The Prom Question & the Importance of Rites of Passage

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign. Welcome back to Think Deeper podcast. Our first episode in a month. Appreciate those who have been hanging on, waiting for us to come back. We've gotten some nice comments, and I sure appreciated hearing that from you guys, but it was a nice break for the first time in three plus years of doing the podcast together. And so, yeah, we're excited. We're able to just reset a little bit. A lot of life stuff going on, a lot of projects and just kind of, I don't know, rethinking. There's not gonna be any major drastic changes. There'll be a little bit that we're doing, but excited to roll some of that out, but it's been a busy month in what it is. Very much want to give congratulations to Will, who welcomed a third child to their family. So how's everything going for your household, Will? [00:00:51] Speaker B: It's. It's going great. First of all, it's great to be back. We were talking. The break for the first couple weeks was. Was very nice, but, man, towards the end of last week and the early part of this week is like, okay, I think I'm ready to. To get back on the mic and start recording a little bit. Yeah, the itch was there, so it is great to be back. I'm really excited about this episode, but no, things are going great. We welcomed baby Austin on April 5th, and so he's about a month old, and he's. He's doing great. Life with. Life with three kids is fun. It's. It's really special watching the older two. Jackson is now three and a half and Brooklyn is almost two, and, man, they just get so exc. Hold him and to, you know, take care of him, give him his passy. What. All those things. So that. That's been probably the coolest part for me. And obviously I'm working at work a good bit, and so my wife's adjusting to keeping three, and she's doing a great job with that. Yeah, it's. It's. [00:01:38] Speaker C: It's. [00:01:38] Speaker B: It's. It's good. [00:01:39] Speaker A: It's. [00:01:40] Speaker B: It's been a huge blessing for us, so. [00:01:43] Speaker C: Nice. Nice. Nice. Yeah. A month old. That's insane. That goes by. So it feels like it gets faster with every kid. Honestly, it's so crazy, too. [00:01:52] Speaker B: Jack, I. I know you've played those. Those rewind episodes for the last couple weeks. I. I listened to one of them and I feel like I mentioned how old Jackson was in. In, like the. In one of the ones that we did, and, man, when we started this, Jackson had Just been born. That's. That's what's crazy to me is he is now three and a half. And we started this podcast. He had just been born. [00:02:11] Speaker A: Yeah. I didn't have the twins and they just had their third birthday, so two. [00:02:15] Speaker C: Of my kids haven't, you know. [00:02:16] Speaker A: Yeah. As I mentioned, you know, it was good to hear from listeners, and it's crazy to think three years in, we've had people that have listened to us every single week for three years and sometimes twice a week, those that are in the deep end, in focus plus. And so that's kind of cool. That's something we enjoy. That's something that we kind of felt like some of that connection was lost and we want to do a better job of that. And so, yeah, just things we wanted to regroup. Joe, how was your month off? [00:02:42] Speaker C: Just good. It's good getting the. The office, as you can see behind me, getting that completed and shout out to my dad, mom and dad for all the work that they did and helping me and OSB and. Yeah, all these. And without dad's power tools, I don't know what I do. So had a couple of my own, but he. He's the stud that came in and got it done. So, yeah, very appreciative of that. But otherwise, a month flies by like you. You take the time off and as you said, will, like, you start itching to come back. But it's also like, whoa, it's been a month already. You know, you look down and, right. Time has flown. And so we're. We're happy to be back. Like you said, Jack, we got some good things planned. One of the things we're going to look to do more often are interviews. And I think we have seven or eight potentials in the future of bringing people on and getting some experts in some subjects that we're not experts in. It's one of the things that we talked about heading off is, you know, at the end is there are some episodes we don't want to cover without really doing our research. And there's some episodes that we just think, yeah, let's. Let's get an expert. Let's get somebody who's really well versed in this. And so we got some of those coming up. We're going to be covering some more cultural topics. You know, specifically kind of getting into some more cultural topics. We always do the think fast. We're going to extend those a little bit. And really we started looking at what is this podcast for? And I think this podcast like, what the purpose of this is, is getting us. Yes. To think deeper and to learn how to critically examine and really form your Christian worldview around modern problems. Around church problems. Yes. And some things that we've gotten into, for sure. And then societal things and news items and things like that. Like, how should Christians think about these things? And so we really want to up that content as well. [00:04:19] Speaker B: Yeah. Joe, I love the way that. When we were kind of brainstorming a couple weeks ago, I love the way that you phrase that. Like we are. Our aim is to help Christians critically examine and how to think about these modern problems just before we get into the episode. And it kind of ties into the episode, honestly. The church typically does not do a great job of that if it's not book, chapter, verse, if it's not baptism and instruments, if it's not those things. Typically, church leadership tends to kind of shy away from how Christians should respond to xyz, cultural event or, you know, the. The big thing that everybody's talking about. And so all three of us are pretty immersed in the culture. All three of us have takes and thoughts on just about everything that happens. And so to your point, Joe, we do want to kind of devote a little bit more to that, even more so than we were already doing. So I'm looking forward to that. [00:05:05] Speaker A: Absolutely. Which actually gets us into where we want to go with this week. Speaking of culturally relevant things, the end of the school year is coming up, and with that is the prom season. That's. I know some have probably already had theirs, some still have them coming up. And, you know, the formal wear, the dance, the party, whatever it is that's going on. That's a question that it's interesting you guys talked about when we were researching, looking back over the years, and this is something that dances would got a lot more coverage. I guess it was a lot more discussed way back in the day. I remember, you know, my mom would talk about kind of the. The taboo around them for Christians and. And kind of who was going, who wasn't going. And I mean, you can find little pamphlets, booklets, things like that on Christians and going to dances. And that kind of. That's looked at as like an antiquated thing. And now it's kind of, well, do what you want. So we want to look at not just prom and our takes on prom and why we think we think about it, but also the idea of rites of passage. So we'll get to that later in the episode. But I wrote a little blurb on My site earlier this or last week, I guess it would be at this point kind of as a teaser for this episode because I started off with should Christians go to prom? Should Christian parents let their kids go to prom? Of course not. And I genuinely wanted to just send the email like the article, like just stop it right there like that. [00:06:20] Speaker B: Just with. Of course not. [00:06:21] Speaker A: Right. Of course not. Because I think it's that self evident. But then I said in there, all right, we're going to flesh out all the reasons why on this, this episode here of think deeper. So let's get into those. Let's get into. Because I think going around the table, we're all, of course not of Christians. Should they go to prom? I just don't, don't want to assume. [00:06:38] Speaker B: But I think it's pretty awkward. Yeah. If one of us came to table, actually I'm in favor of it. [00:06:42] Speaker A: Yeah, right. [00:06:43] Speaker B: No, very firmly. [00:06:44] Speaker C: Best night of my life. [00:06:46] Speaker A: So let's lay out the case against it. And I mean, some of it's going to be familiar, but I think some of this is a little bit eye opening even as we dug into something we thought we were familiar with. [00:06:54] Speaker B: Well, I don't know, Jack, if you were planning on doing this as well, I would say maybe we should start with laying out the case for it. Like what essentially kind of steel, man. What would people say is the reason why you should. And so I guess I'll go first here with kind of like if I was trying to give their best argument, this is where the rite of passage thing comes in, which I think is kind of ridiculous. I have a rebuttal to that we can get to in a second. But, but Christian or parents would say, you know, this is something that is, you know, everybody's done. It's kind of a symbol of you moving into adulthood. It's a, it's a big part of their high school life. All their friends are going. And that's the thing, as I'm sitting here listing these things, there's not really a strong case for it, at least from my perspective. And, and to get it out of the way, none of the three of us went to prom and other three of us were public schooled. I had a good, great deal of friends who did go to prom, spoken with a lot of people who went to prom. And so I don't think that we have to, had, had to have attended prom to have an opinion on, you know, what's going on. But as far as the case for it, guys, would you add anything I mean, again, a lot of people just simply make the case that it's kind of this thing that you can't really miss out on. It's a once in a lifetime thing. And again, kind of rite of passage gets thrown out there a lot. Joe, looks like you have a thought. What would you add to that? [00:08:20] Speaker C: I actually looked up reasons to go to prom. This is the AI on Google, because I was curious, what do they have to say about it? I'll just go down the list. Creating shared memories. They say it's a significant event that many students will fondly remember. Celebrating a milestone. So that transition from high school to the next phase of life. Experiencing a fun night out, potential for romance, avoiding regret. Some argue that not going to prom can lead to regret later in life, as it's a widely celebrated tradition. And then saying goodbye, it's the last opportunity to connect with classmates before they move on. And then I also had looked up should Christians go to prom? And they talked about the freedom of discernment, that the Bible doesn't explicitly condemn it and it leaves room for kind of personal discernment on these issues. Maybe Romans 14. Social interaction, celebrating milestones, opportunity for