Is the Candace CULT Canceling Itself? | Guest: Rob Eno | 7/10/26

Summary

Podcast Summary:
Steve Deace Show – "Is the Candace CULT Canceling Itself?" | Guest: Rob Eno | July 10, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode of the Steve Deace Show takes a deep dive into the state of principled conservatism in the post-Truth era, focusing on the increasing infighting, conspiracy addiction, and cultural collapse within right-wing media and society. The hosts dissect the fallout of Candace Owens' recent controversies, interrogate the proliferation of low-IQ conspiracy "slop," draw parallels to tabloid culture, and examine the decay of common sense and community values. Special guest Rob Eno, Managing Editor at Blaze Media, joins Steve, Todd Erzin, and Aaron McIntyre for bracing analysis with signature snark and candor.

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1. Opening Banter and Introduction (00:20–01:01)

• Steve introduces the weekly "Dacecript" recap and welcomes Rob Eno to the panel.
• Light jokes about assessing Rob’s importance at The Blaze.

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2. Issue One: "Bleep. Lord Nefarious Says…" – Cultural Decay and Free Speech (01:02–11:45)

Key Discussion Points:

• The panel reacts to a montage of audio clips illustrating cultural and political absurdity (e.g., free speech restrictions in Texas, radical activism, rainbow parliaments, and revolutionary leftist rhetoric).
• Rob Eno underscores the dangerous trend of law enforcement in Texas acting against free speech:
  "That is actually the most absolutely offensive one… calling somebody a faggot is not actually against the law. And they still cited him." (05:33)
• Todd Erzin and Steve emphasize the collapse of American justice, warning that if states like Texas surrender to left-wing enforcement of language "offenses," there’s little hope for the rest of the country:
  "There's no way we are going to have a civilization in Texas or anywhere else to pass on... unless we change that. The law enforcement of Texas is promising you that. Wake up." (06:33)
• The conversation turns to the weakness and distraction of the American right:
  Todd: "We are getting our ass kicked by a bunch of troons. But we’ve got our video games… Aren’t you sick of it? Is anybody sick of it? I’m exhausted by it." (08:24)
• Aaron McIntyre notes the serenity and confidence of America’s enemies compared to the apathy on the right:
  "What you’re seeing in this country is the absence of coexisting… It has come apart at the seams." (10:23)

Notable Quotes & Moments:

• Steve: "I didn't realize I was in a fight. And he said, 'That's why you're losing.'" (11:10)

Rating Total Depravity

• All three panelists rate the current cultural situation "10" out of 10 for depravity (11:45–11:50).

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3. Issue Two: "Is Chris Rufo Right?" – The Conspiracy Slop Market (11:55–22:58)

Key Discussion Points:

• Candace Owens’ crash and burn is discussed as emblematic of the right-wing’s addiction to grift and conspiracy.
• Chris Rufo’s point: "The Tyler Robinson case is going to expose a lot of the worst grifters and psychopaths on the right. The audience will eventually feel burned and start to turn on them." (12:50)
• Rob Eno provides an insider’s perspective:
  "The general public… doesn’t want to hear facts that are counter to their narratives. We still get more traffic from a salacious title than a thoughtful one." (15:29)
• Todd and Aaron agree the audience’s problem isn’t the grifters, but their own demand for sugar-high conspiracies:
  Todd: "Nobody wants the truth right now. They're looking for all kinds of idolatist distractions... Chaos is where many people want to keep things parked." (18:14) Aaron: "This stuff is addictive at a physiological level… People just want the next dopamine hit." (19:17)
• Steve draws parallels to supermarket tabloids and pornography, illustrating how modern technology has removed the shame and increased the reach and immediacy of conspiracy addiction.
• Steve: "Now you can just do it and have nobody at all know that you're doing it anonymously and everything else through this device… It’s different now." (21:36)
• The panel reflects on the collapse of common sense, with Steve noting:
  "There was not a critical mass of common sense in this culture... That's the most alarming part of this entire escapade." (25:41)

Notable Quotes & Moments:

• Steve: "Everything is the tabloid now. We can't expect that a good conversation is going to come out of Candace when, quite frankly, Candace Owens is everywhere, on every issue, all the time." (26:04)

• Aaron: "You're well within your rights to ask. I mean, hey, what, I mean, why, what does that even mean?" (74:44)

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4. Issue Three: "Seven Years of Retard" – Revisiting Liberal Dogma (31:43–41:12)

Key Discussion Points:

• The panel reviews an old Ellen Page (now Elliot Page) interview post-Jussie Smollett "hate crime" hoax.
• Todd laments the culture's failure to react with skepticism:
  "Told you. Do you remember the amount of time, 2018, 2019... we believe in transgenderism, we believe in anything. This is exactly what was going to happen." (35:37)
• Aaron draws a direct comparison between the Candace Owens effect and Hollywood:
  "Candace Owens and the cult of Ownstown sounds a lot like that: fiction with conviction." (36:39)
• Rob notes the insanity of granting cultural authority to Hollywood actors:
  "Has anybody seen Kamala Harris and Ellen Page in the same room? Ellen Page almost had the exact same voice as Kamala Harris and made about as much sense." (38:02)

Notable Moments:

• The panel jokes about Hollywood celebrities as modern “Ellen Pages”, with Aaron quipping, "They are legion." (40:23)
• Final kicker: “If you could force one spirit-of-the-age celebrity lunatic to listen to the Gospel, who would it be and why?” leading to picks like Taylor Swift, Tom Hanks, Christopher Nolan, and Demi Lovato due to their immense cultural influence and personal struggles.

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5. Key Listener Letters & Audience Q&A ("Feedback Friday" and Beyond) (50:23–95:52)

Topics Covered:

• Power of Prayer and Community:

  • Miracle story: a child’s recovery following communal prayer (52:24–56:33).
  • Emphasis on everyday gratitude and recognizing life's fragility.

• Navigating Hostility in Neighborhoods and Families:

  • A listener asks how to handle a new neighbor flying an upside-down American flag—Steve suggests "kill them with kindness" initially, then drawing lines if the hostility is persistent or targeted (59:46–72:20).
  • The advice is expanded: ask direct questions, don’t be afraid of polite confrontation, and mirror Christ-like patience with a willingness to draw boundaries.

• Adaptation to the Culture War:

  • The difference between flying a trans flag and an upside-down US flag is dissected, highlighting the explicit iconoclasm of gender ideology (72:20–77:45).
  • Todd: "If we can't ask a question about a flag, you probably don't have the energy to fight the fight where it really needs to be had." (73:39)

• Calling Out Taking the Lord’s Name in Vain:

  • Rob Brownlee Tomaso asks how to bring up this issue with friends/family—Steve says, lead by example and humility, focus on living out the standard before calling others to it, and don’t expect not to offend (80:16–91:05).

• Handling Subversive Left-Wing Family Members:

  • A listener explains his sister-in-law’s leftist hostility and scheming within the family; Steve counsels not to let her define his actions, to model Christlikeness, and to fortify unity with his wife. Todd advises: only engage if she initiates, but then "finish it." (91:05–95:52)

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6. Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Steve (on Christian response to cultural decay):
  "Mercy triumphs over judgment. It doesn't do so permanently. Otherwise a place called hell would not exist. But at least for a time, mercifully give hope a try." (72:20)

• Aaron ("You want to be the type of person that when people are around you, they come correct... They learn very quickly to be on their best behavior, not because you wield an iron rod, but out of respect for the headship in your life.") (89:18)

• Guest Discussion on Why Tabloid/Conspiracy Culture Is Worse Now:

  • "There was a shame factor, there was an embarrassment factor. But now with this thing here that's all out the window now. You can be a captain of industry now... and you can just do it and have nobody at all know that you're doing it." (21:36)

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7. Forecasts & Predictions

• Rob predicts further chaos in right-wing media spectacles and presidential politics.
• Todd and Steve debate whether future films (like "The Odyssey") will win Oscars due to cultural and DEI tithing.
• Bold prediction: "Will any significant peddler of Erica Kirk smears or conspiracy theories end up repenting for what they tried to do?" All answer "no." (29:14–29:28)

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8. Closing

• Show ends with exhortations to live boldly, love family, and remain vigilant against both cultural madness and idolatry.
• Signature sign-off: "Romans 8:28. Go hard."

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Episode Takeaway:
This episode doubles down on Steve Deace Show's trademark blend of snark, cultural analysis, and hardline Christian conservatism. The hosts lampoon leftist and right-wing celebrity cults alike, highlight the collapse of nuance and common sense, and urge listeners to practice discernment, Christlike courage, and unwavering commitment to Truth—even (or especially) when confronting uncomfortable realities, both at home and in society.

Notable Timestamps:

• Introductions & Banter: 00:20–01:01
• Free Speech & Cultural Decay: 01:02–11:45
• The Candace Owens/Conspiracy Slop Market: 11:55–22:58
• Tabloid Culture & Technology: 19:17–22:58
• Hollywood Insanity: 31:43–41:12
• Listener Letters on Kindness, Boundaries, and Calling Out Blasphemy: 50:23–91:05
• Family Confrontations & Christlikeness: 91:05–95:52

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For Listeners Who Missed the Episode:
This podcast installment is a comprehensive look at both macro (culture war, media grift, lost wisdom) and micro (neighborly conflict, family betrayal, personal spiritual discipline) battles facing conservatives in 2026—with real-time examples, cultural references, and unsparing honesty about what’s required to stand for Truth in a world gone “tabloid.”

Transcript

[A]

And greetings. Happy Friday. Welcome to the Steve Day show here live and on demand. I am Steve Dace. He is Todd Erzin. He is Aaron McIntyre. We are joined by the Is it Managing editor, Rob Is that your official title here at the Blaze, Managing editor of Blaze Tips? Yes, he is the managing editor of the Blaze, which I think means he is at least somewhat important and maybe, maybe this hour will determine frankly that level of importance. We shall see next hour. Of course, you guys know that it's going to be your turn on a feedback Friday. We've got some juicy stuff to get to too, stuff involving neighbors and family members.

[B]

Light it up.

[A]

Okay, so yeah, so we've got some juicy ones to dig into next hour. But first, let's dig into the day Scrip. Your weekly look at the week that was begins as it always does, with issue one, bleep. Lord Nefarious says

[C]

that confidence means like music, not talking.

