JOHN WEST | Stockholm Syndrome Christianity (Ep. 808)

[Music] This is Undaunted Life, a man's podcast. I'm your host, Kyle Thompson. Let's get into it. All right, guys. We got a special guest on the podcast today. His name is John West. He is an author and filmmaker and he is the vice president of Discovery Institute in Seattle. So he has actually written or edited 13 books and he's directed 12 documentaries. So he's got a new book out right now. It is called Stockholm Syndrome Christianity: Why Christian Leaders Are Failing and What We Can Do About It. And so this book really delves into a lot of the subject matters that we talk about specifically on the show. But it comes because he used to work for and send his kids to an historically Christian university that he saw slowly slowly slowly slowly move away from biblical orthodoxy and then orthopraxy and just started doing things that were completely contrary to what we see in the Bible. We do talk a little bit at the beginning about the homelessness issue that we have here in this country because again living in Seattle he's right there in the thick of it. And so we talk a little bit about that but then when we get into the discussion of the book okay what is Stockholm syndrome? what is Stockholm syndrome Christianity at least in his parliament. And then we looked at some of the causes uh in terms or the symptoms I guess you could call them. So some of the symptoms being like hey we're merely human. Uh you we need to unhitch from the Old Testament. We definitely get into a discussion of Andy Stanley. We also talk about secular scientists and also people that are Christian scientists. Francis Collins who's one of kind of the main villains uh if you will of this book and then how we've capitulated to culture as Christians to the sexual revolution to the LGBTQ plus revolution but also on the issue of race and then we spend a little bit of time towards the end talking about okay so what can we do about all this? So it's one of the better books that I've read this year. I'm excited to bring this interview to you. So without further ado, let's get into it. John West, welcome to Undaunted Life of Man's podcast. >> Kyle, thanks for having me. >> I'm excited to chat with you today. I mean, you've already got uh your marketing squared away because the cover of your book is right over your right shoulder, but don't worry guys, we are going to get to the book and what that wolf is doing there looking all meanike. But you are currently the vice president of Discovery Institute in Seattle. And so I actually want to start my discussion there because I think some people may at least be tangentially aware of Discovery Institute and kind of the work that y'all do there. But specifically, what is the institute there for and how did you end up there? What do you all do? >> Yeah, so thanks for asking. So, it's a nonprofit what's known as a think tank. It's probably most notorious uh for our program that I helped co-ound uh called the center for science and culture, which deals with evidence of intelligent design in nature. You know, that we're not just the product of blind and random processes. And so, that sort of unguided Darwinism is is not right. and also that we have souls and that also we do a little bit about scientism and the abuse of science that we saw during co for example uh so that's sort of the center for science and culture we do do other things so we were actually one of our co-founders was a guy named George Gilder who back in the Reagan years was known for supply side economics so we do some things on the economic side and we do more recently some things dealing with the homelessness crisis which at least if you're on the west coast >> is sort of a pand pandemic of its own where our cities have been taken over largely by the mentally ill, the criminal, uh the drug users, and uh we're really seeing the decline and decay of America every day that we go. You know, later today I'm going to be driving to Seattle in my office there. And that's an adventure every day I go in. >> Yeah. It's like you're driving into a jungle filled with needles and poop on the sidewalks. But speaking of needles and poop on the sidewalk, you talked about the homelessness crisis. I haven't heard a lot of coverage of this, John, and this is coming out uh a little bit after our time of recording, but recently Trump uh put an executive order out there basically saying, and you'll know exactly what I'm talking about. I'm trying to set it up for the audience because it was basically saying it was uh saying vagrancy is is okay, this is recriminalized. Yes, we can put somebody that is mentally ill, uh, that has serious drug abuse and drug issues, which is what a lot of these homeless folks are are underneath unfortunately. And yes, we can commit them, uh, against their will, which is essentially because, again, you you'll know the history of it, but I mean, a long time ago, we basically did away with that. Like, basically, it's kind of like a voluntary thing, and it was just kind of like, oh, it'd be really nice if you came in here and didn't, you know, shoot up on the sidewalk and, you know, defecate there in front of kids walking to school. But what what if you could kind of give our audience the actual like professional explanation of it and maybe your thoughts on it. >> Well, thanks for for noting that because in fact that executive order largely reflected the work of our homelessness project and followed a lot of our recommendations and there was sort of so we're very pleased by that. But so the the real problem is something that was adopted a number of years ago, I think under the Obama administration called housing first, which sounds nice, which is, you know, before doing anything else, let's just just get housing. It's just homelessness is a housing problem. Well, the the truth is anyone who knows anything about this is housing is is an effect. It's not the cause of the problem. That the people most of the people that you see on the street certainly in LA, in San Francisco, in uh in Seattle, and elsewhere are drug addicts or mentally ill or somehow other have deep dysfunction. And so if all you do is give them a place to live to shoot up, what you basically do is create an apartment complex that no one else can live at because it becomes overrun with drug use and crime and you're not really helping them. And so yes, we should provide housing, but the problem with housing first as opposed to treatment first, you know, if they have a drug problem, they have to get treated. And if they're not going to, we're not going to provide them with all these other things. uh or and you know criminal justice first and you know substance abuse and those are the things that need to be dealt with first and so the the Trump executive order is getting back to sanity um you know even here's an indication that some people should realize that things really have gotten awful and this is not compassionate what we're doing is even in good economic times now we've had spiraling homeless populations so this idea that well you know the economy isn't great or people losing their jobs, that's why they're homeless. Okay, yes, there are always exceptions, but when you're talking about the the majority of the people who especially the long-term intractable homelessness, >> that's not because of employment. It's not because, you know, they were, you know, lost their job and have to live out of their car. It's because they're fentinyl addicts. It's because they're mentally ill. It's because they have deep things that need to be treated. And so, finally, we're getting back to that. Well, John, I think long-term is the key because I've heard of folks and there are these great success stories of people that they did lose their job. They didn't have enough of of a nest egg saved up. So, there was a temporary time where they were sleeping in their car. And so, are they technically in terms of the binary homeless or unhoused? Yes, of course they were. But these were people that that was a temporary state. This wasn't like, okay, I'm going to set up shop underneath a underpass or in this wooded area and this is just where I live now. Now, this this may seem uh a little rough for some people, not for people that listen to my show, but you know, I look at prisons as punishment facilities, whereas a lot of people look at prisons as, oh, we're going to fix these people. Like, we're we're going to, you know, we're going to teach them things, they're going to get high school diplomas or GEDs, and then they're going to come out of after hanging out with criminals potentially for decades, they're going to come out as well adjusted citizens, which does happen, but a lot of times they just become really, really good at crime. And so for me, prison is to keep you away from me and mine, right? You're too dangerous because of your decision-making to be in polite society. I feel the same thing could be said for folks like this that unfortunately, for whatever reason, either the the cards they were dealt with with, you know, mental health issues or the decisions that they've made to continue using drugs over and over and over. It's almost like should the government, federal government or state governments otherwise be able to I mean when you say round these people up, people get real nervous, but like could there be almost like an alligator Alcatraz for these types of people to where homeless people aren't allowed to just be spread out throughout the entire country, most of whom are in California because of the weather um and because of the policies locally. But