The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Standing in the River: A Devotional Based upon the Apostles’ Creed by Lyn Forte Richards

Episode Date: July 22, 2026

Standing in the River: A Devotional Based upon the Apostles’ Creed by Lyn Forte Richards https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0G6P3499F Human nature has a tendency to create rules, expectations, and rituals with regard to religion. Christianity is the one and only faith that offers redemption without adherence to a set of rules. For two thousand years, it has transcended nationalities, languages, and cultures. It has waned throughout the ages when it has required adherence to extraneous rules or rituals. It has thrived in eras of its return to the central message: By grace are we saved through faith alone. Church attendance is in decline in the United States and Europe in all denominations. A majority of Evangelicals are affiliating with extreme-right culture, which has sparked some concern about the nature of what it means to be a follower of Christ. Social media, technology, and mass media contribute to complicating the basic tenet of salvation by faith. This book offers a return to the basic tenets of faith that were critical to the formation and expansion of Christianity for two thousand years. Hopefully, it will serve as a guide to return believers to the central ideals of Christianity while also amplifying and deepening the faith of the reader.

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an endorsement or review of any kind. Today, amazing young lady on the show, we're talking about her insights and her experience and her wonderful book. It is entitled, Standing in the River, a devotional based upon the Apostles Creed by Lynn Forte. Richards. We're going to talk to her about some of the deets, as the kids say, I don't know. Is that what the kids say? Did they say the deeds? She is a 72-year-old retired certified public accountant who has a background in many careers. She's married, has three children, three in-laws, and six grandchildren. Welcome the show. How are you, Lynn? Thank you so much. And thank you for having me. I'm feeling great.

Thank you. Wonderful. So give us any dot com's websites, anything, YouTube's, wherever you, want people to find you on the interwebs? I have a YouTube channel, Lynn, 4K Richards, and that's L-Y-N-1-N, and 4-F-R-T-E, Richards. And it has my book, a little bit of background information on the book, a little bit of a bio, and it also has my tile mosaic artwork, and lots of pictures of my garden. I'm a master gardener. Oh, wow. There's a lot of variety on the channel.

So as a Master Gardner, is that a title level above Green Thumb? Yes, sir, it is. Is it like being a Somelier of the wine? No. The mission of the Master Gardner's is to assist the local agricultural extension agent in your county with providing the public with research-based horticultural information. I didn't know that was the thing. Does every city or county have someone that does this?

Yes. Every county has it in the United States. Every state has a state extension school that is devoted to, they're called land grant schools. They are devoted to agriculture. And should they cease that mission, The land that has been donated to the university reverts to its original owners. So, and every county is sponsored by that state's land grant institution.

And as far as I know, every county has a master gardener program, which I would encourage anyone to take if they have the time or interest in gardening at all. You will learn a lot. You'll make new friends, and you will succeed at gardening. Yeah, gardening is harder than it looks. Everyone's like, oh, plant a garden, it'll be fine. And it's a lot more in-depth and detailed. It's during weeds. That's part of the problem.

They define a weed is any plant that is growing where you don't want it to grow. Yeah. That's pretty much any place in my house. No, I'm just kidding. Give us a 30,000 overview. What's this side of your book? Here's a picture of it. There it is.

It is a book that I wrote. because I become increasingly concerned about the polarization that exists in our country. And specifically with regard to the church and when I say church, I'm returning, I'm calling it the church universal. I don't mean my specific church. I mean everyone that follows Christ in whatever denomination they choose. I've been concerned with them aligning themselves so closely with MAGA. And that bothered me, but it also, it's not the first time that's happened in history.

It won't be the last time that it happened. So I wrote this book to try to return people to the basic first original tenets of the church with nothing else. and I'm hoping that that will work to unify people to help us focus on what's important and the things that we can agree on rather than the things that develop us. That's true. We still have a common enemy in this world. It was the Russians a long time. And anybody who hated capitalism or democracy.

But, you know, we had someone on a couple days ago who talked about the four principles are the four pillars of what's called the hitman, the hitman theory. And it's pretty interesting. And one of it's conquer and divide. We've had a lot of politicians that have played that game on us, dividing and conquering. And that's one of the great ways that power rises and seizes ultimate power. So why do you call it standing in the river?

Why do you call it standing in the river? Actually, I read a book many years ago called a concedure. precise history of the Catholic Church. And what it did was make me very aware that for 300 years, Christianity was held together by the Apostles' Creed. The Apostles' Creed sometimes is dated as early as 90, the year 90, which predates some of the Gospels and the letters. Some form of it existed. At that time, in history, there were no Bibles. It didn't exist yet. There also was, at best, 10 to 15 percent of the population that was literate. So even the letters that were circulated at that time could not be read. People were coming in Christian faith from all different

walks of life and backgrounds and religions. And so there was a tendency for heresies or things that weren't exactly Christian to infiltrate into early churches. The creed became the major way that Christians identified themselves. If they could say the tenets and memorize the Apostles' Creed, they were in. That was all that was required. And then, of course, I think it's human nature that causes us to want to build rules and additional requirements and pull ourselves up by the bootstraps, find something that we can do that's extra over and above that simple message. I think you see that in every

faith. There are many ways to climb the mountain. But Christianity is unique, I think. But also, because of realizing that about the early church and reading that book, I was standing in church one day, one Sunday, saying the Apostles Creed, and it overwhelmed me with the feeling of what a miracle it is, that I'm standing in the presence of God saying the exact same words that were spoken 2,000 years ago through different languages, different cultures, different ages, different technology. But yet here we are standing in the river of people throughout the ages and with those who will come after us. That makes sense.

The river of people that have come before us. Boy, there sure has been a few. I think a few peed in the river. I'm just kidding, doing swimming jokes. Swimming jokes this morning, folks on the Chris Vos show. tune in next time where we where someone slaps us the so yeah it's an interesting way of a river of people flowing the way so let me ask you this let's get a little bit more in depth they say a lot of these religions from the high i'm interpreting this so correct me if I'm wrong but you think maybe

they've either gotten too complex or far away from their message their true messaging or how would you characterize it I would characterize it as adding on litmus tests to ascertain whether or not a person is actually a true follower of Christ. And there's a lot of things wrong with that. First of all, it's not our job to determine who is a follower of Christ. And who is it? That's God's job. That's not my job. The second thing is that if you read the New Testament, it's the idea that it's faith that is what saves us, what redeems us, what brings reconciliation with God. That's the only thing that brings reconciliation with God.

So it doesn't matter if I think, when I say this in the book, in fairness, the Catholics started it, they've added on popes being in full. They've added on the concept of purgatory. They've added on the concept of venal versus mortal sins. There are all kinds of things that have been added on. And like I said, I think it's human nature. But the evangelical movement now has gone. There are certain things that you need to believe.

First of all, you need to be a strict. under all, any and all circumstances. The other thing is you need to vote Republican. The other thing is you need to repudiate science and evolution. And those are things that are not in the Bible. You need to really stand firm against homosexuality and homosexual marriage. Those topics have never been addressed in the New Testament, ever. worries me is that by putting all of these requirements and extra things on Christianity,

you drive people away. If you drive even one person away, that's the wrong thing to do. And Jesus' message, Jesus never said, I want you to make sure nobody has an abortion. Jesus never said, make sure homosexuals don't get married. what he did say basically in my opinion was just be nice just be nice yeah be kind to everyone you meet and believe these I believe these certain things and so that's kind of the introduction after the introduction to the book I'll show you the table of context tense it's just the creed okay It's just a creed.

Now, is this a creed that you've made up, or is the creed that a copy from some other tom of religion? It's the same one that evolved in the year 90. Oh, okay. Yeah. That's old then. Apostles Creed. Yeah. Okay.

That's why it's called Planning in the room. Is this in the Bible? No, it's drawn from biblical passages. Okay. The New Testament did not exist until the year three, somewhere around 350. That's 300 years after the death of Christ. That's a long time. Yeah.

He's got a good memory. They advocated a creed, a statement of basic things that you think are true. To identify yourself as a Christian, to be able to say that you are a follow of Jesus. Christ. These were basic statements, and they required people to memorize it and be able to recite it. And that was how they kept these heresies from coming into the church. That was how they identified a person as a follower of Christ, rather than all the stuff that has been tacked on throughout the ages. So, and then after that, like I said, I, It's a phrase from each sentence of the creed.

