The Gaines Controversy and Appeasing the World

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign. [00:00:09] Speaker B: Welcome back to the Think Deeper podcast presented by Focus Press. I'm your co host Will Hareb, joined solo by Jack Wilkie. We are missing out on Joe's wonderful contribution and commentary. He is feet kicked up on a beach somewhere, relaxed, having a good vacation and he has earned that. He told us. He's like, I'm not even going to bring my mic. And again, he's earned that. Guy works. Guy works super hard. But we will miss having his commentary for this episode for sure. Hoping to get him back for the deep end. But it is just me and it is just Jack and I today. I think we've done one episode before with just the two of us and so we're working the two man game. Really excited to get into our topic today. It is a topic that has taken the Internet by storm. If you are on social media, if specifically, if you, you know, follow, you know, social commentators, political commentators who are either on the right, conservative values or whatever it is, then no doubt you have seen the drama surrounding Chip and Joanna Gaines, the Magnolia Farms couple, the couple that got famous through HGTV and their show Fixer Upper. It's really funny. I remember 10 years ago or how, you know, whenever that show came on, I was a teenager, so it had to be 18 years ago or so where they were so incredibly popular. My mom enjoyed watching them. They were basically, they basically were the prized possession of hgtv and they have taken, they have taken the momentum from that and basically propelled it into building an empire for themselves. You know, just appearing on all kinds of stuff, lines of product they, they rolled out. Magnolia is kind of the, the, the brand that they have and you know, they resided down in Waco, Texas and really kind of revitalized Waco, Tex. Of a tourist destination. You probably have heard of Chip and Joanna Gaines is kind of my point here. But they were involved in some serious drama over some things that happened. I'm Jack, I'll hand it to you to kind of get into what that drama was, but that's what we're going to talk about today is what should our response be? But Jack, what, what happened? What, what does everybody, what has got the Internet set ablaze about Chip and Joanna Gaines? [00:02:19] Speaker A: Yeah. So their new show is one where they're taking families and kind of, it's a reality show contest kind of thing of like a chance to live. I believe it's called Back to the Frontier, Homestead kind of life and scaled down, off the grid ish kind of living. And that's the concept of the show and the trailer came out and they were publishing, oh, we're excited to introduce this new show. And everybody noticed immediately they picked three couples to compete on this. And one of those couples was two men and their two adopted sons. Of course, they've never been, like, blatantly preachy. You know, it's not like Duck Dynasty where every episode ends with a prayer or something like that. But these people had been recognized as people of faith. There was actually a controversy 10 years ago where it was discovered their church preached against gay marriage. And people lost their minds going after Chip and Joanna Gaines, saying that, you know, look at these people, that these hateful, bigoted, you know, Christians, whatever the case may be. And so they had that reputation. And so when this new thing came out, people started going, wait a second, what? Why are you endorsing this? Why are you platforming this? Why are you pushing this as normal? And so the backlash began, and Chip Gaines got on. That's the wrong one. Let's see. He got on Twitter and started responding to folks. And there we go. There's the picture of, if you're watching this on YouTube, the family of two homosexual men and their adopted son. [00:03:54] Speaker B: I was just going to. I was going to say, too, if you watch the trailer for the show, it is not subtle. This was not, like, subtly snuck into the trailer or to the like. It is painfully obvious. [00:04:04] Speaker A: Yeah. So this was his response here. This tweet. Talk, ask questions, listen, maybe even learn too much to ask of modern American Christian culture. Judge first, understand later, or never. It's a sad Sunday when non believers have never been confronted with hate or vitriol until they are introduced to a modern American Christian broken heart emoji. So he's been going back and forth with other people online. Another one, somebody said that they had admired both of them, you know, had a problem with this. He said, well, I appreciate that sincerely, if you admire and appreciate it so much. Any chance there's more to this? But that's my point. No one knows. But the Christians have certainly come out in full force, as if they do know, Judge not love one another. It's not difficult. There's a lot to unpack in those two tweets. There's a lot here that is kind of revealing the way these things are handled by certain people. And so I think that's one of the things we want to get into, is the attitude here. Some questions that have come out about it. Brad Harold posted about it and got some pushback himself from Christians going, why why does this matter? What are we doing here? Things like that. So I'll push it to you. Where do you want to go with this? [00:05:13] Speaker B: First you get the tweet on the screen. Jack, why don't we just start there? To me, first of all, this is the. The old go to playbook when it comes to anytime Christians would question anything having to do with homosexuality or the LGBTQ community, stuff like this would come out. You know, it's a sad Sunday when non believers have never been confronted with hate or vitriol. They, you know, accusing Christians of being hateful. You know, judge not lest you be judged. Like, listen, Chip, this is not. This is not anything new. Like, people have been saying this, you know, for a long time. And kind of what I want to get into with this, with this response, because when, when the backlash first started, a lot of people were wondering, like, what is their response going to be? What is. Because to Jack's point, you know, it was never like it was a Christian show necessarily. But, you know, Chip and Joanna were in the forefront of a lot of people's, you know, as far as the culture goes, everybody knew they went to church. They were strong family, strong conservative family from what most people could tell. And so there was a lot of speculation about how they'd respond. And Chip, as you can see if you're watching on YouTube or Patreon, kind of with the tweet on the screen, just doubled down and even more than double down, pretty well attacked the. Anybody who disagreed, essentially, which was a lot of people with what he and his wife decided to do and playing the victim. Yes, exactly right. And one of the things that I wanted to get into, Jack, was something that I brought up to you off air before we started. So Chip and Joanna really got popular with their show Fixer Upper, which was an HGTV produced show, from what I understand, and I apologize if I have this wrong, but I was doing a lot of research last night. This new show that they have is basically like they have their own network. It's a max show. But this show, like they are producing this show. It's not like, like HGTV where they were kind of just the stars, so to speak. And I was talking to Jack where, because it was kind of well known that Chip and Joanna never had a same sex couple on Fixer Upper. That was part of what they were kind of getting backlash for. I was telling Jack off air, I could almost understand a little bit more. I would strongly disagree and would have a lot of the same reactions As I do now. But if HGTV had come to them and said, hey, guys, sorry, you gotta feature a gay couple. You know, your show is literally about married couples finding a house. You. You've got to. You've got to feature gay couple. That's not what this was. I've got an excerpt that I want to read from. So the gay couple that was on the show, of course, has kind of started to get a little