RUSLAN KD | Faith, Culture, Commentary (Ep. 953)

Let's be honest, most men drift. We wake up, we scroll, we work, and then we just rinse and repeat. And we know we're softer than we should be. That's why I built the 31-day resilience reset. This is not a devotional. It is a field manual for men ready to stop drifting and start fighting back. So, for 31 days, you'll train your spirit, mind, and body with scripture, prayer, and daily challenges that forge real resilience. Go to www.undaunted.life/31. life/31day to download this resource for free. That's undaunted.life/31day. Start your reset today. [music] This is Undaunted Life, a man's podcast. I'm your host, Kyle Thompson. Let's get into it. Now, Rouson, I normally welcome people to my studio whenever I'm the one in the captain's chair, but here we are in your studio, so I really don't have any idea how to do my intro. So, can you just do something for me? >> You're tuning in to the undaunted life. >> You got multiple cameras? Yeah, you got multiple cameras. >> Multiple cameras. >> Did you know you're a big time YouTuber and a professional Christian? Did you know that? >> Apparently. >> Yeah, it's kind of a thing. It's a rumor on the internet and everything on the internet's actually true. >> Big time YouTuber. >> Yeah, big time YouTuber. But this is what I will say. Uh the thing that I like the most about cuz you and I have connected over uh the last few months. Do you remember how we got connected or who connected us? >> Yeah, my buddy Rich uh who is a big fan of Joby. >> Okay. >> Started telling me about Joby and started telling me about you. I was already keeping up with Joby a little bit >> and then he's like, "Man, you got to check out Kyle's podcast. It's really good." And so then I checked you out and I think I just followed you and like randomly checked >> Yeah. You DM' me. Yeah. You would just say, "Hey, I appreciate the stuff." And you know, you and I kind of became uh birds of a feather. Birds of a feather. Not a feather. No one knows what that is, but birds of a feather during the whole Nathan Adfell stuff because like I mean again, and we'll get we'll get into that a little bit later, but like I didn't even know this guy existed. I didn't know that you had, you know, really dealt with him and had that long form debate on your show, but I kind of want to go all the way back to the beginning because um I didn't have like a faith upbringing. [snorts] Like a lot of people on my my show have they know I talk about country music, theology all the I was just kind of born in Oklahoma on that precious red clay, you know, went to church here and there, you know, got baptized, didn't know what that meant, but I just knew we could go to Hardies afterwards and I was pro all of that. And, you know, the country music thing, all that's great and and we just love the American flag, so we get to be Christians. >> You had a very very different story about how you came to faith. And so, I know we're just going to be kind of like flying over it. 30,000 foot view, but like for you, >> I never like I never had this ardent atheistic outlook on life. I always just assumed there was something out there, even if I couldn't name it. That's just not where you came from. >> Yeah. So, I'm originally from a country called Asarba Jambbaku. Used to be part of the former Soviet Union, which is built on communism. So, you know, a lot of hostility towards >> uh faith in communism. And so, there's a degree where it's probably in my bones to have some hostility towards the faith. Now, the flip side to all that is I'm also ethnically Armenian. And Armenia is the oldest Christian nation. Y >> uh but it's nestled in between Turkey, which had the awful 1915 genocide against Armenia, and next to Azarba, which is just to the east of Armenia. And so we were Armenians living in Azarbajan, which is just north of Iran, which is all Shia Muslim. And uh long story short, because of persecution and uh a ton of ethnic cleansing, half a million Armenians were displaced. I think about 500 were killed in the late 80s called the pilgrims of Baku. So me and my family come to United States as refugees in uh I think we landed here in 1991 and we end up uh having no real faith background just like very I guess we say we're Christian because we're culturally Christian and then I start going to an Armenian apostolic church. This is a part of the oriental orthodox stream of the church and uh that's my first kind of exposure to God really to Christianity to the Bible to anything. And I remember, you know, seeing the icons. I became an alter boy. It was all very much so like this is where we gathered as a community was in this Armenian church. Didn't know much about it. U and then long story short, I end up experiencing a couple things. One, my mother and my dad split, so now I don't have my dad in my life. Um two, the church remaries him, which my mom felt like they weren't supposed to do that. Yeah. Um three, as an alter boy, I end up experiencing SA because of some older alter boys who were like teenagers. I'm like seven or eight and I end up getting essayed by them. And so and then the way it was all framed was like I was the aggressor as a seven or eight year old and then the church didn't do anything at all. And then four when I came back to church I had a ear pierce my ear pierced in fourth grade and the or the priest confronted me on my ear piercing and not dealt with any of the essay stuff or any of the stuff. So I like slowly developed this hostility not just towards God and the problem of evil and suffering but also towards uh particularly the church and Christianity. And so that's kind of like the base level of my faith foundation is is one of confusion. You got atheism, you got communism, you got a cultural Christianity, and then you got like a like a very firm hostility towards faith. And so then at this point I'm like 10 or 11. I'm walking around. I'm outright saying I'm an atheist. I'm getting in trouble. I'm getting arrested, smoking weed, doing drugs, all this, you know, by the age of 11 or 12. >> Okay. So, I want to get into kind of how we kind of keep that moving along. But I am curious for you. Obviously, having suffered through what you suffered through again, at an age where confusion runs rampant, you don't really know what's normal. And I've heard you kind of talk about before, you kind of thought was happening to you was kind of normal. It feel like it doesn't feel normal, but it it was normal. And it's kind of like how do you unpack that? But one of the things that is really hard for me as a Christian to answer and then we'll get back into your your transition story um is when sexual assault happens >> I feel like almost every time the church does the wrong thing. So let's take it outside the church. when Penn State had the Joe Pno stuff go down with Jerry Sanduski and then it came out that you know Joe Paterno knew knew about it and the athletic director knew about it and I think even the president of the university knew about it and as opposed to just going to the police they tried to internal PR firm it and those kinds of things and I've heard even big evangelical churches and you know of course the Catholic church scandal and all those different things. The thing that I'm not really sure about is why do so many churches just not do the exact right thing immediately and be like this is now a criminal issue. This is not a a local church governance issue. We need our local magistrates to come in and the local authorities and law enforcement to come in and help us determine what next steps are. I feel like they're also trying to control the bubble of how is this going to make us look and will this affect our our tithing base and things like that. like what's your thoughts as somebody that's experienced it firsthand and seeing like this isn't just a Armenian, you know, apostolic church thing like this is just like a church thing. >> Yeah. Yeah. Unfortunately, I think sometimes the church or people in different institutions will place the reputation of said institution over what is the truthful and the correct thing to do. And I think whenever you keep doing that in any any institution, you create a lot of hurt and a lot of resentment. When you're constantly placing, hey, we got to prioritize our institution. We got to prioritize our reputation over, hey, let's do the right thing even at the expense of our institution. I think that just it it just creates a very unhealthy dynamic. And so I think that that's at the core of it is we're we're prioritizing reputation over integrity. And I I don't think that's ever good. Well, they think they're protecting the entity when it's like, well, no, what you're doing is you're delaying the inevitable and you're also making what comes next even worse. But, uh, coming back to to your story and so you're you're at this this fundamental age, early teen years as you're working through your teen years, but if I'm kind of getting all the the stories right, um, you had an interaction with u like you were like a manager at a pizza place or something like that. So, this takes you probably into your late very late teens, early 20s. And so when when were what were the circumstances around like okay I got exposed to this type of content or this is when the Holy Spirit really started like moving my heart like moving my soul like let's start getting into that side. >> Yeah. So so what happened was I come out of that I mean getting in a lot of trouble. We move here to North County. So we're in Vista California. Uh we're living in in this area. I actually grew up 8th grade not too far from here. And I end up just having God just seemingly kept pursuing me. kept sending Christians in my life. Like man, I felt very pursued by the Lord Jesus. And uh the way I started going to church was I won a talent show at Bringing Terrace Park and I met a girl and only way I could see her over the summer was if I went to church with her and her family on Sundays. So I started going to this evangelical