Unashamed with the Robertson Family - Ep 377 | Phil’s Secret to Crushing Cancel Culture & the Answer to Joe Biden's Cognitive Decline

Episode Date: November 8, 2021

Phil shares an exclusive preview of his forthcoming book, "Uncanceled." His brother-in-law, Gordon, joins Phil for a behind-the-scenes glimpse at how "Uncanceled" came together. Phil, Al, and Gordon discuss why cancel culture is an unwinnable war, the secret to ending it, how to make ourselves truly immune to cancellation, and how to stand up for Jesus and trade cancellation and retaliation for love and forgiveness. The guys also discuss the Christian response to President Biden's obvious cognitive decline. -- Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I am unashamed. What about you? So we've sent Jace out again for now, not only is he supposed to find stories to talk about, but he has to find news items so we can have more Jase's news items. I thought that was pretty good. That was pretty fun. Him in Yuppie, Ville. So he's on assignment, but he'll be back for the next podcast.

So we had to bring in one of our heavy hitters. without Jace here. We had to go to a master storyteller. And I could think of no one better than my dear old Uncle Gordon. My favorite uncle, Uncle Gordon, Gordon Dasher, Zach's dad. So all of you, Zach haters out there on the podcast, this is the man to blame for whatever you don't like about Zach because he sired him. Gordo, what do you have to say about Zach?

Welcome to the podcast, by the way. Thank you. What do you have said about that? My, Zach, I'm in a loss. He's my favorite middle child. I have no other middle child that I love as much as I do him. We give Zach on, Zach. Zach's pretty awesome.

And he and I are business partners. But, you know, I was Gordon, so I was especially close to Jam before I met you. And then even once you guys were married, even though in my prodigal wanderings, I kind of, what would you say? I kind of offended you guys with my lifestyle, which I've since apologized for. My friend threw up on. You violated our apartment. We were drunk one night. The night we got our tattoos, actually, when I was 16.

And Bubba threw up on their living room floor. we had slept on their couch and walked away and we walked away yeah we didn't even clean it up chicken pot pie which is it's chicken pot pie is a tough one you know on a good day but on a redo it's it's not that good so that was that was a tough one but uh but gordon has since forgiven us forgiven me i don't know if you ever forgave uh bubba or not but you forgave me which i appreciate i did those those were hard times so uh gordon and jan have lived here um Y'all lived here two or three different times right over the course of y'all's marriage. Of course, St. Jan passed away.

It's been two years ago now, sadly. But, you know, she had a big influence. We've talked about for Dad on your life. She was your baby sister. But I don't know. I guess out of all the Robertsons, I'd say she seemed to have the purest heart of them all, just always. I mean, just the way she was. I mean, how would you describe, Jan, growing up and beyond?

Faithful, godly woman. It was always, was always. She never veered to the right or left, right down the center, right down in the middle. Yeah. And then where did y'all meet, Gordon? Where did you meet, Jan? We, I came to West Monroe to go to the School of Biblical Studies, and we met out at Camp Jokka. They had a, a, a.

mixer for the new students. And my version is I was standing there on the gym floor. I was surrounded by any number of young females. And she's amazing how our memories, you know, how have they grown? And she burst into the middle of the group that surrounded me and latched on to me and said, he's mine. And I guess she was just. so vicious looking they all left.

I've never heard that particular version of the story. And we can't even have Jan defenders. We'll have to find out in heaven what she says about that. The attack in the gym. Yeah. Put it all together. Well, we used to laugh because when Jan was in college at Tech at the time, I guess when you met her, she was a college student. Was she still in college at this time when you were in school of prison?

No, she was already out. She just graduated and was teaching. at OCS. At OCS. Okay. So she had this mourners bench is what I always called it of these guys that she knew in college. They were all in love with her. And some of them are still around. It's kind of funny now.

It's a joke. But at the wedding, several of them were sitting together or so I heard. I don't know. This may be one of those nuanced stories. But they were calling it to mourners bench because it was all the ones who had loved Jam. but she had spurned their love for Gordo from Florida. Florida, he swept in from the great state of Florida and scooped up, scooped up jam.

They were, yeah, that's exactly what happened. They were weeping. And I just think they realized, you know, boys from North Louisiana couldn't compete with the Florida boys. So they were definitely in mourning. Well, I tell you what, through the years we've always, you know, had our battles because obviously Gordon and all his family, and he converted Jan too, to being Gator fans.

