September 20, 2025 • 43 mins
Today's episode of Sunday Service by Pray.com features Focus On The Family
Alyssa and Tim join the conversation to unpack the rise of “deconstruction,” how social media and influencers fuel doubt, and what it really looks like to rebuild faith with truth and grace. Packed with practical tools for parents, real-life stories of restoration, and hope for those living in a long “Saturday,” this episode equips listeners to lovingly defend and live out the beauty of the Christian worldview.
Sunday Service is a weekly podcast featuring some of the nation’s most renowned faith leaders. Every Sunday, tune in for inspiration, encouragement, and Bible-based teachings.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
But the meek shall inherit the earth and shall delight
themselves in the abundance of peace, Psalm thirty seven eleven.
Dear God, some days seem like a constant struggle. I
find myself mentally drained and desperately digging for energy to
get through the day. I feel overwhelmed by how much
(00:22):
I need to get done in such a short amount
of time. Father, Help me to stay strong and not
succumb to weakness when challenges arise. Help me to remain
steadfast in my faith. When my mind becomes weary and
fatigued from overthinking, Allow my unwavering faith in You to
give me the energy to overcome any obstacle. Amen, thank
(00:49):
you for listening to to day's daily prayer for more
inspiration and an incredible message from our feature pastor stay
tuned to Pray dot COB's Sunday service.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
I truly believe that what we're seeing happen with a
lot of people who deconstruct and get rid of these
beliefs is they've never really tasted that the Lord is good,
as it says in first year. They haven't tasted the
beauty of the Christian worldview.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
At leasta and Tim Welcome to the program. Good to
have you. It's great to be here, both first timers. Yes, yes,
well we should have had you here a long time ago,
but it's great to talk with you about this really
important topic. The deconstruction of Christianity is so timely, and
the culture seems to be writhing in this. In fact,
people in Europe that I've talked to. We have a
(01:50):
film coming out later this year called Truth Rising, and
we interviewed a lot of the both non Christian and
Christian academics from Europe, North America, America. It's going to
be a great film, and I'm probably tipping our hand
to that right now. But in there, I would say
a core component of it is how to manage a
(02:11):
culture that is jettising the Judeo Christian value system, a
deconstruction of what Western civilization has been built upon, right,
And I'm really interested. There are atheists that have become
Christians in this film more recently, and even atheists who
have said the Judeo Christian value system is the best
social structure because it delivers the highest quality of human being.
(02:36):
These are atheists and they're saying we have to be
really smart about that component before it's jettison. Isn't that amazing?
Speaker 2 (02:44):
Yeah, it's fascinating.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
So when you get to the definition of deconstruction, I
think in the book you mentioned John Cooper who's with Skillet,
which is a band, and I mean, the guy is
tatted up. I've seen him on the I Am Second website.
If you haven't gone to that, go check it out.
Really testimonies of people sitting in a chair just telling
you what they experienced about God. And he's one of
(03:06):
those powerful testimonies. And he referred to the fact that
we need to declare war on this deconstruction. So give
it to me. What is that top line about deconstruction
of Christianity.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Yeah, deconstruction is a very loaded term. In fact, if
you ask, we always joke, if you ask ten people
what deconstruction means, you're going to get eleven different definitions.
And that's one of the reasons we wanted to write
the book when we did, because we were observing this
thing happen in culture and in the church, and then
we were seeing people talk about it in various ways.
Now my stories kind of related to this because I
(03:43):
had a really significant faith crisis over ten years ago,
and I thought I had deconstructed because I busted my
worldview down to the studs. I rebuilt. It was difficult agonizing.
It took years, and so I talked about my deconstruction.
But as I watched the deconstruction movement, I started to
realize that's not exactly what happened to me. Because I
(04:03):
was always searching for truth outside of myself objective truth,
and I wanted to line up what I believed with
what was true. But as we were studying deconstruction, we
noticed that's not exactly what's happening. So we do want
to acknowledge that lots of people are using this word
to mean everything, from perhaps questioning a secondary doctrine you
were taught in your particular denomination, all the way to
(04:27):
leaving the faith altogether. And so we were thinking, if
it means everything, it means nothing, So it has to
mean something. So we wanted to define it according to
how it's manifesting in culture and according to its philosophical history,
because this word in this context has a history. So Tim,
if you want to give us the big drum roll definition.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
And the connection to John Cooper that you saw that video.
Speaker 4 (04:50):
Sure, so he was on.
Speaker 5 (04:51):
It was that winter jam, and he's in front of
over fifteen thousand, fifteen thousand.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
Young people outside. This was okay, wouldn't have it in Colorado?
Speaker 4 (05:02):
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 5 (05:03):
And he gets up there and says it's time for
us and your generation to declare war against this idolatrous
Christian deconstruction Christian movement, and he got a thunderous applause.
But in the aftermath, when this video went viral, not
everyone agreed. In fact, this thing was being talked about
by all the Christian news out yet they were saying that, look,
(05:25):
John Cooper is declaring war against people who have doubts
and he has a fundamental misunderstand of what deconstruction is.
And so it occurred to us, man, this word because
it has different meanings. It's people are not being able
to talk to each other. In fact, they're talking past
each other. Someone needs to bring clarity into this conversation.
(05:46):
And so this is this guy, Alisa and I talking about, Okay,
what does this word actually mean?
Speaker 4 (05:54):
That's right.
Speaker 5 (05:55):
And when we started out, we thought, you know what,
maybe you could talk about good deconstruction and bad deconstruction
or healthy deconstruction and unhealthy deconstruction. So we're just adding
adjectives to the word. But the more we research what
the deconstruction movement is all about, we realized there's nothing
healthy about this.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
In fact, it's deconstruction.
Speaker 5 (06:15):
Deconstructions is not a neutral word that you can just
add adjectives to it.
Speaker 4 (06:20):
There's something fundamental to you.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
So for the listener in the viewer right now, what
is the definition?
Speaker 5 (06:24):
Okay, So here's where we landed. And this was the
hardest sentence in the entire.
Speaker 4 (06:28):
Book to write.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
Interesting.
Speaker 5 (06:30):
Deconstruction is a post modern process of rethinking your faith
without requiring scripture as a standard. Now, there's two key
elements in that definition. One is that it's a post
modern process, so it has to do with truth. In fact,
the process isn't truth directed. It's not truth oriented. Something
(06:51):
else is going on. And the second part is that
it's a postmodern process of rethinking your faith without requiring
scripture as a standard. There's authority problem. The Bible Scripture
is not an authority. Something else is the authority. Usually
it's the self. And so truth and authority, those are
two fundamental elements in this process. Deconstruction is not just
(07:15):
a that it's a how, it's a methodology, it's how
people are thinking and rethinking their faith.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
Let me ask you about the movement, because again I
think for some you think of conspiracy theory and you know,
so there was this big conference about how to deconstruct
Christianity and everybody went to it and they walked away
with their marching orders.
Speaker 4 (07:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
What does that mean that there's a movement to deconstruct
the Christian faith?
Speaker 5 (07:42):
Well, I would say without social media, there is no
deconstruction movement.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
Oh okay.
Speaker 5 (07:47):
Social media has brought people together in a way that
it's never happened before. We're unbelievers, people reconsidering their faith,
people wanting to leave their faith, are able to find
these online spaces, online communities. They're finding deconstruction coaches. You
can go to people and pay them.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
And our conferences there really are.
Speaker 3 (08:09):
I was just still shot in the dark.
Speaker 5 (08:10):
No, No, there was Dcon twenty twenty three, Dcon Dcon twenty
twenty three, and if you went to the lineup of speakers,
what you would find is it's a whole bunch of
TikTokers people, not Bible scholars. These are influencers on social
media who have massive accounts. Some of them have half
a million people that follow them, and their entire account
(08:30):
is set up merely to mock, ridicule and challenge Christianity.
Every day they post videos and by the way, Alisa
and I, part of our job, our day job, is
to respond to this nonsense. And so we're online, we're
going to conferences, and we're answering these challenges one by
one because people desperately need answers.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
At leasta, let me ask you the we're toxic flies
through our culture. Toxic masculinity is kind of the buzz
right now, but they also talk about Christianity being toxic.
What's the source of that and what's the fallibility of
that comment?
Speaker 5 (09:08):
Right?
Speaker 2 (09:09):
One of the fundamental things about deconstruction that we discovered
and we kind of touched on this when we talked
about truth, But people in the deconstruction movement are not
necessarily looking for what's true. They're looking for what is,
according to their own internal compass, what feels healthy, what
feels liberating. And so you're going to hear words like
(09:30):
toxic theology, abusive doctrines, and what they mean by that
is things like objective claims like we're all sinners. We
need a savior. Jesus died on the cross for our sins,
Biblical sexuality, these types of things are viewed as toxic beliefs.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
Jesus died for our sins is toxic.
