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Truth Rising: Hope, Identity, and Calling for Christians Today (John Stonestreet) · Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and Culture

0:01
Speaker 1: Hey, everyone, welcome to this episode of Thinking Christian on
0:03
Speaker 1: doctor James Spencer, and today I'm joined by John stone Street,
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Speaker 1: who is the president of the Coulson Center, and we're
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Speaker 1: going to be discussing the Truth Rising project that's a
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Speaker 1: collaboration between Focus on the Family and Coulson Center. So John,
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Speaker 1: welcome to the podcast. Thanks for being here.
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Speaker 2: Hey, it's great to be on with you. Thanks so much.
0:22
Speaker 1: Talk to me a little bit about maybe how this
0:23
Speaker 1: project came about initially, you know what prompted Coulson Center
0:28
Speaker 1: and Folks on the Family to join forces on this one.
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Speaker 3: Well, you know, the Coulson Center is one of the
0:33
Speaker 3: namesake organizations of the late Chuck Coulson, who was in
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Speaker 3: the tradition of Francis Schaeffer and some others who really
0:40
Speaker 3: thought it was essential for Christians that sought paying attention
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Speaker 3: to what's happening in culture and take on an understanding
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Speaker 3: of their own calling to the culture around them. In
0:49
Speaker 3: other words, that Christianity and salvation was personal but not private,
0:54
Speaker 3: that it also had to do with more than just
0:55
Speaker 3: our personal salvation and getting to Heaven when we die.
1:00
Speaker 3: Of course, Chuck spent a lot of time talking about worldview,
1:04
Speaker 3: helping Christians think about their faith not just kind of
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Speaker 3: experience it, but also apply it to the big cultural
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Speaker 3: issues of the day. And he also looked for those
1:13
Speaker 3: kind of meta trends. And Focus on the Family, of course,
1:15
Speaker 3: is noticed not known for well the family, but years
1:19
Speaker 3: ago they did something called The Truth Project with doctor
1:22
Speaker 3: Dell Tackett, which was an attempt to show kind of
1:25
Speaker 3: Christianity as a worldview and it was a whole wonderful.
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Speaker 2: Series that was shared in a lot of churches.
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Speaker 3: So you know, Jim Daily, the president of Focus on
1:34
Speaker 3: the Family, and myself, we were together not that long,
1:36
Speaker 3: but before this project started, and he had a vision
1:40
Speaker 3: for wanting to do something more. I had this sense
1:43
Speaker 3: too that a lot of the things that Schaefer and
1:46
Speaker 3: Chuck Colson had prophesied and predicted, you know, had come true.
1:50
Speaker 2: I'll just give you an example. I know I look.
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Speaker 3: Super, super young, and it's because I am. I don't
1:57
Speaker 3: have your guns, by the way, those are those you know.
2:00
Speaker 3: I wear a sweater and not a T shirt. But listen,
2:05
Speaker 3: when I first started teaching on worldview, like twenty five
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Speaker 3: years ago, it was a lot of really important theory, right,
2:12
Speaker 3: like if you know, we would compare Christianity with atheism
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Speaker 3: or naturalism or postmodernism. We would say things like, look,
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Speaker 3: if there is no God, then there's no source of morality.
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Speaker 3: There's no source for me. It's a true hypothetical. If
2:25
Speaker 3: postmodernism is right, and everyone could determine their own view
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Speaker 3: of what's real and what's true, then up can mean
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Speaker 3: down and left can mean right, and boy can mean girl.
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Speaker 3: That was our hypotheticals. That last one was debated last
2:40
Speaker 3: week in the Supreme Court.
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Speaker 2: Right.
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Speaker 3: So, in other words, a lot of these things that
2:45
Speaker 3: people were thinking about and talking about twenty thirty, forty
2:48
Speaker 3: fifty years ago have certainly come to pass, and we
2:51
Speaker 3: needed a new framework. What moment are we in? What
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Speaker 3: does it mean to be a Christian in this moment?
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Speaker 3: And takes seriously the fact that God wanted us here
3:03
Speaker 3: and what does it mean for us to be faithful?
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Speaker 2: So that's really what the project's all about.
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Speaker 1: And the project has You've got a movie, Yeah, you know,
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Speaker 1: there's video resources a movie, but there's also a study
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Speaker 1: guide correct.
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Speaker 3: And well there's actually a movie and a study so
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Speaker 3: there's two different kind of sets of videos that the
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Speaker 3: documentary features somebody who I think is a Gandolf for
3:26
Speaker 3: our age, and that's Ozyennis.
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Speaker 2: There's one and only Oz yet.
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Speaker 3: Plus he's got the greatest accent ever, right, so he's brilliant.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, so much from Oz.
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Speaker 3: And Oz is calling this moment a civilizational moment. In
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Speaker 3: other words, there are moments throughout history that you can
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Speaker 3: see where civilizations take this turn where they get kind
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Speaker 3: of clipped off from their roots, the things that animated them.
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Speaker 3: And what happens then is typically revolution or decline. Once
4:00
Speaker 3: in a while you have an example of renewal, not.
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Speaker 2: Very many, but he believes we're at.
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Speaker 3: That that that that that that time for for the
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Speaker 3: Western world, that some of the ideas, which of course
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Speaker 3: came from Christianity, the idea that humans have been distinct value,
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Speaker 3: that there are eternal right and wrong to which everyone
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Speaker 3: even the king and the emperor and the government, is
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Speaker 3: accountable to. You know, that sort of thing, that there's
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Speaker 3: more than to reality than just this world. These are
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Speaker 3: these are kind of uh life giving roots. They animated
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Speaker 3: the Western world and one of the reasons it made
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Speaker 3: it so profound, so, you know, bringing more freedom to
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Speaker 3: more people. I'm not saying that everyone was a Christian
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Speaker 3: or we got it right. That's certainly not the case.
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Speaker 3: But we've certainly reached a tipping point, you know, we've
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Speaker 3: certainly hit a time where we're in a new moment,
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Speaker 3: and so now we've got to ask the question, well,
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Speaker 3: what does it mean for us to be faithful to
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Speaker 3: the Lord at this time and place in history? So
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Speaker 3: that's the documentary. It starts with that kind of framing,
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Speaker 3: and then it ends with stories of courage people who
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Speaker 3: I think demonstrate the answer to that question.