And for a while I was bitter about it, but I got over it. But what I will say is that the state of Florida under the leadership of one Ron DeSantis has now become the beacon of the now free world. I mean, like, everybody talks about Florida is being like with all this lockdown and all this corona stuff, that's where you want to be. And DeSantis, I mean, like, I remember when he was just a congressman, and he was pretty good.

I mean, he did a lot of hits, but, I mean, he's like turned into Superman now that he's taken over Florida. Do you know him? Have you ever met him? Because I knew he used to be in politics. I don't think I've ever met him. I think he came on the scene after I left Florida. But I will tell you this, I would move back to Florida just so he could be my governor. I'm thinking about it.

And what's bad is you wound up in a purple state. in North Carolina, which could go either way, right, on any given election. Right. Because you're kind of right there in the hotbed of some left-wingers where you and Zach are. Yeah. And when I first, the first time I voted here, I walked in and handed them my ID, and they said, what are you doing? And I said, I want to vote.

They said, well, you don't need an ID to vote. And I said, well, how do you know that I'm who I say I am? They said, well, it's just the law. And I thought to myself, I mean, there's a reason this state's purple. I think that might have a lot to do with it. I'm not minding to any conspiracy theories, but I'm just saying when you don't have to show an ID to vote, anybody could go in and say, my name is Gordon Dasher and cast a vote in my name. And until I went down to vote and I'd already voted, I'd never know. So how do you know?

Well, look, you're right, Gordon. How easy would it be? Say you did move. Say you did move back to Florida. And so you're still on a role there in North Carolina. And so, you know, somebody sends, now they're mailing the stuff to people's homes, the ballots and stuff. So it comes to their house. He's not Gordon Dasher, but this is an active ballot that he can vote in your name.

And so he could do it. I mean, and what I'm saying is we're expecting people to not be fraudulent when we know that people are going to be fraudulent. And the whole line on the left side is we, they keep saying we want to empower. people to vote, but it's more than just that. They're wanting to give people the opportunity to vote as multiple times. It's so obvious. And I'm like, you gore. I mean, I'm like, look, you got to win elections.

You got to, there's always going to be some bit of fraud in any of it. But at the same time, let's at least do where, I mean, you got to have an ID when you go to the airport. You got to have an ID when you buy beer. You know, you got to have an ID for a lot of stuff. So voting wouldn't count for that. Depraved minds. Yeah.

Depraved. Right. I'm not a baseball fan, but I've watched every single game in the World Series. I'm going to watch it until Atlanta wins. Only because I think it's ironic, they move the All-Star game to where Colorado. Yep. Is that right? Yep.

And now they're in the World Series. So they're actually, what, they have three games at home. Yep. So they wound up making way more money. They pulled the game because of a very sensible voting law. Yeah. Show your ID. Here are the hours of voting.

they expanded opportunities for people to vote. And the left just vilified the whole process and called it fraudulent and it was discriminatory. And what do they call it? Voter suppression law. Yeah. I'm pretty excited about the World Series. I don't even like baseball. I guess I forgot about that because I was a Dodger fan.

So obviously I've just been kind of looking at it through that prism. But you're right. That should be pulling for Atlanta for the same reason. what's ironic is they went to Colorado. Of course, I guess nobody checked when they moved the game, but Colorado's voting laws were more stringent than Georgia's, new law. Yeah. But somebody forgot to look that up,

which shows you the whole thing was just a symbolic nothing burger is what that was. It was a hoax. It was a hoax. Yeah. Like so many other things, like the Charlottesville thing they just had. You know, it's just one hoax right after the other, which is crazy. So I want to talk today.

some about since we got Gordo on about our book because we are officially announcing today. We've been talking about uncannseled off and on, but today we're officially announcing when it's going to be released, which is February the 8th, 2022. The book is called Uncanceled, Finding Meaning and Peace in a Culture of Accusations, Shame, and Condemnation, which, you know, in a nutshell, the idea is that of cancel culture. We're going to get into that in a minute. But this book deals not just with that, but so much more. Right now, if you go and pre-order, so we're encouraging you guys, an unashamed nation.

