Process by which Christianity spreads in a society or culture
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2 episodes with christianize
2 episodes with christianize
2 episodes with christianize
2 episodes with christianize
2 episodes with christianize
Welcome back to In the Word with Malcolm Webber!Paul's purpose in Colossians is not to build a ministry, Christianize the culture, or reform society. His purpose is to build the bride of Christ to maturity — and the measure of this maturity is full union with Christ. Find out more in the second part of Malcolm's message, “Christ in You, the Hope of Glory.”In the Word with Malcolm Webber is a weekly podcast featuring selected teachings from Dr. Webber's over 40 years of ministry. Find more teachings, along with books, courses, tools, and other resources from Dr. Webber at our website.Related Resources from LeaderSource* Book: The Preeminence and All-Sufficiency of Jesus Christ* Book: The Glorious Bride of Christ: An Exposition of Ephesians* For More Teaching on Common Errors: Malcolm's Musings* Email Course: Who Jesus Christ IsNew to the series? Start here:More messages from Malcolm: This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit leadersource.substack.com
In this episode, Dave and Ann Wilson explore the powerful story of the golden calf from the Book of Exodus, focusing on the dangers of idolatry and the human tendency to replace God with false idols. The discussion is centered around the devotional book ""You Are Redeemed,"" written by Nana Dulce, which highlights God's redeeming love for His people, particularly through the lens of the Exodus narrative.The episode opens with a light-hearted conversation about the golden calf, but quickly transitions into a deep dive into how idolatry manifests itself in modern life. The hosts address the fact that while many of us would scoff at the idea of physically worshipping an idol like the golden calf, the more subtle idols in our lives, such as career, money, and even family, can take the place of God in our hearts. One of the hosts mentions a quote that compares our hearts to “idol factories,” suggesting that idolatry is an ongoing temptation for everyone.The conversation then moves to the idea that God chose Israel before they obeyed and that His love for them was unconditional. Even as Israel failed miserably in their idolatry with the golden calf, God's grace and love were evident in His commitment to them. The episode highlights the significance of the Exodus 19 passage, where God reminds Israel that He had already chosen them, long before giving them the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20. This foundational truth is emphasized—obedience to God is a response to His grace and redemption, not the cause of it.As the hosts examine the story of Aaron and the golden calf, they reflect on the hypocrisy of trying to worship both an idol and God simultaneously, much like some modern-day attempts to Christianize or spiritualize wrong actions. A powerful example from Frederick Douglass' autobiography is shared, showing the disturbing contradiction of people who claimed to follow Christ but lived in opposition to His teachings. This hypocrisy is connected to how people today might use God's name to justify actions that are clearly idolatrous.The discussion doesn't just focus on conviction, but also on grace. The hosts remind the audience that though we are all guilty of idolatry in some form, God's love is steadfast and His grace is ever-present. Christian community, the hosts argue, plays a crucial role in helping one another recognize and tear down the idols in our hearts. Accountability and being open to correction is key to maintaining our focus on God.Toward the end of the episode, the hosts discuss how to “tear down idols,” offering practical advice on how to relinquish control of things that hold us captive, like our children or our desire for financial security. Giving is suggested as a way to break the grip of idols, particularly in areas where people often place their trust, such as money.The episode concludes with a lighthearted exchange about supporting FamilyLife financially, tying it back to the theme of idolatry, and encouraging listeners to give in order to help spread the message of redemption. Nana Dulce also mentions her video devotional series ""Unseen,"" which is available for those seeking to deepen their spiritual journey. To support this ministry financially, visit: https://www.oneplace.com/donate/84/29
In this episode, Dave and Ann Wilson explore the powerful story of the golden calf from the Book of Exodus, focusing on the dangers of idolatry and the human tendency to replace God with false idols. The discussion is centered around the devotional book ""You Are Redeemed,"" written by Nana Dulce, which highlights God's redeeming love for His people, particularly through the lens of the Exodus narrative.The episode opens with a light-hearted conversation about the golden calf, but quickly transitions into a deep dive into how idolatry manifests itself in modern life. The hosts address the fact that while many of us would scoff at the idea of physically worshipping an idol like the golden calf, the more subtle idols in our lives, such as career, money, and even family, can take the place of God in our hearts. One of the hosts mentions a quote that compares our hearts to “idol factories,” suggesting that idolatry is an ongoing temptation for everyone.The conversation then moves to the idea that God chose Israel before they obeyed and that His love for them was unconditional. Even as Israel failed miserably in their idolatry with the golden calf, God's grace and love were evident in His commitment to them. The episode highlights the significance of the Exodus 19 passage, where God reminds Israel that He had already chosen them, long before giving them the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20. This foundational truth is emphasized—obedience to God is a response to His grace and redemption, not the cause of it.As the hosts examine the story of Aaron and the golden calf, they reflect on the hypocrisy of trying to worship both an idol and God simultaneously, much like some modern-day attempts to Christianize or spiritualize wrong actions. A powerful example from Frederick Douglass' autobiography is shared, showing the disturbing contradiction of people who claimed to follow Christ but lived in opposition to His teachings. This hypocrisy is connected to how people today might use God's name to justify actions that are clearly idolatrous.The discussion doesn't just focus on conviction, but also on grace. The hosts remind the audience that though we are all guilty of idolatry in some form, God's love is steadfast and His grace is ever-present. Christian community, the hosts argue, plays a crucial role in helping one another recognize and tear down the idols in our hearts. Accountability and being open to correction is key to maintaining our focus on God.Toward the end of the episode, the hosts discuss how to “tear down idols,” offering practical advice on how to relinquish control of things that hold us captive, like our children or our desire for financial security. Giving is suggested as a way to break the grip of idols, particularly in areas where people often place their trust, such as money.The episode concludes with a lighthearted exchange about supporting FamilyLife financially, tying it back to the theme of idolatry, and encouraging listeners to give in order to help spread the message of redemption. Nana Dulce also mentions her video devotional series ""Unseen,"" which is available for those seeking to deepen their spiritual journey. To support this ministry financially, visit: https://www.oneplace.com/donate/84/29
Send us a textIn his lifetime, John Chrysostom witnessed the true beginning of Christendom: the Emperor Theodosius confirmed the public standing of Christianity over that of paganism and delivered a final knockout blow to Arian heresy in favor of Nicene orthodoxy. But a religion on the upswing can attract opportunistic and ill-informed converts. Jonathan and Ryan look at Chrysostom's advice on the bringing-up of children, and the ways in which the Greek Father uses pagan tropes - Greco-Roman hero cults, wrestling, statuary - to cajole new converts into dropping their pagan habits.Richard M. Gamble's The Great Tradition: https://amzn.to/3Q4lRnOJaspreet Singh Boparai's The Man Who Translated the Bible Into Latin: https://antigonejournal.com/2021/10/saint-jerome/New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores.Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com
Adalbert of Prague wanted very much to go Christianize the Prussians, but they were just not having it, so they hacked him up and cut his head off, and that is why he is a Saint, with an enormous number of churches around the globe dedicated to him. Anne spends time thinking about what was the snack that we are told Adalbert and his companions were eating before the murder, and Michelle considers the recently discovered account of Adalbert that is older than the one we had, although really what she's interested in is St. Bruno of Querfurt, the Second Apostle to the Prussians, who admired Adalbert so much that he went off to the Balkans just like his hero, and got slaughtered in Lithuania. Michelle's quite taken by the fact that nobody really outside of Poland pays any attention to Bruno. Alas.
Adalbert of Prague wanted very much to go Christianize the Prussians, but they were just not having it, so they hacked him up and cut his head off, and that is why he is a Saint, with an enormous number of churches around the globe dedicated to him. Anne spends time thinking about what was the snack that we are told Adalbert and his companions were eating before the murder, and Michelle considers the recently discovered account of Adalbert that is older than the one we had, although really what she's interested in is St. Bruno of Querfurt, the Second Apostle to the Prussians, who admired Adalbert so much that he went off to the Balkans just like his hero, and got slaughtered in Lithuania. Michelle's quite taken by the fact that nobody really outside of Poland pays any attention to Bruno. Alas.
Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas:Congressional Democrats are railing against the abdication by the Congress of their control of federal purse strings to the unelected Elon Musk, including Austin Congressman Greg Casar:https://www.reddit.com/r/QuiverQuantitative/s/gNFR33sfZS...And Dallas Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett:https://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/2025/02/12/first-doge-committee-hearing-showcases-partisan-divide-over-elon-musks-role/Big money is very much running the show lately not only in D.C., but also back here in Texas, where the push to Christianize our public schools is in full swing at the Lege:https://www.texastribune.org/2025/02/13/texas-speaker-race-house-tim-dunn-dustin-burrows/...Texas Republicans have filed multiple House and Senate bills that would criminalize the teaching of basic reproductive biology via sex-ed lessons in our public schools, including the arrest of teachers:https://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2025-02-14/texas-gop-gets-creative-in-crusade-against-sex-education/...Freshman State Rep. Andy Hopper wants to eliminate the Texas Education Agency altogether:https://www.cbsnews.com/texas/news/texas-lawmaker-files-bill-abolish-texas-education-agency/The Gaines County measles outbreak has grown to 24 cases, all unvaccinated:https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/12/science/measles-vaccination-texas.html...And all 100% preventable:https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/editorials/2025/02/13/west-texas-measles-outbreak-spreads-among-unvaccinated-residents/We celebrate Black History Month throughout February! See a great essay on this year's celebration, happening amidst so much turmoil, and a listing of related events happening across Texas: https://progresstexas.org/blog/black-history-month-2025-celebrating-texas-culture...Check out a terrific essay for Black History Month by Progress Texas Institute Board Chair Louis Bedford: https://progresstexas.org/blog/trickle-down-diversity-doesn%E2%80%99t-workThe early giving period for this year's Amplify Austin Day has begun! Support Progress Texas at https://www.amplifyatx.org/organizations/progress-texas-institute.Progress Texas is now ranked in the top 3% of all podcasts worldwide for listenership - thank you! https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/progress-texas-podcasts-progress-texas-pHdPjbaN-7B/The merch to match your progressive values awaits at our web store! Grab your goodies at https://store.progresstexas.org/.We're loving the troll-free environment at BlueSky! Follow us there at https://bsky.app/profile/progresstexas.bsky.social.Thanks for listening! Find our web store and other ways to support our important work at https://progresstexas.org.
Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: Seven employees of the Texas Health and Human Services Commission have been fired under suspicion of breaching the data and stealing the service funds of thousands of low-income Texans who rely on their services: https://www.texastribune.org/2025/01/17/texas-hhsc-food-stamp-fraud-data-breach/ Amarillo anti-choice activist judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, his court cherry-picked by of officials from Idaho, Kansas and Missouri and in defiance of a recent SCOTUS ruling, has green-lighted those states efforts to scale back access to the abortion drug mifepristone: https://www.cbsnews.com/texas/news/texas-judge-allows-states-to-advance-efforts-to-restrict-access-to-mifepristone/ Christian Nationalist elements in Texas are smarting after an opening day loss in their effort to install Rep. David Cook as House Speaker: https://www.chron.com/culture/religion/article/christian-alt-right-politics-20036423.php ...The effort to Christianize government, should it succeed in Texas, is highly unlikely to stop at the Lone Star State's borders: https://www.msnbc.com/the-reidout/reidout-blog/texas-speaker-vote-christian-nationalists-trump-rcna187869 ...State Senator Phil King of northwest D/FW is once again pressing to require the Ten Commandments to be posted in every Texas classroom: https://www.chron.com/politics/article/ten-commandments-texas-schools-20035683.php ...Meanwhile a SECOND North Texas pastor is accused of child sexual abuse, just this month: https://www.keranews.org/news/2025-01-15/another-north-texas-pastor-arrested-on-child-sexual-abuse-charge-court-records-show The merch to match your progressive values awaits at our web store! Grab your goodies at https://store.progresstexas.org/. We're loving the troll-free environment at BlueSky! Follow us there at https://bsky.app/profile/progresstexas.bsky.social. Thanks for listening! Find our web store and other ways to support our important work at https://progresstexas.org.
PHOTOS: San Antonio's first Krampus parade takes over Southtown Tpr, By Joey Palacios, on December 6, 2024https://www.tpr.org/arts-culture/2024-12-06/photos-san-antonios-first-krampus-parade-takes-over-southtownSan Antonio recently hosted its first Krampus parade in the King William neighborhood, drawing thousands to celebrate Germanic traditions. The event showcased horned demons, witches, and St. Nicholas figures, embodying a festive yet eerie atmosphere. While most attendees enjoyed the spectacle, some evangelical protesters voiced their discontent, decrying the event as promoting fear and judgment. Ironically, their protests seemed to bolster the parade's popularity. Overall, the parade was a success, highlighting San Antonio's cultural diversity and potentially establishing a beloved new holiday tradition.The Krampus myth originates from Germanic folklore as the dark counterpart to Santa Claus. On December 5th, Krampus supposedly punishes naughty children, a tradition adapted from earlier Alpine myths involving devilish goat-like figures. Historically, the Catholic Church opposed these pagan practices but incorporated Krampus into St. Nicholas lore to control and Christianize the tradition. Today, Krampus is celebrated in Alpine regions through costumes, parades, and schnaps offerings.The revival of Krampus celebrations has gained traction worldwide, particularly in the United States. Cities like New Orleans, New York, and Portland host Krampus events ranging from parades to haunted houses. These celebrations mix cultural nostalgia with modern festivities, often centering around drinking and merrymaking. St. Louis even turns its Krampusnacht into a pub crawl, while Columbia, South Carolina, boasts the oldest Krampus parade in the country.Evangelical criticism of Krampus events stems from their association with darkness and fear, concepts they view as antithetical to Christian values. Protesters argue that such events tarnish the purity of the Christmas season. However, this perspective is ironic given the inherent darkness in Christian theology surrounding sin, sacrifice, and salvation. The backlash may also reflect discomfort with losing cultural dominance as society embraces more diverse traditions.The popularity of Krampus celebrations can be attributed to various factors, including cultural heritage, a desire to challenge religious norms, and a simple love for festive revelry. For some, it's a nostalgic nod to their ethnic roots; for others, it's an irreverent counterbalance to Christmas commercialism. Whatever the motivation, Krampus parades like San Antonio's bring communities together in a uniquely spirited way.The Non-Prophets, Episode 24.01.1 featuring Scott Dickie, Kelley Laughlin, Jonathan Roudabush and Stephen HarderBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-non-prophets--3254964/support.
