March 17, 2025 • 50 mins
Author, filmmaker, and cultural commentator, Dr. John G. West, has written an explosive new book, STOCKHOLM SYNDROME CHRISTIANITY: Why America's Christian Leaders Are Failing - and What We Can Do About It, which has already caused a stir in some circles. Christianity Today rejected ad placements in its newsletters for the book because they determined that it "may be politically or theologically divisive." West poses: what if American culture isn't collapsing because of crusading secularists?
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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(00:20):
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Speaker 2 (00:38):
Well, good afternoon, and welcome. I've been looking forward to
sharing our next guest with you. In fact, we're going
to spend about fifty exclusive minutes together with doctor John
West to talk about his new book, Stockholm Syndrome Christianity,
Why Christian leaders are failing, and what we can do
about it. The question is what if American culture isn't
(01:02):
collapsing because of crusading secular It is what if it's
failing because many leading Christians identify more with secular elites
than with their fellow believers. Believe it or not, think
about that for just a moment. These are and those
(01:24):
are the provocative questions posed by Stockholm Syndrome Christianity, which
exposes how influential Christians, influential Christian leaders, I might say,
are citing with their anti Christian cultural captors on everything
from biblical authority and science to sex, race, and religious liberty.
(01:48):
Going beyond critique, the book identifies root causes and more crucially,
offers practical steps and strategies that you can use to
help your family, church, communities stand for truth. Doctor John
West will be joining us in just a moment. He
is Vice president of Discovery Institute in Seattle. An award
(02:10):
winning author and filmmaker, he has written or edited thirteen
books and directed a dozen documentaries. Formerly the chair of
the Department of Political Science and Geography at Seattle Pacific University,
he holds a PhD in Government from Claremont Graduate University.
Let's bring on doctor John West to the show now,
(02:33):
Doctor Wes. Welcome. Good to be talking to you again, sir.
How are you.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
I'm great. It's a sunny day in Seattle at least
right now. It's not learning, and so that's always a
good day in March.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Yes, exactly, Well, it's Saint Patrick's day. It should be right.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
I'm lost, true too. That's what I'm I'm learning green.
You probably can't see all the Yes.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
Yeah, I've got a little bit of green stripe in
this shirt too, in honor of Saint Patrick. But anyway,
Stockholm send him Christianity. Let's give our audience a background.
I mean, this is in a sense it is about you,
but the application of what you experience goes beyond it,
(03:12):
and I think it is a pattern of what has
invaded our culture. John.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
Yeah, So the basic idea is going back to the
Stockholm syndromes. People may or may not know, but this
was an infamous bank robbery in Stockholm, Sweden in the
nineteen seventies where after the people were held hostage, the
bank tellers and things were held hostage, by the end
of the experience they were having grateful thoughts about the
(03:38):
robbers who were holding them hostage. Yes, And so it
basically stands in for this idea that people who have
been abused or held captive, i'd say culturally captive, you know,
end up identifying more with our captors than with you know,
surrounding society. In the case of Christians, I think it's
Christians in the media and academ in entertainment in the churches,
(04:04):
the pastors who've spent their life either in graduate school
or with fellow professionals, these elites that have this very secular,
very antagonistic view towards Christians, and by they spent years
doing this and that that sort of morphs into them,
that influences them where they actually look to those as
their peer groups. They serve of secularist elites as their
(04:25):
peer groups. So then you have these Christians who are
personally Christian, but they are actually carrying water, if you will,
for the secularist elites because they've sort of unconsciously many
you know ways adopted their views. And so you know,
as Christians were called to be salt and light to
the culture, right, But what these Christian leaders end up
(04:48):
doing is basically so identifying with the secularist elites that
they almost regard themselves as missionaries to their fellow Christians
to get their Christians to sort of abandon their historic beliefs.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Amazing because we've seen this happen time in history. Of course,
when I when I was growing up, the big notice
was with Patty Hurst, right, she was abducted and then
next thing you see her and she's the bank robber now, right.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
Yeah, Now that's a classic American example of that. But again,
I think, and there's lots of debates among psychologists of
how real that is in psychology, but I think as
a shorthand description of what I saw. I mean, the
reason I came to this is I kept asking the
question I would see both at my university and a
lot of other places of people adopting being less like
(05:37):
Christians and regular culture, and why was that? And it
wasn't just because they were consciously selling out or being cowardly.
They actually genuinely believed the stuff that they were saying.
And well, why is that? Because they spent their life
with these elites who were hostile to Christianity and they
end up adopting their worldview?
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Well exactly. I mean, if you're pounded constant with one
side of the perspective and you aren't convicted enough of
your own anchoring and your own foundational beliefs, I mean,
you would almost be like is if all of a sudden,
if Israel started siding with Hamas.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
Right, Yeah, that's a really good example, because it is
it's really strange in one sense. But I think again,
there are lots of examples of people who are doing this,
And again it's not just because they're trying to curry
favor or they think they're being cowardly. It's they now
genuinely believe the critiques of their fellow Christians, and so
(06:37):
they actually identify more with the secular elite than they
do with their fellow Christians or historic Christian teaching.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Well, it's kind of like again, I always go to
the Book of Genesis. You go in the beginning, and
what happened in the garden. You know, the big question
was of God himself? Did God really say once you
put those foundational principles into question, willing to entertain any
kind of doubt of these anchoring doctrine old pillars, then
(07:07):
you start to you start heading down a slippery road,
don't you.
Speaker 3 (07:11):
You do very much. So when I talk about that
in my book and actually give case examples of people
who've gone down that slippery slope. And you know, the
other insight that I have, I think a lot of
Christians we feel that, well, if we just had more
Christians in politics, entertainment, everything would be fine. But in fact,
the point I'm trying to make my book is we
have lots of Christians who go into government, academia, entertainment.
(07:36):
The problem is when they get there, they behave like secularists. Right,
So it's not enough to have personally devout people. They
actually have to have a better Christian worldview and understand
how it applies and look less like the world. Because
if we keep graduating and placing people in the positions
of power who are Christians, maybe in their personal life
(07:56):
they go on Sundays and maybe they you know, have
a devout feeling towards God, but then on Mondays they
act like their secularist colleagues. Yes, you know, you're not
going to get anything different. In fact, what you end
up getting are Christians who themselves are facilitating the cultural
decline and the cultural crisis we're in. And so, you know,
(08:18):
I think a lot of us conservative Christians we tend
to blame all the atheist diagnostics and the progressives, and
I think all that's true. But what dawned on me
just a few years ago is just how much of
these things that we're dealing with have been facilitated actively
by self identified Christian Exactly.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
We're talking with doctor John West. He's the author of
the book Stockholm Syndrome Christianity Bot. This is an enlightening book, John,
and I really look at it as a gift to
what you've given to all of us, including especially the
Body of Christ, because it challenges us to question if
(08:56):
we are ourselves maintaining our saltiness, and you.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
Know I do. We can talk about some specifics, but
you know, the book is really in three big parts.
One is is the symptoms. You know that the documenting
that we really do have a problem. Because the others
are the causes and the cures. So what do we
do about it? Because the you know, it's not inevitable,
and you know, cultures rise and fall, but if you
(09:21):
end up being more faithful to I say, you know,
the biblical tradition, that will have a positive impact on
your culture. And so it's it's not inevitable if we
can turn things around. And so I, you know, spend
a lot of chapters focusing on what are the root
causes and then what can we do about it?
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Well, John, let's talk about you, uh, in terms of
your experience, because this is where it began. It began,
you know, for you at the university and you started
to see this pattern arise and and here you are,
You're challenged. Are you going to accommodate and cross the
line and be like them? Are you going to hold
(09:58):
your principles?
Speaker 3 (09:59):
Yeah? So for twelve years I was a professor at
Seattle Pacific University, which is a self identified even today
as an evangelical Christian university. So you know, on the
long lines of Wheaton or others. And I had tenure
there as a department chair. But what was really disturbing
is in the time I was there is you could see,
(10:20):
you know, the shift that was taking place.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
What years was that, John, So.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
I was there from the late nineties to two thousand
and six, Okay, I heard about twelve years and then
but and actually I'll tell two stories that I actually
sort of bookend the transformation that began even you know
when I left. So when I was hired, I was
actually warned by some fellow faculty members that, oh, we
(10:46):
have a really conservative board of trustees and they had
just denied tenure to a theologian who was kind of
out there, and they were thinking that they were sort
of warning me that I might be worried about that. Secretly,
in my heart, I was saying, great, you actually have
a board of trustees that is actually trying to safeguard
the mission of.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
The institution exactly.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
But then jump ahead to one of the last things
I did while I was there was trying to help
a fellow faculty member who is being denied tenure by
the faculty. And why was he Well, there were various reasons,
but the main reason in my view was he was
a theologically conservative Christian. And so then tragically the board
at that time had sort of changed rubber stamp the faculty,
(11:29):
the progressive faculties attempt to get rid of this person
who was theologically conservative, and so we went from a
board that was actually safeguarding the integrity institution to by
the time I left, that they were actually rubber stamping
what the worst parts of the institution were trying to
push towards. And then what happened just two or three
years ago my former university was in the national news,
(11:53):
I say, for not for something good, for that over
seventy percent of the faculty, more than seventy of the
faculty at that Evangelical Christian school, voted against the university's
statement on biblical marriage, and basically they voted no confidence
on the board because the board wouldn't officially repeal it,
and so and the statement, all it said was basically
(12:16):
marriage designed for a man and a woman and that's
the context in which sexual relationship be So it wasn't
you know, it was a pretty basic stent. And how
do you have a Christian institution when more than seven
and ten of the faculty reject biblical marriage? Well, the
simple answer to that is you don't no longer has one.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
And how did that? You've abandoned a biblical worldview at
that point, John, you have?
