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1 How AI is saving billions of years of human research time | Max Jaderberg 19:15
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Can AI compress the years long research time of a PhD into seconds? Research scientist Max Jaderberg explores how “AI analogs” simulate real-world lab work with staggering speed and scale, unlocking new insights on protein folding and drug discovery. Drawing on his experience working on Isomorphic Labs' and Google DeepMind's AlphaFold 3 — an AI model for predicting the structure of molecules — Jaderberg explains how this new technology frees up researchers' time and resources to better understand the real, messy world and tackle the next frontiers of science, medicine and more. Want to help shape TED's shows going forward? Fill out our survey ! For a chance to give your own TED Talk, fill out the Idea Search Application: ted.com/ideasearch . Interested in learning more about upcoming TED events? Follow these links: TEDNext: ted.com/futureyou TEDAI Vienna: ted.com/ai-vienna Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.…
337: Why Does God Command Us to Sing?
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346 episodes
337: Why Does God Command Us to Sing?
Out of the Question Podcast: Uncovering the Question Behind the Question
Manage episode 482203441 series 3050773
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Out of the Question Podcast: Uncovering the Question Behind the Question

1 346: How Shall We Address Today’s Generation Gap? 49:39
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1 345: Is Christian Zionism Rooted in the Bible? 48:53
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Out of the Question Podcast: Uncovering the Question Behind the Question

1 344: Can Jiu-Jitsu Help Men with Their Dominion Mandate? 44:47
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Out of the Question Podcast: Uncovering the Question Behind the Question

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

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

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

1 340: Is There a Blueprint for a Godly Society? 46:15
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Out of the Question Podcast: Uncovering the Question Behind the Question

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

1 338: Who Will Take the Next Step for Christian Reconstruction? 44:03
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Out of the Question Podcast: Uncovering the Question Behind the Question

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1 336: How Can You Use Your Talents to Further the Kingdom of God? 47:22
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Out of the Question Podcast: Uncovering the Question Behind the Question

This transcript was auto-generated. If you would like to submit edits, or volunteer to edit more transcripts for us, please reach out . Andrea Schwartz (00:02) 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 (00:21) Hi, this is Charles Roberts. Welcome to another out of the Question podcast. I’m joined by host Andrea Schwartz. Andrea, how are you today? Andrea Schwartz (00:29) Fine. Looking forward to our discussion. Charles Roberts (00:32) Today we’re going to talk about the sensational publicity and some of it, rightfully so, about the recent death of Pope Francis, who died a couple of days ago, as of when we were recording this. And it’s hard to avoid any information about this because it’s all over the news media. And I suppose it’s a pretty big deal when the Pope passes away and then we’re on the verge of electing another Pope, even if you aren’t Roman Catholic. However, it also brings up the issue about the scriptural basis for having something like the papacy. And just really how significant is it that the Bishop of Rome is considered the supreme head of the church? And some people would have us think that supreme head of all churches, whether we like it or know it or not. Certainly it is hard and maybe not wise to assume that the Roman Catholic Church, even today has no influence or is not to be taken into account, certainly has and does. So Andrea and I would like to maybe chat something a little bit about this. And both of us have a background in Roman Catholicism, me as a former convert and she as a cradle Catholic. Andrea Schwartz (01:46) Yes. Charles Roberts (01:47) So maybe I’ll start off by asking you, Andrea, from your earliest days, when you were raised Catholic, was the Pope a big deal or a big issue in your spiritual life? Andrea Schwartz (02:00) Well, you have to remember that I started as a child there. I was baptized Roman Catholic. And I think it’s first of all important at the outset to differentiate between Catholicism and Roman Catholicism. Charles Roberts (02:13) Yes. Andrea Schwartz (02:14) Because the word Catholic appears in the creeds, one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. So Catholic just meant universal, that it had. Like if I said this is a. I could say this is a Catholic opinion. I’m not talking necessarily about a Roman Catholic opinion. I’m talking about somewhat universal, that all agree upon this. And in the creeds, when it talks about catholicity, it’s basically saying this is something that we all agree on, that the scope of Christ’s kingdom doesn’t have any bounds. But as you said, I was raised Roman Catholic. I went to 13 years of Catholic parochial schools. And then even the word parochial is kind of interesting because it’s actually the opposite of Catholic parochial means very narrow. But within the context of Roman Catholicism, there was this emphasis that if you as parents were Roman Catholic, whether nominally or very devoutly, your children should be raised that way. And thus my brother and my sisters and I went to Catholic school. So your question was, what about the Pope? Well, from my point of view, the Pope was there. He was a given. And there were some people who were enamored by the Pope. Andrea Schwartz (03:39) So if the Pope came to New York, which is where I grew up, that was a big deal. But I can honestly say, other than there was this guy, the Pope I don’t believe in, you know, internally it had any special significance. And then, as I like to tell people, as I went through my high school years, the religion class oftentimes was a very comparative religion class, and we’d study Hinduism and, and, and Buddhism. But you come away from that kind of experience as to, well, everybody has a right to do whatever they want. And so when I left high school, I pretty much left going to church on Sundays because now nobody was forcing me to things like that. But interestingly enough, Charles, aside from hearing that Martin Luther was a very bad guy, because that was part of Catholic history, history, I had never heard of this guy named John Calvin. And so later on coming to Faith, in my, you know, late 20s, early 30s, I was like, who is John Calvin? Only to discover that much of Protestantism that is faithful to Scripture would find its root in Calvinism. Charles Roberts (04:55) Yeah. And I. I’ll say a few words about my own Catholic journey, if I can put it that way, maybe in a little bit. But I’m glad you brought up the distinction between Catholic, Roman Catholicism, because I think this is an area where there’s a lot of confusion and misunderstanding, even among Roman Catholics and especially among evangelical types. And let me just say that what I will share about this is not something that’s ginned up by all of us who are Reformed and Calvinistic or theonomic. I had the privilege as a student at Westminster Theological Seminary to take three and a half years of church history. And the professor I had at the time used a series of books called the History of Christian Doctrine by Yaroslav Pelikan. P E L I K N Yaroslav Pelikan was a universally recognized church historian authority. He started out as a scholar in the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod, and he later converted to the Orthodox Church. I had the privilege of hearing him lecture on one occasion. And this series is like four or five volumes on the history of Christian doctrine that starts, like, with A.D. 50, all the way into the medieval era is considered an unparalleled work, scholarship and history of the church. Charles Roberts (06:13) And if people will resort to resources like this, they will find the history of the Christian Church generally. And since we’re talking about it, Roman Catholicism specifically is very different than what’s portrayed in popular movies and films and the pop culture among different ethnic enclaves of Catholicism. And let me give you one example. And this is standard, I think, Christian history. You know, after the death of the apostles and the expansion of the Church in the Greek speaking world of the Roman Empire, there was no Roman Catholic Church. There was no Protestant Church either, for that matter, in terms of specific names. But you had flourishing churches in Rome, you had some in Alexandria, you had some in Damascus, you had others in Jerusalem. And so these churches and hundreds of others that were established through them developed and began to in common, read specific texts of the Bible. And so over a period of time, what we call the canon of Scripture was codified through church councils. But they were simply codifying the fact that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were the four gospels that were used in almost all the churches, and they were universally recognized as authoritative. Charles Roberts (07:33) There was no Roman and Catholic Church council that said these are the four gospels that you must use. Some people like to think that, but the better scholars who will tell you, even among the Roman Catholics, no, that’s not quite the way it developed. So there was a Catholic Church, as you pointed out, the Church universal, the faith believed among all Christians that flourished for hundreds and hundreds of years. And compressing a lot of information here for the sake of brevity, what most people think of today as the Roman Catholic Church really did not emerge until the era of the early medieval time. And one thing you can find, for example, concerning their doctrine of the Eucharist, the real presence of Christ in the bread and wine, that doctrine, also called transubstantiation, was never universally defined by what would be the Roman Catholic Church until about the 8th or 9th century. So that’s a lot of centuries leading up to that point where there were differing views among the various churches about what exactly is taking place in communion. And even today, the Orthodox Church defines it rather differently than the Roman Catholic Church. So all of that to say that the development of the papacy, with the Bishop of Rome being the supreme bishop over all of the others, is something else that developed over time. Charles Roberts (09:00) So the idea that this one human fallible individual, regardless of his personal piety or lack thereof, could speak universally for the entire Church, it was simply unthinkable to earliest Christians, and what they would have agreed with is that what Scripture teaches and what has come to be believed among all the churches that follow Scripture, this is what speaks for the church and for Christians. Andrea Schwartz (09:26) And let’s remember that men like Martin Luther and John Calvin and a number of the other reformers would have considered themselves and did consider themselves part of this Christian church. Their efforts were to take out that which was not scriptural and reestablish the authority of Scripture. So you could say, well, there had to be a Catholic Church because there was a church. But I’m not sure that at the time everybody called it the Catholic Church. And it’s dawned on me that fallen man has a need and a desire for centralization, not unlike when the Hebrew people told Samuel, everybody else has a king. Why can’t we have a king? Well, they had a king, but there was no internal confidence that that gave them an advantage. Of course it does. If God is your king and you’re faithful to that king, as Psalm 2 tells us, no other king has a chance. But I think the concentration of power, putting everything on the hands of one guy is a trait that says we need to have a professional class of clergy. That means that the laity doesn’t really have to study and know all that much, because we already have these people who are doing it for us. Charles Roberts (10:54) Well, I think that we can see in the New Testament not only something that is contrary to the way the Roman Catholic Church developed and the Orthodox Church, but even some Protestant churches where you do have a structure within the individual churches. And you do find, for example, in the Book of Acts, churches coming together to make some sort of authoritative pronouncement about what is accepted and what isn’t, what is a matter for discipline or what is not. And Paul goes to the Jerusalem Church and the Council of Churches there, maybe that’s too, let’s say small c council of churches to get an opinion and a ruling about Gentiles coming into the church, for example, and whether they should be circumcised or eat pagan food, sacrificed to pagan idols. Now, the way that developed over time in what would become the Roman Catholic Church is that you had one central church with a pastor who was designated a bishop. Now, the word episcopoi, the Greek term, that’s where we get the term episcopal, which means bishop, but also the term presbuteros, presbyter, which generally is translated elder. They generally are used sort of interchangeably in the New Testament. Charles Roberts (12:12) But the way things developed over Time in Roman Catholicism, based on the culture in which it grew up, was that the man who was the bishop of Rome, which meant he was the pastor over all the churches in Rome, and they were largely house churches for the most part. In the early days, you know, he became a centralized figure, the sort of thing you were referring to. So it eventually got to the point where the individual pastors of those smaller congregations, they were accountable to him, and he had the absolute authority, small a absolute authority over the clergy and over the congregations. Now, what’s curious about that is that in the more decentralized form that we see in the New Testament, you have the same thing operating. If you are a member of a church, whether it’s a denominational church or not, and you have a council of elders, or in some cases they call them deacons. This is some sort of an authority structure in the church where decisions are made and things are accomplished, and the pastor will generally sit on that council. In my church, we call it the session S E S S I O N. Charles Roberts (13:17) And the pastor’s function is different from the elders, but they all serve the same sort of purpose in administrating or administering the work of the church of Jesus Christ. So the elder board structure, in a smaller context is the diocesan structure of the Roman Catholic Church and other Episcopal churches, which has been blown up in a larger proportion. So if you shrunk it down, you would say the pastor of the church would be equal to the bishop and the elders would be equal to the priests. And of course, in reformed churches, we don’t offer sacrifices on an altar. Christ tells us in his word, in the Book of Hebrews in particular, that his sacrifice is once and forever, and it doesn’t need to keep going on and on and on. So this is another way in which whatever the fanfare may be about the death of any particular pope, and whatever its significance may or may not be, the New Testament, the Bible, the whole word of God also stands over and against some of these things and its distortions, either on the Protestant side or on the Roman Catholic side. Andrea Schwartz (14:27) And so I like the way you said administer, right in that word, administer, there’s the word minister. And Jesus said, those who be great among you will be the servants. And so somebody has to be the final say on some things. I recently got a question from somebody who said, I’m part of a homeowner’s association. For those who don’t know what that is, you have a number of people who buy into a certain portion of a development or Something and they have a homeowners association. And this allows for certain procedures or policies. So for example, I know people who their homeowners association says that they will hire the person who cuts the grass in front of everybody’s house. The idea of that is so that everything looks somewhat uniform and they want to keep up a certain level of care. What you do in the backyard is what you do in the backyard, but that’s that. Now we would never look at that and say that’s, you know, tenant of scripture. It’s a policy that if you join this group, this is what you agree to. And then you have people who head the homeowners association who basically enforce the rules. Andrea Schwartz (15:47) So the administrative functions of the elders and the bishop were to keep order. And since they’re God ordained positions, they should be looked at as appropriate because the Bible speaks to them. However, I don’t read any place in Scripture that they become the final say on what the Bible says, that the Bible is the final say on what the Bible says. And so I think the whole idea of pastors and elders have elevated to a point that says in some places will tell you what to think and what’s correct to think. And I’m not sure that the scripture ever points to that. Charles Roberts (16:31) Yeah, I think that depending on the context of the church and getting back to the Roman Catholic Church for a second, I mean, one of the challenges that we face in discussing the Roman Catholic Church, what it believes and teaches as an institution, it’s been around for over 1,000 years. And so I like to say to people, when you have an institution been around that long, just about anything you say about it can be correct. The one unique thing that the Roman Catholic Church has done, and I suppose to some extent the Eastern Orthodox Church, is they have managed to keep an organizational unity. So everything’s under one big umbrella. And although some among them may make it sound like there’s this total absolute unity, you know, the Roman Catholic Church is not like you crazy Protestants and evangelicals, where you got all these people starting their churches and all this sort of thing. Well, the fact is they do have that kind of diversity, but they’ve managed to keep it all under one umbrella. And you’ll find extreme positions within the larger big tent of Roman Catholicism from one end of the political, social and theological spectrum to the other. Charles Roberts (17:45) And I would invite anyone who would like an example of that from an official standpoint. You can get the