The Rusty George Podcast

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Rusty George
No matter what organization you lead, finances are paramount for your success. And church finances aren't any different. Poorly managed church finances can hurt a pastor's ability to lead church members and reach the local community after all. Very little will wreck the movement of God more than weak financial policies and workflows. Thankfully, it's much easier to make changes now before your church is in the headlines than to try to reestablish those relationships after they've been torpedoed by a costly financial misstep.

00;00;30;05 - 00;00;52;25
Rusty George
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Rusty George
To help you identify the four biggest things we can see wreck churches when it comes to their finances and what you can do to avoid them. Just text Rusty That's hour USD 255123. To get back to growing your church with belay. Welcome to Leading Simple with Rusty George. Our goal is to make following Jesus and leading others a bit more simple.

00;01;25;07 - 00;01;45;15
Rusty George
Here's your host, Rusty George. Hey, welcome to Leading Simple. My name is Rusty George. If you've ever wondered how to articulate your faith. If you've ever wondered what your kids are asking when it comes to the faith that you've always had, but now they don't. If you've ever wondered what Iron Man has to do with Jesus, today's your day.

00;01;45;29 - 00;02;09;09
Rusty George
Sean McDowell is the son of acclaimed author and speaker Josh McDowell, and Sean is making a name for himself as an apologist for the next generation. He's a professor of Biola, author, an incredible good guy and apologist for Marvel movies as well. You're going to love this conversation. And today, as we have been over the past few weeks, and we'll be for the weeks to come.

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Rusty George
We're sponsored by BELAY Solutions. So much gratitude for them sponsoring the podcast and being a part of what we're trying to do here in Leading Simple by helping make following Jesus and leading others a bit more simple. BELAY makes your life more simple by providing ministry and working solutions for you, helping out with back office things, helping out with virtual assistance, belaysolutions.com has all your resources you need, so make sure that you check them out.

00;02;37;02 - 00;02;54;05
Rusty George
Well, today I can't wait for you to hear from Sean McDowell. He is such a gift. He's so smart. I had a chance to interview him about how do we understand politics and how should Christians vote. And that's on the Real Life Church app, if you want to check that out. But for now, here's my conversation with Sean McDowell.

00;02;54;27 - 00;03;15;04
Rusty George
Sean McDowell, thank you so much for joining the Leading Simple podcast.
Hey, we've had a chance to get to know each other a little bit. I think some of our listeners will probably know your dad. Josh McDowell. But tell us a little bit about who you are and how you got into this. Why apologetics? Why did you take the road that your dad took and give us a little bit of your journey?

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Sean McDowell
Yeah. Rusty, great to connect again. Appreciate you have me to your church and join on the podcast today. One of the interesting things that I thanked my dad publicly for the first time this summer, I said, Dad, thanks for not ever pressuring me to become an apologist and to follow in your footsteps. And I'd never really thought about it before.

00;03;37;11 - 00;03;55;17
Sean McDowell
But the narrative I remember growing up was Son God's Gift. You just use your gifts for the kingdom, whatever that looks like. And I think he knew to write and speak and have any kind of public type ministry that you and I have. You've got to go into it for the right reasons and have a deep sense of calling.

00;03;55;29 - 00;04;24;03
Sean McDowell
or you're probably going to hurt yourself and hurt other people. So my dad modeled it, loved on us as kids. And I think what motivated me into it was probably a couple of things. One was my own questions. I'm wired as an answer seeker and a question asker, and I especially went through a period of questioning and doubt in college, and my parents were supportive and loving through It gave me space.

00;04;24;28 - 00;04;46;18
Sean McDowell
And that really motivated me to find answers. But then second, modeling, after my parents, I saw just a love and focus on the next generation and start to think, You know what? If I want to work with students, I have questions. I'm sure they're going to have questions. And I just kind of found myself speaking, writing, teaching at a Christian school, now a professor.

00;04;47;00 - 00;05;12;06
Sean McDowell
It just made sense for me to do that, even though there were challenges. Having a father who's been so successful in that world asking myself, Do I want to step into this when there will constantly be comparisons and forever be in a shadow? And really, what gave me peace was when I started getting invited to events when people didn't even know who my dad was, I thought, Well, that's interesting.

00;05;12;06 - 00;05;30;00
Sean McDowell
Maybe that's a kind of just. Hmm, I don't I don't mean this, like, necessarily biblically, but a kind of confirmation that I have a certain gifting and calling here and then just really enjoying it. So that was that's the quick version.

00;05;30;23 - 00;05;49;03
Rusty George
Well, I'm curious about that because and I've heard you talk about this before. Here you are. You get into, I believe, high school, college age. You start to have your own questions, your own doubts, which I think is very common for a lot of us who reach that age and even maybe grew up in the church and then think, you know, is this all real?

00;05;50;21 - 00;06;05;06
Rusty George
What questions did you have that your dad's books couldn't answer? Or did the books not seem all that helpful because it's your dad and you had to go find another authority to speak into that.

00;06;06;10 - 00;06;34;09
Sean McDowell
I think it's some of both. And I don't mean to overplay this comparison, but when you just see people in movies and you have a mentor come alongside of them, whether it's Obi-Wan Kenobi or Mr. Miyagi, sometimes you need someone from the outside to come in and just guide you. And in a sense, I just needed that. I think there's something human about hearing the same things that maybe you've learned growing up, if you think they're true, but in a different way from somebody else.

