2025 in Review: AI, Trump, Charlie, the Pope, and more

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign. [00:00:09] Speaker B: Welcome in to Think Deeper podcast. Our year end review almost Joe got me messed up. We were saying it is a year in or year end. It's year in review for 2025. It's been a very busy year. We got a new president, we got a new pope. There's been so many major news stories. And so we've got a top 10 we're going to count down for you. Any opening thoughts before we get to the list? Start counting down from 10 to 1. Is anything to intro what we're about to do? [00:00:34] Speaker A: Well, it's interesting because, you know, you think about the big events of each year and I wish we had done this on the other ones because it'd be nice to go back and be like, what Was big in 2024 this year? Seemed there's a couple we're going to get into. Those that were big were huge. There were several that I would put kind of on the mid tier level maybe. And then there's a couple that are absolutely huge. And I imagine that probably mirrors most years. Nothing's going to top Covid, of course, 2020, 2021. On the other hand, obviously with, with some of the bigger things that happened this year, a lot to discuss, a lot of different angles and a lot of different opinions on these things as we saw throughout the year and we saw on social media and the way that it spread. And so it's just, it was interesting to see this year unfold as we kind of look back through some of these things. I had forgotten about a couple of them worth bringing up because, man, the Internet was very divided. Even on some of the smaller ones, the Internet was very divided. [00:01:27] Speaker C: The only thought that I have is I do feel like it can be very easy for us to just think very negatively, very pessimistically. We can look back at the year and go, man, this was a really heavy year. And there are a lot of things that's not to denigrate anybody who might have had a really rough year or is feeling kind of pessimistic about the next year, anything like that. But, man, one of the things that I really like to read are historical books like, you know, real life stories about, you know, from the 60s or whatever, reading a lot about Kennedy and stuff lately. And, you know, one thing that hit me as I was reading, you know, the Killing Kennedy book by Bill O'Reilly and other stuff like, man, there were a lot of years, a lot of decades where there were just some very heavy years for the United States, like Cuban missile crisis, and all these things, like, you know, as I look back on this year, like, I know there was some big stuff, but I think it can be very easy to get tunnel vision and think, man, every. Every year is the new heaviest year. Every year is the new worst year. And so I would just encourage anybody listening to this who's a faithful Christian. [00:02:22] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:02:22] Speaker C: Look back and reflect on the things that might not have gone well or the things that were heavy. But also, man, we have a lot of reasons to be grateful, a lot of joy, a lot of reasons to have joy. Obviously, we have Christ. We have eternal life. And so I look at these episodes more as a. Or these kind of periods of a year in review as like, let's talk about the year. Let's talk about what we can learn. Let's talk about the things that we'll remember here in a couple of years or so. And less of a, man, what? [00:02:48] Speaker A: Another. [00:02:48] Speaker C: Another terrible year. Like, I know some people do. So that'd be my opening thoughts, I suppose. [00:02:52] Speaker B: Yeah, I think that's a good point to have you guys ready to get into the top 10. [00:02:57] Speaker A: Let's just do it. [00:02:58] Speaker B: All right, so oddly enough, number 10 is 6, 7. No, I'm just kidding. It's part of it. Gen Z trends, we've kind of got a new generation coming into their own, and that is changing things. Gen Z, we've talked about statistics previously of their views on politics, on religion, on masculinity, on the Gen Z return to churches, especially more, I don't know, traditionalist churches, things like that. It's a very interesting generation, and they're contributing meaningfully to the culture. One of which, unfortunately, is that stupid 6, 7 thing that means nothing. But I don't know, what do you guys think about what is changing as Gen Z becomes adults as they are contributing to broader culture? [00:03:43] Speaker A: It seems to me it's. I know they've been around. Obviously, Gen z is, what, 97 and on. I think 96 was the last year. Millennials. And so at this point, like, you're plenty old. You've been around the block. On the other hand, this seems to be one of the first years where it really felt like they were a massive voting block or they were a, you know, like in last year. [00:04:02] Speaker C: But I'm thinking a loud voice in the culture. [00:04:04] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. I'm thinking about mom, Donnie. I'm thinking about who drove Afton Bain down here. She ended up losing. But, you know, like, Gen Z was very vocal about some of these things, specifically the women being, you Know, more in the lib and the guy's being a conservative. But things that made into the culture like Labubu dolls or six, seven or you know, things like that. Like there's that raw dogging where they'd raw dog flights on the plane and it's basically bringing back mindfulness practices that has a negative. Right. That sounds, you know, a very bad connotation. What it means is they literally would take flights like to London or whatever across seven hour flights. No phone, no electronics of any kind, no books. They're literally just sitting there and just thinking for like seven straight hours. They called it raw dogging flights. And then they would talk about doing the other things. And again, it's got a very negative connotation in some ways. But they kind of, they turn it around to basically just mean we're getting rid of everything that might distract us in any way and we're just being present in the moment. Which by and large I think is actually kind of a good thing that they're willing to do it. But it became a trend and so Gen Z seems to be driving more trends this year than in other years. And I know this is just going up top. People may say, well no, there's been a few Trends, but like 6, 7 exploded. That was the Dictionary.com word of the year. I think that's all Gen Z driven. So it was just a big year for them in a lot of ways. Yeah, yeah. [00:05:25] Speaker C: As the, as the resident Gen Z on the podcast, you know, there's reasons to look and kind of roll your eyes and go, oh boy, you know what's. And I think that's kind of everybody's gut reaction to stuff is, oh boy, my generation, we're in trouble. And again, there's a lot of reason for it. I think, honestly, just to comment on the 6, 7 thing for a second, I think the reason it got so big is because everybody knows there's really nothing to it. And so we're just going to kind of continue the shtick, if you will. Like the Gen Xers and the older people, like they want there to be a punchline. It's like, well, there's not a punchline. There's, there's nothing to it and we're just going to keep doing it almost in a weird way kind of like a rebellious type of thing. Like we know there's nothing to it and we're just going to keep doing it anyway. But I think that really is the story of Gen Z from, from just purely anecdotally speaking, I work with a lot of kids that are Gen Z, and it's less care about what other people think. It's less care about. Which again, can be a very bad thing. Like, less care about what older generations think. Like, less care about, you know, the, you know, the negative things that people might think about them. Where it can be very positive is they don't feel the pressure to conform to what older generations think, the traditions or things that. Well, we've just always done it that way there. I think you are. It is not a coincidence that you're seeing a rise. And then, I know statistically speaking, it is mostly Gen Z males that are leaning far more conservative than Gen Z females, but I don't think it's a coincidence that you're seeing a lot more swing in the conservative direction. You're seeing a lot more swing into the common sense direction of people. Even, even the flight thing that you brought up, Joe, Like, I think it's so interesting. So you're telling me that staring at a screen for seven hours is a bad thing? Like, well, we should know that, right? And so, not that I've ever done that. I would probably go crazy. Maybe I'm brain rot, as they say. But like, yeah, I just, that's what sticks out to me about, about the rise of Gen Z is that for the most part, again, there's a lot of negatives to it, but there are a lot of positives too. They're not beholden to what the previous generations think of them. They're not beholden to traditions. They're not beholden to. Well, we've always done things that way. They're questioning and they're, they're pushing back more onto. Well, you know, maybe for a, for a woman getting married and having kids, maybe that is the best thing. Right. And we'll get to that later. But like, I don't know. That's what sticks out to me is just the non. Or not feeling like they need to conform to what everybody else thinks or wants them to do. But, Jack, I'm sure you got some thoughts as the resident millennial here. [00:07:42] Speaker B: Old guy. Yeah, old guy. I was looking at it because I thought, you know, six, seven actually skews younger. It's even a Gen Alpha thing. And so we've got another generation starting to make an impact. But it's, you know, kind of anybody younger than me, and that happened to us millennials for a while. Like, we're in our 30s and, you know, some teenager would do something and people would Go, oh, those millennials. Like, you know, we. We need to keep our distinctions there. And so my bad to Gen z for the 6, 7 thing. But just one last point on this. I remember it was one of those movie award shows that I don't watch early in the year. But the clip went viral of Timothee Chalamet 1. And he got up and he said, you know, I know you're not supposed to talk this way, but I want to be great. I want to be one of these guys up here, you know, winning the awards. I want to be great