With The Perrys - Cults, Neo-Prosperity Gospel and the Church

Episode Date: March 11, 2024

The church in America has mastered the art of gathering people, but discipleship is often lacking. Dr. Eric Mason joins the Perrys for a conversation on cults and other cultural ideologies. Grab Dr. Mason’s latest book, Urban Apologetics: Cults and Cultural Ideologies: Biblical and Theological Challenges Facing Christians Connect with Dr. Mason: PastorEMase.com @pastoremase on Instagram Subscribe to the Perrys' newsletter: https://withtheperrys.myflodesk.com/zhfus4jx1s Join Preston's discipleship community for men: https://www.patreon.com/PrestonPerry/membership To support the work of the Perrys, donate via PayPal: https://paypal.me/withtheperrys Shop BOLD Apparel: boldapparel.shop Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hi, St. Names. How art thou? What up with y'all? So I have a question. When did it become a style for y'all to have white chalk on y'all lining? I got white chalk on my line right now. It's a little bit there. Why you had to point it out for the people, babe? I thought that was, I know that's like the style in Chicago. If I got it on me, it's an accident.

Oh, it's okay. Okay. It just looks. Now, I'm self-conscious. It looks mighty criminal. Anyway. You're such a jerk. I am kind of a jerk.

But the Lord is keeping me. You know how like I just have those moments where I just have an attitude and I have to try my best and I have an attitude. That's how I feel right now. Why you have attitude? Just things happen. But I'm pushing. I'm going, you know, because the enemy, he's not going to steal my ability to show up

and walk by the spirit. And so we thank you for your love and your grace, Lord. And we pray that you would meet us here today. We have Pastor Bishop, Reverend Apostle, Dr. Eric Mason with us today. Oh, hello. Thank you all for having me. Be amazed. Thank you all.

I got some plumage. Eat muffins. No, no, no. What's good, man? Hey, I'm good. I'm good. What's up with y'all? Glad to be here in the infamous living room with all of the art.

Elbogie at the top. I love it. I love it. Black fist up there. The ladies, they like this, though. I can't do that, though. That way. When you land...

Don't do that tomorrow. When you landed in Atlanta, did you see any other principalities? Oh, my gosh. And rulers and authorities here? I was with him. Immediately. I was going to...

What's crazy is, you just asked him that question, but I was with him yesterday and he was calling him out. Oh, what is... I can't say it. That conversation. I can't say it on the podcast.

That's a... That's a, what's it? After podcast conversation. Oh, I want to know. I was like, this man has seen. and all kind of stuff because it's a lot of demons walking through Atlanta.

It's a lot of demons in Atlanta. It's a particular kind of demon. It's like a worldly demon, a greed demon, a lust demon. And I know people are like, you know, but I do believe that there are

principalities over places where you see like this kind of cultural emphasis in a certain... We kind of talked about that yesterday, me and Eric Mason. We were like, when we go to Chicago, feel like everybody's angry.

You're angry and violent. That's Philly. Philly too. Philly too. When you come. here, it's like, everybody's just lust buckets. And greedy and self, or a lot of selfish ambition. Yeah.

Yeah. In the church and in the world. But then you go to like a Boston, highly intellectual, right? You go to a Miami, kind of like sensual. Yeah. It's interesting. I was trying to be gracious. But anyway, go ahead.

What's up, man? So, man, you wrote another book. I'm going to show the people. Urban Apologetics Part 2. Yeah, with some folks. Yeah, cult and cultural ideologies. Yeah, yeah. So urban apologetics,

the first urban apologetic books was really dope. Yeah, yeah. I'm be honest, I haven't read this one yet, but I read the first one. It's all good. You know, we keep it real on the paris.

I ain't read this one yet. But I read the first one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Why second urban apologetics book? Yeah, so I couldn't fit everything in the first one, you know. We just couldn't. And I wanted to deal with,

you know, the first book in my mind, at the time, as y'all know, we were just dealing with a ton of black identity issues, you know. I felt like when we were addressing black people with the gospel, we were, we were addressing them intellectually, but we're dealing with the historical affections of black people. And that's, that's who are we? Not just who are we in Christ. Where do I come from? And if that's not important, why do so many African Americans seek out things that help connect them back to Africa or, you know, because, like, I mean, like, this is like this. You got a group out there that says we're, you know, we're the original, with Caliphians, we're blacks from America.

We're the Aboriginal. You got the Moors saying we're Moors. You got the other one saying we're Nubians and Egyptians. Then you got the Hebrew Israelites saying with it. So there's no people in the world that has the most historically confusing identity. And I believe that's why God said don't move the borders that God is set up. Because when you move those borders, it causes identity disorder, which is a whole other subject.

But that affected us so deep, you know. Being displaced in that way. Yeah. So that has affected us to this day. So that's what that book is about. This one, I felt like it wasn't just black identity. What are the other cults and cultural ideologies that we dealt with? Because I started seeing that those were cults that we would talk.

Some of those were cults. Not all of those are cults, but different groups and different cults. And then these cultural ideologies, everything from Christian nationalism, black liberation theology. and then going into the culture of deconstructing culture. And then whole idea of cult. So as I started looking at all that stuff, I said, man, we need to separate this book from this one. Even the, and try to have some sections broke down

and help Christians to, because I think Christians need to be better thinkers. Yeah. And I know we'll talk about it at some point, but I don't think we're miscellologists anymore. I don't think we do evangelism no more. Yeah. I think we just attract people to stuff. And I don't think we're thinking concertedly

about how to biblically, lovingly, and practically engage people with the gospel. Well, you know, I'm sorry, go ahead. Why do you think people aren't thinking? Yeah, because I think that they don't read anymore. Like, all of us have had, you got book deals or whatever, right? One of the things that they tell you

is that people don't read like they used to. So you've got to figure out ways to get them to. You know, people are educated, people because of videos and everything, reels, they have very, very short attention spans. And so if something's artistically done well and intellectually delectable enough in a soundbite, they'll accept it as an original source. And so if I can get that through 30 seconds, 90 seconds, three minutes on TikTok or, you know, eight minutes on YouTube. And that's literally the cliff notes to what you were going to tell me in an hour and a half or that it would take me a week to read.

I'll take these. And so I think that's where we are. And I think that's why people are not thinking, they don't think anymore. Another question. Why do you think that we strayed away from evangelism? Why do you think the church is not as evangelistic as it used to be? That's a heck of a question.

The reason why I think that we straight away from evangelism is because everything from the church hurt culture to church hate culture, um, we almost feel embarrassed, not of the gospel, but of what we'd be talking about bringing them into.