What happens is when you pre-order books, it helps us to be able to make it on list that then gets us publicity to talk about the book more. So it's very important that we do that. So we want to encourage you guys to pre-order it. It be a great gift for Christmas if you pre-orders, not be out to February. But it's helpful for us for a lot. lot of different reasons. And so right now from November 8th through 12th, which today's the 8th. So this week, you can get $5 off, Thet of America's Soul audiobook at Apple, Google, and Kobo, K-O-B-O, if you order the book. And for the entire month of November, Kendall users can get the e-book

of Theft of America's Soul for just $2.99. So there'll be a link there where you can see how to get there. So they're offering you a couple of little discounts on some of our other materials. If you pre-order uncanceled. So, Gordo, you were our collaborator on this book. I've been calling you the ghostwriter, but Bob DeMoss is correct to be that if you're a ghost writer, nobody knows who you are. But since we know who you are, you're a collaborator. Collaborator. I like that.

It's kind of back to your French resistance days. You're back being a collaborator. and so you're a collaborator on the book. Tell us about the process for you because you've been a writer, I mean, as long as I've known you, you write a lot of stuff on our web page, by the way. That's Al and Lisa Robertson.com. If you want to check that out, see some of Gordon's work, does great stuff on our blog page. But this is your first official book, right?

Is working with Dad on this one? Yeah. So tell us what kind of how that was for you. and what was it like to get into dad's head because you were married to his sister, but now you kind of had to get into his head to, you know, figure out his thinking to work with him on this book. I'm going to be, I'm going to tell you,

that was one of the most frightening experiences of my life to get inside Phil's head. To get inside the C plus mind of Phil Robertson. So, you know, I mean, I live next door to him for 13 years. and I was married to his female. I tell people Jan was the female version of Phil, or Jan was what you would see if Phil didn't have testosterone. And I guess the only difference between the two of them is her beard wasn't quite as long. She didn't have to shave as well.

You used to tell me that if Jan ever pulled the sheets up just to her nose, where you couldn't actually see her cheese. It was like having dad there. Orsai. Or Sa. Or Sa. That's exactly right. Yeah, that was the scariest thing.

I looked over there one day in the seats were right up in her nose. And I mean, whoo. We've kidding a lot about it. Gordon, let's take a break. So, and look, she was like Dad in the sense that she's always been, was very vociferous about her faith, willing to share with anybody. disciples a lot of people. So you guys, you shared that with Jay or she shared that with you because I guess she was doing it before you were, Dad. Yeah, we had the same thinking processes.

I guess Gordon NEM came up with the idea about if you can get the law. You know, Jesus died to set us free from Satan, sin, guilt, law, and the grave. So he fixed it through his death, having kept the law. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us so that we could be saved through him. So Gordon and him pointed out, they asked me about it, about the cancellation of the law. When one is born again, God cancels the written code. all of the don't do this, don't do

that, starting with the top 10 commandments, he canceled the whole thing, put us under a system of grace instead of keeping the code because no one ever kept the code but Jesus himself, the one

who wrote it. Right. So we're unleashed. What's happened is in today's America the Apostle Paul is talking about people who have not thought it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, which would include the cancellation of the written code, which would be a breath of fresh air and a feeling of unbelievable thankfulness. The Apostle Paul is talking about them.

You have no excuse. You who pass judgment. on someone else for any issue. You pass judgment on them. For whatever point you judge the other, you're condemning yourself because you who pass judgment on others and there is no forgiveness for that individual.

It's only take tear his statue down and blot his name out of history forever and ever and ever because what happens is when you do that you who pass judgment do the same things we know that God's judgment against those who do such things is based on truth

so when you a mere man pass judgment on them and yet do the same things do you think you'll escape God's judgment other words if you won't forgive people when they sin and you hold you broke the law and in my mind I'm putting you to eternal punishment forever and ever and then the same person who says that commits his sin and the other one commits their sin so they're just trapped in this dilemma and we wrote a book about it actually it's a book about how powerful, how powerful the gospel is and how powerful grace is and mercy.

It's a book about you can always climb out of the hole unless you cancel everybody around you and you're doing the same things they did to whatever extent you do them. You see what I'm saying? Oh, yeah. Well, don't you think, Gordon, that canceled culture itself ultimately without what you guys are talking about in this book just cancels their everybody out at some point? I mean, that's where we wind up, right? I mean, that's one of the points that Phil made.

