← I Don't Have Enough FAITH to Be an ATHEIST
I Don't Have Enough FAITH to Be an ATHEIST
Tender Hearts vs. the False Gospel of Progressive Christianity with Alisa Childers
01:00:34
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- [00:03]
A
Ladies and gentlemen, I just got back from four schools following Charlie's assassination. We went to Western Carolina University and three schools down in Louisiana, slash Texas last week. Those schools were scheduled before the tragedy of September 10th. And we originally thought, can we even go through with this? But we knew Charlie would want us to do it. So we got security, and we went through the schedule just as planned. And thanks to the new security team. And let me also give a shout out to the folks at each of these schools, particularly the folks down in Louisiana and Texas. The Patriots who are part of law enforcement took that very seriously. They said, if there's going to be violence on campus, it's not going to be our watch. They actually had SWAT teams. I mean, it was. It was more than necessary. They had sniper teams. They had Texas Rangers. We had the sheriff of Orange County, Texas, show up a. A great gentleman by the name of Bobby Smith, who was a Texas Ranger. We've had the chief of police show up in Orange, Texas. We had officers and all sorts of security everywhere because they knew what had just happened, and they wanted to make sure none of that happened again. So I appreciate all they did. I also want to point out that if you think about this, ladies and gentlemen, law enforcement is the ground of any civilization. If you don't have law and order, you don't have an economy, you have anarchy, which means you don't have the kind of comforts that we have here, even the ability to make a living. Without law enforcement, nothing else happens. In fact, one guy on our security team has done some recent rescue work in Haiti. They don't have law enforcement. They have gangs. The economy is at a standstill. You can't. You can't. You don't have basic freedoms in Haiti. Imagine that here in the United States. Well, you can't imagine it because we have law enforcement. So I want you to thank law enforcement wherever you see them, because without them, we don't have the basic freedoms that we take for granted here in America. And they were very gracious to me and our team to do what we needed to do. And the tour's gonna roll on, ladies and gentlemen. Not just our tour, but tpusa. You know, Charlie and I were supposed to go to Berkeley on November 10th. We're still going to Berkeley. I'll just be with Rob Schneider, and we'll figure out how that's going to go there. Just the other night at Virginia Tech, it was Governor Youngkin and Megyn Kelly. They're not going to stop. We're not going to stop. Because right now, especially when people's hearts are tender, we need to move forward and do whatever we can to bring people the saving knowledge of Jesus. That's what we're going to do with your help, and we need your help. Our costs have dramatically increased because of the security concerns, not just for me, but for the audience. So if you go to crossexamine.org and click on Donate, it would really help us to continue this. Now, I've noticed over the past couple of weeks there have been people who claim to be Christians who are more on the left, lamenting, of course, rightfully so, this tragic shooting, but then immediately pivoting to but beware of conservative politics. I have a lot of problem with that. And to talk about it, my friend Elisa Childers is going to join me for this podcast. She and our friend Natasha Crane did a fabulous job on the last, the last radio program and podcast that that happened over the weekend. I was on that tour and they graciously stepped in to do a very admirable job of dealing with the fact that politics and Christianity do mix. And we'll unpack that further here. Despite the fact you have people on the left saying, oh, no, no, no, we should stay out of politics. Meanwhile, that's all they're about, is politics. So let me bring my friend Alisa Childers in. Alisa, it's been a tough couple of weeks for all of us. We saw you were at the memorial, too. Before we get into a larger discussion of this, can you just give us, our audience, what your impression was of that memorial that we all experienced nine days ago?
- [04:38]
B
Frank it was one of the sweetest days of my life, honestly. There was such a sense of unity there among the people. In fact, I had some friends. We me and Natasha, not Natasha, sorry, me and a couple of friends along with Christopher Yuan. We got to go in through the VIP and sit on the floor. But I had a friend who kind of went in with general admission, and she was a little nervous because they're showing up at 4 in the morning. There's hundreds of thousands of people arriving and kind of packed in like sardines. And she was really worried, is this going to be a stampede? Are people going to get hurt? And I love that. What we saw was a sense of politeness. People were being very courteous. They were being thoughtful and conscientious of other people. And we didn't see anything like violence or a stampede. People just were very orderly. There was a deep sense of joy throughout the day. And the one thing, of course, the highlight for me, and I know for you and so many others watching, was how many times the gospel was proclaimed with clarity and with courage. And we were joking that even the non Christians were preaching the gospel because they wanted to honor Charles Garley in that way, and that's what he was all about.
- [05:50]
A
Yeah, it was beautiful. It was. When you think about it, in our country's history, maybe the. It's got to be the only time you had that many dignitaries and politicians in one place before hundreds of thousands of people preaching the gospel from the president on down, even though some of them may not know the gospel and may not even believe it, they were preaching it. And the thing I did, I found amazing. Well, there's so much amazing about it, but none of. Do you know that, at least unless I missed it, none of the musicians were even introduced.
- [06:28]
B
Yeah, I think that's correct. And, you know, I come from the contemporary Christian music industry. That's my background. And I think it was actually kind of brave of those musicians to accept this invitation because of what we're gonna talk about today, this kind of push to be apolitical, especially in the contemporary Christian music industry. And already people who went to this event and maybe praised the event or spoke positively of the event are being called Christian nationalist, you know, ultra maga, far alt right, violent, whatever, misogynistic, racist. All the things they said about Charlie. So I really commend those musicians for accepting that invitation because I think they knew the risk and they decided to honor the Lord and honor Charlie anyway.
- [07:13]
A
Yeah, let me say all they said about Charlie falsely, because it's all false. If they looked at his comments, they wouldn't pull out a line or two. They'd see what he was saying and realize he wasn't saying what they wanted him to say, like he was some kind of racist or something like that. It's absolutely false.
