Theology in the Raw - 862: Q, Vaccines, Censorship, Totalitarianism, & Engaging Culture: Gabe Lyons

Episode Date: April 29, 2021

Few people understand the intersection between faith and culture better than Gabe Lyons. In this conversation, we avoid all the easy topics and only discuss the highly controversial ones: Qideas (not Qanon), COVID vaccines, can we trust the government, how should we think through the “facts” about the pandemic, is censorship really happening, how to think through sexuality and gender questions, and much more.  Gabe Lyons is the co-author of Good Faith (2016), unChristian (2007) and authored The Next Christians (2010), as a manifesto for how Christians can faithfully lead in a changing culture. He is the founder of Q, a learning community of Christian leaders where they are equipped to engage our cultural moment. Their Q Conference (www.Q2017.com) annually convenes thousands of leaders from all industries while Q Commons, their global event simultaneously unites 140 cities and over 10,000 people on an October evening (www.QCommons.com). Called "sophisticated and orthodox" by The New York Times, Q equips Christians apply their faith to daily life by addressing some of the most difficult and controversial issues of our time. Gabe speaks to over 100,000 people each year on topics of equipping the next generation, cultural issues and research related to the intersection of faith and public life. He lives in Nashville with his wife, Rebekah, and their three children. Support Preston Support Preston by going to patreon.com Venmo: @Preston-Sprinkle-1 Connect with Preston Twitter | @PrestonSprinkle Instagram | @preston.sprinkle Youtube | Preston Sprinkle Check out his website prestonsprinkle.com If you enjoy the podcast, be sure to leave a review.

Hello, friends. Welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. I have on the show today a very good friend, Gabe Lyons. Many of you probably know the name Gabe Lyons. Gabe is the co-author of the book Good Faith with his good friend, David Kinnaman. You might especially know Gabe from their previous book, Un-Christian. Un-Christian really blew up when it came out in 2007, blew up in a good way, talking about kind of the non-Christian's perspective on the church. And it was a really sobering book. I'll never forget reading it when it came out. And I was like, man, the church does not have the best reputation. And we need to really consider what that means for faithfulness as we live in Babylon, as exiles in Babylon.

Like, what does Babylon think of the exiles living among them? So he's also written the book, The Next Christians, which is like a manifesto for how Christians can live faithfully and in a changing culture. Gabe is the founder and director of Q Ideas, not QAnon. We talk about that. We talk about the possible need for rebranding, which he, yeah, is trying to navigate. But Q Ideas is a learning community where Christian leaders from all around the country, all around the globe really are able to come and discuss and engage with some of the most controversial topics of our day. I just got back from the Q Ideas Cultural Summit in Nashville just last week, and it's always just such an amazing experience.

Gabe, what I love about Gabe is he's, as you'll see he's just super smart super well read very humble and yet bold like i think he balances this uh you know this courageous posture in our in our culture today while being very thoughtful and very humble and being a good listener a bit a good dialoguer so i'm super excited about this podcast i've tried to get gabe on for a while he made a joke during a podcast that I called about it. He's like, how come I haven't been on before? I'm like, dude, I've asked you like half a dozen times and you are always too busy. So I'm super excited about this conversation. We talk about a lot of controversial stuff related to vaccines, pandemics, related. We dive a little bit into the trans conversation and sexuality. And what else?

There's, yeah, there's, yeah, we talk about all kinds of stuff that oftentimes Christians aren't allowed to talk about today. If you would like to support the Theology in the Raw podcast, then you can go to patreon.com forward slash Theology in the Raw. All the info is in the show notes. This is a listener supported show. So if this show has blessed you, challenged you, encouraged you, prodded you to think

more deeply and love more widely about these various issues, then please consider supporting it at patreon.com forward slash theology in the raw. All right, let's welcome to the show, embarrassingly, for the first time, my very good friend, the one and only Gabe Lyons. Hi, friends. Welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. I'm here with my good friend, Gabe Lyons. and both of us are just coming off of a busy week. Last week was the annual QIdeas conference, the cultural summit, and what number was this, Gabe? Was it 16 or 17? This was 15.

15. Yeah, it was great to be with you there. You've been with us for many over the last several years. So let's all do that together. Well, I've told many other people this, so they know I'm not blowing smoke, but it is my favorite conference to go to. I love the quality of speakers. I love the topics that are discussed. I love the quality of speakers. I love the topics that are discussed. I love that it's a perfect balance of like, it's very Christian, it's spiritual, it's heartfelt, and yet it's intellectually robust, but not elitist.

It's not like, like I go to academic conferences and people are sitting there reading papers, you know, and it's like, I don't even think you know what you're talking about, you know, but here like, and I often tell people it's the hardest conference to speak at. I don't know if you know this, Gabe, but I'm two two weeks prior, I'm just – my nerves are a wreck every time. Even though I've been on stages. Oh, it's great. I know. I hate that.

You know, I hear that from my wife, Rebecca. She gives Q Talks every now and then. And she speaks all over the country. I mean, she's an amazing communicator. But there's something about that nine minute clock, 18 minute talk. And, and somehow there's a pressure built around it that it's gotta be amazing. And I mean, there's part of me that loves that people are taking it that seriously and bringing like their best thoughts and their best idea to the topic. Um, but I do hate that it creates like

extra anxiety or stress because man, you just walk out there. You know your stuff and I want you to just bring it and you do every time. But thank you for thank you for participating, but also carrying with it that excellence because the talks that happen for so many years now at the Culture Summit that we host do kind of reverberate. And a lot of people hear them and a lot of institutions will use those to help. A lot of churches are using those to help stir up really important dialogues. And some of the ones you've hosted have been probably the ones that have been most interesting to a lot of people because they're dealing with this area of sexuality and gender of confusion and how faith plays into it. So it's just been incredible to have you as a part of it.

Yeah, it's been so exciting. I think what makes it so nervous is because that the quality, like your quality of rhetoric has to be top notch, but also your quality of content has to be thoughtful. And in most other spheres, I'm sure Rebecca, you'd say the same thing, like in certain audiences, if you had to, you can fall back on just, you know, getting by with powerful rhetoric and people might not notice if you're missing some intellectual points or vice versa. I can go to, I can go to my evangelical theological society, read a paper. It's going to be super boring, but people are like, oh, that was good. You know, but here you have to have both and the quote unquote competition or the community is so high quality that it's like the bar is set

so high. So anyway, yeah, my nerves feel good now. Are you recovered? Have you recovered? Are you exhausted the next week? Are you pumped or what's going on? I actually get really energized with it. I mean, it's certainly exhausting over two days. We do over 40 different talks or interviews. This year in particular, there were more interviews than we've ever had. And I think because I live with it for months, I mean, leading into it, like those couple of days for me, it kind of is overflow. I've been thinking about these issues, trying to do my best faithfully to understand how they relate to people of faith, to Christians trying to be faithful and navigate those difficult topics and conversations. And so because of that, those couple of days are energizing for me. I feel like

it's finally time. Like I've been preparing and now it's time. And then I come out of it still pretty energized, physically tired. My mind's pretty worn out, but I still am more motivated than ever to get these truths out because I see what it does to people when they hear it. And they realize there's not a lot of places to have conversations like this anymore. And that just motivates me and our whole amazing team at Q Ideas to do our best to get this conversation in front of more and more people. So everybody's wondering. I get this question a lot. I can't imagine how many times you get it.

