The Eric Metaxas Show - John Stonestreet & Brett Kunkle (continued)

Episode Date: March 10, 2020

Breakpoint’s John Stonestreet and Brett Kunkle of Maven continue looking into the antidote for a culture gone awry with ideas generated in their book, “The Student’s Guide to Culture.”

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I tell all my relatives to take it. relief factor.com. I'm the announcer and Eric is the host, but they name the show after the host. You have no idea who I am, do you? Well, do you? Mommy. Papa. Do you know who I am?

Mommy? Now your host, Eric Mataxes. Hey there. It's still Tuesday. We're still talking to John Stone Street and Brett Conkel. They had to use the boys' room, so they'll be right back. In the meantime, Alvin, we can entertain our audience with some facts. Actually, we've got a lot of fun stuff to share.

Oh, we do. First of all, let me just remind you. We're giving a food for the poor this month. You have to go to metaxis talk.com at the top of the page is the banner. We're going to keep reminding you until we hit our goal. I want to read you an email I got. There's so much going on. Tonight is the – tonight's not Super Tuesday.

What's that next week? No, no. This is like another Tuesday. This is the non-super Tuesday? It's not technically Super Tuesday. I've tried to tune this out because it's so painful. I know. It came and gone. The other stuff.

Super Tuesday. Anyway, let me just say, let me get something off my chest. Yes, sir. I am just like sick over how the media is using the corona situation to bash this president. Now, you don't need to love this president, but you have to be fair. It seems clear to me. I tuned in yesterday. Don Lemon, I've never seen anybody in my life more sour than Don Lemon. And that's, you know, pun intended or not intended. But he has a look on his face like everyone just died. He's the last human being to let us know, you know, where the escape pods are. It's just so sad. But he was on and then who's the other guy in MSNBC? But they basically are pushing this narrative of because Trump is doing a bad job with the coronavirus, which, by the way, he's not. Okay. Just objectively speaking, that's idiocy. But

but they have to push this because they're hoping that there's like an epidemic that, you know, kills zillions of people so that Joe Biden can be next president, right? So maybe I'm exaggerating. Maybe I'm not. But a friend of mine who was in my class at Yale wrote me this note. Paul Erickson writes to me. He says, Eric, I hope you call out the idiots at Harvard for moving all classes online to guard against coronavirus and validating the uninformed panic of the masses, which I, I agree, with. Like my parents yesterday, I wasn't damn, they said, there's no paper goods in the grocery store. And I said, yeah, because people are insane. Like when there's going to be a snowstorm, they clear out the grocery stores. Now there's coronavirus. You know, like it's, so here's what Paul

writes. He says, why, why, why has the media been allowed to conflate rate of transmission with severity of disease? Do people's faces melt with corona as they did with Ebola? No. It's a Chinese cold in which most infected are unaware they are even ill. If you're 85 or over and in a nursing home, be alert for the other 99.999% of the population, not so much. The economic consequences of the public overreaction are real, but the disease is not. Flu will, listen to this. This is just some facts to give us some perspective, because the news is, you can't trust it anymore. The flu will kill 64,000 Americans this year. That is 5,000 this month. That's the flu. Nobody's talking about the flu. Nobody's talking about don't go to a ball game because you might catch the flu. Corona has claimed 500

elderly Americans since January. Now, I think that's wrong. I think he means... I think they're infected, but we don't have that many deaths. And he says, and infection rates have already peaked, until this scary plague claims even 10% of what the flu will claim in 30 days. Goodbye, Felicia, Harvard. I mean, I have to say, I wanted to read that just because I've been paying attention to this. And we're living in weird times. And I always want to be able to help my audience process what we're going through. One thing we're going through now, which is unprecedented, that I want you to understand,

to have the news no longer be trusted in the way they were trusted 10, 20, 30, certainly 40 and 50 years ago, they have become advocates for a point of view, and they are constantly pushing a narrative. Now, look, that's despicable. Let me just tell you straight up. It's despicable. It's really, really harmful to America. This is not just harmful to what I believe in. It's harmful to America because we need the institution of the news to try to give

