Ideas Have Consequences

New Year's Resolutions Are Dead

January 10, 2023 Disciple Nations Alliance Season 1 Episode 54
Ideas Have Consequences
New Year's Resolutions Are Dead
Show Notes Transcript Chapter Markers

New Year's resolutions are becoming increasingly unpopular. A new fatalism is rising in the West. It tells people they are victims of powerful, oppressive systems and structures that are stacked against them, and there is little they can do to change. For people trapped in this mindset, setting goals is a pointless exercise. As followers of Jesus, we acknowledge the reality of oppression in our fallen world, and that some people truly face greater challenges and disadvantages than others. But we also acknowledge that God has given all people personal agency, discipline, the ability, and means to improve with the help of God and others. Join us as we unpack these competing worldviews and reflect on our own New Year’s resolutions for 2023.

Dwight:

I can almost argue that's the supreme gift God has given us. I mean, he's given us a soul so we can actually relate to him as a spirit, because we have spirit. So maybe that's the supreme gift. But the second would be this agency.

Scott:

This ability to bring about change.

Dwight:

Which God first demonstrated in creation, and then his running of the world, but then he gave it to us. And we have this amazing agency. And now we're squandering it, and we're diminishing it, and we're despising it.

Luke:

As Christians, our mission is to spread the gospel around the world to all the nations. But our mission also includes to transform the nations to increasingly reflect the truth, goodness and beauty of God's kingdom. Tragically, the church has largely neglected the second part of her mission. And today, Christians have little influence on their surrounding cultures. Join us on this podcast as you rediscover what it means for each of us to disciple the nations and to create Christ-honoring cultures that reflect the character of the living God.

Scott:

Well greetings everybody, and welcome to another episode of Ideas Have Consequences, which is the podcast for the Disciple Nations Alliance. We'd like to welcome everyone to a new year, 2023. And I'm here today with my co-workers and friends, Dwight Vogt, Luke Allen, and John Bottimore. Joining from Virginia, John, it's good to have you with us today, and everybody. So happy New Year, guys.

Dwight:

Thank you.

John Bottimore:

Happy New Year.

Scott:

Yeah, it's great to be back together again, we, we all had pretty busy schedules, like most people do in December, and so it's good to be back and connecting again. Today I thought it'd be a kind of a fun topic to bring up the whole area of New Year's Resolutions, everyone's kind of thinking about that this time of year. And there's a lot on social media about New Year's resolutions. But this year, one of the things I kind of picked up on, and I don't know if you guys have have picked up on this or not. But there seems to be kind of this growing cynicism towards making goals or resolutions for change, this is kind of typically what a New Year's resolution is, we're going to lose some weight, we're going to exercise, we're going to pray or whatever it is, these decisions that we make, these choices or these goals that we set for ourselves for the new year, kind of seems to be this growing cynicism about that, that change isn't really possible. So kind of why even try? And I was thinking about that. And I got thinking about that from kind of a worldview kind of perspective about just our ability to make positive change. What does the Bible have to say about that? And what about this kind of growing cynicism, this kind of growing movement of don't even bother, don't even try? Well, first of all, guys, just have you noticed that? Have you noticed any changes in this whole area over the years like I'm talking about?

Luke:

Yeah, I definitely have. I think it's kind of a trendy thing. I think a lot of times, it's just trendy to be negative, why do we do this? It's kind of the deconstruction-type thing, but yeah, I've definitely noticed that amongst my younger generation friends, it's like I'm not even gonna stick to it, what's the point? And it to an extent, I totally agree, one of mine, I've already messed up on it one day, so my New Year's resolutions kind of broke. Yeah, no one asked me about it. But what's the harm at the same time? So I think it's a fair question. I do think it's funny, though, Dad, when we were talking about this the other day, and you bring it up, and you're like, Well, I was just thinking about it through a worldview perspective. This is funny, of course you are Dad, then I started thinking about it, and I get where you're going. So I'm excited for today's discussion.

Dwight:

And I thought of the sub the topic and I haven't heard cynicism. I just haven't heard anything. I thought, wow, has anybody come to me or even mentioned a resolution this year in my circle of friends and zero? Usually, there's some talk 10 years ago, oh, yeah. What's your resolution? Now? It's like, don't even ask.

Scott:

I did a little search yesterday, little Google search on this. And I came up with a bunch of articles that said kind of New Year's Resolutions are pointless. That was kind of the word that was used on a lot of articles. Kind of pointless, and I think they're getting at what you're talking about Luke, there's some studies and data that actually show that the vast majority of these resolutions that people make fail, or people aren't able to kind of see them through. So I think there's some reasons that people maybe just feel like, hey, what's the point? Why do we even try? But before we kind of explore that a little bit, because my sense is that what we're seeing in terms of this trend, if you will, that you're talking about Luke, I think you've got your finger on the pulse pretty well. I think there's some worldview shifts that are behind it. And I want to talk a little bit about that. But, John, what's your read on this? Do you have any sense of this at all, is it becoming less popular or not? What's your take?

John Bottimore:

Not any strong sense, I haven't read a lot about it, a little bit more like Dwight in that regard, I do have a general thought that people might feel in some ways. I mean, there's a lot of very simple things, there are non-threatening things that people could make a resolution on that don't affect anyone, but resolutions that might affect someone else, or how someone is viewed by someone else, might be a little bit of a disincentive to do it, and the whole push towards relativism and my truth. And these kinds of things might keep people from doing it. If there's no North Star, there's probably not going to be a resolution in subjects where we really believe there is a North Star that we ought to be heading towards. So I think there's a lot of kind of both deep reasons and probably superficial reasons why this trend seems to be happening.