[A]

If someone is offended by your talking, then we have a problem. That is a constitutional violation of your rights. If you shut us down. No, if they are offended by your

[C]

speech, I just want to clarify if

[A]

anything is said that's offensive, you're going to write if someone complains that your language or what you're saying is offensive. These migrants were recently arrested in New Jersey. We don't want them to get sent to Delaney Hall. So this is Juan Martinez Roverde. He was from Peru, arrested in Elizabeth, New Jersey. We do have to disclose that he was charged with child sex offense, though, but we don't want him sent to Delaney Hall. Ought to be where you want to be. Can you tell her too, that she

[C]

can't cite us if her speech is offensive because she threatened to cite us. If you have offensive speech, it depends

[A]

on what you're saying, who's offended. So if I say homosexuality. So free speech does not include the no threats.

[C]

No threats. No threats. If you make fun of somebody, if

[A]

you call them certain words and they feel offended by that, unfortunately that is

[B]

the part of the.

[C]

So if I call somebody and I'm

[A]

just saying this for clarification, if I

[C]

say you're A and they get offended, you're going to cite me.

[A]

That is a class C ticket, unfortunately.

[D]

Private prisons is like a huge problem now.

[A]

Would you be able to take him in? I'm sorry, Borde in. Because we don't want him sent to Delaney hole. We don't want to release him back out where ICE is going to snatch him off. So would you have a spot for him? Are you an AGITATOR Am I an alligator? Agitator. New York is so gay.

[D]

Hello.

[A]

And we're happy about it.

[C]

And we're happy about it.

[A]

We have a unique responsibility to act from the.

[E]

From the heart of empire, the belly of the beast. The most important thing that we can

[A]

do is take that empire down from within.

[B]

Our role ultimately is to facilitate our own empire's failure in ways that we can ultimately to overthrow our own empire.

[A]

Imperialism is US Imperialism is not a thing that can be reformed away. It has to be overthrown through revolutionary

[D]

struggle and to build a mass movement that can use the leverage of workers to hit the kill switch on American imperialism here within the American empire.

[A]

James Talarico. The reality is that there was a lot of racism.

[E]

Not a lot.

[A]

It was racist. It was a racist race.

[C]

It is what it is. Really proud that we got the gayest

[B]

parliament, I don't think, just of all

[D]

time, anywhere in the world.

[C]

I don't think there's any parliament that

[A]

is gayer than this part.

[B]

Hey, hey.

[A]

Tit here.

[D]

And we're going to make this the

[A]

moderate position for the state of Wisconsin. But I need your help because we

[D]

have one month to do this.

[C]

So let's do it.

[B]

And I said it.

[A]

If I lived in Maine, I would have, you know, plugged my nose and I would have voted for him. Anyway, JD Vance just said in an

[B]

interview that he thinks you are going

[A]

to be the leading Democratic candidate for president in 2028.

[C]

What's your response to that?

[D]

I mean, you know,

[B]

I hope he is.

[A]

I find such wisdom and comfort and inspiration from faith traditions all over the world, and I find that they're all kind of a equal pathways to truth. All right, let's get to it. Rob, as the guest, you always get to go first on who's the most vile and disgusting thing and why that you just witnessed.

[D]

The first thing I wanted to know is, did we have like a trans male, trans counter on that? Because I'm trying to figure out how many of the Democratic socialists were actually trans because they didn't really look like women. But that's just another. That's an aside.

[A]

I noticed it too. I noticed it as well.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Not, not, not the most intimidating group. Let me just say I wasn't exactly quaking in my.

[C]

I was actually.

[A]

My Crocs.

[C]

I was actually keeping track, Rob. And the answer is yes.

[D]

Okay. The other thing, I think they were all disgusting, right? But I think the main one is that was that the Fort Worth encounter that I started to see percolating with the Texas cops saying that you have no free speech.

[A]

Yes.

[D]

Yeah, I think. Yeah, I think that that is the most egregious. My understanding is that that guy had actually already had a suit with the city of Fort Worth and they were supposed to train their officers that know calling somebody a faggot is not actually against the law. And then they. They still cited him. So I think that that is actually the most absolutely offensive one. Runners up is probably the DSA just completely telling us what they want to do. That they want to overthrow the government. But remember, therefore, blessed democracy.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

That whole thing with the cops seemed fake and gay to me. If you're picking up what I'm letting

[C]

down is that the first use of the word faggot since Pope Francis said faggotry in describing some truly the highlight

[A]

of his otherwise melancholy papacy for sure. Yes. Todd, what about you?

[D]

I could say it on the show just.

[A]

You're just quoting a source. You're just quoting a source. Just quoting a story. Yes. Todd.

[B]

What is Texas cops for me as well. The math is actually quite plain. There's no way we are going to have a civilization in Texas or anywhere else to pass on to our children and grandchildren with that math currently existing. All of those other people legitimately inciting violence that we all know are not going to be arrest for that wherever they live, including in Texas. But that's happening in Texas. It's already game over. It's like we talk about scripturally all the time. We know the ending. The victory is already at hand. The loss on this front is all is already at hand unless we change that. That that math is clear and it's simple. It's not a laugh track. They will win and we will lose. The law enforcement of Texas is promising you that. Wake up.

[A]

I think this is a very important point you're making, Todd, because essentially you're never going to do what must be done for the guy citing violence there in a state like Wisconsin. Right. You're never going to have the will to round him up and punish him accordingly for what he is advocating. You're never going to have the will to do that. If in your own states like Texas you allow cops just arrest people on the street for offending the rainbow jihad like frankly goes on in London, the streets of London every single day. You're just never gonna do it.

[B]

That cop.

[A]

You have to defend your own turf first.

[B]

Man. Yeah. When he says. Depends on what you say and who you say it to.

[C]

What Lady justice is 2020 vision apparently.

[B]

That's insane.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

That guy. He won't be reprimanded.

[C]

Nope.

[A]

He should have already lost his job.

[B]

And that female cat, by the way, she's just moonlighting. That was who played Supergirl, by the way, in the recent movie. Same thing. Where do we have any footing in this culture where we don't. This isn't funny. We are getting our ass kicked by a bunch of troons. But we've got our video games. Not theoretically. They're all dying on this hill all week long. That is what our young men care about. Aren't you sick of it? Is anybody sick of it? I'm exhausted by it. Aaron.

[E]

Man.

[C]

Target rich environment this time. It's just. I think my favorite. Let's just dovetail with what Todd ended with there. Those democratic socialist activists. They just calmly about. It's just Max Serenity. Max Serenity as one of them, of course, deals with the tic and probably hormones jacking with his physiology. Or her. I couldn't tell. And I think that's the point. Just calmly. Max Serenity. Like we're in yoga meditation. The only thing that's missing is that ethereal music there. Max Serenity. We must destroy our own country from within. We must. That is our job. It is our duty. That is why we are here. To destroy the empire from the belly of the beast. And contrasting that with. Yeah, it depends on what you say to whom you say. But, you know, free speech really isn't that free. So good luck, Texas. Good luck, America. Those two things happening in the same week, that's just not going to hold together. It's not holding together. I think we need to get that through our thick kids as well. This is not something we need to say, hey, we can't coexist. We're not coexisting. We're not. It's not that it can't coexist right now. What you're seeing in this country is the absence of coexisting. It is coming. It has come apart at the seams. We need to change our tense when the verb usage to not, will, not to is not.

[B]

The worst mistake to make though is like their side. It's demonic, but they believe in something. It's funny, the whole Joaquin Phoenix Joker. We're the ones. Our side is the one who is Joaquin Phoenix's joker. We don't believe in anything. They do when nefarious in your movies. I didn't realize it was a. What? A fight, A game, A competition. Which. What's the word? He actually uses.

[A]

I didn't realize this was a. I didn't, I didn't realize I was in a fight. And he said, that's why you're losing.

[B]

That's why you're losing. Yeah, we're. We're the dope. I don't believe in anything. We're the mark.

[A]

Exit question. Because I want to make sure we have plenty of time to dig into this next topic because it feels like we're kind of at an inflection point in this industry we all work in. Exit question. On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being the odds Candace Owens will repent of her demonic grifting and 10 being the odds that Candace Owens is in need of an exorcism, rank this week's level of total depravity. Aaron?

[C]

10.

[A]

Rob?

[B]

10. 10.

[A]

I agree. This one was a solid 10. Let's get to issue two. Is Chris Ruffo right?

[C]

The preliminary hearing for accused Charlie Kirkusas and Tyler Robinson went down in Utah this week with evidence described and sometimes shown, some of which had never before been seen, attempting to prove to Judge Tony Graf the prosecution does indeed have enough evidence to take the case to trial. It's no coincidence, given that last statement, that one Candace Owens has had a supreme crash out this week, culminating with her claim that her former colleague at the Daily Wire, Ben Shapiro, had something to do with the murder of Charlie Kirk. It's the latest in the saga of the Owenstown Colts, who are collectively this week grappling with the plain evidence in front of them from the preliminary hearing versus their hallucinations of Egyptian Israeli microphone bombs planted by random TPUSA staffers working on behalf of human traffickers and Erica Kirk. It's amidst this backdrop that our colleague Chris Ruffo posted the following quote. The Tyler Robinson case is going to expose a lot of the worst grifters and psychopaths on the right.

[D]

And.

[C]

And the audience will eventually feel burned and start to turn on them. We're at the top of the market for right wing conspiracy slop. Correction. Incoming.

[A]

All right, so for several years. Do you guys remember Daniel and I used to have this argument, Steak or Cheez its? Remember the art? This argument, right?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And the argument was, is most of what we feed our audience cheez Its because that's what they want or do they want that because that's most of what we feed them, Right? You're hungry and all that's is all that's there is a vending machine. So you grab some cheez its but if someone put a perfectly cooked steak right there, perfect, perfectly seasoned, and it's sizzling, you can smell it right there. And you're starving. Would you still go to the Vendo for the Cheez Its or grab that steak if it was more accessible to you? Right, that's. And Daniel and I went back and forth on this point for several years. Right. Okay. I, I think that Rufo is introducing a variation of this, of this theme with this position. Okay. Because again, a woman built for a time the number one podcast in the world. In the world. Off of the demonic thin gruel that Aaron was just describing there. Egyptian airliners. Utah. The Utah time zone. Remember that one was the Utah time zone. The Utah time zone.