would it not be better for these people for them to be rounded up and put in like a treatment facility or some area where they're not around the rest of the population? Right? It's not because all these people are inherently dangerous, but they are inherently bad for a healthy society. No. >> Well, I think they actually are. A lot of them are inherently dangerous depending on what they're doing and the levels of crime and things that are associated with with long-term homelessness. But yeah, so I I I think it's it's a multiaceted problem. I'm glad that you did point out yes there are people who have temporary problems who actually the normal social service things actually does help helps them so that they can have you know most people by the way if they lose a job if if they have a larger family or social structure the next thing isn't to go into your car is to go with your friends or family and so even there if you don't have that social safety net then then something's already broken and um but but yes for for the people who are temporarily homeless, if you will, because of a life event. We have things that can help that. The problem is the long-term homeless really, that's not the main thing. And so, yes, for some of them, the hardcore, you are going to have to commit them. But I also think what we've seen in a lot of places that once you start putting standards and saying, you know, no more free money, no more turning a blind eye to your encampments, we are going to raise it. we are going to uh not give you free money unless you accept treatment. People can make choices and what you will find is you don't actually because I I don't like large scale commitment and things but actually I don't think you need to do that. It's you actually do need to have standards that if you're going to get money and help, you have to actually cooperate with it. If not, you're not getting it. And you also need to make sure that no, we're not going to allow you to create a homeless encampment permanently on the street. and do all these other things. And when you do that, people make choices. I, you know, I know in in Seattle, the studies have shown that a lot of the increased homeless population, they're not just from Seattle, they come from all over because we're not as nice of weather as California, but we're fairly mild, rainy, but uh fairly mild. And also, if you get free money and free stuff and and you can use publicly shoot up and you're not going to be hauled into jail for breaking the law, why not come here? I mean, we have people who come from all across the nation. And so, if you establish local standards, what they what used to be common sense, a lot of the problem begins to take care of itself. Now, I think for the hardest core uh you know, especially hardest core mentally ill, you you will have to use commitment laws. And I think those should be used sparingly, but right now we're not even doing any sort of basic standards. >> Yeah. I don't um I don't know that I would even say sparingly to be honest just because uh you know even recently when you see a violent group of thugs beating up uh people in major cities and all that. I I love when sociologists and people talk to me about how uh sentencing is not a deterrent. Right. Well, if you assault someone violently on the street and your sentence is non-existent or 6 months in jail, yeah, it's not a deterrent. But if you and a bunch of your stupid gangbanger friends beat up an innocent couple and steal their car and wallets and watches on the street and you go to prison for 20 years, that's going to be a deterrent. And then I love when people talk about how the death penalty, which we're not going to get into a capital punishment discussion. We got a lot of ground to cover with the book, but it's like people like, "Oh, well, all the studies show studies show experts say that this doesn't have any deterrent, right, on on people." Well, maybe it's not a deterrent because you're executing people 30 or 40 years after they've committed the horrible heinous crime. So, the American taxpayer, their local taxpayers had to pay for that person to live in three squares a day for decade after decade after decade, appeal after appeal after appeal. And then we're still supposed to feel bad at the end of the rainbow when yeah, we do actually inject them with something and then everyone starts to freak out like, "Oh, the injection didn't work out perfectly." And it's like, "Oh, this person shouldn't feel a little bit of discomfort before they're taken off of this planet." I just don't really understand. It's like it's like toxic empathy as which is a term that's floating around quite a bit. >> Yeah. You know, I I I think actually the death penalty is a is a good thing. Um regardless of how much of a deterrent is, the major reason for the death penalty is it's just correct. >> It's right. If you've taken someone's innocent life, uh especially intentionally, but if you you've taken someone's innocent life, the just dessert is for your life to be taken. And so it's, you know, regardless of how much deterrence it is or isn't, first of all, you eliminate that person from ever committing crimes again. Uh but also it's just it's not just you know I don't believe in doing anything just because uh you know the the biggest good for the biggest people no matter what or just utilitarian ethics but it's just and the people who claim otherwise are wrong. >> Yeah, I would I would certainly agree with that. But we do need to get into your book here. I've teed it up enough at this point. But here is the book. It's called Stockholm Syndrome Christianity. Why Christian leaders are failing and what we can do about it. So let's just start generically. 30,000 foot view. Why this book? Why now? Why you? >> Yeah. So, uh I really for a long time I think a lot a lot of conservative Christian and conservative Christian men, we look at the culture and it's going into the sewer. And it's easy to blame, oh, the big bad atheists, the big bad progressives. And don't get me wrong, I think they are big bad and doing bad things. But the more I began to look, uh, the more I saw that many sincerely, you know, personal Christians who think Jesus is their savior, they go to church. So, we're not just talking about people who are just cultural Christians, but people are personally, in some sense, devout Christians. We're actually mouthing many of the same talking points as the rest of culture and actively facilitating uh the the same things that the secularists and the progressives were doing. And so and and these are pastors, these are uh college professors at Christian universities where I was at a Christian university for 12 years. I had tenure, chaired a department. Uh there are Christian politicians who wear their faith on their sleeve. There are the leaders of the scientific community. They're in the media. And so I began to ask, well, we need to get our own act together. If if we want the culture to be better than it is, uh it's, you know, we can attack atheists all we want or progressives all we want, but if our own leadership in our own community is actually facilitating the same terrible things, how can we expect anyone outside of, you know, the Christian community to do any better? So, that was sort of the kernel that sort of that I really wanted to take with. And why me? I mean I I can't claim lots of great uh stuff but I I do think I have some perspective. So when I was at a historically emphasize historically evangelical Christian university for 12 years that gave me some insight into where uh you know the people who train the next generation of evangelical leaders you know what's happening there. And then in my work at Discovery Institute that we deal with intelligent Zion, we deal with a lot of uh Christian and other leaders uh dealing with faith and science. And uh I'm sure we'll get to people like Francis Collins later. And so I think I have some perspective on that because we were raising alarms on some of the things that were happening you know well before co I mean you know 20 years ago and many people didn't want to listen. So I I do think I in my interactions and then also just at a personal level, I've been ordained as an elder in two different Presbyterian denominations and so I've also served in local congregations in a way where I see some of this stuff uh infecting things. >> Yeah. I mean the the nexus of much of your work seems to be your u I guess attachment to and subsequent separation from Seattle Pacific University. And then Yeah. I mean you're you're elucidating it there. I was a little nervous when I was reading the intro of the book cuz you you weren't naming names. You were alluding to people and I'm literally writing in the margins the people's names. I'm like I know what he's talking about. Name names. But then don't worry guys, he does end up naming names. But a quote from the beginning of the book kind of sets up the rest of our discussion. Those of us who are Christians are often often regard atheists, agnostic agnostics, and secularists as prime movers of America's cultural collapse. Without question, they have helped spur our country's descent into chaos, anger, loneliness, and despair. But we need to face an uncomfortable truth. Christians who aid a bet and even encourage the rejection of historic Christian teachings are also playing a key role in our disintegration. But before we even get into some of the things because you break up the book into three sections, symptoms, causes, and cures. And so we're going to kind of go into that breakdown a little bit. >> There are some people that don't know