Scott:

Well, I'd like to just kind of explore it a little bit, if this trend is true, and I think it is, I think Luke, you being the young guy in our midst here probably have a better handle on changes, but at least from our generation, to your generation, you've got your finger on the pulse of what's happening on social media more than we do. So I take your word for it there, that this is indeed a trend. I don't think it's a positive trend. And we'll talk about why, I'm a big fan of setting goals and of the whole capacity that God gives us to make positive change. And we'll talk more about that towards the end. But I do want to kind of explore maybe where these ideas come from. And here's basically my theory that we as a culture are greatly influenced by this ideology that I wrote about in my book on social justice that now people refer to by the colloquial word "woke," that we're in the midst of this kind of woke ideology. And even if we would say, hey, I don't subscribe to that ideology, I'm not woke. The ideas are out there in the air, and we are all influenced by these ideas. We're all kind of imbibing them breathing them in some ways, and they're shaping us. And there's a couple of things in this woke ideology. First of all, it borrows a lot from Marx, from Karl Marx, it's atheistic, it sees human beings not as image bearers of God, but as kind of Darwinian creatures who are evolved. So animals more or less. And that that right there is one big reason that I think people are more cynical about choice, frankly, is that there's a difference between human beings and animals when it comes to just simple things like choice and agency. So if you're buying into the Darwinian view, it's going to affect the way you think about making choice, but the Marxist element brings in a whole other aspect, it basically says that the problems that I have, I really can't do much about them because they're caused by larger forces in the society, larger systems or structures that are evil, and I'm more or less a victim of these structures that are happening outside of me that I have very little control over and so I'm a victim. So this whole victim mentality for sure is on the rise these days. And that if you have a victim mentality, if that's kind of your worldview, then making choices for positive change almost seems cruel. Like why would why would you think I could change my circumstances. So I do think that those ideas, they're particularly prevalent, Luke, amongst your generation, I would say, I think there's probably something about that that's driving this just change, this cynicism, towards kind of making New Year's Resolutions. Any thoughts on on my theory there guys of kind of how the woke ideology might be affecting this.

Dwight:

As you're talking, Scott, I'm thinking about the woke ideology. And you started with Darwinian predeterminism or whatever. And I'm thinking, the two must have to interrelate, because there have been times in the history of the world where there have been oppressive institutional forces that held people down. But they didn't have this sense of lack of agency, they didn't have a sense of victimhood, they just said, this is horrible, this is bad, this stinks. And they still said, but I will fight against it. I will fight till my last breath to overcome this. But now you have, well if there's some force out there that's sort of limiting or harming you, or somehow preventing you from doing something there's a sense of also, well I can't do anything either. And it's almost like this Darwinian, I'm just the product of my environment. So the two work together, I think the strong forces of those two.

Scott:

I think what's changed Dwight, you're right, there's always been oppressive forces and people in the past might have said, hey, I'm going to fight against that, whereas today, they seem kind of resigned to it, and almost celebrating it. I think that's kind of the change. And I've asked myself, Why? What's shifted? And I think there's a couple of things. One is, to work, to bring about change in ourselves or in our society is hard. Let's say you want to get better grades, I'm going to study hard and get better grades in school, that's hard. So it's easier, you let yourself off the hook by saying the reason I have low grades is because I'm an underprivileged person of some sort, and there's these systems that are making it impossible for me to really succeed in school. So I'm off the hook, right?

Dwight:

The education system is failing me.

Scott:

The education system is failing me. Exactly. It's not my fault. So you can see the appeal there like, oh, I'm not I'm not to blame here, somebody else is to blame. So there's appeal there. I think there's also appeal to this idea, and this is new I think, this idea, there's a morality attached to this. So oppressive things are evil, to be a victim of that oppression is to be good, actually. There's a kind of a justification or a moral virtue now associated with it. So people want to be victims, because I'm blameless. I mean, in Christian language, we would talk about blameless or atonement, it's kind of a false atonement. So I think those are kind of new, in the way that you didn't see those kinds of ideas in the past. But those ideas are out there, and the bottom line, I think, is that it leads people to dismiss this idea of human agency or positive change. I run up against this too very often, there are certain phrases that people really react against, I've noticed and one of the phrases is, oh, he's pulled himself up by his bootstraps. I've noticed that people really react negatively to that right now, in a way that they didn't use to. It actually used to be kind of positive, like, oh, rugged individualism, you could work hard,

Dwight:

It used to be positive, now it's a bad thing,

Scott:

Especially in relationship to immigrants to the United States, they would come here, they would work hard, they'd have a dream, the American dream, work hard. And they would pull themselves up by the bootstraps, and they would succeed. And now people like just really react against that, like, oh, that's just this rugged individualism and just this crazy idea that people can actually do that they can't. It was never really true anyway, this is some kind of a myth. So that's out there for sure. I hear that a lot. Guys, I'm talking too much, Luke, you were gonna say something?

Luke:

That leads me to a point I wanted to mention, well, actually, first off, if I could just sum up how we got to where we are so far in the discussion, we went pretty deep, pretty quick. We started out with New Year's Resolutions, and now we're talking about worldviews and philosophies. But just to sum it up as best as I can, is, New Year's resolutions are a helpful way for us to make goals and try to improve ourselves in a new year. And that's a great thing because it helps us utilizes human agency to self improve and become better people, which is a good goal. And then from there, we started addressing the question of human agency, why is this concept becoming more negative? And then we got into the worldview discussion. Just if I can try to sum that up. So yeah, like you were saying with pull yourself up by your own bootstraps. I have also noticed that that's a triggering phrase or something that people really don't like here anymore. And I think that's because it goes along with the whole toxic masculinity, sexist debate we have. And as I was thinking about today's topic, with human agency, and thinking about myself and people my age, I think a lot of young men really struggle with this concept of human agency, and they have a hard time wrapping their heads around it, because they're constantly being told not to have agency, not to make decisions, because all the decisions that they make are just going to be a part of the patriarchy. And you're going to be somehow hurting other people through the decisions you make. Also, most decisions that you make are going to end up somehow hurting the planet, and any impact that you have. Those are extreme examples. But I think both of those categories are areas where young men are constantly being told not to have initiative, not to go and make decisions, but to just sit back and be quiet.

