Episode Transcript
[00:00:09] Speaker A: Welcome in to the faint Deeper podcast presented by Focus Press. I am your co host will here. I'm joined by Jack and Joe Wilkie. Guys, it's good to be back. Appreciate y'all holding down the fort for me last week.
[00:00:19] Speaker B: Good to have you back.
[00:00:20] Speaker C: Welcome back.
[00:00:21] Speaker A: I know I skipped my second episode ever, I believe. And so, you know, I seen there.
[00:00:27] Speaker C: Was one, I think it was when you were moving last time or something, so.
[00:00:30] Speaker A: Okay. Gotcha, gotcha. Okay. So yes, it's good to be back again. Fantastic episode that you guys did last week. If you're listening to this one, did not listen to last week's, I would encourage you guys, even though it did not feature me, it was still a fantastic episode. Very well articulated, great topic from last week. We got another good one coming. Got another one. Good one coming this week. Before we get into that real quick, Jack has got a new video series that he has executive producer of. He's the main feature of as well. It's called cultural breakdown. I am tremendously excited about it. Jack is going to be looking at kind of big stories, big cultural events that are taking place and breaking them down, talking about them from a biblical perspective, talking about how it impacts christians and kind of just, really just giving thoughts on it and kind of giving his take on various things. I'm super excited about it. The first one was last week. He tackled the very, very noteworthy topic of Harrison Butker, the chief's kicker, and some of the comments that he made at the graduation commit commencement speech. Really, really great video. I'd encourage you to go watch it. And so anytime there's anything big like that in the culture, just Jack is going to tackle that, break that down, give kind of his, take his thoughts on that. We're talking off air. There's not going to be anything near that big every single week. Um, but it's the United States, it's culture. There's going to be stuff going on just about every week. So I'm excited for that. Jack, I think, is going to be posting those on Thursdays. Eventually he's going to transition into a live on YouTube or live on Facebook, one of those two, trying to do.
[00:01:55] Speaker C: Both on live, but right now they're just going up on the focus press YouTube channel.
[00:01:59] Speaker A: There you go. So be looking for that. Again, I'm very excited about that. Anytime you can apply culture to how's a Christian supposed to basically look at that, I think is really, really great content. So looking forward to that. With that, I'm going to go ahead and hand it over to Joe. We're talking about role models today and kind of what we as christians need to be aiming ourselves towards when it comes to role models, but also obviously aiming young people towards for role models and kind of what the world presents with that concept. So, Joe, I am going to hand it to you to kind of get us into what specifically are we talking about today.
[00:02:32] Speaker B: Yeah. So when it comes to role models, I think that's a very normal, natural thing. Everybody has heard either as a kid they said this or they've heard it from other kids one day. I want to be like such and such, you know, back in the day, back in the fifties, going all the way back to probably even before that. Right. There's, I want to be like Superman or I want to be like John Wayne or, you know, they had these Roy Rogers.
[00:02:58] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:02:59] Speaker B: We kind of present these role models in society. And so as a kid, we all grow up with role models. I don't think that changes. I think we still are looking for role models in today's society. And what's interesting is we become very individualized, very individual focused and individualized. Jack's done a great job of writing on this. We've talked about this before of the, what's come in the past really doesn't matter to a lot of people. And yet we cannot get away from the idea of role models. We may have shifted from not wanting, you know, my grandparent isn't my role model. The older folks are my role models per se. But now we're just running to people like Taylor Swift, which we're going to get into. We're running to people like Joe Rogan. Right. Like younger people. But we're still looking for role models. We still want somebody to emulate, to look at, and to say, that's who I want to be. And I find this, I don't think it's wrong, but I find it to be problematic with what the culture pushes as role models today and why that's such a. Why that's such a problem for us. So just to kick us off, that's really what this episode is going to be all about, is we're going to examine, I think I have five each for women and men alike on what the modern role models are, who they are, what they're about, why they're appealing to certain people. And then we want to get into the biblical idea of what should we be looking for.
[00:04:11] Speaker A: Very quickly, before I hand it over to Jack, I would just say, if you're listening, going what on earth is the big deal? Why is this a topic? I guarantee you, your young, your christian young people in your life, your kids or whatever, I guarantee you they're looking up to some of these people. I guarantee you. And even if it's not some of these people on their lit, on our list, they have role models that they're looking up to, whether it be a sports icon, a Hollywood celebrity, a social media influencer, a YouTube personality, a whatever. Fill in the blank if you're listening, going, I don't really understand what the big deal is. Your young people, our young people are looking up to guys like this. I mean, even you go back to guys like Schwarzenegger or Michael Jordan, you know, obviously in the eighties and things like that, like this has always been a thing for young people to look at certain people and aspire spy, be like, what we want to look at is, as is the case with any topic, what can we as christians do to better position ourselves to be Christ like, to serve Christ? This is not going to be episode where we say our only role model needs to be Christ. That is going to be the case, obviously, yes, we need to be striving after him and make him our ultimate role model. But I would encourage everybody who's listening to understand your kids are right now, they're looking up to people like Taylor Swift, they're looking up to, to people like, you know, Andrew Tate and guys that we're going to get into here in just a second. And so we need to kind of figure out how are we going to handle this? What should we aim them towards? And so that's why this is so important. Jack.
[00:05:31] Speaker C: Yeah, there's, I think there's a lack of discipling in the church. A lot of times, younger kids growing up, and everyone's just trying to figure out, who am I supposed to be? What am I supposed to be? What am I supposed to be like? And even for, like, biblical answers, people go to Google now because you don't have somebody you ask or somebody in the church that maybe you're comfortable with. And so they'll google those things. Well, in the same sense, they go on Instagram. And these algorithms are set up to where you just start seeing a certain kind of person, whether it's Instagram, whether it's TikTok, whatever social media a kid is on these days, you can get funneled into this certain corner of the Internet, and it starts working on your mind whether you think it is or not. And so again, the people who are pushing these conversations, their attitudes, their quotes, the things that are being circulated from them. Andrew Tate and Jordan Peterson. For younger people, there's the Taylor swift thing, but there's also.
We'll get into all of them here in a bit.
Real life things that are shaping people's brains. And again, where they're not finding those answers in the church, they're finding it elsewhere. And it's a dangerous thing because you look in the Bible, Paul modeled that kind of mentoring and discipleship. We don't know how young Timothy was, but, you know, the whole time Paul was. Was mentoring him, but was a younger guy that Paul took under his wing, taught him, set him up for the work there in Ephesus and stayed with him and wrote to him and all that Titus, you know, Joe has on the outline. Elijah to Elisha in the Old Testament, I can't be the prophet forever. You're going to be the prophet. I've got to teach you. And so he was kind of his role model, and Elisha had somebody to look up to and learn from and ask questions of. And that's a really important thing that I think generationally, like, we've gotten away from.