church. I start hearing about this Jesus. At this point I'm kind of shifting from like staunch atheist to more of like a deist. There's a God. What age is this? This is like 14, 15. >> Yeah. >> So, there's a God out there. I don't know if he's personal. I don't know if he really likes me. Uh, but there seems to be a God out there. Then I'm hearing about Jesus and the cross and the resurrection and all this sort of stuff. Like, okay. Then me and the Christian girl break up. I start dating the Jehovah's Witness girl. Now, I'm all sorts of confused, right? So, I'm reading reasoning for the scriptures, which is their literature. I got my Mormon friends. I got my Muslim friends. I got my Buddhist friends. I got my newagage the universe is God and you're one with the universe friends. I got my conspiracy theory aliens friends that everything goes back to some rabbit hole. I I'm just I'm as confused as one could possibly be. I'm lost. And I remember um still kind of going to church. Even though me and this girl broke up, I was still going to church because I was like, man, this hope here, right? I like this. Uh I probably would have said I'm a Christian at that point. Um but I'm now stuck on a couple things. I'm stuck on uh the problem of evil and suffering. Yep. >> And I'm stuck on the identity of Jesus. Like I knew there was a material there's something beyond the material world, but I didn't understand problem of suffering. And then I also didn't understand the identity of Jesus. So I'm working at Pizza Hut. Still a big fan of Pizza Hut till this very day. >> Shout out. >> Yeah. And I'm in the back and my manager at the time, her name is Barb. She's a Christian. She's solid solid devoted Christian. And our lead delivery driver is a Christian as well. And I'm rolling out the dough for the next day and we're having this conversation about the identity of Jesus. Is Jesus God? Is he the son of God? Is is he just a good prophet? Is he a good moral teacher? So, I'm confused. And they end up again reiterating the gospel and really connecting not just like Jesus died for your sins, but no, like Jesus is Yahweh in the flesh and this is why. And they ended up getting me uh this book right here. Actually, still have it behind me. >> Yeah. Let's go. >> The new evidence that behind the demands of verdict, which it wasn't this version. I think I gave mine away, but I ended up going back and buying this on uh on eBay. And it's a book by Josh McDow, and it's basically an encyclopedia. >> Yeah, this is not a book you read from page one through the year. This is reference book. I tried. I did. Not a great idea. >> Hey, this is an encyclopedia of every single apologetics question. I actually have a a signed copy now cuz I got to meet I got to meet Josh McDow. Awesome. >> Uh I'm friends with his son. And so I end up reading this and I end up fully surrendering my life to to Jesus. Like I I was convinced based on the Lord, liar, lunatic argument from CS Lewis. >> Yeah. >> Um that Jesus is who he says he is, that he is uh Yahweh in the flesh, that he died for my sins. >> And so I go back to the Jehovah's Witnesses girl. I told her, "You're in a cult. You you need to repent." >> Did that go over well? >> No. Yeah. Terrible. Uh so I didn't have any of the the the the tact aspect of it. I didn't have any of the the I was I became all about truth and very little grace unfortunately and so you know wrestling longer and longer and I think what what happened was as I'm transitioning I really started dealing with the question of like okay cool if Jesus is who he says he is and there's these truth claims um now what how does that practically look in my life because the Christian worldview isn't just one of a bunch of do you believe this yes or no but it's like if you believe these things they then impact how you live dayto-day day and that became trying to understand the the pursuit of that and and and how to figure that out which was which was difficult for a young man to do as you can imagine. Hey guys, real quick. 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That's jofuel.com. Use the promo code undaunted to get 10% off your order. Again, that's jofuel.com. Promo code undaunted to get 10% off your order. >> Yeah. And so it looks like so you had your orthodoxy. You were trying to figure out what that was. And then it's also orthopraxy. Like how do I live these things out? Like if you don't have right doctrine and right thoughts about God, it's impossible to really love something that you haven't even defined correctly. Yes. >> And then the CS Lewis thing. It's like liar, lunatic, lord. Okay. The trilmma. Everyone's kind of heard that before. Yep. We've heard some really nice kind of cogent answers from professional Christian apologists to the problem of evil, to the problem of suffering, all those different things. But this is kind of gets into a discussion about Christian apologetics. I've heard people say before, "If it's true, you wouldn't need to apologize for it." And they're using apologize correctly, not like, "Oh, I'm so sorry about this that it's true." No, providing an apologia in argument for the truth that you purport to believe. Okay? But there are people that even Christians, evangelical Christians that are just like uh [clears throat] they don't really like the argumentative nature of of ideas going back and forth. We were doing some stuff off air just a second ago about Islam and about this guy that created this big kurfuffle because this this you know Muslim debater was debating these Christians and he he shouldn't have even taken a picture with them. He shouldn't have even been in the same room. >> But the way Islam conquers people's souls and their view is by literally conquering them. And if they refuse to be conquered and convert, then you chop their heads off, right? That that's in their core doctrine. >> But with Christians, there's this idea that we should be able to create an apology, a reason for the faith that we have, and then that argumentation will bring them closer. >> Where it separates is where people think that arguing is something that you can do to get people to believe. That if I answer all of your questions, you will be without any way to say no to the invitation of God. you will be able not be able to resist grace through faith >> and they they kind of get a little bit uneasy about how Christian apologetics kind of works itself out in that diatic communication way. So I wonder what your thoughts are there. >> Yeah. No, absolutely. I mean I think it's a huge felt burden I have right now because these are things I'm interested in. I'm I'm interested in theology. I'm interested in the study of God. I'm I love apologetics. I came through the door of apologetics into the faith and it and it gave me resolve for a lot of these questions. But I [snorts] think that the issue is it cannot just be about head knowledge and it cannot just be about arguments. Every single one of us probably comes to faith through some form of like, oh, there's good reason, but I'm also seeing the lives of Christians and I'm also having an experience with the Lord Jesus that's just that's that's doing something to my heart, my soul beyond me. And and then we come to faith through those things. So I think what's happening right now is it's very interesting because there's such a huge apologetics community online. There's so many people that are into this stuff, which I think is good is there is a gap of like, okay, but now what? >> Okay, if we're we have all the right arguments, we know all the right things, we got all the answers, >> but now what? What do you do with that information? Yeah. Right. And your your theology, like you said earlier, should impact your praxology. It should change the way you live. It should change the way you carry yourself. And so in uh Peter, first Peter also talks about hey live such good lives among the pagans that though they accuse you of doing wrong they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits them. So there is a your life should look different and it should be a life of beauty and transcendence and virtue and that is actually what's going to win people over more so than just polymics because there's also a difference between apologetics and polymics. Apologetics gives a defense and reason. Polymix goes on the offensive and attacks. And so I think you consistently just attacking, attacking, attacking. It might help some people, but generally speaking, your life needs to look transformed. And so that's a lot of the burden I've had, which is like, okay, cool. Segueing into apologetics. How does that look? So then I I come up with this idea of godly ambition. That's what the book is about. saying, "Hey, if you have right theology and right views and right ideas and and a coherent worldview, that should impact your godly ambition in terms of how you live and what you contribute on this side of eternity." And that you you can't do that just consuming debate bro culture, you know, for for 10 hours a day and think that's what makes you a Christian. >> Well, and what [clears throat] I think it does as well is because the probably the worst thing I could say about Christian apologetics cuz I'm just like you. I love reading the books. I love watching the debates. I love absorbing the arguments, rewarding them in a way that kind of, you know, agrees with my pallet of word choices and, you know, how I can send it off into the world. >> Is it I think it helps people be even lazier >> from learning the apology themselves. >> Is there like, well, I can just send him a clip from Sean McDowsley to show or I can send him Cliff Impossible last name to pronounce. How do you pronounce his last name? Yeah. Just like I said on your show, no one knows what you just said. That's not a real thing. It's not those aren't words. Those are just consonants that just make a sound. And so they love watching him, you know, hands on knees, ready to go, you know, high school basketball coach style. And, you know, even back in the