation is that you're very conservative,

32:52 you know?

32:53 And so a lot of Evangelicals were buying these books

32:56 that were written by these Evangelical Deconstruction

32:59 Project authors, things like,

33:02 oh gosh, off the top of my hand,

33:03 I'm gonna try to remember I'm Jesus and John Wayne,

33:05 of course the Beth Allison Barr book

33:07 Making of Biblical Womanhood,

33:09 there was the taking our nation back for God,

33:13 that might not be right but it was the one on Christian

33:15 nationalism, though re-disciplining the white church,

33:20 all these kinds of books that really

33:21 brought critical theory to the forefront

33:24 of the Evangelical mindset.

33:26 These were all at the time, or mostly,

33:29 authors who are claiming to be very conservative Christians

33:31 and so a lot of Evangelicals were like,

33:33 oh, this Jesus and John Wayne book, this is great,

33:35 this is written by a reformed Christian, you know?

33:37 And what they didn't realize is that these books

33:40 are right in line with the Deconstruction Movement.

33:42 Again, everything that they're teaching

33:45 is eroding the Christian worldview,

33:46 another interesting thing about Dumei,

33:48 I can't remember if we put this in the book or not,

33:50 but if you read the book, she's, again,

33:54 claiming to be kind of conservative on these things

33:56 and she had said something about homosexuality

33:58 and Denny Burke went on Twitter and kind of confronted her

34:02 and said, hey, I was under the impression

34:04 that you maybe, I'm trying to remember exactly

34:08 how he worded it, but basically it was questioning

34:10 her views on homosexuality and instead of answering him

34:13 in a tweet, she ended up writing a blog post

34:15 and she wrote this long blog post

34:17 about how she's thinking about the homosexuality question

34:20 but she ended by basically saying, look,

34:22 I'm going to process this question in community

34:25 with my gay brothers and sisters.

34:27 And what that told me, that told me everything

34:30 I needed to know right there is that she's fully bought

34:32 into standpoint of epistemology,

34:34 which basically is the idea that moral truths

34:37 are better known by people who are more oppressed,

34:40 that would be the most simple way I could put it.

34:42 So the only people, the people who would have

34:45 the highest moral authority to speak to the LGBTQ issue

34:48 would be LGBTQ people in her mind.

34:51 And so that tells me every, she's already made up her mind.

34:53 She's already decided that she's going to yield

34:56 to people who have this particular struggle

34:58 or maybe have already openly affirmed it.

35:01 And so it's standpoint of epistemology.

35:03 And then she, of course, in that tweet

35:05 that you mentioned before, openly admits

35:07 that she's been studying all these postmodern philosophers

35:10 like Michelle Foucault and that's the thing

35:12 that surprises me too, is that it's not difficult

35:16 to see the influence of postmodern philosophers

35:18 like Foucault and Derida in the deconstruction hashtag.

35:22 But in many cases, especially in the cases

35:24 of progressive Christians, they're openly admitting this.

35:27 Rachel held Evans in her, the book that was published

35:30 after her death.

35:31 She's quoting Derida all over the place

35:34 and actually says that her motive,

35:36 and again, I don't like to guess people's motives,

35:39 but when they tell you they're motive

35:40 that you should believe them.

35:42 And she said, basically, I'm going to this postmodern

35:44 philosopher who undermines the meaning of words and texts

35:48 because she literally says this,

35:50 because I refuse to believe that God committed

35:53 some of the acts in the Old Testament

35:55 that the Old Testament authors ascribe to him.

35:57 So she's basically saying, the whole reason

35:59 I'm bringing in this postmodern worldview

36:01 is because I refuse to believe

36:03 that the Bible is true at face value.

36:05 And so that's what we see.

36:06 It's not just like, we're not guessing.

36:07 Tim and I are not guessing in this book

36:09 as to what people are doing.

36:11 They're outright telling us, I just think in a lot of cases,

36:14 a lot of Christians are not paying attention.

36:16 - Oh, they're certainly not paying attention.

36:18 And the thing is, is you and Tim have already gotten

36:20 and will continue to get criticism for noticing.

36:23 It's like, how dare you notice what we're doing?

36:25 And then it turns from, you know what?

36:27 I'm glad you noticed, because this is a good thing.

36:30 And you know what?

36:30 You should shout it from the rooftops that it's a good thing.

36:33 And this gets into the whole deal

36:35 about Christians that are just so underheaded

36:37 where it's like they use pronoun hospitality, right?

36:41 So they know somebody is presenting themselves as female

36:45 when they're actually a male

36:46 because they're wearing a dress,

36:47 but they also have a beard longer than mine.

36:50 And they're gonna say, you know what?

36:51 I'm gonna use these pronouns

36:52 'cause I don't wanna be needlessly divisive.

36:54 But you know what's not a good thing?

36:56 Lying to people.

36:57 You know what's also not good?

36:58 Allowing people to make you lie, right?

37:01 So if you told me your name was Charlotte

37:04 and not Elisa, I would call you Charlotte.

37:06 Is that a lie?

37:06 Well, no, I was going off the information I had.

37:08 But if you told me your name was Jimmy

37:10 and that you're a man and I start referring to you

37:12 as he, him, his, no, that's a big problem.

37:15 You are causing me to sin.

37:16 You're causing me to break the commandments of God

37:20 so that I could be nice.

37:21 I don't really get it.

37:22 But this gets into discussion about

37:24 where Christians get their ideology.

37:25 So there's a short quote here

37:27 that I kind of quibble with a little bit,

37:29 but the quote was this.

37:30 For Christians, politics will flow downstream from theology

37:36 to which I would say, not really, certainly not in modernity.

37:40 I mean, there are self-described Christians,

37:43 air quote Christians, that openly and proudly vote

37:46 for political candidates that are pro-abortion,

37:49 pro-transing of the kids, anti-parents rights,

37:51 you know, whatever thing you're into.

37:53 And then for ex-vangelicals, it's the exact opposite.

37:56 Their politics is upstream and forms their theology.

38:01 And then it's all these go along to get along.