[C]

Utc.

[A]

Yes, utc. Okay. That, that, you know, Josh Hammer was signaling to the assassins. I mean on and on this went. And people, people downloaded this by the millions. Now I looked today in advance of this topic heading into today. Her podcast is the lowest rated I've ever seen it. It's still pretty high, but way lower.

[C]

She's been on vacation this week though.

[A]

No, that may have something to do with this.

[C]

Her crash out is her on vacation.

[A]

Okay.

[C]

That's adds to the crash out value.

[A]

What I also think is fascinating is Ben Shapiro's podcast currently is ranked ahead of hers, Tucker's, Megyn Kelly's. I'm fascinated by that. But. So Rufo is essentially saying that there is enough argument for truth on our side that now presented with the, the amount of evidence here, people are going to wake up. And that when he says top of the market, what he means is we've reached peak. This is it. We've reached the peak of this market. It only goes downhill from here. And this is its max. We've reached its, its, its ceiling. It will only decline from here. This level of, of just clearly low level, low IQ slop. I want everybody on the panel's thoughts on this, beginning with the guy who's the managing editor of this place. What do you think, Rob?

[D]

You know, what I'll say is, and it depends on what you mean by a stake, right? Is a stake, a well thought out argument that presents facts that is very much written in an intellectual way that, that shows a point. Right? Because I will tell you, the audience by, by and large, I mean we have great, we have a great audience here that reads a lot of our long form stuff. But the, the, the general public conservative Fox News listener that we have a lot of crossover with doesn't want to hear that. They don't want to Hear facts that are counter to their narratives and, and you get punished for it. Right. We, we still get more traffic from a salacious title than we do from a, you know, a thoughtful, thought provoking title in places, you know, like Facebook and Twitter and TikTok and Instagram. Right. That still is what, what brings it in. And for, for us, the, you know, it's, it's juggling that, that need for salaciousness with the need not. And to go to the conspiracy stuff. I mean I'll just. I think the problem is, is for so long the truth has been labeled conspiracy in your books with Daniel Horowitz that are very. And that you and that you and Todd have written on Fauci and Kovitistan and all of that go to show that, that, you know, the facts were definitively on the side of the people that were standing athwart the narrative and saying stop. The emperor has no clothes. That we were called by the mainstream media. Conspiracy theories theorists, deniers of science, vaccine skeptics, you know, but guiding vaccine skeptics, anti vaxxers.

[B]

That,

[D]

that's why there is a market for this stuff that can be completely, you know, nutty. That anybody could have watched what happened over the past five days. They could have watched Lance Twigg says, saying, yes, I engraved the bullets and gave them to Tyler and come away with. Tyler Robinson was not acting on his own be to protect his beloved trans. Significant other. I don't even know if you can call it a boyfriend or a girlfriend or whatever it is at this point in time. You're just, you're delusional. There isn't always a conspiracy, but there are enough conspiracies that you can find them anywhere you look.

[A]

Let's get everybody's take before we do any redresses.

[B]

Todd, I don't think Ruth Poe is correct. I want him to be, but I, I think they might reject Candace, but it's not because they've had enough of the crazy. It's because they like the crazy just fine and they don't think they can. She can carry that water anymore and they want somebody to step in. There's again, we, we are as I said before, where are we healthy as a nation right now? It's not just like within our little microcosm of conservative media that the thread has been lost or something. The threat has been lost everywhere. There's, there's, there's not a bunch of people like waiting. Oh just. I'm waiting for the real thing. Nobody wants the truth right now. They're looking for all kinds of idolatist distractions, and those things are falling apart, too. We have no baseline right now. So I just don't think. I think chaos is right where many people on our side want to keep things parked. And as soon as Candace can't do that, they're going to say, who's up? And then they're going to ride that train as far as it'll go.

[C]

Aaron, he's not right. He might be right specifically about Candace. Hopefully I'm not just giving the exact same answer as Todd is, but this is what I was describing yesterday. This stuff is addictive at a physiological level. People just want the next dopamine hit and the next dopamine hit. If it's Egyptian planes, ooh, that hits like a mother. If it's a vast conspiracy between Erica Kirk, Ben Shapiro, Josh Hammer and Frank Turek and a bunch of human traffickers, ooh, that's a good dopamine hit. Give me another. People will go anywhere for this. People will just wait for the next catastrophe to start theorizing and conspiracy conspiracizing about, and they're going to be right back there. The only way through, the only way out of this is for revival, the renewing of people's minds, because people's minds are freaking cooked right now. They're cooked.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

Okay, I'm going to ask this question not necessarily because it's what I think, but because I think we have a responsibility to just cross examine our own selves. Okay. For decades, generations of Americans that we would consider to be way more critically thinking, way more active and involved in, you know, the matters at hand made the purveyors of supermarket tabloids millions and millions and millions and millions and millions of dollars. Are we being too hard on this era? Is this simply just a reiteration of the National Enquirer and then all those other tabloids? Is it?

[C]

No, this is kind of the same thing. Hey, with pornography, you used to have to go to that CD store. You had to go there.

[A]

Good analogy.

[C]

You had to go pick up the magazine. You had to sheepishly pay for it. That's the exact same thing. It's just a different venue. It's just a different venue. And it's. It is different. It is absolutely different in this era because it's all immediate. And you get that dopamine hit right away over and over and over and over again. And so the, the, the, the, the marketplace of people's attention has vastly expanded and it's vastly more Available and immediate. So, no, it's a completely different era.

[A]

You're making a very important point and it's impressive that you're the one making it because many of those tabloids, you don't remember, they were kind of dying out just as you were coming of age. But there was a thing where maybe it would catch your eye, right? You'd pick it up in the, in the, in the, the aisle market and then, you know, you'd maybe look at it and then you'd see other people seeing you look at it. You just kind of like shake your head like this stuff is ridiculous, right? Then put it back and go on with your day. There was a, there was a shame factor, there was an embarrassment factor. So it did kind of just weed itself out to the absolute most, you know, low iq, knuckle dragger troglodytes you could imagine who didn't, who were just given over and didn't care about how they, how they were viewed in their community at all. That's what Aaron is alluding to. But now with this thing here that's all out the window now. You can be a captain of industry now that would never, ever, ever consider picking up the Weekly World News and how President Carter and President Reagan were commuting with the aliens, you know, last night. You would never pick that up at your local supermarket now in your hometown where you run the hardware store or you're the county attorney, you know, but now you can, now you can just do it and have nobody at all know that you're doing it anonymously and everything else through this device that its ability to permeate into the layers of the, the, the, the mantle, nickel core of the culture is different now than it ever has been before. I think that's a very important point that Aaron just.

[C]

And there is a crucial. You kind of brought this up in passing the other day. There's another crucial difference about this era as well. There's a much broader base of people who have given themselves permission. And I can't say, I can't say it's not rightfully so. After so many people, so many institutions, so many figures, including the church, absolutely beclown themselves in the era of COVID Now you've got a. It's not yellow journalism. I'm a citizen journalist. By making up all of these, it's, It's a completely different era.

[A]

So the three of us now that are older, who do remember, well, the era of the supermarket tabloids. And so we can compare the two era that Aaron, I think just drew a great. A dichotomy between the two. All right, what do we do then? When in our time and in the time that the three of us have been alive, we have now seen that there is a cachet of people who really, truly believed that they care more about what happened to Charlie Kirk than his own wife and parents do, that they really loved Charlie more than his wife did, that they know better what's best for the organization that he created and who should take over for him should something happen than his explicitly worded directions say, that they care more for the fate of Tyler Robinson than his attorneys or any singular member of his family does. These would have been things that just would have been common sense. I don't have to see a piece of evidence just to lobby a common sense objection to this nonsense if it was uttered at the Thanksgiving dinner table 30 years ago. Right. And yet we there. There was not a critical mass of common sense in this culture to even just simply ask those kinds of questions and then demand people like Sean Ryan ask those kinds of questions. Sean never once, never once last week looked at Candace and said, hey, I mean, I mean, if that all this stuff is true. I mean, is Tyler like, listen, you know, say what you want about Steve Baker. He used to work here. He doesn't anymore. We'll see what happens with the Brian Cole thing. We all knew Steve. We all liked Steve, but. But, you know, Steve has been contacted by the Brian Cole defense. They are interested in some of the work he's doing. They have been interested in some of the facts that he's looked into. I mean, how in the world, if, if. How in the world does Candace Owens care more about getting Tyler Robinson off than his own attorneys do? And. And his attorneys represented the Menendez brothers, for goodness sakes. These aren't like public defenders. The fact that there wasn't enough built in common sense that people just sit there and said, thought, thought to themselves, I, this just doesn't make any sense. And then just moved on. To me, that's the most alarming part of this, of this entire escapade. Not that there was demonically placed grifters like Candace able to take advantage of it, but the amount of people whose lack of common sense. There are. There are women screaming in my feed right now that truly believe they cared more. They care more about what happened to Charlie Kirk than Erica Kirk does. And that blows my mind, Blows my mind that we've lost, that we're that eroded now.

[B]

But why? Where do we have Common sense in any walk of life right now. This is the water we swim in. Everything is the tabloid. Now. Look at all of our escape. Steve. College football, it's a effing tabloid. Look at the Odyssey that's about to come out, what they're doing to that. It's a tabloid. Look at our young men in video games. It's a tabloid. There's no terra firma. The whole thing. We can't expect that a good conversation is going to come out of Candace when, quite frankly, Candace Owens is everywhere, on every issue, all the time. And when it's our little private Idaho, we don't care.

[A]

So what you're saying is, when we realized that we were the Rhinos, we were actually the rhinos. The ones that expected the Republican Party to do the stuff we elected them to do. We were the actual Rhinos.

[B]

That's what all these anons out there, they keep telling you. The Founding Fathers argument. The Founding Fathers. You're not them. They think they are. No, you're a loser in your mom's basement. Stop it. We live those lies carte blanche everywhere, all day.

[A]

Rob, got about two minutes here.

