On this episode of Culture Brief, we dive into the latest on the Jeffrey Epstein uproar, the White House’s mixed response and why it still matters to many Americans.
Then Micah breaks down new statistics indicating hopeful signs of revival—in the U.S. and around the world—and talks about the part we each play in this explosion of the Christian faith.
We also unpack the Christian backlash against Chip and Joanna Gaines, hit on the latest in NYC mayoral race, mark the one-year anniversary of the Trump assassination attempt, reflect on John MacArthur’s legacy, and celebrate a meaningful moment from the world’s best golfer, Scottie Scheffler, about where real purpose is found.
There’s lots happening in the world and as always, we’re grateful to walk through it with you.
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Topics
- (00:54) Epstein Controversy: Unraveling the Mystery
- (05:44) Government Transparency and Public Trust
- (17:09) Spiritual Renewal and Revival
- (23:13) Fresh Hunger for Jesus
- (31:02) Chip and Joanna Gaines Controversy
- (35:33) New York City Mayor Race
- (40:49) Trump’s Shift on Putin
- (42:02) Scottie Scheffler’s Perspective on Golf and Life
Resources
- Mailbag: [email protected]
- Culture Brief Instagram
- Sign-up for Denison Forum’s daily newsletter: DenisonForum.org/subscribe
Links mentioned in this episode:
- Metadata Shows the FBI’s ‘Raw’ Jeffrey Epstein Prison Video Was Likely Modified
- The FBI’s Jeffrey Epstein Prison Video Had Nearly 3 Minutes Cut Out
- 1 big thing: MAGA’s siege mentality
- Denison Forum: “The clearest trend we’ve seen pointing to spiritual renewal”
- Barna: New Research: Belief in Jesus Rises, Fueled by Younger Adults
- Pew Research Center: Christian Movements and Denominations
- Denison Forum: Chip and Joanna Gaines’ new show features a gay couple
- ‘What’s the point?’ Scottie Scheffler gets existential in fascinating presser
- X Video: Scottie Scheffler just gave one of the best (and deepest) press conference answers ever heard.
Other articles on this week’s top headlines:
- Denison Forum: Ghislaine Maxwell offers to testify before Congress about Epstein
- 3 ways Trump might try to defuse the Epstein mess
- Economy and Epstein: Gen Z MAGA wants results
- Trump Gets ‘Ratioed’ on Truth Social for First Time Amid Epstein Backlash
- Playbook: Trump’s Epstein headache isn’t going away
- MAGA media in revolt
- Case Closed on Epstein? Not So Fast
- NYT: How Do You Silence a Conspiracy Theory?
- 10 reasons the DOJ and FBI face backlash over Epstein files flop
- Lara Trump Interview
- Make Christianity cool again: Why Gen Z is flocking to church
About Conner Jones
Conner Jones is the Director of Performance Marketing at Denison Ministries and Co-Hosts Denison Forum’s “Culture Brief” podcast. He graduated from Dallas Baptist University in 2019 with a degree in Business Management. Conner passionately follows politics, sports, pop-culture, entertainment, and current events. He enjoys fishing, movie-going, and traveling the world with his wife and son.
About Micah Tomasella
Micah Tomasella is the Senior Advancement Officer at Denison Ministries and co-hosts Denison Forum’s “Culture Brief” podcast. A graduate of Dallas Baptist University, Micah is married to Emily, and together they are the proud parents of two daughters. With an extensive background in nonprofit work, finance, and real estate, Micah also brings experience from his years in pastoral church ministry.
About Denison Forum
Denison Forum exists to thoughtfully engage the issues of the day from a biblical perspective through The Daily Article email newsletter and podcast, The Denison Forum Podcast, as well as many books and additional resources.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
NOTE: This transcript was AI-generated and has not been fully edited.
Conner Jones: [00:00:00] Hi, I am Conner Jones. I’m Micah to, and this is Culture Brief, a Denison Forum podcast where we navigate the constant stream of top stories and news, politics, sports, pop culture, technology. And we’re doing it all from a Christian perspective. Micah, we got a loaded show. There’s a lot that’s been happening this week.
So you wanna just give us a quick overview of what’s ahead?
Micah Tomasella: Epstein. Epstein, Epstein. We’ve been hearing a lot about that. A story that is. Dividing a whole lot of people and we’ll try to navigate through it. We’re also gonna talk about spiritual renewal. Is there spiritual renewal and revival taking place here in America and around the world?
And how can we join in to be a part of it? We’ll give you an update on the New York City mayor race and then we’ll also give you an update on Russia and Ukraine and really a whole lot more. So let’s jump into the brief.
Conner Jones: The brief. You said it, the Epstein story, man. It does not seem to go away. It is still front and center of all the news headlines.[00:01:00]
Everyone’s talking about it. Trump is so done talking about it, but he can’t get it away. In fact, I think he’s suffering a. A classic case with the Streisand effect, where like when you try to deflect something, it just brings more attention. The whole administration is suffering from that. Like they’re just trying to say, stop talking about this.
It’s not a big deal. But the base of the Trump populace, the people in MAGA who really support him, they’re divided because they’re like, look, we do care about this as much as you guys are trying to tell us, we should not care, including Trump himself. We care. We want answers. We want transparency. You know, to make a long story short, a lot of people know who Jeffrey Epstein is.
They know the story here. But essentially, people for years have believed that he was at the heart of his child sex trafficking ring that included blackmail of very prominent, powerful elite people, politicians, Hollywood people, hedge fund people from Wall Street, all of that. That he had essentially what they call a client list.
So when the government came out and said last week that there is no such thing as the client list and basically said end of story, that’s it. [00:02:00] People were immediately like we’re gonna question that and mm-hmm. Cause a rockus, you know? Mm-hmm. Make sure people know we are not okay with that answer. And that’s because the Department of Justice and the FBI sent out that memo last week declaring that, and that essentially there’s no credible evidence for a list.
