John Cooper: Navigating Truth in a Confused World

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I think the American church is sort of unknowingly polytheistic.

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Christ is Lord of the heavens, man is Lord of the earth.

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And so we're looking to whatever secular society tells us is the way that we have to do justice.

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John Cooper, it's great to have you here on Charisma News to be able to talk about your

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book Wimpy, Weak and Woke.

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And I just got to say that title alone reminds me of this saying, and I forget who first

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said it.

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You probably actually have quoted this in your book, but hard times create strong men.

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Strong men create good times.

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Good times create weak men.

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Weak men create hard times.

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And that cycle just continues over and over again in world history.

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And right now we are in the midst of a generation where I can, sadly I have to say it, where

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we are wimpy, weak and woke as a generation.

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And I know myself and guys like you and some of our friends, we're trying to stand up,

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but sometimes it feels like we're all alone with that.

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But let's just talk about your book and the message that you have with that.

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So thanks for being here on Charisma News.

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Well, thanks John.

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I'm glad that we got to do this, you know, but for people watching, they don't know behind

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the scenes we met a few months ago and a handful of months ago and we were talking about doing

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it and we're finally doing it.

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And it's great and that is a really fantastic quote.

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It's so absolutely true.

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I think most people at this point, I think most people would recognize that as being

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true, you know, even a handful of months ago when we met back in April, there were still

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people that were still like unsure.

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Yeah.

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That when we talk about the insanity of the world, like the kind of impending destruction

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that could happen to America like that, there are still people saying, I think that's a

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little alarmist.

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That's a little, you know, culture worry.

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And I think we're to the place now that most people are like, okay, yeah, things are pretty

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weird.

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Yeah.

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And, you know, if you, if you have a kid, people watching, if they have children and

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your kids have come home from school with like a gender unicorn or something or with

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information where they were taught there's 32 plus genders or your son can actually be

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a girl if he wants to or that your gender fluid or that there are drag queens coming

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into the school, what's happened with the conflict with Israel and Palestine.

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And then the subsequent amount of Americans or even people in Western civilization, the

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shocking amount of people really on the side of Hamas in the conflict or doing this sort

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of like a kind of moral equivalency, but from like just the terrorism of Hamas.

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And then, well, yeah, but you really are dealing with Israel and occupation, colonialism, things

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like that.

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All of these things happening, we're all going, what in the world's going on and we could keep

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going.

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We haven't talked about crime that's happening or globalization or a one world socialist

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government.

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We haven't even talked about that.

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Most people see these things happening now and they're just saying what's going on.

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And I wanted to write a book that encapsulated all of those things under the rubric, if I

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could, of being wimpy, weak and woke.

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And the subtitle of the book is How Truth Can Save America From Utopian Destruction.

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Because really to me, all this is under the rubric of utopianism in one form or the other.

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Well, I find it interesting that people are looking for a utopia, but as you look at the

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history of that word and what it actually means is it literally translates to nowhere.

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People are looking for this utopia, but it's nowhere.

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It's nowhere to be found because we're looking away from the cross.

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If you're trying to look for your own version of paradise, that utopia is nowhere because

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we're not united around the cross.

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When you're united around the cross of Jesus Christ, you can find that utopia or that paradise

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that God has created for all of us in heaven.

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And that we're supposed to be advancing His kingdom here on earth and to be His representatives.

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But I find it really interesting that it's nowhere.

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Yeah, it's a great… it's so wonderful because I've been writing it in my book and I was

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showing it to a couple of people.

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Only a few people had read it when I was finishing it.

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I was showing it to my drummer.

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She was like… my drummer in my band skill.

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And she was like, I didn't know that utopia meant nowhere.

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And I said, that's the irony of the thing.

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You know, is there's this…

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I mean, the two things we should recognize when she just mentioned.

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Number one, we all long for utopia, don't we?

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We all long for a… is there ever going to be a time when there is actual peace, love,

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joy, justice, and all the wrongs will be made right?

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Is that a possibility?

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The Bible says that God has put eternity in the hearts of men.

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We know we're supposed to be living for forever, for that eternal state.

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The problem is that we cannot get to that place without Jesus Christ.

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The good news is that Christ has made a way for us to live forever in love, joy, peace,

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the Kingdom of God.

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You know, the Bible says, righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit is the Kingdom

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of God.

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Well, that's what we have waiting for us and that's really wonderful.

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The other side of the coin that I think we should just mention as we start, the world

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right now is so desperate for utopian now, so heaven on earth, basically.

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If you understand their worldview, it begins to make sense of what they're doing because

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they don't believe that humans are born into sin.

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They don't think that humans need a savior.

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They think that we're actually capable of perfection.

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It's the reason that when you see progressivism and things, you know, and sometimes people

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say, John, how come they're just letting criminals back out?

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How come they don't want to punish people or they don't think they really did anything

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wrong?

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It's not their fault.

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It's society's fault.

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Why do they do that?

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That is all to do with what they believe is the perfect ability of man.

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The only reason somebody steals something from somebody else is because society has traumatized

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them in one way or the other.

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Maybe they were born into a bad family situation or whatever it may be.

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They were deprived.

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They were traumatized.

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They were abused.

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They were oppressed.

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That's the only reason that people do anything wrong.

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If you just fix their oppression and you just make sure they have everything they need,

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economically, emotionally, whatever, then humans are going to stop doing bad things

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to each other and then we've ushered in utopia.

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They don't understand that sin is bound up in the heart of a child of Bible says, we

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are born into this and we need a savior.

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That's what, of course, Jesus Christ did for us when he died on the cross.

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Absolutely.