at my craft. And there's that sincerity and earnestness that for so long it's been irony Gen X millennials, we don't take things seriously. We just roll our eyes at the world and trying hard and all that is, like, not cool. And even if you care about something, you always, yeah, you know, I'd really like to do this, you know, if that's okay with you. You know, like, always throw in the joke. You look at, like, the Avengers movies, the every serious scene is undercut with a joke. And, like, no, sincerity and earnestness, I think are coming back. And those are good things to see. So. [00:08:49] Speaker A: Well, and you're seeing. They're going to be up and down this list. So we're going to come back around to Gen Z, Nick Fuentes, he's going to be on the list, you know, make an appearance here on the top 10, which is mainly driven by Gen Z, by people that I think that earnestness is the key. They are going back to church. They're also not having premarital sex. They're not getting in relationships. And we can look at it, and it's almost like all their incels. No, I think they're looking at it going, this is a disaster. And so they're finally able to step back from the culture that they are presented in, that they're in, and go, this isn't good. You know, this. This is clearly not working. And they're willing to overhaul things. On the one hand, tradition's okay. On the other hand, man, that there can be some disastrous things that. That happen there. So, you know, when. When you just blindly take this, they're willing to challenge all of that. And sometimes that means you get a guy like Nick Fuentes. Sometimes that means, you know, they go back to church. So it's kind of a. Yeah, well, and do it. [00:09:44] Speaker C: Oh, boy. Are you guys able to hear me right now? Okay, cool. Something out of my mic. I was gonna say the last thing, and then I don't know who wants to take us into number nine. That I would say is I think the fruits of Gen Z are still yet to be determined. Like I think we are seeing some positive fruits, some negative fruits, but largely, I mean I'm 26 and I'm on the older end of Gen Z. Like there's a lot of Gen Z that is, you know, early 20s, late teens and so fruits are still to be determined. But who want. Joe, why don't you go ahead and get us into our number nine. [00:10:13] Speaker A: Number nine is an interesting one. So we just have on here Israel and the Jews. There has been a lot of debate online and a lot of discussion and I don't know if anybody reads the comments section of any article, anything that has to do with Israel specifically with the Jewish population. They're not exactly in good favor right now with a lot of people. And this has caused an interesting debate amongst church members. Jack wrote a great article earlier this year on like the five Different Ways and I think we're going to do probably an entire episode on this because it is that big of a deal. This is. Has man really come into the public consciousness more than ever. So October 7, was it 2023? I think so. It's been a little over two years of the October 7 attacks. The Israel, Palestine, back and forth, you know, all of those things. In the midst of this, you have a lot of people that are over here, a lot of the Jewish population, guys like Ben Shapiro and such that they kind of push their own. Yeah, kind of push toward the pro Israel, I think it's fair to say. Israel agenda. Yeah, no doubt. And that has caused a, a lot of debate and a lot of discussion on how should we handle these things. I will tell you this, Gen Z is very out on the Jewish population by and large. And again, if you pay attention to any of like read the comments under these stories, they're not in public favor right now. The. The Jewish population that is. And Israel is kind of taking a beating. From a, you know, public awareness perspective, I would say. So fellas, what are your thoughts on this? And I'm curious, maybe I'd kick you off with like why do you think that is and where do you see this going? [00:11:50] Speaker B: I do kind of want to save it for the full episode. Obviously we're going to talk about it here a little bit, but this is one of the developing stories of the year and that, you know, our greatest ally is going to. Is being viewed as maybe not an ally at all. Maybe you know less or the opposite. And this divides different ways. And this is what I cover a little bit in the article, but not much. But there's leftist view of Israel. That's kind of the pro Palestine kind of thing. And I think a lot of people dismiss any criticism of Israel as, oh, so you're one of those, you know, pro Palestine kind of. But then there's rightist opposition, which is, you know, I just don't want to be involved in their conflicts over there. I don't want to be sending them money for this stuff and let them just mind their own business, we'll mind ours. There's a huge spectrum here of different viewpoints, and for the longest time, it's kind of been the one thing the two parties would agree on is, well, we got to send money to Israel. And there's the religious side of it, the dispensationalist. The Ted Cruz Tucker Carlson interview was a big one. I did a cultural breakdown video on that of, well, it's our duty to bless Israel according to the Bible. Well, is it? And so that question's being asked. And like I said, there's a whole episode to be done on this. So I'm going to save some of the comments for that. But I think some people don't appreciate how big of a sea change we're seeing right now. [00:13:10] Speaker C: Yeah, I don't have a incredibly strong take. I was going to bring up, Jack, what you brought up, the Tucker Carlson Ted Cruz interview, the clips that kind of went viral or what stuck out in my mind about how Ted Cruz was just convinced that the Bible basically commands us to support Israel. And those clips were very, know, instructed because Tucker would press him on it and he would basically like, well, I don't know where it is, but it's in there. You know, I'm obviously paraphrasing, but, like, that was just kind of in his brain as like, well, I know it's in there, like, obviously. And I do think that there, there are a lot of people who just kind of have that in the back of their brain and they think that's what we're supposed to do without really any biblical backing for it. And so that's again, where those clips stuck out of my mind is that Tucker was kind of pressing him on it and it was revealed like, yeah, that's not really in there. And so again, to save comments for a later episode, it's, it's almost like this, you know, kind of Israel and the Jews, it underlines or there's a Kind of a common thread through a lot of these stories. It kind of under. Underlines a lot of this stuff so that I'll kind of say the rest of my thoughts. Joe, did you have anything else before number number eight? [00:14:17] Speaker A: No. I mean, mainly just it's a massive shift taking place. Jack, I like how you said it. Developing story. This is just one to keep an eye on as we get closer to, you know, we're going to move into number eight here, one to keep an eye on as we go forward. If you're not aware of it, we're just making you aware of it. Of, hey, pay attention. This is going to be a major, a major point of contention, I think, for the church going forward. And again, we're going to do a full episode on it here in the next probably couple months, but will get us into number eight. [00:14:43] Speaker C: Yeah. So number eight, we did a, at least a think fast on it. I know we did earlier in the year, and that is the new Pope that. I'm trying to remember what month that was. I think it was second half of the year at some point, but pretty, pretty big. Pretty big story. Jack, we'll. We'll start with you. What thoughts did you have as this is our number eight biggest story of the year. Our. Our new Pope. [00:15:08] Speaker B: It was interesting. An American Pope, first time ever, but. [00:15:12] Speaker C: That from Chicago, right? [00:15:13] Speaker B: Yeah, from Chicago. And he. I think it hurt a lot of Catholics hopes for the church. A lot of them didn't like Pope Francis and it was one of those, like, well, we'll just ride it out and then we'll get another guy. And then he gets in and starts saying basically the same stu stuff like kind of squishy, the kind of things where they're having to clarify his comments on homosexuality or immigration blessing blocks of ice and such. Yeah, he blessed the block of ice at a climate change thing, you know, and it's kind of like, oh, so we're just gonna get progressives in there all the time. And it's one of those, like, we're sitting over here like, yeah, you know, this, this is the problem with having a guy that you say speaks for God. And I know they'll get technical. That only happens sometimes, and that doesn't usually happen. But like the guy and he doesn't agree with a huge chunk of his base. Like, I think it's a positive step in people losing faith in the office if they just keep getting guys who are dragging them in the wrong direction. And Joe, you made a note about this, that the Anglican Church also had to pick a new head, the Archbishop of Canterbury. They picked a woman. They had started ordaining women a while back. I think a pro LGBT woman. And Anglicanism split. I think it was the African Anglican Church. We're done, we're out. You guys go do your own thing. You basically, they said, we're the Anglican Church now. You're not. Like, we. We don't consider you valid anymore. Any of those things. Yeah. And. And so seeing those things kind of crumble is very interesting. [00:16:44] Speaker C: Well, I remember when we did the thing fast on Sorry, Joe, to cut in front is we had that question of, like, is this something that most Catholics will just kind of stick with it and doesn't really matter who gets in there. They're just gonna kind of become so numb to who is the Pope? Go back to Catholics to who the Pope is that nothing's really gonna change it, or is it that you're gonna get so many progressively more progressive popes in that it's going to drive people away from Catholicism? And obviously, as people who don't believe that Catholicism is legitimate or anything like that, that is the hope is that people will start to look around and question and say, all right, you know, what does the Bible actually say? [00:17:22] Speaker