He Had 800 Million Views… Then Got Banned for Talking About Jesus

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Guys, I'm so excited to share the conversation today with you. I think the longest conversation I've had on the show and it's worth watching every minute. I'll be talking to David Lading where he's going to share things about his conversion that he's never shared before. And if you're hearing me thinking, but I've never heard of David Lading before, well, if you're a gen zer, there's a great chance that you have or that you've seen his face while scrolling because he had a TikTok page that had over 800 million views before TikTok banned him for inviting Muslims to conversion to Jesus Christ. What did he do? Yeah, we're all supposed to invite everybody to conversion if you actually believe this stuff is true. But we're gonna talk about that experience, about navigating the algorithms and being an influencer without it influencing and destroying your soul from the inside out. Also, I'm really excited about this part. We're gonna talk about how he's drawn to the beauty of Catholicism as a Pentecostal, evangelical, non denominational guy who dwells in that world, drawn to the beauty of Catholicism and how he, along with many other people, I'm seeing this happen more and more. They're officially taking the word religion and liturgy off the naughty word list among non Catholics. How cool is that? Now, of course, we Catholics know that those things are great things. We're gonna talk all about why and what's happening with that shift and his own grappling and his spiritual walk with Catholicism. All that and more. You don't wanna miss it today on the Chris Stefanick Show. Welcome to the Chris Stefanick Show. We're here every week to give you the tools and inspiration you need to live your everyday life with joy. I want to thank our missionaries of Joy. You guys make all this work happen. If you want to be a missionary of joy, link is below in the show notes. Sign up for the Daily Anchor. That's how we inspire you every day. It's free, there's no strings attached. Takes you 2 minutes to read it. And it could change the direction of your day, which change the direction of your life. You add those days up. By the way, if you become a Daily Anchor subscriber, we're going to do a drawing where you and a friend have a chance to win a trip to our pilgrimage to beauty in Kauai next summer, led by me and Natalie and to Kalaupapa. It's going to be mind blowing, but we Just want to bless you. So please sign up for the Daily Anchor. This episode is sponsored in part by ewtn. You can catch this and so much more on EWTN streaming. So let's dive in. David Ladding. I love you, man. [00:02:27] Speaker B: I love you. [00:02:28] Speaker A: Yeah. I don't know. Meeting you at that ecumenical gathering, dude, epic. It was incredible. [00:02:33] Speaker B: It was so epic. [00:02:35] Speaker A: Seriously. And after talking to you there, I thought, this is the most interesting, man. [00:02:41] Speaker B: And humble. [00:02:42] Speaker A: And humble. [00:02:43] Speaker B: And cool. [00:02:43] Speaker A: And cool. Super tall adjectives. Seriously. Like the AM of experiences you've had by the age of. You're only 15. [00:02:54] Speaker B: Yeah, [00:02:58] Speaker A: 23. It kind of blew my mind, really. And the depth of soul. I'm like, I just got to have a conversation with this guy. And frankly, I love you all who are watching big. Part of me doesn't even care if you don't watch this one. I just want to talk to David Ladding. [00:03:12] Speaker B: Yes. Let's do it. [00:03:15] Speaker A: Yeah, man. Where do I start? I want to cover social media and its evils. I want to cover the evangelical world and what's working there and exploding and what's. What is it about that world that's also drawing people to. And you included, to the beauty of Catholicism. I want to talk about Islam. I want to talk about TikTok. I want to talk about. What am I missing? Art and beauty. [00:03:36] Speaker B: Art and beauty. Tolkien, man. [00:03:38] Speaker A: My head's already spinning. [00:03:40] Speaker B: Where do we start? [00:03:41] Speaker A: I feel like I'm in a Byzantine liturgy. Like, which way am I going? There's just insects rising. I can't even see. Let's start in the most. The most mundane, banal, carnal place. TikTok. [00:03:54] Speaker B: Yeah, let's go there. [00:03:57] Speaker A: Or do I start with your conversion? Like, why are you into the faith? Let me start there. Can I have a short version of that? [00:04:03] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll make it brief. So I grew up in a Christian home. My parents didn't have a lot of money, but they really, really, really valued me to have a fantastic core Christian education. So they stuck me into a Presbyterian school, and it was very, very, like, high church. I think this is where a lot of my love for, like, Gothic art, architecture stemmed from a lot of my love for the Medieval ages because, well, one, the school was just beautiful. I was learning Latin in third grade. I had to take a test to, like, get in the school. A haircut, a uniform, and, well, I was taught that the Bible was true. I was taught that Jesus is the son of God and that he died for our sins. I went to church Every Sunday. But at home. At home, God wasn't talked about. Only, though, only before a meal. So, like in prayers, God was mentioned, but it was Sunday and then school and also Sunday school. All this being said, all this being said, I had a very good and strong understanding of who God was and what he did for me. But in fifth grade, I encountered someone and, well, I encountered a group of people. It was Dawkins, it was Hitchens, it was Sam Harris, it was these atheists online on YouTube. And they made fun of the faith that I took so seriously. They picked at it in a way that I've never heard. And they were so confident in their criticism. [00:05:40] Speaker A: Flying Spaghetti Monster. And their British accents just makes them so smart. [00:05:46] Speaker B: Just up 10 points. And I was thrown into a whirlwind. Now, it wasn't their arguments that made me seriously start to doubt if my faith was true. It was actually going to my mom and dad, my dad and asking them questions, and they had no answers. I went to my teachers, I went to, like, some of my Bible school teachers, whatnot. I was asking as many people as I possibly could questions like the problem of evil, the questions that they were presenting. And I didn't get a good answer. I got believe, Believe in Jesus, because you must, you ought. And it wasn't satisfying. And it threw me into a place of existentialness. [00:06:31] Speaker A: It's crazy. [00:06:32] Speaker B: It was chaos. I remember I was 13 years old and I was full of just so much pain. I was in my room. I remember, it's clear as day 13. [00:06:42] Speaker A: You're naturally deep. You came out of the womb a deep thinker. [00:06:44] Speaker B: Yeah, I came out of the womb. [00:06:45] Speaker A: I mean, really, you're grappling with these things at 13? [00:06:47] Speaker B: I think, therefore I am. Now I started crying it up, just Descartes right out. Okay. And so, no, it's so crazy. So, no, no. All this being said, all this being said. I was on my bed, 13 years old, and there was a letter opener. And I thought to myself, if I fall on this letter opener, you know, it was like basically like 6 inches, you know, just a sharp point. If I fall on this, what will happen to me? And I really wanted to fall. I really wanted to end my life in that moment because I was literally full of torment. I remember going to bed some nights, it wasn't every night, but some nights just weeping, you know, my pillow was wet in the morning because I'm like, God, like, are you real? Do you exist? I might even start crying now because it was such a hard experience. Obviously I didn't go through with ever hurting myself. I was too afraid. I was too terrified. I was too terrified. What if God does exist and I stayed in this tension? [00:07:53] Speaker A: You were terrified. But what if he does exist? [00:07:55] Speaker B: Yes, if he does exist. So yeah, let me clarify there a little more. I was terrified. If he does exist and I do kill myself, then I'll be accountable. Sorry. And I was also terrified if he does exist, in what part of my friendship? But what the hell am I doing with my life? If God exists, then I ought to give him everything. Everything. And I don't want to come across as like pious or like, you know, conceited or whatnot. Like thinking that I was better than the other people around me. I mean, I was 13, so a little bit, I feel like every 13 year old is like, I know exactly what I'm doing. But I was really confused with the lives that people were living. My parents and I am going a little hard right now. My mom and dad, again, amazing people. They're the ones who stuck me in the Christian school. They were patient with me overall and I have a wonderful relationship with them and my teachers and whatnot. But in this time, in this moment, I was alone. And yeah, this tension stayed with me for two years. It was terrible. It was terrible. [00:08:58] Speaker A: What's up you guys? I'm so glad you're watching. Would you please let us inspire you every single day? Click below this video and sign up for the Daily Anchor as. And this is really cool, guys. When you sign up for the Daily Anchor, you're entered into a drawing. We're gonna pick a name where you can bring a friend on the pilgrimage to Beauty and to Kalaupapa, where St Damian of Molokai, Marian Cope and Joseph Dutton poured out their lives serving a leper colony. Dude, this is gonna be a mind blowing trip. You're gonna be drawn to get a chance to win it for free. What? So we'll put info about the whole trip if you just wanna sign up below the video. But the Daily Anchor, that's how you get daily inspiration and a chance to win that trip. Okay, back to our video. This is the tension of your. Of the entire Gen Z. [00:09:45] Speaker B: Yes. [00:09:45] Speaker A: You know, with the increase in anxiety, depression, everything. But they don't name it like you did as a 13 year old kid, that if the floor just falls out on me, you know, if there's no fundamental purpose to life, then what, whoa, what am I doing here? [00:09:58] Speaker B: Right? [00:09:59] Speaker A: So that they just kind of go into the darkness and try to distract it away, but it gnaws, right, but you were just like right there, you were just painfully aware of the gnawing with the God question. Okay, keep going. Sorry, this is. [00:10:13] Speaker B: No, no, no, please, please, please, please. I have it. I have a tendency to like ramble. [00:10:18] Speaker A: No, please do, man, I'm sorry. Yeah, I have a tendency to cut off sometimes just shut me up or. Yeah, whatever. I will, I will. [00:10:24] Speaker B: No. So, yeah, I was in a lot of pain, a lot of tension. I was doing research. Now, I was not a scholar, I was 14 years old. But I was consuming as much content on the incarnation, on empirical evidence of the Gospels, of Genesis, of everything, every claim the Bible made, I was learning if it was true. And I found out that I was convinced of that it was, but I still couldn't believe. So I was seeing the evidence of God. I was seeing the evidence of creation, and I still could not believe. And at this moment when I was around 14, I began to really, really pray, begging God to help me. [00:11:13] Speaker A: And what are you feeling right now? [00:11:17] Speaker B: Just love. Just love for the Father because he's just so kind. God is just so. And you know, it's so interesting. I praise God for those years of tension because it allowed for discovery. In Gen Z, we have erased the beauty of discovery and the need for it. We don't see the need for discovery, for the journey, not just coming of age like some movie or film, you know, that whatever that happens too quick. I mean a real journey, a real tension, like years of pain and conviction being formed in my heart. Like that's what these tears. You're saying this because I'm just grateful for God. [00:11:57] Speaker A: Praise God. [00:11:57] Speaker B: Yeah. In that process, I was looking out the window one day and I might tear up here because it's just so beautiful, you know, I saw the green trees and I saw the beauty of the sky and I saw. I saw just life flashing through the window of my. Of my car. And it is. If I heard a symphony, wow. Like a song. And I, you know, even now I think about that moment so key. And I began to weep more than I am now. And you know, that wasn't the moment of my belief, but it was the moment of, of progress. I started to see like the light on the end of the tunnel. But I stayed in this tension for another two years. [00:12:57] Speaker A: Why was it that the beauty was. Well, Augustin said, question the beauty of the air, question the beauty. All of them say, look, we're beautiful. Who made us if not the beautiful one? Were you making that? Were you connecting those dots in that moment? [00:13:08] Speaker B: Yes, yes. But I had no language for it, so all I had was tears. All I had was tears. [00:13:14] Speaker A: Wow. [00:13:14] Speaker B: I was agreeing. And even my crying was like joining into the symphony of beauty. It was recognizing God just by being, being present in that moment. [00:13:24] Speaker A: What a graced moment. [00:13:26] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Remarkable. Praise God for it. Two years later. So I'm around 16, 17 years old. I'm like, I'm burnt out, completely burnt out on this entire. Is God real? And I try to have like a normal life because this was eating me alive, you know? And I started to play soccer. I started to completely distract myself, which is now easier than ever before. So I actually didn't have social media until like my sophomore year of high school. [00:14:00] Speaker A: Did your parents not let you that [00:14:02] Speaker B: and I just didn't think of it. I didn't care. [00:14:05] Speaker A: Honestly. If you had had social media, you probably would. [00:14:07] Speaker B: No, I wouldn't be here. Yeah, I would have been distracted. [00:14:10] Speaker A: Right. The 13 year old who experience his existential angst picks up his phone and distracts himself away from it. Right. Instead of just sitting in it like we had to in Gen X. [00:14:19] Speaker B: Yes. [00:14:20] Speaker