Speaker 3 (12:38):
And but the really I think that the insight that
I have to share with people that because people do
see this. And when that came out, there was a
lot of handwringing, well how did this come about? It
doesn't come about out of nowhere. And what I saw
when I was at the university it was actually I
don't blame primarily the theological liberals and progressives because they
(12:59):
were doing what they thought they were was right. I
think they were wrong, but they were acting in some
way out of their wrong convictions. But we had a
personally theological conservative board, many from business, but some from
the sponsoring church who were themselves personally devout theologically conservative,
and when push came to Shaan, they were not will it.
(13:21):
They didn't have the courage of their convictions. And the
reason why you end up having seventy percent of the
faculty against biblical marriage is that you basically have an
a wall board of personally theologically conservative This. I want
to just re emphasize this, This was not a plot
done by liberals. I mean the faculty were, but the
board that enabled it, that hired these people that wouldn't
(13:44):
get rid of the people, and that hired bad people
or theologically conservative themselves. And this began to you know,
dawn on me that Houston, we have a problem that
is not just the people out there. If we don't
basically police ourselves, if we don't you know, clean our
own house and make sure that our fellow Christians and
(14:05):
Christian leaders are living up to what they say they believe,
how can we expect the rest of the culture to
go anywhere than what it is, you know. And so
when you have again personally theologically conservative people not willing
to have the backbone or the discernment to actually stand
up for what they say they.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
Believe, Johnny, it can't help but feel that there was
probably such a level of Bible illiteracy at that time.
I would question how often these officials were in the
Word of God, because I cannot suspect that somebody would
be in the Word of God on a daily basis
(14:47):
and succumb to a cultural a cultural worldview like this.
This is this is just my supposition John Measure on it.
Speaker 3 (14:58):
I think by the time it got to the level
it did where you had seventy percent of the factory
vote against biblical merriage, I think there's truth to that.
The really defining point I write about this in my
book for that institution, though, was when a president wanted
to break the church away. So it was sponsored by
the Free Methodist Church, which is a theologically conservative denomination,
(15:20):
and the president wanted to eliminate Free Methodist the church
control of the board and just be self selecting. And
you can do that if you adopt a really strong
statement of faith. There are some ways to do that.
But the president didn't really want to do that, so
you just wanted to end church control of the board.
This is classic. Many people don't know. Harvard, Princeton, Yale
(15:42):
were started out as devoutly Christian institutions. By the mid
nineteenth century, they were not anymore. And largely the first
step was when they eliminated control of their sponsoring church
over the board to exercise some sort of theological oversight.
And so when I saw this as a faculty member happening,
he was one of a handful of factory who actually
went to the board and we raised concerns about this,
(16:04):
and in fact, we later found out some of this
was happening without the board's full knowledge or consent. And
so when they did find out about it, what did
they do? This was their primarily primary failure. And I
think this set really the trajectory is when they found
out about it, they put a temporary stop to it,
but they did not fire the president. They had a
(16:25):
lack of nerve because the president I think really had
bamboozled them, but you know, that's my opinion. But they didn't.
And I later talked to a board member who was
one of the few board members who actually did want
to do something. There were some good The board was divided,
but the board is a majority, would not fire him,
and so ultimately he just regrouped and eventually got his
way and once they changed the board composition so that
(16:48):
a majority of them were not chosen by the Freemountlist Church,
which had a strong statement of faith, you ended up
getting a divided board, and so there really was no
longer a majority of a biblical majority on the board
to do anything other than if you had to formally
repeal like their statement of faith or biblical marriage, you
need a super majority to do that. So the minority
the work could prevent them, but they could actually do
(17:10):
anything with regard to hiring or firing. And that made
I mean, that made it inevitable what happened. But the
boy that decided it, they were parachurch leaders. I think
they were in the word, but they and they were
informed because there were some of us faculty members who
brought them and said what are you doing and sketched
out but they wouldn't listen, and they and this I've
(17:32):
seen time and again people who personally, you know, sometimes
they're not maybe being truthful, but I think in the
case of the institution I was at, they were personally devout,
not being wise or discerning, or not being able to
have the backbone to stand up because they have a
wrong view of Christian love. Christian love is imperative, but
it's not It's not the same as being nice to
(17:55):
everyone and never giving offense. That's not Christian love. That's
fake love. If you see someone who's about to destroy themselves,
it's not loving to say, oh, yeah, I'll actually give
you something to help you. I'll give you a dose
of fent and al. You know that that gets you
off of that's not Christian love.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
Yes, yeah, we'll change your will change your body parts
for you as well. We're talking with doctor John West,
the author of the book Stockholm Syndrome Christianity. John, what
you bring up here? And I'm glad you talked about,
you know, the selection of the staff, because this seems
to be a continuing saga in academia that suddenly, uh,
(18:35):
conservative people of faith find themselves inundated with very liberal
academics that overwhelm their institutions. This is what happens. How
does that come about?
Speaker 3 (18:49):
So, and it's not just academia. I've been an elder
and two congregations and we experience some of these pressures,
you know, in our churches when the hiring staff people.
And I think it's because two board members understand the
principle from politics. I'm a former political science professor, so
I get you some of things. The politics, which is
personnel is policy, yes, exactly, So you get if you
(19:12):
don't have the right people, it doesn't matter what standards
you have because they're not going to follow it. And
so I think too few board members or or elder
boards at churches actually pay attention to that. And so
how does this happen. Well, in academia, it happens that
faculty usually tell the board, well, you're not experts, we're
the experts, so just trust us. Your goal is to
(19:33):
raise money for us, and basically the rubber stamp what
we want. And unfortunately too many board members buy into that.
And I say, yeah, board members aren't experts and everything,
But I say, the number one goal of a board member,
either of an academic institution or a K through twelve
school or a.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
Church is how about a how about a government or.
Speaker 3 (19:54):
A government is mission fit? Is understanding and defending making
sure you're actually doing what fits your mission exactly. And
so when I, like I said, when I came to
actually say out of PA Civic, the board was very involved.
The reason why it could deny tenure to someone is
that they wanted to make those board members wanted to
(20:14):
make sure that anyone they gave tenure to actually was
a biblical Christian. Now, faculty hated that because they thought
that was micromanaging, But I'm saying, you've got to get
the right personnel. And similarly, when I was an elder
of a couple of different churches, you know you have
ministry positions, and if you ask for someone's faith story,
(20:36):
they're going to give you it. But you've got to
ask specific questions. I mean, if your church stands up
like that Jesus is the way to salvation, there are
any others, or that marriage is just between a man
and a woman, or that you believe the Bible is
actually absolutely true, You've got to ask those specific questions.
And what I would see often when bad people were
about to be hired, it was primarily because the people
(20:59):
didn't ask pointed questions. For the most part, I mean,
people end up telling the truth. There are some exceptions,
and you can go out on social media and find
out what they really believe. But the thing is, the
people who are actually trying to hire weren't even asking
the questions I think in some cases because they were
afraid of the answers.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
But so if you're a board member or an elder
or deacon, make sure that for church staff or school
staff that the things that are non negotiable to you.
And I think biblical truth should be non negotiable. I
think biblical sexuality should be non negotiable. You ask specific
questions and get people on the record. Often in writing,
(21:40):
another tactic is say, if someone's trying to shoehorn someone
else in, they may say, well, just trust me, I'll
interview them and I'll report back right. Well, I actually
give an example of this in my book where I
was on the elderboard and that was suggested, and we said, no,
we really want their written answers to these specific questions.
We don't just want, we want And you know what
happened when we asked for that. The person withdrew yes
(22:02):
because they didn't want to answer that. And well, that
was good. But I'll think if we had gone the
way that someone had suggested, well, just let me talk
to them and that's more conversational, they likely wouldn't have
they would have heard what they wanted to hear them.
So having these lists of very specific questions and even
getting them in writing yes is even is one tool
(22:25):
that a board member should put in their little toolkit.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
Right well, John, this is the reason why nine out
of ten people are not very happy at the jobs
they're doing. They're round pegs and square holes because there's
a failure first of all for them to know themselves
and who they are, and then the person that hires them.
As you say, they get in the situation and they
want to hear what they want to hear because they
(22:49):
just look at it as a requirement. You know, I've
got a I've got an opening here, and I've got
to get it filled as opposed to having the right
person there. Because as we talked about earlier, I mean,
to me, that's Christian love. Christian love is accommodating and
making sure people are the right fit, that they can
exercise the giftings and talents that God's blessed them with.
(23:11):
Don't force them into something that you know they're going
to hate and be miserable and make everybody else miserable
around them.
Speaker 3 (23:18):
You know. And it's also what some of the board
members don't think about. And I think this is the
love is also who are you trying to serve. If
you're a church, you're trying to serve your congregation to
the glory of God. If you're a school, you're trying
to mentor these students. It is not loving to the
students or to your congregation members of hiring someone who
(23:40):
is working athwart your mission. Yes, yeah, So what happened
at Pacific in the years after I left. Things became
so bad so they authorized a campus group with people
who don't have biblical sexuality, I'll just put it that way,
as an official campus group, and the atmosphere changed so
(24:02):
that by the last few years there was actually a
group of conservatives dudes who petitioned the board because it
was now becoming so hostile that if they were trying
to articulate a defense of biblical sexuality when it comes
to LGBTQ or something else, they were being intimidated.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
Yes, And my.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
Question for the board who basically authorized that they thought
they were being loving to people who are rejecting biblical truth.
But what they don't realize but bye by, they weren't
really being loving to those people. But even if they
thought they were, they weren't thinking about the students who
were trying to uphold biblical truth, who are now being
intimidated and bullied, and this other view takes over the campus.
(24:44):
And so this again many of the people who think
they're being loving are actually being cruel. They're being cruel
to the people who are on the way of error
that they're not rescuing that, but they're being cruel for
the victims of those people. Once it takes over, the
institution becomes utterly intolerant towards the faithful few.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
Yeah, what's the difference with these poisoning IVY universities right now? John?
I mean, basically what you're saying, it's the same thing
that's happening at Columbia and Harvard and these other institutions
when it comes to Israel.