B: Or. [00:17:23] Speaker C: Well, this clearly seems. Seems off. [00:17:25] Speaker A: Let's. [00:17:26] Speaker C: Let's do some investigating. Because, I mean, I know a lot of Catholics that they don't really know why they're Catholic, right. Other than, like, they were born that way or they were born into a family that was so not a lot of investigation, not a lot of scripture digging. And so that is the hope is that, you know, it will eventually turn to questioning, searching, seeking that will eventually lead them to the Bible. But, Joe, sorry, what thoughts you have. [00:17:45] Speaker A: No, I was going to say is we talked about Gen Z going to. To these high churches, right? Anglicanism, Catholicism, Orthodoxy, Orthodoxy seems to be probably of the top three. You know, of those three, seems to be maybe the most stable. And that's why probably a lot of them are flocking toward that. I'm interested to see where they go with it and what comes of that, because they have their own branches of orthodoxy that are pretty out there. But as you're saying, like, the two heads of two of the biggest high churches you know of in the world are not looking great right now, which means there is a massive opportunity as the church to step in, go, hey, guys, you know, we're over here, you know, and this is. It is a complete change in perspective to go from having a hierarchy within the, you know, priests and bishops and archbishops and, you know, to the Pope or, you know, the Archbishop of Canterbury, down to the individual church of Christ. Every church is its own, you know, is its own church type of thing. Yes, we're brothers and sisters in Christ as a whole, but on the other hand, we are, you know, small churches at a time and eldership is over. Very small. That's a massive shift. So that's going to be a little bit of a difficult thing that the church is going to have to be prepared to handle as to why is it better to have autonomy, why is it better to not have governing boards? And doesn't it get into everybody being their own, you know, their own pope in their own way? If we're not careful, it can kind of turn into that, which is why we push for strong eldership so much. But this is a conversation we need to be prepared to have because you are going to have people that are looking at Anglicanism going, man, I'm not serving a female pastor. We got a buddy that is. And the priest over his church is like, they had it in Colorado, said, I'm not following her. And so I think he follows the, the one that's in Michigan who's much more conservative. And so they're already looking at it going, no, we're not going that way and having this conflict internally. Great opportunity for us to step in and say, hey, here's where we think, you know, here's where we are. Here's how we read the Bible and be prepared. I know not everybody has like Anglican friends, Catholic friends, yes, a lot more like that. But they're obviously looking at it going, man, if they're conservative at all, they're not super happy with the new Pope and they certainly weren't happy with the last one. So I just view this as opportunities, I guess. [00:19:59] Speaker B: Hey folks, I wanted to tell you about a couple of books from our friends over at Cobb Publishing. Holy Me and Grow Up. Holiness is frequently ignored or minimized. But in Holy Me, Paul Clements shows that it is at the center of the Christian Life. This simple 13 lesson study explains what holiness is, how we get it and why it matters. Designed for both personal and Bible class study, this book will both encourage and challenge you to greater levels of dedication to God and Christ. His latest book, Grow up is a simple 13 lesson study on spiritual growth designed to help Christians understand the what, the why and the how of becoming a mature Christian. Both Holy Me and Grow up are available from Amazon.com and Cobb Publishing. Yeah, if you say you're like the church. That's their big thing is the church is kind of the. The institution and the pillars in support of the truth, as First Timothy 3 says. And yet it's no less immune to progressive drift than every other institution in society. Well, maybe your structure is a little messed up. And so autonomy, isolate that stuff a lot. All right, let's move on to number seven, one that we're not gonna spend a lot of time on because not everyone is as big of sports fans as us. But sports betting is becoming an issue. There's been a number of players that have been banned because they were caught. And I mean, the kind of things where they're. They're trying to win $20,000 and they lose a multimillion dollar contract trying to win a few extra. I mean, just the stupidity of it. But they're. You had pitchers that were out there messing up their pitches. You know, there's a basketball scandal. [00:21:33] Speaker C: The NBA one was pretty, pretty intense. [00:21:35] Speaker B: A lot of people, big names. [00:21:36] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:21:36] Speaker B: And then there's been individual players that were, you know, betting on their own games. And the brother of one of them, who's also in the NBA was explaining, well, here's how it's done. You just say, I'm going to get injured or I'm, you know, and you. [00:21:48] Speaker A: Play part of the hand strings tight. [00:21:49] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And you bet I'm not going to score 10 points tonight. And then five minutes into the game you're like, oh, all right, I'm out. Like, that's just kind of given. He's not saying he did that, but he's saying that that'd be very easy for somebody to do. [00:22:00] Speaker A: And his brother was busted for doing that. [00:22:02] Speaker B: Wasn't. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. [00:22:03] Speaker C: So there was that. Terry Rosier is the name in the NBA that basically you can go watch the video and see how he rigged the game. But the other thing was the rigged poker games. Chauncey Billups, former. Former Denver guy, was a coach for the Trailblazers at one point, basically charged for or was guilty of rigging. Rigging poker games. And that loosely related to the sports gambling or the sports betting thing. What's interesting about this Jack you already kind of referenced it is what is causing these guys who I think specifically about a guy like Rosier Million. You know, he wasn't like a star or anything, but, you know, made millions of dollars trying to make 20 grand extra just by kind of really committing a felony. And I've listened to a lot of kind of debate back and forth about would this happen if, if sports betting wasn't legalized? People have argued that, hey, because it's legalized now, it's easier regulated. And so like they wouldn't have caught the Terry Rosier thing if it wasn't legalized and stuff like that. Overall, I, I do think the negative aspect of it is that it's causing people to kind of raise their eyebrows a bit more. Like the baseball thing was pretty interesting as well. The pitching thing that you brought up, Jack. It's causing me to raise their eyebrows a bit more. And sports in America to me are kind of the one remaining bastion almost of like meritocracy. Nobody, I mean, Hollywood is kind of going up in flames. The music industry, I suppose, but like sports, I feel like people can still rally around it. And the, the scandals at the very least have really put a, put a dent in that quite a bit. [00:23:35] Speaker A: Well, you had those, we were talking about it off air, you know, in the NFL where like they're punting from the 33 or something like that, like every other team in the NFL is going to kick the field goal on that one. Instead they're punting. Very bizarre. Maybe they have their own reasons. But when it's, you know, if they score more points then they, they screw up the spread. [00:23:54] Speaker B: Have to question legitimacy. [00:23:57] Speaker A: Correct. You know, same thing. Jack, you were mentioning the Seahawks had one where you know, it was a. Yes, it was a delay a game. I mean the guy was on it, but they hardly ever call it. There's like four seconds left in the game. They end up lining up a field goal in a 10 point game, a field goal to make it a seven point game at the very end of the game. And the spread was seven points. So it's like you just start questioning the legitimacy of all of these things. And that kind of is a. On the one hand, it really stinks for sports fans. It really stinks on our end. I do like, I think hockey can be a lot harder to bet because there's so many variables. You can't just. I suppose you could fake injury, but that really doesn't go super well in a game like that. So there's some that are a little harder to fake. I'm sure it'll be coming there next or it already is. On the other hand, for instance. Yeah, exactly. I mean there's, there's sports that are going to be harder to do that with, but there's also a level of light. Maybe it's good our, our culture, especially through fantasy sports Things like that has almost made an idol out of. Well, I shouldn't say almost. They have made an idol out of sports and specifically out of pro sports and making it their entire lives. And we've talked about, Jack, you've written on this of like that being their church showing up to the, you know, in, in all the get up, you see the Raiders fans that just look like idiots, you know, and so they show up and it's almost like they have to pay penance and worship and things like. I mean, it's a very weird thing, but when you look at it through that lens, we almost have made a religion out of sports. Maybe this is a good shift for people to step back and go, is this legitimate at all? And then with the NCAA doing what they're doing, that's also a disaster, you know, with the nil money, like, that's also really not good. [00:25:30] Speaker B: So it is funny that our, you know, one of our idols is being destroyed by our biggest idol, which is money. It's kind of taking the other one. The other thing we haven't talked about with this is the push for gambling for all the normal people and how many average people do it. And I wrote an article on it, and one research said they, they checked with hundreds of thousands of people and 5% of them took out more money than they put in. I mean, people are destroying their family's finances. They're getting behind. They're. They're