Welcome to Theology.

Throwdown.

We, the Christian podcast community of podcasters, gather to discuss our theological differences with love and charity.

This is a mystery of striving for eternity.

Welcome to another Theology Throwdown, a ministry of, well, striving for eternity.

We are part of the Christian podcast community, the different Christian podcast community.

Podcasters join together, have different discussions where we can discuss, well, maybe our theological differences, but we try to do it in love and charity.

And so tonight's topic, we will be discussing whether Christians should support possibly heretical organizations through normal commerce.

In other words, should we go to movies that are put on by, well, the Mormons?

Such as who?

Should I mention it yet?

We're going to Angel Studios.

Did you know it was Mormon affiliated?

Or using music created by possible heretical groups such as Bethel or Hillsong?

Did you know they're even heretical?

Well, we could get into discussing that.

And so those are going to be the topics tonight.

Let me go around the.

Well, I would like to say room, but we're not actually in a room.

We're virtual.

So around the screen that you guys can't see who are listening.

But to let you guys hear the voices and know the different people that will be on and I will let them share a little bit about their podcast.

So if you hear their voice and go, hey, that guy sounds really intelligent, I should go check out his podcast.

Well, then you'll get to know which one to check out.

So, Mr.

Brewster, we'll start with you.

My name's Mr.

Brewster and I'm really intelligent.

I'm sorry, my name is Aaron Brewster.

I have two podcasts that are on the Christian podcast community.

The one that I'm not keeping up to date at the moment, but we still have over 100 episodes that are evergreen is the Celebration of God, which focuses on personal discipleship and worship.

And then the podcast that has nearly 600 episodes all about biblical parenting is called Truth Love Parent.

And we put out new episodes every Tuesday.

So actually the episode for tomorrow may or may not be finished being recorded yet.

We'll see.

I don't know, but yep.

So those are my two podcasts.

I'm also the editor in chief of the Striving for Eternity blog, as well as one of the multiple speakers who goes out and travels and helps to equip God's people.

People in the church.

Yes, through Striving Fraternity, as well as you also have a ministry on your own that you podcast through.

So, yeah, which I completely forgot to mention.

Yeah, I was thinking I'll striving for Eternity.

Yeah.

But yes, Ever Mind Ministries is, is my ministry.

But we love to partner with Striving for Eternity and love to support everything they do.

We do.

Next.

Us do.

Us do.

Sure, I'm intelligent.

You're the editor, not me.

Don't ask me about gramma.

Your job is to correct my grammar.

What do you mean?

Because mine is horrible.

Next up is Brandon.

Yeah, my name is Brandon Holland.

I run the Rooted Reason podcast.

That's just a podcast aimed at just practical application of Christian worldview stuff.

So look at different cultural things or hot topics or theological points, stuff like that.

Lately I've kind of focused on like my own prayer life and just kind of things I'm learning just in how I pray, what I look for, just dealing with tough subjects and kind of how theology for me has, and how God has brought me through some hard things.

And so just trying to relay those in a practical way that I think could be helpful for most Christians.

So that's kind of the suggest of what I do.

All right, next up is Eve.

Hello everybody.

I'm Eve Franklin.

I'm a co host of the podcast Are you just watching?

And I'm probably the least theological of the podcasts, the Christian podcast community, but we talk about movies and other entertainment from a Christian worldview.

And Tim and I just enjoy not necessarily taking apart the secular media because the whole point is to enjoy what we watch, but enjoy with our biblical glasses on so that we're not succumbing to the world's world view in, in our daily lives.

So yeah, and just happy to be a part of this.

Your podcast does get into a lot of theology though.

Each episode you guys talk about the theology of the different films that you review.

So it's a theological one.

Okay, So I am Andrew Rapport.

I'm the host here at Theology Throwdown, but I am also the host of Andrew Rapport's Report, which is a weekly pre recorded podcast about an hour long dealing with biblical interpretations and applications for the Christian life.

I also record live in our livestream called Apologetics Live, Thursdays 8 to 10pm Eastern Time.

You can find that@apologeticslive.com if you want to join the discussion.

We always say there that you can ask me any question you have about God and the Bible, because I can answer any question about God in the Bible.

And if you think you got something to stump me, go ahead, join.

Just go to apologexlive.com 8 o' clock Eastern Time.

Ask me your tough question.

Just Remember, one thing I don't know is a perfectly good answer.

So with that, you can check those out.

Let us get into the topic tonight.

So tonight's topic is going to be on whether Christians should support basically heretical organizations or possible heretical organizations in the normal commerce.

And this is something that, what you're putting something up on the screen, Aaron, that the audience listening can't.

Can't.

You wanted to be something special for the people who take the time to watch.

No, it's a sticker somebody gave.

Gave me.

And as you put out the question, I put it up there.

Hang on, let me overthink this.

As the person who gave me this sticker knows me so well.

So what we are going to look to do is discuss the topic of, you know what, it's basically a Christian liberty area.

But this is becoming, I think, more of an issue that we've heard this before in some circles where people talked about whether you could have Bethel Music or Hillsong music or Elevation Music in your church.

The other now that we're hearing recently is that, you know, as I mentioned, Angel Studios, which is Mormon affiliated, that is producing a lot of films that Christians are going to.

And so should Christians go and support such organizations with their money, with their support?

That's basically going to be the topic.

So before we get into more specific questions, I just want to go around the, I keep wanting to say room, but around the, the, the, the virtual room here and just ask the general thoughts that you all have.

So we'll go in reverse order.

We'll start with Eve this time.

Ah, gonna put me on the stock?

Yeah, gonna put me on the spot.

Since I was the one that chose the topic.

I wasn't gonna let everyone know that, but.

But now the cat's out of the bag.

Yes.

Well, we know, we recently reviewed, two months ago, Tim and I reviewed the movie the King of Kings, which was the Angel Studios release for Easter.

And it was an interesting discussion because it was loosely based on a Charles Dickens book that was written to his children.

And they've turned it into an animated film.

And, you know, I thought it was interesting because they were able to take some liberties with the life of Christ because they were using it as a father telling his son the story instead of reading it from the Bible.

And so it had some, some good takeaways and some interesting, just some interesting storytelling aspects to it.

At the whole thing.

The whole time, the thing that was lingering in my mind as we were reviewing the movie was that this was put out by Angel Studio.

And I knew that they were Mormon affiliated and they've been coming out with a lot of really friendly, family friendly material recently and really hitting the the theaters really hard.

For the longest time, you could only watch their content on their streaming service.

But you know, ever since Sound of Freedom, they've been getting a lot of stuff in the theaters.

And so it's, it's an interesting thing because I'm not sure a lot of Christians know that they're Mormon affiliated and part of the, I'm not a master at religions like you are, Andrew, with the books that you've written, but I do know that one of the Mormons Mormon philosophies is to, it's almost like they want to sneak into and take over certain aspects of the world.

And I think that, you know, the Angel Studios is, is one way that they are, are doing that.

And so this is a question I don't know the answer to because I enjoy some of their movies, I've reviewed a couple of their movies and I, I don't know what the, the right answer is.

This is something that I'm struggling with personally and, and I'm volunteer that openly because I, you know, my podcast, we're constantly spending money on watching movies that are put out by the world.

And that money, everything, everything we buy as Christians in this world supports an anti Christian philosophy.

It's really hard not to do it.

And so it's like we're giving the money to the world and we don't think twice about it most of the time.

So when we give money to, through commerce, to companies and ministries and what have you out there that are skirting the line of being Christian and actually putting out false doctrine into the world, that's a scarier line for me than even giving money to the world because it's obvious when the world is wrong.

Brandon.

Yeah, so when I was kind of thinking through this topic, I think for me, and I relate a lot to what Eve was saying is I'm not sure I have just a cut and dry, like this is right, this is wrong kind of response.

But to me, as I thought about it, it kind of fell into contextual categories.

So I think, you know, media, movies, stuff like that, I'm more lenient on than I would be like worship music during a church service, you know, and so I've kind of taken, I think in that aspect of just breaking it down, of what kind of how am I consuming it, where am I at, what's the context?

But I do think you pointed out a really important thing, Eva, that I think a lot of times there is, I don't know if it's purposeful or not, but there is kind of a underhanded trying to get in under the Christian label.

I think you see from, you know, LDS and stuff like that that they're just not quite as open maybe about difference in theological doctrines that they would have.

And it's just like, well, no, we're all Christians.

Like, we're just a big Christian umbrella.

But really, when you get down to it, you realize there's a lot of, a lot of issues theologically.

And I do think there is.

Like I said, I don't know if it's purposeful or just happenstance, but there is a little bit of a worry on my side that people go, and why.

Like, I haven't seen King of Kings.

And so I didn't know much about it yet.

I've heard, I'd heard good things.

I heard it was a good movie.

But I think people sometimes can go and watch like, I don't know about that particular movie, but some media that's put out as a Christian movie or Christian theological stuff, but it has an LDS slant or Mormon slant to it and they're going to come away with some wrong, wrong understandings theologically.

And I think that could be a dangerous thing.

So people probably just need to be aware of the worldview that the media is coming from.

Like you mentioned with, when it is a worldly company, we just kind of assume, okay, maybe there's some good pieces we can pull out value wise, but we pretty much understand their worldview is bankrupt, bonuses adjacent kind of worldview.

