What You’ve Been Searching For

The Scariest Passage In The Bible

All right, no more beating around the bush. You’ve asked for it. What is the scariest passage in the Bible? Let’s talk about it. Be strong and courageous. I’m Joel Fieri. This is What You’ve Been Searching For on Christian Podcast Central. Stay tuned.

All right. As I said, we beat around the bush long enough. You asked the question, what is the scariest passage in the Bible? The last couple of weeks, I’ve told you a couple passages that scare people, but shouldn’t, and I’ve explained why. And if you caught those podcasts, you know that I mentioned I Corinthians 11, where Paul talks about people who take communion in an unworthy manner and how they got sick and sometimes died. And how we’ve let that scare us, because we misunderstand the context of the whole passage, which is don’t take it in an unworthy manner compared to the other people in the room. Don’t think you’re better. Don’t hog all the resources, get drunk while they go hungry.

And then last week we talked about Matthew Chapter 7, first part of Chapter 7 about judging. Judge not lest you be judged, where Jesus is talking about how we judge our fellow believers. Take the plank out of your own. Take care of your sin first. Realize that you have sin problem, too. Don’t think that you’re better than the other Christian, which it seems to be a theme here. Remove that plank from your own eye. Then you can see clearly and help your brother with a speck in his eye. So, we have that responsibility with each other. So, we’ll put the links to those down below if you didn’t catch them. So, what is the scariest verse and/or passage in the Bible? Well, I’m still in Matthew Chapter 7 because as you go on in Matthew Chapter 7 something happens. In Matthew 6 and in Matthew 7, during the sermon on the Mount, Jesus is talking about how we relate to each other. How we relate to each other and worship. And pretty much the theme is don’t be hypocritical when you do this.

Don’t think you’re better than other people. And don’t put on a show for people and don’t put forth anything that’s not true about yourself. And part of that is in judging. In Verse 7, it shifts a little bit. And He talks about asking, seeking, and knocking, how the Father wants to give good gifts to His children, to those who ask, seek, and knock. There’s a progression there of intensity or pursuit. And then He does a complete pivot in mid chapter. Chapter 13, He says, “Enter through the narrow gate for wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life and only a few find it.” Well, that’s a complete pivot from what he was talking about before.

And then he goes on to warn about false profits and how we will know false profits by the fruit that they produce. He compares it to a tree. You know a good tree because it bears good fruit, you know a bad tree because it bears bad fruit. That’s how you spot false profits. So, He’s taken a completely different direction here, going from and this is how we treat each other. Don’t be hypocritical. This is how, especially when you’re pointing out sin in another brother, make sure you do it in the right way. Doesn’t the father want to give good gifts to his children? And all of a sudden He starts talking about the narrow road and the broad road. Also, he starts talking about salvation, really. A road that leads to death and destruction versus a narrow road that leads to life.

And then in Verse 21, He says what I think is the scariest passage in the Bible. Are you ready for it? Verse 21,

What You’ve Been Searching For

How Christians Should Judge

Why are Christians so judgmental? You’re judging me now for the shirt I’m wearing. I’m judging my cameraman for his man bun. Everybody’s judgy, judgy, judgy pants these days. Why are Christians so judgmental, or is that a bad thing, really? Let’s talk about it. This is Joel Fieri. This is What You’ve Been Searching For. Stay tuned.

We’re talking about the scariest verses in the Bible. If you caught last week’s podcast, you know I talked about in 1 Corinthians, the scary verses about taking communion, and if you take communion in the wrong way, you might get sick or even die. But if you caught that podcast, you also know that context is everything. In the context of that passage, we’re more concerned with how you are taking communion in relation to other people. Are you hogging the resources? Are you getting drunk while they go hungry? Do you see yourself as better than other Christians? That’s the real issue.

Here’s another verse that doesn’t necessarily scare Christians. Sometimes it does, but I think it intimidates us more than anything. I’m talking about Matthew 7, verses one through five, the “judging others” passage that’s often thrown back at us as Christians when we try and assert Christian morality.