thinking, oh, I know sports, so I'll get in and I'll make money. And 95% of them are losing on. It's just a terrible proposition. It's one of those like, man, if you can't do the math on 95% of the people losing, you shouldn't be playing odds. I mean, like, that's, that's not smart. And yet every sports event you tune into, it's all just gambling, gambling, gambling, gambling. That's something that I think churches need to do a better job of communicating of like, hey, this culture is not a good thing to be involved in. [00:26:23] Speaker A: And when they give you 500 free dollars up front, that means they plan to make a lot of money off of you if they have that much money. You know, sports bet, we'll give you the first 500 free. Like you're telling me I can bet 500 for free if I sign up and that's somehow supposed to benefit you? Yes, because people will continue and they'll lose it all. And that happens time and time and time again. I'm sure there are some people that do make money. But that's almost, it's almost worse of like, that's not the legitimate way. I'm not so dogmatic about it where it's like, you know, if you've ever, if you ever, you know, bet one thing, you're going to hell. On the other hand, man, you know, gambling is wrong, especially when it's sorted gain and it's, it's, you know, you're putting your family in horrible positions and things like that. Once again, a developing story. I think this is going to get a lot worse. And this year there were just several scandals that broke out. To say this is a problem will get us into. Unless you have other things get us in. Number six sounds good. Number six. [00:27:17] Speaker C: Bit more kind of zoomed out. Not really one necessarily story or anything, but the rise of AI. I know for a fact we did an episode on this, might have been last year, but definitely earlier in the year, if not last year. There's so many different angles we could have taken on this one. I don't know how much time we want to spend on this. But you see, basically every week AI can do something new. Every single week. There, there's something, you know, you see these robots and stuff that can do just about anything. All these movies and shows that are about, you know, people having relationships with AI, AI bots and robots and stuff like that. There's the. One of the more interesting, two interesting angles. And then I guess Jack will go to you next. The first one is how many people's jobs are kind of being threatened by AI. The jobs that AI can pretty much do instantly and it's causing people to take a second glance at their career goals, at their, at their job. I know a guy who, relative to Rachel, or he was related to Rachel, got a degree in something. I don't remember what it was, but it was. He was basically like, yeah, and that's probably going to get replaced by AI. And so he had looked back and been like, wish I'd majored in something else. But what's interesting, the most interesting, the most interesting thing about this to me is the different age brackets that use AI. So from my experience, what I've seen is if there are younger people that use AI, they are mostly using it for, you know, as, as a tool like a chat, gbt, help me buy a Christmas gift for this person. Or some people are using it to help me write this or help me make this sound better, right? And you see the older generations and some of them are Doing that as well. But, you know, you see the older generations on Facebook that are just plugging family photos in and, you know, to make it look. Make it look better or make us all look like Santa Claus or stuff like that. Just kind of like a goofy use of it. And what's interesting about it is that the older generation seem to be taking it a lot more lightly, whereas the younger generations seem to be taking it a lot more heavily, if that makes sense. Like, they're a little bit more cautious of, a little more wary of it. And the older generations don't seem to be. I think if we did this episode again in five years, the advances that we'll see with AI in the next five years, we'll look back on, like, an episode like this and go, well, that was nothing in 2025. Look at everything they're doing now. But, Jack, I'm curious, kind of what angle you have on this, this rise of AI. Anything to add to what I brought up there? [00:29:38] Speaker B: Yeah, it is. The. The generational thing is very intriguing to see that older people always adopt technology slower, and yet this one, not necessarily. [00:29:47] Speaker C: This one they love. Yeah, yeah. [00:29:49] Speaker B: And, you know, some of it's harmless fun, Some of it's really stupid. Some of it is, like, well, I don't know about this. It's interesting for me as a writer, there are people, I mean, just dwarfing my output because they can churn out an article in 5 seconds that is hard to keep up with. On the other hand, it's kind of one of those. The Amish guys that make chairs aren't threatened by ikea, you know, like, there's a value there and like, knowing it came from you, because the hallmark, they're getting easier to tell all the time. Even though, like, the videos are getting better, the smoothness of the articles are getting better and all that. You have a voice, and so there's things like that. The preachers using AI to generate their sermons. There was a guy that posted about this recently, basically saying, well, the guys that don't do it are costing themselves time for doing personal work. So having AI to write most of your sermons for you is a good thing as a preacher. And, yeah, I know you guys are trying to hold out, out of this purity thing, but, hey, you can just do more with it. [00:30:50] Speaker C: I kind of think equating it to Microsoft Word. [00:30:53] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:30:54] Speaker B: The other thing is, I wouldn't be surprised if we're a few years away from churches instituting a policy of. Because churches know, like, hey, if your preacher's downloading sermons off the Internet. That's not good. You know, guys get fired for that. Why is it any different to make chat GPT write it for you. And so, and you can say, well, I'm helping, it's helping me shape my thoughts. And you got to be really careful with that. It starts thinking for you and the more it thinks for you, the, I mean it's, it's Wally. It's the people can't walk because they got a chair that scoots them around. Your brain can't formulate thoughts because you don't have to anymore. [00:31:28] Speaker C: It's like a muscle that you're not exercising to formulate, I mean a sermon outline. As somebody who's done hundreds if not thousands of sermon outlines, it does take your brain work to, to not just construct an outline, but to think, okay, does this make sense? Does this flow really well? How are my illustrations? Does, is this, am I making the point I want to make? Again? Like, does this make sense? If I just for the last thousand sermons that I did, fed it into artificial intelligence, had them do it for me, I, I wouldn't. I mean I'm not trying to act like I'm the best in the world or anything, but like I wouldn't be near as good at preparing sermon outlines as I am now because it was a muscle that I wasn't exercising. Somebody else was doing it for me. Feels like just common sense to me again, the Gen Z guy here. But like you do have a lot of older people that seem totally fine with like, well let me at least get the outline right and then maybe I'll fill in or let me at least have chat gbt do the outline, then I'll fill in the gaps type of thing. Like it's just very dangerous in my opinion to let you, to let it do the thinking for you that much. [00:32:22] Speaker B: Not only the muscle thing, but the knowledge is cumulative. You remember sermons you wrote, you don't remember stuff that something generated for you. Even if you got up and preached it, it doesn't stick. But if you did the study, if you transferred your study from the book to your brain, from the Bible to your brain to the page. That's all ways of making it stick. And so all three of us can get up and teach a 45 minute Bible class without notes or without preparation because of the years of reps, if you're just hitting a button and it's churning out, that's not going to happen. [00:32:51] Speaker A: I'm fascinated. Sorry. I may have some wi Fi issues. I'm fascinated by the split of the older and younger generations on this because I keep asking because, you know, I was thinking a while back, like I don't hardly see any young people use it. So I've been asking as many young people, my in laws are in, you know, three of the. The gen zers here and they got a couple gen alphas. They don't hardly ever use it. Maybe they use it as a tool here or there. They hardly ever use it. Whereas I see, you know, my dad, we got a good buddy Bob, shout out Bob. And use it a lot. You know, they can use it for a lot of different things. And so I'm not saying they're wrong to use it. It's just very interesting to have a technology that is driven by older generations for like one of the first times ever. Seemingly the young kids aren't adopting it. The young kids seem very wary of it. They seem very scared. And I'm one of them. Maybe not the young kid part, but I'm definitely one of the scared ones that's looking at it going, these are going to replace jobs. I was talking to them about the AI chat models. We talked about this in the episode, I think, but where they put the AI chatbots basically together and they ended up creating their own language and locked out the creators and they started speaking back and forth to one another in a language they could understand. Like what if they're able to do that? And you look at all of the things that AI is able to do, I don't see good coming from this. Sure, it's a tool. There's a lot of things that are a tool that I don't think we necessarily have to be using every day. Gen Z seems to have figured this out and maybe they end up using it more, I don't know. But the scary thing for them is that they use it to write papers, things like that. You have to be able to learn the same thing as. [00:34:17] Speaker C: Which is the same thing as a sermon outline. [00:34:19] Speaker A: Correct. Same thing as the sermons. Like you have to be able to do it. On the other hand, by and large, they seem to be getting off of that and getting away from