Understanding Woke Culture & Responding With Grace | Noelle Mering

today we're going to talk about how not to fall into wokeism and cancel culture or the spirit of cancel culture listen are the problems in western civilization real yes are the problems in the history of the church you better believe it is racism a very real problem in American history and its present of course is systemic racism real actually yes I think it is you know what else is a very real problem the tendency that people have today to reduce all of the history of Western Civilization American history the history of the church to nothing but its worst elements the ways that the quote patriarchy has been misused and abused the opposite sex the bigotry the hatred the racism and to see that all the beauty of all Western civilization and the church history everything can be reduced to nothing but those worst elements and there's young people who go to to college today and actually are trained to see all that their grandparents and parents hand on to them as nothing but that and their natural conclusion is hey let's burn the whole thing down hey here's another idea let's not burn the whole thing down so we're going to help you dive into the whole woke ideology which I prefer to call nothing but ISM the reduction of all this beauty to nothing but its worst elements and help you dismantle it understand where people are coming from and respond with the right spirit not falling into a spirit of cancel culture yourself where you maybe are looking for woke ideology everywhere which is exactly as bad as people who are woke looking for the systemic Injustice everywhere it's all a craziness that's just ripping us apart as a society and Jesus is calling us to more so although this episode might feel a little more culture warish or philosophical sometimes guys we got to go there in order to just clear the ground and be able to talk to each other and share the gospel again and this is one of those times now if you're really want to solve the problems in western civilization well that starts with solving problems in your own heart in your own marriage so before we dive into this topic I got to give a plug to this go to real life catholic.com marage or follow the link in the show notes we're releasing an amazing program April 1st you can pre-sign up for this it's only available for 3 months for free and it's going to change your marriage it's simple it's digestible it's life-changing and I want you to take that link and share it with everybody you know now let's dive into our interview with Noel miring the author of awake not woke and please like subscribe share this with everybody you know and if you disagree with half the things that I say in this interview or half the things Noel says guess what I love you anyway please leave those disagreements in the comments I'll jump in and I'll dialogue with you thanks for watching no Mary thank you so much for making time to be here you got six kids I have six kids just like you yes the few the proud the people crazy enough to have six kids only you you have six kids in La so it's even crazier it is a little crazier but we're not quite in La so that helps well let's lean into the crazy and uh let's get ourselves canceled during this episode because I know it's really popular to dismantle wokeism right yeah I mean if there's anything i' I've I've spoken about and I I don't obsess on this from from our ministry it's probably like 1% of the time talking about controversial issues if I see them as an obstacle to my primary Mission which is preaching the gospel and spreading the joy of God but you you dive into that 1% and people blow that up latch on to it it's like no this is all he ever talks about now it's like not not really right but it's really important to go here um so let's define our terms and thanks for your book on this topic sure I'm sorry before we this how did you get the time to write a book with six kids running around your house well it theoretically should have been easy because I have six kids but the youngest I think when I wrote the book was maybe eight and they were all in school a sweet little Catholic School in our town I signed contract started got my research p uh books together sat down to write it two weeks later everyone comes home because of the quarantine and we had one computer I was Shing they were all homeschooling on the computer were you writing at like 2 a.m. every day no I just didn't homeschool them I asked one of my older Sons to homeschool the little kids you unschooled pretend it was intentional I did I did School them it was unschooling so we don't do computer I gave them books and said on your own I need to write a book well it's beautiful awake not woke got to get it all right let's define our terms what's woke what's wokeism and and this is hard to Define it is it's like trying to grab the the tentacle of like there's so many things that go into this a cultural Trend and and people who really espouse it in a hardcore way don't want you to Define it that's right they kind of take that away because that that's an advantage you have if you could put a word on it so what's W is yeah I think it really thrives being left ambiguous right or left up to interpretation and in some ways I mean how you define it kind of captures where you are in the debate so you might say it's a movement for compassion this is an effort to as Christ would have encouraged people to walk alongside