Pints With Aquinas - Growing Up with Drug-Addicted Parents to Becoming Catholic (Adrian Lawson ‪@SipswithSerra‬) | Ep. 551

Episode Date: November 14, 2025

In this episode, Matt sits down with Adrian Lawson (@sipswithserra on YouTube) to talk about his wild childhood, what it was like growing up in a broken home, living in the foster care system, dealing with parents who were drug addicts, to becoming Catholic and defending that decision against his Protestant family. 📚 Get my newest book, Jesus Our Refuge, here: https://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Our-Refu... 🍺 Want to Support Pints With Aquinas? 🍺 Get episodes a week early and join exclusive live streams with me! Become an annual supporter at 👉 https://mattfradd.locals.com/support 💵 Show Sponsors:  👉 College of St. Joseph the Worker:  https://www.collegeofstjoseph.com/mat... 👉  Truthly – The Catholic faith at your fingertips: https://www.truthly.ai/ 👉 Hallow – The #1 Catholic prayer app: https://hallow.com/mattfradd  💻 Follow Me on Social Media: 📌 Facebook:   / mattfradd   📸 Instagram:   / mattfradd   𝕏 Twitter/X:   / pints_w_aquinas   🎵 TikTok:   / pintswithaquinas   👕 PWA Merch – Wear the Faith! Grab your favorite PWA gear here: https://shop.pintswithaquinas.com - - - - -  00:00:00 – Intro and Matt's new book  00:01:47 – Growing up around drugs 00:12:45 – Renouncing Christianity  00:20:00 – Morality and atheism 00:36:07 – Dabbling in Buddhism  00:39:00 – Journey to Catholicism and the Church Fathers 00:56:20 – Trying to disprove the papacy and praying the Rosary 01:05:10 – Dating and marriage 01:16:13 – From Lattes With Luther to Sips With Serra 01:23:20 – Holy Protestants and new convert zeal 01:27:40 – Who was St. Junipero Serra?

Pines with Aquinas is brought to you by Truthly, which is a groundbreaking Catholic AI app built to help you know, live and defend the Catholic faith. Start your seven-day free trial today when you download Truthly on the app store. During this whole process, I was excited. I was like, this is great. I need to tell my grandparents about this. I need to tell my family about this. Because I thought that becoming a Catholic, just how ignorant I am, meant you're becoming a more serious Christian, a more traditional Christian, and everyone's going to be happy about that. I had no idea. I didn't know what the Reformation was at all. So, you know, the early church belief on baptism actually being efficacious for salvation, actually does something.

It's not symbolic. And then similar with the Eucharist. And I was like, wait, it hasn't always been like Calvary Chapel. I thought I didn't know that there was a difference in belief before. Like, why did we change that? That's kind of weird. So that just totally shocked me. And I couldn't believe that I was believing something that used to not be believed by any Christians.

Yeah, I remember that. And I think at one point, you brought up like every church father that has spoken on the Eucharist says that it is the true body and blood of Christ. And doesn't that bother you? And he said, no, I don't really care. And I was like, that kind of bothers me, though. Hey, everybody. Before we get into today's interview, I want to tell you about my brand new book.

It's called Jesus, Our Refuge. if you like many people, and like all of us to one degree or another, have been seeking refuge in things other than Jesus Christ and have just found yourself increasingly weary, then this book is for you. This book is about taking Jesus seriously when he says, come to me, you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest. It's getting great reviews and I know it will be a healing balm to your soul. Check it out. Jesus, our refuge. You can get it right now on Amazon. Thanks. So Adrian, you had a wild childhood. Yes. Tell me what happened. All right. So I was born to two parents, both of whom were struggled with drug addiction. My father was producing drugs and my mother enjoyed the product, so to speak. I want to say before we get into it too far that both of my parents now are in a great place. They're wonderful people. we have a great relationship and there's no anger you know where there's no uh hard feelings between us or anything like that so we have everything is good now so i want to say that before we get into all this

and are they okay that you divulge some of this i don't want you to i hope so you must have some idea yeah no yeah it's fine yeah what kind of drugs was your dad making meth okay yeah so very different to like moonshine or marijuana yeah growing weed or something it's a little bit more serious that's bananas do you know how they met uh i don't know the exact story but um all right yeah i'm not sure but they were they were never like married or anything it was just uh kind of a for fun type of thing um back in the day and i was conceived um and it's kind of funny because you hear about a lot of the stories that people use to talk about um for for example justifying abortion and they're like well what if the mother's not ready for a child and she can't

properly take care of him and what if she's homeless or something and as like all of those situations apply to me which is kind of hilarious you or not maybe hilarious your parents were homeless um my mom i'm not sure if she was homeless my dad by the time i was born was homeless and even before that my mom because she had had a lot of difficult pregnancies before miscarriages and whatnot the doctors told her you're not going to be able to have a child and then she conceived my sister who's 10 years older than me and they they they they were like, okay, this doesn't make sense that you were able to conceive,

but this child's probably not gonna make it. My sister's fine, she's 10 years older than me, she has a wonderful family. And then when she conceived me, they were like, okay, this is really kind of crazy, there's no way you should have been able to conceive a child, but this baby's definitely not gonna make it, so you should probably just abort it.

And she was like, well, if he's not gonna make it, then why not just give a chance, you know? Wow. God bless you. I'm so sorry that that wicked doctor said that. Yeah, I'd like to meet him. Yeah. Yeah. So I don't know much about meth.

But I get the feeling that you can't just do it casually. Like, I don't know, was your mom, would she say she was addicted to meth? Yeah, there's no way to do it casually. Yeah. And the times that I've seen people use meth, like there's no way that that's just a one-time thing. Just on the weekends type of thing. You know, it becomes your whole life. So was your mom was in a terrible place when she became pregnant?

Yeah, awful place. And then when I was born, shortly after I was born, actually, she was arrested for possession of drugs. And my father was homeless, sleeping in his car. And these are stories that I've heard. But from what I've heard, I was sleeping in the car with him as a newborn baby. And he tried to give me over to his parents because they at least had somewhere to stay

and were a little bit more stable, but they were very poor themselves. They came from Argentina, and they didn't really have a lot going on financially. So they were unable to take care of me as well. So when your mom gave birth to you, was your dad and mom still together? I don't think so.

I don't think they were ever really, like even boyfriend. Right. But then your dad ended up with you sleeping in the car. Did your mom go to prison? Yeah. Yeah, so she was in prison. So my grandparents on my dad's side tried to take care of me for a while, wasn't working out. They put me in the foster care system.

How old were you? I must have been like three months old. Okay. Something like that. Yeah. Yeah. And then I was placed with a wonderful family who people who have seen my channel before would know are my Protestant grandparents.

Oh, yeah? And I called them my grandparents, but they're my foster parents from when I was a baby. But they're wonderful. Yeah. And if it wasn't for them, I wouldn't know the Lord at all. So how old were you when you went to live with them? I was born in December. I was with them in, I believe, February. Okay. And did they adopt you? They wanted to. But my mom got out of prison, I think, the following year. I'm not sure exactly the exact timelines, but my mom got out of prison. She wanted me back. And they said, you know, let us adopt him. You know, well, of course you can stay in his life and all that. But she was like, no, I want him back because I don't know how it works, but I think, you know, if somebody has custody of you,

there's no obligation that they have to keep the mother in your life or whatever. So she was like, no, I'll take him back. But you guys are welcome to stay in his life. You're like, take him every weekend, whatever you want to do, because I think she felt that there was like some real love there. So yeah, so that's what happened. And they've been in my life ever since, 30 years later. But did you live with your mom?

since that time? Yep, yep. So I lived with her from that time. How long was she, she wasn't in prison too long then? Yeah, it must have been a year or two. And then she ended up going back to prison again in my, when I was like a toddler or something.

And I don't remember where I stayed during that time. I think I might have stayed with my grandparents again. Can I ask what happened the second time she went? I think it was the same thing, broke possession. Yeah, yeah. So when's your earliest memories? not not like just fleeting memories but do you yeah yeah i can i can think back to when i'm five and i have a pretty good recollection of going to school and what it was like and what my

teacher was like uh one of my earliest memories like a solid memory is um i must have been like five or six and uh i think i was at my aunt's house um she since passed but she was another source of stability for my older sister especially she was basically her guardian so i think i was visiting over there one weekend or maybe staying there for extended period of time i don't remember and at that age just like my sister was picking on me or something you know she'd have like friends over they would just like make fun of me or something like lightheartedly nothing serious but yeah or we'd play um spyro on play play playstation one which was those are good memories So those are some of my earliest memories.

Okay. So, all right. So your mom went back to prison while you're a toddler. You're not sure what happened to you. She was there, what, just for several months at that point or a few months? I think that might have been a year. Oh, wow. Yeah.

Because I do remember she comes back and I see her like walk in the door. And I'm like, hey, I remember you. I know you. Wow. And I don't know. Like, I was really happy to see her. But at the time, I didn't really remember how I knew her. But I just knew that it was really good to see her.

Yeah. That's, yeah. And then at that point, did you have a stable home life after she got back? I think things got a little bit better. She, I'm trying to remember. I know at nine years old, she ended up getting married to another gentleman who was a great guy. And we lived with him for several years, I think, until I was maybe 12, maybe 13. and then they ended up getting a divorce

and then that's when I go back to my dad and I start living with him. Did your mom keep using drugs throughout your childhood? Yeah, yeah. Do you have memories of what that was like? Yeah, I remember we lived in a trailer park. I think I was 11 years old

and I came out of my rooms. I think it was like in the middle of the night or something to go to the bathroom or get water, I don't remember. And she was in the kitchen with like a bunch of dudes with like a bag of something. I don't know what it was.

And I was just like, what is going on? Oh man, I'm so sorry. You've got a beautiful, I mean, I can tell that you don't, I can tell you love your mom and you're forgiven her and you don't seem terribly cut up about this, but just you're telling me that breaks my heart, right? I got little kids and I just love them so much and their kids are so innocent.