it. And I think that's good. There's a return to real Jack you've talked about having. It's a billion dollar idea. Someone needs to make an app, a social media that bans AI. No AI because you get on any of these things. I'm not really on Instagram. Alyssa's on Instagram, you know, Facebook, Twitter, X half of the stuff you see is AI content generated, whether it's the words that are generated, like you said, Jack, the articles or the pictures themselves or the videos. And sure, some of those things are hilarious. By and large, though, I think people are looking for real, especially a younger generation that wants to be earnest, was the word you used earlier. So I'm interested to see yet again, this. This whole year kind of feels like an inhale of where are we going to go next? What is the exhale? What. What happens? It's something else that we're going to be following into the next year to maybe half a decade, who knows, to see what exactly comes of AI. And you know, Matt Walsh and guys like that are on it saying, this is a disaster. A lot of jobs. Where do we go from here? This is one of the first years where we're starting to wrestle with those questions. [00:35:22] Speaker B: I'll just wrap this one with this thought. I'm going to. AI is going to make me less tech involved, less screen time. Like, I agree. I can't trust anything on Facebook or Twitter. You know, the images, the videos, the kind of stuff you'd sit and watch, you don't even know. Like, it's getting good enough that it'll be just a couple months before it's hard to tell. So that might be an interesting side effect from that. All right, we need to move a little faster on the second half here. We're into our top five. This one's been very interesting to watch. Is the conservative split, culturally, politically, in the post Charlie Kirk era, unfortunately, with his tragic passing, which we're going to talk about a little bit more, it's up for grabs. Like, which direction is this, this country going? And the turning point USA Conference a week or two ago, really, they basically just got on stage and fought it out. They took turns in their speeches, taking shots at each other. And so we're gonna here kind of define it as the Shapiro wing, Ben Shapiro and the Tucker Carlson wing and the ideologies behind that. And I don't know, it's very hard to parse out. There's. There's other elements to that that I'll let you guys talk about. I guess the Shapiro wing is more of the economic conservatism, a little bit more of the. Well, I mean, maybe the biggest question in there is what is an American? And the Everybody can be an American. The Vivek Ramaswamy. If you just come here and work hard, you're an American versus the hey, America's a People, yes, some people can come here, but we're going to have to draw a line and this country is for us and our posterity. And full disclosure, I'm more on that wing of things, but that doesn't mean I agree with everything Tucker Carlson says. So the lines are getting very interesting post and I don't think Charlie Kirk was holding it all together. I think this was coming either way. But I think he was maybe helping put it off because he was friendly in both camps and now it's just an all out war. [00:37:11] Speaker A: It certainly was the catalyst for these discussions to take place on. We talked about the Israel thing, conspiracies. You look at the Candace Owen Owens vs. Erica Kirk Kind of split there and, and Candace with a million one conspiracies. And it went from, you know, she's accused everybody and, and accused the French because of her. It's really hard to keep up with everywhere Candace Owens is going with it. But you have that, you have the part of the party that thinks that that is just crazy, you know, very conspiracy. Like we, we avoid those and outright reject the conspiracies and we have half of the party that's really leaning into those go, no, no, no, no. You know, it's kind of all a conspiracy. And then you have the Nick Fuentes thing of, you know, him driving more of this brash, I don't care, Hitler's cool. [00:37:52] Speaker B: And you go, whoa. [00:37:53] Speaker A: And then the other, you know, another part that's like you can't say any of those things. And a lot of people that are going toward Nick Fuentes, he's one of the top streamers in the world because he's saying things nobody else is willing to say. And some of it is really off the wall and some of it is like, wow, that's pretty spot on. And so you're having this divide where they literally like Ben Shapiro is looking to cancel Nick Fuentes and they cancel Tucker, Tucker Carlson or they try to just for speaking with the guy. And this is all within the conservative world, tons of back and forth. And what drives me nuts the most about this is while the Democrats are kind of moving things on it, you know, liberals are moving things forward in their own ways as much as they can, or at least trying to stop Trump from doing all this stuff with the judges and such. The conservatives are over here like beating each other. Yeah. Cat fighting and trying to beat each other up. And it's like, what are we doing? You have Congress, you have the presidency, you have everything you could possibly want you have the Supreme Court and you're doing zero to advance. I shouldn't say zero, but very little to advance things. Meanwhile, we have the conservative splits that are just really underlying. There's some serious issues in the country. Even on one side, we know there's major issues based off of, you know, liberal, conservative, then the conservatives, a fracture of five, six, seven different groups. It's interesting to see that. [00:39:05] Speaker C: That was my take is it seemed like before Trump was elected, all the conservatives, regardless of the fact that they would have different views from each other out on the margins, different views on this. I mean, Candace Owens and Ben Shapiro worked together for goodness sakes, and. And they clearly had very different views on stuff like that. But, you know, you know, to throw a bunch of different, other names in it, like Megan Kelly and obviously Tucker, like, people like that, everybody was cool with each other. It's like they were banding together in order to try to get Trump elected, which, you know, I voted for as well. And then as soon as he got elected, virtually, and I know the Charlie Kirk thing probably was a catalyst for that as well. It's like all the attention went away from, hey, let's keep this cultural momentum. Let's keep younger people really flocking towards conservatism. Let's, let's really capitalize on this. And it really got down to petty squabbles. And I know a lot of the issues are not petty. Like, I understand that people who are, you know, the stuff that Fuentes says, for a lot of people, just, that's not petty. That's an enormous deal. The Candace Owen stuff, the Tucker. Like, I understand that people are really think that some of this is just incredibly monumental. But my guess, my question is where, where were all these beliefs about, you know, 18 months ago before. Before Trump got elected? It's like we, we're willing to ignore them. We're willing to kind of exist together and really fight for the common good, which is the liberals and the Democrats are out of their mind. Let's band against them. That's all gone out the window. And it's now who's more right, who, who can win again? The cat fight is the way that I put it. And I know that's kind of minimalizing it to a degree, but that's what's just frustrating to me is like, all the cultural momentum that I feel like conservatives had is out the window. Like, even, even myself, who listens to some of these people every now and then, like, I can't take them quite as seriously. Anymore, not all of them, but even Candace Owens, like, agree with a lot of stuff she had to say, specifically around Covid and the COVID vaccine. She was very opposed. Like, yeah, great stuff. Now it's like, okay, I've. You were one too many of your 300 conspiracy theories at this point. But I don't know. That was. My main take is, like, this stuff didn't seem to exist before Trump got elected. Then Trump got in, and all this cultural momentum that we had is seemingly slipping away from us. And I would not at all be surprised if midterms coming up, obviously, the next election, like, if the Republicans and the conservatives take a. Take a hit, I would not be surprised at all. [00:41:29] Speaker B: Jack, this is. It's so much easier to be against something than to be for something. We can all be against something. We all think, man, these guys stink. But then when it's like, now you get the keys to the car. All right, where are we going? I don't know. I want to go here. You want to go there? Like, you know, it is. It's picking a restaurant. All right, let's go to pizza. I don't want to go to pizza. [00:41:48] Speaker A: We all. [00:41:48] Speaker B: None of us want to go to pizza. Where do you want to go? Yeah, yeah, exactly. And so now everyone. Well, I want to go to Panda Express. I want to go to McDonald's. I want to. Whatever else it may be. And that's what you're seeing. The other part of this and this will get into, you know, I don't want to get too far ahead on the first Trump year. It's the lack of leadership from the top is leading people to go. Well, I, you know, they're not doing this. Therefore, here's what I think they should do. Here's my proposed plan. Well, it's all on paper now. If they were actually doing some of the things they talked about, if the Congress, the Senate, if there was a movement in that direction. And so this is one of those that you can learn a lesson from watching this. It's the same thing of the church. You have to have a positive vision. And that's one of those things that I'm real big on. We're very critical of the way things are done. A lot of times, the way we feel like the church has stagnated, and a lot of people can amen that. But you do have to have a direction to go in, and an eldership has to have a direction to go in. A preacher has to have a direction to go in. And, you know, Just being against that. And sometimes it's very easy to be against the world. It's easy to be against the denominations. What are you for? And that makes it a little harder to unite. But at least you, you're going somewhere rather than just complaining. [00:42:52] Speaker