the facts in unbiased way. Once they stopped doing that, which began dramatically with the election of this president, you have a real national crisis. And so it's up to us, we the people, to pay attention to the bigger picture. So the coronavirus stuff, any idiot knows you're going to take all the precautions you can. But to add to the mass hysteria and everybody out there, including my parents when I was up visiting them, they were like, oh, blah, blah, blah. I said, excuse me, wrong. Like totally wrong. You're just, you're not, you're not being realistic. I mean, yes, if you're older as they are, okay, I get it. You might want to, you know, not be in crowds for a little while. But most people, this is really not going to affect them. So you do what's right. But the media is

exacerbating things by trying to undermine this president. And again, you don't need to be a fan of this president. I'm just saying that they're doing something that's really harmful. And to imply that he's not doing a good job, this is just garbage. I'm telling you, Mike Pence, whom I have the honor of knowing personally, there's nobody that I would trust more than I would trust him. So all of the naysayers, the gloom and doomers, the chicken littles, the sky is falling. I have to say, folks, no, it's not. Just get your facts and stop freaking out. Whenever people freak out, frankly, it adds to the trouble. So, uh, yeah, and this is the first time on Sunday we gave each other at the kiss of peace. Yeah. And you know what? That's the kind of thing. I don't mind that.

That's a smart idea. And you know what? We're going to look back on it like we look back on the swine flu and Legionnaires disease and we're going to laugh. Remember those days? Oh boy. Remember the lines of the gas station in 173? Yeah. We're, we're going to get through it. Um, honestly, I just, uh, I feel like, you know, living in, in America, it's about the safest place you could be in the world. But I didn't mean to go on so long about that. Here's what I want to talk about coffee. Coffee. Okay. If you don't know about it, if you've been living under a rock hiding from the coronavirus, let me say this. We are, we've got a new sponsor called Honorbound Coffee. If you go to honorbound coffee.com, not only will you be ordering super gourmet coffee because it is,

it is, okay, I'm a coffee connoisseur. Had some more this morning. Love it. Yep, love it. I mean, really, I was thinking I'm not going to love it, but it'll be okay. I love it. It's great. But here's the key. Every penny of the profits that they make, these are the folks behind relief factor, Pete and Seth Talbot. Every penny, they set this whole company up to benefit military families.

So whatever profits they make, that's not all the money they make. This is what is termed profits, right, goes to help military families. So they just want to keep the business. going expand the business and any profits go to help military families as far as I'm concerned this is a wonderful thing and I want to crow about it because I just think it's extraordinary I'm honored that they are a new sponsor on the program oh and you know what speaking of sponsors on the program yes I said it again this morning I said to Suzanne I said Suzanne yeah the Mike Lindell my pillow mattress topper is destroying my life I never want to get out of bed I

It's kind of weird because I think we talked about this. People think I'm blowing smoke. I don't. I never talk about the pillow because I'm not like a pillow guy and I think, oh, I need a different pillow or I need to. Okay, but people rave about the pillow. People rave about the sheets. Actually, the sheets are great. But there's all these different things.

But the thing that blows my mind is the mattress top because I didn't think sleep technology could be improved. Like I was at that point where, you know, we've been at this for a few thousand years. We've kind of figured it out. Mike Lindell, that son of a gun. that formerly crack addicted son of a gun has created a mattress topper. Anyway, I say all this. If you go to mypillow.com,

you must use the code, Eric. And whenever I see if I'm watching TV and I see Michael Endel do a commercial and a different code comes up, I want to scream to the audience, hey, don't use that code. Use Eric, E-R-I-C. You won't get our big discount

if you use that code. I know. I was watching Tucker Carlson last night and I was yelling, no, it's Eric. No, no. And Carter, Tucker didn't bat an eye. It's like he doesn't even hear you. No.