A: And just feel it until you came up with answers and like you did. [00:14:22] Speaker B: Right. [00:14:24] Speaker A: Wow. [00:14:24] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:14:25] Speaker A: Note that parents. Anyway. [00:14:26] Speaker B: Yeah, no, it's really, it's actually really, really important. [00:14:30] Speaker A: You literally might not be sitting here talking. [00:14:32] Speaker B: I would not be sitting here, I can say. I mean, I would probably be a believer in Jesus, but I wouldn't be where I. Where I'm at now in my walk. I believe in the grace of God, but I wouldn't have been at that ecumenical meeting. [00:14:44] Speaker A: No. [00:14:44] Speaker B: Because my story. Maybe I was, I don't know, you know, God knows. But you get the point. [00:14:48] Speaker A: Yeah. Scary stuff. [00:14:50] Speaker B: Just like total, total God. And so I begin to distract myself with fun, with entertainment. And I, I have this like very competitive and like, I'm cautious to say addictive personality, but I latch my fangs on things. Like once I find something that I enjoy, I enjoy it to its fullness. And that was soccer. I was trying to enjoy it to its utter fullness. And I really wanted to make my high school team, so I made JV as a goalkeeper. The goalkeeper was a senior and he wasn't as good as he could have been. And so they let me, someone who was really bad at being a goalkeeper joined the team, you know, as the backup JV guy. [00:15:36] Speaker A: Well, you fill up a lot of space. [00:15:37] Speaker B: Yeah, I do. I was a tall guy. [00:15:39] Speaker A: How tall are you? [00:15:39] Speaker B: I'm six. Six. That's tall six six. [00:15:42] Speaker A: And not one of those skinny six six guys. You're like a substantive six six. Thank you, thank you, thank you. That's the laugh. That's what we were looking for. [00:15:53] Speaker B: Can you imagine if I laugh? Okay, dude. All right. I can't. I can't laugh. It's unfunny. It's unfunny. [00:16:02] Speaker A: All the people. All the people who are watching will laugh like that. We love you. The Lord loves you. We're not trying to call you out right now. [00:16:06] Speaker B: It's great. [00:16:07] Speaker A: That's right. Go ahead. [00:16:11] Speaker B: Okay, so, man 17. I, like, I went grind mode, and I worked as hard as I could. Then I got on a club team that summer, for those who would know. It was sccl. That's all I'll say. And I made it. [00:16:26] Speaker A: If you know, you know, if you [00:16:27] Speaker B: know, you know, npl, you know, like, I was going at it hardcore. And then I made my varsity team the next year for being a goalkeeper. And it became my life. And I was starting, I was going at it. I wasn't the best, but I worked the hardest, you know, and I valued that. I had a real fear of failure, which. That kind of plays into my, I think, existential approach to Christianity. Is this even real? We'll get to that later. It's really important concerning Islam, but I step out. I step out to go practice, and we are in playoffs. First time my school's in playoffs in a very long time. And my knee, it totally blows. My leg basically goes this way. So I tried to get up. I tried to deny it. I actually continued my practice. And then it happened again, which made it so much worse. So then I was out for nine months. And I was angry, and I didn't have anyone to be angry at. Of course. I couldn't be angry at myself. You know, I didn't want to think about myself. I was then angry at God. [00:17:42] Speaker A: But he took the only distraction away. [00:17:44] Speaker B: The only distraction away. But I was so mad about it that I, like, ignored it because, remember, I wanted to leave detention. I didn't even profess Jesus as, like, my ultimate Lord. And yet I still knew that he existed. I did not believe in Him. I was just exhausted with my pursuit. In reality, it was his pursuit of me. [00:18:05] Speaker A: Wow. [00:18:07] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:18:07] Speaker A: I want to mull on that. I want to chew on that for a second. Yeah. [00:18:10] Speaker B: I was exhausted with his pursuit of me. I didn't want it anymore. And that's what we call an unhealthy. Unhealthy, you could say Relationship. [00:18:21] Speaker A: I'm sorry. One of my favorite parts of the catechism, it's a commentary on the woman at the well, that her thirst encounters the thirst of God. God comes to her and asks for a drink, then switches. Turns the tables and says, you'd ask me for a drink if you knew who was talking to you. And it says that every time we pray or think about God, it originated with him, not us. We think, oh, maybe I should pray. No, that was God saying, I want you to pray. And he was making you uneasy. [00:18:49] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. [00:18:50] Speaker A: He was bugging you. He was nudging you. This wasn't from within you. [00:18:53] Speaker B: No, it's from the outside, and it was constant. And nine months, I'm doing PT physical therapy, and I go back on the field, and the very first practice, the very first ball that was kicked to me after nine months, my other leg blows out. Dude. I hear it snap like celery, and I can't walk, and I'm like. And I actually. I caused a scene. It was my junior year, and I was captain. [00:19:28] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:19:28] Speaker B: And I was beating the ground. Those are our senior year. Senior year of high school, I was beating the ground. You know, it's my varsity senior year. I'm captain of the team, and my leg blows out completely screaming to God in the midst of my high school, which was not Christian. God. Why? And I knew it was, like a moment between me and the Lord, and I was just a baby, a pouty child. Why do you want me? Why are you doing this? It sounds super saintly. I was just. I was pissed. [00:20:05] Speaker A: No, it sounds real. Okay. Yeah. [00:20:07] Speaker B: I don't want to come across as, like. [00:20:09] Speaker A: No, it sounds honest. [00:20:10] Speaker B: And I've never told anyone this about. I tell a couple people now. There was a dove that, like, flew right above me. And over the next year, I began to seek God. [00:20:33] Speaker A: Wow, you noted that. Did you see an answer from God in that dove flying over your head? [00:20:39] Speaker B: Oh. So the reason why I mentioned the dove specifically is because it was. Wasn't like, the dark night of my soul, but it was like. It was dark. And it was hard that time after I got injured and I, like, quit soccer. I'm done with this Jesus. Like, what do you want? And I started to feel this nudge to communicate online about God, and. [00:21:07] Speaker A: Whoa. [00:21:08] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:21:09] Speaker A: So you weren't even necessarily sold out on the reality of God, but you felt the call to do some form of ministry at the same time as a call to God. [00:21:19] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:21:21] Speaker A: Which is, like, I think, dangerous. Well, it's Dangerous. But I also think of. That's how God gets dudes so frequently. [00:21:26] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:21:27] Speaker A: Like, come do something cool with me. [00:21:28] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:21:29] Speaker A: It's like, I want to do stuff like St. Peter. I'm a sinful man. You'll be a fisher of men. [00:21:32] Speaker B: Yes. [00:21:33] Speaker A: He was called and a commission at the same moment. [00:21:35] Speaker B: Right. [00:21:36] Speaker A: So that's how you experienced that. [00:21:37] Speaker B: Yes, yes, yes. Yeah. I've never tied that together, but yeah, that's pretty. That's pretty good. [00:21:42] Speaker A: That's why I get the big bucks, man. That's where you're. The next day. Welcome to the Chris Stefanick Show. Oh, yeah. [00:21:50] Speaker B: And yeah, Play the B roll, which is your face. Dubsteph. [00:21:57] Speaker A: And [00:21:59] Speaker B: the episode ends there. [00:22:00] Speaker A: Roll credits. Roll credits. No. [00:22:03] Speaker B: So insane. So insane. [00:22:05] Speaker A: So you felt called at the same moment? [00:22:07] Speaker B: I felt called at the same moment. So I start going online on TikTok, and I start. Yeah. So I go online and I'm. [00:22:14] Speaker A: My mind's blown. That's where the TikTok began there. [00:22:17] Speaker B: Yeah. The night that I realized, okay, God, let' just. It's me and you now. We're gonna go. We're gonna. We're gonna. And I didn't really fully understand it, but I knew that people were in a lot of pain. I knew that people had a lot of questions, and the Holy Spirit moved my heart to, like, help people in that. And I make my video. First video. It gets, like, a million views in a night. And I'm like, wow, okay, I should do this. [00:22:45] Speaker A: You got a million views on your first video? [00:22:48] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. It was just the gospel. And I had, like, 15,000 followers on TikTok from, like, doing stupid stuff. [00:22:54] Speaker A: Wow. [00:22:55] Speaker B: And then I was like, all right, guys, I'm gonna talk about Jesus now. We're gonna do this. And then that was the video. It was like, 15 seconds. Million views. I wake up with, like, you know, like, 200,000 followers. I'm like, all right, people want to hear about Jesus now. And there was, like, no one else doing this besides, I only knew, like, one other guy. [00:23:17] Speaker A: This is around 2000. [00:23:18] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:23:19] Speaker A: TikTok was nobody talking about no one. [00:23:22] Speaker B: No one was talking about Jesus. And I just saw it as a place where you could do that. And I was heavily inspired because of Elijah Lamb. You met him. Elijah Lamb was making, like, these apologetic videos, like, in his mirror. And I was like, oh, these are really sick. Like, I'm not as smart as him, but I can talk about that. I can talk about stuff that I know, like the love of God, you know, like, I'm not going to go try to be someone that I'm not. But I'm going to do this my own way. [00:23:48] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:23:50] Speaker B: And I just hit record. And then it was really easy. Hey, guys. Jesus actually loves you. Did you know that God is actually real? You know, that was it. [00:23:59] Speaker A: And video, simple stuff like that. [00:24:01] Speaker B: Yeah. Million views. [00:24:02] Speaker A: I'm like, okay, you're tapping right into the pain of your generation. [00:24:06] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:24:07] Speaker A: People need to hear it. [00:24:08] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, 100%. [00:24:08] Speaker A: And then. [00:24:09] Speaker B: And then a week later, Covid happens. [00:24:12] Speaker A: Whoa. [00:24:12] Speaker B: Yeah. And now everyone's on their phone and I start going through a lot of pain because I'm lonely and I have all these people following me. And so every night that I felt. [00:24:27] Speaker A: How old were you at the time? I was 18. [00:24:30] Speaker B: 18. [00:24:31] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:24:33] Speaker B: You like just turned 18? [00:24:34] Speaker A: Ish. Wow. [00:24:36] Speaker B: Or 17. I forget, honestly. And yeah, the timeline is like a little messed up and I don't have it to month, but senior of high school, you know. And I'm talking about the love of God. I'm talking about everything that I wanted to hear. So, like, everything that I wanted someone to tell me when I was 13, I just like, was telling people this. God, actually, he loves you. He's not afraid of your questions. [00:25:06] Speaker A: He's not afraid of your mess. He's not. [00:25:07] Speaker B: He's not afraid of your mess. [00:25:09] Speaker A: He's pursuing you. [00:25:10] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. But it was like chill until one moment. And this moment changed everything. It was the passion of the Christ. Have I told you this story? [00:25:22] Speaker A: No, man. [00:25:22] Speaker B: Okay, so the passion of the Christian. I have 400,000 followers now on TikTok. I've been doing it for like three [00:25:31] Speaker A: months and 400,000 in three months. Yeah, there's marketing agencies that charge lots of money to help people figure out how to do that. [00:25:37] Speaker B: You just need emotional kids, you know, talk about Jesus. [00:25:42] Speaker A: Do you know any emotionally unstable kids? That's what you need. [00:25:46] Speaker B: Just hit on that. Just hit on that. Also create a pandemic again. I'll do numbers for your organization. And yeah, I watched the Passion of the Christ. I turn it on because of a comment. A comment was like, you should watch the Passion of the Christ. I'm a big movie guy. I've always loved movies. I'm like, this is sick. This is like a non cringe Jesus movie. I've never heard of it before. It's rated R. I'm like, dude, does Judas have a Glock? Why is it rated R? Like, what's happening? It's intense, man. And I turn it on and the opening scene, I go, oh. And I just start to weep. [00:26:21] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:26:23] Speaker B: And it was when he was in the garden wrestling with Satan. [00:26:28] Speaker A: Who's your father? [00:26:29] Speaker B: Yeah, who is your father? [00:26:30] Speaker A: The identity question. [00:26:31] Speaker B: Yes, yes, yes. And it captured me. I remember seeing, like, the demon and that Judas was. You know, he was hiding behind that wall. And the demon came out and I realized, like, wait a second. Like, this is real. All of this is real. And I couldn't stop weeping. [00:26:56] Speaker A: Wow. [00:26:56] Speaker B: And then we get to the Passion, and. I start to, like, weep so much, I begin to gag. [00:27:10] Speaker A: Wow. [00:27:10] Speaker B: And I couldn't stop saying one thing. And I pray I never stopped saying it, but it's, why did you do this for me, Jesus? You know why? And the question. Oh, man. It's like, do you really love me this much? I recited John 3:16 for my third grade talent show. Like, I've known the story, but now through, like, basically iconography, through images, moving images. [00:27:46] Speaker A: Amen. [00:27:47] Speaker B: No, really. [00:27:48] Speaker A: Amen. Really. [00:27:51] Speaker B: I begin to encounter Christ. And the weeping wouldn't