← Focus on the Family with Jim Daly
Focus on the Family with Jim Daly
Speaking Peace into Chaos in a Troubled Culture (Part 1 of 2)
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- [00:01]
A
God is at work, and he's calling his people to rise in truth. Truth Rising is a powerful new documentary from Focus on the Family and the Colson Center. See how ordinary Christians choose courage in a culture that needs truth. Watch Truth Rising today and find out how you can become an agent of restoration and hope. Visit truthrising.com today. That's truthrising.com.
- [00:33]
B
Jesus said in John, chapter seven, the world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify about it, that its works are evil. Those words from Jesus seem so appropriate in this moment as we consider how to show Christ to our culture. This is Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. I'm John Fuller, and welcome to our show.
- [00:53]
A
John, I appreciate that reference because it seems like we are at an inflection point. Last week, we had terrible tragedy with this young Christian leader, conservative leader Charlie Kirk. He was 31 years old, you know, married not long ago, has two adorable children, and was shot down at a university campus because he was speaking about those things that are dominantly biblical, you know, whether that's family formation or abortion or issues with the LGBTQ community. But he was trying to engage. That's what he was trying to do, is have dialogue and persuade people that their positions should be reconsidered. And for that, it seems, people hated him and decided. One person obviously decided to take him out and end his life. The Ukrainian woman on the train, she was killed simply for sitting near somebody that she shouldn't have sat.
- [01:49]
B
It was such a brutal act.
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A
Yeah. And I'm aware of, I think not long ago, a pastor in Arizona was crucified in his home by a person who said, I hated him because he talked about Jesus. Things are happening, and I think we need to be aware of that, but refocus on the things that are most important when we stand up for truth. How do we do that in such a way that the Lord is honored? And we're going to talk today with two special friends to dig deeper and better understand the Christian response and the Christian attitude in this cultural moment. Yeah.
- [02:22]
B
We have joining us remotely, Brandt Hanson and Gabe Lyons. Brandt is a widely syndicated radio host and author of the book Unoffendable How Just One Change Can make all of Life Better. And Gabe Lyons is also an author and speaker and the founder of Think, a media company dedicated to exploring the intersection of faith, culture, and the next generation.
- [02:44]
A
And just for reference, Think with a Q in case people want to look it up. Brant and Gabe, welcome to Focus on the Family. Thank you for joining us today.
- [02:53]
C
Thank You. Yeah. It's great to be with you, Jim.
- [02:55]
A
Hey, this is a heavy note given what's taken place. Charlie Kirk, he was one of a kind. You know, he was young, he was entrepreneurial, he was believer. He was trying to take those thoughts and ideas into really a fiery furnace into college campuses and speak to students about what they believed. I think his tour was off and the banner was Prove Me Wrong. And people would step to the mic and go after it. When it came to social issues, to a degree, the political landscape. But how would you summarize and perhaps what impressed each of you? Brandt, I'll start with you, with Charlie Kirk.
- [03:35]
D
Well, what I heard from some of his friends was that he just kept getting better at what he was doing over time. And I think that's really interesting. He was so young, and I just recently heard an interview with him with. I just heard a bit on social media of him with. With Tucker Carlson, and Tucker was like, how does this not drive you crazy, all this stuff that's happening? And he's like, it doesn't drive me crazy because I expect it. We're in a spiritual battle. And he started talking about this spiritual battle we're in and loving our enemies. I'm like, I don't know that at 31, I could have gotten close to that. That's a good point. So he had. I think he had to reflect on that. When you're, when you're dealing with people who hate you all the time and then you're. You're trying to return it with love, you get better at it over time, and you also learn, wait a second, I'm up against something here that's not just flesh and blood, and that actually allows you to love your enemies better. When you, when you keep that in mind, that's one of the things that jumps out at me about him.
- [04:33]
A
Yeah. How about you, Gabe?
- [04:34]
C
Yeah, for me, I mean, his biblical testimony, clearly he had this political aim to mobilize people into a conservative movement for voting elections to elect those that represent their values and views. But when I think about him as a biblical man who died for his faith and those views and convictions he had, he was willing to apply them to our current culture and to say, if we really believe this, then these are the ways in which you would apply it to civil society. And, you know, I also was inspired. You know, when I think about his life and how studied he was. Right. It's like two Timothy talks about study to show thyself approved. A workman need not to be Ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. I mean, that's what he represented also in 1st Peter 3, where it describes, be the kind of person that's able to answer any question and do it with courteousness and respect. And when you watch him, especially in these latter years, his goal was to show respect to each person, to show dignity to every human being. He understood that he was debating ideas, not people. And I think this is something we all have to keep alive as we move forward in a divided moment, is that we're always, as Brant said, we're debating something that is beyond just the natural. This is supernatural. And so to be prepared for those moments and then to engage in that type of way is a way in which you see what it inspires in so many of us.
