164 Church is Lame

churches are stealing money from the government Chuck swindall stepping down Mark Driscoll stepping in the way and Kirk Cameron is just a jerk this is Church's lame yay yay Mark how you doing I'm mostly conscious um which is kind of a trick after you know some of the headlines this week yeah we've got a bunch of them this week I don't know what was in the water this week but we've got a lot to get through so we're going to start off um I'm gonna say we're g to go from less celebrity to more celebrity as The Show Goes On so if you want I like that so if you're looking for the big names just just wait because it's coming but we're going to start off locally um Mark found a great story that really in my opinion needs to be top of Mind in the modern Church yeah this is just a weird one to me um it comes from CBN Christian Broadcasting Network um and it's every Church should start a Christian School school vouchers fuel wave of faith-based schools I want to punch who's responsible for that headline because that's that's just that's just an awful headline um but it's like exactly what you think it is it's you know Christian people um with you know parents with kids in schools complaining about CRT which isn't taught in you know K through 12 schools at all and compl complaining about gender stuff and they don't want their children exposed to that right nothing new here right um and like some weird things have been going on um in in like Florida particularly to help further like you know establishing more schools so that Christian parents can just kind of maybe get together you know and in create more like with homeschooling you can have co-ops it's like they want to create something a little bit more formal than a co-op yeah um but like they're trying to encourage and they you know it's kind of like you know who are they you know but and it's it's like like there are people that are pushing for churches to start building schools or school programs in their churches yeah um and like this this guy Pastor Melvin Adams said the dumbest thing in defense of this okay he said we're making disciples and we're not doing it just on Sundays but we're doing it all week long um I can't help but notice that you want to take your children out of public school and then talk about how you're making disciples yeah that's a really interesting part of this and and let me say here um like I I know that people watch the show and they definitely Peg me as kind of like you don't need to pay attention because he's just one of these tree hugging liberal guys but I like I want to make it absolutely clear to anybody who's watching or listening that I believe in choice and free markets as much as anybody I believe in free market Solutions so if you want to go to public school send your kid to public school if you want to send them to private school send them to private school if you want to homeschool them homeschool them if you want to send them to a church school send them to a church school like by all means wherever you think your kid is going to get the best education by all means do that but let's not confuse like what we're doing like we send our kids to school to get education and we will then later if they want to have more of a life in Ministry we can send them to Seminary to make them Advanced disciples you know but that's not why we send our kids to kindergarten and it just seems to me that this is not like this is not so much about um raising up the next generation of Christians and Christian leaders as it is making sure that the young people don't leave our cult yeah and like there's there's maybe a few different ways that that this uh Pastor Adams might have meant that statement right he might have meant like well like we want to build these children Up In You Know by discipling to them I can get that um but ultimately um your children can still go to public schools um they themselves can witness to non-believers and um in their classes um and they can still be taught the values and the lessons of the church yeah of the faith within the context of their local church like these are not mutually exclusive things even remotely yeah can I just bring up one thing in relation to that yeah so one of the big complaints that's always leveled um is how the government wants to be the nanny State they want to tell you how to raise your kids and what they should believe and what they shouldn't believe when that should be the role of the family and the parents more specifically and now we have Pastor Melvin Adams of Faith Family Community Church telling us that he wants the church to be the nanny church and now he wants spiritual reform formation to be taken out of the home and away from the parents and like who knows what you're going to teach my kid in 8 hours of of schooling I know because I was part of a church that had a school built into it and I would never want my kids to learn what that school was teaching them about God and Faith yeah and you know we've talked before about you know lowgrade or now lowgrade celebrity Kirk Cameron you know he he was pretty relevant in 1985 you can't say Kirk Cameron when I've got a drink up to my my mouth cuz I almost spit it all over the camera dude okay you can't do that and Pepsi if you'd like to sponsor us just saying yeah and you know generic lroy I'm All About You There we go okay anyway go for it so you know like because he has this whole thing about like well we need to be homeschooling our kids and like it we understand