¶1like right before Jesus returns, the final boss. It's not going to be atheism. It's not going to be secularism. >> Atheism isn't the final boss in the war for Christianity. Well, tell us, Josh, who is?
¶2>> It's going to be some woke pagan secular Swifties or whatever. >> Well, that makes sense. >> Welcome to Polyia, where a former Christian takes a look at the claims of Christians. And today we're heading back to the world of Christian apologists invited to speak on massive podcast platform where the host is woefully underinformed and often unwilling to push back on said apologist allowing them to say anything they want unchecked. We've covered hosts like Joe Rogan, Lex Fridman, Cayla Peterson, John Levelvel at Warrior Poet Society, and Steven Bartlett over at Diary of a CEO.
¶3But I've had my eye on the Shawn Ryan show ever since he had Lee Stroel and Wes Huff on and now's the time. I could talk about his six plus million subscribers on YouTube, his millions of views or his influence, but Shawn Ryan himself frequently lets us know how burdensome it is to be so successful. >> Got a lot of people that watch this. A lot of people that want to come on here. Not what all these people, you know, 6 million people want me to do.
¶4You're a popular guy. You're >> borderline celebrity. And the same with me. And you look at the comments and they're all like, "Oh, yeah. You're doing a great job, Sean." You look at the views and the likes and and you get pumped up, you know what I mean, by all these people.
¶5>> As your platform grows, your notoriety grows, it gets harder to find people who will be honest with with you. >> They're also influenced by the success of this. >> Mhm. And so you can't 100% buy into everything that they're telling you because they are influenced. Their lives are influenced by this.
¶6So of course they're influenced by this. Same with your guys out there. They're influenced by the success of what you're doing. If you're unfamiliar with the host, Shawn Ryan is a former Navy Seal and CIA contractor whose long- form interview show started with military stories and tactics, but has since branched to politics, conspiracy theories, the paranormal, and of course, religion after a recent conversion. Say that again.
¶7>> Did you grow up in church at all? >> Catholic. >> And I grew up Catholic. Went to church every Sunday. Did the Sunday school thing.
¶8And it never sunk in. It never sunk in until until I got slapped around by God a little bit. Ever since I came to Christ, probably about I don't know 3 years ago maybe. Um like fully committed and to the point where it's not even faith anymore for me. It's fact.
¶9>> Mhm. >> I don't look at any of it anymore. I don't even look at the financials behind anything anymore >> really. >> Okay. because I don't I just don't want to be I want to be totally uninfluenced and in touch with God as much as possible without man human beings getting in the middle of that relationship.
¶10You know, I'm still Catholic. You know, I bring my kids, but you know, bringing a bringing a 5-year-old to a Catholic mass is like torture. Now, Shawn Ryan has a reputation for intimate and sprawling interviews rather than adversarial, even when he might disagree. How much less so for a pastor when faith, institutional distrust, the supernatural, and personal testimony already carry considerable weight. Shawn repeatedly admits he is not equipped to question what he's told on the matter of his adopted religion.
¶11>> I'm not wellversed. I read it. I don't understand half out the stuff I'm reading. But I read this thing in the Bible once that said that many people it I I'm not a guy that quotes scripture. So, but they don't know >> Yeah.
¶12>> And I don't know >> So, enter his guest, mega pastor Josh Howton. >> Pastor Josh Howton, you're senior pastor of Lake Church in Dallas, one of the largest churches in the country. You're known for addressing difficult is issues at the intersection of faith, culture, politics, and apologetics. You're also the host of live of Live Free Podcast. You're a husband to your wife Jana and the father of three adopted kids.
¶13How many people are in your church >> on a a normal week now? You know, let's say here recently, but 30,000. >> How many? 30,000. >> Yep.
¶14>> Holy cow. 30,000. >> I know, man. I know. It's It's a lot of people.
¶15I know. Wow. >> Yeah. >> The man gives off decidedly Matthew McConna vibes. >> All right.
¶16All right. All right. >> Oh, Christ. >> How you doing? >> Pretty good.
¶17>> Cool. >> You may recall in a recent episode of Paul Gia, Josh was the wideeyed, ill-informed interviewer of Frank Turk. But now the roles have been flipped and Josh is the guest to bring unquestioned claims to the table. This nearly 3-hour conversation was very meandering and covered a lot of random topics. >> Come on bag of gummy bears.
¶18>> I love gummy bears >> full of sugar, red dyes, yellow five, all the bad but they taste amazing. So >> why are we doing, you know, queers for Palestine? You know, that's kind of like chickens for KFC. You know, that didn't make sense. Well, if the village is a bunch of pagans, they're just going to help raise a whole bunch of other pagans.
¶19If they're into Blueie, you're into Blueie. You know, if they're into Coco Melon, you're in Coca-C I didn't know they dropped acid in ancient Rome. You know, kind of what are they doing? >> But whoever it was on the Shawn Ryan Show team who decided what to name the episode did me a huge favor by naming it the war for Christianity. Because if you cut out the rabbit trails and squirrel chasing, the conversation can hang on this war on Christianity theme.
¶20According to Josh and Shawn, a war being fought on the cosmic front, the geopolitical and esqueological front, and the personal cultural front. So, I'll organize my responses in this framework, and it will hopefully make some narrative sense. Sean kicks it off with his first real question for Josh. >> All right, let's get into some hard stuff. This is a new question.
¶21I just I just started asking. I'm going to ask everybody this question that comes on that's that's kind of in a position like yours. Why is Christianity the one religion that is totally acceptable to disparage? >> Yeah. >> The one religion we gave a Broadway musical devoted to making fun of Mormonism nine Tony Awards.
¶22Scientology has been a national punchline for decades. Bill Maher has made criticizing Islam practically a second career. The God's Not Dead movie series is actively attempting to disparrage atheists and South Park has gone after everybody. What does acceptable to disparage even mean? Acceptable to whom?
¶23What would your evidence that some disparagement is unacceptable? Politically in America, Christianity has never had more power and protection. in February of 2025 formed a task force to eradicate anti-Christian bias established by presidential order and staffed by the attorney general and senior representation of numerous departments. There are no task forces that will get me in trouble for disparaging non-Christian religions. No evidence will be provided that this is a valid observation that needs explanation >> because there is only one way to explain that.
¶24All right, Josh is just going to roll with the flawed premise as if someone asked him, "Why are there so many dodo birds running around Chicago these days?" And rather than saying, "Wait, are there," he's positing an explanation for the non-fact. Carry on. >> And it's that that book over there, it was written down by men, but it was authored by the word of God, by God himself. So when you ask that question, the response to the question, why is it the one thing that everybody can disparage? Well, man, like when we open the word, what we know is from Genesis 1, 2, and 3, we know immediately what Satan does after the fall of mankind is he begins to wage war on the offspring that God is going to use to redeem the world.
¶25unconvinced that the authors of Genesis knew anything about the Satan figure as he came to be understood in the New Testament. But we'll let that slide for today. >> So that's the story line of the entire Bible. It's word versus world. If you now, if you skip forward all the way to the end, you go to the book of Revelation.
¶26A lot of the book of Revelation isn't revelation about what's going to happen in the future. It's revelation about what's been going on behind the scenes in the spiritual realm throughout all of human history. That's what a lot of the book of Revelation is. So man, if you're going, why is Christianity the one thing that you can disparage is because the Bible says the whole world lies under the power of the evil one. The Bible actually calls Satan the little gd of this world.
¶27>> We'll come back to Revelation later. If I'm going to let Satan and Genesis slide, I'm certainly not going to get into specific interpretation of the most diversely interpreted book in the Bible. And even if I granted the premise that Christians really are disparaged more than any other religion, there's only one way to explain that doesn't follow. Christianity is the dominant religion in the West. It's the religion most Americans are familiar with, the religion most former believers are familiar with and the religion most entangled with American politics.
