334: Are You a Peacemaker or Just Picking Sides?

Out of the Question Podcast: Uncovering the Question Behind the Question

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Andrea Schwartz (00:01)
Welcome to Out of the Question, a podcast that looks behind some common questions and uncovers the question behind the question while providing real solutions for biblical world and life view. Your co-hosts are Andrea Schwartz, a teacher and mentor, and Pastor Charles Roberts.

Charles Roberts (00:19)
Matthew 5: 9 reads, ‘Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God. ‘ As much as the 1960s promoted the idea of peace, and subsequently we hear the phrase peace out much, any examination of legacy or social media will confirm there is little to no peace prevailing in America today. I believe it boils down to everyone considering his or her opinion as valid and correct, but often have little to no idea from where they derive their opinions. More often than not, people filter what they read or see within the context of their own already established opinions. But as R. J. Rushdoony noted, without the God of scripture, we have the collapse of all values into totally subjective opinions. Now, Charles, if we examine the latest news story, whether it’s about tariffs, elections, violence, or crime, rarely is there opportunity to get objective reporting. Moreover, there is a decided effort to create provocative headlines to appeal to those with predetermined opinions within their presupposed conclusions. This often widens the gap between those of opposing sides and provides no clarity, and definitely not peace. Charles, do you consider that most people derive their values from subjective opinions, as Rajduni noted?

Charles Roberts (02:03)
And do you think they even know how they’ve arrived at their opinions?

Andrea Schwartz (02:08)
Yes and no. Yes to your answer, the first part, and no to the second. I heard someone put it this way some years ago on a podcast, and I wish there’s no way I could go back and find it from the person who said it. But they talked about the fact that everyone’s awareness or consciousness or thoughts are plugged in with an imaginary cable connected to whatever the source of their information is, and that’s how they think. In other words, it’s this collective thinking about things that is molded and shaped by the information that people are fed. I mean, by choice. I mean, people can decide what news broadcast they’re going to watch or podcast they’re going to listen to. I sometimes get in discussions with folks, whether it be theological, the church world or outside or wherever, and especially with Christians, I have to stop and say, not always out loud, you’re channeling Fox News right now. I want to know what you think the Bible says about this, that, or the other, or you’re channeling CNN or whatever it may be. And I think that’s a good way to put it. That’s what most people, whether they are aware of it or not, and I think many of them aren’t, they’re channeling, they’re chirping whatever it is that they’ve heard over and over and over again in the popular news media.

Charles Roberts (03:26)
And what’s interesting is it’s very easy for us to assume that because we live in the 21st century, we are so much more enlightened than other people. But if you think about it, even the whole idea of, I really wonder about this, I think I’ll Google it. Well, I have a friend who works in marketing who said, Where do businesses go to die? And the answer was the second page of Google search results. And so he pointed out, and I’m sure people know this, that sometimes you can pay people to make sure that you get on the first page. And so what we have is very curated information, not only in internet searches, but in TV, podcasts, as you say. I mean, there are going to be points of view that people will share with others. If you go back 250 years, how did people know anything if they didn’t have all this technology to help them?

Andrea Schwartz (04:29)
Well, I think it gets back to what I was saying a moment ago and quoting this person who was pointing out how the collective consciousness of a culture or society is formed by the things that they’re constantly feeding themselves. Well, in older times, before the advent of what we call technology or mass media, that same consciousness was there, but it was being informed by a collective Christian culture that was also, even more importantly, informed by the teachings of God’s law word. You’ve heard it said many times We’ve talked about it, when you were younger, people of our age or older, you could leave your house and leave your door unlocked because nobody would come in and steal anything. And that was largely the case because everybody was operating, more or less from the standpoint of, you must not steal. So regardless of the church, regardless of the Bible translation, most people operated from the standpoint of a, nominally, at least biblical worldview. And so So that’s how their ideas and impressions were formed. But now that doesn’t mean it was pervasive. It wasn’t the Kingdom of God on Earth type of thing. It’s interesting we talk about this, the influence of media.

