0:00
LinkedIn is pretty great at a lot of things, like helping you tap into the latest trends
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and insights in your field.
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We cannot stop your co-worker from tapping her pencil.
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LinkedIn can help you find new jobs that align with your career goals.
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We cannot help you find the source of that weird smell in the office fridge.
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And while we can't stop your co-workers from bringing their hobbies into the office, LinkedIn
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can help you bring your career to the next level.
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LinkedIn is the network that works for you.
0:30
This is Undaunted Life of Man's Podcast.
0:53
I'm your host Kyle Thompson.
0:55
Let's get into it.
0:56
All right, guys.
0:57
We've got a special guest on the podcast today.
0:58
His name is Mark Lanier, so he is an attorney, author, teacher, and pastor.
1:03
He founded the Lanier Law Firm and is a recipient of the American Association of Justice's
1:07
Lifetime Achievement Award.
1:09
He also was named nine years in a row to the US News and World Report's Best Lawyers
1:13
and America list, and he was inducted into the National Trial Lawyers Hall of Fame.
1:18
So this guy knows his way around a courtroom.
1:20
He certainly knows his way around a legal book.
1:22
This guy has used a lot of his legal prowess to be able to win a lot of cases and a lot
1:27
of high profile cases, but he also used his legal prowess to delve into the world of
1:32
religion.
1:33
So he wrote a trilogy of books to help people understand why Christianity stands above all
1:36
the other worldviews and religions.
1:38
And so the three books were written and kind of in this order.
1:41
So the first one is Christianity on trial.
1:43
The next one is atheism on trial.
1:46
And then the third one is religions on trial.
1:48
So religions on trial, this is the book that is going to be the main scaffolding for
1:52
our discussion here today.
1:54
But we do talk about his legal career and kind of how he got into that.
1:57
But then specifically, he was a Christian for the entirety of his legal career.
2:00
So how does that work out?
2:01
Because a lot of people think lawyers just lie, they're going to do whatever they need
2:04
to, to win the case or regardless of what the truth says.
2:06
I really liked his answers in terms of how that went.
2:09
I also asked him about kind of how Hollywood depicts what happens in courtrooms and things
2:13
like that and what some of the misconceptions are.
2:15
But then we dig into this trilogy of books.
2:17
He kind of explains Christianity on trial and atheism on trial in brief.
2:21
And then we really dig into religions on trial because this book covers Hinduism, Buddhism,
2:26
Judaism, Islam, Mormonism, and then a couple of things he's calling secular, spiritualism
2:31
and secular Christianity.
2:33
So we talk about kind of the rubric or process that he used to evaluate all these different
2:37
religions.
2:38
But then we do get into all those individual ones.
2:40
But also during Judaism, we actually discussed something which was really cool.
2:43
So he was actually good buddies with Justice Antonin Scalia, the late Supreme Court Justice.
2:47
And he gave an amazing story and absolutely amazing story and we could have just flowed
2:52
the rest of the time just on Antonin Scalia, but we had to get back to everything.
2:56
But we ask him, I say we, I ask him about in terms of Islam, the difference between what
3:00
people would consider extremist Islam versus fundamentalist Islam.
3:04
We look at kind of the core tenets of Hinduism and Buddhism and how they're, they don't
3:08
really work out with real life and everyday life.
3:11
But then we spent quite a bit of time on Mormonism because I really want to talk about how Mormonism
3:15
just seems absolutely preposterous.
3:17
I don't even understand how it's still a thing.
3:19
We talk about how they, you know, talk about additional revelation and how they've had
3:23
a lot of quote unquote additional revelations that came very contemporarily, right?
3:27
And so it also worked in with some changes that were happening in culture and how that
3:31
doesn't make a lot of sense.
3:32
But then I also draw a line between Mormonism and a lot of woke liberal churches and kind
3:37
of ask the question, well, Mormons are just adding stuff on top of the scripture, just
3:40
like liberal modern woke churches.
3:42
So what exactly is the difference?
3:44
And then we talk a little bit at the end and he give a great gospel presentation when talking
3:47
about secular or spiritualism and secular Christianity.
3:50
So I really, really enjoyed my time with Mark today.
3:52
So I'm not going to keep him from you any longer.
3:54
So without further ado, let's get into it.
3:57
Mark Lanier, welcome to a Dawn said life of man's podcast.
4:00
Hey, Kyle, it's great to be on your show.
4:02
Thanks for taking the time.
4:04
I'm absolutely excited to talk to you today.
4:05
We're going to dig into a bunch of things today, but it'd be really remiss of me to not start
4:10
where the majority of people know you, which is your legal career.
4:13
So I'm always interested when people go into the military or go into ministry or go into
4:17
any type of profession like that.
4:20
Why did you choose it?
4:21
Why did you stick around?
4:22
Because there are a lot of people that went to law school that aren't practicing anymore.
4:24
So for you, what I guess drew you to the world of law.
4:28
I think probably it started with my seemingly natural argumentative ability.
4:35
So parents out there, you got that kid that likes to argue, just channel them.
4:40
I love to debate in high school.
4:45
I mean, I loved athletics as well, but I seem to be more suited for debate.
4:51
And I had a strong sense of justice because I grew up devoted in my faith to a just God.
4:59
And you combine that into some recipe for life.
5:03
And it seems God had a calling on me to put me into the legal field and try to fight for
5:09
the David's against Goliath.
5:12
So let's talk a little bit more about what you just mentioned, because obviously lawyers
5:15
are punch lines for a myriad of jokes.
5:17
And most of the jokes have to do with them being dishonest and weaving things together
5:22
to where it's to the benefit of their client, not to the benefit of truth or actual justice.
5:27
So for you being a man of faith, I guess tell me about that, were you ever at that point
5:32
where there was that kind of internal dissonance about, ah, man, I could go this way and maybe
5:37
win the case or I can go that way and honor God, it seems like there would be a lot of
5:40
opportunities to have that dissonance.
5:42
Well, the dissonance has been avoided for me 99% of my career because that dissonance
5:50
happened one time.
5:52
It happened in a case where ultimately I was representing a party that had done wrong.
6:00
And I thought through my legal skill and talent, I might be able to get them off the hook rather
6:06
than have them pay their debt that they owed.
6:10
I lost that case, it was my first loss.
6:13
And it was almost a Damascus road experience in the sense that I had a real come to Jesus
6:19
moment.
6:21
And I decided then if I'm going to be in this field and I'm going to do these things,
6:26
I'm going to choose clients that I believe in.
6:29
I'm going to choose the cause that I believe in and those will be the ones I pursue.
6:35
Now once that decision's made, the rest of it takes care of itself.
6:42
Any measure of success that I have found in the legal field, and I probably have more
6:49
verdicts in terms of dollars than anybody else in the history of the legal field, any
6:56
of that success, which I do teach to other lawyers, I derive strictly from the idea that
7:03
I tell the whole truth.
7:05
I do not go into trial with one side of the truth.
7:09
I don't go in and present one aspect of the evidence.
7:12
I don't go in and try to persuade people to one thing, the truth is the truth.
7:18
And if you tell a jury what the full truth is, the jury will do the right thing.
7:23
And if you're not on the right side in a case, you can't do that.
7:27
But if you're on the right side, it's the natural and right thing to do.
7:31
So I love the practice of law and I love the way I get to do it.