ministry. That while you're there, I suppose you could be evangelizing people, which is okay to take. [00:09:08] Speaker B: That's definitely what's on everybody's brain. Like, yeah, yeah. [00:09:12] Speaker C: Have you heard about the good word? Anyway, so, yeah, I mean, the freedom and discernment, I think is an interesting take. If I were really Steel Manning this, I might go to the Romans 14 and say, look, it's just a matter of conscience. It's a. It's a Romans 14 issue where some people feel that they can. Their conscience is a little more wide open and some people feel that they can't that and that's perfectly fine. And we're not going to judge either one of them. And the kid that thinks that he can handle it, he's a strong Christian, he knows what he's about, and he's got a good girl going with him. You know, it's just going to be a really fun night out. And all his buddies are going and he's going to be left out. And you kind of play to the emotional card a little bit, but also to the freedom in Christ. We can, you know, all things are lawful. That if I were Steel Manning, it might be where I would go with it. I think a lot of them are going to come down to. We don't want to miss out. There's a huge emotional pull to like Everybody is going. And so I feel this need to celebrate with my buddy. I'll be okay. You know, my son's a good kid and he's not going to do that. I got some statistics to blow that out of the water, but that might be the steel man that I would go with from a Christian perspective is really examining the Romans 14 and the memory element of, like, this is kind of the rite of passage and a night that will live on in a child or an adult's life. So, Jack, any thoughts you might add to that? Anything you ran across that. That maybe made the case for it? [00:10:25] Speaker A: No, basically all the same things. And I don't think wanting to be a part is a bad thing. It just depends on what it is you're wanting to be a part of and what the risks are. You know, there's the thing you'll see of man. You can go and not get into any trouble. You can go and do it the right way kind of thing. And so I think as far as, like, people in the church who would disagree, that's probably where they're going to come from, is they're going to acknowledge, okay, yeah, maybe some of these things you guys are going to talk about do happen. But, you know, if a kid handles it right, if the right people are around them, whatever else, then you don't have to go and get into trouble or whatever the case may be. Again, I think we'll lay out the case. Why? I don't think that's a valid take on it, but I think that's generally what you're going to get. [00:11:08] Speaker B: Yeah. So there's the case. [00:11:09] Speaker C: Let me ask you this. Let me ask you this real quick. [00:11:11] Speaker B: Good. [00:11:11] Speaker C: And this is going to transition us into it. What do you say to the Romans 14? What do you say to those that might just view this as a conscience issue? It kind of goes here. Or there's some feel that it's appropriate and some don't, and neither are wrong in their conscience. How would you handle that? And then get us into. I think we can transition using this to get us into maybe the case against it. But what would you specifically say to that? Because I did run across that in a few different articles of like, hey, guys, it's just a conscience thing. You really can't judge the kid that decides to go, the parents to let their kid go, because we're not supposed to judge. What would you say to that? [00:11:45] Speaker B: Yeah, so I got. I got a few thoughts. And Jack, if you want to go after that, the first Thing is, people are always going to want to run to is, is it a sin? Can you bind it? Like if somebody, if a kid goes, a parent sends their kid, are they in sin and need, need of repentance? And that is kind of the, as we've stated before, we want to get away from that line of thinking. A point that I wanted to make with this whole idea of prom is that we need to be able to make objective, declaratory, state declaratory statements such as Christians should not be attending prom, not it is a sin to go to prom, even if some might think it is. Or just like we need to make, be able to make objective declaratory statement, Christians should not be wearing two piece bathing suits. Christians should not be watching Game of Thrones. We need to be able to make those type of statements. And that's what church culture once again kind of shies away from, is the, is the ability to make those objective statements like that. It's the good, better, good, better, best principle here that is at work. And so as far as Romans 14 goes, again, am I, am I going to put somebody say that they're in sin for going? Not necessarily. But what is, what is the wise decision here? You look at Romans 14, all the examples that are given to me, prom doesn't necessarily fall into that category. I mean, we're talking about meat sacrificed to idols. We're talking eating, eating of certain meat, celebration of certain days, things like that that I, I think just shoving prom into the Romans 14 discussion. I mean, at the end of the day, is it a conscience thing? I would say what our point, I guess is that our conscience should tell us, hey, this is a really bad idea. Once again, we should be able to say Christians should not be attending it without having to say it is a need to repent of sin. If Christians should go, does that make sense? Or for Christians to go, does that make sense? Jack, what would you add? [00:13:31] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, I always like going to Hebrews 5 with this one where he talks about the milk and the meat. They were just immature and they were stuck on the milk of the word. Hebrews 5:13. He says, for everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant. But solid food is for the mature who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil. If it was just a list of do's and don'ts, you wouldn't have to practice to train for discernment. You wouldn't have to learn what's good and evil and learn how to read a situation. You just say, oh, well, it says don't do this. So I'm not allowed to do it. This is what we're talking about is discerning good and evil on something like this. And so similarly you could go back to Proverbs where he's talking about, hey, don't go down the adulterous woman street. Like, take the other way home, man. And that's the idea behind that. Could you say, well, is it wrong to walk down this road? Is it a sin to walk down this road? Like, that's not, that's not a wise person's question. A wise person's question is what pleases God? What puts me in the best opportunity to do what's right. You know, you can have a good time and it doesn't always have to be, well, what, hey, what's going to, you know, get me in the Bible and praying more on this particular Friday evening? Well, you might be able to go out and have a good time like that. That's part of life, part of things that God gave us. But if there's one that's going to potentially lead you away from him or cause you problems or whatever else, it's wisdom. [00:14:46] Speaker C: Yeah, I think the wisdom is where I would go with it is like from a conscience perspective. I think that's a weak argument to say the conscience. Like from a conscience perspective. Am I allowed to go to the strip club? I don't know. Hey, you know, can't buy in that type of thing. Like, yeah, but I know what's going to happen there and I know that that's not in the best, that it's not the best position for me to be in, in order for me to stay solid as a Christian, to not be tempted to not have other issues that, that might come up. So you can look at it and say, what's a conscience issue to go to the strip club? You can't bind that. You can't tell somebody that they're sinning because they may not be lusting, they may not be doing these things. And I would look at it very similarly in the fact that people may go, wow, you're really comparing prom to strip club. Like, have you seen the dresses? [00:15:27] Speaker B: Yeah, another thing here we're talking about 16, 17 and 18 year olds here. Like, you know, Romans 14, talking about, you know, conscience let, you know, again, basically stronger brother, weaker brother. Paul does not have in mind 16 year olds who are still going through, you know, going through puberty and the hormones and you're putting them in a situation with their significant other who is probably not dressed appropriately. There's right, probably, you know, dimly lit room, slow dancing. Like this is a very serious thing here. And, and, and, and all the arguments that somebody could make about once again, your conscience or you know, stronger brother, weaker brother. We're not Talking about a 35 year old seasoned adult here. We're talking about kids who are in a very vulnerable position. Kids who, let's face it, they, they are going to want to be in this position. They're going to want to go with their girlfriend or boyfriend and look around, see other people doing certain stuff. My argument for this has always been you are throwing the door wide open for temptation and not just telling your kid to walk through it. You're shoving them through that door. You are, you are shoving them through it, sending them head first into temptation, saying be careful. Hope you don't stumble. It's just the most. And the question, one of the questions that I had, and I know we got some stats and stuff to get to about what goes on at prom and everybody kind of knows those things. The question that I had was what, who do you blame for this? Like who should the blame for this fall on? When these are. Because the other problem I have with the rite of passage argument. Oh, it's a rite of passage or the, the, it's the cell you're celebrating the milestone of before you graduate. We got sophomores are, that are now going to prom. Like 16 year olds that are going to prom will be in school for three more years. And so it's, it's not like it's the last hurrah for everybody. That's kind of ridiculous. But who should the blame for this fall on? Is a question that I do want to ask you guys because there's a, I think a very legitimate argument to be made. 18 year old Christian, probably baptized, they should be able to discern, they should, if they're going to be baptized, going to be a committed Christian, committed follower of Christ, they need to be able to look at that and make the decision themselves at the same time. I 100%, maybe not 190% put the blame on parents for this. You are supposed to be the guiding hand. You are supposed to be the one shepherding your kids to heaven and you're the one that's usually posing with the pictures, posting the pictures, talking about how cute your kid is at prom and oh my goodness, isn't this, this just the most adorable thing. And to me it's the equivalent of you as a parent sending your child on a road trip with their significant other by themselves, booking them a hotel, booking them separate rooms and y'all have fun and be care. Like to me that's what it's the equivalent of. And