In Matthew 7, Jesus is talking and he says, starting in verse one, “Do not judge, or you too will be judged.” We usually stop there, or at least the people that come at us with this verse usually stop there. But there’s much more. “For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged. And with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye, and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take that speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there’s a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite. First take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”

Now, there’s a couple of different ways I want to look at this. First of all, as I mentioned, a lot of times we just stop with verse one, “Do not judge, or you too will be judged,” and that’s where we ended. In the same way also, as the verse goes on, we also tend to focus just on the “log in your own eye” issue. Say, “Don’t judge others, worry about yourself. Take care of your own sin and don’t be so judgmental of other people.” But that’s not what this verse is saying.

It actually has both aspects to it, but there’s one more aspect that people don’t like to focus on. What Jesus is saying here is, don’t be hypocritical in your judgment. Earlier in chapter 6, he was talking about all the things that we shouldn’t be hypocritical about when we come into the house of God. Our giving, or our praying, or our worshiping. We shouldn’t be hypocritical and think we’re doing it better than anyone else.

What he’s saying here is, don’t judge thinking you’re better than anyone else. Don’t use your standard. Don’t put yourself in the position of judging or being the judge of other people. Use God’s judgment. That’s born out as he goes on and talks about the log or the plank in your own eye.

In verse three, he says, “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye, and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,

It’s the scariest verse in the Bible, or is it? It always scared me until I heard it explained correctly. I’m Joel Fieri, and this is What You’ve Been Searching For on Christian Podcast Central. Stay tuned.

In our further research on the questions and topics that the Christian Podcast listeners have been searching for, we had a question come up that I thought was interesting, and this is it. What is the scariest verse in the Bible? I don’t have the answer to that today, but I do know of a couple of verses that used to scare me until I heard them explained in context and I believe correctly. I think they’re still scaring a lot of Christians, and I want to just do my part in clearing it up.

The first verse that comes to mind when I think of this is in 1 Corinthians 11, Paul is talking to the Corinthian church, a seriously messed up Corinthian church. Keep in mind, they had all kinds of sin going on in Corinth. Sexual sin, divisions, all kinds of fighting, infighting, all kinds of things. In chapter 11, Paul is talking about… the last chapter, he’s talking about the Lord’s supper and how the Corinthians were taking the Lord’s supper incorrectly. Verse 23, he describes that Jesus, when he had given thanks in the upper room in the Last Supper, he broke the bread and said, “This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” Then, he took the cup and said, “When you drink this cup, do it in remembrance of me. When you do that, you proclaim my death until I come.” Okay? So that’s the Lord’s supper as Jesus explained it.

In verse 27, Paul says, “So then, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord. Everyone ought to examine himself where they eat of the bread and drink from the cup. For those of you who eat and drink without discerning the body of Christ, eat and drink judgment on themselves. That is why many of you are weak and sick, and a number of you have fallen asleep.” It means they’re dead.

So when I was a young Christian, this was drilled into me that God takes communion, what we know as communion, how we celebrate communion very seriously, and you better examine yourself and you better take it right because back in the day, some people died when they didn’t and they encouraged us to examine ourselves. If there’s any unconfessed sin in your life, make sure you do that. So I used to sit there with the cup of grape juice and the piece of cracker and think, “God, I’ve got to really examine myself. Forgive me for looking at the girl in the front row or forgive me for being mad at that guy.” Whatever it was, and it was really a stressful thing because I was told that if you do it wrong, you could end up sick or even dead.

But like I said, context is everything, and I didn’t… I’ve only heard this explained once in my life, and it’s back in college. Years ago, a pastor explained this verse to us, and it’s the only time I’ve ever heard it explained this way. But I think it’s right because I’m looking at the context of the chapter. 10 verses earlier in chapter… in verse 17 of chapter 11, Paul is… what my Bible headline is correcting an abuse of the Lord’s supper. So he started talking about this 10 verses earlier, but nobody ever goes back 10 verses earlier at least that I’ve ever heard. Okay?