00;06;34;09 - 00;06;57;10
Sean McDowell
I mean, even Jesus wasn't, you know, welcomed as a prophet in his hometown. So I think that was the piece of it. Yeah, but we're talking mid-nineties, and this is when people were starting to get email addresses. It was early Google, but you could search the Internet and a lot of the secular web began by taking my father's book evidence.

00;06;57;10 - 00;07;24;12
Sean McDowell
It demands a verdict chapter by chapter. Doctors, lawyers, historians responding to his arguments. So there was a sense of like, wow, these are really smart people. I haven't heard this before. And I had to take it a notch up because my dad is a popularizer. That's what he does. He's an evangelist. He's popularizing like Ali Strobel does the work that scholars do.

00;07;24;25 - 00;07;31;09
Sean McDowell
I had a point. I was like, All right, I'm going back to the scholars themselves because there is some even deeper questions I got to wrestle with.

00;07;31;22 - 00;07;52;26
Rusty George
Yeah, I love that idea. With a lot of parents that are asking, Oh, my kid is making bad decisions. They're off the rails, they're walking away, they're holding on tightly to train up a child in the way they should go and they will return to it. What did your mom and dad do to allow you to explore that without freaking out and saying, nope, this is the way it is?

00;07;53;27 - 00;08;12;28
Sean McDowell
Well, my mom and dad responded a little bit differently. My mom, God bless her, is a mom and has this motherly instinct. And she was afraid and worried and probably little self-reflection. Like, did I fail somehow? And I just told my mom really kindly. I was like, Mom, I don't I just don't know if I believe the same stuff.

00;08;12;28 - 00;08;44;14
Sean McDowell
I'm not sure. And she was shocked and taken back. And, you know, she had a motherly response, which I get my dad, like the glass is 99% full with my dad on everything. He's just the consummate optimist. And I think some of it is his wiring. Some of it is his background of having an alcoholic father, sexual abuse sister who took her own life, a deeply broken background that God transformed him through.

00;08;45;06 - 00;09;00;09
Sean McDowell
If you come through that kind of background, there's just a certain strength and optimism of like, you know what, we're going to weather this and we're going to be fine. So in their own way, my parents, God bless them, responded as well as they could have.

00;09;01;13 - 00;09;29;10
Rusty George
That's good. Okay. Well, let's let's hop in the deep waters here. You you write a lot. Speak a lot. I've heard you speak a lot to young adults, to teens. We're talking about Gen Z, Gen Alpha now. And you get a lot of questions. Tell me some of the most common questions you get about God, about faith, about Jesus, and what are you noticing about some of these questions now that maybe you didn't have before?

00;09;30;13 - 00;09;59;18
Sean McDowell
Well, a couple things to notice, roughly with Gen Z. One is the same kind of questions non-Christians are asking are very similar to the question Christians are asking. And to a degree, that's somewhat unique with this generation. Second, this is not in contradiction to that, but I think we're seeing a lot of the dynamics with Gen Z now reach across general fashions in ways that it hasn't before.

00;09;59;18 - 00;10;20;25
Sean McDowell
And a lot of that is because of the smartphone. Now, what's unique is Gen Z is asking these questions at a very different stage in their development and life. So it affects them differently and they process it differently than maybe other generations do. But with that said, my experience and the research seems to back up that there's a few main questions students ask.

00;10;21;05 - 00;10;45;27
Sean McDowell
One is about the intersection of science and faith. To become a Christian, does it mean I have to hold a certain view about science? Less so vaccines, but more so Questions like evolution, age of the earth? I mean, science still is a big authority in our culture, even though that's been questioned recently in a lot of ways. Questions about science and faith.

00;10;46;08 - 00;11;17;02
Sean McDowell
Other questions about the exclusivity of Jesus. This is a generation that's been pushed inclusivity and Jesus claims to be the only God. The only way seem a little narrow minded. So there seems to be questions about that. I get a ton of questions, Rusty, about LGBTQ. That might be the top kinds of questions that I get from parents and from students about should I use preferred pronouns?

00;11;17;03 - 00;11;39;24
Sean McDowell
Can you go to a same sex wedding? How do we make sense of same sex marriage as a Christian? These kinds of questions, because they're not just academic, they're very personal. Mm hmm. Other questions that this one people have always asked and they always will. Just about evil and suffering, you know, Why do I hurt? Why is the world broken?

00;11;40;13 - 00;11;54;18
Sean McDowell
You know, some of that relates to like hell that can feel so unjust to people. So in summary, science and faith exclusivity of Christianity and LGBTQ questions are some of the big ones that I get.

00;11;54;27 - 00;12;04;08
Rusty George
You talk to me about the difference between timely questions and timeless questions. Can you share a little bit of that for our audience? I thought that was really helpful.

00;12;04;24 - 00;12;22;03
Sean McDowell
Yeah, that's a way that Jay Warner Wallace and I, we we wrote a book for parents called So the Next Generation Will Know and are trying to walk through questions that students have. And we framed it this way that that language was actually helpful to me. We kind of came up with it in the process of writing this book.

00;12;22;03 - 00;12;46;22
Sean McDowell
I was like, Wait a minute, there are timeless questions that people have asked and always will ask, whether it's questions like, Who am I? Identity questions, People have always asked that. Like, where do I fit in with the world? Does God exist? Is there life after death? Is Jesus God? How do I get salvation? These big worldview questions.