we're blaming the young people here. And again, I do hold if there's an 18 year old baptized Christian, hey, you need to be able to say no to that. But man, every young person is going to want to go. Their friends are going. And again, that desire is not right, but you understand it right? And it's made a whole lot easier. That desire is made a whole lot easier when you are given the full go ahead by your parents. When your parents again are the ones pushing it, what 17 year old young person is going to go? Well, mom and dad, I know you want me to go, you're pushing me to go, but I don't think I'm going to go. I blame parents. So it's kind of my long rambling way of saying that I think parents are mostly to blame for this. But what thoughts do you guys have on that? [00:18:42] Speaker A: I think that's a big part of it. One of the comments I got in response to what I wrote was, well, you know, you can't shelter your kids forever. Like there's a degree of they are reaching adulthood. They need to be able to stand on their own because you're going to send these kids to college where they're going to be on your own, out of your side or they're going to go into the workforce, whatever it may be. Yeah, they're reaching adulthood. They need to be able to go out and withstand some temptation and be able to stand by their faith outside of mom and dad's house and all that. I wouldn't send them to the club, I wouldn't send them to, well, hey, I can't shelter them forever. Like there's different levels of this and that's the kind of, as we're going to get into our statistics of this is not a place for Christians to hang out. And yeah, so as parents you need to help draw that line. But the other thing is this isn't the kind of decision that is like a, in a vacuum. Like by the time the kid gets to 18, they should know, hey, these are not the kind of places Christians go hang out. They don't. We don't go hang out where people are dressed like this. We don't go hang out where people are acting like this. We don't hang out where these opportunities for trouble are all around. Like, again, man, read Proverbs. And so the parenting job is not just in this moment of, can I go? Can I not? Or as you're saying, will the ones that really encourage it and kind of live vicariously through, oh, my daughter might be the prom queen. Like, all of that stuff start. It starts way earlier with Proverbs, kind of thinking of, hey, what. What direction are we going here? [00:20:06] Speaker C: That's a great point. Leading up to it is where all the discernment comes from. If you're waiting until prom night, the week of prom, or a couple weeks before or whatever to then have the discussion of, you're not going to prom. [00:20:16] Speaker B: Yeah, that's not going to go well. [00:20:18] Speaker C: Not good. You know, not good. You need to be building that discernment throughout the year where your son knows. Like, we knew Mom, dad, not that we had prom, we were homeschooled and whatnot, but, like, we knew where mom and dad would land on this. This was not like some. Oh, wow. They might say, yes, like, absolutely not. Well, how do we get to that point? Because the rest of the year, we held the standards that basically said, we're not going to do these things. [00:20:37] Speaker B: I'm just imagining you guys going and asking your mother if you can go and what her would be. [00:20:43] Speaker C: She's five foot tall and she'd beat the snot out of me, probably. No, I mean, it's. But truly, though, it would just be one of those. Are you joking? Of course not. Because we don't go to the beach in the summers, and we don't do. There's all sorts of things that we don't do because we live differently. And I don't care how much you're getting pushed, you have to. And I think this is a great opportunity for parents to discuss peer pressure to discuss. Yeah, I know you want to go. And that's one of the problems of parents. Nope, you're not going. Like, it's okay to sit down and go. I really. I understand that you want to go. I understand you want to be a part. Your friends are going to be doing this, and they're going to be talking it up quite a bit. On the other hand, here's some reasons why we're not going to. And really sitting down and going through it and saying, I know this is. Everybody's talking it up as a night to remember. Unfortunately, it's a night to remember in all the wrong ways for a lot of people. And so, yeah, I do blame the parents that not only do they give a pass, but even the parents that are just kind of blase about it, like, so what? You're the responsible adult in the situation. Of course the kid wants to go over and do that. To your point, Will, of course the kid's going to want to. You're intended to know the statistics and to know what's going on. And to that point, I pulled some statistics from a 2017, then I looked it up and a lot of these are still backed up. 2022 articles. 2023 articles. But this is actually Psychology Today, which is very interesting. AAA American Automobile association did a massive survey. They serve at teens age 16 to 19. 31% reported that they or their friends would use drugs or alcohol during prom and graduation season. So almost one in three. Approximately 53% of teens admitted to drinking during or after prom. And those said 53% said they consumed four or more alcoholic beverages. [00:22:17] Speaker B: Four or more. [00:22:18] Speaker C: This is for teens. According to that survey, 87% of teens reported their friends would be more likely to drive after drinking than to call home for a ride. Especially they thought they'd get in trouble. Also concerning, excuse me, is approximately 19% of teens said they have ridden with someone who had been drinking rather than calling their parents to come and get them. Almost one in five had been riding with someone who had been drinking. Nearly 30% of teens know other peers who have received DUIs for impaired driving. Now, if you're thinking not my teen, here's another daunting statistic. The article says about 90% of teens believe their classmates will likely drink and drive on prom night. 90%. 9 out of 10. [00:22:55] Speaker B: That one, because I found that one as well. That one speaks to the connotation of it. They believe that other people will drink. They know what's happening. You know what's happening. Even if they were like, well, I'm not going to. They're like, well, everybody else is going to. [00:23:05] Speaker C: The kids are naive. [00:23:10] Speaker A: Why don't we worship on the Sabbath? Why did God become man? Why did God choose baptism? What are some effective ways to set up Bible studies? If you find these topics interesting at all, then you'll want to get the latest issue of the Quarterly. You'll find articles on these and many more topics like Does God answer prayer? And hey, when did that congregation get there? Digital subscriptions to the Quarterly are completely free and print subscriptions cost less than a family trip to McDonald's. Just go to cobbpublishing.com quarterly. That's cobbcobbpublishing.com quarterly. Find out why the quarterly is called by many the best magazine in the brotherhood. [00:23:47] Speaker C: Here's the other one. So this is mad. Data from Mothers Against Drunk Driving and Chrysler's group Ready Road Ready Teens program found that 74% of teens felt pressured by peers to use alcohol on prom night. Three out of four, 49% said their friends pressured them to try drugs on prom night. So one out of every two, 14% of females admitted to having sex on prom night. One survey of adults about their prom night, their, their prom night previously with older adults found this a little more than 1/4, 29% said they had had sex on the day or night of prom, including 39% of adults aged under 45 and 21% of adults of older adults. And so you can tell that Gen X generation and the millennial generation, four out of 10 are having sex on prom, prom night or day. Like this is a known thing. Okay? So don't, don't come talking about, well, not my kid or xyz. Like, the kids understand the gravity of the situation. The kids understand what's going on. The after parties are atrocious. The immodesty is off the chart. There's an expectation. You're spending a ton of money. The girl, now, you know you had the perfect prom proposal or whatever where you asked her out, you got the limo, you got the corsages and whatever they are. And, and you know, you're just looking, you're looking fly. And you walk in and the chick, she's being schmoozed all night and feels great. And it's like, okay, then alcohol is going around. Then there's peer pressure that's really pushing into it. Then the, if we're talking rite of passage, well, the after party, of course, is rite of passage. You have to go when. If it's not going to stop at prom, why would you not go to the party? And so the after party shows up and, oh, wow, somebody's passing around drugs. Somebody's passing around alcohol. Not my kid. Of course my kid's going to be fine. When the other 60 people at the house party are doing the exact same thing. My kid's not going to. And then when they decide that they're going to get into this, you're impaired. Your girlfriend is in a dress she should not be wearing. She feels obligated because you spent $300 on this night. You're both a little, you know, out of it. You've been dance slow dancing. And the Mood is just right. What do you think is going to happen? This is stupidity. What do you think is going to happen in that situation? And all of the parents that go, not my kid. Are you kidding me? Yes, your kid. Your kid's not, I'm sorry, he's not Jesus. Like he's not going to withstand temptation in this moment and say, wow. And you go, well, hey, there's a lot of kids that do. Sure. And there's a lot of kids that don't. And so, you know, I'm sure there's a lot of Christian kids that lost their virginity on that night too and that got into a lot of things they shouldn't have or if they didn't, they're surrounded by all their friends who did. And that's not great either. So I'm sorry, where's the case for this? This is, these are like worldly statistics. This is not some church program. This is Psychology Today with AAA driving statistics and things like that. So man, let's just, let's cut this. [00:26:29] Speaker B: And what drives me, one more, more point to make. And Jack, I'm sure you were going to get into the stats that you showed that, that are pretty significantly show like it's not that it's getting better, it's actually getting worse. As opposed, you know, when, regarding what goes on at prom night, let's say hypothetically that your kid does not do any like that never gets that far, that they don't cross the line, you know, that they don't, they don't have sex, they don't go to the house party with the drugs. At a bare minimum, what is going to take place, there's going to be some serious lust. We've seen, we've all seen the prom dresses, prom dress pictures. There, there is, there is a ton revealing. And so let's say they go with their significant other the again the pictures and stuff. Even if there, there is no again, you don't