A Dire Warning for the Near Future

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign. Welcome in to Think Deeper podcast Jack Wilkie, joined by Will Heroin Joe Wilkie once again. And this week we're. This is not really a part two, but it's kind of a part two. We talked a few weeks ago about Wokeism is dead and the move away from so much of, I don't know, the bad ideology of the last few years and really the last few decades. We're going in the other direction today. If you really think of this as like, we talk a lot about the two ditches, right? And there's a road with two ditches. Things have been in one ditch for a long time. That does not mean there's not another ditch. And so we're talking about the overcorrection and where things can go. And as things trend away from the thing, the way things have been, we're really excited about that. That's why we did the whole Wokeism is dead. We think there's some really good movement happening. The overcorrection will happen as well. Like, there. There is error on the other side. It's not just. It's not a binary world in which there's good on one side, bad on the other. You can go wrong in multiple ways. And so we're putting this out almost. I'm not trying to say prophetically, but like futuristic, projecting into the future of where things are going in the next few years and telling Christians, this is where you need to start putting your focus. Start shifting your focus toward these coming over corrections to make sure we don't do that. We'll get into some of the specifics, we'll get into kind of the ideas behind this episode. But what do you guys have to add just right off the top here? [00:01:35] Speaker B: Well, I think it's a. I think it's a needed discussion. It's interesting. Jack, I remember you wrote an article at this point a few years back, I think, on some of the critiques of the Church of Christ, some of the things that, you know, and hey, let's make sure we're moving on beyond just baptism instruments, things like that. And I remember you got added to some preacher group, like, hey, you're one of us. And within the preacher group, it's like, okay, so women are going to start preaching and starting bringing this. Whoa, whoa, whoa, time out, time out. You know, you're leaving that one, like, and it's the overcorrection of you must be us because you're critiquing maybe the one ditch. And so you must be on our side. Like, no that's really what this is about. It's about trying to strike the balance, because you can have that where you go, you must be on my side. Like, hold on, I want to know what I'm getting into before I agree that, okay, we can agree on some of the critiques. We can agree on maybe the left side ditch not being great, if. Or right side ditch, whatever you want to say. But swinging to the other side, it is a natural thing to swing the pendulum too far. And if you think about it from a physics standpoint, if you drop it in free fall, you know, from the right or the left side, it's going to swing to the other side quite a bit. Rarely does it stop in the middle. That's the way culture is working right now is it has been wound up and kind of pulled up to one side with feminism and the racism thing and everything we're going to get into. And so when you drop that and it goes into free fall. Yeah, we are experiencing some overcorrection. We're experiencing the Kanye west with the Nazi comments and the things like that. It's like, whoa, we can have some critiques on one side. We got to be very careful. We're not swinging to the other side. And I think we're seeing some of those things happen. Yeah. [00:03:03] Speaker C: I guess my introductory thoughts would just be. I think it is very interesting how for so many people, it is very difficult to strike the balance. As you're speaking about, Joe. It is basically one side or the other. And I think part of that is because when you have been entrenched in something for so long, specifically something that you think is the complete wrong side of the ditch and you want to go the other way, anything that might even closely resemble that side, you're repulsed by. Even if it's, you know, something that is a. Is a good balance or a good. Understand, you know, even a good principle of something that's maybe too close to the ditch, you're repulsed by it because, like, oh, that's. That's. That's too close to that. That's something that I don't want to. And so you just want to run further and further and further away. And so that's where it's difficult to just continue to use the analogy, to stay in the middle. Where it is difficult to not go into the other ditch is because, I mean, you. Even with. Because we're going to get in all these masculinity and feminism with, you know, people like Andrew Tate, and, you know, of course, you already Brought up Kanye with racism and stuff like that. And there are so many opportunities to overcorrect. It's difficult, too, when you feel like you have been in the position of, we, we were right on this. You hear that saying a lot like, oh, we're on the right side. You know, who's gonna be on the right side of history? Like, and that's kind of overblown. But. But for a lot of this stuff, you know, we. We. We're going to take a victory lap on the masculinity and feminism thing. We're going to take a victory lap on some of these things. It's difficult for people when they are in that position of, I was right about this. To give any ground. And so you, again, you just want to keep moving, keep moving, keep moving. And at some point, you do have to stop. Joey, look like you had a thought. [00:04:35] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [00:04:36] Speaker B: I was just going to add on something you said sparked it. So much of the reason we don't come off of our one side or the other is because identity and is based in that. And I want to get to this right off the top, because you're going to see this as you go through. People want to find an identity in something, and there are those that want to find an identity in the opposing thing. And so, you know, there's a lot of people that's like, they cannot come off of maybe the lgbtq. And then you go to the other side of it, which is, I don't know, maybe Amish or whatever it is, like, and you swing to the other side, but your identity is based in either one of them. And the identity base in the middle is not usually identity. Very rarely do you see somebody have an identity who's right down the middle occasionally. I mean, like, if they're keeping the peace and that's their identity. But, like, we have our identifying our identities tied to some of the extremes. That's why it's difficult to come off of it. So if you are going to critique one of these things, it's like you're not just attacking the idea, you're attacking me as a person, because this is what I believe, and it's usually to the extreme. And so finding. Striking the middle ground is an appeal to say, hey, let's not have our identities in one side or the other. Let's try to be right. Let's try to be in line with Christ and to make sure that we're understanding these things to the best of our ability, rather than putting all of our eggs in the basket of Andrew Tate or whatever. Because that's, you know, I'm one of the men that, that drinks raw eggs and does all the masculine stuff. And I've read every David Goggins book and like, that's who they are. They're a gym bro through and through type of thing. Like, okay, well, let's, let's swing it back toward the middle a little bit and understand maybe what the good and the bad is. Because that's where we struggle with critique. We can no longer critique the idea. We're critiquing me as a person. Well, no, in this situation, we're critiquing the ideas here. [00:06:16] Speaker A: Sorry, I thought you're wrapped up there. The cut in a little early. [00:06:20] Speaker C: The. [00:06:21] Speaker A: There's that African proverb about a child who is rejected by the village will burn it down to feel or not embraced by the village, will burn it down to feel its warmth. And you're talking about identity. So many of the people. And this is the generational thing. Well, it worked for me. And it's like, well, it's not working for us. Like, the job market, the life, you know, married, get married, have kids. Like, everything that should be part of natural human life is so hard, has been so strained, is just not what it used to be. And you've got people, you know, like the. Well, just go in, you know, give them a firm handshake, turn in your resume, and you'll get a job and then you can pay for college by mowing lawns in the summer. It's like, that worked for you, it doesn't work for me. And so I will burn your system down to feel its warmth. Well, now you burned it down. Like, that's, that's not good. And so like it's. You got rid of a bad system. You brought it. So Weimar Germany, that people always ask, well, how did the Nazis come to power? How did they allow that to happen? And essentially, you look back in history of the German people have been a very industrious, intelligent, engineering minded kind of people, very peaceful people, or, you know, very. Just high minded kind of people. For all this time. And for 10 years they went absolutely insane. And then they went back to being normal. Like, no. How does something like that happen? Well, you study on Weimar Germany, where their, their money was worth nothing, inflation was through the roof, they couldn't afford anything. Their society was so degenerate. Transgenderism, all those