- [06:03]
A
You know, one of the, I think, most profound interactions, and I've seen hundreds, if not thousands of his interactions on campus, of course, on YouTube, or actually you can go and watch those discussions, those debates, et cetera. But it was a gender dysphoric student that stepped up, and she was 20 years old, and she was talking about how she, since she was in third grade, struggled with her gender. And he said, first of all, thank you for coming up to the mic. It took a lot of courage to be there. And he said, second of all, and her question was around whether she should move forward with hormone treatments and other things like that. And he said so tenderly, he said, you know, before you introduce chemicals into your body, I would encourage you, and most people may not tell you this, but I would encourage you to work on your mental health first. Find people who love you, find counselors who can talk with you so that the goal would be at least the way I see you today, that somehow, and I think it's through a relationship with Christ, that you would love your body and not be at war with your body. And I thought, wow, that is powerful. There was no emotion. There was no hatred in it. It was just like heartfelt reasonableness to say you're born into a female gender. God planned for that. How can we get you to a point where you can embrace that rather than fight and be at war with it? And, I mean, the audience just went quiet because it was so palpable. But that's the kind of person I saw in Charlie Kirk. He was not. Sometimes he was sarcastic, humorously, but for the most part, when it was that serious, he was up to the task of meeting the moment sp, Spiritually, emotionally, intellectually, in a way that he did. Brent. He really honed that skill.
- [07:51]
D
Yeah. And so this is one of the tough things about this. Even if he responded perfectly to every single person like that, like, that's such a great way. Even we like to think, well, if I'm compassionate, if I love my enemies, if I say the right thing, if I'm wise, they'll understand at some level and they'll realize, wow, this guy actually loves me and they won't hurt me. But that's not true. That's not true that being hurt or being injured in this world is like Jesus is saying, like, he himself was perfect and look what happened. So we have to understand that we're not going to be understood by everybody or maybe many people. Jesus is up there on the cross with just a couple people left. And the other posture that Jesus has two is remarkably. We have to have this. They don't know what they're doing. Forgive them for they don't know. I mean, that is a very difficult posture to have. When you see the stuff in the comment threads that it's very difficult. And yet that's his posture towards us as sinners. So I have to keep reminding myself of that. But it's tough because you think if you're going to answer like that, that people are going to go, eureka, love. But that's not necessarily how it works out.
- [09:06]
C
Yeah, yeah. I think, you know, when I look at the way he postured himself, and a lot of people now are talking about feeling this increased need for more boldness, that there was something about Charlie Kirk that makes all of us want to speak up more, have courage. But I think we want to process through what does wisdom look like in boldness? You know, boldness is not a fruit of the spirit, but boldness is what took place in Acts 4, when people were filled with the Holy Spirit. So there's something to understand there. And I think my friends David and Jason Benham, they wrote a book on this where I thought they described this perfectly, where boldness without brokenness creates a bully. And we've seen a lot of that. And so the beauty of this is when you're bold but you're broken, you create a bridge that allows people to have an opportunity to actually see God. And I think as we move forward in these conversations, this is going to be an important topic for us to land on. What is the balance here of boldness but also brokenness?
- [09:59]
A
I appreciate that because I think it's odd. In the human makeup, we tend to be a light switch. We're either this way or that way. We're not on a dimmer switch emotionally, where we can move with wisdom in the conversations that we're having. And I think that's part of it. And that's the thing we need to learn out of this experience, is how do we keep the wretched man down within each of us? Let me read something from Peggy Noonan and get your response. And, Gabe, we'll start with you on this. But Peggy Noonan wrote just the other day, this assassination of Charlie Kirk feels different as an event, like a hinge point, like something that's going to reverberate in dark ways. It isn't just another dreadful thing. It carries the ominous sense that we're at the beginning of something bad. I would say that's probably a fair assessment, but how? Like Erica, his brave widow, who got up a couple of evenings later and went and did a press presentation talking to the United States, saying, my husband's memory is not going to be snuffed out. It will rise up and be stronger in essence, and evil is not going to achieve its means. So with Peggy's comment, and again, his widow's comment about what they've unleashed, what does that look like to turn this thing that was meant for evil into something good?