Scott:

In other words, let me see if I just if I can understand what you're saying, Luke. Young men, let's just say, are in the oppressive category in this worldview, vis-a-vis women. And so as oppressors I guess even as oppressors you don't really have agency because all you do is oppressive. You are by your very nature shaped in such a way your thinking and all of your actions are shaped and determined by society in such a way that you can't help but being oppressive. So the response is don't do anything. Anything you do is going to harm things. So don't do anything's. It's really bizarre. Am I catching that Luke?

Luke:

That's exactly what I was going for.

Scott:

Or it could be white, right? Any of these oppressive categories, you are kind of determined in your category to be oppressive.

Dwight:

So if you exercise human agency, you're even more evil.

Scott:

Sit down and shut up, that's going to help the world.

Dwight:

You will exercise it negatively.

Scott:

Because you're going to do it negatively. Yeah, I think that again, these are ideas that are out there, we're absorbing these ideas for sure. They're shaping our society. Yeah, I agree with you, Luke, I think that's a good way of saying it.

John Bottimore:

In a cancel culture kind of environment and everything, people are under a microscope, and they feel like they can't really do things. And stepping up and stepping out is not really the kind of thing today. In fact, I heard a statistic today, not a numerical one, but just a general trend is that people are increasingly unwilling to move to new places and go seek new places, which really surprised me. Because I saw all during COVID and everything, people were going everywhere and said, Well, I don't need to work here, I can work from there. But apparently, there's a lot of difficulty now and getting people to kind of step out and try new things and all. I wanted to go back with just another comment on maybe why we are seeing a trend of this not happening as much. And it probably comes in cycles, I imagine you see more New Year's Resolutions in very positive economic times than you do in negative economic times. So kind of a sense of entry well-being probably affects people's willing to do this or not. But I think things that are just more generally trends these days, and maybe this is all related to the deeper stuff we want to get into, this correlation between kind of woke ideology and this cancelling and all of this, there's a real fear of failure. And if you don't make New Year's Resolutions, you don't have fear of failure, and you don't have the self-loathing that is happening these days and all, and there's a real dislike of accountability. So you don't want to be accountable to yourself. You don't want to be accountable to anyone else. So, these are all kinds of factors that I think that are in play, and they are very much expressed in the woke ideology kind of cancel culture world where an awful lot is seen and heard via social media.

Luke:

Hi Friends as always, thank you so much for joining us today. And a special thanks for those of you who have been listening to the show since our first episode which came out just over a year ago today. 2023 is already looking like an exciting year for us at Ideas Have Consequences. Just as last week we've heard from Nancy Pearcey, Os Guinness and Neil Shenvi, who have all agreed to be guests with us this coming spring. Before we return to the episode, if you're enjoying this discussion, please don't let the learning stop with you and consider sending this episode to a friend. And after that, we'd appreciate it if you leave us a rating and review in Apple podcast or wherever you're listening. Thanks again for joining us for year two of Ideas Have Consequences.

Scott:

So John, you're bringing a couple of things here if I can just paraphrase one onto the table. There's in addition to what we were talking about, there's also this kind of increased fear of failure. And I think there's a lot of truth to that. Yeah. There's always been fear of failure. But I think it's heightened right now. I agree with you. And that that plays against setting goals or making a New Year's resolution.

Dwight:

Risk aversion.

Scott:

Yeah, risk aversion is high right now. It's true. Yeah, this is the idea of moving. So all these are all indicators, I would say, of a bigger worldview shift. And I think at the root of that worldview are kind of these Darwinian, Marxist kind of assumptions that go under the broad label of this woke ideology, it really is very influential. And one of the ways you're seeing it is, yeah, we're here at New Years, and people are less inclined to make resolutions. Here's another indicator, and I know this is a sensitive one, but I'll put this on the table too. And we can discuss a little bit. I probably the number 1 resolution that people make is what guys?

Dwight:

Going to lose 10 pounds.

Scott:

I'm gonna lose some weight, because we all ate too much at Christmas time. Right?

Dwight:

In fact, I'm like, four pounds up. I'm thinking, oh, shoot.

Scott:

I'm probably I probably 15 pounds up this year. I don't know.

John Bottimore:

Yeah, me too.

Scott:

Confession's good for the soul, John, that's good. It's kind of like a bidding war. Where are we at now? I'm at 15. So we got to lose weight. And so people want to lose weight. But I've noticed that even in this issue, and it's a sensitive issue, but even this issue of weight, there's a shift, and it's it's like, hey, if I'm overweight, there's again, there's larger social forces at play out there. There's a society that maybe it's done a number of things, there's these foods that I've become addicted to through social forces that are, greedy and trying to make me addicted to unhealthy food, or there's this kind of oppressive ideal weight maybe that I'm supposed to live up to, and that's oppressing me. So all these things lead people to think I don't need to change. I'm a victim. And in fact, not only do I not need to change, you need to celebrate me in my condition of being overweight. And so you're seeing, I noticed this recently just I was what looking at Aria advertisement. This is a outdoor camping backpacking outfitting company. And so we shop there and I get their flyer and it's always been over the years it's filled with these beautiful pictures of people backpacking in stunning scenery in the Grand Canyon or wherever National Park and they're young and healthy and vibrant and this year, perhaps half of the models were overweight.

