If I could put it in my own military terminology,

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the commander says, "There's the enemy,

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there's the direction of the fight."

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But a different commander,

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Jesus Christ, comes along

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and said, "No, that's not the battle.

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The battle's over here.

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You're fighting a carnal war over here,

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but we're fighting a spiritual war.

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So I'm fighting the wrong

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war with the wrong weapons,

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looking for the wrong objectives."

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(gentle music)

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Vince Lewis, welcome to

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the Anabaptist Perspectives podcast.

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Thank you, Reagan.

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So you had a career in

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the Air Force for 24 years.

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You had top level security clearance,

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you did multiple combat tours.

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You were not raised in the Anabaptist world,

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and the topic of non-resistance, I think,

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was a bit of a challenge for you

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as you were joining this way of doing things.

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So you're coming from an

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environment that is unfamiliar,

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I think, to a lot of us

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within the Anabaptist world.

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And for us, when it comes to

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something like non-resistance,

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it can be more theory sometimes than reality.

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And that's what we wanna get

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into today in this episode.

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But before we jump into

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non-resistance specifically,

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is there more context you wanna lay for us

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as we get into the topic?

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Well, coming from that background,

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it's really ingrained in you.

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This is the way of life, tradition,

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personal experience, training, of course.

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The way your thought instructed to think,

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all those things are making you a professional,

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especially in the pilot corps,

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where, as we say, the

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whole Air Force that I was in

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is there for the pilots.

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The maintenance guys,

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even the bakers and the cooks

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in the kitchen, all over the base,

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everybody's there for this handful of pilots.

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And so you really get this big ego

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and they just keep feeding that

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and you're just ready,

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you've got this killer instinct

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that I'm ready to go when I'm called

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and I have this so ingrained in me

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that I'm not gonna question these things.

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I'm gonna go into this with my full force,

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with the training I've had,

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and just expend everything I know

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in a particular objective with no holds barred.

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So I don't say you don't think,

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but you have a basis for your thinking

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that's gonna probably give you known outcomes

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to what someone asks you

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to do or tells you to do.

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Yeah, and I think that was the piece

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that as we were going back and forth,

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getting ready for these interviews,

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this, like you were really

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in this world for a while.

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Like you were a commander of a B-52 bomber,

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for example, a nuclear capable aircraft

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during the Cold War and all of those things.

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And again, it's easy to think of non-resistance

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as well, that's kind of a theory out there.

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Well, we don't go to war and this, that, okay.

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But in this, we wanna dig deeper

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because you didn't just

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wake up one day and be like,

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"Oh, I guess I don't really wanna do

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this military thing anymore.

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I'm sure this was quite a process for you."

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So that's what we want to get some of that.

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Some of those pieces that had you change

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your belief system on this.

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So let's start with definitions.

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When we say something like non-resistance,

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what are we even talking about?

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So first, what is it?

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But then what is it not as well?

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Let's turn that around the other way if we could.

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What it's not is it's not peaceful living,

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just a life of ease and nobody's bothering me.

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And I'm just happy as a clam the way I am.

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And it's also, the 1970s really pushed

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in what was called the love generation

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and the peace movement.

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There was a lot of demonstrations going on.

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And so you had a huge non-resistance saying,

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"I'm not going to cooperate with the government,

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whatever they tell me to do.

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I'm a rebellious one.

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I wanna let you know what I feel.

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And if even if my peace movement gets violent,

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I'm gonna claim that I'm a peacenik or whatever

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the current label is for people."

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So it's kind of an

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ingrained contradiction of itself

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is that people using violence

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to bring about a peace movement.

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But on the other hand, we have to say,

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what does God's word say?

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We start there.

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Because we're not trying to win an argument

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and win over people with, "I can out debate you

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and therefore come to a logical conclusion

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and convince you that you believe the same way."

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And so I have to have more than just feelings.

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I can't say, well, in a church environment,

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I believe this way because my parents did.

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No, this has to be your belief,

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not your mom and dad's beliefs,

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not your church's belief, but it has to be yours.

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And the military uses that same principle,

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fighting and combat, that has to be you.

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That's your environment,

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that's your basis for thinking.

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And you go into that thinking you're doing good.

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And that is a problem there

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and you're taught retaliation

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in every way and form.

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I'm gonna outthink the enemy.

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I've got larger weapons.

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I've got better tactics, better training,

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better troops and might

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makes right is the concept.

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America is the big gorilla in the room

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ready to make the world right for our cause.

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But the other people see it differently.

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And maybe we'll go into that a little,

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how the different worldviews affect

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what we're talking about.

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So that's some pieces of like what it isn't,

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like what not resistance isn't.

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Could you give us

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definition of what is non-resistance?

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And then I'm gonna add a piece there too.

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What do you see as the current thinking

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on the topic of non-resistance

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within the Anabaptist community?

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Kind of bring that into this as well.

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Yeah, first of all, non-resistance.

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And we look at Scripture for that first of all,

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that's obedience to God.

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And we're just not cherry

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picking a couple of scriptures

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out of the Bible as our source,

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but we're actually have a

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whole compendium of Scripture

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that agrees and builds a

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structure, not one or two.

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Well, we wanna see this

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concept throughout Scripture.

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So I've really got some truth

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that is supporting my position.

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So first of all, it's belief in God.

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It's also conscientious objection.

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That word conscientious means deep thinking

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or con- means with, with science.

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So I reached this thought

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through deliberate thinking

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and it's not just my father's religion.

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So I have decided this on my

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own to conscientiously object.

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And one of the things that I, the beauties

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that I think comes out of this

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is what we call alternative service

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where you're actually- hurricanes, tornadoes,

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natural disasters and other similar things,

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hospital support, those

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things are incredibly good.

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And I think there's universal agreement on that.

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So I say rather than

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going out and killing people,

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I'm gonna do this

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alternative service, which we call it.

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And I think you would find

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pretty universal agreement

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within the Anabaptist community without taking,

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they see the logic, the truth behind that,

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but you're not walking them through this argument

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to get them to believe that.

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It's just obvious you go in a hospital

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and help someone you're doing good.

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You kill them, now that's

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a whole different question.

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So yeah.

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Okay, so we're laying some

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groundwork on non-resistance.

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I'm gonna throw in an

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interesting question for you here.

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Why do you find it so difficult

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to promote the principle of non-resistance?

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Excellent question because it involves,

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it could involve a complex answer,

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but the military that I was coming from,

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I am coming from, that became a culture.

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So within the Anabaptist community also,

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there is a culture, but now

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we have this other culture,

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as long as we don't get

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involved in other culture,

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it's not impacting us so much.

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But now we're seeing people sometimes

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using computers in ways they didn't use,

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watching YouTube videos,

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maybe not watching full-length movies,

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but the stuff is out there to view.

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A totally new thing in the

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last 20 years in particular,

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that's increasing is social media,

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where you're just bombarded with information,

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sometimes without choice,

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and sometimes without rationalization,

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where there's people that are deliberately

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putting that forth.

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You get children's toys that are war-related,

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you get games where you're

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just bopping the other enemy

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and knocking them into

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eternity and those sorts of things

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and bashing everything that comes after you.

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And so that starts bleeding

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into the Anabaptist community,

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as it always has, but not with the intensity

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that we see today with electronics, with games,

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with others, and so the Anabaptist,

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you can't plug your ears for that, it's there,

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and you've got to consciously deal with it,

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or especially the young

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people who may not be established

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in this, they're more vulnerable to this.

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Looking for recognition and acceptance

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was a common goal of all of us.

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They want that acceptance too.

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I've even know of, this second hand really,

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a couple of friends know of Anabaptists

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that have concealed carry permits

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to carry a handgun concealed.

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I don't think you've ever

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seen anything like that before,

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but what caused them to bring that?

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You look at the number of gun sales in America,

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it's just exploded.

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There's videos that give you the belief

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that this handgun, this is power.

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You feel the weight of that and it feels good,

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and someday, somebody,

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you're gonna need this thing.

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Well, no, you're not gonna need it,

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because when you look at statistics,

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the people even that carry concealed weapons,

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and I used to carry a concealed weapon,

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they never end up using it,

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but they always have this mindset

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that there's just threat out there

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that means I may use this weapon.

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And where did that mindset come from?

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They didn't get it from

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within the Anabaptist community,

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which is to see how it's

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00:11:31,899 --> 00:11:33,192

bleeding in and affecting,

275

00:11:34,360 --> 00:11:35,820

especially the vulnerable youth.

276

00:11:36,654 --> 00:11:37,613

Yeah, I think that's one

277

00:11:37,613 --> 00:11:40,449

that's kind of blown my mind.

278

00:11:40,449 --> 00:11:41,450

I've started hearing about

279

00:11:41,450 --> 00:11:43,202

that in the last couple years.

280

00:11:43,411 --> 00:11:44,745

It's like, yeah, like,

281

00:11:44,745 --> 00:11:45,746

"Mennonite young guys,"

282

00:11:45,746 --> 00:11:46,747

or whatever, going and

283

00:11:46,747 --> 00:11:47,957

getting their concealed carry,

284

00:11:49,166 --> 00:11:50,918

or keeping a loaded handgun in their truck,

285

00:11:50,918 --> 00:11:52,503

well, just in case, you never know.

286

00:11:52,586 --> 00:11:53,879

I'm like, "What are you

287

00:11:53,879 --> 00:11:55,089

gonna use that for exactly?"

288

00:11:55,339 --> 00:11:56,882

Well, and then you just kind of smile,

289

00:11:57,133 --> 00:11:59,301

and then I'm like, "Wait a minute.

290

00:11:59,718 --> 00:12:01,137

I thought you're part of a church

291

00:12:01,470 --> 00:12:03,931

that doesn't believe in killing people.

292

00:12:04,181 --> 00:12:05,474

I mean, that seems pretty clear to me."

293

00:12:05,474 --> 00:12:07,601

Well, and just this kind of thing,

294

00:12:07,852 --> 00:12:09,770

I just can't really get my head around that.

295

00:12:10,020 --> 00:12:11,814

And I think you're onto something there

296

00:12:13,190 --> 00:12:14,316

that it didn't come from

297

00:12:14,316 --> 00:12:16,152

inside the churches necessarily.

298

00:12:16,152 --> 00:12:16,777

And there has to be

299

00:12:16,777 --> 00:12:19,071

culture influencing coming in.

300

00:12:19,363 --> 00:12:20,156

Right, right.

301

00:12:20,197 --> 00:12:22,491

So you get to a position,

302

00:12:23,242 --> 00:12:25,578

and we may go into this looking at some

303

00:12:25,578 --> 00:12:28,080

of the Scriptural support.

304

00:12:28,539 --> 00:12:30,458

I say, either you've got

305

00:12:30,458 --> 00:12:32,084

three avenues in general.

306

00:12:33,294 --> 00:12:35,421

Either don't believe the Bible,

307

00:12:36,088 --> 00:12:38,299

you make your own interpretation,

308

00:12:39,049 --> 00:12:41,552

and pick out favorite Scriptures.

309

00:12:41,719 --> 00:12:43,304

So you're making your own interpretation,

310

00:12:43,929 --> 00:12:44,805

or you believe the Bible.

311

00:12:46,056 --> 00:12:49,018

And since I believe it, and I know you do too,

312

00:12:49,560 --> 00:12:51,353

it's not just established

313

00:12:51,353 --> 00:12:55,149

on some ethereal beliefs,

314

00:12:55,357 --> 00:12:58,110

but it's actually built on a

315

00:12:58,110 --> 00:13:00,446

book that is so intertwined,

316

00:13:01,614 --> 00:13:02,615

and a book- there isn't

317

00:13:02,615 --> 00:13:03,908

anything like it on earth-

318

00:13:04,158 --> 00:13:05,618

that you can go in and find

319

00:13:05,618 --> 00:13:07,411

multiple agreeing Sriptures

320

00:13:08,078 --> 00:13:09,914

on non-resistance, for example.

321

00:13:10,289 --> 00:13:11,874

And you're pulling from a

322

00:13:11,874 --> 00:13:15,127

book where it's the entire Bible,

323

00:13:15,127 --> 00:13:17,588

66 books, and the amazing thing

324

00:13:17,963 --> 00:13:21,634

is every one of those 66 books agrees

325

00:13:21,634 --> 00:13:23,427

with the other 65 books

326

00:13:23,427 --> 00:13:26,639

in an intertwined message.

327

00:13:27,264 --> 00:13:29,350

It's very difficult to defeat that

328

00:13:29,517 --> 00:13:33,437

if you're willing to look at it and study it.