Now, verse 17. He says, “In the following directives, I have no praise for you.” Again, he’s talking to this seriously messed up Corinthian church. “For your meetings do more harm than good. In the first place. I hear that when you come together as a church,

They used to be called backsliders or even heretics, whatever. Whatever we called them, they didn’t get on Twitter and announce to the world why they don’t believe what they used to believe. There’s a new term in town and it’s called ex-vangelicals. I’m Joel Fieri for Christian Podcast Central. Let’s talk about it. Stay tuned.

Years ago when I was in youth ministry, a band came to our high school group called DC Talk, Decent Christian Talk. I knew DC Talk before they were anybody. Hadn’t heard much of them since, but I do know that they gained prominence in the Christian music business and I was glad to hear it because I thought they weren’t my style but they were at least decent Christian talk, so that was good.

Recently, one of their band members, Kevin Max, came out and said he is now an ex-vangelical, meaning he has deconstructed his faith and now embraces the universal Christ. If you’ve been paying attention to this podcast, you know that over the last few weeks I’ve been talking about this subject, and this is not really included in that series, but it’s along the same lines, progressive versus conservative Christianity and the universe of Christ, and deconstructing your faith is a very big part of the progressive part of Christianity, progressive movement in Christianity these days.

Apparently Kevin Max has embraced it. He’s not saying he’s no longer a Christian. He’s just an ex-vangelical. He’s no longer an evangelical. He’s no longer a strictly Bible believing Christian that believes there’s one way to heaven. I ascertain that from what he’s said in his tweets and his announcements of this. He said a couple things that I want to look at to possibly explain why I think he did this and the dangers I see in it.

The first aspect of this I’ll just touch on briefly. This is what happens when Christians and Christian churches and denominations and movements put musicians and young, artistic, creative people upfront and have them set the tone in our faith and in our worship.

Dave Morrow from Church for Men, who is a podcaster here at Christian Podcast Central, he made this point years ago. There came a turning point in Christianity when we turned over leadership of our worship and people setting the tone for worship from pastors and priests to musicians and creative people. We turned over our worship leading from people who were trained in the truth of the word of God and what God required in the scriptures for worship to people who were gifted and talented.

When you’re gifted and talented creatively, your goal is to move people emotionally. That’s one of the main goals of what you do. Now, I don’t disparage Christian music leaders. I think most of them have very good hearts and want to worship in truth, but many of them don’t. They put the cart before the horse. They put the emotional reaction and the emotional concern ahead of the truth concern, and that’s what I see going on a lot with these Christian musicians. Many of them, more and more of them are turning their backs on the truth of the faith. The truth that they previously held. Kevin Max is one of them and he talks about this.

He basically says, and I quote, “I don’t think the God I believe is just going to all of a sudden ignore me because I don’t believe every single thing that is written down somewhere,” referring to scripture. You can see right now, he’s more concerned with what he feels is right rather than what God feels is right. Just that little hint tells you that he’s abandoning the truth of scripture.

Now, whether that’s because he’s a musician or not, I don’t know, but that’s a prevalent thing going on, something that’s going on in the church today that’s more and more prevalent.

Whose side is God really on? Or is that the question we should even be asking? I’m Joel Fieri. This is “What You’ve Been Searching For.” Stay tuned.

Okay. Finally, we’re wrapping up our look at the divide within Christianity that was highlighted weeks ago. We did a review of “Christ Crucified,” the American gospel documentary highlighting the differences between progressive Christianity: people like [inaudible 00:00:35], Richard Rohr, Oprah Winfrey even, and the heavy hitters on the conservative, more traditional side: the John MacArthur, Voddie Baucham, and people like that. That began a series over the last couple of weeks, looking at how these differences kind of flesh out what the Bible has to say about them and how do we get it right? Well, I want to wrap it up and in my intro, I kind of hinted at the track I’m going to take with this.