bit of fame themselves. One of them, one of the men, his name is Jason Hannah. He shared that essentially when he. He stumbled across a flyer that was asking for participants to be a part of this show, this back to the frontier western reality show. And on the flyer, Hannah said the show used an image of a gay couple on the flyer when advertising a call for participants, which sparked his interest. Think about that for just a second. This was not HGTV or HBO Max or whatever it is, forcing Chip and Joanna's hand. This was. We want to feed. Seeking it out, essentially, we want to feature a gay couple. And so, Jack, that's. I guess that's where kind of I want to start is. It's not a matter of. Because, you know, he talks about, like, you know, think, ask questions. Like, we need to sit back and be nice is essentially his point. Chip, from everything we're reading, and we can tell you guys sought this out. Like, this was something that that was. Was planned. Again, you had a gay couple on the advertisement for the show react to that for just a second, Jack. Like, that's what I think probably in all my research stuck out to me the most. It's like, this was. No, this did not seem to be. They did not seem to have their hand forced. This did not seem to just be a happy coincidence. There seemed to be a lot of intention here and a lot of premeditation, if you will. [00:09:02] Speaker A: That's kind of my question with it is like, ask questions like, you know, you guys want to judge first and you haven't asked questions or list, like. [00:09:10] Speaker B: What questions are we supposed to ask? [00:09:11] Speaker A: It's all on the table, right? Like, we see what's happening. We're not okay with it. We have a problem with it. There's not. But that goes back to. We talk about this all the time. I had a whole episode on it. The critical theory thing is that's one of the big buzzwords of that is listen. Like, you don't know other people's experiences. You need to listen. And the. The homosexual man, in responding, he thanked Chip and Joanna Gaines in a Post in his Instagram story said he thanked them for leading with love, listening and learning. I don't need to listen or learn. Like, I don't know if that's what Joe or what Chip Gaines is telling us that we need to do is to, you know, well, if we just learn and listen to their story, we'll come. No, we won't actually. Like, there's not a world in which this becomes okay because got to know them. And that kind of was another thing that came out over this. I guess they've got a producer or somebody, a camera crew, somebody who's like, involved in their. Their empire very closely working with the. Gaines is a homosexual man, a polyamorous. He's in like one of those mixed families with three or four adults. Like, really awful situation. And under his Instagram post about coming out and living his true life and all that, Joanna Gaines commented, like, so proud of you or something like that. Like, there's nothing left here. And this is the point at which, like, if we can't make a judgment call at this point, when can we? And I guess they would say never. You're never allowed to judge. But I don't have any problem judging with all the facts that are on the table. I mean, because it's like, what would make that even possibly. Okay, okay, you're judging what defense is therefore, you're judging for listening. It's like, are you telling me they came on their show and converted to Christianity and gave up their lifestyle because of their exposure to you? Because if that's the case, then, okay, this advertising is a little weird, but, yeah, maybe you're moving that direction. That's clearly not what's happening here. You're clearly just endorsing it. And so. Oh, you. You just judgmental Christians rushing off to your conclusions. Like, it. It's okay to say it's wrong. [00:11:10] Speaker B: Endorsing it and normalizing it. That's another angle that I want. Wanted your thoughts on as they're pushing that because that's what it is with the show of like, we've got three couples, three families, and one of them is a. Is a homosexual man or is a homosexual couple. You even shared Zach. I copied this tweet down as well. I don't think it was a tweet, actually. Jason Hannah, one of the men in the homosexual marriage. He said representation matters deeply. Especially when all this broke. Broke out is what he said. He said, especially for those who are still finding the courage to live their truth. Red flag number one, all of them like, literally, you can't, you can't script this stuff better. He says when families like ours are visible, it opens doors for others to feel, feel safe, loved and validated normalization here. And I think that's what is so frustrating about the way that Chip and, you know, I don't think Joanna has tweeted or anything like that, but obviously they're, they're together, so I'm going to use them together. What Chip and Joanna's response to this has been, and specifically with his tweet about, you know, Chip's tweet about, you know, being hateful and listening and all that. Listen, nobody's saying, because this is also the, the straw man that people will throw out there. Nobody's saying we need to be unkind to gay, to gay people or to treat them harshly or to, you know, whatever. What we're simply asking is, why are you normalizing this behavior? That's the problem here. And that's once again kind of an angle that I wanted to get at is there's a difference in, sure, I'm going to treat somebody with kindness and I'm, you know, maybe not going to, you know, whatever, but I'm also not going to normalize this behavior. And that's exactly what is being done by putting this couple on the show again. Jason Hannah himself said, hey, representation matters. And so this is representing a family like ours that is supposed to be normal. It's not normal. It's not normal in the least. And as we've had episodes on before, it's no coincidence that where we have, where we are now compared to where we are 15 years ago, when homosexuality was just really starting to become kind of a socio political discussion. Look at where we are now. We've got Drag Queen Story Hour. We've got, you know, Pride parades with, with people stripping in front of children. We've got, you know, pedophilia is, has. Is kind of gaining traction in terms of like, hey, it's just a sexual orientation, just like homosexuality is. Where does that start? It starts with normalizing homosexuality. And so the normalization of it is what stuck out to me. Jack, also, your, your point about maybe, you know, when Chip says in the tweet, maybe even learn. What is there to learn here? What are we learning? Matt Walsh? I don't know if you want to pull that tweet up, Jack. It was actually a response to. Chip had a great tweet in response to Chips overall tweet, but I watched while he's pulling that up. I Watched a lot of different people kind of comment on this and to kind of see what everybody's take was. And one of the things Matt Walsh basically pointed out is like, yeah, so the tweets on the screen, if you're watching me, he says, maybe you should endeavor to understand the basic moral teachings of your own alleged religion before you give lectures to. To other people about their lack of understanding. Absolutely right. But he makes the point also in the. In the video that he has on it. What. What are we learning here? Has. Has the Bible, which is, you know, the. The teachings of the Bible and the teachings of Christianity that's been the same for thousands of years on homosexuality. Has that changed all of a sudden? Like, is there some new update that we're supposed to know about? Is it just because you guys are featuring them on their show that, you know, all of a sudden it's now acceptable? Like, what is there to learn? The Bible has been the Bible for 2000 years. The teachings on it. Because a lot of people were also speculating that Chip was responding to Franklin Graham. Franklin Graham, obviously Billy Graham's son. Right, I'm assuming Son basically tweeted. You know, I've heard that Chip and Joanna have a gay couple. If so, that's very disappointing. The