There's no defenses yet, right? To protect them against the manipulation of adults or the evils of the world. And so just as a little kid getting up in the middle of the night, man, it breaks my heart. Yeah. No, and I've since, I feel like my biggest concern now is that my mom doesn't feel that I forgive her. Oh, really?

Yeah. So I try to reiterate as much as possible. I've even written her long-winded letters of like, I love you. Like, I'm not mad at you. There's no, there's no, like, negative feelings that I have towards her at all. What was it like, though, going to, you said after the divorce, you went and lived with your dad. What was that transition like? That was rough.

Yeah. So I was, I believe 12 or 13. I was in middle school at the time. She was, after the divorce, she was with some not great guy who was abusive and all that. And I knew I didn't want to be there, but I also didn't want to leave, you know. But my dad came one day and he said, I'm taking my son and we're getting out of here. Like, this is not cool for him to be here. So I went with my dad from middle school.

I think I was with him for a year or so. And then I said, I can't do this. Because he, going from a parent who is like, just come home when the streetlights come on. That's your mom? My mom. Yep. You know, you're failing everything at school, but, you know, you got suspended again at school. You skipped school again.

Don't do that, but, you know, whatever. Going from that to my dad being like, why did you get to be in this? class. I was like, I don't want to do this. This is horrible. So I think after about a year or two of living with my dad, I was like, I think it was even less than a year, actually, because I think I was in seventh grade. And then I went back to my mom, finished seventh grade. And then I went back to my dad after that. So I can't remember the exact timeline, but it was something like that. And then I say with my dad from like eighth grade until I graduated high school. And then even after high school a little bit. Yeah. Did you have a decent relationship with him during

at that time? Yeah, things got better for sure. And did you, were you still in contact with your mom throughout those years? Yeah, yeah, and she would visit at times and I'd go hang out with her. And then actually after high school, I ended up moving back in with her

because she was still with that abusive boyfriend and I was like, I gotta do something. And also I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life. So I was like, I guess, throughout all this time, by the way, I'm not a Christian really. Growing up, I was going to church and then at about the age of 15 or 13 to 15, I can't remember exactly.

I totally renounced Christianity and said I'm an atheist. So was your dad taking you to church then? Mm-hmm. Okay. Yeah, he was taking me to Calvary Chapel. The thing that kind of spurred on my deconversion, I guess, was that we were going to a very small, like charismatic kind of church, Pentecostally type of church.

And I was really, really involved in the video crew there and like doing video editing for them and doing the soundboard for them and all that, and that was really fun. And then my dad was like, yeah, this church is kind of far. It's very small and, you know, it was a wonderful church and he still likes it to this day. But he's like, I just, we should go somewhere closer, maybe a little bit nicer. I don't know.

So we went to a Calvary Chapel and I was just so mad about the move that everything the pastor was saying, I was like, I'm going to pick apart everything he says and eventually ended up picking apart Christianity and deciding to leave it. What year was this roughly? Was it during the craze of the new atheism? Yeah. Yeah. It was that stuff was just in the air. It seemed so sophisticated at the time.

Well, this would have been 2009, 2010. Okay, yeah. So that's kind of like, I think it peaked around, you know, eight or nine, I think. Yeah, yeah, but I remained a vehement atheist even after that all the way up until, I believe, 2018. Did you have good reasons for that? Did you have any reasons to be an atheist other than Christian? were stupid or was that about it? No, that was pretty much, that was pretty much it.

I had learned that, like, other people have different religions and I wasn't really, I had never really thought about that deeply, but once I was confronted with that, I was like, why do we believe this religion over those other religions? Yeah. My, you know, I know friends who are Buddhists

or who are atheists, I've heard of Muslims, there are a couple of those that I am aware of. I didn't know any personally. Yeah. But why wouldn't I, why not be one of those and YB Christian, is there an evidential reason? Or is it just because I was born with this and my dad was born with this and his dad was born with this?

And I wasn't really given a good answer. And at that point, I don't, at least I didn't have access to internet resources that would. Who did you ask? Answer those, my dad, my grandpa. And I think because their faith is so strong because of personal experiences they've had and I just didn't have a personal experience like that,

at least that I was aware of, that those were. weren't really gonna cut it for me. So did they find your questioning, just sort of your angsty, rebellious teenage perhaps, I guess, you were years? Is that, do they just see it like that? Do they find it irritating or do they try to engage with you?

I think it was irritating because of the way I went about it. Yeah, so I was like arguing with my dad and just poking at him, you know, just being really confrontational about it. And so he would be confrontational back. And then I was like, these Christians don't even know why they believe this stuff. It's really easy to like make things look stupid.

Yeah. I remember seeing a meme that poked fun of atheists. It said atheism, the belief that there was nothing, that nothing exploded. And then there were dinosaurs. And, you know, like, it's easy to make things look stupid. It's a lot harder to build a case and to be kind of careful as you go about doing it. You said your grandpa. Was that your dad's dad? No. Do you mean your... Sorry. Yeah, so my grandpa is my foster parent. Yeah. Okay, so tell me about this relationship, like growing up through your teenage years and the influence they were on you. I presume you all. lived in the same area? Yeah, not too far. I'm going to probably cry talking about them because I love them so much. But they have always been a constant source of stability in my life. So when stuff was crazy at home, when I lived with my mom or even when I'm fighting with my dad or whatever, going to their house was just kind of like a breath of, all right, let me just regroup. It was just such a peaceful place. Yeah. And then they always brought me to church, which even when I thought it was kind of silly, I was like, all right, whatever, I'll humor them, you know, because they're good to me.

And yeah, they're just always been so good. And I'm really grateful that they've been in my life even to this day. Do they talk to you about your mom and dad and help you process all that? Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, they mostly just love them and they're like, hey, like, how's your mom? Is she going to church? How's your dad doing?

Like my dad got baptized recently at a, I think at a Calvary Chapel or some non-denominational church. And they're really excited. excited about that. So yeah, they're not in contact really much with my dad and my mom, but they have a great love for them. Yeah. Did you ever go back and live with them or no? It was just those initial stages as a kid. Yeah, I never, I don't think I ever lived with them for an extended period after my childhood. Yeah, he was always in touch with them. It's amazing how much like people who love us as children, the impact they have on us, I've shared before that my best friend's mom, unfortunately, this is going to

sound horrific. You may have already heard me say this, but she's the one who used to buy us pornography and alcohol. Like that's awful. Like no question. Yeah. But she also was one of the only parents who ever genuinely listened to me. It felt like genuinely listened to me. And I know that sounds counterintuitive. And no, she was really kind to me. And like I'd bring issues up with her and she was a single mom. And so yeah, she had some real poverty in her worldview, obviously. Yeah. But she was just so kind to me, you know.

How old were you at that time? Well, I met my best friend when I was about 12. Okay. And so we went on to be friends, you know, all throughout high school. And so she was just always someone I could go to when I had a problem. And I always, you know, when you were a kid, I don't know if you had this experience, you'd go to friends' houses. And the friends' parents were always polite, but just because that's how adults should treat children.

Oh, hi, hi, hi, and then just get out of my space or like, maybe not that aggressive. Maybe not that aggressive, but she was always just, yeah, just interested in me. And so, like Peter says, love covers a multitude of sins. Like her love for me, I'll always look fondly upon those memories with her because of how interested she was in me as a kid. And I didn't think I was terribly interesting or when I was always in trouble at school or with my parents or what have you. So that's really beautiful.

Thank God for this beautiful couple that took an interest in you. Yeah, they're wonderful. So how did they react? when you were questioning Christianity? Did you share that with them? I did, yeah. I think they never fully realized that I was an atheist because I never told them,

but I would argue with them about Christianity. And I think maybe there was a little bit of denial on their part. They didn't wanna accept that, but they knew something was wrong. So they were praying for me for nearly a decade the time that I was an atheist. And I still kept in touch with them.

We still had a pretty good relationship, but anytime faith came up, I would immediately start arguing with them. um yeah if they ever said like you know everything happens for a reason yeah stuff like that i'd be like well what about this crazy example is that for a reason and and it would just turn into an argument and i've yeah so yeah yeah so and then it sounds like you wanted to be an atheist because you just thought there wasn't good reasons for christianity um how was how was your how were you behaving back then. How was your view of morality and, you know, were you kind of engaging in sort of nefarious

activities or were you, no, you were like basically a decent person? Somewhere in between. Like, I wasn't doing anything crazy. I had as a kid, a very young kid, I was like smoking marijuana at like 11 years old, drinking hard liquor at 11 years old, watching pornography at 11 years old. Again, like you said, at a friend's house whose mom wasn't really protective of that stuff like didn't really keep that under locks um and she actually gave us alcohol too so yeah that's i'm so sorry yeah yeah so there was that but then actually going into high school middle school in high school when i was with my dad i knew that like that wasn't the best thing for me so i wanted to get good grades i wanted to be you know well-behaved and stuff like

that i wasn't smoking weed when i lived with him um although he didn't always believe that he actually gave me a drug test one day because I thought yeah but I was still you know kind of slipping on grades and skipping classes sometimes and little things here and there like that um but nothing super crazy all right so then you said you're an atheist for a decade so it sounds like you were either committed to it as a positive proposition or was it a sort of default as religion stopped being convincing does that make sense like were you reading atheists yes yeah yeah I have a signed book of the God delusion. Oh, okay.

I went to Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris event. Yeah, yeah. And had it autographed. Oh, did you get to meet Richard? Yeah. Nice. Yeah, it was like right after he had a stroke, I think. But he seemed to be in good spirits and good health at the time.