What is wrong with you, Tucker? All right, so you've got to use Eric. Eric, when you go to Mike Lindell. They've got all kinds of stuff there. When we come back, folks. Oh, yeah, MyPillow.com. When we come back more with our friends, Brett and John. everywhere. I've looked at clouds that way.

Hey there, folks. In case you're scoring at home, that's Glenn Campbell. I'm Eric Metaxis. I'm sitting here with my two guests, John Stone Street and Brett Kunkle, who are the authors of a student's guide to culture. Welcome to the program. I want to talk to you about culture. Do you mind? Let's do it. Are you ready? Let's do it. What were you just talking about before? I'm more ready than John. We were talking about, well, first of all, John, you're the head of the Colson Center for Christian worldview, Chuck Colson, who was our friend. We talked a ton about culture.

Oh, this is why we're talking about this stuff. And Maven, you're the head of Maven, Brett Kunkle. Is that an acronym? No, actually, Maven's a Yiddish word. I knew that. It refers to someone who... I'm a New Yorker. My father used the word Maven the other day with his Greek accent, and I just laughed.

I thought, Dad, where do you get the word maven from? Like, it just, it's funny, because it is a Yiddish word. Yeah, it refers to someone who's knowledgeable or an expert in a certain field. and then seeks to pass that on to others. So you might have a finance maven or a fashion maven. And that's why we named the organization Maven because we want to be mavens, if you will, of Christian truth and the Christian worldview and then pass that on to a new generation.

I'm sorry, what? Okay, so you guys were talking about culture, and we were talking about this issue, because we have to help people navigate the culture. That's what your book is about. The first one was called a... What? A practical guy to call it.

guide to culture. So that's for adults, a practical guide to culture. And this is the student version for maybe whatever, 14 to 25 or something, students guide to culture. But you were talking about trying to frame things, right? It's not necessarily about right or wrong. It's about identity or it's about, you have to help people. And one of the ways, I guess, that I look at it is right now we go a lot by feelings and we've raised feelings to the highest level. So if somebody says, well, it feels good for me to do that, you can say, well, let's find that. It feels a lot. It feels good, but were you designed to do that? No, that's a huge observation. And I don't think we realize just how normal that is or how abnormal it is for a student to prioritize rational thought over

relationship and feeling, right? And not that you have to choose between the two all the time, but think about all the people that you know that maybe have changed their mind on one of these sexual issues or something else. And it almost all... always comes down to it, well, it's my kid, or it's my grandkid, or it's my nephew, or, you know, or it's my friend or something like that. And the inability to look at these issues and to think them through with rational thought, with logical reasoning, with cause and effect, just knowing, well, if, you know, if I assume this, then this is going to happen. It's just not a normal thing to do. It's far more normal to just not want to offend anyone.

And you're also told not to think. I mean, in other words, if you're perfectly logical, right, you say, okay, let's be logical. I have a desire, a sexual desire for somebody who's the same sex as me, and if you criticize that, you're a bigot. And then you say, okay, what about if somebody has a sexual desire for somebody who's the same sex as they are, but that person is 14 years old? What about if that's 12 years old? What about 10?

And then they say, well, you're equating pedophilia with who I am. That's offensive. notice they don't deal with the logic, which is to say the logic is, you're telling me, if you feel something, God put that desire in you and you need to act on it. But clearly, that doesn't work in all cases. So do we dare think about when it might work and when it might not work? But what I'm trying to say is that people like that want to shut down logical conversation because it will make them look foolish very quickly.