catechism of the Catholic Church that I think was produced in the 1980s during the administration or papacy of Pope John Paul II. And it came, I think, more or less directly or indirectly out of the Second Vatican Council. The old Baltimore Catechism is what a lot of cradle Catholics of a certain age grew up learning. This catechism of the Catholic Church that was published 30, 40 years ago, I think was meant to revise and replace it. And if you go to that catechism and look up the term atheists or even Muslims, you will find that the Roman Catholic Church officially teaches that atheists may go to heaven, that people of other religions can become saved, whether or not they’ve ever believed on Christ or not. So it really. And then you’ll find some Roman Catholics who would shriek at that idea and say, well, this is an example of how our church has gone adrift and they blame it on this thing or that thing. So it’s simply not true that evangelicals and reformed people are off on all kinds of wild tangents, starting churches left to right and creating all kinds of havoc. Charles Roberts (19:00) It’s just that the Catholic Church has the similar thing. They’ve just managed to keep it under one big umbrella. Andrea Schwartz (19:05) And I’m glad you brought up the Second Vatican Council, because it brought to mind. So I grow up in the 60s, and one of the results of the council was to say that the Mass should be in English or in the native language rather than Latin. My early years, I had no idea what was going on. I didn’t speak Latin or understand it. And yes, they eventually have you learn it, but the songs were in Latin. And I remember my mother taking our missals, which would be the books that you, you know, bring with you to church. And she typed up all the English responses and put them over the Latin responses. And it was a big to do. And then they had to have songs that were in English because we didn’t have songs prior to that in English. We often would have the choir in the back and it would, you know, sing songs in Latin and you’d sing along as a kid kind of imitating things, but you didn’t know. And so it was a big deal to suddenly have something that you could go to church with and understand. But the idea was, if you were going to change tradition, what you were doing was establishing a new tradition. Andrea Schwartz (20:21) And other than the idea of we get our marching orders from Scripture, it ended up being we get our marching orders from the. This centralized place, whether it’s the diocese, the. The papacy in general. Charles Roberts (20:35) I remember growing up in my neighborhood in Columbia, South Carolina. I like to say that back then, in the late 50s, early 60s, you could probably have fit all the Roman Catholics in the entire state, you know, into one large room. There weren’t that many, but there were a few in the neighborhood where I grew up. And later on, when I converted to Catholicism in the the early 1970s, some of those people were still living in the neighborhood where I grew up. And they didn’t seem terribly excited about me having converted to their church. And I found out that one of the reason was not so much me personally, but they themselves had quit going to Mass. And it all was related to what you were just describing. And this has been one of the major fallouts in the Catholic Church. And we see this division even today. I mean, for hundreds and hundreds of years, you had millions of Roman Catholics whose faith was defined and shaped and their worshiping piety was shaped by the old Latin Mass. And that was a priest largely, who has back to the congregation throughout most of the Mass, chanting and speaking in a language that most people didn’t understand. Charles Roberts (21:45) And by the way, for the record, in the medieval era, there were even priests that didn’t understand Latin. They had memorized the words, but they had no idea what a lot of it meant. They were illiterate in some cases. But at any rate, when the Vatican Council came in and changed all of this, it frankly destroyed the faith of many, many people. And they not only changed all of this, and certainly it’s a good thing to be able to understand what your worship service is saying and what’s going on, but there wasn’t a lot of groundwork laid. And they not only did that, but the sort of visual things that went along with that in Roman Catholicism, the stations of the cross, the shrines to Mary and Peter, the incense, the incensing the altar, the tabernacle with the candle burning in many parishes, these things just simply disappeared. And so it was just a blow to the stomach of a lot of Catholics who just said, you know, forget this, I’m going to go to the Methodist church down the street. And I don’t think that the Catholic Church handled it very well in that regard. Charles Roberts (22:48) And so even today there are many Catholics, I think Roman Catholics, who believe that the Second Vatican Council was some sort of Masonic plot and they go to unauthorized traditional Latin Masses. And it’s a growing number of people who, they call themselves trad Catholics, traditional Catholics. Andrea Schwartz (23:07) You’ll even see signs that say traditional Mass at 8 o’clock in the morning or 5:30 in the afternoon. And modern or things like that. What’s interesting when you talked about how when the ruling or the consensus came down that we were going to allow people to understand things. You go back in history, and a lot of the early martyrs in the Reformation era were basically put to death because they translated the Bible into people’s languages so they could understand it. And the established church at the time didn’t like that. And a lot of these people, if it was found out, for example, that the Lord’s Prayer had been translated into someone’s native language, that was terrible. And these were grounds for inquisition and all that sort of stuff. Charles Roberts (23:59) Yeah. I guess for whatever reason, the people who were making those kind of rulings and putting people in the flames and burning them to death for translating the Bible into English or whatever it may be, they somehow either ignored or didn’t know anything about the Eastern Orthodox Church, which for over a thousand years had had everything in the worship service in the language of the people. You know, Greek, Russian, Slavic, Aramaic, Arabic. All of these were native languages of people. And they worshiped using their native language every Sunday. And I remember when I was having a conversation with a Greek Orthodox priest many years ago, the Catholic parish that I belonged to at that time, the then Pope, John Paul ii, had given permission for the parishes in some diocese, if the bishop thought it was good to have the old traditional Latin Mass, you know, on some sort of rotating basis, not necessarily every Sunday, but this particular parish, they decided there were enough traditional Catholics going there that they wanted this done. This is in the 1980s, so probably for the first time in 30 or 40 years, the traditional Mass was said at this parish, and there must have been 500 people there, and they weren’t all Roman Catholic. Charles Roberts (25:11) And the Greek Orthodox priest, he came to it, and I was chatting with him later, and he said, I’ll never forget when the Vatican Council pretty much decreed that everything would now be in English. He said, I realized that was going to be the end of the unity in the Catholic Church, because the Latin commonality is what held everything together. But it’s worth asking the question and thinking about this. Jesus did not speak Latin. The early apostles didn’t speak Latin. They may have understood a few words because the Romans occupied their area, but they were native Aramaic speakers. They probably understood some Greek and some Hebrew, of course. So where did this whole Latin come from? Well, it came from the Roman Empire, which was the dominant language of official Rome. And I bring this up because this is another example of a cultural influence that really has no basis in Scripture. And I think largely the structure that we were talking about earlier, where things get a little bit distorted, that too came from that cultural context. And we can extend this right on into the worship practices. I mean, there were an entire pantheon of gods and lesser deities among the Romans and the Greeks, and they had their special days and their special feasts. Charles Roberts (26:22) And a lot of that was just simply with in air quotes, baptized by the Catholic Church of the time. And the pagans were told, well, you’re no longer going to offer sacrifices to Zeus and Hercules and whatever you’ll now offer them for the saint, so and so and memory of the Blessed Mother and this sort of thing. So all of that was just simply brought over into, with a Christian veneer over the top of it. And that included also the structure of the church where you had one supreme pontiff, supreme head, which I think that was the title that the Caesars assumed as well. Pontifex Maximus, the supreme high priest of the. The Roman religion. Andrea Schwartz (27:03) And see, a lot of times people grow up into something. I was making a comment yesterday. Why was I a Catholic? Well, I was born into a Catholic family. Why is someone a Mormon? They’re born into a Mormon family. Why is somebody Muslim? They’re born into a Muslim family. That doesn’t make everything equal and everything acceptable to God. The bottom line has to be the scripture. But when you talk about the pomp and circumstance and you still see it today in some churches, Anglican churches, Episcopal churches. I remember growing up, every May, we’re coming up to May. In our grammar school, we had something called the May Procession. And we all got into our. I wouldn’t call them costumes, but the same outfits that we had gotten into for our first communion or our confirmation. And we would parade around the streets and there would be an image of Mary and we would be singing praises to Mary. I didn’t particularly like it, but it wasn’t because I had religious objections. Usually it was hot and you had to wear these nylon dresses and it was like, not a. A pleasant experience, but it’s what everybody did. Andrea Schwartz (28:13) And so you would come up with the conclusion, not that I don’t like it in principle, I just don’t like it in practice, but looking back on it now and, and understanding what Jesus’s mother, Mary would think now in that she’s, you know, she just died and she’s among the saints that live, that this would be an anathema to her in terms of people worshiping her. And so the whole idea of what you’re used to, you do it. Your behavior is there, but you don’t necessarily understand why. So when I left in my mind the idea that Christianity wasn’t worth it, I didn’t investigate anything else because, you know, I had been taught that the rest of them were just protesters, Protestants, so don’t pay any attention which God ordained it this way. But I got involved in things that were just as religious, but they didn’t have the sense of that kind of. Or Christian religion. Charles Roberts (29:12) One of the things that we’re sort of dealing with in this discussion is the replacement of biblical belief, biblical doctrine, the faith and practice of the Church of Jesus Christ that arises from belief in what Scripture teaches. And that means the older and newer Testaments versus the influx of Greek philosophical and pagan categories that modified and changed many of these things. I’ve even heard some Roman Catholic. I know, one Roman Catholic scholar in particular, who basically said that it was God’s ordained purpose to create a Christian church that included the philosophy of Aristotle and that somehow Greek philosophy was a creation of God to be used by the Christian church. And I’ve always found that kind of a striking admission. And I don’t know how many Roman Catholics actually think that way about it, but he certainly did. And he was, I think, a bona fide scholar. But I think that as we, you know, discuss this issue of the death of Pope Francis, I remember recently, like the past day or two, hearing somebody on one of the major news broadcasts saying, it doesn’t matter if you’re a Roman Catholic or not. The death of a Pope and the election of a new one has tremendous significance and implications for everyone. Charles Roberts (30:42) So I’m wondering, Andrea, do you agree with that statement? And if so, why or why not? Andrea Schwartz (30:47) You already know the answer to that. Charles Roberts (30:49) Question, but pretend I don’t. Andrea Schwartz (30:51) I’ll pretend you don’t. Again, it’s this idea. If Jesus Christ is not King of Kings and Lord of Lords, then you’re going to need somebody else to hold that position. And the whole idea that when the Pope speaks, you know, he speaks with the full authority of God. Now, what I find very interesting is you’ll see a lot of people’s comments. I hope the next Pope keeps with the progressive nature of Pope Francis. Other people say, I hope the next Pope goes a little bit more conservative and will adhere more to what we’re used to. In other words, if it depends on the man, well, then we’ve sort of laid aside the man, the fully man, fully God person of Jesus Christ, and that somehow or other we need representation on Earth because obviously Jesus Ascended, sitting at the right hand of the Father just isn’t enough. In other words, the Holy Spirit just isn’t enough. And so you’ll get Catholics in America, especially because I still am in touch with people I knew when I was younger and I went to school with. They’ll consider themselves, quote, unquote, good Catholics and still think abortion is appropriate, still think you shouldn’t speak out against people who are lesbian, homosexual, transgender, in some cases are against the killing of preborn children, but not in all cases. Andrea Schwartz (32:26) And in other cases, they’re against the killing of preborn children, but they think the death penalty, which again is ordained by scripture for certain offenses, is wrong. So this apparency of everybody thinks the same, oh, you’re Catholic. I, I think that’s almost meaningless now. Like, oh yeah, well, you wouldn’t want to date that person. He’s Catholic. Or oh yeah, that person’s a Catholic, as if you know everything about him. Well, you and I both know that there are many antinomian Christians who call themselves Protestant or pro, you know, part of Protestant churches, and they have equal error in terms of what the Bible says and what their marching orders are. Charles Roberts (33:09) Yeah, and what you just described is an example of what I was talking about earlier, where you have this institutional unity, but a significant diversity of opinion and belief, even if it contradicts official, in this case, Roman Catholic doctrine. But I think that one thing that’s worth considering, again, going back to the small C idea of being a Catholic, is the fact that when we do study the history of the Christian church, we do find in the New Testament and the development of the churches in the earliest history, a following of the New Testament pattern of having pastors, elders and deacons and congregations and mission work and the observance of the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper. And what’s even more interesting is that when you trace, and I’m saying when you. I’m referring to the scholarship of people who have looked into this sort of thing. When you trace the development of worship in the Christian church, you find a certain framework almost from the very beginning that has endured in sometimes corrupted form, as in the case of the Roman Catholic Church or the Eastern Orthodox Church on one end of the spectrum. Charles Roberts (34:22) And then it’s been totally obliterated, as it is in many evangelical mega type churches today, where there’s really no worship to speak of. They call it that, but it doesn’t bear any resemblance whatsoever to the earliest worship of the early church. But going right from the very Beginning of the Church. Up until the modern era, the basic structure of worship was a call to worship, a confession of sin, reading of Scripture, a singing of hymns or psalms, the receiving of the Lord’s Supper, a sermon, a teaching on the Scripture and a benediction and a dismissal. And in one form or another, those things have existed from the very beginning. Now the church I pastor and the denomination that I’m in, and many other Protestant churches and Reformed churches, we regularly confess the Nicene Creed, the Apostles Creed, we even use the Chalcedonian Creed and an Athanasians Creed. Athanasian Creed. Those are not easy to repeat in a worship service. But you know, those are as much a part of our heritage as true Catholic Christians as they are anybody who claims to be Roman Catholic. It’s just a point that the Protestant reformers themselves. You’ve mentioned John Calvin several times. Charles Roberts (35:35) I challenge anyone to get hold of a good English translation of the Institutes of the Christian Religion that you know Calvin’s magisterial work. And you will see footnote after footnote where he refers to the teachings and the writings of the early church fathers, St. Augustine and many others who are sometimes claimed to be the exclusive property of the Roman Catholic Church when they’re nothing at all of the sort. They are the heritage of all true Bible believing Christians. Andrea Schwartz (36:06) So Jesus said, you’ll know they’re Christians by the way they love one another. He also said, said, love me, keep my commandments, he who does the will of my Father. And so there weren’t denominations then, although I imagine just people being people. The Laodiceans might not have liked, the Ephesians who might not have liked, the Galatians who might not have liked, you know, whatever. We don’t have to assume that the early church had no sin. Obviously all have sinned except Christ himself. So the whole idea of acknowledging yourself as a sinner and understanding the principle of Scripture that says you can’t save yourself and no one can save you other than the Holy Spirit is how we should view brothers and sisters in the faith. He didn’t say, you’ll know they’re Christians by their denominations and then listed out all the good ones and all the bad ones. And so those lines of opposition, I’m not saying there aren’t real differences between stated beliefs, but if you’re going to deal with people one on one, and one of the things you see in the early church, it was very local, it wasn’t administered miles and miles and miles away, there might be input, there might be questions like, how do we deal with this? Andrea Schwartz (37:25) But ultimately it involved people interacting with each other, helping and supporting each other. And so I remember one of the criticisms that some of your more established reform people would say against