329

00:13:33,437 --> 00:13:34,647

Even on your own, you're

330

00:13:34,647 --> 00:13:35,564

gonna find some of these things.

331

00:13:37,191 --> 00:13:40,569

So that gets me to the next question I had then,

332

00:13:40,819 --> 00:13:43,948

because obviously you took a huge leap

333

00:13:44,240 --> 00:13:46,325

from where you used to be,

334

00:13:46,659 --> 00:13:48,911

as commander of the B-52,

335

00:13:49,119 --> 00:13:50,246

and a bunch of other stuff

336

00:13:50,246 --> 00:13:51,247

you did in the Air Force,

337

00:13:51,956 --> 00:13:53,249

to this belief system.

338

00:13:53,457 --> 00:13:54,458

Now you were an officer,

339

00:13:55,334 --> 00:13:58,337

and I can imagine being an Air Force officer

340

00:13:58,337 --> 00:13:59,880

if you read something like,

341

00:14:00,714 --> 00:14:02,383

"Turn the other cheek," or "Love your enemies."

342

00:14:03,759 --> 00:14:04,843

I can imagine that wasn't

343

00:14:04,843 --> 00:14:06,887

very easy for you to accept

344

00:14:07,263 --> 00:14:08,347

while you were in the Air Force.

345

00:14:08,347 --> 00:14:09,306

Talk to me about that.

346

00:14:09,848 --> 00:14:11,475

You're getting down to a

347

00:14:11,475 --> 00:14:14,687

very serious point in my life,

348

00:14:14,895 --> 00:14:17,189

a pivotal point where I

349

00:14:17,189 --> 00:14:19,817

either had to turn away from it,

350

00:14:20,484 --> 00:14:23,696

just passively agree with it, or buy into it.

351

00:14:23,696 --> 00:14:27,658

My wife will tell you that I examine everything.

352

00:14:27,658 --> 00:14:28,659

I wanna know where its

353

00:14:28,659 --> 00:14:30,536

boundaries, its definitions are.

354

00:14:30,536 --> 00:14:33,122

I wanna research a concept deeply,

355

00:14:33,622 --> 00:14:35,708

almost like a mathematical concept.

356

00:14:35,708 --> 00:14:38,043

I wanna know what's behind this thing.

357

00:14:38,335 --> 00:14:40,796

And then once I do, I buy into it.

358

00:14:40,796 --> 00:14:44,091

So I faced a real problem with this.

359

00:14:44,091 --> 00:14:45,509

It's a very difficult problem.

360

00:14:45,968 --> 00:14:49,054

You've got 40 years of Department of Defense

361

00:14:49,054 --> 00:14:50,639

and active duty military,

362

00:14:51,599 --> 00:14:53,601

and even a couple of years as a cadet.

363

00:14:54,143 --> 00:14:55,894

All that two thirds of my

364

00:14:55,894 --> 00:14:58,230

adult life is absorbing this.

365

00:14:58,814 --> 00:15:01,400

And now I'm accustomed to,

366

00:15:02,359 --> 00:15:04,820

if you tell me to turn the other cheek,

367

00:15:05,362 --> 00:15:06,780

I said, "Well, if you slap me,

368

00:15:06,780 --> 00:15:08,866

I'm slapping you back twice as hard."

369

00:15:08,866 --> 00:15:10,117

Because that retaliation,

370

00:15:11,035 --> 00:15:12,661

get back at the bad guy or

371

00:15:12,661 --> 00:15:14,204

the guy that's oppressing you.

372

00:15:14,580 --> 00:15:17,666

So retaliate, and you're faced with that.

373

00:15:18,208 --> 00:15:20,836

And so that commonly used term

374

00:15:22,046 --> 00:15:26,050

of retaliation versus non-resistance

375

00:15:26,759 --> 00:15:28,844

is that's just a contradiction.

376

00:15:29,386 --> 00:15:32,097

So I needed something to really buy,

377

00:15:32,473 --> 00:15:33,891

I won't say buy into that,

378

00:15:33,891 --> 00:15:36,060

that's cheap term perhaps,

379

00:15:36,352 --> 00:15:39,938

but really grab this

380

00:15:39,938 --> 00:15:41,732

concept to where it's part of me.

381

00:15:42,483 --> 00:15:44,401

So through a set of circumstances,

382

00:15:44,818 --> 00:15:49,698

I met a man who's Anabaptist like I am,

383

00:15:50,115 --> 00:15:53,160

and it was kind of by accident.

384

00:15:53,160 --> 00:15:54,495

I was looking for somebody else,

385

00:15:54,495 --> 00:15:57,414

and he could tell I was kind of down,

386

00:15:57,623 --> 00:15:59,124

and he says, "What's going on?"

387

00:15:59,124 --> 00:16:02,920

I said, "Well, I was supposed to find Kenneth,

388

00:16:03,545 --> 00:16:06,090

and he was gonna talk about non-resistance,

389

00:16:06,215 --> 00:16:08,050

but Kenneth isn't here.

390

00:16:08,050 --> 00:16:09,551

He had some kind of a medical problem."

391

00:16:09,760 --> 00:16:14,264

They took him, and Todd Boone said,

392

00:16:14,264 --> 00:16:16,350

"Well, what did you want to talk to him about?"

393

00:16:16,350 --> 00:16:17,768

I said, "About non-resistance."

394

00:16:17,768 --> 00:16:20,270

I said, "You know, I can't get past this point.

395

00:16:20,896 --> 00:16:21,939

We're looking at membership.

396

00:16:22,189 --> 00:16:23,482

We really like what we see,

397

00:16:23,816 --> 00:16:25,984

Scripturally with fellowship,

398

00:16:26,360 --> 00:16:30,239

with the family concept of a community

399

00:16:30,864 --> 00:16:34,326

working together for a common purpose.

400

00:16:35,119 --> 00:16:37,371

And yet, I'm up against this wall."

401

00:16:37,871 --> 00:16:39,081

And really, it was a wall.

402

00:16:39,415 --> 00:16:40,249

And so Todd says,

403

00:16:40,624 --> 00:16:42,376

"Well, sit down, let's go through some things."

404

00:16:42,710 --> 00:16:45,003

And in my words,

405

00:16:45,421 --> 00:16:47,631

I believe that God through the Holy Spirit

406

00:16:47,631 --> 00:16:49,633

was guiding Todd into something.

407

00:16:49,633 --> 00:16:52,761

So the first thing he picked was a concept

408

00:16:53,721 --> 00:16:55,097

that isn't talked about much,

409

00:16:55,305 --> 00:16:56,932

and a lot of Christians

410

00:16:56,932 --> 00:16:59,184

maybe even haven't heard of,

411

00:16:59,893 --> 00:17:06,817

that is based on Scripture captured by Colossians 1:13

412

00:17:07,317 --> 00:17:08,652

He's translated me,

413

00:17:08,652 --> 00:17:10,446

and God has translated me

414

00:17:10,446 --> 00:17:12,364

out of the kingdom of darkness

415

00:17:12,531 --> 00:17:14,783

into the kingdom of God's dear Son.

416

00:17:15,784 --> 00:17:17,578

So, wait a minute, you know what I'm saying?

417

00:17:18,537 --> 00:17:19,288

There's two kingdoms.

418

00:17:20,289 --> 00:17:21,623

There's a kingdom of darkness.

419

00:17:21,623 --> 00:17:23,667

I know there's a devil, and I know there's God,

420

00:17:23,959 --> 00:17:25,919

but God has set up two kingdoms.

421

00:17:27,087 --> 00:17:29,339

And when you begin to look

422

00:17:29,339 --> 00:17:30,674

at Scripture through that,

423

00:17:31,759 --> 00:17:33,218

in particular in the New Testament,

424

00:17:34,595 --> 00:17:37,514

Romans 8:1, "For the law of the spirit of life

425

00:17:38,140 --> 00:17:40,100

made me free from the law of sin and death."

426

00:17:40,100 --> 00:17:42,728

So there's governing laws within,

427

00:17:42,728 --> 00:17:43,812

and that's just one example

428

00:17:43,812 --> 00:17:46,523

of this dual kingdom concept.

429

00:17:47,608 --> 00:17:48,567

So I went into that,

430

00:17:48,984 --> 00:17:51,779

and it was really enforced

431

00:17:51,779 --> 00:17:53,781

by the Scripture that said,

432

00:17:53,781 --> 00:17:56,158

"We wrestle not against flesh and blood,

433

00:17:56,992 --> 00:17:58,911

but against principalities, against powers,

434

00:17:59,328 --> 00:18:01,705

the rulers of the darkness of this world,

435

00:18:02,122 --> 00:18:04,249

and spiritual wickedness in high places."

436

00:18:05,042 --> 00:18:08,587

And that Scripture basically says to me,

437

00:18:09,046 --> 00:18:12,466

if I could put it in my own military terminology,

438

00:18:12,925 --> 00:18:15,219

the commander says, "There's the enemy.

439

00:18:15,219 --> 00:18:16,637

There's the direction of the fight."

440

00:18:16,929 --> 00:18:19,348

But a different commander, Jesus Christ,

441

00:18:19,598 --> 00:18:22,726

comes along and said, "No, that's not the battle.

442

00:18:23,060 --> 00:18:24,186

The battle's over here.

443

00:18:24,728 --> 00:18:27,314

You're fighting a carnal war over here,

444

00:18:27,564 --> 00:18:29,817

but we're fighting a spiritual war.

445

00:18:30,317 --> 00:18:32,277

And I see that now we've got two kingdoms

446

00:18:32,945 --> 00:18:35,197

that are really opposed to each other.

447

00:18:35,197 --> 00:18:36,740

One's gonna end up with God.

448

00:18:36,782 --> 00:18:39,284

One's gonna end up in the kingdom of darkness,

449

00:18:39,493 --> 00:18:44,873

which is based on demonic, the devil himself,

450

00:18:45,374 --> 00:18:47,000

and all that rebellious concept

451

00:18:47,000 --> 00:18:49,211

ending up in different eternities.

452

00:18:49,962 --> 00:18:53,590

And so we say even the weapons of our warfare

453

00:18:53,590 --> 00:18:54,591

are not carnal.

454

00:18:54,883 --> 00:18:58,053

And I've flown B-52s in particular

455

00:18:58,512 --> 00:19:00,222

with nuclear weapons on board thinking,

456

00:19:00,639 --> 00:19:02,224

this is the ultimate weapon.

457

00:19:02,933 --> 00:19:06,103

And yet Scripture says the weapons of our warfare

458

00:19:06,353 --> 00:19:09,439

are not carnal, any earthly, but mighty.

459

00:19:10,357 --> 00:19:12,693

They're mightier than those things.

460

00:19:12,901 --> 00:19:13,777

So I'm fighting the wrong

461

00:19:13,777 --> 00:19:15,612

war with the wrong weapons,

462

00:19:15,988 --> 00:19:17,447

looking for the wrong objectives.

463

00:19:17,823 --> 00:19:19,199

And Todd went through this

464

00:19:19,199 --> 00:19:20,617

and other Scriptures too,

465

00:19:21,702 --> 00:19:24,872

too many to bring in here, but it said,

466

00:19:25,372 --> 00:19:29,585

wow, this is not how I was raised.

467

00:19:29,960 --> 00:19:32,170

I was raised, all my toys

468

00:19:32,170 --> 00:19:33,338

had to do with military.

469

00:19:33,755 --> 00:19:35,716

When I built plastic airplane models,

470

00:19:36,008 --> 00:19:38,176

they weren't models of airlines,

471

00:19:38,552 --> 00:19:40,679

they were models of combat aircraft.

472

00:19:41,346 --> 00:19:43,182

And so you're just feeding on this stuff

473

00:19:43,182 --> 00:19:46,101

and it just becomes part of you.

474

00:19:46,935 --> 00:19:48,854

Patriotism was a wonderful thing

475

00:19:49,396 --> 00:19:51,064

and military people were

476

00:19:51,064 --> 00:19:53,358

just edified throughout society

477

00:19:53,942 --> 00:19:55,152

as they still are today.

478

00:19:55,402 --> 00:19:57,112

And they were the heroes of the day.

479

00:19:57,529 --> 00:19:59,406

They rescued us from evil

480

00:19:59,406 --> 00:20:03,493

as we saw in our approach.

481

00:20:04,077 --> 00:20:07,539

If you look at it from American perspective is,

482

00:20:07,873 --> 00:20:10,792

we're always right and the enemy is the guy

483

00:20:10,792 --> 00:20:11,752

that's always wrong.

484

00:20:12,669 --> 00:20:15,047

But I'd say from a world perspective,

485

00:20:15,923 --> 00:20:18,508

what then is the enemy's view of us?