Can we reconcile this difference? Can we bridge this gap, or is this divide unbridgeable? Because as we talked about the progressive side, in my view, and it came out in this documentary, tends to see the Bible, see God himself, and definitely see his word through the lens of what they can and can’t accept. Some of the opinions and justifications expressed, there was, “I just couldn’t accept a God who would have this kind of expectation of me,” or “I can’t accept this part of the word of God that has this to say about such and such, a social issue,” versus the conservative side that said, “Hey, this is what the Bible says. Whether we like it or not, this is what the Bible says, and if we believe the Bible is the inspired word of God, this is what God says.”

A lot of times this argument, this conflict comes out culturally. It comes out theologically. A lot of times, it comes out politically. And when it comes out politically or culturally, we tend to think people take the view that, “Well, God is on my side, if his political God is a Democrat, or God is a Republican.” Well, that’s not the right way to take him, first of all. And second of all, that’s not the case. Long ago in my youth, I was a Democrat. I’ve been a Republican for a long time. I’ve never heard anybody on either side, say, “God is a Democrat, or God is a Republican.” That just doesn’t happen. That’s kind of a straw man argument people put up, but that attitude may be there, but it’s not the right way to look at it.

I want to look at the other side of the coin, or sometimes I say “the edge of the coin,” what’s kind of in between on these issues. The question is not, “Is God on our side?” The question should be, and it seems obvious to me, “Are we, am I on God’s side, on whatever issue it is or whatever worldview it is?” And I think there’s a passage that I always look to that stands out to me. It’s a short passage from the Old Testament, which I have not unhitched from. And it happens in Joshua 5:13. I just want to read it real quickly.

Verses 13 through 15. “Now, when Joshua was near Jericho, he looked up and saw a man standing in front of him with a sword drawn in his hand. Joshua went up to him and asked, ‘Are you for us or for our enemies?’ ‘Neither,’ he replied. ‘But as commander of the army of the Lord, I have now come.’ Then, Joshua fell face down to the ground, in reverence, and asked him, ‘What message does my Lord have for his servant?’ The commander of the Lord’s army replied, ‘Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy.’ And Joshua did so.

If you know the story, the next chapter, the commander of the Lord’s army told Joshua to take Jericho. And he said, “I’ve already given Jericho into your hands. This is how you take it.

Submission, is it really as dirty a word as we think it is? Or is there more to it? I’m Joel Fieri. This is, What You’ve Been Searching For. Stay tuned. In looking further at the divide, the major divide in Christianity these days as highlighted by our podcast a few weeks ago on the documentary American Gospel: Christ Crucified, which featured the heavy hitters of the progressive side of Christianity and also of the more conservative traditional side. I wanted to continue and piggyback off last week’s podcast where I looked at the Bible’s definitions or the Bible’s prescriptions for the qualifications of elders and pastors and deacons in the church. And if you caught that podcast you know that I talked about how Paul lays out the characteristics and the character qualities of men who aspire to be elders and deacons and pastors. And that word aspire was key, if you caught that podcast. We’ll put a link down below for you if you didn’t.

I talked about how if those who aspire to be leaders have those qualities then the men who follow them will also aspire to have those qualities. That’s how men are wired. We need to aspire to something better than ourselves and if we can see it in other men we’ll follow them, especially if they turn around and disciple those qualities into us. If they pour their life into us, we’ll follow that and we’ll aspire to have those qualities as well. And if we do that, it’s not at the expense of women in leadership at our church, but it will also elevate the women in our church and the church will be a mighty force in society. Well, I wanted to piggyback off of that and talk about the family as well, because as most people know, the Bible has some things to say about male and female roles within the family, marriage in particular, but also within the family. And there’s no place more significant in talking about that then Ephesians 5:22 to 33 where Paul lays down to the Ephesian Church this is what a husband and wife relationship should look like.

And I’m going to take the same tact that I took last week, because we typically look at these verses as how this relates to women and their roles, and a lot of women don’t like it. They tend to think this is keeping women down. But again, I want to do what I did last week and instead of doing that focus on why it’s there in terms of how it relates to men, what is it telling men? So I want to read starting in verse 22. It says, “Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord, for the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body of which he is the savior. Now, as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.” Now, that’s usually where we stop and a lot of women take offense to that or don’t like that or wish it wasn’t there. Whenever that happens in a conversation, I always tell them, “Keep reading,” and I’m going to keep reading starting in verse 25.

