Ep.77 - Processing: Pride

Welcome back!  It's June, which in 2023 means we are all engaged in the Pride movement, like it or not.  In this episode, Kirk gives an update on the future of the pod as well as shares his thoughts on navigating the Pride tsunami.   A special thank you to all the listeners over the past 3+ years!  We love you.  It's been a fun ride.  Christian well everyone.

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Transcript

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right, and welcome back, everyone. Man, it's been a long time since I've heard that ridiculous music. I hope you still enjoy it. But yeah, long time no speak. Thank you all for tuning in. Another time here. We'll start, I guess, with a quick podcast update. We've been over three years into the Christianing podcast. It's been a venture that I just started by faith, honestly. Just something I felt the Lord wanted me to do, and so I did it, and I just had no plans, no expectations, anything. What I tell people is I just had kind of prayed about it, and the Lord just basically told me if ten people, you know, I kind of had that Sodom and Gomorrah conversation with God, and the Lord's kind of answer was, if ten people care enough to listen to an episode, then do it. Go for it. And So I downloaded my first episode and the first episode came back within overnight 12 listens. And so I just took that as confirmation that, all right, I'm doing what the Lord has asked me to do. And it started growing a little bit from there. So that's been encouraging. But to be honest, it's plateaued. The audience is definitely... plateaued over the last year or so um few few blips here and there um so just been kind of you know seeking the lord as far as what what's the best use of my time um i don't spend an inordinate amount of time on these episodes as you guys probably know by now this is stuff that just swims in my head um Pretty much 24-7. You know, I'm just, I'm a deep thinker kind of guy. So this, you know, podcast, I just got to kind of organize it, put it in an outline and then, you know, take the time to share. And the one thing I don't have any time to do is like market. And, you know, I used to try to throw stuff in Facebook groups and Instagram pages and stuff like that. And even that, I just, that's a whole... you know, selling yourself. That's a whole other talent and time frame that I just, I, I gave up on that really, really quick and just was okay. If this thing's going to grow, it's going to grow organically and, and all that good stuff. And so, you know, marginal growth and, you know, as far as audience impact. And so I, So yeah, it just caused me to kind of honestly do a lot of reflecting and, you know, Laura's after three years, is this something, you know, you'd like me to keep putting out there? Is it helping anybody? If so, you know, kind of let me know. So yeah, not a ton of clarity. So I honestly, I just hit the pause button. That's why you haven't heard from me in a while. Apologize if you've come to enjoy these little conversations, these little discussions. Yeah, just the Lord definitely laid on my heart to make sure I was giving primary thought and attention to my main calling, which is running a Christian school and we're doing a lot, a lot of And I don't mean like building buildings, but like just redefining and rebuilding what a Christian school and authentically Christian school curriculum and school should look like. How does it best reflect the gospel in Christ? I'm doing a lot of deep dive, deep thought there. And so... And that deserves and requires my best attention. And so, you know, personal projects like podcasts and stuff, it's been on the back burner. So if you don't care about any of this, sorry, we'll get to the content of today. But I share all that to say I don't know what the future, if future episodes will keep coming out. I do have some thoughts of how to maybe... refine the podcast a bit, maybe make it a little more accessible to more people, more just purely focused on getting the gold of God's Word out there, which is really, you know, hopefully that's what you know I try to do. Only these processing episodes will I specifically not dive into a passage, but if I have something to say about a topic and it's a new topic, I want to make sure that it's the Word of God that's speaking first and we're just trying to see where it all fits in God's thoughts. So anyways, I have some ideas of maybe how to reshape a little bit, but again, waiting for the Lord to kind of just give me a clear green light, but Right now, he does have a clear calling and passion on my life to finish the work at my Christian school that we've begun and really make sure that that's done well. So anyways, this episode was just by request. The person that requested it, you know who you are. I don't... I don't want to share your identity online or anything, but I was asked to help process through the craziness that has been coming through the pride movement recently. We've got things going on at Target. We've got Bud Light. We've got all kinds of fun stuff. And then, lo and behold, it's June. So June means you are... You are bombarded with pride, whether you want to be or not. And we have Christians that are just clear public supporters and allies. And then we have Christians that are clear adversaries. So where do we all fit? Where does Jesus