- [07:34]
B
It's false and ludicrous, and it betrays that they actually haven't done their homework to watch the actual interactions that Charlie had with students on college campuses. Because. Because there are reels out there where people have strung together little clips that are maybe two or three seconds, maybe 10 seconds, and in every single case, they're either taken radically out of context or somebody just didn't like the tone with which he said it, or something along those lines. But I think that the cool thing that I'm seeing, even with this I Am Charlie movement, of people saying that people aren't saying that because they're idolizing him or worshiping him. They're saying that because they're saying, look, we realize we have woken up to the fact that Charlie was killed for believing the same things we believe. And you think that when we say these things that we are also racist and misogynist and all the other things they're saying about us. But we're not buying it anymore. I am. Charlie means I believe the things that he believes. And we're not afraid to say it anymore, even though obviously that's what got him killed.
- [08:39]
A
Let's talk a little bit about something called Third Wayism, because that phrase has come up in recent weeks. It was prior to that. You have been very much up on that topic because you do such a great job, Elisa, tracking what so called progressive Christians have done. Your first book, Another Gospel, was a landmark book on that topic. You almost became a progressive Christian yourself and realized that you went up right to the cliff's edge and realized it was false and came back to orthodox evangelical Christianity. Explain to our audience what third wayism is.
- [09:28]
B
Right. Well, like you mentioned, close to 15 years ago, I was discipled by a progressive Christian pastor who wasn't really being honest with his congregation that he had already deconstructed and converted to progressive Christianity. And so he was basically deconstructing all of the core beliefs that I'd held about God and Jesus in the Bible for my whole life. And I watched one by one as my friends either walked away completely from any kind of label of religious or Christian, or they adopted this label of progressive Christian. So that really sent me on a faith journey of almost losing my faith and researching this progressive Christianity. And here's the interesting thing. Right in the middle of this research that I was doing, I started to see this Third way kind of path pop up. And to be honest with you, Frank, I didn't recognize it at first because you had progressive Christians who were very bold about denying things like the inerrancy and infallibility of the Scriptures. They were very bold about saying Jesus didn't die on the cross for our sins. That's cosmic child abuse. They were very bold about saying humans are not inherently sinful. Hell is not a real place of punishment. A good God would not do that. So that was a lot easier to spot because they're just proclaiming. Very easy to spot heresy. And so that is theologically what I was talking about in my first book. But then you kind of have. Maybe your audience would be familiar with how Aaron Wren has worked out the phases of history where he talks about the negative world, the neutral world, and then the. I'm sorry, excuse me, positive world, neutral world, and then negative world. So right around the time of the mid 2000s, you have what he's calling the neutral world. This is when Christians could make their ideas known in the public square, and you weren't necessarily hated for it. This is when people like Tim Keller, who I know you and I both have respected a lot of the stuff Tim Keller has done, but he's sort of credited as being the father of this Third way approach, which maybe was partially effective in that era. Right. People weren't necessarily thinking, oh, you're a Christian, that means you're racist. That means you're a Christian nationalist. That means you're this or that. They were saying, okay, well, let's hear your ideas, and maybe we'll follow, maybe we won't. And so that Tim Keller approach kind of seemed to be working. And so it got really promoted by a lot of the big evangelical platforms like Christianity Today. Even Relevant magazine wasn't quite as progressive back then as they are now. You had things like the Gospel Coalition. Those types of big platforms were sort of taking this Tim Keller third way approach, and it was specifically an approach to engage culture. And so they thought, well, if we're just really winsome, if we're really not really taking a strong, hard stand against certain things, if we're known more for what we're for than what we're against, maybe we'll draw in people who are curious about Christianity. The problem with that is what they didn't realize is that we were heading into what's now called the negative world, where you can say things as nicely and as winsomely and persuasively as possible, but the world is hates you, no matter how nicely you say it, because they hate God. We are in a culture that is 100% hostile to real biblical Christianity. And so Third way, really, I'm seeing it more clearly now, was in the scheme of things. I'm not saying any one person had this in their mind, but I think in the scheme of things, what it served to do was usher progressive Christianity into the evangelical church under the guise of remaining politically neutral.
- [13:13]
A
Progressive Christianity is something that you have unpacked so well and you're writing right now where you finished, but it's going to come out in about a month, a teen version of Another Gospel where you talk about these six lies of progressive Christianity. Let's address a few of those lies here, if we can. And ladies and Gentlemen, if you haven't recognized it yet, I hope you've recognized it now that Satan is the father of lies. He's a liar and a murderer, as Jesus said in John chapter 8 and he comes as an angel of light. In other words, he's going to try and make something that is a lie sound like it's true and sound like it's good. So let's go through some of the lies that you're going to hear from the so called progressive Christian group. And as I've said before, it's neither progressive nor Christian to be a progressive Christian. Because if you're not, first of all, if you're not agreeing with Jesus, you're not a Christian. And secondly, if you're taking people down the wrong road, you're not progressing, you're regressing. But let's talk about the first lie. And the first lie is that evangelical Christianity is somehow harmful and abusive. Respond to that if you would.
- [14:28]
B
Right. So this is a sentiment that we see over and over again on social media, typically under the exvangelical hashtag. A lot of people don't realize that the hashtag that says exvangelical it doesn't just mean oh I, I used to be evangelical, now I'm Eastern Orthodox or I used to be evangelical, now I am embracing some kind of Roman Catholicism. That is not what the exvangelical hashtag is about. What the exvangelical hashtag is about is this point. It operates under the assumption that evangelical Christianity is harmful and abusive. Now Frank, if I can unpack this a little bit to help our audience understand why they are saying that sort of a thing, it is because our culture has bought into a false definition of truth. Right? So we know that truth, properly defined, is a statement that corresponds with reality. It's when you say something that is real, it reflects what's real in reality, that is truth. But that is not how our culture defines truth. In fact, there was some studies done on the worldview of Gen Z, which is who this student edition of Another Gospel is written for. And what was discovered is that the dominant worldview of Gen Z is what's called moral relativism. So relativism is the faulty definition of truth that would say that truth is relative to each person's society, history, cultural context, even maybe their sex, their ethnicity, their personal experience, that truth can be different. So Frank, your truth could be different than my truth. So you could say all you want about what you believe about religion and morality, but then I under that faulty definition of truth could say, well, Frank, that's just your truth and I have my truth.