7:35
Okay.
7:36
So Mark, you mentioned your first loss.
7:39
Let's talk about losses just in general in terms of legal cases because a lot of times,
7:44
and maybe this is the Hollywood depiction or something like that.
7:47
But if a attorney, whether a prosecutor or a defense attorney, when they lose, it's almost
7:52
like, oh, they've gotten their scarlet letter, but that letter is an L. And it's just like,
7:56
you know, you carry that loss around and maybe you don't get the next case or maybe you're
8:00
not as favorable when in the eyes of whoever.
8:04
So talk to me about how you deal with losses because again, most of your cases, or I won't
8:09
say most, I don't really know, but like a lot of your cases are very high profile.
8:13
You typically win the high profile cases, but if you take a big loss, it's a lot different
8:17
losing game seven of the World Series in October than losing a game on a Thursday night in May.
8:22
You know what I mean?
8:23
Oh, absolutely.
8:24
You know, the preseason games, who cares if you win or lose?
8:28
You know, you can at 162 game baseball season, you can drop a game here and there, you will
8:34
drop a game, but the practice of law is no different than almost every aspect of life.
8:42
There are days and there are times and there are events where you will not win in the sense
8:48
of succeed in the eyes of the world.
8:52
But what we've got to do is we've got to rise above as a Christian, at least, we rise above
9:00
what worldly vision is.
9:03
If you look at James chapter three, James, the brother of Jesus, he's writing this what
9:09
I and many others believe to be the earliest New Testament writing.
9:14
He's writing a letter and in chapter three, starting in verse 13, he talks about the difference
9:18
between earthly wisdom and godly wisdom.
9:22
And he says, you know, if you're practicing your life out of selfish ambition and jealousy
9:28
and looking at it in terms of how you want to win, then what you're doing is unspiritual,
9:35
it's earthly and he even calls it demonic.
9:39
And then he says, the wisdom from God that is a wisdom from above is very different.
9:44
And it's a different way of seeing the world.
9:46
So I may go into a case and I may lose that case in the sense of what media portrays or
9:54
in the sense of how the world sees things.
9:58
But if I've done what God calls me to do, I've won at that moment, regardless of whether
10:06
the case turned out the way I wanted it to.
10:09
Because I'm not, I didn't write the script for this world.
10:14
I'm merely one of the actors who can choose to play my part or not.
10:20
But God has a much greater plan than I've ever gotten.
10:24
So it doesn't matter if it's a courtroom practice of law, it doesn't matter if someone's driving
10:28
a truck.
10:30
There are days that you have success in what you do and there are days where in the world's
10:35
eyes you don't.
10:36
But if you dedicate it all to the glory of God and you seek him and what you're doing,
10:41
you are winning in eternal ways, whether you are in earthly eyes or not.
10:48
Hey, guys, real quick.
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The links to all of that will be in the show notes as well.
12:30
I love how you brought that up and actually just reminded me of a sermon that my pastor
12:34
gave yesterday where he was talking about Luke 15 or it was a it was Luke 16.
12:39
He was talking about the rich man and Lazarus.
12:42
And he was basically talking, you know, Lazarus is this pathetic, you know, human being.
12:46
This is a different Lazarus and the parable, the only parable where Jesus actually names
12:51
one of the characters.
12:52
And then, you know, later on down the road, he actually raises a guy named Lazarus from
12:55
the dead.
12:56
I'm sure it was just a coinky dink.
12:57
But like at that exact moment, you know, whenever they're having this discussion and
13:01
Abraham is kind of talking, it's like, look to the rich man, you, you got your riches
13:05
and your comfort and your glory on earth.
13:07
Okay.
13:08
Like not like, Hey, you can only have one or the other, but it's like you already, you
13:11
already got yours.
13:12
Okay.
13:13
And you're not in control here.
13:15
You were in control.
13:16
You were the master.
13:17
You had the biggest kingdom and the most wealth, but you're just not in control anymore.
13:20
And so I think that that makes a lot of sense where it's like, okay, who are you winning
13:24
back back when this podcast Mark had tens of listeners, as opposed to the amount of audience
13:29
we have now.
13:30
I worked just as hard because it's like, look, I owe it to my audience to give them a good
13:36
product.
13:37
I owe it to the people I'm interviewing to have a good interview, but I technically
13:41
have an audience of one and whether this becomes bigger than the Joe Rogan experience stays
13:46
the size that it is now or completely goes away.
13:49
I have to honor God with what I'm doing with the talents and opportunities that he's given
13:53
me.
13:54
I guess is the way to say it.
13:55
Yeah.
13:56
The beauty of that, Kyle, and may God bless you in what you're doing is you have the assurance
14:03
of Proverbs 3, which is many people, one of their favorite scriptures, but it's the proverb
14:10
that says, if you trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding,
14:16
if in all your ways you'll acknowledge him, he will make your path straight.
14:23
Before I went to law school, I took a degree in Hebrew and I still read Hebrew.
14:27
I translated the Bible basically for my undergraduate.
14:32
There is an aspect to the Hebrew verb there.
14:37
It's called, if anybody actually knows Hebrew, it's the PL form of the verb, but it's an
14:42
aspect that says, God himself is going to make your path straight.
14:47
You may be wandering a little to the left, a little to the right, trying to do the best
14:50
you can, but if you're acknowledging him, he will take you and put you on a straight path
14:56
to where you ought to go in his will, and that's what we're all seeking after or should
15:03
be anyway.
15:04
Yeah.
15:05
Absolutely.
15:06
I think that's absolutely the case.
15:07
And I hear that and I hear myself say it, but the reason I say it is because it's a reminder
15:12
to me.
15:13
It's not because, hey, I've checked this box off for eternity.
15:15
It's like I get wayward very, very easily.
15:18
I'm very drawn to shiny things and so I will end up going that direction.
15:21
Now, I have one more legal based question before I move on to some of the work that you've
15:25
done.
15:26
Obviously, Hollywood kind of gives us our ideas as to what relationship should be like, what
15:33
a war is like or what whatever thing is like.
15:36
And obviously, there have been a lot of legal dramas, right?
15:38
Whether it's on the silver screen or on the little screen, there's all these legal dramas
15:42
and they're typically around trials, right?
15:45
Because those are like the sexy ones, right?
15:47
So it's the murder trial or it's the crazy trial.
15:50
It's Donald Trump on trial.
15:52
It's whatever those things.
15:53
And it's, you know, you got both people.
15:54
They're in the courtroom.
15:55
You got the victims there.
15:56
You got the families there.
15:57
And then you got the attorneys and the judge and everybody's got a personality to this
16:00
big deal.
16:02
I want you to just give me the behind the scenes look.
16:05
What are the common misperceptions about how trials actually go versus Matthew McConaughey,
16:12
you know, doing it, you know, in his, in his, his sexy twang and you know, kind of making
16:17
his thing go down and, you know, bring, bringing it out that way.
16:20
Like help me understand.
16:21
I mean, are you pounding on the desk and trying to get the guy to say that, you know, he,
16:25
he demanded the code red happened, like, you know, give it to me.
16:28
What is it really like?
16:29
I love, I love the way you've interwoven all of these TV shows and movies together in
16:38
that question.
16:39
You clearly, you get an A plus for having tuned in to legal drama.
16:44
There you go.
16:46
It's interesting because some is fairly realistic.
