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- [00:21]
A
Well, the state of Christianity in America in the west is, well, interesting to say the least. And if you listen to this show, you probably already believe that it's problematic. But today we're going to be covering some data that is not just the thinking fellows making up or reciting anecdotes about how the state of Christianity in America or the west is declining or bad. Because Bruce, he pays attention better than we do to things that are happening in the world of Christianity. And he shared with us a survey published by Ligonier and is it Lifeway Publishing, and they, they do a survey on the state of Christianity. They ask doctrinal questions. They have a whole methods section that you can look at, too. And it's a very interesting survey. You can see I'll put a link to the immediate information about the survey and some of the sample questions that they show. But you can click into it and it's free. And, and you can filter just like you can filter regionally. You can filter by income, you can filter by gender. You can filter by like all sorts of things. And it gives you this snapshot of Christianity in America and what people believe, teach, confess about particular doctrines. And we're going to talk about some of the results of this survey today. I think I'll be able to even get fancy with the editing and some of the survey questions that we show, I'll be able to show on screen in the final, final version of this podcast.
- [01:57]
B
Do we get to see it on screen?
- [01:59]
A
I was not that prepared, but viewers will get to see this on screen. So if you're just a listener of the Thinking Fellows podcast and you want to just quickly see this, you can go to YouTube, you can subscribe to the Thinking Fellows on YouTube and I'll try to put in images of the items that we are talking about. So, Bruce, I'm going to pass it to you for the beginning here. I certainly saw some interesting trends or things to bring up, but why'd you share this with the rest of the fellows? And what do you think is most interesting about this survey for listeners?
- [02:36]
B
I actually thought you were going to say when you said Bruce pays attention, that we were just going to stop there and just all agree.
- [02:42]
A
Oh, we can do that.
- [02:44]
B
Yeah, you're right. Compared to Ruth pays attention. Okay, go ahead. Sorry.
- [02:49]
C
No, that's okay. I think in one way this is surprising. In another way, it's not surprising at all. Right. We kind of, anyone who's spent time in church communities knows there's always even in your own church There's a diversity of opinions on even core beliefs, and we might say, well, there shouldn't be, but there just is. So that's obviously reflected here in the different answers. I think the thing that I found most interesting was how some of the things that I would consider very basic, bedrock things that you would learn, like, immediately when you would become a Christian, and that aren't really debated. Like, they're not even talked about that much or debated. They're not things that people are. When they talk theology online or other things. They don't bring many of these things up because they're just sort of so in the DNA and assumed that it's not even like a debate was the cause for the answer. It's just people believe wrong things. So for me, these kind of heterodox beliefs that are expressed in a lot of the majorities are sort of surprising, and they make me wonder, well, where are people getting their theology from then? Because I don't actually think in many cases there. Some, yes. But in many cases that anyone's actually teaching what people are believing here. Like, there's not a lot of Christian books and podcasts. No matter how crazy it sort of gets out there, this does not represent the majority of what's published and what's consumed. So where are these beliefs coming in?
- [04:27]
A
Is there any key thinking fellows out there that just teaches the opposite of whatever? Yeah.
- [04:32]
C
And so obviously, I think the answer to that. And there's no way to know. I think the answer to that is people aren't being taught what they believe.
- [04:41]
A
They.
- [04:41]
C
They're just believing things based on their own life experience, their own history, their own kind of conjecture about what they think is true. So I'm going to.
- [04:49]
B
Media influence. Media influence?
- [04:52]
C
Yeah, media influence that's not directly tied to theology. Right.
- [04:56]
B
Like, for example, how many people get their theology from a sitcom or the last drama.
- [05:01]
C
Exactly.
- [05:02]
B
They watch that had a chaplain in.
- [05:04]
A
It, you know, or like the Hallmark Channel. You know, it's like when you die, everybody becomes an angel. It's just like, I'm always struck every.
- [05:12]
C
Time a bell rings. An angel gets his wings.
- [05:14]
B
No. How many times, like, a pastor is portrayed on tv, some TV show, pastor or chaplain or whatever, somebody's going through a hard time. You get basically these answers. Basically, you get these answers. And so, I mean, my bigger question is sort of you get a perception of Christian belief that's in sort of the popular mainstream of whether or not the people that have those perceptions are actually Christian, is, you know, you have no idea, but that makes its way into Christian thought. So a lot of this is also just what people feel, not what they think.
- [05:56]
C
Yeah, like, for example, just to put a concrete example on the first one, which is a pretty big majority. So the statement is everyone is born in innocent in the eyes of God. So obviously there's no sense here of original sin, of being born with guilt and culpability and a sin nature. So 64% of people agreed with this statement that people are born innocent in the eyes of God. Now, this is a major disagreement between east and west and has been for thousands of years. But I don't think most of these people know anything about Eastern Orthodoxy. So I think they're getting this, like, what Scott said from just this cultural understanding of, like, well, we're all born innocent and we're all babies are perfect. And, you know, they need to read more Augustine in the Bible. But I think that's where a lot of this is coming from, because I don't hear any Christian podcast even, like, Ken Copeland, right. Who's like, crazy, who thinks demons might be on his plane or something like that. Even he's not saying that people are born.
- [06:59]
B
Well, I'll say I saw actually Caleb defending Ken Copeland.
- [07:04]
A
No, why would I do that?
- [07:08]
D
Ken Copeland, a flat earther.
- [07:10]
B
You'd be like, listen, we need to talk a little more about demons.
- [07:13]
C
Remember, this is the guy who blew. Who blew like breath out into the camera and said, Everyone's COVID 19.
- [07:19]
A
My comment has to do with Bruce saying, there's nobody out there teaching this.
- [07:23]
C
Well, okay, not nobody, but I mean, I don't think it's hard to find. It's hard to find.
- [07:28]
A
So I find I forget his name. But it's. Now, I've watched enough of his videos that shows up. There's. I saw there's somebody who does apologetics on YouTube. I should probably find his name. I'm not really trying to talk bad about him. I like most of his videos. They're pretty good. And then he had one the other day talking about, do babies who die go to heaven? And he gave a very sophisticated answer for like the traditional original sin. Original guilt, there's still not saved apart from Christ kind of answer that some people would give, but then gave an alternative that was apparently just commonly taught in churches that I would think teach cradle baptism only as well, which is that babies have original sin, but not original guilt. Guilt doesn't come until you start committing sins. And so I could see people now our most.
- [08:30]
C
That's kind of An Eastern view.
- [08:33]
A
Yeah. And it is an Eastern. Yeah, it's relatively Eastern, apparently adopted by a lot of evangelicals or people who have, you know, later baptized who don't baptize infants or are trying to find, you know, some, some way for God to be merciful when they don't think there's an effective means of grace for infants. And so I, you know, are people rationalizing it to the degree that this guy had? He, he gave citations of various church fathers, some Eastern stuff? Probably not. But is it a similar desire which is, is this born out of the feelings that, you know, if God is loving, if God is good, would he damn a baby? My experience says no, or my feelings say that would be wrong. And so people then have an answer before they even look at Scripture. I suppose there's a lot of this. There's a universal truth that they know must be true before we even crack open the word of God.