Andrea Schwartz (05:44)
In one of Dr. Rastuni’s essays, the title of which is, let’s see, Sex and Culture. This was published in the Calcedon Report in 1971. The thing I’m going to share here has nothing to do with the topic. And in a direct way, but he’s quoting another author, whose last name is Unwin, U-N-W-I-N, who wrote this in 1940, talking about the press. Now, people don’t. Today, I doubt you say to somebody who’s 17 or 18 year old, what do you think about the press? They probably won’t have any idea what you’re talking about nowadays. But of course, it means back then, and to some extent today, it means the newspapers, the printed media, which was largely what people had. But this author says, and Rostuni is quoting him, The press dictates, suggests suggests insinuates. A collection of highly selected data masquerades as news, giving a false impression of events. There is little real mental activity, although there is a great deal of talk. And it goes on from there. But that was not written two weeks ago. That was written almost, what, 75 years ago.

Charles Roberts (06:49)
So technology can get some of the credit for this. But let’s go back before there was widespread technology. People correctly understood that education and the books that people read were going to shape their view. And so if the books were coming from a Christian orientation, however, whether or not it was actually by born-again believers, there was a framework. And as time has gone on, especially in schools and textbooks, which basically are editors deciding what students need to know, there’s been this elevation of science of secularism so that people just say, Well, this is what I learned in school. These are the things that I remember since kindergarten. In which case, they’re not even questioning their presuppositions because they have confused what they suppose is true with something called brute facts. Now, what are brute facts?

Andrea Schwartz (07:56)
Well, that’s the idea that there’s just this objective reality that everything comes into the world, whether it be a human being or the physical world, and it’s just there. It’s not left or right, up or down, black or white. It’s just simply there. It’s just a reality. And whatever meaning the facts may have, whether it’s the tree in my backyard or the development of human culture or technology or politics, whatever the meaning is, it has to be invested with meaning by me because in and of itself, it It’s just simply there as a fact of information until I decide to do something with it.

Charles Roberts (08:35)
So it was Cornelius Van Tille. He promoted this idea of brute factuality as being not even true, that there are no such things as brute facts. As a result, that means that something actually has meaning, but you need a standard or a context of that meaning. That’s where the biblical worldview view comes into play. For example, if we’re going to talk about the American Civil War, also known as the War Between the States, there are things that we can say, On this date this happened. However, Saying that doesn’t tell us why it happened, whether it was right or wrong. The same thing with the crusades. Depending on who you speak with, someone would look at the crusades as a positive thing. Other people might say it was a negative thing, and other people, maybe it hasn’t been taught and they’re not exposed to it, so they have no opinion on it, as opposed to, is there a way to view it in terms of what God’s word says?

Andrea Schwartz (09:43)
And I’m glad you mentioned Dr. Van Tille, because one of the, even to this day, points of division among reformed people and Christians, generally, or evangelical-type Christians, and the issue of apologetics of the defense of the faith is what’s called classical or evidential apologetics, which more or less starts from the standpoint of, is that, yeah, there are some brute facts. And look, if I can just present enough evidence to you, then if you’re going to be logical, if you’re going to be rational and intelligent, then you’ve got to admit that the evidence is there’s a God, or this was created by God. At the other end, where I think you and I and the Calcedon Foundation stand, and much of those who embrace reformed theology, the presupposition traditional position of Van Tille, Gordon Clarke, and a few others, which says, there are no brute facts. There’s no neutral territory, and there’s no point in you and I coming together to try to reason things together so I might present enough evidence to you. And part of this, and this is where I would be critical of the former view, the evidentialist view, is it’s a holdover from Greek philosophy.

Andrea Schwartz (10:54)
And really, philosophy, as we know it today as an academic study in colleges and the writings of intellectuals for centuries, is directly rooted in a Greek worldview, a pagan worldview that says there is nothing but brute factuality. And Aristotle says this, Plato says that, Parmenides says this, and I have to decide which one is the most intelligent and the most reasonable. But if you’re going to start with that point of view, it makes sense to go that way. But if you are claiming to be biblical, if you’re claiming to be Christian, no. Everything has already been determined by a sovereign Creator God. And so that’s where you start. This is where scripture starts. And the best thing that we can do is simply start in the same place and point out to people who think that there are brute facts. And look, listeners, this is directly connected to the subject of the media that we’re talking about today, because that’s the way they operate, is to say, if you are going to work anywhere near intelligently in this world, Then you must do so according to what God says. You must, as Vantil said in Rushdoony, after him, we must think God’s thoughts after him.