day with someone like Robbie Zacharias, like origin meaning morality, destiny, like answering those questions. Every worldview has to answer those. But the problem you run into is if your arguments hinges on someone else's arguments in their life, you may run into the Ravi Zacharias issue to where allegedly he was a tremendous sexual deviant while he was alive. Uh, you know, there's some debate there, but the evidence seems to be pointing in that direction. And so now, if you were saved at an RZ RZIM event because you were persuaded by his philosophy, well, now you're having an attack of conscience like, do I actually believe in this? But then on the other side, it's like, wait a minute. Didn't you buy me a bunch of Ravi Zacharias books and send me a bunch of Ravi Zacharias podcast and clips and all that? Isn't that the guy that was like raping his masseuse? That guy. And you want me to believe? And so I think it's it's Christians that just turn their brains off and say, "Hey, look, I don't need to study the Bible cuz my pastor does it once a week and, you know, gives me the summary of his week's worth of study." Or, you know what? I don't need to learn these arguments cuz I can just send them, you know, uh, Tim Keller's book, The Reason for God, and they, you know, that'll kind of meet them where they're at cuz they're a little bit liberal, a little bit New Yorky. And so, like, that that's part of the issue that I think people run into is they just feel like, well, I don't have to do this now cuz someone else could do it better. >> Yeah. Yeah. And that and that's a dangerous place to be because you are you're supposed to have right doctrine. You're supposed to know the the truth of the scriptures. You're supposed to have a reason to provide. And if you're just allowing if you're just outsourcing this, it's like folks that outsource uh the disciplehip of their kids to the youth pastors in the church, you know, it's like, man, that's a terrible way to to navigate leading your family is outsourcing that. So, no, I think we all have a degree of agency and personal responsibility to make sure we are making ourselves fed, right? A lot of people go to go to church, they're like, "Oh, I'm not fed." It's like, brother, you're a grown man. >> You are feed yourself, man. Stop with the I'm not fed narrative. And so, yeah, absolutely. I say and and when you are fed that should then impact how you live and what you do. There's that that's the other disconnect is like okay cool yes feed yourself but then in feeding yourself this should have a ripple effect on every area of your life. It shouldn't be compartmentalized. So, I remember um when uh fast forward after I come to faith, I remember everyone goes through this reformed and restless phase, right? Everyone's into Piper, they're into Mark Driscoll, and everyone's a thousand point Calvinist overnight. And I'm like, reformed theology, rich tradition. I'm meeting these guys at these conferences. So, I'm doing a lot of conferences with um the Francis Chans and the LRaes and this whole world. This is when LRA was super reformed. And I remember being the guy always meeting people after the event, talking to people, and I'm like, man, these guys know all the right theology. They got all the right answers, but their lives are train wrecks. Their finances are disordered. Their marriages are hanging on by a thread, but boy, do they know the five points of Calvinism. And can they articulate the tulip to me, and can they give me all this stuff? But there's no tangible difference. You know, they're still struggling. They're still wrestling. And so I was like, man, there has to if we if we have the right if we believe the right things, that should mean our lives should look different. We should be becoming the type of people that honor God. And so at the same time, me and my wife, we're newlyweds. We're going through a massive debt-free journey. So we're going through the Dave Ramsey baby steps, and I still stand by those first three baby steps. I think are absolutely essential. And we're just working those baby steps, and we end up getting out of debt in 18 months. We we had technically had over six figures of debt. But we end up paying off all the debt in 18 months. And this is before I was doing music. This is before I was doing YouTube. This before I was really making any money. And I'm like, man, the the the theology has a tangible impact on my life. If I believe that I'm a manager and I'm a steward of the things God given me, it's not mine anyway. That reflections and looks like something in my day-to-day life that that looks like order and sacrifice and discipline and delay gratification. And I saw this disconnect there. And it just frustrated me to no end. It's like, why do we have so many people that know all the right things? They they got the good apologetics. They got the good theology, but their lives like no different than they did before they were Christians. >> Well, yeah. And to defend the Theo Bros a little bit, like I I know I've known a lot of guys that went full cage stage and they went cage stage on all their friends around them, right? And so there they are with their IPA and their pipe and their mustache and they were just like, man, they were really getting after people. Here I am sitting here with a mustache. I should have some better awareness. But the thing about it is is you need to have the correct doctrine. But the the problem with any camp Yeah. Yeah, whether you're Calvinist Armenian charismatic reformed, like whatever camp you put your flags in, whatever your esquetology, sotiology, any otherology, all that kind of stuff is what is being reflected in your day-to-day living. Is there any gospel fruit there? Because a lot of people can say, "Hello, I'm a Christian." I've heard the stat, oh, there's, you know, between 2 and 2.5 billion Christians on the planet. I was like, there are two to 2.5 billion people that have placed the faith, their faith in the finished work of Christ on the cross. there's that many people that are that are having gospel fruit as a center point of their life. I was like, uh, I'm I'm questioning your statistics here, but I think that this goes into a discussion as well. You mentioned, you know, doing music and doing that kind of whole hip-hop scene. >> I remember and I don't know what it was like for you early on in Christianity because >> I didn't know what Bible to buy. Like I just [clears throat] went to the, you went to the salt seller in Lot, Oklahoma next door to Hastings, shout out. And I was like, what's the most extreme looking Bible? Because I have an extreme faith. And so I bought the teen extreme Bible. I don't know what version of the Bible it was. So I'm trying to figure out, okay, there's this thing called denominations. Okay, I got to figure out what that means. Okay, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John. They're all the same, but different kind of uh and you know, trying to figure out Old Testament, New Testament, what do I need to do? But the thing that hit me in the face about church culture from the beginning that really I don't know if jaded's the right word or kind of got me thinking like, man, am I actually saved was contemporary Christian music. Okay, >> CCM. >> Okay, >> cuz I was a metal head, right? I was I was into metal and then when I became a Christian I got into underground metal. So this is not arena metal. Like this is like dingy underground super heavy. It's still my favorite genre of music today. >> And I would experience more of a worshipful feeling listening to a band called Living Sacrifice talking about how they were reborn versus this kind of generic air1 kale love Christian music. And like I would just sit there during worship and I would just be confused and I'd be looking around all these people and this I wasn't at a handraisy church. This woman showed up with a tambourine one day. No one ever saw her again after that. And I don't I don't think that just means the church. I think she's buried in the desert somewhere. And so it's like I didn't go to a super charismatic like we're going to fall out in the aisles and raise our hands and pray and all those things. >> And then as I got into my 20s, I started meeting more men like me that didn't really like CCM, didn't really like the hymns, didn't really like, you know, what they hear on Christian radio. >> [clears throat] >> And then I was able to give my own like argument for, hey, like this doesn't mean you're not saved. I had a Christian worship leader in Oklahoma City said he doesn't think I'm saved because I didn't like Hillong United. And I was just like, uh, I don't think you can say that to me. But I'm wondering for you like hip-hop metal, that was hip-hop and metal, that was kind of the core of who I was. But for you coming from like a hip-hop background, did you ever get kind of hit in the face by like, oh, worship music can only be CCM? Like if it's if it's hip-hop, that's not that's not worship. If it's metal, if it's India, that can't be worship, right? >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. So, I was fortunate enough >> that the folks that first shared the gospel with me were black Christians from the black Baptist tradition and their music, their worship music slapped. And I still listen to Fred Hammond and I still listen to Donnie Mcccluren. I still listen to a lot of black gospel music which just has a different edge to it than CCM both in the structure in the chord progressions in the masculinity like it's it's just different than CCM music. So I always had a good anchoring in terms of like yeah I don't need to just listen to these like kind of soft love songs to Jesus there's other stuff out there in the context of local church. A lot of it is um created for the kind of lowest common denominator both in the way it's written. Meaning that if you got church musicians, you can't make these complicated chords where you got where you're playing seventh chords and ninth chords and jazzy and gospy stuff. You