I think it can be confusing sometimes to people and you kind of, you don't realize the differences because there may not be as blatant as like a worldly company would be.

All right, thank you.

And Aaron.

So I was thinking maybe I'd be the one a little bit more on the, the extreme side and maybe I am, I don't know.

But I, I struggle with people who want to boycott Target because they're really leaning into Pride Month, but who continue to have all of the stuff that they purchase shipped to them through Amazon.

Like, like that just shows oftentimes what just shows just really ignorance on, like I'm, I'm not fighting against their passion.

I think their passion is well placed.

I get it.

I get the anger, I get the frustration.

And let's be honest, we live in America.

Most of the people listening to this, we live in first World, countries where we have choices.

Okay?

So, yeah, so definitely spend your money where you want to spend your money.

But there is a level of maybe hypocrisy, if.

Or at least just blatant naivety when we're like, I am not.

Those people are so wicked.

I'm not going to give them my money.

I'm going to go to Walmart instead.

It's like, well, hold on.

Hold on a second.

You obviously don't know Wally World very well.

So that, to me, is one of the first things I'm going to say in this discussion is that we need to.

We need to be rooted.

We have to have rooted reason.

If I can.

If I can say that we need to be wise in, like, what we're actually saying, what we're trying to accomplish.

Because if we're.

If with.

If.

If our right hand is doing something and our left hand doesn't know what it's doing, God says that's a problem.

We need.

We need to be letter yeas be yays, and our nays be nays.

And if this thing.

If we're gonna stand against a thing, then we need to try to do it as consistent, consistently as possible.

Eve hit the nail on the head.

These wicked, terrible.

I mean, every.

Everything in Hollywood, all the big business, anywhere where there's a lot of money, they are worshiping self.

They are idolaters, they are abominations.

They are pouring their money into hedonism, into sensuality, into secularism, right?

And when we give our money to them, they're just going to continue recycling that money for the same purposes they always have.

So this is, for me, my answer really has to be two main things.

Okay?

Number one, the content.

So I wouldn't use Bethel songs because Bethel songs stink, right?

They're bad.

I'm not even talking about the musicality.

I'm just talking about from a lyrical perspective.

Sometimes they're just way off.

They're heretical.

Sometimes at best, they're just mushy, gushy.

They're just kind of in the middle.

They're not really saying anything.

They sound interesting, right?

So I'm not going to use Bethel songs for that reason.

I will.

And then obviously, what we're using in church, I think, is also an interesting category, but just general consumption.

My children and I will sit down and watch a movie that has very, very biblically inaccurate themes in it, but we're talking about it, right?

So if I'm going to sit down and watch a movie that.

If I'm going to use Vidangel to watch the Matrix so that we can cut out all the swearing and stuff like that.

But the Eastern mystical mysticism and, and wrong theologies in it.

We're going to talk about that.

I'm going to use Vidangel to watch some other show that, you know, also has wrong theology in it, and we're also going to talk about that.

So I'm talking about, for me now, when we think about, well, what about other people?

What are other people going to think?

How are they going to respond if we give money to these people and they continue producing this content and people out there and they're consuming and I don't know, it's like, well, hold on a second, hold on, hold on.

Again, there's a little bit of ignorance in that, okay?

Nobody is producing on a major scale anything that is really suitable for mass consumption.

That we can all just accept it 100%.

Nobody is.

So why are we pointing out those people?

And we just have to have a really good reason for pointing out those people.

So that goes to my second one.

My second one is that when an organization or when a ministry has made, let's just say that the content is, is, is really neither here nor there.

It's not the end of the world.

It's not super good, it's not super bad.

If the organization or the ministry has made their identity something that is clearly sinful.

That's where I, I feel more comfortable saying, okay, that's a problem.

So as an example, I'm gonna go back and now I'm going to support the Target haters.

I don't shop at Target, okay?

Because Target has fought very hard not just to support abortion, not just to do the kind of stuff that they do through their charitable giving, but they've tried to make their identity something that Walmart hasn't made.

Walmart's like, hey, everyone, come shop here, right?

Target has been, we want to lean into this.

We want people to know that this is what we're siding on.

So if that's the reason we don't want to give our money to Target, that's, I respect that a little bit more than just, well, they're wicked people who use it for wicked purposes.

And the last thing I'll say on this point is, remember when talking about meat offered to Idols, okay, the weaker brother, the stronger brother, Paul specifically wrote, eat anything that is sold in the meat market, okay?

These people were going to a meat market.

And the vast majority of what was being sold in the meat market what had been sacrificed?

Idols.

100%.

That's how it got there.

They put it on the altar, they cooked it up medium rare, hopefully probably not back then.

And they took it over to the meat market and they sold it.

And he says, eat anything.

Go to the meat market.

Buy your meat.

Now, he does say, specifically, if you're the weaker brother, do so without asking questions for conscience sake.

But he says it is okay.

So I think we need to be really grounded when we make these.

When we're talking about what we should and what we shouldn't lean into, what is our real reason for.

For it.

And I don't think the real reason, I don't think a good grounded reason is, well, they produce stuff that's not true.

Well, then, my friend, if that is the case, you shouldn't be consuming anybody's anything or, well, they use their money for things that they shouldn't.

Again, same.

Same thing applies to everybody out there.

Yeah.

I do think that from my position that we do have an interesting take with Christians where we will treat unbelievers much more charitably than we will professing believers.

You know, if you have someone you disagree with, that's an unbeliever.

It's not a big deal.

Like, even on social media, you don't have to point it out, but when it's a believer, it's like everything you disagree with has to get pointed out.

And I'm not sure why that is, but it's something I think as we get into this discussion, we have to keep in mind, because we got to ask ourselves, is that why we're against certain things just because they profess to be believers and they're in error?

I mean, I, I kind of agree with, like with Aaron said, it's kind of hard to see Christians that will go to Hollywood and be okay with the indoctrination of secular humanism, but then they're against the indoctrination of Mormons, of Mormonism.

If, if they were to do that, as long as it's, you know, so.

So let's choose a different movie, the Chosen, which is, you know, I haven't, for a record, I have not seen it.

Others have seen it and reviewed it.

And we have a review of it on Striving Fraternity.

If you want to go see the review that Josiah Nichols did.

But.

So he watched it, so I don't have to.

No, but.

But he saw serious issues with that.

And it is, son.

Many Christians watch the Chosen, and it is produced in a Mormon studio.

Now, how much Mormon influence is in there?

There's been a lot of debate on that.

You know, the guys who, who put that together say oh no, it's Christian based.

And yet, you know, from what I understand, there's some Mormonism that, that seeps in and you know, I just wonder how much influence is there.

So I say that to say we have to try to make sure we're finding a consistent common ground on these different issues.

So I, I think that's one of the things we, we need to have.

Now what I think that gets interesting is we have to make a difference between something that is for pure entertainment purposes and it's not indoctrination or evangelism versus when it is.

I say that because I forget which one it was, Bethel or Hillsong that stated that their mission, their music is to reach out.

That's their evangelism tool.

And so their evangelism is using their music.

But the concern is that who's receiving the music.

Well, it's not unbelievers.

So they're using their music to bring people into their church or churches.

Their, their, I can't really say denomination, but some of the things they, they teach are definitely heretical, believing you could be a little God and things like that.

So what we have is when they're using their music to prey on Christians, I think that is the different for what Christians should do, especially within the church, than some movie that doesn't have the goal of trying to indoctrinate Christians into error.

So I just want to make that distinction, you know, so, so the, the thing is, is that, that I want to first ask us and I'll start with Brandon this time is, is giving our money support is, is if we, if we're go to a movie or, and, and if you're in church and you are playing music like Hillsong Bethel, you're supposed to be putting that on your CCLI if that's what you're doing.

And you should because it's kind of the law to not just put copyrights if you're putting it up on screen, but if you're, if you're playing that music, you're singing those songs, you're supposed to be putting an annual report where you let CCLI know how you spent it, how, what songs you did so that they can give money to your portion of money to those artists.

And, and I'm saying that because many people are not doing that and they feel, well, hey, I'm not doing it.

So it's not A big deal.

Well, that's what you're supposed to be doing.

You're supposed to regularly let them know.

So if you're not doing that, I think there's different issues we could discuss.

So if you're doing that, you are giving your, your, your money to, to those groups.

So is it okay to do that?

You know, Brandon, I'm going to start with you.

Is it okay to support groups that have heretical views with our money and now broaden it?

I mean, it's Christian groups, but there's also the unbelievers.

Like we're talking about Hollywood.

So what do you think?

Yeah, yeah.

So I kind of got to mention earlier, I think it's context is going to play a big, a big role in how I approach that.

And kind of like what you were talking about, is the point of the media that you're consuming evangelistic or to teach theological truths, or is it just entertainment value, things of that nature?

So I kind of like Aaron brought up, you're not going to be able to spend a dollar in our culture without supporting something that you're not going to agree with.

I mean, it'd be very hard to do anything and to not have your money go towards some organization or group that is, is, you know, anti gospel in some way.

So with that in mind, knowing this just kind of the world we live in, the fallen world we live in, I, I think we have to be intelligent how we do it.

But again, if it's movies, stuff like that, I go to lots of movies with my wife or with my son.