38:04 I want to be known for what I'm for,

38:05 not what I'm against, these nice, nice Christians

38:08 that allow culture to be upstream from their theology,

38:12 to allow politics to be upstream from their theology.

38:16 So again, the quote just caught me funny.

38:17 Again, the quote was four Christians.

38:19 Politics will flow downstream from theology.

38:22 I just don't think I agree with that.

38:23 - It should, it should at least.

38:25 - Right, I agree.

38:26 - That might be a better nuance there.

38:28 Yeah, well, and I don't know if we talked about this last time,

38:30 but that was really based on some sociological research

38:33 that was released a couple of years ago

38:34 by a sociologist named George Yancy

38:36 and his book that he put out is One Faith No Longer.

38:40 And that's what he really discovered

38:41 when he was researching the views

38:42 of conservative Christians versus progressive Christians.

38:45 For true conservative Christians

38:47 where the Bible is our authority,

38:50 the politics flows out of theology.

38:52 So what we believe theologically

38:53 is gonna inform how we vote, or at least it should, right?

38:56 - Sure, right.

38:57 - But for progressive Christians, it was the opposite.

38:59 The politics started first

39:00 and then they would form their theology

39:01 based around their political views,

39:03 which was actually not a surprise to me.

39:05 And you know what's interesting about that, Kyle,

39:07 is when you think about the definitions

39:09 that people have for Christian nationalism,

39:11 it's actually the progressive Christian view

39:13 that's more Christian nationalist

39:15 than what conservatives tend to get accused of.

39:17 So there's a lot of irony there in that one.

39:19 - The irony is my favorite because when people are like,

39:22 well, you're acting like a Christian nationalist.

39:24 I was like, well, first of all,

39:25 what do you mean by Christian

39:26 and what do you mean by nationalist?

39:27 'Cause typically they can't get either one of those terms,

39:29 right?

39:30 And here's just a good pro tip for people.

39:32 If you can't understand the individual words,

39:34 don't combine them and try to think of a new meaning

39:37 for that combination of words.

39:39 But the thing that I think is undercurrent

39:42 to all of this, Elisa, is we as Christians.

39:45 So, you know, the big group, capital secretions,

39:49 we are just simply not equipped for this fight.

39:51 'Cause you know what?

39:52 You and Tim should not have had to write this book.

39:54 It should not have been something

39:55 that you, we should have had to have done.

39:57 But evangelicals, I forget it was Barna

40:01 or something in the book,

40:02 where there are self-described evangelicals

40:05 that don't believe cornerstone Christian doctrine.

40:09 Like some of them don't believe in the resurrection.

40:11 Some of them don't believe that Jesus, you know,

40:13 His payment for sins and our repentance leads us to Christ

40:16 that, you know, or leads us to heaven.

40:18 They think there are a lot of ways to get there.

40:20 So these are self-described evangelicals

40:22 that don't believe these core doctrines.

40:24 And it's because Christians are completely almost

40:26 biblically illiterate.

40:28 I think it's because we don't actually believe

40:29 the Bible is the word of God.

40:31 'Cause if we actually believe that,

40:32 we would read it more than we would read Harry Potter.

40:35 But we don't actually believe it as modern Christians.

40:37 It's just another book that we just have to blow the dust

40:41 off of a few times a year as we march into church.

40:44 But I think the other thing is the church

40:45 has some responsibility here, Alisa.

40:47 'Cause we don't disciple people anymore.

40:49 Like we put you in a room, we start the smoke machines,

40:53 we do our four songs.

40:54 The third song always has 17 bridges and choruses.

40:58 And then we do our TED talk with Bible verses

41:00 sprinkled over the top.

41:01 Everybody grabs a latte and a bag of chips on the way out.

41:04 And then they're good to go.

41:06 There's no discipleship.

41:07 You may raise your hand, you know,

41:09 after the salesman got up there and gave you his pitch,

41:12 but then they don't catch you in a net.

41:14 They don't put you in a group of people.

41:15 They don't find you a believer with gray hair

41:18 that's gonna help lead you through some of your questions.

41:20 Like you're a baby deer, but they don't care, right?

41:22 They're just gonna throw you out there

41:23 with the rest of the hunters.

41:24 So just flow a little bit on the fact

41:27 that we're just flat out, not equipped.

41:29 And if you wanna blame the church, great, I'm with you.

41:30 If you wanna blame Christians individually

41:32 for being biblically illiterate, yeah, go for it.

41:34 But man, we're just, we're bringing a knife

41:37 to a gunfight here and I hate it.

41:39 - Okay, a couple of thoughts.

41:40 And I wanna say off the bat with the two R,

41:42 so I don't miss one of them.

41:43 As I start talking about the first one,

41:45 I wanna talk about that kind of mega church lack of discipleship.

41:49 But also to start with that word evangelical,

41:52 I think part of the problem, you know,

41:54 we quote these studies that was the legionnaire

41:56 in conjunction with Barna, I believe,

41:58 was the study that we were quoting from.

42:00 We're like something like 47% of evangelicals

42:03 didn't even know that Jesus is God.

42:05 Like they didn't, they believed Jesus was a creative being.

42:08 Well, those are shocking stats,

42:09 but also I think what we have to understand

42:11 is that a lot of people don't even know

42:13 what evangelical means.

42:14 I'm not sure anybody does.

42:16 In fact, Carl Truman argued that.

42:18 He's like, there's no such thing as an evangelical mind

42:21 because there's no such thing as evangelical.

42:23 The word just means so many different things

42:25 to so many people.

42:26 You know, if you ask me,

42:27 I'm gonna be thinking about the quadrilateral,

42:29 you know, emphasis on the cross,

42:30 personal conversion, biblical authority,

42:33 and, you know, evangelism, right?

42:35 That was kind of the classic quadrilateral,

42:37 but you ask most people today,

42:38 what does evangelical mean?

42:40 And they just think like racist or whatever, you know,

42:42 word comes like my--

42:43 Trump supporter, yeah.

42:44 Yeah, Trump supporter, that kind of thing.

42:46 So there's like a massive, just,

42:49 it's like an accordion word

42:51 that means so many different things.