Bible's very clear on it. Like, perfectly good tweet. And Chip was responding to that. But Chip's tweet, in my opinion, this might be where we wrap up talking about Chip. Sweet. But it said a lot without really saying anything. He didn't really. He didn't give a point. He didn't give a take. All he did was basically accuse Christians of being hateful. And, you know, maybe you should learn. What is there to learn? The Bible is crystal clear on this, has been crystal clear on this. To be honest, with all the drama around trans stuff right now, I thought the homosexuality thing was pretty settled. Like I thought most. I thought this was kind of, you know, done. Everybody knew that homosexuality was something the Bible didn't speak on. And now. Or sorry, did not agree with, does speak on, doesn't agree with. Now we've moved on to the trans stuff. It's almost like we've. We've backtracked 10 years with all this drama. [00:15:38] Speaker A: And that's what happens with these people is they just slowly trail. You know, you can see where five years from now they'll be pro trans or whatever. Like they just. Just tail the world a little bit. But what I want to key in on the last part of his second tweet, the response to the person where he said, it's not that difficult. Judge not. Love one another. These are the errors, the dangers of pop religion, of kind of this. They're very community church people of people who go to church. That moralistic, therapeutic deism. Go to feel good, go to feel like they have a connection to God. And then they just get to hodgepodge verses together to say whatever they want. Judge not. I mean, that one's been done to death, you know, like, do not judge. Yeah, we know. We know what do not judge means. And it means you get to judge sometimes. It means don't be hypocritical in your judgment, but just throwing that out. Judge not. Like it's wrong. It's okay to say it's wrong. It's very funny. He's got a whole lot of judgment for people criticizing him. He's okay with that kind of judging, but he's not okay with judgment of, hey, the Bible says, clearly this is a sin. And then love one another that you know, or you'll see that love one another, love your neighbor as yourself. Those things. Like, that doesn't mean everything anybody everywhere does at all times is okay that you can't ever say somebody's wrong or that something is a sin. Like, but this is what you get from pop religion. And I'm gonna pat the churches of Christ on the back for this. We don't do as much of this kind of thing. You'll see it from time to time. But this is very much what community church religion gives people, is they go for that nice feeling. They put on the big fancy concert and everyone goes out feeling, oh, I got closer to God today. And then they go do whatever they want. And they've got a few platitude Bible verses they can staple onto whatever and they can do. He knows that I know the plans that he has for me, and I know all things through. [00:17:23] Speaker B: I can do all things. [00:17:25] Speaker A: Yeah, like all those ones that those people know, and that's all the Bible they know. They don't know any theology. They don't care about the Bible's teachings of commandments and what's right and wrong. They don't care. They just want to have that level to them. I posted something on Substack, totally unrelated but, about Christians missing church for sports. This is the kind of drivel I got from all of the comments. Well, it's a religion, not a relationship. You know, God. You can meet God anywhere. Jesus let his disciples pick grains on the Sabbath so we can go to little Timmy's football game instead of church. Like, they know just enough to be dangerous, as the old saying goes. And it's like Matt Walsh's thing was great. Like, you're up here lecturing people when you don't know anything. You can quote two verses out of context and you think you've mastered the Christian faith. My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge is a real thing. [00:18:14] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, I love that point. As you think about just known not to be dangerous. What did Satan do when he was tempting Jesus? Pulled out scripture. Anybody can pull out. Anybody can pull out scripture, rip it out of context and you know, just absolutely devoid of context and, and kind of, as you said, staple it on to any situation. Anything that they are trying to justify in themselves. And man, one of the things I just kept thinking about with this whole controversy and, and you know, love people and don't be judgmental. What would it, what would it be if this was about pedophilia instead of homosexuality? Would there be any of this? Of course not. You know, this would be beyond the pale and you would not find anybody saying, oh, maybe we should listen and ask questions instead. Like, no, obviously everybody knows that is beyond, you know, twisted and perverted and wrong. That's what we used to believe about homosexuality. And we have just been culturally desensitized to the point where Chip, Joanna, community church people, basically what, what it comes down to is they equate two people engaging in homosexual behavior, which, if you have or have any qualms about what the Bible teaches on that, just go read the end of Romans 1. Read Romans 1. Read about, you know, the way God views that. It's pretty crystal clear. Like, you can't really get around it. I think a lot of community church type people, Chip and Joanna types, they equate that with somebody who essentially has a. Has a gossip problem, has a lying problem. Like, you know, we all have our struggles, we all have our sins. And in fact, most of these people also would say that the people who are judging the homosexual couple are far more in the wrong than the homosexual couple. Like, that. Their position that. That's what, that's. That's the position they take is, hey, you're more in the wrong for judging these people than the people are themselves for actually doing it. And again, my mind just went to, like, we would not be doing this for, for somebody who said that they were sexually attracted to children. You know, I think most people are probably not going to do it right now for, you know, for drag queens and Stuff like that. Why is homosexuality any different? But Jack, you've got a lot of stuff on here that we really haven't gotten to yet. And so I wanted to move us in that direction. Unless you had another thought. [00:20:33] Speaker A: Well, one of the things I want to talk about because this is we mentioned that your dad, Brad Harib posted about this and one of the questions that people kind of put out is like, what do we do? Like, what are we just supposed to not engage with anybody? Like not talk to homosexuals, things like that. And you know, I saw that on some of the Twitter thing. You can't disregard one group or couple or person that you don't agree with. You don't have to agree with the lifestyles. We only know what we are shown. [00:21:02] Speaker B: Like, hang on, hang on. Read that again. Read that first part again. [00:21:06] Speaker A: If you own a business or run a TV show, you can't disregard one group or couple or person you don't agree with. You don't have to agree with the lifestyle. We only know what we are shown in depth, but easy to understand. That's how. War in heaven. War on earth. What the book of Revelation meant to the original readers and what it means for us today has been described. An Amazon reviewer said it was the best commentary on Revelation he had read in 50 years. Bradley Cobb spent literally thousands of hours researching and putting together this material, showing how first century Christians, the ones the book was written to, would have understood the book, how it matches with the rest of the Bible and how it was something that was about to happen when John wrote it. Thoroughly biblical in his approach, including the dating of the book and supported with first century history, this 550 page book does not gloss over any details and includes points of application throughout each of the book's 48 studies. Great for personal study or for a year