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Speaker 2: I'd love to get in to talk about some of
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Speaker 2: those things.
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Speaker 3: And then the study follows up on it, because the
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Speaker 3: study is really saying, well, what does it mean for
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Speaker 3: us to step into our calling in this time and play?
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Speaker 3: So basically the math goes, you know, we're in a
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Speaker 3: civilizational moment. God has called us here, this is what
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Speaker 3: faithfulness can look like, and here's how we can take
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Speaker 3: our place as God has called us to do.
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Speaker 4: I'd like to talk about the stories as well.
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Speaker 1: I think one of the questions that I was sort
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Speaker 1: of thinking about after watching the documentary was you have
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Speaker 1: these stories of faithfulness in there, and I think what
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Speaker 1: I struggled with what I was thinking about was what
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Speaker 1: happens when faithfulness isn't effective. In other words, how hopeful
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Speaker 1: are you that this decline, the civilizational decline, that the
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Speaker 1: civilizational moment could be reversed through Christian faithfulness? And then
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Speaker 1: maybe after you answer that question, let's hop in and
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Speaker 1: talk about one or two of the stories they're featured
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Speaker 1: in the documentary.
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Speaker 3: Well, I mean, look, first, my hope is not that
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Speaker 3: the civilizational decline is going to be reversed. The hope
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Speaker 3: is that the civilizational moment we're in is part of
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Speaker 3: itself a bigger story, the story of the Kingdom of God,
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Speaker 3: the story that Scripture tells from creation to new creation,
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Speaker 3: from the heavens and Earth to the new heavens and
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Speaker 3: new Earth. And you know, in the study we talk
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Speaker 3: about the Christian story as being true, and we describe
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Speaker 3: it in four chapters, Creation Fall, Redemption, Restoration. Now, anybody
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Speaker 3: that's been in a seminary or you know, or read
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Speaker 3: a worldview book knows that framework.
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Speaker 2: But and I think many people.
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Speaker 3: Would say, yeah, that's a good way of summarizing the
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Speaker 3: story that the Bible tells, but that's not really what
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Speaker 3: we're after. I think Creation Fall, Redemption Restoration is the
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Speaker 3: Biblical way of describing reality. In other words, it's not
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Speaker 3: the story the Bible tells, it's the story of the world,
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Speaker 3: and the Bible tells that story, and that's what we
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Speaker 3: have to believe that if we're in this moment of
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Speaker 3: civilization or decline, I don't know if it's a Bonhaffer
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Speaker 3: moment where everything we try is going to fail, or
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Speaker 3: if it's a will perforce moment in which God grants,
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Speaker 3: you know, grace and rewards the efforts of his people.
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Speaker 2: I don't know what it'll be.
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Speaker 3: So I think one of the things we have to
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Speaker 3: get straight, and I think the stories highlight this, and
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Speaker 3: certainly we spend a lot of time on this in
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Speaker 3: the study is that the hope of the world. And
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Speaker 3: this is what First Peter was all about. Peter wrote,
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Speaker 3: you know, to a group of Christians that are being persecuted,
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Speaker 3: and he called them people of hope, which is fascinating
7:52
Speaker 3: because what we know from history is the persecution that
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Speaker 3: they were facing was about to get worse. In other words,
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Speaker 3: their hope was in the fact that their persecution subsided.
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Speaker 3: Their hope was something that had happened prior to their persecution.
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Speaker 3: What Peter says is the resurrection of Christ. And going
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Speaker 3: back to the brilliance of Chuck Holsen, not just because
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Speaker 3: it's my job and I have to, but because I
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Speaker 3: actually think it's right.
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Speaker 2: You've got used to say this. Despair is a sin.
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Speaker 3: Despair's a sin, not because we know things are going
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Speaker 3: to turn around, but despair is a sin because Christ
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Speaker 3: has risen from the dead, and we believe that's the
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Speaker 3: central event in the history of the world. We believe
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Speaker 3: that's the thing that defines human history, and so that's
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Speaker 3: where our hope is. You know, what's going to happen
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Speaker 3: to Western culture? Man, that's a great question. I mean,
8:42
Speaker 3: let's be honest. I was just in South Korea just
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Speaker 3: a couple weeks ago and went to the National Museum
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Speaker 3: there in Seoul, and it tells of the kingdoms that existed,
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Speaker 3: you know, in the past, mostly Buddhist or Confucian. And
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Speaker 3: when we think about civilizations, we almost are always in
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Speaker 3: a museum with.
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Speaker 2: A bunch of artifacts.
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Speaker 3: Right, We're not talking about the present, we're talking about history.
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Speaker 2: These things are dusty.
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Speaker 3: So there's no reason for us really to place our
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Speaker 3: hope in our what now, look, should we try to
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Speaker 3: save it?
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Speaker 2: Should we try to steward it.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, because Western Siev is better than all the others
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Speaker 3: that ever came before it, that's for sure. But our
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Speaker 3: hope is in Jesus Christ, and we got to make
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Speaker 3: that tangible. That's kind of what I mean when I
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Speaker 3: say the faith is personal, but it's not private.
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Speaker 2: This is public.
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Speaker 3: Jesus Christ is the hope of the world, and his
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Speaker 3: kingdom will never end. That's the story of the universe.
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Speaker 3: This moment we're in is serious, but it's understood in
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Speaker 3: light of that story, not the other way around.
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Speaker 4: No, I think that makes good sense.
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Speaker 1: It draws Christians underneath the truth in a way that
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Speaker 1: I think you're trying to get across in the documentary
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Speaker 1: and in the study is to say.
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Speaker 4: We are subject to the truth.