It's kind of, well, I. You got to pull yourself up by your rootstraps. I found my way. You'll find yours. Well, nobody finds their own way. Everybody, again, if it wasn't your parents, it was a role model you looked to. It was. It was somebody that you were emulating, somebody who kind of helps shape who you are. Every generation does that. And, man, there are some really dangerous ones out there today, which we'll get to.
[00:07:36] Speaker A: I was just going to say, I think there's different elements to what a role model can be for certain people. You can look at certain as somebody and say, I want to emulate certain traits, certain character, certain qualities that this person has. I think that's pretty easy to do, you know, with. With Bible characters, old testament, you look at them and say, I see these traits, I see these qualities. Um, Joseph's integrity, um, you know, Joshua's courage, whatever it is, you could. You could go through a lot of that list. Where that gets difficult is whenever you want to look at somebody who is a role model, um, not necessarily in terms of. Of qualities or character traits, but more so in how they respond to things, how they handle things that are, you know, going on in today's times. You can't necessarily do that as easily with people in the Bible, with Joshua and Joseph, who lived thousands and thousands of years ago. And so I think that does force a lot of people to kind of look outside of the Bible for their role models because it's like, yeah, I can look at them for the qualities that I want to have or the traits that I want to have. But whenever it comes to how do I handle XYZ issue of today culturally or, you know, raising my kids or, you know, dealing with this at work or whatever it is, practically speaking, that's a little bit difficult to do just with looking at Joseph or just with looking at David in the Bible. And so that that's why I think, even again, older, older people can turn to voices in the culture, can turn to conservative people, you know, maybe not in the church, but in the political sphere or whatever it is, because it's like these people are kind of showing me how to handle my day to day life as opposed to the traits and qualities that I want to emulate from Bible characters. Moses again, Joseph, whatever. So I think those are kind of the two different elements of what people look for in role models. I mean, there's guys that I look up to for their traits and qualities, and there's other people I look up to. It's like, man, they handle that issue. Or I like what they said about this issue really, you know, really, really well. I think they spoke very well on that. I feel like there's a, there's a difference there, and that's why you can't just always jump to, you know, modeling after Joseph or Abraham or whatever it is.
[00:09:36] Speaker B: Yeah. And that's what we want to get into is women and men are both seeking mentors.
We seek them differently. We seek them for different reasons. Um, but we want to look at each mentor as we kind of go down this list.
And why are they. Why are they role models for our younger kids? Specifically, why are they appealing? Right. Why do they run to them? And what are some of the negatives? And some of them are going to be very apparent. It's not going to take long.
[00:10:02] Speaker C: We say younger people, we're going to, we're not just talking about, you know, the influencers for 17 year olds. This is also people that, you know, full grown adults, middle aged people are looking to. And so we're going to, you know, if you're thinking, oh, this is an episode for teenagers, it's not. I mean, that's. It's a spectrum here of influencers. And I hate that term. That's one of the things. And we're talking. We're using the term role model. The popular term today is influencers.
I hate the term, and I know there are people who are influencing other people, but I don't know. Well, just the idea of I need somebody to influence me has driven me nuts for years now.
[00:10:41] Speaker A: Well, what I would say to that is you're influenced by just about everybody you spend a good amount of time with on a day to day basis. I'm heavily influenced by YouTube. I'm heavily influenced by my wife. I'm heavily influenced by my parents. I'm heavily influenced by the people that I work with at work. I'm heavily influenced by the podcast. Listen to whatever it is. The difference is, how much weight do you give to that influence? How much weight? And the problem with, I think with what you're talking about, Jack, is a lot of people are giving weight to these, quote unquote, social media influencers because, oh, well, they're being paid to influence. This is their job. This is what they're supposed to do. Not really recognizing that you're influenced by literally, again, the people that you spend a good amount of time with, co workers, your boss, your, again, your family, they're influencing you all the time. Young people nowadays are just giving all the weight towards the social media influencer. They're ignoring the influence of everybody else and just going to the social media.
[00:11:32] Speaker B: I want to get into transition us into general role models for, again, people of all ages. We're going to start with the women kind of list five, and then we're going to go into the men role models and list five there. But the first one, we referenced her a few times, and she's referenced every day in the culture at some point, which is Taylor Swift, and this is the model of feminism. It is interesting to me to see her progression of going from, like, some 15 year old who could strum a guitar and fake a southern accent and man just exploded because she's relatable. She gets me. She's just this clean cut christian girl. Doesn't cuss in her lyrics. Tennessee, which I think she's Pennsylvania, but whatever, you know, she gets big, intense scene, just really down to earth. Seems to be sweet, has a good family life, and then boom, you fast forward 15 years, and she is the. The face of feminism in the culture. She's the face of feminism in the music industry. She is the girl boss who is a billionaire because of all her savvy business moves. And she eviscerates guys. She sleeps with a ton of guys, then eviscerates them on her albums. Can't seem to keep a guy to save her life. And she could pretend that she's the one dumping her, but. Or dumping them, but can't seem to keep a guy. It's a miserable life. And yet how many young girls, how many fathers. And this is my real issue. How many fathers paid hundreds of dollars to take their girl to, you know, their little girl to a Taylor Swift concert? Watching her strut up on stage in insanely immodest clothing with cussing in the lyrics, with feminists up and down all over the place, the LGBTQ movement, all of those things. And yet christian fathers are posting on facebook about how they. They got their daughter a ticket to the Taylor Swift show, as though this is something to be celebrated. Wow. Dad of the year. Like, wrong. The dad of the year would have been like, we're not listening to that. We're not doing that, but we allow this to be a major role model, and I don't know why.
[00:13:18] Speaker C: Will, before we jump in, Joe, can I get you on the record? Are you pro or anti Taylor Swift?
[00:13:26] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, you were. You were kind of subtle about it. So she's my.
[00:13:30] Speaker B: She's the anti hero. See, I did there.
[00:13:33] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:13:33] Speaker C: No, I don't.
[00:13:34] Speaker B: Oh, no.
[00:13:35] Speaker C: You know, Jack's not gonna know one of her songs.
[00:13:36] Speaker B: He's not gonna know that. That is a. One of the biggest songs.
[00:13:39] Speaker C: I don't allow myself to be influenced by her. Like, some people.
[00:13:43] Speaker B: This guy. This guy Jack has to just dust off dirt every day as he climbs out from underneath his rock.
[00:13:50] Speaker A: Didn't we just have an episode on pharisees? I'm Jack. No, just kidding.
[00:13:54] Speaker B: Jack's holier than us. Will, I don't know if you got the memo.
[00:13:56] Speaker C: He is.
[00:13:57] Speaker A: He very much is.
What I was going to say, joe, is you reference little girls going to this concert. Here's what's very interesting to me. It's. A lot of these are late 20 year old women, moms of 35 or 40, you know, and the late 20 year olds, it's because they, you know, when. When they were 16, they were listening to Taylor Swift's, you know, first couple albums, and so they kind of grew with her. That's, I guess, a little different. But, like, it's moms. It's older women who really are. Again, this is not just 15 year olds looking up Taylor Swift. It's. It's a lot of women. And she is, like you said, she is the epitome of girl power or girl boss. You know, she's one of the most powerful people in the world, and she's a woman. And so that's why, again, you got a lot of women who are getting behind it. It's so interesting to me. This was.