And so I kind of feel like there's this, I think Christians are embarrassed of being Christians in some ways nowadays. And so there's been, that's why it's a lot of syncretism and people going into wanting to be just culturally accepted. And with that cultural acceptance, of course, that was the Corinthians.

Corinthians wanted, that's Paul's whole, First Corinthians was his whole idea of y'all love the culture, but y'all don't have a disposition towards being prophetic. Y'all like the prophetic gift for showing off, but you don't like the prophetic gift of walking and living in truth.

And so I think that we're in an era where the church really needs to be rebranded. I have another question. Okay. Every time you say somebody sparks another question to me. Yesterday when we was hanging out, I asked you a question, and then we talked about how like,

when we engage with, you know, the nation of Islam and how sometimes these Muslim faiths, they can get away with things that sometimes the Christian faith can't get away with. Absolutely. Right. And so when you see like a Lewis Farrakhan on the Breakfast Club engaging culture,

mingling with the rappers, and their faith is not perfect either. Right. Why do you think that some things are more socially acceptable in culture when it comes to other faiths doing things opposed to like Christians. Yeah, I think it's real simple. I think Ecclesiastes, chapter three,

has the most interesting verse in it. It says, for God has put eternity in their heart that they won't know the things that were done, I think, before time, basically. And so when you study that verse, it literally means that God has put the reality that he exists in everyone, right? But people fill it,

that's what Ecclesiasis is about, they fill it with other things. But I think that there's a sense in which spiritually people know that Christianity is true. Wow. I do. And that doesn't affect my depravity doctrine. Yeah. It affirms it.

And so what I think happens is that's why Islam can get like in my city. And I love Philly, my city. But you can, like, dudes, most drug dealers in Philly named Nair, Nassir, Naeim, Amir. They come from Muslim families. During Ramadan, the Bamas, man, they, they coloring their beard red and then putting

on their whole situation. Girls, you know, wilding, drinking in a club, boom, but, you know. Then Ramadan, all that come, bro. They, quch-ch-h-h-h-h-hac-haired covered. And I'm sitting there like, we could never get away from that. It's rappers out here.

Smashing mad chicks, smoking weed. al-a-a-a-a-a-a-mah. I mean, you don't eat pork, but you're a horemonga, bro. Yeah. And so it's like, but then if we do it, we're hypocrites. Yeah, yeah. If y'all do it, you know,

if nobody says anything, I don't want to mention no names, but it's mad Muslims. Like, they got podcasts, and even five percent of it. But it's interesting that, and I just think it's because people, in eternity in their hearts,

signaling them that this is the beacon, you know, The cross is the cell tower to God. So I just feel like they feel that. That's good. I'm wondering about even the way we use certain terms, right? So I think you hear people who have come from certain church traditions or certain institutions who will say that was a cult.

I know that was a cult. But if you ask why is it a cult, they might just say, oh, they were overly legalistic, all the things. And so in your book, you do make a distinction between cults and being cultic. Can you speak to that? Yeah, so I got like three levels. Cultic tendencies.

Caltish and cult. Now, let's go to cult first. Because that's the easy, that's kind of the easier one to see. And we'll talk about how you get into a cult, but how to get you in. Colts, they tend to fully have a disposition that they're the only way to the higher power, right?

And so they tend to be the heavy, isolationist and really isolate you from everything because one of the things that they try to do is to get you fully consumed into the cult and isolate you so crazily from everything that they have fully deceived you. So when we talk about cult fundamentally, like I put it here, you know, from a religious perspective, a cult is often seen as a group who acts deceptively. So in other words, they act deceptively. What I mean by that?

So they'll have, they won't, they'll use the same terminology. that you and I use, but means something totally different. Like, so you know from ministering to Jehovah's Witnesses, right? Yeah. Do you believe that Jesus Christ is your Lord and Savior? Absolutely. But then when you're asking, who is Jesus? Yeah.

Is he the eternal son of God? Yeah. Or is he the Archangel Michael? Yeah. You know, if you ask, you know, Seventh Day of Venice, if you ask them the same question. Yeah. Because they all, they cousins of each other.

Mormons, Jehovah Witnesses and Seventh Day of Venice. They're like, they all. all of their founders were, they were all around at the same time. I can hear SDA people right now like, no, he did not. Oh my gosh. You know. You know, as soon as you said that I said, who, because we have a lot of people who come from the SDA church

and every time we talk about the seven-day events, we're like, they're almost kind of confused about, like, why are you even talking about our church? And maybe that's something that, you know, we probably should do some videos about that later. But, yeah, like, a lot of people don't even know the difference between, you know, orthodox Christianity and the SDS. If you get in the book and you look at the prophecies of L.N.G. White,

you look at L&G White and their prophet and the apostle and how they had, she plagiarized most of her doctrine, fake prophecy said Jesus came back in 1800. Then you ask them, who is Jesus? Like, they believe that since we worship on Sunday, that's the mark of the beast. You know, so it's just like, like, like, but LNG white in her writings tells them,

do not like go in and act like use their term. It's literally, we got in the book. It's like literally, this is her saying this. It's not us making it up. Yeah, yeah. And so to go back to your question, Jackie, that's what's so deceptive about cults. Like when, because they view her writings equal,

if not greater than the word of God. Yeah. You know. And so that's, but cults are always like that. They act deceptively. You don't know. It's almost like a secret organization, you know. But you don't find out what it's really about

until you're deeper into it. And so that's cult. Which I would put, I would put, I wouldn't, I don't know if I would put SDA as a full court like I would, like. I was witness. I would say, listen, I would say they were,

they're cult, heavy court. I would say cultic between cult of tendencies because they don't fully isolate you away like those cults. They say, we're going to all live in the commune together. You know, like the Waco Jones. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's, that's, that's, that's, that's,

For me, that's, I wouldn't put them, I would be more gracious to them, even though I do believe they're cult. Caltic, um, cultic is, um, it's just churches or groups, uh, that I, I would say that they are cultic tendencies, even though they, they swing between both that and a cult. Yeah. Cultish is when, you know, and I know, don't be bad to me some of my charismatic siblings, but some, you know, you can't, you know, if you, if you, if you're going to, um, if you're going to, um, if you're going to not come to church that's some, you got to call a pastor and let them know you're not coming or people are asking you, where were you? Why weren't you at church? If you're going to another church, let us know what church that is so that we can know if we agree with.

Like just that's that micro-control. And so I would say that micro-control over your life. You know, also cultic tendencies is prosperity stuff. The prosperity, that's a cultic tendency, if not cultic. Because it basically, whenever you take Christ out the center, you've automatically become some type of cult. Sean, oh. Wow.

