0:07

Oh,

0:09

hey, there. We're we're talking to Jeff Myers

0:11

about the LEGO game. So if you haven't played the

0:13

LEGO video game, there's there's some good ones Ryan.

0:15

-- there's Ryan -- -- task deck. Do you have any

0:17

favorite video games, doctor Jeff Myers?

0:20

Are you into video games at all? Or

0:22

just old school? Old school.

0:25

Kaliko. Okay. Kalika. galaga.

0:27

Okay. Alright. Atari twenty six hundred

0:29

era. That's like eighty six. Yeah. In

0:32

our little town in Medici Springs, it's little

0:34

hippy town right at the footer pikes peak. there's

0:36

an old arcade with all of

0:38

the classic games. Well, still there.

0:40

Still there. People still go and pay quarters.

0:43

yeah. Hey. Yeah. Like actual quarters.

0:45

Okay. Like, months. That's how

0:48

you put it in there and and you play the

0:50

old games just like you used to. Yeah.

0:52

you know, the galago in my town was at the

0:54

grocery store. Then the lobby of the grocery

0:56

store, that's cool. Or, you know, that's where you'd hang

0:59

out and play the game. I'm gonna age

1:01

Myers, but we used to have an arcade at the local

1:03

mall that we'd ride our bikes too. And

1:06

we would There were street fighter

1:08

two tournements that would happen after

1:11

school. So, like, the elementary school kids would be there.

1:13

There'd be this long line. You'd set your you'd set

1:15

your quarter on there for your, like, next play.

1:17

and whoever there was this one kid that could win,

1:20

like, the entire thing. There were actual fights that

1:22

broke out, like, over this game. Like

1:24

Free fight. Free fight. Free fight. Free fight. Free live.

1:27

So because you can win on the screen,

1:30

you just really feel tough. Yeah. That's

1:32

right. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. You know?

1:34

The guy that played Paul. What's his name? The Russian

1:36

guy. And I'll So did they have a rocking chair for you now

1:38

there where you can, like, shake your cane

1:41

and yell at the Youngens? That's

1:44

that's what I need. Yeah. Yeah. You know,

1:46

it is Right. Is that joke about him being old?

1:48

No. No. That's correct. Half

1:55

the men in ten Myers town look like Gandalf.

1:57

Oh, that's that's what it is to live in a in

1:59

a hippie town. Yeah. Yeah. Lots of

2:01

weed. That's

2:04

what we're looking yeah. Gotta

2:06

picture Gandolf Stone.

2:09

Okay. That would be Yeah. And then and then Not hard

2:11

to do. Not hard. I

2:13

swear, it's a hype we didn't know that. There

2:16

is a light in there, though, in in the Lord, the Ranger

2:18

says, What's it that happened? The

2:20

the what is it? The ShireLeafers' adult

2:22

do you mind with that? That's right. Yeah.

2:24

Yeah. Yeah. But that's just in the movie. Right? That's

2:26

not in the Oh, you know, are you probably

2:29

Movie made it like a a suitable because

2:31

they won't see such times. It

2:33

is I ruled your mind. Well,

2:37

this episode, we will be imitating various

2:39

characters from Lord of the Rings that was our

2:41

Gandalf segment. Again. you're

2:45

the summit ministries dude. Is that your

2:47

official That's the official title.

2:49

Yeah. The one on my on my business card.

2:52

Yeah. Yeah. So So

2:54

we're the ones who bring in kids

2:56

who have all these irritating questions -- Mhmm.

2:58

-- about God and reality and

3:01

Jesus and how do you know the true?

3:03

And how does this relate to a

3:05

biblical sexual And,

3:07

you know, all of us irritating questions like

3:09

they they bug you? Or, like, Did

3:12

you say you're irritating, like, get out of your kid? I

3:14

could irritate them is what you said. No.

3:17

They they irritate you. They irritate

3:20

their their Sunday school teachers,

3:22

you know, why Their kids are annoying. I

3:24

I agree. I was always that kid growing

3:26

up. The one asking, hey, why is

3:29

this? The good news is that we had Myers mother

3:31

didn't wanna take me to the car because we had drive

3:33

past all these churches. What do they believe? What

3:35

do they believe? What do they believe? why do we

3:37

believe we believe and not what they believe? You

3:39

know, how do you know they're wrong? That kind

3:41

of thing. Mhmm. But I I when

3:43

I was graduating high school, I thought

3:45

I just I mean, church is fun.

3:47

It's cool. I like the people. But

3:50

this is just not for me. I'm gonna graduate

3:52

from high school. I'm gonna from church.

