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Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, welcome to this episode of Thinking Christian On.

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Speaker 2: Doctor James Spencer and I'm joined by doctor Ashish Varma

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Speaker 2: today and we've known each other for a long time.

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Speaker 1: So we're going to have a conversation.

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Speaker 2: About the State of Theology report and some of the

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Speaker 2: things that we've noticed as we've kind of played around

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Speaker 2: with the report.

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Speaker 1: It's a really interesting.

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Speaker 2: One and so we're looking forward to a good conversation

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Speaker 2: today about maybe something like generational differences amongst evangelicals on

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Speaker 2: certain theological perspectives.

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Speaker 1: So Ashish, welcome to the show. How you doing, man,

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Speaker 1: Thanks good to be here.

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Speaker 3: I'm doing all right, a little cold, but doing all right.

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Speaker 2: You're in the frigid Lombard Library and I appreciate you.

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Speaker 1: I appreciate you hopping on to do this well.

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Speaker 2: So we had a previous conver we had a conversation

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Speaker 2: before the show. But the State of Theology report just

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Speaker 2: kind of give everybody a sense of it. And you

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Speaker 2: can actually just google the State of Theology or the

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Speaker 2: State of the just go to the Stateoftheology dot com.

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Speaker 2: It's a report that Liganier does, I think bi annually,

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Speaker 2: and so they came out with the twenty twenty five

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Speaker 2: results earlier this year and just been playing around with

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Speaker 2: this report for a while.

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Speaker 1: Now.

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Speaker 2: They rank and they give you different filters on this,

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Speaker 2: a lot of different filters on this, and so what

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Speaker 2: we're going to be doing today is just kind of

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Speaker 2: playing around with those filters a little bit and you know,

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Speaker 2: waxing philosophical, making some hypotheses about why the different results

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Speaker 2: might come out the way that they did.

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Speaker 1: So that's kind of where we're at.

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Speaker 2: The report doesn't actually give us a lot of the

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Speaker 2: things that we're going to talk about. It gives us

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Speaker 2: some raw data to kind of play off of. So

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Speaker 2: I don't want to give the impression that the report

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Speaker 2: gives us all this information that we're going to talk

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Speaker 2: about today. It just is a jumping off point for

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Speaker 2: some of our scholarly investigation.

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Speaker 1: Fair enough.

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Speaker 2: So, just in case anybody wanted to look at this report,

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Speaker 2: like I said, you can go to the state of

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Speaker 2: the dot com and what we're going to do. We're

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Speaker 2: looking at the data explore just so people can find

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Speaker 2: the information we're looking at, and we're going to filter

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Speaker 2: this out for two stable variables, and then we're going

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Speaker 2: to look at the different generational or age demographics as

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Speaker 2: we go through some of these questions. So the two

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Speaker 2: stable ones are going to be affiliation and belief. We're

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Speaker 2: marking both of those evangelical. We did find that as

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Speaker 2: we played around with some of those others, if we

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Speaker 2: put in not evangelical belief or if we put in

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Speaker 2: something like, you know, mainline affiliation, the results do change

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Speaker 2: pretty drastically, and so it's kind of interesting to watch

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Speaker 2: how these things change. But for the purposes of this conversation,

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Speaker 2: we're just going to make it a little simplified and

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Speaker 2: talk about evangelical beliefs across different age ranges. So that's

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Speaker 2: what we're going to start, and we'll start with what

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Speaker 2: is statement sixteen. The Bible, like all sacred writings, contains

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Speaker 2: helpful accounts of ancient myths, but is not literally true.

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Speaker 2: So that's the statement. And then people are asked, do

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Speaker 2: you agree with this, do you someone agree with this,

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Speaker 2: are you not sure about this, do you somewhat disagree,

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Speaker 2: or do you strongly disagree.

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Speaker 1: It's kind of that five point scale.

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Speaker 2: So I'll be looking over to the right because I've

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Speaker 2: got the report pulled up, and so if you see

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Speaker 2: me looking off camera.

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Speaker 1: That's what I'm doing.

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Speaker 2: I'm adding quickly in my head agreement numbers. So we

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Speaker 2: looked at this and for statement sixteen, if we filter

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Speaker 2: for the two evangelical and then you do eighteen to

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Speaker 2: thirty four, we have twenty four percent agreement that the

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Speaker 2: Bible is contains helpful accounts of ancient myths but is

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Speaker 2: not literally true. Versus if we factor in all the

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Speaker 2: other age groups, which run from you know, thirty five

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Speaker 2: all the way up to sixty five plus, we have

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Speaker 2: a pretty big disparity. There's only seven percent agreement amongst

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Speaker 2: all the rest of the age groups, and so that's

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Speaker 2: a pretty big difference between the eighteen to thirty four

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Speaker 2: range and then all the other age groups. When you

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Speaker 2: say ashij.

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Speaker 3: Yeah definitely maybe one of the starker different says that

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Speaker 3: we see in this report.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's they're obviously the biggest category at twenty four

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Speaker 2: percent versus even if we factor them in lump them

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Speaker 2: in with everybody else, the whole agreement is only ten percent.

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Speaker 2: So factoring by age really does make a difference on

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Speaker 2: this one. What I found interesting is when I looked

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Speaker 2: at some of the other statements, like let's say statement eighteen,

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Speaker 2: modern science disproves the Bible. Right, you see a very

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Speaker 2: similar trend there. The eighteen to thirty four year old

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Speaker 2: age group really does agree more frequently with that, so

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Speaker 2: twenty seven percent agreement versus let's say the sixty five

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Speaker 2: plus which was only ten percent agreement. So again a

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Speaker 2: pretty big disparity between these are between these ages higher

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Speaker 2: percentage of younger people believe modern science disproves the Bible

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Speaker 2: and that the Bible is not fully literally true. Now

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Speaker 2: that would be disturbing in my mind if it weren't

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Speaker 2: for some of these other stats that we look at.

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Speaker 2: So if we move to question I'm getting there twenty

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Speaker 2: or question thirty, excuse me, statement thirty, The Bible has

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Speaker 2: authority to tell us what we must do, and you

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Speaker 2: filter it. All the age groups agree with this to

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Speaker 2: a level of ninety six percent. The eighteen to thirty

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Speaker 2: four year old age group is actually at ninety six percent.

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Speaker 2: The sixty five plus age group is slightly higher than that,

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Speaker 2: or as slightly lower than that, actually ninety three percent.

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Speaker 2: And so there's this interesting variation. And if we just

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Speaker 2: go too statements more, the Bible is the highest authority

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Speaker 2: for what I believe it doesn't matter which age group

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Speaker 2: you pick, you get one hundred percent agreement. And so

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Speaker 2: these things don't seem to fit together. Right now, I'm

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Speaker 2: in that middle age group of thirty five forty nine,

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Speaker 2: and so maybe it shouldn't fit together for me.

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Speaker 1: But I don't know. What do you make of this man?

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Speaker 1: What do you think?

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Speaker 3: Well, one, that it's super interesting and you you you

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Speaker 3: tend to hear a lot. You know, it's sort of

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Speaker 3: the thing that we do as we get older. I

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Speaker 3: think I find myself looking at my kids saying, we

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Speaker 3: used to do things this way, right. You know, in

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Speaker 3: my day, we didn't have streaming services. You just had

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Speaker 3: watch what was on and get over it, right. Or

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Speaker 3: I said, this is my class yesterday because they were

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Speaker 3: talking about fighting fighting among their siblings when they were

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Speaker 3: kids between the remote control, and I finally just piped

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Speaker 3: up and said, you know, our TV didn't have a remote.

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Speaker 3: It just had buttons for each channel on top of it,

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Speaker 3: so there wasn't really much fighting except who got to

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Speaker 3: the front of the TV first. It's a thing that

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Speaker 3: you do as you get older, right. We have this

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Speaker 3: sense of what's normal that comes from when we were younger.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, so.

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Speaker 3: Part of it you expect, and that's as you get older,

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Speaker 3: your sense of normal is phased out. Right. But the

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Speaker 3: part that is odd about it, or at least that

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Speaker 3: seems to contradict that way of looking at this, right,

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Speaker 3: This this notion of as you get older things look

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Speaker 3: different because things are changing. Is that this last question

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Speaker 3: thirty two that you're talking about, it doesn't matter hold

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Speaker 3: you are, if you're an evangelical or you identify as

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Speaker 3: an evangelical, you say the Bible is the highest authority

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Speaker 3: for what I believe, and it's not even like so

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Speaker 3: they divide it up. Agree strongly agree.

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Speaker 1: Is right?

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Speaker 3: Strongly agree? Which is interesting and to me that raises

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Speaker 3: other questions. Is the issue here with some of these

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Speaker 3: other questions of the relationship to the Bible to the sciences,

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Speaker 3: the relationship of the Bible to myth, relationship of what

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Speaker 3: we believe the Bible says, to questions of gender and

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Speaker 3: so on and so forth.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, is this really a.

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Speaker 3: Question of lack of trust and belief or is there's

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Speaker 3: some other factor that is entered into play in which

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Speaker 3: we're looking at the Bible as saying different sorts of things.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, yeah, when I would just say one thing

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Speaker 2: before we move into that kind of conversation, just to

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Speaker 2: give people a reference point. If you mark not evangelical,

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Speaker 2: and then you mark the different affiliations that are not

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Speaker 2: evangelical churches, that percentage the Bible is the highest authority

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Speaker 2: for what I believe. The strongly agree goes down to

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Speaker 2: fifteen percent one to five, and the somewhat agree goes

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Speaker 2: down to twenty eight percent.

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Speaker 1: So the evangelical.

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Speaker 2: Belief and the evangelical affiliation, it's actually really strongly correlated

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Speaker 2: with this particular belief. This is not just something that

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Speaker 2: you know, Like you could ask any Joe schmol on

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Speaker 2: the street. They're going to go, oh, yeah, I strongly

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Speaker 2: agree with that. This is a uniquely evangelical belief. And

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Speaker 2: so I do think that as we get into some

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Speaker 2: of the more granular questions, does modern science disprove the

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Speaker 2: Bible as the Bible.

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Speaker 1: Fully and literally true?

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Speaker 2: Probably part of what we're running into is the I

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Speaker 2: think I would say the access to information is just

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Speaker 2: getting more and more open. In other words, as we've

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Speaker 2: gone into a digital age, we're all seeing more information

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Speaker 2: and being less able to integrate it into our faith paradigm. Right,

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Speaker 2: So what do you do with some of these things?

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Speaker 2: I mean, there are books written on, for instance, like

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Speaker 2: climate science. I have known nothing about climate science. I

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Speaker 2: haven't looked at it at all, But this is one

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Speaker 2: of those areas. Part of the reason I haven't looked

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Speaker 2: at is because I don't feel like I have the time.

