The Speak Life Podcast, sharing Jesus in everyday life.
SPEAKER_09Christians against poverty have been criticized for being Christians against poverty. It's not the against poverty that you understand. The National Secular Society is a big fan of the Against Poverty part. They want you to know that without any religious commitments themselves, they are totally against poverty. I mean, not enough to actually start a charity of their own, but they totally think it's a drag and a terrible idea, and somebody should really do something. Somebody secular, obviously. Well, somebody secular did a report on CAP, Christians Against Poverty, and they released the findings last week. The London School of Economics calculated the benefit of CAP's work to society at £31.5 million a year. It pointed to the 6,000 Christian volunteers working towards this public good and the fact that CAP lifts 10 Britons out of poverty, out of debt every day. These seem quite scientifically measurable metrics by which to assess CAP, but the National Secular Society didn't really cite facts. Instead, it just complained that it was Christians doing all of this, Christians who actually talk about their Christianity as those spiritual values might have something to say to the problem of materialism. This kind of concern was voiced in the largely positive BBC documentary which aired on Friday. Here, Cat founder John Kirkby was asked by a producer.
SPEAKER_10Helping anybody from a faith perspective is a good thing. As is helping anybody from an off-faith perspective. Anybody helping anybody, it's a good thing.
SPEAKER_04So why don't you just go into people's homes, offer them the service that you offer in terms of the practical service? And then walk away and not mention Jesus. Not mention the Bible. Not pass on literature.
SPEAKER_09Why not leave it at debt advice? Why bring Jesus into things? Why offer to pray with their clients? Oh, did you know that they offer to pray with their clients? Yeah. Yeah. Not sounding so virtuous now, are they? Prayer. Yeah, you heard right. Prayer. Critics say that this prayer is an emotional fee which clients are expected to pay for the service. That was the view of Steve Johnson from Advice UK in 2011. His body cancelled the membership of CAP because offering prayer was deemed incompatible with membership in that secular body. Well, maybe he had a point. I mean, just take a look at the emotional pressure bearing down on this poor soul.
SPEAKER_02Okay, Mick, I'll just say a real quick prayer for a second.
SPEAKER_09Is that alright? Yeah.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_09And witness, if you can bear it, the spiritual manipulation in this particularly brazen invitation to church.
SPEAKER_02Were you thinking of popping by the church at some time before?
SPEAKER_08Possibly.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. Because um we've got a little crash and stuff for him to go into during the service and stuff, so you don't have to be with him the whole time. Right. Um, yeah, we have tea and coffee and stuff from like 10 o'clock. So if you fancy coming out on a Sunday, I should be there this week.
SPEAKER_09How does he sleep at night? But this was the criticism back in 2011 by Advice UK. They said that if CAP offered prayer, it was effectively expecting clients to pay for their service by undergoing 30 seconds of staring at their shoes. No, says Steve Johnson, advisors must not offer or impose their values. Now that's an interesting word to use as we consider debt, don't you think? Values. Debt, surely, is about getting our values wrong. Maybe we value stuff too much, or we value the wrong things, or maybe we value present expenditure over future happiness. Debt is a problem of value. So if debt counseling is not bringing a different value structure, it's not going to help. Let's imagine you seek to advise someone in debt and you have a purely scientific mindset. You're going to be completely secular and bring no spiritual values to bear on things. Imagine you are Lawrence Krauss. Here's your worldview.
SPEAKER_01The picture that science presents to us is in some sense uncomfortable. Because what we've learned is that we are more insignificant than we ever could have imagined. You could get rid of us and all the galaxies and everything we see in the universe, and it'll be largely the same. So we're insignificant on a scale that Copernicus never would have imagined. And in addition, it turns out the future is miserable. So the two lessons that I like to say I like to give is first we're insignificant, and second, the future is miserable. Now that should you might think that should depress you. In fact, it should embolden you and provide you a different kind of consolation. Because if the universe doesn't care about us, and if we're an accident in a remote corner of the universe, in some sense it makes us more precious. The meaning in our lives is provided by us. We provide our own meaning. Sorry. Why? We should make the most of our brief moment in the sun because this is all we have.