- [11:23]
C
Yeah, I think Peggy's words are sobering. And we're told throughout the New Testament to be alert, to be sober minded, to understand what does it mean to endure patiently. Which means you're going to be in environments just like the church was throughout all of the early centuries and even up until recent Western culture, where they were at odds with the dominant ideas of the culture and did live in fear that those ideas could get them killed. I mean, that's why we have the stories of the martyrs, right? They go all the way back. Polycarp, you know, at age 86, being burned at the stake because he refused to remove himself from the identifying with Christ. And so the darkness, it reminds me of Isaiah 59. I'd love to read this passage. 14:15. It says, justice is turned back and righteousness stands far away, for truth has stumbled in the public squares and uprightness cannot enter. Truth is lacking, and he who departs from evil makes himself a prey. It does describe an environment, a public square, a culture where when truth is entering this space, where there is the demonic, where there is a lot of evil doing, where things that are good are being called evil, and things that are evil have been set up to be good, that the person who's willing to stand in that gap makes himself a prey. And yet we also, just like Charlie, cannot have a fear of man. We have to understand, as he did, our life is surrendered to him. He's called us. The most important thing we could do is continue to advance truth. Because what we saw happening with the next generation, and I think we're going to continue to see with the next generation, is they were responding to Charlie because he was willing to tell the truth in a world where they've grown up with lies, where they've grown up with people, parents even, that weren't willing to call sin, sin, call good, good, help them define and rightly divide what is truth. And because he was willing to do that, these kids understand, they respond, they go, thank you, please, thank you for just being honest with us. Because there's something about that, the eternity that's set within the hearts of men that does respond when somebody puts forward what is true. And so I'm also hopeful about all that's going to take place in the days. I was with Michael W. Smith. A couple nights ago, we had a vigil here in Franklin, Tennessee. And I was sobered by what he said. He said, I've been in the Christian world, right? I've been all over the world for decades. And he says, I've never quite seen a moment like this. I've never seen a man gunned down like this for his beliefs. And I've also never seen a response like we are right in the middle of right now. And so there's a hopefulness with it, but there's also a sober mindedness.
- [13:58]
A
Let me introduce something that really caught my attention. And this was the Governor of Utah, Spencer Cox, who made some profound statements on the day of the shooting. Let's play this clip. And I just. Brandt, we'll start with you. Just give your response after the clip.
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E
Nothing I say can unite us as a country. Nothing I can say right now can fix what is broken. Nothing I can say can bring back Charlie Kirk. Our hearts are broken. We mourn with his wife, his children, his family, his friends. We mourn as a nation. If anyone in the sound of my voice celebrated even a little bit at the news of this shooting, I would beg you to look in the mirror and to see if you can find a better angel in there somewhere. I don't care what his politics are. I care that he was an American. We desperately need our country. We desperately need leaders in our country. But more than the leaders, we just need every single person in this country to think about where we are and where we want to be. To Ask ourselves, is this. Is this it? Is this what 250 years has wrought on us? I pray that that's not the case. I pray that those who hated what Charlie stood for will put down their social media and their pens and pray for his family and that all of us, all of us will try to find a way to stop hating our fellow Americans.
- [15:55]
D
Well, that's. That's beautifully put. And I would say, I think something similar if I was in this situation. I will say this personally. I don't think the Charlie Kirk assassination is the start of something. I think it's things coming to fruition, ideas that have percolated for a long time. And you can see that from the reactions. And I can't control those reactions. They're awful. In one way, it's like, I can't believe we're dealing with this. But on the other hand, I sort of can. I've seen the ideologies shape up as they have. I've seen half of Americans routinely called Nazis or fascists or whatnot like this. That. That can't hold. So I want to say this, that I'm not super optimistic about those people seeing the light. Some will. But there's a. There's another scripture, and I think this is. I think I got to hold on to this. And I think maybe a lot of people listening need to hold on to it, too. When Jeremiah is watching his whole nation go down and he wrote lamentations, he's chronicling this awful stuff that's happening, and he's watching this just turn into dirt. Jerusalem's being run over and horrible things are happening. And then he says, yet this I call to mind. Because of the Lord's great love for us, we are not consumed. And then he talks about his mercies being new every morning, and his faithfulness endures forever. I think I've got. We have to camp out on that when. When news isn't good, that ultimately our security is with God. And he can say, yet even now, with all this stuff that's going on, yet, you know what? I have to actually call this to mind. I can't just passively consume lots of media. I have to call this to mind. God is good and like, his love endures forever. His faithfulness. Now, this is. Again, it's written in a time when he's seeing this all go down. So even if you're not optimistic about everybody turning around and we're going to get this like, that, to me, is incredibly important for those of us who know him to Continue to actively remind ourselves of that kind of truth, if that makes sense.