00;12;46;23 - 00;13;14;22
Sean McDowell
Now, for Christians, that's like the Jesus Christ to the grave is salvation by faith. Is the Bible true? Those are timeless questions. Timely questions are those that seem to arise more so because of our cultural moment. So we have questions related to artificial intelligence, body and soul. Because of technology right now, we've always had questions about sexuality, marriage and love.

00;13;14;22 - 00;13;49;23
Sean McDowell
But the LGBTQ movement has generated some unique questions in this moment. Questions of race, certainly that's been an issue for at least a couple centuries, but very recently has become even more pressing in a timely manner. Gun control is pressing, so I think it's apologists and parents. We need to do both. We can't just focus on the timely questions because we miss the bigger questions that should frame how we respond to these.

00;13;51;11 - 00;14;08;28
Sean McDowell
I'm sorry, the timeless questions should frame how we respond to timely questions. We need both. But that framework helps me when I work with students in my grounding and in the timeless truths. But am I scratching where they're itching, so to speak, on these timely questions that feel so pressing to them?

00;14;09;23 - 00;14;31;28
Rusty George
Okay, so let's dive into one of those. The pandemic, I mean, here we are post-pandemic at the time, though, there's always new variants coming out and we're trying to figure out where was God during all of that. You know, I mean, this is kind of the timely question. The timeless is the problem of evil and suffering. How do you respond to that?

00;14;31;29 - 00;14;37;00
Rusty George
Walk us through just how is there a good God on the other side of this?

00;14;38;10 - 00;14;59;18
Sean McDowell
Well, first off, every worldview has to make sense of why the world is broken and why there's evil and suffering. So the question is not, can I sit here, Rusty, and say, here's exactly why God allowed pandemic, Here's exactly the good guys, bring it out of it. Here's like, we're not going to know the answers to a lot of those questions.

00;15;00;09 - 00;15;29;14
Sean McDowell
This side of heaven. That's not the question. The question is which worldview offers the most intellectually and existentially satisfying response, even if questions linger when we frame it that way. The Christian worldview, to me, makes the most sense. Why? Well, one reason when we look at things like the pandemic, we're saying this is wrong. Things shouldn't be this way.

00;15;29;15 - 00;15;56;12
Sean McDowell
The world is broken. But that only really makes sense if there is a design and way the world should be right. Evil is when things are not the way they're supposed to be or they are the way they're not supposed to be. So you're asking this question is like, what went wrong? Why are things broken? That question only makes sense if there's first a standard and a way the world is supposed to be.

00;15;56;27 - 00;16;15;07
Sean McDowell
That only makes sense if there's a designer. So I think the question itself and our heart cry of why things are broken, like if you ask why a jar is broken, whether it's first a design for how it's supposed to be made and a purpose behind it. So I think this question itself seems to point towards there being a god.

00;16;15;16 - 00;16;37;18
Sean McDowell
C.S. Lewis famously said, Mere Christianity, you don't call line crooked unless you have a standard of straight. As an atheist, he said, there's so much injustice in the world. But where had I got this standard of justice from now? This doesn't answer it. But when we talk about questions like this, what I found is we've got to frame it for people, give them appropriate expectations.

00;16;38;00 - 00;17;06;25
Sean McDowell
Then we can make sense of it. So two distinct things as Christians. Number one is we believe in what's called original sin, that when Adam and Eve sinned, not only our minds and our attraction and our souls, but the physical world was rocked because of sin. Things were broken. So we shouldn't be surprised to see things broken within the natural world.

00;17;07;05 - 00;17;33;26
Sean McDowell
That fits right in with Genesis chapter three. This isn't an ad hoc response. I'm just inventing. I'm saying let's use Christian theology. Should we be surprised by stuff like a pandemic? Nope. We see thorns and thistles and brokenness in God's good world. In the third chapter of the Bible. Now, that said, what's interesting is viruses as a whole are not necessarily bad.

00;17;33;27 - 00;18;03;05
Sean McDowell
We actually need viruses to survive. One thing viruses do is they limit the amount of bacteria in our bodies. If there weren't for viruses, we would have other huge problems in the natural world. So I've had a lot of scientists. I'm not going to weigh in on this because I'm not a scientist. But a lot of my friends have said, Shawn, viruses are a part of creation that we need for a range of different purposes Get rid of viruses.

00;18;03;13 - 00;18;30;18
Sean McDowell
We have other problems so you can stink. Forest fires. Well, we actually need forest fires to regulate the forest. You can talk about things like earthquakes. We need them to recycle certain elements within the earth. So these things aren't necessarily bad within themselves, but forest fires and earthquakes probably affected by sin to some degree. How much? I don't know.

00;18;30;27 - 00;18;57;04
Sean McDowell
But we actually need them to survive and flourish as embodied beings. The last thing I would say is we talk about natural evil and moral evil. So moral evil, murder, lying, you know, sexual assault, etc., natural evil pandemics, earthquakes, shark death, whatever. But what we don't realize is, sorry, that came out of mine. I'm a big Shark fan.

00;18;57;11 - 00;18;59;13
Sean McDowell
What? I saw you laugh at that when I watched it.