SPEAKER_09This is all we have? Well, Lawrence, this for you is millions of dollars in book deals. This for the clients of CAP is crushing debt, despair, and suicidal thoughts. Bring Lawrence's scientific view into debt counselling. Let's see where it gets us. Imagine Lawrence's scientific view brought to bear on this guy's troubles.
SPEAKER_00I've got a sedge in my life now, so we'll see. If we're dead tomorrow, I won't give a sh. Wow. Because everything's gone. My wife's gone, my mother's gone, my dad's gone, my little brother's gone. I've not particular to live for.
SPEAKER_09What's going to get him out of the hole he's in? Not a purely scientific and secular worldview. Here's what gets people out. It's what founded Cap and it's what they offer to others.
SPEAKER_11The spirit of the sovereign lord is on me because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives, release from darkness for the prisoners, and to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour and the day of vengeance of our God and to comfort all who mourn.
SPEAKER_09There is a God who steps down from his throne to expend himself for the poor, to liberate us and give us a future. That's how you fight poverty. Now listen, you do have to examine the ethics of charitable activities. I'm not saying there's no such thing as rights Christians, those who convert just to get stuff from Christian missionaries, okay? And I'm not saying that there's not a danger in Christian mission that we exploit positions of responsibility with vulnerable people. That is a problem, sure. And I spend a lot of time telling Christians that we mustn't do a vacant switch with the gospel. We're not trying to gain converts. We're trying to offer Christ. So we're not to lay a breadcrumb trail for people that sneakily leads them to church, as though church was this totally separate thing. No, not that. None of that. No breadcrumb evangelism, please. But we do offer bread. We don't give debt counseling so that we can then take your soul. We give debt counseling and we give Christ because it's part of the same gracious offer to the world. You see, Christ became poor so that we through his poverty might become rich. Christ paid a ransom to free us. Christ releases us from our debts, spiritual and otherwise. So we speak of him and we share his love. And as we share his love, we speak his name. It is all of a piece. So, National Secular Society, if you've got good news that can lift people from debt, that can give them dignity and worth no matter their mistakes and no matter their material situation. If you can give us hope, hope beyond material circumstances, if you can rally thousands of volunteers motivated by love and carrying a message of liberation and joy, go right ahead. And if you pull it off, we will not bemoan secularists against poverty. Why would we? We will thank God for you and for your work, but until then, do not bemoan that it's Christians against poverty. The Christian bit is the key. It's the 9th of October, this is Speak Life, and you're watching the live cast.
SPEAKER_05Hello to the few people who are watching. Emily, we've got Emily Wiles in McCarthy. And also Roger Marshall, hello to you all. Do let me know whether you can hear me. Hopefully you can. As you can tell, I'm here by myself. Glenn isn't here today, and I'm not actually when I say here, I'm actually in my own house. So I'm not at down at Speak Life today. I'm operating from home because Glenn is away. And uh hopefully, great, you can hear, that's good stuff. Um hopefully I'll fill you in in a minute on what he's been up to. Um I've got a video from him, um, a bit of a few technical issues with it, but hopefully we'll be okay. Um, hopefully you've enjoyed that monologue there. I saw a lot of people posting about that documentary, the Christians Against Poverty uh one on BBC there. I've not actually seen it and I hadn't really realised what it was. I don't know who else saw it. Um don't know if any of you guys have seen it. Um having not had a chance to speak to Glenn about it, he's just sent through that monologue there. Um I'm I'm guessing by the look of uh what I was seeing on that documentary, perhaps in some ways it was a bit of a bit of a hit job against them. I don't know. Um I'd seen a lot of Christians sharing it round. I'd assumed it was just something they thought this is a good thing. Um I hadn't realised there'd been this criticism against uh Christians against poverty. But in some ways, I suppose we should be unsurprised uh that people would want to pick at it um, you