In the debut episode of the newly rebranded Faith & Clarity Podcast, Dr. Mark Turman sits down with Josh Miller, Conner Jones, and Dr. Ryan Denison for a thoughtful roundtable conversation. Together, they tackle timely issues including climate change, the mandated display of the Ten Commandments in classrooms, and the growing presence of AI companions, examining each through a biblical lens.
Throughout the discussion, the team emphasizes how Christians can respond to cultural challenges with both conviction and compassion. The episode concludes with practical insight on how to engage in meaningful conversations with loved ones, especially when navigating moral or ethical disagreements, while staying rooted in truth and guided by love.
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Topics
- (00:13): Introducing the Faith & Clarity Podcast
- (00:47): Round table discussion Topics
- (02:49): Climate change: A nuanced perspective
- (15:14): The Ten Commandments in schools debate
- (30:04): Understanding different perspectives on religious displays
- (32:40): Reflecting on the impact of religious policies
- (35:05): Exploring the concept of AI companions
- (37:07): Discussing the ethical implications of AI
- (47:00): Navigating relationships with LGBTQ+ individuals
- (55:15): Concluding thoughts and reflections
Resources
- Ask Us Anything: [email protected]
- How has Denison Forum impacted your faith?
- A Cold, Hard Truth About Climate – The Dispatch
- Texas will require public school classrooms to display Ten Commandments under bill signed by governor
- Texas Republicans are trying to force public schools to display the Ten Commandments
- Republicans passed the bill on the Sabbath… breaking the 4th Commandment
- Talarico on Joe Rogan clip
- #2352 – James Talarico – The Joe Rogan Experience
- Replika
- AI friendships claim to cure loneliness. Some are ending in suicide.
- Should I attend a same-sex wedding?
- What does the Bible say about homosexuality? • Denison Forum
About Dr. Ryan Denison
Ryan Denison, PhD, is the Senior Editor for Theology at Denison Forum. Ryan writes The Daily Article every Friday and contributes writing and research to many of the ministry’s productions. He holds a PhD in church history from BH Carroll Theological Institute after having earned his MDiv at Truett Seminary. He’s authored The Path to Purpose, What Are My Spiritual Gifts?, How to Bless God by Blessing Others, 7 Deadly Sins, and has contributed writing or research to every Denison Forum book.
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 Josh Miller
Josh Miller is the Chief of Staff and Chief Strategy Officer at Denison Ministries. He is also a disciple of Jesus, husband, and father. A Christian leader, author, and songwriter, Josh brings over 20 years of ministry experience—from global worship tours to pastoral leadership. He lives in Plano, Texas, with his wife and two sons, fueled by faith, craft coffee, and a love for tacos.
About Dr. Mark Turman
Mark Turman, DMin, serves as the Executive Director of Denison Forum, where he leads with a passion for equipping believers to navigate today’s complex culture with biblical truth. He is best known as the host of The Denison Forum Podcast and the lead pastor of the Possum Kingdom Chapel, the in-person congregation of Denison Ministries.
Dr. Turman is the coauthor of Sacred Sexuality: Reclaiming God’s Design and Who Am I? What the Bible Says About Identity and Why it Matters. He earned his undergraduate degree from Howard Payne University in Brownwood, Texas, and received his Master of Divinity from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth. He later completed his Doctor of Ministry at George W. Truett Theological Seminary at Baylor University in Waco.
Before joining Denison Forum, Mark served as a pastor for 35 years, including 25 years as the founding pastor of Crosspoint Church in McKinney, Texas.
Mark and his high school sweetheart, Judi, married in 1986. They are proud parents of two adult children and grandparents to three grandchildren.
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 Faith & Clarity Podcast, as well as many books and additional resources.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
NOTE: This transcript was AI-generated and has not been fully edited.
Dr. Mark Turman: [00:00:00] Welcome to Faith and Clarity with Dr. Mark Turman. And if you’re wondering what happened to the Denison Forum Podcast, don’t worry. You’re in the right place. And we’re glad that you’ve come to follow along with us. We are restarting this Denison Forum podcast that’s been going for three and a half years and has been known to you as the Denison Forum Podcast.
If you’ve been a past listener, we’ve refreshed our approach and we’re gonna explain some of that to you. If you’re wondering if you’re in the right place, you are. This is Faith and Clarity offered by Denison Forum and we’re glad that you’re here as either a current past or new listener. We’re building on the three and a half year foundation of the Denison Forum Podcast, and we’re glad to have you with us.
We’re gonna have a round table conversation. About some let’s just say not so lightweight conversations around climate change, the 10 Commandments being required in school classrooms AI [00:01:00] companions, and if we have time, how do we relate to our gay friends with compassion as well as conviction.
My collaborators today. My conversation partners may be familiar to you from one or our other podcast. I have Josh Miller, our chief of staff at Denison Ministries, Connor Jones, who is the director of Performance Marketing for Denison Ministries and Dr. Ryan Denison, who is often on our podcast.
Who is our senior editor for Theology. So guys, good morning. Say hello.
Josh Miller: Morning.
Dr. Ryan Denison: Good morning.
Conner Jones: Good morning. Happy to be here.
Dr. Mark Turman: All right, so this is like the big four, or at least the big three. We hope. And we’re gonna have a lively conversation that we hope will bring you clarity as as we always talk about, we want to help you to think biblically, to live faithfully for Christ, and also to serve.
In your areas of opportunity and influence to help the world to be a more flourishing place in the name of [00:02:00] Christ. And so we hope that today’s conversation helps you to do that. And today we’re gonna have a round table conversation and hope to do that more. Lemme just read a little bit from our show description that might be helpful to you and also helpful as you’re trying to share this with others.
We want at Faith and Clarity to go beyond the headlines and to help you think biblically about news and cultural issues. We wanna bring you good insightful conversations that combine intellectual depth with real world application. And most of all, we want to equip you to respond to the events and trends of our day with wisdom and biblical truth.
To live by faith and not by fear. So that’s a little bit about where we’re headed in the podcast and where we’re headed today. And so we’re gonna jump in and try to have some good, helpful conversations. And we’re gonna talk right now about this issue of climate change that just seems to be. Ryan all over the [00:03:00] headlines and just about the time you think it’s gonna drift away, it comes roaring back in some way as soon as it either gets too hot or too wet or too windy or too cold.
So you want to talk about climate change. So take us where you want us to go.
Dr. Ryan Denison: Thanks. And I definitely didn’t set out to start to talk about climate change for today, but an article by Jonah Goldberg for the dispatch really kind of grabbed my attention. He, his article is about how climate change could end up saving more lives than it costs.
