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10 Christian Influences on Joe Rogan (The Last is POWERFUL) || SLP566 · The Speak Life Podcast

0:00
SPEAKER_04: Joe Rogan seems to be rethinking Christianity.
0:02
SPEAKER_04: Let me take you through ten influences on Joe Rogan, nine of which are not anywhere near as important as the tenth.
0:10
SPEAKER_04: But let's start off with an older one from Douglas Murray.
0:13
SPEAKER_04: Here he is a few years ago explaining how actually the doctrine of original sin is one of the more believable aspects of Christianity.
0:21
SPEAKER_04: He unpacks it so interestingly.
0:22
SPEAKER_01: I've always thought there's one central insight to the Judeo-Christian relig uh uh tradition, which I wish that the social justice warriors bore in mind, and that is that's the Garden of Eden and and and the the the what Kant would call the crooked timber of humanity.
0:38
SPEAKER_01: Just just to recognize the central truth which is in that tradition and in others, that that we we're not born in this situation of Rousseauian uh uh perfection.
0:50
SPEAKER_04: Jean-Jacques Rousseau, French enlightenment thinker who said we are born free, but everywhere we are in chains.
0:56
SPEAKER_04: That actually we are the free ones, and it's society that is the enslaving thing.
1:01
SPEAKER_04: The Garden of Eden teaches the exact opposite.
1:03
SPEAKER_04: Adam and Eve are in this state of perfection called the Garden of Eden, and even though their environment is perfect, still human nature is to enslave ourselves.
1:14
SPEAKER_04: And Douglas Murray, who is not a believer, is saying we need to take this story seriously because this story explains us.
1:20
SPEAKER_01: We are this very, very uh uh contorted being, uh which is pot which is capable of incredible greatness and beauty and kindness and forgiveness, and also capable of their opposites.
1:36
SPEAKER_01: And that's and that it's not it's not that you are one and other people are the other, but all of us all of us uh uh are both all the time.
1:46
SPEAKER_01: And so there never is a victory and there never is a win, other than trying to deal with and restrain your own worst impulses in the life that you have.
2:00
SPEAKER_10: And honestly express all the issues that arrive while you're trying to do that.
2:05
SPEAKER_04: And that had a certain effect on Joe Rogan.
2:07
SPEAKER_04: He saw how the Bible can maybe explain the modern culture wars.
2:11
SPEAKER_04: Um another person who's not a Christian, Jordan Peterson, was on his channel many times, and Jordan Peterson here gives the answer to the Adam problem.
2:20
SPEAKER_04: It's the story of the second Adam and the passion of the Christs, particularly as something that resonates with us at the most profound level.
2:28
SPEAKER_04: Jordan Peterson here is preaching to Joe Rogan, and Joe Rogan is himself resonating.
2:34
SPEAKER_07: You're Pilate, you doubt truth, but you're you'll go along with the crowd.
2:39
SPEAKER_07: You're Judas because you betray your best friend.
2:43
SPEAKER_07: You're the mob.
2:45
SPEAKER_07: You're the criminal.
2:47
SPEAKER_07: All of that, that's you.
2:49
SPEAKER_07: You look on all those things that you hate and are terrified by.
2:54
SPEAKER_07: That's like that's not a snake.
2:56
SPEAKER_07: It's like the worst of all possible snakes everywhere.
3:00
SPEAKER_07: That's what you're looking at.
3:02
SPEAKER_07: What do you see?
3:04
SPEAKER_07: You see death, you see destruction, pain, terror, tyranny, frailty, betrayal.
3:11
SPEAKER_07: Look harder.
3:12
SPEAKER_07: Look harder.
3:14
SPEAKER_07: Look harder.
3:15
SPEAKER_07: What do you see?
3:18
SPEAKER_07: The death and resurrection.
3:21
SPEAKER_04: You look far enough into the abyss, you see the light.
3:24
SPEAKER_04: Look harder at Christ, and what do you see?
