The Mapp
Life is a journey, and every journey needs a guide—or at least a good story. Welcome to The Mapp, hosted by Michael Pursley, where we navigate the messy, beautiful business of being human. The podcast's name is a nod to both Michael A. Pursley Podcast and the "maps of meaning" that help us find our way in life.
Born during the stillness of the COVID-19 lockdowns, The Mapp emerged from Michael’s hunger for understanding. Inspired by long-form conversations that spark insights and refine ideas, Michael dives into deep, authentic dialogues with curiosity and humor. From life’s profound mysteries to its absurdities, nothing is off-limits.
Each episode unearths the treasure of human stories: wisdom, laughter, and moments of profound connection.
At its core, The Mapp is about the human story. It’s a place where problems shrink, purpose grows, and laughter and revelation often arrive hand in hand. For Michael, the podcast is more than a platform—it’s a mission. It’s an effort to create a space where wisdom is shared, ideas are tested, and hearts are healed. Whether through a profound insight or an unexpected laugh, Michael hopes listeners walk away from The Mapp with a sense that they, too, are part of a bigger story—one that is still being written and, in the words of another great storyteller, echoes through eternity.
The Mapp
The Unseen Price of Forgiveness: What Lies Beneath cheap cinema and shallow definitions
Have you ever grappled with the idea that forgiveness might hold the key to your own liberation? In this episode, we set out on a journey—one part introspection, one part revelation—to untangle the deep truths of forgiveness, trust, and the fragile architecture of human relationships. With the ever-curious and delightfully enigmatic Tim Churchward as our guide, we wade into the murky waters of pain and redemption, discovering along the way that freedom often lies just beyond the courage to forgive.
Forgiveness is no soft virtue; it is a battle waged within the soul, where the scars of past wounds meet the relentless call to let go. Boundaries, on the other hand, are the walls we build—not to keep others out, but to preserve the sanctity of our own becoming. Trust? Well, trust is the leap of faith that carries us across the chasm of human imperfection. Together, these ideas form a kind of alchemy, transforming the chaos of our lives into something resembling grace.
Themes We Explore:
- Forgiveness as the painful but necessary path to freedom.
- Trust as a dance between risk and reward, vulnerability and strength.
- Boundaries as the art of protecting what is sacred without losing what is human.
- The delicate interplay of rights and responsibilities, reframed as gifts rather than entitlements.
- Stories of extraordinary forgiveness, where grace triumphs over vengeance.
We also take a hard look at the roots of modern human rights, tracing their lineage back to the soil of Christian thought. Here, rights are not mere conveniences but divine gifts, calling us to steward them with reverence and courage. And at the heart of it all lies the resurrection—a moment that embodies the ultimate reconciliation of justice and mercy, offering a blueprint for healing in a broken world.
As we close, you’ll hear tales that defy cynicism: a father’s improbable forgiveness in the face of unspeakable loss, the quiet power of grace to transform the human heart, and the perilous weight of resentment when left unchecked. This isn’t just an invitation to think differently—it’s a call to action, a challenge to reflect on your own life and take the first steps toward freedom, healing, and meaning.
So, beautiful people, lean in. Join us as we navigate the hard truths of the human experience with a dash of humor, a measure of wisdom, and more than a little faith.
And when you’re done, share this episode with someone who needs it. We’re on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever the road of discovery takes you. Don’t forget to subscribe, review, and—if you’re feeling generous—help spread the word.
Here’s to the journey, and a very Happy New Year.
Thank you for joining The Mapp. If this resonates with you, don’t forget to subscribe and share it with others who might find it meaningful. Subscribe, leave review, and follow us on social media to stay updated and join our community of explorers. Together we navigate life’s pathways.
Hello and welcome to the Map. Today's conversation. I am joined again by the whimsical and magical Tim Churchward. The whimsical and magical Tim Church world. Today's conversation.
Speaker 1:We dive into the profound and often paradoxical dynamics of forgiveness, trust and the pursuit of truth. It's about wrestling with the real and the raw realities of relationships and uncovering truly what matters by peeling back the layers of our beliefs around relationships. Forgiveness is not simple, nor should it be. It demands from us oftentimes more than what we believe that we can give. Yet in this demand, it does offer something greater freedom.
Speaker 1:Forgiveness isn't about forgetting. It's about confronting the reality of harm and choosing not to let that define us. And it's a battle, but it's one that leads to profound growth. And as we peel that back, we go into trust and this delicate, fragile thing that's built slowly over time, but it can be shattered very quickly. Fragile thing that's built slowly over time, but it can be shattered very quickly. It demands vulnerability, a willingness to take risk, to open ourselves to the possibility of betrayal. But trust is also the bedrock of all meaningful relationships. Without it we're just islands, adrift, isolated. We also explore the role of boundaries, those unseen lines that protect the sanctity of our lives while inviting others into a meaningful connection. Without boundaries, relationships falter and healing becomes elusive. And somewhere in all this lies the interplay between rights and responsibilities, a tension that challenges us to see our rights not as entitlements, but as gifts requiring care and stewardship.
Speaker 1:This conversation is about navigating the chaos of life with wisdom and grace. It's about standing in the tension between what is and what could be and finding a way forward that honors both truth and compassion. So settle in. This is not just a discussion. It's an invitation to reflect, to wrestle, to grow. Let's dive in. Two, one, zero, all engines running. Let's go. Um, because I feel it, just it, just this is weird. Um, well, I am joined again by the powerful and whimsical tim churchward. Love, that hat makes you look like a bricklayer there, okay, man. So I got got some feedback from the last time that we talked and, and one of the things that people did say is like we need to go a little bit more narrow and deep on some topics that we talk about, versus like we'll just drop like a bomb, and then like move on, drop another bomb, then move on, drop another bomb Like fireworks yeah.
Speaker 1:Fireworks, yeah, yeah. So one of the things we kind of went back and forth were about talking about forgiveness within our culture and of went back and forth were about talking about forgiveness within our culture. And, ironically enough, I just had a recording with my buddy, ethan, and we talked a ton about confession that segued into forgiveness. So it's a pretty seamless transition here, but I remember I'll kind of pass the baton to you but I remember when I was in the UK once we were visiting friends of ours down in Portsmouth, the Farum, southampton area. I remember my buddy, his son. They had a real issue with him eating on their couch. They had a setup where the TV in the family room there's a couch and his son would just trash the couch with yogurt or whatever it was, and so he laid the law down. He's like hey, buddy, so here's the deal.
Speaker 1:In our family everybody has the right to use this couch, but everybody in our family has a responsibility to keep this area clean so that we all can watch it, and we have to respect that. We're not the only person that has the right to watch the TV, everybody else has the right. So there's this symbiotic relationship or a triangle between rights, responsibility and respect that have to be held together. Culturally, people hyper fixate on rights, even in what they perceive as rights. Sometimes people misdefine rights and they say rights, but it's like the Beastie Boys I need to fight for my right to party. Everyone's like I have rights, rights, rights, and certain political parties will really push that you need to have more rights, you need to have rights on top of rights and it's all about rights. But then there's not this relationship with. You actually have to respect that other people have rights and the way that they live their life might not be how you would think is right or whatever, but then you have a responsibility to protect that for other people.