16:51
Some is a bit out there and, and much more fashioned maybe for, for the screen than for
17:00
reality.
17:01
I do believe that there's room for drama in the courtroom.
17:07
I've tried cases where I've, I've brought in a bale of hay, a huge bale of hay and put
17:16
needles inside of it and ask witnesses how you can find the needle in the haystack or
17:21
a bale of hay.
17:23
I've tried cases where I've had huge three foot long leg of bridges made out of legos
17:29
that I've caused to fall apart in front of the jury.
17:33
I've tried cases where we've, we've put on a show, I've put on a show in front of the
17:40
jury in a very real sense.
17:43
Some of my cases are cases that have been the subject of movies.
17:47
There's a movie Chris Evans made called puncture in the U.S. release.
17:52
It was called puncture and, and it concerns one of my cases that dealt with the antitrust
17:58
aspect of, of the kind of syringes and needles that are sold and how it contributed to the
18:04
AIDS crisis and, and things like that.
18:08
You know, there are lots of, of shows that have a great bit of accuracy to them.
18:17
There's plenty of table pounding and, and drama, but having said that 95% of the lawyers
18:25
out there are boring and their, their trials are boring.
18:30
And if you get called to jury duty, it's a snooze fest.
18:34
And, and the most important friend you'll have in many trials is caffeine.
18:39
Even even, I was trying to case one time and I had gone, I'd gone like three or four years
18:46
without caffeine.
18:47
I had just decided I was addicted to it.
18:50
I needed to do something about it and I by golly was going to conquer it.
18:54
So for truly three or four years, I hadn't had any caffeine.
18:59
And I'm trying this case and it, and it deals with this piece of machinery that had left
19:04
this poor fellow paralyzed from the waist down.
19:07
And the lawyer on the other side was so stinking boring.
19:11
I was dying and I'd see afternoon and I am the lawyer.
19:16
I mean, I'm trying this case for this poor paralyzed man and, and it's his one day in
19:22
court.
19:23
It's an important thing I could be doing right then.
19:26
And I find myself, all the other lawyers talking, going to sleep at council table, I'm dying
19:33
up there.
19:34
It is so boring.
19:35
And I turned around to Jesse is one of my fellows who, who works for me and helps me
19:41
in trial.
19:42
He's sitting back in the audience and I turned around him and I do one of those things where
19:46
it looks like you're trying to drink something with your finger and your pinky out, you know,
19:51
as you bring it up to your mouth.
19:53
And I look at him.
19:54
I go diet, Coke, now I just have to have caffeine or I wasn't going to make it through because
20:01
the guy was so boring.
20:03
So I'm not saying it's all like TV, but I'm saying the great lawyers can make it like
20:09
TV.
20:10
I will say as well, the same thing can be said for just about any profession that people
20:15
think is sexy.
20:16
So some people think being a big time pastor is sexy.
20:19
Some people think being a podcaster is sexy or a professional athlete, but it's like there's
20:22
always that thing or that part of it that is just super not glorious.
20:26
And so like people love whenever I do these interviews, because they're like, you seem
20:29
really engaged with the content, blah, blah, I was like, yes, because I spend the time
20:32
reading all their books before they come on so that I can connect it to this and connect
20:37
it to that as opposed to what most people do, which is just to take the, you know, 10 questions
20:41
that are on the insert on the book that they got from the publisher and just ask those because
20:44
it's just easier.
20:46
So let's actually transition into the books that you've written.
20:49
So you wrote a series, it's the on trial series, so it's got three books.
20:52
The first one was Christianity on trial.
20:55
And then you went atheism on trial.
20:57
That's probably my favorite cover of the ones that you did.
20:59
And then this last one, which is going to be the main focus of our discussion today,
21:03
which is religions on trial.
21:05
So since we're going to spend a lot of time with religions on trial, don't want you to
21:08
give us a 30,000 foot overview of that because we're really going to dig in, but give us
21:12
an overview of why you wrote Christianity on trial.
21:17
Because you intend to write, you know, this, you know, trilogy of books, why did you then
21:22
take on atheism?
21:23
And so give us the 30,000 foot view on both of those and then we'll dig into the third
21:26
one, which you said was your favorite.
21:28
So we're going to make you dig in.
21:29
All right.
21:30
That's great.
21:31
Kyle.
21:32
So I put my books in three buckets.
21:33
I've got a bucket that's my legal books.
21:36
Okay.
21:37
That's, that's all law.
21:39
Fine.
21:40
Well and good.
21:41
And then I've got kind of two buckets of books outside of that.
21:44
I've got a bucket of books that Baylor University publishes that are daily devotionals and teachings.
21:52
There's one for each day of the year.
21:53
And that's, I'm into series.
21:55
So I did songs for living and then Torah for living, which are the first five books of
22:00
the Old Testament.
22:01
You haven't lived till you've tried to write a daily teaching devotional out of how many
22:07
stones Moses puts in the breastplate for the high priest and stuff right back.
22:12
But I did songs for living, Torah for living, and then Jesus for living, and then minor
22:19
prophets for living, which is coming out this December.
22:23
And then I'm writing right now epistles for living.
22:26
So I've got that bucket of books, but then my IVP bucket that you've got in front of
22:31
you today that we've been talking about started out with Christianity on trial.
22:37
And what I wanted to do is kind of write a book, our son is an academic and he was getting
22:44
his PhD doctorate in philosophy and logic at Oxford University.
22:52
And I got to meet a lot of his friends.
22:55
And there were a lot that thought Christianity was just something or the uneducated masses.
23:04
That once you've got smart, you didn't need such things.
23:09
And I thought, you know, these are people who are smart, but are not too smart because
23:15
Christianity does make sense.
23:19
It is a faith for anybody who's a truth seeker, regardless of their education level, because
23:28
truth is whatever truth is, and I believe Christianity is true.
23:34
So I wrote the book with the asking the basic questions, if I put this on trial to try to
23:41
find the truth, could I prove the truth, the fundamental truths of Christianity and how
23:48
would I go about doing it?
23:49
And those include questions like, is there a God?
23:52
If so, what kind of God?
23:55
Is there really such a thing as free moral choice?
23:59
Do I get to make choices and decisions?
24:04
Is there such an idea that this God would care for me and even give a wit that I exist?
24:10
Much less die for me.
24:12
What about the audacity of the resurrection and that kind of claim and this idea that
24:17
there's eternity beyond the temporal in the moment and this lifetime?
24:24
So those I addressed there, it had a good reception.
24:28
It went through a number of different printings and which shows you my mom's still alive and
24:33
buying it over and over to give away, and it worked out well.
24:39
And so I thought, well, I'd like to go into a little more depth because a lot of my friends
24:45
that I know in my occupational world are atheists and agnostics.
24:53
And I spent a lot of time talking to them.
24:56
So I thought, I think I'm going to really go into more depth on that.
25:01
And the publisher, IVP asked me to do an entire book in essence, dedicated to the idea of
25:09
atheism or agnosticism.
25:12
How do we put that on trial and what do we do about it if we're trying to prove or disprove
25:18
something?
25:19
And that was the second volume.
25:21
And then they said, wouldn't it be nice to finish this out as a trilogy?
25:24
And why don't you make an assessment or a look at various world religions and seeing
25:30
how they understand and explain life and whether or not you find those to be viable options
25:39
that themselves could carry the day in accorded law?