Speaker 5 (09:50):
Yes, yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
So in fact, many people in the deconstruction hashtag, if
you mentioned substitutionary atonement, the idea that Jesus died in
our place or took our punishment upon himself, they say, well,
that turns God into a cosmic child abuser. And now
we're just talking about child sacrifice, and how could you
worship a God that needs a blood sacrifice of his
own son just so you can be reconciled. Yes, so
(10:14):
it is twisted, and so there's a lot of conversation
in that hashtag about abuse. And so because they view
Christian beliefs as toxic, well, and some, by the way,
will still consider themselves to be Christians, but they are
progressive Christians, meaning they've denied all of those core fundamental
doctrines of the Christian faith. But it's the impetus for
(10:36):
them to disconnect from their church and sadly from their
blood families is really strong because it's not and this
is so important for people to understand. If you have
loved ones who are deconstructing, it's not that your loved
one thinks that you're wrong. They think that you're toxic,
they think you're abusive, you're unsafe. So the impetus to
disconnect from you is very strong, and so they find
(10:58):
as to mention these communities on line that will affirm them,
celebrate them, and completely just celebrate this new journey in
their life.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
Yeah, and let me throw this one and either one
of you can jump on this. The tolerance issue in
the culture. You know, we've had other guests on that
have talked about this, how high a value the culture
places on tolerance. So if you come along and say
there is a truth, there's an absolute truth when it
comes to the definition of marriage, human sexuality. WHOA, that's
(11:30):
toxic because you're trying to tell me what truth is
and my truth doesn't match your truth's exactly. I mean,
it's a pretzel of logic. It's hard and the fact
that we have d anchored from absolute truth that scripture
is true is the core problem right.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
In fact, it's funny because you'll even see many posts
in this hashtag that will say things like, oh, your
pastor might be telling you to deconstruct, but deconstruct with
your Bible in your hand, and they just mock that idea,
because the whole idea in the deconstruction movement as we
see it online, which is mainly where it's happening, is
that you have to free yourself from the oppressive mentality
(12:08):
that is this idea of biblical authority. Like, if you
still think the Bible is your authority, then you haven't
really come into your true authentic self. You are just
being handed beliefs. These aren't really your beliefs. So the
virtuous thing to do is to deconstruct the root, you
know whatever, that paradigm of truth is that you were
given by your stream you grew up in, and then
(12:29):
figure out what you think is most healthy for you. Yeah,
and so often that's just jettising the entire Christian worldview, because,
like you mentioned, that's based on objective truth.
Speaker 6 (12:40):
And Lisa, just to dial in a little more practically,
I have a young adult with me who is online,
and it seems like he really is seeking his theology
from these various online profits and speakers. And I don't
have an issue with some of them, But how do
I talk with him about, actually, there is this Bible
thing and this contradicts the Bible.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
How do I ag you on that?
Speaker 2 (13:01):
Well, that's a tough question because a lot of times
you have to do a little diagnosis to figure out
how much truth someone is actually seeking for. Because when
I had my faith crisis over ten years ago, I
remember hearing arguments, and then I'd hear the counter argument,
and then I'd go seek out the counter argument to
the counter argument. And sometimes on one question, it would
be years of even reading scholarly literature to try to
(13:22):
get to the bottom of the answer to the question.
The problem with TikTok theology is you have videos where
somebody takes twenty seconds to deconstruct the Christian worldview. And
typically how that goes is they present a fact that
they assume the Church has kept from you. It's usually
a fact that people have known for a long time,
but they'll present it as if it's new. Now, you
(13:42):
probably never heard this, and the Church doesn't want you
to know this, and here's what you should conclude based
on this information, And so they lead to a skeptical conclusion,
and so that leads the person who's watching the video
to go, wow, truth has been kept from me. The
church doesn't want me to know about this.
Speaker 4 (13:59):
They get distrust, that's right.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
And then when with the attention span of social media,
they're not going to probably do the deeper work of
figuring out what the counter arguments are and the back
and forth of the debate because they're moved on to
the next TikTok video. With the algorithm, more of those
types of videos are going to come into their news
speed and before you know it, they're in an echo
chamber and completely brainwashed.
Speaker 5 (14:19):
So these deconstruction and theologians are planting the seeds of doubt,
the seeds of skepticism in these videos, and at least
to just pointed out, they're using hashtags like hashtag evangelical,
hashtag exvangelical, And if you watch one of these videos,
the way the algorithm works is you're going to end
up seeing a video just like it, and all of
a sudden, that one doubt becomes a whole lot more,
(14:42):
and the students are wondering is any of this true?
And so it's really important that when we have young
people in our homes who have access to social media,
especially we're talking about what are the kind of videos
that you're watching. One of the things I do with
my ministry is called red pen logic with miss be
where we take a red pen to a lot of
(15:02):
the social media nonsense out there. I'm responding directly to
those TikTokers and those Instagram reels. They're you know, one
minute and I'll give me two minutes and I'll respond
to it. And this is really helpful for young people,
especially because they can watch the challenge and see, wow,
feel a waight of it. This is pretty compelling until
you hear the other voice.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
And I think for us as Christians in the culture,
it means we have to know what we believe and
to a degree, and I'm certainly guilty of this too,
we kind of have just kind of slid along here
because the culture generally embraced Christianity up until the last
thirty forty years. Right then, there's been an aggressive attempt
to rid the culture of this toxic faith, et cetera.
(15:46):
At lista, let me let me ask you to paint
a picture. You've mentioned a couple of times your deconstruction
and what you were going through, Like John Cooper with
Skillet you came out of the music industry, Describe what
was going on and what was getting your attention at
the time.
Speaker 4 (16:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
Well, growing up in southern California, I grew up as
a Christian, very devoted Christian my whole life. I read
almost the whole Bible by the time I was twelve
years old. I really loved the Word of God. I
loved Jesus. We did a lot of evangelism in my family,
we did a lot of homeless ministry. Just love the
Lord my whole life. Now, of course I didn't always
live that out perfectly, but I never doubted what I believed,
(16:24):
and so even going into music, none of that changed. Now,
I will admit that touring wore me down. It made
me sort of apathetic. I take full responsibility for this,
but I wasn't really connected to a local church during
my touring years, and touring can make you a bit
cynical and jaded, and so I had some of those
(16:45):
elements going on that I think were setting me up
for this. But when Zoe Girl ended and we came
off the road, my husband and I by this point
we were married, we had our first child, and I
really wanted to make sure that our kids grew up
in church, and so we started attending a couple churches,
but we landed at a church that really seemed like
people were like minded with us. We loved this church.
(17:07):
The pastor had a more intellectual kind of calm approach,
which we both really loved. But after attending there for
about eight months, the pastor invited me to be a
part of a smaller study and discussion group and he said,
this is going to be like going to seminary. And
I was really excited because I always knew what I believed,
but I wouldn't have been able to defend it intellectually.
And so, long story short, over the course of about
(17:29):
four months, this pastor, basically who I learned later had
fully deconstructed by this point, was deconstructing the members of
his church in these private classes and in private meetings,
and I lasted about four months. We left the church.
I left that class, but when that happened, I was
really isolated and I didn't have because I would try
(17:50):
to debate with him in the class, and I didn't
have anybody to debate with anymore. And it really brought
me to the edge of agnosticism, where he had persuaded
me intellectually that the Bible was corrupted, that I didn't
have an accurate copy of God's word, that they didn't
even have historical accuracy in what they wrote, And this
led me to the cliff of does God even exist
(18:13):
at all? But I knew. I knew that I was
a sinner, and I knew that if Jesus hadn't died
on the cross for my sins, I was doomed. And
so I cried out to the Lord one night and
I just said, God, if you're real, if everything I've
believed about you my whole life is true, I need
you to show up. But I didn't need him to
show up with an experience. I had a lot of experience.
(18:34):
I needed information, and God was so faithful to lead
me to study all sorts of different things like church history,
biblical scholarship, philosophy, anything I could get even yes, yes,
and just to piece together my worldview. And so I
built back up from the ground up and concluded at
the end of that process that the historic Christian worldview
(18:56):
is true, that Jesus is who he said he is,
the Bible is reliable, and that he did die for
my sins and I can put my trust in him
and be saved. And so that was what I thought
was deconstruction. But when I realized after studying deconstruction, that's
not typically what happens. People aren't searching for what's true.
They're not going to read the biblical scholarship on both sides.
(19:18):
They're watching TikTok and they're thinking, oh, maybe the church
has been keeping this for me, so maybe it's all
you know, it's all just not true. But it's so
often I think based on morality. They don't like biblical morality.
Speaker 3 (19:31):
Right, And I would add the word they're watching tik
talk and believing what they're they're not questioning, and they're
not questioning it. Let me ask you, guys, but why
why is that pastor what is the motivation? Really? What
benefit do they see other than feeling good that we
can embrace a sinful lifestyle and not really object to
(19:53):
it and not give people a light about the destructive
nature of that in God's plan for marriage, for family
and etc. I mean, what studying it the way you
too have what's at the core of the assault? I
mean it sounds satanic if I could say it that way.
(20:13):
It's spiritual warfare.
Speaker 4 (20:15):
Absolutely. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this touly so.
Speaker 5 (20:18):
But there's like an evangelistic zeal that they don't lose.
These evangelical pastors end up deconstructing, but they don't lose
that zeal. And so there's something about them that wants
to bring people along with them.
Speaker 4 (20:33):
They want to follow.
Speaker 5 (20:34):
And so I mean there's lots of warnings in scripture
about this kind of thing. I mean you read Two
Timothy and there's warning after warring after warning about making
shipwreck of your faith and following after Satan and these
kinds of things. And so we as Christians need to
be on guard and have a solid foundation. I mean,
(20:56):
thank God, Alisa, you were able to come back and
build that foundation from the ground up that is so
necessary to protect yourself from these deconstruction evangelis.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
Like you were constructing, I mean that's what you're describing.
You had questions about your faith, you were challenging your faith,
and you went to find truth and construct your faith.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
Yes, And you know, I think when I really look
back on it, even though my doubt was primarily intellectual,
what really kept me going And I don't quite know
how to word this, but it was the faith of
my parents.
Speaker 5 (21:30):
I knew.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
I knew that what my parents had was real. I
knew that all those times we prayed together as a
family and studied the Bible as a family, I knew
they had something real. I knew they weren't perfect, but
they modeled repentance. They modeled what it's like to love
other people, to love God with your whole heart, with everything,
and I wasn't willing to let go of that so easily.
(21:51):
So to answer your question of the why, I truly
believe that so many people, because there are a lot
of people that have these very similar crises that remain Christian.