3:26
SPEAKER_04: Well, you see the answer to Adam.
3:28
SPEAKER_04: You see the second Adam, you see the one from on high who plums our depths and rises again, that he pioneers away through that darkness and death into hope.
3:39
SPEAKER_04: And again, this is something that really does resonate with Joe Rogan.
3:42
SPEAKER_04: Our third example is a stand-up comic called Duncan Trussell.
3:45
SPEAKER_04: He is a believer.
3:46
SPEAKER_04: He goes on to Joe Rogan and he starts talking about the story of the crucifixion.
3:51
SPEAKER_04: Joe Rogan wants to know, but is it true?
3:53
SPEAKER_10: So those people that encountered something exceptional and crazy, something insane, whether it is uh, you know, the resurrection or whatever it was, like, yeah, I would like I would love to know what the f they really said.
4:05
SPEAKER_10: Like what what were the actual words?
4:07
SPEAKER_10: Why did you write it down?
4:08
SPEAKER_10: What did what really happened?
4:10
SPEAKER_04: Well, hang on, because Wesley Huff goes on to Joe Rogan a matter of months later, and here is a textual scholar who's gonna start answering some of Joe's questions.
4:18
SPEAKER_04: And that's really why I think Joe was resonating so much with Wes.
4:21
SPEAKER_04: He was answering the questions that Joe really has.
4:24
SPEAKER_02: Or the crucifixion, if you look at it from the perspective of two intersecting timelines, which is the infinite and the finite meeting, which is what humans are, then you realize we're all being crucified on time.
4:37
SPEAKER_02: And there being the crucifixion becomes like a existential reality.
4:42
SPEAKER_02: This is what you want to know why you're feeling fed up.
4:44
SPEAKER_02: It's because part of you is forever and part of you is gonna die.
4:47
SPEAKER_10: It's so crazy that it's such an efficient business that they still run these fing franchises, even though the book is available everywhere.
4:54
SPEAKER_10: It's so crazy that like this one person interprets this better than everybody else.
4:59
SPEAKER_10: So you go see him and he talks, and they develop egos and they have jets and they have fing mansions and Rolls-Royce's.
5:06
SPEAKER_10: It's so crazy that that works.
5:08
SPEAKER_10: It's crazy that that works when that book is available for everybody and should be interpreted.
5:14
SPEAKER_10: I mean, you should understand what it means.
5:17
SPEAKER_04: And this is very important for Joe Rogan.
5:19
SPEAKER_04: There are cult leaders, and this thing can go sideways really fast with a big personality who wants to draw people to himself for nefarious purposes, and Joe has his spidey senses up against the cult leaders, and he very much wants to resist that kind of cult of personality.
5:34
SPEAKER_04: That's very important for Joe.
5:35
SPEAKER_04: Aaron Ross Powell, Jr.
5:35
SPEAKER_10: You shouldn't interpret it ignorantly, right?
5:38
SPEAKER_10: Right.
5:38
SPEAKER_10: But you if you're if you're wise enough to be able to capture what they're trying to say, just capture in your mind what they're trying to say and translate it into a thing that makes sense.
5:50
SPEAKER_10: You're like, what were they talking about?
5:53
SPEAKER_10: Yeah.
5:53
SPEAKER_10: What happened?
5:54
SPEAKER_10: Is this a map of how the universe was created?
5:57
SPEAKER_10: In the beginning there was light.
5:58
SPEAKER_10: Is that a map?
5:59
SPEAKER_10: Or is that life itself?
6:01
SPEAKER_10: Like, what is that?
6:02
SPEAKER_04: And it circles back as it so often does to what pragmatically works and that Christianity pragmatically works.
6:08
SPEAKER_04: Matthew McConaughey has a very similar take on Christianity.
6:12
SPEAKER_04: He's not quite sure about the miracles and the supernatural, but he's very sure about love your neighbor and earth-embodied moral practices.
6:22
SPEAKER_04: And so that's that's going to resonate with Joe quite a bit.