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Speaker 1: It has a claim on our lives, right, and so
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Speaker 1: we can really live no other way other than according
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Speaker 1: to the truth. This is what we're aiming for. Whether
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Speaker 1: or not living in that manner is effective at saving
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Speaker 1: Western civilization or you know, doing anything else is really
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Speaker 1: just secondary. This is the strategy we have to choose
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Speaker 1: because the Truth has a claim on us, The Gospel
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Speaker 1: has a claim on us. Christ has a claim on us,
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Speaker 1: And I really appreciate that angle of the documentary, end
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Speaker 1: of your explanation of it. I think that's theologically really
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Speaker 1: sound good.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, otherwise Colson would come back and haunt us from
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Speaker 3: the grave.
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Speaker 2: We want to keep those things right.
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Speaker 4: No, I think it's really difficult though. I mean the
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Speaker 4: line you all are the needle you're trying to thread.
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Speaker 1: It's easy to come in and say, hey, Christians, we
10:49
Speaker 1: need to live for the truth because the truth is
10:51
Speaker 1: going to fix the world around us.
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Speaker 4: And I think that's an exaggeration.
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Speaker 1: We may hope it fixes, you know, some of the
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Speaker 1: things around us, but we don't know that, and so
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Speaker 1: we live for the truth simply because it's the truth.
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Speaker 2: Yeah.
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Speaker 3: Look, Chuck's been a lot of the last twenty years
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Speaker 3: of his life. He died in twenty twelve. I know
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Speaker 3: that name is probably familiar for a lot of your listeners,
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Speaker 3: and maybe not for many others. I mean it's been
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Speaker 3: a while, but and you know, the last twenty years
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Speaker 3: of his ministry, Chuck wanted to go around and help
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Speaker 3: Christians think about the full ramifications of the truth of
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Speaker 3: the Christian worldview.
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Speaker 2: You know that this stuff was personal.
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Speaker 3: I mean, that's one of the great things that Christ
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Speaker 3: is the personal revelation of God. He became flesh and
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Speaker 3: because of the spirit, like we have this personal relationship
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Speaker 3: with God, because of.
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Speaker 2: The work of Christ.
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Speaker 3: But that doesn't mean it's private and privatized Christianity, that
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Speaker 3: it's just me and Jesus, and that it doesn't have
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Speaker 3: anything to do with the world around us.
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Speaker 2: I mean, that's not the story the Bible tells.
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Speaker 3: The Bible tells the story of the creation of all things,
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Speaker 3: and the fall of all things, and the flood of
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Speaker 3: all things, and eventually the renewal and restoration of all things.
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Speaker 3: And so you know, there's a reason that you know
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Speaker 3: you think about Romans or Ephesians, that you have the
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Speaker 3: first half of both of those books telling us about
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Speaker 3: the brilliance of the work of God in Christ Jesus,
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Speaker 3: and then the second is all about and here's how
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Speaker 3: you relate to the authorities, And here's how you relate
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Speaker 3: to your spouse, and here's how you relate to your children,
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Speaker 3: and here's how you relate to your enemies, and here's
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Speaker 3: how you relate. And you see it in James, and
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Speaker 3: you see it in Peter, and Peter's like even here's
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Speaker 3: how you relate to your persecutors. Philippians like, here's how
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Speaker 3: you here's how you're supposed to react to prison.
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Speaker 2: I mean, you know, the Bible is.
12:38
Speaker 3: Is very this worldly to borrow a phrase from Dietrich Bonhoeffer,
12:43
Speaker 3: and Christians I think have have misunderstood that.
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Speaker 2: And that's It's one thing.
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Speaker 3: You know, when you're in a cultural moment where you
12:50
Speaker 3: know pretty much everyone largely agrees with you.
12:54
Speaker 2: But we're in a different moment.
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Speaker 3: We know that it's pretty hostile and and and I
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Speaker 3: think many people feel more hostile. I don't have to
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Speaker 3: go around like Chuck did trying to convince people to
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Speaker 3: think about the culture all of us, especially if we're parents.
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Speaker 2: I got four kids. I don't know about you.
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Speaker 3: I'm thinking about culture stuff all the time because of
13:12
Speaker 3: putting such pressure on my children and for many on
13:16
Speaker 3: their grandchildren and so on.
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Speaker 2: So we still call.
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Speaker 3: To be people of hope in the darkest of times,
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Speaker 3: because Jesus Christ has risen from the dead, and yet
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Speaker 3: these truths in this hope has really practical and real
13:29
Speaker 3: life application to be lived out.
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Speaker 1: You know, as I've done work on the intersection of
13:36
Speaker 1: faith and technology, a lot of times I run into
13:40
Speaker 1: people who are kind of skeptical about some of the
13:44
Speaker 1: things that I say. Maybe they have a right to,
13:47
Speaker 1: but you know, sometimes people can feel like, hey, this
13:50
Speaker 1: whole anti technology bias and I'm not a luddite or
13:53
Speaker 1: something like that, but there is a way to be
13:55
Speaker 1: overly cautious about technology, and so some people take that
13:58
Speaker 1: to be alarmist. Right now, I'm not really I'm not
14:04
Speaker 1: really thinking that, you know, AI is going to take
14:06
Speaker 1: over the planet, or that the Internet should be you know,
14:08
Speaker 1: thrown into the ocean and forgotten about forever. But at
14:13
Speaker 1: the end of the day, there are some people out
14:14
Speaker 1: there who just don't like to critique anything.
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Speaker 4: They don't like to see.
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Speaker 1: A negative word spoken about any of these cultural trends
14:22
Speaker 1: that we see before us. And i'd imagine you're having
14:25
Speaker 1: some of that come at you, you know, sort of
14:27
Speaker 1: this isn't this a little alarmist? Like you're talking about
14:30
Speaker 1: the decline of civilization, the the ending you know, of
14:35
Speaker 1: the Western world to some degree, all because we're departing
14:40
Speaker 1: from some you know, Judeo Christian framework for truth or
14:44
Speaker 1: what have you.
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Speaker 4: I can imagine you getting those pushbacks.
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Speaker 1: Am I imagining that correctly, and yeah, am I imagining
14:52
Speaker 1: that correctly?
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Speaker 4: And then if so, what are you doing about it?
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Speaker 2: Wow? Do you respond? Absolutely?