So, for example, the first chapter is called, I believe. What does that mean? What does it mean to believe? Belief is not something that you can close your eyes and force yourself into. You can't do it. It's something that comes from within yourself, in your mind, in your spirit, that says, I know this to be true. For example, I cannot force myself to believe that a pig can fly.

I can't do it. But I do believe in things that are unseen, and I do believe that things that I can't touch, I can't identify them physically, but I have this miracle, I think, of belief. So it's like that, little phrases, and then it goes on and dissects the creed, phrase by phrase, and then there's a devotional that I've written. I have Bible verses that I cite. I cite some old hymns. Some of it is personal thought, but all of it is from me. And then at the end of each section, there's a little page that's called ponderings and passages. And that's for people to write in any scripture passages or any famous quotes that helps validate or affirm what they've just read. Oh, so it's got a nice summation on it.

Yeah. Wonderful put together. Now, this is your first book you ever wrote? It is. Congratulations. Congratulations. Oh, thank you. How long did it take you to put it together?

It took me about a year. writing on and off, researching the early church, trying to decide what I wanted to say and what I didn't want to say. And I also wanted to be very non-judgmental. So if you do believe that the earth was created in 6,000 years, it doesn't matter to me. I'm not going to tell you that that's right or I wrong. if you do want to believe that your mission in life is to prevent abortions, that's fine with me. I don't care. I want to center on the things that are in the book, and I don't want to talk about all the other stuff.

And I don't have anything negative to say. If that is what you feel in your heart and what you've been convicted of, that's, you think is really true, then that's between you and God. It isn't my place to say whether that's right or whether that's wrong. Yeah, that's very interesting. You're right. It's religion, I think one of the biggest challenges they have nowadays is they've really been, they've really turned to politics.

Yes. And we, and there's whole groups that are run by the Center for National Policy, Betsy DeVis, organization trying to create a theocracy instead of a democracy. And they have huge events where they fly in preachers all over the country. They give them these handbooks on how to politically proselyte. And they found, there was a study somewhere I saw, and it measured how much of every Sunday there are preachers preaching politics as opposed to gospel. And it's an incredible majority percent.

And, you know, Obama tried to address this back of the day because it was being crossed so much. And, of course, that's the intent of what Betsy DeVos and other billionaires there in that class are trying to do. And, yeah, there's a lot of politics being preached from the thing. And you're right, they're piling it on. There's nothing that says in the Bible that you need a vote Republican or a Republican all the time. Or it just astounds me. People always think it's amazing when I tell them as lifelong atheists that I, if I'm thinking, oh, what's the best thing to do right here?

And maybe I should be a jerk. Maybe it should be an asshole to a person who's being an asshole to me or something. And I'll be like, what would Jesus do? It's a semi-true story as far as we know. And he did a lot of good things. And a lot of these religious tomes are filled with great self-help books with tips on how to survive. Be good to others, and they'll be good to you, maybe. But you can't guarantee that, but if you put the best foot forward,

if you're just running around ripping people off, then you're probably going to face some consequences and some very unhappy people. But these truths are simple and self-evident, if I can steal from, I don't know, the makers of the Constitution, that if you adhere to them, don't murder people. And it's pretty good. If you don't want to be murdered, don't murder other people.

And then we can all get along, and hopefully no one gets murder, or at least it's minimalized to whatever the bad shits are in the society. I really believe that in what you're saying, and I think we've had a number of people that have been on the show that are calling religion out that are calling from inside the house and saying this is not, right now we're in a white nationalist regime government.

That white nationalist Christian, redoubt. I left the Christian off because a lot of, Christians or some of the stuff that I've read, they really feel that that's their KK, all it is is rebranded KKK Nazism. That's all it is, white nationalism. And so a lot of people feel that. That makes me very sad. Yeah.

That makes me very sad. Yeah. I don't think that would be, that would be associated because. And a lot of people don't believe that it's true Christianity. I don't. And yeah, all, I don't know if a lot of people understand this. I thought everyone was on board with this after 10. years of it. But I remember in 2016 going, what the hell is white nationalism? And a lot of

journalists and people started mucking about going, what is this white nationalism crap that's rising through the first Trump administration? It's rebranded KKK. The KKK Nazis, you can Google those folks, if you want a data check me. Google, the KKK Nazis said, we got a problem. Every time we try and get people to recruit to the KKK, we can't get them to recruit. So we you come with a new name. So they rebranded it. It's a rebrand. Just, I know, Subaru changes their name or something or the logo. And so that's all white national limits. It is KKK Nazism. And it's running our country now. It's a regime in the White House. And they're very open about it, too. And if you can't see by their movements of what they're doing, you're watching the wrong news channels. But yeah,

I agree. That's a thing that makes me thinking about this thing. I'll give you a really benign example. It broke my heart when President Trump tore out the Rose Garden. Yeah. And focusing those things, focusing on those things has given me great anxiety. And particularly because I am a Christian, I don't want to be identified with that's the first reason. Yeah. But the second thing I need to remember, and that's really why.

I wrote the book is that this is all in God's hand. There's very little that I can do about it. I need to focus on the things that I know and believe to be true. And that makes me feel peaceful. It makes me, it calms me down. I stop worrying. I stop being anxious over everything that's going on. Right now, Donald Trump is. is turning the portico of the White House into an imitation of Versailles. Even as we speak, and that grieves me. And that's the least of what he's doing. That is the least of what he's doing.

I grieve for the people who are being killed in Iran. I think Jesus grieves for the people who are being killed in Iran. I believe that he cares about all the people who can no longer afford medicine or their gasoline. That's, to me, the people that Jesus cares about. And so that's another reason why I wrote the book, is to try to maybe get people away from all of this other stuff. And focus on the things that we know to be good and true. truly meaningful, weighty is the point I'm looking for. Yeah.

And I would agree, how do you feel about this? We've had a number of people that have talked about some of these white nationalist religious attempts that are being taken to turn our government, to end our democracy and basically turn into a theocracy. They want biblical punishment as opposed to what we have now and rights and things of that nature. So we could easily go back to Stoning. We would have an American ISIS with the people who are involved like Petsy DeVos and the level of religious violence they believe in. And they support what's going on right now because they believe in what they call the Red Caesar. And they feel that the only way to correct America right now is for us to have a mean, ugly, vicious, murderous tyrant to clean up all our sinners acts. And that's what they believe.

Well, I think what they believe, I think what they believe is that they can legislate purity. They will if they become a theocracy. Well, the first thing that I think about that is, have you ever wondered why they call it the Old Testament as the New Testament? There's a difference between those two. God and the first one seems more violent, but you may be referring to something. He is. And he also is attempting to deal with his people as a nation. So in other words, God tried this whole nationalism thing at one point in history, and it didn't work.

That's why we have the New Testament. So that's the first thing, I would say. This has been tried. The Old Testament is completely full of people who believe they were chosen by God, and that they have a special relationship with him and a special calling. And they're condemned time and time again by the prophets. You need to turn back to God. You need to try to mend your ways. And they don't do it. And so it didn't work, is my point. It just did not work. And the New Testament comes along and says no.

And in fact, what the New Testament says is, render under Caesar the things that are Cesar's. Obey the leaders. You are not citizens of this world. You are citizens of a heavenly kingdom. The Catholic Church has done a really good job of indoctrinating their followers that they are citizens of a heavenly kingdom.

They're not citizens of its world. world is the way that they would term me. So if then, I am not a citizen of this world, which I believe, then why am I so concerned about who runs it? So I don't... Jesus came into the Roman Empire, a corrupt Roman Empire. People expected him to overthrow that government. institute, a new government. He didn't do that. He didn't do that. And if you think our society

is bad and in need of beefing up their morals, you really can't get more decadent than the Roman Empire. And yet Jesus ignored it. He didn't care. Yeah. render under Caesar what is Caesar's. He didn't care. And he was not interested in that at all. He's interested in each person and what they believe and knowing him. And that's why it's called a New Testament or a new covenant, a new promise with his people. So, no, I do not agree that we should have a Christian country. I don't even think it's possible, number one. Number two, I don't think that you can legislate morality.