long Bible class. Available on Amazon.com in hardcover, paperback or Kindle. [00:22:06] Speaker B: It's the normalization that's the problem. It is as I go back to like as I said earlier, it's not that, you know, we have to because. All right, so I copied this, this post as well from somebody very, very pro LGBTQ writing about this. So slate.com they said HGTV chip, enjoying a game so suddenly found themselves embroiled in a good old Christian backlash because they broke their traditional mold, however slightly, by doing something that far right religious bigots apparently cannot tolerate. Acknowledge the existence of LGBTQ people. That's not the problem. The problem is, you know, not just acknowledging their existence, it's promoting their Behavior. That's what the problem is. And the fact that people's brains can't comprehend. Obviously, the person who wrote this is, you know, very anti Christian, very pro lgbtq. But it's not that we're acknowledged. Not. We don't want to acknowledge their existence. It's that, yeah, we are acknowledging their existence and behavior, and we're acknowledging it as wrong. That goes back to the. The Jason Hannah, the. One of the. The One of the gay men. His thing about living their truth. We have lost the ability to call something right or wrong. And when you get to a point in your Christianity, Jack. And then I'll let you take us wherever you were going to. When you get to a point in your Christianity where you can't even call homosexuality necessarily wrong, because I think that's what I would ask Chip and Joanna, your church people. Chip followed up his tweet by basically saying, you can find the Gaines family at church this Sunday or whatever it is. I just want to ask him, do you think it's wrong? Do you think homosexuality is wrong? Do you think it's a sin? What are your thoughts on that? Because when you're actively seeking out a gay couple to feature on your show, I don't know what answer you could have for that. But, yeah, that was just something that I wanted to say about normalizing it as opposed to just being nice to people. Because there is a difference. [00:23:52] Speaker A: Yeah. So the. The question of how do we interact? And you're exactly right. The normalizing, the platforming, the. There is a huge difference between. And we talked about this a little bit in Bible class last night. It was interesting. This is what the teacher wanted to talk about as well, and kind of engaging the world. And I was talking about, you know, when I worked for my dad, and it was water and sewer repair. You go over and it's a homosexual. You fix their water and sewer. Okay. Like, that's. You don't go, well, I'm not allowed to do that. Or if you run a bakery, I'm not going to sell you a loaf of bread. The gay wedding cake. Yeah, that guy should have said, no, I'm not going to make you a gay wedding cake. I'm not going to celebrate. I'm not going to participate in this. There are different lines of engaging with the world around us. And I was thinking about First Corinthians 5, where he said in verse 9, I wrote you in my letter not to associate with immoral people. I did not at all mean with the immoral people of this world or with the covetous and swindlers or with idolaters, for then you would have to go out of the world. And then he goes on to say, look, this is about brethren and withdrawing fellowship, church discipline kind of stuff. But he said, you're gonna be around these people in the world. You're gonna interact with these people. That's okay. And that's one of the ways we evangelize, for sure. And I'm sure Chip and Joanna, they're in the TV network hgtv. They probably cross paths with a lot of homosexuals. Yeah, that's part of what you're gonna have to deal with. What you're gonna have to do. That is what it is. Like, you can do that. That's okay. We're not telling anybody, oh, you know, you're gay. Get back. I'm not gonna talk to you. Nobody's saying. But that's kind of what is being portrayed as Christians are doing versus saying, hey, we're doing a story, a TV show about families. This is not a family. That's not how family works. We're not going to pretend that this is a family for the sake of this. We've got to draw a line here and say, no, I'm not going to validate your truth. This is not okay. And people know the difference. Like, they obviously know the difference. It's kind of being intentionally obvious. [00:25:46] Speaker B: Straw man. [00:25:47] Speaker A: Yeah, it's. Well. And you just see some of these comments, you know, like, brad got. This is one of the most unchristlike things I've seen in a long time. Like, boy, that was awful judgmental of that lady to say that. [00:25:58] Speaker B: Right. And also, like, explain that. Like, what do you mean? Just throwing that out there doesn't really give any kind of description about what you mean. [00:26:05] Speaker A: Right. And then somebody said, I tend to be more offended how people are more distraught over gays than those who are hungry, homeless, sick, alone, disabled, and neglected. Oh, okay. Like, what? What do you even mean they're more distraught over. We're not distraught. We're just saying, hey, don't do this. It's not keeping us up at night. We're not, you know, going down and holding up picket signs and magnolia and wake up. Like, it's this. You're not allowed to care about this. I think is the point I'm getting at is that's the view a lot of people have about this, is nobody's allowed to say it's wrong. Nobody's allowed to care about it. Nobody's allowed to. And again, this is what pop religion gives you. Well, just leave everybody alone. Let everybody do what they want to do. That's not Christianity. Christianity is helping people by confronting their sin where they are. And that's it. Just briefly reminds me of a kind of a famous Tim Keller video. And I've beaten up on him before, you know, the deceased Tim Keller. So not to speak too well of the dead, but there's one where he was asked point blank at this secular forum thing, what does the Bible say about homosexuality? Didn't use the word sin once. [00:27:07] Speaker B: He tap danced around it for five minutes. [00:27:09] Speaker A: Yeah. And he got to the end and it was like, well, it's just that God has a better plan for your life. It's not God's best for you. Something like that was his conclusion because he's terrified to tell these people, repent. Well, repentance is at the heart of the gospel message for all of us. We all had to repent. If we're going to be Christian, we have to say this is wrong. [00:27:29] Speaker B: Yeah. I wanted to ask you. You've got on here kind of the pitfalls of Christian celebrity and kind of the, the way that I was watching another video where the guy made the point, if you're invited, kind of actually ties us back to the Vince Bowling interview episode about Hollywood. Essentially, if you're in Hollywood in the least over time you are going, your, your views, your values, your worldview is slowly going to morph into left leaning, compromising on things, not really taking stances. And that's where I, I just, I do feel a bit of, you know, not a bit, a lot of disappointment about this because Chip and Joanna, like again, they were not Church of Christ. You know, it's not like they were, you know, out there, you know, evangelizing and just absolute, you know, bulwarks of the Christian faith necessarily. But it was really cool to see a married couple, faithfully married. They have a good amount of kids. From what I understand. They're not just like a one or two kid household, like conservative values. And they have even fallen victim to this. And you know, there's, they are not, of course, the only ones. And so Jack, I wanted you to speak to this idea of being a Christian quote unquote celebrity and what that does to you, I think about, you know, why were people so attracted to people like Chip and Joanna? That is why we're Christians, I guess, and kind of conservative value people so attracted them. And I think it's because we look at people like that in such a dark industry, Hollywood, or just fame in general? I think fame in general is. Is looked