Andrea Schwartz (12:09)
And that’s unavoidable. You’re going to be thinking somebody’s thoughts after them without fail. The question is, is it going to be God Almighty in what he says in his word? Is it going to be Karl Marx? Is it going to be Oprah Winfrey or whoever? That’s the choice that lies before a person. And there’s only really two choices, either God’s word or man’s word.

Charles Roberts (12:30)
And so we’re called to be pacemakers. Micah 6: 8 also says that in the context of being obedient to God, we’re to do justice, we’re to love mercy, and we’re to walk humbly. I believe that The current status quo makes those things difficult in anything other than a face-to-face interaction with people or a interaction that isn’t an in-your face interaction. Now, I don’t know about you, Charles, and I know that I’m susceptible to this. I’ll see a post on social media and there’ll be a picture of someone who, by and large, I would agree with. I automatically give that person the benefit of the doubt because you see, I already know I agree with that person. Similarly speaking, if I see a picture of someone who I know I don’t agree with, well, then whatever is being presented, I’m quick to say, Well, that can’t true. So I might either skip over it or just watch it to confirm the idea that this person isn’t very smart or this person is evil, et cetera. And so when we fail to realize that our interactions with people are meant to bring about their reconciliation with God, helping them see that they need reconciliation, the current format actually works against that rather than contributing to some common ground meeting of the minds.

Andrea Schwartz (14:07)
Yeah, I’m glad you quoted the passage concerning peacemakers. And of course, Jesus says the same thing in the Beatitudes. And in my sermon, actually, from this past Sunday, we discussed that, and I contrasted it with the famous saying of a Roman general, in Latin, which means if you want peace, prepare for war. Now, I guess from a military standpoint, that makes some sense. But I think the exhortation of our Lord and of scripture is that if you want peace, you prepare for peace. And the way that you do that is by understanding that you are either in a place of being under God’s wrath and curse, which is due to you for your sins, or you have been transferred, moved out of that position into a place of grace and mercy, which is all his doing, his work of redeeming you and saving your soul. In the larger picture of what we are talking about, modern media, modern technology, operates completely from the standpoint of if there’s a God, he really doesn’t have that much to say about anything. And so man’s word, the word of the media and the people who run it, that paints the true reality.

Andrea Schwartz (15:24)
And you can, again, it comes down to you can decide for yourself, like you said, with the picture of the person you knew you agreed with ahead of That’s the way we continue to be molded and manipulated by images and thoughts. So to some extent, I get that. I don’t see it too much anymore, but there used to be these TV commercials with a famous baseball player for the New York Yankees. The guy was a great baseball player, but he’s promoting men’s cologne or something like that. He doesn’t know any more about men’s cologne than I do. Just because he plays baseball well, it doesn’t mean that he’s an authority on cologne.

Charles Roberts (16:00)
And again, you got to go back to our theology. In other words, we don’t have to create a war. Bible tells us that there’s been a war from the outset, the war between two seeds, the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman. And we don’t have to go around condemning people because those outside of Christ are already condemned. So I think oftentimes we lose sight of what we’re supposed to do and what we’re supposed to think when we encounter someone with different ideas. Just because someone doesn’t think the same way I do, doesn’t make him evil. It doesn’t make him not evil, but this shouldn’t be the first assumption. I have an opinion. I have a point of view, as soon as I hear somebody else even indicating that he’s going in a different direction, I’ve got to get my shields up to make sure I don’t get penetrated. Well, the problem with that is that depending on when you first hear about something. George Floyd incident back in 2020 is a great example. Most people, when they saw the video, came to the conclusion that the narrative was true. These policemen killed an innocent black man.

Charles Roberts (17:17)
Now, regardless of what you think about the people involved, how much were we all influenced by the first report or the first visual? And then all the commentary Story, which really amounts to various people’s opinions, and some opinions get wider play than others because they’re funded, that why can’t we just say, I don’t know enough about this to be able to make a decision, as opposed to, you’ve got to immediately get on a side. Recently, I’m sure most people will know the story about two teens that attract meat, and one stabbed another, and the he died. There are all sorts of opinions, some true, some based on true facts, some not, some made up whole cloth. Why aren’t we comfortable to say, I don’t see evidence here. I’m not asked to adjudicate this, but at least say, I can go to a higher principle and talk about it in terms of scripture. But I think we all want to be that authoritative person who calls up on talk radio says, I think this. I often comment like, Who cares what this person I don’t know thinks? He’s not justifying where he gets his information. Opinions actually end up making it harder for us to pursue the Great Commission.