Speaker 3 (25:17):
No, I mean actually unfortunately, so what you have is
Christians in the late nineteenth century started a whole bunch
of new universities because they had lost the first generation,
you know, Yale, Prisonton, Harvard. What we're facing now not
with all of them, there are still some solvents, but
with many of them, they're going the same path, right yea,
(25:37):
and some have gone too far that actually probably can't
be saved. Others can be said. And one of the
reason I wrote my book is that you know, depending
on how far you're sitting down, you can say. I mean,
I would actually say, if someone's listening to who knows
a board member of one of these of an institution,
or they themselves are a board member. If you have five,
you know, three to five years of sustained good governance,
(26:00):
you can hire good new people, you can get rid
of bad people. You can actually change the trajectory of
your institution. It will take discernment and it will also
take some courage, but you can do it, yes, and
now's the time to do it. You know. We faced
this also in the nineteen seventies, and a lot of
Christians rose to the challenge. At that time, there was
(26:23):
widespread attacks on biblical authority, even among evangelical Christians. Out
of that, you had people like Francis Schaeffer and many
others who really stood up to call evangelicals back to
their you know, their their foundations. And you had I
write about one story about the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod
where they showed courage because they had they had a
(26:45):
seminary where basically the faculty we're going over to reject
the Bible and reject biblical authority. And they stood firm,
which meant that basically ninety percent of the faculty walked
with the students. And everyone thought, oh, you're destroying your seminary,
your drawing your denomination. But by standing firm, the Lutheran
Church Missouri Senate is still now the largest single conservative
(27:08):
Lutheran denomination United States, with one point eight million members.
And so they were blessed by God by standing firm.
But so we had a lot of Christians who showed
courage in the dark days of the nineteen seventies. What
we're going, in my view through another period like that,
and people need to step up. And the good news
is God will honor your faithfulness. But you first have
(27:28):
to recognize as a problem and then you have to
be willing to do something well.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
And it requires leadership, yes, really, you know. And that's
what I see is lacking on so many fronts, whether
we're talking culturally, politically, in institutions that we need to
count on. And I agree with you. We're talking with
doctor John West, the author of the book Stockholm Syndrome Christianity.
(27:52):
Well tell you this parallels so much of our society
today and will cause you to rethink some of these
principles and how maybe we've just allowed because we feel
like we want to accommodate, you know, we want to
be liked for whatever reason. And I think it's inherent.
(28:12):
I think as human beings, you know, we want to
be liked. We don't want to be called a racist
and that sort of thing. Because I often find myself
telling people when they accuse me of things like that,
So I go, hey, I got to tell you that's
not my heart, you know, and that has helped me.
And I don't know, maybe that's just something that God
has put into me, the Holy Spirit has given to
(28:33):
me as kind of a shield John where And it's
interesting because when I say that to people, it causes
them to step back for just a moment and kind
of lower the temperature to say okay, and then we
can decide whether or not we want to, you know,
continue on with the discourse or maybe just say, hey,
look it, I wish you well on your journey.
Speaker 3 (28:53):
Yeah that's true. And you know, on the race issue,
the tragedy is the Bible is the biggest bull work
for human dignity and human equality, genuine human dignity and
human equality in the history of humankind, it's history of mankind.
It's just the And so for many of the churches,
and I have a chapter on this book that were
(29:13):
you know, adopting, whether it be whether you call it
critical race theory or or not, really demeaning views that
are demeaning people based on race and going against biblical equality.
That was tragic on multiple counts, but it was It
was tragic because in the name of attacking racism, they
actually were advocating racism. But the biggest tragedy is the
(29:34):
Bible is like I said, when it comes to slavery,
civil rights, the unborn, when it comes to human dignity
and human equality, the Bible of all of us created
the image of God is a huge bullwarkat that we
that we should be, that we that we should have
good teaching on, rather than gravitating to these pseudo Marxists
or other you know, things that actually are not Christian
(29:58):
and actually lead to divisiveness, not wholeness, not friendship, not equality.
I mean it is really the Christian Church in the
last few years in America, I think has lost its
way you know, you know, many people out of the
best you know motives because they wanted to you know,
(30:19):
extol racial equality, which I think is right, but they
adopted that there were hoodwink if you will, by these
seculist notions that actually go in the opposite direction.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
Well, what happened is people failed to check the fruit. John,
you know, what's the fruit of those institutions of black
lives matter? Well? What is it? Of course, we know
we have a better idea today than we did back
then because everything was so emotional that facts and truth
was put to the back seat or the back of
the bus.
Speaker 3 (30:46):
But you know, the really good news is another tragedy
is there are a lot of devout evangelicals, whether they
be Hispanics or blacks, who are teaching this really well
and who you know, argue for the importance of at
Christian schooling and are doing some innovative things in inner
cities to really raise up on people. And those were
(31:06):
not the people that the white churches were listening to.
They were listening to the race mongers, and it was
just rather than their fellow biblical believers, you know, among blacks, Hispanics,
and they were ignoring those great resources. So I actually
tell part of that story in one of the chapters
of my book, and part of my book is actually
(31:28):
to point people to resources. You know, if you're in
a church where they're trying to pummel you with some
of these views, and say, well, this is the view
that if you have to have, my book gives you
insight into all these other resources that you can use
to counter that and to because it's really tragic the
way that many Christians have bailed on historic Christian teaching,
(31:51):
which gives a lot of help in all these areas,
and are gravitating towards these sexualist views that actually drive
people on the ground and it to terrible outcomes.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
Well, John, I think it's interesting right now where the
culture is is, I believe, maybe even unbeknownst to itself,
it is starving for the truth. It is a kneemic
when it comes to the truth. And now that the
truth is starting to come out, and I think one
of the key crossroads that we hit here, and I
give credit to Elon Musk, when Elon Musk came in
(32:24):
and bought Twitter, yep and exposed everything that was going on.
It was interesting how the dominoes started to fall. And
then of course, you know Trump's second campaign, actually his
third campaign, and when he got re elected, it was
it was interesting. I mean, you know, the fact that
(32:45):
he survived an assassination somehow that gave him some credit,
you know, credibility, and and he could address some common
sense things. I think some of the things he was addressing,
you know, on immigration and other issues were there, but
it was just something about almost being assassinated that allowed
his voice to cross over these democratic not necessarily democratic,
(33:09):
but demographic lines that heretofore were impossible for him to
travail right or traverse.
Speaker 3 (33:14):
I should say, yeah, I think there's a lot of
insight there. I would say, you know, another example that
shows what the thirst for truth that you're talking about is.
For the last five to seven years, we were inundated
and the idea of that we need to give kids
gender affirming care, which the fact was a euphemism for
child mutilation exactly. I mean, let's just be clear. It
(33:36):
was not gender affirming care. It was sex destructive care,
and it was child mutilation.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
How is that loved John?
Speaker 3 (33:44):
Exactly? Yet this is an example where many of the
so called leaders of American evangelicalism were doing their best
to either avoid that issue or to even cow taw
to it. Yes, but there were a faithful few who
got really persecuted, who really pushed the issue. And then
(34:04):
we've now seen with some of the other changes in politics,
how just in like a six month period, how the
public perception of that has dramatically changed because and how
many most people now recognize that, at least with gards
to kids, this is abuse and they're overwhelmingly opposed to it.
But imagine for the number of years where we had
(34:27):
Christian leaders who were not willing to speak out on
that clearly and just a faithful few remnant. But the
fact that now it just took a few and then
with the change on Twitter and so you can actually
have a live debate, yes, when you could actually do that,
people now have you know, they understand that overwhelmingly, and
so I think there is a thirst for truth and
(34:50):
that that makes it all the more important that Christians
by salts in light right now in this moment, because
if you look at Europe right now, there isn't free
of speech for Christians, and so we have this window you.
Speaker 2 (35:03):
Get jailed for speech. I mean we John, you know
this conversation we're having right now four years ago and
thereafter for a couple of years, i'd be I'd be
in social media jail for it.
Speaker 3 (35:16):
Well. And in England, if you're praying silently outside of
an abortion clinic, you can literally go to jail silently.
And so people need to you know those the last
few years there was tremendous social media repression and there's
i'd say persecution the United States. I write about that
my book too. But right now I think we have
(35:37):
a renewed window. And so the question is that window
isn't going to stay open forever unless we use it.
And so I'd say the next two or three years
is absolutely critical to use the freedom we have or
else we will end up like Europe or worse well
Canada I mean is also.
Speaker 2 (35:56):
Yeah, are supposed to fifty first state of the Union.
But the deal is, as you say, John, that's so
critical and this is a call to the church. The
opportunity is now, this isn't a point of time, I
believe by God. And you've got people, especially young people
that are starving for the truth. Are you going to
ignite the lamp of truth in front of your churches
(36:19):
to let people know that God lives here and the
truth is here. Because the fact of the matter is
truth does exist. It's not relative. We've been told for decades,
Oh it's relative. Your truth is your truth, my truth. Beloney,
There's only one truth and it comes from God. Anything
apart from God is not the truth. And the churches
(36:40):
have to doctrinally and really believe that that is so,
because I believe that is the answer to some of
the cultural ills that we're dealing with right now. Doctor West.
Speaker 3 (36:52):
I think that's true, and I might be helpful just
you know, really quickly to mesage are very specifics because
I'm not I am interested in politics, but this goes
beyond politics, and it's culture and it's also theology. So
when I talk about stockhom syndrome Christianity, what am I
talking about. Well, there's a megachurch pastor Andy Stanley, who
argues that the Old Testament is the obsolete Testament and
(37:15):
we should literally put it to the back of our bibles.