Subjected to more criticism than any other book now incorporated in the New Testament, the Apocalypse -- popularly accredited to St. John the Divine -- is by far the most important but least understood of the Gnostic Christian writings. Though Justin Martyr declared the Book of Revelation to have been written by "John, one of Christ's apostles," its authorship was disputed as early as the second century after Christ. In the third century these contentions became acute and even Dionysius of Alexandria and Eusebius attacked the Johannine theory, declaring that both the Book of Revelation and the Gospel according to St. John were written by one Cerinthus, who borrowed the name of the great apostle the better to foist his own doctrines upon the Christians. Later Jerome questioned the authorship of the Apocalypse and during the Reformation his objections were revived by Luther and Erasmus. The once generally accepted notion that the Book of Revelation was the actual record of a "mystical experience" occurring to St. John while that seer was an exile in the Isle of Parmos is now regarded with disfavor by more critical scholars. Other explanations have therefore been advanced to account for the symbolism permeating the volume and the original motive for its writing. The more reasonable of these theories may be summed up as follows: First, upon the weight of evidence furnished by its own contents the Book of Revelation may well be pronounced a pagan writing -- one of the sacred books of the Eleusinian or Phrygian Mysteries. As a corollary, the real author of a work setting forth the profundities of Egyptian and Greek mysticism must have been an initiate himself and consequently obligated to write only in the symbolic language of the Mysteries. Second, it is possible that the Book of Revelation was written to reconcile the seeming discrepancies between the early Christian and pagan religious philosophies. When the zealots of the primitive Christian Church sought to Christianize pagandom, the pagan initiates retorted with a powerful effort to paganize Christianity. The Christians failed but the pagans succeeded. With the decline of paganism the initiated pagan hierophants transferred their base of operations to the new vehicle of primitive Christianity, adopting the symbols of the new cult to conceal those eternal verities which are ever the priceless possession of the wise.
When church folks advocate and attempt to indoctrinate that we are required to keep and obey *everything* Jesus said, there is a very apparent and glaring problem with this mindset. You may have noticed ... *they aren't doing it themselves.* Hypocrisy is exposed but usually ignored, as the very thing they are touting is really just a selective version of pick and choose as they deceive themselves into thinking they are "doers" who end up landing in a pile of filthy rags known as self-righteousness. We don't ignore or dismiss the words of Jesus. But much of what He said to Jewish people who were still under an unprofitable law of works before the cross needs to be considered in the proper context rather than trying to "Christianize" it into something that leaves believers today misinformed and off track. Jesus did not come with a new set of rules that would be harder and more challenging than the commands from the Mosaic law that nobody had ever successfully kept. --Available on Amazon - "Clash of The Covenants: Escaping Religious Bondage Through the Grace Guarantee" https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0713ZSKY7
Hey, Hi, Hello, this is the History Wizard and welcome back for Day 19 of Have a Day w/ The History Wizard. Thank you to everyone who tuned in for Day 18 last week, and especially thank you to everyone who rated and/or reviewed the podcast. I hope you all learned something last week and I hope the same for this week as well. Originally this week was going to cover the currently ongoing genocide in Ukraine, but I need to do some more research before I'm ready to record that episode so instead today's episode is going to be an interlude and we're going to be talking aboutone of my favorite women in history. Olga of Kiev, a woman who is the very definition of fuck around and find out. But first! The Alchemist's Table! Today's libation is called Kissed by Summer. It's 2 oz of bourbon, 1 oz each of amaretto and francelico. .75 oz of vanilla simple syrup, 3 dashes of angostura bitters. Shake well and pour over ice. Top with equal parts lemonade and ginger beer and enjoy! So, now onto Ola of Kiev, the Saint of Slaughter. Olga's exact year of birth is unknown, but we know she was born somewhere between 890 and 925 CE in Pleskov. She was of Varangian origin, which was an ethnic group descended from Swedish vikingr invaders that eventually settled in the area of the Kievan Rus. She was 15 years old when she was married to Prince Igor I of the Rurik Dynasty. Igor was the son of Rurik, making him only the second ruler of this particular dynasty. During Igor's reign and owing to a great deal of military aid from his guardian Oleg the Wise the Kievan Rus, and the many tribes of people living in it all came under Rurik control. Tragedy would strike the Rurik Dynasty in the form of a neighboring tribe known as the Drevelians, a tribe of Eastern Slavic peoples. The Drevelians were not part of the Kievan Rus, though they had joined them in military campaigns against the Byzantine Empire previously and paid a yearly tribute to Igor's predecessors in the Rurik Dynasty. After Oleg the Wise died in 912 CE the Drevelians stopped paying their tribute to Igor, instead paying it to a local warlord. In 945 CE Igor set out with his army to bring the Drevelians into line. No longer would he allow them to deny him what he saw as his rightful tribute. He marched his army to the traditional Drevelian capital, Iskorosten, today known as Korosten in the Zhytomyr Oblast in northern Ukraine. Now, Igor's army was much larger than any the Drevelians could field, so they backed down and agreed to resume their payments to Igor. However, Igor became greedy and after leaving to return home he turned around and went back to Iskorosten to demand even MORE tribute, at which point he Drevelians captured him alone and killed him. According to the Byzantine chronicler Leo the Deacon, Igor's death was caused by a gruesome act of torture in which he was "captured by them, tied to tree trunks, and torn in two." They allegedly tied one leg each to two bent over birch trees and then let them catapult up in opposing directions, tearing him in half. Though it is possible that this exact story is apocryphal, the fact that Igor was killed by the Drevelians cannot be denied. Upon learning of the death of her husband Olga ascended to the throne to rule as regent in the name of her son Sviatoslav. Olga was the first woman to rule over the Kievan Rus. Now, there isn't a great deal of information in the historical record regarding what Olga's reign was like. But there is A LOT of information detailing the bloody revenge she got on those who stole her love from her. The Drevelians, now firmly in the Fuck Around stage and emboldened by their successful murder of Igor sent a missive to Olga. They proposed that Olga should marry the Drevelian prince Mal. The man directly responsible for killing her husband. According to the Russian Primary Chronicle, a document formerly thought to have been written by Nestor the Chronicler, although now it is considered to be of unknown authorship, Olga responded to their bold pronouncement thusly: “Your proposal is pleasing to me, indeed, my husband cannot rise again from the dead. But I desire to honor you tomorrow in the presence of my people. Return now to your boat, and remain there with an aspect of arrogance. I shall send for you on the morrow, and you shall say, "We will not ride on horses nor go on foot, carry us in our boat." And you shall be carried in your boat.” When they returned the next day the Drevelians repeated the words Olga had bade them and the people of the Kievan Rus lifted their boat upon their shoulders and carried them into the courtyard of Olga's castle. The Drevelians were thrilled by this, feeling as though they were carried in great honor upon a palanquin. Once they were brought into the courtyard their porters dropped them, boat and all, into a trench that Olga had ordered dug the day before and were buried alive. It is written that Olga bent down to watch them as they were buried and "inquired whether they found the honor to their taste." The Drevelins were now squarely in the middle of the Find Out stage, although they didn't know it yet as all 20 of the men from the initial retinue they had sent were now buried in the courtyard of Olga's home. So Olga wrote to the Drevelians and asked them to send “their distinguished men to her in Kiev, so that she might go to their Prince with due honor.” The Drevelian, completely unaware of the fate of the previous retinue sent others to Olga, who ordered a bath be drawn so that they might wash off the dust of the road. Once the bath was drawn and the Drevelians were comfortably in the bathhouse, Olga set the damnthing on fire. No one escaped alive. But Olga's revenge was not complete. The Drevelians, still unaware that Olga was engaged in acts of genocidal revenge over the death of her husband, received another missive from her. She was on her way to Iskotorsten and asked that they prepare great quantities of mead so that she might mourn and feast her husband as is proper. And the Drevelians compiled and a funeral feast was held by Igor's tomb. When the Drevelians were good and drunk on mead, Olga ordered her followers to fall upon them and slaughter them all. According to the Primary Chronicle some 5000 Drevelians were killed in a single night. Olga would then return to Kiev, her capital city, and prepare her armies to march back to Iskotorsten. She swept across Drevelian land like an avenging angel until she reached, once again, their capital. Here is where things stalled and Olga entered into a year long siege. Eventually she sent another missive to the Drevelians asking them why their capital refused to surrender. “All of your other cities have surrendered and now pay tribute to me, why would you rather die of hunger than pay tribute.” The Drevelians, as you might expect, responded that they were worried that Olga ws still dead set on revenge, but Olga told them that the boat, bathhouse, and feast massacres had satisfied her. She instead asked them for 3 pigeons and three sparrows from each house and the Drevelians rejoiced that the price they were asked to pay was so low. Oh those poor fools. Olga then instructed her army to attach a piece of sulphur bound with small pieces of cloth to each bird. At nightfall, Olga told her soldiers to set the pieces aflame and release the birds. They returned to their nests within the city, which subsequently set the city ablaze. As the Primary Chronicle tells it: "There was not a house that was not consumed, and it was impossible to extinguish the flames, because all the houses caught fire at once." As the people fled the burning city, Olga ordered her soldiers to catch them, killing some of them and giving the others as slaves to her followers. Olga would go on to become a saint in the Eastern Orthodox Church. Not because of the genocide she committed. Mostly because of her efforts to Christianize the Kievan Rus, a mission that she did not succeed in, but that was carried to fruition by her grandson Vladimir. Well… that's it for this week folks. No new reviews, so let's get right into the outro. Have a Day! w/ The History Wizard is brought to you by me, The History Wizard. If you want to see/hear more of me you can find me on Tiktok @thehistorywizard or on Instagram @the_history_wizard. Please remember to rate, review, and subscribe to Have a Day! On your pod catcher of choice. The more you do, the more people will be able to listen and learn along with you. Thank you for sticking around until the end and, as always, Have a Day.
To support the ministry of Celebration Church please click here: https://subsplash.com/celebrationchurchtn/giveSubscribe to receive our latest content: https://tr.ee/2b6XuDKlaS...FOLLOW US►► Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rwmccollum/►► Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rwmccollum/►► Twitter: https://twitter.com/rwmccollum#celebrationchurchnashville #online #jesus #celebrationchurch #church #onlinechurch #sermon #nashville...Now as He sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately, saying, "Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?" And Jesus answered and said to them: "Take heed that no one deceives you…”Matthew 24:3-4What we believe about the future determines how we live in the present. The failure of the modern American church to Christianize the culture comes from a false view of the future, the end-times, and the 2nd Coming of Christ. It is time to correct that.“Today's speculative madness related to repeated failed attempts at predicting the end must be attributed to a gross misunderstanding of biblical prophecy.”Gary DeMarIn this new series, Pastor Ray will be teaching on topics that are often misunderstood, including: the Rapture, the Great Tribulation, the Antichrist, the ‘mark of the beast', and the Book of Revelation. We hope you can be with us. And bring a friend!
Send us a Text Message.This program is a rebroadcast from 07/01/23GUEST: SCOTT ANIOL, Professor of Pastoral Theology, Grace Bible Theological SeminaryAs we celebrate Independence Day, which commemorates the signing in 1776 of the Declaration of Independence, the founding document of our nation, when the original 13 colonies declared their autonomy from British colonial rule.John Adams was a signer of the Declaration, one of the framers of the U.S. Constitution (1789), and the second President of the United States. Likely not a born-again Christian but rather a deist (a believer in a supreme being who is uninvolved in the affairs of mankind), Adams wrote the following about the link between morality and civil society:“…should the people of America once become capable of that deep simulation [pretending] towards one another…which assumes the language of justice and moderation while it is practicing iniquity and extravagance…while it is rioting in rapine [violent seizure of property] and insolence [rude behavior], this country will be the most miserable habitation in the world; because we have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”We are seeing John Adams' warning prove true in America today. We are at a low point in our nation when laws are passed granting the “freedom” to kill a child anytime during the nine months of pregnancy, when the “degrading passions” of homosexuality are normalized and codified as “marriage”, when adults parade openly and lewdly down the streets in front of children, and when children are led into the sin of cross-dressing and physical mutilation in the name of “gender affirming care”.Wicked depravity is now tolerated and affirmed in our nation and the predictable results are division, confusion, chaos, violence, harm, and hatred.So what are Christians to do, who like Lot living in Sodom “felt his righteous soul tormented day after day by their lawless deeds” (2 Peter 2:8)?Most Christians would say that our nation desperately needs to reclaim our Biblical foundations and establish laws and policies based on the truths of Christianity. But how would that take place? Is that Scripture's call for Christians and the church to work to “Christianize” government?This weekend on The Christian Worldview, Scott Aniol, editor-in-chief of G3 Ministries and professor of pastoral theology at Grace Bible Theological Seminary, joins us to discuss “Christian Nationalism”, a term that means different things to different people.To some Christians, it means electing representatives who advocate for biblical principles in government. Other believers see it as a biblical mandate to work toward Christian rule over government and all institutions in society. While non-believers view it as religious extremists trying to institute a theocracy and oppress non-believers.Join us for a discussion on Christian Nationalism and what Bible says about Christians and government.