3:55

And my parents arranged for me to go to a

3:57

Summit Ministry's program. And I

3:59

met David

3:59

Noble. In

4:00

fact, my first words to him I remember

4:03

were I hope you have a lot of answers because I

4:05

have a lot of questions. Mhmm. And

4:07

So he was the previous some

4:10

of the ministries, dude. Okay. And then

4:13

I I didn't know what he would say. I kinda suspected

4:15

he would say, look, hey, don't worry about it. We have all the

4:18

answers. But what he said was,

4:20

we aren't afraid of questions. That's

4:22

on it.

4:24

Now, in some when all your life,

4:26

you've gotten the impression that the people you really

4:28

like and are hanging out with are afraid of

4:30

the biggest questions in life. And all

4:32

of a sudden, you mean the guy who isn't afraid.

4:34

It's a game changer. And

4:38

that's and that's what Summit Ministry's does, like,

4:40

just as an overworking you

4:42

guys are the world view kind of like

4:44

this is what a Christian worldview is. You're

4:46

trying to train young adults and and

4:49

you know, help help them process these big

4:51

questions. That's what some of them is true. Yeah. Yeah. I I

4:53

think what's different about summit because,

4:55

you know, you you've had apologetic people

4:58

onboard before and you ask them a question,

5:00

they have an answer. But we're

5:02

trying to actually back up and ask, alright,

5:04

aside from just proving that

5:06

the Bible is true, why does it matter if

5:08

the Bible is true? So

5:10

what is a what is a And

5:12

it it came about in the in a really

5:14

odd way. I don't think a lot of people know this

5:16

story publicly. So I guess, you know,

5:18

here we are. Now you will. But I

5:21

ask over thirty people --

5:23

Oh. -- will know this. -- thirty listeners.

5:25

You're gonna get thirty one or thirty two. two.

5:27

So I'm pretty sure we're naming and claiming and

5:29

listening. thirty five.

5:32

So David Noble had

5:34

developed this worldview chart. Here's the Christian

5:37

worldview. hear counterfeit world

5:39

views that also claimed to have everything

5:41

in order about reality. And

5:43

he listed out these ten areas. Theology

5:45

philosophy, ethics, biology, psychology, sociology,

5:48

law, politics, economics, and history.

5:51

And then when I came onboard, I

5:53

took the textbook that he had written, rewrote

5:55

it, updated it to current times, called understanding

5:57

the times. But I never asked where

5:59

did those ten categories come from?

6:02

And so I asked them, he said, you know, when I

6:04

was a college student, I

6:07

heard a lecture about communism.

6:09

And somebody asked me if I wanted to teach

6:12

a study group, have a study

6:14

group about communism. And

6:17

he said that he would, but I

6:19

he said I wanted to research for it. So he

6:21

he literally bought and read

6:23

the collected works of Marks and Lenin.

6:26

which if it's on your shelf is like this.

6:28

k? Those guys wrote a

6:30

lot. And he said I was

6:32

reading in the collected works of Marx and Lenin,

6:35

as one does, as a college student --

6:37

Yeah. -- especially now.

6:40

And he said, I saw Mark say,

6:42

if we're gonna win, we have to take over theology.

6:45

If we're gonna if we're gonna win, we

6:47

have to take over philosophy and sociology.

6:49

And he listed out all these ten different areas. And

6:51

he said, my question was, do

6:53

Christians realize this? Do we have any

6:56

sense of what our worldview

6:58

says about all these areas? and

7:01

that set him on a search to discover

7:03

what a biblical Christian worldview is

7:05

and then

7:06

then based

7:07

on the categories that Marx had kinda

7:09

developed, like, Marx and Lenin had

7:11

developed. Yeah. Those ten categories that I

7:13

just listed -- Mhmm. -- were all the

7:15

areas where Karl Marx and Lennon,

7:17

they were both thinking way ahead

7:20

that if we want to control the world,

7:22

we have to first of all control all of

7:24

these academic disciplines. And

7:26

it goes back to, you know, like, nineteen eighty four,

7:29

if you can control what people think, then

7:31

you can control what they do.

7:32

Yeah.

7:35

So that's one of the major world views that

7:37

you guys talk about at some ministries. I know

7:39

that you go through a bunch. There was the

7:41

book that you wrote a few years ago

7:43

called The secret

7:45

battle of ideas about God. Right. So

7:47

it's a booklet. It's really easy to read,

7:49

really accessible for young adults. And

7:51

Jared was able to Even even I

7:54

even I was. And you you passed a

7:56

test? I have recommended well, III

7:58

have a much there's a test in there that you that's

8:01

referring to. that that

8:03

I think it's a WorldView test. Right? It's kind

8:05

of like, are you what percent I wasn't just

8:07

joking. Their literate is a test. Right. It's

8:09

like what percentage of of

8:11

your worldview as Christian. If you're calling yourself

8:13

a Christian, is that right? Or, like, where does it Yeah.