There's another leading Christian apologist, Mike Lacona, who's done some
good work on defending the resurrection, but he now argues
that the Gospels are like Hollywood stories that were inspired
by true events, but that the facts, the situations, even
the words of Jesus were changed. So it's like a
(37:35):
Hollywood movie that's not accurate. So we're talking about biblical
authority one oh one is being sacrificed and not being
stood up for. In the area of science and medicine,
the most powerful Christian scientists in America for over a
decade was Francis Collins, self identified evangelical Christian. And what
did he do. I don't question his personal faith. I
(37:59):
think he's personally it's about but he oversaw the development
of a tissue hub harvesting aborted baby body parts exactly
for medical research millions of your tax dollars. And this
was not directed by a materialist, by you know, an
atheist or an agnostic. It was directed by it was
overseen by a hard caring, you know, evangelical Christian. And
(38:23):
worse than that, we talked about the gender stuff. The
n i EH spent millions more bank rolling some of
the worst doctors and hospitals that were doing uh, gender
destructive research of puberty blockers on kids and cutting off
breasts of young women. And that was also on Francis
Collins's watch. In fact, he called himself an ally and
(38:47):
advocate his term of the l g B t q
I a movement, and so and so that that, but
that wasn't done by an atheist. That was done by
a Christian. And then when we get to you know, sexuality,
you know, people don't realize the key vote inventing a
right of gay marriage, inventing a right that's not in
(39:07):
the constitution, did not come from a atheist, didn't even
come from a Democrat. It was by Anthony Kennedy, who
was known as a goodie goody in his personal life,
faithful mass goer, faithful Catholic in its personal life. I
guess he was the one who imposed gay marriage on
the country. And so and in my own home state,
we had an attorney general who drove out of business.
(39:29):
A Christian grandma. Why, she was a florist and she'd
serve everyone, but she drew the line that she didn't
want to do special arrangements for gay weddings. They could
buy things from her, including and do their own arrangements,
but she didn't want to service well. The attorney general
who drove her to where she doesn't exist in it
she had to get out of business. Bob Ferguson, who
(39:50):
unfortunately is now our governor, was when he ran he
touted that he was this member of this local Catholic church,
and he used that in his elections, and he actually
even when he was executing this Christian grandma, he actually
published an article about how his faith impelled him to
do what he was doing. So my point is that that,
you know, I'm an evangelical Christian, so a lot of
(40:11):
the examples are from that in my book. But I
think even if people are Catholic, this is a similar
issue during COVID, And you know, there were different views
on things that COVID, but I think one thing all
Christians should have been able to agree on is that
if you have lockdown orders or restrictions on churches, they
shouldn't be any worse than those on private businesses. Now,
(40:34):
I think the lockdowns were misconstrued and wrong. But but
I'm but you know, for the sake of argument, Okay,
if they're okay, But you had Nevada, a devout, devout
Catholic governor who opened up the casinos and at the
same time put draconian restrictions on the churches exactly. And
(40:54):
we had a conservative Catholic, John Roberts who okayed that
at the Supreme Court a Bush appoint right. So I
mean these are again we can blame all we want,
liberal Democrats, atheists, whatever, but if you actually look at
the people facilitating all these bad things, they're self identified
Christians and in many cases personally devout. And so our
(41:15):
churches need to be more consistent about and our church
based schools of mentoring and discipling people getting that personal
you know, acceptance of Christ is great, but then what
do you do with that? You have to live in
a chord with that, and what does that mean?
Speaker 2 (41:30):
Yes, exactly. Doctor John West is with us his book
Stockholm Syndrome Christianity, and the last time we talked on
along that list. I mean, let's go back to World
War two and what happened there in Germany. I mean
it was pastors, it was Catholic priests. You know, they
are you know, next thing, you know, they're abandoning the
(41:53):
Bible from mine kanp. I mean if you think, but
you know, Jesus warned us and said, look at less
even the elect would be be persuaded. I mean, these
are warnings that are there in His words and in
the word of God. And uh, this is why we
must hold on to biblical truth.
Speaker 3 (42:13):
That's exactly right. And I want to say, you say,
I'm glad you brought up history, because this has happened
time and again. But I also want to say there
are always faithful remnants. And of course in Germany there
was Dietrich Bonhoeffer and others. And I say today, if
someone's watching this, who is feeling depressed by all this,
and and you're faithful and trying to do the right thing,
(42:34):
God will honor that. In fact, the last chapter of
my book focus on something I called God's surprises in
history and time and again, there have been places where
Christians thought, well, the Church is just going to go
out of existence. It was actually in China after World
War two when Maw took over. You know, if you
were likely there, you would have thought that Christianity would
(42:55):
go to funk there. Well, there are hundreds of millions
of Christians in China. Now they're gone. Is still awful,
but you know there are hundreds of millions, and so
God does amazing things. So we're not ourselves ultimately called
it's not on us whether things are going to be
successful or not. We're called to be faithful, not success. Factly,
God will take care of the success, and I think
(43:16):
God honors people's faithfulness, but he'll choose how to do that.
So if you are feeling overwhelmed here, my main message
is whatever your realm of influences. It might be just
with your kids, it might be with your grandkids. It
might be in your church if you're a pastor or
a small group leader. It might be in your Christian school,
if you're a board member or a teacher or a
(43:37):
board member of a you know, another ministry. But in
that area where you're called be faithful, and my book
does give some examples of how you can do that.
You don't have to solve the world's problem. But the
weight of the universe is not on your shoulders, like
at let's carry the weight of the university. Exactly, It's
on God's shoulders. But we are called to be faithful.
Speaker 2 (43:58):
After all, this is Jesus Church. He created it right,
and the thing is what we It's hard for us,
particularly here in the United States, to really understand Christian persecution. Yes,
there's bakers that are attacked there's grandmothers that are attacked
and law fair and things like that, and it's really
minimal compared to other countries where you know, Christianity is
(44:22):
the most persecuted religion on the planet. And so in fact,
I was reminded here recently because I saw this movie
twenty one, which was a recall of what happened in
February of twenty fifteen with the Coptic Christians that were
beheaded there by isis you know, and you I mean,
(44:47):
here they were and they knew what was going to
happen to them. In fact, there was one There was
originally only twenty and the way it became twenty one
is there was an Egyptian Coptic and they let him,
they were letting him go, and he says, no, I
stand with my brothers. And he stood with his brothers
to the you know, to the death and had his
head removed like the rest of them. And you know,
(45:10):
and you watch this and it really convicts you to think, Okay,
we talk about faithfulness, but I mean, you know, faithfulness
here in the West is like having a hangnail, you know,
compared to having your head taken off.
Speaker 3 (45:24):
You know, I completely agree with us. And I think
one of the big blond spots of a lot of
American Christians is they don't know the levels of horrific
persecution going on around the world. And I think there
are great groups Open Doors, Voice Martyrs, other you know,
groups that actually help with that out and that should
be a priority for churches. What I will say, though,
I do think that if we don't want things to
(45:46):
get worse in our culture, we do. The other problem
I have sometimes people say, well, because it's so bad,
you weren't saying this. But I deal with this in
the book that one person who told me, well, you
know it's that's a blessing to those people is not elsewhere,
and so they're not They use it as an excuse
not to defend their brothers or sisters who are going
(46:07):
through that. And I actually have a very poignant quote
from a Nigerian Christian and Nigerians for any people who
know there are also going through horrific persecution in Northern Nigeria,
and he said that, you know, one of the things
in Nigeria that I wish that the Christians in the
West need to pay attention to is that we we
sew downplane it, especially if it's happening to another Christian group,
(46:28):
we wouldn't defend them. And and that's how we got
in this situation. And they were basically warning Christians in
the West not to pooh pooh this, especially if it
happened to someone, you know, a Christian maybe outside their tradition,
because they said, well, that's not us, they haven't come
for us yet. And so I do think that we
do also need to defend, even though not to the
(46:50):
level of beheading or being killed, people do lose their
jobs and other things in America. And I do think
that what you know, Christians in their own communities need
to be upholding the people in their own communities who
are facing them.
Speaker 2 (47:03):
Yeah, without a doubt. Well, and in the book also
and I we have a little time left here, doctor John,
and you have some action here, action points in chapter ten,
for example, a call to wisdom, right.
Speaker 3 (47:18):
Yeah, yeah, so I did. There are a lot of
things that you can do. We talked about some of
them that board members could do. But on the Wisdom chapter,
I go through a lot of things the way others
people try to manipulate you, like like using words in
different ways, Like there's a movement now among some to
call redefined pro life to basically mean global warming. And
(47:39):
so I try to queue people in on how language
is being manipulated and things that you can do to
you arm yourself beforehand, so when you encounter it you
know how to deal with. And then there's just a
lot of other practical things. There's another chapter with twenty
one things people can do, whether you're a parent or teacher,
and you know, one just very simple is do no harm,
(48:00):
which has taken inventory. How are you using your own
you know, where do you go to church? Where are
you giving your money, your time, talent and treasure, and
are you making sure that you're not enabling bad things?
What are you doing with your own resources?
Speaker 2 (48:14):
Exactly? Well, doctor John West, cannot thank you enough The
Book of Course, Stockholm syndrome, Christianity, why Christian leaders are failing,
and what we can do about it. Really the ball
is in our court, you know, as a responsible person
of faith, an intentional, committed person of faith. You know
(48:36):
this is again I just think it's such a blessing, John,
what you've given us. And I encourage all our viewers
to get their hands on your book, The Book of Course,
available at all the usual places.
Speaker 3 (48:48):
Right, Yes, it is, and if people want more information
they can also go to the book website which is
Stockholm Syndrome Christianity dot com. A lot of free resources
on that website.
Speaker 2 (48:58):
Well, doctor John West, thank you so much for being
with us. Take care, God bless Thank you. Bill say, okay,
you got it? Well, tell you what a treat Huh.
He's just an awesome academic and fellow citizen of the faith.
I want to thank you for joining us. I hope
this has been a blessing to you as it has
been to me, and you know, thank you for your time.
(49:22):
As we wrap things up, I want to read this
portion of Saint Patrick's prayer on this Saint Patty's Day,
if it's okay with you. I love this. You know.