RJ Rushdoony is that he’s just too easy on the Catholics. He’s just too easy on the Catholics. And one person wouldn’t even write a foreword to one of his books that we ended up Publishing after Dr. Rushdoony passed away because he was just too easy on the Catholics. Well, Rushdoony’s theology said, those who are in the family of God are the elective God. And. And this has been established before the foundations of the world and judge them the way we’re supposed to judge in terms of righteous judgments, in terms of how they line up with Scripture. But I even had a conversation with a man on Easter who said, oh, the Catholics, you know, I just. And he just saying Catholic was enough to dismiss someone. And I looked at him and I said, there are true believers in the Catholic Church. And. And if you say they’re not because they’re in the Catholic Church, then you must think that God’s election has to do with someone passing a theology test, as opposed to actually love the Lord, acknowledge their sin, and live with the prompting and obedience to the Holy Spirit. Andrea Schwartz (38:48) So I think we’ve gotten into these factions and. And I think in a lot of ways, Charles, it’s sort of like off the point. Charles Roberts (38:54) Yeah, I used to say that the average evangelical Christian’s understanding of church history went something like this. You had the Jesus and the apostles and the Apostle Paul, and then for maybe over a thousand years, you had not really much of anything. And then you had this guy Martin Luther, and then you had Billy Graham. And that’s their understanding of church history. The fact is, the Protestant Reformation took place in the 1500s. Prior to that time, there was nothing. There was no Protestant Church, there was the Roman Catholic Church. There were heretical sects and groups. It was the Orthodox Church. And so you’ve either got to say that there never were any Christians after the Apostle Paul died until Billy Graham came on the scene, or Martin Luther or Calvin or whoever you say, or you’ve got to account for the fact that the Lord moved through the things that existed at the time and all of their faulty nature to accomplish his will and save his elect people. So, yes, the Lord doesn’t have to go by what we think he should be doing and tell him what to do. On the other hand, he has revealed his perfect, infallible Word in Holy Scripture, and Holy Scripture must be interpreted and understood. Charles Roberts (40:10) And one of the great blessings of the Protestant Reformation is that we have not only the Bible in our own language, but we can read it and understand it for ourselves. But as R.C. sproul once commented, along with that is the responsibility to read it and understand it correctly. And I think this is where the creeds and the confessions of the Church can be a great help. Andrea Schwartz (40:31) And there has to be a basic humility that comes along with if God has opened your eyes to see that certain things are true and other things are not, how you communicate those things is important. And I wouldn’t say how you do it is just as important as the truth itself, but it’s a close second. Because like I said, most people do believe because that’s what they have done and they have believed. So if you’re going to help someone come to an understanding of something, their presuppositions have to change, their ideas have to be altered enough to even understand what you’re saying. And then I believe we’ve done our job and the Holy Spirit does the rest. And I think that’s an important thing to keep in mind. Charles Roberts (41:20) Well, I totally agree, and I will say this much autobiographically, you mentioned this earlier about, you know, you’re being raised a Catholic. Well, I was raised in the Methodist Church. And at some point in my teenage years, it occurred to me that the only reason I was a Methodist is because I was born into a family that that’s where I was baptized in that church and was confirmed in that church. And that to me didn’t seem like an altogether good reason. And so I started exploring and I knew a number of Roman Catholic kids who had left parochial schools to come into the public schools. And that was the conduit for me joining the Roman Catholic Church. But what I found later was that the church I thought I was joining really did not exist. I mean, obviously the parish did and the structure was there. But I think a lot of people, they get a romanticized view of Roman Catholicism that’s based on Hollywood movies like the Shoes of the Fisherman or Becket or Quo Vadis. And, you know, they get all starry eyed with that and think, this is, you know, this is the church I’ve been. Charles Roberts (42:27) This is the church of all ages. But the reality is rather different. And I think maybe to sum all of this up, the death of Pope Francis is an example of that. Where you had a papacy and a pope who espoused on one side certain traditional Catholic doctrines. And on the other, he apparently said it was okay for priests to bless so called same sex marriages. He encouraged any and everybody to get the COVID vaccine, even to the point where there were many Catholics who wanted to take a religious exception where they was mandated. But because of this Pope’s pronouncements, they were in a bind. You know, they said, well, you want to take an exception to getting this vaccine, but your Pope has said you should get it. So he was a real mixed bag, and many of these men who have been in that position have been that way. So I’m certainly not happy that the man died. But on the other hand, I think we should recognize that human beings of all sorts come and go, but the word of God endures forever as we read in the book of Isaiah. Andrea Schwartz (43:32) Okay, so I’m going to share an anecdote and I sort of did this to you as we were doing some preliminary discussions. But back in 1986, 87, there was a movie that came out called Saving Grace. Now, how did I find out about this movie? Quite accidentally, for those of you who remember Blockbuster, when Blockbuster would have sales, they would oftentimes put their VHS tapes at a discount price. And so it was not unusual for my husband and me and sometimes the kids to go in and buy up titles for a dollar. And this looks like a good thing. Anyway, so we watch this movie, Saving Grace, and the premise is that a man is elected Pope. And it starts off seeing how they do their election process. He doesn’t really look like he. He’s very uncomfortable with it, but he says, you know, I accept in the name of the Lord. And then you get to see how the Pope lives and all the pomp and circumstance. And ultimately what happens is he feels very out of touch. When he became a priest, he became a priest because he enjoyed working with people, helping people, administering God’s love through his acts of service. Andrea Schwartz (44:52) And so he’s going through a crisis. Like, I’m just like this figurehead. What does it matter? Anyway, as the story goes, one day he’s out gardening in the Vatican and a piece of paper starts to blow away. And he tries to go get it. And he opens the door and he gets there, but the door closes and now he’s locked out of the Vatican property. And he sort of enjoys it because he’s going around the. I guess the Italian soccer team had just won the World cup, and he’s out among people, and he really likes the freedom of it. Anyway, previously there had been a young girl who had come to the Vatican to say, our village doesn’t have a priest. And so he uses this as an opportunity to go to that village, and he sees a devastated people who are hopeless, who are just basically, they have no hope. Anyway, so we watched the movie and we liked it, and I went and brought it up, and I sat down with Dr. Rushdoony, and we watched it together. I cannot tell you how. I mean, I never. I’d never really gone to the movies with Rush, so I can’t really say how he normally reacted, but as the story progresses, he was, like, clapping his hands, going, this is Christian reconstruction. Andrea Schwartz (46:09) This is Christian reconstruction. And I would encourage people, you can watch the movie for free on YouTube. It used to not be available on a service, but I rewatched it yesterday on YouTube so you can see it. But it had nothing to do with Catholicism. Roman Catholicism is Christian reconstruction. It’s what a believer does in terms of putting faith into action. And I think you’ll end up smiling. And for those who don’t know a lot about Roman Catholicism, you’ll get a dose of it, because you’ll see at the beginning of the film what the whole pomp and circumstance looks like. And it ends with him giving an Easter address to the crowd because he’s back now being the Pope. And of course, we just had the Pope that died on Monday give his papal address. So I think it’s a timely thing to watch. Charles Roberts (47:00) But. Andrea Schwartz (47:00) But the important part is, what is Christian reconstruction? It’s building the kingdom. And you actually see this depicted in the movie, not just building, but how you deal with the enemies of God in the process of them trying to destroy your work. So I highly recommend the movie. It’s really. It remains one of my favorites ever. And maybe that was because I got a chance to watch it with Rush, but he then asked me at the time, can you buy copies of this? And I think to get a copy of VHS cost like 20 to $50. I don’t remember at the time, but I sent him a couple, and he passed it around to the staff. He said, they need to see this. So I think that we do need to separate sometimes form from content, that the most important aspect of our faith is content. And sometimes it’s going to come in different forms. And I think especially you, Charles, who, in your journey, I think, did the smorgasbord of trying almost everything to. In your search for truth, but that you’re going to find some aspects of truth along the way. But of course, Jesus is the capital t Truth. Charles Roberts (48:11) Yeah. And I did see the movie at your recommendation, and I did see it on YouTube. And you know, what I took away from it, apart from the things that you’ve already mentioned, is that you have here an individual, regardless of who he is, who is attempting to either consciously or unconsciously live out the teachings of Jesus, that by this they will know you’re my disciple if you have love for one another. Well, what does that look like? It’s not just having, you know, warm, fuzzy feelings about somebody. It means putting your shoulder to the wheel and getting to work to help people who need help. In this case, it was, like you said, a village that they needed water and a few other, you know, essentials. So, yeah, I can see why Dr. Rashtuni was so excited about it from that standpoint. And yeah, if we’re going to follow Jesus teachings, then that looks like something. It’s not. Just something that feels a certain way. Andrea Schwartz (48:58) And when you are obedient to scripture, guess who will recognize it? The people God has called will gravitate towards what you’re doing and your endeavor. And the people who hate God will also notice you. And I think that was very clear depicted in the movie. In terms of movies, let me say I also watched recently the latest movie on bishops and cardinals and the papacy called Conclave, and I don’t recommend it because it’s pretty obvious that the movie has a point. I. I think maybe they knew that this pope was either ill or something like that. But within it you get to see even the various factions within this homogenous group, which isn’t all that homogenous, those who want to promulgate sexual preferences and things of that nature. So I Saving Grace is a much better movie to watch, but you can see on the flip side how it’s divorced from serving people. And it’s much more in the movie, the more recent one, on pushing an agenda. And it, if you, you know, make it through the movie, it’s not God’s agenda. Charles Roberts (50:13) Well, Andrea, I think we’ve plumb the depths of these issues. And again, I mean, to some extent it is a big occasion when a pope dies and a new one is being elected, if for no other reason. It’s all over the news and that kind of thing. But I hope our listeners have gained something from this discussion. And I think you’ll agree we would love to hear from folks who may want to comment or make suggestions for other topics. Would you share the email address they can use for that? Andrea Schwartz (50:41) OutofthequestionPodcast@gmail.com. that’s how you reach us. And as far as the book that a particular person did not want to write an introduction for, it’s called the Cure of Souls, and it’s about this is by Rushdoony, and it’s about confession and what it actually means. And I think that’s a very useful understanding of confession, the faith and the need for confession, and divorce it from the standard idea of the Catholic confessional and things of that nature. But it’s a very potent book and it really talks about the basis of our faith. So I would recommend that one. Charles Roberts (51:25) And I think we’re in the midst of a spring sale or something like that, the Chalcedon.edu website, so it’s a good time for people to avail themselves of that. Very excellent title. Thank you for mentioning the title, because I was going to ask you what that was. Andrea Schwartz (51:38) Yes, very good. All right, folks, thanks for joining us and we’ll talk with you next time. Thanks for listening to out of the Question. For more information on this and other topics, please visit Chalcedon.edu…
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Out of the Question Podcast: Uncovering the Question Behind the Question

1 334: Are You a Peacemaker or Just Picking Sides? 48:53
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This transcript was auto-generated. If you would like to submit edits, or volunteer to edit more transcripts for us, please reach out . 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.…
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Out of the Question Podcast: Uncovering the Question Behind the Question

This transcript was auto-generated. If you would like to submit edits, or volunteer to edit more transcripts for us, please reach out . Charles Roberts (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. Andrea Schwartz (00:19) Thanks for tuning in to this episode of the Out of the Question podcast. Theology and theological doctrines are not things reserved for intellectuals or professional clergymen. For the laity not to understand from the bottom up the principles of the Christian biblical faith leaves them susceptible to humanism and all its counterfeits. In fact, the very counterfeits of humanism are distortions of genuine biblical truths and have resulted in those who profess Christ to often become delinquent confessing him. In other words, one can say he believes certain things, but his actions betray his words. Nowadays, Christians are very eager to share the gospel with their unbelieving family and friends. But what they share often misses the objective realities of mankind’s condition. Succinctly stated, God created Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply and take dominion over the earth according to his law. Eden was a pilot project, if you will, where they would gain experience in faithful work, which would then extend to the entire earth. When they sinned, they lost the privilege given them without losing God’s demands on their lives. Sin was now central to their thoughts, words, and deeds, and it was imputed or transferred, if you would, to all their posterity. Andrea Schwartz (02:01) Now, what I have just done is state facts. There is never any reason for Christians to debate these facts as they have been clearly revealed in scripture, which is inerrant and infallible. Thus, the first thing that needs to be communicated to those whom believers wish to reach is the fact of this imputation of sin, the bad news, if you will. But following this information should be that God became man in the person of Jesus Christ for the express purpose of receiving the punishment due Adam and his descendants. Because unlike him, none were sinless or spotless, and thus could not pay the debt. Thus, Adam’s sin was imputed to Jesus Christ. Doctrinally, we call this the Atonement. Jesus’s resurrection overcame sin and death, and his righteousness, which he always possessed, is now imputed to his elect, who stand justified before God and are adopted into the family of God. Jesus removes our sin and transmits or imputes his righteousness and justice to us. That is regeneration. Atonement, imputation, justification, and regeneration are all necessary in the life of one who is saved and must be received and acknowledged as the only way of salvation. Today, Charles and I are going to discuss the counterfeits or false imputations, atonements, and justifications that are prevalent and rampant in a fallen society, and why it’s vital for believers to spot them and counter them. Andrea Schwartz (03:58) Charles, explain how our humanistic, rebellious society deals with these concepts of atonement and imputation. Charles Roberts (04:10) Well, I think the first thing right out of the starting gate is to understand that the idea of imputation is unavoidable, and it drives to the very heart of what Dr. Van Tille called the psychology of religion. And Dr. Rastuni also spoke of this issue, where Adam This sin, having been inherited by us, we find ourselves in a world in which we are at war with God, whether we think of that or not. And so unless, by God’s grace, our sin has been imputed to Christ or his righteousness imputed to us, I should say, this affects every aspect of our lives, the way we think, the way we discharge everything that we do in life, from eating, sleeping, going to a work. Everything is influenced by the fact that we are sinners unless we have been saved by God’s grace. And people realize this. That’s part of the biblical psychology of religion in that it recognizes and tries to communicate what Paul talks about in Romans 1, that the unbeliever knows there’s a God and knows that we are created in his image, and we try to close off that truth. We deny it at the fundamental level of our existence. Charles Roberts (05:28) And that creates, at a minimum, we say, a conflict in how we live our lives. And so unless people are redeemed by God’s grace and Christ’s righteousness is imputed to us, and so we can start living a clear, full life the way God intended, we’re constantly looking for the counterfeits and the substitutes, and we see this in every area. This is so fundamental that I think this is one of the great challenges that we face in Christianity. And many Christians and churches don’t begin to understand the foundation of the problems that we face and why the transformation of the individual life by the mercy and grace of God is the only way, the only solution to bringing