got to really simplify the music. So there's always it's also in the way it's written. And then the the industry, especially back then of Christian music, who was the end goal common denominator consumer? >> It was a soccer mom. It was a soccer mom. They needed something safe to play when she was in her minivan taking the kids to church. So therefore, >> metal, hip-hop, >> too edgy, >> gospel, too black, rap, too black, metal, too edgy. So we're going to make just the most vanilla version of it. Thankfully, I feel like this has changed a lot as there's now streaming and there's now other uh pockets of people and there's a lot of micro tribes. And so Christian radio doesn't run most of the uh uh um end goal consumer there. Christian radio is still there, but it's just not it's not the same thing. So now there's been other stuff that's came up in different styles of worship and different songs and even the people that are writing a lot. Like one of my favorite worship songs right now is u uh it's called I'm I'm so grateful for you written by Chandler Moore. And it's I mean I I texted him a week or two ago and I was like, "Bro, this is like the most masculine worship song I've ever played. I don't know if you've heard it. >> It's great. I'll play it for you later. I wish I could play it for you right now. to get hit with the copyright. Uh it's a masculine song, right? And so now I think things have changed a lot because the end consumer is a lot of different there's a lot of different pockets and a lot of different people and you don't have to just make one type of thing which to me has been great as as a creative person. >> Well, and also I think this goes into the secret sensitive movement as well. Obviously, you can't have a metal band or the Christian version of Tribe Called Quest get up there and then be able to keep all the people like engaged in kind of what you're doing there. Part of my issue cuz I did an episode a long time ago called contemporary Christian music is for women and affeminite men and it's exactly like what you said like K Love got together and they did like this study to try to figure out who their core woman or who their core audience was. And it was it was the 37year-old soccer mom, you know, who's got to pick her kids up from school in a little bit. she can't be challenged on her way to go pick up, you know, uh, the stuff at the grocery store to like she just needed to kind of chill out. And the problem for men became here I am listening to this Christian Christian contemporary song whether at church or on the radio. And if you took out the name Jesus and put in the name Larry, it sounds like they're singing to their boyfriend and it just didn't make them feel good and they didn't have the, I guess, >> emotional wherewithal to realize they're not singing it because it seems homoerotic and they don't want to do that because they're heterosexual, right? That was kind of that thing. But the problem that I've seen with uh some recent pastors and some, you know, modern pastors is when a man doesn't like the sound of contemporary Christian music, but that's all that your church plays, they're basically told, "You're being prideful. You may not even be saved." Like, "Get your hands out of your pockets or get your hands out from covering your crotch because you're trying to protect your going ads from what's going on on the screen or whatever the thing is." And they're they're basically castigated for something that's just not in their wheelhouse. It's like imagine like personally I think mint chocolate chip mint chocolate chip ice cream is deplorable. I think if you eat it you should go straight to prison, right? I think mint is for toothpaste and you know like breath mints. That's what I think. But that's just my taste, right? Like I'm being ridiculous. I'm being hyperbolic. >> But we're telling people that don't have a taste for the music you're feeding them continue to eat it. Eat it until you like it. It's like is that really the the style that we want to have? I think there's a different way of doing it. And so I'm just curious, you know, with you your understanding of music and also kind of Christian culture, what you would say to that. >> Yeah, I I I do think so. And I do think it has changed. I do think it's gotten substantially better. Uh because the internet's made the world smaller. And so now the the the genres are kind of all colliding as one, meaning that you're going to hear a bit more hip-hop in some of the worship stuff. You're going to hear a bit more gospel in some of the worship stuff. So I think it's gotten a lot better than it used to be. I say even 5 years ago. It's It's changed a lot. And so I'm personally excited for where stuff is right now. Where it goes from here, I don't know. But I think you you you bring up a very valid point in terms of where we were. And the church is always going to take a little bit of time to catch up to where the art is, right? So like the artists are going to be a bit more on the progressive side and the church is going to take a little bit of time to catch up with where the music and the art is going. So I think you're going to keep seeing more of the shift, especially people that take it seriously. Like if you have a a music director and a worship pastor that like, "No, no, I want to create or I want to contribute the best for this experience, you're going to start seeing more masks and stuff." Like I just did um the Act Like Men conference uh with Pastor James Griffin and and I mean their worship was phenomenal. It was really good. And it was to see a couple I think it was they had over 2,000 or 3,000 men in there worshiping. Um it was not feminine even though they had a woman drummer up there uh which I thought was funny to have a woman drummer and she was great. She was phenomenal. the the the the music was great, you know, was it was awesome. So, I think it's ch I think it's like literally changing in real time. I think you give it another year or two, I think it's going to be much better. >> Okay, so let's talk about the art piece just a little bit because like if you are an artist, you're typically high in trade openness, low in trade conscientiousness. So, you have plenty of ideas. You don't know how to get them down. You don't have the work ethic. Every now and then you get someone that's high in both. My main idea is when we look at art, and this has been this has been a main meme about Christians, is they they purport to know where beauty came from, who [clears throat] created it, why we were made for it, and then they make the crappiest music and movies and like [clears throat] possible, like the corniest, like just so heavy-handed, way too on the nose. And then we see even recently again, and I've told guys on my show, it's like, "Okay, you don't like CCM. That's not your excuse not to worship. So maybe you're into hip-hop. Okay, get into some really biblically based sound hip-hop worship. Get into metal. Get into indie. Get into country. I don't really care." >> But there wasn't really something that spoke to the darker sides of the human experience to where you could even see it through a gospel lens. But then you look at things like, you know, House of David. You look at the chosen. You look at these things that are so unbelievably high quality >> that non-believers are drawn to it even though they don't believe in anything. They they look at it like Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings like, "Oh, this didn't actually happen, but it's at least shot well and it it's bringing me into a story." Whereas before it was like, okay, this was put out by insert Christian, you know, movie studio here, and it's like, well, we're Christians and so we got to go support it, so they'll make more of this for us Christians. And at the end of the day, it's like it's just junk. Like, it's not any good. But so, so tell me about how you view the kind of shift that's happened just in the overall art culture to make just better standard art. >> Yeah. Well, I think what we saw happen is a couple things. One, we saw accessibility. to uh >> like streaming and all that different stuff. >> Yeah. So, so distribution's gotten easier, but you also had in the improvement of cameras very quickly, very rapidly. Did you see a huge quality jump in cameras, and now they're they're easily accessible. So, you kind of saw both. You saw, okay, technology is bringing the world together, making it smaller with microtribes. You have the quality and the ability to make really good stuff way cheaper and you have people that have always been creative and just never had like the outlet to create stuff at scale. And I think you saw all of it converge right around the time of of co and I think this the chosen kind of sparked it off where they did the biggest I think the biggest fundraiser for any series at the biggest crowd fund ever. >> Yeah. Great. Yeah. Great job for them. And so I think you saw them spark it off and then what happened was once people saw the success of the chosen. They said, "Oh, there's an avatar here." And there's always been a Christian avatar. It's just there hasn't been the infrastructure and the investment because it costed so much to make stuff. And now, you know, we we had like the passion of the Christ, which was a huge moment, but we didn't have that at scale. And so, I think the chosen sparks it off, it explodes. It's well done. And then you got folks like Amazon stepping in. And again with Amazon stepping in, what makes John Irwin brilliant with the House of David is John knows how to leverage technology. He's on the cutting cutting edge of anything that's which by the way that we've always Christians have always done this with media. We've always been on the cutting edge of tech. The microphone being invented. The earliest people using the radio broadcast were Christians that were articulating the gospel, right? This is going back over 100 years. So there's always been Christians on the on the earliest side of technology. And so he's taking