Dial In with Jonny Ardavanis - Alisa Childers on Progressive Christianity, Deconstruction & Defending Your Faith

Episode Date: December 2, 2025

In this powerful conversation, apologist and author Alisa Childers discusses the dangers of progressive Christianity, how to respond to deconstruction, and why every Christian needs to be equipped to defend their faith.This episode is sponsored by The Master's University. To learn more about how you can invest in a college education devoted to Christ & Scripture, visit: https://www.masters.eduKEY TOPICS COVERED: • What is Progressive Christianity and how to identify it • The three expressions of progressive theology (theological, cultural, political) • How deconstruction is impacting young adults and families • Why TikTok theology is undermining biblical truth • The intellectual shallowness of modern church culture • Practical apologetics tips for everyday Christians • How parents can disciple their deconstructing children • Why asking good questions is more important than having all the answersKEY QUOTES: "I'll have moms come up to me and say, 'My young adult child is deconstructing... What's the best resource that I can give them?' And I always say, 'You're not going to like my answer. It's you.'""Progressive Christianity is the idea that Christianity itself is progressing... Christianity is always arriving but it never arrives.""You don't have to be an apologist or theologian to engage with people. You just need to know how to ask a few good questions."RESOURCES MENTIONED: • "Another Gospel" by Alisa Childers • The Alisa Childers Podcast • AlisaChilders.comPerfect for: Christian parents, youth pastors, apologetics students, believers facing doubt, anyone concerned about progressive Christianity or deconstruction movements

It is a drift. Like, progressives don't show up at your church's doorstep and say, hey, we'd like to make you a progressive church. In fact, very few churches actually do end up calling themselves progressive. They don't realize that they're progressive, but they are. Progressive Christianity is kind of like a big term now. That's become more popularized over the last number of years. But how would you define progressive Christianity?

The quickest and easiest definition I can give you. And this is actually from progressive Christians themselves, is that progressive Christianity is the idea that Christianity itself is progressing. That would be the most simple definition, but I'll tell you how it is expressing itself. Number one would be theology, two would be culture, and three would be political. Some will even take it so far as to say, because Christianity is always arriving, but it never arrives, Jesus would actually even have a different sexual ethic today if he were incarnate on the earth today. There's no area that you as a Christian don't have at least a biblical principle to apply.

But what would you say to that person who feels like, oh, leave it to the performance? I don't want to mess up. I don't want to be stumped. This is so good and so important. I'll have moms come up to me and say my young adult child is deconstructing. They're walking away from everything we taught them. What's the best resource that I can give them? And I always say, you're not going to like my answer. It's you. We have to recapture, I think, discipleship just as average Christians. Elisa, thanks for hopping on. I'm such a big fan of your ministry.

I've recently read your book, Another Gospel, and you have a student version coming out. I'm thankful for just your commitment to what you call historic Christianity, the commitment to God's Word. But talk to me a little bit about your heart behind everything that you do, your books that you've written, the podcast that you have, in defending the faith, reaching the lost, maybe just people that are doubting or have sincere questions.

Talk about how you got to now. Well, thank you so much. It's such an honor to be here. This is one of my favorite podcasts, and I pray for you a lot. I watch your sermon, so it's just truly a thrill to be here. But I think the heart behind what I do is not something I ever saw myself doing. So I grew up in the church, very devoted to Christ as a young child, read almost the whole Bible by the time I was 12. Now, I didn't grow up in an environment where I was really taught hermeneutics or systematic theology, but I love God's Word.

And so went into Christian music for a while. and it was really after that experience as an adult that I realized that my faith wasn't really intellectually backed and it's not that it was a blind faith. I had a very real genuine faith, but it wasn't really intellectually tested yet and that would happen later as an adult. So as a result of the intellectual testing I went through, which really led me into a faith crisis. I just wanted to help other people who might be going through a similar thing, maybe having their faith rocked, especially now with TikTok theology and all of the deconstructionism and all of that going on, just to be a resource to help people process some of that stuff.

You talk about the intellectual shallowness, basically, of the modern Christian culture. Maybe talk about that, just expand on that for a moment because I think there's a reality where, you know, you have such a basic, it can be emotional, it's sentimental. People go to church on a Sunday. They believe in Jesus, but have very little understanding of God's word, God's truth, beyond that. So when you've mentioned TikTok theology, they can watch a 30-second video on TikTok that can just disrupt and distort their entire biblical worldview if they have one. Why do you think, one, that is? And then two, how do we even, you know, how do we even address

that right now, the intellectual need of people within the church? Well, you know, I think back over the last maybe 50 to 60 years of evangelical church culture, and you have the rise of the megachurch model and you have the rise of the Seeker Sensitive movement. And what I think that has facilitated, for the most part, not in every church. And in every church, even the big secret churches and the megachurches, you still have genuine Christians

who are doing their best to live for the Lord. But it almost perpetuates this environment where putting butts in the seats is more important than discipleship and actually teaching the Word of God. And I think even like you've probably discovered when you really do teach the word of God verse by verse and you're teaching people how to study the word of God and you're teaching with authority, people are actually drawn to that.