Yeah. Well, you're just trying to be too logical in this. That's where logic is a patriarchal conversation. construct. We reject logic. It's all about feelings now. You're trying to oppress us with your truth. Yeah. Eric. And that's what a lot of the current culture reduces truth claims, too. These are just power moves, right? So that might be your truth, but don't dare take that and try and oppress me with your truth, especially if I'm some sort of victim class here. And so this is where I think our first step has got to be inoculating our own kids on these kinds of things.

and this is where it starts really young, and this is where the issue of framing is so important, because oftentimes, you know, we have these hot issues that come up, and we want to address them. So the acronym, the gender identity issue, and we want to address that issue, but what we fail to do often is put it within the larger framework of the Christian worldview for our young people. And so when we just address the issue without the larger framework, often it doesn't have, the coherence. It doesn't make sense to them still. Okay, well, why would God say that in the Bible? And they need this bigger Christian worldview. That's why we start the book, not with the particular issues. That actually doesn't come until part three. But talking about what a Christian

worldview is, how ideas influence us, how we live those ideas out, and how the culture then informs us on these things, saturates us in their ideas. So I think for a lot of young people, we've got to step back, and this starts at earliest of ages, is before we even get into those issues, we provide them with a larger idea that the Christian worldview is actually true. There's evidence, there's logic behind it, there's reason behind it, and not only is it true, but therefore it provides us the way to flourish, it provides us a path to true identity, all of these things. So it's a really, it's a, the Christian worldview isn't there's just abstract intellectual thing. it is a world and life view that is holistic.

I was going to say that, you know, the fact that it's true, I think that Christians have been way too shy on that. We kind of act like, well, I don't want to impose my views. And it's like, it's like saying I don't want to impose my view that one plus one equals two. I have no choice but to impose it because it's true. Now, if I say it in a nice way or I offend you, but I mean, we kind of act like this is true just for us. And I think we have to make the case that at least I try to make the case more and more that there's more and more evidence that there is no other rational way to see the universe. And we need to be clear about that. And we need to, not everybody can defend it, but there's plenty of books that can defend it.

But we're not going to be clear unless we have some level of confidence. And I think that's one of the things that we were trying to deal with, both in writing a practical guide of culture and then making the student edition is that parents aren't confident. Right. And talking to their kids about these issues. Parents aren't confident. And it's not just the sexual issues. I mean, issues like addiction. I mean, we have a national epidemic of what people are now calling deaths from despair.

We have a three-year run, first time since World War I, that the life expectancy in America went down instead of up. And it disproportionately affected young people and especially young men. And you're talking about suicides. I'm talking about addiction, overdoses, and suicide. Yeah, that's the kind of the category. So let's, but let's be blunt. I will say that the reason for that is because we live in a culture that generally speaking doesn't put forward this idea, that we are made in the image of God, that he loves us, that he has a plan for us, that when we are down,

he is with us, that he wants to lift us up. If people don't believe that, why wouldn't they just kill themselves one way or the other? That's right. I mean, that's what's so stunning about the fact that we have three straight years of a declining life expectancy for the first time since World War I. And there was also a bout of Spanish flu at that point. I mean, this is before our knowledge of medicine, has reached where it is now,

before our medical technologies, our ideas of immunology. I mean, so think about that. After that many years, we're hitting it again. And it's not because of medical stuff. It's because of meaning. But actually, what you just said is kind of fascinating, like on a macro level.

In other words, here you are in a culture that made your, in being materialistic, right? Like they say, we're going to do the science and we're going to solve these health issues and we're going to make lives last longer and longer and longer and longer until your worldview catches up.

And the worldview just caught up. It just caught up. And the worldview says that there is nothing, but I think I said the other day, that if there's nothing in the universe but matter, then nothing matters, right? So if we are looking at it like that, like we know how to move the science forward

so that we can lengthen our lifespans at some point, and it seems like it just happened, by sending out this message that there's nothing beyond this world, people have despaired, and it's finally moving in the opposite direction. And it gets young people. After 100 years. Yeah, because it gets young people at a different level. I mean, Brett already mentioned earlier about the exposure to all of these different ways of seeing the world through technology. I mean, that's one of the things you have is that they're hearing people talk about this.