So that was exciting for me at the time. But yeah. Do you remember what the energy was like at that conference? Yeah, it was very lively and just like a very triumphal, triumphalistic. I forget the exact word. But yeah, very much like we've defeated religion. And now it's just a matter of stamping out these old people that are clinging on to the past, basically. I've been talking a lot lately about my friends at the College of St. Joseph the Worker,

you know, Jacob Imam, Mike Sullivan, Andrew Jones, and company, the guys who've started the college that combines the Catholic intellectual tradition with skilled trades training. Well, listen to this. They're growing their program and are looking to connect with experienced Catholic tradesmen to hire as instructors. So if you are an experienced carpenter, plummer, HVAC technician or electrician, and want to help mentor and teach future Catholic tradesmen, go right now to College of St.Joseph.com slash careers to connect with the college and see how you can become part of something truly special. And if you're watching or listening and know a tradesman who needs to hear this message, please invite them to reach out to the college. Again, that's College of S.T.Josef.com slash careers. College of St.Josef.com slash careers. Thanks.

It's funny how a common enemy brings people together in a superficial way, isn't it? Yeah. I think it's interesting how, like, the conservatives in America were much more united when Biden was asleep at the helm. Now you have Trump at the helm, and it's like, okay, the common enemy, in some sense, right, at least politically speaking. and even in Hollywood and big tech, they seem to be less aggressive, maybe.

Now the conservatives all at each other's throat. It feels to me like that's kind of what happened to the new atheism, that they were united and pointing at religious people and making fun of them, but then when they maybe were challenged or invited to propose some kind of worldview, that would either support or see as ridiculous,

like transgenderism or the threat of Islam, I don't know. I don't know what your take is on it, but for me, it seems like it's sort of coming apart. Yeah, I always felt even as an atheist a little bit weird about some of the efforts of Sam Harris, for example, to try to construct objective morality without a God. He tried to construct some sort of way

that we could know right and wrong objectively without appealing to a lawgiver, as we would say. And even as an atheist, I was like, eh, that kind of seems like an uphill battle and not really necessary. Like, we could just do away with the idea of having morality at all. But there's obvious reasons why you don't want to do that too.

Did you have any, like what was your favorite argument for atheism at the time? Since you're reading these people and go into their conferences. Did you have any? I think I believed a lot in the God of the Gaps argument that, you know, okay, people think that there's a God because everything's here. We don't know how it got here. We don't know how life started exactly. But we just need to investigate more scientifically.

and those gaps will disappear. Yeah. Yeah, and God will disappear with them. Right. Yeah, so it was, was it more like, I don't need a compelling argument for atheism? I just find all the arguments for theism, unconvincing. Yeah, it was like the Dillahunty kind of approach

where it's like, I'm starting from a default position of I don't believe your proposition, and now you need to convince me. Yeah. And if you don't convince me, that's your fault, essentially. What do you think about that tactic now? It's kind of cowardly, I think. Yeah.

Yeah, it feels like you should. should be, yeah, I think William and Craig always did a really good job at putting it back on the atheist. He's like defining the three terms, atheist, theist, agnostic, and to see if there's any good reason to think any, either theism or atheism is true. And then very often they would expose themselves as agnostics. Right. Yeah. Yeah, cool. So did you have atheist friends? Oh, yeah. So it was just like a contemptuous sort of attitude towards Christians? Very much so. Yeah, I was very militantly atheists.

I thought religion should be illegal. Illegal. I thought it was child abuse to raise a child with religion. Whoa. All kinds of stuff like that. I was daily listening to like atheist podcasts. Yeah. Or just reinforcing that Christianity's stupid.

And yeah, so I was very much on that side of things. And then the way that that turned around was a friend who was a Christian, who I knew from high school. I was posting stuff on Facebook. And I think I posted like a Joe Rogan clip or something of Joe Rogan used to have this line about, well, all we have is translations of translations of translations. And we don't even understand the original language. And so therefore we could never know what their original Bible actually said. I posted something like that on Facebook. And a friend of mine from high school was like, that's actually not true. Like I can show you the manuscripts and like that's not how translations work. We don't just make a translation and then throw out the old copy. Like we have access to tens of thousands of manuscripts that actually. all agree with each other even though they weren't there was no central authority dictating at least early on you know what to write down we have met multiple continents and all of them agree on what the bible says so how did you react when you i was like oh what the heck joe rogan immediately or because

i find that social media is not usually a place to do deep thinking and and good arguing it tends just to be reflexive you're stupid no you're stupid right so you're saying he could commented under a post you put. Yeah. Or he might have messaged me. Okay. I can't remember exactly. But I was...

Was he a Christian? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. He still is to this day. He's a great guy. But once I was confronted with the evidence, I was like, okay, well, I guess that argument isn't really good.

I didn't know that, but Christianity is still not true, obviously. But I guess I can't use that argument. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So then what I'm going. So then we had an ongoing kind of conversation about things like that. And he had another friend who I think was.

going to Bible college or something at the time, and he was very smart as well. And they were presenting arguments, a bunch of different philosophical arguments. I can't remember exactly which ones, but I'm assuming the ones that Thomas Aquinas would propose as well. And none of them were very convincing to me, even though maybe they should have been. I was just not open to it. And it eventually culminated in us talking about evidence for the resurrection. And I came across inspiring philosophies series, multiple series actually, as one on the historicity of the New Testament, which is really good. And he has one on the evidence for the resurrection.

Really good playlists on his channel. He's excellent. Yeah. Michael Jones. Michael Jones, yeah. So I was like, okay, if I'm going to debate them, I should go to their sources and see what do they say about this stuff. So I went there and I was like, all right, I'm still not convinced,

but I didn't know that they actually thought evidence was important at all. So the fact that they're even appealing to evidence was at least a little bit impressive to me. I was like, oh, okay. They're not just like, well, because it feels good to believe this, so we're going to believe it. They're like, no, actually, if you look at the historical records, even outside of the Bible, people are talking about this widespread belief that Jesus rose from the dead. And I'm like, oh, okay. Interesting, interesting. So, like, none of that really pushed me over the edge, but it was at least giving me more respect for the belief system as a whole. And then, um, funnily, I actually became politically conservative and pro-life before

I became a Christian. Whoa. How did that happen? I heard, uh, I think it was like Ben Shapiro's fault or something. Yeah. So if anybody wants to blame Ben Shapiro. Yeah. Yeah. It's a good thing to be blamed for. He, um, it was either him or somebody associated with him who was making a case for pro-life. And I always thought that it was only on religious grounds that one would be pro-life. And then it was like, no, life is just a human right and the baby in the womb is a human. So they are reported that right as well. I was like, that makes a lot of sense, actually.

I never thought about that way. So I became pro-life. I actually wrote a really old, like, blog post that I had at the time about, I think I titled it, like a non-religious case for pro-life or something like that, non-religious pro-life case. And it's just appealing to, as a country, we recognize that these rights are important,

and they're afforded to every human, they're human, so there you go. In college? At this time, yeah, I was in college at this time. Hmm. Yeah. Did you feel kind of sophisticated, getting to be an atheist while defending the pro-life position? Like, look how intellectually open I am.

Oh, yeah. I think that's true, by the way. I'm not just saying it like it's a, it sounded like I was mocking it, but I could also see the kind of like, yeah, the prideful incentive or like, look how diverse my thoughts are. I'm a real free thinker, which, by the way, I think you were, But if you, yeah, denied God's existence, were atheists and yes, Saturday. So did you have atheist friends that you would talk to about this?

Yeah. Not really, like, vehement atheists like I was, but just people who were maybe non-religious, just kind of agnostic or lived as if there were no God, but didn't have any strong opinions about it. But we're pro-choice. And I'd be like, you know, it's just because you haven't heard my argument that doesn't appeal to a God to. I think that if God doesn't exist, abortion is fine.

You think that it is fine? I would think abortion is fine if God does not exist. Everything's fine if God doesn't exist. Yeah, but I guess I mean something a little bit more than that. I guess I mean, I think there are good reasons to obviously prohibit, you know, murder and child abuse outside of the womb and things like this, because to do so would, to allow it would just allow for kind of chaos and mayhem. But, you know, there are certain things like euthanasia and abortion that I think would make, would be okay. So why not just take that position?

Why not say, well, yeah, the state affords the right to life to people, the unborn are human, but who cares? Like, let's just not afford the right to life to them. Did you ever think about it? I'm sure you thought about that. I'm trying to put myself back in those shoes, but I think what I would have thought back then is that consistency of principles mattered. Okay. Even if I didn't have a divine source of those principles.

Yeah, that's right. Yeah. That's good. Yeah, okay, cool. All right, so what was the next domino? So, let's see. Actually, there wasn't really a next domino. It all just kind of crumbled into place, if that makes sense.

So I was at work one day, and I just, I had noticed in myself that I was attaching myself to causes. done this ever since high school. It might have been a product of maybe like growing up without a consistent father figure or something like that, but I would attach myself to causes and every couple weeks the cause would be different. So this week I'm a vegan. Next week I'm a communist. Next week I'm an anarchist, you know, all that stuff. So it's a search for identity. It is. It is 100%. And then one day I was at work. And I think by that time I had recently watched like the godfather and i was like that's what it's about you just have to make a bunch of money people have to fear you and meanwhile i'm like working a minimum wage job trying to pay

my way through college got nothing going for me i'm like i'm five foot four i'm not threatening anybody so it's like kind of hilarious that i had that mindset but i was just a jerk to everybody and i was like the way that you you know you live a good life i guess or live a worthy a life worthy of respect is you be honest with people even brutally so i would use that as an excuse to just be a jerk and then I realized one day at work oh actually even if I accomplish everything I ever want to accomplish and even a hundred times exceeding my wildest expectations there's no God there's no life after this so it's all just gonna explode when the sun explodes and no one's gonna

remember me and most likely no one's gonna remember me after a couple generations anyways so everything's pretty insignificant and i kind of felt this pit in my stomach of like like i was falling and i was just like there's no purpose to my life like if i live the rest of my life 50 more years or if i die right now there's no difference morally to that um and that just didn't feel right but i couldn't escape that that's a logical conclusion of my worldview and uh So I was like, I think I got to re-examine this whole God thing. And at that time, I felt like a panic inside of me. Like, I don't know what direction to point my life towards.