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Speaker 2: I don't know that to get up to speed to

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Speaker 2: understand all of that would be a really long process.

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Speaker 2: And so as you're looking at some of these scientific theories,

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Speaker 2: looking at some of these scientific studies and things that

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Speaker 2: are coming out, you have to actually have the time

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Speaker 2: to not only gloss them, but to really deeply understand them.

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Speaker 2: And then once you've deeply understood them and critically analyzed them,

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Speaker 2: then you've got to integrate them back into your faith.

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Speaker 2: And my guess is that what's happening is that that

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Speaker 2: sort of old analytical style of processing information just isn't

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Speaker 2: happen as much.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, if I can offer an analogy, I know you

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Speaker 3: love analogies.

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Speaker 1: There, go for it.

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Speaker 3: So I played basketball. I won't get into the weeds

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Speaker 3: of what all that entails, but the game has changed

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Speaker 3: a lot.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: Now, personally, I'll make comments every now and then again

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Speaker 3: if I think this era was better than that era. Yeah,

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Speaker 3: but I just love the games. I'm going to keep playing.

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Speaker 3: I'm going to keep watching. But i play pickup ball

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Speaker 3: with the group, and I'm on the older side of

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Speaker 3: the guys that play. And one of the big things

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Speaker 3: that's changed. And it's not important to understand the ins

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Speaker 3: and outs of this, but there's a rule that's a

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Speaker 3: current way that an offensive player can move with the ball,

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Speaker 3: called the step through. You could not do a step

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Speaker 3: through when I was growing up. In fact, what we

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Speaker 3: call a step through now would have been called a travel,

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Speaker 3: a travel back in my day. I've always prided myself

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Speaker 3: on being a good defender. I think it's important not

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Speaker 3: just to be able to shoot, but can you make

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Speaker 3: things hard on the other team. The step through changes everything.

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Speaker 3: So I'll be guarding these young guys and in my mind,

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Speaker 3: that's just not a move you make. It's not part

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Speaker 3: of my repertoire. So I'll try to lock them down

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Speaker 3: on defense and they'll slip through suddenly with a step through,

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Speaker 3: and it's annoying. It's definitely annoying. My inclination is to

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Speaker 3: say travel, and then I have to remember, no, it's

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Speaker 3: not a travel anymore.

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Speaker 1: It used to be a travel.

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Speaker 3: It's not a travel anymore.

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Speaker 1: Right Now, what do I do with that?

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Speaker 3: The game has changed? Right? I want to keep playing.

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Speaker 3: I could throw a fit about the fact that in

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Speaker 3: my day there was no step through, right, I don't

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Speaker 3: know that that gets me anywhere. They're just going to

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Speaker 3: call me old man and keep playing. And they're not wrong,

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Speaker 3: right if they if they turn on the TV and

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Speaker 3: watch the NBA or college or high school, the step

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Speaker 3: through is allowed. So what I have to do is

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Speaker 3: I have to be able to adjust. My defense has

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Speaker 3: to take into account that what might have been a

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Speaker 3: lockdown defensive play before now has to be able to

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Speaker 3: account for this step through motion. It makes being a

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Speaker 3: defender harder, but you got to do it well. My

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Speaker 3: analogy in this is that to your point, things have

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Speaker 3: changed just in terms of access. Yeah, whether it was

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Speaker 3: right or wrong to make blanket judgments in the absence

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Speaker 3: of access thirty years ago, we'll leave that to the

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Speaker 3: side unless you want to.

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Speaker 1: Get into that.

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Speaker 3: The reality is just simply access has changed, and complaining

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Speaker 3: about it isn't going to change that access has changed. Right,

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Speaker 3: Having taught college students and grad students. I don't think

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Speaker 3: the way it's specifically in theological studies. I don't think

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Speaker 3: the way forward is to spend all this time talking

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Speaker 3: or bemoaning the access that comes to various ways of

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Speaker 3: thinking about the Bible, various ways of thinking about theology.

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Speaker 3: And it's more about, Okay, access has changed. Now, what

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Speaker 3: does that mean for how I engage as a professor,

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Speaker 3: how I engage in theological education. To me, that's got

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Speaker 3: to be the way forward. Sure, we can have our

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Speaker 3: moments of griping on the side in our in our

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Speaker 3: old man corners, just the same way I do with

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Speaker 3: my fellow old man basketball players. But when you get

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Speaker 3: on the court, you know, you've got to adjust. And

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Speaker 3: I think this sort of dissonance that might seem at

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Speaker 3: first when we look at this kind of report, we've

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Speaker 3: got to move quickly by and ask the questions that

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Speaker 3: you just asked.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, because I think the other thing we were talking

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Speaker 2: about before this, and I appreciate the basketball analogy. I

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Speaker 2: think that makes a lot of sense. One of the

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Speaker 2: things I would say has changed. And you you know,

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Speaker 2: as we talked before the podcast, we both agree on

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Speaker 2: this is that the liberal conservative thing is not the

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Speaker 2: way to solve this problem. Those categories aren't going to

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Speaker 2: be as helpful in describing this data. And so some

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Speaker 2: people might look at this and go, well, there's eighteen

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Speaker 2: to twenty four year old or eighteen to thirty four

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Speaker 2: year olds. They're going liberal. They think science just proves

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Speaker 2: the viable. They don't think the Bible is literally true, right,

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Speaker 2: and so this is a liberal drift. I as I

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Speaker 2: look at the whole of the report, and obviously we're

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Speaker 2: not covering every question on this podcast because that would

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Speaker 2: be a lot, but I would say, as I've looked

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Speaker 2: at the whole report, sure.

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Speaker 1: That's exactly the conclusion I would come to.

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Speaker 2: I think you have all of these different intersecting beliefs

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Speaker 2: that are being brought to bear on different generations of people,

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Speaker 2: and that those intersecting beliefs can tend to skew how

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Speaker 2: they answer something. In other words, if we were looking

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Speaker 2: at this just from a you know, a straight theological perspective, right,

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Speaker 2: we might say, well, there is a right answer to that, right,

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Speaker 2: we might have to simplify it down a good bit, right,

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Speaker 2: you know, remove a lot of the complexity of these

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Speaker 2: conversations because even you know, ancient myths, but is not

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Speaker 2: literally true. Literally is difficult for me to get my

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Speaker 2: head around, right. I would have just preferred it to

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Speaker 2: be said, but it is not true because I'm not

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Speaker 2: sure what the difference between literally true and true actually is. Right,

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Speaker 2: But that's probably more granular than most people are reading

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Speaker 2: that question. So the point is is I think that

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Speaker 2: and I'll give it. For instance, when I looked at

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Speaker 2: the question about whether or not Christian beliefs or one's

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Speaker 2: religious beliefs should influence their political activities, there were a

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Speaker 2: higher proportion of eighteen to thirty four year olds who

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Speaker 2: said that it shouldn't. They agreed that their faith should

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Speaker 2: not influence their politics. And then you go to some

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Speaker 2: of the moral questions, you know, transgenderism, homosexuality, some of those,

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Speaker 2: and you're like, how are these not going to be

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Speaker 2: skewed by that particular perspective? In other words, if they

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Speaker 2: think that their beliefs, their Christian beliefs shouldn't skew their politics,

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Speaker 2: and they view these as political issues, they're going to

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Speaker 2: answer those differently than someone who actually does think that

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Speaker 2: their faith should influence politics. And so I think there's

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Speaker 2: just a lot there that we when we're looking at

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Speaker 2: how do we correct maybe some of these views, how

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Speaker 2: do we cultivate more agreement on some of these use

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Speaker 2: We can't just go straight at and go well, we

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Speaker 2: need to get back into bibliology, and we need to

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Speaker 2: teach inerrancy, and we need to teach inspiration, we need

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Speaker 2: you know, maybe I mean those are always good things

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Speaker 2: to understand, I suppose, but there are these other areas

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Speaker 2: I think coming around the side that if we're not

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Speaker 2: addressing this is only gonna get worse.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, to the to the question you just raised about

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Speaker 3: should should Christians allow their religious beliefs to influence their

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Speaker 3: political decisions? As we were talking about before, there are

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Speaker 3: interesting trends when you when you take the evangelical population

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Speaker 3: and then you remove that filter and put on the

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Speaker 3: non evangelical population. So generally speaking, we've noticed that with

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Speaker 3: the evangelical box checked, there does seem to be a

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Speaker 3: movement as you get younger in these age backits. But

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Speaker 3: when you remove the evangelical and you go to the

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Speaker 3: non evangelical, the movement is far less fluid. In fact,

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Speaker 3: you have a strange commonality and most of the categories

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Speaker 3: between the young and the old. So the eighteen to

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Speaker 3: thirty four being the young plus sixty five plus being

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Speaker 3: the old tend to be in similar positions. So with that,

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Speaker 3: with that pattern in front of us, what I think

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Speaker 3: is interesting on this particular question, Christians should not allow

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Speaker 3: their religious beliefs to be influenced to influence their political decisions.

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Speaker 3: Strongly agree. The highest population here is the youngest eighteen

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Speaker 3: to thirty four, but the next highest, not far away

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Speaker 3: from them, is that sixty five plus. So this time

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Speaker 3: a general landscape question whether evangelical or not. And that's

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Speaker 3: fascinating to me. You know, maybe maybe it shouldn't be

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Speaker 3: as surprising to me when I look at other sorts

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Speaker 3: of statistics. So, for instance, we have we have a

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Speaker 3: late late night talkshow ecosystem on many of the major networks,

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Speaker 3: and the age group that dominates the ratings for those

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Speaker 3: are the sixty five plus people because they're the only

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Speaker 3: ones who seem to watch TV live anymore. But then

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Speaker 3: you go to the YouTube population and that tends to

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Speaker 3: be a younger group and they're getting millions of views

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Speaker 3: per clip, So maybe there's some correlation there as well, right,

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Speaker 3: But I think that's an interesting thing to note on

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Speaker 3: this particular question that for the evangelical population, it breaks

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Speaker 3: the otherwise noticeable trend of younger means different, and this case,

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Speaker 3: younger doesn't necessarily mean different.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, they were much closer on a lot of these measures.

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Speaker 2: When you just bracketed just the evangelicals versus the whole population,

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Speaker 2: there was a big difference. The other thing I would

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Speaker 2: say there were some difference is is I looked at

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Speaker 2: different questions in the density, which I found fascinating. Density

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Speaker 2: refers to whether you live in a large city or

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Speaker 2: a rural area, a suburb or a small city, or

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Speaker 2: what have you. And I was kind of going through

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Speaker 2: some of the questions with those that filter on as well,

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Speaker 2: and you did see pretty big differences. The way that

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Speaker 2: people in large cities thought about these things was different

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Speaker 2: than the way people thought about in rural areas. Now,

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Speaker 2: all these are just percentage differences, right, and so at

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Speaker 2: some point you're getting probably too granular in your sample size.