- [16:11]
A
Is that true?
- [16:12]
B
Exactly as you always say. And even if you were to say, you know, I always tell audiences this, it's really easy to refute relativism because if somebody says all truth is relative, all you have to do, as you so. Well, many times I've pointed out, take the claim the statement is making and apply it to itself and see if it still works. So if somebody says all truth is relative. Well, if all truth, if it's true that all truth is relative, it means even that truth is relative, which makes it's not true because it's a statement of absolute truth that they're saying that. So they're operating from a faulty assumption. But here's where it gets even deeper. So because of that faulty definition of truth, you add to that the postmodern idea that the grand metanarrative of reality can't be known by any one particular group. Well, when the Christian comes along making claims about ultimate reality, like, humans are sinners, our sin separates us from God, Jesus sacrificed himself on the cross, and we make those core claims of the gospel. What the postmodern and Gen Z person with that dominant worldview is hearing is not like, oh, okay, they're saying a statement. Do I agree with what they're saying? They're not asking that question. The question they're asking is, well, that can't be known, so why would they be saying it? And so then it goes to motive. So when a Christian, for example, says, hey, humans are inherently sinful, the person who operates under that faulty definition of truth, which is in that immediately thinks, well, if you're saying that you're trying to dominate me, you're trying to prop up your institution of power, you're just having a power grab. And therefore it's abusive. So what you'll see is statements like this. The church just invented the doctrine of hell to control people with fear. The doctrine of substitutionary atonement is abusive. You see that in manifold ways all over social media.
- [18:07]
A
That's just their truth.
- [18:08]
B
Right, right, exactly.
- [18:10]
A
I mean, so how did they get away with saying that everybody has their own truth, but then they in the next sentence say, the truth is, is that you are abusive. I mean, how do they do that? I want to bring in somebody who can fix it for us here. He is wrong.
- [18:31]
B
Yeah, exactly right. Pretty much. So here's what you're putting your finger on is the hypocrisy. And I was interview interviewing God Bless him. Vodi Bach, I'm so sad to see him pass this past week. But on my show I asked him that very same question. I said, I don't understand the double mindedness here because on one hand they'll say that's harmful and that's abusive, as if that's an objective truth in reality. But then they'll say it's all about what I feel inside of me and objective truth is found inside of me. And Vodi said, well, nobody ever accused them of being consistent. I thought that was such a good answer.
- [19:09]
A
What is the standard that they're using to declare anything harmful or abusive?
- [19:14]
B
The standard that they will say they're using is their own internal sense of morality. And many of them will work it out very specifically so. For example, Glennon Doyle, who used to be a mommy blogger, she has totally deconstructed. And in her book Untamed, she talks about meditating and kind of sinking deeper into herself and then locating what she calls the inner knowing with a capital king or the liquid gold. She says, and she basically tells her millions of followers to find that liquid gold inside themselves. And when you make a decision, if it feels warm, say yes. If it feels cold, say no. And she even says she does this with her staff. So this is what I pointed out in one of my reviews. What if one of her staff members feels warm about a decision, but another one feels cold? How do we decide between the two what to do? And you know, I've not heard any sort of a satisfying answer to that question.
- [20:09]
A
Yeah, it's the problem that anybody who contradicts or most people that contradict Christianity have, they steal from Christianity to argue against it. They steal from God to argue against it. They try and say, you evangelical Christians are abusive and they have this moral standard that they have stolen from God himself to somehow say Christianity's faults. They say there's no truth, but they think that's true. I mean, it's so frustrating. People just don't think anymore. Lisa. And our kids are learning from this online and wherever they get this progressive Christianity bilge. And then they wind up, many of them getting radicalized by this postmodern and sometimes Marxist critical theory nonsense. And tragically, some of them go to a university event with a 30 odd six and kill my friend.
- [21:13]
B
That's exactly right, Frank. And I don't think people realize how true it is what you just said. And I would say it's not sometimes Marxist, it is 100% Marxist. So the progressive Christianity that we see on all over social media. Just this week. I mean, last week, Natasha and I talked about a post from Jamar Tisby, who basically called the memorial a white Christian nationalist event. There are pastors that I have seen just in the past two weeks. And, you know, I think you were gracious to say they lament the killing. Many of them are not lamenting the killing in the name of Christ. They're saying things like, well, you know what? When you promote hate, when you promote misogyny and racism, then that's what you're gonna get. But, Frank, as you've just pointed out, that comes from a Marxist definition of justice and a Marxist definition of oppressed versus oppressor. This has infected and poisoned the minds of so many people. You know, I pointed out on Instagram shortly after the assassination that this so many people were coming out third way kind of people saying, we just need to come to the table and talk to one another. We need to learn how to settle our differences in a different way.
- [22:25]
A
That's what Charlie was doing.
- [22:27]
B
It's exactly what Charlie was doing. And this is where I think they haven't caught up with what's actually going on. Because if the problem was just us trying to talk to each other, you're right. That's actually one of the things that got Charlie killed. The problem is not that. The problem is that half of our country has been totally indoctrinated by oppressed versus oppressor, which comes from Marxism and now has filtered out and flowered out into virtually every sphere of our culture. And so when somebody has been poisoned by the idea that, Frank, you as a white male, are at the top of the food chain of oppressor, there is nobody, according to that worldview, more oppressive than you because you're a white male. It puts truth and reality completely to the side. According to that oppressed versus oppressor view, Frank, you don't have access to truth like somebody who has more classifications of oppression. And that is the poison that has infiltrated our institutions, our colleges, and sadly, people who would even call themselves Christians.
- [23:29]
A
I don't have access to the truth, which doesn't exist.
- [23:33]
B
Exactly. Again, like Bodhi said, nobody accused him of being inconsistent.