[00:14:42] Speaker C: This was.
[00:14:42] Speaker A: I can't remember how long ago this was, but it was before her most recent, most problematic album. And I had somebody ask me, Will, are you a swiftie? And I said, define Swifty. And she was like, this was a girl. She's like, do you. Do you like Taylor Swift's music? And I said, I was like, I do like some of Taylor Swift's music. Yes. And I wasn't trying to pick a fight or whatever. Yes, I like some of her music. And she said, that's really cool, Will. That means that you. You are not afraid of Taylor Swift as a woman and the power that she has.
[00:15:12] Speaker C: Oh, my goodness.
[00:15:13] Speaker A: And I was like, what? What, you know, could have very easily turned into a conversation about, you know, I like this song. What do you think of this album? This song, whatever, which is what I thought it was going to be. It turned into girl power feminism. Like, that's what she represents. That's what she is as a role model for females. And so, again, I think, again, you can go back and forth on the problems because, again, there's a lot of problematic musicians. And you think, well, we're just picking on Taylor Swift. We're picking on Taylor Swift because she is way more of a role model than Camila Cabello or something like somebody who's a lot less, you know, forefronted in the culture when it comes to girl boss feminism, whatever. Christian women, christian young women are looking up to this. This, you know, regardless of what you think about, you know, the content of her music, her as a. Her world, her perspective on the world is influencing young christian women. The way she views marriage, the way she obviously views fornication, the way she views men in general. Let's safe to say Taylor Swift is very anti patriarchy, and this is what's influencing a lot of our christian women. That's why this. We see this as such a big problem.
[00:16:25] Speaker C: Yeah, well, I mean, you can get into some of the lyrics of, you know, the blasphemous stuff about crucifixion and resurrection or whatever it was on this last album, or that you need to calm down, like, hey, Christian, shut up about lgbt issues and things like that. And so that should be the red flag. But again, she is held up by so many people as the model. And so there was the Harrison butker speech where he went viral for exalting motherhood. And his wife staying at home and all of that. And again, I did the video on it if you want to go see, the whole speech was great, but that was the part people zeroed in on. And a lot of the people were saying, well, he's teammates with Travis Kelsey, who dates Taylor Swift, and she's against all of these things.
[00:17:04] Speaker A: And that's what was so interesting is a lot of. I saw a lot of tweets, like, what are the swifties going to think?
[00:17:08] Speaker C: Right?
[00:17:08] Speaker A: Like, that just, that represents exactly what we're talking about.
[00:17:10] Speaker C: The swifties who all of a sudden became Kansas City chiefs fans. Are they going to stop rooting for him? It's like, this is the problem of, you've got this person who, like, gives validity to all of these things. And as you said, a lot of these feminist women, women my age. I mean, when Swift came out with an album a few years ago was 1989. It was like, oh, yeah, she is my age. I'm born in 1989. And so it's people my age, as you said, they grew up with Swift. And you've got all these single cat women, you know, don't want to settle down. The thing we've talked about so many times, travel the world, marriage is, you know, I don't need marriage. I.
Oh, yeah, she's permission. And that's one of the things we want to talk about with these role models, is permission of, here's somebody who, I think this. I feel this way. I want to live this way. But, you know, it's kind of questionable until the billionaire says it, until the expert says it, until the person on YouTube says it, until, you know, the influencer says it. And now it's, well, she does it. And, you know, look at how great it's going for her.
[00:18:11] Speaker B: What's interesting is Miley Cyrus, I think, was kind of a prototype to some of these things where she was overdid it, a little feminist, she overdid it. And a lot of christian parents, as soon as she started really taking her clothes off, all the christian parents go, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Taylor Swift is a step away. But it's like, look how much you've allowed until you get to that point. My frog.
Correct. It's boiling the frog, like. And, yeah, it was just a slower progression, but we've allowed ourselves to go that far into it. I'm. This was later on the outline, but I want to bring this up, and then we want to get to the next one because this is a question that came to my mind. And Jack you just spoke to this. And so that's why I want to skip ahead on it. Are we seeking role models in areas where we feel deficient, or are we seeking role models in areas we want to feel validated? And I would say back then, it was areas we felt either deficient or that we wanted to be proficient in. So the John Wayne. I want to be a man like that. I want to be a guy who really stands up and takes care of the bad.
[00:19:06] Speaker A: I want to play basketball.
[00:19:09] Speaker B: I want to play basketball. I'm Michael Jordan. Nowadays, it seems role models have shifted into a, I want to validate my lifestyle. I want to be a girl boss myself. And she gives me, to Jack's point, permission to go and do what I want to do. And so it's like the very idea and concept of role models seems to have shifted from the ideal, this is what I want to. This is permission for me to do what I want. And that seems to be. I don't know if I'm.
[00:19:34] Speaker C: I think it goes both directions. I think I get what you're saying, but I do think it can go both directions. If I'm a young person, what is good? Oh, well, here's this person. What they're doing is good versus, you know, while I'm doing all these things. Oh, this person validates what I want. And so I think for christian parents, with swift and with a lot of these influencers we're talking about, you can't. You can't put people under the rock with me. I'll stay under my rock. But your kids are going to know who these people are. They're going to know the songs. They're going to know what an anti hero is, because I. Songs that I don't know.
It's the opportunity for the conversation. And I think the conversation as, I mean, I'm not giving away anything. If you've listened to think deeper for any amount of time, put Harrison Butker's wife holding their kids and, you know, being the traditional housewife, you know, who's raising their family and all the things that he was extolling there next to Taylor Swift on her 27th boyfriend with whom she's fornicated and all these other things and. And dropping f words and how angry she seems all the time and all that, and be like, which one of these are positive? And so many christians look at that and go, well, they're.
[00:20:34] Speaker A: And who's happy?
[00:20:35] Speaker C: Valid. Yeah. Who's happier? Well, she looks really happy. Look at all the money and fame and all that, like, that's not a happy person. You, again, you look at the vitriol, the anger she has towards christians towards, towards truth, towards things like that. Like, these are the, the value in these role models is they can be bad role models. They can be, you know, counterexamples, too.
[00:20:56] Speaker B: I want to get us into this role model. We got a lot to get into.
So today I switch this first one of feminism. This next one's a little bit interesting. I'm going to skip down the third one. Candace Owens.
Candace Owens. And, yeah, this is going to step on some, some toes here because I know we have some listeners that I'm sure are big fans of Candace Owens.
It's the other side of the coin, in my opinion, to a certain degree, which I agree with Candace Owens on a lot of points. I'm not going to say, you know, like, well, she's wrong in every way. No, I agree with her in a lot of points. But, fellas, does it not seem sometimes that it's just a conservative feminist that you have the, what's her name? Brett.
[00:21:32] Speaker A: Brett Cooper.