You asked me about the process. So I went down there, I mean, kind of had a framework. I went down there and I talked to him for probably, I don't know, 15 or 20 hours and recorded it. And then I gave up on that. I just started typing away everything he said. But I mean, I live next door to him for, and I've been married to his sister.

I was married to her for 44 years. So I mean, I've seen him from day one when he first became a believer, and I've seen his growth. I've seen his maturity. And I knew that he was, I knew that he was not like a lot of Christians that I see on social media. They're wringing their hands. Oh, the cancel culture is going to get us. We're going to lose our Christian freedoms. So we wanted to present an argument.

And this was, you know, one thing Phil wanted to do was, no. We'll point out cancel culture flaws in examples of cancel culture, but we don't want it to be written in such a way that somebody who's engaged in that wouldn't say, wait a minute, I see Jesus, I see what Phil's saying about Christ and about redemption, about having my heart sprinkle with the blood of Christ. There's hope for me. I don't have to live in this cancel culture world. I don't have to participate in it.

if people try to cancel me, if I'm a believer in Christ, it's water on a duck's back in a sense. So instead of wringing our hands, I mean, I think the call of the book is to do exactly what Phil just said, we want to put our faith in the one who died for us and was raised from the dead. Because without that, we're trapped in this world of cancellation. And there's really, there's no hope for anybody because of what. Phil just read from the scriptures. Just, you know, I mean, you can cancel, but in the process of doing that, you're going to wind up being canceled yourself by the Almighty.

So that's sort of the premise of it. I think it's a book of great hope. That's what I like about it. I mean, there's a lot of examples of the world canceling, but... I've done a lot of dad's book projects and with the family book projects. And, you know, when our editor at Nelson sent me the first, when she had received the manuscript, I mean, look, I deal with editors all the time. I've been different companies we've published with all this.

And she said, when I read this book, it made me cry. You know, it's so good. And she was just glowing about it. And I agree. I think it's an outstanding book. But I can say out of all the times we've ever done books, I've never got an email like that from an editor. because editors are pretty hardcore, you know, about their job is to critique and correct, you know, whether it's content or, you know, just, you know, all the other stuff. So the fact that this, that our editor was so moved by it that she would tell us that, I thought, man, we got something good here.

It's a powerful thing. Yeah. What people need to understand, and the book demonstrates this, there's nothing wrong with the law. It's the Apostle Paul said the law is Where you at? I'm in Romans chapter 7. The law is good. So then the law is good.

It's holy. The commandment is holy. The commandment is righteous. The commandment is good. So you have a system. The only problem with it is that no one has ever kept it. Now, the Apostle Paul is making the point. He said, once, I was alive apart from law because he's an infant and not knowing what lying stealing, he's just getting milk from his mother's breast.

And he's three weeks old. He's three years old. He's a child. So you say, at that stage, the law has no effect on you because you don't know what it says. And you wouldn't know the consequences of breaking it. You wouldn't know the consequences of breaking. In other words, you don't know about immorality, drunkenness and drugs and all it, cursing and all the sins.

You say you wouldn't even know it, too young. But you reach an age, and God has placed a conscience inside your head, and your conscience let you know, why did you do that? Why did you steal that person's belongings without him knowing your own grandmother? whether you stole $40 out of her purse. And you know that's wrong because you're looking around to see if anybody's watching you. Yeah. So that's what law produces.

How did he frame it? The commandment sprang to life. Sprang to life. All of a sudden, you have a realization, right? Yeah. In other words, I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life, nothing wrong with obeying your father and mother don't murder, don't commit adulthood, don't lie, don't steal.

There's nothing wrong with those commands. The problem is there's a lot wrong with us. So God and His mercy sent Jesus who kept it perfectly and looked at us and said, what do you think? I'm the perfect sacrifice. And now to get you out from the law that I wrote and that I kept, I'm going to purchase you with my blood. So I'm going up to Jerusalem and I'm going to allow them to kill me.

going to die and they'll bury me in three days I'll arise from the dead. You say, that solves your law problem. I'm canceling it for you. Right. So people who don't know that cancel each other because they don't know what forgiveness is and mercy and grace. Right. And Jesus is full of it and he's the only place you can find it. Yeah. So human race turns on each other. You now end up with what you're seeing in America, you say, this bunch going around with spray paint and FU is their signature. Yeah. You're like, I don't even know who you are.