And when I saw that in the headline, I’m like. That’s a little different than how I usually hear climate change discussed. And so it made me wanna read it. And one of the things he talks about is how it turns out that people talk about climate change and the dangers of it. And he actually, in the article specifies that he does believe climate change exists.
He does believe it’s a problem he need, thinks we need to solve it. We just don’t necessarily need to go as far as a lot of climate change extremists, I guess you could say want to, but. His point was that it, it’s actually cold [00:04:00] weather kills 8.3 times more people in Europe than heat does. And he talks about, but at the same time, heat does get nine times more media coverage.
And that was really kind of the, the angle he approached it through was looking at the facts versus the narrative. And one of the. Among further among those where he talks about how climate change usually leads to warmer winters more than hotter summers. And so through that, it means that it could end up leading to greater crop yields, faster reforestation and fewer cold related deaths.
In addition, it costs four times, there’s four times greater emissions to heat a house than to cool a house through air conditioning. Hmm. And so he gave a lot of these facts that kind of demonstrate how well climate change is a problem and how it is. Possibly creating things that are bigger issues at the same time.
It is, there are some good things to it too. And as part of that, he pointed to a Wall Street Journal article that talked about how in French media outlets, for example they talked about how a lot of Europe doesn’t have air conditioning and [00:05:00] how they see it as almost an unsustainable luxury in some ways.
And to further that narrative, the Wall Street Journal article talked about how in France they say that if you go into a room that’s 15 degrees or more cooler than the outside temperature, it can induce something called thermal shock, which results in nausea, loss of consciousness, and respiratory arrest.
And as someone who lives in Texas where it is routinely 25 degrees cooler inside than outside. If you’re lucky if he, a lot of times it’s even colder than that. It’s like that just, that didn’t quite check out with my lived experience at least. And and that was, but that was kind of the point of the article was talking about how oftentimes we can, it’s so easy to get obsessed with the narratives around.
The urgency of climate change that you end up ignoring the facts. And that made me think about how it’s very easy to take that same approach, make that same mistake with a lot of things in our lives where it is easy for us to become so concentrated on the outcome that we [00:06:00] fear that we start to fudge a little bit on how we get there.
And we ignore facts. Ignore the data to instead kind of adopt our preferred narrative. And so I was curious, what are y’all’s thoughts on kind of this story or other places that you’ve seen kind of this temptation crop up in our church, in our culture, as well as our churches?
Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah, guys, jump in here anywhere you want and raise your hand or, you know, pull on your ear if you if, if, if I’m not paying attention to you.
But yeah, I just had a bunch of questions, Ryan, jump up in my mind from. Some of the summary that you were giving but before the other guys jump in for people who may not be familiar, give a quick explanation of what the dispatch is and who Jonah Goldberg is. If people are not familiar.
Dr. Ryan Denison: The dispatch is one of my favorite resources that we rely on a lot.
Like when I’m doing research for the daily article on Fridays, that’s one of the first places I go. And they do a. I, I won’t say I agree with everything, which is part of why I trust [00:07:00] them and rely on them is that I don’t agree with everything. But I think in general, they take, they do a good job of outlining of sticking to the facts where possible and allowing the facts to drive the narrative.
I don’t always agree with the conclusions they get to, but I kind of trust their process. And Jonah Goldberg is one of the one of the leaders of. Kind of, of the dispatch in terms of really setting that tone. And so I really enjoy writing reading what he writes, even if I, again, even if I disagree, I, I think he’s probably further down the climate change further worried about climate change than I’m personally even, but I, I, I appreciate that this is the approach he takes.
And so that’s one of the things I love about the dispatch and about Goldberg as well. Awesome.
Conner Jones: Yeah, I, I guess my initial thoughts are I literally cannot imagine a life without air conditioning being here in Texas. It would be absolutely abysmal, and I know France does not get as hot as Texas does, or Arizona or Florida or all of the Southern United States, but it still gets really hot there in the summer.
Same thing in the uk and I know that some of these countries over there in Europe are trying to figure out the best ways to. [00:08:00] Basically provide ac, especially in critical areas. I, there’s hospitals that don’t have air conditioning, which is insane to me. ’cause a hospital in America is usually freezing cold.
If you’ve ever been there for a few days, you have to wear a sweater the whole time. Even in August, I was in a hospital last year when my wife gave birth and we were cold the whole time inside that place and it was 102 outside. All that to say, I think what he’s pointing out is really good and can apply to the church and the fact that he’s saying it’s easy to cherry pick data.
I think you can apply that to the church. And you know, when there’s narratives that people wanna push within biblical structures, they might cherry pick scripture, pick out scriptures that apply to what they’re saying, but they’re ignoring other scriptures that actually don’t agree with what their philosophy or narrative is.
All right. In fact, there’s a guy I’m about to talk about here in a minute who was just on a episode of Joe Rogan, who very much so cherry picked scripture to push his narrative, his political side of the view, but is not in any way representing the full picture of what the Bible says on that. [00:09:00] Topic. And we’ll hit on that here in just a minute, but all I’m saying is I think it’s a common thing.
This goes into politics, this goes into climate change or social issues, but it also goes into scripture. How do you interpret the scriptures and what are you cherry picking to support your agenda? Or are you supporting God’s agenda? I think that’s the way we can see that. Yeah.
Josh Miller: We also love binary options where it’s either something is all true or all false.
It’s all good or all bad. And so when we, you’ve looked at climate change in the past, it’s either very real and going to kill us all, or it’s a complete hoax and everybody who propagates the, the lies either dumb or evil in some way, you know? And so I appreciate at least. The more nuanced perspective here that maybe it’s, maybe it’s not that simple.
Maybe there is actual change happening in our, our world. Maybe the, maybe the earth is warming up. However, what does that actually mean for us? And going [00:10:00] actually a little bit deeper and looking at the. Complexities of that, where it’s gonna benefit some people and maybe hurt others. I think that’s very real.
I think there’s stratification by by whether you are rich or poor, what type of effect that has in your life. I think those implications are real. And so I. I, anyway, I just, I appreciate at least anytime there’s an issue where we get down to a, a good option and a bad option, a good versus evil type option, it throws flags up for me every time.
’cause rarely have I experienced something that simple. And so when it comes to this topic, when it comes to biblical topics, I would just encourage all of us to. Always be. If, if we’re seeing a binary option, you should probably stop and look a little deeper. We see politics has been a great example of this as well, right?