what Stockholm syndrome is. Okay. And so we need to do some definitional work. What is Stockholm syndrome? Where did that come from? And then what is Stockholm syndrome Christianity at least in your parliament? >> Right. So, Stockholm syndrome goes back to uh a bank robbery in the 1970s in Stockholm, Sweden. Hence, Stockholm syndrome, where uh a couple people with submachine guns took bank tellers and bank staff hostage for a number of days. Okay, that has happened before. What was strange here is after the first several days, the hostages started to bond with their captives. thought that they were nice young men and that they were grateful that they weren't say shooting them in the head and they were great and they again started having these warm fuzzy feelings toward their captors and so the Stockholm syndrome was coined and it's I want to say it's controversial in this in the psychological community and so I'm using it because I think it describes what I'm seeing in the Christian community which we'll get to in a moment but the idea is that sometimes people who are held captive or in an abusive situation can end up adopting the point of view of their chapters. And so how does this apply to the Christian community? Well, in my colleagues at the university I was at uh in my work actually at Discovery with various Christian leaders and stuff, it really became clear that there are a lot of in the especially in the evangelical Christian community. This is also true among Catholics. Um but it it is were these leaders who end up really adopting the point of view of I'd say our cultural captives. And so if you are say a Christian in some sense of leadership, chances are both in college or grad school or in your career, you have been surrounded by people who basically hate Christianity. They may not hate you. They may be personally nice, but their world view is quite alien to Orthodox Christianity. And one thing that some Christians when they're in that situation can take from it is that they can end up adopting the worldview of those people around them. And so this is where I'm getting at. You know, there are sellouts. There are, you know, cowards and and some of that is involved in the stuff I'm talking about. But I'm talking about you have Christians who actually sincerely think, you know, they sincerely follow Jesus. You know, he's their savior. And they think they're being courageous when they're in fact aping the talking points of the secular progressives. And how do you get to the point where you actually think you're being courageous when you're actually sort of selling out your faith? Uh, and so that's what I was sort of getting at. People who personally are nice. They may be, you know, sincere Christians at some level, but they are acting like, you know, they're really embracing the ideology of their cultural captives. >> Well, and they think they're courageous, but also they think they're morally virtuous, and that becomes problematic as well. And and also it's just almost like they get high on their own farts. Like, yes, you're a smart person. you speak well, but then it's like, is it possible you could be wrong about this? There's like no intellectual honesty uh w with a lot of these folks. But when we get into the symptoms, the first symptom you talk about is merely human. And this is where you start really getting into it and naming names. And so, everyone's going to be familiar with this one on my show. Let's read this quote here. In recent years, Andy Stanley has been arguing that Christians are making the Bible too central to their faith, especially the Old Testament. In his book, I irresistible from 2018 and related sermons, Stanley has urged Christians to unhitch Christianity from the Old Testament, which he thinks would be better described as the obsolete testament. The day the devaluation of scripture, both the Old Testament and the New, is foundational to all other elements of Stockholm syndrome Christianity. It's both symptom and cause. And such is our first topic of discussion. And so we're going to start there with our discussion because as you pointed out in the book, if you get rid of the Old Testament because God seems like a meanie mean pants and there's a bunch of awkward things in there. Holy cow, you should read the New Testament because there's some meanie mean pants stuff in there that you probably don't want to, you know, put up on a wall or on a bumper stick or on a t-shirt or coffee mug. And so I've railed on Andy Stanley a lot on this show. I've talked about how I used to be the biggest fan of Andy Stanley. Like I I loved him and the stuff that he said and it's just weird. There are sermons that I go back and listen to now or listen to clips now like oh my gosh it was right there Gracie meets Truthy and he's talking about the sinfulness of of this couple like in terms of divorce but not in terms of homosexuality and then you got the unhitched stuff and all the the like I feel like Trump kind of broke his brain. I feel like he got a decent dose of Trump derangement syndrome uh that started back in 2016 and it just continued a pace from there. But he seems like one of the main villains of this entire thing. Not just because he's a heretic, but because of the gravitational pull his ministry has and the sheer number of people that love him, like him, and think he's smart and just parrot the things or ape the things that he says. I'll let you go. >> Yeah, I think Andy Stanley is a key figure. If you, you know, go to his own personal website, he touts how he is training for leadership hundreds, if not thousands of pastors around the world. And so I talk about in the book when I was a pres elder at a Presbyterian church, we were assigned to read his readings. So Andy Stanley is Baptist, but his his uh influence goes way beyond Baptist. And so yeah, I think he is a key figure and I do think this this idea um you know a lot of my book I should say is not about what I consider politics although I'm pretty conservative when it comes to politics, but there's a reason for that. First of all, I wanted to deal with the things I think were most foundational. And the the reason I start with the view of the Bible, especially if you're an evangelical Christian, um this is supposed to be your bedrock. This is supposed to be your guide star. And once you start giving that up, then usually when I when I know people personally, it's that's what starts it. Once you start doing that, then everything else follows. And so that's why I want to start with that. That's why I think people like Andy Stanley, it's not just Andy Stanley, you know, I talk about when I was at Seattle Pacific, um, you know, people coming, you know, students, I was a political science professor, but students coming in who were advises sort of traumatized by what they were getting from our, uh, Bible and theology department where they were preaching things like that God doesn't know the future. Well, I don't know what type of Bible you read or whether you're Protestant, Catholic, or Eastern Orthodox, the universal teaching of the church has been that God is sovereign and is omnisient and knows the future. And so, when you start telling students that, well, no, God can only know the things that can be known and you can't know the future, so he couldn't know the future. That's just flatout heresy. And it's it's damaging to students. I saw the damage to students. Similarly, we had students who would learn, you know, they teach, well, the Bible, the Old Testament, the New Testament. you can't really trust what it says historically or it's not really an accurate account of things. And so people's lives were destroyed. And this was, you know, another reason for me, although I was there for 12 years, it was heartbreaking. We had parents and families who mortgaged their future and went into huge amounts of debt to send their kids to this private, you know, Christian liberal arts university thinking that they were getting this faith integration when in fact, depending on the professor, the students, I would say, were being propagandized out of Orthodox Christianity. And that was that disconnect between what we were actually doing and what we were selling. In fact, it was really odd because while I was there, they did a marketing study that said, "Well, we need to be more intently Christian in our marketing." And so, while I was there, they marketed more intentionally, became more Christian in their marketing, while what was actually happening in the classroom and the quality of the people we were hiring became, in my view, less and less Christian. >> Hey guys, real quick, I know a lot of you guys struggle with getting a consistent workout routine. 