42:52 So when they ask a self-professed evangelical,

42:54 it might just be a Republican that goes to church.

42:57 And they think, oh, I'm evangelical

42:58 'cause I'm a Republican who goes to church.

43:00 And so, but yet they are, like you said,

43:02 completely, biblically illiterate.

43:04 But to your point, I'll just share this.

43:07 I was so saddened over this past Christmas season.

43:11 I have a family member who is deconstructed,

43:15 very sweet, very open about it, very honest about it,

43:18 not typical of the deconstruction hashtags.

43:20 So we actually even have conversations about it a lot.

43:23 But this particular family member was sort of,

43:27 because everybody was gonna go to the Christmas Eve service,

43:30 this family member agreed to go with a good attitude,

43:33 by the way, it was very sweet about it.

43:35 And I was so hopeful.

43:37 Now, this was not my church.

43:38 We didn't go to my church.

43:39 We went to another, the church of another family member.

43:41 I'm trying to keep this very vague in case.

43:43 I feel like you're good, you're good.

43:45 But it's in this area,

43:50 probably the biggest Christmas Eve service

43:52 that you can go to.

43:53 Like seven services packed with thousands of people,

43:55 each service.

43:56 So it's like where everybody wants to go for Christmas Eve,

43:58 right?

43:59 And it was an absolute circus.

44:01 It was just, it was an absolute circus.

44:04 And I mean, they had these disco ball things that were,

44:09 I just, it was really off-putting to me.

44:12 And I'm just sitting there thinking about my family member

44:14 who's there, who just wants something real.

44:16 They just, they want something real.

44:18 And then it comes time for the message.

44:21 And I'm thinking, please just share the gospel.

44:23 Share the gospel.

44:24 You have thousands of people in front of you

44:28 over Christmas Eve.

44:29 And you can share, no, they didn't share the gospel.

44:32 They read a little bit from Luke two

44:34 and basically used that to springboard

44:36 into a commercial for the church

44:38 and all the things that church has done this year.

44:40 And it was so off-putting.

44:41 And I was so grieved in my heart

44:44 because what my family member needed was something simple.

44:47 I'm not saying it has to be not performed well,

44:51 but something simple, something real.

44:53 And then the gospel, they need to be called to repent

44:56 and turn from their sin, turn to Jesus

44:58 because everything else all sounds the same.

45:01 That's the message that's truly shocking

45:03 and different to people when you just tell them

45:06 you're a sinner in need of salvation.

45:08 And then we were talking about it afterwards

45:11 and another family member was sort of discouraged

45:14 about it as well.

45:15 And they were saying that at their church,

45:17 it's sort of the same thing.

45:18 And the pastor says, well, we wanna go easy

45:20 because we want people to come back and we want,

45:22 and I'm just like, are you kidding me?

45:24 You have thousands of people in front of you

45:27 when you can share the gospel

45:28 and you purposely don't do it

45:29 because you want to make sure they wanna come back.

45:33 Well, who wants to come back to that?

45:34 They can go see all of that done even better

45:37 at a rock concert.

45:38 Why would you think they're coming back?

45:40 And so I don't know, that was a little bit of a rant,

45:43 but it was so discouraging.

45:44 And that just reflects the lack of discipleship.

45:46 I wish that churches would understand

45:49 that you don't have to apologize for the gospel,

45:50 you don't have to shine it up,

45:52 you don't have to put a disco ball on top of it,

45:54 just speak it, just preach it.

45:57 And trust the Holy Spirit is doing his job, you know?

46:00 Sorry, that was a rant, but hopefully that spring

46:03 boarded off what you were saying.

46:05 - Hey, I happen to love rants.

46:06 Rants are my favorite.

46:07 And so especially when they come from sources

46:09 I wasn't expecting, let's try to get you onto another rant.

46:12 Now, well, before we get onto that,

46:14 I can't remember the guy's name

46:15 and I need to like commit it to memory,

46:16 but I found a clip from this really old preacher

46:20 and it was out of G3 event or something like that.

46:22 I don't even know when it happened,

46:23 but this clip is absolute fire

46:25 because he's like, we don't have preachers anymore,

46:28 we have teachers.

46:29 We have people that wanna teach you things

46:31 and show how smart they are,

46:32 but we don't have people that are demanding that you repent

46:35 and turn away from your sins

46:37 and just in a full-throated fashion,

46:38 preach the Bible.

46:39 And I was like, oh, it's like, I believe you.

46:41 But I'm like, I'm ready to go to war.

46:43 Let's go, where are we going?

46:44 Like that, it was one of those things

46:45 and it's like, that doesn't mean that every single pastor

46:47 has to be a high school football coach in Texas,

46:50 but at the same time, like there has to be some call,

46:54 whether it's calmly done or whether it's screamed

46:57 at the top of the lungs,

46:58 but it's just like, guys, you're going to go to hell.

47:01 Like, this is serious, like, you haven't been to church.

47:05 I don't care, we don't take attendance,

47:07 but if you don't get right with God,

47:08 the same thing I said when I was on my Glover's podcast

47:10 last year, 'cause he's a military guy,

47:13 he does a lot of preparedness, classes, self-defense,

47:15 and it's like, great.

47:16 So you've got the Ford Raptor tricked out.

47:18 You've got chickens in the backyard.

47:20 You've got a bug out bag.

47:21 You know how to use all the different weapons systems.

47:23 You know how to kill people with knives.

47:24 You know how to kill people with rubber bands.

47:26 So you're prepared, right?

47:28 You're prepared for this world.

47:30 You're not prepared for the next one

47:31 because all you've done is gather a bunch of materials

47:34 that the next chimp is going to take from you

47:36 once you die, right?

47:38 So you just made it easy for him.

47:39 You just put it all in one spot so that he could take it.

47:41 And so it's like you've done all this preparation,

47:44 but you haven't prepared for the most important thing.

47:45 Same thing here.

47:46 You made it here and here you're going to talk about stuff

47:49 that you could put out in your annual report, right?

47:52 Shoot a PDF to everybody's email that you have on your list.

47:55 Like don't talk about it in front of the church.

47:57 We shouldn't care about it.