about the larger changes that need to take place. And one area that I mentioned to you, and we can explore this to some extent as we go forward, because Dr. Rastuni talks about it in his writings on this, is how the phenomenon and the plague of pornography links into this very issue. He wrote an entire book on this subject, several, if we include the one on the Marquis de Sade, in which he talks about how the substitution of God’s plan for men and women in the marital relationship for something that is decadent and, by biblical standards, evil, to say the least, becomes a means by which men try to avoid the awareness that they are sinners in God’s sight, and it permeates every aspect of their being. Andrea Schwartz (06:59) So I’m glad you brought up the term evil because it’s not something that we normally hear in everyday discussion. Either on social media or regular media, we’ll hear about awful things that happen, and we hear that somebody was from a troubled background or there was a race component or there was whatever. There’s always reasons. But what you said earlier is that all these ideas that I mentioned earlier are inescapable ideas. Guilt is something everyone experiences because everyone knows, as Romans 1 says, that they’re at war with God, even though they don’t admit it. So you’re going to get a lot of explanations or reasons for why things happen: sinning with a good excuse, pleading to a lesser offense. I know I did that, but I did that because this person did something to me. So man yearns to be justified in his actions. And as I said at the beginning, justification only comes by Jesus’s death, resurrection, so his payment for our sins and our righteousness coming from him. Why do you think, when Bibles are readily available to people today, that even within the church, people seek justification for their porn problem or for their shady dealings with customers? Andrea Schwartz (08:33) What allows them to think that both of these things can be consistent at the same time? Charles Roberts (08:39) Well, because they either deny outright or they are ignorant of what the Bible actually teaches as to who they are in Christ or who they are not, if they’re not in Christ. And because churches, I think I can say largely, have given over sound doctrinal teaching and application imputation of God’s law word in every area of life for entertainment, church growth based on business tactics, where you don’t want to offend anyone else, you might not be able to sell the product, so to speak. It leads to everything being okay and open. Dr. Rastuni, in his systematic theology, where he talks about this, one of the chapters in the larger subject of atonement, section 5, concerning imputation, he makes this very interesting statement. He says, Because Jesus Christ is very God of very God, as well as very man and very man, our salvation is the work of eternity, not of time, and of the creator, and not of the creation. Now, that, I think, is a very fundamental point, because the people who want to operate in these areas that we’re talking about, whether it be pornography or shady business dealings or anything else, they’re operating from the perspective of everything being grounded in creation and time. Charles Roberts (09:56) They don’t see a larger transcendent factor to life. And so everything becomes bound by an evolutionary humanistic way of thinking to where pleasure, for example, or satisfaction, whether, again, that be through cheating people dishonestly in a business transaction or sexual fulfillment by proxy through pictures and films and who knows what else. All of these are corruptions of what the creator ordained for his creation, and they have implications generations, really, for all eternity. Andrea Schwartz (10:32) So when we’re talking about pornography, it’s really important to get away from the idea of the Playboy magazine, that being pornography or girly pictures or whatever. It’s really a world and life view, and a world and life view that’s in opposition to God’s law word. Sometimes it’s just too simple, and I think it’s too simple for people to just say it’s either it’s not going to be God’s way or it’s going to be sinful. Today, we have a lot of, and I’m sad to even have to admit it, there are a lot of men within Christendom who look at their pornography, addiction, or the use of it, like the way somebody sometimes overedes and shouldn’t do it. And so you have books like Every Man’s Battle. I don’t know. I don’t know that the Bible indicates that every man is going to have a battle with pornography, yet it almost becomes an affliction that, like other afflictions, whether it’s medical afflictions or whatever, that this is just a given. Is that part of the counterfeit that Rajduni talks about and we’ve been discussing this far? Charles Roberts (11:52) Yes, absolutely it is. I think that we need to keep in perspective that this is not a new problem. Of Of course, the prevalence and the availability, in this case of pornographic material is astoundingly available in our time because of technology. And it used to be if a man, much less likely a woman, wanted to go to some place to view pornographic films. That place that they would do that was on some dingy side of town, and they would go in the dead of night or something to that extent. Now, these things are right in your home, and you don’t have to worry about anybody seeing you and you feeling ashamed or guilty. Of course, we live in a society where guilt matters relating to God’s law is far less pronounced than it was decades ago. But yes, and I think this is something else that people who maybe want to excuse this on some level or other, whether… I’ve not read the book Every Man’s Battle. I’m familiar with the title, and I’ll go out on a limb here and suggest that I doubt there’s one thing in that book that even begins to approach that subject the way Dr. Rushdoony, approached it on a far more fundamental level, and also from the standpoint of how this impacts society. Charles Roberts (13:07) Let me mention, as I said at the very beginning of this, that what I’m saying now, this is not a new problem. And one of the things that people who travel to the sites of ancient Rome and Greece can rather disturbingly come in contact with, are the pornographic images that are available in some ancient structures. I’ve not seen it, but it remains of the ancient city of Pompeii. I think there’s a whole section. I’ve seen a few documentaries about it, but apparently, they had an area for, I don’t know if it was prostitution, but the whole thing was decorated by very graphic pornographic images that would equal or rival everything that we have today. So pagan man was very much in tune with this way of thinking because he was locked in a mentality that everything was based on creation, and man is the highest expression of that creation. And so the seeking of pleasure, divorce from any biblical concept was high on his agenda. But it was also a very hopeless and pessimistic way of looking at life. And so whenever there is this emphasis, Especially in a society that has aspired on some level to be obedient and faithful to God’s way of life, it becomes, I mean, pornography in particular, a revolutionary premise. Charles Roberts (14:26) And it’s not too unusual to find that in places where there have been historically Christian societal roots, medieval Europe, for example, when people began to think about throwing off the way of looking at life that was totally dominated by a Christian worldview. Pornography played a big part of that. I’m thinking specifically of the French Revolution and the work of Marquis de Sade. Andrea Schwartz (14:53) A lot of people may or may not know that the term sadism comes from the application of the principles worldview of the Marquis de Sade. I think people are probably familiar with the term sadomasochistic, which means that the infliction of harm or destruction or whatever you want to call it to another person from one, and then the other person feeling like this is deserved, and so I’ll take it. A classic example would be the battered wife, that her husband is angry and takes it out on her, but she feels like, Well, I must deserve this, and so the cycle continues. Is that a religious worldview, sadomasochism? Charles Roberts (15:42) Absolutely, it is, as all of this that we’re talking about. Dr. Rastuni brings us out both in the section on imputation, but also in the book that is available from the Chalcedon store, Noble Savages, the retitle of a book that he had written many years earlier called The Politics of pornography. It is at heart a religious issue, as is everything in human society, and is either going to be the religion of humanism, which gives rise to this type of thinking and activity, or the religion of Holy Scripture, biblical Christianity, humanity. I think that people need to also be aware that we’re not talking about or advocating some distorted view of human sexuality. God created man and woman. He created sexuality, but he created it to be within the context of a monogamous married relationship, not some weird medieval distortion of it. So it’s not the issue of, should this type of relationship exist between men and women? But what is the proper context for that relationship to exist? And because there’s this fundamental denial of who human beings are outside of God and within the context of what he created us, we find these counterfeits. We find these aberrant examples of trying to pursue those things. Charles Roberts (17:04) And the sadomasochistic approach is one of them, where I’m the victim, I’m the one being beaten, and that’s somebody else’s fault, or it’s my fault. And so you get wrapped up in this whole way of thinking that is completely distorted. Human beings don’t treat each other this way if they understand who they are in God’s image. So it’s not unusual to find this type of pornographic material appealing to certain type of people. I think I may have mentioned this in previous podcast. I think I’ve mentioned just about everything else in previous podcast. But when I was an undergraduate and a philosophy major, I also double majored in religious studies. And oddly enough, my first encounter, and my only encounter, thank goodness, with the writings of Marquis de Sade was in religious studies. And it was a typical 1970s class called, and I’ll get this title now, Religion and the Literature of Stress. That was the title of the class. And among other things, we had to read one of the works of the Marquis de Sade, at least major sections of it. I don’t know if I should call the name of it or not, but it was one of them. Charles Roberts (18:11) At the time, I was thoroughly a pagan. I was not a Christian. And even for me, it was more than I could stomach. I mean, this guy was just so totally out to lunch. It’s hard to imagine that any human being could think and write like he did, and apparently, live like he did. But this is the phenomenon of man totally divorced from any accountability to anything other than himself and his own urges and desires, divorce from anything, but that being the highest expression of man. Andrea Schwartz (18:40) So I understand society in general is going to have obvious manifestations of rebellion against God. What often surprises people is within the church, within the body of professing believers, there isn’t a clear picture in this. And I think it goes back to the whole idea of antinomianism. And that is, if God’s word is what the Bible claims it is, then, as I said earlier, we don’t debate whether adultery is okay, is it understandable? It’s forbidden. Now, that doesn’t deny the fact that it happens, but it’s still forbidden. And I think with the idea that pornography is just a battle, as opposed to the manifestation of an idolatry of pleasure, if a person is married, that it is a form of adultery. If a person is not married, it’s a form of fornication. In either case, the Bible is clear that who will not inherit the Kingdom of Heaven? So we end up having this idea that as long as we feel bad about these sins that we commit, then we’re on a better path than not caring at all, but not having the discipline and acknowledging, wait a minute, if God says this is and I am born again, then I have the power to turn away from it. Andrea Schwartz (20:05) We don’t have to struggle with it. We have to be saying, this is not right, and turn away from it. Charles Roberts (20:13) Yeah, and I’m thinking of something that was… I don’t think he… I don’t know if he said it or wrote it, but the comedian Woody Allen, who in some ways manifestsests the epitome of these types of things, not so much the pornography side, although that could be included in it, but the idea of humanistic man being a law or a God unto himself and the pessimism that goes along with that. He once made a statement that he did not have a problem with or he liked masturbation because it was having sex with someone he loved. And it meant to be humorous in the context, but wow, what a telling statement. Man is in love with himself, and his highest expression, according to that rather cynical statement, is to turn to run away from other human beings. The late Dr. Greg Bonson had, I don’t know if it was a written article, I think it might have been one of his lectures, that also had a very interesting take on this called Sex Without Persons. And all of this are distortions of what God’s plan for humanity is. And so, as I said, it inevitably leads to a pessimistic, hopeless life. Charles Roberts (21:23) And so human beings, whether it has to do with pornography, gluttony, whatever institute is being rolled out to try to fill that void that God’s law word is meant to fill in Christ, in humanity, the seeking of justification is constant, and it has to come from somewhere. And I think we both know where humanistic man almost always turns for his justification. He turns to the state. He turns to government. And so his government tells him, his state tells him, This is okay. This is permitted in a liberal permissive society. You are free to pursue your highest expression of who and what you think you want to be. And so it’s not unusual then to find that in a godly biblical society, as many of our states were, again, greater or lesser extent, things like pornography, blasphemy, these things were banned and illegal. And they were so because they violated the understanding of what God’s law requires for us. And as I mentioned before, in many places, the visible example of that was the availability of such things, whether it be prostitution or pornography or whatever else. It was on the other side of town. It was not readily available. Charles Roberts (22:44) And you had to risk being seen and that thing. Now, it’s dial up a number or get on your laptop or whatever it may be, or turn on your local TV station or even your local TV commercials. Some of them are more pornographic than some of the pornography was 50 years ago. Andrea Schwartz (23:04) And so this goes back to man knows he needs to be justified. Man knows that he’s a sinner. Deep down inside, everyone knows. But if you reorient yourself and to say, Okay, yeah, I’m a sinner, but the reason I’m a sinner is because of that person, whether it’s my spouse or someone in a relationship, a child, or because of the color of someone’s skin or because of someone’s ethnic origins. In other words, we’re going to try to find relief from guilt somewhere. And these are the ways they play out if it’s not done God’s way. Charles Roberts (23:47) Yes, exactly. And one of the things that Dr. Rastuni points out in the articles that we have been referring to is the fact that, especially in the 20th century and moving forward, people have been sold a bill of goods based on philosophical ideas that are based soundly in atheism, and that there is not only not a God, there can not possibly be a God. And he quotes or makes reference to the French existential philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre in these articles. And this is important, I think, because whether people have heard of Sartre or not, whether they’ve heard of him and are tired of about him, the fact is, what this man articulated has largely informed, whether acknowledged or not, the philosophy of life that many people in our society have adopted. And that is this, that man is born into a world that has no reason for being, and he finds within himself, he has no reason for being. There’s no God in whose image he’s created in. So if he’s going to have any meaning at at all, he has to come up with that himself. And so that creates this idea that whatever I can find to give my life meaning is okay for me. Charles Roberts (25:10) And if I run away from that responsibility, according to Sartre, That’s bad faith. I am exercising bad faith. And so I gravitate toward the idea that there’s a God, and the God, whatever it is, it defines who I am. So I don’t have to be facing up to this issue of defining who I am and choosing to be what I think I should be. The big philosophical phrase that was used is that man’s existence precedes his essence. So I exist first, but I have no essence. There’s nothing there, except I realize I’ve got to give myself meaning. And whether I’m Marquis de Sade or Stalin or whoever, I’m going to invest myself with the meaning of dominating others, a life of pornographic passion, a life of gluttony, a life of accumulating wealth, whatever it may be. Andrea Schwartz (26:01) And you know, Roche Duny, if he did anything, I typeset a lot of his books and commentaries over the years. And the verse of scripture that he probably highlights the most is Genesis 3: 5, the Fall, Man determining for himself right and wrong. And yet throughout his writings, the Marquis de Sade shows up a lot. And what Rushdoony has to say, even though he knows that Sade was antithetical to everything Christian, he was consistent in what he thought. If there is no God, then anything is permissible if I say it is. And so even though he didn’t get a chance to live out every aberration, because according to Rajduni, he spent a good amount of time in prison because the society at the time, at least, was rejecting him superficially, that in so many ways now, he has become almost the patron saint point of humanism in as much as even those churchgoing folk really don’t have a solid view that says, if the scripture says this and I don’t endeavor to receive it as truth and apply it in my life, and I look for ways to excuse my sin, to excuse those parts about myself that I know are unsavory. Andrea Schwartz (27:24) You hear it a lot when people say, Hey, I’m only human. And I always point out that after the sixth day of creation, God looked at humanity and said it was good. So our problem could never be that we’re human. Our problem is that we’re sinful. Charles Roberts (27:41) Yeah. And one of the things that he points out in the article on imputation is that man in the fallen