Of course there's things that I want my son to see, like just crazy amounts of violence or, you know, sexual activity.

There's things like that we monitor for him, for sure, and even myself.

But yeah, you know, 99 of the movies, if not all of them that we go see, your rent or whatever, are not going to be Christian worldview movies.

And so it's almost inevitable to support some of that with your money.

Now you come to, like, even when it comes to music, I think if I'm.

If I'm driving in the car and I'm listening to a Christian radio station, they play a Bethel song.

Even that contextually, I think is gonna be different than worship on a Sunday morning.

I'm probably gonna have higher standards for what's coming from stage in the context of a worship service, because you are, you should be at least aiming at providing theological truth with the hymns or the songs that you're singing.

And so in that context, I think people go to church and have the safe assumption that what they're going to hear from stage is sound theological teaching.

And so if the music being played is not providing that, they're probably going to just absorb it and go on where.

If I go watch the Matrix movie, obviously a lot of the Eastern worldview that's involved in it, I'm not going there to learn something theological.

I'm going to be entertained by the movie itself.

And so I think a lot of it just comes down to context of what is the purpose and where are you at and are you absorbing it for theological truth like you would from a worship song, like on a Sunday morning worship service, or is it entertainment on a Saturday night?

You know, you have a date with your wife or something like that.

And so I think that plays a big role in how that goes.

But inevitably you're going to support organizations and groups and companies that you don't agree with with your money.

Now, I think Aaron brought a good point out.

Like if the company makes it part of their identity that they're going to support those things outright, you know, then yeah, I would say you have them, you have a more of a.

You should be more willing to not, not support them.

But when it's just, they just have a wrong worldview, like more like a Walmart per se, it's just inevitable.

So context is going to matter and what you're trying to get out of, it's going to matter.

And you make up a good point when it comes to the funding because like I said, if you're in a church worship service using ccli, you're supposed to notify them so that they could pay the artist, where if you're on the radio, you're not paying them, the sponsors are.

And you know, so you listening or not listening doesn't have a direct impact on, on support.

So.

Yeah, that's an interesting distinction.

Aaron, what do you think?

Yeah, I stick by a lot of the things I said earlier.

I think specifically your question this time around.

Sum that up for me again, just so I can.

Is it, is it when you per.

You go to a movie and you're putting money there, is that implicit support or explicit support?

I should say?

Yeah, either one.

No.

Now, it's hard biblically to justify this because like, as an example, the, you know, Jacob and his sons having to go to Egypt to purchase grain there, right?

That's.

That was like do or die.

There was a famine in the land.

But at no point was it even remotely hinted at that that was a problem.

That was a bad idea.

Like, we'd rather not do this, but, well, we have to.

It's like, no, you go, you go and you buy the grain.

That's what you should do.

Now we're also talking about entertainment versus necessities, right?

These are very first world problems.

So am I supporting it by purchasing their goods and their services?

I can see the argument on both sides.

I can see a person saying, well, if nobody gave them money, they wouldn't continue doing what they're doing.

I totally understand that.

But I can also see another person saying that just because I go to the market and buy meat that was offered to idols, I'm not supporting what they were doing and their lifestyle and the choices they're making and where this meat came from.

I'm just buying the meat so I can go home and feed my family, or so that I can go home and read a book, a story to my child, or so I can go home and listen to this music or whatever the case may be.

And I'm really, I'm talking primarily again, just from personal consumption.

I think within the church we have to have very high standards.

I think everything that's been said here is very accurate.

We want truth to be spoken in love.

That has to happen in the church.

If it's not truth, I don't care if it's coming from the pastor's mouth or from the, the hymnal, it should not be spoken.

That is very important because that is, we are, we are putting out that truth.

People will say, well, if, if, you know, if you wouldn't say it in church, why, or you won't consume it in church, why would you consume it someplace else?

Because the purpose of church is consumption.

We're not consumers at church.

We are worshiping God at church.

Well, Aaron, we're supposed to worship God all the, all the time.

First Corinthians, 10:31.

That is 100% accurate.

But we do see a distinction in the scriptures.

I don't remember the passage right off the top of my head.

If any of you remember, it feels free to chime in.

But the passage talking about a person who is married has things of the world that they have to consume themselves with that take away from other purposeful.

I'll say deliberate or that's not the word I wanted to use.

But worship times, serving God in that way.

So there, there are these different tiers, right?

So within the church, I would say that we need to have exceptionally high expectations.

Expectations for that.

But am I Going, am I supporting something?

I.

There's a, there's an arcade that's opened up here downtown, the White Squirrel Arcade.

And they have a bunch of old classic video games.

You go in there, it's like, man, the, it's like from the mid-90s.

They put in your arcade, your quarters up on the, on the arcade.

It's great, right?

But the guy who runs that store, his family, do I know who he is?

I'm.

I'm helping his business.

As I'm in there having fun with my family, I'm helping his business.

He's taking that money, he's going home.

Home.

And he's doing what?

Is he an alcoholic?

By the way, I know it's Tom and none of these things are true, but, but, you know, we don't know these things.

We don't know what the people are doing.

Am I supporting his lifestyle?

Because I'm going there and I'm doing that.

No, I'm not.

And actually, I will say that that is the beauty of capitalism.

Capitalism is gorgeous.

Because, you know, I'm not, I'm not going and supporting the bread maker.

I'm purchasing food so that I can take the food home and give to my family.

And, and, and he's, he's just, it's just an exchange right there.

So I think that's kind of the, probably the, the better way for us to look at it because if we start getting into the weeds of, oh, should I support these people again?

Man, you're off.

You.

If you do your homework, you're going to uncover stuff within a very short period of time where some of us with sensitive consciences are going to say, I can't give these people my money.

Yeah.

And I think the passage I'm trying to look up, I think it's First Corinthians 7 is the passage you referenced where the, the married man has more responsibilities on the earth to take care of.

So, Eve, what, what are your thoughts?

Yeah, and.

Oh, I agree with everything so far.

It.

I think the, the biggest deal for me would obviously be what you do with your church, because I, I've, until a couple years ago attended a church that actually did a Wednesday night Bible study based on the chosen and sang Bethel music.

And a couple of those things were the reason why I found another church.

But I think that we have to be very careful, especially in the church with how we address these things because they can lead people astray in the congregation.

It is to me a bit of a weaker brother thing in the church.

Especially because there are various levels of spiritual maturity in a church.

You have young people who are rich in faith and old people who are young in faith and everything in between.

And they might say, oh well, we did a Bible study on the chosen.

That means that the chosen is endorsed by the church.

So I can watch all the seasons of the chosen and, and get, you know, theology out of that.

Or we sing Bethel music all the time.

So I can go peruse anything about bethel on YouTube.

And it's good because it's endorsed by the church that I attend.

And so it can definitely have an influence on weaker people in the church if they are, if the church endorses things that are Christian adjacent or adjacent to heretical beliefs.

I know that in that church they were, there were these like synopsis of the books, like comic strips that were going out.

I can't remember who was putting them out.

And my life group leader was super happy with those and started, you know, sharing them.

You know, it's like, we're going to be doing this book next and here's a synopsis and I'm like, this is not scriptural and you have to be, you know, you're sending this out to everybody and it's an artist's take on what is important in the book.

And it's, and a lot of times I, when I would look at them, some of them were good, some of them were off.

And, and I'm like, and I can see that I'm no, you know, top notch theologian.

And yet you have weaker people in the church who possibly don't have the biblical upbringing I have.

Who would think that they're, they're great, you know, and so I just think, especially when it comes to the church, we have to be very careful.

That doesn't mean that we can't ever sing contemporary music.

It doesn't mean that we can't, you know, have some of these sources that we use outside of the Bible for study.

We just have to be super careful and do our research and know what we're putting in front of the people in the church.

Now when it comes to personal, I'm kind of with Aaron in that, you know, if, if an organization is very vocal about things that are, that I disagree with, then I, I, I won't deal with them.

I, I don't try and explore and research everybody I buy from.

But if they're going to be vocally stand up vocally in the public place and, and you know, really put their funding and their voice at behind something That I strongly disagree with.

I'm not going to do business with them as much as possible because I don't want to fund what they are.

And that is one of the reasons I don't shoot up at Target.

I don't go to Starbucks.

You know, there's, you know, a few worldly places like that that I don't do business with for that reason.

Oh, I don't go to Starbucks because I don't like coffee.

But I was gonna say I don't go to Starbucks because their coffee stinks.

But.

But when it comes to things like Angel Studios, you know, I, I think they're putting out some really good content and they're filling a niche needing.

Because Hollywood has gotten so raunchy these days, even Disney, you can't take your kids to see a Disney movie anymore.

Having something like the King of Kings, which has a really good message and a good story has, you know, it's, it's Christian, not just Krishna.

Jason.

It's really about, you know, Jesus being your hero instead of King Arthur or something like that.

It's maybe a more secular take on Jesus then is comfortable for a lot of Christians.

But it, it brings it in to a level where a child could understand it and I kind of appreciated that.

And it's a whole lot better than taking your, your, your kids to see something like Lilo and Stitch or one of the other offerings that are currently in the theater.

So, you know, I, I think as a Christian family, you have to make your choices.

Is.