[D]

Give you the last word to Aaron's point that, yes, it's the ubiquitousness of the cell phone, Right? It's the ubiquitousness of seeing everything because this stuff happened. You mentioned the Menendez brothers. There were people that believed that the Menendez brothers were completely innocent, that didn't do anything wrong.

[A]

That OJ Was another one.

[D]

Yeah, right. I've got a friend. There was a case up in Massachusetts and this kid actually did. Was wrongfully convicted of child molestation, I think it was. And my buddy's grandmother used to go to the trial and write to the family. But these were isolated incidents where you could see it. And to go to Todd's, everything's tabloid. And what sells and what people do. I mean, think of the History Channel. Now, the History Channel isn't the History Channel of my youth. Where every other minute you saw Hitler In World War II, now you see ancient aliens, you see the lost secret Nazi bunkers on Antarctica, you see Roanoke Island. In the cases of Roanoke island, this stuff sells. It goes to a certain core even on our own website. I mean, a lot of times, and it's sad to say, but you know, a lot of times that the. The stuff that gets clicks on our website are hot. Teacher does something with male student. Right? Like that is a genre that gets good clicks on our website. And we've got a reporter that basically covers that beat because it gets good clicks on the website, which leads to subscriptions and those sort of things. Look at all of the, all of the news channels that have, you know, true crime

[A]

channels now.

[D]

I mean, feeds some sort of visceral level in humans. And I think it is more amplified, like everything in the culture is more amplified because of smartphones and the Internet.

[A]

Great point.

[D]

And things like that.

[A]

Quick exit question. Will any significant peddler of Erica Kirk smears or conspiracy theories end up repenting for what they tried to do and if so, whom? Quickly. Todd. No, not a one. You don't think a single one.

[C]

Genuine repentance?

[A]

Genuine.

[C]

No.

[A]

No. Rob no. To a very dark place this goes. Yes, to a very dark place this goes. More in a moment.

[E]

Foreign.

[A]

Back here on the Steve Day show, powered by our friends over at Freedom Project Academy. If you're looking for the right education for your kids this fall, check out Freedom Project Academy. I can't give him a better endorsement than I let him teach my own son for two years. And I don't hate my kids. So they did great. Standards are a little bit higher than that. Yanking his chain in case he's listening. Listen, whether you want to have a structure, you want to go live with real time teachers, they can do that in a virtual classroom. If you want flexibility classes available anytime for courses 24, 7, you want a homeschool track that puts, say, you and your kid in the driver's seat, they can do that too. Whatever you're looking for, they've got it. Unless you're looking for Common Core and Pagan slop, they don't have any of that. What they do have, though, classical education and Judeo Christian values for kids pre kindergarten all the way through high school. Just some of the reasons why Freedom Project Academy was awarded the 2026 Christian School of the Year by Education Insider. So go to freedom4school.com check out the wide variety of what's available and if you decide to sign up for this fall, use the promo code Steve to get 10% off your tuition. With the promo code Steve 10% off at Freedom for School. F O r freedom for school.com promo code steve@freedom for school.com we welcome back our managing other managing editor. Easy for me to say, Robino, with your weekly look at the week that was. Let's continue on with issue three, seven Years of Retard.

[C]

Come on a mystical journey with me, will you? To a land far away in the distant past of 2019, when Late show host Stephen Colbert was just starting to remain not funny. Jussie Smollett was a topic of conversation and Ellen Page was still Ellen Page.

[A]

Is it hard to be married to someone so much taller than you are? Because that must turn heads.

[E]

Look, I know this is. I know this is going to shock you. Most, if not all of my partners have been taller than me. So it's something I've had to adjust to. Yeah. Since elementary school. Really? Yeah.

[D]

Wow.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

So your whole life you've just felt I'm a short person.

[E]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I've dealt with it and I'm proud of it. So Hollywood and the film industry in particular is just so binary and it is so, I find can be narrow and its ideas of who can tell stories and who can be in the stories. And I hope it continues to change. And like I say, clearly there are changes and there's extraordinary people that are leading the way and doing that. But I hope it. I hope it continues to go quicker because there's certain things that I'm just sick and tired of.

[A]

Do you have any idea how we can get the public and the media to pay more attention to what's happening in global warming? Because there's such a long time span where these effects will happen in really dramatic ways. Is it that long?

[E]

I think they're happening, these effects. This is something that's happening and it's happening the most marginalized people. And we need to be talking about it. It's really serious. We've been told as we know it that by 2030, the world as we know it. That's it. That's it. If it was a movie, we'd have Bruce Willis in a suit, like, talking about something. Please cast me and said. But I get too mixed up all that Amy Adams, save us. I can just pray that finally the aliens will come and have compassion for us and Amy can do something.

[D]

We need superheroes.

[E]

You see what I'm saying? It's like the urgency would be so severe and instead it's like we have a media that's barely talking talking about it. We have a media that's saying it's a debate whether or not what just happened to Jussie Smollett is a hate crime. It's absurd. This isn't a debate.

[D]

I agree. I agree.

[E]

In terms of connecting the dots, in terms of what happened the other day to Jesse. I don't know him personally. I saw I Send all of my love connect the dots. This is what happens if you are in a position of power and you hate people and you Want to cause suffering to them. You go through the trouble, you spend your career trying to cause suffering. What do you think is going to happen? Kids are going to be abused and they're going to kill themselves and people are going to be beaten on the street. I have traveled the world and I have met the most marginalized people you could meet. I am lucky to have this time and the privilege to say this. This needs to stop.

[A]

So watching this clip from 2019 and knowing what you know now about how things turned out for the two individuals involved, it says what to you, if anything, Todd, I'll let you go first.

[B]

Told you. Do you remember the amount of time in 2018, 2019, I started talking once? We believe in transgenderism, we believe in anything. This is. I. I don't believe anything different than I believe then. This is exactly what was going to happen. Stephen Colbert should have been fired that show, not now, that show for doing that. And look who does he work that. Is that some weird little podcast out on the fringes that CBS News, all the advertisers going through that, paying for that. This is what people want to see. See again, it's a sign that the whole culture is sick. We didn't put the brakes on then, despite all of those red flags, we said more, more, more. So the only thing I have to say is, told you, Aaron,

[C]

Candace Owens and the cult of Ownstown sounds a lot like what you just heard there. Just a lot of fiction, a lot

[A]

of acting, but with conviction. Fiction with conviction.

[C]

Fiction with conviction. Hey, that's great. That's a. That's a good turn of phrase. You will listen to that in its absolute insanity. I believe that aired maybe the week or so after Jussie Smollett, before it was revealed that it was a complete and total hoax. But she's there almost in tears, it sounds like. But she is, after all, an actress almost in tears. This is what happens when you elect

[B]

somebody like Donald Trump.

[C]

And it's gonna keep happening, and the world is gonna end in 2030. The world as we know. It's 2026 now.

[D]

I don't know.

[C]

Maybe in four years, nobody knows. Maybe in four years, the world really will. It's just absolute brain rot, but with conviction, with finality, with no real questions. This is the way it is. I am the one appointed to tell you the way that it is. And the way it is is that Jussie Smollett is the victim of a hate crime inspired by Donald Trump. And the world is going to end in 2030. And Hollywood is too binary. And that's the way it is. It's just unbelievable madness. But there's really no, no breathing room, really no distance at all between what Candace is doing and what you just heard from, from Ellen Page there.

[D]

Rob, I think I lost too many brain cells in that three minutes to actually be able to answer the question. I don't know if I can form complete sentences anymore. I know that we just spent some time railing against conspiracy theories, but has anybody seen Kamala Harris and Ellen Page in the same room? If I closed my eyes, Ellen Page almost had the exact same voice as Kamala Harris and made about as much sense. I was expecting her to say, you see, Jussie Smollett is a small country and Donald Trump and the MAGA movement are a large country. And what happened is they invaded Jussie Smollett. Like that was just the levels of brain rot in that and that we've indulged it.

[A]

But again, the conviction there, the conviction there, the applause there. Yes, yes.

[D]

I mean, she sounded exactly like Kamala Harris. I was wondering, is Kamala Harris actually Ellen Page in a Kamala Harris suit? Which is why I'm wondering, have they ever been seen in the same place? It's just, it's absolute insane. Like, why would I don't get where a 22, probably at that point in time, year old actress has the gravitas to talk about global warming. Like, why would you ask her that question to begin with? What's her pedigree? I mean, at least the quote unquote, scientists that lie about global warming for a living are getting paid to lie about global warming. I don't know why she would know anything about global warming. And it just reminds you how you'd like to think that Covid broke everybody's brains, but they seem to have been broken before.

[A]

COVID Exit question. Who's the next Ellen Page?

[B]

Way more people right now are already Ellen Page at anyone he wants to admit.

[A]

Rob, who's the next Helen Ellen Page and why Is it Charlize Theron?

[D]

No, I was going to say we are. They are legion. So I don't know, but that answer works too. Yeah.

[A]

You and Todd, I think they are a pigeon.

[D]

Yeah.

[C]

Aaron, is Charlize Theron going off the deep end? Yeah, well, she's really.

[D]

No.

[B]

Yeah, she already transd her kids.

[A]

Yeah, she's trans all her kids now. Now she looks like she hasn't, you know, literally ate a carb or maybe even a single calorie in about 15 years.

[D]

Yeah.

[B]

We're sick everywhere. Absolutely.

[A]

Because everybody, of course, everybody thought she was fat and ugly. Right? That was. That was a commonly held opinion. Oh, yes.

[B]

Oh. You know who's also a lot close all. If you're. If you say you're disgusted and disturbed by that. And that's all of Hollywood. But we keep consuming their content. How many conservatives are going to go out and race and watch this movie even though they are just having. They're being peed on and told it's raining. How disturbed are we really?

[A]

Let's get to the kicker topic. If you could force one spirit of the age, celebrity lunatic to listen to the gospel, whom would it be and why?

[D]

Aaron.

[E]

Man.

[C]

Trying to think of the most bankable star.

[A]

Right? Exactly. Someone who. So Taylor Swift.

[C]

Yeah. That would be.

[A]

I mean, people. Guys. They sold the trash. Did you see this story?

[B]

No. Yeah.