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Speaker 2: In fact, if you put too many filters on the website,

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Speaker 2: will pull up a little note and say there was

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Speaker 2: under fifty you know respondents in this filter. These results

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Speaker 2: probably aren't going to be accurate, But just again as

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Speaker 2: sort of a thought experiment for us. What I think

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Speaker 2: we're seeing is that some of these community aspects actually

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Speaker 2: really matter. So even when I was doing my little

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Speaker 2: experiment and I took off, you know, you'd just use

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Speaker 2: evangelical belief. An evangelical belief alone apart from other factors

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Speaker 2: didn't seem to really get it done. But if I

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Speaker 2: put evangelical belief and then evangelical affiliation, then that percentage

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Speaker 2: would lower. And if I put evangelical belief, evangelical affiliation

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Speaker 2: and church attendance several times a week, it would lower again.

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Speaker 2: And So while we tend to and I'm definitely guilty

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Speaker 2: of this, I tend to think in terms of headspace, Right.

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Speaker 1: What do you actually believe? What do you know?

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Speaker 2: I mean, I think it's just the academic geek thing, right,

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Speaker 2: you sort of like to think about these things. But

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Speaker 2: the reality is, if we were looking at this survey

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Speaker 2: and we follow some of these trends, community and time

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Speaker 2: spent in community is actually crucial to holding some of

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Speaker 2: these beliefs more strongly and obviously others less strongly.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, well said, What I think is especially interesting in

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Speaker 3: that equation. If we can dig into this a little

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Speaker 3: bit as the church attendants. Yeah, you spent more time

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Speaker 3: with that filter than I did. Do you mind sharing

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Speaker 3: what you shared with me earlier in terms of kind

401
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Speaker 3: of the more granular elements there. One of the ways

402
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Speaker 3: they divided is it's not just church attendants, but it's

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Speaker 3: frequency of church attendants. Do you go religious days? Do

404
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Speaker 3: you go once or twice a month, or once tw

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Speaker 3: twice a month, once a week, which probably is the

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Speaker 3: most that's right, the most obvious place that people would

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Speaker 3: think of, will you go to church every Sunday? Right?

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Speaker 1: But then there once a week times that changes things, right?

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Speaker 2: And so I looked at this specifically with a question

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Speaker 2: on the report, does God accept or God accepts the

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Speaker 2: worship of all religions including Christianity, Judaism, and Islam? Right,

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Speaker 2: So this is the question I was looking at, but

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Speaker 2: just to illustrate how some of these filters actually work.

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Speaker 2: So if you look at evangelical belief there was only

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Speaker 2: forty seven percent agreement on that either strongly or somewhat

416
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Speaker 2: right or there was forty seven percent agreement, So forty

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Speaker 2: seven percent of people with evangelical beliefs said that God

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Speaker 2: accepts worship from all religions. If I then go down

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Speaker 2: and say, okay, but if you're combined with if you

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Speaker 2: combine that with evangelical affiliation. So now I've got evangelical

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Speaker 2: belief and evangelical affiliation that goes down from forty seven

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Speaker 2: percent to thirty one percent thirty percent thirty one percent agreement.

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Speaker 2: And then if I say, well, what about church attendance,

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Speaker 2: it drops another ten percent to twenty one percent if

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Speaker 2: I add in several times a week a church.

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Speaker 1: And so that's sort of the tear that I'm talking about.

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Speaker 3: It.

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Speaker 1: It's like, you see this, the belief aspect, the.

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Speaker 2: Evangelical belief aspect I hold, the evangelical beliefs is not

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Speaker 2: as strongly correlated with what I would consider to be

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Speaker 2: a right answer on this one. I mean, I think

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Speaker 2: that should be stated right. I would have said strongly

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Speaker 2: disagree to this question. I think there's ample reason, And

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Speaker 2: I'm writing an article for Christianity dot com, so if

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Speaker 2: you guys want to check that out, you can find

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Speaker 2: it there. But basically, what I would say is God

437
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Speaker 2: doesn't accept false worship. If we think about worship as

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Speaker 2: the reverential homage toward God, recognizing the worth of who

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Speaker 2: God is. There has to be an understanding, a matched

440
00:24:21,200 --> 00:24:24,360
Speaker 2: identity between what the worshipper thinks they're worshiping and who

441
00:24:24,359 --> 00:24:27,439
Speaker 2: the you know, who is actually being worshiped. And we

442
00:24:27,480 --> 00:24:30,560
Speaker 2: see this throughout scripture. I think, so I'll be making

443
00:24:30,600 --> 00:24:32,720
Speaker 2: that argument in a little bit more of a robust case.

444
00:24:32,800 --> 00:24:36,120
Speaker 2: But my point is for this, as we go down

445
00:24:36,240 --> 00:24:41,440
Speaker 2: from belief to affiliation to attendance, you see this agreement

446
00:24:41,960 --> 00:24:46,160
Speaker 2: shifting pretty drastically. I mean you're talking twenty some more

447
00:24:46,200 --> 00:24:50,600
Speaker 2: than twenty five percent decline decrease in that percentage from

448
00:24:50,840 --> 00:24:55,639
Speaker 2: just belief all the way down to church attendance. So

449
00:24:55,680 --> 00:24:59,359
Speaker 2: it's a fascinating trend to look at. I wouldn't have

450
00:24:59,400 --> 00:25:01,320
Speaker 2: expected that drastic a drop.

451
00:25:01,600 --> 00:25:07,240
Speaker 3: Honestly, what do you make of thinking specifically about this question?

452
00:25:07,320 --> 00:25:10,640
Speaker 3: God accepts the worship of all religions, including Christianity, Judaism,

453
00:25:10,640 --> 00:25:21,800
Speaker 3: and Islam. In terms of strongly disagree, I suppose, somewhat predictably,

454
00:25:21,880 --> 00:25:26,520
Speaker 3: several times a week of church attendance, that number of skyrockets, right,

455
00:25:26,680 --> 00:25:31,560
Speaker 3: most people disagree. What surprises me within it is the

456
00:25:31,640 --> 00:25:34,680
Speaker 3: next category down is you go once a week to church,

457
00:25:35,000 --> 00:25:37,600
Speaker 3: and that group is more likely to agree with the

458
00:25:37,640 --> 00:25:40,240
Speaker 3: statement than those who only go once or twice a month.

459
00:25:40,800 --> 00:25:43,240
Speaker 1: That's right, that's funny to me.

460
00:25:43,280 --> 00:25:44,360
Speaker 3: I don't know what to make of that.

461
00:25:44,880 --> 00:25:46,800
Speaker 2: I'm not sure either. I don't know what to make

462
00:25:46,800 --> 00:25:49,119
Speaker 2: of it either, But yeah, I noticed that trend too.

463
00:25:49,840 --> 00:25:51,200
Speaker 2: I would just say.

464
00:25:54,480 --> 00:25:58,720
Speaker 1: If we infer from which it's difficult to do, like,

465
00:25:58,920 --> 00:26:04,040
Speaker 1: what are we doing for with church attendants? Right? Like?

466
00:26:04,320 --> 00:26:06,840
Speaker 2: What are we How are we supposed to understand that?

467
00:26:06,920 --> 00:26:08,960
Speaker 2: Are we supposed to understand it as a commitment to

468
00:26:09,720 --> 00:26:14,920
Speaker 2: a bigger commitment to I think certainly I didn't even

469
00:26:14,960 --> 00:26:16,879
Speaker 2: know you could attend church several times a week at

470
00:26:16,880 --> 00:26:22,720
Speaker 2: this point, right, Like I just didn't realize that most

471
00:26:22,760 --> 00:26:24,560
Speaker 2: of the churches I've ever attended have that once a

472
00:26:24,560 --> 00:26:25,080
Speaker 2: week service.

473
00:26:25,119 --> 00:26:26,560
Speaker 1: And that's kind of it, and.

474
00:26:26,560 --> 00:26:29,399
Speaker 3: And so the Wednesday thing is kind of flittering away.

475
00:26:30,080 --> 00:26:32,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, And so it's interesting to think about even just

476
00:26:33,840 --> 00:26:37,280
Speaker 2: when you're answering this question, are you talking about your

477
00:26:37,320 --> 00:26:41,360
Speaker 2: worship service in a small group, or are you talking about,

478
00:26:41,480 --> 00:26:45,480
Speaker 2: you know, your worship service and another church function like

479
00:26:45,560 --> 00:26:46,760
Speaker 2: I used to have when I was a kid. We'd

480
00:26:46,800 --> 00:26:49,439
Speaker 2: go on Wednesday nights, right, Or you'd have maybe a

481
00:26:49,440 --> 00:26:52,000
Speaker 2: Saturday night service or something like that, Like, there were

482
00:26:52,040 --> 00:26:55,439
Speaker 2: multiple opportunities for you to be at church, right, not

483
00:26:55,560 --> 00:26:57,480
Speaker 2: in a small group, but at church. And so I'm

484
00:26:57,520 --> 00:26:59,199
Speaker 2: wondering if some of this has to do with just

485
00:26:59,280 --> 00:27:06,200
Speaker 2: church structure or not necessarily a comment on the dedication

486
00:27:06,359 --> 00:27:08,600
Speaker 2: of an individual to be there several times a week,

487
00:27:09,160 --> 00:27:13,880
Speaker 2: but the availability of multiple service times per week at

488
00:27:13,920 --> 00:27:18,199
Speaker 2: a local congregation doing a better job of educating, like

489
00:27:18,840 --> 00:27:21,400
Speaker 2: that could be it. Because once a week at church,

490
00:27:21,440 --> 00:27:24,480
Speaker 2: you know, you're listening to a sermon usually, and so

491
00:27:24,560 --> 00:27:28,240
Speaker 2: if the sermon doesn't address the exclusivity of Christian worship

492
00:27:28,320 --> 00:27:31,159
Speaker 2: and the uniqueness of it and how God responds to

493
00:27:31,200 --> 00:27:35,080
Speaker 2: worship of other groups, maybe you just don't get that

494
00:27:35,160 --> 00:27:39,840
Speaker 2: question right. You know, you're inferring a lot of different things.