- [09:32]
B
If you're anti infant baptism and somebody, let's not do it personally, and somebody asks you what would happen to your baby in the event of a tragedy, you're going to come up with an answer that's a little like this, even if it's not exactly worded as Ligonier Ministries, founded by R.C. sproul, very specifically words it, right? They're going to come up with some sort of, yeah, maybe this, but really not the same as the kind you have. Not the same kind of burden. Whether they use guilt, sin, whatever, they're going to come up with a version of this because they will want to find some way that they're, and rightly so, in a lot of ways that their baby could be saved apart from a means of grace. And so that's usually going to come at the thing that damns you, right, which is sin. In my very limited, and I guess I'll call it very limited experience with conversations with evangelical pastors, even sophisticated ones, they have to do something like this with this answer. Again, maybe not exactly this, but take that and then try to translate it to your teaching, to your 10,000 person mega church. You have a more nuanced, sophisticated answer that is like this, but avoids heresy. And then you try to communicate that in a nuanced way to 10,000 folks holding Starbucks and listening to the praise band, mostly in between 20 announcements, and.
- [11:11]
A
Then of whom many have probably experienced something like this, either personally or somebody they know, and you're just trying to bring them comfort.
- [11:20]
B
I can totally see this answer coming out of just your regular Joe teaching at Joe Schmo evangelical church that is probably specifically avoiding heresy, but trying to get to the sentiment of something like this.
- [11:33]
C
I think it's important too, though. I'm not disagreeing, just adding like, the point I want to make is theology proper is very careful. It's almost like a science. Right. If you read dogmatics, if you read systematics of whatever tradition they have, the whole point of that is that theologians are trying to be very precise. So I also wouldn't want, for example, Lutherans to fall into the same sort of logical mistake that we accuse the Calvinists of making when it comes to elections. So, for example, the Calvinist says, well, well, Scripture says that people are elect, therefore logically, others are elected to be damned. And Lutherans go, well, we don't see that in Scripture, so we're not going to say that. I think there is a truth that needs to be upheld, which is that people are not born innocent. There is original sin, but that doesn't necessarily lead to, well, therefore all babies are in hell. It simply leads to the question of, well, how will means of grace come to that baby and how is God going to deliver that means of grace? Well, the only way that God has given us assurance of that means of grace is through baptism. That doesn't mean God can't have another way. It's just that we can hope in God's goodness. We can certainly do that. But if you want to have assurance, then we have baptism. So I just think it's important that people understand that theology tries to make very careful distinctions and not just logic. Oh, this A leads to B. Well, no, sometimes A sort of leads to different bees depending on where you're going.
- [13:10]
B
That's not typically the answer outside of.
- [13:13]
C
No, I agree with you.
- [13:14]
B
It's more. It's more akin to playing around with sin.
- [13:19]
C
It's more to say, you're really not. You're really not that bad.
- [13:23]
B
Yeah. And this is, and this is too, also, I think, present, like Caleb said, in churches that do credo baptism, you see this sort of maybe lighter versions of this up into people explaining to you why their kids don't get baptized till they're 12, you know. Yes.
- [13:40]
C
And those traditions, they're always dedicated, which I find a little interesting. Right. Because it's like critical.
- [13:46]
A
But.
- [13:46]
C
But it's like, well, we don't do infant baptisms because we don't see it in Scripture, but we do baby dedications. I always get a little confused.
- [14:00]
A
Yeah, well, it starts off a whole habit of why you go to church. That's different too. I was. It occurred to me that this, you know, like, we've complained about this on the show before, that like the existence of children's church isn't just to get children out of the service because they're annoying.
- [14:16]
B
But you Bible agreed with your complaints to it. Mostly.
- [14:22]
A
Yeah, mostly. But that your children need to leave for Sunday school because you have a process of teaching them and convincing them what is true so that they can make the right decision one day. Church is for the people who have made the decision to follow Jesus and publicly confess and all this, but that you're now providing the foundation for the decision. And so children's church has maybe not even church aspects, but just like this formative education, worldview building, stuff like that, because you're trying to give them a foundation to make a decision. And I've just seen more and more of that.
- [15:02]
B
But you can also say that being in a creedal church that also does a public confession and absolution every Sunday is a pretty good means of protecting against this. I mean, I watch even Autumn's son at 2 and your kids learning to say the confession at 2 years old because everyone else is saying it. And eventually those words will, you know, by three or four translate into some questions that get answered and then understood. And then by the time you know, they're like your. Your oldest son's age understood. Right. And so then you have a lifetime of saying something like, I am simple and unclean. I have sinned against you in thought. You have a lifetime of saying that which I hope at some point protects. If you are asked this question at 32 years old or so where you say, well, no, no, no, no, no. The Bible talks about us being completely sinful and guilty from birth.
- [16:11]
A
I'll give a funny anecdote about that, which is last night I was trying to get the kids to do something and I said, all right, who's going to be the best child in the house? Which one's the best? Which one of you is the best? And Erica, my wife, comes running in and goes, I know who it is. And she's pregnant and we've named the baby. She goes, it's Elias. The baby in her stomach. He can't do anything bad.
- [16:34]
B
Oh, that's bad.
- [16:35]
A
Now then Emerson, my oldest son, corrects her and goes, no, he's a sinner in her belly. Now that's just that warmed your heart? It warmed my heart.
- [16:49]
B
Gonna be a pro cyclist. I'm like, maybe.
- [16:54]
A
I will say, you know, just to whatever degree of nuance there is. That conversation's probably not too common, but it is funny because it's not like I've taught him say, like, all babies in the womb are sinners. It's.
- [17:08]
B
It's church.
- [17:08]
A
He literally believes from doing this every Sunday that everybody is born sinful and unclean.
- [17:14]
B
We should also be clear that to believe otherwise. So in other words, to believe the opposite of everyone is born innocent, or to say everyone is born innocent in the eyes of God is actually a heresy. That's not even heterodoxy. That's outside of creedal Christianity, and you're officially heretical.
- [17:39]
D
Do you think so the survey, was it across the evangelical spectrum or across those who identify as Christian, or.
- [17:49]
B
27% of people evangelicals strongly disagree or LCMS, Lutherans.
- [17:55]
C
It looked at, confess. People who identify as evangelicals have a.
- [17:59]
A
Thing here that says, like, how we define evangelical and all that is part of the cause.
- [18:06]
D
This sort of the culture of evangelicalism. This is not a criticism, more of an observation. Is a constant sort of reinventing the wheel. You know, even on Sunday mornings at worship, it's always something new. There's this desire to do something new. There's almost this disdain's too strong. But this in principle rejection of anything that might smell like tradition or creed or Christianity. You know, it's like we're so, like. There's no. It's almost like by its essence, I know that's not a word people like to use anymore, but evangelicalism is just sort of floating. It's not root because it's not rooted in creeds and a long historic tradition that seeks to be. And I'm using this very purposely small C Catholic, so that Bruce doesn't accuse me of being atomist. But, you know, there's no desire to be, even be part of the one holy Christian or catholic and apostolic church. It's like, you know, so like, the further you.
- [19:12]
B
You.