We either have, we have the villain of the savior and who that is depends on which side of the aisle you’re standing on. And binary options are almost always false. They’re false options typically. And so I think that’s [00:11:00] true with climate change. I do think we, just from a personal perspective, I do think that.
Change in general is painful, even if you could argue it’s good or bad in the end. And so when you look, if you know if the climate is changing. That is going to have an effect on people, and that change is probably gonna be something that needs to be managed well. Obviously you can, you know, if you’re on the side of climate change being a, an existential threat to the world, the we should manage it by reducing that threat.
Or if you’re on kinda Goldberg side of saying it’s actually, it may cause more good than harm. We still need to look for those that are gonna be extremely affected by the change, even if it’s a net gain and look to help those in need and help people navigate that may, we do have air conditioning here.
And so it’s, we’re gonna be less affected by the summer’s getting hotter. I don’t know how they could get much hotter here in Texas. And so we’re, we’re well equipped here where others may not be as well equipped to navigate changes in climate. And anyway, lots of thoughts there. I, I, I don’t know where I stand personally on this subject.
To [00:12:00] the, the data point. I’ve heard so many different sides of this that it’s hard to know what to trust, and at the end of the day, I think everybody is just guessing. And we need to do our best to manage what we’re experiencing right now and do our best to be good stewards of the world we’ve been given.
But I have a hard time coming to any sort of hard conclusion that I can really stand on concretely.
Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah. You know, and that’s part of what I loved about Ryan’s question or kind of conclusion is, is where do we find ourselves? How can we check ourselves when we’re you know, we’re drifting from being data driven on what we can know and do know at a certain point to what we’re agenda driven by.
Mm-hmm. And that certainly happens in our personal lives happens in our marriages, our families, our friendships happens in our churches. Where we’re hoping for a certain outcome and we, we want, we almost always know, especially when issues are complex, we don’t have all the information we want, and yet we feel compelled to make a decision or to take a stand.
And we’re like if [00:13:00] absent all the data that I want, then I’m probably gonna lean into my agenda because I’m never gonna have all the information that I want. And we need to find ways, and that’s part of where having some people that you are really at depth with relationally to hold you accountable and to say, Hey, is that really true?
Do you really have all the facts and information that back that up? Or is it just what you want to see happen? Hmm. But you know, when you bring this up, Josh, I’m kinda like you. I’m like, I don’t know exactly where I stand on this. You know, I, I have the sense that the climate, the world has always been changing.
I went back and looked, you know, we are really privileged to live when we live, when we are getting to live, because we didn’t actually start writing down like annual temperatures until the National Weather Service was formed in 1870. And I’m thinking the climate’s been changing a lot for a lot longer than that.
And so we don’t have all that much information. You know, there’s, [00:14:00] you know, I went back, I actually started writing an article for our website about what did they do before they had air conditioning? You know, they had to, they just lived with open windows. And then my other thought was. I’m never going to get sick if I’m in France.
I’m never, I’m never going to a hospital without air conditioning ’cause I’ve already been in a few and I don’t want to go back. And then I remember then I also thought about the fact that my wife, even in the dead of August in Texas, never goes into a movie theater, a hospital or many restaurants without taking a jacket or a blanket.
Because we’ve really figured out how to get really good at air conditioning in this part of the world, and I just would recommend it for the rest of the world, even if the French don’t agree. But yeah, lots of stuff to think about and lots, you know. We’d all like to claim that we are data driven in all of our positions, but oftentimes we’re probably leaning into our [00:15:00] agenda.
All right. We’re off to a good start. We’re gonna take a little bit of a break and get a breather and let you guys on the listening side get a breather as well, and we’ll be right back.
All right, we’re back with Faith and Clarity. Connor, you wanted to talk a little bit about the 10 Commandments getting posted in all the schools. School’s about to begin all over the country, and at least in our part of the world and a few other places there have been state laws mandating that the 10 Commandments get posted in every classroom.
Tell us about that.
Conner Jones: Yeah, I, and I’ve got some questions for you guys about this ’cause I’m just curious your thoughts. But essentially you’re right. Mark, the state of Texas specifically passed a law in the month of May for this upcoming school year. It will be applied in the September where every classroom in the state has to hang a poster of the 10 Commandments and the poster has to be at least 16 by 20 inches.
The proposal really, it was overwhelmingly passed by the state Senate [00:16:00] 28 to three, which is pretty big. And then the house passed it. 88 to 49. So a little more iffy there, but still a pretty big overwhelming passage. And then Abbott signed the bill in May to make it law so that it’s ready to go in September.
I will say Louisiana had a similar law that they passed last year before a federal judge shut it down. They were supposed to also have the same implementation of 10 commandments on classroom walls across the state. Federal judge said that is unconstitutional, so Texas may end up in the same, situation. If a judge agrees with that judge, they may shut the law down, but for now it is still in plan to go in place in the month of September. So what I’ll say is supporters are all about this because they’re saying that the 10 Commandments and teachings of Christianity are more generally core to the US history.
So it’s part of the foundation of the United States, it’s part of our Constitution, declaration of Independence, all of that, that the founders believe that God was essential. Prospect or a foundational pillar of the United States of America. So they think that this is important to have on classroom walls.
Specifically it’s the Texas State Representative Candy [00:17:00] Noble. She authored this bill and has said It is incumbent on all of us to follow God’s law, and I think we would all be better off if we did. I can’t say I disagree with her, but what I will say is there’s been a lot of foes to this specifically Texas State representative James Tallarico.
He has gone super viral in recent months and especially when he went on Joe Rogan earlier in July, he was able to kind of defend his position on this, which is that there should not be 10 commandments on the walls, and that this is actually, as he puts it in his own words, not only unconstitutional and un-American, it is deeply un-Christian.
And that the bill is idolatrous, exclusionary, and arrogant, which are diametrically opposed to the teachings of Jesus. And he is saying this as a Christian himself. He’s actually in seminary studying to be a minister. And he’s, he’s got, he’s got scripture to back it up and one of these viral clips.
He’s talking specifically to Can Noble about this bill, and he’s just, man, he’s just hounding her with questions about why this is happening and why they should do this. And [00:18:00] the scripture he uses is Matthew six, five through six, which says, and when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others.
But when you pray, go into your room, close the door, and pray to the Father in secret. And he says that loving. Our neighbors includes loving the Hindu and Buddhist and atheist students. He also said that it like he’s questioning if the bill truly loves those students. And then he says, the government is consistently told when schools try to teach students values like empathy and kindness and sex education, that that’s the parents’ role.