One of my good friends, Geene Watson, has put this
to music, and if you ever get a chance, check
it out on YouTube. It is Saint Patrick's breastplate and
she has such a great story. But you will be
(49:44):
greatly blessed. But the prayer goes Christ with me, Christ
before me, Christ behind me, Christ in me, Christ beneath me,
Christ above me, Christ on my right, Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down, Christ, when I sit down, Christ,
when I arise. Christ in the heart of every man
who thinks of me, Christ in the mouth of everyone
(50:07):
who speaks of me, Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me. May God bless
you and keep you. May make His face shine upon you,
May be gracious unto you and give you peace thanks
for being with us. God bless
The topics and opinions expressed in the following show are
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(00:20):
choosing W FOURCY Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Well, good afternoon, and welcome. I've been looking forward to
sharing our next guest with you. In fact, we're going
to spend about fifty exclusive minutes together with doctor John
West to talk about his new book, Stockholm Syndrome Christianity,
Why Christian leaders are failing, and what we can do
about it. The question is what if American culture isn't
(01:02):
collapsing because of crusading secular It is what if it's
failing because many leading Christians identify more with secular elites
than with their fellow believers. Believe it or not, think
about that for just a moment. These are and those
(01:24):
are the provocative questions posed by Stockholm Syndrome Christianity, which
exposes how influential Christians, influential Christian leaders, I might say,
are citing with their anti Christian cultural captors on everything
from biblical authority and science to sex, race, and religious liberty.
(01:48):
Going beyond critique, the book identifies root causes and more crucially,
offers practical steps and strategies that you can use to
help your family, church, communities stand for truth. Doctor John
West will be joining us in just a moment. He
is Vice president of Discovery Institute in Seattle. An award
(02:10):
winning author and filmmaker, he has written or edited thirteen
books and directed a dozen documentaries. Formerly the chair of
the Department of Political Science and Geography at Seattle Pacific University,
he holds a PhD in Government from Claremont Graduate University.
Let's bring on doctor John West to the show now,
(02:33):
Doctor Wes. Welcome. Good to be talking to you again, sir.
How are you.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
I'm great. It's a sunny day in Seattle at least
right now. It's not learning, and so that's always a
good day in March.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Yes, exactly, Well, it's Saint Patrick's day. It should be right.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
I'm lost, true too. That's what I'm I'm learning green.
You probably can't see all the Yes.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
Yeah, I've got a little bit of green stripe in
this shirt too, in honor of Saint Patrick. But anyway,
Stockholm send him Christianity. Let's give our audience a background.
I mean, this is in a sense it is about you,
but the application of what you experience goes beyond it,
(03:12):
and I think it is a pattern of what has
invaded our culture. John.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
Yeah, So the basic idea is going back to the
Stockholm syndromes. People may or may not know, but this
was an infamous bank robbery in Stockholm, Sweden in the
nineteen seventies where after the people were held hostage, the
bank tellers and things were held hostage, by the end
of the experience they were having grateful thoughts about the
(03:38):
robbers who were holding them hostage. Yes, And so it
basically stands in for this idea that people who have
been abused or held captive, i'd say culturally captive, you know,
end up identifying more with our captors than with you know,
surrounding society. In the case of Christians, I think it's
Christians in the media and academ in entertainment in the churches,
(04:04):
the pastors who've spent their life either in graduate school
or with fellow professionals, these elites that have this very secular,
very antagonistic view towards Christians, and by they spent years
doing this and that that sort of morphs into them,
that influences them where they actually look to those as
their peer groups. They serve of secularist elites as their
(04:25):
peer groups. So then you have these Christians who are
personally Christian, but they are actually carrying water, if you will,
for the secularist elites because they've sort of unconsciously many
you know ways adopted their views. And so you know,
as Christians were called to be salt and light to
the culture, right, But what these Christian leaders end up
(04:48):
doing is basically so identifying with the secularist elites that
they almost regard themselves as missionaries to their fellow Christians
to get their Christians to sort of abandon their historic beliefs.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Amazing because we've seen this happen time in history. Of course,
when I when I was growing up, the big notice
was with Patty Hurst, right, she was abducted and then
next thing you see her and she's the bank robber now, right.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
Yeah, Now that's a classic American example of that. But again,
I think, and there's lots of debates among psychologists of
how real that is in psychology, but I think as
a shorthand description of what I saw. I mean, the
reason I came to this is I kept asking the
question I would see both at my university and a
lot of other places of people adopting being less like
(05:37):
Christians and regular culture, and why was that? And it
wasn't just because they were consciously selling out or being cowardly.
They actually genuinely believed the stuff that they were saying.
And well, why is that? Because they spent their life
with these elites who were hostile to Christianity and they
end up adopting their worldview?
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Well exactly. I mean, if you're pounded constant with one
side of the perspective and you aren't convicted enough of
your own anchoring and your own foundational beliefs, I mean,
you would almost be like is if all of a sudden,
if Israel started siding with Hamas.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
Right, Yeah, that's a really good example, because it is
it's really strange in one sense. But I think again,
there are lots of examples of people who are doing this,
And again it's not just because they're trying to curry
favor or they think they're being cowardly. It's they now
genuinely believe the critiques of their fellow Christians, and so
(06:37):
they actually identify more with the secular elite than they
do with their fellow Christians or historic Christian teaching.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Well, it's kind of like again, I always go to
the Book of Genesis. You go in the beginning, and
what happened in the garden. You know, the big question
was of God himself? Did God really say once you
put those foundational principles into question, willing to entertain any
kind of doubt of these anchoring doctrine old pillars, then
(07:07):
you start to you start heading down a slippery road,
don't you.
Speaker 3 (07:11):
You do very much. So when I talk about that
in my book and actually give case examples of people
who've gone down that slippery slope. And you know, the
other insight that I have, I think a lot of
Christians we feel that, well, if we just had more
Christians in politics, entertainment, everything would be fine. But in fact,
the point I'm trying to make my book is we
have lots of Christians who go into government, academia, entertainment.
(07:36):
The problem is when they get there, they behave like secularists. Right,
So it's not enough to have personally devout people. They
actually have to have a better Christian worldview and understand
how it applies and look less like the world. Because
if we keep graduating and placing people in the positions
of power who are Christians, maybe in their personal life
(07:56):
they go on Sundays and maybe they you know, have
a devout feeling towards God, but then on Mondays they
act like their secularist colleagues. Yes, you know, you're not
going to get anything different. In fact, what you end
up getting are Christians who themselves are facilitating the cultural
decline and the cultural crisis we're in. And so, you know,
(08:18):
I think a lot of us conservative Christians we tend
to blame all the atheist diagnostics and the progressives, and
I think all that's true. But what dawned on me
just a few years ago is just how much of
these things that we're dealing with have been facilitated actively
by self identified Christian Exactly.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
We're talking with doctor John West. He's the author of
the book Stockholm Syndrome Christianity Bot. This is an enlightening book, John,
and I really look at it as a gift to
what you've given to all of us, including especially the
Body of Christ, because it challenges us to question if
(08:56):
we are ourselves maintaining our saltiness, and you.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
Know I do. We can talk about some specifics, but
you know, the book is really in three big parts.
One is is the symptoms. You know that the documenting
that we really do have a problem. Because the others
are the causes and the cures. So what do we
do about it? Because the you know, it's not inevitable,
and you know, cultures rise and fall, but if you
(09:21):
end up being more faithful to I say, you know,
the biblical tradition, that will have a positive impact on
your culture. And so it's it's not inevitable if we
can turn things around. And so I, you know, spend
a lot of chapters focusing on what are the root
causes and then what can we do about it?
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Well, John, let's talk about you, uh, in terms of
your experience, because this is where it began. It began,
you know, for you at the university and you started
to see this pattern arise and and here you are,
You're challenged. Are you going to accommodate and cross the
line and be like them? Are you going to hold
(09:58):
your principles?
Speaker 3 (09:59):
Yeah? So for twelve years I was a professor at
Seattle Pacific University, which is a self identified even today
as an evangelical Christian university. So you know, on the
long lines of Wheaton or others. And I had tenure
there as a department chair. But what was really disturbing
is in the time I was there is you could see,
(10:20):
you know, the shift that was taking place.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
What years was that, John, So.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
I was there from the late nineties to two thousand
and six, Okay, I heard about twelve years and then
but and actually I'll tell two stories that I actually
sort of bookend the transformation that began even you know
when I left. So when I was hired, I was
actually warned by some fellow faculty members that, oh, we
(10:46):
have a really conservative board of trustees and they had
just denied tenure to a theologian who was kind of
out there, and they were thinking that they were sort
of warning me that I might be worried about that. Secretly,
in my heart, I was saying, great, you actually have
a board of trustees that is actually trying to safeguard
the mission of.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
The institution exactly.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
But then jump ahead to one of the last things
I did while I was there was trying to help
a fellow faculty member who is being denied tenure by
the faculty. And why was he Well, there were various reasons,
but the main reason in my view was he was
a theologically conservative Christian. And so then tragically the board
at that time had sort of changed rubber stamp the faculty,
(11:29):
the progressive faculties attempt to get rid of this person
who was theologically conservative, and so we went from a
board that was actually safeguarding the integrity institution to by
the time I left, that they were actually rubber stamping
what the worst parts of the institution were trying to
push towards. And then what happened just two or three
years ago my former university was in the national news,
(11:53):
I say, for not for something good, for that over
seventy percent of the faculty, more than seventy of the
faculty at that Evangelical Christian school, voted against the university's
statement on biblical marriage, and basically they voted no confidence
on the board because the board wouldn't officially repeal it,
and so and the statement, all it said was basically
(12:16):
marriage designed for a man and a woman and that's
the context in which sexual relationship be So it wasn't
you know, it was a pretty basic stent. And how
do you have a Christian institution when more than seven
and ten of the faculty reject biblical marriage? Well, the
simple answer to that is you don't no longer has one.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
And how did that? You've abandoned a biblical worldview at
that point, John, you have?
Speaker 3 (12:38):
And but the really I think that the insight that
I have to share with people that because people do
see this. And when that came out, there was a
lot of handwringing, well how did this come about? It
doesn't come about out of nowhere. And what I saw
when I was at the university it was actually I
don't blame primarily the theological liberals and progressives because they
(12:59):
were doing what they thought they were was right. I
think they were wrong, but they were acting in some
way out of their wrong convictions. But we had a
personally theological conservative board, many from business, but some from
the sponsoring church who were themselves personally devout theologically conservative,
and when push came to Shaan, they were not will it.