Speaker 1:And I saw one lady I'm not going to hand off to you one lady. She was being interviewed. She was from Palestine and there was a kid from UCLA. So this white kid, he's in his 20s, this lady's a bit older. I don't know the context, I just saw the reel of it and she was taking a deep breath before she talked and uh and so so this lady, she was, you know, taking a deep breath and she's correcting the audience. She's like guys, he has an opinion, he has a perspective, he's here, willing to talk, you need to chill. He has a perspective. He's willing to talk. You need to chill out. And so our culture is kind of conditioned to like dunk on each other and boo, and like you don't want to hear people talk, conditioning the audience because they're outraged. Let him talk. So she just like kind of schooled him for a second. He didn't really know what do you think?
Speaker 1:I'm from Gaza. I was attacked within Gaza. I was raped by 13 men. I was like she just went through all this stuff she experienced, and she's like you don't actually know what you're talking about. When you say the word Palestinian, you don't actually know what that is. And she's like I've been to America, I've been, I to the individual there, and I feel like we've kind of lost a witch hunt culture in the form of like doxing or I want, if you don't agree, I want to punish you economically, I want to punish you socially, I want to punish you here. So there's no even really room for forgiveness also within that. But I'll stop there because I threw different things there, but I'd like to hear your hot take.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think the rights thing is really. For me, the rights thing, the human rights thing is more interesting. I mean, I think Christianity is the foundation of human rights, the Geneva Convention, we know, in terms of how we establish modern Western human rights and everybody with a right to life, and what you can expect from that, and and the foundational narrative, of course, in the christian, christian story is that everyone's created equal, and men and women are created equal, for example, and from the beginning of time. And so what does that look? And so what we've done is we've established this, these the sets of laws I will call them doctrines, but these sets of laws around what human right is and how do we uphold the equality of all people, but not just the equality of all people, the equality of the most vulnerable, the rights of equality created equal under God, from God, or you divorce it from the Christian faith that you find them in, then what happens is that the rights become the be-all and end-all of what it is that you think you're entitled to, and so rights become an entitlement, not a privilege as a created being.
Speaker 2:And so for me, the antidote always is well, christianity really says the right that you have really at a foundational level is the right to death. Because you sinned, you fell short of the glory of God, and so what that meant is what that means is is that you have one right Right is a strong word for this, but let's go with it. We have one right, which is to die Die a sucker and that's John Wimber. You ever heard of John Wimber? I don't know. And so, basically, when we have an entitlement to right, we believe that we have an entitlement to everything that is good about life. But really our only entitlement because the ways of sin are, death is death, but by the grace of God, we are able to live in a place or live in a society, live in a world where we get to protect the things that we hold dear. Even the most vulnerable get to protect those things. But when it becomes about the rights, you forget the right giver.
Speaker 2:And actually the purpose of the redemption power of Christ is that what you do is you lay down your rights. This is a foundational narrative in Christianity that you lay down your rights. You lay down your right to life, lay down your right to dignity, to freedom, whatever else it is. You lay at the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ, and then he gives you supernatural power by which to live your life and you're resurrected in his power, not just in the power of the human rights that you might receive from a sociological or theoretical or societal standing, which is a far freer, actually, and far greater place to live, because the greatest freedom is when you actually lay down your freedom and pick it up, because then you're not fighting for your own freedom, you're no longer an orphan fighting for your own freedom, fighting for the rights that no one else is going to give you unless you stand up for them. You know, and I think that in the end, if we get our heads around the fact that rights are not an entitlement, they're a gift, and that if we are constantly fighting for rights, rights that we think our rights, that we think we have entitlement to we miss the point that they're a gift and actually we receive the gift by laying them down in the first place, being resurrection to supernatural power, and so there's all of those things involved in there.
Speaker 2:But to shift through the forgiveness phase is that if you, if you believe that you're not entitled to anything, it's a lot easier to forgive someone, because how do you hurt a dead person, how do you offend a dead person? You can't. And so, actually, if you're dead to everything, including your sin, but also you're dead to your rights, you're dead to your need to protect yourself, you're dead to all these things, then no offense can hurt you. Now, this is theoretical, it's a lot harder to put into practice, but you can't hurt a dead man, you can't kill a dead man, you can't take the rights of a dead man away. You're dead. And so, actually, from that basis, if you really work through the narrative of Christianity, then you end up living in a place where you can't be offended, where you can't have your rights taken away because you've chosen to lay them down.
Speaker 2:So there's something really important to acknowledge that when you have that basis for how you live your life, that it becomes a lot easier to forgive someone, then it becomes a lot easier to forgive someone, because, basically, what you're saying is hey, I gave up the right, I gave up the right to I don't know have this particular lifestyle that I wanted. Like, I gave up that right and now I trust Jesus with my life, I trust Jesus with my destiny and he commands it. And so then when someone comes at you, hurts you, minimizes you no-transcript People will hurt me and I'm not entitled to not be hurt. I'm not entitled to live my life completely free from hurt and pain. I'm not entitled to that. I wish that I could have that in heaven. I'll have that, but I'm not entitled to that right now. And so actually laying that as a foundation for your forgiveness makes your life a lot easier. Because what you do is that you end up saying, hey, jesus, instead of me meeting out my own justice the whole time living as an orphan, trying to believe, the only person that can protect me is me. I trust you as my gateway to the Father, father, god, you are my justice and that, just as you resurrected me from the death of my sin, so actually you'll resurrect me from this hurt your. Your same resurrection power resides in me and you will heal me as a result of that. And now I absolutely understand. I absolutely understand that that is a crazy theory, crazy doctrine, crazy thing and very hard to live and act out. But if I'm right about christianity, then that's what it calls us to do, and and so I'm.
Speaker 2:I talk to my friend a lot and I've got a really good friend, um, here in our church and he, his wife, came out gay. She divorced him. Um, you know about two children together. She's gone progressive and has no idea, um, of the collateral damage. That is done, necessarily, but she now obviously lives with this. She's married and lives with this other lady. And it's really interesting because he talks about forgiveness. In fact, he spoke to 10 minutes last night at a training session that we did about forgiveness and I'm like man, if you can stand up and talk to me about forgiveness and you can stand up and having forgiven that situation in your life, then what on earth am I doing? Holding anything against anybody? You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:And I think that there's this really interesting story, that this idea that I have the right to express myself, I have the right to any sexual or gender identity that I want. I have a right to change what I want, to that I want. I have a right to change what I want to change, no matter what the collateral damage is, no matter if it undermines a previous covenant and commitment in terms of this marriage. This is the top priority my expression of self, my freedom of self. And when you focus on. Focus on that the rights, what you have access to, what you're entitled to you actually lose the whole point of covenant, because now you're only covenanting with something that can give you what you want, as opposed to something that will walk you through a storm.
Speaker 2:And and in terms of the forgiveness aspect of it, um, if you focus on on your rights and then someone abuses your rights, then forgiveness isn't part of the conversation.