- [23:37]
A
It's just so. It's so frustratingly contradictory, and it leads to this kind of result, tragically. Let me make also a distinction between cause and condition. The cause of the assassination was that young man pulling the trigger. The condition which may have led him to pull the trigger was this Marxist education and radicalization that helped him think that that was the solution to the problem. So the ultimate responsibility is with him as a free agent human being pulling the trigger. However, people can contribute to the negative condition that. That led him to make this decision. And this guy, Tisby, he. He claims to be a Christian. How could he be more racist than to claim that a worship service with people from all ethnic groups participating was a white supremacist rally after a man was brutally murdered in on camera? Instead of judging people based on the content of their character, he's judging them based upon the color of their skin. Exactly what a racist does, correct?
- [25:08]
B
100%. And the reason for that, Frank, is because, as we've seen since 2020, even in our dictionaries, the word racism has been redefined. So classically, racism meant a personal prejudice against someone else, perhaps because of the color of their skin or their ethnicity, where they're from, something like that. And that definition is no longer even in the dictionary racism. Now, according to critical theory, critical social justice, the oppressor versus oppressed narrative is prejudice plus power. So here's what that worldview would say about an event, and by the way I noted this on one of the podcasts I was on this week, is that it was a lot more diverse than the mainstream media will want to report. Right. I remember walking with Krista Bontrager and Monique Dusan. Monique's a black woman. And we were looking around like, this is more diverse than they're going to report. Right. It wasn't just white people. But even so, Frank, under that definition of racism, prejudice plus power, it teaches that you as a white person, I, as a white person, could actually hold no personal prejudice against someone else because of the color of their skin. But just by the fact that we have white skin, we are part of the oppressor class, which means we are by definition racist just because we are white. So any sort of diverse person, person of color, that would be at an event like that is also lumped into that definition of prejudice plus power because they are aligning themselves with the oppressor. So my friend Monique, who takes a really strong stand against critical theory, often gets called all sorts of racial slurs from the people who are claiming to be against racism. And that's because they're trying to solve racism with racism.
- [26:55]
A
Yeah. You don't defeat old racism by introducing new racism.
- [27:00]
B
That's right.
- [27:01]
A
That defeats the purpose. And Monique, our mutual friend, man, a black woman, as you mentioned, who grew up in Compton, she grew up, you know, South Central. Yeah, yeah, South Central, la. And now she's realizing that we don't judge people based on the color of their skin, but as Martin Luther King said, on the content of their character. Or as the apostle Paul said, there's neither slave nor free. There's neither male nor female, there's neither Jew nor gentile. We're all one in Christ. We're all human beings. And it's interesting that Charlie himself said that race is a social construct that we have created to put other people down. He didn't even believe in races per se. So how could you be a racism when you don't even believe in races?
- [27:44]
B
Right. One thing that's not talked about enough is where the idea of race actually came from. It actually is an outflow of Darwinian evolution and it was extremely racist when it came about. So even just the idea that there are differences in races, the Bible talks about from one blood, all the nations of the earth were created. So yes, it makes distinctions for ethnicity and those the beauties of our differences should be celebrated and seen. But there's one race, the human race. And then the Bible talks about there being people who are children of God which they earn by not earned. Sorry, that they get by. Right, by believing in Jesus. And then there are children of wrath. And that is the distinction that the Bible makes about humanity. That all humans, no matter where they're from, no matter what the color of their skin, are made in the image and likeness of God and have dignity and value and worth because of that. And then there are children of God and then there are children of wrath. And that's how the Bible parses it out. But we, you know, out of our, frankly, prejudices is where that idea of race came from, flowing out of Darwinian evolution.
- [28:52]
A
In fact, this is the full title of the Origin of Species, ladies and gentlemen. I just looked it up just to make sure I quoted it correctly. Here it is From Charles Darwin, 1859. On the Origin of Species by means of natural selection or the preservation of the favored races in the struggle for life. The favored races. And in his next work, the Descent of Man, I think was in 1871, I think he, he, he put, if I'm not mistaken, the, the Caucasian race at the top and the Negro race below it. So it, it came out of Darwin that this idea that there were races anyway and certainly that there were favored races, this is not a Christian concept. It's the opposite of Christianity. And yet you have people out there now who claim to be Christians who are actually the real racist judging people. Again, not on the content of their character, but the color of their skin. In fact, Charlie and I, the day before he died, were talking about this issue, and we were talking about the fact. I said, charlie, we're never going to be a colorblind society, but we ought to be a color neutral society. We're always going to recognize color. Let's not be silly and say we're not gonna recognize color. Of course we are. We have eyes. We're gonna see there are different colors. But we ought to strive for a society that is race neutral, color neutral, not colorblind, color neutral. And that's what Charlie wanted, and that's what we should want.
- [30:30]
B
We should. And you know what's very interesting to me, as I've been sort of like everybody else binging Charlie videos, is you see how gentle and how even his tone would soften when somebody would come up who he could tell was really hurting and lost and confused. But there was one time he was particularly harsh with someone, and that was when a man got on the microphone and started saying, america needs to be white centric. We need to be getting rid of people of color. And Charlie threw him out of the line. And that's the thing that I would just love to get the commentary from people like Jamar Tisby and others who accused Charlie of being racist that the one time that I saw him actually be really quite harsh with somebody was with a white. A real white supremacist.
- [31:11]
A
In fact. Let's put that clip in right now.
- [31:15]
C
I want to ask a question of you. What does it mean to be an American? Is it an idea or a history, a shared history, or is it a skin color?
- [31:24]
A
Well, I mean, you could go back to the original Founding Fathers, the Immigration act of, I believe it was.
- [31:31]
C
What does it mean to be an American? Is it a skin color or something else?
- [31:36]
A
So there's the current idea of what it means according to, you know, the Hart Celler Immigration act and, you know, all this bull you guys spew. But if you go back to the original Founding Fathers, they intended this to be a European nation for white men of good stock and character.