But is there a talk of rebranding at all with the whole QAnon thing? Has that been a thorn in your flesh? No, man. I remember this year starting off Q, I made that comment. Man, what a tough year to have a brand that's just the letter Q. We've been around for 15 years doing this. And so within the Christian community amongst leaders, there's a lot of trust there. And they understand who we are.

I think this year what we realized with QAnon and that whole conspiracy theory was that because it got connected to Christians, because it meant that people were – that hadn't heard of our work before, there can easily be confusion. that hadn't heard of our work before, there can easily be confusion. And so it makes it hard for people to share talks or on social media to say, Hey, go watch this cute talk, right? Because everybody's perception of that brand now has changed. I think it's funny. I can't remember the movie, but there's like this, this line in this movie where this, this young guy who's, who's not famous is named like the same name as this really famous guy, right? They're like, why don't you just change your name? Because nobody knows who you are. And his response is, why would I change my name? He sucks.

And so I feel like a little bit of that would be like, wait, why would we change who we are? That whole thing sucks. Like, we're Q Ideas. We've been here for 15 years. We've been doing this faithfully. And so I would say internally, yes, conversations about how do we understand that dynamic and still operate within it?

Are there some adjustments we can make? This year, naming our event, instead of just calling it Q2021, we call it the Culture Summit by QIDs. Simple things like that that just help people not quickly be lost because they're making some assumptions that aren't right. I think it's so silly. I mean, when people just assume stuff without actually taking five seconds and looking into it, I'm like, then fine. You think we're QAnon? QAnon, whatever. How do you live with yourself when you're just going to make such quick assumptions about people? But people do. I could see the reluctance of some people to share on social media. But yeah, I agree, man. I mean, I don't. You were here first.

I mean, QAnon, is that – I mean, I know it's a thing. I know it's probably in some places it may be pretty widespread. In two years, are we still going to be thinking about QAnon? It just doesn't seem – I don't know too much about it. It just seems like one of those things that every couple of years there's a new kind of conspiracy thing that people are falling into or whatever, but I don't know too much about it. It just seems like one of those things that every couple of years there's a new kind of conspiracy thing that people are falling into or whatever, but I don't know. I think the dynamics we all have to think about now isn't just how many people know about it or even think about it. It's literally like Google search. So it's more about if you

search Q and Christians, what are you going to find out? It's likely the results that feed are not the kind of things that you and I are talking about. And therefore, you do have to think about that strategically and think about it in this new SEO search world. And I think that's the dynamics we're having to play with because our work is growing. There's more and more people paying attention to these conversations and talks. And so we're in that space when you search us. But it can be confusing when you read a New York Times article that talks about how these evangelicals have been duped by Q, right? It's like, when that's the statement and people haven't heard of us, it could be quickly

associated with what we don't want. Okay. Well, anyway, we don't need to linger on there. So this Q Ideas Cultural Summit was – You're already censoring yourself. This Q Conference. How's that? I mean, they're all really good. This one just seemed, I don't know, like had a little extra juice in it. Like it just – I think you dove into such controversial topics.

And part of it may be everything's so polarized now that so many topics seem to be off limits. And you just dove straight into all of them. How did you plan out which topics you wanted to address? What's the process? Is that like several months of thinking through? Or how did you decide on the topics we... And for people listening, some of the topics we talked about this year

were everything from vaccine hesitancy to epidemiology and COVID to journalism. What happened to journalism? Why is it that we don't know who to trust anymore? We talked about the impact of lockdowns. We talked about the future of Bitcoin. We talked about humans and artificial intelligence merging and transhumanism. We talk about the apocalypse and revelation and how do we think well about that. We talk about suicide, mental health. We talk, you know, the conversation that you had that related

to rapid onset gender dysphoria. I mean, those conversations are the kinds of conversations that people are having, but it's hard to find those now in a public space, um, because there's a lot of self-censorship going on. Or when you put those ideas out, there's a lot of people who just don't like that somebody's bringing an alternative opinion. So from the beginning, Preston, when we started Q, the Q stands for questions. And the whole point was we want to ask questions. Like we think we think well, when we ask questions, when we started Q. The Q stands for questions. And the whole point was we want to ask questions. Like we think we think well when we ask questions, when we're curious people. Now we're just told what to think. And 15 years ago, we began in 2007 with our first event. You know, there was a time where in the church, people were kind of just telling you what you were

supposed to think about everything. And it was like, memorize this. And this is what we believe. And we weren't actually helping people in the Socratic method, like come to the best conclusions by self-discovery and by learning because they've been exposed to multiple viewpoints, to the truth, to what Scripture says, to what's happening culturally. And together are learning and discussing and sharpening one another. So that's always been the approach. one another. So that's always been the approach. So what that means is we pick topics that we believe are going to be part of the conversation for the year ahead for any Christian, any parent, any leader, any person that's working on the front lines and maybe entrepreneurs. These are the dialogues you're having with your kids, with your friends. They're happening on the news all around you. And for a lot of Christians, and this is just one of the

challenges of church life, you know, Sunday mornings aren't always the time where you can address every one of these topics, even if you know they're important. It's not always meant to be that place. And so we've just found this sweet spot to help raise the conversations and the topics that people care about. Now, how the process happens, yeah, it's a year of preparation. It's a year of reading a lot of books, taking in a ton of different content, and then discernment. And I have several people that I talk to about these things, that I bounce these ideas off, a very diverse group of what are you thinking about this issue, this topic? Who's speaking to this well? Who's challenging you? What are the voices that must be represented if we're going to have this conversation? And so there's this careful process that our team takes up where once we've

selected a topic, we then go to work in trying to find the expert on it. And I would say this year probably felt there might have felt like a little more juice because A, things are more intense culturally for Christians. There's an understanding that, hey, we have some pretty different views on some things and just polarization in general. So there's an intensity to it. There's a hard time finding space to have some real honest, good faith dialogue about it. But then secondly, I would say it's the reality of being Christians that are saying we're going to be willing to step into this, and we're going to be bold about it. Like, we're not going to shy away from the conversations the world's having, just because our viewpoint as Christians might kind of bump up against the main narrative that's

happening. But we feel like we have to be faithful right now, which means we're going to ask some tough questions. We're going to be willing to hear a bunch of different thoughts. But our goal isn't just knowledge and information. It's to actually lead you to truth. You know, I think of the second Timothy passage in chapter three, I think it's three seven, where he says, he kind of warns, like you have all this information and knowledge, but you don't arrive at truth. And so we don't want to just feed information. We believe for Christians, it's a time and a season where we must be able to get to the truth. And that's our goal. I think integrating times of worship too, throughout that, I love that, you know, it's in my own soul, like, because I can get probably

like you, like you get into this intellectual, like, you know, mindset where it's like, if you get so soaked in that, you can lose the heart of it. So it's almost like you'll let us go, go, go, go, go. And you'll bring us back to worship, you know, then go, go, go intellectually. And, you know, some talks are more just are, have less of a maybe, uh, explicit Christian focus because you're addressing an issue, but you'll bring it back. Like even the spacing of the talks where it's kind of, you mix, I don't know, I know you probably a ton of thought goes into this, but it comes off extremely, yeah, well-balanced for lack of better terms. The one that, I mean, I don't know how you pulled this off, but you had three talks in a row on vaccines, masks, kind of reflect on the pandemic