What are you talking about? F me. Yeah. What is your problem? Let's take a break. It's a lawbreaker gone rogue. I tell a story, Dad. I went up to Boston and the guy who had invited me to come speak and we were doing a podcast

in this place. And so he put it on Facebook that I was coming. He was trying to let people know if you're in that area. You want to come meet some people from Duck Dynasty, you know, Alan Lisa will be here. And some person saw it on his Facebook and said, what the F was what was her lead in? Yeah. Why would we have a woman hating homophobic racist in our town? And what I thought was, I thought, well, she didn't know me.

Like, this woman doesn't, obviously, she's missed it on all three points. But I thought she felt compelled. She did not know me. And so she either heard something about our family or you or whatever. She sure didn't know me. And yet she was compelled to put those labels on me and then threatened to protest us being there and all that. But I just thought that's the world we live in now.

You know, you can not know somebody. She was trying to cancel me from coming to Boston to talk about, you know, mine and Lisa's marriage in our life. and she doesn't know who I am. Well, when we first, I don't know if you remember we had a conference call where we were talking about the book. I don't remember who said it, but we were talking about the left and the right and the radical nature of both points of view.

And somebody in the conversation said, well, we need something that's in the middle. And I thought, because I talked with him, no, we don't need something in the middle of left and right because there's something. solution to everything that's wrong with America is to elect the right person. Yeah. What we need is something up above. It's, it's, we're looking, we're looking beyond this world. It's neither left nor right. It's not a political problem that we have. It's a spiritual problem. So the, the solution can't be political. It's got to be, it's got to be spiritual. And one of the things about the book that we discuss quite a bit is whenever you preach the gospel

of Jesus, what do you think is going to happen? Because you're basically telling you, people, as Phil says, you're telling people in the process of preaching the gospel, you're a wicked and depraved individual who has no hope. You have no chance of approaching God in your current state. Your only hope is to die to yourself and to run as hard as you can in the direction of the Almighty. Who is a God of grace and mercy? So when you start telling people they're that bad, you're going to run up against opposition. So take it for your share and go on. I mean, they're, you know, Jesus himself, they persecuted me. What do you think they're going to do to you?

Paul said, all who live godly in Christ, Jesus will be persecuted. It's going to, it just comes with the territory of being a believer. Yeah. And it also, Gordon, we all lead with the fact that the gospel is going to challenge you as all the things you was mentioned. And that's what we were. Yeah. All three of us. That's right.

We're not saying, you know, your dirt's dirty and mine is not. We're saying we were there. The one who wrote these text. about the law in like Romans 7 and to the Romans, you know, in Romans chapter 2, he said, let me just explain to him to you. I'm the worst of the worst. I'm the chief of sinners. I am the killer of men, women, and children because they believe in Jesus. So I, he said, but God, Sean, he, I wrote most of the New Testament. Yeah. At God's hand. Yeah. That's how forgiving God is. And that's how unforgiving this cancel.

culture we have in front of us, that's how unforgiving. You know, that's the problem. They will not cut you any slack. And we also used to all of us, all three of us were one at one time doing the same thing. Right. We were canceling other people. And I'll say this, in this book, there's not, I don't think there's any self-righteousness coming from Phil's mouth at all.

I can't think of a single instance of that. It's so, he's just so transparent about his past and it gives all the glory to God for where he is right now. It made me think of, Dad, when you just said that, and I was talking about forgiveness and unforgiveness, was the movie Unforgiven. You remember Eastwood, kind of his final western, so to speak, he's done movies since, but that was kind of his big crescendo movie. And, you know, the heart of the movie was is that he had been a terrible person, you know, he was an outlaw and he killed people. A killer. A killer.

So he tries to reform himself and he goes off and he has him a little family, but then his wife dies. And so when somebody comes, there's a righteous cause comes back. He tries to go back to, he's trying to make things right on his own. But then when he gets in that bar and it turns into a big shootout, he reverts back to who he is because remember he starts yelling out, I'm with money, the killer of women. children. He's letting him know I'm the baddest man. And if I'll kill you down, I'll hunt your kids.