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Uh this is a a historically Baptist university, oldest university in the state of Texas. And this is a university that purports to be Christian private. And yet, when you hear some of the things the people on their staff say, these pe these people are atheists. These people are progq. Like, not just pro the people, like, hey, we love them. we want them to get saved, but pro all their their life decisions, regardless of what uh what it says and how it comports with uh with holy scripture. And I think that that's part of the problem is just as a society in general, as Christians in general, we're just biblically illiterate. We're flat out biblically illiterate. So you have these kids whose parents made money and sent them to private K through 12 Christian school because they didn't really want to deal with disciplehip and home Bible studies and all that. Hey, we'll let the professionals do it. And then they saved a bunch of money, right? they mortgage the future and they send them to a quote unquote Christian university because they just want to like plug their ears and cover their eyes and just assume their kids is going to come out on the other end, not a purple-haired uh you know nose- ringed weirdo. And so like that that's part of the thing that I think a lot of families have woken up to, especially you know co one of the best downstream consequences of that is what are our kids learning in school? Wait, I can't just send them to school and not pay attention to the stuff that they're doing. Like because my kid came home with the the gingerbread man and he's six and he's being asked what gender he feels like today. Okay, I I got to like get into this. And also, we need to vet the private Christian schools we send our kids to. Just because they have a cross in the lobby doesn't mean they're Christian doesn't mean they hold the Christian values. Doesn't mean that they even hire Christians. Like Baylor University, there is no statement of faith that you have to sign to work there, right? There's no code of conduct that you have to like be uh you know party to uh in order to work there at Baylor University. And they're certainly not the only ones. You name some more in the book. And you you mentioned a guy earlier and this does kind of come around to a lot of the work that you've done in the world of science. But Francis Collins is obviously a very big uh villain kind of in the secularist science area. So we'll tee up the discussion with a quote from the book here. Because so many scientists continued to reject unguided natural selection as an adequate explanation for living things, Christians in the 19th century who embraced evolution were able to argue for a kind of theistic evolution where God himself continued to direct the development of all life according to his preconceived plan and where humans represented the intentional and unique culmination of God's creative activity. However, the landscape of scientific and cultural opinion changed dramatically in the 20th century. Darwin's theory received an infusion from the rising disciple or discipline of genetics, giving birth to what became known as neodyarwinism. Neodyarwinism proposed that random mutations in genes provided the accidental variations natural selection needed to build new life forms. Like Darwin's original theory, neodyarwinism emphasized the emergence and development of life as part of an impersonal and unintelligent process. So to kind of tee up your discussion a little bit here, this is one of the subjects that me personally I just don't really care that much about. Kind of like I get told all the time, Kyle, you need to have a debate on your show with a young earth person and an old earth person. I'm like, I think I'd rather peel off my toenails with a pliers because I don't care because I've listened to those debates. Neither person is swayed by the other person's evidence or opinions and neither is anybody in the audience, right? And I feel like that's one of those things like, oh, the earth is 6,000 years old. all the everything's billions and billions of years old. We're going to get to heaven someday if we're there and we're going to clink our glasses together and it's going to be like, "All right, John was right." Or, "Hey, Tim was right." Or whoever was right. Who freaking cares? It's kind of the same thing with this is like, "How did we get from Adam and Eve as described in the Bible, which you know, someone like William Lane Craig says is mytho history. It's not it's not a taxonomy book. It's not a biology book. It's not a history book to today. It's just not really that exciting to me. The thing that is exciting to me or important to me I guess I should say John is that people are undercutting what the Bible is clear about so that it fits within the framework or rubric of Darwinism or neodyarwinism or Christian scientism or something like that. So there's a lot there. Take it wherever you like to go. >> I I I think you're you're wise to to point out that there can be a lot of different views among faithful Christians. I I think um like the age of the earth and I I know there are people who disagree. I I have to say it's kind of funny because this book um Ken Ham of Answers in Genesis actually before a a taped uh event of like several hundred people held up my book and basically attacked it because I acknowledge that I'm not young earth. I I actually think there's age of the earth. What he didn't mention is on the page that I say that I'm actually defending young earth people from being from being discriminated against uh by the government. And so I was just pointing out that I wasn't doing that because I was actually young earth. But having said that, I do think there is a really foundational issue here. And it really is the issue is did however God do it. Did are we the product of purpose and intention? And this is a debate that goes back to the very beginnings of of civilization even you know before Christianity and before Judaism. Is nature the product of design of an intelligent creator or is it just the product of random and blind, you know, processes? And what many people don't realize, Darwin wasn't just primarily about age issues. It wasn't even primarily just about common descent, you know, that we were descended from uh ape-like creatures. It was that you didn't need a real creator to do it because this blind natural selection could mimic a creator without a creator. And then in our own day, people like Richard Dawkins at Oxford University, the so-called new atheists of the 1990s and early 2000s, they ran with gusto on that. And many Christians trying to make their peace with with that came up with all sorts of somersaults to do that. So this is where, you know, I already mentioned this idea that God doesn't know the future. Well, many of the people who argue that say, well, that that's why God doesn't even know how evolution is going to turn out or how the history of life is going to turn out. We could I was actually once in a debate with Ken Miller who's a biologist at Brown University, still is a a devout Catholic, but he argued that evolution was so blind that we could have turned out to be a thinking clam or a big brain dinosaur or us and God didn't know which. >> Well, I'm sorry that's not true. >> Yeah. >> And it's not even true. It's not true scientifically, let alone scripturally. And so a lot of the and Francis Collins, Francis Collins, if you read his book, The Language of God, that the odd thing about the language of God, a lot of people when Francis Collins ended up on Time magazine, you had a lot of Christians gravitate toward him because sort of out of an inferiority complex, they thought, "Oh, here's this scientist who did stuff with the Human Genome Project. He's on the cover of Time magazine. So, he makes us feel like we don't have to be, you know, uh, feel down about ourselves and feel insecure about Christians. But they didn't actually read his book. The book, the language of God, the language of God actually is a term Bill refers to something Bill Clinton said when the human genome project was sort of decoded, which Collins was involved in in directing. And, you know, maybe DNA is the language of God. The really strange thing is that that book really argues the opposite. It argues that DNA is riddled with functionsless junk DNA and that only a blind process like Darwinian evolution could have put that there. Now, since the book has come out, turns out that that claim that we're, you know, dominated by junk DNA has been exploded. And actually it was people some of my colleagues in the intelligence eye movement who were actually making that argument in the 1990s while Francis Collins into the 2000s was was staking his reputation on junk DNA that turned out to be completely false. But in any case um the and so the language of God is is is if anything God is illiterate according to that book. Now Collins I think did realize that saying that that God doesn't you know know what's happening in the future is is a bridge too far for many people. So he offers another another solution in his book. Well, you know, if you can't just believe that God didn't know, well, maybe God knew, but he knew secretly and he made things look random and undirected. Okay. Well, I guess that's slightly more better. But the Bible clearly teaches, the Christian tradition clearly teaches, science clearly shows that there is evidence of design and purpose. From the fine-tuning the laws of physics that allow us to be here to the molecular machines inside each of our cells at this very moment to the extreme finetuning required in biological organisms to get something like us. So, so I I'd say that, you know, a lot of people didn't, you know, weren't concerned about Collins because they said, well, you know, he's a poster child for evangelical Christianity. it didn't really look like what what he was arguing. And also in that language of God, they didn't pay attention to the appendix where he talked about abortion where he made clear that he didn't know when human life begins, >> which is an astonishing thing to admit as a as a scientist. >> Yes. So, so that and and so what I would say what happened later with Collins which we can get into uh was already there in the early 2000s and and many of us pointed it out but a lot of the evangelical superstructure the leaders they were so smitten by oh we have this worldclass scientist who's on time magazine he makes us feel good to be Christian we don't have to feel that we're