¶28Of course, it's going to attract more criticism than Janism. >> That's Jane. She's a lot of fun. And people may be more hesitant to mock minority religions because that can easily lead into hostility towards minority ethnic groups. I could think of half a dozen mundane explanations before we ever get to Satan is secretly waging spiritual warfare against them.
¶29You don't even have to think any of those explanations are correct. Their mere plausibility is enough to disprove Josh's claim that there is only one way to explain the phenomenon. But again, let's set this phrasing complaint aside and just accept that this is the foundation of Josh's worldview. That the centerpiece of history is a cosmic battle between God and Satan, and the rest of us are but mere pawns in the grander events. >> Excuse me.
¶30When you say Satan, what exactly do you mean? Satan is all around us all of the time. We must be strong or else he will take us. Of that, I have no doubt. >> Really?
¶31No doubt. But what if you're wrong? I'm sure Pastor Josh will have some excellent reasons for us to think that the Bible is accurate in these claims. >> This This is going to blow your mind. You remember that little thing?
¶32>> Oh, yeah. >> All right. So, what that is >> We'll put it up on screen. >> Yeah. So, what that is is that is a chart of every cross reference uh in the Bible.
¶33You might recall from Josh's interview with Frank that he keeps Christian propaganda images handy on his phone even when he knows they're factually dubious. >> No, not that one either. We'll get there. It's It's that one. Okay.
¶34Now, this is a little So, if somebody's listening or watching on YouTube, >> this is actually really helpful to screenshot. Is it Is it already up there? So, some of these are a little specious, but they're based on um on church history documents, and it's it's every it's every apostle's reported death. That's specious reasoning, Dad. >> Thank you, honey.
¶35>> So, what I want to talk about I I want to give a starting point. The answer to your question is uh in large part because that's exactly what the Bible said was going to happen. So, here here's why like I'm always going to go Bible, you know, I'm I'm dumb about a lot of things. I try I try to I try to love the word of God. So, here's what that is.
¶3616 that is every cross reference in the Bible where the Bible references other parts of the Bible. There are 16,791 cross references where parts of the Bible reference other parts of the Bible. And when you look at that, dude, it kind of blows your mind a little bit. Well, I just want to point this out. >> Did you say 16,000?
¶37>> 16,791 from what I understand. >> I thought it was 62,000. >> It may be six. Actually, you're right. Actually, Sean, you're right.
¶38I think it's 67, 700. >> I think it's 60. >> I was off by an order of magnitude. >> I think I I I think it's 62,000 and some change. >> Okay.
¶39Okay. It's in the 60,000s. But when you look at that thing, I mean, it'll blow your mind a little bit. >> Sean never does put this image up on the screen, so I will. Perhaps you'll recognize it as the Bible cross reference visualization from Chris Harrison and Lutheran Pastor Kristoff Romhill from 2007.
¶40Romhill borrowed a digital data set of 63,799 Ross references in the King James Bible and Harrison turned them into the famous rainbow arcs. Harrison describes them as conceptual links connecting things like people, places, and phrases as their goal was to make something more beautiful than functional. It wasn't created as evidence for divine inspiration. Some of these connections get pretty loose. They link Proverbs 12:16, a wisdom saying about a fool revealing his anger, to 1st Samuel 20:30-34, where Saul gets angry with Jonathan and to First Kings 19:1-2 describing the angry Jezebel.
¶41He's merely expressing anger a meaningful connection. The Quran has Moses getting angry. The BhagVad Gita says delusion comes from anger. So by this criteria, these non-Christian books should also be connected scripture. Of course, many New Testament verses deliberately quote or invoke Hebrew Bible passages to manufacture connections.
¶42This is just how one writes a sequel. A gigantic Wikipedia cross reference graph would similarly demonstrate that Star Wars stories are extraordinarily interconnected. It wouldn't demonstrate that Luke Skywalker blew up a Death Star. This is unimpressive. If you were to see that and one person wrote a book that did that, that many cross references and dovetales into other parts of the word, you would look at that person and you would think that is the greatest author who has ever lived like goat.
¶43No one will opus and masterpiece. Okay, but that book was not written by one man. It was written by over 40 men across 1500 years across three continents, Asia, Europe, and Africa in three different languages, Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic. It has one unified story. It has zero contradictions.
¶44>> Zero contradictions. Doesn't even survive Judas. Matthew 27 has Judas return the money, hang himself, and the priests by a field. Acts one has Judas acquired the field and die by falling headlong and bursting open. Christians propose harmonizations of course, but by definition harmonizing requires at least apparent contradictions.
¶45I tend not to worry too much about contradictions. But for the rest of this larger claim, I'll hand it over to Bible scholar Dan Mlullen, who has already made several videos on this chart. >> It was not written by 40 authors. Actually, it's more like well over a hundred and then a lot more editors and redactors and scribes responsible for the form of the text as it has come down to us. But this apologetic notion that there were somewhere between 40 and 45 authors responsible for the entire Bible is just a dogma.
¶46Again, this is presupposing the traditional assignment of authorship which is rejected by the overwhelming majority of scholars because the Pentatuk, the first five books of Moses were not written by Moses. That's silly. They were written by dozens of people. So right there, you've got to multiply the authorship by dozens and dozens. So that is not accepted by scholarship.
¶47So the Bible was not written over a period of 1500 years. I think if we take the earliest literary layers and the latest literary layers. So that would be uh fragments of poetry incorporated into later poetic compositions in books like Genesis and Deuteronomy and Psalms and things like that. And then the latest literary compositions would be the pseudopagraphical epistles. So like second Peter or Titus which are probably written in the early to mid 2nd century CE.
¶48That range is probably a fuzzy 1100 years or so. Now, it very clearly occurs across three languages. But you only get three continents if you do one of two things. One, presuppose that the Exodus narrative is historical and was written by Moses in Egypt. Or you conclude that one of the later New Testament texts, maybe one of the Catholic epistles or something like that, was written in Alexandria, which is not a part of this argument.
¶49But also, it's not three different continents like North America, Africa, and Asia. It is three different continents that make up the Central and Eastern Mediterranean. So, it's still all around the Mediterranean Sea. And it does not tell one single story that has no contradictions in it. It tells a number of different stories and they often contradict.
¶50The Bible is not a single consistent narrative. It is a collection of stories gathered over around a thousand years. And while there is a rough overarching macro narrative, there are many parts of the story that don't really fit well into that macro narrative. And the Bible is not a single text and it is not univocal. It does not speak from one single unified and consistent perspective and with one single unified and consistent voice.
¶51It is a collection of numerous different texts written by different people in different times, different circumstances, different places to different audiences for different reasons. and it frequently contradicts other parts of the Bible. The most true thing about that was that it was written in three different languages, Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. So, all this is showing is that the texts of the Bible are richly self-referential. That every new text knew about the text that came before and frequently alluded to, if not directly quoted, the texts that came before.
¶52It is not an indication of anything remotely supernatural going on in the composition and the compilation of the biblical text. We pretend to be amazed at the consistency that we have imposed upon the text and we insist that this consistency that we impose upon the text cannot have come from anywhere else than the divine itself. And that is just pure dogmatism. This chart is the full extent of the defense given for the reliability of the Bible and the truth of Christianity. I do not know if Josh felt this was sufficient to convince a skeptic or if he was just assuming that everyone watching would be nodding in agreement.