• The Audio Podcast of this Rosary is Available Here Now! Friends of the Rosary, St. Joseph has two feast days on the liturgical calendar. The first is March 19—Joseph, the Saint Husband of Mary. The second is May 1—Joseph, the Worker. Today, the Holy Catholic Church presents us the example of Saint Joseph the Worker to all laborers. This is a feast day established by Pope Pius XII in 1955 to Christianize the concept of labor and give all workmen a model and a protector. The husband of the Blessed Mother Mary offered to God his daily labor as a carpenter with patience and joy. St. Joseph provided for the necessities of Mary and Jesus. Another Pope, Leo XIII, wrote wisely: "Workmen and all those laboring in conditions of poverty will have reasons to rejoice rather than grieve, since they have in common with the Holy Family daily preoccupations and cares" Pope John Paul II said, "Saint Joseph is a man of great spirit. He is great in faith, not because he speaks his own words, but above all because he listens to the words of the Living God. He listens in silence. And his heart ceaselessly perseveres in the readiness to accept the Truth contained in the word of the Living God." Joseph was a compassionate man, and obedient to the will of God. He is the patron of many things, including the universal Church, fathers, the dying, and social justice. Ave Maria!Jesus, I Trust In You!St. Joseph, Pray for Us! To Jesus through Mary! Here am I, Lord; I come to do your will! + Mikel Amigot | RosaryNetwork.com, New York • May 1, 2024, Today's Rosary on YouTube | Daily broadcast at 7:30 pm ET
Fr. Eric Nicolai preached this meditation in a retreat at Kintore College on May 1, 2024, Feast of St. Joseph the Worker. The feast of St. Joseph the Worker was established by Pope Pius XII in 1955 in order to Christianize the concept of labor and give to all workmen a model and a protector. But it was meant to be a way for all to see work through a different lens. Not one of class struggle, but in the light of God's plans for us in Work, in our study, our human formation. Imagine, this could be a time of spiritual awakening, an encounter, a surprise. God is the God of surprises, as Pope Francis says. Joseph can intercede for us so that we discover this surprise during this retreat. Music: 'Undertow' by Scott Buckley - released under CC-BY 4.0. www.scottbuckley.com Thumbnail: Saint Joseph the worker, from the retable in the shrine of Torreciudad, Spain, sculpted by Juan Mayné. https://torreciudad.org/en/
A frozen Lake Peipus played host to a dramatic fight between 2,000 Catholic Crusaders and 6,000 Orthodox Christians on 5th April, 1242. The invading forces were the Teutonic Knights, armed with spears and swords to ‘Christianize' what they saw as a Pagan society. Novgorod's defender, Prince Alexander Nevsky, lured the Germans to the lake, where his troops could take them down one by one, in a battle that went down in Russian lore. In this episode, Arion, Rebecca and Olly reveal how much of the imagery of the battle was in fact crystallised by a controversial twentieth-century filmmaker; consider why the Knights were so unprepared for this particular confrontation; and ask what actual theological differences separated the warring factions… Further Reading: • ‘Lake Peipus: Battle on the Ice' (Warfare History Network, 2005): https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/article/lake-peipus-battle-on-the-ice/ • ‘Alexander Nevsky - Prince of Novgorod and Kiev': https://www.thoughtco.com/alexander-nevsky-profile-p2-1788255 • ‘Alexander Nevsky' (Sergei Eisenstein, 1938): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gq4PaJfod4w We'll be back on Monday - unless you join
A Critique of the Seven Mountain Mandate, Part 1, presented by Bob DeWaay and Eric Douma. Bob and Eric discuss the book Invading Babylon by Lance Wallnau and Bill Johnson. They reject the claim that we must Christianize the culture as we establish the kingdom of God on the earth and show that we enter the kingdom of God through faith alone. (duration 00:34:39) Click here to play
When Jessi Hempel came out of the closet she had no idea her whole church-going family had been hiding in there with her. And things got complicated fast when the closet door kept swinging open. Jessi Hempel is author of The Family Outing: A Memoir. She is also host of the award-winning podcast Hello Monday, and a senior editor-at-large at LinkedIn. Her features and cover stories have appeared in Wired, Fortune, and TIME. She has appeared on CNN, PBS, MSNBC, Fox, and CNBC, addressing the culture and business of technology. Hempel is a graduate of Brown University and received a master's in journalism from UC Berkeley. She lives in Brooklyn with her wife and children. REFERENCES Jessi Hempel, "My Brother's Pregnancy and the Making of a New American Family," TIME (Sept. 12, 2016). Transcript JESSI HEMPEL: I started reading the section about homosexuality and I was like, "Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear!" Then I thought, "Oh my goodness, they're gonna come home and see me reading it and they're gonna know." Now I'm, you know, fourteen or fifteen years old. I was so nervous they would discover what I was researching, that I was reading for personal gain, that I was trying to figure something out. So, I immediately turned to the section on menopause because I think, "Well then they'll just think I'm reading for curiosity because there's no way I'm going through menopause." BLAIR HODGES: Jessi Hempel wasn't going through menopause. She was figuring out she was gay in the late 80s in a family where that wasn't particularly safe. She could keep it hidden for a while, but she knew that someday it wouldn't be a secret anymore, and she was afraid. So, Jessi managed to stretch the secret out. Then one day, her sister discovers something on their father's computer that will turn the whole family on its head. There was more than one secret closet in this family, and the closet doors would swing open again and again. In this episode, Jessi joins us to talk about her incredible memoir, The Family Outing. There's no one right way to be a family, and every kind of family has something we can learn from. I'm Blair Hodges, and this is Family Proclamations. THE FAMILY LEAST LIKELY TO KEEP IN TOUCH (1:38) BLAIR HODGES: Jessi Hempel, welcome to Family Proclamations. JESSI HEMPEL: Well, thank you so much for having me, Blair. I love what you're doing with the show. BLAIR HODGES: I'm excited to talk to you about this book, The Family Outing. You're a professional writer, you didn't just write a book because of your amazing experiences. You also have technical skills with this, so people might not think twice about the fact that you've published a book. But I do think this particular book is sort of surprising if we look at your other professional stuff. Like your career focuses on tech reporting, and this is a really personal memoir. Talk about what it was like to kind of transition to a different mode of writing to get this book done. JESSI HEMPEL: You're very correct, Blair. For the first 25 years of my life as a writer—and that's a lot of years, by the way, I had been writing for a long time—I thought that if I ever wrote a book it would be about technology, artificial intelligence, or the rise of social networks, or any of the myriad things I geeked out on related to business and tech. I had spent my entire career until that point writing for magazines like Business Week, and Fortune, and Wired about the kinds of things that kept me up at night, which were and are things having to do with things like the evolution of new technology. And that was my identity. And I start there, Blair, because I think what happened to me actually happened to a lot of people. In March of 2020—and I should start by saying, if you just say “March of 2020” most people get this dour look on their face, right? Yeah, we can all think about where we might have been. And for me, I was living in Brooklyn, New York. And I was this technology writer, and I was a fairly new parent, my wife and I had a baby, he had just turned a year old, and I had a real strong sense of my identity, right? I traveled all the time, I was out in the world, career focused. And then overnight all of that changed. My job was thankfully safe, but there was a question as to whether it would continue. And suddenly, there was no traveling. In fact, there was no office to go to. There was no daycare, which meant that I was home with my child all day. And New York was a particularly scary place to be. My wife and I finally got to a point where we said we gotta get out of here. Bear with me, because this does have to do with the book. I know, Blair, right here that you're like, this not the question that I asked. [laughter] BLAIR HODGES: I'm following, I'm following! JESSI HEMPEL: Okay! So, my wife and I put the baby and the dog in the back of the Subaru—because those are the lesbians that we are—and we hit the gas and started driving south. Her parents lived in Tupelo, Mississippi, and we drove all the way to their house, which was 18 hours. And when we got there, we thought we'd stay for 10 days, and—you know where the story is going—we stayed for months. Those first couple of weeks that I was living in my wife's childhood bedroom, you know, I did the things that we did at the very beginning of the pandemic. Like I got Zoom-crazy, right? I did Zoom happy hours and Zoom yoga and I Zoomed with friends I hadn't talked to in a while. And then very quickly, I just grew so tired of Zoom and really tired of talking to anyone. I was depressed. I was super down. And while I was so down, I discovered that there were just a few people I wanted to talk to. And I wanted to talk to them every single day. And that was my brother, my sister, and my mom, and my dad. And I thought that was pretty wild because if you had known us in our youth you would have voted us the family least likely to keep in touch with each other. We were just a hot mess, right? But here we were in the middle of this global emergency, and these were the people I was reaching for. And we were quarantining in five different houses in four different states. And we were texting and in touch with each other every day. So all that was going on, Blair. Back in New York, I had this very commercial literary agent who kept calling me and saying, "Jessi, now is a great time to write a book." And I would say, "Have you seen my life? There is nothing great about this moment. I'm kind of busy trying to keep my head above water. It's not a good time.” And she kept saying, “No, no, this is a great time. There are not a lot of writers bringing books to market.” She was right about that. “And so if there was ever a moment when you had a real dream, like the dream project, this is the moment you could get that project done.” And so I said, "Okay, I'll think about it." And I came back to her, and I said, "Well, how about I write a tech book about the business of tech?" and she said, "Boring." She said, "Go back and bring me the book that you would be most afraid to write." So I thought about it. Then I came back to her. And I said, "Well, what if I interviewed everybody in my family and wrote the story of how we all came out? Because here's the thing, I think the reason why we like each other so much right now, and why we depend on each other so much emotionally, and why we are close, is because things were so hard and broken. And we all did this internal work of coming out. And that work—not only did it help us each to realize ourselves, but it helped us to realize something about each other.” And she said, "Perfect, we'll call it The Family Outing." And literally, from there I was writing the book. FRAMING THE STORY (6:44) BLAIR HODGES: And it was in the course of starting those interviews that you started to wrap your head around the story of your family, because the easy story to tell, which you say in the introduction is, we had this family, there was all this dysfunction, and then we all came out of the closet, and now we're all okay. And that's an interesting story in and of itself, but you weren't entirely satisfied with it. Why wasn't it satisfying when thought about framing your book and the story you wanted to tell? JESSI HEMPEL: I love that sort of overview of it, because that is how I kind of have been telling it my whole life and it was a great cocktail party story. Like, "Hey, I've got the gayest family. My family can out-gay your family. Listen to how gay we are. We all came out of the closet.” And I should say when I say that, Blair, I came out of the closet first. I came out at 19. Just straight up gay. I would even call myself a little bit of a boring gay. I'm very in the box, like, you know, fairly heteronormative in presentation, like, just discovered Ani DiFranco at 19 and was like, "Yeah, there we go." [laughter] Shortly after, my dad came out as gay, which forced him to leave his marriage. My sister came out as bisexual, my brother came out as transgender, and later went on to carry a child. And that whole process caused us to do a great deal of self-reflection. And my mother came out as a survivor of a series of crimes so heinous, I could really only learn about them in little bits over time. And all of this change happened over the course of three and a half, four years, a very short period of time. And while it was happening, I've got to say, it was terrible. It was terrible. And it was hard. And terrible and hard—once you get to the other side of them—forge character, right? And so what I was interested in was, I wanted to figure out not just what my version of the story was, but what every member of my family thought happened. I wanted to see if I could get to one common narrative that we all agreed upon, like, "Hey, here's what happened." So I kind of pitched the story to everybody. I was like, "Hey, you know what we could do is, I could interview you, we could do a whole lot of interviews, you could tell me your side of the story. I could figure out where they line up. And then I could just come up with one common narrative." And everybody agreed to it, which, God bless them that they all agreed to it because, especially for my parents, it was a huge leap of faith. They were essentially agreeing to allow me to air all my family's dirty laundry, and to live through that. BLAIR HODGES: Because for interviews they have to be involved with it, right? Like not just your parents telling you, but they have to dig— JESSI HEMPEL: Right. I mean, there was so much digging, and subsequently so much healing in the writing of the story. And I should say, by the way we're talking about it you would think this is like an encyclopedia about my family. But I also endeavored to write a beach read. I wanted to write something that would move so fast you would sit down and start to read it, and if it was a book that spoke to you—and I will say books are very personal, not every book speaks to every person—but if those books spoke to you, that you would sit down, open it, and want to finish it right away and just fly through it. But you know, when I started to try to get all of our stories to line up, the only thing I really learned, Blair, is that even when five people endeavor in good faith to tell one story, memory is really crappy. And people remember things differently and nobody could get the details right. JESSI'S FATHER (10:17) BLAIR HODGES: Part of your project, then, was to get a narrative thread that worked, but also that would be satisfactory and representative of the perspectives of your family. You were juggling a lot of different stories here. One of the most interesting for me was about your father. He was a young man in the 1970s. He was the son of a very religiously devout minister. And he's thinking about maybe entering the ministry himself. But things aren't really clicking, his mission work gets cut short, he finds himself in this meeting with a psychiatrist and a psychoanalyst, and he's listing off all these ways he feels lost in his life. And then he just tosses out, "Oh, also, I think I might be gay." Tell us a little bit more about your dad in this moment and what that must have been like for him to be a gay young man in the seventies from this devout family. JESSI HEMPEL: I mean, I think so much about this. Because if you had met my dad as a 10-year-old child, you would probably have identified him—especially in our contemporary culture, maybe not back then—but even from his youngest years, he was somebody who people probably identified as, "Oh, that kid's probably gonna grow up to be gay." He just had a manner about him. And I think that really scared his parents. My grandfather was a German Methodist minister who even felt like the Methodist Church wasn't quite strict enough. So he would bring his family for extra churching on Wednesdays to the Baptist church down the street. He really took his relationship with God seriously, and was somewhat panicked you know, he had three children, he had two daughters, and then he had this son, and in their family, I mean, everything was about the son. They just really wanted the son to accurately represent the family and take on the tradition, which was a religious tradition, whatever that was. And there was my dad, this young gay kid, and they became so worried about him being—I mean, they never used the word “gay.” Let me be really clear, Blair. But you know, even in middle school, they had a couple of experiences where—and this isn't in the book, but just from my dad talking to me, you know, his parents found him like trying on his big sisters' petticoats. And they just were concerned enough that they figured out how to get him into a rigorous Christian boys boarding school. And all that time, my dad knew in his heart that he was gay, or that he liked boys. I don't think he had a word for it. BLAIR HODGES: I think that's a really important point, too, that it wouldn't have been thought of in terms of an identity, but rather as sinful inclinations, or temptations he was supposed to fight. So it wouldn't have been, “Oh no, my son's gay.” It's, “Oh no, he's going to struggle with these temptations. How are we going to Christianize them out of him? How are we gonna fix that pathology?” One of those solutions then was to get married, like, "This'll fix it." JESSI HEMPEL: Super interesting, right? My father didn't really know what he wanted to do with his life. He's a very bright guy. He graduated top of his class at his Christian boarding school. He went off to Middlebury College and he got a scholarship. His family had no money. He finished Middlebury College a semester early and he had no career path, no idea what he wanted to do. He was kind of like, as bright as he was intellectually, he was kind of a dud socially. Couldn't figure out dating, couldn't figure out anything, and so his parents really kind of pushed him into the mission. And that seemed like a thing to do. His older sister had become a missionary. And by the way, it was a great lifestyle for her. It worked really, really well for her. She has continued this lifestyle for her entire life. I mean, she eventually got married and had children. But this lifestyle did not work for my dad. And here's where I have to give the Methodist Church some credit. It seems from what I could figure out—and again, I wasn't able to talk to any of these people personally—but just from reading diaries of my father and picking up stories and reading my grandfather's notes. You know, my grandfather pushed the Methodist ministry to invite my father into the mission. I think that they knew he didn't want to be a missionary, and they knew that he was a really lost kid, and that he needed some guidance. And so they finally said to him, "Look, we're just going to let you out of this commitment and we're also going to pay for counseling for you. So go get yourself settled somewhere. And we the church are then going to pick up therapy for you." And that's really cool. The other side of that was that when my father finally got himself settled somewhere, he went off to live with his sister for a couple months, he got a Christian therapist who listened to him and assured him when he mentioned that maybe he could be possibly, I mean, there's a potential that he could be gay—you know, mumbled the word, didn't even say it loudly—they