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As we're talking about this whole concept of utopia, I'm reminded of the song Imagine

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by John Lennon, which I think it's very ironic that anytime that there's a world tragedy

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or normally it's celebrities that like to get around and make videos about this song.

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There's no rich.

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There's no poor.

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There's no heaven.

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There's no hell.

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All these different things.

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It's like none of this actually sounds good if you think about it.

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That's a nice little melody, but people are very easily able to just get caught up in

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the flow or actually I'm going to call it the winds of doctrine, the winds of false doctrine

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because something sounds nice or it's put in a nice package.

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I think that that's what this whole woke agenda is all about.

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The Bible says that the devil goes around like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour.

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If we're not accepting the fact that there is a devil out there that wants to kill still

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and destroy us, then we're not ready to defend ourselves whenever that attack comes to our

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doorsteps.

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Absolutely.

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I think that's absolutely right.

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In fact, maybe that's a good springboard for me to define what I mean when I say wimpy

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week in woke because I think that encapsulates a little bit of what you're saying.

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Let me explain.

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I know it's a provocative title.

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Every time somebody says it, it makes me laugh.

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Every time somebody says, what's the name of the book?

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I started laughing when I say it, wimpy week in woke and people are triggered one way or

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the other.

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They either really love it or they're half offended or they're super offended.

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Here's what I mean by that.

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I say we are wimpy because I think that I'm really talking to Christians mainly, but I

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am talking, I mean, there's such a correlation between our culture and then what is happening

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that I believe is wrong in the church because the culture is so influencing the church right

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now and it's supposed to be the way around.

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It's supposed to be the light of Christ that we are sought and light into the world.

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Right now what's happening is these secular ideologies are infecting us.

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I say that we're wimpy.

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Why are we wimpy?

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Because we have decided that we want to be winsome more than we want to tell the truth.

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That is absolutely horrible.

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Now we see that in the church right now because the church doesn't want to say things that

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are true or afraid we may offend the world.

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We want to try to win the world so we're not going to talk about lots of stuff, hell, sex,

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gender, you name it, we're not talking about it because we don't want to offend people.

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It's happening in the world as well though, even in our schools, which is the reason that

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you're not allowed to have, like you go to colleges, you won't be able to have actual

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discussions about things like gender theory, sexuality, social justice.

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If any of your opinions are in line with traditional Christianity, your opinions will not be welcome

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in there because they're harmful opinions.

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So we become wimpy and what that's made the church do is that we think that Jesus was

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wimpy and it's caused us to be apologetic about who God is, apologetic about the character

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of God, which is a shocking thing.

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We have become weak.

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What does weak mean?

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Weak means we have become philosophically and theologically weak.

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We do not know what's come before us.

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We do not understand political philosophy.

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We don't understand worldview.

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And so we just start saying things that we don't know are absolutely ridiculous because

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we just don't know the Bible nor do we understand the world that we've grown up and it's actually

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hurting people because as you said, it's actually strength that leads to a peaceful world when

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you were talking about the quote earlier about the circle of weak and strong men.

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So that's why we're weak.

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And here's what I mean when I say woke and I say this because I get pushed back from

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Christians and they say, I'm sorry, but my God says I'm supposed to take care of the

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poor.

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And I say, of course we're supposed to take care of the poor.

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That's a command from the Lord.

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I don't know any Christians that actually disbelieve we are supposed to help feed the

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poor in the need.

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What being woke is, as you just alluded to, it's secular social justice and it creates

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an entire world based not on biblical righteousness or biblical wickedness, but it creates a

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world based on power, power and oppression.

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And so it creates these new groups of oppressed people that's not actually accurate to biblical

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justice or even to what I would say like the American constitution or how many people are

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looking at it like that.

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But it creates these brand new categories of who is oppressed and then what happens is

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because the Christian is weak philosophically and theologically, the Christian can no longer

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discern what is right and wrong.

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What is moral?

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What am I supposed to stand up for?

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And so when the world says no, that trans person, that is the person who is oppressed,

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then the Christian goes, well, Jesus says I'm supposed to take care of the oppressed.

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And the world just told me that the trans person is oppressed.

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That means I need to be fighting for trans rights.

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And that's why you get Christians as we speak, well, not as we speak because this is coming

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out later, but what has just happened here recently isn't an unprecedented amount of

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Christians making moral equivalency between what Hamas did to Israel as they butchered

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babies, they beheaded babies, they raped, gang raped women, they're stealing children.

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And you have Christians say, well, yeah, but also Israel is an occupier nation and they've

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been oppressed for 70 years, and of course that's their procedure.

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Anybody that calls themselves a Christian and doesn't know that the Bible is basically

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the deed to that land for the children of Israel, then we've got a bigger issue that's

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called biblical illiteracy.

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Yes, we have a lot of—

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Actually the land of Israel that the Bible talks about is supposed to be even larger

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than what it is on the map today.

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And there's another conversation about why Israel hasn't reached its potential yet, but

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the deed is in the Word of God.

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And so illiterate Christians aren't reading the Word of God, and if they're calling Israel

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the occupying nation.

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There's really a lot to unpack there.

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But I think the biggest point that's on my mind is we saw this happen with COVID.

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We saw it happen with the BLM riots.

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We saw it happen with just with so many things when Christians are very confused about morality.

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And so that is what happens, I think.

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That's what I call wokeness.

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It is secular political correctness on steroids, and it really actually leads to a society

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that is actually not more just.

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It is less just.

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And not only is it less just, it actually hurts the very people they say they care about

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the most.

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That's who actually it hurts the most.

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And we saw that, I believe, as you look at the statistics, as you look at what the BLM

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protests and riots actually did, it has led to now is a 29% rise in homicides in America

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from 2019 to now 29% rise in homicides disproportionately happening in major cities, which are disproportionately

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people of color are the ones suffering the most from this, from the BLM stuff, from the

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defund the police stuff, to the letting people out of prisons, to what do they call it, no

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cash bail and all this.