8:15

That's what it is. So we just ask a bunch of different

8:17

questions. What do you believe about this or

8:19

that? Yeah. And, you know, it's it's

8:21

questions like the root of society's problems

8:23

is that the rich oppressed

8:25

the poor. Yeah. You know, kinds of questions. If

8:27

you agree with that, then that

8:29

tells us that you've had some Marxist

8:31

influences. Either it's different things, and at

8:33

the end of it, you can kinda look and see what

8:35

your worldview influences are. I'm not trying to

8:37

put anybody in a box. I just want to

8:40

give you a starting point for,

8:42

hey, your worldview may have been influenced

8:44

by a lot more people than your allies.

8:46

Well, and it's true. And I think I ended up

8:48

coming back, like, ninety eight percent Christian

8:50

or something like that. But, like, two

8:53

percent or more percent. I gotta figure out That's

8:55

exactly where I was going it. Yeah. Okay.

8:57

Alright. Alright. Like the chosen where But you're

8:59

you're you're you're you're you're you're Two

9:01

percent more of it. Just like the

9:03

chosen. Just like the chosen. Well,

9:05

because they just did that third d five quarter

9:07

whatever. You're ninety eight -- Yeah. -- you're you're only

9:09

two percent genetically modified.

9:11

That's right. Yeah. which is actually not

9:13

charged to probably correct myself. It was not

9:16

necessarily a quote from third nifa. He was just

9:18

anyway. It wasn't an

9:20

exact quote anyway. Yeah. So

9:22

anyway Actually, a quote from Judge

9:24

Red. He said, I am I am the

9:26

law. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. That's

9:28

a that's a better reference. And now how

9:30

much how much judge dread influences in

9:32

the chosen? It's true. They're

9:34

very Yeah. That's very cool. Anyway,

9:36

so some have been Do you do you watch the chosen? I

9:38

watched the chosen. I just had never picked up the

9:40

how do you like it? The insulated Jeff direct.

9:43

It's because I'm only ninety

9:45

six percent. Oh, yeah. Oh, you're ninety six

9:47

percent Christian. I think I was in ninety

9:49

eight. Oh, usually since I wrote the questions, I

9:51

yeah. knew the answers. You knew the answers. And you still only

9:53

got ninety eight. But, like, with the majority of

9:55

young adults or something like that. sixty percent.

9:57

Right? If you're a Christian. So,

9:59

yeah, it turns out most Christians are

10:02

somewhere between twenty.

10:04

And if they're, you know, if

10:06

they're in in the evangelical church

10:08

where they they really take the seriously and get

10:10

a lot of teaching, which is about a third of the

10:12

churches in America right now. They

10:14

might be up to sixty percent or

10:16

so. but the average is only twenty

10:18

percent. So, yes, if you've got

10:20

ten people in a pew, pre

10:23

COVID, because you would put ten people in

10:25

a pew. you would have

10:27

two of them who get we're

10:29

here to study the bible to see what God has

10:31

to say so that we can

10:33

obey it. the other eight are like, I'm here

10:35

to hear God's opinion

10:37

on this and see if his truth

10:39

matches up with my truth. So

10:42

it's more self

10:45

but more just

10:48

like, yeah, I'm curious. I'm interested to hear

10:50

what you have to say. I don't have any sense of

10:52

responsibility to pay attention

10:55

to what you say it's true.

10:57

So that's sort of where the culture has

10:59

seeped in. because

11:01

we passed the tipping point, and that's what in this

11:03

book, true, changes everything that I just wrote. The

11:05

thing that scared me about it

11:07

was book thirteen minutes to get

11:09

to the book pitch. Yeah. Truth

11:11

changes everything by documenting my

11:13

scene. How people of faith can transform the

11:15

world in times of crisis go check it

11:17

out right next to my -- Yeah.

11:19

-- please continue. I claim that. I

11:21

wasn't really trying to interrupt you. That copies that

11:23

copies mine. That one's you want? Just thirteen

11:25

minutes of record. It's your

11:27

record. Yeah. I think usually

11:29

Kyle gets right into it. Yeah. The

11:31

book. Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes I forget, and then we

11:33

get to the end. And I'm like, oh, yeah. And they have a, by

11:35

the way. It's been sitting here. Yeah. Which That's

11:37

a tipping point. That's all I was getting at. Is that

11:39

you've got got to the place where now peep

11:41

more people than not say the goal is to

11:43

seek your truth or speak your

11:45

truth rather than seek that truth.