with the marginalized the oppressed and to support them um and I think that there is an element of that in it and that's what really pulls a lot of people of Goodwill into the movement um but ultimately fundamentally I think it is a revolution on multiple levels I think it's a cultural revolution I think it's uh political revolution and I think most importantly it's a revolution against human nature and against God and his authority to establish a moral law um and so that's really what motivated me to write the book it wasn't really the political element of it it was that we are redefining really what it means to be human yeah everything but starting with very basic foundational things and once you sort of seed foundational lies in that in that realm you just you end up with a whole s set of distortions and people really not able to flourish also you end up with needing to control the narrative right because SES don't stand up to scrutiny and so you wind up with censorship um with a lot of top down efforts at control um with a lot of real kind of manipulative tactics in order to maintain a woke narrative so where that was that was 45,000 ft let's come down to 35,000 right because that's good to have the birds ey you there's there's there's this dism in of of all things including how we see human nature right um philosophically where did this emerge where did this come from if you could trace it and spill that out for us yeah it's a kind of a convergence of multiple streams of thought I mean the most common one that people would point to would be Carl Marx who it was usually influenced by Hegel but then you also um come into postmodernism nich you know various like the struct structuralism the manipulation of language all of these iterations sort of combine and converge at some point to form sort of a powder keg of ideology but I think foundationally that that Marxist understanding that we are defined into Division and so when I think at the found how he saw life people are defined in in terms of class distinction and class division that's right fundamental divisions and that drawing out those conflicts is how you establish you know go through the progress of History into some future Utopias by bringing out that conflict um but so I think the the main one of the biggest shifts was that we traditionally have always defined people in ways that unite us you know we are rational animals so we have a common ability to think together we can discuss we can debate we have the ability to reason we're distinct from the beasts um and then as Christians we know that we are defined the image of God we're invited into a family type of relationship to be brothers and sisters sons and Daughters of a loving God and the woke movement really re changes that utterly on its head and says we're not defined by the love of God but by the hatred of society and so that oppression gets to the core of who you are so I think about this even it's not something that Humanity has and deals with it is Humanity it's it is the the defining factor in the course of human history in our nature as as as rational beings that it's all defined in terms of of the distinction of class division and the Battle For Justice right and it comes not just be on the lines of class but it spreads you know one of the things that they realize revolutionaries was that it can't just be on the level of class and economics it had to spread into sex into um race into all other categories you had to broaden the opportunities to redefine people into Division and one of the consequences that it eliminates the ability to think together right we can't really reason together that the chasm becomes so foundational that it's unbridgeable I can't actually reach across it so there's no real Avenue for real friendship for real discussion um it just becomes uh reducible to Identity utterly and and I think there's a real violence that's seeded into societies that sort of devolve into that kind of real toxic sort of tribalism and we really start to celebrate violence um but before we go there and we could see we could see Society heading in that direction and it's scary um the the the whole woke ideology appeals to something good in people and frankly this is this is the irony of ironies it appeals to something that we wouldn't have as a society to appeal to were it not for Christianity right even though wokeism would tend to redefine Christianity by reducing it to nothing but a colonialist u bigoted organization that's a divisive and harmful force in the world and and kids come home from college and and their grandparents are like wait you suddenly Hate Everything I raised you with like why right um so despite the fact that wokeism would reduce Christianity that were it not for Christianity appealing to the Dignity of the human being it wouldn't even taken root like if we were still Rome the Roman Empire 2023 you think there'd be anybody that that could get away with a woke idea right come just smash you you want to rise up and claim Justice the causes whatever no it's all about the emperor and his power um so what what is it that this is appealing to that's good and real well I think that there's a way in which that's by design that really I think it shape shifts this ideology because I do think that is animated ultimately from a power that is not of this world you know a dark power um and I think it realizes that you know as a Christian Nation with those roots and that Heritage