486

00:20:19,134 --> 00:20:21,345

The enemy is gonna think they're right

487

00:20:22,054 --> 00:20:24,139

and we're the ones that are wrong.

488

00:20:24,139 --> 00:20:26,433

So you have this natural

489

00:20:26,433 --> 00:20:28,352

opposition of who's right

490

00:20:28,352 --> 00:20:32,022

and who's wrong and you get into doctrines

491

00:20:32,314 --> 00:20:34,524

that'll support that belief, making,

492

00:20:35,108 --> 00:20:37,235

hey, it's all right to go to war.

493

00:20:37,736 --> 00:20:40,530

And some of those things maybe we can get into.

494

00:20:40,822 --> 00:20:42,908

I don't know if you wanna discuss those now, but.

495

00:20:43,617 --> 00:20:47,579

Well, I was gonna say, you talk about Scripture

496

00:20:48,497 --> 00:20:50,123

and supporting

497

00:20:50,123 --> 00:20:52,167

non-resistance and all of these things,

498

00:20:52,751 --> 00:20:54,628

but I'm sure there are

499

00:20:54,628 --> 00:20:56,630

people listening or whatever

500

00:20:56,630 --> 00:20:58,966

that would very much disagree with this.

501

00:20:59,549 --> 00:21:01,343

Like, what do you say to those people

502

00:21:01,343 --> 00:21:03,553

that dispute what you're saying?

503

00:21:03,553 --> 00:21:05,722

Here's as far as this is the case of S cripture.

504

00:21:07,057 --> 00:21:08,558

Yeah, dig into a little bit of that

505

00:21:08,558 --> 00:21:09,810

because I'm sure you had

506

00:21:09,810 --> 00:21:10,727

to wrestle with that too.

507

00:21:10,978 --> 00:21:12,062

I'm sure you heard the argument,

508

00:21:12,062 --> 00:21:13,855

so, oh no, this is the right thing to do.

509

00:21:14,564 --> 00:21:15,524

The war machine, whatever

510

00:21:15,524 --> 00:21:16,984

is the right thing to do.

511

00:21:17,442 --> 00:21:18,360

Yeah, talk to me about that.

512

00:21:18,610 --> 00:21:20,487

So if my beliefs are based

513

00:21:21,697 --> 00:21:23,615

on God and God's morality,

514

00:21:24,908 --> 00:21:27,411

then you have to know what he says.

515

00:21:27,744 --> 00:21:29,413

And so if I'm dealing with someone

516

00:21:30,038 --> 00:21:31,832

that has no knowledge of the Bible,

517

00:21:32,457 --> 00:21:34,292

I have to take a different approach to them.

518

00:21:34,543 --> 00:21:36,837

The starting point is totally different.

519

00:21:36,837 --> 00:21:40,799

If I'm talking to a believer in Jesus Christ,

520

00:21:41,299 --> 00:21:43,552

what we call a Christian, a true Christian,

521

00:21:43,885 --> 00:21:45,721

I've got a basis, a common basis

522

00:21:45,929 --> 00:21:48,765

to now go into Scripture and

523

00:21:48,765 --> 00:21:50,559

show them particular passages.

524

00:21:51,059 --> 00:21:53,311

But a totally non-Christian is

525

00:21:53,311 --> 00:21:54,980

not gonna buy into this thing

526

00:21:55,105 --> 00:21:58,483

because this country is about patriotism.

527

00:21:59,317 --> 00:22:02,487

And I've tell you, even the churches in America

528

00:22:03,238 --> 00:22:04,448

support patriotism.

529

00:22:05,032 --> 00:22:08,368

On Memorial Day, I've gone into

530

00:22:08,910 --> 00:22:11,788

conservative Christian churches, even.

531

00:22:12,456 --> 00:22:14,916

The guests, the veterans, put on your uniform

532

00:22:15,375 --> 00:22:16,543

from when you were in the service.

533

00:22:16,960 --> 00:22:19,755

And we'll have a ceremony where we're bringing

534

00:22:19,755 --> 00:22:21,798

the American flag up the center aisle

535

00:22:22,215 --> 00:22:24,801

and posting it on the

536

00:22:24,801 --> 00:22:26,970

stand with the Christian flag

537

00:22:26,970 --> 00:22:28,221

on one side and the

538

00:22:28,221 --> 00:22:30,015

American flag on the other side.

539

00:22:30,307 --> 00:22:33,101

And we might even stand there and say,

540

00:22:33,101 --> 00:22:34,269

I pledge allegiance to the

541

00:22:34,269 --> 00:22:35,979

flag of the United States

542

00:22:35,979 --> 00:22:37,981

and to the Republic for which it stands.

543

00:22:37,981 --> 00:22:39,775

You could tell I've been through this a few times

544

00:22:40,484 --> 00:22:46,198

and might even sing some songs from those things,

545

00:22:46,198 --> 00:22:48,450

the national anthem, songs

546

00:22:48,450 --> 00:22:50,202

like that, patriotic songs.

547

00:22:50,744 --> 00:22:53,663

And so the two are so intertwined

548

00:22:53,663 --> 00:22:55,749

that even if the person is a Christian,

549

00:22:55,749 --> 00:22:57,584

they're gonna have a problem with that

550

00:22:57,584 --> 00:23:00,253

because their churches talk like that.

551

00:23:00,253 --> 00:23:02,172

But you ask the church people,

552

00:23:02,839 --> 00:23:04,591

they don't usually face the dual kingdom,

553

00:23:04,800 --> 00:23:07,135

they don't usually face questioning that.

554

00:23:07,719 --> 00:23:09,554

And so you come from a whole

555

00:23:09,554 --> 00:23:12,182

different decision-making basis.

556

00:23:12,390 --> 00:23:13,433

You've got to overcome.

557

00:23:14,101 --> 00:23:15,143

They have their culture.

558

00:23:15,685 --> 00:23:16,686

And I had to make my

559

00:23:16,686 --> 00:23:18,563

transition out of that culture

560

00:23:19,189 --> 00:23:22,818

into what I know to be scriptural culture.

561

00:23:23,193 --> 00:23:23,860

And I can prove it.

562

00:23:24,319 --> 00:23:25,612

And I have support and I

563

00:23:25,612 --> 00:23:26,738

don't have to question it

564

00:23:27,072 --> 00:23:30,659

because it's not my opinion, it's God's opinion

565

00:23:30,826 --> 00:23:32,953

which comes to me through my-

566

00:23:33,453 --> 00:23:34,746

my belief in Jesus Christ,

567

00:23:34,746 --> 00:23:36,331

my belief in the Scriptures

568

00:23:36,998 --> 00:23:38,959

that God brought us through the Holy Spirit

569

00:23:39,084 --> 00:23:41,878

inspiring great writers of the world

570

00:23:42,420 --> 00:23:44,464

over the thousands of years,

571

00:23:44,965 --> 00:23:47,551

writing a common theme, a common message

572

00:23:48,051 --> 00:23:49,928

pointing to just one God.

573

00:23:50,929 --> 00:23:54,808

And so you have a different basis of thinking

574

00:23:55,267 --> 00:23:56,309

that I'm coming from.

575

00:23:56,560 --> 00:23:59,396

So yeah, it's a lot to overcome in some cases

576

00:24:00,021 --> 00:24:01,565

where that's the way we grew up.

577

00:24:01,982 --> 00:24:04,985

And so that you're overcoming.

578

00:24:06,278 --> 00:24:08,363

When I was talking to your wife yesterday,

579

00:24:09,072 --> 00:24:09,948

she mentioned how y'all

580

00:24:09,948 --> 00:24:12,033

were at a Christian conference

581

00:24:12,325 --> 00:24:13,994

and how you were sitting there just like,

582

00:24:14,452 --> 00:24:15,954

oh, things were starting to click

583

00:24:16,538 --> 00:24:19,374

and something to the effect of the Bible

584

00:24:19,541 --> 00:24:22,043

is almost like a flight manual or something.

585

00:24:22,043 --> 00:24:23,211

You're like, this is God's instructions

586

00:24:23,211 --> 00:24:25,213

on how we should live and things.

587

00:24:25,547 --> 00:24:26,715

Do you wanna get into that example?

588

00:24:26,923 --> 00:24:28,675

And we have some of your old flight manuals here.

589

00:24:28,675 --> 00:24:29,593

And I'm curious,

590

00:24:29,593 --> 00:24:30,302

because I think that's

591

00:24:30,302 --> 00:24:31,970

relevant to what you've been saying

592

00:24:32,554 --> 00:24:34,389

about the scriptural support of these things.

593

00:24:35,182 --> 00:24:37,559

How does that affect how we live and so forth?

594

00:24:37,559 --> 00:24:38,768

Yeah, you wanna get into that a bit.

595

00:24:39,936 --> 00:24:40,604

Yeah, I do.

596

00:24:41,396 --> 00:24:43,356

I brought these for that specific purpose.

597

00:24:44,524 --> 00:24:45,984

There's three of the four

598

00:24:45,984 --> 00:24:48,403

different aircraft I flew have.

599

00:24:48,653 --> 00:24:51,364

I brought their flight crew checklist.

600

00:24:51,364 --> 00:24:51,865

It's called the

601

00:24:51,865 --> 00:24:54,159

abbreviated flight crew checklist.

602

00:24:54,576 --> 00:24:58,330

And they're all common throughout every airplane

603

00:24:58,580 --> 00:24:59,581

in the Air Force.

604

00:24:59,581 --> 00:25:04,419

They have these black bordered pages like this

605

00:25:05,170 --> 00:25:08,798

that have a little E and a border.

606

00:25:08,798 --> 00:25:10,217

Those are emergency procedures.

607

00:25:10,717 --> 00:25:12,385

And this is what you had to know.

608

00:25:12,844 --> 00:25:14,804

Even to the point, these are

609

00:25:14,804 --> 00:25:18,516

supported by volumes of things,

610

00:25:19,017 --> 00:25:20,060

some of which we carried

611

00:25:20,060 --> 00:25:21,728

around in a big, heavy bag.

612

00:25:22,187 --> 00:25:23,480

But it comes down to this.

613

00:25:23,897 --> 00:25:26,024

And this even has things

614

00:25:26,024 --> 00:25:27,692

that had to be memorized.

615

00:25:28,318 --> 00:25:29,736

And it's like S cripture.

616

00:25:30,820 --> 00:25:32,739

And you would look at a big airplane.

617

00:25:33,114 --> 00:25:36,284

Here's a one from a B-52G, a

618

00:25:36,284 --> 00:25:38,245

massive airplane that I flew.

619

00:25:38,662 --> 00:25:41,122

Has that same thing, the hatched pages.

620

00:25:41,915 --> 00:25:42,832

And these had to be ready

621

00:25:42,832 --> 00:25:47,045

because when the emergency arose,

622

00:25:47,754 --> 00:25:49,631

you don't get out these big manuals

623

00:25:49,631 --> 00:25:51,049

to start paging through them.

624

00:25:51,424 --> 00:25:53,218

And where is that thing, that procedure,

625

00:25:53,218 --> 00:25:54,928

on how to put out an engine fire?

626

00:25:55,262 --> 00:25:56,972

Now this thing came out of you.

627

00:25:57,264 --> 00:25:58,348

It was second nature.

628

00:25:58,640 --> 00:26:00,100

And that's God's word.

629

00:26:00,267 --> 00:26:02,811

You have this not just,

630

00:26:03,144 --> 00:26:04,271

well, let me go look it up

631

00:26:04,271 --> 00:26:05,397

and I'll get back with you.

632

00:26:05,814 --> 00:26:10,902

At least the initial top level comes out of you.

633

00:26:11,486 --> 00:26:13,446

And so you have that same

634

00:26:13,446 --> 00:26:16,283

pillars, that similar structure.

635

00:26:16,283 --> 00:26:18,576

I've got a pillar that supports my belief,

636

00:26:18,994 --> 00:26:21,746

just like I've got volumes of books

637

00:26:21,746 --> 00:26:23,456

that bring it down to this.

638

00:26:23,832 --> 00:26:25,917

When I'm operating that

639

00:26:25,917 --> 00:26:28,086

aircraft and I have an emergency,

640

00:26:28,712 --> 00:26:30,922

these things better come out of me.

641

00:26:31,131 --> 00:26:35,135

And I was thrown in simulators, tested with this.

642

00:26:35,593 --> 00:26:36,469

Sometimes you would get

643

00:26:36,469 --> 00:26:38,680

these no-notice on-the-spot

644

00:26:39,597 --> 00:26:41,766

questions from the commander, hey Vince,

645

00:26:43,018 --> 00:26:44,978

tell me what you would do in this situation.