masks uh kind of reflect on the pandemic and all three were brilliant um i mean francis collins and um oh who is it dr kohlberg from harvard all right and then alex uh an investigative journalist who's he was brilliant i mean just seemed really. And they all had overlapping agreement on some things, but some pretty big disagreements too. Like, why do you think that is? That there's been such, like such really, really smart people informed, looking at the same data, and yet people are coming to really different views on are masks effective? How should we think through the vaccine? Is it safe? The pandemic, is it blown out of proportion? Are there deaths miscounted? Are there deaths from the vaccine? I mean, there's so many really volatile things. Why is it so, why has it become so polarized to even discuss the pandemic? And why are people on such different sides of this

who are both really smart people? Well, you know, that's really what we wanted to get to, I mean, in this conversation, because I have felt that you have a hard time finding these spaces where we can hear the different perspectives. I mean, we've looked at this last year and people who didn't align with the mainstream kind of narrative on the pandemic or COVID or how we should respond. There was a lot of censorship happening. Their voices were shut down. I mean, we saw doctors that are literally treating patients that are coming out with, hey, here's what I'm learning. Here's what's happening. Here's what we're learning. And you typically want to be in a space where you're listening to one another and you're learning and you're taking it all in and you're sharing information. And yet this year, it felt

like, man, we don't want all that information. We've got one thing we want you to know and understand. Now, for me, I don't know about you, but that feels very anti-intellectual. It's just been kind of interesting. And I've been surprised personally how many Christian leaders have backed away from this conversation and really are just saying, hey, Christians, just trust everything that you hear. Every expert tells you, or at least the top experts tell you, you should just trust that and don't think for yourself. Don't consider different thoughts or points of view or try to pull it together. That's been pretty surprising, disappointing to me, because for a long time, Christianity was very anti-intellectual, and we've been fighting that for a while,

the perception in the community that Christians don't want to dig into the science and don't want to understand. And so we wanted to, during this conversation, which I would say to anybody listening, we actually made that available for anybody who wants to watch it at qideas.org slash pandemic. And we do interview Dr. Francis Collins, who's the head of the National Institutes of Health. I mean, he's our nation's top official. I mean, Anthony Fauci works for him. So being able to talk to him about what's happening, how we're responding, and specifically about this issue of vaccine hesitancy that is in all the news, right, that these vaccines have rolled out. There's plenty of them, but people aren't responding.

Why is that? And so it's a great opportunity to ask him some of those questions that people are hesitant. You know, they don't trust the government. They don't trust pharmaceutical companies. And why would they? They have liability protection. They can't be sued if something happens down the road. You know, I was able to ask him questions about, you know, the feeling that some people have that they're part of an experiment. If they take the vaccine, there hasn't been enough time and testing. So we talked to him about that.

And then Dr. Colbert, Harvard epidemiologist. I mean, this guy, brilliant, respected around the world for his work. And he's an epidemiologist. So he officially understands viruses, the spread of viruses, how to respond in public health. And he was able to articulate some things that again, disagreed with Dr. Collins approach, um, where, you know, things like if you've already had COVID, then you're building a natural immunity that wouldn't require you to get a vaccine. So this is a debated thing. You've got, um, Dr. Collins had an NIH, um, who's a geneticist saying, look, the vaccine's better than your natural immunity. And you have the guy who understands epidemiology and immunity as well as anybody in the world saying, well, no,

your T cells actually are going to fight this off. This is why people are confused because there are different opinions. And the thing about Dr. Kohlberg, you know, he started this thing that I found interesting because some public health officials and doctors and nurses and scientists had sent to me this thing called the Great Barrington Declaration. And it's essentially this document and a public health approach to this last year that was the opposite of what took place. So you had the lockdowns come in for all of us back in March, April. In some states, that's still extending. But their approach was, no, we need to have a focused protection on the elderly,

on the ones that we now understand from this disease have the most vulnerability. So they create this declaration over, I think it's 14,000 now, public health officials, scientists, and doctors signed off and said, yes, this is the right approach. As a Dr. Kohlberg's concern has been, we're not actually listening to science, that one of the greatest casualties of this last year, when we look back on it, is people will have lost trust in science, because we're not looking at the science of epidemiology, we're actually looking at policymakers who have diverted from science. Okay, so I know this is a little bit of a deep dive, but people are interested in this, that's why there's such confusion. So at this conversation,

we're like, well, let's talk to each of them. Let's try to ask the questions so we can all hear this information. So again, we can form some opinions for ourselves and we don't just follow the, the emperor to tell us what to do. We're going to actually think like, that's what we do. Uh, the third conversation was a gentleman named Alex Berenson. He's a journalist. He's, he's a much hated journalist right now because he's dared to question some of the narratives that have been coming forth. But a former New York Times journalist, and he's written several simple books on this. But I was able to ask him from a journalist perspective, number one, why are we not talking about some of these things? And why do different opinions get shut down?

That doesn't sound like journalism. That actually sounds like dogma. That sounds like propaganda where we can't question things. And why do different opinions get shut down? That doesn't sound like journalism. That actually, that sounds like Dharma. That sounds like propaganda where we can't question things. And so we were able to talk to him about what's really the deal with, you know, the PCR mask or the PCR testing. What's the deal with the mask and are they safe, not safe? Are they helping, not helping? And then the vaccines, he's been somebody who's been really, really carefully trying to illuminate where there has been some challenges, where people, you're not seeing any kind of reports of side effects as much as may be happening. And so he wanted to talk about that. And then we had Naomi. I'm sorry I'm going along here, but it's fine. I just think we're so important.

Naomi Schaefer talked about the impact of these lockdowns on our children, which is something, again, for people of faith, we should be so concerned about. How much has this impacted the lives of children? Well, 1.5 billion, billion children around the world, their education got interrupted last year. Now, I know parents continued with doing homeschool. There was virtual solutions. Now, I know parents continued with doing homeschool. There was virtual solutions. But in general, you're looking at a world now where 1.5 billion of our kids had a major interruption to. Kohlberg's Great Barrington Declaration. That's what they said. If you don't have a public health response, which is what we're supposed to trust our government for, that protects those that are the most vulnerable. We know children are actually not vulnerable to this disease in any significant

way. So why would we impact them in that way? There was also this discussion around the latest conversation, vaccines, children, should they be mandated in schools? We've seen some colleges now that are mandating that students to return, take this vaccine. Is that what, and again, across the board, there's disagreement that Dr. Collins believes, yes, children should get this. It's about protecting the elderly. Dr. Kohlberg, the epidemiologist, is going, vaccines are good for those who are older and who need it. But frankly, they're absolutely not something we should be having our children take because the disease itself is not a harm to them. So with all of that confusion, I think people are just going, how do I think well about it?

And so QIdeas.org slash pandemic. You can go watch all those talks for about an hour. Share it with people and just see what kind of conversations it creates for you. I would highly recommend that you guys to go watch it. And by the way, people that listen to me frequently already know this because they know my posture. But it's not like Gabe's like, hey, let me sell Q on your podcast. But it's not like Gabe's like, hey, let me sell Q on your podcast. Like any kind of promotion of Q on here is because I'm going to say this is without any solicitation from Gabe stuff that you guys absolutely should engage in.

Yeah, I don't – the whole – I don't know, man. So I'm not an expert, but I read stuff like you do. You read a lot more than I have on this. But, yeah, there's just a lot of just inconsistencies on it. Like even, I mean, it just seems so absurd when people say, like, we need to protect the children and all this stuff with schools. There is no, there is nothing that would suggest that kids are at high risk for this disease. Now, people say, well, no, kids have died. Well, yeah, kids have died of cancer, but we wouldn't say 18-year-olds are at high risk for cancer, right? Like, kids, anything can happen.