11:48

And so no no civilizations

11:50

I've ever studied has ever come back

11:52

from that. unless

11:54

they reclaimed some

11:57

understanding of what's actually true. Are there

11:59

civilizations that have done that reclaimed

12:01

and gone back? lots of them.

12:03

Oh, really? Okay. Yeah. Actually, lots of them.

12:05

Tell me more. It's happened many times. Name

12:07

five. Well, let

12:09

me go back to let me go back to Europe

12:11

in the thirteen hundreds when

12:13

you that

12:15

just sounds weird as a transition statement.

12:17

But Yeah. Yeah. Let's all go

12:19

back. Let's go back. That's what they did in army of

12:21

darkness. Come on a journey with me. You're back. Yeah.

12:24

In in the world. So

12:27

a third to a half of the people in

12:29

Europe died from the Black

12:31

Death. And you would

12:33

think if there ever was a time when you

12:35

would say Look, clearly, God

12:37

has abandoned us. What more evidence what

12:39

more evidence do we need? But

12:42

instead, they said they moved closer

12:44

to God. and you saw

12:47

first of all, you

12:49

started to see care, people

12:51

cared for other others. So

12:53

a lot of people were running away from the

12:55

sick. A lot of the Christians there

12:57

were running toward them, like Katherine of

12:59

Sienna. Why would you run toward the sick rather

13:01

than away from them? And she said,

13:03

because Jesus sits with

13:05

the suffering, and I wanna be with Jesus, so

13:07

I sit with the suffering. change in so

13:09

it changed medical care. Then it

13:12

changed economics. If a

13:14

third half of the people die, that

13:16

resets the whole economic situation,

13:19

everyday workers can make more

13:21

money because there aren't as many of

13:23

them. So that now all of a sudden they

13:25

become the landowners and it

13:27

leads all the way to the place where you move

13:29

from, you know, the king is the law

13:31

to, now the law is the king. So

13:33

it was a political aspect to

13:35

it there was a scientific aspect

13:37

to it because people were saying, I

13:39

think God has given us the ability to understand

13:41

not only the body but everything else, So

13:44

let's make all these observations. We know there's a

13:46

moral law. Let's see if we can figure out if

13:48

they're actual physical laws too. So

13:50

science transformed That's probably

13:53

the clearest example that I can think

13:55

of. Over a course of a couple hundred

13:57

years, the whole landscape of Europe changed

13:59

because

13:59

people didn't say

14:01

forget God. He's abandoned

14:03

us. They said, no, he's right here suffering with

14:05

us. How would we live differently

14:08

knowing that?

14:10

So I see you're still rocking the faux pas.

14:14

Yeah. You don't

14:16

see that very often anymore. Oh, is that right?

14:18

Yeah. So So

14:20

I I haven't so I went through cancer

14:22

and all my hair fell out every bit. Alright.

14:24

all my yeah. I I and I wanted to make

14:26

you feel guilty for her. Nice. Bringing that

14:29

up. So it grew back curly on the

14:31

sides straight up on top, so I thought, you know,

14:33

rock what you got. Oh, I wasn't criticized.

14:37

kinda makes a summit. That's where I was that's

14:39

where I was going. It's like a summit. The

14:41

summit of hair. Yeah. Summit ministries.

14:45

See how see that. Jared, you ask a

14:47

question. Well, I

14:49

was interested in you wrote this book. You look

14:51

more like you had cancer. I think you

14:53

did. I do. I do.

14:55

He's in in great shape. You'd like to

14:57

see somebody down the road. So

15:01

the one guy here with gray hair gets to

15:03

sort of dominate the conversation. Yeah.

15:05

How was the cancer? Is that experience?

15:07

Was that I mean, I'm assuming it was bad,

15:09

but Yeah. Well,

15:11

it was

15:12

So when

15:14

I found got the diagnosis, doctor

15:16

said, we have a really good chance to beat this,

15:19

but the treatment is brutal.

15:21

Yeah. Yeah. So a lot of people

15:23

go in for chemo and have twelve hours

15:25

of -- Yeah. That's crazy. -- I had

15:27

sixty six hours of of chemo.

15:29

Just straight. Yeah. straight

15:32

through four months. That's insane. It sort of feels

15:34

like having the twenty four hour flu for

15:36

four straight months. Jeff. That's

15:39

rough. Five. There were so many

15:41

amazing things that came out of it. And

15:43

I told a friend, I

15:45

I said, I wouldn't trade it. I wouldn't wanna do it again,

15:47

but I wouldn't trade it. And he said, really because I

15:49

would trade it in the heartbeat if it were me

15:51

too. And I thought,

15:53

yeah, I kinda sounded cliche when I

15:55

said that. But what I meant was

15:59

you

15:59

when your

15:59

whole life gets compressed into

16:02

this thought of, hey, this might

16:04

be the last time I get to talk to person.