I truly believe that what we're seeing happen with a
lot of people who deconstruct and get rid of these
beliefs is they've never really tasted that the Lord is good,
as it says in first year. They haven't tasted the
(22:12):
beauty of the Christian worldview. And so when I mean
I understand what it would feel like to cast off
moral restraint and do what you want, there's a certain
sense of freedom from that sort of thing that people
are celebrating in that hashtag. But I truly believe the
reason they're so evangelistic is because they haven't tasted that
the Lord is good, and they truly deeply believe that
(22:34):
Christianity is abusive and oppressive, and they've bought into that
narrative and they want to free other people just like
they perceive themselves to be free.
Speaker 6 (22:44):
Hey, allow me to interrupt for just a moment here
to say how much we appreciate you watching now. If
you find value in this content, subscribe by clicking below.
It'll be a big help to us. Let's go ahead
and return to the show.
Speaker 3 (22:56):
It's so critical that we, as the Christian community one
stay on the bedrock of truth. Don't get moved off
that place, because it's like that portrait of the wolf
when the one I looking around the tree. This is
exactly where the enemy of our soul wants to get
us in big time. Doubt, not believing in the scripture,
(23:18):
questioning it, And maybe that's the place to kick this off.
Questions are okay, I mean you have to ask yourself, okay,
do I really believe this? But speak to that component
of being okay to ask questions.
Speaker 5 (23:32):
Yeah, we think questions are great in fact, as we
travel around teaching and speaking, it's important that we question
what we believe. We should know not just what we believe,
but why we believe it. And parents out there, I
want to strongly encourage you to be giving that why
for your faith, because if you can't give a why
(23:52):
for your faith, you'll never be able to give a
why not to your doubts. I'll just speak from experience.
You know, growing up, my parents kind of gave me
my belief in God like they gave me my birthday presents.
You know, here you go, and I just accepted it. Okay,
God is real. When I was in university though, studying
physics secul University, and my friends who weren't Christians started
(24:14):
challenging me, I didn't know what to say. I needed
I needed that why. I needed to find the the answers.
And so it's it's really important that there are gonna
there are gonna be beliefs that our students are going
to receive that are good and.
Speaker 4 (24:30):
True from us.
Speaker 5 (24:32):
But there are also beliefs that we get from our parents,
if we think about it, that aren't true. Like, for example,
my mom told me that if I cracked my knuckles, then.
Speaker 4 (24:40):
I'll get our right.
Speaker 5 (24:41):
You had to go to that one, or if I, like,
if I swallow my gum, then it would stay in
my stomach for how long?
Speaker 3 (24:47):
Seven years?
Speaker 4 (24:48):
How long does everyone know that?
Speaker 3 (24:49):
Right?
Speaker 4 (24:50):
Seven years? Well, that's not true. It will come out
with everything else.
Speaker 5 (24:55):
So we get some beliefs from our parents or from
sources that are good and true and some that aren't
good and true. And it's really important as we mature,
especially into adulthood, that we know how to adjudicate between
those two things.
Speaker 3 (25:10):
Yeah, let me move to that I think parenting component
of this. Tim, You sharing the book about a young
man named Adam. What does his story illustrate about the
challenges our young people are facing?
Speaker 4 (25:23):
Todd?
Speaker 5 (25:24):
This shows the pressure that many of our young people
are under to capitulate and to maybe deconstruct their Christian beliefs.
So a friend of mine from church, he came to
me and said, my thirteen year old son, Adam is
really struggling with his faith. Do you mind going out
for coffee with them and maybe having a conversation. So
(25:44):
he went out for coffee. After some small talk, he
just got right to it. He said, Tim, I lost
all my friends at school, and he started to recount
what happened. Well, his best friend of five years came
out of the closet said that he's gay, and he
knew that Adam was a Christian, so he asked Adam,
what do you think of all this? And Adam did
his best, I mean, as any fourteen year old can
(26:07):
to communicate the truth of the biblical view of sexuality
with grace truth trying to balance that. Well, this entire
discussion took place over text messaging, which is not the
best place to have a conversation like this, but this
is how a lot of our young people communicate. And
the young man who came out of the closet took
screenshots of the entire conversation shared it with their school,
(26:33):
and now he's.
Speaker 4 (26:33):
Being called homophobic.
Speaker 5 (26:35):
No one will talk to him. And he said, Tim,
I've been watching these TikTokers and they're saying that actually,
this whole view of sexuality and gender that I learned
at church, it's a mistake, it's wrong. So he'd been
listening to some of the deconstructions. He said, if I
believe them, I might get my friends back. So we
(26:56):
end up walking through some of those videos. I gave
some responses to those, so he needed answers. That was
part of it. But the second thing we talked about was,
you know, Adam, you have to make a decision here.
There's going to be times where you're going to be
at the crossroads where you can either be faithful to
God or you can be faithful to the world. You
can follow the world and where they're going, or you
(27:17):
can follow God and praise the Lord. Adam a couple
of years later, faith strengthened and actually was baptized.
Speaker 4 (27:25):
I got to watch him get baptized.
Speaker 5 (27:26):
So just an amazing story there where Adam was a
good candidate for deconstruction, he was right there. He could
have easily been taken in by all these influencers, these deconstructionists,
but instead he remained faithful to God.
Speaker 3 (27:41):
You know, Tim and I love that story. But Dad
called you, yeah, and say can you meet with my son?
What about those you know, thousands of families that don't
have that, Tim, Yeah, that dad or mom could call
and say, hey, Tim, could you So I think the
question is this, how do we how do we augment
that if we're in a crisis with our teen, which
(28:04):
is kind of typical. And I want to put it
together with this question because you know, even for us,
it's well, scripture is good, it's poetry, it's metaphor, it's
all these things. But your teen and twenty something could say,
but do you really believe that it was totally inspired
by God? That every word there is truth? And you know,
(28:28):
just maybe we start there and then talk about if
you don't have it, what you need other than the book,
get a copy of the book, but we could also
give your cell phone number.
Speaker 5 (28:36):
Yeah, well, let's not get well, I'll be honest, I'll
be honest. We get every event we go to, a
parent will come up yes and say, I just I
wish my son or daughter was here to hear this,
or I wish you could sit.
Speaker 4 (28:50):
Down with them and have coffee.
Speaker 5 (28:52):
And here's the thing. In one sense, you can bring
us into your home. That's we talked about this last
time with red pen Logic. I'm responding to some of
those challenges that are out there. So you can literally
play the deconstructionist and then hear my response at the
dinner table. Here's what we do with my girls. So
(29:13):
I got three girls, thirteen, eleven, and eight and I
will come to the table and say, girls, let's pretend
like dad's an atheist. Okay, he no longer believes in God.
Speaker 4 (29:23):
So I'm kind of role playing what a TikToker might do.
Speaker 5 (29:25):
You know, my girls aren't on TikTok and they're on Instagram,
they're on social media. But I'm going to kind of
role play. So how would you respond? Would you guys
still be Christians if Daddy wasn't a Christian? And it's like, well,
and so there are struggles, Okay, Well the Bible says
God's real, so God must be Okay, well what if
dad doesn't believe the Bible? And you could see them
like a wrestling and well, you know, a building needs
(29:48):
a builder, So a creation needs a creator.
Speaker 4 (29:50):
That's what my daughter said. I was so proud of her,
you know. And it's like, here is.
Speaker 5 (29:53):
Them like really thinking through this for themselves at such
a young age. And so that might be approach that
you could take.
Speaker 3 (30:01):
And I think one of the key parenting techniques here
that we need to understand as Christians, committed Christians is
don't act shocked or don't react with or emotion, Like,
how could you say that that's exactly what the other
side sort of speak is saying. That's righte So we
need to absorb that. Well, that's a good question.
Speaker 5 (30:18):
Yea.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
I would love to add to that too, because I
think a lot of parents listening to us might be thinking, but, yeah,
but you guys know all this stuff. You've studied this,
I haven't done that. I don't know how to tell
my kids these truths. Well, here's the thing. You don't
have to be an apologist. You don't have to be
a scholar or a professional philosopher. You just have to
be curious enough to let your kids know that it's
a safe place for them to answer the question. So
(30:40):
I always tell parents the one thing you can do
is ask your kids what's your biggest question about God?
And then prepare yourself that you're not going to act shocked,
you're not going to gasp, You're going to just take
a deep breath, and then compliment your child for having
such an insightful question. And if you don't know the answer,
you're going to make them feel so good about themselves
and you're like, Wow, I've never thought of that question,
(31:02):
and then be willing to go on that journey with
them and that promotes just an atmosphere of you learning together.
You don't have to know everything to be able to
start that conversation.
Speaker 3 (31:12):
That's so good to remember to say I don't know, yeah,
let's go investigate it. You know, just trying to think
of the folks listening and what they've gone through. They
might feel like they've got family members that they have
not really talked effectively with and they feel guilty about that.
You know, maybe a sibling of mom and dad who
have gone through this and they're no longer claiming to
(31:33):
be Christian and they've become enlightened in all those things.
They're free from the toxic Christianity. As we have talked about,
what can we do with that? I think Heather was
an example that you used in the book. Describe that
situation with Heather.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
So Heather's not her real name, I just want to
say for people listening, but Heather was a woman that
I was friends with that we went to church together.
We had a very similar ex experience of spiritual abuse
in this church. And this was even after my faith
crisis and all of that. But Heather began to deconstruct
and she started to ask me questions and This was
after I had been studying apologetics, and she asked me
(32:13):
questions about biblical reliability, and she kept asking the same question.