know, uh because of the because precisely as Glenn was saying, because of the the Christian the Christian name being in there. Um but yeah, as always, Glenn putting the world to rights there. So um do um I might get a chance hopefully to check that out, hopefully it's worth it. Um I think last week we talked about things that were coming up. Um I was preaching twice over the last few days, and that's been really positive. Genesis 16, I was preaching on um uh it was part of a series, it was for a youth group nearby, it was part of a series on the names of God, so I had Ael Roy, I think that's um the pronunciation of it. Um so it's the God who sees me. Um and I always find it quite difficult to preach a passage when um you're preaching uh a topic. In a sense, you could look at Genesis 16, you can go, you can easily see how this fits into the promises to Abraham and where they are in the story. Um, but to pull, you know, pull that name out and then just speak about that in itself can be a little bit trickier. But actually, some of the stuff we've talked about at Speak Life was really helpful in that. So we were thinking uh with the youth group about um uh uh what is God like, what does it mean a God who sees you? And I I use some of the imagery we used in one of our past videos, I can't remember which one it was now, but Christopher Hitchens, who uses this idea of a God who sees people and says, you know, here's a God who must uh you know subject you to 24-hour day surveillance. He he's the thought police, every waking and sleeping moment, he'll convict you of crime, thought crime in your sleep. Um, and he says God is a celestial North Korea. And actually that was a really helpful way in to talk about the God who sees me and say, well, what does this passage actually show us in Genesis 16? Here we have Hagar, um a uh a female Egyptian slave girl or servant girl, um, as we're told early on. And I don't think that's an insignificant detail. You know, we're supposed to think here's a here's a girl who's outside of the people of God, she's not part of Abraham's family. Um, you know, she's an Egyptian, um and she's a woman, and in that society, obviously kind of not considered to be um as high as the men, but yet we see God cares for her. You know, when God sees her, she says, you know, this is the God who sees me, and she says the reason she said that was not just God knew the circumstances of her life, but because he cared for her. And actually, I think that was a really helpful uh thing to see in that passage that God is not the celestial North Korea who just looks down and is keeping a list. I think I used the image of Father Christmas, you know, he's keeping the um naughty list of what you've done or not done. Um God is not like that, he's a God who cares for us, he knows the ins and outs of our lives. Just seeing a few things coming in about the cap thing there. Um uh my mother-in-law, there you go, says it was a great documentary, supported CAP, not sure where the criticism came from. So, okay, so it sounds like the documentary itself was positive, but it looks like maybe there's been criticism from elsewhere. Um, Gail Denise says Cap is brilliant, I agree, they do a great job. Um, so yeah, yeah. So it sounds like there has been criticism from elsewhere, but the documentary itself was a positive thing. Emily Wiles, I think, uh there we go. It's BBC2, I was just about to say, um, you can check out on iPlayer. I'll try and put a link afterwards down in the comments so you can catch up with it if you'd like to. Um so preached on Friday, that was uh great fun. Um, and then also preached Sunday morning on Exodus 11 and 12, so the Passover. And it's a story I'm quite familiar with. I imagine lots of you are familiar with the Exodus story and the Passover. Uh, but actually coming to preach it, I think it was the first time I've ever really preached it properly. Um, and uh there was stuff in there that I'd never really seen before. Um I think I've always taught it before very much as kind of here is the substitutionary um atonement kind of thing going on, and you know, and it points us forward to Jesus and how he takes our place. And of course it does do that, but I was reading Alec Matea, who's uh who I think is is a really good Old Testament commentator, and he was in his commentary called Exodus from the Bible Speaks Today series, and he was saying how actually, if we when we talk about the Exodus story, um if we s if we put sin at the centre of that story, we're kind of reading that back in. Obviously, later in