I don't know what to do. I don't know what is right or wrong. So I immediately thought, I need to read the Proverbs. And I started reading Proverbs. And I just loved it. And I couldn't stop reading the Bible. And even though I wasn't intellectually convinced that Christianity was true, I was like, there's some really deep wisdom here.

Yeah. So was it your? grandparents who first introduced you to the proverbs yeah i think so yeah my grandpa has always always instilled a deep love of scripture in me ever since childhood so you were just sort of looking at like hey there like there's wisdom to be found everywhere this is ancient wisdom whether it's part of the bible or not doesn't matter to me but pretty much yeah yeah and then i before i had like dabbled in buddhism and stuff like that um so i was like i need to figure out which one of these belief systems is most likely true and i looked at the evidence for the resurrection i looked which i had

had already been looking at for a while. I looked at the evidence for maybe miracle claims in Buddhism and other religions and found that the Christian evidence for Christian miracles, especially the resurrection and miracles since then, even up till recent times, very, very strong in Christianity, not very strong in other religions. So if any religious belief system is true, it's most likely this one.

And then... Did you give Buddhism a fair shake? Yeah. Actually, in high school, I was very simple. pathetic to Buddhism. I even went to a Buddhist temple and I was like, hey, I want to be a Buddhist. What do I do? And they were like, just be a Buddhist. Like, I don't know. Like, come on, but isn't there a class? Yeah. I'm like, but you want money? Yeah. I was like, is there like a book I should read? And they were like, yeah, there are a couple of books. You know, there's kind of disagreements on

which ones are truly from the Buddha. But there's some books. And I was like, okay, so like, what am I supposed to believe? And they're like, well, you could believe that there are deities in the clouds that you pray to, but you don't have to believe that. You could just believe that there's, like, the Buddha, and you try to imitate his life. You're like, try to win me. Yeah, I was like, you guys don't, I mean, first of all, you guys don't agree on this stuff. And, like, pretty key things, like, are there multiple deities that you can pray to? And yeah, you really don't care if what I believe is true on this?

Like, don't you have some kind of a system or some way to figure out what is true? And there just didn't seem to be anything like that. And I was like, all right, well, I guess that's just, I don't know. And I've since actually looked more into Buddhism. I did a video about it too. Yeah, I saw you. You had a convert on, didn't you? Oh, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, and she described the same experience of not really knowing, like, there's not really a cohesive belief system where you, like a catechism, right? We have our catechism. What does the church teach about contraception? You can go to the catechism, paragraph, whatever, and look it up. There's nothing like that in Buddhism. there's been some attempts to make something like that but I don't think it's

you know that widely accepted or effective maybe but yeah and I remember finding Buddhism and religions that I assumed were like that I don't know if they were or not I was just a 17 year old kid who didn't want to believe in God but definitely wanted to look at pornography

without feeling bad and you know like Buddhism and these types of religions can just initially as you begin to look into it It can give you this sense of spiritual depth, meditation, you know, all that, without kind of putting any moral claims upon me. I was a huge fan of that.

Oh, yeah, that's the best. Yeah, especially as a young gentleman. Yeah, doing stupid things, not a gentleman at all. Just a young barbarian who only wanted to become increasingly vicious. Yeah. It was definitely attractive. Yeah, all right, did you look into any other religions? I did look into Islam.

Because of course, God could exist, right? And then maybe Islam or Judaism or did you go that route, that route, like does God exist? Or did you just not sure, but I'm going to look at these theistic religions? Yeah, I looked at arguments for the existence of God. Most of those were coming from Christian sources. But I was just like, let me hear from their side, because all I've been hearing up until this point is like atheists giving me straw man arguments of what Christians. Christians believe. So let me hear what Christians actually believe from Christians. Why do they believe there's a God? And then I heard arguments like the argument from morality, the kalam cosmological

argument, the contingency argument. So there was a really good book actually called How Reason Leads to God by, oh, I'm blanking on his name. But he was on, he was on capturing Christianity a long time ago. Okay. I think his name is Josh. Oh, yeah. Something. He has a kind of a- Oh, it'll come to me. usual last name. Yeah. Darn it. Rasmussen. Rasmussen, yes. Brilliant book. Yes. Brilliant book. Indeed. So arguments like that were really convincing to me and I was like, okay, this kind of, this God thing is actually legit. Now it's a matter of which religion is true. So evidence for the resurrection, it was immediately where I went. And there was just no other religion that had evidence as strong as the resurrection as much as I searched. So are you in dialogue with your grandparents and dad at this time?

yeah are they excited that you're kind of coming back on track oh yeah yeah so i told my grandparents like hey actually i'm going back to a calvary chapel church now and um they're really excited about that they're like we've been praying for so long because they knew that i was in a bad god bless them yeah did you lose friends when you made this switch um i didn't lose friends thankfully i don't think uh if i did i don't remember them uh so it didn't really hurt uh but friends were very surprised because first of all I was very politically on the left beforehand hated Trump hated everything conservative hated religion. Carly I forget how old I am. Right. So you were like because Trump. This was 2016, 2017. That's amazing. That's when I started Pints in 2016.

Awesome. And you were a fetus. That's ridiculous. No, no, no. You're at college. I was a college student, yeah. Because you said you had become politically conservative and the pro like. So then was it becoming more interested in Christianity that solidified your conservatism or were you also seeing like the transgenderism issue and these other things that you then reacted against yeah i think the the definitely like obviously pro life was before i became christian and then the other conservative beliefs about like because even as a pro life person i was like yeah but homosexuality is not like yeah um but once i actually learned what the bible teaches and some of the the natural philosophy behind that um i was like yeah i became even more politically conservative

I guess you could say. Yeah, but yeah, so friends were just really amazed because beforehand, I was at one point an anarcho-communist, whatever the hell that means. And now I'm like... What does that mean? You know?

It's like we all live on a commune and, you know, it's like you... Who's in charge? No one's in charge, man. Is that it? So it's like what happened in Portland, Oregon several years ago? Yeah, I guess so.

That worked out well. Yeah, go for it. Okay. Yeah. So you were that at one point. Yeah. Yep. And then now I'm a Christian.

So I still have a friend today who's like, I can't believe, I still can't believe you're a Christian and you're like conservative because she knew me from when I was the total opposite of all that. So that was the main reaction, just kind of shock. I actually had a friend from high school who the other friend who was kind of arguing with me about Christianity, trying to convince me of Christianity. His name's Peter, by the way, great guy. he was like trying to talk to this other guy, another friend of mine.

And his name's Justin, I don't think he'll mind if I share. He was like, you know what? Once Adrian agrees that Christianity is true, then come back to me because that's never going to happen. And then I converted, I told Peter about it. He went to Justin. I was like, hey, man. But nothing's come of that yet.

But yeah. All right. So, okay. So did you give you? your life to Christ. Did you get baptized? What did that look like? Well, that's where things got a little bit hairy. So I spent a couple years, I think of 2018. I think 2018 is when I kind of came back to Christ going to Calvary Chapel. About a year in, maybe two years in, I can't remember exactly. I decided to get baptized. And I had a friend at Calvary Chapel who was in training to

become a pastor. And I was just like, yeah, I want to get baptized. I feel like it's a good thing to do. and I don't know. And he was like, yeah, you don't need to. Like, it's not efficacious for salvation or anything like that, but. It's such a defensive attitude. It's like, why would you even say that? Okay, I just said, I want to get baptized.

But I was like, interesting. Okay, yeah, whatever, you know. I knew nothing about the Reformation or anything like that. And then for whatever reason during this time among evangelical Christians, there was this move to do like house church stuff because we're like, that's how the early church did it. Yeah.

So there was this kind of appeal of like, let's go back to what the early church was doing. Like they were meeting in houses. You know, they were being oppressed by the government or whatever. So that's how they had to do it. And then I was like, yeah, what was the early church doing? So I actually went to my church's bookstore

and I found a book by Gavin Orland. Shout out Gavin Orland, God bless him. Great guy. And it was titled Theological Retrieval for Evangelicals. And I don't remember exactly what in there triggered this, but I heard something about, you know, the early church belief on baptism actually being efficacious for salvation.

It actually does something. It's not symbolic. And then similar with the Eucharist. And I was like, wait, it hasn't always been like Calvary Chapel. I thought I didn't know that there was a difference in belief before. Like, why did we change that? That's kind of weird. So that just totally shocked me.

And I couldn't believe that I was believing something that used to not be believed by any Christians. I want to tell you about hallow, which is the number one downloaded prayer. app in the world. It's outstanding. Hello.com slash Matt Frad. Sign up over there right now and you will get the first three months for free. That's like a lot of time. You can decide whether it's useful to you or not, whether it's helpful. If you don't like it, you can always quit. hallo.com slash Matt Frad. I use it. My family uses it. It's fantastic. There are over 10,000 audio

guided prayers, meditations and music, including my lofi. Hello has been downloaded over 15 million times in 150 different countries. It helps you pray, helps you meditate, helps you sleep better. It helps you build a daily routine and a habit of prayer. There's honestly so much excellent stuff on this app that it's difficult to get through it all. Just go check it out. Hello.com slash Matt Fred. The link is in the description below. It even has an entire section for kids. So if you're a parent, you could play little Bible stories to them at night. It'll help them pray. Fantastic. Hello.com slash Matt Fred. So I was like, huh? Weird. So I started looking into, you know, probably came across a lot of Catholic answers material and things like that. Looking into why do Catholics or why does anybody believe that baptism actually does something. And that pulled up Catholic articles and videos. Yeah. Like why baptism is effications or why baptism, whatever. And then I was like, oh, this is actually kind of a rock solid case for why baptism is not just a symbol. I don't think I could go on believing that it is a symbol because I can't deny that it's not.

according to scripture so that i mean i got baptized everything was fine um but there were these questions in my head and i was bringing this to my my buddy who was in training to be a pastor and he was like yeah i think you're right like there does seem to be some differences between what we believe and what the early church believes and even maybe what scripture says your pastor said that he he was in training the training yeah that's what i mean yeah okay well yeah so i was like i think i'm going to become catholic whoa yeah like so i haven't learned every but on baptism and then on the Eucharist, actually came across your conversation

with Cameron Bertuzi on the Eucharist. That was in, I think, that was later on. I think that was like 2021 or so. Is this when he was a Protestant, we kind of debated it? Yeah, I think that was in 2021 or 2020, no, 2021 or two, I can't remember. Yeah, I forget. But I was like, huh.