- [19:12]
D
You're untethered from the. The church, the historic church, the more prone you are to reinventing and changing and coming up. It all depends on the pastor, right, or the teacher.
- [19:26]
C
I have a lot of experience with the evangelicals and evangelical pastors, and I think you're onto something here, Adam. I would maybe bring a little more precision to it from my own experience, which is. That's all true, but I also think there's a genuine distrust of mainline creedal Christianity because they look out at mainline creedal Christianity and they say they're all liberal wackos. I mean, if you look at Just majority. Just look at majority of Lutherans. You know, right now it's elca. Just by numbers, right?
- [20:00]
A
Well, actually, that's debatable, but yeah, yeah.
- [20:04]
C
But I'm saying if you're an evangelical. If you're an evangelical, you go, the Lutherans, you go, oh, the Lutherans, I know what they believe. They have the churches and the da, da, da. So from the perspective of an evangelical, the sparkle creed. The creeds have not protected the churches from anything. The other thing I would say is that.
- [20:21]
D
Good point.
- [20:23]
C
In evangelicalism, there is catechesis. But the catechesis is. To your point, Adam, it's very randomized. So they do a lot of Bible studies, but it's always whoever the popular preacher is for a while. It could be Max Lucado, then it could be Matt Chandler, then it could be Mark Driscoll, then It could be R.C. sproul. So you get good and bad ones. Priscilla Shire, it can be Beth Moore, it can be. So you're getting all this theology, but it's kind of very. It's not rooted in any single tradition. And so it's always getting a little strange mix in the influence of charismaticism on evangelicalism in the last 30 years, which has been a weird thing to see. And you get, you get this, like. So you get this statement 9, the Holy Spirit is a force, but is not a personal being. 53% agree with that. But then you go down to statement two. Yeah, but listen to the statement too. There is one true God in three persons. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. 98% agree. So there's a cognitive dissonance.
- [21:26]
B
This is anti creedalism. If you are anti creedal, you don't have to, like, you don't have to inculcate this kind of thing into your being about what, you know, what the overarching truth of scriptural theology is. You can just kind of say, no, we just teach the Bible at my church, man.
- [21:44]
A
Well, can we?
- [21:45]
B
At Sandals Church over here? We just.
- [21:47]
A
Bruce just pointed out, as Bruce just pointed out, though, 98 will affirm a creedal statement about the Trinity.
- [21:54]
C
And that will be in their statement of faith. If you go on the statement of faith, churches that'll be there.
- [21:59]
A
And then if you go through these, like, there were something like 35% of respondents said, jesus isn't God, I'm gonna blow your mind.
- [22:07]
B
Get ready for mind blown, and then.
- [22:09]
D
I'm gonna do it again after you're done.
- [22:11]
B
Scott, most people don't really sit around thinking about whether or not their logic, their thinking and their conclusions are coherent.
- [22:20]
A
Sure.
- [22:22]
B
Okay, but can I throw that out there?
- [22:26]
A
But do you have to think about that to then use the same words? So this was where this gets difficult for me too, because here's another one.
- [22:33]
B
Where can we jump into another one?
- [22:36]
A
Yeah, here's one that I think is the root of all of the these like paradox that we're seeing here that Bruce just brought up, which is statement number 32. The Bible is the highest authority for what I believe. A total of, let's see, 36% strongly agreed with another 24% somewhat agreeing.
- [23:01]
B
So why am I seeing on that 100% agree? Statement number 32, the Bible is the highest authority for what I believe.
- [23:08]
A
You must have hit a filter that you got 100% agreement for.
- [23:12]
B
I had a filter on this.
- [23:15]
A
That's interesting. I wonder who it is that.
- [23:17]
B
Let me set it back to factory reset.
- [23:21]
A
But it's 60% of respondents agree. Now if you go through the rest of these survey questions, there's a ton where it says the Bible's teaching on X or when the Bible teaches X on there's like marriage, homosexuality. He uses that phrase, uses the same word, Bible. You'll have more percentage than this. Disagree on many of these aspects. So the question I am at is you don't have to be an academic who sits around thinking about logic to see that the same word is being used contradictory in a contradictory manner.
- [23:55]
B
You don't have to be, but you maybe have to have sort of a system of going about your daily life where you do that kind of thing on the regular, which I don't know if you've talked to a lot of people. Maybe the people don't.
- [24:07]
D
We're all expressing our outrage over this. Maybe the problem is we need to lower our standards.
- [24:14]
A
Maybe it's us, we're the problem.
- [24:17]
B
Now you need to embrace the low.
- [24:18]
D
Anthropology of David Zahl and don't expect too much from people.
- [24:23]
A
Okay.
- [24:26]
C
Is that how you are going to blow my mind? Adam?
- [24:28]
D
He's like, I'm going to go climb in a barrel.
- [24:32]
B
But it's like he's in effect. Faculty meeting. They're talking about how many students are failing now listen. Yeah, no, maybe your expectations are too high. So, okay, so every semester to a.
- [24:46]
A
Thinking fellows listener who obviously cares about theology. I guess if they're a regular listener of this show, many of whom are teachers, pastors, educated laypeople, people trying to raise their children in the faith. Like there's a, that we and we meet and talk to a lot of these people. How do you then not make them depressed about the vocations that they have to say, well, is teaching my children even going to work if nobody thinks about contradictory statements? Or what am I even doing, preaching to this congregation who won't believe anything.
- [25:21]
B
Teaching children to think about that kind of thing?
- [25:23]
A
Why. Why am I a university professor if none of this matter, if what I teach doesn't matter? And just how I feel about this is.
- [25:31]
D
Don't ask that question.
- [25:32]
A
Okay?
- [25:33]
D
It's still depressing.
- [25:35]
A
You know, that's kind of my. That's where this leads me when. When we sort of go like, well, of course people believe contradictory things about every single one of these questions.
- [25:46]
B
So it's not an of course. It's not an of course. It's a. Just don't be too surprised when you've gone into a world where Christianity in America has just been described for, you know, maybe since the 90s as evangelical, without even knowing what the term evangelical means, other than probably some sort of white Christian conservative, right? And then take the. Like Adam said, or Bruce, I don't remember which one, that there's no sort of standardized education for this. There's no sort of like, hey, it's kind of funny when, if you ask one of our seminarians some technical theological question, and they're in their third or fourth semester at the seminary or third, fourth year at the seminary, they're probably gonna say, well, Pieper says, right, that's our. That's our dogmatic. You're not going to get that answer from a. You know, most evangelicals are not going to be like, well, Wayne Grudem says, you know, because it's. That's not like a standardized thing. Even though that is sort of like one of the standards, at least it was standard systematic theology within the evangelical world. You're not going to get that in the same way. And so it shouldn't be shocking that I think it was Adam said, you know, this church is teaching this, and this dude at this church is teaching this. And they probably are all educated enough that they're not really dipping their toes into heresy. But so many of the teachings are heterodox that you have to sort of do a lot of massaging along the edges and that that gets interpreted by a public that is less educated on the Bible and the theology than they are through the lens of feelings, which is what a lot of this is like. If, if you look at a lot of these, these are like, I'm not trying to be a mean person. Feelings.