cross the line. Not only is there opportunity to get close, you know, get to second, third base, so to speak, there is a serious opportunity for, for lust with the, with the sensual dancing with again the mood that is set and your 16, 17 year old's mind is going to go places that even if they never physically go themselves, their mind is going to go to those places. And once again, you as the parent who are, you know, they're going to say, you know, you're going to come home after, you're not going to go to the party or whatever, you have to deal with the fact that if you put your young person in that situation and you, you are essentially daring their mind to not go there. Listen, I know your date looks great. I know they're dressed pretty immodest, like I'm talking for guys here, I suppose. But I know your girlfriend's dress looks amazing. I know there's going to be the, again the slow dancing, the mood, all those things. Hey, don't lust good luck. Like that is just, that is just so unrealistic. And so I don't want. Because Joe's point is very valid about precisely what could and does take place in a lot of instances, losing your virginity and just putting, you know, all the, all those terrible situations for young people even. But what I don't want to get lost on this is even if it doesn't get that far, even if it doesn't get that far, you are still setting your kid up for failure to send them to prom. Just because the lust portion, just because of where their thoughts are going to go, just because of again, every. Everything else that's going to be going on at a bare minimum is going to have their mind go in all kind of lustful places. And as you really want your 17 year old young man or girl, of course this applies to females as well. You really want their minds going there. But that's what we're doing when we're opening the door for them to go to prom is you are saying here, have at it. Your, your mind can, can go all these places. And it's almost like parents don't think about that. And so I didn't want that point to get lost. Like, even if it doesn't get that far, at a bare minimum, this is what's going to take place in a young person's mind. [00:29:03] Speaker A: It is another thing about this is the. It's so weird how context breaks our brains. Like if you took people dressed the way. And again, we see it all over Facebook. Christian parents post, you know, the. And maybe their daughter wears a more modest one. But I mean you just see the pictures of who's out there and it's not something you go looking for. People post Facebook or my wife and I were, we were out to dinner with the kids somewhere and there, there's just a bunch of, you know, high schoolers walking by and we're looking at each other like what on earth. Because it's one of those, like what district of town are we in? Are we in like the, the red light district of Nashville? I don't know if There is one. But like, and then you kind of start realizing, these kids, these are all like 17 year olds. This is. And so for some weird reason we've got this thing. If somebody showed up to church stressed like that, it'd be like, what are you doing? If somebody showed up to school on Monday dressed like that, it would be, hey, this is not appropriate. The same thing we do with, like, with swimwear. Okay. You know, you wear your underwear that. You don't wear that out in public, but if there's sand under your feet and there's water over there, it's okay. The same thing, weddings, you know, okay. Every day of your life, you're not going to show this much of your skin. Yeah. The gym, there's. There's these contextual things where we just make an exception, as if, like, what will saying the male brain, especially young teenage male brain, like, stops working because, oh, it's a gym. I'm not gonna, you know, like it. No, that's just not. It doesn't work that way. So the same thing for prom of like, if you take them out of that, that high school basketball gym or whatever venue you're holding it in and put them in the grocery store, that's a problem. But all of a sudden. Oh, because they're, they're dancing, like that makes it better. No, it actually makes it worse. And then you add on the after parties and. And so to come back around to Joe's point about like, all the things that go on afterward or whatever, one of the stats I thought was interesting. It was from a YouGov survey and it had some of those that Joe mentioned earlier. One of them, 30%, said they got in trouble with the police. Another was 44% said they dirty danced with someone. Okay, if. So you say, well, my kid goes. And they don't participate. One out of every two at that dance admitted to doing that. You want your kid to be in a room where people are doing that? I mean, like, where they look to. [00:31:16] Speaker B: Their left and there it is, right? [00:31:17] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:31:17] Speaker A: I mean, like, you look to your right, you look to your left, it's all around you. Because 44%. The other thing that I wanted to say about this statistic, the YouGov one was very interesting because they surveyed people 45 and older. They surveyed people 18 to 44. So people like, you're out of high school, what happened at your prom? And everything has gotten much worse. The get in trouble with police. It was like 5% for the 45 and older. It's 30% for 18 to 44 year olds, doing drugs was under 10%. It's up to 28. The dirty dancing was under 20%. It's to 44. Having sex was 20%. Now it's, it's double. It's 39%. It's almost 40. [00:31:53] Speaker B: The people that are like, well, I went to prom and it was okay. It's gotten drastically worse that. [00:31:58] Speaker A: But it's also like, okay, let's say you're a 44 year old dad. You're in that survey. You're, you're, you know, in that one 18 years ago. So you were 26 years old, you had a kid. That's not unreasonable. There's a lot of people like that. Now it's your kid's turn, it's your daughter's turn, it's your son's turn. Look, those experiences, number one. Number two, think about yourself at 17 years old. If a girl walked in half dressed, is that the kind of temptation you needed in that day? Is that the kind of thing you need? Or on the other hand, if you have a daughter, you want to send her into a place where she's surrounded by young men who have the kind of thoughts that 17 and 18 year old worldly young men have. No. And so again with the context thing, the parenting thing, the like the memory erasure kind of thing. What are we doing? What, like the. When we go back to what I read earlier in Hebrews 5 about the discernment and training our senses, how on earth can you say this is one of those things that doesn't matter? It's either a way it's 50, 50, just do what you want. I mean like there's so much here. [00:32:57] Speaker B: And that goes to my point about, sorry, Joe. And then you go for it about your, you as the dad specifically, but obviously the parents, you're supposed to be the responsible one. You're supposed to be the one with a functioning brain to say, yeah, sorry, this is just really not a good idea. Regardless of. And Jack's point about them wanting to live vicariously through their kids is so true. Like again, just the, the posting of the pictures and how beautiful the daughter looks and how dapper the young man looks like it very much is a. I did this and I want my kids to enjoy it as well. And I want to make sure that, you know, that they get the full high school experience or whatever. It truly does seem to me like, you know, these, these parents are turning their brains off completely. It's like you're the One that's supposed to be making the decision not to beat that point to death. But it drives me nuts that these decisions are not being made for the young people by what's supposed to be responsible Christian parents. [00:33:46] Speaker C: What that survey tells you is the parents of 18 year olds, 16, 17, 18 year olds are in that 45 and under range most of the time. Maybe they're hovering right around the line, but a lot of them are going to be in that, that range. They know what took place. That survey just told us it's a disaster for them. So don't act like, oh well, you know, not in my day. Like, no, in your day it was way worse. And I actually think the statistics are going to get better on the sex. And I saw one that kind of was bearing that out with Gen Z. And one of the reasons why is Gen Z, they're not interested in relationships hardly. They don't really seem to be interested. [00:34:17] Speaker A: Well, they said they can't get the boys to talk to the girls at the dance. So maybe it's a little safer than it used to be in some senses. [00:34:23] Speaker C: But I'm not. Yeah, that's not a good thing. I'm not saying that it makes it good, it's just it may come down because of that reason that they're not as, you know, as forthcoming. But that actually shows that there's some hope for the future. And it sounds terrible that like, well, you want the boys talking to the girls. No doubt. On the other hand, the fact that we're not just trying to like jump one another. Yeah, I think that's probably a good thing that we're holding back on that for a second because these are where one night stands take place and teen pregnancies and everything else. I mean, I think we've spelled out statistically why prom is an absolute disaster. I just don't think you can make a biblical case. I don't think you can make a wisdom case for anything having to do with prom. Even if you don't go to the after parties, as we just said, the dirty dancing and everything else like that is still taking place on the dance floor. The immodesty is still taking place there. People spiking, this isn't just on tv, spiking the drinks and things like that, like these things happen. So you could say this is alarmist, but those statistics just proved it's anything but alarmist. One out of two, one out of three, like that's a lot of kids. [00:35:19] Speaker B: I want to speak to the kind of point that Jack made some of the, in my viewpoint, ridiculous arguments that are made to try to justify it in the sense of, well, you know, you can't shelter your kids forever, or does this mean you're just going to shield them from every temptation? I stole this blurb from a this is just the Got questions should Christians go to prom article on Google. Listen to this for just a second. And the reason I wanted to bring this up is because these are arguments that people in support of this, of sending your kid to prom, will make. Says prom can definitely be a temptation pool. And that's a big concern for Christians that are serious about holy living. At the same time, a lot of other places are also rife with temptation. Malls usually have a store with an adult section in the back and at least one store displaying large format pictures of models and lingerie. Given such temptations, should teens avoid malls or should they be allowed to make the decision to control what shops they enter and what they look at stealing from? Listen to this one gets better. Stealing from any given store may also be a temptation, but