16:06

This might be the last letter I get to write. This might be

16:08

the last book I get to write. Then

16:10

all of a sudden, the meaning

16:12

of every day is

16:14

more

16:15

profound. Yeah. Yeah. So

16:17

anyway, but now I'm I'm thirteen months

16:19

now in remission from that. Praise

16:21

God. Praise God. Yeah. That's We look

16:23

good. Yeah. Like, you have a nice arms

16:25

and stuff. Are you do you

16:28

like, hike and bike and stuff?

16:31

What do you I'm all I'm I am

16:33

the Colorado. That's what you look like. So you're

16:35

an outdoorsy guy. Yeah.

16:37

Do you what do you eat? Are you like a keto guy?

16:39

Or Oh,

16:41

yeah. Well, no. I don't

16:43

really do. No. Do you want to after

16:45

cancer? Oh, yeah. I don't I eat whatever.

16:47

Yeah. Yeah. That

16:49

sounds good. Sounds good. I mean -- Okay. --

16:51

you know, eat it. I wanna feel

16:53

good, but, yeah, I'm I

16:55

I really moved away from all that

16:57

crazy measuring all of

17:00

your calories and

17:02

-- Yeah. -- we're both doing the same

17:04

diet right now. It's hard. Oh,

17:07

yeah. Yeah. Which

17:09

is new. Well, it's Yeah.

17:11

I'm kind of doing like a keto

17:14

light sort of situations. -- good energy. I

17:16

mean, it's a helping average.

17:18

Yeah. Yeah. I've lost

17:21

I've lost Twenty

17:23

five pounds? Yeah. Yeah. I

17:26

lost about twenty five or thirty just and

17:28

just I lost thirty one. How many four languages

17:30

have you learned? processes? None.

17:33

Zero. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

17:36

Sad. So I wanna I wanna come back to your

17:38

book because I'm interested. So

17:40

you wrote this book, truth changes

17:43

everything. And in it, you say

17:45

that, you know, and it's it's it's some of what you

17:47

said earlier about the percentages

17:49

of of belief system. What are the ones that you see

17:51

that young Christians are sort of,

17:54

like like gravitating towards more

17:56

than others? Or is there a particular worldview that they're

17:58

sort of latching onto and like

18:00

like blending with their Christianity to

18:03

create this new new form, this

18:05

new worldview. Yeah. Well, you know, that's that's

18:08

actually a really interesting observation

18:10

because it's so

18:12

hard to say, we don't have one dominant

18:14

worldview, what you've kind of got as a cafeteria

18:16

approach. Right? So when it

18:18

comes to issues of gender

18:20

identity, people usually think of

18:22

their physical bodies

18:24

and their mental states as a

18:27

physical state. So if I feel

18:29

in my mind that I am a girl, then

18:31

I am a girl regardless of what my body

18:33

says. But at the same time, I

18:35

can make my body adjust using

18:37

chemicals and surgery to

18:39

conform with my expectation.

18:41

So it's very much a materialist,

18:44

secularist kind of thing. Yeah. At

18:46

the same time, you have people saying, I think we should

18:49

have every the government do everything

18:51

for us. That

18:53

that's should be a hundred percent of our

18:55

lives. They should take care of all of our healthcare

18:57

and free of our student loans and

19:00

raising minimum wage and all these

19:02

kinds of things that the manipulating of

19:04

government, which is kind

19:06

of this weird to Marxist, secularism,

19:08

and Marxism. Yes. understand why somebody

19:11

would believe that. I mean, if you went off the

19:13

college hearing, oh, you're gonna get a great job

19:15

even if you major in, you know,

19:17

sociology or whatever, and

19:19

then you're now all of a sudden working at a

19:21

minimum wage job, but you still have a hundred and

19:23

fifty thousand dollars in student loans. Right. You're gonna

19:25

be mad. You're gonna feel like you got

19:28

ripped off. And you did get ripped off

19:30

-- Yeah. -- if somebody didn't help

19:32

you understand reality. Right. But

19:34

the big one right now And I

19:36

know Kyle, you wrote about post

19:39

modern pilgrims progress -- Mhmm. -- which I haven't read

19:41

yet. I just saw it on the shelf.

19:43

If I haven't read your book either,

19:45

You're really you're right. I'm looking through

19:47

it right now. That book

19:49

will probably be gone from your shelf next

19:51

time you come on. He

19:54

claimed it. You know how postmodernists are. Yeah.