advantage of the technology, making amazing stuff, making amazing stuff fast and cheap. And that and and again, that's how you build and you innovate. And so I think that's what we're seeing happen. And it happened with Christian Hip Hop first in that the home studio just replaced going to a big studio and having to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars. You can >> make an album for a couple grand in your in your in your room, in your bedroom, and it sounds great. That's what's about to happen and is already happening with film. And so then when you as a consumer understand, oh, there's good stuff being made for me. In my opinion, the Otis becomes on the consumer at this point to say, hey, instead of going and spending your money with the pagans to hate you, hate your God, hate everything you represent. How about here's a thought. Go support Wonder Project on Amazon Prime. And I'm not saying this cuz I have a brand deal with them anymore, but that this is just logical. Like spend the seven bucks and support a Christian who's actually trying to make Christian stuff better and put your money and keep it within the Christian ethos. That's not that's not because John Irwin or Dallas Jenkins is trying to fleece the gospel and sell you the gospel. No, it's because they're making great Christian art and they should be supported and rewarded for doing such. So I think as the consumer understands this, we're only going to see stuff get better and better and better. And I think it's already happening. I mean, House of David is just a phenomenal show. Yeah. Period. Point blank. Then they're doing the spin-off of the Moses story in between the House of which I saw the first episode. I don't know how many episodes there are, but it's like this is in this is really well done and they they have their deal with Amazon and they're crushing it over there. So, I'm just using Wonder Project as an example. Of course, you have the chosen they're creating the chosen universe. Um there's a lot of really cool stuff out there and so I think it's decentralizing where where the power comes from and the consumer I would say man probably ever is now the curator. The consumer can choose what they want to consume. When I think that that goes to our our siloing of our culture because, you know, you'll find someone that you didn't know existed and then they have like 5 million subscribers on YouTube or they have like a million followers on Instagram. And I I just think overall like I'm excited for where the medium is because they're not trying to sanitize the parts of the Bible because the Bible's a dingy, grimy book about a bunch of like derelict, horrible murdering rapists like that. And those are some of the heroes like those are the heroes of the Bible, right? Is is kind of what I'm describing. But I'm curious for you because you know you get into your YouTube career, your speaking career, like cultural commentary career. And so you and I both cover faith, culture, politics, not always in that order, not always acute 1/3, 1/3, 1/3. It's whatever the the culture of the society is or society is pushing and we try to speak truth into that. And so I'm just curious for you because a lot of people are like, "Yeah, yeah, okay. Stick with the gospel stuff, but just don't bring it anywhere near my politics." or the other side of it was like, "Yeah, yeah, give me politics, but man, I don't need to hear about this Jesus guy, this Middle Eastern Jewish construction worker that you think was a white guy." You know, they make a claim without, you know, without any evidence. So, I'm just curious for you, like in the content that you make, you can kind of hide behind your music, right? You can write music like, you know, Tupac, he wasn't a gangster, right? He was a theater kid, right? That they turned into a gangster rapper and then, you know, they killed him. You know, they the mysterious they. And so, like, I'm just curious for you, why why go into this overt really attack mode into what's going on in culture, covering faith, culture, and politics as opposed to just staying in this safe silo or that safe silo. >> Yeah. I It really just was to overflow what I was doing. I had a community of Christian rappers that I was giving advice to because I was doing music full-time at the time. This is from 2015 to 2020ish. And those folks just started asking me questions about theology and faith and like wanting to me go deeper on that, not just giving them marketing advice. They started asking me questions about politics. They started asking me questions about culture. We start I started speaking into those things like in the middle of a Zoom call or in the middle I'll see what they're talking about on Patreon and we tried clipping those things and those were the videos that took off and I discovered that it was the very what worked was the very same thing I had been doing privately for decades which is leading groups and people taking in their hard questions from the week. They're anxious. They're stressed out. The Alex Jones is talking about the frogs being gay and the news and all this sort of stuff. And so they're asking me and I'm trying to give a reasoned answer to this and then I'm taking them right back to the scriptures and trying to find a segue to go into whatever the Bible study was for the day. And that I had done that privately for a long time. So then when I started doing it on YouTube, it was just an overflow of me having the reps privately that I think converted well publicly and that's why I think the channel started taking off. So it's just, you know, they say what politics is a downstream of culture. So you can't detangle politics from culture. So you can't speak into culture without being political. I guess I think a lot of the people a lot of the reason people are triggered by politics uh is because they say uh man the church today is too political. It's like no no it's just the politics became theological. Politics started saying hey no a man is a is is not a man. A man a man could be a woman right? Hey that's not a that's not a human in there. That's whatever you want it to be. It's it's whatever you feel like it is. >> Politics started impacting theology and church. And so we can't speak about truth and beauty and goodness without it sounding political, you know. >> Hey guys, real quick, I just wanted to remind you that we have an official Undaunted Life store. You can go to shop.unaunted.life or check it out in the show notes, guys. We're always going to have hats and shirts and a bunch of other awesome stuff. Go there, support us, wear the mission. Again, it's shop.uned.life. Check out the link in the show notes. Shop.undaunted.life. Okay. And here's the other thing. The church is typically downstream from culture, too. M that that's the other part and the other part of it and a lot of churches are okay with that setup. >> They're okay with being downstream from culture. So when culture shifts on a particular subject matter that church will disregard the Bible, disregard even like church history, church doctrine and go with whatever the culture seems as acceptable and because they want to be patted on the head. They want to be told you're one of the nice Christians. You're not one of those fundamentalist fuddy duddy bigots. Right? And then you uh you have so many movements even entire denominations that just went the way of the dodo bird because they kept selling themselves even further and further down the river. And then when you had individual pastors or >> you know groups of congregations or even denominations start trying to fight their way back upstream to get above culture to where they impact culture. It was like no no no that is not your place. And so the society, the secular satanic society was wanting to push them back down to their place, which is we will tell you what you can talk about. We will tell you the subject matters. And the most nefarious things about those entities, those cultural or societal forces, is that they're forcing people to self-sabotage, to self censor. So they're not going to talk about the hard topics. They're not going to talk about race, gender, Islam. They're not going to talk about uh LGBTQ stuff. they're just going to stick to the gospel, whatever that means. But the thing is is if you love the Lord or your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. That includes the political sphere. And I ask these these, you know, people that want to be politically agnostic for the sake of the Bible, for the sake of the gospel. It's like, okay, so you only want atheist pagans running the local government that you live in. >> Mhm. >> Well, that's not what I said. No, that's actually exactly what you said cuz you wanted to do the Benedict option. you wanted to go over there and set up your, you know, your your your tents and you wanted to kind of do your thing outside of culture and then the only place for culture or the only thing that is owned by the culture, it's it everything's coming from the pits of hell. And so just again for you like what would you say to those people because I know you have a lot of pastors that listen to you and I I have pastors that listen to me as well. They want to be bolder. They want to talk about these these really big topics. They don't want their sermons to die a death of a thousand qualifications before they just deliver what the word says. Like what would your message be to them? >> Yeah, I mean listen, as someone that was once upon a time, I'd probably identify as politically agnostic. I wasn't ashamed of it. I think the frustration that I felt was like, man, I see in congruence to the gospel from both sides. What changed for me though within the last gosh six years, seven years was that I started seeing one side become more and more hostile towards Christianity, towards the teachings of Jesus, towards basic definitions of men and women. And I and I saw one side be antagonistic and then I saw another side kind of be flip-floppy on the unborn issue, kind of kind