[A]

They took the bags of trash from out behind Madison Square Garden at her wedding. They. They put them on sale for a starting price of 25 bucks. And all the bags of trash sold out every bag of trash from the Taylor Swift wedding. People bought them all.

[C]

How about Tom Hanks?

[A]

That's another one. Yeah. Because there's a lot of sincerity built up from him then too. Right? Yeah. All right, so Aaron says Taylor Swift or Tom Hanks talk right now.

[B]

Christopher Nolan. Because look what he actually became. The cautionary tale from his own Batman movie. You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain. Of course he. Apparently it says he didn't. His brother wrote that line and he didn't understand it right away. And he was kind of surprised it because. So popular. Well, yeah. You never got it. And here you are now.

[A]

How much of this is just because Nolan thinks he has to do this to be seriously considered for an Oscar?

[B]

Well, that's my.

[A]

Which is no excuse. I'm not. I'm not making any excuses. I'm just. I'm trying to figure out motivation for a guy that built his. His own personal empire on defying all these trends and not. And appealing and creating content that appealed to men exactly like us.

[B]

He didn't really defy those trends.

[A]

You don't think so?

[B]

No, He. This is. This is where this was going to go all along. This is if you. You dance with the devil. This is where this ends up. We have to take our own talking points seriously. He's not. This is his worldview. Welcome to it.

[A]

I think this is a massive leap from a lot of the other content that he's done. But we can disagree on that, Rob, if you could pick one celebrity, who would it be?

[D]

I think it would be Demi Lovato. I think that she always struck me as a pretty nice and down to earth person. But that whole Disney, Nickelodeon kids.

[A]

Yeah, she's on her like 35th different identity now. I believe she's.

[D]

Yeah. And it's because she got so screwed up by being in that. You know, Nickelodeon had that guy that was basically predating, you know, predating on the kids dressing them up. Like.

[A]

Yeah, the guy. The chubby guy from Head of the Class. Right. Dan Snyder. Was that who that is? Or Schneider. Schneider.

[D]

Did you know that he supposedly.

[A]

Did you know that, Todd? That. Remember the chubby guy from Head of the Class? Remember that TV show from back in the day? That chubby guy that's in the back of the class. Dan Schneider ended up being the producer of a lot of these kids shows, like Victorious and all these other shows. Okay. And it turns out the guy's a raging pedophile, basically.

[D]

Yeah.

[A]

With a massive. With a massive foot fetish. And apparently this was well known. Another hidden secret. And then it just ended up blowing up. Too many lives that like. Like with Harvey, what's his face. They. They couldn't.

[D]

Weinstein.

[A]

Weinstein.

[B]

Thank you.

[A]

They couldn't keep it secret anymore. Yeah. So years ago, our oldest daughter, Anastasia, did you guys see on the show here once a week when she's not, you know, about to give birth. She finished second in a national talent competition for singing 13 and under. And we got a call with Atlantic Records, a representative from Atlantic Records pitching her. And we, Amy and I took the call as her parents and did our due diligence. Anna was 12. And we just. Because of the stories of people like Demi Lovato. You're citing Rob and all the beyond behind the music specials on VH1 we had seen. We're just like, we're not. We're not doing that as one of our kids. We told Anna, you know what? If you get in, in six years, you'll be old enough out of our house. Keep singing. That's something you want to pursue as an adult. God bless you and hope you use it for Christ. But we're not subjecting our kid to that. We're just not, you know, now she's happily married, pregnant with her second kid, about to buy a new house and not a VH1 behind the Music special. So let's get to predictions. Rob, go.

[D]

Graham Platner will not actually file the paperwork to drop out. And he will stay in the race. And then I've got a bonus prediction that Todd will take November 19 off to play GTA 6 Open.

[A]

I think your first prediction is fascinating and may very well come true.

[B]

I agree.

[A]

I think that's you bet. Yeah. And I could see that happening for sure.

[B]

Todd, it was already you spoke it in, not into existence, but you're obviously agreeing with me. The Odyssey is going to win the Oscar.

[A]

You think it will?

[B]

This, this is not movie making. This is worship. He's paid the tithe. He has participated in all the sacraments. It is going to win the Oscar.

[A]

Didn't Oppenheimer win it? Because I've seen this theory.

[B]

Yeah, Oppenheimer won.

[A]

I thought it won Best Picture.

[B]

I think it did, didn't it?

[A]

So maybe it didn't.

[B]

I don't.

[A]

Yeah, it did. So I guess because this is the theory going around is that he put these cast members in here to appeal to DEI to win Best Picture, but he's already won an Oscar.

[B]

Right.

[A]

So I don't think that theory would fit anyway. Okay. So correcting myself in real time, Aaron, yours.

[C]

We will find out. Have you noticed despite the fact that we've been going tit for tat with Iran, oil prices have actually gone back down again. We will find out within the next month to month and a half that Iran is not exactly in the position they think they are in because if oil prices are low and staying low, that tells you they really don't have much control over the strait anymore, despite the fact that they're trying to assert it.

[A]

I think you're probably right about that. My prediction is there will never be a trial for Tyler Robinson and he's going to plead guilty to avoid the death penalty. And I think it's very possible that this might have already occurred if not for the Candace Owens and other shows like that of the world.

[B]

Frankly, this seems like a guy who doesn't care if he gets the death penalty. Eh?

[A]

I mean, some of his behavior and stuff in court, fidgeting, some of those things, you might be right. But I, I think there won't be a trial. I'm going to stick with my pick. I think he's going to plead guilty to avoid the death penalty.

[B]

Interesting.

[A]

Rob, good to see you, brother. Thank you.

[D]

Thanks for having me on.

[A]

You bet. We'll see the rest of you here in just a few minutes for hour two. Stay tuned. All right, back here with hour two here on Blaze, tv, radio and podcast. I'm Steve Dase with Todd erzin. And Aaron McIntyre. Let us know what you think about what we think by emailing the show [e-mail] that's D E A C E like us on Facebook, me, we and gab. You can follow me at Steve Dash show on X Instagram and TikTok. Subscribe to our Facebook Rumble channel at Steve Dace at Steve Dace on Rumble. You can also subscribe to the podcast simply by hitting the subscribe button or if you're an Apple, itunes hitting the follow button to make sure that you never miss an episode. Yesterday's episode hit number five overall in our category. So thank you guys very much for that and thank you as well for all of your 5 star reviews, the tens of thousands we have received. We'd love to receive tens of thousands more. You can add yours today. And thank you if you do. As well as thank you to all of you who already have and thanks to our friends at Jevoty for sponsoring this part of the show. You know, the government these days wants to track everything that you say you buy, you believe. But the most important data you'll ever own, your DNA, you often don't have any clue about whatsoever. Well, Jevity wants to change that. They just launched Longevity genomics. All right, one cheek swab from your home. About 80 gene variants analyzed across 23 health categories. You're going to get roughly 160 insights about how your body actually works, how it absorbs nutrients, how you metabolize things, like caffeine, for example, how you process things, particularly as we get older, like inflammation and whether that B vitamin you're taking is even the right form for your body. Because your DNA is yours. It tells your story and it never gets sold, never shared. It's just yours, period. Right? So if you want to sign up, that's yet another reason to join our friends over at Jevity. Go to gojevity.com G E V I T I G E V I t I go use the code DACE and you're gonna get 20% off to decode yourself. All right, decode [e-mail] days promo code DACE for 20 off. All right, you guys ready for some feedback Friday?

[B]

Indeed.

[A]

All right, let us begin this notice from Joy Worrell. And Joy writes, I'm writing in response to the letter that you read recently from the young man struggling with unwanted homosexual temptation who wants to remain faithful to the word of God. In your response, you rightly emphasized the need for real walking alongside help and community. I wanted to make sure your team and your listeners know about a resource that provides exactly that. I work with Harvest usa. We are a biblically based ministry dedicated to helping individuals and families to navigate these exact struggles while remaining completely faithful to Scripture. For the young man. Our Men's Ministry staff provides direct discipleship and online support groups specifically for men fighting unwanted same sex attraction and seeking sexual integrity. And he needs to know that. And anybody else in your audience, please let them know Steve, they don't have to walk this journey alone. And then for parents and families, she says, I serve on our Parents and family members ministry staff. We walk alongside parents and family members whose loved ones have embraced the rainbow Jihad, helping them navigate the relationship with truth and love without affirming the lifestyle. If you're able to pass this along to him and your audience, we would appreciate it. You can find confidential support@harvest USA.org Again, that's harvestusa.org and thank you guys so much for opening up these crucial conversations. So thank you Joy for pinging us and we are happy to pass along that resource. Again, harvestusa.org is where you want to go. That's harvestusa.org all right, this note from Travis On June 28th, our children's pastor fell while carrying his two year old daughter. During the fall she struck her head on the fireplace. Instantly she began having a seizure. Her eyes rolled back and she stopped breathing multiple times before the ambulance arrived. A large black bruise formed where she hit her head. By the time the paramedics arrived, she was completely unresponsive and her condition continued to deteriorate. They made the decision to airlift her to Children's Hospital in Birmingham because her parents couldn't ride in the helicopter, they had to make the hour long drive themselves, not knowing whether they would arrive to find their daughter dead, brain damaged or paralyzed. Back at church, we had just begun Sunday school when we received the news. We immediately stopped everything and prayed. Then during our worship service, our church gathered together again in earnest prayer for this little girl. When her parents finally arrived at the hospital, they were met with something that they never expected. Their daughter was awake, alert and completely responsive. The emergency room physicians found nothing wrong with her. She was admitted overnight only for observation and was and was released the very next day. I saw that little girl at church yesterday. She was running around acting completely normal and there wasn't even a bruise left on her forehead. That is from Travis. So I wanted to pass that along because that's a miracle and I think God is still in the miracle business and we all have to Remind ourselves as sinners that none of us are entitled to anything from God. None of us are. We're not entitled to the love of children, the opportunity to rear them, to raise them, to have them love us back. We're not entitled to that. We defied God. He owes us nothing. He could take away everything if he wanted to. So in his will and in his sovereignty, I think when we do get opportunities to thank him for moments like this, I think it is very clear we should do so in all humility, because this is an extraordinary amount of grace showed not just to this family, but to that entire congregation and now to this entire audience that God is good all the time. All the time. God is good and the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. In either case, blessed be the name of the Lord. You guys want to add any of that at all?