- [31:52]
C
So can you show me. Let me. Let me answer the question. Can you show me where in the United States Constitution it says that.
- [32:00]
A
That it wasn't in the Constitution.
- [32:02]
C
It wasn't in the Constitution because they didn't believe it. You, sir. They did not put it in the United States. Let me answer another question. Let me ask you another question. Since you support. Allow them to have the mic. Let me ask you another question. Sir, what does the phrase in the.
- [32:20]
A
United States Constitution, and they made it explicitly clear.
- [32:23]
C
What does the phrase E pluribus unum meaning? What does the phrase E pluribus unum mean?
- [32:29]
A
Why is that relevant?
- [32:30]
C
Because it was on every founding document and presidential seal from our founding, which means out of many, one you serve. And your ideology is not conservative. It is right wing, identitarian. It has no place in the conservative movement, my friend. Get out along, get out of line. USA. USA. USA. USA. U.S.A.
- [33:06]
A
Yeah, he really came out after him.
- [33:09]
B
Absolutely, like zero tolerance for that. That is like conversation over.
- [33:14]
A
And it's just crazy that, that people would. Well, it's not crazy. They do this all the time. That's what Satan does. They take stuff out of context. They twist things. They try and pivot and make it seem like someone they oppose said something they didn't really say. They want you to walk away with the opposite impression. In fact, let's talk about this, Elisa, if we could, a little bit. And that is what I've noticed, and you pointed out on the last podcast that some of these people claiming to be Christians immediately will say, oh, yeah, it was terrible what happened. But then, oh, let's, let's make sure this doesn't have any conservative political implications. That would be bad. What are they missing here? Why are these people immediately pivoting to the political implication of what happened, rather than pivoting to let's, let's reach people now. Why their hearts are tender?
- [34:11]
B
Right. Well, I think we have seen the definitive answer to this through our friend Megan Basham's book, Shepherds for Sale, where she followed the money with a lot of these type of third way curriculums and organizations that were parroting some of these leftist talking points, and they've been funded by radical secular progressives. For example, the After Party curriculum, which was hugely influential in. And you know what was interesting, Frank? In this last election, evangelicals were, I believe, if I'm not incorrect about this, the only group that actually voted less than other groups. Other groups like voted more. And I think it's because curriculums like the After Party, led by people like Curtis Chang, Russell Moore, David French, all of those voices that have been saying for a long time, yes, we're conservative Christians, yes, we want people to know the gospel, but hey, you know, Trump, we don't want to have anything to do with Trump, we don't want anything to do with what might be perceived as Christian nationalism or, you know, conservative politics that you would advocate for too much. So people are now They've been really brainwashed into thinking that if something is affiliated with conservative politics, it must not be Christian, because it's not about the gospel anymore. Whereas I loved the way pastor Rob McCoy put it at the memorial. He said, he pointed out that, you know, for Charlie, it was Jesus first, it was the gospel first. But he used politics as an on ramp because if he could get people swimming in the streams of liberty, it would lead them to its source. And I think this is where people like you have pointed this out so well, is that when you look at the two parties as they are today, you want to, as a Christian, vote for the policies that are gonna be most aligned with your biblical worldview. And right now, I don't know how anyone could question that. That is the Republican Party. I don't know how anyone. Like some of these third way pastors, particularly even here in Nashville, we had a very prominent, otherwise theologically conservative pastor named Roy Ortland that was that tweeted before the election. Never trump Kamala this time. And then, you know, I can't remember the rest of the tweet, but we'll see what happens next time. And I'm thinking, how on earth can a pastor who considers himself to be theologically conservative vote for the party of death that is literally trying to enact policies that continue the mutilation of the bodies of our children, that continue advocating for abortion up to to birth, that continue to advocate for looser laws on euthanasia, and we see it in the media. I just don't understand it. I can't figure it out. But then when we really think about this push from a lot of these radical secular organizations to infiltrate the church, which Megan Basham conclusively proved in her book, you can see, oh, okay. They got to the pastors and it's been trickling down to the people in the pews.
- [37:11]
A
Why don't we, for a thought experiment, take the names of the candidates out instead of Portland saying, never trump this time. Kamala, would he say the same thing if he were to say, never life this time, death? Would he say, never protect the children this time. Mutilate the children? Would he say, never law and order this time? Open borders? Would he say, never religious freedom this time? Stifle the gospel? I mean, when you put it that way, rather than the personalities, because as we've pointed out, and you pointed out too, Elisa, when you're voting for president, you're not voting for one person. You're voting for 5,000 people to go to Washington and implement an agenda. You're voting for a platform. And yes, we can get wrapped up in the personalities. And we may not like the personalities. I get all that. But you're voting for a group of people to go to Washington and implement policies. And Christians need to be engaged in politics because politics affects policy and policy affects people. And we're supposed to care for people. If we have the opportunity to care for people and protect them from evil, which is what the government's supposed to do, and we don't take it, then shame on us. But I, I, I agree with you. I don't know. I don't understand how people can say, never life this time, death, and vote that way.
- [38:37]
B
Well, I think, too, there's been such a successful campaign to demonize Trump, to demonize Charlie, as we saw. And I think, too, you combine that with the fact that there really are some really wacky people out there in Christendom who are doing prophecies saying, Trump's a prophet and all this, and I don't think any of that represents the average Christian in the pew that is saying, look, gonna vote for these policies that are gonna protect life. And, look, I wish the Republican Party and Trump were stronger on life. I really do. But there's no question which side is defending Christians. Which side is. I appreciated so much that we're recognizing that there's two genders. I mean, that is huge to not just to say, hey, we won power on this, but to say we're protecting our children. People like Chloe Cole who have irreversible damage done to their bodies, and now they're telling their stories and saying, where was everybody? Why didn't you speak out for me? Why didn't you stand up? Why did you just put me in this pipeline to have my body changed and damaged forever, where she doesn't even know if she'll be able to have children. I mean, this is absolutely unconscionable to me that a Christian pastor would not be able to see clearly about this and just be able to speak openly about it. But that, Frank, I think, has been the success that the mainstream media has had, is that demonization to make Christians, and pastors in particular, especially the ones funded by the radical secular progressives, say, oh, well, we just don't. Maybe we'll just stay out of politics altogether. But they can't, because you can't be neutral, because it's the world that makes these topics political. And if Christians just start to shut their mouths every time the world says, hey, oh, this is now political Then the church is going to absolutely have no salt and light in our culture.