But is it not statistically just a fact that the standard flu that kids, let's just say under 20, are at higher risk of health problems from getting the flu, and yet we've never worried about that really in school, that that's a higher risk than COVID? I've heard people say that. I've looked at some stats. It seems to be true. But then because Trump said it, if you're an anti-Trumper, then you just automatically think that it's false

because it came out of Trump's mouth. But politics aside, isn't that fairly factual? Yeah, I think the data has shown that getting the standard flu and the number of deaths and complications that just come from the flu, especially in the youngest of our children, is more complicated than what COVID's doing. And so once you understand that, like you just said, I mean, common sense is if you have the flu, you stay home. If you're sick, you do, you take these public health measures that are natural. And hopefully we're all going to be better at that now, right? Washing our hands, wearing a mask if you're sick, you know, so that you're not getting

that on other people, all those kinds of things. It's been a good education for people, but I think to absolutely shut down the lives of these children and the mental health consequences, not to mention the abuse that's taking place in some homes. I mean, one of the things Naomi shared was how, you know, coming to a doctor's office or in getting your typical checkup or going to school is how most abuse is discovered in the home. And now what's happening is as children come back to school, as they start to go back to the doctor, the abuse cases are off the charts. They've seen a huge increase in the number of children who have experienced some sort of physical abuse,

sexual abuse. And the problem is if our society is not functioning the way we're set up to function, we don't discover those things. Those sorts of things keep happening in a dark place and it never comes to light. And so there's all these consequences that if you're only thinking about public health policy from a medical perspective, and we're not thinking about mental health, and we're not thinking about the economics, we're not talking, you know, the people's lives that are ruined because they needed to be safe or stay safe or create safety, so therefore they're going to lose their livelihood. That sort of rhetoric has become quite damaging.

And that's why I wanted to pose some of those questions to Dr. Collins, who's the National Institutes of Health, the head of it, and just honestly say, I mean, the data was showing, you know, it's like 30% of people, I think, don't trust pharmaceutical companies. It was even higher for the number of people that don't trust the government. That's why they're not taking the vaccine. So in my view, the government should look at themselves. The public health leaders have to look at themselves and go, why do these people not trust you? You had an opportunity for the last year for people to really trust you.

They don't. And so the reaction is, and if this ends up being bad for our society, you still have to take responsibility. Instead, what I see is a major effort to get churches involved in this effort and to now turn the impetus of responsibility for public health to pastors, asking pastors to stand up and advocate for everybody in their congregation to get the vaccine, to be centers, to give out the vaccine, because you can look back at the Johns Hopkins studies, I mean, over the last year where they actually did the research and said, hey, people would trust the vaccine more if we delivered it at elementary schools, if we gave it away at the church. So

they're borrowing the influence and the social capital of the church for something that they fail to do as a public health community. So I think that's the tension. And if nobody's willing to talk about that, if they can't acknowledge it, and frankly what they're doing is now throwing literally billions of dollars at advertising campaigns, at celebrity campaigns, at all these campaigns to try to influence people and coerce. And man, the American people at least, you start to see that they're like, you know what, I'm just going to put my head people and coerce. And man, the American people, at least, you start to see that they're like, you know what, I'm just gonna put my head down and go to work. I'm gonna do my job. I'm not gonna talk about this much. But now the numbers are showing up. I think I just saw yesterday, it was 75% of those 50 and under have not taken the first shot of the vaccine. So the

numbers that are going out of those who've taken it are 50 and above that community has gotten it. And that's what all the doctors are saying. That's good. Like that group of people, this is going to help. Um, there's no reason not to do that, but man, the under 50 group that feels like this isn't going to really affect me. I've already had it. I've already got immunity. Um, when I get into this, I think those folks are, are the ones that are now just saying, okay, I think, I think it's not going to happen. So yeah. Interesting times, man. It doesn't make sense for, cause, cause, uh, Alex Berenson, you know, his perspective was, Hey, if you're elderly, elderly, you're at risk, you have underlying health conditions,

you should probably get the vaccine. Um, he's in his like mid 40s. He's like, I'm, you know, I'm more at risk than a 20 year old, but I'm healthy, whatever, I'm gonna take my chances. And then he said, this lit up the room, my kids in the vaccine over my dead body, right? And everybody's like, Oh, what? So what is the why? Because I would I would assume that most people that are saying, my kids aren't going to get this vaccine have vaccinated their kids with polio and all these. It's not like they're all typical anti-vaxxers or whatever. Is it because this is a very new kind of vaccine? Is it because it's only been tested for, I mean, not very long at all?

Is that why people are saying kids shouldn't get it? Because, one, they're not at risk two if they spread it to grandma grandma's already been vaccinated so she's good and if she chooses not to that's i mean that's the decision that we're free to make um so why would i put something that hasn't has been examined long term in my 16 year old kid who's not at all at risk because is that basically was that alex's point i Well, I think there's kind of these two points that people are making on this. One is this is very new,

this mRNA technology that's been used. It's been developed over years, but it's never been used and put into human beings until now. The testing that took place during Operation Warp Speed was living up to that name. It happened very quickly. They did test one of the largest groups of human subjects that have probably been tested

for a vaccine trial. But that was just many months ago. I mean, typically a vaccine takes many, many years, sometimes five to 15 years to actually get FDA approval. And part of that is because you need time to understand all the dynamics that could play out that we have no idea until we've had testing done. And that has been watched over many, many years. And so I think it was first the rush. It's this new technology, which is not a typical vaccine where they're actually putting a dead virus into your body and teaching your body how to fight that. mRNA is this unique thing where they're actually putting in our bodies. And I'm not a scientist, so I don't want to try to describe it in too much detail.

But I think the average person understands, you know, they're putting messenger RNA into your body. So they're putting a message into your body, telling your body what to do, how to react, and how it can fight this disease. And so you do get into this question of, okay, I'm going to insert a synthetic substance into my body. This is completely new for human beings. And I think, and I'll pause here to say this, I think I've been surprised at the lack of questioning from our Christian ethical community that cares so much about ethics. I mean, when it's come to this vaccine, the only question I've seen people I've trusted for many, many years to ask has been, is this coming from an aborted fetal, aborted fetal tissue? Now that, that is a typical question

to ask about vaccines that are, um, the, the old, the virgins that yes, my children have had, I've had that, that most everybody has had that had that our kids get. That's a basic question. I'm like, Christian community, why are we not asking this bigger question? Now that we're inserting something synthetic into our bodies, a new technology that we really haven't tested, is that ethical? Is that something human beings should participate in? And I said this to Dr. Collins, I think many people feel like they're part of an experiment. And you know why that's true is because, you know, this was approved under something called emergency authorization, which means it was given emergency authorization to put through, which is only able to happen if there's been no other remedy, any other therapeutic or medicine that could solve this problem. It's been debatable that there's some medicines that do help stop these symptoms and keep people out of the hospital that new tests are showing. So that was one question. So it moved forward anyway.