Speaker 2:Canceling is part of the conversation. If someone tramples on your rights or tramples on the ideal that you want to live to, then what happens is that you get up and you defend yourself and you go up against that person in the same vein as they've come up against you, which is this you did me an injustice and so I will do you an injustice, and the cycle goes and goes and goes. We spoke last week about the Sermon on the Mount being the ultimate idea of breaking the cycle of injustice, and it lays at the feet of the one that suffered injustice. It's a crazy story, crazy story, but everything about Christianity is impossible unless you are supernaturally empowered by the Spirit to do it. And so when we focus on rights, we minimize forgiveness, because we end up trying to enact justice as opposed to live from a place of a heart of forgiveness. So I think that would be what I'd say to all the things you just said, and I think there'll be lots of comments about that, I'm sure lots of thoughts about that.
Speaker 1:And that's a theory that is much harder to put into practice as a human being than it is to speak about in a context like this. But, yeah, evocative demonstrations of forgiveness that I've ever witnessed I sent you the clip on. It was when Gary Ridgway, who was a convicted serial killer I think he killed something to the tune of 38 women brutally. They had him in court, set stone face the entire time, no response, no reaction. At the end of the trial they gave the families the opportunity to express themselves toward what he had done. Some people obviously they were distraught. You took this person from me. I'll never get them back. Other people vehemently we hate you. I hope you die and burn in hell forever. I hope you have a miserable suffering life in prison. Die and burn in hell forever. I hope you have a miserable suffering life in prison. It'll make me happy to know that you can't get out and do it. It was, is, yeah, it's. You're just like gutted for these people who, like they lost their daughter, they lost their sister, they lost somebody, and then some of them couldn't even talk. You know, they're so like just wrecked by it. And then this old man gets up. He, he has rainbow suspenders, santa Claus beard, big belly. And he just calmly said he's like you know, mr Ridgway, a lot of people here hate you today, but I'm not one of them. And he said you've made it really hard to do what I believe is right, but I followed Jesus Christ and he commands me to forgive. And you've been forgiven, sir.
Speaker 1:And this guy who the serial killer who had sat there stone-faced the entire time begins to weep. And part of me as a father I can empathize completely of like, yeah, let's bury this guy under the prison. He's a monster. But the other side of it is like what you're saying about your friend who, it's like, well, who am I? If this guy can do that, then I have to ask like, why is he doing that? And like, I have friends who are men, who, like, served in the military and certain things, and I kind of hear them in the background of my mind. Well, that guy's weak. That guy's weak because he should go and he should exercise vengeance on that guy. He's doing that because he's harmless or he's doing that because he can't actually do anything. He's doing it.
Speaker 1:So there's this invalidation of the forgiveness, there's an invalidation of like, why is that necessary and we all are familiar in this kind of cliches become like people think that things are shallow because they're simple. But there's a? There's a saying from a rabbi that said an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind. Uh, the buck stops with somebody, and, and I think we're we're living in a time I am, I think we are correcting course, or at least we are aware that we need to correct course, because there's a, there's a period of time in the states and in the uk it's still you guys are still not turning the corner. I think. In the states, we're like trying to turn the corner in this, but policing each other on thought to the extent where you want to ruin somebody's livelihood, take away their ability to earn, and then to the point where you jail them because they have a differing opinion of you and you can't just simply forgive that person and move on in a sense. But yeah, so that story, though. And then I found like once I started watching that story cause I was looking at some things to look at on that I just got bombarded by people who was just like mind boggling that you can sit even in the same room with the person, cause I know people who they went through divorce. They can't even be in the same room even talking about it. They'll start trembling and the anger is so immense, but the pain is so immense they can't even talk about it.
Speaker 1:I knew a guy I did at a period of time I did like inner healing, uh kind of sessions with with people, and this, this person, his father, was a closeted homosexual, had a couple, couple of kids. He was the second born. When his father found out that his mother was pregnant with him, like Sparta, kicked her down the stairs in the stomach. He tried to kill him in the womb. It was rejection from like even in the womb. And so later his father who's father, his closet homosexual ends up coming out, divorces his mom, moves away to another state, but then like still maintains some modicum of relationship with his son, and the very short version of the of the story is uh, he would throw these orgies and his son would be a play thing for all these men who were coming to the orgy. As an eight-year-old, 10-year-old boy, and his first experience with sexuality was was having grown men rape him. And so we got to the point where, okay, if you want to, if you want to, you can forgive your dad and like we, like we we'd like made we had multiple sessions. There's other stuff that was unpacked. This was like this is like pretty fundamental, you know, thing that sets some trajectory in your life. We sat there. He's hysterically crying I'm just sitting in the moment with him, you know, not trying to put, you know not trying to put, just leaving it open, not trying to put pressure, and then eventually literally gets up and sprints out of the room. We had another session, got to the same place, sprints out of the room.
Speaker 1:So when we talk about the nuts and bolts of like, when people have done grotesque things to us, when we've been wounded so deeply from such an early age, there's no other way and I could be, you know. I know people will contest this. But the grace of God, people misconstrued the grace of God. But the grace of God is God's ability. So there's a place where my ability starts and my ability ends. My strength, what I am capable of doing, and the grace of God will actually empower me supernaturally. Why do I say supernaturally? I'm not trying to be hocus pocus, it's naturally what I am able to do.
Speaker 1:The extent of it comes. There's a super ability, I will get a superpower or a dispensation of that or deposit of that in an instance to do something and to forgive somebody for something like that. You're going to need grace and you're not going to need grace in a single shot. You're going to need a sustained, the sustaining grace of god. And why would you forgive for something like that? Well, there was an Egyptian. I think it's not accurate, but this has been circulated through Egypt and also in the Roman Empire, this story of punishment.
Speaker 1:But basically, if you murdered somebody, sometimes what you'd be sentenced to is they would take the body of the person who you murdered and they would tether that person to your back and your shoulder so you could still walk around and go about your life, but they would like strap them tightly to your body.
Speaker 1:The reason why is, when that body starts to decompose, you're going to get MRSA, you're going to get staff, you are going to get an infection From the person who you've murdered and the life that you took is going to take your life. I think this is just a myth that's been built to prove a point when you want to hold on to these feelings because I would want to murder somebody. If they did that to me, I would want to murder them. But when you hold on to those feelings, that poison that you have inside of yourself is going to kill things that you love. It's going to kill you and the fear of letting it go will keep you captive in that, carrying those people with you on your shoulder. Bruce Springsteen said when the fear that we have to make us do what we need to survive, when survival kills the things that we love, fear is a powerful and real thing.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I think there's this really interesting dialogue with forgiveness. It's that unforgiveness, the, the, the inability to forgive actually keeps you bound to the hurt, and so you're trying to move on from the pain, often by numbing or forgetting or avoiding or whatever, and actually until you can get to a point where you are able to forgive, you're actually always bound to the hurt. You're bound to the person's action against you. Paul paul, the apostle paul, says that it's like locking yourself up in prison and throwing away the key. That's what. That's what unforgiveness is, and what's really interesting is, um, is that we we probably need to bust some myths about what forgiveness is, um, because what forgiveness? Forgiveness is not let the person back in right, like that is not what forgiveness is. That's a stupid. So forgiveness isn't saying okay, so you forgive them, and so now what that means is they have access to you again? No, no, if you, if you forgive someone, it does not mean that you forget. Now, god forgets, like god remembers our sin no more. But but that's because he's god and also he um, he's also ultimately justice, and so he, he has that, he can meet justice out, so he can forget it. And but actually, for us, we're not called to forget injustice that's done against us. We're called to forgive injustice, that that. We're called to forgive the hurt, forgive the person, but we're not meant to forget, because what that means is is that we just end up opening ourselves up to to more pain and more hurt, either from that individual or someone who's very much like him. It's why I'll move on, I won't go there. But but but actually, for example, your guy that sprinted out of the of the room when you were like, hey, if you want to, you can forgive your dad. Um, there's something very real about if I, if I, let this go, who is going to protect me now? If, if I let this pain and this hurt go, if I let it go and I and I forgive and I release him, then this defense mechanism that I have against this ever happening to me ever again is gone and I've got to trust something more than me to defend myself, and that's super difficult. But when we understand forgiveness is not letting the person in, forgiveness is saying I release you and release myself from the sin that you caused to me and allow god to meet out the justice against you rather than me meeting it out against you. What that means is you're completely and utterly free from that person, the way that you could never be unless you forgave.