There’s no credible evidence that he even killed himself or that he was killed. They basically said he did kill himself. That’s another part of the conspiracy, is he was in prison in his prison cell. A lot of people do not believe that he was. Responsible for his own death that somebody else with mal intentions had him killed while he was in prison.
So they released on an 11 hour video and they described it as the full raw surveillance footage from the camera position near his cell in prison in New York City. And the video has officially one minute missing at the 1159 mark, so that’s already a little sketchy. The DOJ said, we know that minute is missing.
Apparently it’s a common thing at 1159. The camera resets for the next day. Either way, it’s not ideal. You’d want. Every [00:03:00] minute to be on there. But Wired, which is a tech reporting platform, did an investigation on their own and they found that the footage was actually edited with Adobe Premier Pro. That’s something we actually use here at Dentist and Ministries.
A lot of people use that for video editing. They found that it was edited with that stitched from two different clips was saved four different times, meaning somebody was in there. Editing it and saving it, and that approximately two minutes and 53 seconds was actually removed from two stitched together clips.
Almost three minutes. Okay. Almost three minutes. That obviously is a lot more time than one minute. That’s a big deal. Yeah. That’s a lot of missing time. That’s more time for somebody to get into the cell and actually cause harm to Jeffrey Epstein. That’s what the conspiracy is. I’m not saying that, I’m just, that’s what’s out there.
So obviously reaction. From conservatives, it’s furious. For years, we’ve seen Ka Patel, who’s now the director of the FBI, Dan Bonino, the deputy director of the FBI and other right-wing personalities. But those two specifically have for years been on their own podcast or shows on the media circuit saying the list needs to be released.
We [00:04:00] need to find out if he actually killed himself or not. And now that they’re the ones in power, they’re having to kinda. Back step a little bit because they’re the ones saying, Hey, he, he didn’t, the DOJ is saying he did kill himself. That’s the, yeah, now official word. And that he did not have a client list.
But really the finger pointing is going towards Attorney General, Pam Bondi and Donald Trump himself. And that’s because Trump campaigning last year said he was gonna release files on several things, including J-F-K-M-L-K-R-F-K, and. Epstein. But now that these guys are in power and they’re releasing this information, that’s basically a nothing burger.
People are like, Hey, what’s up with this? They, they feel betrayed, essentially. The MAGA base is we don’t feel like we’re getting the full transparency that you promised us. And then Pam Bondy, attorney General, was on Fox News earlier this year saying that she had the list on her desk and that she had a truckload of documents headed her way.
And then she brought in a bunch of right wing influencers to the White House, gave them a binder that said, this is the Epstein files Phase one. If that was phase one, then where’s phase two? Apparently there is no phase two and it [00:05:00] embarrassed those right wing influencers, people who are very prominent in the MAGA world on YouTube and X and all of that.
And they were like, these binders don’t have anything that we didn’t already know. They were filled with documents that we’ve already seen. So that’s just the initial basis of where we’re at. But Micah, what are your initial thoughts here? What do you thinking, since we talked, we talked about this last week and it just blew up over the weekend.
I’ll get a little more into what happened, but what are you thinking?
Micah Tomasella: Yeah, I mean, this is obviously a problem and it’s not gonna work to just try to dismiss it and just say, Hey, this isn’t a big deal. He did kill himself. There’s nothing else to this story. There is no client list that would expose all of these rich and powerful people.
Obviously, the easiest thing for them would be that everybody. Shut up about it. But see, the problem is, is it’s not just the left who’s furious this time. A large part of the MAGA base is very upset about this. And I would say, like for me personally, I have noticed that this. As a citizen taking in [00:06:00] this information.
This just does not bother me as much as it bothers others, it seems and I think I’ve really been thinking about why it doesn’t bother me as much. I think I just have a cynical view of those in power in government that no matter what somebody campaigns on, once you get into that position, I just don’t expect full transparency.
And maybe I should maybe. Some changes should take place, but just for so long, those in power. Keep the things secret that need to be kept secret and there’s very little I can do about it. People, so that’s just kind of where I’ve been landing on it people. Yeah. That’s just kind of where I’ve been personally landing on it’s
Conner Jones: people.
Yeah. They felt like you did that this was going to be different. We finally are bringing people into power. They voted in these. Leaders Trump specifically in that he would appoint people who would bring the transparency. That’s why people feel betrayed, because they feel the same way. And I’ll, I’ll hit on that in just a minute.
All the lies from the government over the years that have caused people to feel, yeah. Like they can’t trust people in power, just so y’all know over the weekend, [00:07:00] it really did, like I said, it blew up, and that included Dan Bonino, the FBI, deputy Director big time podcaster before he joined the FBIA few months ago.
Man, he didn’t show up to work on Friday. He didn’t show up to the FBI offices, and that’s after him and Pam Bondi apparently got into just a massive shouting match at the White House over this whole thing, this whole debacle. He’s not happy with the backlash he’s getting and being called a traitor himself and all of that.
He apparently was on the verge of quitting and said he would quit if Pam Bondi was not fired or resigned. You know Trump, Trump has to try to solve that. He’s apparently been on the phone with everybody trying to solve that. He’s trying to put the genie back in the bottle and it’s just not going well.
He even admonished a reporter for asking about the whole thing. At a cabinet meeting last week, he said to the reporter, are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein? And then he even posted and defended Pam Bondi calling her fantastic on his truth. Social. Platform where he then got what they call ratioed.
Basically there’s more comments than there are likes on the post and people and the comments on his own platform, on his own post, his own supporters there were just [00:08:00] like, what are you doing here? You gotta give us truth. We do really care about this issue because it’s about the transparency. It’s about so much more than just this thing at hand.
It is also about the sex trafficking victims, and we’re talking about underage. Girls here. And so people do care about that. There’s justice that people want in that regard. And then Charlie Kirk hosted his turning point USA conference this past weekend. That’s a very big right wing conference that happens a few times a year.