of fall in certain areas, but they weren't antagonistic to my faith. And so I I'm one of those people that I just felt myself forced into the right. Like I was not a, you know, MAGA guy, Trump guy. I just was like, "Hey, I my politics have more or less remained the same. I've gotten more conservatives. I've gotten older. Why would I not talk about these things?" >> And the Overton window for you shifted >> shifted way to the left. Yeah. So 10 years ago, uh I would say pre Hillary, if you were like just kind of a centrist, you can kind of like, oh, okay. Okay. You know, OB even you read like Obama's views on gay marriage >> sounds real mega >> sounds very mega and immigration and immigration [clears throat] very mega now he's a he would be a bigot by today's standards right and so I think the over window shifted so far that I was like I no I'm not politically agnostic like I may not like what's happening in the right I may not like what's happening uh I may not like that Trump flip-flopped on abortion I may not like how some of the stuff he's dealt with I may not like some of the things that come out of his mouth but goodness gracious Man, they were they were running Biden who was asleep at the wheel and then thought a better our our better idea is we're going to we're going to run the least popular vice president ever. >> Yeah. One of the least likable human beings in the history of American politics. >> Not to mention, I'm in California, so I understand the downstream effects of Sacramento. I understand what kind of attorney general she was. I know that man in California, in Los Angeles, $20 billion dollar squandered to fix the homelessness issue. It just disappeared. We we they built 400 units or 500 units. Where'd the money go? Right? So, I'm like, there's there's no way. There's no way. Remove uh blue versus red, remove Democrat versus Republican. And so, I just couldn't bring myself to say, "Hey, I'm going to sit this one out." I I couldn't do that. Not to say that I went out and I endorsed Trump or anything like that, but I definitely made my positions clear on how much I despised Biden and then Harris. And that, you know, that cost me something with with a chunk of my audience that was still left-leaning from when I was doing music stuff. But I was at this point I was okay with that because cuz this I can't be complicit in this. I can't be silent on on this sort of buffoonery. >> Yeah. So the the thing that I would say how I would explain it is and this is made even more clear by the politics since co I would say >> there's no such thing as a political moderate. >> Mhm. >> There is no such thing there's no such thing as a centrist. And this is why a centrist is just somebody that has not fully thought out the issues. >> And so what I would say to that is let's use extreme examples. What is the moderate position on abortion? We only kill the baby during this week, this week and this week. uh we only remove part of their lens. We just rip off both legs, but we leave both. >> It's arbitrary. Like ours are 6 weeks or 12 weeks or 24 weeks. It's all arbitrary. >> What What's the middle position on that? And then all these third way Christians at the tone police that don't like the way that I talk so boldly about things. Okay. Tone police third way. Um what is the moderate position on transing the kids? We only cut off the 14-year-old gender confused girls left boob, right? >> We only take one of the kids testicles off and leave the other. We only we we have them do a partial beard but not a full beard once they get on these puberty blockers or they get, you know, shot up with testosterone if they're a young woman. And again, that's what I tell these people is like, look, I agree with my buddy John Cooper lead singer of Skill where he's just like the Democrats and the Republicans are going to take us to hell. The Republicans train is just a lot slower, right? You know, like the the Democrats are on the express a train bullet train and here the Republicans are just chugging along with an old steam engine. And so that's the difference for people is I just I don't believe there is a middle anymore. There are people that want to say there like that's kind of a new thing. Oh, I'm a centrist, right? I'm not left. I'm not right. I'm in the center. I'm like, what does that mean? What does that mean? And so even as a Christian, >> it's like there's there's a thing about lukewarm. I seem to remember someone talking about the lukewarm [laughter] being, you know, spit from their mouth. It's like, yeah, I'd rather you be hot or you be cold. I can't deal with this mushy middle thing. >> Yeah. Yeah. No, I'm with you, man. And I think a lot of that came for me, made became more and more clear for me in my own political evolution as I had kids and as I thought about the world that I want my kids to grow up in, >> a lot of that stuff really came full circle. And again, I'm I'm in a a very blue state. So, but I but with this where we are here because of Camp Pendleton and Marine Base, it's it's more it's actually more mixed than most of Southern California. you go to Orange County and this area and you get a bit more diversity in terms of political spectrum. Um, >> but I I have to come to term with terms with those things like what kind of world do I want my kids to grow up in? And and I do think politics a lot of it is local, you know, like who are you voting for locally in your state and then the nation. I do think that there is a degree where yeah, you're not going to be a centrist. And man, speak on the issues that matter. Speak on the things that matter. Speak up for the unborn. I would say speak up for our ability to defend ourselves in our second amendment, our first amendment. Those things are are essential and huge. And I would say are biblical. These these are downstream effects of scripture. You don't you don't disconnect that. How we do it, I think, is is tricky. If we're more known by our politics than we are by our love for Jesus, I think that can become problematic. If you're known by primarily the things you're against and not the things that we're for, that could become an issue. And so what I always attempt to do is say, "Hey, we should be known by the things we're for, not just the things we're against." How can we know um that Christians who've always been known for our hospitality, always been known for our generosity, how can how can we articulate those virtues in a way where we communicate the hierarchy and the order properly of your first call to protect and provide for your home, then your extended family, then your local church, then your region, then the nations and beyond. And I think when we can have a clear and articulated vision for charity, for compassion that's biblical and not enabling, I think we end up winning people over versus just saying we're just against these five issues. >> Well, there's a massive difference and I'm not the first person to point this out between a conservative Christian and a Christian conservative, right? And so like if you are a conservative Christian, I would rather you be that than a liberal of any kind. Sure. But it's like if you plan if you you purport to be someone of the book, someone that actually believes the Bible and tries to do what it says, y >> that your primary identity cannot be, you know, Trump voter for, you know, future Marco Rubio or JD Vance voter like, hey, I'm an RN, I'm a card carrying member of the RNC or of the Heritage Foundation or I love the Daily Wire. That can't be your primary thing. It can be underneath your main thing. And that's why someone like me can consume Prageru and not be so terribly offended. I don't care that Dennis Prager is a Jew. I don't care that a lot of people that work there are Jewish. I don't care that they have people there that are also atheistic. I don't care that they they have a guy that's a homosexual conservative that's on staff. >> That guy needs the blood of Christ just like the rest of them do, right? I mean, Dennis Prager is an expert on the the Torah. He just like, you know, he just hasn't seen, you know, the the Old Testament prophecy come full circle yet in the person and work of Jesus. Um, and speaking of uh people that purport to be purveyors of the person and work of Jesus, I think we got to talk about this Nathan Appfell fella. And so, uh, so everyone always, you know, I did a whole episode on Nathan Appfell and, you know, when he was taking shots at Joby, >> you did a great job, by the way. >> Well, thank I appreciate that. And the thing about it was, and just to kind of reiterate for people in my audience is like the church 1122 didn't reach out to me like, "Hey, we can't talk about this, so can you talk about the show?" Joby never contacted me about it. I got contacted by you guys, the guys in my audience that are like, "Hey, are you going to talk about this? Is this true?" >> And when things like I have a natural like, you know, gag reflex when it comes to like things that are so blatantly not true that I have to correct the record for other people. So that's why I did that episode. But you knew about Nathan Appell and the religion business and all that stuff way before I did. The first time he popped on my radar is when he made that ridiculous quote about socialism when he was on Tucker Carlson and he talked about how, you know, Christianity is socialistic. Tucker Cross's like you think like you know he did his whole deal >> but like I want to know when you first came across him because you had him in your studio before I knew he was a person that existed and so I'm just curious how you you got caught up in his little [clears throat] web and how it even worked out that he came here to the studio. >> Yeah. So I I think he reached out or someone reached out with regards to him wanting to come on my channel. This is this is January. It was I know I remember it was January. I don't remember which year it was. This is very early. This is right as he was kind of I don't even think the series was out yet. And so I remember