646

00:26:45,353 --> 00:26:47,772

Even to the point when we were students,

647

00:26:48,189 --> 00:26:49,482

they would maybe walk up

648

00:26:49,482 --> 00:26:50,525

to you, a commander says,

649

00:26:51,192 --> 00:26:52,360

you know, I wanna ask you a question.

650

00:26:52,902 --> 00:26:54,654

You know that the emergency procedures

651

00:26:55,280 --> 00:26:58,366

for a canopy blows off in flight

652

00:26:58,867 --> 00:27:02,662

or emergency blow down and landing gear,

653

00:27:02,662 --> 00:27:05,665

which don't come down when you go to land

654

00:27:05,665 --> 00:27:07,208

and you run into that emergency.

655

00:27:08,335 --> 00:27:09,878

He was expecting you to know that

656

00:27:09,878 --> 00:27:11,296

and that was part of your job.

657

00:27:12,005 --> 00:27:13,256

Just like a mechanic knows

658

00:27:13,256 --> 00:27:15,050

how to take a part of carburetor

659

00:27:15,342 --> 00:27:17,510

on a car or various parts of it.

660

00:27:17,719 --> 00:27:19,929

I had to know how to do this so much

661

00:27:20,263 --> 00:27:22,098

that it just came out of me naturally.

662

00:27:22,891 --> 00:27:26,061

Hmm, that goes back to when Peter is writing

663

00:27:26,311 --> 00:27:27,145

in the New Testament and

664

00:27:27,145 --> 00:27:29,189

says, be ready to give an answer

665

00:27:29,189 --> 00:27:31,358

or basically it's the sense of,

666

00:27:31,775 --> 00:27:32,692

you should know what you

667

00:27:32,692 --> 00:27:34,778

believe and like understand it

668

00:27:34,778 --> 00:27:37,072

and be able to explain it to someone else

669

00:27:37,072 --> 00:27:37,906

when people ask you

670

00:27:37,906 --> 00:27:39,282

questions so that you can give them,

671

00:27:39,699 --> 00:27:41,451

here's the reason for the hope that's in you

672

00:27:41,618 --> 00:27:43,244

as he writes and there's

673

00:27:43,244 --> 00:27:44,204

other things in that passage.

674

00:27:44,788 --> 00:27:47,207

Seems like that's what you're getting at here.

675

00:27:47,624 --> 00:27:48,833

Right, right.

676

00:27:49,417 --> 00:27:50,668

Be ready always.

677

00:27:53,963 --> 00:27:55,632

It's nice if you got a Bible with you

678

00:27:55,632 --> 00:27:57,550

and you got someone that is

679

00:27:57,550 --> 00:28:01,346

patiently dialoguing with you

680

00:28:01,346 --> 00:28:03,765

with an open mind, listening to what you have.

681

00:28:03,765 --> 00:28:06,851

But there's those people almost say,

682

00:28:07,185 --> 00:28:09,479

you just run into on the

683

00:28:09,479 --> 00:28:11,523

street that'll challenge you.

684

00:28:12,440 --> 00:28:14,484

They may see the way you're dressed

685

00:28:14,734 --> 00:28:16,694

or my wife wears a cap, a

686

00:28:16,694 --> 00:28:18,446

head covering all the time.

687

00:28:18,947 --> 00:28:20,115

And people will ask her,

688

00:28:20,490 --> 00:28:22,158

well, what is that for?

689

00:28:22,158 --> 00:28:23,868

And why do you believe in that?

690

00:28:24,202 --> 00:28:25,537

And what's that symbolized?

691

00:28:25,870 --> 00:28:28,415

And I'm expected to at least have,

692

00:28:28,415 --> 00:28:29,916

we don't all wear beards,

693

00:28:30,542 --> 00:28:32,419

but people will quickly pick up

694

00:28:32,794 --> 00:28:34,838

on you're not like everybody else.

695

00:28:35,171 --> 00:28:36,464

So expect you to be able

696

00:28:36,464 --> 00:28:38,383

to walk them through that.

697

00:28:38,925 --> 00:28:42,303

And like I said, it's gotta be ingrained in you.

698

00:28:42,679 --> 00:28:44,180

The hope that's within me,

699

00:28:44,597 --> 00:28:46,182

the hope in Jesus Christ.

700

00:28:48,059 --> 00:28:49,936

So I'm gonna pivot a bit

701

00:28:50,270 --> 00:28:53,314

because when we're talking about non-resistance,

702

00:28:55,442 --> 00:28:58,319

one thing people seem to default to a lot

703

00:28:58,486 --> 00:29:00,071

is hypothetical scenarios

704

00:29:00,196 --> 00:29:04,075

or they'll give these challenges of well,

705

00:29:04,075 --> 00:29:04,701

but what about this?

706

00:29:04,993 --> 00:29:05,493

What about that?

707

00:29:06,161 --> 00:29:07,162

And so far you've been saying,

708

00:29:07,162 --> 00:29:09,164

hey, this is how you came to this belief.

709

00:29:09,164 --> 00:29:11,749

Here's some Scripture, here's the framework.

710

00:29:12,083 --> 00:29:13,668

But then people would be like, well, yeah, but,

711

00:29:13,668 --> 00:29:14,752

let me try to poke a hole in

712

00:29:14,752 --> 00:29:16,713

that by giving this situation.

713

00:29:17,380 --> 00:29:18,256

Talk me through those.

714

00:29:18,256 --> 00:29:20,049

Because that's a different type of approach.

715

00:29:21,050 --> 00:29:25,597

That's a common attack against this theology

716

00:29:25,597 --> 00:29:29,851

by taking a common situation

717

00:29:30,560 --> 00:29:33,646

and making it a question which is almost

718

00:29:35,482 --> 00:29:37,817

getting down to a yes, no question.

719

00:29:38,401 --> 00:29:41,821

And I would say anytime you see a yes, no,

720

00:29:42,197 --> 00:29:43,573

an either or question,

721

00:29:43,907 --> 00:29:46,784

either you choose this path or this path.

722

00:29:46,826 --> 00:29:49,996

It's like saying, I don't wanna sound too crude,

723

00:29:49,996 --> 00:29:52,165

but have you stopped kicking your dog yet?

724

00:29:52,540 --> 00:29:54,834

Well, there's no right answer to that question.

725

00:29:54,834 --> 00:29:57,879

Either way, you're wrong or you're guilty.

726

00:29:58,421 --> 00:30:00,256

So someone presents a scenario,

727

00:30:01,174 --> 00:30:03,092

the most I've ever heard

728

00:30:03,092 --> 00:30:04,802

of either to me or others,

729

00:30:05,136 --> 00:30:07,514

is someone kicks in your front door

730

00:30:07,972 --> 00:30:09,474

and starts attacking your wife.

731

00:30:09,974 --> 00:30:10,850

What are you gonna do?

732

00:30:11,518 --> 00:30:15,313

And my first question is, is this a scenario

733

00:30:15,688 --> 00:30:17,982

you actually know of or is this

734

00:30:17,982 --> 00:30:19,692

something you've just made up?

735

00:30:20,235 --> 00:30:23,738

And my first answer, which I certainly

736

00:30:24,405 --> 00:30:26,074

am not going to have time

737

00:30:26,074 --> 00:30:27,951

to give in a real situation,

738

00:30:28,326 --> 00:30:30,328

but in this hypothetical situation,

739

00:30:30,745 --> 00:30:33,248

it's gonna have to be, what does the Bible say?

740

00:30:34,332 --> 00:30:36,626

And let's even take what the Bible says

741

00:30:36,626 --> 00:30:39,045

and put it in practical application

742

00:30:39,254 --> 00:30:41,506

because I know you're trying to trap me

743

00:30:41,839 --> 00:30:43,216

with these either or questions,

744

00:30:43,758 --> 00:30:46,469

which undeniably, it keeps

745

00:30:46,469 --> 00:30:49,430

the person asking the question.

746

00:30:49,430 --> 00:30:52,100

It keeps them in control of the discussion.

747

00:30:52,100 --> 00:30:54,519

So you're already at a disadvantage.

748

00:30:55,812 --> 00:31:00,608

And you just go on and on that these are not

749

00:31:01,484 --> 00:31:02,944

logical questions.

750

00:31:02,944 --> 00:31:04,946

They're actually illogical if

751

00:31:04,946 --> 00:31:06,364

you look at them objectively

752

00:31:07,156 --> 00:31:09,826

and they're a trap and they're trying to get you

753

00:31:09,826 --> 00:31:10,868

to agree with them.

754

00:31:11,202 --> 00:31:12,412

And what are they after ultimately?

755

00:31:13,162 --> 00:31:17,208

Not just disproving you, but to disparage God

756

00:31:17,875 --> 00:31:18,918

through you and through

757

00:31:18,918 --> 00:31:20,712

winning an argument with you.

758

00:31:21,296 --> 00:31:23,798

And you go, I don't know what to say.

759

00:31:24,882 --> 00:31:28,386

Well, maybe I'll have to agree with you.

760

00:31:28,678 --> 00:31:30,388

Yeah, some of these things,

761

00:31:30,722 --> 00:31:33,224

but there's a lot of things that you can do.

762

00:31:33,766 --> 00:31:35,143

And if I could just take a

763

00:31:35,143 --> 00:31:37,270

moment to go into some of those.

764

00:31:37,395 --> 00:31:39,606

Yeah, yeah, I'd like you to do that

765

00:31:39,606 --> 00:31:41,524

because this is first thing typically

766

00:31:41,899 --> 00:31:45,194

when my militaristic friends or whatever,

767

00:31:45,862 --> 00:31:46,738

you'd find out, oh, you

768

00:31:46,738 --> 00:31:48,406

don't believe in war well then.

769

00:31:48,406 --> 00:31:49,240

What about this?

770

00:31:49,240 --> 00:31:50,867

And they'll use some example from whatever.

771

00:31:51,659 --> 00:31:52,952

And it can shut down the

772

00:31:52,952 --> 00:31:53,995

conversation pretty quick

773

00:31:53,995 --> 00:31:55,538

because it's like, well, oh boy.

774

00:31:55,788 --> 00:31:56,998

So if you go down that street,

775

00:31:57,540 --> 00:31:59,459

yeah, you do end up in a corner someplace.

776

00:32:00,043 --> 00:32:00,627

But like you said,

777

00:32:01,169 --> 00:32:03,296

I'm thinking of one scenario that happened to me.

778

00:32:03,296 --> 00:32:05,465

I was like, the situation he was outlining

779

00:32:05,798 --> 00:32:07,175

based on a past experience I had

780

00:32:07,425 --> 00:32:10,261

was so ridiculously illogical that it was just,

781

00:32:10,303 --> 00:32:12,055

I mean, there's no way that would ever happen.

782

00:32:12,347 --> 00:32:15,099

But he just kept pushing it in a certain way

783

00:32:15,725 --> 00:32:16,768

to try to get me to say,

784

00:32:16,768 --> 00:32:17,602

oh yeah, that's right,

785

00:32:17,602 --> 00:32:18,561

non-resistance wouldn't work

786

00:32:18,561 --> 00:32:19,896

in that situation or whatever.

787

00:32:20,271 --> 00:32:20,688

It's like, well, the

788

00:32:20,688 --> 00:32:22,440

reality is that would never happen

789

00:32:22,440 --> 00:32:23,107

in real life.

790

00:32:23,107 --> 00:32:25,943

It's just totally ridiculous situation.

791

00:32:26,903 --> 00:32:28,571

So what are alternatives

792

00:32:29,030 --> 00:32:30,114

when people do bring these

793

00:32:30,114 --> 00:32:31,908

kinds of things up and says,

794

00:32:31,908 --> 00:32:32,950

well, you believe in non-resistance?

795

00:32:32,950 --> 00:32:33,618

Well, what about this?

796

00:32:34,035 --> 00:32:35,036

What are some alternative

797

00:32:35,036 --> 00:32:36,371

responses you can give them?

798

00:32:36,704 --> 00:32:39,332

Well, I might start first with saying,

799

00:32:40,958 --> 00:32:42,627

all these situations are different

800

00:32:42,835 --> 00:32:45,672

and you put me in a situation like this.

801

00:32:45,880 --> 00:32:47,965

I don't know all the information there.

802

00:32:48,216 --> 00:32:50,635

You just said there's an attacker and a victim.

803

00:32:51,177 --> 00:32:51,969

Well, is it day?

804

00:32:51,969 --> 00:32:52,512

Is it night?

805

00:32:52,720 --> 00:32:54,764

Is there a policeman standing behind you?