But then the second thing is the FDA, it takes time for the FDA to actually approve it. So now you don't have even an FDA approved substance. And now you have public health experts and the bureaucracy saying to parents, you need to get your children vaccinated and or teenagers at least. And then now college is saying you need to get this coming back to school. So people are going, wait, this sounds experimental. It takes them actually to this awful place of when you look at research about this, the Nuremberg trial, I don't know if you're familiar with that, coming out of 42, where doctors were on trial because they were experimenting with humans with new medicines and new substances. And essentially the outcome of that was to say, no human being should ever be subject to this again without informed consent, meaning every

person must be fully informed about what they're signing off on, what the consequences are. And how could anybody really say we have that when you just saw this J&J trial stopped because it created thrombosis, it created this blood disorder, this clotting that was very unique. And that's something they only learned because of the experiment, that it's now in a bunch of people and now we're starting to see it. So I think people are concerned about that. And they're secondly concerned about the government mandating anything to them that says you have to do this, even if it's against your conviction or against your conscience. I mean we had a talk at Q on freedom of conscience, and people would be good to get familiar with these rights that we have from God that you should never be coerced by a government to do anything against your conscience rights, whether you're religious or you're an atheist or agnostic. You never should succumb to that. It's actually a human right in the United Nations, you know, 1948 documents that every human being in the world, that this is a right that we

all have. And so I think people are feeling that start to get a little infringed upon. And so when you boil it all down, I mean, that's why I think there's resistance. That's why I think there's a lot of questions that haven't been properly answered. And I think there's more conversation that will just have to take place. You know, Israel requires the vaccine to get into the country. So we're leading a trip to Israel next year. So it ain't happening unless everybody's vaccinated. So I've gotten my one shot after listening to the talks. I think my wife's like, I don't know if I'm going in for my second one. I'm like, well, if we're going to Israel, you're going to, I mean, either we got to cancel the trip or you might have, and they may change.

I mean, everything changes day to day, but man, that's, yeah. I was reading a New York Times article yesterday that was describing the number of people who've gotten one shot and are opting out of these next shots. And I think part of that, you know, two of these, Moderna and Pfizer, the two mRNA technology vaccines, you know, I think both of the president CEOs of those companies just came out recently saying they're working on a third shot. Most people thought there was one and two. Now they're saying, well, to keep your immunity up, we'll probably need a third, which people can then imagine, oh, wait. So could there be a fourth? Could this be something I have to do annually? So you are just seeing people respond as human beings do sometimes when they start to feel like they're losing trust.

as human beings do sometimes, when they start to feel like they're losing trust. And I would just put that back on the public health community and how they've led this crisis over the last year. Don't try to put it on the citizens. Don't try to put it on the church. Don't try to put it on celebrities. Let's take responsibility for the missteps, acknowledge the missteps, and that's how you gain back trust. It's so funny. Offline, Gabe, I said, hey, let's talk about this stuff. We don't need to get into the vaccine discussion. Now we're like 30 minutes in.

What are we talking about? Well, I love your posture. And we've said it already several times. We're not doctors. We're just looking at different studies and stuff. And Gabe has done. I mean, I think you've done a lot of it. You've read a lot of stuff, stuff that's not very public, stuff that's been censured. And maybe I kind of want to get into that the whole censorship

censures i can never say that stupid word censorship censorship um so there's kind of two views that one is that it's overplayed this isn't really going on And another view is like, this is Orwell's 1984, the beginning stages. I was honestly very shocked when Amazon stopped selling Ryan Anderson's book, When Harry Became Sally. I don't particularly love the title of that book. And Ryan, his approach is a little, I mean, it's, it's, it's, and without shame, I mean, he's dealing more with public policy and kind of the culture wars and whatever. And that's not my particular approach, but I read the book when it came out. I know Ryan, you know, Ryan, and it's a really good book. Like it's not, it's, it's not like I've read many other books from the right and the left that are way more nasty or filled with, you know, unfactual statements.

Amazon carries Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf, but said we're not going to carry Ryan T. Anderson's book. That was shocking to me. And I've had people say, hey, is your book going to be canceled or whatever? And I haven't had any of that yet. But that, and then there's just, there's a lot of stuff going on. It's like, I don't know if this is just a conspiracy. It seems like there's a, more than ever in my lifetime, a censorship happening that is concerning. What's your perspective on that? Is it something we should be concerned about? And how should Christians think through it? Yeah, we should absolutely be concerned about it. The writing's been on the wall for a long time that there's certain ideologies that are going to be advanced and celebrated, and there's others that could be shut down.

I think we're seeing it just more obviously. It's getting exposed. It's happening more readily, and we're all aware of it. Sometimes that can happen kind of behind closed doors. You don't realize it's happening. I think because of social media, because of YouTube, because of the ability for people to set up their own platforms, now all of a sudden the things that could have been kept out of the discourse, people can find and people will find it because people, we all as human beings long for truth. We can't live in this world without grasping some of these foundational truths. Otherwise, we're disoriented, and it affects us deeply. It affects our mental health. So when we realize we're not getting all the information or we don't quite know how to understand something, we want to pursue it. And when people start to block information and say, no, that's actually – you can't handle that.

You're not smart enough to discern. We're going to protect you. You know, it's like Orwell and Huxley both wrote these books, you know, back in the 1930s and 40s, describing this future, this dystopian future. And the Orwellian version of 1984 is all about totalitarian control, like they will keep you from seeing the books. That's what that example would be is we're going to just keep this information from you and control what you can see. You know, many people thought the world was going more towards Huxley's vision and brave new world, where he describes a world where they won't have to ban books because nobody will care to read them. We'll be so obsessed with our

new technologies that we won't want to read books. And so there won't be book burnings. There won't be any of that. And so I think we're seeing this merger. Yes, though You have people both not reading books as much not as educated obsessed with their devices And and yet you also have the control happening Roger a writes about this in his book live not by lies and he kind of describes that he thinks in America We're in a soft totalitarianism like it's not totalitarianism. Like, it's not totalitarianism, where it's like China and the government's completely locking it down, which,

by the way, side note, you know, we talked about that at Q. We had an expert on social credit score system in China, which you talked about censorship and totalitarianism. That technology alone is doing it. It's advancing where if you're in China and you have certain opinions about political ideology or you share those or you have friends who have these opinions, your score goes down, which gives you less access to buy plane tickets, trains. You can't leave a certain radius of the place that you're on. It's all through their phones, their currency, their access to cash and money can be withheld all based on their social credit score. Wow. That's European, right?

So anyway, I think Rod describes the self-totalitarianism as we're kind of doing it to ourself. We're self-censoring now, which is a problem. And I would say, man, anybody listening, like the encouragement right now is don't just be quiet. Like if you believe something and you know something to be true and something Rod encourages people, he says, you know, don't live the lie. Don't don't live out the lie that you know is a lie and a falsehood because your self-censorship is now contributing to this effort for governments, for tech companies and all those to censor. You know, there's the use of fact checking now and the use of the word fact-check. When you really dig into who's behind the fact-check companies, I mean, you start to see

these connections between the tech companies to where you can't even necessarily trust every fact-check that you're getting because of who's running those companies and what their design is behind what they're trying to advance. So I think for Christians, here's the point. is behind what they're trying to advance. So I think for Christians, here's the point, scripture, right? We get in the word, that gives us discernment every day. The Holy Spirit can help us see through these things so simply, see through the propaganda, see through the way that people want to hold back information. And I think that's the great thing about the moment, is Christians starting to respond and going, you know what? I'm confused right now. I'm not sure what is true. I don't know who to trust. You know who I can trust? I can trust God. I can

trust his word. I can trust the way in which he might not tell me how to think about this particular current issue right now, but teaches me how to see the way sin is insidious, how evil constantly goes forward, how only resting in this truth and letting this truth correct me and train me and reprove me and rebuke me, as 2 Timothy 3 and 4 talk about, if we're not in the Scripture, I don't know how we have our radar up. I don't know how we sense the way that we could be being deceived as others are being deceived. And we need community for that. We can't do that alone. We're sharpening each other. We're helping each other see our flaws, our blind spots.