“Husbands love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. To make her holy, cleansing her by washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but they feed and care for their body just as Christ does the church, for we are members of his body. For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife and the two will become one flesh. This is a profound mystery, but I’m talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you must also love his wife as he loves himself and the wife must respect her husband.” Now,

We have a toxic masculinity problem in our society, and maybe even in our church. Does the Bible have an answer for that? I’m Joel Fieri for Christian Podcast Central, and this is What You’ve Been Searching for. Stay tuned. All right. In following up with my last week’s podcast on making distinctions, if you’ve missed that podcast, we put a link down below, but if you caught it you know we talked about how important it is for Christians to continue to be able to make the distinctions that the Bible talks about and mostly in God’s creation and mostly in relations to God’s creating man, male and female, in God’s image he created them, male and female, and how our society is trying to blur that distinction between male and female. And if we blur that distinction, we’ll eventually have no distinction between man and the rest of God’s creation, and eventually God and his creation altogether. So we need to make those distinctions.

What I want to follow up on is another question that was asked in our survey of what the Christian podcast listener is wanting to hear, and that is the question of gender roles, and what does the Bible say about men and women in church and in general, leadership, pastorship? And it’s particularly relevant now. A mega church here in California recently, it was in the news that they ordained three women pastors going against their denomination’s rules, and many people would say going against what the Bible teaches. So I want to look at what the Bible teaches, not only about pastor’s leadership roles within the church, but also within the family. I want to wrap up what we’ve been talking about, the difference between progressive Christianity and conservative Christianity. And this is one of the big, big issues and big, big divides we have in the church. Something that you always hear me say we need to get, right.

So what I want to do is talk about overseers and deacons and pastors in the church, because that’s what you asked about. And specifically where Paul talks in First Timothy Three and again in Titus One, he talks about the qualifications for overseers, pastors, and deacons. And I just want to read this passage. I’ll read First Timothy Three because Titus One pretty much repeats what Paul says in First Timothy. So Paul starts off in chapter three of First Timothy saying, “Here’s a trustworthy saying, whoever aspires to be an overseer desires a noble task. Now, the overseer is to be above reproach, faithful to his wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not given to drunkenness, not violent, but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. He must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him. And he must do so in a manner worthy of full respect. If anyone does not know how to manage his own family, how can he take care of God’s church?

“He must not be a recent convert, or he may become conceited and fall under the same judgment as the devil. He must also have a good reputation with outsiders so he will not fall into disgrace and into the devil’s trap. In the same way deacons are to be worthy of respect, sincere, not indulging in much wine, not pursuing dishonest gain. They must keep hold of the deep truths of the faith with a clear conscience. They must first be tested and then if there is nothing against them, let them serve as deacons.” And he talks about women a little bit. “In the same way women are to be worthy of respect, not malicious talkers, but temperate and trustworthy in everything.” Going back to deacons, “A deacon must be faithful to his wife and must manage his children and his household well. Those who have served well gain an excellent standing and great assurance in their faith in Christ Jesus.”

So the first thing that jumps out of this is,



How many fingers am I holding up? It’s a loaded question, I know, especially these days. And it also has a lot to do with what you’ve been searching for. I’m Joel Fieri for Christian Podcast Central, stay tuned.

In our research, continuing research, that we’ve done on what you, the Christian podcast listener, have been searching for two questions came up that are actually the same question and probably would have been the number one question. One is how many sexes are there and the other is how many genders are there. Without getting into the differences between sex and gender, it’s essentially the dealing with the same issue on our society and that’s transgenderism.