Yeah, he definitely lost that debate. Yeah, I think he would admit that to you. It was a friendly exchange, but I think we had time periods and things like that. Yeah. I remember studying for that debate and just being shocked at how strong the evidence was for the Eucharist from the Petristics and from Scripture.

Yeah. Yeah, I remember that. And I think at one point, you brought up like, every church father that has spoken on the Eucharist says that it is the true body and blood of Christ. And doesn't that bother you? And he said, no, I don't really care. And I was like, that kind of bothers me, though.

I don't know how you could say that. Obviously, it must have bothered him a little bit. But, yeah, so after that, I was like, I can't, I have, I have to become Catholic. That's it. So, then I became. Were there other things that the Catholic Church told that you thought were bogus? I didn't even know. I knew nothing about anything.

You just thought, if they got baptism and the Eucharist right. I thought, well, they got baptism and the Eucharist right. And Protestantism in my mind was just what I was experiencing. Right. So I didn't even know about other, like, more traditional forms of Protestantism. You're not going online because this is late in the game, right? YouTube's up and running. I must not be good at.

I was probably just not good at looking up what I needed to find. I don't know. Well, every Protestant watching is going to agree. Yeah, you're not good. If you had have just looked, you could have become Anglican. Yeah. Well, so I was like, I have to become Catholic. And then I became a Lutheran.

Oh, whoa. Okay. All right. Because. What? So I, this was 2020. at this point and I had called up a local Catholic church and I was or emailed them and I said I want to become Catholic.

I said great we can start OCIA come on like I'll meet with you on this day or whatever and then the day comes and I assumed it was like a Zoom meeting because we were all locked down at that point and she was like well you're supposed to come in the office I was like oh people still do that okay so I missed that but then during this whole process I was excited I was like this is great I need to tell my grandparents about this I need to tell my family about this because I thought that becoming a Catholic, shows how ignorant I am, meant you're becoming a more serious Christian,

a more traditional Christian, and everyone's going to be happy about that. I had no idea. I didn't know what the Reformation was at all. So I called up my grandparents, and I said, hey, I got great news. I'm going to become Catholic. And there was silence.

And I was like, what's going on? And my grandma was like, Catholic? I was like, yeah, I'm going to become Catholic. Isn't that great? And she was like, I don't know if I want to see you anymore if you become Catholic. Oh my goodness. And I was like, what? Like, why is that the reaction? I don't understand. By the way, she doesn't remember saying that. Okay. She's also 88 years old now. Bless her. Yeah. God bless her. Yeah. She's great. And she would have never held to that. She would have never held to that. Right. She was just sort of in shock. Yeah. So. And did she out, did she say,

say why yeah she was like catholics they don't they don't have the true gospel they worship mary and they worship the pope and like that's not that's not the road like this is the realm this is in the era of pope francis like i'm pretty sure they don't worship the pope i'm online people seem pretty critical yeah yeah i heard a guy online say that there are popes in hell so i'm pretty sure they don't worship guys that are in hell i hope not yeah that cause you pause yeah so I was like, well, maybe they're on to something. Like maybe my grandparents who I've looked up to for my whole life, and I still do in many ways,

they know a lot more about scripture than I do. They've been Christians for much longer than I have. So I should take what they're saying seriously. And maybe there's some other way that I can have these traditional beliefs, but still be a Protestant and not have them worry about my salvation. And so I found a wonderful Lutheran church, absolutely wonderful Lutheran church, and started going there and met with the pastor beforehand because in that church, they're very strict about, you're not going to receive communion unless we know who you are and we know that you have the correct theological beliefs about the Eucharist. So I met with him for about two and a half hours. We just talked about the Eucharist, my story and all that. And he was like, great. and then I was a Lutheran for a couple of years.

I think I might have joined his church a little bit later on in my Lutheran process, so to speak, but just I had a great experience in the Lutheran church. It was great. What was great about it? Traditional liturgy was my first time experiencing it. It was a whole new world to me. Reverence for what they believe to be the Eucharist.

That was beautiful to me, you know, taking communion weekly. was a new thing for me. And yeah, just the reverence of it. I was like, this is great. This is really nice. And you got along well with the pastor and the people? Yeah, the pastor was great.

I was meeting with him sometimes just regularly for coffee or whatever because I had always had kind of remote jobs in software. So I was just like, yeah, go in the morning and have a coffee with him and then go back to work. Really nice. Great guy. Very smart, very well-spoken. Yeah.

And then, uh, I start feeling like, okay, this is definitely closer to the early church. But there are, it seems like also in the early church, there were other things that were important, like confession. And my church doesn't really believe in confession. So are you reading the church fathers? How are you? I'm probably, are you on YouTube listening to Catholic discussions? How are you? I'm listening to Pines of Aquinas. Yep. And I don't remember exactly which conversations or which resources kind of spun me out or whatever. But I just started feeling like this is much closer. And I started also feeling a little bit of even in anger towards Catholicism and also towards how Lutherans talk about, talk about Lutheranism. I was like, if we're the Catholic

church, we're the true Catholic church, the Catholic church, quote unquote, is the one that went off the rails. Yeah. Why don't we call ourselves the Catholic church? Right. Why don't we call our pastor's priests and father, why don't we practice confession? Because that seems to be what people were doing, you know, even in Martin Luther's time, like he was going to confession. Why don't, why don't we believe the Marian dogmas? Like, why did we let them take all of these things? And we, who we believe are the true Catholic church, are, we dropped all of that because we didn't want to be too Catholic. That's kind of, wouldn't they say they dropped it because they thought it wasn't biblical or patristic? I guess so. But I,

To me at that time, I had come into Lutheranism because of the history of the church and I wanted to believe what the historical church believed. I see. So if the historical church believed that, you know, Mary was immaculately conceived or whatever other Marian dogmas, if the historical church believed that confession

was to be done in church to a priest, then why are we dropping those beliefs? It just, so the historical argument was always very strong for me. And then at this time, actually, funnily enough, I was on TikTok posting videos about Lutheranism because I was so happy that I had discovered something more historical. Are they still out there?

These videos? Yeah. Everyone who's watching, go check out Sips with Sarah. Was that the name of your channel back then? No. I guess not. Clearly not.

Sorry. As I asked that question, I realized it was stupid. It's the same account. It's the same account. So it's still on Sips with Sarah. Come on. But the name before.

Dude, you need to go back and do refutation videos. I've done it. Ah, come on. That's excellent. Yep. So I have a video. I think it's titled

like refuting the worst Protestant Apologist in the world or something like that. Yeah, that was a fun video to make. How neat to document your journey in that way, yeah. But the funny thing is that the name of that account was Latte's with Luther. Oh, really?

Yeah. Now, did you take that from Pines for Aquinas? Oh, that's awesome. Yes, 100%. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was a huge fan even at that time. Oh, funny. I got an idea for someone out there

who doesn't have a podcast yet. I don't think anyone, I don't think anyone exists who doesn't have a podcast, but just in case there is someone Tequila with Escriber would be a great little podcast where you have a shot of tequila and just read something from the way or the furrow, you know?

Yes, all right. I will watch that for sure. That guy's awesome. Yeah. Yeah, so, Latte's with Luther. Oh, funny. I'm mostly just talking about why Lutheranism is superior to evangelicalism or non-denominationalism.

And then I get some Catholics coming in. They're like, hey, man, you're really close. You're really close. And then I'm like, you guys are annoying. Yeah, right? And they're like, you'll be Catholic soon, don't worry. I'm like, what is, what is it, what does a Protestant feel when he's told rage? Yeah, it sounds so condescending, doesn't it? Yeah, it's very condescending.

It's like when they, it's like when an orthodox fella shows up in your comment section, become orthodox. You're like, well, I'm convinced. Oh, dude. I'm done. I'm going right now. Yeah. So I was just like, these Catholics are so annoying. Yeah. They think they're better than everybody. And I need to set them straight. I need to make some videos about why the papacy is a bunch of baloney or whatever. Okay, so that's what you wanted to go after. Yeah. So then, then I was like, they're annoying. I'm going to, I'm going to. I'm to make videos about the papacy and why Catholicism is false and why Lutheranism is a good alternative to Catholicism. And then as I'm doing that, I'm being presented with arguments that I'm like, okay, it seems like the papacy was present very early on in the church, but they were wrong.

They were just wrong about that, you know? So I'm kind of having a very non-denominational response to arguments that would otherwise be convincing to me because historical argument, are what convinced me of the sacraments of the Eucharist and baptism. So, yeah, I put out some very poorly done videos about why the papacy is false, which I've since refuted. And the Marian dogmas actually started becoming

more and more convincing to me. How? I had prayed the rosary actually a few times by this point, even as an evangelical during 2020 lockdown. Sorry, we're jumping around timelines here, but during 2020, I started having panic attacks. I think a lot of people struggled with a lot of mental stuff at that point

and I found that I needed something like tangible that I could just sit down and focus on something so that I wouldn't have panic attacks. How did you hear about the rosary? Probably you. Yeah, probably. That's awesome. I'm so glad.