¶53Probably the latter, but even as a Christian, this kind of endeavor felt disingenuous. Back to Satan, I guess. >> In the temptation of Jesus, Satan does this thing where he comes to Jesus and he goes, "Hey, I'm going to show you all the kingdoms of the world." And he tells him, he's like, "Hey man, if you'll bow down and worship me, I'll give you all of these kingdoms." Now, what's really interesting is Jesus doesn't say, "They're not yours to give." There's like this tacit assumption throughout the entire Bible that Satan is really over all of the world systems. And that's why everything in the world aligns against one thing in particular and it's Christianity, Christ, and Christians. >> Several problems here.
¶54The first is that there is any tacid assumption about Satan throughout the whole Bible. >> Students, the New Testament writers really messed me up. >> Messed you up? >> The New Testament, a Christian amendment added to the Bible. They mixed me up with the devil.
¶55Hell. Oh, I failed to see a resemblance. The original Jewish part, the Old Testament, the vast majority of the Bible, bears witness to the real me. >> The real you. Who do you say you are?
¶56>> I'm the adversary. Satan literally means adversary. I'm the opponent in this match. There isn't really one coherent biblical Satan whose biography you can simply trace from Genesis to Revelation. In Job, the figure Hassatan is a member of Yahweh's heavenly court.
¶57Zechariah 3 is similar, an accuser standing in the divine court. That's radically different from Josh's concept of a ruler of the world. Second, Josh is invoking an argument from silence when he says Jesus doesn't say that they're not yours to give in response to Satan's offer of the kingdoms of the earth. This is Josh advocating that Satan was telling the truth when the New Testament explicitly calls Satan the father of lies. >> None of us will believe your secrets.
¶58The Bible says you're the father of lies. I think the more realistic reading is that when Satan offered up the kingdoms that Jesus did a little bit of a sarcastic eye roll. >> He doesn't feel well. Yeah, right. Try that one out.
¶59You can fertilize the lawn. >> Is this amount of sarcasm always necessary? >> Necessary? No. But I do like it.
¶60>> Odd that Josh is taking Satan's word for it. >> I think Satan is so real and so evil. You know, it's like that thing like the enemy comes to steal, kill, and destroy, but I have I have come that you might have life and have it in the full. And I think he's so full of evil and hate that in every generation when he gets some momentum on the field, there's that thing I said earlier, the devil always overplays his hand. And I think a little bit of what happened in the last like 15 years, it's like I think you nailed it.
¶61Like, >> but doesn't this undermine the whole doctrine of human sin? Christianity already has an explanation for why people do terrible things. People are fallen and their desires are corrupt. So what does adding Satan actually explain? How would we tell the difference between a society where Satan has momentum on the field and a society where sinful people are simply doing what sinful people do?
¶62>> It is what it is. People are going to people. >> Yeah, >> that's a good way to say that. >> But people are going to people. If Josh can't describe the difference, his appeal to Satan does no explanatory work at all.
¶63>> You keep saying Satan, but how is Satan manifesting himself here? >> It functions as an invisible label he attaches to conduct he already dislikes. And the problem compounds. The more causal weight he puts on Satan, the less blame remains for the humans involved, which weakens the very justification God is supposed to have for condemning us. the obviousness of darkness became so smack you in the face that people awoke they they awakened to the reality that there was a non-ignorable dark force in the world.
¶64>> Mhm. And then, dude, I think what a lot of people do, especially young men right now, is they're going, "Man, if there's a darkness, there must be a light." >> Mhm. >> And that light has a name, and his name is Jesus Christ. I honestly think that's a lot of what's going on. >> Josh says the darkness grew so obvious that people could no longer ignore the dark force behind it.
¶65But Jesus locates evil from within, out of the human heart. James traces temptation to our own desire. If Christian teaching says we generate so-called darkness unaded, then finding it tells us nothing about Satan. The burden falls on Josh to name the dark thing that we could not have managed without demonic help. What is the meaningful difference between human depravity and intervention from the spiritual realm?
¶66But the hosts do elaborate on how this unseen spiritual war takes on concrete geopolitical and religious forms in the physical world. So in the old covenant, God God makes his covenant with Abram who becomes Abraham. Okay? And he tells Abraham through you and your offspring. And it's very interesting, Sean.
¶67This is very interesting just for I'm I'm a Bible guy. When it says offspring, it's singular. So in other words, you have you're going to have one future offspring. And through that one future offspring, somebody out of your lineage, Abraham, is going to bless the entire world. Okay.
¶68>> How do you know it's singular? >> That's my question, too. How do you know it's singular, Josh? >> In the book of Galatians, it specifically talks about that in the New Testament, the Apostle Paul calls attention to the fact that it says offspring. So Paul is I'm what I'm doing right now is I'm making the same point the Apostle Paul makes in the New Testament.
¶69And so it points that out. It's a singular. Okay. >> Oh no, Josh. Scholars agree that the Apostle Paul was using a Greek translation of the Hebrew text, not the Hebrew text itself.
¶70So his theological points here are not relevant to grammatical points about the actual singularity of the Hebrew word zera or offspring. Now, it so happens that the English word offspring, the Hebrew word zera, and the Greek word sperma all have the grammatical feature of being morphologically single, but can refer either to one individual or collectively to multiple descendants. There are so many examples in the Hebrew Bible of obvious plural usages. But let's just go with Genesis 13:16, which says, "I will make your offspring, Sarah, like the dust of the earth." So that if anyone could count the dust, then your offspring could be counted. That's clearly plural, not singular.
¶71Josh is repeating a theological interpretation, which is fine. But he's turning this word play into a claim about Hebrew grammar, which does not follow. I corrected your grammar. Are you so proud of me? Are you horrified?
¶72Are you super horny? But there's a the specific promise is going to find its termination in one future offspring that I'll just pull my punch is Jesus Christ. That's not what pull my punch means. To pull a punch means to deliberately hold back, soften, or lessen the force of what you're saying or doing. >> You write the speech, don't pull your punches.
¶73>> I won't. I'm going to push my punches as far as my fist can extend >> at a girl. Kind of. >> It comes from boxing. You don't hit as hard as you could.
¶74But contextually, he seems to mean something like, "I'll cut to the chase. I'll give away the punchline. I'll skip ahead." Or, "Spoiler alert, it's Jesus." If he was actually pulling his punch, he'd be avoiding stating the full conclusion. Yes, this is primarily a grammar episode. >> Welcome all to the class of the grammarss.
¶75>> The promise and the covenant that was given to Abraham. Obviously, he he was going to have a child. Now, uh the child uh he has to wait for a long time and he's waiting around for the promise to happen. And he takes matters into his own hands and uh and his wife, this is the whole deal, his wife Sarah gives him his servant. Hagar and they have essentially a a covenantally illegitimate child named Ishmael.
¶76Then later he and Sarah have a child named Isaac. So here's what you got. What you end up with because of he and Sarah's disobedience is you have one covenant, but you have two sons. And now we got a problem because now we got two sons. They're going to end up fighting uh and all of their offspring are going to end up fighting.
¶77Uh, in the spiritual realm, I believe it's connected to that over this one covenant. >> That's not really the story Genesis tells. Isaac and Ishmamail are never depicted fighting each other. Sarah has Hagar and Ishmamail driven away when Ishmael is still young. And when the brothers next explicitly appear together, they're peacefully burying their father Abraham.
¶78Nor does Genesis describe their descendants as locked in some kind of ongoing conflict. Ishmamail is blessed by God, becomes the father of the 12 tribes, and largely exits the story. and all of their offspring are going to end up fighting in the spiritual realm is Josh's conjecture and conclusion, not something stated in the text. >> So then what you have is you have uh the children of the promise who who that those are the Jewish people historically and then you have uh what Muslims do is they trace their lineage to Ishmael. So this is what you >> the other son >> the other son.
¶79Okay. >> Okay. So now one covenant, two sons. Now you got a thing going on. Okay.