He had Megan Kelly on stage and when she went to the crowd and she said, if you are in this crowd and you do care about the Epstein situation, make a noise. And the whole crowd shouted. And then Kirk himself asked the people if they would rather. Keep Dan Bonino in power, or Pam Bondi, and they very much so chose Bonino via shadow.
Micah Tomasella: Pam is definitely kind of an outsider to the MAGA movement, right? Correct. She was kind of brought into the fold recently, and so it’s, it’s kind of easier, I guess, in people’s minds to kind of kick her out.
Conner Jones: Remember she wasn’t even the original pointy that Trump had picked the Well Gates was, he wanted Matt Gates and the Congress was like, we’re not going to.
[00:09:00] Approve Matt Gaetz. So then he picked Bondi. So she is kind of an outsider, which is why some people were like, maybe this is just amateur hour. She doesn’t know how to handle the national spotlight. She was maybe big in Florida and that was, but I don’t know. Anyways, Axios, I liked what they noted. They said that the Justice department’s stunning decision to close the Epstein case and Trump’s claim that nobody cares about the deceased sex trafficker.
Dominated the discourse at the Turning Point Summit for arguably the first time since Trump founded the MAGA movement 10 years ago. Activists warned that the president was out of step with his own base. It’s just a bad
Micah Tomasella: move. He just bad move. Just, just a bad move. To be so dismissive of something that’s clearly upsets such a large part of his base.
Conner Jones: And even this week he’s still kind of been dismissive and he said, we need to maybe release some stuff, but he’s not really giving it much thought. Yeah. And I understand that. The thing is, he wants to focus on his accomplishments and this is just a big distraction and he’s, he’s look at the economy.
Look at what tariffs are doing. Look at what I’ve done in foreign policy. I just bombed, I ran. And that’s already out of the news cycle. It was a huge deal two weeks ago. It’s
Micah Tomasella: a good, it’s a good lesson for life, right? When you [00:10:00] make a mistake, own it, don’t ignore it, and then you can move on. But if you just ignore the issue and it’s a big enough issue, it’s just gonna come back to bite you.
Conner Jones: Yeah, and it’s like I said, it’s like the Streisand effect. It’s just like the more he’s ignoring and deflecting it, the more people tend to to be thrown into it. Anyways, Ghislaine Maxwell, who was Jeffrey Epstein’s accomplice, his girlfriend. She was one of the groomers who brought girls into his fold.
She’s currently in prison. She was sentenced to 20 years for sex trafficking crimes. She is obviously the person who a lot of people think has a lot of the answers here. Who was the client where the videotapes that have the blackmail here, all of that. She’s now saying that she would be willing to talk in front of Congress.
Now, is she looking for some sort of deal to reduce her prison sentence to do that? I’m not sure. I’m sure her lawyers will try to work something out there. But a lot of people are like, okay, let’s hear from her. She’s a. Bad person, but she might have the answers we’re looking for anyways. Micah, kinda like you were saying, there’s been a lot of pundits who they’ve been like, why is this such a big deal?
Why do we care so much? This is [00:11:00] one individual. This is something that maybe it’s been blown outta proportion by conspiracy theorists, all of that. Even Stephen, a Smith sports guy, but also kind of political pundit in a way he was on. He was like, I just don’t care about this. This does not affect my day-to-day life.
It does not affect the day-to-day life of Americans, which is true. Maybe we should have more attention this week on all the other things going on in the world, and everything happening in the economy and all that. Anyways, I would venture to say that this is a really big deal for the reasons we’ve kind of already asserted, which is how many times have the American people been lied to by the government and people in power.
I mean, just think about. The thoughts of Americans as they consider, they don’t feel like the government’s been transparent with them about the JFK assassination. Or they weren’t transparent about the realities on the ground in Vietnam or Watergate, the Iran Contra affair, Iraq having weapons of mass destructions.
The NSA, remember Obama with the NSA spying on Americans? COVID-19 just happened. Lockdowns in the science there. Yeah. And then even recently. The Biden mental acuity problem, like people just feel like those [00:12:00] in power are keeping the truth from them. There’s no transparency,
Micah Tomasella: which is exactly why I think I’ve become jaded.
It’s like I don’t even think I really fall in line with what you just described of, I completely acknowledge that this is an issue I just have come to not expect better from the government.
Conner Jones: I actually agree with you there. It’s not like I’m sitting here expecting answers. I’m just saying. The campaign.
During the campaign, they said that they were gonna bring answers, and so the base is just mad. I know that’s
Micah Tomasella: they ran on that. It was a pillar of what they ran on.
Conner Jones: Yeah. Anyways, I would just say, yeah, exactly what we’re saying. Trump can’t expect. Americans to trust him on other important issues if he’s not giving them the full answers here and the people want the answers.
And so those docs supported the official narrative, like the docs that they released. Essentially this memo supported this official narrative that people don’t believe. Same thing happened with JFK, though. They released documents back in February, right? And there. Basically a lot of answers that came out of that that just supported what the government’s always said.
It was a single shooter. It was Lee Harvey Oswald. There was no bigger conspiracy. I know, and that [00:13:00] kind of shut up the conspiracy theories, at least for now, of, okay, maybe that is the case. But they gave us transparency there. And
Micah Tomasella: sometimes there isn’t a bigger story. But sometimes there isnt.
But you can say that when you’ve released everything.
Like everybody can come to that conclusion when all known. Pieces of information and evidence have been released. There’s just still more to be released on this Epstein issue.
Conner Jones: Exactly. And on that point, the tide is maybe turning a little bit, this week’s kind of, I think this got to the attention of the White House and they’re like, okay, we got, of course it did.
And so it’s slightly turning over in the White House and Republican circles this week. So Trump, you know, he’s mad. He’s apparently, people are like, yeah, he’s in the Oval Office. He’s fuming. He doesn’t like that this big distraction and bad news cycle is happening. He wants to focus on his accomplishments.
His daughter-in-law, Laura Trump, who’s a very potential senator, campaigner or candidate, she came on and said, there needs to be more transparency. I think that will happen. I know this is important to the president. He is frustrated and he’s [00:14:00] gonna get things right. I believe there will be more coming, so maybe we’ll get those documents.