Exodus and in Leviticus, the sacrificial system, we see the link to uh how that substitutionary kind of sacrifice that the Lamb is is a payment for sin. Um but in Exodus 11 and 12 um the word sin isn't mentioned, the holiness of God isn't mentioned, there's no evidence of any real repentance on anyone's part. Um and he said to put that for at the forefront of this passage would really be to kind of not do what the passage is doing. Um and the way he went with it, and and I'm inclined to agree with him, it's what I preached in the end. Um so I'll clarify some of this in a second. But as you read through the plays, the final plague is different to all the others. Um not simply because it's a different event, that's obvious, but because in all the previous plagues, the issue for the Israelites had really been how do we escape Egypt? But when you get to this final plague, uh we see God says, I will come into your midst, and we see God is coming in judgment, and then we've got this different thing going on. Um the the issue is no longer escaping Egypt. The issue for well everyone, not just the Israelites, but for the Israelites becomes escaping God. How are they gonna escape the judgment of God? In all the previous plagues they had been excluded from the consequences by default, but here and now they are um uh they they're now having to to do something to avoid uh this judgment that's coming upon them. Um I'm just checking the feed. Is it going okay? Is this a feed still going? When you're not actually sure whether you're still alive at all. Um, maybe we are. Okay. Something very confusing has happened at my end, but it looks like suddenly the screen has popped back up. Um not sure what's going on. You're good, keep going, thank you. What a nightmare. Just there we go. We're still in the middle of and I've lost my place entirely now. Exodus 11 and 12. Um yeah, so the issue for them is now it's not escaping Egypt, it's escaping the judgment of God. Um and and although it's still, of course, it points us forward to um uh Christ's sacrifice, undoubtedly, um, as a payment for sin. Um, you know, the idea that they need to escape God's judgment, you know, inherent in that idea is of course the fact that they must have sinned to be worthy of that judgment. But the point is the passage never really pushes that. The passage just points to the idea that judgment is coming and you can't escape it and by yourself. And then we see God graciously provide the Lamb. So I'm not saying in this that the sacrifice of the Lamb isn't is not a payment for sin, but that's not what the passage wants to highlight, really. It wants to highlight God is coming in judgment and you cannot escape. And Matea actually points forward to the second coming, um, which uh he says it in many ways it's a bit like that. You know, before the second coming, people have many kind of things in their lives and issues that they will be concerned about, but suddenly all those things will be put aside when finally we have to face the issue of coming face to face with God in judgment. And um it really put a new spin on the passage for me, really. I I'd never really thought of it like that. Um and and actually how the issue had changed for the Israelites there. So actually, it just goes to show, doesn't it, that even passages we're very familiar with, um your classic Sunday school type stories, isn't it? Uh even those ones it we can easily miss things. Um so I mean I recommend Alec Matthias stuff on it because it was very, very excellent. Um we're gonna find out, like Glenn's not here, Glenn's up in Newcastle, he's doing some stuff up there with I think it's Jesmond Parish Church, we'll probably find out in a moment. Now he sent me a video to show you of him, it's a little thing, him talking to the screen. Now, the issue is I can't actually download the video. Every time I do it, I just get a text file that's just not working. Um but I've got it on uh on the on the browser. Um now uh I can't get the sound to come through onto the stream though, so the only sound you're gonna get is through the mic picking up what's coming out of the speakers. So I'm breaking all the rules. This is like me, you know, showing you a YouTube video by filming it with my phone um off the screen. Um we're gonna see if this works, and hopefully you'll be able to find out what Glenn is doing. Um and this is not gonna be smooth or anything like that at all, because you're gonna get a whole load of stuff jumping around as I capture the screen now. Okay, so let's see how it works if we can.