I think you can make rules about things that you don't want in society, such as murder and stealing, and you can punish people for breaking those rules. But to make a rule, the abortion ban really bothers me because South Carolina right now, which is where I live, South Carolina is considering an abortion ban that would be at six weeks. one of the side effects of that is been that our hospitals I just saw a testimony before our legislature our hospitals are unable to recruit OBGYNs into the state for fear that they cannot practice medicine the way that they want to yeah so that's wrong to me that's just wrong yeah I Why wouldn't you want to attract a good doctors to take care of your female citizens? Why wouldn't you? Yeah. It's, it looks, I guess that currently is a law, right? Abortion has six months.

It hasn't passed yet. I think it passed the House. It hasn't passed the Senate. It's, huh, pending legislation. It's pending. It's out there. There's. Oh.

For any reason. That's what bothers me for any reason. Now, what it says here, what it says here on Google, I just want to, we really like to really nail this stuff down. It says that abortion in South Carolina is currently banned at six weeks of pregnancy. The pending legislation is for stricter restrictions. Yeah, they want to ban abortion from the moment of conception while removing current exceptions for rape and incest. So they're going full throttle. They're trying to force everyone to breed again and have kids. And part of this is the white nationalist agenda.

They want more white people having children. And of course, they're doing everything to subsubjugate everyone who's not, even removing them from the country. We're having, people don't realize this. We're going through a racial cleansing operation. Originally, they wanted to remove 100 million people. I do realize that. I have, my family is biracial.

So I do realize that I have a better picture than most people. Yeah, you see what's going on and how it's impacting the people. And so, yeah, it's, this is their, we're, we're kicking anybody who's not white out of the country. And we're bringing white, Nazi, far right wing, South African farmers to Idaho to create what they've already been doing it, creating a white nationalist, KKK, whites only environments in Idaho. Idaho. They've been trying to create it as the capital for white national so they can have a base to build and spread from. And they got neighborhoods up there that are, they've tried to establish themselves as whites only, but there's kind of a problem with fair housing federal laws. But I'm sure they're working on doing something. That could be repealed at any time by executive order. So the Fair Housing Act. If it passes that. I don't know. That's it. I don't know that you can over. They've been writing executive orders for everything. So yeah, you're likely right.

I don't know if it'll pass the muster with the courts, but it's really interesting to me. It might with the SCOTUS. I mean, the SCOTUS, I mean, the SCOTUS is, yeah. People don't realize the only reason we have a democracy right now is the lower courts are holding it all together and holding people accountable like they're supposed to. But go ahead. But that's exactly why I wrote the book. because all of this for me is beside the point. The point is that for Christians to focus on the central tenets of their faith,

think about them, think about them more deeply, investigate them, do their own research, add their own thoughts. I think that's going to be something that will bring people peace of mind, and I think it's something that will bring people together in a healthier way than what's going on currently. Yeah. If I was a churchgoer, I would demand that I don't want to hear about politics from the pulpit every Sunday. I want to hear about my faith. I want to hear reaffirming my faith, I think is the term people use. I want to hear encouragement.

Yeah, you want to hear enlightenment. You don't want some guy pounding the table and telling you you got to get up and vote today or you got to get up and do this. And the camps that they have to teach preachers how to do this and they give them huge manual books. And a lot of it's like how to proselyte, how to

market with politics and religion. It literally is a manual on how to turn your religious pulpit into a preaching or a political, almost super practical, yeah, a political loudspeaker.

Yeah, and it's unfortunate because people like me, and it's funny, I probably know the Bible better than most people in religion, and most atheists do. I was talking to my Catholic friend who's a huge Catholic, and he's Chris, honestly, every time I meet atheist, they usually do know more about the Bible than half these people that are running around claiming to be super religious. And the problem that we really have is the hypocrisy. You mentioned cited several examples. Be kind to everybody. Don't murder, but don't hate people over a race. Jesus was even

kind to, I think the local hooker who was going to get stoned, right? He saved right? And people are going to make mistakes. Nowadays, it seems like Republicans will want a stoner. That's what they're working on. There are several stories that have come out of these states like South Carolina and Texas. I read something recently where the person is a Republican. She voted for this.

And she had some sort of complicated pregnancy where it was in the wrong tubes or whatever. and it was going to risk her life. And instead, the people in the doctors in Texas are like, look, we can't do anything or else we go to jail. And she even called the White House and all this stuff, I'm a Republican. And it's interesting to me how these people just will vote against their own special interest because it doesn't apply to them. And then they find out that somewhere in life it applies to them.

And that's when they care about it. We've had a number of people on the show, a couple of people that were abortion clinic. There are people that help people pass through the abortion clinic. And they go, yeah, and Chris, in the morning, the rich Republicans have a private VIP limo service, black car service with security. And they bring them in before hours way early in the morning and get them in and out so that no one can see them. because these Republican women don't want to be seen having abortions. And if you study the data, too, in red states, abortions are off the chart in red states because they're the ones who are the ones who take more out of our government, federal governments,

income than put in. That's true. This country would be bankrupt without the blue state. The other thing I think about abortion is that it's become, I think there's this image that white 16-year-olds are. killing a rosy-cheeked cherubic baby that they just didn't want and was an inconvenience for them, which is not the case. When you have incest, that's not a rosy-cheeked baby.

When you have a 12-year-old that's been raped, are you going to send her home with that baby? I just can't fathom. And if I had a nickel for everybody that has told me, I don't believe in abortion. But in this case, I'd have maybe a dollar. Yeah. The thing is, too, is, sadly, there's few states that track this, and this is by intent, because they want to be able to have that cudgel that, oh, it's most abortions are rapes.

I've heard that or sexual assaults. Florida and a couple other states keep track it. And they don't, it's really hard to nail down the data to a granular level like you can do with anything else in the world. It's really stupid. We don't do that. But only in Florida, only half of one percent of abortions are done with rape and incest or sexual assault. Violence. No choice on the part of the partner.

only 1%. It's under 1%. And the rest are complications from medical. You've got to get that out of there. The mother's going to die. Baby's dead inside and yada, yada, yada. And all the complications, there's a million complications. I'll just shut up now. So I got ADHD. Sometimes they just segue my way. I just segue down the road. And certainly if you believe in not having an abortion, don't have one. Yeah. But again, this is just part of the dialogue. You can see how intense it has gotten that has gotten into evangelical churches, and it's taking over the central message of Christianity, in my opinion.

I agree. And so I think that that's the reason I wrote this book. And to be honest, I wrote it also, I wrote it for myself, because there are. are many nights when I pick it up and read certain passages to give me peace of mind and less anxiety about what's going on in the world. So I would urge people to give it a look. It's very short. It's only a hundred pages. Yeah. So it's not a heavy theological tome. It's not war in peace. And add your own thoughts and your own meditations to it. And I'll also mention that I have a YouTube channel that has my master gardening, master gardening efforts on it,

and it has some tile mosaic that I've been working on since I've been retired. The YouTube channel is Lynn Forte Richards. Now, is you ever been to Catalina Island, my chance? Which island? Catalina Island in California. Yes, I have. Yeah, you know how the tile there? Yes.

Yeah. Yes. It's pretty amazing. Do you do that same type? of work with the tile or is there a genre of it? There is a genre. Indoor and outdoor. You can do tile glass on glass with clear silicone that looks like stained glass windows. Oh wow.

You can do outdoor glass. I do mine on concrete or concrete backerboard so that it can be, all of my stuff can be held hung outside or displayed outside. I started with bird baths. Then I went to concrete statuary. and now I'm just doing wall hangings of things. And I use, it's not a sport, or it's not an interest that is for everyone because you will get cut fingers. It's glass. Your skin will dry out because of the thin set mortar and the grout. You'll have grout underneath your fingernails. You need a space to work.

So it's not necessarily a very straightforward hobby, but it is, for me, it's perfect. I like puzzles and I like color and I like to do artwork. Ah, artwork is always, art work is always good. And it sounds like, it sounds like Father Time is telling us it's trying to wrap the show. Yeah. I've heard it being off about, does it do every 15 minutes or every half an hour? The clock. Does the clock do every 15 minutes or every half an hour?

Oh, at my house? Oh, at 15 minutes. Yeah. Every 15 minutes. Yeah. Yeah. I've been here it three or four times and I'm like, we must be going on the show. So maybe I need that for my local production.