Even Charlie Kirk has said that he’s done talking about it after he spent the whole weekend discussing it, and then Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson on Tuesday on an interview said, I’m for transparency. We should put everything out there and let the people decide. Pam Botany needs to come forward and explain it to the American people.
We need the DOJ focusing on major priorities. Let’s get this thing resolved and behind us. That’s the thing is the DOJ maybe should be focusing on all the other things that they have going on. Mike Johnson would not be
Micah Tomasella: saying that for no reason. Totally agree. He has been in lockstep with Trump.
That’s how they’ve been able to get anything through Congress because of the razor thin margins in the house. So Mike Johnson would not be saying that. Without knowing something further that’s coming. So yes, that, that is an encouraging sign.
Conner Jones: Yeah. So maybe we’ll get answers soon. I don’t know. I guess we’ll just have to see what, yeah, what plays out.
And I do think maybe Pam Bond needs to go on like one of the big podcasts and just sit down for three hours and answer all the questions. It’s time. Pam. I went on Joe Rogan last month and it’s time. [00:15:00] Yeah, so let’s just see. Okay. I would just say as a final takeaway from this whole thing, we need to remember.
I think this is easy to forget, but there are like true victims here. There were actual girls and maybe even yeah, men too, who were trafficked in this whole thing through Jeffrey Epstein and through Ghislaine Maxwell to who, that’s what we don’t know, but it was a real operation, right? That’s one reason that officials have actually refused to release documents that they don’t wanna release the information on these victims, especially if they were underage.
All of that, and I, I get that. Anyways, when we look at. Scripture. That’s kind of the only place. It’s not actually kind of, it is the only place that we can find true justice and that’s in God. Mm-hmm. That’s the only place we can, we can’t expect it from humans. There will never be full justice here, but God is a God of justice in Revelation 16, seven declares, yes, Lord God Almighty, true and just are your judgements.
Isaiah 61, 8 even reminds us that God despises injustice. It says, for [00:16:00] I the Lord love justice. I hate robbery and wrong. I will faithfully give them their recompense and I will make an everlasting covenant with them. And scripture also reminds us that our God sees everything Hebrews four 13 says, and no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him, to whom we must give a account.
Yep, that was true for Epstein and it’s true for any others involved in his nefarious activities in that, you know, potential ring of sexual activity. But it’s also true for government officials. And it’s true for you and me today. Yeah, right? You the listener. You Micah, me. We all are account to God and it’s easy to call out the most powerful people in the world and point fingers at their wrongdoings, but we also need to check ourselves, what are you doing in your life?
What am I doing in my life today that we would be ashamed to have exposed? You know, we all have that. We all have our secret sins. What is that? Because none of it’s hidden from the sight of the [00:17:00] Lord.
Micah Tomasella: Yep. Absolutely. Conner, great breakdown, brother. Thank you for all the details and for that solid application.
Next as we jump into our next story, I wanna talk about spiritual renewal and spiritual revival. Is it happening? And if it’s happening, how can we actually do something about it? As Christians, how can we focus on how we can be a part of this groundswell that we’re seeing, this momentum that we’re seeing of people coming back to faith?
So what’s really happening spiritually? In America and around the world. Let’s talk about it. You’d think we’re in total spiritual decline. If you looked at the headlines, that’s what the assumption will give you, right? There’s not a whole lot of godly headlines outright, you know, out right now, or anything hopeful out right now.
But you know, you hear about churches closing and Gen Zs leaving the religion and Christian values are under pressure and under attack, but there’s a different story emerging, and I believe it’s one of the clearest signs of hope we’ve seen. In years, and we had kind of talked about this a few months [00:18:00] ago of Gen Z turning to Jesus.
But I want to kind of break it down even further and even give you some more recent data. So according to Bara’s 2024 study, 66% of US adults now say they have made a personal commitment to follow Jesus. That’s unbelievable. That is an unbelievable thing. Now, there are a lot of auxiliary things of how many of them are actually going to church or actually feeding their faith, and that’s, that’s a much lower number.
But at the same time, 66% of US adults now say they’ve made that personal commitment that’s up from 54% just three years ago. So that’s a 12% jump. That’s almost 30 million new people that are claiming Christ in a country that we’re supposedly, you know, postmodern Now. We’re becoming more like Europe. We’re post-Christian now.
Stuff like that, that’s a big shift that now it’s not on the decline. It seems to be on the rise. The biggest gains, we’re seeing that in millennials and specifically in Gen Zs. The very groups we were told all along were walking away from Jesus. So it’s not just here. Conner in the uk [00:19:00] young adult church attendance has quadrupled in Brazil, Uganda, South Korea, and across parts of Asia and Africa.
The gospel is seemingly exploding, charismatic and Pentecostal movements, and grown to over 640 million people globally making it the fastest growing expression of Christianity in the world. Okay. Events like Gather 25 Connect Believers and more than 140 nations through 25 straight hours of worship and scripture in over 80 languages.
The Asbury Revival that happened last year drew over 50,000 people from across the country for two weeks of nonstop worship and prayer and repentance, and it didn’t start, remember with a stage, it didn’t start with lights. It didn’t start. Hype. It just started with students who wouldn’t leave the room because the Holy Spirit was moving because the Holy Spirit was doing something in that room.
So we’re seeing what many people might be calling a new wave of awakening, a new wave of revival. And it’s not driven by a politics, it’s not [00:20:00] driven by a platform. It’s not driven by one specific stance on one specific issue. It’s being led by people who seemingly are hungry. People who are tired of empty religion looking for real life in Jesus.
People who are tired of being lied to, sold the bill of goods, that if you accomplish this, you get here, you do this, that will give you your ultimate satisfaction. People aren’t buying that lie anymore, and I think it’s a beautiful thing. I do not believe the question is if God is moving, it’s very clear, not just from a feeling, but from actual numbers that God is moving.