[C]

Amen. Somebody who has a two year old daughter and, you know, young kids at home, those are, those are some of the things of nightmares, beyond nightmares, hellish, hellish types of scenarios. And I was very concerned with how that letter was going. Really concerned. There are still times where you just have to take a moment and say, God is very much alive, very much on the throne and he is very good. He is good.

[B]

Don't. Life itself is a miracle. Don't wait until that time. I'm glad the letter was written, but we don't need to wait until that moment to truly be grateful. Be grateful every day for your life. Don't be an ingrate. Smash the idols. Live accordingly. The rest of the world is watching right now. They're unimpressed. We need to up our game. It starts with gratitude.

[A]

Amen to both of you. I'll just say when I've thought about this again because baby Olivia is due here, our second granddaughter, within the next month. And we've got her older sister Autumn with us this weekend because mom and dad are getting ready to move into their new home. And when, when Autumn was first brought home, I was kind of scared to hold her. I'd not, I'd not, you know, done the baby thing in many, many years. It's been about a decade since I've, if not longer, since I've been around a baby, held a baby. And I just was completely paranoid that I'd trip fall, do something, you know, have an accident, you know, and it, and so, Aaron, when you say this is the stuff of nightmares. Yeah, I mean, I, it took me a bit to feel confident that I kind of had the, the, the, the baby feel the, the baby vibe back because it's a reminder to, when you hold one of those, just how fragile and precious life is that it starts from here.

[D]

Right.

[A]

That it starts from my son who now has a deeper voice than me. He started off literally in the palm of my hand. So yeah, what you said there kind of struck home with me for sure. Because that could be any of us at any point in time. You bet. First off, just want to express how much we absolutely love your shows. From Todd and Aaron to Bob and Daniel and Theology Thursday. The content is always so wonderfully diverse and deeply inspiring to us. We truly cannot thank you enough for sharing about Bible for a Soul on your Monday show with Bob Vander Plaats. Recently we actually had a good little chuckle about it. I tuned in just a little bit late as I was walking out of my office and the very first, very first thing I heard was may they rise up and curse me. Followed by our website. Okay. It brought a smile to my face because just 10 minutes later orders started pouring in. We've been blessed to ship out over 250 Bibles now. She sent this about a week and a half ago. Okay. We've been blessed to ship out over 250 Bibles just since Monday. To God be all the glory. My wife and I have been doing this work for over 25 years, but since our official launch earlier this year, our hearts have been so full from the stories we continue to receive. I'd love to share just one of these sweet stories with you before I close. A dad recently sent us a lovely photo of his teenage daughter sitting peacefully, peacefully, peacefully outside reading her new one year Bible. The most heartwarming part is that we know he ordered one for himself too. For the next 365 days, this father and daughter will be spending time in God's Word together, quite literally on the exact same page. We are so deeply comforted knowing God's promise that His Word will not, will never return. Void. That's from Arden and Lori Veld camp. And again, that website, it's just a cool idea. And it's one of those things I'm when you heard about it, you're like, come on, someone had to have thought about this already. But apparently nobody had. So it's Bible for a Soul dot com. And what you do, they send you a Bible. It's very nice too, by the way. They send you a Bible and then you go through it on your own for a year and you leave notes for the person that you're going to Give that to in the next year so that they can read your encouraging notes to them as they go through it in a year as well. Just a great idea. Bible for a Soul.com is the website. Let's see if we can make them ship out another 250 of those if we can, @bible for a soul.com. all right, enough with the nice stuff. Are we ready to start hitting it hard now? Let's go, Julie. Lance writes. What am I to think or even be able to understand when my neighbor just moved in next door to us from Germany. He works for the VW plant here in Chattanooga. And as of two days ago, he put an upside down American flag in his landscaping. And of course, all the houses around him, including ours, displayed the American flags for the fourth of July. And as many as that we could possibly put in our yard to celebrate our country. This feels so very offensive. I just don't know how to handle this. I've tried to become a neighbor and a friend to his wife and include her in our monthly book club so that she would have a community that she could be a part of. But this, to me, strikes a tone of ambivalence towards the country that has welcomed them here. How would you handle this?

[C]

I disagree with something that's not ambivalence.

[A]

Yeah, that doesn't. I was going to say ambivalence. You're trying to get to ambivalence, I think. I mean, this is just open hostility. I mean, you're trying to get to ambivalence number one. So here's the thing. My answer. My answer may surprise you. My answer may surprise you. Okay, you know when, when, when Jesus talks about doing good to your enemy, it's like pouring hot coals on their head. And what does that mean? Well, how often are you. How often are you willing to put hot coals on your head? Like, how often have you fired up the grill? Those of you that still use the coals, the charcoal bricks, how many of you have looked at that and you thought, you know what? I wonder how those would feel on top of my head. Or maybe I should bury my head inside said coals. You've never done that because they're very hot and you know that they would very much hurt. Right? And, and so in, in many cases, what you can do here with, with this kind of a neighbor is defy and subvert their expectations by, as Nana used to put it, killing him with kindness. Now, I don't think that's a forever thing. I don't have some neighbors on my street. And it's a. It's a. It's an interesting tale, quote unquote, married lesbians with kids. And one of them's like 20 years older than the other one who just graduated from high school a few years ago, which makes you ask some questions about how they met. If you get where I'm going, where that relationship kind of came from. You know what I'm thinking here?

[D]

Right.

[A]

Okay. Because that's interesting. Right? Okay. And for the first year or two that they lived next to us, I absolutely did try this sometimes it won't work. I mean, I mowed their lawn one day when it was really hot, dug them out of a ditch, went outside when I saw in the snow the first winter that they were, you know, neck deep in snow. And because they don't have a man that can't dig themselves out. So I went and did it for him. So I tried stuff like that. Okay. Because there's no point. You know, we just went through the book of Romans, correct? When it's at all possible, right? Paul says to do what when it's at all possible. To live in peace with everyone. When it's at all possible, right? So I. I did my best for this for a while. Even though there was the rainbow flag up year round and everything else, I did my best with this for a while. And then they went from the rainbow flag to the trainee flag. And at that point I realized, I think it's no longer possible to keep doing this. So I went out and ordered the Christian nationalist flag the very next day. And it's been up on the front porch of my house ever since. Now, some of you may think I should have gone further. You might be right. They might be right about that, right? Maybe I should have given it more time. They might be right. We'll never know.

[D]

Right?

[A]

Some of you might say I've given it too much time. I mean, no one would really know because you don't live in my neighborhood. You don't see what I see. You don't know them either. Right. This is where we get into the subjective things of matters of conscience for people. Right? So what's that? What is that moment? What's that? What's that moment where it's like, okay, it's very clear that we've crossed a line here. And it's just now it's time to kick the dust off of sandals. Because that's the same guy who said the same Lord said, love your neighbors, you love yourself. Said that Too, Right.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

So there does come that moment, you know, if you're not. If you're someone who maybe what I would suggest to you is if you're somebody that is known for being incredibly patient about these things, maybe I'd be less patient because that patience could also just be disguising itself as complacency. Right, right.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Now if you're somebody like me who's maybe more of a. More confrontational by nature, then I might wait a little longer because that could just. You be. That could just be you being a hothead too, in the other direction. Right, okay. But. But invariably there does come a moment where. And I'm not, you know, I don't. I'm not rude to these people. I'm not angry with them, I'm not upset with them in any way. It just became very clear that they want to use their home as a platform for godlessness and that there was really not going to be any amount at this point of, you know, acts of service that were going to dissuade them from flying the most aggressive emblems and banners in my entire neighborhood. So at that point I just made the decision that, okay, well, I'm going to counter signal this because they're right next door to me and I want everybody to therefore know what I'm thinking and what I believe. At the same time, that might have not been enough time. I might have given it too much time. I don't know the answer to that, really. None of us really do because we're not God. But what we do know is that there is a time. There is a time for when it's at all possible. Try to live in peace with everyone. That time does exist. Correct?

[B]

Yes.

[A]

So for. So if they're new to your neighborhood, you said, and you said that, you said, julie, they just moved in.

[E]

Right.

[A]

And it could be as simple as this is. Over the World Cup I have. Who knows? You know, who really knows? You know, for a time, I would try to live in peace. I would try it for a time. However long is that time? Is it 10 minutes? Is it 10 years? I don't know. I don't live there. I don't see what you see. I don't know them. But for a time anyway, I would try peace. And I think what you're doing, inviting her to the book club, things of that nature, I would continue to do so. Now, when would you know that time is up? When it's very clear that they are trying to take. Well, first of all, pray that it never comes up. Pray that it. You know, like I said yesterday, we as believers, we don't start things with suspicion. We do so with hope. Now, when you make it very clear, once you make it clear to us, we should be suspicious. We should act accordingly at that point. Right? Okay. But we don't start with suspicion because all of us deserve the suspicion of Christ, do we not? Okay. Yet he gives us hope. So we love because he first loved us. But there's also a point in time where Christ says to his church, I'm going to take my lampstand away from you. I'm turning the light out over there. You guys are terrible at this. You won't stop being morons. So I'm going to tap out. That time does come, right?

[B]

Yes, it does. All right, so.

[A]

So for a time. And that's why the tranny flag was my trigger, so to speak. Because this is. This was now an opportunity. Remember what we always said when the Trainee war, the Troon wars first began? That whether someone's sexual sin is hetero is, is heterosexual fornication, homosexual same sex attraction and, and, and intercourse.

[B]

Right?

[A]

That since we all are sinners, we all have sins that so easily ensnare us. We all have temptations that we desire to succumb to. Otherwise we wouldn't be tempted by them. Right? Okay. As long as you're not demanding that I affirm that there is a place for me to still find something about your imago day that we can have in common and that we can share. Correct? Because you're not doing your. Whether your sin is cocaine or whether it's, you know, homosexual sex, you're not. That's not the full summation of who you are. You can't just do cocaine 24 hours a day. Eventually you'll pass out, right? You can't just have homosexual sex 24 hours a day. Eventually you'll be tapped out. Okay? So there's. You're doing something else the rest of the day, right? You're doing something else. There's something else about you that might be laudable, worthy of connecting with and, and having in common and doing even, maybe, maybe even fighting alongside of at a given point in time, Right? Might happen, right? We've used the analogy of all the men on the boats at D Day. Did everybody know everybody's, everybody's belief systems? Did everybody know everybody's, you know, private red light districts in their homes or in their brains? Nobody knew that, right? But they had a shared mission, right? Okay. The problem with the True issue, though, is it. It doesn't permit you that, because right from the outset, you have to say, I affirm your fist shaking at God. I affirm it. You're giving me nothing else. That. See, that's the. That's the entry point, entry port to a. To a relationship is this acknowledgment of their insanity. And they force you now, because here's what it means. If you acknowledge their insanity, you defy his reality from the outset. Now from the outset, you do. And so there's no accommodation room where the trune stuff is concerned.