806

00:32:55,098 --> 00:32:57,600

Or are you out in a farm environment?

807

00:32:58,017 --> 00:33:00,269

Or are there houses all around you

808

00:33:00,687 --> 00:33:02,897

where you know that this guy's

809

00:33:02,897 --> 00:33:04,524

not gonna maybe risk too much?

810

00:33:05,149 --> 00:33:08,611

But initially, my first thought is to flee

811

00:33:09,320 --> 00:33:11,656

the environment, run away.

812

00:33:12,365 --> 00:33:13,700

I've told my wife, if

813

00:33:13,700 --> 00:33:15,159

somebody were to do something,

814

00:33:16,411 --> 00:33:18,287

here's the door to get out and

815

00:33:18,287 --> 00:33:19,455

here's where you're gonna go.

816

00:33:20,498 --> 00:33:22,959

I'm running away from the

817

00:33:22,959 --> 00:33:25,628

situation in a way to react that.

818

00:33:26,254 --> 00:33:27,880

So another thing is

819

00:33:27,880 --> 00:33:30,258

somebody in a situation like that

820

00:33:30,258 --> 00:33:31,759

is usually after something.

821

00:33:32,552 --> 00:33:35,972

There's no purpose to them in just coming,

822

00:33:35,972 --> 00:33:38,474

kicking in the door and beating up someone

823

00:33:39,142 --> 00:33:40,685

and they're after something.

824

00:33:41,519 --> 00:33:44,313

Maybe your wallet, maybe you've got money

825

00:33:45,148 --> 00:33:46,524

somewhere in the house.

826

00:33:47,233 --> 00:33:48,484

I say, give it to them.

827

00:33:49,277 --> 00:33:51,821

Your life is not worth your wallet, men,

828

00:33:52,280 --> 00:33:53,239

or your purse women.

829

00:33:54,240 --> 00:33:55,742

And that money you may have

830

00:33:55,742 --> 00:33:57,118

stashed in a drawer somewhere,

831

00:33:57,660 --> 00:33:58,786

let them have it.

832

00:33:59,495 --> 00:34:02,081

And yet, you may get,

833

00:34:02,623 --> 00:34:04,417

through satisfaction through that,

834

00:34:04,417 --> 00:34:05,752

you may have to go beyond that.

835

00:34:06,002 --> 00:34:07,295

Not only what are you looking for,

836

00:34:07,420 --> 00:34:09,005

but offer them something else.

837

00:34:10,506 --> 00:34:12,133

My wife's sick, you're

838

00:34:12,133 --> 00:34:14,385

really doing something wrong.

839

00:34:14,385 --> 00:34:18,639

How about, what are you after here?

840

00:34:19,682 --> 00:34:21,267

And not maybe that clean.

841

00:34:21,726 --> 00:34:23,394

Think of it, you're trying to

842

00:34:23,394 --> 00:34:25,021

say, is there something else?

843

00:34:25,480 --> 00:34:27,023

You're really after, what can I give you

844

00:34:27,398 --> 00:34:29,525

to solve your basic need?

845

00:34:30,234 --> 00:34:32,487

So I'm presenting him with an alternative.

846

00:34:32,945 --> 00:34:34,572

And maybe too, I would

847

00:34:34,572 --> 00:34:36,949

jump in between the attacker

848

00:34:37,200 --> 00:34:37,742

and the victim.

849

00:34:38,159 --> 00:34:41,621

So he's attacking me instead of someone weaker

850

00:34:42,288 --> 00:34:44,040

than I am to protect them.

851

00:34:44,373 --> 00:34:45,792

And this way, I'm not

852

00:34:45,792 --> 00:34:48,294

attacking him with resistance

853

00:34:48,294 --> 00:34:52,256

the way he's attacking me or someone that I love.

854

00:34:52,924 --> 00:34:54,675

I'm blocking what he's

855

00:34:54,675 --> 00:34:56,052

doing, just standing there,

856

00:34:56,427 --> 00:34:57,303

giving the other person

857

00:34:57,303 --> 00:34:59,555

protection or a chance to flee

858

00:35:00,139 --> 00:35:02,099

while I'm engaging the enemy,

859

00:35:02,558 --> 00:35:06,103

almost like a military thing where I'm doing

860

00:35:06,395 --> 00:35:09,524

a strategic withdrawal to avoid,

861

00:35:10,274 --> 00:35:13,528

to get out of the range of your horrible guns.

862

00:35:14,070 --> 00:35:16,280

I'm getting back from the threat really.

863

00:35:16,781 --> 00:35:22,119

And if we look at many others that we say,

864

00:35:23,412 --> 00:35:24,372

if I think this through,

865

00:35:25,289 --> 00:35:26,415

I know what I'm gonna do,

866

00:35:27,166 --> 00:35:28,459

like an emergency procedure.

867

00:35:28,459 --> 00:35:30,920

But if I wait for the situation to arise,

868

00:35:31,671 --> 00:35:33,047

I may not know what to do.

869

00:35:33,047 --> 00:35:35,800

In fact, in some situations,

870

00:35:35,800 --> 00:35:37,426

the answer to a question

871

00:35:37,426 --> 00:35:39,011

like that is, I don't know.

872

00:35:39,929 --> 00:35:40,930

I don't know what I would do.

873

00:35:41,514 --> 00:35:44,308

The body in all of us has

874

00:35:44,308 --> 00:35:46,269

a natural reflex action.

875

00:35:46,853 --> 00:35:48,980

Somebody throws a ball at you or a rock.

876

00:35:49,397 --> 00:35:51,858

You just unconsciously put

877

00:35:51,858 --> 00:35:54,277

your hand up to block that.

878

00:35:54,735 --> 00:35:56,404

That's an instinct in your body.

879

00:35:56,737 --> 00:35:59,991

You didn't get that instinct by deciding on that,

880

00:36:00,533 --> 00:36:01,868

but it's a natural instinct.

881

00:36:02,410 --> 00:36:06,289

And you may flinch, you may trigger some emotion

882

00:36:06,289 --> 00:36:07,331

in the attacker by

883

00:36:07,331 --> 00:36:09,000

flinching, but there are things

884

00:36:09,000 --> 00:36:11,085

we're just not sure what we're gonna do.

885

00:36:11,085 --> 00:36:14,088

But in general, what's the real environment?

886

00:36:14,338 --> 00:36:15,882

What's the truth of the situation?

887

00:36:16,507 --> 00:36:18,885

And taking some of this other alternatives.

888

00:36:19,635 --> 00:36:22,263

And you have to admit, it may not work.

889

00:36:23,139 --> 00:36:26,100

There are times where it's gonna break down.

890

00:36:26,100 --> 00:36:27,143

You're not gonna succeed,

891

00:36:27,476 --> 00:36:28,644

but there are alternatives

892

00:36:29,186 --> 00:36:33,149

other than attack the attacker or get killed.

893

00:36:33,941 --> 00:36:34,901

Those aren't the alternatives.

894

00:36:35,401 --> 00:36:39,030

So yeah, complex question- answer-

895

00:36:39,030 --> 00:36:39,780

to a simple question,

896

00:36:39,780 --> 00:36:40,364

you might say.

897

00:36:40,865 --> 00:36:41,866

But it's really real,

898

00:36:41,866 --> 00:36:42,742

because I think in the

899

00:36:42,742 --> 00:36:43,910

conversations I've had at least,

900

00:36:43,910 --> 00:36:48,122

that tends to be the one challenge for people.

901

00:36:48,122 --> 00:36:50,416

It's like, but what about if

902

00:36:50,416 --> 00:36:51,876

I get attacked or something,

903

00:36:52,293 --> 00:36:53,794

and that can be a real struggle point.

904

00:36:54,420 --> 00:36:56,923

Yeah, I think you had a good piece there.

905

00:36:57,256 --> 00:36:59,759

It may not always like, quote unquote, work,

906

00:36:59,759 --> 00:37:01,844

or it might, these things are messy,

907

00:37:02,470 --> 00:37:05,139

and but still have to come

908

00:37:05,139 --> 00:37:07,099

back to what is the flight manual,

909

00:37:07,099 --> 00:37:08,726

so to speak, like what does scripture tell us?

910

00:37:08,726 --> 00:37:10,561

Like what does Jesus want us to do?

911

00:37:11,979 --> 00:37:12,772

Bring it back to that.

912

00:37:13,439 --> 00:37:14,065

Okay, so we were just

913

00:37:14,065 --> 00:37:16,651

talking about really zoomed in

914

00:37:16,817 --> 00:37:18,444

on hypothetical situations

915

00:37:18,444 --> 00:37:20,696

and in our individual lives.

916

00:37:20,988 --> 00:37:22,823

I wanna zoom it out now really wide.

917

00:37:23,991 --> 00:37:25,826

History is full of a lot of famous warriors.

918

00:37:26,786 --> 00:37:29,413

What are some thoughts

919

00:37:29,413 --> 00:37:31,040

that they've had about war?

920

00:37:31,290 --> 00:37:32,166

People that have experienced

921

00:37:32,166 --> 00:37:34,085

this, lead armies, et cetera.

922

00:37:34,460 --> 00:37:35,378

Give us some quotes.

923

00:37:35,378 --> 00:37:36,712

I know you've done some digging on this.

924

00:37:37,380 --> 00:37:38,214

Yeah, tell us about some of that.

925

00:37:38,214 --> 00:37:40,299

I took some notes that really,

926

00:37:40,591 --> 00:37:42,385

I was prepared to give some of these.

927

00:37:42,885 --> 00:37:45,513

And let me draw on some of these specifically,

928

00:37:46,180 --> 00:37:47,306

because in a few cases,

929

00:37:47,682 --> 00:37:49,225

the quotes are really

930

00:37:49,225 --> 00:37:51,560

lengthy and well thought out

931

00:37:51,560 --> 00:37:53,062

by some members of history

932

00:37:53,062 --> 00:37:55,481

that I think everyone looks on.

933

00:37:56,357 --> 00:37:59,777

There was a British writer called Sidney Smith.

934

00:37:59,777 --> 00:38:02,113

He said, "God is forgotten in war.

935

00:38:02,613 --> 00:38:03,906

"Every principle of

936

00:38:03,906 --> 00:38:06,409

Christianity is trampled upon."

937

00:38:06,826 --> 00:38:07,785

And I think if you look at

938

00:38:07,785 --> 00:38:09,495

that closely, yeah, it is.

939

00:38:09,495 --> 00:38:10,955

And I've had experience in war.

940

00:38:11,497 --> 00:38:14,291

I've actually, looking at my past,

941

00:38:14,667 --> 00:38:16,085

and we didn't go into that,

942

00:38:16,293 --> 00:38:18,295

but I've dropped bombs that killed people.

943

00:38:19,005 --> 00:38:21,549

And they didn't just kill enemy soldiers.

944

00:38:22,049 --> 00:38:25,386

They killed non-combatants or civilians.

945

00:38:26,554 --> 00:38:27,680

Let's personalize this.

946

00:38:28,347 --> 00:38:28,973

There were babies.

947

00:38:29,640 --> 00:38:30,933

There were somebody's

948

00:38:30,933 --> 00:38:34,061

aunt or uncle or grandfather.

949

00:38:34,729 --> 00:38:37,523

There was maybe an invalid or something.

950

00:38:38,816 --> 00:38:41,235

"I'm sorry, that's just part of war.

951

00:38:41,944 --> 00:38:42,737

And they shouldn't have

952

00:38:42,737 --> 00:38:43,904

been there in the first place.

953

00:38:44,655 --> 00:38:45,531

Too bad for them.

954

00:38:46,323 --> 00:38:48,701

The mindset is, we're killing enemy soldiers

955

00:38:48,951 --> 00:38:50,036

for the cause of good."

956

00:38:50,661 --> 00:38:52,371

And that's my mindset.

957

00:38:52,913 --> 00:38:55,458

And I may even joke about some of this.

958

00:38:55,833 --> 00:38:58,044

After dropping bombs on a particular target,

959

00:38:58,419 --> 00:39:00,004

I remember many situations,

960

00:39:00,421 --> 00:39:01,881

we turned back to the home base.

961

00:39:02,381 --> 00:39:03,632

And I would say something like,

962

00:39:03,883 --> 00:39:05,551

"I wonder what they're having for dinner

963

00:39:05,551 --> 00:39:06,635

"at the officers club."

964

00:39:07,136 --> 00:39:09,972

And yet, those bombs are still on the way down

965

00:39:11,098 --> 00:39:14,185

for a number of seconds in the time of fall.