And I've never used Vidangel, but I've heard really good things about the ability to, you know, watch something without all the bad language and, you know, skipping over the sex and that kind of stuff.

I, I could see how that would be extremely useful, especially with kids in the house, whether it funds Mormons or LDS or whatever you want to call them or not.

You know, it is what it is.

They're going to get the money anyway through other things.

But I, I think that the value of the product might be worth overlooking some of that stuff if it is helping your family to stay in, in a more safe environment when it comes to your, your movie watching and entertainment.

Because it's a rough world out there.

Yeah.

I remember in the 90s there was a film that the Mormon church put out about the life of Christ and there was a film, and I don't remember the name of the films, but there was another.

There was one that was put out by Christians and it was sad that the Mormon one was More accurate, even though they would be theologically in error.

And yet they stuck to the scriptures where the quote, unquote, Christian one didn't put things in there that subtly were error and could suddenly be even heretical.

Right.

And so I find it interesting because sometimes the Mormons will do a better job at sticking to the texts.

And I wonder sometimes they do that because they're trying to get the Christians to come over to them.

And, and the one I'm thinking of specifically it, everything was good up until the end where it says, and if you'd like a Book of Mormon, you know, and I am that guy that every time I move, I, I contact the Mormon Church and ask for a Book of Mormon so that they would send it to me, because they would send it with a missionary and that gives me someone to evangelize.

So now they know who I am so that they won't send it if I use my real name or things.

So I just have them meet in public.

But, you know, I think there is a difference.

And it's also, when it comes to the money issue, Eve, how far do we go?

Right?

So is it enough to say, okay, I investigate and I realize, oh, Angel Studios is put out, is Mormon affiliated.

And therefore, if I'm giving money, I'm giving money to, you know, to a Mormons who are giving money to a Mormon church.

Because it's not the church that's putting together Angel Studios, it's someone who belongs to church.

Well, now what are you going to do when you go to the hotels?

Are you going to go to the Marriotts?

Because there you're going to have a Book of Mormon in, in each of the rooms because the owner is Mormon.

And so going there and supporting that, are you supporting the church?

Well, now let's go a little further.

Do you drink Coca Cola?

Because Coca Cola, the Mormon Church, by the way, this is why the Mormons used to say you couldn't have caffeine.

And it changed to you couldn't have hot caffeine when they bought stock in Coca Cola.

So if you are buying Coca Cola, you're indirectly supporting the Mormon Church.

Right?

I mean, how far do you go with it?

And that becomes the thing if you're supporting someone who is, and I think we do have to make a distinction between am I directly funding, in this case, like the Mormon Church, or am I supporting, you know, or am I funding someone who is a Mormon?

And that may be a difference for some people, you know.

Yeah, I could see that.

And it also Kind of falls back on kind of.

The point of my podcast is, you know, the whole name of my podcast is are you just watching?

It's when, when you're taking part of, with, with things in the world, whether it be your entertainment or anything really, you have to be doing it from a Christian worldview.

And that doesn't mean that you're spurning the world because, you know, Jesus told us that to be in the world, but not of the world.

So we can't, we can't live in our own little secluded bubble and have nothing to do with the world.

And that includes the, the cults and the, the non Christian religions.

They're, they're the world because they're not Christ.

They're not in Christ.

We're not supposed to live in our own little bubble and completely throw them out.

We have to understand them and, and be able to approach them in a way that we can share the gospel with them.

And you're not just watching entertainment.

You know, that's the point of my podcast.

You're, you're looking at it.

You're learning about the world without learning, like without becoming the world.

And then you use what you learn to start conversations that can lead to evangelism in, in the world.

Because that's the Great commission.

That's what we were told as Christians to, to be.

And so I, it, I raised this question because it was something that I was struggling with, but I was already sort of leaning to the ideas that, you know, they're not any worse than anything else in the world.

If they're not truly Christian, they need the gospel just as much as somebody who is anti Christian or completely unaffiliated with Christian one way or the other, you know, neutral.

They all need the gospel.

And I don't know that it would be good for churches to have step off of a conviction of not dealing with these things inside the church.

But we definitely should be able to use our Christian worldview to have an impact on the world.

And in order to do that, we have to step outside our bubble and.

Let me expand with that.

You know, we're talking Hillsong music, things like that.

We're talking Angel Studios.

But, you know, there was a time where some of the discussion was, you know, Amy Grant going to singing secular music, or I forget the hip, Hip hop artist that was very well known Christian artist that started singing secular non Christian themed songs.

And people are like, oh, you know, you can't listen to Lecrae, I think was his name.

And so, you know, let's include that in, in our thinking as well.

But Aaron, let me ask you, what does it mean to be in the world but not of the world?

I mean that's scripture.

So what's, what's the meaning of that?

Because that's really what we're, we're especially with Eve was saying we're dancing around this.

It.

Yeah, I think I'm saying.

I think I'm gonna.

I'm actually trying to pull up the passage as we're speaking.

What was the reference on that one?

I'm not sometimes on the, on the spot.

I don't do well with my references.

Yeah.

So if, if you have, you know, Logos Bible software, which you can get@lagos.comsfe to get yourself a discount and help support striving for eternity, you just have to go into the search and say in the world and you know, within my Bible and it'll give me all 400 and boy in the world shows up 462 times in the Bible.

But it's a lot.

Yeah, yeah, I narrowed it down though.

It's actually First John 2:15.

Do not love the world.

It starts the passage, sorry, do not love the world, nor the things in the world.

If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

For all that is of the world, the lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life is not from the Father, but it's from the world.

It goes on to say, you know what actually did I.

That's do not love the world yet?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But is that not the passage I'm looking for?

Is that the one you referenced, Eve?

I think this does give us an important understanding.

I'm going to go with it regardless because this tells us us what it is to love the world.

And I think that's the idea of being of the world.

To be of the world is to be of the system to come, not.

Not to come out of it as in to leave it, but to grow from it like the.

The root of a.

Of a tree.

But this is the world.

The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life.

This is not from the waters, from the world.

We need to.

But we need to live in the world.

We can't.

In fact, Jesus asked not that we be taken out of the the world.

He.

He specifically stated that he his God's plan is for us to be salt and light within the world system, but not to live according to the world system.

So that's Why I want to go back to the content piece of this.

The.

The content with which I'm filling my mind that I'm choosing to live by.

Super important.

So for an example, I do not like the Chosen.

I've watched elements of it here and there, and I have my reasons for believing in the chosen is not worth my time.

How.

However, from time to time, I will watch the Passion.

Now, the Passion was created by an interesting subsect of Roman Catholicism, right?

So you got the Mormons on one side, Catholics on the other side.

And I'm not, not.

I'm not supporting the Catholics, but I think the content of what they created was a little bit better.

Now, the.

The Passion was a singular movie.

I know they've come up with a sequel I haven't seen.

It was a singular movie.

And I thought that for the most part, the percentage of valuable, valuable things to glean from it was way higher than the percentage of valuable things to glean overall from the Chosen.

That's a personal opinion.

I'm not even going to sit here and try to make an argument for it right now.

But that's how I tried to make that distinction.

Because where do I want.

Where do I want my investment of time to be?

If I truly want to reflect on, in this particular instance, not just entertainment, but what Christ did for me in the substitutionary atonement, then I much rather watch the Passion of the Christ than watch the Chosen.

However, if I can only choose one thing, I'm going to choose Sight and Sounds Jesus.

Now, there are things about Sight and Sounds Jesus I don't like either.

But the percentage of that conformity to the Scripture and I think fidelity to the truth is significantly higher than even the Passion.

So I believe that to be, not to be of the world, we need to be asking these questions.

We need to have our minds turned on.

Ladies and gentlemen, listen very carefully to what I'm about to say.

Amusement is a sin for Christians.

I'm not saying it's a sin to go to an amusement park.

I mean, truly, amusement.

The word amusement means no thinking.

And there is never a time that it is appropriate for Christians to turn our brains off and to not be discerning and to not be thinking, pushing everything that we consume through the grid that is God's words being everything through that lens.

It is a sin for Christians to simply be amused.

But if our brains are turned on, there's lots of things that we can do.

For an entertainment perspective, that would be okay.

But when we're.

When we're trying to truly reflect on who God is.

Man, oh man.

We've got to go with the thing that's going to be the most honest and accurate.

Yeah, well, I think.

Yeah, yeah.

And there is, I think there is for a lot of people struggle on what is it means to be in the world, but not of the world.

And I think that's really the core of where a lot of this comes down.

Brandon, you have any thoughts here?

Well, first, I do not like Pepsi, so I guess I'm going to support Mormons through my Coke drinking because.

Yeah, I'm with you on that.

Yeah, yeah.

So.

So I just kind of like searched that real quick and I, it took me to John 17.

So I don't know if maybe just because it's so.

It's actually just looking.

It's John 17 and it's also in first John 2.

So there's.

It, it shows it similar ideas.

It's in both.

But, but I think the one that we're really speaking of is John 17, 14, 16.

Yeah, that's, that's kind of what I had brought up here.

And I was kind of reading through it while Aaron was talking.

I think where I land on that, it's inevitable that we, I mean we, we're, we're in, we're in the world.

Like it's just part of how creation works where we're alive, we're, we're there.

But to not be of the world, how I've always taken that.