Dwight:

God I told you not to mention this.

Scott:

But I thought it was just really odd. This is real, there's a real change I'm noticing. So we can't lose weight and I know it's sensitive because it's hard to lose weight and some people try and they can't.

Dwight:

I think what's interesting is, and you use the word celebrated about a couple of minutes ago, this this body positivity movement.

Scott:

That's the movement.

Dwight:

Which is you know, I mean I think its roots are, well let's not shame people, which is right, we don't shame people yeah. Don't shame me.

Scott:

I might shame you.

Dwight:

Okay okay. But then if you take something that's a negative. Let's face it, it's got a health risk, it's a long term health risk, and then you celebrate it...

Scott:

You're doing something very destructive.

Dwight:

When you move from "this needs to be dealt with" to"let's celebrate it." Even Doctor are saying, No, we can't celebrate obesity in America, we're at rates way higher than we've ever been in the history of our nation. What are we going to do about it? It's a national epidemic. That is like, no, we don't celebrate disease, we don't celebrate disability per se.

Scott:

But you can feel it in the air and the culture to talk about making change in this area is increasingly something that you can't do. You can't do this.

Dwight:

It's just a strange twist. Because we celebrate people. We don't celebrate disease.

Scott:

Yeah.

Luke:

It's a hard one, though, because I mean, on one hand, it's good, because I think where this whole thing started, was there was this wrong view of what it meant to be in shape, and it's this whole Instagram model, perfect person, thing. And if you're not that you're not a good person that's like, no, no, not at all. So then the pushback is, let's just celebrate gluttony essentially, and not even trying at all. And it's like, no, there's a huge gamut between those two extremes. And it's nutrition, it's different for everyone, like, just try your best, eat healthy. We can all do that. It doesn't matter what the end goal looks like. I thought this was hilarious. So Time Magazine, this was a headline from this last week, it says White Supremacist: Origin of Exercise; And Six Other Surprising Facts about the History of the US Physical Fitness Industry. No Kidding. No kidding.

Dwight:

Is this a Babylon Bee headline?

Scott:

Exercise and weights are all about white supremacy. Yeah, exactly. I mean, that's in Time Magazine. Right? Not particularly fringe, right?

Luke:

I'm pretty sure, this headline says Time at the top, so I'm pretty sure it's Time Magazine.

Scott:

Again, that's my point. I think these ideas are out there, and whether you subscribe the woke ideology or not, you're being influenced by these ideas?

John Bottimore:

Yeah, and it's right, it's right in line with what we've talked about, standard is a bad word. Today, to have a standard, to have a goal, to have a norm, these are not good words today, because they imply that someone has set these and who has the right to do that? And these sorts of things. And so instead of just dealing with it, and working through it, we reject it. And so things that go along with standards, like agency and responsibility and even duty, these are bad words.

Scott:

They're bad. And another way you see this, John, is you see it hugely in what they call the War on Merit. So we can't talk about hard work and merit anymore. You especially see this in relationship to university admissions or things like that. If a child does worse on a SAT, in fact, they don't even we don't even do SATs anymore. They've kind of gotten rid of these assessments, because some people do worse than others. And the fact that some people do worse on these is no fault of their own. It's just that they are oppressed in some way that causes that. And those that do well have unearned privileges. And so we have to get away from any idea of merit. And so, consequently, the result is if you're a student, don't bother setting goals or trying harder, working harder to get good grades. It's pointless. It's all the same thing. Yeah. Go ahead, John.

John Bottimore:

On the SAT example, you'll remember a few years ago, this has been thankfully discontinued, but the College Board who administers the SAT tried something where they attributed 100 extra points based on zip code. So simply based on zip code, where you came from, which obviously is a good indicator of economic condition and such. You got an extra 100 points to your SAT score. And when I read that, I said, Wow, this isn't good. I said why don't we make the same effort to invest in some additional SAT preparation courses for those same zip code so that people can earn that extra 100 points, not just have a given to them and when they earn it, it'll mean something in university, they'd be more likely to graduate, they'll have better grades, etc. But no, it was just in a pure attribution by zip code. Well, they finally remove those things. A very current thing here, right here in Virginia is a big deal that one of the top schools in the United States is called the Thomas Jefferson School for Science and Technology. And they are going through big issues right now in admissions, in trying to equalize admissions and they also found out recently that there were some rewards and things that were withheld to people who, who that would have helped them get into universities and things, but those were withheld, past some deadlines and all, with the result that some deserving people, not in the right demographics I guess, that did not have those advantages to get into the kind of universities they wanted. So these kinds of things to equalize outcomes are unhealthy?

Scott:

Yeah, the equalizing of outcomes. And what's behind that is that we have to do that, because the fact that some people aren't as able to get into schools, like the one you mentioned, John, is no fault of their own. They can do nothing about it, and that again, that gets back to our point, they have no agency in the matter, they don't have any real choice to make.

Dwight:

And then it becomes a justice issue or a fairness issue.