does that mean that teens should avoid shop stopping altogether? I mean, these are the arguments that people are making. What is so frustrating about that is that is not the proper analogy. The, the first one, the, the, the Victoria's Secret. For example, the proper analogy would be you send your kid into Victoria's Secret for three hours and say, hey, don't look at, don't look at the models. Don't look at the. Like, that's the analogy. It's not walking through the mall. And then the stealing thing at the end, like, okay, so we're seriously going to say that the temptation to, to steal a hoodie from American Eagle is the same as the temptation a young man is going to face? It prompt, like, it's just the most ridiculous arguments are made in support of this. And just that one little paragraph illuminates the ridiculousness of it. [00:37:02] Speaker A: The Kroger is the Victoria's Secret thing. As a kid, mom would tell us, all right, boys, look the other way. And we would. And that training stuck. It was like, yes, we are going to be in the world where there's going to be. Or just somebody might be walking by in the mall and it's like, all right, don't look that way. Like, got it. And that's a practice you carry with you through your entire life to continually seek out that practice. As you're saying, put them in the store. Yeah, that's an absurd thing to do. [00:37:27] Speaker C: I was gonna say walking by for 10 seconds is way different. I was thinking about that from like, Kroger has a wine section, which is a, you know, basically just a can't. Grocery shop, don't grocery shop. It's like, no, you put the kid in the liquor store and you opened all the cabinets. And, like, way different than walking past something one time where for 10 seconds you're just like, okay, you know, and we're onto the next thing. These arguments are just really, really stupid because people ultimately don't want to have to tell their kids no. They don't want to rob their kids of some experience. That's really what it comes down, especially. [00:37:55] Speaker A: On the parenting thing. Dads don't post their kids prom pictures on Facebook. Moms do. So this is a mom's problem. And when it's a mom's problem, it also needs to be dad's problem to step in and say, honey, we cannot send our daughter out of the house like that. We cannot send our kid into that den of lions like, we're not doing that. And so blame falls on both parties. Mom's the one that gets excited about it. Dad's the one that lets it happen. Yeah. Hey, folks, you've probably heard us talk about Focus plus and the Deep End. If you're wondering what that is, Focus plus is our subscription service available through Patreon. Every week, members get all kinds of Christian content for your walk, including daily devotionals, a sermon of the week, and our understudied teaching series, which Joe and I lead through obscure and less covered books of the Bible like Leviticus and Revelation. We also have the Deep End, of course, which is our bonus segment exclusively for Think Deeper listeners, where you can submit your comments on an episode, and we will respond and have a bit of a Q and A each and every week. That drops every Friday. So if you're interested and want to know more, check that out. Go to patreon.com and search focus or go to focuspress.org/. [00:39:04] Speaker B: But this is where we'll go back to our Masculinity matters content that we harp on a lot. How many dads just don't want to be the bad guy? It's like, okay, I don't. I don't want to be the enemy of not just my daughter, but also my wife, who's really. [00:39:18] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [00:39:19] Speaker B: So I'm going to choose to step. Step back on this one. I'm going to take the picture with like. So, yes, I wanted to ask you guys. And I've got one more overall kind of point I want to make. And I know we've got a little, a few more things we want to get to, but what are yalls thoughts on kind of the, the alternatives, the problem alternatives? [00:39:36] Speaker A: I was going to ask that. But also the twist on that is we look at some of those stats, things really weren't that bad for like the 50 and older range in there. And so like let's say you go back, was it okay to a point and it stopped being okay. And those prom alternatives I think are an attempt to maybe create a better time, a safer time or whatever else. And so yeah, was there a time it was okay and is there a way to do it okay now I guess would be those two questions. So I stole your question and turned it back on. [00:40:02] Speaker C: So guys, you know, what are your thoughts on this? [00:40:07] Speaker A: Can't steal my move there. [00:40:09] Speaker B: But no, you'll see like homeschool communities will do like the banquet thing where there's no dancing. They get, they have a dress code typically. And so it usually is just a really nice dinner. You still have a date and it's heavily supervised. Obviously no alcohol. I'll give my take. I think if you list out the pro. So first of all, it goes without saying that is miles better than sending your kid to the high school. Like there's no, no debating that. That is without question. If you had to choose one, that's the one you want to go with. To me, this, this question comes down to are you okay with your 16, 17, 18 year old being in a kind of date banquet situation with their significant other? And this is not to get into like a dating necessarily type of discussion, but there's a lot of people that would say listen, I don't want my 17, my 17 year old's not ready for marriage. So therefore he or she has no business going to a fancy dinner where there's kind of an assumption that you're a couple like that. That's kind of the argument that I think that I would say that it's against it. I'm not opposed to the, to the Christian alternatives. And the main reason is as long as again with all those caveats in place of heavily supervised. That's the other thing about the prom is they'll say that it's, it's supervised. It's like, okay, there's three adults there type of thing. But with these banquets that typically going to have lots of adults, there is no dancing. You strictly enforce the dress code. I don't have a huge problem with the Getting dressed up, having a nice dinner, especially because I do. I don't necessarily sympathize but like you do have a lot of Christian young people that are going to want to go to the prom just to not miss out. Like it's one of those things they don't want to miss out on. And so hey, here's a safer Christian alternative. I'm not opposed to it. Now, would I send my 17 year old daughter? Probably not. And I have, I have a two year old daughter. But what did you say? [00:41:49] Speaker C: Why not? [00:41:51] Speaker B: I think just unless she was going with her, you know, 17, she's not gonna be engaged. Let's say she's 18 and engaged to somebody. I would have probably less of a problem at that point. I think I would say there's an assumption when you're, when you're that young and because I'm not going to be letting my kids date that young and so why would I put my kids in a situation where it's like, okay, you're, you're dating but you're not dating, you're not allowed to date. Does that make sense? Like to me this is a dating anything. Like as far as if you're a Christian parent who is going to let your kids date and all those things, then I don't really see the problem with the, with the prom alternative, the banquet, that kind of thing, if that makes sense. Like the reason, the reason I'm not going to send my kids is because, or I wouldn't send my 17 year old daughter or 17 year old son is because he's probably not anywhere close to marriage at that point. And so I don't really see the, the point in it. [00:42:44] Speaker C: That's where I was going to go with it is look, let's all rewind the clock here. For some of us, you know, it's going to take a little longer to rewind the clock there, Jack, but let's rewind the clock back. [00:42:53] Speaker A: Haven't been worth off and you're still taking the shots. [00:42:56] Speaker C: That's right. 16, 17, 18 years old. What hormones, what feelings, what emotions are coming up for that? And you could say, well you can't shield your kids from that forever. You can't. But I'll be honest, I've seen plenty of those problem alternatives. They were going on in my day too, which wasn't all that long ago. Right. But look, at the end of the day, plenty of immodesty still. Well, we have a dress code. I've seen, look, nobody turns the girl away when she shows up with an immodest dress, nobody is the jerk who goes, hey, go home. She spent $200 on this dress or whatever it may be, and this is like the night of her life. Who's going to be the jerk that tells her, go home. [00:43:31] Speaker A: Here's my Denver Broncos hoodie. [00:43:33] Speaker C: Yeah, exactly. Wear this for the rest of the night. That's just not going to happen. I saw plenty of modesty there, too. All of the picture all over Facebook. I understand your point, but I'm looking at it like, man, I think you are opening a can of worms when you have just this angelic setting type of thing. And I know you could. You can make plenty of cases for why that's way better. And it is way better. But on the other hand, man, I'm still looking at it from an emotional, hormonal everything point of view going, do I really want my kid being put in a, a situation like that, largely unsupervised and largely around other knucklehead kids? [00:44:06] Speaker B: But see, I gave the clarification. I gave the. Yeah, no, heavily supervised. Go ahead, Jack. [00:44:11] Speaker A: I think there's good to Will's point. I think there's good ways to do it, you know, ways that you can handle this. I mean, you can be serious about modesty. You can be. You say, yeah, it's hard to be that guy. Just take a stand. I mean, like, you've got to make it abundantly clear what's allowed and what's not allowed. And if you've made that clear and they show up and they don't do it, well, sorry. And the, And I, you know, I think there are places that probably have pulled that off. Well, the thing I would say is, as much as it can be a non couple event, I think that's healthy because the thing that. And this kind of will lead us into our rites of passage discussion. One of the problems of extended adolescence is we keep giving younger and younger people more adult, like the fun experiences without any of the responsibility or expectations. And that's kind of one of those things where you kind of show up pretending to be almost a married couple or an almost married couple. It's like, you're not, you have not earned that. You're not even close to that. Let's not play around with that. The kind of awakening love before it's time kind of thing. The idea of like a non couple, one of all the young guys and girls in an area or in a church or a group or whatever, dressing up nice and having A nice dinner together. I think that's good. I think that is kind of a healthy rite of passage of like, hey, you didn't get to do. [00:45:18] Speaker B: There are a good amount of do