00;18;59;13 - 00;19;02;10
Rusty George
Which it's just as it normally can. I know.

00;19;02;10 - 00;19;02;26
Sean McDowell
I know.

00;19;03;02 - 00;19;06;26
Rusty George
Hurricanes and army sharks, Sharknado.

00;19;06;26 - 00;19;35;05
Sean McDowell
I watched. I watched too many shark reels on Instagram. They just. They fascinate me. But what we don't really that's. That's natural evil. Maybe things like cancer would be more commonly mentioned there. Yeah, but what we don't realize is a lot of natural suffering is caused by human evil. So with the pandemic, a lot of the additional suffering was some of the ways people handled and responded.

00;19;35;05 - 00;19;43;02
Sean McDowell
This, whether it was in vaccines, etc., not using them. It said, I'm not going into details and argued one side or the other, but it.

00;19;43;02 - 00;19;44;21
Rusty George
Was your view on that, Sean. Yeah.

00;19;45;01 - 00;20;10;12
Sean McDowell
I'll avoid that one. But we all know the human response to this arguably significantly exacerbated the amount of suffering. So you look at places like Haiti, when there's earthquakes, a lot more people suffer than in the States because of a lot of corruption that has taken place in governments there. So we can't just siphon off the pandemic apart from the human response of corruption and greed and evil.

00;20;10;27 - 00;20;12;26
Sean McDowell
That arguably really exacerbated it.

00;20;14;12 - 00;20;32;27
Rusty George
That's a really good clarification. All right. I have so many questions off of that, and we'll get to that in just a second. But I want to know this from your perspective. People have to have some kind of worldview. Everybody has some kind of world view, even if it's kind of, you know, a quilt. They've they've sewn together with a variety of different things.

00;20;33;16 - 00;20;45;15
Rusty George
If people aren't picking up right now a Christian worldview to what you just said, what do you see them flocking to? What seems to be the most popular way to process all that we've been through?

00;20;47;14 - 00;21;11;23
Sean McDowell
I think you're right that everybody has a worldview. It's inescapable. You can't not have a worldview because a worldview is a view of the world, the perspective of reality that answers big questions and basic questions. What is human nature? Is there a God? What is love? Is there life after death? What is the good life? Everybody has a worldview now.

00;21;11;23 - 00;21;36;02
Sean McDowell
The way I put it to parents is if we don't intentionally train young people, develop a Christian worldview, they will unintentionally adopt the ideas of the world that we live in. And I think that's biblical. Paul writes in Romans 12. He says, Do not be conformed to this world. Be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Now conformed is passive.

00;21;36;18 - 00;22;07;22
Sean McDowell
Paul's kind of saying, our default state is to naturally conform to the world around us rather be actively transformed through renewing your mind. So I think both Christians and non-Christian ways can default intentionally or unintentionally to adopting the ideals of the world that we live in now on a 30,000 foot view, I think some of the big world views people fall into would be things like naturalism.

00;22;08;06 - 00;22;29;12
Sean McDowell
Just the idea that there is no God, hence no miracles. There's no designer. The soul is not real. Angels and demons are not real. Naturalism is embedded in a lot of films. Things like Stranger Things Is the world behind naturalism, interestingly enough. I'm not saying not to watch it. I am saying that's the worldview behind it. That's a separate question.

00;22;29;29 - 00;22;30;06
Sean McDowell
I think.

00;22;30;21 - 00;22;36;03
Rusty George
Paul's there. Right there. How so? Because it seems like there's a lot of spiritual warfare going on.

00;22;37;13 - 00;23;07;23
Sean McDowell
So on the surface, Stranger things appears to be a supernatural story, right? So you have this mind flayer that possesses you have demon type figures. The demogorgon is you have this upside down. That's a hell type state. And then in season four, you have Victor, who's a Satan type figure. But starting in season one, when the kids want to understand what's going on, they don't go to a priest or a pastor or a shaman.

00;23;08;06 - 00;23;42;05
Sean McDowell
They go to their science teacher because their science teacher who studies matter can help them access this other realm. Skip to season four and they intentionally deconstruct the supernatural worldview. They have what seems to be exorcisms and haunted houses and demon possessions. But as the show goes on, you discover a natural explanation for everything. Even Eleven appears to have supernatural world views.

00;23;42;17 - 00;24;08;06
Sean McDowell
But she's more like one of the X-Men that has unexplained natural world views than Dr. Strange, who has genuinely supernatural at least access to manipulate the supernatural realm. So Stranger Things is a naturalistic story. You see the same thing in the 28 Sherlock Holmes film. You see it all over Hollywood. Naturalism is a very appealing and attractive worldview.

00;24;08;06 - 00;24;35;24
Sean McDowell
I think the other big one with this generation is more we would call pantheism a really new age. I mean, we see things like astrology and fortune telling and these new age beliefs Wicca, huge with this generation. Because one of the problems with naturalism is it doesn't fill the human heart for the transcendent, for purpose, for meaning, for beauty.

00;24;36;13 - 00;25;04;19
Sean McDowell
But things like New Age, you can have a supernatural element without a personal God telling you how to live your life and what to do with your body, broadly speaking. Now there's other things like consumerism. There's certain things like critical theory that is actually huge today. People are tempted to buy this worldview of oppressed versus oppressor. So there's endless options.