SPEAKER_08Hello, welcome to uh Newcastle. Uh Newcastle. And uh I'm up here with gentlemen, uh reaching out. I'm just on my way to the
SPEAKER_05So there you go. Hopefully that worked. Hopefully you could hear it and the sound wasn't completely appalling. But it sounds like Glenn's getting up to lots of great stuff. If you wanted to know the name of the footballer who he was interviewing, I know it the voice uh it dropped out there. Um it was someone called Shola Amiobi, who was a former Newcastle player. I'm hoping I'm saying that right. I don't follow football. I have no interest at all if I'm brutally honest. Um, but uh as Glenn said, you know, really good Christian guy. Um so it sounds like it's all been very, very positive up there. Um I think he's he's probably coming to the end of his few days up there now. I think he might have one or two more days left. So do pray for him and the things that have been going on up there. Um, because it's all very, very positive stuff. Um maybe you guys, hopefully you've checked out our videos that we've been putting out over the last few weeks. So um the last two videos we've put out on a Monday night have been the Sean McDowell um and Heyman Mater debates and our kind of takes on them. So last week we thought uh what would it take to convince you you were wrong? So we looked at their discussion and things they'd said about that, and we got a bit of a chance to talk about that last week. So do go back and look at the live cast or you can grab the podcast for that. Um this week we were thinking about well, where do you get your morals from? Um and again, just off the same debate, because there was some really interesting discussion in there, and I think actually this is maybe a more useful video for us in some ways, for you for us as Christians in an everyday situation, as we we do chat with friends, and people say this, you know, I think this is wrong or right or whatever. And as we start to burrow back behind those things and say, Well, why is this right? Why is that wrong? And um if I'm looking over here, it's because I've got a few things written down in different places. Um But um it there was part of the video where, or part of the discussion where Justin Briley asked Heyman about a discussion he had with Leah Labresco, who was a um Catholic uh, she was an atheist blogger who became a Catholic, um, and she'd been on Unbelievable before, talking to Heyman uh years before. And um we we looked at some of that uh their discussion or heard some of their discussion. Um and in that discussion she was talking with Heyman about his his morality, and she uses the idea about men and women uh being equal um or women should be treated equally to men. And she was saying, well, isn't this just like um wh why is your view any different to art? You know, like we someone likes this, another person likes that. On on your your view, how how do you come to anything more than that? That you know, you when you say women should be treated the same as men, is that just a preference or is that an objective reality that of course people should be treated equally? Um because I think as Glenn says in the in the video that came out last night, um Heyman will say, yes, of course, men and women should be treated equally, which hopefully we agree with. Um but you know, you look at someone like the Taliban and they will say something completely different to that. They will disagree. Um and so she basically says, Well, what is your justification for believing that? And he just says, I wasn't aware that needed a justification, and which is mind-boggling really to come out of his mouth, given that he spends so much of his time demanding justification for beliefs. Um and yet he doesn't feel he needs to justify his belief unless he, in some sense, it seems like he feels it's it's self-evident in the world, but he doesn't want to say that, he doesn't want to say that it's kind of axiomatic that these things are true, but I think he probably believes that it is, um, though I'm not sure he'd want to admit to it. Um and he kind of just goes back to this idea, um I think I can't remember if it's in the Leo Labresco section or in in in the bit with Sean, where he's saying, well, you know, really it's about uh, you know, what we we see that people are happier and get along better when they're treated equally. Um, you know, so we should do what's best in practice really for society. Um and of course, i in the video we talk a bit about how um actually slavery is the example Glenn uses, isn't it? I think um about how the example of getting abolishing slavery, um, if you're thinking about what was better for society, um well actually abol the abolition of slavery was actually probably not the best thing for society um from an economical standpoint. Glenn talks about how it cost, I think it was 20 million, yeah, 20 million, 40% of the national budget of that day, the a debt that the country's still been paying off until 2015. Um it made the lives of the slave owners uh far more difficult, um and you know, stuff like that. It made society much tougher in many ways um to kind of completely unravel this system. Um but it was right, it was the right thing to do to abolish slavery. Um so just saying, you know, what's gonna be best for society, well actually the the abolition of slavery, from from a kind of very you know empirical point of view, was not the best thing to do. Stuff would have run more smoothly and economically uh better with it, but we knew it was the right thing to do. And so um we'll talk a bit more in a second about uh a few of the bits come up. We're gonna watch a clip now from uh the video. It's it's a few minutes uh long, so um hopefully I've got the right bit, and this will come up and you can see what's going on and say what you think about it.
SPEAKER_08Okay, so there isn't an objective moral nature to the world. Heymant is clear on that at this point, anyway. And the fact people disagree, uh Heyman says that's evidence of the fact that it's all subjective. Sean's gonna deal with that in a second. But here Sean brings things down to a concrete example. Okay.