Like whenever he not at the center of John, you know, through him and for him, all things have been made. Once you put money at the center, I remember one prosperity preacher, I'll never forget. He said, he said, I see money. He said, every time I open scriptures, all I see is money. And Jesus says, you search the scriptures for you think in them, you find eternal life, but they all speak of me. Yeah. So it's kind of like, and starting with Moses, he told them all of the things concerning himself in scripture. It did not our hearts burn.

It's like, bro, how are you going to say you see money above the Messiah? It's good. That's good. You know. Why do you think a lot of cults target professing Christians? How much time we got, man. And can you draw that out? Because I don't have context for even the question you're asking.

Maybe he can draw it out. Yeah, the reason why is most cults, you look at Hebrew Israelites, look at Jehovah's Witnesses. You look at Seventh-day Adventists, which in their doctrine says they want to event. their job is to evangelize Protestantism. Oh, got it. Like Nation of Islam, they target most of their converts. You talk to most people in the nation of Islam. Who do they say?

I used to, I grew up in the church. I grew up in a church. I mean, everybody. And it's like, why do they target Christian? And that's one of the things that I've realized engaging with different religions and different cults is they either came from the Christian church or they all kind of have beef with the Christian church. I mean, when you look at Mormonism,

Joseph Smith said all of our teachers are perverted and have fallen away and our teachers need to be restored. Charles Tage Russell, who started the Watchtower organization that became the Jehovah's Witnesses. He said that Christians are corrupt and yada, yada, yada, and you got the Hebrew Israel life, you know how they feel about us. Yeah, yeah, yeah, right? And so, like, they all kind of have this,

but they never really have beef with one another like that, but they all kind of target Christianity and attack Christians in that way. Christianity, the church in America has been good at gathering people, but has done a poor job holistically disciplining people. Wow. And they know that. Like when I was in college in the early 90s, when public enemy and, you know, tribe called quest, all of them was out,

and they all of them five percenters, we was on the campus and we would blast Christians, you know. And then when I became a believer, the reason I feel like God used the time as a non-Christian that I was influenced by the nation of Islam and reading Metaneta and all of that stuff with the comedic ideologies, reading Yale or Africa and, you know, a chic anti-Diop

and all these cats. Some people don't know who I'm talking about, but anyway, reading all this stuff, that impacted how I was as a Christian. It sounded like speaking in tongues a little bit. It made me, I say, I never want to be the Christian. Christian that's not able to fundamentally understand my faith enough to defend it. And so I just think that they pray on the fact that traditionally we're good at gathering people, but not forming people.

Like, if you ask the average believer, you believe Jesus Christ is God, show me where? How do you know he's man and God together? Where would you show him there? You know, is he 50% God, 50% man? Yeah. 75, 25, what? The Trinity, if you believe in the Trinity, where is that at, right?

If you believe the Word of God is infallible, I mean, we're talking about fundamental things. Yeah. You know, and so I'm not saying you got to understand predestination. I'm not saying that. I'm not saying you have to go to Alexandria manuscripts out of Egypt and being able to read them and translate them to English.

I'm just saying, bro. The key foundational principles. Like fundamentally, like, it's funny. And this is what funny. Like, even in Acts 15, do you know, know sexuality was a fundamental Bible doctrine that they taught. They said, teach these fundamental essentials. So that was in their new members packet.

Wow. Like, because it was so much of a part of their culture. And so I think that we don't teach people well about the person of God. Like, I do think we teach about, we preach about God bringing us out of stuff. But I don't think we've trained people to not always have to have application when they're taught. Now, what do I mean by that? Sometimes it's just stuff you should just know. You don't need to.

So what does that have to do with my life? When somebody's like that, that's not a good disposition of discipleship. If you say, what does it have to do in my life that God is sovereign? It does do with your life, but you need to understand sovereignty, not just say I'm going to put this under my two belt because it resonates with me personally. And that's the humanism that's seeped into Christianity. The only thing that I need from Christianity is what resonates with me, not what makes me a good soldier and warrior for the Lord

so that I can know my faith. That's good. Part of me is thinking about how I think in some reform traditions, Presbyterian, like there is a high emphasis on learning and doctrine and intellectualism. And so would you say that this is a particular,

I guess, attack on like black communities that like there isn't an emphasis that we see publicly when it comes to knowledge and disciples. and all the things, or am I making that up? Yeah, I think discipleship is happening, but I don't think, I think it's good discipleship happening. I think it's bad discipleship happening.

So when I say discipleship, I'm talking about a couple of people to conform to the image of Christ, right? I do think that there's just, I mean, it is, it's concerning to me what goes viral. Like, it really, like what people like, what does it go viral concerns me because it shows me

what viral shows you appetite it shows you appetite and I just think that we are this is what I believe is happening I've been saying this almost every week in preaching I believe we're in the center of John 153

God said you said every branch in me that bears fruit I prune it that it may bear more fruit. What do I believe, I believe God is doing. God has spoken to me about three very specific things. He's speaking to me that three things are going to be pruned. Number one, I'm pruning leaders. I'm pruning false leaders who are false teaching. I'm exposing them who have been fleeching the

flock and who have been filling on the flock. God said, it's going to be a hefty season of scandal excavation. Wow. The second thing that the Lord spoke very specifically. I don't talk like this. This is what he very specifically spoke to me about last year because I was asking, I was depressed after the pandemic because we lost 75% of our church. Wow.

And so I was like ready to quit. And the Lord was, the Lord had to give me that word to keep me. He said, you can't go public with it now. And, but you're going to go public with it in about six months. And so, and then when he showed me that, then I understood what's happening. Then our church re-grew and then grew more. Like, I'm still, I got to.

get there on my church all over again, you know. So first, it's pruning leaders. It's going to be a lot of, and this is no shame and hate on anybody. There's going to be a lot of things going public. Number two, because God's tired of it, bro. Yeah. Number two, he's going to be pruning church rosters and memberships, right? And the last thing the Lord showed me is he's going to be pruning churches out of existence.

You know, Revelation 2 says, I'll remove your. lampstand if you lose your first love. So in heaven, that's why local church is important. There's a plug for local church. Every local church that's a ordained station of God's presence on earth has a lampstand in heaven that Jesus Christ inspects constantly. Because it says he walks between the seven landstands. That's what it says.

And when those lampstands don't represent his reign properly, most people think that Revelation 2 is just about doing your devotions. But that's not just with Revelation 2. In other words, if you look at the things that he said you do, there was no, it wasn't that they didn't defend the faith. They didn't have any pastoral care. They didn't have any love for people. It was just we defend the faith and we stand on truth.