¶80You got that thing going on. Okay. Now, fast forward in Galatians 1:8, Paul says this. Um, he says, "But even if we or an angel from heaven," now this is really important. I'm going to give you two verses.
¶81We're connect some dots. He says, "But even if we or an angel from heaven should appear to you and preach to you another gospel, let him be accursed." Bookmark that in your head. Then you got another Bible verse in the New Testament that says that what Satan does is he quote masquerades as an angel of light. All right. Now, dude, I'm a I'm a you know, I'm a dumb rural Kentucky kid, but you start putting some things together and in the the 600s, what Muhammad says happens is he Now, first of all, let me just say I'm not like some Islamic scholar.
¶82I'm doing 30,000 foot big rocks. >> This will become apparent. I appreciate that Josh is constantly caveating his own lack of qualifications to say what he's saying. >> I'm I'm dumb about a lot of things. I try I try to I try to love the word of God.
¶83I'm a I'm a you know I'm a dumb rural Kentucky kid >> and that's like not my fast ball. Uh I read something a few years ago and I may get a detail wrong on this. You or anybody else can think I'm an idiot. That's fine. You know what whatever.
¶84>> But at what point is this a shucks routine just an excuse to say what you know isn't accurate. >> What he says happens is he wanders in a cave and he essentially does this. He goes, "Man, man, I was in there and this real weird thing happened. I was in there and this angel of light appeared to me and it he started revealing to me a another way to God that's different than the one that we've had. Now dude, all of a sudden I'm going, "Well, that's real interesting because 600 years before he's doing his thing, you got a Bible Bible verse saying what Satan does is he masquerades an angel of light." >> That's not what the traditional Islamic accounts have Muhammad saying.
¶85The famous account has Muhammad retreating to the cave of Hia where a supernatural figure commands him to recite. The earliest Quranic revelation is traditionally identified with Quran 96. Muhammad is frightened by the experience. Subsequent Islamic tradition identifies the messenger as Gabriel. Angel of light is especially important because Josh needs precisely that wording to connect Muhammad to 2 Corinthians 11:14.
¶86But angel of light is Paul's phrase describing Satan, not Muhammad's description of Gabriel. Likewise, another way to God that's different than the one that we've had sounds suspiciously tailored to Galatians different gospel. That's Josh's Christian interpretation of Muhammad's message, not a quotation or reasonable paraphrase of Muhammad's reported words. So he's effectively putting the language of Christian proof texts into Muhammad's mouth and then marveling at how well Muhammad matches the Christian proof texts. >> And you have a spec you have a specific warning that throughout history that an angel from heaven may appear and reveal to you another gospel.
¶87>> Not really. In Galatians 1:8, Paul says, "But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preach to you, let them be under God's curse." Paul was saying that even if he himself changes the message, they should shun him. That wasn't a warning or prophecy that Paul himself would come back with a different message. >> Why? Because Jesus came and he said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life, and nobody comes to the father except through me." And dude, I just want to say this and this gets me a little trouble.
¶88You know, you may have some experience with this. Every now and then you'll do something. The internet will get mad at you. That happens to me. >> This is unsurprising.
¶89>> What he didn't say is I am a way, a truth, and a life. And some people come to the father except through me or also through me. So then you got that. So you have the birth of Islam. You took two passages about Paul's first century Christian opponents out of context, inserted their language into a 7th century story about Muhammad in order to make a satanic connection, and then predicted that the internet would have a problem with it.
¶90Just the parts of the internet that care about true things, which is a shrinking portion. I know. >> I love every person that calls himself a Muslim. And I hate Islam because it destroys people and eternities. And I can do both of those things.
¶91I can love a person and I can hate what I believe is a demonic ideology. >> Again, we are left no indication of what threshold has been crossed to specify that an ideology was created by demons rather than developed by sinful humans. Are humans incapable of coming up with lies or mistaken explanations on their own? Can a human not just invoke a false religion on their own creativity and depravity? There is a man in the sky who controls everything.
¶92Number two. >> Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. What does he look like? >> Um, tall, big hands for making stuff, good head of hair. >> Even within the Christian worldview, labeling human activity as demonic is purely vibes.
¶93There's no mechanism to distinguish. So you have the birth of Islam and it seems to me, man, like it's the fulfillment of exactly what was warned against in the scriptures. Now, I give you I'll give you two other things. Jesus said, I think it's in the Gospel of John. He said, "The time will come," and he's talking about the end.
¶94Okay? And I'm not a huge end times guy, but uh he he's talking about the end. And he says, "The time is coming when they will kill you and think they are offering service to God." He's referring to John 16:1-2. All this I have told you so that you will not fall away. They will put you out of the synagogue.
¶95In fact, the time is coming when anyone who kills you will think that they are offering a service to God. Josh leaves out the put you out of the synagogue part, which shows this isn't end times context. This is during the lifetime of the apostles context. Now, um I think what a lot of people have done in especially in America for like the last 30, 50 years is a lot of Christians have been like, "Man, we're nervous about the rise of secularism and the rise of atheism and people are just deconverting and you know, apostatizing that kind of thing." But dude, honestly, you take that verse that Jesus said real clearly. And what Jesus seems to be saying is it like the final boss like when Jesus like right before Jesus returns, the final boss, it's not going to be atheism.
¶96It's not going to be secularism. It's going to be some other religion that believes that killing infidels is offering service to God. >> According to church tradition, both Jews and pagans were putting Christians to death in the first to fourth centuries. If your narrative is to be believed, Islam didn't invent killing Christians in service to God. It is true that atheists would not do this since we don't believe in God.
¶97Seems like that's one clear uh uh meaning of what Jesus said. Now, I'll give you one other one and then I I I'll just point this out in the book of Revelation. Again, Revelation is peeling back the curtain on like, man, what's been going on in the spiritual realm throughout human history. One of the things that it says is John gets this vision of all the martyed saints like that all that mean just Christians. So all the Christians that were martyed because uh they refused to not worship the lamb.
¶98They're like, "We're a l that's Jesus. We're Jesus people. We're team Jesus." And it doesn't just tell us they were martyed. It tells us specifically how they were martyed. And it says he saw the souls of those who were beheaded.
¶99>> Remember when Josh said, >> "The book of Revelation isn't revelation about what's going to happen in the future." But now he's reading this as a clue identifying a religion that wouldn't exist for another 500 years. That's fun. Beheading was an established method of execution in the Roman world in which revelation was written. The text doesn't say that a future religion would be distinguished by ritual beheading. The authors describing martyrs dying by a method his original audience would have immediately recognized.
¶100John the Baptist was beheaded by Herod, for example. Revelation 6:9 speaks generally of souls slaughtered because of God's word. So beheading or any method of death doesn't seem to be the focal point for the author. You can do this with almost anything. If Christians were burned, Revelation has fire.
¶101If they were killed by swords, Revelation has swords. If they were stoned, the Bible has stoning. Josh is just finding post hawk matches for his idea within a large corpus. Proof texting, I used to call it. >> I always want to take this with a grain of salt.
¶102Like I'm not a big like here's all the charts and here's when Jesus is going through all this stuff. Um but dude I do want to have my eyes open with my Bible in front of me. And it is interesting to me man that that I'm aware of there is one major world religion and one only that doesn't just specify to sometimes kill people who have a different faith than you. It specifies how and the Quran calls it striking necks is beheading. >> The Quran really does contain the phrase strike the necks.
¶103Quran 47:4 says in one common translation, "When you meet those who disbelieve in battle, strike their necks." But the rest of the same sentence describes defeating them, taking prisoners, then releasing or ransoming the prisoners until the war lays down its burdens. I'm certainly not morally defending Quranic warfare. But this battle passage is clearly not focused solely on beheading. Contrary to Josh's claims, also contrary to Josh's claims, Islam is not the only major religion to specify sometimes killing people of different faiths and how to do it. Deuteronomy 13:6-10.