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Speaker 3: It's interesting though, I I think there's less than you know,
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Speaker 3: maybe there used to be, because I do think there
15:04
Speaker 3: is a sense for a lot of people that the
15:07
Speaker 3: theoretical has become much more palpable. I you know, I'm
15:10
Speaker 3: a nerd, so I keep going back to philosophers who
15:13
Speaker 3: have talked about this in the past. Frederick Nietzsche back
15:16
Speaker 3: in eighteen eighty two, I think wrote the Parable of
15:19
Speaker 3: the mad Man. It's one of the two places where
15:21
Speaker 3: he talked about God is dead, you know, But this
15:24
Speaker 3: one's interesting because the other one and the other parable.
15:27
Speaker 3: Thus spakes Zarathrustra, which is a heck of a heck
15:29
Speaker 3: of a title. He's basically articulating the promise of the
15:34
Speaker 3: death of God for the future and the uber match
15:37
Speaker 3: the superman and how human humanity can move forward, and
15:40
Speaker 3: the Parable of the mad Man. He's warning of chaos.
15:43
Speaker 3: He's saying, Look, killing God is like unchaining the earth
15:47
Speaker 3: from its son. So we're not going to have a
15:49
Speaker 3: source of light or he We're going to lose our
15:51
Speaker 3: sense of up and down, and then at the end
15:53
Speaker 3: of this epic rant that this crazy man gives in
15:57
Speaker 3: his parable, he looks around and says, oh, come too soon.
16:01
Speaker 3: You know, deeds, though done, are going to take time
16:04
Speaker 3: to be seen and heard and felt. And of course
16:07
Speaker 3: he's writing that one hundred years ago, and I think
16:10
Speaker 3: a lot of what he prophesied was coming, you know,
16:13
Speaker 3: was really true, that there is an unsettling of up
16:16
Speaker 3: and down.
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Speaker 2: You know.
16:18
Speaker 3: Fifteen years ago a British newspaper surveyed a group of
16:21
Speaker 3: young people and asked does life have meaning? And didn't
16:25
Speaker 3: specify what meaning, just does life have meaning? And in
16:28
Speaker 3: that survey fifteen years ago, nine out of ten said yes.
16:31
Speaker 3: They disagreed on what it was, but they agreed that
16:33
Speaker 3: life has meaning. Ten years after that, they did the
16:36
Speaker 3: same survey and one out of ten said yes.
16:39
Speaker 2: Wow.
16:41
Speaker 3: You know, when you think about that kind of palpable divide,
16:44
Speaker 3: think about just even the US, when was the last
16:46
Speaker 3: time we were on the brink of such kind of
16:51
Speaker 3: chaos as a nation, where we were divided state by
16:55
Speaker 3: state over issues of such incredible moral significance.
16:59
Speaker 2: Right, It's one thing to live in.
17:01
Speaker 3: A world where we kind of all agree on where
17:03
Speaker 3: we're going disagree on how to get there. But when
17:06
Speaker 3: you're talking about disagreeing on what up and down is
17:09
Speaker 3: and where we're trying to go, it becomes much more
17:13
Speaker 3: you know, serious, and we're not even talking about kind
17:15
Speaker 3: of the sexual chaos. And you know, Paul says that
17:19
Speaker 3: when you send sexually, you sin against your own body.
17:22
Speaker 3: I mean, we've just let an entire generation to sin
17:24
Speaker 3: against themselves at a level really that you know, it's
17:31
Speaker 3: hard to parallel other than if you go way back
17:34
Speaker 3: to super pagan societies. So I think that sense maybe
17:38
Speaker 3: is a little more palpable than it used to be.
17:42
Speaker 3: And so yeah, we get accused of that. But the
17:44
Speaker 3: other thing is, I think the question for me is
17:49
Speaker 3: less how bad is it out there, although we have
17:51
Speaker 3: to think about that, it's what kind of.
17:53
Speaker 2: People are we?
17:55
Speaker 3: So Peter Kraft, the Catholic apologist and philosopher, has a
18:01
Speaker 3: line in one of his books, probably wrote a long
18:04
Speaker 3: time ago, but he's talking about ethics, and he said,
18:06
Speaker 3: he said, you know, just about the time that we
18:09
Speaker 3: went from a society where our weapons were bows and
18:12
Speaker 3: arrows to now their thermonuclear bombs, we became moral infants.
18:17
Speaker 3: It's a great line, because it's kind of like just
18:20
Speaker 3: you know, as we went from you know, smartphones and
18:23
Speaker 3: social media to artificial intelligence, we forgot who we were,
18:27
Speaker 3: you know.
18:28
Speaker 2: In other words, we're.
18:29
Speaker 3: Profoundly One of the themes that comes up in all
18:32
Speaker 3: the stories in the Truth Rising series and certainly in
18:35
Speaker 3: the documentary. This is one of the things that the
18:38
Speaker 3: interviews that Oz does with these experts, many of whom
18:41
Speaker 3: aren't Christian there but are just kind of recognized as
18:45
Speaker 3: generational experts. They point to the dehumanization and the loss
18:50
Speaker 3: of our understanding of what it means to be human
18:52
Speaker 3: as a central feature of this decay, of this decline
18:56
Speaker 3: of the Western world and of the fragility of the
18:59
Speaker 3: Western world. And so now our technologies are getting way
19:04
Speaker 3: more invasive and way more quote unquote promising. But we
19:08
Speaker 3: don't know human exceptionalism. We don't know what makes us
19:12
Speaker 3: who we are. And I think that's the math.
19:14
Speaker 2: That is worthy of.
19:16
Speaker 3: Even if people are skeptical of your concerns about technology, dude,
19:20
Speaker 3: keep speaking up, because you know, I think it's real.
19:25
Speaker 4: Well, I think that's a really good articulation of it.
19:27
Speaker 1: I just wrote a piece and was arguing that our
19:30
Speaker 1: character has to keep up with our capacity, yes, and
19:33
Speaker 1: so as way things ramp up, we've got to have
19:36
Speaker 1: sufficient character to execute on these Because technology, if you
19:40
Speaker 1: go back all the way at Marshall, mccluan and these
19:42
Speaker 1: kind of things, right, it amplifies our capacities.
19:47
Speaker 4: And that's for good and bad.