25:43
And that was the third volume, religions on trial.
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26:16
And so in religions on trial, you cover Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Islam, Mormonism, then
26:24
then a couple of phrases that you kind of are terms that you came up with, which is secular
26:28
spiritualism and secular Christianity.
26:31
And so I guess the first question, which I'm not going to have any answers, how the heck
26:33
do you get all that into a 200 page book?
26:36
I mean, it's just like super, it seems like dense, like you could like knock out a cow
26:40
with this thing.
26:41
That's how dense it is.
26:42
But it seems like you came up with a rubric or a matrix or a process, whatever you want
26:49
to call it for how you're going to approach your descriptions of these religions.
26:53
Because again, you could spend the rest of your life just breaking down Islam and how
26:57
it kind of manifests in our everyday world or something like that.
27:00
But you ask six questions in the book, and this allows you to kind of go through all
27:05
these different religions.
27:06
So I'll read the questions here and have you flow on them.
27:08
Number one, is the view objectively consistent with the world?
27:11
Number two, is the view subjectively consistent with who and what I am?
27:16
Number three, is there cross consistency?
27:18
Number four, is it livable?
27:20
Number five, does it answer the big questions?
27:23
And number six, does it make for good people and good societies?
27:27
So why those six questions?
27:28
Well, I wanted to try and do a fair assessment of these various faiths.
27:34
And as you point out, each one could be subject to a 1,000 page dissertation and analysis
27:41
and examination.
27:42
But one of the things that happens when you're a courtroom lawyer, trying the cases that
27:47
I try, a lot of these cases are, as you noted, high profile.
27:51
You're going to have the media there, they're going to get written up.
27:55
I tried the cases that proved asbestos was in Johnson & Johnson's baby powder, for example,
28:00
have caused them to pull their talc-based baby powder around the world and replace it
28:05
with corn starch instead.
28:08
I tried the opioid cases on a national scale that held the pharmaceutical come, I mean,
28:14
held the pharmacies, the Walgreens, CVS, Walmart pharmacies, responsible for part of
28:22
that behavior and brought them to the table to try to resolve some of the opioid problems
28:28
in the country.
28:30
In all of those cases, high profile, huge ramifications, worldwide ramifications, billions
28:37
and billions of dollars on the line.
28:40
The judge in each of those cases said you have X number of weeks to put on your case.
28:47
You have to do it in this small amount of time.
28:50
I could have spent six months trying either of the two cases I've just given you as an
28:57
example.
28:58
The judge said, "linear, you get three weeks to put on your case, not six months, three
29:04
weeks."
29:05
What you learn to do as a trial lawyer in that situation is you learn to find the central
29:11
points of focus that themselves will prove or disprove your case.
29:19
When you get those central points of focus, you don't have to go beyond it.
29:25
It's kind of like if you're going to sink a battleship, if you put two big holes in
29:32
that battleship that cannot be repaired, it can go down.
29:37
You don't have to hit it with a bunch of ammunition and fire and 30 small holes and
29:45
all the rest, the two big holes sink it.
29:47
I looked at these six criteria and I said, "If I can analyze a world system by these
29:55
six criteria, I should be able to make some valid decisions about what is fairly accurate
30:04
and what is not."
30:07
That's why I use those criteria to assess these various worldviews.
30:15
One thing that I really appreciate about that approach is it's similar to whenever I advise
30:18
people that are giving presentations or creating content or things like that, it's like, "Look,
30:24
your knowledge is worthless if it can't be transferred.
30:27
If you can't transfer the content to me in a way that is digestible for me, it doesn't
30:30
really matter."
30:32
How can I read a 500-page Eric Metaxis book and then get a 20-minute interview with him
30:37
and make it satisfactory for the audience?
30:39
It's because I'm not asking him about random things, I'm asking him about core things.
30:45
I'm not asking him about, in the book about Bonhoeffer, I wouldn't be asking him about
30:49
this one little thing that happened in his childhood that didn't really lead to any substantive
30:52
change in his life.
30:53
I'm going to ask him about the core things like him trying to kill Hitler, cool stuff
30:57
like that.
30:58
I'm going to start going through a little bit by a little, and again, we're going to be
31:01
just hitting little parts of each of these chapters.
31:03
You got to go and get religions on trial to check it out, it will be in the show notes.
31:07
Let's talk about Hinduism.
31:08
That's one of the first ones that you tackle.
31:10
The biggest problem with Hinduism is that it's a religion that is basically anything someone
31:16
wants it to be.
31:17
That's a concern for me with Republicans right now, looking at someone like Vivek Ramaswami.
31:21
He's a Hindu and he's like, "He's talking about God."
31:24
It's like, "Hey, buddy, what do you mean by that?"
31:26
It's obviously all over the place with what they believe and all elucidated with a quote
31:31
here from that chapter.
31:33
One person's Hindu believes can be quite different from another's even contradictory.
31:37
There is no set of beliefs or orthodoxy, no national or international structure or hierarchy,
31:43
no clear set of scriptures, and no founder.
31:45
It is almost open season on what one believes when claiming to be Hindu.
31:49
So Mark, what in the world is the Hindu?
31:51
What in the world do they, how do you even identify as one?
31:54
Yeah, I think if you claim it, you can just say, "I'm a Hindu," or whatever I wanted
32:02
to be.
32:03
Technically, maybe it's not so loosey-goosey, but the idea behind Hinduism is that there
32:10
are so many roads and so many options and so many variables that get you to some base
32:18
level of identity that explains your essence and your future.
32:25
And I have problems with that.
32:28
It might, if I'm looking for a religion to confirm what I already believe, then sure
32:37
Hinduism works great.
32:39
But if I'm looking for a faith that is objectively true, that I'm willing to change my beliefs
32:46
to grab onto, Hinduism to me just doesn't seem to do anything at all.
32:53
I live in Houston, Texas.
32:56
I have grandkids, we have grandkids and kids in Florida on the East Coast, and we have
33:03
grandkids and kids in California on the West Coast in LA.
33:09
Now, Interstate 10 will drive me to LA, or it will drive me to Florida.
33:19
It depends on whether I turn right or left as I'm leaving my house.
33:25
But Interstate 10, if I turn right, and I head out to California, it will not get me
33:33
to Florida.
33:34
It just doesn't make sense in the real world to say, "Hey, all roads lead to the same place."
33:40
No, they don't.
33:43
They won't get me even remotely to Chicago.
33:47
And so, in the world, it doesn't make sense that we're going to be able to just mishmash
33:56
together anything we believe and consider it right.
34:03
There really is right.
34:05
There really are truths, and I want to find those.
34:11
I don't want to take the lazy way out.
34:13
I don't want to take the easy way out, and I don't want to take the way out that just
34:17
confirms me in my comfort zone of what I want to be true as opposed to what seems to really
34:25
be true.
34:26
Well, as I hear you talk right now, Mark, and as I was reading through that chapter, it's
34:30
like if any of the major religions could be considered a postmodern religion, it would
34:35
be Hinduism because postmodernism basically says whatever's true for you is true for,
34:40
you know, you and your truth matters over anyone else's truth.
34:43
There's no objective truth where there's no objective standard in Hinduism at all either.
34:48
And so we'll move off of Hinduism.
34:50
We'll stop picking on them.