And it was really good to hear Aaron kind of kind of break that down, talking about like amusement and just shutting your brain off and just absorbing information and not really running it through the lens of a Christian worldview.

So when I think of being in the world but not of the world is we are going to be interacting with counter worldviews all the time.

And part of that being in the world is we can't isolate ourselves away from them.

I actually don't think that would be healthy.

And I don't think for a gospel evangelistic sense we really need to, we should be engaging.

Kind of like you talked about, every time you move, you ask them to send you a Book of Mormon because you know it's going to put you, you rubbing elbows with somebody that needs, needs the gospel and, and I kind of think so.

But to not be of the world, I think is at least how I'm taking it thinking through right now tonight is that kind of means not shutting your brain off like it talks about here in John 17.

Like I'm gonna start in verse 16.

Says they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.

Sanctify them in the truth.

Your word is truth.

As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.

And for their sake I consecrate myself that they also may be sanctified in the truth.

Truth.

And so I think that ties in that concept of not just being amused, not shutting our brain off, but that we are sanctified by Christ and that he sends us into the world to be true speakers and to be truth bearers.

And part of that is having discernment and being able to engage with other worldviews in a peaceable, loving manner, but standing on the sanctified truth that Christ reveals to us in His Word.

And so we're able to rub elbows with the world but not be, not succumb to what they're trying to drag us into or not shut our brains off and just be amused.

But to have that truth and to be able to do that in a loving, gospel centered way, I think that's kind of where I'm coming at, at least tonight.

When I think about that being in the world but not of the world is.

It's inevitable I'm going to be around people.

That's just how it is.

And that's a good thing that God has put us here to do that.

And I get to bring the truth with me and not just turn my brain off, but actually have my.

My reasoning rooted in Scripture and let my worldview speak through what I interact with.

I'm just glad that Aaron said it was a sin to turn our brain off because that's what he does every time I preach, he just takes his.

My pillow and just sits there.

He.

He brings my pillow to my preaching so.

And then he's holding up his sign.

Hang on.

I overthink things.

Is a.

Yeah, but Aaron does trouble.

For, for supposedly thinking too much.

I have many times I've heard that.

I think, Aaron, I think, I think you're thinking too much.

And I'm like, what does that even mean?

What do you want from me?

I want you to pay attention when I'm preaching, not have bring a my pillow to the.

Or you know, to the sanctuary pillows.

So comfortable.

Well, I will say this then.

If anyone wants to try out getting a my pillow and see if they are as comfortable as Aaron says, well, the way to do it is to go to mypillow.com use the promo code SFE that stands for Striving for Eternity.

And then not only are you getting a great pillow that you could travel with like Aaron and I, but you can also be supporting this ministry and this podcast.

So just something you could do.

But, and I want you all to know that he's just as smooth as sneaking the gospel into a conversation as he is at doing his advertisement transition.

No, I think I'm better with the gospel, actually.

We, we, the, the speakers at Striving Fraternity had a meeting last night and we're trying to talk about putting together a weekend seminar where that we all do together.

And one of the speakers, Dan Kraft, was saying that what we need to do is incorporate in my spiritual transitions.

Because he was like, that's just, just, was so great at just this transition from the natural to the spiritual.

And we used to do striving, turning, used to have conferences years ago and we would do that before lunch, we would introduce, because I made a game of it so that people can get better at that.

And so, yeah, I'm not as smooth with the ads, going to the ads as Ben Shapiro is, but hey, you know, us Jewish people got to be good at something.

Speaking of you Jewish people, why would we not, if we're not going to give our money to the Mormons, why should we give our money to the Jews?

And if we're not going to give our money to the Jews, we can't do anything in Hollywood.

I mean, all Hollywood is just basically.

No, no, if you listen to some of the, I, I don't want to mention the podcasts and the people, but if you listen to certain people out there right now within Christianity and, and they are within Christianity that they would say Jewish people run everything and at the same time they say Jewish people don't exist.

I don't know how those two work together.

Actually, I do.

The solution, I, I, someone challenged me with it and I said, well, it's a very simple thing because supposedly ethnic Jewish people stopped existing in 70 AD.

I said, yeah, that's when we enveloped, developed the time machine.

And so we just went to the future.

So we knew exactly where to control things so we can control everything.

So yeah, we vanished in 70 A.D.

we all vanished.

We just all went into a time machine.

So yeah, you gotta have fun with stupidity.

You know, so let me, let me ask, I'll stay with Brandon.

You know, should Christians promote movies that appear to have, you know, good godly Christian messages that, you know, would be safe, family type content, even if it's LDS or, you know, something like that?

I mean I mentioned earlier that there was a film on that I remember in the 90s coming out where the Mormon church did a more biblically based movie on the life of Christ than a Christian organization.

Which should I watch?

What do you think?

That's a good question.

So I thought.

So that's why I asked.

Yeah.

And most of that question was actually Eve's, so I thought it was really good.

Yeah.

And so, so if I can, maybe I can break it this way.

So like I watched the Sound of Freedom and I really enjoyed that movie.

That was really good.

Movie is a good story.

It's just really interesting how all that played out and took place.

And that's a movie that I definitely suggest people go watch.

Like, hey, you should go check this out.

It's really, it's, it's sad and encouraging all at the same time because it is, you know, based on a real story.

And so it's something like that.

I would have no problem saying, hey, you should probably go watch this movie.

It's really good.

It's a, it's a good, entertaining story that I think has a lot of truth to it and it's just kind of shines a light on a very dark aspect of the culture that we live in.

I think it's really good where I might struggle more.

And I'd have to think about this if I was promoting a movie with the intent of theological truth, like you talking about the movie about the life of life of Christ and one was developed by a Christian movie organization that actually missed the mark more than the LDS one.

I don't know.

I think I would.

Something internally would say don't push people towards the LDS provided one since it is a theological.

This is based on trying to teach theological truth.

But if it's more accurate, I mean it, it just, it's just more accurate and it may be the right resource for somebody.

And so I guess maybe I would promote it to certain people with that cavity.

That long winded caveat of hey, just so you know, don't take everything they say, you know, at face value.

This particular movie is, is well done and.

Right.

But don't go to their website now and then consume it all.

Maybe it's how I would approach that.

Yeah.

So each, each individual case, maybe.

Well, let me ask you this Sound of Freedom.

You mentioned that if you didn't know that Angel Studios was Mormon affiliated, is there anything in that film that would make you think that it was religious based, let alone Mormon?

From what I can remember, it's been a few years since I've seen it.

But what I remember, I don't remember anything.

Yeah, that made me think, oh, that, that's a weird theological take.

Or why would they.

Yeah, I don't remember anything like that really standing out as far as.

Yeah.

Theological error.

Because it really wasn't.

It was a religious based movie.

No.

Is the point just a.

Just a good movie that happened to be developed by a religious group.

Movie organization.

No.

With the life of Christ.

You could do what I did, which was I.

I would play it and stop it before it gets to the.

The Mormon thing.

So I didn't have to explain any.

Of that evangelistic stuff.

No, that makes sense.

So, Aaron, Aaron, what do you think?

Is it.

Is it.

I mean, can Christians promote movies that have good messages even though they're put together by heretical groups?

So I have two thoughts.

One is that specifically when you.

Hold on, you have two thoughts because you always overthink things.

Things.

Yeah.

Where everyone else just had one thought, just one thing.

Within the context of my ministry, I am never going to promote a book or a resource for parenting or things like that if I haven't consumed it and couldn't put my sweeping stamp of approval on it.

Now, even then, I mean, we have the same little thing everyone else has.

You know, just because we have this here doesn't mean we wholly endorse blah, blah, blah, blah, Just kind of COVID your high knees.

But I'm very strict within that context because this is a teaching ministry where we're saying, okay, if you want to know how to parent your children such a way that it glorifies God as an act of worship to him, this is how to do it.

I want to make certain that what I'm putting out there is not going to lead people astray.

So I'm very picky with that.

However.

The other side we have to be careful with too is this idea of association.

Now, the idea of association can be taken way, way, way, way too far.

However.

However, having been in the music industry for about a decade or so, having been in my own alternative rock band, you know, I've listened to a lot of music that was not valuable for me to consume or anyone else to consume.

But I've also heard a lot of music that was interesting.

So if I reference.

Yeah, you know, you know, it's a really good song.

Is Time of youf Life by Green Day.

Right.

It's not inappropriate for a person to think, wow, Aaron likes Green Day.

Do I want people to think that no, no, no, no, I don't, because I'm very familiar with a lot of their music and I would not want anyone to think that I have any type of regular diet of that type of music.

So like I said earlier, I think there's an important time where we might have to give that caveat.

We might have to say, yeah, I really liked this thing for this reason, otherwise I don't really support it.

Now, again, unfortunately, unfortunately, we can go down way too big of a rabbit hole on that particular issue.

The illustration that comes to mind is I knew somebody who wouldn't let her son, my friend, wear Doc Martens because apparently in the 90s, there was a gang in New York who made Doc Martens shoes, their trademark shoe.

And she didn't want him associating with this gang.

That was her, that was her mindset.

But she frequently wore rainbow multicolored clothing and, and butterfly earrings and things like that, which, you know, had a.

Much more.

Who knew about.