Scott:

It's a fairness issue. The zip code idea John that you mentioned, the fact that maybe kids are coming from zip codes, where they're economically underprivileged, there's a lot of broken families, or whatever it is, they should just get so many points on the SATs score over and above people that come from less broken or underprivileged zip codes or areas brought to my mind, a story that I love. It's the story of Ben Carson. And Ben Carson's the famous neurosurgeon, was a part of the Trump administration. And he tells the story of growing up in one of those zip codes in Detroit, in the 1900s, when was this? This would have been the 1960s, I guess. And his mother was a single mother, because the father had run away, or I think he had more than one wife or something, he had a really dysfunctional father who wasn't around. So he was raised by his mother, and in a very poor neighborhood, and his mother was illiterate. But to her credit, when she noticed that her sons were sitting there at home, doing nothing but watching television and failing in school, consequently, it got her upset. And she kind of imposed a New Year's Resolution on them, if you will, she said, you're gonna go to the library, and you're gonna read a book, and you're going to write a report, and you're going to come back home, and you're going to read that report to me, I'm going to be your accountability. And so they pushed and pulled and did everything they could to get out of it. But she was really adamant. And so they did! They went down to the public library there in Detroit, read a book wrote a report. And she listened to their reports, he credits that later in life, he credits that as the turning point in his life, that was the thing that really turned the corner, the discipline that she imposed on us. But here's my question I guess, would she do that in current situations where he's going to get so many extra points just by virtue of the fact that he's in a particular zip code. And by the way, I've noticed stories like that because Ben Carson's black, he's a victim because of his black skin. There's a revulsion to stories like that now, and it puzzles me because we should be celebrating stories like that. But people I think, don't like stories like that, because the only reason I think is because they kind of push back against their worldview presuppositions, like, that just shouldn't happen or something. So, I'd like to shift guys and kind of look at this subject of human agency, choices, goals, making improvements, let's look at it through the Biblical lens. Now, we've looked at it through a cultural lens and why is this shift happening. And I think there's some reasons for that for sure in terms of some of these larger cultural and ideological changes in the culture, but how do we think about this as Christians? How do we think about this subject? First of all, let's just talk, we've used the word agency. And that's not a common word I think that people use a lot. What do we mean by that? Dwight, what are your thoughts on that? What is agency?

Dwight:

I think of our friend Arturo Cuba. He says, What does it mean to be human? He says it's the ability to make decisions. And I think, which, Luke, you suggested at one point ties into freewill. But it also includes the ability to make decisions and then act on those, because of the way we're designed as human beings. We can do things that no other animal can do with our minds and our decisions. And that package of ability and decision making becomes agency.

Scott:

It becomes agency, it's this ability to make choices and act on them, isn't it? And do something and do something, create something, do something new, do something new, and it's rooted, isn't it, way back in Genesis chapter 1, when God created human beings in His image and likeness, and gave us this Dominion mandate, He created us with this capacity that he has to act and to create and to change. And so unlike the Darwinists, we don't answer the question, who am I, or what does it mean to be human by looking at animals. We answer that question by looking to God, our Creator, what's he like? Because we're kind of in some ways like him.

Dwight:

Absolutely. I mean, I can almost argue that's the supreme gift God has given us. I mean, he's given us a soul so we can actually relate to him as a spirit, because we have spirit. So maybe that's the supreme gift. But the second would be this agency, this ability to God not just demonstrated in creation, and then his running of the world, but then he gave it to us. And we have this amazing agency. Yes. And now we're squandering it and we're diminishing it, and we're despising it.

Scott:

Yeah. It's so core to the biblical understanding of what it means to be a human being. It's a core part of our humanity. So anything that moves us away from that, you don't have agency, you're a victim, you can't control, it's kind of dehumanizing, isn't it?

Dwight:

And it really is the story of the Bible. If you read the Bible from A to Z, it's people making decisions. It starts with God saying, you're gonna make one decision, eat from the tree of good and evil or not eat from it. Yes. And you have agency. So you have freedoms, freedom to do what you want, but you have that agency. And they exercised it. And then first thing that Adam and Eve did was, Adam said, Well, she made me do it. So immediately go, it's not my fault. It's her fault. And then she said, Well, the serpent made me, he deceived me. So it's interesting that the that the breakdown of agency immediately goes to it's somebody else's fault. And it started then, it didn't start with wokisms.

Scott:

Excellent point Dwight. These are not new ideas, these go all the way back, don't they? It's somebody else's fault. I'm a victim. That's part of our fallen human nature. It's really a great point that you're making there.

John Bottimore:

Yeah, it's our sin nature and whatever we do to justify that. And only the Holy Spirit and only the fruits of the Spirit that we're to exhibit in our changed lives, our new creation can get us out of that. And yet, we fall back into that all the time. We're imperfect beings, but to embrace this kind of thinking that we're not capable of making change and not capable of positive change by the power of the Holy Spirit, accountable to one another, helped by one another. We're going back to our turtles comment, where we're removing ourselves out of the ability to make decisions that only humans can do, not animals. So it's very demoralizing to think that we don't have that kind of will to do that.

Scott:

Well, we could go in a lot of directions here. But I do think when we talk about free will or our freedom to make choices and actions that change things, that change our own lives, or maybe families or society even, beyond ourselves. Shape history, as Darrow would say, you have the ability to shape history. I think for Christians, and I know for me at different points in my own walk. It would always raise a question mark are or like, okay, but God is in control of history, right? I mean, this is God's story. And so you run up against this idea that God is sovereign over the affairs of men. How can you have these two ideas at the same time, they seem to contradict, human freedom and free will and choice and agency, and yet a sovereign God who directs all things towards his determined ends and his purposes. I have some thoughts on that, but I how do you resolve this age old seeming contradiction within Christianity between free will and predestination? Nobody has yet!

Luke:

You said an age old argument and I was like, I can't speak about that.

Dwight:

Well, I remember a metaphor someone used that it was helpful to me, and any metaphor falls short, but this one was of a producer that creates a play, and he knows where it's going to start. He knows what the plot is going to do, basically, and he's going to get to this point at the end. But within that, he also gives the actors freedom to improvise at times and to add. It's a bad metaphor, because you don't give actors too much freedom. But God gives us a lot of freedom. And so we can change the course of life as we go. But he controls the big picture.

Scott:

He controls the big picture. And I really think it's that simple that God does control the big picture, the Alpha and Omega at the beginning and the end, big picture. But within that parameter he's put us, we're not as big as he is, we don't control the beginning and the end. But we have a degree of freedom within that. I don't think it's a contradiction.