Goes back to what you were saying. But some of those more conservative kind of hyper theological circles is that. And so I believe those three things are happening. God is going to be removing. The churches are going to literally be coming out of it. of existence. Church plants that have just started are going to be going out of existence.

Because God is like, you're not going to go plant rebely out here, and I'm not even lighting this lamp stand. I'm just not even going to light it. We're not going to put a candle for you, and it's over. And it's going to us to be a drove of him. And what I believe God is doing is he's distilling us down to a remnant because he wants us to be

missionaries again. He wants us to be evangelist again. He wants us to care about character again. He wants us to care about holiness again. He wants us to represent him again. Like he doesn't mind us getting, you know, doing entrepreneurialism and securing the bag for the kingdom. But it's like, that's all we about, bro. You know? And so it's like, God is like, I'm really, I'm wanting a real people of God.

And so, but then he's also for the remnant, he's going to be purging us, dealing with places in our lives that have been off limits to him. You know, I tell a story of one time when we first got our building in North Philly. and we got, I mean, we was infested with all kinds of like. You open this door, it's just all stuff just in there. You're talking about rats and things? Everything. Oh, Lord. Everything.

We had bats. Not bats. Yes. You know he had a pet bat. Oh, okay. Never mind. They had a pet bat growing up. That's a whole other story.

That's deep. That's deep. That's deep. And so the exterminator came and he said, before I come in, you got to, you got to open every door. And I was like, wow, he said, I don't care if it has a door on it, I need you to open it. He said, because if I clean everything out without these other doors being open, the things that are in there when open will remigrate and infest all over again. So God was like, I need you.

God's saying in this season, I need the body to open up doors that you've refused to open that have been off limits to me, open up every single area of life. Because we're all going to go through some deep pruning. marriages are going to go through pruning. I believe God's going to help singles to go through pruning so that they're not shamed in their singleness and that they're content in it. And if they want to get married, they get married,

I just believe God is going to do a lot of work. It's going to be a revival, but I don't think it's going to be like a drop-down Holy Spirit revival. I think it's going to be a progressive revival. I really do. That's good. How do Christians lean into that, though? Because when I think of the, when I think of pruning,

when I think of us becoming, a remnant when I think of all of that. I also think of suffering. I think of persecution. I think of like that that is hard, difficult. And so how does even somebody prepare their lives in such a way, are their hearts or their faith in such a way to respond to God when that actually does happen? Yeah, I think that we do people the disservice because we don't tell them the whole Christian life. And so when you look at Acts 14, it says in verses 19 through 25, it says, he preached the gospel to that inside. city, they made many disciples, they appointed leaders for them in that place and commended them with the grace of God, teaching them that through many trials and tribulations, you must enter

the kingdom. In other words, in their fundamental discipleship, suffering was normalized. You either in a trial, coming out or going into one. And so, like, I don't think the Christian church that we have now is ready for the onslaught of suffering. And so I think, but I do think that God is going to, like, I'm not one of people. The church don't do this. It's going to go out of existence. The case of hell won't prevail. So I'm not one of those guys.

But I do believe that we have some cancerous problems that have to be dealt with in the season. But I do believe that God is, you know, those of us, we would like to believe everybody wants to believe that a remnant, right? But for those of us who believe with a remnant, I do believe that that pruning, that part of that pruning is the suffering. Part of that pruning is all of those different pieces because, you know, suffering is one of those mechanisms of spiritual formation and I'm like. Yeah.

Yeah. Quick question. So during the pandemic, I've had a lot of friends and I saw a lot of people go through this whole deconstruction phase, just deconstructing their faith. But in that, I've seen a lot of people, especially in the African American community, deconstruct their faith, start to question some things. Yeah. And then find themselves in the arms of the Hebrew Israelites or Moors or a lot of these

religions that give them some type of identity, you know? And so I will want you to speak to two things. One, why do you think that so many people are going through this so-called deconstruction phase? And how can we as Christian leaders, evangelists, apologies, help people to know the truth and prevent them for falling in the hands of these false religions and cults? Yeah, a lot of running through my mind as you're saying that. So I think I'll pick two.

So there are two entryways that I think into deconstruction. I think one fundamental entryway is disappointment, right? Hello. Yeah, that's one. Whether you're disappointed that the church didn't deal with race like they should have or, you know, whatever, right? Yeah. Or somebody you've read. really, really looked up to, and they were kind of like an anchor for you believing in the faith

and they failed or whatever. Yeah. Then you're like questioning everything. But the other side is deconstruction is not many times theological. It's moral. It's really, I really want to smoke this weed. I really want to smash. Like, so you know what?

man, I'm kind of not feeling like, you know. I think it's time to deconstruct. So most people that throw, 99.9% of the people I can roll this blunt in peace if I'm deconstructing. Right. 99.9% of everybody I know that deconstructed, it was fundamentally moral. Which is the parable of the sower, I think,

where it talks about how, you know, the cares of this world choke out the seed. Absolutely. Like, we don't talk about that enough. So we don't talk about that. But what would you say to the people who said I went through a deconstruction phase and it was actually

not because I wanted to do what I wanted to do, but I was really questioning the faith and, you know, what I've seen, which is one of the things that I was telling a lot of my white, you know, followers online is that when I address these race issues, I'm not just addressing these race issues to pick on white people.

But I have a large African-American following who needs me to talk about these things because it is a matter of some people walking away from Christianity. If people don't see people like us standing up for the black boy or the black woman who feels not seen, other religions might seem more attractive.

And so it is an apologetic for us in the African-American community more than it is with our white brothers and sisters in the faith. And so I think sometimes they don't understand that. And so for the person who says, man, like, I really try to, you know, to be Christian. But I felt like when I went in my neighborhood, I felt I felt more seen by the Hebrew Israelites. I felt more seen by the nation of Islam.

I felt more seen by, you know, these women who practice witchcraft on the corner telling me that, you know, I'm a black queen and I'm the universe. No, no corner. Now, I would say I would say not all deconstruction is bad because I think deconstruction is fundamentally I would define it as re-evaluating whether or not you believe

and evaluating where you are with that, right? And I would say I don't underestimate the process of people going through a full deconstruction walking away, going into that. Because I've seen cats going to Hebrew Israelism and come back when they was like, this is not even what I thought.

thought it was. Yeah. And so I think that re-evaluating your faith, I think even if a person grew up in a suburban youth ministry and they were around the faith and we went to college, lost their mind, deconstructed, came back. You know, I think that deconstruction can be a good thing if it helps solidify you in your faith.