stop. The gagging wouldn't stop. And the parallel that I draw to is golem felt like Gollum. And literally even my posture resembled it. [00:28:09] Speaker A: That's heavy, man. [00:28:10] Speaker B: Yeah. I was bent over and I began to throw up. This is like. I'm watching this, by the way, at midnight, like, with no one around. Like, my parents are completely. Like, they're asleep. Whatever. [00:28:21] Speaker A: I'm downstairs. How do you read that? [00:28:23] Speaker B: How do I read that? [00:28:23] Speaker A: Was it complete emotional overwhelm, or was it something, like, coming out of you? Like, this is some release. [00:28:31] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, it's definitely interesting. And I think it will remain a mystery. A lot of it is very pragmatic. Like, when you cry so much, you will begin to gag. But the throwing up. I was throwing up so much that I just don't know. And I realized in that moment how evil my sin is. And this is crazy. This is crazy. But I was watching pornography and I didn't even know it was bad. [00:28:59] Speaker A: Yeah, I believe it. [00:29:00] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:29:01] Speaker A: Like, most people don't. [00:29:02] Speaker B: I didn't like. And until that moment, I wasn't watching pornography while I was, like, doing the Christian stuff. But, like, it all hit me. It all hit me in that moment of, like, oh, it all makes sense now. Which is crazy. How much sin can blind you. [00:29:20] Speaker A: Sin makes us stupid. One is, it darkens the intellect. [00:29:23] Speaker B: It darkens. It literally darkened my intellectual. Like, I was dumb to the point where, like, I wasn't even thinking about lust. [00:29:30] Speaker A: Wow. [00:29:31] Speaker B: I wasn't thinking about my Sin. But it all became aware to me. [00:29:35] Speaker A: But, dude, seeing the right art, right? In that form of media, it's almost exorcistic. Like it flushes out all the wrong things we're looking at with our eyes. [00:29:45] Speaker B: Yes. That's powerful. Yeah. [00:29:46] Speaker A: Did you know Barabbas converted in that movie? [00:29:48] Speaker B: No, really? [00:29:50] Speaker A: I mean, the actor. The actor, yeah. Speaking of looking at something having changed your life during the scene. He's a full blown, like, hedonist, atheist guy. I'm pretty sure. Full blown atheist. He looks up at Jesus. Jesus looks at him, he's like, I'm [00:30:04] Speaker B: a believer to that moment. [00:30:06] Speaker A: In that moment. Wow. Rewatch that moment. There's a guy converted so good. [00:30:12] Speaker B: Dude, that movie had the sauce, man. [00:30:16] Speaker A: Shout out to Mel Gibson. [00:30:17] Speaker B: Shout out Mel Gibson. [00:30:18] Speaker A: Yeah. I get to have a three hour meal with him once. [00:30:20] Speaker B: Oh, wow. [00:30:21] Speaker A: That's another show. Anyway, go ahead. [00:30:23] Speaker B: Welcome to the Chris. [00:30:26] Speaker A: He's a kindest guy guy. [00:30:27] Speaker B: Yeah, I bet he is. [00:30:28] Speaker A: Like, he didn't. He wasn't looking at. He didn't look at his phone a single time. [00:30:32] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:30:32] Speaker A: He was just present to anybody who was there at the meal. And he was like. He wasn't done until we were done. I was really touched by that. [00:30:39] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:30:39] Speaker A: It reminded me, like, how to treat people who are like, hey, I watch your videos. Like, okay, my full attention is on you. [00:30:44] Speaker B: Yeah. Anyway, no, it's really inspiring. Father Mike Schmitz was like that when I wasn't. [00:30:49] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, he's. He's awesome. [00:30:51] Speaker B: Unbelievable, man. [00:30:52] Speaker A: But you. So this, you have this exorcistic moment that the art, you know, drowned me just. [00:30:58] Speaker B: Yes. [00:30:59] Speaker A: Cleansed you. [00:31:00] Speaker B: Yes, it cleansed me. [00:31:01] Speaker A: Wow. Where do we go from here? [00:31:02] Speaker B: Well, I'll tell you. I'll tell you. [00:31:03] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:31:06] Speaker B: I'm like limping in my kitchen. So the kitchen was adjacent to the living room and so you could see the tv. So now I'm like, I'm trying to get away from the movie. I'm like, I can't watch this anymore. And Jesus, he goes obviously in the tv, into the tomb. And I'm like, heartbroken. And I. I have never felt so hopeless in my life. [00:31:29] Speaker A: Wow. [00:31:29] Speaker B: And then I'm in my living room for, you know. Sorry. I'm in my kitchen for like 10 seconds. The movie's black. I thought it ended. And I'm like, what? Like, what just happened to me? And I still feel so, like, broken and, like, I can't even, like, sit up straight. And then the drums and, like, I turn around and I see this the stone, it's rolling away. And I go, oh, my God, you're alive. [00:32:00] Speaker A: You were brought into the moment. [00:32:01] Speaker B: Yes, I was brought. [00:32:02] Speaker A: Like, you already knew it, but you're brought into the moment. [00:32:04] Speaker B: The Lord brought me into the moment. And I start screaming in my kitchen, like, he's alive. Like, oh, dude, it made sense. Everything made sense. And this is the craziest part that I don't talk about. But it's good you are now. [00:32:21] Speaker A: We're there. [00:32:21] Speaker B: We're there, and it will make sense. I've given an adequate preface. I feel a hand on my back, and it pushes me to the ground. And at this moment, I believe God gave me a level of clarity to try to stop it, because I'm a skeptic, like, at root, to stop the [00:32:44] Speaker A: hand pushing you down. [00:32:45] Speaker B: I'm like, is this the placebo effect right now? Cause I'm like, I have to go to the ground, like, to bow, like, to the Lord. And I'm trying to stop this, and I hear footsteps coming down my stairs. And I'm like, I woke my parents up. And I'm like. I'm like, dad, I don't know what's happening to me. And I think it's my father. You know, it was, but, you know, I didn't see her, like, necessarily hear anyone. I cannot find fully explain this moment, but it's like, right before this person walked around the corner, my head dropped. And this is, like, the only time. [00:33:27] Speaker A: Wow. [00:33:27] Speaker B: I've ever heard, like, a voice. It wasn't as if you and I were speaking as. It was as if, like, a wind was, like, blown on me. And I heard, will you follow me, bro? [00:33:40] Speaker A: This is a full blown mystical experience. [00:33:43] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, 100%. And I scream like, yes. Boom. Gone. [00:33:49] Speaker A: All emotion, all the release was just instantly gone. [00:33:54] Speaker B: We stayed quiet for two seconds. Right now. [00:33:57] Speaker A: It was like that. [00:33:57] Speaker B: Just like that. [00:33:59] Speaker A: I've had similar experiences, and I've only had them with a religious experience. Yeah, right. There's nothing else like it where there's an extreme emotional release and then completely complete calm. [00:34:12] Speaker B: Gone. [00:34:13] Speaker A: Boy, that's. That's pretty mind blowing. [00:34:16] Speaker B: Yeah. So I started making 20 videos a night, being like, you have to believe in God. And I was, like, crying and screaming on the Internet. And that's when I, like, the evangelical [00:34:26] Speaker A: impulse went right to TikTok. [00:34:29] Speaker B: It went right to TikTok. I, like, I put my teeth. Dude, I put my teeth to the algorithm. Then I gained, like, 1.5 million followers. [00:34:37] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:34:37] Speaker B: Screaming and crying on the Internet. [00:34:39] Speaker A: This was not a small TikTok moment. This was like you before it got pulled. You had, what, 800, 800 million views on TikTok? I mean, that's insane. [00:34:50] Speaker B: Yeah, it was a lot. [00:34:51] Speaker A: That's like secular fame. Yeah, yeah. Kind of insanity. [00:34:55] Speaker B: It's crazy. 2020 was crazy. Wow. Yeah. [00:35:00] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh. Dude. [00:35:01] Speaker B: So that's. That is. I think that is the. The most conclusive recount I've ever given of my testimony. I'm glad it's on camera. [00:35:08] Speaker A: That was not a brief reteller. That was show number one. [00:35:12] Speaker B: I said, let's keep this quick. [00:35:15] Speaker A: I'm so glad you dove in there, man. [00:35:17] Speaker B: Good, good. Thank you for letting me go there. [00:35:19] Speaker A: Seriously, I appreciate it. Okay, so you've become the apostle of TikTok. Yeah, until it got pulled. And here's where we pivot into Islam. TikTok and Islam. People wouldn't think this would fit under the same umbrella. Nope. [00:35:32] Speaker B: Quick shift after the crisis mus. [00:35:40] Speaker A: So what happened? [00:35:40] Speaker B: Yes. [00:35:41] Speaker A: How did this. How did this lead you? I mean, you weren't passionate about speaking about Islam before or studying it or. [00:35:46] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I did it here. I only had a briefing. [00:35:49] Speaker A: Talk. And how did this get you pulled? [00:35:51] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, I can tell you that. [00:35:52] Speaker A: And I'm so angry at the way social media works, which is dangerous to say this because this show is on YouTube, but. Right. Like, we all thought, hey, everybody, we're gonna build this platform up by doing hard work to drive traffic and eyeballs to it. [00:36:08] Speaker B: Yeah. And. [00:36:09] Speaker A: And now, like, even your own subscribers don't see your stuff unless you, like, pay for ads for your own people. Hit. I want to subscribe to you. [00:36:16] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:36:16] Speaker A: Like, they just. It's like, you're just like yesterday's trash, dude. [00:36:20] Speaker B: Like, you know, it's not easy anymore, huh? [00:36:21] Speaker A: No, it's crazy. It's. You're serving the great algorithm. [00:36:26] Speaker B: The great algorithm. The. [00:36:28] Speaker A: It's depersonalized. [00:36:30] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:36:30] Speaker A: But anyway, that's a side rant. But the frustration is, like, here's a guy who pours. You pour yourself into this, develop a following, and then without any conversation happening, when you have over a million followers and you've worked hard, it's like, you're done. Yep. Wait, can I appeal? Wait, who do I appeal to? Yeah, no, it's just God. [00:36:49] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:36:50] Speaker A: Yeah. So what happened? [00:36:51] Speaker B: Yeah, I'll tell you. [00:36:51] Speaker A: What did you do wrong, David? [00:36:52] Speaker B: I did wrong. You know, bad David. TikTok. The TikTok whip hit me, and it was because I talked about Islam in a negative way. Way now, I didn't go on and say. [00:37:03] Speaker A: I don't even think you did. I wouldn't say it's a negative way. I think you just disagreed about something, which is normal adults can do. [00:37:08] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, when we. When we. [00:37:10] Speaker A: Not in 2020. [00:37:11] Speaker B: Not in 2020. Definitely not 2020. It's actually different now. [00:37:14] Speaker A: Yeah. You probably wouldn't have gotten pulled now if you. [00:37:16] Speaker B: No, no, probably not. Well, actually, on TikTok, yes. Tick tock is a. It's the worst platform, really. I hate TikTok. [00:37:23] Speaker A: Well, cool. [00:37:24] Speaker B: Yep. But so I'm on TikTok. I'm doing 20 videos a night, like [00:37:29] Speaker A: I was saying, and all, like 30 seconds, 60 seconds, that kind of thing. [00:37:32] Speaker B: Yeah. Really quick. 30, 62 minutes, 3 minutes. So with Islam, I had a guy comment on one of my posts and he said, you helped my faith in Allah. And I saw the comment. I go, ooh, that's not okay. That's not right. [00:37:53] Speaker A: That wasn't the goal. [00:37:54] Speaker B: That was not the goal. I knew a little about Islam because when I was in my, you know, looking into Christianity phase, I did look into, you know, Buddhism and Hinduism, like Judaism and, like, Islam. Like, what are these people claiming that they have? I like, I obviously, like, knocked Islam very quickly because of a number of reasons. I just could never take it serious. But I didn't. I didn't know, like, what a hadith was. You know, I didn't know who Aisha was. Like, I wasn't, like, well versed in. [00:38:24] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:38:24] Speaker B: In the structure and the philosophy of Islam, the theology of Islam. So I. I simply say, allah is not real. Like, that. Only Jesus is God. Jesus is God. And I said, muhammad is dead. [00:38:42] Speaker A: He didn't rise from the dead. [00:38:43] Speaker B: He didn't rise from the spiritual. I know I only said true things. And I said, you know, Christ is the only way. Christ is the only way. We must follow him. I am a Christian, and if you. If you want to follow me, know this, that I am not for Islam. I am for Christ and Christ alone. The video, you know, it got like. I think it was like 18. 