John Bottimore:

Within the right principles it's not. I mean, one example that I do with people that are stewing about whether they should move somewhere or go do this or go do that. I say and it's kind of a trite statement. But I say, it's, it's not about where you live, it's about how you live. Now that's not entirely true. There are bad decisions about moving or where you live or whatever, if it's going to take certain kinds of relationships away and all that. But ultimately, it's about how we live to honor and glorify the Lord. It's not about where we live. So we have free will to do that. Another verse that I like that kind of gets into this Psalm 37:4; Delight yourself in the Lord, and he'll give you the desires of your heart. We can we can wrongly interpret that verse to mean that as long as we love the Lord, he'll give us whatever we want. No, I mean, he will put the right things in our hearts and minds when we delight in him. So there is a combination there kind of a free will and the sovereignty of the Lord, giving us the kinds of things that that our heart desires when we delight in him. And I think it's a beautiful picture of exercising both our agency and a good God giving us good things that we that we love and want to do for him.

Scott:

Yeah. What strikes me as I read through the Bible on this subject, Luke, go ahead, you were about to say something and I cut you off.

Luke:

Yeah, just like just a quick mention. I mean, the summary of the law that Jesus tells us is love God and love others, when you think about that you can't love without free will. Because love is a decision to choose the highest good for someone else. If God didn't give us free will, we couldn't love him, we couldn't glorify Him, because we just automatically would, we wouldn't have that choice. So that's not love anymore.

Scott:

And I think it's essential to being human, freedom, freedom to make choice. This is really core. And I think to me, what strikes me as I read through the Bible is how it speaks to both human freedom and God's sovereignty and his using of human choices for his bigger purposes. It just talks about them kind of simultaneously. And a good example of this, one of my favorite examples is the story of Joseph where in the Old Testament in Genesis, Joseph, his brothers become jealous of him because he is his father's favorite son, and you know the story. They out of their jealousy, they essentially plot to kill him by throwing him into a well just leaving him there to die. So that was a choice they made, they weren't coerced or compelled, I mean, that was a free choice that they made, it was a wrong choice, right? An evil choice? But Joseph is found later by slave traders from Egypt. He's brought to Egypt and becomes a servant in the house of one of Pharaohs' right hand men. And long story short, he's elevated all the way up to second in command in Egypt, Pharaoh's right hand man, his brothers come down during this famine to buy grain from Pharaoh. And they encounter Joseph. And so this is kind of this dramatic encounter. And Joseph utters these words to his brothers, I don't have the verse in front of me here, so just kind of from memory, he says, more or less, what you what you chose to do for evil, God used for good by bringing me here to Egypt, so that I could do all that I've done with Pharaoh to bring about this food during this time of famine to save the world. And, again, you see that kind of thing over and over again in the Scriptures, even in the fact that Jesus himself was nailed to a cross by the choice of sinful men. Yet God used that for his greater purposes. So it's this human freedom and choice. But God working over and above that to bring about his his purposes. So I think both of those things are important.

Luke:

And Joseph still had to utilize his agency as well. He had to trust God, even in the terrible circumstance of being sold into slavery. He continued to honor God and work diligently at whatever he did. So when he got into Potiphar's house, he became the leader of the slaves. And he kept working, he never gave up.

Scott:

I think if you err on the side of predestination, everything is God's sovereign will, it can lead to kind of a similar place in terms of your agency, it's like, why try? It doesn't matter, because God's gonna do his thing anyways. And the Bible, it doesn't allow us to do that. Evangelical fatalism. Evangelical fatalism. No, it doesn't allow us to do that because we have this capacity to make free choices. It's God given, it's good, it's essential to our humanity, and we're held accountable, God actually is going to hold us, this is the very end of the book. Those choices matter. And they matter for good or evil in the world. And God is going to hold us accountable for those choices.

Dwight:

I actually did some cherry picking on that. I'm thinking, well, God holds us accountable. He gives us agency and then he goes, Hey, you got to do something with this. Yeah. And I was thinking and just Psalm 62:12. To you, oh Lord, belongs steadfast love, for you will render to a man according

to his work. Jeremiah 17:

10. I the LORD searched the heart and test the mind to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds, and you can find verse after verse after verse.

Scott:

Matthew 25, the separation of the sheep and of goats, what you did or didn't do.

Dwight:

I've given you agency, and by the way, I'm gonna give accountability for it.

Scott:

Yeah, there's gonna be accountability for what you did or didn't do. That's right.

Dwight:

So you can't blame it on your tribe. Sorry. But Lord, I was a Mennonite. It's not my fault!

Scott:

You can't say I was a victim, right? I was a victim. I didn't have any choice in the matter. Nope, it's not going to work.

Dwight:

I was born in the 50s, it's not my fault.

Scott:

Exactly. So this is a biblical idea. And this is why I'm a fan of making New Year's Resolutions is because God's given us the capacity to make choices for positive change in our lives and in the society around us. Now, that said, I do think this kind of new woke ideology, there's some truth to it, right? It's not entirely false. Making positive change is hard. We do live in a world where there really is oppression, there really is a lot of inertia, a lot of reasons why it's hard, if not almost impossible to make change. So they're on to something there.

Dwight:

High calorie, highly processed foods are on the endcaps.

Scott:

Right? Yes.

Dwight:

So we are threatened.

Scott:

Yeah, no. There's a lot of examples of that. There's real evil out there that makes it very difficult to change. I just think the Bible is realistic about this though, and it doesn't allow us to kind of claim victimhood as an identity. Yes, we can be victims of real oppression but we always have this capacity to make choices for positive change at the same time, I think both those things can be true at the same time.