34:51
Now we'll pick on Buddhism.
34:52
So I want to read a quote from your book here.
34:55
Buddhism seeks to address the suffering with the promise of the adherent finding release
35:00
through the practice of Buddha's teachings.
35:02
And so if anyone knows anything about Buddhism, aside from the fact that, you know, some of
35:07
these monks are really, really good at Kung Fu or whatever that kind of nonsense is the
35:11
biggest part is the avoidance of suffering and the controlling of one's psyche and mind
35:17
to where suffering doesn't even come into play.
35:19
And we've seen extreme examples of that, the Rage Against the Machine album cover reminds
35:24
me of that where, you know, you had a monk that basically burned himself alive and didn't
35:28
so much as scream out or any of that because, you know, supposedly he had got so much control
35:32
over physical pain and the things around him and they can sit in cold water for 12 days
35:38
at a time and not even get cold.
35:40
Like it's that type of thing, but the whole thing is about the, you know, basically avoidance
35:45
of suffering.
35:46
Why is that such a big deal for people, especially in a modern era where it's like, yeah, everyone's
35:51
trying to avoid suffering at all times.
35:53
That's why we live indoors and eat food that's prepared for us by somebody else.
35:57
Yeah.
35:58
Well, you know, it's interesting with each of these religious faiths that we're looking
36:03
at.
36:04
I can find elements of truth in them, I can find elements of things that I admire and
36:12
things that I think are based well-based in God's truth.
36:19
The problem is, in addition to what may be a popcorn kernel of truth here and there,
36:26
there's a massive amount of things that aren't valid and you've put your finger on one for
36:34
me with Buddhism.
36:36
The Buddhist approach to suffering, which is based on the four noble truths of Buddha,
36:43
the Buddhist approach to suffering is basically if you, if you can ignore it and don't want
36:48
it and, and, and don't have any desires and don't have any wants, then you're not going
36:53
to have any suffering.
36:55
Well, a, I don't agree with that.
36:59
Yeah.
37:00
Suffering is coming for everybody.
37:01
Yeah.
37:02
The question to me is, can we find joy in the midst of suffering?
37:13
And I think with Christ, we can because we find we're fellowshipping with his suffering.
37:18
He suffers with us.
37:20
But I think very importantly, maybe most importantly, see we are called by God into this world to
37:29
combat suffering, not by denying its reality, but by coming to full force with whatever
37:38
God's given us the resource to do, to whip it.
37:41
Right.
37:42
If we see someone who is suffering, we try to come to their aid.
37:47
We don't say, Hey, just ignore it.
37:51
Disassociate from it.
37:53
Get rid of your own values and wants and needs and your suffering will go away.
37:59
If there's someone out there who's abusing children, sexually abusing children, trafficking
38:09
in young women, pedaling, suffering and misery, we're not called to tell those young women
38:17
being trafficked, disassociate from your body and disassociate from this world.
38:23
So it's not suffering.
38:25
When you're forced, no, we're called as God's children to come in there with the strength
38:30
and power of a resurrection God and fight that evil, fight disease, fight economic problems,
38:42
fight the people who are trying to steal and cheat and lie and destroy.
38:47
We're called to establish worse call to make peace in this world, not in the sense of,
38:53
Oh, just let them do what they want to do, but to fight for peace when the need is there.
38:59
And I think that suffering in this world is so real.
39:04
We can find joy and we can find peace in spite of the suffering, but we're still called
39:09
to combat the suffering, which is what Jesus himself did, when faced with disease, when
39:16
faced with people in want and people in need, Jesus fought against suffering and he calls
39:23
us to follow him.
39:25
I absolutely love that answer because whether you knew this or not doesn't really matter,
39:29
but unto life is here to equip men to push back darkness, not to equip men to discover
39:35
darkness, not to equip men to be able to correctly categorize darkness, but to push it back.
39:40
That is an active thing and our mark, aren't we more attracted to stories of resilience
39:46
and overcoming as opposed to stories of where people avoided pain, like who's going to read
39:51
an autobiography about somebody who lived a very cush life that never took any risks
39:57
that never had any failure years and never had anything that they needed to overcome.
40:00
That's not a story that gets written.
40:02
That's not a movie that gets made.
40:03
And so I think this whole Buddhist mindset of like, okay, we're just going to avoid these
40:07
things, it's like, well, you can think it all you want and you could take yourself through
40:11
whatever mental masturbation you want to be doing at that exact moment.
40:14
But whatever is happening to you is happening to you.
40:17
Like can you smile in the midst of it or are you just going to pretend like it's not happening.
40:21
So I think we're on the same page here.
40:23
Now, you wrote a chapter about Judaism and I'm just going to short sell the entire chapter
40:28
because I don't really feel like we need to talk about it because Jews don't believe
40:32
in Jesus.
40:33
That's pretty much the story.
40:34
What I do want to talk about is something from your chapter where you knew the great
40:39
justice Antonin Scalia and you didn't just know him in the sense that you shook his
40:43
hand once at a, you know, rubber chicken dinner party or something like that, but you actually
40:48
knew the guy.
40:49
You actually got to spend time with him and for me as a conservative.
40:53
I think Justice Clarence Thomas is the goat.
40:56
I think it needs to be protected with every single thing that could possibly protect a
40:59
human being, but Antonin Scalia, the two of them in terms of their conservative jurisprudence
41:05
are two of the most important juris in modernity and I don't think I'm being hyperbolic and
41:10
saying that, but I don't even have a question.
41:13
Mark just talked to me about Antonin Scalia and how you guys were buddies.
41:17
So he was a dear friend and I miss him still today.
41:20
I was talking about him the other day.
41:22
I had a chance to, I first met him when we were on a TV show together and it was fascinating.
41:29
I knew who he was obviously, I mean, I'm a lawyer, right?
41:33
And I was amazed that he knew who I was and he knew some of my cases and successes.
41:40
And this was about 20 years ago and we became friends maybe 15 years ago and we started
41:47
doing stuff together.
41:48
I've been on many hunting weekends with him.
41:51
I've been on many plane flights.
41:53
You know, one of my favorite plane flights, he and I were flying back to from, I think
42:01
Uvaldi, Texas may have been where we were hunting and I had him, we were blessed to
42:08
have airplanes.
42:09
So I had him on our airplane flying and back to DC so he could go back to work.
42:15
And on the airplane, I had two of my other lawyers on the plane with us.
42:19
So that's just the four of us.
42:22
We were just a little bit out, Scalia slaps me on the arm and because we're sitting right
42:26
next to each other and he says to me, he says, "Hey, you like to sing, don't you?"
42:32
And I said, "Sure," he said, "West Side Story, do you think we can sing the entire soundtrack
42:42
before we land in DC?"
42:46
And I looked at him and I just started, held up my right hand.
42:49
I started snapping my fingers.
42:54
And then together we went, "When you're a jet, you're a jet all the way from your first
43:00
cigarette to your last day and day."
43:03
And he's just singing full voice.
43:05
And we lost the lyrics during Officer Krupke.
43:09
But other than that, we basically made it through the soundtrack.
43:13
He was a delightful man.
43:14
I took him alligator hunting one time in the swamps of Louisiana.
43:19
He had brought his own gun and when you're alligator hunting, you basically have to hit
43:24
the alligator right between the eyes.
43:26
That's the only place where it's tender enough for the bullet to go in.