I think that's the beauty of Christian community. And I think that's the bright side of what's happening is people are longing for that. People who aren't even Christians are longing for communities where they can be honest, they can talk, they can learn, they can ask questions. And so I think we could see in this season where it looks like the church is slowly declining and attendance is declining. I think we're going to see a robust strengthening and a resilience that the church hasn't really had to experience in the last many decades. Man, I got so many questions. As you're talking, it made me think of John Mark Comer's talk on progressive Christianity. I can't think of a better person to give that talk. I mean, here's John Mark Comer, who kind of has this,

and I know we both know him well, and he very much could have gone fully progressive Christian. He has that kind of spirit, that kind of just posture. And yet he's one of the most orthodox, sound biblical guys I know, pastoring in the middle of the most progressive city, arguably, in the country. So he gets it. And his talk was so helpful and it resonated with me so much that it just doesn't, like when Christians start going more of the progressive route, it's just, it leads to, I don't want to put words of churches, they're equally leading to destructive. Even if they might open the Bible and preach from it, it doesn't mean they're conveying biblical truth. When they have the Christian flag, American flag on stage, and we're being biblical, I'm like, are you though? But I think there is, or there was, I think this perception that evangelical

Christianity in America is going to keep getting more and more progressive. I just don't see that. Every time an evangelicalist church kind of goes progressive, they do lose numbers. They typically do drift and drift and drift theologically to where they look, there's like little about them that's countercultural. Would you, I mean, when you listen to his talk, have you seen that same thing? Like, would you say, man, that's exactly true? Or do you have any critiques or anything to add to what he was saying about that? Well, I love John Mark's perspective because,

and what you got to understand about John Mark Homer, and you mentioned earlier, you know, he stayed true to the scripture. Homer, and you mentioned earlier, you know, he stayed true to the scripture. He's gone, perhaps, it appears more orthodox than where you might have thought a young urban pastor, but I've seen that be true in a lot of these pastors in urban environments. There's something about when we lived in New York City for several years with our family, and John Tyson was our pastor. You're on the front line there. You're on the edge. You're seeing evil. You're seeing how it's disrupting people's lives. You're seeing the chaos of really bad ideology, and you're having to confront it every week. And that just takes you deeper. It takes you

deeper into philosophy, into history, and understanding how human beings function. And then you want to help people see the truth. And so there's a community of pastors that I know John Mark Homer is a part of, of these guys in these urban communities that strengthen each other, that sharpen each other, that share their notes and what they're reading and they're learning because they have to. And that's the point for us as Christians. The more comfortable we are, the less we're on those front lines, the less our thinking and what we know to be true is bumping into falsehood,

the less strong we are. We actually grow quite weak, right? Our ability to fight and to proclaim goes down. And, you know, the season we're in, I keep going back, I just was in a Bible study this morning with a bunch of the men that we gather with weekly here in Franklin. And the conversation was around 2 Timothy 4, and it talks about how in this time, you will see when you're proclaiming boldness and truth, he says, give a word in and out of season. So just be ready to overflow with what's true. But there will be many who will walk away who will follow fables, follow ideas that look like Christianity, but that aren't, and it will lead them astray. And you might endure some persecution because of that, but stay sober-minded,

keep moving forward fully in the ministry you've been called to, don't back down. And so I think what we're experiencing right now, witnessing, is something that's happened throughout history, is that people start to look for teachers. They look for information that just supports their own human nature. It makes them feel better. It makes them feel justified. It doesn't really confront things in their life as much, and therefore it's easier. It's just an easier path. That's why Jesus says the road is wide, but it's actually narrow for those who are going to follow after Christ. And so I think we're experiencing that right now, and I think people like John Mark are helping encourage Christians.

And the thing I like, though, and you'll appreciate this, Preston, he didn't say deconstruction's bad, the deconstruction idea. It's like, no, that's part of maturity. Like when I turned 22, I remember when I was 25, reading books that were deconstructing faith, and it could have led me to a really bad place. I was listening to different voices that have now become progressive Christians or even left Christianity entirely.

But for me, it never took me away from the roots that I'd grown up in. I understood the truth of Scripture. I could discern some of the falsehood that was happening. But I did need to deconstruct some of the problems with the church, the ways we've taken some things and run with them that were never in Scripture. And that's part of healthy maturity, what John Mark said is. But you move through that. Like you move through deconstruction to now constructing. Those who don't ever get out of that cycle and they just put down and deconstruct, they tend to move towards essentially what becomes a theological belief of universalism, that everybody's fine, that Jesus covered it all. And whether you recognize it or not, identify with him or not, repent of sin or not, you're fine.

And that's universalism. So that is a complete affront to the cross. It's an affront to the gospel. And so I think people are waking up to that, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's going to show up in the cross. It's an affront to the gospel. And so I think people are waking up to that, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's going to show up in the numbers. I think it's going to show up in the strength. Right, right. Deconstruction without discipleship is dangerous. Deconstruction with discipleship, I think, is, yeah, necessary. Because there are, I think, I mean, unless we had it all figured out at 11 years old, I mean, there are things we need to deconstruct from, right?

And yet, yeah, without discipleship, and you throw in a bit of trauma, some pain, some wounds, some narcissism, you know, and selfishness. I mean, it's a recipe for disaster, you know. You know, discipleship, as I think we keep recognizing, is one of the greatest voids in the church today and also one of the greatest needs. Donald David Kittiman has done research on this. One of the other things, too, I would say, Preston, that came up, it came up in your conversation that John Tyson had around the modern self, this identity, was how much our society is suffering from lack of community. That when you get to the roots of how we start to depart and we start to run down these different paths is we've lost this social fabric that the church has always, pretty much throughout history, been able to provide and create for people.

And now that the church is kind of disintegrating in some areas, or at least the way in which we knew the church, that fabric is going away and people are lonely, isolated, don't know where to find community. It's such an incredible opportunity for us in the church to be creating that space and to bring them back to sound truth, understanding of human condition, where we always fall off and how we can come back and the grace for that. So there's this exciting edge to what's happening if we can grasp it, see it, and kind of pioneer the way forward.

I'm curious the response you got to Helena and I's talk, if you've gotten any critiques or anything. Long story short, Helena is a detransitioned female who basically, I mean, she went through what people call rapid onset gender dysphoria, which some people say doesn't exist. And I think she blew that perspective out of the water. It's almost like saying you don't exist. Because I've heard people say that. It's not a thing. It doesn't exist. You're a transphobe for even acknowledging it.