00;25;04;19 - 00;25;13;16
Sean McDowell
But I'd say naturalism. New age critical theory are some of the bigger ones that people are falling into.

00;25;14;09 - 00;25;34;04
Rusty George
Okay, so I asked you this question last time I saw you, and I think it ties into what we're talking about here. And I said, what's the difference between what your dad dealt with when it came to apologetics and what you deal with now? And your answer has has really consumed my thinking in the midst of the baseball playoffs.

00;25;34;04 - 00;25;59;14
Rusty George
And, you know, NBA coming back and football season, I'm consumed with the start and that is your dad had to prove his Christianity true today. You have to prove his Christianity. Good. And I want to go back to the pandemic thing because I can understand And yes, a crooked line demands that there must be a straight line, there must be a designer, those kind of things.

00;25;59;14 - 00;26;22;11
Rusty George
But I think what people really want to know is not why did COVID happen and our virus is good, but why did COVID happen to my grandma and why did she die? Why did the supposedly good God not step in and save her? When I asked him to, what is God up to and why should we think that he is good?

00;26;22;14 - 00;26;32;09
Rusty George
So talk a little bit about that. The idea of of through apologetics, proving that not only Christianity is true, but it's actually good and God is good.

00;26;33;20 - 00;26;55;09
Sean McDowell
Yes. So the way this played out as my father has been speaking on college campuses from, I think the late sixties, so for decades and especially seventies and eighties, when he'd give an evidence for biblical sexuality of the resurrection, people would say things like, that's not true, give some facts, prove it, support that. The assumption was there is such a thing as truth and we can know it.

00;26;55;09 - 00;27;18;00
Sean McDowell
But what is truth? Yet in the nineties and in the 2000s and this is somewhat of a generalized version, some of the responses start shifting a little bit. That's intolerant, that's bigoted. What right do you have to say that authority shifts and some of the questions behind it shift? Not only is Christianity true, That's that's a piece of it.

00;27;18;00 - 00;27;53;00
Sean McDowell
There's still a lot of people asking that question, but there are some people that say, if it is true, I still don't want to believe it. If it's not good and you know, at rest, I would take it further. I would say the question is, not only is Christianity good, but is it beautiful? That's the question. So I think when people look at the damage that that we've seen in the church, whether to be frank, it's within the Catholic Church, the Southern Baptist Church leading Christian apologists, pastors.

00;27;53;01 - 00;28;26;26
Sean McDowell
And you think going back to the Crusades like this, do Christians hate gays? There's this big narrative in our culture that Christianity is just harmful and it's destructive. So a lot of our apologetic is to point out that Christianity is objectively good and it's beautiful. So I had a conversation publicly with Matthew Vines, who's one of the most well known and recognizable gay Christian who is affirming would say the Bible's fine with same sex relationships.

00;28;27;10 - 00;28;54;21
Sean McDowell
Mm hmm. And I knew I couldn't just say, Well, the Bible says this, I win. I had to try to demonstrate that not only is natural marriage good and true, but there's something beautiful about man, woman, marriage and fathers and mothers. That's the task that we have today on a range of issues. So I think the timeless question is, is Christianity true?

00;28;55;07 - 00;29;06;02
Sean McDowell
And people are still asking that to a degree. But if they don't think Christianity is first good and or beautiful, many won't even entertain the question, is it true?

00;29;07;19 - 00;29;34;03
Rusty George
All right. So let's drill down on that a little bit. If I'm in the LGBTQ community, I look at Christianity based upon what I've seen other people do and say and promote and think that's not good. It does seem bigoted. It does seem archaic. It seems mean. It seems non-inclusive. And so when we preach a Jesus that is loving, it's understandable.

00;29;34;03 - 00;29;49;26
Rusty George
They would assume that he would be affirming of all their choices if he is to be accepting. So how do you prove that Christianity is good while denying somebody the desire they have to be intimate with someone?

00;29;51;00 - 00;30;20;28
Sean McDowell
Someone approached this question a little differently with somebody who's a Christian and somebody who's not. So my conversation with Matthew Vines, we both assumed the Bible's true and we should follow the teachings of Jesus. So I had to argue that Jesus actually embraced natural marriage. And when we look at it that way, it's good. And God has reason for his commands that are for our good.

00;30;21;19 - 00;30;51;20
Sean McDowell
If I speak a new nonbeliever, I'm not going to go first to Scripture because they don't hold it up. As an authority, probably what I'm going to do, tactically speaking as a whole, if I can in conversation, is try to point towards the person of Jesus that Jesus is good, that his life is beautiful, and that his sacrifice and his teachings have turned the world upside down and actually fulfills our deepest desires.

00;30;52;08 - 00;31;11;19
Sean McDowell
So the first question is who is Jesus? Is he good? And is it true? And is he beautiful? And he has a heart for those who are broken. He has a heart for those who are marginalized. He has a heart for those who are not empowered. So in more evangelistic kinds of conversations, that's where I'm going to go.

00;31;12;04 - 00;31;44;18
Sean McDowell
But at times when people want to talk about natural marriage, I'll probably say, do kids need a mom and a dad? Is there something important for child development that kids have a mom and a dad? Is there something beautiful about male female love in marriage? And it's harder to argue that with people, But I think we need to show it to people because people know they have a heart for a father.