state that he finds himself, he finds the whole idea of imputation as totally offensive. And so, again, this is a part of the battle, the war, I should say, that we find ourselves in against God’s standards unless he opens our eyes. And like we’ve already said, he cites Marquis de Sade as a classic example of false imputation and the irrespons that goes with the idea that I’m only accountable to myself and my passions, and this is what informs and gives my life meaning. And he talks about false imputation as an aspect of sin. And therefore, and this I think you’ll agree with me, the other popular passage in scripture that Rastuni quoted quite frequently was Proverbs 8: 36, all they that hate me are in love with death. And the me there being the wisdom of God personified. Andrea Schwartz (28:51) Scripture tells us that there’s nothing good in man, fallen man. But there’s everything good in redeemed man in as much as his sins are forgiven, and he’s been given the ability to not only not sin, but to pursue righteousness. And so I imagine there are a lot of people who cannot imagine a society without these kinds of evil perversions. You talk about commercials being pornographic. In many malls, the movie theaters are up on the second floor, and when the escalator goes down, you’re glaring at a lingerie store with big pictures of women in underwear. And nowadays, some of the pictures include men pretending to be women. And it’s pretty obvious that that’s what you’re looking at. So that this stuff is hitting people in the face all the time. And that’s what I said earlier, that if you don’t know what you’re looking at, it’s very easy to fall prey to it. So if somebody says, That’s wrong. They shouldn’t have that there. Well, don’t you think the human body is beautiful? I mean, after all, but that’s not the point. These things are all pointing to lead people into a perverted mindset. So the norm isn’t grow up, get married, have children, and be an intact family. Andrea Schwartz (30:21) It’s to have an exciting life, a playboy life, the James Bond life, or whatever it is. So we have these counterfeits that are going to tell people, This will make you happy. Charles Roberts (30:31) I think you were right on target with something you said earlier about the factor of antinomianism in the churches and in the Christian world being one source of this problem. We can both think back to the era of the 1960s, maybe late ’50s, included in which there was massive cultural upheaval among younger people, and a lot of it had to do with throwing off what was perceived to be the stuffy surface only religious faith of their parents, whether that was Protestant or Catholic, or in between. And maybe there was something to that on one level. But the problem was that there was no one coming forth with a biblical explanation as to what the problem is and a biblical solution. So I think that the Satanic elements in our culture at that time recognized an opportunity to capitalize on destroying the biblical foundations of our culture, and that included the promotion of so-called free love, and the distortion of music, all of these things that had informed Christian and biblical culture. So it wanted to create a distortion of those things. So we’ve gone from the dirty movie house on the other side of town to where the dirty movie house is now right inside your living room on your desktop. Charles Roberts (31:53) Or your phone. Or your phone. Yeah. And it’s no longer considered, quote, dirty. What considered dirty, is the opposition to such a thing. And when humanism begins to decay and degrade, as it is in our time, it never stays where it was. And so we have gone from a place place where they’ve always been, for example, pedophiles, but they’ve either, thankfully, been put in jail or executed. But now we’ve gone to a time where it’s not only severely as punished as it once was, in some areas, not at all, but in some, it’s openly acknowledged and celebrated. And I think that we will see a continued spiral in that one area of the direction where the decadence becomes even more and more pronounced. Andrea Schwartz (32:42) When I was growing up, it wasn’t unusual for families to be celebrating grandma and grandpa’s 50th wedding anniversary. There were a lot of those celebrations. Well, this year I’m coming up on 50 years of marriage. And when I share that information conformation with people, they’re astounded. A lot of young people like, I just don’t know how you do it. It was never a question of how you did it. You got up in the morning, you lived your life, you dealt with what was going on, and you continued. Not that it was all flowers and roses and such, but we’ve gotten such a view that says, If it’s difficult, it must be repudiated, and I’ll find temporary enjoyment, pleasure, fulfillment without considering the fact that oftentimes what they’re doing is signing their own death warrant in one way or another. Charles Roberts (33:37) Yes. And just to cycle back for a moment, something I was saying earlier about the revolutionary nature of this type of activity and the things we’re discussing. In James Bellington’s book, Fire in the Minds of Men, which is a massive study of revolutionary activity across the Western world, in particular dating back hundreds of years. And he focused an entire section on the French Revolution. He pointed out that what we would have thought of as pornographic houses, coffee shops where people would get high, the things that bubbled up to the surface in the ’60s and ’70s, to some extent. All of those things were around in the era of the French Revolution, and they were manifestations at the time of throwing off this medieval, in that case, Roman Catholic culture. And again, people who have a vested interest in promoting a Satanic way of thinking, they will seize on these things and drive them even faster. And it’s worth considering insofar as our listeners are concerned about having a biblical world and life view for themselves and their families and their society, who are the people behind the promotion of pornography or gluttony or a host of other things that distort God’s plan for humanity? Charles Roberts (34:59) Humanity. They are, without exception, people who hate the name of Christ, who hate the very idea of being accountable to a sovereign God in his law. Andrea Schwartz (35:09) And as you pointed out earlier in terms of the state, the whole public school system, we’ve discussed this in the past, started as a countermeasure to Christianity, but they were patient in as much as they couldn’t come out and say that right in the beginning. But a lot of the battle that goes on today between homeschool families in the state has everything to do with wanting children to be exposed to such things. Now, let’s face it, even 15, 20 years ago, having men dressed up as women coming in to read to young children would be considered an aberration. Today, it’s somewhat mandated in certain places. On top of that, when Christian families say, No, we don’t want this for our children, we’ll take care of education. In many places, the state, the Board of Education comes after them. Yeah, some people say it’s because they want the money that would be allocated for students, but that’s just a byproduct. What they want to do is instill a different world and life view. And that’s why it’s very hard for me to go face to face with Christians who say, this is our reason for our children going to the public school. Andrea Schwartz (36:26) It’d be like saying, this is the reason for me to let my child out in the midst of herd of wild animals because you see, we have to do this or that. When all is said and done, either you believe what the Bible says or you don’t, and how many people are literally sacrificing their children for their own pleasure or their own, some lifestyle that they want to maintain. Charles Roberts (36:49) I’m glad you brought this up because even here in what used to be one of the buckles of the Bible Belt in South Carolina, and especially the part where I live, a few years ago, we went through a brouhaha about Drag Queen Story Hour. Those were being done at public libraries. And it’s interesting to consider, I don’t know if this is an issue out where you are in California, maybe it was, and it is no longer, but here and in other places, one of the big, big controversies, at least it’s still a controversy, is people who are wanting to put into public libraries books that can only be defined as pornographic under the guise of being educational or part of a story, but they’re aimed exclusively at children. And so there’s just been huge legal battles about trying to corral this activity. And in many places, it just simply isn’t successful because, again, the larger society has no other ground to stand on except humanism, and what the state says is okay. And that leads inevitably to the decadence that we’re seeing in that area. Andrea Schwartz (37:56) Anything that’s perverse usually starts in California. So I’m pretty sure that the people who instituted this in South Carolina are devotés of the California brand of humanism, where the state will tell everybody what they have to do. But I think another important point here is to recognize that sometimes the counterfeits are more pleasant to look at. And by that, I mean conservatism. Every now and then, I’ll tune in to, quote, unquote, conservative news sources, stations, whatnot. And it’s amazing to me in how much of the dialog that goes back and forth, whether it’s strict news or commentary or even late night entertainment, how base they are, how the illusions to sexual promiscuity are there. It’s littered into their conversation, and they’ll make comments, or their conversation will be quite base. But you see, they’re conservative. And so are we looking at a tone and imputation and justification through conservativism and thereby having to accept, there’s some good with the bad, but these guys are right politically? How can you be right politically if you’re not right scripturally? Charles Roberts (39:15) Yeah. As we begin to wrap this up, I want to quote Rushdoony again in the article from the section on Atonement and Imputation in a systematic theology, Fallen man imputes sin and guilt to others, and he requires the sacrifice of the victim’s social class as the remedy for his sin. And fallen man thus denies responsibility. He imputes responsibility together with sin and guilt to his appointed scapegoat. And he says, Fault imputation is thus at heart an imputation and transfer of responsibility. The society of fallen Adam is thus not a society, but a state of war. To me, this is just astounding in Insight. And we, at our peril, at our disadvantage, have failed to pay attention to the insight that he had on this topic. And it’s not so much Rushdoony’s insight, it’s the biblical perspective. And if you don’t start with scripture as the absolute standard and God’s law word, you start spiraling out onto other areas, and you wind up with the situation we have today in the churches. Andrea Schwartz (40:27) Noble Savages is a book. It’s not an easy read. I can remember being at homeschool conventions and selling Rushdoony’s books, and then I would have a section on the table that said, For Fathers Only. And it’s amazing how many men went to that and they started looking at it and I said, You have to understand what your family is going to be exposed to and is being exposed to. When I say it’s not an easy read, Rushdoony doesn’t hold back in describing what people think and what they do and how they do it. But it’s so important to know. It’s not like reading about it will make you sin. No, reading about it will let you understand exactly how much of a war this really is. And then you also mentioned his systematic theology in volume one. There’s a whole chapter on the Atonement where he really goes through all the different aspects of what we call salvation. But then once you read and understand it, you’ll see how many false methods of salvation are promoted, even within churches. Charles Roberts (41:37) Yeah, and I’d like to mention one other resource that’s available from the Chalcedon.edu store, and that’s his book, called To be as God, which is a study of the philosophy of life of Marquis de Sade. Maybe that’s too academic description of it. I mean, it really highlights the example of this despicable man, and and how he chose to live his life as one totally divorced from accountability to God. It’s a fascinating read. It’s not anything high-brow academic in that sense. I would encourage anyone who wants to pursue this further in that particular instance to get hold of that book as well. Andrea Schwartz (42:14) Yeah, and when I said difficult read, I didn’t mean it was going to be over your head. I knew Dr. Raj Jr. Personally, and I would read his books and I’d say, I’d see your footnotes. How do you read these books? Because he said, Well, I don’t recommend The average person read these books because in many cases, they’re gross and they’re despicable. But I need to highlight for people the contrast. And so consider this like we have a lot of discussion on the roots of COVID and are vaccines good or not. You can’t really get into the issue unless you understand the underlying issue. If you’re against vaccination, you would know that, okay, there are certain things that are included in vaccinations that aren’t necessarily helpful to people, and you’d examine it, and as I said earlier, from the bottom up. People need to do the same thing with these topics. Otherwise, they’ll just think that, well, I don’t know, maybe it’s a good thing when an actual fact, as you pointed out, it’s actually warfare. Charles Roberts (43:22) Exactly. I would exhort our listeners to make themselves aware of this challenge relating to the corruption of pornography, specifically, but the larger issue of imputation, insofar as people even are familiar with that word, it’s something in a systematic theology book, Other Than Rushdoony, that has a classic definition the reckoning of Christ’s righteousness to us, and then just leave it there and go on to the next topic. But it is a far more significant point than that. Andrea Schwartz (43:53) Well, Charles, thanks. I hope we gave insight to people, if nothing else, for them to realize there’s more they need to investigate. Right. Outofthequestionpodcast@gmail.com is how you reach us, and we look forward to you joining with us next time. Charles Roberts (44:09) Thanks for listening to Out of the Question. For more information on this and other topics, please visit Chalcedon.edu.…
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Out of the Question Podcast: Uncovering the Question Behind the Question

1 332: Can Faith and Science Truly Coexist? 1:08:33
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This transcript was auto-generated. If you would like to submit edits, or volunteer to edit more transcripts for us, please reach out . (00:03) Welcome to out of the Question, a podcast that looks behind some common questions and uncovers the question behind the question. (00:09) While providing real solutions for biblical world and life View. (00:13) Your host is Andrea Schwartz, a teacher and mentor and founder of the Chalcedon Teacher Training Institute. Andrea Schwartz (00:21) SIGHT is a recent American biographical drama about physician Ming Wang, a Chinese immigrant to the United States who became a renowned eye surgeon. It is based on Wang’s 2016 autobiography entitled From Darkness to A Journey From Hardship to Healing. My husband and I recently watched this film and although we liked it very much, I kept having a sneaking suspicion that there was much more to the story than was depicted in the movie. Since the film was based on Dr. Wang’s autobiography, I quickly ordered the book and confirmed my suspicions. Dr. Wang’s story is one of a man’s desire to become a doctor from his youth, beating the odds, as they say, against his early life and upbringing in atheist communist China in the 60s and 70s, then coming to the US and getting his PhD in physics and his MD from Harvard Medical School and eventually becoming a citizen. Ming Wang was and is a driven person, but it was only when he encountered the Lord Jesus Christ that his entire life, skills and opportunities came into sharper focus. After finishing his autobiography, I went to his website and contacted him there, requesting an interview. In less than 24 hours I received a personal affirmative response. Thanks for Joining me today, Dr. Wang. Dr. Ming Wang (01:53) Thank you Andrea. I appreciate the opportunity. Andrea Schwartz (01:56) And just as an aside, I wasn’t intending to say this, but Dr. Wang’s family had to shelter last evening as four tornadoes went through his area in Nashville, Tennessee. And I’m so glad he’s still here, not only for the opportunity to talk with him, but also because of the work that he he does. So Again, thank you Dr. Wing. Dr. Ming Wang (02:20) Thank you Andrea. Andrea Schwartz (02:21) Now, while we will give relevant content from your life in our discussion today, I don’t want people to neglect reading or listening to your book. And although I found the film very engaging in retrospect, there were some additions and omissions that I know are often used to consolidate a story. But I found your account in your book to give true appreciation and credit to the providence and foreordination of God. I know you’ve told your story numerous times, but give the highlights for my listeners, please. Dr. Ming Wang (02:56) Thank you Andrea. You know, as a scientist, one of the things we tend to do after have acquired certain knowledge about science and technology is get our head too big, think we can do everything. My autobiography From Darkness to Sight is not only the journey of many of our Foundations, patients, some blind orphan children and some other adult patients. Their remarkable journey from darkness to sight, physically getting physical vision, but also how at the same time, these patients and life itself that I’ve gone through have also opened my eyes and brought me out of my darkness to light spiritually. I grew up in China during the time called cultural revolution. From 1966-76, the government in China shut down all universities and colleges of entire nation and forcefully deported to some of the poorest part of the country and condemn each one of the high school graduates to lifetime of poverty and hard Labor. So over 10 years of cultural Revolution, by shutting down all universities and colleges of entire China, they send away to labor camp for life 20 million young people. So I called that in 1974, I was 14, I finished my junior high and I was not allowed to go to high school as I was going to be deported just like 20 million others for life, for hard labor. Dr. Ming Wang (04:41) In order to escape that devastating fate of being sent away to labor camp, I started learning a music instrument