said, "No, no, no, no,” you know, “a lot of young adolescent men feel this way during one stage of growth and adolescence, and you just need to get married. Just get married, that'll take care of it." JESSI'S MOTHER (15:11) BLAIR HODGES: And so then he does. He meets your mom. And your mother—you found out in the course of writing the book, and throughout your life, your mom had experienced some trauma around the time she met your dad. She was going through some things. So your dad's sort of trying to find his way, deciding to get married and this and that, and your mom was trying to figure out her future family life at this time, too. She was working at this department store. And she had a coworker there that she kind of had a crush on, who was actually revealed to be a friend, and maybe even an accomplice of a serial killer in Michigan. I didn't expect this in The Family Outing. Talk about that for a sec. JESSI HEMPEL: In the late 60s, in Ypsilanti, Michigan, there was a man who preyed upon women in my mom's community. And it was still the early sixties you know, this was before the heyday of serial killers in our culture, back when that was still sort of a new idea. But women started disappearing, probably when my mom was in about ninth or tenth grade. And, you know, there would be women that my mom knew. It would be like the assistant art teacher at the high school, or the church deacon's secretary, and they'd be people that were about my mom's age and that looked a lot like my mom. And the town became increasingly fearful as these disappearances and subsequent murders happened at a cadence of like once a year, and then once every six months, and then moved into a cadence of happening quite frequently. And all of the men in town became volunteer neighborhood watch folks, including my grandfather, and all the young girls were put on curfews. And this was the backdrop against which my mom attempted to live her adolescence. I think it's probably true when anybody experiences something as persistently scary as that, you become immune to the fear, and you just have to live your life. And my mom did that. She worked at a department store downtown, and she developed a crush on a guy. And there was actually a moment when that guy scared the bejesus out of her in a way that suddenly— BLAIR HODGES: Yeah, he corners her in a back room. JESSI HEMPEL: And he throttles her throat, and he threatens her! And she was looking at him and she was trying to get him to stop. And then she realized, "Oh, my goodness, I actually don't know anything about this man." And then he lets go. And he's like, "I'm only joking. But, like, what would you do if I were the killer?" And my mom goes home with this information. She's trying to process it. And she doesn't even have time to process it because that's when this man and his best friend are arrested for the murders. And he later gets off in exchange for testifying against his best friend. BLAIR HODGES: Right, which is kind of sketchy because he could have been more involved. But he's the one who talked to the cops, basically. JESSI HEMPEL: That's exactly right. And most people in Ypsilanti, Michigan who were alive at that time and paying attention believe that he was, if not in on the murders, he certainly knew about the murders. And so my mom lived with this. And this shaped her. Her parents loved her very much. But in our popular culture in, you know, the late sixties and early seventies, I think what love looked like in white middle class American families was, “Hey, we're not going to talk about this. We're just going to try to put this behind us. We're going to focus on something else.” And so my grandparents encouraged my mom, “Hey, let's not talk about this.” Then the guy was arrested, he was taken away. There was never any further discussion about it. My mom continues to work at this department store, her life goes back to some semblance of something like normal, whatever normal is. And a year later, maybe a year and a half later, she meets this effeminate son of a minister who wants to get married right away. And he's safe and lovely. And it's no surprise to me that they found each other in that moment. FAMILY UNHAPPINESS (19:07) BLAIR HODGES: And so they do. They get married, and they have three kids—you and two younger siblings. It seems like your classic American family at this point. You've got two churchgoing parents, you got Dad as the breadwinner, Mom is the primary caregiver to the kids. And in fact, Dad's actually sometimes a bit too distant because of his work obligations. And that's how their relationship actually starts to fray. JESSI HEMPEL: They're trying so hard, right? And they're trying to check off the list of things you check off in order to qualify for the Olin Mills picture in like the eighties that would go on the Christmas card, and they're doing a great job at it on the surface. And here I think it's important to remember that at the beginning, my parents really were in love, and I think when one tells these kinds of stories and the end of the stories is that a marriage dissolves, we forget that before there was bad, there was a lot of history in the good that is worth considering. It wasn't like my parents lied to themselves in any overt way when they fell for each other. They actually did fall for each other in a moment. But, you know, as life went on, my father—it becomes harder and harder for him to bury this truth about himself. So he just becomes more and more distant. He just checks out. And my mother then is in a marriage that on the surface looks like everybody else's, and she thinks she should feel happy. But truthfully, she's so lonely because she's trying to raise these three children kind of all on her own. And then her own flashbacks and memories start to come up and she becomes extremely depressed. And I think about this long period—ultimately my adolescence, right? For me, it was age ten to twenty or so—as the closeted period in my family's life. And we were all pretty miserable and pretty unhappy and often emotionally violent to each other, and my parents in particular to us, and sometimes even physically violent. And that is the product of living in the closet. That is what it means to have to hide yourself. You become your worst version of yourself. JESSI'S CHILDHOOD SECRET (21:11) BLAIR HODGES: Seeing you grow up in the book, I love this. I loved reading about little Jessi. You start getting called “Jessica” in the third grade. This Jessica seems so precocious, and that she really needs to be seen in some ways. But also, she says she couldn't be seen. Here's something you write: "When I was a child, I believed there were things I couldn't reveal about myself, things that made me despicable, unlovable." So on the one hand, you wanted to connect, you wanted to be seen. And on the other hand, you had what you felt like was this dark secret about yourself. Talk about what that was like for you. JESSI HEMPEL: Well, you know, I was gay, and by that, I mean, I also didn't have a word for it. But I knew by the time I was in early elementary school that my desire was programmed differently than other people's desire. And that this was something I needed to hide. I don't even know exactly how I knew that. But I knew that. And that if anybody ever found out, that would be bad for me. I think one thing about the eighties and into the early nineties was that this was a time when maybe you could be gay, but you just didn't talk about it. And none of the people we knew on television came out on television. You know, Ellen DeGeneres didn't come out of the closet on TV until 1996. BLAIR HODGES: Yeah, I was in high school. JESSI HEMPEL: You probably remember it. Do you remember it, Blair? BLAIR HODGES: I do! I do. And at the time, I was in a place where I thought something was very wrong with that. I was unsettled by it. But I think I didn't know much about what it meant. And the thing is that growing up, we would say all the slurs, we would say “queer” and stuff like this without really even thinking about what it meant. I did get the sense that I was expected to become a man, I always had heteronormative cultural expectations, but I didn't know that I knew any gay people. So Ellen was one of the first people where I was like, oh, there's gay people. Okay, there's one in real life. JESSI HEMPEL: Completely. And that was so profoundly important. It started a cultural change that grew into the movement that we have today, right? But, you know, before all that happened, I was like, "Queer" was the word we use to describe things that were strange and not cool in high school. And I used it all the time before it became the word that was my identity. But I knew I also had these crushes on girls starting in middle school and into high school that I could kind of get away with because I think this kind of friendship is more sanctioned between women than it is between men. BLAIR HODGES: Can we read about one of these? There's an excerpt on page 80 I thought would really speak to that. Just to the end of the page there. JESSI HEMPEL: Okay. Yeah, awesome. "In sixth grade, I love Becky Orr. She's my best friend. She has long brown curly hair that she parts in the middle and pins back with two barrettes, and a face like a Cabbage Patch Kid doll, round with dimples on her cheeks. We spend our time doing things that border on little kid, like running through the sprinkler and watching the Mickey Mouse Club. Then we go to our respective homes and talk on the phone. “When we're not talking, I'm thinking about talking to her. I can find a way to weave Becky into any conversation. For instance, if Dad mentions going to the beach next summer, I might say, 'You know who loves the beach?' 'Who?' he'll say, even though he knows the answer: Becky Orr. “Being a closeted gay girl in the 1980s involves hiding out in the open. It's constantly declaring your feelings to the object of your affection and getting away with it because girls are allowed to love each other. Loving is entirely condoned. Lusting is something of which we don't speak. “I don't have a name for this way that I'm drawn to Becky, I always longed to be closer to my best friends, but I don't even know what I'm longing for. To feel more? To merge into them more? To crawl inside their heads? This merging desire feels most possible when a friend is most vulnerable, such as when she is falling in love with someone else. In this way, I learn to lie to myself. When Becky calls to tell me David kissed her at the St. John's Dance, I feel the universe cleave into sections, see her spinning backward from me. She'll like David better than me, differently than me. But just now, it's me for whom she reaches to share this new experience and I want to hold onto her attention. 'I'm so excited for you, Becky,' I say, 'Tell me everything.' It's always this way for me with a best friend. For a brief period, I will inhabit them, and then I'll lose them." BLAIR HODGES: We get to see more of that as you tell more of your story. A couple of years after this, you still haven't really got a word for it, you haven't really nailed it down for yourself. But a couple years later, you're babysitting for some neighbors a few houses down. And there's a book they have there. And I recognize the title of this. It's called Our Bodies, Ourselves, this book is on the shelf there and you're curious. So you pick it up and you start to read it. And this book really brings some things home. JESSI HEMPEL: It really does. And I just remember, Blair, I was so nervous they would discover I was researching, that I was reading for personal gain, that I was trying to figure something out, I started reading the section about homosexuality. And I was like, "Oh, dear, oh, dear. Oh, dear! Wow, that really..." And then I thought, "Oh, my goodness, they're gonna come home and see me reading it. And they're gonna know." Now I'm, you know, fifteen years old, fourteen years old. So I immediately turn to the section on menopause because I think well, then they'll just think I'm reading for curiosity, because there's no way I'm going through menopause! [laughter] BLAIR HODGES: But you knew then, right? You say you knew. In fact, read the end of that chapter there. JESSI HEMPEL: "From this point on, I know the thing about myself I have been trying not to know. I understand that it cannot be changed, that it is innate, like my eye color. “I'm gay. “One day I will need to accept this, and I believe it will end the good part of my life. It will end my ability to get along with the people I know and love. I am gay. I will spend my adult years in a dirty city living with men I do not like. I won't have kids. But hopefully also, I'll know women that look like the women in this book. Would that be so bad? “Maybe, I think, I can stave this off until after high school. Maybe I can buy myself a few more years of the good life in which I think I can be like everyone else. Maybe no one else has to know." KICKED OUT OF THE CLOSET (27:42) BLAIR HODGES: And as you're dealing with all that, your relationship with your mother is deteriorating. People who read the book will see how that plays out. You're struggling, things in your family feel disconnected, and things are going to come to a head eventually here. Chapter 14, I think, was probably one of the most painful chapters to read. This is when your sister makes a discovery on your dad's computer. JESSI HEMPEL: My dad was outed. We like to say that he was kicked out of the closet more than he came out of the closet. I was just out of college. My sister, who's four years younger than me, had just finished her first year of college and she was home for the summer. And things were not great between my parents by this point. Years and years of not taking care of their relationship had led to a situation where, you know, Mom watched TV all evening long and Dad disappeared into the den and they didn't really talk to each other. And Dad would get on his computer. So my sister is in her bedroom. And she is IM'ing—one of those early chat programs, with her boyfriend. They're sort of newly in love. And then her computer dies. It runs out of batteries. It's an early laptop. And so she gets frustrated with it. And she goes into the den to use the family computer to pick up the conversation. And when she goes on the computer, somebody she doesn't know pings her back. And she quickly discovers this person she doesn't know seems to be a man involved with my father. And she puts it together very quickly that this person messaging her is some man that my dad is having an affair with. And then everything blows up, Blair. In that particular moment, my dad and my mom were hosting visiting relatives— BLAIR HODGES: I know. It was such a bad moment!— JESSI HEMPEL: I mean, is there ever a good moment, though? Could you ever plan, could you ever be like, you know, "On July 20th—" [laughter] BLAIR HODGES: No, but maybe on a quiet weekend, though, with no visitors! JESSI HEMPEL: That would've been better, but no. [laughter] They were just waiting for my aunt and uncle to arrive. They were driving home from, I think, shopping for furniture, and my sister calls my dad—we had one of those early car phones, it was sort of a bit before cell phones, and they were like these big bricks, and you didn't really want to use them because it was super expensive, but for emergencies, right? So my sister calls and wants to talk to my dad, my mom picks up and my sister basically intimates to my mom, she says, "Tell Dad that So-and-So says hi." And in that moment my dad knows exactly what has happened. And he panics, and he just thinks, “I can undo this, I can fix this, I can fix this.” So he races home, he tries to get time with my sister, but my sister's not having it. And she leaves. She goes to her boyfriend's house, he lives in Vermont. She basically says, you know, “You tell Mom, or I will.” And so my dad has to tell my mom, you know, “Hey, I've been doing these,” you know—his understanding of what's happening at this point too is really important. Because I think it is like the process of coming out of the closet is not a light switch that you flip on and off. It's a gradual awakening or awareness. And so his thought at this point is that he has been afflicted by something, rather like he might be afflicted by some form of cancer that's surely curable if you get the right treatments. And so his first sort of revelation to my mom is like, "I've been afflicted by these unhealthy desires, and I've acted upon them and broken the covenant of our marriage. And I'm going to fix this. And we can fix this. And I'm so sorry that I'm sick." Luckily, for everybody involved, that's not where his emotional work ended. But that's where it started. BLAIR HODGES: And Mom wanted to hang in there for a minute, like they really thought they could figure this out. She became invested in making this work, and it sort of starts getting drawn out, and you're seeing your parents try to make what is appearing increasingly to be a sham, they're trying so hard to make it work, and your dad is experiencing what you call the "Rainbow Phase." He's kind of finally started to embrace his gay self, but he's also trying to not be gay. He's also trying to maintain this mixed-orientation marriage at the same time, which is so strange. JESSI HEMPEL: I mean, imagine it, though, because he loves my mom, and he loves this family we have created. He also has a pretty intact relationship with his religion and with God at this point. And stepping outside of the framework of those things is completely unknown to him. This is also the summer of his fiftieth birthday. He turns fifty about two weeks after all of this happens. So imagine if you live the first fifty years of your life with one identity and then you are called to ask to rethink it. It seems impossible. You think you know who you are. How could you also be this other person? BLAIR HODGES: Do you think there was some excitement in it, too? Like the Rainbow Phase part of it? JESSI HEMPEL: Coming out is great, okay? Blair, let me tell you, coming out involves coming into a community of people who have been waiting for you, many of whom have also experienced rejection and hurt and hardship from their families of origin. And when you finally get brave enough to figure out how to bring a dish of macaroni to the potluck at the LGBT center, what you discover is a whole lot of people who are like, I want to be your friend. You want to go to the theater with me? You want to join my biking club? He joined a church for a little while that was composed of people who had left their churches because they couldn't be a part of it. He walked into opportunities for belonging. And I think it's such an important distinction, Blair, because when you are the spouse being left in that situation, you don't walk into belonging. You have to rethink everything, you have to reconstitute your identity, and there's no flag waving for you. BLAIR HODGES: No. Your mother had such difficulty and talked about a suicide attempt even. She came to the point where that was on the table for her. What was it like writing about that? And how did she feel about that being part of the book? JESSI HEMPEL: It was really hard to figure out how to write about it. She was pretty unhappy at first with that being part of the book. She felt, you know, she is a mental health practitioner. And she worried that— BLAIR HODGES: Yeah. That's a community she fell into, like, figuring out mental health and becoming a therapist and all that, so to speak, she needed a place to fall. But we're talking about what happened before that. Sorry, just wanted to interject that— JESSI HEMPEL: Right. But in her moment of crisis, and you asked specifically about how she felt about me writing about it, she was scared that if she revealed exactly how vulnerable she was, people would think less of her. And so that was her fear in the book. And yet, she was really honest with me about what that moment of crisis felt like. And I was able to really reflect both how she thought and felt about that moment of crisis, but also how it affected my brother who was still in high school, and my sister who was at college. When an event like that happens in a family system, it happens differently to everyone, and hopefully the book sort of captures that. SIBLING RIVALRY (34:53) BLAIR HODGES: Oh, it