But I do think that, again, to answer your question about even the identity question, I just think that we have to have an atmosphere in church where we welcome skepticism. I think you can't say Well I see Don't question God now Don't you question

All I know is he too hard to get over He's too low to get under Stuck in the middle You know You know I'm just like not Like Bishop Mike Right right right Right

And so I'm just like I'm like there's a sense in which we have to Like this generation like Like y'all be asking some questions Like and it's not like My generation did too but y'all, because y'all, y'all hit the internet. So millennials and Gen Z is just, it's so much out there.

Like, Anna, what's Ananaki? Like, you got Dame Dash talking about Ananaki and that dude he followed. I forgot the dude to be just saying stuff. I forgot what his name is. He's, like, popular, got millions of followers. And he follows him and does business with him. But people watch his videos. And I think that because, and this is the issue,

when you don't well disciple people or disciple people enough to work through their faith and understand it, what happens is when something foreign comes to their faith room, like, you know, where did Cain's wife come from? You know, just those gaps in their faith and you're not able to answer those questions. You know, why didn't, you know, why did the Bible, why was the Bible translated so many times?

And so all of those different questions that come up and what ends up happening is we have to say, be able to sit down, deal with those questions. And a friend of mine used to do what's called Doubt Night. He said, just bring all your doubt. That's good. He just had a thing. I want to do that live.

I want to do like a, when we start the podcast, do a doubt night and just have time with people just go. Ask questions. Just go for your doubt. And I mean, we may not answer every question, but at least we took a shot at saying, man, God's not scared of any question you got for him. That's good.

He's not scared of none of it. I like that. Part of me is thinking about the whole idea of deconstruction and all the things and thinking how like this is really a community project, you know, like we need good leaders. We need. other Christians. But I think a common experience in Atlanta,

I can't speak for other places, is that there's not a lot of good communities or people don't have the framework to know what a good community actually is. And so I guess as a pastor, how are people even supposed to discern what a good church is to be able to like? Yeah.

Or how do people... Yeah, I don't know. What am I questioning? Yeah, I think one of the things that is very important is before we ask what is a good church, we should ask the question, what makes a church a church, right? So I always ask people that,

because some people say, well, we can meet in homes, I don't care. We can meet in a bar. We can meet in the, I don't care about that. What makes a church a church? Does it have preaching, teaching, worship,

evangelism, elders, deacons, community, church discipline, baptism, and communion. Does it have that? Right? So does it have those things?

Like, so that's what, when we look at the pastoral epistles, first second Timothy, Titus, that's what he said, I left you in Crete and Titus 1-5 to set in order what remains, right? And so that means that there is order to a church. So that's why I do believe in organized religion. I do. I believe in I'm religious because religious means holiness and piety and committed to God standard.

And God said his religion is pure. Pure. Absolutely. Right. And so all that religion and relationship, relationship is fluid. Like, you can't have a relationship with God without religion. So that's a whole other discussion. And so I would start there.

And I think that, and I think people, God, you know, the Holy Spirit, the Bible says, will guide you into all truth. I believe that with the bottom of my heart. Because even when you were a young Christian, right, and you was in somewhere and you was, you was, you was, you listening to somebody preach. and you don't know enough of the word, but there's something in you just like, something's bugged out about this spot, right? It's a little weird. Yeah, because I remember when I was in college

and I started walking with the Lord, you know, I would share the gospel with the tree. I would just so on fine. Yeah. And I was at this church, and the dude was going through 1st Corinthians chapter 14. And he, you know, I believe in all the gifts, right?

But he was saying, you know, Paul isn't saying that you can't speak in tongues publicly without interpretation. And then I'm like, I'm looking at the Bible. He starts, I don't even remember the rant that he was going on. But I remember there. I said, nah, this is not true. Even though he was a pastor for years or whatever.

But I knew that what he was saying was off. I believe that if you speak in tongues publicly, you ought to have an interpretant. Not everybody praying your prayer language. I know some people going to get mad. Listen to this. It's like you're just randomly speaking in tongues. And so the reason why I'm saying that is because I think that there's a sense in which God helps a babe, even children.

right, children are discerning without wisdom at time. They'll see somebody and it's something they don't like about them, you know. And so I think that finding a church is, first off, being able to visit places that have those things that I just mentioned. But then as you visit those places that have those things and be in your word and start listening and discerning. And as you listen and discern and connect with somebody that you believe is solid, biblical of faith. If you're watching this podcast, right? Yeah. Then you've connected at least technologically with some people that you think are decently solid.

And what have they been saying characteristically that would say, dang, I'm listening to them. I believe they're solid. That's not something that's here. And this is, but this is the big issue that people got to do. You have to have, you have to know what a close-handed issue is and what an open-handed issue is. Like you got to be careful of making open-handed issues What I mean about open-handed? Things that are negotiable

Because church ain't going to have everything you want And every church is not going to have everything you want But you got to know what those non-negotiables are And some of those things are some of the things that I talked about there But then you got to choose What are your open-handed issues that you feel like you really do need That's important to you that you couldn't live without? Does that make sense?

Yeah, it makes sense Is there some things that people should? Like I want good worship Absolutely. But I got to keep an old. open hand. Yeah. Hello.

Yeah. Yeah. Is there some things that some Christians should, like some big no-noes that they should look out for when trying to figure out a good church to, like, practical things? Oh, very practical. Because what's hard, Dr. Mason, is the popular churches are assumed to be the good churches. Because it's kind of like, well, if everybody's going here, then I. Obviously, I think we have this assumption that like bad churches are empty churches.

Yeah, because I think sometimes people can associate people flocking to something that God hand is on it. Yeah. And so would you talk about the things that we should look for in discerning what's a good church? Yeah, I think Christ has to be centered. What does that look like? Yeah. The pastor can't be over-celebrated. There's nothing wrong with appreciation because it's important.

I think leadership, and the leadership has a plurality of leaders with what I call a first among equals, right? And so that first among equals is the person that is the rudder for the ship, right? The visionary, the one, you know, double-honored Leedswell, right? Like Peter was in the church, the Jerusalem church, like Timothy was in Ephesus, like Titus was in the churches on Crete, right? So you need that. I think they stay in the Bible and they go through what the Bible actually says. We were talking about somebody earlier

who was, Jesus gives the interpretation of the verse, but they said something totally different. Like, paying attention. Like, we learned context clues in the third grade. It's some stuff that you can literally, that you can literally just see without knowing Hebrew or Greek, right? Yeah, yeah.

