This week, we’re breaking down the recent Trump-Putin summit in Alaska, European leaders visiting the White House, and the next steps in bringing peace to Ukraine and Israel/Gaza. But what does it mean for US foreign policy and Europe’s stability? And how should Christians think biblically about peace and power on the world stage…and in our own personal lives? We share our own stories of finding peace in life’s very difficult moments.
Then we dive into the summer box office – which movies flopped and which ones were blockbuster hits? Plus, who won our box office prediction game, Bust the Block?? Tune in to find out! You’ll even hear our go-to movie theater snacks. And of course, we have thoughts on the Texas Democrats coming back home and Scottie Scheffler’s insane win this past weekend.
Get caught up on culture this week—with clarity, context, and a Christian perspective.
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Topics
- (01:05): Alaska summit: High hopes and disappointments
- (03:33): European leaders and the path to peace
- (07:45): Ceasefire talks in Gaza
- (10:08): Spiritual reflections on global conflicts
- (12:27): Personal conflicts and seeking peace
- (23:02): Personal testimonies of peace
- (29:48): Summer movie box office results
- (36:16): Texas House Democrats return
- (41:09): Scottie Scheffler’s stunning victory
- (42:26): Conclusion and farewell
Resources
- Mailbag: [email protected]
- Culture Brief Instagram
- Sign-up for Denison Forum’s daily newsletter: DenisonForum.org/subscribe
Links mentioned in this episode:
Other articles on this week’s top headlines:
- Was the Alaska summit a success? – Denison Forum
- Politico Playbook: How Trump and Zelenskyy hit reset
- Hamas accepts latest Gaza ceasefire and hostage deal proposal
- Hamas says it agrees to latest ceasefire proposal; Netanyahu sounds dismissive
- Pro golfer Ben Griffin rebounds after “creatine overdose” – Denison Forum
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.
Micah Tomasella: I’m Micah Tomasella,
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 of course, we’re doing it all from a Christian perspective. And Micah, we got a good show today. You wanna just tell us what we’re gonna be hitting on?
Micah Tomasella: Yeah, kind of a different kind of show today, just because it was a slower Newsweek. So we’re gonna spend some time diving more into spiritual applications of how we can apply the news to our lives in order to. Actually, discern the news differently. We’re just gonna take that to a bit more practical level.
We’re gonna give you an update on the ceasefire talks in Europe and Israel and Gaza. We’re also gonna have a discussion about. Bust the block we’re gonna talk about. Yeah. All of the movies that came out, all the summer movie box office results. We’re gonna give you those and tell you who had more correct picks.
I guess I probably have a guess. We’re gonna talk about how the Texas Democrats came back and even talk about Scottie Scheffler for a minute. One of our favorite [00:01:00] guys, so let’s jump into the brief.
Conner Jones: The brief. Okay. Last week. Micah took us all the way through what to expect at the Alaska Summit between Trump and Putin.
That summit happened on Friday and you know, expectations were high. Micah, you and I were like, we don’t know what to expect outta this. But a lot of people had really high expectations. Maybe ceasefire would be brokered. Maybe a complete peace deal would start talks there, and then it was gonna just be the first step towards something.
The world’s media man. They traveled all the way to Anchorage. I don’t know if you saw the press conference room, but there was just journalists from all around the world that came all the way to Alaska. A red carpet was rolled out. Trump welcome Putin on that red carpet, and then had a flyover of several fighter jets led by the B two bomber.
I don’t know, Micah, if you think that was a show of force or like a welcome parade style thing Definitely was a show of force. I kind of think so too. Other people were like, they’re welcoming this evil man onto the country with a a flyover. And I was like, I think it’s a show of force. ’cause that B two bummer was probably one of the ones just used to drop Bunker [00:02:00] Busters in Iran.
Like I think it was. Yeah, for
Micah Tomasella: sure. A show of force. If you wanna talk about American military dominance, one of the first things you think of is obviously you think of the naval fleet. All of our ships, all of our bases around the world. But really America’s ability to have air superiority. I mean, it’s definitely came across like a show of force, but.
Who knows. I
Conner Jones: kind of think so too, but
Micah Tomasella: we’ll never know that one. We won’t know how Putin
Conner Jones: took that one. We’ll, yeah, he, he seemed a little perturbed for sure. Anyways, they did three hours of talks then had a highly, highly anticipated press conference afterwards. That left a lot of people underwhelmed. They didn’t really say anything.
They basically just were like, yeah, we talked, you know? And then Trump got ripped for playing right into Putin’s hand because really no, no end to the war was discussed or agreed to. And so people were like, he brought Putin to America, welcome him, all of this. And you know, the way you look at that conversation probably lands on your party line.
It was all partisan. You see that in the media. That’s here’s some of headlines that came outta the media last week. After Friday’s [00:03:00] talks this, these were headlines on Friday night and Saturday morning. The Daily Signal, which is a conservative outlet, said Putin would’ve said no invasion. Had Trump been president, the New York Times.
Said on their headline, Trump bows to Putin’s approach on Ukraine and Time Magazine said Trump and Putin didn’t make a deal, but Putin still won. Trump was not happy with this like response. He didn’t like being called like the loser of this talk, right? He himself posted that it was a great and very successful day in Alaska.