And so one of my goals was to help her to show that it definitely does exist. Yeah. Have you gotten any flack for that? Well, number one, people are so thankful that she's so courageous to share her story. You know, her point of view and sharing stories like that confront the ideology of the age and that's not easy and that's that's not something that the ideology wants and so they come after anybody who's courageous enough to say something that flies in the face of the propaganda and she did that and so people were not only

encouraged by her story but she kind of shared the story of two or three of her friends too, that all went through the same experience. Wasn't just her, it was multiple friends that decided to transition and then they all decided to detransition. And she really described well how much ideology, a lot of social justice kind of thinking around gender or feeling like being a white girl that was straight was a problem. And she was kind of the worst person in her peer group because she had that. That's who she was. That was her profile. And no kid wants to be the worst person. Every kid wants to be accepted and wants to be part of the crowd that everybody's paying attention to. That's like natural. And so she just describes the social side to it that we don't hear much. I thought the data that

showed you showed that, you know, it used to be two to one boys transitioning to become females and how that's now changed the word. Now it's two to one females becoming boys. There's another just interesting part that you brought up. I think that's from Abigail Shrier's book, describing all of those dynamics. But that was the first response. I'll say the second response, and this is why I love pressing the way that you do what you do, is you let other people tell their stories. You do that in your writing. You do that in your books. You're not there to just be the expert and say, hey, guys, this is my belief or this is my argument. You know, it's funny. I mean, a man with an argument or a person with a story is never at the mercy of a man with an argument. Right. And so Helena, Helena was not at the mercy of arguments here. She had her story. And that's the unique thing about the age that

we're in is everybody does get the right to tell their story. That's to be celebrated that she's telling what, what our world would call her truth, right? She's expressing it. Now, you might not like it. You might disagree with it. But you better not call her out for it because it's her story. And so I think we all benefited from that. I think the fact that you raised this in the conversation, but she didn't experience this because she became a Christian. This wasn't like she converted to faith and said that's sin or something.

That was not the story. The story was a pretty sociological one. And I think it's just important to have in the mix. And as you stated so well, if you've met one transgender person, you've met one transgender person. There's multiple stories, and you weren't trying to suggest this is how it happens for everybody. You were just saying this is at least one corner of the conversation. Let's not forget about amidst the confusion as we talk about, you know, whether society should be able to give these children at that age puberty blockers, medicines.

In some cases, I know in our town at the Planned Parenthood, I think it's Tuesday mornings are the morning where children specifically can come in to get puberty blockers. Many of these children, if they're teenagers, do not need their parents' permission. And that seems to be the debate. Like, we don't let our kids, you know, drive without a license. They certainly can't drink legally until they're age 21. Why would we be giving children this decision-making power on something that now we're seeing a lot of stories of regret that come later? Are there some better ways to help process the journey that they're walking through? And so thank you for your willingness to talk about this, to help so many parents,

so many leaders better understand it. It's a very complex thing. You've been so faithful to help people walk into it open-eyed to what's happening in the world, but also with a biblical lens of understanding the image of God and the way in which that can get corrupted. Yeah. Well, you too, man. There's only a few of us that are willing to speak out in a gracious, humble, listening, but courageous way in a way that I think resonates with the historic Christian views on these things. And sexuality and the body, I mean, these are fundamental themes in Christianity that have been at the heart of what it means to live out our faith. And I don't know how much you can even say publicly,

but I know in the past, Q would kind of maybe platform varying degrees on sexuality, varying beliefs on sexuality. And now I know I've seen you get, you know, critique or at least question on social media and stuff like how come you're not having this person how come you're not having that problem it's always kind of one-sided or whatever like can you speak to that like what are your what what are your because you you will q you'll have a range of different opinions on certain things but obviously you're not gonna have david duke on stage you know i'm I'm not going to have, um, how have you thought through your role at Q, um, and the sexuality, gender conversation, if that makes, does that make sense? What kind of where

I'm going with that? Yeah, totally. I mean, when we began 15 years ago, um, a lot of the conversations we were bringing up were conversations the world was very interested in having. I mean, we were talking about, you know, the challenge of caring for our creation. We were talking about sex trafficking, injustices, right, that the world agreed with. So people were pretty excited about that because now a Christian conference and there's a thoughtful conversation about all these dilemmas and dimensions of injustice that we were willing to talk about. But man, we got to about 2014, 15, the sexuality conversation becomes so broad within the Christian church. There was so much confusion and so many people

not willing to speak up or speak out. I write about this in my book, Good Faith. I tell the whole story, but God really spoke to me. I think it was 2012, I was invited to Stanford to have a dialogue with Eugene Robinson, who was the first gay bishop, you know, elected gay bishop in the Episcopal Church. And he was on a book tour celebrating kind of his 10-year anniversary. And they said, hey, we'd love to have a Christian, but kind of a counter voice to Eugene's conversation. I was like, are you sure?

I'm not sure God's calling me to do that. I'm not interested in being a counter voice. At that point, David Kinnaman and I had written UnChristian. So we were talking about the downsides of how the church had been anti-gay. People were feeling that. People felt very pushed out of the church if they were experiencing those feelings. And so anyway, I got convicted, man. But look, you're having a lot of private conversations about this, but you're not willing to publicly talk about it. What's your deal? Like, do you not either a don't really believe this or

you're just living by the fear of man and you're not following the truth that I've helped you see. And so, um, it was through that moment of speaking to that. I mean, I think that's probably still on YouTube, like a decade later, a conversation with me and Gene Robinson that forced me out of my comfort zone and said, no, we got to declare some things. There are some lines that it's not just up for debate and conversation. And so we went forward, I think in 2015, we were in Boston and had a great conversation. We had multiple views there. But it was at that point that we tried to more clearly help our community, those who were leaders within the Q community, understand that while we want you to understand the discussion, the different theological

viewpoints, the debate around this, because you have to be ready to engage it, and we don't want to tell you what other people think. We want you to hear from them. We want to honor the image of God and other people, but we also want to honor their argument and let them tell you instead of me trying to frame that for you. So we try to do that, but also be more clear to our audience. Like we fall on the historic Orthodox side of sexuality and sexual ethics that the church for 2000 years has held. Not only our church, but Jewish, Muslim, the great Abrahamic faiths. And it's worked out pretty good. And it does produce human flourishing. And, you know, you and I did that series that's still there in six, seven episodes called The Gay Conversation. That's part of our Q podcast that we had 25 voices on there, too, some opposing voices. but still understand you can hold to a historic view, but be compassionate, loving, kind, understanding, not demanding that everybody see it the way that you see it.

And so I thought that was a good contribution. And I would just say going forward, what I'm careful about is not creating confusion. I feel I will answer for how I've stewarded the community that God's allowed us to try to lead. And a lot of those are Christian leaders, institutional leaders, people that are leading major companies. And they're listening for truth, but they want to hear the truth in a way that's obviously respectful of other people, understands there's complexity to this and different opinions. And so I've just tried to hold that intention. But on every conversation we have, we don't always have side A, side B Um, but on every conversation we have, we don't always have side A side B debate. Uh, some of the conversations that, that feel like, yes, they need all of that. We do it with, um, in this particular year, uh, you know, for this particular conversation,