- [27:40]
A
Yeah, there's your feelings.
- [27:42]
B
Yeah. Like the one on God accepts all kinds of worship.
- [27:45]
A
That one was one of the worst respondents, right? Where it was like close to over 70% of respondents said God, God accepts the worship of all religions.
- [27:55]
B
But that's some person, some typical American who doesn't really know what the Bible says on that and is just like, well, my feeling is that God's not a meanie. And it would seem like if he doesn't accept the worship of a Jew, he's a meanie. So I'm going to say God's not a meanie. And he, hey man, everybody that prays to God, God accepts that because at least they're trying. Now you'll see that something like that, like versions of that even being said a little bit by like CS Lewis and you know, you know, and it's, it's at this, it's sort of hard to avoid that unless. Not to tout our conference on the conference videos that are coming out. Unless you're sort of like a full on bound will sort of theologian Christ, don't Christ alone person, hardcore. That's a tough question to answer. Now I'll answer no. God only accepts the worship of those that are in Christ. And that's because he sees that worship through the lens of Christ. Right.
- [28:59]
A
Specifically, that one was odd to me because anecdotally, because we do this, most of the evangelicals I know would not answer that question that way.
- [29:09]
B
But we live in this weird 90s hangover world.
- [29:11]
A
Yeah, they're very aggressively Christ always.
- [29:15]
B
We live in a very strange 90s hangover world. We got the most 1994 hang of any place I've ever been. Yeah.
- [29:22]
C
Caleb, I just want to answer your question earlier, which is, you know, should we lower our expectations? I think the answer really is a yes and no because here's what I mean by that.
- [29:35]
D
It's always yes and no.
- [29:36]
C
Yeah, I guess. But I always think things are more complex than they seem. Bruce, that's funny. I'm going to quote Corinthians in just a minute. And you're quoting a different passage though.
- [29:46]
B
But.
- [29:49]
A
Lost my train of thought.
- [29:50]
C
So, okay, in one way, nothing's new under the sun. This hasn't changed. I mean, you can go back to Galatians. You can go back to Corinthians. Right? I mean, Paul's like, who has hindered you, you know, from this race that you were running, like Corinthians. This isn't what you've been taught. This isn't what I taught you. Who's coming in and doing this to you. In other words, there's always been a disconnect between the sort of high theology, formal theology that's very carefully taught and written down and confessed and voted on and agreed to, or however that process works for your tradition and the lay theology that operates under the surface. I grew up Catholic. They have a very standardized, worldwide, intensive, starting in first grade, catechesis process that goes to 11th grade. And I can tell you that if you did this survey to Catholics, you would probably get even crazier answers. And they have very high catechesis. So it's not the fault, or at least it's not only the fault of lack of catechesis that's causing this problem. The problem is always that there is simply a disconnect between those who engage with what they're being taught versus those who don't. And that engagement is partially how much ownership you want to take for your own theology and really stop and think about it. And I think most people don't. And the reason that they don't is when you go down the theology rabbit hole, whatever tradition you're in, you have to deal with hard questions, just like Job, just like David in the Psalms, just like Paul says in a bunch of places where he can't explain certain things, and we just have to, you know, trust in the Lord. I think a lot of people just want easy answers to complex problems, and they don't want to parse through things like the Trinity. What do you mean, three persons? And it's fine for people to say, yes, that's true, because I know that language. But what does that mean? What does it mean that God's a person? What does it mean that God is one? People don't really.
- [31:49]
B
I agree with that on that. On the trinitarian. I agree with that on the trinitarian stuff. This is. This is just people not knowing how to end. I think mostly in that that's people just not knowing how to answer. What about on the.
- [32:00]
A
But on the moral questions, let me.
- [32:02]
B
I'm going to step. I will personally step onto the minefield, and the rest of you can decide whether or not you want to follow me. I'm stepping on them, so you probably don't want to follow me. Okay, I'm going there now.
- [32:16]
C
It's like a dare.
- [32:16]
B
I thought you were gonna. I thought for sure you're gonna say, I'll follow you anyway, brother.
- [32:21]
D
Yeah, I will.
- [32:22]
B
Wow. All right. If you take. Now, apparently I have some weird filter applied that I unintentionally applied by clicking the link you sent. But God loves all people the same way. Statement number six.
- [32:36]
A
Six. Okay.
- [32:38]
B
Okay.
- [32:38]
A
All right. Yeah, we'll check the real data here.
- [32:42]
B
What the heck's going on here? This one says 69% strongly agree. How am I getting 94. What is going on? You sent me a faulty link. Okay, mine says 94% agree. What's happening here?
- [32:57]
C
Okay, here's the 69% strongly agree, 14% somewhat agree. But that still doesn't.
- [33:03]
B
Oh, well, I'm just looking at. I'm looking at the aggregate on the left hand side where it says 94% agree, 5% disagree. Okay, I'm not doing strongly. Non strongly. What does that even mean? I strongly agree. I don't strongly agree.
- [33:14]
A
Well, there's also the not sures which are add to the confusion.
- [33:17]
B
But yeah, whatever.
- [33:18]
C
So this the majority.
- [33:22]
A
Oh, by the way, I think you picked the question that has the highest respondent rate for agree to on the survey.
- [33:29]
B
94% agree. This is. And the last one we talked about too.
- [33:34]
A
Hands down wrong.
- [33:35]
B
What's that?
- [33:36]
A
This is wrong.
- [33:37]
B
This is completely wrong. It's also a reflection of not just the feminization of culture, but the feminization of the church. 100%. 100%. This is. This is. This is.
- [33:48]
A
Should I prove it with the filters?
- [33:50]
D
I'm going on that minefield with you, Scott. Let's do it.
- [33:52]
B
Finally, one of these days you'll just follow me out of.
- [33:57]
A
I'm gonna prove it. I'm applying filters for women and men.
- [34:03]
B
I don't think it could be 10% when you get to women.
- [34:08]
D
It is what you're talking about when you talk about filters.
- [34:10]
C
Not by a lot.
- [34:11]
B
Yeah, okay, so. But here's the thing. What? Adam, I was really just looking for it. That. That lecture you had me listen to last week with that lady.
- [34:20]
C
Oh, I listened to that too. Yeah, that was.
- [34:22]
B
She sort of. She sort of applies this to the business world in general and just says that, you know, there's just. Even in the secular world, there's just a lot of strong data that the leadership of women in society has led to society making more decisions not based on just sort of strict rationality and whether or not there's enough evidence for it or not enough evidence for it. Ken, this is a universal statement. And all these are not true for all women. Blah, blah, blah, all that. Get all the lawyer statements in there. But this has led to just more emotional Decision making in society and law, in the workplace and in the church too. Again, if you're just trying to not be a meanie. Right. Of course you're going to answer, not.
- [35:05]
C
Necessarily more emotional because men have different emotions. But it's. She was saying it's. It's based significantly more on a caregiving way of thinking and moving.
- [35:13]
B
She actually said, Bruce, that men attempt to make decisions based on evidence.
- [35:21]
A
Yeah. Yes.