And then it just kind of slowed down. Everyone was like, what’s gonna come out of this? But this week, the story shifted, and that’s because European leaders, including Ukrainian president, Vladimir Zelinsky, made their way to Washington, DC met with Trump at the White House on Monday where he updated them on the conversation that he had with Putin, right?
And they discussed basically the next steps, and everyone was calling it like Team Europe and Trump in the room, like all these European leaders were there. And it was way more upbeat. Trump actually welcomes Zelensky and was happy he wore a suit to the White House. That was a big piece of the thing. He was way more [00:04:00] war.
He still didn’t wear
Micah Tomasella: a tie.
Conner Jones: He didn’t wear a tie though. But you know what, it wasn’t, it wasn’t the military fatigues that made Trump mad. Last time it was, it was a suit. So that was interesting. And then they posted these pictures from the White House of all these leaders just sitting around the desk of the Oval Office.
And honestly, it looked a. The way I imagine the lead teacher of a, a high school group of teachers of math teachers or something and all the other teachers just sitting around the desk, like I would’ve thought they’d be sitting at a, a big table, but they’re all just crammed in the Oval Office. All these leaders and
Micah Tomasella: they’re, or like a parent teacher conference where like you get called in and the teacher’s telling you about how your kid’s doing in school or something like that, because they’re sitting across that big desk.
That’s what I thought about. And then them
Conner Jones: behind them was like Marco Rubio and Scott Best. And JD Vance, they were all like, they’re the principals sitting back there. Those, yeah. Or like the security guards or something. It was, I don’t know. Everybody was smiling in the pictures because they were making highway towards a peace deal and, which is great news.
It just, I thought the, the optics of all of them crammed into the Oval Office. It was interesting, definitely interesting. And of course it made Trump look really powerful ’cause they’re all facing him [00:05:00] and he’s sitting behind the resolute desk and everything and then he stops. In the middle of this during their discussions to call Putin because they’ve basically agreed to the idea of what nato Secretary General Mark Root said was a breakthrough in terms of they’re ready to meet Zelinsky ISS ready to meet with Putin.
So Trump wants to basically be the middle man there and get that on the books. He wants to meet with them. He wants to either get a bilateral meeting between just Putin and Zelensky, but he really wants to do trilateral where he’s also in the room. Yeah. And when he offered the idea of trilateral, Putin actually told him, you don’t have to come.
I want to see him. Speaking of Zelensky one-on-one and Trump’s team, they apparently just started going with that. They started working on that, and then Steve Whitcoff, the guy who’s been in the middle of all these negotiations, has got the assignment now to get that all figured out. And then of course there’s been reporting that Zelensky and Putin.
They might meet before the end of August. Putin’s being wishy-washy. I don’t think he’s very happy about the idea of meeting 1 0 1 with Zelensky, honestly. So we’ll see if that actually comes through. [00:06:00] Hopefully it does. And this leads to a peace agreement, right? Mm-hmm. As far as Alaska and that whole meeting that happened on Friday, that basically seemed fruitless to a lot of people at first, Politico noted on Tuesday that Alaska really actually paved the way for security guarantees.
That’s what made the Europeans super happy is they. All of a sudden got Trump on their side to say, Hey, Trump’s, Trump’s basically yeah, the US will back this. We will offer some security guarantees,
Micah Tomasella: air support specifically,
Conner Jones: specifically air support. He’s kind of backed away from the idea of putting troops on the ground.
Right? Which is probably a, a good thing for him. His base, a good idea is not gonna be happy about putting American boots on the ground.
Micah Tomasella: If that was to happen, I think most Americans wouldn’t be happy with it, his base or not. I, I think most Americans would not want boots on the ground in this conflict.
Conner Jones: I fully agree.
Anyways. After all of that was said, this one administration official was quoted as saying after Alaska, we were excited that Putin was at least talking and there were signs we could negotiate. One of those signs came on the topic of security guarantees like we were [00:07:00] just talking about, and Putin was apparently quote, engaging on a conversation about security guarantees.
Instead of saying, no, not all, if Alaska was not successful, and Putin didn’t give us a little bit of opening. We wouldn’t have had the Europeans at the White House on Monday. This person also noted that Putin drives a hard bargain, but that opening is huge. So there was an opening here and that’s what led to the next level of discussions and is potentially leading to Europe being on board with the US and them offering security guarantees.
Putin saying, okay, I’ll let you guys do that. What’s the land swap situation here? We don’t know fully yet. That’s what has to be hashed out and we gotta get Zelensky and Putin in the room essentially. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yep. We’ll see what happens with our security guarantees. Like you said, I think most people would not be super on board with boots on the ground.
And then, you know, in other news, on top of all of this, we’re learning that Hamas has accepted an updated proposal for ceasefire in Gaza, which is a big deal. Israel’s got this. New proposal. That’s basically a partial deal for 60 day ceasefire [00:08:00] that would also allow the release of 10 live hostages and 18 deceased hostages and then would have them releasing Palestinian prisoners.
This is reportedly, you know, part of a last ditch effort to reach a deal and avoid a major new Israeli offensive to occupy Gaza City, which is something that Netanyahu’s been threatening that they’re gonna go in and just really take over the whole strip. And then, you know, several Hebrew media reporters have said that Netanyahu is examining the proposal, so we’ll just see what comes outta that.