fit in all that? And so obviously in June, since every time I flip on my Twitter or whatever, I am... immediately immersed in some sort of pride debate, either outside the Christian realm or inside Christian Twitter or whatever. So yeah, I thought, hey, if it's by request, I'll throw at least my thoughts up, at least where I've kind of come to some of these issues as I, again, this is June, so I'm thinking about the impact of pride on the world like daily because it's it's it's put in your face you know every day and so so yeah thought you know at least we'll we'll throw this up give you guys an update on on kind of where i'm at you know podcasting and stuff like that and i'm all years called text email i haven't checked the cushioning email in a while um or you can just email me my personal kirkscott86 at gmail.com If you want to just, that one I do check somewhat regularly. The Christianing one I stopped checking a while ago. I've got to remember even how to log into it. But anyways, enough of that. Let's process some pride movement. Let me... Try to help you the best I can, because I am somewhat in a unique position, because I have to. I have to process this. It is my job. I do have a school with close to 700 children that show up, and it is my duty to make sure parents are fully aware of what influences are surrounding their child. I take that very seriously. Clarity is kindness. So I have to go about the process of making statements and articulating policies and communicating those policies clearly and effectively so that people know this is what we signed up for when we came to this specific Christian school. So this is something, you know, I'm not like average Joe, you know, pastor who's just, you know, has an ax to grind or whatever and wants to preach some sermons, I actually have people's children that are going to be impacted by every thought that I have on this topic. So it's something that I take very seriously and very biblically because the only thing that allows me to sleep well at night is knowing that a decision was made, a policy was formed in the best way I can understand that. the biblical mandate and God's word as of today. And, you know, even that evolves in all of us as we as we grow in the word and we get greater maturity in the word. And that's definitely happened in my life. And so so all my thoughts that I have to put on paper, you know, that parents, real parents have to read. And those those reflect the best that I understand the gospel today. And could that even evolve even more in coming years? Who knows? I feel like the Lord's brought me to a pretty good foundational place to where I don't think I would go backwards at all just because I feel like I've found or the Lord has revealed to me a firm foundation. Maybe there's some nuances here and there that might get tweaked as we continue to grow and learn together. But yeah, all that to say, I'm very confident and comfortable in the place that I've arrived to as far as reflecting the heart of Christ as best I possibly can. So a couple thoughts as I process through this that kind of all flow into, and at the end I'll just share some rules of engagement that I've come to as I have to engage in this topic. publicly. I have to. Me, I don't have a choice. Maybe if I was a plumber or something, I would have a choice to kind of stay out of it if I wanted, but I don't have the choice. So that's why I'm just sharing my notes with you guys as if it will potentially help you at all. One of the things, and we've talked about this I think in the past, that politics is becoming an all-consuming reality. So Like I said, we talked about this. That's probably nothing new to you. The political sphere of influence that, say, in the 1970s, if you had a political category and you put things that you felt were appropriate to be addressed in political conversations, that, let's say, in the 1950s, Let's say you'd put 10 subjects in the political realm, whatever, I'm just throwing random numbers out. On ratio, the ratio now in 2023 is if it was 10 in 1950, it's probably more in line with 1,000 subjects that we would... I'm just speaking purely ratio. I'm not trying to name specific subjects, but I'm just saying on ratio. If it's 10 things that people living in the 1950s are like, oh, hey, this would fit the political category. In 2023, that has ballooned to, say, 1,000. That's how much politics has grown in its influence. things that we've thrown in that we now expect the government to address and to get correct according to our convictions and things like that. So, i.e., gender sexuality. In the 1950s, that would have never been something you're like, hey, I'm going to write my senator to make sure my senator makes the correct decision on what I feel about gender and sexuality. That's just one obvious example. So... So what I'm learning is there's some fallout to that that I really saw come in COVID. COVID really started to crystallize this stuff for me. And then I'm seeing that carried through with pride arguments and debates and things of that nature. That since so much now has been engulfed by political discourse. And I don't mean just like... I mean political as in... who you would vote for like things that you need people to say to gain your vote that's what i mean by political um since that plate has grown a hundredfold so now what you're seeing is is the divisions in