6:24
SPEAKER_05: I, for myself, I don't know what to do in my daily life with the burning bush.
6:31
SPEAKER_05: I don't know what to do with that.
6:32
SPEAKER_05: Um, I do know what to do with love your neighbor like yourself.
6:38
SPEAKER_05: I do know what to do with Matthew 6.22.
6:40
SPEAKER_05: If they eye be single, their whole body will be full of light.
6:43
SPEAKER_05: I do know what to do with some proverbs that I can take into daily practice and go, oh, I felt my life.
6:50
SPEAKER_05: I felt improvement.
6:52
SPEAKER_05: I felt success in my relationships, in my relationship with the day, with my career, by following that, um, by treating others how I wanted to be treated, the golden rule.
7:01
SPEAKER_05: So I I take the practical stuff myself and try to try to utilize it and pick out what can work for me.
7:07
SPEAKER_04: And okay, that's kind of resonating with Joe Rogan, but it's probably resonating with Joe because it's bringing Christianity down to a Joe Rogan level rather than lifting Joe up to uh what Christianity really is in its most supernatural sense.
7:20
SPEAKER_04: Um here's another comedian, Chris De Stefano, who uh has a go at lifting Joe up into a belief in the resurrection, and he tries out uh a version of the five minimal facts historical argument for the resurrection of Jesus.
7:33
SPEAKER_04: It probably doesn't go as Chris had wanted it.
7:35
SPEAKER_06: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
7:36
SPEAKER_06: And the Romans themselves acknowledge there's no body in that tomb that we put in there three days ago.
7:41
SPEAKER_06: There's the body is not there and we did it.
7:43
SPEAKER_06: So in order to save ourselves, we're gonna say the apostles robbed it.
7:48
SPEAKER_06: But in reality, that's just a conspiracy because the apostles would have no reason to rob it.
7:53
SPEAKER_06: That would be So the Romans think the apostles robbed the body.
7:57
SPEAKER_06: Aaron Ross Powell That's a c conspiracy is the Trevor Burrus Why do you say conspiracy?
8:00
SPEAKER_10: You're saying a conspiracy to diminish the story.
8:03
SPEAKER_06: No, no, no.
8:03
SPEAKER_06: I'm I meant I meant conspiracy in the sense of that's what people say as a reason why the the Do the Romans say that?
8:09
SPEAKER_06: The Romans have said that.
8:11
SPEAKER_06: The Romans said that back then, and then I guess conspiracy is the wrong word, because I'm not I'm not um like it's uh it's one story, one explanation, I'll say.
8:19
SPEAKER_10: Explanation of But would if you looked at it like what's the most logical explanation?
8:24
SPEAKER_10: Is the most logical explanation that a dead guy came back to life, or the most logical explanation that someone took his body because that's what the Roman said?
8:32
SPEAKER_04: Well, God bless him, he had a go, and that's all the enthusiasm of the recent converts.
8:37
SPEAKER_04: Speaking of recent converts and conversion experiences, Rampage, a uh MMA fighter, went on to the Joe Rogan experience and spoke of his experience of the Holy Spirit.
8:48
SPEAKER_04: And I think that is really speaking Joe Rogan's language.
8:51
SPEAKER_00: What I did, I prayed to God, because my dad, my dad had just got saved like two years before.
8:55
SPEAKER_00: He said he was praying for me.
8:57
SPEAKER_00: And um, I remember what my dad said, he said, Oh, when you pray to God, just say in Jesus' name.
9:01
SPEAKER_00: So I was like, God, I'm a coward right now.
9:04
SPEAKER_00: Just take this fruit from my heart.
9:06
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name.
9:07
SPEAKER_00: I love you.
9:07
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
9:08
SPEAKER_00: And within two minutes, I was laughing and crying at the same time.
9:13
SPEAKER_00: And I was and I received the Holy Ghost Spirit.
9:16
SPEAKER_00: And I was I wasn't afraid.
9:17
SPEAKER_00: I went to go use the restroom.