18 million views. [00:39:10] Speaker A: Wow. So in how long a time? [00:39:12] Speaker B: About like three days. [00:39:14] Speaker A: Jeez. [00:39:14] Speaker B: Yeah. Boom. And then my account just got knocked. [00:39:19] Speaker A: Disappeared. [00:39:19] Speaker B: Disappeared. [00:39:20] Speaker A: You just went to log in and it's gone? [00:39:21] Speaker B: Yeah. It said, your account is banned. Permanently. Banned. [00:39:24] Speaker A: Permanently. No, no. Warning, no strike. No. Hey, could you say it this way? Could you soften the light? Just bump. Gone. [00:39:29] Speaker B: Yeah, I don't care. [00:39:31] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:39:31] Speaker B: I literally. I was like, I don't care. So I'm like, I literally, you know, I look back now and it was only in purity. Only in purity. But I was like, they put Paul in jail, you know, whatever. And so I just made another account in like three months. That one got like 800,000 followers. [00:39:50] Speaker A: And that got pulled. [00:39:51] Speaker B: And then, you know, mass, mass amount of people, A mass amount of people, they got on Discord and they, they just started to spam my account, to ban my account. Because you can report accounts in TikTok. And if, if enough of people, like report the account, the algorithm will like, will block your account for two days to review. Why are all these people wanting to remove you? And so I had a battle for like a month with these people. I would never make videos about them. It was a battle of just like trying to get my account to stay active. [00:40:25] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:40:26] Speaker B: And I would be banned for two days. Your account is under review. I would get unbanned. I wouldn't even make another video. I wouldn't have time to. Within like four hours, your account's banned for two days. This happened for like a month. [00:40:42] Speaker A: I mean, I wouldn't have said it quite like you. I wouldn't have said Allah is not real. Cause Allah, literally Allah. Yeah, I know, I know. I didn't know. [00:40:47] Speaker B: That's why I was like, I didn't know theology. It literally just means God. [00:40:51] Speaker A: And a guy who's a good willed, who's trying grew up that way. I think that the Lord hears them. I don't think it's all rerouted to hell. Right. I have different nuances. [00:41:01] Speaker B: Right, right, right. [00:41:02] Speaker A: And yet, and yet, like, okay, that doesn't take away anything. You said that Jesus is the way. We have to proclaim to everybody that Jesus is the way. Or what are we doing here? I mean, this is the God in the flesh calling us to himself. How do you keep it to yourself? It's like your convergence moment. He's risen. Yeah. [00:41:21] Speaker B: That's why my approach was so militaristic and I didn't spend any time on research. Now, knowing what I know about Islam, you know, I got two things right in that video. That Muhammad is dead and that Jesus is alive. And I'm glad I said that. Like, that was the point. And yeah, people really, really disliked it. And so I was removed. But it led to something interesting. It led to the underground church of Iran in Afghanistan. A group of believers who were making disciples out there baptizing people, you know, and in holes in their backyard in Mecca, they were reaching out to me and they're like, hey, we would love for you. [00:42:02] Speaker A: Wait, what about Mecca? [00:42:03] Speaker B: Yeah, let me tell you about this. So, yeah. So a group of believers who are like, in Mecca. [00:42:09] Speaker A: Is this gonna endanger anybody? [00:42:11] Speaker B: No, no, it's okay. Who are like, in Mecca, their names are. [00:42:16] Speaker A: It will, but this will go viral, so who cares? No kidding. [00:42:19] Speaker B: We're about vanity metrics, man. I haven't got good numbers as twice 20, you know. Come on. No, yeah. There's like these believers in Mecca who were literally digging holes in backyards, putting a tarp and, like, baptizing Muslims. [00:42:36] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh. Yeah. [00:42:37] Speaker B: They're like, hey, we're doing work. Like, we see your heart for Islam, we see what you carry. Like, we want to work with you. We want you to be a part of what we're doing. [00:42:47] Speaker A: And I took this and you're 22. [00:42:48] Speaker B: No, I was 20 years old, so. [00:42:51] Speaker A: My God. [00:42:52] Speaker B: 20 years old. And I was like, okay. Like, I'm in. So long story short, I'm working with this organization and I'm seeing crazy stuff. Like, I'm getting texts from, like, different threads on, like, WhatsApp app or. Yeah, WhatsApp. WhatsApp app. I always forget what it's called of like, you know, one of our contacts, like, filming, like, an execution, you know, in like, Afghanistan of a Christian. Just of people just, like. Just people just getting killed, like, in, like the, you know, the hills of Afghanistan. [00:43:24] Speaker A: And it's not a religion of peace. It's not. It's just not. It's just not. [00:43:28] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:43:28] Speaker A: I mean, a Muslim could come to a Christian place, go to Tennessee and become a Muslim evangelist. If that's. I don't know what they call it. And you're not going to get killed. [00:43:37] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:43:37] Speaker A: If you go to Saudi Arabia, if you go to Iran, if you go to Afghanistan and say, I'm a Christian evangelist, you will likely not. Maybe you will likely die. [00:43:46] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:43:47] Speaker A: And that's just named three countries, but there's lots of them like that. [00:43:51] Speaker B: Right. [00:43:52] Speaker A: Unless you stay in a certain parameter and safe zone that's made for expats. [00:43:55] Speaker B: Right. [00:43:56] Speaker A: But even then, you gotta be careful. [00:43:57] Speaker B: Yeah. It's really. You can never. In a Muslim country, you can never proclaim Christ without consequence, whether in jail. [00:44:04] Speaker A: Like, that's something you gotta pay attention to. [00:44:06] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:44:06] Speaker A: That's not. [00:44:07] Speaker B: Yeah. Which is really interesting because after. [00:44:09] Speaker A: That's not phobia. That's literal historic fact. It's just a fact. [00:44:12] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a historic fact. I like to parallel. This is really fascinating. Parallel the Birth, really, of Islam to the birth of Christianity with Pentecost and the Apostate wars. So we know about Pentecost, but not many people know about the apostate wars. After Muhammad died, there is a vacuum of leadership. Muslims still today argue over it, and they're called the Shiites and the Sunnis. But basically, this vacuum produced bloodshed, a bloodshed that ancient Arabia has never seen since. They say, like, the desert was a sea of blood because Muslims were killing each other. Like, it was horrible because all these people were leaving Islam. The Prophet's dead. They just. They just. You know, they dissipate. It gets chaotic. And the Muslims leaders, however, they go in, and the Caliphate, they. They put Islam. They put Arabia back in line, but only after, like, you know, years of war. And then you have, like, Pentecost, which is, like, you know, I'm not gonna say our Prophet, but like our Lord. Our Lord, like our leader, Christ our King. He ascends, he leaves. In a sense, he gives us the Holy Spirit himself, you know, and in that, we have the undoing of Babel. [00:45:35] Speaker A: Everyone's drawn together. [00:45:36] Speaker B: Yeah. The unification of all language of all moments. It is the undoing of trying to get paradise without God. God is saying, I will make Eden with you once again. [00:45:48] Speaker A: Look at that. Look at the hairs. Man standing right up. [00:45:50] Speaker B: Yes, there it is. Because that's what Babel was. We will build paradise. And so they attempted to build to heaven, but Eden, the vocation of man is not to expand upward, but outward. And this is what the gospel has done and has done since Pentecost. And so the juxtaposition between Islam and Christianity and how they spread is vital to understand. [00:46:14] Speaker A: It's vital to know what shape has your interaction with Islam taken since then and what happened with these ministries reaching out to you. [00:46:24] Speaker B: So there is a man. I'm not going to say his name. There was a man, and he was very important to the ministry, very vital. Lived in Iran. He was doing a lot of work in Iran, and he asked for over a million dollars. And he said, if we don't give it to him, then he is going to expose our leaders in Iran. [00:46:52] Speaker A: Oh, Judas, man. [00:46:54] Speaker B: Yeah, really hard. So I actually joined the. I actually joined the ministry. And then this happened, like, six months while I was in there. Like, sorry. This happened six months after I joined. [00:47:06] Speaker A: Whoa. [00:47:08] Speaker B: And the organization doesn't go up in flames, but everyone started to look over their shoulder. Who can we trust? This wasn't just like, a guy on the street. It was like a friend oh, my gosh. I've prayed with this man. I've shaken his hand. I really loved him. [00:47:26] Speaker A: Lord have mercy. [00:47:28] Speaker B: And he switched. He switched up very quickly. When did that happen? When did he start stealing from the money bag? I don't know, but it was. [00:47:38] Speaker A: But your passion in this area has continued when you want to evangelize someone who's Islamic. [00:47:44] Speaker B: Yes. [00:47:44] Speaker A: How do you do that? Really? [00:47:46] Speaker B: That's a get out of my small violin moment. [00:47:49] Speaker A: Peter Kreef wrote, you know, wrote about the three great world. Hold on. Rewind, brain. You know, when you're 50, there's a lot of files in there that take a minute to find. [00:48:00] Speaker B: I only know, like. I only know, like, four great books. [00:48:03] Speaker A: No, he wrote about Hinduism, Judaism and Islam and how to share the faith with them. [00:48:07] Speaker B: Yes, yes. [00:48:07] Speaker A: And how Hinduism is like walking into a big fog. It's like, where do I find the common ground? It's so mystical and hard to pin down. And Islam is like a spike and it's not moving. So we share a lot of things, like a belief in one God, objective truth, objective morality. And there's a lot of ways we can frankly, bond with Muslims of goodwill. And yet, because it's such a spike, it's so hard to penetrate and get any ground whatsoever for Jesus and for this idea that God is not just real, but it's love. [00:48:40] Speaker B: Yes. [00:48:40] Speaker A: And loves you as your father. He's not just wanting submission, but a father, son relationship. [00:48:44] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:48:45] Speaker A: So how do you do that? I mean, have you successfully done this? [00:48:48] Speaker B: Yeah. So that. So, yeah. This leads me to a really great. A great moment of my life. One of my favorite moments I've ever had in evangelism. So as I'm going through this intensity, the Lord really has, like, protected me because he takes me away from the drama and he says, david, I didn't call you to, like, an organization. I called you to the heart of Muslims to witness to Muslims. [00:49:13] Speaker A: Wow. [00:49:14] Speaker B: Like, who cares about a 501C3? A group of people in the sense [00:49:17] Speaker A: of, like, unless it's reallifecatholic.com donate. But besides, no, really, it all does go away. People give their hearts to a ministry that. They all fade. [00:49:27] Speaker B: Yeah, they all fade. [00:49:28] Speaker A: It's about people. People. [00:49:29] Speaker B: It's people. It's not a title. It's not an organization. It's not even a movement. It's people. Like, Jesus cares about people. I'm overwhelmed. I am completely overwhelmed. I don't know what to do in life. My account's completely gone. This ministry is Just, like, up in flames. And I'm alone. I'm alone. And I just go for a drive. And I'm angry. I'm like, God, what are we doing? Like, I'm just confused. Like, where do you have me going? And it was this rant for 20 minutes of just irritation, confusion. Very similar to my experience when I was 13 years old. Because that's how I felt. Hopeless, lost, confused. God, what. What is this? What is this moment? And I drove past a flea market. I drove past a flea market, and I felt this. This, like, utterance in my soul. Like, go. And, you know, after 20 minutes of venting to the Lord, I feel like going to a flea market. And I pull up and I'm like, okay. You know, I'm angry. I'm like, literally like a child. I'm like, I'm here, fine. Like, what do you want me to do? I'm like, kicking the dirt as I'm walking in this flea market. What am I doing? Like, was that God? Or like, do I just want, like, a pocket knife? You know? Like, I'm confused. Why am I here? And I walk past a booth and two women are wearing burkas. They're like, playing like this Arabian music. And a girl grabs my arm, pulls me, goes, you? I go, yes. She goes, you made the video about Islam? I go, yep. And I kept walking. I just ignored her. My heart's pounding. And she's like, hey, no. And she runs up to me, she goes, why would you make that video? And I'm like, you know what? I'll tell you. And so for two hours, I stood there and I explained the gospel to this woman. I can't say her name. [00:51:31] Speaker A: Wow. [00:51:32] Speaker B: But it led to a relationship, a friendship between her and I, where we would meet at a coffee shop. So she gives me a Quran and I give her a Bible. And we agree to look at each religion respectfully and with honesty. I would ask my questions. She wouldn't have answers. She would ask me questions. By the grace of God, she would get answers. [00:52:02] Speaker A: Wow. [00:52:02] Speaker B: And so for eight months, we met over and over and over and over again. And one night, you know, it's been a long time, we're meeting secret. By the way, she hides the Bible underneath her car. Like, underneath, like, the seats and stuff. She, like, took out the seat, put the Bible in so her parents wouldn't find it. Cause her parents would kick her out. [00:52:23] Speaker A: Wow. [00:52:23] Speaker B: She's a first generation American. Like, her parents are just like, completely. You know, they're just. They're not from. Not from America. They're just, you know, they're in it, so. And they're traditionalists. So, like, if they find that she's. [00:52:37] Speaker A: She's gone. [00:52:38] Speaker B: Yeah, she's dead. And so she's terrified. But she's terrifiedly like, she's. [00:52:43] Speaker A: And if they were back in their home country, you might be killed and she might be killed for this. [00:52:46] Speaker B: Oh, both. [00:52:46] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:52:47] Speaker B: Yes, yes, yes. Right, yes, yes. 110%. And, you know, I'm leaving it ambiguous, just for her safety and. Well, one moment, we had a conversation and after six hours, she converted to Christianity. And to this day, she walks with the Lord. It's been five years. [00:53:10] Speaker A: Wow. Does your family know? [00:53:12] Speaker B: Her family does know and they didn't kick her out, which is crazy. [00:53:18] Speaker A: What is it about the approach? Was it no different than just talking to any Gen Z' er and just saying, I just want to talk about the Gospel? [00:53:24] Speaker