966

00:39:14,727 --> 00:39:16,520

And you see the contradiction

967

00:39:17,063 --> 00:39:19,148

of what's happening for real on the ground

968

00:39:19,565 --> 00:39:22,276

as a 750-pound bomb is just

969

00:39:22,276 --> 00:39:24,528

obliterating a certain radius.

970

00:39:24,820 --> 00:39:26,489

And I'm telling you, killing

971

00:39:26,489 --> 00:39:28,699

grass and trees and animals

972

00:39:29,158 --> 00:39:30,284

and people no doubt,

973

00:39:30,868 --> 00:39:32,870

and destruction just raining within that.

974

00:39:33,162 --> 00:39:35,623

Yet I have no conscience towards that

975

00:39:35,664 --> 00:39:38,250

because I'm winning the war for good

976

00:39:38,709 --> 00:39:39,919

and they're the bad guys.

977

00:39:40,628 --> 00:39:43,839

And so deal with that and take care of them

978

00:39:43,839 --> 00:39:46,759

so we lose more of them than we lose.

979

00:39:47,301 --> 00:39:48,344

And that's that mindset.

980

00:39:48,719 --> 00:39:50,096

So you look at some of these things--

981

00:39:50,346 --> 00:39:52,473

A numbing to the effects almost, right?

982

00:39:52,556 --> 00:39:53,599

That's exactly right.

983

00:39:53,599 --> 00:39:56,018

You're flying at, what, 20,000 feet

984

00:39:56,018 --> 00:39:57,520

and it's just a bunch of jungle down there.

985

00:39:58,437 --> 00:40:02,024

And in reality, the concept

986

00:40:02,024 --> 00:40:05,861

is the end justifies the means.

987

00:40:06,612 --> 00:40:09,240

So the end objective is victory.

988

00:40:09,615 --> 00:40:11,367

How I get there doesn't matter.

989

00:40:11,992 --> 00:40:13,119

Where in fact, it ought

990

00:40:13,119 --> 00:40:14,370

to be the other way around.

991

00:40:14,662 --> 00:40:18,833

The means of getting there justifies the end.

992

00:40:19,083 --> 00:40:21,710

So that I don't just see this concept

993

00:40:22,128 --> 00:40:23,671

that there's no morality

994

00:40:23,671 --> 00:40:25,923

when you're going at the enemy

995

00:40:26,048 --> 00:40:30,177

because, and you know, I hate to admit it,

996

00:40:30,177 --> 00:40:32,429

but clear evidence that we've

997

00:40:32,429 --> 00:40:33,848

done some of the same things

998

00:40:34,348 --> 00:40:36,475

to the enemy that he's done to us.

999

00:40:36,600 --> 00:40:38,644

You mean like the American

00:40:38,644 --> 00:40:40,187

military machine, essentially?

00:40:41,021 --> 00:40:42,523

And there's clear evidence.

00:40:42,523 --> 00:40:43,607

And you see some of that

00:40:43,607 --> 00:40:45,943

in a lot of famous quotes.

00:40:46,819 --> 00:40:48,529

Yeah, continue on that, yeah.

00:40:49,113 --> 00:40:52,741

So this is William Tecumseh Sherman.

00:40:53,742 --> 00:40:57,246

He was one of the main generals in the Civil War

00:40:57,913 --> 00:41:00,332

and he was given orders to

00:41:00,332 --> 00:41:02,293

take out a particular route

00:41:02,668 --> 00:41:04,920

from the South in the Civil War.

00:41:05,671 --> 00:41:10,885

And that was between Atlanta and Savannah.

00:41:11,427 --> 00:41:14,388

And it was called Sherman's March to the Sea.

00:41:15,222 --> 00:41:18,392

And he used a concept called scorched earth

00:41:19,018 --> 00:41:21,145

where you have the enemy in front of you

00:41:21,478 --> 00:41:22,480

and you're knocking them

00:41:22,480 --> 00:41:23,564

out, you're killing them.

00:41:23,856 --> 00:41:26,066

But as you pass through his territory,

00:41:26,483 --> 00:41:29,528

you're obliterating everything behind you.

00:41:30,154 --> 00:41:33,073

His, maybe even the people, women, children,

00:41:33,824 --> 00:41:35,451

the infirm, those behind you.

00:41:35,451 --> 00:41:36,702

You're burning their houses,

00:41:36,702 --> 00:41:37,745

you're burning their crops,

00:41:38,162 --> 00:41:43,209

you're killing their cows and their horses,

00:41:43,751 --> 00:41:45,127

the chickens, you name it.

00:41:45,502 --> 00:41:46,962

And that's called scorched earth.

00:41:47,379 --> 00:41:50,382

There's nothing usable and Sherman did this.

00:41:51,133 --> 00:41:54,678

And the Library of Congress contains documents,

00:41:54,678 --> 00:41:56,180

two letters from Lincoln

00:41:56,180 --> 00:41:58,224

that told Sherman to do that.

00:41:58,557 --> 00:41:59,808

Let me tell you what he

00:41:59,808 --> 00:42:02,061

says after all this career

00:42:02,061 --> 00:42:02,728

that he's had.

00:42:03,020 --> 00:42:04,980

He says, "I confess without shame

00:42:05,481 --> 00:42:07,524

that I am tired and sick of war.

00:42:07,983 --> 00:42:10,736

It is only those who have neither heard a shot

00:42:11,320 --> 00:42:13,656

nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded.

00:42:14,073 --> 00:42:17,826

It is only they who cry for more blood,

00:42:18,285 --> 00:42:22,039

who cry for more vengeance and more desolation."

00:42:22,665 --> 00:42:23,582

And he ends up with this

00:42:23,582 --> 00:42:26,168

famous little three word concept

00:42:26,710 --> 00:42:29,505

that I've heard so many times, war is hell.

00:42:30,839 --> 00:42:32,675

And here's a man that went through all this.

00:42:32,675 --> 00:42:33,842

He gets to the conclusion.

00:42:34,301 --> 00:42:35,427

He looks back on what he

00:42:35,427 --> 00:42:37,763

did to the tens of thousands

00:42:37,763 --> 00:42:39,223

of people that the most

00:42:39,223 --> 00:42:40,724

costly war in our history,

00:42:40,975 --> 00:42:44,103

about 610,000 men of our own

00:42:44,103 --> 00:42:45,354

country killed in that war.

00:42:45,729 --> 00:42:46,563

And he looks back on

00:42:46,563 --> 00:42:48,107

those, this with those words,

00:42:48,649 --> 00:42:52,152

Napoleon famous historical figure, French,

00:42:52,861 --> 00:42:53,988

the emperor of France, he says,

00:42:54,321 --> 00:42:56,115

"The more I study war,

00:42:57,074 --> 00:42:58,075

the more I study the world,

00:42:58,075 --> 00:43:00,828

the more I am convinced of the inability

00:43:01,328 --> 00:43:04,248

or brute force to create anything durable."

00:43:04,707 --> 00:43:07,459

And here he was a master of brute force.

00:43:07,918 --> 00:43:12,089

And he's admitting in his summation that,

00:43:12,298 --> 00:43:14,008

"You know, when you put it all together,

00:43:15,092 --> 00:43:18,512

we're really unable to reach our objective."

00:43:18,887 --> 00:43:20,889

And we say, we could maybe

00:43:20,889 --> 00:43:24,059

go into some combat theory

00:43:24,226 --> 00:43:26,186

and things of that nature.

00:43:26,979 --> 00:43:29,064

And he basically says,

00:43:29,565 --> 00:43:31,900

"Taking everything that I have

00:43:32,484 --> 00:43:33,694

and looking at all the

00:43:33,694 --> 00:43:35,612

kinds of warfare I've been,

00:43:36,030 --> 00:43:38,282

there is no way to bring

00:43:38,282 --> 00:43:40,492

about any durable objective.

00:43:41,076 --> 00:43:42,077

War begets war."

00:43:42,619 --> 00:43:43,829

As we look back on history,

00:43:44,330 --> 00:43:46,749

one war doesn't solve anything.

00:43:47,833 --> 00:43:50,669

We've looked at the war to end all wars.

00:43:51,628 --> 00:43:53,380

That was World War I.

00:43:53,881 --> 00:43:57,801

And what did World War II follow 10 years later

00:43:57,801 --> 00:43:58,761

than World War I?

00:43:58,761 --> 00:44:00,220

Here's World War II, right

00:44:00,220 --> 00:44:01,597

back doing the same thing

00:44:02,014 --> 00:44:03,265

with some of the same enemies

00:44:03,766 --> 00:44:06,226

using more cruel tactics and

00:44:06,226 --> 00:44:08,395

everything, since this is it.

00:44:08,979 --> 00:44:10,189

And we get through this

00:44:10,189 --> 00:44:12,316

and Hitler and all his armies

00:44:12,691 --> 00:44:15,194

are done for, and we will be victorious

00:44:16,695 --> 00:44:19,823

marching through Europe, proclaiming our might

00:44:20,199 --> 00:44:22,159

and our right, and that's it.

00:44:22,368 --> 00:44:24,370

But then you look at the wars that follow,

00:44:24,620 --> 00:44:26,538

the regional wars, all the

00:44:26,538 --> 00:44:28,791

wars of areas surrounding that.

00:44:29,500 --> 00:44:32,336

It's estimated, for example, 20 million people,

00:44:33,545 --> 00:44:35,714

mostly civilians, about two to one ratio,

00:44:36,215 --> 00:44:38,842

sometimes three to one ratio of civilians

00:44:39,301 --> 00:44:42,763

over military combatants died through things

00:44:42,763 --> 00:44:44,348

like forced migrations,

00:44:45,015 --> 00:44:46,683

direct killing by the weapons

00:44:47,101 --> 00:44:51,605

intended for soldiers that actually brought into

00:44:51,605 --> 00:44:54,358

or spilled over into the

00:44:54,358 --> 00:44:57,945

homes and the civilian communities

00:44:58,195 --> 00:45:01,156

and took a lot of them out to forced migration,

00:45:01,365 --> 00:45:03,659

starvation, sickness and disease,

00:45:04,284 --> 00:45:06,703

and all those things that

00:45:06,703 --> 00:45:09,039

some of our people even did.

00:45:09,706 --> 00:45:11,500

You get angry at a soldier

00:45:11,500 --> 00:45:15,003

and just summarily shoot him.

00:45:15,379 --> 00:45:17,047

I'm so angry at this guy.

00:45:17,589 --> 00:45:20,134

I'm not gonna let him just be hauled off

00:45:20,134 --> 00:45:22,136

into a prison or war camp.

00:45:22,428 --> 00:45:24,096

I'm gonna take care of this guy right now.

00:45:24,430 --> 00:45:26,640

They did that to us, and many times

00:45:27,182 --> 00:45:30,018

we had angry men that saw

00:45:30,018 --> 00:45:33,439

their buddy next to him shot,

00:45:34,064 --> 00:45:35,941

and I'm just gonna get you in anger

00:45:35,941 --> 00:45:39,903

and summarily shoot the man and take out his life

00:45:40,279 --> 00:45:43,407

because of anger and the venom that's within us

00:45:43,407 --> 00:45:46,285

to retaliate, to deal with that.

00:45:46,743 --> 00:45:48,620

And we have names for these people.

00:45:48,620 --> 00:45:53,041

I won't even repeat derogatory names, ugly names,

00:45:53,834 --> 00:45:55,836

because that's how we envision these guys,

00:45:56,170 --> 00:45:59,965

almost as venomous snakes ready to attack us,

00:46:00,215 --> 00:46:01,216

and we've got to deal with

00:46:01,216 --> 00:46:03,218

those guys in any way we can,

00:46:03,218 --> 00:46:04,136

so we take them out.

00:46:04,428 --> 00:46:07,598

Let me hear British Duke of Wellington.

00:46:07,973 --> 00:46:10,017

He was Napoleon's arch enemy.

00:46:10,726 --> 00:46:13,395

He said, "War is the most detestable thing

00:46:13,979 --> 00:46:16,356

"if you had seen but one day of war,

00:46:16,857 --> 00:46:18,192

"you would pray, God, that

00:46:18,192 --> 00:46:20,194

you might never see another."

00:46:21,069 --> 00:46:23,947

And so here's the men that led the armies

00:46:24,615 --> 00:46:26,825

that did these things, and

00:46:26,825 --> 00:46:28,160

then they're coming to the end,

00:46:28,577 --> 00:46:30,037

and in summation they're saying,

00:46:31,246 --> 00:46:32,706

"This isn't what I thought it was.

00:46:33,207 --> 00:46:35,834

"War is hell," like Tecumseh said.