- [35:22]
B
This is all that I said. The point is here, it's not that women are bad. Right. This is not the point. The point is that it's not surprising that when they have sort of an oversized influence on the direction of things that people are going to try to be less confrontational. And it is a confrontational thing to say that God loves one set of people in a different way, better way, more full way, whatever, than he does another set of people. Even more confrontational to say, you know what, actually he really only loves these people and doesn't love these people. That's not going to be said if you're sort of in a world where you're just trying not to be a meanie and you don't want to make God look like a meanie either.
- [36:09]
A
Yeah. Or that the love of God is only revealed in Christ. In Christ means all people outside of Christ don't experience the love of God.
- [36:16]
C
This was one of the questions I actually thought wasn't worded Great, because you could read a lot into it.
- [36:21]
B
Well, in their little explanation, they do a pretty good job with it, though. Yeah, that is true. Yeah. Yeah. God's benevolence, his goodwill is demonstrated by his beneficence, kind actions, His Son and rain are given equally to the just and the unjust. While there is a genuine sense in which God loves all people he created. Scripture also clearly shows he extends a special love to his elect, or we would say to those. And so that's not a bad answer to that at all. We would even say, we might even just say not even love, but providential care. The fact that the rain falls on the just and the unjust alike isn't necessarily love of the same kind for those that are in Christ. It's providential care.
- [37:04]
C
He also gives the Spirit to those who are his, which he doesn't give to. To everyone else.
- [37:09]
B
Yeah, but if you're, again, if you're just trying, if you're like all wrapped up in this sort of like, hey, guys. And this is a very feminine thing.
- [37:15]
C
God's equitable. That's the idea here.
- [37:18]
B
Let's just not be mean, guys. Let's just not be mean. Don't be mean to your friends. And your friends don't love Jesus the same way you do, but God still loves him.
- [37:27]
A
Can we say it's also an apologetics of desperation that I think is. Could we say it's also maybe highlighted by this fear over the last 20, 30 years of declining Christianity to say that getting people under the influence of the church or under preaching or under discipleship or whatever it is in the evangelical world is important. We're losing a grip. And in order to then appeal to as many people as possible or to, to try to give them Christ, you would emphasize this kind of kindness or you would give these non offensive answers. So it starts with this principle of God loves everybody the same way. And then you apply that to the other questions that this survey then has, which you could, almost all of us could predict the answers like is living together before marriage wrong? Or is sex. I think it even had. Is sex outside of traditional marriage wrong? Yeah. Homosexuality.
- [38:31]
B
Was that one of the questions. I bet you the answer to that was in the toilet.
- [38:35]
A
Yeah. And there's a lot the, the other religions questions as well, like can you be saved apart from Christ?
- [38:45]
B
I bet that one's in the poo poo too.
- [38:48]
A
That was. Well, that one was. And I think a lot of this is sometimes an appeal to, you know, if we have a kind approach to this, I will have access to a greater number of people. Christianity will appeal to more people if it was nice.
- [39:05]
B
Seeker sensitive, baby gotta be seeker sensitive. Although that's dying, I hear.
- [39:10]
A
Oh, that's dying.
- [39:11]
B
None too soon.
- [39:15]
A
But it seems like this might be an extension or the fallout of something like secret sensitive in the sense that most of these questions have to do with what people perceive as being the biggest hurdle to being a Christian or to presenting your Christianity.
- [39:28]
C
You know what's interesting? Trigger Adam and call it missional statement 20. Hell is a real place where certain people will be punished forever. Overwhelming majority said yes.
- [39:38]
A
But then nobody believes anybody's going there.
- [39:40]
C
Yeah, I know. That's what I'm saying. There's this disconnect, right?
- [39:43]
A
Like, except really, really nasty historical figures.
- [39:46]
B
Yes. Like they aren't alive.
- [39:48]
C
Hitler's there.
- [39:49]
A
Like Hitler. And I can say that it's your. So then, so then everybody's back to it's your works that.
- [39:55]
B
Yes.
- [39:55]
A
That damn you. And we have big examples of hell's not gonna be populated, Mal. Yes. Because most people are born good. Yeah, yeah.
- [40:04]
C
So statement 25 sex outside of traditional marriage is a sin. Is only slightly in the. Yes, it's just over 50%.
- [40:12]
A
No.
- [40:13]
C
People notice abortion is a sin, is almost completely split. It's a little bit more over until.
- [40:17]
A
You filter it for women. I did that one. That one's a black pill.
- [40:22]
C
People should be able to choose their gender regardless of their biological sex. That one has a higher majority of disagreement. So it's a hodgepodge of. Well, yeah, yeah. You can actually. You can actually compare this to a 2018 study that they did in Britain. And it's interesting to see the change over time and culture.
- [40:42]
B
I'll bet you. I'll bet you 10 years ago the abortion question was much more on the side of. It's wrong.
- [40:47]
A
Wrong not to. Not to bang the. Or to accidentally do what my dad was trying not to do.
- [40:55]
B
I'm against three of us in this mindset.
- [40:57]
A
I'm saying that women are bad or something like that. I'm not. But I went through all these questions this morning. I got up very early this morning and I filtered. I just had the curiosity to filter for women on them. And all of these ones where Bruce said that they're close or that it's always worse. It is always a less orthodox or a less moral answer when you filter for female respondents.
- [41:22]
C
The 2018 UK study, Abortion is sin, almost. Let's see it. Overwhelmingly. No.
- [41:31]
A
So my question is, okay, because I don't want to. I do want to ask a question that maybe we can all think about with that, which is, I don't feel like this. I feel like somebody would hear that and go, well, of course evangelical churches in America are sexist. They're run by men. They don't have place for women. Women's Bible studies are bad and not thought out. If we fixed women's ministry and we allowed smart women to have a louder voice in the church, then we wouldn't have these problems. Women can speak to women. I think that's untrue. I actually think that if you look at this, the majority of people in evangelical churches, that this is pretty solid data from Pew from the last couple years that we've looked at are women. Women go to church more than men go to church. They engage in private studies.
- [42:15]
C
That's changing, though, significantly.
- [42:17]
A
I know it's changing, but as far as, like, when this study was going, that was not true. Yet women engage in more private Bible studies than men do. They consume more of that media. So I don't think it's that they're uneducated. Or they're unreached. So the question is, is there something you can do about that? If it really is that it's more of a natural answering doctrinal or moral questions or apologetic challenges to Christianity with emotion or what feels right versus what they might have even been taught from a pastor, from a Bible study, from whatever. And again, this is a generalization. Obviously there are many smart women out there who do not believe or teach these things. But the question is like, why is it uniquely on these answers? Worse, when you filter for female respondents, I don't.
- [43:15]
C
I don't know if there is an.
- [43:16]
D
Answer because you guys haven't let me say anything for a while and you're going to probably roll your eyes. But in addition to saying we're not saying all women, we're not saying women are bad, we also need to say we think women are pretty awesome too.
- [43:32]
B
They give us all the humans at.
- [43:34]
D
The very basic level. And yeah, because, I mean, it just. I can just, I can feel how this is going to be heard. And since I'm a very empathetic individual, as you all know, just wanted to say that that's all. Women are awesome, but feminization is awesome.
- [44:00]
A
Thank you for that contribution, Adam.
