Kathryn Krick’s viral “healing” videos, why Gen Z wants old-school worship & the Lakers' shock sale | Ep. 82

Conner Jones: [00:00:01] Hi, I'm Conner Jones and this is Culture Brief, a Denison Forum podcast where we navigate the constant stream of top stories and news, politics, sports, pop culture and technology, and we do it all from a Christian perspective. And yes, you heard that right. There was no other name said at the beginning of this. It's just me here for now, just for a minute. I'm just doing this little intro. Today, I'm going to be joined by my friend Jonathan Becker. He's going to be joining me virtually from Tyler, Texas. He loves that East Texas vibe out there. He is a Denison Forum contributing writer for us. He's been writing articles for the last few months. Been doing really great work on some particularly thorny theological issues, women in ministry, the passion translation. But this week he wrote about Catherine Krick and the growing NAR movement. This is something that has gone very viral the last few weeks with Catherine Krick. It's this self-proclaimed prophet, and you may have seen some of the videos of her doing healings and deliverances in bookstores or on stages. So we delve into that. He did a bunch of research there. He also talked about Gen Z and their worship preferences in another article that he wrote at the beginning of the month. We dive into that, some of the data. What is it telling us? Why do Gen Z people actually tend to lean towards some of these old school orthodox services? And it kind of goes against the grain of what a lot of us think. But there is a lot of data there to show us that, hey, they kind of like something about, you know, maybe an old church pew, maybe an organ, something that some of you all have been in or grown up in. A lot of us grew up in contemporary churches. So what is it about the orthodox style that's driving them to those churches? That's what Jonathan's going to dive into. Then he's going to stick around and talk with me through the check-in and tune-in sections where we discuss Hayden Panettiere. We discussed the Los Angeles Lakers sale. Man, sports franchises, guys, they are just blowing up in value. 12 and a half billion dollars for the Lakers would have sounded insane just four or five years ago. But this is the reality of we live in a world that's so virtual and a world that has so much AI and a world that tries to keep us in our homes and on our screens. But people want to be out and about and surrounded by other people, other fans, other people at a concert, other people in church, other people in a movie theater. There's something about a real authentic, raw experience, live experience that's drawing people there. And I think these billionaires are starting to realize, hey, we got to cash in on this now. So there's something there because we're not made for isolation. God has made us to be in community. This looks best in a church setting, but we see it just in our human nature. People who don't even know the Lord, they want to be surrounded by others, they want friendships, they want authenticity. There's a lot there. So we're going to talk a little bit about that and then even a big race this weekend. You might say, what? You guys don't ever talk about race cars. That's because it's not generally the thing that's at the top of culture, but there is something happening this weekend. We're going to discuss that at the very end. So stick around, hear Jonathan dive into these topics. Uh, it was a great conversation with him, so I hope you enjoy it and let us know your feedback. All right, let's jump into the brief.

Conner Jones: [00:02:47] Okay, welcome. Jonathan Becker, I'm so glad you're here. Welcome to the show.

Jonathan Becker: [00:02:51] Thanks, Connor. Thanks for having me on. I'm honored to get to do this. I'm looking forward to our conversation today.

Conner Jones: [00:02:56] Yeah, absolutely. So a little bit about Jonathan. He is the student minister at Marvin Methodist Church in Tyler, Texas. You love it out there in the East, don't you, Jonathan? How you East Texas?

Jonathan Becker: [00:03:04] I do, but not right now, man. It's a thousand degrees out here.

Conner Jones: [00:03:09] A thousand degrees everywhere in Texas, but it's especially, it's always super humid over there in East Texas. I remember working at a camp in Tyler and just being like, brutal in the summer. But Jonathan, you are an adjunct faculty at in biblical studies and Christian ministry at Heritage Bible College. And you hold a MA in biblical literature from Wesley Biblical Seminary, and you plan to begin your PhD in theology in 2027 after completion of your DMin from Truett Seminary. And as I mentioned at the top of this episode, he is a contributing writer for us here at Denison Forum, and you tend to tackle pretty thorny theology subjects. So, you know, you got all this like study, you got all this education. It's good that you're doing this. So I'm so glad you're joining us today, Jonathan. I want to start off with a couple questions for you here. You recently wrote an article, I think we posted it this past Monday, actually. And the title was The Dangers of Kathryn Krick and the New Apostolic Reformation. First off, on that, who is Kathryn Krick and what is the NAR movement? And then I'll ask you another question about that specifically about the NAR movement and one of their big foundational pieces is called the Seven Mountain Mandate. But just start us off with who's Kathryn Krick? What is the NAR?