And so I think that there's a lack of critical thinking. This is something I drum that I beat all the time is that just even learning the laws of logic and how to spot certain logical fallacies is such a big step toward not being deceived because so many deceptions that we see, I think even in the church, are just logically fallacious. And I know, like, once I learned some of those trusts, I'm not a logician, I'm not a philosopher, but just learning a few critical thinking skills has helped so much, especially even in my journey of learning how to interpret the Bible properly and really own that part of my faith. You talk about those logical fallacies, and in your story, that was basically happening from the people within the church that you trusted to say, like, hey, you, I mean, share that story. Basically, you went to a class. It's in your book, and you were thinking that they were going to.

guy was going to walk you through into a deeper realm of discipleship, love the Lord Jesus, and he ended up kind of rocking your world because he was presenting truth to you or lack thereof in a way that you had never, ever heard, share the story. Well, and what's interesting, too, is it's not that I actually never heard, now some of the things I hadn't ever heard, but I actually grew up doing a lot of street evangelism with my dad, so I would meet skeptics and atheists and agnostics as a little child, and they would say things like, oh, the Bible's been debunked or some kind of skeptical claim against what I believed, but I could walk away from them just thinking, well, the Holy Spirit just hasn't shown them,

or they just don't believe the Bible one day they'll get it. And then I just didn't really think about it again. But I think the unique characteristic of what happened to me in this church, which is just down the road from here, is that this pastor had spent eight months before I was in this class winning my trust and my respect. I just thought he was one of the smartest people I'd never heard. He was such a good speaker. He used so much scripture. And so my guard was down. And I think that's a huge part of it. But ultimately, he invited me. He separated my husband and I. I see that now. I didn't realize what was going on back then. But it's not like he invited us together. So it was like an exclusive class. Yes. It was very exclusive, like 12 or 13 people.

I was invited. And I thought that like you said, it was going to be learning to defend the what behind or the, I should say the why, but behind the what. I knew what I believed. I didn't know how to defend what I believed. So I thought I was going to be learning that stuff. And then I got to the first class and the pastor kind of pulled us in together and he said, you know, I just want to be really honest about where I'm at. I'm really an agnostic. He called himself a hopeful agnostic. And I was like my mind was kind of blown, especially with how he had been teaching for almost a year. But I thought, well, I don't want to be judgmental. And so I just vowed to keep my mind open. But over the course of about the four months that I lasted in that class, every core belief,

I mean, not just secondary things like what we might disagree about regarding baptism or something like that, but like core issues, the crucifixion of Jesus and what that means, the resurrection, the virgin birth, core essentials of the gospel of Jesus were picked apart. They were actually deconstructed. And I learned later, I didn't know this at the time. I didn't even know this when I wrote my book. but years later he made a video talking about what was going on at the church at that time and he basically said that at that time he was already deconstructed and had converted to

progressive Christianity and he was just trying to get the people in his church to deconstruct because he thought if they could deconstruct in other words if he could you know tear down the foundations of what they had been taught to believe their whole lives then he knew that he could convert them to a different kind of Christianity which was really his goal And he was very good at it because everybody in the class that I know of, except for me, either became a progressive Christian or completely walked away from any Christian label whatsoever. So while I was in the class with him, I would try to debate. I would go home and Google things and I would come back and try to bring arguments. But it really wasn't until we left the church.

And I left the class that I didn't have anybody to debate with anymore. And then all of those doubts went really deep. And I remember just one night crying out to God and saying, God, if you're real, if everything my parents have taught me about you is true, I need to know. I need you to show up. But the thing is, I grew up very charismatic. So showing up with experience, like I had a ton of that. I needed information.

I actually needed to know that there was intellectual backing to the things that I believed. And so interestingly, of course, God answered that prayer and led me to study. I studied for years. And ultimately, rebuilding, I think, a stronger feeling. faith. You know, I went back through my entire worldview and made a lot of corrections, things that I realized I sort of believed growing up that really weren't biblical. So my faith looks different today. But the core, that core gospel my parents gave me, really stood up to the scrutiny and all of the investigation. And so, yeah, I'm thankful to God. I write about this

in the book. I walk with a little bit of a limp now because when I was a kid, I would read that Bible. And there was nothing in the Bible as a kid that I would be like, oh, that's problematic or why would God do that? It was just like, I just took it and was like, wow, look at David riding into battle. Praise God. And so now it's like there's this voice of the skeptic that's always in the back of my mind. But I wrote this line in the book. I'd rather, what did I say, I'd rather limp on solid ground than run on breaking ice. And so knowing that the Bible is that solid ground and can stand up to the scrutiny has been really transformational for me. Hey folks, this episode is brought to you by one of our ministry partners, the Masters

University. What I love about the Master's University is that everything, regardless of the field of study that you may pursue, is firmly committed to Christ in Scripture. And we live in a time where young men and young women need to be grounded in a biblical worldview. If you or someone you know is looking to pursue higher education, then I would encourage you to go and check out the Master's University, which is known not only for its commitment to Christ and Scripture, the authority of the Word of God, but also its sweet location in Southern California. If you are someone that loves the great outdoors and would find it compelling to be an hour away from the beach or an hour away from the mountains, whatever you want to do, you can snowboard

and surf on the same day, I would encourage you to check out the Master's University. and when you apply, you can use our ministry code dial in to waive the application fee. But go and check it out, the Masters University at masters.edu. Yeah, you mentioned like it was like Jacob wrestling with God. You know, when you mentioned that, you know, this pastor was basically attacking the foundation of the biblical worldview that you had grown up. And what are some of those common attacks that maybe he employed that you see being employed elsewhere today that kind of dismantled the biblical worldview and foundation that you had at that point?

because you do mention, you know, kind of like with me, I have two parents that love the Lord. I didn't have like a crisis of faith because I didn't experience a legitimate version of Christianity. My dad is a pastor and a godly one. He's never disappointed me, you know, like, and you mentioned that your faith was sincere. Your parents shared their faith. They loved the Lord. But it came from kind of this, meaning that you can be a parent, be doing everything right. I think you mentioned that they like modeled Christianity.

and yet people can begin to deteriorate by casting, what Satan does, suspicion on the truth of God's word. So what were those things in that class that he was directly or subtly attacking? I would say the two main ones would be biblical reliability and the character of God, especially as we read about him in the Old Testament. I think those were the two big ones. I remember thinking one of the things that really shook me was knowing that I had based my whole life on the Bible, but when the pastor was able to at least intellectually convince me that there's, you know, he would say there's 400,000 mistakes in the manuscripts, there's

contradictions between the different gospel authors, the people that we think wrote these books, probably didn't even write them. And when he was able to present evidence that seemed logically to make sense, that put me at a really, like a double-minded place. It's kind of like that man when he comes to Jesus where his son is demon-possessed and he wants Jesus to heal his son and he says, I believe, help my unbelief. It's like this double-minded thing that I was experiencing. And so it was the reliability of the Bible was a huge one.