- [44:02]
D
I just don't need any more hate.
- [44:03]
B
That I already get.
- [44:05]
D
And you should see what Scott just texted me. Yeah, I guess I.
- [44:10]
A
Did you call him a simp?
- [44:12]
B
I don't even know what that is.
- [44:17]
A
I mean, not to drag it too much in speculation, but I could just feel like I can feel the weight of this going, so what's the solution to this? You can't just. Well, obviously the solution isn't like, kick women out of church or Bible study. That's obviously wouldn't produce better results. Is there a way to catechize people against their emotions or to taking every doctrinal. Here's the other one I see. People are taking every doctrinal question and trying to apply some sort of consistent logic that they apply the rest of how they walk around the world too. And I've seen this when you ask doctrinal questions and the gears start turning because they're all individual, they're not interconnected. Hence why you can get like this affirmation of the Trinity, but a rejection of Jesus's God on a larger number of respondents and said, yes, the Trinity is real. Because each question the cogs start turning and start asking what makes the most sense? Or is there a way to get people to see that these doctrines are interconnected? Is there a way to Address that the catechesis will never produce perfect results. What is, what do you do with this?
- [45:29]
B
Catechesis will never make perfect results, but people should be catechized and that there should be effort that goes into teaching people the Christian faith or teaching and preaching creedal orthodox theology from birth until death. I mean, the one that's really, you know, one of the really important ones that we didn't look at is it's important to belong to like an actual, I don't know how it was worded. Belong to an actual church.
- [46:03]
A
Yeah, it's. Christians have an obligation to join a local congregation, go to a building. It was overwhelmingly no.
- [46:10]
B
And that should be overwhelmingly yes because this is where the goods are given over and it's only through the goods being handed over to you for a lifetime. Can you even integrate any of these beliefs organically into who you are and thus maybe one day answer a question that is in line with what the Scripture teaches. You're not going to do that by just saying I'm a Christian and sort of feeling it and going out into the world and never actively being a Christian in your life. Which means receiving the Word and the sacrament and doing your best to bring your family and to raise your family in that faith and then receiving forgiveness when you fail in those aspects. But that forgiveness comes to you in the place that you're avoiding.
- [46:56]
A
Do you think that membership being too easy or non existent in evangelical churches where you just attend but you never sort of declare yourself as a member, you never meet the pastor, you never go to a new member's class, you never are confirmed in that church. Is part of this where like I kind of wonder like, well, could we clean. This is so bad. So you guys feel free to jump me, but could we clean up Christianity if some, if some of these respondents who are just obviously don't believe orthodox Christian things, they're actually heretics. If we were being honest with ourselves, weren't Christians, like if Christianity was unfriendly and just said, you can't be a member of this church, you don't believe orthodox beliefs.
- [47:39]
D
I'm going to go back.
- [47:40]
A
You're not welcome here.
- [47:41]
D
I want to go back to what Scott said here and the emphasis on real catechesis. Right. I think add to that and you can, I don't know, I think you'll agree though, I think maybe five years ago, maybe not. But in our teaching, like, let's just say catechesis is indoctrination in a good sense of the term.
- [48:03]
B
Right.
- [48:05]
D
You got to indoctrinate or you're going to be indoctrinated by the culture around you. And so in that catechesis also has to be, and I, I mean this in a, not in like an old school ham fisted way, but there's also got to be a bit of polemic. Like, you know, we gotta stop assuming people are like this, have this tabula rasa, this blank slate that they come to the reading the Bible or learning theology like sponges, where they're going to receive everything like here as, as pure as it's delivered. Everybody comes to everything, church especially with lots of preconceived notions and they're gonna, we use the term filter. I don't know what it meant when we were talking about with respect to the survey and Scott's computer problems, but everybody comes to everything with filters and you got to go after those filters. And, and I, in a way it's almost like you have to do some what they used to call deprogramming.
- [49:05]
A
So.
- [49:06]
C
Adam.
- [49:07]
D
Yeah, go for it.
- [49:08]
C
No, I'm sorry, go ahead. You can.
- [49:09]
D
You're going to attack me.
- [49:10]
C
No, I agree with you.
- [49:11]
B
You're right. I think there's a lot of epistemology that needs to happen in here. Like how, how are you coming to these. When you get somebody in church and they start and you know, you have a conversation with them, you know it's important or you're doing a new member class or something, how do you come to these beliefs?
- [49:28]
D
And I'm going to say just one more thing.
- [49:30]
A
Fear about the polemic being like, meaning like I'm going to get less people in catechesis if it's polemic.
- [49:35]
D
You got to figure out how to do it where it's not like offensive and ham fisted or whatever. It also does mean at the same time that just because we, that teachers, just because somebody parroted the right shibboleth or cliches doesn't mean some, you get a free pass, if that makes sense. I mean, I'm not sure by this. I'm not, I'm not just talking about like going after those things that we find like, you know, that are liberal or whatever, but also like some of the stuff that might come from some other sides that's just not quite biblical, you know.
- [50:11]
A
Right.
- [50:12]
D
So now, now Scott's getting angry. I can tell.
- [50:15]
B
He's, he's got that face, he's flex.
- [50:17]
D
I know.
- [50:18]
A
I'm waiting for somebody to my question about Christianity just being more unfriendly.
- [50:23]
C
Well, wait, I have Three observations I'd like to make. They're a little different, but they're part of what we've been saying. So the first one, to Adam's point, is there's a theologian, you guys will know him, Stanley Hauerwas, who's written on this. And I'm a little cautious with stuff with Hauerwas sometimes, but on this, I think he makes a good point. He says that his diagnosis of this and solution is that he says Christians have the truer and better story to tell, but they don't believe that. So what Hauerwas says is it's not just about catechesis. You can give someone all of this right knowledge, but if it doesn't fit into a story that the Bible is telling, the metanarrative that is also part of their lives, that they're caught up in God's story, they won't take it. And the people who Hauerwas argues really do get theology, are the people who have incorporated the theology into their life story because they see themselves in that story that God is telling themselves and the world and who Jesus is. So Hauerwas says, don't shirk on catechesis, but if you want to be more effective, make sure you're telling the story better and that the church has suffered from good storytelling and what the world is very good at doing is storytelling. So I've always found that a kind of profound piece of thought. Secondly, I'm a little cautious sometimes. We've said it a few times about calling people heretics in the sense that in the patristic era, heretic means choice. So someone can have a heretical belief and not be a heretic. They become a heretic when they choose, after being corrected, to continue in the false belief. So there's a lot of people who are heterodox in the fact that they have heretical beliefs, but they haven't been corrected in them. They haven't been categorically.
- [52:17]
A
Who has the catechism to correct them if their pastor doesn't and just, you know, Joe Schmo Lutheran runs into you and starts correcting you. I don't have the authority to be the corrector who calls you a heretic.
- [52:27]
C
Right, you have. You have. Well, you do have some level of authority because you're speaking the truth from Scripture. But, yeah, the pastor and elder should be the one who, like, apart from.
- [52:36]
A
One universal Catholic Church, though, I don't like. How do you uphold heretic as a category?