(13:21):
They didn't have the courage of their convictions. And the
reason why you end up having seventy percent of the
faculty against biblical marriage is that you basically have an
a wall board of personally theologically conservative This. I want
to just re emphasize this, This was not a plot
done by liberals. I mean the faculty were, but the
board that enabled it, that hired these people that wouldn't
(13:44):
get rid of the people, and that hired bad people
or theologically conservative themselves. And this began to you know,
dawn on me that Houston, we have a problem that
is not just the people out there. If we don't
basically police ourselves, if we don't you know, clean our
own house and make sure that our fellow Christians and
(14:05):
Christian leaders are living up to what they say they believe,
how can we expect the rest of the culture to
go anywhere than what it is, you know. And so
when you have again personally theologically conservative people not willing
to have the backbone or the discernment to actually stand
up for what they say they.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
Believe, Johnny, it can't help but feel that there was
probably such a level of Bible illiteracy at that time.
I would question how often these officials were in the
Word of God, because I cannot suspect that somebody would
be in the Word of God on a daily basis
(14:47):
and succumb to a cultural a cultural worldview like this.
This is this is just my supposition John Measure on it.
Speaker 3 (14:58):
I think by the time it got to the level
it did where you had seventy percent of the factory
vote against biblical merriage, I think there's truth to that.
The really defining point I write about this in my
book for that institution, though, was when a president wanted
to break the church away. So it was sponsored by
the Free Methodist Church, which is a theologically conservative denomination,
(15:20):
and the president wanted to eliminate Free Methodist the church
control of the board and just be self selecting. And
you can do that if you adopt a really strong
statement of faith. There are some ways to do that.
But the president didn't really want to do that, so
you just wanted to end church control of the board.
This is classic. Many people don't know. Harvard, Princeton, Yale
(15:42):
were started out as devoutly Christian institutions. By the mid
nineteenth century, they were not anymore. And largely the first
step was when they eliminated control of their sponsoring church
over the board to exercise some sort of theological oversight.
And so when I saw this as a faculty member happening,
he was one of a handful of factory who actually
went to the board and we raised concerns about this,
(16:04):
and in fact, we later found out some of this
was happening without the board's full knowledge or consent. And
so when they did find out about it, what did
they do? This was their primarily primary failure. And I
think this set really the trajectory is when they found
out about it, they put a temporary stop to it,
but they did not fire the president. They had a
(16:25):
lack of nerve because the president I think really had
bamboozled them, but you know, that's my opinion. But they didn't.
And I later talked to a board member who was
one of the few board members who actually did want
to do something. There were some good The board was divided,
but the board is a majority, would not fire him,
and so ultimately he just regrouped and eventually got his
way and once they changed the board composition so that
(16:48):
a majority of them were not chosen by the Freemountlist Church,
which had a strong statement of faith, you ended up
getting a divided board, and so there really was no
longer a majority of a biblical majority on the board
to do anything other than if you had to formally
repeal like their statement of faith or biblical marriage, you
need a super majority to do that. So the minority
the work could prevent them, but they could actually do
(17:10):
anything with regard to hiring or firing. And that made
I mean, that made it inevitable what happened. But the
boy that decided it, they were parachurch leaders. I think
they were in the word, but they and they were
informed because there were some of us faculty members who
brought them and said what are you doing and sketched
out but they wouldn't listen, and they and this I've
(17:32):
seen time and again people who personally, you know, sometimes
they're not maybe being truthful, but I think in the
case of the institution I was at, they were personally devout,
not being wise or discerning, or not being able to
have the backbone to stand up because they have a
wrong view of Christian love. Christian love is imperative, but
it's not It's not the same as being nice to
(17:55):
everyone and never giving offense. That's not Christian love. That's
fake love. If you see someone who's about to destroy themselves,
it's not loving to say, oh, yeah, I'll actually give
you something to help you. I'll give you a dose
of fent and al. You know that that gets you
off of that's not Christian love.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
Yes, yeah, we'll change your will change your body parts
for you as well. We're talking with doctor John West,
the author of the book Stockholm Syndrome Christianity. John, what
you bring up here? And I'm glad you talked about,
you know, the selection of the staff, because this seems
to be a continuing saga in academia that suddenly, uh,
(18:35):
conservative people of faith find themselves inundated with very liberal
academics that overwhelm their institutions. This is what happens. How
does that come about?
Speaker 3 (18:49):
So, and it's not just academia. I've been an elder
and two congregations and we experience some of these pressures,
you know, in our churches when the hiring staff people.
And I think it's because two board members understand the
principle from politics. I'm a former political science professor, so
I get you some of things. The politics, which is
personnel is policy, yes, exactly, So you get if you
(19:12):
don't have the right people, it doesn't matter what standards
you have because they're not going to follow it. And
so I think too few board members or or elder
boards at churches actually pay attention to that. And so
how does this happen. Well, in academia, it happens that
faculty usually tell the board, well, you're not experts, we're
the experts, so just trust us. Your goal is to
(19:33):
raise money for us, and basically the rubber stamp what
we want. And unfortunately too many board members buy into that.
And I say, yeah, board members aren't experts and everything,
But I say, the number one goal of a board member,
either of an academic institution or a K through twelve
school or a.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
Church is how about a how about a government or.
Speaker 3 (19:54):
A government is mission fit? Is understanding and defending making
sure you're actually doing what fits your mission exactly. And
so when I, like I said, when I came to
actually say out of PA Civic, the board was very involved.
The reason why it could deny tenure to someone is
that they wanted to make those board members wanted to
(20:14):
make sure that anyone they gave tenure to actually was
a biblical Christian. Now, faculty hated that because they thought
that was micromanaging, But I'm saying, you've got to get
the right personnel. And similarly, when I was an elder
of a couple of different churches, you know you have
ministry positions, and if you ask for someone's faith story,
(20:36):
they're going to give you it. But you've got to
ask specific questions. I mean, if your church stands up
like that Jesus is the way to salvation, there are
any others, or that marriage is just between a man
and a woman, or that you believe the Bible is
actually absolutely true, You've got to ask those specific questions.
And what I would see often when bad people were
about to be hired, it was primarily because the people
(20:59):
didn't ask pointed questions. For the most part, I mean,
people end up telling the truth. There are some exceptions,
and you can go out on social media and find
out what they really believe. But the thing is, the
people who are actually trying to hire weren't even asking
the questions I think in some cases because they were
afraid of the answers.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
But so if you're a board member or an elder
or deacon, make sure that for church staff or school
staff that the things that are non negotiable to you.
And I think biblical truth should be non negotiable. I
think biblical sexuality should be non negotiable. You ask specific
questions and get people on the record. Often in writing,
(21:40):
another tactic is say, if someone's trying to shoehorn someone
else in, they may say, well, just trust me, I'll
interview them and I'll report back right. Well, I actually
give an example of this in my book where I
was on the elderboard and that was suggested, and we said, no,
we really want their written answers to these specific questions.
We don't just want, we want And you know what
happened when we asked for that. The person withdrew yes
(22:02):
because they didn't want to answer that. And well, that
was good. But I'll think if we had gone the
way that someone had suggested, well, just let me talk
to them and that's more conversational, they likely wouldn't have
they would have heard what they wanted to hear them.
So having these lists of very specific questions and even
getting them in writing yes is even is one tool
(22:25):
that a board member should put in their little toolkit.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
Right well, John, this is the reason why nine out
of ten people are not very happy at the jobs
they're doing. They're round pegs and square holes because there's
a failure first of all for them to know themselves
and who they are, and then the person that hires them.
As you say, they get in the situation and they
want to hear what they want to hear because they
(22:49):
just look at it as a requirement. You know, I've
got a I've got an opening here, and I've got
to get it filled as opposed to having the right
person there. Because as we talked about earlier, I mean,
to me, that's Christian love. Christian love is accommodating and
making sure people are the right fit, that they can
exercise the giftings and talents that God's blessed them with.
(23:11):
Don't force them into something that you know they're going
to hate and be miserable and make everybody else miserable
around them.
Speaker 3 (23:18):
You know. And it's also what some of the board
members don't think about. And I think this is the
love is also who are you trying to serve. If
you're a church, you're trying to serve your congregation to
the glory of God. If you're a school, you're trying
to mentor these students. It is not loving to the
students or to your congregation members of hiring someone who
(23:40):
is working athwart your mission. Yes, yeah, So what happened
at Pacific in the years after I left. Things became
so bad so they authorized a campus group with people
who don't have biblical sexuality, I'll just put it that way,
as an official campus group, and the atmosphere changed so
(24:02):
that by the last few years there was actually a
group of conservatives dudes who petitioned the board because it
was now becoming so hostile that if they were trying
to articulate a defense of biblical sexuality when it comes
to LGBTQ or something else, they were being intimidated.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
Yes, And my.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
Question for the board who basically authorized that they thought
they were being loving to people who are rejecting biblical truth.
But what they don't realize but bye by, they weren't
really being loving to those people. But even if they
thought they were, they weren't thinking about the students who
were trying to uphold biblical truth, who are now being
intimidated and bullied, and this other view takes over the campus.
(24:44):
And so this again many of the people who think
they're being loving are actually being cruel. They're being cruel
to the people who are on the way of error
that they're not rescuing that, but they're being cruel for
the victims of those people. Once it takes over, the
institution becomes utterly intolerant towards the faithful few.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
Yeah, what's the difference with these poisoning IVY universities right now? John?
I mean, basically what you're saying, it's the same thing
that's happening at Columbia and Harvard and these other institutions
when it comes to Israel.