A: That's also run to and not away from. Right, but that's also where. Yeah, I know maybe a couple times that's where Nick Fuentes comes in as such a firebrand and why people flock to him is he'll tell you exactly where. Now, you may not like it, but he's going to tell you exactly where he thinks the party should be going or what he thinks needs to be taking place. Sure, it's bombastic. It's also the only principled stand, quote unquote, if we can call that principled. The only principled stand that people are going to take. And because most of the time it's like it's bashing the left or bashing, whatever it may be. But I think your point is exactly right, Jack. Of you want to have something to run toward and nobody right now really knows what that's supposed to look like because of a failure leadership from the top. And so it's just this fracturing that is going to have to get solved one way or the other. Otherwise it will be horrible in the midterms because, I mean, you can only run this goodwill so much. They've run out of goodwill at this point. But this gets to. This gets into the next one. Number four, which is we just put it down as duds, specifically the Epstein and the Diddy thing. This goes along with a lot of different things, though. And I, I said it earlier, I just said it a bit ago, of this feeling like an inhale year this year kind of feels like, you know those fireworks when you set one off and it goes. And then it just, it kind of fizzles out and it never really launches. That's what this whole thing feels like is so much of this year. So many things we're discussing and specifically in the political realm, man, we're going to go after Epstein, we're going to release the files. And initially it's like, yeah, Pam, Bonnie goes, it's on my desk, right. And yeah, we're going to let everybody know and Cash Patel and Bongino and these guys are out there and it's like, wow, this is going to be just some huge reveal. People are going to go to prison. We're going to kind of turn these things over from these pedophiles and we know that they're out there and instead. Well, actually there's basically nothing to it. And then. Oh, well, okay. There kind of is something to it. We'll just release the files. Okay, well, most of it's redacted. And so it's like, what are you doing? You lost all credibility. The Diddy thing, we know that they got every celebrity known to man going to these Diddy parties where there's, you know, all sorts of illegal activity taking place. And what came of it? He gets four years in prison, gets to stay pretty much silent on all of this. Nothing actually takes place. You got the Ghislaine, whatever his name is. Her name is Maxwell, who's serving time in prison for trafficking kids to no one because we can't ever find out about these things. So from that perspective and all of the. Those are major duds. Major duds. And you look at some of the conservative. Will you already spoke to that. The conservative goodwill that we had even after. Again, we'll get to it. But the Charlie Kirk death, like, yeah, even after that, man, here we go. We're going to rock and roll. Like, big change is going to take place. Everybody's pretty fired up. You had the entire country pretty much on your side for the most part, other than the crazies. Zero came of that. Like, it's just a dud. It's the firework that didn't ever really go off and you're expecting something big to take place and it just didn't. And that's what this year in so many ways feels like. And specifically when it comes to the political side, that's majorly what it feels like. So I don't know, what are your guys thoughts? [00:45:52] Speaker C: I don't have a ton to add. It reminds me very much of the Hillary Clinton thing back in mid 2010s when everybody kept saying, oh, she's going to end up in prison into the Benghazi situation. And you know, I felt like that was a new story every week. Is that, oh, something's going to come out. She's going to end up in prison. Never happened. Right. And so very similarly to this stuff, the Year of the Duds, I would echo that. It's like we were being kind of dragged, drug dragged. Along with the Epstein thing, with the date. Like just I got. Honestly, as somebody who I digest most of my news through X, I kind of got sick of being on X because everything was Epstein files related and yet nothing was coming of it. Like, it'd be one thing if I was getting Something, you know, kind of scintillating. A new story like, oh, wow, that happened. No, it was just commentary about it kind of non stop. Right. Just endless commentary with no, no substance to it. It was just kind of again, on the timeline the entire time. And so I kind of got tired of it. Nothing ever came of it. And so yeah, not, not a ton to add. Jack, I'm curious your thoughts. And then we need to go and get into our number three after that. [00:46:52] Speaker B: I would say it's, it's so tabloidy. I think I've always, I've been frustrated with that story for months now and it just, everyone's just kind of waiting on, ooh, the juicy details or whatever. And somebody had a really good point about it on Twitter. X, as Will calls it as it is. But you know that if people were really interested in getting this right, all of the people involved would be what we're investigating, what we're looking at. No, everyone's just going, was it Trump? Was it Clinton? Was it Bill Gates? Was it, you know, my favorite celebrity? Was it? We're not looking for justice here. We're looking for gossip. And there. And that's not to say the story doesn't matter because justice does need to be served. But. And you guys, we talked about Candace Owens a little bit earlier. Christians need to be really careful from not getting all sucked into tabloid stuff like. Yeah, that juicy gossip can, can really hook you, man. Focus on a, you know, dwell on these things. Philippians 4. But number two, I just did the buzz thing. A and 2B. [00:47:57] Speaker C: I was gonna say Home Alone reference. [00:48:00] Speaker B: Shout out to Home Alone 2 or whatever, whichever one it was. But yeah, so now I lost my train of thought because I can't keep my train cars in order. [00:48:11] Speaker C: I just watched that movie. Oh man. Three things. A, two. [00:48:18] Speaker B: That's what I was going for there. No, not really. But yeah, I mean it's tabloid. But number two, that Nietzsche quote about if you stare into the abyss, you know, like it starts staring back. Man, focusing on really ugly dark stories all the time is not good for you. Yes, we want justice for it. Let's let other people handle that. Let's hope they do a better job than they are. But it's not good. All right, let's move past that. Joe, go ahead and. Or whoever's turn it is. It really flows into the last couple we talked about as well. Hey guys, Jack here. I'm excited to tell you about my new book. You are Saved the Christian's Assurance for too many years, I have run into Christians who aren't really sure where they're going to go when they die. They don't feel like they can say that they are righteous. And so I set out to write a book to give you confidence and assurance of your salvation. It's laid out in 13 chapters for churches to study as a Bible class, with discussion questions at the end of each chapter. And of course, you can just read it on your own either. It's for individuals, it's for classes. However you would like to approach it, you can get it on Amazon, you can get it on FocusPress. We offer discounts for group sales of it in groups of 5 and 10 on Focus Press. So if you're gonna study it with your church, be sure to check that out and get that deal. So be sure to check out. You are saved today once again on Amazon and Focus Press. [00:49:37] Speaker A: Yeah, Trump's first year is number three. Trump's first year. We've already talked about a lot of political stuff, but it has been very eventful in certain ways and not as eventful in other ways. ICE was obviously a big part of this, of going into. They clean up DC Quite a bit. I think Chicago just blocked them from going in there. Supreme Court, did I read. But going into these different towns, Memphis, down here, had all these ICE agents and they were bringing a ton of. Yeah, a ton of National Guard and law enforcement going into these places to clean them up and then ICE looking to deport certain people. So that was a huge story. And the riots that took place from that, obviously foreign stuff, Ukraine getting in there and that the Zelensky interview with Trump was a big moment of the year. And how. J.D. vance, you know, you could say thank you or however he said it, you know, big moments in this year where the foreign, obviously the Israel, Palestine situation, like those things were very much on display. I think it burnt a lot of Americans out because Americans are looking for things to get better here. And I. We don't really care. I'm going to be honest, I don't really care what takes place over there. I know we're supposed to, but I just don't. I care about what takes place here for my kids, you know, for my family. And I think that kind of burned a lot of people out and a couple other things. But, fellas, what are your thoughts on Trump's first year and some of the bigger news stories? [00:50:52] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, there's. It's very hard to talk about Trump. Everyone's kind of already got their minds made up. I mean, like, less murder in the big cities is a great thing. There's been some really good things done. Some things that, as we said, the conservative fracture that good things that haven't gotten done because they can't get along with each other. I don't know, it's. It's not terribly. [00:51:14] Speaker C: We didn't talk about it yet. The Trump. Elon split, too. [00:51:17] Speaker B: Yeah, Trump and Elon split and they're kind of, like, friendly again, but Elon is definitely not involved anymore. And, yeah, Doge didn't really do everything that it promised or really close to it. And so, yeah, there's. There's been some disappointment. It's been, I don't know, long term. It's very. Not encouraging. [00:51:36] Speaker C: My take is that everybody's expectations were too high. I think this is where, like, as far as viewing Trump as kind of the savior who's going to. Not like the Jesus savior, but like the. The savior who's going to fix all the