Speaker 2:The other thing about forgiveness is that it doesn't mean you have to trust again the same person. You don't have to trust it right. Forgiveness and trust are like such different things. The thing with the thing with trust is that if, in the human experience, you are going to be let down multiple times by more people who will break your trust Some to a small degree, like they said they give you your pen back and then they never gave it back, they just took it away and that was it and some who literally crush you and you trusted them, you let them into the most intimate part of who you were, but they crush you because they take your heart, for example, and they squash you, and trust can be broken down the entire way through that spectrum.
Speaker 2:But forgiveness is not trusting them, forgiveness is releasing them, and trust actually is something that is, then, an act of courage, not an act of naivety or or or not, an act of um or not a natural act. So, as human beings, as we get older and older and and people hurt us more and more, which is naturally going to happen, then actually it takes more and more courage to trust again. That's what it takes, but actually the gateway to trusting someone to a point where you let them in your life is forgiving the person that skewed your understanding of what trust could look like. And the forgiveness of someone that broke trust is your gateway to moving into a more trusting relationship or environment that you can choose for yourself, and I want to. I just want to make really clear that I've not gone through hardly anything that has broken. I mean, it's all. It's all like. I'm not trying to make a hierarchy, but I've never been, I've never gone through the the thing that my friend went through. I've never gone through the thing that the guy that came to you for that in a healing session went through. Never, never, never, ever, ever, never.
Speaker 2:Want to clearly and don't wish it to try and test this theory, you know, but actually there is something powerful to acknowledge that if we get forgiveness right, it doesn't even mean that we speak to that person again. It might be that the appropriate boundary that's in place is that that person has no access to us ever again, but that's not the point. The point of forgiveness is that it releases you from being held by them, because more often than not, they're off living their life, they're off cracking on, they don't think about it or they don't feel guilt about it. They might be an absolute psychopath, they might be a sociopath, they might have absolutely no emotional connection to the thing whatsoever and they are living life scot-free anyway. So for you to live life bound by what they're not being bound by is so counterintuitive, because, foundationally, the sin that they've committed is not binding them. It's binding you still, and only unforgiveness can release you from. But that is not trust and actually you don't want to. You actually don't want to test forgiveness. So this is my view.
Speaker 2:I don't think you go about testing forgiveness lightly. I'm like, hey, I wouldn't say that you know now you've forgiven that person, give them a call and see how they're doing. It's like, no, don't test that forgiveness, like don't, that's just, that's dumb. What you need to do is is that you need to acknowledge that you've forgiven that person, you released them, and here's how you know that you've done that is that any time that you're reminded of it, less and less of an emotional drain on your life and you can move on quicker and quicker. As a result, you also know that you've forgiven when someone who reminds you of the person that hurt you no longer, like, um, there isn't a triggering memory, that you can remember the person without there being a trigger of the memory of of what has happened or what has hurt you. And and I think that there are these little, these little markers that test forgiveness, that don't require you to confront that person necessarily.
Speaker 2:Now, I'm not saying that you never do that, but I'm saying, guys, there's no expectation on the forgiveness level for you to somehow walk up to the person and go, hey, just say, no, I forgive. You give them a massive hug, but that's just not even real. It's probably a bit dumb. And so I'm like, hey, how do we actually narrate forgiveness? Well, where you don't have to forget the sin that's done against you, you just don't have the emotional turmoil that is associated with sin anymore and you also don't have to trust people. You don't have to now. You, you need to at some point trust people, but you don't have to.
Speaker 2:If you don't trust people for the whole rest of your life is understandable. You don't have to. That's not. That's not the command. Forgiveness is the command, but you have to. But without forgiveness you can't be courageous enough to trust someone going forward, otherwise you'll always be bound by the fear that something else like that will happen to you and then you'll minimize your life if you fail.
Speaker 2:And so I think talking about your guy, sort of bringing this full circle, the sprinting away, is an absolute natural response to the idea that the thing that has protected you for a long time, which is basically unforgiveness, is about to be taken away, and that is scary. I mean, scary is an understatement, it is petrifying. I've seen this. I've obviously social worked for 10 years. I've seen this happen again and again, and again. And we don't use the Christian language of forgiveness or boundaries or freedom or whatever else it is, but when you, when you ask, I've done this thing called restorative justice I don't know if you guys know what that is, but the restorative justice it began in new zealand among the maori tribes, and it's basically this idea that the, the person who is the victim, is offered the opportunity to confront the perpetrator and and what that means is is that they they get to sit in front of the perpetrator, explain what happened and how they felt as a result, and what it's meant to do is going to be a healing process for the for the victim, but also a learning process for the perpetrator.
Speaker 2:But I've seen many, many people refuse um refuse to go into those restorative justice sessions, not because they don't want the perpetrator to hear how they felt, but because actually they are very worried about viewing the perpetrator differently when it's finished. They're really worried that that perpetrator will no longer just be the evil person that they want them to be, because it's their protective mechanism against how that person is treated. And one of the hardest things about restorative justice for the victim is is that you go and you see a whole new side, probably a more humble side, a more repentant side of a person, and you're invited into a story where you actually are invited into a forgiveness story and, dude, most people do not want that because they're happy with people in boxes. And the problem with that, no matter how hard it is, is that Jesus never, ever put someone beyond redemption. And if we do, we have a problem in our lives because we're actually holding someone to judgment in our hearts that God calls us not to judge them to, so anyway.
Speaker 2:So there's a lot there, but I think if we can get forgiveness right what it is and what it isn't, because the other thing that forgiveness isn't. Forgiveness is not a waving of justice. It's a waving of your right to mete out your own justice, but it's not a waving of justice. Justice will be done either in the courts or in heaven, and I think there's something very powerful about that as well. But, dude, I've said a lot. You come back to me.
