Absurdity with Ryan Becker

We catch you up to speed on the Hong Kong protests, just how serious the situation there is, and how that compares to our experience as Americans regarding protests and rallies that happen around the country. When protesting seems optional to us, how should we respond to those for whom protesting is necessary? And don't worry, our SDA Annual Council reactions are coming next week!

In this episode, we talk about Shane Gillis' recent hiring and immediate firing from SNL. Does a like or a retweet on Twitter pose an actual danger in the real world?

Aaron Mumu joins Ryan for a conversation on the more secretive realities of outreach schools like SOULS-West, sharing from his personal experience with a school similar to it, SOULS-Northwest. They discuss the good and bad that exists within the culture as well as how they think it could be made better. We also want to thank Sasha Mejia for being courageous in sharing her story and experience so transparently so that a bright light could be shown on such an important topic.

We jump into the recent viral news regarding the internal culture at RELEVANT Magazine and the toxic behavior and racist attitudes that have existed within it that were perpetuated by the founder and CEO, Cameron Strang. We discuss Former editors' Andre Henry and Rebecca Marie Jo's articles exposing the culture, the backlash that resulted, and how this entire situation impacts Absurdity. We get incredibly personal with you and we explore what RELEVANT's situation means for us going forward.

Tony and Ryan address the recent sexual assault controversy at Oakwood University, address their own personal feelings about the topic, and also discuss their own failures and inappropriate behavior.

When is a public apology good enough, and how do we begin to identify and fix blind spots in our beliefs? With the Mississippi wedding venue news that's been circulating on social media, we had the perfect opportunity to deep dive into both of these issues. We also share our opinions and discuss how Christians can do better.

Check out our sponsors for this episode: www.thehaystack.org

This week we dive into two surprisingly related topics we've encountered a lot recently: The differences of God between the Old and New Testaments and the movement of "Jesus>Religion." Rather than specifically provide an answer for these things, we address the motivations behind asking the questions and people's hesitancy to either accept answers that don't point in the trajectory they are comfortable with.