things. Like, they were the predecessor to all the LGBT horrors we're seeing today is what they were pulling and sexualizing children and all that. And so somebody comes along, goes, I'll fix that for you. Everyone goes, go for it, dude. Well, then obviously you can see the overcorrection. And we talk so much about the overcorrection, but that other ditch was really bad, too. Like, that's. That's how you end up with these things, is we burn down the village because of how evil it was. And so that's where you end up. And so one last thing before we get into it. So much of the stuff we talk about, people look at because they're firmly planted in the left ditch. That's been the status quo for 100 years or however long. Any movement to the right, they're like, oh, you're going too far. You're overcorrecting. I'm worried. Like, the argued with somebody the other day about servant leadership and, oh, you guys just want to run everybody over. No, we don't. A little bit of a backbone doesn't mean I'm out here to just dominate the world. Like, I've had people literally think from our political stances the things we've talked about. You think the Christians should make everybody convert by the sword. Like, no, me saying the Christians should be more vocal and bring Christian values into the political sphere. You're going to look at it as this massive overcorrection of like, I'm trying to kill everybody. No, you have no bounds on which, like, you're the one that crashed the car into the left ditch. You don't get to drive anymore. You don't get to discuss what an overcorrection is. But those of us who are making the corrections need to have the humility to say, I could take this too far. [00:09:07] Speaker B: So this idea of crashing in the left ditch, you said that. Well, it's like you don't have the basis to call other people out. And we're trying to find the person that is, once again, if we can find down the middle, and this is where we allow them to dominate the conversation when it comes to these things is like, whoa, whoa, whoa. So anything to the right of the left ditch is going to look like you are drifting to the other side. And yes, they're very, very afraid of that. So it really is trying to figure out, like, how do we have the right mindset to be able to approach these things? Because we could easily go from a place of fear, a place of man. You just can't do that. And they're dominated by fear that you're going to go to the right side, then you have the right side that's dominated by rebellion. Those that are, that are drifting to the other ditch, they're dominated a lot by rebellion, like, as you said, burn down the village. And so there's a lot of anger out of that side. I'm not going to do this. And so it's either fear or anger driving these two sides. And I think that humility to say, man, what is right is very much where we want to stand on these things, but go for it. [00:10:02] Speaker C: Yeah, you know what, you know what's very, very interesting about this to me is just before we get into that, I guess the first section that we're going to go through here is where you also see this is in the Bible I just preached on John 8 recently. And, you know, the woman caught in adultery. And I think it's so interesting that you, you really can see those two sides of the ditches there just in that one, as you kind of study that one passage, you know, and of course, the, the people, the Pharisees and scribes that brought the woman to Jesus were most likely trying to, you know, or they certainly were trying to trap Jesus. But, you know, there's, there's theories that it could have been a setup and all those things. But you have the one side where it's like, this woman committed an egregious sin. You know, let's stone her. Let's, let's kill her. And that's the one side. And then you have the progressives that will look at Jesus response that say, oh, no, see, Jesus just accepted her for who she was and, you know, just tolerated love, grace, all those things. There's a middle ground there. That is the correct statement, which is, no, Jesus didn't say, yeah, go ahead, stone her. She deserves it. Jesus also didn't say, you know, woman, I, I accept you for who you are. You know, go live your life. No, he said, go and sin no more. Again, there's two ditches. You, you see Jesus in the Gospels with the Pharisees, they were, they were too far in one direction. You see other people that were too far in the other direction. And there is a balance there that, that needs to be struck. And so again, as you travel through the New Testament as well, like, I think you can get into either one of the two sides being malicious. And that's not necessarily the case. It's one of those things you have to just kind of bring them back from, from. Bring them back to the middle ground. But Jesus does that in many Instances as well. So I just wanted to bring that up before we get into each of these sections here. [00:11:41] Speaker A: Yeah, for sure. I mean, it's just. It's human nature to be drawn to an extreme. So getting into the specifics of this, the. The things where the overcorrection might be happening, the. First, we'll start with masculinity and feminism. We've done so much on masculinity, you guys, anyone who's been a deep thinker for any time at all knows where we stand of male leadership. Men leading the home, you know, men having authority and. And immediately, again, the people parked in the left ditch that have done happy wife, happy life will look at that like, you guys are just going to. You want to run over your wives like, no, they're. Your way. Did not work. The fruits of the marriage perspective you've had are rotten. And so we've got to move away from that. And it might scare you to death to move away from that. It might look like, wow, we're talking about chauvinism and running women over. No, absolutely not. Your critiques are useless. On the other hand, you do start to see this stuff. And not to. The guy is just kind of the symbol of this kind of thing. But Andrew Tate very much running over women, treating them like property, abusing them, sexualizing them, just really not taking them seriously, not respecting them in the way they should. And you'll see this term online. Sometimes women deserve less. Like, you know, we've. And that's from the happy wife, happy life mindset of just do whatever she says, give her whatever she wants, make her happy no matter what. And these guys, yeah, no, I'm not doing that. And again, there's a valid critique in that. And then there's a way to take it way too far to really become that guy that's like, I'm just gonna tell her how it is and sit her down and give her, you know, the. The what for about how. How things are gonna go. Like, yeah, this is something that generationally, we've got to park ourselves on truth. And in Ephesians 5, and the right way to do this, of loving her wife enough to lie down for her in a way that doesn't mean being a doormat for her. And so it's again, finding our scriptural balance. [00:13:35] Speaker C: I was listening to a story the other day from somebody who was telling me, happened at a church where the wife got her feelings hurt. Somebody said something, and it offended the wife. And the husband of the wife went to talk to the preacher about what was going on. And the preacher sat down and asked the husband, like, listen, listen, man, I understand that, you know, she got her feelings hurt. If this were you or me, could we not talk this out? And, and, you know, could we not come to an agreement like, can I help this? And. And the. The husband said, yeah, you know, I definitely think we could. And then he's. And then. So the preacher was like, well, then, you know, what can we do about your wife with her feelings hurt because they were threatening to leave and it was kind of a nasty mess. And the husband goes, well, you know, when you've got an upset wife, you just kind of have to support her. Shocker. That was a. And so they did leave. It was nasty. You know, 10, 12 people left. I'm sure you can't guess what age that that couple was. And it was the cup. It was the a. The generation that was grown, that had grown up with the, you know, just keep your wife happy. If she's upset, you just gotta support her and back her and whatever she wants to do. And so, yes, guys like us are gonna look at that and say, well, let's just overcorrect the other direction. That's where you, you know, that doesn't mean that you say, you know what, honey? Sorry, you just got to get over. And we're just gonna, you know, we're gonna do what I want to do. That's the overcorrection on the other side to say your feelings don't matter. I don't value your thoughts. I don't value the fact that you did get your feelings hurt, maybe very legitimately, you know, I don't value that at all. We're going to do what I want to do. I guess my question, Joe, I know you've probably got a thought on that that you want to share here. Why is this not more common sense? I guess, like that you don't have to over correct to the steamrolling over your wife and the dominating your wife and the being domineering, you know, whatever word you want to use. To me, it's. It's common sense to, to say there is the middle ground between I'm not going to let you split up a church or we're not gonna completely uproot and leave this congregation just because you got your feelings hurt. But at the same time, I'm not just going to, you know, be a dictator here. Like, to me, that's so easy and natural. But I know that's, again, that's what we're