Episode Transcript
[00:00:06] Speaker A: Welcome to the Truth Exchange podcast. This is a weekly program with Doctor Jeffrey J. Ventrella where he answers questions from subscribers around the globe, answering questions about worldview, cultural apologetics and other miscellaneous items. I'm your host, Joshua Guillotine, and this is another edition of the director's Bag.
[00:00:30] Speaker B: Well, we are back and thank you all for listening to the Truth Exchange podcast, the director's Bag. Remember, this podcast is made possible through our listeners generous donations as well as your prayers for the ministry. Doctor Bandrella, you kicked the beehive and then proceeded to pour gasoline upon it when you wrote your dicta, the bold pagan buffoonery of buffed Bronze Age boys. And so we had a number of questions that came in, and if you're ready to, let's proceed to go through.
[00:01:04] Speaker C: Those boldly, go where no man has gone before. So here we are.
[00:01:08] Speaker B: That's right, Doctor Ventrella, I grant all that the article says.
I think its contents are important and it has pricked my own conscience. One thing I can't help thinking, though, Paul wasn't dealing with a vast number of obese christians, and I suspect most of them were malnourished. Happy to be corrected. Though we live in a western society where even the poor can be overweight, we live in abundance and need to be taught how to have self control in a society where starvation is near impossible. I guess the question is, is the issue of the article, and I granted, is an issue really, is this issue really the big sin facing the church today, or is it one that actually protects some of our bigger darling idols? I would appreciate. Any thoughts?
[00:02:02] Speaker C: Well, that's a very reflective question and I appreciate it a lot. A couple of ideas that come to mind hearing that inquiry is we need to understand that. Is it the big issue? Well, the big issue is always first and foremost allegiance to King and Lord Jesus Christ. And what the article deals with is how there are counterfeits to who Christ is in the form of pagan idolatry. One of the manifestations of that pagan idolatry is this idea of what's now being contained in the Bronze Age mindset, which is a thoroughly pagan idea that's now infiltrating different swaths of the church here and again. And so we need to understand that there's a kind of a whole cloth here, that this paganism, because it is a challenge to the ultimate lordship of Christ, is in fact the big issue, the manifestation of it. Granted, it's only less than a majority of people, but let's recognize that cultures change and subcultures changed not by majoritarian. Majoritarian, excuse me, not by majoritarian means, but often by simply really dedicated small minorities. And that's what we're seeing here. Loud voices, small numbers of them have an over influence based upon their actual numbers. So this is a real issue that's here. And then I think we need to look at a couple of other things. First of all, we're not gnostics. We don't decry the material world. We certainly don't decry the physical body. But let's be careful and not smuggle in an arbitrary, relativistic understanding of human health, for example, body mass indices and these kinds of things. And what comprises being overweight or nothing. If you look at the medical literature, those have changed over time. And so we want to be faithful christians, recognizing common grace with respect to our health, but understanding that maybe 20 years ago, being 20 pounds overweight is different than being ten pounds overweight. And yet the medical community may tell us two different things depending upon the timing. And then I think we go back to the biblical categories. There is nothing of which I'm aware that suggests or dictates that obesity is a sin. What we see in the Bible is that the fatted calf, the luxuriating, and the relishing of God's good gift, including feasting and foods, these things are to be enjoyed. In fact, the apostle tells us that we give thanks and we enjoy all that has God given, and it can be abundantly enjoyed. So the sin when it comes to eating, is either an abstinence issue. Taste not, touch not. It's unclean, or it's gluttony. Those are the sins. And frankly, a sinful attitude can happen in both extremes. A very, shall we say, jacked and physically fit person can engage in gluttony, just as someone who is very plump can engage in gluttony. Both are sins. And so it's not the absolute body weight that contributes to what's going on here. That was kind of a rambling response. But I do appreciate the import of the question.
[00:05:48] Speaker B: Here's one. It says, honest question. Can self inflicted obesity and metabolic, metabolic disease be considered sin? Are there biblical cases for the preservation of life, individual virality, and overall human flourishing that can be made?