[00:21:33] Speaker B: Thank you. Brett Cooper. There, there are a series of these where Alibaba Stuckey, Lauren Boebert. Yeah. Like, as you're, they got the machine guns and, wow, you know, this is a woman and she just defends her family and she defends the country. And it's like, okay, there's no quiet and gentle spirit here. There's, it's still feminism. It's just packaged in a conservative bend where they're draped in an american flag, and that seems so much better to us than Taylor Swift. How much different is it, though, in a roundabout way, where there's, I would.
[00:22:02] Speaker A: Say it is a lot better than Taylor Swift.
[00:22:04] Speaker B: It is a lot better.
Correct. The ideas coming out are a lot better than Taylor Swift. But my point would be the gentle and quiet spirit, the stay at home mom, the, you know, trad wife. We'll get to that in a bit. But that they're a lot more in favor of. But maybe I'm off on this when I put this one down. So I want to get your guys thoughts on it. I look at it as, yes, it's a very different side of the same coin, but it still is just conservative feminism. It still is the strong woman who's carrying the machine gun. Oh, well, there's nothing, you know, nothing better than that as she comes out and she's building a house with her bare hands and everything else. I'm not saying women can't do those things I'm saying, what are the values we're pushing to young women when that is the case, is they're going to protect their family with machine guns. My first question is, like, where's your husband? Why are you having to go protect the house type of thing? Uh, so I don't know. What are your thoughts on that?
[00:22:57] Speaker C: So I've. Jackie, yeah, I got a couple, but you go ahead and if you got something.
[00:23:01] Speaker A: I was just gonna say Jack or Joe. You said, it's a different side of the same coin. To me. It's a bit of a different coin altogether. I like, to me, I do see, I see exactly what you're saying. Like, they're still very prominent in the culture. As far as listening to me, I'm a woman. I have listened to some of Candace's stuff, Brett Cooper reference. I haven't listened to any of the other two. They do very much, at least from what I have listened to and observed, pushed the go get married. Go have children. Be happy with your, be happy with your motherhood, be happy with your, your wifehood. And I'm trying to put myself in the, in the perspective of somebody who has, like, a 16 year old daughter. Would I allow my daughter to have Candace Owens? Riley Gaines is another one. Brett Cooper, whatever. As, as her role model. And I think it goes without saying that, obviously, if it's like, man, Taylor Swift or Candace Owens, that's a super easy choice, getting Candace Owens. I think what you're getting at is, should we avoid, you know, these as well as far as, you know, aiming young people towards role models. And I personally not ready to get there because I think I would be comfortable with it, you know, at least from what I've heard of what the content they spit out. Yes, they are, you know, prominent voices. They are prominent, conservative, whatever. I would not label them necessarily feminist. That's just me.
[00:24:20] Speaker B: At least I'm not against the content. I don't think the content is feminist in and of itself. The combative, go to war with people. You know, the, the debate people loudly and, you know, everything else. Again, I'm thinking of the Lauren Boeberts. I'm thinking of the people like that. Marjorie Taylor Greene, I think, is another.
[00:24:39] Speaker C: One where she let me jump in on that. Isaiah 312 is, you know, is the one that says that a curse against the nation is you'll be ruled by women and children. And you think about the loudest vocal political voices, Ocasio Cortez and Ilhan Omar on the left. And as you said, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert on the right, and the political commentators. There's been Rachel Maddow for years. There's Candace Owens and Megyn Kelly was one. Yeah, Megyn Kelly was up there. And as you said, sometimes they are the ones that have the guts. They'll say the things that they're more combative in ways that a lot of the guys won't be. But then, I don't know if you guys saw the video of, I think it was Marjorie Taylor Greene and Alexandra Ocasio Cortez yelling at each other in hearing. And it started getting into their appearances. It got her starting into, well, you're dumber and I'm smarter than you and things. And it was, it was a middle school girl cat fight. And it's like, this is, this is an indictment on our country. This is what Isaiah 312 is talking about is the lack of dignity. And, but then you ask the question, you know, this is a Deborah moment is like, I'm thankful that there are women that are saying hard things, but it's also kind of like, that needs to be a placeholder until a guy gets his act together and goes and does it. The question is, if we're telling, you know, if Candace Owens is kind of the ideal, it's like, well, no, it's not the ideal. She's kind of holding that gap until some guy gets his act together and starts doing these things. And so to that point, I would agree with Joe there. The other thing about it is the conservatives say they hate critical theory, and yet they play the game all the time. Anytime somebody has minority status and agrees with them, it's like, oh, let's get you in front of the podium. We've got a woman. She agrees with us. And so she's going to say that we're not, we're not sexist. Let's get the woman to say it. Or, well, we've got a black woman that's, you know, two critical theory, intersectionality points. Let's run her out there. And it's kind of like, let's go back to, we've had people in the church say this, well, you guys really shouldn't do an episode on race because you're just white guys. Like, we can say the truth. We can read biblical truth to you no matter what our skin color is. Well, you guys shouldn't talk about feminism because you're men. Like, I'm sorry, the preachers, and not that Congress is preachers, but it's this idea of who did God give this job to. And what does it look like when they don't? Well, it looks like AOC and MTG yelling at each other in a congressional hearing about who's uglier and who's dumber. It's kind of like, yeah, we are reaping what we sowed. And so I'm kind of, again, in the same sense of Deborah, it's like, well, you've got NJL. Like, it's good. You've got a woman doing that job. It's not good that they have to. And we should be working towards a place that they don't have to.
[00:27:22] Speaker A: I don't necessarily disagree with that. Would you want an israelite to have Deborah as a girl? Have Deborah as a role model?
[00:27:29] Speaker C: I think I would be telling her, you know, like, especially you'd be raising your sons to say, don't let, don't, don't hide behind your wife. Candace Owens, husband hides behind his wife. You know, like, that's, that is something that you don't send your, your wife to send to fight your battles for you while he's doing that. And then we're all collectively doing that for, like, go get him, Candace. Like that. That feels off, sending your wife. Yes.
[00:27:54] Speaker B: And in the midst of a nasty divorce, is she not like a pretty contentious, like, that's not going super well.
I mean, you do see these things. So again, I'm not against their ideas that they're pushing. And to the Deborah point. Yeah, I think you have the strength of Deborah, but if the strength of Deborah is causing you to overrule your husband, I would say that's off. If, obviously, the clear role model for women would be proverbs 31.
[00:28:17] Speaker C: Well, and you listen, to bring the thing back in to connect these two points, Harrison Butker says, hey, you know, being a wife, mom, raising the family, she gave up her aspirations to do this. And you, you know, God bless her. And then this is amazing. We all say, amen, brother. Well, you know, unless she has a political career, you know, then it's kind of, well, try and then be the have it all mom. Well, sure. I'm not a have it all kind of, you know, like, I'm, I think Butker was more right on this than, you know, I'm going to side with him in that. And I don't think you can.
I don't think you can have it all.