the in the world in in our country are basically, in a very general sense, are basically split 50-50. And now they're more aligned to personality. So the splits that you see, that is clearly seen through political position, You're seeing that become more and more every year, more and more closely aligned to basic personality differences. Like way back in the day, we would call it left brain, right brain. These two generic categories that basically... The entire population fits in one or the other. Very generally, of course, there's always exceptions when you're using those broads of brushes. There'll always be exceptions. But generally speaking, we all understand ourselves to either be right brain, left brain, kind of. Or what psychologists kind of would take that a step deeper and call it high in openness or high in conscientiousness. So that's kind of the terms that I'll kind of use from a personality standpoint. And so now you're seeing in the political arena, those that are high in openness, they are flocking to the Democratic Party. And the Democratic Party then is having to reflect their kind of personality comfort zone. Openness. They're open. They're open to many, many things. You have to make a very compassionately, succinct argument to get them to close their mind to something. And if you make an argument and it's not sufficiently addressing the emotional needs of the moment... they won't listen to the argument. And then if you do that, then there has to be enough substance to the argument to get them to kind of, huh, okay. It's hard for them to close their doors. So that's why pride movement has flocked to the Democratic Party and the Democratic Party has welcomed that with open arms because it's now a personality change. It's now a personality category change. red and blue, left and right, all these things. Republicans, that's where the high inconscientiousness, those that are analytical, they need... The Republican Party is the party of limiting factors. They need to understand what the boundaries are. They will go with an argument. They will go with an... including something as long as there's a rational boundary set to it to where it's beforehand it's defined where does this end where does this end so case in point um kind of the slogan of the 2010s was love is love this is what you would see on on uh kind of pro lgbtq commercials you know you see it on like pepsi commercials love is love and And so someone high in conscientiousness, okay, openness loves that because it's just like this wide open door to be like, yes, everything's okay. Now, those that are high in conscientiousness, they'll say, okay, love is love. Okay. But where are we going to set the boundary? Where does love stop? Like, And I think a perfectly reasonable limiting factor would be, okay, love is not love when a 30-year-old man looks at a 10-year-old girl. That's a limiting factor. Now, people that are high in conscientiousness, they need to hear that up front. They need to hear that up front. Those high in openness, they can get there, but they will get there through experience, right? They will get their kind of, they will face that when they have to. They don't want their doors to be closed until something typically, until something bad happens. And now they have to take into account that, okay, I have to include, I have to close myself off by a limiting factor. Because just at the end of the day, it's really like, this is what I'm learning. It's all boiling down to just our core personality differences. And we need both. We need people high in openness that are part of our public debate our public discourse and we need people high in conscientiousness now we used we used to be live in a kind of a society where that was pretty well understood it was pretty well understood and and to a large degree it was welcomed it was well okay you'd understand oh this is a right brain person and you'd or you kind of pre-announce it so this is kind of how i approach it and then then the kind of left brain person the artistic person okay perfect you're gonna you're going to help me like organize my thoughts and get them kind of more, more succinct. And you know what I mean? And vice versa. And then, you know, the right brain person would be like, okay, good. You're going to make me less boring. You know, you're going to help make my argument really pop with some, you know, some emotion and some, some artistry and things, you know, is like, I don't know. It just seemed to me like when I was growing up, it was, it was just understood that these two kind of personality size exists and you need both sides to get the best out of humanity. And now, so this is one of the fallouts as everything is being pushed into a policy, a political, meaning governments have to make policies now on way too many things, things that are so far beyond the... a policy agenda's ability. It's just you can't make a coherent policy on gender and sexuality. You just can't. It is beyond a policy purview. It breaks down at some point. So my kind of non-Christian, just societal take would be we need to remove gender and sexuality from a policy arena because There's no way you can create a policy that consistently upholds the needs of everybody when it comes to the question of gender and sexuality. We're already seeing the breakdowns. We're already seeing women's rights being eroded based on the