SPEAKER_03But you think it's just for clarification, you think it's objectively wrong to sexually abuse a child. When you say that is you do believe it.
SPEAKER_06Let me answer that. Let me finish my answer on that. No, I think it's obviously that's horrible. That's wrong.
SPEAKER_08Oh, well, maybe there is an objective moral standard. Here, Heyman seems pretty emphatic on the wrongness of abusing a child. But something tells me he's not gonna stick with his objective judgment. I think this is the thing.
SPEAKER_06That to me seems like a black and white issue. Child abuse does seem like a black and white issue. Something tells me a butt is coming though. But again, there's plenty of black I think, uh killing people should you would think that would be an objective truth. But we live in a country where we have the death penalty. There are nations that are firmly religious, that kill people because they think that's the right punishment for whatever the crime is. I mean, yes, I I agree with you. Like, no, sexual- we should never sexually abuse anyone. We should punish anyone who do. But I'm saying there are a lot of things that we think are pretty hardcore. This has to be wrong, that we will find people who are arguing the other side to that.
SPEAKER_08So the argument is that moral judgments can be difficult to make and people disagree. And therefore, says Heyman, we can't know any objective standard. Sean replies. So the fact that some people are wrong doesn't mean there's not an objective truth. Totally. People have been on opposing sides of all sorts of matters of fact. That doesn't mean there's not a right answer. And Sean drives home the point.
SPEAKER_03Are there some things that are indubitably true? Like 2 plus 2 equals 4, the earth is round, and it's wrong to sexually abuse a child. Like, all you have to do is have one thing, and there is objective truth, whether it's in science or morality.
SPEAKER_06There is a difference between like a mathematical fact and these moral ideas that we that we interpret.
SPEAKER_03I mean, only the same in sense of being objective, being outside of us. I agree that they're different in other respects.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, but I don't know where this game is going.
SPEAKER_08The game is not really a game, it's the place we live every day. We live every day making moral judgments, judgments of better and worse, right and wrong. It's a basic building block of human experience, but Hamith is fudging here, even when the examples are really clear-cut, like torturing a child. And the question is why? Why is he fudging? The answer surely is that he has philosophical commitments that mean he has to twist or ignore some of the most basic realities of human experience.
SPEAKER_05So that was a clip from last night's video. You can see the full thing on uh down our stream. I think it's pinned to the top of our Facebook page, but it's on YouTube as well. Um, and I just think there's lots of really good stuff in there, or interesting stuff to think about. I mean, Heyman says, doesn't he, uh as Glenn picks up, um Sean's pushing him on objective values, you know, and this issue, you know, the the the very emotive issue of child abuse. Um is that something which is objectively wrong? Like that is definitely a wrong thing. Um and Heyman, as Glenn kind of points out, is kind of saying, well, look, people people disagree on things. Um and therefore he kind of wants to use that to say, well, because people disagree, clearly there is no objective you know, objective truth. Um, which, you know, just doesn't seem to add up. You know, Sean says, you know, you uh are there, you know, all you need is one thing to be objective. You know, just because people uh just because people disagree on something doesn't mean that there is no right answer uh to it. Um I mean maybe on a I'm not sure so on a similar vein, I I mean I I once got into a discussion with someone over abortion and you know they did the you know it was when does life start? And I you know, I was saying you know, the the the child in the womb is a life and this person was very much their not, and they use the old, you know, if there's an abortion, you know, or sorry, there's a a um a clinic and you know there's a fire and do you grab the baby or do you grab the the eggs and and stuff. Um and it you know they want you to kind of say, well you grab the baby because you think the baby's more important than the eggs, because we all know that, you know, the embryos are not uh humans really. That's kind of the road they want you to go down. And I remember just saying, look, yeah, but people would choose different things. You know, it doesn't matter what my answer is to that question, because some people might choose the embryos, some people might choose the the baby, uh that doesn't actually answer the question of when life des life starts, because we could be wrong. And I think the similarities there with uh with what's going on here, just just saying, you know, if you've got uh a difference of uh opinion doesn't mean there is a r