I would give her resources, I would give her my
best answer, and then she would just sort of reword
the question and keep asking it. So finally it occurred
to me, I don't think she likes the answer. That
was kind of the thing that came to me. And
then I finally asked her what's underneath this question? And
she said, well, if this pastor that was abusive used
(32:33):
scripture to abuse us, how do I know that the
men who wrote the New Testament didn't just write it
to oppress women and to make people kind of come into.
Speaker 5 (32:43):
The fold like that?
Speaker 2 (32:44):
And I thought that was really getting to the heart
of her question, and I did my best to answer
her questions. But I do remember going to dinner once,
and I tell this story in the book, where she
was crying a lot. It was very emotional experience, and
so she was bringing up all of these claims about
the Bible and about Christianity, and I just felt in
that moment that it wasn't the right time to correct
(33:05):
her and bring out my best apologetics because I wanted
to cry with those who cry.
Speaker 4 (33:09):
She was in a lot of pain.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
But what happened is when we walked back out to
the car, she kind of blurted out, well, if you
would have had any answers, I'd have taken them. And
I just my heart sank because I thought, here, I
am an apologist and I couldn't even give her answers
for her questions. And it really bothered me for a
long time after that. But after I really thought about it,
I thought, you know, her deconstruction.
Speaker 4 (33:31):
Is not on me.
Speaker 2 (33:34):
I made the best wise decision I could in that
moment to not overwhelm her with counters to everything she
was saying because she was in a lot of pain.
And ultimately, I think that's the one thing that I
would say to people if you have a loved one
in deconstruction. I'm sure there are parents who are watching
us who have responded in shock and fear, and now
they're feeling very guilty.
Speaker 5 (33:53):
And they're like, what do I do?
Speaker 2 (33:54):
But even so, your loved one's deconstruction is not on you.
You are not that powerful, you are not the Holy Spirit.
You can do what you can to influence them for good,
but the best thing you can do if you've had
an outburst or something like that is just go back
and repent to them, tell them you were wrong. Model
what Christian humility looks like in that it is right.
(34:15):
And you know that doesn't guarantee any outcome, but I
think that the most important thing we can do is
do what we can live the beauty of the Gospel
in front of them. That's what my parents did for me.
That's what got me through so many dark moments, was
knowing what they had was real. And I think that's
probably a good for it and.
Speaker 3 (34:32):
In the end, that's really what kept you tethered. That's
true the faith, even though you were on a thin rope.
If you want to use that, that's imagination. Tim you
speak about staying with Saturday or yeah, you know living
in Saturday to speak to that, because I think it's
early apropos right here.
Speaker 5 (34:48):
Well, I was actually preparing a sermon and called a
Lisa and said, look, I want to end with some hope.
You know, there's a lot of stuff we've covered in
these interviews and man, it can seem like this has overwhelming,
it seems hopeless. And we started to brainstorm. We thought,
let's talk about the resurrection Sunday. There's a lot of
hope there. Well, if you think about Easter weekend, on
(35:10):
Friday night, right, Jesus is abandoned by all of his followers, right,
and that Friday night you have Peter, and he's now
denied the Lord three times. Of course we all know Friday.
But Sunday, well, Sunday brought resurrection hope Again.
Speaker 4 (35:27):
We read in the.
Speaker 5 (35:28):
Gospels that the Angel says, go and tell the disciples
and Peter, like, Peter really needs to hear this, right,
He's going through something.
Speaker 4 (35:36):
What happens on this Saturday?
Speaker 5 (35:38):
You know, we're just not told, so we can only speculate,
but you can imagine, like what was going through Peter's mind?
Did he have like unanswered questions? Probably did he start
to question some of Jesus' teachings and maybe his identity, Like,
after all, the Messiah wasn't supposed to dine in across
was he did he start to question some of the
miracles that he saw, maybe tried to explain them with
(35:59):
some naturalistic We just don't know he was living in
a Saturday. Well, we do know one thing, and that
is that the day after Saturday, came Sunday and with
it brought this hope and Peter his faith was restored,
it was strengthened. And I think there's a whole lot
of people out there who have loved ones who are
(36:20):
living in a Saturday and it's not just twenty four
hours like their Saturday might be months, it may be years.
And what we can take from this account is, look,
if it can happen for Peter, if he can have
that Sunday experience, then maybe it can happen for our
loved ones too. And so we want to encourage those
(36:40):
out there who maybe in a situation that feels impossible,
feels hopeless, just be encouraged that we serve a God
who raised Jesus from the dead and as a result
has spurred on Look at I mean Peter's faith. We
read about his words and the vibe. I mean, there's
something that God was able to do with Peter's life,
(37:02):
even though he denied the Lord three times and went
through this process. Maybe you could even describe it as
a deconstruction. And so I think there's hope for our
loved ones too.
Speaker 3 (37:12):
Your grandfather, yeah, right to the end.
Speaker 5 (37:15):
Yeah, And this is just a classic example, here where
on March first, twenty eighteen, I got a phone call
never forget. My mom says, your grandpa's kidneys are not
working properly and we don't know how much time he's
got left. So we grabbed our kids, picked them up
from school, and we took them straight to the hospital.
(37:36):
Got there, went up the elevator, I still remember, and
there's all like thirty of my family members in the
lobby there in the hallway, and I'm thinking, why are
they in the room. While we started asking questions and
they were actually doing some tests on my grandpa said
it would be like two hours. So because it was
so close to dinner at this point, we ended up
taking my girls home. I was flying out the next
(37:58):
morning to go speak at an event, and so I
had to see my grandpa.
Speaker 4 (38:03):
I didn't know if this would be the last time.
Speaker 5 (38:04):
So I got in the car, went back to the hospital,
and when I got back, went up the elevator. Okay,
there's nobody my family's gone. Okay, maybe they're in the room.
So we go talk to the nurse. The nurse says, actually,
one of the tests we discovered that your grandpa has
tuberculosis and no one's allowed to go in and see him.
Speaker 4 (38:23):
Your family all went for dinner.
Speaker 5 (38:26):
I wasn't going to take that answer from them. I said,
I'm going to talk to my grandpa. And so they said, well,
here's what we can do. We'll put a hazmat suit
on you. Essentially, this is before COVID. This is like
mask the whole gown, everything went in there. And this,
just to back up, was an answer to prayer, because
that morning, when I hung up the phone, I prayed, God,
(38:49):
give me one last opportunity to share the gospel with
my grandpa. And I knew that wasn't going to be
easy because I knew my family would all be there
and most of them on that side of the family
are not believers. Well here's you know, Tim, He's going
to get up and he's in front of everyone.
Speaker 4 (39:03):
He's going to preach the gospel.
Speaker 5 (39:05):
And sure enough, there I am in a room with
just my grandpa.
Speaker 4 (39:09):
Actually, my sister was with me.
Speaker 5 (39:10):
I picked her up as well, just the three of us,
and because of this tuberculosis thing, they weren't letting anyone
else in.
Speaker 4 (39:17):
So for an hour and a.
Speaker 5 (39:18):
Half we shared some memories and then I said, Grandpa
where are you going to spend eternity?
Speaker 4 (39:23):
And we walked through.
Speaker 5 (39:24):
And here's a man who was hard against the.
Speaker 4 (39:28):
Gospel his whole life.
Speaker 5 (39:30):
He wanted nothing to do with Jesus. In fact, it
was like, that's why we didn't bring it up anymore.
We thought this was a hopeless situation. It just wasn't
going to happen for him. Well, I present the Gospel
and Grandpa is like, I want that.
Speaker 4 (39:44):
I want that. You'd be surprised a man.
Speaker 5 (39:47):
Who knows he has few days left is willing to
take a lifeline and he wanted to receive Christ for
the forgiveness of his sins. While we left that room rejoicing,
And that next morning I was on a plane heading
for Dallas. Actually before it took off, I got a
text from my mom and said, your grandpa passed away
in the night, and so praise the Lord. The takeaway
(40:11):
of this story is that God is able to work
in impossible what seems like impossible situations. That's where he
does his best work. And your situation may seem hopeless.
This one certainly seemed hopeless to us, and in his
final hours before meeting Jesus, he received Christ just amazing.
Speaker 3 (40:32):
Well, I mean that's the place to end, and we're
so appreciative. I mean, that's a great story about doing
what you can do. We've talked about being prepared to
be in conversations to help address these questions for your family,
for your children, for those around you. This is the
Christian witness, right, this is a part of it. So
(40:53):
don't be lazy and understand what it is that's going
on in the culture so you can address these issues
to the best of your ability, and then you know,
contact us, let us help you be equipped for that discussion.
This book is a great place to start the deconstruction
of Christianity, what it is, why it's destructive, and how
to respond. I don't know why you wouldn't want this book.
(41:17):
And if you can just get a hold of us,
make a gift of any amount, if you could do
that monthly, that's great. Be in ministry with us. Man.
We are we are making a difference in the culture.
Help us to do that. In addition to that, get
a great resource from us and John we'll give you
the details on how to do that.
Speaker 6 (41:34):
Yeah, donate today when you call eight hundred two three, two, six, four, five,
nine eight hundred, the letter A and the word family.
We're stopped by the program description below. We've got all
the details there To donate and to get a copy
of this great book, The Deconstruction of Christianity, at.
Speaker 3 (41:50):
Least send him. Thanks again for being with us. Thank
you for writing the book and all the effort it
took to do that, and all the great experiences that
God has given in. It's just it's refreshing to have
this discussion with you. Thanks, thank you.
Speaker 6 (42:01):
Thanks for having me and on behalf of the team.
Thank you for joining us today for focus on the
family with Jim Daily. I'm John Fuller inviting you back
next time as we once again help you and your
family thrive in Christ.
Speaker 3 (42:24):
You will be like God, human unity.
Speaker 5 (42:28):
God was severed and through it all God's promise remain true.