19:56

That's true. Name it claimed

19:58

it. But that's really where we are. The

19:59

idea that look, there's no

20:02

reality out there that can be

20:04

known. Maybe it's there, but it's

20:06

not something we could know. That's

20:08

a very old idea. It

20:10

goes all the way back to the office, all the way

20:12

back to ancient Greece, a guy named

20:15

Gorgias, who sold

20:17

arguments for a living. which

20:19

sounds crazy. That is crazy. But you would if

20:21

you had to go to court, you have to buy arguments. You

20:23

know? And I just kinda picture this

20:25

guy out there Hey, man. Yeah. Hacking

20:27

this up by argument. Yeah. First

20:30

one's free. name's

20:32

Gord Gias. Yeah. Yeah. Gord

20:34

Gias a new argument. That's true.

20:36

I'm seeing you all set you up. Yeah.

20:38

That's right. But he sold arguments and his

20:40

basic belief was there's

20:42

no nothing can be

20:44

known Even if it can be known, it can't be communicated,

20:46

even if it can be communicated, it

20:48

can't be understood, which none

20:50

of which makes any sense

20:52

if what he's saying is true. Right? Because he's he's

20:55

assuming that his words are meaningful enough

20:57

to make you think that they're meaningless. But

20:59

that post modern mindset

21:01

seems to be kind of a dominant

21:03

one. I'll do I'll do me. You do

21:05

you. I'll speak my truth. And

21:07

even in Christian circles, you're

21:09

talking about you know, this is just young

21:11

adult. Are you seeing this kind of progressive

21:14

Christianity is the kind of way that we describe

21:16

it? Right. a lot. So are you

21:18

encountering a lot of progressive Christianity? A lot of

21:20

people that have read progressive Christian stuff?

21:22

And You know, a lot of the

21:24

students I work with their

21:26

their questions are just straight up --

21:28

Yeah. -- skeptical. How do you know

21:30

others of God? Yeah. How do we know creation

21:32

is really real? Is there such a

21:34

thing as truth? Because why is it so hard to

21:37

find if it's so obvious?

21:39

Those are the kinds of questions that

21:41

they are asking. when they get

21:44

out, depending on who they

21:46

encounter, maybe in college or

21:48

after, they might come back and say,

21:50

yeah, I'm sort of in in this

21:52

progressive Christian mindset

21:55

mindset. But a lot of progressive Christianity,

21:58

it departs from regular regular orthodox

22:01

Christianity over the question of who Jesus is.

22:03

You just have to ask the question. What did

22:05

Jesus come to earth to do? Did he come

22:07

to earth to make you feel better about

22:09

yourself? Right. Did he come to earth to empower you, to be a

22:11

revolutionary, to stand up against the forces

22:13

of the world? Did he

22:15

come to save you?

22:17

and you'll you'll get you'll

22:19

get a lot of information. What about you

22:21

does Jesus want to transform is

22:24

a question that I'll ask a

22:26

lot of. students who've been influenced by that

22:28

progressive critique. What did they say? They would they would

22:30

say probably nothing. Right? They would say

22:32

he doesn't wanna transform me.

22:34

Oh, I want him myself. I can't well,

22:36

I want so what we all want is

22:38

Jesus who will do for us only what

22:40

we want him to do and leave everything

22:43

else alone. Yeah. And that's kind of

22:45

the problem is that if you

22:47

custom make your own Christianity that

22:49

way, then what you've

22:51

got

22:51

doesn't serve any

22:53

any purpose. And what is it? It's

22:55

kind of like theistic moral what is it moralistic,

22:58

theisticism or whatever that? Yeah. So this guy named

23:00

Christian Smith from the University of Notre Dame

23:02

came up with this term moralistic therapeutic

23:04

derricks. therapeutic. That was the word I was looking for.

23:06

Yeah. And and it is kind of like that.

23:09

Yeah. So a lot of my students, they're just genuinely

23:11

good kids. They're getting my

23:13

students when they come to study with my team and

23:15

me at Summit ministries, they're

23:17

usually on their way to college. More

23:19

than half the group is, they just graduate high school, they're on their

23:21

way to college. And they are

23:24

genuinely wanting to be

23:26

good people. But if you'd

23:28

probe a little bit, you find

23:30

out they kinda wanna be be good as

23:32

sort of making a deal with God. Look, I will

23:34

be good. You don't hurt

23:36

me. That's the deal. Right?

23:38

Are we agreed? That's kind of where

23:41

they want to settle things

23:44

with God. And so to go

23:46

beyond that and say, you

23:48

know, this faith

23:50

of ours gives us a thought

23:53

system. as well as a system of life

23:55

to make sense of everything.