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It's just hurting the very people they say they care about.

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So we're in a moment right now where the Christian has to stand up for biblical justice whilst

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being called unjust from the world, because the world has reached that place, like we

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see in the book of Isaiah, woe to those who trade evil for good and good for evil who

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cast light for darkness and darkness for light.

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That's the 2020s.

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And if you stand up, if you stand up for truth, you're going to be called a bigot.

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And that's just the way it is.

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But that we do it anyway, because we don't do it to please the world.

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We do it to obey Christ.

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Yeah.

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You mentioned that term bigot.

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People don't want to be called a bigot.

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And that is something that actually, I believe, is one of the things that starts people down

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a path to deconstruction, leaving the faith.

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And they're really not looking for the truth.

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They're just looking for a way out.

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And I've had some friends that have gone down that path and haven't come back yet, and I'm

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praying for them.

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But it seems that as you deconstruct your faith, you get more into these strange ideologies.

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And we'll talk about that in a little bit, because I know, especially with Hegel, I'd

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like to talk about that, because that's one I'm not familiar with so much.

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But let's just talk about deconstruction, because I know that that's an issue that you

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care about greatly as well.

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And so that's something that we need to know why we believe what we believe.

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And it's OK to ask questions, but you got to know where to get the answers from.

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So let's talk about some deconstruction issues here.

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Oh, yeah.

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I'd love to.

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And jumping on what you just said and tying it back into why I'm so passionate about writing

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this book.

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If we are weak philosophically, if we don't understand what came before us in biblical

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worldview, then we won't understand this very important thing.

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And it is that the world's philosophies are always going to be at odds with biblical morality.

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It's always going to be.

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The reason that so many Christians didn't know that, frankly, is because we grew up

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in an amazing country.

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We grew up in a country that was experiencing the benefits, the fruits of a Christian worldview.

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We are a nation that was built on Christian morality, the Bible.

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And it was so in our DNA that 20 years ago, 30 years ago, maybe even 10 years ago to a

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degree, even atheists had a sort of Christian worldview.

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I don't mean that they were saved, but we kind of agreed on what was right and wrong.

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And so when I was growing up, my friends that were Christians, they would sin.

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They would get drunk.

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They would have sex outside of marriage.

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They do all the things that sinners do.

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But never once did I hear anybody ever say that they were quote unquote being virtuous

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or living their best life or that they were somehow a good person for doing this.

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They were like, hey, I know it's maybe not the best thing, but I don't care.

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It feels good.

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This is the way I want to live my life.

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Now it's changed.

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And so what I think happened with deconstruction, Christians were not used to the idea that

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the world was going to hate us.

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Now we should be, because Jesus said that to his disciples, don't be surprised when

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the world hates you.

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They hate you because they hated me first.

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Get over it.

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But we didn't know that because the world didn't hate us.

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They looked at us as the goody-gooders, like, well, I know what they're doing is right.

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I just don't have the discipline to live like that, they might say, or I don't have

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the whatever to live like that.

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And so what happens for the, I understand this in the 2010s, the Christians started

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going, wait a minute, my friends are calling me the bad person.

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And I'm not used to being the bad person.

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I'm used to being the goody-gooder.

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I'm the good guy that does the nice stuff.

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And I'm the Jesus guy and I treat my friends good and I help the poor.

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I'm the one that's nice.

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Now they're calling me the bigot because I don't support whatever.

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Maybe 2013 it was same-sex marriage, so-called same-sex marriage.

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I don't want to support that or I don't support abortion or I don't support whatever.

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I don't support this whole transgender, radical gender theory being taught to children in

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schools.

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I don't support the drag queen stuff.

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All of a sudden, if you're a Christian, you are enemy number one.

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And Christians, I understand why, who were not really grounded in the word, began to

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say, I don't know what to do about this.

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Maybe there's a way.

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I can still say that I'm a Christian, but also be liked by the world.

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And they started going on and Googling, looking for any voice that could tell them, basically

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could affirm what they wanted to be true.

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And there was a lot of those voices.

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There was, back then it was Rob Bell and that whole movement.

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That group that sort of was, they sort of led us into the progressive Christian movement.

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You can't remember their names right now.

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But that's sort of what led into that.

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And I understand why Christians followed down that path because we were not used to being

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hated.

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So I went a different way.

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I went on the, wait a minute, what's going on?

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People, Christians are saying crazy things.

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Rob Bell was saying crazy things and people are like, he's the new, he's the new great

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Christian leader.

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And he was one of the people saying, really, it's not biblical to believe in hell.

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It's not biblical to believe in like judgment of God.

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God's not a God of judgment.

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He's kind of love only.

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And so I started going, there's something deeply wrong with this.

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And I started digging into the word of God.

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And I will tell you, from 2013 to 2018, I became much more sure of what the book of Proverbs

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says, the end of Proverbs says, every word of God proves true.

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I became more sure of that than I'd always believed that.

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But as I started looking into it and I started seeing the results of people deconstructing

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and I started seeing the results of me studying the word of God, I started going, oh my gosh,

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the Bible is even more true than I ever thought it was.

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And God began to give me such a passion for truth and a passion to speak about it so that

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people don't get destroyed.

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Yeah.

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You know, there's a big push for this deconstruction thing still.

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And it's more and more popular.

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I know a lot of people that were former Christians that are on YouTube, it's almost like a big

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thing for them to share their coming out testimony as a deconstructionist.

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It's very trendy and it's almost compassionate to do that in a lot of ways.

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They try to make it come out that way.