Speaker 1:It was good, I think. Yeah, giving like, because we live in a time where words are just kind of malleable and people can define their words however they want, so kind of having a definition and working from that departure point. That person is just going about their life, they're oblivious to, maybe even the offense they have, but they completely own real estate in your mind and in your heart, and so, again, it's like you need to free up that real estate so that something that's life-giving to you can actually take the place. And I think people, to your point, are worried of like, if I let this go, I'm then going to expose myself to something again, because fear and pain are protectors for us to some degree. But then we have to have a reality and I know, like for myself of you know, when you get, for me, it's like deception. And then when people are not walking in the fullness of integrity and then you feel like you're in, your relationship is something that it's not, that's like the for me, like deception is just so crazy. But basically it's like I have a grip on reality, but actually that person has twisted reality and so, as time marches on, it's kind of like you're grabbing a sheet and you're going on, you're going on, you're going on, and then everything kind of comes to the surface that you don't have a grip on reality, and that sheet then snaps back into place, and so now you have to kind of regroup. Then snaps back into place, and so now you have to kind of regroup and it's just like for this span of time I was looking through reality in a lens that was not actually real or accurate. And now I have to think back of like, oh, how dumb am I. And like why did I not see this? And this person saw, but they didn't tell me. And then this person. And so then you have to restructure, of like, where do you even put people? And you talked about trust.
Speaker 1:And one of the things, uh, that I think I picked up at some point was, if you want to imagine your life, it's like a bullseye and like or a dartboard, you know, and so it's like kind of like you're in the middle of god, and then your spouse is the next ring, and then your kids are the next ring, and then you have like an inner circle of like three to five people who are kind of like your confidants, and you have, like the rest of the 12 outside of that, and then you have like the 72 who are outside of that and then you have whatever. But it's basically like how much access that people have to you is going to be dictated by where they are in that circle. And so if me and Tim are friends and I set like a standard with Tim of like where I have to, I have to communicate what are my expectations of Tim. My expectation is hey, man, at least like once a week or whatever, shoot me a text or call me or whatever, to let me know that you actually care if I'm alive or not, or whatever it is. So I communicate the expectation to you. So now I've communicated it to you.
Speaker 1:Well, most people live in relationships where they want people to mind read, and women I'm not trying to sling you out, but women are a lot more guilty of this than men. Men are very literal, but they're like I want you you know, jennifer Aniston, the breakup. He's like you, you want me to take the trash out. I was like I don't want you to take the trash out, I want you to want to take the trash out. It's like this weird like thing that we're trying to do. But anyways, tim doesn't text me and I've you to text me, so I know that you care enough that I'm alive or what my week's going like. He doesn't do it. Does that make Tim bad or wrong? Not necessarily. It just means that I've misprioritized where Tim is on the circle. So I actually need to move Tim farther out to a place where I can set expectations that he can meet, so I can set him up for success to be in relationship with me.
Speaker 1:I'm just thinking from the perspective of, like, if you have to go to church with people, you don't have to be friends with everybody, they don't have to be your best friend, they don't have to be closer in, but you still have to coexist with them. So you need to set them up in a way. Sometimes that's even with our parents. Sometimes our parents maybe our parents are 40 to 60% of what we actually need. Now we can live our entire life embittered that you're not what I needed to be, or you could just have a funeral for that 40% that they're not.
Speaker 1:Embrace and celebrate the 60% they are, place them appropriately within those circles and forgive them for not being that 40% and then go and find somebody to facilitate that in some capacity or have God fill that void for you, because maybe it's a him thing. So I think that's pretty key is, like you know, people have real estate in our minds and hearts but we're the ones who control. Who are the renter Like, and I always joke with people that if I like, really like somebody, I'll say something along the lines of like, hey, you own real estate in my heart and you don't. You don't pay rent. Meaning, like you know, we're things that you touched on. Uh, can I speak about that?
Speaker 2:you're on the dartboard thing, because I think, like there's there's a um, so I think you've got the forgiveness piece and you've got the trust piece and then you've got the how you trust piece, which is the boundary, which is what you're talking.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because I think all these things, that's what I want to talk about, so I'll let you yeah, so, so, like I think I think you.
Speaker 2:So you've got the theory of forgiveness, which is this whole thing of like hey, what does it look like to lay down your rights? What does it look like to forgive someone, release someone, release yourself for the pain that caused you all that stuff? Then you've got the trust piece, which is okay. So now that I've been burned by someone, by many people, how do I go about trusting again? Trusting is not forgiveness. You don't have to trust people. It's not a command to trust people, but you'll live a very lonely, isolated life if you don't trust anything. It's one of the reasons why social media and digital relationships are so um, so desired, because a robot will never break your trust.
Speaker 1:There's no risk.
Speaker 2:That's just to read it zero risk and actually trust at this point in our lives, or any life is um, is is going to be correct. It's going to need courage, it's going to need something that is that you're going to take a risk on. So how do you do that? So how you do that? So you're talking about the dartboard, like you have you, and you've got in the middle, you have the spouse and you out, like that. But how do you do that with someone that's hurt you? So parents, you've used as an example. But let's use I don't know, like I don't know. Let's just take a relationship. So a guy has really hurt you. Dude, I spend a lot of my time with Gen Z about the amount of conversations I have with girls about how what I would consider an inconsequential comment by a man that is obliterated. This happens to me all the time. But let's take that as an example. So you've let this person into your house and so you live here, you're in this house and your house has this door, and then you've got the pathway, you've got the garden or the front yard, sorry, the front yard. You've got your fence, and then you've got the, the, the pathway. You've got the garden or the front yard, sorry, the front yard. You've got your fence and then outside the fence. So the same. This is the same principle, right? This person will come into your house. They really hurt you when you let them in, like they've. They've gone around smashing some windows. They've gone around smashing some of your finest china, right? And it's like how? So? So where? Where is appropriate for them to be? They can't be in the house anymore, right? So actually they can't be in the house. You don't want them there. So they're outside the fence. Now they're outside, so so they're outside the fence, but they're still there. You're not going to get rid of them. You're in the same community as them. Like you, you're in the same church or the same village, or whatever. It is same town. You're going to bump into them some same college, like whatever. And so the question is how do you live a life of freedom, even though they're outside? Because you can live in your house for the rest of your life, but you will never, ever learn what it is to live free.
Speaker 2:And so forgiveness is a process, because the first stage of forgiveness is that now they're outside the fence, are you able to look out the window? Is that now they're outside the fence, are you able to look out the window. So are you able to get up off the floor where they left you and look out of that window, and when you see them, not ducked for cover, can you do that? That's the first step. They're miles away, they're not going to come in. They can't get in the gate it's locked. They can't get in the door it's locked. All the protective systems are there. But actually, when you see them through the window, are you able to not duck and run for cover and have that thing trigger you? And so that's the first stage.
Speaker 2:The second stage is this is can you open the door and walk out of your house, even though they're outside the fence? Can you do that? The next stage is can you walk down the garden path or wave at them as they walk past you, as they go about their normal life outside of your, outside of your, your, your, your, your, your, your sphere of influence, where you feel safe? Can you wave? Let me have a conversation. Next stage is hey, like when they walk past, can you, can you say hi? Can you? Can you have a conversation with them over the garden gate, like the front yard gate, whatever you guys call it Like. Can you? Can you do that? And then eventually can you get out of that gate and walk where they're walking, not with them, but not avoiding them.