- [18:07]
A
Oh, it does. Gabe, thoughts on that clip?
- [18:10]
C
Yeah, I think what the governor was asking for is for everybody to immediately stop the way they think about the world based on the culture they've been saturated in. And I'm hopeful that some will do that. I think, though, like Brandt, if we don't go back to understand how did we get here and we don't actually start rebuilding in the institutions that we have, the colleges, the ways in which our culture talks about things. You know, I think of things like violence, for example, like we've. We've changed words and we've essentially now equated speech as something that's violent. And a new generation has grown up believing that your speech can be violent. Now, certainly there's some speech that can incite violence, but I think when you start to equate speech and words and free speech and opinions and thoughts as potentially violent because they hurt you personally, you feel hurt when you hear them because you don't agree with them, that starts to equate a false equivalency in people's minds that believes, I'm going to meet your violence of words with my violence of physical thought. Now, that all comes from a generation that's grown up in an emotive world that said your feelings are what tell you what's true or not in the world and have started to change the definition of words. And once you start changing the definition of words, you find yourself now in a malaise of people being confused, of people feeling justified with their actions of anger. And we have to work backwards now and reeducate. Jonathan Haidt wrote a great piece in 2017 specifically warning about this. I mean, this was eight years ago, saying we must not equate speech to violence. And you can see the fruit of that type of thinking.
- [19:53]
A
Well, in fact, that's something I saw in a news clip. I think the gentleman was Tim Poole, who's written about algorithms and the way in 2008, social media platforms found that the fastest way to get something shared is through anger. And so they begin to juice algorithms to send you things that made you angry because you were more likely to share those.
- [20:17]
D
That's the trick here, too. It's completely natural to feel anger in response to something like this, but the biblical wisdom is we have to get rid of it. Like we got to get rid of before the sun goes down. We have to get rid of all anger. Anger is not part of the fruit of the spirit either. Like this is something that will actually kill you. It'll hurt your relationships with your family. It'll hurt your relationships with people around you like. But we think we should cling to it. We shouldn't. And I think the praying for your enemies thing is everything Jesus says is so genius. But the praying for your enemies thing, if you do that, you will feel your temperature dropping as you go and you'll be right.
- [20:54]
A
It gives you empathy.
- [20:55]
D
Yes, you'll be able to do this now. It's hard at first, but you can become the sort of person who does it. And over time, your character gets shaped. But this is not an option. If you're somebody who's a believer, praying for your enemies is not like something you might want to do. We don't have a choice.
- [21:11]
A
Yeah, it's so true. You know, we just released, and you two may not have seen it yet, but we'll send it to you if we haven't. But it's all free. But something called Truth Rising, and It's a documentary, 90 minute documentary. It starts off with really a history lesson from Os Guinness about Western civilization, the formation of it, the reliance on Judeo, Christian values, biblical truth, et cetera. And I think it's Baroness Stroud who in the film mentions that the distinction with Western civilization in the early stages was that they embraced the concept, the biblical concept that everyone is made in God's image. And one of the things you're seeing now, I think in some of the debates, the dehumanizing, I think, starting with abortion, frankly, and moving to euthanasia, what Dr. Francis Schaeffer talked about back in the 70s as a warning about abortion is coming to pass, that it's becoming a dehumanizing tool, that we don't even think what we're doing to one another now because it's just biological. And we're so far away from that theme and Truth Rising about everyone being made in his image. Gabe, what are your thoughts in that regard?