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But we are supposed to know why we believe what we believe and it's important.

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And I can't remember who I talked to recently about this.

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But they said, it's okay to deconstruct a little bit but let your faith be built up.

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Don't look for just a way out but say what are the things that you're looking for?

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What are the questions that you have that are causing you to go down this path?

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Write down those questions.

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Put it in a book somewhere because if you just have all these ambiguous questions or

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thoughts and you're not actually getting the answers to those things, then you're going

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to stay in this state of confusion.

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And God is not the author of confusion.

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He doesn't want anybody to be out there lost in the world.

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Jesus came to seek and save that which it was lost.

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And if we are allowing ourselves to just be caught up in this, it's okay to not know.

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Well figure out some answers.

363
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Write down the questions that you actually have.

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Anybody that's dealing with wanting to deconstruct, write those questions down.

365
00:23:48,720 --> 00:23:56,080
I just want to give some clarity to that because their answers are in the book.

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Go to the right people.

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Talk to the right people and they will help you for sure.

368
00:24:00,920 --> 00:24:03,120
Yeah, I think that's a good point.

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I just remember the name of the church.

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It was called the Emergent Church.

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That's what the movement was called, just to clarify that.

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And yeah, I think, yeah, write the questions down as you just said.

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And I think it's really important for people so that we are all not weak philosophically.

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People should be reminded that any crazy, psychotic, the most demented thought you could

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ever have, you will find somebody on the internet that will affirm that thought.

376
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Okay?

377
00:24:36,160 --> 00:24:37,160
Very true.

378
00:24:37,160 --> 00:24:45,240
So, I mean, right now we have people giving reasons why it's okay for, again, to be able

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not to keep going back to the well of Hamas and Israel, but there are people giving reasons

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why it's okay that they went and butchered babies.

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You're finding people right now say why it is okay to, let's see, give a, to cut the

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00:25:02,440 --> 00:25:08,200
healthy breast off of a 14-year-old girl so that she can try and become a man, all right?

383
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I'm not trying to be shocking to cut the genitals off of a 15-year-old boy so that he can identify

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as a woman.

385
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In fact, they're not only saying that it's okay, they're saying that you're a bigot.

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If you, if you, what I just said is bigoted to them.

387
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You will find somebody that will agree with you.

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So I would say this, don't go trying to find somebody to agree with you.

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Find out what the Bible says about it.

390
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You need to pay attention to who you're listening to because the enemy, the devil, hates your

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guts.

392
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He wants to ruin your life.

393
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He wants to, he doesn't need you to say, I no longer believe in God.

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He doesn't care if you believe in God or even if you believe in Jesus.

395
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He wants to take you away from the truth so that you become ineffective for the gospel,

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so that you do not believe that the Bible is real, so that you can become your own God,

397
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so that your own opinions will become more supreme to you than the opinion of Almighty

398
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God in the Bible.

399
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That's what he wants to do.

400
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So sure, write those things down.

401
00:26:11,520 --> 00:26:13,160
It's okay to ask questions.

402
00:26:13,160 --> 00:26:14,400
You need to pay attention.

403
00:26:14,400 --> 00:26:17,320
You need to like, there's an old Amy Grant song when I was growing up.

404
00:26:17,320 --> 00:26:20,480
You got to know who and who not to listen to.

405
00:26:20,480 --> 00:26:25,400
That's pretty good advice because there's a lot of people that want to ruin your life.

406
00:26:25,400 --> 00:26:31,240
And there's a lot of these philosophies that are out there in different thoughts and thought

407
00:26:31,240 --> 00:26:32,240
leaders.

408
00:26:32,240 --> 00:26:37,760
And you mentioned one about Hegel, H-E-G-E-L, Hegel's formula of synthesis.

409
00:26:37,760 --> 00:26:42,240
That's something that I don't think I've ever heard of, but I'm pretty sure that I've

410
00:26:42,240 --> 00:26:45,960
seen the effects of that in our culture today.

411
00:26:45,960 --> 00:26:49,960
Let's talk about that a little bit because that seems a bit out there for me.

412
00:26:49,960 --> 00:26:50,960
You know what?

413
00:26:50,960 --> 00:26:54,120
It is so important, and I've hardly talked about this in any interviews because the

414
00:26:54,120 --> 00:26:57,240
book covers so many things.

415
00:26:57,240 --> 00:26:58,920
This is so very important.

416
00:26:58,920 --> 00:27:03,440
So Hegel was a German philosopher.

417
00:27:03,440 --> 00:27:06,200
Hegel was before Karl Marx.

418
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In fact, Karl Marx, when he was in college, there was a group of guys, they all got together

419
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and they called themselves the young Hegelians.

420
00:27:16,200 --> 00:27:20,760
They were disciples of this philosopher called Hegel.

421
00:27:20,760 --> 00:27:25,080
Hegel is really the one that kind of came up with this idea.

422
00:27:25,080 --> 00:27:28,240
Some people have heard of it when they maybe studied Marx.

423
00:27:28,240 --> 00:27:33,920
And the idea, he calls it thesis, antithesis, and synthesis.

424
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And all that it means is this.

425
00:27:35,560 --> 00:27:42,480
Basically, if you take something, you take a thesis and then you take its opposite, say,

426
00:27:42,480 --> 00:27:50,240
which is your antithesis, and then you synthesize those ideas together into something new.

427
00:27:50,240 --> 00:27:54,480
The idea with Hegel that a lot of people don't really know, and the reason I covered it in

428
00:27:54,480 --> 00:28:00,600
the book, it's so very interesting, is that Hegel was actually very interested in a lot

429
00:28:00,600 --> 00:28:05,440
of really, we call it alchemy, you can call it magic if you want to.