And that's one that I probably spent the most time on because I thought if I've built my life believing that this is God's word and that this is my authority, I need to know why I think that. And then the other one would be the character of God. There was a lot of time in class spent talking about the Canaanite Conquest, talking about even stories like Noah's Ark, where when I'm a kid,

I'm coloring a page of these happy floating zoo. The laughs, but not the drowning. Right, exactly. And so the judgment of God as expressed in the Old Testament. Now, what's interesting to me, looking back on that, is the character of God in the Old Testament was actually never something that rattled me. And I think the reason for that is because I did read

almost the whole Bible as a young child. so I saw the overarching narrative of Scripture and when you do that, you see the long-suffering patience of God in the Old Testament. You see His kindness. And then you see the severity of Jesus in the New Testament. So if you really have all of that in your bones and you're just reading it at face value,

at least for me, I didn't perceive there to be any contradiction in God's character, but a lot of people in my class did. In fact, I remember two or three people totally deconstructing because they just could not get on board with some of the Old Testament laws about what to do when you conquer another nation in battle and things like that that were really moral issues they were wrestling with. So their morality was not lining up with what they were reading about.

And that confused me because I remember thinking, well, I'm not going to take what I think is right and then hold God to that standard. God makes the standard and then we measure ourselves against him. But that didn't seem to be the mindset of people in the class and certainly wasn't that of the pastor. Yeah, you know, you mentioned those two things regarding, you know, the trustworthiness of the scripture, the character of God. I mean, you talk about TikTok theology, like going back to it, you know,

whether someone is 65 years old or 13 years old, this is kind of like two of the most common attacks. And then you said that this pastor had kind of converted to progressive Christianity. Progressive Christianity is kind of like a big term now. That's become more popularized. over the last number of years, but how would you define progressive Christianity? Give us a definition of terms.

And then going back to that strategy of maybe dismantling the authority and trustworthiness of the Word of God, how is that being played out in the modern sphere, Christian colleges, Christian churches, and this new, imagined, maybe hypersensitive, loving others version. It sounds good on the surface of,

following Jesus. The quickest and easiest definition I can give you, and this is actually from progressive Christians themselves, is that progressive Christianity is the idea that Christianity itself is progressing. So in other words, it can mean a lot of different things. It's very fluid. There's a broad spectrum of beliefs that fall under that umbrella.

But ultimately, it's the idea that, you know, as historically the Christian view, the biblical view, is that God doesn't change. Maliki, yeah, 36. Yeah, like in Hebrews, Jesus Christ, the same, yesterday, today, and forever. He doesn't change. And therefore, the truths that are rooted in his character don't change. That would be the historic view. Whereas the progressive view, some will even take it so far as to say because Christianity is always kind of, and they get

this from Jacques Derrida arriving, but it never arrives. Jesus would actually even have a different sexual ethic today if he were incarnate on the earth today. And there are a lot of progressive Christians that are informed by process theology, which would hold the view that God is learning along with us, that he's not necessarily all-knowing in the classical way that we would talk about. So that would be the most simple definition, but I'll tell you how it is expressing itself. And I've kind of evolved to talking about it like a triangle. So there's like three angles. Number one would be theology, two would be culture, and three would be political.

It's very political, believe it, it's a very political movement. So progressive Christians tend to start with their politics. Then they'll derive their theology out of their more leftist political views. So that would be the political angle. The ethical angle is that progressive Christianity is going to be characterized by an adamant LGBTQ activism and embrace of the social justice gospel. So the critical social theories, oppressed versus oppressor, that's all going to be animating the gospel message of progressive Christians. And then that final angle would be theological. And so if you think about the narrative arc of the gospel, creation, fall, redemption, restoration, there's denials all along that arc.

So progressive Christians for the most part, and I'm talking about the thought leaders that are writing the books, they are going to deny that humans are inherently sinful. They're not going to deny that sin exists, but they would deny that humans have this inherent brokenness about them and that that sin would separate them from God. So in the view of the progressive Christian, there's no separation between humanity and God. You just need to realize that you're beloved by God, that you are not separated from him. And if you feel separated, it's just your shame talking. it's self-imposed. They'll even go back to the Garden of Eden and talk about how it was their shame,

not actually their sin, that separated them from God. So then you can trace that through the rest of that narrative, and they're going to deny that Jesus' death was like an atoning sacrifice, substitutionary. His resurrection doesn't have to have really happened in the mind of the progressive Christian for it to be meaningful.

So if you don't have a physical resurrection, you don't have a physical ascension, which means you don't have a physical second coming. So all of that becomes kind of metaphorical, and then ultimately at the end of the day, most progressive Christians are universalists of some stripe. They might define it slightly differently, but ultimately that's going to be the view that there is no place of punishment in the afterlife called hell. And however they work that on in the positive, that would be the denial.

Very much so, yeah. A lot of loved ones. Everyone's going ahead. In fact, it actually really in this current expression can be traced back to the emergent church in the early 2000s that has, even, evolved into what we see as progressive Christianity today, same movement, a lot of even the same faces, but there are different expressions as it progresses. Yeah.