So I know there's two or three dings. That means we should wrap. As we go out, give people your final pitch out, Lynn, on the book, where they should buy it, and your dot coms and YouTube channel. Okay. You can get the book directly from a hard copy from Christian faith publishing.com. They are the people who help me publish it. They can get it on Amazon. You can get it in Kindle or a paperback.

It only comes in those two formats. You can also get it on Barnes & Noble for your Nook, and you can get a paperback copy on Amazon.com as well. If you're feeling anxious about things in the world today, if you are a Christian who is caught up in all of these other debates about various topics, I would encourage you to pick the sport, up and center yourselves on the things that people were centered on 2,000 years ago that we are co-inheritors of the kingdom with and will be with those who come after us.

Yeah, I totally agree. You know, it's, it's, I hope more people read your book and they think about this. The problem with a fascist, theocrates, authoritarian government, what we're seeing now, is there is no freedom of religion. And I'll give you an example of that. So I never thought I'd see this come together, but we've had enough people in the show that are predicted

that we've become an American ISIS. And whatever religion these white nationalists technically believe in is the religion we're going to have. And all other religions will be excluded. Thereby you lose freedom of religion. Recently, Pete Head-Seth,

head of the Department of War, some idiot name, is I hope maggots got all their children ready and go to war because that's what they're preparing for and asking for money for. But put your children right on the spit. I like to say that I'm pro-life. I think if I was a man, I would be a conscientious objector. Yeah. I really am, and I'm against the death penalty.

If you're going to be pro-life, please be consistent about it. Yeah, be consistent. That's all I say atheists ask you, Christians, just be consistent. Walk your talk. But recently Pete Hedgeseth came out and said certain religions aren't we don't recognize anymore. I saw that. Donald Trump has a list. Yeah.

Yeah. He has a list. And one of them is the Mormons. My family comes from the Mormons. And boy, the more I'm sure we're. Until he got pushed back from a Mormon senator from Utah. Oh, yeah. And they're goombos together, him and what's his name Mike?

Or what's, anyway, the senator. But yeah, he's, he's scary actually, the senator that we, that, you know, Utah's. He's full on lockstep, hell, he'll hear everything. But so they, they came with this list and it pissed off a lot of religions. And even my friends are Catholics. I was going to my friends that were Catholics and that whole kerfuffle you have with the Pope. And I'm like, dear, is this not surreal that here we are in a country that was founded for freedom of religion and the guys, the religion voted in are saying certain ones of them aren't true. religions.

And that's kind of- Things that embarrass me as a Christian. Yeah. And they should. And I wish more Christians would call that out. Meanwhile, everyone's just been a mob sort of status with them in the club. As long as I'm in the club, I don't care. But I think that passivity is the real problem.

We had Paul Jones, I think it was, Robert P. Jones, on the show for his book, White Too Long, Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity. And he runs an organization, I forget what it's called. It's a big religious organization, the public religion research institute. So he does a lot of data, a lot of study. One of the problems we have is about 30% of religious people in this country that vote, believe in white nationalism, an extreme right. You know, we must have someone who you either believe or we kill you.

It's basically old world Christianity back in the dark ages. And there's another 30% that are like moderate sort of people, but they go along with what everybody else does. And that's the problem. 60% of the vote that comes out of Christianity comes from people who are either passive and they don't give a shit, but they just vote with everybody like cattle. And then you have these extremists. And the more and more we've seen the extremists go.

Now it's just been, you see all these extremists going. You see all these pedophiles. You see all these Nazis now running for Congress, running for governor, it's running just bad shittery on some of the beliefs they have. have and they're installed in the government. And the guy who's the religious, he's a big giant bearded guy, and I could say that because I was one one time, still probably am. And it's been in your by comparison. But he also believes, and he's the spiritual advisor to the administration and Pete Hexeth that there are certain religions that, yeah, are bogus. And they want his agenda,

he said this out loud, you can Google it, is to basically create a government that's filled with only ultra-right religious believers, much like they have in Israel right now, under Bibi's Netanyahu government. It's an ultra-right wing. I'm not even sure I heard it as a Jewish government anymore. It's an ultra-white wing, KKK white-white nationalist thing. They believe in wholesale killing the Jews, wiping Gaza, and all that stuff. And as we know, that's just the same thing they did with the Jews in Germany.

And so the hypocrisy is just off the map. But I'm glad you're citing this. We need more people calling you out. There's a lot of people in religion that are calling this sort of thing out we've had on the show. And yeah, just be consistent. The other thing that needs a change in religion is there's a psychology of people that if you have a get out of free card anytime you want, that engenders the worst behavior. And that's why we see it this way.

If you believe that I just have to go, I can murder, I can kill, I can rob, steal, run people with cars, be the worst human being to everyone on the planet. As long as they go on a Sunday and tell the priest and pay some communion and hell marries and I get a jail-free card, that's dangerous because it tells people they can keep being shitheads all week long and go back. And I've known lots of Christians that are that way. I'm like, Jesus, you're cheating on your husband every freaking week and you think that you just go tell the priest and you got to, you're fine, you're still going to go to heaven.

I think the real myth is that the real myth is that church is not full of people who are holy. Church is full of people who know their sinners. That's what it takes to go to church as a recognition that you are wrong. I'm fortunate I don't know anybody that's that off the charts. I will say, of course, that I'm not perfect and that I make lots of mistakes. And that's the reason I go to church. And I also go, I go because it returns me to my center and to my core, and I have a lot of things in common with the people. But I do go to a more liberal church. I don't go to an evangelical church, which I think is the difference.

So I have a little world that is a little sanctuary away from all of that. Because it does exist. I mean, you have to do that because the level of stuff that I'm seeing being preached, if you really want to see what's going on, there's something called the right, right wing watch, I believe. Is there a watch or something? Let me see. I don't think I could stand to watch that. You probably couldn't because it's literally KKK preaching from religious.

It's called the right wing watch. and they collect these videos of these preachers that are up, proselyting preachers that are involved in sexual deviance and pedophilia. It just goes on and on and on. And it's scary to see what they're preaching. Some of them are preaching violence from the thing and hell, fire, and damnation. We must make people convert or else. And that's the big thing, too.

If you're securing religion and that's what you do through life like yourself, then great. Knock yourself out. Roll with it. I'm cool with it. I don't need to turn anybody into atheists if you want to believe in other things. Hey, life's a tough road, man. Whatever you got to hold on to, whatever you got to believe, that's cool. That's all good with me. But I'm not going to push my beliefs on you. I'm not going to be up in your face or banging on your door on Saturday morning going, have you heard about your, our Lord and Savior, your car insurance or something? Your car. Car's warranty. That was a joke. I got that wrong. Thank you very much for coming in the show. We really appreciate it. And thanks for engendering a wonderful discussion, Lynn, and hopefully more religious people become aware that a lot of times they're being used in this sense for this political crudgel.

This is, we just said somebody on where we talked about the four tenets of the hitman theory, which talks about dividing conquer and how they've divided us between religion and non-religious or people don't want religion and government. And people don't realize freedom of religion will end. And it may be your religion or their religion or spin the wheel, right? Whatever. Anytime you have rights restricted, no matter what they are, soon or later, one of your rights will disappear. But I, again, I wish that the church could return to a core message that is not offensive, that does not exclude other people. people that opens its arms and makes the world want to be a part of it. Yeah.

That would be my prayer. Yeah, because it just, it drives the rest of us away. We just see the hypocrisy and go, wow. And I don't need religion to teach me morals. I adhere to morals. And like I said, I referenced, what would Jesus do? Or what would Buddha do? I said, I should probably stand down.