495
00:27:39,880 --> 00:27:42,359
Speaker 2: So I don't know that we have enough. I mean,

496
00:27:42,400 --> 00:27:45,200
Speaker 2: I could speculate on certain things, but yeah, my gut

497
00:27:45,240 --> 00:27:47,440
Speaker 2: is to say, if if several times a week of

498
00:27:47,560 --> 00:27:50,800
Speaker 2: church attendance doesn't mean small groups, or even if it

499
00:27:50,840 --> 00:27:54,520
Speaker 2: does mean small groups and some other things, that maybe

500
00:27:54,600 --> 00:28:00,480
Speaker 2: there is a gesturing toward better training, right, a different

501
00:28:00,560 --> 00:28:04,600
Speaker 2: understanding of this than what what a Sunday worship service

502
00:28:04,600 --> 00:28:08,960
Speaker 2: would really do for you, which wouldn't necessarily help you

503
00:28:09,040 --> 00:28:09,840
Speaker 2: answer this question.

504
00:28:10,920 --> 00:28:16,600
Speaker 3: Yeah, so maybe that's the takeaway that there's a certain

505
00:28:16,720 --> 00:28:20,800
Speaker 3: level of investment within the larger operation of church training,

506
00:28:20,920 --> 00:28:25,159
Speaker 3: church teaching that if you're involved in multiple facets of

507
00:28:25,240 --> 00:28:29,040
Speaker 3: church life, that you're not getting on a Sunday morning

508
00:28:29,160 --> 00:28:31,800
Speaker 3: just by nature of what a Sunday morning is, right,

509
00:28:32,440 --> 00:28:35,119
Speaker 3: I wonder so that to me, that raises the question

510
00:28:35,160 --> 00:28:39,400
Speaker 3: of causation versus correlation. Sure, so does the multiple Is

511
00:28:39,400 --> 00:28:42,960
Speaker 3: it the attending of multiple days or multiple events during

512
00:28:42,960 --> 00:28:47,000
Speaker 3: the course of a week that's giving you the training

513
00:28:47,240 --> 00:28:50,520
Speaker 3: to answer the question in this particular way, or is

514
00:28:50,520 --> 00:28:53,160
Speaker 3: it you're already inclined towards that. So it becomes sort

515
00:28:53,160 --> 00:28:54,280
Speaker 3: of an in group.

516
00:28:56,320 --> 00:28:56,520
Speaker 1: Here.

517
00:28:56,560 --> 00:28:58,400
Speaker 3: I say. I don't mean this in a negative way,

518
00:28:58,400 --> 00:29:01,040
Speaker 3: but group think sort of mental If you're the ones

519
00:29:01,080 --> 00:29:03,560
Speaker 3: who think this way, and that's why you're the ones there,

520
00:29:03,960 --> 00:29:06,000
Speaker 3: and the self selection of the others are not the

521
00:29:06,000 --> 00:29:08,080
Speaker 3: ones who think this way, that's why they're not there.

522
00:29:10,040 --> 00:29:12,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I think there's something to that. You

523
00:29:12,480 --> 00:29:15,320
Speaker 2: can view it as maybe it's better training. You could

524
00:29:15,360 --> 00:29:18,120
Speaker 2: also view it as the more time I spend around

525
00:29:18,320 --> 00:29:22,240
Speaker 2: people with similar thoughts as I do, the less likely

526
00:29:22,240 --> 00:29:24,600
Speaker 2: I am to think that people with different thoughts than

527
00:29:24,640 --> 00:29:28,960
Speaker 2: we have different beliefs than we have different religious practitioners

528
00:29:29,120 --> 00:29:33,960
Speaker 2: belong with us. And so that's not necessarily a bad thing.

529
00:29:34,280 --> 00:29:34,480
Speaker 1: Right.

530
00:29:34,680 --> 00:29:38,760
Speaker 2: That development of a strong in group identity, particularly if

531
00:29:38,760 --> 00:29:41,920
Speaker 2: it's forged in discipleship, that in Christ's identity, is actually

532
00:29:42,040 --> 00:29:45,240
Speaker 2: pretty crucial, right. You can identify who's in and who's out.

533
00:29:45,320 --> 00:29:48,640
Speaker 2: You see this happening like First John, for instance. Right

534
00:29:49,120 --> 00:29:52,800
Speaker 2: the first chapter of First John, he provides some markers

535
00:29:52,840 --> 00:29:55,840
Speaker 2: the true Christian community, right, and says, if they had

536
00:29:55,880 --> 00:29:59,120
Speaker 2: been of us, they would not have gone out from us. Right,

537
00:29:59,200 --> 00:30:01,080
Speaker 2: So if they really have been part of our community,

538
00:30:01,120 --> 00:30:04,240
Speaker 2: they'd still be here, they wouldn't have left. We see

539
00:30:04,240 --> 00:30:07,160
Speaker 2: this in probably First Corinthians, where Paul is trying to

540
00:30:07,200 --> 00:30:10,040
Speaker 2: circumstribe and say, hey, don't have all these divisions, You're

541
00:30:10,080 --> 00:30:12,800
Speaker 2: one in Christ. And so it's just there's a crucial

542
00:30:12,840 --> 00:30:16,120
Speaker 2: aspect to this in group identity that I don't want

543
00:30:16,160 --> 00:30:19,040
Speaker 2: to I don't want it to be polarized and be like, oh,

544
00:30:19,040 --> 00:30:21,240
Speaker 2: they're just an insular community that doesn't reach out or

545
00:30:21,240 --> 00:30:23,680
Speaker 2: something weird like that. I think there's a really healthy

546
00:30:23,680 --> 00:30:26,280
Speaker 2: way that we understand ourselves as being different from other

547
00:30:26,360 --> 00:30:29,719
Speaker 2: religions and that there are clear boundaries between us and

548
00:30:29,800 --> 00:30:34,000
Speaker 2: other religions. So I think that could be cultivated in

549
00:30:34,040 --> 00:30:39,800
Speaker 2: a more frequent interaction within the Christian community and with

550
00:30:39,920 --> 00:30:43,960
Speaker 2: a group of Christian folks that may be the impetus

551
00:30:44,000 --> 00:30:47,040
Speaker 2: behind this. Whereas people who are like kind of once

552
00:30:47,080 --> 00:30:50,080
Speaker 2: a week, if you think about how little time that

553
00:30:50,200 --> 00:30:54,360
Speaker 2: actually is versus what you may be doing for the

554
00:30:54,400 --> 00:30:57,400
Speaker 2: rest of the week. Right, who you may be interacting

555
00:30:57,440 --> 00:30:59,560
Speaker 2: with the rest of the week, So you're co workers,

556
00:30:59,600 --> 00:31:03,120
Speaker 2: you're you know, you know, maybe members of your family,

557
00:31:03,240 --> 00:31:06,920
Speaker 2: maybe some of your friends, your bowling league, whatever it is. Right,

558
00:31:07,320 --> 00:31:10,320
Speaker 2: You're now not interacting solely with Christians. You now have

559
00:31:10,400 --> 00:31:13,680
Speaker 2: friends who may be of different faiths, and that may

560
00:31:13,800 --> 00:31:16,000
Speaker 2: very well condition the way that you're answering this question.

561
00:31:16,240 --> 00:31:18,320
Speaker 2: And so time is a factor. I think that we

562
00:31:18,360 --> 00:31:23,120
Speaker 2: shouldn't minimize in this because the more time we're spending

563
00:31:23,240 --> 00:31:26,720
Speaker 2: within the church, I think obviously we're going to pick

564
00:31:26,840 --> 00:31:29,360
Speaker 2: up a i don't know, for lack of a better term,

565
00:31:29,400 --> 00:31:32,840
Speaker 2: of cultural awareness of what the church actually is and

566
00:31:32,880 --> 00:31:35,360
Speaker 2: be more inclined to feel a part of it as

567
00:31:35,360 --> 00:31:38,080
Speaker 2: opposed to it being something that I attend weekly.

568
00:31:38,560 --> 00:31:39,360
Speaker 1: Does that make sense?

569
00:31:39,960 --> 00:31:43,520
Speaker 3: It does. It raises more questions if you're willing to

570
00:31:43,560 --> 00:31:48,600
Speaker 3: try it on us. So it's fresh. I'm fresh, it's

571
00:31:48,680 --> 00:31:51,760
Speaker 3: fresh in my mind. This John seventeen dynamic just from

572
00:31:51,800 --> 00:31:59,120
Speaker 3: class be in the world but not of the world. Yeah,

573
00:31:59,200 --> 00:32:07,040
Speaker 3: which is really interesting. It's not entirely clear what that

574
00:32:07,160 --> 00:32:12,040
Speaker 3: dynamic looks like. If anything, one could argue it's deliberately

575
00:32:12,080 --> 00:32:17,400
Speaker 3: a dynamic full of tension, no easy answers. And I

576
00:32:17,440 --> 00:32:19,760
Speaker 3: hear what you're saying. I wonder if this is also

577
00:32:19,800 --> 00:32:24,880
Speaker 3: one of those no easy answers. Right, where's the line

578
00:32:24,920 --> 00:32:27,640
Speaker 3: between what I think you're helpfully describing and on the

579
00:32:27,680 --> 00:32:32,959
Speaker 3: other side, you're not in the world. You don't know

580
00:32:33,000 --> 00:32:35,720
Speaker 3: what's going on, and so there's no ability you know that,

581
00:32:36,800 --> 00:32:39,800
Speaker 3: there's a there's a hermeneutical entailment to not getting the

582
00:32:39,840 --> 00:32:44,560
Speaker 3: full dynamics of it or right, So what we don't

583
00:32:44,600 --> 00:32:48,640
Speaker 3: want is an echo chamber, and I think that's dangerous

584
00:32:48,640 --> 00:32:52,720
Speaker 3: for any community and the group in any place. But

585
00:32:53,040 --> 00:32:55,000
Speaker 3: there is on the other side, I think something right

586
00:32:55,200 --> 00:32:58,800
Speaker 3: as you're describing to this iron sharpening, iron sort of

587
00:32:58,840 --> 00:33:03,920
Speaker 3: way of thinking, and maybe the line is intentionally blurry

588
00:33:03,960 --> 00:33:08,280
Speaker 3: and that's where our where our discernment has to come in.

589
00:33:09,920 --> 00:33:10,880
Speaker 3: What are your thoughts on that?

590
00:33:11,560 --> 00:33:13,640
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree number one. Yeah, I agree with the

591
00:33:13,640 --> 00:33:16,400
Speaker 1: one hundred percent. I don't want that to come off

592
00:33:16,440 --> 00:33:18,920
Speaker 1: as like, here's the only narrative that would work. I

593
00:33:19,000 --> 00:33:19,800
Speaker 1: think there are.