They're reading people's, you know, and what they're saying about, meaninglessness and so on. And so they're not dumb. They're realizing that the stuff isn't saving their souls. And it's leading to real consequences. And this is where we have an opportunity, too. I think we look, we, we, oftentimes we critique culture. Sometimes we kind of wring our hands and we sound very dower and down and depressed ourselves. But one of the things that we do in part three of the book is we we, we make sure that we end each one of those issues with a section called hope casting. Because for, uh, those of us who are followers of Jesus, despair is not an option. Hope is our only option. And this is an opportunity, even in all the brokenness that young people are going to experience from a culture that gives them a false worldview that gives them things then to deal with their own anxiety and depression that only exacerbate that, this provides us an opportunity to hold out the hope of the Christian worldview of Christ. And to find true flourishing versus the anxiety and depression you're getting in the culture, we can offer.

for that. More with John Stone Street and Brett Conkle. The book is a student's guide to culture. Don't go away. Hey folks, where else can you hear Casey and the Sunshine Band? Come on. Be honest. Nowhere. We're playing the big hits here because we want to reach the young people. That's why I'm talking to my friends, John Stone Street and Brett Conkel. And where else can you hear a conversation like this? I can't think of too many places. The book, the new book, is called a student's guide to culture. The adult version is a practical guide to culture. We talked about that a few months ago. The new one aimed at young people

is a student's guide to culture. So we were just talking about feelings and all this stuff, how you kind of get the impression in the culture that there is no reality. It's just how I feel. And we have to train kids to understand that just because you feel something,

I mean, most heterosexual men feel attractions at times to women other than their spouse. And you don't say, you know what? I have this feeling. Maybe I should follow it. Maybe that's who I am. Most people would say, you better bat that feeling away, buddy, because that feeling will lead you to misery. It'll destroy your family.

It'll harm your children potentially forever. You know that that feeling is your enemy. It's not your friend. But we don't say that when it comes to other feelings. Well, this is where we go back to, these being worldview issues. There's a larger worldview that undergirds that view. If we just reduce humanity to material machines, we're just physical, then we reduce ourselves down to our physical desires, and then the greatest good becomes the satisfaction of those

desires. And that's where we've got to step back and say, hey, there's a larger worldview here that makes sense of the picture that we're laying out of reality. And then the thing that will back that up is reality. Reality will back up that if you live outside of the way you were designed, you're going to break down. You're going to experience the anxiety and the brokenness. If you live in the way that you were designed, you will experience that flourishing. Now, most adults in the church, I think, are confused on truth.

And this is where we've got to go back to square one and give them some good teaching, some good logic, as we talked about earlier, on truth. Because when I test even adults on this, not just the students, but most of them when it comes at least to religion, religious claims, and moral claims, they're relativists, right? They're subjectivists. Oh, well, you think that abortion is wrong? Okay, maybe that's true for you, but it may not be true for the other person. I personally believe this, but I could never impose that on other people. But that's like somebody saying, like, if you don't believe in slavery, then just don't

buy a slave. But, you know, we're going to keep going with the slavery thing. But you just don't do that if it doesn't, you know, if it, you, it's, you know, if it bothers your conscience. And you think, like, no, this is a universal. I have to fight for this because this affects everybody. It's not a personal issue. Yeah. And that's where logic is such a key tool for our young people. When I survey adults and students in a talk and ask how many of you have ever had any kind of formal training and logic? It's like out of a crowd of 100, it's like two people, two students. And so even in the church, these are Christians who are not equipped with

one of the most fundamental tools that God has given us to explore the nature of reality. And so these are the kinds of things that we have to equip our before. I think there's something happening right now in our presidential primary season that illustrates what happens if you're not intentional with your kids. And you think about it, somebody who is a socialist and probably an atheist, but basically clearly irreligious, like a Bernie Sanders, would have been a non-starter for any campaign. fact that he has been, you know, the front runner. Now, you know, whatever's happened between the time we record this and the time people hear it is hard to know. But my point is, what has changed? One of our groups of Colson Fellows, we have groups all across the country that study together on Christian worldview. And my wife runs a group that happens in Colorado Springs. And there were