This is all after in Israel, 200,000 Israelis took to the streets demanding that Netanyahu not launch this offensive and instead sign basically a hostage deal and a 60 day ceasefire. That was a huge protest. I don’t know if you guys have seen the images, but 200,000 people in Israel is the country has 9 million people.
That is a huge, that’s a lot of a huge portion of their population that went out to protest this potential new offensive in Gaza.
Micah Tomasella: Yeah, that was captivating. I saw some of those photos and some of the videos from the rally [00:09:00] that was there. But also something else to mention in this is that the bordering countries like Saudi Arabia.
More involved in this most recent proposal. Mm-hmm. And that’s kind of been the goal all along is that those who are trying to bring about Peace America, Europe, trying to bring about peace there, there’s gotta be more involvement from the countries who actually border Israel and actually border Gaza. So countries like Saudi Arabia and Qatar and countries like that actually getting on board with something like this.
They’re more involved in this. And so hopefully that brings some lasting peace where a country really far away doesn’t have to take this head on of occupying Gaza or rebuilding Gaza or relocating people, whatever it might be. So hopefully this does bring about more lasting peace. Yeah, I, it seems encouraging.
There have been encouraging signs. This one seems encouraging. We’ll see. We’ll see what comes from it. It
Conner Jones: seems encouraging on both fronts. Obviously we are continuing to pray daily that these conflicts come to an end.
Micah Tomasella: Yeah,
Conner Jones: and I would [00:10:00] encourage everybody listening to this to stop and just pray, you know, that the Lord would be in the rooms with these leaders and that this would bring about a peace agreement and ceasefire.
Anyways, all that has me Just wondering, Micah, you know, as we think about all this spiritually, what is truly at the center of these conflicts? How can we as Christians be approaching them spiritually from afar? You know, we’re way over here in the United States. Most of our listeners are in the US and Canada.
These things seem far away, but how can we approach it spiritually and apply it
Micah Tomasella: even to our own lives? Yeah, it’s a great question, Conner, because it’s, it’s something that we think about often as a ministry, specifically with Denison Forum, is this concept of if we’re discerning the news differently, then how do we approach the news involving God?
How do we approach it actually involving God in our thought processes and in our consumption of news? Mm-hmm. So that we don’t consume it and then just immediately get discouraged because it feels like there’s just nothing that we can do about it. It feels so big, it feels so far [00:11:00] beyond us. And so how can we apply what’s happening over there to our lives, to our homes, to our hearts?
So both of these global conflicts, I believe, point to a common denominator, and that’s our inability to resolve human conflict through human agency. Yeah. A sinful, fallen being, IE all of us war start and then these sinful, fallen humans try to create peace and the people creating peace are also sinful and fallen.
We need a higher power. We need our creator to be involved so we can resolve specific conflicts, of course, as demonstrated by peace treaties that end wars. But we can’t resolve human conflict itself from Cain and Abel. To today, right? Murder and violence are a part of our story from Isaac and Ishmael to today.
Conflicts between Jews and Arabs continue to persist thousands and thousands of years later. Did you know it’s been estimated that in the last 5,500 years. There [00:12:00] have been 14,513 wars, in which approximately 2.6 billion people were killed as of 2024, there were approximately 30 active arm conflicts worldwide happening simultaneously.
So let’s step this closer to home. Let’s bring this closer to home. What conflicts are you facing today? What relational issues exist in your marriage, in your family, in your friendship, in your work, in your school? But if you’re like me, and again, that question, that long question was rhetorical, but if you’re like me, you’re nonetheless tempted to substitute.
Religion about Christ for an intimate relationship with him instead. Mm-hmm. So you’re tempted to check the box of Bible study, to check the box of prayer, and even reading articles like this one as religious acts done in the hope of divine favor in response. And I’m quoting directly from Dr. Jim Denison’s article that came out on Tuesday, August 19th, where we’re pulling a lot of this from where he ended up by asking some questions [00:13:00] to help us examine what’s going on in our own hearts, what’s going on in our homes and in our friendships and work.
And we’re gonna end this discussion with that, but before we do, let’s talk about Conner. Why is peace so hard to come by? Why does it seem like it’s. Just out of reach, right? So James four one says, what causes quarrels and what causes fights amongst you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you?
That wrestle especially is the believer between the spirit and the flesh. But the big point here is the real issue is the human heart, the human condition, which we’ve touched on in several episodes in the past. Not just politics, not just borders. Those are symptoms of the cause, and it’s the condition of our heart.
So Conner, why do you think conflict is so baked into human history? And secondly, where do you see those same wars like we’ve talked about, show up in everyday life in marriage, family, work, and even church.
Conner Jones: Yeah, that’s a, it’s a good [00:14:00] question because those numbers you just presented a minute ago, 2.6 billion people have died in conflicts insane throughout.
History is an insane number, and you just think about that and you’re like, that’s such a large chunk of the population that has ever lived on earth. That has unfortunately died in war, in conflict. And so obviously it’s just a big piece of human nature. The Bible even says war will always wait essentially until.
The Lord comes back. Until we have a perfect earth, there’s just going to be conflict. And so it’s baked into our human history ’cause it’s just part of the fallen nature of sin. It’s part of the devil loves war, right? Yeah. He loves the destruction that it causes. He loves the way it rips apart. Countries and lives and cultures and pulls people away from God.