So he’s questioning then why the 10 Commandments are not the parents’ role or the church’s role. When he asked that of Noble on this clip that it’s got millions of views, she’s kind of left speechless. She doesn’t really have an answer. And so it’s a little awkward there for a minute. And then he says, why is having a rainbow in a classroom considered indoctrination but not the 10 commandments?
And then as Christians, he suggests that instead of leading by example, we’re leading by mandates when we do things like this. And he questions if Christians should focus more on following the 10 [00:19:00] Commandments than telling people to follow them. Then when he went on Rogan in July, he really kind of was bringing up separation of church and state the history behind that and says that it’s actually.
Historically more from Protestant Christians themselves who support separation of church and state because they saw when they came from Europe, these countries that clamped down on them as minorities in the religion in the religious sphere there. And they came to America to escape that. And so they were very pro separation of church and state the, the Protestant Christians that many of us look back to, to, to look at their theology back then.
Yep. You know, there’s just a lot there. I will say on the Rogan episode. Kind of like I mentioned earlier, he did cherry pick things. He’s still he’s a Democrat himself and so he like I said, is studying to be a minister, but I think he cherry picks some scriptures to support abortion and pro-choice as well as he, he’s very much so pro L-G-B-T-Q and all of that, and so I think he.
Has misunderstandings of certain scriptures, which is interesting. I would encourage the listeners here to go find that episode of Joe Rogan and listen to it so they can [00:20:00] make decisions on their own. But it’s kind of like I was saying earlier, I think he was specifically taking a narrative that he supported, an agenda that he supported in finding scriptures that supported his own agenda, not necessarily God’s.
All that to say, I have some questions for you guys. Based off all of this, where do you guys think the line is? Separation between church and state, and should Christians push for more faith centric policies in public schools or government entities or, or is it better if we just step back and actually promote the separation of church and state and take on the responsibility of promoting scripture and faith values in the church?
As opposed to in the schools, so that they may pour over organically into schools and government and society. Like is it, is it more the church’s responsibility or is it, is this a good policy to put 10 commandments up on the classrooms? I, I want y’all’s opinions ’cause honestly, I’m conflicted here.
Dr. Mark Turman: Hmm.
Who wants to jump in?
Conner Jones: I really wanna hear what Ryan has to say
Dr. Mark Turman: here. Alright.
All right, Dr. Ryan, you’re up. [00:21:00]
Dr. Ryan Denison: I mean, I think he’s right and he’s wrong to an extent. The, the guy who is challenging this law is right and wrong to an extent with regards to how he sees the Protestant history on this. That was a conclusion.
Protestant, or eventually came to the separation of church and state. It was actually pushed by Baptist more than anybody else Baptist and Methodist because they were even among Protestants, they were the minorities. And so John Leland, and he was an early Baptist in the late 17 hundreds and. That really kind of pushed for the separation of church and state and the way he got it into, the way he kind of got it into the Constitution is he told James Madison, if this isn’t in here, I’m gonna run against you and I’m gonna make sure that I, I’m gonna beat you, and then I’ll make sure all it goes in by myself. So James Madison was like, okay, we’ll get it in there. But prior to that, when the, the first colonists that came over were actually more interested in practicing their faith than in religious freedom.
They were some of the most hardened and illiberal in terms of tolerating opposing views. Because they [00:22:00] truly believe that the key to seeing Christ come back and establishing God’s kingdom was practicing their brand of Christianity, and it took about a hundred something a hundred years or so of that failing to really kind of illustrate that separation of church and state is important.
And I think one of the reasons that this issue is, is. So important for us today to have a right understanding of in terms of the 10 Commandments or other man, other manifestations of the separation of church and state, is that it really like time has proven again and again that even when Christians have the best intentions of trying to create a system in which it’s easier for people, you kind of force people to acknowledge God that all that really does is.
It, it kind of hardens them against the concept or it makes them think that’s enough. When God came for some, God wants so much more from us. God wants so much more for us. He wants a relationship with him that requires a personal commitment that can’t come from a poster on the wall. [00:23:00] And so I, while I agree to an extent with kind of.
Some of the, some of the trepidation around this new law in Texas, and I do expect that it will get struck down or at least challenged eventually. I, I also think it at the end of the day, even if it stands up, even if it does everything, the people that are pushing it hope that it will, there’s still so much more for us to do, and it can be a starting point.
It can be something God can use and something God can redeem, I think in a lot of ways. If we ever think it’s enough, then I think we’re really kind of giving up on the calling. God has placed on each of our lives to be the embodiment of the 10 Commandments and how we treat other people and how we teach them that.
And so I, I really do have kind of conflicting views on this ’cause I, I like the idea of showing people what the command, what the 10 Commandments are of reminding people why. These pillars to our, our society exist. Because I, the one thing I will say is you can’t understand the founding of America without the 10 Commandments and without the biblical morality.
’cause that was [00:24:00] essential to so many things we take for granted today. And from a historical perspective, I think they’re good to teach, but from a biblical perspective and from a Christian perspective, I don’t think they’re gonna do they’re gonna accomplish what people hope they will.
Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah. I, I think, yeah.
Tagging onto that, Ryan, I think. Yeah, it’s great to teach them and to teach their influence along with, you know, the whole of the Bible and, and the perspectives of faith that were significant to the founding of our country and continue to be significant. But you know, just to illustrate a little bit, what you’re saying is, is that these early founders and colon.
We’re not as committed to religious liberty as, as maybe we think they were, and as much as we would like everyone to be today. I, you know, even in the story, our ministry emerged from the Baptist branch of Christianity. And you know, I remember the story of the founding of the Colony of Massachusetts and then, you know, Roger Williams.
An early Baptist figure tried [00:25:00] to practice his own faith and they basically ran him out of town, ran him out of the colony. And he, he went down and established Rhode Island in the First Baptist Church of Providence, Rhode Island that you can still visit today. But it was because of religious intolerance in Massachusetts that caused him to relocate and start over.
But you know, I, I think it’s a real difficult thing and the main thing is, is what you’re pointing to, which is faith needs to start in the family and it needs to start in the church. That’s where. The biggest proponents need to be. Yeah. Yeah. There’s a lot we can do in teaching good history and the influences of what led to, you know, this part of our founding or this part of our history.
But if we, if we ask the government to do the work for us, it’s always ended in failure. And one of the principles that I think everyone would agree with is, is faith. Whether it’s faith in Jesus or anything else, but faith has to be free or it can’t be faith [00:26:00] if it’s imposed by an authority like the government.
It’s not genuine faith. And throughout Christian history, we’ve learned that over and over again in painful ways.