discussing, it's not quite as. Quite as easy for some people. So what are your thoughts on that, Joe? And again, I'm sure you have another thought you want to get to, but I just want to throw that out there. [00:15:47] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Well, thought I was going to give. The first thing I was going to say is just that first Peter 3. Seven of living with your wife in an understanding way. We don't really know how to do that. That also is the verse right after, or maybe two verses, right after Sarah calls Abraham Lord. There is both sides of this that are very present. First Corinthians 3. We usually want to give one side or the other, but I think there is that validation idea of like, live with your wife in an understanding way. So in that situation, you got your feelings hurt. Yeah, I understand that that can be really difficult. Doesn't mean we're going to let that drive the decision making of where we stay in church. It means we're gonna have to deal with this. But the reason for the overcorrection, I think, will, to your point, I think these things snowball, and it's one way or the other. Either you start off by kind of taking the domineering approach. Obviously, I take more of a trauma approach. As a therapist, a lot of times you look back in somebody's history and you go, yeah, okay, they beat their wife or they do, you know, they subjugate their wife. They. They're very, very controlling for a reason. You go back, you see the way that their parents were, and they just kind of phase in. They. Yeah, they kind of go right into that. On the other hand, sometimes you see it where the wife or the mom dominates the dad and the guy doesn't know any better. And it all starts with some of one of these things. There's kind of a term, it's a crude term, but this. This test that a woman will give a man, and it really kicks off the relationship. Usually this is in a dating period and she'll question him or she'll challenge him on something. Well, we're not going to go here tonight or we're not going to do that. He has the opportunity to stand up in that moment and say yes or no. And most of the time, depending on how he answers that, and maybe the subsequent two or three will pretty much dictate the rest of his marriage. And so it snowballs from there. And that's how you get to the point where we have these huge ditches of one side or the other and a Lot of times the women, if they are coming from maybe a biblical background of wanting to submit. Well, how far does the submission go? Do you submit when he is unbelievably controlling? Well, yeah, you're supposed to do that, but what are, what do you do in that situation? I've heard these stories of like preachers wives where the preacher's super, super, super controlling. I knew of one where like literally he would have her brush her teeth like four times a day and was adamant that she would like, would really get onto her and hound her every time she didn't controlled every bit of the money. You can't go spend on this. You can't buy the package Oreos like yet you drive this. This is the guy not living with his wife in an understanding way. You drive her to the other side. So you look back though, where he's coming from probably makes sense that he's in that situation. What it takes though, is people outside the situation being able to call it out. In my opinion, you have to have a middle ground because both of them may be on opposite ends of the ditch. You have the one, the guy control is really driven out of fear and she may be driven out of anger and rebellion. Again, you have to have somebody that's willing to bring them back to the middle ground. But one other point I was going to make, Jack, I'm curious your thoughts on that. But the other point I was going to make is the men who go go their own way is the other overcorrection. Here you have the overcorrection toward the domineering. You also have the overcorrection where the guys back out and go, I don't want any part of this. I'm not going to get with a female. I'm not. I don't care about women at this point. I'm going to go my own way, not think about it. They're just too much trouble. They only initiate the divorces, all the breakups, all the infidelity, which unfortunately is actually happening a lot these days. And so they've decided to just basically quit the game completely. They don't want to have any dealings with women. That's the other overcorrection we're seeing a lot with young men. Men, they're called incels and they're called all sorts of, you know, derogatory things online. And yeah, I'm sure there are those people out there, but we also got to be really careful of that. The way we speak of marriage, especially as we look to or as we look to correct that. We don't have a lot of guys who go, well, women are useless. Either I'm going to subjugate them or I'm going to avoid them. There's also the middle ground on that one as well. But Jack, I'm curious, your thoughts go back to Will's question and if you have any thoughts on, on men who go their own way. [00:19:19] Speaker A: I think men who go their own way is going to be a short lived thing. Like they're going to have to figure something out. Like they're just not going to avoid women forever. I mean there's just natur, you know, there's, there's that side of it. But again, that is this overcorrection. Man, things are so bad. The dating pool is so bad. You've seen, you know, what dating apps have done and breaking people's brains and it's all the cards are all stacked against men and for women and marriage, it's all for women against men and all that. And so you end up with these things. But to Will's point about the church council and these two ditches is these guys that have crashed the car into that left ditch are, man, they're just patting themselves on the back of I am a loving husband. And now the overcorrection is going to be guys that crash their car into the right ditch and go, I am a husband who leads my home. Like, you got to have both. One of the other things that is going to be a constant in this episode and in this trend of overcorrection, there are a lot of things that our predecessors had right? Like I don't know why we. And so you see this sometimes with, well, honor your father, mother, or respect your elders. Well, you didn't respect your elders. You're the ones who cast off thousands of years of generational wisdom of how to do things and decided the TV is going to tell us what to do, the radio is going to tell us what to do, the experts are going to tell us what to do. We're going to cast off all of your wisdom. And so now we're going back the way things were done 100 years ago that just everybody did. And it looks like the most extreme thing ever. In fact, you hear people say, oh, you want me to be a 1950s housewife? Like, why was that so bad? Like, what, what, what's the issue there? And, and so when we talk about this overcorrection, the balance is pretty easy to see. Now you can go back and go, well, husbands used to beat their wives. Yeah, that's bad. That's. We don't need to overcorrect back to that kind of thing. And so it's really common sense. But it feels so extreme because we've been crashed in the left ditch for generations. And so you've got to get the stomach to realize what we've done doesn't work. Like, a lot of people will say that. A lot of people say, yeah, this system hasn't worked. But the minute somebody moves an inch away, it's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. We don't want to be wife beater. Like, of course we don't. But you're going to have to move off of what we did, and you're going to have to get comfortable with that. I'm sorry. You're just going to have to get comfortable with some things that maybe you don't. Again, it's. It's some uncharted territory for our generations, and that's going to have to happen. Hey, guys, I wanted to tell you about our new sponsor, the Quarterly. Starting its ninth year, the Quarterly is, according to several readers, the best magazine in the brotherhood. Featuring a wide range of writers, the Quarterly is a fantastic mix of encouragement, edification, education, and enjoyment. The latest issue features both sides of the eating in the church building debate, a detailed look at the events while Jesus was in the womb, the work of the Holy Spirit in the life of a Christian, a formerly classified FBI article examining how Moses and Joshua used spies and what principles can be gleaned from it. And that's just barely scraping the surface. Digital subscriptions are free, and the print subscription costs less than a family trip to McDonald's. To subscribe or download previous issues, just go to cobpublishing.com quarterly and look for the FocusPress ad in the latest issue. [00:22:28] Speaker C: But this is, to Joe's point, about identity. Even if they can look at it honestly and say it didn't work, there is still a bit of it that's just wrapped up. Like, that's their identity. That's who they are. That's what they are. That's their perspective. I think a lot about this from. It's kind of a weird thing to bring up, but homeschool, public school thing. There are a lot of older Christians. Some of them, you know, like, you'll hear stories about how, you know, a family will decide to homeschool and either, you know, one set of parents or both sets of parents are just appalled and just can't believe it. And part of that is due to the fact, I think, that those parents, the, the older generations, their identity is wrapped up. Well, we went to