Also, what's the community like? Like, what mechanisms do they provide to help people to connect with other people? And in those spaces, how do they connect? Is the Word of God talked about? Is it a sense of, and is it a sense of, and this is some stuff pastors can't necessarily control? That's something where believers have to take responsibility

for helping being community developers, right? And so I think do people, do they have a space for believers to do life on life? Like, at the end of the day, that's not talking about being all in your business, I'm going nobody in business. You have to have space for people to be, listen, the most impactful discipleship, I guarantee that you've had, I mean, there are levels of discipleship.

You have air war, you have ground war. Air war is Sunday morning worship, you know, teaching, conferences, all those things is air war, right? Yeah. But then you got the ground war. That's small groups, you know, one-on-one discipleship, you know, small groups of discipleship. All those different things are God's means of helping Christ

and relationships with other beliefs. I think that you got to have those things because if you let the production experience of Sunday morning be kind of like the pep rally for your Christian experience, you won't grow deep. That's good. That's really good. I'm going to ask questions about the book,

I'm going to ask questions about the book, but I'm taking advantage of asking you everything. So you made a post on Instagram a couple of weeks ago about us lacking a kind of sacredness. in the pool pit. Yeah. Can you talk more about that? Because I'm only judging

from social media, but even, I'll speak for myself, even the other day, I was teaching at glory. And I can be a humorous person, right? And I was just in a real good mood. Yes. And so I just kind of kept cracking jokes

and I felt convicted. It felt like the Lord was like, pull back on the funny. Like, there has to be a level of sobriety here. Stop. No, I felt it. And so I literally had to rein it in because I think levity is good and I think it's meaningful and necessary.

But I also think it can be a distraction from the word. And so I can even see within myself how I need to treat the pulpit, even though I'm not a pastor, not that more sacred. And so I guess speak to that tension we see with pastors and things. Yeah, so one of the things I start with is how does God speak to me? Okay. So what does he use? He uses so much beautiful language in the Bible.

He uses poetry. He uses narrative. He uses straight talk through letters. He even uses humor. He uses romance. He uses satire. God, I believe that those are all communication tools, right? Now, we can't story people to death.

Yeah. We can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, so I think that it has to be varying. I do think this is what it came from. I won't name specific things. No, no, I would name some specific things. I remember listening to a young man preach

and I remember he dropped the ASS bomb in the message and then Dan, you know, D-A-M-N. I was like, I was like, whoa. I was like, I was like, what is this? And I do think

that there's such a rejection of rhetorical black church preaching. I will say rejection. People just view it in a particular way sometimes, particularly this generation, that the newer church plants and the newer leaders have so de-formalized church.

We've removed creeds. We don't really have liturgy anymore. Anything that, like, liturgy, the purpose of liturgy was to catacize people, people's understanding of the faith where every part of the gathering was helping us remain connected to the vintage faith. I think now, I think that people are not just not necessarily concerned about the vintageness of the faith.

I think it's evolved. I think the whole secret sensitive movement kind of turned the church into a me-centered disposition in preaching. And so what that's done is that has evolved the church into where it feels like I'm going to more of a comedy show talking to a preacher. I'm having this type of worship experience that makes me feel this particular way.

But I just feel like there's been a sacredness taken out of it because we wanted, and I think in some ways it was good because it was good in that it removed some of the obstacles that people had with coming to church. Like I would go on the block and say, yo, come to church Sunday. And they would be like, I need to get a suit. I said, no, I'm just like this.

You can come. And so I think being very, very careful of letting our relatability lack honor. Yeah. And balance. And I've had to repent. Like when I've gone too far and stuff that I've said, I could immediately, sometimes immediately, I felt the Holy Spirit grab a hold of me in a terrible kind of way.

I remember one time in a sermon, I said, let me stop. I said, I need to repent of what I just said. I said, I went too far. Wow. Please forgive me. And then I just pray and then went back preaching. And I think because I can feel it when I'm not,

when I'm being, because you know, in black church when you're getting a lot of amen's, you start feeling it, I'm really preaching right now. Yeah. I'm killing it right now. Yeah. You know, and I'm going and then I'm like,

God like, don't forget. I will leave you behind up here, bro. I'll just, I'll just, you know. And so being able to do that is important for me. Let me ask you this, though, because I think a lot of the lack of reverence that we see in Pulpits, we see primarily on social media now. We see a lot of different stuff out there. And do you think that some of it is a temptation to, quote-unquote, reach the world in the wrong way,

to have some type of relatability to the outside world, to draw people in, that we kind of sometimes go too far and making people feel like they can relate to the church and would you speak to that? Because I can imagine some pastors may have that temptation to appeal to people in a way to draw them. I think people, I don't think a lot of pastors have been disciples in how to navigate the sacred deaths.

So I believe a lot of guys are undiscipled as believers and as pastors. And I think they have a gift that took them farther than their can. character can keep them. And not just in being anything else, but I think even in, like, because if I'm gathering a crowd, there's nothing you're going to be able to tell me once I got the people. Yeah.

Like, and so if you got somebody in there that has a smaller church than you saying, hey, young man, boom, boom, boom, boom. He said, well, I'm looking over there at you, fam, and you're looking like you got 100 people over there. I'm looking at 2,500. What you mean? What you're going to tell me? And so I do think that pastors have to have sages.

I believe, like, you know, you go, I believe this is me. This is something I just believe. You go through stages as a believer, as a leader that you need to work through. Brother, big brother, uncle, spiritual father, sage. That's kind of like, and I think we need sages. I think we need sages more than ever right now. And spiritual fathers, people need spiritual fathering, spiritual mothering, and they need sages in their life that is able to call their coats on it.

I think that's really fundamentally. There's just been a big generational disconnect because the former generation didn't necessarily all hand a baton over to the next generation well when it came to church. And so the next generation felt like they had to start their own thing and it was separate from their thing and didn't necessarily connect the dots.

And that's not everywhere, but there's a significant amount of that. And I would say particularly in church planting. Wow. Yeah, because a lot of church plant organizations will plant people and let them lead without them having a spiritual father, a church home or nothing, they'll just assess them and plant them, which is super unhealthy.

What is the Neo-Prosperity Gospel? Yeah, so the Neo-Prosperity Gospel is the non-overt prosperity gospel, which basically doesn't overtly says that everybody is going to be rich if you give, if you do this. The Neo-Prosperity Gospel is the new purpose. It's the purpose gospel that we hear a lot. And so it builds your life instead of around money, it gets it on the back end. If you find your purpose, you'll be rich.

So let me help you to find your purpose and then you'll be, you can make, money will come if you just find out your purpose. But I tell people there's a difference between purpose and assignment. So a lot of what we call purpose is really assignment. Biblically, our purpose is to make disciples, to preach the gospel to the many, to the invisible powers, you know, to go to Shed, to Samaria, to be the body of Christ, to use our gifts to serve one another. That's our macro purpose. Now, you being a doctor is not your purpose.