sure does. I think this is one of the main strengths of your book, because it shows how coming out can be such an involved and connected and networked process, that it's not an isolated thing. And people that experience it, there are shockwaves—there's joy, there's grief, there's so many different emotions. And it's not an isolated individual experience. It has repercussions for everybody around. We certainly get to witness that with you, and your siblings, and your mom, and how it impacted your dad, and how it impacted their religious faith and their connection to different religious communities, and how it connected your mom to communities of therapy and research and how to be in therapeutic relationship with others. I think that's such a central strength of The Family Outing, that we get to witness how that felt. With that in mind, let's take a second to talk about your siblings. So Katja is the middle child. And then the youngest is Evan. Evan was assigned female at birth. And Katja comes out as bisexual. It was interesting, your reaction to that. Because you had come out as gay. And when your sister came out as bi, you seem sort of like, "Oh, okay." Maybe talk a little bit about the bi erasure that kind of happens, right? Bi people often talk about bi erasure, that they're sort of dismissed, or that it's sort of looked sideways at, like, "Oh, okay, interesting…" JESSI HEMPEL: I'm so glad you brought that up. You know, my wife identifies as bisexual, and people can be somewhat callous of that being like, "Well, you and Jessi have been together for twelve years. Why do we have to call you bisexual?" BLAIR HODGES: Yeah, I hear this with people that are married, too. I know a woman who's married to a guy, she gets the exact same question a lot, and she came out as bi later in life, and they're like, "But you're already married, and you have kids and stuff. Like, what's the point?" So that bi erasure is real. JESSI HEMPEL: One hundred percent. The other piece there that I really wanted to figure out how to highlight is that this book is about coming out, but it's also about how to receive people who come out to you. I wanted to call attention to the fact that, you know, I came out first. I thought I knew a thing or two about what it was to be queer and who got to be queer. And I actually, unfortunately, I thought I kind of owned it in my family. And I was not great to my sister or my brother when they came out. In both situations my first response was to belittle the experience, to say some version of, "Well, I mean, you know, okay, fine." Like with my sister, "Oh, you just want to be like the rest of us. Sure, you're bisexual, like you were the popular girl in school, you always had a boyfriend, like, I know, this is a passing fad." And with my brother, you know, a couple years later, I did the exact same thing. He said, "My pronouns are going to be he and him, the name I choose is Evan. Please call me that when I come to visit you." And my first response was like, "But you just wore that beautiful dress at Christmas. I'm sure this is a passing thing. Like, what's that about?" I think, you know, having some compassion for myself and for anyone in that situation, what's true is that when the people we love most, who are closest to us, family members in particular, but also good friends, reveal something about themselves that is so outside of what we think we know about them, it threatens our own identity. And sometimes our immediate first reaction is to get so wrapped up in the threat to our own identity that we can't receive what they have to tell us. BLAIR HODGES: We might even think like, how could they not have told me? There's perhaps also a trust thing, too, not honoring the reasons why people come out when they do. I also think this sort of a cultural experience might become less common, right, the more acceptable it is, the more people are coming out. Some people don't even need to come out. They're growing up in a family or culture system where like, that's just the thing. But as long as there are people coming out, the ways that they're received, especially by the people that love them the most, matters the most, and you're vulnerable in the way you talk about your own missteps and things you wish you could have done differently. You straightforwardly tell us those reactions. Like when Evan comes out and says he's trans, like you just described it, you're kind of like, “Okay…” and coming to grips with that yourself and being able to talk about it, again, I think it speaks to the strength of your book. I want to remind people, the book is called The Family Outing, and we're talking to Jessi Hempel. She's host of an award-winning podcast called Hello Monday, and also a senior editor at large at LinkedIn. Her writing usually focuses on work and meaning in the digital age. And you might have seen her on CNN, PBS, MSNBC, or CNBC, talking about culture and business of technology. She graduated from Brown University, got a Master of Journalism from UC—Berkeley, lots of education, lots of experience, a lot of writing. And you've got this whole family background behind all that, too. SEEKING A CURE FOR THE EMOTIONAL FLU (39:30) BLAIR HODGES: One of my favorite scenes, by the way, was when you were talking about being on CNN at one point, and you just went blank in the mind at this point. I can't believe it. You talk about the dead air. And that was kind of a crisis point for you, right? What were you doing there? JESSI HEMPEL: In my late twenties I was always very career-forward. And in my early adulthood, I just really wanted to be a business writer. I started writing and I got a job at Businessweek, and I became a TV commentator. And I learned, Blair, that you don't actually need to know very much about whatever they're asking you on TV to be pretty good at this job. All you have to do for the most part is master the art of the bridge. So whatever question you ask, no matter how hard it is, or how little I know about it, what I can say is, "Blair, it's so interesting, you would ask that, but what people really want to know about is—" whatever I want to talk about, and then I started talking, and the TV viewers never even really put it together if I'm confident enough. And this was my trick for actually talking about a lot of things I really didn't know much about in my twenties on television. BLAIR HODGES: Yeah, I would always call it “the pivot.” [laughter] JESSI HEMPEL: The pivot. But also during this period, I really hadn't dealt with a lot of the trauma that had happened in my family. And what would happen is that just every once in a while it would catch up with me. And I had a name for this, I think the modern-day version of it would be something like a panic attack, but I called it the emotional flu. And I would literally just check out for some period of time and be completely unable to manage. The way out of this, by the way, was therapy—a really great therapist that I saw weekly for nine years. But we're before that here. And this happened to me, this set of panic attacks that landed me in a place where I suddenly checked out, didn't show up for work for a day and didn't prepare for anything. And then I needed to go in to CNN, I was booked on CNN. So I put my makeup on and went into the studio, the car came and picked me up and brought me in, and they put me in the chair. And I kind of was like, I was so fragile. But I thought the question they were going to ask me was, “what did we do when we learned that the Olympics are,” wherever they were, I think I believed at the time that they were going to be in London. I was ready to talk about that. I had, like, one thing to say. And then it turned out that the Olympics were in Paris, and they asked me the question, you know, what do you think? What does it mean for Paris that the Olympics are going to be there and, Blair, I said, nothing. Just looked at the screen, panicked. And there's nothing more terrifying than silence, like, dead air on television. BLAIR HODGES: Yeah, everybody probably panicked right then. JESSI HEMPEL: Yeah, they made a little note in the book that said, “Don't book her again.” [laughter] It was probably four years before I went on CNN again. But that also was the moment when I realized if I didn't turn my attention to this, it was going to take something really important from my future. And so it was the reason why I think I finally got into therapy. BLAIR HODGES: And that made a profound difference for you. We also see you just trying to find meaning and connection, too. You got kind of wrapped up in these sort of personal improvement groups, people might be familiar with these like, I don't know, I won't say cult, some people would, but there are these groups you get involved with, and you have to pay money to do these levels of trainings. And so you're also trying to find connections, it seemed like, beyond your family, to just have your feet on the ground and also feel empowered yourself. We see you searching a lot. And that's another vulnerable part of the book, is where you talk about sort of getting connected to some of these self-improvement groups. JESSI HEMPEL: Yeah, I mean, I think the most notable group like this is Landmark, people may be familiar with it. The group I did was sort of a radical offshoot of Landmark. And what's true about these groups is they can be really problematic in the way they build, but they also contain really great learning. And for me—and I hope I conveyed this in the book—it was a little bit of both. In the end, I got so wrapped up in these that I needed somebody to step in and help me get out. But I also learned a lot about the idea that I could be responsible for my own happiness, and that I could make things happen for myself in my life. I took so much self-agency from this experience. And I'm grateful for that. BLAIR HODGES: It was nice to see you talk about the importance of “found family,” the people you connected with. There's a group, an organization called COLAGE—Children of Lesbians and Gays Everywhere—that you were connected to in some ways, but also that group can be kind of challenging, too, because you didn't necessarily see your own experience there. JESSI HEMPEL: That group is a great group that still exists and is a pretty wonderful resource for any child whose parents have come out. I stumbled upon it in my early twenties. It was wonderful to be part of a community of other people whose parents were also queer. The thing I found confusing at that point was that in those years I wasn't proud of my parents. Their marriage was coming apart. They were a mess. They were not in good shape. And I would be part of this group where a lot of the children in this group came from families more like the family I have gone on to create, where both parents were queer at the origination of the children, and they'd sort of grown up with queer parents. And it was hard to figure out how to be truthful about my own family in the smaller community, when also the public narrative I felt compelled to uphold was that gay families are great. We've got everything figured out, we raise good kids, because there's so much vitriol directed toward families with same-sex parents that I felt compelled to be defensive of them in public. Does that make sense? BLAIR HODGES: It certainly does. Your parents end up separating and your father has relationships—he finally kind of embraces that side of himself and meets a man to share his life with. And your mom gets into therapy and begins helping others. And then you came around to having kids through your connection to your partner, Francis. It didn't seem like something you were super excited to do throughout your life. But then through this partnership, you decided, "Oh, this could work for us." Do you think that's in part because you didn't have a lot of models to look at? Like, there weren't a lot of lesbian women obviously having kids. You didn't get to see families that look like that. So did you sort of just grow up thinking, "Well, I'm just not going to have that. It's just not really a thing”? JESSI HEMPEL: Yes, and I think it wasn't so much because I was gay that I thought, "Oh, I don't want to have children." But because I didn't trust myself to be a good parent because I did not feel I had been parented well. And I worried I would parent a child like I had been parented. And so rather than even creating the possibility that that might happen, I just moved right to "I don't want kids. I'm a person who doesn't want kids." And it wasn't until I had been in my relationship with my partner, Francis, for many years, that I came around, and even when she told me, "Hey, I'm ready to have kids," I still was like, "Oh, no, I guess we have to break up because I would be a horrible parent." And she had to really press me and say, "Well, are you saying you don't want kids?" And it was like, "No, I'm not saying I want them or don't want them. I'm saying I would be bad at it." And it caused a sort of crisis of my sense of self. I ended up writing to the woman who had really helped me in high school, the assistant principal of my high school. She'd known me since my youth. And I wrote to her and just basically said, do you think I can do this? Is this a really bad idea? And she was the one who wrote to me and said, "You don't have to be your history. You can be a new version of yourself. You have learned what you need to learn in life, and you can be good at this." EVAN'S STORY (47:38) BLAIR HODGES: I was also really moved by your brother Evan's story. There's a conversation you had with Evan at one point where he pointed out that your parents' secrets and your secrets were a little bit different. Evan was talking about how your parents' generation and your generation experience secrets differently. He said they are fundamentally different because your secrets aren't secret from yourselves. Like with your parents, they kind of had to keep it—especially your father—had to keep that from himself. For you all, it was more about keeping that secret just from your family. You actually kind of knew and were more ready to embrace it than the family was. And perhaps that's a different thing to experience. JESSI HEMPEL: Yeah, I think that's right. And I think what my brother was really trying to push me to think about was how this might impact our kids. Because, you know, when my brother and I had this conversation, we were both new parents. He had two little kids at home, and we had just had our second baby. And we were talking about what this might mean for our kids and what we hope for our kids. And he was saying, "Well, look, we've made it this far. But they're gonna have to do the work of figuring out what their secrets mean to them, and what their truths are. We can't do that work for them." BLAIR HODGES: And for Evan, I also enjoyed reading about his experience being pregnant and having children as a trans man. It's not terribly common. There aren't a lot of people who have written about it or spoken about it publicly. There's still plenty of prejudice and misunderstanding about trans folks today. So it was nice to see in your book an example of a trans man who went through that and gave birth to kids and wanted to have this family and has this family. So that's a story... I mean, your book obviously wasn't the Book of Evan, so you didn't get into it a ton. But I loved learning the little bit I learned about him. JESSI HEMPEL: I so appreciate that. And you know, the whole book owes itself to a story I wrote about my brother's pregnancy for Time Magazine, about his decision to get pregnant, what that experience was like for him carrying the baby, what the rest of the world thought as he did it. So if you're curious about it, also, if you Google my brother's name and the word "Time," I guarantee you it will be the first five things that pop up. REGRETS, CHALLENGES, AND SURPRISES (49:47) BLAIR HODGES: Perfect. I'll put a link to the show notes too, so people can check that out, and that'll fit well with some other episodes in the show as well. All right. That's Jessi Hempel, and we're talking about the book, The Family Outing: A Memoir. I wanted to conclude, Jessi, with regrets, challenges, and surprises. This is the part of the show where you get to talk about any of these things, or all three—something you regret or that you would change about the book now that it's out, what you would say was maybe the most challenging thing about writing it, or something that was revealed to you—a surprise you discovered along the way. JESSI HEMPEL: I love this question. And you know, Blair, I feel very complete in this book. I feel like it was the best story I could tell. The surprise, and the challenge, was in publishing. I thought once I sold the book, you know, I had the good fortune of selling this book before I wrote it, and then I had to go write it. And I thought, well, the hard part will be writing it. And then it will go out into the world, and I'll get to talk about it and that will be great. And in fact, I loved every day of writing it. It was the biggest gift of my life. And then it was published, and I found the process of publication very disorienting. And it's only now, about a year after publication, that I feel like I have my footing again and have a relationship with the book again. BLAIR HODGES: What do you think that vertigo came from? What happened? JESSI HEMPEL: Well, you know, the publishing industry is made up of people who dearly love books. And that is the best thing about it. But it's pretty broken. And so you know, even for me, my book came out from HarperCollins. It had an editor who loved it and was consistently the editor the whole way through. And it had a marketing team who were just spot on. But they had so many books to represent, and my book got a little sliver of attention, and then the attention meter moved on. And when it didn't become a bestseller in the first seven days it was out, the resources to promote it immediately went down. And it was hard not to take that personally because it was my family's story that was selling or not selling. And I managed that, Blair, proactively in advance by doing two things. One is I decided before I began that I never wanted to know the sales numbers, because writing this book for me was not about sales numbers. And so I don't even have the login to the portal that would tell me how well it sold. If you asked me, I could guess but like my guess and your guess would be about equivalent. I don't know. And that felt important. But then the most important thing I told myself then, and that has proven out now, is getting to have conversations like this. Individual people who respond to the book. Because the book is helpful. That's the point. But it's taken me a year to pull back enough from the process to connect deeply to that. BLAIR HODGES: That's hard. As you said, there's a lot of different pieces, not just the writing of it, but pitching it, selling it, going through the editing process, going through the promotional process. It's something we don't talk about often. I don't really dig into this part of it a lot in the interviews, but I think it's a really important aspect of what it's like to be vulnerable like you were in writing this book and navigating the emotions that it all brings. JESSI HEMPEL: Well, thank you, Blair. This was such a joy of an interview. I don't take it for granted when people really spend time with work, and I just appreciate it. So thank you. BLAIR HODGES: Thank you. It was such an easy book to spend that time with and I really strongly recommend it. I hope everybody checks this book out: The Family Outing by Jessi Hempel, and checks out your podcast as well: Hello, Monday. I'm glad you took the time to join us, Jessi. This has been really fun. JESSI HEMPEL: Take good care, Blair, I look forward to talking again sometime. BLAIR HODGES: There's much more to come on Family Proclamations. If you're enjoying the show, why not take a second to rate and review it? Go to Apple Podcasts and let me know your thoughts. And please just take a second to recommend the show to a friend. The more the merrier. Thanks to Mates of State for providing our theme song. Family Proclamations is part of the Dialogue Podcast Network. I'm Blair Hodges, and I'll see you next time. [END] NOTE: Transcripts have been lightly edited for readability.