Andrea Schwartz (18:50)
Yeah, and I think that’s an intentional effort on the part of at least some media, maybe a majority of it, is to create division, to create conflict and tension in society, because that’s what by our fallen human nature, we tend to gravitate that thing. I don’t know how it is out there where you live in California and your local TV channel. And I don’t mean Los Angeles or one of the bigger cities, San Francisco, but I guess you have local TV that doesn’t include those. Maybe not. I don’t know. But here, where I live, it’s a city and county of 300,000 people. I I don’t know. But it’s just nonstop car wrecks, killings, murders. It’s just nothing but bad news. It’s astounding to sit and watch this stuff without any real context. And it’s just like And if there’s not enough bad stuff that’s happened here locally, well, then they’ll go to the state up next to us and say, Well, in Georgia, this happened today, or North Carolina, this happened today. And it’s all the bad stuff. And that’s, again, that’s not an accident. You have to ask yourself, why is this is why I’m being told this material, this information, as opposed to…

Andrea Schwartz (20:06)
Well, it reminds me of something I saw a long, long time ago when I was in school. There used to be this thing called My Weekly Reader. And it had all kinds of little puzzles and little tidbits of information for elementary school kids. And then you had this yellow journalism stuff with the, I think it was called the National Enquirer. At least at that time, it was all horrible stories, a printed version of the media’s train wrecks and car accidents and people getting killed, and sometimes with very graphic pictures. And they would have it at the newspaper, excuse me, at the grocery store checkout place. Well, I think it was I forgot which one of the parody magazines it was, but they did a takeoff on My Weekly Reader in comparison to one of these yellow journalism type things. And it was meant to be sarcastic. So one headline was, Death Told Zero as train pulls safely into Station. And that got the point across, I think. I’ve never forgotten that. It made such an impression. So I think that people need to realize that what you’re being fed or exposed to by the media is not just haphazard.

Andrea Schwartz (21:21)
It’s not brute facts. It’s managed information that is put to you for a particular purpose, and it’ll legislate a particular agenda. Not necessarily political in that sense, but it definitely has theological implications.

Charles Roberts (21:35)
And without always recognizing it, people get molded. I don’t really remember prior to the whole COVID deal that when you said goodbye to someone, you said, Stay safe. Yeah. That was something that would basically imply that the lack of safety is all around you, so you need to stay safe. And so when we don’t question those things and we just respond, well, then you have a very fearful society. And instead of looking at, I have a lot of common ground with these people in my neighborhood, in my city, right? Instead, they become potential threats. And I saw this played out in churches that were open during COVID, who a lot of the people were just firmly saying that we have a right to be here without masks on, 6 feet doesn’t matter. Then the vaccine was rolled out, and now it became apparent that there was this thing called shedding. Well, the very same people, Charles, who did not feel that it was righteous to be segregated or told what to do, were asking for people who had been vaccinated to sit at a particular portion of the church. And I remember watching people and hearing them and saying, Do you realize that you’re doing the very thing that you said you were against?

Charles Roberts (23:04)
And I think it’s time for everybody to take a pause and say, number one, why do I think what I think? Number two, why does the other person think opposite? If you don’t ask those questions, then you’re not really interested in a meeting of the minds. You’re more interested in being right.

Andrea Schwartz (23:26)
One of the things that has come to light in this past last year, although this information has been readily available for people who have had an interest in going beyond the surface information provided to us in educational institutions and the mass media, is the fact that in the case of mass media, one of the things that we’ve learned because of Freedom of Information Act material, and the fact that it’s a lot more open discussion about this thing, is that going back 50, 70 years, there have been what are typically called the alphabet agencies of big government, have been involved in planting newspaper stories and making sure that a certain perspective on things is presented to the public. And it’s been done for reasons that are not always in the public’s best interest. I was astounded to know that when the Watergate scandal was exposed back in the 1970s, I think it was Woodward, the Woodward and Bernstein pair who exposed the story. This guy came from naval intelligence. He had no background whatsoever in newspaper journalism, but he just walks in and he’s handed this story. He’s the guy, along with this other fellow, who manipulated and massage the Watergate story to what people know about it today that was largely shaped by that perspective, when in fact, now it’s coming out.