00:46:36,460 --> 00:46:38,879

And these are guys that are proving

00:46:39,338 --> 00:46:40,839

those concepts in reality.

00:46:42,049 --> 00:46:43,050

That's kind of wild.

00:46:43,050 --> 00:46:44,468

I mean, you have Napoleon and

00:46:44,468 --> 00:46:46,261

Wellington both saying that.

00:46:46,261 --> 00:46:47,638

If I remember my history right,

00:46:47,638 --> 00:46:48,764

those were the two that

00:46:48,764 --> 00:46:50,474

fought at the Battle of Waterloo.

00:46:52,392 --> 00:46:53,393

And they both come away

00:46:53,393 --> 00:46:54,895

from their military careers

00:46:54,895 --> 00:46:55,938

saying things like that.

00:46:55,938 --> 00:46:58,232

That's kind of, that makes you think.

00:46:59,358 --> 00:47:01,902

Napoleon is regarded as one of the greatest,

00:47:02,569 --> 00:47:04,947

perhaps the greatest general of all time,

00:47:05,405 --> 00:47:06,990

and he gets to the end of all this and says,

00:47:08,116 --> 00:47:09,451

"Didn't really accomplish much,"

00:47:09,743 --> 00:47:12,079

which is kind of mind blowing to me.

00:47:12,871 --> 00:47:13,705

And if anybody would be

00:47:13,705 --> 00:47:15,916

qualified to make a declaration

00:47:16,166 --> 00:47:17,626

like that, it seems like someone like him

00:47:17,960 --> 00:47:20,379

would have seen enough to know, yeah, wow.

00:47:20,712 --> 00:47:22,965

Okay, so I'm gonna bring this

00:47:22,965 --> 00:47:25,133

back down to you and your life.

00:47:25,717 --> 00:47:27,010

What is the personal benefit

00:47:27,010 --> 00:47:28,971

to a stand on non-resistance?

00:47:30,264 --> 00:47:33,141

Well, first of all, I'm pleasing God

00:47:34,351 --> 00:47:35,686

because I'm following his word.

00:47:36,019 --> 00:47:40,274

There is joy that comes through pleasing God

00:47:40,899 --> 00:47:41,942

and knowing that you're doing,

00:47:41,942 --> 00:47:43,235

and knowing that you're

00:47:43,235 --> 00:47:45,028

doing an alternative service.

00:47:46,029 --> 00:47:48,615

And amongst so many things,

00:47:49,074 --> 00:47:50,200

there's a clear conscience.

00:47:51,034 --> 00:47:51,994

I don't have this thing.

00:47:52,619 --> 00:47:56,081

Many, many men after war have committed suicide

00:47:56,999 --> 00:47:59,376

because they couldn't bring themselves,

00:47:59,668 --> 00:48:02,713

or post-traumatic stress disorder,

00:48:03,088 --> 00:48:05,924

as we're seeing so much today in war,

00:48:06,425 --> 00:48:08,093

shell shock, injuries and

00:48:08,093 --> 00:48:09,469

things that are horrible.

00:48:09,970 --> 00:48:11,430

And this says, "I don't want that.

00:48:11,888 --> 00:48:13,056

"I have a better way.

00:48:13,307 --> 00:48:14,349

"I will serve you.

00:48:14,850 --> 00:48:17,436

"I won't just ignore you and be a peacenick.

00:48:17,477 --> 00:48:20,272

I will actually support your

00:48:20,272 --> 00:48:22,899

being and your position in God

00:48:23,400 --> 00:48:25,611

with a Christian approach that says,

00:48:25,611 --> 00:48:28,572

"I'm out to benefit you, not to kill you.

00:48:28,780 --> 00:48:30,115

"So I've got this whole

00:48:30,115 --> 00:48:31,700

mindset that's different."

00:48:31,908 --> 00:48:34,161

If I can bring him to understand that,

00:48:34,411 --> 00:48:36,913

I think I could win over a friend

00:48:37,122 --> 00:48:39,666

or whatever attack I'm getting.

00:48:40,000 --> 00:48:41,293

Let me show you an alternative.

00:48:42,002 --> 00:48:43,962

What do you think about going in a hospital

00:48:44,504 --> 00:48:48,550

and helping sick and the injured and the infirm,

00:48:49,384 --> 00:48:51,094

giving food, digging water wells

00:48:51,094 --> 00:48:53,764

in third-world countries that don't have access

00:48:53,764 --> 00:48:54,556

to clean water?

00:48:54,931 --> 00:48:57,517

Let me demonstrate to you a different way.

00:48:57,809 --> 00:49:00,270

I think that's how you win hearts of people

00:49:00,437 --> 00:49:02,522

as they begin to see there's a better way

00:49:02,939 --> 00:49:04,608

than just wiping out your enemy.

00:49:05,275 --> 00:49:07,402

And we justify these things.

00:49:07,819 --> 00:49:10,822

There's some macro theories that we talk about

00:49:11,198 --> 00:49:14,076

like Augustine, who is a great philosopher

00:49:14,910 --> 00:49:17,579

and church member, one of the early men

00:49:17,579 --> 00:49:18,538

in some of the churches

00:49:18,538 --> 00:49:20,999

right after Christ's death

00:49:20,999 --> 00:49:25,295

on the cross, about 300 or 400 AD,

00:49:26,129 --> 00:49:30,550

he said, he presented a concept called just war,

00:49:31,009 --> 00:49:33,679

just warfare, justified warfare,

00:49:34,179 --> 00:49:37,391

meaning if the outcome is good,

00:49:37,391 --> 00:49:39,226

if that's an enemy in that enemy,

00:49:39,768 --> 00:49:42,854

as we've seen in many of our years in the back,

00:49:43,313 --> 00:49:45,607

communism, we gotta defeat

00:49:45,607 --> 00:49:48,026

communism because this is evil.

00:49:48,318 --> 00:49:51,029

So that's what we call wars of liberation.

00:49:51,488 --> 00:49:53,240

We're freeing those that are oppressed.

00:49:53,740 --> 00:49:54,950

Certainly that is good.

00:49:55,575 --> 00:49:58,078

But what you define or someone defines

00:49:58,620 --> 00:50:00,455

as a war of liberation to

00:50:00,455 --> 00:50:02,582

you is not a war of liberation.

00:50:03,083 --> 00:50:05,752

Their definition of war of liberation

00:50:06,336 --> 00:50:09,172

is defeating this evil America

00:50:09,381 --> 00:50:11,633

who's imposing their beliefs on us.

00:50:11,717 --> 00:50:13,552

And we wanted to just live

00:50:13,552 --> 00:50:16,054

in our religious mentality

00:50:16,430 --> 00:50:18,515

and in our country and be free.

00:50:18,724 --> 00:50:20,642

So we're gonna take out Americans.

00:50:20,934 --> 00:50:22,686

So you've got these opposing

00:50:22,686 --> 00:50:25,605

what we would call worldviews.

00:50:25,981 --> 00:50:27,524

What is the definition of right?

00:50:27,899 --> 00:50:30,986

In fact, who is right in this scenario?

00:50:32,237 --> 00:50:33,530

In World War II, the

00:50:33,530 --> 00:50:35,657

Japanese said, they're right.

00:50:36,408 --> 00:50:37,826

And then we said, we're right.

00:50:38,076 --> 00:50:41,496

Even to the point where we killed thousands

00:50:42,247 --> 00:50:45,751

and tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands.

00:50:46,376 --> 00:50:51,006

And on the other hand, we virtually wasted

00:50:51,298 --> 00:50:53,759

some of our own young men's lives

00:50:54,384 --> 00:50:57,721

and a couple hundred thousand.

00:50:58,263 --> 00:50:59,639

Really when you look at some of the wars

00:50:59,765 --> 00:51:01,808

after World War II in particular,

00:51:02,476 --> 00:51:06,772

but we even had cases where we sent,

00:51:07,314 --> 00:51:10,859

we lost 5,000 young men attacking an island

00:51:11,359 --> 00:51:14,738

in the North Pacific that there were Japanese on.

00:51:15,030 --> 00:51:16,364

It was up a slanted beach.

00:51:16,740 --> 00:51:18,033

The Japanese were entrenched

00:51:18,492 --> 00:51:21,203

and they were just mowing down our men.

00:51:21,745 --> 00:51:24,456

And the commanders were sending wave upon wave

00:51:24,498 --> 00:51:26,458

thinking we're softening the enemy,

00:51:26,458 --> 00:51:29,377

we're getting objective, yet we lost 5,000.

00:51:29,711 --> 00:51:31,505

You know that that island

00:51:31,505 --> 00:51:33,965

that we lost 5,000 young men on,

00:51:34,132 --> 00:51:36,092

that was not even in the path

00:51:36,468 --> 00:51:37,344

of the battle coming

00:51:37,344 --> 00:51:39,346

across from the United States

00:51:39,429 --> 00:51:41,139

over towards Japan.

00:51:41,807 --> 00:51:46,478

We just wasted, wasted young men's lives.

00:51:47,562 --> 00:51:52,025

And that was somebody's point bringing that home.

00:51:52,400 --> 00:51:53,610

And if that person knew

00:51:53,610 --> 00:51:57,239

their son's life was just wasted

00:51:58,323 --> 00:52:01,159

and terrible things like that are happening

00:52:02,285 --> 00:52:05,080

that maybe you've seen the ugly side of war.

00:52:05,497 --> 00:52:08,250

Maybe it's not so clean and sterile and surgical.

00:52:08,875 --> 00:52:10,961

See surgical strikes as they call them,

00:52:10,961 --> 00:52:13,922

go in and just pinpoint this target

00:52:13,922 --> 00:52:15,841

and just kill these couple of people.

00:52:16,299 --> 00:52:17,300

And don't worry about the

00:52:17,300 --> 00:52:19,302

others that get killed around them.

00:52:19,594 --> 00:52:20,762

But they have sons and

00:52:20,762 --> 00:52:22,764

daughters too, as we do too.

00:52:22,973 --> 00:52:26,142

So you get this justifying these wars.

00:52:26,393 --> 00:52:27,477

We're liberating people.

00:52:27,978 --> 00:52:31,481

We're doing right and some people are saying

00:52:31,481 --> 00:52:33,400

and some of these crusades in history,

00:52:34,442 --> 00:52:37,320

we're doing right by God's will.

00:52:37,654 --> 00:52:39,197

We're glorifying God by

00:52:39,197 --> 00:52:42,534

slaughtering these whole nations

00:52:43,285 --> 00:52:46,288

and justifying that as good in this,

00:52:46,538 --> 00:52:47,414

maybe even religious

00:52:47,414 --> 00:52:50,750

mentality that supports this belief.

00:52:52,669 --> 00:52:56,381

So back in 1973, you were deployed

00:52:57,007 --> 00:52:59,342

to do those bombing missions over Cambodia

00:52:59,926 --> 00:53:00,802

during the Vietnam war.

00:53:02,220 --> 00:53:04,806

If you could go back in time and say something

00:53:05,056 --> 00:53:06,099

to a young Vince Lewis,

00:53:06,558 --> 00:53:08,435

who was doing those missions at the time,

00:53:09,436 --> 00:53:10,478

is there anything you'd say to him?

00:53:12,731 --> 00:53:13,523

I think you're gonna be

00:53:13,523 --> 00:53:15,775

surprised at the answer to this.

00:53:16,484 --> 00:53:19,029

My answer is I would say nothing to him

00:53:19,654 --> 00:53:23,241

because I'm not gonna defeat him.

00:53:23,533 --> 00:53:24,701

He's a warrior.

00:53:24,951 --> 00:53:28,622

He's a man that he bleeds combat.

00:53:29,873 --> 00:53:31,249

I'm not gonna walk up to him

00:53:31,875 --> 00:53:33,960

and I'm not even gonna win a logical argument.

00:53:34,336 --> 00:53:37,380

Without a basis of God and Christianity,

00:53:38,757 --> 00:53:40,425

you're almost wasting your time.

00:53:40,717 --> 00:53:42,135

If you'd have brought any

00:53:42,135 --> 00:53:43,553

of these concepts to me,

00:53:43,887 --> 00:53:45,055

I'd have laughed at you

00:53:45,055 --> 00:53:47,390

saying, this is a nutcase.

00:53:47,849 --> 00:53:48,767

Get him out of here

00:53:48,767 --> 00:53:50,936

because I had the wrong mindset.

00:53:51,269 --> 00:53:53,104

So no matter what I'm telling this guy,

00:53:53,355 --> 00:53:55,357

if somebody had brought that to Vince Lewis,

00:53:56,107 --> 00:53:58,526

I'd have just said, what's wrong with this guy?