Thankfully, we have a good God who can redeem anything including such terrible conflicts, and people can actually grow closer to God during conflicts like this, which is very interesting. Anyways, if it’s happening globally, then you know, even if it’s not touching [00:15:00] you in a, you know, physical sense of like war, it’s gonna be touching you.
Conflict is in some spiritual, mental. Emotional sense, whatever it is. And yeah, I think about this in marriage, obviously there’s conflicts that happen with the spouse. There’s conflicts that happen within your family. Tell me about any family that sits down on Thanksgiving and everybody is at peace with each other at the table.
Yeah, that’s pretty rare. There’s at least some sort of conflict. There’s just always gonna be conflict there and then work. Yeah. That’s, that’s a big thing for a lot of people. Do you have conflict with your teammates? Do you have conflict with your boss? Do you have conflict just with whoever is renting out your office building, whatever it is, there’s always something there or a vendor or whatever.
And then even in church man, how often do we hear stories about church splits where there’s this war with inside this church that is supposed to be unified and closer to God than ever, and yet. They’re splitting and they’re pulling at each other’s hair and they’re, they’re struggling to find any sort of peace.
And it doesn’t always have to be a [00:16:00] church split. It can be much more small than that. But it’s very real. Mm-hmm. And we have to be wary of that, knowing that conflict and sin is real, and that that is what the devil wants. You wants to drive that.
Micah Tomasella: We have to remember that we have a very real enemy, John 10.
10, the enemy comes to steal, kill and destroy. Yep. And I think that that can be taken literally and figuratively. It’s this concept of the devil wants to kill the body, but he also wants to kill relationships. He wants to kill joy. He wants to kill the fruit of the spirit in your life. He’s already defeated.
We get to walk out in victory. But you know what I think about on this topic, Conner, on why peace is so hard to come by. What I’m thinking about right now is that if we are passive, peace will not come. Peace will not come if we are passive in the way that we approach relationships and the way that we approach our homes and lead and guide our homes and our kids.
And that’s man and woman [00:17:00] lead at work in friendships. If we are passive, peace will not come. I believe peace is is is an active partnership with God, being equipped and strengthened by the Holy Spirit, and it’s an active effort in our own lives where we will drift towards conflict. Yep. Conflict will just happen because it’s our nature, it’s our fallen nature.
It’s who we are. We need God, and we need to take a more active approach in our relationships, in our life and in our work, in our churches. We need to recognize that there’s an enemy. And then we need to pursue peace above almost anything else in order for peace to actually take place. Those families that get together and there’s full peace in unity at that table, that’s because there’s an active effort and a partnering with God.
Yeah. To make that happen. Yeah, great
Conner Jones: point. It reminds me Romans 1218. If possible, so far as it depends on you live peaceably with, all right, that’s a, that’s a man from the Lord, right? [00:18:00] Live peaceably with all which, you know Micah, specifically for you, when you think about conflict and you think about peace.
How do you normally respond when someone wrongs you? Are you one who’s gonna fight back, or do you try to bring peace? Are you a peacemaker? Are you like, oh man, that made me so mad, I wanna go at it? Because it’s easy to do that, right?
Micah Tomasella: You know what, brother? I always bring peace. I handle it perfectly every single time.
Not a problem.
Conner Jones: Yeah, I bet. Having been in a room with. Both of us, like whenever we’ve seen conflict, sometimes it’s just easy to to it. Sometimes it is true. I’ve seen you make peace with people and or help bring two people together, but it’s also easy to just be like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Yeah, for sure. I was, those are some fighting
Micah Tomasella: words.
I was being sarcastic, obviously. You know, I think one way that we can bring the discussion of like global conflict is to talk about personal conflict. To bring that home is to say, I absolutely struggle to bring peace. I struggle to bring peace in. In my home at times, I struggle to bring peace with my wife and with my daughters.
I have two [00:19:00] toddlers, and so it’s not always easy to respond calmly. Sometimes I do get frustrated even with my spouse. Even in relationships, even at work sometimes it is easier alm, it’s almost always easier to just react in the flesh, to just have a knee jerk reaction. But I’ll tell you what. Those moments where I take a deep breath, where I don’t say anything at all, where I think before I speak, where I even pray.
Mm-hmm. Even if it’s just for a few short seconds before I respond. I almost never find myself regretting my reaction when I just take a minute, when I don’t have that knee jerk reaction and at times. It’s best to just not respond at all. And really we’re just discussing this, apply this to your own life and how this looks for you and your friendships and your marriage and your relationships with family, with your kids at church, whatever it might be.
Take a deep breath, involve God in that discourse and I believe strongly just like I’ve seen in my own life and like I know [00:20:00] that you’ve seen in your life, Conner. You’re going to be happier with the result if you do that.
Conner Jones: Yeah, I do agree. It’s just always better to address it with a clear mind and a clear heart, like asking God to give some direction as opposed to just that lash out or just a, a quick reaction that you might say or do something that you will regret down the road.
Because that’s just how you reacted in the moment. I have learned that too. Of course, we learned that the hard way. How many times have we. Oh gosh. Reacted too
Micah Tomasella: quickly and it’s been a bad result, right? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So let’s talk about having peace. In times like this, Conner, I I wanna read a couple scriptures that I had pulled here that kind of come to mind as having true peace in Christ.