594
00:33:19,640 --> 00:33:22,040
Speaker 2: A variety of factors here that we're not able to

595
00:33:22,080 --> 00:33:24,440
Speaker 2: get any real clarity on from the survey. We're just

596
00:33:24,480 --> 00:33:27,600
Speaker 2: trying to give some broad picture of what this could

597
00:33:27,640 --> 00:33:30,680
Speaker 2: be and what factors are involved. I think you're right,

598
00:33:30,760 --> 00:33:34,680
Speaker 2: there is that healthy a group aspect, but then there's

599
00:33:34,720 --> 00:33:37,440
Speaker 2: also this dynamic where we're supposed to be going out

600
00:33:37,480 --> 00:33:40,440
Speaker 2: and I think the challenge for Christians generally. We see

601
00:33:40,440 --> 00:33:43,520
Speaker 2: this almost in the Book of Ezra. I've always found

602
00:33:43,520 --> 00:33:46,920
Speaker 2: it fascinating when Ezra is bringing the exiles back from Babylon.

603
00:33:46,960 --> 00:33:50,000
Speaker 2: One of the things he tries to institute is the

604
00:33:50,040 --> 00:33:57,400
Speaker 2: elimination of for is the returning exiles with people of

605
00:33:57,440 --> 00:34:00,320
Speaker 2: the land, like, don't intermarry with the people of them land.

606
00:34:00,960 --> 00:34:01,680
Speaker 1: And part of what I.

607
00:34:01,640 --> 00:34:04,240
Speaker 2: Think he's trying to do there is he's trying to

608
00:34:04,280 --> 00:34:09,600
Speaker 2: preserve the purity of the Israelite returnees, right, so that

609
00:34:09,680 --> 00:34:13,120
Speaker 2: they can reconstitute and be a part of the restoration

610
00:34:13,360 --> 00:34:16,160
Speaker 2: of the nation of Israel as a whole. So if

611
00:34:16,160 --> 00:34:18,960
Speaker 2: we view the exiles as the Judeans largely who are

612
00:34:18,960 --> 00:34:22,160
Speaker 2: coming back from Babylon, they still need to reach up

613
00:34:22,200 --> 00:34:25,040
Speaker 2: into some of the Northern Kingdom or even out into

614
00:34:25,160 --> 00:34:30,040
Speaker 2: the Assyrian Empire and know that these other Israelites, the

615
00:34:30,080 --> 00:34:32,480
Speaker 2: Northern Kingdom, Israelites have a place to come back to.

616
00:34:32,680 --> 00:34:35,000
Speaker 2: So he's trying to do is sort of circumscribe this purity.

617
00:34:35,960 --> 00:34:38,640
Speaker 2: Ultimately it does. None of it works, right, It's all

618
00:34:38,680 --> 00:34:41,759
Speaker 2: sort of a disappointing failure. But I think that we

619
00:34:41,840 --> 00:34:44,680
Speaker 2: can get into that sort of mindset of this has

620
00:34:44,719 --> 00:34:47,560
Speaker 2: to be as pure as possible before we go out,

621
00:34:47,960 --> 00:34:50,000
Speaker 2: And I think what you're pointing to is it's never

622
00:34:50,040 --> 00:34:52,440
Speaker 2: going to be as pure as possible. There's always going

623
00:34:52,520 --> 00:34:54,960
Speaker 2: to be this sort of tension of push and pull

624
00:34:55,000 --> 00:34:56,239
Speaker 2: of we're going to pick things up.

625
00:34:56,200 --> 00:34:57,840
Speaker 1: From the world that need to be.

626
00:34:59,719 --> 00:35:03,480
Speaker 2: Re formed when we come back into the church, and

627
00:35:03,640 --> 00:35:06,440
Speaker 2: we're ultimately going to probably spend too much time reforming

628
00:35:06,440 --> 00:35:09,279
Speaker 2: in the church instead of going out into the world. Right,

629
00:35:10,280 --> 00:35:13,440
Speaker 2: And so I think, yeah, that that dynamic. To me,

630
00:35:13,520 --> 00:35:16,560
Speaker 2: We're never going to balance it perfectly. It's always going

631
00:35:16,600 --> 00:35:20,680
Speaker 2: to be really sloppy, messy line. And this is what

632
00:35:20,760 --> 00:35:23,239
Speaker 2: repentance is for, This is what forgiveness is for, This

633
00:35:23,280 --> 00:35:27,080
Speaker 2: is what the encouragement of the community is for. Where

634
00:35:27,120 --> 00:35:30,279
Speaker 2: I think the challenge of this question and a couple

635
00:35:30,360 --> 00:35:32,440
Speaker 2: of the other questions, honestly, because I think we probably

636
00:35:32,440 --> 00:35:35,919
Speaker 2: shouldn't view this one in isolation to like, let's say,

637
00:35:35,920 --> 00:35:40,880
Speaker 2: statement six, God loves all people the same way. This one,

638
00:35:41,600 --> 00:35:47,400
Speaker 2: no matter what you filter it with, let's say evangelicals,

639
00:35:48,040 --> 00:35:51,760
Speaker 2: evangelical belief, evangelical affiliation, church attendance several times.

640
00:35:51,600 --> 00:35:57,040
Speaker 1: A week, you still have eighty four percent.

641
00:35:58,200 --> 00:36:01,799
Speaker 2: Agreement, eighty one percent strongly three percent someonet agree to

642
00:36:01,960 --> 00:36:05,880
Speaker 2: God loves all people the same way. It's difficult not

643
00:36:05,960 --> 00:36:10,560
Speaker 2: to correlate those two. You know, God accepts the worship

644
00:36:10,560 --> 00:36:13,360
Speaker 2: of all these other religions and God loves all people

645
00:36:13,400 --> 00:36:16,840
Speaker 2: the same way. Now, I would admit that's a fairly

646
00:36:16,880 --> 00:36:19,640
Speaker 2: opaque statement, But I guess my point is there may

647
00:36:19,680 --> 00:36:22,960
Speaker 2: also be these other intersecting beliefs that are influencing some

648
00:36:23,040 --> 00:36:26,520
Speaker 2: of these other responses, and so we can't we can't

649
00:36:26,520 --> 00:36:31,759
Speaker 2: lose that one either. So Yeah, overall, I'd say the

650
00:36:31,760 --> 00:36:34,719
Speaker 2: survey doesn't give me a lot of It gives me

651
00:36:34,800 --> 00:36:38,359
Speaker 2: some hope to say, Hey, being in community and participating

652
00:36:38,400 --> 00:36:41,560
Speaker 2: in church can help some of these things. But then

653
00:36:41,600 --> 00:36:44,160
Speaker 2: you come to a question like this, you know you're

654
00:36:44,160 --> 00:36:46,160
Speaker 2: filtering that the exact same way as we just did

655
00:36:46,239 --> 00:36:47,080
Speaker 2: for the previous question.

656
00:36:47,200 --> 00:36:49,799
Speaker 1: You're not getting much better result, right.

657
00:36:49,840 --> 00:36:53,239
Speaker 3: If anything, you're getting counterintuitive results for this one. It

658
00:36:53,280 --> 00:36:57,520
Speaker 3: is because the moment I suppose this says more about

659
00:36:57,520 --> 00:37:00,680
Speaker 3: my expectations, I would expect this answer to be higher,

660
00:37:01,480 --> 00:37:05,120
Speaker 3: a higher agreement from non evangelicals, but it's actually lower

661
00:37:05,120 --> 00:37:06,600
Speaker 3: from non evangelical.

662
00:37:06,080 --> 00:37:12,200
Speaker 1: It's actually lower for non evangelicals. Yeah, I mean that's yeah.

663
00:37:12,560 --> 00:37:15,160
Speaker 3: Some of that is you hinted at definitions. What are

664
00:37:15,160 --> 00:37:16,640
Speaker 3: people thinking? What are they meaning?

665
00:37:17,320 --> 00:37:18,280
Speaker 1: Yeah?

666
00:37:18,760 --> 00:37:22,120
Speaker 3: Then biblical understanding, it's a complicated understanding. On the one side,

667
00:37:22,160 --> 00:37:24,120
Speaker 3: we have God is love, greater love has no one

668
00:37:24,120 --> 00:37:26,640
Speaker 3: list mainly laid on his life for his friends, which

669
00:37:26,640 --> 00:37:29,640
Speaker 3: is clearly an allusion to the ultimate love of Jesus.

670
00:37:29,440 --> 00:37:30,520
Speaker 1: That's right. And then we have.

671
00:37:32,200 --> 00:37:34,840
Speaker 3: What on the surface anyway, are hard to square with

672
00:37:34,880 --> 00:37:38,440
Speaker 3: the Jacob I have loved he saw I've hated, right, right,

673
00:37:38,920 --> 00:37:42,000
Speaker 3: So it's a complicated question and you're not getting that

674
00:37:42,080 --> 00:37:48,440
Speaker 3: in these questions understandably, also educational questions.

675
00:37:48,239 --> 00:37:48,839
Speaker 1: Right right.

676
00:37:49,280 --> 00:37:51,239
Speaker 3: You could even like that you have to educate, and

677
00:37:51,280 --> 00:37:52,960
Speaker 3: that's not how these things work.

678
00:37:53,480 --> 00:37:55,799
Speaker 2: Yeah, you could even get into the conversation about what

679
00:37:55,880 --> 00:38:00,000
Speaker 2: is love? Right, you know, are we talking about God's

680
00:38:00,040 --> 00:38:03,759
Speaker 2: covenant loyalty? Because then you have a unique case where

681
00:38:03,840 --> 00:38:07,279
Speaker 2: God is especially loving Israel a unique way because they're

682
00:38:07,280 --> 00:38:10,319
Speaker 2: in covenant with him, and so if we view love

683
00:38:10,440 --> 00:38:14,399
Speaker 2: is equally loyalty, then there is a unique and special love.

684
00:38:14,480 --> 00:38:16,600
Speaker 2: The election of Israel, I think plays into that. The

685
00:38:16,719 --> 00:38:18,759
Speaker 2: choice of Israel plays into that. You know, all these

686
00:38:18,760 --> 00:38:21,480
Speaker 2: different things kind of play into that. Whereas we're just

687
00:38:21,520 --> 00:38:27,720
Speaker 2: talking about a general sort of yeah, God loves his creation. Okay,

688
00:38:27,760 --> 00:38:30,560
Speaker 2: maybe there's a generic way in which God loves everybody

689
00:38:30,600 --> 00:38:33,560
Speaker 2: in sort of the same way, but there's obviously specific

690
00:38:33,560 --> 00:38:36,360
Speaker 2: examples we could look at, Like you said, Jacob, you know, Jacob,

691
00:38:36,360 --> 00:38:40,120
Speaker 2: I loved you, saw I hated. That's not a the

692
00:38:40,160 --> 00:38:43,400
Speaker 2: traditional love hate that we often think of, but it

693
00:38:44,040 --> 00:38:46,520
Speaker 2: is balled up with these other concepts that are kind

694
00:38:46,520 --> 00:38:47,520
Speaker 2: of difficult to deal with.