there isn't a right answer. Um although in the case of the uh the um uh the the the clinic there, the person really wants to think theirs is the right answer. They don't want to say there is no right answer, they want to say their side is right and yours is wrong. Um but I think the thing that struck me is I was watching that video and and you know he says, doesn't he, Heyman, in in in one in kind of one breath, that child abuse is wrong. Um and then he says immediately in the next breath, but then you take something like like murder, and he says, and we have the death penalty. And it seemed to me that what he was implying was, whether he intended it, was that you know, here's something which is very, very wrong. We know killing is wrong, but there are circumstances where it's okay. Um now you can you might want to get into the ins and outs of the difference between murder and killing and things like that, and we're not getting into a discussion about the death penalty or anything like that. But I immediately thought, like, Well, are you applying that to child abuse? So is he saying, well, then you know, there might be cases where child abuse is okay then? You know, that it's not always wrong. There might be some cases where it's okay to abuse a child. And I'm sure he wouldn't dream of saying that. He wouldn't want to, but it feels like his his position, the beliefs he has almost back him into a corner, so he doesn't want to he doesn't want to come down and say these things are wrong objectively, even though I'm sh I think he probably believes they are. I can't imagine he would say if we pushed him well, no, there might be cases where child abuse is okay. I think he would just say no, that is wrong. Um and I think so this discussion is useful. I mean, regardless of whether you you get into the um uh no matter how much we get into uh the the depth of discussion that they do, I think when you're chatting with non-Christian friends about different issues, I think those issues of morality, some of the things that come up there are helpful. Um we don't it is helpful to ask why, and not be the not like the child who just goes why, why, why, why, why, why, why. Um But um but uh basically rather than attack people's positions, sometimes it's it's helpful just to kind of deconstruct their position a bit. Well, why do you think that? You know, Heyman talks about you know a better society, happier society, and you'd want to deconstruct some of that as well, wouldn't you? And say, well, why is it better? You know, why is it uh good to have a happy society? You know, those are kind of value-laden terms and phrases, aren't they? So, you know, I think there's a lot in there, um, just kind of pushing back against people and thinking about what where do people's morals come from. Um and so maybe if you've not if you've got 20 minutes, you know, watch through the video. Um but hopefully there are helpful things in there that can help you day by day. Um so Richard Jonathan Smith has said all sin is the same though, no matter how small we may think, God thinks it's all on the same level. Um Yeah, that's a really interesting one. Um and I I really don't know where I sit on that actually. I think it all leads to the same place, doesn't it? And I remember saying something very similar to that once, and someone said to me, Hmm, but when you look at the when you look at the Old Testament, there seem to be different levels of punishment for different sin. Um And it just got me thinking, and I've never really gone any deeper with that or had a discussion with anyone further about you know, is it the case that there are some things which are more grievous than others? Um obviously all sin leads to death, all sin is an affront to a holy god and brings people under judgment. And um But yeah, I mean that's so it's an interesting one. I I don't know, it might be one of those things we often say, but perhaps we need to think about more. Maybe maybe Glenn and I could could think about that at some stage. That'd be good thing. If Same's not here, I'm sure he'd have something to say on it. Um great, guys, we're gonna have to kind of wrap up. I'm sorry it's been a little bit shorter today, um, but uh hopefully you found some of it helpful. Do be praying for Glenn and stuff uh going up in Newcastle. Uh next week, I think he said at the end of his Newcastle video, we are going to be going live on Monday, because on Tuesday we're going to the Breathos Conference, which is a conference which helps Christians or Christian leaders to deal with the issues of abortion um that are kind of coming up in society today and kind of being you know just uh protecting the the vulnerable really and and the those lives, the voiceless that don't have a voice there in the room. So do check us check in on Monday for that. Um but otherwise, thank you for checking in. Sorry it's been a little bit kind of um ad hoc and thrown together. Hopefully you've enjoyed it though, and uh don't worry, Glenn will be back. So thanks very much for um joining me today and see you next week. Take care, bye.