I didn't ever knew about this gang and, and their Doc Martens, but these, you know, the, the homosexual community and their love of rainbows and, you know, during that time was known to everybody.

Right.

So I think we can get too far with that.

So what I do is if, if the thing had value, if the production values were good from an entertainment perspective or, or from some other.

Not.

Not.

Let's learn from this perspective.

I don't have any problem saying, yeah, I liked it, there were some issues in it, or I don't agree, or, you know, I don't see eye to eye with the creators and having that little caveat in there.

Because we want to make certain that we're not miscommunicating ourselves.

And because people, we're.

We're all, as humans, we're bad communicators and we can easily jump to the wrong conclusions just doing everything we can to make certain that they don't misunderstand the position that we hold.

Yeah, I mean, the guilt by association.

It is kind of interesting how some Christians do that.

I remember there was a gentleman.

I was doing Open air in New York City, and he was, he was unhappy because there was a topless woman that was, was off to the side, and I wasn't calling out her sin.

And he thought that I was not being Christian because I, I wasn't.

I was addressing sin in general in an audience of 200 people rather than just her sin.

He was so offended by it.

And, you know, unfortunately in New York it was legal.

And so he kept calling the police.

People looking at her.

That, that, that's the point.

Like, like what he didn't know, and I told him afterwards is the first thing I did when we got out there is because I knew what was going to happen.

I said to her, I said, listen, you know that you're dressed indecently.

You know that it's a sin.

You're going to be judged by God.

I won't call you out publicly as long as you stay over there and away from me.

Right?

And so she did until he called the cops.

And then, then they wanted.

She wanted to come over, like.

So then I start calling her out, out.

And so the, the thing, though, is that this individual, we ended up afterwards talking and going to have dinner together with a couple of the others that were out ministering.

And he proceeded to tell me that John MacArthur is a heretic.

Now, here's how he got there.

John MacArthur preached at a conference with John Piper, and John Piper preached at a conference with Rick Warren.

Rick Warren is a heretic, therefore John MacArthur is a heretic.

And that, my friend, that.

That gentleman has been amusing himself too much.

Yeah, well, here, wait, it gets funnier because I said to him, I said, well, you know, let me just tell you, I'm having a meal with you.

He said, yeah, I've had a meal with John MacArthur.

You're a heretic.

He goes, no, no, no, no, no, it doesn't work that way.

I said, of course it doesn't.

It only works for someone else, you know, but you do bring up an interesting idea with.

You know, sometimes we forget the meanings of, like, with, with the shoes that you bring up.

Sometimes there's an association that someone may know that we don't.

I have someone I know who wouldn't let his.

His girls do high fives because he grew up in the hippie generation and it was some hippie thing that I had no knowledge of, you know, but he was more sensitive to it.

In fact.

Can we bring this.

Can we bring this home real quick?

Because you and I just had a conversation recently, and I learned for the first time that there are some people out there who might not invite me to come speak week at their church because of the relationship that you and I have.

I didn't even know that until you had.

You had talked about it.

If people don't like me, they won't invite you.

Yeah, exactly.

100.

Yeah.

And that's just like, how, how can.

How on earth?

Like what?

Andrew's doing a great thing.

I'm going to Partner with Andrew as he is doing great things.

This association thing is ridiculous because we're very tribal.

We're very tribal, you know, But.

But my seminary had a rule that you could not have facial hair.

And I would, you know, I would just challenge it just to ask, not in a bad way, but just be like, why?

No one knew.

And I was like, then what's the issue?

And eventually it came down to the seminary started in the 60s, and facial hair was something the hippies did as a sign of rebellion.

So the.

The people who started the seminary had it in the bylaws because to have facial hair was to be rebellious against the government.

Well, in the.

In the 90s, that no longer was the case.

Right.

And so it was like.

I don't know if you guys ever heard the illustration.

You know, preachers have all.

All these illustrations.

But there's, you know, the little girl, she's learning to how to cook a turkey for Thanksgiving, and her mother cuts the turkey in half and puts it in two pans.

And the girl says, mom, why do we.

Why do we cut the turkey in two and put it into pans?

I don't know.

It's the only way to do a Thanksgiving turkey.

But you can ask your grandmother.

She's in the other room.

So she goes in the other room.

Grandma, why.

Why do we cut the turkey in two and put it in two pans?

Because that's the only way you do a Thanksgiving turkey.

It's got to be in two pans.

But why?

Because that's the way your great grandmother, you know, taught me to do it.

Go.

Go ask her.

Goes in the bedroom.

Great grandma, why.

Why do we cook the Thanksgiving turkey in two pans?

She goes, oh, because I didn't have an oven big enough, right?

Sometimes we forget the association, and, you know, sometimes we give an association that no one else would have.

So we have to be careful when we're associating things.

It.

It is a thing back to the Christian liberty.

You know, the.

You guys mentioned that the meat offered to idols when he mentioned that.

And so it's back to that.

Because what may be an association for the founders of my seminary, facial hair, they see that as an act of rebellion.

And, you know me, I thought it was just.

Well, in the winter, kept me warm, you know, I thought it looked good.

Now, clearly, I keep it super short now because my wife, my bride, who I have to look good for, doesn't think it looks good.

So I have to, you know, but she has long hair, which I think Looks good.

Right?

But, but the thing, the thing is that we have to recognize that other people will have an association that we may not have.

And now it becomes the question of, are we causing someone to stumble by promoting something that they may have an association with that we wouldn't, or vice versa?

So, Eve, let me ask you that.

It's not one of the questions that you had on the list, so that way I get to throw you off.

Since we get you, you get to throw everyone else off with your coming up with questions.

Hey, I, I provided the questions in the email, so I didn't surprise anybody.

That is true.

Well, you know, we're back to the weaker brother argument where, you know, if, if we're doing something and somebody sees us do it and we cause them to stumble in their faith, I, I think that.

But to some degree, if we are knowledgeable that there is somebody in our lives who is seeing us do something that could cause them to stumble in their faith, I think it is.

Is a burden on us to make sure that we are presenting the best step of our faith forward for that person.

But at the same time, we cannot be Christ for everybody.

Christ has to be Christ.

And one of the things that I think that maturity in a believer, that the first thing we learn when we mature as believers is knowing that we can't put our hopes and trust in fellow believers.

Our hope, our eyes have to be on Christ.

And every Christian is going to stumble.

Every Christian is going to fail.

And when we do it publicly, when we do it in front of somebody else and it causes them to stumble, that is a very sad thing.

I think the more public you are with your faith, the worse it is when you stumble and everybody points fingers at you because you did something wrong.

And you have to remind the world, hey, I'm a human.

I make mistakes.

Thankfully, I serve a God who doesn't.

But we should try to not do the things that will cause our weaker brothers to stumble.

But at the same time, we can't let our weaker brothers be hinging their faith on whether or not we stumble or we do things that they don't agree with or anything like that.

And I, and I think that the other gentleman who spoke about caveats, I think if you're going to promote something, always include a caveat.

You know, it's like, this is not biblical truth.

If you can even be more specific and say these are the things that are wrong in it.

I, I like this movie, but this is, you know, that's kind of the whole Point of my podcast is, you know, not just watching, to be able to point out the, the themes in it and to, you know, say what, you know, use it as a springboard to talk about the Bible and what, you know, the Christian worldview be.

Worldview would be and pertaining to the topic matter or the themes of the movie or the show or whatever, you know, I, it's tough because we never know who's watching.

And the more public we are, the more exposed we are in our faith and in the mistakes that we make as fallible human beings who still struggle with certain sins.

But we should always be attempting to the best of our ability to portray Christ to the world, but not be Christ to the world, because Christ could, is the only one who can be Christ.

Any of that makes sense.

Yeah.

And I mean, back to the balance, right?

We, we want to do everything we can to not cause a weaker brother to stumble, but we also live in a generation where everyone feels entitled and they're a victim.

And so, like, there's got to be this balance because it's like there's some people who are looking to be the victim and, oh, you have to do this because of me.

Like, that's when it does become a change.

Right.

Tolerance is us willingly giving up something or accepting something to, you know, because of someone else's views, but not when they demand it.

Right.

Then it makes a difference.

So Brandon, you were the one that kind of talked about the, you know, applying critical thinking to, to movies you watch.

And I did this.

I, I, my kids growing up, I think I gave them a, like a dislike for movies because, like, we would watch movies and I would stop it and then, and then get into discussion of, well, why do you think they're saying this?

And what, what theological implications are the, you know, so my kids were just like, dad, can we just watch a movie?

No, no, we can't, we can't just watch a movie.

It's not just for entertainment.

We gotta recognize what they're teaching.

But you, you seem to do that as well.

What, what concerns should we have when we watch a movie?

Whether if it's Christian based, Mormon affiliated, secular.

You know, you had made the point that you liked what Aaron said about not turning our brains off.

Expand on that a bit.

Yeah.

So it all, it all really started when I first got married and it basically came down to not consuming content that had overtly sexual stuff in it.

You know, that was kind of the basis for, it was just out of respect for my wife and traveling that path it started with, okay, these movies have just overtly sexual content in them.

Obviously we're not going to watch them.

And I probably should have had that standard for myself before I was married.

But.

But as a young, dumb kid, I made poor decisions like most of us do and didn't have good standards until I started to mature some in my life.