at pretty negatively because a lot of people who are famous are whack jobs and off the deep end. And so we look at people who handle fame well, and we're like, man, that's so cool. I'm drawn to that. I think of, like, Tim Tebow as an athlete or something. Like, he's a big one. The Duck Dynasty crew, you know, that we. We did a think fast on them a couple weeks ago. People are drawn to them because of their. You know, they've seemed to keep it together for the most part. I think of Kirk Cameron and guys like that. I mean, there's good amount of examples you could use. I think people are drawn to that because it's like, okay, cool, I can be famous without necessarily going off the deep end and becoming a crazy leftist. [00:29:45] Speaker A: Right. [00:29:46] Speaker B: The problem is because you even did see it with Duck Dynasty as well. You know, not quite to this extent, but, you know, initially they were Church of Christ, and then all of a sudden, Sadie Robertson is speaking at conferences and stuff like that. And, you know, Tebow, of course, was. Was always, you know, denominational. But I guess what I'm getting at is like, there's an appeal to it, but there's also pitfalls associated with being any kind of Christian celebrity that you just have to. Especially for Chip and Joanna when you're in Hollywood, and associating with Hollywood is very dangerous. What thoughts do you have on that? [00:30:15] Speaker A: There's just this desperation for validation that comes about when it's like, oh, wow, they're one of us. You know, like, we. And that's good, you know, it's great to see a show like Duck Dynasty close with a prayer to Jesus at the end like that, because you don't see that. And that's something that, you know is a positive. But on the other hand, like, you see this in politics, too, when it's like when. When a liberal crosses over and says, you know what? They've gone too far. I'm going to vote Republican. And like, all of a sudden, they're on all the podcasts, all the platforms, they write a book. They. They're famous. They are. They're one of the new leaders of the Republican Party. And it's like, well, wait a minute. You just got here. You were wrong for the last 50 years, and now you've changed your mind a little bit and we're just going to, like, fawn over you. Yes, you have seen the light you know, tell us what you like. No, you go get in the back of the line. But there's just, again, there's a desperation for validation. Like, well, if they see that I'm right, then that must mean that I'm right. We got to have a little bit more grounding in our faith than that, than to go, wow, you know, this. This one couple that has a TV show, they go to church. Therefore, I'm going to kind of sign on with everything they do. You know, I'm all for supporting Christian businesses. I'm all for upholding Christians and getting behind that kind of thing. But also, like, they don't. As you can see, these people barely know the Bible at all. And so it's great that they go to church. You know, I obviously would have some quibbles. Well, some big quibbles. That's what we're talking about here, you know, as part of it. But like, this desperation for kind of supporting and getting behind and rallying behind people like this. Like, no, it's cool that they go to church. You know, we should want that to kind of be everywhere and that this is to be a normal thing and all that. But I don't know, I think there's sometimes you just see that desperation among Christians to. It makes my Christianity more valid. If there's a TV show that has people that go to church, too, you don't need that. [00:32:10] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a good point. I also do think Christians are just not just Christians. People look for other human beings to put on a pedestal. People look for other human beings to idolize might be a little bit too strong, but you see that all the way from. From when kids are young who they idolize. Like superheroes, right? Superman, Spider Man. Like, that's what little boys want to be. They get a little older, athletes, you know, people like, that is kind of who they really start to look up to, put on a pedestal and idolize. And I just think that's kind of a natural human tendency is to look at people. And this is. This is why a good argument can be made, hey, just completely delete social media so that you're not looking to all these celebrities even creating Christian, you know, quote unquote, albeit celebrities as idols and as people to look up to. But I think that is a natural human thing. And so I think, again, Christians are turning around going, there's not very many redeemable qualities in these celebrities. And that celebrity and this person. This person. Oh, awesome. There's a couple. There's a couple with five kids, conservative values, you know, they Christian ish, you know, God believing, I'm going to latch onto them. Same thing with the Duck Dynasty people. Same thing with Tebow, same thing with. With whoever it is. And so I think the validation point is, is. Is really good, but I think it's also just a matter of they want to have somebody to put on a pedestal a little bit. They want to have somebody to. To look up to and follow. And maybe we can get into a discussion about whether or not that's a good thing at all, like if that's something we should just completely avoid. But again, I think from the time that kids are little, they kind of are looking at other people to put on a pedestal and idolize and kind of people that are separated from them. Like, obviously all kids idolize their dad and, you know, girls, their mom and whatever it is, but like other people that are not in their circle. Again, the superhero for the little kid and then the athlete for the teenager and maybe for the girl, it's the celebrity, you know, singer or whatever it is. So I don't know that that's kind of where. Where my thoughts go with this is, you know, it's just natural for Chris, for people especially, but also for Christians either to seek that validation, but also just to find somebody put on a pedestal. [00:34:16] Speaker A: But. [00:34:17] Speaker B: But that gets me into the question, Jack, of. Because you did see a lot of people on dad's posts and on some of the articles I was reading just completely defend Chip and Joanna, like, kind of dig their. Dig their heels in and say, you know, basically, back off, Christians, back off, back off from Chip and Joanna. Is this, Is this. I know my answer, but is this where a boycott needs to take place? I know that's kind of a buzzword, right? A word that we use a lot. This is, to me, the difference in where I think boycotts are useful is Chip and Joanna need a. Forgive me for sounding patronizing. They need a bit of a slap on the wrist here. Like they need. They need somebody to wake them up and say, chip, really bad idea to. To tweet that. Really bad idea to basically take your base people and not even your base people who you would say you have the same worldview as Christians and. And chastise them like a school mom, you know, on Twitter. That was a really bad call. That was a really bad idea. And not just that, but, of course, the bigger issue of, yeah, let's. Let's advertise for a gay couple to be on our reality show. They Need a wake up call to say, yeah, that that was a really bad idea. Not just financially speaking, but also maybe a hard look in the mirror. And so that's where to me, that's where I am in favor of a boycott. I'm, I have always been Mr. Anti Boycott for the most part. I don't think they do a lot of good. I think the details of it matter. I think the doubling specifically here, I think the doubling down of it, I think the again, chastising Christians for, oh, I don't know, taking a stance on homosexuality. [00:35:49] Speaker A: Right. [00:35:50] Speaker B: Is warranting of a, of a boycott here. And so just like same thing, discussions we've had with Disney before. So yeah, my thoughts went to kind of your thoughts on, on a boycott. What should Christian's response be to this? Is this a matter of. Because you see people asking what, what? So we shouldn't just, we