I believe the question is, are we moving with him? What do you think about this, Conner? And is this the right question to be asking?
Conner Jones: I think that is a good question to ask, that it’s actually really strong. Are we moving with him? Yeah. God doesn’t ever stop moving, right? He’s always on the move. So what part are we playing?
I think that’s a great question to ask and it, it’s very introspective and it’s. Convicting in a way, gotta look at how am I being a part of this movement? How am I being part of the revival? How is [00:21:00] God using me and my in influence? Whatever your situation is daily. I think that’s a great question. I love what you were just talking about, like people are looking for a deeper purpose and we’re gonna actually talk about a professional athlete here in a minute that had a perfect answer to that.
Yes. Fits perfectly with that specific thing. Yeah. We’ll hit on that here in a few minutes, but. There is a desire for something deeper, right? Some sort of purpose recognizing that no, there’s something
Micah Tomasella: happening. This is a unique time that we’re in right now. People, there’s something unique taking place right now.
Conner Jones: Yeah, and a lot of this could be because it came out of COVID where people really questioned a lot of things. It changed a lot of dynamics of society and culture. A younger generation is like seeking something more purposeful than just day-to-day work. Where we came out of generations who worked all day and careerism was a big thing, and now it’s kinda eh, I’d rather be productive and do things and be creative, or whatever it is your calling is, but.
I want to have a higher purpose to it. So I think there’s a lot of questions and this is really cool to see. ’cause I actually wrote an article I think two years ago. You know, I was going through [00:22:00] the research that actually Barna presented and it was not looking great for Gen Z at the time. Nope. So to see this over the last kind of two-ish years.
Two-ish years course, that is amazing. What an answer to prayers.
Micah Tomasella: Yes, it, it absolutely is. Dr. Jim Denison Conner, you know him right? I know him, yes. Yeah, yeah. Good guy. Yeah, good guy. The CEO and co-founder of our ministry is Jim Denison, and he has written a lot over the years about revival and spiritual renewals, specifically.
In fact, dentist and Ministries was founded more. Been 16 years ago with that exact mission in mind to be a catalyst for spiritual awakening in this country through digital mediums. Right through digital content, through biblical truth being spread through that of everything Dr. Denison has written.
There’s one article recently that he wrote last month that really stands out to me and it’s called The Clearest Trend We’ve seen pointing to a spiritual renewal, and in it he unpacks how God is at work in surprising places and in powerful ways. That’s the lens I want to use [00:23:00] as we walk into this spiritual application.
So the article lays out four foundational patterns, Conner, that tend to accompany spiritual renewal. Let’s walk through them and let’s make them personal to us. Number one, there is always a fresh hunger for Jesus. Revival isn’t about emotional moments. It’s about returning to the person of Jesus, not just admiring him or appreciating him, or just attending a service, but actively surrendering our lives to him over and over and over again every day.
Personal surrender if we want revival to take place. Jim says this all the time. It has to start in our hearts. It has to start at home. It has to start in our own personal walks. If we’re trying to change everybody else but us it’s just not really gonna bring about the result that we want. That’s what we’re seeing in this movement.
A shift from cultural Christianity to committed Christianity. I believe that. So here’s the question. Are we hungry? Conner? Are you hungry? Am [00:24:00] I hungry? Yeah. Or have we gotten comfortable with content? Busy schedules and spiritual autopilot. Have I gotten comfortable with doing good things for God with doing ministry?
Have I gotten comfortable with that and so comfortable that maybe I’m missing the best things that God has for me? But in Revelation three, Jesus says this, behold, I stand at the door and knock. He’s asking right now to be let back in. He doesn’t want our routine. He wants relationship with us. So let’s not miss the movement of God because we’re too distracted.
To notice what God is doing. Let’s not be so distracted by good things that we miss the best thing. Number two, there’s a growing dependence on the Holy Spirit. So another marker of spiritual revival and movement is there’s a growing dependence on the Holy Spirit. These revivals aren’t being produced by all this marketing and all these celebrity pastors.
They’re being sustained by prayer. They’re being sustained by repentance and a genuine move of the Holy Spirit. There’s [00:25:00] always been a pattern in history from the Welsh Revival to the Jesus movement. This has been a similar theme, and maybe that’s what we need most to admit. We can’t manufacture transformation on our own to admit that.
I can’t muster this up just by sheer effort. As Zaria four six says, not by my might. Nor by power, but by my spirit, says the Lord. If we wanna see revival in our homes, churches, and cities, it’s gonna take more than just trying harder. It’s gonna take more than just effort. It’s gonna actually take surrender.
Surrender of all that I am to God. Surrender of my home, surrender of my family, surrender of all my desires. To Jesus. That’s what it’s gonna take. An actual personal commitment and surrender. If every single committed Christian, if all 66% of people in the United States who actually claim to know and love and serve Jesus, have a, at least a personal relationship to him.
Imagine Conner, the implications if all 66% of [00:26:00] them actually daily were surrendering their lives to Jesus. I mean, this revival would explode, wouldn’t it?
Conner Jones: Mm-hmm.
Micah Tomasella: That would be awesome. Yeah. There’s so much potential, right? Yep. Yep. So there’s bold faithfulness to biblical truth. That’s the third one. So bold.
Faithfulness to biblical truth is necessary in a revival. We can’t shy away from it. So this is where we’ve gotta lean in, and this is where I feel like sometimes the movement is getting off a little bit. Personally, spiritual renewal is not soft. It’s clear, it’s rooted in God’s word, and if we’re gonna join what God is doing, we need to stop shying away from the truth and start standing on it.
Standing by it. We’ve been commanded and equipped for many things, but there are three things that we’ve been primarily equipped for that I wanna focus on right now that I wanna lean into right now. Love God with everything that we have. Love our neighbors as ourselves, even when it’s costly and make disciples.
That means knowing what we believe, why we believe it, [00:27:00] and then being bold enough and faithful enough to share it, not an anger. But in love, truth in love. When culture calls truth hateful, we speak it anyway because we’re not here to win arguments for the sake of winning arguments. We’re here to make disciples of all nations.