[B]

Not.

[A]

Not. Not to mention. What is it? What. Explain right now, you know, especially given the. Try that. Well, not the trial, but the preliminary hearing that's taking place this week in Utah. What is a more destructive manifestation of human sin in this culture right now other than Christian male complacency and the trunes. Whether it's the Christian male complacency that's allowing much of this to happen, and then the trunes who are doing much of it themselves.

[B]

What.

[A]

What is what other than tranny madness? What.

[D]

What.

[A]

Well, the.

[B]

The.

[D]

The.

[A]

The complacent men are. Are sins of. Of omission. Right. In terms of sins of commission, what is a more destructive force in our culture right now? What places more people in instant peril and danger, both themselves and then the people around them, once they succumb to it? What is a more dangerous, precarious manifestation of sin in our culture today than training madness? Name it. What is it?

[B]

You know what I think about it?

[A]

Yeah. I mean, you think it's just flat out domestic terrorism.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And it's committing acts of domestic terrorism on a regular basis. So see, for me, that was the. Okay, then I can see where this is going. All right, so I'm out. I'm kicking the dust off my sandals. Now, listen, I'm not, you know, yanking their sump cord out when it rains so their house floods. I'm not doing anything like that. I'm not. I'm not violating the word of God. Okay? But I'm upholding it now and saying, okay, it's very clear now. Moat goes up. Sandoffs, dust off sandals. Christian nationalist flag is up. And I'm gonna let everybody know what I think in response to this.

[D]

Right.

[A]

And see, this is when. How do you know if you're getting taken advantage of and if you're really living in peace with someone when they start to take advantage of your. Of what you're offering them in order to be a platform for Their godlessness, I think, is a really good rule of thumb. When they repay over a period of time, which you're putting in by using your accommodation as a means to further their agenda and make it and amplify their fist shaking at God. Does that make sense?

[B]

Yes.

[D]

Yeah.

[A]

And so that's why the trans flag was that signaled to me. You might as just go ahead and put up a Hamas flag. Honestly, my Hezbollah flag.

[B]

Agreed.

[A]

I mean, I don't know. I honestly don't know what the difference is other than other than Arabic. Not to mention many of the people running flying the trans flags. I want to make sure Maude over at Right Wing Watch quotes me right on this here this weekend, many of the same people putting up the trans flags are the same people who say queers for Palestine. Right. So what's the difference between Hamas and Hezbollah then? At that point in the trans. Do you know what the difference is

[B]

if I do not.

[A]

I mean, if they're telling you there's no difference, they telling you're on the same team. So I mean, I guess, I mean, don't take it with me, Mod. Write about your own side. That's there. Those are their talking points. So, for example, this woman comes into your book club and she's been there for a few weeks and months, and then she constantly wants to turn her the conversation into her agenda. That's maybe when it's time to cut bait at that point, kick the dust off your sandals and move on. But at least for a time, live in peace with everyone. At least for a time. Mercy triumphs over judgment. It doesn't do so permanently. Otherwise a place called hell would not exist. But at least for a time, keep. Give hope a try. At least for a time. Thoughts on that, gentleman?

[C]

So I think what's unique to the letter writer situation compared to your own situation with your own neighbors. And it always. Anytime I have to go to your house or go to your house to for any, it's always just striking. There's Steve Dase and then the tranny flag or whatever next to you. Everybody knows what the LGBTQIAFU plus flag stands for. It's very specific. Very specific. Everybody knows what the tranny flag stands for. It's very specific. It is iconoclasm in a distilled form. I think maybe what's a little bit unique to the letter writer situation is that an upside down American flag is a general statement. So you could ask your neighbor next time it feels natural. Hey, why'd you flip your. I see you Got your American flag upside down. What'd you do that for? Then there's a conversation, a possible conversation. Now, I don't think, I don't think necessarily any of the reasons for doing so are going to be necessarily kosher with you, but you'll be able to find out pretty quickly whether or not this person is reachable versus just now. I don't want to talk about it. I hate America. And if you love it, then I don't want anything. You'll be able to find that out pretty quickly. So that's a, that's maybe one distinction between these two scenarios.

[A]

That's a good one.

[B]

Oh, I don't think that was the point I was going to make. I just don't even think you go far enough. I mean, we, if we can't ask a question about, hey, what's that all about? If, for whatever reason, we think that's confrontational because they're the ones doing the confronting by doing this. If you just want clarity on what that means, you're not, you're not capable or willing to fight where it actually matters. Just somebody living upside down with an upside down flag probably is, as Steve said, it really has not been a burden on his life. Those people, whether they're German or Americans, are running your school districts. That's where the real burden comes. So I'm just. If you can't ask a question about a flag, you probably don't have the energy to fight the fight where it really needs to be had. I, I would absolutely. I know what the tranny flag means. I would absolutely ask this person, what you doing? What is that?

[A]

I think that's totally fine. That's a great point. Just you, you're well within your rights. It's your neighborhood. Sure. You're well within your rights to ask. I mean, hey, what, I mean, why, what does that even mean?

[B]

If we think that's being confrontational, we're absolutely cooked.

[A]

Listen, they put that in the yard. They want people to notice it. So all you did was notice it, right?

[B]

Stop being such a wuss.

[A]

Well, I don't think Julie is being. She's the one provoking the question.

[B]

But like the fact that we wonder whether somebody who is clearly making a. They're begging the question. You're not like going through their garbage or something? Ask them and prepare for hilarity and stupidity. Ah,

[A]

speaking of hilarity and stupidity, I, I don't have time to be fair to the next note, so we'll get to it after the break. But I want to, I want to share this posted earlier today from Alex Clark over at TP USA and she has her own podcast. Today on the last day of the Tyler Robinson pretrial hearing, I'm holding out hope that finally Egyptian planes dreams, Ben Shapiro, bees, maroon shirts, the French government, IDF exploding mics and astral projection will be brought up. I'm sure they've been waiting till the end for the grand finale here. Right now, here's the thing, everything I just said, and Alex intended this, I'm sure, okay. Sounded extremely, extremely. And yet a modern day Jezebel built for a time the number one podcast in the world on peddling this stuff to people. The stuff of single digigit IQs, not even double digits. We're talking like salamanders. Salamanders who can talk. The stuff that makes the cast of Jackass look like Rhodes Scholars. So yeah, to further Todd's point here, I, I do think this is a time for, for more confrontation.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Now, confrontations don't necessarily have to be confrontational. Can just be simply ask, hey, I saw you guys put that in the yard. What's that mean? Like you said, just hey, you probably don't mow something into your front yard and, or put something in your front yard unless you want people to notice it, right?

[D]

Yeah.

[A]

So what does it mean? Just ask him what it means, you know, so confrontation isn't a tone any more than love is a tone. Okay. There's lots of different ways to have confrontations, lots of different tones to have a confrontation. But I think, Todd, you raise a very good point there. You are well within your rights to just ask, what's that mean? Because millions of people, or at least millions of bots, couldn't get enough of Egyptian planes dreams, Ben Shapiro bees, maroon shirts, the French government, IDF exploding mics, and astral projection for months. For months

[D]

more.

[A]

In a moment, The steve day show. All right, back here on the Steve Day show, powered by Patriot Mobile. One of the best ways that you can celebrate America 250 is to make the switch to Patriot Mobile. Today I just had to get a couple of things done. My wife with her new phone. When somebody needed some more data, we got a hold of their US based customer service team. Even over the weekend, even in the evening, in order to get some things done that we needed to get done. Don't go to Patriot Mobile because they share your values. Go there because of what I just said about how great the product itself is, how great their service is in and of itself. And then the bonus is that they share your values. Because one of our values is excellence. We don't do anything half year ended in the Christian worldview. We don't just mail it in. It's not how the Lord didn't mail it in on Golgotha, didn't get most of the way there and said, I think I've proved my point here. Went all the way to the end. So, so do we. We go all the way to the end.

[D]

All right?

[A]

He gave us everything we have. We give everything he gave us. That's what we do. And Patriot Mobile is a fantastic product. That's why our family's been using them now for six years. And I recommend that you do the exact same thing. Get started with a free month of service today with the promo code [e-mail] Steve. That's patriotmobile.com Steve. Use the code Steve. Keep your number, switch number, keep your phone, upgrade your phone. They'll customize it for you. And use the code Steve to get started with a free month of service@patriot mobile.com Steve. All right, here is something that I've had to deal with, right? This is from Rob Brownlee Tomaso. And Rob writes, since I began my journey back to God and your show has been, your show's influence is no, in no small part helping to influence that. Thank you, Rob. I mean, that's the greatest feedback we could get, brother. So thank you for that. I've been noticing how much people around me use the Lord's name in vain and it makes me bristle. How do I mention it to those close to me without being counterproductive? So I have had to confront this and I had the exact same thing, okay? I can't. I can't handle it.

[D]

All right?