[00:28:51] Speaker A: Yeah, no, I agree. I agree with that as well. I guess what I'm getting at is where. And we've got this question later on. We're also only on the second role model, and we've got eight more to go. We need to move on. But I guess if you're going to take people like that out of the quote unquote, role model category for girls, are we saying that girls can only have Ruth and Esther as their role models? Can only have Mary as their, you know, obviously, outside of, like, their mother or people in their church? Like, when it comes to people who will have a societal platform, is every female off limits for young, for my hypothetical 16 year old daughter to be, to have as a role model?
[00:29:31] Speaker B: This is the question you get into is, can you have aspects of each role model? Can there be aspects that you appreciate without it being across the board? And I think that's the question we were getting to later, but this is relevant now. Are there parts of Candace Owens that you can. That you can look up to? Absolutely. You know, does it. Should she be your role model across the board?
Probably not, but I'm getting at is.
[00:29:54] Speaker A: Like, I've got a lot of people in society that I look up to. Like, man, I really like that aspect. They're my role model for me in XYZ area, not 100% of the area.
[00:30:01] Speaker C: Okay, let me say, let's take JL here. Capability. Like, given the opportunity, she did the job, you still aren't making her the general.
[00:30:10] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:30:10] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, Michael Jordan could be your, or I suppose, LeBron on this podcast, you know, to be your guy. I don't agree with LeBron politically. I don't want Michael Jordan when it comes to gambling on the golf course. Like, I don't want him to be my role model across the board. But in certain areas, sure, but this is. We have to be careful that. Because then you go, yeah, but I'm not taking Taylor Swift all the way across the board. Yeah, but your kids might. How do your kids. This is a. This is an adult conversation. To be able to look at somebody and go, I appreciate this, but not this. Kids don't do that. They don't have the ability to go, I take this and this and this, but I really disavow this, this. This part of it.
[00:30:48] Speaker C: To discern.
[00:30:49] Speaker A: You're saying to use discernment.
[00:30:50] Speaker B: Correct. To discern. They don't have the discernment that adults do. Where we could look at Candace Owens and go, this is great. This is great. And this is great. If you throw all that out, then they go, okay, well, my job is I really want to be a political analyst, and so I'm going go to college and kind of say no to marriage and no to my kids so I can be a political analyst and I'll kind of get that later. If that's their idea of it, well, then, yes, I have a problem with it. But if what they're looking at in Candace Owens is somebody who's willing to speak the truth and say something, that the hard things, you know, stand up for her for truth and for God and for country. Yeah, I'm okay with that, obviously. But this is, once again, we have to be careful with it when we get around kids in the fact that, especially as parents, when we push role models, make sure that we're teaching our kids discernment within these role models, within these, these systems. Taylor Swift has very little on the positive end of things, which is more.
[00:31:37] Speaker A: Difficult the younger they are to that point. Correct?
[00:31:40] Speaker B: Correct. Let's get into third one. We got to breeze through these. Third one is going to be Brene Brown. She is a very big name in the mental health field. She has a lot of great quotes. You read through her quotes. I was reading them earlier. You read her through her quotes. Quotes. She says a lot of really, really good stuff. Where she goes off, I think, is there are elements of her teachings that I think can kind of go into struggle culture, like the, we're, we're all broken and we are basically going to be broken for life. There are some quotes that, that say otherwise, and there's some quotes, especially in books and such, that, that lean more into that. The brokenness culture, this is where we have to be very careful, is in absence of really positive people in the church, positive role models in the church, we sometimes can slide into the mental health element. We talked about this, I think, two podcasts ago about how mental health has kind of become its own pseudo form of religion for people that really kind of disavow God. I think it's very easy to look at the Brene Browns and look at kind of the mental health awareness and have that be the main role model as well. I'm not saying there's not positive things. I'm a therapist. I think there are things she says that are very good. There are things that a lot of therapists say that are very good. But the brokenness culture mindset of, you know, we're all going to be kind of broken for life type of thing, I don't necessarily see that be the case, and I don't necessarily see that to be biblical either. Christ's role is we are broken and he's changing us, you know, into non broken people. And so that's the danger, I think, in making Brene Brown kind of the role model here is we have to pick and choose. There's some things she says that are fantastic. It's the same thing as Candace Owens. Some things she says that are fantastic. And there's other parts of this that I think women have to be very careful they're not sliding into. She's the one that comes to mind. But there are multiple of these, specifically on Instagram and TikTok, where women kind of having mental health awareness, and it can very quickly slide into places where probably it shouldn't. And I would say the same to guys. There's really bad mental health advice for guys, too, but by and large, guys are not turning to that. They're turning to Joe Rogan's and guys like that, which we'll get to, which also bear some struggles. But, fellas, what are your thoughts?
[00:33:44] Speaker A: I was just going to say, I think the question that is going through my mind and maybe some of our listeners mind as we're kind of going through this, is the one that you've got here in a little bit. But I'm going to go ahead and ask it because I think it's very pertinent in these discussions and especially when we get to the first one on the list for guys that we'll get to in a second, should we just avoid them altogether? If we're going to say we can't really pick and choose the character traits or we can't again, discern what aspects of a role model we want to have, is it better to just avoid them altogether? So I don't know if you guys want to get into that now, but I know that that's probably what a lot of listeners are thinking is. That's what I'm thinking is we're kind of working through this outline together of like, I'm going to go ahead. I'm going to jump ship a little bit real quick. The first, the first one on the list for guys, Andrew Tate, Joe Rogan, David Goggins, Jocko Willink, these guys that a lot of guys look up to from a manly perspective because they're, they're the masculinity gurus, you might say, of the day. There's so much of that that I disagree with. At the same time, Joe, we had an episode on the gym podcast about Andrew Tate and, you know, pretty much overall said the guy's got a lot of stuff wrong. We also looked at a lot of the stuff that he says, like that's, that's good stuff. Yes, we agree with XYZ on this that he said or we agreed with that. Would it have been better for us to just have the episode and say, you know what, guys, just completely avoid and your Tate altogether, just, you know, don't, don't even worry about it. And that's what, as we go back to like Brene Brown, Candace Owens, the next, you know, you can go ahead and introduce the next one if you want. Is it better to just avoid them altogether or are we, should we encourage people to kind of, you know, discern between, you know, what we should and what we shouldn't pick up?
[00:35:27] Speaker C: This is the role of parents. And to a lesser degree, as you get older, church leaders, you've got to have grounding in the Bible and truth before you can go into a spit out the bones mindset. You've got to know, like where you stand and so you're not swayed. I mean, ephesians four talks about growing to maturity in Christ so that no one is, you know, tossed around by the, you know, by deceitful.