¶104If your very own brother or your son or daughter or the wife you love or your closest friend secretly entices you, saying, "Let us go and worship other gods. Gods that neither you nor your ancestors have known. Gods of the people around you, whether near or far, from one end of the land to the other, do not yield to them or listen to them. Show them no pity. Do not spare them or shield them.
¶105You must certainly put them to death. Your hand must be first in putting them to death, and then the hands of all the people. Stone them to death because they tried to turn you away from the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. or Deuteronomy 13:12-16. If you hear it said about one of the towns the Lord your God is giving you to live in, that troublemakers have arisen among you and have led the people of their town astray, saying, "Let us go and worship other gods, gods you have not known, then you must inquire, probe, and investigate it thoroughly.
¶106And if it is true and it has been proved that this detestable thing has been done among you, you must certainly put to the sword all that live in that town. You must destroy it completely, both its people and its livestock. You are to gather all the plunder of the town into the middle of the public square and completely burn the town and all its plunder as a whole burnt offering to the Lord your God. The town is to mean a ruin forever, never to be rebuilt. So that's fun.
¶107Seems Judaism andor Christianity has the same kind of commands and specificity >> in Islamic esquetology like the end of the world. What it says is there'll be this figure that rises up called the madi m ahd d i. And different in the same way that in Christianity there's like different sects of Christianity that view end time stuff differently. And that's like not my fast ball but you know is what it is. It's the same thing in Islamic esquetology.
¶108Different Muslims believe different things, but there's some really interesting things that they believe about the madi. >> For reference, the madi isn't mentioned in the Quran. Mai expectations developed in later Islamic tradition. The Sunni and Shi accounts differ substantially. In broad terms, there really are traditions in which an end time descendant of Muhammad appears, defeats evil, and establishes justice before the last judgment.
¶109There are also traditions assigning major end time roles to Jesus and the dhou Islam's antichrist-like figure that different Muslims believe different things in this realm is an understatement here. And I'm guessing Josh wouldn't be excited about Muslims making definitive claims about Christian esquetology. >> Uh they believe that he will rise to power during uh global tumult. Uh they believe that when he rises to power, he will unite the world in a one world Islamic government. This is an exaggerated synthesis, especially in she traditions.
¶110The Madi's victorious role ultimately extends throughout the world. But one world Islamic government is modern evangelical prophecy language. It's already translating Islamic material into the conceptual vocabulary needed for an antichrist comparison. >> They believe that that government will be uh headquartered in Jerusalem. In important she traditions, the Madi appears in Mecca and Kufa becomes his capital, not Jerusalem.
¶111Jerusalem absolutely figures in Islamic esquetology, particularly in traditions involving Jesus and the Dal, but that's not a reasonable description of Muslims generally. >> Uh they believe that when he does it, he will slaughter the Jews. >> There are unquestionably disturbing Islamic end time traditions involving Muslims fighting Jews. For example, a famous hadith describes Jews hiding behind stones and trees during an end times battle. But Josh is ignoring the existing Islam antichrist type character called the djal.
¶112He's a false messiah with a defective eye who fools people with apparent miracles. Sah Muslim 2944 says that 70,000 Jews will follow the da not the madi. And sahi Muslim 2937 has Jesus return pursue the da and kill him at the gate of blood. Josh is collapsing the entire Islamic apocalypse narrative onto the Madi. But depending on the tradition, Jesus, the JAL, the Madi, and the Muslim armies each play different roles.
¶113So yes, Jews will be slaughtered, but it's unclear who will do it. I understand that generally this is an unimportant distinction, but we're trying to look dispassionately at Josh's claims about an individual. They believe that he will usher in a seven-year peace treaty uh in that area. >> Tradition saying the Mi rules for 7 years are well attested, but ruling for 7 years isn't the same as making a 7-year peace treaty. There is an Islamic end times tradition about a peace treaty, but there's no mi in the story.
¶114Ukari 3176 and Abu Dude 4292 describe Muslims making a truce with the Byzantines, but there's no mi in the story, no Jews, and no seven-year duration. In fact, the Muslims are eventually betrayed by their treaty partners. So, where does the very specific 7-year treaty come from? That's conspicuously Christian. Evangelical interpreters derive the Antichrist 7-year covenant from Daniel 9:27.
¶115Josh appears to be taking a Christian prophecy claim and reporting it back to us as an Islamic parallel. >> Uh, they believe that he will ride in, they believe things like this, that he will ride in on a white horse. I can't find a canonical hadith saying that Mai rides in on a white horse. One source used by proponents of this comparison traces the claim back to Kabal Akbar, an early transfer material derived from Jewish and Christian traditions who reportedly says, "I find the mi recorded in the books of the prophets and then appeals to the book of revelations white horse." So, if that's the source of Joshua's supposed Islamic parallel, Islam didn't independently predict something that mysteriously resembles Revelation. The source is referring to Revelation.
¶116And the white horse imagery isn't even uniquely Antichrist imagery. Revelation 19 puts Jesus himself on a white horse. >> If anybody's listening and like hair standing up on the back of your head and there's little alarm bells going off, I just want to point this out. >> Josh isn't asking what are the earliest Islamic sources? How reliable and pervasive are these traditions?
¶117He's asking, "Does this remind me of something in the Bible strongly enough to give me goosebumps?" Again, theology by vibes. If a little alarm bells are going off in your head because you read your Bible before, that's because a lot of the aspects of the Islamic Mahi are the exact descriptions of the New Testament Antichrist. All depictions of the New Testament Antichrist are wildly inexact. Well-informed and well-intentioned Christians have pointed to hundreds of different figures over the centuries, thinking each were an exact match for the Antichrist. The word exact should not enter this discussion.
¶118>> So, dude, do I know that's what's going to happen? Nope, I don't. But I do have my Bible open, and I want to be a guy that's like, "Hey, man. I'm ready. I got my eyes open.
¶119I'm waiting." That's interesting to me. and actual scholarship is interesting to me. To each his own. So, atheism isn't the final boss. I'm genuinely relieved.
¶120Now, Islam is the final boss. Secular progressives are somehow allied with Islam. And ultimately, Satan is running the whole franchise. This is an impressively adaptable worldview. Whatever Christianity's current cultural opponent happens to be, there's always a vacant position for it somewhere in the book of Revelation.
¶121Perhaps this explains why so many Christian apologists have shifted their attention away from non-theists and squarely towards Islam. That's certainly a more noble explanation than mine that it's simply easier to convert someone who already believes in God, revelation, miracles, angels, demons, prophets, and an afterlife than it is to convince those of us sitting here at square zero due to a lack of evidence. But Satan isn't content with ruining the world. Josh knows he also wants to mess with you personally. >> If heaven is the place where everybody's forgiven and hell is the place where nobody's forgiven, uh when we forgive, we pull heaven down into our lives.
¶122Uh and when we choose not to forgive, we pull hell up into our lives. Now, you know what I want to point out is there's this really weird connection in the Bible between satanic and demonic activity and unforgiveness. I'll just give you a couple little examples. Um, so first of all, Jesus calls Satan uh Beelzeub. >> How's it going Beub?
¶123>> Not technically correct. The Pharisees say it is only by Beel, the prince of demons that this fellow drives out demons. And in his reply, Jesus says, "If I drive out demons by Beel, then by whom do your people drive them out?" Jesus is making an internal critique of the Pharisee claim. He's not making his own. As we saw earlier with the temptation, the Jesus of the Gospels doesn't seem to spend time fact-checking people.