Jonathan Becker: [00:04:16] Sure. So Kathryn Krick is a charismatic leader that has really gotten famous over the last few years doing deliverance videos. She's really kind of just gotten popular on social media. People will see her doing deliverances and sermons of some sort. She claims to be an apostle. So these are some of the things that has really like really heightened her status. And so she has a pretty large following, hundreds of thousands of followers on social media. And so the NAR itself is not actually a part of a denomination. It stemmed from, you know, the charismatic Pentecostal movement. There were just there were some people in there that kind of formed this movement. Uh C. Peter Wagner was the first person that named it. Um and that was in a 1996 conference at Fuller Theological Seminary and he was a a professor there for I believe it was close to 30 years. And so that's kind of where it started and then it kind of evolved and really the idea was is they were trying to in a nutshell, they were trying to shift churches from being denominational and being more led under apostleship, under prophetical and apostle, you know, led leadership is really what it is. And so when she claims herself as an apostle, of course, I guess we can kind of see that trend, but.

Conner Jones: [00:05:49] And there are other people, there are other people part of the NAR, people are probably very familiar with Paula White, um, over who was, you know, who was Trump's personal spiritual advisor and also heads the the newly created faith, uh, department in the White House. So.

Conner Jones: [00:06:06] Yeah, I've definitely heard of her. She's always been around. And and I can see similarities between her and Kathryn Krick. Kathryn Krick seems to be this character who has really risen up in the last few years, like you said, like her social media following has just blown up. She's grown this huge audience. But I want you to focus specifically, can you tell me what is she doing specifically in these videos? They have gone ultra viral. I mean, millions upon millions of views. You're calling them deliverances. It's really kind of like a a healing is what's happening at her book signings, on stages. She's preaching all these things. She's kind of associated with some sketchy pastors who have like abuse allegations. She may or may not have known about. We don't know that for sure. But her her general circle of influential people that she's looking up to, they're not exactly um ideal in that sense, right? But these videos, what else are we seeing in them?

Jonathan Becker: [00:06:58] Well, really what we see a lot of and and I'm sure that some of the viewers if they've read the article already, they've seen, you know, Mike Winger, very popular pastor and teacher, um Allie Beth Stuckey, very popular. They have already done some videos on breaking down some of what's going on in Catherine Krick's videos. But yeah, a lot of what she is doing is sometimes there is like demonic deliverance where somebody will come up from the audience and they'll start talking and then they'll just start shaking and flopping to the ground. So we've got that, which I don't think that's necessarily new for a lot of our readers and watchers. I think that's probably something that we have seen before, possibly like Benny Hinn style stuff.

Conner Jones: [00:07:42] Yeah, I was thinking of Benny Hinn too. And how Costi Hinn now has, I believe his nephew, talks a lot about that and how it was a lot of it was not real.

Jonathan Becker: [00:07:50] Yeah. And you know, it it it really does beg the question on are these people acting? You know, what is going on? It just you've watching it and you get that unsettling feeling that something's not right. And so there's a lot of that in her videos, a lot of, you know, deliverance, there's a lot of uh, you know, healing style things as you were saying. So that's, you know, that's how a lot of her popularity exploded was sharing these videos, people sharing them. It's also…

Conner Jones: [00:08:21] Yeah, I mean, we're seeing like, I think part of it, it's almost made for virality because you're seeing these people come up to her, talk to her, get touched by her, and they start shaking insanely, falling to the ground in the middle of these like Barnes and Nobles, right? Like they're just it's very much so a big scene. Now, I can't sit here and say that everything is not real. Like I I can't deny that God can do these types of things. That's where you have to strike the balance in this conversation. It's like basically what this is going to be is like a call to discernment and try to figure out if you think this is actual prophetiizing, is this actual work of God or is this something totally false or at the worst demonic in a way. And we're not going to be able to tell you exactly what it is, but we are just breaking down the situation and what you should look for in these videos. I will say, if you want to watch these videos, they're linked in the article that Jonathan has written for us, which will be linked in the show notes here. So go read the article, see these videos. I will say, Jonathan, I think the most disturbing video was actually this one where people are coming up to her. She's sitting on a stage and they are bowing to her and bringing her gifts. And they're basically praising her, not praising God, they are praising her and they're calling her mama. I mean it's it's almost got a cult-like feel to it.