Um, but, you know, and kind of like a.

It's kind of.

It's actually a funny story made me think about it.

Uh, when I first got married, Hardee's and Carl's Jr.

It's like the fast food company, okay, they had a lot of their ads were very overtly sexualized and my wife did not like it.

And we did not eat at Carl's Jr.

Hardee's.

We still don't actually to this day.

She was like, nope, we're not going there ever again.

And was terrible for me because I really liked their food actually for fast food.

But she was very much like, nope, not going to those places because they had those, those ads on TV that were just extra.

But so with that, that's kind of as I've matured and been sanctified in God's word, that just that real basic thing of like, oh, I'm not going to watch overtly sexualized movies just for my own sake because of the things it does to my brain, you know, leads me down those paths of things that I struggle with in the past that is.

Has developed over time through sanctification and just maturing to realize, okay, even worldview stuff like you talked about the Matrix early on, Aaron.

Just.

I don't think I realized at a young age how much worldview is articulated through media and just stuff I was absorbing that I didn't even realize did have more of effect on me than.

Than I thought.

You know, I would just think I'm just watching the movie for entertainment and I had kind of turned my brain off and just absorbed this information.

And I don't think people realize that when you're just absorbing information like that and not running it through a lens and getting rid of the, the pieces of it, it does have an effect on the way you're thinking, even if it's subconscious at first.

And took a long time for me to realize that, oh, I was believing things that just weren't true just because of media I was consuming and not being vigilant and paying attention to what I was consuming.

And I'm not gonna say I do that perfectly.

I find myself sometimes after a long day at work and A long week or whatever, I just kind of turn a movie on and I'll just kind of get absorbed into the storyline, which I think is fine in a certain aspect.

But I do think it can be dangerous just to absorb information and not run it through the lens of a worldview, of a Christian worldview that we should as Christians.

And so that has developed now, being a father.

And again, probably don't do it as well as I should, but as I'm thinking about, okay, is my son going to watch this?

Maybe I'll review movies or I'll look through the list of stuff.

If there's sexuality, nudity, those kinds of.

It's automatic.

I don't even bother going down the list further because for him especially it's like, well, we're not going to watch that because I want him to be a kid as long as he can be a kid before the world really starts pressing that stuff on him.

But, you know, when it comes to other stuff, there are, you know, there's movies we watch that have magic or whatever in them or things like that, like these other world deep pieces.

And so sometimes that leads to good conversations.

Just about, hey, I was an entertaining movie watching, you know, something with the magic tricks or whatever's going on.

But he knows, like, those are not either not legitimate things or kind of the context behind them.

So it's led to some good conversations.

There's probably other stuff that, now that I'm thinking about it, I probably need to be more vigilant and have my kid more kind of like you're talking about your, your children are like, dad, we don't even want to watch a movie anymore because you're going to pause it 15 times and make sure we understand what's happening.

I probably need to do a better job of.

And not waiting till the end of the movie or not waiting till questions come up.

Because, yeah, I think we, we just naturally absorb information by what we consume.

And it's easy to just consume it and pack it away and go on and not realize how it's actually affecting you.

Like I said, for me, the biggest context for me is the sexual concepts of movies or TV shows and just knowing it in the things I've struggled with in my life in that realm, knowing how those things get in my head and they will affect even just maybe it's not just a blatant, but it's just the, like, I've even noticed from my own personal life certain songs that have more sexual context to them get in my head.

And then my brain starts filling in blanks, I guess is the best way to put it.

And so there's other stuff I've had to just stop consuming because my brain takes it and runs with it through past, you know, sinfulness.

And so it just, it's, it's, it's, it's very interesting to me how our brains will do that and can, can run away on a runaway train track if we don't have them in control.

And if we're just consuming things without processing through them, we'll end up way further down the road than we thought we were going to.

And so as a father now, not only being responsible for my own self, my own brain, but trying to figure out with an 11 year old, okay, I need to show him how to do these things.

I didn't learn until I was in my 20s, but hopefully he is decades ahead of me from where I was at in sanctification and those kinds of things.

Yeah, well, we know, I know that Aaron is very against magic.

Right, right.

Aaron as a professional magician.

Yeah.

In every way, shape or form is always of the devil.

Don't you dare reach out to your kid and say, oh, I got your nose.

So let me.

The last question that we'll tackle tonight, we've been mostly dealing with movies.

Let's deal with some of the music.

What are your views when it comes to, you know, as I've been mentioning, Hillsong, you know, Bethel Elevation.

These are music labels that are used in many churches.

Some of them have been very open about the fact that they use their music to get into churches so that people would see that it's from like a Bethel Bethel and then go check them out and start going to a Bethel church and getting into Bethel theology.

And so when we look at this, is this something we can play in the church?

Are some of the, some of the songs from these different groups such as Bethel, are they all bad?

No, there's some with really good lyrics.

Are there some with really bad lyrics?

Yeah.

So can we just sing the ones with really good lyrics?

Is that okay to do in church?

I'll start with you this time, Aaron, and then we'll go to Brandon and Eve.

I kind of seem like maybe I've already answered the question.

I think so.

I grew up, you know, in the 80s and 90s where in order to truly be a separatist, you had to separate from everybody, including yourself.

And I think, I think we went too far with that for obvious reasons.

But to this particular degree, like, so I say that to say that there are still people out there today who said, you know, if it's written by the Gettys, I'm not gonna.

We're not gonna listen to it or not gonna have even a cleaned up version of it at our church.

And by cleaned up, I mean I actually prefer.

Prefer not the, The.

The more rocky or pop sounding or more modern sounding musicality.

I, I prefer what people would refer to as traditional.

So, like, one of my favorite songs is How Deep the Father's Love for Us.

But most people, the version they're familiar with of that song is one that I really wouldn't prefer to listen to.

I like the more traditional version of it, but some people say, well, you know, it was written by this person or this group, and so I won't listen to any of their music because they write and perform contemporary music or whatever the.

Or whatever their negative label is.

But again, if.

If the content is solid, biblically accurate content, you can change elements about the music.

You can change how it's performed.

You can just have a guy singing an acapella if you want to.

So I think to that degree, we have to ask ourselves, what is the real reason.

Getting back to what I said at the beginning, what is the real reason we're refusing to use this music?

Is it that the song has no value, or you just don't want to give your money to that group, or you don't want to associate what is it really?

And then whatever your real core reason is, you need to compare that to what the scriptures have to say.

And if.

If your core reason for not using that element is clearly elucidated in the scripture, well, then don't do it.

However, I think like we talked about earlier, the association thing is sometimes very difficult to, to really bring out, because in Scripture, we are commanded to separate from people who are in sin.

And as much as I don't care for more contemporary performances of certain songs, I cannot stand here and say that that type of music is a sin.

I just can't.

I can't preach that from the scriptures.

It would be wrong for me to make that.

That statement.

So because I can't do that, I can't allow that to be the reason that I, you know, that person performs country or contemporary Christian music, therefore I won't listen to anything that they write.

That's ridiculous.

Brandon.

Yeah, so I'll probably underthink this after that explanation where I don't, at least for me personally, I haven't gone through and found out who the original writer, artist was of every song that's sung from stage and vetted them and looked through, like, okay, theologically, where do they land?

How do I agree with them?

I haven't done that.

And so I think just off the cuff, I would say when in the past I've heard a song that maybe I had questions about it mostly comes down to that particular song and what theological truth I think is being conveyed by it or the lack thereof in some contemporary music that's just very repetitive and not a lot of substance to it.

And so I think that's just.

That's where I kind of approached this question from, was what did that particular song theologically relay to.

To the worship service or the worship gathering?

And judge it from that aspect.

Now, I do think you could.

If you had a standard that you want to stick to, whatever that may be, as long as you were consistently applying it, you could say, hey, because of, like, well, you use Bethel a lot as an example.

And I haven't dug into, like, Bethel's history.

I know surface level stuff.

But if you had a conviction to say, hey, we're not gonna use anything produced by Bethel Church, per se, oh, that.

That's fine.

As long as that's, you know, your consistent conviction and you have good, good reason for doing that, I'm not going to say you're right or wrong for doing that.

And if there's a Bethel song that you've listened to embedded and theologically, it is sound and it provides a good theological reasoning, you know, and you were like, hey, we're gonna.

We'll use this one because it does qualify.

It meets our standards for what we want to promote, you know, from stage.

And I think that's fine, too.

It's.

Ultimately, I think it comes down to what is.

What is the message being conveyed by that particular song at that.

At that moment.

Because association is important.

But, yeah, we don't want to travel down that road of, like, you were talking about the.

What was that?

What was that old.

It's not game.

But like, that seven layers of Kevin Bacon or whatever, where you can tie everybody back to, like, we don't want to get so far as, like, they have the degrees of seven degrees.

Yeah, that's what.

Yeah, like, we don't.

Which, by the way, I am only.

I think, if I remember correctly, I'm only 4 degrees from.

From Kevin Bacon, so I just want to throw that out there.

That's really cool.

Who's Kevin Bacon?

How to do that?

Yeah.

I love Bacon.

I don't know who Kevin Bacon is, but, yeah.

So, yeah, we don't wanna.

It's a balance.

It's just.