that as well. [00:45:20] Speaker A: Exactly. [00:45:21] Speaker B: Dates. You just get together and do it. [00:45:22] Speaker A: And I think that there's a positivity to that on that. [00:45:25] Speaker B: So. [00:45:25] Speaker A: Yeah, I, I mean, I'm, I'm not the biggest fan in the world because there is the other side of this discussion of like, are we taking something fundamentally broken and unclean and trying to, you know, put a nice spin on it or. But dressing up nice and having a nice dinner, you know, I don't see a huge problem. Yeah. So I'm not fire breathing against it like Joe, but, you know, I. Yeah, I don't know. [00:45:49] Speaker B: Well, we've established Joe's the anti fun person. [00:45:51] Speaker A: That's right. [00:45:54] Speaker C: I'm looking at it going, you went out to dinner with a bunch of what is. Write a passage about this. Like you could have had them over and had. Good. Because let's, let's also be honest. You go out with 20 couples. You probably don't like 17 of them. So why would you not just have your three best friends? You know. [00:46:13] Speaker B: I don't know. [00:46:13] Speaker C: I just, I don't see that as some major rite of passage. I'm perpetually reading through this book. I've mentioned it a bazillion times. I will finish it one of these days. [00:46:24] Speaker B: You were reading it when we started the podcast, right? In 2022? Yeah, pretty close. [00:46:28] Speaker C: Pretty close. You know, page a day, maybe a paragraph a day. But the idea is like, there are better ways. And this transitions. [00:46:34] Speaker A: I sort of think you have to pick one. I don't think there's like. [00:46:38] Speaker C: I agree, I agree. But I'm, I don't know, looking at it like, what is the. I'm not, I'm certainly not going to condemn anybody for doing the, the prom. I think you can be real out there with prom as we're talking about. I really don't think that's wise or good for Christians for this one. I'm not as dogmatic about it. It's kind of the same as bachelor parties for me, which is, yes, they have a certain connotation. There's plenty of Christian bachelor parties that are perfectly fine where you're going to. We went to Buffalo Wild Wings and went to putt putt golf and bowling. Like cool. You know, there's plenty of those that go well, even though it has very negative connotations. So you can reclaim it to something good. And I suppose this is what you, you know, you can reclaim something good. I just. Man, I don't know. It just seems like putting kids in a highly romanticized setting has. You're playing with fire in a way, in my opinion. Even if they're super modest and everything else. Like, I don't know. It seems like you're playing with fire to me. [00:47:28] Speaker B: I know we're getting into the rites of passage. I wanted to make one final point about the whole prom discussion, going back to not the alternative, though, but going back to the prom discussion specifically as it pertains to Christians. The amount of articles that I saw that, to paraphrase and essentially sum them up, were like, there's a lot of temptation. We shouldn't be conformed to the world. But so, but essentially the end of the article was so stay safe at prom and have fun type of thing. There's one. There was one article. ChristianParenting.org says, can we talk about prom? Take a guess at what the gender of the person who wrote the article was. And I'm not trying to be rude here, but like, it was, it was. It was a woman. It was a mom. Her three points were Romans 12:1 and 2. Do not be conformed to this world. First Peter 2, verse 9. You are a chosen generation. First Peter 5, verse 7. Cast your anxiety cares on him. Those were her three points. This is how the article this is how the article concluded. Turning to these three verses, sharing and praying them with our teens reminds us God is in charge and how much he loves us in our high schoolers. We can talk to him about our prom situations and sagas and trust in his ways, not the ways of culture. Doing so can relieve some of the prom drama and remind our kids how loved they are no matter what does or doesn't happen on the dance floor. The gist of the article was and the gist of the article was here's all these verses that basically say, don't be conformed to the world, so talk to your kids about it. And essentially still giving the green light to go to prom. Another one, just last one here from Christian BroadcastingNetwork.com this is the key. The name Christian should be lived out at all times, especially at prom. Remember, as a Christian, you represent Jesus at all times. Set a good example with your life, especially at prom. Here are a few quick tips that will help you keep your witness on the dance floor. And then it concludes with for those who decide to for those who decide to go the prom Is not only a great chance to make fun filled memories, but an opportunity to be an example of purity, dignity and most importantly, a life committed to Christ. These are like. So I guess my point in reading both of those is please don't try to ride the middle ground of like, here's the temptations. Don't be conformed to the world, but have a great time, like fun, be safe. Yeah. [00:49:34] Speaker A: With tracks in the pocket of his tux. [00:49:38] Speaker C: Witness on the dance floor. Sounds like some Madonna song or something like that. Like keep your witness on the dance floor. You can't be serious. That's. Well, this is what we were assigned to. [00:49:48] Speaker B: Yes. [00:49:48] Speaker C: This is what we get down to is we don't want to say no, we don't want to be the bad guys. We don't want to rob them of these experiences, bring in a few spiritual. [00:49:55] Speaker B: Points, but ultimately say, hey, go for it, right? [00:49:57] Speaker C: Just use your, use your discernment, which is going to be highly impaired in those moments. Not even if alcohol is involved, but just highly impaired from bazillion other things. But here's a question I have, fellows. How much is a once in a lifetime, which now as you've made the point will, you know, sophomore and junior and senior year, you're going two and three times. But let's just say it's a once in a lifetime opportunity. How much is that experience worth? I do think there are moments in life where once in a lifetime opportunity is. I'm not saying you put yourself in temptation or sin or anything else, but I think this is what we get into with, yes, the rite of passage. But also some of these like really key experiences that you're only going to get to experience once. I don't think this is one that needs to be had per se. But on the other hand, I don't know how much is an experience like that worth because we do seem, the culture seems to put it like way high. I don't think putting it on the ground, which is exactly what I'm doing, I suppose. I don't think that's necessarily the right thing either. There is a level of like, yeah, and maybe this is the rite of passage that I'm talking about is some of these experiences I think are worth it. For instance, you know, if you have an opportunity to. I know these are not the same, so just bear with me. But like if you had an opportunity to travel to a third world country and do mission work or whatever it is, it's a once in a lifetime. I think you should I think that's something you should not miss out on. There's lessons learned, things like that. I think some once in a lifetime opportunities are worth taking. So when it comes to this, should you. I'm not saying like, should we go to prom? But like, where does the discussion come in for rites of passage for, you know, a young kid having an experience that really is going to be a fundamental experience for them? I think there are some experiences out there that kids should be having in some degree that is going to kind of bring them or usher them into manhood. So it gets us into a discussion on rites of passage. What should it look like if not prom? Maybe prom alternative though I don't think that's much of a right personally much, much of a passage like, wow, you're an adult now. Like, not really. But I do think those are important. I think the once in a lifetime opportunities, I think that the, the, you know, these moments to become a man or to become a woman are really important. But what should that look like if not prom? How do we start bringing these kids into manhood and into womanhood? [00:52:08] Speaker A: Adult angry. I think there are things the church can do. This is something I don't think is great, is that a lot of times we'll just kind of throw young guys up there, let's have them preach or whatever. Like, no, if there's really like a process of, hey, we're going to get this guy involved, he's going to study under some of the guys and really be brought along and then he can participate, that kind of thing. Obviously for men, the masculinity side hunting, things like that, I think are your first gun. That's a rite of passage from a father to pass down to a son and things like that when you reach adulthood, it's hard because we've kind of farmed that out to colleges or, you know, the workforce or whatever, that they're going to be the one that kind of anoints you as ready for the world. Even though, like, I mean, come on, they do, they really do that. They don't do a very good job of it. And so it's hard to say, I mean, like, you're kind of rewriting a whole system here of rethinking telling your kid, hey, you're becoming an adult, or here you're, you're on this stage of this journey or whatever the case may be. So as far as like a specific rite of passage, especially for girls, that's, that's a little bit of a harder one. I'M not sure that's. What do you guys think? [00:53:16] Speaker B: Well, let's, I would say let's define rite of passage. Oh, I think you're probably going to be the most well versed person to be able to speak on this based on the three year book project that you've been working through. [00:53:26] Speaker C: Just called man make your project for anybody. I don't know that I said that. So if anybody's listening. [00:53:29] Speaker B: The man make it project. Yeah. [00:53:30] Speaker C: Yes. [00:53:31] Speaker B: So I'm assuming what we're talking about here is kind of like what signifies a either full or semi transition from boy to man specifically for guys and for girls obviously girl to woman and man. I was just thinking like back to when I was young, like what kind of made me think, because you hear that question of like, well, what made you, what, when did you become a man essentially? When did you think of yourself as a man? I think that's an interesting question to ask kind of guys our age because it wasn't that long ago. When did you think yourself as a man? To me it's when you know things like getting a, getting a real paying job, your first real paying job where you're, you know, getting a paycheck and, and you're putting in hours. Like I think that's, I think that would qualify as a rite of passage of like, okay, you're, you know, you're not at a, you know, this is a very old example. Like you're not at a lemonade stand anymore or