19:48
Speaker 1: And so what we end up with is sort of
19:51
Speaker 1: the ability to magnify falsehood alongside magnifying truth. And there
19:56
Speaker 1: has to be a serious account taken for which one
20:01
Speaker 1: we're leaning into more, you know, Yeah, And I think
20:06
Speaker 1: that's part of what I got out of this documentary.
20:10
Speaker 1: I was able to watch the whole thing, and that's
20:12
Speaker 1: when I heard some of those experts kind of saying, look,
20:15
Speaker 1: it's this dehumanization.
20:16
Speaker 4: It's we've lost a sense of who we are.
20:19
Speaker 1: Part of it is that we've just sort of slowly
20:21
Speaker 1: decoupled ourselves from the glimpses of the good, the true,
20:25
Speaker 1: and the beautiful that were shining through all over the place.
20:31
Speaker 1: But it wasn't that, you know, to your point, we
20:34
Speaker 1: weren't all Christians, we didn't all profess Jesus Lord. But
20:38
Speaker 1: the good, the true, and the beautiful are available to us,
20:41
Speaker 1: and we can recognize them and live underneath them. But
20:45
Speaker 1: as we slowly detach ourselves from those things, you're going
20:49
Speaker 1: to see society begin to fray at the edges because
20:52
Speaker 1: we're denying something fundamental about reality.
20:54
Speaker 2: Yeah.
20:55
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're running against the grain of reality, right, I mean,
20:58
Speaker 3: and you know, I sometimes talk about the difference between
21:01
Speaker 3: gravity and a speed limit. You know, gravity is stuff
21:04
Speaker 3: that's built into the fabric of the universe. No, you know,
21:07
Speaker 3: culture we do stuff with the world and that's what
21:09
Speaker 3: our culture is. But a speed limit is a social construct,
21:13
Speaker 3: like we get together and we make stuff up. There's
21:16
Speaker 3: very few things in the world that are really social constructs,
21:20
Speaker 3: you know, like speed limits. But we have just become
21:24
Speaker 3: the kind of a culture that is treating everything as
21:28
Speaker 3: if it's a speed limit, as if everything can be renegotiated.
21:31
Speaker 3: I mean, you think about the Obergefeld decision that redefined
21:35
Speaker 3: marriage across the United States. Anthony Kennedy literally made that argument.
21:40
Speaker 3: He didn't say that we had gotten this wrong. What
21:43
Speaker 3: he said was is now we're better people, and now
21:45
Speaker 3: we know more, and now we you know, it was
21:48
Speaker 3: a fascinating argument that now marriage needs to evolve to
21:51
Speaker 3: keep up. Now and we've done the same thing with
21:55
Speaker 3: what it means to be male and female. We've done
21:57
Speaker 3: the same thing with our understanding of law and power.
22:02
Speaker 3: And so you know, the thing is is you can
22:07
Speaker 3: treat gravity like a speed limit. But I love that
22:10
Speaker 3: line from Dallas Willard, and I think it's true for
22:12
Speaker 3: both individuals and civilizations. And that's really the point of
22:15
Speaker 3: Truth Rising. Willard says, you can't step off the roof
22:19
Speaker 3: and then choose not to hit the ground. You know,
22:22
Speaker 3: this is what we mean when we say ideas have consequences,
22:25
Speaker 3: and bad ideas have victims, you know. And and that's
22:30
Speaker 3: true for individuals, and it's also true, you know, for
22:33
Speaker 3: cultures and communities and and and societies and and but
22:39
Speaker 3: here's the other part of this too. I want to
22:41
Speaker 3: make sure we get to this. One of the things
22:44
Speaker 3: that has really informed the Truth Rising project. And I
22:47
Speaker 3: owe this to Oz Gennis and his wonderful book The
22:51
Speaker 3: Call years Ago, which I read about, you know, embracing
22:54
Speaker 3: what God wants you to do and and kind of
22:56
Speaker 3: perceiving that. He says, one of the things that has
22:59
Speaker 3: kept us from really taking seriously our sense of calling
23:02
Speaker 3: is we haven't taken seriously, or we haven't really understood
23:07
Speaker 3: the seriousness of the hour, or as he puts it,
23:09
Speaker 3: the ahwah. You know, he kind of sounds like Arnold
23:11
Speaker 3: Schwarzenegger when he says it. The point is is he's saying,
23:16
Speaker 3: he's saying, we have to understand our calling not just
23:19
Speaker 3: in terms of what I like to do when I'm
23:20
Speaker 3: gifted to do the gifts of the spirit, but also
23:23
Speaker 3: in the time and place where God has put us in.
23:26
Speaker 3: If you remember, in Act seventeen, Paul says something remarkable
23:29
Speaker 3: when he's talking to the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers in Athens.
23:32
Speaker 3: He says that God determines the exact times in which
23:35
Speaker 3: we live in the boundaries of our dwelling place. Yes,
23:39
Speaker 3: so we are called if this is such a crazy, pivotal,
23:43
Speaker 3: untethered moment in human history or in the history of
23:46
Speaker 3: the Western world. God wanted us in this moment and
23:50
Speaker 3: not in another. So how do we step into the
23:55
Speaker 3: fact that we have been called here? And so that
23:58
Speaker 3: idea of being faithful and obedient leaving the results.
24:02
Speaker 2: Up to him.
24:03
Speaker 3: And I think that's what emerges out of the stories
24:06
Speaker 3: in the documentary agree, is what that faithfulness can look like.
24:10
Speaker 3: And how God can use it unexpectedly.
24:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think they also underscore that this that
24:16
Speaker 1: faithfulness is not going to be without consequences. Oh and
24:21
Speaker 1: so you know, I think we just have to sort
24:22
Speaker 1: of put that out there, is that living according to
24:25
Speaker 1: the truth doesn't necessarily mean prosperity and abundance. It comes
24:31
Speaker 1: along with negative social consequences all over the place. And
24:35
Speaker 1: I really thought the stories in the documentary illustrate that beautifully.
24:40
Speaker 3: Well, you look, it begins with Jack Phillips, and I'm
24:42
Speaker 3: partial to Jack. I've known Jack for a long time.