[00:06:05] Speaker C: That's an important question. What we're finding through a common grace medically, is that people who have chronic, we call them maybe, weight problems. In fact, there's a complexity there. It's not simply tied to consumption of calories. Calories certainly matters, but there are other kinds of issues that go into metabolic considerations. And so we should be quick to not be quick in judging someone simply by their appearance. That to me seems to rub against, if not violate, the 9th commandment. We don't know what's the real cause here that's going on when someone is having difficulty reducing weight. And by the same token, our bodies, we are embodied creatures and the body part of who we are is a temple of the Holy Spirit. And so we ought not to do things which intentionally undermine and compromise that, such as drunkenness, the consumption of drugs that give us a lack of self control and these kinds of issues. So we want to understand that we have to be robust. And so Paul tells us very clearly that physical activity is of benefit, some benefit, but it's not the ultimate goal. And so the burden of that article was to show that good goods make bad gods. And I'm particularly concerned with the socio political implications of the Bronze Age mindset because it's frankly a form of nazi fascism that's being articulated in some places by people who are christians. And so we see notions of ethno nationalism, we see notions of kinism, we see notions of identity politics, anti Semitism. All of this is coming into it. I was seeing yesterday one tweet by someone who was commenting upon the Republican National Convention and pointed out that some of the speakers certainly don't hold christian convictions, but then also pointed out, quote unquote, they had jews speak, quote, what? Why would that be relevant to any consideration of sociopolitical polity? Well, because this is a person who pushes this neo masculinity mindset and frankly has chirps of anti Semitism. This is why this is an important issue to discuss.
[00:08:39] Speaker B: Do you think on that? Well, so one of the pushback that we had received was from one theologian who differed with you, and you actually footnoted about this an issue. But for the RNC, the first night there was a prayer that was offered.
[00:08:55] Speaker A: Should christians be concerned about that?
[00:08:57] Speaker C: Yeah. So I think the instant you're referring to in this particular situation was a sikh prayer by a sikh member of Congress. And so how do we think about that? Well, we do live in a society and the christian, and because of the christian faith, this society promotes religious diversity, religious liberty. We don't want the state coming in to dictate things. Now what is the Republican National Convention? It's not a christian organization. It is an association of people who are aligned because of a particular political vision. And that vision, of course, has changed over the years. The founding piece of the Republican Party was, to, quote, rid the nation of the twin relics of barbarism, that is to say, polygamy and chattel slavery. And, of course, those purposes have changed over the years with respect to it. So how do we think about that? Well, if you're a Christian at the convention, one of the things you can do is look at your phone, not listen, don't take a posture of prayer. You can walk out, you can do whatever you need to do. But again, respecting this is a fifth commandment issue. The organizers who did that, if that is beyond the pale of what you believe the association should be, you don't have to join it. It's a voluntary organization. Now, my personal conviction of that is I find that really the tip of the iceberg of a form of multiculturalism, which, in fact, is animated oftentimes by pagan ethos, pagan impulse. It's all the same. All prayers are the same, all religions are the same, and that sort of thing. So my concern is not with a particular incident. It's with the justifications or the lack of informed criticality that are dealing with it. Now, if this were a church, if this were a ministry that was dedicated on paper to Christ's lordship and his conviction, well, then we'd have really big problems. We'd become like the parliament of world religions or something like that, which is, in essence, a pagan institution. And what we mean by that, or pagan association, it is the obliteration of distinctions, basically saying that all religions are one and that doesn't really matter. All are equally valid in those sorts of things. So I understand some of the ranting that's out there, but I think that we need to be civil in how we approach it, and we need to understand the legal and associational structures to have a better informed opinion concerning it.
[00:11:51] Speaker B: The next question says, if there's a significant group of men who consider themselves reformed and purport themselves, as you claim these Bronze Age boys do, it's good you confront them. There is some mention as to whom you might be talking about in the footnotes, but the article itself does not, or does very little to name names or give specific examples of the problems you're seeing and to which you are responding. I've seen others address this before in a similar manner, but I follow a lot of people, and I have yet to encounter anything other than a small fringe of folks who might fall into the category of men about to whom you speak. Who specifically are the buffoonish men sitting at our tables that you are calling out. And what precisely are they doing to oppose freedom and advance paganism?
[00:12:41] Speaker C: Yeah, no, I appreciate the import of that question. Again, a couple of thoughts. We're dealing with ideas. Ideas have consequences and bad ideas have victims. And so what we want to do is to do what Paul commanded in two corinthians ten, take every thought captive to obey Christ. And so that's really the gravim and that's really the foundation in what we're dealing. It's not to be a, quote, discernment ministry or to be a gotcha sort of kind of ministry, which, you know, do a drive by shooting. Christians make mistakes, and hopefully, if they are sanctified and submit to Christ, they'll repent, including of their intellectual errors. And so what we're trying to do is to put out there the nature of how paganism is influencing christians. Now, there are people out there, and there are appropriate times if someone is publicly out there saying things that they need to be addressed so people know we're talking about, I think, one of the examples of this that relies heavily upon the Bronze Age pervert, that's the blog pen name for the romanian guy who pinned Bronze Age mindset is the person who penned, I think it's called the boniface option. That is almost directly driven by Bronze Age mindset. I believe the author, there's what, Andrew Isker, something like that. So, I mean, that's something that we have named and we do deal with it because it's out there. The trouble is, in social media, a lot of these folks are hiding behind pseudonyms, and so it makes it really difficult to do it. Now, that's ironic. That doesn't sound too manly to me to trumpet one's masculinity and the patriarchy and use a fake name.