that we really are going to be taken in by a movement that is orienting itself around appeal to compassion that that is really gets to the heart of what is going to be compelling for us because you know as Christians compassion is not just something on the surface of our what we believe it's at the very heart of it right that we believe that love is who God is and that's who we are called to be and the Press should be liberated and that they should be liberated and that they we should be people who walk alongside them um and so you know I understand why so many people are compelled by it it's really hard to say okay this movement is claiming that whole ter of compassion and if you're not implementing your compassion in this particular way and applying it in this particular way you're on the side actually of hatred and that sort of divis divisive binary where it's either you're with us in totality or you're on the side of hatred so you're saying we need to be non-binary we need to be non-binary that's right sorry it's a bad binary it is right it's it's this this kindergarten uh assessment of History that's just it's black and white Good Guys bad guys and and pick the right side but you can see why it's compelling because people have a fundamental need to belong and so when someone says okay you have to belong to this movement of compassion or else you are ostracized well that's that's a real human fear being cast aside and U not belonging so um I think it's really prayed on that very basic human need and has been very successful in that way you know it's maybe even scarier there's there's a it seems to be a human need to identify an enemy mhm that's right you know there's psychological tests that have been done that show people actually find emotional comfort in identifying an enemy cuz it takes all the attention off of themselves that's right saying that's my enemy I'll destroy that enemy um and it but doesn't take much thought to see how how that can go in the wrong direction but but every every movement that has become a bloody massacre appealed to to actual good things like the French Revolution uh fraternity Equity uh Liberty Liberty yeah right they who doesn't who doesn't want those things right well lies are only compelling if they have a grain of truth right yeah um but it's interesting I mean what you were saying uh about that desire to find an enemy I mean I really think that that's very captivating because all of us want to deflect from our responsibility and so once you kind of create a moral incentive to find your moral stature and the ability to claim a victim identity you have to become a Perpetual accuser there's no such thing as a Perpetual victim without someone to accuse and so it incentivizes us to find evil outside of ourselves at all times and to never really be able to identify it within um it's really contrary to the faith right the faith is constantly like knowing recognizing that's a human tendency Temptation and so it's saying okay do an examination of conscience okay go to confession do aopa you know look look at yourself look at the sins in your own soul look at the pollution that pervades your own mindset and heart and deal with that you know and that's the road to Harmony and you know the family helps us with with that you know with family life you're constantly being held a mirror to your own um sins your own faults your own failures you're seeing your selfishness because your kids start mimicking your selfishness go I thought I was a saint till I had kids but there's also the gospel command of of and by the way I love the the title of your book awake not woke because you're not saying don't respond to Injustice but do it in the Christian way do it in the better way that's right and you you see that better way and people like the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr like the Reverend like his worldview in approaching everything was was shaped by this idea that you should love your enemies MH that there is Injustice and we are going to work on it but not from the spirit of I'm going to get even I'm going to rip everything down I'm going to burn Society to the ground so that we could start over that that's a profoundly different worldview that animates uh activity from the same motive which is I want to set things right that's right oh isn't that scary I mean one's driven by the Holy Spirit I think one is clearly driven by a dark spirit and and the and the fruits are evident that's right yeah and um you know I think that beyond that that redefinition to victimhood an accuser which you know I think we know who the accuser is you the father of Lies is the accuser and I think that that it's not an accident that we're trying to be redefine ourselves as into into that sort of characteristic but also I think it's telling us that we are not only oppressed by other people but oppressed by the moral law itself you know and that's a very Stark distinction from Martin Luther King Jr who also wrote about the natural law and the letter from the Birmingham um the total abandonment of any sense of natural law finally makes God our oppressor yeah as the author of the natural law so that's another you know I think that the the way that that trains people to sort of try to Triumph and free themselves from natural law is to transgress it and so it gives us a second identity where our Liberty is grounded in our transgression um which is another yeah another alarming and harmful