two millennials in there. And they were having this conversation. Why is it that younger people are drawn to Bernie Sanders, right? I mean, where is that coming from? And these two millennials brought up two very important points. One of them said, well, the church never talks about these issues. So where are we going to get our information? We get our information looking around. That is a very profound thing. Yeah. The church thinks it can be silent on certain things to avoid controversy. No, no, no, no. If you're silent on these issues, somebody else is talking. And it's also like being silent on math, you know what I mean? Like, if you know, if you know, if you know, don't teach your kids math, how are they going to get through life? If they think socialism might

work, you failed. Socialism is going to harm people. If you care about poor, I'm really aggressive on this. If you care about poor people, you need to be viciously against socialism because that is just going to harm poor people like crazy. If you care about the poor, you better be against socialism. That was actually the second point, which is the other millennial said that, you know, their first kind of cultural memory is not the Cold War. It's the 2008 financial collapse. In other words, they grew up. That was the first bad guy was capitalism, not socialism.

Now, there's all kinds of things wrong with the conclusion to that. But we have got to take seriously the fact that if we're not intentional talking about all of these issues, whether it's sexuality to economics and all the things that are involved, the culture is going to fill in the void. And we can't assume that they have the same historical memories that we do. I mean, we grew up. It was very clear. There were bad guys in the world.

We knew who those bad guys were. We knew that the socialists and the communists were the enemy, right? We always knew that the Soviet Union is preaching, you know, economic distributionism, and that Castro is preaching that. And we just know that those people, they preach atheism. They keep their people. If you disagree with them, they put you in the gulag. I mean, we had a clear example, and today it's very, very fuzzy.

We're going to be back talking to John Stone Street and Brett Kunkle, K-U-N-K-L-E. The book is a student's guide to culture. Shine, limber lead us less too far. We wonder. Love sweet voices calling yonder shine. Hey, that's the Mills Brothers. We get bags of letters asking for the Mills Brothers, and so we're, we're, want to oblige our young listeners. I love the Mills Brothers. We're talking right now to

John Stone Street and Brett Kunkle, the book is a student's guide to culture. Wow, we were just talking about socialism and stuff. There's a lot of bad ideas out there. They're not challenged, and you were talking about, uh, go ahead. Yeah, well, they're not even not challenged. I think in the church, they're not even addressed. I remember doing a talk for high schoolers a couple years ago on economics. And I remember before I got into my talk, one of the high schoolers kind of expressed the shock. He said, why are we talking about this in church? Like this economics, which actually touches virtually every aspect of our lives, was not a category or a topic that he had ever heard addressed in church, and didn't he actually even think that the church had anything to say

to this? And this is why I think we have to step back, and if we can just say that our Christian discipleship of young people, we're failing them, if you think that sending them to, you youth group on a Wednesday night or put them in Sunday school for an hour on Sunday is going to is going to be enough. It absolutely. Oh, I have to say, I mean, look, there are churches around the country and I visit them. I speak at some of them or Christian schools where I'm in awe of what they're doing. But most of them, including many that I've been affiliated with, it ain't happening. It is pathetic. Our kids are being tutored by the culture. And that's one of the reasons that I want to be a voice in the culture, because we need to get these ideas in the culture, because that's where people live.

But a lot of people, whatever church they go to, I mean, I grew up in the Greek Orthodox Church, I can't think of any Greek Orthodox churches. They're all over America where they're talking about sexuality openly, much less economics. They just kind of go through the motions. And I think there's a lot of evangelical churches where they're going through different kind of motions. It's not good. Yeah. If we talk about all of these issues, whether it's economics or sexuality or psychology or business or history,

and we help connect that to a Christian world. view, what will help our young people see is that every square inch, as Kuyper says, every square inch of reality belongs to Jesus and that their faith is not irrelevant to all these issues. And it's not neutral either, right? So if we don't do it, then the assumption is going to be that it doesn't actually speak to any of these issues. And that's why we wanted to write these books, first of all, for parents and mentors who aren't confident about how to have these conversations or what to say or what's at stake other than just

kind of knowing kind of in the back of their mind, well, I don't like that or it's bad. Well, this can help you. You can give this book to your junior high and high schooler. They can actually read it. We have free downloadable study guides that go along with it that you can get from our publisher. That's right in the front cover, right off right from our publisher, David C. Cook. And it just can walk you through how to use. use this. In fact, we, I just heard from one of our, one of our breakpoint, daily breakpoint listeners that he and a group of, you know, 10 dads are walking through this book together with their sons. They each have sons, and that's what they're doing together. That's what we need, right?