So like you mentioned that they would even, they would agree with this idea, people that identify with the progressive church. First of all, I think there's probably a bunch of people in this messy mush where they would say, I'm not progressive, I just, I'm not sure where I'm at on these things. And we'll talk about this more, but even with where Christian universities, I don't think they would identify as progressive universities, they're just compromised, but don't think they're compromised because that love or the social element has distorted their theological conviction. But when you talk about how they, you know, they would say Jesus would have a different

sexual ethic than if he lived today, because I've read different things from like a, on the LGBTQ plus movement that, you know, the homosexuality in the Bible that's condemned is the raping of a young slave boyed by a Roman centurion, not a monogamous committed a relationship. That's the only type of homosexuality that was available in the first century. So Jesus and Romans 1, that's not what they're talking about. Jesus would never, you know, so they use a scriptural argument, but now you're saying, well, it's kind of like with abortion, they no longer deny it's a real baby in the womb. They just, it's not a person yet. Or, you know, like they don't, Nancy Pierce, who talks about that. They don't contribute yet to society. So no bioethicist deny.

that that's a baby in the womb, but they just say, they don't contribute, so it's still okay. So you're saying in regards to sexuality, it's not even that they care if there's no argument for, you know, against homosexuality in the scripture. It's just that they say, well, this was written 2,000 years ago, and if Jesus lived a day, he wouldn't, he would say something different. Well, okay, so, yeah, it depends on who you ask,

because when I wrote this book, five years ago, there were a lot more progressive Christians who were still trying to use the Bible to make their arguments, even though they would say, well, we can disagree with Paul. Paul had biases. He was seeing things through a particular lens, so we know more now. In fact, Brian McLaren famously said this in his book, a new kind of Christianity.

He said scriptures like fossils that we dust off and we can know what people believed about God in their time and place. And I would say that's primarily the progressive view of the Bible. Peter N. said the Bible is an ancient book. We shouldn't be surprised to see it act like a one. And so when we see God, and this is my paraphrase now, when we see God committing violent acts in the Old Testament, we know now that's not how God is, but that's just how he was understood to be by the ancient Israelites that were communing with God in their time and place. That was actually almost a direct quote. I almost got it totally right.

But yeah, that's the progressive view, that it's a human book about God. But conveniently, this is my analysis, that they'll use scripture when it's convenient. So Matthew Vines is kind of an unusual figure in this movement because he doesn't consider himself to be a progressive Christian. he's the one who has really promoted a lot of these arguments of the not that kind of homosexuality, that sort of thing. And he will actually say that he's an inerrantist, that he believes the Bible is the Word of God. But there is nobody else, to my knowledge, that is adjacent to Progressive Christianity,

that would say the Bible is inerrant. That is like you get laughed off the playing field if you say that in Progressive Christianity. So they will appeal to certain scriptures when it's convenient, especially on the LGBT issue, when they use Matthew Vines' kind of revisionist arguments. But in most other cases, they'll say, yeah, like John Caputo's, who said that. Like if Jesus were incarnate today, he would side with the culture rather than siding with the Jews like he did in the first century. Rachel Hald Evans is a, you know, sadly, tragically, she passed away a few years ago. But until her death, she was one of the most influential progressive Christians.

And in her final book that was put out after her death, she actually appeals to Jacques Derrida, this postmodern 60s philosopher and the way he deconstructed text. And she uses his arguments and she even tells you why. In her book, she says, because I refuse to believe in a God who basically would have commanded Israel to do the Canaanite conquest. She has to pull out these postmodern hermeneutical methods in order to make it fit within what she's already decided is immoral. And so that is kind of how progressives approach the Bible as if it's sort of this malleable tool that you can kind of bend to and even interpret in such a radically different way.

You know, I watched your debate with those two progressive Christians on LGBTQ on Michael Knowles. And the thing that was shocking to me about that conversation was that five years ago, 10 years ago, the other two that were representing the progressive view would not have been so confident. It's like they become bolder and they're almost presenting their view now like, well, this is a legitimate interpretation where I was five, ten years ago, they were just trying to get the church on board with seeing it in a different way. But now it's like, no, this is a legitimate way to see it. So they've become a lot more bold and a lot more confident, I think, in their

interpretation because they've garnered so many more people, I think, especially with TikTok and all this, to get on the side of these revisionist arguments. Now, you mentioned, and we were talking about it before we hopped on here, what are the things that you've noticed in the last five years where if you were going to write an add an addendum to the book or a couple different chapters, additional chapters, like what would you add to the argument that you've put forward in the book that you're going, hey, it feels like every year we're moving 10 years forward in history and the need for Christians to be able to defend what they believe with an element of a level of intellectual rigor but also

love and compassion, you know, I always think about that where Peter says, be able to give a defense for the hope that is within you with love and respect, meaning that you have to know your argument in what you believe well enough to not be flustered. Yeah. So that you do it with love and respect. You know, I think what would be things, you know, maybe chapters that you would add to what you've already written. Well, I would add three chapters. And the reason I would do that is when I wrote another gospel, I wanted to write a purely theological critique. And so it ultimately is, just that one, you know, the triangle, it's just the one angle, the theological angle. I would, for sure, that's involved in the theological angle, I would add a whole chapter on

LGBTQ, because back when I wrote this, I wrote this for Christians who are not progressive Christians, but are wanting to spot it and refute it. Back when I wrote this book, almost every conservative Christian was not gay affirming. But today, that has changed. So I would write a whole chapter on some of those arguments to help the church make those arguments and actually convince sadly some of the church about these arguments. The other chapter I would add is I would add a chapter on politics because what I've really seen is in the last five years or so, some big evangelical leaders have really effectively convinced a lot of Christians that we can't really vote too conservative because there's so many issues and they've kind of made this moral

equivalence against the two parties. And I'm certainly not saying you have to be affiliated with a particular party. Of course not. But the culture of death, the party of death, that has so advocated pro-abortion and euthanasia and the transing of our kids has been an area where I think the church has been very weak and where the progressive other things have really come in through some of that silence of the mushy middle that you're talking about. And then the third chapter and maybe the most important one that I would add would be on Richard Roar because when this book came out,

his book Universal Christ, I believe it had just come out. So when I wrote this book, Progressive Christians were ultimately just tearing down. They didn't have a worldview to put back in the place of the things that they were tearing down and disbelieving. Well, when Richard Roar wrote Universal