Andrea Schwartz (24:56)
There’s a lot of stuff about that incident in particular that is has been largely unknown and definitely unreported, and it’s not at all what people were led to believe it was. And you can talk about the same thing with the Vietnam War, the Iraq War, all the things that have been happening. And let’s take 9/11. I’m not going to go down that path too much, but I just want to say, if people remember, right after 9/11, it went on for months and months and months, those planes flying into the World Trade Center over and over and over again. We were exposed to this. Why? How many times do you need to see before you get the idea of what happened. Now, here where I live, we had a horrible hurricane several months ago, Hurricane Helene, and we still see this now. Now, still, communities have not completely recovered. It was a devastating event. But the news media here just constantly show uprooted trees, and then then out there where you live, you’ve got fires. They love to do this thing because it shapes our opinions and our thoughts about the world around us.

Charles Roberts (25:59)
And so as As a result, what’s being played upon is a conflict of interest. We’ve talked about before, the Bible posits a harmony of interest, that in order for me to benefit, you don’t have to lose. But that’s not the current thing. I have seen people parading what has been promoted as the necessity, for example, for a voter ID, that if you’re going to vote, you should be able to say, This This is who I am and this is where I live. Now, some people think that’s wonderful. Other people think it’s awful. Yet, you and I remember, and most people today, if you wanted to go and buy alcohol, you had to show your ID. It used It would be that if you were going to use a credit card, you had to show your ID. Well, in order to make it a big deal, you have people now saying that poor people, and they will often say black people, can’t get an ID. Well, Charles, have you ever run into someone who was lamenting to you that they couldn’t get an ID? I never have.

Andrea Schwartz (27:10)
No, I haven’t either.

Charles Roberts (27:11)
Now, the next thing that’s being promoted is that married women will not be allowed to vote. When I hear this, I’m like, That’s crazy. Everybody will know it. But then people that I know are promoting the fact we’ve got to be against vote or ID because married women will not be able to vote. Well, I’ve been a married woman for almost 50 years, and I’ve never had an issue. So create an issue in such a way that when you don’t want something to be the way you don’t want it to be, you’re going to have to make up all sorts of things. And I think we all fall prey to knee-jerk reactions. So the good question to ask is, exactly why Why is it difficult to get ID? Or why will suddenly married women not be able to get identification? Instead of just labeling someone a liberal or a conservative or has this syndrome or whatever you want to say, if we actually treat people as image bearers of God, who’ve been given minds, who’ve been given senses, if we really do want to see that they become disciples, then our approach shouldn’t be, Hi, I’m smart.

Charles Roberts (28:38)
You’re stupid. Let’s talk. I don’t know about you, but that wouldn’t be a way in which I would receive an invitation for communication.

Andrea Schwartz (28:46)
No, that’s pretty much guaranteed to fall flat from the very beginning. Some of the things we were saying earlier about the way media manipulates or manages as our awareness or thinking about things. We had a recent discussion on this podcast about artificial intelligence, AI, and you really can see this there. I mean, I guess it’s no different than looking in one type of encyclopedia or a dictionary or whatever than another or website or other. But just out of curiosity, I did an AI research thing where I just typed in the name of R. J. Rushdoony, and two or three of these different AI platforms, of the more popular ones and more powerful ones. Anybody can do this free of charge. You can use these things. And it was amazing the vast difference in the statements and things that were said about who R. J. Rushdoony was. And that’s a typical example. If somebody who really doesn’t know, maybe they heard this man’s name, and you can plug in, Gavin Newsom, Donald Trump, whatever you want, they’ve got to make a decision. Do I go with that particular AI? Do I go with this one? Do I go with the New York Times or the The Chronicle or the Bee or whatever it is.