Jonathan Becker: [00:09:34] Yeah, they're calling her mama, saying we honor you, you are, I I I forgot the exact wording, but basically like you're the greatest of us all kind of a thing. And so very, very much, you know, something Paul in Luke wrote against in the New Testament, you know, and so they they rejected worship from man. And so, you know, while you can argue maybe they are just humbled by who she is and they're not physically worshiping her, it's a really fine line of what's going on in those videos and it just it's just unsettling. Yeah. You know, so I I would certainly caution our readers and watchers to be discerning. There's no question that the Holy Spirit still, you know, allows us to speak in tongues. There's no question that the Holy Spirit heals and does does miracles, but this seems very theatrical. And so, yeah, definitely something to pray and discern on when you are engaging this kind of content from anyone is scripture says to test the spirits. So.

Conner Jones: [00:10:38] And this is true of not just this situation. This is true of anything that feels off. If it feels off, there's a reason you feel off about it and you need to think about it, pray about it, discern that. Can you tell me with this NAR movement that she's technically part of, technically not a part of. I know you're saying it's kind of more like a vague denomination. It's not actually an organization per se. It's more of just this big theological movement.

Jonathan Becker: [00:11:00] It's kind of an independent shift, right, right.

Conner Jones: [00:11:01] Right. What is it that they are saying when they call this concept the Seven Mountain Mandate? What is that?

Jonathan Becker: [00:11:08] So the Seven Mountain Mandate is something that they believe Christians should be trying to do as a collective. And I'm not denying that there probably isn't good heart behind this. The Seven Mountain Mandate basically tells Christians that they need to be in control of the government, business, religion, family, the arts, media, education, all these different areas. So these seven mountains, right? And so I I think it's important to delineate that like there's nothing wrong with Christians being in charge of these areas. I think it'd be a great thing if Christians were in charge of these areas. But if you're going to hinge your entire movement on basically, you know, you are basically this, this might be for lack of better words, but you're a fringe movement and you are trying to infiltrate all these different areas. I'm trying to figure out doing my research on them, what was their ultimate goal of the Seven Mountain Mandate? Because I mean, we see people like Paula White, let's just say, you know, she's now in the highest form of government, you know, she's in the White House. You know, and you hear some of the things that she teaches and it's just like, you know, if your goal was to get up into the government, congratulations, you made it, but you teach so much heretical things. Like you teach like that Christians, we can walk into a room and basically we, you know, we're in control. We should demand power and we should demand, you know, a certain kind of authority. And it's just like, okay, we're getting really humanistic here. This is this is leaving, you know, the authority that Christ has given us, right? The authority to cast out demons, the authority to live the Christian life, to, you know, let the Holy Spirit speak through us. We're kind of we're kind of beginning to change that foundation. And now we're beginning to kind of go into it's almost like a political Christian nationalism kind of approach to the way that we are involved in all these institutions. Yes, we should be involved, but when it becomes Christians have to dominate everybody and Christians have to be in complete control and God has given us the authority to do whatever we want. We can name it and we can claim it, which you will see a lot of teachings from Paula White on that. That becomes a problem. Now we're beginning to shift from, you know, we are going to let God discern and let God lead and we're going to let God have the glory to where we are now taking it upon ourselves and we are now being the mode, you know, in the government or whatever. Like we're almost making the government and the media, the arts, all these different things. We're making them almost the object of worship instead of God. And so it just feels very backwards to me.

Conner Jones: [00:14:02] Yeah. Well, I appreciate your answer there and thanks for taking us through that. As a last question on this topic before we dive into Gen Z worship, what is it, just all around, I know some of that you just tied into your answer to this question too, probably, but what is it that you are saying is so dangerous about Kathryn Krick and the NAR movement? In the article, you say it's a danger to evangelicalism. Yes. Why do you say that? And you gave us three primary reasons. Can you take us through those primary reasons?