called Chinese violin, Er Hu, which is depicted in the film Sight, and also started learning dancing. Because I found out if I could play a music instrument and dance, I could get into the government song and dance troupe, therefore avoid being sent away to labor camp. That did not work and I was going to be sent away to labor camp for sure. Then 1976 rolled around. Cultural Revolution ended after 10 years. China reopened all of its colleges, first time in 10 years. And I had to jump ahead from 9th grade graduate to 12th grade, directly into 12th grade and compete against other 12th graders for the 1% chance of less than 1% chance of getting to college. Because my parents did not want me to go through the normal high school because they were afraid the government could change their mind again and shut down college again for the following year, for another 10 years. The point is that sometimes living in a free country such as America, here we could take the freedom that we have for granted. Dr. Ming Wang (06:00) But in a country at the time when there was no freedom, when freedom came briefly, people do appreciate and want to take full advantage of it because freedom may not be available again. So with my parents help, I worked really hard, as you saw in the film site, eventually got into university to study laser physics. And in 1982, with $50, I came to America, could not speak the language very much English and did not know anyone. But I was happy because I was free. You know, in the film Andrea God’s Not Dead, the Chinese student who came from China to America to study surviving China’s Cultural Revolution. That Chinese student character in the movie God’s Not Dead is inspired by my life story. So just like that student, I came to America. I was an atheist. I was interested only in science. I was not interested in anything else because before I came, I couldn’t even study to be free to study science. And it was in America where I not only found freedom, but also I have found faith in Jesus Christ. Andrea Schwartz (07:21) Let me ask you a question, because I think this is important both in the movie and in the book. You come from a very strong family, a family that was willing to give up tremendous amounts to even give you an opportunity to. To the point. And this is an amusing part of the story as far as I’m concerned, that when they were shielding you from having to be deported, they would sometimes sneak you into classes so you could learn by just, you know, auditing the class and such. But there was this strong desire. How do you reconcile the fact that in an atheist country, you have such strong family ties? Dr. Ming Wang (08:02) Great question. I think the family. The fact that parents love their children. They want to do everything possible to help their children so that their children could have a future that probably transcends culture, ethnicity, race, religion across humankind. It’s a universal love, our parents towards their children. However, in the atheist country, which China still largely is, that desire is mainly for, shall we say, worldly success, if you will. You know, getting a job, get a good education and have a happy life. That is that dimension. It’s important. But I’ve come to realize after coming to America, the normal societal or modern society’s criteria of success, meaning having a job and successful, is only part of it. It’s actually. It’s less important part of it. The more important part of my life has been in the past many decades, as depicted in the film God’s Not Dead, where, you know, the student went from atheist to a believer. That student, inspired by my life, that I find something even more important than the worldly success that is a life that following Jesus Christ and developed the ultimate purpose for my life beyond what I normally do in my job. Andrea Schwartz (09:37) What I can tell you in reading your book, more so than in the film, I live in California and there is a substantial Asian community, Chinese community here. And what people often see are people who are so driven to succeed. So the students here from Chinese families have the higher SAT scores. They excel in music not unlike you. And it’s all because they want to bring honor to their family and success to themselves. Do you think that it’s easy for people to misconstrue the mindset because they don’t understand the kind of oppression and tyranny that a lot of these people, either their parents or their grandparents experienced. Dr. Ming Wang (10:28) You mean misconstrue from the Westerner perspective? Andrea Schwartz (10:32) Yes. Dr. Ming Wang (10:33) Yeah, you are right that it is often sometimes not understood completely from people outside the Asian community. The motivation, the drive. Why is these Asian families so driven and you know, tiger mom and drive their kids to study so hard and excel in school that such a all consuming drive for the kids and for the parents, for their kids. Of course it’s for better life as any other race, ethnicity, people. But. But even beyond that, that is very often these Asian families have a background, whether their parents directly or their parents parents have suffered, have lived through societies that did not have very much at all in the way of freedom or material well being or opportunity. And so these Asian families, many of them just on my own, my parents very driven and have inspired me, imprinted me starting very young age to work hard and had a lot to do with the fact that many of these Asian families did not have much in the past and they appreciate so much more what they have now. Andrea Schwartz (11:55) Okay, so let’s go back to you. Before you came to the US you had an interest in medicine, both your parents were physicians and you also had an interest in physics. So when you came to the US those two interests combined. Talk a little bit about that. Dr. Ming Wang (12:13) I always wanted to be a doctor just like my father. You may think that, you know, being a doctor in China during those days, during Cultural Revolution is a well paying job. It actually is not. What I’m about to tell you and your listeners, Andre, is going be shocking. My dad was a doctor and my mom a teacher. Their combined salaries, both of them combined salaries every month was only US$15 combined salaries. So it’s like how could anyone live on that? It is extremely poor and everybody was poor in China during Cultural Revolution. But I wanted to be a doctor not because of my father is wealthy, is because I saw how he took care of his patients as a kid. Because we didn’t have telephone, we did not have bathroom, we did not have running water in our house and we didn’t have kitchen. Just one room, everything’s in that room. And no telephone, as I said. So very often that we will be eating dinner at little table and usually dinner consists of only one or two dish, you know, rice and one vegetable. That’s it. Often the door, someone would be, somebody will be knocking on the door. Dr. Ming Wang (13:31) And we have zero idea who that was. Because we have no telephone. People cannot make canonic appointment. So when we open the door very often it was a patient of my father just showed up saying, Dr. Wang, I have some questions about my health and we just have to put our dinner aside. And my father started seeing these patients and taking care of them. So that dedication to helping people, taking care of folks imprinted me at a very young age. And I want to be like him, be a doctor. So after I come to America, first I studied laser physics because I studied in universities in science in China and then came to America. So I got enrolled at University of Maryland for laser physics, PhD, which I did, did finish that, and finished postdoc at MIT at age 26. I was a laser physicist. Then I realized the rapid development of technology in ophthalmology. That laser is transforming the eye care, eye surgeries. And also as I depict in the book, I met a patient who was born blind and all, she had never seen. So when I asked her then, what does red mean to you or blue mean to you? Dr. Ming Wang (14:50) She told me that red means something warm and fluffy and blue something cold and slippery. So I realized that for someone who never had sight or could not see, they lose a big part of human experience. And so I decided I’m going to use my PhD laser physics training and become a medical doctor in ophthalmology in eye surgery so that I can combine my technological training and PhD in laser physics with an MD. Then I can be a unique laser eye surgeon who can bring an extra level of technology and advancement to help folks who are living in darkness. And helping bring them out of darkness is probably the most exciting thing one can possibly do. Andrea Schwartz (15:42) You know, it’s interesting. I’ve always told people that one of the most fascinating things for anybody is to teach someone how to read. Because those black dots on the page go from meaning nothing to suddenly meaning whatever the author wanted it to mean. So as you’re exploring and you eventually got your MD from Harvard Medical School, as I said, now you’re in a position to tackle the cases that other people either couldn’t or wouldn’t. What made the combination of your PhD in physics and your MD, who were you able to help that previously people were not able to help? Dr. Ming Wang (16:23) Great question, Andrea. If you look, if we look at the modern medicine and science in the 21st century, compare with medicine 100 years ago, the transforming trend as what’s happening in medicine is the increasing importance of technology. 100 years ago, if you had a headache. And the doctor said, take aspirin and call me 8:00 in the morning. And very little thing the doctor could do. Today in medicine, technology has really literally leapfrogged us into the next stage in molecular biology, genetic engineering, stem cell research, in robotic medicine, now in artificial intelligence, laser technology really rapidly change the way we treat diseases and open the possibilities of treating new diseases. Now at this juncture, there’s a problem, that is all doctors have gone to medical school, so they have got very good training in biology, pharmacology, physiology, medicine. But almost none of the doctors, very few that into medicine, got MD degree from medical school, will have a comparable amount of time to study another half of medicine, which is technology. So my training in the other half, having a PhD also in laser physics in addition to MD, it’s allowed me to go into some of the difficult to treat or nearly impossible to treat human eye conditions, utilizing my strong training in technology, in this case laser physics, to really open up the treatment possibilities in those. Dr. Ming Wang (18:19) So, for example, I’ll give you two examples. One, all of us, you and me, Andrea, and all of your listeners, doesn’t matter who you are. As a human being going through our lives at some point, inescapably, we are affected by these five human prescription eye conditions. Nearsightedness, which is myopia, Farsightedness, which is a hyperopia, astigmatism. Sometimes people say, what is astigmatism? Dr. Wang? Astigmatism simply means your eyeball is shaped like American football rather than basketball. So you see things always elongated and distorted with astigmatism. Number four, presbyopia, which is over age 45, increasing difficulty reading up close, and finally, cataracts. These are five human eye conditions that all of us are affected. For the longest time we could not treat, for example, astigmatism, and we certainly could not treat presbyopia. The oldeyes, if you will, over age 45, reading difficulty up close, or try to get rid of reading glasses, that was not possible. In fact, up until a few years ago, we could not treat the presbyopia, the reading difficulty over age 45. Somebody comes to talk to me, say, Dr. Wang, do you have anything for me? I’m getting older, I have to push things further and further to read. Dr. Ming Wang (19:47) Could you help me? Since we couldn’t help, say, Johnny the patient. I used to tell my patient, I said, johnny, you’re getting old. It’s not your eye problem. Because I couldn’t fix it. I said, you’re getting older. The reason you have to push things further and further away to read is because your arm’s getting shorter. And they say, oh, doctor, one relay. So what is that diagnosis called? And I said, well, it’s called short arm syndrome. And they said, really? So can you treat it? I said, yeah, you come to me, I will pull your arm out for about extra 2 inches and then take care of it. But now we don’t have to extend your arms anymore. We can have a technology called forever young lens can actually get rid of not only your distant vision glasses, but also your reading glasses. You know, living in Nashville, Tennessee, I have my share of my patients in music industry, like Dolly Parton, Charlie Daniels, for example, Charlie Daniels, for example, before he passed away, I did his eye surgery when he was in his 60s. And I told Charlie, I said, I’ve gotten rid of your distance glasses and I have permanently, permanently got rid of your reading glasses as well. Dr. Ming Wang (20:57) And Charlie goes, so you mean Dr. Wang, I could be 99 years old and my vision will still be this good that you just restored. I feel like I’m 25. I say, yes, the rest of your body may get older, but not your eyes. That’s why it’s called forever young lens technology. So these technologies open up. For example, you say, is that everybody using it? No. Forever young lens, for example, it’s only used by less than 1%. Less than 1% of United States eye surgeons today, only less than 1%, 99% are not using these cutting edge technologies. So not only I’ve been able to help develop and I’ve been part of the research team in helping developing, but also I want to help the doctors. 99% of them did not have the opportunity to study laser physics in depth as I did. So I have also been teaching. I have published 10 textbooks in ophthalmological eye surgery. Technology aspect to help the surgeons around the world to improve their weak area, which is technology. I want the 99% of surgeons who are not using these top technologies to quickly adapt and learn because we want to offer, all of us want to offer the best technology to our patients. Dr. Ming Wang (22:19) That’s an example. The other example we can talk about in the context of faith in our upcoming discussion, how the extra technology training in laser physics also have helped me in that case to help blind orphan children who are in darkness. Andrea Schwartz (22:36) And again, I want people to read your book because I think it’s. I found it hard to get put down because I felt like by the end of the book, we’d become old friends, and I knew a lot about you. And so there was a lot of work you did with children born blind or cruelly abused by parents and became blind as a result. But I have to tell you, the thing that actually affected me the most, and this is one of the problems I had with the film, because it didn’t bring out your ethics as much as your book did. In the film, they have you in a room somewhere, seeing a preborn child in a lab in formaldehyde or something, and you come to the conclusion that children in the womb don’t scar. And so I know this is true in terms of your book, that you realize that if you somehow could use amniotic fluid or something of that, that you could create a contact lens that might help after eye surgery, that people wouldn’t have the normal scarring. Dr. Ming Wang (23:36) Right. Andrea Schwartz (23:37) What the movie didn’t depict. And that’s when I was. Was going through the book and I went. I knew there was something more to this story. You knew that embryonic cells could be used to do this. But your ethics as a Christian said we cannot destroy human life or use human life that has been destroyed. And I imagine you got a lot of pushback from fellow scientists whose ethics were probably, no, you do whatever you do for science. But I think it was almost 10 years and you refused to disobey God in order to obey God. And that’s probably the biggest takeaway from your book for me. Dr. Ming Wang (24:22) Yes. Yes. Yes. Yeah. First of all, the book is 10 times stronger from Christian faith perspective than the movie. And the movie actually was written by wonderful Christian director Andrew Hyatt, who directed the film Paul Apostle Christ. When he took on this project, he intentionally tried to kind of soften down the faith perspective because his goal is trying to get more people, including skeptics, atheists, wants to see a movie, tell the story as is, with less preaching. However, the book itself that I wrote is much stronger, 10 times stronger from faith perspective. And what you just talked about is exactly the central theme of the book. Exactly central theme. That at one time there are lots of stories of these kids and patients, our foundation being the help over the decades to come from darkness to light physically. But even more important, more important is that these medical advances that we have been able to be obedient and we be able to listen to God, we’d be able to advanced science, but at the same time, they’re safeguarding our moral ethical principles and the Christian principles about the sacredness of life. So that is exactly the Central, the golden part of the book, my life story. Dr. Ming Wang (25:54) In this case, the issue affects not just me, but also actually affects the world in a very big way. Today, for example, Pew studies have shown other kids entering college these days in America, 100 kids entering college, going to church as freshmen. By the time they finish college four years later, 75 out of 100 kids have left church. It is an existential crisis as far as I’m concerned for us as Christians because these young people are the future, our future. So we got to study, we got to figure out why. Why is it young people are exiting Christian faith, especially in academia, universities, right in such a big number. I feel because I’m a scientist and a Christian both that I realize is because of the rapid development of science itself that people are studying genetic engineering, you know, human genome, artificial intelligence. ChatGPT. They feel that they do not. Some young people feel that they don’t need Christ, they don’t need it. The science is sufficient and to help, to get a job and to help. However, my book, the essence of my book as you pointed out, is about faith and science conflict and what does God want us to do, right, to advance science, at the same time protecting life. Dr. Ming Wang (27:22) That I have come to realize that which is the essence of my book is that science is important. It’s necessary, you know, it’s the tools. You cannot be lazy. You got to learn those, you know, knowledge, scientific, technology. But science is just tools. It’s just necessary, but it’s not sufficient to