I should probably forgive. I should probably not be a jerk because they're being a jerk. meet them halfway. I should probably just turn the other cheek or something. These are, these are great tomes of how to behave in life to get along and in the dark age, just not get murdered. So thank you very much. We really appreciate it. Thanks. Thank you for the opportunity. I appreciate it. Thank you, Lynn. Beautiful discussion. Order per book, folks, wherever fine books are sold, standing in the river, a devotional based upon the Apostles Creed. And there'll be a link for it on the Chris Fos show. For the show to your family, friends, and relatives, go to

to Goodreason.com, Fortress, Chris Foss, LinkedIn.com, Fortresschusch, Chris Foss, 1 on the TikTok, and all those crazy places in it. Be good to each other. Stay safe. We'll see you next. You've been listening to the most amazing, intelligent podcast ever made to improve your brain and your life. Warning, consuming too much of the Chris Walsh Show podcast can lead to people thinking you're smarter, younger, and irresistible sexy. Consume in regularly moderated amounts. Consult a doctor for any resulting brain bleed. wanted the best you've got the best podcast the hottest podcast in the world the the chris boss show the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed

the CEOs authors thought leaders visionaries and motivators get ready get ready strap yourself in keep your hands arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hello, Voss here from the Chris Vos Show.com. Ladies, gentlemen, I really see that makes official. Welcome to the oldest living podcast that is still broadcasting daily. There's a handful of us left from the originals back in the 2000s,

and we are the last standing that's still doing daily podcasts. The rest of them, folks are once a month, once a year, whatever they're doing. So yeah, support the Pirateship. Go to goodreads.com, Fortresschusch, Christfoss, LinkedIn.com, Forteschuschristvost, YouTube.com, Forteschuschristchrist, and Facebook and Facebook. The opinions on the podcast are solely their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the host or the Chris Foss show. Some guests of the show may be advertising on the podcast, but it's not an endorsement or review of any kind. Today, amazing young lady on the show, we're talking about her insights and her experience and her wonderful book.

It is entitled, Standing in the River, a devotional based upon the Apostles Creed by Lynn Forte Richards. We're going to talk to her about some of the deets, as the kids say, I don't know, is that what the kids say? Did they say the deeds? She is a 72-year-old retired certified public accountant who has a background in many careers. She's married, has three children, three in-laws, and six grandchildren. Welcome the show. How are you, Lynn? Thank you so much, and thank you for having me. I'm feeling great. Thank you. Wonderful. So give us an indie.com.

websites, anything, YouTube's, wherever you want people to find you on the interwebs. I have a YouTube channel, Lynn, 4K Richards, and that's L-Y-N-1-N, and 4-F-R-T-E, Richards. And it has my book, a little bit of background information on the book, a little bit of a bio, and it also has my tile mosaic artwork, and lots of pictures of my garden. I'm a master gardener. Oh, wow. So there's a lot of variety on the channel. So as a master gardener, is that a title level above green thumb?

Yes, sir, it is. Is it like being a sommelier of the wine? No. The mission of the master gardeners is to assist the local agricultural extension agent in your county with providing the public with research-based horticultural information. I didn't know that was the thing. Does every city or county have someone that does this? Yes.

Every county has it in the United States. Every state has a state extension school that is devoted to, they're called land grant schools. They are devoted to agriculture. And should they cease that mission, The land that has been donated to the university reverts to its original owners. So, and every county is sponsored by that state's land grant institution. And as far as I know, every county has a master gardener program, which I would encourage anyone to take if they have the time or interest in gardening at all.

You will learn a lot. You'll make new friends, and you will succeed at gardening. Yeah, gardening is harder than it looks. Everyone's like, oh, I'll plant a garden, it'll be fine. And it's a lot more in-depth and detailed. It's during weeds. That's part of the problem. They define a weed as any plant that is growing where you don't want it to grow.

Yeah. That's pretty much any place in my house. No, I'm just kidding. Give us a 30,000 overview. What's inside your book? Here's a picture of it. There it is. It is a book that I wrote.

because I become increasingly concerned about the polarization that exists in our country. And specifically with regard to the church and when I say church, I'm returning, I'm calling it the church universal. I don't mean my specific church. I mean everyone that follows Christ in whatever denomination they choose. I've been concerned with them aligning themselves so closely with MAGA. And that bothered me, but it also, it's not the first time that's happened in history. It won't be the last time that it happened.

So I wrote this book to try to return people to the basic first original tenets of the church with nothing else. and I'm hoping that that will work to unify people to help us focus on what's important and the things that we can agree on rather than the things that devolved us. That's true. We still have a common enemy in this world. It was the Russians a long time. And anybody who hated capitalism or democracy. But, you know, we are, we had someone on a couple days ago who talked about the four principles

are the four pillars of what's called the hitman, the hitman theory. And it's pretty interesting. And one of it's conquer and divide. We've had a lot of politicians that have played that game on us, dividing and conquering. And that's one of the great ways that power rises and seizes ultimate power. So why do you call it standing in the river? What do you call it standing in the river? Actually, I read a book many years ago called a concedure.

Christ's history of the Catholic Church. And what it did was make me very aware that for 300 years, Christianity was held together by the Apostles' Creed. The Apostles' Creed sometimes is dated as early as 90, which the year 90, which predates some of the Gospels and the letters. Some form of it existed. At that time, in history, there were no Bibles. It didn't exist yet. There also was, at best, 10 to 15% of the population that was literate. So even the letters that were circulated at that time could not be read. People were coming in Christian faith from all different walks of life and backgrounds and religions. And so there was a tendency for heresy. or things that weren't exactly Christian to infiltrate into early churches. The creed became the major way that Christians identified themselves. If they could say the tenets and memorize the Apostles' Creed, they were in. That was all that was required.

And then, of course, I think it's human nature that causes us to want to build rules and additional requirements and pull ourselves up by the bootstraps, find something that we can do that's extra over and above that simple message. I think you see that in every faith. There are many ways to climb the mountain, but Christianity is unique, I think. But also, because of realizing that about the early church and reading that book, I was standing in in church one day, one Sunday, saying the Apostles' Creed, and it overwhelmed me with the feeling of what a miracle it is, that I'm standing in the presence of God saying the exact same words that were spoken 2,000 years ago through different languages, different cultures,

different ages, different technology. But yet, here we are standing in the river of people throughout the ages. and with those who will come after us. That makes sense. The river of people that have come before us. Boy, there sure has been a few. I think a few peed in the river. I'm just kidding doing swimming jokes.

Swimming jokes this morning, folks on the Chris Vos show. Tune in next time where someone slaps us. So, yeah, it's an interesting way of a river of people flowing the way. So let me ask you this. let's get a little bit more in depth. I say a lot of these religions from the, how I'm interpreting this, so correct me if I'm wrong, but you think maybe they've either gotten too complex or far away from their message, their true messaging, or how would you characterize it?

I would characterize it as adding on litmus tests to ascertain whether or not a person is actually a true follower of Christ. And there's a lot of things wrong with that. First of all, it's not our job to determine who is a follower of Christ and who is it. That's God's job. That's not my job. The second thing is that if you read the New Testament, the idea that it's faith that is what saves us, what redeems us, what brings recalates, what brings reconciliation with God. That's the only thing that brings reconciliation with God. So it doesn't matter if I think, when I say this in the book, in fairness, the Catholic started it, they've added on

popes being infallible. They've added on the concept of purgatory. They've added on the concept of venal versus mortal sins. There are all kinds of things. that have been added on. And like I said, I think it's human nature. But the evangelical movement now has gone. There are certain things that you are, you need to believe. First of all, you need to be as strict under any and all circumstances. The other thing is you need to vote Republican.

The other thing is you need to repudiate science and evolution. and those are things that are not in the Bible. You need to really stand firm against homosexuality and homosexual marriage. Those topics have never been addressed in the New Testament, ever. What worries me is that by putting all of these requirements and extra things on Christianity, you drive people away. If you drive even one person away, that's the wrong thing to do. And Jesus's message, Jesus never said, I want you to make sure nobody has an abortion.

Jesus never said, make sure homosexuals don't get married. What he did say, basically, in my opinion, was just be nice. Just be nice. Yeah. Be kind to everyone you meet. and believe these certain things. And so that's kind of the introduction. After the introduction to the book, I'll show you the table of context,

tense. It's just the creed. Okay. It's just the creed. Now, is this a creed that you've made up, or is the creed that a copy from some other tomb of religion? It's the same one that evolved in the year 90. Okay.

Yeah. That's old then. Castle's Creed. Yeah. Okay. That's why it's called Planning in the room. Is this in the Bible? No, it's drawn from biblical passages.