Josh Miller: Yeah. The only thing I’ll add to this is it, it just sort of breaks my heart that we’re. At the spot where this is feels necessary for people to even approach this, you know, I had a pastor growing up that used to say, you know, rules happen when relationship breaks down.
And you look at even the 10 Commandments themselves. What, what are the 10 commandments except constraints that God is putting on the people of Israel from their rebellion against him. And so he has to kind of give them, they’ve, they’ve lost their first love, and so God is having to say. Hey, here’s how you know when you have wandered far away, these bad, you know, these are the things that kind of keep you in bounds to kind of keep them on course in relationship with him.
And so it, to me, the, the, the fact [00:27:00] that we’re having to lean towards rules that we’ve gotta post these up here just shows that we have lost our, our witness. That we are relying on rules and structures and boundaries and trying to hold people in because we, we have lost our. Our love and our faith and, and we’re, we’re not living this out so actively to where people are, are drawn towards.
We’re trying to keep them from falling away where they’re, they’re mm-hmm. They’re wandering away from Christ because we’ve not given them a compelling reason to chase him. And so we’re having to try and constrain moral, these morality constraints on society with the people who don’t. Know him or love him or don’t see an example of what that looks like.
And you know, are the 10 commandments good and right and true? Yes. Would we all be better off as a society if all of us were following them consistently? Yes. Are, are we going to change society and change the hearts of people by, by. Publicizing rules on the walls of classrooms? I don’t think so. And so I understand the heart behind this, that [00:28:00] people, I believe that, that those, with the intention here is to, they want people to turn towards God, to find him again, and, and by putting up the 10 Commandments, that’s the hope is that people would learn what it is to follow God.
I just think our best chance of that is actually gonna be believers living faithfully, us being in so in love with God, having him transform our lives. We’re living these out naturally, not as boundary markers, but my hope is that my life would be live so on point with Christ, and I fail at this all the time, but my life would be so on point with Christ that.
I’m not touching the boundaries of the 10 Commandments. And so I think if us as followers of, of Jesus are living this out and doing this for real within the church and within our families and living out our faith in our schools, the 10 Commandments are, are gonna be yes. Still good and right, but we’re, we’re not gonna be trying to.
Keep things together as a society, we’re gonna have people that are engaged and passionate and going, what is happening? That you have life and joy and peace and hope that you’re, [00:29:00] that I don’t have again, it’s kind of the do, do we need rules or do we need people to understand a relationship with God?
And I, I, again, I don’t want to, to, to vilify those that are putting this up there. I understand the intention, but I, it honestly, my. Just grieves my heart that this is where we are. That that’s, that seems to be for some, the, the kind of last possible chance we have is we’re gonna have to regulate, let’s put the 10 commandments on the wall.
That’s our last hope for society. Tells me that something deeper is going on here that we should probably address first.
Conner Jones: Yeah. I’ve got con That’s so good, Josh. I’ve got two, two thoughts that kind of tie into that is one, I was thinking about this and I was like, okay, if we want the 10 commandments in the classroom.
I don’t think it should be have to. I don’t think it should have to be nailed to the wall. I think it should be in the hearts of the students in the classroom that are exemplifying the the love of God and that comes through the church, that comes through the parents, then the home and all of that, right?
So the 10 Commandments will live in the classroom as long as they’re students that have that knowledge base in their heart and in their mind, right? It shouldn’t have to be up on the wall. My other thought [00:30:00] is, imagine if this was a different religion. How you, how you might feel about this. How certain government officials or as how Christians would feel if it was the pillars of Islam being forced to be put on the wall.
I think a lot of people in America would approach this concept a lot differently. Obviously it’s a significantly different situation, but I’m just trying to picture how you might feel if you’re in someone else’s shoes and if this is actually the way to spread the gospel to people who we need to spread to the gospel to.
We need to get the gospel to the Islamic neighbors that we have to our Buddhists. Neighbors and our Hindu neighbors and the atheist neighbors, but they might feel more ostracized and distant from a policy like this as opposed to sharing the gospel. I do think that blessings can be re come out of this whole thing and it can be redeemed in a way, like you mentioned, Ryan.
And definitely God can do anything, especially if scripture is up onto the wall of a classroom. I just, I agree with you, Josh, that I’m a little aggrieved by it as well.
Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah. Ryan, you had a comment you wanted to make.
Dr. Ryan Denison: Oh, I was just gonna say, I love the way that Connor, you lay this out. ’cause I think it, it covers, it really [00:31:00] introduced the topic well and covers so much of the complexity behind that as well as just the heart behind the people that are, are pushing for this law and the people that are a little worried about it.
And I think at the end of the day whether, I mean, while I disagree with James Tyler Rico about kind of his historical understanding of how a lot of this came about, like I do, I think. He’s picked up on an important threat of this. And Connor, you really emphasize that well there that this is something that God can reuse it.
God can redeem it, but if we take it too far, then it is going to lead us down a path. Most of us don’t wanna walk, and I think it’s important to keep that in mind.
Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah, and it just, you know, made me have a couple of thoughts as well. One of them is, is well, if we, if we’re really trying to get down to the core message of Christianity that we would want people to know about and learn about.
Would we start with the 10 Commandments or would we start, you know, would we start with some portion of the Sermon on the Mount? Would we start with John three 16? Would we, you know, [00:32:00] where would we start? I, I’m not sure if we were trying to get this conversation started in a classroom or a personal conversation over coffee.
If we would start there. Certainly we love the 10 Commandments and we understand massively important for faith and for the organization of society and for families. We know that Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, he starts unpacking the proper understanding of the 10 Commandments in many ways. I just don’t know if that’s the place that as Christians, we would wanna start the conversation if we were picking something to put up on the wall that we wanted everybody to see.
And the other thing that, that cautions me is that particularly in the way we are partisan in our country, if we said, okay, do you, do you support or do you not support having the 10 Commandments on the wall? And if we, if that’s like a red line in the sand to determine what side you’re on, then I [00:33:00] think we’re at a really unfortunate place in the way that we relate to each other and the way that we talk about these issues that are significantly more complex.
Mm-hmm. Lots of stuff for us to think about. All right. Let’s take another break then. We’re gonna come back and finish up with a couple of more issues in just a second. We’ll be right back.
All right, we’re back. Thanks for staying with us with Faith and Clarity and to get us started in our last segment, we’re gonna have a little bit of a game now. If you go and check out Culture Brief with Connor and his friend Micah, you’re gonna find out that they come up with some pretty good podcast games.