23:57

And what do you what do you have to lose

23:59

really? I mean seventy five percent of young

24:02

adults say, they have no sense of purpose that gives them meaning

24:04

in life. Half say, they regularly

24:06

struggle with anxiety and depression.

24:09

are the world views that you're paying attention to

24:11

serving you in any meaningful way?

24:13

You know, why not have a look?

24:16

And that's the that's the compelling part

24:19

where most of the

24:21

students will say, I'm with you. Let's have

24:23

a look. Well, that seems like the it

24:25

seems like the kind of overarching

24:27

idea that you're dealing with is that

24:29

Christian will be so applies. arching.

24:31

I think it might be overarching. Well, I mean,

24:33

the overarching idea that

24:36

that You're right. Christianity applies

24:39

to everything. Am I wrong? Is it over or over? I

24:41

think you're wrong. Okay. No.

24:43

It's depending on

24:45

Am I wrong? I don't know. No. I don't know

24:47

where you are true. Let's look at it. I

24:49

am. it's over it's overarching,

24:51

but I0I have a couple

24:53

questions for you. Those you have

24:55

a lot of in notes.

24:57

did you consider doing footnotes

25:00

instead of endnotes? Or

25:02

was that like a publisher decision?

25:04

I tend to prefer footnotes. Yeah.

25:06

You so because you can then look at the because

25:08

you can look at it right away instead of, like, flipping

25:10

it over. Yeah. Most people

25:12

are not like you, Kyle. Really? I think most

25:14

people like footnotes. No. That's

25:16

an illusion. Leave a comment below and let us

25:19

know if you like to have it. Also,

25:21

you you quote will like to have

25:24

them available They like

25:26

to know that there's a citation there, but they

25:28

don't really wanna know what it is. They're just

25:30

trying to get the over or at least the end of the

25:32

chapter, you know, I like that. then I can go

25:34

like with Yeah. I like those better too. I like

25:36

end of the chapter. So you quote a lot of scholarly

25:38

sources in here, including

25:41

Avengers Infinity War -- Mhmm. --

25:43

directed by Anthony Russo and Joe

25:45

Russo, Walt Disney Russo, Russo

25:47

Brasil. philosopher. team. Do you

25:49

remember why you quoted Infinity War in your book? Yeah. I do.

25:52

Why? Well, there's a there was

25:54

a scene where Thanos

25:57

It's talking to Gamora and she's confronting

25:59

him about killing half of

26:01

all of the

26:02

people of

26:03

the entire universe. and

26:06

he says it's a good thing that we did that. It's

26:08

better because the people whose lives remain

26:11

are better. And Oh.

26:14

I'm pointing out that I

26:16

think he hadn't killed in the population yet in

26:18

an War because that was an end game.

26:20

But in an infinity war, he maybe

26:22

he was talking she was talking to him about all the

26:24

people on her planet because he killed half

26:27

the people on the planet.

26:29

Yes. Okay. Okay. That's where it was minor correction.

26:31

Thank you. It was the scene right

26:33

before he killed her. And this is how we

26:35

know that you were correct about overarching

26:37

rather than over. Yeah. Leave a

26:39

comment. Let us know if it's overarching or Alright.

26:41

I could be wrong. I could be wrong.

26:43

I don't know. So

26:45

plan ramer, right, Paul Romer is an

26:48

economist who not coming at this

26:50

as a believer, but a Nobel Prize

26:52

winning economist. said

26:54

people are the solution, not the

26:56

problem, which I was all

26:58

I was in the book trying to demonstrate

27:00

that Our whole concept that we

27:02

have that people are valuable

27:04

came from Christians, Jesus followers,

27:06

who believed that that Jesus

27:08

is the truth. which

27:11

is the big distinctive for

27:13

Christianity. It's I mean, Christians are not just

27:15

saying there is truth

27:17

and we can demonstrate it through a live propositions,

27:19

there is truth because we can demonstrate

27:21

through mathematical formulas that model accurately

27:23

the universe that we know exists.

27:26

They're saying truth exists and it's

27:28

a person. It's Jesus. And once you start with

27:30

that, those people

27:32

are the ones who actually brought about

27:34

all of the amazing changes in the world

27:37

and science. politics, justice,

27:39

every area that I that I

27:41

looked at. But we're going back to

27:43

this talk about truth being relative, and I always go

27:45

back to CS Lewis' Babylon

27:48

of man where he I don't know if you quote that alongside

27:51

Avengers Infinity War in your book? I

27:53

would. Yeah. CS Lewis is

27:55

pretty cool. I I

27:57

do. cooler than avengers actually. Oh,

27:59

than Thanos. Yeah. That's true.