advancement of transgender rights and things of that nature. It breaks down. So that's why you need a... another place to hash these kinds of things out. Society, obviously, we need to hash these things out, but we can't lean on policymakers to hash those things out for us. But that's just where we're at. And I'll talk about that in a second on the Christian side, but that's where we're at, Republicans and Democrats. We are now putting All the pressure on the policymakers to make the policy that matches our worldview convictions. And that's both sides. Huge, huge mistake, in my opinion. And you're kind of seeing Ron DeSantis is kind of elevating himself on the right as this kind of policy wonk when it comes to cultural issues. Like he's creating policies in Florida to address... the kind of Republican desires from a worldview standpoint. And it's like, God bless them for giving it a try, but it's, it all breaks down because it's just, these, these are subjects that should never be, we shouldn't be trying to make policy because policies have to be consistent. They have to be very articulate. They have to be very clear. I'm someone who writes a lot of policies. So, And a policy that I write has to include or have a space for every possible exception or every possible scenario that I might have to enforce the policy. It has to have language that encompasses all that. And so literally you get to a point of impossibility. But the American public, God bless us, we haven't arrived at that place yet or that conclusion yet. So we keep... leaning on our policymakers to to fix these problems for us which you know i believe started with abortion when we made a policy on abort like that's again in my opinion that would be a subject that should have never gone to policy now i understand why it did but the value of of human life and that the value of human life when human life begins like those those aren't Those aren't policy questions. Those are places that need to be defined and hashed out elsewhere. And then you take those definitions and you bring them and then you make sure that societal rules reflect that. But using policy to define when a fetus is a human, it's so backwards and it's so wrong. That's the... My real issue with abortion, we lost it completely the moment. We let these things be litigated through policy and judicial means. There has to be a place where humanity can come together and find definitions of things so vital like the constitution of life and gender, sexuality. There has to be another place. Obviously, as a Christian, I have my views of what that place is. Non-Christians would disagree, but I still make the case purely on a policy basis that policymakers is the last place. They're the last in the line of people that should be touching these subjects. Everything needs to be defined and agreed upon before it gets there. So anyways, I'll get off my soapbox there. So what we have is an all-encompassing political reality. And I mean, we demand too much of policymakers and there's too many questions that an elected official has to answer in order to get our vote. Those 1,000 things that we need to hear them speak about needs to go back to 10. There needs to be 10 things that a Democrat or Republican would need to speak about in order to gain our votes, in order for them to do their job effectively. That's the real problem that nobody's talking about. So if that makes any sense to you, please scream it from the mountaintops, you know, like I'm trying to do, because I... I think if we can become sober to some of these realities, we may have a chance as a national society. So what does that have to do with the church? So the church now, since we have a body politic that is divided in half based on personality, not policy prescriptions, it's now personality that drives who we vote for. I want to vote for someone, if you're high in openness, you want to vote for someone who's very open-minded, meaning all the slogans, all the things, all the pride stuff, everybody wins, everybody's sexuality is welcome, everything. And then if you're high in conscientiousness, you're looking to those that are putting strict, definitions through policy on how far different things can go. So now the church, we are mirroring that exact reality. And so how did that happen? Because here we're not supposed to be in the world. We're supposed to be in the world, not of the world. There's supposed to be some difference between We have the exact same division going on in the Christian church based on the exact same dynamics. We are now divided in the church largely by personality. Those high in openness, you're going to see them post that they're allies to the LGBTQ community. And I've talked to these people, and it's just like the greatest commandment is to love God, love one another. You have to define for me how being against homosexuality is loving. Like I said, you have to articulate. And in the Christian world, it's even harder because you have to be so high in compassion to even get someone to engage with you. And they have to believe that you're coming from a compassionate standpoint. Otherwise, they'll immediately blah, blah, blah, put... put fingers in their ears. They won't even listen to what you have to say unless they are completely convinced that compassion is what is pushing you. And that's not an easy thing. It's almost impossible online. So