Speaker 1 (42:34):
Follow me, April, and I will.
Speaker 5 (42:38):
Make you a great This is the Chosen People.
Speaker 4 (42:45):
Listen to the Chosen People at the Chosen.
Speaker 5 (42:48):
People dot com.
Speaker 2 (42:50):
That's the Chosen People dot com.
But the meek shall inherit the earth and shall delight
themselves in the abundance of peace, Psalm thirty seven eleven.
Dear God, some days seem like a constant struggle. I
find myself mentally drained and desperately digging for energy to
get through the day. I feel overwhelmed by how much
(00:22):
I need to get done in such a short amount
of time. Father, Help me to stay strong and not
succumb to weakness when challenges arise. Help me to remain
steadfast in my faith. When my mind becomes weary and
fatigued from overthinking, Allow my unwavering faith in You to
give me the energy to overcome any obstacle. Amen, thank
(00:49):
you for listening to to day's daily prayer for more
inspiration and an incredible message from our feature pastor stay
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Speaker 2 (01:11):
I truly believe that what we're seeing happen with a
lot of people who deconstruct and get rid of these
beliefs is they've never really tasted that the Lord is good,
as it says in first year. They haven't tasted the
beauty of the Christian worldview.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
At leasta and Tim Welcome to the program. Good to
have you. It's great to be here, both first timers. Yes, yes,
well we should have had you here a long time ago,
but it's great to talk with you about this really
important topic. The deconstruction of Christianity is so timely, and
the culture seems to be writhing in this. In fact,
people in Europe that I've talked to. We have a
(01:50):
film coming out later this year called Truth Rising, and
we interviewed a lot of the both non Christian and
Christian academics from Europe, North America, America. It's going to
be a great film, and I'm probably tipping our hand
to that right now. But in there, I would say
a core component of it is how to manage a
(02:11):
culture that is jettising the Judeo Christian value system, a
deconstruction of what Western civilization has been built upon, right,
And I'm really interested. There are atheists that have become
Christians in this film more recently, and even atheists who
have said the Judeo Christian value system is the best
social structure because it delivers the highest quality of human being.
(02:36):
These are atheists and they're saying we have to be
really smart about that component before it's jettison. Isn't that amazing?
Speaker 2 (02:44):
Yeah, it's fascinating.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
So when you get to the definition of deconstruction, I
think in the book you mentioned John Cooper who's with Skillet,
which is a band, and I mean, the guy is
tatted up. I've seen him on the I Am Second website.
If you haven't gone to that, go check it out.
Really testimonies of people sitting in a chair just telling
you what they experienced about God. And he's one of
(03:06):
those powerful testimonies. And he referred to the fact that
we need to declare war on this deconstruction. So give
it to me. What is that top line about deconstruction
of Christianity.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Yeah, deconstruction is a very loaded term. In fact, if
you ask, we always joke, if you ask ten people
what deconstruction means, you're going to get eleven different definitions.
And that's one of the reasons we wanted to write
the book when we did, because we were observing this
thing happen in culture and in the church, and then
we were seeing people talk about it in various ways.
Now my stories kind of related to this because I
(03:43):
had a really significant faith crisis over ten years ago,
and I thought I had deconstructed because I busted my
worldview down to the studs. I rebuilt. It was difficult agonizing.
It took years, and so I talked about my deconstruction.
But as I watched the deconstruction movement, I started to
realize that's not exactly what happened to me. Because I
(04:03):
was always searching for truth outside of myself objective truth,
and I wanted to line up what I believed with
what was true. But as we were studying deconstruction, we
noticed that's not exactly what's happening. So we do want
to acknowledge that lots of people are using this word
to mean everything, from perhaps questioning a secondary doctrine you
were taught in your particular denomination, all the way to
(04:27):
leaving the faith altogether. And so we were thinking, if
it means everything, it means nothing, So it has to
mean something. So we wanted to define it according to
how it's manifesting in culture and according to its philosophical history,
because this word in this context has a history. So Tim,
if you want to give us the big drum roll definition.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
And the connection to John Cooper that you saw that video.
Speaker 4 (04:50):
Sure, so he was on.
Speaker 5 (04:51):
It was that winter jam, and he's in front of
over fifteen thousand, fifteen thousand.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
Young people outside. This was okay, wouldn't have it in Colorado?
Speaker 4 (05:02):
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 5 (05:03):
And he gets up there and says it's time for
us and your generation to declare war against this idolatrous
Christian deconstruction Christian movement, and he got a thunderous applause.
But in the aftermath, when this video went viral, not
everyone agreed. In fact, this thing was being talked about
by all the Christian news out yet they were saying that, look,
(05:25):
John Cooper is declaring war against people who have doubts
and he has a fundamental misunderstand of what deconstruction is.
And so it occurred to us, man, this word because
it has different meanings. It's people are not being able
to talk to each other. In fact, they're talking past
each other. Someone needs to bring clarity into this conversation.
(05:46):
And so this is this guy, Alisa and I talking about, Okay,
what does this word actually mean?
Speaker 4 (05:54):
That's right.
Speaker 5 (05:55):
And when we started out, we thought, you know what,
maybe you could talk about good deconstruction and bad deconstruction
or healthy deconstruction and unhealthy deconstruction. So we're just adding
adjectives to the word. But the more we research what
the deconstruction movement is all about, we realized there's nothing
healthy about this.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
In fact, it's deconstruction.
Speaker 5 (06:15):
Deconstructions is not a neutral word that you can just
add adjectives to it.
Speaker 4 (06:20):
There's something fundamental to you.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
So for the listener in the viewer right now, what
is the definition?
Speaker 5 (06:24):
Okay, So here's where we landed. And this was the
hardest sentence in the entire.
Speaker 4 (06:28):
Book to write.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
Interesting.
Speaker 5 (06:30):
Deconstruction is a post modern process of rethinking your faith
without requiring scripture as a standard. Now, there's two key
elements in that definition. One is that it's a post
modern process, so it has to do with truth. In fact,
the process isn't truth directed. It's not truth oriented. Something
(06:51):
else is going on. And the second part is that
it's a postmodern process of rethinking your faith without requiring
scripture as a standard. There's authority problem. The Bible Scripture
is not an authority. Something else is the authority. Usually
it's the self. And so truth and authority, those are
two fundamental elements in this process. Deconstruction is not just
(07:15):
a that it's a how, it's a methodology, it's how
people are thinking and rethinking their faith.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
Let me ask you about the movement, because again I
think for some you think of conspiracy theory and you know,
so there was this big conference about how to deconstruct
Christianity and everybody went to it and they walked away
with their marching orders.
Speaker 4 (07:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
What does that mean that there's a movement to deconstruct
the Christian faith?
Speaker 5 (07:42):
Well, I would say without social media, there is no
deconstruction movement.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
Oh okay.
Speaker 5 (07:47):
Social media has brought people together in a way that
it's never happened before. We're unbelievers, people reconsidering their faith,
people wanting to leave their faith, are able to find
these online spaces, online communities. They're finding deconstruction coaches. You
can go to people and pay them.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
And our conferences there really are.
Speaker 3 (08:09):
I was just still shot in the dark.
Speaker 5 (08:10):
No, No, there was Dcon twenty twenty three, Dcon Dcon twenty
twenty three, and if you went to the lineup of speakers,
what you would find is it's a whole bunch of
TikTokers people, not Bible scholars. These are influencers on social
media who have massive accounts. Some of them have half
a million people that follow them, and their entire account
(08:30):
is set up merely to mock, ridicule and challenge Christianity.
Every day they post videos and by the way, Alisa
and I, part of our job, our day job, is
to respond to this nonsense. And so we're online, we're
going to conferences, and we're answering these challenges one by
one because people desperately need answers.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
At leasta, let me ask you the we're toxic flies
through our culture. Toxic masculinity is kind of the buzz
right now, but they also talk about Christianity being toxic.
What's the source of that and what's the fallibility of
that comment?
Speaker 5 (09:08):
Right?
Speaker 2 (09:09):
One of the fundamental things about deconstruction that we discovered
and we kind of touched on this when we talked
about truth, But people in the deconstruction movement are not
necessarily looking for what's true. They're looking for what is,
according to their own internal compass, what feels healthy, what
feels liberating. And so you're going to hear words like
(09:30):
toxic theology, abusive doctrines, and what they mean by that
is things like objective claims like we're all sinners. We
need a savior. Jesus died on the cross for our sins,
Biblical sexuality, these types of things are viewed as toxic beliefs.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
Jesus died for our sins is toxic.