shouldn't, shouldn't watch anything. We shouldn't engage in anything. I think the details of it matter. [00:36:09] Speaker A: Yeah, the, the boycott thing. One of the most frustrating things in the world to me is people who will put on a suit like in public to, to pander to a certain base that they don't believe in at all. This is something that, like Black Rifle Coffee Company, they really sell themselves as, oh, patriotic second Amendment, all that stuff. You dig into it. They're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're duping you. I mean like it's a, it's a scam. Like they don't believe in that stuff at all. And so, but they know that there's a customer base that will go, oh yeah, we've got a, you know, we got to support those guys. They're there. That's our values. And not look at it critically. What's kind of the same thing with Chip and Joanna? They know that this has, as you say, this has been their base for years. This has been who they have appealed to. This is, you know, they, they gave, I was just, you know, some of the research. Joanna Gaines had given interviews about her faith and they talked about this stuff. You know, years ago Christians came out and I think one of the things that really helped, like they were already popular but like really made them boom is when BuzzFeed and you know, some of the other major outlets attacked them for going to a church that was anti gay. And so like they had drawn support from these people that they had, they've gotten, they probably made millions of dollars from people who go to church going, hey, I want to, you know, throw these people a few of my bucks because they share my values. And to find out they don't. And not only they don't, but that they turn around and lecture you and attack you and. And they're willing to turn on you for Hollywood's approval. No, that doesn't sit well. And it's kind of like, look, the only reason people are here in the first place is because of that kind of thing. You haven't. You're not entitled to these people's dollars. [00:37:46] Speaker B: They have an estimated net worth of $200 million. [00:37:49] Speaker A: Good. [00:37:49] Speaker B: Just a media empire. I remember my family, my mom. I think some of your sisters actually went on this trip. I know your mom did. They went down to Waco. They went down and did the whole Magnolia kind of touristy vacation thing. [00:38:02] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:38:03] Speaker B: And for them to. Again, it's just. Man. For them to turn around and start lecturing Christians for once again, taking a stance on what the Bible clearly calls a sin is just frustrating. But, Jack, to move us into something else here, we've got a couple more things to get to. [00:38:18] Speaker A: Well, I just want to throw one other. [00:38:19] Speaker B: Yeah, go ahead. [00:38:20] Speaker A: You know James 4. 4, like, where he's talking about how judgmental and harsh. Like, you haven't read your Bible. James 4 says, you adulteresses. Do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Like, no, people are not being too harsh on you. James himself called you an adulterer and an enemy of God because you are cozying up to the world, you want the world's approval. You can quote Jesus as well. Of what shall it profit a man to gain the entire world but lose a soul? What shall he give in exchange for his soul? These are the things the Bible has to say about this. And so when Christians go, hey, you shouldn't do this, and they just do the victim game. Like, whoa, whoa, whoa. You're being so harsh. Like, sometimes the Bible's harsh. Sometimes the Bible draws a hard line, and we need to be okay with that. [00:39:06] Speaker B: I like that. I really like that line. Sometimes the Bible's harsh because this is the. The Vodi bauckam thing. The 11th Commandment is to be nice to people. [00:39:12] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:39:13] Speaker B: And basically he says Christians have been taught to obey the 11th Commandment and ignore the other 10 is essentially what it comes down to. Yeah, that's really good. What I was going to move us to was the love the sinner, hate the sin, and Kind of where that falls apart and kind of the way that. That we had an episode a few months ago now, I think about kind of Christian or church of Christ sayings and kind of church of Christ things that people throw out there. One of the things we got into was things like speak, where the Bible speaks Bible things in Bible ways. And one of the. The frustrations that I expressed was how we as Christians can just throw platitudes out there like that and not ever get into specifics about what that means. So, for instance, with the, you know, Bible things in Bible ways, great. You can throw that out there all day long. But what, what does that mean specifically? How does that apply to. To lifting holy hands and stuff that we talked about in the episode? I think very similarly about this idea of love the sinner, hate the sin. It is just a platitude we throw. I remember very vividly I was teaching a class and I asked a very specific question about how do we handle. I don't even remember what it was, but some kind of sin issue. You know, how do we respond to this? And somebody just threw out there, love the sinner, hate the sin. I don't remember what I said. I was basically like, great. Any other thoughts? Because it just. You're not adding anything to it. There's no specifically love the sinner. He's saying, okay, what does that mean? Does that mean that we should put a gay couple on our TV show? Does that mean we as Christians should watch, should watch and support this, this TV show that has a gay couple? Does it mean that we should invite gay people over for dinner? Does it mean that we should go out to the Mexican restaurant with gay people? Does it mean that we should like just throwing love the sinner, hate the sin out there? To me gives. If I'm trying to spiritually mentor a Christian couple, a Christian family, and they are asking some of these questions about, again, should I have this gay couple over for dinner? My son has a friend at school or has a friend in the neighborhood who is the adopted son of a gay couple. What do I do? What am I supposed to do with that? If I just say love the sinner, hate the sin, what have I just told them? Absolutely nothing. I've given them no practical advice. I've given them no biblical wisdom other than just throwing a platitude out there. And so that's, I guess what. Where I'm getting at with this. And then, Jack, I want to get your thoughts is this is some of the stuff that. That People who were defending Chip and Joanna would throw out there, well, you gotta love the sinner. You gotta love the sinner. You can hate the sin, but you gotta love the sinner. Okay, so your version of love the sinner means, once again, platforming and normalizing homosexuality. I'm sorry, that's not my version of love the sinner, hate the sin. But once again, it's because we don't put any specifics to it. So it's funny. Jack sent over an outline and I was writing stuff down, and one of the things I wrote down was, love is sin or hate the sin. And then I opened Jack's outline and he had the same thing. So what thoughts do you have surrounding this idea that is also a very Church of Christ? We throw this out all the time without a lot of substance, in my opinion. [00:42:18] Speaker A: Hey, folks, I know a lot of you are looking for more Christian content for your daily walk. Of course, we often tell you about Focus plus and the daily devos and other content that goes up there. Of course, we have this podcast, Think Deeper. We have the gym podcast, Godly Young Men by Joe and Will. But I want to also tell you about the Church Reset podcast feed. Every article I put out on my website, jackwilkie Co, goes up on the Church Reset podcast feed, along with audio from all of the videos I post to the Focus Press. YouTube, like cultural breakdown, Masculinity Monday and Thursdays through the text. And so if you're looking for something to listen to while you're doing chores around the house or on the go, check out the