47:58 Anyway, so there, now I got on a rant.

48:00 So we need to both, maybe you kind of bring it down

48:02 a little bit.

48:03 So let's talk about a topic that's not incendiary

48:05 or controversial at all.

48:06 Let's talk about the problems with parts of Calvinism.

48:09 So I think in the book,

48:12 there are problems with Calvinist theology.

48:15 And I've talked about this a lot on the show.

48:17 I've been very open about some of my struggles

48:18 with some of the theology,

48:20 how Calvinism, I think, could aid deconstruction

48:24 specifically because of the middle letter of tulip.

48:28 So to you, LIP, the L is limited atonement.

48:31 So I want to read a quote from your book.

48:33 It's where you were talking about Derek Webb.

48:35 He's the former lead singer of the Christian band,

48:37 Kevin's call who is now self-described atheist,

48:40 drag queen, whatever, who the heck knows what this guy is.

48:43 But this is what you describe in the book.

48:46 Webb announced that he had walked away from his faith

48:49 and produced a solo album he described

48:51 as a deeply personal tale of two divorces.

48:54 The songs are his reflections on his divorce

48:56 from his wife and his divorce from God.

48:59 His pain is palpable and well-articulated.

49:02 Responding to the Calvinist understanding

49:04 of salvation Webb had formerly believed,

49:07 he reads that, he reads, sorry,

49:09 he writes that there are only two options.

49:11 Either God isn't real or Webb himself simply wasn't chosen.

49:16 He goes on to say that he may never find out which is true.

49:19 Either way, my heart is broken.

49:21 He writes in the haunting lyrics.

49:24 And this is a big sticking point for me.

49:26 And I know it's a big sticking point

49:27 for a lot of people in my audience.

49:28 And I have a lot of like reformed Calvinist dudes

49:30 in my life and in my audience.

49:31 They just don't get how I'm so stupid.

49:33 How do you not understand this?

49:34 I read you this Spurgeon quote, like,

49:35 you know, this explains that we have to keep these thoughts

49:39 in tension and I want to understand.

49:41 But I've asked these guys before, I have two sons.

49:45 What if one of them is not elect?

49:47 It doesn't matter if I send them to Christian school.

49:49 It doesn't matter if I preach the gospel to them.

49:51 They're just not elect.

49:52 And I've yet to hear a good response to that.

49:54 And so to a deconstructionist,

49:56 this is, this is jet fuel to their process

50:00 because if they understand tulip

50:02 and if they get to limited atonement,

50:03 they're just like, well, I guess I'm just not elect.

50:07 I'm just not chosen.

50:08 So what do you have to think about that?

50:10 I don't really know what Tim's leanings are,

50:11 but you're not necessarily in that reformed camp,

50:13 even though a lot of people think you are,

50:14 but talk a little bit more about that.

50:16 - Right. Well, like you, I'm not a Calvinist.

50:20 I do want to say though, I want to do one caveat here.

50:23 I actually don't think that Calvinism itself

50:26 like leads to deconstruction

50:28 or that more people deconstruct out of Calvinism

50:30 than they do other movements or streams

50:33 or denominations.

50:33 I think we see deconstruction coming out of every stream.

50:37 I really do. - Sure.

50:38 - So I don't think there's any sort of correlation

50:40 between Calvinism and deconstruction,

50:42 but with Derek Webb, Derek Webb is a very interesting case.

50:47 And I don't know if you follow Leighton Flowers

50:49 with his Soteriology 101 podcast.

50:51 He's, it's really all about how he used to be a Calvinist

50:54 and now he's, he calls himself a provisionalist now.

50:57 And so he's kind of refuting Calvinism on his podcast,

51:01 but he talks about Derek Webb a lot

51:02 and he made a really interesting point

51:04 on one of his podcasts that Derek Webb,

51:06 even as a fully deconstructed,

51:08 whatever he's calling himself now,

51:09 'cause that changes, but secular humanists last I heard,

51:13 even as a secular humanist, he's still a Calvinist,

51:15 which is so fascinating because even recently,

51:19 you'll hear Derek Webb say things like, well, you know,

51:22 I guess I'm just not chosen.

51:23 I'm not elect.

51:24 And you're like, you're still a Calvinist,

51:26 even though you're not a Christian,

51:28 which is so interesting.

51:30 So I recommend that to your audience to go listen to Leighton,

51:33 talk about that.

51:33 You can go back in the archives and find it.

51:35 But yeah, I do think there is,

51:38 there is a very interesting relationship

51:40 between deconstructionism and Calvinism

51:43 because the ones that have deconstructed out of Calvinism

51:47 will lump all of Christianity.

51:48 Like they will assume that everybody's Soteriology is Calvinist

51:52 and that's what they're rejecting.

51:53 And so that's why I remember doing a podcast with Sean McDowell,

51:56 which I don't believe Sean is a five point Calvinist.

51:59 I can't say for sure.

52:00 I know that I'm not,

52:01 but people were basically saying,

52:02 oh, that's just their Calvinist beliefs.

52:04 And I'm like thinking, well, we're actually not Calvinists.

52:07 You know, I mean, there's lots of Westlands,

52:09 there's lots of non-Calvinist Christians

52:12 who are biblically faithful and conservative,

52:15 but there is sort of this bubble

52:18 in the deconstruction hashtag

52:20 that assigns every belief they don't like to Calvinism.

52:23 They think if you believe in substitutionary atonement,

52:26 you must be a Calvinist.

52:27 If you believe in hell, you must be a Calvinist.

52:28 So there's an interesting and very strong reaction

52:32 against Calvinism in the deconstruction hashtag.

52:36 - Yeah, that's why I said I was very careful,

52:39 'cause I always have to be very careful,

52:40 'cause there's people I love that find themselves in that camp,

52:42 but that's why I say that it's jet fuel,

52:44 because if you find that vein,

52:47 and honestly, I was really sad when I read that quote,

52:50 'cause I don't have an axe to grind against Eric Webb,

52:52 'cause I didn't listen to Cademen's call,

52:53 'cause I don't really like Christian music,

52:55 that kind of Christian music.