Jesus tells us to pray for God's Kingdom to be seen on earth. We want people to see our Heavenly Father in all His hallowed majesty and glory—not merely in the ways we attempt to “Christianize” life on Earth. You can download notes for this sermon here → http://bible.com/events/49199676 Check out the video version of this sermon here. Check out the other messages in our series Kingdom Praying by clicking here. ►► Would you please prayerfully consider supporting this ministry? My Patreon supporters get behind-the-scenes access to exclusive materials—like this recent Bible study insight from the Gospels. ◀︎◀︎
GUEST: SCOTT ANIOL, Professor of Pastoral Theology, Grace Bible Theological SeminaryAs we celebrate Independence Day, which commemorates the signing in 1776 of the Declaration of Independence, the founding document of our nation, when the original 13 colonies declared their autonomy from British colonial rule.John Adams was a signer of the Declaration, one of the framers of the U.S. Constitution (1789), and the second President of the United States. Likely not a born-again Christian but rather a deist (a believer in a supreme being who is uninvolved in the affairs of mankind), Adams wrote the following about the link between morality and civil society:“…should the people of America once become capable of that deep simulation [pretending] towards one another…which assumes the language of justice and moderation while it is practicing iniquity and extravagance…while it is rioting in rapine [violent seizure of property] and insolence [rude behavior], this country will be the most miserable habitation in the world; because we have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”We are seeing John Adams' warning prove true in America today. We are at a low point in our nation when laws are passed granting the “freedom” to kill a child anytime during the nine months of pregnancy, when the “degrading passions” of homosexuality are normalized and codified as “marriage”, when adults parade openly and lewdly down the streets in front of children, and when children are led into the sin of cross-dressing and physical mutilation in the name of “gender affirming care”.Wicked depravity is now tolerated and affirmed in our nation and the predictable results are division, confusion, chaos, violence, harm, and hatred.So what are Christians to do, who like Lot living in Sodom “felt his righteous soul tormented day after day by their lawless deeds” (2 Peter 2:8)?Most Christians would say that our nation desperately needs to reclaim our Biblical foundations and establish laws and policies based on the truths of Christianity. But how would that take place? Is that Scripture's call for Christians and the church to work to “Christianize” government?This weekend on The Christian Worldview, Scott Aniol, editor-in-chief of G3 Ministries and professor of pastoral theology at Grace Bible Theological Seminary, joins us to discuss “Christian Nationalism”, a term that means different things to different people.To some Christians, it means electing representatives who advocate for biblical principles in government. Other believers see it as a biblical mandate to work toward Christian rule over government and all institutions in society. While non-believers view it as religious extremists trying to institute a theocracy and oppress non-believers.Join us for a discussion on Christian Nationalism and what Bible says about Christians and government.---------------------------------------RELATED ARTICLES:The Mixed Blessings of a Christian NationChristian Faithfulness: The Biblical Alternative to Christian NationalismWhat if We Win? A Brief Response to Doug Wilson
This episode explores how Christians should think about nations and political involvement. We consider how Psal 144:15 applies to current political questions. Questions this episode considers: Is it good for Christians to 'bring Christianity into the public square'? What does it mean to christianize a nation? --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/michael-belch0/support
How should a biblical worldview inform our cultural engagement in this time of social crisis? Today's honored guest, Dr. Wayne Grudem, is Research Professor of Theology and Biblical Studies at Phoenix Seminary and author of more than 20 books, including Systematic Theology. Join us as we hear Dr. Wayne Grudem's heart for today's world. Our discussion covers everything from the recent attack on Israel, the 2024 election, a theology of work, politics in the pulpit, and the question of whether Christians should move from one state to another due to political alignment. How can and should Christians practically engage in the areas God has placed us at this time in history? There are obvious pitfalls to avoid when engaging in our cultures, but we often overcompensate in avoidance and neglect our call to influence culture. We hope you enjoy this practical, raw, honest episode as much as we did. Go deeper with the transcript and recommended resources on the Episode Landing Page!Disciple Nations Alliance Website
In this episode Supernerd is back after testing out the updated FLCCC I-Prevent protocol for the past week or two and we discuss the relative difficulty of learning Latin, anti-pope Bergoglio's latest verbal vomiting of the approbation of the sin of those “struggling with the sin of sodomy,” the recent interview of Larry Sinclair by the CIA asset Tucker Carlson, and part of what made the fires in Hawaii worse than they needed to be: the deeply-seated paganism of the natives who worship the volcanoes, fire, and water, to the detriment of people and property. Truly we need a new spiritual crusade to bring the Catholic Faith to all people, and brave souls with a missionary spirit to colonize hearts for Christ! The harvest is great, but the workers are few… Links, Reading, and Video: Reginald Foster: World Renowned Latinist The Death Penalty Is Essential To A Christian Society and Is Willed By God Book: “The Death of Christian Culture” by Dr. John Senior Book: “Deconstructing Obama: The Life, Loves, and Letters of America's First Postmodern President” by Jack Cashill DVD: “Dreams From My Real Father: A Story of Reds and Deception” Maria Lanakila: Church dedicated to Our Lady of Victory was unscathed by the Hawaii fires Maria Lanakila: Location for the Latin Mass in Lahaina FLCCC's I-PREVENT Protocol Antiseptic antimicrobial mouthwash Vitamin D3 Vitamin K-2 (helps with the uptake of D3) Vitamin C Zinc sulfate Slow-release melatonin Elderberry syrup Resveratrol Ivermectin (can't give you a link to that… sorry!) Hydroxychloroquine (can't give you a link to that either… sorry!) Feedback: please send your questions, comments, suggestions, and happy news item to podcast@barnhardt.biz — or you can leave voicemail feedback at (302) 648-6373. (Alternate email addresses are supernerdmedia@protonmail.com and annbarnhardt@protonmail.com if you are looking for something more secure.) Supernerd Media produces the Barnhardt Podcast, hosts Ann's website, and more; if you got some value from these efforts and would like to return some value, you can use a credit/debit card, Apple Pay, Google Pay, Link, or Cash App with this link or you can mail a donation to the address listed at SupernerdMedia.com.
GUEST: SCOTT ANIOL, Professor of Pastoral Theology, Grace Bible Theological SeminaryAs we celebrate Independence Day, which commemorates the signing in 1776 of the Declaration of Independence, the founding document of our nation, when the original 13 colonies declared their autonomy from British colonial rule.John Adams was a signer of the Declaration, one of the framers of the U.S. Constitution (1789), and the second President of the United States. Likely not a born-again Christian but rather a deist (a believer in a supreme being who is uninvolved in the affairs of mankind), Adams wrote the following about the link between morality and civil society:“…should the people of America once become capable of that deep simulation [pretending] towards one another…which assumes the language of justice and moderation while it is practicing iniquity and extravagance…while it is rioting in rapine [violent seizure of property] and insolence [rude behavior], this country will be the most miserable habitation in the world; because we have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”We are seeing John Adams' warning prove true in America today. We are at a low point in our nation when laws are passed granting the “freedom” to kill a child anytime during the nine months of pregnancy, when the “degrading passions” of homosexuality are normalized and codified as “marriage”, when adults parade openly and lewdly down the streets in front of children, and when children are led into the sin of cross-dressing and physical mutilation in the name of “gender affirming care”.Wicked depravity is now tolerated and affirmed in our nation and the predictable results are division, confusion, chaos, violence, harm, and hatred.So what are Christians to do, who like Lot living in Sodom “felt his righteous soul tormented day after day by their lawless deeds” (2 Peter 2:8)?Most Christians would say that our nation desperately needs to reclaim our Biblical foundations and establish laws and policies based on the truths of Christianity. But how would that take place? Is that Scripture's call for Christians and the church to work to “Christianize” government?This weekend on The Christian Worldview, Scott Aniol, editor-in-chief of G3 Ministries and professor of pastoral theology at Grace Bible Theological Seminary, joins us to discuss “Christian Nationalism”, a term that means different things to different people.To some Christians, it means electing representatives who advocate for biblical principles in government. Other believers see it as a biblical mandate to work toward Christian rule over government and all institutions in society. While non-believers view it as religious extremists trying to institute a theocracy and oppress non-believers.Join us for a discussion on Christian Nationalism and what Bible says about Christians and government.-----------------------RELATED ARTICLES:The Mixed Blessings of a Christian NationChristian Faithfulness: The Biblical Alternative to Christian NationalismWhat if We Win? A Brief Response to Doug Wilson
Olga was the wive of Igor, the Grand Prince of the Kievan Rus', a federation of people whose capital was the city of Kyiv, now the capital of modern day Ukraine. When her husband was brutally murdered by a subsidiary tribe, Olga went on a legendary campaign of cunning and ruthless revenge. Once in control of her husband's kingdom, she was an efficient and effective leader. She converted to Christianity in order to get out of an unwanted marriage proposal. She is credited with introducing Christianity to the Rus people. After her death, Olga was canonized as a saint and is regarded as “Equal to the Apostles” within the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. Jadwiga, Female King of Poland was crowned at the age of 10. She grew wise beyond her years and was forced to make a difficult decision about who to marry – a young man she liked or an old man who would Christianize his country for her. Though she reigned for only 15 years she did a great deal of good and is considered one of the greatest monarchs in Polish history. Join me every Tuesday when I'm Spilling the Tea on History! Check out my Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/lindsayholiday Follow me on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100091781568503 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/historyteatimelindsayholiday/ Tik Tok: https://www.tiktok.com/@historyteatime Please consider supporting me at https://www.patreon.com/LindsayHoliday and help me make more fascinating episodes! Intro Music: Baroque Coffee House by Doug Maxwell Music: Butterflies in Love by Sir Cubworth Angevin - Thatched Villagers by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) #womenshistory #HistoryTeaTime #LindsayHoliday Please contact advertising@airwavemedia.com if you would like to advertise on this podcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Ex-Psychic Saved: Exposing Divination, New Age, and the Occult
Ex-psychic Jenn Nizza and special guest Doreen Virtue discuss the highly contentious topic regarding yoga, Christian yoga, and whether it's possible to separate the spiritual aspects of yoga from the exercise. As a former yoga fan of 20 years, Virtue explains the meaning of yoga terms and positions, its Hindu origins, and demonic roots. They answer common questions and criticism that comes from Christians and non-Christians alike."You can't Christianize something that's pagan. You can't put the word Christian in front of yoga... You are binding yourself to a false god-- a demon when you do yoga. It is blasphemous to our Lord. Jesus suffered for our sin. Why would we engage in a sin that He died for?"FOLLOW JENN NIZZA:- Follow Jenn on Instagram- Follow Jenn on TikTok- Follow Jenn on YouTube- Get Jenn's books
Kimberly Cluff, as the legal director of the California Tribal Families Coalition, sat in as the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in the Brackeen v. Haaland case last November. The case is about an adoption and directly threatens the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978, which sought to put an end to centuries of Native American children being taken from their families and put up for adoption by white families. More than that, Brackeen proponents are trying to undermine hard-earned sovereignty by tribes, arguing that their status is unconstitutional under the 10th Amendment: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." If successful, the dismantling of ICWA would also threaten the tribes' ability to protect their land and resources from outside forces. The case is expected to be decided any day now. Before ICWA it was common practice to remove native children from their parents, in fact, as many as 25-30 percent were put up for adoption. As Cluff discusses, it was merely one part of centuries-long abuses against America's first residents. In California, some of the needs are even more grave, with poverty and health issues outpacing any other group. Cluff is the daughter of Ojai icons Don and Sheila Cluff, attended Cal Berkeley and Hastings Law before becoming involved with native American issues. We also talked about the Vatican on March 30th renouncing its "Doctrine of Discovery" by which it sought to "Christianize the world," which has been in effect since 1455 and was used in legal arguments in the U.S. as recently as 2005. We also talked about growing up in Ojai and being eager to escape, then having your own children and being just as eager to return. We did not talk about ChatGPT4, Louis C.K. standup routines or the Romans' Lost Legion.
Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. — 1 Corinthians 5:7 As we celebrated Jesus' resurrection yesterday, we may have seen or heard references to the Easter bunny, Easter eggs, and chocolate. In ancient Europe, the Germanic goddess Eostre (Eastre in Old English) was celebrated during the spring equinox. Rabbits and eggs represented fertility and the revival of life in springtime. Since Jesus' death and resurrection occurred at the same time of year, the church in Europe tried to replace that pagan tradition with the worship of Christ and the celebration of new life in him. They even used the name “Easter” to try to Christianize the springtime holiday. But that hasn't worked very well, has it? The celebration of Christ's victory over death has nothing to do with rabbits, eggs, or chocolate. Sadly, all of that can distract us from reflecting on the gift of life we have through the death and resurrection of Jesus. But in Christ we can remember another ancient tradition—Passover, with its sacrificed lamb and celebration of deliverance from slavery. That pointed to the gift of Jesus, who came to free us from the slavery of sin. So let's focus on the Lamb of God, Jesus—our Savior and the giver of full life—which is far greater than the seasonal refreshing of life in spring. This doesn't mean we can't celebrate with feasting or a bit of chocolate, but let's be sure to worship the one true God who loves us and sent his Son to save the whole world! Lord, guide us to remember and celebrate all that you have done for us in Christ. Amen.