- [52:42]
C
Well, traditionally, it's always been done through excommunication. I mean, that's really the answer in the, in the traditional way of doing it is if someone maintains a false belief that's truly been declared a true orthodox belief and they teach against it, then you kick them out.
- [52:55]
B
That's fine. That's a, that's a, it's a, yeah, it's a good clarification.
- [52:58]
C
I just don't want people to be.
- [52:59]
B
I don't want to throw around, but here's the thing. I don't want to throw around. Heretic to a person either. But these weren't people. These were statements of a group of people.
- [53:08]
C
Yeah, yeah, completely agree.
- [53:09]
B
Was the statements are heretical.
- [53:11]
C
Well, you weren't the only one who said it. So that's why I was just wondering.
- [53:14]
B
Statements can be heretical. Right. Without looking at 100, they are.
- [53:17]
C
Yeah.
- [53:18]
B
You're, you're a heretic. Yeah. So I, I, I've been called a heretic and it's no fun.
- [53:24]
C
Not you. And so not you.
- [53:29]
B
I'm with you on this.
- [53:30]
C
But statement too, by the way.
- [53:34]
A
Publishes.
- [53:35]
B
Can be called heretical because they are. Yeah. And that's, that's sort of, that's that and sort of. If you want to sort of take the overarching sort of circle of orthodoxy, one of the, one of the starts there is the universal state of sin. You know, that you're born into sin, simple and unclean, and that you have no hope apart from Christ at birth. Right. And so this is, so it'd be.
- [53:58]
A
Fair to say that it's like somebody you wouldn't accept into membership if they confess that belief to you at your church, like if you had that authority. Right. Like, yeah, if they say, I want to be a member and if somebody.
- [54:09]
B
Is coming to church and saying, hey, listen, this trinity stuff, you know, I, I love Jesus as much as the next guy, but I'm not sure I'm going to walk around saying, the Holy Spirit's God. Yeah. You might want to say, well, a few more classes before we stamp that old membership.
- [54:26]
C
And if they actually say, no, he is not, and you can't, I mean, that's clearly a heretic. Right. Like they, they, they're unrepentant.
- [54:33]
B
I find, I find today with, besides a notable exception that Caleb and I have both run into, that most people are not that assertive about their heretical beliefs. They're more like, well, I think that maybe, you know, there is, if you want to come to Big Bear and encounter a very notable exception, you should.
- [54:55]
C
Oh, I kind of do now that's that's.
- [54:57]
A
I know there's a sign on the 91 freeway now, by the way.
- [55:00]
B
I don't know, 215, but that's fine.
- [55:03]
A
Oh, is it already when you get off the.
- [55:04]
B
No, go ahead.
- [55:07]
A
Okay, sure. It's on the Tuesday.
- [55:08]
B
It's in Colton, but that's fine.
- [55:10]
A
Okay, well, okay, like five miles back. It's the 91, but the. That says Jesus is not God. The scripture never calls him God. You know, it's like Jesus is not.
- [55:22]
B
God from all eternity. He did not. He did not exist.
- [55:25]
C
Wait, this is off the highway or something?
- [55:26]
A
Yes, and it's a Christian California group. It's a Christian quote unquote group, not Muslims or something like that.
- [55:34]
B
The funny thing though is this is so not San Bernardino. This is.
- [55:38]
C
That I believe too, that I believe.
- [55:40]
B
It'S like to run into this in like San Bernardino cult. And you're like that.
- [55:45]
D
Okay, so I've seen that sign in Chicago area too.
- [55:47]
A
Oh, interesting. Yeah. They're getting money to put these up, which is crazy.
- [55:52]
B
If you're going to fight a fight like you got all this money and you're trying to get the world to be your, your brand of Christian, that's the fight you're going to, you're going to love.
- [56:00]
A
I went to their website. I went to their website.
- [56:02]
B
You're going to fight with the whole world right there.
- [56:04]
A
I went to their website to figure out what's the core. What's the core issue here for this group besides the Jesus thing? It's flat earth, in case you were wondering.
- [56:12]
C
Really?
- [56:12]
A
Yeah. I'm not even kidding. It's flat earth.
- [56:15]
C
That's so rich.
- [56:16]
A
Oh my gosh.
- [56:18]
D
Found his friends.
- [56:22]
B
Finally. My people.
- [56:24]
A
No, no. How are we back to this?
- [56:26]
B
I'm not.
- [56:27]
A
After two years, the record. For the record, YouTube. I am not a flat.
- [56:35]
C
Can I make my third and last point?
- [56:37]
B
Oh, you have another point? Sure.
- [56:39]
C
No, I just want to go back to. Because Caleb had asked, you know, earlier how. I'm paraphrasing Caleb, how. How do we move forward with this divide in the, in the genders, so to speak, and how it works in church. And maybe I'm being old fashioned, overly simplistic, but I think Paul tries to answer that in Romans and other places, Corinthians, where essentially the principle, there is an ethic of both sides should be self giving. So if you're really pushing a feminism, you're not really taking into account the needs of men. And if you're men and you're trying to Domineer and shut up women all the time. You're not really taking into account the needs of women. That would be a very modern, practical way of saying Something much simpler, which Paul is saying is to always, always be aware and protective of and caring of the other who is given to you. And I think the church has that responsibility with men and women who are in its care to mutually, in a way be self forgetful and attend to the needs of the others. So if there is a feminization that could be good, it would be the kind that men would give to women. And if there is a sort of masculinity that's not toxic, it would be the kind that women would encourage and give to men. I think that's the more biblical picture. But that's not really being done. Each side is, is fighting for their own.
- [58:04]
B
I want to be clear too. I don't think feminization is on the whole being pushed. I just think it's the air.
- [58:11]
C
I kind of think it is.
- [58:13]
B
Oh, I, I think it is by a certain amount of people, but it's just the air we breathe.
- [58:18]
C
Right, right.
- [58:19]
B
Having been pushed by this sort of elite group of people for 30 years or whatever has made it so that it's just, this is just the world now. And I think you're seeing a reaction to that over the last, you know, 11 months or so. But let's, let's. And maybe longer. Like the whole, the whole Gillette toxic masculinity. I just watched a YouTube video on that freaking wrecked Gillette.
- [58:45]
A
They paid the consequence.
- [58:47]
B
I think it's also, it's just, you know, it's just we grew up in it. Like this is, this is, this has been in the school system for years. I, and this is completely anecdotal and I'm not. Teachers are one.
- [59:01]
D
Here we go.
- [59:02]
B
Blah, blah, blah, all that.
- [59:04]
D
They're awesome.
- [59:05]
B
I pick my grandson up from school on occasion now. And the number of days this kid is coming off a party at school, like and then you look at the data like something like 78 of all school teachers are women. And then you sort of connect that to the number of like.
- [59:26]
A
Emotion days.
- [59:28]
B
It's just, it's, it's just the air, the air that we breathe and you know, he's, it's not like any of those teachers have that agenda. They just, they're just having party number four for that week or you know, whatever.
- [59:40]
C
Haven't teachers always been majority, like since the 1800s, they've always been majority in the school but they were led by male. Led by male.
- [59:48]
A
There's no, like, super church attendance.