52:56 And so it's like, I don't really care.

52:58 It's like, that's just another guy that deconstructed

53:00 who's making money off of the fact

53:01 that he doesn't like the life that he used to live.

53:03 But hearing him talk about how sad he was,

53:06 like I believed him.

53:07 He could be full of crap, I don't know.

53:09 But it's like, I actually believed him

53:10 to where he just got to that point

53:12 where imagine just feeling like,

53:14 "Wow, Jesus didn't die for me."

53:16 He died for the elect.

53:18 Like, I had no shot.

53:20 Like, from the jump.

53:21 Like, no matter what my parents did,

53:23 no matter what kind of music I wrote,

53:24 no matter what kind of drugs I took,

53:26 no matter how many dresses I wear,

53:28 it just wasn't in the cards for me.

53:29 Gosh, it was just absolutely heartbreaking.

53:31 But another through point that seems to come up a lot

53:36 with deconstruction is the Bible and the church

53:40 and God just seem to be just meaty, mean pants

53:44 that just want to restrict you.

53:45 They don't want you to have any fun.

53:46 They don't want you to have any freedom.

53:48 And we live in this world

53:49 whether you're super woke, purple hair,

53:51 nose ring person, or just like super duper libertarian.

53:54 It's like, don't tell me what to do.

53:56 I'm my own man.

53:57 I can do whatever I wanna do with my life

53:59 and don't give me any structure.

54:00 So I'm gonna read this quote here from the book.

54:03 Sadly, many people want freedom from obedience.

54:06 The Bible offers freedom within obedience.

54:09 It's talking about an entirely different freedom

54:11 from the kind offered by deconstruction.

54:14 Now, this will remind you

54:15 'cause you call yourself a flaky artist.

54:17 And so you've done a lot of art in your life.

54:19 You've written a lot of songs.

54:21 The thing is, is once an artist picks a medium,

54:24 they've limited themselves.

54:26 Because you, Elisa, there's only so many sounds

54:29 you can make with your vocal cords.

54:31 If you're sitting at a drum kit,

54:32 there's only, I think your husband

54:34 may have been a musician or something at some point.

54:37 Drummer, there you go.

54:38 Okay, I remember.

54:38 So when he sits down at the kit,

54:40 there's only so many sounds he can make.

54:41 Now, he can get real creative.

54:43 He can hook up a bunch of weird things to it,

54:45 but there is a limitation.

54:47 When Michelangelo walked into the Sistine Chapel,

54:51 there was a limitation.

54:52 There was only so much space on the walls on the ceiling.

54:54 Okay?

54:56 But we just feel like any limitation of any kind

54:59 is a burden when people don't understand

55:02 that if we worry about limitations,

55:04 then we produce nothing, nothing whatsoever.

55:07 And that's on the menu for deconstruction.

55:09 What do you have to say about that?

55:11 - No, that's a great quote to read

55:14 to lead into this kind of thought.

55:15 Because years ago, I audited a soteriology class.

55:19 And the professor said something

55:21 that always stuck with me ever since then.

55:23 And he said, you know, when you become a Christian,

55:24 you're not free, but we talk about freedom,

55:27 but you're not free, you've been bought.

55:29 And he brought it into this context

55:31 of the first century where this was the Roman Empire.

55:35 Some scholars estimate anywhere,

55:37 depending on who you ask, anywhere from 70 to 90%

55:39 of people were slaves in the Roman Empire.

55:41 This is a very oppressive culture.

55:43 And of course, slavery meant something

55:44 a little bit different than it did here in America.

55:47 But you were like a bondservant to someone

55:50 you were bought with a price.

55:52 And so he was talking about with salvation

55:54 when the Bible talks about you've been freed.

55:56 It's talking about you being freed from sin,

55:58 from being freed from the chains of sin and death.

56:00 But you're not free to just go do whatever you want.

56:02 You've been bought by a price.

56:03 You have a new master now.

56:05 And you serve Jesus.

56:06 And I thought that always stuck with me

56:08 because there's a lot of talk of freedom,

56:10 especially in the deconstruction hashtag.

56:12 It's like, they wanna cast off moral restraints.

56:14 And I get that.

56:15 I mean, that would feel good, right?

56:16 It would feel good to be completely outside

56:19 of any doctrinal boundaries, any sort of limitation

56:22 for a moment until you start destroying yourself.

56:25 And I think of, I didn't think of this analogy,

56:28 I actually got this from John Lennox

56:29 and his wonderful little book, Against the Flow.

56:33 I don't know if you've read that,

56:33 but it was his book on Daniel.

56:34 - Yeah, it's right over there on the shelf.

56:36 - It's one of my little favorite books.

56:38 It was kind of a hidden gem, I think.

56:40 But he talked about music.

56:41 And he's like, think about music.

56:43 When you write music on a page,

56:45 you have a time signature, you have a key,

56:48 you're all playing in the same key, you have notes.

56:51 Now imagine if you took an orchestra and said,

56:54 everybody just pick your own time signature,

56:56 everybody just pick your own key

56:58 and just play the notes kind of however you want to.

57:01 Ready, go.

57:02 It's gonna sound terrible.

57:03 And people are gonna be running out of their going,

57:05 I don't wanna hear this anymore, this is awful.

57:08 So to your point, limitation is good.

57:11 And it actually produces beauty.

57:13 And order, and order is beautiful.

57:16 And so I think it's just at bottom,

57:18 I think our culture is so confused about what beauty is,

57:22 what truth is, like you can't have beauty without truth.

57:25 Truth is so important.

57:26 And truth is encouraging.

57:29 I mean, think about when a crime gets solved,

57:33 when they've been looking for the killer of a crime

57:34 and they finally find the killer,

57:36 like you can breathe easy because there was order brought to it

57:40 that's based on truth.

57:42 But when you're just like, just do whatever you want,

57:44 I mean, that's just chaos.

57:46 And that's gonna lead to self-destruction

57:48 and destruction of the culture.

57:49 - When I think it's because we have this innate ability

57:52 to just believe people that say they've been hurt.

57:55 So as you were talking, Lisa,

57:56 I thought about these people that always claim church hurt.