43:30
Well, he's got his rifle and he's brought it with him.
43:36
So he's ready to go, but then he found out that there were some automatic rifles available.
43:42
And so he said, "Give me one of those.
43:43
I want one of them automatic rifles.
43:45
I'm going to use that."
43:46
So it's he and I in this little split, flat bottom skip in the swamps, surrounded by all
43:53
these alligators.
43:55
And there's a couple other guys that are in their skiffs and we're out there.
43:59
Well, he stands up doing his best Rambo.
44:04
He stands up with that automatic rifle and just starts, and he can't even hold it sturdy
44:11
and the bullets are bouncing all over the place, well, I had this Cajun sharpshooter
44:16
on the shore, okay, and he sees what's happening and he realizes Scalia's no more going to
44:22
hit that alligator in the middle of the eyes than the man in the moon.
44:25
All Scalia's going to do is bounce a bullet into somebody else.
44:28
So my Cajun sharpshooter from the shore just goes, "Plink with one shot that's lost in
44:35
the barrage coming out of the AR that Scalia's got," and sure enough, it hits the alligator
44:41
right between the eyes and the alligator's dead and it's happening.
44:45
And Scalia just holds his gun up and victory.
44:47
I got him.
44:48
I got him.
44:49
I got him.
44:50
And took a picture when we got back to shore holding up these huge alligator jaws and all.
44:58
He was a good guy.
45:01
I feel like Mark, I feel like anytime someone was a personal friend of the guy, they have
45:05
a story similar to that, just how gregarious he was and kind of larger than life and that's
45:10
just kind of his deal.
45:11
And I won't go too much farther down that road because we could spend the rest of our
45:14
time today just talking about him.
45:16
But and again, I know I shorted the chapter on Judaism, you do a great job on that, but
45:21
I do want to go and move on to Islam.
45:23
So obviously a lot of people have opinions about Islam and some of them are true and some
45:27
are not, but I want to really focus in on the language of extremism versus fundamentalism.
45:35
So here's a quote from your book, because some extremist Muslims in zeal and perhaps
45:40
anger bordering on hatred have perpetuated horrible deeds under the flag of faith, some
45:45
right off the entire Muslim religion.
45:47
Now, I don't like it when people talk about quote unquote Muslim extremism.
45:53
And the reason is because I really appreciate the work of the late Nabil Kureshi, who was
45:58
a Muslim his entire life became a Christian, but whenever he talks about Islam from a place
46:03
of true understanding, because he used to be basically a Muslim apologist, he talks about
46:09
how the people that are like an Isis and Boko Haram and al Qaeda and these different groups,
46:15
they're not extremists, they're fundamentalists, they're following the least abrogated of all
46:21
the texts in the Quran, which is the ninth surah, they're following it to the tea because
46:25
at that point in Muhammad's life, he was like, yeah, all that peace talk that I said back
46:30
in the day, that's gone now.
46:32
That's done.
46:33
Here we are.
46:34
And the ninth surah is the bloodiest, most violent, you know, surah in the entire Quran.
46:41
And so again, most people just say it because it's colloquial to just say extreme Muslim
46:46
or extremist Muslim.
46:48
But do you feel like that maybe sets us up to think of it like, oh, they're the outliers
46:52
as opposed to the true believers?
46:54
Well, I don't know because here's the give and take on that, if I am a Muslim, a friend
47:05
of mine, and I'm not close friends, but have had lunch with them and spent time with him
47:11
is Hakim Elijahwan, basketball center for the Houston Rockets.
47:17
He's his kind and general up person as you're going to find.
47:20
He is very devout and his Muslim beliefs.
47:23
He doesn't understand the ninth surah to be the ruling surah in that way.
47:27
And I liken those who do these fundamentalists, as you're calling them, extremist as I call
47:36
them in the sense that they are outliers to what is most of the people who practice Islam.
47:46
They're outliers in a sense, but yet there's a lot of them.
47:50
I don't mean to minimize that, but they're functionally the equivalent, or some in Islam,
47:58
that the extremist Judas are who say, I'm going to take the Old Testament injunction and
48:07
instruction by God to destroy and kill everyone who lives within the Holy Lands and get them
48:15
out of the Holy Lands and not leave anyone alive like should have been done at AI, should
48:23
have been done at Jericho, should have been done when God says to do it, God says don't
48:28
let the infidels live within the confines of the Holy Land back then, that's never been
48:34
changed.
48:35
Boom.
48:36
Let's go.
48:37
There are some Jewish people who hold that view, but they're not mainstream.
48:44
They're extremists to their religion.
48:47
You might want to say they're fundamentalists to their religion.
48:51
I don't know the vocabulary.
48:53
What I want people to understand is you can take all of Islam from one end of the bell
49:01
curve to the other, the meat, the extremist, the mainstream, all of them.
49:08
Good, kind, wonderful people, horribly harsh, deluded people, all of them.
49:14
Their faith is not sustainable if you examine it fairly.
49:20
Islam claims to be a historical religion based on history, based upon God giving it to Muhammad
49:28
the prophet, exactly the way it's true, right, and pure.
49:33
And the bottom line is if you examine the Quran carefully, it is not historically accurate.
49:41
It has too many mistakes that are glaring mistakes that are obvious mistakes, that you
49:46
have to do some mental gymnastics that would exceed what gets a gold medal at the Olympics
49:53
if you wanted to try and accept it as true.
49:57
So most Muslims just don't address those issues.
50:00
They put on blinders to the truth and they wind up with a religious faith that's not
50:07
accurate, whether they're, quote, mainstream or fundamentalist or extremist or wherever
50:13
they are on this spectrum.
50:14
Does that make sense?
50:15
It does make sense and to be fair and to also honor the remainder of our time left today
50:19
because we're, you know, we got to round to a close at some point.
50:22
I have so many more questions about that, but we got to move on because the main thing
50:26
I wanted to talk to you about here, we are 45 minutes in.
50:29
So here's the treat for the people still hanging around.
50:31
You address Mormonism.
50:32
So I have several questions about Mormonism.
50:36
One thing that drives me absolutely insane, Mark, is how people will always qualify their,
50:42
their negative opinions about Mormonism.
50:45
And they'll just talk about how, well, you know, Mormons are just so nice.
50:48
And I think in like the last, you know, sentence or two of your chapter on Mormonism, you basically
50:53
talk about, I've got a lot of friends that are Mormons and are so nice.
50:55
And it's like, okay, it's, it's okay for people to be nice, but are they wrong or not?
51:00
The thing for me, Mark, is I don't even understand how Mormonism is a thing.
51:04
I don't even understand how it's a thing.
51:06
The belief system seems so absolutely preposterous.
51:09
I have no idea why people take it seriously.
51:12
I don't understand why we can't just say, yeah, Joseph Smith was a really, really smart
51:16
and magnetic con man and just move on.
51:19
Like how did it capture so many people like I don't, how's this still a thing today?
51:24
How is this not just, you know, religion of a bygone era?
51:27
First of all, I think your assessment is dead on.
51:31
I think Joseph Smith was exactly that, a semi charismatic con man in the right place
51:39
at the right time to perpetrate a con that has concurred a great deal of human population.
51:50
Now, having said that, oh yeah, I'm quick to say I've got some Mormon friends who are
51:56
real nice.