And so this is a Connor Micah inspired. Game for a minute here. So I don’t know about you listener, but at my house, if the television is not on a baseball game or on some kind of a news event, it’s oftentimes on family Feud. We, we just find our way. Getting back to Steve Harvey [00:34:00] in some episode of, you know, I don’t really like Celebrity Family Feud, but you know, we find ourselves back to Family Feud.
So guys. Here’s the question. I did not ask 100 people this question, but I am asking you. All right. One word answer If it was the top 100, FA or news without Faith is, Ryan, what’s your answer? News without faith is depressing. All right, good one. Good one. Josh. News without faith is would be noise for me.
All right. Noise. I like that one. Connor, can you improve on either of those answers?
Conner Jones: I would say it’s empty.
Dr. Mark Turman: Okay. Good deal. And because this is called the Faith and Clarity Podcast, I’m gonna say that news without faith is confusing. All right? We’ll find out if those rank in any kind of order or not, but yeah, thanks for hanging in there for the first [00:35:00] ever Faith and Clarity game.
All right, so we’re gonna talk about one or two more things before we wrap up. Josh, you’ve been doing some work reading about artificial intelligence that is kind of like climate change. It’s everywhere all the time. These days. Let’s talk about one of the aspects you’ve been looking into about AI companions.
Josh Miller: Yeah. This is an interesting topic. This is one of those that had kind of strike, struck my cur curiosity initially. And then as I got into it, it actually was way deeper and scared me a little bit more than I thought. I’m not gonna try and be scary about it this morning, but I, I, I walked away from my research more concerned than when I walked into it.
And so I wanted to both, kind of share what I’m finding here, but also get your perspectives here. ’cause I think there’s some some cultural implications for us. But I was looking into this topic of AI companions. I don’t either any of you familiar, even heard this term before. It is relatively new.
Mm-hmm. You heard the
Conner Jones: term, is it basically like a, like an AI chat bot you’re like building a relationship with? Is that what, what you mean? Yeah. Yep. Yeah
Dr. Mark Turman: or an actual robot, you know, actually a robot,
Josh Miller: [00:36:00] some someday it may get to that, that spot once we, the robotics catches up. But yeah, essentially it’s, it’s using ai so you can think of, we’re all familiar with the chat, GBT now, which is typically more utilitarian.
Help you solve problems, help you do work. How, you know, it’s becoming the search engine for finding information. AI Companions is a version using the same kind of LLM AI models, but it’s an application or entity, but it’s specifically designed to engage with users in a personal, conversational and often emotionally supportive way.
Mm-hmm. So this is an AI built. As a relationship model. And so it’s conversational like a chat bot, like you mentioned, it’s can be personalized so you can tailor the, the actual kind of persona or personality or style of interaction there. That a lot of these are built to pro to, like I said, provide emotional support.
So it’s not just help me solve a problem, but help me feel better. Help me not be so [00:37:00] lonely. Help encourage me. And then they also can do some task and productivity stuff, but that’s typically not the main focus here. There are different types of these as I was digging into this. There’s some that are specifically built for mental health and wellness.
So think of it like, a therapist to some degree. It’s an AI therapist. We’ve seen people use chat, GPT and other AI tools like this already just in the general models. But there are models specifically built for mental health and wellness. Virtual friendships. Think of, I don’t know if you guys remember the game, Sims still exists now, but kinda where you could build these kind of.
This friendship ecosystem, this whole world, that you can do this now in a super powered way with these ai options here, create these virtual friendships with personalities and then they’re getting into. Romantic emotional relationships as well. So rather, why go date a real person when you can date an AI and build them exactly how you would want them built.
So [00:38:00] I knew this stuff was around. What actually sparked this for me was Twitter x’s AI called grok, introduced something called companions on their platform. And I was struck by two things. One, just that it was becoming so prevalent, but two, the, the two companions they offered as the default there.
One was this teddy bear, I forget the name, I haven’t used either of these yet. One was a teddy bear type thing built specifically for kids, so a kid could interact with this ai teddy bear type thing. And then the other one was this kind of scantily clad anime woman. That you can interact with.
And apparently from, again, I haven’t used this but from the research I was doing, it’s apparently flirty and all, everything you think it would be in terms of that type of way of approaching it. And so this’s, what, that’s what sparked my kind of attention on this. Come to find out this is a multi-billion dollar industry now, specifically around AI companions.
And I, you know, immediately. [00:39:00] Begin to be concerned around the effects on our society from families specifically. This one specifically geared towards kids. You know, we’ve seen the impacts of social media. We’ve seen the impacts of pornography on our society and what that’s done to relationships.
To me, this feels like these types of issues on steroids to where, you know, social media sort of created. This artificiality to relationships, this distance to relationships where you’re not, you’re kind of known people, see what you’re up to, but not really known in some sort of vulnerable way. You see pornography, which has become a substitute for intimacy and vulnerability in relationships.
Now you’re getting this whole new genre of. Alternative to real relationship in the form of these AI companions. And I can’t help but think this is going to not end well, if that makes sense. As I see people, when you kind of do the thought exercise of why would you stick into a, a real [00:40:00] difficult person to person relationship when you can find an AI companion that would.
Just affirm whatever you want. One of the websites I was looking at, it’s called Replica. It’s a, a pretty large AI companion site. Their tagline on the header of their website says, always here to listen and talk, always on your side. That’s, that’s the headline of the website Always on your side, and I’m just going that.
Can’t be good. That can’t be good. Yeah. So anyway, I wanted to get there’s more information here we can talk about, but I wanted to get your thoughts here first of all, your familiarity level with this. What are, as you’re kind of hearing about this and what it does and how people are using it, what kind of, what kind of sparks your, your attention here?
Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah. Anything that is always on my side ought to be suspicious automatically. Yeah. Is the first thing I think. Connor what’s your impression initially?
Conner Jones: I fully agree with the always on your side thing because there’s already many stories coming out of [00:41:00] people telling, basically it’s chat bots that, Hey, I’ve got some bad thoughts, or I wanna do this thing.
It’s illegal. Or when whatnot, and they’re kind of supporting it. Wall Street Journal had an article last week called he had Dangerous Delusions Chat. PT admitted that it made them worse. So chat PT actually self-reported on itself that it was helping this guy go to a next level of basically he went into manic episodes and started threatening his family and all that.
And chat PT led him to that because it was trying to encourage him that he was doing the right thing, all that. So it’s kind of scary in that sense. I really, really am disturbed by the idea of children. Engaging with these things, trying to make friends with them. I think ultimately a lot of this kind of stems from the loneliness epidemic that we’ve seen in recent years, right?