I do laugh at those that attempt online. And I've had to learn that the hard way myself. And so why? How did that happen in the church? How do we reflect the exact same divisions in the church that you see in the world? Well, this... I won't go too much into this, maybe that's a whole different conversation, but somewhere along the lines, the end of the 60s, end of the 70s, the church slowly started seeding ground for to the human institutions, little by little by little. And I have a whole theory on that and belief as to how that happened, but that's basically the timeline. So little by little, the American Christian Church, we started seeding turf that we used to just regard as Okay, the church will figure that out. The church will handle that. We start little by little looking to human institutions to solve these kinds of things. And I think even as basic as health care and education, those are two things that even health care, the Protestant Catholic Church, you've heard me say that it's not an accident that every hospital is a saint something or whatever. There was a belief within the religious community that that was our biblical duty to provide, that it was our calling to provide those services to society at large and education as well. I'm sure you've heard that the early public school was to teach kids to read so that they could read their Bible stuff. I believe that history to be you know, kind of overgeneralized, but, but largely accurate. Um, so we, these were like these large societal issues were for the large, long history of, of the United States. These were things that the, the church was just like, Hey, this is our way to serve our greater community. We, we handle this. We have. So little by little, you know, Those things are hard as society progresses. Think about an education in 2023 versus an education in 1823. The things that we expect kids to be able to know and to do nowadays versus 100 years ago, it's night and day. So it's understandable why we started seeding these things like, hey, we need to set up secular institutions to address these issues. But it's Whether you understand it or not, it starts a trend. It starts a trend of like, hey, we'll let professionals deal with those things. And that was fine as long as the church was doing its core biblical duty, which was sharing the gospel and engaging their local community. communities in the gospel of Jesus Christ that in the 70s was one is kind of the last switch that happened where we started assuming the gospel in a hope to be more more relevant more modern like be able to appeal to a wider variety of people we wanted to see We wanted to see drug dealers come to Christ. We wanted to see people at biker bars come to Christ. We wanted to see all the types of people that we saw Jesus ministering to in the Bible. We saw them in our modern society. And we're like, no, obviously Jesus wants those people to come to church. And that's not wrong thinking. It's not wrong thinking. It's just wrong trusting. It's putting your trust in it. we started kind of switching our messaging a little bit. Not that we threw the Bible and the Gospel out, but we started just assuming that the Gospel was being heard and received just because you're American. And the evangelism that I have done in my 20 plus years of being a Christian, I have found that there's Like where I live, I call where I live an unreached people group because when I talk to people, non-church people, and even within the church people, and I ask them like what's to just a roundabout way to give me an, you know, what's your understanding of the gospel message? Zero clue. Like it's a foreign language. And, you know, so I'm like, well, that's an unreached people group. Because to me, the definition of unreached people group is a group of people that have no awareness or concept of what the biblical gospel actually is. And so long story, sorry, long-winded explanation, it's a processing episode, so bear with me, but we started assuming the gospel more than teaching and preaching the gospel in an attempt to reach people where they were at. And, you know, just assuming, well, It's a church, so obviously they know the messaging that they're stepping into. We don't need to beat them over the head with it. There's some adjustment that needed to be made. I get it. Fundamental, traditional Christianity. There's always improvements to be made. You understand some of it, but the baby literally got thrown out with the bathwater in this one. So now, here we are... In a post-Christian society, largely at the fault of the church for not harnessing the authority we have in Christ through the message of the gospel, because the Bible is very clear. It is Romans 1.16. It is the power of God, the gospel. I'm not ashamed of it. It is the power of God. We have this power of God that's been given to us to just unleash on people, and the Bible is very clear. It will save. It will save. This message is so powerful, it will save. It just will. It's guaranteed to work. Now, it may not work to the ratio and degree that we want it to. We may want to have a crusade with 10,000 people and see 9,000 of them saved. That may not be the ratio of that particular episode, but you share the gospel in front of 10,000 people, there's going to be people that receive Christ. And it's just going to happen. Billy Graham proved that time and time and time and