24:45
Speaker 3: Jack is a baker in outside of Denver, Colorado, who
24:49
Speaker 3: thirteen or fourteen years ago before the Obergefeld decision, a
24:55
Speaker 3: couple in Colorado, by the way, had a marriage amendment
24:58
Speaker 3: that defined marriage between a man and woman at the time,
25:00
Speaker 3: and a couple came in they had gotten married in
25:02
Speaker 3: another state, two men, and asked them to bake the
25:05
Speaker 3: same sex wedding cake. And he said no. I remember
25:08
Speaker 3: being on my front porch and reading the newspaper and
25:13
Speaker 3: first hearing Jack's name. You remember newspapers, those paper things.
25:16
Speaker 2: That had worked on while. Yeah, but this kind of
25:21
Speaker 2: illustrates my point.
25:22
Speaker 3: It was a while ago, and I saw that story
25:24
Speaker 3: and I thought two things. I'm like, how can he
25:26
Speaker 3: be in trouble for not making a same sex wedding
25:28
Speaker 3: cake because we don't have same sex weddings in Colorado.
25:32
Speaker 2: And then the second thing I thought is, oh, man,
25:34
Speaker 2: that dude's in trouble.
25:36
Speaker 3: And because you remember the you remember the cultural vibe
25:40
Speaker 3: at the time, you remember how the pressure and you know,
25:47
Speaker 3: and that and that started what became three lawsuits and
25:51
Speaker 3: a thirteen year assault from the state of Colorado, who
25:55
Speaker 3: either did it themselves or in the second in the
25:59
Speaker 3: case of the trial in particular, you know, allowed a
26:03
Speaker 3: transgender man who appears as a woman, and Denver a
26:07
Speaker 3: lawyer to go after him ruthlessly. And I've gotten to
26:12
Speaker 3: know Jack, I know him as a friend, I consider
26:15
Speaker 3: him a friend. And you think about what's happened. God
26:21
Speaker 3: has secured God used his faithfulness to secure free speech
26:24
Speaker 3: rights for millions of Americans. He's given courage to a
26:28
Speaker 3: lot of people. I know of stories of people who
26:32
Speaker 3: have heard his story, skeptics and got really mad at
26:37
Speaker 3: him and picked up his book just to be madder
26:40
Speaker 3: at him, and became Christians. I am hersty Ali Who's
26:44
Speaker 3: another one of the stories we tell in the Truth
26:46
Speaker 3: Rising documentary. She and One Venue pointed to that story
26:52
Speaker 3: as being one of the things that made her really
26:54
Speaker 3: frustrated with her secularism. And I think about that, and
26:59
Speaker 3: the other thing I think about is and you might
27:02
Speaker 3: remember this if you track this story thirteen years ago.
27:07
Speaker 3: Do you know how many people said he should have
27:09
Speaker 3: just baked the cake?
27:11
Speaker 4: Oh, I don't know. I couldn't give you a number,
27:13
Speaker 4: but I know there were a lot.
27:15
Speaker 3: And there were a lot of Christians saying that Jesus
27:18
Speaker 3: would have baked the cake. Now, if Jack had just
27:21
Speaker 3: baked the cake, we would have never known his name,
27:23
Speaker 3: we would have never heard his story. Things would have
27:26
Speaker 3: just proceeded, and who knows what would have proceeded in
27:32
Speaker 3: terms of, you know, Supreme Court decisions or trials or
27:36
Speaker 3: whatever else.
27:37
Speaker 2: But Jack didn't bake.
27:38
Speaker 3: The cake, and he went through thirteen years of persecution
27:44
Speaker 3: of basically state actors coming after him. I don't use
27:48
Speaker 3: persecution lightly because I also keep track of what's happening
27:51
Speaker 3: like in Nigeria, But for Jack, it has to be
27:55
Speaker 3: on that spectrum, and I just think he had no idea.
28:00
Speaker 2: He just did the next right thing.
28:02
Speaker 3: Yeah, when that moment of decision came, he had already
28:06
Speaker 3: thought it through and he was willing.
28:10
Speaker 2: To take to take the cost. And God used that.
28:14
Speaker 3: In a remarkable, remarkable way. That one inspires me a
28:19
Speaker 3: lot about what it means to be a person of courage.
28:21
Speaker 3: And if you know Jack, he's also the nicest guy
28:23
Speaker 3: on the planet. You know, when people were calling him
28:25
Speaker 3: a bigot, I'm like, who are you talking about? Like,
28:28
Speaker 3: you know, he served those two men, he offered to
28:32
Speaker 3: serve them further. He just said, I can't communicate this message,
28:37
Speaker 3: you know, and by making you, you know, custom designing
28:40
Speaker 3: you a kay. It's just a remarkable story. But that's an,
28:45
Speaker 3: in my mind, a crystal clear example of what you
28:47
Speaker 3: were just saying.
28:49
Speaker 2: That you have no idea what the outcome is going
28:52
Speaker 2: to be.
28:53
Speaker 3: That's the whole point of First Peter, Like this, if
28:56
Speaker 3: God raised Christ from the dead, you can trust him.
28:59
Speaker 4: Yeah.
29:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean we see it all over scripture. We
29:02
Speaker 1: see in First Peter, we see it in Revelation. You know,
29:04
Speaker 1: the church is of Revelation encouraged not to live with
29:06
Speaker 1: a compromised faith, but to be unyielding and following Christ
29:10
Speaker 1: and then the reward always comes after. You may experience
29:14
Speaker 1: some good things as you go along, but the reward
29:16
Speaker 1: is always after. And so but that doesn't deny that
29:20
Speaker 1: we need to be in that state of no compromise.
29:24
Speaker 1: I think one of my favorite quotes is from Jurgen Maltman.
29:28
Speaker 1: He's a theologian. He wrote a book called Theology of Hope,
29:31
Speaker 1: and he basically talks about sin in terms of our passivity,
29:35
Speaker 1: our unwillingness. He kind of ends the quote with our
29:39
Speaker 1: unwillingness to be what God requires. And as I watch
29:43
Speaker 1: truth rising and as we've talked a little bit, that
29:46
Speaker 1: quote comes to mind because I think that where we're
29:49
Speaker 1: at right now is Christians just need to be what
29:52
Speaker 1: God requires, regardless of consequence, and keep pursuing this truth.