problems that America, like, that the government has been creating for, oh, I don't know, the last 30 years. Like that. Trump's gonna be able to undo that in the first. Yeah. Or longer than that. Right. But like, that Trump's gonna be able to undo all that in the first year. Like, to me, a bit unrealistic. I understand the like. Well, you said he was gonna do all this stuff, and he hasn't done, you know, half of it. I, I just, I think everybody's expectations were a little bit high. I do think there are some positive things that you guys already spoke to and, you know, still three years to go to see kind of what all can he accomplish Again, the very unfortunate part of it is not to beat the dead horse. We had the momentum, the conservatives had the momentum, and it felt like that would have been the time to make the changes needed, and it didn't take place. And so that's disappointing. [00:52:27] Speaker A: But the other thing is next year's midterm, and you're not going to have. [00:52:30] Speaker C: Exactly. [00:52:30] Speaker A: You're not going to have houses that. [00:52:31] Speaker B: Had two years, not four. Yeah, correct. [00:52:33] Speaker A: And so things won't. [00:52:34] Speaker B: Well, the other thing about it is you talk about high expectations. There is that, but there's also, like, they're all going to jail if they don't do what. Need what. What they were going in aiming to do. And so now they're not doing that. It's like, well, okay, that's not good. If things swing back in the other direction, it's kind of. You're really at this kind of dead heat to the finish line, and they're just kind of casually strolling and so that's. I don't. Yeah, the. The current form of American government is on fumes and it's going to be authoritarian right or authoritarian left. And that's a whole. [00:53:08] Speaker A: I. [00:53:08] Speaker B: That's a whole podcast unto itself that nobody wants to hear me rant about. So I'm going to leave it right there. [00:53:13] Speaker A: I just think that's interesting, the dead heat. Like, how much do you think that translates to the American people, the American public? How much? Yeah, everybody seems to be feeling that. I think that's where the. As I said, at the. Be at the. At the top. A lot of people have talked to me about, man, 2025 was a tough year. It's a tough year for us. It was a tough year for a lot of people where they just weren't feeling it, you know, And I think these type of things create that. Oh, you know, just this pressure of. [00:53:38] Speaker B: You feel so help coming. And so the longer we persist in what has been is like, man, we're. [00:53:46] Speaker A: Just wasting time and you're helpless because you can't bring any of this about. You're just watching it unfold and kind of wondering when it's going to. So it's been a little bit. But to the positive end, getting to number two, the positive end, I think is interesting. Will, I think it is your turn to. Yeah. [00:53:59] Speaker C: So number two, this is by far the most fascinating thing to me, and that is marriage kind of becoming cool again. Marriage becoming very. Coming back into the public consciousness as a very positive things. We have several examples about this that I'll kind of briefly run through and then, I don't know, get your guys's takes on it because again, very fascinating to me. So you had the Coldplay scandal. The Coldplay concert scandal. I should say that. Man, talk about taking over the Internet. The CEO of Astronomer, I think was the company Astronomy Astronomer, I believe, was caught on camera with someone who was not his wife. And I think the New York Times actually just released a. A story about the. The woman, Kristen is her first name. I apologize, I don't remember her last name. But you know that clip everybody saw on their timeline probably a hundred times of the camera hitting them and then realizing, oh, man, we're on the jumbotron, separating immediately. And it just became a huge story. And the reason why that relates to marriage is because everybody was rightly so chastising both of them, saying, you know, kind of, how dare you, you both have, you know, marriages and families at home. You have the Taylor Swift, Travis Kelsey aspect. The fact that they got engaged. And why that was interesting is Taylor Swift typically being someone who had a lot louder of a feminist voice, thus her fans also having a loud feminist voice for the most part. Posts about Megan Gays. And that immediately became the most liked post she had ever produced. I remember a tweet that talked about how that post almost garnered double the likes that her owning her masters garnered. In other words, her biggest career accomplishment ever was dwarfed by a family and marriage post by her, which I thought was interesting. We did a Golly and Men podcast episode on a country song. Kelsey Ballerini released a song about how badly she wants to be a mother. She's now over 30 years old, not married. Also fairly feminist. Ish, not really. Had released previous songs about not wanting to have kids. And now, I don't know, there's just a lot of cultural momentum, cultural swing towards marriage from some of the, from, from some voices that you wouldn't expect. Again, Taylor Swift, Kelsey Ballerini, Chalamet was. [00:56:09] Speaker A: In there talking about Timothy Strange to not have kids, you know. [00:56:11] Speaker C: Yeah. And so I'm. I don't know. Who wants to go first here? Joe, I guess we'll start with you. What do you make of this? I know we talked a lot about this on our podcast, about how it's so interesting that some of these female voices are kind of producing songs like, huh, maybe getting married, having a basketball goal in the driveway and having some kids that I can, you know, that look like my husband. Maybe that doesn't sound so bad after all. Like, funny how that works. [00:56:34] Speaker A: But, Joe, what. [00:56:35] Speaker C: What thoughts do you have on that? [00:56:36] Speaker A: Yeah, it's a man. It's fascinating and I'd love to see it because we're finally getting. And I think Gen Z is finally the generation that gets to see feminism fully played out. We've seen it. We've seen that it's horrible, it stinks, it doesn't work, and it's not ever going to work. And this is one of the first, like, we're finally coming in to realize, well, if you just give it a shot type of thing, like, we've given it a shot and it's terrible. So we're not giving it a shot. Yeah, there's no fruit of it. And as a matter of fact, the fruits are the. The trans movement, which is a disaster. And a bunch of unhappy women, cat ladies that are 50 years old or 40 years old. Or 30 that were sold this, this lie that hey, go chase your career and you're going to be happy. And they go, man, I'm alone and I have nothing and nobody's going to watch out for me. And I get up and yeah, you know, there are a few posts of well, I like having my Saturday mornings most of the time. Those are, to use your word, will, those are dwarfed by the posts of this is fantastic. This is family, you know, and Gen Z's getting it. Gen Z wants a Gen Z. Female is not quite as much some degree. The men are really seeing it because we're the ones having to deal with, you know, you, I should say as Gen Z are the ones having to deal with the fallout of that, of these, these girls. But by and large, I think it's a very positive thing. And the Coldplay scandal did kick off this like, hey, wait a minute. There are bounds around marriage. Yeah, the, the open marriages and the what polycules or whatever they call them. You know, all these crazy relationship stuff that was kind of getting that's done. People realize that's stupid and we're not going back to that. And so let's get back to marriage actually meaning something. And a guy cheating on his wife would have been celebrated feels like 10 years ago of like, well, who cares? He can do what he wants. Maybe not celebrated, but it would have been like given a pass of, well, maybe he's in a poly relationship. Like, absolutely not. This is wrong. And everybody can see it. It was a rallying point. And to me, again, that's, that's exciting. [00:58:21] Speaker B: You still see people with some of those takes and, but to your point, it was rarer but that, you know what, if that's, if that's what they've decided on, then I mean like the, the individualism, the, the everyone gets to make up their own thing as long as it's okay with them. Got so out of control. And that's been really nice to see that push back in the other direction. Like, no, you don't do that. You don't do these things. And marriage is good. And it's one of those. You don't need everybody on board with it all. At the same time, you need a cultural shift like we're seeing of, hey, getting married, having one person, staying faithful to them, having kids with them, that's a really good thing. And so just seeing a little bit of that goes a really long way and it has downstream effects. And people have joked about if Travis and Taylor get married and Have a baby, you're gonna see a new baby boom in America kind of thing. And it's like, why not? You know, if that's what it takes. Is the. The stereotypical football star and prom queen. Kind of like, people are dumb that way, but okay. It's better than the alternative, and I'll take it. So, yeah, the. The rise of marriage and that as a theme has been, honestly, a breath of fresh air in a lot of these negatives. [00:59:28] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, no doubt. [00:59:30] Speaker C: But that leaves us with number one, Jack. Well, I think it's back around to you pretty easy. Number one, in our opinion. [00:59:36] Speaker B: Yeah. I think this was our most watched episode is the thing I think more than anything else the world stopped for was the passing of Char, the assassination of Charlie Kirk, the funeral in which Christ's name was named many times. Yeah. It's still. I wasn't even a Charlie Kirk guy. I was aware of him. I had seen a little bit of his stuff. Obviously, I've seen way more after he passed away. In fact, my mom gave me his new book for Christmas. I'm just. Every time I think about, I'm really, really sad. This was a genuinely good guy and what it signified. We talked about the celebrations you can get into who killed him, who was involved. Yeah, that matters. But what matters even more is