695
00:38:48,160 --> 00:38:55,719
Speaker 1: And so yeah, overall the survey, I think, I will say.

696
00:38:55,600 --> 00:39:02,279
Speaker 2: I looking through all the survey answers, looking through all

697
00:39:02,280 --> 00:39:05,920
Speaker 2: the demographics I have, I'm not there aren't a ton

698
00:39:05,960 --> 00:39:10,359
Speaker 2: of alarm bells for me in the survey, other than

699
00:39:11,239 --> 00:39:13,560
Speaker 2: some of them that I just find quite puzzling. This

700
00:39:13,640 --> 00:39:18,040
Speaker 2: one where we see, you know, God loves everyone the

701
00:39:18,040 --> 00:39:23,040
Speaker 2: same way. There's a question statement seven on Jesus was

702
00:39:23,080 --> 00:39:27,840
Speaker 2: a great teacher, but he was not God. You're getting

703
00:39:28,680 --> 00:39:31,760
Speaker 2: a pretty I mean it's not it's a relatively low percentage,

704
00:39:31,800 --> 00:39:35,000
Speaker 2: but twenty eight percent of evangelicals agreeing with that statement,

705
00:39:37,280 --> 00:39:38,399
Speaker 2: regardless of age group.

706
00:39:38,440 --> 00:39:39,799
Speaker 1: Like, that's all of them.

707
00:39:40,400 --> 00:39:43,839
Speaker 2: And so the eighteen to thirty fours are a little

708
00:39:43,880 --> 00:39:47,000
Speaker 2: higher on it than any other age group, and so

709
00:39:47,080 --> 00:39:48,560
Speaker 2: they skew that data a bit.

710
00:39:49,400 --> 00:39:51,960
Speaker 1: But that's a pretty fundamental belief.

711
00:39:54,520 --> 00:39:59,200
Speaker 2: And you've got twenty eight percent of Christians of evangelicals

712
00:40:00,000 --> 00:40:04,839
Speaker 2: and you know, agreeing that Jesus is not God. So

713
00:40:05,080 --> 00:40:07,960
Speaker 2: there are these counterintuitive results, I think in a lot

714
00:40:07,960 --> 00:40:09,560
Speaker 2: of these different places.

715
00:40:11,040 --> 00:40:16,040
Speaker 3: Yeah, and again I think not to be the dead horse,

716
00:40:17,400 --> 00:40:18,719
Speaker 3: you have to take some of that with a grain

717
00:40:18,760 --> 00:40:21,080
Speaker 3: of salt. What are people understanding when the question is

718
00:40:21,120 --> 00:40:30,400
Speaker 3: being asked. I think evangelicals fairly consistently point to the

719
00:40:30,440 --> 00:40:33,719
Speaker 3: importance of the Bible, and so we're not shocked when

720
00:40:33,719 --> 00:40:37,080
Speaker 3: we see one of the respondence, regardless of age group,

721
00:40:38,040 --> 00:40:42,280
Speaker 3: the Bibles the final authority, or however exactly it was worded.

722
00:40:44,680 --> 00:40:46,720
Speaker 3: But then we throw in the dynamic that we've discussed

723
00:40:46,719 --> 00:40:50,480
Speaker 3: here in terms of what are we understanding the Bible

724
00:40:50,520 --> 00:40:53,840
Speaker 3: to be saying materially. Now that gets more interesting, especially

725
00:40:53,920 --> 00:40:58,040
Speaker 3: when you factor in more data. Right, we can be

726
00:40:59,320 --> 00:41:01,680
Speaker 3: just just to to draw out the sort of thing

727
00:41:01,680 --> 00:41:04,160
Speaker 3: we're talking about, the extremes of if you live in

728
00:41:04,160 --> 00:41:10,279
Speaker 3: a pre Galileo pre Copernican society, you're reading language like

729
00:41:10,840 --> 00:41:13,319
Speaker 3: the setting of the sun and the rising of the

730
00:41:13,360 --> 00:41:15,520
Speaker 3: sun in different sorts of ways.

731
00:41:15,560 --> 00:41:23,600
Speaker 2: We still say the rise of the sun, right, but.

732
00:41:21,640 --> 00:41:27,239
Speaker 3: A pre Galileo pre Copernicus person's thinking about it. So

733
00:41:27,360 --> 00:41:32,680
Speaker 3: that changes the way you read the Bible. But then

734
00:41:32,680 --> 00:41:37,560
Speaker 3: there's a there's the further dynamic of from where are

735
00:41:37,640 --> 00:41:41,960
Speaker 3: you reading it? You know, not to get into murky

736
00:41:42,000 --> 00:41:42,879
Speaker 3: waters here, but.

737
00:41:42,920 --> 00:41:43,319
Speaker 1: If you.

738
00:41:44,840 --> 00:41:47,920
Speaker 3: If you live in the United States with all the

739
00:41:47,960 --> 00:41:51,759
Speaker 3: social social sorts of things and political unrest, that are

740
00:41:51,760 --> 00:41:54,920
Speaker 3: going on, right, and you read it from a place

741
00:41:55,040 --> 00:42:00,239
Speaker 3: of of historic that's the best way to put it. Oh,

742
00:42:00,320 --> 00:42:05,360
Speaker 3: it's historic sense of what the Church ought to see

743
00:42:05,520 --> 00:42:08,920
Speaker 3: in the making of the American government. You're reading the

744
00:42:08,920 --> 00:42:13,440
Speaker 3: Bible in a certain kind of way if you live

745
00:42:13,480 --> 00:42:15,720
Speaker 3: in the same setting and you come from a historic

746
00:42:15,840 --> 00:42:20,400
Speaker 3: setting into which things like slavery and Jim Crow were significant,

747
00:42:20,480 --> 00:42:23,600
Speaker 3: you're reading it. And yet another way, if you're reading

748
00:42:23,640 --> 00:42:28,080
Speaker 3: it as the children of immigrants, in which you're the

749
00:42:28,120 --> 00:42:32,200
Speaker 3: first person who is a Christian in your family, you're

750
00:42:32,200 --> 00:42:35,320
Speaker 3: reading it yet in other set of ways, and maybe

751
00:42:35,360 --> 00:42:37,160
Speaker 3: to a point that you made earlier, but just starting

752
00:42:37,200 --> 00:42:42,320
Speaker 3: to highlight it. The agreement is there in terms of

753
00:42:42,360 --> 00:42:48,120
Speaker 3: the significance of the Bible, Yes, but the things that

754
00:42:48,160 --> 00:42:56,640
Speaker 3: you're noticing maybe aren't the same. Yeah, yeah, and that

755
00:42:56,640 --> 00:42:59,120
Speaker 3: that's going to change the way that you shade things. Right.

756
00:43:00,040 --> 00:43:04,160
Speaker 3: We have these in terms of historic doctrinal disputes. Not

757
00:43:04,280 --> 00:43:06,839
Speaker 3: my favorite doctrinal dispute, but one that has a lot

758
00:43:06,880 --> 00:43:09,359
Speaker 3: of airtime. So it's a good example, I think, is

759
00:43:09,800 --> 00:43:15,560
Speaker 3: Calvinism versus our Minianism. Sure, there are different different textual

760
00:43:15,600 --> 00:43:19,600
Speaker 3: starting points, you know, and how one then reads certain

761
00:43:19,640 --> 00:43:22,720
Speaker 3: passages is going to be shaded by those different textual

762
00:43:22,760 --> 00:43:26,200
Speaker 3: starting points, and who gets to decide which one started

763
00:43:26,239 --> 00:43:27,000
Speaker 3: at the right place?

764
00:43:27,719 --> 00:43:28,080
Speaker 1: Correct?

765
00:43:28,520 --> 00:43:34,040
Speaker 3: That that's just a genuinely and generally historically Protestant problem,

766
00:43:34,719 --> 00:43:41,839
Speaker 3: right of authority, yes, but authority for what We're not sure. Yeah,

767
00:43:41,840 --> 00:43:43,759
Speaker 3: that's why we have so many denominations. Right, So all

768
00:43:43,800 --> 00:43:47,720
Speaker 3: these things go into those sorts of questions. So similarly,

769
00:43:47,760 --> 00:43:49,600
Speaker 3: I don't have the same kind of alarm bells. I

770
00:43:50,080 --> 00:43:53,400
Speaker 3: did some perusing online just to see what some of

771
00:43:53,440 --> 00:43:55,680
Speaker 3: the talking heads were saying about this report, and there's

772
00:43:55,680 --> 00:43:58,480
Speaker 3: a lot of alarm bell sort of things going off

773
00:43:59,040 --> 00:44:00,839
Speaker 3: in a way that I didn't shared the same kinds

774
00:44:00,880 --> 00:44:02,960
Speaker 3: of concerns. To me, It was more a marker of

775
00:44:04,080 --> 00:44:06,839
Speaker 3: the landscape is shifted in the same sort of way

776
00:44:06,840 --> 00:44:09,239
Speaker 3: as the landscape of playing basketball shifted. So what are

777
00:44:09,280 --> 00:44:13,040
Speaker 3: we going to do to adjust accordingly? Right, it's not

778
00:44:13,160 --> 00:44:18,360
Speaker 3: good enough to just simply say, well, our pastoral and

779
00:44:18,400 --> 00:44:21,520
Speaker 3: theological education in the nineteen sixties was X, therefore it

780
00:44:21,560 --> 00:44:24,680
Speaker 3: should be that today, Well, no things have changed. Yeah,

781
00:44:25,080 --> 00:44:28,880
Speaker 3: obviously Jesus is who Jesus was. We're not saying that's changed.

782
00:44:29,000 --> 00:44:32,480
Speaker 3: But the sorts of ways in which you address issues,

783
00:44:32,640 --> 00:44:34,960
Speaker 3: the sorts of issues themselves they need to be addressed,

784
00:44:35,560 --> 00:44:36,000
Speaker 3: are right.

785
00:44:37,120 --> 00:44:40,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, you might not need to call together a Creedle

786
00:44:41,040 --> 00:44:46,080
Speaker 2: council to correct some sort of abarrant heresy, you know.

787
00:44:46,160 --> 00:44:49,080
Speaker 2: I mean those worked really well early on in church history,

788
00:44:49,200 --> 00:44:51,480
Speaker 2: or worked fairly well and early on in church history,

789
00:44:51,520 --> 00:44:54,799
Speaker 2: but they may not work now, you know. And I

790
00:44:54,840 --> 00:45:00,520
Speaker 2: think that that is really crucial to understand. I'm not

791
00:45:00,560 --> 00:45:04,440
Speaker 2: saying that I'm exactly happy with all the responses on

792
00:45:04,480 --> 00:45:06,719
Speaker 2: the report, and some of them are a little more

793
00:45:06,760 --> 00:45:10,239
Speaker 2: troubling than others. It's just there's no reason to get

794
00:45:10,320 --> 00:45:13,080
Speaker 2: so agitated about it that you jump back in with

795
00:45:13,120 --> 00:45:15,880
Speaker 2: the response that says, let's hammer these.