9:18
SPEAKER_00: My eyes were different, everything was different, right?
9:20
SPEAKER_09: Wow.
9:20
SPEAKER_00: That's the first day of training camp for Vandalay.
9:23
SPEAKER_00: The second fight.
9:24
SPEAKER_00: And then so I'm training for Vandalay.
9:26
SPEAKER_00: My coach thought I was crazy, he brought a preacher in.
9:28
SPEAKER_00: He thought I lost my mind, thought I was crazy.
9:30
SPEAKER_00: Because, you know, I'm totally, you know how I was back then.
9:33
SPEAKER_00: I was saying a whole bunch of crazy shit, doing a whole bunch of crazy shit.
9:36
SPEAKER_00: And and beginning, I didn't cuss anymore.
9:38
SPEAKER_00: It just changed me right away.
9:40
SPEAKER_00: And um and then my coach found out I wasn't crazy, but it was the start of you know, our relationship going south.
9:47
SPEAKER_00: And um I started training for for Venil, then get closer to the fight, and I was like, I'm gonna kill this motherfucker, I'm gonna kill him.
9:53
SPEAKER_00: And I'm thinking in my mind, like, I'm Christian now, I can't be thinking like that.
9:57
SPEAKER_00: It's the most confusing part of my life, man.
9:59
SPEAKER_04: Uh I think talking about the impact of Christ on a life and talking in that first person singular to a guy, Joe Rogan, who is convinced from his experience of psychedelics that there is this infinite realm of beauty um that you can be lost in.
10:14
SPEAKER_04: There is the supernatural.
10:15
SPEAKER_04: You don't have to convince Joe Rogan of the supernatural.
10:18
SPEAKER_04: Um, his access to it has been a kind of a psychedelic route to that experience of transcendence.
10:24
SPEAKER_04: But when you tell him about an experience of the Holy Spirit, he is all ears.
10:29
SPEAKER_04: Which is very interesting to compare to when he had Steven Myers on.
10:33
SPEAKER_04: Dr.
10:33
SPEAKER_04: Steven Myers, uh scientist and intelligent design advocate, he goes on to try and give Joe some of the evidence for a belief in an intelligent designer.
10:44
SPEAKER_08: The thing that really intrigued me was the discovery that at the foundation of life, and even the very simplest cells, we have this amazingly complex code.
10:52
SPEAKER_08: That DNA, we all learned about it in high school, we think that you know we all learn about the double helix structure of the DNA molecule.
10:59
SPEAKER_08: But that's not the most important thing about it.
11:01
SPEAKER_08: It's that within that double helix, there is literally a code, uh digital information.
11:08
SPEAKER_04: Aaron Powell I think some of these points land with Joe, but I find it fascinating that Joe is as interested in pressing into Stephen's own personal beliefs and have you encountered God?
11:17
SPEAKER_04: How do you have you had an experience with God?
11:19
SPEAKER_08: Aaron Ross Powell I have a former student who had an experience of God on a psychedelic.
11:26
SPEAKER_08: Me too.
11:26
SPEAKER_08: So I've I'm I I'm aware of those experiences.
11:30
SPEAKER_08: You haven't had them?
11:30
SPEAKER_08: I have not.
11:31
SPEAKER_10: Would you want to?
11:33
SPEAKER_08: Um I'm sort of happy with the experiences of God I've had in the sort of um Wouldn't you like to actually say hi?
11:39
SPEAKER_08: Uh stay hi.
11:41
SPEAKER_10: Say hi.
11:42
SPEAKER_10: Say hi.
11:43
SPEAKER_10: Like say hello to God.
11:44
SPEAKER_10: Aaron Ross Powell, Jr.
11:44
SPEAKER_08: Yeah.
11:45
SPEAKER_04: Well um I found other ways to do it, but you know I think I think that's one of the most interesting things about Wes Huff's appearance on the Joe Rogan show earlier this year.