Andrea Schwartz (30:03)
And the average person is left at a disadvantage. And what we are talking about is the type of society and human interaction that can and will one day exist when God’s law word is the thing that informs everyone’s thinking, and they are motivated by God’s spirit to obey that law word because there is nothing better and because this is what God’s divine truth says. This is how you prosper. This is how you have justice. This is how you pursue truth and peace between people.

Charles Roberts (30:38)
Funny, you talk about AI and ChatGPT. I think it was a couple of years ago when it first came out, I have a grandson who is very much into computers and everything else. We were having a discussion, and he was trying to tell me that it was accurate, and I was saying, I don’t think so. So I asked him to put my name in. So he put my name in. I was attributed as the author for a whole series of books that I was familiar with, mind you, but I did not write. These books predated my conversion to Christianity. I said, I didn’t write those books. And my grandson looked at me and said, Are you sure? I said, I’m very sure. I’ve written books, but I haven’t written those books. And then he said, Well, it’s a new technology. It’s still being developed. I said, Okay, What do you see here? I am telling you, and even then, he doubted me because the result, it made me a very prolific author. I’ve written eight books, but I hadn’t written these big volumes on American history or things of that nature. So it goes back to, do I want to have knowledge?

Charles Roberts (31:53)
Do I want to have wisdom? Do I want to have understanding? Which the Bible puts a very high premium on. Or do I want to be able to just have a retort? Or, as most social media is, do I just want to do a monolog? I think social media posts often are monologs. And then the comment section is supposed to promote dialog, but it promotes rancor and people saying very nasty things that they would never say, hopefully, face to face. I think we got to go back to where I started. What What does the Bible say about opinions? There’s an expression, Opinions are like belly buttons, everyone has one. Okay? What do you think or where do you think the Bible plays Jesus’ opinion in terms of honoring God?

Andrea Schwartz (32:50)
Well, I haven’t done a concordance search for the word opinion. The passage, Come, let us reason together. But the whole point of that End of statement is, let’s realize together what God’s truth is and what he tells us we need to be thinking about things. I would challenge our listeners to think about it this way. Let’s say someone is transported from someplace unknown. They’ve never been on the Earth, and they all of a sudden materialize in the middle of, I don’t know, Zion National Park in Utah. And they look around, and the first question I think that any intelligent person would ask, if they never seen something like this, is, where did this come from? How did this get here? What is the origin of this? And depending on if they’re thinking in their own minds, how do I find this out? Well, the next move they make, intellectually and morally, is going to determine everything about how they view reality.

Charles Roberts (33:58)
That’s so true. That it really is true, because where do you go to get an answer? And do you always evaluate that source?

Andrea Schwartz (34:09)
Right. I mean, the operating assumption is, and I think this is the way most people think this is the way the government schools operate, the media operates, is, well, in order for us to know and understand anything, well, we start with science, we start with technology, we start with philosophy. In other words, we start with man’s mind. That’s the starting point. But the biblical perspective, as I said at the moment ago, we start with what God says first, and then we move from there. And we can certainly form opinions about what God’s word teaches us. Certainly, we see this in the Christian world and theological perspectives, the different takes on, even within the larger framework of Dr. Rastuni’s teachings. There are people who have one view, people have another. But that’s a little bit different than saying, okay, well, let’s consider what humanistic science says, and then we’ll take into account what the Bible says, or let’s take the Bible what it says, and then let’s think about humanistic science.

Charles Roberts (35:06)
Right. I’m still stuck on this. Does the Bible speak about opinions? I think the Bible, especially in the Book of Proverbs, talks about conclusions based on certain things. If we’re going to say, I have a conclusion about something, therefore this is my opinion, but an opinion that doesn’t get backed up by something real. A good example would be, take any number of history books. I said the crusades. We can use the crusades. What do you know about the crusades? Well, really, before you get into that examination for the answer is who wrote the book? Who exactly is giving this explanation? I think that’s why true education means examining a lot of different sources. Those who think that in, for example, the war between the States, that the North was wrong, okay, how did you come up with that conclusion? Somebody who thinks the South was right, how did you come up with that conclusion? But I don’t think most people are that patient today. I think they just want an answer. They want to have an opinion. So what’s your opinion on this? Well, I guess I have to have an opinion as opposed to, I don’t know enough about this to have an opinion.