And he reverts back to get out of that bar. And then he winds up back at the little homestead. But to me, I don't know what Eastwood was trying to say about through his movie. But what it spoke to me was is that's the human condition. That's right. When it comes to us in our own ways, we can try to reform. We can try to do it better. We can live good for a while.

But unless we commit to something. than we are, we're going to revert back at some point to just the base of who we are. When the kindness and love of God, our Savior, appeared, he saved us. Yeah. Not because of any righteous thing we had done, not hardly, but by his mercy. Right. He saved us through the washing of rebirth. He removed the code.

Yeah. He canceled the code and said, now you're under grace. And guess what? When you make a mistake, all your past sins are not counted against you. Any sin you commit in the future, if you just trust me and try, trust me, it's covered. Right. I've got you back. I've got you covered.

Get up. Let's go. Let's go. You forgive them. When we implement that to our fellow man, it sure makes life a lot more peaceful. For sure. Than to hold something against somebody, like the two old fighting groups up in Tennessee, Kentucky had the few.

The Hatfields and the McCoy. The Hatfields and the McCoy. There was no forgetting. That's what happens. America is a little microcosms. I mean, that Tennessee bunch of Kentucky. Kentucky, yeah. America is a blown up version of that very thing.

Just can't let it go. Generation after generation. Can't let it go. We're watching the Jerry Springer show now. unfold across the whole country yeah it is it's a reality show of of of epic division proportion there's so to go gordon's point while ago someone says so what you're thinking about this and aware that the thing has gone to hell i'm just saddened by the whole thing and being saddened about the whole thing we bring you good news there is forgiveness you can start over yeah you can be

be in a situation where the code no longer affects your life. Yeah. Just love God and love your neighbor. It's not burdensome. The load's not too heavy. Come on. Just believe and repent and let's go. Right.

Be a lot better place. You're right. Let's take another break. And Dad, it removes that fear because most people in the, whether it's in entertainment or news now or politics, they live. in fear of being canceled, like that they're going to say the wrong thing or say it the wrong. You see it every day, nearly. And so, like, that's a fearful place to be. It's basically in redneck language, they thrive on, we got him.

That's right. We got him. That's right. He finally said it. He finally crossed the line. We got him. We got him. And they all cheer.

Yay, we got him. We brought him down. He has no sponsors anymore. That's right. We're going to steal his livelihood. That's right. He crossed us. We're going to.

to show him. But to Gordon's point earlier, if all you had was your whatever microphone you had, you know, you're a bullhorn of the moment, whether it's a new show or you're an actor, you're well-known, whatever, if that was all you had,

then it really would be a great fear because that was the one thing you possess that you don't want to lose. But if you're doing, if this, what you're doing with this book presents is that God builds platforms, God use you in any in every circumstance situation, you really do take the fear away of what most people in our

culture live and fear of, because you don't care. I mean, right? And the other, yeah, you're right about that. And it's the other point I'd like to make about that is if you're, if you're a follower of Christ, you read the scriptures and you come across verses like confess your sins to one another. And I think when we are open about our past and our present, it's kind of hard when somebody's done what you guys have done where you've publicly in your books and in your speeches, you've admitted your sin and your moral failures, it's kind of hard for somebody to come back

on you and say, oh, I just found out, you know, Phil had a daughter out of wedlock 44 years ago. How, we got him now. The only problem with that is, you guys were on top of that before it ever broke, and you were the ones that told the story. So there's nothing hidden. There's nothing really anybody could use against you. If you're just following Christ, your world is not this home.

Your home is not this world. You're not here for long. You're citizen of another kingdom, and you confess your sins openly, and you're just transparent. Then there's nothing really to lose. There's nothing really hidden. There's no secret.

And so I think there's great power in just saying, you know what? When you follow Christ, this is going to happen. And I'm just going to be obedient to him. Everybody dies. Nobody lasts forever. I'm 70 almost, Phil 75. We've often talked about it for probably 20 years. We don't have long to go.

And that's okay, you know. So what are they going to take for me in the interim? What are they going to take from me between now, the time of my death that really matters. Are they going to really wound me? I mean, I've got something far greater than anything here waiting on me. And that's the appeal, you know, that we want to serve God. We can begin to live our eternal life here and now because we've forsaken all of the stuff in the world that disappoints. And I am more disappointed in the world and in life right now. There's so many, you know, disappointments just with the political situation going on. I'm actually

looking forward to the day of his return. So whatever happens between now and the time of my death is very temporary, right? That's it. So, Gordo, so this, the book, obviously, this is a cultural book. And so it's dealing with cultural issues, big picture, which is what we've talked about today. But you could even fine-tune it some and go inside Christendom and still see the same struggle, right?