11:56
SPEAKER_04: Everyone's talking about the textual analysis point, and that's really important because Joe does have these questions about the texts, and we don't want to follow after cult leaders.
12:05
SPEAKER_04: And has there just been a a kind of a trail of Chinese whispers about the Bible and can we really trust what's written down?
12:11
SPEAKER_04: Therefore, it was really important that Weshuff brought to Joe this this presence and and told him about the historical reliability of the New Testament documents?
12:22
SPEAKER_03: There's still debate about the dating of this, but the unanimous consensus is that it's comfortably second century, s second century, potentially the beginning of the second century, which means that this is found in Egypt.
12:34
SPEAKER_03: John is probably writing his gospel in Ephesus, so it has to be written by John, spread around, find its way to Egypt, be copied, and then end up in this manuscript.
12:45
SPEAKER_03: Which means that at minimum you've already pushed the Gospel of John back into the first century comfortably, and potentially even like most likely into the lifetime of the eyewitnesses of these events.
12:55
SPEAKER_03: And so all of the literature up until that point from the scholarly consensus about the dating of the Gospel of John gets totally rewritten.
13:04
SPEAKER_04: But early on, Wes has credibility with Job because he tells his story of miraculous healing when he was younger.
13:10
SPEAKER_04: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
13:10
SPEAKER_03: And when I was in the hospital, I'd I'd wake up and there'd be uh pinpricks in my legs because they'd be testing where uh like where the reactions were, and they'd have used a syringe.
13:19
SPEAKER_03: And so I'd wake up and there'd be just tiny little pinpricks in my legs.
13:22
SPEAKER_03: Because they'd been testing while I was asleep to see what the kind of um you know whether it was registering neurologically with anything.
13:31
SPEAKER_03: But I couldn't feel anything.
13:32
SPEAKER_03: I was fully a paraplegic.
13:35
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
13:36
SPEAKER_03: But but going back to that, like so I've I experienced this, what I consider to be a true m supernatural experience in that I walked into the hospital to the doctors that had overseen me, and they were the first ones that used the word miracle.
13:53
SPEAKER_03: They said we really don't have any type of medical explanation.
13:57
SPEAKER_03: And mainly because there was no um atrophy.
14:00
SPEAKER_03: Because of the the cutoff of the communication, my muscles in those 30 days were fine.
14:06
SPEAKER_03: Um and it's a short amount of time, but uh they said there should be something and we're we're picking up nothing.
14:12
SPEAKER_10: That's crazy.
14:14
SPEAKER_10: Because uh I've broken limbs before and had them in casts, and just in the six weeks that you have a cast on, yeah, you have massive atrophy.
14:22
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
14:22
SPEAKER_04: It's that practical impact that Joe is looking for, actually.
14:26
SPEAKER_04: And that's why our ninth influence on Joe Rogan is a guy called Alan Graham, a guy you probably haven't heard of, but a guy who has poured out his life in addressing the homelessness problems uh where he is in Texas, and Joe at a fundraiser event got to meet Alan Graham and got to see the ways in which his life poured out has been inspired by Jesus.
14:47
SPEAKER_10: The way you talked was with no ego and with kindness and with sincerity.
14:57
SPEAKER_10: And immediately I thought, uh I want to talk to that guy.
15:01
SPEAKER_10: What you're doing is an example of what can be accomplished with a healthy culture.
15:06
SPEAKER_10: I mean, what I saw from your place is the best example of a possible solution to this ever.
15:12
SPEAKER_10: Because you could see those people when they were walking down the streets and waving to you and talking to you.
15:17
SPEAKER_10: People seemed happy.
15:18
SPEAKER_10: They seemed relieved, they seemed like they've got some hope.
15:22
SPEAKER_10: We're looking at it here.
15:25
SPEAKER_09: We uh we're looking at it here on the video.
15:29
SPEAKER_09: Look at that mug shot, man.
15:31
SPEAKER_09: That's you, buddy.
15:32
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
15:33
SPEAKER_04: Now Alan Graham goes on to give an account of the gospel that has actually inspired him to do these things.