Andrea Schwartz (36:29)
And I I think that’s been one of the downsides or unfortunate side effects of social media is that it gives people a platform to express uninformed opinions or maybe well of formed opinions. But especially in the former category, everyone becomes a walking authority on everything. And you see this in comments about various things, and it really leads to conflict and tension. And that people feel empowered because nobody can see them. You don’t really physically have to interact with the person you’re getting ready to insult by saying you’re stupid, it’s this way or that way. Then you have people who otherwise… I mean, let’s say, for example, you were having a conversation in a mall or in some public place with someone you know casually, and somebody who you don’t know simply walks by and having overheard part of what you said, they just walk up and say some smart, insulting thing to either one or both of you. Well, This is what happens on social media frequently. If you’re in a part of a group, a public group on Facebook or one of the social media platforms, I don’t know. Let’s say it’s dedicated to the subject of cooking, how to make good pasta, pasta meals.

Andrea Schwartz (37:48)
And people are commenting about that. You’ll have somebody will pose something that is totally unrelated to it. It’s just some wise crack. And see, these are the things that in normal human interaction interaction, it used to be normal, people just didn’t do that because they realized it would be insulting and they would be ostracized for having behaved that way to some extent.

Charles Roberts (38:10)
You even see it with interactions with people now. You could be talking to someone, somebody else comes in and starts talking and the person turns away and goes and listens to the other person, you’re like, What is this? Well, real life has now started to mimic these kinds of posts and comments, et cetera. But let me give you an of what I was talking about in terms of where opinions come from. A number of years ago, I was going to an event, and if I’m not mistaken, the event was of a social-political nature in terms of… Because COVID had just happened and there were restrictions, et cetera. I was standing in line between two women. Now, I happened to know who these women were, but I don’t think they knew who I was. One was the head of the Republican women’s organization locally, and another one was President of a Liberty Foundation. These two are talking. They’re talking about two people, one who was an ambassador from the US who was homosexual, and another one was a news commentator on conservative shows. Both of these men were homosexual. I was listening to them talk about how intelligent these men were, how right they were.

Charles Roberts (39:31)
They were turning around. They weren’t excluding me from the conversation, but I assumed that both these women were Christian because this event was held at a church. I said, Doesn’t it bother you that both their public lifestyles promote the fact that’s something that’s at war with God? Both of them were taken aback. One said, I just wish he wasn’t a homosexual because I’d certainly like to date him. All of a sudden, I was thinking, these are people who are spearheading organizations, conservative organizations. Let’s get on the right side of American history, blah, blah, blah. Their opinion was based on that both these men were objectively good-looking and objectively well-spoken, but it didn’t seem to bother either one of them. I mean, they thought it was like, it really would be better if he wasn’t. But it wasn’t enough to say, are my opinions being filtered through my own presuppositions? That if I have a grand scale of things, conservativism is much more important than down the way would be sexual orientation because I don’t really care. Well, the Bible tells us we should care about things and we don’t have our priorities in order, then we’re going to be a defensive society because we’re going to defend these ideas ideas, our opinions, that really shouldn’t be as high up as we make them.

Andrea Schwartz (41:05)
Many years ago, after Francis Schafer had written, How Should We Then Live, his son, Franky, made a video series based on that book, and one of the more interesting and arresting segments of the video series, and Schafer talked about this in the book, is the way modern media influence thinking. Well, when he wrote this back in the in the video adaptation of the book, he used a picture of some people who were having a demonstration with signs on sticks and things like that, like we see even today. And he showed how, depending on how it was photographed and filmed, you would be given one impression. And then, of course, the commentary that went along with it, that also influenced how you thought about these protesters or this demonstration. And the two were entirely different. And somebody who didn’t realize one way or the other could come away influenced to think, these are a bunch of bums, or these people are right. They’re right to get out there and protest. But it was all manipulated to bring about a certain opinion about things. So I think that we need to challenge our listeners and ourselves to be constantly aware that no information comes to us in mass media that is not managed to produce a certain way of thinking in a certain perspective.