The idea about, for, you know, legalism and law. and not talking about grace and forgiveness and yet doing it under the banner of Christianity. Speak to that a little bit because I think the book speaks, you know, we're sort of doing the bigger view of it, but the same thing happens inside the kingdom far too often this idea about cancel other people. Oh, absolutely. And when we put the book together, some of the things that I've seen in the church since then, we could have easily put in there.

But I'm not a big Twitter person, but I do get notifications every day. Because I checked off, I guess when you sign up for Twitter, you check categories, right? So one of them was Christianity and Faith or something like that. But it's not about Christianity and Faith. It's about one group of people talking about another group of people, all within the church.

Twitter is chock full of, the thing I've heard lately is toxic leadership. And I know, look, I've had my, and you know about them, I've had my church experiences that were brutal, toxic. And one experience I had almost, back in the 80s, almost destroyed my faith until your aunt, Jan, I wouldn't even go to church. We were just doing little house church with some people. And then we quit doing that. Just our family would go out on the Gulf Coast in Florida or the Swanee River and we'd sit on the bank or right on the marshy shore. and we'd read the scriptures, have communion together. And, man, I'm just filled with bitterness and rage about what had happened to me.

And so Jan was like, she was the spiritual leader at that point. I had given up. And she read the Lord's prayer. And it says, forgive us of our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. So I thought, wow, I'm going to be forgiven in the way that I forgive other people, which is at the core of this. this book, by the way. So I thought, man, and so I, I just thought about the guy that had wounded me. I started reading the scriptures again, just seeing the Bible for what it is,

and I had to start praying for this guy. And I prayed, God, we've reconciled. 28 years later, we reconcile. We're good now. And I could mention his name. He'd probably be all right with it, but I won't. I prayed for his well-being. I prayed for his health. I prayed for his children to honor him that they would grow up to be believers. I prayed for his business that he would accumulate enough wealth to feed his family and live comfortably. I just, I prayed for God to give me a spirit of forgiveness about him. And so I get the idea of toxic leadership. I get how you can be wounded by people in the church. But when you take this garbage, as like it's going on on Twitter and Facebook, you take this garbage, you put it out there for everybody to see.

I think it's a mar on the kingdom of God. I think it's a slur against the church, the big church, the universal church, the church of God. I just think that, I mean, if you call people out individually or you call them out as a group, you keep it within the body, but you don't take this stuff out here for the world to see on social media,

and it's going on. I mean, there's a lot of cancellation going on big time. Yeah, we talk about that in the book. I won't give the examples now, but yeah, it's pretty common. I mean, I've been the recipient of it. I've been the person who dished a little bit of it out. But I'm looking at it now, and I'm going, that's not a smart thing to do. Well, it's interesting.

At all. It's interesting, Gordon, because what you described from your own life over 30 years ago was that you, in bitterness, you could have attempted to cancel him, his reputation, anybody that knew him. And that's what I did. Right. And that's what you were led to do. But instead, because of what God had done for you and because you had a wife that loved you and showed you a better way, you canceled his sin against you by asking the almighty. And that's what we're talking.

In essence, that's a great way to lump just what we should be doing. So several years after, like this is 28 years after the fact. And he posted on a group, Facebook group that we were a part of. if anybody knows where Gordon is, I'd like to apologize, you know, and I said, and I answered him, I said, brother, if I ever had anything to forgive you of, it happened a long time ago when I realized, this is important, when I realized that I was just as guilty as you are. And that's at the core of the gospel. You have to understand how guilty you are before God, and that the only thing that allows you to go into the throne

the most holy place is having your heart sprinkle with the blood of Christ to cleanse your guilty conscience from acts that lead to death. That's the only reason that I'm able to go to God now. It has nothing to do with my goodness. It only has to do with what he did. And so who am I to turn around now and attack people in the cancel culture and try to cancel them back? That's an unwinnable war. It's not sustainable. It's not going to fulfill me. It's not going to make me happy. It's not going to make me right with God. Nothing good is going to come out of me doing to them what they've done to me, which is what

you see on social media from a lot of Christians. And it's, by the way, it's why I don't like to laugh about Joe Biden's obvious cognitive decline. For one thing, having had a wife who experienced Alzheimer's, dementia is not funny. And another thing, you know what, Joe Biden bears the image of God. He's an image bearer. So I don't mind attacking his policies or the stuff that he's trying to do to America. And I'll call that out.