00:53:59,027 --> 00:53:59,945

Get him out of here.

00:54:01,112 --> 00:54:03,198

He's destroying the morale of our troops

00:54:03,740 --> 00:54:07,160

or he's trying to take away my position

00:54:07,410 --> 00:54:09,579

as a warrior for good.

00:54:10,330 --> 00:54:12,415

And people might say, oh,

00:54:12,791 --> 00:54:14,584

that wasn't what I was expecting

00:54:15,418 --> 00:54:18,463

in an answer to a question like that.

00:54:18,880 --> 00:54:20,382

It may have even surprised you,

00:54:20,382 --> 00:54:23,635

but I'd say I'm not gonna say anything to him.

00:54:24,427 --> 00:54:25,762

I think that shows though,

00:54:26,096 --> 00:54:28,139

how much of a change has happened in your life

00:54:28,723 --> 00:54:29,766

since that time?

00:54:30,517 --> 00:54:32,185

I was the guy on the other end,

00:54:32,811 --> 00:54:36,690

looking at that person, that insane person

00:54:36,690 --> 00:54:38,316

with these strange ideas.

00:54:39,150 --> 00:54:40,527

Yeah, I was that person.

00:54:41,027 --> 00:54:42,946

Wow, makes you think.

00:54:43,571 --> 00:54:44,155

It does.

00:54:45,240 --> 00:54:45,573

It does.

00:54:46,741 --> 00:54:49,995

So as we wrap this up and

00:54:49,995 --> 00:54:51,287

bring this episode to a close,

00:54:52,080 --> 00:54:53,623

I'm guessing there are people listening to this

00:54:53,623 --> 00:54:54,666

that are struggling with this.

00:54:54,916 --> 00:54:57,085

Perhaps they're active

00:54:57,085 --> 00:54:59,796

members in one of the armed forces

00:55:00,005 --> 00:55:01,631

or something else,

00:55:01,923 --> 00:55:03,550

and they're struggling with this non-resistance.

00:55:04,968 --> 00:55:06,344

And maybe something else you shared.

00:55:07,429 --> 00:55:08,972

What would you like to leave with those people?

00:55:10,640 --> 00:55:12,934

We get people in situations like this

00:55:12,934 --> 00:55:16,062

where you're witnessing to someone

00:55:16,646 --> 00:55:21,317

and you present this gospel message to them.

00:55:22,235 --> 00:55:25,071

What is their basis of thinking?

00:55:25,363 --> 00:55:26,489

What is their mindset?

00:55:27,198 --> 00:55:28,658

I would say, what am I gonna say to them?

00:55:29,409 --> 00:55:31,453

I'm not gonna talk to them about non-resistance.

00:55:31,911 --> 00:55:33,038

There's another answer that

00:55:33,038 --> 00:55:34,289

maybe someone doesn't expect.

00:55:34,664 --> 00:55:36,499

I'm gonna talk to them about Jesus Christ,

00:55:36,958 --> 00:55:38,835

because if they don't have that mindset,

00:55:38,835 --> 00:55:40,920

no matter what I'm telling them is,

00:55:41,421 --> 00:55:42,756

they're gonna, where did you get that?

00:55:43,256 --> 00:55:45,175

That's contrary to the American way.

00:55:45,884 --> 00:55:48,178

I wasn't raised with that kind of thinking.

00:55:48,762 --> 00:55:51,639

So I'm almost wasting my time.

00:55:51,639 --> 00:55:53,058

I'm not really wasting my time,

00:55:53,308 --> 00:55:55,351

but I'm using a very ineffective.

00:55:56,019 --> 00:55:58,480

I need to get this man or this woman

00:55:59,064 --> 00:56:00,899

to the knowledge of Jesus Christ,

00:56:00,899 --> 00:56:01,941

because they don't have that.

00:56:02,859 --> 00:56:04,402

Non-resistance means nothing.

00:56:04,402 --> 00:56:08,740

I've just won a logical argument with these facts

00:56:09,407 --> 00:56:11,284

that don't approach and don't

00:56:11,284 --> 00:56:12,786

deal with the heart condition.

00:56:13,536 --> 00:56:16,081

So that's almost an irrelevant question

00:56:16,414 --> 00:56:18,166

at this point in someone's life.

00:56:18,541 --> 00:56:19,834

If they don't have the background

00:56:20,418 --> 00:56:23,171

that's ready to accept some of these things,

00:56:24,464 --> 00:56:26,007

I shouldn't be talking about this.

00:56:26,299 --> 00:56:28,676

I should be talking about Jesus Christ.

00:56:30,011 --> 00:56:31,221

Starting with that foundation

00:56:32,430 --> 00:56:33,765

and building from there.

00:56:34,390 --> 00:56:36,935

Yeah, I think of men of Simon's,

00:56:36,935 --> 00:56:39,312

every, everything he wrote

00:56:39,312 --> 00:56:40,730

always started with that verse.

00:56:40,980 --> 00:56:41,439

There's no other

00:56:41,439 --> 00:56:43,233

foundation laid except Jesus Christ.

00:56:43,608 --> 00:56:44,567

And he was always saying,

00:56:44,859 --> 00:56:46,444

it has to come back to there.

00:56:47,362 --> 00:56:48,238

Christ is the foundation

00:56:48,238 --> 00:56:49,531

of who we are as Christians

00:56:49,781 --> 00:56:50,865

and building from there.

00:56:50,865 --> 00:56:52,826

And I was like, it's pretty beautiful.

00:56:52,826 --> 00:56:53,910

I think that's Paul and 1

00:56:53,910 --> 00:56:54,953

Corinthians writing that.

00:56:55,620 --> 00:56:58,414

Yeah, we had this when these last moments,

00:56:58,414 --> 00:57:01,417

I wanna bring something home personally.

00:57:01,417 --> 00:57:04,379

Here I was almost 50 years ago,

00:57:05,130 --> 00:57:06,840

killing people in Cambodia,

00:57:08,341 --> 00:57:09,092

taking their lives.

00:57:09,551 --> 00:57:12,303

President Nixon at the time saw the opportunity

00:57:12,762 --> 00:57:15,932

perhaps for a strategic change in the targeting.

00:57:15,974 --> 00:57:17,517

He sent in the B-52s.

00:57:17,809 --> 00:57:20,603

I killed the people all in the country of Cambodia.

00:57:21,396 --> 00:57:22,689

And then 50 years later,

00:57:23,982 --> 00:57:26,568

I see an opportunity through a program,

00:57:27,277 --> 00:57:28,278

Christian Aid Ministries,

00:57:28,778 --> 00:57:29,821

a program to teach

00:57:29,821 --> 00:57:32,198

financial principles to people,

00:57:32,198 --> 00:57:33,199

teach them to save money.

00:57:33,783 --> 00:57:36,744

And this program also promotes the gospel.

00:57:37,453 --> 00:57:39,205

And 50 years after some of

00:57:39,205 --> 00:57:41,291

these activities of my own,

00:57:41,541 --> 00:57:43,835

I had the opportunity to go into Cambodia,

00:57:44,502 --> 00:57:47,005

again, with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

00:57:47,046 --> 00:57:48,715

Instead of bringing death,

00:57:49,174 --> 00:57:51,342

I'm bringing the life-giving truth of the gospel.

00:57:51,843 --> 00:57:53,136

And I said to those people,

00:57:53,928 --> 00:57:55,638

"Would you forgive me for

00:57:55,638 --> 00:57:57,056

what I did to your country?"

00:57:57,599 --> 00:57:59,809

And they knew what I was talking about,

00:57:59,809 --> 00:58:00,935

most of them, not all of them,

00:58:01,186 --> 00:58:03,521

but they said, "Yes, we will."

00:58:03,521 --> 00:58:05,565

These are people that knew Jesus Christ.

00:58:06,065 --> 00:58:06,941

They said, "Yeah, we know what

00:58:06,941 --> 00:58:08,943

you did, but we forgive you."

00:58:09,527 --> 00:58:13,573

And to this day, there are still active,

00:58:14,449 --> 00:58:17,118

explosives in the ground in their country,

00:58:17,535 --> 00:58:21,039

total areas that they don't go in.

00:58:21,539 --> 00:58:24,500

Those bombs will be active for 10, 20, 30,

00:58:24,834 --> 00:58:26,377

who knows how long, more years,

00:58:26,920 --> 00:58:29,297

because they're designed to be that way,

00:58:29,631 --> 00:58:31,758

to lay under the surfaces and explode,

00:58:32,300 --> 00:58:35,345

anti-personell mines explode when you step on them.

00:58:35,345 --> 00:58:36,137

One man there,

00:58:36,638 --> 00:58:39,057

tremendous impact on my own life,

00:58:39,474 --> 00:58:41,559

with no left arm, no left eye,

00:58:41,851 --> 00:58:43,353

and his left leg blown off,

00:58:43,394 --> 00:58:45,521

because he stepped on one of these landmines

00:58:45,980 --> 00:58:48,399

20 years after the war was over.

00:58:48,900 --> 00:58:49,692

And I just had the

00:58:49,692 --> 00:58:52,320

opportunity to go hug this man.

00:58:52,320 --> 00:58:54,697

He was in shorts with no shirt on,

00:58:55,114 --> 00:59:00,328

a poor man, not the same skin color as me,

00:59:00,828 --> 00:59:01,913

certainly not the same background.

00:59:02,288 --> 00:59:04,123

And I just momentarily hugged that guy.

00:59:04,415 --> 00:59:06,459

And I felt this release that,

00:59:07,335 --> 00:59:08,920

I'm finally in the right

00:59:08,920 --> 00:59:11,422

battle, bringing the gospel.

00:59:12,048 --> 00:59:14,008

And there was truth relevant in me,

00:59:14,008 --> 00:59:15,218

and I was just so grateful.

00:59:15,843 --> 00:59:18,429

I felt, I'm doing what God wants me to do now,

00:59:19,013 --> 00:59:21,849

not what the military taught me to kill people,

00:59:22,183 --> 00:59:23,142

but to give them life.

00:59:25,228 --> 00:59:26,854

Circles back to one of the things you said

00:59:27,146 --> 00:59:28,022

towards the beginning of this,

00:59:28,231 --> 00:59:32,443

where the world, or the US military, whatever,

00:59:33,027 --> 00:59:34,529

you're saying that's the battle right there.

00:59:34,946 --> 00:59:37,240

And then Jesus gets ahold of you and says,

00:59:37,240 --> 00:59:39,242

"You're fighting the wrong war, it's over here."

00:59:39,867 --> 00:59:40,785

I think that story with

00:59:40,785 --> 00:59:43,413

Cambodia really illustrates that.

00:59:43,413 --> 00:59:44,080

That's powerful.

00:59:45,540 --> 00:59:46,374

Wow, thanks for-

00:59:46,541 --> 00:59:47,000

Even in here.

00:59:47,750 --> 00:59:49,085

Yeah, like, thanks for

00:59:49,085 --> 00:59:50,545

sharing that with us today, Vince.

00:59:50,545 --> 00:59:52,046

I think that's a powerful

00:59:52,046 --> 00:59:53,256

story to leave with our listeners.

00:59:54,173 --> 00:59:54,465

Thank you.

00:59:55,800 --> 00:59:57,927

Thanks for listening to this episode with Vince.

00:59:58,261 --> 00:59:59,053

As mentioned several

00:59:59,053 --> 01:00:00,596

times throughout this interview,

01:00:00,596 --> 01:00:03,099

he has quite the story of how he was an officer

01:00:03,349 --> 01:00:04,934

in the Air Force for 24 years,

01:00:05,143 --> 01:00:06,811

and how he ultimately came to Christ

01:00:06,978 --> 01:00:09,147

and to the position of non-resistance,

01:00:09,355 --> 01:00:11,024

and is now part of the Anabaptists.

01:00:11,357 --> 01:00:13,359

We got that whole story in a separate episode,

01:00:13,526 --> 01:00:14,777

which you can find linked in

01:00:14,777 --> 01:00:16,070

the description down below.

01:00:16,070 --> 01:00:17,864

I really encourage you to check that out

01:00:17,864 --> 01:00:19,157

as it gives a lot more context

01:00:19,365 --> 01:00:21,409

for some of the things he said in this episode.

01:00:22,118 --> 01:00:23,036

And of course, all our

01:00:23,036 --> 01:00:24,579

content is over on our website

01:00:24,912 --> 01:00:27,290

at anabaptistperspectives.org.

01:00:27,874 --> 01:00:29,042

Thanks again for listening,

01:00:29,292 --> 01:00:30,793

and we'll catch you in the next episode.