00;31;45;16 - 00;32;12;19
Sean McDowell
And you know what? They know they have a heart for a mother. And the point is not that somebody gay can't be a good father or lesbian, can't be a good mother, but any male can't be a mother and any female can't be a father. And we are made with the yearning for that. So that's why living out our marriage is in a healthy, good way is appealing.

00;32;13;06 - 00;32;40;24
Sean McDowell
But telling stories, making films, portraying to the world the goodness and beauty of God's design is a kind of apologetic today. When the other side is saying You're bigoted and you're hateful and you don't love trusting that God has made the world and our hearts yearn for that. We've got to tell better stories. We've got to show that beauty.

00;32;41;02 - 00;33;08;05
Sean McDowell
And frankly, the other thing I try to do is I try to point out when people have inconsistencies. So what do I mean by this is this is not political. It deals with a politician. But my point is not political. The first president who endorsed same sex marriage was Barack Obama, I think is around 2012. If you endorse same sex marriage, you're saying marriage is a genderless institution.

00;33;08;24 - 00;33;35;22
Sean McDowell
Dad and a dad equivalent to a dad and mom. So, in other words, gender is irrelevant or not necessary for marriage. Kids don't need a mom and a dad. That's what you're saying if you support same sex marriage. Obama publicly did get a chance to nominate three justices for the Supreme Court. Kagan. Sotomayor, the first two women. Why?

00;33;35;23 - 00;34;04;09
Sean McDowell
One was for political reasons. The other one was, as we all know, a woman brings a different perspective on a lot of issues. We know that. So you can't say consistently the institution of the Supreme Court needs a woman's voice because women see the world differently. But in marriage, we don't need a woman's voice. Gender is irrelevant. You can't have it both ways.

00;34;04;24 - 00;34;27;27
Sean McDowell
So I think of it like a beach ball. You puts a beach ball under water, it's going to pop up. Our cultural narrative pushes down certain things. The difference between men and women, the need for fathers and mothers. And I want to reveal that we're suppressing certain truths. And you know what? Our hearts know there's a difference, and we yearn for that.

00;34;28;09 - 00;34;31;03
Sean McDowell
And one way is to point out the inconsistency.

00;34;31;07 - 00;34;45;16
Rusty George
MM Yeah, I think it was Jordan Peterson I heard say you can't demand to have a woman on the Supreme Court and then say at the same time there is no such thing as gender. You don't get, you don't get it both ways.

00;34;46;02 - 00;34;48;06
Sean McDowell
Wow. I didn't know he said that. Very nice.

00;34;48;13 - 00;35;13;08
Rusty George
Yeah, it was really fascinating. I never really thought about it like that. Okay, well, let's let's drill down into another cultural hot button right now. And that is the issue of gender. We kind of stepped into those waters. But transgender are you know, I don't want to identify a certain way. I'm non-binary. Well, what about that? You know, you deal with a lot of teens, a lot of students questioning their gender.

00;35;14;14 - 00;35;32;21
Rusty George
Is that something that seems cruel to say to somebody, No, you cannot change. This is who you are when they feel like they are not. Ah, is that when Christianity says that? It does seem very good because we're we're taking away somebody's freedom?

00;35;34;24 - 00;36;12;27
Sean McDowell
Well, the question is, is it true? And the answer is you cannot change your biological sex. It's impossible. Your biological sex is on every cell in your body. We can change our appearance and the way we express ourselves, but we cannot change our biological sex period. So just because somebody doesn't see that something is beautiful and good doesn't mean that it's not beautiful and good.

00;36;13;15 - 00;36;42;03
Sean McDowell
Look, if somebody can't see that the music of Bach is beautiful, the problem is not with the music of Bach. The problem is the person isn't able to see and cultivate that now. So when it comes to this, what we have to do is stick to scientific, biological and theological truth, be as compassionate and gracious as we can with people.

00;36;42;03 - 00;37;15;27
Sean McDowell
Because if the narrative is the way you expressed it, well, the Christians are bigoted and hateful. I want to try to lovingly, graciously challenge that narrative in a way that's effective, to get that person to consider things differently. So that is a challenge. And I have parents ask me all the time, Rusty, just this weekend when I was speaking, a parent said to me, he said, my daughter has transitioned and says she will not talk with me if I don't use preferred pronouns.

00;37;16;16 - 00;37;45;01
Sean McDowell
These are real difficult questions. I'm not pretending they're simple, right? But there is a beauty in living out our biological sex in a way that fits with who we actually are. Now, one of the problems we do is we have a lot of stereotypes of what that looks like. Real men watch football and eat meat and shoot guns.

00;37;45;26 - 00;38;12;23
Sean McDowell
Well, what happens to a guy who's like, I like worship and arts and drama? Am I still a guy or a girl who's like, I want to shoot guns, I want to eat meat? A lot of the problem here is our stereotypes that we have adopted, which brings a lot of harm. So the challenge for the church is how do we stay faithful to the fact that we are body and we are soul.

00;38;13;17 - 00;38;34;13
Sean McDowell
Our bodies are a part of who we are, and we're really only free if we can live out within accurate representation of who our bodies are. Mm hmm. But without having these unhelpful John Wayne stereotypes from culture, which actually in themselves do bring a lot of harm to people.

00;38;35;14 - 00;38;42;26
Rusty George
Was it it back in the early 1900s that Pink was considered the preferred color for baby boys? Because it was a strong color?