Christ... Maybe explain what that is. Yes. He ultimately gave them a worldview to put in its place. So what Roar, the gist of his argument is that Jesus and Christ are two completely different entities. So for Roar, the Christ is actually the Lagos of John 1. It's the explanation of all reality. It's the spirit of God. He's a penentheist. So in his view, when God created the universe, he filled it with his spirit, kind of like a hand, fills a glove. And then at that point, his creation becomes, in a sense, interdependent

with him. And so the spirit that was filling all of creation is the universal Christ. it's in the new age it's called Christ consciousness or I think it's new thought and so he was kind of taking a lot of these ideas that we see a lot in new thought and bringing them into the church under the guise of this universal Christ and so for him Jesus now he will never go so far as to say Jesus is not God but he'll say he's God in the same way that you're God Johnny and that I'm God and that we like everything that we are made of of matter is filled with this divine universal Christ and we just need to realize it we need to fully imbibe it like Jesus. So he calls Jesus a model and an exemplar of the human and the divine kind of operating in this one body.

So in other words, you can achieve that as well. You can achieve this universal Christ experience. And so Roar denies the substitutionary atonement of Jesus like outright. He says no sacrifice was necessary. He argues that every human being is the Christ because you are made up of this universal Christ spirit. and that's on his penentheistic view. He holds to a view of universalism called perennialism that teaches that all religions are coming from

and going back to the same source. So we as Christians wouldn't want to convert the Buddhist. We would just want to learn from the Buddhist what they have figured out about God. So it's very non-exclusive and it is just sweeping up the church. And so it really has become the primary Christology of the Progressive Christian Movement.

In fact, to this day, I still say this because I'm waiting for the opposite to happen. Anytime I Google the name of a progressive or a deconstructionist with the name of Richard Roar, something will come up where they have praised him as a mentor or a great teacher. He's all over, even the non-Christian deconstruction sites will recommend Universal Christ by Richard Roar. His influence is incalculable. I call him the progressive pope because he's Catholic, but also because he's so influential and such a mentor to virtually every progressive thought leader out there.

How does that type of, well, I guess going back to, you know, if we go back to the, you said the three chapters in summary where Richard Roar, politics, and then biblical sexuality, yeah. So what's interesting about all three of those chapters is, you know, the sexuality thing is, it's more subtle than it used to be. You talk about there's an increased boldness. How do you see people compromising on that? You said now it used to be kind of people way out here

now it's people that you would have thought were, you know, proponents of conservative or biblical historic Christianity. How has it happened that to be like, no, this is staunchly man, woman, that's become like almost the exception and not the norm? Like, how did that happen so fast maybe over the last five years? Well, I think it's happened so fast because the deceptions have become more subtle. And I should probably say this too, because you mentioned progressive the drift. It is a drift. Like progressives don't show up at your church's doorstep and say, say, hey, we'd like to make you a progressive church. In fact, very few churches actually do end up calling themselves progressive.

They don't realize that they're progressive, but they are a lot of churches. Or there's a big mix in there. Or college wouldn't know that you just start consuming. Exactly. And so it's like if you don't staunchly advocate, and I think this is why every book of the New Testament is saying, watch out for false teaching, watch out for false teachers, because the natural default position of the drift is to drift progressive. You have to actually fight for orthodoxy.

So how I've seen, especially in the LGBTQ, over the last five years' slide, is with an ideology called side B. And what side B ideology teaches, otherwise very conservative theologians will be proponents of this. But it's the idea, and it sounds good at first. So it sounds like the right thing because side B proponents will say marriage is only between a man and a woman for one lifetime. They'll say homosexual behavior is a sin. So it sounds right on the surface, but where the drift is happening is they will affirm the categories of LGBTQ as far as identity categories. So they will call themselves gay Christian, but they'll say non-practicing. Or they'll say, I'm a trans Christian, but I don't know how you're a non-practicing trans.

I don't even know how that works. But that is something that they will adopt the identity categories. And even there are cases where they will argue for things like what's called spiritual friendship, which is basically like a marriage but without the intimacy of sex. And so it's like a covenant friendship that two quote unquote gay Christians can come into with one another and even live together and cuddle and all sorts of things. But they believe the sex part is wrong. So it's actually, in my mind, it's separating the behavior from the whole person.

Like, you know, as you've pointed out in your purity series, Jesus was so about the heart. You've heard it say, you don't commit adultery, but I say, if you've even lusted after a woman, you've committed adultery with her in your heart. So what it almost does, and I know that they will say, if they hear me talk about this, they'll say, well, that's not what we're saying, but this is how it is applied. And this is the practical outworking, is that it gives Christians permission to basically sin in their heart as long as they're not doing the physical behavior. And so I think it's incredibly dangerous.

And as my friend Rosaria Butterfield says, side B ideology is just an on-wrap to being affirming. It's like the gateway to becoming fully affirming. And so I think side B is one of those things that has come in really strongly in the past five years. Otherwise, extremely conservative churches, theologians, institutions will bring side B proponents in because it sounds merciful and loving. But ultimately, at the end of the day, it's devastating because

And I'm just thinking about the person who doesn't know the gospel. If there's a quote unquote gay person that doesn't know the gospel and I want to share the gospel with them, I'm going to share the same gospel with them that I'm going to share with anybody else. Repent and believe. You can turn from your sin, place your faith in Jesus, receive his righteousness, be reconciled to God, adopted into his family, and then you will be sanctified positionally and then as a process for the rest of your life.