public school and we sent our kids to public school. And it's an attack on. It's an attack on what I did. It's an attack on my perspective. It's an attack on my identity. It's personal for you to homeschool your children. And so I, I see a parallel there with, you know, whether it's masculine, feminine. It's like, we did it this way. And sure, it might not have worked great, but hey, you know, I'm still here. And like, that's what's always been. Not to, to go back to an old soapbox of mine. But for most frustrating about the older generations is the inability to see. Yeah, this, this was, this was not just in the ditch. We are completely, you know, we've rolled in the ditch and flipped over twice in the ditch, and yet we can't see and honestly evaluate that, yes, maybe that was our identity, our perspective. It's okay to go in the other direction. That's what I think of. Again, the homeschool, public school thing of. It's just they take it as an attack on, on themselves. They take it as an attack on, on what they did. And that's what we're going to have to overcome with a lot of this stuff. [00:24:02] Speaker A: Yeah, there's a million of these because it's like, kids. Oh, you've got, you know, more than three kids. Whoa, slow down there. Like, again, all of our grandparents had eight or nine. Like, that's right. You're the weirdo. Historically with you and your 1.7, like, and you guys again, created no fault divorce, create all these things. And so again, as we said at the start, if you're crashed into the left ditch, you're not in a position to critique the correction. Those that are making the correction are the ones that have to be careful about this one other thing on this. And this is going to be like, fits for all the points. We live in this world in which we've been in the left ditch so long, we have mapped out the left ditch so there's a left side and a right side of the left ditch. And a lot of people pat themselves on the back for being on the right side of the left ditch. And when you zoom out, it's like, hey, you're still in the left ditch. That's not okay. You're still operating on this framework as if this is normal. And so that really, that's what Complementarianism is. That's where John Piper and what was the other guy, Wayne Grudem wrote a book in the 80s to basically make the compromise to carve out the right side of the left ditch of like well yeah, I mean we're going to give into feminism in all these ways but we've still got to hold that men are the head of the home and the church and we're going to undermine that completely. But we're going to nominally come up with a way to say that like yeah, when I'm rejecting that, I'm not rejecting, I'm not crashing into the right ditch. I'm saying let's get out of the left ditch and re center on the truth. So for the male female thing we got to move on to the next one. Do you have anything to add on that? [00:25:29] Speaker B: I was just going to say the other thing is because of the extremes of the culture, we're not talking just a one lane road, we're talking a six lane highway that are separating the ditches. This is why you have a left and right ditch is. And I would even say left and right on the right side, you know, the right ditch. This is why you have that polarization though. And this is where people are going to have to this kind of as you said, maybe not prophetic but looking into the future. Gen Z is one of the most base generations to come around in 100 years in the males it's also one of the most liberal in the females. What do you think that's going to create? We made this point before but when you talk about the overcorrection, this is what creates an overcorrection is you spread. There's such a chasm between them. There is so much polarization between them that in order to get them to work along and in order for a Gen Z male to find a wife that's willing to submit. Tom, there's going to be an over correction where he's going to go too far. I'm just calling it now. I'm not saying that's good. I'm not saying it should happen. I'm saying that's what's going to have to happen to a certain degree because of the polarization of these things. That's how you end up again with that left or the right side of the left ditches. We're so separate from one another. We're not anywhere close at this point in a lot of ways. So finding the middle ground, you got a six lane highway to do it like we're pretty far apart. The Andrew Tates and the, you know, complete wimps of the world are pretty far removed. That should make it easy to find a middle ground. But any inch that you give on either side just seems like you're, you know, like you're a change agent or something along the lines. But, Jack, as you said, I want to get to the next one because this is a touchy subject with a lot of. [00:26:57] Speaker C: Joe's going to introduce this one and then kick it to me and you, Jack. [00:26:59] Speaker A: Exactly. So I don't need to play. [00:27:03] Speaker B: But we talked about this before, actually. Racism. We see this a lot with racism. You see the. I think BLM was kind of a fever or it reached a fever pitch where you really had to decide, what does this look like? So we ran like the. The pendulum of society ran to. You literally had. You can't go outside or be around your dying loved one in the hospital during COVID to. You can go out and riot and, you know, be around a ton of people and be throwing bricks through windows and such. That's perfectly fine because we can't possibly say anything to this side because that would be racist now. And I'll kick you guys off with this. Now we have Kanye out there and saying that slavery was good and saying that Nazism was also good. And he's praising Hitler. Whoa, okay. As I said, Six lane highway, man, we're nowhere close. We're on complete opposite ditches here. What do we make of that, fellows? How do we navigate the racism dichotomy, the racism struggle here? [00:28:01] Speaker C: This is once again where my point that I made at the beginning of. So we live through 2020. We live through, you know, the. The black profile pic, the. The black square profile pictures where you black out your profile picture, the sermons with, you know, that we talked about before of people kind of chastising white people for their privilege. And, you know, just all that. That left. All that stuff that kind of left us feeling kind of icky about it. Like, man, this is just not the way to. Yes, we want to. We want to support, you know, the members of the black community. Of course, you know, all lives matter. All those things got. Got rebuked for saying that. And so there is a large portion of the population. Again, this is just. Just to bring my point back around that anytime you get. It's just repulsed by that completely. That. That whole ideology of bl. And I think rightly so, of course, of critical race theory and black power and all those things. And I think we rightly so should be repulsed by that. But you know what this reminds me of and you, you guys, I'm very interested you guys might disagree with, with my take on this, but this is where I saw a bit of the overcorrection to, you know, the. Just to be honest because just. Sorry, just to go back to like you even had like Phil Visher, who was the founder of Veggie Tales and stuff is came out and was just basically bashing Christians for not being anti racist. And there's a lot of stuff on the far left ditch that was just very frustrating to live through. And we can come back and look at it now and say, you know, that was ridiculous. But here's where I saw the overcorrection. Super bowl was a month and a half ago, two months ago now. Kendrick Lamar did the halftime show. They were pretty much all, all black people in his performance. And you know, a lot of you might not have watched it, but what I saw on Facebook from that was just a ton of people who were just super upset that there were all these black people doing. Doing the halftime show. And there were even people. We were in the same room with them at the time, not during the show, but like after discussing it and somebody said with my little. With my 3 year old in the room, I just, I couldn't believe I saw there were all those black people on that were. That were on TV for that halftime show. And I guess where I see the overcorrection is like, I do not care. Like it does not matter to me. You know, if they were up there doing the, you know, down with white people and down with white privilege and stuff and. Right. That'd be one thing. And I'm not trying to get into the content of the halftime show, but my point is people were repulsed just that there were that many black people on the screen. And I don't know if that goes with this point necessarily, but that's kind of where my mind went, is we've gotten to the point where it's, it's too many again because of the DEI thing as well. Like there's too many black people on the screen. And so I don't know, that just kind of bothered me. Like, I be honest, I don't really care what the skin color is of the people on the, on the halftime show or like it. It doesn't matter to me that that to me is where I think we need to get to of. Like, I don't really care what, what the person's race is. And yet that was the overcorrection that I saw. And of course, Joe, you brought up the. The Kanye stuff, and that's, you know, kind of a social media thing, I think. But I don't know what, what are yalls thoughts on kind of where we can see this over correction? Because to me, as I was trying to think of, like, where