time again. So we let go of that power. And so we've been ceding ground to the human institutions. So now we Christians are just like our counterparts to where if there's a ill societal problem, we don't see that as a church problem. We don't see that as church territory. We will get just as politically engaged as a non-Christian. Both sides. Both sides. We'll complain about our enemies in the church and then we'll advocate for the political person that we think embodies our hobby horse in the argument. So So now the church looks exactly like the society at large. We have the exact same personality split. As I look at those that friends, dear friends of mine that are posting on Facebook and things, pride stuff, I'm an ally, you can count on me. They're all people that I know to be very high in openness. And thank God for their presence in the Christian church. Thank God for openness to be in the Christian church. Because like we said on a previous episode, the gospel is the most inclusive message in the history of the universe. It just is. So those that are high in openness help us really unlock some of its potential. Thank God for those that are high in conscientiousness. Because Love has a definition. Love has substance to it. It has some boundaries and it has some guidelines. It has some this and not that. So we need those high in conscientiousness. So again, if we were like 50 years, 70 years ago, and we both understood the need for one another, it creates a beautiful picture. But today, the exact opposite is happening. Our inherent God-designed personality differences are driving a huge wedge between us because we have assumed the gospel and we're not effectively ministering the gospel. And we have... put our trust in human institutions to fix societal ills as opposed to put trust in Christ through the power of the gospel to fix societal ills through non-sociopolitical, geopolitical means, just through the supernatural means of the spirit as the heart of man is transformed. So that's basically... That's the situation we're sitting in as I've been processing it. That's what I'm experiencing when I go online or when I talk to friends or whatever. So hopefully that just helps you know what you're wading through. You're not... If you're... If you're a pride ally and you're so frustrated by the dogmatic, conservative Christians that just, in your opinion, just hate people and refuse to love with the love of Christ, with the full grace of Christ, that's... That person's not your enemy. You need that perspective in order to make sure it is biblical love that we're enforcing. And then if you're, you know, the conservative Christian that just can't believe that we're compromising, you know, that these people will claim that they're Christians, but they're compromising and saying that they're an ally to the pride movement and things of that nature. Well, are you... how do you become a Christian? You know, it's like, what's the gospel then to you? Is it, you know, make sure you're the right sexuality first? No, obviously that's not the gospel. But what is then, then what makes the gospel inclusive? What makes the gospel inclusive? And those people that are high in openness, they're really good at relationships with people with alternative identities. mindsets they're really good we need people high in openness in the church because they're better than the conscientious ones at building authentic relationships with people with alternative thoughts and what one thing that i've learned and i say this all the time the gospel always rides best on the back of an authentic relationship always The gospel always rides best on the back of an authentic relationship. Open air preachers, like God uses it. I've seen, I've heard too many testimonies of people just hearing the gospel and they just repent and give their lives to Christ. So the power is the power. But over time, what has always been the most effective is an authentic relationship with another human being. And then the gospel is perfect. poured through that relationship and that's always the the most effective most effective strategy and so you need people high in openness in the church in order to be to have a strong evangelistic presence it's so it's this beautiful picture that if we could get out of our own way we could really be helping ourselves so that's just you know like whatever 30 minutes or whatever of just kind of backdrop, I think it's always helpful to help people understand what it is they're really up against, what it is they're really engaging. Because so much of what I see online, I'm just like, no, that's not it. And when I hear the debates and I'm just like, nope, that's not the issue at all. That's not the issue at all. And so that's why we continue to divide because we keep speaking and addressing things that aren't helpful at all. So, hope that helps, but to be more specific for you, here's a couple rules of engagement before we go, and who knows if you'll ever hear from me again. Number one, and again, this is just me observing and learning as I'm forced to engage in this topic. You need to define when you're engaging in the pride movement whether you're an ally or you're an adversary whatever it is you have to define what aspect of pride you are dealing with okay specifically if you're trying to make a societal argument for the way society should be managed and the