Speaker 5 (09:50):
Yes, yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
So in fact, many people in the deconstruction hashtag, if
you mentioned substitutionary atonement, the idea that Jesus died in
our place or took our punishment upon himself, they say, well,
that turns God into a cosmic child abuser. And now
we're just talking about child sacrifice, and how could you
worship a God that needs a blood sacrifice of his
own son just so you can be reconciled. Yes, so
(10:14):
it is twisted, and so there's a lot of conversation
in that hashtag about abuse. And so because they view
Christian beliefs as toxic, well, and some, by the way,
will still consider themselves to be Christians, but they are
progressive Christians, meaning they've denied all of those core fundamental
doctrines of the Christian faith. But it's the impetus for
(10:36):
them to disconnect from their church and sadly from their
blood families is really strong because it's not and this
is so important for people to understand. If you have
loved ones who are deconstructing, it's not that your loved
one thinks that you're wrong. They think that you're toxic,
they think you're abusive, you're unsafe. So the impetus to
disconnect from you is very strong, and so they find
(10:58):
as to mention these communities on line that will affirm them,
celebrate them, and completely just celebrate this new journey in
their life.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
Yeah, and let me throw this one and either one
of you can jump on this. The tolerance issue in
the culture. You know, we've had other guests on that
have talked about this, how high a value the culture
places on tolerance. So if you come along and say
there is a truth, there's an absolute truth when it
comes to the definition of marriage, human sexuality. WHOA, that's
(11:30):
toxic because you're trying to tell me what truth is
and my truth doesn't match your truth's exactly. I mean,
it's a pretzel of logic. It's hard and the fact
that we have d anchored from absolute truth that scripture
is true is the core problem right.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
In fact, it's funny because you'll even see many posts
in this hashtag that will say things like, oh, your
pastor might be telling you to deconstruct, but deconstruct with
your Bible in your hand, and they just mock that idea,
because the whole idea in the deconstruction movement as we
see it online, which is mainly where it's happening, is
that you have to free yourself from the oppressive mentality
(12:08):
that is this idea of biblical authority. Like, if you
still think the Bible is your authority, then you haven't
really come into your true authentic self. You are just
being handed beliefs. These aren't really your beliefs. So the
virtuous thing to do is to deconstruct the root, you
know whatever, that paradigm of truth is that you were
given by your stream you grew up in, and then
(12:29):
figure out what you think is most healthy for you. Yeah,
and so often that's just jettising the entire Christian worldview, because,
like you mentioned, that's based on objective truth.
Speaker 6 (12:40):
And Lisa, just to dial in a little more practically,
I have a young adult with me who is online,
and it seems like he really is seeking his theology
from these various online profits and speakers. And I don't
have an issue with some of them, But how do
I talk with him about, actually, there is this Bible
thing and this contradicts the Bible.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
How do I ag you on that?
Speaker 2 (13:01):
Well, that's a tough question because a lot of times
you have to do a little diagnosis to figure out
how much truth someone is actually seeking for. Because when
I had my faith crisis over ten years ago, I
remember hearing arguments, and then I'd hear the counter argument,
and then I'd go seek out the counter argument to
the counter argument. And sometimes on one question, it would
be years of even reading scholarly literature to try to
(13:22):
get to the bottom of the answer to the question.
The problem with TikTok theology is you have videos where
somebody takes twenty seconds to deconstruct the Christian worldview. And
typically how that goes is they present a fact that
they assume the Church has kept from you. It's usually
a fact that people have known for a long time,
but they'll present it as if it's new. Now, you
(13:42):
probably never heard this, and the Church doesn't want you
to know this, and here's what you should conclude based
on this information, And so they lead to a skeptical conclusion,
and so that leads the person who's watching the video
to go, wow, truth has been kept from me. The
church doesn't want me to know about this.
Speaker 4 (13:59):
They get distrust, that's right.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
And then when with the attention span of social media,
they're not going to probably do the deeper work of
figuring out what the counter arguments are and the back
and forth of the debate because they're moved on to
the next TikTok video. With the algorithm, more of those
types of videos are going to come into their news
speed and before you know it, they're in an echo
chamber and completely brainwashed.
Speaker 5 (14:19):
So these deconstruction and theologians are planting the seeds of doubt,
the seeds of skepticism in these videos, and at least
to just pointed out, they're using hashtags like hashtag evangelical,
hashtag exvangelical, And if you watch one of these videos,
the way the algorithm works is you're going to end
up seeing a video just like it, and all of
a sudden, that one doubt becomes a whole lot more,
(14:42):
and the students are wondering is any of this true?
And so it's really important that when we have young
people in our homes who have access to social media,
especially we're talking about what are the kind of videos
that you're watching. One of the things I do with
my ministry is called red pen logic with miss be
where we take a red pen to a lot of
(15:02):
the social media nonsense out there. I'm responding directly to
those TikTokers and those Instagram reels. They're you know, one
minute and I'll give me two minutes and I'll respond
to it. And this is really helpful for young people,
especially because they can watch the challenge and see, wow,
feel a waight of it. This is pretty compelling until
you hear the other voice.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
And I think for us as Christians in the culture,
it means we have to know what we believe and
to a degree, and I'm certainly guilty of this too,
we kind of have just kind of slid along here
because the culture generally embraced Christianity up until the last
thirty forty years. Right then, there's been an aggressive attempt
to rid the culture of this toxic faith, et cetera.
(15:46):
At lista, let me let me ask you to paint
a picture. You've mentioned a couple of times your deconstruction
and what you were going through, Like John Cooper with
Skillet you came out of the music industry, Describe what
was going on and what was getting your attention at
the time.
Speaker 4 (16:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
Well, growing up in southern California, I grew up as
a Christian, very devoted Christian my whole life. I read
almost the whole Bible by the time I was twelve
years old. I really loved the Word of God. I
loved Jesus. We did a lot of evangelism in my family,
we did a lot of homeless ministry. Just love the
Lord my whole life. Now, of course I didn't always
live that out perfectly, but I never doubted what I believed,
(16:24):
and so even going into music, none of that changed. Now,
I will admit that touring wore me down. It made
me sort of apathetic. I take full responsibility for this,
but I wasn't really connected to a local church during
my touring years, and touring can make you a bit
cynical and jaded, and so I had some of those
(16:45):
elements going on that I think were setting me up
for this. But when Zoe Girl ended and we came
off the road, my husband and I by this point
we were married, we had our first child, and I
really wanted to make sure that our kids grew up
in church, and so we started attending a couple churches,
but we landed at a church that really seemed like
people were like minded with us. We loved this church.
(17:07):
The pastor had a more intellectual kind of calm approach,
which we both really loved. But after attending there for
about eight months, the pastor invited me to be a
part of a smaller study and discussion group and he said,
this is going to be like going to seminary. And
I was really excited because I always knew what I believed,
but I wouldn't have been able to defend it intellectually.
And so, long story short, over the course of about
(17:29):
four months, this pastor, basically who I learned later had
fully deconstructed by this point, was deconstructing the members of
his church in these private classes and in private meetings,
and I lasted about four months. We left the church.
I left that class, but when that happened, I was
really isolated and I didn't have because I would try
(17:50):
to debate with him in the class, and I didn't
have anybody to debate with anymore. And it really brought
me to the edge of agnosticism, where he had persuaded
me intellectually that the Bible was corrupted, that I didn't
have an accurate copy of God's word, that they didn't
even have historical accuracy in what they wrote, And this
led me to the cliff of does God even exist
(18:13):
at all? But I knew. I knew that I was
a sinner, and I knew that if Jesus hadn't died
on the cross for my sins, I was doomed. And
so I cried out to the Lord one night and
I just said, God, if you're real, if everything I've
believed about you my whole life is true, I need
you to show up. But I didn't need him to
show up with an experience. I had a lot of experience.
(18:34):
I needed information, and God was so faithful to lead
me to study all sorts of different things like church history,
biblical scholarship, philosophy, anything I could get even yes, yes,
and just to piece together my worldview. And so I
built back up from the ground up and concluded at
the end of that process that the historic Christian worldview
(18:56):
is true, that Jesus is who he said he is,
the Bible is reliable, and that he did die for
my sins and I can put my trust in him
and be saved. And so that was what I thought
was deconstruction. But when I realized after studying deconstruction, that's
not typically what happens. People aren't searching for what's true.
They're not going to read the biblical scholarship on both sides.
(19:18):
They're watching TikTok and they're thinking, oh, maybe the church
has been keeping this for me, so maybe it's all
you know, it's all just not true. But it's so
often I think based on morality. They don't like biblical morality.
Speaker 3 (19:31):
Right, And I would add the word they're watching tik
talk and believing what they're they're not questioning, and they're
not questioning it. Let me ask you, guys, but why
why is that pastor what is the motivation? Really? What
benefit do they see other than feeling good that we
can embrace a sinful lifestyle and not really object to
(19:53):
it and not give people a light about the destructive
nature of that in God's plan for marriage, for family
and etc. I mean, what studying it the way you
too have what's at the core of the assault? I
mean it sounds satanic if I could say it that way.
(20:13):
It's spiritual warfare.
Speaker 4 (20:15):
Absolutely. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this touly so.
Speaker 5 (20:18):
But there's like an evangelistic zeal that they don't lose.
These evangelical pastors end up deconstructing, but they don't lose
that zeal. And so there's something about them that wants
to bring people along with them.
Speaker 4 (20:33):
They want to follow.
Speaker 5 (20:34):
And so I mean there's lots of warnings in scripture
about this kind of thing. I mean you read Two
Timothy and there's warning after warring after warning about making
shipwreck of your faith and following after Satan and these
kinds of things. And so we as Christians need to
be on guard and have a solid foundation. I mean,
(20:56):
thank God, Alisa, you were able to come back and
build that foundation from the ground up that is so
necessary to protect yourself from these deconstruction evangelis.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
Like you were constructing, I mean that's what you're describing.
You had questions about your faith, you were challenging your faith,
and you went to find truth and construct your faith.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
Yes, And you know, I think when I really look
back on it, even though my doubt was primarily intellectual,
what really kept me going And I don't quite know
how to word this, but it was the faith of
my parents.
Speaker 5 (21:30):
I knew.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
I knew that what my parents had was real. I
knew that all those times we prayed together as a
family and studied the Bible as a family, I knew
they had something real. I knew they weren't perfect, but
they modeled repentance. They modeled what it's like to love
other people, to love God with your whole heart, with everything,
and I wasn't willing to let go of that so easily.
(21:51):
So to answer your question of the why, I truly
believe that so many people, because there are a lot
of people that have these very similar crises that remain Christian.