[A]

And so here's the thing though, is number one, I think the way that you ask the question is good without being counterproductive. That is different than without offending anyone or what's the most non offensive way I could bring it up. There's really not a lot of not offensive ways to bring up absolute truth. So just for everybody within the sound of my voice, disabuse yourself of that notion. Now, that doesn't mean we go out of our way to be the people that the jerk store called and said they're all out of us. That doesn't mean we do that. All right? But if we are constantly self editing to the point of how do we do this in a way that doesn't offend? We'll never do the thing, because we are the carriers of the most offensive message in the history of this planet, which is why they tortured our Lord beyond recognition and murdered him for bringing it to us. That all being said, though, we can do it in a way that's counterproductive. So let's define counterproductive. For example, check your own language and whether you've used these terms around people in the past, and then all of a sudden you find Jesus and you're like, okay, this is really disgusting. Stop doing it. That is now where it can become counterproductive, because it looks like you're kind of, you know, moralistically sermonizing rather than holding up a standard. So this is. And this. This also explains one of the reasons why from the day this show began In June of 2006, I have been as honest as I can be about my own weaknesses, my own failures, my own frailties, except when it violates a third party, a third party's confidence. Because here's the thing you're going to understand the more you get into your faith, Rob, that we all understand. We're all flaming hypocrites to some degree. We're all sinners, and we've all sinned and enjoyed many of the things we're now telling other people not to sin and enjoy. One of the reasons why it's hard for the prophet to believe in his own hometown. So I think, as a general rule, whether it's this kind of language or anything else that any of the rest of you may have these kinds of questions about, I think the most important thing is to make sure that you are modeling the standard you're going to call other people to. Several years ago, I had a really good friend call me. His wife's sister had gone through several failed married marriages and relationships. Very secular Jewish family, not religious in any way, shape or form, very well off.

[B]

And.

[A]

And just. She just decided in her mid-40s, you know, she's going to try chicks and be a lesbian now because she's giving up on guys. Not necessarily the stuff of amenable characteristics here.

[B]

Right, right.

[A]

So she just decided, I've given up on guys. They break my heart, so let me just try women. And she wanted to bring her first serious girlfriend home to stay with them over Thanksgiving. And my buddy called me, what do I do here? Because neither him or his wife were. Were believers when they got married. He gets saved years into their marriage. She's not where he's at yet, but she's agreed to let their. Let their children be educated in Christian schools because she thinks the schools are really good and have, and set a good model and for, for their kids. So the kids are being modeled Christianity in the school and then at home most of the time by their dad the best he can. But now this is the first time that the unevenly yoked aspect of a relationship because mom's very close with her sister comes up. And here's the first question I asked him. I said, hey, how often did you have any of your old buddies, your college buddies, did you let them come and stay in the house? Because he has a nice house, he's very successful too, he's got plenty of room. I said, how many times did you let any of your old college buddies come with their shack up girlfriends or maybe even girlfriends they weren't shacked up with, they were even just dating at the time and you let them stay? Did that ever happen at all? He said, why did you ask? I said, because if it did, you have a very hard time upholding this standard here. So as a general rule, okay, the, the best. Now did I say the only? Is that what I said? The only? No, I said the best. The best way to lead, as a general rule is by example. That's the best way to lead, not the only way. We have to speak, we have to talk, we have to address, we have to confront, we have to debate, we have to argue. Those moments will always present themselves, but you're going to improve your odds of being successful in those things based on what you model. So I would first, because if there are things in your life you have not addressed or that they, the people you want to confront about this, have not seen you address or you have not fessed up and owned up to, then there is probably no way for you to have this conversation in a counterproductive, in a non or in a productive means because you've left them an opening just to immediately dismiss you. So is it, you know, and this is, this is the Christian ethic, you are concerned about the beam in your own eye before the speck of dust in your brothers judgment begins in the house of God first. Okay, you know, headship. So this is always the model, right? So the accountability actually starts with you and which you are modeling. And then if you, if you, if you think you have confidently reached a certain threshold of credibility that you've established over time, then I think you're well within your rights to bring it up, particularly like in your own home, places where you have, you know, spheres of authority, for example, that God provides And, but I would do so also in a way that I'd be humble and say, hey, listen, I can let it fly too, man. But, you know, at least on that one thing, let's not do that. Okay. You know, that's even a specific commandment, after all. And the Lord only gave us 10. Okay. And that was one of them. Something, you know, like that. But I would. I would start with your own character in which you're modeling first.

[B]

Yeah. You have to. This, this is really the. It's convicting for you to have that reaction. But the, The. The longer life goes on, the deeper you are in your faith. Your. Well, this is what sinners do. Of course, they're not even Christians. Of course they behave this way. So I think that this is so raw for you is really about you using the Lord's name in vain. Is the modern mindset of that, even amongst Christians. Is that just. It's a. It's a curse word. The worst of the curse words. It's. Yes, it is that. But that's not what it exclusively is. And Steve fleshed it out. It is living your life in total in word and deed in a way that does not reflect what you claim to believe. And here's the thing. You are going to. If you're. If the people on the cul de sac, like I've made this distinction before, if there's no way of telling you apart other than the fact I think that guy, when you get him and the family get in the car, they drive to church on Sunday. But other than that, if all the same idols are, why wouldn't somebody use the Lord's name in vain? If you are worshiping the same bottles idols on the regular as your buddy is, who isn't a Christian, that's exactly what's going to happen. So your level of conviction should be looking deep at. Okay, what do I need to do? I think God's talking to you in that moment about something. You've got some cobwebs in your attic you got to work on.

[A]

Let me just quickly follow up before I throw this to Aaron on what you just said, Todd, because taking the Lord's name in vain does not just mean using it to. To swear, but to swear by.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And that's what Todd is alluding to here. That I am. I am claiming this name.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

To give me credibility. All right. And standing and then disabusing it with the way that I'm performing and behaving at the. At the exact same time. Right. So it's not just using it to swear, but to swear by, to say, hey, you know, well, of course, of course I saw this person pronounce curses using occultic practices so that maybe then something bad will happen to them and I can get their land right. These are the there's multiple meanings of what it means to not take the Lord's name in vain.

[C]

I think ultimately not because of your own vanity or your own pride, but you want your light to shine so bright within you. You want to be so set apart, you want to be so much a little Christ that it is inescapable for those around you, close to you, even if they're not believers, to know that this individual is different. The way he handles himself is different. The level of quality that he demands, expects from himself and others around him is different. In other words, you want to be the type of person that when people are around you who know what you're about, they come correct when they are around you. And if they don't know you yet, they learn that about you very quickly. Not that you're wielding some sort of iron rod around you. It's just so apparent that you are different. Not to try to manipulate them, but out of respect for you, because of the love you have for your Lord and the headship in your life that he should be taking. So that's, I think one way to look at this as well. I think Todd is right. You know, as you get on in your walk in your life, this is what pagans do, this is what the Romans do, That's what they do. But your standard, the fact that this irks you, I think that's a good sign overall. But just know that this is kind of what they do. But I do think letting the Lord's work in your life, let that on display in all of your life. Your work, your quality, the way you talk, the way you treat people, the way you handle yourself. I think people will come to a conclusion that I better be on my best behavior around this guy.

[A]

Well said. This one from Joel I think plays into the conversations we've been having this whole hour. On your show. You've talked in the past about being willing to confront lefty family members who overtly evangelize their ideology at family gatherings. What about the more subversive types? My sister in law has in the last few years embraced leftist ideology hard after Charlie was murdered, she posted that while she doesn't like murder, Charlie got what he deserved. A couple months ago she told my wife that she no longer wants Any kind of relationship with me due to my views. To my wife's credit, she hasn't talked to her sister since then because she refused to play into the game of trying to separate her from me. But here's where it gets icky. Next week we're driving to from Florida to Michigan to see family and she's going to be there. My sister in law, I'm struggling with how to act towards her. I don't think she has the guts to say anything to my face. But I know she's been trying to turn other family members against us. I also know that if I were to be murdered for my beliefs, she would taste test, but it wouldn't bother her at all. I don't want to be openly hostile to her. We used to be close, but I don't want to pretend like everything is fine either. There's definitely a part of me that wants her to say something so that the mask comes off. Any advice? I think it's very similar to the situation from the gal in the neighborhood. All right. So does. Does your faith demand compassion or conviction? Which one is it? It's a trick question because it's both. Does your faith demand mercy or judgment? Which one is it?

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Yes. Does your faith demand grace or truth? Which one is it? Yes. Does it demand confrontation or peace? Which one is it? Yes. So what I would do is I would go there and the whole drive there. Because driving from Florida, from Michigan to Florida is a long drive. You get plenty of windshield time, lots of prayer time, and I'd be praying constantly. Lord, just make me as Christlike as I have ever been during this process. Your audience is not her. First of all, your audience is him. And then space bar, space bar, Space bar. Second, your audience is your wife and presumably your kids.

[B]

This is an important point. You're thinking too much about this other person.

[A]

Correct. If you let her define your reactions, then that's a form of idolatry and you're going to play by her rules. Okay. The. The word of God often will have us be compassionate with when. When. When in our flesh it doesn't seem like it makes any sense to do so. And then it will often have us confront when in our flesh, it seems this is the moment that we should be compassionate. God's ways are not like our ways. So I. I would be taking that long drive, brother, to pray for as much Christ likeness as you possibly can muster. And that would be my starting point. And I would go in there eager to show my faith and that we Sincerely believe what we believe. Like how my wife and I are, like how tight knit we are. Look at the oneness between us. Look at the way our kids are respectful and behave. Right. I'd be looking to do that so that when stuff goes down, everybody else, everybody there knows she was the one that did it, not you. You had power under control. She's the instigator, she's the provocateur. But you had meekness, power under control. That's what I'd be seeking to do.

[B]

I explicitly tell people, my wife has seen me do this. You don't have to go. But when they engage with me and they try to give them a chance, we can do this if you want to. But I want you to remember you're coming to me and starting this. I'm giving you a chance to walk away and do something else. If we engage. You started it, but I'm gonna finish it. That's more than fair.

[A]

And I would also say your wife, by instinctively standing with you and against her sister, you should be making sure that you're giving her the love and support and service that she needs and requires of you. Because she gave you the respect that is required of her. Yes.

[C]

Yeah, I was basically going to say the same thing. Hopefully, hopefully this sister is it.

[A]

Sister in law.

[C]

Sister in law. Hopefully she doesn't go there in front of the whole family. But if she's already doing some of the things and saying some of the things that she is kind of behind your back as well, you need to be prepared for that. And remember, low man wins, okay? Have the la, have the leverage here. It's all on your side. The truth is on your side. The only losing here is if you just let things slide. Don't let anything slide. Go into that prepared and strong.

[A]

Great stuff. And have a great weekend, everybody. We'll see you again on Monday. Until go hard. Until then, go hard. Romans 8:28 Sat.