Yeah, I can't remember exactly but that would make the most sense because I was watching your channel. So did you just go buy one? Yeah, I bought one online. Nice. Just got like the one decade little thing. And then I would just walk around

around the neighborhood and just pray it. And I was like, this feels weird. And I might be sitting right now. I'm not sure, but this is bringing me a lot of peace at the very least, so there you go. Did your pastor know that you're doing that? No, no. What would he have said if you told him?

Probably to stop it. I mean, at that point, I was at Calvary Chapel. So if I had, I mean, I had never really talked to the pastor very much at that point anyways, but if I hadn't told him that, he'd probably say, well, you know, that's kind of your worshiping Mary at that point. and that's idolatry and you should probably cut it out. That's what I assume he would have said, but who knows?

I think that's a fair bet that he would have said that. So as a Lutheran, I kind of started feeling attracted back to the rosary, probably because of you again. I don't know. And I was kind of, there was a guy at my church who was actually the vicar. He was in training to become a pastor. And he, I would go to him with a lot of questions about like, well, what are we supposed to believe on this and things like that? So I would ask him about

Mary, like, hey, what do we think about Mary being a perpetual virgin? And I would always get an answer of like, well, some believe that. Most don't, if you're a Lutheran. I don't really believe that, but you're kind of free to believe what you want. And I was like, okay. And for whatever reason, I just thought it was a more beautiful belief to believe that she was a perpetual virgin. so the beauty of the belief itself drew me towards it even before I had like a real concrete reason to believe it and then I think at this time now that I'm thinking about it

I think you might have been doing some stuff on if you're a Protestant how can you stay a Protestant but still engage in some Catholic practices? Yeah, I love that topic. Yes. I did that yesterday. I did a show where I talked about how you can remain a Protestant pray the rosary.

Yep, exactly. Yeah, so stuff like that I was like, yeah, well what do we believe about Mary? I don't know. So I would ask him about the Immaculate Conciating. he'd say well the immaculate conception i think is a little bit harder to believe as a lutheran because then you have to believe that god was able to save somebody um apart from the cross and so therefore the cross was um unnecessary or insignificant or something like that and i was like

okay i guess um which isn't true of all the protestants who are watching it's not true yeah we don't think that yeah yeah yeah um just other beliefs like that and i wasn't really satisfied with the answers I was getting because they were kind of like, you could believe whatever you want, but here's what I think. And I was like, but haven't you guys, like, haven't we thought about this? Like, should we have a kind of a defined belief on this? And I guess the theme that I've noticed is that lack of a solid answer to something is really frustrating to me. So that's what frustrated me with Buddhism and a lot of other religions. And with the Protestant beliefs about Mary is kind of just like well whatever you want um as long as you're not idolatrous or something so i was like okay

well what do catholics believe about me i don't even why do they believe this stuff so i looked up books that i could read about it and i read uh tim staples book behold your mother it's it's it's the most underrated book on what the church teaches about mary out there yeah yeah i'd recommend everyone go get it yeah it's good behold your mother you said that yeah yeah and he um And famously, I haven't actually finished the book. I read, I think, four chapters of it. And I thought, this is so well-reasoned. Yeah, I was like, this is so well-reasoned.

And I'm so convinced of these Marian dogmas that have been covered in this section that the rest of it's probably true. Like, if these are this well-reasoned, then the rest of it's got to be good, too. And I'm convinced of everything now. So, yeah. So I guess I got to become Catholic. Wow. Yeah.

And then I had started learning about how Martin Luther had changed the Canada of scripture and yeah just more inconsistencies with the early church you know i learned about what the early church thought about the papacy and things like that and i was like yeah i can't stay here you know as great as that church was and the liturgy was absolutely beautiful probably more beautiful than many catholic masses but it doesn't have the true eucharist which is yeah so were you in personal contact with any catholics at the time uh i had one friend who was a catholic uh i hadn't talked to her much about it at that time. Um, I didn't personally know many Catholics at the time. Yeah, I know a lot of ex-Catholics are people who are like, yeah, I'm Catholic because they were

raised Catholic, but never. And so how did your adoptive grandma react to this the second time round? I didn't tell them. Okay. Yeah. I kept it from them, uh, but I had been posting a little bit on, um, well, actually, no, TikTok, I took a complete break for a year. I just was like, I don't know what I believe about anything right now. I'm just going to stop. And then once I was closer to ending RCIA, I think I posted something about like, you know, when you're a Lutheran TikToker,

but you become Catholic or something, and I had like the Kirby enthusiasm theme song. And then I looked back and that was exactly one year from the last post that I made as a Lutheran. And I didn't plan that out, but it was just an interesting thing there. Yeah. So then, how did your Lutheran pastor respond to your decision?

So kind of cowardly as well. I didn't tell him. I just kind of stopped attending that church. And then he, and I was, I feel awful about this, but I was actually involved in their video crew as well. And I was like editing videos for them and posting them and things like that. And I had just stopped all that. I just dropped it. And I feel awful about that. But he emailed me like, hey, haven't seen you in a while. What's going on? Like you, everything okay. And I was like, yeah, sorry. I should have. have said something sooner, but I'm becoming Catholic. And he was like, he wasn't upset or anything, but he said, hey, if you want to like come chat about this, I'm presuming he would want to, he would have wanted to convince me otherwise. And I just wasn't interested in having

that conversation. One, because he would win for sure, because I just knew he knows a lot more than I do. But I just was convinced and I wanted to complete the RCIA process and just get confirmed, receive the true Eucharist. Yeah. So then he was like, well, why don't you write out some thoughts on like a Google Doc or something of why you're becoming Catholic? So I wrote out a few things. I can't remember exactly, but I think it was the global presence of the church, the

historical arguments for things like the papacy, the consistency of practice among different, like there were Lutheran churches that weren't doing communion every week. and most of them were, but it was just like, why is there, why aren't you doing community every week? And why isn't somebody kind of enforcing that, I guess? So a more consistent practice among Catholics, the beauty of the rosary, things like that. Yeah, I also, my wife is Vietnamese, or her parents are from Vietnam. She was born here. But I would like my kids to learn Vietnamese, and there's no Vietnamese Lutheran churches that I'm aware of. I think there's one maybe but it's like there's a lot of Vietnamese Catholic churches so there's good that that's good

so just things like that did you meet her after you became Catholic your wife no I met her in high school actually so we had been together this whole time oh wow and what was that wow what a roller coaster of a ride atheist pro life Lutherville yeah Protestant evangelical yeah wow yeah she was just like this is a lot of change yep I'm a little bit and what's funny is I had told her before I became a Christian if I ever become a Christian, just leave me because I've lost my mind. Okay. And then I become a Christian.

And she's like, what's going on here, man? Are you messing with me? Do you want me to leave? You just ask me to leave. You don't have to do all this. I just love Jesus. She's like, you could just break up with me. Like this.

No, but she was just confused. And she wasn't a Christian at the time. She was just like kind of agnostic or maybe a deist. But she was just like, this is a lot of change. And I'm not really sure what's going on. But I'm going to stay out of it because you don't seem to have it figured out yourself. so there you go. Did you become annoying to her

as you adopted these new beliefs that you were no doubt enthusiastic about? Every step of the way, 100%. She's stuck with you. What a good woman. She is amazing. I was hoping that she would come up because I would love to talk about her at length.

Oh, let's do it. She's the best. Okay. She's pregnant right now with our first child. Well done. That's terrific. She was with me at a time when there was no good reason to be with me.

We liked each other in high school and I was just a total degenerate, like, not good at relationships at the time, breaking up with girls every two weeks because I got bored or whatever. And then she's like, even after high school, she still liked me. And I was like, I mean, I still like her. I remember, have really positive memories of her and she's great. But I don't know if I'm in a good spot to be in a serious relationship. And I know that if I'm with her, this is going to be a serious relationship. This is not going to be like a couple of weeks thing. So a friend of mine was like, well, just go on a date.

Like, you don't have to think about it like that. Just go on a date and see what happens. So we went on a date. It's very awkward, but I still liked her and she still liked me. Man, tell me about the awkwardness. So our first date, actually, because I was so terrified, my friend actually came with us. Dude, the reason I'm reacting like this, I'm sorry I didn't mean to do that.

I didn't know my face was betraying me. I remember that I'm going to just tell you my first awkward. Many awkward moments, right? I didn't have many girlfriends growing up. That might surprise people because I'm such a stud, but I was, yeah, dating this girl. And we went to see the Truman Show back in 1942. And I remember the whole time just like, I was very, you know,

I was kind of young, I was 15 or 16. I wanted a kiss her, you know, but I didn't know how to do that and I was terrified. and I remember at the end, oh my gosh, I went to kiss her and we ended up just hugging because I don't think I had the courage. What a weird thing to do to sit with a woman, watch a movie and then just hug her randomly as the credits.

Dude, I am cringing so hard right now. All right, so let's talk about your cringing moments, though. Very similar, actually. I had a car, so we would go and have a date and then, um, There was one of our first dates, we went to the movies and then afterwards, we just had coffee and, like, sat there and we had no idea what to talk about. She's very shy to this day. I'm terrified of her because she's incredibly smart and I'm an idiot and she probably knows that already.

So I'm like, anything I say is going to sound stupid to her. I don't know what to say. I don't know what to, you know. So we just sat there and just like made weird faces at each other for one of our first days. I think it was like a second or third date. Okay. Very awkward. And then...

Very awkward. And then one of the times that I'm dropping her off, I forgot if it was that same date or a different one, but I'm dropping her off at night. And we hadn't kissed yet. We had been on a few dates. And I was like, can I kiss you? That's beautiful.