I thought, I thought her story was one that could just stand alone. That was important for people to hear because we actually hear so many of the other stories now in the mainstream narrative, um, that Q has become a place where sometimes you can hear an alternative story that you're never going to hear because we actually hear so many of the other stories now in the mainstream narrative that Q has become a place where sometimes you can hear an alternative story that you're never going to hear. So that's how I think about it. And every year is a little different. And we try to process the issues, the different opinions, and try to center the right voices that can speak to that. That's helpful. It's like, yeah, they're not creating confusion. You want to give people a range of perspectives on certain things. You want them to help them to think critically. And yet the danger that could be, you know, yeah, creating confusion,

that's a hard balance to ride. But I, yeah, I feel like you're hitting it well. Like, I think it's, it's, there's a healthy array of views on certain things, but it's not so extreme diverse opinions that people just leave like, well, I don't even know what to think about this, you know? Um, cause you, you know, as you know, you can have somebody who's good rhetorically that you can't fact check, or maybe they come off as really smart or whatever that could present falsehood very compellingly and it's like that's where i would be nervous platforming someone like that unless there's an equally valid voice that's going to say no no here you know and push back but then you end up getting into just some massive debate which you've had some of that my first my first exposure to q is get my butt

kicked by doug wilson even though i'm right and he's wrong he's a much better debater than i well you know this this this event we ended up having a conversation on the equality act it was a good example of trying to have this conversation where it was about helping christians understand where would that legislation go what is it what is it wanting to create in terms of protection for the LGBT community? But also, how will that start to affect Christian ministries, schools, families, etc.? And then we had two people debate what the Christian response ought to be to this. Should we compromise in some ways and go forward with something that honors a lot of those rights, but also has religious freedom protections? And Ryan Anderson, who you mentioned earlier, was one that was debating, no, I don't think we should compromise at all. I think we

should have a very different approach. And so those are the kind of, I mean, we are absolutely hosting those conversations and debates. And there are times when if we can't have both sides there for a certain conversation, we don't have the conversation. We just say, well, this conversation we're not going to have if we can't have both voices. And so that's happened from time to time as well. Yeah, the Equality Act conversation. I think I texted you after I said, I resonate with Tim's heart recognizing how the church has gone wrong in this conversation. But Ryan T. Anderson was right.

He was correct in his analysis. The point being that it's not just Christians versus kind of the LGBT community in this conversation. There are loads of people outside of religious circles, outside of conservative circles, very liberal people who are concerned about the societal impact that certain aspects of the Equality Act would make. And the Equality Act, I can't believe, I read it the other day, some of the wording, it's so bad. It's so scientifically wrong. Like even in how they're defining the term sex, I've never heard of that kind of definition of sex anywhere else in any kind of medical journey. It's like, at least get your facts straight, and then if you're

going to advocate for a certain thing that doesn't reflect Christian values, obviously. I don't expect that, but just the wording was so bad. I'm like, this isn't even an intelligent document. Even Andrew Sullivan, who I've been friends with for many, many years, he was one of the architects of the gay marriage movement, gay Catholic man himself and a prolific writer. Even he is writing and saying, look, the Equality Act is really bad for people and we need a different type of legislation, a different approach.

So there's a lot of debate on that particular issue, but I find it interesting. Even many in the LGBT community would say, I don't think this is the answer for the American people, for all people, not just the religious protection, but we're seeing it in athletics with the gender conversation there. And in a lot of places, this ideology starts to play out and it does have impact.

And so we've got to pay attention to that. Yeah. Man, I got more to say on that, but I've taken you over an hour. Gabe, thanks so much for coming on the show. Again, I can't... If people are interested in attending the Q Cultural Summit next year,

can you give some info on that? I mean, again, I would highly recommend pastoral staff. In fact, my church that I go to here, they watch it online. And they said they did the breakouts. They did everything you told them to do. And they said it was the most helpful thing they've went through. And now they're like, we want to actually go and attend as a pastoral staff, get a table. How can people do that?

Is it too early to sign up? I mean, it's April 28, 29 of 2022. How can people do that? Is it too early to sign up? It's April 28, 29 of 2022. Here's what I'd say, two things. One, anybody listening, we still have the 40 talks. Everybody can get access to the whole event for the next week at qideas.org slash culture summit. It's $49, so it's half the price of what a virtual live would be.

So any pastor, any staff, any organization, like go get that because we're trying to help you prepare for this year. Like don't wait another year. There's a lot going on that you're going to want to be informed about and think well about. So, so go access that next year. I think the URL is qideas.org slash CS 2022 for culture Summit 2022. And people can sign up. We do have very limited seating now in person. Part of that's just because we're in a new venue.

Part of that's we have such a large virtual attendance. So those who want to be in the room, which is quite a different experience, there's lots of things we're creating experientially around those couple days that people will really enjoy. Check that out. And then finally, I would say Q Media. So this is – you can learn about would say Q Media. So this is, you can learn about this at QIdeas.org, but there's thousands of leaders subscribed at $7.99 a month to our app that allows them to have access to probably a thousand talks now listed in playlists on all of these different types of topics that are very useful for them personally,

for starting conversations with their kids around these issues, but also in their church. Anybody who's responsible for discipleship right now, a lot of people will use those talks, like even a conversation you had with Helena. There'll be a lot of small groups that'll gather in their home, and they're just going to watch that 20-minute conversation with a bunch of parents and say, hey, are you guys hearing about this with your kids? Are you hearing this conversation? How can we think well about it? And so it becomes a conversation starter.

And that's our hope is just to get people in rooms, having conversations, not just watching content, but learning together. If you can, I would recommend if you can, if there's room to go out and do the do the live thing, it do the live thing, it costs more money or whatever. But as we've seen with COVID, the virtual stuff is a great alternative. It got us through. And if you can't go live, then do the virtual. But man, if you at all can, there's just something about that live experience that's created in the way you go about it. It's just you get to talk to people. It's very intimate. I always walk away. I walked away this time with like probably 10 new relationships with people

that I'm like, I'm so glad I caught them in the hallway and had that conversation or, you know, they came up afterwards and talked to me and shared their story. I'm like, man, this is, you know, it's a, there's, there's, wouldn't you agree? I mean, I don't know if you're allowed to say like there, if you can be there, that's always going to be the best, right? We only did this in person. We never did live stream.

We never did virtual. We only did that last year because we had to because of how much we believe in people being embodied together. What happens in that room is very special. And when you just dip in and out for a talk here and there, you really don't catch the bigger picture. And so that's the danger of just watching a talk here and there is you're not getting the scope. When you get the scope, I think it's very powerful for people. Hey, you're a podcast expert, so I need your advice on something. I mean, what is this, like your 800th, 900th podcast?

I'm coming up on 900, yeah. Very easy. This is Joe Pogon, man. You do it. Just get on the show. Yeah. Well, I'm about to launch a podcast where I'm going to do some long-form conversation, but I don't know what to name it.

So I've got these two names. So I'm going to ask you. You're the first person I've asked this question. We call it Lion's Den. Get the play on words, right? A little cheesy. It's got a little cheese to it, but let me think about it. Or the other one we're playing with is undercurrent.

So the idea, we're trying to get underneath these current issues and better understand how to think well about them. And that's something I love doing too. So, all right, which one? Oh, man. But Lions Den does have that kind of exile, being persecuted in the cultural moment. I'm not saying that, but I kind of like, you're going to be in this conversation. That's probably going to be intense.

We're going to, we're going to talk through the reality, but it also probably be in a den like atmosphere, a comfortable room that we call a den today. I don't know. That was my take on it. I'm probably 60,40 leaning towards undercurrent. That resonates. And I never want to risk the Christian cheese. If there's a slight risk, I'm going to be a little more nervous with that.

Undercurrent, I feel like, has a more stable, bold... But yeah, I wouldn't... Yeah, probably lean that way. Theology in the raw has been such a gift to so many of us and your consistent ability to get into these topics and issues, to teach, to use your background and your gifts to boldly keep moving this forward. You know, I think in positions like yours, you hardly, you're never going to hear back all of the impact, all of the stories, all of the ways in which you're blessing the church globally right now, Preston. So I just personally, as a friend, just love you and encourage you.

Keep doing what you're doing. It is making a significant impact for the church and the world in this moment. So I love this is my first time. 900 episodes. You never invited me, bro. I've invited you half a dozen times. Fair, fair. This is the time.

This is the moment. This is it. This is it. This is it. All right, man. I got to run. Thanks so much for being on. Appreciate you, brother.

And yeah, we'll have to do this again for sure.