I would say that that person may need a spinal transplant. That's not courageous, it's not virtuous, it's not transparent, and it's not becoming. Rather, it's designed to generate clicks.
[00:14:50] Speaker B: Is paganism in the pews and the truth exchange corrective doctor Ventrella. There's a rising interest for young men to be taken, taken by Jordan Peterson. I find a lot of his content and encouragement to young men, and I know that he is a committed Jungian and his archetypal language of myth is interwoven throughout his content, which is a surprise to me that he isn't more on board with the new age movement.
In fact, he is more drawn to the judeo christian myth, as it were. Do you see a danger in the power of myth for christians to utilize. I'm thinking of some excellent communicators like CS Lewis or Tolkien, who made use of myth in communicating important christian truths.
[00:15:36] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, there's a really interesting book that Richard Pratt wrote years and years ago. He's a professor at reformed theological seminary called. He gave them stories, and he talks about the genre of scripture that is, in fact, couched in terms of narrative, what we might call myth. So I don't think it's a per se negative category, though. Having said that, let's recall that Joseph Campbell, in his work on myth, captivated a young director by the name of George Lucas. And Lucas, of course, used that to essentially introduce pagan notions of Buddhism into the retail fair known as Star wars. And of course, Doctor Jones, our founder, has pointed this out early, early on in the ministry of Truth exchange. And so myth is, in fact, very powerful. As to Jordan Peterson, I'll say a couple things. One, pray for him. You know, his wife is converted to Christ. As far as we know, his daughter is converted to Christ. Jordan Peterson is very interested in the christian story. I don't think he's in the kingdom of God as a convert yet.
But one of the sad things about evangelicalism these days is that Jordan Peterson does two things. One, he speaks with clarity and definition. And I think a lot of these young men to which the inquirer alludes are desirous of the clear bugle of the trumpethe. They're getting just mishmash and ambiguity and nothing definite. But Jordan Peterson scratches that itch, and that is, in fact, a biblical itch. We need to have that clarity with respect to that. The second thing Jordan Peterson does is he talks about, discusses, and quotes wide swaths of scripture.
Sadly, many pulpits are devoid of wide uses of scripture in their liturgies and so on and so forth. And so I think what Peterson is doing is, in fact, what we ought to be doing in many ways. And so we should give thanks that the word of God is going forth, even from this young person who may not believe it. But I think it's very important that we recognize that. That said, what I found is that in the Bronze Age mindset, crowd related entities, that Peterson ranks very high. And so you see people relying upon Jordan Peterson and then kind of the ex special ops kind of people, the jocko Willink and all this stuff under the rubric of leadership. Again, this is kind of a self help, almost theological pelagianism. If I do this, this is the result I get. If I do this. This is the result I get. Well, that definition of masculinity certainly is not universal, which means it can't be biblical. In biblical terms, maleness and femaleness are ontological categories, and so, however we defined masculinity must be applicable to the young person, to the parapolitic, to the mentally compromised, the disabled, to the aged, and so forth. And so I think a lot of young men are becoming chronological snobs by simply valorizing youth and strength, which again, is not a christian idea here. In fact, just the opposite. The messiah comes when the strong man fails, when the weak man faint. It's God who comes and raises us up, not our own pumping iron. Or let me put it this way, if a person never set foot in the gym again and never pumped iron again, could they be a maximally mature christian?
If there's any hesitation by someone saying, oh yeah, I definitely could, then, you know, their idol may have begun to intrude their heart.
[00:19:47] Speaker B: That is a good way to end on every square inch taking Christ's lordship to the streets 2024 symposium is live on the website. You can register today at www.
[00:19:58] Speaker C: Dot.
[00:20:00] Speaker B: The dates for the symposium is August 30 through the 31st in Southern California at Providence Christian College. Again, every square inch taking Christ's lordship to the streets. This concludes a recording of the director's bag. For more resources from Truth exchange, please visit us online at www.truthexchange.com. you can follow us on as well as Facebook for more updates and content related to Truth exchange. Be sure to join us next week for more questions from the director's bag. I'm your host, Joshua Gulo, and this is the Truth Exchange podcast.