And what side B would say is that if you're a gay person coming to Christ, well, it's going to be harder for you. You have more to, you're going to have to live a life of total celibcy. In fact, when you come to faith in Christ, because this is kind of an immovable category, then you're going to be celibate and alone for the rest of your life. I mean, what a damning message to tell people to eliminate the possibility that God could sanctify them. And we just know that it's not that way. There's too many testimonies of people coming to faith out of that life and ending up in a biblical marriage with children

and it doesn't happen for everybody. But it's such a, I think, a terrible message to give to people that, like, no matter what it would be, let's say somebody is struggling with pornography to say, well, you're always, this is who you are. And so if you come to Christ, you know, your life's going to be a lot harder than everybody else, not really telling them, like, you have the Holy Spirit. And you will be empowered by the Holy Spirit to, stand against your sin.

And so I think Side B is one of the things that has been probably the most insidious ideology that has come into the church that people don't realize is progressive. Yeah, and there's a lot of people like within the, it seems fairly conservative world, that would say, you know, I'm a gay Christian. I don't act on that, you know, feeling. I struggle with it my entire life, but they identify as a gay Christian. And your just brief response to someone saying, I'm a gay Christian, I just don't participate in maybe the affections or attractions that I have.

You would say what. Well, and I appreciate you bringing that out because that's ultimately what it comes down to is the average person. Like, how does the teaching affect the average person? And my encouragement to that person would be gay is not what God made you. That's not a biblical category of identity. When you're in Christ, you become a child of God. You have the right to be called a child of God when you're in Christ and you're adopted into his family. And you should not identify yourself by your sin struggles.

It certainly doesn't mean that people who struggle with certain sins can't become Christians. Of course, anybody can become a Christian if they repent and trust in Christ. They're like saying I'm an alcoholic Christian. Yeah, or even, I mean, just I always say like apply it to anything else. Apply it to adultery. I'm an adulterist Christian. That's who I am. And I would say that person, no, that might be how you feel, but that's not who you are.

Being gay might be how you feel. But that's not how God made you. That's not a biblical identity category. We've actually let people like Freud and other very secular and frankly evil, you know, ideologies identify who we are, like our core identity. And that's, I think, for the younger generation. They've really imbibed that your sexuality is your core identity. And we have to help untie those knots.

That that's how you feel, but it's not who you are. And why are we using secular godless verbiage to, identify who we are. God says that he made us male and female in his image, which is so amazing to me that he's both male and female in his image, especially in that ancient, near-eastern culture when humans in general weren't valued very much, certainly not women, but you see God elevating the status of people. And we should focus more on that and try to align our minds with what God has created us to be, rather than kind of playing footsie with this secular ideology that would tell us our core identity is who we're attracted to or something like that.

Yeah, so interesting. You talked about how that kind of gets translated into the political sphere. You know, a lot of the liberal drift in America is because Christians feel like basically they're paralyzed, right, and who they can support. I'm not saying like, hey, the Republican party is total righteousness. Obviously, I would think the leftist agenda is dark and demonic. it is the party of pro-choice, pro-murder, pro-mutilation. But I think because you have churches saying, like, well, hey, this is just as wicked, right? People feel like they can't support either party.

It leaves them in the middle. And when you're in the middle, you lose, right? You just, things kind of get continually kind of push, push, push. The darkness just spreads. That's what darkness does, just spreads. So regarding the political element, like what would be your encouragement to people within the church today, obviously to think, and it goes back to what you said even regarding

kind of like, you know, our intellect, you know, the sons of Issaquhar were men who understood the times. Jesus had to be shrewd to serpents and innocence does. Sometimes people become just the product of the latest, you know, TikTok's video they've seen that kind of affects their entire worldview. How would you encourage maybe just churches and individuals to kind of like begin to think through the political realm because, you know, I think that obviously politics are more biblical than they used to be. It's not like you're voting on, you know, railroads. You're talking about definitely things that God says they're black and white. Yeah.

LGBTQ plus agenda, the value of a baby within a womb. Those are just biblical realities. So how would you encourage someone to begin to think through those political realities? Well, I, so when I first started my blog and my podcast, I tried to be completely, political, like without politics. And I remember the first time I'm telling the story to answer your question because there's a reason for me telling this. But in probably 2017 or 2018, I wrote an article that went viral on progressive Twitter. It was the first time I think they were aware that I was writing against them, you know, against their ideology. And it was just purely theological, this article. It was basically what progressive Christians and atheists have in common as far as how

they see the Bible and how they see Jesus. Nothing political about this article. But when it went viral on progressive Twitter. I saw meme after me. I mean, Donald Trump calling me a white Christian nationalist. And I was going, what is going? What? But I tried so hard to not get political. That's when I realized

there has been, I think, a real demonic agenda to get Christians to be quiet about politics. And that if you have a more conservative view, then you're automatically a Christian nationalist. This has been something that like... It's a boogeyman term. It's a boogeyman term. Now, I do think we're seeing an extreme overreaction on the right,

and we're seeing that movement maybe grow in a way that I would think is unbiblical. Like on the Christian nationalist side. Yeah. Like people that are actually advocating for a white-centric, anti-Semitic kind of. Yeah, some weird guys for sure. Some weird guys that are gaining prominence, I think, as a result of this kind of overreaction. But for the most part, the primary expression of Christian nationalism is just a slur that people will say against you if you're a Christian and you're trying to advocate in the public square and you're not left. that's ultimately what that means.

And so when I realized that, I think my biggest encouragement to Christians would be to remember that there are three institutions that God established, the family, marriage and family, the church, and the government. And the Bible has stuff to say about all of those things. And the primary purpose of government is to punish those who do evil and praise those who do good. Well, we're living in the type of government where we get to have a voice. And, you know, the earliest Christians, the first century Christians, they didn't have that opportunity.