430
00:28:05,440 --> 00:28:08,160
Many and things like that at the time.

431
00:28:08,160 --> 00:28:12,320
And this idea, I don't expect a whole lot of Christians know a lot about alchemy.

432
00:28:12,320 --> 00:28:15,400
I didn't know anything about alchemy until I started studying this to understand what

433
00:28:15,400 --> 00:28:16,560
it was.

434
00:28:16,560 --> 00:28:21,920
This idea of creating the Sorcerer's stones and all this kind of stuff is that you take

435
00:28:21,920 --> 00:28:30,960
an element and then you take a different element and you try to, you put them in the cauldron

436
00:28:30,960 --> 00:28:31,960
or whatever.

437
00:28:31,960 --> 00:28:36,320
And the idea is that you are putting these elements in together.

438
00:28:36,320 --> 00:28:38,440
They were melded into one.

439
00:28:38,440 --> 00:28:44,740
And if they melded into one, it's not like you're burning one element up completely.

440
00:28:44,740 --> 00:28:47,080
So it's not like you're getting rid of one.

441
00:28:47,080 --> 00:28:54,800
So if you think about it, if they burn into something new, then they both, how do you

442
00:28:54,800 --> 00:28:56,240
want to say it?

443
00:28:56,240 --> 00:28:58,680
You're burning both of them, but they both stay in.

444
00:28:58,680 --> 00:28:59,680
Does that make sense?

445
00:28:59,680 --> 00:29:01,520
So you're not getting one element.

446
00:29:01,520 --> 00:29:03,800
They're both still the same.

447
00:29:03,800 --> 00:29:09,280
And that's how he came up with this idea of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis.

448
00:29:09,280 --> 00:29:16,480
And when I look at that, this idea of magic, that is where, to me, we are in the 2020s.

449
00:29:16,480 --> 00:29:21,800
Everything in the 2020s is a synthesis of contradictions.

450
00:29:21,800 --> 00:29:25,520
And it's the reason we are so absolutely confused.

451
00:29:25,520 --> 00:29:28,400
It's the reason that we see progressives.

452
00:29:28,400 --> 00:29:32,160
They go on TV and they yell about women's rights.

453
00:29:32,160 --> 00:29:37,680
But then you see the very same progressives say that men can be pregnant.

454
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Men can have periods.

455
00:29:39,240 --> 00:29:42,320
And they can't define what a woman actually is.

456
00:29:42,320 --> 00:29:47,480
And so all of us normal people are going, you can't say you're fighting for women's

457
00:29:47,480 --> 00:29:51,160
rights and also you can't define what a woman is.

458
00:29:51,160 --> 00:29:54,760
You can't do both of those things at the same time, yet they are.

459
00:29:54,760 --> 00:29:56,280
So we see the same thing on abortion.

460
00:29:56,280 --> 00:29:59,880
You're trying to use it when Roe got overturned.

461
00:29:59,880 --> 00:30:02,240
They say, this is an attack on women.

462
00:30:02,240 --> 00:30:05,320
You're taking away their rights and the patriarchy.

463
00:30:05,320 --> 00:30:11,840
But at the same time, the same people are fighting for biological men to play women's

464
00:30:11,840 --> 00:30:12,840
sports.

465
00:30:12,840 --> 00:30:16,520
Or in some cases, they're taking their jobs away and things like that.

466
00:30:16,520 --> 00:30:23,440
Because in that sense, a trans person is higher up on the level of the oppression ladder or

467
00:30:23,440 --> 00:30:24,680
the victimized ladder.

468
00:30:24,680 --> 00:30:27,080
And they're looked at as more of a victim than women are.

469
00:30:27,080 --> 00:30:31,840
So in a patriarchal society, the same people saying, it's patriarchal and you're hurting

470
00:30:31,840 --> 00:30:37,000
women, those same people want to hurt women in order to lift trans people up.

471
00:30:37,000 --> 00:30:39,600
All of these things are a contradiction.

472
00:30:39,600 --> 00:30:42,040
But they never jettison one of the ideas.

473
00:30:42,040 --> 00:30:45,440
They just keep trying to blur them together.

474
00:30:45,440 --> 00:30:51,560
And this is where this idea of Marx, Marx's kind of version of utopia comes in.

475
00:30:51,560 --> 00:30:54,000
So Marx says, okay, so here's what we need.

476
00:30:54,000 --> 00:30:59,520
We need a revolution of the working class against the business owners.

477
00:30:59,520 --> 00:31:02,200
Because his whole thing was economic, of course.

478
00:31:02,200 --> 00:31:07,840
And so if we have that revolution, then what's going to happen is that man is going to then

479
00:31:07,840 --> 00:31:11,520
be melded into a new super being.

480
00:31:11,520 --> 00:31:13,960
And a lot of people don't know this about Karl Marx.

481
00:31:13,960 --> 00:31:16,120
All they know about is his economics.

482
00:31:16,120 --> 00:31:18,320
But it's a religion.

483
00:31:18,320 --> 00:31:27,000
It's a very spiritual idea that if this revolution occurs, man is going to recreate himself into

484
00:31:27,000 --> 00:31:28,880
a new super being.

485
00:31:28,880 --> 00:31:33,440
And that new super being is not going to want to own things.

486
00:31:33,440 --> 00:31:36,840
That new super being is not going to try to steal from his neighbor.

487
00:31:36,840 --> 00:31:37,840
Why?

488
00:31:37,840 --> 00:31:38,840
Because he's a new being.

489
00:31:38,840 --> 00:31:40,520
He has no more needs anymore.

490
00:31:40,520 --> 00:31:43,640
So this idea of utopia is very mystical.