yahoos anymore without actually looking at what he was promoting and and they all people also need to realize that he got mega millions from th this this foundation called the Templeton Foundation to basically get Christian pastors to adopt his view on evolution. And so it's not just that fine you want to go out and debate things, but he really didn't want to debate things with other scientists who disagreed with him. But he got a lot of money to whine and dine the top leaders of evangelicalism. talk about this in the book in one-sided private conclaves to try to convince them of his view without anyone on the other side. I can respect someone who's trying to make their argument and then will, you know, give their arguments and take criticism and go back and forth, but Collins has a history of not doing that. And you saw that written large once you got to CO, which we can get to, but >> well, I actually think I want to leave some meat on the bone for people to go and buy the book. Again guys, Stockholm Syndrome Christianity is in the show notes because we could spend the rest of time talking about Francis Collins, but there's there's quite a bit more from the book that I I'd at least like to get into. The thing with that you're bringing up is I think Christians get romance. They want someone cool on the team. They want someone smart on the team. So like it was like when uh Trump people were like, "Oh, Kanye's wearing a MAGA hat." It's like, "Hey, live by the Kanye, die by the Kanye." He made a song called How Hitler. That's problematic, right? Christians when he made a a Christian album. Now he's saying he's not a Christian anymore. But the same thing it the cockshurnness of these scientists to say the the to make the claims like oh yeah this is all just junk DNA okay based on your you know relative to the the scope and time of humanity a pinch of time this much time and you've determined that it's junk DNA and I think part of it is there's a there's a really funny clip from I'm always or it's always sunny in Philadelphia where that kind of elucidates this is for hundreds of years scientists have said trust me I'm smart and the thing is is they are and so people do and then time goes by someone starts their scientific work and research where that person's life ended and then they realize oh wait this was all wrong right I mean you can talk about helioentrism you could talk about you know the the shape and scope and size of the earth you can talk about any and everything but it's like no hey I'm smart just believe me trust me it's trust me bro and it's like if you're in the gym and a guy's you know a jacked guy is like hey here take this vial it'll it'll make you jacked and it's not going to give you any health problems. Trust me, bro. I'm just going to tell you, don't don't trust bro in that moment. And it's kind of that same attitude that's happened within kind of this world of of scientism. But I do want to get into or go ahead, please. >> Well, can I just say the one thing before leaving Francis Collins that I I just really do want to emphasize with people who are concerned about life issues. They need to know Francis Collins's record at the NIH because because he lived out his beliefs, which is he spent millions of tax dollars to harvest aborted baby parts up to like 42 weeks in gestation for medical research to create a nationwide tissue bank of aborted baby parts at the University of Pittsburgh. And this was our most devout evangelical Christian wear on the sleeve scientist, head of the NIH, the most powerful scientist in America for more than a decade. He spent millions of your tax dollars to harvest light late term aborted baby parts to do research and and research like one of the things that the NIH funded with your tax dollars was cutting off the scalps of little babies and grafting them onto mice. And the only reason we know this, by the way, he must have maybe in his heart knew something was going wrong, is that Judicial Watch, this good, you know, watchdog conservative judicial group had to file a lawsuit because the NIH would not actually disclose what I just told you. The other thing that he did spent millions of dollars on while he was at the NIH is being what he called an ally and advocate of the LGBTQ plusa. you know, I can't remember all the the whole alphabet. Uh, and he spent millions of dollars that went to uh hospitals like a hospital in Boston and a researcher in uh California who were doing surgeries on kids to cut off their body parts and who were promoting, you know, pumping them full of chemicals, puberty blockers. And that was funded by Francis Collins. And my point is, some people think, well, let's just get more evangelical Christians in leadership. If if you you can recruit Christians into leadership positions until the cows come home, if they're Stockholm syndrome Christians like Francis Collins, nothing will change. >> And I think the the problematic thing again is you have somebody that's credentialed and you have someone that is supported. But here's also the thing, and I don't want to get too off into the weeds here, but I remember when people assured me that Megan Basham's book, Shepherds for Sale, was was dre. It was trash. You know what? It was actually an attack of the brethren, right? And who attacks the the brethren? Satan does. And so, you don't want to be in league with someone like that. In league with a journalist. Now, my one critique of that book was there were certain paragraphs where she was editorializing and journalisming in the same paragraph. Got to be really, really careful with that. But in total, she was following the money trail on on people like Andy Stanley, on people like JD Greer, on people like uh Francis Collins and some of these other folks to be like and again for any of these types of things or for Stockholm syndrome Christianity to take root, you need two times types of people. The same thing with Marxism, communism, you need useful idiots and you need conscious nefarious actors, right? And so you have a conscious nefarious actor like Andy Stanley, like Francis Collins, and they get a bunch of useful idiots that have followings, right? Perhaps they are shephering a flock as an elder or a lead pastor or something like that. That's when it becomes deeply, deeply problematic. And that's whenever this can spiral out of control when these things take root. Because what if Francis Collins, so let's say Roie Wade isn't overturned. What if Francis Collins's next big public push was on abortion? What if he follows suit with some of these people that have twisted thousands of years old scripture to say, you know what, when they said murder in the Bible, they weren't talking about babies in the womb. Like, that's the only reason why Francis Collins would say publicly, even though I don't believe that he believes this, that we don't know when human life begins. He knows damn well that when a one-sellled egg cell meets a one-sellled sperm cell and creates a one-sellled zygote, that in that very moment, there is a new human life that is taking up space in the universe. And all the DNA is present. We know what color eyes that human being is going to have, the level of melanin in their skin, how tall they're going to be, the color of coarseness of their hair. It's all there in that moment. He knows that. He's pretending like he doesn't. And now he's got droves of people that are following him. I'll give you the last word on Francis Collins before we move on. >> You know, I I I don't attempt to judge the state of Francis Collins's heart. And so I, you know, accept that he believed Jesus as his savior. And but I do think he is a great, not a great example, a terrible example of a a Christian who who reached the heights, if you will, by basically adopting the worldview around him. And probably the saddest epitap I mean he's still alive but the saddest epitap on his public career was written by um I forget it was either Slate or it was one of the liberal journals and I talk about in the book where they basically look back on his career and said you know we were fearful when he was hired because he was this evangelical Christian but basically what they say is we shouldn't have been fearful because he gave us everything we wanted was basically the article. >> Yeah. If I were Francis Collins, I would be absolutely mortified and and sad and that that is what I'm being praised for. >> Absolutely. Well, let let's move on to another thing where uh Christians have made themselves downstream of culture and that's in the the sexual side of things. You already mentioned LGBTQ kind of that whole array of issues. The third symptom you describe in the book is sexual suicide. So, yeah, people like Andy Stanley who will not say that homosexuality is a sin. There are people that have talked privately with him, hey, why do you do these things? There's a lot of training that goes on at North Point Community Church that is actually encouraging transgenderism. I got an email from a couple that used to uh attend and volunteer at uh one of the North Point churches and they had a child who was gender confused and they talked about how the church staff was helping their child transition and they never talked to the parents. Right? This is just an individual person sending me an email because they know I talk about this on the show. But then you have guys who are really giants of the faith. So, uh, Tim Keller, may he rest in peace, was very, very late and very, very squishy on this issue. He just didn't really want to talk about it very much. Is that because he was in New York City? Is that because of book