Isaiah nine, six says, for to us, a child is born to us as son is given, the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful counselor, mighty God, everlasting Father, prince of Peace. This is in the book of Isaiah for telling the coming [00:21:00] of the savior, Jesus. A long, long time before Jesus was actually born.
And this is written that Jesus would come and would be a wonderful counselor. He’d be mighty God, everlasting Father, prince of peace. We have a foundation in Jesus unlike any other. And then John 1427 says, peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you not as the world gives. Do I give to you? Let not your hearts be troubled, neither.
Let them be afraid. The world offers ceasefires. But Jesus offers a lasting peace and reconciliation with God and with others. And so Conner, can you think of a time, a specific time that Jesus gave you peace in the middle of something broken?
Conner Jones: Yeah, man, there’s, there’s a number of things that have happened in life that I can think of.
Either some relationships that are broken or just something that just doesn’t make sense in my head or heart specifically. This is a little more personal, but specifically my wife and I, we struggled to get pregnant at first. We are now just so blessed with [00:22:00] our one year-old baby boy. He just turned one last week, which has been the coolest thing to celebrate because it was such awesome, such a struggle to get, I remember that.
I remember to the point, and you were there with us, so many friends and family. We’re alongside us for that journey, trying to get to that point, and I’m so grateful for that support from everybody, but. The ultimate piece that we felt, I mean, we struggled. It was not always peaceful. It was, it was hard. But the ultimate piece that we felt was knowing Jesus was with us in this brokenness that we had, right?
We were at conflict with our own hearts. And of course it brings conflict into your faith a little bit. ’cause you’re like, God, why? You know all the the why questions. And I know everybody listening to this has had those moments. We’ve all had the why moments. Whatever the story is, whatever your situation has been in life, you ask God why.
But if you look back on that, if you’ve been through the trial and made it towards the end of that trial, and you’re able to look back and be like God was with us that whole time, and Jesus, man, Jesus brought that peace. Not a single [00:23:00] individual. Not, not you, yourself, Jesus. Now, he might’ve used individuals and he might’ve used different things in your life to bring that peace, but that’s a very more emotional type of conflict for us, and a little bit of spiritual conflict, not necessarily a deep relationship conflict or a work or anything.
I’ve had those too, of course, and Jesus has brought peace to a lot of those situations as well. But I’m just looking back, man. When I think about how God’s been so faithful in bringing peace to a conflict, that is something that’s. Just so great to, to reflect on, be like, man, I was questioning things. I was doubting, but God was there and he still is.
And now I can hear my kid crying down the hallway right now and it’s okay because I’m just so happy about it.
Micah Tomasella: Oh, praise the Lord, man. Thank you for sharing that. You know, I’ll answer that question too. Oh, Jesus has redeemed my life over and over and over again, given me peace when I least deserve it, given me that peace that surpasses all understanding.
That’ll guard my heart and my mind in Christ Jesus from all kinds of conflict growing up. [00:24:00] And. Difficulty and all different things that God has healed me from, healed me from epilepsy, healed me from speech impediments, just all kinds of things. And then, you know, speaking of kids, our, our oldest daughter, she had some health complications and she still does, that will be a part of her life forever.
And so from diagnosis to the surgeries that she’s had, to the surgeries that she’s going to most likely have. Jesus has been our anchor and our peace. When the world offers you no peace, when the world’s best technology and when the world’s best solutions can’t fix your problem, you’re left with an existential crisis.
Yeah, to a certain extent, everything I can see, touch, and feel isn’t offering me the answer. So then that’s when we have a decision to make and I’m just so thankful that God continued to draw me and woo me towards him. And. Even in the midst of incredible uncertainty, at times in my life, I [00:25:00] know that God is in control and I trust His will for my life so strongly that even when I don’t know if it’s gonna work out, whatever it might be, whatever I’ve gone through, whatever I’m going to go through, I know that it’s gonna happen according to his perfect will and plan.
And most of the time that’s a good enough answer for me. And from time to time, in certain days and certain moments, that’s not a good enough answer for me. But right now I know this to be true, that no matter what I feel, I know that God’s in control, loves me deeply and has a plan for my life.
Mm-hmm. That’s the same thing for you and your wife, and for your son, and for my wife, and for my daughters, and for every single person listening, whatever your circumstance is telling you right now, we serve a God greater than that circumstance. And that’s what Conner and I are. Sharing our testimonies to a certain extent right now is to say we didn’t have the answers, then we might not have all the answers now, but we trust God.
Simple as that.
Conner Jones: Yeah, we do. And you know, it all ties back to exactly these conflicts we’re talking about. No one knows the perfect answer, right? Yeah. No one on this planet knows the right answer. And that’s, [00:26:00] that’s so tough for people who are in the midst of these conflicts. They’re like, can somebody please just end this?
Somebody find the right answer to the end. And ultimately that’s why we need to be praying about the end of those conflicts. And I think all of this, Micah brings back to the like forefront of like just what is. Faith in our life? Is it a checklist? Christianity, are you just doing Bible study?
Are you just praying? Are you just doing things for the sake of appearance or habit and talking to God to just have a little bit of a, some sort of checklist, Christianity? Or are you spending time with him intentionally? And I’m asking this for myself too, right? Yeah. But you know, Matthew five nine says, blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the sons of God.