do I see this overcorrection other than with Kanye? That was kind of the first thing that came to mind for me is like, you know, stuff like that. What are your thoughts? [00:31:18] Speaker A: Yeah, it's when for so long you make it the worst thing you could possibly be is racist. And the worst words you could certainly you could ever say are certain words. What are. What's going to happen when people again start throwing off the system? They're going to go, oh, that's. You think that's the biggest transgression? Well, guess what? Guess what I am. I'm going to be a racist. Well, that's. Yeah, that's not great. And so the open disdain for people of another race. But the problem is, it's really interesting. In fact, I remember there's a Think Magazine issue that one of the editors. It wasn't me. Put together years ago on being a colorblind Christian. And for a long time it was. And the Martin Luther King thing, we need to be colorblind and all of that. But then people started to notice that the message was, hey, white folks, you need to be colorblind. Everybody else, you need to stand up for your own people. And so it was interesting. My favorite Church of Christ newspaper did a feature the other day on a church in Atlanta that had a sermon on DEI and God's DEI and how, you know, Peter was sent to Cornelius and to preach to the gentiles. And this is God's diversity, equity and inclusion initiative and all that and the good the DEI done right and all that stuff. So I just scrolled over to that church's leadership page. Every single deacon, minister, and elder is all of the same race. A black church can do that. They can talk about a. The importance of diversity and not be diverse at all. Whereas we are supposed to just kind of beat ourselves up for. We just need to be more diverse. We. We need to go almost like find, you know, people of different races to come into our church like they do in TV shows. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Representation. There are church, there are churches have, like, put out their vision of we want to be a diverse church. We want to be, you know, we don't have enough. Like, we're going to go evangelize demographically, like, no. How about we bring in the people that God brings, You know, like so the seed and find the soil. But. And so this idea of colorblindness, though, is like something we have to revise. Like, you can't tell one group be colorblind and tell everybody else. You guys need to band together to stand against those people. [00:33:21] Speaker B: Yeah, that's just gonna say on the halftime show, I think that's where people got upset about it, is you have been hitting us over the head for years on inclusion, inclusion, inclusion. I mean, to the point that you literally had how to train your dragon. The lead female is African American. Excuse me. This is Vikings from like the, from the 1200s or whatever. Like, I don't think they had a whole lot of black people back. Got to be inclusive. Well, then it comes to halftime show. Where's the inclusivity? Why don't we have to have the same? I think it was the double standard that people were upset with. I agree with you that it's like, it doesn't bother me in the least other than it's the double standard. And that's why, to Jack's point, why there is an overcorrection here. People are tired of the double standard. So, yes, you're having a lot of young men that are running toward these racist reddits and such. Not good. Not good. I don't think that that's appropriate. In the lease, obviously, we are decrying that and saying, absolutely not. If you are a obvious ungodly on men, we stand against those things. On the other hand, yeah, there has to be a correction because we can't continue to live in a world where we. We can't notice these things. Where we're not allowed to notice these things. [00:34:29] Speaker A: This is the thing of, like, the, the parked in the left ditch looks at anybody who acknowledges, like, the it's okay to be white was a phrase a few years ago and that immediately was coined as like a Nazi slogan. It's okay to be like that. Hang on. Everybody else gets to say pride, you know, pride and where they're from. But to say just, it's okay, like, I'm not a bad person for being white. Well, you're a Nazi. And so again, what this creates is people start going, no, I actually am going to be a Nazi. And, well, when you called everything Nazism, it means nothing anymore. And so people, like, again, people from the left ditch have no, have no control when they're like, when they lose the Grip on power. Bad things are going to happen in the overcorrection here. And so to this point, about kind of the double standard. Colorado Buffaloes football fan, they got a big recruit last year out of high school. You know, five star is like the big star. They got to come to their school. And he went on TV and explained why he chose Colorado University. It was because of coach Deion Sanders. And he said to all the other black, you know, athletes out there, why don't you want to play for a coach who looks like you? Could you imagine a white kid saying, I went to Alabama to play for Nick Saban because he's white. Like, you just can't do that. And so the question we have to ask is, was he. He wrong to do that, or is like, is it natural for people to flock together? And again, to use kind of that ancestral wisdom, like, there was racism in the past, obviously there was slavery in the past. But on the other hand, where we're going, where it's like, it's okay for everybody to be racist against, we're going to have to find a balance, and it's going to make a lot of people uncomfortable. There's going to have to be a lot more cognizance of race to get here. And again, this is where critical theory has messed all this up. Critical race theory. I mean, like, there's. This is a sticky situation we're going to have in the coming years. [00:36:18] Speaker B: Well, okay, so the question is, are you gathering around skin color? Are you gathering around culture? And it's going to look like you're gathering around skin color. One of the reasons that I think black people have a very strong connection with one another and why they want to do it is there's a culture that goes along with it and they appreciate their culture. Yes, the skin color is a, is indicative of the culture that they have, but a white coach is not going to understand the culture maybe that this, this man elevates. Can white people elevate a certain culture? Can we have a, a culture of our own that we say, I want that in the culture? And if there's a. An African American that wants to be part of the culture, fantastic. I think that's where we have to get to, is we're basing it off of cultural lines. The skin color is going to be one of the easiest ways to denote that this is going to sound racist. I know everybody's going to look at me as racist for saying this. And what Jack's saying, what we're, what we're saying here. On the other hand, how can we avoid it? Because the other thing that we would have to tell everybody, whether that be Asian or Indian or African American or any of those, is forget any of the culture you have. Forget any of your skin color. You're part of the great melting pot of America where race doesn't matter in the least. And I don't know that that's. I think culture matters, and I think those that share similar values and similar culture will flock together. And by and large, that's going to be based off of skin color. I think that's very natural. You can go around the rest of the world, people call us racist in America. I visited lots and lots and lots of other places in the world. They are incredibly racist toward one another. I visited China, I visited Africa. When we were over in Africa, they were racist toward each other based off of the different shades of skin and who was more black and who was not. Like, that is inherent in culture racism. We're trying to fix that and get to the different point, but I think we're doing it by erasing any cultural bounds, any things that kind of drive us or draw us together. And I don't know that that's right either. So once again, bit of an overcorrection to the complete colorblind side. [00:38:06] Speaker C: Well, just to go back to the kind of. Why this was such. Such a big deal is what's the definition of the double standard that is Definition of racism? Of racism is you are viewing somebody based on their skin color as an inferior human being. And what was frustrating is that's exactly what they were doing to white people. Oh, oh, you're white. So you got to go to. All the way to the bottom of the totem pole, so to speak, because of your. [00:38:29] Speaker A: Even though white people don't season their food, white people. Oh, you know, white people are lame. They can't dance. Yeah. Know, like all that stuff. Okay. You know. [00:38:38] Speaker C: Right, right. And so. But that. What. Where I'd kind of disagree. Yes. I obviously think we should never look at somebody as an inherently inferior human being. Human being based on their skin color. This is the Joe's point. You can look at somebody and say there's a culture associated with it. There. There are things about that particular. Particular, you know, race that, you know is just part of life. That doesn't mean that you're racist. That doesn't mean that you're not colorblind. That's just kind of reality. And man, this is one that is just. It's tough to find that balance because again, where I see it, to go back to Jack's Dion example, there are a lot of people who