- [40:21]
A
And notice that the people who are on the left claiming to be Christians are trying to keep Christians who actually believe the Bible out of politics so they can get into politics and push the government to the left. Left, where more people are going to get harmed because the policies of the left are so atrocious. Now I don't understand how reasonable people support, particularly Christians support these policies on the left. They must be deceived somehow because even Bill Maher, I mean Bill Maher, yeah, he speaks with more clarity and more wisdom on some of these issues than many pastors who are afraid they're hiding under their pulpits. They're not. They won't even mention the assassination of Charlie Kirk. I'm going, you cowards. Now is the time to speak up and to say, look, a great evil has been done and now people's hearts are tender. I know you probably got some. Lisa, I've got hundreds of emails from people over the past two weeks and thousands of comments on our YouTube videos and Instagram videos and Twitter feeds saying I'm a Christian now because of Charlie. I'm a Christian because of what's happened. I'm, I, I'm, I, I just got an email the other day from an atheist In Sweden, a 26 year old who was an atheist, now a Christian. And that now is the time to go out and it's harvest time. It's, it's to bring people into the kingdom. And yet you've got these leftists who claim to be Christians are saying, oh, pay no attention to that, that, let's just talk about the negative implications of conservative politics. I question these people's salvation. You know, you will know them by their fruits. What kind of fruit are you given when a, a Christian has just been martyred on the Internet live, you can see it and you are pivoting to, oh well, he may not have said things just exactly right. And, and we don't want any of these conservative policies put into place. And you Christians, you need to, why don't you pivot to the man gave his life, just like Jesus gave his life to save us. Why don't you pivot to the gospel?
- [42:36]
B
Well, and that's the thing I really was pondering throughout the day during the memorial is we've already mentioned how the gospel was preached so many times with such clarity and such boldness. How could any Christian not be excited about that? And then you have to ask yourself a question if you're Upset that the leaders of your nation were honoring God and honoring Jesus and doing their best to promote the Christian worldview. Why is that bad? Do you just want. And as you've pointed this out, Frank, many times, is it just atheists that are qualified to run the country? And so, you know, I'm sympathetic to the messiness of this. Right? We have hearts that are tender. People are flocking to churches. We've all seen it. I've seen it in my personal life as well. And there is gonna be a bit of messiness. Cause there's gonna be all sorts of bad actors coming for these vulnerable baby Christians. False gospels, false teachers. All of that is present. All of that's going on. I've been talking about that quite a lot on Twitter. I mean, sorry, X. I'm such a Gen Xer and I can't even say X. It's still Twitter to me. But I've been talking about that quite a lot because there are a lot of baby Christians who are coming to the Lord who are gonna be vulnerable to false gospels and faulty ideas about who God is from various different places. But like you said, this is harvest time. We need to get in there and help. We need to disciple as best we can. We need to be providing resources for people, offering to do Bible studies with people. And that's what I've been really trying to do, is keeping a non cynical and open heart about it and be excited about what God is clearly doing while also trying to sort through it in a way that is, you know, clear and not compromising on the gospel. Gospel.
- [44:21]
A
We have to do that, and we should do that. Now is the harvest time and so many people are trying to blunt that. So many people are trying to divert the attention from Jesus that the Holy Spirit's moving and people are coming to faith. In fact, in the four sessions I just did at these colleges, one was a high school, three colleges, one high school. Elisa, I've noticed a decided shift in the Q and A. The Q and A is a lot less hostile. The Q and A is more. I have a skeptical friend. How can I bring him to Jesus?
- [44:57]
B
Wow.
- [44:57]
A
You know, there are more and more Christians showing up. There are more people who are tender to the gospel and wanting to evangelize. I've got tons of emails from people. How can I help? What can I do? How can I volunteer? How can I get into apologetics? How can I preach the gospel? How can I bring more people to faith? That. And by the way, everybody has faith. The only question is what do you have faith in. Okay, it seems like the progressive Christians have faith in a number of lies. In fact, let me just list the six lies here, Elisa, that are in the new book, the new version of another Gospel. It's Another Gospel for teens. Is that the official title? Another Gospel for Teens?
- [45:33]
B
It's called Another Gospel Student Edition. And I'll just make one clarification. These lies aren't specifically listed in the book, but the themes will help equip students to be able to interact with these ideas. Ideas.
- [45:44]
A
I'm gonna. I'm gonna list the six, and then I want you to pick one you want to talk about.
- [45:47]
B
Okay.
- [45:47]
A
All right. We just talked about the first one. Evangelical Christianity is harmful and abusive. Yeah. By what standard? Okay, next. The Bible has been copied and translated so many times, no one can be sure of what it means, except they apparently know what it means. All right, number three, the God of the Old Testament is problematic, so just stick to the words of Jesus. That's what they say. Number four, no one has the right to tell you your truth is wrong. Wrong. Except they'll tell you, if you're an evangelical Christian, that truth is wrong. Number five, your sin doesn't separate you from God. Oh, no, it doesn't. Why did Jesus come? What's the point? And number six, Sorry, I can't help but comment on these.
- [46:21]
B
You're just. You got it. Yeah.
- [46:23]
A
They just annoy me so much. And number six, the Democratic Party looks. Or the Democrat Party looks more like Jesus than the Republican Party. Okay, pick one.