And so when I hear that verse and I think about checklist Christianity, Micah. Just one last question for you before we move on, but what is one practical way we can bring peace into our homes, our friendships, our workplaces, our schools this week? What, what can we take away from this discussion this week?
Micah Tomasella: Yeah. I’m gonna draw on a point that I made earlier, passionately, [00:27:00] pursue peace. Think about what you passionately pursue. You probably passionately pursue your work. Certain relationships, certain friendships. There’s probably several areas of your life, and I know there are areas of our lives and there are areas of the lives of those of our listeners where there is something that you’re passionately pursuing.
I passionately pursue. Being a fan of the Dallas Cowboys, I’m, I’m delusional about it, right? So think about what that thing is, like that hobby that you’re putting so much time into. Why don’t you channel some energy? Specifically bring these conflicts in your life. Bring these relationships that may be conflict free right now, and bring them under the leadership of the Lord.
Say a prayer, submit them to God and passionately pursue peace just like you would passionately pursue anything else passionately seek. Peace. And the way that you do that is you submit all relationships, every circumstance to God, every day. In fact, moment by moment, [00:28:00] intentionally pursue it. ’cause when you’re not intentionally pursuing peace, you’re drifting towards conflict because it’s human nature.
With God’s help, we can passionately pursue peace, and I believe we can experience peace that only God can provide in our workplaces, in our homes, in our relationships, in our churches, whatever it might be. But it just takes us like stop looking around and waiting for somebody else to do it. If you are noticing the problem, then I think that that probably means God is calling you to do something about it.
Mm-hmm. So stop waiting around for somebody else to bring peace. You bring peace and I’m preaching to myself right now. I need to bring peace in those conflicts in those relationships. I don’t need to wait for the other person. I need to do it. Yep, man.
Conner Jones: Same. It’s a good self-reflection, right? So much to take in here as you just go through your week.
Consider that. Consider what Micah just talked about, being the person who brings peace. Consider, are you living in a way of checklist Christianity, which is very easy to do, and I’m very, very guilty of that. Just doing things out of habit or just because I feel like I need to. Yeah. [00:29:00] Or are you specifically trying to spend time for God?
No reason except to be with him. Are you trying to read the Bible for no reason except to hear his voice? Are you trying to spend 10 minutes in silence just listening to the spirit? Do you listen to worship music and try to connect with God? Or are you just putting it on in the background just to have something on in the background?
And when did you last tell God from your heart that you love him? And that’s a great question. These are just questions to consider as you go into your week and think, why don’t I start doing that today? Think about how you’re approaching the Lord. So all great stuff. Again, continue to pray for and end to these conflicts globally, but also pray through your conflicts in your own life today.
Yep. Alright, Micah, that was a great, great, just breakdown of everything and spiritually applying the news. But let’s, let’s jump into a quick fun update from earlier in the summer. Okay. Back in May, we played a game that we called Bust the Block, which was basically where Mike and I made [00:30:00] predictions essentially on what the summer movie box office results would be based off all the movies that we knew were coming outta the summer and what their budgets were.
We said if we thought they were going to either break even, bust the block or flop, right? We made our predictions. So break even meant that it was gonna recoup its production budget and its marketing costs. To break even a movie has to make two and a half times the official. Production budget, right? So if, if a movie cost a hundred million dollars to make, it needed to make at least $250 million in the box office to break even to bust, the block meant that it made more than that.
Two and a half times it went well beyond breaking even. And then a flop means it did not recoup its budget at all and the studio takes on big losses. So we predicted for 19 movies, and we gave each other one point for each movie that we accurately predicted again, 19 movies. Here was the final score.
Micah, you got two. Correct. And I got
Micah Tomasella: five. So we, we both were pretty bad. But I, I’m not [00:31:00] embarrassed. You should be more embarrassed. You’re much more the movie guy than me, so you should be embarrassed.
Conner Jones: I’m, I’m not embarrassed. ’cause these are always hard to predict if studios could predict that they you should be.
I’m, I’m just.
Micah Tomasella: Okay. You’re just not, you’re just not embarrassed.
Conner Jones: Alright, here we go. We’re gonna start practicing peace in a relationship right now. Yeah, there you go. There you go. Anyways, so I did technically win, but I’m not proud of only getting five of these. Correct. But I will say there was just a lot of shockers, a lot of even movie expertss were shocked by God two.
You got two. Let’s just make some notes here. The biggest flop of the summer was the Pixar movie. Shockingly, a Pixar movie was the biggest flop of the summer Ilio. It only made back half of the budget. Half. It was a huge budget.
Micah Tomasella: I remember it was
Conner Jones: like insane. It was like $300 million for this animated movie and it made something crazy 50.
That was a huge hit for Disney, but they’re gonna be okay because they also had the highest bust, the block movie, which was Lilo and Stitch that brought in over a billion dollars, the only billion dollar movie of the [00:32:00] summer. Wow. And it made a lot of money. So I don’t know. You all here went to see Lilo and Stitch, but you guys were helping out Disney, right?
There Did, did you? Did you We did not see it. Did you see, did you go see any movies this summer? No. Okay. Sorry. I mean, you got two. You don’t have to apologize to me. You got two toddlers. It’s hard, man. I get it.
Micah Tomasella: Yeah, yeah. It’s just if we’re gonna line up babysitting, it’s not gonna go see a movie.