- [22:23]
C
Well, I think what Charlie represented so well as he walked into these environments where clearly he was being opposed by, or at least he welcomed those who opposed him most to. To be in conversation with him, was that he had such a clarity that God does exist. Like this basic truth that there is a God, I will be accountable to this God. God's given us a moral order and he's also given us direction on how to live a life that leads to flourishing, not just for me, but for my neighbors, my community, my city, my nation. And when you don't start with that premise that there is a God, you obviously have to come up with all kinds of other directions and gods that are telling you what you think is right, true and just. And therefore the conflict comes. And that is just the spiritual battle we've had from the beginning. I mean, the Babylon spirit that's existed from the beginning of Genesis, that wanted to make other gods conflicting with the kingdom of God. And that's what we're seeing on full display is righteousness, that is speaking truth towards a world that doesn't believe there's any code for righteousness. And that right is what they see in their own eyes, just like in the days of Noah. And so I think we're in the middle of that type of a conflict that goes so much higher than just us at the human level. But it is based on this principle that if you don't believe a God exists, then like you said, we are essentially going to be like animals. We don't have any reason to act differently.
- [23:48]
A
And I think I just want to make right at the end here this point the very essence of doing what they did, or certainly what this shooter did allegedly, to Charlie Kirk. It's to silence him. It's to put him out so that you don't hear what he has to say. He wasn't a violent man, Charlie Kirk. He's showing up, sitting in a chair on a campus and talking about core themes, most of them theological, biblical themes, about human sexuality, about abortion, and they just cannot tolerate that. But ending here with that thought of, do we simply get kowtowed by that intimidation that if I say something, they could kill me? I think Jesus is saying, stand for the truth, do it winsomely, do it with grace, do it with a peaceful heart. But when you do it, there could be consequences.
- [24:41]
C
Yeah, I think understanding that the pattern here, with this current society we're in and all totalitarian environments and tyrannical governments, is that first they start by marginalizing your words, then it moves to demonizing your words, and then ultimately it's criminalizing your words. And that's really the state that we're in, is words mattering that much that they need to be criminalized because we can't debate on the basis and the merit of ideas, but essentially it's based on you aligning with whatever the power structure says you have to say. And so, Jim, to your point, we must, as Christians, continue to stand up in the public square, speak truth in love, but address these areas where we see the demise of our society because we love and we're broken. For human beings who we see suffering from the consequences of horrible ideas, that's.
- [25:31]
D
Got to be the motivation. I'm glad you included that, Gabe, at the end because I was going to get back to your point about brokenness. Like we're rooting for you even if you're not rooting for yourself. We're for you even if you want to take it out on us. And because we love you, we love our enemies. We're very different that way. Christians are odd, aren't they? I mean, who else does that? But we're going to do it well.
- [25:54]
A
And we'll continue to do it. Let's hold together here. Let's come back next time and talk about how to equip Christians. What do we need to do to engage the culture effectively and to remember these do's and don'ts when it comes to encountering people that don't believe the way we believe, how do we help them see things differently? When you think about it, Charlie Kirk's life was that going onto these campuses, having an open mic, letting people ask him tough questions, him giving his best response, and then hopefully persuading people that you know what, taking human life is not good and living outside of the sexual dimensions, that the Lord has set this up for us in humanity comes with a lot of downward consequences. And those are just two of the topics that he about talks. But I think it honors his life to know exactly what you said. Gabe. Buckle up with the truth. Get into the arena and speak boldness with clarity, but also with grace. Thank you both for being with us.
- [26:57]
C
Yes sir.
- [26:59]
A
And to the listeners, I want to encourage you to ask us for Brett Hanson's book How Just One Change Can make all of Life Better. And if you can make a gift of any amount monthly or one time, we'll send you a copy of Brandt's book as our way of saying thank you for being part of the ministry. And as we also mentioned our Truth Rising documentary that released recently on YouTube. I hope you can go and watch that. It's free and it has a four part study which is also free that drives down into the many topics that we've covered today and last time.
- [27:35]
B
Yeah, get involved, do your part in this critical time in our culture and be a beacon of light and hope you can learn more about Truth Rising, the free four part study guide as well. And then that book by Brandt Hanson. All of that and more at our website and link is in the show notes. You can also call us if you'd like 800, the letter A and the word family. Thanks for listening to Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. I'm John Fuller inviting you back next time as we continue the conversation and once again help you and your family thrive in Christ.
- [28:20]
A
God is at work and he's calling his people to rise in truth. Truth Rising is a powerful new documentary from Focus on the Family and the Colson Center. See how ordinary Christians choose courage in a culture that needs truth. Watch Truth Rising today and find out how you can become an agent of restoration and hope. Visit truthrising.com today. That's truthrising. Com.