796
00:45:15,680 --> 00:45:18,560
Speaker 1: Doctrines home one more time, right, we need.

797
00:45:18,480 --> 00:45:21,080
Speaker 2: To start teaching systematic theology in churches, you know, like

798
00:45:22,280 --> 00:45:24,760
Speaker 2: maybe we need to do that, but there may also

799
00:45:24,880 --> 00:45:27,600
Speaker 2: be all these other things that need to be massaged

800
00:45:27,600 --> 00:45:31,400
Speaker 2: into place, and so it's it's like we can't just

801
00:45:31,600 --> 00:45:34,640
Speaker 2: you know, you we're looking at a jigsaw puzzle. There's

802
00:45:34,719 --> 00:45:37,040
Speaker 2: all of these different pieces that are laying out on

803
00:45:37,120 --> 00:45:39,719
Speaker 2: the table in front of us, and if we only

804
00:45:39,760 --> 00:45:42,719
Speaker 2: focus on putting together one little corner. None of these

805
00:45:42,760 --> 00:45:45,399
Speaker 2: other pieces are going to get placed. And so we've

806
00:45:45,400 --> 00:45:47,719
Speaker 2: got to at least broaden our vision enough to sit

807
00:45:47,760 --> 00:45:51,319
Speaker 2: back and say, look, where would all these other pieces fit,

808
00:45:51,360 --> 00:45:52,960
Speaker 2: and how would they contribute to a.

809
00:45:52,920 --> 00:45:56,520
Speaker 1: Reorientation of some of these beliefs. How would that help

810
00:45:56,600 --> 00:45:58,240
Speaker 1: us if we understood better.

811
00:45:58,680 --> 00:46:01,520
Speaker 2: I go back to the church in politic question, largely

812
00:46:01,520 --> 00:46:03,800
Speaker 2: because you know, when I was a dean at Moody,

813
00:46:03,960 --> 00:46:08,080
Speaker 2: I had this question come up. There was a disagreement.

814
00:46:08,120 --> 00:46:12,200
Speaker 2: Some of the students were celebrating a law that had

815
00:46:12,239 --> 00:46:14,719
Speaker 2: just been passed and it happened to be about, I

816
00:46:14,719 --> 00:46:19,360
Speaker 2: think about homosexual marriage, and some students were celebrating that.

817
00:46:20,040 --> 00:46:22,600
Speaker 2: And so then you get certain people are saying, oh,

818
00:46:22,680 --> 00:46:26,120
Speaker 2: the students are going liberal. But when I talked to

819
00:46:26,120 --> 00:46:29,400
Speaker 2: the students, they weren't really. They weren't really going liberal.

820
00:46:29,440 --> 00:46:32,000
Speaker 2: They still believe that, you know what we would have

821
00:46:32,000 --> 00:46:34,880
Speaker 2: believed about the Bible and homosexuality.

822
00:46:34,920 --> 00:46:39,040
Speaker 1: But they were off or I would say they were confused.

823
00:46:39,080 --> 00:46:39,960
Speaker 1: They hadn't thought about it.

824
00:46:39,960 --> 00:46:44,480
Speaker 2: They weren't integrating in how does government fit with faith?

825
00:46:45,760 --> 00:46:47,920
Speaker 1: What's a very different thing than saying they've gone liberal.

826
00:46:49,200 --> 00:46:54,799
Speaker 2: Right, They're disintegrated maybe, and so there's some education that

827
00:46:54,880 --> 00:46:56,319
Speaker 2: needs to go into this. But we didn't need to

828
00:46:56,320 --> 00:46:58,719
Speaker 2: plow into, hey, let's go through all the Bibles that

829
00:46:58,840 --> 00:47:01,280
Speaker 2: condemn or let's go through the Bible passages that condemn

830
00:47:01,320 --> 00:47:07,560
Speaker 2: homosexuality or something. What was necessary was some additional exploration

831
00:47:07,680 --> 00:47:10,520
Speaker 2: into what does a political theology look like, how does

832
00:47:10,560 --> 00:47:12,680
Speaker 2: the church and the state actually fit, What does it

833
00:47:12,719 --> 00:47:15,200
Speaker 2: look like to be a Christian in a democracy? How

834
00:47:15,200 --> 00:47:19,480
Speaker 2: can we celebrate the rights that other people are getting?

835
00:47:19,560 --> 00:47:22,280
Speaker 2: How is this good for? Like all these different questions

836
00:47:22,280 --> 00:47:25,600
Speaker 2: that you could ask and reframe in terms of Christianity

837
00:47:26,000 --> 00:47:28,359
Speaker 2: as opposed to just reacting to it and saying no,

838
00:47:28,480 --> 00:47:32,120
Speaker 2: we have to now preach on this specific doctrinal issue.

839
00:47:32,200 --> 00:47:34,400
Speaker 1: We have to make them read these things.

840
00:47:35,040 --> 00:47:38,319
Speaker 2: Like if once we understand why people are believing what

841
00:47:38,360 --> 00:47:42,319
Speaker 2: they're believing, why they're thinking this way, then we can

842
00:47:42,320 --> 00:47:44,480
Speaker 2: come up with some solutions to help move them in

843
00:47:44,520 --> 00:47:46,960
Speaker 2: a different direction. But I think if we just look

844
00:47:47,000 --> 00:47:49,920
Speaker 2: at this report and go, okay, you know, one of

845
00:47:49,920 --> 00:47:55,760
Speaker 2: the questions that I found interesting was like, let's say

846
00:47:56,160 --> 00:47:58,719
Speaker 2: I'm going to find it here in a minute. The

847
00:47:58,760 --> 00:48:05,400
Speaker 2: Holy Spirit is a force, but is not a personal being. Okay, Uh,

848
00:48:05,760 --> 00:48:11,239
Speaker 2: forty three percent of evangelicals agree with that. Well, obviously

849
00:48:11,239 --> 00:48:14,279
Speaker 2: that's not a trinitarian belief. But how much of it

850
00:48:14,320 --> 00:48:16,799
Speaker 2: is it conditioned on the way that we tend to

851
00:48:16,840 --> 00:48:18,400
Speaker 2: ignore the Holy Spirit in our churches?

852
00:48:18,600 --> 00:48:18,839
Speaker 1: Yeah?

853
00:48:19,600 --> 00:48:23,640
Speaker 2: Right, Like I mean, it isn't It isn't necessarily solved

854
00:48:23,640 --> 00:48:28,279
Speaker 2: by going Okay, let's explain the Trinity. It could very much,

855
00:48:28,480 --> 00:48:30,680
Speaker 2: very well involve a number of different practices that we

856
00:48:30,719 --> 00:48:33,200
Speaker 2: need to draw in. So I think that's sort of

857
00:48:33,200 --> 00:48:36,040
Speaker 2: the My impression of the report is it just gives

858
00:48:36,080 --> 00:48:38,680
Speaker 2: us a lot to think about and probably a lot

859
00:48:38,719 --> 00:48:39,520
Speaker 2: more to explore.

860
00:48:41,440 --> 00:48:48,480
Speaker 3: Yeah, fully agree, it's the direction of travel, so to speak. Right, Yeah, everyone,

861
00:48:48,800 --> 00:48:51,520
Speaker 3: If a large number of people think the Holy Spirit

862
00:48:51,640 --> 00:48:58,560
Speaker 3: is an impersonal force, that's probably says more about the

863
00:48:58,600 --> 00:49:03,040
Speaker 3: way we talk about the Holy Spirit of God, right.

864
00:49:04,719 --> 00:49:07,040
Speaker 3: But equally significant to me is when you put that

865
00:49:07,120 --> 00:49:11,279
Speaker 3: one next to the statement about trinity. Yeah, got his

866
00:49:11,360 --> 00:49:14,239
Speaker 3: father's son in Holy Spirit, Hi by in.

867
00:49:16,360 --> 00:49:20,840
Speaker 2: The board, right, And that's those are the difficult things

868
00:49:20,880 --> 00:49:21,360
Speaker 2: like these.

869
00:49:21,440 --> 00:49:22,640
Speaker 1: Some of these feel like.

870
00:49:24,239 --> 00:49:27,160
Speaker 2: They may not be And I know this is strange

871
00:49:27,160 --> 00:49:29,719
Speaker 2: to say, because they're asking questions about belief but I

872
00:49:29,760 --> 00:49:32,640
Speaker 2: don't know that there are actually questions about belief I

873
00:49:32,680 --> 00:49:35,399
Speaker 2: think what you're getting is sort of maybe some top

874
00:49:35,480 --> 00:49:39,120
Speaker 2: level agreement on main doctrines, but then once you get.

875
00:49:38,960 --> 00:49:39,400
Speaker 1: Into the.

876
00:49:41,200 --> 00:49:45,480
Speaker 2: Nuances of it, people are like, I don't know, Like

877
00:49:46,280 --> 00:49:49,719
Speaker 2: you know, there's just not a depth there. And these

878
00:49:49,719 --> 00:49:51,920
Speaker 2: are not things that we sit down and say, well,

879
00:49:51,960 --> 00:49:54,640
Speaker 2: let's have a class on the Holy Trinity. Like some

880
00:49:54,719 --> 00:49:58,080
Speaker 2: of these things are things that we just need to embody,

881
00:49:58,120 --> 00:50:02,040
Speaker 2: we need to practice in differently. So there's a roundness

882
00:50:02,080 --> 00:50:05,319
Speaker 2: to this that I think we need to keep in mind, right,

883
00:50:05,960 --> 00:50:08,480
Speaker 2: that we've got to figure out how it is that

884
00:50:08,520 --> 00:50:11,480
Speaker 2: we go about reinforcing certain beliefs. If we're looking at

885
00:50:11,480 --> 00:50:14,040
Speaker 2: this report and I'd say, okay, forty three percent agreement,

886
00:50:14,080 --> 00:50:15,799
Speaker 2: then the Holy Spirit is a force but not a

887
00:50:15,840 --> 00:50:20,799
Speaker 2: personal being that one stands out. So if I'm going

888
00:50:20,840 --> 00:50:23,160
Speaker 2: to solve that though, it's not just a question of going, well,

889
00:50:23,160 --> 00:50:27,200
Speaker 2: that's not true. There have to be layers to analysis

890
00:50:27,200 --> 00:50:29,160
Speaker 2: to this to figure out I think what you would

891
00:50:29,160 --> 00:50:32,480
Speaker 2: do in order to sort of rehab let's say, the

892
00:50:33,120 --> 00:50:38,440
Speaker 2: views of the Holy Spirit within the church. Right, So

893
00:50:39,760 --> 00:50:44,600
Speaker 2: interesting stuff, man, I don't know. This report is always

894
00:50:44,600 --> 00:50:47,279
Speaker 2: fascinating to me. I enjoy kind of talking through it

895
00:50:47,320 --> 00:50:51,520
Speaker 2: and fiddling around with the data. But ultimately, I think

896
00:50:51,560 --> 00:50:53,879
Speaker 2: when I walk away from my takeaway at this time

897
00:50:53,920 --> 00:50:57,680
Speaker 2: around was I was really encouraged to see that church

898
00:50:57,719 --> 00:51:03,680
Speaker 2: affiliation and a tendons did have a positive effect in

899
00:51:03,760 --> 00:51:07,640
Speaker 2: certain instances. At the very least, I think that's that's hopeful.