29:58
Speaker 1: Not for the sin of Western civilization, although that may
30:04
Speaker 1: very well be part of what gets affected, but simply
30:08
Speaker 1: because God requires us to be a particular way.
30:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and He's trustworthy.
30:14
Speaker 3: Another of those stories that we tell in the film
30:19
Speaker 3: is of Chloe Cole, And by the way, I think
30:22
Speaker 3: each of the five stories tell us something a little
30:25
Speaker 3: bit different, you know, in terms of what it means,
30:27
Speaker 3: you know, to live under the truth and to submit
30:29
Speaker 3: ourselves to it and to be that kind of person.
30:34
Speaker 3: You know, Chloe was herself a victim of the decline
30:40
Speaker 3: of our belief in truth. She was deceived by one
30:45
Speaker 3: of the worst ideas that our world has had in
30:48
Speaker 3: a long time, which is that kids, especially young girls,
30:52
Speaker 3: can be born in the wrong body and should therefore
30:55
Speaker 3: go through these life altering chemicals, hormones, even surgeries. And
31:02
Speaker 3: at age fifteen, Chloe had a double mastectomy. I mean,
31:06
Speaker 3: can you think about how how deceived you have to
31:11
Speaker 3: be to get all the way down there. And I'll
31:14
Speaker 3: tell you what's fascinating about her story is that she
31:16
Speaker 3: came to believe and realize the mistake that she had made,
31:21
Speaker 3: and she came to accept her body and that in
31:26
Speaker 3: and of itself. Coming to the truth and submitting herself
31:30
Speaker 3: to the truth about who she was actually eventually led her.
31:33
Speaker 2: To the truth of the one who made her.
31:36
Speaker 3: A lot of times, you know, we've been told, you know,
31:39
Speaker 3: don't stand up for truth on these controversial issues because
31:42
Speaker 3: it'll get in the way of the Gospel. It was
31:45
Speaker 3: the truth about this controversial thing, that.
31:48
Speaker 2: Letter to the Gospel.
31:51
Speaker 3: She's what we now call a detransitioner. You know, three
31:55
Speaker 3: years ago we were told those people didn't exist, that
31:58
Speaker 3: they you know, there were no and Chloe's example is incredible.
32:03
Speaker 3: What's also example incredible at Chloe is not just the
32:06
Speaker 3: humility of what it means to submit to the truth
32:08
Speaker 3: and what that can mean. Now she is a rock star.
32:13
Speaker 3: I mean, she is a force of nature helping young people,
32:17
Speaker 3: especially young women like herself, come back to the truth
32:21
Speaker 3: about who she is.
32:22
Speaker 2: I'm excited.
32:23
Speaker 3: We have an annual conference that the Colson Center host
32:26
Speaker 3: and she's going to join us, you know, for that
32:28
Speaker 3: conference because of that. But you know that old kind
32:32
Speaker 3: of cliche that we throw around some that you know,
32:35
Speaker 3: because of what Christ can do and redeem and restore us,
32:39
Speaker 3: that our mess becomes our message.
32:41
Speaker 2: And you know, sometimes.
32:42
Speaker 3: Cliches are cliches for good reasons, because they need to
32:44
Speaker 3: be repeated, you know.
32:45
Speaker 2: And hers is a story of that.
32:49
Speaker 3: And and how truth encourage go together, right, because you
32:52
Speaker 3: can be really courageous about something that's not true, and
32:56
Speaker 3: that's usually hubris or that's usually just deception. But man,
33:00
Speaker 3: when truth and courage come together, it becomes powerful, it
33:04
Speaker 3: really does. And of course both of those things are
33:08
Speaker 3: sourced in God. We don't do it in and of ourselves.
33:10
Speaker 3: God reveals truth to us and he gives us the
33:13
Speaker 3: courage you know that that we need.
33:16
Speaker 2: And Chloe's a wonderful example of that.
33:19
Speaker 1: Well as where I know, we both have hard stops here,
33:22
Speaker 1: so I want to make sure we have enough time
33:24
Speaker 1: to direct people to Truth Rising. So where what's the
33:28
Speaker 1: best way for people to really access Truth Rising? And
33:30
Speaker 1: then talk a little bit about what may be coming
33:33
Speaker 1: down the road for Truth Rising?
33:34
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, look, it's absolutely free and there's no catches, right.
33:38
Speaker 3: This is something that Focused and the Bold and Center
33:41
Speaker 3: and Oz we all agreed upon.
33:43
Speaker 2: You know.
33:43
Speaker 3: So the documentary has been out on YouTube for a while.
33:48
Speaker 3: We pretty I think it's reached probably about a million
33:51
Speaker 3: people given the watch parties and everything else. We have
33:54
Speaker 3: churches that have watched it together in small groups and
33:57
Speaker 3: Christian schools and families that have wont it together. And
34:02
Speaker 3: then following that is the study. The documentary is ninety minutes,
34:07
Speaker 3: it is beautifully filmed. Our partners at Coldwater Media did
34:11
Speaker 3: a terrific job. And then you can follow that up
34:15
Speaker 3: with an eight part study that walks through what we
34:18
Speaker 3: think are the four fundamental ingredients of being the kind
34:22
Speaker 3: of people that we need to be. Hope, Truth, identity
34:25
Speaker 3: and calling hope is what's true about our moment right,
34:29
Speaker 3: no matter how crazy it looks, Christ has risen from
34:31
Speaker 3: the dead. By truth, we mean the true story of
34:34
Speaker 3: the world, really being able to see the world around
34:37
Speaker 3: us in the way that the Bible describes it, you know,
34:40
Speaker 3: on this storyline between creation and new creation. Identity, of course,
34:45
Speaker 3: is the idea of the image of God. If we
34:47
Speaker 3: live in a dehumanizing moment, we need to grasp who
34:50
Speaker 3: we are and then calling as to how now shall
34:52
Speaker 3: we live really, and we put some practical framing around
34:56
Speaker 3: the idea of calling all of this. All of this
35:00
Speaker 3: is that truth rising dot com. Truth Rising dot com.