But we just don't, we can't as Christians go out here and start treating other people the same way they're treating us. That's not the answer to. That's a great point. And as to Dad's point earlier, since you brought up Biden, every time I see Biden stumble into one of these things that, it makes me sad. I mean, I'm like you, I don't glee in that. It makes me sad. And the only people I get angry with is his family forever. him in this position. That's why the apostle Paul, when he was summing up the weight of loving

God and loving your neighbor, two greatest commands in the Bible, love keeps no record of wrongs. She says, you know, if you love them, you won't cancel them. You'll just say, well, I agree to disagree, but just think about it. And move. move on. If you want to have a good... Whether it be a cursing of whatever they dish out, you know. If you want to have a good little devotional challenge today, go and read First Corinthians 13.

That's right. And then inwardly apply it to who you are. I wanted... We just have a couple of minutes left, but I wanted to read the verse that you alluded to it earlier, Dav, and I want to read it because to me, this is, you know, kind of the... I would say this was the core of the book,

I mean, the passage. And this is kind of what we were all talking about, we first started about writing the book. It is from Colossians 2.13. When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. And he had already talked about how that happened, that spiritual circumcision you were baptized in him.

He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the written code with its regulations that was against us and that stood opposed to us. He took it away, the effects of life. law, nailing it to the cross, and having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross. I mean, to me, that's the heart and essence from my perspective of the book, is because when you can realize that in your own life, what that meant at the cross for you, that

you won't be a cancel person. And you won't be cancelable either. Because what does anybody come do to you? You'll be a canceled person. all right. You're going to be out here telling people about the cancellation of your debt that you have before God Almighty. You're going to be proclaiming the gospel to them and saying there's freedom. You don't have to live this life that you're living. God will cancel the debt that you owe. By the way, the woman I mentioned earlier that I don't know, but I've already forgiven her,

even though I didn't read the post, it was read to me. And I wish I'd had the opportunity. I wish you would have come to there because I would have loved to have told her how much I love women, including the one I married to. Every influential person in my life, most of them were women. Aunt Jan, mom, Lisa. I mean, I love women. And I love homosexuals. I want them to know Jesus and know what he says is best for all of our lives. And I love people of all races. I mean, I don't have a racist bone in my body. Zach pointed out something the other day. Jesus started the cancel culture when he canceled our sins. That's the cancel culture we want to be a part of. That's a That's a great point. That's a great point. I'm fired up. That's really good. Well, Gordo, it's, yeah, and I just want to say, I'm so thrilled because we first started into the book. We'd already done two because we did Thet of America's Soul, and then we did Jesus Politics. And so this is the third book and sort of this series of books. And I feel like in each one, a lot of our listeners have read them all, we're just kind of driving more home into the real core kingdom principle. We started out with just kind of.

look at America because our first book was right after Trump got elected and things were so lawless and crazy people seem to lose our mind. And we've just, we've shown who the evil one is. We've shown who Jesus is and now we're saying this is who we need to be. This is what kingdom living looks like. And I think we got one more to go. So hopefully we'll have it out in a couple of years. So to order the book, you click the link in the show notes or you can search for uncanceled on Amazon.com. And once you do get it and read it, we want you to be sure and review it and talk about it. And look, we're always open to honest reviews. You know, if you don't like it, you can tell that too.

But I think you will because it was very well done. So, Gordo, it's always good to have you on the podcast. Keep those left-wingers up there in purple, North Carolina in order and in life. I'm just loving on them. There's the best way to do it. Trying to love on them. So we'll have-s seeing you guys. Yeah, you too.

We'll have Jayce back next time. I'm sure we'll have a lot of stories. And Jason's news item. so we'll see you later. Thanks for listening to the Unashamed podcast. Help us out by rating us on iTunes. And don't miss an episode by subscribing on YouTube and be sure to click that little bell

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