Speaker 2:You go on that journey of forgiveness where you have placed those boundaries in place, not so that you could be protected forever, so that you could live a life free and they get to live a life free as well. Because here's the major lie of boundary Boundaries aren't for you, they're not for your self-protection, they're for the protection of a relationship. And so when you have a minimized relationship and you put these boundaries in place, if you put a boundary in to protect yourself number one what you're doing is you're living as an orphan because God can protect you. That's the whole purpose of it and also the laws there to protect you. If you find the police because you've done something bad, they will get in 100%. They need to, they should. When they fail, we have to hold them to account. That's the whole purpose of that system.
Speaker 2:But actually, if it isn't like some heinous thing that that person has done, where they also exist, where you bump into them sometimes, where you say hi to them sometimes and the and the boundaries you put in place and that you walk through are to protect hear me listen to this are to protect your relationship with the person that's hurt you. They're not to protect you, because if, if they're only to protect you, what that means is is that you're living a life of a walled, isolated existence where, more often than not, no one can get in, because anybody might be that person to you. But if you can walk through the journey of forgiveness with someone normally like in a hitting session or whatever it is, and you're now able to rub shoulders with them in a community and having completely released them, you're not ever going to let them in your house, you're not going to let them in the gate again, you're not going to let them in the front path again, you're not going to let them anywhere near your safe space ever again. But what you are doing is you're able to have a relationship with them at the basic level, that is, that is available as a result of the action that they did. And not only that when you are able to do that through a process of forgiveness, you get to actually begin to see them as a person. That isn't just the action they did against you, which means that you get to grow and mature and become a person who doesn't hold people in boxes but allows them to move on, which also means that you get to move on as well. And who knows, there may even be restoration of that relationship and redemption of that relationship outside of heaven on earth.
Speaker 2:And so, as we think about forgiveness, as we think about trust, and then as we think about forgiveness, as we think about trust, and then as we think about the boundaries that should be to protect the relationship wherever it is on the trust continuum either you trust them completely or you don't trust them at all, or anywhere in between then we actually start to put together a picture of what it looks like to live through and live a journey of forgiveness that keeps you free, not ducking for cover in your house every time someone who has hurt you walks past you, and there's just something very powerful to acknowledge that, if we can go on that journey, that process, that we all live very, very healthy lives that aren't about us but they also are protective of our hearts.
Speaker 2:And that's a powerful narrative to be in, one of the things that you said that I actually want to hear you just develop a little bit is this idea that, um, that you can't police a person, you can only police your heart, and actually, if you're so, you're using law, the law about thought policing. But if we make it broad than that, the, the, what, the what unforgiveness wants to do, is that it wants to say I am policing you, I am looking for you and where you are doing something wrong, I'm looking for you, sometimes to back up the narrative that I have about you and anything that you do that could be good. I can't be anything to do with that, because it changed the story. I'd be interested to hear what you've got to say about how that looks in the context of forgiveness, but also this whole boundary thing about protecting a relationship.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, I'd say one thing that we've kind of touched on but Devin said it directly is everybody needs a villain in the story, and when we mislabel the villain in the story, then we're going to misprioritize relationships and misprioritize what we're doing sometimes. I don't know how to get around. Is is like when Jesus commands you to love your enemies and when you were, you know the topic of forgiveness would would play into that. Um, and there's things that have happened in my life where it was really painless to forgive people that, like other people probably wouldn't, and I don't. I don't want to get too much into this cause and I don't want to say I don't want to say something too callous, but I feel like too many people are victims and they make the trauma in their life like their identity. And there's just stuff that happened in my childhood that would make people vomit if they knew that people did that to a child.
Speaker 1:I didn't really have a problem forgiving those people, forgiving my biological parents to an extent, comparatively, there's things that other people did to me that I basically I was so small I didn't have a lot of. We're talking about the thing of trust. I didn't have a lot of trust to give, because you just trust people indiscriminately as a child. So then when I become an adult and I make the conscientious choice, I'm going to trust you and I'm going to let you in and you betray my trust. There was something there about like these people are broken, drug addict, alcoholic, whatever and they're doing things to me and it's kind of like they're adults, like they have to be accountable, but I've kind of I don't know that's just like my belief system, how I was able to compartmentalize. But these other people are completely sober, they're Christians, but they're totally snakes, like they're actually like it's worse because it's like when it's talking about a wolf in sheep's clothing, it's like these are wolves. I can kind of see these are wolves, these are these are presenting like sheep. And I've made people throughout my life a villain in the story and I'll I'll like to the extent of like there's what they've done to me, but then other things start going wrong and I'm in that kind of like victim mode, that victim narrative, and so then I'll just well, I'm feeling bad now as a consequence of like what they've done to me and it like all build up to this point and so everything kind of just goes back and falls on that person and I'm not taking real responsibility for myself. And I'm not taking real responsibility for myself and I'm not really taking responsibility for how I'm reacting to what's going on there. And one story that came up to me this kind of undermines everything you said to an extent.
Speaker 1:But when I did prison ministry there was a it's called Kairos Prison Ministry and in that ministry essentially we would do these weekends and on the weekends we would go through a series of talks and everybody sits at a table. This is your group or your community, your family, and we inevitably will talk about forgiveness. And one of the things that you do in that ministry is you have cookies, and so churches and people just bake tons and tons and tons and tons and tons of cookies and you have these bags or segmented cookies and you can't use certain kinds of cookies that have like nuts or fruit or anything in them, because people can take those out and jam locks with them. It's not about allergies, it's not stuff like that. So the cookies are kind of representative of God's love and we are coming in with God's love throughout the prison and we're gifting that to them. And then in these talks about forgiveness, people will have to. There'll be a talk about you have to actually give cookies to somebody who's done some, or that you've done something wrong too, so you're trying to like make amends, and you'll go and you'll give them a cookie demonstrating God's love and forgiveness that you're giving to them. And then there comes a point where you have to give cookies to people who have wronged you, which is seemingly harder for most people there.
Speaker 1:And when we talk about walking out forgiveness and trust and how there's this dichotomy there in prison, if you act submissive or if you do not act with vengeance or act with physical violence towards wrongdoing, it's perceived as weak. And if you're perceived as weak, that'll mean that people start and come demand things of you. They'll demand your toilet paper, your shoes, your commissary item, your sheets. They'll just start taking stuff from you. And so there's a line to walk for sure of not being want to perceived as weak because you enter into this spiral of people abusing you more there. So the cost of forgiveness they're seemingly much, much higher literally than it would be in the normal world.
Speaker 1:And there's one instance where it just worked out like this is completely divine providence, but on a weekend. There were two guys who ended up in the same weekend and one of those guys had ratted on the other guy and got him a drug charge and I think he was facing like 15 years in prison because the other guy had ratted on him. Well, somehow the planets aligned and that guy got transferred, facing like 15 years in prison because the other guy had had ratted on him. Well, somehow the planets aligned and and that guy got transferred. The guy who ratted got transferred the same prison that the guy who, who he had ratted on, was at. And then somehow they ended up in this same weekend and so everybody like felt the tension in the room. Everybody kind of knew the history and when we went through the talk of forgiveness, at some point both of them stood up across the room from each other. They began walking towards each other and everyone expected a shiv or a shank to be pulled out and that they were just going to go for it right there and somehow, before people could react, they embraced each other and fell down and started weeping. So, not to undermine everything, he said you have to let person back in. But it was like pretty, the cost was really high for them to do that.