491
00:31:43,640 --> 00:31:51,240
And since Karl Marx, they took those ideas, of course, into what we call neo-Marxism.

492
00:31:51,240 --> 00:31:57,520
And that just basically says the same thing as Karl Marx, except with sex, gender, you

493
00:31:57,520 --> 00:32:01,640
name it, you know, all the things we see now, race and all the things happening.

494
00:32:01,640 --> 00:32:02,640
That's all based on that.

495
00:32:02,640 --> 00:32:10,240
So really, we are living in a very Hegelian world, meaning based on Hegel, who was a philosopher.

496
00:32:10,240 --> 00:32:14,040
And here's the last thing I'll say about it that is really sad.

497
00:32:14,040 --> 00:32:20,920
All the philosophers I talk about in my book, Marx, Freud, the critical theorist, all the

498
00:32:20,920 --> 00:32:27,560
way up to the postmoderns, all of them are atheists, except for Hegel.

499
00:32:27,560 --> 00:32:29,440
And Hegel is where it starts.

500
00:32:29,440 --> 00:32:31,280
And Hegel called himself a Lutheran.

501
00:32:31,280 --> 00:32:33,200
Now he was certainly a heretic.

502
00:32:33,200 --> 00:32:39,320
But he was more of a sort of like a Gnostic.

503
00:32:39,320 --> 00:32:42,880
And I talk about it extensively in the book.

504
00:32:42,880 --> 00:32:44,920
The religion is actually called Hermeticism.

505
00:32:44,920 --> 00:32:48,160
And it's sort of like Gnosticism.

506
00:32:48,160 --> 00:32:56,240
But the idea was that as God and man, man being the antithesis of God, as God and man

507
00:32:56,240 --> 00:33:00,800
wrestled together, they will be synthesized into one.

508
00:33:00,800 --> 00:33:05,320
So there will not be any difference between God and man, man and God.

509
00:33:05,320 --> 00:33:06,600
That's his whole synthesis.

510
00:33:06,600 --> 00:33:14,960
So what we have to look at is some of the reason this wokeness seems sort of like atheistic

511
00:33:14,960 --> 00:33:20,240
mystical Puritans, like ready to kill everybody that doesn't agree with the secular woke.

512
00:33:20,240 --> 00:33:26,040
It seems like a religion because it really was based on a Gnostic religion for Hegel.

513
00:33:26,040 --> 00:33:29,320
And I don't know anybody else that's written about this in their books.

514
00:33:29,320 --> 00:33:30,680
Maybe they have.

515
00:33:30,680 --> 00:33:35,320
But like making the connection to me was kind of mind blowing.

516
00:33:35,320 --> 00:33:37,600
And that reminds me of syncretism.

517
00:33:37,600 --> 00:33:40,200
And I know you talk about that in your book as well.

518
00:33:40,200 --> 00:33:45,200
And that's something that I've seen in my missionary journeys around the world and how

519
00:33:45,200 --> 00:33:49,040
you have the gospel will come to a culture.

520
00:33:49,040 --> 00:33:57,160
And rather than speaking out the whole truth and repenting of those other beliefs, they

521
00:33:57,160 --> 00:34:01,120
just say, oh, well, let's just bring those in and we'll just add that.

522
00:34:01,120 --> 00:34:03,600
And then we end up with a giant mess.

523
00:34:03,600 --> 00:34:07,720
And, you know, John, I want to just ask you, what are some things that you've seen the

524
00:34:07,720 --> 00:34:16,360
church today really become syncretistically unaware of or become unaware of that they've

525
00:34:16,360 --> 00:34:17,680
allowed syncretism in?

526
00:34:17,680 --> 00:34:21,400
And then what can we do about it as we're wrapping up here?

527
00:34:21,400 --> 00:34:22,400
Sure.

528
00:34:22,400 --> 00:34:29,120
Well, since we are wrapping up, I want to make really clear to people, if I can, that

529
00:34:29,120 --> 00:34:32,400
my book does not leave you depressed.

530
00:34:32,400 --> 00:34:36,920
My book does not leave you hopeless because we are not hopeless.

531
00:34:36,920 --> 00:34:42,360
We have the hope of all of the world, Jesus Christ living inside of us.

532
00:34:42,360 --> 00:34:47,320
And namely, actually, we have the Holy Spirit living inside of us, which is the power of

533
00:34:47,320 --> 00:34:48,320
Christ, all right?

534
00:34:48,320 --> 00:34:49,680
So we are not hopeless.

535
00:34:49,680 --> 00:34:51,680
We have the answers.

536
00:34:51,680 --> 00:34:52,680
We have the light.

537
00:34:52,680 --> 00:34:58,600
And so in the end of the book, I am giving some very positive, this is how we can change

538
00:34:58,600 --> 00:34:59,600
this.

539
00:34:59,600 --> 00:35:07,880
And for me, it is from turning away from everything the world says into a radical obedience to

540
00:35:07,880 --> 00:35:11,600
the Word of God, which gets us into syncretism.

541
00:35:11,600 --> 00:35:16,560
Because what I think we're seeing here, when I try to lay out in the book, I think that

542
00:35:16,560 --> 00:35:20,600
the church is sort of, do you mind if I give you a long answer?

543
00:35:20,600 --> 00:35:21,600
Would that be okay?

544
00:35:21,600 --> 00:35:22,600
Go for it.

545
00:35:22,600 --> 00:35:23,600
Go for it.

546
00:35:23,600 --> 00:35:24,600
Here's my long answer.

547
00:35:24,600 --> 00:35:29,000
I think that the church, our modern Christianity America has said this.

548
00:35:29,000 --> 00:35:33,760
We have said, I think that Christ is Lord of my heart.