you're not, you know, working the work in the fair type of thing just one summer, you know, for a week in the summer. Like no, you have a real paying job. I would think of a rite of passage. I think getting a checking account as a 16, as a 17, 18 year old. Of like you're paying for your, some of your own stuff, you're paying for your car's gas or you're paying for your own auto insurance. [00:54:37] Speaker A: The driver's license itself is one. That's the driver's license out of away. [00:54:41] Speaker B: Yeah, I had that one on my list as well. Of like, you are taking some form of responsibility, some form of. Again, I'm paying for my gasoline, I'm paying for my, my auto insurance, the, the food that I want to eat or whatever like that is. I think back not near as long ago as you guys of when I was kind of transitioning into a man. That's what comes to mind for me is when I was starting to do things, you know, for myself. That again, the job, the the checking account, the, the driver's license. And so those are, I guess, a little bit harder, a little bit less tangible. But I mean, even something like graduation, I don't necessarily think is, is a, is bad for a rite of passage. I mean, it's a huge milestone. But I would shy more or I would lean more towards some of those natural things of, again, license, job, checking account that make you feel like, okay, I'm, I'm moving into adulthood. I'm going to be honest here. For, for girls, I'm a little bit, I feel a little bit less prepare to discuss on that just because I obviously don't have the female perspective. I think a female's role in adulthood should be different than a guy's. And so, yeah, gel kind of defer to you if you've got some other things you want to bring up for guys, but then for girls as well, I'm interested to hear what you have to say for what should a girl's rite of passage be? [00:55:53] Speaker C: So I was actually looking through this book as far as Goes with the Boys, he makes this point. Chris Bruno again in Man Maker Project. He says the goal of formalized initiation is to uncover and grow the seeds of manhood that God has placed in the depths of the boy's heart. The father and older men guide, direct, train and complete that which God has already begun. It is the father's place to ally with God in the making and finishing of the boy's manhood. In essence, the question in the boy's soul stems from his manhood wanting to be set free. And the initiatory rites of the father catalyze his new birth. When this occurs, the boy no longer strives for manhood, but is set free to aim for maturity. Manhood is what fathers offer their son, and maturity is what boys turn men, boys turned men give back to the world. And I thought that was a really interesting point of like, striving for maturity, looking for, yeah, really looking to bring somebody into it. Like, what does it mean to be mature? And in my opinion, and he kind of gets into this is like, there's got to be a level of confronting your own mortality, confronting responsibility, what it means to be able to fail. Like, you don't know what it means to be able to fail until something's on the line. And I don't think going back to it, I don't think prom is where you're really having to deal with it or ask any of those questions. I was thinking about that question while you were talking of when did I know that I kind of became a man of sorts. And to me it's interesting. Like I did travel to Ghana in Africa. It was the first time I really traveled alone and I traveled around the world. And so you get into Germany on a layover and it's like, whoa, this is new, this is weird. I have to make these decisions for myself. And you get into Ghana and find him, my buddy. And you know, we almost left the airport because we were so delayed. And I mean I would have been stuck in a third world country knowing nothing, having no money, things like that. And some people have those, those opportunities or those experiences which can be really, really scary. But there's this idea of like you're having to conquer something. You're having to think for yourself, you're. You're having to face some of these questions and responsibilities that you're not used to. And it was an eye opening experience for me. And I think that's what we have to recreate for the boys is maturity, responsibility and a little bit of like pain and, and not suffering per se. But like historically speaking that was very much a rite of passage around the world. It's very much part of the rite of passages, facial scarring and things like that to prove I can take it, I can take it, I'm a man. So from the man's perspective, you have to do something like that. Whether that is once again the traveling. Some people forge knives like they forge their own swords or forge their own knives and they're going through that process. And some people do like projects out in the community where they really forced to deal with things that they're not usually forced to deal with and they're brought into the real world in a structured way. But it brings about maturity and responsibility and recognizing like, I belong in the world and this is my place and what I do in the world. For females, it's a lot tougher. I think the father is key to the male coming into it and I think the mother's key to the female in helping them understand. Like, when have you become a woman? It's not always going to be childbearing. I imagine. Again, we're not women here, but I imagine that's probably a very amazing opportunity. Eye opening experience where it's like, whoa, you know, and that's, you probably feel like a woman in that moment. I don't think you're going to have the same. You're not bringing them into like taking all of the responsibility in the moment. Because a man's job is to lead his family. So it's going to be a different rite of passage and initiation. We have sexualized it. In the world of prom, if you are sexually desirable and if you get asked out to prom by some stud, then you're good to go, you know, then that shows that you're really coming into your as a woman. Like no. Women is so much more about just attracting the hot guy. There has to be more involved in that and it has to be, you know, maybe service projects and things like that. And it's the same as a guy where you're forced to deal with things you're not usually dealing with. Taking responsibilities in some ways. But again, I think it's different for guys to have to step up and face mortality than for females. That's why facial scarring and such around the world is for males, not really for the females as much, because the rite of passage is different. Most of the time it's going to be childbearing, though, for them. That's not necessarily the case for us because a lot of women don't have kids or it's late in their 20s, 30s, whatever it may be, and they're women before that. But that's a more nuanced approach. I just think that prom is the worst way to look at it as a rite of passage because I don't think it accomplishes any of those things. [00:59:59] Speaker A: It's just like the fun without any responsibility or anything. [01:00:02] Speaker C: Correct. [01:00:03] Speaker A: It's kind of funny though when you're talking about going through some pain and I've had a couple of de facto, I don't know, coming of age, rite of passage, whatever you want to call it, where it wasn't anything planned or programmed, but something very challenging happen. And it was like, oh, now what? And I was one of them was. I was in Austin, Texas. It was 10 o'clock on a Friday night. My car died. Like, wouldn't work, couldn't figure out what to do with it. And my phone was on 3% and I was 45 minutes from my hotel. And you're just out there by yourself, you know. Thankfully I was able to get that solved. But it kind of like you came out of that night like, wow, I accomplished. I didn't know I could handle it. I'm like, am I asleep in the. Not like I'm going to die out there, but like kind of start panicking. My car's dead, I got to go. [01:00:45] Speaker B: Preach. [01:00:45] Speaker A: You know, back in, like responsibilities and all that stuff. Fun things like that. That not fun. At the time. But, you know, something simple that you kind of grow into. Okay, I can handle things. So. Interesting thoughts there, Joe. Will, do you have anything else on the rites of passage? [01:01:00] Speaker B: The only other thing I was going to say was if. If we do this properly and, you know, we just did our best to spell it out. Joe, you did the best. You did the best job of it. But if we do this properly, you know what it's going to get rid of the adulting thing that people do of. Oh, my good. Like, that's what I thought of, Jack, when you're telling your story of, like, the people are like, I made a phone call today. I adulted. Or I paid a bill. And it's like, listen, if we can get that to where that's not an accomplishment, that is just part of your transition into, like, we will be in much better places. Society. I think that's kind of died out a little bit that. No offense, you guys, that was very much a millennial thing to do the. Again, I adulted today. That's just. [01:01:34] Speaker A: Well, I mean, that there is a degree where it's getting worse with Gen Z, where they're talking about they're taking their parents to job interviews and stuff, or the stuff of the prom where, like, they say the boys and the girls sit on opposite sides. They won't talk to each other because they're so scared of, like, breaking the ice or whatever. Like, it's getting worse, that inability to handle basic life functions thing. And that's something Christian parents really need to make sure your kids are ready for. And one of the ways to do that is not by throwing them in the lion's den and saying, have at it. Have fun. [01:02:02] Speaker C: Well, the world has their own initiation rights, which is, yes, it's prom. It's going out and getting blazing drunk on your 21st birthday. You know, doing. Going out with your buddies. As soon as you get your license at 16 or whatever, you're gonna go out with your buddies and go do something. It's the bachelor party. Like, they have the crazy ways, but it's all their way of trying to determine, like, when am I a man? And there's a lot of people that still don't know I'm a man or I'm a woman and I have responsibilities. I matter in this world. You've done a horrible job on that. [01:02:32] Speaker B: Sorry, Last thing. I think for a man, part of it, too, is like, are you producing anything for the world? All those examples you gave just now, Joe, like, what are you producing Absolutely nothing. You're having a good time. You're probably being stupid, doing immature things. It's like, congratulations, that's not. That's not life. Life is for men. Specifically, what are you producing in the world? And that's why I go back to the. Getting a job and paying for stuff. And like you, you are making something of yourself by. By. By being a. A productive individual in the world, in the economy, so to speak. And to me, that's a much better example of what it is. Even hunting, for example, that Jack brought