the nature it's not that children aren't being taught you know math correctly or they're not being taught you know English grammar correctly that's not the problem like you're not don't want to homeschool uh you know children because they can give those children better education I mean exactly it it really depends on a lot of different factors whe they can even you whether their education is going to be better the same or Worse um but it's all about Sheltering your children from competing ideas and if you cannot counteract you know the ideas you don't want them to learn from the world um and of course like you and I are going to disagree with you know Kirk Cameron probably quite a lot in what those values should be no doubt know but like you you're saying to me that you don't have the strength or the power or the resources to actually teach your children that because your faith and the depth of your understanding of it are insufficient for the job unless you have them you know 247 yeah um I feel like it's an admission of faith absolutely um and you know I in this case like it's like a double or triple failure right because um uh if anybody's like I'm sure you're familiar with you know the the freedom from religion Foundation sure um yeah like they do a lot of things that just annoy me and and I agree with a lot of things that they do it's it's just a weird thing I have with them yeah um but uh this uh Rachel laser uh who's the president of um Americans United for separation of church and state um she said like the problem isn't churches starting schools okay the problem is taxpayer funding for these schools or any private schools um in this of course regards you know when there's a religious education attached to it right because um separation of church and state like it's it's like a big no no right right but before like let's let's unpack that a little bit um just to be clear um so churches if you don't know they sign into a legal agreement with the government for their tax exemp status and basically the agreement goes like this you're going to not charge us tax for anything anything like including payroll and salary and those kind of things and in return we are not going to get involved with the endorsement of of political ideologies right and yeah okay so I just want to make sure people understand like when we talk about church and state there's a lot of things going on when it's talk about funding but that's the the basic premise of of of the

separation yeah and you know that like I get her point of view it's like um you know you if like a taxpayer you know your taxes go to various places I it's kind of like electricity you get from you know your electricity provider like you can't control where the electrons come from right they just come down that wire like you can choose to pay um you know NRG or you know naviant or whoever else I don't think naviant is even one but you know whoever else right right and that that's the same thing with our taxes like our money goes to the government and our taxes go to a thing well I want my taxes to go to the public schools right that are on my house I don't want my taxes going to take care of some little isolated um you know really hyper withdrawn Christian family to teach their kid wacky stuff like humans rode dinosaurs and it doesn't even need to go that far right public is public and private is private they seems the distinction seems to be clear that if you want to do things privately by all means do things privately you have our blessing to to to take your ball and walk off the court right but then you don't get the benefits of being part of a community in this in this you know in this particular example you know the funding of the public school system if you want to run your school your way and not adhere to public school standards more power to you but then you don't get all the support that the public school uh gets benefits from which I don't know that they get a ton of benefits but they get some mostly in in the in terms of funding and discounts you know and it drives me crazy because it's not just about um uh oh well well these these private schools are getting um funds for from from from the government it's it's that these private schools from that are Church schools are bankrupting the government and that seems to be the point it's like well we're going to set up a school not because we can do better education but because we can get voucher money right from the government and we can give your kids an education at a discount and so none of this seems to be about the betterment of the kids most of this seems to be about using the government's own money against them in in a way like there's some sort of like in this sort of like weird quasi righteous Warfare that is really um really destructive to the child instead of actually being beneficial yeah and like the worst part of it or I can't say the worst part there so many parts of it are bad yeah but like you know when we're talking about you know where is the money going to you know like we have Charter Schools we have voucher programs and charter schools are r with problems and abuses um and all sorts of things like you know like hiring teachers that are underqualified for the job or even completely unqualified because there's no regulation of char schools yeah and private schools are that way there's lots of private schools out there that have high levels of Integrity with their hiring practices I don't think that like you know Joe Bob's Small