Now, lately I’ve been telling you who not to listen to, Oprah Winfrey, and I mentioned someone you should listen to, Voddie Baucham, in my previous podcast. I’m going to tell you another person that I think you should be listening to, especially when it comes to this subject and that’s Albert Mohler. Al Mohler, he’s President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. And recently in a podcast, he tackled the subject of transgenderism, putting it under the umbrella of Christians making distinctions.

https://albertmohler.com/2021/05/04/briefing-5-4-21

He talks about how Christians, as Christians in today’s society, we need to maintain the ability to make distinctions. And within that, he divided the distinctions we need to make into three separate ones.

First is the distinction between God and his creation. That’s a clear distinction. The second one is between man as created in the image of God, versus the rest of creation. And the third distinction we need to make is between within that creation of man in God’s image, there is male and female. God created man in his image, male and female he created them. Where men are the expression of the male characteristics of God and women are the expression of the female attributes of God.

Well, in today’s world, there’s an attempt to blur that distinction or completely erase that distinction between male and female through transgenderism. And in this podcast, Mohler talked about some of the current expressions of that in our society, current issues that that’s bringing up. Specifically biological man competing against biological women in sports transgender men who have gone through male puberty, which gives them an advantage in sports versus women who have not.

And from that he also talked about current political situation here in California, where we’re voting to recall our governor. And if we do, the leading candidate for governor would most likely be Caitlyn Jenner, who is the leading transgender person in our society. Who recently said that biological men should not be allowed to compete against biological women, which completely sent the left and to an uproar, which is very telling.

And also on this podcast, this is where my finger question came at the beginning. As some of you are way ahead of me, he mentions George Orwell. And if you’ve ever read the book 1984, you know that there’s a famous scene in that book, famous part of it, where Winston Smith, the protagonist who has been resisting big government the whole book, is being interrogated and tortured by O’Brien.

And O’Brien holds up his hand with four fingers and he says, “How many fingers do you see?” Of course, Winston says, “I see four.” At which point he’s tortured severely. And he holds up his fingers again and says, “How many fingers do you see?” And he says, “I see four.” And O’Brien says, “No, you see five.” And this goes on and on and on. As long as Winston says he sees four instead of five,



There’s an earthquake coming, and according to one author, if we don’t know where the fault lines are, we won’t survive it. I’m Joel Fieri. This is What You’ve Been Searching For on Christian Podcast Central. Stay tuned.

If you joined us for our last couple podcasts, you know the first one I did was a review of the video American Gospel: Christ Crucified. And in this video, it highlighted the two camps currently in Christianity, or the two major camps. One being the conservative more Bible believing traditional Christian camp represented by pastors like John MacArthur and Phil Johnson and several others, Paul Washer, Alistair Begg. And on the other side was the more progressive wing of Christianity. The remnants of the emergent church movement of about 20 years ago, guys like Bart Campolo, Tony Jones, Richard Rohr, and even Oprah Winfrey. Because Oprah was in that video, I decided to answer the most searched for question on the internet that we found, and that is, is Oprah a Christian? And if you saw that video, you know my conclusion was that if you’re asking that because you’re wondering if you should follow her lead, if you should join her on her spiritual journey with guys like Richard Rohr and Rob Bell, I said no, please don’t.

I would recommend you not. Don’t listen to her. Don’t listen to the people that are working with her on that. So it occurred to me if I told you not to listen to Oprah, I should probably tell you who you should listen to right now. Right now in the current cultural situation we’re in and the state of American Christianity, in regards to those two camps since that video was made, I think it’s gotten a lot more severe. The divide has gotten a lot more severe between the progressive and the more conservative traditional Christians. One of the people in that video, they didn’t highlight a lot, but I think he is the person who we should be listening to right now in our current cultural moment. His name’s Voddie Baucham. Voddie is a black pastor from Texas, and if you don’t like me calling him black, if you think I should call him African-American, I just want you to know Voddie doesn’t like the term African-American. He prefers to be called black.