I truly believe that what we're seeing happen with a
lot of people who deconstruct and get rid of these
beliefs is they've never really tasted that the Lord is good,
as it says in first year. They haven't tasted the
(22:12):
beauty of the Christian worldview. And so when I mean
I understand what it would feel like to cast off
moral restraint and do what you want, there's a certain
sense of freedom from that sort of thing that people
are celebrating in that hashtag. But I truly believe the
reason they're so evangelistic is because they haven't tasted that
the Lord is good, and they truly deeply believe that
(22:34):
Christianity is abusive and oppressive, and they've bought into that
narrative and they want to free other people just like
they perceive themselves to be free.
Speaker 6 (22:44):
Hey, allow me to interrupt for just a moment here
to say how much we appreciate you watching now. If
you find value in this content, subscribe by clicking below.
It'll be a big help to us. Let's go ahead
and return to the show.
Speaker 3 (22:56):
It's so critical that we, as the Christian community one
stay on the bedrock of truth. Don't get moved off
that place, because it's like that portrait of the wolf
when the one I looking around the tree. This is
exactly where the enemy of our soul wants to get
us in big time. Doubt, not believing in the scripture,
(23:18):
questioning it, And maybe that's the place to kick this off.
Questions are okay, I mean you have to ask yourself, okay,
do I really believe this? But speak to that component
of being okay to ask questions.
Speaker 5 (23:32):
Yeah, we think questions are great in fact, as we
travel around teaching and speaking, it's important that we question
what we believe. We should know not just what we believe,
but why we believe it. And parents out there, I
want to strongly encourage you to be giving that why
for your faith, because if you can't give a why
(23:52):
for your faith, you'll never be able to give a
why not to your doubts. I'll just speak from experience.
You know, growing up, my parents kind of gave me
my belief in God like they gave me my birthday presents.
You know, here you go, and I just accepted it. Okay,
God is real. When I was in university though, studying
physics secul University, and my friends who weren't Christians started
(24:14):
challenging me, I didn't know what to say. I needed
I needed that why. I needed to find the the answers.
And so it's it's really important that there are gonna
there are gonna be beliefs that our students are going
to receive that are good and.
Speaker 4 (24:30):
True from us.
Speaker 5 (24:32):
But there are also beliefs that we get from our parents,
if we think about it, that aren't true. Like, for example,
my mom told me that if I cracked my knuckles, then.
Speaker 4 (24:40):
I'll get our right.
Speaker 5 (24:41):
You had to go to that one, or if I, like,
if I swallow my gum, then it would stay in
my stomach for how long?
Speaker 3 (24:47):
Seven years?
Speaker 4 (24:48):
How long does everyone know that?
Speaker 3 (24:49):
Right?
Speaker 4 (24:50):
Seven years? Well, that's not true. It will come out
with everything else.
Speaker 5 (24:55):
So we get some beliefs from our parents or from
sources that are good and true and some that aren't
good and true. And it's really important as we mature,
especially into adulthood, that we know how to adjudicate between
those two things.
Speaker 3 (25:10):
Yeah, let me move to that I think parenting component
of this. Tim, You sharing the book about a young
man named Adam. What does his story illustrate about the
challenges our young people are facing?
Speaker 4 (25:23):
Todd?
Speaker 5 (25:24):
This shows the pressure that many of our young people
are under to capitulate and to maybe deconstruct their Christian beliefs.
So a friend of mine from church, he came to
me and said, my thirteen year old son, Adam is
really struggling with his faith. Do you mind going out
for coffee with them and maybe having a conversation. So
(25:44):
he went out for coffee. After some small talk, he
just got right to it. He said, Tim, I lost
all my friends at school, and he started to recount
what happened. Well, his best friend of five years came
out of the closet said that he's gay, and he
knew that Adam was a Christian, so he asked Adam,
what do you think of all this? And Adam did
his best, I mean, as any fourteen year old can
(26:07):
to communicate the truth of the biblical view of sexuality
with grace truth trying to balance that. Well, this entire
discussion took place over text messaging, which is not the
best place to have a conversation like this, but this
is how a lot of our young people communicate. And
the young man who came out of the closet took
screenshots of the entire conversation shared it with their school,
(26:33):
and now he's.
Speaker 4 (26:33):
Being called homophobic.
Speaker 5 (26:35):
No one will talk to him. And he said, Tim,
I've been watching these TikTokers and they're saying that actually,
this whole view of sexuality and gender that I learned
at church, it's a mistake, it's wrong. So he'd been
listening to some of the deconstructions. He said, if I
believe them, I might get my friends back. So we
(26:56):
end up walking through some of those videos. I gave
some responses to those, so he needed answers. That was
part of it. But the second thing we talked about was,
you know, Adam, you have to make a decision here.
There's going to be times where you're going to be
at the crossroads where you can either be faithful to
God or you can be faithful to the world. You
can follow the world and where they're going, or you
(27:17):
can follow God and praise the Lord. Adam a couple
of years later, faith strengthened and actually was baptized.
Speaker 4 (27:25):
I got to watch him get baptized.
Speaker 5 (27:26):
So just an amazing story there where Adam was a
good candidate for deconstruction, he was right there. He could
have easily been taken in by all these influencers, these deconstructionists,
but instead he remained faithful to God.
Speaker 3 (27:41):
You know, Tim and I love that story. But Dad
called you, yeah, and say can you meet with my son?
What about those you know, thousands of families that don't
have that, Tim, Yeah, that dad or mom could call
and say, hey, Tim, could you So I think the
question is this, how do we how do we augment
that if we're in a crisis with our teen, which
(28:04):
is kind of typical. And I want to put it
together with this question because you know, even for us,
it's well, scripture is good, it's poetry, it's metaphor, it's
all these things. But your teen and twenty something could say,
but do you really believe that it was totally inspired
by God? That every word there is truth? And you know,
(28:28):
just maybe we start there and then talk about if
you don't have it, what you need other than the book,
get a copy of the book, but we could also
give your cell phone number.
Speaker 5 (28:36):
Yeah, well, let's not get well, I'll be honest, I'll
be honest. We get every event we go to, a
parent will come up yes and say, I just I
wish my son or daughter was here to hear this,
or I wish you could sit.
Speaker 4 (28:50):
Down with them and have coffee.
Speaker 5 (28:52):
And here's the thing. In one sense, you can bring
us into your home. That's we talked about this last
time with red pen Logic. I'm responding to some of
those challenges that are out there. So you can literally
play the deconstructionist and then hear my response at the
dinner table. Here's what we do with my girls. So
(29:13):
I got three girls, thirteen, eleven, and eight and I
will come to the table and say, girls, let's pretend
like dad's an atheist. Okay, he no longer believes in God.
Speaker 4 (29:23):
So I'm kind of role playing what a TikToker might do.
Speaker 5 (29:25):
You know, my girls aren't on TikTok and they're on Instagram,
they're on social media. But I'm going to kind of
role play. So how would you respond? Would you guys
still be Christians if Daddy wasn't a Christian? And it's like, well,
and so there are struggles, Okay, Well the Bible says
God's real, so God must be Okay, well what if
dad doesn't believe the Bible? And you could see them
like a wrestling and well, you know, a building needs
(29:48):
a builder, So a creation needs a creator.
Speaker 4 (29:50):
That's what my daughter said. I was so proud of her,
you know. And it's like, here is.
Speaker 5 (29:53):
Them like really thinking through this for themselves at such
a young age. And so that might be approach that
you could take.
Speaker 3 (30:01):
And I think one of the key parenting techniques here
that we need to understand as Christians, committed Christians is
don't act shocked or don't react with or emotion, Like,
how could you say that that's exactly what the other
side sort of speak is saying. That's righte So we
need to absorb that. Well, that's a good question.
Speaker 5 (30:18):
Yea.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
I would love to add to that too, because I
think a lot of parents listening to us might be thinking, but, yeah,
but you guys know all this stuff. You've studied this,
I haven't done that. I don't know how to tell
my kids these truths. Well, here's the thing. You don't
have to be an apologist. You don't have to be
a scholar or a professional philosopher. You just have to
be curious enough to let your kids know that it's
a safe place for them to answer the question. So
(30:40):
I always tell parents the one thing you can do
is ask your kids what's your biggest question about God?
And then prepare yourself that you're not going to act shocked,
you're not going to gasp, You're going to just take
a deep breath, and then compliment your child for having
such an insightful question. And if you don't know the answer,
you're going to make them feel so good about themselves
and you're like, Wow, I've never thought of that question,
(31:02):
and then be willing to go on that journey with
them and that promotes just an atmosphere of you learning together.
You don't have to know everything to be able to
start that conversation.
Speaker 3 (31:12):
That's so good to remember to say I don't know, yeah,
let's go investigate it. You know, just trying to think
of the folks listening and what they've gone through. They
might feel like they've got family members that they have
not really talked effectively with and they feel guilty about that.
You know, maybe a sibling of mom and dad who
have gone through this and they're no longer claiming to
(31:33):
be Christian and they've become enlightened in all those things.
They're free from the toxic Christianity. As we have talked about,
what can we do with that? I think Heather was
an example that you used in the book. Describe that
situation with Heather.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
So Heather's not her real name, I just want to
say for people listening, but Heather was a woman that
I was friends with that we went to church together.
We had a very similar ex experience of spiritual abuse
in this church. And this was even after my faith
crisis and all of that. But Heather began to deconstruct
and she started to ask me questions and This was
after I had been studying apologetics, and she asked me
(32:13):
questions about biblical reliability, and she kept asking the same question.
I would give her resources, I would give her my
best answer, and then she would just sort of reword
the question and keep asking it. So finally it occurred
to me, I don't think she likes the answer. That
was kind of the thing that came to me. And
then I finally asked her what's underneath this question? And
she said, well, if this pastor that was abusive used
(32:33):
scripture to abuse us, how do I know that the
men who wrote the New Testament didn't just write it
to oppress women and to make people kind of come into.
Speaker 5 (32:43):
The fold like that?