B: No. So. Which is really interesting. [00:53:26] Speaker A: What was different? [00:53:27] Speaker B: It is relation. You know, Nabil Qureshi, he has remarkable literature on Islam. He wrote the famous book Seeking a Finding Jesus. And I highly recommend anyone who is interested in witnessing to Muslims or who wants to understand the Muslim mind, because Nabeel Qureshi was a Muslim, a Muslim for his entire life, and he spent eight years, not eight months, talking with David Wood. David Wood is. He's an apologist. He's done a lot of stuff online. But David Wood and Nabeel Qureshi, they had this relationship. And Nabeel talks about that relationship being the exact thing. Thing that led him to Christ. It was consistency, it was discipleship, and it was faithfulness in David's pursuit of Nabeel. Because Islam is not a religion. It is a way of life. You walk into the restroom with your left foot because Prophet Muhammad did so. You eat a certain way, you fast a certain time of day, your family speaks a certain way, you pray five times a day, consistently, constantly. It is a way of life. It is not something that you go and participate in. It is who you are ontologically. So to leave that is to leave your identity. [00:54:35] Speaker A: That's heavy. [00:54:36] Speaker B: Yes. It's like forsake your name, forsake your family, forsake everything you've ever known since birth. Forsake everything. [00:54:42] Speaker A: That's how it feel. Even Christianity, Honestly. [00:54:44] Speaker B: Yes, yes, yes. It would be horrible. And then on top of that, you know, we would face relational outcasts. But most Muslims, you know, in the east and even Muslims here in the west would face a knife or death even from Their own family. That's happened here in the States. [00:55:06] Speaker A: Wow. [00:55:06] Speaker B: You know, you can just go look it up. To leave Islam is dangerous. According to the Quran and Hadiths, to apostate is to be killed. It's the greatest dishonor. So. [00:55:20] Speaker A: So the heroism required is incredible. [00:55:22] Speaker B: Yeah. So you literally pick up your cross. Like, it's the moment you accept Christ. I mean, it's almost, you know, it's close to the first second century of Christianity. As soon as you say yes, you're in the lion's den. [00:55:34] Speaker A: Wow, man. [00:55:35] Speaker B: Yeah. So, like, what do you do? [00:55:37] Speaker A: Well, you know, wow. Okay. No, speaking of the lion's den. And we could spend another hour on this, but so much I want to cover with you. Yeah, please keep going. Please keep going. The collapsing of that ministry redirected your life back to frankly ministering on social media. [00:55:52] Speaker B: Yes, it did. [00:55:52] Speaker A: While you still have this passion, you still will have conversations with Muslims and, you know, and try to bring everybody to Jesus. So social media, you. Gosh, there's so. There's so much to talk about with this. Well, first I want to know, like, secret sauce here. Like, you really have a unique gifting that. I kind of joked about it earlier, but I'm serious. Like, marketing agencies make a lot of money trying to help people go viral, and you have a gut sense for, like, well, I got canceled on TikTok. I'll restart it and just go ahead and get 800,000 new followers. And people are watching who try to do social media. Like, how. You know. And then. Well, I just started an Instagram that. How long ago did you start it? And how many followers do you have? [00:56:32] Speaker B: It's been about a year now. And. Yeah, now we're at half a million. [00:56:35] Speaker A: Yeah. A year. Half a million followers. I mean, that's mega. You have a gut sense for how to. How to ride the algorithmic wave. What does that require? And what does your life look like as a guy who does that? I mean, I. How do you take the name influencer? Do you say, yes, I am an influencer for Jesus. [00:56:55] Speaker B: I try to avoid it. [00:56:56] Speaker A: Okay. Because I personally hate it for myself. I'm an evangelist who does this as a side project. [00:57:01] Speaker B: Yes, yes. [00:57:03] Speaker A: And for me, most of my life has been in parish ministry and preaching. Live in front of people. That is actually what I do. And this is. Well, this is becoming more of a central project, but, like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Gosh. Yeah. So how do you do what you did there? The fact that you are saying, no, no, this is like from the. From the very get go. This is how I evangelize. [00:57:26] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:57:26] Speaker A: You know, so when I say I do it live mainly and do this as a side project, I'm not saying that's better than. It's just what I've been called to do. [00:57:32] Speaker B: Right. [00:57:33] Speaker A: You're no less an evangelist, and this is your field. This is your agora. This is where you go, how do you make things viral? [00:57:41] Speaker B: The way that you make good content is recognizing that the algorithm, they're human beings. Now, so many people get this wrong, but they're human beings. It's not a machine. And this is true. [00:57:57] Speaker A: Meaning the algorithm is set by human beings or the algorithm is just tracking pure human behavior. [00:58:03] Speaker B: Yeah, it's human behavior. [00:58:04] Speaker A: So it's not. It's not imposing the human behavior and guiding it. It is just tracking it. [00:58:09] Speaker B: So, you know, you've met disingenuine people. Yeah, yeah. And you know that they're not real. Yeah, it's pretty easy to clock in the first five minutes. You know, people are like, yeah, yeah. I mean, I love talking to you, but they're like everywhere else, or they're just talking about themselves or they never ask you a question. Like, that's not fun. [00:58:31] Speaker A: Right. [00:58:31] Speaker B: You know, a lot of people treat social media. They treat social media incorrectly because they don't approach it with authenticity. It's not that people are like, you know, intrinsically malice or like evil or like they only care about themselves, but you have to be intentional about being you. About being you. And I'm convinced that not everyone is made for social media. But if you can do it, you can do it. Even if you don't have a lot of followers, you can really scale it. But it's kind of like entrepreneurship. Not everyone is made for that. Like, well, you know, there's all this money and opportunity. It's like, yeah, well, you know, like, are you good at it? So to stay on topic, it's people, it's human beings. And this is it. This is the simplest. This is the golden ticket. Good content goes viral. Did you make a good video? Because if you make a good video, it will go viral. I have a Tolkien video. I talk about Tolkien a lot, and it always goes viral. You know what? [00:59:37] Speaker A: Really? [00:59:38] Speaker B: I'm on my third repost in the past three months. I've reposted it once every month. First time, it got a million views. Actually, first time I got like 1.4 million views. The second time, I reposted 800,000 views within a month of Just reposting it. I pre posted it yesterday. It's at 300k. [00:59:54] Speaker A: That's incredible. [00:59:54] Speaker B: You know, it's just good content. [00:59:56] Speaker A: There's more than just that, though. And you're thinking, yeah, there's more. [00:59:59] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm getting. I'm getting super pragmatic. [01:00:01] Speaker A: Right. Like, there's. I mean, there's making good content, but you're also literally posting three times a day. There's a. There's a exhausting amount of effort going into building a relationship. Yes. [01:00:12] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:00:13] Speaker A: And how much of that is the equation? Like, you're just. It's this constant presence. [01:00:17] Speaker B: So, yeah, I mean, so posting three times a day is really good. If I could, like, never get tired, if I could, like, remove the temporality of my being, I would post, like, 20 times a day. [01:00:28] Speaker A: Wow. [01:00:30] Speaker B: Like, just because of the love of the game. [01:00:31] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:00:32] Speaker B: Like, I want to help as many people as possible. [01:00:33] Speaker A: That's cool. So you're driven by genuineness with it. You want to help lots of people. You don't want to go viral. You want to help people. [01:00:38] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I want to go [01:00:40] Speaker A: viral to help people. [01:00:42] Speaker B: To help people, yeah. Like, I'm highly competitive so that I can be the. So Augustine, he has this whole lament on language. Hey, guys. I wish to not speak because every word that I describe is not actually true, specifically with God. If I say God is good, what does that actually mean? My words cannot do justice. But if I choose not to speak, a heretic will, and I must outspeak him. So that's how I feel about social media. So many people are like, you're 23. [01:01:10] Speaker A: You're this. [01:01:10] Speaker B: I'm like, yeah, I don't know a whole lot. If I could have it my way, I'd have a farm. I'd be a carpenter. You know, Like, I would just go and work with my hands, which I tried to do this year. [01:01:21] Speaker A: Yeah, sorry. 2024. You're not made for that, bro. [01:01:24] Speaker B: I got married, bro. I applied for Costco like, three times. You know, I applied for landscaping, and [01:01:31] Speaker A: they just look at you like, nah. Yeah, please go back on social media. [01:01:34] Speaker B: Yeah. Like, I got denied every job. And then I'm like, man, I'm just gonna. Okay, I'll just pick up social media again, then. [01:01:40] Speaker A: It's worth it. And you make a living on it. [01:01:41] Speaker B: I do make a living on social [01:01:42] Speaker A: media by sponsorships and selling things. [01:01:44] Speaker B: I don't sell things. I work in partnership with Compassion International, and I work with. Partnership with an organization called gcr. And so basically, I call people to help the underground church. [01:02:00] Speaker A: Awesome. [01:02:00] Speaker B: Still, I still have a heart for it. And then I call people to help children across the world. And, yeah, that's what I. That's what I do for them. [01:02:08] Speaker A: I want to talk about the good and bad side of this. I think, I would guess on the good side, when you see what works is being genuine and you have to post multiple times a day. It has to be good, and it has to be good. [01:02:18] Speaker B: Be genuine to make back on. [01:02:19] Speaker A: Yeah. That probably keeps you in a head space that just your job necessitates of. I need to be authentic. I need to be me. I need to be holy. Or else, frankly, what I'm trying to do is not going to work. [01:02:31] Speaker B: Well, that's the scary thing. It will work. So I don't mean to, like, you know, be all mysterious and some sort of, like, Gandalf figure. [01:02:39] Speaker A: No, go for it. Lean in. [01:02:40] Speaker B: Yeah, but, like, the Pope has quoted [01:02:41] Speaker A: Gandalf, by the way, in an encyclical letter for the first time. [01:02:44] Speaker B: So epic. [01:02:45] Speaker A: Gandalf is now part of Gandalf's canon. [01:02:48] Speaker B: Gandalf is canon. [01:02:50] Speaker A: That's crazy, dude. [01:02:52] Speaker B: I think Tolkien might become a saint. He's gonna appear someone and be like, I don't know. [01:02:55] Speaker A: Okay, here's the deal. If Tolkien becomes a saint, you become a Catholic. [01:03:01] Speaker B: Yeah. You saw it. [01:03:02] Speaker A: The hand was shaking so good. But I'm serious. How could you resist at that point? [01:03:08] Speaker B: That would be so crazy. [01:03:09] Speaker A: That would be impossible to then resist. So, yeah, you'll still succeed. And here's the dark side to social media. [01:03:15] Speaker B: Yes. [01:03:16] Speaker A: And you've seen evangelists fall off into the cliff and make it all about them. [01:03:20] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:03:20] Speaker A: Or actually it was revealed perhaps, that it had always been about them. [01:03:24] Speaker B: Yeah, that's the funny thing. It's like, you know, for example, Judas was taking money before. Like, you know, men cheat on their wives because of a moment of complacency, usually 10 years prior. Like, it's just, you know, stars don't die in a day. Yeah, they don't. [01:03:43] Speaker A: So what separates people who do this in a healthy way from people who do it in an unhealthy way? And how do you keep yourself from becoming unhealthy with it? Because the addictive feedback loop that feeds your dopamine, a teenager is susceptible to it, who's taking selfies all day, and so is someone who's trying to share the faith. Right. [01:03:59] Speaker B: You know, very practically, I'm submitted to my pastor. I walk very closely with a group of men who view my content. And I was literally at my pastor's house last night because I feel like I've been treating people like the algorithm. Like I'm getting like an algorithm. Like my mind is becoming like an algorithm. Like when people aren't performing well. If people don't get what I'm saying, it's like in a sense I'm like always seeking the profound in moments and relationships and it's affecting the way that I view even the normal. And it's dangerous. [01:04:37] Speaker A: So it's. [01:04:39] Speaker B: I really have to war against it. [01:04:40] Speaker A: So it's becoming hard to just be chilling basically. [01:04:43] Speaker B: It's always been hard to be chill. Like it, like yes, yes. Because what I've said it twice now. But what social media is ontologically, it is brevity. It is to be profound in 30 seconds. It is to be consumed. Yes, it is a nightmare. It is what Tolkien would describe as the machine. [01:05:09] Speaker A: Wow. [01:05:10] Speaker B: Which the machine is the death of the image of God. Truly. And I don't mean that like microphones and cars are bad. I mean the machine, I don't mean AI. I mean when efficiency is truly used for evil, which the algorithm then, which you know, outside of it being real people, like there is a machine behind the eyes. Take this for example, your phone. The saturation on your phone, did you know, is so heightened, it's more intense than the color of flowers because your brain is actually tied and geared and