549
00:35:33,760 --> 00:35:36,000
He's Lord of my soul.

550
00:35:36,000 --> 00:35:37,680
He's Lord of heaven.

551
00:35:37,680 --> 00:35:40,240
So when I die, I'm going to heaven and that's good.

552
00:35:40,240 --> 00:35:42,560
And that's the things that God tells me how to do.

553
00:35:42,560 --> 00:35:43,880
He tells me how to pray.

554
00:35:43,880 --> 00:35:48,120
He tells me how to be holy and that's all good.

555
00:35:48,120 --> 00:35:55,320
But I think the church does not believe that Christ has the answers for the earth.

556
00:35:55,320 --> 00:35:58,040
So Christ has answers for heaven for after I die.

557
00:35:58,040 --> 00:36:02,800
But he does have the answers for how I'm supposed to parent my kids.

558
00:36:02,800 --> 00:36:04,040
How do I act as a husband?

559
00:36:04,040 --> 00:36:07,400
How do I act as a wife?

560
00:36:07,400 --> 00:36:09,000
How do we do politics?

561
00:36:09,000 --> 00:36:11,480
How do we do treating your next door neighbor?

562
00:36:11,480 --> 00:36:13,960
I don't really think God has anything to do with that.

563
00:36:13,960 --> 00:36:15,640
That's what I think has happened.

564
00:36:15,640 --> 00:36:20,280
So we sort of split heaven and earth, if you will, in a way.

565
00:36:20,280 --> 00:36:25,520
And so in my book, I say basically, I think the American church is sort of unknowingly

566
00:36:25,520 --> 00:36:30,400
polytheistic, Christ is Lord of the heavens, man is Lord of the earth.

567
00:36:30,400 --> 00:36:36,280
And so we're looking to whatever secular society tells us is the way that we have to do justice.

568
00:36:36,280 --> 00:36:37,720
How do we do racial justice?

569
00:36:37,720 --> 00:36:39,480
BLM will tell us.

570
00:36:39,480 --> 00:36:42,000
How do we do politics?

571
00:36:42,000 --> 00:36:43,880
Cultural people will tell us.

572
00:36:43,880 --> 00:36:48,480
How do we do morality when it comes to, I don't know, you name it, abortion, the death

573
00:36:48,480 --> 00:36:51,600
penalty, taxes, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

574
00:36:51,600 --> 00:36:52,680
We're just looking to the world.

575
00:36:52,680 --> 00:36:54,680
We're not looking to the Bible.

576
00:36:54,680 --> 00:36:56,920
That is the way that we have sort of syncretized.

577
00:36:56,920 --> 00:37:02,360
You say, we brought the ideas of the world in and then we just kept these principles

578
00:37:02,360 --> 00:37:03,360
from the Bible.

579
00:37:03,360 --> 00:37:08,320
So a principle from the Bible would be God is love, which is true.

580
00:37:08,320 --> 00:37:09,320
God is love.

581
00:37:09,320 --> 00:37:11,840
But we don't dig down any deeper than that.

582
00:37:11,840 --> 00:37:19,000
And because God is love and because BLM tells me that I have to go march with BLM as they

583
00:37:19,000 --> 00:37:23,240
burn down a building and that that's what it means to love my neighbor, then I go, well,

584
00:37:23,240 --> 00:37:25,680
God is love, so I guess we have to do that.

585
00:37:25,680 --> 00:37:28,280
That's what's happening and it's not good.

586
00:37:28,280 --> 00:37:32,760
So the church has done that on social justice.

587
00:37:32,760 --> 00:37:38,040
And just so people don't think that I'm a complete moron, I will be the first to say

588
00:37:38,040 --> 00:37:43,080
that I think the reason we're in this problem we are in is because historically, the Christian

589
00:37:43,080 --> 00:37:49,200
church did not stand up like we were supposed to stand up for racial justice of slavery,

590
00:37:49,200 --> 00:37:50,680
redlining, Jim Crow.

591
00:37:50,680 --> 00:37:54,520
I mean, you name it, I agree with that.

592
00:37:54,520 --> 00:37:58,400
So if anybody's going, John, don't you know what the church, yes, I do.

593
00:37:58,400 --> 00:37:59,760
And I think it's a shame.

594
00:37:59,760 --> 00:38:06,400
So let's applaud the Christians and the abolitionists who because of the word of the Lord and the

595
00:38:06,400 --> 00:38:09,600
spirit of God said, we have to do something about this evil.

596
00:38:09,600 --> 00:38:14,480
We applaud those people and we say it's a shame that the rest of the church didn't.

597
00:38:14,480 --> 00:38:17,200
But we're in the 2020s, we're not in the 1820s.

598
00:38:17,200 --> 00:38:18,200
All right?

599
00:38:18,200 --> 00:38:22,480
So I would say social justice, we've missed it.

600
00:38:22,480 --> 00:38:28,680
By the way, it's very ironic that the Christians, I usually call them the Christian left and

601
00:38:28,680 --> 00:38:29,680
I don't mean that.

602
00:38:29,680 --> 00:38:30,680
I'm not trying to be derogatory.

603
00:38:30,680 --> 00:38:32,840
I'm just trying to describe people.

604
00:38:32,840 --> 00:38:38,880
It's usually the Christian left who are the first people to berate the Christian church

605
00:38:38,880 --> 00:38:43,640
for slavery and for redlining and for civil rights and not standing up.

606
00:38:43,640 --> 00:38:48,440
Have you noticed that it's the same Christians that do not have that same passion to fight

607
00:38:48,440 --> 00:38:49,440
abortion?

608
00:38:49,440 --> 00:38:51,320
It's an amazing thing if you ask me.