And no matter what happens, if our country crumbled to dust, the church would continue, it's not that. But we do have a say. We do get a vote. And if I can use my vote to protect the unborn, be their voice, as the Bible talks about, speak for those who can't speak for themselves, if I can use my voice, I really became kind of more aware when I saw the radical push to mutilate our young people. and all of the detransition stories where these young people are saying,

why didn't anybody stand between me and evil? Why didn't somebody step in between me and these doctors or this ideology and say, wait? And now we have irreversible damage done to their bodies. And I think Christians need to be clear about these things and be salt and light everywhere, politically, when it comes to the family, when it comes to the church. And for some reason, over the past five years or so, I think the church has been convinced to just either be quiet on politics or kind of be more sympathetic to the left and kind of real critical of the right. And we see this with this ideology

kind of called third wayism more loosely. But I think it's done a lot of damage because it's caused Christians to say, well, there's certain areas I can't talk about. And I guess my encouragement would be that's not true. There's no area that you as a Christian don't have at least a biblical principle to apply, whether it be political in the family, in the church. There's a biblical principle for, there's no topic that you have to be like, well, I'm a Christian, so I can't talk about that. I think that's been a deception that a lot of Christians have bought into, and it's really caused the church to become a lot less salty and a lot less light, particularly in the political arena. Yeah, no, I, yeah, what Peter says,

God's word has given us everything we need pertaining to life and godliness. Sometimes it's, like it's force and 40, and all we can do is just punt the ball as far down the field as possible. And there are ditches on both sides. For sure. And I think because of that, people that are trying to not be either side, they just do nothing, which is also wrong. You know, one of the things, maybe just, there's so many different, maybe topics or things that you've touched on, I feel like that are worthy of its own episode. But one of the things that I've been thinking through lately is that a lot of people, I would say, I don't want to make a hasty generalization, but they want to, they want to, they want to. to be informed about everything they see. Like your average person wants to honor the Lord,

wants to be able to engage people in these topics. Progressive Christianity, the LGBTQ plus agenda, politics, ethics. They want to be able to know the terminology that you've mentioned. You talk about Side B, you talk about progressive Christianity. And their relationship with God almost becomes exclusively in the realm of what they're defending. Maybe just, because I sometimes feel like I want to ask people like are you pursuing the Lord holistically or becoming kind of just

equipped in the areas of defense now there's an element where Martin Luther says like I want to be where the battle's the loudest right you want to be able to defend the truth but I also feel like there's this other danger where there's ditches I'm going to put my head down and I'm just going to do my 15 minute devotion and ignore everything that's happening in the world

so I'll never be able to be like Paul in Acts 17 and be able to address people and stand up and say, hey, to an unknown God because I understand the times. That's a biblical reality because the Lord has made us to be stewards of our minds. Romans 12, 2, Ephesians 423, 1st Peter 113, prepare your minds for action. But there's this element where I'm just going to read my Bible, I'm going to do my thing, and I'm just going to shut out the noise. And there's this other element where all you do is chase the noise,

become a parator of what you've heard on a podcast. And then there's this maybe an absence or potential neglect of just a pursuit of the Lord and holiness and being like them. What would be your encouragement or maybe just your thoughts on that? Because I think we're living in a world where you used to have to process change one day at a time in the newspaper. And then it would happen years after a year. But now you're processing change in news every single day. And so you're like, man, if I miss one day. Minutes.

Yeah, minutes. I'm going to be left in the dust, not knowing what's happening in the world. And if I don't listen to this person and this person and this person address this topic, this topic, and this topic, then I'm uninformed because they've swung from the other side of being uninformed and now I need to be informed. And it almost can be paralyzing and kind of snuff out this. I just want to live a holy life. You know, Paul says, you know, aspire to live a quiet life.

You know, so which doesn't mean you're clueless. but I feel like people kind of ping pong between those realities. So that makes sense. It totally makes sense. And I'm just smiling because this is your pastor's heart shining through. You're like everybody, yes. But I totally agree. I think you've just put it so beautifully.

We can't let ourselves become so anxious about following all of the latest trends that we neglect our lives as Christians in our personal Bible study and our prayer time. and you always tell people like I've had actually people like at conferences women's conferences come to me and say well I'm not really on social media but should I get on social media so that I should you know make sure I know about all these things and I'm always like no just you're good you do not need to be on social media and if I if I didn't have it as part of the ministry that I believe I'm called to right now I wouldn't probably even be I might be on Instagram maybe with a very limited amount of people there's just way too much stimuli. I think it's a very difficult thing for even those of us that have platforms like to say I'm not going to open X, Y, or Z before I study my Bible and before I really take time to pray. And if that is starting to inhibit my personal walk with the Lord, like I have to push that aside. In fact, I'm getting ready to do every year I do a full sabbatical in December where I don't do any podcasts. I'm generally not going to be on social media. I may check in here and there if I have something to say, but I'm not going to be keeping up with trends in December. That's my time to

completely kind of disconnect, to decompress, be with my family. And I do think that it is a difficult world we live in right now that is vying and competing for our attention in a hundred different directions. And it's never wrong, never bad to shut that all off. You don't have to be aware of absolutely every single controversy. Even myself, when I'm trying to process, like, what am I going to speak about? What am I just going to let go? I have to let a lot of stuff go. Like, I just don't have time to dive into that rabbit hole right now, you know. And the Bible is sufficient. We have what we need in God's word. And so I guess my encouragement to people would be like, you don't have to know about every counterfeit. You actually don't have to be an expert on progressive Christianity

or side be ideology. But know your Bible well enough that you can spot those when they do come across your social media newsfeed or when they do come into your small group at church, that you can know your Bible enough to say, wait a second, what you're saying doesn't match with what the word of God says. And that's ultimately, I think the primary thing Christians need to do is know the real thing, know why they believe it's the real thing. so that when any counterfeit, whether it's progressive Christianity or whatever it might be, prosperity gospel, immediately you'll go, I remember the first time I heard the prosperity gospel. I was a young adult, and I was at a church that was asking everybody to give money,

and they were using all these Bible verses. And I remember thinking, now I've read the Bible, and I know that verse isn't about money. So they're manipulating this. And I didn't know what the prosperity gospel was. But if you know the Word of God, you know what the real thing is, and you know why you believe it's the real thing, then you're not going to be caught off guard too much by some of these counterfeits,

even as sneaky and deceptive as they are. Yeah, I think it's a real temptation to feel the need to be informed, to protect your kids, to protect your own mind. It becomes a subject of conversation. And I think by and large, people do spend more time on, you know, Piper says something like on the day of judgment. We're going to be so embarrassed at how lack of, you know, our lack of prayer when we look at our screen time.