were actively rooting against Colorado football and Deion Sanders because of stuff like that, you know, you know, it's like, okay, if you want to. To me, like, I don't really care. But that, that is kind of a, to me, the overcorrection. Well, I'm going to root against them because I'm a white person and they're black. Like, no, that's where you get into. To me, the overcorrection with this. And so, yeah, but it's tough because we had this stuff shoved down our throat for three pl really more than that. But you know, for 2020 and beyond, two, three years there, where it was just nauseating, you know, that's all you would hear. And of course, the Colin Kaepernick thing dating all the way back to 2016. It's, it's been a long time that we have had this. Go ahead. [00:39:46] Speaker B: I was just back to Obama getting elected. He was elected because he's the first black man. And there were a lot of Christians that voted for him, even though he was against every Christian value known to man. But they voted for him. Why? Color of his skin. So if we did that to the reverse side. Not okay. Not okay. Well, I voted for him because he's white. Absolutely not. That's not appropriate. If this man is, is against Christian values, I don't care what the color of his skin is. I'm not voting for him. But a lot of people, because it's like, well, you, you white people are racist. So because of the slavery in the past, because maybe Jim Crow laws, whatever it may be, that forever has, has proven us to be the racist. I don't think that's okay. But Will, to your point, this, we're, we're seeing a lot with young men. That's the, the key demographic there is. They are going to run to the other side because of the rebellion because they are sick of being told it's the same thing with the masculinity. If you tell me that being masculine is wrong and the public schools very much push this. If you tell me that being a white male basically makes me worthless, what do you think is going to happen? You're going to have a lot of angry young men. Sometimes they turn into school shooters. Sometimes they turn into those online that are just, you know, the blast people online that go on and cause all sorts of problems. Like they will seek out Ways to create destruction because they are in a rebellious, angry phase. And to a certain degree, that's what we create when we, we spend all our time pushing one narrative or another or keeping everybody in one ditch. And if you even pop your head out of the ditch, then you are a racist or you are, you know, a, a horrible misogynist or whatever it is. Yeah, we're going to see that over correction. We got to be very careful in the church to make sure that we're not. We got to understand what the young men are going through. We got to understand. And by that I mean what this, what stuff they're getting into. Yes, what they're going through, but also what stuff they're getting into. The Andrew Tates and the Ant, the, the very racist stuff, all the racist memes and all the. Even now we're kind of getting the anti Jew. We're starting to see that a lot more. The anti Jewish sentiments among the young generation. Like, we gotta be very careful of the things that we engage with online. Parents, you got to know what your kids are getting into. This is probably not something you or your parents, you know, the grandparents are going to be struggling with. This is going to be a young generation over correction. And we could see we're laying out how it's going to happen, like why it's happening. We have to be careful to make sure we're very aware of where they're going online, who they're hanging out with, what they're posting. Because the overcorrection is already coming. It's going to get a lot stronger, but it's already coming. Something to, to be aware of. [00:42:10] Speaker A: 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. Well, and just to wrap this biblically, I don't think colorblindness is biblical. Like, well, God made every human equal. Yes, that is where we don't hate. We don't look down on people for other things like that. But in Acts 17, where Paul talks about, he put everyone. He drew the borders of kind of their existence. He placed people where he put them so they could find him through that. And you look in Revelation where it talks about people of every nation and tribe and tongue are flowing into the kingdom that's acknowledging these differences. You go back to the tower Of Babel. God wanted everybody scattered. He made that happen so the people would be over the earth. He gave them different languages to make that happen, so they would go and be with their own people. And again, as Acts 17, that was his way of making it possible for them to find him. And so that is a reality that he has made different, like you said, cultures and peoples in that way. That's okay. It's okay to acknowledge that. And again, this idea. Well, it's okay for everybody to acknowledge it except one group. No, it just. That's never going to work. And so that's going to end up in people over emphasizing their race because they were told not to emphasize it at all. You should be able to say it's okay to be white and feel like I'm not being offensive. But again, if you're in the left ditch, it's like, whoa, whoa, whoa. So again, and I think you can see Rahab. [00:43:49] Speaker B: You can see Rahab. Ruth proselytes that decide they want to be a part of that culture, that they are. They are assimilating into that culture. And that is. The racism would be like, nope, you know, not allowed to. Different skin color type of thing. Yeah, there are certain levels of. God doesn't want those people coming in and assimilating for very moralistic reasons and things like that. The racism may be looking at the skin color going, yeah, we're not going to do it. Rather than looking at the, you know, God says, hey, here comes Ruth taken. Like, she gets her own book of the Bible. And Rahab gets several chapters written better in the Bible. And you see these people that. The proselytes and the Cornelius and things like that, and they chose to be a part of that culture even though they're different skin colors. Well, that's part of the other thing. [00:44:29] Speaker A: I was like, you get into the numerical of. Yeah, I wonder, you know, people can come in and be part. When a million of them come in, like they're just putting in a colony and like, it's. So that's Right, right. A lot of. A lot of different rabbit trails we can do on this. We need to get to a couple more before we finish. One of which is. I'm going to skip ahead on the outline. We'll come to the other one maybe at the end. Gnosticism. We have very much been a religious culture that downplays the physical, the all gonna burn thing, the we. The unhealthy thing, the overweight preacher thing. We've talked about the. It doesn't matter what I put in my body, you know, I can go through the drive through 27 times a week, and it's just not a big deal. That's not good. I do think there is an overcorrection coming towards the physical. The correction is that the physical does matter. You need to take these things seriously. I think there can also be a little bit too much emphasis on health, on, you know, just every last. I don't know, we can. We can psych ourselves out about it. But it's really funny. You know, RFK Jr. Is kind of one of the faces of this, and the governor of Illinois was criticizing him as his dangerous, you know, views on health or whatever else. That guy's like £400. He is the. The epitome. And I'm not like, I'm not exaggerating. Like, he's. He's in awful health. He is the epitome of sitting in the left ditch looking at somebody making a correction, going, nope, you can't do that, like, with a mouthful of fries. And no, this is bad. And so, yes, we need to move away from where things have been on downplaying the physical and the importance of how you look and all those things, because this extends into other things of how we come to church and how we dress and how we keep ourselves. Those kinds of things are all trickle down from this Gnosticism and say, it doesn't matter. It does. But we also can overcorrect. [00:46:21] Speaker C: Yeah, I think. I was just gonna say, I think this one's pretty obvious where you can see the overcorrection and. And that is that becomes of superior value to spiritual health or kind of the. Your spiritual. Your spiritual walk, because that's what. What's always so frustrating about the people who would side with kind of Gnosticism is, you know, it's all spiritual, really. Only that matters is spiritual. You know, you walk with God, it doesn't really matter what you put in your body. It doesn't really matter, you know, exercise, none of that really matters. That's where we would disagree and where they would often push back on us is, oh, so you're saying that, you know, that matters more than spirit, more than your spirituality. And for us, obviously, the answer is no. But for some people, man, they get on this health train, they get on this fitness train, and it becomes their life, it becomes their, you know, everything that they. I spend hours a day making sure that every meal is crafted perfectly and curated perfectly and not to mention a couple hours a day exercising. And listen, if you have time to exercise every day, I hope everybody does and make sure that you're eating well. But there is an over correction. Just like we made the example a couple weeks ago. If you're finding three, four hours a day to scroll social media and watch Netflix and you