28:01

Yeah. But he, you know, he told me

28:03

comments on that. but

28:05

he about you know, you

28:07

had it used to be that education was

28:11

to take you know,

28:13

malleable young people

28:15

and teach them that there's a truth

28:17

and a standard outside themselves they have to

28:19

align themselves with. And if they see

28:21

something wrong in themselves, it's how

28:23

do I change that to align myself to

28:25

this? And then now

28:27

it's like what, you know, you that's

28:29

we don't have that anymore. Now it's what is

28:31

your standard? You find your own

28:33

standard and live up to that within

28:36

yourself. My son, my my

28:38

first grader came home when he was telling me that they're learning

28:40

about facts and opinions. And he was like,

28:42

oh, you know, the so I'm asking him which ones

28:44

affected an opinion. And I said, well, is

28:46

the sunset beautiful, you know, and this is a

28:48

CS Lewis' argument about the waterfall.

28:50

He's a sunset beautiful He's like a guest. He's

28:52

like, that's an opinion, and I'm like, no. No. No. That's a

28:54

fact. Right. So I'm gonna

28:56

go argue with the teacher now. Yeah. So

28:59

yeah. You wanna stay on touch

29:01

with with that because It is what when

29:03

teachers teach about facts and opinions, it's

29:05

different than when I went to school. Yeah.

29:08

Sure. We can acknowledge there are

29:10

certain facts. at least I could when I was

29:12

growing up, like scientific facts.

29:14

So if I say water boils at two hundred and twelve degrees

29:16

Fahrenheit at sea level, you

29:18

might say, it might be two eleven, two thirteen

29:20

depending on atmospheric conditions. But

29:22

you wouldn't say, well, you know, keep

29:24

your opinions to yourself. But

29:28

But in my in the when I was growing up, people

29:30

would say, oh, moral

29:33

opinion.moral statements are

29:35

opinions. Right. Right. So if

29:37

you say Jesus rose from the dead. That

29:39

is an opinion. That is not a

29:41

statement of fact. But even

29:43

moral statements, if you think

29:45

about it, we know the difference

29:47

between two options. If I say

29:49

a, it is good to care for

29:51

abandoned puppies and b,

29:53

it is good to torture abandoned

29:55

puppies. We know there is a meaningful difference between

29:57

those two statements, which tells us

29:59

something about the nature of truth.

30:02

but a lot of a of students today are being taught

30:04

that not only are there no moral

30:07

truths, that your moral

30:09

viewpoints are all opinions, But

30:11

the facts about the physical world are

30:14

opinions -- Yeah. -- which I

30:16

think is mind blowing But

30:19

it goes back to and you probably have heard

30:21

about this Oregon this Oregon mathematics

30:24

program based on what they call

30:26

ethanol mathematics. There was a professor named

30:28

Melville Hertzkovits

30:30

from Northwestern University who said

30:32

even the facts of the physical world

30:34

are processed through our what he called inculterative

30:38

screen, which means that

30:40

it's up to you. What

30:42

does your culture say? Is it three thousand

30:44

miles from New York to London? Well, depends

30:46

on your perspective. Right? Depends

30:48

on your opinion. It's only a

30:50

matter of opinion.

30:52

and and somehow

30:53

reality just doesn't sink

30:55

down to these people. All my

30:57

only recommendation is even if you think it's

30:59

only two hundred miles from New York

31:02

London, bring enough gas on the airplane

31:04

for three thousand miles just in

31:06

case. Right. Right. Just in

31:08

case. But I yeah. But it has gotten to

31:10

that place. So I'll be

31:12

interested to hear how that

31:14

conversation goes with -- Oh, I'll I'll let you

31:16

know. Yeah. -- coming up

31:18

next. Corbabylon subscribers. But as

31:20

soon as they figured out that it was

31:22

heliocentric, that it was the sun at the center of the

31:24

universe, their math started to work

31:26

out. Sonocentr you. Why the sun is the

31:28

center of the yeah. You're right. It's not the center of the

31:30

universe, but when they figured out that

31:32

everything is rotating around the sun. At the

31:34

sun? Yeah. Capitalist. is

31:36

with his son. You get what

31:38

I'm saying. Jesus is the middle. We're not the

31:40

we're not the middle. Over our Over

31:42

our king. Over our king. Yeah.

31:45

This has been another edition of

31:47

the b weekly from the

31:49

dedicated

31:49

team of certified big news journalist.

31:52

You can trust here at the

31:52

Babylon B. Reminding you that

31:55

someone out there knows something about

31:57

Carmen. We're going to

31:59

find them.