deals? Who the heck knows? Then you have guys like that have been stalwarts of the faith forever, like Alistair Beg, who you talk about in this particular uh book. And he has one of the greatest sermon moments in in the history of sermons, like, "Hey, the man on the middle cross said I could come." Like he he is just a giant. And then he comes out and says, "Well, not only should you attend a gay wedding, but you should take them a present." And then when challenged with that, he decides to double down. This goes back to the cockshess I was talking about earlier, the the lack of humility and intellectual honesty to be like, "Hey, I could actually be wrong about this and maybe I shouldn't encourage Christians to go to a celebration of a sinful union, right?" And not just any sinful union. Like again, I don't think Alistar Beg would tell people they should go to a party celebrating someone's abortion or celebrating someone's divorce. But the closest thing we get on this planet, John, to understanding how God loves us is the fact that Jesus loved his bride enough to where he sacrificed for his bride, which was the church. The closest I can get to understanding that as a man is how I'm supposed to love my wife in a sacrificial way. Not as a one-time thing, but sacrificially at all times and forever more. Right? And so the capitulation on this issue, it comes down to something you talk about in the book as well, John. Winsomeness. We are sacrificing ourselves on the altar of winsomeness. As Vodie Bacham calls it, the 11th commandment, thou shalt be nice. And so we think the Bible's too mean and we think we are more compassionate than the Bible. Right? That's that's what I said with Baylor. They think they could love gay people better than God can. And so let's just talk a little bit about what Christians and especially Christian leaders have done. putting themselves downstream of the sexual issue. >> Yeah, I want to I agree with you know what you've just said and and you certainly see it and a lot of Christians see it in the LGBTQ area, but I intentionally in that chapter of my book start with something else because I think that uh the LGBTQ thing is actually further downstream. It's I think many even self-described conservative Christian churches need to look at what they're actually teaching about marriage and what they're teaching about heterosexual sex. And I uh start with this. Uh many people may remember there was a public kurfluffle just before co I think the year before co uh on this show Bachelorette where you had these two uh in-your-face evangelical Christians Luke Parker and Hannah Brown who were on there and were giving their Christian testimony. Well, but as things went on, it turned out that, you know, Hannah Brown boasted about having a one night stand on the show with contestants who she just met, you know, and and then when she was criticized on that, she basically said, "Oh, well, Jesus still loves me no matter what I do." Well, I do actually think Jesus does love us, but he doesn't, you know, that doesn't give you uh permission to treat his love with tra like trash, which in fact she was doing. Yet she was not she didn't grow up Hannah Brown did not grow up in LA or Seattle. She grew up in Alabama. >> Yeah. >> Houston, we have a problem. And in fact, the latest research out shows that evangelicals under 30 um it's not just that they're having sex outside of marriage. They're having multiple partners. So it's not like shacking up with the person before you're going to get married, which I is wrong, too, but it's like they're having multiple partners. And so this is a problem. And so before I think you know Christians even I think they have to deal with the LGBTQ issues. But the reason we got here is too many Christians in Christian churches seated biblical teaching about marriage. I talk about when I was uh an elder in a a church where we had a number of what I would call unbiblical divorces for unbiblical reasons among leadership. And when my effort to and some of us to sort of get us to focus on that and do things like mentoring uh couples and other things, you to be proactive really um went nowhere. And so I think even a lot of churches that may be strong LGBQ, that's easy because they don't have a lot of of people, you know, LGBTQ in their congregation, they're failing on biblical marriage. And I know there there are legitimate Christian disagreements about what the extent of of of biblical divorces may be, but everyone should be able to agree that no fault divorce at a minimum is not something we should be aspiring to and that we should try as much as possible to strengthen marriages and make clear that they're for you know the long term and you know lifelong and also that uh sex is reserved for marriage and you know that and I think a lot of even conservative Christian churches have given that over. Well, once you give that over, well, then the next step is the LGBTQ. And once you give that over, as we've seen, the the very definition of male and female comes under. And it's sort of it's a natural trajectory. So, the the one thing I'd like, you know, for people to say, well, you know, I'm solid on LGBTQ issues. Well, what is your church doing to maintain healthy marriages and to teach people that sex is reserved for marriage? And I think you're absolutely spot on as far as that pertains because as you were saying that, it reminded me of when Ireland uh legalized abortion years ago and people were sitting around wondering, hey, where's the Catholic Church on this? Well, the Irish public wasn't looking around because this was on the heels of the the sexual assault scandal that was was hidden by uh you know, the Lavender Mafia as it was there at the Vatican and and the entirety of the Catholic Church. And so they had lost their moral standing to grandstand on any other issue in the eyes of the Irish people, right? And that nation's essentially lost in terms of of Christianity. Obviously, the the gospel can penetrate wherever it wants to penetrate, but my goodness, it's it's about as post-Christian as it gets there. Uh and most of most of Europe is that way as well. But the the thing that that I find problematic, especially on this issue, is no one wants to just mention, yeah, you're not allowed to get divorced, right? What if a pastor were just to say, "Uh, wait, so your spouse is still alive, correct?" Yes. Uh, neither one of you have broken the covenant via, uh, you know, having sex outside of this covenant, correct? Well, well, no, that hasn't happened. And neither one of you has abandoned the other, right? Those are the three standards for marriage. So, it's like, oh, you just don't like each other. You fight about money. Uh, no. Uh, you're not allowed to get married and or no, sorry, you're not allowed to get divorced and we're going to help you through this entire process. And also, like that's kind of upstream, right? But downstream, don't marry people in your church that were divorced for previously unbiblical reasons. Like this, this shouldn't be difficult stuff. Is it going to sound mean to an atheist in culture? Yes. Is it going to potentially offend these two, you know, like people that want to get married and but that is your chance to be a shepherd to guide them back to the word of God and say that no, this is not a biblical union. It can't take place at my pulpit. You know what I mean? >> No, you're right. And I I think this is where the rubber meets the road, which is um are you willing to do it and and uphold biblical standards because in your own life and things that actually impact you and your congregations, not just people out there. And uh but I I would just like to emphasize this is for our flourishing. I mean, we're designed by God for lifelong unions and male and female. And out of that comes a lot of good things. And as I talk about in my book, um, you know, Hollywood will tell you that, well, that's, you know, stalifying, that's, you know, uh, repressive. But if you actually look at the social science research, it's unequivocal. >> Yeah. >> If you have a life, if you have kids raised in a lifong, you know, parental union, husband and wife, your kids are much less likely to engage in crime, drug abuse, um, all sorts of bad activities and dysfunctional activities. the the and the even things like sexual satisfaction, you know, there there are always exceptions and nothing is perfect this side of heaven, but lifelong marital unions are engines of social progress and flourishing. And so this is not because God's being mean bumping a union to do. It's because he designed us. He knows how we operate. He knows what it takes for human flourishing. And so it's so it's it's a positive message ultimately. And that's also I think too many Christians buy into the I mean the Hollywood stereotypes of that well being monogamous sexually faithful you know men and women that that is like being shackles on you and that that's somehow repressive. I mean that's giving me a break. The people who are saying that out of Hollywood have messed up lives usually that are just are lives you really wouldn't want to have. The reality is that this leads to flourishing and goodness and satisfaction. >> Yeah. And basically any data point like you you said and I think you elucidated in the book, sociology typically catches up to the Bible to where it's like yes, the best outcome for kids is in a married home with biological mom, biological dad going to church in a low conflict setting, right? And then the these kids don't typically end up becoming ax murderers, right? Like this is not something that we see. And then if you