can't really find a few minutes to, to read your Bible or to have study family worship time with your family, that applies just as much to if you're spending two hours a day meal planning and then another hour and a half with your exercise and then you're getting on social media with your, with your fitness, you know, chats and you know, fitness groups. And I was like that very much can become your life to the point where that is your identity. Not, not your Christianity, not your godliness, not your righteousness, not your, you know, being a faithful disciple of Christ. But how healthy, how fit you are. There's a reason why people kind of have that reputation sometimes. You know, the, the, the gym bros and, and people like that, you know, crunchy, I think, you know, is one of those things that people are labeled now. And so I think the overcorrection here is pretty obvious, but it is one that I think specifically young people who have the energy and can kind of get wrapped up in this identity once they start really delving into it. Got to be careful about. Joe, what are your thoughts? [00:48:32] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, I think this is a very needed point because both sides, again, the polar opposite six lane, six lane highway, the going to McDonald's all the time versus the 45 supplements a day, carnivore, carnivore diet, things like that. Some of those diets can be really unhealthy. Jack, one of the things I appreciate about you is you made it. You've gone through your various health phases of, you know, the things that you found to be more important or not. But it's very scientific driven. It's also, there's nothing extreme. Be careful on the sugars you put in your body, check your calories, you know, get some walking in, get some, get your step count in 7,500 steps, whatever it is. Get the gym three times a week, you know, lifting weights. Honestly, it's very, very, very simple when you break it down. And yeah, I understand there's going to be all these people. Oh, I tried that. It's math, you know, with the calorie counting. The reason I don't lose weight is because I realize I don't calorie count the way that I should. And I'm not, I'm not Eating the macros and hitting my. My protein goals. That's it. So then you go to the extreme diets, the ketos, the carnivores, things like that, and you swing that pendulum to the other side once again. Well, what you're talking about is identity. It is their identity to be the health and fitness guru or the. The person in their life that you know like fitness so easily. I think we're seeing that a lot more fitness becomes a massive part of everybody's identity because they're going to be the one that gets fit. And that's why they post their Entire journey on TikTok or on Instagram or whatever it is. And I. I'm not downing all those things. I'm not saying that all of that is horrible. We just have to be very careful that that doesn't become the main focal point. Another thing you have on the Gnosticism, though, Jack, is sexuality. I think we've swung the pendulum from sex is just for procreation. We don't even talk about it. You know, we never, never really mention the word sex. Like, you're wrong if you mention it from the pulpit or anything like that, to swinging to only fans. And you have tons of girls getting on there and flaunting their bodies and whatnot. And sex positive, as they call it, lgbtq, everything else, we swing this pendulum. So the way that we might come back to it is you have a lot of people that are decrying all of that and saying, we don't want any part of. Of that culture. So we're going to go back to, like, I read something, or Alyssa was reading something online where they said, you know, any wife that wants to dress up for her husband, it's just going to get him interested in prostitutes. Dress up. Sexually speaking, it's going to get him interested in prostitutes, so don't do it. And this is like a fairly prominent author saying that a lot of women were going along with it. Like, yeah, you know, that's the. Got to be careful on those things. Like what? So sex is for procreation. It's just for having kids, right? And they say that, okay, well, where's Song of Solomon? There's no kids mentioned in Song of Solomon. It is part of the enjoyment that God has given us on this earth. We don't want to discuss sex from that standpoint because the moment you come off of the ultra conservative, it's just for procreation. You know, don't. Don't dress sexually for one another, anything like that. Downplaying foreplay, anything like that. The moment you come off of that, it's like, oh, great, you might as well be on pornhub. Like, whoa, whoa, whoa. There is such a middle ground here that I think is, is a lot easier to find than we're giving it credit for in just saying sex can be a really positive thing in the bounds of Christianity. Look at scripture. Look at what God says. It's for our enjoyment. It's also for procreation. There are some boundaries on it. Make sure it's in a, in a covenantal relationship, right in marriage, and make sure that you are loving one another in that process. So that's going to exclude all of these ultra controlling and weird kinks and things like that. Make sure it's cherishing and loving one another. It's fairly simple. The same way that, that health and fitness is fairly simple. But we go to the extremes because we can't seem to find that balance. We're against it. [00:51:56] Speaker A: Well, there's, it's not. The other extreme is not just the, you know, pornification of people thing. There's. There can be a casualness toward talking about it. My wife, you know, she'll share the, the videos, like the reels and shorts and stuff of people parenting with their toddlers and, you know, funny, relatable stuff like that. A lot of those same people will make stuff about their, you know, sexual habits and their, you know, time together and not, like, explicit like they're showing anything but, you know, joking about, oh, you know, getting away to go, do you know, what kind of thing. And it's like, you know, I think keeping some of that to yourself is probably healthy, you know, like, and I've seen there's kind of a, a casualness story. Like, oh, well, we all do it, you know, all married couples. We all know what, like, yeah, that's why we don't need to kind of talk about that kind of thing. And, and, and again, I think as, as the church, to your point, has gone wrong of basically like, we will not talk about it. We'll pretend it doesn't happen. We'll just mind your own business and do your own thing over there behind closed door, there needs to have a, a place for mature discussion and helping couples understand what, you know, the purpose of this Song of Solomon's in the Bible for a reason, as you say, without this just kind of being a constant casual. Oh yeah, you know, we'll just joke about the things that we do. Like, some things are for you too. That's okay. Like, that needs to stay that way. And I think the kind of prudishness is. Might give way a little bit toward. Oh, you know. Well, they wouldn't talk about it, but I will well check that a little bit. I think that's some of the right questions as well. [00:53:27] Speaker B: Flippancy from. From. Or. Yeah, like you said, it's. When you talk about it too much, we don't want to over sexualize kids. We don't want to over sexualize the culture. And that contributes just as much as porn does. The, you know, talking about it, the sexual jokes back and forth all the time, the making everything sexually charged. Like there is a time and place for sex. Most of the time, it's not. That is a, like, 2% of life type of thing. But the way we treat it is we want sex to permeate so much of the culture. We want to talk about it in its appropriate bounds. We really want to talk about the 2% pretending it doesn't exist, or rather than pretending it doesn't exist, but we still want to keep it as the 2% and not let sex permeate every part of our life. And in the workplace, we see it at home, we see it in the schools. We see it everywhere else where sex, and specifically with lgbtq, with gender, it's exploded. So it's become a lot more normal to talk about. We got to be careful. Entertainment and how much. Yeah, exactly. Entertainment as well. Songs and movies. Netflix and things like that. But Will, you thought. [00:54:21] Speaker C: No, I don't. I don't have much on this. I know. I don't know if we're going to get to the last thing or. We got a few minutes left. What do you all want to do? [00:54:27] Speaker A: Let's push. We're going to talk about the high church. We've had some discussion of that before, so we'll put some of that on the deep end of just moving away from casualness in church to formality. And it's kind of being overdone, I think, you know, people seeking out those very formal, very. And again, Catholicism, orthodoxy, all those things. So cool. [00:54:45] Speaker C: Well, so I. I want to give kind of my closing thoughts on this, and then if you guys want to do the same, and then maybe we can wrap up with the. Think fast before we get out of here. But I remember when we had the dust up with an episode that we did back in June of. Of last year. One of the points that. That you made, Jack, is like, you essentially were like, are there any normal people left in the Sense of like not going too far one extreme, but not going too far the other extreme. That's kind of where my mind is with a lot of this stuff as we kind of wrap up this episode is there is a normal, there is a