Episode 63 Guest: Yoosun Park, MSW, PhD Host: Shimon Cohen, LCSW www.dointhework.com Listen/Subscribe on: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify Follow on Twitter & Instagram, Like on Facebook Join the mailing list Support the podcast Download transcript Doin' The Work is offering our Racial Justice & Liberatory Practice Continuing Education Series through several of our partner universities. Go to https://dointhework.com/online-education/ to learn more and register. We hope you will join us! Thank you to this episode's sponsor! The University of Houston has a phenomenal social work program that offers face-to-face master's and doctorate degrees, as well as an online and hybrid MSW. They offer one of the country's only Political Social Work programs and an Abolitionist Focused Learning Opportunity. Located in the heart of Houston, the program is guided by their bold vision to achieve social, racial, economic, and political justice, local to global. In the classroom and through research, they are committed to challenging systems and reimagining ways to achieve justice and liberation. Go to http://www.uh.edu/socialwork to learn more. In this episode, I talk with Dr. Yoosun Park, who is an Associate Professor in the School of Social Policy & Practice at the University of Pennsylvania. We talk about her article, co-authored with Michael Reisch, entitled: To “Elevate, Humanize, Christianize, Americanize”: Social Work, White Supremacy, and the Americanization Movement, 1880–1930, in the October 2022 issue of Social Service Review. I cannot say enough about the level of research and analysis in this article. We are very fortunate because the article is going to become a book. Dr. Park explains the key points of the article: how social work was a major part of the Americanization movement, which was a national project rooted in whiteness, aimed at defining what it means to be an American and who gets to be an American, along with the full rights of American citizenship and the ability to enact those rights. Dr. Park breaks down how the Americanization movement, which included many White social reformers and social work leaders, viewed European immigrants as Americanizable, or White, whereas Indigenous Peoples and Africans, along with Asian and Mexican immigrants – and even this wording is problematic because the U.S. took parts of Mexico – were seen as un-Americanizable and the Other. We discuss how many of these same white supremacist beliefs, policies, and practices show up in social work today. I hope this conversation inspires you to action. UPenn Faculty Profile Google Scholar Profile ResearchGate Twitter @yoosun_p
Over church history, the institution we know as the Roman Church sought to -Christianize- many pagan, destrutive pratices. Lent is one of those seasonal practices. Lent as we know it today did not exist before the fourth century, and the church leaders in league with Constantine brought the many differing forms of fastings and practices into one conforming practice. But we discover in this lessson that God is not indifferent to these observances, nor should we be.
While on the west coast, Jon and Justin were invited by Chris Gordon (host of Abounding Grace Radio and pastor of Escondido United Reformed Church) to do some recording. This episode is the second portion of that conversation. The guys discuss the Great Commission. What is it? Is it a call to Christianize the nations? Or is it the preaching of Jesus Christ for the justification of sinners? (Hint: It’s the latter.) Semper Reformanda: Jon and Justin talk about theonomy--how it confuses the law and obscures the gospel.
"White colonials “compromised the message of Christianity to accommodate slavery,” evangelizing slaves to fulfill Jesus' mandate “to make disciples of all nations,” freeing their souls for heaven, but withholding liberation on earth. In this way, Tisby notes, “a corrupt message that saw no contradiction between the brutalities of bondage and the good news of salvation became the norm.” Even revivalists like George Whitefield and Jonathan Edwards advocated evangelization of slaves but with a gospel that “did not extend to advocating for physical emancipation.” The Bible was consistently utilized to lend divine authority to slave-holding culture, centered in the supposedly munificent intent of the “Christian master.” Tisby observes, “Under paternalistic Christianity, the slave plantation was seen as a household, with the male enslaver as the benevolent patriarch of both his family and his ‘pseudofamily' of enslaved black people.” Chattel slavery was thus an early form of biblical “complementarity,” in which slaves and Christian (male) owners were assigned roles in the divine “order of creation.” As 19th-century evangelical sects became more embedded in American culture, many white denominations asserted the church's “spiritual” calling to Christianize slaves while distancing themselves from the “political” debates over slavery or manumission. In 1790 the Baptist General Committee of Virginia voted “by a majority (after considering it a while) that the subject [of slavery] be dismissed from the committee, as believing it belongs to the legislative body.” Slave ownership thus became officially acceptable in Virginia Baptist congregations." --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/antonio-myers4/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/antonio-myers4/support
In this week's episode of Cultural Catalysts, Kris Vallotton sat down for a conversation with Tenessa Audette about God and government. In their conversation they discussed God's role in government and if politicians should Christianize a nation. Connect with Tenessa Audette: Website: https://www.votetenessa.com/ Connect with Kris Vallotton: Website: https://www.krisvallotton.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kvministries/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kvministries/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/kvministries Additional Resources by Kris Vallotton: https://shop.bethel.com/collections/kris-vallotton About Kris Vallotton: Kris Vallotton is the Senior Associate Leader of Bethel Church, Redding, and is the Co-Founder of Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry (BSSM). He is also the Founder and President of Moral Revolution and a sought-after international conference speaker. Kris and his wife, Kathy, have trained, developed, and pastored prophetic teams and supernatural schools all over the world.
Should Christians be trying to Christianize the world? Well, we certainly shouldn't be trying to secularize it - that's for sure! Many today doubt whether the world could actually be won for Christ. Yet, when Jesus commissioned his disciples, he told them to go disciple all the nations - that's a pretty comprehensive mission! Could it be that we've not took him at his word seriously and trusted that he's given us the promise of his power and presence as we go? Could it be that he's already given us the winning strategy in His Word? In this episode, we consider 7 simple steps to taking over the world and whether that might actually be possible! The reality may surprise you... Recommended Resources from this episode: It's Good to Be A Man by Michael Foster - hard-hitting, refreshing, and much-needed pointed words to men. Family Driven Faith by Dr. Voddie Baucham - a great primer on what godly family life should look like Raising Boys to be Men by Aaron Gouveia - a good book on some of what it takes to raise boys to be men and not extend boyhood indefinitely A Guide to Biblical Manhood by Randy Stinson - a classic read on the topic Thoughts for Young Men by J.C. Ryle - another classic short, must-read filled with biblical and practical insights ----------------- Visit theotivity.com for more content. Sign up for our monthly email Newsletter to stay updated on all the latest content. Please consider sharing this episode and leaving a 5-star review on your podcast app to help us grow. Follow us at @theotivity on social media (Facebook, Instagram, Gettr, YouTube, Rumble).
Cultural Apologetics: Interview With Dustin MesserHave you heard about "cultural apologetics"? In the past, I have heard cultural apologetics being described as "making the gospel relevant and palatable to culture" and that sounds too much like compromising easy believeism. Other times I hear that we need to "Christianize the worldview of the nations" and that sounded too much like a theonomy. My new Anglican buddy Dustin Messer comes on the show today to discuss the necessity to reach a post-Christian culture with the Gospel. Dustin gives us a palatable approach to cultural apologetics that is both biblical and achievable. It was a fascinating discussion, I hope you all enjoy. Donate (Paypal)https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=GC2Z86XHHG4X6___________________________________________________________________________________Exclusive Content (Patreon)https://www.patreon.com/TheRemnantRadio__________________________________________________________________________________We're social! Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheRemnantRadioInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/theremnantradio/___________________________________________________________________________________Our Favorite Bookshttps://www.amazon.com/shop/theremnantradio___________________________________________________________________________________Michael Rowntree's Church Bridgewayhttps://www.bridgewaychurch.com/___________________________________________________________________________________Michael Miller's Church Reclamation Churchhttps://reclamationdenver.com/___________________________________________________________________________________Kairos Classroom: Use Promo Code Remnant for 10% offhttps://kairosclassroom.com/classes__________________________________________________________________________________The Gospel Of Mark Group Packets https://the-remnant-radio.creator-spring.com/listing/the-gospel-of-mark-workbooks__________________________________________________________________________________Download Free Ebookhttp://eepurl.com/hSCQRvKairos Classroom: Use Promo Code "Remnant" for 10% offhttps://kairosclassroom.com/classes Kairos Classroom: Use Promo Code Remnant for 10% offhttps://kairosclassroom.com/classesSupport the show
Romans 13:1-7 — No matter how the topic is framed – church and state, or Christ and culture – it deserves a lot of careful thought. This is one topic in the history of Christianity that intersects with doctrine, theology, church history, and culture. In this sermon on Romans 13:1–7 titled “Church and the State (6),” Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones completes his six-part series on church and the state by looking at Christ's lordship, common grace, the mission of the church, and the Christian individual in society. While some advocate transforming all the culture — including the arts, science, and government — in order to “Christianize” it, Dr. Lloyd-Jones cautions listeners to never talk this way. The Christian is unable to “Christianize” anything that is not Christian. Christ's kingdom does not come gradually, except in the sense that it is in the church. Dr. Lloyd-Jones reminds there will always be a tension between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of humanity. This doesn't mean, however, that God does not give His common grace to human society. Christians are engaged in their society and the individual Christian must work out the application of doctrine in business, government, science, and art. Nevertheless, the church must maintain its distinct calling to preach the gospel. Listen as Dr. Lloyd-Jones works from Romans 13:1–7 and engages in what is still today a most relevant topic for evangelical Christians.
词汇提示1.conquerors 征服者2.missions 传教士3.authorities 当局者4.charter 许可证5.cattle ranching 肉牛放牧6.infuriated 激怒7.jail 监狱8.besieged 被包围9.surrendered 头像10.commander 指挥官11.fiery 暴躁的12.crumble 倒塌13.raging 激烈的14.retreated 撤退15.bulk 主体16.advance troop 先遣部队17.swamp land 沼泽地18.siesta 午睡原文Remember The Alamo!The first Europeans in the American Southwest were Spanish explorers and conquerors.They were followed by religious orders that set up missions to Christianize the Indians.One of these missions was San Antonio de Valero; it was founded in 1718 in what is now San Antonio, Texas.Later, the mission structure became known as The Alamo.In 1821, Moses Austin had persuaded the Spanish authorities to give him a charter to settle 200,000 acres in Texas.The elder Austin died shortly after this.Five weeks later, his son Stephen Austin traveled to San Antonioto have this charter confirmed by the Spanish governor.In 1822, Austin led 150 settlers into Texas.When Austin learned afterwards that Mexico was now independent of Spain,he journeyed to Mexico City to have his charter reconfirmed.The Mexicans appointed Austin regional administrator for his colony.Texas grew rapidly.Cotton farming and cattle ranching were profitable and attracted American settlers.By 1830, there were 16,000 Americans in Texas - four times the Spanish-Mexican population.Sam Houston had been a successful soldier and politician.He was a friend and supporter of President Andrew Jackson.However, personal problems and political difficulties led him to leave the U.S.A. for Texas.Meanwhile, the struggle for control of Mexico had been won in 1833 by Santa Ana.However, the independent thinking of the Texans infuriated Santa Ana.He had Stephen Austin thrown in jail, and sent an army into Texas.Austin was released from jail in time to organize the defense of Texas.The Mexican army was besieged inside the Alamo, and after fierce fighting, surrendered.The Mexicans were allowed to go home.Sam Houston was now elected the State's supreme commander.Not long after this, Santa Ana approached Texas with an army of 6,000 men.Houston decided not to meet Santa Ana in open battle but to wait for an advantage.He sent frontiersman Jim Bowie to the Alamo.Bowie's orders were to leave San Antonio and destroy the Alamo.When Bowie arrived, however, Texas volunteers were preparing the Alamo for a siege.Bowie and his men pitched in to help.Other volunteers came.The fiery William Travis arrived with 25 men.Then, the famous frontiersman, Davy Crockett came with a dozen Tennessee sharpshooters.When Santa Ana attacked, there were 183 Americans inside the fort.Santa Ana brought up cannon to bombard the Alamo.As the walls began to crumble, 4,000 Mexicans attacked from all four sides.The Mexicans overcame all resistance because of their large numbers,but they suffered very heavy losses.All the American defenders were killed.While the battle was raging, the Texans back at the colony declared their independence from Mexico.Sam Houston now gathered men to fight the Mexican army.At first, he retreated while waiting for a suitable opportunity.When Santa Ana's rapid advance left the bulk of the Mexican army behind, Houston prepared to fight.Santa Ana's advance troops moved into swampy land by the San Jacinto River.Houston's men attacked while the Mexicans were having their midday siesta.Their battle cry was "Remember the Alamo!".The battle was soon over.Many Mexicans were killed, but only a couple of Texans were killed.Santa Ana was a prisoner.Santa Ana readily agreed now to recognize Texas as an independent republic.Ninety years later, in 1845, Texas became the 28th State of the U.S.A.翻译记住阿拉莫！美国西南部的第一批欧洲人是西班牙探险家和征服者。随后，宗教组织设立了传教士，将印第安人基督教化。其中一个任务是圣安东尼奥·德瓦莱罗；它于1718年在现在的德克萨斯州圣安东尼奥市成立。后来，任务被称为阿拉莫。1821年，摩西·奥斯汀说服西班牙当局给他一份在德克萨斯州定居20万英亩土地的特许权。老奥斯汀不久就去世了。五周后，他的儿子斯蒂芬·奥斯汀前往圣安东尼奥，让西班牙总督确认这份宪章。1822年，奥斯汀带领150名定居者进入德克萨斯州。奥斯汀后来得知墨西哥现已独立于西班牙，于是前往墨西哥城重新确认其宪章。墨西哥人任命奥斯汀为其殖民地的行政长官。德克萨斯州发展迅速。棉花种植和养牛业有利可图，吸引了美国定居者。到1830年，德克萨斯州有16000名美国人，是西班牙裔墨西哥人口的四倍。萨姆·休斯顿是一位成功的士兵和政治家。他是安德鲁·杰克逊总统的朋友和支持者。然而，个人问题和政治困难导致他离开美国前往德克萨斯州。与此同时，1833年圣安娜赢得了对墨西哥的控制权。然而，德克萨斯人的独立思想激怒了圣安娜。他将斯蒂芬·奥斯汀投入监狱，并向德克萨斯州派遣了一支军队。奥斯汀及时获释，以组织德克萨斯州的抵抗。墨西哥军队在阿拉莫被包围，经过激烈的战斗后投降。墨西哥人被允许回家。萨姆·休斯顿当选为该州最高指挥官。此后不久，圣安娜率领6000人的军队接近德克萨斯州。休斯顿决定不在公开战中与圣安娜交锋，而是等待优势机会。他派边锋吉姆·鲍伊去阿拉莫。鲍伊的命令是离开圣安东尼奥，摧毁阿拉莫。然而，当鲍伊抵达时，德克萨斯州的志愿者正在为阿拉莫的围攻做准备。鲍伊和他的部下投入到帮助中。其他志愿者也来了。脾气暴躁的威廉·特拉维斯带着25个人来到这里。然后，著名的拓荒者戴维·克罗基特带着十几名田纳西神枪手来到这里。圣安娜袭击时，堡垒内有183名美国人。圣安娜举起大炮轰炸阿拉莫。随着城墙开始倒塌，4000名墨西哥人从四面八方发起攻击。墨西哥人克服了所有阻力，因为他们的人数众多，但他们遭受了非常严重的损失。所有的美国保卫者都被杀了。当战斗激烈时，回到殖民地的德克萨斯人宣布脱离墨西哥独立。山姆·休斯顿现在集结兵力与墨西哥军队作战。起初，他在等待合适的机会时撤退了。当圣安娜的快速推进将大部分墨西哥军队甩在身后时，休斯顿准备战斗。圣安娜的先遣部队进入圣哈辛托河旁的沼泽地。休斯顿的人在墨西哥人午睡时发动袭击。他们的战斗口号是“记住阿拉莫！”战斗很快结束了。许多墨西哥人被杀，但只有几个德克萨斯人被杀。圣安娜是个囚犯。圣安娜现在欣然同意承认德克萨斯州为独立共和国。90年后的1845年，德克萨斯州成为美国的第28个州。文稿及音频 关注公众号“高效英语磨耳朵”
