Absurdity with Ryan Becker

Yes, we know we are late, but it doesn't make the subject matter any less important! Don't let Ryan's poor scheduling and calendar awareness keep you from an important conversation on racism and how we can keep improving in how we treat one another.

What do Christians with anti-immigration mindsets and beliefs have to do with missionary work? A surprising amount, to be honest. Tony and Ryan talk this week about how Western missionary culture actually perpetuates anti-immigration attitudes and beliefs and what that means for the rest of us.

Ryan and Tony talk about Servant Leadership and what its role in current society is. Given the recent behavior of Trump and other leaders, what is servant leadership and why does it matter? It turns out, it matters a lot.

Tony and Ryan talk the Super Bowl, immorality, and why the half time show wasn't as problematic and immoral as people are making it out to be. Maybe, just maybe, there are worse things around sporting events like the Super Bowl that we should be paying attention to.

What a weird 3-parter this has been! But, we've talked apologies and forgiveness, so now it's time to talk about the conflicts themselves and why resolution is so important. We talk myths and misunderstandings, abuses in conflict resolution, and more!

Last week, we talked apologies. This week, we talk about the counterpart of apologies: Forgiveness. What does it look like to actually forgive someone? Do you have to forgive someone when you accept their apology? What if you can't bring yourself to forgive someone?

One of the most tragic things in conflict is when someone uses an apology to manipulate or cause further pain to the person they have already offended. Tony and Ryan jump into what makes inappropriate apologies, well, inappropriate. What does it look like to apologize well? How can you, if you are a victim of an offense, respond to apologies and is it the same as forgiveness?

Maybe you grew up like we did, and maybe your family or people in your church struggled with movies and books like Harry Potter, Star Wars, and other "secular" media. We wonder if that's really the best practice. What is the value of those stories compared to some of the stories in Scripture? How does a Christian culture that insists on the Bible as the sole source of "narrative" instead of other media actually impact the lives of growing children, curious teenagers, and mature adults. What role does discernment play as we consume any content, from the Bible or otherwise?

Philippians 4:8

Isaiah 44:19-20

1 Kings 4:29

Psalm 119:66

Isaiah 29:14

Matthew 13; Mark 4; Luke 8

Isaiah 1:16

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Bryant Rodriguez, a campus pastor at Crosswalk Chattanooga and social media guru at McKee Foods, joins Ryan to talk about living in the tension between where you are and where you want to be. They dive into the confusion and the pain that causes as well as what both Ryan and Bryant did to embrace the tension they experienced.

For our last episode of 2019, Ryan and Tony dive into the wonderful mess that is the overlap of politics and religion! Recently, ChristianityToday has started a bit of a controversy with it's stance on President Trump's impeachment and how he has harmed the reputation of Christianity. So, where do Christians speak up and where does Absurdity find itself in all of this?

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