I'm butchering the quote, but you know, that if you're not mature and you don't have grounding, you can be swept away really easily and your kids probably don't. You know, the 13 year old who doesn't know the Bible really well isn't very plugged into Bible class. His parents aren't talking through him with stuff and he finds Andrew Tate on TikTok. It's going to change his world. Like man, this is what it means to be a man. Well, how many people dont have biblical grounding for their mental health and they find Brene Brown? And to her specifically, a guy named Joe Rigney had a thing he was talking about for a while called the sin of empathy. And he wasnt saying that all empathy is a sin, but that this therapeutic empathy of basically validate every feeling somebody has that its love and the arm around the shoulder that matters most and not giving somebody the truth. And so when somebody's in a pit jumping down in there and putting an arm around him said, no, you, you just made it worse. You have to reach down and give them your hand. But you also are the person with a foot on firm ground, you know, that's out of the pit that can pull them out of it. And if you give up that truth, if you just go, well, your feelings are totally valid. And anything that you think happened or any way that you take this or how you want to feel. I'm just going to validate that. It's really dangerous stuff. And this Brene Brown, it might be a name that you're not familiar with, big in the TED talk era, but she's sold a bazillion books. I think she had like 21 million hits on one of her YouTube videos like this. This stuff has gotten out there a lot. And again, there's a little bit of good in there. But I think on the whole, she's part of the very destructive side of the therapy culture that has led people to just feel validated in whatever they do.
And so, yeah, it's dangerous. And yeah, you've got to, you gotta know, you gotta be very firm and have a foundation in the scriptures and what is right before you can get the good stuff out of that.
[00:37:39] Speaker A: That's a great point. Yeah, yeah.
[00:37:41] Speaker B: And go ahead to that.
[00:37:44] Speaker A: I was just a real quick, Joe, to that point. You know, we've recommended reading, you know, CS Lewis, you know, we've both, we've all read John Piper books. We've all read, you know, Bodie Balkan books, stuff like that. If you were a, you know, 16 year old brand new Christian, probably wouldn't recommend those books because you don't have the foundation. But once you do, you can enter into, okay, I know what I believe about Calvinism. Not going to buy into that. And therefore, let me go read Vodi Baucom's book about how to be a great dad or whatever it is. So, yeah, that's a great point, Joe.
[00:38:10] Speaker C: Let'S get into the masculinity side of it. If.
[00:38:12] Speaker B: Go ahead real fast. What I want to say this is, we're talking about role models. We're talking about making this person the destination point. Everybody that we're talking about along the way are kind of like the, you know, as you're going on a road trip, sometimes you stop off at the little stands or whatnot and you're like, oh, that's really cool. The world's biggest ball of yarn, whatever it is, right? That's not your ultimate destination. That's not where you're going. But it is an interesting side point along the way. That's what I would say. These people are their side points along the way. What we are disavowing, what we're saying be very careful with, is making that person the destination itself. I want to be just like them. That's what we're saying on the role model. The it. We cannot allow these things to be the it, the two more we had on the women's side that I want to get on the menu. Beth Moore with the Christianity guru is very, we got to be very careful because she's really going off the deep end. Nancy Lee demoss. We've had those before. When you make them your role model, like, that's exactly what I want to be. We get, we do have to be careful again, if that is your destination. A lot of times they end up sliding into heresy or if their husband tells them to do something, it's like, well, I've, I built a following at 20 million people, so I'm not about to listen to my husband when he says, please don't put that out. Like, hey, people demand content. You've seen that happen before. So there we start to get into some other issues there. And then the other one is, is the trad wife. And I think this is, I didn't want to skip this because it's important Alyssa sees this. I'm sure every woman sees this. It's probably in the church. Is all of these trad wife, traditional life? Traditional life instagram reels? We're not on tick tock, but I'm assuming it's all on tick tock as well. And that is the very perfect, the picture perfect life. And that sometimes can be the ideal for women. It's like, I am a wife and a mom, and this person is just making it look so magical.
[00:39:49] Speaker A: But then it don't have very, very.
[00:39:52] Speaker B: It'S like, oh, man, I don't look a thing like this. It's like, well, the reality is she doesn't either. She's got a team of five people behind her who are writing content for her, who are editing her videos, who are doing all of these things, making you look perfect. The lighting's perfect, her makeup, her hair is perfect. And so when they're putting this out and you might go, no, no, the one I follow is legit. And she just does these vlogs. Okay, that's fine. How many things are they leaving out of real life? And so we have to be careful on this one as well, which is like, once again, it's not that we can't take from them. There are parts of it that are fantastic. But if that's the destination of itself, how discouraging is that to women to go, I'm never going to look like that. Their house is spotless, and they get four kids to practice into this and that, and they're homeschooling. And it's a Waldorf world, where it's, oh, you know, light and color and a beauty and, wow, I don't look a thing like that. Like, that's not real. It's not real. There can be some idealistic things in there to shoot for, no doubt. But overall, making that the role model, like, that's what I want life to look like. That is a heavily edited version of what life looks like for them. So we have to be careful about not just looking at that and that's more to that. Again, traditional, which we would agree with in a lot of ways. We got to be careful with that as well.
[00:40:58] Speaker A: To sum up your point, I'd say, I guess all of our points is there is dangerous territory with each one of those. Obviously, for some of those, there's more dangerous territory. See exhibit a, Taylor Swift and less dangerous territory with others. But in making them the role models for our christian young people, for you yourself, as a 35 year old, in this case, woman, before we get to the man side, there is some dangerous territory that you really need to make sure that you are able to spot the mines in the field, so to speak, that you're able to see. Joe, do you want to go ahead and get us into, again, your outline? I've never even. I don't. I wouldn't know David Goggins if he slapped me in the face, or Jocko willing, if he slapped me in the face, actually.
[00:41:38] Speaker B: So I'll let you minister, guys.
[00:41:40] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Go ahead.
[00:41:42] Speaker B: Everybody knows Joe Rogan. Of course everybody does. If you don't, then you. You have a bigger rock than Jack does. Same with Andrew that you're living under. Same with Andrew Tate. Of course. He's in the news. The jocko Willinks, the guy that wakes up at 04:00 a.m. and, you know, it's just. I'm sure he's roided to the hilt, but he's a big deal. He's written books on masculinity, things like that. And then there's David Goggins. And this is the guy that went from being overweight to being a marine, and now he ran. He's the guy that does, like, six ultra marathons and six back to back days, like, just insanity, you know, type of thing or running on nails. Just stupid, stupid stuff.
He's kind of. He puts his body through insane stuff, but he's written a book. He's very inspiring to a lot of guys, and it's just very much kind of like, this is what masculinity can be. This is what masculinity should be. And once again, same as the other side. There are some very positive things in this. There are things that, about Joe Rogan that I respect. The fact that he can have very good dialogue with people and entertain, you know, a lot of different people on his podcast kind of rain him in and have open discussions. And, I mean, he's, and he's also very put together in terms of having his podcasts and these MMA stuff. He's, he's a man in a lot of ways. And yet I also think the fact that he has no use for Christianity. Anytime somebody brings up stuff about Christ, all he wants to do is talk about aliens. No, that's not it either. But when we hold him up, or the, Andrew Tate's like, the guy's rich, he's got women, he's got fame, he's got fortune, and he gets to travel the world. Yeah. And he's also an absolute loser. He's horrible. He's misogynist. He's, he treats his women terribly. He made his money by cam girls like, he is a horrible human being. But his ideas, as we covered on the Jim podcast, some of his ideas can be revelatory for young guys who have been wimpified from their parents and from other people in their church and such. When they discover a guy that says, you don't have to apologize for being a guy, for being a man, it's like, oh, it's revolutionary. So this is why we have a lot of men flocking to the manospheres, because they, they are given permission to be a man. They're given permission to work out, and they're given somebody who you can put on a pedestal and go, that's, I want to look like that goggins with his eight pack or ten pack or whatever he's got, you know, the guy's just insanely, insanely built in a lot of ways. He's on the skinnier frame, but like, he's just very tone. You can look at that and go, that's what I want to be. So it gives us somebody that. Yes. To look toward, but also that gives us permission to just be a man. There are a lot of appealing elements to that, Jeff.