right and then you could I mean that it's it's hidden in plain sight yeah I mean I think of the the organization black lives matter you look at their website and yeah it's great you want you want racial Justice and then three lines down is part of the mission statement to dismantle the nuclear family and I remember when all this stuff was starting to break and uh and I saw that I'm like wait what's the connection well people who who who understand the worldview that underlies where some people approach Justice from can see the connection clear as day that's right like let's dismantle everything um but another place where this this comes from and and I think it's been fueled legitimately fueled is the reality of systemic Injustice right um one thing I one unfortunate thing I I I made a video on wokeism a while ago and I I hate this that some people would Without Really diving into where this comes from what it is understanding it would hear the word wokeism get a basic understanding of it and then be dismissive of every claim of Injustice that's right right and just say oh I just woke like no actually there's racism yeah and it's really bad yeah and sometimes it it it's more than just one guy hting another it's it's becomes the lived experience right um for someone who doesn't know how to grasp that think of maybe this would be easier to latch on to lust lust can be systemic in society kids go to school they're told they have to have a computer you can't be on a computer for more than five minutes without having to have the willpower to click away from an invitation to look at porn so so based on the whole way they grow up they're they're drawn to this so it's happened in places in history where racism could have the same expression since that's a a reality wouldn't the woke culture Warrior say well therefore shouldn't I wake up to it and look for it everywhere and make my life about dismantling it how would you respond to that well I think that we have to be careful when we recognize that there's real Injustice that we are not in the application of this solution going becoming excessive and I think that there are so many ways in which we have ignored the excesses of the movement so for example you can't respond to racial Injustice with um chance like defund the police or just you know break down Society in that way you can't respond to the me too movement with believe all women it's nonsensical you can't just assume that just because someone is born a woman that they cannot lie you know that that's just that doesn't make any sense or smash the patriarchy right um you know these are all toxic ways of responding to real Injustice so I think that we have to be Rec cognizant of those sort of excesses and also looking at okay what are the effects of if I say that there's such systemic Injustice that any disparity between any sort of group of people is only attributable to a systemic Injustice that absolves me of any responsibility wow if all my my successes and my failures are because of maybe I don't know my skin color because I'm a man or because I'm able-bodied or what have you yeah then that means that I can't really learn from my failures nor can other people can I Inspire someone or be humbled and grateful for my successes so um I think it's really a matter of Despair at that point that people don't find that they're they're they can have any meaningful ability to change anything in their daily life they have to blow things up it's the system that's the problem it also excuses me from actually working on myself when it comes to Virtue and Vice that's right right that that the only that the woke version oft is like this gnosticism I come to a knowledge therefore I spiritually wake up and I'm better than everybody else even if I don't do a dang thing with it except I don't know flaunt how much more I know than you on social media that's absolutely what it is and the you know the irony too is that the movement tends to ignore the one systemic change you can make in society that if you could wave a magic wand and improve everyone's life fathers in the home well me yeah you change yourself CH yourself Talking social paolog Inta families would make the greatest difference in society it's not make everyone one skin color or make everyone a man or whatever have you it's the family and the family is a total Target of Revolution it's scary isn't it it's a hatred of the father it is a hatred of the father every every revolutionary is based in that hatred of the father yeah that that's just satanic it's satanic and um you know one of the connections there is that once you target the father if you target the shepherd because you want access to the Sheep so there's a real connection between taking out the fathers and having access to the innocence of children and this is one of the darker parts of it um but if you read you know unfortunately I've had to spend a lot of time reading the the queer Theory and all this gender ideology it's it's really there's a real targeting of children of Innocence because innocence stands um innocence points us to a measure it points us to a standard and it forces us to look at ourselves right and so seeing this pattern here where we're trying to avoid looking at ourselves and so the innocence of the child innocence of you know alternative sexualities and all these things um is really has they have to be disabused of that innocence in order to perpetuate this idea that there is no