That's an assignment. You know, and so we have to be very, very careful of that, of the whole purpose gospel. Because I think that every, like everybody, and I don't think it's anything wrong with helping people to lock into where they belong based on gifts and talents and where they best fit. But your gift and your talent

isn't your purpose. Your purpose is based on your God's decrees on earth for what the... And it's a unified purpose. It's not your personal purpose. It's our purpose together to make disciples. It's our purpose to... That's a purpose.

Now, you do poetry, you do poetry, you write. Writing isn't my purpose, it's my assignment. Yeah. And we got to know the difference between those. But the assignment is only assignment if it serves the larger purpose.

Yeah. Yeah. That's good. I could be wrong, but it seems as if, like, this whole purpose-driven preaching is fairly new compared to, like, the prosperity gospel that we knew before. And so this is a question for both of you guys because I know you've been kind of on a little tangent. Knee deep in prosperity gospel. Knee deep in studying this stuff.

What does it come from? What is this purpose-driven prosperity gospel kind of came from? And, like, why is it so popular in our culture right now? Like, I think that is. Well, it was a psychology book written years ago called Search for Significance. I read it, like, in the early 90s when I was in college. I saw that yesterday at the library. Yeah, it's a good book.

And so Carl Ellis, when he talks about the whole cult stuff, he says, listen, people, it's three things, you know, significance, dignity, identity, identity. That's fundamental human needs. You know, significance, you know, what's my purpose? you know, significance, dignity, who am I? I mean, you know, dignity, what's my value? And then identity, who am I? Those are the three fundamental questions every human being asked.

The purpose-driven thing connects it earthly, mainly, and using God to get that on earth for the person to find those three things out. So I find out these three things, not to plug it into God's purpose in what he's called us to do as the body of Christ. But this is for me to be unleashed and in some way, shape, or form

in an individualistic way, this will somehow connect to God's purposes. And I think that, you know, the Bible says that he or she who isolates himself seeks his own desires, Proverbs 181. So I do think that we, I think it started out with a hyper-individualistic culture because we went from modern culture

where it was, you know, scientific culture. Then we went to post-modernism. And then we, you know, then we went to pluralism. And now we're in syncretism, right? And so what do I mean by that? I mean, we're in a pluralistic society where there is no wrong as long as it doesn't infringe upon my right.

So if you, so like as long as it doesn't hurt anybody, you can believe and do what you want to do, right? And so I do think that that plays a role into whatever culture's big subject purpose statement is, there's going to be a spiritualized version of that in the church, always. If you look at every big movement, like every big movement that happens in the world, right, there's always going to be a spiritualized version of it in the church that gets propagated to the church. Guarantee it.

Wow. If you look at anything and name it, and you'll find it every single time, every single time. Yeah. That's good. Yeah, that resonates with even the chapter on the prosperity gospel and how it talks about E.W. Kenyon, who was a proponent of, like, not a proponent.

Like, he had learned a lot about news. thought, which was like this science that said like, what I think or what I say will be what my reality or whatever, but he like Christianized it. And so there's this secular, occultic idea that he then sanctifies and then that becomes the Word of Faith movement, which and therefore becomes prosperity of gospel. So I think it's interesting.

But now it's influence. I hear, I listen to secular card podcast like sound bites. I can't listen to two hours of that. But like I listen to sound bites and I hear them. I'm manifesting. I'm, you know, I'm speaking it to existence. Like, they got there from prosperity gospel. Yeah.

It's crazy. Yeah. It's like a Christian, the secret. Yeah, it's a new Christian E. Like, they write about some things. Yeah. Yeah. Are we some, are these things,

would this, like, be a part of what Jew talks about when he says contend for the faith? Is this a contending issue? Which part? The prosperity gospel. Yeah, I do. I do think. I do think. I do think.

I do think. That's a good question. Now, you don't know what's one of the craziest verses. I think I sent it to you. The craziest verses that I read was in 2nd Peter. Like, if you go through 2nd Peter, like, if you, like, I'm just telling you all. I'm thinking about doing a series on preaching all of the chapters in the New Testament on false teachers. Like, literally.

Can you do it? Can you do it? Can we vote? Let's go. Let's go. And listen. Second Peter is scary. Yeah.

2. Peter 2, if you read it, and one of the ones that it says, they're trained in teaching greed. Trained in teaching greed. So literally, their discipleship mechanism is teaching preachers how to get money from people. That's how you know somebody's a false teacher. Yeah. Wow.

Trained. I went to this one church, right? Say, y'all story, prosperity story. God, he cut an apple open. He said, you man, this, this seed here, this apple came into existence because of this seed. But unless this seed was planted,

this apple became a tree. And this tree manifested a multiplicity of apples. I sense an apple seed anointing in this place. I'm going to start a thousand dollar line right here. and God has anointed this seed that at every person that holds this seed you pass it back to the person and you give it and that anointing

will be past you. And your... He sounded like James Earl Ray. It sounds like a liar. Listen, and them folk was what should call co-coosh? Lined up down the... A thousand dollar line.

A thousand dollar line, bro. Yeah, man. And so I'm saying that to say like, they're trained, but they trained. I remember I was at one church and I preached and the Lord really blessed I closed. I don't use the clothes a lot,

but I close the church and Lord bless. The pastor said, you can raise an offering now. I was like, nah, I've never got up okay now, y'all, like after I preach

to use the emotion that's in the room, not for repentance, but for resources. So, anyway. Now, I believe in people giving. I believe in generosity. So don't hear me saying,

I don't believe in people building well. Don't hear me saying, I don't believe, you know, in people, finances. The Bible talks a lot about it. But I'm talking about financial-centered theology. That's what we're talking about.

Wow. Yeah. You've stuck on a lot of toes with that one. Maybe not. Yeah, maybe not. Maybe not. Because this is what I'm struggling with. This is unprocessed.

I feel like we talked about the prosperity gospel in extremes for so long that the subtle versions of it aren't actually discernible. You know? Like I think people are teaching greed just in a different way. Like I think when I think about how the teaching now is such a, it has such a self-centered hermeneutic, is that not greed? Is that not reinforcing a lack of self-denial? This is no shade.

Okay, I'm going to say something. Y'all cut this if y'all want to, right? We're not. Go ahead. Go ahead. Like if the church pays for me a limousine service and I got all this security and then the door opens and me and my wife get out.

And the first thing you see is our shoes and they, Valenciaga, and I know I got on some hype shoes now. So I'm not against, but I'm saying, I get out and I'm going like this. And I'll take off my glasses and look around and go on to church. And every, it's like a red carpet. And I'm high-fiving everybody. And, you know, and everybody's, you know, I'm doing the peace sign. And then, you know, you saw my belt.