Speaker 2 (32:44):
And I thought that was really getting to the heart
of her question, and I did my best to answer
her questions. But I do remember going to dinner once,
and I tell this story in the book, where she
was crying a lot. It was very emotional experience, and
so she was bringing up all of these claims about
the Bible and about Christianity, and I just felt in
that moment that it wasn't the right time to correct
(33:05):
her and bring out my best apologetics because I wanted
to cry with those who cry.
Speaker 4 (33:09):
She was in a lot of pain.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
But what happened is when we walked back out to
the car, she kind of blurted out, well, if you
would have had any answers, I'd have taken them. And
I just my heart sank because I thought, here, I
am an apologist and I couldn't even give her answers
for her questions. And it really bothered me for a
long time after that. But after I really thought about it,
I thought, you know, her deconstruction.
Speaker 4 (33:31):
Is not on me.
Speaker 2 (33:34):
I made the best wise decision I could in that
moment to not overwhelm her with counters to everything she
was saying because she was in a lot of pain.
And ultimately, I think that's the one thing that I
would say to people if you have a loved one
in deconstruction. I'm sure there are parents who are watching
us who have responded in shock and fear, and now
they're feeling very guilty.
Speaker 5 (33:53):
And they're like, what do I do?
Speaker 2 (33:54):
But even so, your loved one's deconstruction is not on you.
You are not that powerful, you are not the Holy Spirit.
You can do what you can to influence them for good,
but the best thing you can do if you've had
an outburst or something like that is just go back
and repent to them, tell them you were wrong. Model
what Christian humility looks like in that it is right.
(34:15):
And you know that doesn't guarantee any outcome, but I
think that the most important thing we can do is
do what we can live the beauty of the Gospel
in front of them. That's what my parents did for me.
That's what got me through so many dark moments, was
knowing what they had was real. And I think that's
probably a good for it and.
Speaker 3 (34:32):
In the end, that's really what kept you tethered. That's
true the faith, even though you were on a thin rope.
If you want to use that, that's imagination. Tim you
speak about staying with Saturday or yeah, you know living
in Saturday to speak to that, because I think it's
early apropos right here.
Speaker 5 (34:48):
Well, I was actually preparing a sermon and called a
Lisa and said, look, I want to end with some hope.
You know, there's a lot of stuff we've covered in
these interviews and man, it can seem like this has overwhelming,
it seems hopeless. And we started to brainstorm. We thought,
let's talk about the resurrection Sunday. There's a lot of
hope there. Well, if you think about Easter weekend, on
(35:10):
Friday night, right, Jesus is abandoned by all of his followers, right,
and that Friday night you have Peter, and he's now
denied the Lord three times. Of course we all know Friday.
But Sunday, well, Sunday brought resurrection hope Again.
Speaker 4 (35:27):
We read in the.
Speaker 5 (35:28):
Gospels that the Angel says, go and tell the disciples
and Peter, like, Peter really needs to hear this, right,
He's going through something.
Speaker 4 (35:36):
What happens on this Saturday?
Speaker 5 (35:38):
You know, we're just not told, so we can only speculate,
but you can imagine, like what was going through Peter's mind?
Did he have like unanswered questions? Probably did he start
to question some of Jesus' teachings and maybe his identity, Like,
after all, the Messiah wasn't supposed to dine in across
was he did he start to question some of the
miracles that he saw, maybe tried to explain them with
(35:59):
some naturalistic We just don't know he was living in
a Saturday. Well, we do know one thing, and that
is that the day after Saturday, came Sunday and with
it brought this hope and Peter his faith was restored,
it was strengthened. And I think there's a whole lot
of people out there who have loved ones who are
(36:20):
living in a Saturday and it's not just twenty four
hours like their Saturday might be months, it may be years.
And what we can take from this account is, look,
if it can happen for Peter, if he can have
that Sunday experience, then maybe it can happen for our
loved ones too. And so we want to encourage those
(36:40):
out there who maybe in a situation that feels impossible,
feels hopeless, just be encouraged that we serve a God
who raised Jesus from the dead and as a result
has spurred on Look at I mean Peter's faith. We
read about his words and the vibe. I mean, there's
something that God was able to do with Peter's life,
(37:02):
even though he denied the Lord three times and went
through this process. Maybe you could even describe it as
a deconstruction. And so I think there's hope for our
loved ones too.
Speaker 3 (37:12):
Your grandfather, yeah, right to the end.
Speaker 5 (37:15):
Yeah, And this is just a classic example, here where
on March first, twenty eighteen, I got a phone call
never forget. My mom says, your grandpa's kidneys are not
working properly and we don't know how much time he's
got left. So we grabbed our kids, picked them up
from school, and we took them straight to the hospital.
(37:36):
Got there, went up the elevator, I still remember, and
there's all like thirty of my family members in the
lobby there in the hallway, and I'm thinking, why are
they in the room. While we started asking questions and
they were actually doing some tests on my grandpa said
it would be like two hours. So because it was
so close to dinner at this point, we ended up
taking my girls home. I was flying out the next
(37:58):
morning to go speak at an event, and so I
had to see my grandpa.
Speaker 4 (38:03):
I didn't know if this would be the last time.
Speaker 5 (38:04):
So I got in the car, went back to the hospital,
and when I got back, went up the elevator. Okay,
there's nobody my family's gone. Okay, maybe they're in the room.
So we go talk to the nurse. The nurse says, actually,
one of the tests we discovered that your grandpa has
tuberculosis and no one's allowed to go in and see him.
Speaker 4 (38:23):
Your family all went for dinner.
Speaker 5 (38:26):
I wasn't going to take that answer from them. I said,
I'm going to talk to my grandpa. And so they said, well,
here's what we can do. We'll put a hazmat suit
on you. Essentially, this is before COVID. This is like
mask the whole gown, everything went in there. And this,
just to back up, was an answer to prayer, because
that morning, when I hung up the phone, I prayed, God,
(38:49):
give me one last opportunity to share the gospel with
my grandpa. And I knew that wasn't going to be
easy because I knew my family would all be there
and most of them on that side of the family
are not believers. Well here's you know, Tim, He's going
to get up and he's in front of everyone.
Speaker 4 (39:03):
He's going to preach the gospel.
Speaker 5 (39:05):
And sure enough, there I am in a room with
just my grandpa.
Speaker 4 (39:09):
Actually, my sister was with me.
Speaker 5 (39:10):
I picked her up as well, just the three of us,
and because of this tuberculosis thing, they weren't letting anyone
else in.
Speaker 4 (39:17):
So for an hour and a.
Speaker 5 (39:18):
Half we shared some memories and then I said, Grandpa
where are you going to spend eternity?
Speaker 4 (39:23):
And we walked through.
Speaker 5 (39:24):
And here's a man who was hard against the.
Speaker 4 (39:28):
Gospel his whole life.
Speaker 5 (39:30):
He wanted nothing to do with Jesus. In fact, it
was like, that's why we didn't bring it up anymore.
We thought this was a hopeless situation. It just wasn't
going to happen for him. Well, I present the Gospel
and Grandpa is like, I want that.
Speaker 4 (39:44):
I want that. You'd be surprised a man.
Speaker 5 (39:47):
Who knows he has few days left is willing to
take a lifeline and he wanted to receive Christ for
the forgiveness of his sins. While we left that room rejoicing,
And that next morning I was on a plane heading
for Dallas. Actually before it took off, I got a
text from my mom and said, your grandpa passed away
in the night, and so praise the Lord. The takeaway
(40:11):
of this story is that God is able to work
in impossible what seems like impossible situations. That's where he
does his best work. And your situation may seem hopeless.
This one certainly seemed hopeless to us, and in his
final hours before meeting Jesus, he received Christ just amazing.
Speaker 3 (40:32):
Well, I mean that's the place to end, and we're
so appreciative. I mean, that's a great story about doing
what you can do. We've talked about being prepared to
be in conversations to help address these questions for your family,
for your children, for those around you. This is the
Christian witness, right, this is a part of it. So
(40:53):
don't be lazy and understand what it is that's going
on in the culture so you can address these issues
to the best of your ability, and then you know,
contact us, let us help you be equipped for that discussion.
This book is a great place to start the deconstruction
of Christianity, what it is, why it's destructive, and how
to respond. I don't know why you wouldn't want this book.
(41:17):
And if you can just get a hold of us,
make a gift of any amount, if you could do
that monthly, that's great. Be in ministry with us. Man.
We are we are making a difference in the culture.
Help us to do that. In addition to that, get
a great resource from us and John we'll give you
the details on how to do that.
Speaker 6 (41:34):
Yeah, donate today when you call eight hundred two three, two, six, four, five,
nine eight hundred, the letter A and the word family.
We're stopped by the program description below. We've got all
the details there To donate and to get a copy
of this great book, The Deconstruction of Christianity, at.
Speaker 3 (41:50):
Least send him. Thanks again for being with us. Thank
you for writing the book and all the effort it
took to do that, and all the great experiences that
God has given in. It's just it's refreshing to have
this discussion with you. Thanks, thank you.
Speaker 6 (42:01):
Thanks for having me and on behalf of the team.
Thank you for joining us today for focus on the
family with Jim Daily. I'm John Fuller inviting you back
next time as we once again help you and your
family thrive in Christ.
Speaker 3 (42:24):
You will be like God, human unity.
Speaker 5 (42:28):
God was severed and through it all God's promise remain true.
Speaker 1 (42:34):
Follow me, April, and I will.
Speaker 5 (42:38):
Make you a great This is the Chosen People.
Speaker 4 (42:45):
Listen to the Chosen People at the Chosen.
Speaker 5 (42:48):
People dot com.
Speaker 2 (42:50):
That's the Chosen People dot com.
Host
Matthew Potter
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