The family meal: We set the table not only with food but also with conversation and leadership. Efficiency is not the priority of the day. We must slow down, guide the conversation, even after a long day at work. Time at the family dinner table serves as a microcosm of life. A father must concern himself with worship, etiquette (showing kindness to others), and directed conversation, while remembering that it takes discernment to determine which hills he will die on when someone says something obtuse.

Family meals and devotions should not be guilt trips. Keep them simple and focus on what you and your family enjoy most. Many husbands perform at the dinner table and during devotions to meet their wives' expectations and aspirations.

For more, read or listen to Tim's Daddy Tried: Overcoming the Failures of Fatherhood.

The internet is a balkanization of the populace: Everybody finds those they want to listen to. It is exceedingly difficult to teach somebody whose principal input in his life is through the internet. With a flesh-and-blood pastor, you at least can see his sins, his wife, and his children. Generally, with a pastor, you can’t escape his bad smells, but on the internet, everything and everyone is perfect.

The most difficult thing you do in ministry is to call your own congregation to repentance. It is easy to talk about the sins of people outside the church, but exceedingly costly to do so to those within the church. Your job is on the line. A godly church will love you for that. But there are a lot of bad congregations—those congregations that like their ears tickled. We should love our pastors when they make us angry with their helpfulness.

Yet, if pastors will preach to their congregations, their congregations will lead the world. It is not until we are challenged to submit to Scripture ourselves that we will be salt and light in the world. If there is going to be a Biblical church, the most important thing to do is to keep its discipline vivified. But we'd much rather spend our time fighting people who are opposed to Christianity. NETTR protects the "constituents," and casts stones at the world.

***

Mentioned in the episode...

From Melville's Moby Dick, chapter 8, "The Pulpit": "What could be more full of meaning?- for the pulpit is ever this earth’s foremost part; all the rest comes in its rear; the pulpit leads the world. From thence it is the storm of God’s quick wrath is first descried, and the bow must bear the earliest brunt. From thence it is the God of breezes fair or foul is first invoked for favorable winds. Yes, the world’s a ship on its passage out, and not a voyage complete; and the pulpit is its prow."

Fundamentalism and American Culture by George Marsden

C.S. Lewis, from The Last Battle: "By mixing a little truth with it, they had made their lie far stronger."

Robert Owen: "All the world is queer, save thee and me, and even thou art a little queer."

***

Out of Our Minds Podcast: Pastors Who Say What They Think. For the love of Christ and His Church.

Out of Our Minds is a production of New Geneva Academy. Are you interested in preparing for ordained ministry with pastors? Have a desire to grow in your knowledge and fear of God? Apply at www.newgenevaacademy.com.

Master of Divinity
Bachelor of Divinity
Certificate in Bible & Theology
Groundwork: The Victory of Christ & The Great Conversation

Intro and outro music is Psalm of the King, Psalm 21 by My Soul Among Lions.

Out of Our Minds audio, artwork, episode descriptions, and notes are property of New Geneva Academy and Warhorn Media, published with permission by Transistor, Inc.

***Live Zoom videoconference with Jürgen and Tim will take place on Tuesday, April 29, at 2 p.m. ET.***

Jürgen von Hagen leads a discussion on tariffs, trade, and global economics. NOTE: This episode is best listened to with THESE GRAPHS pulled up on your device.

Also discussed: Trump's tariff strategy, the Russian threat, trusting God with our lives, trade deficits, manufacturing vs. service economy, savings-investment gap, Apple Computer, F-35 jets and their software, foreign debt, debt crisis, World Trade Organization, GATT, US responsibility for keeping peace.

"Democracy is not good at financial discipline. Politicians like to spend money, and they don't think about how it will be financied." - von Hagen

"Economic history tells us that taxing foreigners never works." - von Hagen

PLEASE NOTE: We will update information on the Warhorn Media podcast page (here) for the live Zoom meeting mentioned in the podcast. Stay tuned!

***

Out of Our Minds Podcast: Pastors Who Say What They Think. For the love of Christ and His Church.

Out of Our Minds is a production of New Geneva Academy. Are you interested in preparing for ordained ministry with pastors? Have a desire to grow in your knowledge and fear of God? Apply at www.newgenevaacademy.com.

Master of Divinity
Bachelor of Divinity
Certificate in Bible & Theology
Groundwork: The Victory of Christ & The Great Conversation

Intro and outro music is Psalm of the King, Psalm 21 by My Soul Among Lions.

Out of Our Minds audio, artwork, episode descriptions, and notes are property of New Geneva Academy and Warhorn Media, published with permission by Transistor, Inc.