51:57
Got a lot of pagan friends that are real nice, doesn't make them right, and even remotely
52:03
make them right.
52:04
But hey, they're nice and I appreciate what some Mormons value as family.
52:11
I don't like the way other Mormons value that, but the bottom line is, is like what
52:15
I was saying about Islam.
52:17
You just can't read it in its historical sense and believe that it's true.
52:23
You can't fairly do that.
52:27
And I could have written books upon books just off of that.
52:30
I grew up in Rochester, New York, right outside of Rochester is, is Hill Camora.
52:37
And I went to the big Mormon play, the festival exhibition play there that they do annually
52:45
or did at least back in the '60s when I was growing up.
52:48
Look, the whole thing just doesn't hold water.
52:52
They do respect to Mormons, I just challenge them to look into the historicity of their
52:59
faith because it's just not valid.
53:02
It's a con.
53:04
Yeah, I don't, again, most people don't want to be challenged on the way they do life.
53:09
They want to be validated.
53:11
And so that of course, you know, extends to religions.
53:14
But if I had to put my finger on what I would consider to be the most nefarious thing about
53:19
Mormonism, it's the claim that they have an additional revelation from God that is outside
53:26
of the accepted biblical canon.
53:29
Okay.
53:30
Now, as I was thinking through this, I might be making a connection that's not there.
53:33
So you tell me how you feel about this.
53:35
But immediately when I had that, when you were describing the additional revelations in the
53:40
chapter in the margins of my book, I wrote woke churches because what modern liberal
53:47
woke churches do is they act as if they've got some higher level of understanding, which
53:52
is kind of nostic.
53:53
And they think because of my lived experience or because of where culture is right now in
53:58
the West, here's how we should apply scripture.
54:01
Here are the things that we're going to put on top of scripture.
54:03
Hey, you know what, we're just going to look at critical race theory.
54:06
So this is a message to the Matt Chandler's and the JD Greer's and the Southern Baptist
54:10
Convention folks that just want critical race theory to be a lens through which we view
54:15
the plight of the American Christian of color.
54:19
It's like they're taking something and putting it on top of scripture and they're filtering
54:24
the message through that as opposed to the opposite, which is like, Hey, what does scripture
54:29
say about this worldview?
54:31
And if you use that matrix, you're going to see the worldview as what it is, which is
54:35
coming from the pits of hell.
54:37
And so I see the Mormon church and what they're doing with additional revolution or revelations
54:42
rather similar to what modern liberal woke churches are doing.
54:45
Do you see the connection?
54:47
Yeah, I do.
54:48
You know, my big challenge in my world and in my teaching world, because I teach every
54:53
Sunday at church and on the internet, my big challenge is not to take my modern ideas and
55:01
use them to bootstrap on scripture to understand scripture in a way that I like with my modern
55:09
revelation, if you will, my big goal is to do the exact opposite is to try to go back
55:16
and understand scripture within the framework that it was originally written so that I can
55:22
adapt my view of the world and my view of life to those fundamental truths that are expressed
55:28
within the original intent of scripture.
55:32
I'm not looking to add to it.
55:34
I'm looking to purify my understanding of it if that makes a sense.
55:40
Mm hmm.
55:41
No, it does make sense.
55:42
And that's the thing is we have to make sure we're putting the correct or understanding
55:45
that there is scaffolding under these worldviews and is what is the scaffolding made of, right?
55:51
And so that can even get into scripture like have you built your, you know, your house
55:54
on the foundation of sand or of rock?
55:56
I think it all goes the same way.
55:57
So if that's the number one most nefarious thing about Mormonism to me, or as I've already
56:02
kind of talked about earlier.
56:04
The second most nefarious thing is how the contemporary revelations that they're having.
56:10
So they've got additional revelations, but they've also got to because they get a revelation.
56:16
They get a quote revelation in the 1800s that the 10 lost tribes of Israel from six, seven
56:24
hundred B.C. became the American Indians.
56:28
Right.
56:29
And then they reach a point.
56:30
They were Native Americans, I should say, then they reach a point where DNA is uncovered
56:36
by science.
56:38
You're able to look at the DNA of the Native Americans and find out they ain't even 1%
56:43
Jewish.
56:44
There's no Jewish history and blood in them.
56:47
And so they've got to rewrite their last revelation because science has shown it to be pooling.
56:54
Right.
56:55
So the Native Americans being connected to the ancient Jews, you have their contemporary
57:00
revelations about race.
57:01
They didn't use to allow people of color to serve in the Mormon church.
57:04
Now they do about polygamy.
57:06
They may changes about that.
57:07
So they could, you know, be established in Utah as a state or whatever.
57:11
And before long, you can assume they're going to do the same thing with the LGBTQ folks,
57:15
but there's a quick quote from the chapter that I'll read here.
57:18
So the Mormon church is able to do a 180 on core tenets of teaching as science and society
57:23
make it necessary, claiming new prophetic insights, yet it indicts the historical Christian
57:28
church for changing as it grew in its understanding and insights of scripture.
57:33
So talk to me just a little bit more about these additional insights because it's like,
57:36
that should be the big blinking sign to anyone that's either Mormon or Mormon sympathetic.
57:43
That's like, wait a minute, like there's nothing in these holy texts.
57:47
There's nothing there that people really understand to be this way.
57:50
But then the church just makes a decision.
57:52
It seems like it was a decision made because of a committee meeting, not because God told
57:56
him to.
57:57
Yeah.
57:58
And what I was hinting at in that quote that you pulled out is the Mormons will take
58:04
to task Christianity because the understanding of God is trinity as threeness is expressed
58:12
in the subsequent centuries to the New Testament writings.
58:16
The concept though is so clear.
58:19
It's just trying to understand the New Testament.
58:22
It's not a concept that was written up brand new, fresh wholesale out of new cloth.
58:29
It is an effort to understand the doctrine that is already built in scripture, present
58:36
in scripture.
58:38
On the other hand, the Mormons will totally brand new, bring up brand new ideas.
58:45
So you've got in the original Mormon concept, you've got the idea that black people are
58:53
like the renegade offspring from the cosmic father, God, the children in three buckets.
59:05
There were those who followed the elder son, Jesus, in terms of how they wanted to live
59:10
on earth.
59:11
Those who followed the younger son who was just a troublemaker, Satan, who's the brother
59:17
of Jesus.
59:19
And then you've got the ones that couldn't decide which bucket to get into.
59:22
So they're born black as kind of their curse and to show who they are.
59:26
Well, that doesn't work now.
59:28
So what are they going to do?
59:29
They got to totally rewrite that kind of stuff or they won't have an existence in most cultures
59:37
outside of maybe where the clan is still operating.
59:41
And so, you just see those huge modifications and you just say, mercy, take the blinders
59:47
off and see what you're looking at.
59:50
I absolutely agree with that.
59:51
The blinders, again, we will just absolutely fool ourselves and we will choose to do it.
59:57
But the last thing of Mormonism before we kind of wrap up because we do need to kind
1:00:00
of wind to a close here, I feel like there are a lot of Christians mark that think Mormons
1:00:06
are Christians, and then there are a lot of Mormons that think that they're Christians as well.
1:00:11
And I had a discussion with a guy yesterday and I want to be careful with how I couch it
1:00:15
because it could seem, you know, heretical to even mention it this way.