look at the prisons, if you look at the prison population, what is the percentage of those people that did not grow up with fathers in the home, right? And those fathers don't even have to be good. The sociological data proves that as well. They could be crappy fathers, but just their presence has an impact positively on the children overall. Again, there are anecdotes in certain situations that are egregious and horrible that we would never defend, but just speaking, you know, in large terms. Now, we're running a little short on time, so I want to get to one more symptom and then we need to get to, you know, uh some of the things that we can do cuz this is very da. This is very negative. This is very angry right now. But guys, there is hope. But we we do need to talk a little bit about the race issue because obviously evangelicals and Christians uh alike uh certainly have punted on this issue a lot. There's a couple of quotes in the book here. As the year went on, it became evident that many evangelical leaders and churches were relying on secular cultural elites to decide who the legitimate authorities on racism were. And then a little bit later in the chapter, you say this. Even theologically conservative Christian denominations have participated in trying to shut down different voices among faithful Christians on the topic of race. Consider debates in the Southern Baptist Convention, the SPC, over the past few years regarding critical race theory and other ideas joined at the hip to the current anti-racism movement. So, here was the thing. Anti-racist slogans, anti-racist books by Ibram X Kennedy, which Kennedy, which is not his his name, and by uh I forget the other gal, u uh the white fragility gal. Um, and there was all these things that became very very popular and you got guys in these churches reading those books and they're reading the warmth of other sons and they're reading all these different things and you know they're allowing people around them to have standpoint epistemology like oh you have this level of melanin so you must have the secret gnostic knowledge of of what it is that we are doing and what we should be doing. And again this goes back to the conscious nefarious actors and useful idiots thing. When JD Greer was the the president of the Southern Baptist Convention, remember they they kind of snuck the critical race theory stuff in. They didn't want it to go to a floor vote. You talk about that here in the book. And Tom Ascll and other folks are like uh Carol Swain, they were like, "Hold up, wait a minute." Like, "What? Wait, what are we doing?" Like, critical race theory, where did it come from? It came from critical theory. It came from the Frankfurt School. It came from Karl Marx, whose ideologies came from the pits of hell, right? And so it's like, no, this this is not just like a, oh well, we're just going to take the elements of critical race theory and have it in there. It's like, no, this is a cake that we've baked and you threw a few kernels of dog poop in there. And so the entire batch, the entire batter has now been defiled. Like you can't have this here. And it just seemed like again, if you were on the Tom Ascal side of things, right, which is the right side on this issue, the correct side that is, you were shouted down as a bigot. And he's like, are you kidding me? And then people are calling people like Vodie Bacham and Carol Swain and people like that, oh y'all are bigoted racists, which in terms of the cultural moment, they're not allowed to be racist because only white people can be racist and those people just happen to have enough melanin to be considered black or African-American. So it's such a witches brew of nonsense. But again, it John, does this come down to Christians just don't want to be seen as mean by culture? I mean, you talk about it later in the book. It's like we want praise from the wrong people. we're listening to the wrong voices and pleasing the wrong people, tolerating the wrong rulers. Is that where all this leads? >> I I think that is in part where this comes from. Now, as in my chapter, I explained, we do have um a lot of tragic history involving race relations. And I don't think that should be papered over. And I think there are some conservative Christians who try to paper it over and I understand why. But uh the issue is you want to make sure that you're dealing with real solutions, not solution, you know, solutions that that cure things, not solutions that are worse than the the initial disease. And so what you had in 2020 is this sort of perfect or imperfect storm where uh a lot of white Christians were feeling guilty. And you know, again, I I I think if you understand the the real history of race relations in America, there's a lot to be uh feel bad about and a lot of racial reconciliation that people should be devoted to doing, but it needs to be done on a biblical teaching of equality. The Bible is the greatest engine for of human dignity and human rights and human equality in the history of of of man. But what you had is many evangelical Christians in especially 2020 and after even though it started before is basically rubber stamping and adopting as our own these secular thought forms like you mentioned white fragility Robin D'Angelo which basically says that depending on your race you are if you're white you're irredeemally tainted and you can never repent enough you can never surmount that that's for your entire life. This is a new teaching of not that all people are tainted by sin, which is a biblical teaching, but no, if you're white, you are tainted by racism no matter what you do, and you can never be redeemed. That is so far from the gospel. >> Yeah. >> That I mean that there's a reason that there's a reaction, you know, against that. The challenge is and what the people the Russell Morris of the world other the people who adopted these sorts of things and cowtowed to it what they don't realiz is by not standing up for biblical equality by gravitating towards the secular bastardized excuse my language but version of equality that's fake that's really just grievance and by not standing up for what the Bible really teaches they opened uh you know nature of horses vacuum, so does politics and society. And so now I do think on some segments of the right, not not all, but on some fringes, you have some really scary things of people who are actually, you know, praising Hitler, who are very anti- uh Jewish, who are anti-lack, who actually in a strange truth be told, gravitate on Darwin's theory of evolution to to argue that, well, blacks were less evolved than whites. This stuff is toxic. And and so you'll have the the people on the evangelical left calling that out. What they don't realize is they helped create it. When you don't teach the true biblical version of equality, then you're basically telling people, well, you just have to adopt this idea that if you're white, you're irredeemably evil. Christ can't even redeem you from that. There's nothing that could be done. And if that's what you're teaching, you're going to get a reaction. And so I would say it was the the the church's rubber stamping of this secular leftist false version of civil rights and equality that actually opened the door that now you actually have on you know parts especially sadly you know men because they want to be leaders are attracted to some of these toxic unbiblical things on the right and the antidote to that is not either of the sides. is to get back to a true biblical teaching of equality that we are all created in God's image and and are judged accordingly and we're all sinners whether you're black, white, uh yellow, whatever, you know, whatever race or ethnicity, we all need a savior in Jesus. And we are all, you know, equally brothers and sisters in Christ and that and then we can also deal with some of the real issues. uh you know some of the reasons that people want to walk around uh you know there's race and ethnicity but then there's class and there's poverty and these things go together you know the people who are afraid to talk about biblical equality are afraid to deal with say what are the real causes of long-term poverty in America just like with homelessness the the real problem is not just lack of housing is something deeper with poverty it's not just a lack of resources that you just spend We've spent hundreds of billions of dollars trying to solve, you know, since the the Great Society programs of Linda Johnson 1960s to solve poverty and it hasn't. Why? Because long-term intergenerational poverty in America is largely a function of family breakdown. And that is true whether you're white, black, even Asian. Asian has has low uh uh percentages of of uh poverty, but a lot of that's because uh most Asians in America have intact family units, right? So this is not, you know, different races and and ethnicities may be more affected or less than this, but the issue is family breakdown regardless of race. And too many people are afraid to say that. And and if you're not dealing, and here's where, you know, the people who are afraid to talk about what happened in the bedroom, they don't realize what happens in the bedroom doesn't stay there. And so, you know, the very people who won't want to talk about sexual standards in a biblical way, oh, that's bad news. But but we really need to talk about poverty. They don't get that one goes into the other. If you have family breakdown, you get long-term intergenerational poverty. And so they go together. And once you give up one teaching, then when you it makes no sense for some on this on the evangelical left saying, "Oh, but