Jonathan Becker: [00:14:27] Sure. I'll take you through the primary reasons and I can just start with a disclaimer that anytime you are trying and once again, this is from a discernment perspective, seems like there is a an intention to deceive or to think that I have all this power, right? That Kathryn Krick is kind of operating in, that just makes the Christian faith in general look bad. It makes us look artificial. It makes us look like, you know, we mentioned Benny Hinn earlier, like we are just grubbing for attention and for money and for support and it just reflects poorly on the gospel. And so, you know, the the prophet of apostle and the office of prophet and apostle is something that is closed now. We don't have a reason to need a prophet to come and tell us to repent and to do all these things. We have been given scripture. God through his special revelation, right, inspired these biblical writers, these men and possibly some women, we don't really know about some of the books. He inspired them to give us spiritual truth that only God could give. And so he has given us everything from the beginning of Genesis to the end of Revelation, all the things that we need to live the Christian life and to how to discern situations. And so for someone to come in and claim and self-proclaim themselves as an apostle, even if the movement claims that they're an apostle, I think there's a big departure from what we see in scripture where, you know, prophets and apostles were appointed by Jesus, right? The apostles were the were the people who were commissioned to go into ministry right before Jesus ascended, right? Jesus commissioned them. And then of course, the prophets are the ones that were to lead the people back to God. You go Old Testament, New Testament, that you would show that John the Baptist is the last prophet. But these people are called prophets and appointed as prophets by God. It's not something we can do for ourselves. There's no communal consensus to where, you know, well, hey, 100 people said I'm a prophet or I'm an apostle, so I'm an apostle or a prophet. That is not the way that works in scripture. And so I would say that that's reason number one on why we got to be really careful and why, you know, I really think that it's a danger to evangelicalism. So I can move on to the second point. Do you want to do you want to? Yeah. We bow only to Christ. I know that you had just brought this up that, you know, there are these people that bow to Catherine Krick, calling her mama, doing all these things that we just described. This is something we as Christians should always avoid. We don't bow to anyone. And so our God is not a human being, right? He was here, Christ, but he's ascended and he is now at the right hand of the Father. And so if it's not Christ, we don't bow to anyone. And I think we see this in scripture where we see this with Cornelius and with Peter. Peter didn't allow Cornelius to bow to him because he says, I'm just a man, right? We see that. And then we see, you know, with Paul and Barnabas, the the people in Lystra were wanting to worship them because they were like some form of gods. And they're like, no, we're the same nature as all of you. Do not direct your worship to us. It should be, you know, it should be to Christ alone. And as I concluded in that section of the article, it doesn't matter if it's John the Apostle, John Wesley, you know, John Calvin, John John whoever, we don't bow to anybody other than Christ. And we don't make exceptions for that. With that said, I think that also comes into play even with our favorite pastors, our favorite scholars. Sometimes we put them up on pedestals and we inadvertently make them into gods or into like demigods. And so that is also wrong. And so we need to be extremely careful as believers in that area. So.

Conner Jones: [00:18:27] Yeah, I absolutely agree with that. Yeah, we we don't bow to anyone but our Lord. I mean, he is the king of kings and we will all bow before him one day, which is just such a good reminder. And I appreciate that. We can't make false idols or gods out of anybody, even people that we, you know, we we grow to love and trust in our churches or whatnot and church leadership and evangelical leadership. It can be easy to even make some of those people an idol sometimes because you believe they have got this special thing about them. And a lot of them do in a way, they're spiritually gifted, but they are humans just like us and they are fallen, which is why sometimes when, you know, a prominent evangelical figure fails and falls into some sort of sin and it becomes public or whatnot, it's part of why it hurts so bad sometimes because in a way, in our heads and our hearts and our minds, we might be lifting them into a pedestal. It's a good call out. What was your third thing?