particular way of being in the world that our sexuality is really anything that we choose for it to be and so I think this really explains why you know we're seeing so much targeted at children with the drag queen stuff and the gender ideology in schools from the earliest ages is um this is really it's part of the Revolution it makes sense according to the logic of the Revolution it's also the revolution is also based on again that that that binary good guy bad bad guy view of History MH to to just try to want to demonize one group redeem another group the demonized group is usually the group that comes from the European world and and the again the response is this is not just the woke folks but the people who are are a lot of conservatives just it's just it's just binary like no it was all good right you know a great story that sums up the mixed bag of it all I think of the Maui people and they had a tradition of of Prophecy and there was one prophet and it was all well recorded this guy uh before white people came to New Zealand he he had vivid dreams and visions of people coming in a boat he was acting out what it looked like when they smoke their pipes really beautiful he he said their God will be good and their God's name is the son that was killed I get CH thinking about so the Lord Was preparing the way for the gospel through the prophetic Gifts of of that he was giving them before they heard of the gospel and he said but the people will still be oppressed it's it was that mixed reality and the mai people had a lot of violence there there was tribal Warfare there was cannibalism and those things came to an end there was real peace and at the same time there was real oppression and and and and the trauma of colonialism all these things together but now we're hundreds of years later and there and there's a reckoning that that people want based on things that happened hundreds of years ago like the only if we're going to hold on to like instead of moving on and trying to fix things now like I thought think the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr wanted to do like Jesus would call us to do I mean it would be like me going back to to to Ireland and saying you deprived my people of land 150 years ago during the Potato Famine let let's burn down London right I mean where is this leading I mean you could let's talk about that a little more like this is clearly leading to to a vience that's irrational based on things that happened long ago or or things that are happening now but when the solution is let's burn it all down uh I dug this up from one of your articles this quote from SRA this was you this you found a gem here uh where he was he's you know he's a French deconstructionist philosopher which is I think uh the root of a lot of where the woke thinking comes from when his rage boils over man rediscovers his Lost Innocence and he comes to know himself in that he himself creates him his s which is scary yeah it's a it not only sounds satanic it's also deeply Marxist um so that was in the preface of The Wretched of the earth a book about decolonization um yeah talk about the the whole because again I'm dropping this in in 30 seconds summing up a little bit of this but talk about decolonization where this will will lead um because this is not just theoretical I mic there's there's kids come home from college and their grandparents are are stunned like wait you think all of the history of Western Civilization is nothing but evil and you don't like me anymore you won't go to church with me anymore why CU something you're on a history class or or every class yeah Define decolonization and where it's showing its teeth well I mean very there's a narrow way to define it which is obviously Colonial Breaking Free of the oppression of a colonized Nation um but the thing thing that's important to understand is that the woke movement has transferred that into all of America that they have slogans like decolonize everything um Harvard had a podcast called um oh now I'm forgetting the name of it but it was something to that effect too that everything is colonized we decolonized all that the you know the school curriculum is colonized that everything you know that but 2 plus 2 is four is an example of colonization how how is that well 2 plus 2 equals four I think the idea that there is any sort of objective Truth at all um example of colonization it's example of colonization that crazy as as if indigenous people didn't have a concept of Truth come on it's an offense to indigenous people it's an offense to that's exactly right it's it's offensive to it's offensive to everyone yeah um and it's not empowering to anyone but that I think that there that that s quote really points to the idea that if you are if you can say establish that we are colonized in America you have a right to violence in fact you have a duty to violence that one of the things he talks about is how when you kill a colonizer you're killing two people you're killing the one who oppresses you but you're also killing the non-person that you were before the inhuman person that you were as a colonized peasant and that's how you create yourself and that's how you become free um but it's also this this sort of self- creation thing that is common through Marx and also um you know very occult idea um so yeah so violence really is at the core of it because the idea is that the colonized system is itself violence that you're living under violence