Okay. The New Testament did not exist until the year three, somewhere around 350. That's 300 years after the death of Christ. That's a long time. Yeah. He's got a good memory. They advocated a creed, a statement of basic things that you think are true. To identify yourself as a Christian, to be able to say that you are a follower of Jesus Christ,

these were basic statements, and they required people to memorize it and be able to recite it. And that was how they kept these heresies from coming into the church. That was how they identified a person as a follower of Christ, rather than all the stuff that has been tacked on throughout the ages. And then after that, like I said, it's a phrase from each sentence of the creed. So, for example, the first chapter is called I Believe. What does that mean? What does it mean to believe? Belief is not something that you can close your eyes and force yourself into.

You can't do it. It's something that comes from within yourself, in your mind, in your spirit, that says, I know this to be true. For example, I cannot force myself to believe that a pig can fly. I can't do it. But I do believe in things that are unseen, and I do believe that things that I can't touch, I can't identify them physically, but I have this miracle, I think, of belief. So it's like that little phrases, and then it goes on and I say,

the creed, phrase by phrase, and then there's a devotional that I've written. I have Bible verses that I cite. I cite some old hymns. Some of it is personal thought. But all of it is from me. And then at the end of each section, there's a little page that's called ponderings and passages. And that's for people to write in any scripture passages or any famous quotes that helps validate or affirm what they've just read. Oh, so it's got a nice summation on it.

Yeah. Wonderful, put together. Now, this is your first book you ever wrote? It is. Congratulations. Congratulations. Oh, thank you. How long did it take you to put it together?

It took me about a year. writing on and off, researching the early church, trying to decide what I wanted to say and what I didn't want to say. And I also wanted to be very non-judgmental. So if you do believe that the earth was created in 6,000 years, it doesn't matter to me. I'm not going to tell you that that's right or I wrong. if you do want to believe that your mission in life is to prevent abortions, that's fine with me. I don't care. I want to center on the things that are in the book, and I don't want to talk about all the other stuff.

And I don't have anything negative to say. If that is what you feel in your heart and what you've been convicted of, that's, you think is really true, then that's between you and God. It isn't my place to say whether that's right or whether that's wrong. Yeah, that's very interesting. You're right. It's religion, I think one of the biggest challenges they have nowadays is they've really been had, they've really turned to politics. Yes. And we, and there's, there's whole groups that are run by the Center for National Policy, Betsy DeVis, organization. trying to create a theocracy instead of a democracy.

And they have huge events where they fly in preachers all over the country. They give them these handbooks on how to politically proselyte. And they found, there was a study somewhere I saw, and it measured how much of every Sunday there are preachers preaching politics as opposed to gospel. And it's an incredible majority percent. And, you know, Obama tried to address this back of the day because it was being crossed so much. And, of course, that's the intent of what Betsy DeVos and other billionaires they're in that class are trying to do. And, yeah, there's a lot of politics being preached from the thing.

And you're right. They're piling it on. There's nothing that says in the Bible that you need to vote Republican or a Republican all the time. Or it just astounds me. People always think it's amazing when I tell them as lifelong atheists that I, if I'm thinking, oh, what's the best thing to do right here? And maybe I should be a jerk. Maybe it should be an asshole to a person who's being an asshole to me or something.

And I'll be like, what would Jesus do? It's a semi-true story as far as we know. And he did a lot of good things. And a lot of these religious tombs are filled with great self-help books, with tips on how to survive. Be good to others, and they'll be good to you, maybe. But you can't guarantee that, but if you put the best foot forward, if you're just running around ripping people off,

then you're probably going to face some consequences and some very unhappy people. But these truths are simple and self-evident, if I can steal from, I don't know, the makers of the Constitution, that if you adhere to them, don't murder people. And it's pretty good. If you don't want to be murdered, don't murder other people. And then we can all get along,

and hopefully no one gets murder, or at least it's minimalized to whatever the bad shits are in the society. I really believe that in what you're saying, and I think we've had a number of people that have been on the show that are calling religion out, that are calling from inside the house, and saying this is not, right now we're in a white nationalist regime government.

That white national... White nationalist Christian, Redoubt. Yeah. I left the Christian off because a lot of Christians or some of the stuff that I've read, they really feel that that's their KK, all it is is rebranded KKK Nazism. That's all it is, white nationalism. And so a lot of people feel that. That makes me very sad. Yeah. That makes me very sad. Yeah. I don't think that would be, that would be associated because. And a lot of people don't believe that it's true Christianity. I don't. And yeah,

I don't know if a lot of people understand this. I thought everyone was on board with this after 10 years of it. But I remember in 2016 going, what the hell is white nationalism? And a lot of journalists and people started mucking about going, what is this white nationalism crap that's rising through the first Trump administration? It's rebranded KKK. The KKK Nazis, you can Google as folks, if you want a data check me. Google, the KKK Nazis said, we got a problem. Every time we try and get people to recruit to the KKK, we can't get them to recruit. So we need to come with a new name. So they rebranded it. It's a rebrand. Just, I don't know, Subaru changes their name or something or the logo. And so that's all white national limits. It is KKK Nazism. And it's running our country now. It's a regime in the White House.

And they're very open about it too. And if you can't see by their movements of what they're doing, you're watching the wrong news channels. But yeah, I agree. That's a thing that makes me thinking about those things. I'll give you a really benign example. It broke my heart when President Trump tore out the Rose Garden. Yeah. And focusing those things, focusing on those things has given me great anxiety. And particularly because I am a Christian, I don't want to be identified with that's the first reason. Yeah. But the second thing I need to remember, and that's really, really why I wrote the book is that this is all in God's hand. There's very little that I can do about it.

I need to focus on the things that I know and believe to be true. And that makes me feel peaceful. It makes me, it calms me down. I stop worrying. I stop being anxious over everything that's going on. Right now, Donald Trump. is turning the portico of the White House into an imitation of Versailles. Even as we speak, and that grieves me.

And that's the least of what he's doing. That is the least of what he's doing. I agree for the people who are being killed in Iran. I think Jesus grieves for the people who are being killed in Iran. I believe that he cares about all the people who can no longer afford medicine or their gasoline. That's, to me, the people that Jesus cares about. And so that's another reason why I wrote the book, is to try to maybe get people away from all of this other stuff. And focus on the things that we know to be good and true and, I mean, truly,

meaningful, weighty. Yeah. And I would agree, how do you feel about this? We've had a number of people that have talked about some of these white nationalist religious attempts that are being taken to turn our government, to end our democracy and basically turn into a theocracy. They want biblical punishment as opposed to what we have now and

rights and things of that nature. So we could easily go back to Stoning. We would have an American ISIS. with the people who are involved like Betsy DeVos and the level of religious violence they believe in. And they support what's going on right now because they believe in what they call the Red Caesar. And they feel that the only way to correct America right now is for us to have a mean, ugly, vicious, murderous tyrant to clean up all our sinners acts. That's what they believe. Well, I think what they believe is that they can legislate. purity.

They will if they become a theocracy. Well, the first thing that I think about that is, have you ever wondered why they call it the Old Testament

as in the New Testament? There's a difference between those two. God and the first one seems more violent, but you may be referring to something. He is, and he also

is attempting to deal with his people as a nation. So in other words, God tried this whole nationalism thing at one point in history, and it didn't work. That's why we have the New Testament. So that's the first thing, I would say. This has been tried.

The Old Testament is completely full of people who believe they were chosen by God and that they have a special relationship with him and a special calling. and they're condemned time and time again by the prophets. You need to turn back to God. You need to try to mend your ways. And they don't do it. And so it didn't work, is my point. It just did not work.

And the New Testament comes along and says, no. And in fact, what the New Testament says is, render under Caesar the things that are Caesar's. Obey the leaders. You are not. of this world, you are citizens of a heavenly kingdom. The Catholic Church has done a really good job of indoctrinating their followers that they are citizens of a heavenly kingdom. They're not citizens of its world is the way that they would term it.

So if then I am not a citizen of this world, which I believe, then why am I so concerned about who you? runs it. So I don't, Jesus, Jesus came into the Roman Empire, a corrupt Roman Empire. People expected him to overthrow that government and institute a new government. He didn't do that. He didn't do that. And if you think our society is bad and in need of beefing up their morals. You really can't get more decadent than the Roman Empire. And yet Jesus ignored it. He didn't care. Yeah. render under Caesar what is Caesar's. He didn't care. And he was not interested in that at all. He's interested in each person and what they believe and knowing him. And that's why it's called a New Testament or a new covenant, a new promise with his people. So, no, I do not agree that we should have a Christian country.