[00:44:00] Speaker C: Yeah, there's, I've seen just a number of times people going, why? Why do young guys go after this? Well, number one, they're young. They don't have discernment. They don't have that grounding I talked about earlier. Number two, if you're looking at how to be a man. And your, your advice for, you know, connecting with, with females is, well, you know, just, you know, kind of, yes, dear. And basically put them first, put them on the pedestal and just, you know, kind of worship women. And you, the nice guy ism thing we've talked about before, that doesn't work. And so you see, that doesn't work. And then you see Andrew Tate, who's a total jerk, and it works. And it's like, well, I guess I'll do that again. They don't have the discernment to know. No, don't swing that far to the other side. Or the same thing of, like, well, what it means to be a man. As we said a couple weeks ago, well, masculinity is reading your bible. No, that's, that's not masculinity. And so they go to church, and they maybe have a preacher or a church leader who, you know, is posting on Facebook about going through the chickfila drive through for the 13th time this week, and then they see a guy who's into fitness, into taking care of himself, into doing hard things and things like that, and then we go, why? Well, why don't they want to be like our christian guys? Well, hello.
That's why they, you know, they're trying to be something. And so when these guys give them something to shoot for, they're not wise enough to spit out the bones and be like, oh, yeah, Andrew Tate's a horrible, you know, person, treats women like trash and all of those things. They just see, well, this is a guy who is successful. He's made money. He, you know, understands masculinity.
[00:45:24] Speaker A: He's a whole lot more appealing of a role model than the guy that goes through chick fil a and Krispy Kreme ten times a month.
[00:45:29] Speaker C: Right, right. I mean, like, you can see why they would look and go, that's better. And you've got, I'm gonna, we're running out of time, so I'm gonna get, combine a couple of these. So much of the christian stuff has just been, oh, you know, masculinity is about being the servant leader. You know, just kind of keep everybody happy and, you know, just make sure that things that we've, we've beaten to death in our masculinity episodes and, you know, the Tim Keller ism of kind of, well, let's just accommodate everybody all the time and, and, man, let's hear out everybody's perspective all the time, and there's no backbone in there. And you see a guy with a backbone who will say, no, you're wrong. A guy with the backbone who says, I believe this, deal with it. What are you going to do about it?
Men have testosterone. Young guys especially. Look at that and they're like, wow, okay, well, when the generations preceding them went after these influencers, that led them to be weak, and it's just okay to be a wimp. Yeah, it's no wonder they're throwing that off. And so you look at, we had bad influencers before, bad role models before. We've got bad ones now. But the bad ones now are at least moving in a more, somewhat better direction. You just have to spit out a lot of bones.
[00:46:35] Speaker B: Yeah, that's, and that's why I had on here is Tim Mackey. That's the guy's name, right?
Bioproject, you know, Tim Keller, guys like the nice guy ism, that's, that has steered a lot of people wrong. And I think you look at a lot of the state of our marriages, and if it's not a, yes, dear happy wife, happy life, we've beat this one to death on other podcasts. So I'm not going to stay there too long. But I think when that's held up as the role model, that has a lot of problems as well. Yes, Tim Keller is going to be more biblically based than Joe Rogan, but that sometimes can be even scarier because sure, he opens the Bible a lot more. That doesn't necessarily mean that he's, that he's right on it either, in terms of how we're supposed to go. And in some ways he is in some ways spit out the bones. He's got some great books and he's got some things, they're like, woo, don't go that way.
The other ones that we have on the list, we'll get through this. And we want to wrap up. I got Gary v. Mark Cuban, guys like that, the self made billionaires. When you have somebody who's coming from nothing, yeah, that is a great role model of, whoa, you know, this guy has made it self made as though there's such thing as fully self made, but still somebody, we've been telling young.
[00:47:37] Speaker C: Guys that, like, money is a bad thing, and so they look at somebody who works hard and succeeds and go, oh, wow. Well, it doesn't seem that bad. And obviously the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil, but success is not a bad thing for young guys to pursue, you know, and achievement and doing well and knowing your field and things like that.
[00:47:55] Speaker B: That's exactly it. And for those who are listening, because even as we're saying it, like, we are kind of making passes or we're trying to explain why people would be driven to it, going back to the women, there's reasons why they'd be driven to those things as well. Driven to the conservative who can speak her mind, driven to the christian woman who really can speak well on the scriptures, driven to the traditional wife, driven to somebody who takes care of their mental health. There's reasons why women would be driven to that as well. The same way there's reasons why guys would be driven to this. And they look at Gary V or they look at guys like that, that, wow, man, he's, he's really made it. And he doesn't have to worry about living paycheck to paycheck. He's doing well for himself. Yes, there's an appeal to that. What's the problem with it? First off, they don't give glory to God in that. A lot of times, they did it in shady ways. You know, cheating people. You look at even guys like Donald Trump with the bankruptcies. I mean, it's not, that's not a great way to do business where you cheat people out of money in a lot of different ways. And they made the almighty dollar everything. They made that God in their life. And so, sure, they, they made their millions, their billions. What's their family life like? Have they taken care of their wife? Well, no, they've been married three or four times. Well, you know, their kids won't speak to them. Those type of things. That's not. That's not great either. So can you look up them some way? Sure. The other ones we have on here, I don't know that you guys. Do you know who Julian Blanc is in this category?
[00:49:13] Speaker C: He's not the name I had heard of, no.
[00:49:16] Speaker B: Okay. Okay. Um. There are a few names. None of them are very well known. But in the pickup artist, a lot of young, this is more of a young kid thing. But you still see guys in their late twenties and thirties who watch these guys on YouTube, the pickup artists on YouTube. And it's like, that's how I get chicks. That's. And they use them as a role model. Like, he understands women. That is not a role model. You sleeping around with a ton of different women because you know, you're a great pickup artist. You know the exact right line, and you see young men who fall into this. Well, once again, what is their motivation for this? They just want to be good with women, they want to have good social skills.
[00:49:48] Speaker C: I think you can sum all these things up of, like, the role models and what the previous generations of men got led to this caging of men. You keep polite opinions to yourself.
And so you've got this thing now where it's like, no, break out of your cage. And so it went from zero power and you're just totally under control to zero control. And it's all power abuse, obviously.