have a uplifting life. That the sufficient part is a purpose. What are you going to use those science tools for? And after I became a Christian, I’ve been praying is that yes, God put me through, you know, let me go through those sufferings in China so that I appreciate more what I have in America today. But also all these years of studying two doctor degrees, one PhD in laser physics, one MD in medicine, what is it God you want me to do all these studies? I’ve gone to school, Andrea, believe it or not, 31 years. Andrea Schwartz (28:16) No, I believe you. Dr. Ming Wang (28:18) Yeah, whoever. And then what is God you want me to do that’s specific for you? And so much praying and living through my life and going up and down, many failures as you saw in the book. I realized God want me to use my scientific training, hard earned medical technology training to help those who need the most help, which are blind orphan children. So that’s a purpose. That what I’m going to use the scientific now this sense the science is necessary but not sufficient. The sufficient Part is the purpose. We’re going to use the science tool and also this understanding the rapid development of science and technology, such as ChatGPT, AI, while it’s wonderful, those technologies, but it could also be disastrous. In fact, the destructive power of artificial intelligence, not properly guided, could be 1 million times more destructive than atomic bomb. So I’ve come to realize that not only science is told, faith is the purpose, but also at the time of rapid science and technology development, today we need more Christ, not less, because we need faith to guide our scientific research so that the science will produce positive benefit to humankind rather than destruction. Dr. Ming Wang (29:44) So now my purpose, writing the book From Darkness to Sight and in some limited way that, you know, made into movie, is to talk to these young people to help them realize that you’re studying science at technology, in universities. Good. You cannot be lazy. You got to, you know, to really be good in those scientific. But that’s only part of it and that’s only the tools. And you need more Christ, not less, because more than ever before, you need faith in Christ to guide your moral, ethical, faith principles, to guide your research so that your science can truly bring benefit rather than destruction to humankind. So in this case, lots of young people think, oh, okay, but what if the science and faith get into conflict? You know, stem cell embryonic research demonstrate tremendous potential to treating human diseases. And you’re absolutely right, Andrea. Some atheist scientists say, I don’t care. I’m going to use these, you know, embryonic cells to, I’m treating patients, I’m helping them. So I have a noble goal. But what I’ve come to realize that God does want us to do research, does want to improve the quality of life, but at the same time, God also want us to preserve life. Dr. Ming Wang (31:00) And people tend to think, and that’s part of the reason why young people leaving churches in universities, they think science and faith cannot work together. You know, and I will say this way, it is true many scientists need to learn about faith, but also it is also true that many Christians should learn about science. So in other words, in order to bring these folks, these atheists, these skeptics to Christ, we have to find that common ground. We have to reach out to them as well. You know, we have to speak the language of the listener. The scientists need to learn about Christ and the Christians should also learn about science. You know, one time I was at church, the pastor said, oh, I’ve got headache, everybody. You know, brother and sister in Christ, please pray for me. I don’t believe this Medicine stuff. Pray for me. Okay, so we pray for him. Next morning, 8:00, he pick up the phone and call his doctor. So there’s some problem in the inconsistency and young people watching these inconsistencies in us, you know, you know, and how come Christian is not confronting the science and faith conflict in a modern technological driven society. Dr. Ming Wang (32:16) So my book, and through the amnion membrane contact lens story, is trying to, in fact, I pray about it. I want to help these patients through fetal healing, but I did not want to hurt the baby’s life. So I was literally stuck for about 10 years. Wanted to research to help blind patients, but restore the eyesight, reducing eye scarring because a fetus does not scar. But at the same time, I did not want to hurt the baby. And through much praying, and that’s also what I come to realize. That’s why I’ve become a Christian. Becoming a Christian means I’m going to follow Jesus Christ, I’m going to ask him for help when I got stuck in my life, whatever it is. So through much praying and also at the time, working with some Christian medical doctors at the same time, we come to realize that, well, maybe the reason a fetus, an unborn child can heal without scar is because the amnio membrane protection before birth. So I got lots of placentas donated by me, to me by mothers. After giving birth to children, they don’t need a placenta anymore. So I got a placenta brought in the laboratory and started doing research. Dr. Ming Wang (33:26) And eventually I developed the amnio placenta contact lens. When I put these placenta contact lenses onto injured eyes, Andrea, miracle happened. Basically, the eye. Think about your little eye cell on the eye surface. Look up, you see the little tent. And near the tent and the eye cell maybe say, oh, I was mistaken. We were not born yet. And the way that our body tends to behave before birth is regeneration or healing without scar. There are many of those patients with amniomembrane contact lens treatment that have their eyesight restored. Then I ask myself the question, did I really invent the amniotic membrane contact lens? Interestingly, I concluded no, because I’m not just a scientist, I’m also a Christian. So I did not invent the amniotic membrane. I did not invent the placenta. God did. As a scientist and a Christian, I was just very lucky and privileged to be given a precious little opportunity by God to catch a little glimpse of part of his original creation. So credit should go to where credit belongs. So I decided as A Christian, I should not take credit for this invention of amnio membrane contact lenses. So I decided to donate my invention to the world. Dr. Ming Wang (34:47) I put my patent MNL membrane contact lens patent online so everybody around the world can see it instantaneously. And also I went around the world over a 20 year period or so to about 50 some countries free of charge, taught over 10,000 eye doctors how to use this technology. So today, as you see in the film site, and neural membrane contact lens technology, wonderful technology, can help restore eyesight in many blind patients including blind orphan children. Has really transformed the world. It’s now used by eye doctors from nearly every nation and millions of patients eyesight have been restored. It’s actually a $5 billion industry right now worldwide. Now, even though in the process 20 years process, I did not make any money myself because I donated the technology in the beginning my patent, I feel I did the right thing as a scientist and a Christian, meaning I’m privileged to do the research, to learn the skill, the tools. But I recognize ultimate the purpose what I’m doing using this technology for is to glorify God, is to satisfy, to bring about his purpose which is to save more people and to help science advance helping patients, but at the same time protecting life and non violating Christian principles. Andrea Schwartz (36:11) Well listeners, that’s why after reading the book, I knew I needed to share Dr. Wang with you. And another comment about your book is you are not afraid to talk about mistakes, failures, regrets. And you could easily have omitted parts of personal life that aren’t picture perfect. But because the people you met along the way contributed to all the pieces coming together, including going back to China and being a musician and being a dancer. We see that Psalm 139 is true, that before God formed you, he knew you and he knew everything that was going to happen that he foreordained. So it’s not that what you thought back as a child in China wasn’t true, but it wasn’t the complete truth. The complete truth was God had plans for you and he was going to fashion your life. And in the process you got your doses of humility and heartache and understanding. But in the book you always go back to remembering what it was like not only to be a young person in China, but to remember what it was like before Christ was in your life. And I, I thought that was the part that truly encouraged me. Andrea Schwartz (37:37) And I could see that if we all looked at that way instead of talking about oh poor me, look at all the terrible things that have happened in My life, I’m such a victim to realize that God fashions us to specifically do the things he created us to do. Dr. Ming Wang (37:53) Exactly. Exactly the purpose of it. Right. I used to not understand why I have to go through the suffering during Cultural Revolution. And as an atheist, I have no idea why. But after I become a believer, looking back, I recognize the plan that God has a plan. God has a purpose of allowing me going through those sufferings during Cultural Revolution, China, and not being able to go to school, going to high school, and was going to be deported, labor camp is because he wanted me as a person to grow, to grow compassion, understanding. And the connection, in this case, with the patients I see today who are in darkness, because I know how they feel because I used to be in darkness myself. So very often they say, what’s the difference, having become a Christian? The difference is I realize that God has a plan for me, even though I may not understand at the time, you know, going through setbacks, sometimes we say why God has to put me through this difficulty. Why God has a. Why it may not be apparent to us at the time, but trust in him. When you look back later in life and you’re able to see a little bit the bigger picture, bigger plan that God has for us, you will realize why. Andrea Schwartz (39:14) And another aspect to that is. And they showed it a little bit in the movie, but not so much as that you depicted it in the book, that before you would do a surgery, you would commit the surgery to the Lord. And I imagine you had a lot of atheist staff potentially watching you say, okay, let’s pray right now. Scripture tells us to pray without ceasing. And sometimes I get people laughing at me. I say, I pray for parking spaces. I mean, I. I’ll pray for whatever I particularly need or want at the time. Sometimes God’s answ is yes, sometimes it’s no. Not all the surgeries that you did that you committed to the Lord turned out the way everybody hoped. But there’s one story about the little girl from India who everybody was pulling for. It would have been the greatest, you know, TV movie if it had succeeded the way everybody hoped. But you had insight as to even how God turned all that for the good. Share that a little bit, if you would. Dr. Ming Wang (40:15) Yes, thank you. Thank you for your question, Andrea. There are two aspects of your question. First is how do we work? You know, what is the most important assignment that as a Christian that God has given us? And I have gradually understood that the most important chore, the task that God has given each of us as Christians is to help grow the kingdom. That is to not just celebrating our faith at the churches on Sundays, but more importantly, share our faith Monday through Fridays at the workplace. Now here’s the problem. Lots of people say, well, no, no, no, no way. There’s no common ground between Christian and non Christian. So there’s nothing, you know, in Sunday you have common ground with your fellow Christians, but not only through Friday, other people with different faith, religion or no faith at all. And I’ve been thinking about that question. You know, in my clinic I have a drawing that I was eye surgeons doing surgery, presumably to me and you know, doing surgeries. But Jesus Christ is standing behind me. His hand is on my shoulder. So what it does is to me is that yes, I need to do surgery. Dr. Ming Wang (41:33) I cannot be lazy. The science and technology, but the inspiration comes from Christ, okay? So he knows that God works through his miracle. Every surgery that I’ve been able to do, miracles from God, but God worked through his miracle through me. Okay? I’m the vessel, I’m the tool. Now. So regarding atheists and Christians, do we have common ground or not? That’s a big question. For example, atheists would not like me praying, right? So long time ago when I started doing surgeries and I was already Christian, I said, I’m gonna pray with all my patients. But then they say, no, no, no, don’t do that. I mean, if you pray, the non Christian patients will be offended and they will not come back for your eye surgeries. They will not be happy. So, oh, maybe I should not pray. So then I stopped praying to Christ. I said, what should I do? You know, the answer I got back is that and in many parts of scripture is that if it’s the right thing to do, there’s a price to pay. Christ has paid the ultimate price by dying for our sin at the cross. So my little praying little risk is nothing. Dr. Ming Wang (42:37) So I decide I’m going to pray. So then I’ve done 55,000 laser vision corrections surgeries now, including on over 4,000 doctors. Every single patient I’ve done in my career, I pray with my patient before surgery. Now here’s the thing. I’m a scientist. So I did a little research project over about two years, collected over about 200 some atheist patients that I knew that they were not Christians. And I conducted the research project. I want to find out how they feel. Is it true that they are offended? Is it true that indeed atheists and Christians do not have common ground? So all of these patients, every Single patient before surgery. They are lying on the surgery table ready for surgery. And I always go to their ears. I sit down and have a moment, just a quiet moment, just me and patient. Pray with them. Every single patient then. So the day after the surgery of these 200 some non Christian patients, I conduct a research project. I did a little survey. So I asked them that. Yesterday I prayed with you. Were you offended? I know that you are not Christian, that could you tell me, share with me, how do you feel? Dr. Ming Wang (43:48) And almost all of them told me this way. They said, Dr. Wang, yesterday I was very nervous under your laser, and you did come to my ear, very gentle saying, nancy is okay. I pray with you because I was told I’m supposed to be politically correct. I’m supposed to ask for permissions. So I always ask permissions. So I said, is it okay to pray with you? And the patient said, Nancy, honestly, Dr. Wang, I was so nervous underneath your laser, you’re about to do a surgery on me. I didn’t dare to say no to my surgeon. So I said, yeah, I kind of took advantage of the situation, but I took advantage for God. I felt okay. But my main question today is, were you offended when I pray? And all of them told me this way. And this stayed with me. This is my main point about science and faith and the Christian, non Christian, do they have common ground? Can we find common ground or not with non Christians? They all say this way. They say, Dr. Wang, I do not believe what you believe. I said, that’s why I asked you, were you offended though? Dr. Ming Wang (44:45) When I pray and they say, even I did not believe what you believe. But when you pray with me before my eye surgery yesterday, I was not only not offended, I was not only not offended, but I was actually moved. I said, how can you be moved when you don’t believe my cries that I believe? All of them said this way. They say, I was moved yesterday because in one of my most important moments in my life, which is my eye surgery, I don’t want to have anything to go wrong. You brought something that is most important to you. You’re Christ. And I appreciate that. So all of a sudden I realized it’s the love for fellow human being that transcends the boundaries our faith and religion is that ultimately, as Christians, what God wants us to do when we meet a non Christian is not preaching nor imposing, but express our love for another fellow human being through identifying that common ground. That love for fellow human being doesn’t matter whether they’re Christian or not. That is the best way. The founding Common ground is the best way to bring that person to Christ. Dr. Ming Wang (46:00) So I’ve been praying all my surgeries in my life and yes, you’re right. Regarding your second question, Andrea. One of the difficulties that I have after being Christian is I thought after being Christian, everything will be blue sky, you know, white cloud. My life will be perfect. No, in many ways my life is even more challenging because I have to follow the code of conduct as a Christian. And one the biggest challenge to me I’ve come to realize is that when we pray to God, if God does answer our prayer, that’s not that hard. But what if we pray to God as a Christian? You know, our loved one gets sick, we lost a job and we have this difficulty. Our kids have got into trouble. We pray to God. It seems that God did not answer. You know, our loved one still dies. So how can we still maintain faith and confidence and trust in him? An example you talk about in the film site. We brought this kid orphan from India and we did everything. I even developed amnio contact lens. And also we prayed before her Kajal surgery. She was intentionally blinded by her own stepmother who put sulfuric acid into her eyes. Dr. Ming Wang (47:15) Trying to make Kajal a blind orphan child who then sing on the streets, who would then get more money from tourists then Kujau. Afterwards, maliciously blinded, she was found to have no talent of singing. She couldn’t sing. That’s why she was abandoned. And that’s why we found her in a train station near Calcutta, India. Almost died from starvation and the blind and sight. The movie is about Kujol’s remarkable journey trying to come from darkness to sight. So we brought her here. I found three host families to take care of her. And then we are getting ready, we’re doing surgery. I got a whole team to pray. Whether you’re atheist or believer, I want the whole team to pray for Kajal. And we did. And the surgery completely failed. I realized that the stepmother who put sulfuric acid into her eyes that kept the eye open allowed the acid to corrode through the last layer of the eye. So I have zero chance to restore Kajal’s eyesight. The thing is, you saw in the film was true that I step out of the operating room and there was reporters. Tennessee