You’re not gonna argue somebody into faith. That’s not the point. We’re here to make disciples and to speak truth in love. So revival without repentance goes nowhere, and truth without love is most likely just noise. So when you have both truth and grace. God moves. Finally, the fourth marker, the final one, there is a renewed urgency for the gospel.
In every true awakening, people don’t just feel inspired. They actually go out and tell someone, right? You remember growing up Conner, going to church camp or something like that. Or maybe you go to this. Great event at your church and you’re all fired up and you pray about it and you read your Bible for a week and you feel really good about it, but then it, you just kinda get busy again.
You just kind of get stuck in the same rhythm [00:28:00] and pattern again. And every true awakening, people don’t just feel inspired. Like I said, they go and they tell someone, so they serve, they give, they take action. It leads to outward action, and that’s a challenge for us. If this is what God is doing, if revival is already stirring, then we need to join in not tomorrow.
Today. That means inviting those neighbors over that you’ve only said hi, and bye to that you only wave casually at Invite ’em over for a meal. Share your life with them. Open up your life to them. It means inviting your coworker. To lunch and asking how you can pray for them, how you can serve them. The list goes on and on of the things that you can do living with urgency.
Not fear, but actual focus. So Jesus says in Matthew nine, the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Let’s not miss our moment because we’re waiting for someone else to go first. Let’s not miss what God has for us because we’re waiting. For the right moment, the right time. When it’s convenient, let me go and tell you, and I’m [00:29:00] preaching to myself right now.
This is a personal conviction that’s been going on in my own heart. There’s never going to be a perfect time, and it’s not going to feel convenient most of the time, if not every single time. Very rarely do beautiful things take place when things are easy, we’re forged in the fire. We’re forged when we lean into God in the difficult times, or where we have to lean into God when we go out on a limb in faith and we do something that makes us uncomfortable.
So this is not the time to sit on the sidelines. It’s the time to lean in, to pray like it matters, to speak truth with love, to live with boldness, and to follow Jesus with everything that we’ve got. So if Jesus has redeemed your life, Conner, me, our listeners, if he has saved you, if he has helped you, if he has pulled your life out of the pit.
And you can say that with confidence. Then listen to the words of Paul. In one Corinthians 15, death is swallowed up in victory. Oh, death. Where is your victory? Oh, death. Where is your sting? The sting of death is sin and the power of sin is the [00:30:00] law. But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord.
Jesus Christ. If we resonate with that, then it’s time to get to work.
Conner Jones: Hmm. Yeah, let’s keep praying for revival. I mean, this is really cool stuff. Thanks for taking us through that. It’s awesome to see the way God is working, obviously across the world and here in America, and especially in younger people.
That’s, it’s honestly just calling away. I’m, I mean, I’m excited to talk
Micah Tomasella: about this, right? Because it’s not, it’s not some numbers and statistics that are just so discouraging, and then we have to kind of explain away, and then, you know, we have to sit here and say God has a plan and a purpose, which is true, but this is actually a story that we can talk about and say, Hey, there’s.
Beautiful things taking place. There’s a groundswell taking place. It’s time to actually get with God, consult with God, and say, what would you have me do about this?
Conner Jones: Yeah, man. That’s awesome. Thanks for taking us through that. I want to jump in real fast to check in section. Let’s hit in on a few things that are happening here in [00:31:00] culture, right?
Yeah. Yep. Okay. First and foremost, big thing happening this week is Chip and Joanna Gaines, known for their TV show, fixer Upper. They’ve basically taken over the city of Waco, alongside Baylor, and they are so big on the HGTV and just home renovation world, and they’re also big because they are very public about their faith.
They’ve always been strong in their faith and made very clear that they care so much about. They’re Christian principles, all of that, which is awesome. But this week they’re in hot water with a lot of Christians because their new show called Back to the Frontier. It follows families and the Canadian Rockies as they like, try to navigate, I guess, living without technology and a lifestyle of the 1880s, kind of a cool concept.
But anyways, they brought on three couples, but one of those couples and their kids is a gay couple from Dallas and they share a cabin with their two adopted 10-year-old twin sons. This is a couple who has said that they went on the show to normalize same sex couples and same sex families, and they want people to see them as just like every other family.
This blew up in [00:32:00] the Christian world because people are like, okay, you guys are very public about your faith, but you’re gonna bring on this couple that’s clearly trying to normalize something that the Bible. Stands against, which is homosexuality, right? Like the marriage, the Bible says is between one man and one woman.
They’ve also got these adopted sons that they brought into this situation. Anyways, you know, when Christians responded to the news voicing their disappointment, chip gains responded to their criticism saying, talk, ask questions, listen, maybe even learn too much to ask of a modern American Christian culture.
Judge first, understand later or never. It’s a sad Sunday when non-believers have never been confronted with hate or vitriol until they are introduced to a modern American Christian judge, not love one another. It’s not difficult. Whew, that’s not a great response, chip. Nope. Honestly, that’s really bad response.
Anyways, at Dennison Forum. Jim wrote Dr. Dennison that you mentioned earlier. He wrote a great article on Wednesday morning. I will link it. [00:33:00] It’s so good about this whole situation, but we really, Wednesday, July
Micah Tomasella: 16th. Yeah. Go check it out.
Conner Jones: Yeah. We really align with one quote that he he put in there from Franklin Graham.
Billy Graham’s son Franklin said, while we are to love people, we should love them enough to tell them the truth of God’s word. His word is absolute truth. God loves us and his design for marriage is between one man and one woman promoting something that God defines as sin is in itself. Sin. And as Dr.
Denison noted in the article, it’s not judging people to speak biblical truth, right? And knowing that following Jesus and living by his word. Actually what will set you free. That’s what you know, John 8 32 says, conversely, it’s not loving to withhold the truth and condone that which is harmful. The key is what Ephesians four 15 command us to do is to speak the truth and love.