Not All Tesla is Tesla. What Tesla means to people has shifted drastically. It’s a shibboleth in our culture. From the darling of the green left to the “Swasticar,” you're now considered a villain if you drive a Tesla, particularly a Cybertruck. 

We don’t understand Elon Musk until we get a grip on South Africa and her unapologetic males. South Africans have not been run through the American/European "plastic extruder" that removes manhood from them. We as a nation have lost manhood. South African males typically have this attitude: there is absolutely nothing that they can’t do. It’s an endearing trait. There are many things you can say about Elon, but he does demonstrate irrefragable masculinity. Intrinsic to that trait is a can-do positive confidence. There is an optimism about him that causes him in most things to come through.

Purchasing a Tesla used to be a way of widening your phylacteries. It was a symbol of progressive ideology. Now it is a right-wing middle finger. Being a Tesla owner is a legitimate risk to your safety. It is increasingly possible that the left is going to lose their mind so badly that they are going to create a revolution. What is going to happen? Will the center hold? 

And then there is the woke right and their millenarian crusader vengeance fantasies.

There is a fundamental truth about violence: it is like fire. Once you start it, you can’t control it.

***

Mentioned in the show:

the evolving simplicity of SpaceX's Raptor engine.

This video covers his interview at Satellite 2020:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iD0bcsAXaic

***

Out of Our Minds Podcast: Pastors Who Say What They Think. For the love of Christ and His Church.

Out of Our Minds is a production of New Geneva Academy. Are you interested in preparing for ordained ministry with pastors? Have a desire to grow in your knowledge and fear of God? Apply at www.newgenevaacademy.com.

Master of Divinity
Bachelor of Divinity
Certificate in Bible & Theology
Groundwork: The Victory of Christ & The Great Conversation

Intro and outro music is Psalm of the King, Psalm 21 by My Soul Among Lions.

Out of Our Minds audio, artwork, episode descriptions, and notes are property of New Geneva Academy and Warhorn Media, published with permission by Transistor, Inc.

What is the origin of the "devil's advocate"? What are the benefits of assigning someone to that role? It has been noted in Scottish Presbyterian polity that a unanimous decision has not been sufficiently debated. In other words, either the issue was trivial, the presbyters were apathetic, or no one stepped up to elevate the debate by serving as the devil's advocate.

Tim and Andrew encourage listeners to learn how to think, not just what to think. We must guide our children to know how to argue respectfully, anticipate objections, understand their opponents' arguments, and recognize and resist groupthink. Tim draws on his experience as the moderator of a church session and discusses how these principles come into play during elder board meetings.

Here's something worth remembering when you are tempted to dismiss Robert's Rules of Order: procedural rules for assembly arguments exist to protect the minority's voice and the majority's will.

***

Out of Our Minds Podcast: Pastors Who Say What They Think. For the love of Christ and His Church.

Out of Our Minds is a production of New Geneva Academy. Are you interested in preparing for ordained ministry with pastors? Have a desire to grow in your knowledge and fear of God? Apply at www.newgenevaacademy.com.

Master of Divinity
Bachelor of Divinity
Certificate in Bible & Theology
Groundwork: The Victory of Christ & The Great Conversation

Intro and outro music is Psalm of the King, Psalm 21 by My Soul Among Lions.

Out of Our Minds audio, artwork, episode descriptions, and notes are property of New Geneva Academy and Warhorn Media, published with permission by Transistor, Inc.

Pastor Tim is joined by his wife (Mary Lee) and their three daughters (Heather, Michal, & Hannah). They discuss Catherine Ruth Pakaluk's recent book Hannah's Children: The Women Quietly Defying the Birth Dearth. The book serves as a launching point for discussing the joys and troubles of motherhood, childrearing, and the culturally rebellious decision to obey God's command to be fruitful and multiply.

Here's a link to the family video mentioned in the podcast.

***

Out of Our Minds Podcast: Pastors Who Say What They Think. For the love of Christ and His Church.

Out of Our Minds is a production of New Geneva Academy. Are you interested in preparing for ordained ministry with pastors? Have a desire to grow in your knowledge and fear of God? Apply at www.newgenevaacademy.com.

Master of Divinity
Bachelor of Divinity
Certificate in Bible & Theology
Groundwork: The Victory of Christ & The Great Conversation

Intro and outro music is Psalm of the King, Psalm 21 by My Soul Among Lions.

Out of Our Minds audio, artwork, episode descriptions, and notes are property of New Geneva Academy and Warhorn Media, published with permission by Transistor, Inc.