congregation I don't know why I said Joe B I feel like that's just yeah you know racist against white people right but like you know like like like a rural uh you know church right like it might not be a bad idea to have like a homeschool Co-op at the church instead of having to drive halfway across the county to take your kid to a school so like hey cool idea but in like a Suburban or urban area like where you and I are you know have lived our lives or a lot of Our Lives um yeah it's like like these voucher programs aren't good like there's a story that came out recently um you know concerning a bunch of problems with voucher systems especially um that they have like the voucher programs have not demonstrated positive results they have demonstrated negative results in terms of quality of Education yeah hey let's not get too far out in the Weeds about voucher programs in particular let's kind of keep this um in the realm that we like to fly in which is churches doing stupid things right yeah and so like let's we've been at this for like almost 15 minutes so let's land This Plane um and I'll give you the final word but let me just say this um the church is meant to to solve the problems of the world to solve the suffering of the world and certainly if you if you want to extend that to education that that fine I guess you know I don't have any big problem with with with churches being committed to education I do have a problem with um this kind of seven mountains dominionism that that like any justification is a good just justification to go to war with any non-Christian entity in this case the government and so if if that's if if that's your thing like let's start a school to stick it to the man that's not a good enough reason and you should stop Mark I'm going to give you the last word and then let's close this up yeah I mean I think you you're bringing it around to where I was hoping to get to it is that you know when we are you know trying to be faithful and we're trying to you know as it says you know in the Old Testament you know work toward the good of the city right and we are to love our neighbor neighbor we to love our enemies even um like a big part of that is going to be like helping the public education system succeed yeah um and any steps that we support that will you know be to its detriment are not good um and like so like we should be focusing our acts of Love on making public education better and then taking the responsibility to give our children the religious education that we think is so important that'll preach okay all right that's I think that was super important like I said I think that was the thing that we need to talk about because real life happens locally right we talk about all these big stories national International stories but the most important decisions are always local right so I'm glad we spent the most amount of time on that but now we are going to get to the speed round because we have we have a lot to talk about and we're not going to we're not going to camp on anyone for too long but I definitely did not want the week to go by without mentioning these okay oh wow I've got the camera on you the whole time I just said that okay so let's start with um Chuck swindall Chuck swindall in the Christian Community is like famous is not even the word he is a Christian institution unto himself okay um TV radio Prince uh you name it you name the media and and he has been um dominant in it for for decades um he's announced his retirement but he's but he's not retiring entirely um it's a semi-retirement he is retiring from active preaching and has stated that he is going to spend 100% of his professional time on the U media Ministry side of the house and I just thought that was interesting because it's like dude you know where your bread is buttered is is it so like instead of like taking charge and well not taking charge but instead of um prioritizing your local flock that that you are that you've been put um um that you've given charge over to to make to to disciple them and to lead them and and to guide them through their lives you've instead chose the The Faceless nameless masses who just keep pouring money into your coffers uh because a it it yields a lot and B it's easy like I like I respect the fact that you're old and you don't have time and energy to do everything I do I just wish you would have like like Jesus says to Mary and Martha I just wish you would have recognized the more important thing I guess yeah you know and yeah just like I I I know that some people are going to would hear that and be like well you know you're just being a cynical jerk and it's like well yes but you know it's not without its point because when you look at you know how much money does somebody make from preaching compared to like a Christian television station right it's it doesn't look good yeah um yeah and the fact that his name r like it sounds like Swindle yeah that doesn't help nice alliteration there I like it okay let's keep moving along okay um where are we at here religion news oh I I with this probably this story alone probably could have been a an episode on itself but I didn't really want to spend that much time on it but it is election season and Christians go um particularly crazy an election season and it's interesting that the job of candidates is to is to earn your vote right that's their job right now during this season and and so Donald Trump goes and give some stump speeches um in front of some uh Jewish communities