Like I just, I just wanna have a conversation with my wife without a child needing something. You know? If you’re gonna have a date every once in a while, I’m probably not gonna go see a movie. Not at, not in this stage until you get that.
Conner Jones: I saw, I think I counted six of these movies this summer. Wow.
But that is only because we’d put our baby down to bed. My wife’s I’m gonna go do some work. She works kind of just at night sometimes. ’cause she does contract work. And I’m like, all right, then I’m gonna go see the movie. I, I went to all six movies by myself. I, I did not go with anybody. I, I’m that kind of guy that can just go sit in a movie theater, show up right before it starts and just sit there.
No invite,
Micah Tomasella: Conner. I didn’t even know man. You know, a lot of times like go, you wanna go by yourself, man, I get it. I get it. I don’t go by myself. I think I kind of understand that. Yeah.
Conner Jones: [00:33:00] Yeah. I’m not talking to anybody during the movie, so it’s fine. What are your
Micah Tomasella: go-to movie snacks?
Conner Jones: What do you get?
It’s either popcorn or, this summer I really, I really dug into the milk duds, man. I’d just go in, grab a Sprite and a milk dud box and just destroy it during the film.
Micah Tomasella: Yeah, it’s tough actually, when you don’t bring your wife, you can’t sneak in like candies and snacks in her purse. Dude, I know. I have no purse.
And then it’s the summer. So you’re not gonna wear a hoodie. No. Huh? Yeah. So I mean, you actually had to just buy it. I’m a, a big, I’m a big icy guy. Like I, I will get an Icy a Coke. Icy.
Conner Jones: Yeah. I feel like I’ve been to a movie with you where you have gotten an icy, but
Micah Tomasella: yeah, it’s almost a hundred percent.
If I’m at the movie, I get an icy, I don’t get popcorn, I don’t get candy. I get an icy. Yeah.
Conner Jones: I, I’ll tell you this, I’m a member of the like cinema movie club thing, and so you get discount discounts on all these things. You can get rewards to get free concessions. So I didn’t pay full price for all these things.
Even so when you get a discount at a movie theater, it’s still like more than you would pay even at a gas station. Oh, of [00:34:00] course. Of course, it’s insanely expensive. Anyway, so I saw a handful of these movies. A couple other notable losers from the summer Mission Impossible final reckoning. Was just a big box office Disappointment.
Honestly, the movie was a little bit of a disappointment too. Karate Kid Legends, which was one you were very excited about, Mike, and I’m sure you’re still gonna stream it whenever it comes out.
Micah Tomasella: Yes, yes. That, that movie Strong. I’ll stream a lot of these movies like I that I just didn’t go see ’em.
Conner Jones: I think that’s what a lot of people are gonna do.
Superman basically broke even, but it was expected to be a, a big blockbuster. And it was not, and neither was fantastic for both those superhero movies. This might just be the end of the superhero age. I don’t know. Yeah, it might be. It might be, yeah. Big winners this summer. How to Train Your Dragon.
Obviously Lilo and Stitch, so just kinda like reviving the old animations seems to just be a big thing, so I’m sure we’ll just continue to see more of that. Yeah. Jurassic World Rebirth, even though it was a bad movie, got a lot of money. And then the movies that really shocked a lot of people were the smaller horror films.
I know what you did last summer, that one made a lot of [00:35:00] money and then weapons. It was the just breakout star of the summer. That one just came out of nowhere. In fact, you and I both predicted that one correct. We thought it was gonna bust the block because it was a smaller budget and the previous movie by that director had blown up and it did it again.
Yeah. Wow. Anyways, Lilo and Stitch got 10 times the budget. That’s the winner of the summer. Wow. A hundred million dollar budget. Made a million bucks. And that’s already
Micah Tomasella: a big budget. I mean, that’s already a, a huge budget yeah. Congrats Disney.
Conner Jones: Yeah, but also Disney make better Pixar movies if you want to, if you wanna get people back to this how, how are you gonna be the studio that wins and loses in the summer
Micah Tomasella: anyways? Okay, Conner, thank you for giving us a bus, the block update. Thank you for producing more results where I lose and you win. You know, I always greatly appreciate that. Okay, let’s jump into the mailbag and really just wanna talk about, please continue to send us.
Your comments, your questions. Your love, your dislikes, whatever it might be, [00:36:00] throw it at us, we can handle it. Email us at Culture [email protected]. Follow us on Instagram at Culture Brief Podcasts. Send us a dm. What do you want us to talk about? What do you want updates on? We want to continue to hear from you.
You guys have already been so great about that. Please continue to do let’s jump into the check-in section and Conner give us an update on what’s going on with the Texas House Democrats.
Conner Jones: They’re back. Look who’s back. They’re back again. They made it back. Texas Democrats. They came back home. They came back and they’re kind of.
I’m a little conflicted on what to think about this whole thing. Depending on who you ask. They’re either the losers of this whole thing or they’re the winners. Obviously that’s the long party lines like we continue to just harp on in this podcast. It’s always dependent upon who you ask. So the Chamber was able to resume business essentially with a quorum for the first time in two weeks because they’ve been gone for two weeks.