way society should be governed We need societal debate. We need these arguments to be made. We need them to be fleshed out. It'd be great if we fleshed these out somewhere before, you know, we asked a voted member of Congress to figure it out for us. But, you know, anyways, I'll get off that soapbox. But so pride, like everything, it encompasses too much. So I have no clue. What I've learned is pride. if when I'm looking at my friend who's being an ally of pride, I have no clue what exactly they're allying. And I don't think oftentimes they've really thought through what they're allying because I think they'd be a little more specific in their posts. Like pride means so much now. It means so much. Typically, if you're high in openness, what you're an ally to is pride. understanding that we all have different sin conditions, and we all have different ways that we've been wired, and there are people that just authentically have same-sex attraction or whatever it may be. There's an authentic reality that we've all seen, that we've all experienced in our lifetime, I saw it when I was in high school. Some friends of mine, it was just obvious. There is something non-traditional about the way you process sexuality. It's clear, and it's not something that they necessarily chose. It's something that's just been with them. And so there's... Oftentimes, the Christian pride allies are just like, the church needs to be a place to where those people can find a home as well. That's not a bad desire. That's not. Now, to people high in conscientiousness where there needs to be clear definition and direction about what exactly are we accepting? What exactly is trying to find a home here? When they engage in pride, they see cross-dress, crazy, sexualized maniacs trying to dance and gyrate genitals in front of three-year-olds. That's what I see on the conscientious side, where they're so nervous about like, what is it that we're actually welcoming into our communities here? That's what they're speaking out against. So here you got this one kind of huge category of pride, and you've got two completely different, like they're not even addressing and thinking about the same picture, the same vision, the same issue, but yet they're having an argument online to validate their points when they're not even talking about the same thing. They're not even there. It's a conversation that shouldn't even be had because it would be like me arguing with somebody that's like an orange tastes bitter and the other person is arguing with me that an apple is too sweet, it's okay. I wouldn't have that argument because literally we're not arguing about the same thing as apples and oranges, two different things. And so that's what happens oftentimes when conservative Christian engages and where kind of liberal, open Christian engages when it comes to pride. They're not... They're not even articulating. They're not even talking about the same subject because pride is too big. It's like everything. It's encompassed too much. It's been hijacked by too many agendas. So, again, clarity is kindness. Just lead with questions. So, hey, if you want to engage and have a meaningful conversation, say, hey, when you're... When you're, say you're an ally to pride, what is it that you're allying with? What is it, you know, what are you trying to accomplish? You know what I mean? And really listen to what part of this movement they're trying to accentuate. And say, if you're one of those pride allies and you're really struggling with those, you know, fundamental Christians that are just pig-headed and closed-minded and hateful, just be like, what, you know, have that question. What, What is it that you're concerned with here? Talk to me. And you're going to find out 99 times out of 100 that you're not talking about the same thing. So super, super important to define what aspect of pride you are dealing with, even in your own thoughts. When you're reading stuff online, you're reading newspaper articles or online articles or whatever, and you're ticked off reading it like, okay, what is it that they're actually addressing? What is it that I'm concerned about? I need you to be open to the fact that you're probably not even, the article's probably not even talking about what you're talking about. So that's kind of something that we have to do now. So that's the first thing. Two, again, this is for us Christians, correct with the gospel only, and allow yourself to be corrected by the gospel only. So, if you're going to make an argument for your side, make sure that the way you articulate the argument agrees with the gospel. And then, be open to any rebuttal that says, well, hold on, doesn't the gospel also mean this? And if you hear that and it rings true based on your understanding of the Bible, well, then make sure that that rebuttal is included in your new position. I hope that makes sense. I hope that's pretty clear. So correct with the gospel only. So the first point was There's a difference between societal arguments. Those can be had outside of the church. Those arguments, those conversations need to be had. And then there's the biblical debate, the progressive versus conservative Christian debate. That's what I'm addressing in the second point. That... You have to make sure that your position, whether progressive or conservative, agrees with the gospel of Jesus Christ. And if someone brings