1:00:19
But I asked him, I go, Hey, could Mormons be kind of like how some people view Catholics
1:00:25
or very liberal denominations of particular churches and be like, Hey, they're right about
1:00:30
the core stuff, like about putting their faith in Jesus, but it's all this other extra crap
1:00:36
that, you know, they'll get to heaven one day and God'll be like, What a dummy, you actually
1:00:40
believe that?
1:00:41
Come on, I gave you the word and you put you put a bunch of crap on top of it.
1:00:44
Is it that type of thing or is is Mormonism just in and of itself?
1:00:48
No, this is a cult.
1:00:50
These people are trying to win people over.
1:00:52
I even heard someone say that they grew up around a bunch of Mormons and they actually
1:00:56
train on how to convince Christians that they too are Christians as well by how they describe
1:01:02
things and by the language that they use.
1:01:05
I know that's kind of a convoluted question, but what are your thoughts on that is it could
1:01:08
Mormon just be like a wayward version of Christianity or is it just way off in left
1:01:12
field?
1:01:13
Well, you know, I don't want to, I think that maybe we need to separate out individual
1:01:19
more mons from Mormonism.
1:01:23
Let's say you've got a Mormon who understands that, yeah, the Bible is accurate too and
1:01:29
they spend time reading and they read John 3 16 and they read Romans and they understand
1:01:34
if they confess with their mouth and they believe with their heart that Jesus Christ
1:01:40
is Lord, that they'll be safe and they do that.
1:01:44
Even though they've got all that other junk piled on.
1:01:47
I mean, God's in the saving business, God's trying to look for everyone within his justice
1:01:53
that he can possibly say.
1:01:55
So I'm not going to sit here and cast a judgment upon that, but I am going to say the Mormon
1:02:01
faith as it is professed in practice, as it is professed on the websites, as it is professed
1:02:08
within their covenants and doctrines, their pearl of great price, the book of Mormon,
1:02:14
that Mormon faith has got a bunch of stuff that is antithetical and an opposite of genuine
1:02:21
Christian thought.
1:02:22
I'm glad you described it the way that you did because I feel like I even got lost in
1:02:26
my own question because the same thing can be said about Catholics because within Catholicism,
1:02:31
it's like, okay, there are individual Catholics that have put their faith in Christ for their
1:02:35
salvation.
1:02:36
And then there are others just that are just kind of culturally Catholic and they go and
1:02:39
get the wafer in the blood and all that kind of stuff and they just don't have any belief.
1:02:43
It's similar to someone going to a Southern Baptist church that just kind of goes in there,
1:02:47
you know, a few Sundays a month because it makes them feel good and then they ride home,
1:02:52
you know, listen into country music and then they go vote for the local Republican candidate
1:02:55
and they feel like that's good enough to get them to heaven.
1:02:57
So one thing that I normally do on my podcast is I feel like I do a pretty good job of pacing
1:03:02
and I don't leave anything on the table.
1:03:04
But here I am.
1:03:05
We're at the very end of our time mark and I'm going to have to mush together two things
1:03:09
that I wanted to actually spend some time in because I've just gotten so excited about
1:03:13
other parts.
1:03:14
What we were saying.
1:03:15
So you wrap up your book, religions on trial by talking about secular spiritualism and secular
1:03:21
Christianity.
1:03:23
So again, I'm setting you up poorly here.
1:03:25
But what are those things secular spiritualism is sexual Christianity and why should they
1:03:29
concern us?
1:03:30
I'll put them in a nutshell.
1:03:31
Okay.
1:03:32
Popular spiritualism, these are people who love the idea of spirituality, but don't want
1:03:41
to embrace faith in God and these are the people who are spiritual without religion.
1:03:50
And then you've got those people who are going to the church like you indicated, but whose
1:03:57
hearts are far from being Christ-like, who have no trouble not just stopping for someone
1:04:04
in need, but just running over them in a hurry to get home to watch the ball game.
1:04:10
You've got people who are in churches and are religious, but are far from spiritual.
1:04:17
So you've got these two almost opposites of each other.
1:04:22
People who claim to be spiritual, but aren't religious and people who claim to be religious,
1:04:26
but aren't spiritual.
1:04:28
And what God calls us to be is, and what's true and valid is a true, vibrant faith that
1:04:36
changes who we are, where we're transformed in our minds, as Paul says in Romans, from
1:04:43
thinking the way the world thinks to thinking the way God thinks.
1:04:46
And that only comes from being in that relationship with God that is established through one door
1:04:52
alone and that door is Jesus Christ.
1:04:56
And through the death and burial and resurrection of Christ, I'll go lawyer on you.
1:05:02
We are declared by God not guilty.
1:05:06
And the big problem from a legal perspective is how can God, a just God, declare someone
1:05:14
guilty, not guilty?
1:05:17
And the only way to do it is if someone's already paid the penalty.
1:05:21
And so if we're in that relationship, truly, then that will drive us in our spirituality.
1:05:28
You can be as spiritual as you want.
1:05:31
But if you're not in a relationship with God, you won't win the trial.
1:05:38
You can be as religious as you want.
1:05:41
But if you're not spiritual with God and in relationship with God, it doesn't matter.
1:05:45
All you're doing is punching buttons and checking lists.
1:05:50
And so that's it in a nutshell for me.
1:05:52
Well, Mark, it's like you're a professional at this because that's a hell of a way to
1:05:56
end an interview by bringing the gospel and the fire to everybody.
1:05:59
But just like your books, we seem to squish a whole lot of great stuff into a very short
1:06:05
time period.
1:06:06
So but that's all for me.
1:06:07
Is there anything else you want to get off your chest?
1:06:10
Kyle blessings on you and may God bless everyone who's listened to this.
1:06:15
And I pray your, your, your, your audience just grows.
1:06:19
Keep doing your good work, buddy.
1:06:22
Mark Lanier, thank you for coming on a Daunton life of man's podcast.
1:06:25
There you go, guys.
1:06:26
I hope you enjoyed my time with Mark Lanier.
1:06:27
But before we let you go, we are going to do a quick resilience boost at a Daunton life.
1:06:31
Our mission is equipping men to push back darkness with content that forges spiritual,
1:06:35
mental and physical resilience.
1:06:36
So the only thing I've got for you today is I've got a link to the Amazon page where you
1:06:40
can check out all of his books because he's got the three books that we talked about today,
1:06:43
but then he's got a whole lot of other ones on there so you guys can go and check it out.
1:06:47
Thank you guys so much for listening to this episode.
1:06:49
Wherever you're listening to this, please subscribe, rate and leave us a positive five
1:06:52
star review.
1:06:53
If you want to come speak alive at your event or on your podcast, just shoot me an email
1:06:56
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1:06:58
That's I N F O at undontin.life, follow us on Instagram and like us on Facebook and
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check out our website for everything else, including how to donate to keep more content
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1:07:07
Just go to www.undontin.life and also we want to thank the band Holy Name for allowing
1:07:13
us to use their music for our content.
1:07:15
The music on this podcast is our song Perpetua, which is off their self-titled debut album
1:07:19
on Face Down Records.
1:07:20
The links are in the description.
1:07:22
I'm your host Kyle Thompson.
1:07:24
Remember, keep pushing back darkness, keep forging spiritual, mental and physical resilience.
1:07:30
Keep seeking the lion of Judah.
1:07:43
[music]