58:00 Oh, the church hurt me.

58:01 Well, if you start asking them questions

58:03 and they start answering honestly, it's like,

58:05 oh, the church said you should stop sinning.

58:08 And you didn't like that very much.

58:10 It's like, is that church hurt?

58:12 Because that's very different than a youth pastor

58:15 holding you down and violently sexually assaulting you.

58:18 But that's where you're, because when I say church hurt,

58:22 that's where your mind goes.

58:23 Church hurt is like, oh, they held you down

58:25 'cause you're a woman.

58:26 They wouldn't let you rise in the church

58:28 or wouldn't let you be a leader or any of those types of things.

58:30 But it's like, no, none of that happened.

58:32 But you want it to be open

58:34 and you also want it to be celebrated in your sin

58:36 and the church said, nah.

58:38 And you're just like, oh, no.

58:39 And they just crumble into a puddle.

58:42 Well, let me ask you a little bit about that

58:43 'cause I know you've talked about that before,

58:45 but this whole concept of church hurt as well,

58:47 we just believe these people.

58:48 It's like, I have this skepticism in my soul

58:52 to where it's like, I don't believe what you say.

58:54 Talk to me a little bit more about that.

58:56 And then I'll confirm my priors or I'll change my mind.

58:58 But this whole church hurt thing,

59:00 I think plays into all this as well.

59:02 - Oh, it's massive.

59:03 And that's probably the most difficult not to untie

59:07 because there is a lot of legitimate church hurt.

59:10 There is spiritual abuse.

59:12 I speak out about that a lot 'cause I've experienced it.

59:16 And it's not always just the youth pastor

59:18 holding somebody down.

59:19 I mean, there's abuse of power.

59:21 There's pastors with the rise of celebrity culture,

59:25 social media, the narcissism,

59:27 I think that so many pastors are drawn to

59:29 can end up really having abusive effects

59:32 on the parishioners who go to their churches.

59:35 And so I think all of that is very real,

59:37 but the problem is that when somebody claims

59:39 they've been abused, like you brought up

59:40 the issue of women, this is a perfect example.

59:44 So, and this also shows how critical theory

59:47 has come into this whole conversation

59:49 'cause it really informs so much of it.

59:51 When you think about the definition of justice, right?

59:53 So, biblically, justice is an attribute

59:56 of God's character, it's who he is.

59:58 Like we have a word justice to describe who God is

1:00:00 and it's his perfect righteousness.

1:00:02 So anything that falls short of that is an injustice.

1:00:04 So we have to start there before we can even think

1:00:07 about how justice is going to meet its way out socially, right?

1:00:11 And yet the culture's definition of justice is equal outcome.

1:00:16 Now, that's again, kind of a Marxist idea

1:00:19 that's flowing out of Marxism, which was economics,

1:00:22 but now it's applied to everything.

1:00:24 So think about women in ministry, right?

1:00:27 A church that, now I'm a complimentarian,

1:00:29 I know you're a complimentarian.

1:00:31 So a theological belief that women and men

1:00:34 are equal in value and worth,

1:00:35 but have different roles to play in the church and the home,

1:00:38 well, that's an unequal outcome.

1:00:41 So in the mind of the deconstructionist,

1:00:43 in the mind of that deconstruction hashtag,

1:00:45 that's not just a theological belief

1:00:47 that you might hold, Kyle, or that I might hold,

1:00:49 that's actually abuse, that's oppression

1:00:52 because that's an unequal outcome.

1:00:53 If I can't do the exact same things at church that you can,

1:00:57 or if I don't hold the same positions that you can,

1:00:59 then I'm actually oppressed, I'm abused.

1:01:02 So I can claim abuse.

1:01:04 And so that's the problem,

1:01:05 because that's not actually abuse,

1:01:06 that's actually beautiful because that's order,

1:01:08 and everybody has their roles to play,

1:01:10 which is actually a good thing,

1:01:13 but yet because it's a different outcome for people,

1:01:16 then I can actually say,

1:01:17 well, that's a toxic environment,

1:01:19 I've been abused by that view.

1:01:22 Now, the problem is, is that there can be

1:01:25 a beautiful expression of complimentarianism,

1:01:29 and there can be a misogynist expression of complimentarian,

1:01:31 I think there are some Christian men

1:01:33 who are complimentarian because they're misogynists,

1:01:36 but not everyone.

1:01:37 Like I'm a complimentarian because I think

1:01:38 that's what the Bible teaches, and I find it beautiful,

1:01:41 but it can, you know, I mean there's,

1:01:42 that's why I said this is such a difficult not to untie.

1:01:45 It can be a very, and so I recommend doing what you said,

1:01:49 sit down and listen.

1:01:50 Don't necessarily believe everything,

1:01:52 but ask more questions.

1:01:53 And then it will come out if that's a real abuse

1:01:56 of situation, but I was interestingly on social media one day

1:02:00 where somebody was claiming abuse.

1:02:02 And I made a comment like,

1:02:03 well, people think that just being taught

1:02:05 that Jesus died on the cross for our sins is abusive.

1:02:08 And that same person came on and said,

1:02:09 that is abusive to tell somebody that.

1:02:12 So, I mean, it is, that is a whole ball of wax

1:02:16 that is really, really complicated.

1:02:19 - Well, it's certainly complicated to add to something

1:02:21 that you said, there are people that are feminist

1:02:22 just because they're misandrous.

1:02:23 So people know about misogyny, the hatred of women,

1:02:26 well, then there's misandry, which is a hatred of men.

1:02:28 And so it's like, but you get to be celebrated

1:02:31 and you get probably your own holiday if you hate men,

1:02:33 but also these people that scream for equality

1:02:38 and equality of outcome,

1:02:40 they never wanna define what makes equal enough.

1:02:43 Like when is equal enough?

1:02:45 When there are exactly the same number

1:02:47 of male and female CEOs in America,

1:02:50 exactly the same number of male and female professors,

1:02:53 the exactly the same number of male and female ditch diggers

1:02:56 and brick layers, right?

1:02:58 They never exactly define it.