saying, "Okay, filling this guy out." We hopped on a call and I remember him him him advocating for his position of like, "Hey, I think churches need to release 990s and this and this and that." And then I started telling him the churches I was connected to cuz I had just done Yeah. This is the beginning of 202 because I had just done the North Coast vlog 2024. North Coast is our big mega church out here. So, Larry Osborne, Pastor Chris Brown, and they were extremely transparent about their finances. They told me the top earners in a church, what the cap office is on their on their um salaries. Uh they told me, "Hey, this is the, you know, this is the budget. This is where the money like they were very transparent, which was to me very good to have a mega church. It's one of the biggest just like, hey, this is how the money goes. This is where it goes. Um >> this is the highest salaries, yada yada yada." So, I remember talking to Nathan. I'm like, "Hey man, like just so you know, these are the people I'm connected to. This is how they go about I just did the day. There was no issues with transparency with these people. And I remember him telling me this on the phone. He wouldn't acknowledge it in person when I had him in. He says, "Oh, no, man. Like, you're connected to like the gold standard of guys in this world in terms of pastors. They're doing really good stuff with this." And I was like, "Oh, man. Well, thanks." He's like, "Yeah, I'm not I'm not I'm not mad at those guys. I'm just more or less like, man, I don't care if people make whatever amount. I just think the church should know." And I'm like, "Yeah, I think this is where me and you would diverge and disagree. I don't think it's always healthy for people to know everyone's salary. I don't think that should be public." So, we kind of left it alone at that. Then his thing starts coming out and he's inviting me to come out to his um to his uh his launch party or whatever to go see it. And I'm like, I'm good. I'm not going to fly to Dallas or wherever it was to watch your thing. Like I'm I'm good. Then he goes after Russ Johnson, which was an acquaintance of mine because Russ Johnson um had a picture of himself with a Rolex. And Nate just goes absolutely nuclear. And I'm not like super close to Russ, but it was just kind of like, "Hey man, like what?" And Russ is like, "Bro, first of all, someone gave me that Rolex. I have since given that Rolex away. Second of all, Nathan pulled up some thing of his house being in the name of the church, and he thought the church bought him a $2 million house." Russ provided the receipts and said, "No, it's actually the opposite. The the the house I bought myself cuz I was into real estate. I had some money for my family and I worked because he was running Russ was running like a he was uh what is that called? in in um insect killing insects in houses like he was extermination. So he had an extermination business before his his platform blew up. So Russ is just checking him over and over and it's like no I bought the house and I put it in the church's name so that the church can have an asset on their books that we could borrow against to get into buildings and yes it's nice not to pay for taxes, [laughter] right? Like like so he's like just receipt after receipt after receipt and Nathan is just not budging on any of this sort of stuff because Nathan has a story and I'm like oh man. So we're texting him just bro. So, we try to have a debate. We try to set up a debate with Sean Kelly on uh Nathan and um Nathan versus Russ. Russ had a tragedy in the family. Wasn't able to do the debate. Then he goes on to um Sean Ryan's podcast and it was just so bad. At this point, I'm writing this dude off. I'm like, he's an activist. Yeah. >> This is unable. He goes on Sean Ryan. He's spewing a bunch of nonsense and a couple pastor friends of mine's like, "Hey, can you respond to this guy? We're people are asking us about it." So, I did a response just breaking down the basics of like, hey, this is what the church said. This is what the Bible says about pastors getting paid. This is what the script this is why we have nonprofit. This is why pastors don't have to disclose their incomes here. Just just break down of these things. This is how he's wrong. This is what the scriptures say. Um, that caught wind of Shawn Ryan. I go on Shawn Ryan's podcast as a response to Nathan Appfell as well as sharing my own story. And that just inflames Nathan. He is just just livid that I got to go on Shawn Ryan because I responded to him. was so upset about that. So then he's like, "Hey, let's go on. Let me have a conversation. Let's let's do something together on your podcast." And I'm like, "Okay." So I'm thinking we're going to have a good conversation good fruitful productive conversation >> in good faith. >> In good faith because I believe that there are I I'm still I'm very optimistic about people. Like I really try to give people the benefit of the doubt. >> He puts together this trailer of his parts from Shawn Ryan and my parts from Shawn Ryan and calls it like a a massive debate. >> Yeah. >> I'm like, "Oh, okay." So we're on like debate energy. and he wants to come and debate here. So, I'm like, "All right, okay, fine." I tell him, I say, "Hey, my wife's about to have a baby. We'll put this out when the baby comes. I'm banking this episode for when the baby comes and I'm going to give you a 4K file and you can do whatever you want with it, but but just wait until my baby comes that we're trying to bank some episodes." >> Yeah, >> we do the debate. It goes how it goes. Uh, I thought I thought I thought his handling of the scripture was terrible. I think he didn't understand why churches had nonprofit status. Um I think he fumbled a lot of very basic facts and then he made some compelling arguments as well in terms of like hey the definition of transparency yada yada yada and uh and and he he kept misunderstanding me because what I wasn't saying was that churches shouldn't be transparent. What I was saying is they are transparent. It's just to whom should have access to all of the financial >> they're elders elders and board. Yeah the elders and the board and anyone that is connected to a church that's a giver. Generally speaking, I could come into my church today and ask anyone's salary and they're going to tell me why. Because I'm committed to the mission, I give at the church. I'm sure it's the same thing. If you want to know your pastor's salary to them, I there's pastors that offer up their salaries to me all the time. Some of the biggest pastors in the country are like, "Yeah, I make a this much and blah blah blah, you know." So, pastors that offer me their net worths all the time, right? Because they're not afraid. It's just this is not necessarily good for the public to have all this information because there's always going to be someone that thinks that's too much. >> Yep. >> Right. In Southern California, our uh San Diego, our uh household income, the average household income is $100,000. The average person that lives in San Diego County, the household is $100,000. In Oklahoma, that might sound like a ridiculous amount for a pastor to make. Sure. Right. In Alabama, that may sound like, but you don't understand the cost of living out here. So, I don't think this stuff should be made public. He kept saying, "We disagreed on transparency." We didn't disagree on transparency. We disagreed on the who should transparency be extended to, >> right? So then he starts going after Joby Martin. I'm kind of like, man, oh, so so what happened? Sorry, I left this out after we did the podcast. He takes the Patreon version of the conversation >> you gave him. >> I didn't even I I just sent them the the the stream. Like, here's a stream. >> Yeah. >> Or he takes the that version, starts screen grabbing it, and making reaction videos >> to the conversation >> that you had released yet. >> I hadn't released yet. I'm like, "Bro, you can't paywall your documentary, not send it to me, be mad that I didn't watch it, then be mad at me for paywalling our conversation that I told you was going to come out when my wife went into labor, when I was going to take a couple weeks off." Like, you're just a sleazy, nasty guy at this point to maneuver that way and and act like uh these are the same. They're not the same thing. So, he was also mad that I didn't watch his docy series. I'm like, "You didn't send me your docy series." and any other guest and I've had folks with Amazon TV shows, movies, books, they always send us stuff ahead of time. >> That's right. Send the screeners in the art copy. >> And he just thought I should buy his documentary. I like why would I buy and support your stuff when I think you're you're you're questionable at best. You have some serious integrity issues with how you keep spinning narratives. Why would I support you? You should have sent that to me. I asked for it repeatedly. I'd asked for it for 6 months, nine months. I've been asking for this docu series. Never sent it to me. And then he brought it up as if this like gotcha. can't believe you didn't watch my documentary. So, I'm just like, dude, this he's not a good faith actor. So, anyway, after this, I just kind of write him off. I did a couple response videos, then he starts going after Joby Martin and I get there. I didn't think nothing of it. I'm like, "Oh, what is he mad about? Uh, whatever." You know, didn't think nothing of it. Did my interview. He thought we orchestrated this big play that as he's going after Joby Martin, Job Martin's going to clean up and do PR by partnering with Rouslon for this. It w it was none of that. I was just in town uh for my event in Tampa and I said, "Hey, I want to go meet and hang with Joby and maybe we can make a vlog out of it, do his podcast." It just came came together again. He thought it was this massive PR strategy. >> And so, uh yeah, we talked about whatever thing he was mad about briefly about the the retreat center, which you had already done a ton of