up a point of the gospel or an implication of the gospel that you haven't considered yet, you need to adjust your position. The gospel is the authority, not you, not me, not conservative, not progressive. If we would all pledge allegiance to the gospel of Jesus Christ, we'd be... the Christian church would be reflecting something much different. But we don't. We pledge allegiance to our preferred personality bend, and then we try to twist. We don't twist, we're selective in the passages that we include in our arguments. That's what typically happens, is we have a preferred position that we would like to win the argument against, And then we love the passages that back that up. And I've just learned, you know, the gospel's the whole counsel, so your position needs to reflect the whole thing, okay? So correct with the gospel and allow yourself to be corrected with the gospel. And then the last thing, since my friend, who knows who she is, asked specifically about, you know, the targets and the bud lights and all this stuff. All I'll say on that is we're allowed to live our conscience privately, but we need to be consistent publicly. Live your conscience privately, meaning give your money to whoever you want to. If Target's lost your trust because they've gone a step too far societally for your, then don't give them your money. You don't Trust Bud Light anymore. Don't give me your money. You have full room to spend your money in Christendom, however, according to your conscience. So that's what I say privately. You now are like, man, it's tough for me to walk into that store or this store or whatever. Don't walk into them. That's your call. However, publicly, there's a different dynamic. Now, if you're going to go out and announce to the world, I will no longer shop at Target, buy Nikes, drink Bud Light, whatever else, watch Disney. If that is now going to be a public declaration that you're going to try to influence others into, well, now you've got to be consistent. Now you've got to be consistent. And I'm just telling you... That's a hard standard to hold in a fallen world. It's a really hard standard because you're going to find yourself walking around with no clothes on, eating no food, and enjoying zero entertainment. Because if you're going to apply the biblical purity litmus test to the fallen world, good luck. Good luck. Like I said, privately, if some organizations have taken steps too far that you're just like, man, I'm just... Or, you know, as a parent with your children, like, yeah, you have to manage the exposure your children have. So if Disney has lost your confidence, cancel it. Cancel it. It's fine. But the moment you take that public and now you're going to do a declaration about the moral failings of Disney... Well, in order for you to be a solid witness, that standard has to be consistently applied. There's a thing called Twitter now. They know the sins of every single organization. So, yeah, if you're not going to wear Nikes in favor of Adidas, good luck with that. Good luck with that. So... Um, because the second you make that public, you're going to learn real quick. It's going to be thrown back in your face. All the, all the, the stuff that Adidas is involved in and, and things, things of that nature. And so it just, that's, so I'm, I don't, as hopefully you know by now, I don't get involved in that stuff publicly, but, but privately, I, I, I definitely have, have convictions on certain things just about, um, how I'm comfortable and confident using my money and things of that nature and the influences that I put around my children. And I am well within my rights before God to exercise that however I see fit. They're the children that God gave me. It's the money that God gave me. I have to steward it well. I have to give an answer myself, not answer for what anybody else is doing. All right, so... So be consistent the second you want to try to make it kind of a public persuasive reality. Okay, well, I think that's it for me. That's my best attempt to process pride. I just jotted some thoughts down in about five minutes because I want it to be pretty authentic off the top of my head. But hopefully that helps you as you kind of think through this stuff. But yeah. Man, I appreciate whoever's been with me through these years. Who knows what the future holds? You may or may not hear from me anytime soon. I literally have no clue. I have no definite plans right now. I'm just kind of taking it case by case. I know there's some significant thoughts in writing that I have to do. in my primary ministry, so I'm going to get that done, and then who knows where the Lord will lead from there, but I love you guys, and I'll leave the library up, this is episode 77, and so there's 77 episodes of a wide range of topics, it does bless my socks off when I log back into my podcast, and I see that People are still listening, still downloading. So please share. I think some of the stuff that we've engaged in, even though it was kind of current events, the wisdom, I hope, was timeless. All right. That's it for now, guys. Love you. And as always, until next time, Christian Well, everyone, have an incredible, incredible day.

SPEAKER_01: 58:13

He taught me how to live my life as it should be. He taught me how to turn my cheek when people laugh at me. I've had friends before, and I can tell you that he's one who will never leave you flat.