And it's, it's scary water. I remember when the Obergefeld decision came down, legalizing same-sex marriage. I've got, you know, at the time an 8-year-old, a 6-year-old, and a 10-year-old, I'm thinking, I've got to talk to this about, talk about this. I don't I didn't plan when I had a kid to talk to my six-year-old about an issue like that, but the silence speaks louder than bad words. I think we have to be, we have to jump in. I think parents out there who are listening who get intimidated by this say, I can't, I can't hold this conversation.

That's okay. And I think when these issues come up, the best thing you can say to your kid is I don't know, I don't know how to answer this. And then take the approach of, hey, let's learn this together. You don't have to be the expert on every. area, but if you just demonstrate an openness, a willingness to let your kids question some of their Christian convictions, that alone goes a really far distance in terms of helping young people not only feel just the safety of being able to get those doubts out on the table, but the studies

show, like some of the work that they're doing at the Fuller Institute, Youth Institute, shows that just the space to doubt and question correlates with a higher amount of young people who, actually actually stay in the faith later on. So if you don't know, that's fine. Say, hey, let's grab the book together and let's learn this together. Well, you like how you put in that, grab the book. That's part of the process, too. Is that too forward to say? Am I allowed to do that? Not for this author. The book is a student's guide to culture, grab several copies because it's, I know, you know, what you guys do is is important. This is not just another book. There's so many books that, you know, you can take him or leave him, but this is the kind of thing that nobody else is really doing this. There's

very little example of this kind of thing out there. And so I do want to say to my audience, it's important that we talk to our kids about this. And when you have a book like this, it will help you. So it's called the Students Guide to Culture, John Stone Street, Brett Conkle. John, what is the website if people want to find you? Breakpoint.org is the website where we put our daily breakpoint commentaries. Whenever we put out a new book, you can find it there as well, breakpoint.org. And Brett? And go to maventruth.com. Maven truth.

You don't look Yiddish. There's no Yiddish people, but you don't look like a Yiddish, a native Yiddish speaker. Yeah, well, if they go to maventruth.com, they will find actually a brand new resource that we put out there for parents. It's a parent podcast. Can you order chicken soup at maventruth.com? I think we're working on that. No. I'm Shavitzing, just thinking about it.

All right, so we just got a couple minutes left here, and then we got a final segment. But what are some of the other issues that we haven't touched on that are in a student? guide to culture. And when you say the acronym, you mean LGBTQ. Yeah, that's what we mean. Yeah. And the two biggest ones there is just sexual orientation and gender identity. The other issues we deal with, a big one that we deal with is just technology and glowing screens and iPhones and glowing rectangles everywhere. I mean, we don't realize just how desperate our kids are to escape from this world that they can't seem to escape. And we know how addicted we are to our own devices and our own phones. And again, we're immigrants, they're natives. So that's a big one right

there. We also deal with the race issue. There's not a kid that is growing up in the American context where that is not front and center on a number of levels. We're dealing kind of in the wake of kind of what's often called our great national sin, and that's still with us. And at the same time, there's a use of race in a way to hijack so many issues. Being able to navigate those waters, very, very difficult sort of thing. And there's a division that we use. I think that the part three where we're hitting some of these top topics, we call them the cultural waves because these things are front and center.