and and instead of giving his speech or doing what Bill Clinton did which Bill Clinton was a genius at just kind of like oh I'm I'm I'm standing in bunch in in Jewish Community let me speak to how I'm going to um have policies and I'm going to have um advisers who are particularly um interested in Jewish Affairs Bill Clinton was Master at that right mhm instead Donald Trump gets up to the mic and starts talking about if I don't win the election it's because the Jews didn't vote for me and it'll be very very bad for you like what is going on here it was ju to me it was just as like smoke coming my out of my ears as they're eating the dogs and cats I I couldn't believe it yeah it's it's such a self-centered thing to say in the first place and it's just like the fact that he lacks the selfawareness to go well hey you know that sounded you know a bit you know SE highish um is is troubling for somebody who tries to say that he's a Christian yeah and then the other part of this is just like the the historical um obliviousness right like who who was that other guy in history who tried to say that the Jews were were the source of all your problems you know Maki yeah so it's like uh oh man like I get it I get it um I like I've been trying to understand like in this last week I've been really trying to wrap my head around why like the me like the message that I keep like I believe Donald Trump is a threat to democracy and that's just not getting through it's just not getting absorbed it's just not meaningful and I've really been trying to understand that and and it seems like like we understand tribalism like I want to I'm a Republican or a Democrat I've always been a republican I've always been a Democrat but there's this other layer of it that that to Americans democracy is it's like breathing you don't even think about it like we've had it for so long and we're so comfortable with it that it just is you know it's like air it's like sunlight it just is and so when you say like Donald Trump is a threat to democracy it has no meaning because you can't conceive of reality without a sun without air you just can't conceptualize it and so uh like I'm just beside myself at this point for for what else does this man have to say for people to understand that that he's just a raging lunatic yeah and and at the rate with which um evangelicals especially white evangelicals like to support the guy it's it's it's it it bothersome to say the least I I feel like uh if if evangelicals want to want to prove that they're actually Christian um they should just not vote for you know anybody ever again because it's just a clown show all around and voting for the least clown of the clowns is just to me it's too frustrating yeah or if you really believe that you have to vote Christian like write in Franklin Graham if that's what you want to write in I would never not Franklin gr I know but I'm just saying at least at least vote in somebody who like is remotely Christian adjacent you know yeah Christian adjacent that's all I'm saying okay moving on moving on yeah um the SBC the southern baptist uh convention uh our friends we love them dearly um even even even if they can't find a place in their hearts for the lgbtq and Leadership um they made an interesting announcement this week that they're going to be selling off their headquarters in Nashville um I guess in order to uh to help um offset the cost of legal fees and I'm not sure if I really feel bad about that what do you think um you know I'm I'm probably more bothered by like the idea that Amazon will buy it and turn it into another Warehouse where employees are treated like trash yeah um um you know like I don't have any any love or hate for the SBC um like I kind of want to say you know what I think it's a good thing because I think it's going to force um the SBC to really sit down and re-evaluate um its priorities not just in terms of you know you know financial decisions but its priorities in terms of we can't ever let something like this happen again because like yeah SBC has been um just it's been shrinking for years now um it's it's no longer at its peak uh and I think it'll help them to come to terms with that and help them to really kind of think about how to realign Ministry for the future so oh my friend I can't tell you how wrong you are right now so so let let me predict I said hope I said hope a lot okay let let me uh let me predict the future for you here um they're going to sell the office and they're going to kind of go hey remote work we can do it and if you if you think that there's there's lack of progress in the SBC now you just wait to see how how leadership just comes to a plundering halt Microsoft teams will do that to you right okay moving on um last story with uh celebrity Christians my favorite um uh celebrity Christian uh Mark Driscoll oh Mark Driscoll you know uh he he's you know like the man's man of Christianity you know the Bro the Bro guy who's become kind of very popular in in modern social media and Christian circles you know uh you know flannel shirts and muscled up and ripped jeans um so that like it's kind of like I'm about to go split some wood look but then when he gets at the pulpit he tells you everything and everybody that that is is making the world bad and that you shouldn't like that's Mark Driscoll and so now he's decided to uh to give a big Fu to to his community like literally his community uh he's put he put a sign out in front of the church that oh what does this say the uh it's like