reporter, you’re right. If it was successful, they’ll be reporting that. Dr. Ming Wang (48:20) But they already did stamp a picture of me and see me soaked, trenched in the operating gown, the scrub. And I did not want to talk to any reporter. I just ran away because I was so mad that surgery failed. And for months after, every day people come say, hey, Kajal, see or not? These three host families, we find it naturally they took care of Kajal. And they asked me for answer. And then I looked behind me that nobody answered my question. And not only I was mad at the stepmother who poured sulfuric acid into such a high poisonous little child to maliciously blind her for money, but also I was angry at my own God because I didn’t understand that as a Christian, why number one God would allow such an evil happen. You know, such a suffering happened in such a helpless child, five year old blind orphan. But also why we did the right thing. We got the technology, we prayed and we did everything. Why God did not answer our prayer? I was thinking that God, if you just leave a little piece of tissue. I’ve done some very difficult reconstructive surgeries. Dr. Ming Wang (49:24) I may have a chance to restore, maybe partial, a bit of vision for sight, but for Kajal. But no, the entire eye was destroyed. No chance. So my foundation Christian faith is fundamentally shaken. Because I think I said to myself, if a guy, you don’t answer our prayer, don’t listen to me, don’t care why I need to become a Christian. So for months I was in a deep trench. Not only medically, but also more important, my faith was shaken. And then every year our foundation has an event to raise money called the Eyeball. Because I had to learn dancing during Cultural Revolution escape labor camp. Now I use the dancing skill to combined with medical charity. I created the concept called the eyeball. You come to eyeball, you see the beautiful dancing. But it reminds you how precious our eyesight is as human being and how much we need to help those who have lost sight. So at every eyeball we always feature the patient’s foundation being able to help their ear. So that year was Kajal. So 500 eyeball attendees in a big ballroom in Nashville Hilton hotel. And then on stage, three host families, they were telling everybody how they took care of Kajal. Dr. Ming Wang (50:34) And then their kids, they stood, come to the microphone and told everybody how they play with Kajal and how they took care of the five year old who couldn’t speak English and come to America. One 11 year old boy at the microphone said something that truly impacted me. Me. And Kajal was standing on the side listening on the stage. And he said Kajol couldn’t see, but we played hide and seek with her all the time. But even though she couldn’t see, she always was able to Find us wherever we hid. And she started smiling, running around, having good time, learning English. So the 11 year old boy turned around, looked at his father behind him. He said, daddy, Kujo is happy. She had nothing. Daddy, I don’t need my ipod anymore. And those were days of the ipod. So standing on the side, listening to that, the 11 year old boy testimonial. All of a sudden a new understanding emerged in me. I realized that perhaps God did answer our prayer. That even though none of us wants to see such a tragedy happen to such a helpless precious child, but God maybe is using Kajal’s suffering to impact people around, cajole these kids, to make them appreciate what they have in life. Dr. Ming Wang (51:56) So in other words, Kajal has shown us, even when no light is coming from outside, light could emanate from within. If one has Christ, one has love in one’s heart. So God may have answered my prayer already, but not in the way I wanted, in the timing I wanted. Maybe God will answer, but only in his way at his time. So realizing that the bigger picture, the bigger plan, the positive impact that Kajal’s life has impacted other people’s lives and Kajal has been able to move on and develop new purpose for her life. So what I’m trying to say is I understand God did answer my prayer. So my anger towards my own God kind of starts subsiding. Then the three host family walk off the stage. Me and Kajal came up to the microphone and I give her a little. I give her the microphone. I said, Kajal, there are 500 AIBO attendees right now. We all love you so much, but you can’t see them. We all can see you. Can you say something maybe in English? So I gave her the microphone. But surprising to me that Kajal broke into a little mischievous little smile. Dr. Ming Wang (53:01) She had a little secret she did not tell me. You remember she was intentionally blinded back in India. Because they were trying to make her blind orphan child who then sing on the street, who would get more money from tourists. But then Kajols wanted to have no talent on the scene. That’s why she was abandoned in the train station. Foundation found her, brought her to America. So in her five year old mind, after she eventually camped along thousands, tens of thousands of miles, came to America and found freedom. What Kajol want the Most as a 5 year old is not to see. She wants more than she wants to see. She wants to be able to learn to sing. Because she wants to prove to all the adults that she could sing. So she therefore should not be abandoned. She’s worth saving. So she, Keqiao lived with these three host families, with these kids every day playing. She learned from these kids, American kids, how to sing. So at that moment on eyeball stage, 500 eyeballs, you know, got ball gowns and tails. Beautiful. We’re looking at on the stage, Kajal. I gave her the microphone. Dr. Ming Wang (54:09) She broke into a mischievous little smile. Keqiang said, Dr. Wang, I want to sing. I was surprised. I said, really? You can sing? You want to sing? She said, yes. So in front of all 500 abort attendees, many of us have tears in our eyes. Look at this precious little thing, the unspeakable suffering. But yet God has helped her find a way to overcome that move on life. But not only that, her suffering has so positively impacted the other kids life around her, make them appreciate what they have in America today so much more. Kijal sang a song that she picked herself in front of those 500 eyeball attendees. And that song she sang holding that little microphone, that picture, that picture that Kajal was saying at the eyeball appeared by Reuters, reported by Reuters and appeared in newspaper in about 70 some countries in the Thanksgiving time that year. The song that she picked herself and sang in front of 500 IBOG attendees was Jesus loves Me. So right then, many of us are in tears watching her singing. And then the band started. Kajoya and I came on the stage just like in the wedding, father and daughter. Dr. Ming Wang (55:20) Kajoy and I did the first dance. Andrea Schwartz (55:23) Wow, that’s great. Dr. Ming Wang (55:25) So God does answer our prayer as Christians that when we think that our prayer is not answered, it’s actually the biggest test of our strength as Christians is when we pray it seemingly that God is not answering, but realizing the deeper understanding that God will answer. God is faithful. He will answer our prayer, but only in his way. Andrea Schwartz (55:55) Yes. Dr. Ming Wang (55:55) At his time. Andrea Schwartz (55:56) Yes. Well, thank you for that. That was really telling. Again, the movie didn’t have her sing it in the movie, but I was glad that I read it in the book. So a couple of things. This wasn’t. Well, maybe it was mentioned in the book. I think I can’t remember, but I looked for it. You have a pen pal sort of process where people in America converse with others in China. Talk a little bit about that. Dr. Ming Wang (56:22) Yes. Today China is economically technology developed rapidly, but it is a looming crisis that is, you know, with material development without faith. What happened? Corruption. Right. Because people don’t have moral ethical standard behavior. So China has wonderful economic development, technology development. But China needs Christ more than Ever. And there’s only 5%, actually less than 5% Chinese are Christians. Essentially it’s an atheist country, right? So I realized that God has impacted my life. I come to America, I found not only freedom, just like the character in the God’s Dead movie, the Chinese Student, which is inspired by my life story. As I mentioned that I also more important find faith in Christ. So give me a purpose what I’m going to use my science technology for in this case, to help my blind orphan children, patients. So I want the Chinese, the 1.4 billion people at the time when there’s more material development, the wealth development, temptation to realize that you need Christ more so that you can stem the corruption, but also help the next generation to combine science and technology to have more purpose driven life. So I realized that we need to do something about it. Dr. Ming Wang (57:51) And specifically we need to bring Bible to China. Now I work with Lifeway Christian books and translate the Bible into modern young people used Chinese language. Okay, the modern Chinese different from 50 years ago, 100 years ago. And my English language is different. Right. Today, you know, we have word attachment. You know, 50 years ago attachment is attachment, emotional attachment maybe. But today when you say attachment, it means a computer attachment, right? So words change meaning. So the Christian faith can be, can grow in China if we can translate the Bible into the modern Chinese language, not, you know, older ones, 50, 100 years ago. So I work with Lifeway and we translate Chinese into modern Chinese the young people use today. And then here’s the most challenging aspect is we have to bring the Bible to China. But that the legal, the law only allowed two copies, only two copies. And so I have a pen pal project that people I found the Christians in China, number one, develop pen pal relationship in email. Because website can be censored, but not email. Hey, that’s a little loophole. So we’re taking advantage of that. So you know they communicate right with the Chinese Christians. Dr. Ming Wang (59:09) And there’s some rules, there’s safeguard, you have to be careful, you know, you don’t want to get the Chinese Christians into trouble and stuff. But we follow these rules and basically talk about Christ without critiquing the government. That’s the way to do it. And then these pen pals, American pen pals will bring Bible to China. And we tell everybody the risk. You can only bring two copies. And more than that you can get into trouble. And many of them actually took risks bring more than that. Every time I go back, I bring back two suitcases of Bible, the newly translated one One time I almost got in trouble at the Shanghai airport. The custom person wants to open my suitcase. Oops, I could be in big trouble. Not only I could be detained, but what if I’m detained? All my patients in America, they lose their eye doctor and not just for my family, but all my patients. So I was very nervous. I look at the two suitcases. He said, I’m going to open it. What’s in there? I said, books. He said, what kind of books? I said, good books. But he’s still going to open. Dr. Ming Wang (01:00:16) He’s still going to open. And I said, oh, I’m way surpassed the two book requirements, the restriction and I’m going to be detained forever. And so I was sweating and I was standing at the custom in the line there and you know, in front of the station and I was closing my eyes and stopped praying. I said, God, please stop him, please stop him. Don’t let him open the suitcase. Don’t let him open. As I’m open, praying, praying. Then I open my eyes, something shocking happened right in front of me. He didn’t open the two suitcases. He kind of stood up, there’s two suitcases and put in the belt conveying belt and let it roll through the machine. I said, what happened? A moment ago before I closed my eyes in my prayer, he was going to open my suitcase and now I have to open my eyes. He actually just put his suitcase vertical and just let it go through the conveyal belt. And I realized something. That was because all of a sudden behind me, seeming out of nowhere, there are like 50 people standing in the line. So what happened? As I was praying, there’s a newly new plane deplaned. Dr. Ming Wang (01:01:27) Bunch of people just came out of the gate there and just stood behind me. So this guy realized that all of a sudden if he has opened my trunk, he would hold him up, you know, or hold the line. So he decided not to open my suitcase because all the people showing up behind me. So in a way I think God answered my prayer. But interesting in a different way, right? So it’s the China Bible Project. The goal is to for world’s most populous nation at the time of scientific rapid development, economic development, where people need more Christ, not less. Let them hear the good news, let them have an opportunity because many of them don’t know, don’t know Christ. Let them have the opportunity to know their Savior. Andrea Schwartz (01:02:13) So how would people who are interested find out more about it and how. Dr. Ming Wang (01:02:17) To get involved for Americans here, Email me. Our foundation address is wang foundation.com wang foundation.com you email. You say, my email address is in there. Just say, Dr. Wang, I’m interested. Become a pen pal and I will put you on the list. And we when we identify a Chinese person, typical atheist, who is interested in communicating with American Christian pen pal and we will then pass that information to you and you can start communicating. But I’ll give you guidelines. You know, I don’t want that person in China getting into trouble. But there are lots of things we can do. Number one, email is not censored. Okay. Website is right. Emails. Okay, good. But there’s a certain guidelines. It basically kind of to bring that person have an opportunity to. In America, we have taken our freedom for granted. You know, sometimes on Sunday people say, oh, I don’t want to go to church, I’m going to sleep in. In China, people cannot freely go to churches. You know, in many other countries, right. They don’t have the ability, the freedom to worship. Here we have the freedom. We don’t appreciate. Andrea Schwartz (01:03:30) We’re coming to the close. I promised you I would limit this and we’re getting close to that time, but you sort of just hinted at it. I’d like you to conclude, if you would, about your true appreciation for America. You know, there’s so many people who were born here who like you said, don’t know anything different. And we hear a lot today about how America is terrible and this and that. But you know what? Even though you experience in the book chronicles this discrimination because you didn’t look like everybody else, you have this sense that America is important. So much so that you wanted to become a citizen. If you would tell us about that perspective and what you’d have to say to people who never knew anything different. Dr. Ming Wang (01:04:20) Thank you for the question, Andrea. People say, ask me what’s the purpose of your book? From doctrines to site and what is the purpose of the film site? By the way, a site is distributed by Angel Studios at Angel.com, a wonderful Christian distribution company distributed The Chosen the Bible story, Sound of Freedom, now Angel Studios distributing site so they say, what is the purpose of the book and the movie for America today? So my answer is this. Here’s the message. The site we’re trying to send Suicide the movie to America and book From Darkness to Sight. You know who appreciates vision sight the most? Those who used to be blind. Who appreciates freedom the most? Those who used to not have freedom sight. And the book From Darkness to Sight is about someone who used to not have freedom who come to share with all of us here in America today who always have had freedom, how precious freedom is, how precious the ability to worship freely the faith is. And then the people say, you mean we don’t appreciate enough America, what we have? I say, correct. And they say, why? Well, why do you say that? Dr. Ming Wang (01:05:40) What’s the evidence of our lack of appreciation of America? I said, the evidence is in our unprecedented polarization and division. We’re increasing unable to work across political aisles, racial divides and ethnic divisions. We’re increasingly fixated as fellow Americans on the differences rather than appreciating what we all have in common. And we’re increasingly unable to solve the problems we’re facing in the society. You know, gun violence, opioid crisis, environmental disaster, racial tension, education, poverty, healthcare, jobs. And we need to restore America to its foundation, which is a nation built upon two bedrocks. One is the Constitution, one is the Bible. So that’s what America is all about. That’s why America attract people from around the world. Because these two cornerstones, we cannot forget that. And these are the two common ground we all share. So I would say the destruction, some of the people that burn down houses and burn down the buildings and you know, causing destruction, I just want to get down and shout at them. I said, don’t you know how good we have got here? Yes, we don’t have a perfect country. Granted we have lots of problems as I mentioned, all these problems, racial tension, economic challenges, poverty and all that. Dr. Ming Wang (01:06:59) But compared with the rest of the world, we have the best nation because the blessing of Jesus Christ. So we need to truly as Americans to appreciate this country but not just saying it, but by doing it, but being more willing to work together for the sake of the nation to restore America across racial divided ethnic divisions. So for all of us, especially for all Christians, doesn’t matter. You’re white, Asian, black, Latin Americans, African Americans, we all have the ultimate common ground which is Jesus Christ. Andrea Schwartz (01:07:33) Amen. Well doctor, thank you again for joining me. Give the name of the website again and where can people get your book? Dr. Ming Wang (01:07:43) Wangfoundation.com and they can click little donate $25 at proceeds go to foundation so we can help more blind orphan children. And we will smell a book signed by me and especially share with young people who are studying science and technology in universities to tell them that you need the science but you need more Christ today. And also to watch the film site distributed by Angel Studios. It’s at Angel.com Very good. Andrea Schwartz (01:08:14) Outofthequestionpodcast@gmail.com is how you reach me and we look forward to talking with you next time. (01:08:22) Thanks for listening to out of the Question. (01:08:24) For more information on this and other topics, please visit chalcedon.edu.…
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