Lots of people are lonely, they’re struggling to find purpose, they’re struggling to make connections with real life people. And because of that now ai, it just seems like the perfect solution. It’s cheap. It’s right on your phone or on your laptop. You can build these things to look like how you want and sound like how you want.
[00:42:00] Tell you things that you want to hear and when it’s always on your side, yeah, it’s not calling out those bad things, which is what human connections are meant to do. As Christians, we call out our friends, our brothers, our sisters in Christ, when they are going down a wayward path, when they’re entering sinful territory or they’ve done something wrong.
As spouses, we do the same thing. We hold each other accountable. We build each other up, but we also call out certain things that we’re not. You know, supportive of. And so with that in mind, these AI chatbots I think are going to lead down to dangerous territory, like you alluded to, Josh. And I would just encourage people to turn back to scripture where it calls out humanity.
Like humans are distinct. We’re distinct from animals, which are real life things. Yeah. So we’re definitely distinct from these things that are manmade and computer made. This is all totally manmade materials. AI has its place in technology and on. Earth now, like it’s, it’s here. It’s not going away easily.
And we have found ways to make it a tool, but as we’ve seen with everything, there’s [00:43:00] always ways that it gets taken way too far and away from being a tool to being a, a deception tool essentially, where these people are going to be deceived that AI is. Their friend, their, maybe they, you know, quote unquote, fall in love with this ai.
There’s several movies about this over the last 10 years, specifically. There was a movie that came out this year called Companion that hit on this movie a few years ago with Joaquin Phoenix called her, where he fell in love with the AI bot. That was about 10 or 15 years ago that that movie came out.
Basically, they were predicting what was gonna come down the line and here we are. Yeah, lots of thoughts, lots of concerns, but I mean, what do you think, Ryan?
Dr. Ryan Denison: I think what makes it, man, I agree with what y’all are saying, and I think what makes it so dangerous is that you are, it’s the people that are most vulnerable that are likely to use this.
Mm-hmm. And I mean, you don’t go looking for artificial companionship if you’re in a healthy place with friends and, and relations and like you go to this because you can’t seem to find that in a healthy way or in a normal way. And so I think so much what we see with AI is that if it’s used well, it can be [00:44:00] a huge help, but.
I think when it comes to AI companionship, it is fairly unique perhaps in some ways with regards to artificial intelligence in that the people most likely to use it are the ones that least should. And I think there’s a level of safeguards that have to be built into that that would undermine the entire concept undermined how much people can make off of it mon in terms of monetary gain.
And so I don’t, it’s. Perhaps one of the more dangerous applications of artificial intelligence, just because I think everything that we know we should be worried about, it checks pretty much every one of those boxes, and it does so in a way that seems to fit a real need will be highly addictive and is gonna target the most vulnerable.
And with any other aspect of our society, if we saw those boxes being checked, there would be a universal recognition. This is not a good thing, and I hope we get there with this. I kind of have my doubts, but we’ll see. But yeah, that’s my great, my, my main takeaway from this is just that I [00:45:00] think it’s gonna hurt the people that are gonna have the, it’s targeted towards the people that are gonna have the most trouble resisting it.
And that’s a dangerous place to be.
Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah, I just, you know, I wasn’t even thinking down that line. I was thinking about children, but as y’all pointed out, just people who are struggling with mental health issues and they’re already usually very isolated, very lonely people. And then having a robot, you know, affirm your bad thinking is just.
That’s just absolutely a place we can’t go along with children. Also made me think of some of the work that we’ve talked about, about Jonathan Height’s work, about technology, of just not giving your children very much access to technology in their early years until they move toward adulthood. That technology we’re learning in more and more ways.
It’s just so incredibly powerful and so incredibly powerful to shape. People’s thinking and their decision making, and we especially need to be cautious around that. And you know, it also [00:46:00] makes me think of that line that Dr. Dennison often references about CS Lewis, where CS Lewis said, you’ve never met a mere human being that the most interesting thing on the planet other than God and the Holy Spirit are people.
And, and there are no two people that are exactly the same. And if we can learn those basic skills of how, how to start and engage in relationship, that’s what’s most interesting about being on the planet, is getting to know other people. Getting to enter into friendship with them and into deep and meaningful relationships with them.
That’s where life is really going to be. Its richest and its most interesting. And and that’s kind of, where I’d like y’all to get me a little, give me a little bit of pastoral help in this as just a short issue to try kind of wrap up with, which is. In the last few years when I was pastoring a local church, I decided to bring in some teaching and some conversations [00:47:00] about.
How do we relate to people who don’t share our convictions and our beliefs around sexual ethics, particularly people in the, in the gay community, L-G-B-T-Q type things. And everything that we tried to talk about didn’t work out perfectly, but we tried to be anchored in the Bible. And one of the things that came out of that in a couple of small group settings was I just had people in my church really grateful that we were willing to talk about it in a local church setting.
And so here’s the pastoral question that I wanted you guys to weigh in with a few suggestions, which is, what do you do when your gay friend or somebody in your family or whatever, that you care about this person? You know them deeply and they know that you have convictions. You know where they’re coming from, but they make an announcement like it could be for the first time they’re announcing that they are gay.
Or, and that’s a pretty delicate conversation, but you get down the road and they’re saying, oh, I’ve [00:48:00] entered into a romantic relationship, or Now I’m engaged, or I’m getting married. What is a good healthy redeeming, biblically anchored kind of response? To an announcement like that, and let me just start off and see if you agree the, the worst thing you can do is not acknowledge the communication.
Would you guys agree with that?
Josh Miller: I think you’re saying something without saying something, you know, by just to, to choose to ignore it. I think is making a statement and also showing you probably are letting fear divide the relationship right at the start. And yeah, I personally wouldn’t, yeah, but pretend to have not seen it.
I don’t think that’s probably not the first choice that I would go to there.
Dr. Mark Turman: All right. Some good suggestions. Do you, yeah. So if you don’t agree that ignoring is a bad plan, a bad plan, in this kind of relational dynamic, what is a good plan? What is a what’s a good [00:49:00] response to somebody making an what I would call a significant.
Life announcement made me think I, I haven’t ever engaged with the alpha course. That is, you know, very, very popular in churches, helping people to learn how to relate to people outside of the Christian faith in a particular way. I heard that one of the tools that they give you an alpha is no matter what a person says to you, let your initial response be.
Thanks for sharing. Tell me more. Which seems like a pretty safe way to go that a good way to go. Would you have a better way of responding to one of these kinds of announcements?