900
00:51:07,719 --> 00:51:12,000
Speaker 2: That's hopeful. Right in an age where we maybe think

901
00:51:12,040 --> 00:51:16,960
Speaker 2: that church is sort of optional, it does now feel like, no,

902
00:51:17,360 --> 00:51:19,440
Speaker 2: the church can actually have a really good influence on

903
00:51:19,480 --> 00:51:22,040
Speaker 2: some of these things, and maybe it can have more

904
00:51:22,080 --> 00:51:25,400
Speaker 2: influence in other ways. I know the data isn't fully consistent,

905
00:51:25,480 --> 00:51:30,520
Speaker 2: but I just really I felt like that that trajectory

906
00:51:30,560 --> 00:51:32,480
Speaker 2: I thought was really helpful.

907
00:51:33,920 --> 00:51:35,560
Speaker 3: Do we dull that a little bit though, when we

908
00:51:35,600 --> 00:51:40,439
Speaker 3: see that the spirit does just diforce in that sense?

909
00:51:40,480 --> 00:51:42,960
Speaker 1: I sadly, yes, that's what I mean.

910
00:51:43,000 --> 00:51:46,359
Speaker 2: The data is inconsistent, but I it's like, if it

911
00:51:46,400 --> 00:51:48,640
Speaker 2: works for one, maybe it can work for the others.

912
00:51:49,440 --> 00:51:52,719
Speaker 2: You know, it at least pushes us to look at

913
00:51:52,840 --> 00:51:56,440
Speaker 2: what does our community of practice look like, and maybe

914
00:51:56,480 --> 00:51:58,640
Speaker 2: we maybe it has an influence that we're just not

915
00:51:58,760 --> 00:52:03,200
Speaker 2: realizing yet. My hope again, you know, there's a lot

916
00:52:03,239 --> 00:52:05,839
Speaker 2: of inference going on here because the data is what

917
00:52:05,880 --> 00:52:08,640
Speaker 2: the data is. It just doesn't lead us anywhere necessarily.

918
00:52:09,680 --> 00:52:12,120
Speaker 2: It just shines a spotlight on certain of these things.

919
00:52:12,840 --> 00:52:16,319
Speaker 3: For sure. One thing I'd like to see from this,

920
00:52:16,680 --> 00:52:21,759
Speaker 3: so when you go into this data Explorer model, it

921
00:52:21,800 --> 00:52:25,360
Speaker 3: gives you the previous reports as well. Yes, And what

922
00:52:25,400 --> 00:52:27,040
Speaker 3: I would have loved to have been able to do

923
00:52:27,120 --> 00:52:30,560
Speaker 3: is say, let's compare this. So they did this every

924
00:52:30,560 --> 00:52:33,120
Speaker 3: two years, it looks like except for this time it

925
00:52:33,160 --> 00:52:33,959
Speaker 3: was three years ago.

926
00:52:34,680 --> 00:52:35,480
Speaker 1: Yeah.

927
00:52:35,520 --> 00:52:37,759
Speaker 3: I would love to go to the previous report or

928
00:52:37,800 --> 00:52:43,840
Speaker 3: the eleven years ago report and see what the researchers,

929
00:52:44,000 --> 00:52:46,759
Speaker 3: the surveyors found for the same questions, but they're not

930
00:52:46,800 --> 00:52:52,000
Speaker 3: the same questions, right, That would actually help making more

931
00:52:52,040 --> 00:52:54,240
Speaker 3: sense of some of this data. Has there been movement

932
00:52:54,760 --> 00:52:58,120
Speaker 3: or could we have gone back eleven years ago? So

933
00:52:58,160 --> 00:53:00,320
Speaker 3: I tried to find some that were roughly the similar,

934
00:53:00,560 --> 00:53:02,839
Speaker 3: roughly similar, but there were different adountfas that I don't

935
00:53:02,880 --> 00:53:04,319
Speaker 3: know that I can say very much from that.

936
00:53:05,000 --> 00:53:05,880
Speaker 1: Yeah.

937
00:53:06,000 --> 00:53:09,680
Speaker 3: Yeah, So if you're listening out there and you're one

938
00:53:09,719 --> 00:53:12,680
Speaker 3: of the surveyors of this, maybe give us the same questions.

939
00:53:12,719 --> 00:53:15,319
Speaker 2: Thanks time, give me the same questions, Oliver. I will

940
00:53:15,360 --> 00:53:17,799
Speaker 2: say I appreciate it on this one. They had one

941
00:53:17,800 --> 00:53:19,719
Speaker 2: that I dealt with a couple of years ago when

942
00:53:19,760 --> 00:53:23,759
Speaker 2: this came out. It was I believe the statement was

943
00:53:24,360 --> 00:53:30,680
Speaker 2: God can learn and change, and this time they changed

944
00:53:30,680 --> 00:53:33,680
Speaker 2: that to just one of those you know, God is unchanged,

945
00:53:33,680 --> 00:53:36,160
Speaker 2: And I think it's the way they phrased it, which

946
00:53:36,200 --> 00:53:39,719
Speaker 2: I think is a more appropriate way to phrase it. Yes,

947
00:53:40,200 --> 00:53:42,359
Speaker 2: because when you have the and in there, God can

948
00:53:42,440 --> 00:53:45,239
Speaker 2: learn and change. I understood what they were doing right,

949
00:53:45,400 --> 00:53:49,120
Speaker 2: I could get it, but it does add an element.

950
00:53:48,880 --> 00:53:51,319
Speaker 1: Confusion there and so many.

951
00:53:52,160 --> 00:53:54,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think they did have some good clarifications in

952
00:53:54,920 --> 00:53:58,479
Speaker 2: this one, but it does mean you can't compare the results, so.

953
00:53:59,040 --> 00:54:00,279
Speaker 1: Not as well as you might want to.

954
00:54:01,600 --> 00:54:04,759
Speaker 2: God accepts the worship of all the different religions was

955
00:54:04,800 --> 00:54:06,880
Speaker 2: the same as the in this one as it was

956
00:54:06,920 --> 00:54:09,680
Speaker 2: the last one, and the results haven't changed that much

957
00:54:09,800 --> 00:54:14,759
Speaker 2: from what I remember. So that was that was interesting.

958
00:54:14,440 --> 00:54:16,719
Speaker 3: And modern science disproves the Bible to another one that

959
00:54:16,800 --> 00:54:22,920
Speaker 3: does carry over. Yeah, and again it's actually not. Actually,

960
00:54:22,960 --> 00:54:25,160
Speaker 3: what I'm surprised to see is that the number of

961
00:54:25,239 --> 00:54:30,560
Speaker 3: strongly disagrees up on this one. Yes, maybe I'm less

962
00:54:30,560 --> 00:54:32,480
Speaker 3: surprised than I should Maybe I'm more surprised than I

963
00:54:32,520 --> 00:54:35,960
Speaker 3: should be because we do have a little bit more

964
00:54:35,960 --> 00:54:39,520
Speaker 3: of a polarized The data gives me what I want

965
00:54:39,560 --> 00:54:42,520
Speaker 3: to see, if not, I disagree. Yeah, sort of a dynamic.

966
00:54:42,680 --> 00:54:47,960
Speaker 2: But well, I know we talked a lot about the

967
00:54:48,000 --> 00:54:51,360
Speaker 2: meta report kind of stuff today. I'd like to have

968
00:54:51,400 --> 00:54:54,360
Speaker 2: you back on to discuss some of the specific questions

969
00:54:55,360 --> 00:54:57,920
Speaker 2: like and and really dive a little deeper into some

970
00:54:57,960 --> 00:54:58,279
Speaker 2: of them.

971
00:54:59,040 --> 00:55:00,960
Speaker 1: But will we'll that another time.

972
00:55:01,680 --> 00:55:04,719
Speaker 2: We've been going for about an hour, and I think

973
00:55:04,960 --> 00:55:08,799
Speaker 2: that that's probably overkilled. But it's an interesting survey and

974
00:55:08,840 --> 00:55:11,839
Speaker 2: I just encourage listeners to go check it out, play

975
00:55:11,880 --> 00:55:14,840
Speaker 2: around with it. My encouragement would be not to be

976
00:55:14,880 --> 00:55:18,240
Speaker 2: alarmed by some of the results, but to be thinking

977
00:55:18,280 --> 00:55:20,040
Speaker 2: through it in the way that Ashish and I have,

978
00:55:20,520 --> 00:55:22,600
Speaker 2: just trying to figure out, Okay, how does all this

979
00:55:22,640 --> 00:55:25,640
Speaker 2: fit together? What does this really look like? And how

980
00:55:25,719 --> 00:55:30,760
Speaker 2: might our church, my local congregation me as an individual Christian?

981
00:55:31,800 --> 00:55:34,239
Speaker 2: Number one, how do I think about these issues? And

982
00:55:34,440 --> 00:55:37,120
Speaker 2: number two? What might what might we need to do

983
00:55:37,200 --> 00:55:40,760
Speaker 2: to sort of move people toward a more orthodox belief

984
00:55:42,239 --> 00:55:46,040
Speaker 2: So be my two cents, but thanks all she's for

985
00:55:46,080 --> 00:55:47,120
Speaker 2: participating in this man.

986
00:55:47,160 --> 00:55:49,239
Speaker 1: It was good to have you. Thanks for having me

987
00:55:49,880 --> 00:55:51,959
Speaker 1: absolutely all.

988
00:55:51,960 --> 00:55:53,719
Speaker 2: Right, everybody, we're going to call it a day there

989
00:55:53,760 --> 00:55:55,840
Speaker 2: and we'll catch on the next episode of Thinking Christian.

990
00:55:56,040 --> 00:55:59,160
Speaker 1: Take care, everybody,