1:02:59 And I'm not the first person to point this out.

1:03:01 But a lot of these feminists, they love kind of cherry-picking

1:03:04 the things that they really like.

1:03:05 It's like, oh yeah, I'll have a little bit of that.

1:03:06 Paying for dinner, no, I don't wanna have any of that.

1:03:08 And then they just kind of like pick and choose what they have.

1:03:10 But as we round to a close here, we need to get practical.

1:03:14 And so this isn't just a book that describes,

1:03:16 'cause I hate books that just describe,

1:03:18 but not prescribe anything.

1:03:20 We gotta get practical about there's a person in your life.

1:03:23 Maybe they're a family member,

1:03:24 maybe they're an old friend,

1:03:26 maybe a co-worker or something like that.

1:03:28 And you either suspect or you have confirmed

1:03:31 that they are in the process of deconstruction.

1:03:34 What do we do?

1:03:35 What should the church do?

1:03:36 What should family and friends do?

1:03:38 How do we go about taking care of that situation?

1:03:41 - Yeah, well, we have a whole chapter on this topic

1:03:43 and it's our advice chapter.

1:03:45 And what we did was we took different relationship dynamics

1:03:48 and applied sort of a grid to those dynamics

1:03:51 because it's very important to diagnose

1:03:54 what your relationship is with the person

1:03:56 because how, let's say, a wife is going to respond

1:03:59 to a husband who's in deconstruction

1:04:01 is gonna be different than how parents

1:04:04 of a teenage child who's in deconstruction might respond.

1:04:08 Which that is gonna be different

1:04:09 than how an elderly couple is going to respond

1:04:11 to their adult child and their grandchildren

1:04:13 who are in deconstruction.

1:04:15 So I think the first thing,

1:04:17 if I would just kind of sketch it out,

1:04:18 the first thing to do is do a little triage.

1:04:20 We talk in the book about how when there's an accident

1:04:23 and people start coming into the ER,

1:04:25 doctors have to assess what is the greatest damage,

1:04:28 what do we need to treat first?

1:04:29 And so the guy with a punctured lung

1:04:31 is gonna get treated before the person with a broken wrist.

1:04:34 And that's because that has a more high degree

1:04:37 of possibility of death

1:04:39 and you just wanna assess these things and do some triage.

1:04:41 So when it comes to the relationship, do triage first.

1:04:45 If this person has fully bought into the idea

1:04:47 that you are a toxic person, you are unsafe,

1:04:50 and you know that, then what we say in the book

1:04:52 is kind of counterintuitive for a lot of Christians

1:04:55 where we say, look, it's okay to back off.

1:04:57 It's okay to back off, just try to stay in their life.

1:05:00 Live the beauty of the gospel.

1:05:01 Don't compromise your own convictions.

1:05:03 You never have to compromise what you believe

1:05:05 or be forced to lie or affirm something

1:05:07 that you don't affirm.

1:05:09 But it's okay to back off

1:05:10 and not try to fix their theology over coffee

1:05:12 because this didn't happen over coffee.

1:05:14 It's probably not gonna get fixed over coffee.

1:05:16 So it's okay to back off.

1:05:17 And that's counterintuitive for a lot of Christians

1:05:19 'cause we're fixers, we wanna fix people.

1:05:22 If that's the case.

1:05:23 Now, there are other cases like the person in my life

1:05:25 who's very open and will even ask me

1:05:28 to pray for them sometimes.

1:05:29 And when they're not sure they believe God exists,

1:05:31 but they're open and there's an open dialogue.

1:05:34 That's a different scenario.

1:05:36 So diagnose the relationship.

1:05:38 And so we talk through some of these things,

1:05:40 but the one I get more than any, Kyle,

1:05:43 is the elderly couple with the grownup children.

1:05:45 And so I'll maybe address that one.

1:05:47 There have been so many people, like I said,

1:05:49 even get no contact letters.

1:05:51 I just met a lady a couple weeks ago

1:05:54 who her daughter basically has her over a barrel.

1:05:57 She says, okay, I'm not gonna have relationship with you

1:06:00 because you're toxic and unsafe.

1:06:02 I'll let you have relationship with my daughter.

1:06:04 And she's even letting the grandmother

1:06:05 take her granddaughter to church.

1:06:07 But the daughter said, the minute anybody

1:06:09 mentions the word hell, you're done.

1:06:11 You're never gonna see her again.

1:06:13 So she's got her mom over a barrel.

1:06:15 Like, oh my gosh, in Sunday school they mentioned hell.

1:06:18 I'm never gonna see my daughter again.

1:06:20 So these are very, very tough relationship dynamics

1:06:24 to go through.

1:06:25 And so what we also encourage people to do

1:06:28 is it's okay to back off, just stay in their life.

1:06:30 I have somebody in my life who it's been 10 years

1:06:32 where I have backed off.

1:06:33 And we don't talk about religion.

1:06:35 They've made that boundary clear.

1:06:36 They don't wanna talk about it.

1:06:37 So we talk about the weather.

1:06:38 That's what we do.

1:06:39 That's the extent of our relationship

1:06:41 'cause I honor that boundary.

1:06:43 But in the case of the grandparent,

1:06:46 there are gonna be situations

1:06:48 in which you may lose relationships

1:06:50 with your kids and grandkids.

1:06:51 And this is a good time to remind ourselves

1:06:54 of the scripture where Jesus said,

1:06:55 you have to, the word is sometimes translated

1:06:57 into English as hate, but it means prefer one over the other.

1:07:00 You have to prefer God over your children,

1:07:03 over your grandchildren, over your spouses,

1:07:05 over your earthly relationships.

1:07:07 And I think that's been very theoretical

1:07:09 for a lot of people until this kind of deconstruction

1:07:13 explosion.

1:07:14 This is now kind of what's real.

1:07:16 And we may be forced to say, okay, I choose the Lord.

1:07:20 I choose my relationship with Jesus,

1:07:22 even over these other relationships.

1:07:24 Now again, if it's up to you,

1:07:25 you don't wanna break that relationship.

1:07:27 But in many cases, the person in deconstruction

1:07:30 will break that relationship with you.