Church Reset podcast feed. Subscribe to get all the latest content as it comes out. Four or five days a week. Yeah. The other thing about this is, like, the practical of how we get there of evangelizing somebody. This is kind of the view on this of homosexuality, of transgenderism, of whatever sin that somebody really loves. The love the sinner, hate the sin thing is kind of a. It's like, don't confront the sin. They say just gospel first. Gospel. Get them to Jesus and then, you know, Jesus will correct their sin. No, the sin is where they meet with Jesus. The sin is where they're in rebellion to Jesus. Read Romans 1. Read Acts 17, where Paul goes and he's like, yeah, you guys are really religious people. You're wrong. Let me tell you why you're wrong. Like confrontation. In fact, one of the guys that kind of a pastor that came to Chip Gaines thing, it came to his defense on this thing. I was looking at his church and their Banner image said connection over correction. Like correction. This is the gospel, is you were sinners and now you're not. You're being saved. What are you being saved from? Not from feeling bad. Not from, you know, you might go to hell from the sin that is killing you. Now you don't have life now. You are dead in your trespasses and sins. And so when you see a homosexual person or whatever other sin, it's any sin, but this idea of, like, well, don't confront that. Tell them about Jesus. Tell them about his love. Tell them about the. No, the gospel message is repentance. I've said this once, I've said it a thousand times. You go to the end of Luke, he says, what is going to be repented? They're going to be preached. I mean, from starting from Jerusalem to all the nations of repentance because Jesus was raised from the dead. And you go to Acts, what do they preach? Repent in chapter two, repent in chapter three, repent in chapter eight, repent in chapter 16, repent in chapter 17. We don't use the word repent because it's love the sinner, hate the sin. You know, love the sinner, hate the sin. And we think that telling them, hey, you're wrong and you need to repent is hateful toward them. We're just totally playing on the world's playing field here, and it's garbage. We've got to give this stuff up. [00:45:03] Speaker B: And that we have to agree on definitions. We had another situation where, you know, a couple was attending our church, not married, living together, and we, you know, Jack, you remember this, we struggled with, like, how do we handle this man? Like, we can't borrow him from the door. But, you know, like, what. What's the plan here? What are we supposed to do? And love the. If we had just thrown out there to love the sinner, hate the sin, we got to agree on the definitions. For one person, love the sinner would have meant man. Just make them feel welcome, make them feel like they're a part of the congregation. Maybe even let them place membership. Let them. Let them participate in the. In the meetings and plan stuff for another person. Love the sinner means we gotta go talk to him and tell them, hey, you can't live like that and be a part of this congregation here. And so, you know, I guess we've kind of beat that one to death. But I just think about Romans 1, specifically that you brought Rome, the book of Romans, specifically that you brought up Jack, do you know how long it takes in Romans to get to Paul describing how wonderful the love of God is. Is that how he starts? No. How does Romans start? The Gentiles are completely guilty because of their sin problem. Chapter two. Hey, guess what, you Jews, you are no better. You are just as deserving of the wrath of God as the Gentiles are. Chapter three. Hey, guess what? All of you Jews and Gentiles alike, none of you are righteous. All of you have a sin problem. Then you get to the justification. Christ being the just and the just. God being just and the justifier through Christ's blood, of course. Romans 5, you know, God demonstrates his own love toward us. That's not how he starts the letter. And I just find that so fascinating. Jack, again, you referenced it, you've talked about it before with this discussion of connection over, over correction or whatever it is. Like that wasn't, that didn't seem to be Paul's method in the book of Romans. Paul was not concerned with connection over correction. When he was writing the, when he was writing the book of Romans, he started out with, hey guys, every single one of you deserves the fires of hell and the wrath of God. That's. Let's, let's start there. And then you get to. But this is what God's love does for you. This is why you can be justified by faith and all the wonderful things that you read later on Romans. But you got to get the order right. You just absolutely have to get the order right. And so I love that point regarding where people, if they're going to come to Christ, have to come to grips with what their sin does to them. And that's what is missing, I think specifically in a lot of this Chip and Joanna stuff with the gay couple is like, has anybody pointed out this, this gay couple with their adopted sons, has anybody pointed out to them what their sin is doing to them spiritually? [00:47:37] Speaker A: Right. [00:47:37] Speaker B: Has anybody pointed out, you know, what their eternal destination is going to look like if this behavior continues? Anybody point out to them the physical harm that comes from that? Nope, nobody's pointed that out. And so that's where I think we need to recenter a bit is reminding them, just like in the book of Romans, hey, the behavior that you're engaging in is sending you directly to hell. And a lot of people are going to say, man, that sure is harsh. I can't. Matt Walsh, again, to quote him, made the point essentially, like, if you claim to be a Christian, you have to believe that the Bible is the inerrant word of God. And what does the Bible is the inerrant word of God teach? People who engage in that behavior are going to hell. So like, you can get mad at me for saying that, but if I'm truly going to be a Christian, I have to believe what the Bible teaches on. That's what the Bible teaches on it. So yeah, those are my thoughts on that. What would you add? [00:48:24] Speaker A: The other side of that? That. And again, this goes back to the critical theory thing. We have to be confident in what we believe. It's like everybody but Christians is allowed to be confident. You know, the, the homosexual guy saying, you know that Chip, you know, led by loving and listening and learning. Like, no, you have something to learn, I have something to teach you. Yeah, and that's kind of this view of like the, the predominant American white Christian. The critical theory thing, you stack up all the intersectionality and whatever minority preferred status you get, they all have lecturing that we need to sit and listen to. Like, I'm sorry, The truth is the truth, okay? And as Christians, it's not wrong to be confident. It's not, as you said, it's the inerrant word of God. No, I have something you need to listen to, actually, not the other way around. I don't need to hear your experiential knowledge, your truth. You don't have a truth. I don't care how much you think you love your partner. God says, this is, this is an abomination. God is going to send you to hell for this. And you need to hear that Jesus will save you from this. But we don't like that. We think that the loving Christian thing to do, the Christlike thing to do, is to have no confidence, to constantly be navel gazing and okay, I'll just sit and listen and I just really need you to think that I'm nice. No, I need you to know what God's truth is. Okay? That's what we need people to have. And I'm really tired of Christians acting as though we can't confidently say anything. That's how they've tricked us into allowing everything and accepting everything. Is this thing of like, nope, Jesus wouldn't ever let you be confident about anything. I'm sorry. Go read Jesus's preaching. He was so confident that, I mean, the first time he spoke, people went, who is this guy? It says he's teaching with authority because he was right. And if