00;38;44;06 - 00;38;50;09
Sean McDowell
That's absolutely right. The color is totally arbitrary. Yeah. To masculinity and femininity.

00;38;50;20 - 00;39;07;18
Rusty George
Right. Okay. So another popular word that is being used, especially in Christian circles, is the word deconstructionism, where people are kind of walking away from their faith. What do people mean when they say that? And what do you think the root cause of all that is?

00;39;08;15 - 00;39;11;28
Sean McDowell
Well, those are two big questions. Deconstruction.

00;39;11;28 - 00;39;13;03
Rusty George
90 seconds, if you're good.

00;39;13;15 - 00;39;46;03
Sean McDowell
Yeah, you got it. Well, deconstruction is definitely an equivocal word. Sometimes people use it for conversion, meaning someone who's left their faith. Some people mean the process. You're going through questioning and leaving at least the historic Christian faith. Others would say deconstruction D has more of a negative to break down, but construct means to build up. It doesn't entail rejecting your faith.

00;39;46;15 - 00;40;21;17
Sean McDowell
It entails stripping away faulty ideas, faulty ideas, and getting to the root and heart of what it means to follow Jesus. So there's debate. I have a good friend write a book on deconstruction and she says You should not use the term deconstruction if you're just questioning things. I forget the term she uses, like a reaffirmation of your faith and there's some wisdom because a lot of people use deconstruction in a negative, critical breaking away fashion, almost borrowed from like the postmodern Derrida understanding of deconstruction.

00;40;22;15 - 00;40;50;06
Sean McDowell
I see the wisdom of that. I'm not fully there. I like people to think of deconstruction as a healthy process of shedding ourselves of faulty views that we hold from bad exegesis, bad experience, bad theology, and getting to the heart of what it means to follow Jesus. So if I'm in conversation with somebody that I key for, against deconstruction, I'm always like, define it for me.

00;40;50;20 - 00;41;16;02
Sean McDowell
It's just used in a range of different ways. Now, of course, when I say what's the root of it, that depends on how we define it. But I think a few things. If we mean deconstruction, somebody's leaving their faith. There's a few common threads I often find. And by leaving their faith, I mean either becoming a Christian or the kind of progressive Christian that rejects orthodoxy.

00;41;17;05 - 00;41;46;17
Sean McDowell
We find a few things in common. Number one, very often a fundamentalist, strict background in the church. Not always, but often that is their sex. You find a lot of hurts and pain of how people were treated. And third, you often find no room for questions and doubts. Just believe. Or a very experiential kind of faith. Mm hmm.

00;41;47;13 - 00;42;09;12
Sean McDowell
I'm not rejecting or downplaying the importance of the intellectual questions people raise. We have to be ready with an answer. But those threads are frequently there when somebody is deconstructing. So it's important. I want to get to the heart of the issue for somebody and deal with it, if I can.

00;42;10;06 - 00;42;33;17
Rusty George
And so get it. I mean, it really does come down to listening, doesn't it? You just got to ask several questions. What is it you're deconstructing from? What is it that you've found to be inconsistent? And and I think Jim Wallace was on this podcast and said the same thing at the heart. And usually it is some kind of church hurt or disappointment with God that they they don't know how to reconcile.

00;42;33;17 - 00;42;41;06
Rusty George
So they they've thrown it all out. And we it but at the heart of it, it's some kind of pain.

00;42;42;11 - 00;42;45;21
Sean McDowell
Well, I think. J You mean J. Werner Wallace, right?

00;42;46;03 - 00;42;46;14
Rusty George
Yes, I.

00;42;46;14 - 00;43;15;04
Sean McDowell
Do. Yeah. As you referred to. I think he got it. That's often, often the case. So disappointment can be bad theology and expectations. And then when those expectations aren't met, we reject this faulty view of God that never in the first place was what we should have expected. That's a piece of it. So theology is important, but I don't think we can downplay the role that hurt plays.

00;43;15;20 - 00;43;42;11
Rusty George
Right. Okay. I want to I want to end on something. I know you're passionate about as well, and that is Marvel movies. I was I was told by our mutual friend Caleb Carlton to ask you about Marvel movies and when I did. Boy, you see a lot more than I see when I watch movie. I see a lot of, you know, CG You see a almost a biblical narrative coming out at times.

00;43;42;12 - 00;43;48;00
Rusty George
Tell us your favorite one and why, and tell us your favorite character and why.

00;43;49;07 - 00;43;58;24
Sean McDowell
I'll start with my favorite character. It's Spider-Man. I've always liked Spider-Man. When I was a kid. The only Spider-Man I could watch is when he showed up on the Electric company for 2 minutes.

00;43;58;26 - 00;43;59;05
Rusty George
Yeah.

00;43;59;26 - 00;44;19;10
Sean McDowell
I watched that. I watched that whole thing. When he came out, I was like, Oh, it's Spider-Man. So my wife remembers when the early Tobey Maguire movies came out. She's like, I looked at your face in the theater and she's like, You looked like this kid in a candy store on Christmas because I was like, Dang, they're bringing me the big screens.

00;44;19;28 - 00;44;42;07
Sean McDowell
But I love Spider-Man. Two reasons. Number one, he's such a relatable character. I don't have anger issues like the Hulk, I'm not motivated by vengeance like Batman. I'm obviously not a God like Thor, but Spider-Man is just the regular kid who all sudden gets these powers and he can beat Venom, but he can't get the girl or deliver pizza on time.