Speaker 3 (25:17):
No, I mean actually unfortunately, so what you have is
Christians in the late nineteenth century started a whole bunch
of new universities because they had lost the first generation,
you know, Yale, Prisonton, Harvard. What we're facing now not
with all of them, there are still some solvents, but
with many of them, they're going the same path, right yea,
(25:37):
and some have gone too far that actually probably can't
be saved. Others can be said. And one of the
reason I wrote my book is that you know, depending
on how far you're sitting down, you can say. I mean,
I would actually say, if someone's listening to who knows
a board member of one of these of an institution,
or they themselves are a board member. If you have five,
you know, three to five years of sustained good governance,
(26:00):
you can hire good new people, you can get rid
of bad people. You can actually change the trajectory of
your institution. It will take discernment and it will also
take some courage, but you can do it, yes, and
now's the time to do it. You know. We faced
this also in the nineteen seventies, and a lot of
Christians rose to the challenge. At that time, there was
(26:23):
widespread attacks on biblical authority, even among evangelical Christians. Out
of that, you had people like Francis Schaeffer and many
others who really stood up to call evangelicals back to
their you know, their their foundations. And you had I
write about one story about the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod
where they showed courage because they had they had a
(26:45):
seminary where basically the faculty we're going over to reject
the Bible and reject biblical authority. And they stood firm,
which meant that basically ninety percent of the faculty walked
with the students. And everyone thought, oh, you're destroying your seminary,
your drawing your denomination. But by standing firm, the Lutheran
Church Missouri Senate is still now the largest single conservative
(27:08):
Lutheran denomination United States, with one point eight million members.
And so they were blessed by God by standing firm.
But so we had a lot of Christians who showed
courage in the dark days of the nineteen seventies. What
we're going, in my view through another period like that,
and people need to step up. And the good news
is God will honor your faithfulness. But you first have
(27:28):
to recognize as a problem and then you have to
be willing to do something well.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
And it requires leadership, yes, really, you know. And that's
what I see is lacking on so many fronts, whether
we're talking culturally, politically, in institutions that we need to
count on. And I agree with you. We're talking with
doctor John West, the author of the book Stockholm Syndrome Christianity.
(27:52):
Well tell you this parallels so much of our society
today and will cause you to rethink some of these
principles and how maybe we've just allowed because we feel
like we want to accommodate, you know, we want to
be liked for whatever reason. And I think it's inherent.
(28:12):
I think as human beings, you know, we want to
be liked. We don't want to be called a racist
and that sort of thing. Because I often find myself
telling people when they accuse me of things like that,
So I go, hey, I got to tell you that's
not my heart, you know, and that has helped me.
And I don't know, maybe that's just something that God
has put into me, the Holy Spirit has given to
(28:33):
me as kind of a shield John where And it's
interesting because when I say that to people, it causes
them to step back for just a moment and kind
of lower the temperature to say okay, and then we
can decide whether or not we want to, you know,
continue on with the discourse or maybe just say, hey,
look it, I wish you well on your journey.
Speaker 3 (28:53):
Yeah that's true. And you know, on the race issue,
the tragedy is the Bible is the biggest bull work
for human dignity and human equality, genuine human dignity and
human equality in the history of humankind, it's history of mankind.
It's just the And so for many of the churches,
and I have a chapter on this book that were
(29:13):
you know, adopting, whether it be whether you call it
critical race theory or or not, really demeaning views that
are demeaning people based on race and going against biblical equality.
That was tragic on multiple counts, but it was It
was tragic because in the name of attacking racism, they
actually were advocating racism. But the biggest tragedy is the
(29:34):
Bible is like I said, when it comes to slavery,
civil rights, the unborn, when it comes to human dignity
and human equality, the Bible of all of us created
the image of God is a huge bullwarkat that we
that we should be, that we that we should have
good teaching on, rather than gravitating to these pseudo Marxists
or other you know, things that actually are not Christian
(29:58):
and actually lead to divisiveness, not wholeness, not friendship, not equality.
I mean it is really the Christian Church in the
last few years in America, I think has lost its
way you know, you know, many people out of the
best you know motives because they wanted to you know,
(30:19):
extol racial equality, which I think is right, but they
adopted that there were hoodwink if you will, by these
seculist notions that actually go in the opposite direction.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
Well, what happened is people failed to check the fruit. John,
you know, what's the fruit of those institutions of black
lives matter? Well? What is it? Of course, we know
we have a better idea today than we did back
then because everything was so emotional that facts and truth
was put to the back seat or the back of
the bus.
Speaker 3 (30:46):
But you know, the really good news is another tragedy
is there are a lot of devout evangelicals, whether they
be Hispanics or blacks, who are teaching this really well
and who you know, argue for the importance of at
Christian schooling and are doing some innovative things in inner
cities to really raise up on people. And those were
(31:06):
not the people that the white churches were listening to.
They were listening to the race mongers, and it was
just rather than their fellow biblical believers, you know, among blacks, Hispanics,
and they were ignoring those great resources. So I actually
tell part of that story in one of the chapters
of my book, and part of my book is actually
(31:28):
to point people to resources. You know, if you're in
a church where they're trying to pummel you with some
of these views, and say, well, this is the view
that if you have to have, my book gives you
insight into all these other resources that you can use
to counter that and to because it's really tragic the
way that many Christians have bailed on historic Christian teaching,
(31:51):
which gives a lot of help in all these areas,
and are gravitating towards these sexualist views that actually drive
people on the ground and it to terrible outcomes.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
Well, John, I think it's interesting right now where the
culture is is, I believe, maybe even unbeknownst to itself,
it is starving for the truth. It is a kneemic
when it comes to the truth. And now that the
truth is starting to come out, and I think one
of the key crossroads that we hit here, and I
give credit to Elon Musk, when Elon Musk came in
(32:24):
and bought Twitter, yep and exposed everything that was going on.
It was interesting how the dominoes started to fall. And
then of course, you know Trump's second campaign, actually his
third campaign, and when he got re elected, it was
it was interesting. I mean, you know, the fact that
(32:45):
he survived an assassination somehow that gave him some credit,
you know, credibility, and and he could address some common
sense things. I think some of the things he was addressing,
you know, on immigration and other issues were there, but
it was just something about almost being assassinated that allowed
his voice to cross over these democratic not necessarily democratic,
(33:09):
but demographic lines that heretofore were impossible for him to
travail right or traverse.
Speaker 3 (33:14):
I should say, yeah, I think there's a lot of
insight there. I would say, you know, another example that
shows what the thirst for truth that you're talking about is.
For the last five to seven years, we were inundated
and the idea of that we need to give kids
gender affirming care, which the fact was a euphemism for
child mutilation exactly. I mean, let's just be clear. It
(33:36):
was not gender affirming care. It was sex destructive care,
and it was child mutilation.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
How is that loved John?
Speaker 3 (33:44):
Exactly? Yet this is an example where many of the
so called leaders of American evangelicalism were doing their best
to either avoid that issue or to even cow taw
to it. Yes, but there were a faithful few who
got really persecuted, who really pushed the issue. And then
(34:04):
we've now seen with some of the other changes in politics,
how just in like a six month period, how the
public perception of that has dramatically changed because and how
many most people now recognize that, at least with gards
to kids, this is abuse and they're overwhelmingly opposed to it.
But imagine for the number of years where we had
(34:27):
Christian leaders who were not willing to speak out on
that clearly and just a faithful few remnant. But the
fact that now it just took a few and then
with the change on Twitter and so you can actually
have a live debate, yes, when you could actually do that,
people now have you know, they understand that overwhelmingly, and
so I think there is a thirst for truth and
(34:50):
that that makes it all the more important that Christians
by salts in light right now in this moment, because
if you look at Europe right now, there isn't free
of speech for Christians, and so we have this window you.
Speaker 2 (35:03):
Get jailed for speech. I mean we John, you know
this conversation we're having right now four years ago and
thereafter for a couple of years, i'd be I'd be
in social media jail for it.
Speaker 3 (35:16):
Well. And in England, if you're praying silently outside of
an abortion clinic, you can literally go to jail silently.
And so people need to you know those the last
few years there was tremendous social media repression and there's
i'd say persecution the United States. I write about that
my book too. But right now I think we have
(35:37):
a renewed window. And so the question is that window
isn't going to stay open forever unless we use it.
And so I'd say the next two or three years
is absolutely critical to use the freedom we have or
else we will end up like Europe or worse well
Canada I mean is also.
Speaker 2 (35:56):
Yeah, are supposed to fifty first state of the Union.
But the deal is, as you say, John, that's so
critical and this is a call to the church. The
opportunity is now, this isn't a point of time, I
believe by God. And you've got people, especially young people
that are starving for the truth. Are you going to
ignite the lamp of truth in front of your churches
(36:19):
to let people know that God lives here and the
truth is here. Because the fact of the matter is
truth does exist. It's not relative. We've been told for decades,
Oh it's relative. Your truth is your truth, my truth. Beloney,
There's only one truth and it comes from God. Anything
apart from God is not the truth. And the churches
(36:40):
have to doctrinally and really believe that that is so,
because I believe that is the answer to some of
the cultural ills that we're dealing with right now. Doctor West.
Speaker 3 (36:52):
I think that's true, and I might be helpful just
you know, really quickly to mesage are very specifics because
I'm not I am interested in politics, but this goes
beyond politics, and it's culture and it's also theology. So
when I talk about stockhom syndrome Christianity, what am I
talking about. Well, there's a megachurch pastor Andy Stanley, who
argues that the Old Testament is the obsolete Testament and
(37:15):
we should literally put it to the back of our bibles.