Jonathan Becker: [00:19:15] So the third thing is we need to be aware of when it appears that people are making their fame by casting out demons and claiming apostleship. And so, don't get me wrong, it's a beautiful thing to see a demon cast out. I have missionary friends that went to Africa and they they got to do this. And I mean, the some of the testimonies they brought home, I've seen it happen here in America, whether it's, you know, it seems like there's a house that just there's an unsettling spirit, there's something wrong in the house or there was something wrong with a person and they got prayed over and they were delivered. I've seen it happen. So no one's denying that it's not real. I'm not a cessationist. I'm not somebody that believes that all of these gifts have, you know, a lot of these gifts like healing and prophecy, even some people might even say deliverance, like these things are still here. They are still active. They might not be as prevalent. We might not see them as prevalent in the United States, but they're there. And I'm not ever denying that in the article, nor do I. But there is a level of discernment as well for us to be aware of these people that, you know, maybe are doing this for show and not they're not doing this for Christ. And so I think 2 Peter 1 verses 1 through 3 sums this up well that there's going to be people that are going to secretly introduce destructive heresies. I think we see that in the NAR. They're going to follow depraved conduct and will bring the way of truth into disrepute, right? So they're going to drag biblical truth in to this and make it look bad. And it says that in their greed, these teachers will exploit you with fabricated stories. That is a warning from Peter on how we really need to test the spirits. And I really get that feeling with Catherine Krick is that this there's fabrication happening here. So once again, I'm not the Holy Spirit. Ultimately, I don't know. I hope that some of them were real and legitimate, but I can tell by looking at some of the videos that as I said in the article, the acting leaves a little bit to a little bit to be desired. I think as Christians, we need to be extraordinarily aware and alert when people start propping themselves up as apostles and they're doing these great works. We need to keep a close eye on, you know, where our theology is and where our relationship with Christ is so that, you know, they do not become some some form of idol or even in this case, some sort of demigod. So.

Conner Jones: [00:21:39] Well, I totally agree with you on that. And, you know, it's one of those things where many of the best servants of the Lord are the are the most humble. They're not doing it for any sort of self-grandization or any way to prop themselves up or whatnot when they're not publicizing. Maybe they are doing healings and they are doing giftings, but yeah, they're just going into a place and doing it not with cameras. That's always interesting. Right. Well, Jonathan, thanks for taking us through that. That's really good stuff. Let's dive into your other article that you wrote a few weeks ago at the beginning of August. That was titled, What Gen Z is Telling the Contemporary Church, Why Young Christians are Drawn to Old School Worship. Yeah, man, you did a bunch of research on the topic of Gen Z worship preferences. What did that data show you?

Jonathan Becker: [00:22:23] Sure. Well, and it also very meaningful research for me because that is what I do. That is my, I mean, full-time ministry is a student minister. You know, this is stuff that's helpful for me to know, like what's really going on with our students. Like what we see can often be very different from what is going on behind the scenes. And so really, we have seen and there's there's a bit of data to suggest this, and I even note this in the article that some people are going to argue that there's not enough data to really suggest that Gen Z is beginning to kind of depart from the contemporary church. I would say that we have enough. There's enough of a sample size for us to kind of see the trends. A lot of it is theological. And so, for example, I'm just going to use Eastern Orthodox, you know, like just the the Orthodox church. There was a uh study done by the Orthodox Studies Institute and they have been doing this study since 2013. And so 62% of their converts since 2013 have been under 40. 65% of those were Protestant. They were from a Protestant church. And of those same number, 62% of converts, 60% of them had theological reasons. So, wow. Very interesting data when you begin to plug it along. And I'm not telling the readers obviously that the Orthodox church is the answer, but what I am saying is this, people are going to go where they feel like their questions are going to get answered in Gen Z. In the Barna study, this was a 2018 study conducted by Barna, 29% of Gen Z had a hard time believing of why God allows evil and suffering. Yeah. So if there's a third of Gen Z that's struggling with that, what are we doing to teach? What are we teaching? How do we teach, you know, why God allows suffering? And of course, the ultimate answer is is that Christianity is the one religion in the world that gives a legitimate answer to what will happen because of the suffering and the evil is there's going to end up being redemption and resolution and God is going to make everything right. And I think that there's a great message of hope. But if our churches are really focused on doing kind of this programmatic, stylistic kind of worship where it's showy, it's more flashy, it's like, hey, we want to get people there. That's like the focus and we're missing the truth. That's why we're losing Gen Z. is Gen Z wants that authenticity. They want to know that they are experiencing a genuine encounter with God. And so they can go get the entertainment on Tik Tok or on Instagram or Snapchat anytime they want. If they want to go see concerts, they can do that anytime they want. But when they come to church, and this goes against a lot of what people think about Gen Z, and as someone who's in Gen Z, I can affirm this, they are not shallow. They want genuine encounters. And so they don't want to, you know, be feeling like they're being sold Jesus and that they're trying to be drawn in by these things. They just want real. And great, great worship music is a a good part of the worship experience, but when all of the flashiness and even our sermons when they're just meant to tickle the ears and they're happy and they're joyful and there's 90% fillers and only 10% truth, you're not going to keep Gen Z in the church. So that's what the studies are suggesting. And then 23% of Gen Z in that study in the Barna study thought that Christians didn't act according to what they claimed in their faith. So they're hypocrites. So, and then the other 20%, another 20% said that they feel like science refutes scripture and Christianity. Whose fault is that? I mean, the church has got to take some of the blame on this is that if we ignore these issues, they're not going to just go away. We have got to engage the culture. And so with how many different schools of thought there are now, different philosophies, ideologies, all these different things in the world, all the different research institutions and colleges and universities, all the things that students can get their hands on, we need to make sure that as the church, we're not behind. We need to, scripture says, we need to be able to give an answer, right? We need to give an answer about our faith, the apologia. So, anyway, that's kind of a breakdown in the data on what we're seeing in Gen Z according to according to Barna and the Orthodox studies.