Republicans are now expected to be able to pass the redistricting plan that the Democrats left to protest, right? [00:37:00] Greg Abbott, the governor here, he accused the Democrats of having run away from their responsibility and called it. Just, it was like, it’s essentially just a betrayal of the state. He’s called a second special legislative session for them to now finish the job that they were tasked with at the get go, which is to redistrict and also pass these other things, including relief funding for the Texas Hill country that was devastated by floods.
The Democrats frame their protests as a victory because they sanc the first special session and basically just delayed it. And they encourage leaders of other blue states to push their own partisan redistricting plans and retaliation to Texas’s plan. So they’re saying they brought attention to the matter.
And now California, New York, Illinois, these other states are working on their own plans to redistrict, to basically counter Texas’s plan to add five Republican seats to the United States. House of representatives, Republicans are now also trying to get to Indiana to do the same thing, to counter basically California who’s trying to add it.
It is now just turned into this whole nationwide mess. ITing, the whole thing
Micah Tomasella: is frustrating Again. [00:38:00] What we wanted to get across when we’ve been talking about this is this is not new so the media narrative that this is new is completely incorrect. This is not new, but it’s still just as frustrating.
It’s still tit for tat. It’s not in voter’s best interest to do these types of things. It’s, it’s redrawing it to stay in power to crush your opponent. Which isn’t true humble leadership. Yeah. And so no matter who’s doing it, we don’t like it.
Conner Jones: The thing that’s different this time around is it’s what, you know, they’re saying the mid decade redistricting, typically redistricting happens after a census every decade.
Yeah. That’s when you determine new populations and all of that. So the mid decades, what people are like, oh, they can’t be doing this right now, but you’re right, it’s not new. This has happened before. Protests like this have happened before. Anyways, I think Texas is gonna, obviously. Get new districts and add Republican seats to the house, but I think you can now expect other Democrat states to do the same thing.
Micah Tomasella: I think one final point to make on this, Conner, before you take us [00:39:00] into the TuneIn section, is look at the story of how people reacted to Trump’s meeting with Putin. Look at the story of the Texas redistricting. Look at media right now and understand the problem. We are continuing to be fed news through a lens of the way that they want us to view it.
Yep. Fear-mongering. Implicit political bias. It’s, it’s, you know, so often it’s not just reporting what happened, it’s, it’s saying what happened, but really just fitting it around the narrative and then cherry picking certain things to make the other side look bad. So in, in our own mindsets right now, take a deep breath and say, okay, if you are a Republican, it’s very easy to get frustrated with Democrats for leaving the state.
But if Republicans left the state, would you feel the same way? Would you say they’re bailing out on their jobs? Would you say that they’re on vacation? Call a spade a spade. And the same thing [00:40:00] with this conversation with Putin. Honestly I’ll be completely honest with you, in my thought process, I’m just glad there’s a discussion being had.
There’s been none. There’s been no discussion. There’s been no end in sight. So why are people arguing against peace? People are arguing against peace because they don’t like who’s leading that? Peace, resolution or plan, so whatever it might be, if we’re on the side of peace, if we’re on the side of, hey, less wars, less people dying, we should look inwardly and say, no matter.
Who they belong to politically or whether if we like them or not, we should still want peace. And so just examine your own hearts and lives just like I’m doing, just like Conner’s trying to do as well. All of us are trying to do this. Think about what you’re consuming when you’re consuming it and make sure that you’re willing to call a spade a spade and you’re not just mad at something simply because the other side is doing it.
Would you be frustrated if your side was doing it too?
Conner Jones: I think that’s a great perspective. I have to catch myself thinking about that all the time too. [00:41:00] Yeah, of course. What we’re trying to do here in this podcast is offer kind of like just what’s happening in a, a middle ground of here’s what different sides are saying.
So you can pray through and think through how you want to approach these different things going on. Okay. Anyways, one thing in our TuneIn section is. We’ve talked about him quite a few times on this podcast, and I know not everybody here is a golf fan, but you can’t avoid just what’s happening with the just generational talent.
That is Scottie Scheffler, and of course we’ve talked about him from a faith perspective ’cause he’s a great faithful man and athlete. But he did win again on Sunday at the BMW Championship in stunning fashion. And Mike, I know we saw it, the 82 foot chip shot. This man chipped a ball in from 82 feet away into the hole insane on the second to last hole on hole 17, and that allowed him to win this championship.
Going into this next week, they will be doing the final round of the playoffs in golf where he is on par to just probably win again.
Micah Tomasella: Essentially, I think Scottie’s got God on his side or something because that was an insane chip just. Just Google it and that that ball [00:42:00] rolls for 30 seconds and then goes into the hole.
I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s an insane shot.
Conner Jones: It’s absolutely insane. We’d love to see Scottie be successful. People are already now, I mean, they’ve been doing it, but this officially made them start to compare him to Tiger Woods. So if there’s ever been a golfer, you want to just, if there’s a time to like tune into golf for the first time, it’s for Scottie Scheffler as a man of faith and as a man who is just.
Unreal talent. So anyways, keep an eye on that and we’ll, we’ll keep you guys updated on Scottie. We love seeing his success. Anyways, guys, this has been a great episode. So thank you for joining us on this week’s podcast of the Culture Brief at Dennison Forum Podcast. All articles and videos that we possibly mentioned.
We’ll be linked in the show notes. If you enjoyed today’s episode, please subscribe and rate, review the show and share with a friend, and we’ll see you next Thursday. Bye.
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