attracted to vibrancy. So Apple has actually exceeded the level of natural vibrancy within your phone. So it's actually more addictive to just look at your home screen than the real world. Now imagine a mechanism that's designed specifically after slot machines and it's a multi billion dollar organization that feeds off of your attention. This thing is a beast and it's dangerous. And the wisest advice that I have ever received for social media has come from three different men, three different times without intercommunication between them. Jake Sweetman, Michael Kulianos and Dr. Peter Kreeft. And it is be a spy, get in, get out. So that's what I do. I get in and I get out. I do not play with the algorithm. This machine that I cannot conquer. [01:06:48] Speaker A: So you don't then look for. How many views does this get? You just post and then don't keep looking at your own stuff. [01:06:53] Speaker B: You have to conquer that. Because I do have to. I constantly engage with my data. What did. Well I just yesterday. [01:06:59] Speaker A: How do you pull out? [01:07:00] Speaker B: Well, the way that you get out again Is walking in community is bringing people into the struggle. Being vulnerable. You are human. You are going to be hit, you are going to be shot at, and you're going to fall. You have to have people who help you pick. You have to have people who will help pick you back up. And then you set parameters. I have a mechanism on my phone that shuts it off every 15 minutes and then it takes two to three minutes to access again. [01:07:32] Speaker A: Really? [01:07:33] Speaker B: Yes. So when I'm reviewing data, does it matter when? If I have to look at my Instagram page, which I do do. This video did good. Why didn't it good? Cause what will often happen. This actually happened the other day. I posted a video, got 30,000 views for me. I don't mean to sound pious, but that's not good. That video flopped. So I go, this is a good video. So I actually told my editor, move this here, move this here, change the sound here, do this, add this caption. Did that the next day. Half a million views. Just cause. [01:08:00] Speaker A: So it's not just good content? [01:08:02] Speaker B: Well, no, no. Well, here's the thing. [01:08:05] Speaker A: It's gotta be good content. [01:08:06] Speaker B: I knew that was good content. I just had a graph and that's happened a couple times. [01:08:10] Speaker A: It's good content. But there's also a genius, a literal genius you have not to pump you up too much. [01:08:14] Speaker B: Thank you. [01:08:14] Speaker A: But you have a thing here. [01:08:16] Speaker B: Remember, I'm super humble, so I can. [01:08:17] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:08:20] Speaker B: So, yeah. [01:08:21] Speaker A: But to have that thing and not obsess, you have to place literal guidelines on yourself. I love you. Kick yourself off every 15 minutes for three minutes. That's powerful. [01:08:28] Speaker B: Yeah. And now I'm actually. This isn't a self plug. I'm not even gonna say the name name of it, but I'm devel. I am developing an app that. It's called Chaos. I just said it. I just, you know, whatever. But you need to know the name for this specific reason. This is not a plug. [01:08:42] Speaker A: No, actually plug away. Because this is good. I want to plug good things. It's part of the reason I have this show. [01:08:46] Speaker B: I'm not going to say the name. It's chaos. [01:08:49] Speaker A: I'm not going to sell it, buy it. [01:08:50] Speaker B: I get excited about these things. Chaos comes from this rabbinic teaching to bring rest into your life. Now, rest does not mean to sleep in. This is not the understanding in antiquity, within the biblical narrative, rest means to push back, to bring chaos to chaos. True rest is an art form and it requires intentionality. So I'm developing an app that's surrounded by that, the ability to push back against pornography and against addiction on your phone. [01:09:25] Speaker A: Way to go, man. [01:09:25] Speaker B: Yeah, dude. [01:09:27] Speaker A: You jump in and solve problems. I mean, we're playing with fire, but we can do it in the right way. [01:09:31] Speaker B: Yes. [01:09:31] Speaker A: In a way that does incredible amounts of good. I mean, that sums up the Pope's encyclical on AI. [01:09:35] Speaker B: Yes. And that is a mature approach. [01:09:37] Speaker A: Right. [01:09:38] Speaker B: It's like to not. The world is not black and white. [01:09:41] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:09:42] Speaker B: It's not black and white. It's way more fluid. [01:09:44] Speaker A: But it has to be like, to what end? And we have to have systems put in place for our lives and for society to keep us oriented to that end. [01:09:51] Speaker B: Right. [01:09:51] Speaker A: Or else it becomes. That sums up the Pope's encyclical. It's otherwise we're heading to the Industrial Revolution again, which was progress for progress's sake. And then you had people. The average life expectancy in Liverpool was 15. [01:10:03] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:10:04] Speaker A: Because kids started working in factories at age five. Dead. [01:10:07] Speaker B: And this is the machine that Tolkien so desperately hated. [01:10:10] Speaker A: Yeah. And there's the machine that is A.I. yes. The A.I. revolution. If we don't say, wait, wait, it's got to serve humanity. It's got to glorify God. [01:10:17] Speaker B: Right. [01:10:18] Speaker A: And we have to constantly check ourselves. Yes. And you're. You're operating in the heart of the machine, man. And I praise God for what you do. I can't do it the way you do. I'm not called to. Yeah. But I literally. I've deleted all social from my phone. I don't even. I never watch my own stuff. I don't know how it's doing. I have people good that. Cause I can't do it. I can't handle the fire in that way. Cause it just consumes my brain. Yeah. [01:10:40] Speaker B: And I won't be able to do this forever. So I'm praying I get to a spot where I'm able to, like, have a team. [01:10:46] Speaker A: I pray that you get to that spot too, man. [01:10:48] Speaker B: Thank you. Thank you. Cause I just know, like, this thing, you can't be on the war front forever. You have to have Christmas, you know, you have to have moments of. [01:10:57] Speaker A: I'm glad you're there, though. For as long as you're there. [01:10:58] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:10:58] Speaker A: Yeah. So what are the reasons? I'm glad that you're there. And one of the reasons I had you on the show is that you, in the Protestant world are one of the guys who's taking the word religion off the naughty word list. [01:11:08] Speaker B: Do my best. I'm doing my absolute best. [01:11:11] Speaker A: Religion is literally not a four letter word. We're allowed to say it. And liturgy off the naughty word list. These aren't bad things. No, they're wonderful. And it blew my mind at the ecumenical gathering just to see there's a turn happening here. [01:11:28] Speaker B: There is a massive turn. [01:11:30] Speaker A: Tell me about the turn and how do we encourage it and how is it speaking to you personally? But let's just start with the turn itself. Like, what's happening? There's a new openness. I remember, like, dude, when YouTube was new, you know, Jesus came to abolish religion. Was this huge thing. One of the first religious viral videos. [01:11:45] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. It's like 39 million views. I just made a video on it because it all goes back for me to CS Lewis. He speaks of the word gentleman. Gentleman used to mean a man with power, of wealth, responsibility. It was a title. But what does a gentleman mean now? Boy who holds a door open for an old lady. A gentleman is someone who opens the door for his wife, maybe on their first date. The word has changed. [01:12:17] Speaker A: Wow. [01:12:18] Speaker B: That's not a big deal, right? [01:12:19] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:12:19] Speaker B: But what happens when we touch love? [01:12:21] Speaker A: Verbicide, man. [01:12:23] Speaker B: Yes. It's the destruction of meaning. Religion is losing its meaning. And it's terrifying because religion is utterly beautiful. Religion means to bind oneself to. It is an intimate act of covenant, of respect, of honor. Religion is one of the, if not greatest, things to happen to mankind. It is the vocation of man to walk in relationship with God. It is to restore Eden. But Eden is not a place of chaos. The bushes are trim and let me say that. Wait. [01:13:06] Speaker A: That was awesome. That was awesome. I can't wait to read whatever book you come out with. Yeah, that was the Bushes are Trimmed and Eden. Dang. [01:13:15] Speaker B: No, it's true. It's true. [01:13:17] Speaker A: You're so British. British. [01:13:19] Speaker B: Yes, I am. [01:13:19] Speaker A: Should I talk later this week? That's just a British thing to say. The bushes are true. Eden, the bushes are true. I've been reaching Lewis. That's powerful, man. [01:13:27] Speaker B: Yeah. You know, the flowers are placed and there are paths, you know. Hear me, audience. You know, there are paths to walk. As painted in the liturgy. You know, as painted in the system of the liturgy. We are creatures of liturgy, you know, reductionists and postmodern philosophers. And you have the materialists who reduce us, as James K.A. smith would say, to brains on sticks. But we are creatures not of thought and we're not creatures of belief. Because that presents the problem as well. We are creatures of the soul, but furthermore, we are creatures of love. Dr. Peter Kreeft. He speaks so profoundly upon the Trinity in that it is love. To love is to be love and to give love. And this is the holy dance of our God since the beginning of time itself. And. And in that dance, we were created, to join, to participate. [01:14:40] Speaker A: Liturgy, man. [01:14:41] Speaker B: It is liturgy. It is who we are. And when the liturgy is performed in love, we are closest to heaven. We are in the domain of heaven. The church is the domain of heaven on earth. It's a remarkable place to be. It is a place of sacrifice, of love, of joy, of recognition. It is the place where the human soul receives the context to its existence. It's the liturgy. [01:15:10] Speaker A: Hallelujah. It is. Now, we go for two hours on this man. But, like, what's the aversion in the Protestant world where it still exists, to words like liturgy and religion? And how do we. Like, what are you encountering? Because you're definitely. When you put yourself out here, you're gonna get some flack for it. How do you respond to it? So, yeah. What are you hearing? And how do you. What's the comeback? [01:15:32] Speaker B: And it comes from a place of redefinition of a word. People don't understand what liturgy is. They hear legalism. When people say religion, they think of the Pharisees, but that's not what it is. That is corrupted religion. That is the destruction of what God has ordained. [01:15:50] Speaker A: And they're redefining religion as the worst version of it. [01:15:53] Speaker B: Yes. So when we look at legalism, you know, I see the forcing of love, the forcing of intimacy. That. That is horrible. It's just wrong. And so I'm doing my best to help. To help people see the beauty of who we are and who God is and the beauty of structure, because it's [01:16:12] Speaker A: lack of structure to stress what's happening, especially among gen zers, that's waking people up to that fundamental need. I mean, I was blown away even talking to Michael Kulianos. [01:16:21] Speaker B: Yes. [01:16:21] Speaker A: About how he's redoing his. I kind of want to go to the opening of this thing. Yeah. Redoing his. [01:16:27] Speaker B: I'll be there. [01:16:28] Speaker A: They're gathering space. You're gonna be there. [01:16:30] Speaker B: Yeah. You should come with me. Sit together. [01:16:31] Speaker A: Yeah. They're read. I think I will. But they're redoing it as the inside of, like, using iconography and making it look like an Orthodox. Yeah. With the Chandelier Cathedral. I mean, I heard. I'm like. My mind blew. Actually, it blew his mind when I said, I'm a Catholic evangelist. That's what I knew full time. He's like, you're what? [01:16:49] Speaker B: I love that gathering. That gathering just. It just redid everything for so many of us. [01:16:53] Speaker A: Yeah, it was so cool. [01:16:56] Speaker B: I thought you were my enemy. No, [01:17:01] Speaker A: I was about to literally kill you. I realized we're on the same team, basically. [01:17:08] Speaker B: Basically. [01:17:09] Speaker A: Welcome to the Christian. I mean, 95%. [01:17:12] Speaker B: We're almost there. Kind of. [01:17:13] Speaker A: Not really most. But what's happening? Because this was not happening. I remember, like, the birth and explosion of Catholic answers. And I was in SoCal at the time. It was like, it was a necessary thing because, dude, Calvary chapels were like, there was no friendly relationship going on. And I'm like, dude, let's give me some ammunition. Like, what do I say to this dude? I'm just, you know, and so it was. It was combative, you know, and that's. That's shifting, dude. That's shifting, but partly not because of the work of man. There's a work of God here. It's coming from the, like the. The inside core. [01:17:52] Speaker B: It's coming from Genesis. So Dostoevsky, Dostoyevsky, I have to say, in the Russian accent, okay, he says that beauty will save the world. I. I believe that. I believe it because beauty is tied to who we are. And remember, the materialist will say that we are simply brains with sticks. But we're not. We're creatures of love that require liturgy because liturgy is the order of our God, and so the soul is a brain. I believe that the souls of the, you know, the young people, we have tasted so quickly. Materialism, that you are simply just met her. That it's exhausting. [01:18:39] Speaker A: You are an algorithm. [01:18:40] Speaker B: Yes. [01:18:41] Speaker A: You're part of the machine. [01:18:41] Speaker B: Machine, but we're not. And that luckily, to God's divine grace and order cannot be stolen. This is why every tyrant is overthrown, because the human soul cannot allow it. We desire beauty. [01:18:59] Speaker A: Dang. [01:19:00] Speaker B: We will not allow beauty. [01:19:01] Speaker A: Iconoclasm is a tyrant. [01:19:03] Speaker B: What was that? Oh, yeah. [01:19:04] Speaker A: Iconoclasm is a tyrant. It's growing out of beauty. Of art. [01:19:08] Speaker B: Yes, it is. [01:19:08] Speaker A: Of liturgy. Is there something tyrannical about it? [01:19:11] Speaker B: Yes, yes. Yes, it is. Yes, it is. And it's dying. It's dying. And I'm glad it's dying. Because art, beauty, imagery is tied to who we are. [01:19:22] Speaker A: Wow. [01:19:23] Speaker B: Because again, we're tied to God. And Tolkien speaks so perfectly to this. With sub creation, we are sub creators. We don't create from nothing, but we create with God. And this is where music is so profound when tied to the liturgy. When Tied to us because music speaks to the human soul. Music lives in this unique tension of resolution and the unfinished, just as we live in. So the song that we hear, you know, we know it will end. And in that. In that tension that we feel in that moment of the song, we can express ourselves. We can find beauty, and. I don't know where I'm going with that. [01:20:10] Speaker A: Beauty doesn't have to know where it's going. You're going to the infinite. [01:20:14] Speaker B: I don't want to ramble. [01:20:17] Speaker A: Do feel free. Ramble. [01:20:19] Speaker B: Okay, okay, we can edit it. Okay, okay, we can edit it. Let me restart this because this is really good. [01:20:24] Speaker A: This is. [01:20:24] Speaker B: I think this is really, really, really, really profound. And since we're gonna edit it, I'm gonna. [01:20:30] Speaker A: We probably won't, because I like being human, honestly. You know what? [01:20:33] Speaker B: Don't edit it. [01:20:34] Speaker A: Yeah, I like saying we should edit that and then not don't edit it. [01:20:38] Speaker B: I want to tie this back to iconography with the music, with beauty. So as I was saying, music. Music is so fascinating to me because it is that. It is tension and resolution, and in itself, we cannot. I know now where I was going. I know now where I was going. [01:21:01] Speaker A: Just wait till you're 50, man. This is gonna be bad. [01:21:04] Speaker B: Hello. How are. Where am I. No, no, let me stay Tack. I'm here. I'm here. [01:21:11] Speaker A: Tension and resolution. [01:21:12] Speaker B: Yeah, tension and resolution. So we're in tension and resolution. [01:21:16] Speaker A: We. [01:21:18] Speaker B: Music. Music comes from God, but it is crafted by us in a sense. Like, every moment of music. Every moment of music is done with an instrument, even the human voice. Like, we cannot make music from nothing. It has to come from something. And this is what Tolkien was getting on. As we are sub creators, God has given us, obviously, a part of him. You know, being in the image of God, we're that. And I don't think it's talking about a nose or eyes or ears. It's something else. It's the ability and the dignity to create. And in that creation, well, it has to be beautiful. It's just who we are. [01:22:07] Speaker A: So, again, and not cheap beauty. [01:22:09] Speaker B: Not cheap beauty, but real, high beauty. Real, actual beauty. Yeah, real, actual. [01:22:14] Speaker A: That takes actual work. [01:22:15] Speaker B: That takes actual work, and that presents something that can be understood, unlike, you know, your contemporary art, unlike your postmodern art. I'm not saying that everything has to be like the Renaissance. I'm not saying everything has to be an oil painting or as some sort of statue, you know, with these lengths and lines. It's not that, but it needs to be understood. And it needs to be the image of God, true art. It needs to have the image of God. I was talking to Father Nazari. He is a Ukrainian Orthodox priest. He grew up in the Soviet Union and he studied art. What a fascinating man. He is. He is. He is remarkable. He talk like this, you know, very old. I'm like, you were in John Wick, too. You were the bad guy. No, he's the sweetest man, but I would never pick a fight with him. And he was talking about art. [01:23:07] Speaker A: Never fighting Ukrainians. Never fighting Ukrainians. [01:23:10] Speaker B: Orthodox Ukrainians. No way, dude. And, you know, he's talking about. He's talking about art. Now in la, we have this really interesting museum. It's called the Getty. And the Getty is mapped out through time. You go from the 12th century to the 21st century. And Father Nazaro, he was talking about walking in the Getty when he lived Nezer, when he first moved to la. And he goes, you know, at first we see image of God because it's actually all of these icons. It's all of these images of mankind and doing things that are holy, that are good, that are profound, like gardening and sailing and then actual icons. [01:23:50] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:23:51] Speaker B: And then he goes, you know, throughout time, I see the degrading of human image and the face slowly morphs into something else. Then it keeps going as now we get to the 21st century and in the Getty, they're like, naked. There's this whole thing of like, just like naked people. It's really weird. [01:24:11] Speaker A: Wow. [01:24:11] Speaker B: And he goes, you get to the last part, he goes. And then you have the ultimate deconstruction of the image of God. Pornography. The undoing. The undoing of the human image. [01:24:23] Speaker A: Wow. [01:24:24] Speaker B: And like, that is like, you know, that is not sub creation. That is just destruction. That is just corruption. And we know it's wrong. We know it's wrong. We have a knack for beauty. The human soul always returns to beauty. And this isn't new, like, what we're seeing, this disgusting behavior. And I'm not talking about, you know, people are just so disgusting. But behavior and the actions of pornography of, like the destruction of the imago dei, like, this actually happened in Rome. [01:25:04] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:25:04] Speaker B: You know, and then the Renaissance happened. It's happened before in history. And we always return to beauty. [01:25:12] Speaker A: The flushing out of it. [01:25:13] Speaker B: Yes. [01:25:13] Speaker A: Is what you experience when you watch the Passion of the Christ, what you experience when you walk into a cathedral. [01:25:18] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:25:18] Speaker A: It's looking at actual. A medium of actual beauty. [01:25:22] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:25:22] Speaker A: Of High beauty that lifts you up. [01:25:24] Speaker B: Yes, yes, yes. Yeah, it's great. [01:25:26] Speaker A: You know, there's a movement. I wish I shared about this at the gathering on both ends of evangelical or Protestant. I mean, a lot of them don't want to be called Protestant anymore because it implies we are protesting. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's our whole identity. And for some people it still is. Right. And Catholic. That there's a drawing together. Right. That there's a draw to the beauty. The liturgy of the ancient. Like I want to be rooted in something deeper here because it's frankly, it's in. It's not human to not be religious. Right? I mean, you could. The stones cry out, dude. You go to the most distant jungles, you'll find ruins. [01:26:01] Speaker B: Everyone has a liturgy. [01:26:02] Speaker A: Altars and temples. [01:26:03] Speaker B: Everyone has a liturgy. [01:26:04] Speaker A: Everywhere atheists have a liturgy. We have rhythm, we have pattern from Hawaii to Greece. These people never talk to each other. Why are there temples and altars in both places? What is going on? We're doing it in the same way. We're worshipping the same way. [01:26:14] Speaker B: Right. [01:26:16] Speaker A: So there's a drawback to that part of humanity. On the flip side, within the Catholic space, there's a drawback to just evangelical effectiveness, which is. I mean, my whole life's mission is to be that within the Catholic Church. Right. That we're not going to crush that which is authentically human in just frankly an emotive response. Emotion is not bad. We celebrate the Sacred Heart of Jesus. We don't have a feast day for the sacred intellect of Jesus or sacred will. Not that those are less than because they have to order the emotional life. But we're not going to throw away the emotional life to say that dynamism that you experience that frankly draws so many. This is why you can go viral in a way that Catholic influencers just frankly can't. Because the audience is the evangelical wide open door is humongous because it's this. This meeting space of just relevant humanity. And we're open to all that. You are the big mess of it all. But there's got to be a coming together of these things. What's that look like in a thousand years? [01:27:19] Speaker B: I know. [01:27:20] Speaker A: I mean, really, like are there going to be lots of. I would predict that there's going to be a lot more non Catholics becoming, looking into, seriously, at least looking into Catholicism and Orthodoxy. And if the church responds right, having that be a response that we're a church while not losing any of the sacredness starts to look more evangelically effective. And more human and have young adult gatherings that can look more like the Passion Conference while also being liturgical as part of the experience. Which actually described a Stephenville youth conference where you have an incense. Incense are going and adoration and Jesus processing around the room and kids giving their lives to of the Lord is like this whole. Whoa. You just combined the whole thing right into one. So, yeah, that's my hoped for thing as a Catholic. That's where it's like, I see that going and think, cool, let's keep that going. I don't know how that looks or how that would happen. Or does it look more like Michael Kulianos is doing more? Like a lot of evangelical churches just start to say, you know what? We're going to reappropriate liturgical things that art tradition has threw out 500 years ago that maybe we shouldn't have because frankly, it works again. [01:28:36] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:28:38] Speaker A: What is your prediction, how it looks like and how does it look like for you? You don't even have to answer the question because I want to respect your journey and say, do whatever he tells you. [01:28:45] Speaker B: It's okay. You can ask me whatever you need. I have no idea what unity could ever look like because of transubstantiation and apostolic succession. [01:28:57] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:28:58] Speaker B: Like those two things. Like, for instance, if transubstantiation is true. [01:29:04] Speaker A: Yeah. The host is Jesus. The substance, the whatness is changed. [01:29:09] Speaker B: There's no bend, there's no giving. [01:29:11] Speaker A: No, no, no. [01:29:12] Speaker B: Yeah. There's only like, okay, like if transubstantiation was like, if I came, you know, to the conclusion or, you know, if, like, if it is true. Of course the Catholics watching this are like, it is. But the Protestants watching and they're like, no, it's not. But if it is, let's just play it for me. If it is true, then I have to. I have to be Catholic because of the liturgical process that has been established, that has been kept, and that actually happens at every Mass. Like, because it's not just, okay, this bread is, you know, it's Jesus. It's the entire liturgy that's holy, you know, and that can't change. And then that leads into like, apostolic succession, you know, it's like, okay, if, like that, if the Catholics are just [01:30:04] Speaker A: right about that, then who gets to do that? [01:30:07] Speaker B: Then I'm actually a heretic, actually. And I do need to repent because, [01:30:13] Speaker A: well, this formal heresy would be different than holding heroic. We all hold some heretic abuse. [01:30:17] Speaker B: Yes. Yes. [01:30:17] Speaker A: If we had a show about the Trinity that lasted more than five Minutes. We would absolutely say something wrong. [01:30:22] Speaker B: Yes, yes, yes. But for me, it's like, I, I do not believe that the. You know, I don't. I don't believe in papal authority. Like, I, I don't. I don't bend my knee to Rome. [01:30:35] Speaker A: Yeah. Wesley Huff just made a video on this. [01:30:37] Speaker B: I know. I did see this. I did see this. And like to outright deny it if it is true. I don't think from what I've read from Vatican ii, like, I'd go to hell. But, you know, that presents a problem. So there's dogmas that, like, can't be. They basically have to be sorted. So I don't see us meeting in the middle. I think that we either ought to be Catholic or we ought not to be. That is my young man perspective. I have a lot to learn, but for me, for me personally, it's like, okay, either Catholicism is right and I'm going to convert to Catholicism, or it's wrong and I'm going to keep doing what I'm doing. [01:31:20] Speaker A: So you, where you're at right now, you have more openness to transubstantiation being a reality than papal authority. [01:31:30] Speaker B: So I don't care about. So hear me, hear me right now. [01:31:33] Speaker A: And I don't wanna. Again, no need for debate. [01:31:35] Speaker B: No, no, no, no. [01:31:36] Speaker A: Because we could. I actually, [01:31:39] Speaker B: I'm a horrible debater. I'm too agreeable. I just wanna make you happy. So be like, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, [01:31:46] Speaker A: I'm totally that way too. [01:31:47] Speaker B: Man, that'd be great. [01:31:48] Speaker A: Yeah, you're great. [01:31:49] Speaker B: You know, I love you. [01:31:49] Speaker A: We can make videos back and forth [01:31:51] Speaker B: and respond to each other. [01:31:53] Speaker A: I actually would. I would do better in that. So if I. No. Cause if I could take the substance of debate and think, I'm gonna go pray this over. How to say it in the most charitable, clear way possible and give it time. The problem with debate is there's no time for contemplation with very important things. [01:32:07] Speaker B: Right. [01:32:08] Speaker A: So, yeah, I'm just. But I'm just curious of where you're at. I'm not even. [01:32:10] Speaker B: No, no, it's totally fine. I was going to say, like, I don't mind Babel authority. Like, it doesn't bother me at all. Yeah, I don't mind Mary. Like, nothing about Mary. Like, nothing about the Catholic claims of