There's another leading Christian apologist, Mike Lacona, who's done some
good work on defending the resurrection, but he now argues
that the Gospels are like Hollywood stories that were inspired
by true events, but that the facts, the situations, even
the words of Jesus were changed. So it's like a
(37:35):
Hollywood movie that's not accurate. So we're talking about biblical
authority one oh one is being sacrificed and not being
stood up for. In the area of science and medicine,
the most powerful Christian scientists in America for over a
decade was Francis Collins, self identified evangelical Christian. And what
did he do. I don't question his personal faith. I
(37:59):
think he's personally it's about but he oversaw the development
of a tissue hub harvesting aborted baby body parts exactly
for medical research millions of your tax dollars. And this
was not directed by a materialist, by you know, an
atheist or an agnostic. It was directed by it was
overseen by a hard caring, you know, evangelical Christian. And
(38:23):
worse than that, we talked about the gender stuff. The
n i EH spent millions more bank rolling some of
the worst doctors and hospitals that were doing uh, gender
destructive research of puberty blockers on kids and cutting off
breasts of young women. And that was also on Francis
Collins's watch. In fact, he called himself an ally and
(38:47):
advocate his term of the l g B t q
I a movement, and so and so that that, but
that wasn't done by an atheist. That was done by
a Christian. And then when we get to you know, sexuality,
you know, people don't realize the key vote inventing a
right of gay marriage, inventing a right that's not in
(39:07):
the constitution, did not come from a atheist, didn't even
come from a Democrat. It was by Anthony Kennedy, who
was known as a goodie goody in his personal life,
faithful mass goer, faithful Catholic in its personal life. I
guess he was the one who imposed gay marriage on
the country. And so and in my own home state,
we had an attorney general who drove out of business.
(39:29):
A Christian grandma. Why, she was a florist and she'd
serve everyone, but she drew the line that she didn't
want to do special arrangements for gay weddings. They could
buy things from her, including and do their own arrangements,
but she didn't want to service well. The attorney general
who drove her to where she doesn't exist in it
she had to get out of business. Bob Ferguson, who
(39:50):
unfortunately is now our governor, was when he ran he
touted that he was this member of this local Catholic church,
and he used that in his elections, and he actually
even when he was executing this Christian grandma, he actually
published an article about how his faith impelled him to
do what he was doing. So my point is that that,
you know, I'm an evangelical Christian, so a lot of
(40:11):
the examples are from that in my book. But I
think even if people are Catholic, this is a similar
issue during COVID, And you know, there were different views
on things that COVID, but I think one thing all
Christians should have been able to agree on is that
if you have lockdown orders or restrictions on churches, they
shouldn't be any worse than those on private businesses. Now,
(40:34):
I think the lockdowns were misconstrued and wrong. But but
I'm but you know, for the sake of argument, Okay,
if they're okay, But you had Nevada, a devout, devout
Catholic governor who opened up the casinos and at the
same time put draconian restrictions on the churches exactly. And
(40:54):
we had a conservative Catholic, John Roberts who okayed that
at the Supreme Court a Bush appoint right. So I
mean these are again we can blame all we want,
liberal Democrats, atheists, whatever, but if you actually look at
the people facilitating all these bad things, they're self identified
Christians and in many cases personally devout. And so our
(41:15):
churches need to be more consistent about and our church
based schools of mentoring and discipling people getting that personal
you know, acceptance of Christ is great, but then what
do you do with that? You have to live in
a chord with that, and what does that mean?
Speaker 2 (41:30):
Yes, exactly. Doctor John West is with us his book
Stockholm Syndrome Christianity, and the last time we talked on
along that list. I mean, let's go back to World
War two and what happened there in Germany. I mean
it was pastors, it was Catholic priests. You know, they
are you know, next thing, you know, they're abandoning the
(41:53):
Bible from mine kanp. I mean if you think, but
you know, Jesus warned us and said, look at less
even the elect would be be persuaded. I mean, these
are warnings that are there in His words and in
the word of God. And uh, this is why we
must hold on to biblical truth.
Speaker 3 (42:13):
That's exactly right. And I want to say, you say,
I'm glad you brought up history, because this has happened
time and again. But I also want to say there
are always faithful remnants. And of course in Germany there
was Dietrich Bonhoeffer and others. And I say today, if
someone's watching this, who is feeling depressed by all this,
and and you're faithful and trying to do the right thing,
(42:34):
God will honor that. In fact, the last chapter of
my book focus on something I called God's surprises in
history and time and again, there have been places where
Christians thought, well, the Church is just going to go
out of existence. It was actually in China after World
War two when Maw took over. You know, if you
were likely there, you would have thought that Christianity would
(42:55):
go to funk there. Well, there are hundreds of millions
of Christians in China. Now they're gone. Is still awful,
but you know there are hundreds of millions, and so
God does amazing things. So we're not ourselves ultimately called
it's not on us whether things are going to be
successful or not. We're called to be faithful, not success. Factly,
God will take care of the success, and I think
(43:16):
God honors people's faithfulness, but he'll choose how to do that.
So if you are feeling overwhelmed here, my main message
is whatever your realm of influences. It might be just
with your kids, it might be with your grandkids. It
might be in your church if you're a pastor or
a small group leader. It might be in your Christian school,
if you're a board member or a teacher or a
(43:37):
board member of a you know, another ministry. But in
that area where you're called be faithful, and my book
does give some examples of how you can do that.
You don't have to solve the world's problem. But the
weight of the universe is not on your shoulders, like
at let's carry the weight of the university. Exactly, It's
on God's shoulders. But we are called to be faithful.
Speaker 2 (43:58):
After all, this is Jesus Church. He created it right,
and the thing is what we It's hard for us,
particularly here in the United States, to really understand Christian persecution. Yes,
there's bakers that are attacked there's grandmothers that are attacked
and law fair and things like that, and it's really
minimal compared to other countries where you know, Christianity is
(44:22):
the most persecuted religion on the planet. And so in fact,
I was reminded here recently because I saw this movie
twenty one, which was a recall of what happened in
February of twenty fifteen with the Coptic Christians that were
beheaded there by isis you know, and you I mean,
(44:47):
here they were and they knew what was going to
happen to them. In fact, there was one There was
originally only twenty and the way it became twenty one
is there was an Egyptian Coptic and they let him,
they were letting him go, and he says, no, I
stand with my brothers. And he stood with his brothers
to the you know, to the death and had his
head removed like the rest of them. And you know,
(45:10):
and you watch this and it really convicts you to think, Okay,
we talk about faithfulness, but I mean, you know, faithfulness
here in the West is like having a hangnail, you know,
compared to having your head taken off.
Speaker 3 (45:24):
You know, I completely agree with us. And I think
one of the big blond spots of a lot of
American Christians is they don't know the levels of horrific
persecution going on around the world. And I think there
are great groups Open Doors, Voice Martyrs, other you know,
groups that actually help with that out and that should
be a priority for churches. What I will say, though,
I do think that if we don't want things to
(45:46):
get worse in our culture, we do. The other problem
I have sometimes people say, well, because it's so bad,
you weren't saying this. But I deal with this in
the book that one person who told me, well, you
know it's that's a blessing to those people is not elsewhere,
and so they're not They use it as an excuse
not to defend their brothers or sisters who are going
(46:07):
through that. And I actually have a very poignant quote
from a Nigerian Christian and Nigerians for any people who
know there are also going through horrific persecution in Northern Nigeria,
and he said that, you know, one of the things
in Nigeria that I wish that the Christians in the
West need to pay attention to is that we we
sew downplane it, especially if it's happening to another Christian group,
(46:28):
we wouldn't defend them. And and that's how we got
in this situation. And they were basically warning Christians in
the West not to pooh pooh this, especially if it
happened to someone, you know, a Christian maybe outside their tradition,
because they said, well, that's not us, they haven't come
for us yet. And so I do think that we
do also need to defend, even though not to the
(46:50):
level of beheading or being killed, people do lose their
jobs and other things in America. And I do think
that what you know, Christians in their own communities need
to be upholding the people in their own communities who
are facing them.
Speaker 2 (47:03):
Yeah, without a doubt. Well, and in the book also
and I we have a little time left here, doctor John,
and you have some action here, action points in chapter ten,
for example, a call to wisdom, right.
Speaker 3 (47:18):
Yeah, yeah, so I did. There are a lot of
things that you can do. We talked about some of
them that board members could do. But on the Wisdom chapter,
I go through a lot of things the way others
people try to manipulate you, like like using words in
different ways, Like there's a movement now among some to
call redefined pro life to basically mean global warming. And
(47:39):
so I try to queue people in on how language
is being manipulated and things that you can do to
you arm yourself beforehand, so when you encounter it you
know how to deal with. And then there's just a
lot of other practical things. There's another chapter with twenty
one things people can do, whether you're a parent or teacher,
and you know, one just very simple is do no harm,
(48:00):
which has taken inventory. How are you using your own
you know, where do you go to church? Where are
you giving your money, your time, talent and treasure, and
are you making sure that you're not enabling bad things?
What are you doing with your own resources?
Speaker 2 (48:14):
Exactly? Well, doctor John West, cannot thank you enough The
Book of Course, Stockholm syndrome, Christianity, why Christian leaders are failing,
and what we can do about it. Really the ball
is in our court, you know, as a responsible person
of faith, an intentional, committed person of faith. You know
(48:36):
this is again I just think it's such a blessing, John,
what you've given us. And I encourage all our viewers
to get their hands on your book, The Book of Course,
available at all the usual places.
Speaker 3 (48:48):
Right, Yes, it is, and if people want more information
they can also go to the book website which is
Stockholm Syndrome Christianity dot com. A lot of free resources
on that website.
Speaker 2 (48:58):
Well, doctor John West, thank you so much for being
with us. Take care, God bless Thank you. Bill say, okay,
you got it? Well, tell you what a treat Huh.
He's just an awesome academic and fellow citizen of the faith.
I want to thank you for joining us. I hope
this has been a blessing to you as it has
been to me, and you know, thank you for your time.
(49:22):
As we wrap things up, I want to read this
portion of Saint Patrick's prayer on this Saint Patty's Day,
if it's okay with you. I love this. You know.
One of my good friends, Geene Watson, has put this
to music, and if you ever get a chance, check
it out on YouTube. It is Saint Patrick's breastplate and
she has such a great story. But you will be
(49:44):
greatly blessed. But the prayer goes Christ with me, Christ
before me, Christ behind me, Christ in me, Christ beneath me,
Christ above me, Christ on my right, Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down, Christ, when I sit down, Christ,
when I arise. Christ in the heart of every man
who thinks of me, Christ in the mouth of everyone
(50:07):
who speaks of me, Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me. May God bless
you and keep you. May make His face shine upon you,
May be gracious unto you and give you peace thanks
for being with us. God bless
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