and so you have a right to respond to violence so one of the things that happens is that what is morally lit is not based on principle but on identity and so again we no longer can reason together because there's no common principle that applies to all of us to which we are all subject and that also that contains the contents and Contours of our flourishing there is only identity and based on who you are that depends determines what is okay for you to do and and and in that context speech is violence and violence is speech that's right it's an acceptable form of speech which I it's it's so disturbing to see that become more and more common that's right you know if if if you were to go on a lot of college campuses you drive four hours north of Berkeley and give a talk about lism you'd physically be in danger that's right and the people endangering you would be protected by the cops because you're you're the one upsetting them with your with your idea yeah their violence would be a cry of the oppressed or you know something to that effect I don't I it's actually it seems good at least that that's becoming more clear I hope we see some Trends against this Insanity by that coming more to the Forefront you you can see it in the recent Pro Hamas protests and obviously I'm I'm Pro uh the the Palestinian people having peace and and flourishing but you look at terrorist acts and people literally defending those having a rally within days of of terrorist murder right saying go go like the timing here like if there was if there was a Catholic uh murder of of of Jews for me to have any cathic rally the next day would be like how about we we sit this one out and apologize it be unconscionable it would and again that illustrates the idea that what's unconscionable for one group is very Justified for another so there's no there's no elimination of the common principle yeah even if you're the victim if you are inherently the oppressor right well there is no victimhood even if you're killed you're still the oppressor just being thrown off that's right um and I think that as you indicate that there is this sort of escalation is sort of waking people up you see more and more people seeing through sort of what maybe was a manipulation tactic all along now that they you know you see that a lot with Jewish people now who are saying wait I I've been marching in all your marches and supporting you and now you're you've discarded your allies so easily yeah um I think we saw that with a feminist when the transgender movement moved past feminism and they said okay we don't care now what a woman is any longer young women in high school locker rooms can have a fully intact male person naked watching them undress and we're going to support that and you see all these secular feminists say wait wait wait what happened why are you discarding us but the revolution the logic of Revolution keeps going it was never about them anyway and so they're easily discarded um but I think when of you know the movement tends to operate in three stages three forms of manipulation one by pity next by fear and then finally by force and that force can be course of laws corrupt institutions But ultimately the force turns violent and I think we're starting to see that now and that's when people start to wake up it's kind of a scary time but it's also a hopeful time I think because people start to see the other manipulations for what they were what are we supposed to do when you when you when when you wake up on the other side yeah when you become woke about what's going on right like what what do you do about it I mean I I've encountered a couple different audiences here as far as people who who I want to respond to like like the the kid who comes home from college they're angry all of a sudden about everything they were raised with um there's people who are way in the woke thing and who are are tactical and know what they're doing right and and I've I've been attacked by these people online there was one that uh was was calling for E people to either boycott my Evangelistic events or show up protesting after I made a video on woke is and and she's this this this woman said you know Chris is dangerous because that Chris attributes the Civil Rights Movement entirely to French philosophers and French deconstructionists and and I and I said hold on look at the video I made because I literally say racial Injustice is evil systemic Injustice is real uh but there's this but that has been leveraged the pain of Injustice and here's one of the awful things about bism it leverages the pain of real Injustice to push a movement of deconstructionism that's right it uses people and their pain again on a Next Level exactly oh how Wicked is that um but I reached out and I explained all this right and and I said I didn't say that and also also the point of language is to be able to express ideas so you're giving me a chance to clarify I'm clarifying to you and I'm clarifying publicly I don't think that yeah the person's response was to ignore me and double down and then re-release her her tweet as this big thread and to call people's attention to it it's like wait I wasted my time talking to you because you use language as as a tactic to pretend you're debating with me not be open to anything I have to say in response uh but your end goal was to get to shut up it wasn't a dialogue on the other not truth it's power that's that's it they're they're they're acting out of their