And she laughed. Yeah, that's what you want. Laughing. A woman to laugh at you. Yes. And I was just like, you could just say no and get out. That's like, it's okay. She's like, no, no, I want you to kiss me,

but it's just hilarious that you asked. You're like, isn't that hilarious? Let's just, let's try that again. But I'm like, if I lean in for a kiss, I'm worried that she's going to just like jump back or something. Yeah, no, no one. And then that's going to be awkward. Yes, it's an awkward thing. Yeah.

You're right to be awkward. Yeah. So it was like that for a long time in our relationship. But I knew very early on that I want to marry this woman. So, and like I said, she was with me at a time when I had no prospects. I wasn't in college yet. I actually started going to college after we started dating because she was like, you should figure out

what you want to do with your life at some point if we're going to be together for a long time and then yeah her sister and my sister-in-law now urged me like

hey there's a school nearby like just go sign up like right now I was like oh yeah I'll check it out she's like no like right now go to the school right and I was like

all right so I went to school and I signed up and then I was like I start in the spring okay and there you go and then that's why

that's why I went to college otherwise they probably wouldn't have gone so so I wanted to more about your wife but i just had this memory so i did the same thing with cameron okay we were at the bleeding horse pub in dublin um this was the first day like we didn't i didn't know there was anything there i don't think she knew but on our way back walking through grafton street our hands had

touched and we were holding hands and we we were part of a missionary team for three months so we kind of knew each other enough to then i guess both know that if we were holding hands okay so we went to the the bleeding horse pub and I said, yeah, awkwardly, I'd like you. I'm like, I want to kiss you. That's what I want to do right now. And she let me and that was terrific. Yes. But what was funny is we went back to the same pub 20 years later. Wow. So we've been married 19 years. So this was 20 years like last year. And the fella who served, and we sat in the exact same spot and the fellow who served as beer wasn't even a fetus, not a zygoat when we first kissed. So I made him stay there and watch me while I made out with Karen. No, I didn't. That's really awkward.

Stay there. Open your eyes. He got really weird about it, but that's funny. Yeah, man, we're not all smooth like on the movies. Right. I think it's kind of nice. I want to kiss you. That's cool. All right. So you went to college. Yep. Because your girlfriend said, I think you should do this. Actually, more than that, just you're going to do this. Yeah. Well, her sister was very pushy. Oh, her sister, sorry. She was like, just have some idea of what you want to do in your life. I had no idea at the time. So that was good. That was good for me.

Okay. So I went to college. And then, yeah, we've just been together ever since. She's been with me through all of these conversions and such. It's been about four years now. Yeah. So we dated for a long time before she was married. So you weren't Catholic when you got married then?

No, I was a Lutheran at the time. Did you get married there? Or what did you get? No, we just got married at like a venue. Sweet. Yeah. Cool. Yeah.

Is she a Christian? She's a Catholic? Catholic now. Oh, wow. This past Easter, she was baptized, confirmed First Communion, the works. What helped her other than you? Um, was she reading? Yeah, I was no help. Oh, so I, I, I've always been annoying. She's always told me, it's not true. You're not annoying at all. Well, when it comes to that, I was annoying. She's, she's totally like, hey, this isn't helping me one. I see. This isn't going to make me want to convert. If you just keep trying to argue with me about evidence for the resurrection, like that's not really going to do it for me. So I'm like, all right,

I'll back off. And then I would just be like, do you want to come with me to Mass? You know, like, let's go to Mass. And she would go with me actually pretty often. She was going with me to Mass. I'd be like, you want to pray the rosary with me? And she would pray the rosary with me.

And she liked it, even if she was like, I don't really know what I'm doing here. But what did it really was the podcast, The Exorcist Files. Yeah. Excellent podcast, Father Carlos Martins. just because it's not, I think it's marketed as an exorcism podcast, but I think primarily it's a catechism podcast. It's very, very packed with catechesis. And the way that everything

was presented, because she had believed in spiritual stuff happening, like she's had experiences herself and she knows family who's had experiences. So she believes that there's something spiritual going on in the world, but she hasn't found a system that has made sense of that. And so Father Carlos Martins laying out what the Catholic Church teaches about demonic possession, why it happens, and things like that. It just made a lot of sense. And she was like, this belief system seems to have thought about this stuff very seriously and made sense of these things in a way that no other religion really has. So she was raised Buddhist, by the way. So, yeah. So it was just like, that wasn't the person you interviewed, was it? No, no, no. I didn't watch it. I just saw the

thumbnail and thought, I need to watch it. Yeah, that was a good conversation. Yeah. So she, She was like, yeah, this religion seems to have it all kind of figured out. Like they have, seems to make sense. I'm going to go ahead and join OCAA now. So she did. It's funny how different things move people differently. Like for you, it was apologetics and the Herbes, the Exorcist Files. That's good to keep in mind as we dialogue with people.

We often think that what we found convincing and compelling is what everybody should find convincing and compelling when that's not necessary. necessarily so. Right. Truthly is a groundbreaking Catholic AI app built to help you know, live and defend the Catholic faith with clarity and confidence. Whether you're navigating a tough conversation, deepening your understanding, or looking for daily spiritual guidance, Truthly is your companion on the journey. It's like if chat GPT went through OCIA, got baptized and made it its mission to proclaim the truth of the Catholic Church. But Truthly is more than just a Q&A tool, its formation in your pocket. audio courses on topics like the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Eucharist, Purgatory, and why the Catholic Church is the one founded by Jesus Christ. Each course is designed to be accessible, engaging, and deeply rooted in the teachings of the church. You'll also receive daily audio reflections, short, powerful meditations to help you grow in prayer and stay grounded in your spiritual life. Already downloaded by thousands of people worldwide, Truthly is transforming the way we learn,

share and live our faith one question one course and one prayer at a time start your seven day free trial today download truthly on the app store that's wonderful and so when did um lattes with luther become sips with sarah yeah so once i got confirmed i was um you know reading apologetics material i was reading why we're catholic was one of the first things i read by yeah excellent book and it was like Like, my family was asking me all kinds of questions. My grandparents specifically were like, why do you believe this about baptism and things like that?

So, or like purgatory. And I didn't really fully understand purgatory at the time either. So going to resources like that was really helpful. And then as I was doing that, I was actually creating PowerPoint presentations so that I could go to my grandparents' house and be like, here's what the Bible says about baptism. Here's what the early church believed about baptism. And this is why we believe this about baptism today. And I just enjoyed doing that.

That was so much fun. So I was making kind of very concise versions of those things using primarily Why We're Catholic by Trent Horn and making like 60 second defenses of these things in Catholicism on TikTok. And I realized, you know, I obviously can't keep the name Lates with Luther if I'm defending the papacy.

Unless every episode you showed up with a latte to refute him. Yeah, there you go. Okay. Yeah, so I thought, you know, I like the name structure, obviously, huge fan of Pines of the Quinez. for years. So I want to stay with that. And I like cigars. I didn't smoke it often, but when I could, I would enjoy a cigar. And so I was like, well, maybe cigars with Sarah,

Hunipro Serra, I guess, because I'm in California. So I've heard that name before. Seems like a big deal. Cigars with Sarah. Yeah, I'll do that. Yeah. And then I think I had heard that TikTok was like, deprioritizing cigar content or something like that. And I was like, okay, I don't want to be thought of as like a cigar page because I'm not. So what else could I do? Sips with Sarah?

Like, yeah, I guess that makes sense because it's like pints is like a tall pint of beer. A siff is like I'm making short form content on TikTok. Okay. I see. So it's like just a brief thing. Yeah. Yeah, because I was wondering why you were so good

at making short form content. I didn't realize that you cut your teeth doing TikTok videos, but that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then I kind of got tired of doing it on TikTok because the attention spans of people were such that they couldn't even finish a 60 second video before they wanted to comment on something that I had addressed later on in that same video.

Wow. So I was like, you know what? I need to go to like a longer form. So I went on YouTube maybe sort of been a 24, I think it was like May of 2024. It was like May of 2024 or so. And I started making videos there. And I just wanted to make something that was more like a kind of like a casual, relatable, conversational style of just discussing what Catholicism teaches and maybe

responding to some Protestant arguments against Catholicism and things like that. So that's what I started doing. And I never thought it would make sense to put that much effort into choosing a different name or something like that because I was like, this isn't going to go anywhere. It's just for fun, really. But here we are. And then whoops. And then I'm on Pines.

Well, it's funny someone asked me the other day. It was Father Gregory Pine. He's like, so why Pines with Aquinas? Why not like Pines with Dostoevsky? And I said, well, it may as well be at this point. Right. So, you know, like you, I don't know. But I know for me, and for many people probably,

you start with a name that seems like a good idea. And then, you know, you might be like cosmic skeptic who chooses to rebrand, but people still call him that. Right. How many people think that your name is Sarah? That does happen. Yeah, people are like, Mr. Mr. Sarah, and I'm like, not my name, but I understand.

Yeah. Or most commonly I'll get Sips with Sierra. Oh, yeah. Yeah, so I get a lot of Sierra. If you could rebrand it right now, like get into a time machine and go back, would you rename it? And what would it be? I don't think I would.

Yeah, I wouldn't either. Because, well, funnily enough, when I started, when I changed it to that name, I knew nothing about San Juanipro Serra. I just knew, I've seen his name on the street somewhere. But since learning about him, especially recently, I've been learning a lot about him and he's just amazing. And yeah, so I'm very inspired by him.

I don't think I could change it at this point. Do you have a good Catholic community where you are in California? Yeah. Yeah, a really good Catholic community. Good. And what's it been like developing your channel? I mean, what have you learned through it? Oh, man.

It's been fun. I think I forget a lot of times that the video I'm making is probably going to be seen by my grandparents or by my in-laws or by, you know, whoever who might be like, hey, I don't like how you said that. That was kind of mean.

And then I'm, yeah. About the faith in general and Protestantism or about them specifically? Oh, in general. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, like my grandparents. That's nice, though. It helps kind of curb the way you speak about things.