609
00:38:51,320 --> 00:38:55,280
So we've given up actually on abortion.

610
00:38:55,280 --> 00:39:00,360
There's a lot of Christians that still fight it, but we're beginning to see a shift happen

611
00:39:00,360 --> 00:39:04,560
in the whole, they call it pro-life womb to tomb movement.

612
00:39:04,560 --> 00:39:09,640
And what they really mean is no, no abortion actually is bad, but it's no worse than the

613
00:39:09,640 --> 00:39:11,920
fact that we don't give free healthcare.

614
00:39:11,920 --> 00:39:16,360
I would say that they do this moral equivalence thing sort of like people do with Hamas and

615
00:39:16,360 --> 00:39:17,520
Israel.

616
00:39:17,520 --> 00:39:19,160
So that's happening.

617
00:39:19,160 --> 00:39:27,160
The number one thing that is making Christians deconstruct, the number one thing is biblical

618
00:39:27,160 --> 00:39:28,160
sexuality.

619
00:39:28,160 --> 00:39:29,160
That's it.

620
00:39:29,160 --> 00:39:30,160
It's biblical sexuality.

621
00:39:30,160 --> 00:39:36,840
And if the church does not stand its ground on who, what God says is moral and what God

622
00:39:36,840 --> 00:39:41,200
says is immoral when it comes to sexuality, that we're going to lose.

623
00:39:41,200 --> 00:39:42,200
That's just the way it is.

624
00:39:42,200 --> 00:39:49,560
It all hinges on sexuality because if we give up that, then guess where we give up?

625
00:39:49,560 --> 00:39:55,000
It begins in Genesis three, all the way from the beginning.

626
00:39:55,000 --> 00:39:59,720
And so I think that those are the biggest things that are happening.

627
00:39:59,720 --> 00:40:03,080
And then I would say to a lesser degree, I would say feminism.

628
00:40:03,080 --> 00:40:10,560
I think feminism has seeped into the church, not nearly as drastic as it has the world.

629
00:40:10,560 --> 00:40:16,400
And I think that Christians no longer have the moral, they don't feel they have the immoral

630
00:40:16,400 --> 00:40:22,120
authority to stand on what the word of God says about there are differences between men

631
00:40:22,120 --> 00:40:24,880
and women and they are wonderful differences.

632
00:40:24,880 --> 00:40:27,600
And in fact, those differences glorify God.

633
00:40:27,600 --> 00:40:30,200
So we glorify God when we recognize them.

634
00:40:30,200 --> 00:40:32,880
So the book is not depressing.

635
00:40:32,880 --> 00:40:35,340
It just gives you their 650 foot notes.

636
00:40:35,340 --> 00:40:40,920
So if you want to know the original words of Marx and Hegel and Freud and the critical

637
00:40:40,920 --> 00:40:46,040
theorists, the reason for all this insanity, all the original stuff is in there so you

638
00:40:46,040 --> 00:40:49,080
can make up your own mind if I'm telling the truth or not.

639
00:40:49,080 --> 00:40:53,160
And then I tell you why those sayings are at odds with the word of God.

640
00:40:53,160 --> 00:40:58,720
Because I believe if the church just begins to do what the word of God says, I believe

641
00:40:58,720 --> 00:41:03,480
the blessing of God would fall on the church to such a degree that the world would say,

642
00:41:03,480 --> 00:41:05,040
how is that happening?

643
00:41:05,040 --> 00:41:12,120
There must be something true about their God, which by the way, is what God promised Israel

644
00:41:12,120 --> 00:41:13,620
in the Old Testament.

645
00:41:13,620 --> 00:41:14,620
Amen.

646
00:41:14,620 --> 00:41:15,620
Amen.

647
00:41:15,620 --> 00:41:22,440
John Cooper, author of Wimpy, Weak and Woke and lead singer of the band Skillet, which

648
00:41:22,440 --> 00:41:25,920
is we didn't even touch that aspect in this interview.

649
00:41:25,920 --> 00:41:28,520
So we're going to probably have to do another interview with you at some point.

650
00:41:28,520 --> 00:41:29,520
Let's do it.

651
00:41:29,520 --> 00:41:30,520
We'll do that one next time.

652
00:41:30,520 --> 00:41:31,520
Let's do it then.

653
00:41:31,520 --> 00:41:32,520
That'll be great.

654
00:41:32,520 --> 00:41:33,520
That'll be great.

655
00:41:33,520 --> 00:41:39,080
And I really just want to encourage everybody to go out and get your copy of your own book,

656
00:41:39,080 --> 00:41:43,320
Wimpy, Weak and Woke, and you can get that at johnlcooper.com.

657
00:41:43,320 --> 00:41:46,080
Is there any other place that you want to send people, John?

658
00:41:46,080 --> 00:41:51,840
The book comes out November 14th, and at that point it will be available on Amazon as well.

659
00:41:51,840 --> 00:41:52,840
All right.

660
00:41:52,840 --> 00:41:53,840
All right.

661
00:41:53,840 --> 00:41:56,840
Well, John Cooper, it's great to have you here on Charisma News.

662
00:41:56,840 --> 00:41:57,840
Thank you, John.

663
00:41:57,840 --> 00:42:05,200
Our next interview by preoc 요 we really wanted to do a talkative interview with you.

664
00:42:05,200 --> 00:42:10,960
We want you together to make the wide-eyed gallons find quite typical games, such as

665
00:42:10,960 --> 00:42:18,400
to explore better social and economic horizons, and discover more locations that hungry folks

666
00:42:18,400 --> 00:42:21,340
can isolate themselves, and so the game plays a role in not only

667
00:42:21,340 --> 00:42:23,840
doing what, but what we really try to do.