That’s what we’re called to do.
Micah Tomasella: I just, even going off of this revival conversation, this is not the time. To [00:34:00] stand idly by and be cowardly in our approach to what scripture says. I think there’s something else that Chip said where he kind of talked about evolving. I might be thinking of something else, but ultimately having this couple on the show is a debatable issue.
’cause at the same time, like they should be given an opportunity too, like having them on the show, like I feel like that isn’t the biggest part of the issue. For me it was, it was chip’s response really doubling down on the issue. I’m just so thankful. That what we believe doesn’t evolve over time or doesn’t change.
Mm-hmm. That our goalposts don’t move. That God’s word is an errant and infallible and true, and that we get to stake our claim on that and say. My worldview is built on the solid rock. It’s built on the foundation, and it’s built on God’s word. And so I’m thankful that we get to say that, and I think it’s just a dangerous place to get in.
And I think Chip and Joe are kind of in a, a tough spot right now.
Conner Jones: Yeah, they’re in a little bit of a pickle here. I would [00:35:00] say, you know, one thing to remember is Christians hopefully would not just call out this situation. They would also be very loud about this. If it was a couple that was man and woman, but they weren’t married and they had their kids and they were living at some and they wouldn’t
Micah Tomasella: be,
Conner Jones: and that’s a problem.
They may not be, but they, they also could be, you know, like if, if Chip and Joe. Brought a family like that on. I just don’t know. There’s a lot of questions here, but maybe, I guess,
Micah Tomasella: I don’t
Conner Jones: know.
Micah Tomasella: Yeah.
Conner Jones: At least from our stance, both are wrong, right? Neither one is what God intended for marriage and family in either of those situations.
So we would call out both here at Denon Forum. Anyways, let’s move on to the New York City mayor race because this is really, honestly the only real big election, and so it’s kind of telling of where society’s at post 2024 elections and it’s New York.
Micah Tomasella: The big red wave. So
Conner Jones: it’s different for sure because it’s New York, but it’s also big city and it represents a lot up there in New England and everything.
So the big story obviously has been Zoran mom, Donny the socialist guy, he’s younger, who beat out Andrew Cuomo, the former governor and [00:36:00] establishment candidate for the Democratic spot. Yes, in this race. He beat him out last month. Since then, several things have happened. First off, Eric Adams, who’s the current mayor, he ran as a Democrat last time, but now he says he’s more Republican.
I don’t know where he lands politically, but yeah, he’s running as an independent to try to keep his mayorship, but he’s been in legal hot water. His entire office basically resigned last year ’cause they don’t like him and they think he’s a bad person anyway, so he’s trying to clean his name up. He’s on the podcast circuit, but also Mom Donny has been in hot water because he.
Back in 2009 was applying to Columbia University and marked himself as both Asian and black or African American. He is of Indian descent. He’s Indian ethnically, so that’s kind of an interesting choice. He was born in Uganda, so maybe there’s some tie in there. Anyways, he’s trying to clean up this story because it’s, it’s kind of hitting back on him.
He’s also refused to denounce the phrase globalize the ada, which is like one of these rallying. Cries for pro-Palestinian people and it’s basically a call to violence against [00:37:00] Jews. And so yes, it is him not denouncing. That has not been great for him, but I think a lot of people are overlooking some of that.
He’s still very popular, still big on social media, big with the young people in New York City. Yeah. And then Andrew Cuomo. He said he’s coming back. He lost to mom Donny last month. But he is ah, I’ll just run as a third party candidate. So does this give like sore loser vibes? I maybe,
Micah Tomasella: I think this is gonna give, I mean, if I had to guess, I would say Cuomo is probably gonna give mom Donny the toughest competition.
And I would, I guess what people are hoping, from what I’ve been reading is that eric Adams and Andrew Cuomo would look at it later in the year and say, all right, let’s not split the vote. And one of them drop out. Now, Cuomo did say that he would do that. I don’t think Eric Adams has said
Conner Jones: that he would do that yet.
But yeah, Eric Adams is I’m, I’m gonna make it to November. Cuomo said, if he’s not the top candidate against Mom, Donny, so basically against Eric Adams by early September, then he’ll drop out, like you’re saying.
Micah Tomasella: I mean, it was the Democratic primary, right? So only registered Democrats were voting in that.
Mm-hmm. So like at that point, like you would just [00:38:00] wonder if this socialist idea, some of the stuff that’s coming out, that people who maybe wouldn’t normally vote who live in New York would come out and vote. It’s probably gonna be close, but I definitely don’t think Mom Donny’s gonna live in a win in a landslide either way.
Conner Jones: No, I
Micah Tomasella: think it’s gonna be close. I don’t either.
Conner Jones: Whatever happens here, it’s three candidates that I don’t think are ideal for a lot of people out there, but it’s very telling what happens in November in this election will be very telling for the midterms going into next year. ’cause this is, like I said, the one big election.
It’s not national, it’s not even a state, but it’s the biggest city in America. Yep. So it is kind of a big deal. Yep. Okay. Other things in politics is this week, we did remember that one year ago was the assassination attempt on Donald Trump when he got hit in the ear and s ear from that sniper’s rifle.
You know, we, we’ve had discussions over the last year of did God protect him? I don’t know. I mean, maybe. Mm-hmm. And in fact, we, we had an article this week at Dentist and former about this that really dives into some of the theological aspects of this. Can God save somebody like that? Of course he can.
Does that mean he did? No, not necessarily. So we don’t [00:39:00] know. You know, we don’t know if, if God’s saved Trump in that sense, but yeah.
Micah Tomasella: Yep. So let’s give you another update. Rev. John MacArthur passed away Monday at the age of 86. Very influential guy in the evangelical world, specifically the Baptist world.
May he rest in peace. He made a, a big impact, was controversial in many ways, was man. That dude preached the word. You might have disagreed with some of his interpretations of it, but that dude, his entire life preached the word. So may he rest in peace. Let’s talk about Wimbledon. Yeah, Wimbledon. Let’s talk a little tennis.