They're very visible. But then in part two, we talk about the undercurrents. Like if you've ever been in the ocean, you know, you don't just worry about the waves that you can see. You've got to worry about the water. Okay, I want to talk about parts one, two, and three. When we come back, it's the Airman Taxis Show. The work is behind you and the shop and the store.

Put the lock on the door. You just get away where your worries won't find you if you like. Well, I'll tell you. There, folks. That's Petula Clark. Man, I love Petula Clark. I'm talking to John Stone Street and Brett Kunkle. The book is The Student's Guide to Culture.

Now, Brett, you were just saying this book is divided into, what, three parts? Four parts, actually. Four parts, so you get an extra part. Yeah, for free. You know, the analogy we start with is this analogy of surfing, actually. John's a huge surfer. Can't you tell? Colorado.

Stop it. But you are. I know you are. I know Brett looks tanned here, but it's a spray tan just for the record. Well, the surfing analogy is a really helpful analogy. You know, you've got this ocean. And, you know, I've always wanted to teach my kids how to surf. Yeah.

And my oldest one, of course, is scarred because what I did is I basically put her on a surfboard pusher in the water and said, all right, let's go for it. And she got pounded. And that's probably why she doesn't surf today. So I thought, okay, I got to redo this with the other kids. and I realized actually the very first step is protecting them, right, from the ocean before. But in that protection, I'm not just protecting. I'm giving them knowledge.

I'm teaching them about the undercurrents and the waves. And that's part two and part three of the book, is the undercurrents. There's things that are going on underneath the surface, like identity, like the age of information, these kinds of things that are not as visible, but they're having a huge influence. And if you get caught in them, just like a rip current, you can drown. there's the waves that are very visible. But then the last section is really the tools. I mean, as you surf, you realize, oh, there's certain tools, there's certain boards,

there's certain wetsuits. There's all kind of equipment that you need in order to successfully ride these waves. And in the same way, we end the book with these important tools, of course, two chapters on the most important tool, and that's the scriptures. Number one, laying out the authority of scriptures. Because, you know, our generation, the generation of the generation of above us. You could say the Bible's the Word of God, and they'd say, Amen, brother, and that'd be the end of the conversation. Yeah. Pretty much anyone 40 and under, you say the Bible's

the Word of God, and the first thing they're going to do is they're going to question that. And that's even people within the church. They question it right away, and so no longer can we just make the declaration. We have to give reason why we think this book is no ordinary book and and why therefore it's the it's God's word to us and is therefore authoritative on all of these other issues and then uh the the second chapter on scripture is having to do with interpreting it correctly and so these are two of the key tools that young people must have in order to navigate this culture john did uh did brett write the book and you just put your name on it yeah that's pretty much he is very very bright and i've known you for a while you're not that sharp my

I've raised him well, as you can tell. He's the grandfather. I'm just trying to think what else we haven't covered. There's so much in here. But look, I get very encouraged when I know that brothers like you guys are on this and that you're doing stuff out there. I know there's a lot of ministries that deal with young people. What are some of those?

If people have kids and they're looking for resources, do you mention resources in this? Yeah, we've got tons of resources a lot. And this is the world that we have been living in. And of course, now we're living in it as death. dads. And so there's a lot of great work being done right now on youth apologetics. In other words, kind of knowing that the scriptures are true, being able to answer the primary objections to Christianity. So Brett and I both do a lot of teaching for groups like Summit Ministries, as well as Impact 360 and

Summit. Impact 360 and Summit, yeah. But one of the things that I do think is distinct and with, so many people talking about the apologetic size. There just hasn't been that many people. And this is why we wrote the book, helping students deal specifically with the cultural issues, right? I mean, and helping them understand, like, that these things that are just part of the air that they breathe

and the water that they swim in, may not be normal. You can be intentional and to think about it. There's just not a lot of people doing that. Unfortunately, we're out of time, but I'm not going to say goodbye before I tell my audience, folks you can get a grab a copy of this book please get one it's called a student's guide to culture previously we had a practical guide to culture john stone street bret kunkle thank you thanks er

thanks er thanks aaron