belief system the other side is people who are Goodwill people who are genuinely like I I see Injustice in the world I want to do something that's right and what they're saying makes sense or at least they want to they want to fix what I'm seeing in front of me how do you distinguish between those two and how do you relate with each of those that's a great question because I think it's so important you know what you can't we can't treat our sweet woke Aunt Susan like she's our Immortal enemy yeah to Vanquish or anyone right or no one right but nor can we I think think that we can just accompany a group of transgender story you know people who want to indoctrinate children into school they can be they are souls who can be should be befriended and should be um respected and dig as with dignified people but the movement has to be stopped still so I think that there's a right we don't need to know that there are things to stop and there are but then there are people that are not objects of ideology they're subjects of of um who are are brothers or sisters um one distinctions I make and I've used this analogy before but um I think it's helpful there's a scene in that movie The Sixth Sense Haley Joel Osman I see dead people he sees a young girl his age who has passed away and she gives him evidence that her mother had this disturbing mental illness called Munch Housen syndrome by proxy where she was poisoning her food it's a really disturbing mental illness and um so she haly jman presents the evidence to the father and the father had no idea and I think that's a good illustration there are three characters in the story there's the child who is a total victim of this poison um through no ill will or complicity of her own there's the father who's an unwitting participant he just he's good-willed he's trying to help but he's accidentally bringing poison thinking that it's food just food and then there's the mother who you know hopefully she can be healed at some point but she also needed to be stopped because the poison need to be halted yeah um I think there's also a fourth character which is maybe a nurse in the room who sort of knows something's wrong but it's too nervous to say anything or just doesn't want to get involved and I think that's a good synopsis of different categories it's a lot of us yeah that there really are some people who are true total victims of this movement um who've been spoonfed ideology who have had their real wounds and sufferings exploited and that's a lot of people right A lot of people coming out with um deep wounds from you know Brokenness abuse what have you abandonment and then the movement saying take those wounds and help them to make you full of rage and in that belligerence of your rage lies the Revolution and they become used in that way um and then there's a lot of Goodwill people like the father who think they're helping I know many people like this who are very Progressive and just truly have a heart for people who have suffered and think this is the way to help them and they need to be sort of enlightened maybe if if if they can be um so the victims need to be healed the people who are unwitting participants need to be maybe helped to see things more clearly and then there's the people who are you know more directly Distributing the evil and they I think need to be stopped and then hopefully can be healed and helped later um and I and then maybe the nurse needs to be encouraged so I think you know there's we really cannot tailor our we have to tailor our tactics basically to the person in front of us because they're not a representative of an ideology they're their own unique human being who need to be addressed personally what a beautifully Catholic way to approach that this is all rooted in the in the person yeah right and approach each person and give them the Dignity of of listening to them and trying to see where they're coming from that's right and God help us not not close off to people I mean there's there's a spirit of cancel culture that lacks Mercy at all there's no mercy right if you're if you're awake then you're part of the club and if you're not you're you're dehum you're less than human in fact this has become a leftist political language that's right yeah I don't mean Democrat I mean leftist that it's like those people aren't human that's right there's a there are ma massive excesses and obviously sins and a whole bunch of wrongs that people are fighting against the woke movement engaged in including their own type of tribalism right both both sides are doing this I I heard I heard a recent study that 80% of self-described conservatives hate what they say are liberals 80% of liberals hate conservatives there's an insanity here yeah there's an insanity on both sides that that Christian voices should just break out of and say I'm I'm refusing to go there there I'm going to see the person I'm going to see the person um and that's a real struggle that's right I think we should we have to fight the Revolution and love people and I think that loving people also means that we are fighting the revolution but that can never sh switch into yeah fighting the person amen yeah if we ourselves are looking for wokeism everywhere yeah that then we have reduced our our worldview this reductionism and the view of the other uh to to an issue to a power struggle we literally it's the two sides of the same coin that's right we become we approach the world with a hermen