15:40
SPEAKER_04: But the thing that has won a hearing with Joe Rogan has been a life poured out in sacrificial service inspired by Jesus.
15:49
SPEAKER_04: And that's why the number 10 influence on Joe Rogan, which I think is more important than all the other nine, even though there are Hollywood stars in there, even though there are big name celebrities with massive cult followings, the number 10 influence is the most important.
16:06
SPEAKER_04: And that is the regular, embodied community around Joe.
16:11
SPEAKER_04: Him encountering Christians who live for others.
16:15
SPEAKER_04: Joe says it often on his podcast.
16:17
SPEAKER_04: He said it on the Wes Huff episode.
16:19
SPEAKER_10: I know a lot of Christians that are hardcore Christians, that are some of the nicest people you'll ever meet in your life.
16:24
SPEAKER_10: So it does work.
16:27
SPEAKER_10: Right?
16:27
SPEAKER_10: Like if you do live like a Christian and you do follow the principles of Christ, you will have a richer, more love-filled life.
16:35
SPEAKER_10: So it is true, right?
16:38
SPEAKER_10: But you have to submit to this concept that this guy was the child of God who came down to earth, let himself be crucified, came back from the dead, explained a bunch of stuff for people, and then said, Alright, see you when I come back.
16:54
SPEAKER_04: If Joe Rogan becomes a Christian in 2025, it will not be because of Jordan Peterson, it will not be because of Matthew McConaughey, it will not be because of Chris DeStefano, it will not be because of Stephen Myers.
17:06
SPEAKER_04: It will be because of the Christians he has met in his life.
17:10
SPEAKER_04: The number one verse about evangelism in the New Testament is 1 Peter chapter 3, verse 15.
17:15
SPEAKER_04: It says, Always be prepared to give an answer to anyone who asks you for the reason for the hope that you have, but do this with gentleness and respect.
17:24
SPEAKER_04: Notice who is initiating the evangelistic encounter?
17:27
SPEAKER_04: It's not the Christian, it's the non-Christian.
17:30
SPEAKER_04: And why is the non-Christian asking about the hope that is within you?
17:34
SPEAKER_04: Because it is an evident hope.
17:36
SPEAKER_04: When all around you ought to make you despair, somehow you're living differently.
17:41
SPEAKER_04: And really, the evangelistic encounter envisaged in 1 Peter 3 verse 15 is that a non-Christian notices that a Christian is living with hope.
17:49
SPEAKER_04: And they say, How are you still standing after the year that you've just had?
17:52
SPEAKER_04: How are you living so differently when the world is going in the opposite direction?
17:57
SPEAKER_04: And the answer at that moment is, I don't know, I guess Jesus.
18:02
SPEAKER_04: It's interesting, 1 Peter 3 verse 15, it's where we get the word apologetics from, because the word for answer is the word apologia in Greek.
18:10
SPEAKER_04: Nowadays, when we think of apologetics, we think about having 25 different arguments for God's existence and knowing how to defend yourself against attacks of the faith, and it's a very philosophical enterprise.
18:20
SPEAKER_04: In its first century context, apologetics is people saying to the Christian, How come you're living differently?
18:27
SPEAKER_04: And a first Peter III kind of answer is, I dunno, Jesus.
18:33
SPEAKER_04: If Joe Rogan becomes a Christian in 2025, it won't be because celebrities have preached the gospel to him.
18:38
SPEAKER_04: It will be because, intrigued by an embodied faith that actually puts the love of Jesus into practice, he will pull at those threads and we pray, find the Christ of Scripture.
18:51
SPEAKER_04: Whether with celebrities or regular people, whether with millionaires or with the homeless, the greatest evangelistic power is still the witness of the church.
19:01
SPEAKER_04: I'm Glenn Scrivener from Speak Life.
19:02
SPEAKER_04: We like to see all things through the lens of Jesus.
19:05
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19:06
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19:10
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19:14
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19:19
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