Dwight:

It's a gift.

Scott:

Explain. What do you mean?

Dwight:

Just that human agency is a gift. It's an amazing, wonderful gift. We had three dogs in our house here recently. And so I'm glad to be a human. So God created us in a way that we can make decisions and act and be creative and solve problems and overcome adversity. There's a pleasure in that, there's a joy in that. It's hard, but it makes life worth living, too.

Scott:

Let's talk a little bit about you know, nowadays, there's this phrase theory of change, What's your theory of change? I kind of like that phrase, like, how do things change? The Bible actually has a theory of change for how people change or how circumstances can change. And it's kind of a multifaceted thing. Part of it is a choice, we making choices, setting goals, making new year's resolutions, our own choices, or our own willpower, if you will, that's definitely part of it. But that's not all of it in the Bible, what else goes into the Bible's theory of change? How to how to things change for the good? Beyond just I'm gonna get it out here.

Luke:

Yeah, I mean, God, that's a good start. But beyond that, God gives us a lot of help. You can look at all the relational help that God gives us, He gives us the family, to encourage us and to support us and to hopefully point us in the upward direction. He gives us friends, he gives us accountability, with New Years Resolutions, accountability can be really helpful. He gives us the church. And not to mention Jesus says, coming after me is one even greater than me, the Holy Spirit. Another word for the Holy Spirit is the Helper. Jesus gives us the Helper to go with each one of us, and to help us towards a growth. And God definitely helps us. He gives us the means to improve ourselves.

Scott:

I think you put your finger on two really key things here, Luke, essential things, the first thing is that to make positive change, it's something that God didn't design for us to do on our own. We need the help of the broader community that we're a part of family, church, etc, friends, to do that. We need that we really almost will be destined to fail apart from that. And then boy, you cannot emphasize enough in the Bible's theory of change the power of God Himself through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, or even the cross and just the forgiveness that we receive that enables us to live a new life. I was I was reminded of this, I just finished reading to my daughter Annalise, that powerful story of Louis Zamperini, Unbroken. And it became a film and you might remember that story. He was a an American soldier long story short, who was captured by the Japanese after this really amazing time at sea. He was his plane was shot down and he was on a raft for more than a month. It was crazy. How long?

John Bottimore:

42 days or something like that.

Scott:

Yeah, I think it's still the record for survival in a Well, and I mean, even more impressively, I mean, that's raft on the ocean. But he was captured and treated horribly over the course of many months in Japanese prisoner of war incredible. But keep going with the story Dad, what happens with camps. And in particular, there was one Japanese "the Bird", who him and the Bird later on in his life? was just is wicked and evil as you can imagine, and just did everything to torture and dehumanize him that he could and after the war, he comes back to the States. He's set free, liberated, when United States defeated Japan and he's back in the States. And he's got PTSD, big time now. And every night the Bird appears in his dreams, this tormentor. And he wakes up in a cold sweat. And he's really broken. I mean, the story is called Unbroken, but he's at this point, he's broken. And it's to the point where, even if he said, Hey, I'm going to make a New Year's resolution to forgive the Bird and to not have these dreams anymore, he was powerless. The oppression in his case was so great that he literally could do nothing and the story ends, it just brings tears to your eyes. It ends with this divine kind of Providence stepping into his life in the form of Billy Graham and a Los Angeles crusade and his new wife dragging him down there. He doesn't want to go, they sit in the backseat of this tent. And God gets a hold of him, he steps up forward and gives his life to Jesus. And that night in his testimony is that the Bird was not in his dreams for the first time, and he never came back again. And it's just this divine power for change that we need, literally, there's such brokenness and oppression. And in some cases a New Year's resolution isn't going to get you there. Yeah, before this happens, before his conversion, he feels like the only relief that he can get from this tormented kind of thoughts that he has of this guy is to go to Japan to kill him. So he literally makes a plan to travel back to Japan, hunt him down and kill him, he feels like if he's dead, he'll be able to get some relief. After his conversion is complete, he has a true transformation, right? So all of a sudden, that changes into a desire to offer forgiveness to him. So he's going to go back to Japan to look for him in order to forgive him. Which is, I mean, this is supernatural change, right? This is beyond human agency. Okay. But this doesn't minimize human agency. This is this is the important theory of change of the Bible. It's not that it's one or the other. Jordan Peterson, we all are fans of Jordan Peterson and he's made a lot of people's lives better with his books about these rules for life about change. It's about agency, make small choices to bring positive change to your life. I like that, and I kind of give it two cheers. But I don't give a three cheers. Because he's missing this element I'm talking about right here, like at some point, we can't change without the power of God to bring about change, like some things are too deep in our sin nature. We might be an alcoholic, even Alcoholics Anonymous says you're not going to be able to change that without without the help of a quote unquote, "higher being." And they're right. There's certain things that we need help on and that's your point, Luke, with the Holy Spirit, the Helper, God knows that.

Luke:

Yeah, I will say that totally makes sense why Jordan Peterson's books are extremely popular nowadays, is because they do speak against this narrative we're hearing of, you can't do anything about your life.

Scott:

You're a victim.

Luke:

You're a victim, you might as well not even try.

Scott:

And people are miserable as a result of that, aren't they?

Luke:

It's not the way we're meant to live at all.

John Bottimore:

Connecting it back to New Year's resolutions, when you're beaten down so much by that kind of narrative and everything, you're never going to try to get better and do things and all. And so it's so important. But we can't do it in our own strength.

Scott:

We need God and we need we need each other.

John Bottimore:

Look at the examples from the Sermon on the Mount, for instance, an incredibly eye example of forgiveness and other things that we simply can't do in our own strength, only by the Lord. And the fruit of the Spirit is what we exhibit when we are changed and walking in our new creation itself. But part of that a part of human agency is the ability to accept that and improve our human agency by those by those divine powers.