up. Like, at least you're. And so I. That's where I would make the distinction between all the stupid things that the world says or writes of passages like, okay, it's a fun, fun time. There's no production of anything valuable. And when you're 30 years old, man, how. How valuable is your time when you were 16 and went out, you know, drag racing down the interstate, or the time when you went out and got hammered with your friends when you were 21? Like, those things, that's not life. That's just a fun experience. That's not a rite of passage. [01:03:35] Speaker C: But specifically for boys, we do want to know that. Why do you think we do risk so much and take stupid risks out there? Because especially in the church, we don't offer any risk for boys. We don't offer any way to prove themselves as a man other than Jack. I like the idea of hunting. Like, we want to be able to prove ourselves as a man at some point. And because the world seems to be the only way. We got a lot of men in the church that don't ever realize, like, they're actually men. They wake up one day, go, man, I got a wife and two kids, and I guess I'm a man. Like, we as the church. And this will be the last thing I say, we as the church have to do a better job of initiating people and bringing them into adulthood and helping them realize you are now a man. And whatever that looks like, maybe that's high school graduation. I don't know. Whatever that looks like, we need to make a big celebration out of it. And we need to let them know this is a transition point. The Jews have bar mitzvahs, things like that, and bar mitzvahs, which is intended to kind of let them know that we have to have something along those lines to say, you are now a man. Here's what's expected of you instead of, you just get to coast until you're out of college, until you have a family. Or whatever else. [01:04:33] Speaker A: Sure. So anyway, all right, we're going to close with Think Fast. That was something we kind of were doing there for a while, but it was always rapidly tacked on to the end of the episode. We're actually back in the day when Think Fast started. It was a standalone segment of kind of the news of the day that we would put out on Thursday nights. And what we're going to do now is we're going to put these out as standalone clips on YouTube on Thursday. I might even put it on Friday, might even put them in the podcast feed for you to just have something to listen to at the end of the week. But they are going to be also at the end of your episode. So you might listen to this on Friday, listen to the podcast on Monday, and you're like, yeah, I already heard that thing. But that's fine. What we want to do is the advantage of doing it on Friday is we can react to the current events of that week. And so this week one of them we want to talk about. There's been so much about the tariffs and we're not able to analyze. I mean, it's going to take a long time to determine if that's a good idea or a bad idea. Obviously the short term pain is the one obvious thing is whether or not it'll pay off is what's being debated. But I thought was interesting is Trump and he drew some heat from for this. But President Trump said maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls and maybe the two dolls will cost a couple of bucks more than they would normally talking about the Chinese toys and goods and all that stuff that our houses are filled with and about people's kids feeling deprived that they're not going to have this stuff. Some people took that to say, hey, this is a guy that lives in a gold plated mansion telling me that my kids are going to have less toys and that's not okay. Others kind of went the other way about materialism. And so what do you guys think about that idea of doing with less of if, if these trade wars do lead to some of that, you know, obviously we don't want to starve or have like real needs. But where things stand, if things went backwards, standard of living wise or, or toys wise or things wise, would that be a good thing, a bad thing? Is that something that we should look at as like, hey, don't endorse this or this is a positive. What do you guys, where would you go with that? [01:06:26] Speaker C: It's easy to you go, it's easy to say it from this side instead of the other side. And people, that's what people are going to say is, oh, well, you know, you haven't lived it and so therefore, you know, you're just naive. I'm okay with it. I think our materialism, our consumerism is off the charts. I think it's. It's to an insane level. And I don't personally think that's a good thing. I think us getting back to, yeah, maybe, maybe my kids have two or three toys. They last longer, but they cost more the way that most of Americans had it for most of life up until in the last couple decades, few decades. I think we are better off that way. I think it does create a level of contentment a lot more. Parenting is going to get easier in a consumeristic world where everything is handed to you immediately and it's cheap and it's available and yes, it's Chinese and it's garbage and it'll fall apart in two months, but who cares? We'll just buy another one because it's so cheap. That creates this consumeristic Amazon being a bazillion dollar company. Like, we have a lot of that in America. I don't think that's healthy. We don't talk about that in the church. Materialism is a problem for a lot of Americans. And I do think that, yes, it's easy for me to say it on this side, and I know life could be a lot harder, but from a Christian perspective, I think this actually might help for us to really define what is it that matters. Can I be content in what I have when my kid doesn't have 45 toys floating around my house every single day? Like, yeah, I think we can find contentment in those moments. So that's my take on it. Will, what are your thoughts? [01:07:49] Speaker B: This is probably my biggest old man take that I have. And that is, kids really don't need a lot of toys. They need to be playing outside. They need to be playing with sticks. Give, sure, give them a football, give them a baseball, basketball, whatever. They can be playing, playing with those. Other than that, I really don't think they need a lot. And I've even transitioned or like taking that into my own home. I've told Rachel, and this is mainly because I look around at the toys that we have, and all my kids want to do is play ball with me and they want me to read books to them. It's like they don't care about the toys. They really don't and so I've told her, like, hey, if we have, you know, we're gonna have birthday parties and stuff for our kids, like, please tell everyone, do not bring my kid a toy. Do not bring them a present, don't bring them a gift. You want to bring them something, bring them a book or something like that. I do think, because the other thing, you think about it too, when you're opening presents as an adult, you get somewhat of a dopamine hit, right? You don't think kids have that as well, like for the shiny new plastic toy. And, and you see them, you see them at birthday parties and Christmas too. Like the open one, it's cool onto the next one, cool onto the next one, cool on the next one. Like, there really is to me a lack of appreciation that we are instilling in young and young kids when it's just 14 toys for their birthday and then 24 toys for Christmas that they're opening. And so I think this is just kind of a larger discussion, the points about, you know, Trump and how wealthy he is, trying to say that, you know, I see where people are coming from. Like, it's a reasonable take, I suppose. But at the end of the day, from an overall perspective, I do not have a problem with that statement of like, yeah, maybe they don't need 30, they can stand with two. Especially when, again, my overall take is like, send your kids outside, man. Send them out in the dirt. Let them go play, you know, let them, let them go run around, let them get their energy out, let them be in the sunlight, let them again, entertain themselves. Imagine we're, yeah, don't stick them in front of a screen. Like, again, probably my biggest old man take. But like, I am not, I have zero problem with whoever it is, Trump or whoever, saying, hey, maybe your kids could use a few less toys. Like, I will, I will second that 100%. Yeah. [01:09:49] Speaker A: The thing for me with this, on the whole thing is like, if the trade offs work in the sense of, like, economically, if the trade offs work, but the same with this, of if it's fewer gadgets and toys, but they're higher quality and they last and things like that, I for that, you know, I agree with you guys. There should be fewer, but if we get fewer and it's still garbage, that would be a pretty significant bummer, you know, like, that's something we need to get back to as a society. And I think about that we're talking about this with kids and toys a lot, but as adults, how much Junk do we pile up that we just don't need? And I think about the things around the house I really appreciate are the things, you know, longtime listeners might remember me envious that Joe had, you know, acquired an espresso maker. I'm like, I gotta get one. So my wife and I saved for like over a year because those aren't cheap. You know, we wanted to get a good quality one that would last us a while. That's one of our favorite things in the entire house. You know, it's like quality. It costs more. We didn't go out and get it right away. It's very expensive. But you save and it matters to you. And it's the same thing for kids, like when they've got one toy that they really love that's really cool. When they've got 50 and they just don't even know what to do with them. Well, the same as adults, we're surrounded by junk. We're surrounded by materialism. And you know, to bring it back to the scriptures, I think in First Timothy 6 where Paul says that a godliness with contentment is a means of great gain. It doesn't mean you're. It's not Joel Osteen, like you're going to get rich. It means it's that old phrase about not having what you want but wanting what you have. And that's easier to do when you're not inundated with something new every week and something like that. So economically, who knows if it's hard times ahead, but I think it could be a better reset if we get back to something like that. So, yeah, that's our Think Fast for this week. Any final thoughts from you guys? [01:11:28] Speaker B: I just wanted to say for our regular listeners to the episode, Jack, I don't know if you'll cut this out of the, of the YouTube clip, but we pre. We're glad to be back and we appreciate you listening and we appreciate you, you know, giving us a, you know, one month hiatus, letting us kind of take a break and hopefully you're, you're just as rejuvenated to listen and to. For the deep thinkers as well, to provide your comments and feedback and thoughts as. As we were to give the, the takes and the opinions. So appreciate all of our listeners as always. [01:11:56] Speaker A: Absolutely. And with that, we're going to wrap right there and we'll talk to you on the next one.