And, you know, we can kind of disguise the allocation of our time with good motives. And I want to be an informed person. And then, you know, maybe just one final thing because you share your faith. I think a lot of people are crippled to just engage in the conversation of like, hey, Jesus has changed my life because they think they're one pawn move away from being stumped. Right? Like, I don't know. and you, you know, you work with people that are skilled evangelists.

And I think sometimes, you know, I know those evangelists would affirm, you know, hey, when Paul stands before Felix Vestis and Agrippa, he begins with his personal testimony. He doesn't have every answer to every potential rebuttal. And, you know, listening to you, it's like, man, Elisa is a well-read, well-informed, she's articulate. Who would you say to the man or the woman who says, I just, I'm not that. Leave it to the professionals. As a pastor, I think people do that the same thing.

You know, like, I'm not going to proclaim the word of God. Leave it to the professionals. But as a believer, every single person is called to give a defense for the hope that is within them. Every single person is called to be an ambassador. What would be a potential misconception that someone listening to you might derive and going like, I'm a consumer, right? Like, I listen. This is so bad. But I am not, I'm not in the battlefield, right?

I'm not, you know, I'm there. to defend if I absolutely had to, but I'm not going around. I'm not making, you know, I'm not moving forward with my neighbors and the people on my kids soccer team to proclaim who Jesus Christ is. Because I think the more there are people with the platform, the less qualified the average person in the church feels. Interesting, yeah. And, or potentially. And I don't think anybody that has, that God is using in the digital age, whatever, say, no, no, no, I'm not saying, you know, don't go do that. But what would you say to that person who feels like,

oh, leave it to the professionals. I don't want to mess up. I don't want to be stumped type of thing. This is so good and so important. Every time, and this happens a lot, I'll have moms come up to me and say, my young adult child is deconstructing. They're walking away from everything we taught them.

What's the best resource that I can give them? And I always say, you're not going to like my answer. It's you. It's you. They're not going to read my book. Most likely. They're not probably going to watch the Johnny Artivana sermon, but they might talk to you. So I think that every Christian, I think you're right, there is this temptation with, even I look at people who are smarter than me and go, gosh, I could never defend X, Y, or Z the way that they do. That's amazing. I wish I could. But I'm so limited in knowledge. We all are limited in our knowledge. But we have to recapture.

I think discipleship, just as average Christians, knowing that, especially as moms and dads, you are the primary discipller of your kids. And yes, I mean, there's no magic bullet. There's no guarantee your kid could walk away. But if they're walking away, giving them another gospel, they're probably just going to either throw it away or they're not going to read it. But they might have dinner with you. And they might be able to have you ask them some questions. and I think that's the other thing too is I always tell people you don't have to be an apologist or a theologian or a professional scholar

to be able to engage with people even if they have arguments you've never heard before. You just need to know how to ask a few good questions. You know, even just seeking to understand what they're actually articulating can go so far even to help them clarify. What do you mean by this word that you're using? Or just I'm curious your thinking process,

what led you to these conclusions, What got you thinking this way? That can go so far, even to get somebody to even question their own assumptions if they're believing things that are not true. And you don't even have to have the rebuttal. You can just ask questions in a way that's really seeking to understand where they're coming from. And then if they have some kind of a claim that you don't know how to answer, it's perfectly

okay to say, you know, I don't know. I've not really thought about that particular question myself, but I'd like to think get through some more and maybe we can get together in a couple weeks and talk more about it and then you can take time and that's your question that you're going to investigate and that can help you keep from getting overwhelmed with the gazillion claims that are out there just one thing at a time I always say learn something new every day and say something true every day and I think that's something I've really tried to do is just try to learn a new thing that I might be able to apply to something and it's interesting how the Lord will always tend to orchestrate something in my path

where I'll need that. Yeah. So it's easy to get overwhelmed, especially in the just information that's available. But I think personal relationship, discipleship, I can't disciple someone's adult child who's walking away from the Lord if I don't know them. I just can't. And they're not going to watch me probably. But they will interact hopefully with their parents and with the people in their lives who can actually be the hands and feet of Jesus to them in a way that I can't. Yeah, it's so good. I think obviously the goal, you know, threaded through all this understanding the times, understanding the dangers of the progressive gospel, the progressive church is because many people within that church are unbelievers. They're the mission field, right? Because they're following an idol, a counterfeit version of Jesus, who doesn't pay for our sins, who affirms us in our sin, therefore we don't think we need a savior. So the goal isn't just to theologically whack-a-mole our opponents and vanquoise. theological enemies. It's to win people to Christ, whether that be in the church or out of the church, in the process of deconstruction, fully deconstructed, never been in the church before.

I wouldn't want people to feel like they have to be an expert, you know, to just be faithful to declare what God's done in their life. And to your point, I think a great point, just to ask good questions to love people like Christ. Where can people find out more about your resources, your ministry, the books that you've written? Where would you tell them to go? Yeah, probably elisa-childers.com is the ones. shop for everything, but I do have a podcast called the Elisa Childers podcast, and I'm on YouTube as well. Yeah, well, I love your ministry, so thankful for your heart to proclaim the truth and to do that in a way that is emblematic of, I think, the heart of Christ, where it's

convictional, but with compassion. And I think a lot of times people pick one or the other, right? They pick compassion at the expense of conviction, or they pick conviction at the expense of the compassion of Christ. And so really appreciate you. Thanks for coming on and praying for your ministry. Thank you so much. My pleasure. Thank you, Lisa.