I watch tennis. Conner, do you watch tennis? No, I. Watch tennis.
Conner Jones: I didn’t even know all the time. I didn’t like at Roland. Roland Garros
Micah Tomasella: guy. No, like Roland Garros in Wimbledon and the US Open, I mean, these are, this is like man Imano three hour battles of just sheer will. And it’s just very, very interesting to watch.
So Yannick sin defeated [00:40:00] Carlos Alcaraz. The Wimbledon, but Alcaraz had beaten him the last two times in championship finals. So I’m glad to see my fellow Italian brethren, Yannick sinner, go ahead and get himself a win. But shout out to American Taylor, Fritz for putting up a good fight. The fifth ranked man in the world in tennis.
He put up a good fight against Alcaraz in the semi-final, maybe American tennis will get back to greatness one day.
Conner Jones: Okay, brutal last name for Yannick Sinner. That’s a hard last name. It’s a live life with, it’s a tough one also. It’s not
Micah Tomasella: your classic Italian last name either, but he. He’s an Italian. I mean, Italian last name’s always been in fowls.
Isn’t,
Conner Jones: isn’t he like Austrian Italian or something? Like he’s, yeah, he’s, he’s not even from a, he speaks a different language. He doesn’t even speak Italian, I don’t think. He’s like from a section of Italy that speaks German or something. You know what, man?
Micah Tomasella: I don’t actually know that. I don’t actually know that.
But he represents Italy, you know, so we’ll just go with it. Alright. Lemme give you a Russia and Ukraine update. We’ll probably dive into this more fully in the future, but Trump has recently shifted his tone on Putin. As many of you have probably noticed in the news, moving from. [00:41:00] Cautious in the way that he talked about Putin to backing stronger action and, and voicing pretty much every day how frustrated he is with Vladimir Putin.
He now supports a NATO plan to send patriot missile systems to Ukraine and is pushing for heavy tariffs, so he’s given like a 50 day deadline. That if a ceasefire isn’t reached, he’s gonna do a hundred percent tariffs on like secondary tariffs on certain things. So we’ll see what happens at a recent NATO summit though Trump also backed a new defense spending goal for member nations, and we had talked about that with Russian attacks escalating across Ukrainian cities.
It’s critical. We in a critical time right now, these weapons need to reach Ukraine. Ukraine is getting. Overwhelmed and more and more of their citizens are being killed from attacks from Russia. So this is a big change for Trump. So we’ll see what comes from it.
Conner Jones: They need to reach Ukraine depending on who you ask.
’cause this is another thing dividing maga, right? There’s a lot of people like, don’t send our stuff to Ukraine. That’s not what they want with our weapons. Anyways, that’s. Kinda the situation there. Yes,
Micah Tomasella: yes. Okay. Conner, let’s jump into the tune in section. [00:42:00] Give us something for tune
Conner Jones: in. Yeah, so the Open Championship, AKA, the British Open, this is a golf tournament, big one, the last of the four majors this season every year.
This is the last of the four majors. It’s this weekend, Thursday through Sunday. It’s at Royal Port Rush Golf Course in Northern Ireland. Gorgeous golf course. Anyways, I can’t wait to watch bringing it up mostly because. Our favorite player, Scottie Scheffler, man, he made waves this week. He just basically was brutally honest at a pressor for the media and just spent five minutes talking about why golf kind of matters, but doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things specifically just the fickleness of winning.
And he said there are a lot of people that make it to what they thought was going to fulfill them in life, but you get to number one in the world, he’s the best player in the world. And he’s saying, and they’re like, what’s the point? This is not a fulfilling life. I love being able to play golf for a living.
It’s one of the greatest joys of my life, but it does not fill the deepest wants and desires of my [00:43:00] heart. Absolutely not. This is not the be all and end all. This is not the most important thing in my life. That’s what I wrestle with. Why is this so important to me? ’cause I’d much rather be a great father than a great golfer.
Hmm, man, that’s good stuff. It’s a five minute thing. I’d encourage you to go watch the clip. But Scottie is so true to his faith and he recognizes that golf is just his platform. It’s just what he gets to do. God has gifted him in that way, but it’s not his end all be all. He finds so much more joy in the Lord.
And he talks about when you win a tournament in golf, it’s two minutes of a high of oh my gosh, won this, and then it’s right onto the next thing.
Micah Tomasella: I mean, it’s over. It really ties into the sentiment of why I believe revival and renewal. Like why, you know, we’re on the cusp of it. Yeah. We need to catch the wind.
We need to jump in on this revival and renewal. But I think what Scottie’s pointing to is like what we alluded to earlier of everything I thought would fulfill me, doesn’t, what is there? What is the purpose and meaning of life? And I [00:44:00] love, I mean, everyone, please go watch it because Scottie explains such a beautiful, biblical principle of the meaning of life without being churchy about it at all.
And what I mean is, is like ES, ESPN is posting it, golf.com is posting it. NBC is posting it and everybody’s man, I can really resonate with this. Just such an impactful way that Scottie put it, somebody at the peak, at the height that considered the best golfer in the world is saying this. It’s almost mind boggling, but it also makes sense to everybody watching it
Conner Jones: because it’s relatable.
We’ve all got those goals. It’s relatable. If I can just get to that one thing, if I get that promotion, if I get that sale, if I, whatever it is, if I can get that house, I will feel the happiness. And Scottie’s like I’ve done it, it it’s, it lasts two minutes and then it’s what’s the next thing? And that’s what he’s saying.
So anyways, guys, I hope you take some truth outta that. Thank you guys for joining us. For this week’s episode of The Culture Brief, a Dentist Informed Podcast, all the articles and videos that we mention will be linked in the show notes. You can always reach out to us at [00:45:00] Culture [email protected].
Follow us on Instagram at Culture Brief Podcast and of course like subscribe and rate. Review this show and share it with a friend, and we will see you next Thursday.
Micah Tomasella: Bye-bye.
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