00;44;42;07 - 00;45;06;14
Sean McDowell
He's just the kid next door. He's relatable. But second, Stan Lee brilliantly gave characters ethic that motivates them. So the ethic of Wolverine is different than the ethic of Captain America and the ethic of Iron Man. Spider-Man's famously spoken by his aunts, and in the more recent movies, Uncle Maurice movie Aren't it? With great power comes great responsibility.

00;45;06;22 - 00;45;30;12
Sean McDowell
That's a biblical idea. Jesus said "he who is given much, much is required." So the idea it's kind of an idea that says if you have been privileged with something, use it for good. And I just love that ethic. My favorite movie, probably. I have a few that are close. I love the first Thor classical story of the hero.

00;45;30;29 - 00;46;01;01
Sean McDowell
I love Captain America 2, but I really love Infinity War. It's kind of the Empire Strikes Back of the MCU, and in that movie is a basic moral question When can we sacrifice a human life? What is a human life worth? So the movie starts, and Thanos has Thor captured. And Loki. Thanos, his brother, has to decide. Will I allow Thanos to kill my brother or give him one of the stones?

00;46;01;26 - 00;46;24;06
Sean McDowell
Scarlet Witch has the same decision with Vision. Why destroy the stone? To keep down us from it? That'll take the life of Vision. Star-Lord has the same obsession with Gamora. Will I take her life at her request or allow Thanos to use her to get the soul stone? Doctor Strange has the same decision with the Time Stone and Iron Man when he's fighting Thanos.

00;46;24;20 - 00;46;55;27
Sean McDowell
Now, Captain America famously says, We are not in the business of exchanging lives until the only one in 14 million or so Ways to save half the universe is for Iron Man to willingly lay down his life. Hmm. That's a biblical idea, and we know it now. When Gamora is about to get thrown off by Thanos to get the Soul Stone, she says something to the effect of this is not real love or this is not true love.

00;46;56;10 - 00;47;16;17
Sean McDowell
True love. This is sacrifice. Somebody else. True love willingly lays down one's life. And we all know Jesus said greater love has no man than this than a man Lay down his life for a friend. You just think about that. All the money all the time. MCU, You try to tell the most epic story ever and they can't escape.

00;47;17;02 - 00;47;40;25
Sean McDowell
At root, the gospel Now, I don't think they did it intentionally. Especially where I see the movies going. I think they can't escape it because it's written on our hearts. We know love is sacrifice. We understand what a real hero is. And the MCU is fiction. But in the story, Jesus, that is the greatest story ever told. That's actually true.

00;47;42;05 - 00;47;53;10
Rusty George
Wow. Powerful. All right. I'll let you end on that. Was a slam dunk. Thank you so much, Sean. Where can people find out more about you and connect with you?

00;47;54;07 - 00;48;15;14
Sean McDowell
Sure. Probably. The Hub is my website, Sean McDowell, dot org and not just links. I'm all over the place. I use YouTube one or two videos a week trying to just give some people depth in apologetics world view. That's where I do more long form content, do short form content on Tik Tok, Instagram and Twitter. And my whole goal is just to train people with resources.

00;48;15;14 - 00;48;36;06
Sean McDowell
Quick answers, conferences that are coming up, thoughtful quotes. We also have a podcast out of Bio I co-host called Think Biblically. Again. There's a link on my website, but it's just weekly. We look at tough cultural issues from a Christian perspective. So all those are out there. If if that's helpful.

00;48;36;21 - 00;48;53;08
Rusty George
That's very helpful. Well, buddy, I so appreciate your time with us. Real life a few weeks ago. That content will be available very soon and probably by the time this episode airs. It is up on the Real Life Church app, but I'm grateful for our time together today. So thank you so much. Thanks for what you're doing for everybody.

00;48;53;08 - 00;48;54;27
Rusty George
It's such a blessing and so many people.

00;48;55;15 - 00;48;56;06
Sean McDowell
Thanks, my friend.

00;48;57;06 - 00;49;16;27
Rusty George
Well, I hope you loved that as much as I did. Sean is amazing. Make sure you find him and hit him up on social media and you'll never watch Marvel movies the same. Hey, next week we have a conversation with a student pastor, a guy by the name of Justin Knowles out of Sandals church. He is going to help us clarify a lot of things that our kids are struggling with today and how we can best help them.

00;49;17;12 - 00;49;33;23
Rusty George
As always, leave us a rating and a review for the podcast. I would greatly appreciate it. And if you would just think right now, three people you think would benefit from what Sean had to say and just forward this podcast to them. Boy, that would mean the world to me and help get the word out of what we're trying to do by helping people lead Simple.

00;49;34;00 - 00;49;53;06
Rusty George
So next week we'll be back with brand new content and our new friend Justin Knowles will be talking with us. So make sure it is we now and then keep it simple. Take a moment and subscribe to the podcast so you get it delivered every week and subscribe to the Rusty George YouTube channel for. More devotionals, messages and fun videos.

00;49;53;15 - 00;50;05;07
Rusty George
Thank you for listening to Leading Simple Lessons.

00;50;08;00 - 00;50;35;07
Rusty George
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00;50;35;12 - 00;50;49;25
Rusty George
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