35:03
Speaker 3: It's it's all there. You can you know, from that,
35:08
Speaker 3: you can find it on you know, the video on
35:10
Speaker 3: YouTube to show it in front of a congregation, or
35:13
Speaker 3: watch it on your phone. We've that's been seeing hundreds
35:16
Speaker 3: of thousands of times on x as well, so we've
35:20
Speaker 3: distributed this far and wide. And then from there you
35:23
Speaker 3: can also sign up to get the study and the
35:25
Speaker 3: study comes with those four lessons, eight videos, and then
35:29
Speaker 3: also a study guide that goes along with that, uh,
35:32
Speaker 3: with the questions to ask.
35:34
Speaker 2: And really the whole goal is just to mobilize more people.
35:40
Speaker 3: You know, we'll we'll never know a lot of the names,
35:43
Speaker 3: like we know about the five more famous people that
35:46
Speaker 3: we talk about in the in the book, but you
35:49
Speaker 3: know or in the in the film. But what's interesting
35:51
Speaker 3: is is you know, Jack Phillips is famous now, but
35:55
Speaker 3: and he's he's really gifted as a cake artist. You've
35:57
Speaker 3: ever go to Denver, go to a shot because it's
35:59
Speaker 3: really good stuff. But you know, he's not like a superhero.
36:05
Speaker 3: You know, God put him in a particular time in
36:08
Speaker 3: place and called him to an active obedience.
36:11
Speaker 2: He obeyed and then God did the rest.
36:13
Speaker 3: And that's really what we're hoping to see, by God's grace,
36:16
Speaker 3: is more of us willing to do that.
36:19
Speaker 4: Well, I'll be.
36:21
Speaker 1: I'll put the address or the web address for all
36:24
Speaker 1: of this stuff on the YouTube video of the documentary,
36:27
Speaker 1: the website, all that stuff will be in the show notes, folks, So.
36:30
Speaker 4: I would even really encourage you to check it out.
36:32
Speaker 1: Just as we close here, John, what's your prayer for
36:36
Speaker 1: the Truth Rising Project? I mean, what do you really
36:38
Speaker 1: you know if you had your your big dream of
36:41
Speaker 1: what this does and how it impacts the church.
36:45
Speaker 4: What would that be?
36:47
Speaker 2: You know?
36:48
Speaker 3: I worked for years prior to becoming the president of
36:51
Speaker 3: the Coulson Center at a ministry called Summit Ministries, which
36:55
Speaker 3: is out in Colorado Springs. It trains young people in
36:58
Speaker 3: worldview and apologetics for the go to college. I still
37:01
Speaker 3: do some teaching over there. The founder of Summit led
37:04
Speaker 3: that for fifty years, you know, model of faithfulness.
37:09
Speaker 2: Just an incredible man.
37:11
Speaker 3: And he used to he used to joke about this,
37:14
Speaker 3: and now I think about it a lot. He talked
37:16
Speaker 3: about his favorite verse. I think it's somewhere an acts.
37:19
Speaker 3: I need to find that the address for it. But
37:21
Speaker 3: he says, you know it's it's it's where they talk.
37:23
Speaker 3: It talks about David, and it's like David was faithful
37:26
Speaker 3: to his generation and then he died. That's what I watched,
37:31
Speaker 3: be faithful and then die because you know, you're part
37:35
Speaker 3: of something bigger. And I think about that a lot,
37:37
Speaker 3: and I guess that's the goal. You know, God's writing
37:41
Speaker 3: the story of history.
37:42
Speaker 2: I'm not.
37:43
Speaker 3: God sent Jesus in the flesh and uh and he's
37:48
Speaker 3: been you know, he's risen from the dead. You know,
37:52
Speaker 3: everything's everything's in place, So I've been and God's the
37:57
Speaker 3: one who put me in this time and place. So
38:00
Speaker 3: you know, that's what we want to see. And if
38:03
Speaker 3: Truth Rising can encourage more people, and I mean encourage
38:09
Speaker 3: exactly the way the word means, which means to give courage,
38:13
Speaker 3: we want to give courage. And God has used these
38:17
Speaker 3: stories to give courage to me. And God has used
38:21
Speaker 3: Ozgennis to give knowledge and understanding and from that courage
38:25
Speaker 3: to me. And man, if that can equip Christians for
38:31
Speaker 3: this crazy moment. Man, what a gift, what a privilege
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Speaker 3: to be a part of.
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Speaker 2: Something like this.
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Speaker 3: And so it's been a lot of fun to work
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Speaker 3: with those guys, and it's been a lot of fun
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Speaker 3: to learn more about you know, Jack and Chloe, and
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Speaker 3: Iann herci Ali and Katie Fast another friend whose story
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Speaker 3: is told. Even Seth Dylan, you know, the Babylon b guy.
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Speaker 3: What a what a funny guy. You know, I appreciate
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Speaker 3: having the spiritual gift of sarcasm as well. I just
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Speaker 3: that's the goal, faithfulness. That faithfulness is really what the
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Speaker 3: goal is.
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Speaker 4: Very good. I love that. Well, John, thanks for being
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Speaker 4: on the show.
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Speaker 1: Really appreciate having you here, and I pray the Truth
39:16
Speaker 1: Rising Project.
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Speaker 4: Does really, really well.
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Speaker 1: Again, we're going to have all the links in the
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Speaker 1: show notes, so if you're interested in the Truth Project,
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Speaker 1: i'd encourage you go check it out. I think I
39:25
Speaker 1: got to see the documentary, really enjoyed it. Definitely worth
39:29
Speaker 1: your time to watch it and just engage with this project.
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Speaker 1: Think about what it means to live for the truth
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Speaker 1: courageously in a time where really the world needs to
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Speaker 1: see the witness of the Church and the faithful witness
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Speaker 1: of the Church in order to see Christ.
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Speaker 4: So again, John, thanks for being here.
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Speaker 2: Hey, it's been an honor. Thanks so much.
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Speaker 1: All Right, everybody, take care and we'll catch you on
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Speaker 1: the next episode of Thinking Christian