Speaker 1:And again, I think you know grace. Grace is what empowers us to even engage in that level, but something that I really struggle with, uh, in my personal psychology and that countdown so annoying. So we lost connection. We have like a few more minutes to kind of hop on, but one of the things we were talking about was wasn't recording, was any anything in life we all, like, by default, are going to be born into like a specific country, into a specific family, and then, by default, like we are going to be born into like a specific country, into a specific family, and then by default, like we're going to go to a public school or private school or whatever, and then if our family has a certain religion that they're following, by default we're going to be in that specific community who's practicing that religion, and so, with all the things I just mentioned, there's like these prepackaged.
Speaker 1:It's like a prepackaged bundle of beliefs and meanings, and so we just get that handed to us. So, like within our family, this is what we believe about money, about sex, about God, about politics, whatever. And the same thing is going to be true in our school, same thing is going to be true in our denomination. And on the flip side, we talked about antiheroes and how, basically, their relationship with the rules is breaking the rules or their relationship with the establishment is tearing down the establishment and some some narratives. So I guess, like my question would be, like Tim, like you're dealing a lot with Gen Z is how do you walk out with discernment of, like you know, there's a saying I eat the, eat the meat and spell the bones.
Speaker 1:Obviously, but like there'sackaged belief systems that we can certainly pull wisdom and nuggets from. And then there's this hyper individualization where burn it all to the ground and I'm not actually using critical thinking, but somehow, even in that mindset, it's like anarchy can't even sustain itself, because once we start formulating a group it's no longer anarchy. Anarchy can't even sustain itself because once we start formulating a group, it's no longer anarchy, so that hyper-individualization, hyper-progressive liberal, ends up being into a group thinking of itself. It's just a new set of prepackaged beliefs or whatever.
Speaker 1:But how can someone safely navigate in the pursuit of truth and wisdom, what to absorb and integrate into their life and what to go out and like? What are? What are some like rituals or kind of a testing ground, like okay, I think this sounds good and whatever. Like. What's kind of the order operations of like? If you told me something, I'm like this sounds good, I think it feel, or it feels good. Tim said it feels good, sounds good. What will be the order operations of like when I'm taking that, I'm going to, you know, process it, digest it and then the integration of that into my life to find out if it's actually good, if it's actually right, go yeah, um, yeah, I do.
Speaker 2:We talk a lot about transcendent truth, but there has to be somewhere where you where there is something that is outside of a cultural dynamic, where or a fat familial dynamic, where you have somewhere, you have a um, a book or whatever it is you know where you actually have something that you can pair notes with, um. So for me there's, there's the truth piece of it. For the gen zed guys, gen z guys, what what happens is is that loads of people sound really convincing, loads of people are wrong, and so what we have to do is we have to try and teach. One of the things I say in the school is hey, listen, I'm really convinced about this. I know that I can sound convincing about it, but you have to go away and figure out, right, because just because I'm convincing has not meant I'm right. And we have a lot of people who I think on social media are really convincing but they're wrong, and we have to be aware of some of those things, right? So, for example, like I don't know if you know, like the straw man thing, where basically you utilize this fallacy way of trying to undermine an argument by basically making it out to be the weakest that it can possibly be and it basically just takes the piss out of someone's point of view. Or there's one called reductio ad absurdum, which is this idea that if you can reduce someone's point of view to where it applies to the most ridiculous thing, that they would have to disagree, then you try and prove it wrong on that basis. So have these different what I'd say I mean the gen z have got a lot navigate this.
Speaker 2:We have these different people online who basically are just a bit stupid if I'm really honest with you, like I'm not not trying to be offensive, but there is. They're not very clever people, they're not intelligent that they have a point of view and they pick up like a new atheist kind of mockery side of things, so that they pick up this way that actually, if you can make someone feel stupid, then you can probably convince them that they're wrong, because how can they possibly rewrite if they feel stupid? This is what Dawkins does a lot. He does this a lot. Dawkins and the new atheist movement did this a lot. I mean a huge amount, just as an example, and so one of the things that I'm trying to teach my guys, especially on the school is. So listen, like we've gone through, like the Judeo-Christian narrative, truth. So now you've got this platform that you can bring everything back to and if it doesn't plug in, you're probably thinking it's probably not, um. But not only that, we also try and help them understand what is it that someone's trying to do to you or to the thing that you believe.
Speaker 2:So in leicester we're 51 asian and so we have a high population of muslim type of relation, of hindus. But the muslims in particular on the street, they do a lot of what we would call evangelism. They follow the set doctrines. You can't really get them off. It's like having a Mormon knock on your door when you talk to a Muslim on the street, a specific way in which a lot of the Muslim commentators if you want one of those guys, his name is someone hijab Mohammed Jihad or someone I can. Those guys, his name is um, someone, someone, someone hijab muhammad jihad or someone.
Speaker 2:I can't remember the exact name, but what happens is is that they use these arguments to try and make people feel stupid. So I get these kids come to me and jen said they're like hey, like, we have all these conversations with muslims. We have all these conversations and what they're. What they do is they stay on their script and they basically say so. They ask questions like so is Jesus God? Yes, is Jesus the son of Mary? Yes. Is Jesus the son of God? Yes, is Jesus God yes. So they try and take you on this cycle where they're trying to disprove the Trinity or whatever it might be.
Speaker 2:But the big thing is, you have to understand what the person is trying to do, and if they're not having a conversation in good faith, don't have the conversation, because what? Because what happens is is that we then end up taking taking this person's point of view and saying I feel dumb, I feel ill-equipped, I feel stupid, and so actually I'm going to need to doubt the things that I hold core to in my belief system because someone makes me feel stupid. But really that's just a reduction ad absurdum, or it is a um or is a straw. It's a straw man argument, and what that means is is that people aren't really engaged in a conversation. That means anything. They're actually engaged in a conversation where they're trying to prove their own point, and if you're engaged in a conversation like that, then you're not going to find truth, you're going to find a, an opinion, and that someone who is trying to disprove something as opposed to hold true something.
Speaker 2:And so, actually, if you talk to muslims and try and take them off the script about, oh, like when muhammad had this conversation with the archangel david, when this happened, like, what do you think about that? Or hey, allah says that you can do this, but he also says you can do this. What do you think about that? Or hey, hey, mohammed had a nine-year-old wife. What do you think about that? All these things they immediately go to defense Mark, and so there's something really or at least that's my experience in terms of what I encounter in business, particularly on the streets, and so it's just an interesting dynamic.
Speaker 2:So we teach them hey, here's the platform that you need to plug into. Number one, the transcendent truth that is written down has been historically proven and the Bible is incredibly accurate. But also, number two, you need to go away and figure out what the person is trying to do, and, actually, if they're not trying to have a decent conversation, you're in no way going to be impacted by truth from that conversation, because what you're going to end up doing is you're going to end up having a cyclical argument about something that is about one verse taking completely out of context in the Bible that they try and prove is, I don't know, jesus wasn't God, or Mary wasn't a virgin, or Jesus wasn't crucified. It's just like there's no point in doing it. So we try and teach them some of those skills as well, but I think that if we are going to teach Gen Z how to navigate what truth is, then we're going to have to teach them how to, how to understand, how to get to truth, and you have to have a foundational platform for that.