Jesus 202024 and it looks very much like a political sign you know it looks very like political endorsement sign and the community's asked him to take it down because once again the the like the the the price you pay for being a nonprofit is you don't get to take sides in politics right and by putting up that Jesus 2024 you might as well just say if you vote for liberals you are demonic and that's literally the words Mark Driscoll would use he would use the word demonic to describe anybody who doesn't think the way he thinks yeah and like on on the one side of it's like I I appreciate you like the vote Jesus sign right it's like no I get it fortunately um the people most likely to say that are also most likely to be very very stly attached to one particular political party and so I do see it yeah it's a de facto endorsement of you know a political party or position um and that's just a bad idea but then like if the communities like d ditch it what what was his response uh that's a good question I what was his response oh I just probably messed something up here uh hold on let me see if I can't get to um we will not comply but we will multiply yeah

um you know like we's baby as kids yeah that's I know it's a very current reference for anybody listening all that to say like first of all when the guy who's doing Secret exorcisms in the basement of his church to make you submit to his authority is the guy who wants to lead a new church don't go to that church and then certainly don't follow this guy down to the political domain how this guy is still in business after all that exorcism Scandal stuff it's it's like it's the same kind of brain hurt that goes along with the Donald Trump thing I just don't understand how we we've gone from being people who care about um righteousness who care about humility who care about the difference between right and wrong who care about caring for the least of these how we've transformed into the people of of facts don't care about your feelings kind of things you know yeah like when when Jesus says to the you know the disciples around him and other you know onlookers he's like look you know you know whoever wants to enter the Kingdom of Heaven Must come you know and must enter it like one of these children um and Mark Driscoll of course has never read the Bible so he doesn't know this yeah um but I think what I can say um definitively is that uh you know if you provoke people by being an a-hole and then they yell at you about it you're not the victim and like that's his whole Mo here is to play the victim yeah and like so like that's your position of strength in the Holy Spirit is to play the victim yeah you're you're a jerk right so he like he's basically playing from the Trump handbook like I'm the strong man and I'm the victim at the same time I'm always a strong man and I'm always the victim okay done with that final things as we um as we land This Plane persecution watch it's back because there were two stories that really grab my attention this week um oh no so there's a person who's convicted in Pakistan um for insulting Muhammad um mandatory death sentence so that's real and that's happening that's a thing man oh my gosh and then 162 estimated million million 162 Millions estimated Christians forced for their homes forced from their homes in subsaharan Africa so that's a real thing and those are real people so all that just to say all you people in America who say that the church in America is persecuted stop Cameron stop like nobody is is taking away your right to raise your family and educate them and teach them the ways of the Lord you can do that as much as you want you can do that with your neighbors as much as you want nobody is persecuting you and every time you use that phraseology you make the suffering of the world a little more meaningless please stop yeah like I would just invite any of these people in the United States who are claiming that like I'm being persecuted for being a Christian it's like no just like go and read about the Apostle Paul go read the book of Acts and then after the end of that ask yourself what would Paul say to you about your situation yeah I think I think you'll get there absolutely absolutely okay I think that's a good way to land the plane um this is Church's lame if you're not familiar with our show Mark and on are not here just to browbeat the church what we're here to do is bring up the latest stories in the headline to answer a specific question to church leadership and that is why are people leaving the church and why does the church have less relevance today than it used to have we compile these stories so that when these questions are asked we can go here you go it's not just because people are less spiritual it's not just because um people are are are are so um are so into their phones that they've forgotten about Jesus it's it's it's not just because uh people have busier lives like there are real legitimate reasons that people find the modern Church laughable and we're here to document that now we do that in our own cynical sarcastic way but this is what we're doing so if you have anything you want to say you want to add to the conversation by all means go to the socials the thumbs up the thumbs down like the reply the comment um the review the rating whatever it is that you like to do please do it and if you really want to brow beat us in long form by all means shoot us an email at churches Lan podcast gmail.com and with that go in peace and serve the Lord amen