Mary, like, actually bothered me. Like, none of that makes me uncomfortable. Veneration. I want veneration to be true. I really do. Like, I really do. Like, in my opinion, from what I've read and what I Experience. When I do research these things and look into them, and it just. It makes Christianity so much more exciting. So much. It just makes the picture so much bigger. [01:32:48] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:32:50] Speaker B: For me, it is transubstantiation. [01:32:52] Speaker A: That's the issue. [01:32:53] Speaker B: That is it. [01:32:53] Speaker A: And if that's true, then, therefore, all the other Catholic stuff will click into place, because it has to. And. Cause frankly, it's worth it. If that's true, then, like, well, I'll give my life to that. [01:33:04] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, right. [01:33:05] Speaker A: Okay. That just. [01:33:06] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:33:07] Speaker A: Thanks for sharing that. [01:33:09] Speaker B: I've heard the arguments from Catholics for papal authority, and I'm like, okay. Like, if, like, you know, like I said, like, if I convert to Catholicism, [01:33:16] Speaker A: like, it'll be because of transubstantiation. Yeah. [01:33:19] Speaker B: I wouldn't. [01:33:19] Speaker A: Does that question gnaw at you and bother you in the same way every day? Okay, so this is like the moment where you grapple with belief in God, only more peaceful because now you have grace, you know? [01:33:28] Speaker B: Yeah. But there's definitely, like, every day, Chris. It's like, every day. [01:33:33] Speaker A: Because if that's true, it's like, love would make that a question that weighs upon you. Yeah, right. It's not just trying to figure it out. It's like, it's love. If that's him, I want him. [01:33:43] Speaker B: Yeah. Because, you know, at the end of the day, I want Jesus Christ. Like, he is my love. He's my life. He's everything. All I care about is Jesus and where he is. I desire to be. He's my love. Like, I don't care about in the end of the day. I don't care about aesthetics. I don't care about theology. I don't care about dogma. I didn't care about strength or being right in the sense of. I just. Just want Jesus Christ. Christ and I have been on a journey since 13, fighting where he is. And I do. I do try to move slowly. I do try to move wisely because this is a big deal. Like, I have one. I have. You know, I'm committed to my church. Like, I love my pastor. I love my church. And like I said, I'm not fully convinced. Like, I'm not. Like, I can't do it. This isn't a moment for me of, like, I want to believe, but I can't. [01:34:39] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [01:34:40] Speaker B: It's definitely different. And I just want to be able to sit in that tension. My generation, like, what I've just experienced is we don't. We can't deal with tension. We have to have resolution. Like, we really Struggle to finish the end of the song. You know, you don't know this, but there is this whole. Maybe you do. Whole debate, like 10 years ago within the Protestant evangelical world was huge. It was Calvinism or Armenianism, you know, Armenianism. [01:35:11] Speaker A: Armenianism versus Calvinism. [01:35:12] Speaker B: Yes. [01:35:12] Speaker A: It's funny, the inside fights that mean nothing to me. [01:35:15] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, you have no idea. [01:35:16] Speaker A: And there's inside fights in the Catholic world that you're like, I could care less about traditional Latin mass versus Novus Ordo. Like these things that seem all important once you're inside of a certain bubble. Yeah, yeah. [01:35:26] Speaker B: Anyway, it was huge. And, you know, I actually, I dove head first into Calvinism and I was like a. When I gave my life to the Lord, I was like a dogmatic Calvinist. Yeah. God predestines people to hell. Get over it, you know, like, God is divine, you know, and I hurt my friends, you know, and I know what, like, blindly following theology does. And now, like I said, I have a family. Like, I have an eight month old son. Like, if I were to convert Catholicism, it would change his entire life. So I gotta be right. I gotta be convicted. I gotta know why. I'm just not there. [01:36:05] Speaker A: I'm praying for you every day with this one because I know it's a serious thing that the Lord's. I know he's bringing you to ask these questions. And what I would always say is, do whatever he tells you. [01:36:17] Speaker B: Yes. [01:36:17] Speaker A: And as a convicted Catholic, I would think that he's telling the whole world, come to the Eucharist. At the same time, do whatever he tells you, when he tells you, as he tells you. And that takes a lot of heroism. [01:36:33] Speaker B: It does take heroism. [01:36:34] Speaker A: Every step of the road, you have [01:36:35] Speaker B: to be brave, which I'm not brave enough. So I need Jesus, you know, I need to be okay with the tension. And that's what Christ has discipled me in these past. It's been 10 years. It's been a decade. It's been a decade of how to learn with tension. First it was atheism, then it was his love. Do you actually love me? Then I didn't go into the weeds of it, but there's a lot of tension with Islam. [01:37:05] Speaker A: Wow. [01:37:07] Speaker B: And now there's tension here. And each time I get better, and [01:37:11] Speaker A: each time it's about clinging to the person of Jesus Christ harder. People think that maturity, it's not about figuring it out. This is one thing that drives me crazy about Jordan Peterson's faith presented. I mean, God bless the guy. Well, you know what? Do you mean by faith he's done incredible amounts of good. Seriously, like my son in law is a Catholic because of Peterson. Lots of people have that story, but a lot of it is there will be no bending of the knee to that, to that which I can't put intellectually under my control. That which I cannot figure out systematically. That's the impression I get. I can't just give myself to which is not actually faith in a God who's bigger than you. Faith fundamentally is a relationship with something that's bigger than me and is therefore surrender. I'm not going to figure out 90% of who my wife is and I've given my life to her and I'm not going to figure out 1% of who God is, but he'll show me enough to give my heart to it and make an act of will that my intellect couldn't do by itself. The will pushes the intellect beyond where it could go alone. Yeah, that's the journey. It's a fundamentally personal journey. So when people just try to convince you and think that therefore, well, you have the answer, you have the apologetical answer done. It's like, no, you maybe brought me closer to a threshold, but there's a relational thing that's happening here and personally [01:38:30] Speaker B: for me is also like a theological one. Each time I see a point for transubstantiation, I see a point not for it. And it's interesting with Peterson, you know, as he's drawing people to Christianity because he's warring against postmodernism, he's relying on Dostoyevsky. And that again is, you know, I do look at. This is just subjective. I see people who look to Peterson as a person of wisdom and they don't go to the evangelical church, they either convert to Eastern Orthodoxy or to Catholicism. And it's because Peterson wars so well against postmodernism, which I believe is why Gen Z is going to these traditional faiths. And it's not because of the aesthetic. It's because intrinsically, within the human soul we recognize beauty. And to be honest, your typical Catholic church when offering transubstantiation, hey, this is Christ. Look at these icons. These are windows to heaven. That is more appealing than an LED screen. It just is. It's more appealing than a donut party because we're so infused with horror that when we see something, we see light, we desire it. Peterson, he doesn't let people in to his personal life. Why? Because he studied Dostoevsky. He knows the value not of just journey but of tension. And in a world that gives you every answer, Peterson is decided to keep something. [01:40:03] Speaker A: There's a beauty in that. The obvious problem is that the bridge itself becomes a religion. [01:40:08] Speaker B: Yes. [01:40:08] Speaker A: And I don't think he's intending to do this. [01:40:10] Speaker B: No. Yeah. [01:40:11] Speaker A: But there's people who become Christian because of him. I also know people who have left the faith to sit on the bridge, which has some intellectual Pride. [01:40:19] Speaker B: Oh yeah. 100% intellectual pride. [01:40:21] Speaker A: Right. I'm here on this bridge of figuring things out. And that becomes a new faith, a new unnamed faith to sacrifice without a savior that puts itself above Christianity. Almost like I'm looking, I'm examining these things from this bridge. [01:40:33] Speaker B: That's really good, right? Yeah. [01:40:34] Speaker A: It requires a lot of humility to go to the next level. But I also want to honor just the spirit of ecumenism. There is that reality that if the church is true, then people should join it. If it's not true, you should not join it. And then yet ecumenism is people coming together on the 95% that we agree on, which is infinitely more important than the things we disagree on now because it's infinitely important. The things we disagree on are also really, really important because Jesus said. We're debating things that Jesus said, you know, like if he matters infinitely. What he said matters infinitely in my life. But. And that's a big but. It's like there's so much to just unite on and just say, we could just rejoice in this first and then the debates can happen as friends. Which I do want to make a response to Wesley Hop's video. But I loved his spirit because he's giving these Protestant apologetic answers against Catholicism, but with a spirit of a brother. I'm hearing, I'm thinking there's a calm, there's a charity, there's respect. It's like, oh, you're speaking from a guy who's formed by the Lord. Yeah, so you're my brother. So it's a convo between brothers instead of enemies, which was what the 80s was. Which like we forgot that we actually believe that God so loved the world that he gave his only son. We got that together. But I am curious, are we going to see a lot more conversions to Catholicism or a lot more churches do what Koulianos Church did and just start to look like orthodox domes? [01:42:03] Speaker B: I don't think so. [01:42:04] Speaker A: With evangelical worship, that might be a one off thing. I just don't know. [01:42:08] Speaker B: Pastor Michael Kulianis, he has a history in Orthodoxy. [01:42:11] Speaker A: Yeah, I know it. [01:42:12] Speaker B: He has a unique approach to it all. [01:42:14] Speaker A: And which is why people are drawn to his style of evangelicalism, because they sense a spine there. That's real old. It's very strong, like a 2000 year old. [01:42:25] Speaker B: It's just Jesus, which is like, you know, go to liturgy, you know, it's like, are you going for the homily? No. I mean, you get a homily. [01:42:33] Speaker A: Well, as Catholics, often we go and hold our nose at the homily. [01:42:37] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:42:37] Speaker A: And then so I'm here for the food right now, of course, my parish, Father Brian Larkin. Man, you rock it. You knock it out of the park every time. Seriously, the guys, it's incredible. But, you know, that's the case. [01:42:48] Speaker B: Right. And so Michael Kuliana's is tapping into something ancient, historical and consistent, which is, you know, which is the face of Christ, which is what the church is built upon. And we, I think. Yeah, I think. I think a lot of people are exhausted with everything else. Yeah, I am. I need Jesus. [01:43:11] Speaker A: Amen. [01:43:12] Speaker B: That's all I need. [01:43:13] Speaker A: Brother, you just summed up your whole ministry. [01:43:15] Speaker B: Yeah, thank you for talking and sitting down. [01:43:17] Speaker A: You just summed up your ministry and your conversion and it was like, I'm just exhausted with the world's throwing me. I just want Jesus. [01:43:24] Speaker B: Yes. [01:43:24] Speaker A: And that. And. And that's going to morph in what that looks like as I keep trying to cling to him and he's going to. He's going to keep leading me. But I just want you, Jesus. Yeah, And I just want you, Jesus, as a prayer that you will never refuse to answer. Right. So, Lord, we just pray that every longing heart watching this right now and all of Gen Z and Gen Alpha, that you would direct that longing as you did for my brother David, that they would see that that longing is from you, it's your call and that it's only answered in you. And anoint David's ministry, anoint mine, Lord, that we would be clarion calls and everybody watching in their own way, through their own joy and living the Christian life and everyday life. That they would be a call that echoes yours, Jesus, that reminds everyone that we're made for purpose, that we're made for you, Lord. Glory be to the Father, to the Son and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen. I think we broke the records, man. This is like we're going to Matt Fradd. [01:44:26] Speaker B: What time is it? [01:44:26] Speaker A: Joe Rogan Land. [01:44:27] Speaker B: What time is it? What time is it? [01:44:29] Speaker A: We went into Matt Fradland, Joe Rogan required another two hours, I think. When did we start, John? [01:44:34] Speaker B: About two hours. [01:44:35] Speaker A: Two. This is the longest Christophanic show interview of all time. Yeah. I love it. And you're. You're coming back after you write that book? [01:44:42] Speaker B: Yeah, please. [01:44:42] Speaker A: That'd be epic, you know? And if something else unfolds in your spiritual journey, you're coming back. [01:44:48] Speaker B: Something else. [01:44:49] Speaker A: I just want to be in touch and have these conversations. And again, I just don't care if anyone's watching at this point. I just. I love this time with you, man. [01:44:56] Speaker B: Yeah. I love you a lot. [01:44:57] Speaker A: Yeah. It's been a great. [01:44:58] Speaker B: Thanks. [01:45:02] Speaker A: Microphone. I love you guys. Thank you so much for just wandering into the mystery with us. [01:45:08] Speaker B: Amen. [01:45:08] Speaker A: We'll see you next time.