The Conquering Truth

Church leaders and the culture they create profoundly impact the people in their church, to the point where it is almost impossible for people to separate themselves from that influence. Like fish and the water they swim in, it is easy for church members to not think about how they live and breathe the culture of their church. And while this influence is good and useful when the church is not hiding sin and allowing it to grow, when sin abounds that influence causes the sin to spread throughout the entire church.

We tackle a hot topic from the past few years - cancel culture. What does the Bible say about it, and how should Christians respond?

s it fine for Christians to use recreational drugs? How does the Bible’s teaching on alcohol apply?

People leave their churches for all sorts of reasons. It’s partly because it’s easier to travel today. Depending on where you live in the world, there might be hundreds of churches within a one-hour drive from your home, and this has not been the case for much of history. But it’s clearly more than just ease of travel that has caused people to leave their churches so casually as it wouldn’t matter how many churches were nearby if members felt that they had a strong commitment to one another. So when should you leave a church, and is there a right and wrong way to do it? (We think the answer is “Yes!”)

What does it mean to love ignorance? We live in an age of unparalleled knowledge and communication, yet ignorance abounds. We have more books and schools than at any other point in human existence, but it seems that even in Christian circles we know far less than those who went before us. We grow up hearing phrases like “ignorance is bliss”, but is that true? As children, we wanted to know things that we were too young for, and then as adults, we wish that we could turn back time and become children again, forgetting some of the necessary things that we have learned. Can you abound in knowledge and still love ignorance? And if so, what role does correction and rebuke play in solving the problem of ignorance?

In this episode, we discuss some of the most common logical fallacies that are used in debates and discussions. The Strawman, the Ad Hominem, the Red Herring. Those are the only ones with cool names, but we go through seven in total. With each of them, we give actual examples and walk through how they work. We also talk about how to avoid falling into these patterns and why people who actually engage with other’s arguments like Joe Rogan and Jordan Peterson have stood out for being willing to do so and have had some measure of success in changing people’s minds about fairly controversial issues.

On October 6, 2022, President Biden issued a proclamation pardoning all current United States citizens and lawful permanent residents who had either committed the offense or had been convicted of simple possession of marijuana in violation of the Controlled Substances Act. He then encouraged state governors to follow suit saying, “Just as no one should be in a federal prison solely due to the possession of marijuana, no one should be in a local jail or state prison for that reason, either."

The world may seem like it has gone mad, but part of what has happened is that we have forgotten how discipline creates a framework for understanding, and without the ability to understand, chaos abounds.  Discipline is fundamentally about order, and order is central to Christianity. We want to be specific - we are not talking about order in a theoretical sense, but actual applied order - an order that reveals the purposes for which God has made the world, where men and women have a place to live and grow and where they understand the roles they are meant to play and the work they have been made to do.

In this episode, we talk about the fundamental nature of discipline. While we start out discussing discipline in the context of education, we very quickly switch to discussing it in a more general sense, and how its absence impacts our ability to understand the world. We also talk about church and family life and how our wrong view of discipline has weakened both of these institutions. We also walk through how discipline and punishment are related and how they are different and review how confusion about these concepts can be dangerous.

Discipline is absolutely necessary. Without it, everything breaks down. But the American church has forgotten much about the importance and practice of discipline. It is something that we all need more of in our lives. Please join us as we discuss these issues.

Our society requires licenses and permits for many trades and activities, and has countless pages of regulation. Are these necessary, do they work, and how does that match God's law?

We discuss how Christians should think about President Biden's recent announcement of forgiveness for some student loans.