Conner Jones: [00:27:01] Well, it's very helpful for all Christians to know that this is what's going on. I think it runs counter to the narrative a lot of us probably run in our heads, which is, oh, well, Gen Z will like big lights and big screens and loud and proud music or, you know, hip pastors and all that. And maybe they do. I think a lot do, but it sounds like there is at least a pretty large chunk, a subset who's like, I want to sit in a pew and I want to listen to the old style music. I want to feel the authenticity of I want to sit in a room filled with Christians who they fully believe what's being worshiped here, preached here, taught here. And you do get that in a lot of contemporary services, but I I could see what you're saying is like, yeah, they're on screens all day long. A lot of Gen Z feels isolated. They want real authentic relationships with peers and friends and mentors, but specifically, they want an authentic relationship with Christ himself and they need help getting answers to the really tough questions that many of us wrestle with and we'll wrestle with it for the rest of our lives. It's not like those questions go away, but we learn how to answer those questions and learn how to see how scripture points us back to those things. How can the church respond to that? I think it's a great point, Jonathan, that you're making. As a last thing here on this point, if there's a church staff member here listening, a pastor listening, or anybody who's in some sort of leadership role at a church, you're listening to this conversation, what would be the primary takeaway and encouragement that you would offer them?

Jonathan Becker: [00:28:19] Well, I guess I can answer that in two parts. You want me to answer that Kathryn Krick and Gen Z? You want me to do both?

Conner Jones: [00:28:24] Oh, honestly, yeah, go for it. I was thinking the Gen Z thing, but if you can tie them both together, that's even better.

Jonathan Becker: [00:28:30] I'll do my best. So, I would say if, you know, if you're a church leader and we're going to talk about how we deal with theological issues, I think we need to be discerning. That would be my encouragement to pastors. It would not be just immediately go to judgment and, you know, say that someone's a heretic or that someone's a false prophet. I think that it's easy to do that. We have a big track record on Kathryn Krick and some of the teachings, some of the things that she does, it's pretty easy to call that out. And so I think when we see it, we should communicate to our churches like, hey guys, this is false theology. This is not what scripture teaches. So I think we need to do that well. And on the same part of the conversation, we also need to be very careful before we jump to conclusions. And so I think that's something that we deal with as, you know, you and me talking here, I'm a Methodist, you know, you're in the Baptist church. I think that is something that even Methodists and Baptists fight about is like, oh, well, they teach women in ministry and they don't teach women in ministry. It's just that kind of stuff. We need to be careful how we call out each other in theology, whether we are talking about a historical theological issue or whether we're talking about, you know, a holiness issue. And so, you see what I'm saying? There's ways that we can delineate between what hill do we die on and what hill do we not die on. And so, um I think we need to be discerning in the way that we do that. So that would be my encouragement on Kathryn Krick and NAR. Gen Z, be real, man. Just be real. That's what they want. Let, you know, when they come in, welcome them, greet them, make them feel at home, but give them Jesus. Don't give them some sort of, you know, artificially enhanced version of Jesus or a watered down version of Jesus. You know, I I like the sermon David Platt preached years ago where he said that so often in American churches, we have taken the gospel and we've watered it down with Kool-Aid to make it taste real good. And Gen Z's not looking for that. And so I would just say be real with them, love them, disciple them. They are looking for people to come alongside them and to guide them in their faith. They they are desiring that. And so that's why I think the study that we read in the Orthodox Studies Institute is very interesting is perhaps they are feeling that more in liturgical oriented churches than they are in the churches that are just purely focused on, you know, not in a bad way, but very performance-based. That's not where Gen Z is finding their wheelhouse right now.