¶124He just rolls with what they claim. >> What that literally means, it literally translates to um Lord of the Flies. >> Bezabub in Second Kings is conventionally rendered Lord of the Flies, but the gospel Greek is normally Belabul. And the etmology is disputed. Possibilities include a variant of beelabub, lord of the dwelling, or a derogatory term connected with dung and filth.
¶125More importantly, the Greek New Testament actually says be elabull, not be elabub. Josh needs lord of the flies because his entire wound and fly analogy depends on the flies being there. And the implication is like, man, if you get like a deep wound, like a a flesh wound, what flies do is they get in there and they infest the wound and then something that hurts you. Well, now all of a sudden it becomes fatal because they get up there and they infest the wound. And >> biologically, flies can make an open wound worse.
¶126But an infection doesn't require flies. And this connection isn't found in pages of the Bible. Josh might as well say that because Jesus is the lamb of God and lambs eat grass that Jesus really wants us all to become vegetarians. >> And so when Jesus calls Satan be elabub he's saying is hey man every wound you got if you don't by the power of Jesus Christ his blood and forgiveness close that wound that is a wide open pathway for Satan's work in your life. Um I'll give you another one.
¶127Um in the book of Ephesians it says um hey don't let the sun go down on your anger. Why? because I don't want you to give any opportunity to the devil. >> Note that forgiveness is not the opposite of anger. This passage warns about anger.
¶128>> That's my secret, cat. >> I'm always angry. >> Uh the book of James, it does the same thing. This weird connection between demonic activity and unforgiveness. It says that bitter people, it says bitterness is quote earthly, unspiritual, demonic.
¶129>> It does not say that. James 3:14-16 says that bitter envy and selfish ambition are unspiritual and demonic. You can't just change bitter envy to bitterness and then lack of forgiveness. So, dude, a lot of people miss that that there's like a really powerful connection in the Bible. >> Can you say that again?
¶130Unforgiveness >> is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. All right. So, they miss it. They do that. Apparently, there is some in the supernatural realm, the spiritual realm, there's a way that unforgiveness is like a portal like straight in your soul for Satan and demons.
¶131I don't understand how that works. I just know that it works. >> Is the portal gun working again? >> Yeah, pretty much. >> Sometimes that happens.
¶132There may be a biblical case that anger can provide Satan with an opportunity. But the open wound, the flies crawling into it, unforgiveness keeping it open, and the demonic portal into your soul, Josh supplied all of that. At some point, he stopped executing the Bible and started writing supernatural fanfiction. >> Hey, did you get a chance to read my Walking Dead fanfiction yet? What' you think?
¶133Even within Christianity, Josh hasn't demonstrated why ordinary human psychology and sinful human dispositions aren't sufficient and why we should consider micromanagement of supernatural beings. >> In when you read in the Gospels and it talks about people being quote demon-possessed, that's a bit of an inelegant translation of what that is. It's literally it's one Greek word. We make it two English words. It's one Greek word.
¶134The word is demonized. So kind of like we say fossilized demonized. Like in the same way that a fossil it started out as this, but then very very very slowly over time it was this and now it's this. Honestly man, a lot of times that's how like demonic activity works in people's lives is hey slow it's imperceptible gets up there maybe in a wound something like that. The Greek word Josh is talking about is donism, commonly translated in older Bibles as to be possessed by a demon or demonpossessed.
¶135More recent discussion sometimes prefers demonized since possessed can imply ownership or control more strongly than the Greek itself necessarily does. But Josh's eyesed analogy tells you nothing about the Greek. Demonized is an English translation built with the English suffix eyes. The Greek word isn't constructed with that suffix and nothing in donismi carries the sense of something gradual, slow, imperceptible, or increasing over time. That idea it comes entirely from Josh's chosen analogy of fossilized.
¶136Even in English, eyes doesn't mean slowly become. Consider hospitalized, baptized, standardized, traumatized, or vaporized. You can be hospitalized in 5 minutes or vaporized instantly. The suffix describes a process or a change of state, not its speed. Even fossilized doesn't get its sense of slowness from the suffix.
¶137Fossilization happens slowly because fossil formation itself is a slow process, not because it ends in the word iced. Yes, this is a grammar episode. It sounded like maybe host Shawn Ryan had recently been done dirty because he seemed borderline obsessed with the topic of forgiveness in this interview. >> I I I can't stand being used. I don't like being used and every time it happens I forgive them.
¶138I'll never do that Bible study ever again. >> Ever again >> because of that. >> It put my family at danger. How do you forgive that? >> Mhm.
¶139>> You can forgive them. >> Mhm. >> And I have forgiven them. >> And you probably have too, but then it keeps happening >> by the same people. >> Yeah.
¶140And every time it happens, it's a little fire comes up, you know, and it's you get pissed. >> Mhm. >> And then you start thinking about things you probably shouldn't be thinking about. >> Yeah. >> And so my question is, is that is that is that forgiveness?
¶141Did I really forgive him through for the original thing? >> Mhm. >> And I've distanced myself and I've I've come to peace with it, but then it happens again. >> Yeah. >> And then it happens again.
¶142And you have no control over it happening. >> No, you do not. >> So, how do you deal with that? How do you deal with that with forgiveness? >> Yeah, it's something I personally struggle with.
¶143>> Unfortunately, the advice given in the interview is not in line with the best research of psychologists who run clinical forgiveness therapy programs, relationship researchers who track what happens after betrayal, or theologians writing from within the Christian tradition. Recall the soul portal opened by unforgiveness. There is some in the supernatural realm, the spiritual realm. There's a way that unforgiveness is like a portal like straight in your soul for Satan and demons. I don't understand how that works.
¶144I just know that it works >> to get in your life. Which brings me back to the beginning. Demonic activity and unforgiveness. If hell is a place where nobody's forgiven and heaven is a place where everybody's forgiven, every time we learn to forgive, Sean, you know, you pull heaven down into your life. Every time you choose not to, you pull hell up.
¶145>> Psychologists who study unforgiveness closely describe something considerably less sinister, a normal and often protective stress response rather than a spiritual failure. Research led by Ever Worththington documents unforgiveness producing measurable psychological changes, hormonal patterns, and brain activity that closely resemble ordinary responses to stress and threat. Trauma researchers add that in survivors of real ongoing harm, unforgiveness often functions as an anxiety-based defense against danger that has not actually passed. Some scholars go further defending a specific category of unforgiveness on explicitly moral grounds. Psychologist Gene Safer writes about what she calls moral unforgivers.
¶146people who deliberately hold on to their judgment of a wrong as a way of refusing to collude with an injustice or the person who committed it. Clinicians who work with trauma survivors add that righteous anger plays a genuinely healthy role in recovery, reducing feelings of helplessness and self-lame while supplying the motivation a person needs to set boundaries and pursue real justice. Taken together, this research suggests that refusing to lower your guard around someone who's repeatedly proven untrustworthy is not evidence of spiritual corruption. It is closer to good judgment operating exactly as it should. >> What happens to most people in my opinion is honestly, man, they never fully realized what happened to them and is still happening to them because of what happened to them.
¶147And it's like you can't forgive what you didn't identify. Okay? I can't solve a problem that I didn't define. Okay? If I can't define it, I can't solve it.
¶148So, I got a buddy that recommended this and I've been recommending it for years. Is that parable in Matthew 18. It says that when somebody sins against you, it is as if a debt has been occurred. That person took something from you. You can't cancel a debt that you never inventoried.
¶149And if you don't do that, like, okay, now once you got your debt ledger, okay, and that's that'll take you a minute. You have two choices of what you're going to do with that. And the first one, they they both suck, but in different ways. You can one, you can hang on to it. I'm going to keep this I'm going to keep this debt ledger for the rest of my life, you know, and everywhere I go, everybody's going to know the reason I'm pissy and angry and crotchety is everybody's going to know is because they did this and I'm holding on to the debt.