And he’s a very big man who could hurt me, so I’m going to do what he says. But Voddie has for the last few years been in Africa, teaching in Zambia, a seminary there. He recently came back to the United States because of heart problems. He’s had severe heart problems. He is fighting for his life. He’s recovering right now, but prayers please for Voddie. As I said, he is probably the voice we need to be listening to right now. He’s come out with book recently called Fault Lines. And if you caught my intro, you know that I said there’s an earthquake coming and we need to know where the fault lines are. Well, Voddie named his book Fault Lines because if you know anything about plate tectonics and earthquakes, you know that fault lines are where two plates of the earth meet and they’re in opposition to one another and they’re working against each other, creating a lot of friction and a lot of tension.

And that is a very good mental picture of what’s happening now in Christianity. In this book Voddie focuses on a critical theory. Now in the video, the American Gospel video, we didn’t deal a lot with critical theory. That was a couple of years ago. But in the past couple of years, critical theory, critical race theory, intersectionality, identity politics have become probably the major component in our culture today. The major political force and social force in our society, and has crept into the church, especially in the last year with the pandemic shutdowns, the George Floyd incident that just recently hopefully got resolved. Critical race theory, intersectionality,



Is Oprah Winfrey a Christian? It’s the top question and topic that you, the Christian podcast listener have been searching for but since she won’t return my calls, I’m going to have to do my best to answer it myself. I’m Joel Fieri stay tuned.

Last week we talked about the documentary American Gospel Christ Crucified and in that we talked about how the two spectrums, the two opposite ends of evangelical Christianity today were highlighted. Pastors from the more progressive millennial emergent side of things versus the more traditional conservative evangelical side of things. On the progressive emergent side of things was among the many pastors and theologians and thinkers, was Oprah Winfrey. You know anything about Oprah, you know that she’s gotten rather spiritual these days. She’s worked a lot with Rob Bell who is one of the famous emergent millennial pastors and she has a lot to say about spirituality, God and things of that nature. She was in this documentary. She had a prominent part. So when we looked at the research we did and found that the number one question people are searching for on Christian podcasts is, is Oprah a Christian, I thought, well, since I just watched that documentary, based on what she said, I’ll just give you my thoughts.

As I said, I don’t know. Of course the spiritual answer would be only God knows. Okay, podcast over. But that won’t get us clicks so I need to get into it a little myself. What I want to do in answering this question is determine where we’re coming from on the question. What are we really asking? Why are we asking it? Are we asking it out of kind of a pop culture, gossipy need to know, inquiring minds need to know basis? Are we really concerned for Oprah’s soul? Is that why we’re asking if she’s a Christian? Or because she is so outspoken on Christian matters and spiritual matters, should we be listening to her? Is she a Christian? Should I be listening to her? So those are the three approaches I’m going to take.

If it’s the first question, just kind of a gossipy pop culture, I don’t know what to tell you. I could go that direction and tell you, well, you know, she said this and she was seeing, you know, doing this. In her past she did that. Believe me, I could probably do that but I’d be out of my depth. I don’t know and you’ll have to look somewhere else for the gossipy take on Oprah’s spiritual status. If you’re concerned for Oprah’s soul if you’re a fan. She is a very thoughtful person. She’s been in the limelight for several decades now and has a loyal following. As far as I can tell, she is a very nice, good person. So if there’s a concern for her soul, based on what I’ve heard from her on spiritual matters in this documentary and otherwise, pray for Oprah. I would have my doubts. I obviously couldn’t say. It actually is in God’s hands. Only he knows. But from the evidence I’ve seen, I think she’s listening to the wrong people in her search, in her journey. So, you might want to pray for her.

Now if you’re asking this question, should I listen to Oprah? Should I take Oprah’s advice? I would say, no. Danger. Do not enter. As I said, she is listening to the wrong people. People who do not believe and by their own admission can’t believe what the Bible says about God, the way to salvation, the attributes of God, our responsibility towards God. As far as I can answer the question on Oprah, I would say, I can’t help you with the gossipy part of it. If you’re concerned for her soul, please pray because it doesn’t look like she’s listening to the people she should be and accepting the ideas that she should be towards salvation. In her past she might have been saved, but all evidence to me points to some doubt.