Speaker 1:They have to learn how to um perceive truth in a conversation yeah, I listened to the like peterson and uh dawkins had a podcast together and it exhausted me. I didn't even listen to the whole thing, which is not typically like me, but like dawkins was just like hardcore about. So do you believe that Cain and Abel was an actual person? Do you believe that those were actual people? And Peterson was just saying, I don't know, I don't know if, like, that was the actual deal or if, like, that's the people, that's the name that we gave to those people, because that story just got circulated. I don't know, but the story is like true and true and for me it doesn.
Speaker 1:During Easter, and he was disturbed to the point where he said, well, actually, I'm a cultural Christian and I find myself at home in the Christian ethos and I love hymns and I love chapels and I love you know. And then Peterson just asked him what did you mean by that? And he like got, he gets really defensive. He'll say things and he gets really defensive to try to push himself away from it. And then sometimes there's not a full ownership of him being misleading. Like he wrote a book and there was something that he said in the book and then he was confronted about it in an interview and he just admitted yes, it was wrong.
Speaker 2:It was the blind watchmaker. In the 1980s he released a book with the blind watchmaker. Basically, he said that evolution has proven how life began and it and it doesn't. Evolution, if you believe it, can only prove how life, um, how life continued after it began. But what's interesting is is that when he's confronted with some of those things, um, is that either he doubles down or it's just like it's wrong. So so I think there's all those things I've got to run, but but it's it an interesting narrative. We're not philosophical creatures anymore. We don't think anymore. We feel now.
Speaker 1:That's the big issue we feel. But yes, and I think that, and our feelings are generally misleading. I think that's a part of it. I think a part of it and I had this conversation before is we have been absolutely conditioned to think that the accumulation of information equates to wisdom or knowledge, and our school system is set up in a way where I absorb what you're telling me, I regurgitate back what you told me and you will rate me on a scale of one to six or A to F. How well can I regurgitate what you told me? You're telling me what to think, You're not telling me why I should be thinking and you're not telling me different modes of how to think and absorb that information. And it creates all these weird paradigms within people on how they then disassimilate or synthesize information that they're getting. And yeah, to your point, even if you're going to debate people, we've lost really the art of debate because you have to frame it in and then stick to the rules of how you framed in that actual discussion.
Speaker 2:And what I say to my guys all the time is look, debate is important. If you're trying to formulate ideas, if you're trying to convert or convince, actually conversation is how you do that, not debate, because conversation builds relationship at which you can exchange ideas, and so debate forms ideas. For me, like ideas, conversation form relationships, and I think debate is powerful. But often what we find is is that we think that debate needs to change.
Speaker 1:Rarely does debate need to change oh, tim, don't you know that so many people have converted in my way of thinking because of facebook comments that I make on their posts? Right, I've, bro. I've converted so many people religiously and politically to my point just by commenting a three-line statement, and I love.
Speaker 2:I love the idea that social media has forged that lie in our culture. This doesn't work. It's why we polarized. Everyone agrees on the things they agree with, and they polarize because we don't build relationships. And the way we build relationships is actually we have a conversation and love someone, but that takes a long time. We can't debate them into faith, we have to love them into faith. It's the kindness that leads them to repentance and actually there's something very powerful. So so why? This is last I want to say, but I've I've all my guys like like gen z, guys are out on the streets, they're preaching, they're evangelizing, whatever they're doing, come across a muslim and this and, and it's just back and forth, and it's like trying to have an argument like guys just just short circuit it.
Speaker 2:So what? So then what I say to them is this is how you do it. You put your hand on them and say hey, brother, can I pray for you? He will normally say yes. Then, um, you say in the name of jesus, I ask that isa reveals himself for you in your dreams tonight. Amen. You walk away, done. You do it because you sow a seed and you basically say isa is jesus, he's going to reveal himself for your dreams and then you leave it and you let god do the rest, because you're not going to get that relationship. But jesus can create that relationship and I'm saying, yeah, you got a short, you you have. We had a short circuit, that debate yeah, anyway, I got wrong.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think, yeah, I'll let you go after I get my last word. I think, to your point, if you, yeah, if we're going like, okay, logic the logic. But, like I said, in the beginning of the quran it says this book is for anybody seeking the creator of everything that exists and wants. No doubt it's a very powerful statement, okay. So you ask the person that do you want to know the creator of everything that exists, definitively, no matter who that being is, no matter what? Like are you in that pursuit of truth? And yes, okay, if that being is outside of Islam, would you still accept him? Yes, no, okay, no, that's irrational. You just said yes. Now you're saying no, you've already fold in, which is it Okay? Yeah, once we get to yes, okay, yes, even if it's out of Islam, cool, so let's pray to that being, right now, the creator of everything that exists. I want you as long as it's you, and if it's not you, I don't want you.
Speaker 1:Come in conviction, authority and power in my life and then for me it's just like at that point, because you're not going to logic, if you do win, if you do reason people into your perspective, that's probably a weaker minded person who will be reasoned out of it by somebody else who comes along, who's a lot more clever than you are. But if somebody has a kind of transfigurational experience this is something dawkins reference he's like you cannot have a. You cannot reason with people who believe that they have a relationship with god. He said I don't even try anymore. And danny silk said one time he's like a man with an experience has power over a man with an argument. There can be definitely delusion. A lot of things we could say about that. It's a a longer conversation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because you have to apply reason to that experience. It's just that experience is not defined or it's not defined by the experience. The experience is not defined by the reason. The reason informs the experience and actually, you know, I took psychedelic drugs and it might be Jesus, it might not, but there's all that stuff in there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but it's a longer conversation, but I'll let you get up and I'll try to edit this and make it intelligible uh for people pray to god. That the next one we do actually like just there's no hitches and we just go off and yeah, I.
Speaker 2:I just don't know what the jam is and I don't know if it's because it's this, this, this thing. Anyway, I love you man. Thanks for time.
Speaker 1:Love you buddy have a good one love you, bye, bye, bye and that's it.
Speaker 1:As we bring this conversation to a close, take a moment, reflect on what we unpacked today. Forgiveness, trust, boundaries these aren't just abstract concepts. They're practices, choices and challenges that shape the very core of who we are, and challenges that shape the very core of who we are. So, as you reflect, ask yourself where in your life are you holding on to pain that could be released through forgiveness? Where have you built up walls that could be softened into boundaries? And where are you withholding trust, not because others have failed you, but because fear holds you back?
Speaker 1:Growth doesn't happen all at once. It's small, deliberate steps that we choose to take every day. So start small, choose one relationship to invest in one boundary, to strengthen one truth to pursue and remember. Healing and growth require patience, but they're worth every moment of the effort. If you found this episode meaningful, take a moment, share it with somebody who needs to hear it. We're on Spotify, apple Podcasts, wherever you get your podcast needs met and don't forget to subscribe. Leave a review. Let us know how this conversation impacted you on social media. Your feedback helps us grow, but also helps others discover these kind of conversations and, as you step into the new year, may you do so with courage, clarity and compassion. Thank you for listening. Until next time, take care, keep growing and have a very happy new year.