¶150And actually, and I will say this, one of the biggest reasons nobody likes to talk about that people don't forgive is because if they forgive somebody, they lose the excuse for why they act like they do. >> It's a damn good point. >> Can forgiveness really be accomplished through a single decisive choice? The way Howardon's debt ledger technique suggests, Robert Enright's process model, among the most extensively studied approaches to forgiveness therapy, breaks the work into 20 distinct steps across four phases. First, uncovering buried anger, then deciding whether forgiveness is even a live option, then doing the difficult work of understanding the offender without excusing them, and finally arriving at some deeper meaning in the experience.
¶151This process routinely takes months and sometimes years of sustained emotional effort. It cannot be talked through and resolved in a single conversation. Worthington's reach model developed independently of writes reaches a similar conclusion through what he calls emotional replacement hypothesis. Negative fear-based emotions toward an offender have to be gradually and systematically replaced with positive ones like empathy and compassion. the way a chemist might slowly neutralize an acid rather than flip a switch.
¶152Worthington is careful to distinguish this gradual process from something that can look similar on the surface, but works in an entirely different way, a sudden forced declaration of forgiveness driven by anxiety rather than any real emotional change. Psychologists have a name for that pattern, reaction formation, and it produces the appearance of forgiveness while leaving the underlying pain untouched. Howton's debt ledger technique built around one willful decision to cancel a debt and move on maps uncomfortably well onto what these reachers consider a defense mechanism rather than the real thing. Josh advocates for a universal imperative to forgive. >> There's a difference between forgiveness and reconciliation.
¶153Forgiveness takes one person and it's always possible. Reconciliation takes two people and it's not always possible. Forgiveness can like literally every time I can forgive anybody of anything because honestly dude that forgiveness I just to put it in a straightforward way I do not have a right not to forgive somebody who sins against me. >> Worthington explicitly says no one should ever be forced or coerced to forgive >> because Jesus paid the penalty for that sin and he has commanded me to forgive everyone who sins against me. Relationship researcher James McDalty has documented the dark side of forgiveness.
¶154People tend to repeat actions that go unpunished. In a healthy relationship, an offender who does something wrong faces real consequences, including a partner's anger, criticism, or emotional distance. And those consequences discourage repeat offenses. When a victim forgives quickly and repeatedly, those natural checks disappear, and some offenders learn they can transgress without meaningful cost. McNeltey's later research with V.
¶155Michelle Russell found this depends heavily on who the offender is. Forgiveness reduced reoffending among partners who are already agreeable and inclined toward fairness, but it predicted more reaffending among partners who are less agreeable and more willing to exploit an opening. The handbook of forgiveness and researchers who work directly with abuse survivors reached the same conclusion from clinical experience. Warning that forgiveness extended towards an offender who is an ongoing exploitation risk or has shown no sign of trustworthiness tends to enable the very behavior it was meant to heal. None of this amounts to rejection of forgiveness itself.
¶156It is a rejection of the idea that forgiveness is a single universal obligation owed automatically and identically to every offender regardless of their behavior or the danger they still pose. >> Anybody who receives a wound, anybody. Satan will get in there and try to capitalize on it. And that's the prison. >> Okay, maybe Josh will let us know what explanatory powers Satan brings to the worldview.
¶157>> Hey, because that thing happened to you, you can never you'll you make an inner vow. I'll never do that again. I'll never trust men again because that dude did that to me when I was six. I'll never go to What people don't realize when you start using that type of language, that's prison language. >> Hold on.
¶158She was six. A man who is supposed to be safe has abused her. If that child's brain comes away screaming, "Men are dangerous." I'm not angry at the six-year-old for failing to properly calibrate her basian priors. I'm angry at the man who taught her that lesson. And the clinical literature doesn't describe that reaction as some moral or spiritual betrayal of the victim.
¶159It describes trauma survivors as poised for battle, distrust, hypervigilance, anger, avoidance. These are the self-protective responses from someone whose experience has taught her that danger is real. Sometimes, importantly, the danger is still real. Josh calls this a prison. But let's be really clear about who built it.
¶160The abuser did. If a six-year-old learns from a trusted man that men might not be safe, we don't need Satan to explain how that lesson got into her head. >> I'll ne in other words, bars have been erected between me and that thing. And I just want to give a gentle watch out to everybody listening. Sometimes that thing is a really really good thing that Satan's trying to use a old wound to keep you from ever getting that good thing again.
¶161Typically when somebody is deeply wounded, what Satan will sometimes do is get them to make an inner vow. Like let's say a girl is abused when she's seven by her uncle. She'll make an inner vow. It's like a demonic reverse covenant is what it is. I'll never trust men again.
¶162And what Satan is trying to do is cut her off from honestly a lot of men that she's going to need in her life to become the beautiful, noble woman of God. You see what I'm saying? Does that make sense? >> That's perfect sense. >> There you go.
¶163>> I really don't like this framing. Maybe someday when she is safe and she is ready, she'll want to work on distinguishing danger people from trustworthy people. But the priority isn't getting her psychologically available to the good men she's apparently going to need for reasons unspecified. The priority is her safety, her agency, and making sure the man who abused her can never do it again. The handbook of forgiveness says safety is the first and foremost consideration.
¶164Forgiveness of an abuser can happen from afar. Even clinicians who actively promote forgiveness warn that pushing empathy without first assessing whether the abuser is trustworthy can contribute to enabling. >> Do you think that wisdom can come from people sitting against you? >> Oh, bro. Yes.
¶165My gosh. Yes. It's like because you know with that comes experience. And while you may maybe it would be foolish to say I'll never trust another man again. I think a lot of wisdom could be pulled from that and maybe I I will never trust this type of man again.
¶166You can see through, you know, you you know, >> and there it is. Eventually, that's exactly the distinction you'd hope she can make. But nobody's first response to the six-year-old needs to be, actually, sweetheart. #notallmen. >> A lot of times, you know, you can just see right through people, you know, through experiences of things happening and then you notice patterns that come with every human being that's like that.
¶167>> Yes, I I strongly agree with that. >> Great. So do I. But notice that Shawn has explained the whole thing without Satan. A terrible experience can cause someone to overgeneralize danger.
¶168With time, she may learn to distinguish the characteristics that actually signal danger from the ones that don't. Where exactly in that trauma recovery process do we have evidence that Satan entered the picture? Demonic reverse covenant sounds impressive, but what does it add? Josh hasn't identified some additional phenomenon that psychology couldn't explain. This isn't even in the Bible.
¶169>> That that that's exactly what the word means when it says that God works all things for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose. And all things includes all the jacked up things. He'll redeem all those things. But if you're not called according to his purpose, I guess life just sucks and then you go to hell with no positive resolution. >> So best illustration of why God had why Jesus had died on the cross I've ever heard.
¶170All right, it goes like this. Once upon a time in a faroff kingdom, uh there was a king who is known by everyone in the kingdom to be the most just and loving king who had ever lived. But then it was discovered that somebody was stealing from the king's treasury. And so the king being a just king, he sent out an edict that whenever it was discovered who was stealing from the king's treasury, that that person would receive 10 lashes. Well, the theft continued and so he issued another decree.
¶171When it's discovered who's stealing from the king's treasury, it would be 20 lashes. Theft continued 30 lashes until finally the king issued a final decree. And he said, "When it's discovered who's stealing from the king's treasury, it will be a sentence of 40 lashes." Now, the problem with that was that 40 lashes was a death sentence. >> It might be strange to fact check an illustration, but no, it wasn't. In Deuteronomy 25, 40 lashes is the maximum permitted flogging.