middle. And maybe normal is the wrong word. There's a middle ground. There is a balance. You do not have to be. Mr. Just, you know, bow to your wife and let her run the show and split a church because you don't want to kind of stand up to her about her feelings hurt. But you also do not have to be on the other side of. Once again, I'm going to do whatever I want to do. You don't really get a say. I'm going to run over you. You, you don't, you can be in the middle there, there is a normal. It's just same thing with, with racism and with the Gnosticism. You know, you can be, you don't have to be Mr. You know, Krispy Kreme and Chick Fil a, you know, 14 times a week, but you also don't have to be. Mr. I'm, you know, never going to enjoy myself ever again. Like there is a middle, normal ground. And so that would be kind of be, I guess be my closing thoughts and encouragement to people is don't be in either ditch. There is, and to Joe's point, there's a pretty big, big six lane highway in the middle that, you know, obviously we'd prefer you to be more in the middle but like, you don't have to be in either ditch here. And, and that's, you know, but with going back to what we started with, there is a tendency to want to go to one side or the other based on your repulsion for one side or based on, you know, again, the, the history that we've had with having racism shoved down our throats or whatever it is. And so yeah, seek, seek the middle ground. Seek the, the balance. Any, any closing thoughts from you guys? [00:56:37] Speaker A: The definition of insanity thing about doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different result, I think a lot of people, especially older people, the car is on fire in the left ditch. They will acknowledge that. They will acknowledge how bad things are. But the minute somebody tries to change, like you, whoa, whoa, whoa, you can't do that. You know, you're, you're going way too far. Again, too far can happen. And so to, to that person, I would say, look, not every correction is an overcorrection. It's going to feel like an overcorrection. But it's not just because of how far wrong things have gone. On the other hand, to the person doing the correcting, you have to have it in the back of your mind. I could overcorrect. I could take this too far. I could be influenced less by the truth and more by my reaction to untruth. That's where it gets unhealthy. And so both sides have to come into this with a certain mindset of, I want to find truth. And truth might mean restraining myself, or truth might mean opening myself up to something I used to think was abhorrent. But maybe we need to give it a try. Maybe I need to open my mind up because clearly what I'm doing isn't working. [00:57:41] Speaker B: Yeah. The only closing thoughts I would have is, as you said at the top, Jack, this is more of a future type episode. Um, we're putting this out there because I do think this is going to be really relevant here in two, three years. But I would speak to the parents. A lot of these things we're seeing among young kids, the men who go their own way and the. The Andrew Tate discussion and the ultra racist and all of these things. That's not good. That's not good. We want to make sure that we have an understanding of where our kids are going online, what they're getting into, the type of things they're discussing. You know, the women, they can get into a lot of feminist stuff. You want to know that side as well. You want to know both ends of the ditch, because culture is drawing them toward that. This is why we want to get away from culture as much as possible. Be very aware. Be very aware of where your kids and even where you're going online, where you're getting these ideas. And as I said, if you are driven by fear, you're probably not coming out of that left ditch. If you're driven by anger, if you're driven by rebellion, things like that, you're probably going to be going toward that right ditch. Humility has to be at the core, as Jack was talking about. So those would be my only closing remarks. But, Will, I believe you had us for. Think fast. [00:58:50] Speaker C: Yeah, we'll try to. Try to make it fairly quick. But I had an interesting question I wanted to ask you guys. So somewhat in this vein, but, you know, not a ton. So we've made the rounds before, you know. Well, again, we'll take the victory lap here on boycotts before, specifically with Disney, and obviously boycotts have been kind of prominent discussion for a while. Target was A big one that I remember, you know, Starbucks, of course, and, and stuff like that. Here's my question for you guys is we kind of just had our Wokeism is dying episode a few weeks ago and you're seeing a lot of this DEI stuff rolled back. You're seeing Disney come out and say, hey, we're going to get back to making some, you know, non political statement type of content. Here's my question. And I don't know what other personal boycotts you guys have, you know, other than Disney. What would it take for you guys to kind of, you know, for you personally to say, you know what, they have done enough. There has been enough change at the top. There's been enough. Yeah, like what is enough, I guess for you guys for to maybe, maybe re fire up that Disney plus subscription again or you know, plan the Disney World trip. Jack. I know that will not be the case. He will never be doing that. But and again to take it out of the realm of Disney if there's another maybe it's target for, for you or another Starbucks real one, you know. Yeah. Realm of boycott that you kind of held firm on. What would it take for you? This is kind of a question I've been kind of rolling around in the back of my head is we're starting to see a positive trend. Like okay, how far do they have to go before we'll say okay, we, we'll support your business again? What, what are y thoughts on that? [01:00:24] Speaker A: I get the idea of rewarding a move in a good direction. On the other hand, I kind of view maybe I'm burning the village down to feel its warmth. It's like, no, we're moving on to a new world and if there I can throw my money at Christian creators, something like that. Yeah, I'm gonna do that. That's sorry like you, you kind of had your chance and you went so far that coming back just looks like a cynical business move. And I'm not really interested in, you know, if the head of Disney comes out and says Christ is Lord and we're removing all this stuff and any, any of those movies we're pulling off the thing. Like if they, if it's a real total reform, like we're going to be a whole brand new company. Okay, maybe, but like a, you know, pulling back off the, the severe evil they've done great. Good for you. I, I'm going to move somewhere else still. [01:01:11] Speaker B: Yeah. My answer is I would need an apology and probably mass firings. 30% of the writing staff is LGBTQ so you can make all of the claims you want of. Oh, we're gonna, we're gonna turn the tide. We're gonna go back toward non political. Look, a third of your staff is still lgbtq. What do you think they're gonna do? They're going to continue to get that in until I start seeing some firings, until I start seeing that all the drag queens are removed from. From Disney World. Maybe they're doing that. I don't know. All of the Cinderellas that are actually dudes. And until I get the, hey, we messed up on this one and we're sorry. Yeah, I'm gonna have a tough time really supporting Disney. [01:01:48] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. No, my, my answer was similar in the sense of I'll need to see more. Bigger sample size is I guess, what I would say. Like, I'll need to see more than a couple headlines. And this goes for anything again, Target or what? I'll need to see more than a couple headlines, more than a couple, you know, press statements put out by the, the head of. The head of these companies. And Joe, your apology point is interesting in the sense of kind of acknowledging not to get into the, the alcohol thing, but that's, that's what Bud Light did essentially with the deal when they got into hot water for the Dylan Mulvaney stuff. Fired a ton of people. That, that whole. The advert, whoever came up with the advertisement, that team completely let go. And I, I don't remember if they issued a public apology or not, but, man, every move that they made after that was basically to apologize for what they did. You haven't seen that from Target. You haven't really seen that from Disney. [01:02:36] Speaker A: So you went, you went back to Bud Light? [01:02:38] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, I went back. [01:02:41] Speaker B: Finally, man, we can have, you know. [01:02:44] Speaker C: Any time of my life. Your lifestyle, indulging in. Yeah, exactly. But, yeah, it's just an interest. It was an interesting thought to me as we think about maybe some positive momentum and, and you know, what, what decisions we'll make as far as our, our consumption of stuff, so. But that's all I had for this week's Think fast. Anything else before we wrap, guys? All right, we appreciate you guys listen for our deep thinkers. Submit your questions, your comments, anything you'd like us to react to. We will be back on Friday for the Deep End. And special shout out to these two guys for holding it down for me while I was absolutely down for the count. It's good to have you back both. Both for the Deep end and the episode. I appreciate it. It's good to be back and. Yeah. Hope you guys have a good week, and we'll talk to you next week.