- [46:32]
B
Well, I feel like we kind of covered one and six about the Democrat and Republicans, so maybe I'll choose the one that I think maybe some of these baby Christians might be most vulnerable to, especially the ones that have a pure heart wanting to know what's right and follow Jesus. And that's number two, and that's that the Bible has been copied and translated so many times, no one can be even sure of what it means. And this has been a lie promoted by progressive Christianity that I think has actually even had some success on conservative Christians. I really just encountered this in my own life, where somebody who I know is following Jesus, loves the Lord kind of made a comment about the Bible. And that's what got me thinking more about this, where they said, well, you know, I know this has been translated so many times, we can't even really be sure what the original authors meant. So I just let the Holy Spirit kind of show me what it means, and I believe it's living and active. But I just, you know, I don't really wanna tell somebody else that it means this or that, but I just trust the Holy Spirit to show me what it means to me. And I think that's a very, very dangerous way to go about Bible study and approaching the Bible. And so I might just make maybe three distinctions here. When it comes to the Bible, I think a lot of people are confused about the translation, the copying process of the Bible. They're confused about the interpretation of the Bible, and then they're confused about translation. Those are three completely different things that often get conflated into one. So let's talk first about translation. Right. Translation is probably the easiest one to clarify for someone. Yes. The Bible's been translated so many times that it's in languages all over the world. There's lots of different English translations. There are good translations, there are bad translations. All of it translation means is that it's. They're taking the original Greek, Hebrew or Aramaic and translating it into another language so that somebody can read it. Now, this is typically done with our modern translations like esv, rsv, CSV, through a team of scholars that are looking at all sorts of different things like context, and they're translating it for us so that we can read it in English. Now, there are some bad translations out there. I've talked about some of those. I wouldn't recommend the Passion translation. There's some other ones as well. But if you get a good modern translation, you're gonna, for all intents and purposes, know what the text means. Now that brings us to the interpretation part. Some Bible verses are hard to understand. I mean, that is absolutely true.
- [48:53]
A
But even as the Bible declares, I mean, Peter at one point says about Paul's writings, some of his writings are hard to understand.
- [48:59]
B
That's correct. Exactly. So, yeah, we, we grant that, that it's hard to understand. But when we approach interpretation of the Bible, we have to start with that definition of truth. That truth is a statement that corresponds with reality. There's no my truth in your interpretation. And a lot of people, I don't think, realize that there is one objectively true interpretation of every Bible verse. Now, people get surprised when I say that, but if they're surprised by it, they've likely been influenced by that relativistic definition of truth. Now, what I'm not saying, and this is where there's a lot of confusion when I say there's one objective interpretation that's true. It doesn't mean that every person always gets it right. Right. We are fallible interpreters, but there's an infallible interpretation. So our goal as Bible interpreters and readers is to get to the objective meaning of the text. And through how we do that. You've got a great course on this, Frank. We wanna ask some really good questions of the text. Who wrote this? Who did they write it to? What was the context? All sorts of questions like that, to do our best to get to the meaning. But here's the truth. The core gospel things that we read about in the Bible, those are not hard to understand, Right? These ones are the ones that are most clear. So we always want to interpret unclear verses in light of clear verses. So that's just a little bit about interpretation.
- [50:14]
A
Let me make one little comment on that. Just so people don't go, wait a minute, there's only one interpretation. Yeah, there's one interpretation, but many applications.
- [50:22]
B
Yes.
- [50:23]
A
Like, for example, you know, husbands love your wives. There's one interpretation. Oh, yeah, we're supposed to love our wives. Okay. How you love your wife may be different, dependent upon your wife's temperament, your wife's gifts, your wife's wiring, your, you know, your wife's history. Right. Okay. How you apply love, your wife may be different person to person, but the interpretation love your wife as Christ loved the church means you're going to sacrifice yourself for her. Is there's one interpretation, but many applications. Sorry, just had to say no.
- [50:59]
B
That's a very good distinction because a lot of Christians confuse interpretation with application. They read the words and then they immediately try to apply it without. Without first interpreting it. So, yeah, that's a very good distinction. And then we won't belabor the other. There. There is the science of textual criticism. There are online classes people can take. There are articles people can read about how the Bible was copied, you know, by hand before we had the printing press. And the. The ultimate reality of it is that the Bible has more copies and earlier, more accurate copies than any other work of ancient literature. So we can piece together the originals with confidence. And there's just a small percentage of verses where the variations between the manuscripts make it a little bit murky on what was original. But here's the thing. Those are marked in our study Bibles. We know what they are. And none of those will undermine a core Christian doctrine. So if somebody's gonna walk away from Christianity because of that, I think there's probably more going on. So there. There are very much different questions that are going on that a lot of people don't even realize that they're conflating two things or that they need to separate these questions out. So I think we do have a lot of information in the student edition on that book. We talk about the copying. We talk about the reliability of what they actually wrote. Cause that was a huge question for me when that progressive pastor tried to deconstruct me all those years ago. So I did a ton of research on that, and I really want to help students to parse out those questions and understand the difference.
- [52:23]
A
Yeah. And you know, the interesting thing about that is even skeptics like Bart Ehrman at UNC Chapel Hill will admit that the essential text of the New Testament Testament that we have today is the same one that was written down 2000 years ago. His problem would be, well, I'm not sure everything that was written down is true. Okay, that's another question. Okay, you can investigate that. And if that's what we do. And I don't have enough faith to be an atheist, but as far as the security of the text, knowing what was written down 2000 years ago, we know that beyond any real reasonable doubt, the little things you're talking about are word order, spelling errors. By the way, even the end of Mark and the woman caught in adultery. Those are two sections of the New Testament that some have said. Well, they weren't in the earliest manuscripts. I can't go into detail here, but our friend Dr. Warren Gage has those. Those sections of scripture are actually chiastic, meaning that if you were to take them out of the text where they are, the chiasm wouldn't go through. Which is showing you. You that not just the manuscript evidence shows they should be in there. If there is any doubt from the manuscript evidence, the structure of the book shows that if you were to pull those sections out, it would destroy the structure of the book.
- [53:44]
B
Well, that's interesting. I hadn't. I wasn't aware of that.