- [59:50]
B
Church attendance as well has throughout, historically, always been, throughout Christian history, been majority female. But I think there's a difference between that and then sort of it's.
- [60:02]
C
The ideology has become feminized, equitable.
- [60:05]
B
Every leadership position. Right. So in the why Men, Men Hate Going to Church, what is that guy's name? He points out that even in sort of evangelical churches that don't let women be pastors, that you're typically going to have a head pastor that's a man, and then 94% of all other positions at the church are going to be filled by women. So that overwhelming staff influence at the church is female.
- [60:34]
C
But I can tell you as a pastor for years that females are also far more willing to just be volunteers than men are. I'm agreeing with you. I'm agreeing with you.
- [60:44]
B
There's some data down that suggests that's because the type of positions that we've professionalized and the ones that we've made volunteers positions are the ones that women are more likely to do. In other words, that don't have sort of a trustee board to come mow the lawn and change the light bulbs now just hire that stuff out to gardeners and handymen. Yep. And that, that is the type of thing. And they've also democratized the leadership positions. Whereas even in our church for years and years and years, your church council would be male, with maybe the exception of one or two positions. But as you sort of democratize that and said women can serve in any position on the church council, including president, vice president, or whatever, you get more and more influence, women. And as my good old friend Kurt Drumm used to say, once women can do it, men are going to think they don't have to. And that football game looks pretty good.
- [61:38]
A
Well, and I'll say not to just, I mean, to maybe get women off the hook a little bit. What, this is our fault? This is our fault?
- [61:47]
B
Yeah.
- [61:48]
A
There's an individual. There's an individualism problem as well that then enhances and empowers this feminization in this sense. Because you see with a lot of these answers that people maybe even know what they're teaching, church teaches. And I'll find that too, if you ask these similar questions in person. That's why you'll get the. Well, what I think is because that. Well, and that pause is them knowing what their church kind of says or what their pastor has taught about this kind of thing to where Christianity is in all things are individualized. But when you do that, you also no longer say that, for instance, there is any hierarchy in your relationships or order. And so, for instance, Christians don't need to submit themselves, like in this question about going to a church. You don't need to submit yourself to a church and put yourself under a church because you as an individual have the ability to determine what's true or what's false about the Bible or what you should believe about it. And then the same thing goes at your home. Women and men don't. There's no hierarchy here. Women don't have to, they're not submitted under men in this marital relationship or all of these things. And it's from the family forward all of these problems. And so then you can see how if feminization gets free of any hierarchy and creation society vocations, it then creeps into the church as well. Even where there's places where hierarchies attempted to be maintained. It's just not because individual belief reigns true. And if individual belief reigns true and women are the majority of the people in your church, then women's beliefs on this from the individual perspective are going to be the ones that ran true, even if there's a pastor who teaches otherwise, because it's the individual who is coming up with all the answers.
- [63:42]
B
So amen, brother.
- [63:44]
C
I don't know.
- [63:46]
A
There are female listeners. We know. We love you. Thank you, fellow listeners who are not men.
- [63:53]
C
Look, I would love to hear from female listeners who think that we've, we've been unfair. Obviously it's an hour long podcast. We can't cover every nuance and every single thing. No, I would love to hear that.
- [64:05]
A
I really would.
- [64:06]
C
Because I don't think we should be unfair. Obviously we should say what we believe, but I'm never afraid of doing that. But if we're missing something, if I'm not seeing something that you're like, hey, this is, I mean, please, I would love to see that.
- [64:20]
B
But if we dip into the fact that there's no differences between men and women, we're. That's a pretty big door that you're opening for horrible stuff to happen. And all I'm really trying to say here is there are differences. And when we lean all the way over to the feminization of a church that describes God as father and the other dude, son as a savior, and you then feminize everything in it, you're maybe putting out a message to talk about coherent, that is not completely coherent with the way scripture Speaks about God in general, and you really end up with a message that doesn't match there. If people want to know, sort of like just not an on the cuff version of how I think the differences plays out. Read Being Dad. Like there is, I mean, there are chapters on there on being wife and mother, specifically designed and written to say these are the great things about the way women parent in the home, in the church, how they love, how that love is different than a man's love towards his children. And God created these things to work together. But when it comes to, you know, the faith life men are supposed to lead, that this is just in the household especially, this is just clear. And when we've given even that up, that's going to reflect in the church. It's going to reflect about how the church teaches the priorities that the church decides to put out there. And at the end of the day, one of the things you are more likely to lose is a sense of objective truth. And when you lose objective truth, these statements make a lot more sense because then they are just interpreted through this idea of, hey man, I really don't want to leave anybody out. I am trying not to be a jerk to people. The church shouldn't be mean to people. The church should reflect the love of Christ. And then that gets interpreted through, well, how do I feel that that should happen? Not through like an objective teaching that comes to us from holy writ. And that's where this can really go wrong if we're allowing whatever balance there is supposed to be to go way out of whack.
- [66:31]
C
And there's a lot of women who agree, and there's a lot of women in the church who agree with, oh, I think what we've been talking about.
- [66:38]
B
I think majority of them would, you.
- [66:40]
C
Know, it's not like all the women in the church are feminists in the sort of liberal sense of that.
- [66:47]
B
I am not saying that women in the church are going like, ha, ha, ha, ha ha. How can I make this.
- [66:51]
C
No, I don't think, I don't think anyone would think that.
- [66:53]
B
No, listen, I don't think there's one woman in our church going, how can I make sure there's no more guys joining this church? This is just not happening.
- [67:00]
C
No, they want the men to step up. They want the men to stop being lazy and stop being irresponsible.
- [67:07]
B
There's an air that we breathe that is, that is just so feminized right now. We need to get some of that back. The pendulum does not need to swing right in that sense, I'm not looking for whatever bad old days there were to come back either. I'm just saying things can go too far.
- [67:28]
C
That's what you're saying.
- [67:29]
B
There's data set after data set after data set after data set. When guys are asked, why don't they come to church? Would they consider going to church? What church would they consider going to? What leadership role do they take in their families over and over and over again? They're either moving themselves to the sidelines or getting pushed to the sidelines. And one of the things I think this survey reflects is the answer about when, what happens, when that happens. So send out emails you want. Caleb will answer all of them. I'm not going to.
- [67:59]
A
I will not. But. But we do, we do appreciate you listening, especially to this extra long episode of the Thinking Fellows podcast today. I mean, this survey is extremely interesting, as I said.
- [68:13]
B
Good on Ligonier, by the way. Good on Ligonier.
- [68:15]
A
Good on Ligonier. It's a great survey. The way the data is presented is really great. The filters, which we might have had.
- [68:22]
B
Some RC troll was a good friend of our great teacher Rod Rosenblatten. So it's good to see them doing some of this even after RC's death.
- [68:31]
A
Yeah. And so, yeah, it's great. I'll put a link to the survey in there. And then, like I said, I'm going to, in my editing of this episode, try to put some images of the questions and the responses in there over the sections where we talked about them. So you can go to YouTube, subscribe to Thinking Fellows on YouTube to find that. We appreciate your time. We will catch you next time.
- [68:54]
B
Bye.
- [69:02]
A
It.