¶172And the text actually explains the limit. Exceeding it would excessively degrade your fellow Israelite. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 11:24 that he received 40 lashes minus one five separate times. So unless Paul died five times, Josh's crucial premise that 40 lashes was a death sentence is simply false. >> And so the theft continued until eventually it was discovered that none other than the king's daughter was the one who was stealing from the treasury.
¶173So then a question began to ripple through the kingdom. What would the king do? Some thought he would forgive her, but then how would he be just? Uh some thought that he would issue the sentence, but then how would he be loving? Well, it was decided.
¶174The king sat down and decided, you know what, the sentence is just. The punishment must fall. And so the decree stands. And so one day, the entire kingdom was gathered. And in front of everybody, the king's own daughter was marched up to the podium in front of the entire kingdom.
¶175And she was bent over the podium. and the back of her shirt was ripped open. And the executioner stood there and he began to raise his whip to land the first slash. And as soon as he did, the king yelled, "Stop!" And there was a silence that fell. And the king strode forward and he took off his own shirt and he bent over and he wrapped his body around his own daughter and looked back up over his shoulder and he said, "Now hit her." And the executioner objected and he said, "But King, those lashes, they'll fall on you." And he said, "The sentence must stand.
¶176It's just hit her." >> But the sentence didn't stand. The sentence was, "The thief gets 40 lashes. The thief got zero. You can't call changing the recipient upholding the sentence. Financial liabilities are transferable.
¶177Culpability for an action isn't. If I owe a fine, someone else can pay it. But if I abuse someone, an innocent volunteer can't become deserving of my punishment. The debt metaphor makes substitution sound intuitive by importing something that works for money into a completely different category of moral responsibility. And so 40 lashes fell on the body of the king that protected the body of his daughter and the king died in thestead of his daughter.
¶178And what happened, Sean, in that story is the king was both just because payment for the sin had to be made. >> It's unclear to me why the payment for theft has to be physical pain. Restorative justice would have been having the daughter repay the treasury and repair the harm she caused. On a retributive theory, justice could involve some additional proportional punishment. But why torture?
¶179The main rationale I can see for publicly whipping a thief would be deterrence. Making an example of her so that other people don't steal. But that's a consequentialist justification for punishment, not the retributive principle Josh needs here. That justice itself demands suffering. Even if 40 lashes somehow were the uniquely just punishment for her theft, retributive justice says the guilty person deserves that punishment.
¶180Giving those lashes to someone who doesn't deserve them abandons the principle. And the king was the justifier of the ungodly. She went free because he took the penalty. See, the reason Jesus had to die on the cross is because God is just. And so payment for sin has to be made.
¶181Like if if somebody walked into a courtroom and a judge just went, "You know what, man? You raped that girl when she was young, but you're real sorry, and I have the power to do it. You're forgiven." >> Nobody would think that was a just judge. >> Sure, I agree. That would be horrifying.
¶182But now finish Josh's analogy. The judge says, "Therefore, I'm sentencing an innocent man to the rapist's prison term. And once he's served it, justice will have been satisfied. Does that fix the problem? >> So penalty for sin had to be made.
¶183But God is love. So he made the payment himself. That's what the Bible means when it says, "For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." Okay? So it's a substitutionary sacrifice. In my place, condemned he stood.
¶184>> Wow. It's a great explanation. >> Does it make sense? >> Makes perfect sense. >> Josh presented one particular theory of how the cross works as though it's simply self-evidently what the Bible means.
¶185The Christians have spent 2,000 years disagreeing about this question. Penal substitution in its mature form is particularly associated with the Reformation, not a universally articulated theory handed intact from the apostles through church history. Why did Jesus have to die on the cross? >> Yeah. >> Why did he have to do it?
¶186>> I mean, >> he's God's son. He's God's only son. Why didn't God make another son? >> Mhm. >> We got a lot of questions here.
¶187I mean, I just don't I just I don't fully understand why it had to happen. >> If he is God, >> why couldn't he just forgive? >> Exactly. >> Yeah, dude. Yeah.
¶188>> Yep. Great question. Christians are taught that Jesus had to die so that God could forgive human sin. But God forgives people constantly through the Hebrew Bible centuries earlier with no death involved at all. If God could already forgive freely, what did the crucifixion actually accomplish?
¶189And why does ordinary human forgiveness work on entirely different terms than God's own? After David arranges Uriah's death to cover his affair with Bashibba, he confesses and Nathan tells him on the spot, "The Lord has taken away your sin." Through Isaiah, God says he blotss out transgression for my own sake. No mention of a future payment. Nineveh repents in the book of Jonah and God simply relents. No sacrifice anywhere in the account.
¶190Centuries before any cross, God forgives on his own authority. Jesus continues this pattern before his own death, telling a paralyzed man and a weeping woman that their sins are forgiven, no crucifixion required. Some Christians explain this away by arguing that all these acts worked only because Christ's death would eventually pay for them retroactively. Paul gestures towards this in Romans and Hebrews insists animal sacrifice never really removed the sin at all. That is a coherent theological system, but it is not what the earlier texts themselves say.
¶191Isaiah has God forgiving for my own sake, his own decision with no debt mentioned. The retroactive payment is read into the story later. Jesus commands his followers to forgive their debtors. Paul tells Corinthians to forgive as the Lord forgave them. And when Peter asks how many times he must forgive someone, Jesus tells him there is no limit.
¶192>> How many times should I forgive Jesus? Seven times. And in Matthew 18, Jesus goes, "No, Peter, it's actually going to be seven times." 70 times. 490 times. And what he's saying is infinite.
¶193Nobody is told to withhold forgiveness until the debt gets paid by someone else. Yet, under standard atonement theology, God supposedly cannot do what he commands humans to do. He needs the debt settled in full before he can let it go. If unconditional forgiveness is virtuous enough that God demands it of people, it's hard to see why, the same generosity would be impossible for God himself. If you forgive someone's debt, you absorb the loss.
¶194If a third party pays the debt instead, the debt has not been forgiven, it's been paid. Substitutionary atonement is the second case dressed up as the first. Christ's death does not wave the penalty. It collects it from someone else. Calling that forgiveness stretches the word past its ordinary meaning, and it is not the explanation the earlier stories give.
¶195God simply forgives there freely. The same forgiveness Christians are later told to extend to one another. So, after all three fronts of this supposed war on Christianity, we're no closer to having a way of detecting said war or the actors in it. As far as I can tell, the entire notion of the devil is redundant and non-falsifiable. >> That the devil is just one man with a plan, but evil.
¶196True evil is a collaboration of men. >> If you ask me, humans can and do cause harm all on their own with no help needed from an unseen realm. At the end of the day, host Shawn asked a lot of good questions. >> So, let me just get this one thing out of the way. >> What do you mean by that?
¶197Nobody makes it. How can you want justice and still be able to forgive? Now, let me ask you this. Do you think that wisdom can come from people sitting against you? The trouble was that Shawn was unwilling or illquipped or both to know that he was getting shallow insufficient answers from Josh and nor do many of his audience of millions.
¶198This is now the dominant format for religious ideas in America. A man who genuinely believes everything he says saying a great deal that isn't true in a room where no one can tell. I suspect the coming years will require more responses like this, not fewer. Thank you so much for watching. If you appreciate what we do here at Paul Gia and you're willing and able, we could really use your support on Patreon, joining as a paid YouTube member, or with onetime support via PayPal.
¶199Small bits of support accumulate to keeping this viable. You can also help for free by liking, subscribing, sharing, or commenting. >> Let's go back to the comments. Sounds like it sounds like people's opinions bother you. >> For more of this former Christian, taking a look at the claims of Christians, please tap on the thumbnail on screen now, and I'll see you over there.
¶200Until next time. Later.