- [53:46]
A
Yeah, that's. That's kind of a new insight that Dr. Gage. I learned from Dr. Gage. He's an expert on chiasins, which basically is a structure that a passage leads up to a central point and then recedes from a central point in a mirror, like fashion. And if you were to pull out, say, the end of the Gospel of Mark, the chiasm wouldn't work. The chiasm wouldn't work.
- [54:09]
B
Interesting.
- [54:10]
A
And so that's better evidence to show that even if it wasn't in the earliest manuscripts that we have, it was in the original.
- [54:18]
B
Wow. I hadn't learned that. I'd like to see that debated and hear what people have to say about it.
- [54:24]
A
Yeah, but even if you take those passages out, it doesn't change the essence of the, of, of the, the New Testament, so.
- [54:30]
B
Right, exactly.
- [54:31]
A
Okay, so you discussed all of these points in the New Teen Edition, which comes out in October. And what are you hoping is the outcome of this book? How is it going to inoculate kids from the kind of progressive Christianity nonsense that's out there?
- [54:51]
B
My, my main goal is to give them language to spot some of the red flags that they might be seeing. I think that progressive Christianity, a lot of people don't realize how sneaky it is. So it's not like progressive Christians show up on your church doorstep and say, hey, we're progressive Christians. We'd like to take over your church. Frank, progressive Christians don't tend to plant churches. They take over churches. We've seen this happen time and time again, even with all of our mainline denominations being swallowed up by theological liberalism, which is the same theology of progressive Christianity. It's just that progressive Christianity is doing it in the evangelical church today. And so what I'm really hoping to do is all these students that are now, like you said, they have tender hearts toward the Lord, they're vulnerable to false gospels and counterfeit ideas about Christianity that can have implications for every area of their life. So my goal in this book is to show them what progressive Christianity looks like. It also is very personal. So I tell my personal story in the book about growing up as a Christian, going to church, loving Jesus with all my heart, my whole life, and then nearly losing my faith as a result of what this progressive pastor did in this class. And so my hope is that, see, I, Frank, when I was sitting in that class, I remember sitting at the table thinking, I've never heard any of these questions before. I've never heard any of this before. My goal is to make sure that there's no Christian kid out there that gets to college or gets to their lives independently. And second says, I've never heard these questions before. I really want to help prepare them for what they're going to face in the world.
- [56:20]
A
Well, Lisa, as always, you give us some great insights. With just a couple minutes remaining, just give people who are listening or watching right now warning signs that they may hear in their church of this kind of progressive Christianity creeping into their evangelical, their evangelical home.
- [56:42]
B
I'll try to make it really simple by kind of thinking about a triangle. So triangle has three points. There's three ways progressive Christianity can sneak into your church Number one is through theology. So red flags, little buzzwords you're gonna be looking for theologically, is them. Maybe not so much preaching the sin and redemption gospel, but more of a social justice gospel. You're gonna look for people downplaying the inspiration of the scripture, referring to the Bible as primarily not. It's a human book written about God. You might hear them say things like, we reject the idea that Jesus was. His death was sacrificial, that God required a blood sacrifice. Those might be some of the buzzwords on the theology point of that triangle. Another point would be ethics. And so that's gonna be a huge one where you might see a church softening its stance on abortion, nuancing its approach to abortion nuancing or softening on LGBTQ issues. Leaning more into what Ali Beth Stuckey has, I believe, rightly called toxic empathy, where we're more empathizing for a person's feelings than we really care about their souls. So if we see a softening of those stances. And then the third point of that triangle is politics, and that's what we've talked about a lot today, is sort of this third way ism to silence the church on biblical issues, to silence the church's voice, to be a clear voice in our culture. And if you see some of that, I mean, any one of those can be a red flag to look for, but especially if you see all three, I mean, that might be a time to run, frankly, if I'm honest.
- [58:18]
A
Pastor first.
- [58:19]
B
Yes, please.
- [58:20]
A
And quite, you know, one on one. And then if he continues to go down that road or it might be a she, move on to another church. Church. Before we go, Elise, I want to mention that there is going to be in upcoming episodes, we're going to have Pastor Rob McCoy on. That's who you mentioned earlier, Elisa. He was the first speaker at Charlie's memorial service, and he also was Charlie's pastor, a mentor to Charlie, also the father of the great Mikey McCoy, who we've talked about on this program. So look for him. I'm also going to have some insights for you in upcoming programs about the security situation around Charlie Charlie and what happened there, who dropped the ball. So stay tuned for that. We're gonna have Titus Kennedy coming up as well, talking about archaeology. We have a lot coming up, so stay tuned to the I Don't have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist podcast. Tell others about it. If you would also check out the Elisa Childers podcast and the Unshaken podcast. In fact, we've got Some unshaken events coming up. Me, you, and Natasha coming up in San Clemente, California, in Dallas, Texas. I want to say one of those.
- [59:33]
B
Is October 20th, 25th is San Clemente, and then November 8th is the Dallas.
- [59:40]
A
Go to unshakenconference.com if you want to get tickets. We hope to see you there. We've got to remain unshaken and press forward with the truth, ladies and gentlemen. So, Elisa, as always, thanks for all the great work you're doing. Thanks for helping me through this podcast.
- [59:53]
B
Oh, man. Frank, always an honor praying for you. Mike and I have been praying for you. You've just been killing it out there preaching the gospel. I love seeing it.
- [60:00]
A
Well, we all need to keep doing it. That's all I wanted to do at the memorial is get the gospel out. It's just that one thing. And hopefully it got out. It wasn't just me, Marco Rubio, I mean, Pete Hegseth, I mean, everybody was preaching the gospel.
- [60:14]
B
Everybody.
- [60:15]
A
But we wanted to make sure it got out. So hopefully we're. We did. So, friends, stay tuned to the I Don't have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist podcast. You can also Watch this on YouTube if you'd rather see it. And Lord willing, and we see you here next time. God bless.