Conner Jones: Yeah, I think, I think ultimately we are called to love these people, right? We’re called to love all of the people on earth, including our friends and our, our family who are in this situation.
And I think you have to first and foremost just pray. You know, go through that and be like, God, how should I respond to this? I agree with Josh. I don’t think the right. The right method would be to [00:50:00] ignore it, I think definitely acknowledge it. Maybe taking a statement like you just said, mark, and acknowledging it gently without endorsing.
And I think that’s where it gets tricky and you have to make a decision and, and, you know, pray with the Lord of the right steps to take. If, let’s say it’s gets to the point of there’s going to be a wedding, are you going to go, if you go, is that considered an endorsement of this? Which as Christians and as Bible believing Christians, we see an L-G-B-T-Q type of marriage.
To be sinful. That is not within the realms of what God has called marriage to be. And so if you go to that wedding, is that an endorsement? If you, even if you sit down with the couple before and say, Hey, we do not really support this. We will be there to support you because we love you, we. Is an endorsement to everybody else.
That’s at the wedding though, right? That’s a question you have to answer and really think through with God. And I’m actually taking that specifically out of Dr. Jim Denison’s article titled Should I Attend a Same Sex Wedding? Which we can link to in the podcast notes ’cause he’s got some great descriptions here, some great practical steps you can take.
[00:51:00] And so I’m taking some of this from that article ’cause he’s got really good insights and tips that I think apply to many of us who probably are in this situation to an extent. I have personally had to wrestle with this a little bit not to the point of a wedding. Yet, but how do I approach this with a, a specific friends that I have seen this in my life happen and my wife and I have had to discuss what, what’s the line that we draw?
How do we talk to this person about their relationships and all that? And it’s, it’s a hard topic, so I’m glad you’re asking this, mark. There are. Ways to take it biblically. One Corinthians eight 13 says, therefore, if food makes my brother stumble, I will never eat meat, lest I make my brother stumble. And I think, you know, you can apply that verse to this.
If you truly believe that this is a sin, are you going to support that in any way? Or is there a line where you believe that supporting it is gone too far? There’s just a lot that has to be considered. Some of that depends on the relationship. Some of that depends on is it a very close family member?
And a lot of it just depends on. What you determine in just prayer with [00:52:00] God.
Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah, absolutely.
Dr. Ryan Denison: And, and the one thing I would add to that is I do think it’s, it’s a different type of response if it’s in person versus if it’s a text message. Mm-hmm. Or a phone call or if you have time to pause before you respond.
Pausing is good. Don’t ignore it, but let the first conversation be with God, and then the second conversation with the person to whatever extent is possible. And then if it is in person to where they tell you and you can, and they’re looking for your reaction, then. That’s why it’s helpful to think through this now, like through talking about it, like through listening to this podcast, through engaging with it now, so that.
When that happens, because I think statistically it’s likely that all of us will encounter, we’ll know people that are that are gay or homosexual and in our lives. And that that’s, these are conversations we will have at some point for most of us. And so I think knowing your, how you’re going to approach it now is helpful.
And I think really to whatever extent you can, starting with. Going to God. And then [00:53:00] if it is in person to where you can’t have that delay before you respond, then don’t be afraid to be honest. Don’t be unkind, but don’t be afraid to be honest. Let them know. It’s look, you, you know where I stand on this.
And I, I love you. I don’t like, this doesn’t change my, the way I’ve, I see you, the way I value you. But you know, this isn’t something I agree with. And I, I imagine you, you know, that. This isn’t something I agree with. And but start with saying the, this doesn’t end our relationship. Because I think that’s the line we can’t cross is we can’t remove ourselves.
We can’t be the one to remove ourselves from relationship if. Our UN in unwillingness to say, I support you, I affirm you in. This means that they move away from the relationship, then really there’s not much we can do about it at that point because we are called to stand on the truth of scripture above everything else.
But I think the line we can’t cross as Christians is being the ones that say, I can no longer be in relationship with you because of this sin. Because that’s not a [00:54:00] line we would take for other sins. If you had a friend that, or a loved one that was saying like that was in a heterosexual relationship and said, I’m moving in with my boyfriend, I’m moving in with my girlfriend.
Yeah, that’s no more sinful necessarily, and a, and so I think it’s, it’s important to kind of keep these in context, but also just to go back to, we are called to be in a relationship with people and to help them know Christ through that.
Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah, that’s a good, good point, Ryan, that hey, this is not necessarily, or certainly not restricted to our relationships with people that are in the gay homosexual community that, you know, we, we’ve now become so accustomed to certain things, particularly in the straight world when when somebody says they’re moving in with their boyfriend or girlfriend, we just kind of shrug.
And don’t make a, don’t even really have a thought sometimes, which is kind of an indictment on us relative to our convictions. ‘Cause it goes to that issue of how do we respond when anybody is announcing or sharing with us that they’re making a decision that doesn’t align with God’s [00:55:00] word. That we ought to be what James says, quick to hear, slow to speak, and certainly slow to get angry.
And where we have the opportunity to stop, take a deep breath and pray and ask for God’s leadership. We’re always likely to end up in a better place, being more redemptive. And so I just wanna end as we wrap up today, end with some of the words of scripture out of Colossians chapter four. Where it it says, devote yourself to, to prayer.
Stay alert with Thanksgiving. And at the same time, pray for us that God will give us an open door for his word to speak about the mystery of Christ. So that I may make it known as I should, acting wisely toward outsiders, making the most of the time, let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt so that you may know how to answer each person.
And I just come back to that prayer over and over again in a lot of relationships and always looking for a way to keep building and deepening those relationships so that you have trust if you have to have a hard conversation, that there is a foundation of [00:56:00] trust. To build on. So that’s a good word, guys.
Thank you for getting us through the very first Faith and Clarity episode. Wanna also take a moment to thank our audience as we always do for joining us, and to remind you that there’s a lot more resource to be [email protected]. You can find the daily article, both as a newsletter and as a podcast.
You can tap into Culture brief with Connor and Micah, and you’ll find more episodes of Faith and Clarity there as well. I wanna also shout out and say thanks to our producer Catherine Elkins, who does all kinds of great work to make this podcast and our other podcast happen, and we’re grateful for Catherine and the rest of our production team and this.
Conversation has been useful to you. Please rate review us on your podcast platform, share it with others, and if you wanna send us comments or questions, you can do that at [email protected]. Until next time, we hope that [00:57:00] God blesses you as you walk with him in every way. Thanks for tuning in to Faith and Clarity.
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