Yeah, it does. Which then ends up making you more palatable to the inquiring Protestant I would think. I guess that's true. Yeah. Yeah. Because I came out of the gate very hot

against Protestantism. Yeah. I've never been able to just have like a moderate position on something. It's always like, no, this is it. Yeah. And I think that comes from when I was growing up, I saw a lot of times in the people around me

that they would kind of be wishy-washy about their beliefs because if they were kind of vague about what they believed, they wouldn't have to like be accountable to themselves or to a set of principles or something. And so I don't like that. I think that's maybe why that has bothered me about other religions in the past. So I've always been like, this is how it is, you know?

So that can be annoying to people. And the worst of it is that my grandparents take it very personally when I argue against Protestantism because they raise me with Protestantism. And so when I criticize Protestantism, they see that as me rejecting them and saying, what you gave me as a child is worthless. I don't want it.

And that's not how I feel. Have you tried telling them? Yeah, actually it broke my heart. my grandpa the other few weeks ago now asked me he we were in the car we had had some kind of big arguments about protestantism and he was like so do you think that there's nothing good from what we raised you with like do you think that was all just worthless i was like no and i wanted to cry i was like no of course not you guys raised me with a belief in jesus christ you guys raised me with the trinity with the scriptures like all of this stuff that's foundational to even catholicism you guys have raised me

with. So of course not. Like, that's, that's, uh, it breaks my heart that they would think that. And that's not how I feel at all. I'm really grateful to them. So, um, yeah. So that, that type of stuff hurts. And then I hear stuff from other friends or family who are like, you know, you're kind of being harsh on other religions like Islam, for example. And so there's the conflicts, little conflicts like that that arise sometimes. But what can you do? Yeah. Yeah, it is hard. Because, I mean, if I were an inquiring protestant and I started watching this show and I got the sense that the host of the guest

was just contemptuous, you know, and just, I wouldn't want to stick around. Right. But then I've also met people who appreciate that kind of hard line that people take so you just, you can't please everybody, but I think we want to be, we don't want to be uncharitable. Right.

Yeah, yeah, God knows that there are many people Protestants who are holier than I am. Oh, and that's my fault. Yeah, my grandparents. I don't mean definitely like, oh, there's definitely Protestants more holy than you. That's true. Than myself.

My grandparents are some of the most devout people that I know. My grandpa, he prays every day in his closet. He goes in there and just shuts the world out and just spends an hour with the Lord, which is beautiful. I don't do that. I should do that. That woman I told you about earlier who bought us porn

an alcohol. Do you know how that story ends? No. I don't know how much you've heard. So she came to my wedding in a Texas, which is wild, right? Because she's from Australia. Bummer. And shortly after that, she converted. She was at a Catholic church and there were prayer stations nearby. And the priest said, hey, after Holy Mass, if you want to have someone pray with you, you could do that. And so she went up. and just didn't mean, I don't think she even meant to go to the prayer station. She just happened to be walking out that way. Okay.

And so said, yeah, pray for me. I'm dealing with some stress at work or whatever, just to kind of get out of it. And she encountered Christ and her life changed. Wow. Wasn't even looking for it or anything. What do you mean when you say she encountered Christ? I don't know what I mean by that. Okay.

I think I mean, I think I'm, like practically what I mean is it wasn't a simple like, yeah, I feel some peace. Thank you. no her whole life turned around like it was a 360 no no a 180 change right um and i think that's interesting because i think a lot of people have these conversion experiences as you did as i did when we were younger but she was like in a 50s oh yeah a whole life turned around um and this is one of my favorite stories about her she started attending this bible study and she has that new convert zeal and so she was she would be in her house and she would be in her house and she would have statues of Buddha and different things, which she started breaking. Oh, wow. And

throwing holy water up the walls, you know, like down the hallway. Right. And so she'd go back to her Bible study and she would say that this is what she was doing. And someone said to her, well, don't you think that's a bit narrow-minded? And she said, I hope so, because it's a narrow path. That's the kind of woman she was. Oh, God bless her. That's great. Now, I think, unfortunately, she left the Catholic faith for a Protestant denomination in town. Obviously, I think that's sad. But I also can understand it in that the church where I am is whatever. But the church she went to is just passionate, Protestant, beautiful Christians, right? Yeah. So kind of like your grandfather, adoptive grandfather, this woman was praying an hour every morning in the

scriptures and just. That's beautiful. Yeah, yeah. What was really beautiful as I went back recently and was talking with her on her, what ended up being her deathbed, man. And she told me how much she loves listening to Bishop Robert Barron. Yep. And that just made me love Bishop Robert Barron because he, from his place here in America, was speaking into this heart of this woman who I loved. That's beautiful. Yeah.

My grandparents love Bishop Robert Barron too. Do they? Yeah. See, that's what I'm talking about, eh? like it's like the internet rewards um we all know this like it rewards arrogance and it rewards bravado very much so right but it doesn't uh it doesn't reward humility right but your grandparents and this this woman who is a friend of mine their lives have been blessed because of the good work of bishop robert baron yeah so it sips with sarah junipero jinipiro

Hunipiro. Huniparou. Yeah, that makes more sense. I don't know much about him. Yeah. Tell me something. He founded nine of the missions in California. He's considered the founding father of California

and considered like probably the greatest Catholic missionary in America. He's been maligned a lot as of late, especially with like the BLM rights and all that. People thought of him as a symbol for colonialism. But the real story is actually like almost entirely the opposite. actually it is 100% the opposite so he came here from spain he lived on an island in spain beautiful island um i think it was mayorka maybe yeah i couldn't be pronouncing that wrong but he was a professor of philosophy there so very smart guy he was um you know in the religious life and from a very young age he always was like a faithful catholic knew he would knew what he wanted

to do when he grew up and around the age of like 37 i think he had the opportunity to come to the new and spread the gospel. And he jumped on that opportunity. And he came here from, like I said, a cushy job professor in a beautiful island where his family is, his parents are there and all that, leaves all of that to come here to a land that wasn't very amenable.

There were, you know, native tribes that weren't always friendly to newcomers. There wasn't very many amenities here. So he shows up, and this is a very summer. summarized version, obviously, but there are a lot of great books and videos out there about him. And he refuses every possible comfort that could be offered him. He has the opportunity to be driven by carriage to somewhere very far away.

Instead, he chooses to walk across a desert to get to some particular place in Mexico to meet with other missionaries. And everywhere he went, he walked. He walked, I think, total, like thousands and thousands of miles. I think one trip he made was about 2,000 miles on foot. And just a beautiful, beautiful guy, very smart guy, very well read, very well learned, but also just very willing to get his hands dirty and go out into the world and actually encounter hardship for the sake of converting others, which is beautiful.

Yeah. And the bad rap that he's got is so undeserved because he's actually the reason that the natives had a bill of rights that protected them from the Spaniards who actually wanted to come in and kind of use them as labor and things like that. He created a bill of rights for them and was like, no, actually these are human beings created in the image of God

and they are afforded a certain level of dignity for that just as we all are. So they're going to be treated equally like all of us. And even to the point that he was conflicting with Spanish military generals, like arguing with them, I think he was an argument me with some general that wanted to, I forget the exact story,

but I think he wanted to carry out the death penalty on a native who had killed a priest, who was a friend of Saint-Hunupro-Sara, and Saint-Hu-Prosera, and said, no, we're going to show that mercy the way that our Lord showed us mercy. And he just loved these people, and they loved him. And he's a beautiful guy. So I have this little prayer card of his actually. I don't know if you'll be able to see it, but probably not. Beautiful guy.

You said that there was a pilgrimage taking place. Yeah. So this year I wasn't able to go unfortunately, but I do plan to go next year. It's a saint. It covers his walk from one mission to another. I believe it's 35 miles total. And it's like an overnight thing.

You camp overnight and then you go and continue until you complete it. I think it's a two-day thing. But people can find out more about it at St. sarah pilgrimage.org. I think I've got that right. If not, Mr. Lepontov will bust in the door. right now and then you remind us and we'll put the link below yeah yeah yeah but it's a beautiful thing so they started that actually around the time that everybody was

maligning him because they were like no we need to have a way to let people rediscover the true heart of st hendiprosera um so yeah beautiful guy what's the future for your channel oh boy even the near future yeah what are in the works i've been talking a lot about islam lately and i do plan on getting back into some more dialogue with Protestantism. Yeah, I don't know. I plan to do more interviews. I just rebuilt my studio at home to make it a little bit more aesthetically pleasing so that I could have in person interviews. I've done some stuff like with Ishmael Yusuf and some Protestant friends who have been on and some others who I'm probably forgetting. But yeah, more interviews.

I just want to, I've had like my life before Christ and my life after Christ are so different. just have a lot of people in my personal life who I see struggling with anxieties, with different things. And I'm like, I've struggled with some very similar things and this has been such a beautiful thing for me. Just having a relationship with Christ, doing things like praying the rosary,

going to Mass, going to confession. So if any way that I can help that message get to, you know, atheists or Buddhist or Muslims, it's just like, I just want to do that. Final question, what's your relationship with your parents like and how have they, I don't know, have they changed? Are they still in the same spot they were when you were young?

They've changed a lot for the better. So my dad, obviously, you know, the way he met my mom was making drugs. He doesn't do that anymore, thank God. He is now a devout Protestant. He actually just got baptized recently, which was very exciting. Wow. My mom is, you know, living a much better life. She's not a Christian yet, praying for her, but she's great.

And, yeah, I try to keep in touch with them both. I definitely don't do a good enough job of that because I'm just in my own world of what's going on in my life. So, but I have compared to it before, I have a great relationship with them and really happy there in my life. Beautiful. Well, thanks so much for coming on the show and God bless your channel and your beautiful wife and your unborn child. That's awesome. Thank you.