You don't want to go through, well, they had dinner with somebody who listened to a CD by somebody who was a cousin of somebody, and so I can't be friends with them.

But we also don't want to just shut our brains off.

And, well, they say they're Christians, so whatever they sing is fine.

So there's a balance there.

And ultimately, it's the content, I think, of the song that's gonna make the difference for me.

Eve.

I wish I could feel that way about Bethel, but I don't anymore after researching them.

The problem that I have with some of that music in the church isn't so much that there's an association issue.

Some of it is the public nature of the ministries and the fact that if you sing that song in church and you send out the link, say, to your church bodies, they can learn the church, they'll learn the song in advance.

And that takes them to YouTube, and it gets them on the YouTube algorithm that, oh, this person likes Bethel content.

And they start showing all of the other stuff from Bethel to them in their algorithm for YouTube, because that's what YouTube does.

You watch it once, and then suddenly you get umpteen million recommendations for similar things.

And then people get sucked into, well, my church, you know, we sing the Bethel music, so there must be, you know, good stuff from Bethel.

So I'll just keep listening to Bethel content.

And then the real heresies that are in the Bethel church gets presented to your church body, not necessarily from the pulpit, but in.

In a way endorsed by the pulpit, because you sent out the initial video link that got them in that algorithm locked.

So that's one of the things that I have against singing that music in the church, because Bethel is an active, and very active and hillsong, to a lesser degree, ministry that not only gets their funding by distribution of their music, but they also have active YouTube accounts that also get funding from views.

And then on top of that, they're spreading other heresies in addition to just their music.

So this song might be okay, though, to be honest, I think most of Bethel's music has heretical aspects to it, but it's very hard to find songs that you can't find some bad stuff in.

But their church has actual teaching on YouTube that, you know, you get sucked down that hole, and then people are hearing things.

They shouldn't be affiliated with your church or think that your church endorses because they got sucked into the algorithm them.

So that's one of my main reasons with having left my church over partially over the Bethel issue.

My pastor had a very similar view to what you just said about, you know, we just judge each song individually and we don't.

We don't look at where it comes from or who puts it out.

And, and to some degree on especially the older stuff where maybe the songwriters don't exist anymore, we're not going to look into the history of every hymn writer and see whether they walk the straight and narrow their whole lives.

And that's a bunny trail I don't want to chase down on every single song.

But when you have modern songs that the singers and the songwriters are actively involved in heresy, actively promoting it on YouTube channels, and then you sing their songs in your church, I think that's another matter entirely.

And so I think you have to be very careful.

It's not just, just.

You can't just judge it by the song.

You have to.

To see where, though that bunny trail will take the people in your church, if they follow it.

You may not have followed it yourself, but if they follow it, they're going to maybe be introduced to things that you think the church, they think the church endorses because they sing the music.

So I think it is an important issue that we have to be careful with.

And I've made some, some decisions in my personal walk in my spiritual family because of that, because it was, it was a.

Something that somebody in this community actually revealed to me that I wasn't even sensitive to.

And then once I opened that Pandora's box, I couldn't shut it again.

So it's, it's something that I think should influence churches.

I think they should be looking very passionately not just on the meanings of the actual songs, but the associations that might go with some of them.

Like I said, is it.

It's both a case by case and at the same time.

It's not quite hard to explain, but that's, that's my position on it.

Yeah.

And I guess my position is.

So there's a couple different ways people argue it.

Well, you're giving money and we, we brought that up.

And, and with that, now you get into, well, you're giving money to Coca Cola and look what they support.

You're giving money to, you know, whoever, whatever secular company, and what are they supporting?

So my issue is not, I mean, I don't, I won't sing Bethel Music in, in church, but it's not because of the money.

And some say, well, because they're a heretical group.

And so the issue there becomes people bring up the.

The.

The song, It Is well With My Soul.

Well, the author of that had in the.

Not the time he wrote the song, but later in life got himself into financial trouble and supposedly started denying Christ and went apostate.

And so people will try to make the argument, well, you, you know, you can't reject Bethel just because they're heretical.

When you sing It Is well of My Soul.

Well, that's not my argument.

My.

My argument with it comes back to what I said earlier.

It's.

It's their evangelism.

Their music is their tool to bring people into their belief system.

So they.

They knowingly are using it as a gateway drug into their heretical views.

And that's my concern now is Horatio Stafford, when he wrote, you know, It Is well With My Soul trying to get people to believe in some religious.

No, he just wrote something that was meaningful to him at that time, and it became a popular hymn.

He wasn't trying to pull people into his belief system.

But Bethel and Elevation and Hillsong are right.

And, And I think that becomes the.

The difference for me is they're looking to use their music to bring people into their belief system.

And their belief system would be antithetical in my view, to the view of God.

So that.

That's how I would do it.

So let me.

Let me just go around and see.

Open.

Open up to all of you.

Any.

Any last comments that any of you would like to make.

Make before we close out this episode.

I guess I just start by saying that I've been very poignant in my statements, primarily because I just want to encourage us.

As my sticker said, we need to think about this.

If overthinking is a bad thing, sure, maybe we won't do that, but we've got to think about it.

We can't just do it because somebody else did it.

It.

We must know why we're doing what we're doing.

And we have to be convinced.

The Bible says anything that is not of faith is sin.

We need to be convinced that this is truly what is going to glorify God.

Not just because I'm convinced, because someone told me, but that's really what the scriptures demand of us.

And I would just say along with that, the.

The question about the.

The weaker brother, we can't ever know.

I think what.

What Eve said was very wise.

We can't ever know without talking to.

To a person Whether or not they're.

They're a weaker brother in this particular issue.

And if my doing it is going to tempt them to sin.

But if we're careful in our communication and we're getting to know each other, then we can have those.

We can have those conversations.

Just like the world can see me, can only see me and glorify my Father who's in heaven.

If they know that I'm a Christian and they know my motivation for living the life that I live, so too my brothers and sisters in Christ should know why I'm doing what I'm doing.

And I should never be able to be used as an excuse for somebody else doing something that they believe is a sin because I'm careful to try to know people and to encourage them to do things that's going to glorify the Lord.

So as long as we're thinking really, really hard about these things, because our main goal is to have the same mind that is in Christ Jesus, I think that we're probably going in a good direction.

Anyone else?

Well, I told you I would underthink it, so.

Well, we know Aaron is going to overthink it, so it's a good balance.

I had to bring about.

Yeah, no, you asked that last question and I was kind of approaching it.

Just like me setting in the sanctuary, listening to the music, kind of how I adjust it.

But what Eve, what you're bringing up about, you know, somebody, they send out the song list and somebody's going to grab that and they're going to go to YouTube, especially with modern artists that's going to bring up up all their other teaching.

You know, like you, if I go and I look up a lyrical video for it, as well as my soul, I'm not going to get into anything about that guy's life, really.

Most likely through.

I mean, maybe if you went down the rabbit hole far enough, but it's not going to bring up a bunch of stuff.

It's just going to be Christian hymns at that point.

But with Bethel, you talk about like their evangelistic aspect.

Yeah.

You know, there, there probably is something to that where you just had that standard of, okay, this organization, we're not going to promote any of their material, even if it does have this one particular thing has a good message or a good content, because it's going to most likely lead people to explore all of their content.

And the vast majority of it is not healthy.

And so I think that's a really good point.

And yeah, like I said, I probably underthought it if I was a worship pastor, something like that, that definitely would have to be much more well thought out than what I had originally come with.

Just because, yeah, you don't want to lead people down the wrong path.

If you can avoid it sometimes it's going to happen.

But if you can do something as simple as, hey, we're just talking to you, utilize music from this particular group, I think it's a really good point.

I haven't researched Bethel probably near as much as I should have.

But yeah, I think that's, it's a good, good thing to bring up that you could, you could lead people down other teachings just by promoting one song without realizing it.

I'll warn you, it is a Pandora's box.

Once you start opening it, it's hard to shove it back in.

But yeah, and I, I would agree that, you know, it.

There is a difference between somebody who sits in a pew and somebody who is leading a church.

And I think that's why James cautioned the teachers that they would be under a greater scrutiny because of their teaching and that it's easy to be a flock member, harder to be a shepherd.

And I think that is a strong warning to all of us that if we are publicly leading in a Christian way, that we have to be very careful what we endorse by just our doing and, or being seen doing.

And be aware that people are watching us because we are public with our testimony.

And just beware and let the spirit guide when to keep on the straight and narrow.

I mean, we live in a world where every mistake you make becomes a big deal.

I mean, it used to be you could make a mistake privately and you get away with it.

Now with social media and YouTube and all of the many places that you make that public mistake and the.

The world will not forget and will not let you forget.

And thankfully God forgives and our mistakes, our sins are forgiven.

And that's what I want to end with, that we will make mistakes.

We will pro.

Possibly endorse the wrong thing or put our money on the wrong thing.

But in the end, even sins are pardonable in, in the eyes of Christ because his blood's paid for them.

Yeah.

Well, I think that this was good discussion.

I think that we covered quite a bit and I think that I hope for the audience this was helpful.

I hope that you.

That the audience learned a lot from it, that you gain a lot from it.

Will be back next month with another topic with other members of the Christian podcast community.

And we hope you enjoyed this episode.

Hope it was educational for you.

This is a ministry of Striving for eternity.

Sam.