Now my wife puts her pocketbook down and it's burke, burking, you know. And, like, the flow is on. What are you saying? Right. Like, what a, what do, what are you? I'm just listening. I'm like, I'm like, I'm, listen, listen, do what you want to do.

But I'm like, what are you trying to communicate? To me, that's the Neo Prosperity Gospel. Yes. Like, I think, like, I saw, I'm going to just say this. I saw one pastor just put online, him buying a luxury car. Like, I'm like, this is my come up. And I'm like, like, what are we doing? Like, like, what are we?

Like, like, what are we? Like, like, I'm not saying you can't you have a brains dog. What, like, I hope I... Motive. What are we doing? Because it's more than one way to communicate. Yeah. Because what you're doing is you're communicating, because I'm the passive because I've, I'm spiritually mature.

This is what I've, my faithfulness, I've obtained all of these things. And so this is why a lot of times people flock to some churches, and they want to be that. They're seeking to be that. They're seeking for status, fame, money. And these things aren't bad within themselves. but when it becomes the center of a ministry. People buy what you want to buy, but I'm just saying I just don't, I just,

we're branding something, though. Yes. Yeah. Because it makes us feel good, right? Because me and Preston, we are very much in the position where we could flex. Right.

Right. And people we could, sometimes I'll be flex. I'd be like, this is thrift store. And I'll just know how to dress. Y'all don't know how to put it off a deal. But I have, I have to be honest with my, I remember there was a time where I was about to

teach. and it was probably 7,000 to 8,000 people. And I had to tell God, I want, I want glory. I want it. I'm insecure. I feel insufficient. I was a kid that nobody liked. I was a nerd.

I wasn't cool. I wasn't. But here now I have the opportunity to get what I never got. And so let me confess that so that the Lord would feel me so that I serve his people and not instead of having his people serve me. You're going to, but so I just even wonder if we're having those internal conversations with God out loud so that we could be pure

when it comes to our ministry. Yeah, so you got two extremes. So you got... I was going to say something. I'm not going to say it. You got the pastor worship situation. But then in those more solid spaces,

you have people who have church hurt, been church hurt, or they so want to demolish the pastor, there's no value there. And I think that that's what you'll find.

That's like the quiet extremeness going on that. I'm so anti-prosperity that, like, I know so many underpaid pastors. Wow. Like so many, I know pastors that the church didn't get them 401K, you know, or 4-3B rather.

You know, and so there's that extreme. But to speak to this, though, to speak to the other side, I just think that I don't, I think that we're in this, I just think we're in a society where I think we love the world. And I think that I just think we love the world

and I think that if you say something, you're judging like instead of just like correction now, we're so soft as some baby pamper's that we can't receive a challenge. Why are you worried about what I got on?

Why you like, like no, because you can't like, in other words, like what is, are we required of anything of us? You know what I'm saying? And so for me, I just think, you know, promiscuous dressing online, you know, that too.

It's just a whole, I don't know, man. I just, I really just want to see a branded Christian faith that's biblical that just takes the faith seriously and repents, like saying stuff like, I want glory, you know, so I don't know, yeah. You actually ended your book talking about rebranding the church. Yeah. What do you mean by that? Yeah, so I did a series on this.

And so basically when I talk about rebranding the church, it's not recreating. But basically going back to who we originally are, you know, a lot of people read Ephesians 3, 20, 21. It says they read the first part. They like that because that's the part we get the blessing off of right. Now unto him who was able to do exceeding abundantly above all you ask a thing according to the power that is at work within you. But the last part says, to him be glory in the church. and in Christ Jesus. And that word,

I did glory, doxa in ecclesia in my mind is his tabernacleing among his people. The chakina glory presence of God in the church

properly shining forth from the church. I want to see us just shine well. That's good. Like, I just want to see us shine well. I want to see us repent. well. I want to see us to date well. I want to see us if you drink, not overdrink, right? I want to see it's not getting, saying I smoke weed as CB, like we're using it for something we're not using it for. You know, I want to see us look nice, but don't have to be promiscuous

looking. I want to see us, I just want to see us rep his ring. well. That's good. And so when I talk about apologetics and talk about urban apologetics, that's the big thing I'm really talking about, talking about, man, not just having answers with our lips, but also having answers with our life. That's good. Because, again, we're not talking about being perfect.

We're talking about being in process. And so at least be in process. That's good. You know, not being defiant. I was preaching. I'm going through Hebrews right now. And he was talking about the defiant believer. The person who defiantly resist the Lord is one who tramples the blood of Christ underfoot.

You know, and basically it means to treat him like the priest treated the person lying on the road. And when he walked around him because he didn't want to get unclean, because now you're treating Christ's body like he's an unclean vessel versus a vessel that cleanses. When we live defiantly against the Lord. And so that's my passion on every single level is to see the body of Christ be the body of Christ. That's good. To end, what would you want people,

the main thing, or if you want to name a couple of things, to walk away from reading this book? Yeah. Be passionate about being responsible for the Christian faith. Own it. That's good.

For me, that's really what apologetics is about owning the faith. And when I say own the faith, take it seriously. Take it as your craft. You know, I like Kobe Bryant. You know,

I got a couple of peck Kobe sneakers. You know, the whole Mamba mentality. And when you look at, you know, a Kobe Bryant, everybody loves him because of how serious

he took his craft. Yeah. You know, and I just want to see, I want to see us to be some, I want to, I love to see people just be Jesus geeks.

Yeah. It's a nerd of the Savior. You know, and I just would love us to be in, in that place. where, you know, Paul says in one of his doxologies, he says, now unto him who is able to establish you

according to the preaching of my gospel. And he says, I want you to be establishing the gospel well and that we go from milk to meet and demand righteousness. You know, so yeah, yeah, yeah. That's good. Yeah. All right, well, y'all need to go out and get this book. Cut my finger off.

I already take your finger. Irvin Apologetics by Dr. Eric Mason, Colts and Cultural Ideologies, man. It's a great book. I haven't read it yet, but I know it's a great book because I know him. Thank you, brother, man. I love you, man.

A big brother in the faith to me. Love you, love you, love you, love you, man. Love you, love you, love you, love it. Nice, y'all. With the Perrys is produced by The Perrys with support from Amanda Reed and Channing the McBride. Editing by Xavier Fairley,

video recording and audio production by Kim Powell, artwork by hop and music by swoop. If you'd like to support The Perrys, you can visit the link in the show notes. This is with the Perrys. Thank you for listening. Now go with God.