I don't even think it's possible, number one. Number two, I don't think that you can legislate morality. I think you can make rules about things that you don't want in society, such as murder and stealing, and you can punish people for breaking those rules. but to make a rule, the abortion ban really bothers me because South Carolina right now, which is where I live, South Carolina is considering an abortion ban that would be at six weeks. One of the side effects of that is been that our hospitals, I just saw a testimony before our legislature, our hospitals are unable to recruit OBGYNs into the state for,

fear that they cannot practice medicine the way that they want to. Yeah. So that's wrong. To me, that's just wrong. Yeah. Why wouldn't you want, why wouldn't you want to attract a good doctors to take care of your female citizens? Why wouldn't you? Yeah.

It's, it looks, I guess, that currently is a law, right? Abortion. It hasn't passed. it hasn't passed yet. I think it passed the House. It hasn't passed the Senate. It's, huh, pending legislation. It's pending.

It's out there. There's, oh. For any reason. That's what bothers me for any reason. Now, what it says here on Google, I just want to, we really like to really nail this stuff down. It says that abortion in South Carolina is currently banned at six weeks of pregnancy. The pending legislation is for strict.

to register restrictions. Yeah, they want to ban abortion from the moment of conception while removing current exceptions for rape and incest. So they're going full throttle. They're trying to force everyone to breed again and have kids. And part of this is the white nationalist agenda. They want more white people having children. And of course, they're doing everything to can to subjugate everyone who's not, even removing them from the country. We're having, people don't realize this. We're going through a racial cleansing operation. Originally, they wanted to remove

100 million people. How do you realize that? I have, my family is biracial, so I do realize it. I have a better picture than most people. Yeah, you see what's going on and how it's impacting the people.

And so, yeah, it's, this is their, we're kicking anybody who's not white out of the country, and we're bringing white, Nazi, far right wing, South African farmers to Idaho to create what they've already been doing at, creating a white nationalist, KKK, whites-only environments in Idaho. They've been trying to create

it as the capital for white nationalists so they can have a base to build and spread from. And they've got neighborhoods up there that are, they've tried to establish themselves as whites-only, but there's kind of a problem with fair housing, federal laws. But I'm sure they're working on doing something. That could be repealed at any time by executive order. So the Fair Housing Act. If it passes that, I don't know, that's it. I don't know that you could override.

They've been writing executive orders for everything. So yeah, you're likely right. I don't know if it'll pass the muster with the courts, but it's really interesting to me. It might with the SCOTUS. I mean, the SCOTUS is authorized. Yeah. People don't realize. The only reason we have a democracy right now is the lower courts are holding it all together and holding people accountable like they're supposed to.

But go ahead. But that's exactly why I wrote the book. Because all of this for me is beside the point. The point is that for Christians to focus on the central tenets of their faith, Think about them, think about them more deeply, investigate them, do their own research, add their own thoughts. I think that's going to be something that will bring people peace of mind, and I think it's something that will bring people together in a healthier way than what's going on currently. Yeah. If I was a churchgoer, I would demand that I don't want to hear about politics from the pulpit every Sunday.

I want to hear about my faith. I want to hear about reaffirming my faith, I think is the term people use. I want to hear encouragement. Yeah, you want to hear enlightenment. You don't want some guy pounding the table and telling you, you got to get up and vote today, or you got to get up and do this. And the camps that they have to teach preachers how to do this, and they give them huge manual books. And a lot of it's like how to proselyte, how to market with politics and religion.

It literally is a manual on how to turn your, your religious pulpit into a preaching or a political almost superbac. Yeah, a political loudspeaker. Yeah, and it's unfortunate because people like me, and it's funny, I probably know the Bible better than most people in religion, and most atheists do. I was talking to my Catholic friend who's a huge Catholic, and he's Chris, honestly, every time I meet atheist, they usually do know more about the Bible than have these people that are running around claiming super religious.

And the problem that we really have is the hypocrisy. You mentioned cited several examples. Be kind to everybody. Don't murder, but don't hate people over race. Jesus was even kind to, I think, the local hooker who was going to get stoned, right? He saved right? And people are going to make mistakes. Nowadays, it seems like Republicans don't want a stoner.

That's what they're working on. There are several stories that have come out of these states, like South Carolina and Texas, I read something recently where the person is a Republican. She voted for this. And she had some sort of complicated pregnancy where it was in the wrong tubes or whatever. And it was going to risk her life. And instead, the people in the doctors in Texas are like, look, we can't do anything or else we go to jail. And she even called the White House and all this stuff, I'm a Republican.

And it's interesting to me how these people just will vote against their own special interest because it doesn't apply to them. And then they find out that somewhere in life it applies to them. And that's when they care about it. We've had a number of people on the show, a couple of people that were abortion clinic. There are people that help people pass through the abortion clinic. And they go, yeah, Chris, in the morning, the rich Republicans have a private VIP limo service, black car service with security, and they bring them in before hours way early in the morning

and get them in and out so that no one can see them because these Republican women don't want to be seen having abortions. And if you study the data too in red states, abortions are off the chart in red states because they're the ones who are the ones who take more out of our government, federal government's income than put in. This country would be bankrupt without the The other thing I think about abortion is that it's become, I think there's this image that white 16-year-olds are killing a rosy-cheeked cherubic baby that they just didn't want and was an inconvenience for them, which is not the case. When you have incest, that's not a rosy-cheeked baby. when you have a 12-year-old that's been raped, are you going to send her home with that baby?

I just can't fathom. And if I had a nickel for everybody that has told me, I don't believe in abortion, but in this case, I'd have maybe a dollar. Yeah. The thing is, too, is, sadly there's few states that track this and this is by intent because they want to be able to have that cudgel that oh it's most abortions are rapes i've heard that or sexual assaults florida and

a couple other states keep track it and they don't it's it's really hard to nail down the data to a granular level like you can do with anything else in the world it's really stupid we don't do that But only in Florida, only half of one percent of abortions are done with rape and incest or sexual assault. Violence, violent, no choice on the part of the partner. Only 1%. It's under 1%. And the rest are complications from medical. You've got to get that out of there.

The mother's going to die. Baby's dead inside and yada, yada. and all the complicated. There's a million complications. I'll just shut up now. So I got ADHD. Sometimes they just segue my way. I just segue down the road.

And certainly if you believe in not having an abortion, don't have one. Yeah. But again, this is just part of the dialogue. You can see how intense it has gotten. That has gotten into evangelical churches. and it's taking over the central message of Christianity, in my opinion. I agree. And so I think that that's the reason I wrote this book.

And to be honest, I wrote it also, I wrote it for myself because there are many nights when I pick it up and read certain passages to give me peace of mind and less anxiety about what's going on in the world. So I would urge people to give it. a look. It's very short. It's only a hundred pages. Yeah. So it's not a heavy theological tome. It's not worn a piece. And add your own thoughts and your own meditations to it. And I'll also mention that I have a YouTube channel that has my master gardening master gardening efforts on it and it has some tile mosaic that I've been working on since I've been retired. The YouTube channel is Lynn Forte Richards. Now, is you ever been to Catalina Island by chance?

Which island? Catalina Island in California. Yes, I have. Yeah, you know how the tile there? Yes. Yeah. It's pretty amazing. Do you do that same type of work with a tile or is there a genre of it?

There is a genre, indoor and outdoor. You can do tile glass on glass with clear silicone that looks like stained glass windows. Oh, wow. You can do outdoor glass. I do mine on concrete or concrete backerboard so that it can be, all of my stuff can be held, hung outside or displayed outside. I started with bird baths. Then I went to concrete statuary, and now I'm just doing wall hangings of things.

And I use, it's not a sport or it's not an interest that is for everyone because you will get cut fingers. it's glass, your skin will dry out because of the thin set mortar and the grout. You'll have grout underneath your fingernails. You need a space to work. So it's not necessarily a very straightforward hobby, but it is, for me, it's perfect. I like puzzles and I like color, and I like to do artwork. Ah, artwork is always, art work is always good. And it sounds like, it sounds like Father Time is telling us it's trying to wrap the show.