SUMMARY OF COLOSSIANSThis letter is written to a young church: The Apostle Paul writes this letter from prison to a young church in the city of Colossae that they may grow in “maturity to Christ” (1:28), despite the cultural pressures that they were experiencing.Christ began a new Kingdom: The foundation for resisting cultural pressure is recognizing we have been saved from ourselves and are now citizens of a new Kingdom– established in Christ. (1:13;1:15-20;3:1)Spiritual maturity is learning to live in that new Kingdom: Paul believes that learning to live in the Kingdom of Jesus transforms every aspect of our lives.ON UNCOMFORTABLE PASSAGES IN THE BIBLEPassages like Colossians 3:18-4:1 are known as a “household code”, instructions to Christian people on domestic matters. They define what a homelife should look like, but many of these instructions seem outdated. When we come to passages that on the surface seem problematic we can respond one of a few ways; We can breeze over it, focusing on the parts we like. We can outright ignore it, call it a product of a bygone age and keep on what we're doing. We can say “the bible says it, I believe it, and that settles it”. We can wrestle with it.The bible is a library of ancient literature revealing God's activity to bring about beauty, justice, and flourishing out of the chaos of our world. The Bible was composed over thousands of years by people who have a very different lifestyle from our own; It take thoughtfulness, research, and an open-minded curiosity to interpret the scriptures. accurately. BIBLICAL THEOLOGY The Greco-Roman world that the Colossians believers occupied was patriarchal and male-dominated. “It is, in fact, extremely unlikely that Paul, having warned the young Christians against conforming their lives to the present world, would now require just that of them after all.” – NT Wright“Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth” – Colossians 3:2Why call for a focus on heaven, if moments later you are going to suggest a social dynamic that mimics the earth?The key to Paul's understanding of subversive love is found in verses 11, 14, and 17. “Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.” – Colossians 3:11 ESV“And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.” – Colossians 3:14 ESV“And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”– Colossians 3:17 ESVIn summary, Paul suggests that the Church is a community of diverse equals, united in love, and working to do everything “in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ”1. Marital Relationship“...as between the sexes, the male is by nature superior and the female inferior, the male ruler and the female subject.” – Aristotle“Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them. “ – Colossians 3:18-19Wives submit to their husbands, which deserves careful attention: it is spoken to a Roman culture obsessed with status and power.this terminology has long been used to justify the domination and abuse of women. “...though [Jesus] was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. – Philippians 2:6–8 ESVThe call of Paul is for husbands and wives to march into life not struggling for power but in self-sacrificing love 2. Parental Relationship“He who loves his son will whip him often,so that he may rejoice at the way he turns out. An unbroken horse turns out stubborn,and an unchecked son turns out headstrong.Pamper a child, and he will terrorize you;play with him, and he will grieve you.Do not laugh with him, or you will have sorrow with him, and in the end you will gnash your teeth. Give him no freedom in his youth,and do not ignore his errors.Bow down his neck in his youth, and beat his sides while he is young, or else he will become stubborn and disobey you, and you will have sorrow of soul from him.Discipline your son and make his yoke heavy,so that you may not be offended by his shamelessness.”– Sirach 30:1,8-13“Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord. Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged. “ – Colossians 3:20-21 ESVIn just a few crisp sentences Paul says what thousands of books on parenting say in chapters– “children need discipline, and so do parents.”3. Socioeconomic RelationshipWhile first-century slavery was not the racially-motivated evil of the Antebellum south; it was still the practice of owning another human. “Fodder and a stick and burdens for a donkeyBread and discipline and work for a servant:Set your slave to work, and you will find restLeave his hands idle, and he will seek libertyYoke and thong will bow the neckAnd for a wicked servant there are racks and tortures”– Sirach 33:26-27Paul doesn't outright condemn slavery, in this or any other passage, but his instruction put cracks in the foundation of slavery and provides an opportunity to begin seeing beyond the evil institution. What he does is subtle, but powerful nonetheless. First, Paul is not putting women, children, or slaves in their place – he is instructing them on what it looks like to behave like Christians in the social roles they are already playing. “…Paul is trying to Christianize a difficult and possibly abusive situation on his first occasion of addressing the Colossians and so to help the subordinate members of the household not merely survive but have a more Christian environment in which to operate.” – Ben Witherington IIISecond, his instructions to the slave follow his radical assertion in verse 11. “Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.” – Colossians 3:11 ESV“There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” – Galatians 3:28 ESVAmongst the people of Christ, the old hierarchies of social order and economic status are being erased by Christ. And Third, he addresses the slave directly, instructing them on faithful service elevating their status. “Bondservants, obey in everything those who are your earthly masters, not by way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord. 23 Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, 24 knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ. 25 For the wrongdoer will be paid back for the wrong he has done, and there is no partiality. “ – Colossians 3:22-25 ESVAnd fourth, he addresses the master's treatment of their slaves in chapter 4, verse 1. “Masters, treat your bondservants justly and fairly, knowing that you also have a Master in heaven.” – Colossians 4:1 ESVIn this seemingly innocuous add-on at the end, Paul shatters whatever foundation one held for owning another human. Paul insists on defending the humanity of wives, children, and slaves appealing to their equal standing in Christ and warning the powerful that they will be held accountable for their actions. In the Gospel, Christ is establishing an entirely new social order– one that stands against the exploitive systemic injustices of the Roman Empire. SPIRITUAL PRACTICE – Love through Service (The ministry of the Towel)In John 13, there is a peculiar story about Jesus, his disciples, and a towel. A task reserved for the lowest of low, taken up by the king of Kings;“If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. 15 For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you.” (John 13:14–15)“A sign hangs on the wall in a New Monastic Christian community house: “Everyone wants a revolution. No one wants to do the dishes.” – Tish Harrison Ward
As we wrap up the third chapter of a discussion on theonomy, law, and the Kingdom of God, we look at some historical cases where biblical law was applied to and positivized in the laws of the nations other than Israel, including Britain, the United States, and Canada. Because law is an inescapable condition of life, if we will not be governed by God’s law, we must necessarily be governed by some other law. Which one do we want for our nation?
As we wrap up the third chapter of a discussion on theonomy, law, and the Kingdom of God, we look at some historical cases where biblical law was applied to and positivized in the laws of the nations other than Israel, including Britain, the United States, and Canada. Because law is an inescapable condition of life, if we will not be governed by God's law, we must necessarily be governed by some other law. Which one do we want for our nation?
As we wrap up the third chapter of a discussion on theonomy, law, and the Kingdom of God, we look at some historical cases where biblical law was applied to and positivized in the laws of the nations other than Israel, including Britain, the United States, and Canada. Because law is an inescapable condition of life, if we will not be governed by God's law, we must necessarily be governed by some other law. Which one do we want for our nation?
As we wrap up the third chapter of a discussion on theonomy, law, and the Kingdom of God, we look at some historical cases where biblical law was applied to and positivized in the laws of the nations other than Israel, including Britain, the United States, and Canada. Because law is an inescapable condition of life, if we will not be governed by God's law, we must necessarily be governed by some other law. Which one do we want for our nation?
Those of us in the deconstruction community have been accused of many things over the last few years by individuals and institutions in the evangelical establishment. We've been accused of deconstructing our faith because we want to sin more, or that we have a rebellious nature, or we just want to have sex with anything and anyone, or that we've been corrupted by a liberal agenda. None of these claims are true. In fact, from all the countless conversations we've had with fellow deconstructionists over the years, most of us left evangelicalism because evangelicalism left Jesus. This movement is toxic, harmful, and frankly it needs to die. In this episode, Dr. David Gushee of Mercer University describes his own journey out of evangelicalism and provides language for the myriad of faithful reasons to leave this toxic movement behind. From Trumpism, white supremacy, LGBTQIA+ exclusion, and biblical literalism, Gushee gives language for why millions of us have left the church building. Plus, he provides not only one of the most succinct and beautiful apologetics for full LGBTQIA+ inclusion in the church, but he also provides a "biblical" justification for same sex marriage. BioRev. Dr. David P. Gushee (PhD, Union Theological Seminary, New York) is Distinguished University Professor of Christian Ethics, Mercer University, Chair in Christian Social Ethics, Vrije Universiteit, and Senior Research Fellow, International Baptist Theological Study Centre.Dr. Gushee is the elected Past-President of both the American Academy of Religion and Society of Christian Ethics, signaling his role as one of the world's leading Christian ethicists. He is the author, co-author, editor, or co-editor of 25 books and approximately 175 book chapters, journal articles, and reviews. His most recognized works include Righteous Gentiles of the Holocaust, Kingdom Ethics, The Sacredness of Human Life, and Changing Our Mind. His book, After Evangelicalism, charts a theological and ethical course for post-evangelical Christians, a course he more personally relates in his memoir, Still Christian.Over a full 28-year career, he's been a devoted teacher and mentor as Professor Gushee to college students, seminarians, and PhD students. He's also led significant activist efforts on climate, torture, and LGBTQ inclusion, and is a keynote speaker at churches, forums, and universities.Quotables“One of the reasons why I have left evangelicalism is that I believe that at least U.S. white evangelicalism has jumped the tracks in terms of being a faithful path for following Jesus…Something has gone pretty wrong with this branch of the Christian community.”“Evangelicalism has some problems, and the LGBTQIA+ issue was only one of the problems.”“U.S. white evangelicalism has become toxic and I don't belong in that community.”“America is a white Anglo-Saxon protestant nation. Everyone else is here by sufferance.” -Franklin D. Roosevelt“The idea that this country belongs to white Christian people, notable of course white Christian men, white straight Christian men, is the founding power structure of our country.” “Trump embodies disgust that someone like Barack Obama could become President of the United States.”“Trump has embodied and advanced a reactionary narrative, but what could not have been anticipated was that 85% of white evangelicals went over the cliff with him.”“Once Trump solidified his grip on the heart of the people, it has been unbreakable.”“Trump has been both unveiled problems that were already there, and made them immeasurably worse.”“Europeans began to think of themselves as not only as Christian, not only as superior, but as white. And spreading all over the world to colonize, Christianize, and enslave all over the world without any problem.”“Evangelicalism and structured racism grew up together in America, and they intertwined to where you can't tell where one leaves off and one begins.”“White supremacism has not been repented and continues to resurface.”“We don't want our kids to go to school with black people.”“All of this is pretty obviously adrift away from the Jesus we meet in the Gospels. Jesus is not the problem.”“The reason why there is inclusion of LGBTQIA+ individuals is that we are following the radical inclusion of Christ.”Please follow us on social media (use the buttons below) and help us get the word out! (Also, please don't hesitate to use any of these channels or email to contact us with any questions, concerns, or feedback.)If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a rating and a review
On today's Bible Answer Man broadcast, Hank addresses the common concern that comes up every year around this time regarding the validity of celebrating Christmas. It is true that when Christmas was originally instituted, December 25th was a pagan festival commemorating the birthday of a false god: Sol Invictus, the "Unconquered Sun." The reason early Christians chose December 25th was not to Christianize a pagan holiday but to set up a rival celebration pointing to the preeminence of the Lord Jesus Christ. While the world has all but forgotten the Greco-Roman gods of antiquity, they are annually reminded that two thousand years ago Christ invaded time and space.Hank also answers the following questions:Can you explain the mystery Paul talks about; is he talking about the rapture?How can I help Muslims understand that Jesus is the Son of God?Should we continue to observe the Sabbath as Jesus and the apostles did?Is the story of Jesus copied from stories of Egyptian gods?In Ezekiel 29, is the destruction of Egypt something that happened in the past or will this happen in the future?
On today's Bible Answer Man broadcast (12/01/21), Hank addresses the common concern that comes up every year around this time regarding the validity of celebrating Christmas. It is true that when Christmas was originally instituted, December 25th was a pagan festival commemorating the birthday of a false god: Sol Invictus, the "Unconquered Sun." The reason early Christians chose December 25th was not to Christianize a pagan holiday but to set up a rival celebration pointing to the preeminence of the Lord Jesus Christ. While the world has all but forgotten the Greco-Roman gods of antiquity, they are annually reminded that two thousand years ago Christ invaded time and space.Hank also answers the following questions:Can you explain the mystery Paul talks about; is he talking about the rapture?How can I help Muslims understand that Jesus is the Son of God?What is your opinion on the age of the earth?Can a Christian be demon-possessed?Do you know anything about Pastor Greg Price? He believes Christians shouldn't celebrate holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas.
This week, the Pugsters turn to another Touchstone article by Louis Markos, this one on Owen Barfield. Barfield was one of the Inklings along with C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien and helped nudge Lewis toward Christianity. He also was heavily influenced by Rudolph Steiner's esoteric thought and tried to Christianize it. In this episode, the Pugsters discuss Barfield's ideas about the relationship of human beings and the natural world, which argued that in the past people had a simple, spiritual relationship with the natural world but lost it with the Scientific Revolution. The goal, according to Barfield, is to bring the two together. On the way, the guys talk about Francis Bacon, Galileo, and whether you can keep the benefits of science and technology while losing their downsides. Article Referenced: https://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=34-06-027-f
This week, the Pugsters turn to another Touchstone article by Louis Markos, this one on Owen Barfield. Barfield was one of the Inklings along with C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien and helped nudge Lewis toward Christianity. He also was heavily influenced by Rudolph Steiner's esoteric thought and tried to Christianize it. In this episode, the Pugsters discuss Barfield's ideas about the relationship of human beings and the natural world, which argued that in the past people had a simple, spiritual relationship with the natural world but lost it with the Scientific Revolution. The goal, according to Barfield, is to bring the two together. On the way, the guys talk about Francis Bacon, Galileo, and whether you can keep the benefits of science and technology while losing their downsides. Article Referenced: https://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=34-06-027-f
Olav Haraldsson was an ambitious man who wanted two things more than anything else: to be king of Norway and to Christianize the Norwegians. In life, he was a divisive character and was killed after a brief stint on the throne. But in death, he became a unifying national symbol and king forever.
In an earlier episode, the Pugsters talked about Tolkien's ideas of the value of pagan myth and the need to Christianize it. In this episode, Glenn picks up on that and applies it not to mythology but to culture, specifically, the religion of pre-Christian Ireland and what happened when it was Christianized. In pagan Ireland, the Druids were walking encyclopedias of everything related to the culture—religion, rituals, magic, law, history, music, …. When Ireland converted to Christianity, they assumed that religious leaders similarly had to learn everything there was to know about Christianity and culture. Along with tangents on the history of monasticism and martyrdom, the guys talked about a number of saints' lives and the contributions of Irish Christianity to civilization.
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