Charles Roberts (42:31)
And that’s why a biblical world and life view will be your filter, your eyeglasses on how to interpret things. Now, there may be those who say, Well, I don’t consider the Bible authoritative. I think that’s a faulty way to live. Okay, they’re entitled to their opinion, but they don’t have anything similar to replace it with except their own determination. And anybody who’s going to be honest knows that none of know everything. And that’s the whole point of submitting to the Triune God, because the Triune God not only knows everything, he created everything, and things are going to be right or wrong depending on how they measure up to what he said. So going back to the idea of being a pacemaker means that when you encounter people, don’t assume that you have to show them how right you are. Maybe spend a little bit more time listening to what someone says. And if you really want to invest in that person, because not all relationships can be invested the same way, that as you find an area where you can say, Okay, we do agree on this. It’s not safe to walk out at night, or we can agree on this.

Charles Roberts (43:51)
There’s a lot of junk in our foods, or we can agree on this. There is a problem with our election system. Then work off what you both can agree upon, and then you get to insert, Well, this is what the Bible says. You don’t have to say, Now, I really want you to believe the Bible. Say it as a fact. If you believe that what the Bible says is what the Bible says, then you just share, This is what the Bible says. What that person does with it is not your responsibility. We’re to endeavor to communicate the truth, and as a result, if the Holy spirit is present in that person’s in his life than a disciple is made.

Andrea Schwartz (44:33)
Yes, and I think just as important is the fact that in Jesus’ statement, blessed are the peacemakers, he indicates that for those who follow that path, they have a special designation. They will be called God’s sons or the children of God. And children reflect their parents. And this is what we are supposed to do in our interaction with others. It’s not always easy, but if we are to truly reflect God’s law word, this is what our calling is. And now, it’ll be careful to say, he doesn’t say, blessed are those who appease others, those who enable others. There is a biblical perspective on what peace-making is to look like and what it is versus a humanistic view. But the whole purpose of it is to create dynamic, loving relationships between people who are covenant believers. So So that those outside the covenant will be envious and realize that they follow a lifestyle that is filled with misery and death. And that is not God’s plan for his people.

Charles Roberts (45:40)
Exactly. And I’m glad you pointed out it doesn’t mean blessed are the appeasers, because we never give up the fact that there is truth with a capital T. Jesus Christ calls himself the truth. I am the way. I am the truth. I am the life. But it doesn’t mean that in order to communicate that, you have to take out a machine gun and basically get everybody collapsed back, and now they’re going to listen to you. You have to believe that if you’re talking to someone who God has ordained as his elect before the foundations of the world, we get the privilege of being the agency by which the Holy spirit communicates to these folks externally, and then our prayer would be internally. So instead of looking at it that we’ve got to fight, which is what most of media is encouraging people to fight, stand up for. If you really look at the scripture the way it promotes itself both, Charles, and I know you know this, the victory is won. It’s not like if we do it right or we do it wrong, it’s going to change the outcome.

Andrea Schwartz (46:56)
That’s correct. And I think we should, in wrapping things up, challenge our listeners to take seriously what the Lord says about being pacemakers, and also seriously realize that with the best of intentions, we can find ourselves being manipulated to go against that teaching of God’s word, and find ourselves constantly parabelem, preparing for war.

Charles Roberts (47:23)
All right. Any reading suggestions for our listeners, Charles?

Andrea Schwartz (47:28)
Well, the passage I As I noted earlier, where Rushdoony was quoting this author, Unwin, is from the series Faith and Action, the multivolume series of the articles by Dr. Rushdoony from the Chalcedon Report. And whether we’re talking about that or anything else, that is an excellent set of books to have in your library and read them.

Charles Roberts (47:48)
I would add, and this is one that really was a pivotal book of Rushdoony’s Institute certainly was, but this comes a close second, and that’s REVOLT Against Maturity. It goes into the psychology that would be considered a biblical psychology as opposed to a humanistic psychology. That book really brings out the idea that the enemy of God wants people to be fighting, where that’s not God’s intent. The Bible recognizes there’s a war, but it recognizes the source of that war and also clearly promotes the victory. Out of the Question podcast at gmail. Com is how you reach us. Charles, talk to you next time.

Andrea Schwartz (48:40)
Okay. Thanks, Andrew. Thanks for listening to Out of the Question. For more information on this and other topics, please visit Chalcedon.edu.