Yeah. I've heard it being off about, does it do every 15 minutes or every half an hour? The clock. Does the clock do every 15 minutes or every half an hour? Oh, at my house? Oh, at 15 minutes. Yeah. Every 15 minutes. Yeah. I've been hearing it three or four times and I'm like, we must be going to long on the show. So maybe I need that for my local production.

So I know there's two or three dings. That means we should wrap. As we go out, give people your final pitch out, Lynn, on the book. where they should buy it and your dot-coms and YouTube channel. Okay. You can get the book directly from a hard copy from Christian Faith Publishing.com. They are the people who helped me publish it. They can get it on Amazon.

You can get it in Kindle or Paperback. It only comes in those two formats. You can also get it on Barnes & Noble for your Nock. And you can get a paperback copy on Amazon.com as well. If you're feeling anxious about things in the world today, if you are a Christian who is caught up in all of these other debates about various topics, I would encourage you to pick this book up and center yourselves on the things that people were centered on 2,000 years ago that we are co-inheritors of the kingdom with and will be with those who come after. Yes, I totally agree. Here, here. You know, it's, I hope more people read your book and they think about this. The problem with a fascist, theocrates, authoritarian government, what we're seeing now is there is no freedom of religion. And I'll give you an example of that. So I never thought I'd see this come together, but we've had enough people on the show that are predicted that we've become an American ISIS. And whatever religion, these white nationalists technically believe in

is the religion we're going to have and all other religions will be excluded thereby you lose freedom of religion recently Pete Head Seth head of the Department of War some idiot name is oh Baggitt's got all their children

ready and go to war because that's what they're preparing for and asking for money for but your children right on the spit the recently I like to say that I'm pro-life I think if I was a man, I would be a conscientious objector. Yeah.

I really am, and I'm against the death penalty. If you're going to be pro-life, please be consistent about it. Yeah, be consistent. That's all I say atheists ask you, Christians, is be consistent. Walk your talk. But recently, Pete Hedgsth came out and said certain religions aren't, we don't recognize anymore. I saw that. Donald Trump has a list.

Yeah. Yeah, he has a list. And one of them was the Mormons. My family comes from Mormons. And boy, the war I'm sure were... Until he got pushed back from a Mormon senator from Utah. Oh, yeah. And they're goombos together, him and what's his name, Mike?

Or what's... Anyway, the senator. But yeah, he's scary, actually, the senator that Utah has. He's full on lockstep, hilly hill or everything. But so they came with this list, and it pissed off a lot of religions. And even my friends are Catholics. I was going to my friends that were Catholics. and that whole curfuffle you have with the Pope.

And I'm like, dear, is this just not surreal that here we are in a country that was founded for freedom or religion, and the guys, the religion voted in are saying certain ones of them aren't true religions. And that's kind of- Things that embarrass me as a Christian. Yeah. And they should. And I wish more Christians would call that out.

Meanwhile, everyone's just been a mob sort of status where I'm in the club is like, as I'm in the club, I don't care. But I think that passivity is the real problem. We had Paul Jones, I think it was, Robert P. Jones on the show for his book, White Too Long, Legacy of White Supremacy and American Christianity. And he runs an organization, I forget what it's called, it's a big religious organization, the public religion research institute. So he does a lot of data, a lot of study. One of the problems we have is about 30% of religious people in this country that vote, believe in white nationalism, an extreme right. You know, we must have someone who you either believe or we kill you.

It's basically old world Christianity back in the dark ages. And there's another 30% that are like moderate sort of people, but they go along with what everybody else does. And that's the problem. 60% of the vote that comes out of Christianity comes from people who are either passive and they don't give a shit, but they just vote with everybody like cattle, and then you have these extremists. And the more and more we've seen the extremists go.

Now it's just been, you see all these extremists going. You see all these pedophiles. You see all these Nazis now running for Congress, running for governor, it's running just bad shittery on some of the beliefs they have. And they're installed in the government. And the guy who's the religious, he's a big giant bearded guy. And I could say that because I was one at one time. Still probably am.

And it depends on it's been telling you are. comparison, but he also believes, and he's the spiritual advisor to the administration and Pete Hexeth, that there are certain religions that, yeah, are bogus. And they want his agenda, he said this out loud, you can Google it, is to basically create a government that's filled with only ultra-right religious believers, much like they have in Israel right now under B.B's Netanyahu government. It's an ultra-right wing. I'm not even sure I refer to it as a Jewish government. anymore. It's an ultra-white, we can KKK white nationalist thing. They believe in wholesale killing the Jews, wiping Gaza, and all that stuff. And as we know, that's just the same thing they did

with the Jews in Germany. And so the hypocrisy is just off the map. I'm glad you're citing this. We need more people calling you out. There's a lot of people in religion that are calling this sort of thing out we've had on the show. And yeah, just be consistent. The other thing that needs to change in religion is there's a psychology of people that if you have a jet get out a free card anytime you want that engenders the worst behavior and that's why we see it this way if you believe that i just have to go i can i can murder i can kill i can rob steal run people with cars be the worst human being to everyone on the planet and as long as they go on a sunday and tell the priest and pay some communion and hell marries and i get a jail free card that's dangerous

because it tells people they can keep being shitheads all week long and go back. And I've known lots of Christians that are that way. I'm like, Jesus, you're cheating on your husband every freaking week. And you think that you just go tell the priest and you got to, you're fine, you're still going to go to heaven? I think the real myth is that the real myth is that church is not full of people who are holy. The church is full of people who know their sinners. That's what it takes to go to church is a recognition that you are wrong. I'm fortunate I don't know anybody that's that off the charts.

I will say, of course, that I'm not perfect and that I make lots of mistakes. And that's the reason I go to church. And I also go, I go because it returns me to my center and to my core, and I have a lot of things in common with the people. But I do go to a more liberal church. I don't go to an evangelical church, which I think is the difference. So I have a little world that is a little sanctuary away from all of that. Because it does exist. I mean, you have to do that because the level of stuff that I'm seeing being preached,

if you really want to see what's going on, there's something called the right wing watch, I believe, is or watch or something. Let me see. I don't think I could stand to watch that. You probably couldn't because it's literally KKK preaching from religious. It's called the right wing watch. And they collect these videos of these preachers that are up, proselyting preachers that are involved in sexual deviance and pedophilia.

It just goes on and on and on. And it's scary to see what they're preaching. Some of them are preaching violence from the thing and hell, fire, and damnation. We must make people convert or else. And that's the big thing, too. If you're securing religion and that's what you do through life like yourself, then great. Knock yourself out. Roll with it.

I'm cool with it. I don't need to turn anybody or everybody into atheists if people want to believe in other things. Hey, life's a tough road, man. Whatever you got to hold on to, whatever you got to believe, that's cool. That's all good with me. But I'm not going to push my beliefs on you. I'm not going to be up in your face or banging on your door on Saturday morning going, have you heard about your, our Lord and Savior, your car insurance or something?

I don't know. Your car is warranty. That was a joke. I got that wrong. Thank you very much for coming on the show. We really appreciate it. And thanks for engendering a wonderful discussion, Lynn. And hopefully more religious people become aware that a lot of times they're being used in this sense for this political crudgel.

This is, we just said somebody on where we talked about the four tenets of the hitman theory, which talks about divide and conquer and how they've divided us between religion and non-religious or people don't want religion in government. And people don't realize freedom of religion will end. And it may be your religion or their religion or spin the wheel, right? Whatever. Anytime you have rights restricted no matter what they are, soon or later, one of your rights will disappear.

Yeah. But I, again, I wish that the church could return to a core message that is not offensive, that does not exclude other people. Yeah. That opens its arms and makes the world want to be a part of it. Yeah. That would be my prayer. Yeah, because it just, it drives the rest of us away. We just see the hypocrisy and go, wow.

And I don't need religion to teach me morals. I adhere to morals. And like I said, I referenced, what would Jesus do? Or what would Buddha do? I said, I should probably stand down. I should probably forgive. I should probably not be a jerk because they're being a jerk and meet them halfway. I should probably just turn the other cheek or something.

These are great tomes of how to behave in life to get along and in the dark age, just not get murdered. So thank you very much. We really appreciate it. All right. Thank you for the opportunity. I appreciate it. Thank you, Lynn. Beautiful discussion. Order per book, folks, wherever fine books are sold. Standing in the River, a devotional based upon the Apostles Creed. And they'll be linked for it on the Chris Foss show.

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