Jürgen von Hagen joins Tim Bayly to discuss fruitfulness, natalism, and fertility demographics. From Malthus to Erlich to many contemporaries—for over two centuries—the prophets of doom have pleaded with mankind to abandon fruitfulness to survive. Modern man—and the Christian church—has only been too willing to obey those false prophets in direct contradiction to God's commands in the creation mandates. Jürgen and Tim discuss the conscious choice Christians should make to be counter-cultural or, in other words, obedient to God regarding fruitfulness.

Are we willing to submit the fruitfulness of our marriage beds to God as an act of holiness?

"God blessed them; and God said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth'" (Gen. 1:28).

Some resources mentioned in the podcast:

Malthus, An Essay on the Principle of Population

Erlich, The Population Bomb

Bricker & Ibbitson, Empty Planet: The Shock of Global Population Decline

Ismail, The Age of Decay: How Aging and Shrinking Populations Could Usher in the Decline of Civilization

Murray, Principles of Conduct

Pakaluk, Hannah's Children: The Women Quietly Defying the Birth Dearth

Rev. Dr. Jürgen Von Hagen joined Tim and Andrew to discuss European culture and international relations. Last week, US Vice President Vance gave a speech at the Munich Security Conference—a meeting of top European military leaders, diplomats, and government officials. Vance's speech was a shock to many Germans (and the broader European community) because they expected him to speak about the conflict in Ukraine. Instead, Vance questioned whether the shared values that forged the NATO alliance still exist between the US and the EU. What were those shared values that are under attack in European nations? Freedom of speech, respect of voters, the voice of the minority, and religious freedom. In the UK, as an example, a man was recently arrested in an "exclusionary zone" outside an abortion clinic for praying, silently.

From there, the conversation moves to a discussion of reforms in government, bureaucracy, DOGE, Trump, Musk...

This is the link to JD Vance's speech in Munich
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCOsgfINdKg

Here is the immediate reply by Germany's defense minister, Boris Pistorius
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8RTVnfb9Y8

This is Scholz' speech yesterday,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDaCOMy1fp4

This is Scholz in the interview with Economist editor Beddoes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XODqeE41mYU

***

Out of Our Minds Podcast: Pastors Who Say What They Think. For the love of Christ and His Church.

Out of Our Minds is a production of New Geneva Academy. Are you interested in preparing for ordained ministry with pastors? Have a desire to grow in your knowledge and fear of God? Apply at www.newgenevaacademy.com.

Master of Divinity
Bachelor of Divinity
Certificate in Bible & Theology
Groundwork: The Victory of Christ & The Great Conversation

Intro and outro music is Psalm of the King, Psalm 21 by My Soul Among Lions.

Out of Our Minds audio, artwork, episode descriptions, and notes are property of New Geneva Academy and Warhorn Media, published with permission by Transistor, Inc.

So often we attempt to be aspirational in the setting of traditions in our families. What does that mean? It means we work hard to build traditions meant to project to others the "perfection" of our marriages, our childrearing, and our homesteads. Rather than cave to the pressure to portray the perfect home with the perfect traditions for the perfect children in the perfect marriage with the perfect timing and gravitas, let your traditions develop more naturally, from your unique quirks and talents. Andrew's family, he says, has a tradition of staying up late at night each winter vomiting. At least they can laugh about it! Tim and his family sing the Appleseed song with a Beethoven-esque number of amens to conclude. Children love these simple, easygoing traditions and will pass them on to their own families in due time. Lighten up. Let the traditions develop naturally and...awkwardly.

Los Angeles burns and fire policy in California is exposed. Accountability and reformation ought to come.

What can we learn about church reform from wildfires and fire policy? It is common for pastors to be punished when the fire of the Holy Spirit begins to burn. Fire ought to be allowed (planned burns); so, too, the Holy Spirit will burn for the good of our churches and people.

Mentioned in the podcast:
How Red Tape Strangled California Forest Management Before LA Fires by Katherine Fung
Fire by Thomas Hackett
Heaven Taken By Storm by Thomas Watson (Audible)
Heaven Taken By Storm (ebook)

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Out of Our Minds Podcast: Pastors Who Say What They Think. For the love of Christ and His Church.

Out of Our Minds is a production of New Geneva Academy. Are you interested in preparing for ordained ministry with pastors? Have a desire to grow in your knowledge and fear of God? Apply at www.newgenevaacademy.com.

Master of Divinity
Bachelor of Divinity
Certificate in Bible & Theology
Groundwork: The Victory of Christ & The Great Conversation

Intro and outro music is Psalm of the King, Psalm 21 by My Soul Among Lions.

Out of Our Minds audio, artwork, episode descriptions, and notes are property of New Geneva Academy and Warhorn Media, published with permission by Transistor, Inc.