Conner Jones: [00:31:07] Yeah. Well, thanks for that, Jonathan. Great stuff. You did great research, great writing on this. Thanks for coming on and talking, sharing some of the things that you wrote about and researched and all of that. This was really good and I hope it was really encouraging for our listeners to just really think about these things. They're real, whether it's a trying to discern if a prophet is real or not or trying to think through how Gen Z might be responding to different things within your church. This is real stuff and it's good stuff and you've got a great perspective on the last part for sure as a youth pastor. Man, you're around Gen Z all day long, so I know you're constantly thinking through how can we best minister to these younger people in our lives. So that's awesome. Well, Jonathan, do you want to stick around for check-in and tune-in?

Jonathan Becker: [00:31:43] Love to.

Conner Jones: [00:31:46] All right, let's do it. Let's jump into check-in here. Some sad news up top. Hayden Panettiere, an actress many of us know and watch, especially, you know, in our generation. She was kind of with in our generation, a little bit older than me. I'm not sure about you, Jonathan, but she was always around in TV shows and all that. Obviously, the star of Heroes and then Nashville were kind of her two really big things. She was also in Remember the Titans as a little girl in that movie. I think that was her first role. Sadly, she passed away Sunday in Greenville, South Carolina. Now, authorities have said that they found no foul play or suspicious circumstances, but that emergency responders found her in cardiac arrest slightly before her death. Just really sad, tragic. And one of those things, you know, to your question of like, why do why do things like this happen and answering that for non-believers or for for people who are new into the faith or what not or young trying to figure it out. It's just one of those things where, yeah, this is where we got to point back to scripture, right?

Jonathan Becker: [00:32:42] Absolutely. And you know, it's it's always sad when you see a loss of life, especially when someone's so young. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? I am, I'm 33 and so I think she was like 36. A lot of, you know, a lot of the movies my sister, my little sister grew up watching had Hayden Panettiere in them like Ice Princess. I can still remember that. I probably seen that movie 25 times. You know, it's just sad to see that. And you know, her little brother died years back as well. Yeah. And so, and he was like 28. And so it's just sad when you see that stuff happen and obviously we don't know all the reasons or what was going on behind the scenes. And I don't know if anyone knew that she was struggling. I think that also is a something to look out for as Christians is sometimes the face that we put out on Sunday is not the reality of who we are on Monday. And so it's always good to check in, you know, and keep each other accountable and keep each other encouraged. So.

Conner Jones: [00:33:37] Yeah, I agree with that. Yeah, she'd been open about some of the, I mean, truly just the struggles that she went through. Some of it was postpartum depression, some of it was just growing up as a child star and growing up in the the limelight and the spotlight. I've never honestly, I don't ever envy people who grew up like that. Justin Bieber's talked about this a lot, just the way that you are in the spotlight at age 13, 14, 15 in those formative years. Man, that that's tough. And then the just the pressure that you feel basically as a celebrity, as a teenager and then in your young 20s and everything, and then every little mistake you make is just so pinpointed. It's really hard. So she had a really tough life. There were some sexual abuse claims in there as well with with other people. I just really hard stuff. So very sad, tragic. Be praying for her family, her community, her friends. Another big thing this week, kind of changing the subject here. The Lakers, the Los Angeles Lakers, the most famous basketball team in the world, in America, obviously, they sold surprisingly. Now, this may not seem like a big deal to you, but I'm going to tell you why it kind of should be. One is it's who it sold to. This is going to be Josh Kushner and the former Disney CEO, he just left the CEO ship in the spring, Bob Iger, who's probably America's most famous CEO. And everybody was like, what's Bob Iger going to do now that he's not running Disney? It turns out he's going to buy the the Lakers. They bought the team for an astonishing record-breaking 12 and a half billion dollars. That's an insane amount. And Josh Kushner, by the way, yes, he is the brother of Jared Kushner. We've talked about him on this podcast before. He is out there in the Trump administration as a as an envoy with Steve Whitkoff negotiating deals in Gaza and across the world, even with Iran, some of that. So they are brothers. They both come from a a very prominent family in New York. And Josh Kushner, Bob Iger, together, they're compiling this money with their investment firm, 12 and a half billion dollars. They made that offer kind of out of nowhere to Mark Walter, who was the current owner. That man just bought the team last year, last summer for $10 billion. So he already turned a two and a half billion dollar profit in one year. Good little profit. I mean, what are your thoughts here on that, Jonathan?