[00:50:10] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:50:10] Speaker C: Masculinity is power under control is that you have the power to break out of the cage. And it's really funny. We have people sometimes to some of our episodes go, you can't say that, or that is just disturbing, or that is like, I'm sorry, that stuff doesn't work on me. That stuff worked on previous generations where you can, like, hound me into submission, tell me why I'm wrong and I'll listen. But, like, chide me like that. Like, you're a school mom. No. And that's some of the stuff you learn from these guys is, no, you need to be right and you need to hold to your opinion, hold to what you believe is true. And don't let people just make you go, oh, yes, dear. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said, you know, like, if I said something wrong, I'll say I shouldn't have said that. But. But because you didn't like it doesn't mean I have to shut up.
[00:50:52] Speaker A: So let me, because my time window here is quickly elapsing. Before I've got to head out of here, let's ask this question. What role model should we be looking for? I think we've done a good job of establishing why some of these for females or for males are not great. As far as a role model goes, what should we be looking for? And I'll go first, I think. And this is going to take so much training because, again, young people just look at the culture. They, who are they following on social media? Who are they looking up to again, Hollywood celebrity. And I think a lot of that is just because they're so enveloped in the world, which is not a good thing. Not to say you can't, you know, watch movies or watch sports or whatever, but our young people are so involved in the world, this is going to be bit of a tough transition. You have to look at people within your congregation. You have to look at, hopefully, elders, older men, you know, 40, 45 year old men for guys, and, you know, you know, 40, 45 year old wives and mothers for, for women. Look at them and give them opportunity to use them, to have them as role models. Here's the problem, and I'll let you guys go off on this.
A lot of people in the church don't fit that bill. There's a lot of older christian men who aren't great role models either. A lot of older christian women who aren't great role models either. And so I think you have to be incredibly choosy and incredibly particular as you look. Because just because they sit in a pew on Sunday morning does not mean they're a good role model for your kid. Just because they've been a member at this congregation for 20 plus years does not mean they're a good role model for you as a 22 year old single person. So again, I'm kind of convoluted in the issue here, but I think ideally, you look in your congregation, you look, you look among, you know, christian brethren, you still have to be pretty particular. What would you guys say to that?
[00:52:26] Speaker B: This is a call to people in church to step up and to start recognizing we need more people who are willing to say, imitate me as I'm like, Christian. We need a lot of older people who are willing to start mentoring and discipling and helping the younger generations and saying, you know what? I've been through this before in creating, making themselves a role model for younger generations, realizing we need that. So this is a call to the older folks. If you're listening to this, be willing to take that step up. It is not arrogant. And if it is, then I guess the apostle Paul was in sin when he said it. I don't think it's arrogant to say, I am trying to live like Christ. This is what I've done to really work through this, to pray through this, to, you know, whatever it is, and here's how it's done. But yes, there are a lot of dangers in that. If you hold anybody up on a pedestal, they will fail you. And that's an important point of this entire discussion, is anybody you hold up on the pedestal will fail you at some point because they're human. So when you are seeking a role model, I do think you have to kind of pick and choose to a certain degree as to what you're looking for and what you're looking toward. But I would love for the church to be the place where you are looking for specific things. You don't have to look to the candidate right now. Maybe you do, but you don't have to look to the candidates. You can look to this older Miss Betty in church or whatever, who really understood this part? Who really understood these things. So, yeah, I would say if we could keep it within the church and specifically within your congregation. I think the key for role models is you know them, because otherwise it's idealistic and it's like, wow, they're a great role model. Sure. There are things, again, that I can appreciate about Joe Rogan. There are things that women can appreciate about, I'm sure, about Brene Brown or kainosomes or whatever it is, right. There are things you can appreciate about them. Don't hold them up on a pedestal too much. Don't make them the ultimate destination, but figure out, are they serving me and my ultimate desire to be like Christ and to be like some of the other people that I'm very close to in my life, families in the church, elders and people like that. Jack, what are your thoughts?
[00:54:17] Speaker C: Well, just briefly, looking to disciple young people, a lot of people think, well, that's just not my job. Well, it is. Okay. And you got to look to younger people, and when you start looking at yourself that way, it raises your own standard of yourself. And so you think, well, I need to be a role model that's going to counter the role models they're seeing in the world. So we need older christians doing that. I am very big on our preachers needs to be the most respectable man in the church. The elders need to be the most respectable man in the church. And we had the episode on lowering elder qualifications. We got to stop doing that. And we got to start expecting preachers to be the most respected guy in the church, to be the guy that is well put together, that knows this stuff. That's on, that's not sloppy, that's not doing a poor job or lazy or. Yeah, not. Not the butt of the man. We make preachers the butt of the jokes. Oh, boy, this guy. Don't do that. Really respect that person because your kids are going to look up to him. So internally is the best way we can do this. And then, of course, parents watching what your kids do, talking to them about it, um, stay on top of those things. But I know Will's got to go. Uh, yeah, you're. You're muted there. You got one last point here.
[00:55:13] Speaker A: Yeah, sorry. I was just going to say I think my closing comments would be just be mindful of this again, as I started the episode with, you could very easily chalk this up to, man, this is kind of a filler episode for you guys, isn't it? This is incredibly important. This is super important when we consider who it is that we're modeling ourselves after. Again, whether you're 35, 40, but also who your kids, who are young people, are modeling themselves after. And as you guys said, sure, somebody might be better than somebody else when it comes to it, but really be mindful of who can we aim them towards? Who can we steer them towards? And what, what values are we extolling? Are we praising and what values are we, or should we steer people away from? Just be mindful of it. That'd be the first step, is be incredibly mindful of it.
[00:55:53] Speaker B: I love that point. And just a quick aside for parents, if your daughter comes to you and wants the Taylor Swift poster on the wall, ask her why.
[00:55:59] Speaker C: Like, don't.
[00:56:00] Speaker B: Don't scold her. Don't. Absolutely not. We can get that out of the house. Ask her why. Why is she driven to this? If your son comes and shows you an Andrew Tate Instagram reel, what's drawing him to that? Get curious about it. Don't just scold him. Don't just say, well, you're absolutely in sin. Get curious about what is drawing you to this and you'll start to understand the mind of your kid. Maybe he does need something that Andrew Tate is saying. Maybe you can find it in a better place, but you want to understand what's drawing them toward it. And I would say the same for you. You're a 35 year old man and you find yourself drawn toward Jordan Peterson. Okay. What drives me toward him, it doesn't necessarily mean it's bad. It just means to your point, will be mindful of these things. Be discerning in the role models you choose and in the people that you're looking up to. And always remember they are flawed and everybody needs Christ. And so ultimately, we want to come back to that key truth that every role model has to be under the submission of Christ. And if they're not, just be very, very weary, very careful of some of the things that they're pushing. But, Jack, any closing comments for you?
[00:56:53] Speaker C: No, I'll do it.
[00:56:55] Speaker B: All right. With that, we'll wrap up and we will talk to you guys again next week. Thanks for listening.