we just need to talk more about poverty and we don't do sexuality." They go together. >> I think it certainly does go together. And you're bringing up an important point that I think a lot of Christians are afraid to say things. Right? So I' I've made this comment before. A lot of Christians, a lot of conservatives, they're going to let you push them. Hey, hey, hey, hey. And then your your back's against the wall and you're like, "Hey, don't push me anymore anymore." See, cuz I might get angry. See? And so, as Eric Mataxis puts it, who I think wrote a blurb for your book, uh he's he's fantastic. He talked about we're leaving powder for tomorrow's battle, but the war could be over by then. And so, we just never find something that's worth. And so, you know, when we hear the scripture about speaking the truth in love, we love the love part, right? It's the speaking the truth part that we that becomes problematic. And again, some people have problems with the other side of that. It's too much truth and no love, right? So, that's that's part of the, you know, the inner dissonance that most of us have with grace and truth and, you know, love and respect and all those different things. But I think most people are just unwilling to just say the thing, right? And so it's like at at a certain point it's like look, I didn't come up with the rules, but as a shepherd given a flock according to the book the writer of Hebrews that I'm going to have to give an account for how I shepherded someday to the creator God. Yeah, we just can't be down with this. Now, uh we are officially out of time, but I got one more question, John. So, if you can stick with me for for a little bit longer here because again, we didn't even get into all the symptoms. We didn't really have time to get into causes, >> but at least in general, and again, guys, go get the book. It's in the show notes. Stockholm syndrome Christianity. What are we to do about it? Micro. Okay. Because you spend a lot of time on the macro here in this particular book, but you get you're talking to a lot of lean forward dudes and some gangster gals, right? That's about 5% of our audience. We love you. We love our later lady listeners. But what are we to do in our individual tribes, in our households, in in our communities, in our congregations to push back on the stuff that you're talking about here in the book? >> Yeah, thanks for raising that. And I want to say in a way you've teed up the most important part of the book. So people need to get it because uh my book is partly an expose but the whole last section really talks about what can you do. That's really why I wrote the book. A lot of explanation there. Yeah. >> And so in one chapter I actually give 21 things to do. So let me just quickly give a couple ideas. Um and they're not rocket science but I I think people need to take them seriously. So just one principle. Do no harm. Let's say you know you're overwhelmed now. you don't you can't feel that you don't have any more time to save the world. Well, um God may be calling you to do some things that you don't think you're being called to yet. But okay, let let's accept that if more Christians simply abide by the principle of do no harm. But what do I mean by that? Well, you're attending a church, I hope. Is it a good biblical church? I know so many people who are personally faithful who spent years after the pull day of their their church, you know, where their pastor goes woke or embraces gay marriage or does something else, but they stay there out of a personal sense of sentimentality and out of the well, our small group is here. Well, I'm sorry if you're in a church that is not a biblical church. Your kids aren't going to get a good education and what you're writing a check to facilitate things that are bad. So, you know, do a do a inventory of your life. You know, where are you going to church? Are you where are you writing checks to money? Are you writing to say maybe you graduated from a Christian university once when it was solved and you know it's not anymore but have a sense of sentimentality. You write a check. In many sense, you're worse than the woke professors there. They're doing in some sense what they think is right. You know it's not and you're enabling it. So, do no harm. What how are you stewarding the resources you already have? Number two, if you're a parent, I think every parent needs to ask a hard question of who is really raising my kids? And we've talked about this a little bit before and you raised the issue, you know, some Christians just farm out to either private education or I'd say even public education. Their kids their kids are being raised by Tik Tok. There is kids are being raised by Instagram. Their kids are being raised by everyone AI. Everyone but themselves. And so you need to really inventory. Are you really the ones raising your kids? And there are lots of things whether whether you send your kids to public school if in most parts of the nation you really shouldn't right now or homeschool or you know private school. There are things that you can do I talk about in the book to be intentional about making sure your kids are getting worldview training and that that by the time they reach their teenagers you can't start in the teens. You need to start from day one. by the time they reach their teenage years, for the most part, they will be recognizable and they'll be on your side. Um, you know, again, there are exceptions to everything, but you start early. Um, one other thing, especially for men, a lot of men are active on boards, either on elder boards, on boards of their local Christian school, on boards of Christian universities. And that is, we didn't talk about that a lot, but one of the main ways that Christian institutions fail is boards that have no spine and boards that think that they are only there to cheerlead and raise funds. Well, I'm sorry. If you are on the board of either a congregation or a Christian school, let alone a Christian university, your number one goal is to keep the mission um solid and to actually fulfill what you're called to do. And if you're not willing to do that, and I talk about some ways that you could do that as a board member, the power of no, some other techniques that if you're on a board where things seem to be going in the wrong direction, even one person can have a demonstrable difference. But uh but if you don't that's why we get what we're are you know that I just want to say that at the at the end you know I talk about many times in history if you were a Christian living you would have thought I mean if you were in the Roman Empire oh boy um we're all being massacred uh Christianity is just going to go out of existence what is God doing if you were in China uh after you know Mao took over uh horrific things happened you know Christianity is going to be obliterated well God does amazing things. Ultimately, we're called not to be successful, but faithful. God will take care of success in in his terms. Uh if you look that, you know, Christianity went from a embattled minority to basically be the whole religion at least culturally of of Europe. Uh in China, the fastest growing religion now is Christianity despite the horrific persecution that took place. So God uh in his sovereign will can do amazing things. We're not ultimately responsible for the results. We are ultimately responsible for being faithful. And if we are faithful, God honors that in various ways. And so people should be encouraged because and in the whole last chapter, I talk about why, you know, you should be encouraged because of the way that God works. But we are called to be faithful. >> Amen. Well, John, I really appreciate the time that you spent with us explaining things from the book. Again, it's Stockholm Syndrome Christianity. It's in the show notes, guys. But that's all for me. Is there anything else you want to get off your chest? No, that's great. Uh, if people want more information, they can go to my the website for the book, Stockholm SyndromeChristianity.com. There's a lot of free resources there, including questions you can ask if you're considering a Christian college. What what as a parent, what are the key indicators you should ask the recruiters? >> All right, very good. Thank you, John. >> Thank you. >> There you go, guys. I hope you enjoyed my time with John. But before I let you go, I am going to do a quick resilience boost at Undaunted Life. Our mission is equipping men to push back darkness with content that forges spiritual, mental, and physical resilience. So, I've got the link there to stockholm syndromechristianity.com. Go and pick up your copy of the book. Check out all the other resources. It's right there in the show notes. Thank you for listening to this podcast. Wherever you're listening to this, please subscribe, rate, and leave us a positive fivestar review. If you want me to come speak live at your event or on your podcast, just shoot me an email to info@undon.life. That's info@unddton.life. Follow us on Instagram and like us on Facebook and check out our website for everything else, including how to donate to keep more content like this coming your way. Just go to www.undaon. undaunted.life. And as always, we want to thank the band Holy Name for allowing us to use their music for our content. The music on this podcast is their song Perpetual, which is off their self-titled debut album on Face Down Records. The links are in the description. I'm your host, Kyle Thompson. Remember, keep pushing back darkness. Keep forging spiritual, mental, and physical resilience. Keep seeking the Lion of Judah. [Music]