Scott:

Well, this is great, guys, this is great. I'd like to at this point, kind of encourage all of our listeners and ourselves as well to, if you have an inclination to make some goals and some resolutions this year, to do it. That's a good thing. We don't need to be ashamed of that. And we shouldn't be cynical about that. Yeah, change is hard. And you might fail. In fact, statistically, you're probably going to fail, but even the Bible has something to say about that. If you fail, try again. And I think that there's nothing wrong with that. In fact, if people didn't do that, again, here, I think of William Wilberforce, who had that famous goal, or he felt like it was a calling more than a goal, like God was a divine calling to end the slave trade in England. He set that as the main objective is for his life. He made a choice. He failed over and over and over and he could've at any one of those points in terms of his failure in terms of that being voted down in Parliament, he could have said it's pointless. What's the point? I can't change! Can't change. It's impossible. But he didn't, he kept persevering and that word perseverance is I think a biblical virtue. So even if you fail, next year or whenever it is try again. I think we shouldn't be fatalistic about even our failures. That's how things move forward. That's how things change. Go ahead, Dwight.

Dwight:

Baby steps. I'm thinking of that old movie my wife loves, I can't remember the name of it now. But he always says baby steps, baby steps.

Luke:

Yeah. Wilberforce in the slave trade is a good example. I also think of just this last year, probably the biggest event of 2022 was Roe v. Wade being overturned. Yes. And that was 49 years of just working against that.

Scott:

share with the listeners and us as we kind of think about resolutions this year. One is, we talked about the one that always comes to our mind, which is we got to lose that weight that we put on. And so a lot of our resolutions and our goals tend to be in, might call it the physical category of life, losing weight, exercising, taking care of our bodies. And that's all really important and really good, we're stewards of our bodies. But I think one of the things that we've learned from Bob Moffitt, our found co-founder of the DNA and co-teacher is, he talks a lot about Luke 2:52, the passage that talks about Jesus's growth from a young man and how he grew. Well, can somebody quoted to me Luke 2:52.

Luke:

He grew in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man.

Scott:

So He grew in wisdom. So we need to grow in our area of wisdom and knowledge, stature is physical, in favor with God, we could think about that as our spiritual nature, we need to grow in that relationship as well, and socially in our relationship to one another. So, all of those are important areas to consider when you're thinking about your goals or resolutions, beyond just physical things, what about spiritual? What about social? That's an exercise that Kim and I do, my wife and I do, we try to look at those categories at least once a year and say, where do we need to make some growth and change. And it's just a helpful grid, frankly, because it without that it's easy to just kind of focus on spiritual or focus on physical or whatever it is, but it's really God's made us with all of these important kind of relationships.

Dwight:

Yeah, I think it's like a lesson 9 in the Basics Course.

Scott:

Yeah, it's part of our teaching and the basics course.

Dwight:

Luke can direct us there at some point.

Luke:

Yep, link in the description.

Scott:

So look at those categories. And then as we're talking about kind of the theory of change, share those goals with somebody, set your goals and make your resolutions in the context of the larger community to get some encouragement, to get some prayer, to get some support, accountability, whatever you want to call it there but consider doing that so it's not just you alone, but you're working with that larger community and then of course what we've talked about it's just God's help, how can we really be resting on the power of the Holy Spirit, even for small things, little steps Dwight. I think sometimes we think oh, I can't ask God for help in something small, it's got to be something really big. No!

Dwight:

No I need help with tje small stuff. Lord, help me make my bed today, I just don't want to.

Scott:

Other ideas that we might kind of encourage listeners with, in terms of application takeaway stuff here on this New Years Resolution episode?

Dwight:

I would like to offer right now, and I'll make sure it happens, is as a download on our website with the podcast information to that worksheet that Bob created for for looking at those four areas to really good worksheet. I'll just we'll make that available.

Scott:

Yeah, it is a really simple little tool.

Dwight:

With the podcast there will be a link to that.

Luke:

Yeah, it'll be in the episode landing page for anyone that wants to go and see that,

Scott:

Yeah, take a look at that as you're considering your goals and resolutions this year. And, don't be shamed, guys, don't fall into cynicism. Even though that's a trend in the culture, I think we should cut against the grain of that trend and we should be feeling upbeat and positive about setting goals and trying to bring about change in our own lives, in our own relationships and in our own cities and nations. That's something that God's called us to. Final thoughts guys, John, Luke, Dwight?

John Bottimore:

Yeah. Just think big outside of ourselves, and let's think about resolutions as a team and resolutions as groups. The power of that is even more incredible, so big God can do big things.

Scott:

Amen. Guys, it's been great to be with you. This has been a fun discussion. And I feel like we got our work cut out for us now. So we'll go to it and thank you all for listening to another episode of Ideas Have Consequences.

Luke:

Thank you for listening Ideas Have Consequences is brought to you by the Disciple Nations Alliance. If you'd like to learn more about our ministry, you can find us on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube or on our website, which is disciplenations.org. As always, if you'd like to take a deeper dive into today's topic, feel free to visit this episode's landing page, which is linked down in the description below. On that page, you can find all of the resources that we mentioned in this episode today, as well as the show transcript neatly broken up into chapters. Key quotes from the episode, as well as social media posts that you can share with your friends. Make sure not to miss next week's episode as we are joined by a kingdom mover, a Hollywood makeup artist, a beauty coach, now entrepreneur, and most importantly a passionate follower of Jesus, who has integrated biblical worldview principles into every area of her life. As always, our episodes come out every Tuesday in the evening. Thanks again for joining us today and have a great rest of your week.