that a large percentage of the country jumped up and started celebrating that. That's one of those toothpaste doesn't go back in the tube. You can't unring that bell. That is significant and says a lot of what we were talking about a minute ago, this race to the finish line. If you realize you're surrounded by neighbors, classmates, co workers, even friends, maybe that would be cool with you. Wanting you dead. That's bad. And that the guy that became Attorney General of Virginia even after text relief, that he wanted his opponent's kids dead. I mean, like, this is. This is the reality we occupy. And no. No plainer version of that than a genuinely nice guy who was not a. Like, let's mow down our enemies, but I want to talk to you was all he ever said. Man, that. That's really, really hard to see. And one other thing that you see a lot. Well, it was just a podcaster. Why are people so much. They cared much that much about a. [01:01:12] Speaker C: Podcast or, like, there's people that die every day. Yeah, yeah. [01:01:15] Speaker B: Well, not like that. Not with millions of people celebrating it. And it's like, I mean, sorry, Martin Luther King was just a fake preacher and an adulterer. Like, we get a day off for him. And so, like, it was Charlie Kirk, King of America. No. But what his death signified way more than even he himself did. [01:01:36] Speaker C: I mentioned this when we did our episode. The reason why this hits so hard for me is because Charlie Kirk stood for all the things that I stand for. Donald Trump, you know, I voted for him. I don't align with him on a lot, you know, as far as, like, morally speaking, he wouldn't. I don't think he probably would say he's a believer. I don't think he would say he's a Christian. You know, several marriages, all those, like, we don't stand for really the same things Charlie Kirk and I did around the same age. His biggest thing was he wanted people to get married young, raise a family and fight for your country and basically, like, support your country. That was his thing. That's what I stand for. And he was shot for that. And so that's really what resonated for me with just the. And not to mention the brutal way that it unfolded on social media with the videos leaking. You could basically see everything that took place. It was just awful. The basically hours after the days passing right after that. And again, that's what sticks out to me, is he was killed for what he stood for, and what he stood for is what I stand for. And so that's what's, I guess, probably the most saddening, disheartening. Jack used the word sad. It definitely left a mark on me. And one of those things, in 10 years, I'll still remember where I was when I got the first text and started looking up everything. And so, yeah, I hate to end kind of our number one on a downer, but it would have felt kind of strange to have anything else. Number one. Joe, any thoughts that you have? [01:02:59] Speaker A: I was talking with my in laws about the situation and, and people getting fired from work and they had, I think they had somebody at their work make kind of an offhand comment and should they be fired? And how Cancel culture got flipped around specifically with that of, like, people getting fired, which perfectly. I'm, I'm perfectly fine with. What I told them is you have to realize. And I know they think the same way on the other side, even though it's not a threat to say I believe in traditional marriage, but they take it as a threat. And what I was telling him is like, could you honestly look that guy in the eye after he gets done celebrating the death of an American? Can you look that guy in the eye like I'm not working not just. [01:03:34] Speaker C: The death, but a brutal murder. [01:03:35] Speaker A: A brutal murder, correct. A brutal murder. And I'm supposed to work alongside this guy. I'm supposed to trust this guy. I'm supposed to, you know, I'm supposed to be friendly with this guy and get projects done. Like, I don't want him near me. And your judgment is horrible if you think that that's okay to do. So. Yes, fire the guy. Get these people out of society. If you're going to celebrate the brutal murder of another American, and if it was the other way, well, would you be doing it if it was a Democrat? Like, yes, I would. That's horrible. That should never happen. And if that is the case and you're willing to celebrate that, I have nothing for you. I don't want you as a neighbor. I don't want you in my life. I don't want you in my country. [01:04:10] Speaker B: You can leave. [01:04:11] Speaker A: And that's really what it comes down to. And that's where the anger, I mean, the anger is still there toward people that are willing to say and do these things. I don't want you anywhere near my kids or anywhere near me because you are an absolute threat. If you are that stupid and that immoral that you're going to celebrate something like that or even be okay with it and be like, well, he kind of had, you know, got. Got what he had coming to him, like, you're a genuinely bad person. I'm going to call you that. You're a genuinely bad person, and you need to leave America because you're not American, in my opinion. You're certainly not Christian. You're not any of those things. And you are a threat to the average person if that's what you're celebrating. Because if my family's in trouble, what are you going to do? The moment you know that I believe those things, you're not. You're not going to help. You're not going to do anything else. Matter of fact, you may be the one cheering on, as my family, if there's ever persecution, those people are a threat, and I hate to make it that way. And that sounds horrible, like you said, ending on this. But, like, the passion is still there and the anger is still there for how this entire situation was handled. Yes. From our side, because of the. I mean, you had everybody going, this is horrible. And they basically sat on it and did nothing. There's no legislation, there's no anything else. But from the other side, like, it really did underline the divide in America. Is beyond healing. Beyond healing. Until those people are willing to repent and apologize and go, that's horrible behavior, and I'm sorry. There is no healing. This divide in the country and everybody. [01:05:26] Speaker C: That goes, well, we don't all get to come together and sing Kumbaya after this. Right? [01:05:31] Speaker B: Well, it's always been like. Well, I don't condone it, but, you know, he did say something like he did say. Or the ones. Well, both sides. No, no, no, no. And so, yeah, you had the. [01:05:42] Speaker C: What was it, the guy from Freed that was basically like, today I pray for Charlie Kirk's family, and I pray for all the people that Charlie Kirk ever offended. Yeah. In his Facebook post. Give me a break, man. [01:05:51] Speaker B: Well, in the Chronicle, getting that lady from Pepperdine, you know, calling him a fascist or whatever, like, that's what you're gonna do after a guy dies. Really. [01:05:59] Speaker C: Okay. [01:05:59] Speaker B: So anyway, I hate to. To wrap on a down note, as Will said. I mean, it is the. I think it's going to be looked back on as, like the moment, as you say, Joe, that it's like, oh, that. Okay, yeah, there's. There's no peaceful way out. And I'm not talking about, like civil war, but I'm just saying some big change is on the way. And that, that, that's not something that can last. You cannot live with people who want you dead for, for very long. And so whether one side gets their way or not, whether this country goes more, you know, Christian and who knows? And so I guess the end thought as we end 2025 and look ahead to 2026, is to just man everything in prayer, you know, be anxious for nothing. That we've called it before, maybe the hardest command in the entire Bible. It's for reasons like this. You just look at the world and you look at the economy and you look at all, like all the division and all this stuff, there's a lot of reasons to be anxious, but it says be anxious for nothing. And so we got to obey that. We got to pray. We got to look ahead and, you know, do your best. Be, be kinder, be a better servant, be more Christ. Like all of those things is the little things that you can do. Yeah, we, you and I aren't president. You and I don't have those huge things we can do to move the needle. But in little ways, you know, representing Christ where you are in your own home, in your own church, in your own community, praying, doing everything that, that you. Everything that God has put before you, you know, if we're all doing that. That's the best we can do. And leaving the rest in his hands. So that's my final thoughts for 2025. You guys have anything to wrap before we get out of here? [01:07:31] Speaker A: Inhales happen before exhales. Things will change. Things, things will go. And I love your rap. Lots of prayer going into the new year. [01:07:39] Speaker C: This is what I started with. Look for, look for reasons for joy, look for reasons for positivity and cherish your family. [01:07:44] Speaker B: That's all I got, 100%. So be new Year, everybody. Happy New Year to everyone. We will be back, Lord willing, with new set of episodes 2026. We'll just keep on rolling. We're 200 plus in and we're here every Monday. [01:07:57] Speaker C: This was, this was your four, right? [01:07:58] Speaker B: And we just finished four whole years. [01:08:00] Speaker A: Yep. [01:08:01] Speaker B: That is where they say, like, what is it? 3% of podcasts make it past episode five. So not bad. So again, thanks to everyone who's tuned in. Thank you to everyone. If you're new here, like I said, we're here every Monday. Be sure to tune in, subscribe to us on your feed. And we don't say this enough. If you're watching this on YouTube, hit like and make sure you're subscribed. If you're listening on your podcast app, drop us a review there. That helps out a lot as well. So thank you to everyone who's listened. We're looking forward to another great year, Lord willing, and we'll talk to you on the next one. Hey guys, Jack Wilke here. If you enjoy our work with podcasts like Think Deeper and Godly Young Men and our books, articles, seminars and want to support the work that we do, the best way to do so is to go to focuspress.org donate that's focuspress.org donate. Thanks again for listening.