stuff. I saw your videos actually and I said, "Let's talk about this retreat center." So, he explained the retreat center. I didn't think nothing of it. I was like, "Oh, retreat center." then is when he then escalated to just flat out lying about me, quoting quoting obvious clips out of context. And uh I'm like, dude, like now you're just a liar. Like you're just a blatant liar at this point. You're you're you're far gone. Like you're we're no long you're you're you're full-on activist mode. You're not a truth teller. And then he partners with, you know, Tucker Carlson. And I'm just like, "Oh, cool, man. This thing has worked itself out." because I don't think anyone that's serious takes Tucker serious or is going to take him serious now moving forward, which I think is the worst thing he could have done to be taken seriously. Probably the best thing for his career, worst thing as a journalist is to go partner with that dude. >> Well, that's the thing is there's there's this whole movement towards pseudojournalism. So the pseudojournalism is I call myself a journalist because I have an internet connection and a cell phone and so I am a journalist now. I am seeking the truth and I'm just asking questions. Just asking questions. And the thing is is there always has to be an evidentiary basis. And he is okay with always impuging the motives of other people. But when his motives are impuged or assumed, he doesn't like that very much to where it's like, "Hey, uh, Nathan, I noticed in some of your videos, I saw a clip, uh, one of your camera setups was like a 30 $40,000 camera setup. Why do you get to have one of those?" >> Mhm. >> But but a pastor shouldn't wear a Rolex that maybe someone gave him. Maybe he inherited that Rolex from his dead father. [clears throat] You big [inaudible]. like like at what point like you don't know what you're talking about. And that's what what I told him whenever in my original uh video that I had to end up re-recording the end because he became it very came to me that he was not a good faith actor. I was like, "Hey, how about I fly you out to Jacksonville, you sit down with Joby, no assistance, no cameras, no recording devices, and just kind of talk through your issues. Win-win for you because if you ask Joby's questions and he answers in the affirmative, then you can confirm he's akin to the Antichrist." But on the other side of things, maybe you realize, ah, shoot, I took a shot and I missed. Like, I shot at Kenneth Copelan and I hit. Good for me. I shot at Joyce Meyer, I hit, you know, good for me. I shot at, you know, whoever else. Benny Hinn, >> you just shot and miss, man. We all take our shots and miss. Like, you can't be in this business of, you know, opinion, uh, journalism and content creation without going back and being like, uh, yeah, that wasn't I should have said that differently. Hey, man, I actually said something cuz I thought it was true. It's flatout not true. then you look humble and then I will take your content even more seriously because now what I've done is I'm questioning not really but it's like is Benny Hinn actually that bad of a guy because Nathan Afeld doesn't like him. So that's my new thing in my brain to where it's like I'm trying to like surmise are these people really that bad or are you just a gigantic journalistic doofus? >> Yeah. Well, and it's also there's a difference between knowing someone is from within the church like critiquing the church and someone from outside the church critiquing the church. When Mike Winger does an expose on Bethl Church and breaks down the coverup culture and provides the receipt, we know that Mike's one of us. Mike loves Jesus. Mike's in a church. Mike's in a local church. He goes to a church. He gives to a church. He serves in a church. >> And Nathan Afel has not submitted himself to the authority of any shepherd or or elders. >> So then you go, okay, so you're an outside guy that doesn't really understand why we have these uh protections for pastors and why there's these benefits and why there's a parsonage and you you don't understand any of this sort of stuff. So you're an outsider critiquing something that you're just not a part of, which isn't going to give you an objective framework for this sort of stuff. So I I I I think what you just described is exactly it's the Candace Owens. It's like I'm just going to make a bunch of claims and when I repeatedly get corrected and fact checked, I'm going to pretend like it just doesn't it didn't happen and never said it and I'm never going to take accountability. I'm never going to take uh ownership. I'm never going to apologize. And to me, again, that doesn't persuade anyone. What persuades someone is, "Hey, man, my bad. I got this wrong, fellas. I got this one wrong. Let me clean up my mess. When you just rail against something and you never take accountability for anything that you ever get wrong. To me, you're just building a cult and you're speaking to uh your your fans already, not persuading anybody. So, again, to me, when I saw the Tucker Carlson thing, I was like, "Oh, bro, this is great. This is amazing." Because I I I don't know anyone that is a serious lover of Jesus, who's in a local church, loves local church, that takes Tucker Carlson talking Tucker Carlson seriously. like unless they're just like super misinformed and aren't aren't really paying attention. So to me it's like oh that's the perfect partnership. Probably great for his pockets and him him getting his stuff off the ground but terrible for his integrity and his him being taken seriously. So I'm just like great. This this worked itself out. I don't >> what is there to respond to at this point you know like you've done how many Ter Carlson interviews? Three interviews, you know, and they haven't moved the needle for you and you're on his network. Man, I hope that Qatari money is doing good for you. Well, and for him, I mean, for a lot of people, I think people get really uncomfortable with marking and avoiding certain people, but I'm good with mark and avoid until otherwise proved wrong, right? And so, I think he's in the mark and avoid category. I would not support his, you know, so-called ministry. I would not download his app. I would not spend the 20 bucks on Amazon because it's okay for Nathan um to make money, but if a pastor sells a book, you can't touch any of that money. Like, I just think he's, you know, we should mark and avoid him unless he comes around and says, "Hey, you know, I I went about this the wrong way. Maybe he's going to come to faith in Christ. Like I I mean, who knows? Like, but for him, I when you try to evaluate the gospel fruit, this guy is anti- the bride of Christ, existing in the way that it does while pretending to be he's like white nighting for the bride of Christ. And it's just like, bro, I don't know who your target audience is, but man, we're going to start to wind this to a close here, but I'm just curious for you. You know, you've had you've worn a lot of different hats as you've kind of built your profile with like with the music, with the YouTube, with the commentary, you've written a book, and you know, you speak and all the things. what's kind of that next iteration of the content that you're going to be bringing because the world's just getting hotter. Like every second that passes by, we're closer to the end times. We don't know what that's going to mean and how it's going to manifest. But I'm just curious like for you, your family, the direction of your content, what are you thinking? >> Yeah, I mean I I the book has been really fun because it has allowed me to kind of centralize all my thoughts and like what do I want to be talking about? What is the ultimate ethos of where I'm pointing people to? So the book came out in September. It's called Godly Ambition. It is a USA Today bestseller which is amazing. um awesome awesome process writing it, awesome time releasing it, awesome time speaking about it. And so a lot of the the kind of place I'm directing people is around that sort of topics. Godly ambition, calling, purpose, stewardship, how do you navigate godly ambition versus selfish ambition? How do you get after it, but not in a way that that you lose your soul and lose who you are as a follower of Jesus? So, that's been really fun to talk about. And um traveling, speaking, doing live events. We we're doing some theater shows. Uh, I'll be in um Houston October 24th, Saturday, October 24th at the House of Blues. Um, and then the 25th I'm at the um Echo Lounge. And so, yeah, just talking more about the book and then incorporating some music that's themed through the book. So, I've had the luxury of now being able to do music again uh without the pressure of it needing to be my livelihood. And so, that's just been kind of like an overflow of making the stuff I want to make and not really worrying about it. And it just kind of adds uh something to the live events. And that's primarily it. I'm going to I I I love these conversations, this topic of kind of gluing together theology, apologetics for godly ambition in the practical aspects of our lives. >> Well, man, I'm appreciative that you brought me into your studio and let uh let us record for both shows, but that's all for me. Anything else you want to get off your chest? >> No, man. That's it. Yeah. Check out uh Kyle on my channel if you guys haven't. That I don't know when this is coming out. Vice versa. >> Yeah, we'll link to all >> We'll link it all together. Yeah, that's a fun conversation, too. I think you'll enjoy that. >> All right, man. Thanks again. >> All right, guys. Peace. >> Thank you everyone for listening to this episode. 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@unaed.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. www.undaunted.life. The music on this podcast is the song Conqueror by the Christian metal band Void Awaken. Be sure to stream their music on Spotify, Apple Music, and wherever else you get your music. 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] Heat. Heat.