you're going to be like Christ, you got to teach with authority. No, you're not Jesus, but you've got his Word you know what he would say? You need to say it and not be afraid to say it. And. And so being confident is something Christians really have to recapture is to tell the world, no, I have something to teach you, actually. [00:50:24] Speaker B: Yeah, that's. That's such a great point, the authority point, and kind of the not being ashamed of what the Bible says, because that's also the attitude that you get with a lot of Christian, you know, specifically Christian, quote unquote, celebrity people in Hollywood or whatever it is. It's almost like they're ashamed of what the Bible teaches about homosexuality. Kind of have to apologize. I've talked about that with Keller before, like, apologizing for what the Bible teaches about stuff. And Andy Stanley and guys like that stop apologizing for it if it is the word of God. And that's what we have to teach. I guess, kind of my closing thoughts as we look to. To wrap it up here is a couple things. One, this is obviously an exhibit A of why I would encourage Christian young people, Christian older people, like, don't put your. Your faith and your loyalty. Don't attach them so tightly to somebody like, you know, anybody that's in the public eye, even if they claim Christianity so tightly that when they make a decision like this, you feel obligated to defend it. If you're doing that, then you have attached. You saw this with strange example when Taylor Swift's new album came out. The. The Tortured Poets Department, I think is what it's called, was her most recent one. And. Well, yeah, I haven't listened to it, but I'm, I'm aware of it. [00:51:43] Speaker A: I'm just giving you. [00:51:44] Speaker B: There. There were some. There were some songs that, you know, bordering on blasphemy referencing like crucifixion and the cross and, you know, stuff like that. And obviously not to mention the sexual content, language, all that. That a lot of music has, but her album has it. Well, a lot of Christians got on and kind of blasted Taylor for those lyrics. The amount of Christian girls that I follow, Christian women even, they got on there and defended Taylor Swift for the. Not. Not just stayed silent or like, I'm gonna stay out of this one. Guys got on and defended Taylor Swift for those things. Like, okay, you might be a little bit too much of a fan if you can't also come out and say, yeah, guys, I agree. Actually, we can't be saying that stuff. You know what I mean? Like, they attach their, Their, Their. Their loyalty and their commitment so closely to Taylor, somebody like Taylor Swift that when she came out with a song or a couple songs, whatever it was, that were pretty clearly sacrilegious and blasphemy and people were accurately calling her out for it. They felt the need to defend her for that. You're a little. You, You. You've gone a little too far there. That's what I think. Similarly, with, again, this Chip and Joanne stuff, or with anybody, is if you find yourself defending something like this, which is once again, not just, you know, maybe participating in or, you know, coming out and saying that I think homosexuality is okay, but actively platforming a homosexual couple, normal, trying to normalize a Christian, a homosexual family, quote, unquote, and then once again doubling down on it. If you've attached yourself so closely to people like that to. For when they do that, you can't turn around and say, yeah, I disagree with that. I think I might need to back away. Then you might need to reexamine how closely you're attaching yourself to any celebrity or to anybody who is not, you know, a very faithful Christian, somebody who is not obviously Jesus Christ himself, the apostles, the inspired writers. This is where I think we can get into danger. The more attached we are to pop culture. You will see people like this who are just. They attach themselves to people, and basically anything they say or do, they. They will. They will defend and they will support. I would caution Christians away from that. I'm. I'm not saying you can't have favorite commentators, favorite celebrities, whatever it is. You got to be really careful. I think this Chip and Joanna thing is a lesson for us in that. And also the. The final thought that I would have before handing it to you, Jack, to wrap us up is where we kind of started the episode with Chip's tweet and the way he kind of took the moral high ground and. Or tried to take the moral high ground and basically scolded Christians for taking a stance. Don't let people scold you into. Into taking. Into not taking a stance. [00:54:18] Speaker A: Right. [00:54:18] Speaker B: Don't let people. Don't let people like Chip, who will accuse you of being hateful, because that was the other thing in his tweet. Like, it's a shame that there people, non Christians, are first introduced to hate and vitriol through Christ. Like, I'm sorry, I'm sure they've probably been introduced to hate other places as well. Like, that's a little bit of hyperbole there. But don't let people like that who once again, are going to throw out, judge not and, you know, ask questions and Learn, don't let them bully you into not taking a stance that something is wrong. Because then what you're going to turn into is a Christian who really doesn't take a stance on anything. You're going to turn into a Christian who doesn't really have any firm beliefs, who really doesn't, you know, attach to any firm theology. You know, you might go to church, you obviously believe in God, but there's not a lot of substance to your faith. You're not taking a lot of stances. That's what you're going to turn into if you let people like that bully you into that. So those are kind of my. My closing thoughts. [00:55:10] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, Jesus said, woe to you when all men speak well of you. He said, the world is going to hate you. He's going to. What do we think he meant? He meant that they're going to be like, you're being really mean for saying that I can't do X, y or z sin. That's what he meant. That's in context. That's exactly what he meant. And then somebody does it and other people lose their minds. Like, whoa, whoa, you're not supposed to do that. You're not supposed to make us dislike you. Get used to it. Like the confrontational, you know, that guy's. The church header thing that I mentioned was a connection over confrontation. Like, it's both. If you don't have confrontation, you don't have connection. And so as Christians, we've got to get to the place where we're comfortable with that, of taking stands. And, you know, I'm going to pat the churches of Christ on the back for this one. You don't see the kind of garbage that is being spewed in defense of this kind of thing. We are biblical. We're. I mean, yeah, obviously Brad got some comments here or there, but just in general, we don't put up with that kind of thing. And I think that's a feather in our cap. Stick with that. You know, be willing to take stands, be willing to be hated by the world. That's okay. That's kind of part of the program. And so I think we're going to wrap right there. Lots of lessons to be learned from this. Be interested to hear people's comments. Unfortunately, with the news cycle, I'm sure this will have shuffled out by the time we. We get another week and a half down to next week's deep end. But I'm still looking forward to seeing what people have to say. Join us there. FocusPress.org plus for the deep end. Of course. If you enjoy our work, you can always [email protected] donate yeah, just always. Lots of stuff going on. Be sure to join the email list of focuspress.org so you'll get the latest from me and Brad and Will and Joe every week. And if there's nothing else from Will, I guess we'll talk to you guys on the next one. Hey guys, Jack Wilke here. If you enjoy our work with podcasts like Think Deeper and Godly Young Men and our books, articles, seminars, and want to support the work that we do, the best way to do so is to go to focuspress.org donate that's focuspress.org donate thanks again for listening.