Jonathan Becker: [00:35:39] Man, I mean, you know, I do follow NBA. I am a sports guy. You know, I used to coach college tennis, but I still follow all sports. I just hope Bob Iger does better with the Lakers than he did with Disney. That's all I can say. So, um.

Conner Jones: [00:35:54] Well, his first stint, I mean, his first run at Disney was actually really good. He got him into such a great place, saw oversaw the Marvel stuff. And then he left and appointed a bad successor and had to come back and try to rescue it. And he kind of did, but also there's been some some big hits and misses over the last couple years.

Jonathan Becker: [00:36:09] As a Star Wars fan, I would have some pushback.

Conner Jones: [00:36:13] Yeah, that's perfect. I will say the guy who they bought it from, Mark Walter, he's also the owner of the LA Dodgers. He was also part owner of Chelsea in the UK Premier League of soccer. Sounds like the reason he was willing to do this sale, even though he just bought the team a year ago, is because he's being investigated for some insurance loan fraud and all of that. And his companies are being investigated. And Wall Street Journal, New York Times, they both reported this week that he was looking for some fast cash and liquidity to start paying these things off. There's a potential he will face some sort of jail time, but he has not been charged yet, so he's still in the the free there, but he sold part of Chelsea this week as well. Now sold the Lakers. It sounds like he needs cash fast because he's found himself in a pretty tough spot, which is why when Iger and Kushner made this random call last week, he was like, yeah, you know what? I will sell it to you for a two and a half billion dollar profit. I could use some of that cash. So kind of interesting. All right, tuning in. Let's talk about that real fast. This weekend is the Freedom 250 Grand Prix. You might be saying, well, what is that? It's new. It's a race around literally the Washington DC Mall. This is Indy car racing. They have set up a 1.7 mile track around the White House, the Capitol building, the Washington Monument. It's probably going to look pretty cool. You know, the cars are going to zoom by these insane monuments and obviously just iconic structures that we all know and see all the time. The race is set for 1:00 p.m. Eastern on Sunday. It can be watched on Fox. Jonathan, do you have any interest in this race?

Jonathan Becker: [00:37:41] You know, interestingly enough, I'm not really a NASCAR guy because I feel like it's just, I'm going to probably, you know, make some people mad here, but oh no. I don't know. I just I I can't watch somebody drive in circles for 300 laps. So this though, this is interesting because I really I I have a a love for Formula One. I don't follow it a ton anymore that like I used to, but I think Indy car in this kind of uh a context, it's going to be very interesting because this is not like your typical, this is not like your typical race, right? So I would be I'm very interested to see how it's going to look on TV. Like how eye-catching is it going to be? I I think it sounds really great. So, um I will I will be tuning in for a bit. Yeah.

Conner Jones: [00:38:23] I probably will too. I mean, there's literally no other sports on this weekend. So golf is pretty much over. Football is a couple weeks out. So I'm like, maybe on Sunday, I will turn it on, you know, take a little nap in the middle of the race and then catch the very end. I do feel like it's probably a nightmare for everybody who lives in Washington DC or works there and is trying to like go between all these buildings. That's got to be just a big nightmare. But that's all we got today for check-in and tune-in. I will mention real fast the mailbag. As always, you can send us questions, you know, thoughts or things that we discussed today, even what what are your thoughts on our discussions today? Maybe you agree, maybe you disagree, maybe you got something back to to send to us. Let us know or send us fun stories we can share, topic ideas, anything for future episodes. You can always send those to [email protected]. Email us there. Follow us on Instagram at Culture Brief Podcast, leave comments for us. Other than that, guys, that's it for today's episode. Thank you, Jonathan for joining me. This was a fantastic time with you. Grateful for your time today.

Jonathan Becker: [00:39:14] Thanks so much for having me on and, you know, hearing feedback and seeing how our listeners and readers take this information and use it. So.

Conner Jones: [00:39:22] Absolutely. Well, thank you guys for joining us and have a great weekend.

Conner Jones: [00:39:26] Thank you for joining us on this week's episode of Culture Brief, a Denison Forum podcast. All articles and videos mentioned in this episode will be linked in the show notes. If you want to help us reach more believers with truth in today's chaotic culture, please share this podcast around and leave a five-star rating and review. All episodes are produced by Sound of a Rose. For more information, you can visit soundofarose.com. See you next Thursday.