1:07:31 And if they have done that,

1:07:33 that's a good opportunity to assess your own spiritual life

1:07:36 and pray, don't underestimate the power that you have.

1:07:40 You've not lost all control when you can pray

1:07:43 for your loved ones.

1:07:44 And we hear stories of people's moms and grandma,

1:07:49 grandma's who have prayed for them for 20 years

1:07:51 before they come to the Lord.

1:07:53 So hold out hope, there is hope.

1:07:56 And God's sovereign, this is not taking him by surprise.

1:07:59 It's not like he's like, oh, everybody's leaving in the faith.

1:08:01 What do I do?

1:08:02 I mean, he's, I think he's maybe laying the seedbed

1:08:05 to bring people back to him who never were with him

1:08:08 to begin with, who knows what he's up to,

1:08:10 but let's stay faithful to him.

1:08:12 Let's do what we can to keep the relationship

1:08:15 with those who are in deconstruction in our lives.

1:08:17 Pray and live the beauty of the gospel out in front of them

1:08:20 because I'm telling you that deconstruction space

1:08:24 is so dark, so toxic.

1:08:26 There's no pot of gold at the end of that rainbow.

1:08:29 And when they get to the bottom and discover that,

1:08:32 there's a really good chance they're gonna come back to you

1:08:34 because they see the beauty of truth

1:08:36 of the gospel lived out in your life.

1:08:38 - I've told a lot of people before, excuse me,

1:08:41 is to make sure you're the right category of friend.

1:08:44 'Cause they're the fun friends.

1:08:46 They're the friends that you wanna be,

1:08:48 the bridesmaid or groomsmen in your wedding.

1:08:50 These are the friends that you call when there's a party,

1:08:51 when everybody needs to get together and do something fun.

1:08:54 But when the chips are down and your life's falling apart,

1:08:56 that's not the friend you're gonna go to

1:08:57 'cause that's a goofball.

1:08:59 They're the fun button, right?

1:09:01 You need to be that friend that maybe is the challenger,

1:09:03 maybe pushes people a little bit,

1:09:05 maybe isn't always the most nicer polite.

1:09:07 But when the chips are down,

1:09:09 that's gonna be, they're gonna run to you as fast as they can.

1:09:12 The name of the book is the deconstruction of Christianity.

1:09:15 It's a fantastic read.

1:09:16 Guys, it is out now if you're listening to this on time.

1:09:18 But before I let you go, what are you working on now?

1:09:20 What's the next book?

1:09:22 What's the next project?

1:09:23 Because I don't believe you that you're taking time off,

1:09:25 get out of here with that mess.

1:09:27 - Right now, I am working on not writing a book right now.

1:09:31 That's what I'm working on.

1:09:32 Oh man, honestly, I've just gotten off sabbatical,

1:09:37 so I've been enjoying perfecting my bread recipes,

1:09:39 making lots of bread and brioche

1:09:42 and all sorts of fun stuff.

1:09:43 Maybe it's a cookbook.

1:09:44 Maybe it'll be a cookbook in a couple years, I don't know.

1:09:46 I would love to do that. - Okay, all right.

1:09:48 - That's a little bit of a left turn, but I might.

1:09:50 - Hey, you know, so was Zoe girl to what you're doing now,

1:09:53 so why don't you just yank the wheel into the guardrails again?

1:09:56 But is this bread ship well?

1:09:59 I mean, asking for a friend, does it--

1:10:01 - Absolutely, yes, I will ship you some.

1:10:05 - Oh, well, thanks for the offer.

1:10:06 I wasn't even thinking about that.

1:10:07 Yes, sure.

1:10:08 I would love to have some bread.

1:10:09 No, Elisa, it is always a pleasure.

1:10:11 You're an absolute peach in this movement.

1:10:13 I just love the fact that you're doing what you're doing.

1:10:15 You're hitting a very specific audience

1:10:16 in a very specific way.

1:10:18 We need about a thousand more of you,

1:10:19 but we're glad that we have you.

1:10:21 We'll see you next time.

1:10:22 - Thanks, Kyle.

1:10:24 - There you go, guys.

1:10:25 I hope you enjoyed the return appearance

1:10:26 of Elisa Childers on our show.

1:10:27 But before we let you go,

1:10:28 we are gonna do a quick resilience boost.

1:10:30 Out of Daunted Life, our mission is equipping men

1:10:32 to push back darkness with content

1:10:33 that forges spiritual, mental, and physical resilience.

1:10:36 So in the notes here,

1:10:37 I've got the link to the new book,

1:10:39 The Deconstruction of Christianity.

1:10:40 I've also got the Study Guide link in here

1:10:42 so you guys can check that out.

1:10:43 That comes out a little bit later.

1:10:44 I've got links to her other books

1:10:46 that she has a release that we've talked about here

1:10:48 on the show and then links to her website, Instagram,

1:10:50 channel, socials, her previous appearances on the show

1:10:53 and all those things there.

1:10:54 You can just check it out there.

1:10:56 Thank you guys so much for listening to this episode.

1:10:57 Wherever you're listening to this,

1:10:59 please subscribe, rate, and leave us a positive five-star review.

1:11:02 If you want to come speak live at your event

1:11:03 or on your podcast to shoot me an email

1:11:05 to info@undaunton.life,

1:11:07 that's i-n-f-o@undaunton.life.

1:11:10 Follow us on Instagram and like us on Facebook

1:11:12 and check out our website for everything else,

1:11:13 including how to donate to keep more content

1:11:15 like this coming your way.

1:11:16 Just go to www.undaunton.life

1:11:19 and also we want to thank the band Holy Name

1:11:21 for allowing us to use their music for our content.

1:11:24 The music on this podcast is our song Perpetua,

1:11:26 which is off their self-titled debut album

1:11:28 on FaceDown Records.

1:11:29 The links are in the description.

1:11:31 I'm your host, Kyle Thompson.

1:11:33 Remember, keep pushing back darkness,

1:11:36 keep forging spiritual, mental, and physical resilience.

1:11:39 Keep seeking the lion of Judah.

1:11:42 (upbeat music)