hermeneutics of Suspicion which is what wokeism does right it wants you to find everywhere evil racism sexism you know ways to be offended we can do that ourselves like oh who's a leftist who's a progressive and then dehumanize and yeah this is the struggle of the human heart the Battle Is Right Here We wish it was out there identify the Enemy No it's right here man I'll never forget I heard uh was it te zinski the Oklahoma City bomber uh no he was the uni bomber TK un bomber hold on hold on I got uh yeah the unibomber there it is um I had heard he went to confession before he died uh and my first response was anger huh and I brought that to prayer and I just felt the Lord like saying Chris man you know how hard I worked on Ted like Rejoice wow um I I I have to fight myself you know like especially as parents you know it's easy to fall into like your grandkid comes home hating you and hating the church yeah well who is that Professor right professor is the person that Jesus died for God help us to be different we can't do it without you yeah amen I know it's that's the thing is that because it is such a spiritual battle it's really not a cultural battle or political battle anywhere nearly like it's a spiritual battle and so if we are not drawing and army ourselves so deeply close to Christ and arming ourselves in that way we're not going to be effective in any way you know we can't give out what we don't receive and it really has to be him that that is going to change Hearts because it feels so daunting to think about us doing it on our own you know what else is is really important and it's got to be driven driven by Grace is um as we're talking I'm just thinking gosh we got to do a better job at serving the poor yeah you know I I think of what happened in in in Russia and how quickly it fell to Communism it fell to an ideology appealing to real Injustice but it became evil it perpetrated a worse Injustice leveraging the pain of people and I I just wondered gosh if the church there were doing a better job than the marxists at serving people in need if they would have gotten away with spreading all those lies that's right which historically the church has been at the Forefront right of serving the poort through hospitals orphanages all these things we we got to lean in and we also got to let people know right yeah I mean as as people want to overlook that fact yeah but the the average Catholics I think we got to even even though I think we're still doing better than most of the world I mean we're the largest social service provider on earth right I I think it's a time in history where let's lean in an even even more heroic way to where the world can't Overlook it ially agree and I think we also have to be the type people who our friends aren't going to feel ashamed if they come to us and say I think I'm rethinking all of this ideology you know um I've had friends say that to me in the last couple years as things have gotten so crazy friends who I thought were very leftist yeah um and I think we have to make sure that we are the type of people that they feel like they can say that to and we're not going to spike a football on their heads yeah I told you about polarization it's really hard not to be like team oriented totally hey thanks for thanks for going there thanks for putting your neck out there because I I know you're taking hits just for talking about this and I'll take hits for talking about this and you know if you want to you want to sense of hits my way I love you anyway all right um so thanks for doing that but also thanks for modeling how to do this with Grace and with charity and without hatred for the other um May the Lord give us Grace to stay in that space praise God Amen thank you thank you well awake not woke awake not woke and theology Theology of Home book series where do they get the stuff anywhere books are sold through our website what Theology of home.com or our publisher tan books.org or the big book sellers too awesome and be sure to like subscribe share this stuff with your friends it's too good to keep your to yourself and we'll see you next time guys thank you so much for watching thanks for diving deep with us again the culture War stuff isn't always the most Pleasant stuff to look at and I'm not going to get obsessed with that and please join me in not becoming obsessed with all that stuff but when it comes in the way of our big priority which is living in Freedom and loving people around us and sharing the joy and love of the Gospel with them if it becomes an obstacle to that because society's forming these These Walls between people and the gospel we have to address it so thanks for not being afraid to go there and to address it and thanks for not being afraid to share this with people who might disagree what yes even those people especially those people who you might be really afraid to share that with I want to this is my challenge for the week share this episode with that person you on board cool and be sure to go again to the show notes realife catholic.com marage links in the show notes we want to bless your marriage with simple videos that me and my wife produced along with simple challenges that will make your marriage amazing in just 21 days love you guys see you next time

Channel: Chris Stefanick

Views: 21,250

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Id: V_W2DfntklM

Length: 41min 58sec (2518 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 12 2024